Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 13, 1993 TAG: 9312130008
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVE CURTIN COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE TELEGRAPH
DATELINE: GUFFEY, COLO. LENGTH: Medium
This is Guffey, population 35, the center of a volcano 25 million years ago.
The closest gas pump, grocery store and high school are 35 miles away. There's no bar and no church.
But for some, this mountain town 65 miles west of Colorado Springs is heaven on Earth - a monument to the independent spirit of the miners who came here in an unsuccessful search for gold in 1896.
A 3-year-old golden retriever named Shanda is the mayor. She has abolished the leash law and remains quick to lick the feet of her constituency. She does not return phone calls and urinates when she gets excited.
Guffey put itself on the map five years ago when residents elected a Democratic cat for mayor as an alternative voice to the Park County commissioners.
Shanda continues the tradition of four-legged mayors holding office at the Guffey General Store. But the fact that she's a Republican and a dog is a sure sign the winds of change are blowing.
Indeed, generations of ranchers and trappers are giving way to a growing lesbian community and expanding cottage industries. A jeweler, a glass-etcher, a shoemaker, a candle maker and a potter are among those who work in home studios. Many of them shun publicity and declined to be interviewed.
Big-city newcomers attracted by the town's tranquil charm are not always well-received by Guffey's old-timers.
"They bring their city crap with them. And when they leave we're left with their crap: rules, regulations and homeowners' associations," says Bill Soux, a rough-hewn, 20-year resident who owns Guffey Garage.
The guard is changing in Guffey. The town's oldest resident, Henry Reed, died a year ago at age 89, asphyxiated when the pilot light flickered out on the propane stove he used to heat his tiny cabin. His daily custom was sharing a strawberry ice-cream cone with the mayor.
Now the oldest resident is Martha Naylor, a 77-year-old firebrand with two dogs, three cats, seven ducks, two parakeets, six chickens and an unwelcome coyote. Her daily custom is drinking Old Milwaukee beer.
"I like it, and it likes me," she says. "You got a problem with that?"
Even the town's name might change - reverting to its original name, Freshwater.
Freshwater was renamed during the Roosevelt era when Sen. Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania gave residents $500 and a picnic to name the town after him.
Certainly the senator, who died in 1959, would be pleased to see how his namesake has modernized.
Phone lines were hard to come by 10 years ago, but almost everyone has a phone now. More folks are getting plumbing; some still rely on outhouses.
"More and more people are joining the 20th century," says Park County Deputy Sheriff Betty Royse, a Guffey resident for eight years.
Royse has watched Guffey's population double and the calls for service increase dramatically.
"All summer we struggled with stray buffalo mashing people's petunias," says Royse. "We had a bear destroy someone's bathroom. Musta been potty-trained."
There was a stray pig. A cow caught in a cattle guard. (Pennzoil works wonders.) And, Royse says, "we spent a half-day digging up a grave. Found out 4 1/2 feet down it was a horse."
As Guffey goes metropolitan, Royse has taken it on herself to train a drug-sniffing police dog - a Dalmatian named Mickey.
"Problem is Mickey is nonverbal," she says. "He doesn't bark when he finds contraband. He just shrugs. . . . Mickey would rather be with the fire department."
Dogs are high on the Guffey social ladder. The town may have the only ambulance crew that has transported a dog to the hospital. The dog was injured in an automobile accident.
An injured hunter wasn't so lucky.
"We had a hunter who shot himself in the foot," says Soux, a volunteer firefighter. "I knew just what to do. I gave him a bucket to barf in."
Soux annually raises $2,000 for the volunteer fire department with the summer's biggest event: the chicken fly.
Chickens rented by contestants are placed in an open-ended mailbox atop a 10-foot perch and shoved out with a plunger. The chicken that flies farthest wins.
"Everyone knows: Chickens don't fly," Soux says.
The competition doesn't sit well with animal-rights activists and some townspeople.
A certain amount of friction can be expected with the town's growing pains. But that doesn't mean Guffey has lost its sense of community.
Not long ago, residents united to feed the baby swallows that fell out of a nest.
"We all saved our houseflies, put them in a blender and made fly soup to feed the baby swallows," Royse says. "We used to have puppy showers whenever someone's dog got pregnant."
But, perhaps sadly, that's changing too.
"I think we're getting sophisticated," Royse says.
by CNB