The local school operated irregularly from the 1870's on. By 1883 school operated for six months out of the year. What kid today would not jump for joy with school in session for only six months out of the year? Mullin himself taught school for a period of time at the older school where the cafeteria now stands.

In 1954, there was still no church in Cotopaxi. Occasional church services were held at the school. These started out with periodical, unscheduled ministry and eventually, later, circuit rider ministers maintained services once a month. In between, faithful people would conduct Sunday school services in the school building. Most people put a value on church and there was no internal strife about separation of church and state.

Until 1879, the only transportation to and from Cotopaxi was stagecoach and oxen freighters and until 1900, a stagecoach drawn by horses were maintained between Silver Cliff and Cotopaxi, carried passengers and mail back and forth. A new era opened up for Cotopaxi when the railroad built the route from Texas Creek, seven miles east of Cotopaxi, to Salida, 23 miles west. However, freighters drawn by horses were still the major means of getting their supplies. There was a huge train depot not far from Glenn Mullin's house that has since been dismantled; he participated in the destruction of the historic building much to his sorrow. Now there is no train service past Parkdale (20 miles east of Cotopaxi) on the line, which goes from Pueblo over Tennessee Pass to Minturn.

In 1915, Fred Jones who was a blacksmith and sometimes worked on cars and sold gas and tires built the first Cotopaxi garage. In 1919, Dall McCrory, 19, converted an abandoned creamery building into an automobile garage; his business boomed as automobiles became more popular and he expanded to dealership of Model T Fords, selling seven the very first day. Then he stocked electrical appliances, and he expanded even more selling tractors and farm machinery and hay balers. By 1952, this man who started his business at 19 took sixth place in the selling of tractors in a four-state area.

In 1954, the Denver & Rio Grande Western railroad employed a number of residents. The town consisted of the train depot, post office, two grocery stores and two garages, cafes and filling stations within one mile of the town, a modern cottage court, a grade school and high school, There was a strip mine for lime north of Cotopaxi, owned and mined by Colorado Fuel & Iron, railroad but no gold. The lime was intended to prepare food for stock and also for fertilizer.

Presently, there is a small grocery store with a filling station—I call it the Cotopaxi Mall—a post office, a somewhat larger school providing education to all the surrounding towns and villages with an eight-man football team and their own meager football field, and a small antique shop. Where Dall McCrory's garage once stood, directly across the street west of the Cotopaxi store, now stands Cotopaxi's first apartment complex. The town of Cotopaxi is now much smaller than before and employs few employees. Don't count on getting a job there anytime soon, except maybe in the school system, always in need of good teachers, or with river raft companies in the summer season.

However, the mountain scenery is beautiful and breathtaking—truly God's country. Hunting and fishing draw sportsmen from near and far, and there is lodging and camping with fairly good facilities a mile or two, directly east of Cotopaxi—the Arkansas River KOA & the Loma Linda Motel right on the river between April and October.

Glenn Mullin never married and leaves no children. He has returned to work he enjoyed at an earlier age, working at the new school as a teacher‘s aide. He lives a very simple life. His favorite chair is placed next to the stove that has always heated this historic site, as he frequently reads into the night. The old safe holds nothing now but personal paperwork—no gold, but maybe only the documentation that followed him through the golden era of his life. He's a very humble man and really doesn't give himself credit for what he's contributed to Cotopaxi, which is more than he thinks. He's been a responsible, stable link in the history of Cotopaxi and once more he does his share, as one of Cotopaxi's lifelong residents, to keep its history alive.

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Southern Colorado Magazine 2004