This must be common knowledge for our friends at the north end of the county, but I had never heard the rationale for “Americanizing” the pronunciation of Buena Vista before this article at Examiner.com.
It all came about at a meeting in 1879, when residents and property owners in the area at the convergence of Cottonwood Creek and the Arkansas River held a meeting to create a formal community.
They had been told that would help attract a railroad line, said Kathi Perry, assistant director of the Buena Vista Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Buena Vista Heritage board. She drew her information from the book The History of Chaffee County and her own research.
Two names were proposed by attendees: Collegiate Peaks, after the mountains in the area, and Buena Vista, which means “beautiful view” in Spanish, certainly an appropriate description.
Alsina Dearheimer, the resident and property owner who suggested the name Buena Vista, certainly knew how the Spanish words were pronounced, her first husband having been a language and music professor. But she insisted that the pronunciation for the town name be Americanized into “BEW-na,” borrowing the first syllable of the English word beautiful.
Her suggestion carried the day. An interesting anomaly was born, and Dearheimer became known as the Mother of BEW-na Vista.
Now on to the historical pronunciation for Salida.
Here’s how I heard it…
In 1876 Salvatore Lombardi moved from his camp in Cleora, to a small house he had built at the base of Tenderfoot hill. This put him much closer to his mine up Cottonwood Gulch which was producing good quantities of silver ore. With his new found wealth he was able to send for his life long love Idalina Ricci. Idalina got quite sick on her trip from Italy to the Arkansas valley but the mountain air helped cure her quickly and Idalina and Salvatore were married shortly after. Over the next few years there home became the unofficial gathering place for most public business in the south end of the valley. When the D&RG bypassed Cleora and put their major division point up stream at the base of Tenderfoot hill The folks in Cleora began to say they were going to have to move up by Sal and Ida.
I have been CORRECTED twice lately that I have been saying Salida wrong , technically , maybe , but I like the Sal & Ida story anyway . ( The same goes for Buena Vista ) By the way , both stories are cool .