RICO — More than 130 years ago, the remote mining town of Rico was a close contender to become the capital of Colorado — until the upstart mail-route town of Denver was chosen instead.
Folks here say they haven’t had that much excitement in this mountain-ringed town since — until Monday.
More than half the 300 people who are hearty enough to live in 8,827-foot-high Rico year-round were lining Glasgow Avenue hours before the USA Pro Challenge racers were slated to whiz through.
The Women of Rico club was selling zucchini bread and pumpkin muffins. The Enterprise Bar & Grill was hawking beer. A booth offered homemade knit shawls. A “Welcome to Rico” banner was strung over the highway. Chalked messages on the pavement urged on Big George, Levi and Jens. The fire trucks were parked along the road with their lights flashing. And excited kids frolicked on the tops of the trucks and blew whistles and toy horns until they were red in the face.
“This is pretty historic,” said Irishman Eamonn O’Hara, who has run The Argentine Grille in Rico for 12 years after being a chef in Las Angeles. “It’s a big deal. The fire trucks might even come out and honk their horns for this.”
Rico had barely rated any mention in race guides as a pass-through town for Monday’s race. It wasn’t even given a dot on some maps. But that didn’t dampen the local excitement over Rico being shown to the world as the riders came through in the blink of an eye — and in a drizzle for the front-runners and a downpour for the chasing pack.
“That’s about how long our parades last,” Rico resident Jim Kahn said when the riders had disappeared and the last support vehicles were vanishing down the road.
Kahn came out in giant sunglasses and a shirt salvaged from a long-ago Phish concert. He said he dressed up because “this is the best thing I’ve ever experienced in Rico.” He has lived there for 12 years.
The racers really were here and gone before Kahn or anyone else had a chance to get too worked up. But some of those waiting in one block of Glasgow Avenue, in particular, were still buzzing with excitement about the governor stopping by.
John Hickenlooper had rolled unseen into town in a VIP car that pulled over outside the beer tent for a refreshment-replenishment break. When he learned townspeople didn’t believe he was there, he jumped out of the car with his son, Teddy, and strolled down to shake hands.
He was introduced to Buster, a shaved Pomeranian, and wowed Buster’s owner, Frank Strachan, when he said, “If I had my choices, I’d live in a town like this for a few years.”
Hickenlooper didn’t realize that the governor’s mansion actually might have been here, if only things had gone differently in the 1880s.
Rico went from the heights of being one of the busiest gold and silver mining boom towns in the Rockies back then to having a rock-bottom population of 76 in the 1970s.
People survived that era with humor. They still like to point out that 11 percent of the residents then were named Jim.
Mining, which had been refocused on the steel hardener molybdenum, tapered out and finally wheezed its last breath in 1972.
Now, many residents make the 45-minute commute over Lizard Head Pass to Telluride to work. It’s the same route the pro racers took Monday on their 125-mile chase from Durango to Telluride.
Rico may not have gained much more than a buzz out of the race: The ladies didn’t sell all the baked goods, as they do every Fourth of July. The sales in hand knits was not brisk. O’Hara said his Rico Hotel was so empty, “you could thrown a rock through here and not hit anybody.”
But residents like to point out that Rico was in the world’s eye — if only for one blink.
“We take advantage of all opportunities,” said Mary Lou Milstead as she sold cookies to those who slowed down and actually stopped.
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957, nlofholm@denverpost.com or
