Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, Number 1, 1998

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY (ISSN 0042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF

MAX J EVANS, Editor

STANFORD J LAYTON, ManagingEditor

KRISTEN S ROGERS, Associate Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS

AUDREY M. GODFREY, Logan, 2000

LEE ANN KREUTZER, Torrey, 2000

ROBERT S MCPHERSON, Blanding, 1998

MIRIAM B. MURPHY, Murray, 2000

ANTONETTE CHAMBERS NOBLE, Cora, WY, 1999

JANET BURTON SEEGMILLER, Cedar City, 1999

GENE A. SESSIONS, Ogden, 1998

GARY TOPPING, Salt Lake City, 1999

RICHARD S. VAN WAGONER, Lehi, 1998

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, documents, and reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah's history. The Quarterly is published four times a year by the Utah State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 Phone (801) 533-3500 for membership and publications information Members of the Society receive the Quarterly, Beehive History, Utah Preservation, and the bimontfily Newsletter upon payment of the annual dues: individual, $20.00; institution, $20.00; student and senior citizen (age sixty-five or over), $15.00; contributing, $25.00; sustaining, $35.00; patron, $50.00; business, $100.00

Materials for publication should be submitted in duplicate, typed double-space, with footnotes at die end Authors are encouraged to submit material in a computer-readable form, on SVz inch MSDOS or PC-DOS diskettes, standard ASCII text file For additional information on requirements contact the managing editor. Articles represent the views of the author and are not necessarily those of the Utah State Historical Society

Periodicals postage is paid at Salt Lake City, Utah

POSTMASTER: Send address change to Utah Historical Quarterly, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101.

"I HAVE STRUCK IT RICH AT LAST":

BARBARA J. MOREHOUSE A Place Called Grand Canyon: Contested Geographies .RICHARD D QUARTAROLI 88

GARY TOPPING, ed. Gila Monsters and Red-Eyed Rattlesnakes: Don Maguire's Arizona Trading Expeditions, 1876-1879 BRUCE J. DINGES 89

THOMAS CARTER, ed Lmages of an American Land: Vernacular Architecture in the Western United States JANET ORE 90

CLYDE A MILNER II, ed A New Significance: Re-Envisioning the History of the American West DAVID M. WROBEL 91

DONALD L. HARDESTY. The Archaeology of the Donner Party .. .BRUCE HAWKINS 93

STEPHEN TCHUDI, ed Science, Values, and the American West .M GUY BISHOP 93

In this issue

Enterprises that were derailed, detoured, or delayed: in this issue are the stories of people who set out to do one thing and ended up doing another.

For instance, with a wildly optimistic view of what twelve inches of rain can accomplish, the Promontory-Curlew Land Company set out to sell marginal agricultural lands in Utah and Idaho. The directors used every promotional gimmick they could devise, but what they could not offer was good farmland. Our first article describes their efforts and eventual failure.

The Iwakura Mission, an 1872Japanese delegation to the United States, was also detoured in its project, both literally and figuratively. A snowstorm stranded them in Salt Lake City, but our next article explains that the wait provided theJapanese the opportunity to revise the purpose of their mission.

The next two articles tell of individuals who failed in their goals—but only on the surface. Obadiah Riggs, territorial superintendent of schools, went head-to-head with John Taylor and Brigham Young over his proposals for school reform. He lost, but his visionary ideas later became reality. Photographer-prospector Charles Goodman always hoped to find the big gold strike, but instead he left a rich collection of images documenting southern Utah and Colorado

Interestingly, our final article pays tribute to a man who seems to have accomplished everything he set out to do and more At his death, Jesse D Jennings, the larger-than-life archaeologist, left a strong legacy of scholarship.

All of these people put enormous energy into their work But different goals, different circumstances, personalities, and approaches affected each enterprise in unique ways The resulting stories provide for fascinating comparisons.

Charles Goodman was on site to photograph this oil well on the lower Sanfuan, 1908. Courtesy ofspecial collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

This map of the Utah-Idaho dry-farming project appeared ca. 1913 in a brochure, "Opportunities in Box Elder County, "published by the Promontory-Curlew Land Company. It emphasizes the new town of Howell, existing rail lines, and projected routes, including the Utah-Idaho and the Salt Lake & Idaho railroads listed as under construction. Mileages shown are distancesfrom Salt Lake City. USHS collections.

Drilling for water on PromontoryCurlew lands, Bullen Collection, Merrill Library, Utah State University, Logan. Photograph of foseph Howell, Utah congressman, 1902-16, and president of the Promontory-Curlew Land Company, from a company brochure in USHS collections.

The Promontory-Curlew Land Company: Promoting Dry Farming in Utah

BY CRAIG L TORBENSON

I N 1959 THE PROMONTORY-CURLEW LAND COMPANY of Logan, Utah, dissolved all assets and ceased operation

Over the previous fifty years the company had sold land in Box Elder County, Utah, and Oneida and Cassia counties in southern Idaho. By examining the history of this company and its promotion of dry farming in order to sell land, one

Dr Torbenson is professor of history at Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas

can come to a better understanding of the environmental and economic difficulties of using marginal lands for agriculture.

The history of this company is divided into four phases. Although the phases overlap, each is distinct in terms of company activities and objectives The first phase involved the acquisition of land in 1909 The second spanned the years 1909-19, during which the company focused on selling land for dry farming. In the third phase, 1919-43, the focus shifted away from dry farming as the company tried to sell land for whatever use would make a profit. The fourth phase, 1922-59, was characterized by the sale of oil, gas, and mineral rights. The company's experience in selling acreage for different land uses is a microcosm of what occurred in the arid regions of the West

The Promontory-Curlew Land Company originated in the early twentieth-century promotion of dry farming in the western states. This agricultural practice relied on conserving soil moisture to cultivate land in areas that received less than twenty inches of annual rainfall.1 Dry farming, therefore, seemed to make agriculture practical without irrigation in the arid West. Older agricultural practices, developed in the less arid eastern states, did not work well in the West As a result, numerous dry-farming techniques were developed, including deep plowing, summer fallowing, controlling weeds to conserve moisture, keeping the top soil loose for better retention of moisture, and using less seed.2 Dry farming received a major boost through scientific research conducted byJohn A. Widtsoe at the Utah State Agricultural College in Logan during the early 1900s Through experiments Widtsoe established that soils could store up to two years' worth of moisture. In some areas not suitable for irrigation, therefore, dry farming might be both appropriate and successful.3

Residents of Utah enthusiastically embraced dry farming. Many in the northern counties, especially Cache, had practiced early forms of dry farming by the 1870s. Beginning in the 1890s, the development of dry-land farming in Utah and southern Idaho increased as farmers moved into drier areas and used or further refined these farming techniques.4 By 1907 nearly 94,000 acres in Utah were used to farm dry-

1 Joh n Edwin Lamborn, "A History of the Development of Dry-Farming in Utah and Southern Idaho" (master's thesis, Utah State University, 1978), p 8

2 Thomas Shaw, Dry-land Farming (St Paul: Pioneer Company, 1911), pp 8-10, 17-19, 121-130, 218-223

3 Alan K Parrish, "The Utah Experiment Station in the Widtsoe Years," Utah Historical Quarterly 63 (1995): 60

4 Charles S Peterson, "The 'Americanization' of Utah's Agriculture," Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (1974): 112-15.

land wheat.5 By 1929 this figure had more than tripled to 290,000 acres. This acreage represented only land that was currently being dry farmed and did not include land left fallow, an estimated 176,000 acres. 6 This expansion of dry farming in Utah mirrored regional trends in the western states

Another factor in the spread of agriculture onto marginal lands was the passage of the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. The act satisfied cattle ranchers by allowing them to homestead 320 acres of land instead of the normal 160 acres Ranchers were not the only ones to take advantage of the act, however. Over the next decade some 5,000 farmers in Utah applied for patents on dry-farm land.7

A number of land, water, livestock, and agricultural companies based on speculative business ventures organized in response to this agrarian land boom. By 1909 ten dry-land farm companies were operating in the state. While some companies sold land to farmers for dry farming, others went into dry farming as a business venture, sometimes using as many as twenty or more hired men to work the farm. Thus, in this as in other marginal land zones of the West, dry-farming promotion played a significant part in the economic development and expansion of agriculture.8

With available land and a promising technique for farming it successfully, a variety of promoters and speculators recognized the potential to make money. 9 One of the more prominent land promoters was Joseph Howell. A seven-term congressman from Utah (1902 to 1916), he was also a director of both the National City and the Farmers' & Stockgrowers' banks in Salt Lake City Well known as a Utah businessman and committed to the development of agriculture in Utah, he recognized the opportunity for a business venture with dry farming as the promotional instrument.

Howell knew of a vast tract of land for sale in Box Elder County and Cassia and Oneida counties in Idaho Whether he was looking for potential land purchases or whether someone brought this land to his

3 DeseretFarmer, February 23, 1907.

e U.S Department of Agriculture, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Utah Statistics by Counties, First Series (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1931), p 6; Joh n F Deeds and Depue Falck, Land ClassificationReportfor Utah, Geological Survey, U.S Department of Agriculture (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1932), p 15

7 Brian Q Cannon, "Struggle against Great Odds: Challenges in Utah's Marginal Agricultural Areas, 1925-39," Utah Historical Quarterly 54 (1986): 312

8 Utah, Secretary of State, Annual Report, 1911, pp 48-73

9 This often led to abuses as illustrated by the experience of Ludwig A Culmsee in Carlton Culmsee, "Last Free Land Rush," Utah Historical Quarterly 49 (1981): 30-31; and in William D Woelz, "Metropolis: Death of a Dream," Northeastern Nevada Historical SocietyQuarterly (Spring 1973): 3-15

H. E. Hatch

attention is not clear. Nevertheless, he leaped at the chance to purchase it and enlisted and organized a group of friends and business associates, with David Eccles, a multimillionaire businessman from Ogden, serving as major financier. Eccles was no stranger to dry farming; in 1904 he had organized the Blue Creek Land and M 1^ Livestock Company and then in 1907 shifted the jgA ^k emphasis of that company's activities from liveI J stock to dry-land farming.10 The congressman recruited two other important individuals: H. E. Hatch, president of the Thatcher Brothers' Bank in Logan, and Herschel Bullen, Jr., a state senator and close political associate of Howell.11 This group purchased land that included 614 sections in the Blue Springs (also called Blue Creek), Hansel, and Curlew valleys, in the surrounding mountains, and on Promontory Peninsula These lands had originally been part of the "checkerboard" land granted to the Central Pacific Railroad in 1862 and 1864. Charles Crocker, one of the owners of the Central Pacific, purchased the lands from the railroad in 1870 and formed a large livestock company to raise horses and cattle. For nearly forty years he and his heirs used the land extensively for ranching.12

By the early 1900s the Crocker family holdings totaled nearly 400,000 acres in Utah and Idaho. Split into two ranches (the Promontory and the Curlew) for ease of management, the large outfits faced declining profits during the 1890s. Since the ranches' trustees were unwilling to sell piecemeal, this limited the number of potential buyers.13

On July 12, 1909, Howell met with representatives from the Promontory and Curlew Ranch companies in Washington, D.C., to purchase the land. The total price was $510,000, or about $1.40 per

10 For more information about the life of David Eccles see Leonar d J Arrington, David Eccles: Pioneer Western Industrialist (Logan: Utah State University, 1975)

11 Herschel Bullen was elected to the Utah State Senate in 1906 He also served as secretary and/o r treasurer for the entire life of the Promontory-Curlew Land Company Bullen Papers MSS 178, Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University, Logan

12 Lydia Walker Forsgren, ed., History of Box Elder County ([Brigham City]: Box Elder County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1937), pp. 43-44.

13 "A Winning Combination on the Farms of Promontory-Curlew," brochur e published by the Promontory-Curlew Land Company, 1917 Bullen Papers, Box 3

Herschel Bullen, Jr.

acre. Along with the land, the sale included water rights, an essential component for any irrigated agriculture in the West Howell also acquired numerous farming implements located on the ranches. For an additional $10,000 he bought nearly 3,000 head of cattle, over 200 horses, and almost 200 pigs.14

On August 14, 1909, the Promontory-Curlew Land Company was organized with David Eccles as president, Howell as vice-president, H E. Hatch as treasurer, Herschel Bullen, Jr., as secretary, and Seth A. Langton as manager. The company planned to "own, use, control, operate, develop, buy, sell all kinds of lands and real estate, canals, reservoirs, artesian, flowing or other wells, and to mortgage or lease the same . . . and to conduct and carry on the business of farming, ranching, and stock-raising."15

Eccles, Howell, and Hatch each received one-fourth of the company stock The remaining stock was offered to the public at $100 per share with 1,200 shares available.16 The company chose Logan, Utah, as its base of operation. The new company incorporated the ranches' former names in its new legal title, both for reasons of continuity and because the terms referred to prominent geographical features of the area—the Promontory Mountains and the Curlew Valley. With past and present thus linked, the new owners could hope to attract buyers to their dry-farm bonanza tracts.

After incorporating, the new owners faced several items of business to complete before the land could be sold. The land had to be surveyed and appraised, a town site selected, and improvements begun in order to attract buyers. An appraisal committee composed of Seth Langton and Oleen N. Stohl (directors of PromontoryCurlew), Newell Bullen (brother of Herschel), and Thomas Davis (former manager for the Promontory and Curlew Ranch companies) was organized to assess the company's land assets.17 ByJanuary 1910 the committee had completed nearly two-thirds of the appraisals and classified the land according to best potential use. The appraised prices reflected the tracts' agricultural potential; land suitable only for dry farming was valued around $10 per acre, irrigated lands between $35

14 Promontory-Curlew Land Company, "Minutes of the Board of Directors," August 16 and September 10, 1909, Bullen Papers, box 3 (hereinafter cited as "Minutes")

15 "Incorporation Papers of the Promontory-Curlew Land Company," Bullen Papers, box 4

16 "Minutes," August 16, 1909; Richard Stoddard, "A Master's Thesis," Joseph Howell Collection MSS 1463, Special Collections and Manuscripts, Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo

17 "Minutes," September 10, 1909

APPRAISED LAND VALUE

Promontory-Curlew Land Company

Irrigated Land: Over $35

Dry-Farming Land: $9 - $13

Transitional Land: $3 - $8.50

Grazing Land: $.50 - $2.50

Land Appraisal Not Known

Source: Promontory-Curlew Brochures and Company Minutes

and $65 per acre, and grazing lands between 50 cents and $2.50 per acre. The appraised land value totaled over $1.68 million.18

Ibid., January 13, 1910

The company held clear title to nearly 370,000 acres. Based on the appraised values, the company had roughly 3,000 acres of irrigated land, 35,000 acres of dry-farm land, 154,000 acres of grazing land, and 178,000 acres of what can be termed transitional land—land appraised between $2.50 and $10 per acre. 19

The company also selected a town site and prepared it for settlement. Since most of the potential land purchasers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the board sought church involvement in the selection of the town site. The board deputized Herschel Bullen to meet withJoseph F. Smith to solicit the LDS church president's opinion in locating the town. The board apparently hoped that Smith would encourage church members living along the Wasatch Front and in Cache Valley to move to the town site and build homes there. Smith expressed interest in helping to select a site, but he was unable to make a personal visit and appointed one of the board's directors to represent the church.20

The town site was located in the Blue Springs Valley near the Big House, a structure originally built by Charles Crocker near Promontory Station. The Big House, described as a "millionaire's palace and sportsman's lodge," had been moved in 1908 to a location along the Blue Creek. In 1910 John Baxter, owner of a mercantile store in Cache Valley, was recruited by Howell to move out to the town site and sell land Baxter purchased the Big House and operated it as a combined post office and store. He served prospective land buyers as their host and real estate agent.21

The new town, named Howell in honor of Joseph Howell, comprised 309 lots. To the south of town, 2,400 acres were divided into 20acre plots for irrigation. Individuals who purchased company land for dry farming enjoyed first priority on purchasing irrigable lands. Realizing that available water might serve as a magnet for buyers, the company willingly appropriated time and money to improve and construct the infrastructure for both irrigation and culinary water. The town site included a dam built by the Promontory and Curlew Ranch companies on the Blue Springs Creek. While it might have been sufficient for watering stock, the new owners invested in much-needed

19 Herschel Bullen, "History of the Promontory-Curlew Land Company, 1964," Bullen Papers, box 4; appraisal values from "Company Minutes and Appraisal Notebook." Of this appraisal, the value of nearly 9,000 acres, indicated on the map by an asterisk, is unknown Sections with a star represent land appraised for both irrigation and dry-farming purposes but predominately irrigation

20 "Minutes," September 10, 1909; February 20, 1911

21 Ibid., October 1, 1909; H Leon Kotter, Howell Valley History 1909-1975 (n.p., n.d.), p 4

improvements, including raising the dam's height, providing a larger spillway, and installing new cement headgates. Two canals were constructed for better distribution of irrigation water. For culinary purposes, the company built a cement reservoir with a capacity of 100,000 gallons. The reservoir's source, a nearby fresh spring, was connected to it by an efficient pipe-feed system. To provide additional water, the company dug wells within the town site.22 The directors' attempts to ensure a steady supply of water became a prominent and recurrent theme in the early history of the company.

Despite these efforts, Promontory-Curlew failed to entice many people to build in Howell Next, in an attempt to make the town site more appealing, the directors devised a cooperative plan for home construction. Under its terms, prospective settlers paid between onethird and one-half the cost of a town cottage while the company financed the remainder. The settler would then repay the company on an easy installment plan. The idea failed, however; people simply were not attracted to the town site. With few exceptions, those interested in purchasing Promontory-Curlew land were farmers who preferred to live close to their crop fields rather than in town.23 Howell

22 "Minutes," October 1, 1909

23 Bullen, "History of Promontory-Curlew Land Company"; "Minutes," September 19, 1910; July 29-August 19, 1912

The dam at the Howell town site. Bullen Collection, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

never attained the population envisioned by the company's board of directors, with only thirty-four families living in the town in 1949.24

The promotion of the town represented only part of the company's plans; its main business was the sale of farm land The company held its first sale in October 1909. With the completion of the land appraisal in Blue Springs Valley, 40,000 acres were available for sale. The terms of sale stipulated a 20 percent cash down payment with the balance due in ten annual payments at 7 percent interest. The board, believing that the appraisals were low, agreed that no land would be sold under its appraised value. At this first sale, 28,757 acres were sold using sealed bids. Three more land sales, again using sealed bids, were held over the next six weeks, disposing of an additional 52,146 acres Thus, within a month and a half, the company sold 80,903 acres, or over one-fifth of the original land purchase All had sold at or above the appraised value. Sales continued into 1910, with the company using newspapers as well as word of mouth to advertise their lands. As a result, over 53,000 additional acres were sold.25

These were the Promontory-Curlew company's golden years (1909-10) for selling dry-farm parcels. Since the most promising lands had been those first sold, interest in the area soon waned, and land sales plummeted. The decline was not surprising. With average annual precipitation running about 12.6 inches, much of the company's land was simply too dry to support even the dry-farming techniques developed for marginal lands. That, coupled with the area's severe winters, made life and farming, already precarious, downright insufferable Even the company's timing worked against it; in terms of climate 1909 and 1910 were particularly harsh. The extremely severe winter of 1909 was followed by the unusually dry summer of 1910. As a consequence, land sales dropped precipitously. Only 719 acres sold in 1911 and 3,313 acres in 1912.26

By 1913 significant portions of the Blue Springs and Hansel valleys were being dry farmed; the Curlew Valley, however, remained untouched. The company attempted to attract settlers there by digging a deep well that cost $1,500. To further demonstrate the potential of the land, the company fenced in the half-section around the well and planted all 320 acres in wheat and rye. In its first year, this demonstration plot produced a fair yield, which proved to be a bonanza for

24 Kotter, Howell Valley History, p.ll

25 "Minutes," October 1, October 20, November 4, November 24, December 9, 1909; 1910

26 Ibid., 1911 and 1912

local gophers and ground squirrels Despite this success, few settlers were impressed enough to move to the Curlew tracts.27

The Promontory-Curlew Land Company was not alone in having difficulties promoting the Curlew Valley. The Utah-Idaho Land and Water Company, another business enterprise operating in the Curlew Valley, constructed a dam in 1914 to provide irrigation for farming The dam initially filled its reservoir, but the project fell short of hopes. The reservoir proved to be leaky; this, coupled with irrigation use, left it dry after only two months. The same problem occurred the following year. The difficulties of farming in the drier Curlew Valley hampered both companies' attempts to attract farmers. 2 8 While both companies saw economic potential for this valley, the farmers themselves could see that the physical environment was not conducive to agriculture and avoided the area

By 1917 Promontory-Curlew had recorded dismal land sales for six consecutive years. During that time the company tried a more aggressive approach to attract buyers by publishing a variety of promotional brochures The most elaborate of these presented the best propaganda the company could muster for itself as well as its properties. It was richly illustrated with portraits of the board of directors, scenes from successful dry farms, pictures of buildings in Howell, and a map showing the lands already sold and those still available for sale. The company had previously canvassed farmers who had already purchased land, and the brochure included many of their comments such as "land is cheap and good," "crops grow well and do not burn up," "good wheat land," and "a good climate." These statements provided potential purchasers with testimony of the land's viability for farming, presenting the area's physical geography and climate in a positive context.29

While emphasizing the positive, the promotional brochure did not present the Promontory-Curlew development as a no-risk proposition. Hard work and adherence to dry farming techniques were needed for success The brochure cautioned: "If you are not experienced—if you are a failure—if you haven't enough money to start on—DON'T START—because Promontory Curlew is not for you." If this did not frighten away potential customers, the brochure continued by listing all the equipment a farmer needed: "four or five

27 Bullen, "History of Promontory-Curlew Land Company."

28 "Minutes,"July 8, 1915

29 "^\ Winning Combination" brochure

horses; a farm wagon; a set of farm harnesses; three single sets of harness for plows, etc.; a set of railroad rails for grubbing; a gang plow; a harrow; a drill; a header box and at least a third interest in a 12-foot header."30

Company literature provided a detailed plan of action for the first few years of farming. This scheme emphasized planting wheat, the area's most successful crop, as well as oats, barley, rye, and hay. In addition, the plan stressed the importance of sinking a well. The capital investment required for dry farming was quite high, but the company obviously wanted farmers who had enough money to begin and who could farm successfully in order to make their yearly payments. In this regard, the company had met with indifferent success in the first few years of sales; directors' minutes after 1910 consistently recorded farmers who asked for a reduction in their payments, a decrease in the interest charged, or, when really desperate, a complete release from their contracts. Consequently, the company focused on attracting a

Growing oats in the Curlew Valley. Bullen Collection, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

hard-working, energetic farmer, the sort likely to remit his yearly payments on time.31

Ibid.; "Minutes," 1910; October 8, 1911; November 20, 1915; October 2, 1918.

Although subsequent land sales did not live up to the bonanza promise of the initial offering, the company still managed to dispose of over half of its holdings within its first decade. Total sales for Promontory-Curlew had reached more than $1 million by 1918, but over 155,000 acres remained unsold and the directors still hoped to realize profits from these.32 The next year, therefore, they looked for new ways to attract buyers to the remaining tracts These new ventures marked the company's entry into a third phase of developing operations that would last until 1943

The first indication of the advent of this new era was the hiring of an outside agent to push the property. G. M. Henderson from Kansas City, Missouri, was selected as the company's new sales representative. Henderson's contributions to the sales effort consisted of three strategies to sell or trade away the slow-selling land. The first involved recruiting farmers from the Midwest. Henderson had a group of farmers from Indiana willing to pay cash, but they demanded a warranty deed that reserved all mineral rights for the purchasers The board of directors vetoed this proposal.33

A second, more elaborate, scheme involved Henderson putting together a deal for a syndicate that included the purchase of a coal company, the Central Iowa Fuel Company. The deal called for Promontory-Curlew to sell its remaining acreage and to physically part with the land titles before being paid. Although the directors balked at the proposal, it must have held significant attractions, since the board sent Herschel Bullen to Iowa to check on the details Ultimately, the board voted down this proposal too.

Henderson's final strategy consisted of Henderson himself purchasing the land, then selling smaller parcels on a deferred-payment basis Only those prospects financially capable of making the payments would be allowed to participate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the board approved this strategy, but the scheme fell through and the expected sales from this proposal never materialized.34 With the failure of the Henderson schemes and few other sales probable, the company offered all its holdings for a price of $350,000 in 1921. No one made an offer.35

By now the directors could see the futility of promoting their

32 Bullen, "History of Promontory-Curlew Land Company."

33 "Minutes," August 4, 1919.

34 Ibid., May 18-October 11, 1920.

35 Ibid., March 14, 1921

remaining lands for dry farming. These disappointments did not stop the Promontory-Curlew's directors from seeking some way to turn a profit on their remaining desert lands. In 1923 the company tried something new by purchasing an apartment complex in Kansas City, Missouri L Boyd Hatch, son of company president H E Hatch, supervised the deal. The board examined several apartment buildings before purchasing Harrison Court, a new building with 26 units valued at $115,000. Part of the trade for the building included 30,000 acres of land. The investment initially did well. With the advent of the Great Depression in late 1929, however, rental income dropped. The company accordingly suffered losses every year until they sold out in 1942.36

The brief profitability of the Kansas City investment aside, the company's post-World War I land deals followed a depressive pattern

All of its postwar land sales resulted in paper losses based upon the difference between the inflated appraisal price and the generally much lower selling price. The dynamics of this relationship are revealed in the 1924 sale of a large parcel of Promontory-Curlew land. A rival land and livestock company purchased nearly 31,000 acres for a negotiated price of $15,500, equivalent to 50 cents an acre. The appraisal price of this land totaled over $110,000; the sacrifice of the $94,500 difference may reveal something of the desperation felt by the PromontoryCurlew's directors.37

The directors were sometimes less willing to cut their losses In 1926 Luther Foss, a millionaire businessman from Los Angeles, located a company that offered to purchase Promontory-Curlew's remaining 100,000 acres for $35,000, or about 35 cents an acre. The appraised value of this land was $400,000. The board rejected the offer but in retrospect probably wished they had accepted. Foss made no counter-offer, and in the next year Promontory-Curlew dropped the price first to $35,000 and then to $25,000; there were no takers.38 This episode illustrates the dangers of asking a grossly inflated appraisal price for marginal land. The directors had ample opportunity to savor this lesson, as they would be unable to sell any of their remnant acres at the appraised value. The 1920s and 30s were difficult decades for the Promontory-

36 Ibid., September 21, October 14, 1923; October 14, 1924; May 19, 1942; Bullen, "History of Promontory-Curlew Land Company."

37 "Minutes," October 14, 1924

38 Ibid., March 30, 1926; October 5, 1927

Curlew Land Company and for Utah agriculture in general as adverse environmental, sociocultural, and economic factors afflicted farmers throughout the state Those operating dry farms were especially hard hit.39 The minutes of the board meetings reflect a lethargy in tone and activity. There were few land sales, and, overall, the company cut back most of its operations The situation did not improve in the 1940s, although the company was able to dispose of its remaining surface rights, nearly 57,000 acres, in 1943 to the Bar B Company for $15,000 while retaining most of the subsurface rights.40

The retention of mineral rights would provide a key to the dynamics of the Promontory-Curlew's fourth phase of operations. This phase in fact overlapped the third one, as initial inquiries concerning oil were made prior to 1920. At that time the company had opted not to sell leases without first having the property professionally evaluated. Within a few years, however, the company would seek buyers and lessors on the strength of hydrocarbon potential. From 1922 until 1959 the company would pin its hopes on the disposal of land and/or its subsurface rights for oil, gas, or mineral exploration.41 In an ironic twist, the Promontory-Curlew's hard luck followed it into this fourth phase of endeavor Although it was able to sell or lease land for this purpose, all attempts to discover any mineral resources proved unsuccessful.

Several abortive attempts to recover resources were made during the 1920s, but the first serious effort began in 1930 when Californian Luther Foss returned to purchase a tract of nearly 77,000 acres, complete with mineral rights, on which to search for oil. Foss made this investment based on a report by geologist S Goring Vidler, who said: "During my twenty odd years in the profession as a geologist and having had seven fields already to my credit, I wish to say that from the geological and physical evidences here, this should be one of the greatest potential fields that has yet been discovered on the North American continent."42 Vidler's optimistic evaluation was based on the presence of naturally occurring asphalt at the surface throughout the region. The search for oil nevertheless proved fruitless, and in 1937 the contract was canceled Between 1948 and 1956 the Utah Southern Oil Company leased the Promontory-Curlew's remaining under-

39 Cannon, "Struggle against Great Odds," pp 308-14

40 "Minutes," October 7, 1943

41 Ibid., May 27, 1918

42 Ibid., February 14, 1930-December 10, 1936; Bullen, "History of Promontory-Curlew Land Company."

ground rights and drilled four test wells Although one well reached the depth of 12,500 feet, the test results showed little promise. Faced with such meager prospects, Promontory-Curlew sold their remaining underground rights in August 1959 for 50 cents an acre. With that final sale, the company dissolved as a corporation in an act foreordained nearly two decades before At a meeting on February 3, 1940, the directors had voted to liquidate remaining assets. With the terminal disposal of assets, the company's half-century of life came to an end.43

The modus operandi of the PromontoryCurlew Land Company

was the use of dry farming as a promotional instrument to sell its land. All companies or speculators who tried to sell marginal land in the arid West faced problems, and Promontory-Curlew was no exception. To attract settlers to an area, land companies would often lay out a town site and construct a dam and canals. These investments succeeded in initially attracting settlers.44 The active interest of the directors of Promontory-Curlew is clearly visible in the specific projects they developed, such as laying out a town site, constructing a dam and canals, proposing housing construction, drilling wells, and planting fields. Almost every transaction between Promontory-Curlew and the settler was a ten-year venture. The success of the company depended on farmers who could earn enough to make their yearly payments.

Drilling for oil on Promontory-Curlew lands. Bullen Collection, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

"Oil and Gas Lease" D, Bullen Papers, box 7; "Minutes," August 11, 1959 Marshall E Bowen, Utah People in the Nevada Desert (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1994)

Harvesting

Thus, the goals of the directors and the individual farmers were tied together; neither could make money without a successful harvest.

A major and persistent problem in sparsely populated dry-farming areas was the lack of infrastructure. The absence of roads as well as social institutions such as schools and public services tended to deter potential farmers from relocating to the arid countryside. 4 5 For example, children who attended elementary schools often had to travel several miles, while students in high school often had to move to the bigger cities during the academic year. The lands sold by Promontory-Curlew, like many other dry farming promotions, were located at some distance from settled areas Therefore, the company's attempt to establish a town at Howell was an effort to create a cluster of population within which social institutions would be more readily available to the farmers in the area. 46

The company's attempts to attract Latter-day Saint settlers may also have been meant to mitigate the isolation; the Mormon church offered opportunities for fellowship and socialization through church-

in the Blue Creek Valley. Bullen Collection, Merrill Library, Utah State University.

45 Mary Wilma M Hargreaves, Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains: 1900-1925 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), pp 485-88

46 Another example was the establishment of the town of Metropolis in northeastern Nevada by the Pacific Reclamation Company That company focused on attracting merchants to the town site as well as homesteaders to the area See Bowen, Utah People in the Nevada Desert. Promontory-Curlew's town site of Howell was designed for farmers who would be irrigating and/o r dry farming in the area There is no indication that any attempt was made to attract businesses to Howell

related activities.47 While the provision of a social net was not Promontory-Curlew's primary concern, their efforts in this vein suggest that the directors comprehended the discouraging nature of the usual dry-farm isolation.

Another obstacle faced by dry farmers was the distance goods had to be transported to market.48 Farmers living in the Blue Springs, Hansel, and Curlew valleys faced journeys of as much as twenty-five miles in order to transport crops to the nearest railhead. A rail line ran roughly through the center of company lands, yet transporting goods to rail stations was still a hardship for many farmers The board of directors recognized this problem. While no direct evidence exists to suggest the directors approached the owners of the Southern Pacific Railroad about installing a line through company lands, the railroad was considering construction of such a line through either the Blue Springs or Curlew Valley as early as 1911. In keeping with the efforts made by Promontory-Curlew to improve company lands, it would seem likely that the directors made such an effort. The completion of a rail connection would have been economically beneficial to farmers and improved the company's prospects of selling more land. After examining the feasibility of running a line through either of these valleys, Southern Pacific opted not to construct a line in 1912.49

Climatic variables also exacerbated the problems in areas lacking infrastructure and lying far from market or transportation centers.50 The Promontory-Curlew's declining success in promoting dry-farm land sales almost certainly had much to do with the physical environment of the property. Prospective buyers could easily recognize the main features of the area's harsh and unpredictable environment: hot, dry summers, hailstorms, lightning strikes, early frosts, late springs, chilly winds, severe winters with snowstorms, and drought. The company's portrayal of the area as ideal for dry farming was disingenuous at best, verging on deceptive. Concerning precipitation, the most important variable of dry farming, the company stated:

And—remember this—an annual precipitation of 12 inches at Promontory-Curlew means far more to growing crops than 20 or even 30

47

Bowen, Utah People in the Nevada Desert, pp 14-15

48 Hargreaves, Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains, pp 491-92

49 "Minutes," 1911, 1912; Jun e 14-August 19, 1912

50 Hargreaves, Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains, pp 498-502

The Pacific Reclamation Company also focused on attracting Mormon settlers to their town and lands because they were "industrious, sober, and mor e likely than others to pay their installments."

inches on land that has been farmed for many years. This deep, rich, virgin soil, with the stored-up plant life of many centuries, has a high moisture-retaining quality On this land, 12 inches of precipitation, with the cool nights and heavy dews, are ample for the successful raising of grains—particularly wheat.51

Under proper climatic conditions dry farming could be successful, as shown through scientific research and the experiences of many successful practitioners It was a tricky livelihood, however; and the success of the technique varied according to such factors as the amount, distribution, and timing of precipitation, temperature, slope of the land, soil character, and wind. While one farmer could plant wheat and have a great harvest, a few miles away another farmer would have a dismal yield. Both farms might receive the same amount of precipitation, yet the other physical factors could vary, to the fortune of one and the bankruptcy of the other.52 The company obviously stretched the potential of the region beyond the boundaries of reality. Whether intentional or not, this "improvement" made sense in light of the company's business: to promote the sale of land for this agricultural practice.

The region's wildlife posed yet another obstacle for would-be dry agrarians. Ground squirrels, gophers, and rabbits feasted on the wheat and in some areas destroyed as much as 60 percent of the crop; the animals' enthusiastic consumption of the company's demonstration crop in 1913 mirrored the experiences of surrounding landholders Perhaps a farmer might survive one of these hazards. More often than not the area and those farming within it would be subjected to drought, floods, varmints, and possibly other obstacles to successful harvests, all within a single year. 53

The physical environment of the dry farms not only handicapped potential yields, but it also worked hardships on those attempting to farm. In addition to the requirements of crops or gardens, farmers also needed water for livestock and for their own consumption. Providing culinary water was a necessity for attracting settlers to any dry-farm area. To meet this challenge, Promontory-Curlew spent significant money and time improving the infrastructure for water at the Howell town site. The Curlew Valley well, primarily a promotional symbol, likewise spoke to this need. It was also, unfortunately, symbolic not only of the availability of water but also of the difficulty of recov-

6i "A Winning Combination," brochure

52 Cannon, "Struggle against Great Odds," pp 312-13

53 "Minutes," October 4, 1916, October 2, 1918

ering it; in order to reach water the well was drilled to a depth of 300 feet. This depth was not atypical for the district. As a result, area wells represented some of the deepest and most costly in Utah.54

A final problem for dry farmers involved the fluctuating price of wheat. Farmers in northern Utah suffered, as did their counterparts in other areas of the country, when supply exceeded demand. Farmers enjoyed stable prices in the years prior to World War I and benefitted from the wartime boom, but postwar overproduction glutted national markets and prices sank. The farmer became sorely pressed to make ends meet. This was especially the case on marginal lands where, for example, in 1917 potential crop yields of 30 to 40 bushels per acre had declined to 5 to 10 bushels.55

Like Promontory-Curlew, most dry farming promotional companies and their customers suffered from such trends What made the Promontory-Curlew Land Company unique was the sheer size of its land holdings. While other companies operated with tens of thousands of acres, Promontory-Curlew operated with hundreds of thousands. This was reflected in the size of the farms located in the Blue Springs and Hansel valleys The average size of a farm (1936) in the Hansel Valley was 983 acres, with 436 acres used for dry farming; in the Blue Springs Valley the average size was 633 acres with 410 used for dry cultivation. Farms located in other dry-land areas of Utah were, on average, one-third to one-quarter the size of the Hansel and Blue Springs farms The large size of the Promontory-Curlew farms may have resulted from the large scale of the original land acquisition, use of the farms specifically for dry farming, the Enlarged Homestead Act, and the farms' distance from any water sources for use in irrigation.56

Or, perhaps, the large size of tracts sold suggests the intent of the sellers The objective of Promontory-Curlew was, after all, to sell land

In this sense, it was a successful speculative business venture for Howell, Eccles, Bullen, and others who invested in the company. By 1918 the directors had recouped their investment and made an additional $500,000. On the other hand, selling land for dry farming was less successful; agricultural performance never equaled what the company had projected, perhaps because of the over-optimistic evaluation

54 Norah E Zink, Dry Farming Adjustments in Utah (Chicago: University of Chicago Libraries, 1937), p 50

55 "Minutes," October 3, 1917.

56 Zink, Dry Farming Adjustments in Utah, pp 52-53

of the land itself. Although nearly 56 percent of the company's land was marketed as suitable for dry farming, it is calculated that at least 84 percent of this 56 percent was in fact questionable.57 Throughout the West and Great Plains, numerous areas thrived using dry-land farming. For nearly every success story, however, there was a story of failure.58 The same is true with the farmers who purchased Promontory-Curlew lands. While the landscape of the area is dotted with abandoned farms representing the dreams and hopes of past farmers, there are also numerous farms that are successful in the region today.

The processes of success or failure in dry farming affected land companies throughout the West Promontory-Curlew was one company that had early success in selling land for dry farming. However, the appraised value of their remaining lands totaled nearly $700,000. Although the company can be deemed a successful business venture on the basis of the money generated, its original expectations, given the land appraisals, were not met. Thus, the paradox of PromontoryCurlew: it was a successful money-generating business venture that was only partially successful in selling land by promoting dry farming However, this is what the company is remembered for. Its legacy as a promoter of dry farming in order to sell land contributes to the agricultural and business history of Utah.

57 The 56 percent is derived from the original land appraisal and includes all lands (not irrigated) appraised over $2.50 per acre This dollar value was the upper limit for grazing land While the company appraised dry-farming land at around $10.00 dollars per acre, 84 percent of the land was appraised between $2.50 and $9.00 The company hoped to sell these lands for dry farming, but the transitional nature of this large acreage prevented them from reaching that goal

58 Marshall Bowen, "Bitter Times: The Summers of 1915 and 1916 on Northeast Nevada's Dry Farms," Northeastern Nevada Historical Quarterly 93 (1993): 3-25; Barbara Allen, Homesteading the High Desert (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987)

The Iwakura Mission and Its Stay in Salt Lake City

BY WENDY BUTLER

EARLY ON THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 3, 1872, more than one hundred Japanese stepped off an eastbound train in Ogden, Utah Territory It was a cold and exceedingly windy day. Kume Kunitake, whose responsibility it was to keep the group's official journal, wrote that

Prince Iwakura, ca. 1872. Courtesy of IDS Church Archives.

Wendy Butler lives in Provo and is a history major at Brigham Young University

To the east there are mountains and to the west there are mountains. Ogden has three thousand people and the Weber River runs through it. Because of the great snowfall in the Rocky Mountains, the rail lines are buried in snow. The railroad company sent several thousand men to clear it, but it is still not clear. We took the Utah Central Railroad to Salt Lake City.1

This group represented the lion's share ofJapan's new Meiji government. Just four years earlier, in 1868, the country had experienced the Meiji Restoration. Its main objective was the overthrow of the military government, the Tokugawa Shogunate, that had ruled feudal Japan since 1600. The Meiji Restoration theoretically restored power to the emperor, but MeijiJapan was actually governed by an oligarchy of former samurai and a court noble. Half of this oligarchy, and twothirds of the government, left Japan in the winter of 1872 to tour the world for a year and a half while a caretaker government was left in charge. Historians call this group the Iwakura Mission because of its top ranking member, Iwakura Tomomi (1825-83), the only court noble in the oligarchy, Minister of the Right and second in rank behind the emperor. Other high-ranking officials included Iwakura's deputies, Kido Takayoshi and Okubo Toshimichi These two were former leading samurai from Choshu and Satsuma, domains that had been instrumental in the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate. They also played influential roles as leaders ofJapan's push for modernization after the Iwakura Mission. Other members, like ltd Hirobumi, were younger, unproven statesmen who would later affect Japanese politics for decades. The mission also included Japan's top bureaucrats and military leaders.

The prestigious make-up of the embassy was extraordinary. Most striking, it showed a high level of confidence—first, that the government would survive so soon after a major change and for an extended length of time without most of its leaders at home, and second, that the tour was necessary and important. Japan's early Meiji leaders had high expectations that they would gain useful facts and insights from the western world that would affect the future of Japan

The Iwakura Mission was also the largest and most influential assembly ofJapanese statesmen ever to leave that country. There had been much smaller shogunate missions to the West in the 1860s, but none compared with the Iwakura Mission Even though it had only 49 official members, as many as 58 others traveled with the embassy.

1 Kume Kunitake, Tokumei zenken taishi: Bejo kairanjikki ["A True Account of the Tour in America and Europe of the Special Embassy"], 5 vols (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1977), pp 137-38

Interpreters, baggage handlers, students, and samurai retainers swelled the ranks to more than twice its official size.

No one discounts the Iwakura Mission's impact on the shaping of modern Japan, yet confusion exists concerning its purpose Historians today cite a combination of three reasons for the convening of the Iwakura Mission: to display the new Meiji government's control of power, to renegotiate unequal treaties with western powers, and to gather information about the West and its modernization. 2 Marlene J. Mayo, who has written extensively on the Iwakura Mission, emphasized treaty revision in "Rationality in the Meiji Restoration: The Iwakura Embassy." In a later article, "The Western Education of Kume Kunitake: 1871-6," her focus was solely on the information-gathering aspect of the mission. Furthermore, the latter article lacks a discussion of diplomacy, even in a section called "Military Matters and Diplomacy." Mayo acknowledged the multiplicity of opinions on the purpose of the mission, noting that "The confusion has been compounded by the failure of scholars to refer to one another's conclusions or to clarify the reasons for conflicts of opinion."3 Unfortunately, the confusion lingers.

1 suggest that the Iwakura Mission was formed for the sole purpose of observing the cultures and institutions of the West, but that its Salt Lake City stay caused the members to alter their original focus. In Salt Lake City, Iwakura and his associates decided to enter into treaty negotiations once they reached Washington, D.C., which was not part of their original plan. Even though Japan was unhappy with its current treaties with the West, its leaders perceived that their country was not strong enough, nor were they themselves experienced enough, to bargain with the western powers. 4 Additionally, one need only to look at the make-up of the Iwakura Mission to conclude that its objective was fact-gathering. If treaty revision had been the prominent motive, the mission would have looked strikingly different. It would have consisted

2 See W G Beasley, Japan Encounters the Barbarian: Japanese Travelers in America and Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), p 157; Kodansha Encyclopedia ofJapan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983), s.v "Iwakura Mission," by Marlene J Mayo, p 358; and Eugene Soviak, "On the Nature of Western Progress: Th e Journa l of the Iwakura Embassy," in Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture, ed Donald H Shively (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 1971), p 7

3 Marlene J Mayo, "Rationality in the Meiji Restoration: The Iwakura Embassy," in Modern Japanese Leadership, ed Bernard S Silberman and Harry D Harootunian (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1966), p. 324. Mayo's "The Western Education of Kume Kunitake," was published in Monumenta Nipponica 27 (1973): 3-67

4 Japan had signed several unequal treaties with western powers in 1858, beginning with the Harris Treaty with the United States in July These highly unfavorable (for Japan) treaties opened several key Japanese cities to foreign trade, setJapanese tariffs and import duties at low levels that could only be regulated unde r international control, and allowed extraterritoriality for foreign residents in Japan

of a much smaller group of men who were only concerned with foreign affairs and diplomacy. Instead, besides the leading politicians already mentioned, the mission included representatives of most of the bureaucratic agencies and departments of Meiji Japan. The Foreign Department was the most widely represented, with ViceAmbassador Yamaguchi Masouka, three first secretaries, three second secretaries, one third secretary, one fourth secretary, and one attache—ten officials in all. The Treasury Department sent one first secretary, one commissioner (who was also in charge of the Bureau of the Census), and six officers. The Education Department was well represented with a fourth secretary, a chief clerk, and five officers The War Department had a brigadier general of the Imperial Army, Yamada Akiyoshi, and an officer. An acting commissioner and four official attaches represented the Judicial Department Public Works sent two officers plus the commissioner of dockyards and public works. One prefectural governor and the secretary of another governor accompanied the mission. The Imperial Court sent five representatives, not counting Prince Iwakura Tomomi.

Not only would the make-up of a diplomatic mission have been different, but also its itinerary would have been organized differently. The tour would have been structured almost exclusively around world political centers rather than the inspection of trade, agricultural, and industrial centers.

The mission was created in order to find answers to profound questions that required much observation, debate, and consideration How was the Meiji government to organize its military, its political system, and the education of its youth? Did Japan need to alter its culture and its class system, or did these need to be discarded altogether in its quest for modernization? Japanese officials confidently set out to answer these questions, but they did so with caution Knowing that Japan was reluctant to reject its culture, largely based on Confucian thought, they carefully considered what they observed. While the mission was in England, for example, Iwakura stated that they intended to take with them only that which was good in the West and to "avoid the evils that seem everywhere to have followed the advance of civilization."5 The religious and philosophical background of the Japanese acted as a barrier to the wholesale acceptance of western secular and religious ideas

5 W. G. Beasley, "The Iwakura Mission in Britain, 1872," History Today 31 (October 1981): 33.

Sailing from Yokohama harbor on December 23, 1871, the Iwakura Mission was to be gone for eighteen months touring the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Russia, Malaya, Indochina, and British Hong Kong. The first stop in the United States was San Francisco, where the company rested before continuing by train across the continent

Stopping in Salt Lake City was not part of the itinerary. The embassy had been informed by the Union Pacific Railroad that the Rocky Mountain passes were open and that they could travel to the East Coast without delay However, the winter of 1872 was severe across much of the continent. Frequent heavy snowstorms plagued the Mountain West, blocking the passes and often stranding passengers traveling both east and west on the infant transcontinental railroad When the passes were cleared, more than two weeks after the arrival of theJapanese, the Salt Lake City papers reported that on several snowblocked trains passengers experienced severe cold temperatures, nearstarvation, and general sickness from exposure. On one stranded car there was a fatality.6 The huge delegation from Japan was fortunate to have been spared these calamities, but it became stranded in Salt Lake City for nineteen days—longer than it was to stay in any North American city other than Washington, D C

The Salt Lake City portion of the Iwakura Mission's world tour has been most often regarded in a negative manner. It was seen by many in 1872 as a humiliation and has likewise been discounted by historians today Non-Mormons of the day saw the stranding of this large and influential delegation in the heart of Mormondom as an embarrassment. They wondered what sort of image the Japanese would get of the United States by observing the polygamous Mormons in Utah Territory. Recently, one historian described the stay as a "setback,"7 while other writers have mentioned the stay only as an excuse to relate amusing anecdotes.8 Moreover, the Salt Lake City portion of the world tour has been overlooked primarily because it was unplanned It was, and still is, seen as an unfortunate delay Consequently, historians have neglected to search the sources available for this stay and have continued to rely on incorrect observations

6 Salt Lake Tribune, February 17, 1872

7 Beasley, Japan Encounters the Barbarian, p 163

8 Marlene J Mayo, "The Western Education of Kume Kunitake: 1871-6," Monumenta Nipponica 27.1 (1973): 54

made in previous works. These errors range from general assumptions about the stay as unimportant to specific errors about events and controversial occurrences Not only will this paper attempt to correct these inaccuracies, but it will also show how the postponement in Salt Lake City shaped the attitudes of the Japanese and influenced the Iwakura Mission

Of peripheral importance, studying the Salt Lake City stay also tells us much about the city and Utah Territory in 1872 and provides a remarkable opportunity to observe how Americans of European ancestry and Asians encountered each other on the western frontier. The perceptions of the two groups in this interplay of cultures—especially racial and social attitudes held by the people of Salt Lake City, the Japanese, and those of the rest of the country—are insightful and important

An official welcoming committee from Salt Lake City met the members of the Iwakura Mission as they disembarked in Ogden and escorted them by rail to the capital city. They settled them into the city's best hotel, the Townsend House. The committee's responsibility also included organizing the official functions for the Japanese, such as tours, receptions, and banquets. Just as they would in nearly every city they visited on their world tour, the Japanese saw in Salt Lake City the usual military review, visited schools for children, and attended numerous receptions and banquets.

Townsend House at West Temple and First South was thefapanese delegation's hotel during their Salt Lake City stay. USHS collections.

They also observed that which was unique to Utah. They saw the newly built Mormon Tabernacle and were impressed by its acoustics, size, and construction. Their diarist recorded a lengthy description of the dimensions of the building and its capacity and added, "we are told that when a sermon is delivered from the pulpit, even a person sitting in the last row can hear the speaker's voice without missing a word." 9 Even if this anecdote is lacking the famous "pin being dropped on the pulpit," we see that as early as 1872 an explanation of the excellent acoustics was part of the "set tour" of the Mormon Tabernacle. The group also visited a museum run by Brigham Young's son, John W. Young, near the Tabernacle and commented on the foundation that was being built for the Mormon Temple.10 They met with members of the Utah Territorial Legislature and Supreme Court and with city officials.

At all of these places, welcome speeches were pro forma. Almost all of the speeches centered on industrial progress in the western world. Many speakers complimented the United States on its rapid industrialization and on settling its western lands. Some speeches lauded the advances the Utahns had made in building a city in the midst of a "howling wilderness."11 At a banquet on February 12, T H Bates said,

And here in the heart of our continent, where we have seen lonely desolations changed to busy scenes of commerce and industry; where we have seen the haunts of savage aborigines transferred to happy homes, and evidences of peace and prosperity, and remember that nowhere is the indomitable energy, enterprise and intelligence of the Anglo-Saxon race more strikingly illustrated than here, by the lofty mountains of Utah u

On the whole, the speeches that the Japanese heard each day promulgated the notion that advanced civilization rested then, and in the past, in the western tradition More than one speaker congratulated the Japanese on their farsightedness in starting their fact-gathering tour with the United States which was praised as "the most active and most powerful of all civilizations of the earth."13 Another speaker suggested that nations should be measured not by their length of exis-

12 Salt Lake Daily Herald, February 13, 1872.

9 Kido Takayoshi, The Diary ofKido Takayoshi, Vol 11:1871-1874, trans. Sidney Devere Brown and Akiko Hirota (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1985), p. 123.

10 Kume, Tokumei zenken taishi, pp. 140-41.

11 Governor George L. Woods's speech at a special session of the Utah Territorial Legislature as reported in Deseret News, February 9, 1872.

13 General Henry A Morrow's speech at Camp Douglas as reported in Deseret News, February 8, 1872

tence but by how much they have accomplished. "From this standpoint," he stated, "the United States is the mightiest of all nations.14 These self-congratulatory statements could be viewed as inhospitable to theJapanese; however, they are consistent with nineteenth-century American pride in progress tied to expansionism and growth of the western frontier.15

It is only fair to note that a few speakers honored their guests by focusing on theJapanese nation, its history, and its aspirations for the future. For the most part, such thoughts were expressed by Americans who had lived in Japan and were traveling with the Iwakura Mission, including U.S Ambassador to Japan Charles E DeLong and the embassy's interpreter, N. E. Rice.

One other speech clearly stood out as an exception. It is unclear who wrote or delivered it, but the speech was signed by Lorenzo Snow, president of the Council of the Utah Territorial Legislature, and Orson Pratt, Speaker of the House of Representatives.16 The speech praised the Japanese nation for its long history of twenty-five centuries and enumerated the many world civilizations that had risen and fallen during that time. While some of these countries, the speaker stated, had "destroyed and desolated nations, to gratify their desires of conquest and their lust of gain, you have been contented with your own lot, and cultivated the arts of peace."17 This speech also stands apart from the others because it emphasized what Americans could learn from the Japanese instead of whatJapan could gain from the United States.

We feel honored by your visit, and bid you share with us all that is good, useful and interesting, and would ask at your hands some lessons in civil polity, injurisprudence, in the art of science of government that we may be enabled to perpetuate principles conducive to the best interests of humanity on this vast continent.18

The largest public event for the Japanese during their nearly three-week stay was a grand banquet and ball held on February 12. Tickets were distributed to city, territorial, military, and religious dig-

14 Speech by the Honorable Thomas Fitch to the Japanese Embassy before the Utah Bar as reported in Salt Lake Daily Herald, February 11, 1872

15 For an excellent discussion of this theme see the chapter, 'The Pleasing Awfulness," in Sandra L Myres, Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800-1915 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982)

16 Both Lorenzo Snow and Orson Pratt were also at this time members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS church. Snow was later president of the church from 1898 until his death in 1901

17 Utah Territorial Legislature, Address of the Legislative Assembly to the Japanese Embassy, February, 16, 1872, Journal History, microfilm, February 16, 1872, Lee Library, Brigham Young University

18 Ibid.

nitaries, and there was much politicking to secure a coveted ticket. For days after the occasion the newspapers billed it as the largest and most elaborate event ever held in Utah. All three Salt Lake City newspapers, the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Daily Herald, and the Salt Lake Tribune, ran long articles describing in detail the attire of the most notable ladies. In the center of attraction were five young, kimono-clad Japanese girls who accompanied the Embassy at the request of the Emperor These girls were headed to private schools in the East and were the first Japanese females to study in the United States. Even though official functions filled most of their days, the embassy members found time to explore the city individually and in small groups. They took walks around the city, marveling at the sights. Vice Ambassador Kido wrote in hisjournal that "the mountains on all four sides were covered with silvery snow; it was a superb scene." And, ".. . we took a stroll through the downtown area . . . the whole world was as glitteringjewels; the snow-covered landscape is superb."

19 Kume Kunitake, perhaps reflecting his responsibility as official journalist, wrote in less romantic terms about the city:

Mrs. Charles E. DeLong, wife of the U.S. ambassador toJapan, with some of the distaff members of the delegation. Courtesy of IDS Church Archives.

The Diary of Kido Takayoshi, p 127

The roads are muddy after it rains or snows The sidewalks before the stores are of wood that have been laid down The streets are not lit by gas as in San Francisco, but the main intersections have large wick lanterns. People's houses are primarily made out of wood. As for Mormon men, after they marry each wife they add a window Though the city is very wide, there are only three or four main streets.20

In the evenings, members of the embassy enjoyed the cultural side of the city, seeing such plays as "Neck and Neck" and "Pizarro, or the Death of Rolla." Elizabeth A. Howard went to the theater on February 6 and noted in her diary that the Embassy occupied the first circle directly above the handsomely fitted box for the Mormon prophet and that Chinese lanterns decorated the theater in their honor.21 Some of the Japanese also attended a speech given by an itinerant lecturer whose topic was appropriately titled, "The World, Its Antiquity, Development, Progress in Civilization, and Man's Destiny." What perceptions did the people of Salt Lake City gain of the Japanese? Surprisingly, with more than a hundred Japanese dignitaries in the city for more than two weeks, few people wrote of them in their diaries. Those who did write recorded primarily factual statements that were devoid of description or elaboration. For example, Samuel Parker Richards noted in hisjournal on February 6, 1872, "At eleven o'clock I went down to the city hall to see the Japanese embassy, as they were having a reception of the various officers of the city and county, and military, and the legislative members. . . ."22 Wilford Woodruff made this brisk record in hisjournal: "In the evening I had an interview with the President of the Board of Agriculture of Japan He was at the Townsend House."23 One diarist recorded, "Today I am 36 years old Today the Japanese Embassy arived [sic] in the City."24

If diaries were devoid of remarks about the Japanese, newspapers were not. Reporters, whose job it was to notice and write about such things, scrutinized the differences between the Japanese and Caucasians They educated their readers by writing extensively about the Japanese, not merely reporting their whereabouts and activities. One journalist enlightened and entertained his readers about this

20 When Kume wrote his memoirs at an advanced age, he clarified this statement by saying that when one walked down a street in Salt Lake City, one could see the number of wives a man had by how many windows he had in his home It is unclear how Kume received this impression Kume, Tokumei zenken taishi, p 139

21 Elizabeth A Howard, "Diary," Special Collections, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

22 Samuel Parker Richards, 'Journal," February 6, 1872, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City

23 Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff's Journal, ed Scott G Kenney (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1985), vol 7, p 61

24 Brigham Young Hampton, "Journal," February 4, 1872, LDS Church Archives

country newly opened to the world. He wrote ofJapan's geographical size, comparing it four-fold to that of Utah Territory. He explained Japanese methods of farming and suggested that the farms were "models of order and neatness." He continued by saying that the Japanese were intelligent and progressive people. He told of their population, their agriculture, and their mining of gold, silver, iron, copper, and coal. He spoke in glowing terms of the wealth ofJapan and said that its north had these minerals in abundance and "that there is also located there a continuous bed of gold, silver and copper."25 Later in the same article he inserted another sensational morsel of information that was surely a popular subject of conversation in many Utah homes the day it was printed.

The gentlemen of the embassy are "two sword" men, enjoying the peculiar privileges of their high nobility, among which is that of cutting off the heads of any of the lower classes who might offend them, without being held to answer for other than a limited offence which the payment of a fine would cover. 26

The reporters also wrote about the appearance of the Japanese. The day after the Embassy reached Salt Lake City, the Salt Lake Tribune carried an article headlined "Arrival of the Embassy" that described the Japanese as distinguished visitors who appeared to be "very intelligent" and "highly cultivated." The reporter also noted that "the men are dressed in full American costume and they wear the Yankee toggery with as much grace and dignity as Europeans."27 This statement must have gratified Iwakura and his associates. The Tokugawa Shogunate had sent a smaller embassy in 1860 that had been ridiculed in the American press for the way the off-the-rack suits did not fit the smaller stature of the Japanese officials. Because of this, Prince Iwakura had insisted that those who could afford the cost wait to have their western suits tailor-made in San Francisco. However, the Japanese could not entirely escape editorial comments about another aspect of their appearance—their size After a military inspection at Camp Douglas a reporter wrote,

Our Japanese friends must have observed, as did all present, the marked difference in stature between General Yamada, of the Imperial army of Japan, and General Morrow, in command of the United States forces here, as both gentlemen passed down the line at the review yesterday The former is, probably, not to exceed five feet in height, and weighs not

25 Salt Lake Daily Herald, February 5, 1872

26 Ibid

27 Salt Lake Tribune, February 5, 1872

over 100 pounds; the latter must be nearly a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. We all know General Morrow is a handsome man, after the Anglo-Saxon order, and we are not surprised to learn that Yamada is looked upon as fine-looking by a nation whose peers and princes are almost invariably of small stature Small as Yamada is, he looked every inch a soldier in his uniform and his martial bearing was the subject of general remark.28

Another newspaper reporter tried to give his readers a sense of these foreigners by comparing them to the Chinese, a nationality that Americans generally held in low esteem.

There is little if any similarity between the Japanese and the Chinese. While the latter belong to a race that is marked with evidences of decay, and show but little if any disposition to adopt the progressive institutions of the age, the latter [the reporter obviously meant to write former] show the energy and spirit of a young and healthy race, destined to play an important part in the future civilization of the world Japan, with its 30,000,000 of population, crowding forward to take its place among the civilized and enlightened nations, has unquestionably a great future.29

It is not difficult to see from this statement that Americans viewed the Far East as declining or backward Accordingly, reporters in Salt Lake City struggled to categorize these distinguished Asians. Cautioning Salt Lake City residents to treat the Japanese with courtesy and respect, one reporter told his readers that these foreign visitors were "an extremely intelligent body of men . . .with an utter absence of Orientalism."30 In essence, he said that even though the Japanese were Asian, they should be treated as though they were not. To many Americans of the late nineteenth century, the term Oriental, or Asian, did not denote a race so much as it did a degenerate. 3 1 Residents of Salt Lake City were being asked to separate "good" Asians from "bad" Asians, most likely a difficult and confusing task. The two cultures did not meet on an equal footing For most people living in Salt Lake City, this was the first time they had seen aJapanese.32 Many of these Japanese, on the other hand, had been acquainted with and worked with Americans and Europeans for years, if not decades Some had studied in the United States, and for a few this was a second

28 Salt Lake Daily Herald, February 7, 1872.

29 Ibid

30 Salt Lake Tribune, February 5, 1872

31 Roger Daniels, a leading immigration historian, has said that the Japanese "automatically inherited the prejudices already established against (the) Chinese " See his "Majority Images-Minority Realities: A Perspective on Anti-Orientalism in the United States," in Nativism, Discrimination, and Images of Immigrants, vol 15, ed George E Pozzetta (New York: Garland, 1991), pp 107-8

32 A Japanese acrobatic troop had performed in Salt Lake City in the spring of 1870 See Deseret News, April27,1870

excursion to the West. Accordingly, the perceptions of each group were different Citizens of Salt Lake Citywere curious about a country that was just beginning to gain world prominence and a people whose customs and appearance were alien to their own. In contrast, theseJapanese had already formed general impressions of Americans. This visit was specifically to see their country and its institutions and to understand how these affected the lives of its people In many ways, then, theJapanese had the advantage in this meeting of cultures.

What impression did the Iwakura Mission gather of Salt Lake City and its inhabitants? Because its members were highly educated, cultured, and part of an aristocracy that valued reserve and delicacy in their dealings with others, they were extremely polite and formal in all of their conversations. Their answers to their hosts' inquiries were always solicitous and seldom revealed the intense scrutiny that they were giving to all aspects of society. To discover the impressions they gained of Salt Lake City and of its people, one must turn to their diaries and to memoirs written in later life

A recurrent theme of the diaries was the natural scenery of the region, especially the snow-covered mountains. Kido spoke of the mountains as being "naturally different from anything we see in Japan."33 Even before they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, the visitors were struck by the beauty of the region's mountains As their train neared Utah and the inevitable closure of the rails at Ogden, they crowded around the windows to see "the moonlight shining on the cliff edges and mountains like the glint from the edge of a sword."34 The Japanese saw the mountains as holders of great strength and power and likened this to a symbol ofJapanese power—the samurai sword. They also observed the people of Salt Lake City. Their enforced stay allowed them to form attitudes of Americans based on numerous interactions over their nineteen-day visit. In no other city did the Japanese have time to turn acquaintances into friendships. They saw the city's leading citizens in formal and relaxed settings, and they had the time and leisure to discuss detailed issues with bureaucrats and politicians in their hotel rooms at night They also had many chances to observe the general populace that they did not have after they left the Rocky Mountains. From then on, the pace picked up as they quickly traveled from one city to the next, stopping long enough to take lodgings in a hotel or to visit industries, institutions, and natural 33 Kido, The Diary of Kido Takayoshi, p 127 34 As quoted in Mayo, 'Th e Western Education of Kume Kunitake," p 59

scenic sights. Even in Chicago they stayed only one night and less than twenty-four hours

An interesting part of this formation of opinions was that the Japanese saw the Mormons of Utah as Americans—something that the rest of the country generally denied and that many continued to deny even after the territory was granted statehood nearly a quarter of a century later. While other Americans used differences in religion to classify Mormons as unacceptable, the Japanese, as outsiders, were not inclined to view these differences as defining factors of American identity. The members of the Iwakura Mission did not make remarks about Utahns that showed that they perceived them as being anything but Americans. They did make general observations about polygamy, but their remarks carried no hint of judgment or opinion. In fact, when the Japanese made disparaging remarks about Utahns, they were similar to those they made about Americans in other cities. For instance, while they were in San Francisco the Japanese disapprovingly acknowledged that men and women openly displayed affection toward one another. In Salt Lake City they commented that some Utahns became too rowdy at a late-night social affair

While the Japanese recognized that the Mormons had been driven to live in the wilderness by those who had objected to their religion, they were also willing to see the Mormons as an example of the religious zeal found in western civilization. After seeing Temple Square, Kume Kunitake wrote:

There are 200,000 believers and they are building such a large temple in the midst of the mountains in a desolate place. That Westerners believe in religion and do not begrudge paying considerable money for such a temple can be readily observed in this site.35

One Sunday many of the Japanese attended Mormon religious services in the Tabernacle because they were curious to see how this religion, seen by many Americans as so different from other American churches, conducted its services. In the official mission diary Kume Kunitake wrote:

We went to the Mormon Church to hear some doctrine Part of the sermon was taken from the New Testament concerning the doctrine that people from the corners of the four seas are all one people and are thus brothers. On the whole the service sounded much like other Protestant Churches.36

Kume, Tokumei zenhin taishi, pp. 140—41. Ibid., p. 146.

This excerpt shows that the Japanese did not view the Mormons as significantly different from other Americans but, in fact, as very much the same. Furthermore, the following quote shows that members of the Iwakura Mission understood the existence of enmity toward the Mormons but gives no indication that they had come to the same conclusions.

Mormonism is a branch of Christianity The westerners see it as being heretical One of the primary teachings is that if one man does not have seven wives or more, he will not get into Heaven . . .All Americans hate this religion The government has decided that proselytizing must stop and guards are placed around his [Brigham Young's] house.37

It is important not to misinterpret this nonjudgmental stance as a policy of Iwakura and his associates. The entire purpose of this world tour was to analyze western society, and to that end they liberally acknowledged and discussed cultural and social issues that they witnessed as they traveled the globe. Interestingly, polygamy was not an issue that disturbed them.

Members of the embassy also learned about the history of the Mormon church and Utah Territory. On his first night in Salt Lake City, Kido Takayoshi wrote in hisjournal that a former territorial governor, Frank Fuller, had taken him to his room and told him the history of the territory:

In 1847 the Mormons were driven out of the United States; and in their flight, Young led 144 people (including 3 women) to this place They carried their belongings on their backs for 1100 or 1200 miles from any human habitation. At that time this was Mexican territory; but the next year Mexicans fought and lost a war to the United States, and so ceded this land.38

The embassy also examined the politics of the region. They noted the differences between a state that enjoyed full privileges within a nation and a territory that did not Kume's diary indicates that they understood that a territory could not govern its own affairs, have a constitution, choose its own governor, or send a voting representative to Congress.39

While Salt Lake City wined and dined the one-hundred-plus Japanese for nineteen days in February 1872, the rest of the country looked on. Many wondered what image the Japanese were gathering of Americans while they were stranded in the Mormon city.

3*Ibid., pp 141-44

38 Kido, The Diary of Kido Takayoshi, p. 123.

39 Kume, Tokumei zenken taishi, p 140

Admittedly, because of polygamy, the nation's eyes were already turned toward Utah. In addition, Utahns were making a serious bid at that time for statehood. While the Japanese were in Salt Lake City the territory held an election for delegate to Congress, voted to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and voted to petition Congress to accept Utah as a state. Because the elections went entirely to what many nonMormons called the "Mormon Ticket" and because the territory allowed female suffrage, the national press called the elections a fraud and a mockery. A California paper said that they "hoped the Japanese had access to a competent Philadelphia lawyer to explain to them the affairs in Mormondom."40

One event caused an embarrassing predicament for the embassy and their hosts. Two days after arriving in Salt Lake City, Ambassador DeLong and prominent members of the embassy called on Brigham Young at his residence The Mormon prophet was being held without bail on a murder charge, a prisoner in his home under guard of a U.S marshal.41 Visiting Young created a controversy that spread, via telegraph, from the local press to many newspapers across the country. Even though Brigham Young was the most important figure in the territory, many Americans thought that the embassy should not have visited a religious leader who held no political office and was under arrest

The controversy centered on how the decision to see Young had been made. The Salt Lake Tribune told the story this way: Iwakura received a messenger at his hotel from Young the day before the visit, asking that the principal members of the embassy call on him. Iwakura

40 As quoted in Deseret News, February 14, 1872

U.S. Ambassador tofapan Charles E. DeLong. Courtesy of LDS Church Archives.

41 See Leonard J Arlington, Brigham Young, American Moses (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1985), pp 372-73, and Thomas G. Alexander, Utah: The Bight Place (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 1995), pp. 175-76.

reportedly replied that etiquette required the Mormon leader to call on him. The messenger then informed Iwakura that Young was anxious to meet the Japanese but that he could not make calls since he was confined to his room in charge of a federal officer. Iwakura supposedly "saw the point at once and with a frown, said: We came to the United States to see the President of this great nation; we do not know how he would like for us to call on a man who had broken the laws of his country and was under arrest."42

Historians of the Iwakura Mission have relied solely on the Tribune article when relating this colorful incident Thus, they deny that the visit to Brigham Young took place and emphasize that the Mormon prophet was rejected by aJapanese prince. A 1995 work, for example, stated that during the Salt Lake stay "the only event of note was that Iwakura refused an invitation to call on Brigham Young, on the grounds that it would be politically improper. . . ,"43 Not only have other sources been neglected, but the conflict commonly played out in the local press between the anti-Mormon Tribune and the Mormon Deseret News has not been considered as a source of the misinformation about the visit. The Deseret News's depiction of the event, published the same day, was markedly different from the Tribune's:

The Embassy, having expressed a great desire to see President Young took the earliest opportunity of visiting him at his mansion, he being the first of our citizens to whom they paid their respects. The interview was an exceedingly agreeable one, the members of the Embassy evincing great interest in learning that all the improvements in the Territory had been accomplished within 25 years. 44

Kido Takayoshi's diary entry for February 5 gives an account of the visit that has also been overlooked. He casually recorded that the visit to the Mormon Tabernacle was followed by a visit to Brigham Young, whose home was located in the next city block. This entry makes one realize how natural this sequence of events was. The Japanese had toured the Mormon Tabernacle and the temple construction site. Then they walked a short distance to the Mormon leader's home. Additionally, after seeing the prophet, they visited a museum run by his son. This was unquestionably the obligatory Mormon tour.

Besides the preponderance of sources that substantiate the occur-

42 Salt Lake Tribune, February 7, 1872.

43 Beasley, Japan Encounters the Barbarian, p. 163.

44 Deseret News, February 7, 1872

rence of the visit, there is another reason to doubt the authenticity of the Tribune story. Iwakura, because of his high political and courtly rank, would not have received messengers such as the one supposedly sent by Brigham Young. Ambassador DeLong was responsible for arranging all of the embassy's official functions while they were in the United States. Indeed, Kido noted in his diary that DeLong had arranged for the visit "beforehand."45 The Tribune article gives the impression that Iwakura refused the offer In that case the visit would not have occurred, and we know from several sources that it did

Nevertheless, the visit outraged the non-Mormon population of Salt Lake City (another proof that the visit occurred). A number of non-Mormons who had received invitations to the grand banquet and ball to be given for the Japanese on February 12 returned their tickets in protest The incident was reported in the Salt Lake Tribune two days after it occurred and telegraphed to other papers around the country four to five days later. A number of papers reprinted versions of the Tribune story. The amusing twist to this affair is that the banquet was too tempting a prize to forego. Those who had given up their tickets asked for them back after it was reported in the eastern papers, again via telegraph from Salt Lake City, that DeLong, when questioned about taking the Japanese to see Brigham Young, had adroitly answered that he "did not know where the party was being taken."46 The excuse, though untrue, was adequate enough to allow the protestors to reclaim their tickets and attend the ball.

The visit to Brigham Young caused such a commotion that the local papers were still jousting over it a week later. The Deseret News updated its readers with "The Latest" on February 13:

The latest donkeyism of the sensation [al] telegraphic dispatches from this city to the west is that the heavens are likely to fall because the Japanese Embassy visited President B. Young. Well, let them fall, if that is all that holds them up. 47

Even ten days after the visit, the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune considered the issue current news:

a number of the Japan commissioners connected with the Embassy called on the prophet, who received them kindly and, after describing to them his journey across the plains in 47, presented them with a few copies of the Book of Mormon. The visitors were, no doubt, anxious to compare the prophet of the West with the Mikado, and we understand,

45 Kido, The Diary of Kido Takayoshi, p 124

46 Salt Lake Daily Herald, February 16, 1872

47 Deseret News, February 13, 1872

that they prefer their own High Priest The difference between the two seems to be that the Mikado is pressing forward to grasp the civilization of modern times, while the prophet, with his Book of Mormon, is endeavoring to get back to the habits and customs of barbarous times.48

The Brigham Young affair may have generated more newspaper headlines in newspapers across the country, but the most significant embarrassment for the United States was the inability of the Union Pacific Railroad to move the stranded Iwakura Mission. Not only was the new and highly touted transcontinental railroad proving ineffective for winter travel, but those involved in trade worried that commerce with Asia would suffer because the Union Pacific could not keep the trains running. Ambassador DeLong was quoted in several eastern papers as stating that millions of dollars would be lost to the transcontinental route because the Japanese would report unfavorably on shipping anything across the United States in winter.49 Many wondered if the Japanese would opt to ship their goods across Panama rather than risk costly delays in the Rocky Mountains. The New York Times thought that this was highly likely given the ineptitude of the Union Pacific in handling the snow blockade.50 Indeed, on February 14, several Americans stranded in Utah returned to San Francisco hoping to get to New York faster via the Panama Railroad.51 The Chicago Tribune took UP officials to task:

The experiences of the passengers differ, but the majority denounce the management of the Union Pacific without stint, saying there is no excuse for such long delay and hardships; that with reasonable energy and determination of officials who understood their business the blockade could have been raised or passed two weeks ago. 52

Several passengers who had been stranded in the mountains in snowblocked passenger cars threatened to sue the company; a few threatened to lynch the superintendent of the railroad.53

Outsiders were desperate to get the Japanese out of Utah. The governor of Illinois offered to pay for a special train that would take the entire embassy back to San Francisco where they could take a ship to Panama and travel across the Isthmus.54 Even Ambassador DeLong grew impatient. After eleven days in the city, he questioned a stage-

coach entrepreneur about moving the entire delegation over the passes, some two hundred miles, in sleighs. The businessman estimated that it would take sixty days at one thousand dollars per day.55

As Americans fretted about the delay in the Rocky Mountains, the Japanese started to brood over what they would face once they reached Washington ltd Hirobumi spent several evenings writing three memoranda on the upcoming meetings with Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. The first memorandum acknowledged that the present group was not authorized to conclude new treaties but was expected to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the present treaty which Japan saw as unfair to its rights as a sovereign nation The successive memoranda went further toward suggesting that the embassy might try to draft a new treaty and hold binding discussions with the secretary of state.56

Ito Hirobumi must have been persuasive in convincing his colleagues. Iwakura and the other ranking officials accepted the proposals when he presented them in an evening meeting on February 20 in one of their hotel rooms at the Townsend House. They decided to press for treaty revision while in Washington. Thus, in Salt Lake City the embassy moved from expecting to meet and hold informal discussions with diplomatic officials to pressing for treaty revision as full diplomatic ambassadors.

This final impact of the Salt Lake City stay on the Iwakura Mission changed its defining purpose even if in the end the efforts at treaty revision proved to be a dismal failure. As they began their meetings in Washington, Hamilton Fish determined that, even though the embassy was made up of the highest ranking government officials, it still lacked the papers necessary to enter into diplomatic negotiations. After Fish informed Iwakura of this, Iwakura sent Okubo and Ito back to Japan to get the emperor to issue the appropriate documents. By the time these two men returned from Japan, Iwakura had become so frustrated with Fish and the laborious negotiation process that he decided, even though they now had the appropriate papers, to depart immediately for Europe

This unfavorable experience arose from the fact that the embassy members had extra time on their hands in Salt Lake City There they had had the leisure to think, meet, fret, and discuss with each other

55 Salt Lake Tribune, February 14, 1872

56 Marlene J Mayo, "A Catechism of Western Diplomacy: The Japanese and Hamilton Fish, 1872," Journal of Asian Studies 26 (1967): 391

their concerns about what they were to face on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. What made them make such a momentous decision? Why did they decide to enter into treaty negotiations when they had previously said that they were not yet ready to do so? Perhaps it was because of their experiences in the American West. They embarked on this world tour with definite images of countries and their people The United States, though young, was seen as a powerful, unified nation with national goals and ideals. Its institutions were well respected, and it had made great advances in industrialization One can speculate that what they saw made them realize that the United States was not as exemplary as they had supposed. In Salt Lake City they saw that the people were anything but unified They quarreled over religious differences and used them to influence politics and judicial matters. The country's technology was shown as flawed when the famed transcontinental railroad could not keep its trains moving through the mountain passes. Extended contact in both Salt Lake City and San Francisco with western Americans, who were not as socially reserved as easterners, likely caused the Japanese to conclude that they could succeed at treaty negotiations. The delegates had been extremely well accepted, their experiences in communicating at official functions were highly positive, and, other than the transportation delay, the trip was going very smoothly. America welcomed them and accepted them as they were—the dignified ambassadors of the emperor of Japan. They did not know that they were to meet their match with Hamilton Fish

Ito Hirobumi presented his proposalsjust two days before the mission departed Salt Lake City. After several false reports that the passes were open, a specially outfitted train arrived in Ogden from the East on February 21. The embassy left Salt Lake City early the next morning and continued on its world tour.

The Iwakura Mission's stay in Salt Lake City is an important part of Utah territorial history and the history of the mission itself. The young city, isolated in the heart of the American West, hosted a large delegation of high-ranking statesmen and diplomats for over two weeks. The Japanese participated in numerous social events, met a core group of influential citizens on several occasions, formed opinions of Americans and their social customs, and made lasting memories. They did not complain or see their prolonged stay as onerous but seemed to enjoy their time in the city

In addition, their stay highlighted the tensions and conflicts Utah

faced in the early 1870s. The controversy that arose because of the visit to Brigham Young shows how the media of the day—newspapers and the telegraph—were used as weapons by both Mormons and antiMormons Polygamy, religious politics, and the newly completed transcontinental railroad were all sources of contention that the nation and Salt Lake citizens focused on when more than one hundred influentialJapanese visited Salt Lake City in 1872.

Moreover, as has been shown, the Salt Lake City stay did, indeed, shape the Iwakura Mission Without this lengthy stay, Iwakura, Okubo, and Kido might not have been swayed by Ito Hirobumi's arguments in favor of treaty negotiations.57 In Washington, Kido wrote in his diary that Ito had been rash in his arguments that swayed the oligarchs. Early in the negotiation process he noted that there was "very little advantage to us" in the treaty.58 Kido concluded that it had been a mistake to listen to Ito in Salt Lake City He saw his group of negotiators giving up everything to the Americans and gaining nothing for Japan He sadly concluded that Japan could not yet compete with the western powers in the art of diplomacy. But for a time, and in a place, it looked as if they could.

58 Ibid., p 142

67 Kido, The Diary of Kido Takayoshi, p 180

The Forgotten Odyssey of Obadiah H. Riggs: Early Pioneer for Education Reform

BY NEWELL G BRINGHURST AND FREDERICK S BUCHANAN

O N SEPTEMBER 14, 1907, a brief article on page three of the Deseret News noted the "Death of Dr. Riggs" whom it described as "one of the

Newell G Bringhurst is an instructor of history and political science at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California. Frederick S. Buchanan is Professor Emeritus of Educational Studies, University of Utah An earlier version of this essay was presented at the annual meeting of the John Whitmer Historical Society in Independence, Missouri, on September 28, 1996 The authors express special thanks to Craig L Foster of the Latter-day Saints Family History Center; Ronald Romig, archivist for the Reorganized Church ofJesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; the staff of the archives of the Church ofJesus Christ of Latterday Saints; and the staffs of both the library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Utah State Historical Society for assistance in the preparation of this work

Obadiah H. Riggs. Courtesy ofDr. R. V. Chamberlin. USHS collections.

leading physicians of Kansas City." The News stated that the recently deceased Riggs had at one time been "quite prominent in Utah [as] superintendent of the public schools here."

Obadiah H. Riggs, despite achieving prominence first in Utah and later in the Midwest, is largely a forgotten figure. Also forgotten is that Riggs was the father-in-law of David O. McKay, ninth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Mention of Riggs, albeit brief, is limited to specialized works on Utah education and to various biographical works concerned with the life and activities of David O McKay.1

Born July 6, 1843, near Library, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Obadiah Higbee Riggs was the tenth of eleven children He was raised in the Baptist faith and was well-educated, attending first Bethel Academy and then Currie Institute in Pittsburgh. Following graduation, he taught school before moving to Utah in 1864.2

After settling in Salt Lake City, Riggs left the Baptist church, joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in March 1866 He was confirmed by Heber C Kimball and shortly thereafter received his endowments. 3 Active in the Eighth Ward, he numbered among his close friends George Careless, noted musician and conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from 1869 to 1880, and Anthony W. Ivins, a future Mormon apostle and counselor in the First Presidency

Meanwhile, Riggs met, courted, and married his first wife, sixteen-year-old Emma Louisa Robbins, on May 12, 1867, the ceremony being performed in the Salt Lake Endowment House.4 Emma Louisa was the daughter of John Rogers Robbins and Phoebe Ann Wright, both early converts to Mormonism. The Robbins family had originally migrated to San Francisco (where Louisa was born in 1850) with

1 See for example: Ralph V Chamberlin, The University of Utah: A History of Its First Hundred Years, ed Harold W Bendy (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, I960), pp 67-69, 89, 94, 105-06, 591-92; Joh n Clifton Moffitt, A Century of Service: A History of the Utah Education Association, 1860-1960 (Salt Lake City: Utah Education Association, 1961), pp 30, 34, 39-41, 94, 282-83, 418, 511-13; Joh n Clifton Moffitt, The History of Public Education in Utah (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1946), pp 82-3, 113, 204, 257, 263-64; Jeanette McKay Morrell, Highlights in the Life of President David O. McKay (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1966), p. 32; Llewelyn R. McKay, Home Memories of President David O. McKay (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1956), pp 9, 171; David Lawrence McKay, My Father, David O. McKay, ed Lavina Fielding Anderson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989), pp 1-2, 6-7, 40

2 "Pedigree Chart" and "Family Group Record" for Obadiah Higbee Riggs, Family History Center, Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; "Obadiah H Riggs" entry in Susan Easton Black, comp., Early Members of the Reorganized Church ofJesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1993), 5:109-110

3 'Journal of the Historian's Office," March 29, 1866, and August 11, 1886, Archives, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter LDS Archives) give March 28, 1866, as the date of his baptism. However, the "Family Group Record" indicates that Riggs was baptized April 3, 1866.

4 'Journal of the Historian's Office," May 12, 1867, LDS Archives

Samuel Brannan's 1846 contingent aboard the Brooklyn.5 Soon thereafter, the Robbinses joined the main body of Mormons in Salt Lake City, where John achieved economic success operating a lumber mill and as the owner of "considerable property in Park City."6

Following their marriage, Obadiah and Emma Louisa established their own residence at 56 North Second West, within the boundaries of the Salt Lake City Seventeenth Ward. In time they became the parents of six children—five sons and one daughter—born during the period 1868 to 1879.7

Meanwhile, Obadiah was called to serve as a missionary, being set apart in October 1868 For a year, he performed missionary service in the southeastern United States, mainly in Georgia and Virginia.8 The South, traditionally a challenging field of labor for Mormon missionaries, was particularly difficult immediately after the Civil War, with local residents suspicious of all outsiders during the period of Reconstruction but especially hostile towards Latter-day Saints.9 Despite this, Riggs labored diligently, demonstrating skills as an effective preacher.10

Obadiah then pursued his career as a teacher and educator, becoming a leading advocate of education reform. Beginning in 1870, he and his wife taught at the University of Deseret. He became principal of the preparatory department and adjunct professor of mathematics while she—one of the university's first female faculty members—served as an assistant in the preparatory department. Because of financial difficulties, the university terminated both contracts after just one year. Despite leaving the university, Riggs pro-

5 For an excellent discussion of the Brooklyn voyage, including mention of the Joh n Rogers Robbins family involvement in this venture, see Loren K Hansen, 'Voyage of the Brooklyn," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 21 (Autumn 1988): 46-72 The Joh n Rogers Robbins family endure d particular hardship, losing two sons, George Edward, age six, and Joh n Franklin, age one, during the long voyage from New York to San Francisco

6 Kate B Carter, ed., Our Pioneer Heritage, 20 vols (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1958-77), 3: 573, quoting the recollections of Maud Bliss Allen.

7 Utah Gazetteer and Directory of Logan, Ogden, Provo, and Salt Lake Citiesfor 1884, ed and comp by Robert W. Sloan (Salt Lake City: Herald Printing and Publishing Co., 1884), p. 568; "Family Group Record" for Obadiah Higbee Riggs

8 "Journal of the Historian's Office," April 9, 1868; Octobe r 1, 1868, LDS Archives; "Journal History," entries for April 5, May 18, and May 25, 1869, Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

9 William W Hatch, There is No Law A History of Mormon Civil Relations in the Southern States, 1865-1905 (New York: Vantage Press, 1968); LaMar C Berrett, "History of the Southern States Mission, 1831-1861" (master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1960); Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1981)

10 Theodore B Lewis, Diaries, 1868-1925, entries for Jun e 7, 8, 9, 13, 24, July 7, 11, 23, 1869, MSS 1485, reel 31, LDS Archives; Deseret News, May 25, 1969

moted reform at that institution, calling for a Department of Normal Instruction which was finally established in 1875-76. n

Riggs promoted other education reforms as well. He organized a territorial Normal Institute which met annually for a number of years beginning in 1870 He also helped organize the Deseret Teachers Association, forerunner to the present Utah Education Association, and as its president advocated establishment of "a proper system of free schools in the territory."12 This placed him at direct odds with Brigham Young who adamantly opposed tax-supported schools.

11 Chamberlin, University of Utah, pp 68, 106

12 Joseph Kenneth Davies, Deseret's Sons of Toil: A History of the Worker Movements of Territorial Utah, 1852-1896 (Salt Lake City: Olympus Publishing Co., 1977), pp 30-31, and Joh n Clifton Moffitt, A Century of Service, 1860-1960: A History of the Utah Education Association (Salt Lake City: Uta h Education Association, 1961) Thes e two sources disagree over the question of when the Deseret Teachers Association was founded Davies asserts that a Deseret School Teachers Association was evident as early as July 1861 but was apparently inactive until 1872 when it reappeared as the Deseret Teachers Association, p 48; Moffitt allegedly quotes Riggs: "In 1870, a Territorial Teachers Association was organized, which is still [1875] in existence," p 30

Obadiah Riggs and wife Emma Louisa (left) taught at the University ofDeseret together in 1870. USHS collections.

Obadiah Riggs exerted his greatest impact on school reform as Superintendent of Schools for the territory beginning in April 1874. His appointment generated controversy from the very beginning Territorial Governor George L. Woods initially sought Riggs as a replacement for incumbent Robert L. Campbell. Although Campbell had performed competently, Governor Woods favored Riggs, whom he considered better trained professionally and a stronger advocate of school reform.13 Moreover, at the time, Riggs was serving as principal of the Salt Lake City Fourteenth Ward School, giving him practical, first-hand experience.

But Riggs's appointment, requiring approval by the territorial legislative council, was rejected. Angered, Governor Woods accused the legislature of reducing his powers of appointment to "a nullity." The whole conflict revolved around the basic question of who was in charge of Utah's schools and, more important, territorial affairs in general, Utah's gentile governor or the Mormon-dominated territorial legislature? At this point Riggs was simply a pawn in this larger conflict, but in time his own actions would further aggravate divisions between Mormons and gentiles over other education issues.

Ironically, Riggs did become territorial superintendent in April 1874, due to Campbell's sudden death. Governor Woods made the appointment through a commission not requiring approval of the territorial legislature, thus circumventing that body. The new superintendent's role and powers were enhanced by his concurrent role as Salt Lake County Superintendent of Schools—the latter post being held from 1874 to 1876.14

Riggs promoted a number of important, sometimes controversial reforms. He supported territorial legislation, enacted in 1874, calling for territorial assistance in the financing of public education. Prior to that time school trustees on the local level were solely responsible for levying school taxes—a "very inadequate" source of revenue. The 1874 law provided for the public allocation of $15,000 annually (raised to $25,000 in 1876) to provide adequate funding for school districts throughout Utah. This shift to territorial assistance marked "the beginning of a new era in school finance for Utah."15

13 Message of Governor George L Woods, February 14, 1874, "Messages of the Governors," typescript, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City For an overview of Campbell and his professional activities, see Frederick S Buchanan, "Robert Lang Campbell: 'A Wise Scribe in Israel' and Schoolman to the Saints," Brigham Young University Studies 29 (Summer 1989): 6-27

14 Chamberlin, University of Utah, p 592; Moffitt, A Century of Service, p 282

15 Joh n Clifton Moffitt, The History of Public Education in Utah (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1946), pp 112-13

Superintendent Riggs also promoted consolidation. In his "Territorial Report for 1874-75" he asserted that districts "that now have two, three, four or five small school houses, and as many mixed schools in which but little comparatively can be accomplished, should have but one large commodious public school house in a central location, and containing a sufficient number of rooms that all of the children of the place could be admitted into the grades for which they are qualified." Such a system would be more economical and efficient. Not until 1890, however, was this progressive notion adopted. Within Salt Lake County, Riggs promoted local consolidation through his bluntly worded 1876 Report to the County Court of Salt Lake County. He pointed with alarm to the problem of low attendance which he attributed to the county's existing system of small, over-crowded facilities.16

Riggs also called for standardization of public school textbooks, stating "that the multiplicity of textbooks in the territory has retarded the progress of the schools and has caused thousands of dollars annually to be thrown away." Sensitive to this problem, the territorial legislature convened a special convention to consider the matter This gathering agreed that the textbooks would not be changed for a period of five years. 17

As territorial superintendent, Riggs advocated other educational reforms, outlined in his Biennial Report of the Territorial Superintendent of Common Schools, for the years 1874-75. Among these was a need for better trained teachers "With but few exceptions, our teachers are ill qualified to occupy [their] responsible positions," he warned, adding that "ignorant, unskilled teacher [s] may both misform and misinform the mind, injure the sensibilities, and dwarf the character of the child, and thus sap the very foundation of his usefulness and happiness." There was also a "critical need" to improve the quality of teacher training at the University of Deseret through the establishment of "a permanent Chair of Education." He also recommended that all county school superintendents judge the qualifications of teacher applicants utilizing local boards of examination. Such procedures would awaken the teachers affected "from a degree of lethargy, and [plant] within them a desire to become more efficient in the art of instruction."18

The new territorial superintendent also called for an increase in the pay of county school superintendents and school trustees to

16 These reports are quoted in Moffitt, A Century of Service, pp 282—84

17 Salt Lake Herald, September 24, 1876

18 Typescript excerpt of original report in Utah State Archives

enable these officers "to devote more of their time in visiting the schools in their midst." Additionally, he advocated establishment of teacher institutes in each county to better train and monitor teacher performance. Finally, he recommended that the territorial superintendent, acting jointly with county superintendents, "have the power to decide what texts shall be used in the schools."19

Superintendent Riggs supported his crusade for educational reform with reports issued in the wake of periodic personal visits to public schools throughout the territory. On occasion, the reports could be very complimentary to those schools and teachers measuring up to expected standards. For instance, after visiting the district schools of Ogden, Riggs praised the local superintendent, Louis F. Moench, giving him "a large amount of the credit for the present good Schools of Weber County." Riggs was similarly impressed with facilities in the nearby rural mountain community of Huntsville.20

To the south, in Spanish Fork, Riggs was also ebullient in his praise. That community's two school districts each contained "a small but comfortable schoolhouse . . . well-filled with pupils, who appear much interested in their work" and "instructed in accordance with the most approved methods." The select school was taught by George H Brimhall, characterized in the report as "a teacher of superior ability."21

But Riggs could be critical as well. In evaluating conditions in Weber county, he noted "there are two good schools in Harrisville" but one "has half a bushel of dirt on the floor"; and at the nearby rural Eden school, he commented that the teacher, while possessing "considerable natural ability," would be much more effective "if she had a thorough normal school training." After visiting a school in another northern Utah community, Slaterville, he reported that the teacher was an old gentleman "who makes no pretension to the profession of teacher."22

And after visiting Springville to the south, Riggs stated: "The office of a true teacher did not crop out very prominently in any of the public schools." However, he reserved his harshest criticism for Provo's schools. Since Provo, as the county seat of Utah County, was "under the direct influence" of County Superintendent W. A.

Dusenberrry and of the Branch University (Timpanogos Academy), Riggs expected its schools to be "in a much more prosperous condition than other places less favored." Rather, one of the local schools reminded him of a "rat pit—with nests all around the walls." The furnishings and teaching methods were so out-of-date "that they might have been approved twenty years ago, but not in this age of progress." Riggs also assailed the Timpanogos Branch of the University, stating, "If they would consent to throw away the name 'University,' which is simply a fraud as applied to their high school and establish the graded system, have the primary classes taught in the Ward school-houses, and academic departments taught in the University building, much good might be accomplished and no additional expense."23

Taken collectively, Riggs's varied reform proposals were pointed, often provocative Many of them were in fact implemented during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but in the short run they generated criticism and opposition from affected individuals and groups. In particular, Riggs was assailed for his April 1876 decision on textbook adoption. Leading the attack was high Mormon official John Taylor, then president of the Council of the Twelve, but acting through his position as chairman of the Territorial Legislature Education Committee.24 Taylor pressured Riggs to reverse his decision to adopt the Pacific Reader series published by Hubert Howe Bancroft of San Francisco. Taylor urged adoption of a reader published by AS. Barnes, an eastern publisher, justifying his choice on the basis of its cheaper price. Taylor admonished Riggs privately while seeking backing for his position from other church leaders, including apostles Orson Pratt, Joseph F Smith, Wilford Woodruff, and Samuel Richards.25

Riggs responded by publicly refuting Taylor's assertions Through the Salt Lake Daily Herald, he presented a detailed, carefully reasoned justification of the Bancroft readers. The gentile-owned Salt Lake Tribune stepped into the controversy, praising Riggs for his public refutation of Taylor on this issue.26

In early 1877 Riggs became embroiled in even deeper controversy resulting from a report he submitted to the Salt Lake City Council, advocating major changes in the city's crowded school system. He

called for the building of six new school houses, each with twelve classrooms and each capable of accommodating seven hundred students, and he proposed that the estimated $5,000 cost of each building be financed through a city school tax of 1/4 of one percent. The Tribune applauded Riggs's efforts to upgrade the city's schools, viewing it as a means of eliminating public school dependency on church meetinghouses in which virtually all of the city's schools held their classes. The Mormon-dominated Salt Lake City Council, however, responded to the proposal by tabling it.27

Brigham Young was even more hostile In a discourse delivered in April 1877 at the semi-annual church conference held in the recently completed St. George Temple, Young condemned what he termed so-called "free schools." The aging Mormon leader stated that he was "opposed to free education as much as I am opposed to taking away property from one man and giving it to another man who knows not how to take care of it." He expressed opposition to "free schools by taxation," likening this process to "allowing my charities to go through the hands of a set of robbers who pocket nine-tenths themselves and give one-tenth to the poor." Young, moreover, brushed aside Riggs's argument of need with the assertion that "On the whole we have as good as school-houses as can be found."28

The "free school crusade" was brought to a sudden end in April 1877 when church officials called Riggs to serve as a Mormon missionary in Great Britain The ever-critical Salt Lake Tribune saw sinister motives, characterizing this development as a Mormon plot to both punish Riggs and sabotage the larger free school movement. "The punishment inflicted upon School Superintendent Riggs for joining in the incendiary cry, 'Give us school houses,'" the Tribune proclaimed, [was] "deportation."29

The precise feelings of Obadiah Riggs about the whole affair are unknown. With biting sarcasm, the Tribune had characterized Riggs as "a lightweight ecclesiastically" who had dared to oppose "the spiritual thunders launched at his head." This same publication dubbed Riggs's nemesis, John Taylor, "a lightweight educationally."30 Taylor, in fact, succeeded Riggs as Territorial Superintendent of Education. His selection signaled a significant change in several ways. Most immediate was

27 Salt Lake Tribune, March 23, April 4, 1877

28 Journal ofDiscourses, 26 vols (Liverpool: Joseph F Smith, 1877), 18: 357

29 Salt Lake Tribune, April 24, 1877

30 Ibid, October 1, 1876

H. Riggs

that, for the first time, the superintendent was directly elected by the voters of the territory due to a change in Utah's territorial laws whereby the option to appoint was removed from the territorial governor. Duly elected, Taylor served as superintendent, concurrently with his duties as president of the Council of the Twelve, from 1877 to 1881 After becoming church president in 1881, Taylor was succeeded as territorial superintendent by L.John Nuttall, his son-in-law.31

Obadiah, meanwhile, quietly and without apparent complaint, accepted his call to perform missionary service. He departed Utah in earlyJuly 1877, arriving in Liverpool two weeks later In early August he was appointed to labor as a traveling elder in the Manchester Conference. Then, just a month later, he was released from his mission "on account of sickness." Leaving England, he "remained some time" in the eastern states before returning to his home and family in Utah.32

The activities and movements of Obadiah Riggs in the years immediately following his short sojourn in England are more difficult to trace, but he continued to be an outspoken proponent of education reform. In an 1881 essay titled "The School Question" and published in The Contributor, a Mormon periodical, Riggs called "improvement of the school .. . a matter of the greatest importance," advocating a number of sweeping reforms. First, he favored limiting the elective franchise to individuals demonstrating both "good moral character" and the ability to pass an examination in the areas of reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, the American Constitution, and American history. Such a requirement

Obadiah

Territorial Governor George L. Woods (top) andfohn Taylor. USHS collections.

31 Moffitt, The History of Public Education in Utah, pp 82-83

32 The Millennial Star, August 6, August 20, September 24, November 22, 1877.

would enhance the importance of the public schools, in that they would assume a central role both in preparing prospective voters and nurturing an enlightened informed citizenry. Second, he promoted proper training of competent teachers as "the reciprocal obligation of the State." No new candidates should be admitted to the teaching profession "who have not availed themselves of the means supplied by the State of qualifying themselves, and succeeded in attaining the necessary qualifications." Third, to attract competent, qualified teachers, he called for a significant increase in teacher salaries combined with adequate pensions. Finally, he advocated uniform, consistent, high standards in all of the schools throughout the territory, from the lowest primary grades through the university, so that "the certificate of any school might be recognized in any corresponding, or next advanced grade anywhere in the State or Territory." Riggs conceded that his proposed reforms "may appear like the impractical dreams of a visionary," but he asserted that they had "a foundation in recognized principals [sic] of our civilization" and admonished his readers to "seize upon them and hasten their realization."33

Perhaps because of his outspoken views, Riggs did not return to the field of education He encountered apparent difficulties in finding a new occupation to adequately provide for his family. By the late 1870s he had apparently entered the mercantile profession; in early 1880 he was licensed by officials of Salt Lake City to do business as "Riggs 8c Young."34 Later that same year his occupation was shown as "Machine Agent" in the 1880 United States Census The Utah Gazetteer listed him as a "commission merchant" in 1884 and as a "drummer" or "travelling salesman" in 1885.35

Meanwhile, Obadiah continued to be active in the Salt Lake City Seventeenth Ward as a member of the High Priests Quorum He was also an involved member of the Salt Lake Stake Sunday School Union, traveling throughout the territory on Sunday School business, and he signed the 1881-82 constitution for the Seventh Ward Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association. Thus his allegiance to Mormonism remained strong into the 1880s.36

Riggs's commitment to his faith was most evident in his willing-

ss The Contributor, May 1881, pp 243-46

34 Deseret News, February 28, 1880, reporting on Salt Lake City Council meeting of February 24

35 By the late 1880s Riggs was providing for his family as "a travelling salesman [for] a California tea firm." Deseret News, April 27, 1897

36 Seventeenth Ward, Salt Lake Stake, Historical Records and Minutes, "High Priests Group Roll Books, 1879-82," and "Constitution for the YMMIA, 1881-82," LDS Archives

Obadiah H. Riggs

ness to enter into plural marriage. On June 3, 1882, thirty-eight-yearold Riggs married his first plural wife, twenty-seven-year-old Annie Wilson, in the Salt Lake Endowment House. The marriage did not last, however, with the couple apparently divorcing within two years. 37

Undaunted, Riggs took a second plural wife, twenty-four-year-old Almina Wilson, on August 30, 1884. Almina was actually the half-sister of his first plural wife, Annie. This marriage was longer-lasting, with Obadiah and Almina becoming the parents of a daughter, Lisle, born June 17, 1885.38

Riggs's entry into polygamy had unforeseen, unwelcome consequences In addition to losing his plural wife, Annie, Obadiah also saw his first wife, Emma Louisa, leave and ultimately divorce him.39 By 1893 he was no longer listed as living in the same residence as Emma Louisa, and a year later she was listed in the Utah Gazetteer as "the widow of Obadiah Riggs." Actually, Obadiah Riggs was very much alive, having left Utah by the early 1890s He also left behind Almina and Lisle who took up residence near Almina's parents in Payson. Almina, however, encountered both personal and financial difficulties, causing her to commit suicide on April 16, 1897. She had reportedly "tried to find her own support by teaching school." Failing this, she had moved in with her mother, just prior to taking her life.40

Obadiah Riggs also terminated his involvement with the Mormon church Presumably, he was excommunicated, although the exact date is unknown.41 Also unknown are the precise reasons for his disaffection. They quite possibly had their origins in his earlier conflicts with John Taylor and other high church officials. Also, the problems he encountered in practicing polygamy undoubtedly undermined his commitment to Mormonism

Riggs traveled first to New York City where he lived while attending medical school at the Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn,

37 Obadiah H Riggs, Marriage Record, International Genealogical Index, Family History Center, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Actually, her name was Annie Wilson Millar—Millar having been her name from a previous marriage

38 David Wilson and Rachel Prisilla Loveless, Family Group Sheet, Family History Center, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Obadiah H Riggs, Marriage Record U.S Census, 1900, Payson, Utah County Also Payson Ward Records, #413, Family History Center, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

39 This according to information given by David O. McKay family members to Lavina Fielding Anderson, Salt Lake City Telephone conversation, Lavina Fielding Anderson and Newell G Bringhurst, March 7, 1995

40 Deseret News, April 27, 1897

41 Riggs's excommunication is suggested in Ann Ellis, "O.H Riggs, Territorial Superintendent, 1874-1877," term paper, History of Education course taught by Frederick S Buchanan, University of Utah, n d., in author's possession

New York. After graduation, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he located his practice in 1892, listing himself as a "Physician: Rupture Specialist." Some two years later, then fifty-one, he married for a fourth time. His new bride was nineteen-year old Hattie Fruhauf. They became the parents of a daughter, Marie, born in November 1895.42

Meanwhile, Riggs became interested in the Reorganized Church ofJesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He attended one of their meetings while visiting the 1893 Columbian World's Exposition in Chicago, actually meeting with that denomination's principal leader, Joseph Smith III, the son of Mormonism's founding prophet. On September 1, 1895, Obadiah and his wife joined the Reorganized church, baptized by Rudolph Etzenhouser during an RLDS reunion held at Limerick, Ohio. Etzenhouser also confirmed Riggs, aided by Israel A. Smith, the son ofJoseph Smith III. Six months later, the new convert was ordained an Elder. He worked to build up the Reorganized church in Cincinnati, and he frequently attended the annual RLDS conferences each April in Independence, Missouri, often being the house guest ofJoseph Smith III.43

Meanwhile, Dr. Riggs prospered in his medical practice. Also during this period, two children from his marriage to Emma Louisa joined him in Cincinnati. By 1898 his youngest son, Lawrence, was living near him and attending medical school. After completing his medical training in 1900, the younger Riggs joined his father's medical practice. Also in 1898, Obadiah's oldest daughter, Emma Ray, followed in her brother's footsteps, moving from Salt Lake to Cincinnati in the wake of her mother's death and her own graduation from the University of Utah. Emma Ray's apparent reason for moving to the Midwest was to study piano at the Cincinnati College of Music, but she returned home within less than a year. 44

Back in Utah, Emma Ray was courted by David O. McKay, following the latter's return from a church mission to Scotland The young

42 Williams's Cincinnati Directories (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Directory Office, 1893-1900); "Obadiah H Riggs" entry in Susan Easton Black, comp., Early Members of the Reorganized Church ofJesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University), 5:110 Also "Membership Record Book," p 69, Reorganized Church ofJesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as cited in letter from R M Porter to Frederick S Buchanan, May 11, 1993 (copy in authors' possession); United States Census, 1900, Cincinnati, Hamilton County

43 "The Memoirs of President Joseph Smith (1832-1914)," The Saints Herald, October 3, 1936, p. 1233; "Obadiah H Riggs" entry in Black, comp., Early Members of the Reorganized Church; "Membership Record Book," p 69, as cited in Porter letter; Joseph Smith III to Lucy Y Smith, April 21, 1898, and Joseph Smith III to Israel A Smith, undecipherable date, 1900, Miscellaneous Letters and Papers, P13, f580 and f653, Archives, Reorganized Church ofJesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Independence, Missouri (hereafter RLDS Archives)

44 Rudolp h Etzenhouser to William H Kelley, September 4, 1895, RLDS Archives; Williams's Cincinnati Directories; McKay, Home Memories of President David O. McKay, pp 171-72

couple had first met in 1896 when McKay rented a cottage from Emma Louisa Riggs while attending the University of Utah. Their relationship developed during a one-year period when David O. and Emma Ray corresponded This was followed by a short courtship, with David O. proposing in early December 1900.45 McKay then wrote Obadiah Riggs asking permission to marry his daughter.46 Riggs apparently gave his consent, although no letter survives to that effect. A subsequent letter does survive, in which Riggs gave his daughter some rather revealing advice on marital harmony:

Now my darling daughter, I want to impress upon you the fact that it is not any more difficult to get a man's love than it is to hold it after you have it There are so many little things that a man appreciates in a woman, that some women never think of A woman wants to study the likes and dislikes of her husband & try hard to do everything to accord with his likes. Some may say that this is not possible. I think it is right & possible It will pay a wife to do it all along the line When a true man sees his wife doing every thing she can for his pleasure will he not do likewise for his wife? Surely he will, then there is mutual compensation and

David O. McKay and Emma Ray Riggs at about the time of their courtship. HalRumel photographs, USHS collections.

45 The most detailed account of David O and Emma Ray Riggs's courtship is "A Love Story" contained in David Lawrence McKay, My Father, David 0. McKay, pp 1-16

46 David O. McKay to Obadiah H. Riggs, December 9, 1900, as reprinted in ibid, p. 7.

mutual happiness. I believe your sweet disposition & true heart will dictate you to live right along this line.

He then concluded: "I am very happy to know that you truly love this Bro. David O. McRay [sic] . . . God bless you both."47 Emma Ray Riggs and David O McKay were married on January 2, 1901, in the Salt Lake Temple.

Also in 1901, Obadiah, Hattie, and their daughter Marie moved from Cincinnati to Independence, Missouri.48 The reasons for this move are not clear, although Riggs allegedly expressed "a long cherished hope ... to live in Zion and be found among the faithful" members of the Reorganized church.49 He built a "handsome home" on the corner of Electric and West Short streets, just across the street from the home of Joseph Smith III He reestablished his medical practice in nearby Kansas City; over the next six years he duplicated his earlier success in Cincinnati, becoming one of the "leading physicians of Kansas City."50

Riggs maintained close communications with his extended family, particularly his son Lawrence, who remained in Cincinnati, and with various members of his wife's family He also stayed in contact with daughter Emma Ray in Utah, and through her, son-in-law David O. McKay. Riggs, in fact, wrote McKay an extremely cordial letter of congratulations upon his elevation to the Council of the Twelve in April 1906. In addressing McKay as "My Dear Son," the RLDS Elder expressed extreme pride that "my son David has been made an apostle in the Utah Church." He also reminisced, "An old Patriarchal blessing on me stated that I would be an associate with apostles. It may be as that prediction has not been fulfilled in me, that satisfaction may come out in another member of the family." He then signed his letter "Pater Familias, O H Riggs."51

Such patriarchal pride was short-lived, for less than two years later, on September 11, 1907, Obadiah Riggs died at his home in Independence. His death at age 64 came as the result of complications from "a form of pneumonia" brought on by injuries sustained in a fall

47 Obadiah H Riggs to Emma Ray Riggs, December 9, 1900, as reprinted in ibid

48 As suggested by both The Independence Examiner, September 12, 1907, and The Saints Herald, vol 57, p 899, who in their obituaries of Obadiah Riggs refer to "Dr Lawrence Riggs of Cincinnati."

49 The Saints Herald, vol 57, p 899 Joseph Smith III to Lucy Y (Smith) Lysinger, July 18, 1906, Miscellaneous Letters and Papers, P13, f873; Joseph Smith III to Audentia Anderson, December 4, 1906, Joseph Smith III Papers, P15, f22, both in RLDS Archives

50 Hoyes CityDirectory of Kansas City, Missouri, 1901-1906; Deseret News, September 14, 1907

51 Obadiah H Riggs to David O McKay, April 9, 1906, as quoted in David Lawrence McKay, My Father, David O. McKay, p 40

at his home. He was eulogized by Joseph Smith III, who preached his funeral sermon, as a man of "splendid physique" and as a "kindly, dignified, circumspect Christian" who "felt satisfied religiously only when he had accepted the 'restored gospel.'" 5 2 Riggs was interred in the RLDS Cemetery at Mound Grove in Independence His final resting place is a plot very near the graves reserved for and occupied by the family of Joseph Smith III whom Obadiah Riggs had admired and respected. The two had been extremely close during the latter years of Riggs's life.

As a historical figure, Obadiah Riggs is noteworthy for several reasons. First, he was a leading, often outspoken advocate of education reform in Utah Although he had limited immediate success, many of his proposals were ultimately implemented. In the words of one writer, Riggs's role as "an agitator" was perhaps "more important to progress than that of facilitator."53 As a proponent of reform, moreover, he undoubtedly influenced his oldest daughter, Emma Ray, and through her, David O McKay The latter became noted for his own progressive ideas on educational reform and was in a much better position to implement them than Riggs had been a generation earlier

Second, Riggs's life represents a fascinating odyssey of the trials and tribulations of a colorful nineteenth-century Utah pioneer His difficulty in finding adequate means of livelihood, after having been precluded from returning to his chosen profession of education, was not unlike that of many residents of the Great Basin, particularly during the economic hard times of the late nineteenth century. His later achievement of economic success, both in a different geographic setting and the completely different profession of medicine, is remarkable, given the depressed state of the larger American economy during the 1890s.

foseph Smith III. USHS collections.

Finally, Obadiah Riggs's religious odyssey, occurring within the context of the larger Latter-day Saint movement, provides illuminating insights into the movement founded byJoseph Smith in 1830. Specifically, Obadiah's initial deep devotion and strong commitment to Utah Mormonism, giving way to disaffection that in turn was followed by an equally strong commitment to the Reorganized church, underscore not only sharp sectarian divisions but also the complexities and ambiguities of Mormonism's varied beliefs, doctrines, and practices. These considerations make the colorful, complex odyssey of Obadiah Higbee Riggs well worth remembering.

Distinguished-looking Obadiah Riggs in his lateryears. Courtesy of RLDS Archives.

"I Have Struck It Rich At Last": Charles Goodman, Traveling Photographer

BY DREW ROSS

FIVE MEN STAND ON THE SHORE of the San Juan River with the muddy river slipping behind them through the barren, rocky strata. Three of the men are gold miners, standing in the background on the sandy beach, posed with the tools of their trade: one with a pickax on his shoulder, one gazing at the gold pan pinned against his hip and stirring the sand for colors, and a third leaning on the long handle of a shovel. The other two men stand in the center of the photograph, closer to the camera, within a low fence. The fence is only two planks high, reinforced with rocks and dirt, yet high enough to obscure our view. One man has his hand on the crank of a crude windlass; its rope descends into a petroleum well. The fifth and final man stands in the

Photograph courtesy of Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

foreground pouring oil from a bucket. The caption on the back of this Charles Goodman photo reads, "First discovery of Oil in quantity on San Juan river, Utah, 1895."

The view epitomizes Charles Goodman's photographic style in many ways The positioning of the miners suggests the riches that were on everyone's mind. Their poses of labor hold a sense of action, and the oil itself is blurred as it flows out of the bucket. Goodman brought life to the view, and his composition tells of an experienced photographer. He put the new resource, oil, up front and center, backed by the gold; and then the source of it all, the river, flows across the whole image from upper right to the lower left. Above all, it is stamped with one of Goodman's trademarks: being the first photographer on the scene of a discovery. To date, we have scant biographical information about Goodman; none of his papers or records have been found. His photographs, with few known negatives and newspaper accounts, are all that remain to tell his story. But thanks to Goodman's articulate nature, the collection of photographs, scattered across the United States, tells us more than does the average late-nineteenth-century photograph collection. From these we know Goodman was not just a photographer. He was a traveling photographer, an occupation that required skill as a chemist, artist, and salesman as well as a love for travel. The Bluff, Utah, cemetery record lists him: "Transient Lived twenty years in Bluff."1 Between the years of 1880, the first record of him in Pueblo, Colorado, to his death in Bluff in 1912, he painted his negatives with the names of towns and locations across southern Colorado and Utah. He moved from town to town, working out of a canvas tent, selling his images to the locals. Unlike some of his contemporaries, like well-known frontier photographers William H. Jackson and Charles R. Savage, Goodman apparently did not return to a studio after his excursions. An image of Goodman's photograph gallery as it stood in Bonanza, Colorado, gives us a sense of his modus operandi A canvas wall tent, about ten feet high, twenty feet long, and eight feet wide

Charles Goodman. Courtesy ofEd and Nancy Bathke, Manitou Springs, Colorado.

1 Cemetery Records of Bluff, San Jua n County, Utah, May U Lucretia Lyman Ranney, Blanding, Utah to March 1951 Compiled by

Charles Goodman, Traveling Photographer 67

caps a low semi-permanent foundation of three rough-hewn logs. The plot of land is leveled, with a road in front and a hillside of tree stumps behind the gallery. A section of the roof droops in above the printing room where the canvas section could be removed for developing prints with sunlight. These tent studios were quite common among traveling photographers.2 Many photographers answered the demand for images in these remote places, traveling from mining camp to mining camp throughout the San Juan Mountains.

On the front of Goodman's gallery hang two signs. One on top spans the tent frame in an arc and announces "PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY." Below, next to the front door, a second sign reads, "Views of Bonanza, Exchequer, Sedgwick 8c Round Mountain For Sale Here." A gray-haired man lounges in the narrow front door with two children next to him. Charles Goodman himself stands with his thumbs hooked behind his jacket's lapels, leaning back on his right foot, his left foot relaxed. He wears a dark beard, a top hat, and a businessman's congenial smile

Better than the average trav-

2 Terry William Mangan, Colorado on Glass: Colorado's First Half Century as Seen by the Cameras (Denver: Sundance Publications, Ltd, 1975), p

Charles Goodman in front ofhis Bonanza, Colorado, photograph gallery (above) courtesy of Ed and Nancy Bathke, Manitou Springs, Colorado, and his 'First Artesian Well in Montrose," courtesy ofSpecial Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

eling photographer, Goodman was an historian as well. He often labeled his photos bywriting information on the negative, a common practice begun in the wet collodion plate era of photography As with W H.Jackson's precise block lettering and C R Savage's flamboyant penmanship, Goodman too had a unique, readily identifiable handwriting—a practiced romanesque serif with cross lines at the end. Sometimes he wrote in a rude block lettering (perhaps an assistant's writing), but even those with different lettering are identifiable because, beyond most of his contemporaries, he regularly included the day, month, year, and place of the photograph From the dates and locations, which appear on his identified photographs, we can trace his wanderings through, over, and around the SanJuans, Bluff, and Utah's canyon country. If it were not for his habit of dating his images, Goodman would be best described by the word "circa."

From this scattered logbook of dates and places, it is clear that Goodman used the mobility of a traveling photographer to be where the new excitement was unearthing some mineral resource, such as the discovery of SanJuan oil and gold in Creede, Colorado, in 1892; or at significant events, such as the "First Artesian Well in Montrose" in 1884 and the opening of the hydraulic mining pumps near Mancos in 1893; at community events like a Decoration Day parade in Montrose and gatherings in the Anasazi ruins near Bluff; and at those one-of-akind events such as the last run of the Ouray-to-Montrose stagecoach in August 1887 and the killing of Bob Ford (the man who shot Jesse James) in 1892.

Of these events, we have additional knowledge of one in particular, the felling of the Old Swing Tree in Bluff. On September 12,1907, the Montezuma Journal reported, "The San Juan river has been on the rampage all summer" because the "large amount of snow in the mountains and the summer rains" had kept up "its angry flood." The flood had "eaten away the beautiful farming land until now it is within five hundred feet of Frank Hyde's corral." Of special note was the giant two-stemmed cottonwood tree that had, "until a few days ago," stood on the outskirts of town. The flood had taken this special tree, which had held a favorite swing and was where "the first meeting was held, and the first Sunday school organized when the place was settled 28 years ago."The editor noted:

The angry waters of the SanJuan came up and lashed its side and cut the soil from its roots, and realizing that the sacred tree was doomed a large crowd of young people gathered beside it and employed photographer Goodman to make a photograph while they were bidding a sad

farewell to their favorite tree. A short time afterward, it toppled over and fell into the river and great was the splash thereof Good bye old swing tree, good bye.3

On the same page of that day's paper, one column-inch above and to the right of the tree photograph, was a small rectangular ad, "KODAKS! Kodaks and Supplies at the Catalog price." Together, the narrative of the Swing Tree and the Kodak ad define Goodman's position as the town photographer. Other photographs exist of the Swing Tree, probably taken with Kodaks, but the special event was entrusted to a professional. Goodman lived through and experienced the transitional era of the West and photography. At the beginning of his career he would have used the wet collodion method. When he finished, the industry had been revolutionized, evolving quickly through the dry plate method and into the early stages of flexible film.

What brought Goodman west to Colorado in 1880 may have been the same thing that took him to the San Juans and Bluff. The earliest San Juan miners avidly promoted their isolated region to attract out-

The swing tree in Bluff, Utah, just before being washed away in 1907. USHS collections.

side interests and financing, without which they would be held captive by the rugged mountains and extreme climate By 1870 the San Juaners were making known "the rare opportunities of our country" to investors as far away as New York. Goodman himself would come to the San Juans and play a part in promoting them.

Born in New York in 1843, Goodman made his way west and could be found in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1872, near where the Wisconsin River enters the Mississippi at the Wisconsin-Iowa border. He was listed in the Wisconsin State Gazetteer & Business Directory through 1873 with a business at the corner of Bluff 8c Main streets, where he competed with an H. R. Farr, who had operated a studio since 1870. In 1876 they merged as Farr 8c Goodman and listed their business until 1877.

Promises of riches in the San Juans drew Goodman to Colorado in 1880. As the railroad construction crews worked deeper into the mountains, wholesale business was "just a hummin'." There was a shortage of horses, and an incredible number of railroad ties were constantly passing through the city. "Railroad laborers are scarcer than hen teeth," noted the editors of the Colorado Chieftain. Newspaper ads for "300 men wanted to work on the San Juan extension of the D&RG," which would provide access to the SanJuans, promised "good wages."4

Charles H. Goodman first appeared in Colorado in the 1880 Colorado State Business Directory, listed in South Pueblo as Goodman 8c Brothers His brother, J H., does not appear in the Wisconsin records, and when Charles moved west from Pueblo,J. H. slipped from the historical record. Some of the first images Goodman took in western Colorado were in Pitkin in 1883, and one stereograph is stamped as "Goodman Bros, Pitkin, Colo."5 After that date, Goodman appears to have operated on his own, without his brother During his years in Colorado, Goodman favored Montrose the most: images from there dated 1884 and 1887-88 have been found. This presents some large holes, but photographs taken between those years still point to Montrose. The other images are of towns in the vicinity of Montrose, in the north and central areas of the San Juans, all very accessible from the Uncompahgre River drainage: Ouray, Telluride, Red Mountain, and Silverton.

4 Colorado Chieftain, April 15, 1880

5 Stereograph Photograph Collection, P0066, 1:5:12, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah

In the spring and summer of 1892, one of the largest San Juan rushes brought thousands of people into Creede, Colorado. The boomer editor of the Creede Candle repeated the mantra, "You can't miss it if you come to Creede and keep your eyes open." Goodman went there, opened his shutter, and captured the development of Creede and the neighboring areas of Jimtown, Amethyst, and Bachelor Building ground carried a premium price, prompting one photographer to build a studio "on a huge rock that fell from the bluff on Cliff street. It is way up," noted the Candle editors. Whether the studio belonged to Goodman is difficult to say as several photographers

The Sanfuans provided infinite possibilitiesfor an accomplished photographer like Goodman. Shots of Rico, Colorado (above, courtesy of Colorado Historical Society), and the Marshall Basin near Telluride (courtesy of Thomas McKee and Denver Public Library) are shown here.

Charles

flocked to the area that year Goodman's only address in the area is a post office box in Amethyst.

"Creede is building for all time," wrote the editor. "The Creede boom will rejuvenate all industries in Colorado and lead to a general healthy awakening all over the west." The boomer editor must have been receiving kickbacks as he boasted there "seems no limit." But for Goodman there was; he left town that fall bound for someplace where the word "boom" was yet to be mentioned

For years Goodman pasted a label on the back of his images that stated, "This scene located on the line of the Denver 8c Rio Grande Railroad. Photograph furnished through the courtesy of the Passenger Department." Another regular label on his images stated, "Views in the Old Reservation of the Ute Indians and Scenes along the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, Chas. Goodman." Yet his relations with the railroad are unknown He might have received a stipend or use of the railroad, but it is doubtful that he ever had exclusive use of a wellpadded photograph car, as did his well-known contemporary W. H. Jackson. The arrangement with the railroad followed him to Bluff, beyond the end of the railroad tracks. For many years, Goodman continued to use those same labels

In the summer of 1893, after leaving Creede, Goodman set up his operation in Mancos, Colorado, on the southwest fringe of the San Juan Mountains. In the Mancos Times he ran an advertisement: "Photo Portraits Or views of Residences and Ranch scenes, made to order CHAS. GOODMAN, Photographer" and located his gallery on Grand Avenue, "nearly opposite the school house." In the standard fashion of announcing a new business and advertiser to the readers, the editor of the Mancos Times, W. H. Kelley, promoted Goodman as "an experienced portrait and view photographer, and will open a studio in Mancos for a few weeks." Goodman immediately shot a series of views of Mancos from the tops of the adjacent hills, "showing the town and every ranch and house for miles up and down the valley."6

By August of that summer the newspaper referred to Goodman as "our photographer," suggesting he was the only, or at least, the favorite lensman in town at the time. The paper announced his latest work, a series of "magnificent views, showing every ranch in Mancos Valley from the village down to the head of Mancos Canon." The kind editor urged that "every ranch owner and resident in the valley should

6 Mancos Times, July 21, 1893

obtain these series of views, as they will go farther to convey the grandeur and magnificence of our wonderful valley upon the minds of their Eastern friends than the poetical word-painting of a Bob Ingersoll."7

The newspaper, which was hardly ever illustrated by art or lithograph, was especially attentive to the residence of one man, Capt. Jackson, a prominent veteran of the California and Colorado gold rushes Jackson was working in West Mancos on a large hydraulic mining project, the opening of which was to be "a memorable event in the history of Montezuma country." When Jackson "turns his Little Giant loose upon the rich gravel beds of West Mancos," boasted the paper, ".. . there will be rejoicing in this shop. We have secured the services of Mr. Chas. Goodwin [sic], who will take a photographic view of the scene, which we will reproduce in THE TIMES as soon as we can have the cut made." 8 Unfortunately, either the Little Giant was never unleashed or some other miscalculation occurred, because neither an engraving of Goodman's image of the event nor any other mention of the hydraulic mining appeared in the next six months.

Nonetheless, at that time Mancos was booming. According to the paper, "There are more prospectors in the La Plata mountains in the present time than ever before in its history," and a significant gold strike caused a rush to Bear Creek. "In almost every gulch men are at work. . . . Every day experts and capitalists are to be seen in the district . . .which signifies a large amount of development work this winter."9

Once again, as the miners stampeded to the next gulch, Goodman headed the other direction. He quietly placed an ad on September 29, 1893, stating simply, "Only twenty days longer[!] Goodman's photo gallery on Grand avenue." He offered his photographs at "reduced rates," noting that the views of Mancos and the valley, "including mining scenes in the La Plata mountains that were left on my hands," had not been called for. Prior to his departure, he offered a unique image "of the Mancos primary school: 60 scholars and the teacher." The price of 50 cents for a "fine photograph .. . of some of the future great and good men and women of the Mancos valley" was the going rate for the larger views.10

Goodman headed west, away from the high country snows, to the

7 Ibid., August 11, 1893

8 Ibid

9 Ibid., August 4, 1893.

10 Ibid., August 6, 1893

desert His travels had taken him there before, as evidenced by a photograph taken at Holley's Trading Post on the SanJuan River, Utah, on Thanksgiving Day, 1890. But with such good business in a boomtown like Mancos, what prompted Goodman to leave at this time? The newspaper suggests several forces that would impact Goodman's business. Other photographers arrived. Charles B. Lang, in conjunction with a Wetherill, opened a gallery in Mancos, advertising for the first time in the September 1, 1893, issue "The young gentlemen are doing first-class work and their Cliff Dwelling scenes are immense," noted the editor. Lang also offered painting classes: "If a proper number of scholars can be obtained, I will give painting lessons in this village during the winter. The greater the number the less will be the cost." After December 8, Lang and Wetherill no longer advertised. Lang is later mentioned as a musician and photographer in Bluff. The other forces that might have influenced Goodman were the enticements of untried and untested fields—places where he might be first to strike it rich. As the first big snowstorms of 1893 began to pile drifts in the San Juan mountains, editor Kelley signaled the next place with the boast of "a bona fide gold boom on the Lower San Juan before the blue birds nest again."11

Several residents of Mancos, particularly businessmen, began to travel to the lower SanJuan to "experiment" in the new gold fields. Goodman was among them. Of course, Kelley shared unfettered enthusiasm, saying on December 22, "There will be a big rush into that section before long. We shall give authentic information as to their value and extent just as soon as possible, and shall keep the reading public thoroughly posted of passing events." The Mancos Times did cover the new developments

on the San Juan with regularity

The real evidence of paying gold was in the hands of men returning to Mancos On January 26, 1894, it was posted that Mr Walter Mendenhall had brought in six ounces of gold from his placer mine on the SanJuan below Bluff. That same issue of the Mancos Times is the first issue in which Goodman's advertisements no longer appear in the paper. Like many other businessmen—Dave Lemmon, Major Hanna, George Bauer, and William Hyde (the latter from Salt Lake had settled in Bluff and moved to Mancos)—Goodman probably traveled between Mancos and Bluff throughout the fall and winter months of 1893, prospecting along the SanJuan The Mancos news-

paper announced several excursions leaving from and returning to the Bluff area, promising of course that there would be a boom in that section

"Bluff City and vicinity is now the subject of much interest in mining circles. There is no attempt upon the part of any person to create a boom, but gold is being found in goodly paying quantities in many places along the San Juan," wrote Kelley. He was a boomer at heart and could not resist such optimism. Shortly after, he estimated, "The placer fields along the Lower San Juan are attracting the attention of those who pin their faith to that kind of mining There is room in that section sufficient to give employment to 10,000 miners."12

On March 2, 1894, Kelley reported news of Goodman via George Bauer, a banker and owner of a Mancos mercantile store "Our friend, Charles Goodman, who ran a photograph gallery in this place last summer, has caught on in good shape on the SanJuan." Goodman, in a letter to Bauer, noted that he was located "about 40 miles west of Bluff City," and "in company with some others, I have struck it rich at last in a placer claim down in the canon [sic] of the San Juan. We get from 500 to 1,000 colors to the pan. We have some lumber and 12 Ibid., February

'V -:':•

Charles Goodman's vivid documentary style is evident in this photograph of mining operations on the Sanfuan River in 1894. Courtesy of Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

machinery already on the road from Mancos, and will soon be engaged in taking out gold."

It is the phrase, "I have struck it rich at last," that reveals the impetus behind Goodman's travels to the forefront of the SanJuan mining scene. While it comes as no surprise, the phrase explains why he left his favorable photography operations in South Pueblo, Montrose, Creede, and Mancos, and kept moving on Goodman was moved primarily by the restless search for gold. He wasjust like the men he photographed—on the road for riches, panning, sifting, picking, digging, prospecting, speculating, and gambling Along the way, he took gold in exchange for portraits and views. While looking for his big strike, instead of working in the mines for $6 a day, he used photography as his means of survival on the frontier. In our modern vernacular, he had carved himself a niche as a photographer of the boomtowns and at the scene of discovery

Goodman and his boomer editor friend, Kelley, were willing to ignore the past. Just one short year before, the San Juan River below Bluff had brought an estimated 3,000 men in the area's first boom That first gold boom of 1892-93 caught the town of Bluff by surprise. Miners filled the town, passing through to the west, to the great new gold hope. F A Hammond estimated 30-50 people a day passed through Bluff on their way to the gold fields. With the nation in the midst of an economic depression, which closed most of the western Colorado mines, the rush cast Bluff into a boomtown and center for supplies. The Salt Lake papers encouraged men to go south and printed information on how to reach Utah's El Dorado Then, within two months, those papers were reporting the rush as a scam. Why, two years later, were Goodman and friends breaking their backs in the same place? Even the Denver Mining Record was convinced that the first rush had missed the point: "Gold has been found in liberal quantities on the San Juan river below Bluff City, Utah The 'unwarranted' excitement in that section about a year ago seems to be bearing its fruits now."13

The SanJuan gold rushes were replicas of those in Glen Canyon

The first Glen Canyon rush was set off by Cass Hite in 1883. A seeker of the "lost" Mitchell and Merrick mine, Hite settled at Dandy Crossing and witnessed a boom of seven years. After the SanJuan gold rushes of 1892-94, many of those miners entered Glen Canyon. But the Colorado River gold presented the same problem as the San Juan

13 Ibid., February 2, 1894

River gold: it was a fine granular flour that washed out of the pan with the sand. The handful of men from Mancos, like the men of Glen Canyon, were persistent in a search for a system that could separate the fine gold from the sandy silt. They devised elaborate contraptions to dredge the stream bottoms and separate the gold. Among the 100 designs patented, one was of a gold dredge built by Robert B. Stanton and the Hoskaninni Company.14 It, too, was a pocket-emptying failure. The San Juan and Colorado rivers extracted more wealth from the men than they gave. After each rush, most miners moved on, burdened with new debts. Goodman stayed behind. We know that he made it over to the Glen Canyon area, photographing the tributaries of Dark Canyon and Lake Canyon. Being a miner, he probably washed some sand there as well

Goodman's first photos of the San Juan miners were taken the month before Kelley reported Goodman's find, dated January 1894. Two images of his company of miners working the sands near Mexican Hat are very popular and often used in portraying the San Juan gold rush. The first image is of four miners around a sluice machine, each comfortably posed in the various positions of the sluicing process Like the "First Oil" image, this is a masterpiece for its clear documentation of the field operation. The other picture is located just below the famous landmark, Mexican Hat Rock The miners developed an elaborate aqueduct to provide their shoreline sluice with water. Since most of the gold lay in the sands above the water line, they needed to bring the water to it. A broad water wheel sits in the middle of the river and turns a conveyor belt of buckets. The water is dumped at the top of an eight-foot escalator into the aqueduct, which runs to shore over sixty feet away on stilts of driftwood braces. The aqueduct makes a U-turn and returns to the river shore. Four men stand posed about the contraption, three with shovels, about knee- to waist-deep in the holes they have dug. One man sits at the terminus of the aqueduct, rocking the diggings with the transported water

Goodman's documentary-style photography was perfect for promotional use. Miners discovering rich ore deposits had money or gold to pay for photos, and they also needed views to promote their claims and catch the interest of investors. In at least one instance, Goodman's views were published in a prospectus. When the oil boom began in the lower San Juan, he captured Goodridge's No 1 oil well and penned

14 Rober t S McPherson, A History of San Juan County: In the Palm of Time (Salt Lake City an d Blanding: Utah State Historical Society and San Jua n County Commission, 1995), pp 242, 246

"Struck High Grade Oil Here March 4, 1908" (featured on p. 3 of this issue) Several of Goodman's images were used to promote the new oil fields and were printed in the San Juan &: London Oil Company's prospectus.15

Goodman also used his photojournalistic sensitivity to portray the condition of the Navajo people When he arrived in SanJuan County, it was an isolated area with well-established problems. The "Ute Problem" was a regional headliner, the Navajos were starving, and there were divisions among Mormons and non-Mormons. Goodman's community of miners only exacerbated some of the problems, but he may have helped to solve some of the others. The Utes were being ousted from their traditional lands of western Colorado where miners and settlers were increasing in numbers. When Kelley printed the news from Goodman's strike, he noted of the lower San Juan, "And yet this is the section that many of our friends are anxious to locate

Placer mining on the Sanfuan, 1894. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Goodman's style was his positioning of each man to show the complete operation. Courtesy of Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

Earl Douglass Papers, MSS 196, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah

Navajos were afavorite subject of Goodman's photography. Above: Site presumed to be the Navajo Faith Mission in Aneth, Utah, with founder Howard Antes in dark coat at left center. Courtesy of Colorado Historical Society. Left: Silversmith and daughter displaying wares. Courtesy of LDS Church Archives.

the Southern Utes upon. The Utes will be removed s'mother year."

16 Again the boomer was too fast with his pen The Northern Utes were removed to the Uintah Reservation in northeastern Utah, and a similar plan was in the making to evict the Southern Utes from their land in the Four Corners area. San Juan County, Utah, remained the best answer, if not the most readily available area. The Southern Utes were given most of San Juan County Ranchers and settlers, the community which Goodman was now a part of, fought the decision and by November of 1894 the Southern Utes were moving back to Colorado.

17 Goodman's photographs were possibly taken at claims that may have been the targets of some Navajo aggression. With their reservation south of the SanJuan River and a growing number of land claims on the north side, the Navajos were using the river and its flood plain for farming. When the miners staked claims along the length of the 16

river between McElmo Creek and the Arizona-Utah border, the Navajos fought back by destroying claim markers, scattering horses and burros, and intimidating the miners. As tensions escalated, the military was called in to maintain peace. 18

Yet we know that Goodman had an amiable association with the Navajos. In 1902 the Indian agent received reports that the Navajos were starving and went to Bluff to investigate Between 1892 and 1895, the San Juan region had been hit by hard frosts, severe droughts, and cold spring weather. The Navajos had grown desperate after three years of crop failures At the same time, their profitable wool and blanket trade had withered during the national depression. Local trading posts had closed down. Conflicts between the Navajos and whites increased.19 By the time the Navajo agent arrived, the Navajos had recovered from their misfortunes of the mid-1890s. "I met and talked with Charles Goodman who resides in Bluff City [and] has resided there for the last eight years," wrote the agent, George Hayzlett. He said Goodman was "the only resident in the town who is not a [M]orman," and "he never heard anything of. . . starving Indians." The agent felt Goodman was a valid source for information because "he is a photographer and goes among the Indians quite frequent."20 Goodman spent his time among the Navajos at the Navajo Faith Mission, which was founded in 1895 by Howard Ray Antes, an independent Methodist missionary and self-styled Indian advocate. Antes established the Faith Mission near Aneth at the height of the mid18908 drought. He was dedicated to their cause and was able to drum up donations from people in the East, which he distributed to the natives. Part of the money was used to subsidize the blanket-weaving industry. Antes also supplied people with great amounts of clothing and flour to sustain them through long winter months.

2 1 Goodman took many images of the Navajo: activities at the Faith Mission, women weaving, the missionary (presumably Antes) shaking the hand of a Navajo, medicine men, general gatherings, and sheep herds. Since Goodman used his photographs for documentary and promotional purposes, it is conceivable that some of these images were sent back to Antes's charitable donors.

While Goodman seemed to do well enough for himself, the big

18 Ibid., pp 125-26,136

19 Ibid., p. 126.

20 U.S Department of Interior, Indian Service, Navaho Agency, Fort Defiance, Arizona, correspondence (57523), September 18, 1892 Copy in author's possession

21 McPherson, A History of San Juan County, p 127

strike that everyone was waiting for—the big strike that would have made Goodman his millions—never came. Perhaps history is better for his missed riches. Without that great strike, he kept taking photographs and therefore left something much more valuable than gold or oil Goodman's images are of such caliber that had he come west fifteen years earlier and perchance run into the likes of a Hayden, King, Wheeler, or Powell, conductors of the Great Surveys, he could have done just as well as W. H.Jackson, Jack Hillers, and Timothy O'Sullivan. In his own survey of the mining camps, he captured the saga of the SanJuan mountains and river

Tourists enjoying Four Corners scenery also attracted Goodman's eye. Above: Group at camp of Seth Redd in Dark Canyon, ca. 1901. Courtesy of Museum of New [ Mexico. Left: Tour group poses before departing Bluff. Courtesy of Colorado Historical Society.

Charles Goodman died on February 13, 1912, apparently of natural causes, at sixty-eight years of age. 22 With only the photos and scant other materials to decipher his life, he remains a "transient" in the pages of history He wandered the rugged San Juans and Colorado Plateau, only to settle down in Bluff. What was it that kept him there? Perhaps he lingered, believing that gold and oil were there in paying quantities. Or maybe the next boom, such as the Klondike in 1896, was too far away for an old man. Though we do not know if the San Juan gold made him any money, we do know that Goodman made a life for himself in Bluff and San Juan County. In the mid-1890s, the Denver Mining Record commented on the erratic Bluff gold rush, noting that though it had faded there was still good news coming from that district: "In the history of all mining excitement it is shown that

Cemetery Records of Bluff

Classic photographs of tourists riding across Sipapu Bridge in White Canyon and climbing to an Anasazi cliff dwelling, also in White Canyon, demonstrate Goodman's talent for the spectacular. Both photos courtesy of Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

Panorama of a mining operation on the Sanfuan, just downriver from Mexican Hat. When Goodman arrived here in 1894, he thought he had "struck it rich. " He remained in the area until his death. Photo courtesy of Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

those who stay after the rush and rabble pass away usually discover something permanent." The paper then invoked the proverb "A rolling stone gathers no moss," implying that those who are always rushing to the next boom will gather no gold.23 For Charles Goodman, maybe that San Juan gold and the life it led him to were enough.

Mancos Times, February 2, 1894

In Memoriam: Jesse D. Jennings, 1909-97

JESSE DAVID JENNINGS, noted archaeologist and Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society, died at his home in Siletz, Oregon, on August 13, 1997.Jane Chase Jennings, his wife and partner since their 1935 wedding, was at his side His nearly forty years as professor of anthropology at the University of Utah profoundly influenced the practice of archaeology both locally and nationally and gained him numerous awards and honors

Born July 7, 1909, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, he moved with

The portrait of Jesse Jennings, by Alvin Gittins, hangs in the Utah Museum of Natural History.

Photo courtesy of David Jennings

his family to Estancia, New Mexico, at the age of ten. His father worked variously as a sharecropper and traveling salesman and was rarely with the family; Jennings, being the oldest child, began working at the age of twelve tending livestock, hoeing beans and cutting firewood, all while excelling at schoolwork—he skipped three grades and graduated from high school at age fifteen.

His mother, a devout Baptist who vowed that her son would enter the ministry, loaded the family into a covered wagon and made a seven-day trip to Hot Springs, New Mexico, to enroll Jesse in Montezuma College, a small Baptist college that had opened a few years earlier. While there, he worked at variousjobs, played sports, and led the debate team—then graduated second in his class. Immediately following college he went to Chicago with one of his professors, found ajob as a laborer on the University of Chicago Campus, and in the fall was able to begin taking classes as a probationary graduate student. He became interested in anthropology and took classes or seminars from such notable scholars as Fay-Cooper Cole, Robert Redfield, Edward Sapir, Bronislaw Malinowski, Alfred Kroeber, and Alfred R Radcliffe-Brown. While in graduate school,Jennings worked as a university policeman, and even shot a man, who died from the resulting pneumonia

After attending an archaeological field school, enjoying it and doing well, he interrupted his graduate education when, in order to be closer to his ailing father, he took a job teaching high school in New Mexico. He taught for two years, working with the field schools in the summers, and returned to graduate school following his father's death in 1933. In 1936 he completed his classwork and worked for the National Park Service in the Southwest, and also for numerous archaeological projects in the Southeast and Midwest. His work with A.V. Kidder at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala, in 1938 formed the basis for his dissertation, which he completed in 1943 After serving as a naval officer in World War II, he again worked for the Park Service, resigning in 1948 to accept a faculty position at the University of Utah.

Jennings's career at the University of Utah lasted nearly 40 years, ending with his retirement in 1986. During that time he trained many students and conducted research throughout Utah, most notably in the Great Salt Lake Desert, the Glen Canyon of the Colorado, and the Colorado Plateau. His work at Danger Cave near Wendover was a remarkable piece of research that contributed greatly to our understanding of area prehistory and set a new standard for archaeological

methods and reporting. His report (Danger Cave, Anthropological Papers No. 27, University of Utah, 1957), a classic in American archaeology, described in meticulous detail the complex stratigraphy, the artifacts, and the floral and faunal components of the site. Combining the results of the excavation with ethnographic information about regional cultures,Jennings developed a model for Great Basin human adaptation called the Desert Culture; his model continues to be a useful characterization The Danger Cave research was also one of the first studies in the world to demonstrate the utility of the then-new technique of radiocarbon dating.

When construction of the Glen Canyon dam threatened thousands of archaeological sites,Jennings led an eight-year salvage and research program that resulted in the recording of over 2,000 sites, the excavation of dozens more, and the publication of over 100 documents, including the synthetic and wide-ranging summary (Glen Canyon: A Summary, Anthropological Papers No. 81, University of Utah, 1966). Other significant research projects conducted by Jennings include excavations at Cowboy Cave, Sudden Shelter, Bull Creek, and a multi-year project in Western Samoa.

In addition to teaching and research, Jennings's contributions to the field included a tireless effort to disseminate knowledge widely in the academic community through journals, synthetic works, and textbooks. He served as editor of American Antiquity (1950-1954), the Plains Archeological Conference Newsletter (1947-1950), and the University of Utah Anthropological Papers (1950-1953 and 1963-1985). His Prehistory of North America (McGraw-Hill, 1968, 1974, 1989) and two other introductory textbooks (with Robert F. Spencer and Edward Norbeck) introduced generations of students to the field. He edited and contributed to Ancient Native Americans (1978), Ancient North Americans (1983), and Ancient South Americans (1983, all W.H. Freeman), compilations which have been widely used in both graduate and undergraduate courses.

He also served on the executive board of the American Anthropological Association (1953-1956), as President of the Society for American Archaeology (1959-1960), and as vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1961). For these many and varied services to the field, Jennings was widely honored. Among his awards are the Viking Medal in Archaeology (1958); Distinguished Professor, University of Utah (1974); and Doctor of Science, University of Utah (1980) He was elected to the National

Academy of Sciences in 1977, was a Fulbright-Hayes Lecturer at the University of Auckland in 1979, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Society for American Archaeology in 1982.

JesseJennings was a tireless advocate for and promoter of archaeology. He and avocational archaeologist George Tripp were responsible for the passage of antiquities protection laws in Utah He founded the Utah Museum of Natural History and was a strong supporter of the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum during its early years. He was an early supporter of the Utah Statewide Archaeological Society and worked with George Tripp to help get it established.

As a researcher Jennings was thorough, diligent, insightful, and creative. He had a very strong conviction that it is an archaeologist's most important responsibility to publish the results of any research in a timely fashion When a site is excavated, it is destroyed, and Jennings thought it an atrocity if detailed reports were not prepared. He took this responsibility seriously and expected his students to do the same. He was very disciplined, and he demanded discipline from his students. As a teacher he was always fair, although his intensity terrified many students (and colleagues) Most of his students will remember Jennings for his ability to be both gruff and humorous, for his great dedication to and deep love of archaeology, and for his incessant smoking We often joked that Jennings thought the eraser trays on classroom chalkboards were there for him to use as ashtrays.

Jennings was a big man with a big personality and endless drive. His well-written autobiography, Accidental Archaeologist (University of Utah Press, 1994), is fascinating reading for anyone interested in archaeology, and it affords considerable insight into this intriguing man whose contributions to archaeology will continue to benefit the field for years to come.

KEVIN T. JONES Utah State Archaeologist

Book Reviews MM I

Geographer Barbara J. Morehouse defines the contested geography of "the greater Grand Canyon" as a much larger region than the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park, the Grand Canyon that most people conceptualize This area's story "is neither singular nor unique. Rather, it is representative of one of the most fundamental processes of human existence: society's organization of geographical space" (p. 6).

Three concepts of space are compared and contrasted in a chronological discussion of changing perceptions and practices regarding creation and expansion of Grand Canyon National Park: absolute space, and its boundaries, "a defined area within which certain ideas and ways of behaving dominate"; relative space, "an area that supports multiple definitions and uses . . . relative to particular attributes," with changing boundaries "depending on the characteristics of the space and the expectations of those giving it definition"; and representational space, or a "sense of place," which "enfolds symbols, values, experiences, histories, and traditions—many of which are intangible and unquantifiable—that give someone a sense of attachment to that location" (p. 7).

Time and again, Morehouse documents the many political considerations in the progress, or lack thereof, toward establishing or expanding protection for the Grand Canyon Federal agency infighting and competition,

between the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service in particular, continue to the present and are arguably as large a deterrent to preservation of the ecosystem as are conflicting values and agenda of ranchers, timber interests, miners, hunters, recreationists, environmentalists, and Native Americans

The most interesting topic for this reviewer was the ongoing struggle over boundary issues, including the shared Colorado River boundary, with Native American tribal entities Although the Navajo reservation delineation in 1868 was the first example of lands set aside for political purposes by the federal government in the greater Grand Canyon region, it is ironic that boundary problems continue and that reservation enlargement struggles for the most part resulted in futility. The Havasupai battle leading to the 1975 reservation enlargement by transferring park lands to the tribe occurred only after ninety years of effort.

The perpetual fight between and among federal agencies and various use-groups continues the tradition of contestation Morehouse documents. The author's reference list is extensive, containing much more than just secondary sources She makes impressive use of primary source material from the Grand Canyon National Park Archives as well as the Morris Udall Archives at the University of Arizona References to these and other primary

A Place Called Grand Canyon: Contested Geographies. By BARBARAJ MOREHOUSE (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996.viii + 202 pp. Cloth, $40.00; paper $19.95.)

sources will lead those so inclined to more specific topics.

The short discussions of "space" at the end of most chapters appear to be add-ons in order to satisfy Morehouse's premise regarding space These entries would better fit into the last two chapters: "Toward a (Re)definition of Grand Canyon" and "Looking Backward—and Forward."

Controversial issues that the author does not cover in much detail (or at all, for some are post-1995, the last year of coverage) set the stage for the future: General Management Plan implementation; release of the California condors; possible uranium mining renewal; the Colorado River and the backcountry management plan revisions; Tusayan Environmental Impact Statement; salvage logging on the North Rim; the operation of Glen Canyon Dam and its possible removal;

draining of Lake Powell; discussions concerning limits and reservations for park visitation; carrying capacity, limits of acceptable change, and visitor contact and perceptions studies; the Park Service and FAA tug-of-war with scenic overflights; and wilderness designation. The list is virtually endless

Readers concerned with the West will find an excellent summary of the struggle and controversy surrounding the changing perceptions regarding protection of the space that is Grand Canyon. Morehouse is well qualified to add future chapters, for this struggle is seemingly increasing. Let us hope that she keeps us apprised of the events and perceptions concerning the "grander" Grand Canyon area

RICHARD D QUARTAROLI

Northern Arizona University

Flagstaff, Arizona

Gila Monsters and Red-Eyed Rattlesnakes: Don Maguire 's Arizona Trading Expeditions, 1876-1879. Edited by GARY TOPPING (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1997 xviii + 245 pp $34.95.)

If you met Don Maguire at a social gathering, you would be well advised to pull up a chair and sit a spell Maguire (1852-1933) had been places and done things during his long life and, judging from this account of his trading days in Utah and Arizona in the 1870s, he knew how to tell a rollicking good story. The challenge to historians, as editor Topping cautions in his introduction, is finding the paydirt buried beneath a mountain of exaggeration and outright fabrication. Sticklers for demonstrable fact should be prepared to dig deep.

On October 12, 1876, Maguire set out from Ogden, Utah, with two companions, fourteen mules, and three horses on the first of three expeditions to sell merchandise to the mining camps, Indian reservations, and fron-

tier communities of southern Utah, Arizona, and northern Mexico College educated and recently returned from travels in Europe and North Africa, the twenty-five-year-old entrepreneur read Telemachus in French by the campfire, hunted wild game with remarkable prowess, gleefully collected artifacts from ancient ruins and cliff dwellings, and made piles of money. He also kept sketchy diaries from which, in 1883, he wrote a narrative of his adventures. Following a fire in 1929 that destroyed his home, library, and much of his manuscript materials, in 1931 Maguire—now nearing eighty years of age—hired a secretary who completed the typescript that Topping has edited for publication. Clearly, by this time Maguire had given his imagination full rein as he recreated adventures of fifty

years past in a "region of romance danger and death" (p xvii)

Even casual students of southwestern history will find it annoyingly easy to catch Maguire in lies both large and small Army officers that Maguire claims to have visited at Forts McDowell and Verde never existed, Morris Goldwater becomes Moses in Maguire's recollections, he twice mentions that Padre Eusebio Kino was martyred by Apaches, and states that Confederate general Edmund Kirby Smith captured Tucson. In other instances, as editor Topping points out, he has fabricated stories of an accordian-playing Mrs. Killfor and her oddball library; French prospector Jean La Bruyere; a 1776 visit to Cane Springs by the peripatetic missionary-explorer Francisco Garces; and his own visit to the Petrified Forest, including supposedly firsthand, but demonstrably erroneous, observations of Navajo customs Readers more skeptical than Topping may reasonably question the old peddler's descriptions of prosperous Paiute, Mohave, and Hualapai Indians and his wild tale of trading guns with Mexican smugglers in a cave somewhere in the so-called Santa Cruz mountains near Tucson. Checking Prescott and Tucson newspapers for Maguire's coming and goings, and greater familiarity with standard secondary sources on the history and

geography of southern Arizona, might have hoisted additional red flags for Topping.

What then does Gila Monsters and Red-Eyed Rattlesnakes provide that justifies its publication? Topping is right when he describes Maguire's narratives as "original and colorful contributions to the literature of the American West" (p vii) They also introduce us to Maguire—an entertaining traveling companion who knows intimately nineteenth-century business practices and is always loath to let fact get in the way of a good story. Allowing for hyperbole, a faulty memory, and an anti-Mormon bias, readers will find knowledgeable descriptions of life and customs in the tiny communities that dotted southern Utah and the valley of the Little Colorado in Arizona In the end, Maguire's reminiscences may be of greatest value to folklorists, who will read them for insight into frontier customs and beliefs. Historians, on the other hand, would be well advised to heed Topping's warning not to "yield too easily to the temptation to take at face value Maguire's descriptions" and, rather, to view their shortcomings as challenges "to our own intelligence and creativity" (p xiii) They are indeed

BRUCE J. DINGES Arizona Historical

Society Tucson

Images of an American Land: Vernacular Architecture in the Western United States. Edited by THOMAS CARTER (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. xvi + 337 pp Cloth, $50.00; paper, $29.95.)

The field of vernacular architectural history—an "awkward term," (xiii) as editor Thomas Carter of the University of Utah admits—is the study of ordinary buildings in their historic contexts. As artifacts, such structures tell us much about everyday life throughout American history. Although scholars

have written extensively about the built environment of the eastern United States, publications about western vernacular traditions have been skimpy and scattered. In this anthology, Carter has begun to remedy that imbalance by bringing together some of the best of these writings and presenting the first

truly useful theory for interpreting the western built environment

As does no other scholar of western material culture, Carter centers his anthology firmly within the historiography of New Western history. This is reflected in his selections of essays that cover a variety of structures over a broad spectrum of time Though Carter includes three essays on rural agricultural buildings—the common topic of folklorists—the rest deal with ethnic groups such as Chinese and Hispanics, women, urban environments, and industrial landscapes. Three specifically examine the West's twentieth-century built environment, an overlooked area of material culture studies. Carter has organized the twelve articles into pairs relating to six themes: building traditions that moved from East to West, structural innovations that illuminate western distinctiveness, architectural convergence of different cultures, diversity and gender distinctions in the built environment, urbanization in the West, and production of landscapes centered on exploiting resources

Taken individually, the anthology's essays seem quite divergent. Carter's introduction, however, provides an overarching unity and a way to think about the West's diverse architecture and subregions. Borrowing from geographers' core-periphery theory, Carter argues that western vernacular traditions share a "peripheral relationship to an increasingly industrialized and urban American core culture" (p. 11).

Although local circumstances produce distinctive subcultures, they are all bound within the larger historic context of industrialization and capitalism. This is a much more practical and satisfying method for interpreting the western built environment than the commonly used diffusion theory

Some of the essays succeed at utilizing Carter's general theory For instance, Chris Wilson's "When a Room Is the Hall: The Houses of West Las Vegas, New Mexico" clearly shows how Anglo-American values began to influence regional Hispanic architecture. Other chapters, however, are purely descriptive, a common problem of architectural studies. This may reflect an earlier, less analytical stage of the field, as many of these works rely on research from the 1970s and 1980s Seven of them have been published previously injournals or anthologies

Carter's book, and especially his introduction, marks a turning point in the study of western vernacular architecture. By placing landscapes within the context of current western historiography, Carter has given new relevance to western material culture. Thus, scholars of both disciplines will benefit from reading this anthology. But perhaps more importantly, those who love and know the West as a place will gain new perspectives on this complex and fascinating region.

JANET ORE

Colorado State University

Ft. Collins

A New Significance: Re-Envisioning the History of the American West. Edited by CLYDE A. MILNER II. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. xiv + 318 pp. Cloth, $49.95; paper, $19.95.)

One of the few complaints that western historians will have about A New Significance is that it has been a long

time coming The conference at Utah State University, where the volume's essayswere first aired, took place in the

summer of 1992 (marking, albeit a year early, the centennial of Turner's frontier thesis) The essays then appeared in the Western Historical Quarterly in 1993 and 1994. For most readers, though, the end-product will prove well worth the wait. In addition to the book's core essays—by Allan G. Bogue on historiography, William Deverell on the West and U.S. history, David G. Gutierrez on Mexican Americans, Susan Rhodes Neel on the environment, Gail M Nomura on Asian Americans, Anne F. Hyde on perceptions of the West, David Rich Lewis on Native Americans, and Susan Lee Johnson on gender—there are two commentaries for each essay, a brief essay by Quintard Taylor on African Americans, and a concluding statement by Deverell and Hyde.

While space does not permit substantive discussion of each of the essays, it is worth noting that they can be divided into two broad categories: "informational" and "theoretical." Lewis's superb overview of Native Americans in the twentieth-century West, "Still Native," and Gutierrez's nicely structured analysis of Mexican American historiography, "Significant to Whom?," typify the former category. Gail Nomura's overview of Asia and Asian Americans, "Significant Lives," Bogue's sweeping historiographic survey of "The Course of Western History's First Century," and Taylor's piece on "The Meaning of AfricanAmerican History in the West" also fall into the informational category. Deverell's "Fighting Words," Neel's "A Place of [environmental] Extremes," Hyde's "Cultural Filters," and Johnson's "The Significance of Gender" are all more theoretical. While these theoretical pieces will seem quite accessible to scholars in the field, students at the undergraduate level will find them difficult reading compared with the informational pieces.

But important as the core essays are, special mention must be made of the commentary pieces that augment the volume's usefulness. Particularly memorable are Richard Maxwell Brown's overview of the "new western literature"; Arnoldo De Leon's and Vicki Ruiz's comments on Mexican Americans; Dan Flores on the environment; Sucheta Mazumdar and Gary H. Okihiro on Asian Americans; Elliott West's "The Shadow of Pikes Peak," a response to Hyde's essay and an important essay in its own right; and Peter Iverson's and Barre Toelken's excellent additions to the foundation constructed by Lewis for the study of Native Americans These commentaries add to the original essays rather than seeking to detract from them—a healthy and welcome phenomenon in a field that has recently been characterized more by confrontation than collegiality

With its general readability, numerous insightful arguments and frameworks, and up-to-date bibliographic references, A New Significance willjoin a distinguished and influential group of anthologies published this decade, including Trails: Toward a New Western History (Limerick, Milner II, and Rankin, eds.), Under an Open Sky (Cronon, Miles, and Gitlin, eds.), and Writing Western History (Etulain, ed.) However, as one might expect from a project involving so many individuals in the various sub-fields of western history, the end result is not "A New Significance" (if by that phrase the reader expects a single over-arching framework). Instead, the volume offers a set of fresh but varied approaches which together illuminate the healthy reality that the field's strength comes from its diversity.

DAVID M WROBEL Widener University Chester, Pennsylvania

The Archaeology of the Donner Party. By

DONALD

During the winter of 1846-1847, a group of overland emigrants known collectively as the Donner party became marooned in the snow while attempting to cross the Sierra Nevada of California By the time the snow trapped them, the party found themselves divided into two primary groups Unable to advance further, each group prepared a camp—one at Donner Lake and the other several miles away along Alder Creek. There, hoping to protect themselves from the elements, they waited for the weather to clear and a chance to finish their journey. For nearly half the party, that chance never came They died from starvation in their snowbound winter camps The tragedy of their ordeal has subsequently become one of the best-known stories in the history of the American West

While secondary accounts of the tragedy abound, there are few actual eyewitness accounts describing the location of cabins and other camp features or the details of camp life Consequently, questions about these topics still lie unanswered Attempting to define the location of specific structures and shed new light on the nature of life in the Donner party camps, the author sought another avenue of investigation—archaeology. This book chronicles his search and documents the discoveries his team made. Surprisingly short, the book is

L

HARDESTY

(Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1997 xii + 156 pp $27.95.)

divided into six well-documented chapters and three appendices, combining contributions from a variety of prominent scholars. Fortunately, more illustrations are used here than in some of the author's previous work.

Hardesty begins the work with a detailed overview of the Donner party's experience, which is integrated into the larger context of overland migration, by historian Michael Broadhead Following this introduction is an account of the archaeological investigations and the discoveries which Hardesty's team made about the Donner party's emergency shelter, baggage, social status, and beliefs. Since only a small sample of the sites were investigated, the author concludes with a chapter on suggestions for future research An intriguing appendix by Donald Grayson explores the effects which gender, age and family group size may have had on the Donner party survivors

Both general audiences and scholars will find The Archaeology of the Donner Party a welcome addition to the existing accounts of that great ordeal in the Sierra Historians and archaeologists will also find that the book contributes new data to the archaeology of nineteenth-century overland travel and the study of immigrant behavior

BRUCE HAWKINS Rochester, ML

Science, Values, and the American West. Edited by STEPHEN TCHUDI. (Reno: Nevada Humanities Committee, 1997. xiv + 256 pp. Paper, $14.95.)

Science, Values, and the American West is, in the words of its editor, a professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, an exploration of "the multivariate connections between science and

ethical systems" (xii) As often happens with such collections, the essays vary in the quality of their contribution

Some of the offerings, such as Michael A Bryson's "Controlling the

Land: John Wesley Powell and the Scientific Management of the American West," are particularly stimulating Equally worthy are Brett Zalkan's "Automation and Apocalypse in the Octopus" and David Kirsch's "Project Plowshare: The Cold War Search for a Peaceful Nuclear Explosive" which looks at the efforts of the Atomic Energy Commission to develop and test peaceful nuclear explosives.

Treatises such as "The Paths of Unjust Profit: John Keeble's Portrait of the American West," were tempting, at least in title, to a Utah western environmental historian like myself But the essay does not quite deliver. Another study, "Mock Turtle Arithmetic," a rather confusing title for a somewhat perplexing piece about nuclear stockpiles in the deserts of Nevada, is obviously written by an expert in the field but is loaded with

technical jargon which makes for demanding reading Admittedly these criticisms could relate to the reviewer's own preferences; but by whatever criteria employed, some of the essays in Science, Values, and the American West will bejudged shallow or poorly conceived. Is this the result of questionable editing, poor judgment in the selection process, or some other factor? On the positive side, the book does provide some insightful ideas on science and technology in the West. It is a tantalizing and important subject, and this work has much to offer by way of a beginning. But a book of this type can only be as good as the individual essays will allow, and in this case too many of those selections do not live up to their promise

M. GUY BISHOP Woods Cross, Utah

WMMM.i Book Notices

Researching Western History: Topics in the Twentieth Century. Edited by GERALD

D NAS H an d RICHARD W ETULAIN

(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. ix + 220 pp. Cloth, $50.00; paper, $24.95.)

This small volume is a rich source for students of western history looking for the "cutting edge" perspective of prominent historians on the directions and

opportunities for research on twentiethcentury western history topics. In this book historians become architects as they lay out plans, ask questions, give directions, and prod students along the way to building a history of the West from the boards and bricks of economics, natural resources and the environment, urban issues, politics, women, culture, and an ongoing examination of myth and the modern West

Leroy Robertson: Music Giant From the Rockies. By MARIAN ROBERTSON WILSON. (Salt Lake City: Blue Ribbon Publications. 1996. xvii + 344 pp. Cloth, $14.95.)

Seldom is heard a discouraging word in this rosy account of the Utah composer But then, Wilson is Robertson's daughter, and although this is not critical history, it is nevertheless an engaging portrait of an energetic and innovative man. As a ten-year-old, Robertson was so enthralled with music that he labored to make his own violin from a cigar box and embroidery thread; that passion continued through his life in a singleminded devotion both to the art form and to its development in Utah.

The story of how Robertson composed his widely-performed "Lord's Prayer" illustrates how immersed he was in his metier. In the middle of teaching a class, the scripture and a melody suddenly came into his mind. As the students watched dumbfounded, Robertson scribbled the whole composition on the chalkboard, from beginning to end

Musicians will be interested in accounts of Robertson's associations with Ernest Bloch and Arnold Schoenberg, and of his close friendship with Maurice Abravanel, who played so many of Robertson's compositions that critics questioned his judgment But perhaps the volume is most important for its chronicling of Robertson's enormous influence on the quality of music in the state.

structure is a story of personalities, political maneuvering, and fervor. Sillitoe has interlaced these elements of the ACLU's 40-year history in Utah into a compelling narrative. The book recounts behind-the-scenes interactions between the local chapter, state officials, journalists, and LDS church officials—from the first difficult and discouraging struggles over civil rights in the 1950s to recent controversies over gay clubs and abortion Clearly sympathetic to the ACLU, Friendly Fire should reward all but the most avid ACLU-despiser with a greater insight into Utah's often-fought, often-baffling civil liberties battles.

The 1854 Oregon Trail Diary ofWinfield Scott Ebey. Edited by SUSAN BADGER DOYLE and FRED W. DYKES. Emigrant Trails Historical Studies Series No. 2 (Independence, Mo.: OregonCalifornia Trails Association, 1997 xiv + 247 pp. Cloth, $27.95; paper, $14.95.)

Friendly Fire: The ACLU in Utah. By LINDA SILLITOE (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996 ix + 263 pp Cloth, $24.95.)

Behind the headlines of the perpetual conflict between the American Civil Liberties Union and Utah's power

Trails enthusiasts will welcome this edition of the noteworthy Winfield Scott Ebey diary. Captain of the 1854 train that is documented here, Ebey took hisjob of captain and chronicler seriously, and we are the better for it. The two-notebook travel diary was rewritten in 1857 and includes personal comments and quotes from the diarist's library This expanded version presents a detailed look at the trail as the "Ebey wagon train" traveled from Plum Grove, Missouri, to Puget Sound, Washington Territory. It was welcomed by H. H. Bancroft and other early historians as a primary source for their comprehensive treatment of the emigrant experience. Parts of the trail were also followed by the Mormons and Forty-niners

The editors have provided maps and photo illustrations of the trail. Their

volume enriches our knowledge of the westering adventure and calls us to go see the actual sites for ourselves.

Why I Can't Read Wallace Stegner and Other Essays: A Tribal Voice. By

ELIZABETH COOK-LYNN (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996 xiv +158 pp. Paper, $17.95.)

In this volume of articulate essays, Cook-Lynn explores from a Native American standpoint topics ranging from literary criticism to racism.

The title essay makes it clear that, although Wallace Stegner may have achieved iconic status among his devotees, not everybody is bedazzled Examining Stegner through the lens of her Dakota Winyan background, CookLynn charges that his writing celebrates America's colonialist history. Stegner, of course, saw the West through his own lens, and it is his Eurocentric viewpoint that Cook-Lynn objects to—a viewpoint that she characterizes by Stegner's phrase that Western history "sort of stopped in 1890." When Stegner tries to express regret for the Euro-Americans' dispossession of native peoples, she dismisses his remorse. For Cook-Lynn, Stegner is just another writer who mythologizes the West, creates his own realities, and laments the past without acknowledging the recent past, present, and future of tribal peoples

Cook-Lynn's essay is nothing if not provocative In fact, given the current flood of West-centered personal narrative, it is worth exploring as a way to fine-tune a reader's "built-in, shockproof shit detector," as Hemingway put it. But Cook-Lynn's critique, centered around a few of Stegner's quotes, ignores the larger body of Stegner's work and the inclusiveness of his viewpoint. Nor does she acknowledge the fact that Stegner broke new ground in

reassessing the Euro-American's relationships to land and to other cultures. But then, Cook-Lynn doesn't read Stegner Her exploration of Stegner is "minimally undertaken, and only to remind myself that literature can and does successfully contribute to the politics of possession and dispossession." You find what you're looking for

The Geography of Hope: A Tribute to Wallace Stegner. Edited by PAGE STEGNER AND MARY STEGNER (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996 viii + 140 pp. Paper, $15.00.)

Some of these essayists hardly knew Stegner; others were on intimate terms But each was deeply influenced by the man, and it's in the individuality of their encounters that the significance of this volume lies. Bruce Babbitt, for instance, describes how Beyond the Hundredth Meridian revolutionized his understanding of the West. Raised in a mining and ranching town, Babbitt had been raised to celebrate the conquest of the land Stegner changed that.

William Kittredge explores through Stegner the responsibility of the artist to "name the sacred"; Nancy Packer describes his ability to unite masculine and feminine in both his life and marriage; politician David Bonior tells how Stegner helped him keep his head and heart in the mad world of Washington. Barry Lopez, however, remembers Stegner in light of a prime question: "What I want to know is what good was a person capable of, how did love flourish around him or her? How did what they do help?"

The personal answers in this volume are more than affectionate tributes; they're palpable evidence of the multifaceted ways in which one person can and did "help."

UTA H STATE HISTORICA L SOCIETY

Department of Community and Economic Development Division of State History

BOAR D O F STATE HISTOR Y

PETER L GOSS, Salt Lake City, 1999 Chair

CAROL CORNWALL MADSEN, Salt Lake City, 2001 Vice-Chair

MAX J. EVANS, Salt Lake City Secretary

MARILYN CONOVER BARKER, Salt Lake City, 1999

MICHAEL W HOMER, Salt Lake City, 2001

LORI HUNSAKER, Brigham City, 2001

KIM A HYATT, Bountiful, 2001

JOE L C JANETSKI, Provo, 2001

CHRISTIE SMITH NEEDHAM, Logan, 2001

RICHARD W SADLER, Ogden, 1999

PENNY SAMPINOS, Price, 1999

PAUL D. WILLIAMS, Salt Lake City, 1999

ADMINISTRATIO N

MAX J EVANS, Director WILSON G MARTIN, Associate Director

PATRICIA SMITH-MANSFIELD, Assistant Director STANFORD J. LAYTON, Managing Editor

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, unde r 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 Th e U.S Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national 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 write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, U.S Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C 20240