Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, Number 1, 1982

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UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY ( I S S N 0042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF MELVIN T. SMITH,

Editor

STANFORD J. L A Y T O N , Managing M I R I A M B. M U R P H Y , Associate

Editor Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS M R S . I N E Z S. C O O P E R , Cedar City, 1981 S. G E O R G E E L L S W O R T H , Logan,

1981

P E T E R L. G O S S , Salt Lake City, 1982 G L E N M . L E O N A R D , Farmington,

1982

L A M A R P E T E R S E N , Salt Lake City, 1983 R I C H A R D W . SADLER, Ogden,

1982

H A R O L D SCHINDLER, Salt Lake City, G E N E A. S E S S I O N S , Bountiful,

1981

1983

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, documents, a n d reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah's history. T h e Quarterly is published by the U t a h State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, U t a h 84101. Phone (801) 533-6024 for membership a n d publications information.

Members of the Society receive the Quarterly, Beehive History, a n d the bimonthly Newsletter upon payment of the annual dues; for details see inside back cover.

Materials for publication should be submitted in duplicate accompanied by return postage a n d should be typed double-space with footnotes a t the end.

Additional information on requirements is available from the managing editor. T h e Society assumes no responsibility for statements of fact or opinion by contributors.

T h e Quarterly is indexed in Book Review Index to Social Science Periodicals, America: History and Life, Combined Retrospective Index to the Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals, 1886-1974, a n d Abstracts of Popular Culture.

Second class postage is paid at Salt Lake City, U t a h .

H I S T O R I C A L

QUARTERLY

Contents WINTER

1 9 8 2 / V O L U M E 50 / N U M B E R 1

IN THIS ISSUE

t

3

LA PLATA, 1891-93, BOOM, BUST, AND CONTROVERSY

. . . .

DAVID RICH LEWIS

4

A DAM IN THE DESERT: PAT MORAN'S LAST WATER VENTURE THE FRISCO CHARCOAL KILNS

. . . .

. .

MORAN

22

PHILIP F. NOTARIANNI

40

KERRY WILLIAM BATE

47

WILLIAM

L.

IRON CITY, MORMON MINING TOWN WILLIAM H. SMART, BUILDER IN THE BASIN

SMART

59

KATHRYN L. MACKAY

68

WILLIAM

B.

THE STRAWBERRY VALLEY RECLAMATION PROJECT AND THE OPENING OF T H E UINTAH INDIAN RESERVATION

.

.

.

BOOK REVIEWS

90

BOOK NOTICES

97

T H E C O V E R Park City may be the best Utah example of a boom-bust-boom town, thriving today on. a more ephemeral commodity than silver—snow. In 1884, one of its boom periods crews hurriedly built housing for the families of miners. USHS collections

© Copyright 1982 Utah State Historical Society

ed. of Utah

ELIZABETH HAGLUNO,

The University

Remembering: . L U C Y B E T H G.

B. K I M B A L L . Heber C. Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer

STANLEY

RAMPTON

90

CAMPBELL

91

J.

BENDER

92

TYLER

94

OLPIN

95

MURPHY

96

Kimball: EUGENE

Religion and Three American Experiments of the Century . . .

E.

LAWRENCE FOSTER.

Sexuality: Communal Nineteenth

NORMAN

Books reviewed A. CARLSON'. Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land: The Dawes Act and the Decline of Indian Farming . S. L Y M A N

LEONARD

Western Views Visions . . . .

EUGENE OSTROFF.

and Eastern

The Fiddleback: Lore of the Line Camp . .

ROBERT

S.

OWEN ULPH.

MIRIAM

B.

10/

::•••

g

this,:*

In this issue When hard times follow growth and prosperity few of us are surprised; the cycle seems almost inevitable. For westerners, boom towns with their heady promise of easy money and the ghost towns that often replaced them endure on the historical landscape as symbols of the best and worst of times.

La Plata in Cache County, Utah, and Metropolis in northeastern Nevada once buzzed with activity. The discovery of silver and lead at La Plata in 1891 triggered a rush to the area. Soon a typical boom town with a preponderance of liquor establishments rose up, and Logan and Ogden jostled for the anticipated wealth. Two decades later a Salt Lake City contractor built a dam at Metropolis to ensure water for a large agricultural community that died aborning. T h e rapid demise of both towns rests, in part a^ least, on the failure of developers to secure mineral and water rights.

T h e basic economic factors of supply and demand, transportation, and labor led to the closure of mining and smelting enterprises at Frisco and Irontown in southwestern Utah. T h e brief histories of these towns provide insights into advancing technology, financial problems, and, in Irontown, fascinating individuals.

T h e next piece, an engaging reminiscence, shows how the optimism and energy of one man influenced the development of the Uinta Basin and buoyed the faint-hearted when, among other trials, a bank collapsed.

T h e final article documents the loss of Indian lands occasioned by reclamation and white settlement. T h e Utes watched helplessly as the powerful forces aligned against them took their case to Congress, securing prosperity of sorts for themselves at the expense of the Utes — a historical pattern as familiar as the boom town and its aftermath.

The sand and dust were flying fast, As up the Blacksmith Fork there passed A man who drove a foaming team, And bore a banner with this theme: "La Plata."

His face was soiled with sweat and grime, But opened wide from time to time, And from his throat there came a sound That echoed through the hills around: "La Plata."

He scared the cougar from his lair, And frightened off the grizzly bear, He put the rattle snakes to rout By the shrillness of his shout: "La Plata."

"Oh don't go there" the doubting said, "There's but a trace or so of lead; The road is long and rough beside," But loud that lusty voice replied: "La Plata."

"O, stay," prospectors cried "and dig, Along this stream, you'll strike it big."

But still the teamster went his way, And this was all they heard him say: "La Plata."

"To Monte Crista come tonight," Implored a sad eyed Ogdenite.

The teamster smiled and shook his head, and in reply he simply said: "La Plata."

We know not why nor where he went, But on one place he seemed intent; He lashed his team and drove pell mell, And now and then would loudly yell "La Plata."

He may have reached his promised land, And may have wealth within his hand; He may have long since ceased to shout, But still this echo rings about: "La Plata." 1

Mr. Lewis is a graduate student in history at the University of Wisconsin.

Journal (Logan), January 1, 1892, anon.

1

La Plata, 1891-93 Boom, Bust, and Controversy

BY DAVID RICH LEWIS

L A PLATA WAS A SMALL MINING TOWN NESTLED in the southern end of Cache County that flourished from 1891 until 1893. During its threeyear heyday it caught and held the attention of all northern Utah.

Today, the ghost town of La Plata reposes in relative obscurity, remembered by only a few, having little historical significance and even less historical evidence of its brief existence. But from the evidence that does exist, mainly in the form of contemporary newspaper accounts, a reconstruction of the town and the social, political, and economic controversies that surrounded its boom and bust is possible.

During the 1850s people in Utah witnessed the rise and growth of mining interests in the territory and throughout the West. However, early mineral prospects in Utah were limited by the sentiments of Mormon church leaders to the lead and iron ores needed for the production of tools and other implements. With recognition of the rich silver, gold, and copper deposits at Bingham, Park City, Alta, and other sites in the 1860s, Mormon as well as Gentile attention turned to these more precious ores. The majority of these mines, lying within a thirtyfive-mile radius of Salt Lake City, came to be economically tied to and in some ways controlled by that city. Salt Lake became the center of trade and supply for the camps and the natural center for their ore output, thus reaping the economic and social benefits of industrialization. In this early mining boom the cities of Ogden and Logan were all but shut out from gaining any economic benefit in relation to Salt Lake through mineral wealth. Each city was immensely interested in furthering its economic and social position within the territory through mining, but neither could lay claim to substantial mines. In both cities prospectors and investors were present and interest ran high; the only thing missing was the location of a sizeable body of ore. In 1891 the chance discovery of lead and silver ore at La Plata opened the doors of prospective mineral wealth to Ogden and Logan, and thus La Plata's

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Utah Historical Quarterly

story rightfully begins with one of many poems hailing the town's existence. . . . A shepherd boy tending his flock on the glade, Seized a stone to hurl at his sheep, when h e m a d e A discovery that burst on his soul with amaze As the wealth it contained was revealed to^ his gaze! . . . 2

The discovery of ore at La Plata is as obscured by time and legend as the town itself. Differing accounts are numerous and only agree that in mid-July of 1891 a sheepherder named P. O. Johnson stumbled across a rich surface body of galena ore. The Ogden Standard records that a piece of rock was loosened by his sheep or chipped by his horse. The Logan Journal reports that Johnson picked up a rock to throw at his sheep.3 Whatever really happened, when Johnson picked up the rock he noticed that it was unusually heavy and, apparently guessing its value, put it into his pocket as a "sinker" for good luck. Upon returning to his base camp, Johnson showed the specimen to his boss and foreman, W. H. Ney, who immediately realized its worth. Ney offered to become partners if Johnson would take him to the place wiiere he had found it.

Johnson agreed and took Ney up to the head of Bear Gulch above Paradise. After surveying the surface showings, the two proceeded to dig a trench two feet wide, eight feet long, and eighteen inches deep with the only tool they had â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a broken-handled shovel. Much excited by the prospects, Ney and Johnson returned to camp, left another sheepherder in charge of the flock, and went immediately to Logan to stake their claim. The Journal reports that the two men reached Logan and "displayed a specimen of galena ore that was almost pure." Their claim was registered in the Paradise Mining District by H. C. Jackson as being discovered and located July 20, 1891. Although they refused to give its exact location to the newspapers, word soon leaked out of the strike's whereabouts and the rush was on. Within two months what had once been a quiet mountain valley became the center of a boom that saw 2

Ibid. Excerpt from a poem by Frank W. Jackson.

Ogden Standard, August 14, 1891; Journal, January 1, 1892. Angus McKay, in an oral recording in the posssesion of John A. Shaw of Ogden, states that Johnson picked up the rock to throw at a chipmunk. McKay's story more closely corresponds to a story in the Standard, September 2, 1891, where H. C. Wardleigh picked up a rock to throw at a chipmunk, but ". . . the life of the frisky monk was prolonged when Wardleigh discovered that he had a fist full of heavy mineral." Other accounts claim that Johnson picked up the rock to "get the attention" of his dog who was chasing a chipmunk.

4 Journal, July 22, 1891. The original claim is found in "The Paradise Mining Record," Book B, pp. 1â&#x20AC;&#x201D;2, Cache County Recorder's Office, Logan. The claim lists the sheepherder's name as "Jno. O. Johnson."

3

La Plata hundreds of miners swarm over a five-mile area searching for those "glittering glades of glistening galena."

The location of galena ore at La Plata activated an explosion of speculative interest in the neighboring towns of Logan and Ogden. The immediate reaction in Logan was immense. Local mining experts, prospectors, and businessmen flocked into the area to assess for themselves the strike's legitimacy. Local business interests started planning stores to accommodate the miners and began to invest in ventures themselves.

A stage line running three times weekly was quickly established over the old road, while the Cache County Commission, responding to petitions from men already at La Plata, inspected the terrain and considered the construction of a new road.

The reaction in Ogden was almost identical. Informed several days after the initial discovery by another of Ney's sheepherders, Ogdenites soon dominated the scene, led by such men as Tom Harrison (also of Park City and Eureka), H. C. Wardleigh, Joseph Farr, Gid R. Propper, and C. K. Westover. In the first month local sources estimated that Loganites were outnumbered four to one. By August 12 the sheepherder named Johnson had sold his interest to Mayor I. D. Haines, George and Moses Thatcher of Logan, and Tom Harrison for Logan $600.5 What became of Johnson • Providence after that is a matter of speculation. But one thing is certain, he • Hyrum would not have recognized that quiet hillside at the head of Bear • Paradise Gulch six months after he left it.

News of the discovery and rush to La Plata spread quickly, La Plata pausing long enough to find poetic description in the words of Ben T. Brooks.

Map by Julie

Johnson.

• Huntsville

• Journal, August 12, 22, 1891; Standard, August 14, 1891.

8

Utah Historical Quarterly I n '91 a cry was! raised, By whom it doesn't matter, T h a t mineral in paying veins, Was buried in L a Plata.

And word went out both east and west, I n fact in all directions, And even railroads cut their rates, T o facilitate connections. . . . 6

In early August of 1891 there were only eight miners reported to be living in the small well-timbered mountain valley, including H. C. Jackson, the Paradise Mining District recorder, who had left Logan shortly after the strike to take up residence, official business, and mining activities in the camp. But by October that number was estimated to be from 400 to over 1,000 people. The Standard estimated that during August, 100 people left daily through Ogden for a look at the La Plata strikes and the blossoming town.

On August 13, 1891, the miners present in camp, led by Tom Harrison and several Ogdenites, formally christened the town "La Plata" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Spanish, meaning "the silver" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; after the name of the original claim.7 Informal town meetings were organized to begin the task of bringing some sort of order to the formation of the town. In the center of town a symbolic liberty pole was erected whereon residents inscribed their names. Several streets were surveyed and named: Harrison Avenue (after Tom Harrison), La Plata Street, Logan Avenue, and Washington.

As workmen graded one of these streets, ore was uncovered, prompting the remark that "the whole country is full of it."8 Along these streets Joseph Farr sold town lots of 25-by-75 feet for $2.50, the location being held by placing four logs in a square on the ground. Up to that point, prospectors had pitched their tents or parked their wagons haphazardly up and down the valley, but now what could be called a town slowly emerged, consisting of tents, dugouts, and cabins. The first log buildings are attributed to Tom Harrison as a headquarters for the La Plata Company and to H. C. Jackson as home and recording office. Local merchants hurriedly set up a few businesses and sawmills to provide the miners with needed goods and services. Bars apparently maintained the most Steady business. On August 20 the Standard observed that "when one gets 9,000 feet above the sea while prospecting, he finds the air a little light for too much exertion and of course returns to Dan's for a revival." Dan Ensign's bar faced a demand "which threatened to do up his stock in trade 24 hours before relief" and in fact did.

"Standard, January 5, 1892.

7 Ibid. August 16, 1891; Journal, January 1, 1892.

"Journal, August 22, 1891.

La Plata

9

Besides alcohol, two of the most pressing desires of the miners in La Plata were for the construction of a new road from either Ogden or Logan and for the establishment of a mail route. The existing roads from both directions were long and rough. With ore sitting in heaps awaiting shipment, camp members petitioned both the Weber and Cache county commissions, calling for these improvements. Logan was quick to respond. On August 26, 1891, the commission traveled to La Plata, was impressed with its future,9 and contracted with N. W. Crookson to push a road from Paradise up East Canyon and Bear Gulch to La Plata. After many delays caused by the rough and precipitous nature of the canyons, the Logan road was opened on September 17, 1891.

Officials from Ogden got off to a faster start but finished much later.

The decision to build a road up Middle Fork Canyon was made on August 19, but because of the difficult nature of the terrain and the need to build more miles of new road than the Logan route the project was not completed until October 30 and even then was still "very rough."10 The second desired convenience, the establishment of a mail route to La Plata, was eventually organized from both Ogden and Logan.

Legend has it that as a boy of eighteen, David O. McKay, future president of the Mormon church, carried mail into the mining town from Huntsville before the establishment of these regular routes.11 During this initial rush period many people drifted into and out of camp, looking at the prospects and making some of their own. At times reporters estimated 1,200 to 1,500 people a day visited La Plata arid the surrounding area. Both the Standard and the Journal spread the sentiments of camp members against vagabonds, rascals, speculators, and other "loathsome peoples," On August 18, 1891, the Standard reported that notices had been posted to the effect that "Chinamen and Dagoes" would not be permitted in camp; such camp rules were typical of the western mining fears and prejudices held against the hard working and lower paid foreigners. Yet, the news of the La Plata strike brought with it the wave of transient miners, mining businessmen, and firms that accompanied all western booms.12 Companies made up of 9 So impressed that two of its members, W. D. Cranney and J. F. Wright, later resigned and became actively involved in the L a Plata boom.

10 Standard, October 30, 1891.

11 I n a recorded interview of Orson Miles of Paradise, in the possession of John A. Shaw, Miles specifically states that McKay carried only local mail and newspapers from Ogden Valley on an informal basis.

12 Deseret Weekly (Salt Lake C i t y ) , 4 3 : 3 3 9 . " I t is safe to say that there are now 20 men in this camp that have been in every mining camp in the U.S. and Mexico."

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Ogden, Logan, Salt Lake and Park City men, along with investors from as far away as Colorado, Montana, and even Boston, were soon running the larger operations. Many small-time local miners soon leased their claims to these companies to be worked in a more efficient manner for a percentage of the profit. Most important among these early companies was the Sundown-La Plata Company, controlled by George and Moses Thatcher of Logan.13 It was a consolidation of the original and most productive properties, the Sundown and La Plata mines, which until early 1892 were still partially owned by W. H. Ney. The Sundown-La Plata and other stock companies, such as the Ogden-La Plata and the Red Jacket-La Plata, provided the capital investment needed to exploit the mineral potential of La Plata and create the economic basis for a town.

Because of the lateness of the 1891 season, miners and companies carried out their work at a frantic pace. Ore was hauled out and placed in dumps, waiting for the completion of the roads and shipment to the smelters of Salt Lake, Omaha, and beyond. Even before the road was completed, several shipments of ore were sent by way of Logan from the Sundown-La Plata claims, putting pressure on Ogden to complete her route.14 The La Plata rush gained notoriety mainly through the newspapers of northern Utah, but eventually word of it spread from San Francisco to New York. Although most people involved proclaimed it "Utah's Leadville," others were more skeptical, trying to discourage the mindless rush to La Plata and the depopulation of surrounding areas and to protect themselves in case it proved a bust. "The showing so far is good, but does not justify the noise it has received. . . . It is well that they are close to home, so that those that are disappointed do not lose much time."15 On August 23, 1891, the Standard noted, "We shall not desire the wholesale abandonment of farms and shops. . . . In a word, we oppose the idea of going crazy until we know whether the prospects are worth going crazy about." But few people were disappointed, and as time went on the worth of the strikes was assured and people did go a little crazy over La Plata: 13 T h e T h a t c h e r brothers were also deeply involved in mining investments in California a n d particularly in the Bullion-Beck mine near Eureka, U t a h . T h e r e may have been no Ogden investors of greater imagination and determination than the Thatchers, backed by their very prominent Logan bank. Thanks to Professor Charles Peterson of U t a h State University for these and many other observations.

14 Journal, September 2, 5, 1891. ls Deseret Weekly, 4 3 : 3 3 9 .

La Plata

11

M a t h e w Malqueen, who' became insane while prospecting at L a Plata a n d was at first ordered to the insane asylum . . . died at St. Louis, O c t o b e r 10 . . . . h e discovered some valuable property in L a Plata b u t did not live to develop it. 16

The influx of prospectors, merchants, and investors occurred within months of the discovery. The resulting town and controversies that grew out of La Plata's boom are a direct reflection of the rapidity of this rush, the major cities involved, their citizens and their desire to control the potentially rich area for their own advancement. Reputed to be "the most quiet and orderly mining camp ever established," La Plata nevertheless brought together the social and economic elements, including a certain amount of unrest and conflict, typical of western boom towns.17 Once again, Ben T. Brooks, the unofficial poet of La Plata's early success, noted the meteoric rise of the town: A d a y or two of T w o mines were F o r many weeks A n d claims were

busy rush, H a d m a d e a little town, showing ore in sight, " L a P l a t a " and " S u n d o w n . " t h e hills around, Were searched by earnest men, staked and records m a d e , Q u i t e tiring Jackson's pen. 1 8

The town grew up quickly along the main streets. By October 17, 1891, there were reported to be twenty-eight log cabins and as many tents.19 By the first of January, when most people had left for warmer climates, the Journal could report seventy buildings and a population of 150 substantial citizens, including 19 women and 13 children, although later reports indicate a decline to 100 residents. The winter of 1891-92 was a long one with temperatures as low as -22° F. and snow three to four feet deep. For most of the winter the road to Ogden remained snowbound. With contact to the outside world limited to Logan, a tight-knit social life developed among the inhabitants of La Plata. As always, bars were the focal point of society where men gathered to talk business, silver, and politics and to wile away the slow production months of winter. Except for drinking, dancing, music, and "occasional taffy pullings," life was perceptibly lackluster, especially when compared to the expected bustle of the long-awaited summer mining months.

By July 1892 the population had increased to 600 citizens. Three rows of cabins stood on the west side and two rows on the east side of M

Standard, October 25, 1891.

Journal, January 1, 1892.

18 Standard, January 5, 1892.

19 Ibid., October 17, 1891. The Journal reports twenty-five cabins during the same week.

17

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Utah Historical Quarterly

the La Plata hillside. Buildings were mainly log cabins with sod or shingled roofs, some being two stories and some sporting false fronts.

Later that year, frame buildings adorned the main street, which boasted a pretentious boardwalk.20 At its height, La Plata maintained a substantial business community consisting at different times of several provision, dry goods, and grocery stores; barber shops and butcher shops; two or three boarding houses and hotels; restaurants; and seven or eight liquor establishments. Some of the latter also functioned as gambling halls, including the Miner's Exchange which served as an exchange office, gambling hall, and a place to "deal out stimulants to the boys."21 Also gracing the town were a branch of the Thatcher Bank of Logan, a combination post and stage line office, blacksmith and hardware shops, several sawmills down the valley, a jail of sorts, and reportedly the photographic studio of Albert Lang. Like most boom towns, La Plata had its own news sheet, the Special Courier. It was published by William Glasmann of Ogden, also the publisher and editor of the Ogden Standard, but the La Plata sheet only lasted the latter part of 1892.22 No chartered government was ever set up in La Plata, which was run, more or less, by loosely democratic town meetings. A. B. Hayes and Gid R. Propper, both of Ogden, were elected chairman and secretary of the town, While the Cache County Court appointed C. K. Westover as deputy marshal and James P. Laws as postmaster and justice of the peace in La Plata. Since the town lay just inside its boundL ary, Cache County laws were enforced along with the town's own ordinances against minorities, vagrants, and claim-jumpers. The county court set yearly business license rates for La Plata at $800 for a liquor saloon, $600 for a wholesale liquor establishment, $40 for boarding houses, $20 for a lunch counter, and $40 for a meat marketâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the first two rates indicative of the county's desire to control liquor (or profit from it) and the amount of business necessary to make such an establishment a profitable venture.23 Cache County also controlled voting and levied taxes, all of which tied La Plata politically to Cache County and Logan.

By nature, the majority of La Plata's population was transient â&#x20AC;&#x201D; moving out in winter, following reports of new strikes in the surround20

Ibid., October 17, 1954.

Journal, February 4, 1892.

22 As with the photographs of Albert Lang, no copies of this paper have been found by the author, although it is possible they both might exist in private collections.

23 License rates found in the Cache County C o u r t Record, Book C, Cache County Hall of Justice, Logan. Minutes of town meetings or town records for L a Plata, if any, could not be located.

21

La Plata

13

ing area â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and never really committed to making La Plata a permanent settlement.24 An agricultural hinterland was not practical in the high mountain valley, especially considering La Plata's proximity to Ogden and Logan, and grazing was limited by nature to high summer pasturage. Although the companies and smaller claims employed some men year-round, people were warned by both the Standard and the Journal not to go looking for jobs in La Plata because of the already abundant labor force. But for most residents in 1892, La Plata was a thriving boom town, prompting Keeler Westover to comment, "Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high."25 Though many of the transient population were local people, it was in no way a Mormon community. No ward was ever formally established in La Plata, and, in fact, the population of the town voiced its disapproval of the appointment of J. P. Laws as postmaster "because he is Mormon."26 Another exceptional feature of La Plata was that it never had a cemetery. Though a report in mid-August 1891 asserted that "if things do not change, a graveyard will be La Plata's next addition," Angus McKay recalled that no man was ever killed or buried in La Plata.27 Sick or injured men were shipped to the Logan hospital as quickly as possible.

During the summer months the number of women and children naturally increased. Anticipating the coming summer boom in population, La Plata asked for and was granted a school district, #221, on March 8, 1892. A 5 mill school tax was assessed in 1893, but no school was established. The summer months of 1892 also brought in two or three "working girls" or "soiled doves," but they were soon escorted out of town.28 Miners below the surface in La Plata made $3.00 a day, not including room and board, while surface workers earned $2.50. It was estimated that for $12.00 monthly a miner could live well in La Plata.

The Deseret Weekly pointed out that beef was cheaper in La Plata than in Salt Lake, bread was ten cents a loaf, and prices in the stores were "but little higher than in the city."29 24 As witnessed by the brief depopulation of L a Plata in the spring of 1892 by reports of a strike eight miles away at Porcupine (Buster City). Journal, April 30, 1892.

25 Standard, July 18, 1892.

26 Journal, December 1, 1891.

27 Standard, August 20, 1891. Cf. Angus Mckay tape.

28 Orson Miles tape.

29 Standard, August 6, 1892; Deseret Weekly, 43 :399.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

By the end of 1891, in that first short season, 280 tons of ore had been shipped out of La Plata, most of it going through Logan. No total figures on the amount of ore mined in La Plata are available, but it is estimated that during its short productive life $3,000,000 worth of ore was produced.30 La Plata was in most respects the typical mining town. Men worked long and hard, social life centered around the liquor establishments, business was run on credit awaiting the payment of miners by the companies, and Fourth of July celebrations turned into brawls pitting sheepherders and cowboys against miners.31 It was a hard life that depended on the economy as dictated by the mines and the prices of that ever elusive galena ore.

The population in La Plata was largely made up of people from Ogden and Logan. That fact, coupled with the establishment of competing roads and services and the wealth that the strike was expected to bring, naturally made La Plata the focal point for antagonism and competition between the two cities. From the first news of La Plata's discovery the stage was set for a controversy that would engulf the newspapers and cities of Ogden and Logan.

A poem printed in the Journal shortly after Ogden's first ore shipment outlines the conflict between Ogden and Logan: The Ogden City papers say, That Ogden shipped some ore away, That into Ogden came one day, Over the Ogden rocky way.

It seems that Ogden all turned out, On Ogden streets without a doubt And shook up Ogden with the shout, That cheered the teams from Ogden route.

This Ogden road has great renown, For Ogden built it up and down The shortest way that Ogden found, From Ogden to La Plata town.

If Ogden folks do> not believe, That Ogden will more dirt receive 'Tis well that Ogden did relieve, Her heart, so Ogden need not grieve.

Now here from Logan everyday, We ship a lot of ore away, And don't go wild and make a noise As would a lot of little boys.

Let Ogden 'til she is sore, She'll have the fun, we'll have the ore.32

From the first report of the strike, both cities made major claims on the economic future of the camp. The Standard called it "Ogden's Eldo30 George A. Thompson, "Back Trail to L a Plata," Desert Magazine, September 1969.

Stephen L. Carr, The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns (Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1972), p. 18.

31 Standard, October 17, 1954. Cf. Angus M c K a y tape.

81 Journal, November 14, 1891. " T h e O g d e n O r e a d , " anon.

La Plata

15

rado," while the Journal pronounced Cache County "the coming mineral producer of the Territory." Conflict between the cities centered on two major arguments: which way the ore would be shipped and which road was better. This mixture of newspaper rivalry and civic boosterism added to the publicity of the camp and tended to "sensationalize" almost everything about it. At a time when the newspapers already differed in their political views, the issue of La Plata only fanned the flames of rivalry to a more open conflict.33 During the initial discovery and rush period, a question arose over which county La Plata was in. After Washington Jenkins, the original surveyor of the Weber-Cache boundary, decided that the town was in CaChe County by less than one mile, Ogden, not wanting to lose the prize so easily, made overtures to local La Plata leaders (who were predominantly Ogdenites) to move the town site to the southeast, into Weber County. They argued that this would make a better town site With more room, closer to the center of the mineral belt, and closer and more accessible to Ogden. Few people took this proposal seriously, though enough did under the leadership of James Slater to establish a rival camp dubbed "Mound City."34 Nothing much ever became of this movement, and Ogden faced the necessity of pushing a shorter road up to La Plata to remain in competition with Logan, prompting Ben Brooks to note: . . . And Ogden, Loganâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;rival townsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Did then make u p their minds T o each make roads to tap t h e wealth, 35 Of L a Plata's growing mines

The road controversy took up a good share of the editorial pages of each newspaper through the rest of 1891 and into 1892. Each paper firmly believed that its road was the better of the two and the other was "not in it at all." The argument started with the construction of the roads and the question of which would reach La Plata. Gradually, the question of distances and grades became the hot issue. Logan claimed a road of 22 to 24 miles in length that was "down hill all the way" from La Plata. Ogden claimed its road was 22 to 23 miles long and of "gradual descent." On this point the argument raged. ' The Journal was Democratic while the Standard was Republican.

Standard, August 23, 1891.

Ibid., January 5, 1892.

16

Utah Historical Quarterly Logan's road to the La Plata mines is to go via Mineral Point. No wonder 'they call it "down hill all the way." It is a sheer descent, so steep that a bird scarcely dare attempt it. . . . (Standard, September 9, 1891.)

Those who have once gone [to La Plata] by way of Ogden now return via Logan. One dose of the Ogden road is like a Canadian toboggan slide —it lasts a life time. (Journal, August 22, 1891.)

After the opinionated, though rational, statements came the slanders and personal attacks.

One very distressing symptom of Logan's mining fever is that some of the most peaceful and easy-going people of that town—the newspaper editors for instance, — have taken to thinking with their lungs. (Standard, October 1, 1891.)

No one will deny, if talk were master, that Ogden would be on top. For she wields a weapon that would put to shame the classical instrument with which Sampson [sic] slew his 10,000 — and it is the same kind of weapon. (Journal, September 12, 1891.)

Another problem connected with the roads was maintaining them during the winter months. During the winter of 1891-92 the Logan road was kept open, and regular shipments of ore went to Logan from the Sundown-La Plata Company. On the other hand, as pointedly noted by the Journal, the Ogden road was snowbound from early December until late May of 1892, with only a brief opening in mid-January. Because of its closed road, the Ogden-owned Red Jacket Mine which faithfully shipped its ore via Ogden was unable to get any ore through.

During this first winter the Logan road became established as the only reliable link to civilization and the main route for ore to travel for the following year; Logan had temporarily assured herself of economic control of the La Plata mines.

The major point of controversy between Ogden and Logan extended this road competition. It hinged on the issue of which way the ore would be shipped and which city would receive the benefits associated with it. Given relatively equal shipping and freighting costs, the condition of the two roads became the deciding factor. With the Ogden road late in opening, snowed in early, and admittedly rough in between, Logan gained an early lead in shipments. The first load of ore was shipped to Logan on September 2, 1891, and consisted of 3,600 pounds of ore from the Sundown-La Plata. After shipping ten tons to Omaha and paying all operating expenses, $30.00 per ton profit was realized.

From then on shipments of ore were made on a regular basis. The first

La Plata

^

load shipped to Ogden arrived on November 2, 1891. It was transported

by Billy G. Wilson and consisted of eight wagons carrying 50,000 pounds of ore. This shipment was met by the mayor and other Ogden dignitaries and a brass band. After several speeches, the wagon train paraded down main street with great pomp and ceremony.36 The Logan paper took this opportunity to ridicule Ogden's excitement with the poem quoted earlier and the comment that ". . . practically the same arrangements had been made for its [the ore's] reception that we might have expected for a circus. . . . Such an event in Logan excites no comment..." because it is a regular occurrence.37 Although Logan's dominance as a shipping point would decline in later years, during La Plata's boom period by far the greater part of La Plata's production was shipped from that city.

Another side to this controversy was the boosterism that each city displayed in making its reports and claims on La Plata. In almost every article the home town is made out to be the economic center for the growing camp. Slogans such as "Ogden's mines" and "Cache Valley's mineral producer" were liberally used. This boosterism underlay the conflict between the cities. Each was striving to carve out an empire for itself and expand its influence. At the same time, this rivalry benefited La Plata by giving it enough exposure to attract the attention of the territory. Behind the civic activism of the newspapers lay more personal motives. The Journal was financed and run for several years by the Thatcher family and in-laws, the same Thatchers who owned banks in La Plata and Logan and controlled the Sundown-La Plata Company.

Frank J. Cannon and William Glasmann of the Ogden Standard held business and mining interests in the Ogden-La Plata Company. Not motivated solely by personal or business gain, each side nevertheless did its best to promote its own city in relation to La Plata and attempted to bring the mining town within its own sphere of influence, recognizing the fact that "every dollar spent in mining now helps every branch of industry and every business in this city and county."38 The competition between Ogden and Logan occurred between other expanding cities. This "urban imperialism," the desire of growing towns to exploit the wealth they find directly around them and use it for social and economic gain, surfaced throughout the American frontier.39 In the 36

Ibid., November 3, 1891.

Journal, November 4, 1891.

38 Ibid., January 1, 1892.

39 See Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The National Experience (New York: Random House, 1965), chap. 21, 37

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Ogden-Logan instance, both towns had relatively reasonable claims to La Plata, equal access in terms of distance, the capital and the manpower to develop it, and the desire to do just that. But during La Plata's boom Logan's road allowed her to dominate the economic and social scene.

Promotional efforts notwithstanding, most of the elements that eventually contributed to La Plata's demise were already present by the winter of 1892-93. It was only a matter of time before the town collapsed. The first storm clouds darkening La Plata's horizon developed over the questionable classification and ownership of land on which the town and some of the mines were located; was it mineral or agriculturalgrazing land? In August 1891 the Standard recognized and reported that La Plata rested on lands claimed by the Central Pacific Railroad.

By act of Congress on July 1, 1862, and amended July 2, 1864, the Central Pacific was granted twenty-square-mile alternate sections of land to help finance the building of the transcontinental railroad and telegraph line, mineral lands excepted. Apparently in 1884 D. P. Tarpey purchased title to the area from the Central Pacific and in 1887 sold it to John H. White Who still held the title at the time of the La Plata strike. On June 23, 1892, White filed suit in Ogden District Court, against Fred Thackwell, Willis Booth, John T. Rich, et al., of the Sunrise Group Mines, for trespassing on his land and removing valuable mineral deposits.

White's lawyers contended that since the land had been classified as agricultural-grazing when the title had been purchased, any subsequent discovery would not affect the title. Attorneys for the miners claimed that it was obviously mineral land, and therefore, under federal law, they had the right to its use. At about the same time, Fred Thackwell, et al., brought suit in the Salt Lake Land Office against the Central Pacific which was trying to obtain original patent on the land, maintaining the same position as White had. Because these suits lasted from 1892 until 1894, with restraining orders in effect part of the time that closed most mines, La Plata all but dried up and died. Eventually, White settled for the $5,000 bond that the companies had put up to continue work; and the Salt Lake Land Office â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whose decision in 1892 was appealed and upheld by the General Land Office in Washington, D.C., in 1894 and by Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith in 1895 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ruled in favor of the miners.40 These major cases, numerous smaller disputes over " F o r information on these cases see Standard, June 15, 1892, June 24, 1892, February 24, 1893, M a r c h 5, 1893; Journal, June 29, 1892, August 3 1 , 1892, March 24, 1894, October 19, 1895. Original records of the White case in Ogden District Court are missing and believed destroyed by a fire.

La Plata

19

mines crossing claim lines and running into each other underground, and the threat of appropriation of land by the railroad created tension and litigation in La Plata that caused a loss of jobs and a loss of faith in the future of the camp.41 In 1892 and 1893 the United States faced a period of economic change. The presidential term of Benjamin Harrison (1889-93) left the country in dire economic straits with high tariffs, an unstable treasury, hard times for farmers and industry, and too much "cheap money."

In attempting to stabilize the economy in 1893 Grover Cleveland obtained the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which obliged the U.S. Treasury to purchase 4,500,000 ounces of silver monthly and to issue treasury notes redeemable in bullion. Demand for silver dropped immediately. In the ensuing depression and silver panic of 1893 many businesses, national banks, and mining towns failed. In response to the depression, manufacturing businesses reduced their production, therefore reducing the demand for the coal, iron, and lead used in many areas of industry. With slack demand for both silver and lead, market prices dropped drastically and La Plata's economy began to buckle. Local businessmen began to pull out and investors withdrew their capital for more stable investments.

Along with this general depression of the economy, declining silver and lead prices, and the years of litigation, La Plata also suffered from natural weaknesses. By 1893 the veins of galena ore had begun to dwindle in the smaller mines. Larger operations equipped with gasoline-powered hoists and pumps kept up the work, but as they dropped lower they too began to draw increasing amounts of water and their veins diminished.

The physical environment of La Plata also created problems. Winters were long and harsh, and the difficulty of transportation through the canyon roads raised the cost of shipping ore until it was no longer competitive on the already declining markets. In the face of these basic problems, the town of La Plata faded soon after it was born.

With many of the same problems that confronted La Plata, some boom mining towns managed to live on even after their ore ran out because of the businesses, farms, or railroads that had been established during their heyday. But La Plata did not last long enough to create any kind of permanent establishment with which to support itself after the 41 During this time, even unaffected mines slowed or shut down. Owners knew from past experience a n d legend to fear the greed of the grasping and influential railroads. See Journal, September 12, 1891, September 10, 1896.

20

Utah Historical

Quarterly

mines failed.42 The real boom in La Plata lasted only a couple of seasons and was followed by a sporadic "afterlife" that persisted into the twentieth century.

In 1895 the Journal reported that it had been "generally supposed that the camp has been dead for the last three years."43 Claims had been worked periodically during the years of litigation and after, but little progress or profit was made. Encouragement continued to come from both newspapers to revitalize the town, but La Plata as a town never returned. From 1894 on the La Plata mines were worked by local firms as well as Iowa, New York, and Boston companies, with leases and ownerships changing hands every few years. In 1896 reports that copper had been discovered in the Sundown-La Plata properties stirred excitement, and the cry went out that it is "copper that will make La Plata great." 44 Copper, gold, silver, lead, zinc, and quartzite were all mined but never in large enough quantities to support a profit-making enterprise. In 1902 the La Plata Consolidated Mining Company under the management of U. V. Withie of New York made the best attempt, employing twenty men and reportedly sending $2,000 worth of ore to Ogden monthly for several months. Optimism bubbled to the surface once again: "There are prospects, and good ones too, of La Plata becoming a big mining camp. . . ,"45 In 1906 Joseph Heald, secretary of the La Plata Consolidated Mining Company, re-leased the La Plata mine for two years at 20 percent of the profits. A high-grade vein of galena ore was discovered but ran out soon after.46 As late as 1906 the legend surrounding the La Plata strike kept a few prospectors searching for "that big find."

During this later flurry of activity Ogden finally came to monopolize the output of the mines, receiving all of the ore that came out of La Plata. With improvements at the mill and smelter in Salt Lake and lower freight rates from Ogden, the Logan road soon fell into disrepair.

The upsurge of activity in 1902 prompted talk in Logan of putting the road back into Shape, but the estimated cost of $1,000 proved prohibitive.

Logan's inability or lack of desire to compete in a tightening economic

42 See Duane A. Smith, Rocky Mountain ington: Indiana University Press, 1967).

43 Journal, July 16, 1895.

44 Ibid., August 27, 1896.

45 Ibid., September 27, 1902.

46 Ibid., November 13, 15, 1906.

Mining Camps: The Urban Frontier (Bloom-

La Plata

21

market left the way open for Ogden and eastern capitalists who were economically sound enough and willing to gamble on the uncertain future of the mines.

Today, La Plata has been reclaimed by the environment. The buildings, streets, and mine entrances have all but vanished. Except for the ruins of several cabins, old machinery, and the piles of tailings at the mouth of mines marked by protruding cart rails, one would never know that a bustling town of nearly 600 people had existed there. Gone, too, are most marks of the controversy and excitement that its brief existence created. Though relatively insignificant in the general view of Utah history, there is a broader lesson to be seen in La Plata's existence.

The La Plata experience portrays the competitive and booster-oriented nature of towns seeking economic betterment and the power that local newspapers wielded over their communities. In addition, it shows the westerner's fear of the powerful and grasping nature of the railroads in their quest for land and a transportation monopoly. Above all, La Plata mirrors the western mining boom and bust experience in all its excitement, controversy, and color. La Plata was typical of hundreds of boom camps, yet it was unique in its own experiences and people. As the Standard put it, "the truth about La Plata is quite as strange as any fiction that the ordinary scribbler can invent."47 Yet, La Plata did exist, and in its existence captured the excitement, expectations, and imaginations of the people of Ogden and Logan.

"Standard, September 6, 1891.

A Dam in the Desert: Pat Moran's Last Water Venture

BY W I L L I A M L. M O R A N

1 CAN'T UNDERSTAND HOW HE BUILT IT." Bill Heyenbruch of the U.S. Corps of Engineers was looking at a picture of Bishop Creek Dam above Metropolis, Nevada. His office in Sacramento was to have been my last stop on a long search for an answer to the same question. "Even today with the latest technology the task would be staggering," he decided.

"In 1911 it was something of a miracle." He noted that it was listed in the 1973 World Register of Large Dams:1 Mr. Moran, youngest son of P. J. Moran, lives in Piedmont, California.

Paris, France: International Commission on Large Dams, 1973.

1

Upstream wall of Bishop Creek Dam under construction in late 1911.

Courtesy of Nevada Historical Society.

A Dam in the Desert

23

The rock, earth, and concrete dam rises 130 feet above bedrock, stretches 416 feet across a canyon, is 150 feet thick at the base and 16.5 feet thick at the top. The reservoir behind it has a capacity of 35,000 acre-feet of water, the equivalent of 10 billion gallons.

Patrick J. Moran was known best in Utah as P. J. Moran, builder of pipelines, buildings, and heating plants and paver of streets and sidewalks. In building the Bishop Creek Dam in the Snake Mountains of northeastern Nevada he was venturing 200 miles from his home base in Salt Lake City.

Had I been older in 1911 I might have seen it happen instead of having to burrow in the history archives and engineering offices of three states to learn about it seventy years later.2 Each discovery generated more questions and each answer made the search more intriguing.

Pat destroyed all of his papers when he closed his business in 1924.

Had I not been his son, the authentic story of the building of Bishop Creek Dam might never have been uncovered. But once the link between the dam and its builder and the ghost town of Metropolis3 was found, my latent curiosity about history and human ingenuity impelled me to take the search to its finish.

During the last year of my inquiries I learned that the U.S. government was interested from another point of view. They wanted to find out if the structure could possibly be brought back into use after seventy years of neglect. They did not know who had built it.

When Moran won the contract to build the dam and reservoir for the Pacific Reclamation Company he was forty-seven years old. Since emigrating from Yorkshire, England, at age fourteen he had worked with steam and water conduits and reservoirs and ultimately had formed a large contracting company for paving and for erecting buildings.4 His passion for big things probably sprang from a deprived youth when he had to quit school in the fourth grade to work in the coal mines and brickyards as a child laborer. Small boys doing men's work in tight places acquire a passion for bigger and better things.

Finally, fed up with this grimy labor and feeling that his widowed but newly remarried mother could manage, he slipped unnoticed onto a steamship at Liverpool. When the liner was far out to sea he asked 2

The author was born in 1908.

See William D. Woelz, "Metropolis: Death of a Dream," Northeastern Nevada Historical Quarterly 3 ( 1 9 7 3 ) : 3-17. â&#x20AC;&#x17E; 4 Margaret D. Lester, Brigham Street (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1979), p p . 227-28.

3

24

Utah Historical Quarterly

the skipper if he could work his way to Baltimore. This bit of resourcefulness got him to America on a luxury liner doing kitchen work for food and keeping warm at night stoking the steam boilers below.

When fully grown, still short but solid and energetic, he continued striving to be big and to do big things. He served as an apprentice to a steamfitter in the eastern United States, took night classes, became a journeyman and then an expert builder and general contractor within twenty years of the voyage. Eventually, he employed hundreds of workmen and utilized just about every type of machine then invented for moving earth and rock.

In 1887 Pat Moran learned that Utah had no proficient plumbing and heating contractor so he traveled to Salt Lake City and found all the work he desired installing plumbing, heating plants, and water systems.

He recognized ability in others and associated with those who did well, particularly those who made it on their own in rough country.

Although he observed the success of those who pinned their faith on mining and real estate investments, he preferred to develop his skill in the direct management and wise use of manpower. When the Southern Pacific Railway bridged the Great Salt Lake with the Lucin Cutoff to save mileage, it was Moran's pipeline that helped supply the 483,000 gallons of fresh water used daily by the men and the steam engines far out in the lake.

Moran's greatest good fortune came in the discovery of Frank Gawan who also had an Irish background and had emigrated from England as a child. They met at the turn of the century when Frank was city engineer for Salt Lake City and only in his twenties. Pat admired his ability and Frank was so eager to learn the secrets of the older man's success that he left his responsible city job and signed on as a laborer. Moran gave him a good mix of freedom and responsibility, and he soon learned every angle of contracting. He quickly advanced to general superintendent and helped the company become preeminent in the paving and water projects of the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

By 1906 Moran had won the contract for the Big Cottonwood conduit which delivered most of Salt Lake City's water supply. By 1909 he and another builder had put up a huge power structure and woodstave pipeline in Weber Canyon to furnish electricity for the streetcars of Salt Lake City and the electric engines of the Bingham copper mines.5 5 Interviews with Edward Moran, Pat's son, through June 1980. The contract was with U t a h Light and Traction Co., Salt Lake City.

A Dam in the Desert

25

The pipe was big enough at its entrance for a man on horseback to enter. Gawan had helped with these projects. The two men had become a complementary team, planning and estimating jobs together and securing the most lucrative contracts in the area through low bidding and quick completion. Frank concentrated, on the engineering challenges while Moran managed the promotion of contracts and financial matters.

In 1910 the Pacific Reclamation Company, a private concern, obtained some desert land in Nevada from the federal government and

Patrick J. Moran.

Courtesy of William L. Moran.

planned to build an agricultural colony there.6 Sixty-three miles northeast of Elko, it was to be the biggest city, the promoters said, between Denver and San Francisco and was to have farm land watered by what was to be the largest reservoir in the Intermountain country. This called for the highest expenditure made to date, private or public, for any 6 H a r r y Pierce of Boston was president. Consulting engineers for the reclamation company and the Metropolis L a n d Company were George M. Bacon, Salt Lake City, and J. L. Vandiver, Elko, Nevada. Headquarters were in the Newhouse Building, Salt Lake City.

T h e project's backers were spurred on by two things: Theodore Roosevelt's conservationist policies of 1907 expressed in the slogan of the National Irrigation Congress in Sacramento, Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;"Save the forests, store the floods, reclaim the desert, make homes on the l a n d " â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the Carey Act of the 1890s that freed unused railroad land for agricultural development.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Pacific Reclamation Company's 1912 map showing reservoir behind the dam at upper left and at right Metropolis surrounded by farm acreage to be irrigated by a series of laterals. Courtesy of William L. Moran.

structure in Nevada excepting the transcontinental railroad.7 The proposed cost of the dam, $200,000, in that year would be the equivalent of about six million dollars in the 1980s.

Moran and Gawan, with a contingent of engineers and other members of Pat's company from Salt Lake, spent three months surveying and testing the soil of the Bishop Creek area near the headwaters of the Humboldt River at an elevation of 6,000 feet. The reclamation company's engineers had already done this, but Moran, like the doctor who insists on his own evaluation, did it over and planned for a deeper bedrock foundation to support the heavy structure.

7 According to E d n a B. Patterson, Louise A. Ulph, and Victor Goodwin, Nevada's Northeast Frontier (Sparks, Nev.: Western Printing and Publishing Co., 1969), p. 632, the d a m was "projected to impound the then third largest area of reservoir water in the United States."

A Dam in the Desert

27

His men drilled 300-foot wells for water and located possible rock quarries and gravel deposits nearby. Moran had learned lessons in the importance of foundations from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Then, Moran went east to learn what he could about the Pacific Reclamation Company and the men behind it. The fact that the Southern Pacific Railroad was interested in the model city added to his optimism.8 On his return he had no trouble winning the contract in competition with several large western construction companies. With the experience of having constructed water systems in Utah since 1901 he knew what it took to place the right value on labor, materials, transportation, and the financing that went into a bid. He also knew the tricks that water plays when made to follow a manmade course. He knew what devastation badly timed storms in the mountains can bring.

And he knew the tricks men play in their frantic game of climbing to the top in business and government.

Moran and the leaders of the Southern Pacific Railroad were together taking a risk on Metropolis. Each party looking at what the other was risking seemed to inspire a mutual confidence in the joint venture.

The promoters of the land project, though gambling on barren desert land, showed vision that seemed to extend past the profit motive.

They reached out to people who seemed ready for change -â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Canadians looking toward the states, Utah Mormons whose pioneering spirit needed a new lift, and Jewish immigrants from Europe who were not being absorbed readily in the shops of New York City. Mormon church leaders in Utah, always open to the colonization idea, approved the project without officially investing in it.

For those with limited capital, the company offered dry farms for $15.00 an acre and for those with more, irrigated plats for $75.00 an acre, a high price for those days.10 Much of the cost of building Metropolis was negotiated through the transfer of shares in the project. Moran's costs for the dam, however, were handled differently.11 8 David Myrick, Railroads of Nevada and Northeastern California (Berkeley, Calif.: Howell North Books, 1962), 2:40. Also interview with David Myrick, April 6, 1978.

9 Later, Francis M . Lyman and David O . McKay, together with two stake presidents, visited the town and the dam and established the Metropolis Ward. Deseret News, Ogden Section, February 22, 1912. Later references to the project may be found in the "Metropolis W a r d Manuscript History," Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.

10 Ad in Goodwin's Weekly (Salt Lake C i t y ) , December 23, 1911, p. 3 1 . Similar ads appeared in all the Salt Lake and Ogden dailies.

11 Interviews with Eastman Hatch, a bonding authority, a n d John Wallace, banker, both of Salt Lake City, July 30, 1981. It is believed that Pat was to have received periodic payments in land and cash with interest on unpaid installments.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

In New York the leader of a national farmer's organization, when told of the enterprise, said that the city workers of 1912 could make a better transition from urban to rural life than earlier ones who thought a bearing fruit tree would grow the year after a seed was planted and that even crackers might be induced to grow from cracker seed.

When Moran and Gawan sat down on the slopes of Emigration Canyon in northeastern Nevada to assess the job of dam building in the spring of 1911 there was no Metropolis, no camp, no rail spur, no eager pool of native laborers or work animals, no food supply, saloon, telephone, lodgings, or electricity. There was nothing but a wild canyon lined with rocky ledges, a flat expanse further down covered with sage, and a visionary map of a transformed piece of desert. They knew what it would take to blast the rock and change the site into a reservoir with 35,000 acre-feet of water, and they believed what the promoters said about the water that was available in Bishop Creek and nearby creeks. They had to take the reclamation company's word, however, that an annual fourteen-inch precipitation would continue and that no one would dispute the water rights when storage was provided. They moved ahead on the wave of an unquenchable Irish optimism.

The dam was not as large as some of Moran's earlier projects, but geography called for the steps required by the largest and costliest dams.

Roughly, after estimating, bidding, and bonding, the preliminary construction stages called for: 1. Arranging long-distance rail facilities for transport of men, horses, machines, and materials to the rail terminal at Wells, Nevada.

2. Building roads and bridges to the site; erecting a tent city with mess hall and office quarters and a construction camp with horse stalls, a blacksmith shop, and storage quarters.

3. Transporting everything needed from the terminal at Wells to the site by teams of horses.

4. Excavating with horse-pulled scrapers, dynamite, trench diggers, a steam shovel and derricks, and making space for stockpiling dirt and rubble.

5. Drilling for water, installing pumps and pipelines, locating sand and gravel deposits, rock quarries, and dump sites.

6. Installing a narrow gauge railway for dump cars and piping in well water for drinking purposes and for washing rocks, sand, gravel, and work animals.

Since the contract called for a finished reservoir within ten months of the signing date, they prepared for a race against time. Winter created

A Dam in the Desert

29

a natural deadline. Temperatures of twenty degrees below zero were known in the territory, making winter construction work unthinkable.

It had not been easy in the beginning to get the train operators to give them enough time to unload their cumbersome survey outfit at the Wells, Nevada, station. The official schedule listed 3:00 P.M. as the arrival and departure time, about enough time to jump while the engine took on a gulp of water. Fortunately, after some negotiation, Moran could ask for just about any concession from the railroad and have it granted. Those higher up eventually passed the word down that this was the same Moran who had helped bring the line across the Great Salt Lake nine years before. For the big haul he contracted for a sequence of freight trains and a siding at Wells for cars stretching a halfmile from engine to caboose, with permission to stop as long as necessary.

The unloading of one trench digger took the better part of a day. The unloading of a dismantled steam shovel took the better part of two.

To reach the reservoir site from the loading dock they had to cut more than twelve miles of roadway through rugged terrain and across four creeks. Most of it had to accommodate two-lane traffic and provide a surface hard enough to support the weight of digging rigs, boilers, derricks, and building materials that challenged even the steel rails of the Southern Pacific. In good weather, rain, ice, or snow the roads had to withstand as well the hooves of fifteen-hundred-pound Belgians and other work horses and mules in teams of eight pulling on the grades.

Sufficient men, horsepower, and materials could not be obtained in Nevada where most men and horses were needed at the mines and ranches. And about the only heavy building materials available locally had to be extracted from freshly dug gravel pits, from rock quarries, and from surplus rock and dirt left over from the excavation work. Not even Fresno scrapers could be bought or leased in eastern Nevada. Nor was it possible to get feed for the animals or adequate provisions for the workers without an extensive search. The land at the camp grew nothing but sage, cedar, and a little greasewood.

One story passed down from that time is that some of the fill for the dam consisted of broken brick left over from the San Francisco earthquake. Dead-end runs from the coast made rail freight cheap enough to justify the trip, and the city fathers of San Francisco were glad to get rid of the estimated 6.5 billion broken bricks that took three years and the lives of thousands of horses to clear and pile.12 12 William Branson, The Earth Shook, the Sky Burned and Co., 1959), pp. 170-71, says 15,000 horses died.

(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Above: Steam-powered trench digger being loaded on flat car in Salt Lake Below: Men pulling load of concrete up hill toward dam site.

Both from P. J. Moran album, USHS collections.

City.

A Dam in the Desert

Above: Constructing reservoir site upstream from dam in fall 1911.

Below: Upstream wall of Bishop Creek Dam ca. 1960.

Both courtesy of Northeastern Neveda Museum, Elko.

31

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Loads of heavy lumber for the building and the shoring of concrete, heavy steel gates for the reservoir, and the dismantled digging machines were dragged up the hill in a continuous stream of creaking wagons.

When steep inclines and bad weather interfered with traction, some of the most cumbersome loads were pulled up on skids attached to steamfed donkey engines with long cables.

The freight loads traveling from Moran's construction yards at Salt Lake City in June 1911 presented a confusing sight to orderly minded train watchers. At Ogden, where the first sections connected with the main line, no one had seen such an armada since the Southern Pacific constructed the cutoff across the Great Salt Lake in 1903. The first flat cars contained cook stoves, tents, lumber, narrow gauge dump cars, trackage, anvils, axes, shovels, and sacks and barrels of provisions.

Later cars contained more scrapers, picks, donkey engines, clam shell scoops, and huge cement mixers. A dismantled steam-powered trench digger rode on one car and two 70-foot masts and booms lashed together took up space extending across two flat cars. The last few cars contained barrels of explosives, cables, spare wheels, a steam tractor, and one maroon-colored Packard runabout half-buried in baggage.

Coaches were filled with workmen. Cattle cars carried horses, mules, and a sprinkling of drivers who insisted on being with their animals. A car or two of lions or elephants, had they brought up the rear, would not have presented too much of an additional surprise to onlookers who knew Moran and his flair for drama. As it was, the activity of these special trains as they arrived at Wells probably furnished the equivalent of a year's excitement for the entire population of 598 souls. They must have wondered if they were about to be occupied by either a circus or a regiment.

The trainloads became more conventional as the dam work progressed. They bulged with masonry rubble, coal, crushed rock, sand, cement, lumber, steel rods, and pipe. They kept coming until the thick concrete foundation with its reinforced steel was in place and supporting the hundreds of tons of materials climbing upward from the bedrock of the canyon.

In keeping with his idea of abundant supply lines on all jobs through the years, Pat had acquired controlling interest in the Portland Cement Company of Utah, the Federal Coal Company, the Empire Brick Company, gravel pits, a rock asphalt quarry, and three asphalt processing plants. He even owned half-interest in Keith O'Brien's depart-

A Dam in the Desert

33

ment store which, however, catered to women of fashion rather than to cement finishers in need of bib overalls.

The massive movement of equipment, men, and materials from Salt Lake City to Wells could not have been accomplished without the transcontinental railroad with its coal-fired engines. The last 12 miles, more strenuous, slower, and more costly than the first 189, could not have been covered without horses, wagons, and the special roads built for the one purpose of supplying the dam.

In the fall the encampment five miles above Metropolis showed more life than the budding city itself. It became a community of its own with more of a connection with the railroad town of Wells than the town it was to provide with water. Pat opened an office at the Metropolis Hotel when tjhat was ready. However, it seemed that the biggest diversion for Metropolis residents came from sightseeing trips to the dam site. The camp store contained a supply of the best imported whiskey, no doubt hauled up the hill on the sturdiest wagons with trusted Irishmen holding the reins. How much liquid other than water eventually flowed to Metropolis from Bishop Creek is not known.

Many miles of roadways were built to provide access to quarries, sand pits, and water installations on all sides of the site. Narrow tracks were laid along the rim of the canyon and throughout the diggings.

The stubby four-wheeled cars propelled by men pushing and horses pulling were loaded by cranes at the excavation areas to carry dirt and rocks to a point where they could be used in the body of the dam.

Later, when the foundation was in place, the cars ran on their narrowgauge tracks over a sort of bridge parallel to the top surface where they released their loads.

Moran had carefully studied the operations of the open-pit copper mine at Bingham, Utah, where such dump cars removed ore. There, tracks were relaid along each tier of excavated terrain as the operation progressed. He used the same principle at Bishop Creek on a much smaller scale but in reverse â&#x20AC;&#x201D; building up a mountain instead of cutting it down.

Before laying down a base for the dam, the men and machines dug down 35 feet and then drilled and blasted 4 feet into bedrock across the entire width of the canyon. Tons of concrete, fresh from the mixers, were poured onto a forest of steel bars.

Moran's men found that putting up a dam in the canyon wilderness was not like laying sidewalk in Salt Lake City. The engineering

34

Utah Historical Quarterly

crew had underestimated the depth of the mud deposits formed from the foundation work and the number of mules needed to help scoop it out. But the mules and the muleskinners, who drove the animals all day and washed them off in the evening, took the mud in stride as did the men who, in mining circles, were called muckers. Moran had made a trip to Kansas City to purchase two cars of Missouri mules bred for heavy work of this type. This increased the horse and mule population to over 100 before winter. But they, too, brought problems. They required not only muleskinners capable of handling them but separate quarters where they could not bite the horses or anyone else. They also required blacksmiths with the courage and ability to grab and hold a restless hoof for shodding. The chief qualification of a muleskinner seemed to be toughness equal to that of the animal and disregard for what Josh Billings rated one of the worst fates that could possibly befall a man, "to be mangled by a mule."13 Although many machines were brought into service at times, the dam went up principally by the sweat of men and their animals. Luckily, motor trucks had not fully replaced teams. The transition from hay eaters to gasoline eaters was slow for two reasons in that day. Moran and his men were strongly attached to the animals, and the trucks of 1911 were questionable hill climbers. Road travel would have made it a 286-mile trip.14 Bishop Creek became, in a sense, the last frontier for those horses and mules. It was their day and in that rough terrain even the steam engine could not outperform them. It is even possible that one of Moran's reasons for taking the contract was to demonstrate, to his own and to his men's satisfaction, what they could do in this rugged spot.

Even some lowly sheep gave service. Herds on loan from Nevada flockmasters were driven back and forth over the earth to compact the Sloping surfaces when weather prevented the use of specialized earthtamping rollers.15

13 Interviews with Helen Anstead Sheets, Pat's niece, and with his three oldest sons, Curtis, P. J., Jr., and Edward, at various times during 1970-81.

O n e of the company's best muleskinners in Salt Lake City some years later was Jack Dempsey who as a youth enjoyed pitting his brawn and wits against a team of these beasts hitched to a gravel wagon on a slippery hill. T h e cheers of his fellow workmen spurred him on just as the cheers of fight fans fed another flame in later years.

14 No highway existed between Salt Lake City a n d Wells, only wagon trails zigzagging between mining towns and ranches. T h e Victory Highway came with the demands of World War I. Interview with M a x Stayner, June 4, 1975, who drove through Nevada in 1915.

15 Archives, State Division of Water Resources, Carson City, Nevada.

A Dam in the Desert

35

The steam shovel proved very costly for the scooping of the foundation trench. It was needed on other jobs in the city but was brought in and out in the beginning to handle the heaviest digging. Its steel jaws could lift a ton of rock with each thrust following a blasting operation.

The costly aspect was dismantling and reassembling the heavy metal boom, wheels, gears, and steam boiler, and allocating eight men to keep it moving around the project. An attempt was made when its mission was complete to run it back down the hill to the Wells depot without taking it apart first. At the first bridge crossing this was found to be a mistake. The wooden bridge caved in under its 30-ton hulk, and it had to be dismantled for the rest of the trip down. They had failed to remember the shovel's history. In Salt Lake it held up traffic for half a day when it stalled trying to cross a rise at a trolley track intersection.

The road construction work could have been cut in half had Southern Pacific built its spur line to Metropolis earlier, but no rails were installed until the winter of 1911. Road work increased costs but, more important, prolonged the project because of flash floods and washouts between the town of Wells and the dam site. Even after the spur appeared, its terminal at Metropolis was inconveniently placed southwest of the camp with two large creeks to hamper the building of another heavy-duty private road.

In the fall a shortage of cement workers occurred just as the 80foot steel and concrete gate tower was being built upstream of the main structure. Throngs of men were needed for day and night shifts in a desperate race against winter cold. Frozen ground could not be moved.

Icy cold concrete could not be properly poured or set. The deadline was getting near.16 Moran brought in extra acetylene lamps, stepped up night shifts and improved the stock in the saloon tent. Also he raised wages and advertised throughout the Intermountain states for more men.

It was rumored that word had spread among wives and sweethearts of prospective workers back home that not far from the tent city two separate sightings more dangerous than storms were reported. One was a genuine gray wolf identical to one.that killed a dozen bucks in a herd of sheep. The other, more dangerous still, was a pair of attractive camp followers.

18 The construction detail was covered in regular front page news items throughout the building period in the weekly Metropolis Chronicle during 1911 and early 1912. The newspaper is available on microfilm at the Nevada Historical Museum, Reno.

36

Utah Historical Quarterly

But the reality of the worker shortage was tied to the fact that Moran had several construction projects back in Utah that required many workers and much heavy equipment at critical periods. Given a choice, what worker would opt for canyon tent living in the winter rather than his brick home and a family fireplace to sit by each night.

By late October of 1911 some 300 men were on the job, but weather prevented significant progress. Snow fell on the quarry gang brought in to cut and install rock for embedding in concrete on the upstream side of the dam. Many of the men and animals were made idle as icy winds whipped down Antelope Peak and the 11,000-foot Ruby Mountains.17 Then, a major setback occurred. Frank Gawan, suffering from a gall bladder ailment, had to return to Salt Lake City for treatment.

Moran had by this time given him full responsibility at Bishop Creek while he himself resumed overall management of the company. A substitute chief engineer had to be hired temporarily to fill in for Frank.

But the work continued to bog down. Errors crept in and morale dropped to a low point. Gawan returned after a few weeks to oversee the wall building and hoped to get the major concrete work under way. But within another month he became ill again and was escorted down the canyon by team to the train to head for home. Soon he underwent major surgery in Salt Lake City, and within a few days succumbed to pneumonia, dying on February 15, 1912. Frank Gawan failed to see the dam completed. The gates were closed for a test two days after he died.

The newspapers in Salt Lake City gave Frank high tribute as Pat Moran's number one general superintendent and praised him for his performance on the last great water project of his career.

Gawan's death left Moran with the entire burden that had piled up at Bishop Creek. The deadline for completion of the dam was not met. However, since the building of Metropolis and its complex of irrigation channels was also held up by storms and other events, Moran was given more time, but the ultimate deadline was winter. Winter cold had already delayed significant progress on the dam to the point where major concrete work had to be held over until spring. Most of the men had to return to Salt Lake City, but some worked through the heaviest

1T Interviews with Pat's sons born in the 1890s helped round out the story. P. j . , Jr., and Curtis worked on the dam. Valuable general information was obtained from the engineering staff of the State Water Resources Division at Carson City a n d Elko and from the U.S. Corps of Engineers in Sacramento, California.

37

A Dam in the Desert

Construction superintendent Frank Gawan died before the Bishop Creek could be completed. P. J. Moran album, USHS collections.

Dam

part of the winter repairing the roadbeds and bridges, caring for the animals, and repairing the machinery.18 To construct Bishop Creek Dam, 75,000 cubic yards of earth were chopped away from the canyon banks and 20,000 cubic yards of mud dredged from the riverbed to make way for the foundation. Then, more than 250,000 cubic yards of earth fill, masonry rubble, and reinforced concrete gave the barrier shape and strength. The dam was projected to store enough water for most of the 40,000 acres of alfalfa, wheat, and potatoes envisioned for Metropolis.

18 Pat's horses were in demand in Salt Lake City's coal delivery crisis that winter, so some returned toi pull coal wagons.

38

Utah Historical Quarterly

The dam was finally completed on April 12, 1912. The gates were lowered and water successfully backed up for two miles.19 The city of Metropolis celebrated the event and the Metropolis Chronicle carried headlines on Moran and his achievement.

Had Pat been less involved in the problems created by the illness of Frank Gawan and the complications in the building task, he might not have been so surprised and defeated by another event. He would have investigated rumors circulating in the area that the waters of Bishop Creek were in danger. Farmers and ranchers further down the Humboldt had read about the Owrens Valley water having been taken over

by Los Angeles some years earlier and were not about to let it happen to them. Before the dam was completed and filled, the Pacific Reclamation Company's rights to the water of Bishop Creek and other headwaters of the Humboldt River were challenged in the courts of Lovelock, Nevada, and an injunction was placed on the use of the water and the dam.

This would not have been Pat's problem had he been paid all along, but up to that point the company had apparently paid little and late.20 The promising city of Metropolis had by this time covered its landscape with schools, a bank, parks, a railroad station, and a $100,000 hotel, plus graded streets, paved walks, gutters, and a sewage system.

It had drawn a population of nearly a thousand hopeful farmers and traders from Utah, Colorado, Idaho, New York, and Canada. It had filled its newspaper and other Nevada papers with periodic progress reports on Moran and others.21 Pat had even bid on building a bank.

Even after the citizens down the Humboldt had won their suit and had reduced the storage of water to less than one-fourth of the company's estimate, the reclamation company continued its efforts to sell tracts and to praise the dry farming possibilities of the area. But early in 1913 the company was forced into receivership. By that time the main officers had resigned and left the endangered project to return home.

This series of events following the blow of Frank Gawan's death tested Moran's strength to the limit. He received only a few payments for his effort and very little recognition outside of Nevada. The reclama19 Ultimate length of the reservoir was to have been eight miles. Metropolis Chronicle, March 1, 1912.

20 Pat sued for $83,000 plus interest but secured a j u d g m e n t against the Pacific: Reclamation Project of only $30,000 in U.S. District Court. P. J., Jr., said his father was offered this amount earlier but considered it an insult. W h e t h e r Pat ever actually received the money is not known.

T h e suit was reported in the Salt Lake Tribune a n d the Deseret News, M a y 13, 1913.

21 T h e r e was generous coverage in the Nevada Journal (Wells), Free Press (Elko), and Reno Gazette.

A Dam in the Desert

39

tion company that hired him lost its investment in Metropolis, its business status, and its water. It was so preoccupied with the failure that it probably did little more than offer him its regrets and a half-hearted promise of future compensation. The only financial record located showed them owing him an overdue sum of $83,000 plus interest in August 1912.

There was no fanfare forthcoming from Salt Lake City for Moran's engineering feat other than an item or two in the Salt Lake Tribune indicating that it was the largest reservoir of its kind in the country.22 The passage of men, animals, and machinery back to the home base in Utah's capital city had none of the glamor of a circus parade because of what had happened to their loved boss, Frank Gawan, and what had happened to the water of Bishop Creek. The dreary lines of workers that strung along through Metropolis to meet the trains at the new station looked more like a funeral procession. None of the enthusiasm of a homecoming or of a victorious army of dam builders showed on the men's faces.

Moran became a casualty of the Pacific Reclamation Company failure, but settlers were hit the hardest in terms of sacrifices. They left everything behind in the states they came from, brought their families, and put their toil and last dimes into their property. Then, they lost it all as surely as if the dam had given way and flooded them off the land.

Pat Moran must have found some quiet comfort in his achievement. It brought together many of the symbols of his past â&#x20AC;&#x201D; sheep and horses that meant so much to his Irish father, coal that dominated his childhood in the mines, steam boilers that gave him his passage to America on the ship, bricks like those he cut on one of his earliest jobs, and Emigration, the name of the mountain pass that cradled Bishop Creek. So whether or not Pat made these connections consciously, the dam contained all that for him as it rose from the riverbed.

Since Metropolis is not alive to use the water,23 the dam might be called a monument to Pat Moran, Frank Gawan, the workers, and the unfortunate settlers who lost their resources there, and perhaps to Metropolis, a ghost town in the West that came into being through the promise of wheat and potato crops rather than gold or silver.24 82

Salt Lake Tribune, February 16, 1912.

Earth-rock fill dams require routine inspection and repair. Because of a total absence of such care through seventy years of canyon storms a n d extremes in temperature, Bishop Creek D a m is now thought unsafe for full water storage. D a m Inspection Report no. 4 5 1 , June 1972, Archives, State Division! of Water Resources, Carson City.

24 Patterson, et al., Nevada's Northeast Frontier, p . 632.

23

The Frisco Charcoal Kilns

BY PHILIP F. NOTARIANNI

west of Milford, the San Francisco Mining District embraces about seven square miles on both flanks of the San Francisco Mountains. The district was organized on August 12, 1871, and became prominent as a producer of silver and lead beginning in about 1876. Water in the area was considered "very bad and scarce."1 In time, this same observation was made regarding wood for fuel.

The town of Frisco became the commercial center for this district and the terminus of the Utah Southern Railroad extension from Milford.

In 1880 the population numbered about 800 people.2 At that time the two largest mining enterprises were the Horn Silver Mining Company and the Frisco Mining and Smelting Company which built the five LOCATED IN BEAVER COUNTY, UTAH, SOME SEVENTEEN MILES

Dr. Notarianni is a historian with the preservation research section of the Utah State Historical Society. This study was prepared as part of a National Register of Historic Places nomination.

1 D. B. Huntley reported on the mines in Utah in U.S. Department of the Interior, Tenth Census, 1880, vol. 13, Precious Metals (Washington, D.C., 1885), p. 464.

2 Ibid.

The remains of five charcoal kilns built near the smelter at Frisco, Beaver County. USHS historic preservation photograph.

•••"-- „ '.MP

:

..........

m

.. .

y^yy^

"•,' " •...

The Frisco Charcoal Kilns

41

charcoal kilns that still stand near Frisco as stark reminders of past technology, needs, and industry.

With the development of mining â&#x20AC;&#x201D; made possible primarily because of the extension of the Utah Southern to Frisco in 1880 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; came prosperity and growth. The Frisco Smelting Company had begun expanded construction in Frisco in July 1877, coincidental with the successful working of the Horn Silver Mine. The smelting works were built then, including, in all probability, the five beehive charcoal kilns needed to provide fuel for the smelter.3 W. S. Godbe managed the Frisco Smelting Company with Benjamin Y. Hampton as superintendent and M. Atkins as agent.4 Hampton supervised the construction of the smelter, which was reportedly running in September 1877,5 primarily with ore from the Horn Silver Mine. Two years later, in September 1879, the Frisco Mining and Smelting Company was incorporated, representing a reorganization of the Frisco Smelting Company. The new company had a capital stock of $2,000,000 in 80,000 shares and property that included the smelting plant at Frisco, the Carbonate group of mines located some two and one-half miles northeast of town, the Cave Mine in the Bradshaw District (nearer to Milford), and an iron flux mine in the Rocky District.6 In 1880 the general manager of the company was C D . Bigelow.7 In 1880 the company's smelting plant was described as a "complete one," containing a Blake rock-breaker, a Number 5 Baker blower, two horizontal boilers, one 40-horsepower horizontal engine, several pumps, a shaft furnace and flue-dust chamber, a reverberatory flue-dust slagging furnace, and five charcoal kilns "adjacent to the works."8 These are the kilns that remain in Frisco.

Smelting made mining more profitable by enabling the mining company to process its ores closer to the working site. Charcoal fueled the smelting process. At first, charcoal was made in pits, and in 1880 pits were still used in the Frisco area, primarily in the Wahwah Mountains west of town.9 These conical-shaped pits were usually lined with stone or brick. Wood was placed inside, set on fire, and covered with earth 3 4

Salt Lake Tribune, July 1, 1877.

H . L. A. Culmer, Utah Directory and Gazetteer for 1879-80 (Salt Lake City, 1880),

p. 329.

5

Salt Lake Tribune, Tenth Census, vol.

T Salt Lake Tribune, 8 Tenth Census, vol.

9 Ibid.

6

July 1, 1877, and September 2, 1877.

13, pp. 469-70.

January 1, 1881.

13, p. 470.

42

Utah Historical Quarterly

and sod. The wood was allowed to smolder for fifteen to twenty days, eventually burning itself out. The product was a black, porous residue of wood with all organic matter removed, leaving almost pure carbon.

It would burn in smelter furnaces without smoke, producing an intense heat.10 During the 1870s the trend turned from pits to kilns constructed of stone or brick. Each kiln represented a capital investment of between $500 and $1,000, but this cost was offset by the fact that kilns were more efficient and less wasteful and produced a higher quality of charcoal.11 The engineer credited with introducing the beehive kiln was J. C. Cameron in Marquette County, Michigan, in 1868. In an article in the Utah Mining Gazette, Cameron stated that he had indeed introduced the kiln, which he described as in the form of a "parabolic dome, with a base of twenty to twenty-four feet in diameter and altitude of nineteen to twenty-two feet." He estimated the cost at no more than $700.12 Such kilns were probably constructed with the use of internal scaffolding against which the walls were laid as they slanted inward toward the top of the dome.

The five Frisco charcoal kilns of the Frisco Mining and Smelting Company were among those described in detail in the 1880 census mineral compendium.

The kilns are made of granite float found in the neighborhood and a lime mortar. They are of various sizes, from 16 to 26 feet in diameter. It is the rule in this section to make the height of the kiln equal to the diameter.

The thickness varies from 18 to 30 inches at the base and from 12 to 18 inches at the summit. There are two openings, closed by sheet iron doors, one at the ground level, 4 by 6 feet, and the other in the side two-thirds of the distance to the apex, 3 by 4 feet. There are also three rows of vent holes, 3 by 4 inches, near the ground. The lower row is at the surface of the ground. The rows above are 18 inches apart, having vent holes 3 feet apart in each row. The kilns cost from $500 to $1,000 each, and last a very long time if used regularly. The 16-foot kiln holds about 15 cords of wood and the 26-foot kiln 45 cords. Sometimes the wood is piled radially, but generally very closely in cord-wood fashion. The wood is all pinon pine, and is cut at all seasons by Mormons at $1.25 per cord. It is brought from 1 to 4 miles by sledges or wagons to kilns for from $1.50 to $2.50 per cord. The kilns are fired in the center at the bottom (though sometimes at the top), and the fire is drawn to the top by leaving a small unsealed space around the upper door. This is then closed entirely, and the 10

Nell Murbarger, "Forgotten Industry of the West," Frontier Times, May 1965, p. 26.

"Ibid.

12 Utah Mining Gazette, July 25, 1874, p. 381.

The Frisco Charcoal Kilns

43

fire is regulated by the vent holes. The duration of burning is from three to seven days, and of cooling from three to six days. Charring, which includes packing the wood in the kiln and drawing the coal, is usually done by contract, and costs from 2^4 to 3 / 2 cents per bushel. About 50 bushels are produced per cord charred. The coal is bought by weight, 17 pounds making a bushel. It is shipped to the smelters in racks, at a cost of from 3 to 5 / 2 cents per bushel for hauling, depending on the distance. The price received is 18 cents per bushel. Kiln hands are paid from $2 to $2.75.

The labor required averages one man per kiln per twenty-four hours.13

In 1882 a specific description of the five kilns appeared in the Engineering and Mining Journal At that time charcoal sold for 16 cents per bushel.

Each kiln burns at one time 32 cords of wood, making from 1200 to 1500 bushels of charcoal-pinon pine, at a cost of $6 per cord, being used. It takes from six to ten days to burn a kiln. The company uses about 30,000 bushels of charcoal a month, besides about ten cords of cedar wood per day, at a cost of $3 per cord.14 13 14

Tenth Census, vol. 13, p. 471.

Engineering and Mining Journal (New York), November 18, 1882, p. 273.

Frisco Mining and Smelting Company smelter in 1883.

Note kilns on hill to right. USHS collections.

V* *'y -

44

Utah Historical Quarterly

Charcoal production includes the following stages: kiln construction, wood cutting and hauling, charring, and freighting to the smelter.

Since the Frisco Mining and Smelting Company built its five kilns next to the smelter, freighting was unnecessary and its cost was eliminated.

Scrutiny of the 1880 manuscript census, population schedule, provides insight into the labor required for the charcoal industry. According to the census, taken in June 1880, there were living in Frisco 4 coal contractors and 21 coal burners. In addition, 7 stonemasons, 1 brickmason, 2 wood contractors, and 5 wood choppers appeared on the rolls.

The average age of the coal contractors was 42, whereas the coal burners averaged 27 years of age. Fourteen of the coal burners were single men, and most of them resided in multifamily households, probably boarding or lodging houses. In some but not all cases, men employed in related charcoal burning jobs lived in these same households,15 evidence contrary to the view that charcoal hands lived under worse housing conditions than did other mine employees.16 The coal burners were exclusively from the United States or northern Europe. Seven were listed as born in Utah Territory. One family from England, the Angels, numbered four brothers, all coal burners.

The coal contractors were all born outside of Utah â&#x20AC;&#x201D; two in Illinois, one in Ohio, and one in Germany.17 The German, Charles Lamendorf, was also active in the Tintic Mining District of Juab and Utah counties.

Thus, as in most mining-related enterprises, the charcoal industry in Utah was largely manned by workers from outside the territory who had experience in the various occupations.

The smelting activity of the Frisco Mining and Smelting Company reached its height during 1879-84. The following are the tonnages of ore and concentrates from the Carbonate-Rattler mines treated at the Frisco smelter during those years: 1879-80 1881 1882 1883 January 1 to April 1, 1884 15 Tenth U.S. Census, 1880, Utah, Population U t a h State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

Schedules,

130,758 648,295 1,785,260 961,874 78,8621S Beaver County, microfilm A-147,

13

Murbarger, "Forgotten Industry," p. 26.

Tenth Census . . . Population.

18 Bert S. Butler, Geology and Ore Deposits of the San Francisco and Adjacent Utah, Professional Paper no. 80 (Washington, D . C . : G P O , 1913), p . 178.

17

Districts,

The Frisco Charcoal Kilns

45

Earlier, in 1878, the smelter had processed 222 cars of ore from the Bonanza and Cave mines â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 4,669,828 pounds of lead, 284,820 ounces of silver, and 526 to 1,000 ounces of gold for a total value of $417,470.25.19 And, during 1882 the smelter was reportedly working nearly 20 tons of ore daily from the Cave mine alone.

With smelter production at its peak, the Salt Lake Tribune could, in June 1881, state that in Frisco "the demand for charcoal is now greater than the supply, and all the kilns in these parts are crowded to their utmost capacity."20 Charcoal was becoming an expensive fuel. That, plus changing technology, would bring changes to the charcoal and smelting industries of Frisco. By March 1879 the total cost of smelting one ton of ore amounted to $18.54 for the Frisco Smelting Company. Of that amount, charcoal accounted for $8.37, about 45 percent of the total. Labor, the second largest cost, was $4.25 per ton of ore smelted. The smelting process required about 46 bushels of charcoal per ton.21 A cord of wood was needed to produce the 46 bushels of charcoal. As noted earlier, an 1882 report stated that 30,000 bushels of charcoal were used at Frisco each month, approximately 652 cords of wood. In addition, 10 cords of cedar wood were used each day for roasting the ore.22 As wood reserves dwindled, the cost of smelting ore with charcoal escalated.

As charcoal became more expensive, increasingly cheaper freight rates, coupled with the growing coke industry in Utah, were making coke a cheaper and better fuel. During 1886 railroad competition in transporting coke from Pennsylvania and San Francisco to Utah brought the price of the commodity down.23 Additionally, Utah was developing its own coke industry. In the early 1880s the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad opened the vast coal fields of what would become Carbon County.

Toward the end of the decade Castle Gate was producing an excellent fuel coke. Sunnyside coke would follow.

High labor costs, lack of water, inferior and highly priced charcoal, and the lack of good fluxing ore (ore containing fluxing agents that assist in fusion, required in the reduction of richer ores), all prompted the 19

Salt Lake Tribune, January 1, 1879.

Salt Lake Tribune, June 22, 1881, and January 1, 1883.

21 Tenth Census, vol. 13, p . 470. W . A . H o o k e r , The Horn Silver Mine Report, March 1879, p . 27. This report is located in Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

22 Tenth Census, vol. 13, p. 469. The charcoal was described here as "inferior" in quality to that used in the northern part of the territory.

23 Salt Lake Tribune, January 1, 1887.

20

46

Utah Historical Quarterly

Horn Silver Mining Company to cease smelting at Frisco in 1882. The previous year the Horn had erected a smelter that burned coke at Franklyn some six and one-half miles south of Salt Lake City.24 Smelters in the Salt Lake Valley thus began to come into prominence, beneficiaries in part of railroad competition that lowered freight rates.

Affected by the same conditions as the Horn, the Frisco Mining and Smelting Company closed and dismantled its smelter in 1884. The kilns remained. Output from the company's mines was shipped to the Salt Lake smelters and, later, some to the smelter at Tintic. 2j After 1884 work at the Frisco Mining and Smelter Company was sporadic and limited. In 1886 the Carbonate dump and tailings were concentrated by lessees, and G. S. Handy worked over a portion of the company's slag dump, shipping 283,280 pounds of matte (a brittle product obtained in the smelting of sulfide ores).26 By 1892-93 the Frisco Mining and Smelting Company was no longer listed in the Utah Gazetteer, and to 1900 the Horn was the only producer in the area.2' In 1901 the Carbonate and Rattler Mining Company incorporated and assumed control of the Carbonate and Rattler mines, old properties of the Frisco Mining and Smelting Company. The property underwent further development; but in 1914 the Horn Silver Mining Company foreclosed a mortgage it held on the property, and it was sold at a sheriff's sale.28 Little is known of the property's disposition during the next two decades, but by 1933 the major part of the Frisco area was controlled by the Tintic Lead Company.29 The Frisco charcoal kilns have survived the vicissitudes of time and changes in the mining industry to stand as symbols of past technology and life. The potential for obtaining further knowledge of these kilns and their significance through historical archaeology is good,30 for they remain among the earliest and best preserved charcoal kilns identified in Utah.

24 Salt Lake Tribune, January 1, 1882; Butler, San Francisco and Adjacent Districts, p. 114; and Tenth Census, vol. 13, p . 469.

25 Salt Lake Tribune, January 1, 1885; Butler, San Francisco and Adjacent Districts, p. 178; a n d Beaver County News, November 12, 1909.

26 Salt Lake Tribune, January 1, 1887. "â&#x20AC;˘ Salt Lake Mining Review, December 30, 1900, p p . 2 7 - 2 8 .

28 Salt Lake Mining Review, May 30, 1901, p. 2 2 ; May 15, 1907, p. 3 0 ; May 30, 1909, p . 30; September 15, 1909, p. 3 6 ; January 15, 1914, p. 7; and February 15, 1914, p. 30.

29 Allan R. Reiser, "Geology a n d Major Ore Deposits of the San Francisco Mining District," (B.S. thesis, University of U t a h , 1933), p . 2.

30 See, William G. Buckles, ed. Anthropological Investigations near the Crest of the Continent, vol. I l l ( 1 9 7 5 - 7 8 ) . Copy located in the antiquities section, Utah State Historical Society.

Iron City, Mormon Mining Town

BY KERRY WILLIAM BATE

in the nineteenth century, but Mormon-sponsored mining towns were exceptional. One exception, Iron City, was built around the iron industry, an acceptable form of mining to Brigham Young and perfectly in keeping with his admonition to stay away from mining precious metals.

Like so many other mining towns, Iron City is now a ghost town.

It has left a broken legacy: ruins of old buildings, foundation stones scattered across the Iron County desert, a well-preserved coke oven,

M I N I N G TOWNS DOTTED THE W E S T , INCLUDING U T A H ,

Mr. Bate is the author of a forthcoming biography of Ebenezer Hanks.

Photograph

£!•'•'>•**.'

Iron City ruins.

by Brad Wolverton.

48

Utah Historical Quarterly

listing in the National Register of Historic Places, and the dream of a more just industrial-economic order. Iron City began and ended as a cooperative Mormon enterprise, and though ultimately a failure, it represented an expenditure in labor and capital of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Utah's mineral resources were recognized by many. "The iron deposits of Utah are measured by mountains and the coal measured by counties," reported mining expert Col. A. W. Hamilton. 1 A Deseret News correspondent euphorically said of Iron County, "here we find valleys of iron, hills of iron, mountains of iron."2 John S. Newberry of the School of Mines of New York said that the area had "the most remarkable deposit of iron ore yet discovered on this Continent." 3 Besides iron, the area had coal and juniper for coke and charcoal, zinc and copper, and silver. Magnetic ore was also found on the site.4 The abundance of iron was noticed early by the sharp-eyed Brigham Young, always on the watch for more resources to build the literal kingdom of God. Within four years of Mormon arrival in the Great Basin a group of hardy colonists was dutifully marching south to presentday Iron County to raise the flag of the kingdom and build a new Pittsburgh in the desert. The failure of this company to manufacture iron only made the Saints more determined to try, and the survival of the southernmost Mormon settlements guaranteed a population that would dabble in and dream of iron wealth when the heat and the sand threatened their extinction.

The site of Iron City was discovered in 1868 by Peter Shirts about twenty miles southwest of Cedar City. The area was described as a "beautiful, healthy location sufficient for a city of 5,000 and large iron works, plenty of good, pure spring and well water, coal and charcoal.

We have also plenty of building rock and clay for brick on the ground.""

In June 1868 the Union Iron Company was organized with Ebenezer Hanks, a wealthy merchant, as president. Peter Shirts, a somewhat quiet, amiable, and restless man, was made a director, perhaps in return for 1 Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter J H ) , August 2, 1881, quoting the Deseret News (hereafter DN), Archives Division, Historical Department, L D S church, Salt Lake City.

2 J H , September 29, 1875, quoting DN, October 13, 1875. (Many entries in J H were not actually published until a later date.)

3 J H , August 2, 1881, quoting DN. 4 S e t h M. Blair to DN, printed June 29, 1870, quoted in J H , June 6, 1870; Millennial Star 35 ( 1 8 7 3 ) : 239, 36 (1874) : 495.

B J H , July 27, 1871, quoting DN, August 30, 1871.

Iron City

49

his discovery; and Robert Richey, a local rancher, was another director.

In addition, Seth M. Blair and Chapman Duncan were also named directors. The biggest immediate obstacle faced by the new company was making decent firebrick. An optimistic report in the Deseret News had the firebrick problem solved in July 1868, but, in fact, it took more than two years before really adequate material was found.6 Exempt from territorial taxes, the town found itself growing rapidly.

By the time the 1870 census taker visited the town there were nineteen households with a total population of ninety-seven people. The town layout was typically Mormon: blocks 240 rods square with lots 12 rods by 6 and streets 4 rods wide. The new community boasted a post office, and by 1871 a furnace with a 2,500-pound capacity was operational.

In the fall of 1871 Chapman Duncan opened a boarding house. A major reorganization in 1873 led to the building of a blast furnace, air furnace, pattern shop, and a company office. The following year plans were drawn for rolling mills to manufacture railroad iron. Even after the town had been closed for five years it still had a foundry, machine shop, pattern shop, blacksmith shop, dwellings, brick schoolhouse, engine house with a 20-horsepower steam engine, butcher shop, store, offices with dwellings, charcoal house, two charcoal kilns, tons of pig iron, thirtyfoot-high air furnace, and rock, adobe, and lumber buildings.7 Transportation problems affected the Iron City operation. In 1874 it cost forty dollars a ton to freight iron from Iron City to Salt Lake City.

Meanwhile, railroad competition was lowering freight rates from the East, thereby making eastern iron cheaper. If a railroad spur could be built to Iron City, local freighting costs could be cut. By 1873 plans were being made to build a railroad from Salt Lake City through the Stockton, Ophir, Tintic, and Star mining districts to Iron City. The demand for iron in the Utah capital seemed to justify it, and the board of directors was confident of the venture's success. Besides a railroad to the northern markets, Ebenezer Hanks dreamed of building a railroad to the Colorado River to tap potential southern markets. In 1875 plans were drawn for a narrow-gauge railroad from the Iron City area to the 8

J H , July 27, 1868, quoting DN; J H , July 27, 1871, quoting DN, August 30, 1871.

' " M i n u t e s of the U t a h Territorial Legislature" in J H , January 28, 29, February 13, 15, 19, 1869; 1870 Census, Population Schedules, Utah, Iron County, Iron City, microfilm of the manuscript census, U t a h State Historical Society, Salt Lake City; plat m a p of Iron City, copy from Dr. Morris Shirts, Southern U t a h State College, Cedar City; Seth M . Blair in J H , April 30, 1870, quoting DN, May 10, 1870; J H , July 27, 1871, quoting DN, August 30, 1871; Journal of David Barclay Adams, November 26, 1871, LDS Archives; J H , October 31, 1874, quoting DN; Thomas Taylor in J H , August 8, 1881, quoting DN.

50

Utah Historical Quarterly

Colorado River some 125 miles away with work to begin within a year.

These ambitious plans failed to materialize.8 Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Iron City life was the religious element. Although it was a Mormon-sponsored town, it was nevertheless a mining town. This led to contradictions in what it could or should be.

Ebenezer Hanks owned the town site, but most of the policies relating to the town were set by the board of directors of the mining company. The directors favored a policy of drawing in capital; but, at first, this seems to have been limited to the resources of fellow Saints.9 Self-sufficiency was a religious as well as an economic goal. The company soon learned that local capital was insufficient. As one writer noted of the early days, "money, as a circulating medium, was unknown."10 Desperate to remedy this situation, the company made several unsuccessful efforts to draw in outside capital from any source. As early as 1872 one of the members of the company was attempting to "get moneyed men to join with us"11 in developing Iron County iron resources. John W. Young, on a business trip to New York in 1873, wrote his father, Brigham, asking for "authentic information regarding the amt & character of the Sanpete Coal also the same regarding the Iron County Coal & Iron ore and any information that will throw light upon the prospective development of Southern Utah." 12 By the following year negotiations were underway with "an Eastern company"13 to sell half of the capital stock for $263,500 in order to purchase machinery to build a rolling mill.

In 1875 the stockholders elected John W. Young president in hope that his connections with eastern capital could benefit the company.

Besides seeking financial resources outside of the Mormon kingdom, the directors were eventually forced to seek outside labor, too. The skilled

8 J H , June 24, 1874, quoting DN; William B. Pace and James H . H a r t to Brigham Young, April 14, 1874, Special Collections, Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo; Ebenezer Joseph Hanks, miscellaneous MSS and letters, copies in L D S Archives; J H , J a n u a r y 28, 1875, quoting Salt Lake Herald (hereafter SLH).

9 For example, Seth M. Blair says in J H , April 30, 1870, quoting DN, M a y 10, 1870, "shall we be encouraged in the hope t h a t those having capital will see the greatest enterprise of the day opened up for them to bless their labors," obviously written for a M o r m o n audience.

Earlier h e h a d written ( J H , J u n e 6, 1870, quoting from DN, June 18, 1870), "For our people to control the iron business of U t a h is of more importance, in my judgement, than to own the O R . railroad."

10 John Morgan in J H , September! 29, 1875, quoting DN, October 13, 1875.

11 Adams Journal, June 5, 1872.

12 J o h n W. Young to Brigham Young, August 9, 1873, Brigham Young Correspondence, L D S Archives.

13 Pace and H a r t to Young.

Iron City

51

Site of Iron City with kiln visible at left center. Photograph by Brad Wolverton.

workers needed to develop fully the iron resources were not available in Utah. As a result, some non-Mormon consultants and laborers were brought in.

The Iron City venture was born at about the same time as the Godbeite schism was beginning its protest of Mormon church economic control. While the Godbeites were intent on breaking theocratic economic power, the Iron City directors were firmly committed to ensuring that their venture conformed to Mormon economic ideals. Seth M. Blair reported in June 1870 that the Godbeites had "only one advocate on the Pinto,"14 but others were attracted to some of the Godbeite principles â&#x20AC;&#x201D; spiritualism, for example.

Jane Cooper Hanks, wife of Ebenezer Hanks and a brilliant and creative businesswoman in her own right, practiced spiritualism with " S e t h M. Blair in J H , June 18, 1870, quoting DN, June 29, 1870. For more on the Godbeites see Ronald W. Walker, " T h e Commencement of the Godbeite Protest: Another View," Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (1974).

Utah Historical Quarterly

52

"â&#x20AC;˘*"ÂŤ3*

Chapman Duncan, member of first board of directors.

USHS collections.

Homer Duncan, brother of Chapman and another board member.

USHS collections.

fervor.15 James Russell, who served as the company clerk, had been a devout Mormon, but along with his nephew and his wife he became an active spiritualist. A tall, straight man with a full brown beard, Russell was quick of speech; he spent much of his spare time attempting to proselytize his boarders for the spiritualist cause. "Spiritualism was pretty well accepted, as was witchcraft," one man who grew up in the community remembered. "Almost every gathering would try a seance," he added. This continued until some young men became too playful with it and convinced a young woman that she was possessed. When she commenced howling at the top of her lungs in the middle of the night, seances ceased as a social activity.16 "Religion was not much in evidence," recollected Rev. E. J. Hanks, who grew up there. Iron City wras "mostly Mormon [but] tho a considerable part of the town were not Mormon they were nothing else."17 The Mormons felt this irreligion keenly.

"It has been a greeff to me Ever Since to Stop here and . . . have . . . no meeting," complained the town diarist, David Barclay Adams. Adams, 15 Numerous seances with Jane Hanks are recorded in the Journals of Amasa Mason Lyman under dates of February 22, March 5, 8, 12, 13, April 19, 21, 1872; January 1, 18, 25, 28, February 9, June 29, 1873; July 11, 1874; February 13, 22, 27, 1876, LDS Archives. Mrs. Hanks developed, with others, the Mother Eve Mining Company, ore from which when assayed turned out to be a disappointment as it was found to have "nothing but Copper."

18 Hanks, MSS, pp. 225, 115, 226.

17 Ibid., p. 115.

Iron City

Peter Shirts, also a director, discovered Iron City site.

USHS collections.

53

Ebenezer Hanks owned the town site. his wife practiced spiritualism.

Courtesy of Paul Dupin.

a former bishop in Beaver, was then president of the Iron City Branch of the LDS church. Ebenezer Hanks pledged to furnish all the lumber and paint needed to build a church and others pledged over $200 in cash, but because of a lack of interest a church was not erected for several years.18 Adams protested that "with the present state of things I will not live here." Still later, he noted, "No meeting no school" and added, "All dead to Mormonism." Three years later he was still complaining: "Sunday turned out a great day for drinking & Swearing I never heard the like Since I Came into the Church nor for many years before."19 Perhaps Adams's fears were confirmed when in September 1874 the rabidly anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune added Iron City to its list of towns with an authorized agent.20 The agent, George A. Hicks, a kindly gentleman who worked hard every week to get the townspeople to sign the teetotaler pledges they had broken the week before,21 had been excommunicated from the Mormon church because of his loud complaints about the Mountain Meadow Massacre and John D. Lee.22 1S

Adams Journal, August 25, 1872.

Ibid., April 3, 13, 1873; January 2, 1876.

20 September 26, 1874, is the first day the Salt Lake Tribune listed an authorized agent in Iron City.

21 Hanks MSS, p. 121.

22 Salt Lake Tribune, August 20, 1874, carries Hicks's side of the story. John D. Lee's journals give his version of events.

19

54

Utah Historical Quarterly

Religion for young people consisted of Sunday School (when it was held) and the individual efforts of various strong personalities in the town, such as George A. Hicks and William Applegate, who gave out Bibles to the young people to read.23 Drinking created problems, too. Adams complained loudly that "we have a great curse of a whiskey Shop here men drunk all day,"24 but that apparently led to a policy by Ebenezer Hanks that he would "allow no saloon in its [the town's] limits."25 Yet, Rev. E. J. Hanks observed that "all in all for a mining town it was pretty decent."26 Many of the laborers were local residents, including people who had been active in the first attempt to develop iron in Cedar City ten or fifteen years before. One such was David B. Adams, described as a competent smelter and a "practical furnace man of considerable experience in the old world" but nevertheless considered incompetent by some. As noted earlier, Adams was dissatisfied with town life. He withdrew from the corporation in 1873 and did not rejoin until 1876.27 Other local workers included Chapman Duncan, his brother Homer, and Ebenezer Hanks, besides a host of laborers.

Nevertheless, local labor did not fill every need, and the company was forced to bring in Dr. T. S. Scheuner, a Swiss metallurgist,28 and later, Edwin D. Wassell of Pittsburgh, a man with experience as "a practical iron smelter and iron rolling mill builder," and Wr. Roper of Saint Louis, an "experienced iron puddler." In a statement that was not entirely accurate, the Deseret News reported, "The Superintendent finds no difficulty in obtaining experienced labor in all departments of iron making, at reasonable prices."29 The company was incorporated four times, in part to keep it abreast of current Mormon united economic efforts: first in 1868 as the Union Iron Company, then in August 1870 as the Utah Iron Mining Company, again in 1873 as the Great Western Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company, and finally in 1874 as the Great Western Iron Company.30 23

Hanks MSS, p. 121.

Adams Journal, February 16, 1872.

25 Hanks MSS, p. 123.

26 Ibid.

27 JH, July 27, 1871, quoting DN, August 30, 1871; JH, September 29, 1875, quoting DN, October 1875; Hanks MSS, p. 112; Adams Journal, April 1873 and 1876.

28 1870 Census, Iron City.

29 JH, October 19, 1873, quoting SLH; JH, October 20, 1873, quoting DN. 30 JH, July 27, 1871, quoting DN, August 30, 1871 ; Iron County Book of Incorporations, Book "A." 24

Iron City

55

Mormon sensitivity to sharing wealth and attempting to distribute equitably economic power minimized management/labor clashes in Iron City. Stockholders represented the communities of St. George, Washington, Provo, Salt Lake City, Beaver, Parowan, Cedar City, Grass Valley, Paragonah, and Iron City.31 With economic power distributed and with no emphasis on the current capitalistic mode of exploitation of labor, it was perhaps natural that when David Barclay Adams was elected chairman of the Miners Meeting, he was promptly named to the company board of directors.32 Such integration of the work force was seen by the Saints as necessary and desirable. "The employees are shareholders and much interested in the success of the enterprise,"33 noted the Deseret News with some pride.

The town grew rapidly just before its demise; between 1874 and 1875 the monthly payroll rose from $500 to $4,000.34 Still, there were some worker complaints. These generally centered around creature comforts and not working conditions, as Adams vividly pointed out when he wrote that "I quit filing for want of coal wood & Provisions of Every kind the men Stood it Bravely no Complaint from them only on the Tobacco queston being scarse."3° Even with the consistent efforts to get eastern capital to invest in the iron works, it remained company policy to attempt to keep control in the hands of local people. When a potential development of outside interests was discussed that would compete with Iron City, Homer Duncan wrote Brigham Young that "we cannot afford to have him [Robert Richey] sell to outsiders especially to Iron makers if out siders should carry on A heavy business they will hold quite a political influence in this county."36 The company did experience some successes. The iron manufactured was "pronounced by competent machinists as first-class metal, not excelled by the product of any part of the world, and capable of making the finest machinery."37 At its peak the company manufactured five to seven tons of pig iron daily and proposed to fill the territorial needs of one thousand tons annually as well as supplying much of the Nevada, 31

Ibid.

Adams Journal, February 16, 1872.

33 J H , October 20, 1873, quoting DN. 34 Millennial Star 37 (1875) : 351.

35 Adams Journal, January 8, 1876.

36 Homer D u n c a n to Brigham Young, July 16, 1872, Brigham Young Correspondence.

37 J H , November 1, 1874, quoting SLH. 32

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Arizona, Idaho, and Colorado market. In 1874 the company anticipated sending a hundred tons of iron to Salt Lake City; at least five tons were sent. In its brief heyday the company sent thirty tons a month to Pioche, Nevada, to be used in mining enterprises there. The company also contracted with the Salt Lake City Iron Company to supply all of the pig iron necessary to build ten flat cars for the Utah Wrestern Railroad. In addition, they shipped coal to Nevada at one time, but the costs proved too high and that was discontinued. Items manufactured by the company included andirons, an arrastra, hand irons for ironing clothes, bootjacks made in the shape of pine beetles with the two horns used to pull the boots off, and a flat iron stand. Iron City provided the iron used in the twelve oxen that support the St. George Temple baptismal font.38 In addition to iron and coal, the company attempted to exploit zinc and copper, which, they felt, could be processed for ten to fifteen cents a pound. Little is heard of any success in that area, but the goal remained in the company by-laws until the end.39 Despite these dreams the Iron City venture failed and was closed permanently in 1876. Several factors led to its demise. First, in 1874 the company was negotiating with easterners for capital. Yet, when Brigham Young came south preaching the United Order of Enoch, the board of directors, with over a quarter of a million dollars in badly needed cash almost in hand, humbly wrote him to ask "what position you wish the company to occupy in relation to the new organization and when, where, and how you wish us to fall into line."40 Homer Duncan, a member of the board of directors, expressed to Brigham Young that "It's very fine, this United Order, but where's your brains?"41 But the board as a whole felt that the purpose of the iron industry was to build up the kingdom, not to build up an iron industry at the cost of the kingdom. The proposed financing fell through, apparently because Brigham Young advised against it.

38 J H , October 17, 1874, quoting DN; J H , November 1, 1874, quoting SLH; Millennial Star 36 ( 1 8 7 4 ) : 655 says the U t a h Southern received 700,000 pounds of iron ore in 1874: J H , April 30, 1874, quoting DN, May 10, 1870; J H , November 12, 1874, quoting DN; ]H, September 7, 1874, quoting DN; J H , January 28, 1875, quoting SLH; DN, November 22, 1871; Adams Journal, October 14, 1871, December 8, 1875, March 1876; Hanks MSS, p . 5 2 ; Millennial Star 36 ( 1 8 7 4 ) : 766; Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d University Press, 1958), pp.

315-16. Millennial Star 2il (1875) : 10 shows plans to use iron from Iron City and 37 (1875) : 479 gives an account of the casting of the oxen.

39 Seth M . Blair in J H , June 6, 1870, quoting DN, June 29, 1870.

40 Pace and H a r t to Young.

41 Salt Lake Tribune, September 11, 1874. D u n c a n meant, of course, that there was no head of the Order in an authoritarian sense.

57

Iron City

;

Missing rock exposes brick lining of kiln at Iron Photograph by Brad Wolverton.

City.

A second factor, and probably the deciding one, was the money panic of 1874. This destroyed the Nevada markets, and "Retrenchment became the order of the day."42 A special assessment levied against the stockholders was allegedly embezzled by company secretary James Henry Hart, and the company ultimately was purchased for a few thousand dollars by Taylor-Cutler Company.43 In addition, the federal government demanded a half-cent in tax for every bushel of charcoal used in the furnace, and fifteen cents for every load of wood.44 The demand was impossible to meet.

Besides these financial problems, the company faced competition from several other iron companies, including the Ogden Iron Works, the Utah Central Iron Company, and the City Creek Iron Mine. It is possible that if the Mormons had put all of their iron efforts into Iron City, they might have been successful. But the division of interest, with 42

JH, September 29, 1875, quoting DN, October 13, 1875.

Hanks MSS, pp. 53, 114, 123-24, 229.

44 Adams Journal, January 9, 1876.

43

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Utah Historical Quarterly

three mining districts in Iron County alone, could not have been helpful to any single venture.45 Finally, the company could not continue without capital, and it could not acquire enough capital selling andirons and bootjacks to the poverty stricken Saints of southern Utah. The area also lacked an adequate population, in terms of skilled labor, workers, and consumers.48 Exorbitant shipping costs to Salt Lake City ($40 a ton) and roads passable only part of the year no doubt contributed to the problems. Had the Utah Southern been finished earlier it might have saved Iron City.

When Zion's Central Board of Trade was organized in the 1880s, attempts were rnade to revive Iron City, but those attempts failed.

Thomas Taylor spent the rest of his life trying to generate interest in the venture but to no avail.47 Finally, in the 1920s, the entire town site was sold at tax sales for a few dollars a lot.

Had the Mormons pursued their venture with the ruthlessness of most business in that era, it is likely that any source of money would have been used, no matter how suspect. Competition would have been violently crushed, and they would certainly have attempted to provide special protection for the industry through the territorial legislature.

Labor representatives would not have been stockholders nor members of the board of the company. Under different conditions, then, the Iron City dream would have had more of a chance to become a reality.

In one sense, the dreams of the pioneer industrialists were realized when the mineral wealth was successfully exploited in the 1930s after expenditures of millions of dollars by eastern corporations. While Iron City itself is a peaceful ghost town, napping forever alongside the Little Pinto Creek, giant machines rip ore from the nearby mines.

In another sense, the dreams of these men of a hundred years ago have never been fulfilled. Plans for establishing an economic equality have not been realized. Hopes for local control of the enterprise are forever dead. Dreams of a corporation where workers and stockholders are the same are only dreams. The Iron City venture leaves a mixed heritage. The physical conquering of the earth and ore was finally consummated but at the cost of the spiritual hopes of a long-gone past.

45 Millennial Star 36 ( 1 8 7 4 ) : 5 9 1 , 37 (1875) : 111, 38 ( 1 8 7 6 ) : 2 0 7 , 3 7 ( 1 8 7 5 ) : 56, 173, 35 ( 1 8 7 3 ) : 4 6 3 ; Salt Lake Tribune, October 7, 1874. T h e Tribune lists the Iron County mining districts as Iron Springs, Pinto Iron, a n d Summer.

48 Salt Lake Tribune; April 13, 1879, states, "so m u c h depends on the workmen in the iron business t h a t it can only be carried on successfully at great manufacturing centres where other skilled hands can be summoned by stepping to the door, when the puddler, for example, strikes work at a critical moment."

47 Thomas Taylor in DN, August 8, 1881.

William H. Smart, Builder in the Basin

BY WILLIAM B. SMART

\ J N E OF MY VERY EARLIEST MEMORIES IS OF T H E H U G E CANS of h o n e y

dad brought home from his trips to Vernal â&#x20AC;&#x201D; cans that seemed impossibly heavy for a small boy and that even today strain the shoulder

William Henry Smart.

USHS collection.

60

Utah Historical Quarterly

and cut into the hand. But I did not know, until I began researching, that one of the men responsible for establishing the honey industry in the Uinta Basin was my grandfather, William H. Smart.

About 1910 grandfather brought a beekeeper, Courtney Turnquist, from Europe with a special strain of bees, and they scattered hives around the Basin. My uncle, Joseph Smart, the only one of grandfather's children still living, remembers that Turnquist was frequently in my grandfather's home. He was a very courtly man, Joseph remembers, who would make the roughneck Uinta Basin kids snicker when he stood to hold my grandmother's chair. So, Uinta Basin honey may be as good a way as any to introduce my grandfather and the land he loved so well and to which he gave his fortune and much of his life.

William H. Smart is little remembered in the Uinta Basin these days. In Vernal the lovely two-story brick home he built, the most imposing home in the Basin at the time and the first with an indoor toilet and a bathtub, has fallen to the wrecking crew. His formal portrait, given by the family to the museum in Vernal a few years ago, was gathering dust in an obscure corner the last time I visited.

Few remember and still fewer care that he established the Uintah Telephone Company in Vernal in 1907, that he was the controlling stockholder and president of Vernal's first bank, that he acquired the Vernal Express and brought the Wallace family here to run it â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the same fine family that has published it so successfully since then. He was the moving force in building the first flour mill, the electric power plant, the Vernal waterworks, the Vernal amusement hall, and the Uintah Stake Academy.

All this, and more, he accomplished in the four years he lived in Vernal, from 1906 to 1910, as president of Uintah Stake of the Mormon church. But Vernal was only a small part of the stake that then extended from Strawberry Valley east to the Colorado line â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 130 miles of pinyon and juniper, sage and meadow, river and mountain and gullied valley floor. It was an empire to be built, and he never rested.

On horseback or in his white-top buggy behind his famous white mules, Maude and Molly, he roamed the Basin constantly, from rim to mountain rim, examining timber and water and soil, determining where

M r . Smart is editor and general manager of the Deseret News. A version of this paper was presented as the luncheon address at the Annual Meeting of the U t a h State Historical Society in Vernal, U t a h , September 13, 1980.

William H. Smart

61

towns should be built and then personally seeing that they were built there. Under his direction the towns of Duchesne, Myton, and Randlett were platted in 1905. A year later Roosevelt â&#x20AC;&#x201D; originally it was named Dry Gulch â&#x20AC;&#x201D; was laid out on land William H. Smart purchased and made available to settlers. There, and again in Duchesne, he repeated the Vernal story, building banks and businesses and whatever else was needed to put those towns on their feet. In Roosevelt he donated land for the Wasatch High School, the seminary, the church meeting house and amusement hall. He led an LDS prayer campaign for approval of school bonds and later went into debt himself to keep it open.

My grandfather believed also in the power of the press. He particularly believed that power should be in Mormon hands, and so in addition to the Vernal Express he established or bought newspapers in Duchesne, Roosevelt, and Myton, and placed them in charge of men whose policies and performance he could trust.

Why did he do all this? Certainly not to build his own fortune.

He entered the Uinta Basin a wealthy man. He left it a quarter of a century later in near poverty. Despite great organizational genius, and despite his awesome energy, he never prospered personally, partly because whenever he had a good thing going he promptly turned it over to someone else in order to attract good people into the Basin and partly because his trust in those he sought to help was sometimes misplaced.

His efforts to establish a "friendly" bank in Duchesne illustrate the point. Seeing an opportunity to buy out a hostile banker, he found twelve men to invest $1,000 each to buy the bank. Of course, none of them in that poverty-plagued area had that kind of money or credit, so grandfather borrowed the $ 1,000 for each of them, on his own signature, and then put up $2,500 of his own. Within a year the bank was closed; the seller had used worthless securities to deceive the buyers. Grandfather was philosophical about it; you could expect to be cheated by "outsiders." What he never recorded in his journal but confided later to his son, my father, was that only one of the twrelve whose notes he had guaranteed ever paid the debt. Grandfather made good the rest, but he had to sell his stock in the Utah State Bank and in the Beneficial Life Insurance Company to do it.

That was in 1920. Sixty years later, I discovered in his personal papers a letter from one of those twelve men, Owen Bennion. It was dated 1934, fourteen years after the bank closed. Simply and poignantly it expressed the profound respect grandfather earned. It read in part:

62

Utah Historical Quarterly Dear President Smart: For some time I have had your letter of May 10 inclosing note and stock certificate of the defunct Dechesne Bank. I sincerely appreciate your action and sentiments, and realize they are inspired by your implicit faidi in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the injunction, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.". . . If at any time I have anything to pay during our lifetime, I will be very happy to pay it to you. . . . If I do not, I shall always have the knowledge that your love for the Lord and his children is greater than your love for yourself. I realize that I owe to you my greatest education in life and perhaps the greatest example I have ever known of entire sacrifice of self to the Lord's work.

Across the bottom, my grandfather had written: "I forgave him debt of some $750 in case he can never pay it, he having financial reverses."

William H. Smart's temporal leadership in the Uinta Basin is described in much greater detail in the monograph written by my daughter, Kristen Rogers, which won a Utah State Historical Society bicentennial prize for biography and was published in the winter 1977 Quarterly.

She describes how he came to spend so much of his life and fortune in the Basin, how he was called in 1901 to leave a prospering livestock business in northern Utah and Idaho and become president of the Wasatch Stake in Heber, how he saw that the Uintah Indian Reservation was to be opened for settlement by whites and recommended to the First Presidency that a good, strong man be called to prepare the way for its settlement by Mormons. He got the assignment himself, of course, and went at it with all his energy. He made three exploring trips by horseback throughout the Basin. He organized a land company, the Wasatch Development Company, and got a government land office established in Vernal. And then, unwisely perhaps, but effectively, he sent a letter to stake presidents throughout the church announcing that, with the blessing of the First Presidency, the Wasatch Stake Presidency stood ready to help Mormons settle on the best lands.

The result was predictable, particularly in 1905, when the Reed Smoot hearings in Congress had fomented such hatred and suspicion and brought the church's image to its lowest point. Charges of "Mormon land-grabbing" filled the press, implicating the First Presidency, to the point that a senior member of the Twelve, John Henry Smith, called my grandfather "insane."

Insane it may have been, but it worked. Most of the settlers on the Indian lands were, indeed, Mormons, and most of the Basin towns still bear that unmistakable Mormon stamp.

William H. Smart

63

Despite the controversy, grandfather did not seem to lose the confidence of the First Presidency. A year later, in 1906, he was called as president of the Uintah Stake and moved to Vernal. In 1910 he was installed as president of the new Duchesne Stake and in 1920 of the new Roosevelt Stake.

This has been the briefest of overviews of the work of William H. Smart in the Uinta Basin. There is a rich lode of history here that someday should be mined and developed into a full-scale biography. But turning now to the man himself. Who was he? What was he? What fires burning in his belly drove him to such effort? What was he trying to prove? Who was he trying to serve?

Somehow, early in life, he got it into his head that he was to be a man of destiny. How else can one explain the fact that beginning at age twenty-four he kept for the rest of his life a journal so detailed, so personal, so complete that at his death it totaled forty-seven volumes and has been described as one of the most important journals in Utah history. From it and from a three-inch file of personal and private papers the portrait emerges of a complex and most remarkable man.

Greatness did not come easily. Throughout much of his life he struggled with bad health. He tormented himself for falling short of What he conceived to be his potential. His worst trial in young adulthood was the tobacco habit which had hooked him so deeply he carried it with him into the mission field and back home again. The journals' of his mission in Turkey and Palestine are full of torment â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how he fought day after day to abstain, only to buy several packs and spend a day lighting one cigarette on the butt of another. It was not until 1898, at age thirty-six, nearly ten years later, after lengthy fasting and prayer and a special priesthood blessing by Apostle Francis M. Lyman, that he was able to record that he had smoked his last cigarette.

When grandfather was nineteen he submitted himself to a phrenologist for analysis. Among his private papers is the handwritten report.

Examining the contours of William's teenage head, the good professor declared, among many other things: "You will not obtrude yourself upon other people, but will stand on your own feet manfully."

The second half of that statement proved true enough, but if ever a false prophecy was uttered, it was the first half. Grandfather spent most of his life obtruding on other people, lecturing them, reshaping them, calling them to repentance, striving constantly to make bad men good and good men better.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

For example: When he was twenty-four, he accompanied his father on a genealogical mission to England. There he met a pretty blonde cousin named Nellie. A powerful attraction developed between them.

As it happened, she was about to leave with her family to settle in Australia. His journal dwells at length on their tender leave-taking. Her last tearful words to him, he records, were: "I wish I could remain with you forever." And what were his last words to her? "When temptation overtakes you, think of my words." Obtrusive words, indeed, for a twenty-four-year-old.

A few days later, in London, he attended a performance of The Mikado, the plot of which he recorded in detail in his journal, as he did that of each book he read or play he watched. As he left the theater, he "talked with two nice-looking girls on the sidewalk to learn how they had fallen to their present state of prostitution." Each told him, in some detail, and one begged him to go home with her. "I told her I had never lain with a woman," he wrote, "and did not intend to until I had married . . . and that if she was willing I would be pleased to have a talk with her but I would not go home with her. She thought this very strange and said she never met anyone like me before. Said she would like to be the wife of such a man." After some more talk â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nothing more â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he gave her eighteen pence for taking up her time, shook hands, and parted, but not before advising her to discontinue her present life, to go where she was unknown and build a new character.

That was typical of grandfather throughout his life. His journals are full of his efforts to change the lives of those around him. During all the years he ministered in the Basin, no ranch was so isolated it could not expect a visit from President Smart. With apprehension or anticipation, depending on their state of spiritual grace, settlers watched the approach of that white-topped buggy and those white mules, knowing they could expect a searching inquisition and a stern call to repentance.

Usually it worked, and lives were changed. One example: One wintry day the visit was to Alva Murdock, a wealthy and influential apostate, at his ranch on Currant Creek. After brief greetings came the uncompromising message: "The time has come for you to get back into the Church and take up your responsibilities." There was still enough daylight left to chop through the ice in Currant Creek and baptize the suddenly repentant backslider, and the next day grandfather set him apart as president of the Currant Creek branch. He served for many years as a much-loved bishop.

William H. Smart

65

That was how grandfather worked with people. A few thoughts, now, on how he worked with money. William Smart made money, lots of it. My examination of his journals and papers reveals no case where he used it other than to help those around him and to build the kingdom.

The land he gave for church and public use in the Uinta Basin has been mentioned, and the businesses he built and turned over to others.

A few old-timers still remember the particularly hard winter when the ranchers were caught short of hay, and the price — when you could get it — shot up to $40 a ton, which no one in that cash-poor land could afford. Grandfather, typically provident, had 300 or 400 tons on hand.

He sent out word that anyone — Mormon or Gentile — could have his hay at $8 a ton, the going price in a normal winter.

But so much of the good that grandfather did with his money was done quietly and privately, strictly following the Biblical injunction not to let one hand know the deeds of the other. Much of what he did, I suppose, has never been known until this day; certainly much of it was entirely new to me as I examined, with growing excitement, his file of private correspondence.

There are letters from John A. Widtsoe expressing love and gratitude to grandfather who urged him to stay in school and financially supported him when otherwise he would have been forced to drop out after the death of his father. What a loss had that great educator and leader not finished his schooling.

There are letters from Widtsoe, then church commissioner of education, and others thanking him for a $25 gift to the new BYU endowment fund in 1922. It was, Widtsoe wrote, "the first fruit of the appeal made at Conference for endowment funds. . . . It is an honor to have been the first to respond."

There are letters from Heber J. Grant over a number of years and on various subjects but all recalling and expressing profound gratitude for the $5,000 grandfather gave to rescue the Utah Loan and Trust Company from bankruptcy — a failure, President Grant wrote, that "would have reflected materially upon the good names of Presidents Joseph F. Smith and Francis M. Lyman."

There are letters of thanks from the First Presidency and receipts for monies donated for the purchase of land in Independence, Jackson County, and the redemption of Zion.

There are several letters from B. H. Roberts, heartbreaking letters from Washington, D.C., in the dark days of 1899 when Roberts was

66

Utah Historical Quarterly

fighting for his seat in Congress. They were letters asking for help. Congress had cut off his salary, his mileage, even his stationery allowance.

Grandfather responded with a pledge of $1,000, $500 of which was actually loaned in varying installments. Elder Roberts's letters reflect the bitterness of those times. In one, he declined grandfather's invitation, as president of the Eastern States Mission, to speak in New York because If I attempted [a discourse] there would stand back of it the whiteheat of suppressed rage a n d indignation rolling and tumbling about in the darker recesses of my consciousness. I have to confess that I have not of late entertained the very kindest and most Christian spirit.

In another, following the vote in Congress rejecting him, he wrote: Of my defeat, I can say nothing. I hoped for better results but hoped in vain. I take it, however, that it is nothing to a man's discredit that he has been overcome by mob law, which is nonetheless real because t h e mobbing took place in the House of Representatives and u n d e r the thin guise of law.

There is in the Roberts correspondence a final letter, dated the following July. Enclosed was a check for $500. Roberts wrote: I do not add interest on the a m o u n t for the reason that w h e n I suggested that you take a note of m e for the amount, you said t h a t smacked too m u c h of the spirit of the world, a n d was altogether too cold-blooded, and you did not wish the act of brotherly kindness marred by such a n act. . . . T h e interest on the a m o u n t shall be paid in my appreciation of your brotherly friendship, and in my prayers to Almighty God for you a n d for your great consideration of me when truly I was in sore distress and great need.

Finally, in this portrait of a wholly committed man, I must return to the question asked at the outset: What inner fires drove him so relentlessly? The answer is clear: his unshakeable conviction that he was serving God's own church as led by God's own prophet.

That conviction may have wavered briefly the night Joseph F. Smith died and grandfather, as my father remembered, paced the floor all night grieving over the thought of the church in the hands of Heber J. Grant. The doubt quickly vanished and he gave his full loyalty and obedience to this new prophet â&#x20AC;&#x201D; though my Uncle Joseph remembers he was once heard to mutter that he could not understand why the Lord would make a Democrat head of his church.

Prayer, often accompanied by lengthy periods of fasting, was an intrinsic part of grandfather's decision-making process. His journal re-

William H. Smart

67

cords that in 1886, at age twenty-four, he was counseled by the brethren to marry. He agonized for days over the lack of a suitable prospect, then fasted and prayed for four days, including Thanksgiving Day, to be guided to the right marriage partner. He would never have believed it was mere coincidence that shortly a Miss Anna Haines appeared on a visit to Cache Valley where he was teaching, and two years later became his wife.

Prayer is a thread woven throughout his journals. When he first entered the Uinta Basin, in 1903, he wrote: We stopped and I went into the timber and offered prayer. I was filled with peculiar feelings as I knelt down here on the divide between the known and the unknown country. I felt a strong sense of responsibility ahead of me and prayed for light and wisdom.

Indelibly imprinted on the mind of his son Joseph was a camping trip at Moon Lake when a summer cloudburst hit. Lightning crackled close and the air smelled like brimstone. Young Joseph found his father, kneeling on an elevation, arms outstretched, face upturned to the rain, praying to his God. Sure that he had seen his father in his most natural environment and posture, the boy slipped quietly away.

And my own childhood memory is sharp of this gaunt old man, completely bald, largely deaf, gold-rimmed glasses on his nose, walking stick in hand, setting out from our home each morning for long walks in the hills above Provo. We dimly understood that somewhere up there he had built an altar and that he was doing more than just walking in the hills. My childish awe of him was far too great to allow questions.

But I think I sensed even then, as I know so surely now, the rightness and integrity of this way of closing a life so unreservedly dedicated to its Creator.

Âť i-\ "... (I 4L.

Construction camp and stables on the Strawberry reservoir once part of the Uintah Reservation.

USHS collections.

site,

The Strawberry Valley Reclamation Project and the Opening of the Uintah Indian Reservation

BY KATHRYN L. MACKAY

I HE STRAWBERRY VALLEY PROJECT (1906-22), Utah's first federal reclamation project, was part of the opening of the Uintah Valley Indian Reservation in the Uinta Basin to mining, agricultural, speculative, and conservation interests over the vain protests of the inhabitants, the Northern Ute Indians. The project is an example of power politics, of conflicts of interest within the federal bureaucracy, and of the disregard for the legal rights of Native Americans.

Ms. MacKay is a research associate at the American West Center, University of Utah, and a doctoral candidate in history. A version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Utah State Historical Society, September 1980, in Vernal, Utah.

The Uintah Indian Reservation

69

The Uinta Basin was the traditional homeland of the small Ute band, the Uinta-ats, 1 and the hunting grounds for several Indian groups.

Until the 1840s when they became extinct in the Basin, buffalo were hunted there by the Uinta-ats, other Ute bands, particularly the Yamparika (later called the White River Utes) and the Tumpanawach (also called the Lagunas, the Utah Lake Utes, the Timpanoagos), and by other Indians such as the Northwestern Shoshone.

In the 1820-40s the buffalo and beaver in the Basin attracted nonIndian trappers and traders from the United States and Mexico. These intruders established posts in the area â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Fort Kit Carson, 1833-34; Fort Robidoux or Uintah, 1837-44; Fort Davy Crockett, 1837-44. The Utes became involved in an expanded trade economy by which some Ute groups, such as the Tumpanowach led by Wakara, prospered.

In the 1840s the Mormons established their agrarian kingdom in what became Utah Territory, but they were not attracted to the Basin except as it might be protected from settlement by non-Mormons. In 1861 after an expedition sent by Brigham Young had determined the area unsuitable for Mormon agrarian settlement,2 the Uintah Valley Reservation, of which the Strawberry Valley at the western end composed one-fifth of the area, was established by executive order of Abraham Lincoln.3 This order was confirmed by act of Congress in 1864, which act also provided for the sale of four other smaller reservations established in 1856 for the Utes and the Gosiutes and provided for the removal of all Utah Indians to the Uintah Valley Reservation.4 Most Indian groups found the Uinta Basin as unsuitable for yearround occupation as had the Mormons, and many continued the struggle to use their traditional lands, increasingly occupied by non-Indians. In 1865 Congress empowered the president to treat with the Indians of Utah Territory in order to extinguish Indian title to all agricultural and mineral lands in the territory except lands to be reserved for them at distances far removed from non-Indian settlements.5 This act was one of several that formed the federal reservation or enclavement policy to deal with the "Indian Problem."

1

Julian H. Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin no. 120 (Washington, D.C., 1938), pp. 223-25.

2 Deseret News, September 25, 1861.

3 Executive Order 10-3-1861 in Executive Orders Relating to Indian Reservations, May 14 1855 to July 1,1912 (Washington, D . C , 1912), p. 169.

4 Act 5-5-1864, 13 Stat. 63; amended 6-18-1878, 20 Stat. 165; and 5-24-1888, 25 Stat.

157.

5 Act 2-23-1865, 13 Stat. 432.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

With this legislation the energetic, pragmatic Indian superintendent for Utah, O. H. Irish, negotiated on behalf of the federal government several treaties with various Utah Indians â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Gosiutes, Paiutes, Shoshones, and Utes â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in order to establish peace between them and the nonIndian intruders and to provide for the concentration of these Indians onto lands reserved for their sole occupation and use. The Ute treaty was negotiated on the old Spanish Fork Reservation in June 1865. It provided that the Utes give up all lands in Utah Territory except the Uintah Valley Reservation. They were to move there within one year, receive $900,000 over the next sixty years, and be provided with supplies, homes, schools, etc.6 Soweett, a Uinta-ats leader, explained that the Utes ". . . did not want to sell their land and go away; they wanted to live around the graves of their fathers." However, all the leaders of the various Ute groups were persuaded to sign the treaty.7 Congress, ill-disposed to support Mormon interests, failed to ratify the treaty. However, some of the Utes, acting in good faith, moved to the reservation. When the promised supplies, cattle, and other goods did not arrive, many Utes joined Black Hawk in the series of raids on central Utah settlements that came to be called the Black Hawk War (1865-69) .8 Not until 1867 did a large group of Utes led by Tabby-ToKwana, a Uinta-ats leader, move from central Utah to the Uintah Reservation, settling in the Strawberry Valley where they had access to cattle being grazed in Heber Valley.9 The first agency on the reservation had been built in 1865 at the head of Daniels Canyon.10 The area was isolated by heavy snowfall in the winter, and agent Albert Kinney did not stock adequate supplies, thereby frustrating and discouraging Ute support. Thomas Carter was made agent the next year and moved the agency into the Basin near present-day Hanna on the upper Duchesne. Two years later the agency was moved to the junction of Rock Creek and the Duchesne River. In the fall of 1868 agent Pardon Dodds moved the agency from this western end of the reservation to the center of the Basin at White Rocks, a 6 O. H . Irish to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, June 7, 1865, Letters Received, Record Group 75, National Archives.

T I b i d . ; also Secretary of Interior, Annual Report 1865 (Washington, D.C., 1866), pp.

318-20.

8 Carlton Culmsee, Utah's Black Hawk War, Lore and Reminiscences of Participants (Logan, U t , 1973).

8 Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report 1867 (Washington, D.C., 1868), p. 175.

10 All but one of the buildings were erected by soldiers of the California Volunteers camped there in 1865-66. Ibid., p. 181.

The Uintah Indian Reservation

'*â&#x20AC;˘

location recommended to him by Antero, a Uinta-ats leader.11 White Rocks had been the location of Fort Robidoux and was the crossroads of several trails.

With the placement of the agency in the center of the Basin, most of the Ute groups who used it located their camps around it, although annuities, rations, and crops were not sufficient to maintain the Utes year-round. Agent J. J. Critchlow in his first report in 1871 complained about the lack of attention his predecessors had paid the Utes: "There seems never to have been anything more done for them than to keep them quiet and peaceable by partially feeding and clothing them and amusing them with trinkets."12 The western end of the reservation, located some fifty miles from the agency and accessible by wagon only on exceedingly rough roads, became less frequented by the Utes, although in 1881 several hundred Uintah Utes moved into the area in response to the influx of White River Utes removed to the reservation from Colorado following the Meeker incident.13 The Strawberry Valley region, distant from federal supervision, was, therefore, vulnerable to trespass.

The cattlemen out of Heber City, who became powerful influences on the economy and politics of northeastern Utah, were among the first (beginning about 1878) to trespass the western end of the reservation, grazing their cattle in that area. Despite Ute protests,14 the Indian agent was powerless, both politically and militarily, to either end or tax the practice. By 1887 agent T. A. Byrnes was exasperated: These cattlemen have given me more trouble than all my Indians or business of both Agencies [Uintah and Ouray]. For years they have controlled this reservation and most of its affairs. They have pastured their cattle for years on this reservation and swindled these Indians at every opportunity. 15

In 1892 the Indian Office agreed with agent R. Waugh that the Strawberry Valley should be leased, since the Utes had not acquired " J a m e s Warren Covington, "Relations Between the Ute Indians and the United States Government, 1848-1900" (Ph.D. diss., University of Oklahoma, 1949), pp. 138-39, 142-43 See also Mildred Miles Dillman, comp., Early History of Duchesne County (Spnngville, Ut., 1948), 12

Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report 1871 (Washington, D.C., 1872), p . 547.

T h e U n c o m p a h g r e Utes were also removed from Colorado and settled in U t a h . I n 1882 the U n c o m p a h g r e Reservation was established for them by executive order. This reservation was opened in 1898 See Floyd A. O'Neil and K a t h r y n L. MacKay, A History of the Uintah-Ouray Ute Lands, Occasional Papers no. 10 (Salt Lake City: American West Center, University of U t a h , 1979).

"William Parsons to Commissioner of I n d i a n Affairs, May 29, 1886, L R RG75 NA. 15 Byrnes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 8, 1887, L R R G 7 5 NA. 13

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Utah Historical Quarterly

"stock enough to consume the pasture and since . . . trouble, expense, and annoyance would continue in trying to keep the trespassers off."16 The southwestern portion of the Uintah Reservation was, therefore, leased by the Utes in 1895 to Charles F. Homer of New York. (Correspondence suggests that neither the agent nor the Utes were desirous of the lease being granted to local ranchers.17) Without Ute consent, the agent also began leasing land in the western end of the reservation for sheep grazing.18 In addition to ranchers illegally grazing their stock in the Strawberry area, farmers in Heber Valley illegally diverted water from tributaries on upper Strawberry River. Canals were built that carried water across the Basin divide to be turned into Daniels Creek, whence it flowed into irrigation systems built in Wasatch County. White settlers built these canals on Indian land without the consent of the Utes or authorization from the Indian agent or the Indian Office.19 The three-mile-long Strawberry Canal was begun in 1879 by Hyrum Oakes and completed in 1882 by him and others whom he had interested in the project. In 1883 the Strawberry Canal Company was incorporated with fifty stockholders, most of whom were farmers benefited by the diverted water. The Strawberry Canal Company later built the two-mile-long Hobble Creek ditch.20 In 1888 Joseph C. and James McDonald dug a one-and-one-half mile ditch to divert water from Hobble Creek. The seven-mile-long Willow Creek Canal, which included a 1,000-foot tunnel, was begun in 1890 by the Strawberry Canal Company which later abandoned the work. It was subsequently completed by the laborer-farmers who organized in 1893 the Willow Creek Canal Company with forty-five stockholders.21 By 1904 approximately 991 acres were being irrigated wholly or in part by the illegally diverted water.22 18 Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Waugh, October 6, 1890, L R RG75 NA. " R o b e r t Waugh to T. J. Morgan, October 27, 1892, L R RG75 N A ; Waugh to Morgan, December 14, 1892, L R RG75 NA. 18 Elihu Root to Secretary of Interior, December 6, 1899, L R RG75 NA. 19 U.S., Congress, House, Surveys and Examinations of Uinta Indian Reservation, House Document no. 671, 57th Cong., 1st sess. ( J u n e 19, 1902), p. 24 20 H . P. Myton to Reed Smoot, December 5, 1904, L R RG75 NA. I n his report on the canals, Myton lists the company officers, dates of incorporation, a n d length of water use. He concludes: ". . . while these people have no legal right to this water, I would recommend if it is all possible that you permit them to continue to use the water." Myton noted there was only one Indian family living in the area. Myton to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July 1, 1902, enclosed in Tonner to Myton, June 11, 1902, L R RG75 NA. 21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

The Uintah Indian Reservation

73

In 1892 the Willow Creek and Strawberry Canal companies employed attorney William Buys of Heber to make a survey of the canals.

Buys did so and filed the plats and maps describing the area with the Wasatch County recorder and applied for rights to the land and water from the secretary of the interior. The petition was carried in 1894 by Utah Delegate Joseph L. Rawlins who attempted to secure a special act of Congress necessary to divert waters from an Indian reservation. The bill (HR 6636) was stalled in committee.23 Later in the session, Congress, bowing to pressures from mining, ranching, and farming interests, authorized a commission to: . . . negotiate and treat with the Indians properly residing upon the Uintah Reservation . . . for the relinquishment to the United States of the interest of said Indians in all lands within said reservation not needed for allotment in severalty to said Indians. . . ,24

The canal owners threw their support to those efforts, relying upon the opening of the reservation to "confirm their rights to the use of said water and the right of way for their said canals."25 However, the commission spent its time trying to induce the Uncompahgres to take allotments and give up their reservation within which gilsonite had been discovered in 1888. The Uncompahgres were not induced. The commissioners did not even meet with the Uintahs and White Rivers on the Uintah Reservation.

Joseph Rawlins, who became a United States senator in 1897, therefore, again attempted to pass legislation to secure rights of way for the canal companies. In 1899 he succeeded in attaching an amendment to an Indian appropriations act that would authorize the secretary of the interior to grant rights of way for the construction and maintenance of dams, ditches, and canals, on or through the Uintah Indian Reservation in Utah, for the purpose of diverting, and appropriating the waters of the streams in said reservation for useful purposes: Provided that all such grants shall be subject at all times to the paramount rights of the Indians on said reservation to so much of said waters as may have been appropriated, or may hereafter be appropriated or needed by them for agricultural and domestic purposes. . . .26

23

Congressional Record, 26 (April 10, 1894), p. 3657.

Act 8-15-1894, 28 Stat. 337.

25 Myton to Smoot, December 5, 1904.

36 Act 3-1-1899, 30 Stat. 941.

24

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Responding to this proviso, the secretary of the interior directed the U.S. Geological Survey to investigate the Uintah Reservation to determine whether bringing all arable lands on the reservation under cultivation would result in a shortage of water supply for the present and future needs of the Indians. Hydrographer Cyrus C. Babb directed the investigation September 1899 to June 1901. In his 1902 report Babb described the canals illegally diverting water from the Strawberry area.

His supervisor F. H. Newell commented that: Such diversion is probably without any authority, but at the present time is not injurious to any rights of the Indians. The enlargement or further construction of such ditches might in the future result injuriously to agricultural development along the Duchesne River, but this is too problematical to be now seriously considered.27

However, Newell did conclude, based on Babb's survey, that: At present, and for many years in the future, the supply of water on the reservation is enormously in excess of the uses by the Indians, but in view of the future needs of the lands which may be allotted to the Indians, there is not much water which can be appropriated without injury to these prospective wants. 28

Nevertheless, the water was appropriated, the lands were taken, and injury to the wants and rights of the Indians was done.

About 1900 there developed another interest in the lands at the western end of the reservation. While visiting the Strawberry Valley on a summer outing, State Sen. Henry Gardner of Spanish Fork and his friend John S. Lewis conceived the idea of building a reservoir on the east side of the Wasatch Mountains to store water that could be transferred through a tunnel to supplement the streams of the Spanish Fork Valley.29 In 1902 the Spanish Fork East Bench Irrigation and Manufacturing Company, later called the Strawberry Reservoir Irrigation and Canal Company, employed an engineer to investigate the project. He confirmed its feasibility but reported that expense beyond the capability of the company would be involved. The state engineer subsequently examined 2T House Document no. 671, p . 8. Frederick Haynes Newell became chief engineer for the Reclamation Service when it was organized as part of the U . S . Geological Survey.

28

Ibid.

Thomas G. Alexander, " A n Investment in Progress: U t a h ' s First Federal Reclamation Project, the Strawberry Valley Project," Utah Historical Quarterly 39 (1971) : 289. Also U.S., D e p a r t m e n t of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Ninth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, 1909-1910 (Washington, D.C., 1911), p. 268.

29

The Uintah Indian Reservation

75

KEY p H Uintah Reserva U i i l Lands Reserveed 1 ' A u g u s t 14, 1905 C.Patillo

Western end of Uintah Reservation showing lands removed in 1905 and Strawberry project site.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

the site and made a favorable report but estimated a cost too expensive even for the state to accomplish.30 Early in 1903 the canal company petitioned the Interior Department to obtain permission to enter the reservation, to file water locations, and to make the surveys and obtain the data necessary to apply to the newly established (June 17, 1902) U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in order to involve the federal government in the cost and supervision of the project. The director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Charles D. Wolcott, supported the petition, stating that "the amount of water to be used for this enterprise will not interfere materially with the irrigation of lands within the reservation."31 Wolcott thus rationalized away the concerns expressed by Babb and Newell in 1902 about injury to the future water needs of the Utes. Concerns for the welfare and rights of the Indians were set aside in the enthusiasm for the possibility of an irrigation project that would transfer water from the Uintah Basin to the Great Basin.

The secretary of the interior had been empowered to "reclaim in a large and comprehensive way the public lands which are susceptible of irrigation."32 The Newlands Act (1902), which enabled such reclamation, was the culmination of a popular crusade for government support of irrigation projects, particularly the building of dams, in the arid West.

The crusade, launched at the first National Irrigation Congress at Salt Lake City in 1891, opened up a twentieth-century homestead frontier on marginal western lands.33 The Reclamation Service, with the support of the Utah Arid Land Reclamation Fund Commission, created in 1903 to "take such measures as may be necessary to secure the construction by the United States of such reservoirs and irrigation works as are contemplated by the reclamation law,"34 and with the support of Spanish Fork area farmers, authorized surveys of the proposed Strawberry reservoir site in 1903 and 1904, even though the land was not public but an Indian reservation.

However, the Reclamation Service anticipated the opening of the reservation and began maneuvering to have the site reserved for reclama30 " T h i r d Annual Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of the State of Public Documents, State of Utah, 1901-2 (Salt Lake City, 1902).

31 Charles D . Wolcott to Secretary of Interior, February 6, 1903, Strawberry Water tion, M S B^200, U t a h State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

32 Wolcott to Secretary of Interior, M a y 15, 1903, L R RG75 NA. 33 Lawrence B. Lee, "William Ellsworth Smythe a n d the Irrigation M o v e m e n t : A sideration," Pacific Historical Review 41 (1972) : 290.

34 U.S., D e p a r t m e n t of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Second Annual Report, (Washington, D.C., 1903), p . 45.

Utah," Collec-

Recon1902-3

The Uintah Indian Reservation

77

tion, thereby making it unavailable to grazing and homesteading interests which also anxiously awaited the opening.35 The service's district engineer in Salt Lake City, George L. Swendsen, was particularly enthusiastic about the project for which he was one of the surveyors. He worked closely with the Strawberry Canal Company and later with the Strawberry Valley WTater Users Association and lobbied the service for its approval. His enthusiasm was noted by his immediate supervisor: . . . while it is our duty and should be our earnest effort to furnish inform a t i o n w h e n requested to do so by t h e officers and members . . . of such water users associations, we should be particularly careful not to act as promoters. 3 6

The Reclamation Service was, however, not the only federal agency competing for the western end of the reservation. The Forestry Division (organized in 1905 as the U.S. Forest Service) had been directed since 1898 by the indefatigable Gifford Pinchot whose guiding principle was what he called conservation, the managing of the whole environment efficiently for the long-term good of all the people.

The Uinta National Forest, created by presidential proclamation in 1897,37 included lands of the Uinta Mountains bordering on the south of the Uintah Indian Reservation. In the summer of 1902 chief grazing officer Albert F. Potter was sent by Pinchot to survey Utah's forested areas with the purpose of creating additional forest reserves.38 As a result of this survey, the Forest Service became interested in appropriating part of the Uintah Reservation as a national forest reserve.

During 1904 and 1905 there was considerable maneuvering between the Reclamation Service (particularly Swendsen) and the Forest Service to coordinate efforts to reserve sections of the Strawberry area upon its opening that each service might be "entirely free" in their plans for that vicinity.39 The Forest Service eventually had withdrawn lands north of 35

[Swendsen] to Gifford Pinchot, December 9, 1904, SWC H. N. Savage to G. L. Swendsen, May 12, 1905, SWC. 37 Proclamation 2-22-1897, 29 Stat. 895.

38 Charles S. Peterson, "Albert F. Potter's Wasatch Survey, 1902: A Beginning for Public Management of Natural Resources in Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 29 (1971) : 238-53.

39 Swendsen to Chief Engineer, Reclamation Service, December 22, 1904, SWC; C. F. Larrabee to Secretary of Interior, April 10, 1905, LR RG75 NA; Swendsen to Pinchot, May 12, 1905, SWC. At one point Swendsen suggested that the Strawberry Reservoir be made part of the forest reserve, thereby removing it from the reservation but reserving it from public domain. That scheme failed, for a legitimate evaluation of that brush area of few trees could not be deemed forest land. However, the Forest Service did finally support the schemes of the Reclamation Service. Grace Overton to George L. Swendsen, May 20, 1905, SWC. 36

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Utah Historical Quarterly

the reservoir project to "protect the watershed supplying the reservoir."40 These conservation interests were opposed by farmers and ranchers who had their own schemes for the area. The Vernal Express carried several editorials during the next years expressing the opposition of Basin farmers who anticipated the opening of the reservation as affording homestead sites: . . . there is a scheme on foot by which the people of U t a h County propose to use the Strawberry Valley as a huge reservoir, to store t h e waters of the Strawberry River with which to irrigate the lands of U t a h County.

I n view of the fact t h a t there are thousands of acres of available land along the Strawberry and Duchesne Rivers which can be irrigated by this same water, and where it naturally belongs, we cannot help but a d m i r e the supreme affrontary with which our friends over t h e r a n g e set about apropriating something to which they have no moral right in the world.

41

On March 28, 1905, a mass meeting was held in Vernal to protest the Strawberry project. Participants declared: . . . that all of the water of said streams is necessary for the reclamation a n d development of the arable land of the reservation, including land allotted to the Indians as well as land soon to be opened for the occupation of actual settlers. 42

Ranchers were also concerned about the future uses of the Strawberry area. Thousands of cattle and sheep seasonally grazed, legally and illegally there. Babb had commented in his 1902 report that the altitude of the land "is rather high for general agricultural purposes, but the land is splendidly adapted to grazing."43 An act of Congress in June 1897 had given the federal government the legal authority to administer grazing on public lands. But many ranchers protested the increasing regulation of the land to prevent overgrazing and to protect its other uses, and confrontations between ranchers and forestry personnel occurred.44 The ranchers received assurances that grazing permits for the forest lands and other ranges would be available after the opening of the reservation.

In fact, 60,160 acres of grazing land in the Strawberry Valley were leased to ranchers from the project's beginning in 1905 until 1916 when the 40

U.S., Congress, House, Uinta National Forest, Utah, House Report no. 1633, 67th Cong., 4th'sess. (February 17, 1923), p. 2.

41 Vernal Express, September 5, 1903.

42 Charles Wolcott to Secretary of Interior, May 6, 1905, LR RG75 NA. 43 House Document no. 671 (1902), p. 15.

"Charles DeMoisy, Jr., "Some Early History of the Uinta National Forest," (n.d.), MS A-625, Utah State Historical Society.

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land became part of the project, by which time 8,000 of those acres were covered by the waters of the Strawberry Reservoir.45 The Strawberry project was supported by "about 1,200 citizens owning more than 26,000 acres of land in the vicinity of Spanish Fork," the influential Sen. Reed Smoot, and the maneuverings of George L. Swendsen. Within two years of the preliminary surveys the project was recommended by the Reclamation Board of Engineers and was authorized by the secretary of the interior on December 15, 1905.46 The rights of the Utes to the land and water of the Strawberry area and their opposition to the opening of the reservation to non-Indians were ignored. The Indian Service, guided by the long-standing policy of assimilating the Indians into the dominant Anglo society, acted â&#x20AC;&#x201D; frequently without protest â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to accommodate the interests and influences of non-Indians. The service, usually powerless to do otherwise, rarely acted to protect the interests and rights of the Indians other than with rhetoric or delaying tactics. Even the "friends of the Indians" during this era of reform agitation supported the allotment mechanism for opening reservations as the only means by which Indians could protect themselves from the rapaciousness of whites and the best means by which Indians could be "Americanized"â&#x20AC;&#x201D; by breaking up the tribally owned reservations into individually owned plots of land.

Private and federal interests anxious for the opening of the Uintah Reservation secured a series of laws and proclamations that allotted plots of land to individual Indians; reserved certain lands to the tribe, to various federal agencies, and to other concerns; and opened the rest to homestead and claim. The chronology, the changes in rhetoric, the accompanying debates, correspondence, and negotiations of this legislation clearly demonstrate the jockeying of various non-Indian interests and the ignoring of Ute interests.

The sequence by which lands for the Strawberry Valley Project were secured included: (1) reserving the land in March 1905 "to conserve the water supply for the Indians or for general agricultural development," (2) withdrawing the lands in August 1905 "for irrigation works" under the Reclamation Act of 1902, and (3) extinguishing in 1910 the "right, title, and interest" of the Utes to the lands. The Utes, like other noncitizen Indians, lacked influential advocates. Inexperienced 45

U.S., Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Fifteenth Annual 1915-1916 (Washington, D.C., 1916), p. 419.

46 Bureau of Reclamation, Ninth Annual Report, 1909-1910, p. 268.

Report,

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Utah Historical Quarterly

in power politics, they were unable to affect this legislation and their concomitant economic security and sociopolitical independence. Despite years of protest, which included a desperate journey to join the Sioux in South Dakota,47 the Uintah Reservation was opened and the Strawberry Valley was taken to serve the needs and wishes of non-Indians.

Acting agent James F. Randlett had reported in 1894 that . . . the U i n t a h s could be led to see it would be to their best advantage to relinquish for fair compensation all of their lands west of the Duchesne River above the point of its conflux with the Strawberry River, together with a good portion of the lands south of the Strawberry.

Randlett added prophetically: I a m of the opinion it will b e unjust and it will be positively contrary to my sense of good faith on die p a r t of the Government to ask these Indians . . . at the present time or in the near future to relinquish interest in their lands to any further extent t h a n I have suggested. T h e minerals that have been or m a y be discovered on the remaining land are the property of these Indians. T h e timber lands will eventually become very valuable a n d are their legal possessions; those possessions should not b e taken from these Indians to their pecuniary disadvantage. 4 8

In 1896 Commissioner of Indian Affairs D. M. Browning replied to a House inquiry as to why the terms of the 1894 law to treat with the Uintah Reservation Indians to relinquish all lands except allotments, had not been fulfilled: T h e U i n t a h Reservation is admirably adapted to I n d i a n usage, a n d it seems to m e t h a t it should be kept intact for their use a n d occupation until it is ascertained beyond question that there is a surplus over and above the present a n d prospective wants of the Indians thereon a n d in that region of the country, w h e n such portions as are really not needed m i g h t be disposed of for white settlement. I do not think w e should be in a hurry to encroach upon it simply because it happens to be attractive to white h o m e seekers. 49

Councils with the Utes were held the next year by agent Beck who reported their opposition to allotment.50 In June 1898 an act was passed that authorized the appointment of a commission to allot lands in severalty to the Uintah Reservation 47 Floyd A. O'Neil, "An Anguished Odyssey, the Flight of the Utes, 1905-1908," Utah Historical Quarterly 36 (1968) : 315.

48 James F. Randlett to Secretary of Interior, December 12, 1894, LR RG75 NA. 49 U.S., Congress, House, Appropriations for Conducting Negotiations with Certain Indians, House Document no. 248, 54th Cong. 1st sess., (February 18, 1896), p. 5.

50 William Beck to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, September 1, 1897, LR RG75 NA.

The Uintah Indian Reservation

81

Indians and to obtain "by the consent of a majority of the adult male Indians . . . all the lands within said reservation not allotted or needed for allotment as aforesaid."51 In August 1899 the newly appointed agent, H. P. Myton, reported: If t h e consent of the Indians is necessary to be obtained in order to open t h e U i n t a h Reservation, it will be useless for Congress to pass any more laws or spend any m o r e money for that purpose for I do not believe there is an I n d i a n on the reservation w h o is willing or favors selling any p a r t of their land. T h e y look with favor on leasing when they c a n b e assured t h a t it will not bring too m a n y white men among them and that they will not be cheated. 5 2

In 1899 a bill was introduced in Congress by Senator Rawlins to set aside part of the Uintah Reservation, north of the Duchesne and east of the Lake Fork rivers, for the Utes and open the "residue," which included the Strawberry Valley, to entry and settlement. The bill was an attempt to open the reservation without negotiation and consent of the Utes. It did not pass.53 In May 1901 special agent Frank C. Armstrong investigated the Uintah Reservation and reported it to be "one of the finest valleys in Utah and one of the best reservations owned by any Indians." This unrealistic report echoed the attitude toward the Utes of many people â&#x20AC;&#x201D; bureaucrats, settlers, and reformers alike: T h e s e people can readily make their own living if the G o v e r n m e n t will compel them to d o it. T h e y are bitterly opposed to selling t h e land b u t are willing to lease. Some steps should be taken to utilize the surplus which is now used only for a range for worthless ponies. 54

This patronizing attitude served to rationalize the opening of the reservation without regard to the desires or rights of the Utes.

In December 1901 Rawlins again introduced his bill to open the reservation. This latest bill, the many applications for leasing the lands, and the number of letters and petitions from citizens urging the opening (the governor and legislature of Utah sent such a memorial to Congress in January 1902) convinced the Senate to hold hearings on the issue.

Utah Rep. George Sutherland (later a senator and still later a U.S. Supreme Court justice) was particularly adamant that since no treaty 51

Act 6-4-1898, 30 Stat. 429.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report, 1899 (Washington, D.C., 1899), p. 351.

83 U.S., Congress, Senate, Senate Bill 93, 56th Cong., 1st sess. (December 6, 1899).

54 This report contrasted sharply with previous reports on the aridity and rockiness of the reservation lands. Armstrong to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, May 3, 1901, LR RG75 NA. 82

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Utah Historical Quarterly

with the Utes had ever been ratified, the latter were not rightful owners of the reservation, which, therefore, could be taken without negotiations and consent. Indian Commissioner Jones reported: . . . there is a sort of feeling among the ignorant Indians t h a t they do not want to lose any of their land. T h a t is all there is to it, and I think before you can get them to agree to open the reservation, you have got to use some arbitrary means to open t h e land. 5 5

In May 1902 Congress authorized the secretary of the interior to allot land to the Uintah Reservation Indians and open the rest of the lands to entry and settlement only with the consent of the majority of the adult male Utes.56 The consent was not forthcoming.

The 1902 act also gave special privilege to the Raven Mining Company. This and other mining companies were the most influential interests in securing this first piece of legislation to open the Uintah Reservation.

President Roosevelt apparently refused initially to sign the 1902 act, because of its preference toward these mining interests and for its failure to give to the Utes grazing lands in connection with their allotments.57 In June 1902 a joint resolution was passed authorizing the secretary of the interior to set apart for the common use of the Indians such grazing lands as would serve their reasonable requirements. During the Congressional debates on the measure some expressed concern that reserving grazing lands to the Indians merely removed the land from homestead and permitted the secretary of the interior to lease the lands to ranchers, thereby giving them special privilege. The language of the resolution did clarify the grazing lands as being nonirrigable.58 In January 1903 the arbitrary means to open the reservation without Ute consent was found in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock which declared that Congress had plenary authority over Indian relations and had the power to pass laws abrogating treaty stipulations.59 On March 3, 1903, Congress appropriated funds to carry out the provisions of the act of May 1902. It also provided that if Ute consent could not be obtained by June 1, 1903, the secretary of the interior could proceed to allot lands and open the reservation without it.60 55 U.S., Congress, Senate, Leasing of Indian Lands, Senate Document 212, 57th Cong., 1st sess. (February 22, 1902), 3.

66 Act 5-5-1902, 32 Stat. 263.

57 Commissioner to H. P. Myton, June 25, 1902, LR RG75 NA. 58 Congressional Record, 35 (June 16, 1902), p. 6870.

59 187 U.S. Reports, 553-68.

60 Act 3-3-1903, 32 Stat. 997.

The Uintah Indian Reservation

83

The 1903 act also remedied President Roosevelt's objections to the 1902 act by providing grazing lands for the Utes' livestock of not more than 250,000 acres to be located south of the Strawberry River.61 James McLaughlin, U.S. Indian inspector, was sent to council with the Utes and to obtain their consent to the 1903 act. He explained the opening of the reservation as a fait accompli: . . . until quite recently, the policy of our Government has been t h a t Indians had unquestioned right to all lands of these respective reservations, b u t a recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States is that Indians have no right to any p a r t of their reservations except w h a t they m a y require for allotments in severalty or can make proper use of.62

The Utes protested. Happy Jack explained: W h e n the white m a n talks, the Indians are afraid. T h e Indians understand the white m a n pretty well. T h a t is the reason they are talking so.

W h e n the Indians take their land in allotments, they will lose everything they have. T h a t will not be good. After they lose everything they will be poor [T]hese white men do not like the Indians anyway. 6 3

Charley Mack commented: Before they passed such a law, someone ought to have come here a n d spoken to the Indians first. T h a t is the reason the Indians a r e so s c a r e d it has come so sudden. They were not expecting anything like this We are done for. W e are afraid of the M o r m o n people. T h e y do not like the Indians. & i

McLaughlin was unable to secure a majority in consent of the legislation.

Without Ute consent then, the government proceeded to open the reservation. In October 1904 acting agent C. H. Hall requested of the Indian Service that Congress be pursuaded to change the location of the grazing lands to the Deep Creek area. Hall explained "that the indians [sic] should have the best grazing land. That portion of the Reservation south of the Strawberry is not the best, and is only suitable for a winter range."65 Hall was, by this time, well aware of reclamation plans to "divert water from the upper Duchesne River, Red Creek, Currant Creek, and

81

ibid.

Minutes of Council held at Uinta Agency, Whiterocks, Utah, May 18-29, 1903, LR RG75 NA. 63 Ibid., p. 59.

64 Ibid., p. 68.

85 C. H. Hall to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, October 17, 1904, LR RG75 NA. 62

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Strawberry Creeks across the divide to the district of Provo and other hydrographic works."66 Whether this knowledge prompted his suggestion to switch the location of the grazing lands is not documented. Hall does seem to have been genuinely concerned about the water rights of the Utes and convinced that one way to protect those rights was by having the "grazing and timber land taken in the headwaters and a goodly portion of the streams upon which they [the allotted Utes] will depend for water."67 By the end of 1904 the procedures for making allotments on the Uintah Reservation had still not been implemented. Congress had included in the 1904 Indian Appropriations Act a provision extending the time for opening the unallotted lands to public entry to March 10, 1905.68 George L. Swendsen began a barrage of letters to the Reclamation Service, the Forest Service, and the Indian Service, soliciting their support for the reservation of the Strawberry Valley as a reservoir site.

He pleaded that: This is a very nice piece of grazing country, a n d will b e taken u p very quickly by settlers as soon as the Reservation is opened unless we can secure it in some way. 69

In March 1905 the opening of the reservation was postponed until September 1, 1905, and the president was authorized to set lands "apart and reserve as an addition to the Uintah Forest Reserve," and to . . . set a p a r t and reserve any reservoir site or other lands necessary to conserve a n d protect the water supply for the Indians or for general agricultural development, and may confirm such rights to water thereon as have already accrued. . . . 70

This act repealed that part of the 1903 act that had provided for a grazing reserve for the Utes in the Strawberry Valley and reserved instead a 250,000-acre grazing area in Deep Creek.71 Senator Smoot was instrumental in framing the above legislation.

His support of the Strawberry Valley Project is evident in hearings held on the legislation in February 1905.

68

C H. Hall to Tonner, August 3, 1904, SWC. C. H. Hall tQ Commissioner, October 17, 1904.

88 Act 4-21-1904, 33 Stat. 207.

89 [Swendsen] to U.S. Reclamation Service, December 22, 1904, SWC. 70 Act 3-3-1905, 33 Stat. 1069.

T1 Ibid.

67

The Uintah Indian Reservation

85

SENATOR S M O O T : I w a n t the right of mineral locations on these [lands] preserved, and I w a n t also the water we wish taken down into Wahsatch [sic] County preserved.

M R . P I N C H O T : T h e trouble is that this is treated as Indian land.

T H E C H A I R M A N : About this joint resolution [SR 1 0 0 ] . . . .

SENATOR S M O O T : I t is for the withdrawal of certain sections of land there for the purpose of a reservoir in the Strawberry Valley, as recommended by M r . Newell. . . . It is on an Indian reservation and we w a n t a resolution to provide for it.

T H E C H A I R M A N : Y O U w a n t a reservoir up in the timber land?

SENATOR S M O O T : N O ; it will be down low in the Strawberry Valley.

SENATOR K E A R N S : I would prefer not to load up the bill. I would to cut out all the House amendments. If Mr. Newell recommends withdrawal of the reservoir site I would consent to that, b u t I would to see the reservation opened at the date set in the last actâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in M a r c h . .

like the like . , 72

Pursuant to the 1905 act, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation on July 14, 1905, setting the opening of the Uintah Reservation for August 28, 1905.73 On August 3, 1905, the president withdrew 200,633 acres from disposal, some for agricultural purposes, some for a "reservoir site necessary to conserve the water supply for the Indians, or for general agricultural development." The reservoir site so designated was that of the Strawberry Valley Project.74 However, the listing of the reserved lands under "agricultural" and "reservoir" caused some confusion. The acting secretary of the interior, Thomas Ryan, explained: At the time this matter was considered by the D e p a r t m e n t it was understood that both lists were intended only for the conservation of the water supply for the two purposes named, and did not embrace the lands under those headed 'agricultural' that were only susceptible of reclamation. 7 5

Ryan further explained that 54,886 acres had previously been reserved as an addition to the Uinta Forest and that the 50,440 acres reserved under the heading "agricultural" were not needed to conserve the water supply, and, therefore, their reservation was not authorized under the act of March 3, 1905.76 72

U.S., Congress, Senate, Indian Appropriation Bill Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Senate, 58th Cong., 3d sess. (January 28 to February 13, 1905), p. 26.

73 Proclamation 7-14-1905, 34 Stat. 3119. n Proclamation 8-3-1905, 34 Stat. 3142.

75 Thomas Ryan to Director of Geological Survey, August 10, 1905, Ute Files, American West Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

76 Ibid.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

A tent city sprang up in Provo to accommodate some of the 37,702 applicants registering for the Uintah land drawing.

Drawing the first lot at Provo in August 1905, for a 160-acre tract on former Ute lands. Lucky applicant had first choice of available acreage.

Schoolboys drew the sealed envelopes.

Both from American Monthly Review of Reviews, October 1905.

The Uintah Indian Reservation

87

The matter was resolved in a presidential proclamation dated August 14, 1905, that specifically reserved as a reservoir site the land proposed for the Strawberry Valley Project.77 On December 15, 1905, the project was approved by the secretary of the interior on the condition that: . . . all of the complications involved be adjusted, including all conflicts that may exist in regard to water rights; that a sufficient acreage be pledged to secure the return to the reclamation fund of the cost of construction and that a clean-cut feasible reclamation project, free from all complications or difficulties of any kind or character, be secured before a dollar is spent in construction. 7 8

On March 6, 1906, construction work was authorized to be commenced by force account. There was one complication. The lands embraced by the project had been reserved "to conserve the water supply for the Indians or for general agricultural development." The land so reserved was "situated in the Uintah Indian Reservation,"79 and the Utes were entitled to the benefits from the land. However, the Strawberry project was not in the irrigation scheme of the Indian Office80 which had taken few steps to administer the lands. Therefore, the Reclamation Service was left free to proceed with the project. The Utes seem not to have been consulted in any regard.

In 1907 a question arose as to the liability of the Reclamation Service to pay the Utes rent for the use of the Strawberry lands. Approximately 51,840 acres of land in the project were being leased for grazing. The proceeds were claimed by the Indian Office for the Utes.

The Strawberry Water Users Association protested this claim as denying them revenue by which they could repay the cost of the project.81 In 1910 Senator Sutherland introduced a bill "making available certain lands [the Strawberry Valley] on the former Uintah Indian Reservation under the reclamation act." The bill would have extinguished the right of the Utes to the lands upon payment of $1.25 per acre. This bill did not pass.82

77

Proclamation 8-14-1906, 34 Stat. 3144.

"Bureau of Reclamation, Ninth Annual Report, 1909-1910, pp. 268-69.

79 U.S., Department of the Interior, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report, 1905 (Washington, D.C., 1905), p. 175.

80 U.S., Congress, House, House Report no. 1633 (1923), p. 2.

81 Larabee to Secretary of Interior, May 6, 1905, LR RG75 NA. 82 U.S., Congress, Senate, Making Available Certain Lands on Former Uinta Indian Reservation, Senate Report no. 219, 61st Cong., 2d sess. (February 14, 1910).

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Utah Historical Quarterly

However, when the Indian appropriations bill for the fiscal year 1911 reached the Senate in April 1910, an amendment was attached to it that embodied the Sutherland bill: All right, title, and interest of the Indians in the said lands are hereby extinguished, a n d the title, management, and control thereof shall pass to the owners of the lands irrigated from said project whenever the management a n d operation of the irrigation works shall so pass under the terms of the reclamation act. 83

The Utes were paid $1.25 per acre for 56,858.51 acres in five annual installment payments totaling $71,085.65. The payments were made to the Indian Office which then used the money as it saw fit for the "benefit" of the Utes.84 The 1910 act generated some controversy among the users of the Strawberry Valley. By 1914 the sheep and cattle owners had organized an effort to repeal or amend the act, protesting that section which transferred title to the owners of the lands irrigated by the project. The controversy continued through the early 1920s. In 1923, in an effort to clearly define title of the project to the United States, a bill was introduced to add the lands to the Uinta National Forest. The bill did not pass.85 The water users assumed control of the project in 1926.86 There is no indication that the Utes were involved in any of the actions taken to extinguish their title to the Strawberry Valley. It appears that they were not informed about most of the dealings involving the Uintah Reservation lands. Despite continuing protest by the Utes, both individually and through their leaders, they were powerless to prevent the transfer of title of their lands from themselves to non-Utes.

In 1912 James McLaughlin, who had attempted unsuccessfully in 1903 to secure the consent of the Utes to the opening of their reservation, made an inspection of conditions there. His unpublished observations are a poignant description of the effects on the Utes of the loss of their lands: T h e y feel that against their wishes one million acres of land was taken from them a n d opened to settlement, and t h a t another million was placed in a forest reserve with the understanding they were to receive the revenue until 1920. They have witnessed the settler on the ceded lands

83

Act 4-4-1910, 36 Stat. 285; Congressional Record, 45 (February 14, 1910), p. 283.

John T. Lant to Franklin K. Lane, December 7, 1914, SWC. 85 House Report no. 1633, p. 3.

88 Alexander, "Strawberry Valley Project," p. 295.

84

The Uintah Indian Reservation

^9

improve his claim with timber cut from the forest reserve under a free use permit. T h e y have been helpless to prevent the cattle and sheep of the white m e n from crossing their exclusive range of 250,000 acres to reach the forest ranges for which the white m a n pays b u t no p a r t of which goes to reimburse the Indians, and they realize that greater returns are being derived from the reserved lands t h a n they can ultimately receive from the vestige of the reservation that was allotted them. T h e y know that every dollar received from the sale of the ceded lands has been exp e n d e d to conserve t h e water of the former reservation, which will in all probability be appropriated by their white neighbors. Jurisdiction of their rights has been transferred from Federal to State control a n d they live in a community where they must witness the inexorable m a r c h of progress a n d pay for it the inevitable price of the weaker people.

I t is difficult to believe that the rights of these Indians have been sacrificed t o meet the demands of local interests, b u t it is more difficult, after following step by step the administration of their affairs, to reach any other conclusion. 87

The Strawberry Valley Project, which permitted the development of additional farm lands in Utah county, furnished electric power to local towns, stimulated population and industrial growth, and provided recreational facilities used by thousands of people, has been deemed "successful."88 But this success was built on the expropriation of Indian lands without Indian consent, on the exploitation of Indian resources, both human and material, and on the ethnocentrism that evaluated Indian ways and systems as inferior. The Strawberry Valley Project for all its success in Anglo terms is part of the legacy of ignoble dealings with the American Indians. ÂŤ "Conditions on Uinta Indian Reservation, Utah," Report of E P Holcombe and James Cong., 2d sess. (July 27, 1912).

88 Alexander, "Strawberry Valley Project,'' p. 304.

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Remembering: The University of Utah. E d i t e d by E L I Z A B E T H H A G L U N D .

Lake City: University of U t a h Press, 1981, X + 2 3 7 p p . $25.00.)

Remembering was conceived as a segment of the University of U t a h ' s participation in the nation's bicentennial in 1976. I t was to be "in tangible form, a retrospective view of the one-hundredtwenty-five-year history of the University."

I n format it is a collection of nineteen essays written by a varied group of distinguished faculty members a n d graduates. Intermingled with the essays is a large a n d excellent collection of photographs, so arranged as to present in pictures the subject m a t t e r a n d t h e spirit of each essay.

Childlike, I began m y "reading" of the volume by looking a t t h e pictures.

I found them so delightful t h a t I wondered o n this first scanning if they would dominate t h e book. I did n o t spend m y undergraduate years a t this university, so I could n o t relate specifically t o t h e photographs from " t h e olden days." B u t they brought back memories of similar scenes and occasions at U t a h State University ( t h e " A . C . " in my d a y ) . I could chuckle over the hairdos a n d t h e football uniforms a n d smile wryly a t the photographic evidence of the academic a n d cultural efforts of a campus endowed with m o r e aspirations t h a n money.

W h e n I began to read t h e essays I continued to experience nostalgia, particularly for the w a r m t h a n d intimacy of the small a n d close-knit campus of 1927 (only a bit before m y time) as recalled by Sydney Angleman. As I

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(Salt

continued to read a n d enjoy I realized that the writers of these essays were gaining fast on the photographs. T h e i r varied personalities, interests, a n d feelings were quietly a n d cumulatively coming to dominate the book in their turn.

I remembered a statement m a d e t o m e

by Dr. M a x Wintrobe at a recent social g a t h e r i n g : " T h e r e were faculties before there were buildings."

By the time I was halfway through the essays I was experiencing a sharp regret that I h a d not studied u n d e r each of t h e faculty writers. I knew most of them, b u t n o t from t h e classroom: I came to t h e University of U t a h as a g r a d u a t e student a n d so was channeled from t h e first into m y own department.

So I never h a d a class u n d e r Sterling M c M u r r i n or Dorothy Snow or Lowell D u r h a m or William Mulder. ( I did, praise be, have Milton u n d e r Jack Adamson.)

As I neared the end of the volume something else began to emerge i n its t u r n as the d o m i n a n t thrust of t h e book.

T h i s was, if you will, a n inside view of the core of t h e University — that "fundamental institutional character" of which D r . Angleman speaks a n d which he defines "in two words: excellence a n d freedom" (p. 8 0 ) . T h e "fundamental character" is enlarged u p o n in other essays: the University's insistence, from its meager beginnings, u p o n uncompromising excellence; its equally stubborn defense of intellectual freedom (most eloquently addressed by Sterling Mc-

91

Book Reviews and Notices Murrin) ; its ongoing effort to foster and preserve the intimate and exciting student-faculty interaction which is the heart of learning and mutual growth; and the quality which the students of the 1960s called "relevance"-â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the successful relating of campus study to "real life."

Different readers will respond to different essays. I shall long remember Fawn Brodie's poignant account of the quiet "smashing of icons" (p. 95) during her undergraduate years; Alberta Henry's equally poignant though spirited account of her twenty-two-year struggle (of which I was a spectator) to achieve for herself and other black students "the great change from the feeling of alienation to belonging" (p. 180) ; and Wallace Stegner's tale of his reluctant growth toward the love of books and the life of the mind. Much of William Mulder's beautifully written "A Shovelful of Live

Coals" speaks direcly to me, for he deals with that excitement of graduate study which has been central to my own core since my freshman year's exposure to its power on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. His statement that "Research is simply a more formal name for inquiry" (p. 161) dignifies for me my independently continued study over the last seventeen years since I became a graduate dropout in 1964.

Remembering is not a great book, nor was it meant to be. It is a delightful and often moving statement of appreciation to a fine university. More than that, it will give to everyone wise enough to read it less the idea than the feeling of what a great university should be and this one is.

LUCYBETH C . RAMPTON

Salt Lake City

Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer. By STANLEY B. foana: University of Illinois Press, 1981. Xvi + 343 pp. $17.95.)

"Husband to at least forty-three wives, father to at least sixty-five children, and a grandfather three hundred times over," Heber C. Kimball was "sire of the largest family in the Mormon Church, if not in the western world" and "his portion of domestic discord and disappointment was probably greater than any western man." This assertion by author Stanley B. Kimball is a rather dramatic way of introducing the subject of his biography, but it is not the most important aspect of Heber Kimball's life nor the central theme of the book. The theme is Mormonism and Heber C. Kimball's role in developing and promoting it, for as the author says, "no other Mormon leader has exceeded his total devotion to Mormonism. For thirty-six years, in ten states and England, he faithfully served his God and his people and strove to build

KIMBALL.

(Ur-

both the spiritual and material Kingdom of God." The author is an "insider" with all the obvious advantages of such a relationship, but he is also a trained historian who is capable of looking at his ancestor with a reasonable degree of objectivity. He has developed an interesting style that makes this biography a delightful reading experience. For example, when describing the meeting of the Mormon pioneer advance party with some mountain men, the author says that Heber C. Kimball "learned quickly to approach most mountain men upwind, for they generally considered cleanliness as bad as Godliness; their idea of a bath was to place their clothing on an anthill and let the ants eat off the lice and nits" (p. 165).

Professor Kimball's objectivity can be seen in his chapter "Reluctant Diplo-

92 m a t , " where he frankly admits t h a t H e b e r Kimball's preaching was often coarse a n d was a source of embarrassm e n t to t h e better educated members.

Both the Valley Tan and the Union Vedette found Heber's sermons a rich source of quotations to demonstrate M o r m o n vulgarity a n d disloyalty. I n 1864 the latter described Kimball's serm o n as " t h e disloyal mutterings and filthy antics of an old a p e wearing a red b a n d a n a over his senseless cranium," containing "the most indelicate remarks on polygamy unfit for publication in any respectable p a p e r " (p. 2 6 5 ) . T h e author does not agree with this description, b u t in the following chapter, entitled "Brigharn's Outspoken Preacher," h e points out that Kimball himself was aware of his provocative oratorical style a n d t h a t h e was "plain, definite, unpremeditated, eccentric, rough, disjointed, h a r d a n d severe." But h e was also a "humanist, full of imagination and humor. N o audience ever dozed through his sermons. . ." (p. 2 6 9 ) .

T h e author is not quite as objective w h e n dealing with Heber C. Kimball's practice of polygamy. Labeling him a "reluctant polygamist" Professor K i m ball devotes parts of five chapters as well as a sizeable appendix to his greatgrandfather's response to this unique M o r m o n doctrine. T h e r e is n o doubt t h a t h e was reluctant at first and considered it a "religious responsibility for raising u p a large family and providing for widows," b u t h e not only married a n excessive n u m b e r of women, including a girl that he h a d blessed when she was a baby, b u t became a strong advo*cate of the practice as a means of renewing one's youth. H e asserted that

Utah Historical Quarterly for a m a n of God to be confined to one w o m a n is "small business" (p. 2 3 8 ) .

Reluctant or not, H e b e r C. Kimball's large polygamous household presents an interesting opportunity to observe the impact of the practice on the participants, a n d the author has taken full advantage of such an opportunity.

Dr. Kimball does not a t t e m p t to explain Heber Kimball's vision of "armies in t h e sky" nor his struggle with "evil spirits" in England. H e appears to accept the standard explanation of the purpose of Zion's C a m p m a r c h (a testing) . H e acknowledges Kimball's lifelong loyalty to Masonry but avoids discussing the similarity between the Masonic ritual a n d the N a u v o o temple endowment, asserting that "the T e m p l e ceremonies, once introduced, were incalculably more important to him a n d that h e himself gave no evidence of being disturbed by any similarities" (p.

8 6 ) . Oddly, Professor Kimball makes the mistake of identifying L y m a n E. Johnson as the senior apostle ( h e was the youngest of the original twelve) and credits Parley P. P r a t t with leading the M o r m o n pioneers into Salt Lake Valley (instead of his brother, O r s o n ) .

But these are only minor weaknesses when considering the major accomplishments of the biography. I t is a wellresearched, reasonably objective, interestingly written account of the first thirty-five years of M o r m o n history as experienced by one of the most important makers of that history, H e b e r C. Kimball. I t is must reading for any serious student of the M o r m o n story.

E U G E N E E.

Brigham

Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments Century. By L A W R E N C E F O S T E R . (New York a n d Oxford: Press, 1981. Xiv + 363 p p . $19.95.) " W e have no quarrel with those w h o believe in exclusive dual marriage a n d

CAMPBELL

Young

University

of the Oxford

Nineteenth University

faithfully observe it, but we have concluded that for us there is a better way"

Book Reviews and Notices (p. 72). These comments, appearing in the Oneida Handbook, could have been used to describe the philosophies of all three of the aberrant religious societies discussed in this excellent study. The Shakers of Mother Ann Lee, the Perfectionists of John Humphrey Noyes, and the Mormons of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were all convinced that they had, indeed, found a better way to adapt codes of sexual conduct to their particular life-styles.

Recognizing that most writers have treated the three groups as simply sideshows isolated from die great midway of American history, Lawrence Foster has elected to analyze the sexual experiments identified with the groups in a perspective that moves beyond discussion of reasons for their failure. Why were these groups so alienated from conventional marriage and sex-role patterns? What did it mean for men and women to give up monogamy? How were the new systems conceived, introduced, and institutionalized? And, finally, what insights can be derived from these experiences to help society come to terms with current dissatisfactions with marriage and sex roles? In a skillfully developed response to his challenge, Foster finds meaningful answers for each of these questions.

I n his opening chapter the author persuasively relates the antisocial nature of the three movements to beliefs, in the period before the Civil War, that the family structure was disintegrating and with it the whole social fabric.

Driven by widespread millennial convictions, leaders of the new faiths were sure that conventional sexual patterns were inadequate to deal with social tensions. Swept along by a spirit of religious revivalism that released sexual as well as religious emotions, the new prophets were inspired to seek their heaven on earth in the creation of alternative family systems.

93 With this basic premise skillfully established, the author continues with perceptive studies of his three target groups. Wisely ignoring any impulse to simply retell the well-known history of events associated with the rise and fall of the sexual innovators, Foster subjects his case studies, instead, to careful scrutiny of the formative experiences of the founders, to probing analysis of reasons for the founding of communities, and to defining the attractions that drew people to membership. Revealing interpretations of the sexual tensions that surfaced in the daily life of each community add immeasurably to the value of this portion of the author's narrative.

In his conclusion Foster develops a convincing argument supporting his contention that the underlying motives in these so-called radical movements were essentially conservative religious impulses. Deeply disturbed by the social and religious disorders around them, the nonconformists introduced new patterns of social conduct to establish a secure conservative synthesis that would restore the relation of individual and community as an orderly, harmonious whole. As for sexual experimentation, it was never established as an end in itself but, rather, as one of several means devised to raise the ideal of a cohesive and harmonious family to a higher level of achievement.

This is an important book. Not the least of its strengths is its readability.

Dealing with very complex problems, the author holds the reader's interest with a sprightly writing style, where a less skilled craftsman could easily have set his audience adrift upon the seas of tedium. When the author states, "I have come to see these experimenters not as stick figures, but as real men and women facing profound human problems" (p. 245), he makes no idle boast. His ability to bring the characters in this drama to life is no small achievement.

94 A n d , finally, as a result'of the author's adroit development of his thesis, m a n y readers will find no difficulty in joining with Foster in his concluding defense of dreamers, then and now, who might

Utah Historical Quarterly be led to tilt at windmills as they reach for an unreachable star.

N O R M A N J.

BENDER

University of Colorado Colorado Springs

Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land: The Dawes Act and the Decline of Indian Farming.

By LEONARD A. CARLSON. (Westport, C o n n . : Greenwood Press, 1981. X i v + 219 p p . $29.95.)

T h i s is N o . 36 in the series, "Contributions in Economics and Economic History," u n d e r t h e general editorship of R o b e r t Sobel. T h e author of this work, D r . Carlson, is assistant professor of economics at Emory University in Atlanta. H e has contributed to Explorations in Economic History, The Journal of Economic History, and The Southern Banker.

O n p . 22 Professor Carlson states: This study extends the methods of die so-called new economic history or cliometrics to the study of American Indian History. In practice, this means that secondary historical literature and primary materials have been combined with deductive reasoning to derive propositions about how the Dawes Act was implemented and how it affected alloted American Indians.

T h e research approach used and the resulting findings m a k e a contribution to t h e study of t h e effect of the allotment policy o n I n d i a n life, but the wealth of tables, graphs, formulas, a n d accompanying explanatory materials m a y make slow reading for some.

T h e second p a r t of t h e title, The Dawes Act and the Decline of Indian Farming, is most descriptive of w h a t the a u t h o r effectively treats i n this work.

After discussing the contributions historians have m a d e to the study of the allotment period, h e states on p p . 2 0 21, "economists have not studied the Dawes Act or the policy of alloting land to American Indians," then concludes t h a t "interesting parallels can b e d r a w n between the economic side of the arguments m a d e by the reformers a n d t h e

m o d e r n literature on the economics of property rights." T h e a u t h o r then explains that his study uses "techniques t h a t are in the spirit of t h e propertyrights literature."

Carlson presents his study in four p a r t s : (1) "Federal I n d i a n Policy and the Dawes Act," (2) " I m p l e m e n t i n g the A c t : A Policy in Practice," (3) "Allotments I m p a c t on I n d i a n F a r m i n g , " and (4) "Implications." I n p a r t 3, p . 130, h e concludes t h a t in the period before allotment, while Indians on reservations still largely controlled the use of their land, "a workable system of private property right existed" a n d "rights to property were recognized" for individual Indians or I n d i a n families.

After the loss of some 90 million acres of the land base needed for their support, the I n d i a n groups still remained approximately where they were b u t relatively landless. As the a u t h o r indicates, the policy worked for the white farmers and land developers w h o did acquire I n d i a n land a n d resources, b u t it did not work particularly well in achieving the stated long-range goals for t h e Indians: assimilation a n d "civilization." T h e policy t h a t was supposed to m a k e the Indians private landholders a n d farmers, Carlson finds, actually resulted in t h e decline of I n d i a n farming.

O n p . 174, the author reaches this telling conclusion: Allotment in severalty, judged eidier as a program to advance the welfare of American Indians or to promote economic development among reservation Indians, was a disaster. Rather than en-

95

Book Reviews and Notices courage Indian farmers, it led to a significant decline in Indian farming. No student of the property-rights literature or, indeed, economic theory will be surprised t h a t the complicated and heavily supervised property right t h a t emerged from allotment led to inefficiencies, corruption, and losses for both Indian and society.

D'Arcy McNickle's reaction to the ideas of the reformers concerning the benefits Indians would receive from allotment is a classic I n d i a n response that reflects Professor Carlson's findings : I n the heat of such a discussion, it would not have occurred to any of the debaters to inquire of the Indians what ideas they had of home and property.

It would have been assumed in any case that the ideas, whatever they were, were without merit since they were Indian.

Progress in the achievement of stated goals of I n d i a n policy, then and now, can be better accomplished with the m a x i m u m involvement and full commitment of the Indians.

Libraries with collections on the American I n d i a n that attempt to reflect the history of Indian policy a n d government relations with the Indians will want to acquire this work. Individuals with a serious interest in the subjects indicated will find that this study makes a definite contribution to the literature of the field.

S. L Y M A N T Y L E R

University

of

Utah

Western Views and Eastern Visions. By E U G E N E O S T R O F F . (Washington, D . C . : Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, 1981. 120 pp.

Paper, $11.00.)

This is a very handsome catalog. It contains over 200 excellent black-andwhite reproductions of middle to later nineteenth-century American photographs, paintings, drawing, a n d prints.

These images alone make the publication worth its stated price to students of photography as art a n d / o r history, as well as to students of the American westward movement. Indeed, almost the entire value of the catalog, to scholar and layman alike, exists in the visual material it contains (virtually all relating "to the scientific surveys for which m u c h of it was done a n d to the rapid technological improvements in photography of the period . . . " ) . â&#x20AC;˘In contrast, t h e introductory text is brief a n d does not really come to terms with the exhibition's title nor with most of the study's stated purposes, this once again as the group of images actually and rather wonderfully do, in their selection, organization, and quality, by pointing toward some of these areas of concern.

Eastern visions of the American 1860s and '70s were transcendentalist, panoramic, and luminist. Such Hudson River School painters as Sanford R. Gifford, Albert Bierstadt, and Alexander Wyant went West with preconceived, often G e r m a n Diisseldorf School - influenced ideas of the landscape. They, in turn, influenced such photographers as William Henry Jackson and Timothy H .

O'Sullivan. Yet, neither in his introductory material nor in accompanying notes on the images does Eugene Ostroff even begin to cover this ground. I n his presentation of the reproductions he does demonstrate the second relationship at least. T h e trouble is that many readers may miss this apparent aspect of the exhibition without any kind of help existing in the catalog's text.

Beyond the above, the author's essay is well written a n d deftly organized into sections dealing with: earliest expeditions and artists; developing photographic technology; the introduction and expanded use of photography in the West;

96 e q u i p m e n t usage and problems; the popularity of the western p h o t o g r a p h s ; a n d the federal surveys themselves (specifically those led by H a y d e n , K i n g , Powell, a n d W h e e l e r ) . T h r o u g h o u t , for those new to the subject, standard information is concisely and clearly stated.

F o r those wishing for m o r e information t h a n that found in almost any general encyclopedia, this material is not very useful or exciting.

F o r students of U t a h history, there are 22 views. F o r students of the Utah-based photographers of this period, there a r e n o Savages, Cannons, Carters, Andersons, etc., mentioned or presented here.

Utah Historical Quarterly W h a t one does find are m a n y fine reproductions of often stunning photographic works by Jackson, O'Sullivan, J a c k Hillers, a n d others, these frequently a n d tellingly arranged alongside oils, watercolors, and drawings, etc., by Gifford, Carle ton E. Watkins, T h o m a s Hill, and among a few others, the English-born tonalist landscapist, T h o m a s M o r a n . And these are t h e parts that m a k e Western Views and Eastern Visions worth considerably m o r e t h a n just a quick look.

R O B E R T S.

University

of

OLPIN

Utah

The Fiddleback: Lore of the Line Camp. By O W E N U L P H . (Salt Lake City: D r e a m G a r d e n Press, 1981. Vi + 234 p p . Cloth, $10.95; paper, $6.95.)

The Fiddleback is not folklore in a n academic sense; neither is it history, philosophy, social commentary, or an exercise in nostalgia. Encompassing elements of all of these, it m a y resemble most a Chinese scroll painting with text included â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a n odd comparison (the book is not illustrated except t h a t chapter headings carry line drawings) to anyone who merely leafs through without reading it a n d attempting to comprehend its meaning.

T h e Fiddleback is a ranch in central N e v a d a , and U l p h ' s book is a portrait of the cowhands, including himself, w h o worked there in the waning days of the cow outfit as opposed to the cattleraising of present agri-businesses. U l p h attempts to capture the essence of that earlier life o n the range, its ethos and, perhaps, its moral significance â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a life that has been crudely distorted by Hollywood and the current cult of the cowboy. As the author points out, the cowboy didn't wear an outfit, h e w o r e clothes appropriate to the day's work.

T h e boots, Stetsons, a n d designer jeans affected by fashionable u r b a n dwellers riding mechanical bulls in "western"

bars seem pathetically ludicrous in juxtaposition to the real cowboy pursuing his honest a n d honorable occupation.

Residents at the Fiddleback during U l p h ' s t i m e there included E m m a , the owner, w h o tells a h a n d w h o wants " 'to borrow enough juice [gasoline] to get m e to T o n o p a h ' " : " 'You tell that skinflint t h a t I said for him to give you the key [to the p u m p ] a n d for you to help yourself. And the next time you ask me for something, don't use t h a t deceitful word "borrow." T h a t way you'll be able to stay honest.' " T h e n there is the cowboss, E d , a m a n cast in a mold entirely different from the foreman or r a m r o d of fiction. E d was respected by the hands for his ability to handle men, animals, a n d situations with unflappable grace a n d to reveal "life as purpose a n d accomplishment."

O t h e r major characters include the feisty Zane, a garrulous lad n a m e d Henry who spins one of the book's most hilarious yarns (rated R ) , a n d Jean w h o tells the author, a former University of N e v a d a history professor, ". . . sometimes you make sense â&#x20AC;&#x201D; especially if it ain't too i m p o r t a n t . "

97

Book Reviews and Notices I n addition to exploring h u m a n characters, the a u t h o r shares his insights into the psyches of cattle and horses, presenting, again, a view differing from the fictional stereotypes.

Finally, t h e speech of the cowboys, as recorded by U l p h , refreshes the reader with its brevity (except when telling

a y a r n ) , directness, color, wit, and d o m from t h e meaningless jargon hears so m u c h of today.

T h e book is a gem of its kind m a n y facets; a review can suggest a few of them.

Footprints in the Wilderness: A History of the Lost Rhoades Mines. By G A L E

The Outstanding Wonder: Zion Canyon's Cable Mountain Draw Works.

R.

R H O A D E S and

KERRY R o s s

BOR-

E N . (Salt L a k e City: D r e a m G a r d e n Press, 1980. Viii + 416 p p . $14.95.)

T h e title does not p r e p a r e the reader for the large dose of family history found in this work, beginning with ancestors associated w i t h Daniel Boone a n d including a n unnecessary account of the familiar story of the early years of the M o r m o n c h u r c h a n d the trek west, chapters 1 through 7, a n d subsequent chapters on the Rhoades family settling in K a m a s a n d Price, chapters 10 a n d 11.

T h a t aside, the material o n the R h o a d e s mines fills a majority of the pages a n d will n o doubt appeal greatly to believers in "lost mines," of which there m u s t b e hundreds, in the West.

T h e story abounds with sacred oaths, pacts with t h e Indians, old Spanish maps (the one o n p . 411 shows M o r m o n townsites!), Spanish artifacts, treasure symbols carved on trees, gold nuggets the size of a m a n ' s fist, etc.

M I R I A M B.

Utah State Historical

By

WESTERN

HERITAGE

freeone with only

MURPHY

Society

CONSERVA-

TION, I N C . (Springdale, U t . : Zion N a t u r a l History Association, 1981.

X + 6 6 p p . $1.95.)

A n interesting sidelight in the develo p m e n t of southern U t a h , the story of the Cable M o u n t a i n d r a w works was extensively researched to produce this illustrated m o n o g r a p h .

W i t h good lumber scarce in the valley, Brigham Y o u n g foresaw that the better ponderosa pine and douglas fir on the m o u n t a i n t o p would one day come down "like a hawk flies." Some forty years later, David Alma Flanigan m a d e Young's prophecy come true by designing a cable system to lower timber from Cable M o u n t a i n to the valley floor, eventually supplying thousands of board feet of lumber for building in the area, including cabins a n d t h e lodge at Zion National Park. ( T h e inventive Flanigan also designed a helicopter, a windmill, a n d a 'Constant velocity universal joint for four-wheel drive vehicles.)

Utah Historical Quarterly

98 Treasure

Mountain

Revisited.

Home:

Park

City

By G E O R G E A. T H O M P S O N

and FRASER B U C K . (Salt Lake City: D r e a m G a r d e n Press, 1981. X + 229 pp. Paper, $7.95.)

A revised a n d expanded edition of one of t h e most popular histories of a U t a h town, Treasure Mountain Home will please Parkites, tourists, a n d others w h o missed the first edition. Like Bingh a m , Park City spawned its o w n lore, reared a cast of memorable characters, a n d created fortunes for a fortunate few. Unlike Bingham, some of it remains o n t h e U t a h landscape a n d likely will into t h e next century, granted a d e q u a t e fire protection a n d a checkrein on t h e rapacity of developers.

March to South Pass: Lieutenant William B. Franklin's Journal of the Kearny Expedition of 1845. Edited

by F R A N K N . S H U B E R T . ( W a s h i n g t o n ,

D . C . : Government Printing Office.)

T h i s minor journal supplements earlier a n d better accounts of t h e K e a r n y Expedition of 1845. Franklin's Journal provides interesting insights into t h e expedition itself a n d t h e Oregon emigrants t h e n o n t h e trail, geography, a n d flora a n d fauna of t h e plains in 1845. H i s specific contribution is his m a p p i n g of t h e return trip from Bent's F o r t to F o r t Leavenworth. This is a noteworthy first volume in t h e Corps of Engineers' new historical studies series.

The Mormons in American History. By W I L L I A M M U L D E R . (Salt L a k e City: University of U t a h Press, 1981. 36 pp. Paper, $5.00.)

A brief attempt to place Mormonism in its historical context, Professor Mulder's 1957 Reynolds lecture a t t h e university must b e one of the most p o p u l a r in that distinguished series.

The Chisholm Trail: High Road of the Cattle Kingdom. By D O N WORCESTER. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981. X x + 207 p p . $14.50.)

T h e great cattle drives o n the Chisholm Trail from S a n Antonio to the Kansas railheads spanned two decades and ultimately filled t h e nation's need for a heroic past. As t h e a u t h o r points out, " W e have m a d e the nameless hired men on horseback o u r Galahads a n d Gawains, the chuck wagon o u r R o u n d T a b l e . " This uniquely American legend now belongs to the world. Worcester, a professor of history a t T e x a s Christian University, understands both t h e significance of t h e legend a n d t h e facts that underpin it.

This excellent book examines the development a n d eventual collapse of the cattle kingdom a n d gives special attention to life on t h e trail; personae: trail boss, cook, cowboys, longhorns, a n d mustangs; t h e trail towns; a n d t h e trailing companies a n d ranching syndicates.

The Mormons in Nevada. By LEONARD J. ARRINGTON. (Las V e g a s : Las Vegas Sun, 1979. 67 p p . Paper, $2.50.)

Arrington's book is a n interesting treatment of a subject that is little known to non-Mormons. Although the printing a n d design offer little aesthetic appeal, the price makes it a bargain.

Golden Fleece. By H U G H I E C A L L . (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981. X x + 250 p p . Cloth, $16.50; paper, $5.25.)

Based o n twenty-two years' experience as a wife o n a western M o n t a n a sheep ranch, this reminiscence was first published in 1942. T h e present edition carries a n interesting a n d inviting introduction by Judith Austin.

99

Book Reviews and Notices Old Bill Williams, Mountain Man. By ALPHEUS H. FAVOUR. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981. Xii 4 234 pp. Paper, $5.95.)

One of the best accounts of a single mountain man, Old Bill Williams was originally published in 1936 and has since won a lasting place in the literature of the West. A child of the post-Revolutionary War frontier, Old Bill was the prototypical mountain man: master trapper, guide, interpreter, implacable foe, drunken roisterer. His story, excellently told, goes beyond defining a type to place that type in a context where the reader may discover meanings beyond the eccentricity of the particular life examined.

Fort Bridgerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a Brief History. By ROBERT S. ELLISON. (Cheyenne: Wyoming State Archives, Museums, and Historical Department, 1981. 80 pp.

Paper.)

A reprint of Ellison's 1931 history of Fort Bridger, this paperback includes several previously unpublished photographs and an index. The editors updated the prose style for readability but made no attempt to amend or expand the content.

The Natural History Essays. By HENRY DAVID THOREAU. (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1980. Xxxvi + 262 pp. Paper, $3.75.)

Wilderness Essays. By J O H N MUIR. (Salt

Lake City: Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1980. Xxiv + 264 pp. Paper, $3.75.)

The

Desert. By J O H N C. VAN DYKE.

(Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1980. Xxxvii + 233 pp. Paper, $3.45.)

Peregrine Smith has done readers a great service by reprinting the writings

of several natural historians. Especially welcome is the work of Van Dyke, a Rutgers University art professor and librarian, who is not nearly as well known as Thoreau, Muir, or John Burroughs. All three of these inexpensive paperbacks fit nicely into the pocket of a backpack. Van Dyke's work has the added advantage of his essays being short enough to be read while eating a couple of handfuls of "gorp" during a trailside break.

The Discovery of New Mexico by the Franciscan Monk, Friar Marcos de Niza in 1539. By ADOLPH F. BANDELIER. Translated and edited by MADELEINE TURRELL RODACK.

(Tucson:

University of Arizona Press, 1981.

135 pp. $10.95.)

The legend of the seven cities of Cibola with their fabled gold and great treasure drew the Spanish no less than the California Gold Rush drew Americans. A. F. Bandelier, a nineteenth-century ethnologist-archaeologist-historian, traces how this legend led to explorations in what is now the American Southwest.

Buffalo Bones: Stories from Wyoming's Past. Edited by P H I L ROBERTS. (Cheyenne: Wyoming State Archives, Museums, and Historical Department, 1981. 64 pp. Paper.)

A collection of twenty-five short sketches on historical topics as diverse as Butch Cassidy's imprisonment at Laramie in 1894, bull boats, disasters at the Hanna coal mines, and unusual Wyoming street names. Photographs add to the interest.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Department of Community and Economic Development Division of State History BOARD OF STATE HISTORY M I L T O N C. A B R A M S , Smithfield, 1985

President M R S . ELIZABETH MONTAGUE., Salt Lake City, 1983 Vice-president M E L V I N T . S M I T H , Salt Lake City Secretary T H O M A S G. ALEXANDER, Provo, 1983 J . E L D O N D O R M AN, Price, 1985 MRS.

E L I Z A B E T H G R I F F I T H , O g d e n , 1985

W A Y N E K . H I N T O N , C e d a r City, 1985 T H E R O N L U K E , Provo, 1983

DAVID S. M O N S O N , L i e u t e n a n t G o v e r n o r /

Secretary of State, Ex officio WILLIAM D . O W E N S , Salt Lake City, 1983 M R S . H E L E N Z. PAPANIKOLAS, Salt Lake City, 1985 ANAND A. YANG, Salt Lake City, 1985

ADMINISTRATION MELVIN T. SMITH,

Director

STANFORD J . L A Y T O N , Managing Editor J A Y M . H A Y M O N D , Librarian DAVID B. M A D S E N , State Archaeologist

A. K E N T P O W E L L , Historic Preservation Research W I L S O N G. M A R T I N , Historic Preservation Development J O H N M . B O U R N E , Museum

Services

T h e U t a h State Historical Society was organized i n 1897 by public-spirited Utahns to collect, preserve, a n d publish U t a h a n d related history. Today, u n d e r state sponsorship, t h e Society fulfills its obligations by publishing t h e Utah Historical Quarterly and other historical materials; collecting historic U t a h artifacts; locating, documenting, a n d preserving historic a n d prehistoric buildings a n d sites; a n d maintaining a specialized research library. Donations and gifts to the Society's programs, museum, or its library are encouraged, for only through such means can i t live u p to its responsibility of preserving the record of U t a h ' s past*

MEMBERSHIP Membership in the U t a h State Historical Society is open to all individuals a n d institutions interested i n U t a h history.

Membership applications a n d change of address notices should be sent to the membership secretary.

Annual dues a r e : individual, $ 10.00; institutions, $15.00; student a n d senior citizen (age sixty-five or over), $7.50; contributing, $15.00; sustaining, $25.00; patron, $50.00; life member, $150.00. Your interest a n d support are most welcome.