Years ago, as a freshman in college, I had a short-lived crush on a drummer in our school’s renowned jazz band. During that moment, I became a big fan of jazz bands and learned of the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) in Greeley, Colorado. Why? My school was a thousand miles away from UNC, but, as it turns out, they had a renowned jazz band too. So, Greeley has been on my radar for a long time.
When I moved thirty minutes east of downtown Greeley, to Loveland, Colorado, I became a supporter of this sometimes lampooned community. Fast forward to today, and many of you either still 1) haven’t visited Greeley, 2) know Greeley as that town in “South Park,” or 3) haven’t visited Greeley for years.
I’m here to tell you, it is time to go.
Last week’s IN THE GAME, a four-day conference by Downtown Colorado, Inc. (DCI), was held in downtown Greeley, Colorado. You may remember that last year, it was in Durango.
REDowntown Durango, Colorado: The New, The Old, The Historic
DCI is in the downtown business and represents the doers in Colorado. I joined shortly after establishing HeidiTown Consulting. It’s the only organization in Colorado representing small, medium, and large downtowns and commercial centers, focusing on building better communities.
The conference was held at DoubleTree by Hilton – Greeley and at various businesses and organizations in downtown. I spoke on the first day, and then had the opportunity to be a conference attendee, soaking up the thoughtful information presented and basking in the glory of downtown Greeley’s offerings.
While I think I know Greeley pretty darn well, having gone to Friday Fest over the years, and delighting in their taco scene regularly, I discovered two places I had not visited before, and both were amazing. I had visited the third place several times, and was again stunned by the caliber of “amazing stuff” hidden away in Greeley’s downtown.
LINC Library
First, I got to tour LINC Library Innovation Center, a thirty-some million dollar state-of-the-art facility in the old Greeley Tribune building at 501 8th Avenue. LINC is part of the High Plains Library District with eight branch libraries, bookmobile services, and eight autonomous member libraries.
As I walked in, I got that kid-like excitement that I would get during childhood every time I crossed the threshold of our hometown library. I spent a lot of my childhood there among the books and the Dewey Decimal System.
However, this was NOT the library of my youth. In fact, the first place we stopped on my tour was the recording studio and the podcast studio. My library did have a television room, but we didn’t make videos, instead, we watched videos on DVD.
Anyone with a library card can utilize this powerful equipment at LINC. Yes, there’s a learning curve, but a guide is there to help with the equipment. People come from all over Colorado to use both studios, and they’ve had teams come from as far as New York to use the recording studio (because studio time is so expensive in New York and they had a friend in Greeley).
I gaped in awe as we toured the rest of LINC, including a woodworking shop, loom shop, art studio, and much more. The children’s library and adjacent reading room, behind a hobbit door, are the things my dreams were made of at age eight.
Only three libraries in the world have a ceiling like this, and they are in New York City, Tokyo and Greeley.
You need to go to this 62,000 square foot facility to understand the innovation happening here. By the way, Dan England, former reporter for the Greeley Tribune, wrote this insightful piece about LINC Library when it opened in May 2023.
Distortions Unlimited
I’ll admit to being a bit timid whilst climbing the stairs to enter the nondescript warehouse that houses Distortions Unlimited. Our carload of tour goers had been confused by Google Maps taking us down an unpaved road next to the train tracks, a little southeast of downtown Greeley.
Despite not being a fan of Halloween, haunted houses, or horror movies, and a professed scaredy-cat, I have somehow accumulated a lot of friends who love this stuff. I knew it would impress them that I had visited Distortions Unlimited. After all, it’s famous!
For most of my life (45 years), they’ve made monsters of all shapes and sizes (and animatronics) in Greeley, Colorado. People who love this sort of thing are aware of their existence. I got wind of Distortions Unlimited when Greeley started celebrating Monster Day in 2017.
Since then, I knew I needed to take a tour of this celebrated business, but I was afraid. Fast forward to last week and a tour was an option on the IN THE GAME schedule, so I hesitantly signed up. And I am glad that I did.
Ed and Marsha Edmunds, the founders of Distortions Unlimited, are as interesting as their creations, and celebrities in the world of the dark amusement industry. It takes a creative (and maybe slightly twisted) mind to come up with the creatures I saw as I tiptoed around the warehouse.
We passed a guy spray painting rows of goblins and a monster trying to escape his chains. Then, we crept down into the dusty basement where molds are taken and cast are made, went into the sculpting room and up the backstairs into the shipping area, all the while stepping lightly by casts of heads on poles and dangling hands, long-fingered, gnarled knuckles, sharp nailed, just waiting to be paired with bodies.
While I am a wimp and am very glad they kept the lights on for our tour, I’ve watched every episode of Face/Off, which ran for 13 seasons. Distortions Unlimited would be the type of business the show’s contestants were striving to work for one day. If you’re a dabbler in the monster arts and love the world of creepy, frightening, and sometimes terrifying, a tour of Distortion Unlimited should be on your Colorado bucket list.
Colorado Model Railroad Museum
I had been to the Colorado Model Railroad Museum before, in fact, several times. I’ve always thought it is fascinating that one of the world’s most famous model railroad museums is in Northern Colorado. Since 2008, people have been flying to Colorado from all over the world just to visit this museum. It is indeed one of a kind, and if you’re a “train person,” this is old news because a bona fide train enthusiast will know of this place.
For the rest of you, it’s a peek into a hidden world of a subculture of true train fanatics.
The nitty gritty is that the Colorado Model Railroad Museum is a miniature railroad that required five years and 280,00 volunteer hours to construct. With 80 scale miles of track and thousands of handmade artifacts (everything from trees to a burning building), I guarantee this is unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
In addition to the Oregon, California, and Eastern Railway that can be seen choochooing around this HO scale model, thousands of train artifacts reside at this museum, like the Lionel Trains collection, a 1919 caboose, a Christmas Village collection, and more.
Truly a museum for every last family member, the Colorado Model Railroad Museum, along the train tracks in Greeley, is truly one-of-a-kind.
Haven’t been to Greeley yet (or for a long time)? I just gave you three reasons to go.
