Author - The Durango Herald

Historic Hubbell Trading Post

In 1878, a decade after Navajos returned from the Long Walk and their forced imprisonment at Fort Sumner, John Lorenzo Hubbell established a trading post at Ganado, Arizona. He would come to...

DATE: Mar 5, 2025 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

On the trail of vintage trailers

Last year, I stumbled into a vintage trailer rally – Antiques of the Spanish Peaks at the La Veta Pines RV Park in the small town of La Veta. I was captivated by the gleaming, eye-popping al...

DATE: Feb 7, 2025 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Utah’s potential land grab: A new fight for the West begins

Utah politicians seek to ignore the U.S. Constitution by claiming 18.5 million acres of your federal public land – most of it administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Utahans have ofte...

DATE: Jan 10, 2025 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Cathedral in the Desert: Tucson’s San Xavier del Bac

To see intricate Baroque Spanish architecture, tourists travel to Mexico, Spain, Portugal and across South America. Or you can visit Tucson, Arizona, to tour San Xavier del Bac Mission churc...

DATE: Dec 6, 2024 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

The Wild Bunch rides again – on bicycles

Over a century ago Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and their fellow outlaws, The Wild Bunch, rode the Outlaw Trail from Robber’s Roost in Utah to Hole in the Wall, Wyoming. Along the way th...

DATE: Nov 8, 2024 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness turns 100

In 1924, forester Aldo Leopold convinced his superiors in the regional office of the U.S. Forest Service to set aside thousands of acres in the Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico a...

DATE: Oct 11, 2024 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Snowy River Cave and historic Fort Stanton, New Mexico

Near Ruidoso, New Mexico lies a 19th century military fort, now a state historic site, surrounded by public land and thick, untouched grasses only lightly grazed by cavalry horses. But what’...

DATE: Sep 10, 2024 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Paddling Birch Creek, Alaska: Dispatch from a warming world

This summer, with Fort Lewis College alumni and a current FLC history student, seven of us canoed Birch Creek, which is one of Alaska’s wild and scenic rivers east of Fairbanks. We paddled f...

DATE: Aug 9, 2024 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Southwest Center celebrates 60 years

Sixty years ago this month Morley and Arthur Ballantine, Jr. agreed to donate $10,000 to establish a Center of Southwest Studies on the Fort Lewis College campus. My how that idea has expand...

DATE: Jul 12, 2024 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

The Mystery of Western Messaging Petroglyphs

There is a style of petroglyphs or rock writing that is not Native American. Neither is it historic inscriptions left by Westward-moving pioneers. It is a coded set of symbols called Western...

DATE: Jun 9, 2024 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Father & daughter artists and the Doel Reed Center in Taos

A father-daughter artistic team from Oklahoma settled in Taos, New Mexico, on acreage that is now the Doel Reed Center. Oklahoma State University owns the center and OSU students, donors, an...

DATE: May 12, 2024 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Morley Nelson, birds of prey, and Snake River Canyon

I can think of no better legacy than to protect a landscape in perpetuity for wild species, but the politics of preservation are never easy. Near Boise, Idaho, Morlan “Morley” Nelson sought ...

DATE: Apr 15, 2024 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels