Mountains In The Rearview Mirror: Ghost Town(ing) Part 10

Episode 4: The Midwife: Most births are uncomplicated. So in rural areas where hospitals are shutting down, women want to give birth at home. Now, states across the country are legalizing and regulating midwifery so they can. This is the story of one rural state, one midwife, a by The Modern West

26 min listen

A Walk Across The Prairie: When Emily Chen-Newton moved to Nebraska, she was worried she’d miss her Kentucky mountains. But then she walked a long section of the new Great Plains Trail and realized her new home was a more magical place than she gave it credit for. And not so flat either. by The Modern West

29 min listen

The Doctor In The Screen: Ghost Town(ing) Part 6: Living in a pandemic doesn't have many plus sides to it. But there is one bright side for rural America. Telehealth is finally getting to flex its muscles. But adjusting to technology isn't easy for older patients, and that's one thing small towns have lots of: senior citizens. So, we take a trip to Sheridan, Wyoming to see how well telehealth is working for veteran Ron Loporto. by The Modern West

38 min listen

Bust Town: Ghost Town(ing) Part 2: Why are we so fascinated by old ghost towns? And what can they teach us? We go looking for the ghosts of an old silver mining community called Teller City to see if they have any lessons for how the nearby town of Walden, Colorado can keep from falling into the same cycles of boom and bust. by The Modern West

36 min listen

A Stranger Comes To Town: Ghost Town(ing) Part 3: The West has long been a haven for the ultra-wealthy. Sometimes, they move into small towns with the aim of revitalizing them. But in Walden, Colorado, one wealthy businessman's plans went awry, with dire consequences for the community. by The Modern West

41 min listen

Episode 10: The Widower: Bob was devastated when his wife died of cancer. He'd been her main caregiver, and afterward, he realized that now he had to face his old age alone. No kids, no family nearby. And living in the West, he started worrying about how inaccessible senior care could be. That's when his gallows humor took over. by The Modern West

27 min listen

Episode 6: The Next Yellowstone: Imagine Congress agreeing to create national forests and wildlife refuges these days. Probably wouldn’t happen. So when a billionaire realized a large swath of the Great Plains needed special protections he decided to do it himself, without the government’s help. His dream is for a new kind of privately-owned national park–one as expansive as Yellowstone. by The Modern West

49 min listen

Season 1 Preview: The Modern West is getting a reboot! New host, new theme music, and brand-new stories just for this podcast. Season 1 starts September 17. by The Modern West

4 min listen

Episode 3: Adult-Onset Hunting: The number of Americans hunting and fishing is declining, but women are bucking the trend. Host Melodie Edwards finds a sisterhood at an all-women hunting camp—and catches her first fish with her dad. by The Modern West

22 min listen

Coming Soon To A Feed Near You...: A preview of our summer mini-season: three episodes that take you deep into the real West to meet people thinking hard about the future of this place. Predators, prairie, and pots of glitter. by The Modern West

4 min listen

Episode 5: Belonging: Young people from Gen Z are moving to cities around the West. But in doing so, they're also out-migrating from rural hometowns in places like Wyoming and New Mexico. Conversations between young people about why they leave and why they stay. by The Modern West

24 min listen

Bonus: Stranger In A Strange Land: We're on a short holiday break, so here's the first part of a podcast called Grouse, a show about the most controversial bird in the West and what it can teach us about hope, compromise and life in rural America. by The Modern West

19 min listen

Episode 1: Carpetbagger: You ask around, and people can't agree on a quintessential Wyoming writer. And if you can't identify the literature of a place, you can't define the place. Authors including CJ Box and Craig Johnson weigh in. by The Modern West

29 min listen

Episode 8: The Man From Lodge Grass: Quincy Dabney loved growing up in Lodge Grass on the Crow Reservation in Montana. But then, just like him, it started falling apart. Now Quincy is working to save the hometown that saved him. by The Modern West

36 min listen

Episode 7: Bringing The Buffalo Home: It's been over a century since the U.S. government exterminated bison from the Great Plains as a way to win the war against the Native American tribes there. But now reservations across the West are working to bring them back. by The Modern West

28 min listen

Episode 9: What You’re Missing About Coal Country: Once upon a time, coal miners took pride in the hard work they did. But these days the coal industry is sluggish and miners are feeling left behind—even disrespected—by the world. What they want most now is to just figure out how to hold on to the strong community that coal once gave them. by The Modern West

37 min listen

The Environmental Billionaire: Ghost Town(ing) Part 4: 2020 feels apocalyptic. It's not just the pandemic; there's also drought, mega-fires, melting glaciers. Meanwhile, the ultra-wealthy are stockpiling land, buying up small family ranches across the Mountain West. It makes you wonder, is it really a good idea to put that much environmental control in the hands of so few? by The Modern West

38 min listen

Small Town Democracy: Ghost Town(ing) Part 11: Small town politics has a lot to teach us about how fragile democracy is right now. In Walden, we sit in on a beautification committee meeting and see how hard it is to make change happen--and how rural struggles are reflected in American democracy writ large. by The Modern West

39 min listen

Stranger On The Side Of The Road: Cowboy Up Part 1: In 1892, Wyoming hosts its first execution and it's a teenage boy named Kansas Charley. His trial causes a big national debate: is Charley a hardened criminal or a neglected child? It's a question we still haven't answered in the American West, where children are incarcerated in greater numbers than anywhere else. We also hear from a modern-day Kansas Charley who's living out his days in Wyoming's prisons who says, growing up, no one ever asked him the simple question: do you need help? by The Modern West

51 min listen

"You Can’t Eat The View": Ghost Town(ing) Part 1: Years ago, small towns like Walden, Colorado were vibrant. Street dances, a health food store, a movie theatre, the works. At least, that's how host Melodie Edwards remembers it from her childhood. Now it's shrinking, part of the "ghost towning" of the American West. But can communities like Walden find a way to survive? Or will Melodie's parents be forced to move away, like so many others? by The Modern West

22 min listen

Episode 2: Both/Neither: The U.S. government only allows Native Americans to register with one tribe. But what happens when two tribes share one reservation for over a century? Two women grapple with how that affected their identity growing up. by The Modern West

18 min listen

Meet Your Neighbor: A Conversation About The Rural West And The 2020 Election: Part 4 of our Ghost Town(ing) series is in the works, coming out next week. But while you’re waiting, here's a way that you can get your voice in on the conversation about the state of the rural West. by The Modern West

3 min listen

The Small-Town Drag Queen: It wasn’t easy growing up queer in small-town Wyoming. And when Taylar went to college in Laramie, an assault left her in pieces…until she found community with Giselle and the Dragonettes. Follow them as they head to the big city for a David Bowie drag competition. by The Modern West

32 min listen

The Fine Art Of Coexisting: Ghost Town(ing) Part 12: In the final chapter of Ghost Town(ing), host Melodie Edwards revisits her parents' decision about whether to move away from Walden. Her mom has been trying to lure her dad away with all sorts of stratagems. But there's a lot about the craziness of 2020 that entrenched him even deeper. by The Modern West

30 min listen

Bonus: Middle of Everywhere: The Modern West brings you heartfelt stories about poignant issues happening today in the rural west. A lot of these issues are also felt in other rural communities, across the country. Today we take you to the foothills of the lush Appalachian Mountains in East Tennessee. There you’ll meet people who lost their way of life when a federal agency decided to take their land and flood their rich river valley, burying beneath the water much of our country’s early history, including many sacred Cherokee sites, and threatening an endangered species. This was all done in the name of progress. From our good friends at the award-winning podcast Middle of Everywhere, with WKMS in Kentucky, this is The Story of Tanasi, the first of a five-part series following a decades-long battle that took the river’s people all the way to the Supreme Court as they tried to save their way of life in the Little Tennessee River Valley. In this first part, called The Birth of a River, by The Modern West

24 min listen

Enough Is Enough: Shall Furnish Medicine Part 2: It's the late 1800s. With no government help in sight, Omaha citizen Dr. Susan LaFlesche is determined to bring health care to her tribe. Decades later, the U.S. still hasn't gotten around to fulfilling its treaty promise to furnish medicine. So, tribes find a way to take over their health care system, and a quiet social movement is born. by The Modern West

47 min listen

My Modern West: From Surviving To Thriving: From the nurse who moved back to Walden, to the foreign diplomat who grew up in Nebraska, from the ranch kid who's seen the wealthy moving in, to the Asian-American daughter remembering her father's migration to the great American West. Listeners react to Ghost Town(ing) with their stories. by The Modern West

18 min listen

Season 2: Ghost Town(ing) Trailer: They say those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. So what can Old West ghost towns teach us about today's shrinking rural towns? Starting September 16, we'll take you to the windswept prairie where towns once stood and to new ghost towns in the making. We're exploring rural decline and resilience, and asking, why does it matter if America's small towns disappear? by The Modern West

4 min listen

Cowboy Up Trailer: Everyone likes to say that there's no better place to grow up than in the Rocky Mountains. Building snow forts, riding your bike everywhere, learning how to find your way out of the woods when you're lost. But for kids having a hard time, no one's handing them a map and compass. In Wyoming, kids are incarcerated and dying of suicide at higher rates than anywhere else. Longtime education reporter Tennessee Watson started to wonder if all this had to do with the "cowboy up" attitude we take toward child-rearing in the American West. A three-part series coming January 5th. by The Modern West

5 min listen

We're Still Here: Shall Furnish Medicine Part 3: When COVID-19 arrives on reservation borders, tribes aren't sure if their newly minted health care programs can hold up against the onslaught. The fear is that this is history happening all over again. But the two tribes on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming decide early to roll up their sleeves–literally–in a fight for the very survival of their tribal identity. by The Modern West

58 min listen

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Mountains In The Rearview Mirror: Ghost Town(ing) Part 10

Mountains In The Rearview Mirror: Ghost Town(ing) Part 10

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