Much Of Western U.S. Still The Frontier

"Beyond the high-tech campuses and ever spreading suburbs, beyond the ranchettes and resort homes, the frontier endures. The Western population boom that made Las Vegas the fastest-growing metro area in the 1990s could not be heard two Nevada counties north, where the county seat is widely listed as a ghost town. It bypassed hundreds of Western Plains counties like Garfield, Mont., where one of its one-room schoolhouses will open with one student next fall...The 2000 census counted the West as the country's fastest-growing region, with the dry, rocky and steep states of Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Idaho leading the way. Yet that growth barely touched the modern frontier. Of the 100 least-populated counties in the continental United States, 72 lost people in the 1990s. Of 132 frontier counties in 1990, just eight crossed the historic frontier line. Meanwhile, 11 others dipped below."