Tag Archives: American West

Wyoming Views: The Green River Drift Cattle Drive

Bill Whitaker saddles up for one of the last enduring symbols of the Old West, a Wyoming cattle drive that travels the same route pioneered 125 years ago.

Upper Green River Valley, Wyoming

Predating most federal land management agencies, the Green River Drift cattle trail has been continuously used since the 1890s by the Upper Green River Cattle Association ranchers to get cattle from spring pasture on the desert to summer pasture in the forest. Chilly fall weather causes the cattle to “drift” back out of the forest to return to their home ranches. The trail, 58 miles long with 41 miles of spurs, crosses BLM, State of Wyoming, National Forest, and private properties. It has played a pivotal role in the development of ranching in the area as well as in the development of relationships between Federal agencies that manage grazing allotments and private property owners. The Drift was listed on the National Register in November, 2013. Because it is still being used much as it has for more than 100 years, the Drift was listed as a Traditional Cultural Property (TCP), the first ranching related TCP in the nation.

Furniture Design: How Thomas Molesworth Captured “Spirit Of The American West” (Video)

Sotheby's logoWhile other western designers came before and after Thomas Molesworth, none have been able to capture the refined yet distinctly rustic charm of his furniture. This July, Sotheby’s is proud to present Thomas Molesworth: Designing the American West, a selection of some of the of the rarest and most important Molesworth works to ever appear at auction. In this video, Terry Winchell, owner of Fighting Bear Antiques and renowned authority on Molesworth, examines these iconic pieces in an exploration of how Thomas Molesworth’s designs came to define the American West.

Tributes: “True Grit” Author Charles Portis Dies At 86 (1933 – 2020)

From a New York Times online article (Feb 17, 2020):

Norwood by Charles PortisCharles Portis, Elusive Author of ‘True Grit,’ Dies at 86 The publicity-shy Mr. Portis earned a modest but devoted readership and accolades as America’s “least-known great writer.”Charles Portis, the publicity-shy author of “True Grit” and a short list of other novels that drew a cult following and accolades as the work of possibly the nation’s best unknown writer, died on Monday at a hospice in Little Rock, Ark.

He was 86.His death was confirmed by his brother Jonathan, who said Mr. Portis had been in hospice care for two years and in an Alzheimer’s care facility for six years prior.Mr. Portis was in his early 30s and well established as a reporter at The New York Herald Tribune in 1964, when he decided to turn to fiction full time. The decision astonished his friends and colleagues at the paper, among them Jimmy Breslin, Tom Wolfe and Nora Ephron.He had covered the civil rights movement in the South: riots in Birmingham, Ala.; the jailing of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Albany, Ga.; Gov. George C. Wallace’s attempt to stop the desegregation of the University of Alabama.

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New History Books: “Dreams Of El Dorado” By H.W. Brands Offers “Broad Scope” To American West

From a Wall Street Journal online review:

Dreams of El Dorado H.W. BrandsThe so-called winning of the West is one of the fundamental dramas in American history, and Mr. Brands makes the most of his subject by quoting extensively from the participants’ own accounts. In his chapters on Lewis and Clark, he cites the explorers’ descriptions of the daunting cataracts on the Missouri and Columbia rivers and their reaction on reaching their goal. 

In “Dreams of El Dorado,” H.W. Brands has made his job even harder by taking on such a broad swath of western history, from Thomas Jefferson’s seminal purchase of Louisiana, in 1803, to Theodore Roosevelt’s sweeping measures to conserve western resources and landscapes, more than a century later. That’s a lot of history to crowd into just over 500 pages—as Mr. Brands no doubt appreciates, since his own books on Texan independence and the California Gold Rush were each somewhat longer than that.

To read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dreams-of-el-dorado-review-mountains-rivers-and-deserts-11572015889