BILL DAVIS & ‘ENOUGH ROPE” A MOAB REPORTER RETURNS AFTER 35 YEARS. In the late 70s. Moab was experiencing a mini-boom of sorts. The Atlas mill was still running full-tilt. The price of oil had skyrocketed, thanks to the Iranian…
My grandfather, Hayden, was a soft-spoken Baptist who grew up in south Texas during a period when converts were taken to a muddy creek and, well, dunked “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”…
NOTE: In the last issue of the Zephyr, Jen Jackson Quintano illuminated some of the mystery around Moab’s “King of the World,” Aharon Andrikian, a drifting artist who found his way to the area in the mid-30s and left his…
I have had a soft spot for cowboys and the cinematic Western since I was old enough to walk and say, “giddy-up.” It is one of the great regrets of my life that I never became proficient on a horse.…
NOTE: This is the second in an ‘as needed’ series of photo essays on the changing face of Southeast Utah, as its communities pursue an “Industrial Tourism” economy. In the last issue, Tonya and I ventured into Moab for the…
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. – Mike Tyson In modern America, local zoning has become a primary mechanism through which a wide range of hopes and fears for social and economic conditions are hashed…
This article first appeared in the Utah Historical Quarterly, and is reprinted with the permission of the author. Canyonlands National Park, established in 1964, is the largest national park in Utah and was the first new national park formed in…
A few months ago, Tonya and I were climbing our favorite mountain in one of the (still) most remote parts of southern Utah. It’s not a technical climb by any means but a steep hike that rises about 2000 feet…
It was the trial of the year in Moab, Utah. The courtroom was packed full by Ten in the morning, November 18th of 1921. Tensions had been brewing a long time between the cattlemen of Southeast Utah and the encroaching…
Perhaps light is the first thing that appears when I think of this place, light, the way it textures the world here. True, I see places where I have camped and fished and walked and drank coffee. I see cairns…