Cañon City, Colorado

Cañon City sits where the Arkansas River leaves the mountains and spills toward the plains, at about 5,350 feet, and it grew up as a supply point during the Pike's Peak gold rush — the townsite was laid out in the late 1850s and it became the seat of Fremont County soon after the county was created in 1861. The moment that fixed the town's identity came in the late 1860s, when Cañon City lost out to Denver in the fight to be Colorado's territorial capital (and to Boulder for the territorial university). As a consolation, the legislature awarded it the territorial prison instead. The Colorado Territorial Penitentiary — later nicknamed 'Old Max' — opened in 1871 as Colorado's first prison. It is still in operation today on the west edge of town, and a former cellhouse beside it now houses the public Museum of Colorado Prisons.

Just west of town, the Arkansas River has cut the Royal Gorge, a granite canyon roughly 1,250 feet deep and, in places, barely wide enough for a single set of railroad tracks. That narrowness set off one of the West's stranger conflicts. Starting in 1878 the Denver & Rio Grande and the Santa Fe railroads both raced to claim the gorge as the route to the booming silver camps at Leadville, and the fight escalated into armed crews, hired gunmen — the Santa Fe famously enlisted Dodge City lawman Bat Masterson — and stone forts still visible in the canyon. Courts and, finally, the 1880 'Treaty of Boston' settled it in the Denver & Rio Grande's favor. In 1929 the Royal Gorge Bridge was strung 955 feet above the river, and it held the title of world's highest bridge until 2001.

The land around Cañon City is unusually mild for Colorado, warm and dry with a long, sunny growing season, and that climate once made the region orchard country — Fremont County was a serious apple producer in the late 1800s. The heirloom 'Colorado Orange' apple, which originated on Jesse Frazer's farm near Florence around 1859, was popularized by big Cañon City orchards before it nearly vanished. Today the town leans on other engines. Fremont County calls itself 'Colorado's Correctional Capitol,' home to roughly ten state and federal prisons — including the federal Supermax, ADX Florence, south of town — with over 1,600 jobs tied directly to the Department of Corrections. Alongside the prisons, tourism carries the economy: the Royal Gorge Bridge & Park, whitewater rafting on the Arkansas, the historic railroad route, and a walkable historic Main Street.

These days Cañon City is a sunny, unpretentious river town that punches above its size for outdoor access. The Arkansas River runs right through the region, and in summer the rafting is some of the best in the country — everything from mellow family floats to the Class IV rapids in the gorge itself. In town you can walk a compact historic Main Street, tour the Museum of Colorado Prisons beside Old Max, or ride the scenic railroad through the canyon, and the Royal Gorge Bridge & Park is a short drive west. Because the valley catches so much sun and stays mild through the winter, locals hike, bike, and fish the riverside trails nearly year-round. It has the feel of a working small city — practical, friendly, and a genuine gateway to big country — rather than a polished resort town, and a lot of people love it for exactly that.