Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, Number 2, 1989

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UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY ^ (ISSN 0042-143X) EDITORIAL

STAFF

M A X J . EVANS, Editor STANFORD J . LAYTON, Managing Editor MIRIAM B . MURPHY, Associate Editor

ADVISORY BOARD O F EDITORS KENNETH L . CANNON II. Salt Lake City, 1989 ARLENE H . EAKLE, Woods Cross, 1990 J O E L C . JANETSKI, Provo, 1991 ROBERT S . MCPHERSON, Blanding, 1989 CAROL A. O ' C O N N O R , Logan, 1991 RICHARD W . SADLER, Ogden, 1991

HAROLD SCHINDLER, Salt Lake City, 1990 GENE A. SESSIONS, Bountiful, 1989

GREGORY C . THOMPSON, Salt Lake City, 1990 Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, documents, and reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah's history. T h e Quarterly is published four times a year by the Utah State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. Phone (801) 533-6024 for membership and publications information.

Members of the Society receive the Quarterly, Beehive History, and the bimonthly Newsletter upon payment of the annual dues: individual, $15.00; institution, $20.00; student and senior citizen (age sixty-five or over), $10.00; contributing, $20.00; sustaining, $25.00; patron, $50.00; business, $100.00.

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Postmaster: Send form 3579 (change of address) to Utah Historical Quarterly, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101.

HZSTORXCAX. a i T A R T E R L V

Contents SPRING 1989 / V O L U M E 57 / NUMBER 2

IN THIS ISSUE

107

SARATOGA, U T A H LAKE'S OLDEST R E S O R T

RICHARD S . VAN WAGONER

108

SHERILYN COX BENNION

125

CHARLES S . PETERSON

138

T H E SALT LAKE SANITARIAN: MEDICAL ADVISER T O T H E SAINTS CHOLERA, BLIGHT, AND SPARROWS: A L O O K AT U T A H ' S FIRST A G R I C U L T U R A L AGENTS

"PRACTICALLY FREE F R O M T H E TAINT OF T H E B O O T L E G G E R " : A CLOSER L O O K AT P R O H I B I T I O N IN SOUTHEASTERN U T A H

JODY BAILEY AND

ROBERT S . MCPHERSON

150

ROBERT ALAN GOLDBERG

165

BUILDING ZIONS: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK BOOK REVIEWS

180

BOOK NOTICES

194

THE COVER School canning demonstration in Bountiful, Utah, 1913. County agents worked closely with teachers at the schools in the 1910s, presaging the 4-H and Future Farmer and Future Homemakers programs. Photograph courtesy of Charles S. Peterson.

© Copyright 1989 Utah State Historical Society

Books reviewed

. Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian MIRIAM B. MURPHY

180

Establishing Zion: The Mormon Church in the American West, 1847-1869 MELVIN T . SMITH

181

Exploration of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake BRIGHAM D . MADSEN

183

LEVI S. FETERSON

EUGENE E . CAMPBELL.

HOWARD STANSBURY.

STANFORD J . LAYTON. To No

Privileged Class: The Rationalization of Homesteading and Rural Life in the Early Twentieth-century American West MICHAEL MAGLIARI

185

FERENC M O R T O N SZASZ. The

Protestant Clergy in the Great Plains and Mountain West, 1865-1915 NORMAN J . BENDER Historic Sites and Markers along the Mormon and Other Great Western Trails TODD I. BERENS

186

STANLEY B . KIMBALL.

JAMES S. GRIFFITH.

187

Southern Arizona

Folk Arts

GARY STANTON

189

Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet M. GUY BISHOP

190

King of Beaver Island: The Life and Assassination of James Jesse Strang JOHN QUIST

192

ROGER D . I^M^NW]^.

ROGER VAN N O O R D .

Saratoga UTAH'S POPULAR SUMMER RESORT

NOW KVEEY DAY

OPEN EVERY NIGHT

Bathing Boating Fishing Dancing Cafe Service

In this issue

WI^SHHSBKCSSXtisiSi^kVBi:

Ad in the Lehi Sun, 1930.

Named for the famous New York spa, Saratoga, the oldest resort on Utah Lake, has survived, the first article in this issue relates, fire, flood, and the faddish interests of the public to bring recreational pleasure to thousands of Utahns. Others, though, sought healing there by bathing in the warm springs or drinking "Saratoga Salvation." This quest for health took many forms in the late nineteenth century, the author of the following article points out in setting the stage for the emergence in April 1888 of the first issue of the unique but short-lived Salt Lake Sanitarian, a journal "devoted to the prevention and cure of diseases . . . and the promulgation of the laws of health. . . . " A few decades later and with more visible success than the Doctors Shipp, Utah's first agricultural agents, the third article notes, promoted the latest scientific advances in agriculture to help farmers fight such calamities as hog cholera and potato blight, increase crop yields, cooperate for greater efficiency, and organize farm children in agricultural clubs.

Prohibitionists, on the other hand, aimed at no less than the improvement of society as a whole through abstinenceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a hope that was doomed from the beginning, the fourth article states, not only because of the Eighteenth Amendment's flaws but also because of the resistance of wayward human nature. Violations of the law occurred everywhere, including southeastern Utah, the area detailed here.

Social betterment also lay behind the Back to the Soil Movement that led to the founding of Jewish agricultural colonies such as the one at Clarion, Utah, begun in 1911. The final article recapitulates the history of Clarion's failure in the broader context of the successful agricultural colonies of Utah Mormons and of Jews in Israel.

Saratoga Resort in 1905. Courtesy of Mick Eastmond.

Saratoga, Utah Lake's Oldest Resort

BY RICHARD S. VAN WAGONER

W^ISPS OF WHAT APPEARED TO BE SMOKE RISING from t h e n o r t h w e s t

corner of Utah Lake likely first attracted Indians to the site hundreds of years ago. Hot water springs in the vicinity of the mouth of the Jordan River sent plumes of steam skywardâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a sight that can still be Mr. Van Wagoner, co-author of^ Book of Mormons (1982) and Mormon Polygamy: A History (1986), is currently writing a book on the history of Lehi, Utah, his hometown.

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seen on cold winter mornings. Though trappers were probably the first white men to visit the area, a Mormon exploration team led by Apostle Parley P. Pratt spent two days sailing up and down the west shore of the lake in December 1847.^ The warm springs near Utah Lake were initially a mere curiosity to early pioneers. The first group of Lehi settlers camped approximately two miles northeast on Sulphur Springs, later known as Snow's Spring, which provided suitable drinking water.

In 1854 John Conrad Naile, a German convert to Mormonism and a former member of the Mormon Battalion, arrived in Lehi. First settling on the cold springs west of town across the Jordan River, he purchased the area surrounding the warm springs in 1860 with some of the $3,000 in gold he had panned in California. Envisioning a cider industry, Naile planted a large apple orchard which he irrigated with water from the springs. When the cider business did not develop as planned, Naile used the land for grazing cattle and horses and for raising flax which was made into coarse cloth and rope.^ In 1862 another German Mormon, twenty-two-year-old John Beck, leased the warm springs property from Naile and raised sheep and manufactured charcoal there. Beck and other German immigrants in his employ frequently bathed in the warm springs and picnicked in the shade of the apple orchard. Visions of a spa, patterned after the famous Saratoga Resort in New York, began to develop in John Beck's mind. In 1884, with some of the fabulous wealth he had accrued from his Bullion-Beck mine in the Tintic district, the entrepreneur bought more than 1,000 acres of land on Utah Lake, including the warm springs area he had been leasing. He named the 27

1 Parley P. Pratt, The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt: One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . . . (1874; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938), p. 402.

2John C. Naile, born in Albersweiler, Bavaria, on September 14, 1825, emigrated in 1833, converted to Mormonism, and arrived in Nauvoo in 1844. Joining the Mormon Battalion, the 6 ft. 4 in. private served in Company A under Capt. Jefferson Hunt. Released from service on March 14, 1848, Naile made his way to Sutter's mill where in six weeks he washed out approximately $3,000 in gold. He then purchased a 250-acre Spanish grant in San Jose Valley and engaged in farming and truck gardening. In the spring of 1853 he rented out his farm and returned to visit his parents in Indiana. On June 15, 1853, he married his boyhood sweetheart. May Louise Keppel, and with her and his parents moved to the Salt Lake Valley. In 1854 he purchased property that included the cold springs west of Lehi, now owned by Sherwin Allred, and then in the early 1860s moved south to the warm springs that became the Saratoga resort. Naile purchased land at Black Rock and Yellow Banks in Beaver, Utah, in 1862 and moved his livestock there. In 1866 he was called to take charge of the wine industry and assist in growing cotton in Washington County. In 1872 Naile was called on a mission to Germany and Switzerland. At this time he legally changed his name to Naegle. In 1889 he moved part of his family to Colonia Pacheco in Mexico where he died on September 10, 1899. See Utah County Property Records, Utah County Courthouse, Provo, Ut.; "History of Saratoga Springs" in North Utah Co. Histories of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers from Lehi, Utah, comp. Edith B. Jones and Nettie Warenkski (n.p., n.d.); Kate B. Carter, ed. Our Pioneer Heritage, 20 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1958-77), 4:204-6.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

John Beck, left, from Whitney's History of Utah, and John C. Naile (or Naegle), right, from Lehi Centennial History.

acres immediately surrounding the springs Beck's Saratoga Springs.^ Little is known of the earliest years of Saratoga's development.

The W. F. Butt diary of September 14, 1885, notes that he, Henry Lewis, Franz Salzner, and Peter Loutensock laid the foundation for the boardinghouse at "Beck's Springs.'"^ The October 15, 1885, Deseret News reported "brisk business" at the " J . Beck Saratoga farm." The boarding house was nearing completion, 400 acres of new land had been plowed and put into fall grain, and "many other improvements were going on in order to make it attractive next season."

By 1890 the resort was well established. A September 14, 1891, advertisement in the Lehi Banner noted that for twenty-five cents one could bathe in two large plunge baths and six hot tub baths. The ad further ' J o h n Beck was born at Aichelberg, Wurtemburg, Germany, on March 19, 1843, emigrated in 1861, and arrived in Lehi the following year. After marrying Sarah Beck in 1865, he became interested in the Tintic Mining District. Though he eventually owned the Crown Point, Northern Spy, Governor, and Buckeye properties, his greatest wealth came from the famous Bullion-Beck mine which ultimately paid millions in dividends. Beck was extremely charitable and underwrote virtually hundreds of worthy causes throughout the territory. In 1890 he established his permanent residence in Salt Lake City where he purchased the Hot Springs north of town and converted the property into a sanitarium. He devoted his final years to philanthropic interests and died on April 2, 1913, from blood poisoning after stepping on a nail. See Deseret Evening News, April 2, 1913; Orson F. Whitney, A History of Utah, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon and Sons Co., 1892-1904), 3:496-98. â&#x20AC;˘ W . F. Butt Diary, n.d., n.p., LDS Church Library Archives, Salt Lake City.

Saratoga

HI

claimed that "these springs possess wonderful medicinal properties . . . for rheumatism and disease of the skin . . . a plunge in these health-giving waters will cure 'That Tired Feeling.'

Visitors to Beck's Hot Springs prior to 1895 followed a circuitous route. Though both the Oregon Short Line and Denver & Rio Grande railroads traversed Lehi, the resort could only be reached by crossing the Jordan River bridge due west of town and then following what is now Redwood Road southward to the resort. Hayrides were a popular conveyance for groups, and at least one local business provided taxi service. "Hurrah for Beck's Saratoga Springs," the September 14, 1893, Lehi Banner exclaimed, "the hack will leave the Co-op Livery Stable every Saturday at 7 o'clock p.m. for Beck's warm spring, only fifty cents for the round trip including the bath. For further particulars, see Wm. Wing."

The July 5, 1894, Lehi Banner announced that resort manager George Beck had put in a dancing floor and picnic tables in the center of the three-acre apple orchard. The July 26, 1894, Lehi Banner listed for the first time: BECKS H O T SPRINGS RULES AND REGULATIONS No improper character or intoxicated person admitted.

No profane or obscene language or boisterous conduct allowed.

Splashing or diving in the vicinity of ladies is forbidden.

Smoking or eating in dressing rooms or in or about the pools is prohibited.

5. No dressing room can be occupied for a longer time than threequarters of an hour on Saturdays and Sundays.

6. Soap is not allowed to be used in the plunges.

IF YOU CANNOT OBEY O U R RULES WE D O N O T WANT YOUR MONEY

L 2.

3.

4.

Many changes were evident to resort goers in the 1895 season.

The most important improvement, the new road and bridge from Lehi, halved traveling time from town. A large plunge was built on the lower springs, and bathhouses were constructed on the sandy beach of the lake shore for those who wished to swim and boat in Utah Lake. The December 26, 1896, Deseret News noted that John Beck "has just finished a fine residence at his Saratoga Springs resort."

His large two-story adobe home in Lehi, which stiU stands at 791 North 100 East, had earlier that year been rented to Lehi dentist E. C. Merrihew.^ ^Lehi Banner, March 26, 1896. This pioneer home, built by James Wiley Norton, was bought by the George Strasburg family in 1907 {Lehi Free Press, September 24, 1953). It is presently the Lloyd Strasburg home.

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In the spring of 1897 dramatic changes took place at Saratoga.

Retrospectively it seems a risky venture to expose resort goers to the obnoxious odors of a chicken ranch. But in addition to a new 30-by100-foot indoor plunge and a lOO-by-56-foot bathhouse (including office and sitting room), Saratoga management also built a new 156-by34-foot brick building containing six incubators, each with a capacity of 800 eggs. Nearby were twelve chicken coops, each 14-by-26 feet.^ Despite the chicken venture, which failed, the resort attracted many summer visitors. Hayrides still seemed the most popular form of conveyance. A June 29, 1897, Lehi Banner noted a Mutual Improvement Association excursion to the resort. This LDS church group was the first to dance in the newly completed pavilion. Lehi's famed Smuin band provided the music for the evening.

Though most resort goers went to Saratoga for recreation, many went for health reasons and stayed days or weeks at a time in the large adobe boarding house or in camp tents. The June 8, 1897, Lehi Banner noted that a principal attraction of the place was the thermal spring, "whose waters are claimed to be superior to any other in the state for their medicinal properties." While it was not claimed that the waters could "cure every known disease and alleviate all pain," it was noted that internal and external applications of the water had resulted in many remarkable cures, particularly of "those afflicted with gout and rheumatism." It was left to Professor A. Siebert, a graduate of Heidelberg University in Germany, to commercially bottle Saratoga waters for "internal application." The December 21, 1897, Lehi Banner announced that through experimentation Siebert had developed a medicinal preparation he called "Saratoga Salvation." An advertisement for the tonic pronounced: Saratoga Salvation is the intrinsic value of the wonderful warm springs on the Utah Lake. It possesses an actual and unrivalled power to cure many internal and external diseases. You are not trying an experiment but the astringent elements of the natural warm mineral water. It is well proven in an outward sickness or the consequence of a bad circulation of matter. Nature gives the right regulator and the power of Saratoga springs water is therefore universally well known.

Instead of a bed make use of the stringent elements of the water at home which will give much better results. Saratoga Salvation drives out the germs of sickness, recruits the strength of the nerves and makes the body whole and sound.7

^Deseret News, March 25, 1897.

TLehi Banner, November 3, 1897.

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Lehi girls at Saratoga at the turn of the century. Courtesy of Etta Holdsworth.

Though the claims seem bombastic and unscientific, the preparation sold briskly for a time at Lehi's two drugstores which also dispensed such colorful preparations as "Dr. J . H. Medius' Volcanic Oil Liniment," and "Dr. J . H. McLean's Liver and Kidney Balms."^ John Beck's wealth was won and lost again several times during his career. At the turn of the century he was having financial difficulties and sold Saratoga to the Utah Sugar Company on May 25, 1900.

The sugar company, which had established its first factory in Lehi in 1891, used the fertile 1,000-acre Saratoga farm for growing sugar beets. Management of the resort was initially placed in the hands of John Y. Smith, son-in-law of Thomas Cutler, general manager of the Utah Sugar Company. Edward Southwick first supervised the farm, then became manager of the resort in 1901. Southwick's biographer noted "there was always a constant fear of the children falling into the swimming pool or getting bit by snakes. There were [also] the flies and mosquitos to combat."^ ^ Lehi Banner, May 30, 1895.

9 Elaine Christensen Southwick, And I Went Home Rejoicingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; The Background, Life, and Posterity of Edward Southwick, / / / ( P r o v o , Ut.: J . Grant Stevenson, 1971), p. 95.

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Though none of Southwick's children drowned in the pools, he was responsible for saving the lives of at least three people who nearly did. During the summer of 1900 Southwick, entering the southwest door of the pool, saw some bubbles coming up near the center of the plunge. Recounting the incident he said, " I jumped in the water and recovered Mrs. [Eliza Broadbent] Fjeld. . . . We revived her, gave her stimulants, and although she was quite sick for some days, she fully recovered."'° Mell Quigley, a young man working in Wadsworth's Drug Store in Lehi, also nearly drowned on another occasion. " I dived in and brought him u p , " Southwick remembered. "We had to roll him for some time to get all the water out. He, too, was a very sick man before he recovered."^^ Even those newly baptized were not always safe from the waters. Laura Rolley Peck, after being baptized

by Lott Russon, felt ill and decided to sit on the steps for a few moments after the others had gone to the dressing rooms. She fainted and fell into the pool and was making " a funny, gurgling noise" when Southwick entered the building just in time to save her life.^^ Southwick had much more to do than serve as the pool lifeguard.

A June 23, 1903, notice in the Lehi Banner listed Saratoga's long hours of operation during his managership: Sundays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Mondays from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at which time the plunge wiU close for cleaning. Open rest of week from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.

Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. exclusively for ladies.

Suits 25 cents each

Despite Saratoga's popularity, the Utah Sugar Company was anxious to sell both the farm and resort. The August 15, 1901, Lehi Banner announced that Messrs. Segmiller, Parks, and others, who had an option on the property, were negotiating for a sale with eastern capitalists. Further interest in the area was enhanced by speculation that the Salt Lake and Utah Railroad was considering building a spur line down the west side of the Jordan River to Saratoga.

Despite rumors of an eastern buy out, Saratoga was eventually sold to Lehi interests. The April 25, 1914, Lehi Banner announced that the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company had sold the property to the Austin Brothers and the Austin and Sons Sheep companies for $60,000. The Austins' interest was initially speculative. They anticipated selling loibid., p. 97.

11 Ibid., p. 98.

12 Ibid.

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Saratoga in the 1920s. Courtesy of Wanda Bushman.

lake frontage lots to Salt Lake City capitalists for "residential purposes at fancy prices." The resort was to be leased with 20-50 acres of surrounding land, while the ranch was to be subdivided into farm parcels. Spokesman George Austin foresaw that "within two years street cars would be running there . . . within five years hundreds of suburban homes would be built on the lake front . . . [and] the resort would be the most valuable asset that Lehi ever had."^^ Further plans were jointly announced one month later by Austin and Utah-Idaho Sugar Company manager Thomas Cuder, a stockholder in Austin Brothers. Ten summer bungalow tents were to be built as a nucleus for Lake Front, the proposed name of the new town. A plat of the city lots had already been made, and planners announced that within a few weeks streets and cement sidewalks were to be laid out. i^Lehi Banner, May 9, 1914.

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Above: Saratoga in the 1930s.

Courtesy of Mick Eastmond. Left: Mr. and Mrs. Frank Eastmond whose family has owned Saratoga since 1930.

Courtesy ofJean Gordon. Below: Women bathers at Saratoga. Courtesy ofJean Gordon.

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To improve transportation between Lehi and Saratoga, the road was upgraded, "turnpiked," and turned over to the county. Hourly automobile service was initiated between the Reltuc Inn in Lehi and the resort. In addition, two seven-passenger touring cars began making regular runs between the resort and Provo. In connection with Geneva Resort (near present Lindon Marina), Billy Wilson's large pleasure boat initiated several daily trips between the two fun spots.

To improve boating facilities, the Saratoga pier was extended further out onto the lake so that passengers could embark more easily from the excursion boat.

The summer colony was under the supervision of Robert and Marion Cutler, managers of the Reltuc (Cuder spelled backwards) Inn. Anticipating big Fourth of July crowds, they had converted the west section of the bowery or picnic pavilion into a "first-class cafe," specializing in black bass and spring chicken dinners. An added attraction for the holiday was an electric band, "composed of eighteen pieces and . . . similar to those that may be found at Coney Island and other summer watering places." The announcement noted that the band would supply music for the grounds and also for people who wanted to "practice the late new dances" in the pavilion.^'^ Though the June 28, 1914, assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and the outbreak of war in Europe loomed over the heads of Saratoga's new owners, their mood was upbeat. On July 16 W. C. Orem, president of the Salt Lake and Utah Railroad, visited the resort and promised that when the main line had been completed to Payson, a "branch to Saratoga" would be built.^^ Anticipating a real estate boom, the Austins freed themselves from operation of the Saratoga farm. Gilbert and Arthur Knudson leased 150 acres of the fertile land, as did John Whimpey and James B. Clark. The balance of tillable ground was rented to the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company for growing sugar beets and sugar beet seed.^^ Though the Austin brothers' real estate plans were spirited and well planned, consumer interest never materialized. Lake Front was the first project to be abandoned. Two years later promotion was also halted on the sixty-acre Saratoga town sites northwest of the resort.

Despite the failure of the property developments, the resort thrived.

In 1916 a new outdoor pool and bathhouses were built. Other addi^*Lehi Banner, July 18, 1914. ^^Lehi Banner, June 6 and 13, July 4, 1914. leLeAi Banner, December 26, 1914.

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tions included shooting galleries, candy booths, rowboats for the lake, and many new tents for use by campers.^^ Lehi businessman Abe Gudmundsen leased the resort during 1918-23. He, like other managers of the resort, often faced unfounded rumors of poor sanitation. A report in the September 2, 1920, Lehi Sun announced that "some malicious persons for personal reasons" were gossiping that health conditions were not good at the resort and that a "person with an incurable contagious disease was at the place." The county health inspector refuted these rumors by stating that the resort was in a "first-class sanitary condition." Similar stories circulated again in 1924. A Provo newspaper reported that "several cases of serious sickness have come from two Utah County pools, one in the extreme north and another in the southwest." The report prompted Saratoga to elicit a response from Lehi physician Fred D. Worlton, who announced: I have been intimately connected with Saratoga from a professional point of view for the past eleven years and I am positive that the sanitary condition of the resort is better today than it ever has been during that time.

The cleaning of the pools and the changing of the water is as good as it is possible to be obtained with the water supply at hand. As far as I know state inspection has never found anything wrong with the health conditions of the resort.'^

Leon Taylor, who leased the facility during 1925-30 announced when the resort opened in the spring of 1929 that arrangements had been made to empty the water in both pools each night and to refill them with fresh water. In addition, a constant stream of fresh water would flow through the pools. "Patrons can now feel" he added, "that this water is as clean and pure as it can be made and bathing will carry little danger from disease. "^^ Frank H. Eastmond, operator of the popular Geneva resort on the east side of Utah Lake, announced in the spring of 1930 that he had purchased an interest in the Saratoga resort and would manage it during the upcoming season. Ambitious remodeling was undertaken.

The May 29 Lehi Sun noted that a new lighted entrance was being built and that the north side of the grounds would become a parking lot. The old adobe boarding house, which had served both as summer

^TLehi Sun, June 13, 1946. ^^LehiSun, August 7, 1924. ^^Lehi Sun, May 16, 1929.

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housing for vacationers and a school for Saratoga-area children, was torn down.2^ The baseball diamond was sodded, and the dancing pavilion was newly painted and decorated. Music for the season was furnished by the Columbians, and dances were held each Wednesday night and on holidays.

Perhaps Saratoga's most dramatic improvements in the summer of 1930 were to the swimming pools. Three new hot water wells were driven â&#x20AC;&#x201D; two of four-inch and one of two-inch pipe. The water was slightly cooled to "invigorate instead of fatiguing" before being piped into the pools where fountains and sprays had been built. To improve the purification of the water a large capacity filtering unit was installed in each pool. This system proved to be so efficient that "now the bottom can be seen in every part of either pool.'' Eastmond was so confident of swimmers' satisfaction that he boasted "if you will swim at Saratoga and do not declare it the greatest and best swim you have ever enjoyed then your money is awaiting you at the office. "^^ The resort owner promoted the quality of Saratoga's water to the point of advertising in the August 18, 1932, Lehi Sun, "swim in drinking water â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Gents 25(1:, ladies lOcp." Eastmond's additional claim that clean, clear water prevented drownings seems well taken. In the more than 30 years that he managed Saratoga there was not a single drowning incident.

Swimming and bathing were not the only activities at Saratoga.

In the early days of the resort, for example, hundreds of Mormons were baptized there. Most events, of course, were recreational rather than religious. The September 1, 1921, Lehi Sun described a typical day of fun filled with basebafl, band concerts, dancing, swimming, boating, picnicking, and airplane stunts by Rex Smith, the Deseret News birdman. Boxing and wrestling exhibitions were also popular.

But aside from swimming, dancing has always attracted the largest crowds to the resort. Dancers on August 30, 1929, enjoyed the big band sounds of Ralph Mingilaccio and his Chicago Hotel Orchestra and were also treated to a "Bathing Beauty Review." Saturday night, June 17, 1933, in the depths of the depression, the Byron Jones Orchestra, Leroy Duncan and his Playhouse Orchestra, and the Greater Melodians competed in a "battle of music." ^2

20 Lehi Sun, O c t o b e r 6, 1932.

21 Lehi Sun, May 29, 1930.

22Lehi Sun, June 15, 1933.

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The late summer of 1935 saw three big dances at the resort. At the "Free Swim Dance" on September 1 the resort provided a free swim pass with each purchased dance ticket. The Labor Day dance capped a day filled with races, cash prizes, free candy, and a coin shower. A special event, a frog-catching contest, offered twenty-five cents to each capturer of a frog. A grand water carnival and boxing exhibitions also entertained visitors. At 9:00 p.m. the "Fox Trot Dance" began and continued until 1:00 a.m., as did the swimming.

The closing "Carnival Dance" was held Saturday, September 7, with music provided by King's Vagabonds. During the summer season of 1937 a free bus left Lehi for the resort at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday nights. Dancers traveling to Saratoga on Saturday, May 30, were treated to a "Big Waltz Dance" and the music of the Byron Dastrup orchestra. K O V O radio station in Provo sponsored many record hops in the dancing pavflion during the 1960s. Dancing remained popular at the resort until the 1970s.

An ingenious promoter of new ideas, Frank Eastmond announced that during the 1937 season all ladies could swim free on Sunday evenings. Free swimming lessons every afternoon were also offered. Eastmond, in association with other pool owners around the state, also sponsored a swimming team. These teams held weekly contests, competing for prize money at the various resorts.

During the summer of 1938, $35,000 in road work between Lehi and Saratoga was completed by the W. W. Clyde Construction Co. of Springville. In addition to paving it for the first time, the roadbed was raised and several bad curves straightened. Many believed the improvements to be a ploy by Utah County officials to get Utah state government officials to build a proposed prison at Saratoga. The Lehi Lions Club had contacted state officials upon learning that money had been appropriated by the state legislature for closing the old Sugar House prison and building a new penitentiary elsewhere. A deadlock had been reached between a Brigham City site and the Crystal Hot Springs at the Point of the Mountain. The 700-acre Saratoga site, including both the farm and ranch, was considered by the state committee as a compromise. Austin Brothers Association offered the Saratoga ranch for $35,000, and Eastmond wanted $15,000 for the resort.

The other sites were considerably more expensive, with the Point of the Mountain property tendered for $80,000.

Despite the advantages of an influx of state money, new jobs, and an increased produce market, many Lehi residents opposed the

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construction of a prison at Saratoga. Citizen opposition was noted in a petition to Gov. Henry H. Blood published in the January 12, 1939, Lehi Free Press: 1. We feel that the location of such an institution would be as detrimental to the growth and development of this vicinity as it is to the growth and development of the southeast part of Salt Lake City and therefore we are as anxious to keep it away from here as Salt Lake City is to get it away from its present location.

2. The water rights for this property are only secondary water rights and entirely inadequate for the needs of such an institution.

3. We feel that the Saratoga Resort as a resort is a bigger asset to the community than a state penitentiary would be and now that we have a fine highway to the resort we do not feel that it should be closed for prison farm use. Thousands of prople patronize the resort each year.

4. To tap the artesian basin of L e h i . . . to obtain culinary water for such an institution would probably affect t h e . . . wells of this district.

The fourteen member prison site selection committee, headed by Judge Samuel W. Stewart, eventually chose the Point of the Mountain location. Most Lehi citizens breathed a sigh of relief, and Saratoga remained a popular resort. After World War II three of Frank Eastmond's sons, R. T. (Dick), J. N. (Jeff) and R. M. (Mick), joined him in the business. In 1948 they installed a new water system which piped culinary water two and a half miles to the resort. This eliminated the need to truck in drinking water, made modern cafe facilities available, and allowed the upgrading of restrooms and showers. The cooler water also made it possible to regulate precisely the temperature of both swimming pools.

By the beginning of the 1950 season additional improvements had been made. A new entrance was built, and a lobby was added onto the main building which housed the indoor pool. Additional landscaping was completed, and hundreds of new feet of lawn were planted. Sun bathing was enhanced by 2,500 feet of sun decking. The cold cement floors of the dressing rooms were warmed by hot water circulating through pipes under the floor. Diving facilities in the outdoor pool were created by lengthening the pool fifty feet and deepening the north end. To improve the quality of water in the pools, a newly installed system filtered the water every five hours. This equipment was designed by the Utah State Board of Health which had closed down all but seven swimming resorts in the state the previous summer. Manager Eastmond was proud to announce that Saratoga had never been closed by the Board of Health.

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Saratoga's indoor pool in the early 1950s. Courtesy of Mick Eastmond.

In 1953, after suffering a stroke, Frank Eastmond relinquished the management of the resort to his sons. In 1963 Mick Eastmond became sole manager of the resort, while other family members remained stockholders in the corporation. The Eastmonds always attracted large group outings to Saratoga. The Lehi Free Press of August 22, 1935, for example, announced a week's schedule which on Tuesday included a Utah County 4-H Club Day for 2,000 boys and girls.

The next day was reserved for the Barr Chevrolet group, and on Thursday the Salt Lake County maintenance shop workers spent the day at the resort. On Saturday the Carson family, Wells Ward, and the Fifteenth Ward of Salt Lake City held reunions.

During the 1950s numerous city recreation organizations began busing children to Saratoga. Thousands of Utahns learned to swim through these programs. Entertainment for the children extended beyond the pools. In the summer of 1954 the Eastmonds enlarged their midway to include two Ferris wheels, a RoU-o-plane, and a merry-goround to go with the miniature train and airplane swings they already had installed. By the early 1960s a diving pool had been built north of the outdoor pool, and a children's wading pool was added to the south.

A large slippery slide for use in the outdoor pool was also erected.

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Saratoga ^'Mil^ilgJl^ll^

/., ^

91

Saratoga after the 1968 fire. Courtesy of Richard S. Van Wagoner.

Boating events have always been a part of Saratoga's history. In the earliest days of "Beck's Hot Springs," rowboats were rented at the resort's docks on Utah Lake. During the summer of 1921 the Utah Bell, a twenty-passenger launch capable of traveling 27 miles per hour to Payson, Provo, Geneva, and American Fork, was put into service. ^^ In the early 1950s the boat harbor and docks near the resort were extensively improved as the popularity of water skiing grew.

Many skiing and boating events have been sponsored by the resort.

On July 4, 1957, Alvie Hedger unsuccessfully attempted to set a world speed record with his hydroplane. A special event in the author's memory was University of Utah All-American quarterback Lee Grosscup throwing footballs to a butter-fingered water skier who missed every pass thrown.

In the spring of 1968 Saratoga lovers were stunned by a $100,000 fire at the resort. Lost in the flames were two historic wooden structures built when Edward Southwick was manager of the resort â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the dance pavilion and main building. The dance pavilion had recently been converted into an arcade, while the main building housed the in23L<-AI5MÂŤ, J u n e 3 0 , 1921.

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door pool, dressing rooms, laundry, ticket office, snack bar, and gift redemption center. Resort operator Mick Eastmond quickly had the debris removed, and the resort was ready for its Memorial Day opening three weeks later. A feature article in the May 23, 1968, Lehi Free Press announced that though new dressing rooms had been built, the indoor pool would not be re-covered. In addition to the four outdoor pools, the resort offered abundant camping and picnic areas, a midway with thirty-five rides and games, a miniature golf course, Utah Lake cruises and complete boat launching facilities, and a new recreation area built on the site of the old pavilion.

By the late 1970s manager Eastmond felt Saratoga needed a new image. "Instead of a ring toss, ride the ferris wheel, candy apple atmosphere," he announced that the 150,000 anticipated visitors to the resort in 1978 would find expanded picnic grounds, a new boat harbor, a few kiddie rides and "lots of peace and quiet. "^^^ The following summer, however, a new "Kamakazi" waterslide captured the interest of resort goers. The two-story structure swept riders from the site of the old dancing pavilion, near the upper pool, down a curving, twisting tube to a climactic entrance into the former wading area.

In recent years Saratoga has had to compete with a wide range of other recreational facilities, including a host of community swimming pools. In the early 1980s Utah experienced record breaking water years. Utah Lake, swallowing hundreds of miles of shoreline, rose to its highest point in history. Rumors that Saratoga was underwater initially kept people away from the resort. In 1983 manager Eastmond capitalized on the current American hot tub craze by converting the upper (former indoor) pool into a giant Jacuzzi. The "Kamakazi" slide remains a drawing card despite the development of other water theme parks within Utah and Salt Lake counties.

Utah Lake has spawned many famous fun spots. Woodbury Park (1880), Old Lake (1883), Geneva (1888), Murdock (1891), Lincoln Beach (1892), and American Fork (1892) resorts, though immensely popular in their heyday, are now remembered by only the oldest among us. But since the 1860s Saratoga has survived rumors, fires, floods, and the changing recreational interests of the faddish American public. Regardless of the future viability of the resort, thousands of us can never forget the pleasurable summer days and romantic nights we spent at Saratoga.

2iLehi Free Press, AprU 13, 1978.

The Salt Lake Sanitarian: Medical Adviser to the Saints

BY SHERILYN COX BENNION

What avail the largest gifts of Heaven, When drooping health and spirits go amiss?^

1888 D R . MILFORD BARD SHIPP and two of his four wives, Drs. Maggie C. Shipp and Ellis R. Shipp, founded a monthly magazine "devoted to the prevention and cure of diseases and injuries, and the promulgation of the laws of health and life."^ The Salt Lake Sanitarian was subtitled "A Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery."

It survived until January 1891, offering advice on subjects ranging from cholera to "coffeeism" and encouraging its readers to educate themselves regarding "the laws of life and sanitation."^ The Sanitarian began at a time when the field of medicine was in transition. During the early part of the nineteenth century most members of the medical establishment practiced what came to be known as heroic medicine after Oliver Wendell Holmes gave it that label in derision. It included purging, bleeding, and administering large doses of drugs. Diagnosis was rudimentary, and few effective medicines were available. The practice of medicine required neither a medical degree nor a license.

Given the uncertain state of orthodox medicine, many patients lost confidence in it and turned to a proliferation of medical sects. In the words of one historian:

I N APRIL

As medical science searched for better methods and procedures, the public wandered amid an endless list of pathies, the claims of which rivaled the eschatological dreams of the era's religious and political Dr. Bennion is a professor of journalism and program leader of women's studies at Humboldt State University, Areata, California. A version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Mormon History Association, May 1986.

1 Salt Lake Sanitarian, July 1888, p. 84.

2Ibid., April 1888, p. 14.

3 Ibid.

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leaders. The spirit of heresy was rampant and worshipers gathered before the newer medical shrines in search of cures.*

To the pathiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;hydropathy, vitapathy, osteopathy, isopathy, homeopathy, phrenopathy, electropathy â&#x20AC;&#x201D; could be added magnetic heahng, physiomedicalism, sun therapy, chrono-thermahsm, Thomsonism, Grahamism, eclectic medicine, and Christian Science.

Thomsonian medicine, which reUed on herbs, hot baths, and dietary moderation, numbered several prominent early Mormons among its disciples. Frederick G. Williams purchased the right to practice it before he joined the church. Willard Richards and his brother Levi were other licensees close to Joseph Smith and may have influenced his advocacy of botanic medicine.^ The Mormon Word of Wisdom, Section 89 in the Doctrine and Covenants, advised prudent use of wholesome herbs, and Section 42 gave this prescription: "And whosoever among you are sick, and have not faith to be healed, but believe, shall be nourished with all tenderness, with herbs and mild food, and that not by the hand of an enemy. "^ The next verse directed elders of the church to lay their hands upon the sick and pray for them.

Joseph Smith's successor, Brigham Young, also supported faith healing backed up by Thomsonian remedies.^ Although his feelings for doctors mellowed and he consulted them as he grew older, apparently no longer considering them " a deadly bane to any community" as he did in 1869,^ only two years before his death he told the Saints that when their children were sick "Instead of calling for a doctor you should administer to them by the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, and give them mild food, and herbs, and medicines that you understand. . . ."^ When he encouraged Mormon women and men to obtain medical training in the late 1860s and the 1870s it probably reflected not a change of heart toward the medical profession but his desire that Mormons be treated by Mormon doctors rather than by gentiles and that obstetrical practice be restricted to women.

*John S. Haller, J r . , American Medicine in Transition, 1840-1910 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), p. 100.

5 Robert T. Divett, Medicine and the Mormons (Bountiful, Ut.: Horizon Publishers, 1981), p. I l l , and "Medicine and the Mormons: A Historical Perspective," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12 (Fall 1979): 23.

6Doctrine and Covenants, 42:43, 44. ' L i n d a P. Wilcox, " T h e Imperfect Science: Brigham Young on Medical Doctors," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12 (Fall 1979): 27. ^BrighamYourxg, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool, England, 1854-86), 14:109.

9lbid., 18:71-72.

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Health had been a prime concern of church authorities ever since the first Saints reached Utah in 1847, perhaps partly because of an alarmingly high death rate, surpassed in 1850 only by that of Louisiana. Mormon doctors formed a Council of Health in 1849, promoting botanic medicine and suggesting a search for medicinal plants native to the area.^° In 1852 the territorial legislature passed laws requiring labeling of any medicine containing poison and stipulating that doctors must explain "in plain, simple English" the effects of any poisonous drug they intended to administer and obtain written consent for its use.^^ Salt Lake City began requiring physicians to be licensed in 1856.^2 A series of physiology classes for women met in 1872 and 1873,^^ and in 1874 Eliza R. Snow spearheaded the offering of instruction in nursing and obstetrics.** In 1878 Dr. Ellis Shipp, subsequently one of the editors of the Salt Lake Sanitarian, opened a School of Obstetrics and Nursing. It affiliated with the Relief Society's Deseret Hospital, operated between 1882 and 1890 primarily for women.

The nursing instruction continued until well into the twentieth century with both Ellis and her sister wife Dr. Margaret Shipp (Roberts) as teachers.

By this time conventional medical theory had undergone many changes. The work of Louis Pasteur led to recognition of a relationship between microorganisms and disease. Robert Koch's discoveries paved the way for the development of vaccines. Diagnostic methods became more sophisticated, and doctors began to specialize. Surgical innovations accompanied the use of anesthesia. Educational practices underwent reform, and hospitals began to take a central role in caring for the sick. Still, medical science in the United States lagged far behind that in Europe,*^ and advances filtered down to everyday practice slowly. Only toward the end of the century did the average citizen begin to benefit from the new discoveries and techniques.

Part of the credit for the modernization of medical treatment must go to periodicals that spread word of innovations. As early as 1829 magazines began to be published in behalf of various theories

loj. Cecil Alter, " T h e Council of Health," Utah Historical Quarterly 10 (1942): 37.

11 "Health Laws," ibid., p. 40. i2Joseph R. Morrell, Utah's Health and You (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1956), p. 25. ^^ Woman's Exponent, August 1, 1872, p. 37.

1*Keith Calvin Terry, " T h e Contribution of Medical Women during the First Fifty Years in U t a h " (M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1964), pp. 36-38. isjames Bordley III and A. McGehee Harvey, Two Centuries of American Medicine, 1776-1976 (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, 1976), p. 187.

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and practices. In fact, the aims of tht Journal of Health, founded that year by an association of physicians in Philadelphia, resembled those of the Salt Lake Sanitarian. It would present "plain precepts, in easy style and language, for the regulation of all the physical agents necessary to health." It advocated fresh air, good food, exercise, healthful clothing, proper correlation of mind and body, and abstinence from tobacco and liquor.*^ Along with the periodicals designed to aid readers in making themselves more healthy came those directed toward medical practitioners, which contained more specialized and technical information.

Most states and many cities had their own journals for physicians, as did the various medical specialties.*^ The pathies, too, had their journals. Between 1850 and 1865 at least seventeen of them promoted homeopathy. The hydropaths had the Water-Cure Journal, the Water-Cure Monthly, and the Water-Cure World. Disenchantment with conventional medicine led both to enthusiasm for the heretical movements and their publications and to an avid concern with health that fueled interest in health magazines of all kinds. Probably about a thousand journals in medicine and related fields were published between 1885 and 1905, many of them depending on patent medicine advertising.*^ A history of the American Medical Association refers to the middle 1890s as "the days of competitive journahsm in American medicine" in which "the battle raged continuously."*^ Health also played a prominent part in popular general magazines.

In this atmosphere the Salt Lake Sanitarian made its appearance.

During the 1880s the idea of vaccination had spread through the United States, Koch had isolated the microbes of tuberculosis and Asiatic cholera, and Friedrich Loeffler had discovered the diphtheria bacillus. Researchers realized that insects might be agents of infection. Physicians began operating successfully on the abdomen. Between 1890 and 1900 the U.S. mortality rate would fall nearly 10 percent and the average age at death rise from 31 to 35.2° Salt Lake City had three hospitals and a corps of physicians freshly trained in eastern leprank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938), 1:440. i7lbid., 2:84. islbid., 4:312-13.

19 Ibid.

20 A r t h u r M e i e r Schlesinger, The Rise of the City, 1878-1898 246.

( N e w York: M a c M i l l a n , 1933), p .

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medical institutions. Brigham Young had advised that church members should be their own physicians, "know their own systems, understand the diseases of their country, understand medicine and they ought to know enough to treat themselves and their neighbors in that way that they will live as long as it is possible for them to live."^* It must have seemed to the Doctors Shipp that a magazine encouraging healthful living and explaining how to achieve it could make a real difference in the lives of the Saints.

In the Spring of 1888, Bard, as he was called by his friends, was 52, Ellis 41, Maggie 38.^2 Ellis had married Bard in 1866 while she was living in the home of President Brigham Young, against the prophet's wishes. Two earlier marriages had ended unhappily for Bard, but that did not deter Ellis. He was helping his father with a hat and shoe store in Salt Lake when the marriage took place, but the couple soon moved to Fillmore to manage a new branch store there. It foundered, and they returned to Salt Lake to face financial problems and the acquisition of three more wives for Bard. The first of these was Maggie, whom he married in 1868.

A year later Brigham Young began sending Mormons East to study medicine. Heber John Richards was the earliest. Romania Bunnell Pratt (Penrose) became the first woman in 1873. In 1875 Maggie Shipp followed, leaving two children in the care of her sister wives. She became extremely homesick, however, and stayed only a month at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Ellis took her place, having decided after the deaths of two children that her life's work would be caring for the sick. She left her three surviving children in Salt Lake. By the time she received her degree in 1878 she had borne another. After Ellis returned to Salt Lake, Maggie decided to give Philadelphia another try and received her degree in 1883. Like most women doctors of the time both specialized in obstetrics.

In the meantime Bard apparently concluded that medicine was the family vocation. He had studied law while Ellis was away, but he abandoned it and obtained his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia the same year Maggie got hers. One of his daughters later wrote that he never really intended to practice: "His purpose in going to a medical college was to better prepare himself to

21 Quoted in Wilcox, " T h e Imperfect Science," p. 34.

22Susan Evans McCloud, Not in Vain (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1984), p. 60.

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Left to right: Ellis Reynolds Shipp, Milford Bard Shipp, and Margaret Shipp, physician founders of the Sanitarian. USHS collections.

write and edit a health magazine for the people that they might better understand first aid, home nursing and sanitation." He did not open a medical office but sometimes diagnosed and prescribed for his friends and acquaintances.^^ Bard's magazine was the Salt Lake Sanitarian. The eight numbers of the first volume, issued monthly and dated April through December 1888, listed the "Drs. Shipp" as editors, but after that Bard's name appeared alone. Although the first number was dated April, it came out at the end of May according to a May 27 announcement in the Salt Lake Herald. An editorial in the first number of the second volume, April 1889, stated that the editors had hoped in vain to catch up by publishing extra numbers during the year.^*

23Bardella Shipp Curtis, " D r . Milford Bard Shipp, Highlights," p. 3, typescript in Ellis Reynolds Shipp Collection, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

2*Salt Lake Sanitarian, April 1889, p. 17.

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Perhaps all three cooperated on the magazine's first editorial in which they expressed their intention to cultivate an understanding of physiological laws and discuss care of the sick and treatment of disease. They assured readers that they were "tied to no exclusive dogmas" but would "endeavor to advance only such principles as are established in the light of science and have the sanction of professional authority." They also invited friends to ask questions, which would be answered in the magazine, although nothing in the Sanitarian's content indicates that this plan was carried out. Ellis, who wrote poetry that was published in the Woman's Exponent and in a book, may have been responsible for the flight of fancy that began and ended the editorial with marine metaphors: "It is with no little apprehension that we launch the Sanitarian upon an untried sea. . . . The aspirations of the Sanitarian will be to serve as a beacon light to warn the frail barks freighted with human lives of the shoals and snags that abound in the stream of time."

The magazine was 6 " x 9" in size, and each number contained 24 pages of text. In addition, each carried up to seven unnumbered pages of advertising, including the inside front cover and both sides of the back cover. A note assured advertisers of circulation in 400 Mormon towns and settlements in Utah and surrounding territories.^^ Others told readers that the editors would permit only reliable advertisements. Some ads had medical connections, like those for druggists, "humanized milk," Beck's hot springs ("The finest Medical Baths of the United States"), and "Essence of Life for Teething Children," the last suspiciously reminiscent of a patent medicine. But most touted miscellaneous products and services: a bank, carriage store, music store, bakery, furniture store, feather bed cleaning establishment, and confectionery. Subscribers paid two dollars a year for the Sanitarian; a single copy cost twenty cents.

The editors kept their promise to discuss prevention and treatment of disease. The vast majority of articles dealt in one way or another with these topics. Articles about specific diseases and medical problems appeared most frequently, amounting to almost one-third of the total. Articles directed toward the health of children, which also discussed specific diseases, came next, followed by those whose major theme was use of medicines and other therapies. Practices of healthful living, sanitation, and nutrition were other significant concerns. Columns by Bard and Ellis and editorials emphasized the same areas.

25Ibid., October 1888,in72.

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In addition to articles and editorials, the Sanitarian used fillers.

They were likely to be humorous anecdotes, bits of miscellaneous information, or brief snippets of medical advice.

The articles were predominantly reprints. Fully two-thirds came from forty-five other publications, mostly professional medical periodicals. From a New York publication the Shipps took not only articles but also the name of their publication. A list of their sources indicates the editors' wide exposure to the medical literature and their conformity to standard journalistic practices of the day. Editors of both magazines and newspapers during the nineteenth century used scissors as an essential tool. The Sanitarian's editors ranged widely and passed on whatever seemed of value to them. They had absorbed Brigham Young's pragmatic approach and supported his reliance on common sense.

The first number set the tone for the Sanitarian and sounded many of its recurring themes. Its lead article, "Remedial Agents, By the Editors," noted the rapid advances being made in treating disease but warned against excessive use of medicine: Now, my sick friend, do not conclude that we design that you must take more medicine, oftener and larger doses, â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that the already loaded shelf in the cupboard must carry a heavier burden of drugs and patent medicines to minister to your relief. . . . No indeed, we intend nothing of the kindâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;just the contrary. Sick people are dosed to death. . . . If you do not know what to doâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;let medicines cilone, and trust to nature.

The editors wrote for those who depended upon themselves in times of sickness but noted that qualified, honest physicians who were " u p with the times" also would not "dose with much medicines."

Articles by Ellis concerned the use of olive oil as a therapeutic agent and scarlet fever. Another original article, on disinfectants, was written by a Dr. Brown.^^ Typical of many Sanitarian articles on sanitation, it advised readers to clean outbuildings, move kitchen waste far from the house, get rid of stagnant water and anything decaying, ventilate cellars, disinfect sickrooms and clothing worn by the sick and their visitors, and get fresh air: "You cannot have too much pure, fresh air, enlivened by a sufficiency of sunshine, in your house, and the sicker you are the greater is the necessity for a liberal supply."

26From local references in the article it appears he was from Salt Lake City, perhaps the Dr. C. G. Brown listed as a Salt Lake physician between 1890 and 1895 by Christine Croft Waters in ' 'Pioneering Physicians in Utah, 1847-1900" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1976), p. 103. She also lists Dr. W. M. Brown, but in another reference states that he first came to Salt Lake City in 1897.

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Reprints followed the same lines, focusing on medical problems and treatments and also previewing the Sanitarian's concern with children's health: " D o Not Forget to Give the Baby a Drink," "New Mode of Treating Boils," " T h e Conditions of Longevity," "Precocious Children," "Simple Constipation," and " W a r t s . " The remaining content of this first number consisted of an editorial and fillers. Only rarely did the humor of the fillers spill over into the articles. Here is the beginning of a parody of "The Old Oaken Bucket" included in an article about typhoid fever: With what anguish of mind I remember my childhood, Recalled in the light of a knowledge since gained; That malarious farm, the wet, fungus-grown wild-wood; The chills then contracted that since have remained; The scum-covered duck pond, the pig-sty close by it.

The ditch where the sour-smelling house drainage fell; The damp, shaded dwelling, the foul barn-yard nigh it â&#x20AC;&#x201D; But worse than all else was that terrible well; And the old oaken bucket, the mould-crusted bucket.

The moss-covered bucket that hung in the well.^^

Perhaps because two of the Sanitarian's editors were women and mothers, the health of women and children came in for considerable attention. The Sanitarian also joined the battle against unhealthy clothing. It reprinted " A Scientific Attack on the Corset," which provided the following list of symptoms from which corset wearers could expect to suffer: "Local inflammation of the liver, gallstones and bilary colic, wandering liver, protuberant abdomen and enteroptosis, prolapse and flexions [sic] of the womb, lateral curvatures of the spine, anaemia and chlorosis, dyspepsia, diminished lung capacity and oxygen starvation, intercostal neuralgia, weak eyes and Bright's Disease."^^ The infant science of psychology began attracting attention during the latter part of the nineteenth century, and Sanitarian articles recognized the importance of the mind in the health of the body. A long address by the president of the American Surgical Association, reprinted from the Medical Record, was titled, " T h e Relation of Social Life to Surgical Disease, "^^ and, after his stay in the Utah penitentiary as a result of unlawful cohabitation. Bard wrote about " T h e Effects of Incarceration upon the Body and Mind."^° 2TSalt Lake Sanitarian, May 1889, p. 45.

28Ibid., April 1889, pp. 12-14.

29Ibid., September 1888, pp. 121-33.

30Ibid., December 1888, pp. 216-17.

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The modern reader could not argue with much of the information communicated by the Sanitarian, although a number of exotic maladies like "brewery stomachs" and brain exhaustion also merited attention, and the author of " T h e Deadly Cold Bed" stated that it was "astonishing and appalling how many die or become permanently diseased from sleeping in damp or cold beds."^* The themes of the magazine stayed the same over its twenty-one numbers, but the publishing arrangements changed. Because the dates on the magazine did not necessarily coincide with its actual appearance, it is difficult to judge the impact on it of Bard's ten-week prison sentence. He was in the penitentiary from September 18 to December 1, 1888, when he paid a $65 fine and was released. He began the second volume as sole editor in April 1889, after nine numbers of volume one, blaming his "incarceration in the pen" for the failure of the Sanitarian to catch up with its numbering.^^ It seems unlikely that Maggie and Ellis continued to produce the magazine in his absence.

He promised a fifty-cent refund to readers who requested one, or they might apply it to the next year's subscription.

The same editorial that referred to Bard's stay in the penitentiary examined "the labors of the first year" and took encouragement from success beyond expectations. It also recognized the difficulty of terminology in one article and accepted criticism to the effect "that some of the pieces that have appeared in the Sanitarian carried such a scientific diction that they were better suited to the professional than to the general reader." However, the editorial continued, the first object of the magazine was "to advance only such doctrines or ideas as have the sanction of professional and standard authority." To do so it was best to let them speak for themselves, even though medical terms would be used to convey their thoughts. Readers could solve the problem with the help of " a little 'dictionary light,' " which would "bring astonishing relief," and the rewards would be well worth the effort.

The editor recognized that long reprints and difficult vocabulary might discourage readers, but more and more long articles appeared as time went on with even less original material. Maggie's final article came out in May 1889. Ellis wrote one the following month and then nothing else until the final number in January 1891. Bard explained in October 1890 that "During the winter months of last year's volume we published the lectures of Drs. Shipp, instead of the regular issues 31 Ibid., July 1888, p. 94; July 1889, p. 77; November 1890, p. 38.

32Ibid., April 1889, p. 17.

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of the Sanitarian proper. The past summer we have been engaged traveling through the settlements and cities of this and adjacent territories, lecturing on the subject of sanitation, and in consequence did not commence the third volume until now, October. "^^ The first volume had included nine numbers, the second eight, ending with November 1889. Bard went on to say that he did not see anything that would hinder publication for the coming year.

Yet by February 1891 the Sanitarian was dead. Readers received no explanation in the pages of the magazine, and Salt Lake City newspapers published no obituaries. An article about Ellis suggests that "Feuds between Maggie and Milford, who were eventually divorced, may have been the cause of its demise."^* However, Maggie had contributed only a half-dozen articles to the magazine, and it seems unlikely that her work was vital to its survival. Marital difficulties aside, a more likely explanation for the Sanitarian's demise was its reliance on long, often technical reprints. Readers might not have shared Bard's enthusiasm for scientific phraseology even if they agreed with his contention that he was bringing them "some of the best products found in our medical literature upon topics that are of common interest and can be utilized in domestic practice. "^^ This promised reward probably was not worth the effort of approaching the Sanitarian with dictionary in hand.

Circulation probably never exceeded 500. A contemporary directory places it in the 250 to 500 range in 1891, the only year in which the Sanitarian was listed.^^ Potential readership was limited, with Salt Lake City having a population in 1890 of only 44,800 and Utah 210,779.3^ In attempting to assess influence, one must look beyond circulation figures. Unfortunately, no subscription lists survive, but it seems safe to assume that Sanitarian subscribers were among the prominent members of the community, who generally had more exposure to the mass media then as now. Certainly the city's medical professionals must have been familiar with it, perhaps using it as a digest of current medical opinion and trying out some of its recommendations. The 33Ibid., October 1890, p. 14.

3*Gail Farr Casterline, "Ellis R. Shipp," in Vicky Burgess-Olson, ed., Sister Saints (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1978), p. 374.

35Salt Lake Sanitarian, April 1889, p. 18.

36George P. Rowell, American Newspaper Directory (New York, 1891), p. 714.

37Thomas G. Alexander and James B. Allen, Mormons and Gentiles, a History of Salt Lake City (Boulder, Colorado: Pruett Publishing Co., 1984), p. 87.

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editors naturally would have selected articles that supported the opinions they already held, but simply examining the forty medical periodicals from which they used reprints must have broadened their outlook and exposed them to the most up-to-date information available.

Their influence was wide, as they went beyond their private practices to teaching obstetrics and nursing and to lecturing throughout the region and crusading for better sanitation. The impact on the Doctors Shipp of their experience with the Sanitarian must have been substantial. This is largely speculation, of course. The medical and cultural climates of the time influenced the magazine, and it no doubt had some influence in turn, but exactly where it fit into that circle of cause and effect is impossible to determine. What can be concluded is that it reflected the transitional state of medicine during its brief lifetime, as well as the pragmatic position of the Mormon church regarding medical questions, and that it worked along with other influences to reinforce certain lines of medical thought and experience.

The Sanitarian supported the new approach of the medical schools as they struggled to adopt scientific methods and determine the implications of new discoveries. However, its content included vestiges of folklore and the pathies, as did the medicine practiced on most of the country's population. The emphasis on prevention and sanitation was scientific and in line with the best opinion of the day.

The antiphysician attitudes of the Mormon hierarchy had relaxed considerably by 1890, and the Sanitarian signaled the entrance of the church into the mainstream of medical thought and practice, although the magazine still recognized the power of faith to heal and avoided advocating the services of physicians as a substitute for administration to the sick. It also followed church leaders in stressing the responsibility of the people for their own good health and in warning against the "dosers and druggers,"^^ but these were themes of the medical establishment as well.

The editors wrote that "no other age is so noted as the present for the development and production of those things that conduce so greatly to human happiness" and that "in no direction is this more perceptible than in the rapid strides that are being made in the selection and uses of remedial agents in disease. "^^ The Sanitarian helped publicize those rapid strides and perhaps added a small portion to the human happiness of the Saints.

3ÂťSalt Lake Sanitarian, July 1888, p. 91.

39Ibid., April 1888, p. 2.

â&#x20AC;¢^^m-T-

Cholera, Blight, and Sparrows: A Look at Utah's First Agricultural Agents

BY CHARLES S. PETERSON

THE

Tent city at a farmers' encampment, Utah State Agricultural College, Logan. All photographs accompanying this article are courtesy of the author.

QUARTER

CENTURY

from 1890 to 1915 has often been referred to as a golden era for agriculture. For many reasons this was especially true in Utah. The pioneer period was past. The percentage of rural population was at an all-time high. Farming passed from a subsistence activity to a marketoriented process. New land was taken up for farming as never before, increasing fourfold in the 1890s alone and extending into the Uinta Basin, the west deserts, and the San Juan country in the years after 1900.

Livestock numbers exploded, sheep numbering upwards of 4,000,000 and cattle more than 400,000 by the end of the century. True, there were economic downswings, droughts, and failures, but taken together these were good years.

In no feature were good times more marked than in the application of science to agricultural practices and farm life.

Irrigation passed from rule of thumb to technology as the Office of the State Engineer was created and hydrological sur-

Dr. Peterson is professor of history at Utah State University, Logan. The study on which this piece rests was done under a contract with Salt Lake County's Wheeler Historical Farm.

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County agents, January 1913, in front of an old USDA building in Washington, D.C. Left to right: D. W. Working, in charge of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming; D. W. Frear, Colorado; R. J. Evans, Utah; A. E. Bowman, Wyoming; L. M. Winsor, H. W. Lauck, and D. C Bascom, Colorado.

veys were made. USDA and USGS specialists studied the state resources, bringing the best learning of the nation to bear. Dry farming became first a field of research then a way of life. In 1888 the Agrigultural College was founded, bringing scientific education to young farm people and extension services to farm families as farmers' institutes toured the state.

County agents also made important contributions to this process after 1911 when L. M. Winsor became Utah's first county agent in Uintah County.* By 1913 Professor R. J. Evans was serving as state director and seven more agents had been appointed. Included among them was Heber M. Webb in Salt Lake County, which had the state's largest farm population and was one of its most important agricultural counties by any standard. The impact of county agents was immediate and substantial, but they were sometimes received with suspii W . N. Hutt, "Farmers' Institutes," Utah State Fanners' Institute Annual, No. 6, p. 8.

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Exhibit at Myton, Utah, 1915.

Box Elder County farm tour, August 1914.

Waiting for the demonstration train to arrive at Ephraim, Utah.

/^

. rf %\

II II

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cion. Farmer reluctance to embrace the changes advocated by the Agricultural College's extension service had already been observed in the farmers' institutes. Professor W. N. Hutt had called the institutes touring missions, noting that as advocates of change they sometimes met with "prejudice" and "animosity."^ If the institutes were touring missions, Heber Webb and other early county agents were resident emissaries whose gospel of scientific agriculture was also variously received but of lasting importance.

Webb took up his Salt Lake County assignment on August 1, 1914. His office was to be provided by Jordan High School, but crowded conditions resulted in his doing most of his work in the field and by phone from his home in Sandy. His progress in establishing himself in the community was immediately given special problems as well as special opportunities by a variety of crises.

The first and most important was an outbreak of hog cholera.

Underway throughout the state since June, it had reached epidemic proportions at Draper in south Salt Lake County by the dog days of August. It took only a few hours to draw Webb's attention to Draper where he learned the deputy state inspector had joined curious farmers in a tromp through infected farms and then on from pig pen to pig pen elsewhere in town. The result was an immediate spread of the disease that struck every hog pen in the entire community. Webb rallied about 150 farmers and organized a committee empowered to "do anything and everything to eradicate the disease." Step one was an application to the Agricultural College for veterinary aid, and Dr. H. J. Frederick spent several days with Webb, vaccinating pigs and advising farmers. After this short course in livestock medicine, Webb was left with the responsibility of treatment, quarantine, and vaccination as well as the more taxing task of dealing with ignorance and misconception. At the root of his problem was the deputy inspector, "an uneducated," and in Webb's account, an unnamed man, who felt that sick hogs would survive and that only "moral persuasion" could be used to get farmers to kill sick animals and clean their premises.

With a large portion of Draper behind him, the deputy resisted Webb at every step until finally the governor was called in to strengthen Webb and other advocates of drastic treatment. Even then certain farmers refused to kill infected animals, letting them roam in farm-

2Karen Juchau, " A History of the Utah Extension Service, 1888-1950" (Master's thesis, Utah State University, 1968), p. 24.

Agricultural Agents

1 ^^

yards where they had contact with "loose dogs" that "went freely" about town. Worse yet, some let pigs die in irrigation canals and did nothing to remove them. Ultimately the disease spread to Crescent, Midvale, West Jordan, and Union. However, the effects were lessened there because farmers were more willing to apply hygienic methods and to vaccinate healthy animals and kill infected ones.

Not surprisingly, Webb found little time to do anything else during his first fall in Salt Lake County, but in the course of the cholera war he had visited some 370 farms and "reached very many more through telephone." By the time cold weather took a hand he had introduced the county agent program to Salt Lake farmers and had defended scientific treatment in his first bureaucratic tiff with conservative elements in the state inspector's office. He justly took a measure of satisfaction in the idea that he had helped Salt Lake County farmers understand disease and its ravages.^ An equally serious although less spectacular crisis was a widespread blight in potatoes. Able to focus his attention on the problem only in 1915, Webb found Idaho seed to be badly contaminated with "Fusarium Wilt and Rhizoctonia." He condemned imported seed by the carload, advising that home-grown potatoes were more free of infection and would respond adequately to treatment. But his condemnation lacked the force of law, and only a few of the "farmers who had bargained for the Idaho seed drove away empty." Most "did not believe in potato diseases" and "took their portions." A particular difficulty lay in the fact that for years wilted potato patches and poor, scab-infested yields had been blamed on smoke from the smelters which had devastated crops in some areas of the county during the past decade. Farmers, Webb reported, "were honest in their convictions, but were largely ignorant of the real cause of most of their trouble, although they in many instances justly had complaint against the smelters."* As Webb became aware of the dual nature of the problem he launched a campaign of education. He toured the valley, sampling potatoes on the farms and at the various seed houses and ascertaining that the problem was valleywide. Commercial clubs, the forebears of both the Farm Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce, helped by ad3 H } Webb "Report of Work Accomplished by Agent for Salt Lake County, Utah for Calendar Year 1914." This is found in the Salt Lake County folder of the Extension Service Records, Special Collections, Utah State University Library, Logan. *H. J . Webb, "Annual Report of Work in Salt Lake County, 1915," Salt Lake County Agent Reports, Special Collections, Utah State University Library, Logan.

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vertising. Public demonstrations describing symptoms and seed treatment were held in all farming neighborhoods. Posters providing the same information were also displayed in public buildings "in every town in the county." To Webb's satisfaction the response was immediate and almost universally favorable. As he put it, "this was the first systematic work done in the county along that line, so the farmers were suddenly awakened from smelter smoke damage entirely" to a realistic awareness of disease.^ Farmers had been aware for some time of another blight for which Webb was on the alert. As early as 1906 alfalfa weevil had been identified in Salt Lake County and by 1910 had infected more than 3,500 acres of hay as well as spread in a lesser degree to Summit, Utah, Weber, and Davis counties. The weevils, which affected a vital product for both rural and urban residents of the county, had caused shortages of hay, raising prices from $4 or $5 per ton to $14 or $15.

Progressive farmers had joined E. G. Titus, an entomologist from the Agricultural College, and C. N. Ainslie, of the USDA, in studying the blight. Much was learned about the character and habits of the weevil, including its life cycle, its capacity to overwinter, and that while it was often transported in feed in warm winds it could be borne naturally for distances up to fifteen miles. Infestation was progressive, with second and third hay cuttings coming back slowly the first year and in subsequent years the plant failing until entire fields were killed.

Young fields were most resistant with some of the older patches being very susceptible.^ Encouraged by the entomologists, farmers experimented with home remedies. Pasturing was tried by Mark Bennion, a Mr. Gilby, and others. Close pasturing by horses appeared to be the most promising, although some had fairly good luck with specially managed use by sheep. Discing, watering, and brush dragging were also tried in combination with pasturing. Recognizing that brush and debris were necessary for the hibernation of the weevil, farmers also experimented with fire. Some even spread straw lightly over entire fields to make a brisk, quick fire. Brush drags, harrows, wire street sweepers, and various other devices were used after the first cutting of hay in attempts to reduce the number of viable weevils. Among the most in-

5 H . J . Webb, "Best Single Piece of Work, 1915," in ibid. ^E. G. Titus, " T h e Alfalfa Leaf-Weevil," Utah Agricultural College Experiment Station Bulletin No. 110 (Logan, 1910).

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genious were weevil harvesters. Two "gathering machines" attracted special attention. L. Hemingway of Granger contrived one that collected 90 gallons of insects in a single trip over a 15-acre field. Thomas Barton got a yield of 20 gallons to the acre in going over his field eight times. Professor Titus estimated that "the almost incredible number of 145,000,000 of the insects" had been "captured to the acre."^ Mechanical, water, and oil traps were also used. Spraying, however, was apparently the most successful treatment, although even here reinfestation of sprayed fields by flying weevils largely neutralized otherwise successful treatments. Nevertheless, by the time Agent Webb began to report on alfalfa weevil in 1915, Salt Lake County farmers were well aware of the problem and were beginning to take the first steps toward a solution.

A major campaign that may have lacked the sound scientific study upon which the weevil fight was based was waged against sparrows during the food shortage of World War I. Convinced that sparrows inflicted vast damage upon small grains, Webb distributed poison widely and developed baiting techniques. In 1916 he reported that 59,500 dead sparrows had been found and counted in. The next year he estimated that no fewer than a quarter of a million birds were killed in Salt Lake County at a saving of 31,250 bushels of grain or $60,937 at wartime prices.^ In addition to the county wide efforts of farmers and the Farm Bureau (which by 1917 had supplanted the commercial clubs), boys throughout the county were mobilized through agricultural clubs and by the profit motive. Many made paying enterprises of their efforts to eliminate sparrows, rats, and ground squirrels, for each of which small bounties were paid. Harold Wagstaff, a Farmers Ward boy recalled regularly climbing trees in south Salt Lake City to gather sparrow eggs which were then conveyed to the ground by holding them in his mouth so as not to break them. Sparrow eggs, which were young Wagstaff s main line of business, brought a bounty of five cents per dozen. Rats, a secondary line, brought him a nickle each.^ While many thought that the number of sparrows had been significantly reduced, it was reported that 200,000 were killed in 1918, suggesting that, best efforts and high counts notwithstanding, many sparrows survived.

7Ibid., pp. 65-66. sAnnual Reports of H . J . Webb and V. L. Martineau for 1916, 1917, and 1918 included data on the great sparrow war. Salt Lake County Agent Reports.

9 Interview with Harold Wagstaff, April 1980.

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Salt Lake City agricultural club member, 1916, returning home after disposing of his products. Boys in background still have a wagonload to sell.

A number of other projects were also undertaken by Webb and his associates that benefited farmers directly as well as introducing them to new ways. Weeds, which everywhere littered roads and ditches and choked fields and pastures, had been a matter of immediate concern to Webb on his arrival. After calling for coordinated control for several years, he played a primary role in the Farm Bureau's successful drive to get a weed law passed by the legislature in 1918. Backed by this law as well as the full cooperation of the Salt Lake County crops and pests inspector, canal companies, railroads, and all of the county's thirty road supervisors, the Farm Bureau and Webb made a major drive in 1919. Fully 75 percent of the county's farmers cooperated as did 675 owners of city lots. Some 500 miles of the county's 800 miles of county and state roads were cleaned, as were 125 miles of city streets in Murray, Sandy, and Midvale. In addition, 204 miles of the 262 miles of railroad right-of-way in the county were cleaned. Ironically, the poorest showing was made by the canal companies which cleaned only 54 of the 111 miles of their canals, leaving 57 miles of weed-infested waterway to carry seed onto fields.*° loV. L. Martineau, "Annual Report of Agricultural Activities, 1919," Salt Lake County Extension Service Records.

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147

A Utah Pork and Crop Production Club boy in Salt Lake City, 1915, inspecting a recently slaughtered hog.

Above: Warren Garrett, 1915, a Davis County member of the Utah Poultry Club.

Left: Hattie Holbrook, Utah Garden and Canning Club champion of 1913, preparing potato starch according to USDA instructions.

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Also advanced by county agents during their first half-decade in Salt Lake County were equitable threshing groups, dairy cow testing associations, and poultry and egg marketing cooperatives. Perhaps no work was more important than forming boys and girls agricultural clubs. Sponsored and encouraged by schools throughout the county, these did much to introduce young people to improved methods and enlarged their lives by providing a series of activities, including exhibits at county and state fairs. In addition, county and state encampments offered young people opportunities to learn and compete. Although this was a statewide movement sponsored mainly by J. C. Hogensen at the Agricultural College, boys and girls in Salt Lake and Davis counties had superior opportunities to participate. In part this was due to the presence of the state fair in Salt Lake City where youth exhibits became featured attractions. County agents and, after they arrived, home demonstration agents, worked closely with teachers at the schools with the result that poultry, swine, gardening, marketing, canning, and home arts projects flourished. By 1918 a total of 800 boys and girls were enrolled in the county, about one-tenth of the total school population. In addition to presaging the 4-H and Future Farmer and Future Homemakers programs, the youth clubs broadened and enhanced the lives of young people, although they may have led more of them into agricultural-related businesses and professions than into farming itself.

Farm organization was also important for adults and received a good deal of attention from Salt Lake County's early county agents.

When Webb arrived he found that commercial clubs were well organized throughout the farming districts of the county. These became his primary line of help. Within a year or two the Farm Bureau movement began to take the place of commercial clubs. Said to have been launched in Weber County around 1915, the Farm Bureau moved quickly to Salt Lake County and by the end of World War I had completely supplanted the commercial clubs. The bureau entertained some social objectives, but to all appearances managed little more than a nominal show of social life through an annual get-together. It was a little more successful in promoting farm tours, although even these attracted only a few. As an interest group through which the farmer's point of view was represented, the bureau was more effective as evidenced in its role in pushing through the weed law of 1918. It was also instrumental in encouraging farm buying and selling cooperatives.

In the farming districts the fourteen local Farm Bureau units cor-

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149

Salt Lake County Agent V. L. Martineau assisting George B. Andrews of Holladay in keeping his poultry records. The record book was especially designed

by Utah State Agricultural College extension poultrymen and economists.

responded more closely with Mormon wards than with towns. During Webb's era and that of his successor, V. L. Martineau, membership remained low, reaching a maximum of 242 (148 men and 94 women) or about ten percent of the county's total farm families.** Thus in the quarter-century after 1890 substantial if not indeed dramatic changes took place in the lives of Salt Lake County farm people as a result of the advance of science and learning generally. As the period began, many, particularly those on westside farms, were scarcely beyond the pioneering era. At the period's close they enjoyed many of the benefits of scientific learning and effective organization.

The federal government had become much more active in studying the problems of natural resource utilization and in the process was communicating a point of view about managing the broader environment.

The Progressive spirit that characterized Americans of that period generally influenced Salt Lake County farmers, sharpening their already strong faith in learning and education and enabling them to make great strides in their public schools, youth programs, and farm organizations. Finally, what has been termed the Country Life Movement also had an effect as Utahns and Americans everywhere began to fear that urban tensions were perverting the agrarian basis of the nation generally and specifically cutting away at the family farm.

Publishers, the Agricultural College, extension workers, politicians, and many farmers themselves worked to make the promise of the good life come true on the country's farms. Science and organization were the tools they used. Consequently, farmers of Salt Lake County and the state generally enjoyed an extraordinary period of advance. Few played more important roles than did county agents like Heber Webb.

11 Ibid.

Even small towns like Blanding had problems with bootleggers during the Prohibition Era. Period photograph is of the Grayson Co-op. USHS collections.

^^Practically Free from the Taint of the Bootlegger'': A Closer Look at Prohibition in Southeastern Utah

BY JODY BAILEY AND ROBERT S. MCPHERSON

enjoys a colorful and exciting heritage from the Prohibition Era.* While much of the illegal activity of making, selling, and consuming alcohol centered around the urban U T A H , LIKE MANY WESTERN STATES,

Ms. Bailey, a graduate of the College of Eastern Utah-San Juan Campus, is currently a student at the University of Utah. Dr. McPherson teaches at the College of Eastern Utah-San Juan Campus.

1 Appreciation is expressed to the Utah Endowment for the Humanities for funding the collection of oral histories through the Blue Mountain Shadows Project (1987). Much of the material contained herein was gathered because of U E H support.

Prohibition in Southeastern Utah

151

areas of the Wasatch Front, rural Utah had its own style of cops and robbers and moonshine traffic.^ This fact has often been ignored because of the problems of documenting covert operations, and, at the same time, those activities that were exposed often cut close to family ties and small town pride and so were swept under the carpet and forgotten. Southeastern Utah was no exception.

Nesded in the canyons, on the mesas, and near the mountains, rural towns like Moab, Monticello, LaSal, and Blanding dot the northern part of the Colorado Plateau. The connecting links that joined these mining and agricultural communities to each other and the outside world of the 1920s were hundreds of miles of dirt roads that fed into Green River and Price to the north, Cortez and Durango, Colorado, to the east, and the Navajo Reservation to the south. This isolation, coupled with a strong Mormon influence in many of these towns, leads one to assume that the issues of prohibition were slight, if not nonexistent, in this area. Indeed, Mathonihah Thomas, the federal prohibition director of Utah, stated in Moab's Times-Independent that "Although the liquor traffic in some of the larger centers of population is considerable, the rural districts are practically free from the taint of the bootlegger. "3 Ironically, this statement, though said in earnest, appeared on April 1, 1920 â&#x20AC;&#x201D;April Fools' Day. The manufacture of alcohol knew no cultural, religious, or social bounds. Interviews indicate that Mormons and gentiles, miners and cowboys, farmers and businessmen, Mexicans and Navajos all trafficked in liquor in the Four Corners area. Many of these people came from cultural backgrounds that accepted alcohol as a part of social life and as a means of expressing friendship and camaraderie. Though official Latter-day Saint doctrine counseled abstinence, a fringe element found alcoholic restraint limited to Sunday meetings. The net result was a wide variety of people engaged in the manufacture, export, and consumption of illegal brew.

Prohibition raised a number of public issues, and after the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted its many flaws soon became apparent. Many critics felt that its major drawback was that it dealt with only one side of the liquor issue. Americans were free to buy and use alcohol and keep it in their homes without breaking the law. Since the

2 See Helen Z Papanikolas, "Bootlegging in Zion: Making and Selling the 'Good Stuff,' " Utah Historical Quarterly 53 (Summer 1985): 268-91. This is an excellent article that concentrates on the issues of prohibition in many of the major cides in Utah during the 1920s.

3"Boodegger Is Banned in Most Rural Regions," Times-Independent, April 1, 1920, p. 1.

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amendment did not forbid the purchase of liquor, the buyer, who ran no risk at all, was not threatened by the fact that the seller could go to jail.

Law enforcement officials faced another basic conflict. The U.S. Constitution guaranteed citizens certain rights, such as the security of individuals, their homes, and property against unjustified search and seizure; speedy and impartial public trial; immunity from testifying against themselves in a court of law; and other fundamental liberties many people felt were violated by the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment. Dry leaders realized that their only hope of keeping Americans from openly resisting prohibition was an enforcement law strong enough to accomplish the purpose without arousing the indignation of the public* This proved to be a fine line not easily drawn.

When Congress adopted the Volstead Act, a document outlining enforcement laws and procedures, it only increased the confusion of law officers with its seventy-three sections of complicated legal technicalities. Still, hope remained that the promise held up by drys would be fulfilled, and a gloriously happy, prosperous, and crime-free land would be the reward.^ This Utopian dream was unrealistic and difficult to achieve in isolated rural areas where the topography actually encouraged development of the illegal industry. In the rugged terrain of southeastern Utah, ranches and river washes were favorite locations for operating stills and concealing equipment and supplies. The many canyons and ridges around the Monticello area made Cedar Point, Dodge Point, Lockerby, Upper Montezuma, and Boulder ideal places to moonshine in private. One bootlegger plied his trade in a dugout on Dodge Point where he hid his merchandise behind a mud-plastered door that opened into a secret room.^ Other locations were selected for their accessibility to water. At Whiskey Spring just west of the Colorado border on Cedar Point, for example, one "could smell the whiskey and about half-way taste it in the water. "^ H. E. Herbert, deputy sheriff of Westwater, near Moab, seized two stills found south of the Colorado River approximately ten miles from Cisco. They were housed in a dugout on the side of a wash

â&#x20AC;˘Bill Severn, The End of the Roaring Twenties (New York: Julian Messner Press, 1969), pp. 92-98.

5 Ibid.

6 Melvin Dalton interviewed by Jody Bailey on July 16, 1987, tape in possession of the San Juan Historical Society, Blanding, Utah. Hereafter, interviews from this collection are cited as SJHS. 7 Ibid.

Prohibition in Southeastern Utah

1^^

where all of the paraphernalia for making the moonshine on a large scale was present, including water which was piped into the shack.

The owners of this establishment were never apprehended, though Herbert kept the stills under surveillance for several weeks.^ Water sources also affected the location of stills in southern San Juan County. Moonshiners in Montezuma Creek and Bluff made good use of the San Juan River. One man, convinced by an acquaintance that he had access to ideal equipment and location, constructed a still on the river just below Mexican Hat Rock "in plain sight of everybody" and successfully boodegged to the oil drillers. His luck ran out one night when a flood came down the river and put him out of business.^ The product of these stills often reflected regional qualities. Bathtub gin, busthead, hooch, mountain dew, white lightning, white mule, bug juice â&#x20AC;&#x201D;moonshine had as many names as it did recipes, and each endorsed its favorite ingredients. Blanding closet drinkers made malt beer and wine out of homegrown grapes. Peaches were a favorite in the Bluff area. On the Navajo Reservation any kind of available fruit was used, especially raisins. Monticello residents liked the chokecherries that grew on Blue Mountain, while the homesteaders in Easdand brewed their dry-farm crops of wheat and corn.*^ So in each area there were those who looked forward to a seasonal harvest and a year of drinking and sales.

An unexpected boon to local grocers was the demand for sugar.

Sugar whiskey was a favorite recipe because of the speed with which it could be produced. All that was required was a 100-pound bag of sugar, one sack of cornmeal, and yeast, which were mixed together.

The concoction was then "boiled in a couple of fifty gallon drums 'til it quits bubbling and it's ready to run."** Other local businesses affected by prohibition laws were restaurants. A newspaper blurb encapsulated the legal confusion of the time by stating, "Uncle Sam says restaurants and hotels may use alcohol in baking and roasting, but a private individual can't get any for a 'stew'."*2 8 "Wholesale Drive on Boodeggers M a d e , " Times-Independent, December 2, 1926, p. 1.

9 Ray Hunt interviewed by Janet Wilcox on July 21, 1987, SJHS. lolbid â&#x20AC;˘ T P Gonzales interviewed by Laura Shumway and Janet Wilcox on July 6, 1987, SJHS; Erv and Beth Guymon interviewed by Janet Wilcox on July 17, 1987, SJHS, J . Glen Shumway interviewed by Janet Wilcox on July 25, 1987, SJHS; Pearl Butt interviewed by Jody Bailey on July 2, 1987, SJHS. 11 Hunt interview.

12 "Classified Personal," Times-Independent, April 1, 1920, p. 3.

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The quest to secure liquor in any form forced lawmakers to spell out in detail what constituted illegal alcohol. A "liquor" included practically any liquid or compound containing one-half of one percent or more of alcohol by volume. This definition was important for those who made apple cider. The law warned them that sugar or other substances that speeded fermentation should, under no circumstances, be added to the apple cider to increase alcoholic content.*^ The same concept extended to the use of extracts that were sold as intoxicants. An announcement distributed by Mathonihah Thomas urged all sheriffs, county attorneys, and county commissioners to see that the law was strictly enforced and that warnings be served at once upon all merchants to desist from selling extracts, substitutes, and imitations for beverage purposes.** Thus, amid confusion and forced restraint, the appeal of moonshine liquor to the general public spread. In southern Utah the trafficking increased to outlying areas from town to town, from northern areas to the Navajo Reservation and across the state line into Colorado and back again. Though Blanding was a crossroads between northern towns and the reservation, it was not generally associated with the transport of whiskey. Most of its production was in the home and made for private use. Those who aimed to profit from the venture lived closer to the Colorado border. The main targets for sales, in addition to the reservation, were the mining camps of Telluride and Durango, with some brew making its way as far as Gallup, New Mexico.*^ Border patrols kept busy investigating interstate smuggling, with many a profiteer coming to grief as a result. In one case, three men and a woman, all Italians, were suspected of running liquor into Grand Junction, Colorado, from Utah, but they were always able to foil the law officers. A report in the Grand Junction Sentinel explained: For months past trips were made to Grand Junction and other western Colorado points by a party of Hquor runners. . . . Some weeks ago they were planning to deliver a considerable consignment of liquor to local purchasers. Local officers had been advised of their coming, but plans laid for their arrest after they had actually delivered liquor here, miscarried, and not only did the members of the party make their escape but they got away with the liquor as well.'^

13"Care Must Be Taken in Manufacturing Cider," Times-Independent, March 25, 1920, p. 3. i*"Thomas Quotes Law on Sale of Extracts," Times-Independent April 8, 1920, p. 1.

15 Ray Redd interviewed by Jody Bailey on July 16, 1987, SJHS. 16"Suspected Booze Runners Fined $100 at Thompson," Grand Valley Times, March 4, 1920, p. 1.

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Another publicized incident involved liquor running from Colorado into Utah. A boodegger had been making regular trips into Grand County during sheep shearing season. The renegade evaded several carefully laid plans of the sheriff to capture him before he was finally caught with the goods and arrested by a federal agent in Grand Junction.*^ The batde of wits between federal prohibition officers and bootleg traffickers led to the development of some ingenious methods of concealing and transporting the moonshine. Boxes of liquor were secluded in hollowed out bales of hay or hidden on the side of a wash and sometimes buried in streambeds. Adults often used children to evade the law. At night liquor was stacked under quilts that were put inside cars for the bootlegger's children to sleep on.*^ Frequently older children were either knowingly enlisted or unwittingly duped into becoming accomplices. Because of their age they were not usually suspected by the law, but an adult caught involving a minor was guilty of an even greater crime. Angeline Westcott recalled that as a young girl she was asked by a farmer to make several deliveries, but her older brother found out and warned her it was illegal.*^ One fifteen-year-old boy who was helping to haul whiskey to Moab had his arm out the car window when another car hit him and broke it. He let the arm heal crookedly because he was afraid that if he went to a doctor he would be turned in to the authorities.^^ Originality in concealing the alcohol led the owner to profits and safety. One man who sold whiskey to the Navajos devised a hollow saddle. Made out of copper covered with leather, it had big swells on the seat and a litde spigot attached. He rode his horse around the reservation selling liquor by the cup.2* Building fake walls and underground tunnels was a common way of avoiding detection. East of Monticello "Old Man Long" mastered these techniques well enough that he never got caught even though he was a notorious bootlegger.

He built his house, which was part log cabin, out of cases of beer cans that he stacked and covered on the outside and pasted over on the inside. This made a good thick wall and kept his house well insulated.

17"Huge Still Is Raided; 400 Gallons Mash Seized," Times-Independent, May 17, 1923, p. 1.

18 Butt interview.

19 Angeline Westcott interviewed by Richard Swanson on July 23, 1973, p. 17, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

20Cloyd Johnson interviewed by Jody Bailey on July 14, 1987, SJHS. 21 Rusty Musselman interviewed by Robert McPherson on July 6, 1987, SJHS.

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Old Man Long's log cabin east of Monticello. Courtesy of Alfred Frost.

Alfred Frost of Monticello reminisced about Long: "After he died a few years ago, I was out showing some people the place. We got to looking around. There were underground tunnels all under his place.

They went clear out to the trails in the back and his chicken coop.

There were long cross tunnels under the ground all over."^^ Getting large quantities of liquor to the reservation was a problem that required a unique solution. One bootlegger who traveled there to peddle his beverage received his pay but did not deliver until Montezuma Creek was running high. Then he threw a keg in the water, letting it travel downstream to the Indian customer who fished it out.23 Any criminal activity creates a potential for violence, and bootlegging in southern Utah had its own versions. Seraphine Frost of Monticello remembered how two factions were fighting over their customers. One night when they were going home, one group ambushed the others and killed them.2* Another resident recalled how federal agents enlisted the aid of the local, temporary sheriff to help

22 Alfred Frost interviewed b y R e g i n a Yazzle on J u l y 6, 1987, S J H S .

23 Max Dalton interviewed by Jody Bailey on July 14, 1987, SJHS. 2*Seraphine Frost and Pearl Lewis interviewed by Deniane Gutke, July 6, 1987, SJHS.

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'

^^^

them raid a still at Coalbed on the Colorado/Utah state line. During the raid shots were fired, but fortunately no one was killed.^^ The inevitable chase scene also occurred. One of the locals in Monticello was peddling his whiskey in town when federal officers arrived. The boodegger speedily loaded his wares into his car and left.

As he passed a small settlement called Boulder he took a shortcut that went from the main road to the schoolhouse. By a stroke of luck, he became high centered on the muddy, rutted roads, which saved him, because the officers went around on the regular road and lost him.^^ Though illegal, moonshining and boodegging found considerable tolerance in rural communities. A partial explanation lies in the unpopularity of the prohibition law. The controversial nature of the Eighteenth Amendment was mirrored in the ambiguous actions of the public. For example, a Monticello man turned in for selling gallons of whiskey was at the same time warned that the law had been notified and so was able to make a successful escape.^^ While tolerant of boodeg activity to an extent, many were troubled by thoughts of association with it. Some residents were afraid of being mistakenly turned in, especially those who accidentally found other people's stills on or near their property. Jack W. Corbin and Joseph L. Dubois of Moab were arrested and charged with manufacturing liquor when a still on their land was seized, although the sheriff found no alcohol in or near the apparatus. The defendants vigorously denied knowledge of the still and declared their innocence, showing that they had sold their ranch the day before the police raid.

Other property owners south of Monticello became so concerned and angry about bootleggers using and crossing over their lands that they resorted to smearing pig manure on the gate handles and fence posts to deter these trespassers.^^ Opposition also came from women who fought ardendy against the influence of alcohol. For instance, Ozro and Myrde Hunt, who lived in Bluff during prohibition, exemplify what could happen when a wife opposed her husband's activities. It seems that for a few days Ozro had been happier than normal and so Myrde decided to investigate his frequent trips to the basement. There she found a freshly

25 M u s s e l m a n interview.

26 I b i d .

27 I b i d .

28 " S h e r i f f R a i d s H o u s e a n d Seizes S t i l l , " Times-Independent, D e c e m b e r 18, 1919, p . 1; t e l e p h o n e c o n v e r s a t i o n b e t w e e n Alfred Frost a n d J o d y Bailey o n F e b r u a r y 24, 1988.

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brewed batch of ripe mash, ready for straining. After delivering a sufficient tongue-lashing, she proceeded out to the back field and deposited the slop for the pigs, who were overjoyed. In a short time their glee was apparent to every child in town who watched with delight as the swine squealed and staggered about the field all that day and for the rest of the week until the residue was finished. Wives of men who slipped into bootlegging were known to stay mum about their own relatives but did not hesitate to turn in others.^^ These women fought particularly hard to keep their children from being sucked into the underground activity. Bolstering the women's resolve were the local churches where many a sermon concerned the evils of imbibing. To the Mormons, bootlegging was considered a double offense, it being not only illegal but also immoral.

Women and religion were not successful deterrents, however, and law officers enlisted the aid of employers. Deputy Sheriff R. T. Edwards raided three moonshine outfits at the coal camp in Sego, whereupon the Grand County sheriffs and attorney's offices solicited the cooperation of the American Fuel Company. The business firm stated it planned to "send down the canyon any man who persists in dealing in the stuff, whether he sells it, buys it, or drinks it."^^ In another case, J . P. Miller, manager of the Utah Eastern Company and owner of pool hall property in Thompson, declared a lease on the hall forfeited after the proprietors were arrested for concealing and selling liquor. In later negotiations for the lease of the property, the owner requested a cash bond to guarantee there would be no future violations. The county commissioners also demanded proof that there would be no infractions of the law before granting a new license to the pool hall.3* Another ploy used against property owners by law enforcement agents was to invoke the abatement proceedings commonly associated with "red light" cases. When law officers discovered evidence of bootlegging, they served notice to the property owners that if they continued to rent to lawbreakers, proceedings would be instigated to close their property for one year.^^ A different set of problems occurred on the reservation. Because the Navajos did not always have access to the necessary copper tub29Fern Simpson interviewed by LaVerne Tate, May 15, 1988, SJHS; Butt interview.

30"Three Moonshine Outfits are Raided at Sego," Times-Independent, February 1, 1923, p. 1.

31 "Officers Raid Booze J o i n t s , " Times-Independent, December 23, 1920, p. 1.

32"Pleads Guilty to Liquor Charge," Times-Independent, December 30, 1920, p. 1; "Federal Courts Have Busy T i m e , " Times-Independent, March 2, 1922, p. 2.

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ing, they sometimes used galvanized tin as part of their distiUing equipment. This resuked in the production of tainted liquor that caused sickness and occasionally death for those who drank it.^^ According to one informant, improper cooking had similar effects: My uncle worked in various places. He saw how the Anglos made moonshine, so he copied it when he got home. He got a wooden barrel and put corn, water, and sugar together. It spoiled with a lid on.

He probably was unprepared, because he did not know of any copper tubing at that time. Then he taught his friends like a teacher would.

A litde later people died of it. My uncle learned how to make the moonshine and he died by it. The ones who learned from him did not boil the moonshine, therefore the moonshine took its toll.^*

Liquor on the reservation concerned both local and federal officials, who sometimes enlisted Navajo offenders as underground agents. A letter from the Northern Navajo Agency in Shiprock, New Mexico, to the commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1928 enumerated some of the liquor traffic activities on the reservation. For example, the Indian police arrested Walter Jones for being drunk. When brought before the Indian court he pleaded guilty and said that he secured the liquor from "the blue-eyed Wheeler boy that lives near the Hogback." Since no liquor had been seized as evidence, the case was not sent to the U.S. court in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Instead, Jones served sixty days in the agency jail, after which he was furnished with funds and requested to visit once again the "blue-eyed Wheeler boy" and to bring the purchased liquor back to the superintendent. Jones was unable to secure the liquor, however, and the case was closed.^^ In another instance, Indian police arrested two Navajos near Sheep Springs and charged them with being drunk while driving a Ford in which were found two bottles of moonshine. Sophus Jensen, the agency stockman, took the liquor, opened the botdes, smelled the contents, resealed the containers, and placed them in his government car. When he turned his back on the prisoners to finish inspecting some sheep, the two men broke the botdes, spiUing the contents on the ground. Jensen took the prisoners to the Shiprock Agency where they pled guilty to possession, explaining that they had purchased the liquor in Gallup from a " J a p " who operated a garage. Later, when a 33Rose Begay interviewed by Berta Parrish on June 17, 1987, SJHS. 3* Ibid.

3 5 A. H. Kneale to Commissioner oflndian Affairs, J u n e 29, 1928, U.S. Department of the Interior, Letters Received, Indian Field Service, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

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grand jury heard the case, Jensen testified that the bottles had contained intoxicating liquor. A juryman, however, countered that the bottles might have contained cold tea, which convinced the jury that this guess was more accurate than Jensen's sworn statement. The court dropped the case with a suggestion that better results could be obtained by handling such actions in local Indian courts.

The superintendent closed his report by noting that a few years before, abstinence from alcohol was "practically 100% perfect" but that with the advent of the automobile, 200 to 300 of which were now owned by Navajos, life on the reservation had changed. "Five years ago an Indian seldom went more than fifteen or twenty miles from h o m e , " he wrote. "Today, those who own cars find it convenient to make rather extended trips and to take their friends with them." This made alcohol more readily available and increased the clientele waiting at the bootlegger's door.^^ Enforcing prohibition both on and off the reservation was at best a difficult proposition. If the law caught a moonshiner with his goods, there was not much the offender could do but to go peaceably; but if the equipment was found and not the culprit, the stills and merchandise were merely destroyed. Donald Adams, San Juan County attorney during prohibition recalled, " I was going day and night in those bootleg days. I went out with the sheriff looking for stills. When we found them we would dump the stuff out and burn them up."^^ Officials often made a public exhibition of destroying the seized stills and paraphernalia. Carrying out an order issued by Judge Dilworth Woolley of the District Court, Sheriff Herbert Murphy and County Attorney J. N. Corbin staged a moonshine party in the rear of the Grand County Courthouse in Moab. Armed with shovel, axe, and other implements of destruction, they consigned a quantity of white mule to the thirsty ground and then ceremoniously junked a copper still while a crowd of curious citizens watched.^^ The making or trafficking of alcohol was a federal crime, but a first offense came under local jurisdiction while second or subsequent prosecutions were handled by higher courts. Given a choice, local defendants usually preferred to be tried in state courts rather than prosecuted in the federal court in Salt Lake City, since penalties were less 36 Ibid.

37Donald Adams interviewed by Richard Swanson on August 3, 1973, p. 9, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, BYU. 38"Sheriff and Attorney Stage Moonshine Party," Times-Independent, April 19, 1923, p. 2.

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severe.^^ Cases of a more flagrant nature, however, were automatically sent to the federal court. Federal judges complained that most of their time was taken up with bootleg cases and that federal courts were nothing more than police courts with shyster lawyers practicing in them. They believed that many lawyers who at one time "struggled along with hardly enough practice to make a living, and not enough brains to help it" were obtaining exceflent fees from defending bootleggers.*^ In less populated regions justice was handled more quickly. Early one morning at Westwater near Moab, Sheriff W. J . Bliss and Deputy Sheriff H. E. Herbert raided the section house occupied by Santos Muos, a Mexican, where they found a still in operation. Muos was taken to Sego and given a hearing before Justice Miller. The Mexican pleaded guilty and was convicted and fined $150.00 which he paid. The strength of the juice coming from his still was demonstrated by County Attorney J . N. Corbin who set fire to some of it in the courtroom. This case showed speedy work on the part of law officers who found the still in operation at 7:30 a.m., arrested Muos, and took him forty-eight miles to the nearest court where he was found guilty at 5:30 p.m. the same day.** Other cases were not as easy. The Moab sheriff charged Dominick Perry with selling liquor to a Mexican railroad worker. Perry, an Italian and section foreman at Thompson, argued that the charge was part of a plan by the Mexicans to get his job. The state produced a number of Mexican witnesses who related the circumstances of the alleged sale, after which the defendant's attorney introduced evidence that supported the conspiracy theory. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty.*2 Carl Odenwalder and D. C. Miller of the Salt Lake City office of the Internal Revenue Service made probably the biggest bust involving the bootlegging brotherhood of southeastern Utah following an extensive undercover operation prior to the raids. They stormed two establishments reported to have been the most notorious locations in the area for dispensing booze. The "blind pig" operations focused on the Bartolo Jaramillo place near Monticello and the pool hall at Thompson.

39"Sheriff Makes Big Haul; Home Raided, Four Arrested," Times-Independent, May 13, 1926, p. 1. *o"Federal Courts Have Busy T i m e , " Times-Independent, March 2, 1922, p. 3. *i "Moonshiners Get Speedy Action," Times-Independent, August 10, 1922, p. 1. *2"Booze Case up injustice Court," Times-Independent, April 27, 1922, p. 3.

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Remains of an illegal still.

Courtesy of Alfred Frost.

The Monticello raid netted a large still, two barrels of mash in the process of fermentation, and a big supply of bottled alcohol, all of which was confiscated. The police arrested Jaramillo and his accomplice, Tanstino Enriquez, and bound them over to the county court for an offense punishable by a fine of not more than $299.00 and not more than six months in jail or both.*^ At the Thompson pool hall the officers made a thorough search and were about to give up when one of them noticed that a partition between the pool room and an adjoining room looked suspicious. He investigated and without difficulty removed a wall board concealing twenty-six pint bottles of white mule in a space about three or four inches wide inside the partition. Proprietor James Papacostas pleaded guilty to a charge of having liquor in his possession and was fined $150.00. His partner, Mike Laefas, pleaded not guilty and had to appear before district court since he had been previously convicted of liquor violations in Carbon County. The Thompson pool hall also had its license revoked.** In San Juan County federal agents arrested Clarence Copeland who sported " a great big bushy beard and long hair, the most ragged looking old fellow you ever did see."*^ Before appearing in front of the judge in Salt Lake he shaved, got a haircut, and put on a new suit.

In court the arresting agent was unable to pick him out of a line-up because the defendant's appearance had changed so drastically, and so Copeland returned home a free man.

Not everyone arrested was as fortunate. J. E. Wellington was prosecuted and sent to Alcatraz for selling liquor to the Indians on the 43"Officers Raid Booze J o i n t s , " Times-Independent, December 23, 1920, p. 1. *4lbid. *5 Guymon interview.

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reservation. When he returned home to Monticello his friends greeted him with "Where you been J a y ? " " O h , I spent a few years in California," he replied.*^ Dealing in white mule may have been a serious crime, but on the lighter side it produced some memorable characters. Cloyd Johnson, a rancher from the Eastland area, recalled his friend Floyd Dalton: One time we went over to Cedar Point to a dance. He was selling whiskey and everybody got all lit up. He fell off the car and injured the side of his head. When he'd blink his eyes one eye wouldn't move. He got in a lot of fights because guys would think that he was winking at their wives. "*^

At one point Floyd decided to go into moonshining for himself. He did not own a still, but his friend Fritz Winters had one in Eastland.

He went out to Fritz's place with two pack horses and tied them near the still. Then he galloped in and hollered, "Fritz! Fritz! Get out of here, fast! The sheriff is right behind m e ! " They split up, going separate ways. But while Fritz kept traveling, Floyd circled back, loaded the still on his two pack horses, and escaped. He opened his operation in lower Verdure where he made whiskey for quite some time, even selling it to his friend Fritz.*^ Marion Hunt was another personality in whiskey folklore. This incident reportedly took place while he and a dentist were partying together in Bluff. Marion developed a toothache, so the dentist, having no tools with him, decided to help his distressed client and friend by wielding a pair of pliers. "Marion showed him which tooth it was and the doctor extracted it. Then Marion told him that he got the wrong one. It still hurt. They were both drunk, and the dentist kept pulling his teeth. He pulled all of them. It was the bloodiest mess that you ever saw in your life."*^ Even in court a lighter side sometimes slipped in. According to one informant. Bob Wise, a fellow from the Bluff area, was arrested several times for selling liquor to the Indians. At court in Monticello he denied the charges. Finally, because of the lack of evidence, the judge said, "Well, I guess we will just have to let you go, but you better stay clean." Wise inadvertently admitted his guilt by answering, "Well, thank you Judge, and I won't do that anymore. "^° •^Johnson interview.

•7 Ibid.

•8 Frost interview.

•9 Hilda Perkins interviewed by Janet Wilcox on June 24, 1987, SJHS. 50 Hunt interview.

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The concern over illegal consumption of alcohol even touched physicians and pharmacists. Liquor prescriptions by doctors were limited to one-half pint per individual not more than every ten days; the number of prescriptions any physician could issue was limited to 100 every three months.^* This created hardship for southern Utah residents during the influenza epidemic. The dry laws prevented many citizens from securing the whiskey they believed would combat the contagion. A number of telegrams from county officials, ministers, and local doctors in Moab requested permission from Gov. Simon Bamberger to ship alcohol for medicinal purposes. County Attorney C. A. Robertson promised to be personally responsible for the safekeeping of the whiskey to be issued on doctor's orders.^^ Swayed by the frantic appeals, in spite of the criminality of shipping liquor in Utah, the governor hesitantly acquiesced.

Obviously the grand experiment of prohibition did not succeed as planned; the feelings of southeastern Utahns reflected the attitudes of the nation. One person remembered a big celebration when alcoholic beverages became legal again, and no one attending lacked something to drink. Once the fervor died down, people bought liquor much as they had before prohibition started.^^ Another stated, "They [drinkers] were not as bad when they could get it legally as they were during prohibition. It is human nature that when you tell somebody they can't have something, they wiU find a way to get it."^* As prohibition came to an end the towns and counties in Utah cast their votes for or against legalizing the sale of alcohol. In November 1933 San Juan County residents generally voted against ending prohibition. The major force in this drive came from Blanding, "throwing almost the entire town's strength" against repeal, while half the town of Monticello voted "wet."^^ Moab in Grand County and other towns readily accepted the reintroduction of legal Hquor, thus giving the impression that where the Mormon influence was weakest and where bootleggers had been the most active, alcohol was acceptable. Whatever the rationale, 1933 signaled a new attitude toward liquor consumption, closing a colorful period that was far from being "free from the taint of the bootlegger."

51 "New Regulations Regarding Liquor Prescriptions," Times-Independent, April 27, 1922, p. 2.

52 "Trouble Had in Getting Whiskey for Influenza," Grand Valley Times, January 10, 1919, p. 1.

53 Frost interview.

5*Westcott interview, p . 18.

55 " U t a h V o t e s for R e p e a l : S a n J u a n against W e t L a w , " San Juan Record, N o v e m b e r 9, 1933, p . 1.

The original settlement in the southern part of Clarion comprised the frame structure on the left and a group of tents in 1911-12. Courtesy of Sarah Sack Bober.

Building Zions: A Conceptual Framework

BY ROBERT ALAN GOLDBERG

J. ARRINGTON, IN HIS SEMINAL WORK Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900, detailed the course of Mormon colonization in the nineteenth-century West. Through Mormon efforts a wilderness became a functioning society and LEONARD

Dr. Goldberg is associate professor of history at the University of Utah. He expresses appreciation for the criticisms and suggestions gently tendered by Dean May and Susan Kralick-Goldberg who are, of course, not responsible for any errors that may remain.

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economy. Arrington determinedly resisted extensive speculation upon the reasons for the success of Mormon colonization. Only briefly did he succumb, discussing the underlying patterns of discipline, careful organization and planning, and the homogeneity of the settlers to explain the spread of Mormon outposts throughout the Great Basin.

This paper seeks to cast Arrington's observations into a wider conceptual scheme to understand the factors that influenced not only Mormon settlement but the process of colonization in a larger context. These factors will be uncovered and probed in a case study of a Jewish colony of the Great Basin. The Jewish settlement of Clarion, Utah, founded in 1911 and dissolved in 1916, was the last of the approximately forty attempts to colonize Jews on the land in the United States. It was the largest in population and land area and had the longest temporal existence of any Jewish colony west of the Appalachian Mountains. What light does its defeat shed upon Mormon victories? Why did Clarion fail when all around it was evidence of Mormon success? Finally, parallels will be drawn between Mormon colonization in the Great Basin and Jewish settlement in the land of Israel, using the insights gleaned from the Clarion experiment. In this way the variables underlying the success and failure of colonization efforts may be ascertained and subject to research in other times and places in world history.* Between 1881 and 1915 Jewish agricultural colonies were planted in New Jersey, North and South Dakota, Kansas, Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, and Utah. This American effort was ideologically, ethnically, and temporally part of an international Back to the Soil Movement that saw Jewish farming settlements established in Argentina, Canada, and Israel. In America advocates seeking to end urban congestion and to restructure Jewish economic life encouraged immigrants to take up the plow. They listed a number of intriguing benefits.

Farming would decrease the oversupply of labor in the cities, create a proper environment for child rearing, and accelerate Americanization.

Further, the farm would inhibit anti-Semitism by smothering the stereotype of the Jew as a commercial parasite. A return to agriculture would, moreover, bring Jewish spiritual and physical revival, restore a sense of dignity, free Jews from the economic uncertainties of the

1 For a detailed discussion of the Clarion colony see Robert Alan Goldberg, Back to the Soil: The Jewish Farmers of Clarion, Utah, and their World (Salt Lake City, 1986).

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Isaac Herbst and a team of surveyors fixed the farm boundaries at Clarion and marked off the colony's main road. Courtesy of Sarah Sack Bober.

sweatshop, and demonstrate to Christians the Jews' stake in their new homeland.^ The seeds sown by the advocates of a Jewish return to the soil grew in the mind of Benjamin Brown, a Russian immigrant to America. In 1909 he began agitating in New York City and Philadelphia for the creation of a farming colony whose success would generate a wave of Jewish agricultural settlements throughout the United States.

His message was always multifaceted, extolling the good life on the farm while reminding his listeners of the impelling need to ameliorate the Jewish condition in the eastern cities. Brown's words touched a wide range of people. Socialists, anarchists, Zionists, the religious Orthodox, and those seeking a more comfortable life for themselves and their families joined. Each would conceive the colony in his own image. In such diversity the weed of dissension was well fertilized.^ '^Jewish Exponent, July 5, 1889; Gabriel Davidson, " T h e Jew in Agriculture in the United States,'' American Jewish Year Book, 37 (Philadelphia, 1935-36), p. 134; Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, "What to Do with the Russian Refugee," Sunday Discourses Before the Congregation Keneseth Israel, 1905-6, 19 (Philadelphia, 1906), p. 52; Uri D. Herscher, Jewish Agricultural Utopias in America, 1830-1910 (Detroit, 1981), pp. 23-24, 37-48.

3 Interview with Lillian Brown Vogel, Los Angeles, June 17, 1983; Interview with Sarah Brown, Phoenix, by Michael and Patricia Walton, November 6, 1982; Benjamin Brown, " M e m o i r s , " trans.

Sarah Brown, typewritten, n.d., pp. 1-2, in the author's possession; Esther Radding, "Journal," handwritten, 1962, p. 157, in the author's possession.

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By 1911 Brown had attracted 200 men, most with families, and had accumulated $60,000 in investment capital for land, equipment, livestock, and building supplies. (While a substantial ouday for the time and the people involved, it would prove insufficient to support the colony during reverses.) Brown suggested a western site for the colony, for land was cheaper there than in the East; the temptation to return to the cities less; and the likelihood of the settlement becoming a boarder-resort, as had occurred to Jewish farms in upstate New York, remote.* On a trip to the West to view land for the proposed colony.

Brown visited Utah. State officials greeted him eagerly, offering to sell a prime tract of land that would be irrigated with water from a canal under construction. The more than 8,000 acres offered for sale were located in south-central Utah, three miles from the small town of Gunnison. The canal, state officials boasted, would provide abundant water and eliminate the caprice of weather. Impressed by the state's claims and assurances. Brown purchased 6,000 acres of land for his colony.^ The canal was crucial to the colony's future. Yet, at the time of purchase, canal construction had reached only the southern one-third of the eight-mile-long tract of Jewish colony land. The canal would not serve all of the land until two years after the colony's demise. The newly built canal had sides and bottom of dirt and lacked the necessary gates and weirs designed to regulate the water received by each farmer. Moreover, because there were no past data concerning canal capacity, state engineers could only estimate water seepage and quantity available for delivery.^ The first twelve colonists, chosen for their mechanical skills, experience with horses, and "seriousness," arrived at the settlement site in September 1911. Only two of the men had any agricultural background, and their knowledge was geared to eastern conditions. None

*Brown, " M e m o i r s , " pp. 1-2; Barney Silverman, " A Short History of Clarion," typewritten, 1967, pp. 3-5, 7, in the author's possession.

5Brown, " M e m o i r s , " p. 6; Silverman, "Short History," pp. 21, 34:-36; Jewish Exponent, September 15, 1911; " I n re Clarion Colony, U t a h , " p. 2, Ben Roe Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; First Successful Jewish Colony in the United States (Salt Lake City, 1912), pp. 3, 5. ^Everett L. Cooley, "Clarion, Utahâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Jewish Colony in Zion," Gunnison Valley News, March 12, 19, 1970; Conrad Frischknecht to Everett Cooley, October 3, 1960, Everett L. Cooley Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah; C . J . Ullrich, "Report on the Water Supply â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Piute Project," typewritten. Salt Lake City, 1917? in the author's possession. Gunnison Gazette, October 14, 1910; Interview with Carl Carpenter, Clarion, May 15, 1982; Interview with Lamont Nielsen, Clarion, June 26, 1982.

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had any practical experience with irrigation or drainage. Although urban dwellers, the men became concerned as they surveyed the tract.

The land sloped steeply and was covered by sagebrush, tall grasses, and weeds. Large patches of ground were bare of any vegetation.

Closer inspection of the soil revealed a sandy, gravelly consistency underlain by a hardpan subsoil. Although they were unaware at the time, the area had a short growing season with frosts coming late in the spring and early in the fall. Rainfall was minimal.^ Despite these difficulties the Jews immediately began to clear the land for cultivation. During the next five years they prepared 2,600 acres for planting. They laid out and dug irrigation channels from the canal to the fields, built homes to house fifty-two families, constructed a school, and experimented with chicken and hog raising. More than 200 people would attempt to realize their dream of going back to the soil. The colonists believed that they had received a call. They perceived themselves as the harbingers of the Jewish economic and social future in America. It was appropriate, then, that they named their colony Clarion.^ Between 1911 and 1916 setback after setback, both external and internal, eroded the human and financial resources that the Clarion colonists had mustered. Drought and an unreliable canal combined with marginal soil and farming inexperience to doom the first year's harvest. Already behind in payments to the state for land and water rights, the colonists could not pull themselves out of their financial hole. The support of Salt Lake City's Jewish community and Jews nationally was never sufficient to stem the hemorrhaging of funds. The 1913 harvest brought no respite. Heavy mountain rains in August had sent torrents of water into the dry washes and toward the colony.

The water breached the canal and flooded the hay, wheat, and alfalfa fields. In 1914 drought and a water shortage resulting from their neighbors' greed again doomed the harvest. In the colony's last year a late frost was sufficient to break the colonists' spirit, already numbed by the misery of a hard and resisting land.^ Adding to this distress was the only crop that grew in abundance in Clarion's soil, dissension. When the colony's future dimmed, Ben7 Silverman, "Short History," pp. 42-44; Interview with Harry Kimura, Clarion, September 20, 1983; Interview with Samuel Chatsky by Ronald Goldberg, Miami, May 18, 1982; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Soil Survey of Sanpete Valley Area, Utah (Washington, D . C , 1981), pp. 76-77, 80-81; Isaac Friedlander, Virgin Soil, trans. Louis Zucker (Los Angeles, 1949), p. 14; Interview with Allen Frandsen, Clarion, September 20, 1983.

8 Goldberg, Back to the Soil, chaps. 3, 4, 5 passim.

9 Ibid.

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Riding a disk harrow, Samuel Sack prepared the land for planting. Note his Russian worker's cap and peasant blouse. Courtesy of Sarah Sack Bober.

jamin Brown's judgment and qualifications came under attack, and he was accused of mismanagement and dictatorial practices. Exacerbating tensions was the factionalism inherent in the heterogeneous membership. Anarchists, international socialists, Jewish socialists, and Zionists found no unity as they now had evidence to substantiate their pre-Clarion suspicions. Even the religious Orthodox minority found itself embroiled in the mayhem.*° Further, the Mormon community did not present a unifying enemy around which to rally. Mormon welcomed Jew as neighbor and Biblical brother, tendering advice, food, friendship, tools, labor, and moral support. While the colony was an organizational entity.

Mormons respected Jewish beliefs and attempted no proselytizing. A sense of common identity, past and present, religious and pioneering, united the two peoples.** In January 1916, with the colony unable to pay the state the monies owed for land and water rights, Utah officials auctioned off the Clarion tract, selling just over one-tenth of the land. Most of the colonists returned to Philadelphia and New York City or went on to Los Angeles. Others took up land in New York, Michigan, Penn10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

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*m^ '

This tractor was one of the colony's prized possessions. Courtesy of Beckie Mastrow Pullman.

sylvania, and California. Some continued to farm in the Clarion area, with the last Jews leaving in the mid-1920s. The latter left because they feared the loss of their children's religious identities through assimilation rather than as a result of financial hardship.*2 Five interrelated variables, their influence changing with time, were crucial in determining Clarion's fate: farming experience, environmental conditions, capital availability, colonists' morale, and the existence of alternatives. Clarion's people were urbanites familiar with the sweatshop, store, and the pushcart. Even the few with farming experience were unprepared for the semiarid conditions of Utah.

Added to the ordinary toil attendant upon colony ground-breaking, inexperience was a difficult burden to bear. A poor site choice compounded inexperience-generated problems. Water scarcity, an undependable irrigation canal, marginal soil, and capricious weather drained the colony of enthusiasm and its meager supply of funds.

Yet, neither the lack of experience nor the environment is sufficient explanation for Clarion's fall. Each day on the land increased the colonists' store of agricultural knowledge. Hard work, trial and error, and Mormon farmers' aid and advice strengthened the Jews in their physical, emotional, and mental ability to stay on the land. The success of those Jews who remained in the Clarion area for a decade after the colony's demise or who took to the land elsewhere is evidence i2Ibid., pp. 124-128.

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of their will to adapt to farming. Moreover, those who persisted saw a change in environmental conditions. While life was never easy, the environment had begun to shed its harshness and become more predictable. The most difficult tasks had been accomplished. The land had been cleared and fields created. Fences and outbuildings had been erected. The canal had become increasingly dependable.

Clarion's life could have been extended if it had had the means to sustain it through the difficult years â&#x20AC;&#x201D; available capital and high morale. Without either of these vital assets the impact of alternatives became pronounced. Adequate financial resources would have bought the settlers time to survive the early colonization period, gain experience, and control their environment. Still, if the patronage of an outside benefactor with abundant funds would have softened the hard times, it would not alone have ensured the colony's future. To hold the colonists to a resisting land also required a morale that was intense and cohesive. The hardship, denial, and self-doubt that accompany any colonization project can be held at bay, if not dispelled, when men and women are bound mentally and emotionally to a common goal. The colony's avowed purpose was to rebuild the Jewish people through agriculture. The colonists lost sight of this mission as personal animosities, ideological conflicts, and cultural disagreements caused diverse factions to focus their energies against one another, thus dissipating trust, goodwill, and strength. Further eroding morale was the silence of the outside world. When Clarion's call was ignored and financial contributions failed to materialize, the colonists' greatest fears were reified; their mission had no meaning.

Directly related, yet separate, was the existence of alternatives.

New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles beckoned Jews as they did Christians, offering rescue and release from farm life. The familiar urban world, even with its drawbacks, promised solutions to economic uncertainty, deteriorating relations with fellow colonists, and idealism gone sour. Without the bulwarks of high morale, financial security, and agricultural achievements, the siren of alternatives could not be silenced. Clarion's obstacles to economic self-reliance and ethnic viability proved too formidable to conquer.

With Clarion as background and the five variables as a framework, let us briefly review the Mormon colonization experience in the Great Basin. In the second half of the nineteenth century Mormon colonists established nearly five hundred settlements in seven states.

Professor Arrington conceptualized this colonization movement in a

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series of stages. In the first stage Mormons initially populated the Salt Lake Valley. Radiating from this nucleus, they built communities in the Utah, Tooele, Sanpete, Box Elder, Pahvant, Juab, Parowan, and Cache valleys. Expansion in the second stage was accomplished beyond Utah's "inner cordon of settlement."*3 Choosing sites for geopolitical and missionary reasons. Mormons colonized San Bernardino, California; Las Vegas and Carson Valley, Nevada; Moab, Utah; Forts Supply and Bridger, Wyoming; and Lemhi, Idaho. By 1857 they had founded ninety-six colonies. During the next forty years, and in a continuing series of stages. Mormons reached central, southern, and northeastern Utah; the Salt and Gila River valleys in Arizona; the Upper Snake River Valley in Idaho; the Big Horn Basin and the Star Valley in Wyoming; the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado; White Pine County in Nevada; and the Grand Ronde Valley in eastern Oregon. Even lands in Canada and Mexico came under the Mormon plow. The success rate of the Mormon colonies is very impressive. Geographer Lynn Rosenvall calculated that only sixty-nine, or less than 14 percent, of the settlements had failed.** We can account for this remarkable achievement with the same variables that determined Clarion's fate. Unlike Clarion's Jews, the Mormon pioneers were steeped in an agrarian tradition. Nineteenthcentury America was a nation of farmers, and there were few who were not raised on the land or did not earn their bread from the soil.

Rather than stepping into an alien world. Mormon colonists could farm from habit, having learned the skills inculcated through experience, generation to generation. They knew how to fence, cultivate, and care for livestock. Harnesses, hitches, and tools were not mysterious or foreboding. Still, the Great Basin was not New England or the Midwest. Wilford Woodruff reminds us, "of course, we had no experience with irrigation. "*5 Yet, using their abundant store of agricultural resources, the Mormons adapted with trial and error techniques to the new environment. This can be illustrated in Woodruffs account of the first attempt to plant in the Salt Lake Valley. Finding the ground resistant to their plows, the pioneers turned water on the land i3Quoted in Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), p. 84.

14Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 84-88, 215-17, 354, 383-84; Dean May, "Problems of Mormon Settlement," p. 60, typewritten, 1977; Lynn A. Rosenval , "Defunct Mormon Settlements.

1830-1930," in Richard H. Jackson, ed., The Mormon Rote in the Settlement of the West (Provo, 1978), pp.

51-52. i5Quoted in May, "Problems of Mormon Setdement," p. 29.

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only to watch their teams sink to their bellies in the mud. When the soil had dried, wrote Woodruff, "We then plowed our land."*^ Such incidents would be repeated many times over until the settlers had mastered farming in the Great Basin. Similarly, in this testing period the Mormons were confronted with environmental disasters. Marginal soil, inadequate water supply, insects, drought, bitter winters, and floods plagued the colonists. Man-made dangers appeared in the form of Indians, federal officials, and soldiers. Setbacks in diversifying the economy compounded harvest failures and at times brought famine and food rationing. Yet the Mormons persevered, stubbornly holding onto the land and gradually subduing it.*^ The surmounting of these obstacles describes Mormon success.

It does not, however, yield a sufficient explanation for their achievements in colonization. In the faces of adversity Mormon morale was sustained by the belief that God had invested them with a mission to prepare the earth for the second coming of Christ. In light of this, all Mormon activities, social, economic, and cultural, were infused with an intensity that could only come from active participation in the building up of the kingdom of God. "High on the mountain top a banner is unfurled," they sang in the ward houses, "Ye nations, now look up; It waves to all the world. . . . "*^ What had occurred, wrote Leonard Arrington, was a "spiritualization of temporal activity."*^ Mormon history and the geography of the Great Basin bolstered theological doctrine to assure the pioneers of their destiny as the chosen of God. In the 1830s and 1840s the Mormons had suffered violence as they fled before mobs in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. After the murder of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young led the Saints in an exodus across the Mississippi River and into the wilderness. The selfproclaimed "Camp of Israel" found its promised land in Utah. It was hardly coincidental, they believed, that the climate and topography of the region resembled the land of Israel.

Colonization, then, became the means to fulfilling a divine will that seemed partially revealed. This interpretation was made even more convincing when church leaders in conference called pioneers to missions to manufacture iron, raise silk, or till land. Under the direc-

16 Ibid. i7Ibid., pp. 29-30; Rosenvall, "Defunct Mormon Setdements," pp. 52-53, 62-67; Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 170-94.

18"High on the Mountain T o p , " in Hymns (Salt Lake City, 1968), p. 62. i9Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 4-5, 27, 33-34.

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tion of the church, colony sites were chosen, setders selected, and tools and equipment assigned. The church also allocated property rights according to the principles of stewardship. The colonists were, as Charles Peterson suggested, like "children of God thrust from Eden into the hard, cruel world and charged to rebuild the garden in each desert outpost by the sweat of their brow.''^^ Practical tasks of community building, maintenance, and defense when added to the concept of mission intensified this solidarity.2* The result was a nation of highly communal, homogeneous, and close-knit villages composed of individuals prepared to sacrifice their self-interest for the common good. They had taken Joseph Smith's admonition seriously: " I say unto you, be one; if ye are not one ye are not mine. "22 With hardships seen as tests of faith, the future of history on their shoulders, and identities as God's missionaries secure, the Mormons found that colonization efforts gave meaning to life, strength to the community, and success to the communal endeavor.

In addition to farming experience, overcoming the environment, and high morale, capital was necessary to sustain the Mormon experiment. Church leaders were able to pool their followers' savings and invest it for the collective good through the tithing office. Resources gathered through tithing, or as Arrington phrased it, the "socialization of surplus incomes, "23 were partially spent furnishing setders with food, livestock, equipment, tools, and seed. With the land financially free, settlement costs would not drain Mormon coffers. The church's financial sponsorship of colonization would last into the early twentieth century. The church also created the Perpetual Emigration Fund to bring needy Saints from Europe to Utah for religious reasons. This fund served economic functions as well. It efficiently worked to increase the region's labor supply and to create an effective means whereby payments in cash and kind were transferred and distributed according to need. Gold rushers and western travelers contributed as well to the building of the Great Basin kingdom. Bringing scarce currency, they opened an internal market for Mormon goods.

20Charles S. Peterson, "Imprint of Agricultural Systems on the Utah Landscape," in Jackson, ed.. The Mormon Role in the Settlement of the West, 92.

21 Ibid on 94-95 l02-,Lov/rYNchoii, The Mormon Village: A Pattern and Technique of Land Settlement (Salt Lake City, 1952), p. 261; Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons (Chicago, 1957), p. 186; Wallace Stegner, Mormon Country (New York, 1942), pp. 30-32, 62-64.

22Doctrine and Covenants, 38:27.

23 Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, p. 7.

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With these resources the Mormons had the means to pass through the ground-breaking period of colonization and achieve economic stability and growth.2* Finally, the Mormons had few alternatives to the Great Basin.

Recently chased by mobs, few cared to return to the American "Babylon." Church leaders actively pursued a policy of economic, cultural, and political self-sufficiency. Yet, distance did not eliminate harassment. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century Congress rejected rapprochement and vigorously acted to abolish polygamy and the church's influence in economic and political affairs.

Mormon hymns such as "Zion Stands with Hills Surrounded," "For the Strength of the Hills," and "Come, Come, Ye Saints" reflect a sense of siege and necessary isolation from the "proud boasting nation." In " U p , Awake, Ye Defenders of Zion" congregations pledged to "Remember the wrongs of Missouri; Forget not the fate of Nauvoo. When the God-hating foe is before you. Stand firm and be faithful and true. . . ."2^ Not until the beginning of the twentieth century, after Utah had achieved statehood, would a ceasefire exist and alternatives to the Great Basin become more visible. By then departure could not destroy the experiment because the long period of community building had created a foundation difficult to unearth.2^ The men and women who colonized Israel were as prepared for the fields as their Clarion coreligionists. The environment they encountered was equally hostile with poor soil, a shortage of water, swamps, and insufficient rainfall. Over the centuries, since the Jews had farmed the land of Israel, soils had eroded, the forests had been cut down, and the streams filled with silt. Despite these restraints, a quarter of a million Jews inhabit the land today, and hundreds of moshavot ("settlements"), kibbutzim ("collectives"), and moshavimovdim ("workers' cooperatives") dot the Israeli landscape.2^ The Jewish return to the soil began in the 1830s when 20,000 to 30,000 Jews left pogrom-ravaged eastern Europe for Palestine. By 1898 these men and women had launched twenty-five moshavot. The settlements had not rooted easily. Inexperience, a lack of funds.

24lbid., pp. 7-9, 18, 25-27, 34, 51, 77-79, 89-93, 97-108, 133; May, "Problems of Mormon Settlement," p. 46. '^^Hymns, pp. 37-38. The LDS hymnal currendy in use presents an amended wording for this song by Charles Penrose.

26Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, pp. 24, 353-79; Hymns, pp. 13-14, 62, 212, 241.

27Henrik Infield, Cooperative Living in Palestine (New York, 1944), pp. 38-39.

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177

malaria, and Arab harassment had combined in the first years to choke growth. Only the timely financial intervention of philanthropist Baron Edmund de Rothschild averted the colonies' collapse. The settlements would require a quarter-century of financial weaning before they had stabilized and could stand by themselves.2^ The moshavot had initiated modern Jewish agriculture in Palestine. They would not, however, serve as ideological or practical precursors for the major thrust of Jewish agrarianism. Zionist leaders disparaged these villages because they did not offer a sufficient foundation to erect a national homeland for Jews. The twenty-five moshavot had lost their idealistic drive, becoming divorced from national goals.

To carry forth efforts to accelerate immigration, expand territorial possessions, and reform Jewish society, the Zionist searched for a different solution. 29 The pragmatic needs of Zionist organizers fused with the ideological dreams of the members of an immigration wave that touched Palestine's shores between 1904 and 1914. Many of these immigrants came to Palestine to build a new Jewish nation upon socialist principles. They hoped to establish settlements that would draw strength from their ideals: from each according to ability and sharing according to need. In such communities property would be owned collectively while decisions were made democratically. Firing hopes and actions was a perception that they stood at a crossroad of history and by their efforts would decide the Jewish future. Bolstering this selfconception was the enormous interest that world Jewry paid to this handful of men and women. This hothouse atmosphere of intense attention and idealism helped push these Jewish pioneers to conquer themselves and their environment.^^ In 1909 Degania, the first kibbutz or collective farm, was organized. It proved successful and became the model for hundreds of

28 M a r k W i s c h n i t z e r , To Dwell in Safety: The Story of the Jewish Migration Since 1800 ( P h i l a d e l p h i a , 1948), p p . 5 2 , 57-60; N o r a L e v i n , While Messiah Tarried: Jewish Socialist Movements, 1871-1917 (New York, 1977), pp. 47-50; Arthur Ruppin, "Agricultural Achievements in Palestine," Contemporary Jewish Record 5 (June 1942): 268-70; D. Weintraub, M. Lissak, and Y Azmon, Moshava, Kibbutz, andMoshav: Patterns of Jewish Rural Settlement and Development in Palestine ( I t h a c a , N e w York, 1969), p p . 3-4; Alex Bein, The Return to the Soil: A History of Jewish Settlement in Israel ( J e r u s a l e m , 1952), p p . 5-10.

29 A r t h u r R u p p i n , The Agricultural Colonisation of the Zionist Organization in Palestine {\^ndor\, 1926), p . 5; A r t h u r R u p p i n , Three Decades of Palestine: Speeches and Papers on the Upbuilding of the Jewish National Home (Jerusalem, 1936), pp. 49-50; Eliyahu Kanovsky, The Economy of the Israeli Kibbutz (Cambridge, Mass. 1966), p. 12.

30 W e i n t r a u b , et a l . , Moshava, p . 8; L e v i n , White Messiah Tarried, p p . 377-406; Melford E . S p i r o , Kibbutz; Venture in Utopia ( N e w York, 1970), p p . 32-36; K a n o v s k y , Economy, p p . 3-4, 2 5 , 31-32; P a u l a R a y m a n , The Kibbutz Community and Nation Building (Pvmcetor\, 1981), p p . 11-16.

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Jewish colonies. The kibbutz fulfilled setders' needs for independence and self-management, a decent standard of living, and the pursuit of national aims. Often buflt in a circular pattern for defense, it cultivated a sense of mutuality and self-reliance. Yet it did not stifle colonists' idealism or shield them from larger goals. The kibbutz became a crucial Zionist channel for dispersing immigrants, providing farm experience, building an agricultural sector for a Jewish state, and gathering lands to the end of nation-building. In the 1920s those who sought a cooperative agricultural life but were unable to accommodate to the kibbutz regimen formed moshavim-ovdim or workers' cooperatives. In these communities the central role of the family was recognized, land was privately owned, and members engaged in cooperative buying and selling.3* The kibbutz and moshav concepts were conducive to Zionism's limited budget. The pioneers arrived with no resources to begin an agricultural life. Their inexperience amid severe conditions, plus the strategic and geopolitical nature of site selection, meant that the settlements would suffer heavy financial losses in a prolonged period of dependency. Settlement of families on dispersed farms was not only defensively unwise but beyond Zionist capabilities. A variety of organizations existed to provide the subsidization the colonies could not survive without. The Jewish National Fund acquired land which the settlers cultivated. The J N F also extended credits to aid the work of settlement and the purchase of livestock, equipment, and building materials. The Keren //fl);^W ("Palestine Foundation Fund") granted loans to facilitate the colonization effort. Additional assistance was provided by the Jewish Agency, the Anglo-Palestine Bank, the Histadrut or General Federation of Jewish Labor, kibbutzim and moshavim federations, and the Israeli government.^2 The Jewish colonies in Palestine and later Israel had found the means to ethnic and economic viability. The capital resources of the Zionist organizations gave settlers the opportunity gradually to loosen the shackles of inexperience and poor site selection. Their sense of purpose, and even destiny, sustained them when life was difficult and primitive. Self-selection in the migration process, which led to a 31 Bein, Return, pp. 61-62; Kanovsky, Economy, pp. 7-9, 16, 126; KuYy'pin, Agricultural Colonisation, 132-33; Weintraub, et a\.,Moshava, pp. 10-11, 128; Harry Viteles, A History of the Cooperative Movement in Israel {hondon, 1966), vol 4: Co-Operative Smallholders' Settlements (The Moshav Movement), pp. 4, 23; vol 1: The Evolution of the Co-Operative Movement, p. 33.

32Kanovsky, Economy, p. 47; Ruppin, Agricultural Colonisation, p. 69; 98-99; Weintraub, et al., Moshava, pp. 6-7, 12, 185-227; Ruppin, Three Decades, pp. 131-32.

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Palestine destination rather than to the United States, guaranteed a core of men and women hardened in their idealism. Persecution and Arab attack at home combined with aid and attention from abroad to increase their determination. In addition, the kibbutz and moshav support group, its ideology and aims consistent, stiffened resolve and heightened the level of pain and despair that could be endured. At the same time, few alternatives were sufficiently attractive to tempt colonists from what had become their raison d'etre.

The defeat of the Clarion colonists and the victories of the Mormons in the Great Basin and the Jews in Israel differ in degree rather than in kind and thus represent different ends of the same continuum.

Rather than a regional, ethnic, or cultural interpretation, the histories of these colonization efforts were written in the interplay of five factorsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; experience, environment, capital, morale, and alternatives. In the negative or positive interaction of the variables may be discerned the course of colonization. Hopefully, continuing research on the colonial mosaic will be as favorable to these concepts as it has been in substantiating the work of Professor Arrington.

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Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian. By LEVI S. PETERSON. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press and Tanner Trust Fund, University of Utah Library, 1988. xxiii + 505 pp. $19.95.)

Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian is perhaps the best biography of a Utah individual to date and a work of major historical importance. Its subject, a towering figure in twentiethcentury Utah and Mormon history, receives her full due from Levi S. Peterson, a professor of English at Weber State College.

A number of factors contribute to the book's success, not the least of which is the fortunate pairing of subject and author. Both grew up in small Mormon towns far from the Wasatch F r o n t — Brooks in B u n k e r v i l l e , Nevada, and Peterson in Snowflake, Arizona. This shared rural background undoubtedly gave Peterson a key to understanding Juanita, whose ties to her heritage colored everything she did. Peterson had access to a rich lode of primary sources—Juanita's voluminous correspondence with family, friends, and a large group of intellectuals, including mentor Dale L. Morgan, and diaries kept by Juanita and her husband Will — and he mined it with great skill. As a result, sections of the biography pack a "you are there" punch, and in places one can almost hear Juanita's husky voice uttering a homespun metaphor. Finally, Peterson did not let his admiration for his subject cloud his judgment. The portrait he paints of Juanita is fully rounded, showing her foibles and fail-

ures as well as the achievements for which she will always merit acclaim.

Juanita led an exhausting life full of family reunions, weddings, domestic chores, studying, teaching, collecting and transcribing diaries, child rearing, night bus rides, corresponding, historical research and writing, church assignments, travel, squabbles with neighbors, speeches, politicking, moving, helping her large extended family and friends, and so on. She became in the midst of this not only a historian and exorcist of the Mormon past but as legendary a figure in Utah history as Jacob Hamblin and even John D. Lee, two of her own biographical subjects— a metamorphosis few historians achieve. What Peterson's biography delineates so well is Juanita's transformation from " H e n Leavitt's Boy" (chapter one) to " a spirit remarkable for curiosity, integrity, and tolerance and for the ability to reconcile faith and critical reason" (page 423).

While some literary folk will continue to look for "the great Mormon novel," I came away from this biography feeling as if I had just read it — not, let me emphasize, that Peterson has given us anything but a sterling work of nonfiction or that he has employed any of the devices of fiction or even of that dubious genre psychobiography; rather, Juanita's life is the very stuff of great novels. It is a life

Book Reviews and Notices lived with intensity and purpose, courage and compassion â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a heroine's journey, an archetypal tale as old as literature.

It seems to me that the Mormon literary genius has revealed itself best in the journals and diaries Joseph Smith admonished his followers to keep and in a broad group of historical works that includes biography, reminiscences, and folklore studies as well as traditional narrative history. Given the faith's pragmatism that should not be surprising. Juanita brought many of

181 the pioneer diaries to light and made major contributions to history in her study of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and other works. Now Levi Peterson has added this superb biography to a growing and impressive body of nonfiction that examines the distinctive Mormon experience and ultimately the human condition. This is literature, and it is a literature of which Mormons can be proud.

MIRIAM B . MURPHY

Utah State Historical Society

Establishing Zion: The Mormon Church in the American West, 1847-1869. By EUGENE E. CAMPBELL. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988. x + 346 pp. $20.95.)

Establishing Zion was conceived and written primarily to be a part of the LDS church's multi-volume sesquicentennial history. As a result the author does not try to give the historical antecedents prior to the Utah experience.

His work centers on the 1847-1869 period. Some readers may find this absence of historical context troubling.

However, the author's general outline within the text makes it very readable.

This work had not been readied for publication before his death, yet it clearly is Professor Campbell's tour de force. Family members, colleagues, editors, and the publisher are to be commended for following through and seeing the work in print. It is a major contribution to a narrowly defined segment of Mormon and Utah histories.

His excellent scholarship is enhanced by the inclusion of many interesting pictures, useful maps, and a index.

The author develops his book around two primary themes: colonization and confrontation. Nevertheless, many of his chapters do not fit these themes directly. In them, Campbell provides readers with good insights into the Mormons and the California

gold rush. While Brigham Young did seek gold in tithing and directly from Sam Brannan and others, he refused to endorse any major Mormon effort to capitalize on their early advantage of discovery and proximity. The author suggests that exploitation of California gold and later mineral developments closer at hand could have served Young's objectives for the kingdom.

Campbell discusses Mormon Indian policy, noting that the treatment of the native peoples followed traditional patterns of displacement more than they did Young's "feed rather than fight" policy, which evolved after the first confrontations. Mormons did not " q u i e t " title to the Indian lands, claiming the higher law of stewardship applied. The Mormon pro-bias toward their "Lamanite" brothers can be seen in their missions, their Indian farms, their preaching, and in their opposition to the slave trade. Still, the Indians proved to be pawns between the Mormons and the federal officials, whom the Mormons supported in their attacks on the Northern Shoshone (1863) and in relocating the Utes to reservations soon after.

182 Campbell's chapters on the development of church organization and on the evolution of its doctrines and practices are very useful. He traces the solidifying of church organizations familiar today under President Young's direction. He notes, perceptively, that much of this development was experientially derived, a contrast to the revelations that seemed to be so much a part of the Prophet Joseph's style. Able apostles supported both the missionary efforts and the colonization taking place in Zion. But the bishops were the backbone of settlement activities. Public proclamation of the practice of polygamy, of the principle of Blood Atonement, Adam-God speculation, and the Reformation generated additional problems both within and from without the Mormon community.

The author discusses the Mormon settlement of Fort Supply in detail. He also reviews particulars of Brigham's dealings with the transcontinental railroad builders and his wins and losses.

Campbell sees Young as an astute and pragmatic leader, generally, who did in fact establish " Z i o n , " if not in the " t o p s " of the mountains at least in the valleys.

Campbell classifies the 250-odd settlements in four groups. The first was establishing a base in the new Zion.

The original pioneers succeeded, not in the barren desert setting many have pictured early Salt Lake Valley to be, but succeed they did against the odds of distances, the unexpected influx of colonists for the first winter, and the damaging frosts and crickets of 1848.

From this base the first phase of colonization began, called the "Inner Colonies." They were characterized by contiguous settlement, strongly based family connections, and less formality in their organization. Such colonies reached north to Ogden, south to Utah Valley, and even to Sanpete in

Utah Historical Quarterly 1849. Next came the " O u t e r Colonies" where colonization was more formally directed, where bishops, the designated group leaders, were clearly in control, and where the needs of the new communities were anticipated and met by selecting settlers with a variety of skills. Few of the newly arriving converts, most courtesy of the Perpetual Emigration Fund, were even farmers, let alone familiar with irrigation, absolutely essential to successful farming in valleys of the mountains. These settlements reached to Parowan and San Bernardino on the south and to Box Elder and Cache valleys on the north. Some of them had specific economic assignments, such as the Iron Mission at Cedar City, in keeping with Young's policy of a selfsufficient kingdom.

Later, new colonies were called to settle in Utah's Dixie to the south, and to Rich County and Idaho on the north. There had been colonies in Las Vegas, on the Lemhi River to the northwest, at Elk Mountain on the Colorado River, and in Carson Valley in western Nevada; but most of them had been recalled with the approach of federal troops in 1857-58. Though Campbell gives Young excellent grades as a colonizer, he does note that there were failures and unnecessary suffering at times.

Confrontations included conflicts with the gentiles â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 49ers and others; with public officials; with the military and the miners; and, finally, with the federal government. Confrontations also occurred inside Mormonism, first with wayward Mormons, at least so perceived at the time of the Reformation (1854-55); with the Morrisites in 1861-62; and with the Godbeites, an able and liberal group, later during the same decade.

Mormons generally tried to treat their minority gentile visitors with

Book Reviews and Notices fairness and openness. But many appointed public officials were viewed as hostile, insensitive, and without scruples or s y m p a t h y for the Mormons' plight. Conflict was inevitable with neither side seeing any validity in the other's arguments.

Mormon alliances with the Indians were a form of treason to federal appointees. Distant appointments and authority did not address the Mormon concept of democracy. In these confrontations Young's and Heber C. Kimball's public rhetoric did little to assist Delegate to Congress John Bernhisel and others in their public relations with either the press in the East or with the United States Congress.

Because of these frozen attitudes.

President Buchanan was persuaded to send an army to Utah to put down a rebellion and Governor Young and his people decided to repel the invasion with force as needed. Campbell assesses blame on both sides. The consequences were a number of heroic ventures by the Mormons to explore, to flee, and to oppose. The timely negotiations of Thomas L. Kane were critical to a relatively peaceful solution.

That was the silver lining. The dark side was the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Political confrontations were inevitable as long as the Mormons believed that their higher laws of God gave them a right to interpret and to oppose the laws of the land, even though they had been passed by the official representatives of a majority of the American citizens, of which the Mormons were only a small minority in the body politic. Campbell shows how effec-

183 tively enemies of the Mormons used polygamy to discredit them. He notes also the inflexible policies of President Young regarding the future. Young's position reflected his belief in and hope for an "impending Millennium."

That sense of the kingdom was his vision and the hope of his followers. It was the source of much of their strength; it was also the cause of many of their conflicts. The author grades Young's handling of these confrontations much less generously.

Professor Campbell^s approach to writing this history has been to present readers with "historical" data in context and to allow those excerpts to speak from the time of the actual events themselves. Readers are given history as "on the spot" information gleaned from diaries, letters, daybooks, and journals that were contemporary to the events themselves. The result is intimate history devoid of the added meanings and interpretations that time and distance from events often tempt historians and others to presume. Secondary views too often become "larger than life" interpretations and for some even a "Godly view" of history.

Campbell demythologizes the history he writes. This book could be seen as a series of critical historiccd essays intended to provide relevant commentaries and corrective historical addenda to already extant histories. The book deserves a wide reading by both scholars and lay persons.

MELVIN T . SMITH

Mount Pleasant, Utah

Exploration of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. By HOWARD STANSBURY. (Washington, D . C : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. xvi -H 431 pp. Paper, $24.95.)

The war with Mexico brought to the United States a huge southwestern

area about which there was insufficient scientific knowledge. The Corps of

184 Topographical Engineers, under Col. John J . Abert, had sent out the famous expeditions of John C. Fremont and one under Lt. William H. Emory, but many regions had not been examined or mapped by trained engineers and scientists. This was particularly true of the Great Salt Lake Valley and the Mormon settlement which had suddenly gained importance as a halfway house for thousands of Californiabound gold rushers in 1849. Colonel Abert was determined to dispatch an expedition to the Great Salt Lake for a scientific investigation of this portion of the Great Basin.

As commander of the expedition, Abert chose Capt. Howard Stansbury, a civil engineer and non-West Pointer who had established himself as a competent member of the Topographical Corps. Stansbury was to prove himself as an able military leader and surveyor, a skilled literary craftsman, and an adroit diplomat who was able to win the support of Brigham Young and the other Mormon leaders for the government expedition. His second-incommand was Lt. John Williams Gunnison who became a congenial and trusted subordinate. Albert Carrington, the private secretary to Brigham Young and a college-trained individual, acted as the straw boss for the mostly Mormon crew. A fourth important member of the expedition was John Hudson, a well-educated young Englishman, who was chosen as the artist for the exploration of the Great Salt Lake and whose sketches of the area grace the Stansbury report.

Stansbury used the journals of his three colleagues to supplement and fill out his own journal account of their adventures.

The major objectives of the expedition, as outlined by Colonel Abert, were eight in number: to observe and "confirm" the Oregon Trail as far as

Utah Historical Quarterly Fort Hall; to reconnoiter a new road from that place to Great Salt Lake; to locate a "landing place" on the lake for shipments of goods from the Mormon settlement to Fort Hall; to survey Great Salt Lake and determine its capacity for navigation; to survey Utah Lake and the Jordan River; to ascertain the ability of the Mormon settlers to provide food and other supplies for Fort Hall and overland travelers; to report on the population, mills, work force, and Indians of the Salt Lake region; and to locate a site for a military post in the Great Salt Lake area. The expedition accomplished most of these goals.

Leaving Fort Leavenworth the end of May in 1849, Stansbury and Gunnison, with a crew of eighteen FrenchCanadians and accompanied by six emigrants under a Charles C. Sackett, traversed the Overland Trail to Salt Lake City, which the combined party reached by August 11. From this point, Gunnison led the expedition into Salt Lake Valley, while Stansbury spent the autumn of 1849 exploring a new route to Salt Lake City; making a reconnaissance of a road to Fort Hall; and, finally, in a daring trip around the north end of Great Salt Lake, traveling across the Salt Desert to Pilot Peak and back to the Mormon capital.

After the winter of 1849-50 spent in Salt Lake City, which provided both Stansbury and Gunnison with insight into Mormon culture, the expedition occupied the spring and summer of 1850 in the survey and triangulation of Great Salt Lake. Leaving Salt Lake City on August 28, 1850, the Stansbury party arrived back at Fort Leavenworth on November 6, after reconnoitering a new road through southern Wyoming which later became the route of the Union Pacific.

With the exception of the omission of Appendix G, Meteorological Obser-

Book Reviews and Notices vations, the Stansbury report is an exact reprint of the original document published in 1852 and is one of the "classics of western discovery and exploration" now being issued by the Smithsonian Institution Press. The book has an excellent introduction by Don D. Fowler of the University of Nevada, Reno, and includes the original appendices concerned with the flora and fauna of the areas traversed by the expedition. Today's readers will

185 find much interest in the well-written and descriptive journal accounts of Captain Stansbury as they follow him in his adventures to the Salt Lake of the Great Basin. Of particular appeal to Utah and Intermountain residents will be Stansbury's friendly and incisive description of the Mormon people and their religion.

BRIGHAM D . MADSEN

University of Utah

To No Privileged Class: The Rationalization of Homesteading and Rural Life in the Early Twentieth-century American West. By STANFORD J . LAYTON. Charles Redd Monographs in Western History No. 17. (Provo, Ut.: Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 1988. vi -\- 105 pp. Paper, $6.95.)

Students of the American West are perhaps too familiar with the U.S. Census Bureau's announcement in 1890 that the nation's frontier line had disappeared. The great significance commonly attached to that announcement makes it easy to forget that the great age of homesteading took place during the twentieth century, not the nineteenth. Indeed, more homestead acreage was patented after 1910 than during the first forty-eight years following the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862. Homesteading's most successful single season occurred in 191213 when settlers "proved u p " on over ten million acres. As historian Fred A. Shannon once observed, "the filling up of the West had merely begun by 1890."

Contributing to this "filling u p " of the twentieth-century frontier West were five new homestead laws enacted during the Progressive era: the Kinkaid Homestead Act (1904), the Forest Homestead Act (1906), the Enlarged Homestead Act (1909), the Three-year Homestead Act (1912), and the Stock Raising Homestead Act (1916). The origins of this legislation are the subject of Stanford Layton's work, To No

Privileged Class, which focuses on the acts of 1909 and 1916.

Layton argues that, contrary to the claims of previous historians. Progressive era homestead legislation did not represent the victory of greedy special interest groups from the West riding roughshod over the national interest and more principaled advocates of wise resource management. Instead, Layton shows that support in Congress for homesteading was both bipartisan and multi-sectional, the reflection of a national enthusiasm for continued western settlement. He argues that homesteading fit squarely within the utilitarian brand of conservation championed by most progressives, including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

Layton clearly demonstrates that Progressive homestead laws emerged within the context of a national celebration of the virtues of farm life and farming that found expression in the Country Life and Back-to-the-Land movements. These two separate but related movements, along with organized efforts in the West to promote irrigation projects and modern dryfarming techniques, combined to ere-

186 ate a political climate favorable to homestead legislation.

Unfortunately, the links between these various elements and the homestead laws themselves remain extremely vague. In Layton's account, each act appears simply as the brainchild of western congressmen responding to the petitions of land-hungry constituents. Exactly who initiated, circulated, and signed these petitions is unclear. Similarly, no indication is given of who lobbied for the acts as they made their way through Congress. In the end, the specific origins of the Progressive homestead laws elude this analysis.

A more serious weakness results from the author's decision to avoid debate over the merits and performance of Progressive homestead law. By offering more generous terms than those provided in the 1862 act. Congress hoped to make homesteading a viable proposition in the arid and semiarid regions west of the one-hundredth meridian. Results, however, fell far short of expectations. Although settlers taking advantage of the laws during the wet and prosperous years between 1900 and 1918 enjoyed temporary successes, the return of drought and low farm prices after World War I forced many back off the land. Consequently, historians have roundly condemned

Utah Historical Quarterly the laws as impractical, wasteful, unwise, and naive. Some, like Louise Peffer and John Opie, go even further, suggesting that Congress irresponsibly lured settlers onto marginal lands and certain failure.

Is such severe criticism of the laws and of Congress warranted? Layton points out that less than one-half of the land entries made under the Stock Raising Act were ever patented. Still, this performance exceeds that of the original Homestead Act between 1862 and 1890. What is needed here is a more detailed re-examination of the laws in action, along with an assessment of the Department of the Interior's administration of them.

Nevertheless, despite its shortcomings, Layton's slender volume provides a convenient introduction to homesteading and federal land law during the early twentieth century. Especially useful is his chapter on the Back-to-the-Land Movement. Based entirely upon primary sources. Layton's reconstruction of this largely forgotten episode of the Progressive era represents a valuable contribution to the history of American homesteading.

MICHAEL MAGLIARI

College of the Sequoias Visalia, California

The Protestant Clergy in the Great Plains and Mountain West, 1865-1915. By FERENC MORTON SZASZ. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988. 288 pp. $27.50.)

"Those who would make heroes of the western ministers face a difficult task" (214). In this perceptive study of the impact of religious influences on the settlement of the Great Plains and Mountain West, Ferenc Szasz has certainly accepted a difficult task indeed, although he has wisely rejected any inclination to assign heroic character-

istics to the western ministers who are the subjects of his analysis. Instead, he thoughtfully portrays these zealous churchmen as dedicated individuals who worked diligently without regard for personal aggrandizement to enhance the quality of life in their communities. The missionaries were convinced that the region where they

Book Reviews and Notices labored was destined to provide leaders who would determine the course of the n a t i o n ' s future. Acting on this assurance, they reached beyond the b o u n d a r i e s defined by their ecclesiastical responsibilities to participate in numerous social uplift programs intended to re-create in the western wilderness a society patterned on values that had traditionally contributed to the nation's robust growth.

Selecting the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Episcopal denominations as targets for his reserach, the author has skillfully developed his study with, first, introductory chapters designed to provide a chronological overview of the experiences of some of the more colorful ministers who planted the first churches in their particular mission fields. Then, in the latter half of the book, Szasz turns to interpretations of attitudes of the Protestant missionaries toward Hispanics, Mormons, and Native Americans or, as they were sometimes described at the time, the "exceptional populations." This section, perhaps the most illuminating part of the book, provides the reader with an objective and informative appraisal in the spirit of the time of the positions adopted by the clergymen as they sought to bring people whom they regarded as nonconformists into the mainstream of American society. A

187 final chapter considers the reaction of western congregations to the issues raised by their brethren in the East who were calling for greater emphasis in the Protestant churches on teaching and applying principles of a new social gospel.

The author's conclusion that the Protestant clergy and their churches played an integral part in everyday life in the Great Plains and Mountain West is well supported by evidence of thorough research on his topic. Indeed, a major challenge faced by Szasz was to synthesize the material collected from his vast array of sources into a story that would not appear to the prospective reader as dry-as-dust church history. He succeeded admirably in attaining this objective. His proficient use of many carefully selected anecdotes to develop his thesis will appeal to the general reader. At the same time, the more serious scholar who wishes to accept his challenge to investigate at greater length the role of Protestant missionaries in the settlement of the West will benefit from information provided in copious endnotes and an extensive bibliography.

An excellent selection of pictures is also a welcome addition to the text.

NORMAN J . BENDER

University of Colorado Colorado Springs

Historic Sites and Markers along the Mormon and Other Great Western Trails. By STANLEY KIMBALL. (Chigago and Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988. xviii -i- 320 pp. Cloth, $37.50; paper, $15.95.)

During the almost century and half that has elapsed since the first emigrant wagons bound for Oregon, California, or Utah rolled beyond the Missouri River hundreds of miles of historic trail ruts and countless thousands of artifacts have been lost or destroyed by

man in his attempt to satisfy the needs of an industrial society. Some of the destruction occurred within the very same century of the great migration itself; scarcely thirty years span the period marked by the arrival of the first wagon party on the Pacific and the

B.

188 time when major segments of the original trail would be obliterated by ballast and steel rails. Furthermore, before the century was out the plow would destroy those historic features in the valley of the Platte River that the earlier railroad contractors had missed.

The twentieth century was hardly kinder, for during this period havoc was perpetrated on the surviving portions of the old trails on an even more massive scale with the construction of paved highways, electrical power and gas transmission lines, irrigation networks, and the exploitation of forest, petroleum, and mineral resources.

However, during the last decade, on an almost one-to-one basis, a drastic change has taken place in the relationship between the physical destruction of the remaining trail segments and our desire to learn more about them and the people and events with which they were associated. Evidence of this change is manifested in the annual increase in the number of markers, monuments, parks, schools, museums, exh i b i t s , e v e n t s , and c o m m e r c i a l enterprises that greet the recent historically aroused touring public and attempt to interpret for them the landscape of the great migration. It is to this audience that Stanley B. Kimball's guidebook will especially appeal.

Kimball, a professor at Southern Illinois University and author of five books and a similar number of articles on Mormon migration in the American West, views the 1980s as the renaissance period in overland trail history, citing the commissioning of congressional trail studies, the expansion of academic courses to include trail subjects, and the creation of historical organizations devoted to trail history and preservation â&#x20AC;&#x201D; notably the Oregon-California Trails Association (over 1,500 members) and, more recently, a similar group to commemo-

Utah Historical Quarterly rate the Santa Fe Trail â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as being an even greater sign of the movement's vitality than the more tangible roadside works. Trained as a historian, Kimball has been engaged in researching western trails since 1963 and has personally traveled on foot, four-wheel drive vehicle, and by small aircraft every mile of the trails upon which he reports. No armchair traveler, he has experienced the mystic-like quality of "the power of place and the spirit of locale,'' which he describes throughout the work under review.

Historic Sites and Markers is exactly what its author intended it to be, i.e., an illustrated guidebook for the modern traveler who would like to experience the landscape upon which the drama of early Mormon history was enacted. It identifies 415 monumented historic sites and markers along some 10,000 miles of fifteen trails and their variants between New York and California that were utilized by the Mormons in their movement to the West.

Capitalizing on his earlier publications, Kimball places under one cover the historical geography of the Mormon church in its migration from New York in 1831, through Ohio and on into Illinois and Missouri during 183439. Thereafter, the emphasis is upon the location of church migration activities beyond the valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, the march of the Mormon Battalion to California in 1846, and the Mormon pioneer trek to Great Salt Lake in 1847. Sections of the guidebook are provided for trail v a r i a t i o n s in Missouri, Nebraska, and Colorado.

Overtly restricting the subject of his work to Mormon emigrant usage of the western trails, the author omits any reference to trails to Oregon or California west of Fort Bridger and the later Mormon colonizing trails that radiated from Salt Lake City.

Book Reviews and Notices As in the case of any guidebook prepared over a lengthy period, the reader can expect to find obsolete information and/or errors. Whereas changing road designations, street names, and the relocation of signs or markers might render ordinary guides useless, Kimball's carefully prepared descriptions, when coupled with a current auto club map, will easily overcome this irritating problem. On the other hand, some errors did find their way into print, e.g., those persons interested in contacting Vallecito Stage Station County Park, San Diego County, California, would be better served using ZIP Code 92123, rather than the one assigned to Vallecito, Calaveras County, as cited in the text (p. 301). This, of course, is minor and does not detract from the overall value of the publication. However, if there

189 should exist any reason to find fault with Kimball's work, it could only be that he could have been more critical with regard to the inscriptions on the monuments themselves, and/or of their provenance.

Complete with an annotated bibliography and a thorough index, illustrated with pertinent photographs and appropriate maps, and containing useful information for vehicle travel over the more isolated segments of the old trails, Kimball's guidebook is a welcome addition to the field library of the modern-day explorer and should be of special importance to Mormons who want to experience the power of place and the spirit of locale in the migration history of their people.

TODD I. BERENS

Santa Ana, California

Southern Arizona Folk Arts. By JAMES S. GRIFFITH. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988. xvi + 234 pp. Cloth, $29.95; paper, $14.95.)

Jim Griffith has produced a highly recommended, very readable, humorous and informative introduction to the folk arts displayed in southern Arizona. While predictably divided in attention between Anglo-, Hispanic-, and Native-American, it also provides the reader with information on recent immigrants â&#x20AC;&#x201D; both the "snow birds" who have brought many artistic traditions from other American regions and the recent arrivals from rich cultural traditions in Latin America and the Pacific rim. Underlying this feast of foreign cultures is the realization that modern life changes but does not diminish the importance of all traditional arts. As the social and economic position of these cultures change, individual forms of artistic expression rise or fall in importance for the public expression of personal and collective aesthetics. Griffith, a folklorist, un-

folds this story with a wit and wisdom gained from a life spent seeking, studying, and presenting the diversity and artistic integrity of the many groups who live on the lower desert.

Southern Arizona Folk Arts seeks to accomplish the impossible mission of covering the broad expanse of the region's folklife in a short introduction.

While every major ethnic, religious, and occupational distinction is mentioned, not every art form can be described. After an important chapter on celebration (the context of most of these folk arts), the continuing artistic traditions of Mexican-American music, foodways, murals, and even lowriders mix with a discussion of modern variants of cattle culture, Norwegian and Ukranian decorative arts, and Tohono O'odham baskets. The book presents a cornucopia of musical traditions â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the blues, fiddle associa-

190 tions, Yaqui music and powwows, bluegrass and eastern European dance music — and, thanks to Griffith's writing style, the description of these richly textured folk heritages never descends to a formulaic and repetitive discussion of mindless examples. Indeed, the deeper organization of this work is best understood by reading the introduction and final chapter first — before diving into the meat of the message. Or read it twice; its good enough to be repeated!

This book is a welcome addition to the classic commentaries on Arizona history and cultures. In the larger arena, it should be seen as part of the maturing process of state-sponsored folk arts programs. Having collected and presented the arts of local communities in festivals and exhibitions for more than a decade, Griffith, the head of the Southwest Folklore Center, is sharing his insights in a more permanent form. This volume specifically acknowledges the definition of folk arts used by the Folk Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folklife as models of broad inclusive formats, stretched and strengthened for this time. Hopefully, this thoughtful essay will replace earlier visual presentation styles oi Arizona Highways and other local-color magazines— adding art to our view from what Griffith calls ' 'outside the myth.''

Utah Historical Quarterly Southern Arizona Folk Arts represents one way to organize the materials collected within a particular locale — oriented to the present, explained by the past. It is not intended to substitute for histories of the region, nor is it a cultural correlative to the National Register of Historic Places in southern Arizona. In this context, historical description briefly encapsulates the source of the modern form. These thumbnail sketches confine themselves to what each of us should know about our long-time neighbors. Griffith notes, "All these arts are accessible to the interested public." This is history in the present, not a book of living cultures in the past. Therefore, many topics that popular history would lavish attention upon are absent or only briefly mentioned. For example, lives of the saints, pioneer experiences, gunfighters, and the coming of the railroad are not covered because their impact is principally historic.

This is a truly revolutionary account of southern Arizona. For students of the Southwest, as well as the casual visitor, it expands their knowledge and appreciation of the rich fabric of life on the desert of Arizona. It turns each day into a celebration of the people and the place, and is highly recommended, even if one never visits Tucson.

GARY STANTON

South Carolina Folk Arts Program

Joseph Smith HI: Pragmatic Prophet. By ROGER D . LAUNIUS. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988. xii -h 394 pp. $24.95.)

Born in late 1832, Joseph Smith III experienced the early years of Mormonism while yet a boy. Following the J u n e 1844 death of his father at the hands of an anti-Mormon mob. Smith grew up at Nauvoo, Illinois. His mother was strongly opposed to Brigham Young and the church he headed

in Utah, and the youthful Joseph was reared with a like-minded animosity toward Young and, particularly, the practice of plural marriage which he attributed to Young. Joseph Smith III could never countenance the notion that his father was involved with the emergence of polygamy — " I believe

Book Reviews and Notices my father was a good man, and a good man never could have promulgated such a d o c t r i n e , " quotes Roger Launius (p. 200).

This premise, quite clearly instilled in the young Smith by his mother, dictated the direction of Joseph Smith Ill's life, and, even when the evidence tended to indicate otherwise, he remained a staunch advocate of his father's noninvolvement with polygamy. Whether the challenges came from Brighamites (Utah Mormons), from faithful members of his own Reorganized LDS fold who had been privy to marital developments at Nauvoo, or from RLDS dissenters who were critical of Joseph Smith, J r . , the son zealously defended his perception of his father. As the author has astutely observed, Joseph Smith III "could never progress beyond his childhood perceptions of his father as a good man and refused to accept [Joseph Smith, J r . ' s role in] the introduction of plural marriage" (199).

Joseph Smith HL Pragmatic Prophet is much more than another look at the polygamy issue — even if from a different perspective — however, because its subject was a dynamic man in his own right. In 1860 he became the first prophet-president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints —a position he held for fiftyfour years. And, as Launius has concluded. Smith was " a man of principles and dedication to the truth as he saw it" (369). Not only did he oppose polygamy and try actively to reclaim the, in his eyes, misled Saints of Utah, but he sought to lead the RLDS church into the mainstream of American religious life and to free it from the later nineteenth-century national stereotype that all Mormons were misguided and unpatriotic dupes leading lascivious lives in the deserts of the Great Basin.

From Smith's perspective the true Lat-

191 ter Day Saints (RLDS) were loyal, monogamous. Christian people whose reputation had been tarnished by Brigham Young and his followers.

Roger Launius has written a firstclass biography which, in this reviewer's opinion, Utah Mormons, as well as others interested in American religious history, must read. Not just for the sake of enhanced understanding of the LDS-RLDS split but for the illustrations of patience and reason on the part of a religious leader that Smith's life seems to offer at nearly every turn.

For example, in the 1870s and 1880s the RLDS movement was faced with internal dissent from a theologically liberal element that included two church apostles. Joseph Smith III labored long and patiently to work out the difficulties, and only after much effort and at the strong urging of most of the church membership did he move to silence the dissidents. Perhaps his cautious approach was correct and perhaps not, but it certainly reflected the actions of a man who had genuine concern for all wehther or not their opinions were the same as his own.

Launius writes in a balanced, careful manner as he directs his readers along the paths Joseph Smith III trod.

Developments nationally, in Utah and the West, as well as the more directly significant events within Smith's inner circle are all well chronicled. What emerges from the pages o{Joseph Smith HI is a portrait of the leader of a smaller religious denomination who sought desperately to guide his church forward on the American religious scene, to escape the haunting ties with the Utah Mormons and polygamy, and to provide unity and direction for his own fold.

M. GUY BISHOP

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

192

Utah Historical Quarterly

King of Beaver Island: The Life and Assassination of James Jesse Strang. By ROGER NooRD. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988. xii -i- 335 pp. $24.95.)

Many continue to be captivated by the story of James Jesse Strang, a brilliant and ambitious man, who proclaimed to the world that heavenly messengers and Joseph Smith had anointed and appointed him to head the Mormon church. Of particular renown was his theatrical coronation on July 8, 1850, at Beaver Island, Lake Michigan. The king, as he was called by both his followers and detractors, was plagued by internal dissent throughout his ministry and was frequently in conflict with the fishing and whiskey-selling community of Mackinac Island. These people resisted Strang's challenge to their economic dominance in northern Michigan, resented Mormon political power, and insisted that the Mormons were a band of thieves. Strife with dissidents and outsiders continued until 1856 when two disillusioned followers of Strang mortally wounded the prophet. The non-Mormon population of Mackinac received Strang's assassins as heroes, after which the fishing community drove the dispirited and unorganized Mormons from the island. This familiar outline of Strang's life has been related by so many writers that one may wonder if this tale needs retelling, especially since the last serious biography of the prophet, Milo Quaife's Kingdom of Saint James (1930), was deftly graced with analysis and wit. However, King of Beaver Island, an amply researched and intelligent work, must now be considered the most important study of Beaver Island Mormonism.

The thesis of King of Beaver Island is that Strang was a brilliant dreamer who wanted desperately to occupy a permanent place in human memory.

He seized the opportunity of Joseph Smith's death in 1844 to advance him-

VAN

self and resorted to fabrication in order to promote his message and increase his power. This argument is not new; it has generally been the accepted explanation for those who have not believed Strang's version of events.

Strang's imposture, however, is not the author's sole preoccupation as he examines carefully, and usually dispassionately, the many facets and episodes of Strang's career. The scope of primary works utilized in this book is impressive, and many of Van Noord's sources were previously untapped.

The author permits these sources to speak for themselves, and although he does not avoid analysis the book is more narrative than interpretive. Because Van Noord integrates Strang's youthful correspondence with his coded diary we have a better understanding of Strang's young adulthood, which anticipates his later career as prophet, legislator, and king. The author devotes greater attention to the Beaver Island years than any previous writer and demonstrates that Strang padded his enumeration of the 1854 Michigan census; instead of a following of over 2,600, the author favors the estimates of contemporaries who suggested that only 500 Saints lived in the Beaver Island vicinity. He also details the federal court proceedings against Strang and his disciples in 1851 (charges of trespassing on government lands, tampering with the United States mails, and counterfeiting), of which the Saints were rightfully acquitted. Van Noord provides even-handed treatment of the numerous altercations between the Mormons and the fishing community of northern Michigan and makes sense of contradictory primary sources. The chapters on Strang's tenure in the Michigan House of Rep-

Book Reviews and Notices resentatives provide new information regarding an aspect of Strang's career that has been largely ignored (although Van Noord could have profited from the insights of Ronald Formisano in The Birth of Mass Political Parties in Michigan, 1827-1861).

Although Strang actively sought to pass legislation that favored Beaver Island, his concerns extended beyond his subjectsconstituents, suggesting that he was motivated by more than simple selfpromotion. Serving as a Democrat, Strang's voice reflected the fundamentalist wing of the party as he fought the passage of a general railroad bill and a prohibitionist Maine law bill (although he was a teetotaler), both of which he believed subverted individual rights.

But Strang was not a hack; his support for black suffrage and his ardent denunciation of the Fugitive Slave law demonstrate that he was not afraid of straying from the mainstream of his party (and unlike Brigham Young, Strang refused to exclude black males from the priesthood). Suprisingly, his contemporaries were impressed with his legislative abilities, and otherwise anti-Mormon newspapers praised him as one of the most talented legislators in the state.

While Van Noord successfully chronicles the events of Strang's career and suggests motivations, he fails to explain adequately why Strang attracted the devotion of several hundred individuals or why Strang's following was so volatile, especicdly during the early years of his ministry. A greater effort to place Strang within a larger context of both Mormon and American history might have helped. Did Strang offer a haven for Americans anxious about the enormous social changes in antebellum America? To many Mormons Strang's arguments concerning his prophetic succession seemed very convincing; John E. Page

193 and George Miller were at least two devotees who expressed spiritual conversions to Strang's claims before personally meeting the prophet. Van Noord correctly points out that Strang's emulation of Joseph Smith's prophetic credentials and his extraordinary charisma helped him gain the confidence of many Saints who were unenthusiastic about the administrative style of Brigham Young. Also, Strang initially represented a simpler gospel centered on the Book of Mormon, direct communication from heaven through a prophet, and condemnation of polygamy. When these hopes of a pristine faith were dashed a number of Strang's initial converts, such as William Marks, John Gaylord, John E. Page, Austin Cowles, Zenas Gurley, and Jason Briggs, discarded Strang's tenets and those of Nauvoo Mormonism and later sought spiritual solace with the Reorganized, Brewsterite, or Hedrickite churches.

Van Noord directs only brief attention to the spiritual and theological dimensions of Strang and his movement. The devotional aspects of the Beaver Island faith are neglected, and only a minimal analysis of Strang's book of scripture, the Book of the Law of the Lord, is provided. The work claimed to be a portion of the Law of Moses hidden from the world for thousands of years, and in the words of Milo Quaife, provided " a complete framework of government . . . applicable to any population, however great, and . . . regulations for the most important relations of human society." These laws included the celebration of holy days and the performance of plant and animal sacrifice, giving the Strangite church a strong Old Testament flavor. While Strang obviously incorporated many of the Nauvoo innovations into his own theology, he also attempted to design a

Utah Historical Quarterly

194 faith that diverged sharply from the religion established by Joseph Smith.

Van Noord's reluctance to deal with these themes at length may be due to the credence he places in the belief of Clement Strang, a son of the prophet, that James Strang never shed his youthful atheism. Even if Strang was a liar to the core, it seems reasonable that his theology and the spiritual life of his community should have been examined more thoroughly.

Despite these shortcomings. King of Beaver Island is a well-written book that surpasses all previous biographies of the prophet. While not the last word on Strang and his kingdom, it deserves scrutiny from students of both Mormon and Michigan history.

J O H N QUIST

University of Michigan

Book Notices

A Very Eligible Place: Provo and Orem, an Illustrated History. By KENNETH L .

CANNON II. (Northridge, Calif.: Windsor Publications, Inc., 1987.

128 pp. $24.95.)

Windsor Publications continues its tradition of producing high quality illustrated community histories. This volume takes its place alongside the histories of Ogden and Salt Lake City and a similar volume on Utah history produced by the same publisher. The author, a native of the area and a former resident and student in both of these Utah County cities, has nicely summarized a complex history into a few short chapters. His story captures the spirit of Provo and Orem, illustrating both their similarities and their differences. The photos and art illustrating the book are well-chosen and interesting and help make this an en-

joyable capsule history of these two important Utah cities.

"Big

Bill"

Haywood. By MELVIN (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. viii -i- 184 pp. $19.95.)

DUBOFSKY.

Born in Salt Lake City in 1869, William D. Haywood grew to young manhood there and in Ophir. At fifteen he left Utah for the mining camps in Nevada, Colorado, and Idaho where he began to formulate his views as a labor radical. He joined the Western Federation of Miners in 1896 and quickly distinguished himself as a powerful organizer and anti-capitalist orator. For a time he seemed to find his niche in the Socialist party, drawing audiences of up to 40,000 people to his speeches. Soon impatient with the pace

195

Book Reviews and Notices of politics, however, he turned his attention back to direct action and the Industrial Workers of the World. By 1916, as general secretary of the I WW, he held a national and international reputation as one of the nation's most prominant labor organizers.

Then came World War I, with its air of supercharged patriotism, and the Red Scare, with its reactionary politics, which effectively scuttled the Wobbly movement and drove Haywood into exile. Just as Dubofsky's able pen traces Big Bill's rise to success, it sketches with equal facility his unhappy decline. Especially interesting is the account of Haywood's years in the Soviet Union and eventual alienation from that culture. Dying there in 1928, Big Bill was given an elaborate funeral in Red Square. Half his cremated remains were placed beneath the Kremlin Wall and the other half returned to Chicago for interment next to the Hay market memorial.

A man of contradictions and inconsistencies. Big Bill Haywood is a special challenge to historians. Dubofsky has proven equal to the task. His brief, well-balanced biography is an illuminating analysis of one of Utah's most interesting and under-appreciated native sons.

This bibliography covers the period 1830 to 1930, the first one-hundred years of Mormonism. It coincides with the coverage of Flake's standard reference work, A Mormon Bibliography, 1830-1930, and, where appropriate, provides cross references between the two. The time-frame also matches the period the government was intensely interested in Mormonism. Indeed, by 1920 the interest had waned, as demonstrated by the reduction in the number of entries in this volume.

Students of Utah history will find this volume valuable, although, by concentrating on Mormonism, it purposely excluded secular Utah. Still, the reader will be led to other sources suggested by this volume, especially by the list of sources examined (p. ix) and the series index (pp. 355-57). Author/ Subject and Title indexes are also included.

To their credit, the authors have enlivened this bibliography, which, almost by definition, is bound to be pretty dry. They have chosen quotes from some of the sources listed and scattered them throughout the book.

These quotes provide the reader with a flavor of what was being published about the Mormons at the time, and they break up the monotony of the bibliographic citations.

Mormons and Mormonism in U. S. Government Documents. Compiled by SUSAN L. FALES and CHAD J . FLAKE. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah P r e s s , 1989. xiv + 357 p p . $30.00.)

Mormons at the Missouri, 1846-1852: "And Should We Die. . . ." By

U.S. government documents are a rich source for students of American history. Yet, as the compilers of this volume point out, access to government documents is difficult at best.

The purpose of this volume is to take some of the mystery out of research in government documents by listing sources dealing with Mormonism.

Between 1846 and 1852 the Missouri Valley was the transition between Joseph Smith's Illinois and Mormon Utah. This study is a detailed account of some twelve thousand Mormons during their stay at Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and Kaneville, Iowa. Part I looks at the reasons Nauvoo was aban-

RICHARD

E.

BENNETT.

(Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. xii + 347 pp. $24.95.)

Utah Historical Quarterly

196 doned, the Mormon trek across Iowa, the decision to spend the winter of 1846 at the Missouri River, the establishment of Winter Quarters, Mormon relationships with Indians and Indian agents, and the economic order in Winter Quarters. Part II examines Mormon social life in the Missouri Valley, sickness and death, religious life, and the reestablishment of the First Presidency.

Asserting that the Mormon sojourn in the Missouri Valley has been overlooked in a hurry to get the story to Utah, author Richard E. Bennett argues that '' Far too much happened in the Missouri Valley to be ignored any longer. Here revelations were proclaimed, apostolic supremacy and succession pronounced and made firm, and a battalion raised amid formidable obstacles and opposing attitudes. At Winter Quarters women exercised the priesthood, new patterns of worship were implemented, and plans for the great trek were solidified. Polygamy and the law of adoption and other new and barely tested doctrines were practiced in the open. And here faith deepened while apostasy flourished."

Cactus Thorn. By MARY AUSTIN. (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1988. ix -h 122 pp. $15.95.)

This 1927 novella was rejected by publisher Houghton Mifflin, and the manuscript had since Austin's death been in the Huntington Library's collection of her papers. Then Melody Graulich, who edited a collection of Austin's short stories for the University of Nevada Press in 1987, provided a foreword and afterword for this, its public appearance.

Set primarily in the desert country Austin understood so well. Cactus Thorn describes the sojourn of Grant Arliss, a New York reformer with a

growing political following, in the "land of little rain" where he finds inspiration, renewal, and the love of Dulcie Adelaid, a woman perfectly in tune with the desert. According to Graulich, the novella "finished off the final version of a character [Austin] had been creating, in various guises, for years: the radical male whose behavior falls short of his social vision, who fails to recognize what feminists of all generations have insisted upon, that the personal is political." Some readers will want to see in Arliss a depiction of Lincoln Steffens with whom Austin had an intense but ultimately disappointing relationship.

Life in Alaska: The Reminiscences of a Kansas Woman, 1916-1919. Edited by

DOROTHY WYNNE

ZIMMERMAN.

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. x -t- 171 pp. Cloth, $19.95; paper, $8.95.)

May Wynne Lamb taught school for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in a remote Eskimo village where she met and married a doctor sent there by the U.S. to open a hospital. Her reminiscences, penned in the 1930s, give readers a view of Alaska that differs markedly from that of the gold seeker and the missionary. Lamb's descriptions of daily life, government policy and practice, and the Eskimos during a transitional period are especially valuable.

Chester's Last Stand. By RICHARD E .

B R O W N . ( R e n o : U n i v e r s i t y of Nevada Press, 1988. vi -i- 194 pp. $16.95.)

Brown's comic novel, set in Missouri during the 1930s, uses American folklore traditions of the yarnspinner, the greenhorn, the fair farm girl who dreams of far away places, and so on to

197

Book Reviews and Notices say something about the American past ÂŁind also about how the individual can escape an apparently smothering destiny.

Exploring the Great Basin. By GLORIA GRIFFEN CLINE. (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1988. xviii -t254 pp. Paper, $8.95.)

During her brief life (1929-73) Gloria Griffen Cline wrote only two books, a study of Peter Skene Ogden and the Hudson's Bay Company (posthumously published) and this study of the exploration of the Great Basin, a revision of her 1958 Berkeley dissertation originally pubUshed in 1963. It was enough to assure her a permanent place in the historiography of western exploration, for this volume in particular has become a standard work, now happily available in paperback. Its greatest virtues perhaps are her impressive mastery of sources and her skill in interpreting the Great Basin's importance on an international scale.

Its only major shortcoming may be its early cutoff date: she concludes her story with the second expedition of John C. Fremont, who by 1844 was able to complete enough of a circumnavigation of the Great Basin to identify it as indeed a basin with no external drainage and thus constituting a separate geographical province.

The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains. By JOHN C . FREMONT. Introduction by HERMAN J . VIOLA and

RALPH

E.

EHRENBERG.

(Washington, D . C : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. xviii -i323 pp. Paper, $14.95.)

With this volume the Smithsonian inaugurates a new series of reprints of official reports of government and military explorations of the American

West. Most are classics in the literature of exploration, yet long out of print and expensive on the rare book market. This volume reprints Fremont's reports of his first two expeditions beyond the Rocky Mountains: his 1842 trip through South Pass to the Wind River Mountains and his 184344 traverse roughly of the Oregon Trail and into northern California.

The immediacy of Fremont's prose narrative and descriptive accounts makes it easy to see how he fired America's expansionist urges and became a national hero. The scientific depth of the reports, particularly in botany, geology, and topography, ought to impress the modern reader as well.

The WPA Guide to 1930s Arizona. Compiled by the WORKERS OF THE WRITERS' PROGRAM OF THE WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION IN THE

STATE

OF ARIZONA.

Foreword

by

Stewart L. Udall. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989. xxvi + 530 pp. Paper, $19.95.)

The WPA Guide to 1930s New Mexico.

Compiled by the WORKERS OF THE WRITERS' PROGRAM OF THE WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION IN THE

STATE OF NEW MEXICO. Foreword

by Marc Simmons. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989. xxxviii -I- 458 pp. Paper, $16.95.)

Originally published in 1940 under sponsorship of one of the New Deal's most interesdng programs, these two volumes have been given new titles, colorful covers, and engaging introductions by two very talented stylists.

Otherwise, they are the same as those that first emerged from the bindery a half-century ago: Part I describing history, geography, culture, economy, and the people; Part II dealing with cities; and Part III being a tour guide.

Utah Historical Quarterly

198 Although much of the material has been superseded by the years of c h a n g e , these volumes are still valuable to anyone who seeks to understand the American Southwest. They will also provide more than a little nostalgic delight to whoever cares to recall the experience of touring America's hinterland with supplies that included " a few yards of stout rope for towing purposes and in sandy country, a couple of burlap bags to give traction in getting out of ruts.''

In Search of Butch Cassidy. By LARRY POINTER. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977. xviii -i294 pp. Paper, $9.95.)

This excellent biography of Utah's most famous bad guy was issued as a paperback in September 1988.

The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior Society. By

ROYAL

B.

H ASS RICK.

(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. xx -f- 374 pp. Paper, $11.95.)

Originally published in 1964, this classic study has just undergone its seventh printing. The author analyzes the various facets of Sioux life and explores the question of why this tribe has always resisted assimilation into Anglo-American society.

Sweet Promised Land. By ROBERT LAXALT. (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1988. xxx -1-176 pp. Paper, $9.95.)

Sweet Promised Land is a delightful account of a journey Laxalt's Basque father made to his European homeland after forty-seven years as an immigrant sheepman in the American West. It is a tender, comical, and insightful narrative of going home only to discover that America has become home. The first edition won critical acclaim in 1957.

Indeh: An Apache Odyssey. By EVE BALL. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. xxiv -t- 334 pp.

Paper, $12.95.)

First published in 1980 by BYU Press, this award-winning oral history narrative presents a graphic account of Apache history and ethnography, including glimpses of Apache family life seldom disclosed to outsiders.

Nevada's Twentieth-century Mining Boom: Tonopah, Goldfield, Ely. By RUSSELL R. ELLIOTT. (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1988. xiv + 344 pp. Paper. $8.95.)

Reprint of a highly regarded 1966 study of the south-central Nevada mining boom that differed significantly from the bonanza days of the Comstock because of such factors as greater stability and protracted labor strife.

High Sierra Country. By OSCAR LEWIS. ( R e n o : U n i v e r s i t y of N e v a d a Press, 1988. x + 291 pp. Paper. $8.95.)

Reprint of a popular 1955 anecdotal history of life in the Sierra Nevada during the late nineteenth century.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Department of Community and Economic Development Division of State History BOARD OF STATE HISTORY THOMAS G . ALEXANDER, Provo, 1990

Chairman LEONARDJ. ARRINGTON, Salt Lake City, 1989

Vice-Cfiairman MAX J. EVANS, Salt Lake City

Secretaiy DOUGLAS D . ALDER, St. George, 1989 PHILLIP A. BULLEN, Salt Lake City, 1990 ELLEN G . CALLISTER, Salt Lake City, 1989 J . ELDON DORMAN, Price, 1990 HUGH C . GARNER, Salt Lake City, 1989

DAN E . JONES, Salt Lake City, 1989 DEAN L . MAY, Salt Lake City, 1990 AMY ALLEN PRICE, Salt Lake City, 1989 SUNNY REDD, Monticello, 1990

ADMINISTRATION MAX J. EVANS, Director JAY M . HAYMOND, Librarian STANFORD J. LAYTON, Managing Editor WILSON G . MARTIN, Preservation Manager DAVID B . MADSEN, State Archaeologist PHILLIP F . NOTARIANNI, Museum Services Coordinator JAMES L . DYKMAN, Administrative Services Coordinator

The Utah State Historical Society was organized in 1897 by public-spirited Utahns to collect, preserve, and publish Utah and related history. Today, under state sponsorship, the Society fulfills its obligations by publishing the Utah Historical Quarterly and other historical materials; collecting historic Utah artifacts; locating, documenting, and preserving historic and prehistoric buildings and sites; and 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 it live up to its responsibility of preserving the record of Utah's past.

This publication has been funded with the assistance of a matching grant-in-aid from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, under provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as amended.

This program receives financial assistance for identification and preservation of historic properties under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, nationed origin, or handicap in its federally assisted programs. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please v^rite to: Office of Equal Opportunity, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 20240.