Neighborhood in Limbo
Saving the history of Eilers Heights
In the midst of a Superfund designation and cleanup, the Pueblo neighborhood struggles to preserve its heritage.
By Lexi Kristan
It’s a warm Sunday afternoon in September, but the breeze is cool and crisp. Almost every tiny 50s-style brick house has a few people milling about in the perfectly manicured lawn or sitting on the porch. I squeeze down the narrow sidewalks and trot across Mesa from the picture perfect side of Eilers street to where it turns into a one way and the houses start to look less well-preserved.
Straight ahead of me I can see the old smokestacks from the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. Steel Mill. To my right, on the corner, is Eilers Bar, proudly serving “the coldest beer in town” since the end of prohibition in 1933. I continue down the street to the little “shotgun” house my grandmother and her mother grew up in. I turn around and can still see the steeple of the church, the heart of the Eilers Heights neighborhood.
Ask anybody who grew up in the neighborhood while the steel industry was still hot and they’ll tell you Eilers’ other identifier: Old Bojon Town. They’ll tell you about the accordion player who use to follow brides from their homes in the neighborhood to the front steps of the church or about all the steel workers who use to take their nightcaps in the basement after all the bars had closed.
The families that originally settled in the neighborhood that runs east of Interstate 25 and north of Northern Ave. were primarily Slovenian. The term ‘Bojon’ eventually was used to slur the steelworkers who came from Eastern Europe, but the people in Eilers have pride in their roots. Some still identify as Bojon.
I have just come from a lazy afternoon on Joe and Pam Kocman’s front porch. Although they have spent a lot of time in the spotlight lately when it comes to “Old Bojon Town,” Joe still agreed to sit down and talk with me about the history of the area. Within the first 10 minutes of meeting we discovered that we had several connections, beyond just my grandmother growing up down the street and my cousins practically being raised in his family-owned Eilers Bar.
“The smallness of Pueblo strikes again!” he joked.
He and Pam got involved in the National Historic Survey because they had wanted to add a garage on their property. That led them to former city planner Wade Broadhead, who approved an expansion of their house and the addition of a garage. He also encouraged the couple to involve the rest of the neighborhood in an attempt to document its preservation. Joe and Pam helped found the Eiler Heights Neighborhood Association, a nonprofit dedicated to that very purpose.
The side of Eilers where Joe and Pam live has several 1950s structures that are in near perfect condition.
Joe explained that the National Historic Survey was funded by a grant from History Colorado and originally only included an architectural survey, but neighborhood involvement grew to also include the stories of the neighborhood. Anyone can access the National Historic Survey at any Pueblo Library branch.
Around the time that the National Historic Survey was published the EPA was getting involved in the area, which once neighbored the old Colorado Smelter. While the stacks have disappeared from the Steel City’s skyline, the smelter’s presence lives on, as the EPA is in the process of identifying the most efficient way to decontaminate the now Superfund site from lead particles left by the smelter in yards and even some homes.
The cleanup in combination with concerns about remodeling and property insurance has forced the Eiler Heights Neighborhood Association to temporarily abandon their effort to get “Old Bojon Town” listed as a National Historic Site.
“I would love to see the neighborhood listed as a National Historic Site,” Broadhead said. “It’s my favorite neighborhood in the country. But as city planner it was just my goal to give the people there the tools to do whatever they wanted to with it.”
Most locations become National Historic Sites in an effort to encourage preservation, and the Eilers neighborhood has already been doing that.
But the Superfund site has changed the focus in the neighborhood from preserving the past to protecting the health of the residents. That emphasis shift has been anything but easy.
“It’s my favorite neighborhood in the country. But as city planner it was just my goal to give the people there the tools to do whatever they wanted to with it.” — Wade Broadhead, former Pueblo City Planner
Opinions in the neighborhood on contamination and how it may be impacting health vary.
My grandparents tell me they don’t believe that the contaminated soil has actually caused any problems. My grandmother grew up playing in the same dirt behind St. Mary’s School that Joe Kocman describes as “ground zero.”
Everyone my grandparents knew — “all the old Bojons” as my grandfather would say — all lived into their late 90s early 100s and experienced few health problems, or at least the ones associated with contamination from the smelter.
Broadhead pointed out that he too held a similar level of suspicion towards the Superfund site, but admits that since taking a job in Florence, Colorado, he hasn’t followed up with the issue.
“There was lead in paint and gasoline back then too” Broadhead said.
The former city planner referenced interviews that the Eilers Neighborhood Association conducted in the neighborhood in which most people had reported a family history without illnesses or deaths that could be associated with the contamination the EPA is concerned with.
The interviews are traceable through the city website with a simple “planning historic preservation sites” search.
Conversely, Mike Barnett, who says he is a proud Bojon, grew up in the neighborhood and believes that plenty of his family members, including himself, can trace their health problems back to the issues currently being handled by the EPA.
Barnett is also the author of a blog about the neighborhood — “Life in Bojon Town.”
He told me about the EPA’s three-day cleaning of his father’s property.
“When I saw the test results I cried for my mom and kids. My mom spent her entire 76 years in that neighborhood, and she was a walking example of odd medical conditions. She died of a blood infection. One that the doctors just couldn’t explain.”
There’s no certainty the smelter is to blame, and there’s no certainty the smelter isn’t to blame.
What separates the neighborhood is also what binds them. The history is evident in the architecture, in the stories that are passed down through generations and it’s in the yards that will be scooped out by the federal government.
Nobody doubts the Eilers is worthy of preservation, but how is proving to be a harder question to answer.
This article appeared in PULP’s 2016 October edition as part of the Neighborhood in Limbo package. Follow the link to read on about how the neighborhood is dealing with fears of decreasing home values.
