As a property owner on Main Avenue in town, I am sympathetic to my fellow businesses and do my best to support them. I am also acutely aware of my own dependence on the success and growth of Durango as a significant vacation destination. I tend to land on the side of local business in questions of development. However, in the case of a proposed self-storage facility beneath the Hermosa Cliffs near Durango Fire & Rescue Station 15, I believe there is a significant individual-gain versus collective-detriment equation to be considered.
How many visitors to the San Juan Basin, I wonder, along with Mesa Verde, Purgatory Resort and the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad plan on a drive up the Million Dollar Highway as part of their vacation plans? It is, I believe, an attraction on par with the rest of our local allure. We should think long and hard about diminishing it.
I have a lengthy enough memory to recall Main Avenue in the mid-’70s. Our town and our county is now poised to become the beacon to Southwestern travel that it deserves to be. It would be a shame if all the positive growth achieved in La Plata County in the past 20 years were to be diminished by an ugly blotch on one of our most beautiful – and accessible byways.
Tristan Davies
Durango
