Pueblo, Colorado

The first thing I heard about Pueblo was, "It's a blue collar town; they made steel there for a long time.  The first thing I knew about the town was it had four Medal of Honor recipients.  It is hotter and flatter than Colorado Springs even though the towns are only 45 miles apart.  I was vaguely interested in the town, but what really focused my interest was an Ansel Adams exhibit at their fine arts museum.  Ansel Adams is the iconic American photographer of the 20th century. We headed out thinking we were going to be seeing a rather run-down town with little to offer beyond this art exhibit.

It was a real surprise to find this extremely friendly, vibrant small town with so much to see and do.  While the Ansel Adams photos were everything I expected, what really fascinated me was a photographer, John Suhay, who has been documenting Pueblo over seventy-five years.  He also did side by side photos showing old and new Pueblo.  Pueblo has been a crossroads for thousands of years.  Where there's a river, people will come.  In the dry, hot high plains, Pueblo is located on the banks of the Arkansas River

Pueblo considers itself the town of Medal of Honor Recipients.  The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration of the United States and is always awarded by the President to the recipient.  They began to be awarded in 1861, and of the 3514 medals slightly less than half of them were given between 1861 and 1864.  Slowly, the Medal began to be all about heroism above and beyond the call of duty during wartime, and awarding it began to be very, very selective.  To have four recipients call a tiny town like Pueblo home is, as Drake would say, "a statistical anomaly".

 
While all Medal recipients show extraordinary valor under horrendous conditions, I think this one Pueblo recipient touched something in me

 
Then, we trooped down the street to the Organization for American Values.  Oh, Drake was so skeptical.  To him it sounded like every ultra right wing, we are the only patriots in the entire country group.  Instead, we discovered this amazingly moving picture gallery of the living Medal of Honor recipients.  Most were photographed over a six year period beginning in 1999.  Under each picture was a quote chosen by the recipient to accompany his picture.  Amazing, and so moving.

 
Our final stop was the Pueblo Historical Museum which told the history of the town of Pueblo from the three cultural perspectives which make up the town.  Finally, I turned as we left the museum, and took this picture of the last steel mill in town.

If you want to see more of Pueblo, and specifically to see my favorite Medal of Honor pictures and quotes, well, you know, click on the link.

https://goo.gl/photos/dAVA8EjUi5wzUfsj8