A JUNE 2021 INTRODUCTION: In June 1990, thirty-one years ago this month, I penned a Page Two essay for my fledgling newspaper, The Canyon Country Zephyr, called “New West Blues.” The Zephyr had only existed for a bit more than…
Note: Jim has received so much information since the original publication of this story that he has completely re-written his article and it will be re-published in the December/January 2022 issue of the Zephyr. You can read about this process…
“The kids, like all kids, loved the dog and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re going to keep the dog.” –Richard M. Nixon Many years ago, a decade after…
Peaceful Uprising is a grassroots environmental group based in Utah that was founded by activists Tim DeChristopher and Ashley Anderson. DeChristopher received world-wide media attention when he disrupted a federal BLM oil and gas lease auction in December 2008. DeChristopher,…
Regular Zephyr contributor Bill Davis sent us an extraordinary detailed account of one of Moab’s worst disasters, the Doxol explosion and fire on July 31, 1981. Bill was the chief reporter for the Times-Independent and his story in this issue is the…
While sheer numbers of tourists can overwhelm the most patient of park rangers, even I would acknowledge that among those masses could be found some of the best people on the planet. I haven’t worn a badge and a smoky…
I have always been a news junkie. I grew up with Huntley/Brinkley and Walter Cronkite. It was always a matter of debate in our family, and others as well, whether Cronkite was a Republican or a Democrat. The consensus over the…
Note: This article first appeared in the October/November 2011 Zephyr… Many years ago, during one of my first trips to the canyon country, I made the dusty drive to Grandview Point on the Island in the Sky. The road was…
One of my favorite poet/songwriters, Utah Phillips, once wrote: “I’ll sing about an emptiness the East has never known, Where coyotes don’t pay taxes and a man can live alone. And you’ve got to walk forever just to find a…
Before Moab, Utah became the absurdly expensive, over-built, over-wrought, contrived and conflicted population center that it is today, it was a different kind of town. Somebody once said, “Moab used to be a hard place to get rich, but it was a…