GUFFEY, CO — Dana Peters knows what community means.
"Ten years ago, my husband asked, 'How you going to do it?' I said, 'One day at a time," Peters explained, as she started rolling out the dough.
The winter season is slow for Peters. On this particular day when we caught up with her, she told Denver7 she would be making a grand total of six cinnamon rolls. And she hoped that one or two customers come in.
"That’s when our locals support us", she said, adding her baked good keep the lights on at The Bakery, in Guffey — population 32.
She said people come from all over for the cinnamon rolls, even if they didn’t mean to.
"One lady, she was in a tizzy. She came in and asked where she was? I said, "It's OK, you're not lost.' Three hours later, she drove in again and I said, 'Oh no,' thinking she was going in circles."
As it turns out, the woman went to Cripple Creek, picked up her brother and brought him with her and said, "You gotta see this place!" Peters said.
For people who've never ventured out to this part of Park County, it might seem like you're lost driving on your way to Guffey. From a Y in the road where it pointed one way — to Cañon City and the other to Guffey — Denver7 didn’t pass a single car for 14 miles.
The road into town doesn’t even have a center stripe.
"It's just a road, but it’s paved!" Peters said.
The owner of the town's bakery has more on her plate than just pastries and lunch.
"My husband has been raising cattle for 50 years; I’ve been at the ranch for 20, off the grid, 8 miles from here, 5 miles from a maintained road," said Peters. "I’ve recently sold a third of the herd because I’m doing it myself. Since he was diagnosed with cancer a year ago, he hasn't been at the ranch much. He's on the mend though," she said.
While Peters' husband recovers from cancer, she raises cattle from the top of a mountain, and makes sure the cinnamon rolls rise down in town.
"I’m not going to make my millions in Guffey", Peters said.
But the payoff here, she said, is the community she knows, which makes her as rich as her cinnamon rolls.
"We get a lot of, 'Wow, there’s a town.' That’s the part I like, having a business here cause we’re part of the community. Sometimes we are the community," Peters said.
