Zion's Last Frontier: LDS Ranchers, Federal Regulators, and the Clash of the New West in Capitol Reef Country, Utah

Zion's Last Frontier is a historical ethnography that documents the uniquely Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) ranching community around Capitol Reef National Park in south-central Utah over the last 150 years. From the arrival of the first LDS pioneers in the 1870s to fifth- and sixth-generation descendants of those pioneers today, anthropologist Thomas E.Sheridan documents their ongoing struggles with the federal and state agencies that control 96 percent of the land they ranch.Changing policies and management philosophies profoundly impact the ranchers' livelihoods and ways of life.Sheridan explains how the ranchers qualify as "Traditionally Associated People," allowing them access to park lands where some ranchers still drive their cattle on horseback along the few canyons that cut through the Waterpocket Fold as they move their herds from their traditional summer grazing lands to their winter grazing lands. Pushing beyond binary arguments, Sheridan offers an empathetic look at the lived