Old Fences, New Neighbors

The West is changing. "There are few places in the American West more isolated than Ouray County," writes Peter Decker. And yet in recent years this once-rural ranching and mining area in Colorado's mountain country has experienced dramatic alterations in its landscape, economic base, and population. The residents of Ridgway, Colorado, who once numbered only a few hundred, now listen to the hum from the highway as ski-toting tourists head for the Rockies and the swish of the fringe jackets of the new breed of "gentleman ranchers" who are buying up more and more land in the area. Old Fences, New Neighbors is a chronicle of how one small rural community is dealing with the changes currently sweeping the West. It is also the firsthand perspective of a working rancher. Decker, himself once an outsider in Ouray County, left a career as a professor of history and bought a ranch in the area in 1974, where a local told him it was fine to have a Ph. D., but "in this country, son, it darn well better mean a posthole digger." In Old Fences, New Neighbors, Decker gives us a hard, realistic look at his own experience with ranching: the elaborate machinations of a cattle drive, the struggle to irrigate fields when water is so scarce, the pain and beauty of cow birth. Few of the newest residents of Ridgway, however, wish to experience this former way of life. Instead, many are absentee landowners brought to the area by a new tourist economy, an economy that has raised land prices and has made it impossible for traditional ranchers to make ends meet. While the old way of life is ending, progress can also mean the influx of new ideas and valuable change. Decker recognizes the positive impact of outsiders and tourists on Ridgway: they have created a community of greater tolerance and diversity in an area that was once set in its ways.