Architects, historians, and preservationists frequently debate a concept they call "a sense of place." You'll find lengthy studies on the subject in the best scholarly journals, monographs, and dissertations. Professionals ponder the idea in an attempt to distill its components and formulate a recipe for perfect new and revitalized urban environments that recall all that we cherish from our childhood neighborhoods, public places, and marketplaces. Now, to the average Boulderite, this concept isn't hard to define. Ask her to define "a sense of place" and she might take you for a stroll along the Pearl Street Mall. And she might stop to sit down, chat, and look around on a bench bordering the Lions Club Fountain on a plaza just south of the county court house. This spot, slightly removed from the hubbub of shoppers, could well be the Pearl Street Mall's center of gravity.
In the classic travelogue, Blue Highways: A Journey into America, William Least Heat-Moon describes his 13,000-mile trek across the nation's back roads. He called those roads, printed blue in some atlases, the "blue highways." Eschewing the fast food restaurants, corporate motels, and mass-market retail stores found along the freeways, he piloted his Ford van along the "bent and narrow rural American two-lane."
The Pueblo Zoo’s historic Animal House, undergoing the final phase of its rehabilitation this year, sports four whimsical cement sculptures on its roof. One of them, a proud-looking lion, is engraved with the name “Jno C. Sutton” and the number “40.” On December 15, 2005, the Pueblo Chieftain ran a photo of artist Richard Montano—who found the engraving—posing with the lion. Murano speculated that Sutton crafted the lion and several other animal statues that decorate the zoo’s historic district. Zoo officials knew nothing more about the artist, but hoped that a newspaper reader would step forward with new information that would enhance their interpretation of the Animal House and its wild statuary.