It would be foolish to believe that the death of Aryan Nations’ leader Richard Butler means the death of hate in the West. Butler, who sowed ill will for decades in the region, passed away at the age of 86 Sept. 8 in Hayden, Idaho. He died a broken man, his empire of knuckle-draggers that […]
Communities
Posted inWotr
Chain stores discount a town’s true worth
Glasgow, Mont., is a far cry and a long drive from the mountainous western portion of a state that draws its name from the Spanish word montana. I know that because I recently drove to Glasgow, a town of 3,253 that rests in a flat region of northeastern Montana and serves as the county seat […]
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Nostalgia for Colorado’s past isn’t what it used to be
A wave of yearning for “Colorado as it used to be” has been sweeping the state and I suspect much of the West. It’s almost enough to make you wish for a time machine. If only the past were as wonderful as we think it was. This nostalgic, backward-looking pose is particularly evident in the […]
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Red-baiters target greens in Oregon
A group in White City, Ore., has opened a broad attack on teaching environmental sustainability in our public schools and universities, calling it the kind of brainwashing Lenin and Hitler would do. The group, Operation Green Out, ran two full-page ads in The Oregonian, Oregon’s largest daily newspaper, earlier this year. They warned of a […]
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What I Hate Most About You
Editor’s note: The author is said to live “on a 100-year-old ranch that once was miles from the nearest neighbor but now may be right next door to your new subdivision.” Dear new neighbors, I’ve never met any of you. If I did, I would be perfectly polite. Probably I’d even think you’re nice folks. […]
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Automate this: personal interaction in a small town
The big news in my small town has been the new automated checkout line at the grocery store. You scan the purchases yourself, and then give the machine your credit card, with no need for any human interaction. At least that’s how I’m told it works — I haven’t used the thing myself. It’s a […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Dang crazy women
Like the two previous anthologies created by editors Linda Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier and Nancy Curtis, Leaning into the Wind and Woven on the Wind, Crazy Woman Creek gathers hundreds of poems, stories and memories from women all across the West. This latest anthology’s theme is how Western women create and sustain the connections that define […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Heard Around the West
IDAHO The director of the BlueRibbon Coalition,a Boise-based group that lobbies for more all-terrain access on public lands, recently had to take a leave without pay. Bill Dart was cited this August by a U.S. Forest Service enforcement agent for illegally taking people on motorcycle tours through the backcountry. Dart neglected to get an outfitter’s […]
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Lewis and Clark and the short view of Western history
If American history west of the Mississippi begins with Lewis and Clark, then the history of the United States seems pretty simple: “Indians owned the West, and then they lost it.” History is never so simple. That some of the people Lewis and Clark met had “never seen a white man” did not mean they […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Wamsutter Profiles
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “When a Boom is a Bust.” The preacher Mike Smith has put in nine and a half years as pastor of Wamsutter Baptist Church, the town’s only surviving church (four others have closed in recent memory). He used to mine uranium in Jeffrey City, […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
The wages of sprawl
A new documentary, Making Sense of Place: Phoenix, the Urban Desert, uses the Arizona megalopolis to illustrate what happens when suburban sprawl goes unchecked. Historical and current footage shows how cheap land and even cheaper water have encouraged Phoenix to sprawl over more than 1,700 square miles of Sonoran desert. But the resulting generic suburbs, […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Occupying less
This excerpt from Solace by Mary Sojourner has been removed from High Country News Web Archives as the request of Scribner, the publisher. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this creates for our readers. If you need access to this essay, hard-copy back issues of High Country News are sometimes available. Email circulation@hcn.org to […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
When a Boom is a Bust
Natural gas has pumped money and workers into Wamsutter, Wyoming. But the town struggles to be anything more than a barracks for industry.
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Communities search for a safer way to kill mosquitoes
West Nile virus brings a long-simmering controversy to a boil
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Composing the new Western: Calexico
NEW YORK CITY, New York — Joey Burns, the guitarist and singer of the rock band Calexico, is sitting just a few blocks from Ground Zero, looking across the water at the Statue of Liberty. It is the Fourth of July. He assesses the situation with rock ’n’ roll profundity: “It’s a trip, man — […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Heard around the West
UTAH The Davis County Library in Layton has a neurotically uptight patron, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. The unknown reader has been changing every “hell” and “damn” in certain mystery novels to “heck” and “darn,” doing the deed with a purple pen. So far, only books based on the Murder, She Wrote TV series have […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Ancient archaeological secret is revealed
Over the years, rancher Waldo Wilcox had told very few people about the well-preserved Fremont Indian settlement on his land in eastern Utah’s Range Creek Canyon. The site, which includes a thousand-year-old treasure trove of pottery, arrowheads and cliff dwellings, is one of Utah’s most dramatic archaeological finds. But in the late 1990s, when Wilcox […]
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Sometimes, it takes a tourist
One day early in the summer, my husband, Mike, and I were working on our place, a few irrigated acres carved from Wyoming’s high desert. Tree limbs lay scattered from a recent tree trimming, manure was heaped in the corral. The last thing we needed was a telephone call from a stranger. He spoke with […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Remembering those forgotten in the desert
Every year, hundreds of Mexican immigrants die in the Arizona desert. This year will be no different. Their deaths generally receive little more then a mention in some local papers. But author and poet Luis Alberto Urrea is trying to change that. In The Devil’s Highway, Urrea chronicles the ill-fated journey of a group of […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Heard around the West
MONTANA Artist Phil Kunz recalls seeing a vending machine filled with tiny art a few years ago, and the vision stayed with him; now, he’s created one for the former mining town of Butte. Kunz first had to track down an out-of-date cigarette vending machine; then, he enticed fellow artists to help decorate it to […]