The Launch of the Pueblo Star Journal | An Interview with KOYC Radio 98.5FM

“Our motto “Dig Deeper” is, like our namesake, a tribute to the city’s vibrant past. The Steel City was built by hard-working, dedicated and powerful laborers, and it is to those founding fathers that we tip our hats with The Dig.

Additionally, “dig deeper” is a journalistic trope, encouraging and empowering the writer to ask the next question, push the next boundary and seek out the next level of details. By digging deeper, we commit to pushing past the superficial and providing our readers with the most accurate, thought-provoking and comprehensive news in the Steel City.”

— Pueblo Star Journal Newspaper

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Pueblo Star Journal Vision

• Establishing lines of accountability of individuals and institutions of power through our reporting, forums and debates.

• Encouraging community engagement through reader-driven events, information-gathering forums and comprehensive listings focusing on arts, athletic and volunteer opportunities.

• Curating a comprehensive database of government information, highlighting the critical details citizens need to engage with and participate in their school and municipal systems.

• Fostering economic growth and development by shining a spotlight on the business and nonprofit communities.

• Educating young talent and growing Pueblo’s best and brightest, through a comprehensive internship program and our partnerships with local educational institutions.

Now, we need you to Dig Deep

We don't have a paywall, but that doesn't mean we don't need your support.

Our website doesn't look like other newspaper websites. We don't want it to.

Built from the ground up using reliable digital architecture and local, southern Colorado web hosting, PuebloStarJournal.com is designed to be a different animal. You'll find many of the same things you'll find at other news websites - ads (please don't block them! We promise to avoid the most irritating and intrusive forms like popups and screen takeovers), articles, event calendars, sections like News, Culture, Voice and Sport, and more.

Things we plan to do that break the mold a bit include Spanish text translations and audio versions of important stories, as well as moderated commenting - something that has been eliminated entirely by many corporate newsrooms. We believe it's important Pueblo has a voice in everything we cover and we know our product will be richer for every quality interaction.

Our site was built with care to shine on any device you use. We didn't choose a cookie-cutter design theme; instead, we craft every page on our site by hand to stand out and offer a unique experience.

Every PSJ reporter and columnist has their own homepage on our site, designed to be a visually dynamic portfolio to enhance, or even launch, their career (and we won't delete them or their content when they move on). A robust search mechanism recalls the feeling of flicking through the library card catalogs and microphotograph archives of the past, to inform Puebloans of the future.

Need a hardcopy of one of our articles? Print away. All you'll see on the page will be the story itself - no ads or other online elements. And while we embrace mobile technology, we haven't left desktop browsers behind - printing and social media sharing are easy everywhere, even as other websites eliminate such iconic buttons entirely because they're built into phones and tablets.

Our email newsletters - comprising a regular blast with every print edition, an Evening Edition with exclusive content and special announcements as situations warrant - will be a key product. We promise not to fill your inboxes with junk or sell your information to other entities.

All of it - the informative newsletters, in-depth and quick-hit news on the web and print, in any format you need - is free. When you lock up real news, fake news flourishes and everyone is diminished.

Help us Dig Deeper.

Enjoy Pueblo's Best Storytellers at The Dig | A Contemporary Speakeasy Every Wednesday Evening

The Future of the Past in Pueblo, Colorado USA

Pueblo is a city at the crossroads of discovery where history, culture and the arts converge in a powerful display of creative genius. Since its earliest days, the citizens of Pueblo have brought to the fabric of the community a long tradition of exploration, discovery and self-expression. The region has been at the epicenter of opportunity in Southern Colorado for hundreds of years. The Arkansas River in Pueblo has been the international boundary with France, Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas, making it a true frontier region in the southwest. After the Colorado Gold Rush in 1859, the city continued to flourish due to its mild winter climate, abundant water resources and extensive agricultural lands.

The establishment of Colorado Coal and Iron Company (1881) and later the Colorado Fuel & Iron (CF&I) in the early 1900s ushered in a whole new era of prosperity and soon Pueblo became home to one of the largest steel mills in the world. ‘Steel City’' Pueblo became the symbol and a beacon of hope for those searching for new opportunities in a new land and workers from all corners of the globe traveled to Pueblo and the surrounding communities in order to stake their claim in this new frontier economy of the United States where just about anything was possible if you worked hard. Workers brought from their homelands their unique cultures and traditions and at one time over 40 languages were spoken at the steel mill and mines. Pueblo is the beneficiary of a rich cultural diversity that beckons even today when you visit neighborhoods throughout the city and talk with long time residents. The rush of industrialization over this entire period brought great wealth and arts to the community and city planners and designers built a livable and walkable infrastructure that remains to this day.

The Contemporary Speakeasy

Telling stories is one of the most powerful means that humanity has to influence, teach, and inspire. What makes storytelling so effective for learning? For starters, storytelling forges connections among people, and between people and ideas. Stories convey the culture, history, and values that unite people. When it comes to our countries, our communities, and our families, we understand intuitively that the stories we hold in common are an important part of the ties that bind.

Good stories do more than create a sense of connection. They build familiarity and trust, and allow the listener to enter the story where they are, making them more open to learning. Good stories can contain multiple meanings so they're surprisingly economical in conveying complex ideas in graspable ways. And stories are more engaging than a dry recitation of data points or a discussion of abstract ideas.

Our mission at The Dig is to amplify the Pueblo narrative to audiences far and wide. Each storyteller's presentation will be broadcast live from the historic Backroom at the Senate Bar which is located directly across from City Hall in Pueblo, Colorado. At the conclusion of the 2021 series, the entire collection of stories will be available digitally via community archives and podcast. In addition, The Dig • Volume 1, will be published and available for purchase at select locations throughout Pueblo and on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other distributors in the USA and abroad.

As we slowly emerge from our shared global reality, it is critical for communities to come together to share local stories and break bread. The Dig is more than a speaker series. Pueblo has a tendency to leave you speechless and then turns you into a storyteller. We invite you to come and experience Pueblo again for the very first time.

WE ARE UNITED IN ONE COMMON PURPOSE. PUEBLO.

Special thanks to Justin Bregar of JERBCO for his amazing service in bringing The Dig to wider audiences via Livestream and for future generations as part of our community archives.

Livestream Production JERBCO, Ltd. info@jerbco.com (719) 948-7203

A Panel Discussion on Gentrification in Colorado with the Colorado Association of Realtors

This is the full recording of the Colorado Association of Realtors Webinar on Gentrification in Colorado: Changing Neighborhoods. Recorded Wednesday, July 13, 2021.

Adaptive reuse is the process of repurposing buildings for viable new uses and modern functions, other than those originally intended to address present-day needs. Reuse allows for a building's continued use and helps it remain a viable community asset. Adaptive reuse is important for a community because it: Maintains cultural heritage. In communities with historic architecture, adaptive reuse is a form of historic preservation. It restores culturally significant sites that would otherwise be left to decay or demolished to make room for new buildings or parking lots.

Watertower Place (Nuckolls Packing Co 1917) located in the historic Grove Neighborhood in Pueblo, Colorado.

Future home of Fuel & Iron (formerly Holmes Hardware and built in 1915) located in the Union Avenue Historic District, Pueblo, Colorado.

Keating Junior High School (1927) located in Pueblo, Colorado was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places and is in the process of creating a new mix-use development with residential units on the second floor and commercial and retail establishments on the first floor of the former school.

National Trust for Historic Preservation

ReUrbanism (city scale preservation) positions preservation in the larger context of human needs. We know preservation is an element in livable, vibrant, equitable, and creative communities. Preservation provides character and identity, contributes to sustainability and walkability, fosters a sound economy, spurs creativity, and gives people the psychological and sociological sense of stability they need in an ever-changing world. Yet, while the preservation of our older and historic places is critically important to a community, it is only one part of the various elements that make a community livable and vibrant. Through ReUrbanism, preservation seeks to work in tandem with and support the many other fields that contribute to livable and vibrant communities, including planning, natural conservation, economic development, health and welfare, social justice, and sustainability.

Best Practices & Policies Moving Forward - Marginalized Communities

With this broader reach in mind, preservation that focuses on people is essential: it is dinner, not dessert. Reuse becomes the default option. Reinvesting, reusing, reinventing, recycling, and reinforcing our existing communities is livable and sustainable. To guide this work, the National Trust has identified 10 principles of ReUrbanism:

1. Cities are only successful when they work for everyone. People are at the center of our work. Preservation projects can create opportunities for community residents at all income levels to live, work, and play in a diverse and thriving environment.

2. Older places provide the distinctiveness and character that engender success. Older buildings give cities a sense of identity, history, and authenticity—which is the most important competitive advantage they can have in today’s economy.

3. Older neighborhoods are economic engines. Research shows that neighborhoods with a mix of older and newer buildings perform better along a number of social, economic, cultural, and environmental metrics than areas with only new buildings.

4. New ideas, and the New Economy, thrive in older buildings. All over America, the most innovative companies of the 21st century are choosing to make their homes in older buildings. These buildings fuel creativity by being distinctive, character rich, endlessly adaptable, and often low cost.

5. Preservation is adaptive reuse. Adaptive reuse is preservation. Historic preservation is not just about keeping old buildings around. It is about keeping them alive, in active use, and relevant to the needs of the people who surround them.

6. Preservation is about managing change. Healthy, dynamic neighborhoods are always in the process of change. Historic preservation is about managing change: unleashing the enormous potential of older buildings to improve health, affordability, prosperity, and well-being.

7. Cities are for people, not vehicles. Reclaiming city streets and making them more amenable to pedestrian and mass transit use can help neighborhoods reacquire activity and thrive once more.

8. The greenest building is the one that’s already built. It takes energy to construct a new building—it saves energy to preserve an old one. It simply does not make sense to recycle cans and newspapers and not recycle buildings.

9. There are many ways to achieve density. Areas with a mix of older and newer fabric tend to be denser than new-only neighborhoods, and they achieve that density at a human scale.

10. Every community has stories and places that matter. The places worth saving are those where communities choose to come together and that represent the local stories they treasure and wish to see preserved.

As the stories began to unfold during our research on the meat packing plant, it became evident that we needed to honor and celebrate those before who contributed greatly to the success of the plant and to the local community. These storyboards are three feet in width and six feet in height and hang in the first floor corridor adjacent to the front receiving docks and Johnny’s Boiler Shop.

The National Wholistic Health Alliance enjoys a sunset potluck dinner on the Upper Riverwalk Terrace (4F) overlooking downtown Pueblo, the Riverwalk, and majestic Pikes Peak in the distant background.

Pueblo Mayor Gradisar Visiting Watertower Place with Staff and Friends

Participants on a Watertower Place Tour enjoy seeing and discussing the floor plans for the former meat packing plant.

Historical Context Reports

Making Sound Preservation Decisions

Acting upon the inertia of the context’s emerging success, even in the draft stages, the City of Pueblo immediately proposed to intensively survey 45 properties in the East Side Neighborhood area. Again the City applied for a CLG grant, which it received in January 2009. And again it contracted Historitecture to conduct the survey, the results of which are presented in the Pueblo East Side Architectural and Historical Selective Inventory Report.

The major goal of this project was to acquire as much architectural and historical data as possible for 43 selected properties in the East Side study area (Historitecture actually surveyed 45), allowing city staff and others to make sound preservation planning decisions regarding this neighborhood.

Study Outcome

Read this short overview of the East Side Historic Building Inventory Study's outcome to learn more about how the project helped 16 buildings become eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

'Passion Pueblo' Podcast with Ben Cason from WakeUP Pueblo

JOIN ME FOR THE PUEBLO PASSION PODCAST

I had the great privilege of sitting with Ben Cason for his Pueblo Passion podcast at WakeUP Pueblo. During this one hour episode I share how I arrived at Pueblo and all of my passion projects from historic preservation to the arts to film production. Be sure to check out the other episodes and get a deeper understanding of Pueblo.

Best,

GH

The Shores of Pueblo: Where Community, Creativity & Courage Thrive

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These found objects on the shores of Pueblo embody the untold stories which can be found at every corner of our community. Pueblo may be its own worst storyteller, but all you have to do is ask and the information flows freely. Pueblo owns the good, the bad and the ugly, but it is this messiness found within the layers of humanity that makes the Pueblo experience so profound and enriching. Get wet and dive into the depths of Pueblo. GH

“Even if you did not graduate from a Pueblo high school, you are welcomed into the community of alumni.”

— Gregory Howell

I love Pueblo. I am still navigating the shores of Pueblo after six years, but I have lived and traveled around the world since early childhood and I cannot imagine a better place for me to discover the magic of how history, culture and the arts empower discovery in our daily lives. The stories of Pueblo are profound as they have had a global impact on the way we live in the world today. Pueblo is also where you can actually see change happen before your eyes and it doesn't cost a million dollars. There are also strange disconnects like living in a community which is thoughtfully reaching for a 100% renewable energy solution for the town, but we do not know how to recycle a can. Having said that, what I do find so compelling in all of this messiness is the extraordinary sense of Community, Creativity and Courage that one finds in Pueblo, Colorado USA. 

Community

Pueblo is and always has been a city at the crossroads where people and ideas converge in a powerful display of creative genius. Since its earliest days, the citizens of Pueblo have brought to the fabric of the community a long tradition of exploration, discovery and self-expression --- turning ideas into action. The Arkansas River in Pueblo has served as the international boundary with France, Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas, making it a true frontier region in the southwest where everyday is extraordinary. The region has been at the epicenter of opportunity in Colorado since the early 1840s when the early settlers built the El Pueblo Fort for trading and commerce. The steel industry driven by Colorado Fuel & Iron ushered in generations of workers from around the world who brought with them their own unique cultures and perspectives on humanity.

Creativity

Exploration, discovery and self-expression have been key drivers in the development of Pueblo since its earliest beginnings. History, culture and the arts have empowered individuals to share their stories of the good, the bad and the ugly. Humanity can get messy, but it is during these moments when one finds him or herself on the fringe or outside of one's comfort zone that light shines bright. A community that embraces and understands the power of light and creativity is more apt to be fluid and flexible in the process of problem solving. Change agents in the community welcome diversity and encourage participation and ownership from all stakeholders in the conversation.

Courage

NO is a hard YES and you have to hold down the grass really hard when you create a new pathway for others to follow. Change is hard. And when you add sustainability to the equation, 1 + 1 does not always equal 3. It takes failure and a lot of courage to make a difference for our children of the future. Pueblo's unique landscape is fostering the extension of the frontiers of opportunity. Communities must have a conversation about the complex issues of shelter, energy, waste, water and food when we talk about sustainability and the human race. This must start locally. Pueblo has the courage and the capacity to face the challenges before us today.

Dive In and Get Wet,

Gregory Howell

Note: Bottles courtesy of Bill Belden. Photography by Gregory Howell.