Rangely, Colorado

Rangely is home to one of the two campuses of Colorado Northwestern Community College (the other campus being in Craig). Rangely is cattle ranching countryside with some oil and gas wells spread around. There's a coal mine or two in the area, too. The town itself is situated in the White River Valley and is crisscrossed by Colorado Highway 139 (the Colorado section of the Dinosaur Diamond Prehistoric Highway) and by Colorado Highway 64 (which connects Rangely with Meeker to the east). Rangely might not exist, though, if it weren't for that oil in the ground: about 20% of all the crude oil produced in Colorado these days comes from the Rangely Weber Sand Unit which underlies the whole area. There was a time when the oil wells feeding on the Weber were among the biggest producers on Earth...

Near Rangely are several prehistoric Fremont Culture sites, among them the famous Cañon Pintado (Painted Canyon). Cañon Pintado was named by the members of the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition back in 1776 as they passed through the area in search of an overland route connecting Santa Fe, Nuevo Mexico with the Spanish settlements in the Monterey, California area. There are a number of petroglyphs in the canyon, some of possibly astronomical significance. The canyon is about 10 miles south of Rangely.

A wall mural in Rangely

Passing through Rangely

A typical view in the Rangely area