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The Canyon Country Zephyr

"Hopelessly Clinging to the Past
(and its History)
Since 1989"

03/06/2025

Herb Ringer's collections have come to light only due to Jim Stiles' efforts to preserve and chronicle them. Ringer was one of the most prolific documentarians of the 20th Century West, and he left his vast collections of photographs, slides, travelogues, diaries and mementos to his best friend, Jim Stiles. Although several articles about Ringer are available on the Canyon Country Zephyr, they only begin to scratch the surface of his unique and iconic depictions of the last 100 years.

“When I was about four my father had an engagement to play the summer season out in Colorado Springs with a local band, the Colorado Midland Band, owned by the Colorado Midland Railroad. So we journeyed by train across the country to Colorado and my father rented a small cabin there. That cabin, b...

24/05/2025

There are some folks in red rock country who have visceral aversions to "trashy trailers," but the rest of us love and appreciate them for their utility, mobility and artistry. Thank you, Jim Stiles for standing in the breach between snobbery and good sense.

One could make the argument that without the invention and development of the travel trailer, Moab’s Uranium Boom of the 1950s would have been even more chaotic than it was. Until Charlie Steen’s life altering discovery of uranium at Big Indian, 30 miles south of town, Moab was a sleepy little v...

13/05/2025

Harvey Leake was a contributing writer for the Zephyr and produced many lyrical and insightful reflections about his pioneer ancestors who helped settle the Four Corners area. This is one such piece.

The fire was now burning brightly. We sat down around Grandfather as the firelight played over his face and white hair. We could hear the wind blowing outside, but everything was peaceful inside the hogan and we were all contented. Grandfather began the story he had promised to tell us, and we soon

02/05/2025

Jim Stiles had an uncanny sense about social, cultural and economic trends, and how one breed of boom and bust would lead to another. Is the tourism boom starting to wind down? And what, if any, new economic model will take its place?

Today, the rural west veers between two economic extremes: The industrial resource extraction and commodity economy, and the industrial tourism economy. The traditional occupations of the west, ranching, farming, logging, and mining, are locked in a deadly embrace with global commodity markets.

31/03/2025

Part 2 of Mark Steen's series about his "Uranium King" pop.

CHARLIE STEEN’S youngest son ‘sets the record straight’ about the Life & Times of Moab’s Most Famous Prospector At the beginning of my first article in The Zephyr about my father, Charlie Steen, and his discovery of the Mi Vida mine and its consequences, I wrote that people couldn’t seem t...

24/03/2025

As a true environmentalist, Jim Stiles was pained by the needless destruction of things in nature. In this piece, Stiles traces the NPS' tamarisk eradication efforts in Arches and Canyonlands, and in the case of the Secret Spring, the sad and shocking results.

(NOTE: This installment in my "ranger series" starts during my time at Arches, but the story of tamarisk at the park, and the NPS's efforts to eradicate it go far beyond my tenure...JS) * * * In the last issue of The Zephyr, I made reference to a place I called "The Secret Spring," in a very r

10/03/2025

It's been nearly a year since Jim Stiles passed out of this world. One of his final wishes was to continue posting his articles on this page for as long as his memory lingered. Jim wanted this because he regarded all of you as friends, and loyal friends were everything to him. Posted in March of 2021, this story recounts two special friendships from his days as a national parks ranger.

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 hat for more than three decades; yet I still cherish the memory and friendship

28/02/2025

Jim Stiles dug into Moab's uranium past with great interest and appreciation for the men and women who made southeastern Utah America's atomic hub. Mark Steen, son of the "Uranium King" Charlie Steen, was a friend of Stiles and wrote a series about his father's atomic exploits. This is the first in that series.

CHARLIE STEEN'S youngest son 'sets the record straight' about the Life & Times of Moab's Most Famous Prospector My father, Charlie Steen, has always maintained that the truth about his discovery of the Mi Vida mine and its consequences is a much better story than the fiction and half-truths t

13/02/2025

This weekend Moab Museum is opening a new exhibit about the Uranium Boom and the characters that made it happen. Jim Stiles was well versed in this aspect of Moab's history and published numerous articles about it on the Zephyr. This excellent piece was published in June of 2023.

Uranium fever became a national affliction when Steen announced his strike. Go-for-broke prospectors poured into the little town of Moab by the thousands, lured by the $100 million bait. The town was besieged by a boom which was to surpass the gold rushes of the previous century. Hopeful investors,

03/02/2025

In this well-researched article, Stiles profiles billionaire "environmentalist" David Bonderman (deceased 12/11/24) who built a 15,000 sq ft "mcmansion" in what was once termed "the sloughs" near the Colorado River. With Moab--and the state of Utah--in the midst of a severe housing crisis, the Moab mcmansion craze is worth a conversation.

Note: Elsewhere in this issue is a review of the recently released documentary, "Planet of the Humans." The documentary was written and directed by Jeff Gibbs, and produced in part by Michael Moore. In part, it exposes the hypocritical connections between wealthy individuals and corporate interests

25/01/2025

This article was posted a year ago, and the sign in its featured image is among the many treasures in the Stiles collection. Jim left behind a literal history of Moab and its surroundings spanning many decades. This is a fun read!

For decades, the iconic routed wooden signs, in national parks across America, were a familiar sight to tourists. They were works of art... But leave it to the government to find one. Someone in the Department of Transportation, his/her identity lost to history, decided to take a look at the park s

02/01/2025

Jim Stiles' nose for fascinating people with interesting stories was legendary. Enjoy this great read from July 2022.

"My brother and I are Basque, you know. We came from the Pyrenees before the second world war," Armando explained. "Really," I said. "What did you do when you came over here?" "Well," he replied, "I went to work for the OSS." “The OSS?” I knew what the OSS was...the Office of Strategic Services,

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