Pueblo, Colorado

Pueblo is situated at the confluence of the Arkansas River and Fountain Creek, 112 miles (180 km) south of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver.James Beckwourth, George Simpson, and other trappers such as Mathew Kinkead and John Brown, claimed to have helped construct the plaza that became known as El Pueblo around 1842.By the early 1870s the city was being hailed as a beacon of development, with newspapers like the Chicago Tribune boasting of how the region's lawless reputation was giving way to orderly agriculture with triumphalist rhetoric.[21] The main industry in Pueblo for most of its history was the Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) Steel Mill on the south side of town.With the conclusion of the strike on December 30, 1997, CF&I had replaced several hundred union workers with local employees.[22] In September 2004, both United Steelworkers locals 2102 and 3267 won the strike and the unfair labor practice charges.The main blast furnace structures were torn down in 1989, but due to asbestos content, many of the adjacent stoves still remain.[24] Due to the growth of the CF&I steel mill and the employment that it offered, Pueblo in the early twentieth century attracted a large number of immigrant laborers.The groups represented led to Pueblo becoming the most ethnically and culturally diverse city in Colorado and the West.[25] Irish, Italian,[26] German, Slovenian, Greek, Jewish, Lithuanian, Russian, Hungarian, Japanese, and African-American groups arrived in the area at the turn of the century and remain to the present time.The convergence of cultures led to a cosmopolitan character to the city that resulted in a number of ethnically rooted neighborhoods that are typically not seen west of the Mississippi.The Robert L. Hawkins High Security Forensic Institute opened in June 2009 and is a 200-bed, high-security facility.[27] Pueblo is the hometown of four Medal of Honor recipients (tied only with Holland, Michigan, also with four,[28] each having more than any other municipality in the United States): William J. Crawford, Carl L. Sitter, Raymond G. Murphy, and Drew D. Dix.President Dwight D. Eisenhower, upon presenting Raymond G. "Jerry" Murphy with his medal in 1953, commented, "What is it... something in the water out there in Pueblo?For over 30 years, public service announcements invited Americans to write for information at "Pueblo, Colorado, 81009".In recent times GSA has incorporated Pueblo into[clarification needed] FCIC's toll-free telephone number.[43] Renewable Energy Systems Americas broke ground on the Comanche Solar Project seven miles south of Pueblo in 2015.[44] When complete, it will be the largest solar energy farm east of the Rocky Mountains, and its backers say the project will produce electricity more cheaply than natural gas.[44] The project will cover 1,000 acres with 500,000 solar panels, providing a capacity of 156 megawatts of power—enough to supply 31,000 homes.The Bell Game has been played annually since 1892 between the Central Wildcats and the Centennial Bulldogs in what is touted as the oldest football rivalry west of the Mississippi River.In 2018 an election was held for mayor for the first time in over sixty years, due to none of the sixteen candidates getting more than fifty percent of the vote, a runoff was required to decide the winner.[69] On May 8, 2007, CSU Pueblo received approval from the Board of Governors of the Colorado State University System to bring back football as a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.[74] Centennial High School was founded north of downtown on Eleventh Street in 1876, the year Colorado entered the Union.Pueblo County High School, east of the city in Vineland, serves rural residents.Greyhound Lines provides bus service towards Denver, Colorado; Amarillo, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico.Regional bus service to La Junta, Lamar, Colorado Springs, Alamosa, and Trinidad is provided by the CDOT operated Bustang.[84] Amtrak's daily Southwest Chief makes a stop 64 miles (103 km) east of Pueblo at La Junta, providing direct rail transport to Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Kansas City, Chicago, and dozens of smaller locales.[85] Pueblo has been proposed as the southern terminus for Front Range Passenger Rail, which would provide service to Colorado Springs, Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, and Cheyenne.