Pueblo PULP

24/07/2023

Pueblo's news crisis worsens. Owners of the Chieftain to sell off the building for $3.6mil.

825 W 6th St, Pueblo, CO 81003. This Flex property is available for sale.

18/06/2023

Since 1868, they kept the presses running. Now with the Chieftain presses going dark, we file one additional story as a thank you to the people who powered the presses.

An ode to being "Printed in Pueblo"

14/08/2020

When Pueblo City Schools planned to build a new Centennial H.S., it didn't plan to rebuild the shrine to Pueblo's historic high.

With Pueblo City School District 60 set to build a new Centennial High School in the coming years, the Centennial High School Foundation is fighting to ensure that building plans honor the history and legacy of the 144-year-old school. District plans for the new school building do not include space....

06/08/2020

From Springs to Salida, from Pueblo musicians to a Walsenburg art gallery — COVID-19 may have sidelined the industry but artists are doing what they do best – create a way out of this.

After months of economic and cultural turmoil as a result of the COVID-19 shutdown, the arts in Southern Colorado have changed. No longer can individuals attend large scale plays, music concerts, or crowded art galleries. These venues have taken to the internet, allowing audience members and gallery...

31/07/2020

In October 1918, Pueblo’s department of health issued public health orders for Puebloans to avoid “needless crowding”, wash hands, utensils and vegetables, urged “no loafing” in stores and then closed down Pueblo.

Maurice Kilfoy, a 30-year-old Pueblo resident, was visiting brothers Joseph and Leo at the University of Nebraska when he died of pneumonia on the morning of September 28, 1918. His death was later revealed to be a result of complications from the H1N1 virus known colloquially as “Spanish influenz...

30/07/2020

“We still feel as though our homeland is in Colorado.”

Over 150 years removed from the Sand Creek Massacre, the death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man killed by police, is giving Cheyenne and the Arapaho in Colorado an opportunity to finally see the removal of ceremonial names of Colorado landmarks associated with the tragic events of that fateful N...

25/07/2020

In contrast to Pueblo County Schools gradually moving to in-class learning with COVID-19 benchmarks, Pueblo City Schools believes it can have limited in-class education starting Aug 31.

In class learning at Pueblo City School District 60 is on track to return this fall after the district’s Board of Education approved a reopening plan Thursday night by a vote of 4-to-1. “There are real and significant consequences to not opening our schools,” superintendent Charlotte Macaluso ...

24/07/2020

Pueblo’s Chick-fil-A owner took to social media urging customers to "do what's right" and "be kind".

PUEBLO — After Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ most recent facemask order, many restaurants have struggled as well as their employees. Some restaurant owners have seen a drop in business and feel the directive has deterred people from eating out. Others have endured harassment from customers who refu...

24/07/2020

As cases rise among 20-29 year olds continue, Colorado’s colleges and universities ready to bring in tens of thousands college students from out-of-state. The effort now is stop schools from being community hotspots.

As fall approaches, Colorado’s universities face a new challenge: how to reopen campuses safely, especially when students come in from different states. At Colorado College, 84% of the student population is from out-of-state, presenting the school and El Paso County with a challenge. How do you ac...

24/07/2020

It's an interesting dilemma, fighting COVID-19 before you actually fight COVID-19.

Colorado State University-Pueblo’s School of Nursing and Health Science finds itself in a pivotal moment; equipping students with the skills necessary to enter the medical field to fight COVID-19, while also abiding by demands the pandemic has forced on them. “Right now, our intent is to keep th...

22/07/2020

They may be small but they are the ones who protect the local history in Southern Colorado. Their survival is on the line too.

Rural regional cultural centers and museums usually live right on the edge or profitability in good years. During COVID-19, however, there’s widespread fear about making it to the end of the year and worrying about 2021. Pueblo Heritage Museum which features the history of Pueblo and Southeast Col...

19/07/2020

Since George Floyd, the national conversation has been on reform and protests not on the mindset of local police. PULP goes on two shifts with Pueblo police to understand. What you’ll find is talk about love of community, frustration that people think all law enforcement are the same, and an under siege mentality dealing with crime in Pueblo.

Even with COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the mass political turmoil surrounding law enforcement catalyzed by the killing of George Floyd, for Pueblo Police officers, it’s just another day on the job. In early June, Pueblo Police Chief Troy Davenport spoke openly about his disgust t...

17/07/2020

When it impacts burritos that’s when Colorado’s mask mandate becomes official public policy in Pueblo.‬

WE’RE OPEN!!! Yes......you do have to wear a mask!

16/07/2020

Governor Jared Polis is announcing a mandatory mask policy for indoor public spaces.

16/07/2020

For the first time in 20 years Columbus protestors feel like they are being noticed. The issue now, as crowds grew for a third straight week is the controversy over Columbus is not going away – so what's next?

As the number of protesters grows every Sunday around Christopher Columbus Place, a resolution still appears distant as all sides look at potential next steps.

15/07/2020

CSU-Pueblo joins other Colorado universities saying it will test students and staff in an unprecedented campus screening and testing program.

In order to prevent coronavirus from spreading on the Colorado State University-Pueblo campus this upcoming fall semester, Wolf Pack Wellness Center director Carol Daugherty said it is better to be “proactive” than “reactive.” “Try to think about it ahead of time and think about what your ...

15/07/2020

The Pueblo County Sheriff called it a set-up by protestors saying the button was quickly thrown in the trash.

Editor’s Note: Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office offered to allow PULP and other news outlets to privately review bodycam footage. It is our policy when bodycam footage exists to make it publicly available. PUEBLO – A viral video from Sunday’s Columbus statue protests has sparked controversy as...

14/07/2020

From Pueblo to Lamar and La Junta, COVID-19 is taking away what made community college so special. This fall, these institutions of access are trying to provide a connection but even they are struggling to know exactly how to put community into community college.

LA JUNTA, Colo. — Otero Junior College President Timothy Alvarez describes his leadership style as “MBWA,” management by walking around. The COVID-19 pandemic has made that nearly impossible for the rural college leader who now mostly works from home. Instead of finding a faculty member or stu...

12/07/2020

Don’t expect to see major shows or events until 2021. With cancellations and socially-distanced crowds, major cultural venues in Pueblo and Colorado Springs are just trying to survive the year.

Southern Colorado’s events and arts venues have seen exhibitions and large events wiped right off the calendar because of COVID-19. It’s forcing venues like Pueblo’s Sangre de Cristo Arts Center to get through 2020 with smaller events and exhibitions. For the large concert venues like the Pike...

12/07/2020

Pueblo leads the state in officer-involved shootings per capita. Activists agree reform is needed but they disagree over cutting spending.

Pueblo’s NAACP chapter says it doesn’t endorse “defunding” saying that will only hamper reform. Others want to let the voters decide.

Despite Pueblo’s police landing at the top of the list for most per-capita violent police incidents in the state, there isn’t consensus among local social justice leaders on how or even whether to reallocate police resources at all. What that change will look like, however, remains to be seen. I...

10/07/2020

In the 1860s, the U.S. Army employed Kit Carson to relocate Navajo from their traditional land in Arizona to eastern New Mexico. He would kill crops and cattle to get their surrender. Then he force marched them in what Navajos call and find painful to this day “The Long Walk.”

Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale, a Diné historian and the Navajo Nation, sculptures of infamous figures like Kit Carson are nothing but a reminder of a history that has been distorted against their favor, or erased entirely. Denetdale would like to see that such sculptures are permanently removed, not j...

10/07/2020

Colorado Governor Jared Polis urged Coloradans to wear masks to save lives and protect businesses on Thursday July 9, 2020. In a week Colorado has seen a recent uptick in COVID-19 cases worrying officials and slowing down reopening. Polis didn’t introduce a statewide face mask law saying it would be unenforceable. He did try to tell the youths not to hang out so much.

09/07/2020

Behind the shouting matches at the protests there is a city-wide discussion over Columbus, Italian-immigrants and First Peoples.

Monuments to Christopher Columbus are being removed throughout the country, but Pueblo’s still stands in the Mesa Junction, remaining a site for indigeonous protests. Local activist Vicente Martinez Ortega was 10 years old when he began protesting Columbus Day celebrations and the monument with hi...

07/07/2020

In 1905, Pueblo Italian immigrants erected the Columbus Monument to garner acceptance for immigrants and religious liberty for Catholics. A century later, Pueblo now grapples with numerous contradictions of American and Spanish colonization alongside a shift in American attitudes towards public monuments as anti-Columbus and pro-Trump protestors clash in front of the Christopher Columbus Plaza in Pueblo, Colorado, on July 5, 2020.

President Trump's call to protect statues over the July 4th weekend has energized his supporters to protest in support of Pueblo's Columbus Statue to remain as a symbol of America's manifest destiny. Instantly Trump's message has changed the narrative away from an Italian-immigrant narrative to a nationalistic one.

Indigenous and anti-Columbus protesters have been calling for the statue's removal, for decades, as they believe it celebrates the man who opened the Americas to genocide and who was himself found guilty of inhumane treatment of native populations.

Italian Puebloans feel deeply concerned their history as a proud immigrant people is misunderstood because in 1905 their families were fighting for equality.

There are no easy answers over the removal of the statue because of Italian immigrants' original intent as a pro-immigrant monument.

At the turn of the 20th century, Italian immigrants were targets of intense racial discrimination and later K*K terrorism across Colorado. In the words of Sister Frances Cabrini, the immigrant activist in which Colorado's Columbus Day has been newly renamed, said of Italian immigrants, "The hardest labor is reserved for the Italian worker... they merely look upon him as an ingenious machine for work."

The Christopher Columbus Plaza presents a question for Pueblo: how does it publicly memorialize these early immigrants' quest for equality and acceptance while recognizing a growing shift in modern American attitudes towards American and Spanish colonizers?

04/07/2020

Just a little video of all goodness... a bald eagle being released back into the wild by the good people at Nature and Wildlife Discovery Center.

03/07/2020

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife will now require hikers and anyone that wants to enjoy state wildlife areas to get a hunting or fishing license. CPW says the change is to manage the increased non-wildlife use and to raise funds as more Coloradans hit the outdoors. The change will impact the 350 wildlife areas and some land trusts managed by CPW.

See the map:
https://cpw.state.co.us/placestogo/parks/Pages/WildlifeAreaMap.aspx

02/07/2020

Reopening, and not the protests, has caused only a slight increase in COVID-19 cases in Southern Colorado.

The weekly number of COVID-19 cases in Colorado may be significantly lower now than it was in mid-April, but the previous two weeks have indicated a steady increase in cases across Southern Colorado. “The increase in cases may be partly due to an increase in Coloradans changing their behavior, esp...

01/07/2020

COVID-19 forcing another major cancelation for Southern Colorado.

The COVID-19 pandemic forces one of Colorado’s biggest parades to skip 2020. The Great Pueblo Chamber of Commerce, which manages the event, announced in a release the parade, to be held Saturday, August 29, would not go forward, citing safety concerns for the 40,000 participants and spectators. Th...

30/06/2020

Imagine being a young child in Pueblo and seeing a burning cross outside your window. Then imagine your parents telling you, we're not taking that down we're putting Christmas lights on it. We talk with Kennedy Pugh on growing up Black in Pueblo, Colorado.

26/06/2020

This isn’t a story about restaurants putting up some chairs outside. It’s a story that COVID-19 is forcing a cultural change in Pueblo.

Pueblo’s popular bars and restaurants may be reopened for business, but social distancing requirements are leading restaurant owners to be innovative and push local bar culture outdoors. Pueblo’s Colorado Taproom and Grill on 106 Colorado Avenue opened its doors for business February 1, just six...