Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Extremism in the Rockies
With so many progressives in towns such as Boulder, Denver, Aspen, Crested Butte and
Telluride, it's easy to forget that Colorado has a politically radical streak.
At a 1992 meeting in Estes Park, attended by fringe preacher Peter J Peters, Aryan Na-
tions leader Richard Butler, Texas Ku Klux Klan leader Louis Beam and controversial at-
torney Kirk Lyons, Colorado birthed the right-wing militia movement of the 1990s. Held in
response to a botched federal raid at Ruby Ridge, the meeting saw the attendees come up
with a solution to stem what they saw as overreaches by government forces: form militias.
Soon there were militias in Montana, Michigan, Indiana and Colorado, where three men
were arrested in connection with a pipe bomb in 1997. Their emergence became front-page
news when Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb outside the Oklahoma City Federal
Building on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people. According to militia watchdogs, the move-
ment waned after the bombing and subsequent Colorado arrests, although activity has re-
surfaced in the years since President Barack Obama took office.
But it's the radical left wing that has caused actual physical damage in Colorado. Mem-
bers of the Earth Liberation Front set fire to Vail chairlifts and a restaurant to protest the
expansion of Blue Sky Basin into endangered Canadian lynx habitat. Damages came to $12
million but there were no casualties. Arrests were made and William Rodgers, the man ac-
cused of setting the fires, killed himself on the eve of his trial.
Don't knock a prison town. Buena Vista and Cañon City both have a groovy, up-and-coming edge. In the
mountains, Buena Vista runs cooler and deeper, but historic Cañon City has the Royal Gorge and fabulous
dinosaur sites in the area.
