Colorado – U.S. Highway 50

Lakin, Kansas

Back at Backbone Mountain in Maryland, I asked you to guess where we would be when we finally reached a spot higher than we were on that summit, and here we are, just west of Lakin, Kansas, elevation 3,100 feet, compared to the 3,095 feet of Backbone Mountain.

The top photo looks east, or where we came from, and if you set off on Route 50 in that direction, you will never be higher during the 1,647 miles to Ocean City, Maryland, and the Atlantic Ocean.

This one looks north …

south …

and west (where we’re going):

Even though the terrain in Kansas appears largely flat along Route 50, elevation rises slowly from Kansas City (740 feet) to this point, a gain of 2,360 feet. It continues to rise until Route 50 reaches the base of the Rocky Mountains at Cañon City, Colorado (5,332 feet).

How did this rise in elevation occur?

One explanation is that, over eons of time, earth, rock, and other debris has washed down from the Rocky Mountains and gradually raised the plains, more near the mountains than near Kansas City.

Could this possibly be true?

Well, I’m not a scientist, but I’m going with it, because I don’t want to be labeled an erosion-from-the-Rocky-Mountains-caused-the-Great-Plains-to-rise denier.

The High Plains

The “high plains” are the western area of the Great Plains. They are characterized by lesser rainfall and shorter grasses compared to the more easterly areas of the plains, such as the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve we visited in eastern Kansas.

(Here’s a high plains factoid I can’t resist mentioning, even though it happened far from Route 50. In January 1916, in Browning, Montana, the temperature fell 100 degrees Fahrenheit in 24 hours, from 44 degrees to minus 56 degrees. It is the largest 24-hour temperature change ever recorded, anywhere in the world.)

The Bent County courthouse in Las Animas, Colorado, on Route 50 in the High Plains

Lamar, Colorado

First things first: According to Wikipedia, Lamar, Colorado is one of just three spots in the U.S. (I assume they mean cities or towns) that is globally opposite, as they put it, “another landmass on earth.” In Lamar’s case, it’s an island in the southern Indian Ocean, called Ile Amsterdam.

If, as a kid, you imagined digging all the way through the earth and coming out the other side, Lamar would have been a good place to be when you grabbed your shovel.

That aside, Lamar, which is on the great plains in eastern Colorado, got a big boost in the late 1800s when the railroad decided to put a station there. Today, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief makes stops in Lamar, and the town still celebrates its railroad heritage. This gleaming steam locomotive with its tender (which held coal or other fuel) is next to the railroad tracks and station in the center of town.

But Lamar also celebrates another technology.

This wind turbine blade, placed by Lamar near the engine in the previous photo, is longer than the engine and its tender combined.

Prairie Dogs

The black-tailed prairie dogs in the photo above live near Bent’s New Fort, west of Lamar, Colorado, and just south of Route 50.

They were keeping watch from the top of their burrows. They might have been watching for predators, a frequent occupation for prairie dogs, but in this case they were paying attention to me, since I was sitting in my car about ten yards away.

They were making high-pitched barks. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they were probably issuing a highly specific warning to other members of their colony, such as, “Look out! There’s a human over there, inside some big blue thing.”

Sound fanciful? Maybe, but according to those who study prairie dogs, they can communicate very detailed information. For example, their calls tell other prairie dogs not just that there is a predator nearby, but what kind of predator. They distinguish between the obvious, such as hawks and humans, but even between coyotes and domestic dogs. The behavior of other members of the colony varies depending on the type of predator spotted. There is also an “all clear” call, after which activity returns to normal.

Prairie dogs even have calls identifying things that don’t threaten them, including the color of clothing worn by humans. Researchers say this shows evidence of “highly developed cognitive abilities,” perhaps even a language.

Prairie dog burrows go down as much as ten feet below the surface and can be up to thirty feet in length, including separate rooms for sleeping and for nursing the young.

Historically, prairie dogs have been regarded as pests by ranchers, who are concerned that horses might step into prairie dog burrows and injure themselves. It has been difficult, however, to find an instance of this occurring. Farmers also dislike prairie dogs, because they clear away most of the vegetation around their burrows, damaging crops. For these reasons and because of expanding towns and cities, today 95% of historic prairie dog range is gone.

You can see evidence of prairie dog colonies as you drive on Route 50 in Colorado, not only west of Lamar but also between Pueblo and Cañon City. The giveaway is the dirt mounds surrounding burrow entrances. Since a burrow can have as many as six openings, there are plenty of these. Keep a sharp lookout, and you may see prairie dogs sitting up on top of those mounds, keeping a sharp lookout for you.

Bent’s New Fort

William Bent built what came to be called “Bent’s New Fort” at this location, just west of Lamar, Colorado, and near the Arkansas River, when circumstances rendered Bent’s Old Fort unusable.

As you can see in the photo above, today there is little here to commemorate the fort’s existence. There are some National Park Service signs, explaining that Bent’s New Fort was a trading site on the Santa Fe Trail beginning in 1849.

Even though William Bent maintained good trading relationships with Native Americans at his fort, exchanging goods and food for buffalo hides, changes in the fur trade and the ecology of the area limited his financial success. He sold the fort to the U.S. Army in 1860.

In 1905, John Squire Semmons purchased four and a half acres here, including the site once occupied by the fort. He made a down payment of $5.00 and paid a total of $46.60. His descendants have said they plan to preserve the site because of its archeological importance.

Bent’s Old Fort, Colorado

Built in 1833, near a ford on the high plains where the Santa Fe Trail crossed the Arkansas River, Bent’s Old Fort was primarily a trading post. It is east of today’s La Junta, Colorado, and north of Route 50.

In its heyday, the fort served travelers on the Santa Fe Trail who were two months out from Independence, Missouri, as well as fur trappers and Native American tribes.

In 1846, it became a staging point for U.S. troops during the Mexican-American war. It was an important factor in the development and settling of the territories west of what was then the extent of the United States. As time went on, though, changing conditions affected the fort. Military animals overwhelmed the ecology of the surrounding land, relations with the Native American tribes soured, and there was a cholera epidemic.

By 1849, only 16 years after it was built, the fort was no longer useful, and a new fort, which came to be called Bent’s New Fort, was built 40 miles away.

The fort you see in the pictures is a reconstruction, though I was assured by a park employee that it is “as close as possible to the original.” It is a National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service.