ABSTRACT
Pueblo is a suspect civil community in the eyes of the rest of the state, particularly in the eyes of northeastern Colorado where the bulk of the political power lies. During the first half of the World War II generation, from 1946 to 1961, Pueblo’s economic expansion and population increases seemed to confirm its reputation in northern Colorado as a suspect industrial city “on the move.” Since 1960 many of the socioeconomic differences between Pueblo and other Colorado cities have been narrowed by diversification and retrenchment in Pueblo’s economy and by industrialization and immigration patterns in northern Colorado cities. The 1954 reform of Pueblo’s framework of government, and the very language of debate over its adoption, represented a locally recognized turning point in the city’s political history. The period of wartime boom and postwar recovery supplies two seemingly contradictory images of Pueblo politics.
