Escalante Canyon is a red-walled hole in a geologic uplift (the Uncompahgre Plateau) in western Colorado. Pioneers surging west fell into this canyon hole the way gold nuggets get caught in the potholes of a stream. Like nuggets eddying against stone, they were shaped by the Canyon--rounded off, shattered, or tossed away, according to how they conformed or resisted. Indeed, treasure richer than gold settled into that hole in time; in the onrushing current of history the lifestyle--the Old West--settled and still survives there--in fact, in artifact, and in living memories.
The tale of the...

Where the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Rivers meet, so too have the real life stories and myths of the Native Americans, Spanish gold-seekers, French fur traders, white settlers, infamous outlaws, and the many others who have attempted to lay their claim to the region. In Where Rivers Meet, Muriel Marshall returns to western Colorado, the stomping grounds for her previous book, Red Hole in Time, to unearth the rich local lore. More than rural in its appeal, this story of life at the confluence of the tumultuous Gunnison and the tranquil Uncompahgre Rivers is a meditation on the history and...