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Friends and family of Marina Arciniega, left, celebrate her 12th birthday by jumping on a trampoline Thursday night at her home in the Silverthorne Cottonwood Court trailer park. Edith Valderrama, in pink, Marco Arciniega, in red, and Ricardo Casillas, wearing fake teeth, jump in the air before falling onto the trampoline with the rest of the group.
SUMMIT COUNTY - The 1990s were a good time to be a trailer park in Summit. The high water mark came in 1993, when 13 mobile home communities called the county home. With an average of 31 trailers per park and an estimate of four people living in each trailer, somewhere on the order of 1,600 locals were residing in a trailer in that benchmark year - about one-ninth of the year-round population at the time.
"Many, many people in Summit started out in trailer parks," said Lori Cutunilli of Farmer's Korner, the mobile home park her family has owned since 1977. Cutunilli herself lived there for most of the '90s. "I'll run into people who were (living at Farmer's Korner) before I was," she said. "It's been a launching point for a lot of people."
"A lot of friends I know have lived in trailer parks and have used them to move up in the housing situation," agreed County Commissioner Tom Long. Like Cutunilli, Long and his family lived in a trailer for a good portion of the '90s. "At that time," Long added, "everyone tried to use it as a springboard to other homes."
But even in 1993, the forces of change were gathering. Silverthorne, which contained eight of the county's 13 parks and carried the unenviable nickname of "Trailer-thorne," had recently passed an ordinance demanding elevated standards in its trailer parks, such as a playground for children, a paved roadway and a fence marking their perimeters. Five of the eight parks closed within the decade. One became Target. Another became Matteo's Pizzeria (now Ti Amo Restorante). By 2004, the number of trailer parks left in Silverthorne was just two, and with the demolition of Peak 8 Trailer Park last month, only six mobile home parks remain in the county today.
"Many, many people in Summit started out in trailer parks," said Lori Cutunilli of Farmer's Korner, the mobile home park her family has owned since 1977. Cutunilli herself lived there for most of the '90s. "I'll run into people who were (living at Farmer's Korner) before I was," she said. "It's been a launching point for a lot of people."
"A lot of friends I know have lived in trailer parks and have used them to move up in the housing situation," agreed County Commissioner Tom Long. Like Cutunilli, Long and his family lived in a trailer for a good portion of the '90s. "At that time," Long added, "everyone tried to use it as a springboard to other homes."
But even in 1993, the forces of change were gathering. Silverthorne, which contained eight of the county's 13 parks and carried the unenviable nickname of "Trailer-thorne," had recently passed an ordinance demanding elevated standards in its trailer parks, such as a playground for children, a paved roadway and a fence marking their perimeters. Five of the eight parks closed within the decade. One became Target. Another became Matteo's Pizzeria (now Ti Amo Restorante). By 2004, the number of trailer parks left in Silverthorne was just two, and with the demolition of Peak 8 Trailer Park last month, only six mobile home parks remain in the county today.
"It concerns me and it bothers me, the elimination of trailer parks in general," Long said. "As long as the owners are honorable and ethical, they serve a fine function."
The fact that they are disappearing in spite of that function is one indication that the culture of our county has neared the end of a half-century shift, Long said. Arapahoe Basin was the first ski resort in Summit. It was built in 1946 and was followed by Breckenridge Resort in 1960. But the ski industry didn't hit its boom until the 1980s, and for much of those intermittent years, the county was still characterized by the sort of people who had lived here since the mining era: transient laborers who arrived with the work and left when it was finished.
"'Mobile' has been the keyword in our world," said local author-historian Mary Ellen Gilliland. "It rests at the heart of the influx and outflow that we've always had."
It began, she said, in the days of the gold rush.
The fact that they are disappearing in spite of that function is one indication that the culture of our county has neared the end of a half-century shift, Long said. Arapahoe Basin was the first ski resort in Summit. It was built in 1946 and was followed by Breckenridge Resort in 1960. But the ski industry didn't hit its boom until the 1980s, and for much of those intermittent years, the county was still characterized by the sort of people who had lived here since the mining era: transient laborers who arrived with the work and left when it was finished.
"'Mobile' has been the keyword in our world," said local author-historian Mary Ellen Gilliland. "It rests at the heart of the influx and outflow that we've always had."
It began, she said, in the days of the gold rush.
"When (the town of) Chihuahua erupted into being because of silver strikes in 1878, there was a huge influx of workers who lived in tents until they could find more permanent housing," Gilliland offered as an example. Chihuahua stood in the Peru Creek Valley near Montezuma. "That was the equivalent of trailer parks today. Sometimes that cry of 'Eureka!' would go up and the promise didn't play out. So the tents would sprout, and people would stay a short while and then leave."
Often times even boarding houses, restaurants and corner stores took root in tents until their owners could afford a wooden structure, Gilliland said. Of course, in the case of Chihuahua, that was 30 years before Henry Ford introduced the Model T and 48 years before the invention of the "Trailer Coach," the first mobile home as we know it. Thus, the first modern mobile home parks came to Summit much later - in 1958 with the construction of the Dillon Dam.
One such mobile home park flourished at Farmer's Korner, a grassy field that the owner, Pat Farmer, had named after himself. Workers arrived with their trailers in tow, and Farmer cleared out spaces for them in his field and hooked them up to his well.
According to Long, who was born and raised in Summit, a second trailer park stood in the town of Old Dillon, several hundred feet beneath the surface of today's reservoir. And, as one might expect, far more trailer parks sprung up on the eventual dry side of the dam, in present-day Silverthorne.
Often times even boarding houses, restaurants and corner stores took root in tents until their owners could afford a wooden structure, Gilliland said. Of course, in the case of Chihuahua, that was 30 years before Henry Ford introduced the Model T and 48 years before the invention of the "Trailer Coach," the first mobile home as we know it. Thus, the first modern mobile home parks came to Summit much later - in 1958 with the construction of the Dillon Dam.
One such mobile home park flourished at Farmer's Korner, a grassy field that the owner, Pat Farmer, had named after himself. Workers arrived with their trailers in tow, and Farmer cleared out spaces for them in his field and hooked them up to his well.
According to Long, who was born and raised in Summit, a second trailer park stood in the town of Old Dillon, several hundred feet beneath the surface of today's reservoir. And, as one might expect, far more trailer parks sprung up on the eventual dry side of the dam, in present-day Silverthorne.
"We were flooded with long-term, temporary workers, and they needed a place to live," Gilliland said. "The economy was in great decline and there was no new construction going on. So trailer parks sprung up in what became Silverthorne ... (because) the workers could locate fairly close to the worksite. The town really started as a trailer park community."
The announcement in 1973 that Interstate 70 would pass through a new tunnel, the Eisenhower Tunnel, helped sustain the vibrancy of the communities. It even expanded it. But by 1980, large-scale, long-term construction projects had petered out, and with the ski resorts starting to thrive, old-time laborers found themselves replaced by a new breed: a population looking not merely for work, but also for fun and luxury in the mountains.
"Our culture has changed," Long said. "Now you have people who are here for the amenities that have been produced. We don't have the 500 or 600 men and women it took to drive the Eisenhower Tunnel bore anymore. We don't have the thousands that it took to build the interstate ... If you worked construction you had to be fairly mobile. It became a situation where you were looking for that sort of housing ... But now the population has changed."
And with it, perhaps the future of trailer parks in the county has, too. When the last of the trailers was demolished at Peak 8 Trailer Park in late July, only six mobile home parks were still standing in the county. More ominous yet, all of the county and town planners questioned for this series said it had been a long, long time since they had heard a proposal for a new trailer park, rather than for an old one's demolition.
"They'll (soon) be gone," Gilliland speculated. "They were a temporary phenomenon that started with the dam and the tunnel and held on surprisingly long."
The announcement in 1973 that Interstate 70 would pass through a new tunnel, the Eisenhower Tunnel, helped sustain the vibrancy of the communities. It even expanded it. But by 1980, large-scale, long-term construction projects had petered out, and with the ski resorts starting to thrive, old-time laborers found themselves replaced by a new breed: a population looking not merely for work, but also for fun and luxury in the mountains.
"Our culture has changed," Long said. "Now you have people who are here for the amenities that have been produced. We don't have the 500 or 600 men and women it took to drive the Eisenhower Tunnel bore anymore. We don't have the thousands that it took to build the interstate ... If you worked construction you had to be fairly mobile. It became a situation where you were looking for that sort of housing ... But now the population has changed."
And with it, perhaps the future of trailer parks in the county has, too. When the last of the trailers was demolished at Peak 8 Trailer Park in late July, only six mobile home parks were still standing in the county. More ominous yet, all of the county and town planners questioned for this series said it had been a long, long time since they had heard a proposal for a new trailer park, rather than for an old one's demolition.
"They'll (soon) be gone," Gilliland speculated. "They were a temporary phenomenon that started with the dam and the tunnel and held on surprisingly long."
