Westcliffe, CO

Westcliffe is Custer County's seat in the Wet Mountain Valley, set between the Wet Mountains and the Sangre de Cristo Range with Silver Cliff immediately to the east. The town began as a Denver and Rio Grande railroad terminus in 1881, first carrying passengers and county freight into the valley. It was originally called Clifton before taking the Westcliffe name, and the rail connection helped it grow after nearby Silver Cliff's mining boom lost steam. Today the town sits at roughly 7,888 feet, with Main Street, county offices, and the valley roads organizing daily trips.

ATTRAndreas F. Borchert / CC BY-SA 4.0

Being the county seat gives Westcliffe a civic role that extends across a sparsely settled mountain county. The town board, courthouse services, school, and local businesses all sit in the same high-valley setting, while State Highway 69 and Highway 96 carry traffic toward Silver Cliff, Wetmore, and the plains. The old railroad is gone, but its imprint remains in the town's layout and in the reason Westcliffe became the valley's trading and county center. The backdrop is huge; the useful details are small-town ones—county appointments, school runs, ranch supplies, and a Main Street stop after the mountain roads.