While driving to Santa Fe, New Mexico this past weekend, I decided to mix up the monotony of I-25 and skipped over through Walsenburg, Colorado to pick up highway 287 south. Just past town my eye caught the remains of a ruined old building, which is just as exciting as unintentionally stumbling across Dylans Candy Bar. Past the faded “No Trespassing” sign and through the chain link fence were the lost remains of a great american innovation; weathered, scarred, torn, and ignored.
The Walson Power Plant provided energy to the Walsen Mine, Walsen Camp, and the town of Walsenburg. The power plant is the last remaining structure of Walsen Camp, a coal mining settlement from the late 1870′s. At the peak of coal mine production, Walsen Camp had over 200 homes and a population of 1,200.
In 2009, the power station was added to a list of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places and has since been victim to scrap metal scavenging and vandalism.
“Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress” – Ted Levitt
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