As the story goes, Shoshone-Bannock warriors scalped and murdered nearly 300 men, women and children near Almo, Idaho, in 1861. Now, several historians call the massacre mere campfire folklore. Brigham Madsen, a retired University of Utah professor who recently researched the killing, says no newspapers or U.S. military records in 1861 mention the massacre, and […]
Communities
Posted inApril 4, 1994: Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau?
The West is hard at work, destroying its past
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau? The Colorado Plateau is internationally famous for its canyons and spectacular natural beauty, but it also contains the largest concentration of prehistoric ruins, rock art and artifacts in the world. Those traces of its past are being lost, […]
Posted inApril 4, 1994: Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau?
Clifton, Arizona: A town no one knows
CLIFTON, Ariz. – We must have stuck out as an exotic bunch of dudes driving through this remote mining town of a couple of thousand people in southeastern Arizona: One student from South Korea, one from Japan and one from Germany. It was Christmas break at Arizona State University, and we had ventured out to […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
There’s gold, and no controls, in Mexico’s hills
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, On the borderline. QUITOVAC, Sonora – On a warm winter day, Esther Velasco Ortega greets visitors from a chair in the front yard of her cinderblock house. One of her visitors is Gary Nabhan, an ethnobotanist who buys saguaro fruit jelly from her every […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Border doesn’t block dirty air and water
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, On the borderline. Because much of the U.S.-Mexico border is already considered a “free trade” zone, additional impacts due to the North American Free Trade Agreement are hard to gauge. U.S. and Mexican environmentalists had hoped NAFTA would help their communities by strengthening regulations […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
No home on the range
The Great Buffalo Herd Monument is extinct – at least on public land. The brainchild of a New York artist, the Mt. Rushmore-type monument would have placed 1,000 copper, moving, moaning bison on a high sage- and pine-covered plateau called the Beaver Rim south of Lander, Wyo. But when the agency which manages the land, […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
Quake’s shakes move masses
At least one business sees a silver lining in the recent Los Angeles earthquake. The Nevada-based Greener Pastures Institute, which helps “urban opt-outs’ find their footing in the unfamiliar terrain of the rural West, is getting a lot more phone calls. The Institute’s newsletter circulates to about 2,000 people, two-thirds of whom live in Southern […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
Cows crowded out
Bob Niccoli, a life-long rancher in Crested Butte, Colo., says the decision to sell his ranch and leave town just got easier. Niccoli protested a proposed development near his ranch in early January. He asked Gunnison County planners to require developer Dan Gallagher to build his 12 houses 100 feet back from a riverside cliff […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
No change on the range
When you’re right, you’re right, and when Philip Fradkin worked for the Los Angeles Times from 1964-1975 as that paper’s first environmental reporter, and for Audubon from 1976-81 as that magazine’s first Western editor, he often batted 1,000. Fradkin recalls those days in his book of collected essays, Wanderings of an Environmental Journalist: In Alaska […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
E-Mail for the rural West
The West’s great distances, geography and weather often isolate its communities. That can make for a high quality of life but difficult communications. The Helena, Mont.-based computer non-profit WestNet hopes to overcome those barriers by providing a computer-based bulletin board service. With a computer and a modem, anyone – from ranchers and loggers, to Native […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
Let’s not heap injustice upon injustice
SAN LUIS, Colo. – The ownership of the Taylor Ranch in Colorado’s San Luis Valley has been a bone of contention for the past 34 years. However, the story of the land has a longer history and the feelings about it run deeper because the Taylor Ranch is not just another piece of mountain real […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
Can San Luis resist ‘regional chaos’?
It was a Colorado state helicopter that turned Maria Mondragon-Valdez around on the subject of the 77,000-acre Taylor Ranch. Originally, she supported a proposal for a split purchase of the mountain tract she and other San Luis Valley residents call La Sierra, and which they believe was stolen from their community in 1960. The proposal […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Why Why? A stark, no-frills retreat from the world
Two highways meet in a “Y” at Why, Ariz. This remote crossroads some 30 miles from Mexico seems an unlikely vacation spot, but for the past three years I’ve made it my winter retreat. At first glance, Why doesn’t seem like much. There are a couple of dozen simple houses, a few dirt streets, two […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Wanted: Wild poets
Poets who find their inspiration in nature may want to enter the ninth annual wilderness poetry competition sponsored by the Utah Wilderness Association. The group welcomes poems on the theme of wilderness, its preservation and spiritual nature. The winning poet receives $100, and the winning poem and five honorable mentions will be printed in the […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
West’s buttons popping
West’s buttons popping The 10 fastest growing states in the nation are in the West. According to federal Census Bureau figures, Nevada grew fastest in 1992-93, with a 3.9 percent growth rate, followed by Idaho at 3.1 percent and Colorado at 2.9 percent. Reid Reynolds, a Colorado state demographer, attributes the surge to strong economies […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
The new West is as restless as the old
The new West is as restless as the old Most people move to the rural West in search of community, says sociology professor Pat Jobes, who teaches at Montana State University in Bozeman. What they find rarely measures up to their enthusiasm and optimism. “It’s a predictable, unchanging pattern,” says Jobes, who has studied migration […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
Montana town puts out unwelcome mat
BOZEMAN, Mont. – This quiet, mountain-ringed college town just north of Yellowstone National Park has now been discovered by everyone from movie stars to footloose entrepreneurs and just plain folks. But to the people who live here the influx is more invasion than discovery. This is how a local artist feels about newcomers: “If I […]
Posted inDecember 27, 1993: Yellowstone
Real western women
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Real western women.
Posted inDecember 27, 1993: Yellowstone
Red sandstone and black lace
An artist wants to string 10,000 bras across the Grand Canyon. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Red sandstone and black lace.
Posted inDecember 13, 1993: Jack Ward Thomas: Hail to the chief
Wilderness poets lookout
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wilderness poets lookout.