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This will be a great year for Colorado tourism. Air fares and gas prices are low. The dollar is weak. People are scared to go anywhere else.
So it came as no surprise when I heard from E. Hampden Boomwell, pubic relations counsel for the Sell Colorado Alliance for Marketing. He needed promotional writing for several proposed tours.
Boomwell pointed out that People are afraid to cross
the Atlantic. SCAM can give them a taste of Europe right
here.
You mean cinema and classical music festivals?
I
asked.
No. We're looking at new promotions. We could start
in Colorado Springs, once known as Little London. Then to
the San Juan Mountains, often called the Switzerland of
America. We could pass off a vineyard near Grand Junction
as our answer to France's Burgundy.
The horrors of World War II, I recalled, have become overseas tourist attractions. How could Colorado compete?
We're rebuilding the old Japanese Relocation Center
out by Lamar,
he said. Just think. Our very own
wartime concentration camp.
I asked if they had any other world-class tours -- perhaps a Colorado Third-World Tour through the San Luis Valley and the migrant farm labor camps along the South Platte.
No,
Boomwell said. We'll keep this upbeat and
upscale. Our other strategy is the Colorado Terrorism Tour.
Terrorism is in the news. We can take tourists to historic
sites where terrorism once occurred. They'll be thrilled
but safe.
The tour would start in Julesburg, burned to the ground
in l865 by bloodthirsty terrorist raiders of the plains.
Then to Denver, cut off from the outside world by
terrorists that year, so that starvation loomed and flour
was selling for $50 a barrel.
Boomwell was just getting warmed up. We'll go to
Independence, a ghost town near Cripple Creek. Terrorists
strike airports now, but on June 6, l904, they blew up the
train depot there, killing 13. And to Telluride, where
terrorist snipers on July 3, 1901, killed three men
innocently going home from work. The same gang also gunned
down Arthur Golllns, a respectable English visitor.
Boomwell kept talking. We could see Leadville, where
terrorists brought the economy to a halt in 1896 -- with
threats of violence -- threats that they carried out on
Sept. 21 when they bombed two industrial sites, set them on
fire and then shot at the firemen.
Then to Meeker, where Communist terrorists
mercilessly killed civilian employees of the U.S.
government on Sept. 29, l879.
They weren't Communists,
I interjected. They
were Ute Indians.
William B. Vickers, secretary to the governor of
Colorado then, said they were Communists,
Boomwell
replied.
I can see that Colorado has a rich heritage of
terrorism for us to draw on,
I told Boomwell, but
aren't we leaving out a few places?
Such as?
Sand Creek. Here you have about 600 Arapahoe and
Cheyenne, mostly women and children, told that they would
be safe if they'd just camp along the creek. And then on
Nov. 28, 1864, the Colorado Militiia marched in and
butchered them while they were sleeping in their
tents.
Another came to mind. We could visit Ludlow. It's
quite similar. Families lived in tents, and the state
militia opened up with machine guns on April 20, 1914.
About 50 people died, including 11 children.
Boomwell grimaced. Those won't work. For one thing,
you can't even find Sand Creek and Ludlow on the official
state highway map.
But we can't leave them out,
I protested.
They're historic sites of terrorism.
No, they weren't, Quillen. I can see that you're not
right for this job. You don't understand what terrotism
is.
Isn't it terrorism,
I asked, when innocent
people are threatened, maimed and killed?
No, it isn't,
Boomwell explained. If Indians
who've been lied to and starved decide to retaliate against
the invaders, that's terrorism. If miners toss dynamite
because they're sick of breaking their backs for 10 hours a
day in dangerous conditions, that's terrorism. But if the
government comes in and mows down innocent people and burns
their homes, it's definitely not terrorism.
Then what was it?
I wondered
When our state government committed mayhem and
massacres
he said, it was known as developing
resources, attracting investment and providing a favorable
business climate. In a word, progress.
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