Buena Vista

History

The Arkansas River Valley and the area of what would become Buena Vista was first settled in 1864 by settlers drawn to the area by the plentiful water which made the land suitable for agriculture. The Buena Vista, Colorado, post office opened on September 18, 1879. In 1888, Chaffee County voters moved the county seat from Granite to Buena Vista. Voters subsequently moved the county seat to Salida, which then had a larger population, in 1928. Buena Vista incorporated in 1879 and grew as a railroad town serving the local silver, gold, and lead mining industry, with three rail lines including Denver & Rio Grande, South Park & Pacific, and Colorado Midland railroads. Many of the existing buildings of Buena Vista date back to this era, and were built in the 1880s and 1890s. By 1894, Buena Vista had electricity, telephone service, street lights, parks, cemeteries, and schools. Travelers, speculators, and miners traveling up the Arkansas Valley towards Leadville made Buena Vista a popular stagecoach stop, and railroad depot following the 1890s. While certainly experiencing economic ups and downs, the valley's agricultural economy has made the area more resistant to the 'boom, bust' cycle of mining towns.

Geography

Buena Vista is located in the Upper Arkansas River Valley. The town lies at the base of the 14,000+ peaks of the Collegiate Peaks, Mt. Princeton, Mt. Yale, Mt. Columbia, and Mt. Harvard, of the Sawatch Range. At the 2020 United States census, the town had a total area of , all of it land. }}

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  1,628
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,610
• Broad-tailed Hummingbird

  Selasphorus platycercus (Swainson, 1827) · Aves
  1,414
• Mountain Chickadee

  Poecile gambeli (Ridgway, 1886) · Aves
  1,302
• Black-billed Magpie

  Pica hudsonia (Sabine, 1823) · Aves
  1,130
• Northern Flicker

  Colaptes auratus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,099
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,078
• Clark's Nutcracker

  Nucifraga columbiana (A.Wilson, 1811) · Aves
  1,052

Largest nearby schools

• Avery/Parsons Elementary School
  Elementary · BUENA VISTA · 435 students · 16.1:1 ratio
• Buena Vista High School
  High · BUENA VISTA · 274 students · 12.5:1 ratio
• Buena Vista Middle School
  Middle · BUENA VISTA · 222 students · 12.3:1 ratio
• The Grove BVSD's Early Learning Program
  Other · BUENA VISTA · 82 students · 82:1 ratio
• Chaffee County High School
  High · BUENA VISTA · 19 students · 19:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 2.5 — 2021-06-26
  19 km WNW of Cañon City, Colorado
• M 2.8 — 2021-04-11
  9 km E of Woody Creek, Colorado
• M 3.6 — 2017-11-30
  4 km NNW of Coaldale, Colorado
• M 2.8 — 2015-04-12
  5 km NE of Aspen, Colorado
• M 2.6 — 2013-09-24
  6 km NNE of Cotopaxi, Colorado
• M 2.5 — 2008-09-12
  11 km ESE of Cotopaxi, Colorado