Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Nevada doesn’t get a lot of respect. It has been called “The tag-end of Creation,” “America’s Great Mistake” and “the Rotten Borough.” John Muir said it was “irredeemable now and forever.” The Almanac of American Politics, considered by many to be the bible of […]
Communities
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
Nevada on the move
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Rank in growth among states since 1960: First Number of new residents per month: 4,000-6,000 Percentage of state-owned land by the federal government: 87 Percentage of U.S. gold mined there: 60 Percentage of Nevada workers employed in the service industry: 44 Percentage of Nevada […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 1998: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
Gateways to good growth
A new breed of Western city is sprouting in scenic areas, and the resulting population booms call for new planning methods, say Jim Howe, Ed McMahon and Luther Propst in Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities. In tourist towns like Pigeon Forge, Tenn., low-paying seasonal businesses have overshadowed historical and natural attractions, driving residents […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 1998: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
In the flatter parts of Montana, some ranchers fence out subdivisions
GREAT FALLS, Mont. – Four years ago, Jerry Townsend and his family drove from their ranch in the shadow of the Highwood Mountains in the middle of Montana, bound for their children’s track meet a few hours to the west. They climbed the Continental Divide and descended into the famed Blackfoot River Valley on their […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 1998: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
A polygamist of place: The tradition of the Eastern Westerner
I begin with a confession. While it’s true I have only one wife and no hidden mistresses, I am a polygamist of place. The writers I’ve always admired most, from Thoreau to Colorado’s Reg Saner, have made it their habit to wedge into one place, to know that place well through long association with the […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 1998: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
Forget the theories, and instead look at people’s faces
Charles Bowden knows exactly what we, and he, don’t want to see, and in Juarez: the Laboratory of our Future he makes it impossible to ignore. Here is the very worst of life after NAFTA, captured by a crew of street photographers who chase the violence of Ciudad Juarez and the border zone. The huge, […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 1998: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
Barry Lopez: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
In the United States in recent years, a kind of writing variously called “nature writing” or “landscape writing” has begun to receive critical attention, leading some to assume that this is a relatively new kind of work. In fact, writing that takes into account the impact nature and place have on culture is one of […]
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
A run at sustainable development
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Former Highlands Alliance President Michael “Buffalo” Mazzetti is promoting sustainable development by bottling water from Buckhorn Mountain. Mazzetti debuted the company at the Northwest Natural Foods Show in Seattle last April and secured distribution deals for the first 17,000 bottles. The bottling company has […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Crash kills a conservation deal
Dollars have downed a landmark bid to hold together one of Arizona’s most scenic ranches. This spring, Arizona State Parks offered rancher Bob Sharp and his sisters $9 million to preserve the family’s ranch in the lush San Rafael Valley south of Tucson (HCN, 3/2/98). A conservation easement would have given the state the development […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Grab your place in paradise
The pearly gates to Montana’s Paradise Valley will soon open. The Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age religious sect headquartered there, wants to sell 3,000 acres of a 10,000-acre Montana ranch that spokesman Christopher Kelley calls “a kind of Mecca.” He says the sale will generate cash for “satellite churches’ growing around the world. […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
You can eat the scenery
Conservation and economic development each require the other in the northern Rocky Mountains, says The New Challenge: People, Commerce and the Environment in the Yellowstone to Yukon Region, a Wilderness Society report written by two staff members of the Sonoran Institute. Communities in the corridor between Yellowstone and the Yukon have shared a decline in […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Living out the trailer dream
In the West, one in six people lives in a trailer
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
The trailer evolves
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. PRE-1910 Early car campers raise their tents off the ground with simple platforms on wheels, creating the first tent trailers. Since few cars top 15 mph, most people leave the tents standing as they pull their trailers home. 1913 A carriage company in Los […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
An American dream gets evicted
EDWARDS, Colo. – A luxury condominium complex is going up here – not an unusual phenomenon in one of the fastest-growing counties in the state of Colorado. But this development is affecting me. I hear voices as I drive by the construction site. Voices from this place’s past. They are not the voices of Ute […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
The high end of home economics: Aspen’s trophy home phenomenon
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. ASPEN, Colo. – In 1989, the Denver-based Good Deed Land Co. bought a 10-acre mining claim on Aspen Mountain and offered it for resale at $10 per square inch. An additional $12.50 garnered a T-shirt stating “Aspen Landowner.” Nearly a decade later, a house […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Tucson acts to stall sprawl
-At least it’s not Phoenix,” mutter some Tucson residents when asked about the city’s runaway growth. But as Tucson continues to sprawl into the surrounding Sonoran desert, many think it’s beginning to look a lot like its larger neighbor. Dismay over that relentless push helps to explain why, in late May, Pima County unanimously approved […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Ghostly fish swim in Idaho
Once there were thousands of sockeye salmon leaving the Pacific Ocean to spawn in Idaho’s Redfish Lake. Only one sockeye salmon made it to the lake in 1994, 1995 and 1996; and not even one bright-red fish returned to spawn in 1997. The decline of these once abundant native fish is something we ought to […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Restoration Days
-Mono Lake is rising, the Committee is 20 years old, and we’re celebrating,” says the Mono Lake Committee about the party they’re throwing for their 20th anniversary – Restoration Days. Join the Mono Lake Committee, supporters and friends over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4-7, in activities ranging from bird watching, guided canoe trips, volcano exploring […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
A banker battles to hold the government accountable
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. BROWNING, Mont. – Until recently, Browning, a dusty settlement on the Blackfeet Indian reservation in northern Montana, was known more for its bar fights than its financial enterprise. But thanks to the small town’s banker, Elouise Cobell, Browning is becoming known for something else. […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Colorado curmudgeon defends the rural West
Review by Ken Wright Ed Quillen isn’t exactly a voice crying in the wilderness; he’s more like that guy with a beer and a Camel Straight in his hand, yelling from the sagging porch of the house down the street – the one with all the weeds and the 1975 Jeep Cherokee on blocks in […]