Tom Lambrecht, Nederland.  One of the more pleasant duties for the Nederland Library staff is to keep up-to-date with our collection, particularly with the new book section, as those titles are most frequently requested by patrons. Recently, a book cover sporting an antique map of the Louisiana Territory caught my eye and the first thought was that this might be a title by William Goetzmann, David Lavender, or one of my other favorite Western historians that I had yet to read. The author’s name, Philip Anschutz, struck a familiar note, though not for his history writings as this is his first book.

Rather, Anschutz is an eminently successful venture capitalist and media mogul. Given his credentials as the wealthy founder of Denver-based Anschutz Corporation, one might not be surprised at the full title of the book: Out Where the West Begins: Profiles, Visions, and Strategies of Early Western Business Leaders. In the foreword, Anschutz thanks his collaborators Bill Convery and Tom Noel, both seasoned Colorado historians, for their guidance, and dedicates the book to his mother, a schoolhouse teacher who hoped he might pursue academia “as a small apology for getting into the wrong line of work.” No tongue-in-cheek apology is needed, however, as his debut effort is a compelling read.

The land acquisition from France in 1803 known as the Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States and fueled our belief in a “Manifest Destiny,” which in turn led to further expansion. Anschutz uses this date as his starting point to chronicle fifty individuals who contributed to the American West being “discovered, explored, settled, civilized and then transformed into a major economic power in its own right.”

Citing the unparalleled growth of the West from 1800 to about 1920, his chosen subjects include men whose products made them household names, including Charles Pillsbury, Adolph Coors, and Henry Wells and William Fargo; masters of “branding” Levi Strauss and Fred Harvey; and of particular interest to Coloradans, local luminaries Charles Boettcher and Spencer Penrose, among others.

Short biographies frequently romanticize the subject by dwelling on their achievements and leaving out the rough edges. Like the nostalgic photographic technique of vignetting, which renders the center of a portrait sharp while blurring the edges, some might argue that they are the equivalent of rose-colored glasses, emphasizing only the subject’s good qualities. Though Anschutz selected the fifty individuals based on his admiration of their role in the evolution of the West from wild frontier to civilized statehood, he does not hesitate to point out their failures, quirks and character flaws.

The short bibliographies provided at the conclusion of each chapter serve as an excellent jumping-off point for further reading and research. His unique perspective and obvious passion for history takes Out Where the West Begins beyond the genre of biography to an intriguing exploration of the seamless merger between entrepreneurship and the development of Western society.

Tom Lambrecht is a Library Assistant at the Nederland Community Library