The Last of the Old West

This is the story of the part played by the author in the utter transformation of a remote, beautiful and largely unspoiled Rocky Mountain ranching valley into a high-voltage, world-renowned mega-resort named 2014's Richest County in America.

For thirty-four years, pretty much the middle half of his life, the author designed houses for other people. He was a "small-town architect." That's in quotes because, for openers, there's really no such thing as a small-town architect. Nobody in a small town thinks they need an architect, or if they do, they can't afford one. If their builder wants plans at all, he's either got a kid in the back room who did OK in high school drafting class or he'll hire the guy down at the lumber yard with the same credentials.

Then, too, the place where he worked, although certainly small by almost any standard, was anything but your garden-variety small-town. His tenure there spanned the exact time during which it underwent a total transformation from the "Last of the Old West" to the "Best of the New." It was and still is quite a place.

This is the story of the rise, and some would say fall, of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.