Author - The Durango Herald

As in the Great Depression, today’s economic refugees may take to the road

How do you write a travel column when you cannot travel? How do you write with historical perspective when you are in the middle of an historical moment? Now more than ever, we n...

DATE: May 9, 2020 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Adventure seekers: FLC award inspires students to pursue outdoor dreams

Author’s note: Even with a viral pandemic and a downturn in the economy, it is important to plan for the future. Fort Lewis College is doing just that. If Durangoans can’t spend time out...

DATE: Apr 11, 2020 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Pioneering passion for plants: Botanist Alice Eastwood explored the Southwest

The American West has always had extraordinary women, but few of them have stopped to pick the flowers. For Women’s History Month, it is important to remember Alice Eastwood. Thi...

DATE: Mar 14, 2020 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

A failed attempt to remove the Southern Utes to San Juan County, Utah

Whenever I hike in Bears Ears National Monument, I think about how it almost became an Native American reservation. Over a century ago, Durango businessmen actively campaigned to...

DATE: Feb 8, 2020 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

On the trail of tiny tubers: Four Corners potato a staple of Native American diets

For years, we’ve learned that ancestral Puebloans depended upon corn, beans and squash, nicknamed The Three Sisters, for sustenance. Well, move over sisters. Little brother spud ...

DATE: Jan 11, 2020 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Helper’s new riches: Utah railroad, coal mining town reinvents itself as artistic haven

Soiled doves are visible from hotel room windows in Helper, Utah, but now they are just mannequins. This gritty coal mining and railroad boomtown has embraced its diverse ethnic past. A new ...

DATE: Dec 14, 2019 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Pendleton blankets inspired by Navajo designs benefit Center of Southwest Studies

Babies get wrapped in Pendleton trade blankets. At Native American ceremonies and giveaways, the gift of choice is usually Pendleton blankets. Pendleton blankets are given to returning veter...

DATE: Nov 9, 2019 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

The case of the stolen stove doors: Couple gives mining history to San Juan Historical Society

As a Southwest tour leader and former museum director, occasionally after a few beers, folks tell me what they took from public land. Then I help them return items. Such is the case with sto...

DATE: Oct 12, 2019 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Did James White run the Grand Canyon before John Wesley Powell?

This year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Major John Wesley Powell’s daring expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. But was he the first? Another story exists with...

DATE: Sep 14, 2019 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

History Colorado explores the West, up north in the Canadian Rockies

In a column about the Southwest, why write about Canada? Because I just visited the Southwest – southwestern Alberta. We were there for one of History Colorado’s famous Tours & T...

DATE: Aug 10, 2019 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

When a killer wore a deputy’s badge in Telluride

Why is it that we remember and even glorify such Western American outlaws as Billy the Kid and Butch Cassidy when other outlaws are long ago dead, buried and forgotten? One histo...

DATE: Jul 13, 2019 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Sheep stories in the West run from the high country into canyons

Why study sheep, sheepherders and carved aspen trees in Colorado? Because everywhere I go, sheep have been there first. From high alpine meadows in federally protected wilderness areas to si...

DATE: Jun 8, 2019 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels