The Last of the Old West

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(76 76 76 1)>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.</span></p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>This is the story of the rise and some would say fall of Jackson Hole Wyoming.</p>