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The Natural West This page intentionally left blank The Natural West Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains BY DAN FLORES University of Oklahoma Press :Norman ALSO BY D A N FLORES Jeflerson Q Southwestern Exploration (Norman, 1984) Journal of an Indian Trader:Anthony Glass Q the Texas TradingFrontier, 1790-1810 (College Station, 1985) (with Amy Winton) Canyon Visions:Photographs and Pastels of the Texas Plains (Lubbock, 1989) Caprock Canyon1ands:Journeysinto the Heart of the Southern Plains (Austin, 1990) (with Eric Bolen) The Mississippi Kite (Austin, 1993) Horizontal Yellow:Nature and History in the Near Southwest (Albuquerque, 1999) Published with the assistance of the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency which supports the study of such fields as history, philosophy, literature, and language. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Flores, Dan L. (Dan Louie), 1948The natural west : environmental history in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains 1 by Dan Flores p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 239). ISBN 0-806 1-3304-X (cloth) ISBN 0-8061 -3537-9 (paper) 1. Human ecology-Great Plains-History. 2. Human ecology-Rocky Mountains RegionHistory. I. Title. GF504.G74 F57 2001 333.7'0978-dc21 00-047962 The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources,Inc. 8 Copyright O 2001 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University.All rights reserved. Manufactured in the U.S.A. First printing of the Red River Books edition, 2003. To the memory and legacy of Walter Prescott Webb This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: An Art of People and Place 1. Nature's Children: Environmental History as Human Natural History 2. The Ecology of the Red River in 1806: Peter Custis and Early Southwestern Natural History 3. Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy Redux: Another Look at the Southern Plains from 1800 to 1850 4. Dreams and Beasts: The Grizzly and the West 5. Place: Thinking about Bioregional History 6. Islands in the Desert: The Rocky Mountains in Environmental History 7. Zion in Eden: Phases of the Environmental History of Utah 8. The Rocky Mountain West: Fragile Space, Diverse Place 9. A Long Love Affair with an Uncommon Country: Environmental History and the Future of the Great Plains 10. The West That Was, and the West That Can Be: Western Restoration and the Twenty-first Century Appendix: Discoveries of Peter Custis Notes Bibliography Index This page intentionally left blank ILLUSTRATIONS Figures The High Plains The Rocky Mountains Wily and the Sapphire Mountains, Montana Great Plains rock art, canyons of the Brazos River The Red River Mississippi kite One of Peter Custis's surviving botanical specimens Rock art, buffalo Pecos National Monument, New Mexico Catlin's portrayal of the Plains Indian buffalo hunt Grizzly bear and mouse, George Catlin Woodcut of a scene from the Lewis and Clark expedition, in Patrick Gass's published account, 1807 Blackfeet grizzly-bear shaman, George Catlin, 1832 Missoula, Montana, in the Northern Rockies, 2000 Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the Southern Rockies, 1998 Grand Tetons and Snake River, Northern Rockies Rock art, bighorn sheep Mountain water for the lowland deserts: Rio Grande Gorge near Taos Southern Utah landscape Ranges isolated by surrounding desert, such as Utah's Henry Mountains, are cradles for specially evolved endemic species Sangre de Cristo Range, Southern Rockies The Penitente Cult of the Hispanic Southern Rockies, as portrayed by Ernest Blumenschein X Il