Westward ho for Amish

Custer County Commissioner Jim Austin knew life was changing in his little corner of rural Colorado when they had to put up buggy crossing signs on Highway 69. "This is a farming and ranching community. We're used to our slow-moving vehicles. But a buggy?" the 68-year-old with a flowing white ponytail and turquoise earring asked. "Now that was something different." The unlikely arrival of the Amish to this former frontier town, population 560, was a gradual thing. First, there was the occasional horse-drawn wagon Austin would pass as he drove his school bus route. Then there was the growing number of men in long beards and women in crisp, white prayer caps who came to town for supplies. Before long, the supermarket installed a hitching post. It all started in the spring of 2002 when Enos Yoder, an Amish hay farmer and horse trainer from Iowa, first laid eyes on the green valley at the foot of the spectacular Sangre de Cristo Mountains three hours south of Denver. Yoder had come to deliver horses to a rancher and couldn't get the isolated, unspoiled beauty out of his head. His Amish community in Bloomfield, Iowa, had begun to feel too cramped for his tastes. The West, with its lure of cheaper land and open spaces, was calling. The Amish population in Colorado went from zero in 2002 to more than 400 in 2008, the last time anyone counted. More arrive each month. "I'm kind of partial to them because they are stewards of the land, which is consistent with my own heritage," said Austin, who is Native American. Coexistence is just a shrug in these parts. "They play by the rules, and they pay their taxes. They are hard-working, polite, quiet people who are excellent neighbors. What's not to like?"...more