The geologic quirk that named this western Colorado valley may inspire non-conformity in the human inhabitants as well.

In 1875, surveyor A.J. Peale noted that the Dolores River ran across the midsection of the flat rangeland valley near the Utah border. Conventional rivers flow down a valley's length.

Hence the name Paradox.

And perhaps that landscape peculiarity has influenced more than a century of unconventional life in the valley's two outposts, Paradox and Bedrock.

At the general store in Bedrock -- the only market for dozens of miles -- the bathroom is an outhouse with a view that rivals a John Wayne western.

"We haven't been invaded by the world," said Clistina Jensen, the relief postmistress in Paradox. She checked the two-page Paradox-Bedrock listing in the area's thin phone book and estimated the valley's population at under 100.

The Bedrock Store, stocked with the latest in energy bars as well as vintage hair nets of human hair, hasn't changed much from its 1911 postcard photo. The brick building and its long wooden porch, ornate cash register and classic scales are the same. The potbellied stove is a newer, safer model.

"In the winter, the cowboys move down the valley with the cattle," said store owner Paul Morse. "They'll tie the horses out front, come in wearing their chaps and spurs and rope the cat. The cat loves it."

One August weekend this year, two couples drove up in a Corvette. The women took off their blouses and sat on the porch while the boyfriends took their pictures.

"I couldn't believe it," said Morse, who frequently poses on the porch with entire families enchanted with the store's Old West look.

Hollywood brought the valley fame this year when the movie The Flintstones opened. The cartoon cave couple received lots of mail addressed to Bedrock, Colo.

The cemetery, a nearly barren hill of grit and rock, tells of real lives spent within the sandstone-ringed basin.

Elaborate grave markers and simple shale slabs mark the short lives of the homesteaders' babies and the long lives of successful ranchers.

"You either had the genes to survive or you didn't," said Jensen, who grew up in Utah and moved to Paradox with her husband in 1968. "You have to be kind of special to live here.

"If you break your arm, you have to wait at least 48 minutes before it's set," she said, explaining the distance by road to Naturita or Moab, Utah.

Lawlessness was the community standard at the start, western Colorado author Howard Greager said in his book, The Hell That was Paradox.

Before Peale named the box canyon valley, Paradox was a secluded stop on Utah's Outlaw Trail, a backcountry escape route for bandits, said Greager. Illegal homesteaders moved in, although the Ute Indians owned the area.

In the 1870s, the Utes and Mormon settlers from Utah joined forces to stop the homesteading by ambushing wagon trains and supply convoys, said Greager. Cattle rustling was a crime that didn't always require a trial, and water provoked its share of gunfights.

Salt deposits up to 5,000 feet deep line the valley floor. Paradox Creek is thick with salt, although there are some fresh water springs. The Dolores River is the major source of good water for ranching or farming.

Water is still a forbidden topic -- along with politics and religion -- at the impromptu community potlucks held at the firehouse, said Jensen. Satellite dishes keep the information highway open year-round. And everyone responds to a fire.

"We're not lost to the big, wide world," said Jensen, whose rancher husband spends most days without talking to a soul. She has never been to Denver. "We're just not out in the big, wide world."

Electricity didn't arrive until 1957. About 14 children attend grades kindergarten through third in Paradox. Basketball, volleyball and football games are the community tonic for isolation.

"Sure, it's lonely sometimes, but I'm never alone," said Jensen, who admitted the winters are hard. "We're part of the tough part of the West. You learn to live with it and not against it."

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| Dolores River (Colorado River) | Four Corners | U.S. Map

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