DOäA ANA COUNTY, N.M. – Felix Ledesma stares out at the border shantytown where his family now lives and he shakes his head: “We moved here because New Mexico is the land of opportunity.” But Ledesma’s children play nearby in muddy pools, and around them rise an odd assortment of homes – cinder block shacks, […]
Communities
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
How does a boom feel?
How does a boom feel? Everyone who lives in the West is a transplant or has felt the impact of migration; few places have not experienced the region’s booms and busts. What makes urbanites pull up stakes, and how is the latest influx affecting Western land and communities? Academics such as geography professor Bill Riebsame […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
In their footprints
In their footprints When they mysteriously disappeared from the Southwest some 700 years ago, Anasazi Indians left behind intricate ruins and painted or pecked designs on rock as powerful testimony to their civilization. The desert also preserved a more fragile reminder – sandals woven from yucca leaves, in which the footprints of the wearers are […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Learning from Las Vegas
Note: this feature article is one of several in this special issue about the Great Basin. Time magazine ran a cover story last year hailing Las Vegas as “The New All-American city.” The benediction signaled transformation for what, after all, had been considered Sin City only a few decades ago. In 1994, Las Vegas also […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Salt Lake City: Is this still the place?
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Learning from Las Vegas, in a special issue about the Great Basin. “This is the place,” Brigham Young proclaimed when he first saw the Salt Lake Valley. To the Mormon leader it seemed a divinely inspired refuge for his persecuted Latter-day Saints. These […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Elko is halfway home
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Learning from Las Vegas, in a special issue about the Great Basin. With the help of its annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering, which brings up to 10,000 visitors here each January, Elko clings to its image as the last cowtown even as a gold […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Unlikely reformer: Can sinful Las Vegas help change the West?
The way people gamble, it’s no wonder casino owners in Las Vegas build thousands of new hotel rooms a year. Take the man next to me at the roulette wheel in a run-down casino whose three-story marquee announced, “Where the locals play.” He was betting his Social Security check on a system based on his […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Not the whole story
Anti-environmental anger in northeastern Oregon captured headlines last year when Joseph residents hung in effigy activists Ric Bailey and Andy Kerr (HCN, 11/14/94). But according to a recent survey, 58 percent of the residents in the Hells Canyon region believe “the region’s natural environment should be protected even if this means that some people will […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Life among the ruins
A subdivision in southwestern Colorado encourages buyers to build homes closely around the ruins of ancient Anasazi dwellings. California developer Archie Hanson bought 1,200 acres of the archaeologically rich land after visiting the area just six miles east of Mesa Verde National Park, near Cortez, Colo. Now he’s offering 31 “Indian Camp” lots of about […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
How to nominate an environmental innovator
Hoping to galvanize the environmental movement in the United States, one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in the world began five years ago to give money directly to the country’s best and brightest conservationists. It’s the Pew Charitable Trust’s Pew Scholars Program, which so far has doled out 50 grants of $150,000 to people from […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Gambling with small towns
In three Colorado mountain towns where gambling has been allowed since 1990, four out of 10 residents would now like to move out, according to a study by the University of Colorado. Knocking on every door, researchers found that residents want to take flight because of the rapid and drastic changes in their communities. Although […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Tales from the West
The in-laws are a steady, insistent, increasingly frantic chorus of disapproval over her plans. But, Mary! How can you expect to go to college and take good care of a husband and a baby? Finally, We’re going to put our foot down! She knows that somehow she has got to extricate herself from these sappy […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Jackson voters say yes to planning
At a time when the nation’s electorate has turned decidedly anti-government, Jackson, Wyo., voters said yes to an extensive set of new zoning and land-use regulations. The new laws, which curb commercial, lodging and residential growth in town, won with 55 percent of the ballots in a Jan. 31 special election. Eight hundred and fifty […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Wheel Your Way through Winter
WHEEL YOUR WAY THROUGH WINTER There is more to winter driving than turning on the heater full blast, buckling up and stepping on the gas. According to a 15-minute instructional video out of Wyoming, the most important winter driving factor is your choice of tires. People from warm climates often come to the inland West […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Salmon campaign fractures over how to include people
SALMON, Idaho – Environmentalists ignited a firestorm in central Idaho by requesting a blanket injunction on all logging, mining and grazing on six national forests to protect endangered salmon habitat. U.S. District Judge Daniel Ezra of Honolulu, filling in for a sick Idaho judge, granted the injunction on Jan. 12, lighting the fuse. Within a […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Waaaaaaaaaaaahh! The West refuses to be weaned
RESERVE, N.M. – Ah, the West, where the spaces are wide open and the skies are big, where they know when to hold “em and when to fold “em, where the handclasp is a little stronger and the smile dwells a little longer and where, above all, men are men. Not really. In fact, the […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Airports show difference between Denver and Utah
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The West sings the Denver airport blues. It’ll be far more expensive for airlines to operate at Denver’s new airport than at other airports in the West – which puts the Denver hub at a new disadvantage. To recoup the higher charges, airlines are […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Ambition becomes a megamess
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The West sings the Denver airport blues. “To our despair, (megaprojects) often develop lives of their own, and their lives sometimes defy control by us mere mortals.” – An unnamed Exxon engineer, quoted in the Rand Corp. study, Understanding the Outcomes of Megaprojects When […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Plucky ‘Batman and Robin’ make an airport their case
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The West sings the Denver airport blues. Excerpts from a free-ranging interview with two of the most effective critics of Denver International Airport. PAUL EARLE: We have to keep buying new file drawers, shifting them around to make room for more. We’ve got more […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
An ersatz democracy gets what it deserves
In the late 1980s, the city and county of Denver chose to look away from a deteriorating public school system, dirty air, traffic jams and inadequate public transportation, to pour $10 billion into 53 square miles of prairie out toward Kansas. As this special issue shows, the decision to build Denver International Airport was made […]