What’s happening here is happening elsewhere. And what’s coming may be bigger than even we doomsayers would dare predict. Barring a miracle, we are about to enter a new phase, the last phase, in the taming of the West. When…
Utah’s Transient Room Tax (TRT) has recently made headlines in Southeast Utah. The TRT allows a tax on “transactions involving tourist home, hotel, motel, or trailer court accommodations and services that are regularly rented for less than 30 consecutive days.”…
This is the conclusion of a two-part essay on New West gentrification and the designation of Bears Ears National Monument (part one here). In this part two, I will more closely examine the concrete ways in which New West colonization…
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. William Shakespeare,…
“When I was a young boy, about six years old, my grandfather and mother started me on the path of light.” —Wolfkiller Found among the papers of my great-grandmother, Louisa Wade Wetherill, was a remarkable story of early Navajo life…
Far away places, with strange soundin’ names Far away over the sea Those far away places, with the strange soundin’ names Are callin’, callin’ to me -lyrics by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer Back in mid-July I went fishing…
The trains don’t stop at Woodside any more. After the geyser stopped erupting the people didn’t go there anymore and the cars don’t stop there anymore. Now you can buy Roy Pogue’s 700 acres, abandoned buildings and assorted junk for…
More than three years have passed since the idea of a “Bears Ears National Monument” was first introduced to the general public. One of the most far-reaching and expensive coast-to-coast marketing campaigns ever promoted by the powerful outdoor industry and…
“We started on the Trail at 1:30 P.M., leaving the hospitable roof of the Wetherills at Kayenta… with the same spirit of buoyant expectancy as in former years.” —Charles L. Bernheimer, June 4, 1924 From the 1890s to the 1930s,…
CLICK HERE to READ PREVIOUS EPISODES of BRAVE NEW WEST (The Comic Strip)! Jim Stiles is Founder and Co-Publisher of the Canyon Country Zephyr. To comment, scroll to the bottom of the page. Don’t forget the Zephyr ads! All links…