Cañon City is using the Arkansas River to wash off its “prison town” reputation. Steep obstacles remain.

What is a river?

It depends on your point of view. Sun reporters have fanned out along the Arkansas River, from the headwaters near Leadville to the border with Kansas, to learn what the river means to people in the places it runs through. The series continues from Sunday’s opener at the river’s headwaters by flowing east through Cañon City.

ㅤ ⚲ ㅤ CAÑON CITY

I n a tree-shrouded park on the banks of the Arkansas River, Corinne O’Hara counted the ways her family’s move from Summit County to this reputedly gritty outpost in southern Colorado turned into “a gift.”

Instead of the sleepy prison town of Front Range lore, they found a place of year-round adventure, with scenic trails in the high-desert bluffs near their new home, and a 15-minute drive to boating on the river, which runs