The area originally was settled by the Ute tribe and many of the mountains are still named after them. The first European settlers in the area were miners, explorers, railroad people, ranchers and farmers. Chaffee County was named for Jerome Chaffee, a local financier and United States Senator. In 1880 the seat of Chaffee County was moved from Granite to Buena Vista. Granite didn't want to release the records so a group of Buena Vistas broke into the courthouse in the middle of the night and transported all the documents to their new home. The next morning, County officials had no choice but to show up at work in Buena Vista.
The first church meeting was held in 1880, the same year that the Buena Vista Bucket Brigade was launched and the first copy of The Chaffee County Times came off the presses. The newspaper is still publishing today. The first bank opened a year later. In 1889, the Correctional Facility was opened providing a unique boost to the economy of the town by being a source of free labor to build the public buildings and parks. Five years later, Buena Vista had telephone service, electricity, and arc street lights. A dam was built to expand the natural lake to form a town lake.
By 1928, Salida became larger than Buena Vista, so the courthouse building was turned into a school which was later abandoned in 1968.
Buena Vista is Spanish for "Beautiful View," however, the town's name is usually pronounced as "Byoona Vista." A pronunciation which was established by Alsina Dearheimer, who chose this name for the town at the time of its incorporation in 1879. Byoona Vista was chosen over the competing names of Cottonwood, and Mahonville. These days most locals call it "Byoonie," or simply as "BV". In 2005 Outside Magazine named Buena Vista one of The Best Towns in the U.S. as well as a New American Dream Town. The area is currently experiencing a real estate boom driven by reasonable real estate prices and a very critical factor: Climate.
The great local climate which approaches the sunshine levels and low humidity of Tucson, Arizona, is largely responsible for the influx of retirees and outdoors enthusiasts into the Salida and Buena Vista area. Located in the heart of Colorado's Banana Belt, the area is often much warmer than nearby areas with higher elevation or not protected by mountain rain shadows.
Fishing with Arkansas Valley Adventure
