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Before the Flapper: The Utah Beginnings of John Held, Jr
Before the Flapper:
The Utah Beginnings of John Held, Jr.
BY NOEL A. CARMACK
"OFTEN IN A LIFE TIME ONE LOOKS BACK AND REVIEWS certain decisions with regret. Of the many decisions that I have made, good and bad, there remains one important decision that I have never regretted, that of being born in Zion, Territory of Deseret."1 The feelings of John Held, Jr., for his Utah beginnings were deep and unabashed.2 Even at the height of his fame as an illustrator, he revered his home state Best known for his images of the lettermen, sheiks, and shebas of the Jazz Age, Held was, for a time, the most sought-after illustrator of that generation, but he never shunned his Utah roots. His reminiscences, selectively published below, reveal a nostalgic sentiment for Utah that is as whimsical and lively as his well-loved illustrations.
John Held, Jr., was born in Salt Lake City, January 10, 1889, the first of six children born toJohn and Annie Evans Held. His parents, though both of humble means, were well-schooled in music and the arts Their marriage brought together maternal and paternal talents in performance, drama, dance, instrumental music, and visual art. With his parents' prominence to goad him along, it was difficult for young John to avoid a life in the limelight.3
In 1870, Held's father and aunt were brought as children to the United States from Geneva, Switzerland, by John R. Park, president of the University of Deseret; the children were raised in the Park household until their parents, Jacques and Marie Held, arrived in Salt Lake City ten years later.4 During their adoptive life in the Park home, the Held children were known as "Johnnie Park" and "Hortense Park," were baptized into the LDS church (on July 8, 1877), and were raised in an atmosphere of cultural refinement and intellectual growth.5 Later, John Sr. became a beloved bandmaster, musician, and entertainer in Salt Lake City and ran a successful engraving business. 6 For many years, his military brass band and the sounds of his famous gold-plated cornet were often heard at Salt Palace bicycle races, Pioneer Day celebrations, parades, and other public gatherings.7
Held's mother, Annie Evans, was correspondingly talented in the dramatic arts In her youth, she was a member of the Twentieth Ward Dramatic Club and was active in other civil and church affairs. Her father, James Evans, after emigrating from England, had served in the Mormon Battalion and later used his wheelwright and carpentry skills to build large sets for the old Grand Theatre.8
Perhaps inspired by his father's illustrations for The Story of the Book of Mormon (1888),9 John Held, Jr., cultivated his interest in the visual arts at an early age. His first drawing was of a horse, done in pencil on the flyleaf of a handsome book from his father's library in 1892. Like most curious little boys, he was apt to wander away from his mother's watchful eyes. On one occasion he toddled into the nearby hills, unbeknownst to his parents. After a frantic search, they found him gleefully playing with clay he had pinched into the shapes of small animals. Years later, it was said that Jack Held drew pictures of everything he liked and could not have and by so doing built a world for himself.10
The Held family lived very modestly, but the children always found ways to amuse themselves and play happily together. If they were not occupied by the neighbor children playing cowboys and Indians, the Held youngsters were often entertained by their large St. Bernard, Barry, who accompanied them everywhere. One of Held's early memories was of occasionally dragging a little express wagon from the Held home on D street below Fourth Avenue to the Tithing House and returning with a load of groceries.11 He also remembered the unwelcome task of carrying his father's music scores on his bicycle to and from performances. To make a little extra spending money, Held would often take on small jobs such as delivering papers and rounding up cows. With the money he saved, he bought bantams, which he raised in a large piano crate fashioned into a coop. It was not long before these bantams were used as live subjects for countless drawings and sketches.12
When John, or "Jack," as he was called in his youth, got a little older he spent as much time as he could at the Grand Theatre, where his grandfather Evans was employed as carpenter. The boy made watercolors of the stage, the foot-candles, ballet dancers, jugglers, and other performers. Occasionally he and his artist friend Hal Burrows, later an art director at MGM Studios, would, out of fondness for the lively environment, sleep on the floor of the theater.
At least once, he "helped" with a performance in the Salt Lake Theatre. The play was Monte Cristo.
Like other Latter-day Saint children, John had been given an infant blessing. T was baptised later," he wrote, "when I was nine by complete submersion in the baptismal tanks in the basement of the Mormon Tabernacle I remember enjoying this, as the water was warm and pleasant and it was the most water that I had ever been in at one time." Although he was always respectful of his Mormon upbringing, Held's church membership lost significance for him as he grew older. Later he wrote, "The Mormon religion was no different from any other to me, until early youth, when I came in contact with outside influences and it became different."14
John Sr., having been raised with a penchant for the arts, encouraged young Jack to pursue a course of musicianship But, contrary to his father's wish that he inherit the lead of the band, Jack Held at an early age sought his fortune in the graphic arts and illustration. In 1898, at the age of nine, he made nine dollars on a block print commissioned by the Kolitz candy kitchen on First South. That same year, he made a little extra money working out of the room above his father's shop, engraving initials on heart-shaped friendship bracelets.15 Held made his first big commercial sale to the old Life magazine in 1907.
Late in 1905, Held and eleven other young students, including Hal Burrows, enrolled in an art class at the YMCA taught by Mahonri Young. The dedicated artists would often sleep in Young's studio at night. Young remembered, T had a bunch of awfully talented fellows. . . . The one that went the farthest of them wasJohn Held, Jr."16 The influence of one of Utah's laureate sculptors was such that Held would later give thanks to his "old man and to 'Hon' Young, my two art teachers" for their instruction and inspiration. This friendship with Young is believed to have been the reason behind Held's longtime aspiration to become a sculptor.17 This was to be a short tutelage under Mahonri Young, however; the class was disrupted when one of the students, Bill Curtis, organized another art club that drew in the rest of the students.18
If Held's artist friends and highly visible family did not provide enough diversion, his encounters with the Salt Lake underworld were an ample source of amusement. From about 1905 to 1909, Held worked as a sports cartoonist for the Salt Lake Tribune. Harold Wallace Ross, future founding editor of the New Yorker and Held's school chum, was employed at the Tribune as a cub reporter.19 By any standard, their stints on the newspaper staff were coming-of-age experiences. Years later, they shared similar tales of adventuring into the Commercial Street district, visiting the gambling dens, and coming into contact with the notorious madams Belle London, Ada Wilson, and Helen Blazes. Though purely naive encounters, these initiations into manhood certainly shaped the minds of the young men, providing ample creative fodder for Held's career in commercial art.
An examination of Held's earliest drawings suggests that he was influenced by a number of popular magazine illustrators of the day From about 1907 until about 1910, Held worked as staff artist for the Salt Lake High School yearbook, Red and Black. He also regularly contributed illustrations to the University of Utah's annual Utonian. His early pen and ink vignettes for these publications sometimes resemble Albert Levering's cartoons for Judge and Life magazines. Held's skillfully rendered illustrations of young collegiate women are clearly an attempt to approach the feminine ideals set by Charles Dana Gibson, Howard Chandler Christy, and James Montgomery Flagg His line drawings for the Utonian show the obvious influence of Winsor McCay's pioneering cartoon characters "Little Nemo" and Tmpie," and the awkward, minstrel-like features of other Held subjects seem to echo Patrick O'Sullivan and Otto Messmer's early comic strip characters as well.20 Held may have been acutely aware of William F Marriner's "Sambo and His Funny Noises," which appeared weekly in the Salt Lake Tribune. In fact, a dog that reappears in a number of Held's Utonian and Red and Black illustrations closely resembles Marriner's "Wags" and William Steinigan's "Pup" cartoons.
Later, beginning in about 1912, Held sold several cartoons signed 'Jack Held" or, in a few cases, with the pseudonym 'Johann Hult" to Judge and Vanity Fair. These appeared in the fashionable Vanity Fair style—plump, peglegged, and cylindrical caricatures—similar to those drawn by George McManus. Held's early commissioned work altogether reveals a youthful draftsman experimenting to find a style of his own. 21
In 1908, while on staff at the Tribune, Held met Myrtle Jennings, the society editor, who was also studying to be a nurse at Saint Mark's Hospital "We were both fired," he remembered, "for talking together so much, so we got married and [two years later] went to New York."22 Jack left first, planning to send for Myrtle when he found suitable housing.
Upon arriving in New York, Held moved into the apartment and studio of his old friends, Mahonri Young and Hal Burrows Joined by Myrtle, Held then began freelance work, beginning with streetcar posters, place cards, and Wanamaker's department store displays. During the next few years, after divorcing Myrtle and marrying Ada "Johnnie" Johnson in 1918, he contributed art regularly to College Humor, Judge, Colliers, Life, and Vanity Fair magazines. Once he gained a footing, his cartoon strips "Oh! Margy!," "Sentimental Sally," "Held's Bells," and "Rah-Rah Rosalie" were popular with the college set. Before long, Held was associating with socialites such as Lucius Beebe, Marc Connelly, Nelson Doubleday, Joe Cook, Rube Goldberg, and Don Marquis at the Algonquin and the Coffee House Club. As a result of his moxie and restless ambition, Held's move to New York City life had been challenging but unexpectedly prosperous. 23
By all accounts, John Held, Jr., experienced a meteoric rise to fame with the advent of the flapper in 1924. But in 1925, when his old friend Harold Ross wanted something different for his magazine, the New Yorker, Held tried the old engraving and printing techniques he had learned from his father. His alternate visual effort, mimicking Gay Nineties primitive woodcuts, was arguably as successful and distinctive as his flapper images; with amusing illustrations, broadsides, and maps he satirically celebrated the style and manners of the "Golden Age" between 1875 and 1900. These old-style woodcuts and linocuts regularly appeared in Ross's magazine and also in other commercial publications and posters.
In 1930, after a long and successful career in New York, Held completed a series of woodcuts illustrating The Saga ofFrankie and Johnny, the tragic ballad of prostitution, rough-edged romance, and forlorn love The images are quaint and hint of his associations with Salt Lake madams on Commercial Street and in the Rio Grande stockade. In the preface to the work he noted that "The knowing of these ladies and the houses that they ran has enabled me to fashion this book of woodcuts from fond memories. ... In doing them I have lived again a wild free existence in an Inter-Rocky Mountain settlement with my friends the whores, the pimps, the gamblers, the hop-heads and the lenient police, who used to know the 'Mormon Kid.'"24
On October 26, 1930, the Salt Lake Telegram published two top ten lists, naming the "Ten Greatest Living Utahns." Listed with Cyrus E Dallin and Mahonri Young was John Held, Jr., ranked ninth on the second list often. "If John Held Jr. were considered an artist rather than a cartoonist, he would be a third in the 'Ten Greatest' race," the newspaper stated.25
After the crash of '29, the popularity of Held's work waned, however He also suffered devastating financial and personal losses; his unwise investments in the Swedish Match King fiasco led him to bouts with depression and near-suicide.26 Ultimately, the emotional strain of his career and fast-paced lifestyle contributed to the failure of three of four marriages. Held's third marriage, to Gladys Moore in 1931, resulted in a daughter, Judy, but fizzled within four years. Yet his fourth and final marriage to Margaret Schuyler Janes in 1942 proved a match. By the mid-1940s, Held was seeking contentment in such activities as freelance writing and the illustration of children's stories. Occasionally, he made use of his celebrity status, judging Miss America pageants and beauty contests.
During the course of his career, Held made several visits to Utah, touring and visiting family, but he never made an effort at a permanent return.27 For a number of years, he tried his hand at farming and raising livestock in Connecticut, Georgia, and Florida. Long after the riotousness and frolic of the twenties were over, Held settled into a quieter, more fulfilling course in his life and art, sculpting western subjects and painting landscapes Many of these works clearly convey a love of the West and of his Utah home.
After his death on March 2, 1958,John Held, Jr., was hailed for visually creating the raucous era of the twenties.28 Indeed, according to most observers of that generation, he was a phenomenon. According to Walt and Roger Reed, historians of American illustration, Held, "more than anyone else, expressed in his pictures the brash spirit of the 'twenties with his famous flappers and collegiate capers, bootleg gin, jazz bands, and necking parties."29 Writer and humorist Corey Ford stated that "Fitzgerald christened it the Jazz Age, but John Held, Jr., set its style and manners. His angular and scantily clad flapper was accepted by scandalized elders as the prototype of modern youth, the symbol of our moral revolution. ... So sedulously did we ape his caricatures that they lost their satiric point and came to be a documentary record of our times."30
While some Utahns may not have been so quick to adopt Held as their "golden boy," his reminiscences are a lively account of Salt Lake business and leisure life. What could be dismissed as tales of a young man's precocious childhood are a sampling of Utah's turn-of-the-century society and, for a moment, give us a glimpse into Zion's seedy side.
The following text contains selected chapters from his reminiscences, taken from the microfilmed collection housed in the Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C. Most errors in punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and word use have been silently emended to conform to current standards; however, some idiosyncratic uses have been retained.
MY LIFE AND TIMES IN DESERET
My Mother often said that when Brigham Young, the Great Mormon Leader, beheld the fertile valley of the Great Salt Lake he said, "This is the place," meaning this is the place for me to be born. I always discounted this, as I have always had a feeling that Mother was prejudiced.
Many of my fondest memories stem back to my younger days in Salt Lake City, Utah. Utah was called Deseret before it was named after the Ute Indians One of my early memories recalls the time that my Father and I engaged in the advertising business. It was Father's idea, as I was around eight years old at the time and about the only idea I had in those years was an elaborate plan for the retiming of meals, sort of shortening the interval between breakfast, dinner, and supper
Father hadjust taken to playing the Cornet, the start of a long career of Corneting My memory is dim as to his technique at that time; he later became a Master of the instrument and his Cornet Soloswere heard throughout the land where he traveled with his Military Band.31 He was probably the Founder of the "Sweet" school of Cornet playing. His Cornet Solo was his meat, and he would make the Welkin32 ring with "Sweet Alice Ben Bolt" or "Silver Threads Among the Gold." He often brought his audience to their feet with a rendering of "Where the Silver Colorado Wends ItsWay."This last tune will figure prominently in the last chapter of these reminiscences.33
I mention the Cornet, because it was an important part of our advertising business in Father's conception He went to the Big Livery Stable on the West Temple Street, and there he rented a one-horse express wagon This equipage was a springless, low, light box wagon drawn by one horse Father erected four poles, one in each corner of the wagon box, about five feet high On these he stretched white muslin On this white muslin were to be painted the advertising message of our clients Father was successful at the start in selling this advertising' space as he had many friends among the trades people. One of them, R.K. Thomas, who ran a drapery shop that later became a large department store,34 subscribed for a side on our mobile billboard. Mr. Thomas lived in our ward, and Father solicited his business in the evening. Another was a local shoemaker who also lived on the bench near us. Another, and the most important, was another neighbor, who owned and operated a saloon down in the hardest part of town, near the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad yards. I think he paid a premium to be included among the more respectable trades.
Father's plan was to drive the wagon through the streets of the city during noon hour, when most of the city took a breathing spell. I was to do the driving. Even at my early age I had experience with horses, as I had been going to school on horseback for two semesters. Dad's part in the advertising was not only to solicit and sell the space, [but to also] paint the signs and, as we drove in the town, to attract attention to our display by sitting inside the bannered wagon and playing his Cornet. On our first Saturday noon day, our wagon parade was a huge success. We not only traveled the unpaved business streets of the fair city, with Father making music on his Cornet, but we would pull up in front of each of our clients and there Father would exhaust his repertoire. The music would attract a crowd, and they in turn would read the advertising, and one and all pronounced Father's idea as very original and effective.
We went on our waywith music down to our star customer. It was a long drive to the Denver and Rio Grande Rail Road Station. Father's solos [were] becoming fewer and farther between as his lip was beginning to swell up and he wanted to save himself for the highest rates paid.
We pulled up with pomp in front of the West Side Saloon,35 and the largest crowd that we had attracted that day gathered So with no more ado, Father opened up with his finest gold-plated tone with his first selection, which caused the crowd of rather tough customers to break out with loud boisterous guffaws Our best customer who had paid us the highest rates rushed from his saloon with a roar [and] a bung starter,36 and proceeded to tear our advertising display to pieces As he tore down the painted muslin, there sat Father giving his all He had reached the second chorus of "Nearer My God To Thee,"when he broke in the middle of a note, tucked his Cornet under his arm, jumped from the wagon and ran for his life, leaving me paralyzed with fear and gushing tears of terror The horse was contingent to the emergency, and turning the wagon, returned his way to the livery stable unguided, with me in the seat of the wreck, bawling at the top of my lungs If our signs had not been destroyed, my wailing would have attracted as much attention as Dad's Cornet.
Dad never went back to collect his fee But the saloon keeper later saw the humor of the situation and came to the house and paid Father, and I think I remember he tossed two bits to me.
He advised Father to learn some music other than religious hymns, that being all that Father knew. His only public appearances up to that time had been to play a solo now and then in the Twentieth Ward meeting house. I think that was the reason that Father had the largest musical library of arrangements for solo Cornet west of the Rockie Mountains.
THE INDIAN WARS
One of the first things the Church of Latter Day Saints did when they settled in the valley of the Great Salt Lake was to make a peace pact with the warlike Ute Indians. Part of the pact was that members of the tribe could come into the settlement and collect tribute from Saints in the form of sugar, flour, cotton and thread and any other items they could panhandle. The settlers gave reluctantly on orders from their bishops, and the Indians took the contributions without thanks.
We lived high on the north bench, and our house was usually the first visited as the braves and their families came off the reservation, and Mother would present them with a cornucopia of sugar and coffee.
I was a youngster of play age While the children of my age today play dive-bombing and are expert in the uh-uh-uh-uh-uh of the machine gun, we children played at our favorite game of Indians and cowboys.
There was [a] silent old Ute with three squaws and countless children who visited us regularly every fortnight. The Chief would leave the children of our same age to amuse themselves at play with my brother and myself. So Jumbo, my brother, and I were the sinecure of all the other kids in the Twentieth Ward.
We played at Indians and Cowboys with genuine Indians. After these games, Mother would spend several evenings reading our heads37 and giving us a once-over-lightly with a fine-tooth comb and a continuous clicking of her tongue. Our towheads were a sort of desert for the multitude of Ute lice we garnered from our redskin playmates.
The small fry today are armed with imaginary Garand rifles and Bazookas and fast vocal firing of machine guns, while then we fought with muzzle-loading rifles and bow and arrow and tomahawks We made the mountains ring with our war whoops, at which the Indians kinder were experts Many a rousing reenactment of the Mountain Meadow Massacre took place in the dry Mormon afternoons.
I was the oldest of the children, and so had my choice of the character that I wished to play in the games. My choice was usually that of Buffalo Bill, and a very imposing Buffalo Bill I made. Mounted on my prancing broomstick cowpony, my long straw-colored ringlettes blowing in the wind, I galloped in search of Indian marauders My brother, Jumbo, also had long blonde ringlettes He always chose to be General Custer, aswe both were fascinated with the large lithographic reproduction of Custer's Last Stand that was displayed in the window of a saloon on State Street I am still intrigued with the print, in the collections of Americana The only thing I miss in seeing the poster nowadays are the fly specks that formed the border on the old one in the cafe display.
No matter what we were doing or what game we were playing, we always dropped it and went wholeheartedly into the Cowboy-Indian game whenever the Ute family appeared during our vacation from school.
As autumn approached and the hills were dry and parched, it was neaping the time for us to abandon our vacation sports and go back to school. The Indian children staged a rebellion. They refused to play our game. They took the stand that they were sick and tired of always having to play at taking the part of Indians. They thought it only fair that their side be allowed to win once in a while.
JUMBO DANCED THE MINUET
When my younger brother Jumbo was eight years old, Mother made up her mind that we children needed culture and refinement She announced that she was not going to raise a gang of Harry Traceys, he being the popular bandit of that season. 38
She didn't consider the classical musical education that we were getting in the reflection of Father's concert band. Music in Mother's scope was a business that had no relation to the Arts. Music was bread and butter to Mother; I suppose after listening to Father practice cornet in the house for years, she was firmly convinced that it was not art.
Mother had no ear for music and couldn't carry a tune. She attended Father's band concerts to see if he had his pants pressed.
Mother kept a firm grip on the niceties of life by keeping Jumbo and myself with long blonde ringlettes Sometimes I suspect she did it to save on hair cuts. Our long golden hair gaveJumbo and me many dark and trying moments.
Jumbo later grew into youth and became a mule skinner on a gravel wagon Several years ago Mother told me thatJumbo had done a stretch at Alcatraz, but I think she was boasting.
Mother conceded that my drawing was a distant relative of the Arts, but in it she saw a living for me, perhaps in a garret. But even at that time I was making small money with my cartoons and I was engraving initials on the popular fad of the day, friendship hearts, these being small silver or gold bangles that the younger female set collected. The donor always had his initials engraved on the gift I got to be pretty expert at engraving these at two and a half cents a letter, after school in Dad's shop.
To clear up this last sentence, I will explain that Father was a copper-plate engraver as well as a band leader and cornetist. He ran an engraving and embossing shop in the city.
So that Jumbo could share in the higher things, Mother enrolled him in dancing school. This was not an academy of the waltz, polka, or two-step, but fancy dancing was curriculum.
These afternoons of terpsicore39 were very painful toJumbo, as it meant being washed, and his ringlettes spun on a broom handle Often on dancing school days,Jumbo would leave home in the morning and go to hide in City Creek Canyon. Then I would have to go and round him up. In some strange manner, Jumbo was forced to finish one term of light fantastic, and he was cast for a part in the school's recital.
He was one of the four who danced the minuet in costume.
Mother stitched and hemmed and whipped up a lovely fourteenth-century costume for him, of black sateen with white lace cuffs and tight trouser bottoms. She fashioned a starchedjobo40 that cascaded down his chest, and with his long blonde ringlettes was a picture worthy of the French court painters.
Came the evening of the recital in the Eighteenth Ward amusement hall. The amusement hall, as the meeting house annex was called, had not been completed in the Twentieth Ward.
The Auditorium was filled with the families of the dancing pupils, who were gratified and pleased with the performances of their small brothers and sisters.
The performance went without a hitch, until the music for the minuet was struck on the upright piano There was a flutter at the side of the curtain. The dancing teacher was also the stage manager, and signaled to the pianist that something was amiss. The pianist repeated the introduction to the minuet many times. After an indominable wait the curtains parted and the dancers came to view Three of the stately dancers were immaculate in white cotton batten wigs and bright costumes of the period The fourth was Jumbo, who stood bowing from the waist. His golden ringlettes were awry. His jabo was soiled and disreveled. The lace was gone from one pant leg, and his seat was ragged and torn To complete his wreckage he wore two large and fast-swelling black eyes.
His performance was perfection; he didn't miss a step or a courtesy.41 Jumbo had been the victim of a deep-dyed plot. The other members of the "Rusty Dozen"juniors had lured him out of doors and chided him on his get up, and he had fought his way back through the gauntlet to the dance.
POLICE RECORD
For a family the size of the Held clan, their record with the police is fairly clean. The four boys were wild and exuberant but somehow or other kept from the clutches of the law Jumbo had several sorties with the constabulary, but always without record. In his early youth he went on the "bum" several times to gain experience and to see the world outside of Salt Lake City.
He always managed to keep from getting arrested for vagrancy by going at once to the local officer of the law and asking for a night's lodging. This procedure usually appealed to the sheriff or constable and resulted, in most cases, with a bed and a breakfast and sometimes a small monetary offering.
Once he did reach a trial before a court in a small town in Idaho. His useful appeal not only got him a dismissal of the vagrancy charge, but the judge took up a collection for him in the court house and sent him on to the next municipality with pockets a jingle.
The Salt Lake City police were a kindly lot, and the Held family called many of them friends. In fact one member of the force played the bass drum in father's Military and Concert Band. One of Father's brothers married the daughter of the chief of police That made our family a close relative of the force by marriage.
The police uniform in those dayswasindeed imposing They were attired in a double-breasted long frock coat of blue. On their head they wore a large grey helmet shaped like a rendering kettle. They were armed with long billy clubs. In the eyes of us youngsters, they were all elderly men and stout.
They were tough when need be, and Salt Lake Citywas fairly orderly for a frontier town The fair metropolis was the largest settlement between San Francisco and Denver and it attracted many undesirable characters, but the Force kept them in line and moving. In the night the long hickory billy club met many skulls, and crime was usually at a minimum.
It was my sister Bessie who put the blot on the Held escutcheon She was the only one in the family with a police record.
When she was a small lass, she was a cherub, frail, pretty, light blue eyes and long curly cornsilk-colored hair Bessie always kept herself clean and dainty, even if her vocabulary was on par with us older boys. In cussing she could hold her own with any of our gang. She was shy and that was her saving grace.
Bessiewas around four years old when she accrued the police record. She was at her most angelic period. We were living at that time at D Street and Seventh Avenue in the Twentieth Ward on the north bench Our house was approximately six miles from the police station at State and First South Street One bright spring morning, we children had been fed and turned out into the hills No one happened to notice Bessie's absence She often went off with her dolls and amused herself, when she was not in the mood for the rougher pastimes of our set.
At noon when we were called in for mid-day dinner, Bess was among the missing. Mother didn't worry about her absence, as the child had often been enticed into a neighbor's dining room.
At six o'clock that evening when Father got home on his bicycle, Mother reported Bessie as missing, so Father organized a posse of all of us to search for the Truant.
Dad, as a last resort, had turned up wearily and late at the police station to list his darling daughter as a missing person, and there she was, sitting on the Sargent's desk, surrounded by adoring policemen She had been stuffed with Reely's ice cream, 42 and she had lost her shyness and was entertaining the patrolmen with first rate mule skinner's profanity.
Father returned home in triumph with the child on the handle bars of his bicycle. She was put to bed without supper, that she could not have eaten anyway, as she was filled to the teeth with ice cream and cake.
In the routine of the desk sargent, her name was entered on the police blotter. Bessie had a record that only a Governor's pardon would erase. To make matters worse, she turned out to be a repeater and a third offender, as two weeks later she ran away from home again Father didn't dally in searching the ward this next time. He went directly to the goal, and there she was where she knew she was popular.
The third time she was arrested, the police failed to provide ice cream and cake, at Father's request, so Bessie decided to reform and give up a criminal career.
ThE DAYS OF THE BICYCLE
In the archives of my memories the bicycle fills many pigeonholes, and my archives go back to the high-wheeljob that Father rode before the introduction of the "Safety" model.
It was the days before the streets of Salt Lake knew the smoothness of paving The sidewalks were more level, and the bicycle was used on the sidewalks, unless forbidden.
My primary memory was the time Mother spent almost a week picking gravel out of the skin on Father's face.
Just inside the Eagle Gate there was a horse's watering trough for the horses to refresh [themselves] with cold mountain water before the hard pull up the hills to the North Bench.
Dad had been to band practice in the large room over Denhalter's Music Store43 and was riding home in the dark of the late evening. Only Brigham Street was lighted with street lights, so on State Street inside the Eagle Gate it was dark as pitch Father, pedaling gayly homeward atop his high wheel, turned a sharp curve into the darkness and ran smack bang into the watering trough that some prankster had pulled across the sidewalk. The high wheel came to a sudden halt, but Father kept on, and did a standing sitting-Jack-knife dive into the gravel path Father carried the scars of the extracted gravel through his life.44
The next bicycle highlight came with the "Safety" type of wheel Pleasure riding was the mode, and it was the era of the "Century," or one hundred mile ride. Father equipped himself with a "White," and for Mother he imported the lastword in a "Victor."I need not emphasize the sensational attention that Mother attracted. She made her bicycle debut in—bloomers. They were long and baggy but exceptional enough to bring out long editorials in the Press. Thus Mother became Salt Lake's first "Bloomer Girl."
I wasn't much for size at my age. Father was fortunate in being able to supply me with a bicycle, where Iwas able to reach the pedals. No boy's bicycle securable met that requirement, so mine was a girl's model.
Dad did an exceptional job of salesmanship in convincing me that I would not meet with ridicule when I rode out, and I didn't. Iwas the envy of all my contemporaries, and I grew to love my girl's model. It was a unique design It was built with but one bar of tubing connecting the front with the rear All other women's bicycles were braced with two or more rods in their construction.
At that time we lived high on the North Bench, at Seventh Street and D Street. That high in the hills was sparsely populated. Many times the Cyotoes came down from Black Mountain and raided Father's brown Leghorns, that he housed in an upright piano box.
It was my pleasure to mount my bicycle in front of our house, placing my feet on the fork of the front wheel, and coast down D Street, gaining speed at every crossing. When the wind was right, I could coast to within three blocks of the Tithing Office.
One bright morning I started for town. The air was washed and clean after a mountain rain. It didn't rain often in those hills, but when it did rain, it rained.
At the crossing of First Street [Avenue] were the street-car tracks that led to Fort Douglas in the pass of Emigration Canyon The torrents of rain had gushed down from the eastern slope of the Wasatch Mountains and washed out the street, leaving the car tracks high above the surface. Down I came with the rushing wind in my young face If I remember correctly, D Street was around an eight percent grade and my speed increased in my carefree descent. The car tracks loomed ahead before I had a chance to brake my speed by putting my toe to the tire under the forks. I struck the car tracks at full momentum and bicycle and I came down together. I was unhurt, but my beloved bicycle lay in twain It had broken in half The single tube that connected the front to rear had parted. At this tragedy my grief was unbounded. I picked up the two parts of the wreck and carried it into town, bawling at the top of my lungs Father was not impressed with my sorrow. He took the pieces to a machine shop and had the parts welded, and my bicycle was better than ever. I rode it as I grew, and finally was forced to give it up, as it was making me round-shouldered to reach the handle bars.
In my early teens, Father went off the deep end in bicycledom He imported a White racing model with a high speed gear. This wheel weighed sixteen pounds and Dad spent more time hefting it than riding it. It was my pleasure to borrow the machine every time Dad's back was turned.
Salt Lake Citywas a focal point for professional bicycle riders Down at Ninth South Street and State was the Salt Palace, a medium-sized amusement park. The Palace was a large frame structure, stuccoed with coarse rock salt, and very glittering at night with arc lights playing on it. In the grounds of the Salt Palace was a quarter-mile saucer bicycle track, used on Tuesday and Friday evenings for bicycle races. 45
Father's Band was the musical attraction. Between the heats of the races he conducted popular selections for concert bands.
Father was always ready to tickle the palate of the music lover, so he larded his program with musical oddities, as a disvertisment46 was included in each evenings concert, such as "The Clock Shop," in which the trap drummer was busy with the chiming of gongs and the striking of clocks The least of these was the Coo Coo. Another favorite with the cycle of fans was one of Dad's creations called "The Echo Quartette," wherein Father gave with the Trumpet and a brass quartette would echo the air from a distance. The tune used in the number was "My Creole Sue," that Dad had arranged for echo effect. Another popular number was then "Anvil Chorus"; in this opus the trap drummer played an anvil solo on a genuine blacksmith's anvil.
I was always able to crash the gate at the bicycle races by lugging in the music to be used in the concert, in a large leather portmanteau. The parts for full band for an evening's concert, in most cases, weighed more than I did at the time, but my custodianship of the sheet music always admitted me to the races.
Dad often relied on the crowd to request numbers, so the portmanteau usually included many extra scores, and these added to the weight.
The delivery of the music was only one of my duties to the band. I ran errands and notified the members of engagements. The bicycle was paramount in this.
One afternoon Father decided to include the "Anvil Chorus" in the evening program, and at the last minute remembered that the band's anvilwas not at the Salt Palace Bicycle track It had been used last in the Sunday evening concert in the Grand Theatre It fell upon me to get the anvil to the track before the races, and the only means of transport was my bicycle The Grand Theatre wasten long Mormon cityblocks from the SaltPalace, and how I, a boy of eighty-five pounds, managed to balance and carry on the bar of mywheel a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound anvil that distance isstill a mystery to me I did it, but would not be able to explain how, even if my life depended on it
UNCLE PIERRE AND THE HALCYON DAYS
Uncle Pierre47 was indeed a minor genius. He was one of the most versatile mechanics I have ever known. He had no inventive side, but let someone else invent and he would improve to the extent of making the apparatus do many more things than it was intended to do. He was touched by the Gods.
It was in his ascendance that electricity was harnessed and put to use Uncle Pierre seemed to understand this miracle and he tamed it from the start.
In his day the pioneer engineers of the mid-Rockies had utilized the water power in the mountain streams and had electrified the sovereign city of Zion in Deseret Uncle Pierre was the city's trouble shooter The most difficult electrical problem was child's play to him because he always, somehow, managed to make it tick.
Not only electrical problems, but any mechanical poser was his meat. If a machine would not function Uncle Pierre would either make it accomplish its original function or would make it do something different. But right or wrong, he always managed to make it work.
When my father was working out the construction of his embossing presses and the complicated mechanism of printing copper plates, it was Uncle Pierre who supervised the precision castings and the adjustment of the delicate bearings. For all this machinery they made the irregular wooden forms, did the castings from the illustrations in a manufacturer's catalogue of that type of presses, and by the great Jehova, they worked, and were in operation for many years. I operated these presses in my apprenticeship of the copper plate and steel die printing of visiting cards and embossed stationary.
Outside interests other than the interests of the Mormon Church crept into the thriving metropolis of Zion, and later the name of the town was Anglicized to Salt Lake City With the coming of statehood, the Territory of Deseret became the State of Utah. 48
Salt Lake was a booming place and awide open city, a mining and cattle center. The miner of gold and silver and copper came with pockets burning with money to be spent on a high time, and the night life knew no bounds.
In every saloon, bar or public place were slot machines, not the nickel variety but the two-bit, four-bit and dollar wheels of chance. These complicated gambling devices had to be kept in repair, and the man to do that job, and who did it with mastery, was Uncle Pierre Whenever one of these machines would become unruly and pay off too large a percentage, Uncle Pierre would appear and, with a few expert touches of his screwdriver or pliers, the machine went back into line and made a larger profit for the owner.
In this service Uncle Pierre widened his acquaintance in the half-world or the nocturnal civilization of Salt Lake. He knew and was a friend of every saloon keeper, bartender, gambler, and Lady of the evening. He was a friend of every Madam in established Houses of Delight, of which there were none more delightful or elegant between Denver and San Francisco. It was said that the elegance of these Palaces surpassed the lavishness of even New Orleans or Omaha This was probably hearsay, as a gold or silver miner's or a cattle or a sheep man's idea of elegance was moot in the extreme.
Uncle Pierre picked up a tidy income by installing electric bells in these abodes of pastime. His account book read like a Who's Who in the Underworld.
In those days the hot spots of Salt Lake were located in a tidy manner on a street that ran between First and Second South and Main and State. This thoroughfare was called, without any attempt at grim humor, Commercial Street. Within the street were saloons, cafes, parlor houses, and cribs that were rented nightly to the itinerate Ladies of the calling. Soliciting was taboo, so these ladies sat at the top of the stairs and called their invitation to "Come on up, kid."49
The Parlor Houses showed no such publicity. There was no outward display to gain entrance to a Parlor House One pushed an electric bell, installed by Uncle Pierre, then you were admitted by a uniformed maid or an attendant The luxury of these Houses always included a Professor at the Piano. There was none of the brashness of the mechanical piano. Those were heard in the saloons and shooting galleries of the street.
The names of two of the Madams are engraved on my memory as they were engraved on the copper plates that Dad engraved for the printing of the Ladies' personal cards. In Dad's engraving shop an order for cards from the Madams was alwayswelcome. They demanded the finest and most expensive engraving, and the cards were of our finest stock, pure rag vellum. The dimensions of these cards were different from the accepted social standard. They were always about one-half inch by one and one-half inches. This size wasvery difficult to print by hand from the copper plate, and this order was in most cases for five hundred more. Thiswas a long run, but the money was fresh and no quibbling about price.
One of the Madams called herself Miss Ada Wilson. Hers was a lavish House on Commercial Street. Another called herself Miss Helen Blazes. Hers was a House that catered to the big money. In her House onlywine was served. In other Houses, beer was the popular refreshment at one dollar a bottle, served to the guests in small whiskey glasses. These were mere token drinks on which the House made a good substantial profit.
It was a familiar sight in the streets of Salt Lake to see Miss Wilson take her afternoon drive in a smart dog cart with a shiny chestnut hackney pony. Her companion was usually a rather handsome mulatto, supposedly her personal maid. Miss Blazes made no such avulgar display, as hers was avery conservative House.
There were many other Houses of repute, ill, that is, in the town, but the names of those others are gone from my memory. I do remember vividly that the decorations ran to mirrored ballrooms and red plush.
In my first introduction to these spots, Uncle Pierre was my mentor The first time I went with him as my host, his purpose was purely social, and my pleasure was short-lived. I was around fifteen years old at the time, and after a few dances and light beers I was a sick pigeon. So my baptism in the flesh pots was a dim grey pewly celebration.
The orchard of Salt Lake's night light was bearing rich golden fruit, and it was easy pickings. Both Sodom and Gomorrah were paying high dividends. Many greedy eyes sparkled, many mouths watered and hosts of palms itched for this bounty.
Then, the hue and cry rose to "Clean up Salt Lake." Moral groups were formed quickly and the fight was on. On the outset itwas a moral issue. The opposition newspaper screamed its banner headlines; "the decent people of the city" rose in protest at the system in power. There was a suggestion that control should be exercised to this phase of life—a subtle thought, but it worked, and the battle continued in its planned strategy.
By strange coincidence, all this crusade was at its height when, lo and behold, it was time for election. Those in power had grown sleek, fat and lazy, the golden crop ripened and had been falling in their laps, but when the votes were counted, virtue had triumphed over evil and the opposition was in There was a complete housecleaning in the city administration Most important of allwas a new police department who went right to work making the campaign slogan a reality: "Clean up Salt Lake." The old regime had been cleaning up, but this was a new broom, and what a new broom does is traditional.50
As the opposition had won on a virtue program, so virtue must be enforced.
Soon it was hinted that the oldest profession, after all, was a necessary evil. While it was impossible to do away with this trade, the best way out was to control it, and segregation was the only solution to the problem Just by chance there was a Lady in the town of Ogden, forty miles north of Salt Lake, who was an expert on this sort of quandary, and fortunately she could be persuaded by the new city government to come to Salt Lake and take charge of the entire perplexing situation.
She went by the name of Belle London.51 All the gilded ballrooms and the cribs of Commercial Street were closed and the occupants were denied their trade.
The new city administration was again in luck by being able to secure a tract of real estate down near the Rio Grande Western Railroad depot, where a walled stockade was built. Inside, buildings were provided, some large, and some were a series of small rooms that opened on the streets and passageways. All of this was to be operated by Miss London under license from the police. Here was perfect control under one management. This made the pickings much easier.52
In Commercial Street all the red lights were extinguished. The street became respectable; it sheltered now only saloons, gambling houses, Chinese laundries, shooting galleries and opium dens. The old familiar feminine faces were seen no more there This touched home because The Held Engraving Co. lost the lucrative business of engraving and printing the Madam's—shall we say—business card? Miss Belle London had her cards done in Denver.
Of course, in all Moral groups there are some fanatics, so while the Stockade was operating satisfactorily for the new police force and Miss London, there was a demand every so often for a cleanup This demand was met by a police raid on the stockade attended with sufficient publicity.
To make these raids painless to the occupants of the segregated area, a system of alarm bells was installed inside its enclosure, in case a raid came without previous warning to the police It was Uncle Pierre who installed this warning system.
At the entrance to the Walled City of Sin there was stationed a gatekeeper He was there to guard the inmates from undesirable clientele, so to speak. All he ever did was to keep the kids out and sound the alarm bell in case of a so-called necessary raid.
On the face of things, this was the only entrance to the Stockade, as it was all over in the town It was payday and after a man mucked all week in the bowels of a mine or worked for six days on a railroad construction gang, his appetite was for a high old time with money to be spent on pleasure.
On this particular Saturday night, the lights were bright and the flesh pots were boiling. The alarm bell system went wrong, and Uncle Pierre was called to make repairs.
Uncle Pierre was installing some lighting fixtures in one of the showcases in Dad's store Iwaswith him, marveling at the miracle that he brought forth from electricity.
I went with him to help carry his bag of tools to repair the Stockade alarm bell.
The festivities and joys were in high crescendo when we arrived; the walls were bulging with wine, women and song.
Uncle Pierre, the gate keeper and I were alone as Uncle Pierre went about making the repairs.
Just as he finished his repair work, there came the police accompanied by a Moral Committeeman in a surprise raid.
Upon the approach of the raiding party, the gatekeeper disappeared in the fog of coal smoke from switch engines in the railroad yards.
Uncle Pierre and Iwere the sole occupants of the half-world. The Moral Committeeman demanded action in the cause of purety.
The chief of police winked at Uncle Pierre and me and shouted, T arrest you in the name of the Law." This seemed to satisfy the committeeman, and he saw us safely aboard the horse-drawn "Black Maria." Then Uncle Pierre excused himself for a minute, went back to the entrance and sounded the all clear on the alarm bell Then we rode off up town.
The police let us out of the patrol wagon at the city's center. It was a nice ride and it saved us street-car fare.
NOTES
Mr. Carmack is Preservation Librarian at the Merrill Library, Utah State University.
1 John Held, Jr., "In My Lovely Deseret," typescript, n.d., p 1, John Held, Jr., papers, MF N721 and N722 [microfilm], Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C All quoted material and artwork ofJohn Held are used by kind permission of Judy Held.
2 Salt Lake Herald, December 23, 1918.
3 For biographical information on John Held, Jr., see Marc Connelly, et al., The Most ofJohn Held,Jr. (Brattleboro, VT: S Greene Press, 1972), and Shelley Armitage, John Held,Jr.: Illustrator of theJazz Age (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987) See also, Dorothy and John Tarrant, "It Was the Jazz Age and John Held Jr Drew It and Lived It," Smithsonian 17, no 6 (September 1986): 94—104.
4 See written statement of Josephine E Fisher quoted in Ralph V Chamberlin, Memories of John Rockey Park (Salt Lake City: The Emeritus Club, University of Utah Alumni Association, 1949), p 114.
5 Joh n R Park, Diary, July 8, 1877, MSS # 638, Manuscripts Division, Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (hereafter cited BYU); Deseret Evening News, October 11, 1900. See also John Clifton Moffitt, John Rockey Park in Utah's Frontier Culture (Salt Lake City: self-published, 1947), pp 92-93.
6 The business was first called the Magazine Printing Co at 19 W South Temple, then Held Engraving Co., located at 60 and 62 S Main See various Salt Lake Polk Directories and Salt Lake Tribune, May 18, 1940.
7 For more information on John Held, Sr., see Men of Affairs in theState of Utah (Salt Lake City: The Press Club of Salt Lake, 1914), s.v. 'John Held." Also, Deseret News,]\xne 27, August 17, 1936; Salt Lake Telegram, August 18, 1936; Salt Lake Tribune, November 28, 1948.
8 See "Annie Evans Held," and 'John's Grandpa Evans," typescripts, John Held, Jr., papers, Archives of American Art; Salt Lake Tribune, October 28, 1949 The Grand Theatre was located at 121 East Second South.
9 The book, written by George Reynolds and published by Jos Hyrum Parry, contained "Original Illustrations by G.M. Ottinger, Wm T. Armitage, John Held, W.C. Morris and others."
10 The details of his childhood are taken from notes by Margaret Held: 'John Heldjr.'s Early Days," typescript, Joh n Held, Jr., papers, Archives of American Art.
11 It was from the Tithing Office that the LDS church distributed food to the needy; here also those employees and workers who had been paid by the church in tithing scrip could redeem their "currency." The building was located near the site of the present Relief Society building on State Street and North Temple.
12 Held, 'John Held Jr.'s Early Days."
13 George D Pyper, The Romance of an Old Playhouse (Reprint ed., Salt Lake: Deseret Book, 1937), p. 303.
14 Held, "Roll, Jordan Roll," typescript, n.d., Held Papers Held's certificate of blessing, dated March 7, 1889, is located among the Held scrapbooks and papers on microfilm in the Archives of American Art.
15 Deseret News, January 12, 1935 See also Carl J Weinhardt, "The Rise of the Mormon Kid," in The Most of John Held Jr. (Battleboro: Stephen Greene Press, 1972), p 16 The Kolitz confectioner's store, located at 78 West First South, was owned by Louis Kolitz and managed by Elias Kohn.
16 Mahonri Young, "Reminiscences" (transcript of interview by Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, 1958), pp 72-73, microfiche copy, BYU I would like to thank Dr Thomas E Toone for bringing this to my attention.
17 Deseret Evening News, January 12, 1935.
18 Young, "Reminiscences." See also Thomas E Toone, Mahonri Young: His Life and Art (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), p 67.
19 See Dale Kramer, Ross and the New Yorker (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1952), p 7; and James Thurber, The Years with Ross (Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1959), pp 9-10, 223-24.
20 Joh n Caremaker, Winsor McCay, His Life and Art (New York: Abbeyville Press, 1987) O n cartooning in America, see Stefan Kanfer, Serious Business: The Art and Commerce ofAnimation in America from Betty Boop to ToyStory (New York: Scribner, 1997), and Donald Crafton's BeforeMickey: The Animated Film 1898-1928 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1984).
21 Armitage, John Held, Jr., pp 65-66 On the work of McManus, Leverage, and other cartoonists, see William Murrell, A History of American Graphic Humor, 1865-1938 (New York: Macmillan; Whitney Museum of American Art, 1938), and Coulton Waugh, The Comics (New York: Macmillan, 1947).
22 New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 6, 1917.
23 See, for example, James R Gaines, Wits End: Days and Nights of the Algonquin Round Table (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1977), p 234, and Jack Shuttleworth, 'John Held, Jr., and His World," American Heritage 16 (August 1965): 29-30.
24 Joh n Held, Jr., "A Short Preface," The Saga ofFrankie andJohnny (Reprint ed., New York: Clarkston N.Potter, Inc, 1972).
25 Salt Lake Telegram, October 26, 1930.
26 The Swedish Match King was Ivar Kreuger (b 1880), a Swedish manufacturer and financier who came to dominate the match industry in Europe and America. Through a series of lending schemes with American and foreign banks, Kreuger built an empire of match companies based on inflated assets When the stock market crashed in 1929, investors sought to reclaim their shares; Kreuger, unable to make the returns and realizing that his empire was crumbling, committed suicide in 1932 Investors like John Held, Jr., were left to count their losses.
27 Deseret News, September 11, 1922; Salt Lake Tribune, September 5, 1935 See also Armitage, John Held,Jr., pp 53-54.
28 Deseret News, March 3, 1958; Salt Lake Tribune, March 3 and 4, 1958; Salt Lake Tribune, May 12, 1970.
29 Walt and Roger Reed, The Illustrator in America, 1880-1980: A Century of Illustration (New York: Madison Square Press, Inc., 1984), p 129.
30 Corey Ford, The Time ofLaughter (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967), pp 4—6.
31 John Jr is mistaken here; his father took up the cornet in 1881 and organized his band in 1885, both before Joh n Jr.'s birth. The office of Held's Band and Orchestra was located at 19 West South Temple The band was managed by W G Clark and later by Otto Grow Joh n Held, Sr.'s, music collection has been deposited in the Utah State Historical Society library, MS B49.
32 The vault of heaven or the skies.
33 Judging from the typed manuscript, Held never returned to the subject because the reminiscences were never fully completed.
34 Richard K Thomas (1844-1915) was a native of England and built one of the most prominent and highly esteemed dry goods businesses in the territory, founded in 1885 It was located at 26 to 32 East First South.
35 Located at 50 North 300 West.
36 This refers to a mallet or a broad-headed stave used for starting the bung of a cask.
37 The "reading" of heads is a reference to phrenology, a practice popular in late nineteenth-century America as a method of revealing character and mental capacity. But the reference is only playful; Annie Held was not practicing phrenology but examining her children for lice.
38 Harry Tracy (1876-1902) was a notorious outlaw who roamed the northwest, near Spokane, Washington Several books treat the subject; see, for instance, Jim Dullenty, Harry Tracy: The Last Desperado (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 1989).
39 Or of dancing.
40 Held means jabot, a series of ruffles down the front of a shirt.
41 Whether intentionally or not, Held had a tendency to garble words like this Compare "indominable" and "disreveled" in the paragraph above.
42 Probably Keeley's Ice Cream factory, located at rear 268 South Main Street.
43 HenryC.Denhalter (1832-1914),ownerofaSaltLakeCitybottlingcompany,musthave operated a musicsupplybusinessaswell He organizedand financed apopularband known asDenhalter Rifles and Band thatwon prizesin the leadingband concertsin SaltLake Cityin the 1890s. See Men of Affairs, s.v "HenryC Denhalter."H DenhalterandSonsBottiedSodaWorkswaslocatedat28WestThird South.
44 Apparently injury was no stranger to John, Sr On another occasion, he was injured when, jumping aboard a street car, he ran into a telephone pole. See DeseretEvening News, August 16, 1898.
45 Atthat time,bicycleracingwasasmuch aUtah sensationasitwasanationalone;the old Salt Palace bicycleraceswere apopular pastimein SaltLake Cityat the turn of the century See OliveW Burt, "BicycleRacing and the SaltPalace: Two Letters," Utah Historical Quarterly 50 (Sprinsr 1982): 160-67.
46 Heldprobablymeantdivertissement.
47 ProbablyJean LouisPierreViallet (1848-1937),whowasmarriedtoJohn's aunt,HortenseHeld (1866-1922). Viallet,who worked in oddjobs as aminer, afireman, and as a laborer at the Model CleaningandDyeWorks,livedat2145thAvenueinSaltLakeCity.
48 Held was mistaken Salt Lake City was never name d Zion, no r was there ever a Territory of Deseret; it was called Utah Territory.
49 For decades, speakeasies, gambling dens, saloons, and brothels abounded in this tiny section of Salt Lake For descriptions of this district, see Salt Lake Tribune, March 31 and May 3, 1903; Deseret Evening News, Jun e 24, September 2 and 19, 1902.
50 Salt Lake City administrators apparently made several "clean-up" efforts to control illegal gambling, drinking, and prostitution Mayor John F Bowman made one such effort in 1931 with little success Several undercover agents were sent out to document illegal activities during the month of January and reported numerous incidents of solicitation and gambling in the downtown area See depositions to John F Bowman, January, 1931, Caine Coll., MSS 1, Folder 9, Special Collections and Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University, Logan, Utah.
51 Harold Ross remembere d meeting Salt Lake's madams as a cub reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune: "I remember Helen Blazes place well because it was exactly across the street from the Tribune composing room, and I remember Bell (or Belle) London, too I was sent down in an automobile with her for an inspection before the stockade opened I was working on the Telegram afternoons and going to high school daytimes I had my cadet pants on for this trip Belle had been represented in print as a 'friend of the fallen woman,' and so on—their benefactor There was never a hint that she was in the game for profit and, by God, I was so young then that I fell for the publicity and assumed she was an old Methodist I asked the old girl a lot of questions that dazed her as we drove down (one of my first trips in an automobile), referring always to the girls as 'fallen women,' etc I was very well mannered and discrete. She stood the high-level conversation as long as she could, and then said, 'Jesus Christ, kid, cut the honey If I had a railroad tie for every trick I've turned x x I'd build a railroad from here to San Francisco." Harold Ross to Joh n Held, Jr., undated, Held Papers, Archives of American Art.
52 Joh n S. McCormick, "Red Lights in Zion: Salt Lake City's Stockade, 1908-11," Utah Historical Quarterly 50 (Spring 1982): 168-81 See also Salt Lake Tribune, November 7, 1993.
