In remote Baca County, locals have a pet peeve about city-based TV weathercasters: They often deliver the statewide forecast while blocking the far-southeast corner of the Colorado map.

“They stand right in front of us,” says Sarah Steinman, who grew up in Springfield and now runs the county’s weekly newspaper. “That’s the mind-set. We don’t exist. We’re down in the flatland, in the middle of nowhere. We get ignored like that.”

SPECIAL PROJECT This is the first of an occasional series of stories examining the Colorado Divide, the issues, values and attitudes that can leave rural and urban residents feeling they live in two Colorados. Next Sunday: Whether in the mountains or on the plains, rural residents wrestle with shifting economic and cultural landscapes.

The irritation, though sometimes recounted with a slight grin, traces a cultural fissure between rural and urban Colorado, a chasm that reveals itself across a range of issues and clouds a collaborative vision of the state’s future.

From the Eastern Plains to isolated mountain towns, from the Western Slope to the upper northeast hard by Nebraska, it’s often said there are two Colorados. There is the Denver metropolis and, with it, the string of cities along the Front Range corridor, from Fort Collins to Pueblo.

And then there is rural Colorado.

“We are either growing or we are dying. There is just no in between here,” says Pattie Snidow, who helps rural towns foster economic development opportunities as a Delta-based director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “That’s as people, as humanity or as a community.”

In the coming months, in a series of stories, photos and videos, The Denver Post will examine many of the issues that cast rural Coloradans in stark contrast with urban centers, and explore the ingrained values and cultural norms that shape responses to the challenges they face. At times, reaction has been particularly pointed. From frustration with regulation of guns and energy to political alienation in a shifting statehouse, rural Colorado was riled to the point in 2013 where 11 counties on the Eastern Plains launched a secession movement.

Colorado rural-urban population growth 1900-2010

Population growth in Colorado’s urban and rural counties was even from 1900-1940, but after 1940 urban population spiked and grew much faster than rural population, which increased moderately. Lines show urban and rural population growth; bars show percentage of Colorado total population that is rural.

Source: U.S. Census, Colorado Dept. of Local Affairs

Although political passions cooled somewhat after a ballot initiative failed in six of 11 counties, leaders still regarded the movement as an indication that the rural-urban divide had reached a critical point. Even now, a litany of practical concerns remains along that fault line.

It’s in the entire state’s best interest to boost rural economies, encourage entrepreneurship through government-backed loan programs, support assembly-line manufacturing outside cities, and stretch high-speed internet service across the land, Snidow says.

Without its steadfast rural farming communities and hardy mountain towns, Colorado isn’t really Colorado.

“Rural Colorado is the picture of what Colorado promotes itself to be,” Snidow says. “Rural communities are what give the state the flavor and the feel of Colorado. We’re really the culture of Colorado.”

RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post The sun sets over the ruin of a farm house in Baca County on June 20, 2017 in Lycan. Baca County peaked in 1930, then lost two-thirds of its population.

RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post Amber Buhl, a physician assistant at Miramont Family Medicine in Wellington, checks out Rod Durbin, of Wellington, who came in to talk about options to help him quit smoking on Sept. 17, 2009.

RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post Town has the look of the Old West on June 27, 2017 in Silverton.



RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post Demolition crews have started demolishing the Amalgmated Sugar Company on June 19, 2017 in Ovid, Colorado. The sugar factory was where the Great Western Sugar Company was established in Sedgwick County.

Colorado Population Stats

Colorado’s population is forecast to grow by 50 percent to 8.5 million people by 2050. Use this data tool to explore county population numbers from 1970 to 2050. Go to tool

In some ways, the divide is rooted in migration — the fluctuation of population that often drives and perhaps most sharply illustrates the way urban and rural areas approach both problems and opportunities.

While Denver adjusts to a population boom — an influx of young professionals, families and others that has led to clogged highways and one of the most overpriced housing markets in the country — much of the rest of Colorado is worried about population decline, about kids who grow up, move away and often don’t return.

Between 2000 and 2015, Denver grew nearly 23 percent. At the same time, rural areas lost population: one four-county swath along the state’s southern border has dropped nearly 12 percent. Twenty-three counties in Colorado are so sparsely populated, they meet the definition of “frontier”: fewer than seven residents per square mile.

Colorado population 2015

Nearly one-quarter of people in Colorado live in Denver and El Paso counties, and more than 60 percent of the state’s population lives along the Front Range. The map shows each county’s percentage of the state’s total population. Hover over a county for details.

Source: U.S. Census

A dozen rural counties have seen their numbers shrink to less than half of what they were at their historic peak. And even in more recent years, the gradual graying of rural areas stands in marked contrast to metro Denver’s burgeoning and relatively young populace, with a median age of just under 35 years.

By that measure, the state’s 10 oldest counties represent rural areas and have a median age of at least 50.

“Part of it is that they’re getting older,” state demographer Elizabeth Garner says of those trending rural areas. “But the bigger piece is that they’re not getting any younger. The challenge of more rural areas is the ability to attract and retain young adults. Lots of times, there will be one (job) open, but often you need a dual-income household.”

Even as the statewide unemployment rate hovers at 2.3 percent, well below the national average, rural Colorado faces economic challenges, whether preserving historic industries or embracing transition to new livelihoods.

An employee shortage consistently ranks among the top five problems that rural areas face.

“A lot of businesses are paying minimum wage, … and workers can’t afford to live in the county,” says Gayle Langley, coordinator for Main Street programs at the state Department of Local Affairs. Jobs go unfilled and “business owners work 12 hours a day and get tired.”

In some areas fueled by agriculture, the number of farms has declined, illustrating a trend toward consolidation into larger operations. Meanwhile, young people migrate elsewhere.

“As far as anybody from my (high school) class who still lives in the valley, there’s not a whole lot in terms of lucrative careers,” says Chris Tomky, one of the few who returned from college to make a go of farming in the Arkansas Valley. “Everybody leaves.”

While Denver is known for attracting highly educated transplants, consistently ranking near the top of cities where residents have at least a bachelor’s degree, rural Colorado’s most educated are leaving for better opportunities.

“One of our biggest exports is our best and brightest kids,” says Michelle Haynes of Region 10 Economic Assistance & Planning, a six-county district in Montrose in southwestern Colorado. “We send them off to college, and sometimes it’s a long time before they come back.”

Mountain towns built on the mining industry grapple with a gradual shift toward tourism and recreation, trying to balance their historic charm with reimagined identities — and revenue streams. But creating a new economy based on recreation takes young blood, coveted for survival reasons by mountain towns where so many residents are retired or visiting their second home, not up for running a restaurant or gift shop.

Ed Wagner, 68, moved to Creede in 1986, just as the mines were closing and “it was just masses of people leaving.” Wagner and his wife, Cinda, owners of Creede Trading Co. in the mountain town’s historic downtown, raised their children in Creede, and then like so many others after high school, the children left. One is a teacher in Littleton and another a police officer in Lakewood.

“There is not much opportunity for young people here, which is kind of sad,” Wagner says.

Creede has reinvented itself as a tourist attraction — people come from Pagosa Springs and farther away for seats in the local theater — but locals worry about the aging population. Revolving generations of retirees make up many of the 400 hardy, year-round residents, some who grew up in Creede or vacationed there as kids. They return upon retirement, then leave when they are too old to live far from a city-sized medical center.

“Everybody comes back. As retired,” says Scott Rickard, 72, who moved to Creede three years ago but first visited in 1948.

Colorado population shift 1900-1990

From 1900 to 1940, the percentage of rural population in Colorado hovered near 50 percent. After 1940, it fell steadily and in 2010 stood at 13.8 percent as new residents congregated in urban areas. The maps show percentage population changes in Colorado counties from 1900-1990.



Source: U.S. Census, Colorado Dept. of Local Affairs

The Colorado divide also extends into everyday issues — from health care and broadband to child care.

By 2018, residents 65 and older will make up 40 percent of rural Colorado’s population, according to the nonprofit Colorado Rural Health Center. And as the population ages, the lack of health care in rural areas becomes more worrisome, even as the Denver metro area saw a blitz of emergency and urgent-care clinics spring up in close proximity.

Twelve counties don’t have a mental health provider, 11 don’t have a hospital, eight don’t have a dentist and two — Bent and Cheyenne — don’t have a doctor, according to the center. The counties that do have health care facilities find they’re among the area’s strongest economic drivers, in addition to the services they provide.

Urban areas buzz with shared workspaces featuring wireless internet as much of a given as walking distance to gourmet coffee shops. But vast swaths of the Eastern Plains, mountain communities and Western Slope have internet speeds barely better than dial-up, if service is available at all.

Broadband access, potentially a rural/urban economic equalizer, remains far from consistent and far from equitable. State officials estimate that 77 percent of Colorado has broadband availability, an improvement from 59 percent just two years ago.

The state can do better in helping provide the data speeds that will make rural entrepreneurs competitive with their urban counterparts, not to mention bolster the critical information networks linking rural schools, hospitals and community colleges to the modern world, says Tony Neal-Graves, executive director of the Colorado Broadband Office.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” he says, “and it still depends on where you live.”

In some ways, the same holds true for day care — although the underlying problem of demand exceeding supply knows no regional boundaries.

Much of the problem revolves around the dearth of qualified workers, a deficiency that can seem more pronounced in rural areas, where a shallow pool of potential employees is exacerbated by an inability to pay them well in local economies with low median incomes.

Rural areas tend to have more family child care — where individuals open their homes to look after kids — than center-based care. But four counties — San Juan, Crowley, Mineral and Jackson — have no licensed homes and only one licensed center. Of those centers, three don’t serve infants. The good news is that, for the moment, each county has at least one licensed facility.

“Child care is just economics that don’t work, it doesn’t work based on supply and demand,” says Stacy Buchanan, vice president of programs for Qualistar, which rates child care facilities for the state. “Child care programs cannot really charge what it truly costs to provide high quality care, because nobody would be able to afford it. On the other hand, families can’t pay any more than they already are. That’s particularly true in some of our rural areas, where families are earning less.”

And as with many instances of government regulation, rural areas often bristle at what they consider inherently unfair one-size-fits-all rules that don’t take into account the particular challenges of rural life, whether regulating day-care centers or the cost of out-of-state hunting tags.

“The rules and regulations they require us to do, we don’t have money and resources to hold to the same standards as Denver,” says Baca County’s Steinman, who in addition to running the weekly paper sits on the board of Springfield’s only licensed child care center. “When they think about laws and regulations, when it gets to rural communities, it just hoses us.”

Denver complains of interstate commutes that get longer every year. Rural Colorado, though, wants its share of transportation money to improve winding, mountainous roads without shoulders or adequate passing lanes, upgrades that could save lives.

Denver consumes a huge chunk of the state’s strapped transportation budget, taking $359 million in new construction dollars in fiscal 2014, half of the entire $718 million construction budget. The rest of the state splits the other half, including $52 million for the rural swath that includes San Luis Valley and southwestern Colorado, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Many rural residents felt rebuffed this past spring when Colorado lawmakers failed to approve a much-touted plan to let voters consider a state sales-tax increase to raise up to $3.5 billion for road projects, which could have eased congestion on urban highways, as well as could have rebuilt rural roads. Just as with transportation dollars, the rural-urban divide is evident at the state Capitol no matter whether lawmakers are talking education, health care or recreation.

Colorado is described as a so-called “purple state” in election season, a nod to its status as a swing state equally capable of going Democratic blue or Republican red.

The state picked Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, with 48 percent of the popular vote. Yet, of Colorado’s 64 counties, 42 of them — delivering 1.2 million votes — went for President Donald Trump. A map from election night runs blue down the center corridor and red almost everywhere else.

Much like the national map, Colorado’s political leanings generally follow rural-urban trends, opening the state’s political identity to description by either population or geography. But even beyond politics, the divide often suggests different ways of looking at the world.

After visiting Denver, lifelong Burlington resident Susan Beechley, 57, can’t wait to return to her beloved small community near the Kansas border. In Burlington, life feels simpler to her, metaphorically in “black and white,” and the opposite of the crowded, culture-clashing city where there is too much “gray.”

Rural Coloradans exhibit strains of conservatism centered on self-reliance, independence and work ethic often colored by their relationship with the land. Many feel particularly misunderstood by urbanites when it comes to their agricultural roots.

“You know, I think there probably is a kind of disconnect,” says Glen “Spike” Ausmus, a farmer and longtime Baca County commissioner. “That being said, maybe we don’t understand the lifestyle that they live. I know they all have a purpose and have jobs I’m sure are meaningful. But we sometimes feel we’re not appreciated for what we do.”

Ausmus notes that local government must make ends meet without the help of a county sales tax, a point of pride that underscores how, in this part of the state, conservatism is an economic article of faith.

“Not any of us are going to get filthy rich,” he says. “But one thing we do have is a lot of folks that are salt-of-the-earth kind of people, hard workers, and they’re going to do their best to make things work.”

Explore Colorado’s population changes