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After the shock of the 9-11 attacks wore off, many local
conversations turned to What is this going to do to the
economy of our little mountain towns?
It's a good question, since our livelihood these days is pretty much based on selling things that people can live without (paintings, pottery, float-trips, mountain-bike rentals, ski lift tickets, horseback rides, gated mansions, etc.) to people who don't live here.
Things were different 60 years ago when America entered World War II. Gold production was pretty well halted for the duration because these mines and mills were decreed a non-essential industry, and could not get supplies and materials.
But many other forms of domestic production were deemed
necessary. America had relied on foreign sources for
steel-hardening agents like nickel and tungsten, vital for
making armor and artillery. With the war, those supplies
were jeopardized, and so the domestic supply of another
steel-hardener, molybdenum, became an essential war
industry,
and so Climax Molybdenum ran at full tilt for
the duration.
Similarly, the Colorado Fuel & Iron steel mill at Pueblo ran flat-out, which meant two trains a day from Salida to the limestone quarry at Monarch. Gasoline and tires were rationed, so whatever could move by rail did. Thus Salida, like many other railroad towns, thrived during the war.
The military needed wool for uniforms, so sheep operations thrived. It needed leather and beef, and so cattlemen enjoyed profitable markets. Military bases went up by the dozen, requiring wood and providing work for lumberjacks and sawyers. There were new bases in Colorado like Camp Hale, and new factories, thanks to a federal policy of building in the interior so as to make the industrial base more dispersed and less vulnerable to foreign attacks.
From about 1870 onward, rural Colorado had been developed to supply bulk commodities. These enterprises were hit hard Great Depression (which started in 1921 for rural areas, and didn't really hit the cities until the stock market crash of 1929), but by and large they remained in place and could expand production when America went to war.
But if America needs to fight that kind of war this time around, this area won't be able to contribute much unless its mines and mills and railroads are essentially rebuilt from scratch.
Outside of a few cows and the occasional truckload of rocks, we don't produce anything real here any more, and we haven't since about 1983. Whatever we made can be found cheaper on the world commodity markets.
Of course, if the threat of terrorist attack means that Korean steel or Argentinian beef are no longer available, things could change. But nobody's talked about making America any more self-sufficient in anything except petroleum production, and those facilities are about as vulnerable as foreign facilities in this new form of warfare.
One problem is that even though we hear from Washington that this will be a long and difficult struggle against a global terrorist network, we don't really know what kind of struggle it will be, nor do we know what sort of sacrifices will be expected. Are we supposed to start saving bacon grease and toothpaste tubes, the way our parents and grandparents did during World War II, or are we supposed to max out our credit cards on a trip to New York?
About all we've learned so far is that airline stockholders aren't supposed to make any sacrifices.
At any rate, our economy here in flyover country has shifted from producing bulk commodities to tourism -- and travel and tourism were hurt hard by the 9-11 attack.
Yesterday I talked to an old friend in Cortez, down by the Four Corners and a place which at first glance looks rather removed from the world economy. But they're hurting, she said, because nearby Mesa Verde normally draws visitors from throughout the world. A few days with no planes flying to bring foreign visitors to Colorado, followed by weeks, perhaps months, of severely diminished travel because people are understandably afraid to fly -- Cortez is trying to adjust, but they're not sure what they need to adjust to.
Our situation here has some similarities, in that we rely on tourism. But ours isn't of the international variety; most of our visitors come via auto from Texas or the Midwest. The airline problems won't have a direct effect, but there will be ripples -- all those layoffs in that industry mean more people will be scrimping and saving, not spending money on vacations.
Indeed, that's the peculiarity of the current situation. When hard times loom, people cut back. They save more and spend less, especially on things they can get along without. And basically, that's what we sell around here -- artifacts and experiences that people can live without.
But there's one blessing: we're not likely to be arguing about growth for a while.
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