The Venetian

Not to be confused with the hotel by the same name in Las Vegas, this little strip mall recently got spiffed up new signage and it rang a bell for Pat. It sits in the same neighborhood where I took the third picture in my July 4th post. We were idly watching the weather forecast a few nights ago when the meteorologist mentioned Papeton as she's done many times before, to which my response is always, "Where the heck is Papeton?" But for once I actually tried to figure out the answer, which took about 10 seconds of googling. Voilà! Papeton is in Venetian Village! I had long forgotten the name, but when Pat heard me read it aloud he mentioned that he had recently noticed that the old strip mall on North Hancock had a new sign that said Venetian on it, and it all clicked for me. So today when I had an errand to run in that part of town, I stopped and grabbed a picture.

I had heard once that there had been a coal mine in that area a century ago. What I didn't know what that the miners lived in a town called Papeton, and according to Wikipedia there was another little coal mining town just north of it called Curtis; that'd be what's called the Cragmor neighborhood now. Who knew? The original houses are gone but street names in Papeton still remain, even though the little town got annexed by Colorado Springs long ago and evolved into Venetian Village in the 1950s and '60s. When I was in college my best friend lived in Venetian Village. And my college boyfriend grew up in Venetian Village. Because of that personal history for me, it's one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city, even if I couldn't remember the name.