{"id":15185,"date":"2025-12-18T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rio-grande-trading-post-in-durango-to-close-after-50-years\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:45:17","slug":"rio-grande-trading-post-in-durango-to-close-after-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rio-grande-trading-post-in-durango-to-close-after-50-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Rio Grande Trading Post in Durango to close after 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Marsha
Marsha Schuetz, owner of Rio Grande Trading Co. at 519 Main Ave., assists customers in her store on Tuesday. She has been in business for the past 50 years with her late husband Jonathan Schuetz. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After 50 years in business, Rio Grande Trading Co. is closing for good.<\/p>\n

Owner Marsha Schuetz said the death of her husband and business partner, Jonathan Schuetz, along with a half-century of running the store, has left her ready to retire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love that little store, and I\u2019ve loved it for 50 years,\u201d she said. \u201cThis has been a hard decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schuetz said she is thankful to those who supported the store over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main thing that I noticed with my business downtown is that even though it\u2019s especially a tourist shop, the locals support me,\u201d she said. \u201cThey bring down their visitors when they come to town. They know I\u2019m a tourist shop, but they love my little shop anyway. So it\u2019s always been pretty tight-knit in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schuetz said the business relied heavily on passengers disembarking the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, and that her shop\u2019s proximity to the downtown depot kept it running for five decades.<\/p>\n

\"Marsha
Marsha Schuetz, owner of Rio Grande Trading Co. in downtown Durango, is closing the store located at 519 Main Ave. after 50 years. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s all about the train,\u201d she said. \u201cAnybody who tells you that it\u2019s not, they just don\u2019t know retail in downtown Durango. If you don\u2019t realize that, then you\u2019re not going to make it, because that train is what drives the economy in downtown Durango.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longstanding relationships with other business owners and her landlords \u2012 the Jackson family, who leased her the space from the start \u2012 also played a vital role in keeping it open for so long. She often hired retired women from the community and said she loved her staff.<\/p>\n

Tim Walsworth, executive director of the Durango Business Improvement District, said Schuetz helped him understand business in downtown Durango time and again, because her business outdates the district by two decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are one of the longest continuously running businesses in downtown Durango on Main Avenue, and are a very unique shop in a great location with fun items inside for sale and really, really nice staff and owners,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re good people and have given the BID really good advice because of their longevity. They\u2019ve seen all the ups and the downs, and the good and the bad and the ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walsworth said Rio Grande Trading Co.\u2019s five decade run is impressive by any metric.<\/p>\n

\u201cA make-or-break point for businesses is if you can reach five years,\u201d he said. \u201cThose guys did it times 10. That tells you something about their business model, the products that they sold, the price point, the customer service, the location.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Marsha
Marsha Schuetz, owner of Rio Grande Trading Co. in downtown Durango, is closing the store located at 519 Main Ave. after 50 years. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For Schuetz, running a business that long has taught her much about Durango. She has watched it grow, but said one thing has remained consistent: Both newcomers and old-timers share the same appreciation for the place.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, Durango is paradise, and when you live in paradise, you\u2019ve got to expect that there\u2019s a lot of people that are going to want to move here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Schuetz said she plans to spend more time with her family and attend her granddaughter\u2019s wedding in New Zealand this spring.<\/p>\n

sedmondson@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

catered to tourists, but locals kept it going<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,1671,314,28,994],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-business-improvement-district","tag-downtown-durango","tag-headlines","tag-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15185"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19524,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15185\/revisions\/19524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15185"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}