Book Notices

Samurais in Salt Lake: Diary of the First Diplomatic Japanese Delegation to Visit Utah, 1872.

Translated and with commentary by DEAN W COLLINWOOD, RYOICHI YAMAMOTO, and KAZUE MATSUI-HAAG ([Ogden , Ut.] : USJapan Center, 1996 72 pp Paper.)

Late in 1871 a Japanese delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Tomomi Iwakura began a tour of the United States. Its purpose was to attend the Treaty Powers conference in Washington, D C, seeking diplomatic remedies to earlier disadvantageous treaties, and in the process travel the length of the United States and learn the ways of Americans. Stranded by severe winter weather in Salt Lake City, the 107 members made the best of their three-week stay there. It was the "first contact" for the two cultures—the moment when "Japan and the Japanese forcefully entered the consciousness of the people of Utah."

Historians have handled the Iwakura Delegation's stay in Utah with varying degrees of accuracy and detail The present version offers an exceptionally rich fare of historical material and insight It consists of a narrative overview, an idiomatic and well-annotated translation of that portion of the Kunitake Kume diary which covered the Salt Lake City experience, and a bibliography. The translators/authors see this historical event as having special significance for eventual Mormon proselytizing missions to Japan and for creating "an atmosphere of tolerance for people of Japanese descent which, years later, would open the door for the successful integration of Japanese Americans into the mainstream of Utah Society."

Samurais in Salt Lake was one of many worthy projects to receive support from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission.

A Short Season: Story of a Montana Childhood.

By DON MOREHEAD AND ANN MOREHEAD (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. xvi + 190 pp. Paper, $13.00.)

Though the Morehead ranch was located near Cut Bank, Montana, this charming memoir could just as well have come from Utah, Wyoming, or anywhere else in the Rocky Mountain West Written with exceptional clarity and style, it recounts life's more vivid moments as seen through the eyes of a precocious boy growing up on a sheep ranch in the 1940s.

Precious Dust: The Saga of the Western Gold Rushes.

By PAULA MITCHELL MARKS (1994; reprint ed Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998 448 pp Paper, $17.95.)

Marks does indeed unfold a saga— and a lively one at that. Her book is abundantly populated with personalities who hoped, journeyed, worked, survived, gave up, and gritted their teeth, all in the pursuit of gold.

As the saying goes, "God is in the details." Here the details muscle beneath generalities by showing how "gold fever"—a stereotype if there ever was one—really affected men and women For instance, the process of actually getting to the gold fields was more than many of the hopefuls could handle Those who pushed ahead negotiated mud in Panama, Comanche territory in the Southwest, deadly cold in the Yukon, or scurvy in boats rounding Cape Horn.

Maybe the journey was arduous, and so was the destination, but many prospectors had the good humor and spunk to see it through; in fact, many gained (though rarely materially) from the experience Readers, on the other hand, will need neither good humor nor spunk in order to negotiate thisjourney; however, they may need willpower to help them set the book down.

Searchlight: The Camp That Didn't Fail.

By HARRY REID (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1997 xxix + 229 pp $19.95.)

Searchlight is located at the junction of state highways 95 and 68 at the southern tip of Nevada "in one of the least hospitable environments of the United States." According to one of several local traditions, "There is ore there alright, but it would take a searchlight to find it," writes U.S Senator Harry Reid (p. 16).

It may have taken a searchlight to locate the ore, but Reid has discovered the many personalities of the camp, including Bill Nellis, John Macready, "Big-Nosed Pete" Domitrovich, and the Indian Queho. He has also unearthed the camp's various economic activities of mining, dam construction, ranching, gambling, and prostitution, as well as its lively social and political developments Unlike numerous other mining camps in Nevada and elsewhere in the West, "Searchlight tried to become a ghost town but failed."

Ogden Rails: A History of Railroads in Ogden, Utah, from 1869 to Today.

By DON STRACK. (Ogden: Golden Spike Chapter, Railway 8c Locomotive Historical Society, 1997 96 pp Paper, $24.95.)

This short volume is packed with railroad information found in no other published history Don Strack, aided by a grant from the George S and Delores Dore Eccles Foundation, researched the corporate archives of the Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha and the Southern Pacific Railroad Company headquarters in San Francisco From these archives, newspapers, and other sources, including interviews, he explains the importance of the railroad to the greater Ogden area. For instance, 20,000 railroad cars carrying 1.8 million head of sheep, 19,000 railroad cars transporting 300,000 head of cattle, and 350,000 hogs packed in 6,000 cars were loaded or unloaded at the Ogden stockyards in 1945.

The important railroad facilities at Ogden spun off numerous related industries, including grain elevators, flour mills, icing and refrigeration facilities, and food processing and canning factories, making Ogden the little Chicago or Omaha of the Intermountain West.

In addition to providing the railroad lineage of the Oregon Shortline, the Ogden & Hot Springs Railroad, and other streetcar and shortline railroad companies of the northern Wasatch Front, Stack also discusses briefly the roles of the Eccles, Bamberger, and other family-owned transportation companies in the development of the electric streetcar and interurban railroads of northern Utah. These various streetcar and interurban railroads transported hundreds ofstudents daily to schools in Cache County and elsewhere, carried tons of freight to and from Davis, Box Elder, Weber, Cache, and Salt Lake counties, and provided a means for people along the northern Wasatch Front to shop and do business in the larger cities of Ogden, Logan, and Salt Lake City as well as to visit health and recreational areas in these counties.

Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada.

By Clarence King Edited and with a preface by FRANCIS P FARQUHAR (Reprint ed.; Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1997 320 pp Paper, $12.00.)

Heart-stopping adventure, passionate descriptions of wilderness, amusing and astute sketches of unforgettable characters: this book has it all. Clarence King, only twenty-nine when these essays were first published, immediately won recognition for his extraordinary accounts of his experiences during the California geological survey.

The book, first published in 1872, is still a good read. For Utahns, it is particularly interesting for its portrait of the man for whom the state's highest point is named. By all accounts Clarence King was brilliant, courageous, and charming—qualities that shine through in his writing, even if that writing sometimes takes fanciful turns. Forinstance, King's descriptions of certain mountain ascents puzzle today's mountaineers, who find discrepancies between the words and the actual terrain, and some of the stories he recounts were probably embellished if not fabricated outright. But Farquhar's preface provides a cleareyed explanation of why King wrote the way he did.

And anyway, if sins do exist in the manuscript, the author's way with words covers up a multitude of them.

Hiking, Climbing, and Exploring Western Utah's Jack Watson's Ibex Country.

By MICHAEL R KELSEY (Provo: Kelsey Publishing, 1997 272pp Paper.)

Excerpts from diaries and narratives patched together with summary comprise the main part of this volume; the author also includes descriptions of a dozen hikes. From a stylistic, typographic, and even sometimes philosophical standpoint, the book is not easy reading In one place, for instance, the author says that the water from a certain spring is "as good as it was when naked savages were roaming the hills" (p. 210). But the historical material provides a compelling sense of life in the west desert, especially of the toilsome and often-lonely days of Jack Watson, who ranched in the area around the Confusion and House ranges.

Thomas Jefferson and the Changing West.

Edited by JAMES P RONDA (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997 xx + 204 pp Cloth, $29.95; Paper, $16.95.)

"Perhaps more than any other national leader, Lincoln excepted, Jefferson seems to transcend time and place to become a voice for all times and all places," writes James Ronda, editor of this volume. For many of Jefferson's modern admirers, his understanding of the West and of its interaction with the thirteen colonies and later the United States are clear and unambiguous However, the contributors to this volume point out that even as Jefferson asked questions about the West, the answers provided to him and others were anything but plain and certain. Rather, the answers caused conflict and tension in the nation then and now.

The collection of essays is a result of a 1994 national conference on Jefferson and the West The ten essayists examine some of Jefferson's questions and answers on Native Americans, natural resources, the "Empire for Liberty,"and the ever-changing West. Authors include John Logan Allen, Anthony F C Wallace, Robert A Williams,Jr., Robert Gottlieb, Helen M Ingram and Mary G Wallace, Peter S Onuf, Elliott West, Mary Clearman Blew, and Patricia Nelson Limerick Jefferson "sought explanations" to his queries, yet many of his explanations and views raised new questions about the American experience as it has played out in the West. Still, the essayists testify that many of Jefferson's concepts continue to engage and challenge western historians today. This volume, then, is a must for students of both Jefferson and the West.

A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement.

By MARKW T. HARVEY (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994 xxiv + 368pp Paper, $18.85.)

During the post-World War II era of water and power development, the proposal to build a dam at Echo Park in northeastern Utah touched off a storm of controversy. The contending forces included newly emerging conservation groups who fought to preserve the wilderness stretches of the Green and Yampa rivers On the other side, energy and water developers from Washington, D.C., to California and advocates within the Department of Interior considered the Echo Park Dam a significant element in the massive multi-state Colorado River Storage Project. Both sides fought vigorously to win public support for their causes.

Bernard DeVoto, Oscar Chapman, G E Untermann, Newton Drury, Fred Packard, Howard Zahniser, Stephen Bradley, David Brower, Wallace Stegner, Arthur V Watkins, Douglas McKay, and dozens of other individuals became recognizable names in the lengthy battle Equally recognizable institutions involved were the Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, Sierra Club, Isaac Walton League, Utah Water and Power Board, National Parks Association, and the "Aqualantes."

Mark Harvey's excellent work details this fight as a victory for the conservationists; the Echo Park Dam was never built The book also shows how the Echo Park Dam conflict demonstrated the emergence of the West as "a primary region of environmental conflict in the United States."

The 1854 Oregon Trail Diary of Winfield Scott Ebey.

Edited by SUSAN BADGER DOYLE and FRED W DYKES Emigrant Trails Historical Studies Series No 2 (Independence, Mo.: Oregon-California Trails Association, 1997. xiv + 247 pp. Cloth, $27.95; Paper, $14.95.)

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 and was welcomed by H. H. Bancroft and other early historians for its comprehensive treatment of the emigrant experience.

The editors have provided maps and photo illustrations of the trail, parts of which were also followed by the Mormons and the Forty-niners. Their volume enriches our knowledge of the westering adventure and calls us to go see the actual sites for ourselves.