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In most states where I've driven, when you reach the
municipal limits sign on the highway, you see a sign that
says something like Backwater Junction. Population
985,
and you look anxiously for a speed-limit sign
because you don't want to get caught by the radar-gun speed
trap that supplies the bulk of the municipal revenue.
The Lone Star Republic is an exception. There the signs advise that the public water supply has been approved by the Texas Department of Public Health; in the rest of the country, we take it for granted that you can safely imbibe the tap water.
Colorado is another exception. Here we proclaim the town's altitude above sea level. Elevation is also something towns brag on, and now it's starting to get nasty.
For a long time, it was pretty simple. Leadville, at
10,161 feet, is the highest city in Colorado and the United
States. It also boasts many other hypsometric distinctions,
like highest church steeple,
highest golf
course,
highest airport,
and highest auto
parts store.
It also has the highest higher education
in the
country, with the Timberline Campus of Colorado Mountain
College. (Along the high
line, an old joke in the
central mountains goes like this: How do you spot a CMC
grad?
He can roll a one-paper joint.
)
CMC is a two-year school, though. The highest four-year institution in the nation, and perhaps the world, is Western State College in Gunnison, at 7,603 feet.
Back to Leadville. In Colorado, a municipality with more than 2,000 residents can be incorporated as a city, as is the case with Leadville. Those with fewer than 2,000 are officially towns.
Having sat through interminable meetings of the
governing bodies of both cities and towns, I can attest
that there's no practical difference. The main one is that
statutory cities are run by city councils, and statutory
towns have boards of trustees. (A statutory
municipality runs under state regulations, as opposed to a
home-rule
municipality with a charter.)
With a population of only 179, Alma is a town. It sits
across Mosquito Pass (13,179 feet and a strong contender
for Highest Pass in North America
) from Leadville.
Alma sits 10,361 feet above the tides, or 200 feet higher
than Leadville. Alma is not the highest city, but it is the
highest town and highest municipality.
(Neither has the highest post office. That distinction belongs to Zip code 80429, Climax, which sits atop Frémont Pass at 11,358 feet. And if you want to win some bar bets, you can wager that Mile-High Denver is not the highest state capital in the United States. Santa Fe, 6,995, and Cheyenne, 6,089, are both higher.)
So for years, Alma and Leadville were comfortable in their distinctions. But last year, Winter Park, official elevation 9,052, annexed the ski area into its municipal boundaries.
This was to simplify planning and zoning, so that the resort and the Forest Service could work with just the town government, rather than both the town and county governments.
However, this put the top of the ski lifts into the town limits, and that includes a 12,069-foot peak. So Winter Park, which wasn't even incorporated until 1979, plans to promote itself as the nation's highest municipality, even if the residential and commercial zones top out at under 10,000 feet.
Vince Turner, who serves on the Winter Park town board,
said the altitude boasting was a marketing ploy to attract
more skiers. People in New York trying to book a
vacation say 'Let's go to the highest place. They're bound
to have the best snow,'
he said.
Winter Park sits close by Fraser, which wanted to drop
its Icebox of the Nation
slogan. Apparently tourists
do not say Let's go to the ski area by the coldest
place. It's bound to have the best snow.
There's no real connection between snowfall and either cold or elevation. Gunnison is one of the most frigid inhabited spots in America, and it gets only 50.5 inches of snow in an average winter -- Denver gets 59.4. Saguache is 1,500 feet higher than Denver, and averages only 25.9 inches. Buena Vista, half a mile higher than Denver, averages only 39.5 inches.
Since we're already nearing the average snowfall for this winter, I was hoping for a break. But there's another storm scheduled for later this week, and Winter Park is welcome to come and collect all the snow it wants from my sidewalk, street and woodpile. I can attest that it is snow of excellent quality that should impress New Yorkers.
And let little old Alma enjoy its distinction.
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