For Sale: Bookshop with cattle ranch (cows not included)

January 22, 2022 6:21 AM

The 500-acre Singing Wind Ranch in Arizona is for sale at $1.5M. For decades it has been the home of one of the Southwest's best bookstores. After Winn Bundy earned her master's in library science from the University of Arizona in the early 1970s, she decided to open a bookshop—on the family cattle ranch north of the small town of Benson in southeast Arizona. Her family has tried to keep the 30,000-volume shop running since her death last year, but have decided it's time to sell the ranch.

Singing Wind Bookshop is much more than a curiosity: under Winn Bundy it was one of the best curated independent bookstores in the Western US. As you'd expect, it was strong in subjects like regional history, Native American studies, and the archaeology natural history of the Southwest, but it also had surprisingly good selections of contemporary fiction and African American and women's studies titles. She nurtured authors like Charles Bowden (and contributed a reminiscence to a recent collection of essays about him), and the shop's annual festival hosted many other writers over the years. And along with its often out-of-print rarities you'd find the occasional one-of-a-kind item like a miniature watercolor by Linda Ronstadt's father Gilbert.

posted by Creosote (6 comments total)

This is a wonderful story, thanks for posting - if only I were 30 years younger and had a coupla mil layin' around I'd be all over that opp. Am puzzled how I missed that gem on travels to / around Tucson.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 8:10 AM on January 22, 2022

Am puzzled how I missed that gem on travels to / around Tucson

I've lived in Tucson most of my life. I went to the same library school as her. I still had never heard of it. I've even been looking at houses in that area and never heard of it.



And I still can't read the damn main article because despite having a subscription to my local paper, their website sucks so much it puts me into a perpetual sign in cycle.
posted by nestor_makhno at 8:48 AM on January 22, 2022 [2 favorites]

@nestor_makhno: Archived version here
posted by riotnrrd at 9:36 AM on January 22, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've lived in Tucson most of my life. I went to the same library school as her. I still had never heard of it.

Well that makes me feel better as I routinely search and inquire when traveling to turn up the best and most unique book stores and find book lovers online and/or in person usually know all the hidden and obscure gems. And with a regional specialization like that and catering to Southwest writers I'd have thought it would be better known.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 10:18 AM on January 22, 2022

I've lived in Tucson most of my life. I went to the same library school as her. I still had never heard of it. I've even been looking at houses in that area and never heard of it.

Singing Wind never advertised, never had a website; there was a Facebook page but rarely updated and deleted several years ago. I think that printed travel guides to Southern Arizona would mention it, but fewer and fewer people buy those nowadays. And if you go to a site like TripAdvisor looking for interesting things to see around Tucson, the store wouldn't show up--you'd have to be searching on Benson. People learned about it by word of mouth, infrequent announcements of events in newspapers, and occasional media coverage.
posted by Creosote at 11:04 AM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

If you are wondering why 500 acres is only 1.5 million, it's pretty dry desert, 13 inches of rain per year. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter. Pretty close to Tucson, though, for shopping.
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:35 AM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]