Because the Rocky Ford infrastructure was built for the most part by the 1970's, much about the sleepy town reminds you of days gone by. The houses are large Victorian structures with ample yard space for lush green lawns and towering trees. The streets are wide and the sidewalks in place along almost every residential street.
Main Street, once a thriving downtown with a JC Penney, a local department store, a theater, clothing stores, and, of course, a harware store or two, now lies dormant, except for its beautiful residential section. It almost cries out for refurbishment. Solid brick buildings with a century of history to display stand empty. There is a sense of abandonment on Main Street. And, yet, there is also a sense of quiet hope and innate tenacity permeating Main Street and its inhabitants. A sense of waiting.
There are still banks, and there is a drug store. A couple of home furninshing stores hang on. Then there are the antique stores. Two or three, they point towards the future of downtown Rocky Ford. Highway 50 goes right through the town, and it happily remains a well traveled road. A convenience store is probably the busiest store in town. Either that or the Sonic or the bustling lumber store/hardware store.
Dividing the town north and south is the railroad, once the life blood of all the Arkansas Valley. The original depot, lovingly tended to by the city, patiently waits for someone to have a grand scheme which will put Rocky Ford back on the map, albeit as a different town than it was in its heyday.
But when you leave the downtown area of Rocky Ford, and particularly towards the south, the feeling of abandonment dissolves into the tidy elegance of 60+ year old neighborhoods. The homes are either quaint or stately, tiny or huge. But all well cared for and most with substantial and beautiful mature yards.
The defining feature of Rocky Ford’s residential streets is the sheer number and size of the trees which dot the yards and line the streets. Black walnut, maple, cottonwood, ash, willow, oak, pine and others all create a canopy of green shade. If you try to reach around many of the trees here and touch your hands together, you can’t. Some are probably a century old. It is simply picturesque. Some streets are simply magic with quiet, mature pride.
You can meander up a road built sometime before 1960 to Playpark Hill. The road, of course tree lined, divides the 9 hole golf course. At the top of this gentle hill are park and picnic areas, tennis courts, and the Rocky Ford Country Club Golf Course. There used to be a swimming pool but its time was ended in the 1970s.
Across the road from the nearby high school, down a natural hill, there are a couple of baseball diamonds and an olympic sized public swimming pool. For decades, a summer swim team has competed against area towns. From 8 and under all the way to 15-17, kids learn to swim competitively in this town.
Surrounding the town, farmland and cattle combine to create a pastoral charm. One feels nestled in despite the endless miles of the Colorado plains which surround Rocky Ford. Crickets provide the nights’ soundtrack instead of traffic. Cows announce their peaceful presence on warm summer afternoons. You can find and pick wild asparagus.
Real estate in Rocky Ford and the surrounding communities (Fowler, Manzanola, Swink, La Junta, Las Animas, and Lamar) is shocking to most Americans who live in larger cities. A 2,500 square foot 1910 Victorian can go for anywhere from $40,000 to $250,000 with substantial land.
Interesting 1930s and 1940s homes, colonial and tudor, are available for under $100,000. A few neighborhoods of the more elegant 1950s and 1960s architecture, beautifully maintained, can be had for the same. While this reflects on the agricultural struggle of the area’s economy, it also offers opportunity to own a substantial home for next to nothing.
It’s not for everybody. It isn’t the mountains. It is quaint, not titillating. It requires a plane trip to Colorado Springs or Pueblo. But every teacher or mid-range salaried professional who can’t afford a cabin in the pines of their own state can escape to the powerful peacefulness of Rocky Ford, Colorado. The town absorbs part time residents with grace and a friendly respect for privacy.
One 40 year old visitor’s experience characterizes the subtle tug at the heart one feels in Rocky Ford. As he drove into town from Pueblo, he was unimpressed but not offended by the plains that introduce Arkansas Valley. It wasn’t until he toured the town’s downtown and residential streets that he appreciated Rocky Ford. He was peering in windows of one of the massive and unique homes for sale. It was right at the 4th of July, a sultry summer day. He stood out in the front yard beneath the towering trees. Across the street he saw two massive homes, one currently undergoing major refurbishment and the other an immaculate tudor. Behind him stood the elegant Presbyterian Church and across from that a small shady park with a bridge and grass and benches. Birds lazily chirped and darted to and fro among the endless array of tree branches. The quiet breeze high up in those mighty branches whispered to him. He looked at his companion and said, “I get it.”
Within a month, he was back with two other people, going in on a vacation house together.
There is controversy about the army taking nearby ranch lands by force; the area (Trinidad to La Junta, south of Rocky Ford) is responding with an outcry of NO. It is as if the locals have taken the decline of agriculture and railway service and won’t take anymore. Enough is enough.
Rocky Ford and its surrounding ponds, fields, and farmlands, rests quietly, too substantial to go away, too proud to buckle. It waits for what will come. It is, as one local businessman says, “the last undiscovered part of Colorado.” It is worth considering before it gets discovered.
I like that there are no traffic jams, no congestion, and you can walk from one end of town to other if you wanted to.
Everyone we have met so far have been nice. That's something you don't find in bigger places.
I enjoyed my first time at the Arkansas Valley Fair, my first chance to try some cantaloupe, and my first time seeing the seasons change in almost 30 years. I am happy to have a home here!
Thank you Rocky Ford.
Memories of Rocky Ford
There are a lot of them but they grow dimmer with the passage of years. Eighty two of them now and counting.
I do remember a small terrier we supported when living next to the golf course.. He developed a fondness for golf which extended to stealing balls off the tees on number one. This wasn’t met with a lot of approval by the golfing community but it ended suddenly when a golfer was unable to check his swing and drove the terrier with the ball in his mouth about 50 yards toward the green. The dog survived but lost his taste for purloining maxflis off the tees.
On another memory of the golf course my third born accompanied me around a number of times watching and learning. He finally screwed up the courage to instruct me as I was doing my practice swings for my next drive. He assured me that if I stood closer to the ball I would be able to hit it. True enough.
I remember, most fondly, the early morning music of the Meloneer Marching Band as it paraded through the streets practicing for the Friday night football games. Most of the community applauded but some old fogies grumbled about lost sleep. Charles, the band director, chose to ignore them.
Then there were the creative souls, my oldest son among them who thought how much fun it would be to set off the fire alarm and once all the students and staff were safe and secure in the courtyard to turn on the automatic sprinklers. I let Coach Wood, the Assistant Principal sort out that event as I was overcome with laughter.
Speaking of Coach Wood, RFHS was widely recognized as a premier wrestling school but under Coach Wood the Meloneer football team brought home a State Championship for the only time in school history if I’m correct in this.
Recollections of Rocky Ford
Rocky Ford is precious and unforgettable to this 81 year old former resident. Our four sons spent a good part of their childhoods in Rocky Ford. So memories of Rocky Ford are of family life in a small, southeastern Colorado town.
Some random memories that are still vivid are:
- pushing a toddler in a stroller on wet, cold Halloween nights.
- fireworks displays at the fairgrounds on stifling July nights.
- Christmas trees and Thanksgiving turkeys.
- in the spring, gathering wild asparagus from the ditch banks by Play Park Hill.
- nights waiting up anxiously for teenagers to get home safely.
- far away faint sounds of the high school marching band practicing.
- first snow of winter.
- first green shoots of spring.
- piles of red, brown and yellow Autumn leaves.
- a family doctor you could call at home and who would come to your house when you needed him.
- trees, trees, trees.
- the smell of alfalfa fields on hot summer days.
- lilacs, peonies, poppies, iris and daisies in glorious bloom.
- shivering at early morning swim team practice at the pool on Play Park Hill.
Childhood Memories
I was good at marbles. I carried my steelies, boulders, and pee wees in my fancy little marble bag every day to school. My big brother was in high school, proving to be a fine wrestler in the great Rocky Ford tradition. My other brothers were gone. The Viet Nam War has ceased controlling their immediate lives; now its scars were left to do their work.
Life was good.
And then came the meteor from the sky, crashing down onto my family without warning. We were moving. While my dad tried his best to make
After our first visit to Williams,
Rocky Ford provided an idyllic, almost mythical beauty for its residents. Flowers were planted and maintained by the city; a place called Playpark Hill beckoned swimmers, golfers, picnickers, and walkers to stroll up to the top and enjoy the quiet Rocky Ford good life.
