One High Light

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 27, 1999 | by Stephen Goode

Change eventually must come to all, it seems, and even to Ouray County, high, high up in the Rockies in Colorado. Work has begun on the installation of a traffic light -- this very rural county's very first -- at the intersection of U.S. 550 and Colorado Route 62 in the tiny hamlet of Ridgway.

Ouray County is home to only 3,600 souls, some of whom view the advent of the first traffic light as a sign that things have gone to the dogs. "Some people are excited and some people are saying as soon as the light goes in, they're out of here," Ouray Town Manager Don Batchelder told the Associated Press. For those who hate the light, it was turning the county into a place just like any other that rankled most.

Batchelder said that no special ceremonies are planned to celebrate the event, but "some of us might get together and hold some sort of a wake for the passing of old times."

The new light is expected to be working by October.