HARTSEL – The sign on the west end of town reads "Welcome to Hartsel: 'The Heart of Colorado.'"
Locals will tell you its motto takes after its people.
"They're wonderful folks and they have a big heart," said Ray Lyons, local pastor. "Everybody up here is basically a very good heart, very independent, but they would all go out of their way to help their neighbor."
It's the kind of place Walter Smith said he moved to in order get away.
"Nice little quiet, quaint place. Nice people, nice neighbors," he said. "Everybody helps each other out. Just a nice place, neighborhood to be."
THE SUSPECTED SHOOTER
People here say Hartsel was put on the map for all the wrong reasons this week.
"We have both very famous people on the good side of the spectrum that live here and apparently we had somebody very famous on the bad side of the spectrum," Lyons said. "We all have neighbors we wish we didn't have."
Seven miles east of town, in a mobile home on an empty plot of land, lived the man accused of shooting 12 people -- killing three -- at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs on Friday.
Outside of Hartsel, the word "neighbor" is a relative term considering how spread out the homes are, but Smith said he was neighbors with the suspected shooter – Robert Lewis Dear.
"I could see his property from my property and I could see him come and go and that's about all," Smith said. "Wouldn't know him face to face if I saw him. Never spoke with him or anything like that."
Donna Smith works at a local country store said she believes she saw Dear at a community Thanksgiving dinner on Nov. 21.
"We had a Thanksgiving dinner and it's open to everybody," she said. "He came in and ate a Thanksgiving Day dinner. Didn't say anything or nothing. Just ate his dinner and left."
Donna Smith said she didn't even think twice about him until she saw his face in the news.
"I only recognized him when I saw him yesterday on the Internet that he was actually in at the dinner. Otherwise, I don't think I've ever seen him before," she said.
Dear's white mobile home is surrounded by fencing and firewood. There is a small wooden structure inside of the fence's perimeter. A small Kia sedan sits to the east of the property.
There are other similar properties in the area, but are all at least a half a mile or so from each other.
A local realtor told 9NEWS on Friday she had seen Dear with a woman who she believed may have been his significant other, leading to questions as to where this woman may have gone since the shootings.
However, Walter Smith said he never saw a woman at the property.
"I would say I never seen many people come and go from his place," he said. "It was only just him."
HARTSEL
Those who continue to call this small town home say they want their town – with a history dating back to at least 1880 – to be known for its historic church, it's local restaurant, it's "jail" that never really was.
"That was a couple of drunk guys and one gallon of paint," Donna Smith said. "That was never a jail. That was actually a Texaco."
Walter Smith just likes the peace.
"Just nice and quiet, and I'm a country person," he said. "I grew up in the country back in Georgia, so I like the country."
Pastor Lyons, one of the community leaders in the town, condemned the shootings.
"You do not have the right to go around hurting other people for any reason," he said. "That was one person that was from this part of the country that nobody even knew he was here. So he was not an impact on this community."
(© 2015 KUSA)
