Last Ranch, The: A Colorado Community and the Coming Desert [Hardcover]

Sam Bingham (Author), Linda (Editor) Healey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 1996

This powerful book presents an absorbing account of Colorado's San Luis valley, a ranching community, as its residents struggle to preserve its way of life in the face of a profoundly changing environment.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Colorado's San Luis Valley is a land of broad, expansive range ringed by massive mountains that is visited only rarely by rain, about eight inches a year. It is also a place where a small enclave of ranchers struggle to make a living, fighting not only the elements but a host of forces--politics, the pressures of modern culture and technology, the marketplace--that conspire to put an end to their generations-old community. For a year beginning in 1992, naturalist and magazine writer Sam Bingham lived in the valley. In The Last Ranch he brings to life both the people of the valley and a flock of international characters who have targeted the San Luis Valley for exploitation. At the center of the story are Donnie and Karen Whitten, high school sweethearts who live in a doublewide trailer with their three children, and who come to symbolize the tenacity of the residents of the valley as they endure against very long odds.

From Library Journal

This book offers a fresh look at how a handful of ranchers are working to preserve and improve the land they love. Writer and lecturer Bingham (Holistic Resource Management Workbook, Island, 1990) spent much of 1992 observing a family ranch in southern Colorado's San Luis Valley. Using techniques that were introduced by Allan Savory (Holistic Resource Management, Island, 1988), the author concentrates on an attempt to slow the impending advance of desertification while maintaining a (marginally) profitable ranch. He also examines the dismal record of a variety of world development projects and the environmental and social havoc they often leave in their wake. Highly recommended for all range management and Western U.S. environmental collections.?Tim J. Markus, Evergreen State Coll. Lib., Olympia, Wash.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 363 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1st edition (September 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679422838
• ISBN-13: 978-0679422839
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,802,051 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Where have all the cowboys gone?, July 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Ranch: A Colorado Community and the Coming Desert (Paperback)

Like a string of wet years followed by the worst ever drought, the Last Ranch shows that progress is as much about going forward as it is going back, in that lessons must be learned and relearned by every generation, and what at once seemed right, is not right, and the obvious, easiest path is the slow road to ruin. I learned a lot about change and my interest in evapotranspiration was increased. There are enough details without explanation to where you can draw your own conclusions or where you are pointed to further consideration. Bingham points out ever so gently that our problems are social and individual, not political or technological. What a cast of characters and organizations.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Traditional Colorado ranch meets New Economy, January 6, 2009

By 

Bristlecone - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Last Ranch: A Colorado Community and the Coming Desert (Paperback)

The old ranching ways were simple: raise as many cows as the land would handle. The new ranching realities include many new concepts, some quasi-experimental, of protecting and renewing the vegetation and handling the cattle, under the watchful eye of the Forest Service that manages the summer grazing allotment. The first economic reality is that with the best dawn-to-dusk efforts, raising cows makes a poor living. The second economic reality is that neighboring ranches may be bought up as tax write-offs and playthings by rich folks from the city. This is the true chronicle of one family buffeted by these forces, and like a good novel, has a surprise ending. The writing is good. The story is compelling for anyone who travels through the Colorado mountains and wonders just what is happening on those scattered ranches in the distance. It is a story that stays with you years after all the novels have evaporated from your brain.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very accurate, September 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Last Ranch, The: A Colorado Community and the Coming Desert (Hardcover)

The San Luis Valley is a unique place which is hard to describe. This book has done an excellent job and is very accurate. I was born and raised there and my grandfather founded the town that much of his story relates to - Center, Colo. I can attest to the accuracy. It is also a very interesting story.