DEER TRAIL — There is sadness about the eventual destruction of this community’s school, parts of which were built 100 years ago. Many people in this town of 570, long past their teen years, still attend the annual homecoming dance in the school’s gym and reminisce about old flames and football championships.

But there is also excitement on these streets 60 miles southeast of Denver. New homes are popping up just off Interstate 70 and a state-of-the-art preK-12 school is on the horizon, to be built in part from money collected from legal pot buys.

Plenty of people have personal objections to marijuana use, but state and local school officials say no one is protesting that rundown schools are getting millions in revenue from excise taxes on retail marijuana sales for renovations and wholesale replacement.

That’s the case in Deer Trail, where swimmers are banned from using the 50-year-old pool, students in wheelchairs must be hoisted up ill-equipped stairs and into narrow bathrooms, and the coach’s locker room is closed due to a sewage leak.

“It’s just a nightmare to keep things going around here,” school principal Dave Casey said.

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