♪♪ Edgar: The high desert plains of southern Colorado evoke an archetypal vision of the American West.

And in the shadows of the Rockies, where the Arkansas River meets Fountain Creek, is a place that has been defined by its water.

This is Pueblo.

In Spanish, "the people" or "the village."

Once a western boomtown thriving off a steel mill, the city of Pueblo endured a flood of biblical proportions and later fell hard into the same post-industrial decline that caused cities and towns to collapse into ruin all across America.

But this decline was not the end of Pueblo's story.

It's become a town that uniquely blends traditions from Mexico, Eastern Europe, and Italy, together with a distinct shade of Americana.

And we've arrived in town just as a new chapter is being painted across its walls.

♪♪ ♪♪ Man: Ladies and gentlemen, once again -- "Music Voyager!"

Edgar: You may think you've heard everything, but the world is full of surprises.

And when you're hanging out with musicians, nothing is off limits.

Is this what you guys do every weekend?

-Every night.

-Every night!

-Yeah.

-My name is Jacob Edgar.

Music is my life, and life is short.

So crank up the volume and let the voyage begin.

[ Man singing in foreign language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Before we got here, none of us had heard much about Pueblo, Colorado.

So our questions about this place are simple.

What is going on in Pueblo now and why should we care?

Meet Inaiah.

Pueblo a very good city to be a musician in.

He's a singer, comedian, and Pueblo native who draws deeply from the creative well of this town.

When I'm, like, listening to some of the music we do, it's hard not to be reminded of our surroundings here in Pueblo, just kind of the industrious landscape and trains.

These are common themes in our music.

Inaiah promises to show us his Pueblo.

So we grab a cup of coffee and link up with his band, The Haunted Windchimes, which includes his longtime girlfriend, Desi.

Desi and I started the band when we started dating in 2006.

We actually met on Myspace.

No way.

Yeah.

It was a more romantic story.

People actually met on Myspace that weren't, like, predators.

Yeah, vintage social networking.

I don't know.

It's hard not to fall in love with the city when you're just falling in love when you go there.

Yeah, that's true.

[ All "Aww" ] The sort of blue-collar hard work ethic that Pueblo knew from the steel mills, I feel like that same sort of mentality is being adopted by the artists.

Edgar: An example of this kind of creative industriousness is the very coffee shop at which we're sitting.

When two redheaded brothers wheel out this massive, newfangled mirror machine, we stop to investigate.

Lujan: Yeah, This is the first time I've actually gotten to see the machine.

Oh, really?

I've only heard myths and legends about it previously.

We always get the comment that it looks like a solar death ray.

Edgar: David and Michael Hartkop are the founders and owners of Pueblo's own Solar Roast Coffee Shop.

This is the only commercial solar powered coffee roaster in the nation, in the world.

There's other people that have futzed around with different things, but this is it.

Edgar: Originally from Oregon, these two brothers have been in Pueblo for over a decade, roasting coffee using only the sun.

David: We found this on a Google search.

Pueblo came up and it was the best city that wasn't in a desert that had two rivers in a lake.

Really?

So you've actually done your research?

Oh, yeah.

Pueblo is definitely the place.

Edgar: The Hartkop brothers make good use of the 300 days of sunshine here in Pueblo.

I put a piece of wood right here.

If you let that go, it will start on fire.

Wow.

The temperatures it reaches are about 1,200 in the very front.

We run air through there to kind of circulate it, and the temperature is right around 450 when we're roasting coffee.

That's amazing.

So this creates more energy than you actually need to roast the coffee.

You have to keep some of it away.

On a sunny day.

That's amazing.

Plus, it tastes better.

Edgar: Our next stop is just a walk down Main Street.

I'm taking you to Lastleaf Printing, which is our good buddy, Mo Valdez, who's one of our favorite artists.

I don't like to be called an artist.

I think it sounds pretentious.

You know, I think anybody's an artist.

Edgar: Mo's created cover art for The Haunted Windchimes' latest album, but he's also done work for Bruce Springsteen.

I don't think bands put any less effort into their album art, but we just don't see it anymore.

It's this little tiny square that we don't pay attention to.

So I feel the importance of rock poster art is to really, you know, it kind of brings art back into rock and roll.

It's something that you can see and visualize that aesthetically represents what your band is.

Mo starts by drawing out a design and then breaking it down into layers or screens, one screen for each color used in the final poster.

For somebody like me that does this for a living, I think part of the culture that comes from Pueblo is what we're making out of it now.

It's not where we were 50 or 100 years ago, it's where we're going in the future.

Artists like Inaiah and Mo Valdez are an important part of Pueblo's creative community, and the city itself is working to enhance and support the arts.

Right in the middle of town is an enormous fountain, welcoming visitors to the city's historic district and keeping local kids cool on even the hottest, sunniest days.

Inaiah and The Haunted Windchimes take us to meet Tom and Jean Latka, the creators of this fountain, who live in a neighborhood called The Blocks, which overlooks downtown.

What's going on here?

What happens at Latka Studios?

We used to sell a lot of our pottery here.

We started out as potters originally.

And have just expanded more into the public art world, which we can still do here.

Tom and Jean's latest work involves melting colored glass in an electric kiln.

So it's like making a pizza?

In many ways, yes.

Right.

Right.

And then you see -- You don't even really know how it's going to...

Right.

Come out, until then when it's fired.

You know, the interesting thing about glass is that it has to be backlit.

Oh, beautiful.

You know what I mean?

Wow.

The colors just get so beautiful.

One of the best parts of the Latka Studio is the view of the river.

And I like how they have artwork painted all along.

Well, that's the longest mural in the world.

Really?

That's 60 feet from the bottom to the top.

Okay.

And I think the whole mural is like three and a half, four miles long.

So they would do this in the middle of the night.

And then, one day, the police were waiting for them.

So they chased the artists on the levee.

And later on that day, Gus Sandstrom was the district attorney, and he kind of grabbed them by the collar, and he says, "What are you doing?!"

Let them do it.

Yes!

Let -- This is the best thing they could be doing.

So they -- And then, at that point, then it became sanctioned.

The murals lining the Arkansas River in Pueblo are like an artistic backbone, running right through the center of town, boldly symbolizing the community's efforts to bring color to the city's industrial canvas.

It also serves as the backdrop for a gathering to mark our first day exploring Pueblo.

♪♪ ♪ With my boots and my old suitcase, and I am gone ♪ ♪ You came here with me down by the sea ♪ ♪ Better get moving, as a matter of fact ♪ ♪ 'Cause tonight I'll be riding those railroad tracks ♪ ♪ Come on, take a little trip, take a little trip ♪ ♪ Take a little trip with me ♪ ♪ Take a little trip, take a little trip, honey ♪ ♪ Take a little trip with me ♪ ♪ Looks like the fool's on the ride ♪ ♪ Colors of storms in your eyes ♪ ♪ We're on the run and we know why ♪ ♪♪ ♪ One million signs, one million lives I've lived, girl ♪ ♪ One million times we've sung a million lines ♪ ♪ A lonesome song for every railroad track ♪ ♪ And every country road and every devil's backbone ♪ ♪ Take a little trip, take a little trip ♪ ♪ Take a little trip with me ♪ ♪ Take a little trip, take a little trip, honey ♪ ♪ Take a little trip with me ♪ [ Scatting ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Whoa!

♪♪ [ Scatting ] ♪♪ ♪ Ah, whoa, yo ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] Edgar: Pueblos murals aren't just found along the river, and many of the freshest are being created by a group of young artists who've emerged from the shadows of the clandestine graffiti art scene and are slowly working to gain respect and appreciation for their craft.

This is The Creatures Crew.

Man: You give us the wall, we give you the art.

Is the way we look at it, It's not all about graffiti here.

It's about art in general.

And we want people to have a canvas to do their their large-scale murals.

Edgar: The Creatures Crew takes us down their favorite back alleys to show off not only their own work, but pieces created by some of their idols in the world of street art who came through town specifically to paint.

This is done by a legendary graffiti artist DROW.

To have him here is an honor because it's kind of like him passing the torch to the next generation.

Have any of you ever gotten in trouble for graffiti?

[ Chuckles ] When we started, we weren't even allowed to have spray paint in our possession.

They'd chase us, and sometimes we'd get away.

Mostly we'd get away.

And then, sometimes we'd get caught.

And now it's like, that's what the city embraces and looks at.

And they're like, "Oh, that's like our identity in a lot of ways," because it's been going on since the '70s.

Edgar: Members of The Creatures Crew have taken their painting to the heart of Pueblo and are currently working on a series of walls in an area called the Creative Corridor.

Gallery owner Gregory Howell explains what's going on.

What is the Creative Corridor?

The Creative Corridor is actually a designated area in Pueblo, which includes the Mesa Junction area.

It includes the Union District and downtown, where we are right now.

So it's actually a designated area, which then allows the city to partner with the state and also with other local entities to actually foster and create more that's happening in the Creative Corridor.

Wow, so this is really an official movement.

It is.

One thing you can't avoid these days in Colorado is the issue of marijuana.

It's now legal statewide.

Are we all stoned in this building right now?

Edgar: It's exactly the kind of topic being discussed down the street at Downtown Bar.

Dab is concentrated marijuana.

It takes you to the moon, right?

It's awesome.

The problem is, when I take a dab, I fear that I'm going to be the first dude that died of weed.

Edgar: Wade is actually a bit green when it comes to this newfangled Rocky Mountain high.

We join him for his weekly podcast to discuss the legalization of marijuana and other burning issues.

There aren't like people just dead in the streets.

There aren't people jumping off of the buildings.

The community keeps accepting.

We have our hurdles, we have our struggles, but that's a part of a new process.

We just enjoy each other as a community and love it, man.

It really is.

We welcome you all to come along, too.

We accept Wade's invite and go with him to check out some of Pueblo's classic old bars, like Smitty's Greenlight Tavern.

I think if you get it right off the knee.

Yeah!

There it is.

Next door is a brewpub called the Shamrock that brews its own house special.

Our Spanish Fly here at the Shamrock is a little chili-infused microbrew.

Spanish Fly, little chili beer.

To you, sir.

Oh, wow.

That's interesting.

It's like kind of like a martini or something.

You like that?

Yeah.

A little spice.

How do you do this?

We'll age it on chilies, roasted Pueblo chilies, and add our cherries.

The Spanish Fly is an original beer.

And, to Wade, it's just another reflection of the overall creative spirit of his hometown.

A human being's natural reaction to hardship is to create.

And in Pueblo, we are creating.

You pick up a spray can, you pick up a guitar, you pick up a microphone, you're going to create.

Our bartenders here are creating.

And that's what we do out of this hardship.

And that's how Pueblo is going to go forward into the future.

I'm going to pick up a beer glass.

It's my form of creation, right?

I love spicy food.

I can't get enough of it.

And Pueblo has its own special kind of chili pepper, Pueblo chilies.

They even have an entire chili festival every year in September to celebrate it.

We head out to DiTomaso Farm to see how these chilies are born into this world and what makes them such a big part of the food scene here.

It's not as hot as a jalapeño, but it's not like eating an Anaheim that tastes like a bell pepper.

Right, right, right.

Medium flavor is what we call them.

This is Gary, and his family's been growing peppers on this land for 100 years.

He tells us that the specific climate here is why the peppers are so special.

It's cool at night and hot and sunny during the day.

What's the thing you hate to grow the most?

What's the most difficult thing to grow?

Chili.

Oh, really?

This chili is probably the hardest thing to grow because it's got to be hoed four or five times, and we'll hoe it five more times before we get to pick it.

You just got to go through, clean out the weeds constantly.

With hoes.

One row at a time.

Yeah.

Bent over short hoes.

Oh, man.

Gary insists I give chili hoeing a try.

[ Speaks Spanish ] Edgar: Yeah, but I got bad news for you.

I'm not cheap.

DiTomaso: Neither is he.

I think I'm going to kill your chili.

Victor, Gary's lead farmhand, gets me thinking about all the delicious things you can make with chilies.

Chile relleno.

Chile relleno.

Chili con carne.

Chili with meat.

Chili con queso.

Chili with cheese.

DiTomaso: There's so many things people cook with it, I don't know how you'd ever know them all.

To taste some of the many things you can make with Pueblo chilies, We stop at Milberger's Farm Store.

From jellies to breads to salsas to some of our own deli food.

From things you might expect... Salsa de chili verde.

...to sweets you'd never expect... Chile pizzelles.

Made with chili, Pueblo chili.

...to staples you could eat with every meal.

Asiago cheese and Pueblo chili.

But the house special at Milberger's Deli turns out to be my favorite.

One of our best sellers is our White Trash Sandwich, which she's getting ready to put on right now.

White Trash.

That sounds like it's right up my alley.

What's a White Trash Sandwich?

It's a fried bologna sandwich with fried pueblo chilies, served on a toasted bun with potato chips.

That's evil.

All right, I'm going to give this a test.

Mm!

Oh, it's hot.

That's delicious.

In Pueblo, you can't go wrong by putting Pueblo chili on anything.

It just makes it work.

You could eat it on cardboard, and it would make it taste good.

It would make cardboard taste good.

If deli food can be this good with these chilies, what could a person who is trained at the esteemed American Culinary Institute make with them?

Chocolate chili ice cream.

Chocolate chili ice cream.

Mm-hmm.

Mary, the owner of Hopscotch Bakery, is a Pueblo native who came back home after getting her training in New York.

All right.

So you're actually making some chocolate chili ice cream right now.

Yes.

All right.

So what do you got going on?

So I made the base yesterday, which is all the good stuff, all the basic food groups -- sugar, chocolate.

That's the main food groups.

Heavy cream, eggs, and, of course, the roasted Pueblo chilies.

Before blending it in a special freezer, Mary adds some vodka-infused vanilla and a dash of sea salt.

The result?

Oh.

Wow.

You get a tiny bit of heat at the end?

Yeah, it just kind of rolls onto your tongue.

Right?

You know, it's not right off the bat.

You have to let it sit in your mouth.

You let it melt, you swallow, and then you feel a little bit of that warmth.

Mm.

I think I'm going to have to confiscate this.

We can hook you up.

[ Laughs ] That is so good.

In Pueblo, there are three main ethnic groups that help define the city.

Mexicans, or Chicanos, a growing demographic across Colorado and the country as a whole.

There's also a large Eastern European community in Pueblo, mostly people of Slovenian and Croatian descent.

And finally, there are Italians.

Each community maintains a strong individual identity, even as the city has grown and blended together over the generations.

But you don't have to look hard to find reminders of the past.

And Gagliano's Market in the neighborhood of Bessemer is like a window back to the old country.

Their specialty is their sausage, made fresh with the secret family recipe.

I don't think you're going to give me your secret, are you?

No.

[ Laughs ] If I give to you, then I have to kill you.

[ Laughs ] You are Sicilian.

Josephine and Tony Gagliano came to Pueblo from Sicily in the 1950s, taking over the family business, which had been operating here in Pueblo since the early 1900s.

They call me Mom.

Oh, yeah?

Are you the mom of Pueblo?

Mama, grandma.

Everybody's mom.

Everybody mom.

Will you be my mom?

Yes.

Josephine and Tony's children are now poised to keep the business going for years to come.

You know, I didn't speak English till I was five.

Really?

And I went to -- So everybody was speaking Italian?

Everybody was speaking Italian.

And I'd have my little Italian grandma with a broomstick going like this.

Ah!

Calling me digraziato, which means "you ungrateful little guy."

Everything at Gagliano's is good, but you can't leave without trying the Bada Bing!

bread.

So you don't think it's unusual that you have a sandwich named after a strip club?

Oh.

I didn't even know it was a strip club.

Well, now you know.

Now.

[ Laughs ] I didn't even -- You haven't even seen "The Sopranos."

The Bada Bing!

is a heart-stopping combination of sausage, salami, pepperoni, cheese, and pueblo's famous chilies, rolled up and baked in the oven.

Oh, and here's the finished product?

And this is the cook.

Oh.

I can't imagine anybody eating one of those by themselves.

That's... -Mm.

-Is it good?

No, it's not good.

Terrible.

No, I'm kidding.

It's really good.

How do you say buonissimo?

Buonissimo.

Buonissimo.

Grazia.

Grazia.

Edgar: Across the street is a bar called Gus'.

Gus' has a house special known as the tomato beer.

Now, I've never heard of this thing you call a tomato beer, and I've never seen a glass that big.

Yeah.

You have to be a hearty drinker.

Roxy is a half-Italian, half-Chicana Pueblo native who's almost always ready to sit and chat and sip a glass of something cold.

In this case, a light beer mixed with tomato juice.

Is that good?

Yeah.

And some people call it a red beer, but we just call it a tomato beer here.

That looked like a nuclear mushroom cloud just erupted in my goblet.

You need a little more.

More than that?

You're not really going to get the flavor unless -- There you go.

That's significant.

Oh, I feel healthier already.

Yeah.

Do you like the beer?

Do you like it with tomato juice?

I love this.

I'm going to drink my beer like this from now on.

It's super quenching, isn't it?

Yeah, and it's kind of healthy.

As we admire all the history exuding from Gus' bar, we bump into an old steelworker named Sid.

I started working CF&I 56 years ago, when I was 18.

That's the steel mill, CF&I?

18 years old, CF&I, Colorado Fuel and Iron.

When I was a kid working in there, if you drove a foreign car in there, they'd probably kill you.

When you were a kid working in there, the thought that Russians might someday own the steel mill.

Can you imagine?

Oh, never.

Never in a million years.

Would you have predicted back in the '70s?

They still have a sign in the parking lot over there, "No foreign cars allowed in the union parking lot."

Really?

Yeah.

Sid's got the ultimate American sports car sitting outside -- a Ford 1929 Model A Roadster.

It's the kind of American steel that would be welcome in any local parking lot.

The cars we find today in the steel mill parking lot are much newer than Sid's Roadster, but no less flashy.

Gleaming automotive gems like these are popular in Pueblo's Chicano community, and more specifically, in the Sweet Dreams Car Club.

Julian, the VP of the club, got into cars because of his late father.

Every vehicle he had told a story.

And what story does your vehicle say?

This one, in particular, I got it when it was just all silver.

Julian tells me that, by turning this standard Dodge Nitro into a show car, he fulfilled the dreams of his father.

This was all for him.

In this vehicle alone, I have 10 monitors.

10 monitors?

10 monitors.

What's with the monitors?

I have one in each armrest.

You pull out my glove box and you'll see I have one in there.

I had them on the floor mat at one time, but the sun kept burning them up.

Do you ever get distracted when you're driving?

You know, I don't.

I think people get distracted by how this looks.

-Do I need to wear gloves?

-No.

♪♪ So, I think a lot of people associate lowriders or stylized cars like this with gangster culture.

What do you say to people like that?

When I first worked at the school that I'm at now, they were like, "Who owns that car?"

Right?

People see you driving up, and they're like, "Who's that gangster?"

Or they thought that.

When they got to know me, I'm far from a gangster.

Well, it's so funny 'cause -- I work for a living.

Yeah.

You know.

Edgar: Julian is another example of how perception is not always reality in Pueblo.

But one common perception about Colorado in general is that it's a playground for outdoorsy types, people who are really into adventure sports.

Giving its own twist to that image, Pueblo offers a unique take on surfing and boogie boarding.

I've ridden this wave just until the sun came down.

Until you got tired.

Yeah.

Thanks to a unique water flow, you can actually ride the waves in the Arkansas River continuously.

My first attempts go meh.

But soon enough, I catch a wave and ride it.

♪♪ To get one final alternative perspective on the city of Pueblo, we meet John Wark, a local photographer who became an aerial photographer after buying several small aircraft.

But what John loves about his planes is exactly what makes me a little nervous.

Well, you see, this plane is tiny.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

I see that.

So, it allows me to fly in a personal way.

To make matters worse, we can literally see a thunderstorm raging out by the airport.

Is it safe to be in the air when there's lightning?

There's -- Well, it's not safe to be over there.

By the lightning.

But over here, it's safe because, you know, it's clear.

So you're going to stay away from the lightning while we're in the plane.

I'm gonna stay away from the storm.

I understand.

As we take off, the storm passes and the air left behind is cool and still.

And while the calmness doesn't make it a great night for taking the kinds of artistic photographs John likes, I do get one last look at Pueblo from above.

From up here, it's an oasis of green on a high desert plain.

It's a town that's seen its share of storms and struggles, but through its hard times, it's developed some admirable traits, an indomitable spirit, diverse local cuisine and culture, a dash of roots music, and a passion for artistic expression.

It's a place that is defined by its persistence.

And, so, quite fittingly, after a few hours in the air, John finally finds a shot he likes.

♪♪ It's a fitting end to what's been an enjoyable voyage to Pueblo, Colorado.

♪♪ ♪ I don't have much to give you ♪ ♪ I don't have many things ♪ ♪ But this rounding, roaring island ♪ ♪ This is what it means ♪ ♪ The heat is my heart burning ♪ ♪ The soul is the water rollin' ♪ ♪ These seeds of mine are growin' ♪ ♪ Let it be for you ♪ ♪ Don't you know it's all for you ♪