Prairie Cultural Revitalization

02/09/2026

Please join us for our monthly meeting Wednesday, February 11 at 6 pm at Health Essentials.

Send a message to learn more

12/29/2025

There is something for everyone to celebrate!! Pickle Ball, Corn Hole, Kids games, dancing! Come out and enjoy New Years Eve with your kids and friends!

Ring in the New Year with us again!!! Bring the whole family down for a fun filled night, with games, music and more! We can’t wait to see you all there!

12/07/2025

A Huge Thank You to Vince's GM Center for their generosity in supporting our community, especially the Prairie Cultural Revitalization Main Street Renovation project!! We appreciate you!

Another successful year of our ThanksGIVING Event is in the books! We are incredibly grateful to be part of such a wonderful community and to have the opportunity to give back to so many deserving organizations. 🙌 A huge thank you to all the individuals and businesses who purchased vehicles this month—your support truly drives this event. 🚗💙 We hope these donations make a meaningful impact on all the chosen organizations. Together, we can make a difference!

11/21/2025

These beautiful murals are a tribute to Burlington's origins, the Golden Rule Store was one of the first businesses in the Health Essentials building.

11/11/2025

Why would you move here?
Why would you start a business here?
Why would you renovate a building here?

I hear those questions all the time. They come from a place that isn’t about spreadsheets or traffic counts. It’s low civic self-esteem. And here’s the rub, you can’t fix self-esteem with a grant, a glossy plan, or a ribbon cutting. If the problem is emotional, a technical fix won’t land. We keep throwing tools at the wrong job and wondering why the bolt won’t turn.

Cities don’t behave like machines. They behave like people, because they are people. You don’t upgrade a person with software. You don’t pay someone to feel confident. Even the best plan won’t make someone proud of themselves. Pride is earned through work. You can buy a new wardrobe, but it will never feel like fitting into the old one because you put in miles all winter and quit eating like a raccoon.

Communities are the same. The hard part isn’t knowing what to do. The hard part is doing it, together, long enough for it to change how people feel about the place. That is why self-esteem is such a bear. No outside expert can “install” confidence. Locals have to build it, one unglamorous rep at a time.

Decline wrecks morale. Watch your best buildings sag, your prettiest streets fray, your great local businesses close, and tell me it doesn’t get in your head. When your house falls apart, you stop hosting dinner. You stop showing people around. You stop looking. That’s what happens in a town, too. People talk trash about their hometown to distance their identity from the shame they feel walking past peeling paint and broken sidewalks. It’s human. Don’t blame them for the instinct to step back from something they love that has let itself go.

Yes, a few of you see past the mess. You’re the preservation weirdos, the urbanist optimists, the building huggers. You can stare at chaos and sketch order in your mind. Most folks cannot. And they shouldn’t have to. Telling people to show up at council and “be more civic” is like telling someone to love the gym. They might show up once. They will not stay. You have to change the room first.

We also keep confusing symptoms with causes. Disinvestment kicked off the spiral, sure, but now low civic self-esteem is driving the bus. We imagine if we add jobs and entice investment the love will come back on its own. If decline was a ditch, you don’t drive out using the same habits that put you in it. Fix the self-esteem and the rest finally becomes manageable.

And please, look around at what we’ve been building. Another subdivision, another strip mall, another Dollar General, another road diet in reverse, more vinyl, more anywhere-USA. None of this helps anyone fall back in love with home. Hope is scarce because most people have never lived in a place that improved during their lifetime. More sprawl, more chain stores, more blandness. No wonder people detach.

The way out is the same way a person gets out of a funk. Start moving. Pull weeds. Pick up trash. Sweep. Plant flowers. Paint one door. Fix one sign. Scrub one storefront. Write one simple standard and enforce it fairly. Do it weekly, then daily. Trajectories change quietly at first and then all at once. The moment you maintain, you stop losing ground. The moment you improve, even by a hair, you give people evidence that tomorrow can be better than yesterday.

Progress is the best PR. You don’t need a billboard to tell people the place is improving when the place itself is doing the talking. Pride follows proof. The weirdos stop being lonely. The skeptics become curious. The loud critic becomes a quiet helper. And eventually people want to be associated with your town because it lifts their own self-image.

So take a hard look. Does your town like itself? Does it respect itself? Is it proud? Are your standards high and visible on every block, not just in a binder? If the answer is no, then you don’t have an infrastructure problem. You have a self-esteem problem. And there is only one cure. Relentless, local, visible self-improvement. Small wins stacked until they change the story. Keep stacking.

11/10/2025

I have been thinking a great deal about the concept of quality since I joined John Marsh on his Redemptifcation podcast recently. We were discussing some recent travels and John said something to the effect of “eating a meal outside in Italy is to have an immersive education in quality.” This idea now lives in my head.

I believe we all aspire to have more quality in our lives. I would even argue that the more things of quality we have in our life, the better off we are. When something is of quality, we tend to take care better care of it. It’s our relationship to the things we care for that defines much of our lives. I spend time tending to my work, my family, my home, and my physical and mental health. And while those various things remain in decent shape, I will remain happy and well. If any of those things start to decline or deteriorate, so would I.

It is when we do not have enough in our lives that requires our love, attention, and maintenance, that people become unwell. We need attachments, we need things to care for, and we are better off when we have people, places, and things to look after. If a person had nothing in their life to tend to, nothing of quality to be concerned about, I think it’s safe to say- they would be struggling and suffering.

Whether or not the concept of quality is subjective, I still can’t decide, but it appears the more we have in our lives that we perceive to be of quality, the happier we are. So thinking back to eating outside in Italy. Quality was on full display. It was in the food, in the wine, in the street, in the sidewalk, and in the buildings. Every inch of our setting oozed with quality, it’s what makes the meals so special, and it’s also very simple.

Quality comes down to three simple attributes. Real local ingredients, skill, and patience. The cheese on our plate was not rushed. It took an expert months to get it just right. The salami beside it could not be hurried or it would not have been as good. The wine in our glasses required someone with skill and time to nurture it into what it became. The cobbles that make up the street were quarried nearby and installed by someone with a great deal of expertise. The buildings that surrounded us were all constructed using local, durable materials, clearly by people with incredible skills that took their time getting it right.

When natural local ingredients are coupled with patience and skill the results are inevitable. Quality is the result. This is true for cooking and for designing our places. When we stick to these simple basics, it’s hard to go wrong. It’s rare that someone with skill, taking their time, and using local ingredients misses their mark.

We must remember this when we consider how we go about designing our communities. Fast food will never be good food because it is rushed. It makes people unwell. Hastily built places are no different. When we slap up cheap buildings and streets, we ensure it is of low quality and we can also be sure it will make those that inhabit it unwell.

There just isn’t a secret to this stuff. No shortcuts. The path to success is always the same and if we want to create places that are of quality and worthy of our habitation, we have to slow down, use real, local materials and trust in people who have honed their skills. We grow attached to the things in our life that are of high quality and we take care of those things. We tend to them, we are proud of them. It’s time we build our places once again with the concept of quality in mind. We want residents to grow attached, to feel passionate about preserving them, and most off, feel proud to call those places home.

11/08/2025

Ring in the New Year with us again!!! Bring the whole family down for a fun filled night, with games, music and more! We can’t wait to see you all there!

11/04/2025

Thank you Vince’s GM Center for your continued generosity to our community.

🍂Join us for our 3rd Annual Thanks-GIVING Event at Vince’s GM Center!
From November 1st to 30th, we’re celebrating the spirit of gratitude and generosity. For every vehicle purchased, Vince's will donate $100 to a local non-profit organization. This year, we're proud to support Prairie Cultural Revitalization, Kit Carson County Livestock Buyer's Club, and Prairie Family Center—but you can also choose an organization that's close to your heart to honor with your donation. November is a time for giving back, and we're thrilled to continue our tradition of community support. Let’s make a difference together!

08/30/2025

Crossroads of the Auto Trails

In the early 20th century, Kit Carson County served as the junction of several transcontinental auto trails. The Golden Belt, Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean, National White Way, and Victory Highways all overlapped in Eastern Colorado.

What began as wagon routes, evolved by the 1920s into busy motor trails. Each town met the demands of the road, offering gasoline stations, tire repair shops, cafés, hotels, and garages.

For countless motorists, these prairie towns became a welcome stop for weary travelers along the early American highway system.

08/30/2025

Before the days of numbered highways and green road signs, Colorado travelers followed painted trail markers.

In the 1910s and 1920s, routes like the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway, the Victory Highway, and the Golden Belt helped travelers to crisscross the state. These “signs” were often hand painted bands of color on telephone poles, barns, or rocks. On occasion, bold letters like PPOO or a simple “V” for Victory would appear along the route.

Faded paint, weather, and even a little small town mischief to lure motorists to their town made the journey an adventure! Travelers kept guidebooks that included directions of “turn left at the red barn by the windmill.” By the late 1920s, trail markers gave way to the numbered highway system.

Today, we speed by highway shields without a thought. Let your imagination roll down a dirt road a century ago, keeping your eyes peeled for a splash of paint on a fence post to guide the way.