Steep, wind-scoured canyons forced Colorado towns to prop their houses with pines

Evidence

The area on which it is possible to build is so circumscribed and steep, and the unpainted gable-ended houses are so perched here and there, and the water rushes so impetuously among them, that it reminded me slightly of a Swiss town. All the smaller houses are shored up with young pines on one side, to prevent them from being blown away by the fierce gusts which sweep the canyon. It is the only town I have seen in America to which the epithet picturesque could be applied. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 208

Categorization

• CANDY: Houses literally braced with young pine trunks against canyon gusts is an instantly repeatable, vivid fact.
• STORYSTEM: A town where every building leans on living pine props could anchor a setting — what happens when the trees die, are cut for fuel, or are needed elsewhere.