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Preservation Projects
As you travel through Southeast Colorado, watch for preservation projects currently in progress or recently completed.
Highway 287 (north to south)
The town of Eads is gateway to the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. In downtown Eads, look for the Murdock Building, which will soon be leased to the National Park Service as temporary headquarters and visitor center for the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. Also located in downtown Eads is the Plains Theater, currently undergoing structural stabilization. It is being pressed back into service through the vision and persuasion of Eads High School Students, who wanted entertainment available in their own home town. Check with the Eads High School principal to learn about thirteen other business ideas that these award-winning students have formulated to revitalize historic downtown Eads. Just south of downtown Eads is a newly restored historic barn that is used as an interpretive center. Check out the exhibits then walk the 3/4 mile trail leading from the barn to Jackson's Pond, where you can relax after your full day in Eads and do some fishing.
Continue traveling south on 287 and turn into the town of Wiley to admire the Wiley Rock School, which has undergone extensive interior and exterior rehabilitation. Drive on to the heart of downtown Lamar and take in a movie at the historic Lamar Theater, beautifully preserved and still radiating some of that opening night grandeur. Continue on 287 south of Springfield and turn toward Carrizo Canyon, a haven for serious bird watchers. Five miles past the canyon on County Road M, you can book a night’s lodging at the recently restored Estelene Bunkhouse. This small building was first a post office, then a bunkhouse, and has now become a bed & breakfast. It opened its doors to travelers in the spring of 2008.
Highway 50 (west to east)
The historic Park School in Fowler is being transformed into the town’s new civic center, and will soon house the public library, offices for the town of Fowler, the police department and the library. This historic building will be “green” using alternative energy sources to electrify heat and cool the building. Just one block north of the highway in Manzanola, stop to admire the exterior restoration of the Santa Fe Railway Depot. Rocky Ford, the next town east on U.S. 50, boasts a newly restored exterior on the Grand Theater, which is open every weekend for first-run movies. Also in Rocky Ford are over 100 adobe brick horse stalls that are in the process of restoration. Continue through Otero County to La Junta, where you can find another beautifully restored theater, the Fox, that has movie showings daily.
In Las Animas, the Pioneer Historical Society of Bent County is rehabilitating the I.O.O.F. Hall which will become the John Rawlings Museum. The Courthouse has also undergone extensive restoration and plans to open in late 2009. Travel east past Hasty and John Martin Reservoir, and stop near McClave to check progress at the Star School, a project of the Prowers Preservation Advisory Board.
From here you'll drive through Lamar, where you can see the restored historic theater mentioned above. Travel on to Granada where interpretive signs are being installed at the gateway to Camp Amache. Finally, just before the Kansas border, is the town of Holly, where the state of Colorado is investing a million dollars to restore the Town Park devastated by a tornado in 2007.
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