The Magazine

The merger of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads creates a monopoly that may leave some of Colorado and Utah’s working towns without rail transport for their coal.

The first-ever manmade flood of the Colorado River through Arizona’s Glen Canyon Dam is intended to help repair the river in Grand Canyon – and perhaps to signal the end of the “technocratic utopia” dream.

Catron County, N.M., the home of the county independence movement, is a study of contrasts – its people heavily dependent on the federal government and its land and rivers dying.

A special issue celebrates the thousands of educators who are working to teach people about the West. But it also raises some questions: Who are they reaching and where should the lessons be learned?

Utah, which once boasted exceptionally rich populations of reptiles and amphibians, now does nothing to stop their rapid disappearance.

As a last resort, Westerners start talking to each other, in consensus-building groups that seek to find common ground in the land.

Yellowstone National Park Supervisor Michael V. Finley stirs controversy and conflict as he fights to save America’s oldest national park.

Rancher Sid Goodloe battles pinon-juniper and uses a variety of controversial methods to restore his ranchland in New Mexico.

Gambling at Arizona’s Fort McDowell has taken the Yavapai Indians from poverty to wealth in just three years.

In a changing West, the land-grant universities’ cooperative extension programs must rethink their mission.

The Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show in Tucson highlights the growing controversy over who has the right to valuable fossils found on public lands.

Eagle, Colo., residents wage a 13-year war against developer Fred Kummer’s plans to build a mega-ski resort called Adam’s Rib.

Santa Fe’s hotel and tourism industry blames populist Mayor Debbie Jaramillo for the slowing of the city’s upscale boom.

Conservationists, politicians, Indians and farmers fight over the polluted but beautiful land of Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Utah’s wilderness hearings stir controversy and draw vigorous support for more wilderness designation as the battle over wilderness in Utah lurches toward a vote in Congress.

Hunting in the West faces public relations problems as well as questions about ethical and biological issues.

John Fetcher’s ranching family leads the way in an effort to preserve open land through conservation easements in the rapidly growing Steamboat Springs area.

Western forestry schools slowly begin to reflect the changes in modern forestry.

A writer tours the heart of the Sagebrush Rebellion – Elko County, Nev. – and talks to people on both sides of the struggle.

The Hispanic livestock cooperative, Ganados del Valle, wins a lawsuit against the Sierra Club Foundation in New Mexico’s Chama Valley.