Watertower Rising: The Nuckolls Legacy Now Available as a Touring Pocketbook

In the heart of Pueblo, Colorado, stands a remarkable structure: a 250,000-square-foot industrial landmark once known as the Nuckolls Packing Company. Founded in 1890 by Emmet Nuckolls after a successful run in Leadville, the company transformed over three generations into one of America’s most advanced and respected meatpacking enterprises.

This book chronicles that extraordinary journey. From modest beginnings at the Union Stockyards to the construction of the world's most modern meat processing facility, the story of the Nuckolls family is one of innovation, ambition, and resilience. Readers will meet GH Nuckolls, the founder’s son, whose collaboration with Norwegian engineer Hans Peter Henschien helped revolutionize the meat industry. Influenced by the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, they built a gravity-driven, multistory plant that prioritized hygiene, worker safety, and operational efficiency.

But this is more than the story of a business. It is a story of leadership through adversity. The Great Pueblo Flood of 1921, the Great Depression, and the shutdown during World War II all tested the company’s endurance. After GH Nuckolls' passing, the leadership baton was taken up by his daughters, Della and Marion Nuckolls. Though few women held top positions in American industry at the time, these sisters brought determination and vision to the company. Marion became president. Della, who studied under the Denishawn School in Los Angeles and performed on Broadway, balanced an artistic life with her role as vice president and treasurer.

The book also shares Della’s remarkable life on stage, her multiple marriages, and her steadfast connection to Pueblo. Through newly discovered letters, rare photographs, and original documents, the narrative offers a deeply human look at how one family helped shape an entire industry.

In the years that followed, the company was sold to American Stores and later supplied meat across the Southwest. Operations ceased in 1980, but the story was far from over. In the early 2000s, entrepreneur Ryan McWilliams purchased the dormant facility and launched Watertower Place, a creative center for commerce, culture, and community.

This book is a tribute to the people, places, and power of legacy. It reminds us that the past is never lost. It is waiting to be remembered, reimagined, and shared.

To learn more, visit:
www.gregoryhowell.com
www.pueblowatertowerplace.com

The Story Behind Shores of Pueblo

The Story Behind Shores of Pueblo

For 15 years I have walked the river in Pueblo and asked a simple question:

How did we get here?

Not just economically.
Not just politically.
But culturally. Spiritually. Collectively.

Pueblo is a place that carries memory in layers. The river valley holds stories that began long before state lines or rail lines. Steel mills reshaped the skyline. Floods reshaped the land. Immigration reshaped identity. Industry reshaped opportunity. And yet through every transformation, something essential endured.

That endurance is what this project is about.

Why Twelve Chapters

Time moves in cycles. Twelve months. Twelve seasons of reflection. Twelve opportunities to pause and listen.

Rather than publish a single book all at once, I chose to release Shores of Pueblo chapter by chapter over the course of a year. Each month, one story. Each story rooted in a different era. Each era told through a human voice standing inside its moment, not looking back with hindsight, but living forward with uncertainty.

The goal is not nostalgia.

The goal is preparation.

If we understand the people who stood at these shores before us — the First Peoples of the river valley, the early Spanish borderlands, railroad builders, steelworkers, farmers, labor organizers, immigrants, artists, civic leaders, and everyday neighbors — then we begin to see patterns. We begin to see resilience. We begin to see warning signs. We begin to see possibility.

The world always changes.
But the stories stay.

Why Launch Through the Pueblo Star Journal

I co-founded the Pueblo Star Journal in 2021 because I believe local storytelling is a public good.

Before these chapters live as a book, they live as journalism — accessible, shared, and rooted in community conversation. By publishing each chapter first in the PSJ, the stories remain what they were meant to be: communal.

They are not artifacts.

They are invitations.

An invitation to read.
An invitation to remember.
An invitation to ask better questions about where we are going.

The flyer for the 2026 series calls this “Walking the stories that made us” GH 2026 12 CHAPTER PUEBLO STORY…. That phrase matters to me. These are not abstract histories. They are footsteps. Decisions. Turning points.

And we are still walking.

The North Star

Every chapter carries the same thread:

When we listen and remember the stories, we will be prepared for whatever comes.

Preparation does not mean control. It means awareness. It means humility. It means understanding that borders are rarely lines — they are collisions of stories.

Pueblo has lived through borderlands, industry booms, economic collapse, natural disaster, civic reinvention, and cultural renaissance. We are still evolving.

This series is not about proving anything.
It is about listening long enough to recognize ourselves.

An Ongoing Conversation

Each chapter will be released monthly. Each one will stand on its own. Together, they form a year inside the soul of Pueblo.

If you choose to follow along, I invite you to do more than read.

Ask your elders what they remember.
Walk the river.
Stand in places where something once began.
Listen.

Because the world will continue to change.

But if we know the stories, we will know how to walk through whatever comes.

— Gregory Howell

The Launch of the Pueblo Star Journal | An Interview with KOYC Radio 98.5FM

“Our motto “Dig Deeper” is, like our namesake, a tribute to the city’s vibrant past. The Steel City was built by hard-working, dedicated and powerful laborers, and it is to those founding fathers that we tip our hats with The Dig.

Additionally, “dig deeper” is a journalistic trope, encouraging and empowering the writer to ask the next question, push the next boundary and seek out the next level of details. By digging deeper, we commit to pushing past the superficial and providing our readers with the most accurate, thought-provoking and comprehensive news in the Steel City.”

— Pueblo Star Journal Newspaper

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Pueblo Star Journal Vision

• Establishing lines of accountability of individuals and institutions of power through our reporting, forums and debates.

• Encouraging community engagement through reader-driven events, information-gathering forums and comprehensive listings focusing on arts, athletic and volunteer opportunities.

• Curating a comprehensive database of government information, highlighting the critical details citizens need to engage with and participate in their school and municipal systems.

• Fostering economic growth and development by shining a spotlight on the business and nonprofit communities.

• Educating young talent and growing Pueblo’s best and brightest, through a comprehensive internship program and our partnerships with local educational institutions.

Now, we need you to Dig Deep

We don't have a paywall, but that doesn't mean we don't need your support.

Our website doesn't look like other newspaper websites. We don't want it to.

Built from the ground up using reliable digital architecture and local, southern Colorado web hosting, PuebloStarJournal.com is designed to be a different animal. You'll find many of the same things you'll find at other news websites - ads (please don't block them! We promise to avoid the most irritating and intrusive forms like popups and screen takeovers), articles, event calendars, sections like News, Culture, Voice and Sport, and more.

Things we plan to do that break the mold a bit include Spanish text translations and audio versions of important stories, as well as moderated commenting - something that has been eliminated entirely by many corporate newsrooms. We believe it's important Pueblo has a voice in everything we cover and we know our product will be richer for every quality interaction.

Our site was built with care to shine on any device you use. We didn't choose a cookie-cutter design theme; instead, we craft every page on our site by hand to stand out and offer a unique experience.

Every PSJ reporter and columnist has their own homepage on our site, designed to be a visually dynamic portfolio to enhance, or even launch, their career (and we won't delete them or their content when they move on). A robust search mechanism recalls the feeling of flicking through the library card catalogs and microphotograph archives of the past, to inform Puebloans of the future.

Need a hardcopy of one of our articles? Print away. All you'll see on the page will be the story itself - no ads or other online elements. And while we embrace mobile technology, we haven't left desktop browsers behind - printing and social media sharing are easy everywhere, even as other websites eliminate such iconic buttons entirely because they're built into phones and tablets.

Our email newsletters - comprising a regular blast with every print edition, an Evening Edition with exclusive content and special announcements as situations warrant - will be a key product. We promise not to fill your inboxes with junk or sell your information to other entities.

All of it - the informative newsletters, in-depth and quick-hit news on the web and print, in any format you need - is free. When you lock up real news, fake news flourishes and everyone is diminished.

Help us Dig Deeper.