I was giving friends directions to a new restaurant in Granby. As I talked, I found myself referring to buildings and businesses that no longer existed. New storefronts had replaced old ones. A big cinderblock hotel I liked to use as a landmark had been torn down.
It’s pretty remarkable, all the changes that have taken place since I moved here six years ago.
I was reminded of a story I heard on National Public Radio describing the way people give directions in rural Mexico. Locals refer to churches, parks, schools, tall buildings – anything that can be easily identified. A big tree will be referenced as a landmark years after it has been cut down. Visitors can’t get directions without learning a little bit about the past.
Growing up in a rural area, I could relate to this form of direction-giving. Ten years ago, I returned to Nebraska to help my father harvest corn. The county had recently erected street signs on the roads miles around my parents’ farm. Accustomed to city life, I considered these signs progress. My father’s fields are scattered across two counties. The landscape is flat and unremarkable unless you know its stories. I wasn’t familiar with all the places I needed to drive machinery so my father gave me directions like, “Turn right at the intersection where Marv Smith used to live.” Or, “Remember the big red barn a mile west of our farm?”
“Yes!” I answered, excited that I finally knew what he was talking about.
“Well, the barn isn’t there anymore, but you go one more mile west and make a left at the pasture where the Charlois cattle used to be, and then … .” (We lived in Black Angus country, so white cattle were noteworthy.)
When I asked for the street address, my dad gave me a blank look. It’s safe to say that if the county adds street addresses years after people have occupied a landscape, Marv Smith’s house (even though he no longer lives there) makes a better reference point than the intersection of Road 5 and Road H. It’s human nature.
Granby, where I now live, is a town of about 1,600 people. Annexations have quadrupled Granby’s land area in the past two years, so you can expect a few growing pains. The town may add close to 7,000 housing units in the near future. Driving my daughter to preschool west of town, we can see the progress of heavy machinery converting a pasture into another development.
Six years ago, the neighborhood where we live was nothing by sagebrush. Now 20 houses dot the landscape. Recently, our neighborhood was invited to meet with the town mayor to discuss a new street plan.
The initial plan was rumored to show new roads through the neighborhood. New development is coming, the mayor warned. The town needed plans for handling traffic flow to subdivisions that will spring up around us, and to create an alternative route to Highway 40, the main artery that links the towns in Grand County.
As a neighborhood, we understood more development would happen – we weren’t NIMBYs. But no one was crazy about traffic from new developments being channeled past their house.
Our roads are narrow and unpaved. It’s not easy, with small children, to safely walk or bicycle around the neighborhood with oncoming traffic. At the meeting, we came up with a proposal for building a road around our neighborhood instead of through it. Depending on the type of housing that goes up around us, a road connecting our subdivisions is still possible. The mayor and city planning commission have a difficult job, making allowances for new development while protecting the interests of existing subdivisions.
This summer, walking down a gravel road a mile from home, I noticed a handwritten note taped to a sign. The letter gave directions to what was left of an old stagecoach stop nearby. I gamely followed the directions down the hill and found the stones and debris from the stagecoach stop, which was probably once a pretty good landmark. Back then, I wondered if anyone complained about stagecoaches whipping past their house. Had anyone opposed a plan to add more stagecoach routes through their neighborhood?
A month later, the note was gone. I wondered why someone bothered to educate the few people who might wander these roads (and not many do) about Granby history. Thanks to whoever wrote that note, I know a little more about the history of this place I call home. And knowing the location of the old stagecoach stop has proven to be useful. Now when I give directions to our house I can say, “If you reach the old stagecoach stop, you’ve gone too far.”
Gretchen Bergen is a freelance writer.
