Westcliffe, Colorado
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Westcliffe is a statutory town that is the
county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
of Custer County,
Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
, United States. At the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 435.


History

File:D&RGW Train Depot In Westcliffe, Colorado.jpg, The restored D&RGW depot in August 2022 Image:Westcliffe CO Main Street 2006 09 01.jpg, Shopping lane in downtown Westcliffe Westcliffe had its start in 1881 when the
Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad , often shortened to ''Rio Grande'', D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow-gauge line running south fr ...
was extended to that point.


Geography

Westcliffe is located west of the geographic center of Custer County in the Wet Mountain Valley, between the Wet Mountains to the east and the Sangre de Cristo Range to the west. The town of Silver Cliff is immediately to the east of Westcliffe. According to the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the town has a total area of , all of it land.


Climate


Dark skies

Westcliffe, and neighboring Silver Cliff, Colorado, are recognized as IDA International Dark Sky Communities by The
International Dark-Sky Association DarkSky International, formerly the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), is a United States–based nonprofit organization incorporated in 1988 by founders David Crawford, a professional astronomer, and Tim Hunter, a physician and amateu ...
. Gentle persuasion has resulted in residents and business in the towns and surrounding ranch land reducing the amount of
light pollution Light pollution is the presence of any unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial Visible spectrum, lighting. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting sources, during the ...
. Locals have set up a free observatory in an old period building with a "roll-off" roof to open up the 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with computer-guided pointing and tracking to the skies overhead. Named the Smokey Jack Observatory, it was built in 2015.Smokey Jack Observatory, Dark skies of the Wet Mountain Valley
www.darkskiescolorado.org, accessed July 21, 2019.


Demographics


Notable people

* Gordon Clark (1902–1985), philosopher and theologian, buried near Westcliffe * Anne Kimbell (1932–2017), actress and founder of the Westcliffe Center for the Performing Arts * Adolph Treidler (1886–1981), artist, born in Westcliffe


See also

*
Custer County, Colorado Custer County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,704. The county seat is Westcliffe. History Custer County was created by the Colorado legislature on March 9, 1877, out of the so ...


References


External links


Town of Westcliffe official website
{{authority control Towns in Custer County, Colorado Towns in Colorado County seats in Colorado