Antonito – Over its crumbling brick and stucco facades, this small San Luis Valley town wears a layer of grime and an air of resignation.
The hardware store’s picture windows are encased in layers of brown paper and pegboard. A thick sheet of corrugated metal further bars entry. A nightclub is closed tight behind metalwork fit for a stockade.
Only the red-rock grounds and yellow buildings of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad appear carefully groomed.
“The railroad is our life’s blood. We just pray each year that they’re going to fund it,” says Dennis Mortenson, owner-pharmacist of Peoples Drugs on Main Street.
The state legislature will begin considering in March how much Colorado will chip in this year. The state, co-owner with the state of New Mexico of the 1880- vintage narrow-gauge railroad, hasn’t come up with its half of the funding for several years.
Underfunding the Cumbres & Toltec was just one more symptom of the state’s pervasive financial ills, says Dan Hopkins, spokesman for Gov. Bill Owens.
But such neglect could be nearly fatal for tiny Antonito, say many of its 900 or so residents.
The money-strapped railroad is one of the biggest payrolls in the region. But the nonprofit company that managed the line for several years pulled out in November, laying off more than a dozen workers.
A new nonprofit group quickly organized to save this season, which begins May 27.
“It would be devastating for the area to lose the railroad,” says state Sen. Lewis Entz, R-Hooper.
And Antonito has other economic worries. Miners of red rocks for landscaping and perlite, used in plaster and insulation, are facing uncertain times, says laid-off perlite miner Jimmy Duran.
The Conejos County unemployment rate for December was 6.8 percent, compared with 4.5 percent statewide. Antonito’s median household income for the 2000 census, the most recent figure available, was $19,205, compared with the state median of $41,994.
Mortenson says that 80 percent of his pharmacy customers are Medicaid recipients. He recently borrowed $30,000 to pay for patients’ drugs when their Medicaid benefits ended before they secured new Medicare coverage.
Inside his store, a mural depicts Main Street during a more prosperous era.
“There’s 1911. We had a J.C. Penney, three grocery stores, two pharmacies and a movie theater,” Mortenson says.
There might be a small light at one end of the tunnel. The new San Luis & Rio Grande Railroad plans to launch two modern standard-gauge excursion lines from Alamosa this summer: one to Antonito and another to La Veta.
SL&RG president Ed Ellis predicts the rail linking Alamosa to Antonito could feed 5,000 to 10,000 additional riders to the Cumbres & Toltec each year.
Antonito residents say they’re happy for anything that helps the railroad, but many aren’t sure the new riders, all lodging in Alamosa, will spend more money here.
Darla Gallegos, manager of the Narrow Gauge Railroad Inn, says: “I can’t tell if that would help Antonito or not.”
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
