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Toward a Synthetic Interpretation of the Mountain West: Diversity, Isolation, and Cooperation
Utah Historical Quarterly
Vol. 39, 1971, No. 3
Toward a Synthetic Interpretation of the Mountain West: Diversity, Isolation, and Cooperation
BY THOMAS G. ALEXANDER GUEST EDITOR
SINCE ITS PUBLICATION in 1931, Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains has had a tremendous impact upon assumptions underpinning the historiography of the region west of the 98th meridian. In this pioneering study, Webb argued that
Webb believed that any region exhibiting two of the three characteristics ought to be considered part of the Plains environment. The Mountain West was included because, according to Webb, it was treeless and arid.
That the third feature obtains in the Mountain West, hardly anyone would deny. But that it displays either of the other two to any consistent degree, only those unfamiliar with the region would affirm. Far from being flat, the land is broken by mountains and plateaus. Webb's "Inter- Mountain Plain," is in fact the Basin and Range Physiographic Province, characterized by alternating basins, valleys, and mountains.
Of greatest importance, the Mountain West was not devoid of timber. Unlike the regions east of the 98th meridian, however, land usually suited to general crop agriculture was not forested. Timber was located rather on the mountains and plateaus rimming the farming region. This circumstance caused a great deal of difficulty for early settlers, not because the timber resources were insufficient for their needs but because it was expensive to obtain and land disposal legislation and administration tried to prevent the use of timber located on land which could not be legally purchased. Because of the abundance of timber, it is not at all surprising that the bulk of today's national forests lie within the Mountain States.
If then, the application of Webb's thesis to the Mountain West fails because two of the three characteristics are missing, what alternative hypothesis can be used to analyze Mountain West development? Two characteristics seem predominant: first, the region is made up of radically diverse geographic elements; and second, the resources necessary for most economic activities are isolated from one another.
For most generalizations about the Mountain States, one might make almost as good a case for the opposite point of view. The region has low precipitation, and large portions average well under eight inches per year. In the mountains, however, are zones with more than thirty-two inches of precipitation per year. The landscape is characterized by treeless valleys and by forested uplands. It exhibits both fertile, easily tilled farmlands and rugged mountains. The rate of water runoff, unlike that of the Great Plains, is not uniform but heavy or light depending upon the location. It is characterized by relatively high concentrations of mineral resources, situated at widely separated points.
The point so often made before with regard to water is also true with regard to other resources. Timber, minerals, and farmland are all present, but they are often concentrated in pockets isolated from one another. Because of the divergent location of these resources, separate pockets of settlement developed. Settlement could not follow the westward flow which had characterized the movement up to and even onto the Great Plains. Colonization of the Mountain West left vast unpopulated regions between points of high concentration of people.
This combination of diverse geography and isolated resources has meant that a relatively high degree of cooperation or its substitute — privately or publicly supplied capital — has been necessary to bring interdependent but geographically separated resources together.
During the early years of settlement, except where cooperation made the combination of isolated resources possible, general crop agriculture lagged behind the rest of the nation. Not until 1920, after the development of dry farming and large irrigation projects, did the percentage of the population engaged in crop agriculture in the Mountain West pass the national percentage. On the other hand, industries which could command capital for the wedding of population, resources, and technology, flourished in the region. Prime examples have been extraction of minerals, railroads, and forestry, all of which employed a disproportionately large share of the population in the nineteenth century. All of these industries tended to promote concentrated town and city rather than rural development. Even stock raising, the type of agriculture which did surpass the national average in percentage of persons employed, generally required cooperation in the distribution of range and the employment of cooperative methods which were'never needed on the individualistic family farm.
Because of these features, first, of geographic diversity, and second, of isolated resources, cooperative or corporate development has of necessity been characteristic of the Mountain West. The region between the 105th and 120th meridians has more than its proportionate share of public lands, national forests, national parks, large military installations, Indian reservations, and federal reclamation projects. Even in the private sector, large corporate undertaking such as mining companies, sugar companies, and railroads have dominated the region's development.
Some years ago, Earl Pomeroy argued that historians had too often emphasized the discontinuities rather than the continuities in western development. The Mountain West exhibits both. Obviously, those who came into the region carried cultural technology baggage which they had to adapt to the new environment. It was undoubtedly this continuity of attitudes and practices which made the traditional family farm difficult and traditionally corporate undertakings like mining, railroading, and forestry possible. Some institutions such as water law had to be adapted to the new environment.
Directly in the center of the Mountain West lies Utah, which may serve as a case in point. The articles collected in this issue show the practical emphasis on collective use which was needed for the development of natural resources in Utah. By concerted community action in the construction of the Newton Project and the West Cache Canal and later by association through agencies of the federal government in the development of national forests, federal reclamation projects, and the various activities of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the people demonstrated their commitment to cooperation. In fact, the history of the development of Utah reads like a chronicle of cooperation — whether communitarian, corporate, or public — in the solution of problems caused by the peculiar environment.
For the Mormon settlers of Utah, cooperation was as much continuity as it was discontinuity for others who tried to farm in the Mountain West. Mormons had developed an ideology of cooperation within their group — if not with others — in the Midwest which made community irrigation projects possible. On many subjects, however, the ideas of the average Utahn have often remained similar to the individualistic agrarianism so characteristic of popular American culture. Perhaps an archetypical Utahn was Utah's apostle-senator, Reed Smoot.
Though he supported the Forest Service, federal reclamation projects, and national parks, his image was that of a conservative, stand-pat, Republican.
If the reality of Utah's growth has been a long story of cooperative or corporate development, perhaps this realistic approach will be most important in determining whether Utahns can meet the future environmental problems. An ecological history of Utah, if the articles presented here are any indication, would probably show that within their technological and conceptual capabilities, Utahns have dealt quite well with environmental problems even though their rhetoric might not always have been consistent with their practices. 12
DON'T WASTE WATER
And the canal companies who maintain leaky canals — what of them ? They would better elect new directors who will stop the leaks. It's no use saying the leaks can't be stopped. In the majority of cases it is not true. A lot of hustle, a few teams and men, plenty of clay, a little rock and mortar, and a few barrels of cement, and the leakage from most of our canals can be reduced to 5 per cent or less. . . .
Then there is the water grabber, who is so greedy that he begs, takes or steals, and misuses water, simply to keep it from his neighbor — to maintain his claim upon it, as he says. I have heard of the ancient, and occasionally wholesome practice of riding certain fellow citizens out of town. It would be delightfully wholesome if tried upon the greedy water-grabber, who does not know, or care to use the water right. (Dr. John A. Widtsoe in Deseret Farmer, vol. 1, no. 1, Provo, Utah, July 14, 1904)
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