Colorado’s congressional delegation unanimously opposed President Donald Trump’s recent veto of the Arkansas Valley Conduit water project which had been passed by Congress without opposition.

But Trump is not the first chief executive to unilaterally harm communities in rural southeastern Colorado.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper was elected governor in 2010 against a discredited Tea Party-driven Republican nominee and a conservative third-party candidate. Due to this Republican meltdown, Hickenlooper easily won the election with just 50 percent of the vote.

Shortly after taking office, Hickenlooper’s Department of Corrections (DOC) abruptly announced it would be closing a state prison located at historic Fort Lyon in Bent County in southeastern Colorado. The prison housed geriatric prisoners.

Hickenlooper’s closure of the Fort Lyon prison was a devastating economic blow to the region.

Originally a U.S. military post in 1859, Fort Lyon was initially known as Fort Wise after the governor of Virginia. After Virginia seceded from the union, it was renamed Fort Lyon after General Nathaniel Lyon who was the first union general to be killed in battle in the Civil War.

Eventually, the U.S. Navy acquired Fort Lyon for the treatment of sailors with tuberculosis in the dry air of Colorado. The newly formed Veterans Administration dramatically increased Fort Lyon’s mission in treating veterans of both world wars and later of Korea and Vietnam.

As the VA started changing how it delivered medical services for veterans, Fort Lyon slowly lost its missions to the point that the VA announced it would be closing in 1998. The VA offered the huge facility to the state of Colorado.

Republican Gov. Bill Owens accepted Fort Lyon in 2001 to house the growing number of geriatric prisoners. Despite drawing down its mission over several years, the VA had maintained the buildings, giving the state a practically new facility.

While not matching the levels during the VA years, the state prison maintained a significant employment base that attracted workers from throughout the Arkansas Valley.

After 10 years of a stable employment at the prison because of Owens, Hickenlooper delivered a deep economic punch to Bent County and the entire region by closing the prison with virtually no warning.

Hickenlooper had been mayor of Denver and even though he was elected statewide as governor, he apparently had a very Denver-centric attitude as he took office in 2011. He seemed to be perplexed by the negative public reaction to his closure of the prison. What is the big deal about closing a prison in a small county in a remote part of the state?

Hickenlooper appeared to be asleep at the wheel in his new job. It was speculated that he allowed the bureaucrats at DOC to drive the decision to close Fort Lyon and he was oblivious to the real-world impact of such a move.  

Hickenlooper did help find a new mission for Fort Lyon treating the homeless but it is a far cry from the economic impact of the state prison.

Trump’s veto of the Arkansas Valley Conduit water project bill was nothing short of an act of revenge against Colorado because the state refuses to release convicted Tina Peters from prison. Unlike Hickenlooper, Trump knew exactly what he was doing in vetoing that bill.

But Hickenlooper’s oblivious closure of the Fort Lyon prison now looks like a harbinger for how he campaigned for the Senate in 2020, when he complained about how hard it was to campaign as he resisted participating in forums with his opponents. He famously declared “I need my sleep.”

While Hickenlooper rightfully opposed Trump’s irresponsible veto of the Arkansas Valley Conduit bill, let it not be forgotten that he inflicted his own damage on that part of the state with his closure of a prison that had provided critical jobs to the area.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who managed campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens.  He was campaign manager for U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota in 2004 when Thune unseated Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.