Note: this story is one of three feature stories in this issue about Wyoming’s boom and bust economy. I’m always searching for omens, like any fool. As we left Missoula, Mont., in 1995 for Campbell County, Wyo., and as our moving van came into the orbit of Gillette, I fiddled with the radio dial and […]
Communities
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Taxing the wrong side of the tracks
Note: this story is one of three feature stories in this issue about Wyoming’s boom and bust economy. In every discussion about taxes in Wyoming, some ominous voice notes that mineral revenues are in decline. Sooner or later, the voice warns, the tax base is going to have to be diversified – code for shifting […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
A lot is at stake in Supreme Court case
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – There’s a vacant lot in this town that’s been discussed before the U.S. Supreme Court. The two-fifths-of-an-acre lot, a boggy tangle of willows and ponderosa pines beside narrow Mill Creek, is one of the few remaining undeveloped patches. Houses crowd around, all part of a subdivision built in the 1960s and […]
Posted inJune 23, 1997: On the trail of mining's corporate nomads
Did ranchers fire a university president?
When New Mexico State University’s president, J. Michael Orenduff, was fired last month, the university’s Board of Regents said it was because he had pushed the school’s athletic program $1 million in the red. Now it appears his removal may have been punishment for offending the state’s traditional ranching interests. The story is rooted in […]
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
The road to no sprawl
It’s going to take more than a few isolated individuals to put the squeeze on suburban sprawl, according to Colorado Commons, a nonprofit think tank based in Longmont. With that in mind, the group brings together policymakers, environmentalists, developers and academics to address the state’s urban growth problems. They recently sent the first issue of […]
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
Rising From Tradition
The work of nine Native American artists from Idaho, Oregon and Washington will be on display at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Ore., for the next nine months. The show, called Rising From Tradition: Contemporary Native Art from the Plateau, features traditional work such as coiled baskets and woven cornhusk belts and pouches, but […]
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
Chaos comes to Costilla County
SAN LUIS, Colo. – For now, the mornings are quiet again in this oldest of Colorado towns. The air is clear, and the jagged Sangre de Cristo Mountains seem to leap from the 8,000-foot valley floor. But just a few weeks ago, this isolated small town, which boasts three restaurants, a gas station, church, bar […]
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
‘I saved Jack Taylor’s life’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Among other things, the mayor of San Luis, Colo., runs a bar he named after himself. Joe Espinoza: “Did you know I am the oldest mayor in Colorado and this is the oldest town in the state … how old do you think I […]
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
The last undiscovered place in Colorado
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Twenty minutes south of San Luis, Colo., large road signs tell you Wild Horse Mesa is nearby. Evan Melby is the owner of 25,000 acres here; his billboards announce you can buy a five-acre lot for $4,990, or $750 down and monthly payments of […]
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
Lessons from a rampaging river
It’s obvious from news photos that the city of Grand Forks, N.D., will never be the same after this year’s cataclysmic flood and fire. What’s not so obvious in the scenes of washed-out and burned-out buildings is that the landscape is not all that has changed. Mike Jacobs, editor of the Grand Forks Herald, calls […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
For urban dropouts
John Clayton, who lived in the Boston area before moving to rural Montana, has written a no-nonsense book that could help disgruntled urbanites make an informed decision before hitting the highway. The title says it all: Small Town Bound: Your guide to small-town living, from determining if life in the country lane is for you, […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Beauty prized above all
It may come as a surprise to developers, but the Grand Canyon region’s lower-income residents favor protecting the environment over promoting economic growth. So says a recent survey, Grand Canyon Reflections: A Report on the Environmental Values, Attitudes and Beliefs of the Residents of the Grand Canyon Region, by Northern Arizona University’s social research laboratory. […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
The mission is simple: restore Lake Tahoe
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency was created in 1969 by a compact between California and Nevada that was ratified by Congress. The TRPA governing board is made up of 15 members: seven from California, seven from Nevada, and one non-voting presidential appointee. Six members […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Here come Clinton and Gore
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore are coming to Lake Tahoe in late July for a summit on the lake’s environment and development. It will be the first time that a president has ever visited the area for policy or pleasure while […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Three voices on Lake Tahoe
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “The battle between the environment and business was really joined at Lake Tahoe in the 1970s. We’ve only recently learned to cooperate.” – Steve Teshara, Lake Tahoe Gaming Alliance “We’ve transcended partisanship. We work closely with the casinos and ski resorts now.” – Rochelle […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – Joe Thiemann stormed out of a meeting of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) with murder in his eyes. The powerful agency had finally pushed him too far. The quick-tempered 45-year-old entrepreneur had been running cruises aboard the Tahoe Queen, a 500-passenger Mississippi-style riverboat, since he was 20. The paddle […]
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast
The president’s new monument forces southern Utah to face its tourism future.
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
A proud and defiant native
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Though as a child she lived in Idaho and for a while in Tooele, Utah, Garfield County Commissioner Louise Liston has always considered her birthplace, Escalante, home. Before becoming a commissioner 10 years ago, Liston taught in a one-room school in the town of […]
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
‘This monument was just plain stupid’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Roger Holland, 52, is a Kanab town councilman, a part-time rancher and a mining consultant. He has done geological surveys on the Kaiparowits Plateau within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Roger Holland: “This monument was just plain stupid; the president did it to keep […]
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
Let’s ‘work with the situation’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Gerry Rankin moved from Salt Lake City to Big Water, Utah, pop. 350, more than six years ago. When she isn’t teaching at the town’s only school, she is the mayor of the town, which lies just a few miles west of Lake Powell. […]