Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 74, Number 1, 2006

UTAH HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

(ISSN 0042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF

PHILIP F.NOTARIANNI, Editor

ALLANKENTPOWELL, Managing Editor

CRAIGFULLER, Associate Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS

NOEL A.CARMACK,Hyrum,2006

LEE ANN KREUTZER,Salt Lake City,2006

STANFORDJ.LAYTON,Salt Lake City,2006

ROBERT S.MCPHERSON,Blanding,2007

MIRIAM B.MURPHY,Murray,2006

W.PAUL REEVE,Salt Lake City,2008

JOHNSILLITO,Ogden,2007

NANCY J.TANIGUCHI,Merced,California,2008

GARY TOPPING,Salt Lake City,2008

RONALD G.WATT,West Valley City,2007

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles,documents,and reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah 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, Utah Preservation,and the quarterly newsletter upon payment of the annual dues:individual,$25;institution,$25;student and senior citizen (age sixty-five or older),$20;sustaining,$35;patron,$50;business, $100.

Manuscripts submitted for publication should be double-spaced with endnotes.Authors are encouraged to include a PC diskette with the submission.For additional information on requirements,contact the managing editor.Articles and book reviews represent the views of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Utah State Historical Society.

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Department of Community and Culture Division of State History

BOARD OF STATE HISTORY

MICHAEL W.HOMER,Salt Lake City,2009, Chair

PAM MILLER,Price,2007, Vice Chair

PAUL ANDERSON,Salt Lake City,2007

JOHND.BARTON,Roosevelt,2007

CLAUDIA F.BERRY,Midvale,2009

MARTHA SONNTAG BRADLEY,Salt Lake City,2009

SCOTT R.CHRISTENSEN,Salt Lake City,2009

RONALDG.COLEMAN,Salt Lake City,2007

CHERE ROMNEY,Salt Lake City,2007

MAX J.SMITH,Salt Lake City,2009

MICHAEL K.WINDER,West Valley City,2009

ADMINISTRATION

PHILIPF.NOTARIANNI, Director

WILSONG.MARTIN, State Historic Preservation Officer

ALLANKENTPOWELL, Managing Editor

KEVIN T.JONES, State Archaeologist

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 National Park Service,under provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as amended.

This program receives financial assistance for identification and preservation of historic properties under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.The U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits unlawful discrimination on the basis of race,color,national origin, age,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,National Park Service,1849 C Street,NW,Washington,D.C.,20240.

2 IN THIS ISSUE

4

From Switzerland to the Colorado River : Life Sketch of the Entrepreneur ial Daniel Bonelli, the Forgotten Pioneer

By Waldo C Perkins

The Quest to Become Chief of Police: The Illustr ious Career of George Augustus Sheets

By Douglas K. Miller 47 The Lehi Brass Band By Linda Lindstrom 66

Passing Through: Ar thur Rothstein’s Photog raphic Account of Utah, March 1940

By James R. Swensen 79 BOOK REVIEWS

James A. Vlasich. Pueblo Indian Agr iculture. Reviewed by D. M. Davis Richard V Francaviglia. Mapping and Imagination in the Great Basin: A Car tographic History

Reviewed by Brooks Green Roy Webb, ed. High, Wide, and Handsome: The River Jour nals of Nor man D Nevills Reviewed by W. L. Rusho Susan M. Colby Sacagawea’s Child: The Life and Times of JeanBaptiste (Pomp) Charbonneau

Reviewed by Todd I. Berens Rober t S Wicks and Fred R. Foister Junius & Joseph: Presidential Politics and the Assassination of the First Mor mon Prophet Reviewed by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel Stephen L. Pr ince. Gather ing in Har mony: A Saga of Southern Utah Families, Their Roots and Pioneer ing Her itage, and the Tale of Antone Pr ince, Sher iff of Washington County

Reviewed by W. Paul Reeve

John W Davis. Goodbye Judge Lync h: The End of a Lawless Era in Wyoming’s Big Hor n Basin

Reviewed by Melvin T. Smith John Holiday and Rober t S McPher son. A Navajo Legacy: The Life and Teachings of John Holiday

Reviewed by H. Ber t Jenson David Pier pont Gardner Ear ning My Degree: Memoirs of An Amer ican University President

Reviewed by L. Jackson Newell

Am e r i c a n s t a ke g r e a t p r i d e i n b e i n g a n a t i o n o f i m m i g r a n t s .

Ex ce pt fo r the in dig e no us pe op les , we are all des c en ded fro m immig rants wh o cross ed the Atlan ti c or Pac ific O cean s dur ing some per iod of time leaving native lands of r ich culture, fir mly g rounded traditions, and ancient languages to seek a different life and establish a new home in f ar off Amer ica.

The subject of our fir st ar ticle for 2006, Daniel Bonelli, was just such an immig rant and his stor y is representative of the thousands of immig rants to Utah and millions of immig rants to the United States dur ing the nineteenth centur y. After j oini ng The C hurc h of Je sus C hr is t of Latt er-day S aints i n 1854, he left the verdant fields and meadows of his native Switzerland and, after ar r iving in Utah in 1860, spent the next for ty-three year s car ving out an ex i st en c e an d l eavi n g a le g ac y in the un f a mil ia r ro c ks an d d es er ts o f southwester n Utah an d s outheaster n Nevada. A man of many tal ents an d strong conviction, Bonelli exemplified an ability to keep the delicate balance b e t wee n i nd iv id u al a nd c ommu n i t y Hi s s to r y i s o n e wo r t h re ad in g an d remember ing.

George August Sheets was bor n in 1864, four year s after Daniel Bonelli ar r ived in Utah. His life in urban Salt Lake City with the municipal police depar tment offer s an interesting contrast with that of the immig rant pioneer

Daniel Bonelli. George Sheets was no stranger to the str uggle between the Libe ral and People’s Par ty for po litic al c ontro l of Utah, no r th e spoi ls of office, vice, cr ime, scandal, cor ruption, and hostility that were found in Salt L a ke C i t y a t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f th e t we n ti e t h c e n t u r y A s we s h a l l re a d , Sheets’ professional career was interwoven into this difficult time in Utah’s capital city

For twenty-fir st centur y Utahns who live at a time when music is available almost anywhere at anytime at the push of a button or the tur n of a dial, it i s di ffic ul t to ap pre ci ate th e imp or tant rol e tow n b and s an d l oc al orchestras filled providing enter tainment to their nineteenth centur y ancestor s. Our third ar ticle recounts the stor y of Alfred Mar shall Fox and the Lehi Brass Band. Founded in 1871, the band was a viable cultural force in the community life for two decades.

Our final ar ticle highlights the photog rapher Ar thur Rothstein. In March 1 9 4 0 R o t h s t e i n , a n e m p l o y e e o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s D e p a r t m e n t o f Ag r iculture’s Far m Secur ity Administration Histor ical Section, crossed into Ut ah f rom Wyom i n g an d tr avel e d we s t t h rou g h S um mi t , S al t L ake, a n d Tooele Counties to Wendover on the Utah-Nevada border. The black and white photog raphs that he took of Utah dur ing the late winter some sixtysix year s ago offer a valuable visual record of Utah near the end of its fir st centur y of settlement.

This issue consider s the lives and accomplishments of four individuals— D a n i e l B o n e l l i , G e o r g e A . S h e e t s , A l f r e d M a r s h a l l F o x , a n d A r t h u r Rothstein. Each one used his time, talents, and skills in vastly different ways. Nevertheless their stor ies remind us that our individual effor ts are no less impor tant today

ON THE

OPPOSITE:

COVER: The Provo Fourth Ward Band was organized in 1900 and continued until late 1903. Members include: front row, left to right, Franklyn Y. Gates, William E. Bassett, Vivian Snow, Irving Snow, Jesse Fields, and Harold Smoot. Back Row: Calvin Beebe, Leonard Cluff, B. Cecil Gates, Karl Keeler, Ray Warner, Jesse Haws, Harvey H. Gates, Elwood Beebe, and Wilford Smoot. UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The General Garfield excursion boat docked at Garfield Beach sometime prior to 1904 when a fire burned the landing pier

From Switzerlandto theColorado River:Life Sketchofthe Entrepreneurial DanielBonelli, theForgotten Pioneer

By WALDO C. PERKINS

Da n i e l B o n e l l i , b o r n F e b r u a r y 2 5 , 1 8 3 6 , d i e d a t R i o v i l l e , Nevada, on D ecember 2 0 , 1 9 0 3 , a t t h e a g e o f s i x t ys e ve n . Few p e o p l e a re f a m i l i a r with this br illiant man’s remarkable stor y Descr ibed as a “renaissance man” by one histor ian, his life can now be told with a broader stroke of the pen and with histor ical accuracy 1 He was Muddy (Moapa) Valley, Nevada’s fir st per manent pioneer, ar r iving in 1868 and residing there until his death. A man of many talents, Bonelli was known as a g reat letter wr iter, a viticultur ist ( cu ltiva tor of g rap es e spe ci all y fo r th e prod uc tio n of wi ne) , an d a shrewd entrepreneur.

Rioville, situated at the junction of the Virg in and Colorado Rivers and n ow cove re d by th e wa t e r s of L ake M ead , wa s h al f a wo rl d away fro m B o n e l l i ’s b i r th p l ac e i n th e vi l l a g e o f Bu s s n a ng lo c a t ed i n th e no r t h e r n Switzerland Canton of Thurgau, about twent y m i l e s s o u t h o f L a ke C o n s ta n c e a n d t h e

Daniel Bonelli

1 Dr Melvin T Smith, for mer director of the Utah State Histor ical Society in a per sonal conver sation with the author

Waldo C Perkins, an otolar yngolog ist, retired in 1989 after twenty-nine year s of practice at the Salt Lake Clinic His mater nal g randf ather, John G Hafen, was closely associated with Daniel Bonelli in Santa Clara. His pater nal g reat-g randfather and g randfather, Ute War ren Perkins and Ute Vorace Perkins, were residents of the Muddy (Moapa) Valley who knew and respected Daniel Bonelli.

DANIEL BONELLI

G e r m an b ord e r. D a n i e l ’s p are n t s , Ha ns Ge org e an d An n a Mar ia (M ar y ) Ammann Bommeli and their children joined The Church of Jesus Chr ist of Latter-day Saints in 1854. Following their baptism, Daniel and his brothe r G e o rg e c h a n g e d th e i r n am e s t o Bo n e l l i t o s y mb o l i z e t h at th ey h a d become “new persons. ” 2 Daniel was ordained a pr iest and placed in charge of the LDS member s in Weinfelden, nine in number. As an active and effective missionar y, Daniel baptized for ty of the fifty-six Mor mon conver ts in Switzerland in 1855. 3

The sale of the f amily home and fur nishings yielded enough money to provide transpor tation to Utah for Daniel’s parents and three younger sister s. They ar r ived in Salt Lake City on September 11, 1857.

The following year in October 1858, Daniel left Switzerland to ser ve as a missionar y in England. There, in addition to his work as a traveling elder in the Bir mingham Conference, he wrote nine ar ticles for The Latter-day Sa i n t s M il l e n n i a l Sta r on s uc h to pi c s as “L an g u ag e an d I ts P ro p er Us e, ” “Hope,” “Philanthropy,” “Regeneration,” and “Divine Pur poses. ” The ar tic l es reve al th at B on el l i, fo r a yo u ng t we n t y - t h ree ye ar ol d c o nve r t an d native of Switzerland, had a ver y good command of the English language and the doctr ines of the Mor mon f aith.4

Daniel’s brother George and their sister Mar y, who had been working as a weaver in Ger many, sailed for Amer ica in 1859.5 They waited on the east c o as t i n t h e W i l l i a m s burg s ec t io n o f Bro o k l y n , N ew Yo r k , u n ti l D a ni e l ar r ived onboard the Underwr iter which sailed from England on March 30, 1860, and landed at New York City’s Castle Garden where he was met by George and Mar y.6 The three then left for Utah traveling fir st by rail up the Hudson River to Albany and then west to Niagara, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Joseph, Missour i, where their rail jour ney ter minated. In St. Joseph they boarded the steamer Emilie and traveled up the Missour i River to within f o u r m i l e s o f N e b r a s k a C i t y a n d t h e n wa l ked t h e re s t o f t h e way t o Florence, Nebraska, ar r iving on May 11, 1860. 7

2 Walter Lips, “Daniel Bommeli of Bussnang: The Life Stor y of a Swiss,” translation of a presentation by Walter Lips on September 19, 1997, in Greuterhof , Islikon, Switzerland; hereafter cited as Lips, “Daniel Bonelli of Bussnang.” Researcher s state that Daniel was bor n in Bussnang. However when he was sealed to Ann Haigh in the Endowment House in 1861, Daniel gave the nearby town of Weinfelden as the place of his bir th. Hans George, a weaver by trade, also did considerable cooper ing, making tubs and bar rels. Hans George had been mar r ied previously to his second wife’s sister, Anna Barbara Ammann, who had died in 1834. Th e ch i ldren o f t he fir st ma r r ia ge w h o su r vived to adu lt h ood were Jo h an n G eo rge a nd M ar ia ( M a r y ) . F rom t h e s ec o n d m a r r i ag e t h e o n ly a d u lt su r v ivo r s we re Jo h a n n D a n i el, S u s an n a/ S u z e t t a, Elisabetha/ Lisette, and Louisa/Louise

3 Dale Z. Kirby, “Histor y of the Church of Jesus Chr ist of Latter-day Saints in Switzerland,” unpublished Master’s Thesis, Br igham Young Univer sity, 1971.

4 The articles appeared between Apr il 9, 1859, and August 11, 1860, in the Millennial Star

5 Johan Georg Bommeli, Translated Jour nal, March 12, 1860—March 11, 1861, copy in author’s poss e s s i o n . H e rea ft er c i t ed a s B o mm eli , Tra n sla t ed Jo u r n a l . Jo h a n s t ar te d keepi n g t h e j o u r n a l bef o re h e changed his name from Bommeli to Bonelli.

6 European Mission, Immig ration Record, Liver pool Office, LDS Church Archives, 158.

7 Bommeli, Translated Jour nal.

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

There they waited for more than a month for others to ar r ive and for the rains to cease George and Mar y joined the Jesse Mur phy wagon train while Daniel j our neyed with the James D. Ross wagon train. 8 Ar r iving in the Salt L a ke Va l l ey i n S e p te m be r 1 8 6 0 , th e th re e e m ig r an t s e n j oye d a pl e a s an t reu ni on w ith the ir f ami ly me mber s who were l ivi ng in the Ni ne teen th Ward where their father had established a successful spinning and weaving business. Both Daniel and George worked at whatever employ ment they could find. We know that George worked as a shoemaker and also regularly shucked cor n for Bis hop Edwin D Wo o l ey o f the T h i r te enth Ward. 9 We have little infor mation as to what Daniel did ex cept for secretar ial work including ser vice as secretar y of the Ger man Home Mission wr iting letter s to Br igham Young for mission president Karl G Maeser 10

It is f amily tradition that Bonelli ser ved as a pr ivate secretar y to Br igham Young. However, a detail ed search of the His to r ical D epar tmen t Jour nal from the time that Bonelli ar r ived in Utah until his call to the Souther n Utah Mission in November 1861 does not substantiate this tradition. The j o u r na l n ot e s t h at R i c h a rd Be n tl ey, a s e c re t a r y o f Br i g h am Yo u n g , wa s called on a mission to England and was replaced but Bonelli is not ment i o n e d . S u p p o r t i n g t h e f a m i l i e s ’ p o s i t i o n i s a l e t t e r B o n e l l i w ro t e t o Br igham Young from Santa Clara in which he concludes, “With sentiments of hi g h estee m a nd ki nd regard s to th e bre t h ren in th e offic e ” 11 In another letter to Apostle George Alber t Smith, Bonelli concludes, “Give my regards to Brother s Woodr uff , Long, and Bullock.”12

Just over a year of his ar r ival in the Salt Lake Valley, Daniel Bonelli was called dur ing the October 1861 church conference to lead a g roup of Swiss S aints to streng then the S outh er n Utah Mis sio n and to establ ish a wi ne mis si on in S an ta C la ra. Dur i ng the c o nfere n c e, “Bro ther D ani el B on ell i read the names of the twenty-nine heads of Swiss f amilies who were selected to settle in the souther n par t of the Ter r itor y ” President Br igham Young s a i d , “ I f th e b re t h re n d i d n o t c h o o s e to vo l u n te e r f o r t hi s m i s s i on t h e Presidency and Twelve would make the selections and they would expect the brethren to go and stay until they are released. 13

Br igham Young encouraged those about to leave for souther n Utah to find companions and be mar r ied in the Salt Lake City Endowment House.

8 Ross had been a counselor to Asa Calkins in the European Mission Presidency and was in charge of the Saints on the Underwr iter His company was made up largely of those who had been on the ship with him. Daniel had also developed a fr iendship with Ann Haigh, a twenty-six year old conver t who sailed w it h Dan i el o n t he U n d e r w r i t e r an d h ad been ver y i mp ressed w it h Bon elli ’ s a r t ic les publi sh ed i n the Millennial Star The fr iendship would later culminate in mar r iage.

9 Bommeli Translated Jour nal.

10 Karl G Maeser, President Ger man Home Mission, to Br igham Young, Febr uar y 1861, and June 13, 1861, Br igham Young Collection, LDS Church Archives.

11 D an i el B o n elli t o P resi de n t B r ig h am Yo u n g , Ja nu a r y 1 , 1 8 6 2 , B r i gh a m Yo u n g Co ll ect i o n , L D S Church Archives.

12 Daniel Bonelli to Apostle George A. Smith, July 18, 1862, Br igham Young Collection, LDS Church Archives.

13 The Latter-Day Saints Millennial Star, LDS Church Archives, 24:41-42.

DANIEL BONELLI

Accordingly Daniel Bonelli, age twenty-four a n d h i s t we n t y - s i x - ye a r - o l d E n g l i s h f r i e n d Ann Haigh were mar r ied in the Endowment Ho u s e by D a ni e l H. We ll s o n O c to b er 2 5 , 1861. 14

Many of those called to go to Santa Clara were too poor to buy the necessar y oxen and wa g o n s ; h e n c e t h e b i s h o p s o f t h e va r i o u s communities along the route were instr ucted to provide the teams and wagons. While journeying south the Swiss Company attracted a g reat deal o f atten tio n. At Beaver, they provided music and danced on two consecutive n i g h t s w i t h o t h e r S a i n t s j o u r n eyi n g to S t G e o r g e . 1 5 S t o p p i n g a t K a n a r ra C re e k th ey “excited much cur iosity by th eir sin g ing and good cheer ” Ar r iving in Santa Clara on November 28, they joined the twenty f amilies of For t Clara Saints and settled south and east of them. Less than two months later, a g reat flood roared down the Santa Clara Creek. Bonelli wrote to Br igham Young on Sunday, Januar y 1 9, 1862, ex plaini ng that “at three o’c loc k this mor ning the last vestige of the for t, the schoolhouse and seven other houses above the for t had disappeared and in their place roar now the wild tor rents of the r iver, still widening by the continual f all of both banks. Dr Dodge’s [Walter E.] nur ser y is also gone with many other gardens and orchards.”16

The early histor y of Santa Clara has been told many times and need not be repeated.17 Here Daniel Bonelli, as the presiding elder in Santa Clara, dedicated the land which had been selected for the Swiss Saints, following wh ic h lo ts we re ap po r ti on ed by a l ot ter y 18 In th e f al l o f 1 862 , E d wa rd Bunker from Toquer ville replaced Zadoc K. Judd as the new bishop over the For t Clara and Swiss Saints.19

In the re c o rd s o f th e S w is s w ho s ettl ed S an ta C l ara li ttl e me nti o n i s made of Bonelli’s f ather or of his brother or his sister s. A g randdaughter of Daniel’s brother George, states that:

14 Record of Sealings, Special Collections, Family History Librar y, Salt Lake City, Utah.

15 Diar y of Mrs. Alber t Perkins, a.k.a. Hannah Gold Perkins, LDS Church Archives.

16 D an ie l B o n el li t o B r i gh a m Yo u n g , Ja nu a r y 1 9 , 1 8 6 2 , B r i g h am Yo u n g C o ll ec t i o n , LD S Ch u rc h Archives.

17 See Andrew Karl Larson, I Was Called to Dixie (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1961), 43-54; Nel lie G u bl e r, “ H i s t o r y o f S an t a Cla ra , ” i n U nde r t h e D ix ie S un, e d . B e r n ic e B ra dsh aw (Wa s h i n g t o n County Chapter, Daughters of Utah Pioneer s, 1950), 145-76.

18 Zadoc K. Judd, Autobiog raphy, Washington County Librar y, St. George, Utah, 37.

19 Bunker was a Mor mon Battalion veteran, had ser ved a four year mission to England and retur ned home i n 1856. He was selec ted to lead t he T h i rd Handcar t Company After settlin g in Ogden he was ordained a bishop and served until his call to the Souther n Utah Mission in the f all of 1861, settling in Toquerville where he was living when called to become bishop of Santa Clara.

Ann Haigh Bonelli

Br igham Young advised the Bonelli family to go to Dixie to settle The f amily left Salt Lake and went to Dixie, but the hardships were too much and it was hard to get settled and make a living Grandf ather, who was by now working at cloth manuf actur ing was sent to make patter ns for the weaver s at Santa Clara. He also worked at weaving in other par ts of Washington County but did not like this par t of the countr y as well as Salt Lake City so he and his f ather came back to Salt Lake.20

There is no record of the Bonelli f amily being a par t of the initial g roup that Daniel led to Santa Clara.

In 1863 Ann gave bir th to a daughter whom they named Caroline Ann. The baby lived but a shor t time, dying in 1864. In her g r ief , Ann tur ned to s p i r i t u a l i s m a n d a s tro l ogy i n a va i n h o p e o f c o m mu n i c a t i n g w i th h e r depar ted daughter 21

Following a patter n developed in the Br itish Mission, Bonelli would take up his pen at the slightest provocation. He wrote often, freely, clearly, and with compelling log ic Through his many letter s we can follow his movements from Santa Clara to Miller sburg (Beaver Dam), to St. Thomas, and finally to Rioville Those letter s g ive us a lucid picture of the problems in these areas and his suggested remedies. 22 They clearly show that Bonelli, scientifically or iented, was quick to wr ite on subjects from mining to meteorology and from viticulture to cotton production. They reveal Bonelli to be a man of war mth and tender ness as well as a man of sweeping vision.

When Bonelli felt the St. George City Council over stepped the limitations of their char ter on water r ights, he wrote to Apostle George A. Smith. He s e em e d m o re c o mf o r t a b le i n wr i ti n g t o G e o rg e A . th a n a ny o th e r c h u rc h le ad er as h e ha d s er ve d u nd er G eo rg e A .’s b ro t h e r, Jo hn Ly m a n Smith in Switzerland. He descr ibed a sullen gloom that was resting upon the town while the trees, vines, and the cotton were dying. Recognizing he could be treading on dangerous g round, Bonelli pointed out that “Bishop Bunker stemmed his [Bish op Bunker’s ] influen ce ag ains t the movement, believing that the matter would mature itself in due time.” Sensing the danger of his statements, he hastened to add: “I have been lengthy in my communication and have mentioned f acts as they exist even at the r isk of being thought a ‘g r umble’ but I have prefer red to do this to doing what many men prefer, mour ning in secret against the r uling pr iesthood, and if I have wear ied you with my long tirade you may have the char ity to send me a reproof so I may lear n better ” 23

20 Olla Bonelli Hiss, “Johann George Bonneli, 1859,” Tooele County Company, Daughter s of the Utah Pioneer s, 3-4; copy in author’s possession.

21 This statement is from William Bonelli, oldest son of Daniel’s son, George, wr itten on the last page of Daniel’s g randdaughter, Pearl Perkins Whitmore’s “Histor y of the life of Daniel Bonelli,” copy in author’s possession. Six other children were bor n to Daniel and Ann: Daniel Leonard in 1865; Mar y Isabelle (Belle) in 1867; George Alfred in 1869; Benjamin Franklin in 1870; Edward in 1873; and Alice Maud in 1874. The eldest son, Leonard died in 1882 at the age of sixteen from a rattlesnake bite

22 The author has in his possession typewr itten copies of twenty-eight letter s which were wr itten by Daniel from which excer pts will be quoted or paraphrased throughout this sketch. All but three of these letter s were g iven to the author by Dr Melvin T Smith.

23 Daniel Bonelli to George A. Smith, August 18, 1863, LDS Church Archives.

Map showing the area of Daniel Bonelli’s activities along the Virgin, Muddy, and Colorado Rivers.

U n d e r A p o s t l e E r a s t u s Snow’s direction, settler s were called to Clover and Meadow Valley early in 1864. 24 Shor tly b e f o r e M a y o f t h a t y e a r , a W i l l i a m “ G u n l o c k B i l l ” H a m b l i n , b r o t h e r o f J a c o b an d on e of th e fir s t to s ettle in Meadow Valley, visited with a n I n d i a n w h o h a d b u l l e t s made of silver He inquired as to where he obtained the silver and the Indian led him to an ou tc rop ping of ore 25 This outcropping, ten miles nor thwest of Meadow Valley, would l a t e r b e c o m e t h e s o u r c e o f the r ich Pioche mines which, o v e r a n e i g h t - y e a r p e r i o d b e g i n n i n g i n 1 8 6 9 , n e t t e d m o r e t h a n t w e n t y m i l l i o n d o l l a r s i n s i l v e r . 2 6 I n e a r l y 1864 Bonelli and other s went to the area and filed claims but did not record their filings with the proper author ities, for m a mining distr ict, or do the proper assessment work. As President Young had urged dispatch, Bonelli wanted to go back and do what was necessar y to sec ure th e c laims His re que st was tur n ed down by Bis ho p Bunker and the Mor mon claims fell into non-Mor mon hands.

In 1864, Bonelli wrote a letter to the Deseret News stating that the Swiss population in Santa Clara, now the major ity, was “endeavor ing to cultivate th e g ra pe t o th e ex te nt th at th ei r ci rc ums tan c es and mea ns per m i t t e d .” They had lear ned that the Califor nia g rape was not hardy enough to withstand the Dixie winter so they were tr ying to propagate the Isabella and Mu sc atin e var ieties. He then made th is o pti mis tic all y b ol d state ment: “I have no doubt that this countr y will prove as good a wine g rowing distr ict as the south of France and Italy ” 27

24 C l over Va l l ey wa s seve n t y-ei g h t m i les fro m S t G eo rg e by a c i rc u i t o u s ro a d t h ro u gh M o u n t ai n Meadows and along Shoal Creek. It was about for ty miles in a straight direction nor thwest of Santa Clara while Meadow Valley was about for ty miles in a north nor thwest direction from Clover Valley

25 James W Hulse, The Nevada Adventure, a History (Reno: Univer sity of Nevada Press, 1966), 134.

26 Thompson and West, Histor y of the State of Nevada, With Illustrations and Biographical Sketc hes (Oakland: Howell-North, 1881), 484.

27 Daniel Bonelli to the Deseret News, May 29, 1864, LDS Church Archives.

DANIEL BONELLI

The Civil War brought new problems to the Saints. Railroads, g iving pr ior ity to war need s, c ould not be depen ded u pon dur ing these tu rbu l e n t times to br ing immig rants and mater ials from easter n port s . The Great Plains Indians, freed from federal gover nment intervention, were a g reater threat to wagon trains from th e Mis sour i Valley c ar r yin g immig rants an d s upplies . Nor did the war’s end appear to be in sight. Consequently, Br ig ham Young and other church leaders decided to transport immig rants and goods from the East to the souther n Utah settlements via the Colorado River

In 1864 Anson Call, a fifty-four-year-old veteran church member who had lear ned to work peacefully with the native peoples, was called to build a warehouse to f acilitate the movement of goods and immig rants on the C ol or ado Rive r j us t be low Bo ul de r C a nyo n at w ha t bec a me kn ow n a s Callsville.

Two steamship companies competed to transpor t immig rants and supp li e s— th e C ol o ra do Nav i g at io n C o mpa ny an d t h e Un i on Li n e 28 L o c a l b u s i n e s s m e n u n d e r t h e l e a d e r s h i p o f H o r a c e E l d r e d g e o r g a n i z e d t h e Deseret Mercantile Association. With shares of stock selling for a thousand dollar s, the company claimed that supplies and goods could be obtained via the Colorado River route much more cheaply than those coming overland from Omaha or San Francisco 29 S ever al c o lo ni es of La tter- day S ai nts we re c al le d to se ttl e va l l eys th at would act as way-stations and suppor t this immig ration. In Januar y 1865, Tho mas S S mith beg an a s ettlemen t o n the Mu ddy River in w hat was then nor ther n Ar izona. At the same time, Henr y W. Miller led a g roup that included Daniel and Ann Bonelli to settle Miller sburg (Beaver Dam), thir ty mil es so uth we st of S t. G e o r g e Mi ll er wrote to the S alt Lake Ci ty S e m i Weekly Telegraph in the spr ing of 1866 telling how they had seven different var ieties of g rapes and how they had put out several thousand g rape roots and cuttings. They had planted several hundred fr uit trees including white and black figs and lemons and plums. They had also opened a new road to St. George that was twelve miles shor ter than the previous road. 30

Bonelli, with character istic energy and optimism, went to work and soon had a nur ser y, vineyards, and fr uit trees under cultivation and ready to bear fr uit. The following year, 1867, he wrote, “There is no climatic reason why we s ho ul d no t ra ise the fig , th e le mon, olive, pomeg ranate, an d pe rhap s

28 The Union Line even sent r iverboat captain Thomas E. Tr uewor thy to Salt Lake City to solicit business. Jour nal Histor y, March 24, 1865.

29Jour nal Histor y, November 30, December 14, and 17, 1864, and March 29, 1865.

30 Semi-Weekly Telegraph, Apr il 30, 1866. By 1867, following the end of the Civil War, construction of the transcontinental railroad moved rapidly ahead. As the ter minus of the Union Pacific moved closer to the Salt Lake Valley there was no longer economic justification for Callville and it was abandoned. The establishment of Callville as a way station, on paper, was a g rand and glor ious plan but in reality, only the r iverboat Esmeralda made several tr ips to Callville in the last months of 1866 with the last tr ip probably in early 1867. Another reason for its f ailure was that the land upon which the warehouse had been built had been pre-empted by non-Mor mons. Unfor tunately the Colorado River was never used for church immig ration. M elv in T Smith, “T he Co lo rado River : It s Hist or y i n t he Lower Ca nyo n A re a ,” (Ph.D diss., Br igham Young Univer sity, 1974), 425; hereafter cited as Smith, “The Colorado River ”

DANIEL BONELLI

eve n t he o ran g e. We have i mp o r t ed th e b e st r ai s in an d s om e g rap e s o f S p a i n , Po r t u g a l , F r a n c e, H u n g a r y an d t h e C a n a r y I s l a n d s an d we o n l y require the time they need to come into full bear ing to prove Utah that we can raise as good g rapes as ever g raced the sunny hills of Spain or the hills of Hungar y. ” 31

But six months later, on the mor ning of December 24, a disastrous flood w i p e d o u t t h e i r h o m e s , f a r m s a n d e ve r y t h i n g t h ey h a d b u i l t . B o n e l l i lamented that “young orchards and vineyards, with good promise of ample fr uiting the present season, the fir st of their full bear ing, have taken passage towards the Pacific ” 32

The devastating flood forced Bonelli to abandon Miller sburg and move to St. Thomas on the Muddy River.33 Soon after ar r iving in St. Thomas, Bonelli built a s olid five-room adobe home for his f amily. This dwelling remained func tional un til c overed by th e r ising water s o f Lake Mead i n 1938. Casting his lot with the Saints who had been in this valley for three year s, Bonelli became one of the area’s biggest booster s. In Apr il 1868 he wrote a lengthy letter to the Deseret News on cotton culture, reflecting an amazing technical exper tise.34 Seven weeks later he would wr ite: “. . . After being washed out from the Beaver Dams . . . and having orchard, vineyard, and nur ser y par tly freighted g ratis to the Gulf of Califor nia by the flood, and par tly conveyed on wheels to this place, stands again erect with a better vineyard than he had before and a better place, working with more zeal.” He then mentioned the g rapes under cultivation: “the Isabella and Catawba of frosty climes . . . the Syr ian of the Holy Land and the Perfumed Muscat of Eg y pt, wi th the raisin of Hu ngar y, each taking kindly to the so il and thr iving better than in their own land St. Thomas can now boast the best collection of var ieties to be found on the Pacific slope, excepting perh a p s , o n e i n S o n o ma C o u n t y, C a l i f o r n i a .” B o n e l l i w ro te t h a t C o l o n e l Alden A.M.Jackson, wh o h ad resided in S an Ber nardino for many year s, was on his way to St. George to gather with the Saints. 35 Then he continued, “Souther n Utah is largely indebted to him and his lady for the introduction of the choicest seeds and scions (cuttings) that could be procured in Califor nia for many year s. ” Yet Bonelli, with direct bluntness, points out that fr uit will be a doubtful crop in the Muddy Valley because many settler s leave after wheat har vest to go nor th, leaving their fr uit trees with no care Only with proper attention could one expect a bumper crop He concludes

31 Deseret News, July 7, 1867.

32 Ibid, Januar y 29, 1868.

33 Semi-Weekly Telegraph, January 20, 1868.

34 Deseret News, Apr il 9, 1868.

35 Ja c k s o n , a ve t e r a n o f t h e M e x i c a n Wa r h a d m a r r i e d C a ro l y n Pe r k i n s Joy c e i n 1 8 5 2 i n S a n Ber nardino Carolyn came west in 1846 with her husband, John Joyce, on the ship Brooklyn. After settling in Yerba Buena her husband sought for gold and apostatized. She moved to San Ber nardino and mar r ied Jackson. A beautiful singer, she was known as the “Mor mon Nightingale “and had the first melodeon in San Ber nardino Together with her husband they had one of the largest nur ser ies in San Ber nardino and supplied plants and cuttings to nor ther n as well as souther n Utah.

h i s l e t t e r by ye a r n i n g “ f o r t h e t i m e w h e n p e o p l e w i l l n o t o n l y s t a y h e r e a n d l a b o r because they have been required to do so, but b e c au s e th e i r h o m e s w h i c h h ave b e e n c on se cr ated by t hei r praye r s an d ex al ted by th ei r pre se n ce . . . [ a re] reve ren ce d a nd the G o d o f Is r ae l i s a d o re d .” 3 6 Fo r B o n e ll i , t h e Muddy settlements were ver y much a par t of “Zion.”

The Old Ranch House at Bonelli’s Ferry, now under the waters of Lake Mead. From Left to right, Moapa Tom and Wion, Indian ranch hands; Joseph F. Perkins, foreman of the Bonelli Ranch, an unidentified Indian boy; Alice Maud Bonelli, a daughter; Frank Rossitor, prospector, Ann Bonelli, and Daniel Bonelli. The photograph was taken about 1901.

B y t h e e n d o f Ju n e 1 8 6 8 , B o n e l l i a g a i n w r o t e t o t h e D e s e r e t N e w s t o a n s we r t h e question: “Whether g rapes could be successf u l l y g r ow n o n t h e b e n c h e s a ro u n d yo u r c i t y ? ” De si g nati ng h ims el f as “ on e wh o h as traveled through the g rape reg ions of Europe and has made g rape culture his specialty in this countr y, ” he points out that the nor ther n settlements should tr y planting the hardy var ieties of Amer ican g rapes, and several var ieties from Hungar y and other countr ies of Europe He mentions that the Amer ican var ieties of g rape should be discarded as soon as European var ieties can be had. The Fiher Zagos and Black Hamburg var ieties have done ver y well in St. Thomas and would probably do well in the Salt Lake area. 37 Little did he realize that h is simple answer to the above question would tr igger “The Great Wine Debate.” His for midable opponents were Louis A.

36 Deseret News, May 27, 1868.

37 Ibid., June 24, 1868.

DANIEL BONELLI

B e r t r a n d , a c o nve r t fro m Fra nc e, an d h is as s oc i at e, an o th er Fre n c h m a n , Peter Droubay, both residing in Tooele 38 Eventually Daniel was joined and s u p p o r te d by S Luth er H eme nway, h o r t i c u l t u r i s t , f ro m S t. G e o r g e T h e debate consisted of thir teen letter s—five from Daniel, three from Ber trand, three from Droubay (which Ber trand translated), and two from Hemenway

In the debate Bonelli refer s to Ber trand as one who opposes and contradicts. “My object in wr iting was to do good. If I have f ailed, there is an apology due the public, whose time has been claimed. The spir it of controver s y for the sake of itsel f , I beli eve is i nco nsi stent with the s inc ere labor s of a Saint for the common good, and shall cease my par t in it . . . ” 39

Th e d eb ate la ste d ove r ni n e mo nth s an d c en tered on the pre mi se of whether wines could be produced as well in the south as in the nor th. It was finally ter minated on Apr il 5, 1869, by the editor of the Deseret News , G eo rg e Q C a n n o n , w h o w ro t e : “ We a re o f th e o pi ni o n th at i n a new countr y like our s, exper ience will prove a f ar more reliable teacher than all the essays that can be wr itten. With this view of the case we announce to our reader s that this is the last communication, by way of discussion, that we intend on the subject.”

Bonelli was aware that in the eyes of many the Muddy Mission was not a popular one, and he sensed that many called to the Muddy were not happy and were anxious to retur n to the nor th. He obser ved:

The general idea prevailing in Salt Lake about the Muddy is that it is a sor t of purgator y or place of punishment, something like the Siber ia of the Russians or the Alger ia of France, a place no one would occupy if not positively required by ir resistible author ity But with those who are desirous of redeeming the desert land and submitting it to the r ule of Jehovah, consecrated by their prayer s and improved by their labor s, it is ver y different.40

Br igham Young made his only visit to the Muddy in March 1870. He traveled fro m S t. Tho ma s to the co nflue nc e of th e Virg in an d C olorad o r ivers, fully intending to cross the Colorado in a boat that had been especially constr ucted for his use Per spir ing in the heat, he was not happy with what he saw. War ren Foote, a counselor to James Leithead in the Muddy Mission, said: “President Young was ver y much disappointed, and refused to c ro s s t he r ive r He s a id i f ‘ th e G e nt il e s wan te d th at c ou n tr y t hey we re

38 Richard D McClellan, “Louis A. Ber trand: One of the Most Singular and Romantic Figures of the Age,” (Honor s Thesis, Br igham Young Univer sity, July 2000), v, 1. Bertrand, a native of France and a leader in the Red Republican par ty before the Revolution of 1848 was also a political editor of the largest communist per iodical in France He was conver ted by John Taylor, and played a par t in translating the Book of Mor mon into French. He served as a Mission President in France and applied to Louis Napoleon III for per mission to preach. The empero r t ore his request to pieces an d t he missi on was clo sed i n 1864 He retur ned to Utah and settled in Tooele

39 Daniel Bonelli to the Deseret News, Apr il 14, 1869. Amazingly, while “The Great Wine Debate” was sti ll in prog ress, B o nelli was a ble t o fin d t ime to wr it e len gthy lett er s to the Sem i We e k ly Telegraph on “Grape Culture, ” that were published in the November 5, 12, and 16, 1868, issues. These letter s also reveal Bonelli to have a great knowledge of g rape culture

40 Deseret News, Apr il 14, 1869.

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

welcome to it’ . . . it was plain to see that President Young was disappointed in the whole countr y ”41

More optimistic than President Young, Bonelli stated two months later : “if ever the Utah Central, or any other iron road, br idges the sandy wastes th at i nte r ven e b etwee n u s a nd the res t o f man ki nd , we w il l g rat ify th e palates of the epicures with the noble fr uit of this clime in exchange for the products of more nor ther n reg ions.” He chided those who came and stayed only a shor t time declar ing, “If those of our brethren . . . had done what they cer tainly at the time, must have deemed a duty . . . we might by this time have been f ar enough advanced in prosper ity to not only make the navigation of the Colorado a success, but also to wield an influence in f avor of the extension of the railroad to the head of navigation.” 42 The railroad never came to the head of navigation but did come to Las Vegas in 1905 and a branch line to St. Thomas in 1912.

The summer s on th e Muddy were unusually oppressive—espec ially to those not acclimated. The temperature would often reach 120 deg rees and on occasion 125 deg rees. Such heat led to the fir st death of a settler by sunstroke Bonelli wrote that Charles Dannmer Sr was found dead in the field where he had been ir r igating. The “coroner’s jur y rendered the verdict that the death was caused by sunstroke.” Dannmer was fifty-four year s of age and had immig rated from England in 1864. 43

Despite the many climatic problems the most impor tant f actor leading t o t h e a b a n d o n m e n t o f t h e M u d d y M i s s i o n wa s p o l i t i c a l I n 1 8 6 2 , C o n g re s s to o k o n e d e g re e o f l o n g i t u d e ( a b o u t fi f t y m i l e s ) f ro m U t a h Ter r itor y and gave it to Nevada. With the discover y of minerals above the Muddy River at Pioche and Delamar, Cong ress gave those mines to the state of Nevada in 1866 by adding another deg ree to the state In 1867, Nevada was also g iven a por tion of Ar izona lying nor th of the Colorado River. However, the sur vey was not made until 1870, which revealed that the Mor mon settlements of West Point, St. Joseph, Millpoint, Over ton, St. Thomas and Junction City were all in Nevada. County tax assessor s from H i ko i mm e d ia t el y c a me to t he va l l e y a n d a s s e s s e d pro p e r ty ow n e r s i n specie (or coin) not only for the cur rent year but also for the two previous year s. Many Muddy settler s were not content in Nevada and were looking for an excuse to leave Br igham Young, in St. George for the winter and aware of their discouragement, dispatched a letter on December 14 which was read six days later. It stated that the Saints should vote on whether to leave or not. If they voted to stay, however, sufficient number s should stay s o a s to ma ke th e s e ttl em en t vi abl e T he le tte r al s o s u g g es te d t ha t th ey petition th e Nevada Leg islature for abatement of back taxes and for the for mation of a new county in souther n Nevada to be known as Las Vegas

41 War ren Foote, Autobiog raphy, 92. LDS Church Archives,

42 Deseret News, May 29, 1870.

43 Ibid, August 3, 1870.

DANIEL BONELLI

County.44 This would be done later. When the settler s met and the votes were cast, only Daniel Bonelli and wife Ann, S.M. Ander son, a f ar mer from S we d e n , Ja m e s Ja c k s o n , a n d Jo s e p h A s ay S e n i o r, t h e l a t t e r re s i d i n g a t Ju n c t i o n C i t y, vo t e d to s t ay H oweve r, al l b u t D a n i e l a n d An n l e f t B y Febr uar y 20, 1870, the settler s had depar ted with most of them going to Long Valley in Utah’s Kane County.

We have no record of Bonelli’s feelings as the last wagons left. With Ann expecting, he was in no position to go and he undoubtedly felt that the valley still had g reat potential. In later year s he would say, “I never left the Church, the Church left me. ” 45 Considered by some to be an apostate, he “alway s declared he was a fir m believer in the or ig inal pr inc iples of the Mor mon f aith.”46 But Bonelli was no longer active in the church. “I have never claimed any allegiance to the Mor mon Church dur ing the past thirteen year s aforesaid, nor denied the same previously, but I do claim to do all my business in my full name and stand behind all obligations I incur, and I know that many Mor mons are incomparably super ior in rectitude and veracity to those who contemptuously berate them.”47 N o t c o n t e n t w i t h t h e a c t i o n s o f N e v a d a ’s L i n c o l n C o u n t y C o m m i s s i o n e r s , B on el l i w rote th em a le tte r s ee ki n g t o e nl i g ht en th em about the “tr ue state of aff air s on the Muddy” and asking the officials to accept from him, “the only remaining early settler, a statement of f acts.” 48 He then related how the Mor mons fir st came to the valley in 1865 and s e t tl e d i n S t T h o m a s a n d S t Jo s e p h ; h ow Pa h U t e C o u n t y h a d b e e n f o r me d fro m Mo have C ou n ty in A r i z on a Te r r i t o r y ; h ow th ey ha d p ai d their taxes and sent delegates to the leg islature; and how “…after the election of November 1870 Gover nor Safford sent the commission of Probate Judge to J. [James] Leithead and the statutes of Ar izona to me (elected Distr ict Attor ney ) and no idea ever entered the minds of the people that they were in Nevada…” 49 The taxes for 1870 were assessed and par tly collected for Ar izona when the r umor came that the county line had been r un and the Saints were in Nevada. No notice of the f act was ever officially g iven, but President Young, at that time in St. George, sent an intimation of it to the settlements tog ether with h is advic e to abando n the cou ntr y whic h was immediately commenced. The summonses of Justice Wandell (an apostate Mor mon) were dated Febr uar y 3, 1871, and delivered about the 15th to the few remaining Saints and posted on a house in deser ted St. Joseph.

44 A county was not for med in Daniel’s lifetime; however in 1909 Clark County, taken from the souther n half of Lincoln County, was for med by the Nevada Leg islature

45 The author has heard his grandf ather, Ute V Perkins, make this statement of Daniel Bonelli’s many times.

46 Myr tle T Myles, Delamar Lode, January 4, 1904.

47 Daniel Bonelli to Pioche Weekly Record, Apr il 28, 1883. More precisely Bonelli should have wr itten twelve year s as he was active until the Mor mons left in 1871.

48 Daniel Bonelli to the Honorable Board of County Commissioner s, Lincoln County, Nevada, August 29, 1871. Published in the Pioc he Weekly Record

49 Italics added by the author Although elected distr ict attor ney he ser ved but one or two months.

“ . . .

If there had been no demand made for delinquent taxes, no spir it of retaliation manifested, but the past allowed to depar t in peace and the reign of Nevada commenced with 1871, there would probably today live in this valley a prosperous and a happy people.”50 Dur ing the Mor mon occupancy of the valley some 400,000 shade trees, some 60,000 g rape-vines and fr uit trees were planted and about 5,000 acres of f ar m land was reclaimed.

The agg regate expense for dams and ditches was about $200,000.Although some claims in this letter appear to be exaggerated, no action was taken on this letter by the Lincoln County Commissioner s.

The following year, Bonelli sought to infor m the residents of nor ther n Lincoln County of the ag r icultural potential of the Muddy Valley. In a letter to the Pioc he Daily Record he wrote:

Aware of the solid f act that the mining interests of the county are steadily widening and deepening, I would also like your readers to know that there is also an ag r icultural oasis in these deser ts, the productions of which ought at some time or other to become ser viceable to the center s of population that cluster around the now flour ishing mining camps Lying on the direct and natural thoroughf are from Pioche to the g rowing mining reg ions of Ar izona, and blessed with a climate that will mature the g rape, the fig and pomeg ranate, it might naturally be supposed to claim some attention and fur nish to the toiling miner some of its fr uits While the drear y hills of the Sagebr ush State yield their precious ores, this valley, the only one that Nevada possesses with a semitropical clime, may some day produce much more than it has yet done, the refreshing fr uits of the world’s summer land.51

After the Mor mon exodus, the land passed into non-Mor mon hands in quar ter sections, taken up under the Possessor y Act of Nevada. 52 It is not known if Bonelli acquired other land through the Possessor y Act or not. He kept busy with his f ar m, including the vineyards and nur ser y, but his active mind soon began to look for other means of remuneration. Sparked by the success of the mines in the Pioche area, in Eldorado Canyon, and a c ros s th e b ord er i n A r i z o n a , he beg a n to ex pl ore the are as a ro un d th e Virg in River nor th of the Colorado River. Bonelli and other s who came into the valley after the Mor mon exodus, discovered ore, and on Januar y 25, 1873, they organized the St. Thomas Mining Distr ict, properly recorded th ei r cl ai ms a nd d id the ne c es sar y as se ss men t wo r k . 53 Th is di str i c t , w i t h Daniel Bonelli as the recorder until his death, was a few miles east of the town of St. Thomas, on Mount Bonelli, in the Virg in Mountain Range.

In addition to the area’s mining potential, Bonelli recognized two other major economic needs for the valley. The fir st was a fer r y to car r y traveler s and settler s across the Colorado River ; and the second was food and salt for the miner s to the south at Eldorado Canyon and in Ar izona.54 Only three f amilies lived at the Colorado River dur ing the Mor mon occupation when

50 Thompson and West, History of the State of Nevada, 491.

51 Daniel Bonelli to the Pioc he Daily Record, November 21, 1872.

52 Thompson and West, History of the State of Nevada, 401.

53 Ibid. 486.

54 Smith, “The Colorado River,” 425.

it was known as Junction City. Stone’s fer r y t h ree mil es below the mo uth of the Virg in, was established in about 1871. The Dan Jones par ty of eighty -three Mor mons en ro ute to A r i zo n a i n Ja n u a r y 1 8 7 7 us e d th i s fe r r y to cross the Colorado James Thompson bought out Stone and, in tur n, sold the fer r y or the r ights of it to Bonelli. The 1880 census lists B o n e l l i a n d f a mi l y a s l iv i n g i n S t. T h o m a s with a ser vant, for ty-year-old Walter Phelps. Bon ell i an d Ph elp s are bo th li sted a s fer r ymen. Bonelli’s Fer r y was one-half mile above t h e V i r g i n R i v e r c o n f l u e n c e w i t h t h e Colorado 55 With the establishment of a fer r y at Rioville, Stone’s Fer r y was d isc ontinu e d . Junc ti on C ity was re-named Rioville and a new era dawned. A post office was established by Bonelli in 1 8 8 1 w i th h i ms el f as po s tma st er— a p o si ti on h e h el d u n til h is de ath i n 1903. The post office sur vived until 1906. At this location Bonelli planted fields, fr uit orchards, vineyards, and a vegetable garden.

Another of Bonelli’s economic ventures was salt mining. He descr ibed the mountain of salt between St. Thomas and the Colorado River as “solid ledges of g reat extent, and contain salt enough to r un one hundred quar tz m i l l s f o r t e n t h o u s a n d y e a r s . ” 5 6 B o n e l l i b e c a m e a p a r t n e r w i t h t h e Southwester n Mining Company of Philadelphia in this mine In time he would build a mill there, blast the salt free, haul the salt by wagon to the confluence of the Virg in and the Colorado River and from there ship it by r iver boat and barge to the mills of Eldorado Canyon or freight it to the Ar izona mining camps of White Hills, Hackber r y, Mineral Park, Chlor ide and Cerbat where it was used in the roasting and chlor idizing of silver ore Salt was also freighted by wagon to souther n Utah, nor th to the Pioche area, west to Califor nia, south into Ar izona, and from there east into New Mexico Sometimes after freighting to New Mexico, Bonelli would sell his team and wagon and retur n home by train and/or stage or by hor seback. Riverboat captains, of whom Captain Jack Mellon was one of the most f amous, brou gh t thei r s teame r s to the mo uth of the Virg in dur ing hi g h water season. At the helm of the Mohave II, Mellon per sonally made over twenty tr ips, the last being in 1890. 57 Flatboats were also poled down r iver to the mines, laden with salt and supplies, after which the flatboats were broken up and sold for firewood.58 The Mor mon pioneer s never succeeded

55 Dwight L. Smith and C Gregor y Crampton, Rober t D Stanton and the Denver, Colorado Canyon and Pacific Railroad, (Salt Lake City and Chicago: Howe Brothers, 1987), 261.

56 Ibid, 20.

57 Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916, (Tucson: Univer sity of Ar izona Press, 1978), 53

58 Ibid, 68.

DANIEL BONELLI

Daniel Bonelli’s stamp as Recorder for the St. Thomas Mining District.

in having r iverboats come to the mouth of the Virg in, and only a few r iverboats made it to Callville, twenty miles downstream. Bonelli’s dar ing and solid business acumen accomplished this feat and established Rioville as the head of navigation on the Colorado River

After an absence of ten year s, in 1880 Mor mons from St. George again began to settle the Muddy Valley. Mar tha Cragun Cox, plural wife of Isaiah Cox, was hired by school distr ict tr ustees in the f all of 1881 to teach school in Over ton.59 This excellent school teacher and diar ist recorded that year : “Mr Bonelli (Daniel) an old apostate living at the Col. River crossing— owning boats there began to threaten Mr s. Whitmore and son Br ig that he would take the water from the Muddy valley lands. He was living in St. Thomas when the Mor mons moved away He declared he had bought the larger par t of the Muddy stream. But he did not intimidate them.”60 This conflict is noted in light of water problems which would occur many year s later for Bonelli.

By Januar y 1883, M rs . Cox was able to declare: “In the little town of Over ton we are all Mor mons, now!” 61 Her final relevant diar y entr y was made in 1884 when she stated: “Daniel Bonelli’s children came [to] board w it h me th at w in te r – G e or g e, B en [B en j a min Fra n kl in o r Fra nk ] an d Isabelle.” 62

Following his move to Rioville, Bonelli fir st built a cabin of dr iftwood logs which was later used as a bunk house for his employees. In time he built a nine-room home with rock walls two feet thick and a fireplace in each room. The stone walls were laid in lime mor tar by an exper t mason from St. George and the house cost nine thousand six hundred dollar s, an extravagant sum for that day . 63 In addition to this home he had a two-room ad ob e g r a n a r y an d two c h ic ke n h ou se s ma de of l og s . Fo r h is f a r m an d ranch help he employed dr ifters, down-and-outer s as well as local Indians, and young men from the Virg in and Muddy Valleys.

A prog re s s ive man, Bon elli introdu ced a g ras s th at he read about in a f ar m jour nal. Johnson g rass was reputed to be ver y hardy and could withstand drought and almost any condition. Bonelli sent for seed and planted some on his Rioville f ar m. He soon lear ned that the g rass was poor feed; in f act, it was more like a weed than an edible g rass. The best use for it was in his dams in the Virg in River where its thick root system was a g reat asset. It quickly spread up the valley 64

By 1 8 8 4 , B o n e l l i ’s ac c o m pl i s h me n ts we re e x te n s ive. Hi s f a r m al o n e contained “about three hundred and twenty acres of patented land on the

59 Ute War ren Perkins was one of the Trustees.

60 Mar tha Cragun Cox, Diar y, Special Collections, Harold B Lee Librar y, Br igham Young Univer sity, 156.

61 Ibid., 168.

62 Ibid., 175.

63 George Bonelli to Har r y Howell, Over ton, Nevada, June 1, 1929. Copy in author’s possession.

64 Or ville Perkins , Hookey Beans and Willows, (St. George: The Ar t Press, n.d.).

DANIEL BONELLI

Colorado River about where the Virg in River joins the Colorado River and par t of the land is on one side of the Virg in River and the other par t of the land is on the other side of the Virg in River but it is all on the Nevada side of the Colorado River ”65 One obser ver noted that his ranch was over t h e C o l o r a d o R ive r a n d e x t e n d e d n i n e t y - f i ve m i l e s t o t h e b o rd e r o f

Kingman, Ar izona. 66

Edward Syphus wrote an enthusiastic descr iption of Bonelli’s holdings in Febr uar y 1884:

… f i rst I would call your attention to the large alf alf a f ield on t hat fe rt ile flat just nor th and near the bank of the Colorado—with long r icks of hay near the center of the field. At the east of this field we would cross the mouth of the Virg in River just before it emptied into the Colorado—and there we would see the ver y productive fig orchard, the vineyard with many choice var ieties of g rapes, the long row of pomegr a n a t e s , the olive trees, the asparagus patch, and nearer the f amily home, the kitchen garden.

There was the cow under the shed that fur nished butter and milk for the f amily, the hor se stables where rested the ranch hor ses ever y night and including Sundays. And the blacksmith shop where the far m machiner y was repaired—and then the bunkhouse for the hired men, where they rested after supper reading, playing cards, or singing some of the old songs while picking the banjo And there was the large stone dwelling house where Mr Bonelli and wife lived for so many years with their children And we might also se e many fre ight wagons bot h on the Ar izona and Nevada banks of t he Colorado waiting their tur n to be fer r ied across. 67

Seeking to build up his fer r y business, Bonelli wrote a letter to Mor mon President John Taylor in 1885. Addressing the church leader as Honorable John Taylor, he solicited business for his fer r y from Mor mon settler s bound for Ar izona or Mexico. He pointed out that he had the “best fer r y over the Colorado for all stages of water and all seasons, as well as the most practicable roads for all kinds of teams . . . ” He fur ther stated that “he had a good f ar m here and its products, fur thest on the route from home supplies would be a consideration in f avor of this route and you can be cer tain that I will do all in my power to f acilitate their jour ney and my word has not been doubted as yet by either church member s or stranger s. ”68

In 1889 Bo nelli wrote to th e S ecretar y of the Inter ior promoting the area along the Colorado River as one that resembled souther n Califor nia w h e re se mi-tr o pic a l fr u its r ip en ed to pe rfec tio n. 69 He re p o r ted t hat th e ve r y be st h eav y wi ne s a nd rai si n s wou l d b e pro du c ed an d th e b es t fi g s g rown, in clu din g th e new ly impor te d and yet rare Adr iatic and Smyr na var ieties. Alf alf a required five to six cutting s in a season, and c otto n an d can e would set a f actor y and a sugar refiner y in operation. These thing s

65 Ibid.

66

Lips, “Daniel Bonelli of Bussnang.”

67 Edward Syphus, “Lincoln’s Rain Dance in Nevada—in Clark [Lincoln] County, Nevada,” Febr uar y 1884, Church Archives. Clark County did not become a county until July 1, 1909.

68 Daniel Bonelli to President John Taylor, January 24, 1885, LDS Church Archives.

69 Daniel Bonelli to Secretar y of the Inter ior, June 12, 1889, found in “Repor t of the Secretar y of the Inter ior, Messages and Documents (1889), 365-67.

could happen if an associated or cooperative effor t was made to improve ir r ig ation s ystems. Bonelli po inted o ut that if an adequ ate tran spor tation s y ste m we re ava i l a bl e, m il li on s o f to ns of roc k sa lt c o ul d b e sh i pp ed t o where it was needed, and borax soda, sulphur, magnesite, plaster of Par is or gypsum, and many other substances would be available and yield their revenues to the nation. It seemed to Bonelli that it was a mocker y to let the Treasur y sur pl us bec ome su ch a se r ious tro u ble to the natio n whe n th e release o f a small fraction o f it mig ht d o so muc h for th e rec laiming of deser t lands and the beautifying of the public domain. T h e e c o n o m i c re a l i t y c a m e a s t e p c l o s e r i n 1 8 9 0 w h e n R o b e r t D. S tan ton mad e a tr ip alo ng the C ol orad o River to s ur vey fo r a rai lroad. S t a n t o n wa s e m p l oye d by F r a n k M B row n , p r e s i d e n t o f t h e D e nve r, Colorado Canyon and Pacific Railroad Company to conduc t a preliminar y s u r ve y f o r a ra i l ro a d ro u t e f ro m G r a n d Ju n c t i o n , C o l o r a d o, a l o n g t h e Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon to the Gulf of Califor nia and San Diego Stanton records his stop at Scanlon’s Fer r y, nine miles below Pearce’s Fer r y on March 17 The nex t day at 4:00 p.m., his party landed at “. . . Bonelli’s Fer r y about 1/2 mile above mouth of Virg in. We met . . . Daniel Bonelli, Rioville, Nevada. Raises g rapes (10 acres), limes, pomeg ranates, figs, almonds, p e a rs , peaches, plums, nectar ines. Bonelli says he produces as good w i ne as c a n b e ma d e i n E u ro p e ” O n Ma rc h 1 9 S ta nt o n re c o rd s : “ M r Bonelli is ver y much interested in the railroad prospects . He is recorder for this mining distr ict [St. Thomas mining distr ic t] and promises to send me a statement of the resources of this section, e t c.” 70

In add it io n to hi s f a r mi ng an d ra nc h in g , Bo n ell i a ls o c l aim ed s eve r a l mi ne s i n cl u di ng th e V i r g i n Q ue en a s al t min e, a nd th e C z ar in a a mi c a mine. Bo nelli and hi s par t n e rs in th e Sou thwest Mi ning Company were threatened with the loss of their salt mines when the federal land commissioner r uled in March 1893, according to the editor of the Pioc he Weekly Record, “that no law exists under which title to salt licks, spr ings or deposits can be acquired. The policies of the gover nment ever since its inception has been to keep all salt deposits open to the public. This r uling f alls hard on those who have held the salt mines in the county for so many year s and who have expended large amounts of money in opening them up and in endeavor ing to perfect their titles.” 71 However in 1901 provision was made by law which enabled salt deposits to be patented. Bonelli was forced to take to cour t men who had located over his or ig inal claims resulting in a preliminar y victor y for him two year s later 72 In November 1903, he made his last tr ip to Pioche where a f avorable settlement of these litigation claims took place

Bonelli had discovered mica fifteen miles nor theast of Rioville in 1901.

70 Smith and Crampton, Rober t D Stanton, 258-62.

71 Pioc he Weekly Record, March 16, 1893.

72 Ibid., January 23, 1903.

He had “bonded his mica claims to Salt Lake par ties for $10,000, final payment to be made by the first of November next It is from these claims that the sheets of mica displayed here a year or two ago, measur ing upwards of six inches square were taken.”73

Bonelli was prominent in local educ ational matt er s and ser ved on the Nevada S tate Bo ard of Ag r iculture. He attende d the World’s Co lumbi an Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and the San Francisco Mid–Winter Fair in 1894 where he displayed g rapes, lime, peaches, and almonds which he had g rown at Rioville He also displayed one-foot square translucent blocks of his f amous salt as well as sheets of mica from his mine in the St. Thomas M i n i n g D i s t r i c t . 7 4 B o n e l l i a l s o s e r ve d a s a vo l u n t a r y we a t h e r o b s e r ve r reporting the daily high and low temperatures to the United States Weather Bureau.

Follow ing the resettlement along th e Muddy R iver nor th of Bonelli’s holdings, a conflict developed over Bonelli’s claim to pr imal water r ights from that r iver as well as to water from the Virg in River now being taken by settler s up stream. The meager amount that reac hed R ioville was not sufficient to ir r igate Bonelli’s alf alf a fields, fr uit trees, vineyards, and gardens dur ing the hot summer months. Negotiations with his neig hbors proved futile and Bonelli took his case to cour t. The Pioc he Weekly Record repor ted on October 14, 1899, that “DN Bonelli, of Rioville has commenced suit against the residents of St. Thomas and Over ton for $3,000 damages and als o for an order restrain ing th em from usin g any par t of 4 0 0 in ch es of water which he claims is his, and has been since 1872.”75 A month later the distr ict court, sitting without a jur y, denied Bonelli’s claim to the four hundred inches of water, awarding instead only sixty inches of water and the cost of the suit. 76 Sixty inches of water would hardly supply Bonelli’s f ar ming needs and the decision marked the beg inning of the end of his ag r icultural empire as hard feelings continued between Bonelli and his upstream neighbor s.

Some felt that Bonelli was a little eccentr ic As he g rew older he hated to be told that he was getting old. Once a youth asked him, “Old man how f ar is it to Stone’s Crossing?” Looking him up and dow n Bo nelli answered, “Three miles and if you call me old man again I’ll throw you in the r iver.” 77 One of his quirks was that he liked butter without salt. Ann, on chur ning butter, would set a small por tion aside for Daniel before adding salt to the rest. “S he often tol d him th at h e owned mo re s alt th an any man i n the southwest and that he ought to use just a little of it.”78

The death of Ute War ren Perkins in the spr ing of 1903 was an occasion

73 Ibid, March 29, 1901.

74 Phillip I. Earl, “Bonelli Saw Potential of Colorado River,” Las Vegas Review-Jour nal, Apr il 27, 1967.

75 Pioc he Weekly Record, October 14, 1899.

76 Ibid, November 16, 1899.

77 Perkins, Hookey Beans, 12.

78 Ibid.

for Bonelli to ar ticulate his philosophy of life in an eloquent letter to the Perkins f amily.

Out of the unf athomable abyss of eter nity come our destinies, thence f low also our hopes and aspirations, and in that realm so far off and yet so near to the human heart and its in most feelings, we alone find the strength to car r y our burdens….Those who have gone before us in their onward march of prog ress to a higher class in the school of eter nity have found what we are unable to see, and the bitter ness of our sor rows will not comfor t, hence let it work in us as a pur ifier only, and it heal as soon as it may be possible 79

T h e t we n t i e th c e n t u r y b ro u g h t n ew c h a n g e s a n d c h a l l e n g e s R i ve r freight had all but disappeared and the fer r y business was almost at a standstill. With a reduced water supply his alfa l f a did poorly and g rape production had all but stopped. Bonelli leased the fer r y, his ranch and his holdings for one year, but the operator could not make a profit and Bonelli had to r un it again in 1 902. It was then leased to another operator who left after a shor t time. In November 1903 he retur ned to Pioche where he settled his bu s iness and put his aff a i rs in order Retur ning to St. Thomas on the sixteenth, he rested a day with his son Frank and then started for Rioville. En route he apparently suffered a stroke, ar r iving at Rioville the next day confused and claiming that he had been lost in the hills four or five days. Dur ing the next few weeks he continued to dec line mentally and phy s i c a lly and passed away on December 20, 1903. His f amily honored his wish to be bur ied on a low mesa overlooking his beloved home on the Colorado River. 80

79 Letter in author’s possession.

80

Daniel Bonelli, Obituary Delamar Lode, January 4, 1904. Delamar, Nevada, was a mining town fiftyfive miles southwest of Pioche and published a newspaper from 1895 until 1906.

Bonelli’s Ferry at Rioville.

His cher ished companion Ann lived for a while with her daughter Alice and son-in-law Joseph F Perkins in Over ton. Upon the death of Alice, she moved to Kingman, Ar izona, to live with her son George where she died on March 19, 1911.

Bonelli’s son Frank ran the fer r y for a shor t time but one night in 1904, d u r in g th e h ig h wate r s eas o n, th e fe r r y b ro ke it s mo o r i ng s an d fl o ate d down the r iver to break up in the rapids. Without Bonelli’s guiding genius it did not take long for what was left of his flour ishing f ar m, ranch, and fer r y business to disappear

As a memor ial to Bonelli, Bonelli’s Peak near the souther n extremity of the Bunkerville range is named after him. In the Lake Mead Recreational Distr ict along the Colorado River, geog raphical landmarks such as Bonelli’s B ay, N a p o l e o n ’s To m b, th e M o r mo n Te mp l e a n d Te m p l e B a r we re a l l n a me d by, o r fo r, B o n e l l i . U n w i t t i n g l y, th e Un i te d S t a te s G ove r n m e n t wou ld rob Bon elli of his final res tin g plac e. In 1 9 34, as the g over nment re lo ca ted all the g r aves th at wou ld be i nun da ted by the wa t e r s of La ke M e a d , B o n e l l i ’s r e m a i n s we r e d i s i n t e r r e d a n d re m o ve d t o K i n g m a n , Ar izona, where he was bur ied next to his f aithful English br ide, Ann Haigh B o n e l l i . 8 1 To d ay L ake Me a d h a s b u r i e d a ny ev i d e n c e t h a t B o n e l l i eve r existed in St. Thomas or at the mouth of the Virg in. In Over ton, Nevada, a single street bears his name 81

Las Vegas Review Jour nal, November 24, 1934.

DANIEL BONELLI

TheQuest toBecome Chiefof Police:The Illustrious Careerof George Augustus Sheets

By DOUGLAS K. MILLER

In the early mon th s of 1 8 90, ever y member of the S alt Lake Police Depar tment tendered his resignation.1 A force compr ised mostly, if not exclusively, of Mor mons was replaced by thir ty six men—all of whom were either apostates or anti-Mor mons. The change resulted from the 1889 municipal election, wherein for the fir st time in the histor y of the city, the all-Mor mon Peoples Par ty lost to the anti-Mor mon Liberals. More Mor mons than gentiles lived in Salt Lake City at the time, but as a result of t h e 1 8 8 7 E d mu n d s - Tu c ke r L aw, d e s i g n e d t o e n d p o l y g a my, nu m e ro u s Mor mon voter s had been disenfranchised. 2

When the Mor mons fir st ar r ived in what would become Salt Lake City in 1847, they made no attempt to create a gover nment separate from the c h u rc h . T h e o n l y a u t h o r i ty re c ogn i z e d by th e p e o p l e wa s t h a t o f t h e c h u rch a n d a ny b re a c h o f c o n d u c t o r a n y d i s p u t e b e t we e n p a r t i e s w a s h a n d l e d b y

1 Cit y Co uncil R ec ords, B ook “L,” p 502, c ited i n Herber t Lester G leason , “ The S alt Lake Police Depar tment: 1851-1949, A Social Histor y, ” (Master’s thesis, Univer sity of Utah, 1950), 72.

2 The word gentile in the Mor mon lexicon means a per son

is not now and has never been a Mor mon. A perso n w ho was o nc e a M or mo n bu t left the c hurc h is an apost ate A Jew, u n less a lso a Mor mon, in the Mor mon vocabular y is a gentile

Douglas K. Miller is the Director of the Children’s Justice Center in Davis County He g raduated from Weber State Univer sity with a BA in histor y and ear ned a master’s deg ree in educational psychology from the Univer sity of Utah. He lives in Ogden.

who

George Augustus Sheets.

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SHEETS

ecclesiastical leader s.3 The ar r ival of the gentiles in Utah made a continuation of this relig ious-gover nmental str ucture untenable. To counteract this Mor mon influence, the gentiles for med an anti-Mor mon political par ty— the Liberals. The Mor mons responded with the creation of their own political par ty—the Peoples Par ty

T h e an t a g o n i s m b et we e n th e t wo g ro u p s s t e mm e d fro m , o r a t l e a s t focused on, the Latter-day Saint practice of plural mar r iage, fir st publicly acknowledged by Mor mons in 1852. Ten year s later Cong ress passed the M o r r il l A n t i - b i g a my Ac t a l aw up h el d as c on sti tu tio na l i n th e R e y n o l d s decision of 1878. Mor mons refused to g ive up the practice, however, even in the f ace of more str ingent anti-polygamy leg islation—the Edmunds Act in 1882 and the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887—arguing that compliance with laws of God superseded any fealty to the laws of man. This resistance cost Mor mons their most basic civil r ights as Amer ican citizens. In a test oath administered at the polls, anyone who disag reed with the EdmundsTucker law was not allowed to vote—a circumstance which resulted in the Liberal victor y in Salt Lake City in 1890.

This ar ticle reviews the tumultuous law enforcement career of George Augu stus S heets in the Salt Lake Polic e Depar tment beg inning with the r i s e o f t h e L i b e r a l Pa r t y i n 1 8 9 0 a n d e n d i n g w i t h t h e d e m i s e o f t h e Amer ican Par ty (a reiteration of Liberal Par ty) in 1910. In the broader cont e x t o f A m e r i c a n h i s t o r y, t h i s t i m e f r a m e i s o f t e n r e f e r r e d t o a s t h e Prog ressive Era—a time when refor mer s focused on gover nment inter vention to eliminate social evils in the United States.

Fifty-eight thousand people lived in Salt Lake City by 1890, and the city had g rown into a thr iving commercial metropolis with the same problems t h a t c o n c e r n e d re f o r m e r s i n m a n y o t h e r A m e r i c a n c i t i e s g a m b l i n g , saloons that stayed open on Sundays, and prostitution, the latter having long been an element in the conflict between Mor mons and gentiles.

According to one early Utah histor ian there was little, if any, prostitution in Utah before the gentiles ar r ived. “Until gentiles settled in Salt Lake City t h e re was seldom heard in its streets or dwelling s oaths, imprecations, or expletives; there was no harlotr y, and there was neither political or judicial prostitution. The Mor mons were a people singularly free from vice….” 4

M o r m o n s h e l d t h a t p ro s t i t u t i o n c o u l d b e e l i m i n a t e d by p rov i d i n g honorable mar r iages to all women through polygamy while gentiles asser ted, through the pages of the anti-Mor mon Salt Lake Tr ibune, that one was just like the other except the one involved multiple women and the other multiple men.5

3 Gleason, “The Salt Lake Police Depar tment”7-13.

4 H u b e r t H owe B a n c ro f t , H i s t o r y o f U t a h , 1 5 4 0 - 1 8 8 6 ( S a n F r a n c i s c o : T h e H i s t o r y C o m p a n y, Publishers, 1889), 686-87.

5 Salt Lake Tribune , August 31, 1872.

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Th e an ti- Mo r mo n Li ber als we re st ead f as t ag ai ns t pl ura l mar r ia g e bu t were not in any other sense refor mer s. Indeed, when they took control of the mun ic ip al g over nme nt in 189 0 , t h ey made C o mmerc ial S treet—the hub of Salt Lake’s tenderloin distr ict—the fir st street in Salt Lake City to be paved. 6 They also restr uctured the police depar tment and among the new officer s hired that year was George Augustus Sheets.

Little is known about Sheets before he became a policeman. Sheets was bor n in 1864 in Salt Lake City. His parents were probably Mor mons, having emig rated from Pennsylvania in 1858. Sheets wife, Henr ietta Gunn, was also most likely a Mor mon, having crossed the plains in a handcar t company 7 But if S he ets did iss ue from Mor mon s tock , his app ointment to the city’s police depar tment by the Liberals in 1890, strongly suggests that he had strayed from his Mor mon beg innings.

The fir st annual police repor t after the Liberal Par ty takeover, acknowledged a “want of har mony” within the depar tment. A g roup of men with no pr ior law enforcement exper ience had been g ranted the author ity to re g ul ate an e nt er p r i se wh ic h was il le g al and th e o pp or tun i tie s fo r g r a f t seem to have pitted individuals within the force against one another. The report also stated:

[W]e do find that prof ane language is used to a great extent by all the force, with ver y few exceptions, also that there appear s to be a disposition on the par t of the force to battle back and for th one to another anything that has been said or overheard by some brother officer This has created ill feeling and jealousy that should not exist in a well disciplined force . 8

The “want of har mony” gave bir th to a petition, signed by twenty-five officer s, who asked for the removal of har sh disciplinar ian Captain William B Parker from the force In retaliation, Parker attempted to kill one of the petitioner s, Geo rg e Albr ight, but Parker’s g un misfired and Albr ig ht s hot Parker instead. When Parker died the action was r uled as self-defense 9

A year later, a prostitute named Rose Miller accused Albr ight of tr ying to make her his pr ivate mistress, spur r ing a contingent of city councilmen to conduct a fur tive late-night tour of the brothels in July 1892. 10 At Hattie W i l s o n ’s p l a c e, a p ro m i n e n t h o u s e o f p ro s t i t u t i o n l o c a t e d o n F ra n k l i n Street, in Salt Lake’s colored distr ict, the councilmen found Chief of Police Ed Janney, Sergeant George A. Sheets, and Police Cour t Justice Freder ick Kessler. All of them had been dr inking, some were dancing, and according

6 Salt Lake Herald, July 1, 1890, and Deseret News, November 11, 1890. A local legend holds that the Liberals paved it so wives would not find the telltale red dir t of the street on their husbands’ shoes and trouser cuffs. See Jeffrey Nichols, Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power, Salt Lake City, 1847-1918 (Urbana and Chicago: Univer sity of Illinois Press, 2002), 128.

7 “G eorge S heet s” B i o g raphica l Reco rd o f Sa lt La k e a nd V i c i n i t y, Co nt a ining Bio graph ie s of Wel l Know n Citizens of the Past and the Present (Chicago: National Histor ical Record Co., 1902), 595.

8 Committee Repor t, Salt Lake Recorder’s Office, August 11, 1891, 76.

9 Salt Lake Tribune, September 2, November 27, 1891; Salt Lake City Council Minutes, Book N, p 127, September 1, 1891.

10 Deseret News, June 18, 1891.

to th e Tr i bu n e, eve n the c o unc il men “ had a g o o d t i m e b u t w a n t e d t o k e e p i t q u i e t . ”

Ju st ic e Ke s sl er ra is e d h is g la ss wh en he saw the councilmen saying, “I plead guilty to the charge and will fine myself $25.00.” 11

A n o u t r a g e d M a y o r R o b e r t N. B a s k i n s c o r e d t h e c o u n c i l m e n , f i r e d S h e e t s a n d Janney, and probably would have fired Kessler, too, but lacked the author ity Civil War veteran Samuel Paul was named the new chief of police, and a month later reinstated both Sheets and Janney as patrolmen. 12 The following year in October 1893, Paul promoted Sheets to detective.13

The animosity that had existed between Mor mons and gentiles by this time had begun to wane, however One cr itical step toward easing hostilit i e s w a s t h e M a n i f e s t o, i s s u e d i n 1 8 9 0 b y c h u r c h p re s i d e n t W i l f o r d Woodr uff , advising all Mor mons to obey the law of the land with regard to p o l y g a my O n e ye a r l ate r, th e Pe o p l e ’s Pa r ty d i s ba n de d an d th e L ib e ra l Pa r t y fo l l owe d s u i t in 1 8 9 3 Bo t h M o r mo n s a n d g e n ti l e s s u bs e q u e n tl y joined the two national par ties, becoming Republicans or Democrats. Most Mor mo ns be came Demo crats, a s their str u ggle w ith the federal g over nme n t fo r n ea rl y a h a lf -c e n tu r y h a d b e en a s tr u g g l e a g ai n s t R ep u bl i c a n administrations.

Republican suppor t was essential, however, to Utah’s bid for statehood. A Republican controlled Cong ress would never admit Utah into the Union if it tipped the balance of power toward the Democrats. To achieve state-

11 Salt Lake Tribune, July 7, 1892. Franklin Street was located between 200 and 300 South Streets and between State and 200 East Streets.

12 Salt Lake Tr ibune, August 17, 1892.

13 The date Sheets was appointed a detective is noted in “Salt Lake Police Depar tment,” published in 1901 by the Deseret News, p 77.

Four members of the Salt Lake City Police Department about 1900. Standing, left to right, Ed Lang and Billy McCurty and George Raleigh, seated on the left next to an unidentified man.

h o o d , t h e r e f o r e , s o m e M o r m o n s h a d t o reor ient their politics toward their old adversar y.

To b r i n g s o m e M o r m o n s i n t o t h e R e p u b l i c a n t e n t , M o r m o n c h u rc h l e a d e r s su ch as Jo s eph F. S m i t h , Fran ci s M . Ly m a n , and Jo hn Henr y S mith travele d throughout the state telling people that it was possible to be a good Mor mon and a Republican. 14 The c a m p a i g n wa s l a r g e l y s u c c e s s f u l a n d i n a n i r o n i c t w i s t o f l o g i c , t h e R e p u b l i c a n Cong res s viewed this ec cle siastical i nter ve ntion to get member s to change their political affiliation as an acc eptable means to ach ieve th e d e s i re d s e p ar at i on b e twe en c h u rc h a n d state 15 Utah was admitted into the Union in Ja n u a r y 1 8 9 6 o n h e r s eve n t h a t t e m p t f o r statehood in for ty-six year s. The achievement r e p r e s e n t e d t h e f i r s t t i m e M o r m o n s a n d gentiles had worked together for a common goal and marked the beg inning of a new “Era of Good Feelings.”

Even dur ing this time of good feelings, however, t h e re was tur moil withi n S a l t L a k e C i t y g ov e r n m e n t . I n c o n c e r t w i t h t h e r e f o r m s o f t h e Prog ressive Era, S alt Lake C ity Mayor James Glen din nin g fired C hief of Police Ar thur Pratt in December 1 896 for Pratt’s f ailure to close the bro t hels. A son of Apostle Parley P Pratt and a member of the Republican Par ty, C h i e f P r a t t a r g u e d th a t th e m ayo r h a d n o a u th o r i t y to f i re h i m. T h a t author ity rested with the Board of Police and Fire C ommissioner s who had instr ucted Pratt to leave the brothels open. Pratt appealed his dismissal to the state’s S upreme C our t, which si ded wi th Pratt and ordered hi s re i n s t a t ement. 16 The next mayor, John Clark, elected in 1897, allowed the char ter of the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners to expire, which gave him the power to fire Pratt two ye a rs later 17

George S heets h ad ni ne year s o f polic e exper ienc e at th is junctu re, as much as any other man in the depar tment, but with another election just five months away he was dubious about seekin g the position of c hief of police. In Salt Lake City, as elsewhere across the countr y, political appoint-

14 T h e re wa s o pp o si t io n t o t h i s eff o r t t h at c am e m o st n o t ably f ro m Apo s t le M o ses T h at c h er a n d B r i g h a m H R o b e r t s o f t h e F i r s t C o u n c i l o f t h e S eve n t y S ee T h o m as G A l e x a n d e r, M o r m o ni sm in

Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930 (Urbana: Univer sity of Illinois Press, 1986 ) 7-10.

15 See George Ellswor th, “Utah’s Str uggle for Statehood,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 31 (Winter 1963): 60-69.

16 Salt Lake Tribune , Januar y 3, 1897. For more infor mation on Ar thur Pratt, see Richard S Van Wagoner and Mar y Van Wagoner, “Arthur Pratt, Utah Lawman,” Utah Histor ical Quar terly 55 (Winter 1987): 22-35.

17 Salt Lake Tr ibune, December 17, 1897, and Febr uar y 25, 1898.

Thomas H. Hilton, Salt Lake City Chief of Police in 1899.

m e n t s w e r e m a d e o n t h e basi s of p olitical p atronage A p o s i t i o n l i k e c h i e f o f p o l i c e w a s a r e w a r d f o r p a r ty loya l t y, for co r r a l l i n g v o t e s i n a n e l e c t i o n . “ W h o eve r t h e n ew C h i e f m a y b e , ” w r o t e t h e S a l t L a k e Tr i b u n e o n A p r i l 2 , 1899, “ he wi ll probably be only a makeshift until after the next election.” 18

The “makeshift” chief of p o l i c e w a s T h o m a s H e d d o c k H i l t o n , o n l y twenty-eight year s old, and, a c c o r d i n g t o t h e Tr i b u n e , “ t h e yo u n g e s t m a n i n t h e c o u n t r y [ t o ] o c c u py a s i m i l a r p o s i t i o n i n a c i t y o f t h e s i z e a n d impor tance of Salt Lake ” 19 Hilton was also a Mor mon, the fir st Mor mon to be appointed chief since the Liberal Par ty takeover of the city a decade earlier Hilton had only three year s police exper ience when appointed as chief

Five months later, in the municipal election of 1899, Ezra Thompson, a L i b e r a l t u r n e d R e p u b l i c a n , wa s e l e c t e d m ayo r 2 0 S h e e t s , a f r i e n d , h a d worked for Thompson’s election; Hilton had not, and it thus seemed likely that Thompson would want Sheets as his chief of police, if Hilton could fir st be gotten out of the way

At a time when political patronage was the nor m, Hilton did not dole out police positions based on par ty loyalty but strove to build a police force based on mer it. He insisted that “relig ion or politics would cut no figure with him,” and according to one contemporar y wr iter, he kept his word.21 Salt Lake City police histor ian C E. Car penter wrote of the city’s police

18 Political patronage in Salt Lake City was becoming a common practice Following the election of 1898, David S Emer y, an ex-city recorder delivered scores of Republican votes to Mayor John Clark and was rewa rded fo r his ser vi ce by bein g m ade a policeman Jim Wi l l i a m s , Utah’s ch ampio n h eavyweight pug ilist, used his celebr ity to br ing in votes and was also made a policeman, as was Joe Barlow, a son-inlaw of Mayor Clark. None of these men had any police exper ience but each displaced a man who had. See Salt Lake Herald, May 1, 1898.

19 Salt Lake Tr ibune, Apr il 5, 1899.

20 Ezra Thompson, like George Sheets, probably came from Mor mon stock. Thompson was bor n in 1850 in Salt Lake City to millwr ight Ezra Thompson. See Margaret D Lester, Br igham Street (Salt Lake C i t y : Ut ah S ta t e H i sto r i ca l S o c iet y, 1 9 7 9 ) , 1 0 6 . Hi s asso c ia t ion wi t h t h e Lib eral Pa r t y a n d, l a t e r, t h e Amer ican Par ty suggest that he, too, had strayed from the f aith.

21 Deseret News, Apr il 6, 1899.

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SHEETS

Thomas Heddock Hilton, Salt Lake City Chief of Police in 1900.

depar tment that it was “ made up of an equal number of Mor mons and Gentiles, Republicans and Democrats chosen for their fitness for the positions alone Beyond this, nothing more was asked. The depar tment is out of politics. ”22

Another contemporar y chronicler concur red and wrote of Hilton, that “Un der hi s ad mini stratio n the g reates t har m o ny is prevale nt amon g th e men he has around him… The men know that their resignations will never be requested in the future at the whim of a political boss…as long as they behave themselves….”23

A b e n c h m a r k o f t h e P rog re s s i ve E r a wa s t h e c a l l f o r s o c i a l re f o r m t h rou g h g ove r n m en t ac ti o n In S a l t L a ke C i ty th i s c a l l c am e f ro m t h e Moral Refor m League which urged the passage of seven prog ressive ordinances in 1901: (1) close saloons on Sundays; (2) close gambling houses; (3) p roh i bi t t he sa l e o f l iq u or to min o r s ; (4 ) re s t r ic t mi no r s fro m e nt er i n g saloons or billiard halls; (5) prohibit the sale of tobacco products to minor s; (6) prohibit baseball and football games on Sunday; (7) seek a str icter police super vision of cer tain rooming houses, “with the object of abating the evils therein prevalent.” 24

Ezra Thomp son ran a c amp aig n fo r re-el ectio n on all o f the Leag ue’s refor ms, except the prohibition of baseball and football games on Sundays. With this platfor m he g ar nered wide supp or t from S alt Lake C ity’s re l ig ious community (Mor mon and non-Mor mon) and won a second ter m. He then summoned Hilton to his office and asked the chief to resign.

“I asked the mayor what the trouble was, ” Hilton told the Deseret News, “and he said there was no trouble, that he had nothing against me, had no charges to make, but that there were men who, in his judgment, were more capable of manag ing the aff air s of the depar tment.” The Deseret News also reported that “It has been known for several days that Detective Sheets is o u t fo r t h e j o b, a n d i t i s k now n th a t h e p e r s o n al l y s o i n fo r me d C h ie f Hilton one day this week.” 25

When Hilton refused to resign, Thompson tr ied to fire him but, without a major ity vote of approval from the city council, could not do so Though political par ties for med along relig ious lines had disbanded, relig ious affiliation continued to play a political role Republicans controlled the city council eleven to four, but of the eight Republicans, the four who were Mor mons voted consistently with the four Democrats, three of whom were Mor mon, for ming an alliance the newsp a p e r s c al le d “ th e s ol i d e ig h t.” 26 D u r in g th e e arl y mo nth s of 1 9 0 2 , t h i s c o a l i t i o n c o n s i s t e n t l y bl o c ked M ayo r T h o m p s o n ’s e f fo r t t o f i re C h i e f Hilton. As the controver sy raged, the newspaper s focused on Thompson’s

22 A. G Conklin, comp., Souvenir History of Salt Lake Fire Depar tment, 1852 to August 1901 (Salt Lake City: Press of Deseret News, 1901), 77

23 Salt Lake Police Department, 1901, pr inted by the Deseret News, p 102-103.

24 Deseret News, October 28, 1901.

25 Deseret News, November 23, 1901.

26 Deseret News, Apr il 2, 1902.

c a m p a i g n p l e d g e t o c l o s e t h e s a l o o n s o n S u n d a y, a p l ed g e H i lt o n wa s c ha r g e d with fulfilling but could not br ing to pass. 27

Wi t h i n th e p o l i c e fo rc e, s i g n s o f e n m i t y b e t w e e n H i l t o n a n d S h e e t s w e r e bec omi ng apparent. Dur ing the tr ial of James Lynch and R o b e r t L K i n g f o r k i l l i n g g a m b l i n g h o u s e p ro p r i e t o r G o d f r e y P r o w s e i n l a t e 1900, Sheets testified that he had found some guns, possibly the murder weapons, in a nearby alley Hilton knew better, that someone else had found the guns, and on the witn es s s ta n d c o nt rad ic t ed hi s ow n d e tec tive. 28 The following year, at the height of the most s e n s a t i o n a l m u rde r i nve s t i g a t i o n S a l t L a ke City had ever seen; Hilton, in a show of no confidence, took Sheets off of the case 29 In these two murder cases, several elements of Sheets’ per sonality were also revealed. In the fir st case Rober t L. King, ar rested by Sheets for murder and sentenced to die, was saved from the executioner when two key witnesses against him changed their stor ies. One suggested that “someone” had pressured him to testify as he had, while the other disappeared for a t i m e b e c a u s e, a c c o rdi n g t o t h e D e s e r e t N e w s, “ a c e r t a i n p e r s o n h a d induced him to leave town so that the paper s could not be ser ved upon him.” 30 From pr ison King implicated S heets for his wrong ful c onviction, saying, “You wait and see, the proof will c ome out, and w hen Detective Sheets gets his just dues, it will be him on this hill making socks.”31

September 23, 1909.

27 See Deseret News, January 6, 13, March 3, 8, 28, 1902; Salt Lake Herald, January 13, March 23, 1902; Salt Lake Tr ibune, Febr uar y 17, March 3, 11, 29, 1902.

28 Salt Lake Tr ibune, November 6, 1900, Cr iminal Case Files, microfilm, Ser ies 1471, Reel 14, Charge Number 879, Utah State Archives.

29 Salt Lake Herald, December 30, 1901. Peter Mor tensen, an active Mor mon, was accused of killing his neighbor, James R. Hay, and bur ying the body in a field, a cr ime Distr ict Cour t Judge Nielsen called “the most dark and deep laid ever recorded in the cr iminal annals of this State ” See Salt Lake Herald, January 29, 1902.

30 See the affidavit of William Wittenberg in the Salt Lake Tr ibune , Febr uar y 21, 1902, and Deseret News, Febr uar y 21, 1902.

31 Salt Lake Herald, Febr uar y 18, 1902. Many inmates in Utah’s state pr ison were engaged in making socks. See Salt Lake Tribune , December 31, 1900. After spending three year s in the Sugarhouse Pr ison on “murderer s’ row, ” King was g ranted a new tr ial and released, see Salt Lake Herald, November 19, 1903, and Salt Lake Tribune, November 19, 1903. For a complete descr iption of the case against Rober t L. King and his co-defendant James Lynch see David L. Buhler, “The Peculiar Case of James Lynch and Robert L. King, Utah Histor ical Quarterly 60 (Spr ing 1992): 100-123.

The corner of Salt Lake City’s Commercial Street and 100 South looking east to State Street,

Three of Salt Lake City’s finest mounted policemen, 1905.

I n t h e s e c o n d c a s e , a H e r a l d r e p o r t s h o w e d S h ee ts g r an d s ta nd i n g fo r a crowd as he g libly inter rogated murder suspect, Peter Mor tensen, accused of leadi ng a n eig hbor in to a fiel d a t n ig ht a n d s h oo ti n g hi m i n t h e h e a d t o s t e a l a r e c e i p t . S h e e t s , a c c o m p an ied by a number of cu r io u s o n - l o o k e r s , l e d M o r t e n s e n a l o n g th e ra i lr o a d t r a c k s t o t h e p l a c e where bloodstains indicated t h e s it e of th e mu rd e r “ A pleasant promenade,” Sheets s a i d t o M o r t e n s e n . “ H ave you ever enjoyed it by moonlight?” 32

O n F e b r u a r y 4 , 1 9 0 2 , a t t h e h e i g h t o f M a yo r T h o m p s o n ’s e f f o r t t o f i r e H i l t o n ,

Hilton fired Sheets instead, along with for mer chief of police, Ed Janney and a younger man, John David Brown. The city council sustained the dismissals, “solid eight” to seven. 33

Hilton thus rooted out his detractor s within the depar tment but was left with three vacancies which Mayor Thompson, by vir tue of his veto, refused to let him fill.34 This fur ther impaired Hilton’s effor ts to close the saloons on Sundays and according to the Herald, Salt Lake’s Democratic newspaper, cr iminals from all par ts of the countr y flocked to Salt Lake City to take advantage of the inadequate police protection. 35

By May of 1902, the political in-fighting between a Republican mayor, a Republican dominated city council, and a Republican chief of police thre a tened other Republican candidates in the fall election, not the least of which was an aspirant to the United States Senate, Mor mon Apostle Reed Smoot.

In an attempt to resolve the cr isis, a church general author ity, Seymour B Young, met with Hilton and told him, “You may be called on again as missionar y to accompany Apostle Heber J. Grant when he goes to Japan.” Hilton apparently saw the call as less than a blessing, telling the Herald, “I ought not be required to make such a sacr ifice at this time, after having

32 Salt Lake Herald, December 20, 1901. For a complete descr iption of the Peter Mor tensen case see Cr ai g L. Fo s t e r, “T h e Sen s at i o n al M u rder o f Ja mes R H ay a n d t h e Tr ia l o f Pet er M o r t e n s e n ,” U t a h Histor ical Quar terly 65 (Winter 1997): 25-47.

33 Salt Lake Herald, Febr uar y 5, 1902.

34 Salt Lake Herald, March 6, 1902.

35 Salt Lake Herald, May 1, 2, and 6, 1902.

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SHEETS

ser ved three year s and a half doing missionar y work in the Pacific Islands. I would rather resign my office, if this is the object sought, than go on the mission.” He tur ned in his unqualified resignation and “the call to the land of the Mikado was withdrawn.”36

R e p u bli c a n S e n a to r Th o m as Ke a r n s , A po s t le S m oo t , a n d s ever al c i ty councilmen met to discuss Hilton’s successor. They consulted with church president Joseph F Smith, who “advised that a non-Mor mon ought to be a pp o i nt ed fo r t he re as o n th at sever al mi n i st er s o f l o c al d en o mi n at i on a l c h u rc h es wo ul d n ot th en have th e op po r t un ity to atta ck le ad er s of th e Mor mon Church if . . . the new appointee f ailed to satisf actor ily execute the law against the Sunday liquor traffic and other evils.” 37

It was clear Mayor Thompson wanted Sheets as police chief , but it was also clear that the “solid eight” would never confir m him. As a compromise, the mayor submitted the name of the perennial compromise candidate, sixty-four-year-old Samuel Paul. Paul had ser ved two previous ter ms a s c h i e f o f p o l i c e, e a c h t i me w h e n h i s p red e c e s s o r h ad b e e n fi re d . H e ser ved as chief from 1893 to 1894 when Mayor Baskin fired Ed Janney and ag ain i n 189 8 when Mayor James G lend inni ng fi red Ar thu r P ratt. Paul’s third appointment as chief came in May 1902 and one month later he proposed that Sheets be reinstated. It was Paul who had rehired Sheets in 1892 and who had promoted Sheets to detective in 1893.

W h e n S h e e t s ’ n a m e w a s c o n s i d e r e d f o r r e a p p o i n t m e n t i n 1 9 0 2 , City Councilman Alexander Rober tson refer red to Sheets as “a ter ror to evil-doer s and one of the most efficient officer s that ever ser ved this city. [Alan] Pinker ton consider s George Sheets the most exper t cr iminal taker west of the Mississippi.” 38 The “solid eight” rejected Rober tson’s argument, but S h eets’ was g iven ano ther less impor tan t p ositi on as the c ity ’ s sewer inspector 39

T he p re s s u re to c l os e th e s al o o ns o n S u n d ay s di d n o t s ub s i d e w h e n Samuel Paul became chief of police Paul was conspicuously ineffectual in this regard, however, spur r ing the Deseret News to ask, “Can it be that the saloon element is stronger than the law-supporting public sentiment? Is it powerful enough to bid defiance to the rest of the people? If so, the question naturally suggests itself In what does its strength consist? What is the secret of its influence?” 40

The answer may have been that Paul’s f ailure was by design. To appease one por tion of the mayor’s constituency—the city’s relig ious community—

36 Salt Lake Herald, May 7, 8, 1902. Hilton had previously ser ved a mission to the Samoan islands.

37 Salt Lake Herald, May 7, 1902.

38 Salt Lake Tribune , June 24, 1902. Alan Pinker ton was the most famous detective of the era, notable for p u r su i n g B u t c h C assi dy an d t h e S und an ce Ki d all t h e way t o Ar gen ti n a a n d Boliv i a . T h e P inke r t o n Detective Agency was involved in some of the nation’s best known union conflicts including the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania and the tr ial of Big Bill Haywood for the murder of Idaho Gover nor Frank Steunenburg and was often employed by the United States gover nment.

39 Deseret News, June 24, 1902, Salt Lake Tr ibune, June 24, 1902.

40 Deseret News, June 10, 1902.

Paul had to appear to be tr ying to stop the flow of liquor on Sundays, but to sustain the suppor t of another constituency—the saloon men and libertine gentiles—Paul wasn’t supposed to succeed. It was a tenuo us balanc e and because continued stor ies in the press about open saloons or gambling t h rea ten e d to di sr up t th e e qu il ib r i u m , C h ie f Pau l to o k s tep s t o c o ntro l infor mation to the press. “You are not to tell anything to the newspaper s c o n c e r n i n g t h e d e p a r t m e n t ,” h e t o l d t h e m e n u n d e r h i s c o m m a n d , “. . . under penalty of probable dismissal.” 41

In spite of these effor ts, two incidents in December 1902 would prove to be Paul’s undoing. On December 14, 1902, a minor named Daniel Ryan was found dead in an outhouse off Victor ia Alley—the colored tenderloin distr ict—after a prostitute, hoping to rob him, put too much mor phine in hi s b eer. 42 A wee k la ter, a th ir ty-two ye ar ol d si x th- g rad e sc h ool teac h er Anna D Hill, died in a physician’s office, after “a cr iminal operation” had been perfor med. The city, some claimed, had become “the wor st city in the countr y, ” a “cesspool of iniquity,” and the Herald, through a ser ies of invest i g a t ive re p o r t s , ra l li e d t he c o mmun i ty a g a in s t C h i ef Pa u l . 43 Th e H e ra l d advised Salt Lake citizens not to count on the city police force for protection but to look instead to a pr ivate detective agency

With all sincer ity, The Herald wishes the new detective fir m of Sheets and Raleigh a full measure of success. The senior par tner is George A. Sheets, justly ter med by no less an author ity than W A. Pinker ton [as] the best detective west of the Missour i River

The Herald feels that the people of Salt Lake are entitled to cong ratulations on the organization of t his age ncy Since Chief Paul and his mer r y men have showed their utter incompetence to prevent cr ime and punish cr iminals, citizens have almost stopped repor ting . . . robber ies and burglar ies from which they have suffered. . . .

O f M r. S h e e t s , a f o re t im e T h e H e r al d h as had o c ca si on t o say s om e u np l e as ant things, but it has never said he was not a good detective 44

O n Fe b r u a r y 1 7 , 1 9 0 3 , Pau l res i g n e d a s c h i ef an d M ayo r T h o m p s o n announced his desire to appoint George Sheets as the next chief The comp os i ti on of t he c it y c o u n c il ha d n o t c ha ng ed , h oweve r, an d th e D e s e r e t News advis ed agai nst the appo intment, sayi ng “ T h e re is no n eed for th e Mayor to prec ip itate an other s qua bbl e by prese ntin g th at n ame ag ain . ” 45 The Tr ibune , a S heets su ppor ter, ag reed: “Th e ‘insurgents’ in th e C ounc il t h row s p as m s a t t he ve r y me n ti o n o f t h e n a me o f S h e e ts , an d th e re i s where the fir st pitched battle is likely to be fought.” 46

For over a month there was no battle, however The mayor sent no name to the city council, allowing Democrat John B Burbidge to ser ve as acting chief But on March 23 with two of the “solid eight” absent from the city

41

Salt Lake Herald, June 20, 1902.

42 Salt Lake Herald, December 14, 1902.Victor ia Place or Alley, began west from 232 South State Street.

43 Salt Lake Tr ibune, December 27, 30, 1902, and Salt Lake Herald, December 16, 18 and 22, 1902.

44 Salt Lake Herald, January 25, 1903.

45 Deseret News, Febr uar y 20, 1903.

46 Salt Lake Tr ibune, Febr uar y 19, 1903.

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SHEETS

council meeting, Thompson sent this unexpected message to the council: “I h e re by, wi th yo ur c o ns en t, ap po in t Ge org e A . S h eets to th e p os iti on of chief of police of Salt Lake City ” 47

Those present, according to the Herald, met the announcement with “a stillness that per mitted for the hear ing of a pin drop on the heavy car pet of the c hamber ” Th e vote was seven to si x in f avo r o f S he ets in w hat th e Herald called “One of the neatest maneuvers that had ever been per petrated on a municipal body in the histor y of Salt Lake City or the state of Utah.”48 Th e foll owi ng mor ni ng S heets ass umed c o ntro l of the p ol ic e dep ar tment announcing:

The depar tment will remain just as it is. I will regard each and ever y man my fr iend until he proves differently By-gones will be by-gones with me I have lived here all my life and want to remain here and make a reputation and I know that I can only do t hat by se r vi ng t he p ublic f a i t h f u l l y It i s my de sire t o show th ose wh o have be e n against me in this thing that they were mistaken I will do what is r ight to the best of my ability at all times. 49

The following day, however, the president of the ci ty coun cil, Charles C o t t r e l l , a n n o u n c e d t h a t S h e e t s ’ c o n f i r m a t i o n h a d f a i l e d u n d e r C i t y Council r ule seventeen, which stated: “a major ity vote of all the Council elected shall be necessar y to confir m.”50 Eight votes were needed, according to Cottrell, no matter how many councilmen were absent from the meeting. City attor ney George L. Nye disag reed, citing a statute, which stated “a major ity of the city council shall constitute a quor um to do business.”51

Both the Herald and the Tri bu n e seemed pleas ed with Sh eets’ a p p o i n tment and began to chronicle his accomplishments in their columns. “Chief Sheets had not been in office a day,” said the Tribune, “when he cor ralled some boys in a saloon in violation of the law and made some ar rests. Next he appreh ended a su spec t up on the streets and found h im l oaded down with spur ious checks.”52 The Herald repor ted that Sheets had spent his fir st S a t u rd ay as c hief plac ing plac ards i n saloo n win dows, announcing, “This saloon will be closed tomor row, ” and that the following Sunday was “The dr iest Sunday Salt Lake has seen and more than one old-timer who has not missed his Sunday dr ink in year s was tur ned away and compelled to quench his thir st with City Creek cocktails or Jordan juleps.” Sheets also b eg a n a “ c r u s ad e to r i d t he c ity o f h ob oe s ” an d “to c le ar t he ro o m i n g houses of undesirable people.” Thir ty such individuals were compelled to leave town.53

It was “an object lesson in efficient [police] work,” wrote the Tribune

47 Deseret News, March 24, 1903.

48

Salt Lake Herald, March 24, 1903.

49 Deseret News, March 24, 1903.

50 Ibid.

51

Salt Lake Tr ibune, March 23, 1903.

52

Salt Lake Tr ibune, March 29, 1903.

53

Salt Lake Herald, March 29, 1903.

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

And also of the lawabidingne ss among t he saloon ke e p e rs when t hey are convinced that t he orde r to cl ose means business. T he claim made by Mr Hilton, the chie f of police whom the council sustained with persistent strenuousity for no reason whatever save that he was a Mor mon, in spite of his notor ious incompetence, is thus completely disproved. . . . The city is now on the lawful and proper basis; the Republican pledges are in a fair way of being redeemed.54

O ne wo n d e r s , h oweve r, wh eth er the sal oo n ow n e r s mig h t have b ee n c o mp l ic it i n S h e et s’ s u c c e s s . He ha d r al l i ed th e sa l oo n me n to s u p p or t Mayor Thompson in the last election, and they may have believed it was in their ow n bes t in terests in the l ong r un i f S heets were suc ce ssful i n th e shor t r un, in “forcing” them to close their establishments on Sundays.

After a week as chief of police, Sheets submitted the March 1903 payroll to city auditor Alber t S. Reiser, which included a request for his own wages of $23.25. Reiser, however, retur ned the payroll with the following message: “Respectfully retur ned to be cer tified by John B Burbidge, captain of p o l i c e, w ho is th e ra nk i ng o ffi c er o f th e p ol i c e d ep ar t m e n t , Ge o rg e A . Sheets not having been legally confir med by the city council.” 55

The confir mation of a salar ied officer, Reiser contended, had created a liability against the city, which required a major ity vote of all of the member s elected. City Attor ney George L. Nye disag reed but Reiser refused to issue checks to pay the officer s.56

The conflict continued for a month, until Apr il 1903, when the case was a rg u e d b e fo re th e th re e j u st i c es o f th e Uta h S u p re me C o ur t . A t t o r n ey Franklin S Richards argued the case against Sheets and the three justices u n an i mo u sl y a g re ed th at S h ee ts ’ ap p o in tm en t h a d b e en i ll e g a l. He wa s ordered to step aside and John Burbidge resumed his duties as acting chief Burbidg e s er ved as acting c hief until th e en d o f 1 903 , when th e n ew mayor-elect, Democ rat R ich ard Mo r r is, express ed his i ntention to make Burbidge the official chief of police At the last city council meeting pr ior to the change of power, however, out-going Mayor Thompson submitted the name of Republican William Lynch to the city council, which—eleven Republ ican s to fo ur Democ ra ts —sus tained Ly nch as the new c hief The council’s approval came after the controver sial election of Mor mon Apostle Reed Smoot to the United States Senate and signaled that the alliance of t h e “ s o l i d e i g h t ” h a d b e e n b ro ke n . T h e e l e c t i o n o f a n ew d e m o c ra t i c a dm i ni s t ra ti o n s e e me d t o u n i te th e R ep u bl i c an s o n th e c o u n c i l bo t h Mor mons and gentiles—in their final hour.

Democratic Councilman Fer nie Fer nstrom called Lynch’s appointment “a piece of spite work on the par t of the mayor ” The Deseret News ag reed, saying the action was taken “with the plain intent to embar rass and obstru c t the incoming administration.” 57 William Lynch, previously employed by the

54 Salt Lake Tr ibune, March 30, 1903.

55 Deseret News, March 30, 1903.

56 Salt Lake Tr ibune, March 26, 1903.

57 Deseret News, December 12, 15, 1903.

Pleasant Valley Coal Company, came to the job w i t h n o l aw e n f o rc e m e n t e x p e r i e n c e, b u t s e rved ably, nonetheless, for the next two ye a rs .

For about twelve year s, beg inning with the disbanding of the Liberal and Peoples par ties in the early 1890s, Mor mons and gentiles had worked together within the political str ucture of the two national par ties, a time known in Utah histor y as the “Era of Go o d Fe e l i n g s .” Th is era c a me to a n en d, h oweve r, wh en c on g re s s i o n a l hear ings in Washington, D.C. challenged the seating of Utah’s newly elected Senator, Mor mon Apo stle Reed S moo t. The hear ings establish ed that plural mar r iage was still being practiced among some Mor mons, and apparently with the sanction of some Mor mon leaders. 58

In the municipal election of 1905, the effor ts the church had made in the early 1890s to divide the Mor mon electorate between the Democrats a n d R e p u b l i c a n s c a m e t o f u l l f r u i t i o n . P ro- S m o o t M o r m o n s vo t e d R e p u blic a n w hi le an ti- S mo ot M or mo ns vo te d D emo c rat . Th e g e nti l es , however, were united. Outraged over perceived deceptions with regard to th e M or mon p ro mi se to e nd pl u ral mar r ia g e th ey f or med a n ew, t h i rd par ty, the anti-Mor mon Amer ican Par ty, which was essentially a repr ise of th e ol d an ti- Mo r mo n Lib era l Pa r t y Th e divi de d Mo r mo n vote a cco mplished in 1905 what disenfranchising the Mor mons had accomplished in 1889; Amer ican Par ty candidates won at the polls in Salt Lake City

The fir st Amer ican Par ty mayor was the for mer Republican mayor Ezra Thompson, elected by a minor ity of the voter s in Salt Lake City The new c i t y c o u n c i l w a s a l s o d o m i n a t e d b y A m e r i c a n p a r t i s a n s a n d w h e n Thompson submitted the name George Sheets as his chief of police, the

58

This photograph taken on September 21, 1908, shows construction work underway on the Stockade located on 200 South between 500 and 600 West.

See Richard S.Van Wagoner, Mor mon Polygamy (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 164-76.

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council readily confir med the appointment—this time legally.59

S h e e t s ’ f i r s t a c t wa s t o d i s mi s s s eve ra l o f fi c e r s w h o h a d s e r ve d w i t h d is t in c ti o n u n d er C hi e fs H il t on , Pa u l , B u rb id g e an d Ly n c h i n ord er t o reward Amer ican Par ty suppor ter s with police positions. In this process a milestone was reached. W. H. Chamber s became the fir st black policeman in Salt Lake City, an appointment not without controver sy.

The Deseret News objected, calling Chamber s “an odiferous colored barber” who has “for a long time past been the associate and fr iend of colored prostitutes whom he has made it his business to bail out of jail [and wh o] h as be en a d efend ant befo re the c ou r t [hi msel f] repeatedly ” 60 The Tr ibune, on the other hand, responded by stating that a man like Chamber s was needed “to look after the colored people of the half-world and that Chamber s under stood the business as well as anyone else. Besides he was a good ‘worker’ in the last election and should be rewarded.” Over two hund red p eo pl e i n S al t Lake ’s “ A f r ic an c ol ony, ” i nc l ud in g the pas to r of th e Afr ican Church endorsed the appointment. 61

C h ief S h ee ts, as in 1 9 0 3 , de mo ns trate d h is ab il ity to imp os e l aw an d order on the city. He shut down numerous gambling houses and was succ e s s f u l i n g e t t i n g t h e s a l o o n s t o c l o s e o n S u n d ay s . B u t a s c a n d a l i n September 1906, put him at the center of another controver sy Two brother s from Scotland, Alexander and William McWhir ter, passed through Salt Lake on September 18, 1906, holding $10,373 in cash, nearly all of which they lost when they were inveigled into a poker game The Deseret News broke the stor y with the suggestion that Chief Sheets was at the center of “ t h e m o s t s t a g g e r i n g s c a n d a l i n t h e h i s t o r y o f t h e S a l t L a k e Po l i c e Depar tment” 62 and that he was “in a box that is even tighter than the one from which Cunning the handcuff king escaped.”63

Th e Tr ibu n e c ame to S h eets ’ defense, s ug g esti ng that S he ets ha d bee n made the target of a conspiracy The money to car r y out the scheme, the Tr ibune alleged, had either been put up by a set of local sure-thing gambler s, who were ang r y at Sheets for his vigorous enforcement of the gambling laws, or it had come from the Mor mon church’s tithing house in an attempt to hur t the Amer ican Par ty in the next election. 64

“Br ing on the lime Mix the whitewash,” the Deseret News responded. “Do a good job of it. Cover up all the spots. Put on three coats. Make it a p p e a r t h a t s o m e p o l y g a m o u s M o r m o n i s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r i t a l l D o anything—ever ything to save the par ty and Sheets.” 65

Three days after the stor y broke, “Honest George” as the Deseret News

59 Deseret News, Januar y 3, 1906.

60 Deseret News, Januar y 16, 1906.

61 As quoted in the Deseret News, Januar y 15, 16, 1906. The ar ticle does not indicate the denomination of the “Afr ican Church.”

62 Deseret News, October 1, 1906.

63 Deseret News, October 3, 1906.

64 Salt Lake Tr ibune, October 3, 1906, and Deseret News October 3, 1906.

65 Deseret News, October 3 and 4, 1906.

n ow c a ll e d h i m, wa s ar res t e d by a s h er i f f ’ s deputy and charged as an accessor y to a robber y after the f act. Sheets pled not guilty the f o l l ow in g mo r ni ng a nd was rel eas e d o n h is ow n r e c o g n i z a n c e. T h e Tr i b u n e e x p r e s s e d indignation asser ting that, “In the days of old th e s e s c o u n d re l s wo u l d h ave e mp l oye d th e Hickmans and the Rockwells and other murderous thugs in the employ of ecclesiasticals to do their dir ty work.” 66

At tr ial the prosecution demonstrated that the McWhir ter brother s had been robbed and that Chief Sheets had done nothing about it. Sheets had f ailed to make any ar rests, to ask for descr iptions of the crooks, to ar rest a gambler who had imper sonated an officer, to ask the brother s to stay and help identify the bandits, and had actively sought to keep the stor y out of the newspaper s. The defense did not disag ree, but argued that “to make a man an acc esso r y, i t mus t be p roven that he did s ome affir m a t ive th ing

attempted some specific action, like helping a cr iminal onto a hor se to r ide away, and that no amount of negative action was sufficient to incr iminate a defendant.” With re g a rd to keeping th e s tor y out of the n ewspaper s, the defense said, “Of cour se he suppressed the stor y, and in doing it he only did his duty and what e ver y other good officer would do under the circum-

66 Sa lt La ke Tr i bu n e, O ct ober 5, 1906. B ill H ickm an an d Por ter Rockwell were gun men who were r umored to have exercised extralegal justice on the behalf of the Mor mon church.

,

Alexander and William McWhirter, two brothers from Scotland shown here in a October 18, 1906, Salt Lake Herald photo, were robbed of more than ten thousand dollars in 1906 in a scandal that implicated George A. Sheets.

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stances.” Judge George G. Ar mstrong concur red and dismissed the case.67

But the issue did not go away Sheets was rear rested five month s later after one of the gamblers in the scheme disclosed that he and other s had paid Sheets protection money—one hundred dollar s a week, payable to Salt Lake attor ney William Newton on Sheets’ behalf , plus twenty percent of all checks won.68 Sheets, along with eight other s, was charged with “enter ing into a conspiracy to rob tour ists who passed through Salt Lake City.”69

The evide nce p resen ted at th e sec on d preliminar y hea r ing was foun d s u f f i c i e n t t o wa r r a n t a t r i a l , b u t a s t h e d a t e o f t h e t r i a l a p p ro a c h e d , Sheets’attor ney, Soren X. Chr istensen, filed a motion to quash infor mation presented at the preliminar y hear ing. Judge Ar mstrong r uled in f avor of the motion and dismissed the case, causing the Deseret News to proclaim that S heets was like the “proverbial cat” who “has nine lives and comes bac k with a number left.” 70

Three months later, Sheets was ar rested a third time, this time charged with having received a br ibe, a felony punishable by up to five year s in the penitentiar y 71 Ten day s later on July 31, he resign ed as chief of p olice, a cour se of action the Tr ibune called “the manly and magnanimous cour se in t h e p re s e n t c r is i s o f h i s a ff a i r s . M r. S h e e ts g o e s o u t o f o ff i c e w i th t h e respect of ever y one of a candid and discer ning mind.” A week later Mayor Thompson also resigned, citing “ill health” as the reason.72

After “hang ing fire for over a year” in th e words of the De seret New s, Sheets was finally put on tr ial. Defying all expectations, it took only two days to select an eight-man jur y consisting of four Mor mons and four gentiles.73 The prosecution’s pr incipal witnesses were two men involved in the plot to rob the McWhir t e rs . Both testified that Sheets was aware of the scheme and one descr ibed a meeting with Sheets wherein Sheets was handed a roll of bills totaling $480.74 But when the prosecution rested its c ase, the defense moved for a dismissal, as “under the Utah statutes a man cannot be convicted of a cr ime upon the uncor roborated evidence of an accomplice ”75 In re bu t t a l the state cited as precedent, ter r itor ial case law established dur ing the tr ial of John D Lee for his part in the Mountain Meadows Massacre “It is not necessar y for that the testimony of an accomplice should be cor roborated in ever y circumstance that he details in evidence. . . . ” Fur ther, “A witness in a cr iminal prosecution is not incompetent on the g round that he is an accomplice with the pr is one r on tr ial in the par tic ul ar c r ime w hic h is th e s ubj ec t of th e

67 Deseret News, October 24, 1906.

68 Deseret News, March 2, 1907.

69 Salt Lake Tr ibune, March 2, 1907.

70 Deseret News, May 27, 1907.

71 Salt Lake Tr ibune, July 23, 1907.

72 Salt Lake Tr ibune, August 1, 1907; and Deseret News , August 6, 1907.

73 Deseret News, Febr uar y 17, 1908; Salt Lake Tribune, Febr uar y 28, 1908.

74 Salt Lake Tr ibune, Febr uar y 21, 1908.

75 Salt Lake Tr ibune, Febr uar y 25, 1908; Deseret News, Febr uar y 24, 1908.

indictment, and if the testimony of such witness is believed by the jur y, the pr isoner may be convicted upon it ” 76

Jud g e C h ar l e s W M o r s e d e n i e d t h e d e f en s e ’ s mo t i o n to d i s mi s s a n d ordered Sheets’ attor neys to either rest or put on witnesses. In the process Sheets took the stand in his own behalf declar ing, “I have yet to take my fir st 5-cent piec e of g raft money, and I defy any man to c ontradic t me, except some crook who has been promised immunity for his own cr ime to testify against me.” 77

The tr ial lasted ten day s and when the jur y went out at 2:55 p.m. on Febr uar y 2 7, the spectator s remained in the cour troom, “as if confident the jur y would be in within a shor t time ” Two hours later the jur y retur ned and, according to the Tr i bu n e, “A more dramatic scene [had] never been enacted in a Utah cour troom.” An envelope passed from the jur y foreman to the cour t clerk, from the court c lerk to Judge Mors e, who broke the seal and unfolded the paper, then handed it back to the clerk. The nex t minute,” said the Tri bune, “dragged as though it were an hour” until the court clerk finally read the verdict, “We the j ur y find the defendant—not guilty.” 78

The Deseret News reported: “The troubled look which George A. Sheets has wor n for a year or longer disappeared.” Sheets told the Deseret News,

My g ratitude and thanks go out to ever y man and woman of Salt Lake and Utah who has stood shoulder to shoulder with me and believed in me I never let myself think I would not be acquitted. I am not much for relig ion, but I do feel that the Almighty was looking after me because I have always heard the Almighty is with the r ight.79

The Tr ibune called the verdict “a glor ious day for George Sheets . . . a proud tr iumph for decency and law,” and even suggested that Sheets should be reappointed as chief of police 80

The new Amer ican Par ty mayor, John Bransford, refused to follow the Tr ibune’ s urg ing and did not reappoint George Sheets. That honor went to Thomas D. Pitt who immediately reinstated Sheets as a detective. Pitt’s successor, Samuel M. Barlow, later created a new position, “chief of detectives,” for Sheets.81

Ch iefs Pitt and Barlow confronted a problem wh ich ever y c hief sinc e th e Li be ral Pa r ty ta ke ove r of 1 8 9 0 ha d c on fro n t e d — p ro s titu ti on i n th e Commercial Street distr ict. Chief Ar thur Pratt in 1895 ar ticulated the view held by most, if not all of the chiefs. ”I think the best plan is to put them [the prostitutes] in one locality as much as is possible and keep them under

76 Deseret News, Febr uar y 24, 1908; see People v Lee 2 U 441.

77 Sa l t La k e Tr i bu n e, Fe b r u a r y 2 6 , 1 9 0 8 . Th e Tr i bune m ade nu m e rou s allega t ion s t h at t h e wi t n esses agai nst Sheet s, W H. Par rent and W W Bell, ha d been pro mised immunity for t heir t est im ony, which County Attor ney Willard Hansen consistently denied. Neither Bell nor Par rent was prosecuted, however “Par rent’s bail was his word” (Deseret News, Febr uar y 17, 1908), but by Febr uar y 15 “he had left this part of the countr y for good” (Deseret News, Febr uar y 15, 1908).

78 Deseret News, Febr uar y 27, 1908.

79 Deseret News, Febr uar y 28, 1908.

80 Salt Lake Tr ibune, Febr uar y 27, 28, 1908.

81 Salt Lake City Polk Director y 1908, 73, and 1909, 72, listed Sheets employment as chief of detectives.

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HISTORICAL

str ict sur veillance. The evil cannot be suppressed but it must be restrained and kept under str ict police control. It is a more difficult problem to handle when the women are sc attered ou t than when they are kept together ”82 Even Police Chief Hilton, a Mor mon, held this view, saying “the morals of the city would not be improved by the abolition of the houses of prostitution, even were such a thing possible [T]heir existence was a safeguard to the [proper] young women in the city.”83

An endur ing problem, however, even if one accepted th at prostitution should be tolerated and controlled, was the location of the brothels in the Commercial Street Distr ict—a two by four block area from State Street to West Temple and from Br igham (South Temple) to Third South. This was pr ime commercial real estate in the central business distr ict, just adjacent to the Mor mon Temple 84 In 1908, Chief Thomas Pitt did not take issue with the conventional wisdom of the day—the need to regulate and control “a necessar y evil”—but he did suggest a new location for the distr ict.

Let the city set aside a piece of g round of sufficient size to accommodate several hundre d of t hese prostitutes. Enclose sam e caref ully w ith high fe nces; build cott age s or houses to accommodate these inmates; charge them rent; license them and place them under control of the Police Depar tment as to their safety and confinement, and to the Board of Health as to their cleanliness and sanitar y conditions.85

With this in mind, Dora B. Topham, 86 a.k.a. Belle London, was invited to move to Salt Lake City from Ogden to establish the innocuous sounding “Citizens’ Investment Company” with the mission “to move to Salt Lake’s tenderloin from the hear t of the city [the Commercial Street distr ict] to the location selected on the west side [of the city] in the block bounded by Fir st and S ec ond S ou th streets and Four th and Fifth We st streets.”87 The new enter pr ise called the “stockade” was opened for business in December

82 Salt Lake Tr ibune, January 4, 1895.

83 Salt Lake Tr ibune, November 23, 1899.

84 Nichols, Prostitution, Polygamy and Power, 45-47.

85 Message of the Mayor, with the Annual Report of the Officers of Salt Lake City, Utah, for the year 1907 (Salt Lake City, 1907), 371-75.

86 Topham’s or ig ins before coming to Utah are unclear The Ogden Standard Examiner stated that her tr ue name was Dora Bella Hughes, (Ogden Standard Examiner, March 11, 1902) but she was also known by at lea st fo u r o t h er n am es: Ado ra Lon g, M ax ine R o se, B elle Lo n don an d Do ra B Topham. She h ad a daughter, Ethel, w hose deat h cer t ific ate li sted her mo ther a s A dora Lo ng, bor n in Ken t uc ky (S tate o f C a l i f o r n ia De pa r t m en t o f H ea lt h S er v i c e s , C e r t i fi c at e o f Dea t h n o 8 6 -1 7 4 1 8 3 a s c i t ed i n Ni c h o ls, Prostitution Polygamy and Power, 77, note 97), but she is listed in the 1900 census as being bor n in Illinois in 1866 (U S Bureau of the Census, Twelfth census, 1900, Weber County, Enumeration Distr ict No 187, sheet 8, line 1 as cited in Nichols, Prostitution Polygamy and Power , 169-70, note 45). The name Dora B Topham was acquired after she mar r ied Thomas Topham Jr on May 1, 1890, in Ogden ( Ogden Standard Examiner, March 11, 1902). She may have operated a brothel in Denver as a “Belle London” repor tedly operated a brothel there named the “Fashion” at some point in the 1880s and Topham later operated a house in Ogden called the “Fashion.” (Nichols, Prostitution Polygamy and Power, 169-170, note 45.) She fir st appeared in Utah in the Ogden Police Court “Justice’s Docket, 1889,” on August 14, 1889, and in the Ogden n ew spa per t hree mo n ths la ter, w hen the po lic e sh ut down two h ouses o f prostitution, o n e o f which was kept by Belle London, “who has been heard of before in this city ” (Ogden Standard Examiner, November 9, 1889.)

1 9 0 8 , w i t h M a y o r B r a n s f o r d , C i t y C o u n c i l m a n M a r t i n Mulvey and Chief of D e t e c t i v e s G e o r g e S h e e t s a s i t s p r i m e suppor ter s. 88

T h o u g h S a m u e l Barlow was the chief of po lic e, the H e ra l dRepublican maintained t h a t S h e e t s , n o t B a r l o w, w a s “ t h e a c t u a l h e a d o f t h e p o l i c e d e p a r t m e n t ” an d d ur in g t he 1 9 0 9 e l e c t i o n c a m p a i g n B r a n s f o r d , M u l v e y and Sheets were lamp o o n e d i n s e v e r a l Herald-Republican car toons as “the Red-Light Tr iplets.” 89

The Red-Light Triplets cartoon, The Salt Lake Herald Republican, October 20, 1909.

T h e a p p e a r a n c e o f a n e w n e w s p a p e r i n Salt Lake City, the Herald-Republican, for med w he n t he I n t e r m ou n ta i n Re p u bli ca n p u rc h as e d th e H e ra l d , i s a s i g n ifi c an t d eve l o pm e n t i n U ta h an d S al t La ke C i ty p o l i t i c s . E a r l i e r, i n 1 9 0 5 , t h e Inter mountain Republican was created with financial suppor t of the Mor mon church’s Fir st P residency, to be voic e fo r the R epubl ican Par ty after the Tr ibune’ s defection to the Amer ican Par ty The purchase of the Herald and th e na me c h an g e to th e H e ra l d - R e p u bl i c a n ma rk s th e d e mi s e o f a n ew s media voice for the Democratic Par ty in Salt Lake City

In s pi te o f th e n ew s p ap er rea l ig n me n ts an d t h e o pe n su p po r t o f th e R e p u blican Par ty by many in high c hurch positions , i ncluding President Joseph F Smith, there were more Democrats than Republicans among the Mor mons dur ing this time There were also more Mor mons than gentiles in the city, but the split in the Mor mon vote allowed the Amer ican Par ty to stay in power To dampen gentile opposition to the Amer ican Par ty, Dora B Topham closed the stockade in advance of municipal elections and the Tr ibune focused on the issue that had g iven the Amer ican Par ty their intitial v i c t o r y a l l e g a t i o n s t h a t M o r m o n p o l y g a my h a d f u r t ive l y c o n t i n u e d beyond the 1890 Manifesto The Tr ibune declared the church’s effor t to halt

88 For a histor y of “the stockade” in Salt Lake City see John S McCor mick, “Red Lights In Zion: Salt L a ke C i t y’s S t o c k ad e, 1 9 0 8 - 1 9 1 1 ” Ut a h H is t or ica l Q ua r t e r ly 5 0 (S p r i n g 1 9 8 0 ): 1 6 8 - 8 1 ; al so N i ch o ls, Prostitution, Polygamy and Power

89 Salt Lake Herald-Republican, October 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 1909.

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SHEETS

the practice insincere and pu blished a list of 2 20 post-Manifes to poly gamists. For mer chief of police Thomas Hilton was on that list.90

But by the election of 1911 the tide had tur ned. The LDS church was actively pursuing and excommunicating members who had entered into new plural mar r iages after the declaration of the second manifesto in 1904. Also, those who had taken new plural wives between 1890 and 1904, were not allowed to hold church positions which would re q u i re other members to sustain them 91 With these changes, the public’s outrage no longer centered on polygamy, but focused instead on Dora B Topham and the stockade

W h e n l o c at e d i n th e C o m me rc i a l S tree t d is t r i c t , t h e p ro s t it u te s a n d b r o t h e l s w e r e h i d d e n w i t h i n t h e i n t e r i o r o f e a c h b l o c k . A c c e s s f o r s u c h s e r v i c e s wa s t h ro u g h n a r row a l l e y s a n d f o r t h e g e n e r a l p u b l i c , the problem was for the most par t all but invisible But the constr uction of the “stockade” on West Third South made the problem not only highly visible, but seemingly a city ser vice, like a public utility

In the election of 1911, the split in the Mor mon vote was remedied. The Democratic Par ty had a higher ratio of Mor mons than did the Republican Par ty but fear of another Amer ican Par ty victor y c aus ed many Mor mon Democrats to vote Republican. It was a strategy that worked in ter ms of defeating the Amer ican Par ty, but which ultimately proved destr uctive to the Democratic Par ty in Utah. 92

The new Republican mayor, Samuel C Park, took office in 1912 and named Br igham F. Grant, half-brother to Apostle Heber J. Grant as his chief o f p o l i c e. G r a n t , t h e fi r s t M o r mo n t o h o l d t h e p o s i t i o n s i n c e T h o m a s Hilton, began his career in police work a decade earlier when Mayor Ezra Thompson appointed him as a volunteer policeman with a special commission to combat the s ale of alcohol to minor s. Gran t go t involved in th is cause after his son, along with seven other underage boys, had been ar rested for assaulting a man after the boys had obtained and consumed large quantities of beer and whiskey 93

As George Sheets had done in 1905, Grant replac ed nearly ever y member of the existing police force. With wide suppor t from all relig ious elements, he then created a “pur ity squad,” with a policy of “no necessary evils.”94 The highest number of ar rests recorded in the histor y of S alt Lake C ity occur red dur ing the fir st year of Grant’s administration, 10,418, with “dr unk” topping the list at 3 ,9 59, a 52 percent increase over the year before 95

Grant’s effor ts also represented the first ear nest suppression of prostituti on in S al t Lake C i ty, ye t he sh owe d g reat l en ie nc y towa rd th e “ f a l l e n

90 Salt Lake Tr ibune, October 8, 1910.

91 John Henr y Smith Jour nal, November 8, 1910

92 Thomas G Alexander, Mor monism in Transition, 33.

93 Deseret News, June 28, 1902; Salt Lake Tr ibune, June 29, 1092.

94 Salt Lake Herald-Republican, July 28, 1911.

95 A n nua l Po l i c e R ep o r t s f o r 1 9 1 1 , 1 9 1 2 , a n d 1 9 1 3 a s c i t e d i n G l ea s o n , “ T h e S a l t La ke Po l i c e Depar tment,” 103-107

GEORGE AUGUSTUS SHEETS

women, ” g iving them two weeks to ar range their aff air s and leave town or b e re a r re s t e d . 9 6 Th o ug h Gr an t u nd o ub te dl y re du c e d p ro s ti tu tio n in S al t L a ke C i t y, t h e p r a c t i c e wa s n o t e r a d i c a t e d . S o m e wo m e n re t u r n e d t o Commercial Street, which remained a red light distr ict until the 1930s. 97 Other s remained near the site of the old stockade on West Second South, where the oldest profession was still being practiced into the 1980s.

If it is tr ue, as the Herald-Republican had suggested, that George Sheets was in control of the police depar tment dur ing the Samuel Barlow administration, it is also tr ue that such was his last hur rah. He left the depar tment so metime i n 1 9 1 0, a dep ar ture whi ch co inc id es w ith th e demi se o f th e Amer ican Par ty in Utah politics. His employment status dur ing 1911 and 1912 remains unknown, but in 1913 he took a job as a secur ity officer at t h e A r t h u r P l a n t o f t h e U ta h C o p p er C o m p a ny i n G a rf i e l d w h e re h e remained for the next seven year s. 98 For the next eleven year s he suffered from an undisc losed illness, dying at his home in S alt Lake City in June 1932 at age sixty-eight.

His obituar y in the Deseret News recounts a f amous exploit, “the opening of two infer nal machines [bombs] which had been sent by a fanatic crank to the l ate Jud g e C W Tower and Wa rden D ow ” The p iec e al so e ulog ized Sheets as “the g reatest cr iminal officer the West has ever known.” 99

The histor ical record, however, tells a different stor y Though Sheets was a law enforcement official, he was not adver se to dancing and dr inking in brothels and when fired for such behavior, he had connections to get reinstated. He also demonstrated in the case against Rober t L. King that he was willing to orchestrate evidence to condemn an innocent man though the source of his g r udge against Rober t L. King is nowhere disclosed.

Dur ing his br i ef s ti nt as ch ief o f p olic e in 1 903 , S heets demo nstrated that he could enforce the Sunday closing laws though it seems likely that the saloon men were complicit in such enforcement. When he became the chief in 1906, he used the position to regulate g raft, but not for the benefit of the public so much as for his per sonal gain. Though Sheets was never found guilty in the McWhir ter scandal, the evidence presented against him at tr ial suggests, at the ver y least, his g ross incompetence

Perhaps access to power for nefa r ious pur poses was what had fueled his quest to become chief of police all along. This would explain the opposition he faced when appointed for a br ief time in 1 903. Dur ing a city council meeting in 1906 to discuss the McWhirter scandal, city councilman Fer nie Fer nstrom said, “I had proof five year s ago that he was not an honest man ” 100

Th e c ons titu ents S hee ts brou gh t to the pol ls were e leme nts n ot on ly

96

Salt Lake Herald-Republican, January 16, 1912.

97 Commerc ial S treet was even tually renamed Regen t Street and today c onsists of li ttle more than parking ter races.

98 Sheets’ employment status was deter mined reviewing the Polk Director ies dur ing these year s.

99 Deseret News, June 14, 1932.

100 Deseret News, October 3, 1906.

outside the Mor mon mainstream, but outside the Amer ican social mainstream in general. He cur r ied f avor with prostitutes, gamblers and saloon men.

He also had connections with Salt Lake City’s black community, another g roup marg inalized from the mainstream, and showed his appreciation for bl ac k supp or t o f the Amer ican Par ty in 1 9 05 by rewardi ng a bl ac k man with an unprecedented position on the city’s police force

S h e e t s ’ c a r e e r w i t h t h e S a l t La ke Po l i c e d e p a r t m e n t — f rom 1 8 9 0 t o 1 9 1 0 , wi t h s o me i nt er r u p ti o n s —p a ra l le l s t h e c o u r s e of th e t u mu l t u o u s r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t we e n M o r m o n s a n d g e n t i l e s d u r i n g t h i s p e r i o d . H i s f o r t u n e s , i n f a c t , ro s e a n d fe l l, i n c o n c er t w i th t h at c o n fl ic t . H is c are e r be g an wi th th e defe at of the all -Mor mon Peop les Par ty in 1 890 , when Mor mon-gentile hostility was at an apex but his r ise to power was checked w h e n M o r mo n s a n d g e n t i l e s s tr u c k an a c c o rd . H e wa s fi re d by C h i e f Th o ma s Hi l to n a t th e h ei g h t o f th e s o- c al l ed , “ Er a o f Go o d Fe e l i n g s .” Hilton’s resignation in 1902 and Ezra Thompson’s f ailed attempt to appoint Sheets as chief in 1903 ser ve as barometer s of the tenuous balance between M o r m o n s a n d g e n t i l e s i n t h e i r i n i t i a l a t t e m p t s t o wo r k t o g e t h e r a s R e p u b l i c a n s . S h e e t s ’ s t a r o n l y ro s e a g a i n w h e n t h e c o n f l i c t b e t we e n M o r mo ns an d g en ti l es he at ed up o nc e ag a in i n th e wa ke of t he R ee d Smoot hear ings. Renewed concer ns over a continuation of plural mar r iage p rec i p i t a t e d t h e re b i r t h o f a n ew a n t i - M o r m o n p o l i t i c a l p a r t y w h i c h allowed for Sheets’ subsequent appointment as chief of police.

His un doi ng was n ot th e Mc Whi r ter s c and al. He sur vived th at blow, winning two dismissals then an acquittal and, even though he had resigned as chief , he was soon reinstated as a detective, then promoted to chief of detectives. He may ha ve even held the reins of power inside the depar tment after 1909, though not as the titular head. His r uin was not the McWhir ter scandal but the Mor mon-Republican alliance that beat the Amer ican Par ty and the rapprochement of Mor mons and gentiles spur red by opposition to Dora B Topham and the stockade

Sheets’ career with the Salt Lake Police Depar tment spans two decades marked by alter nating hostility and accord between Mor mons and gentiles. By fol low in g h is c areer, on e g ain s an und er sta ndi ng of a s ig ni fic ant bu t often overlooked slice of Utah’s histor y.

TheLehiBrassBand

By LINDA LINDSTROM

0Small town brass bands of yester year are fondly remembered. They elicit images of a simpler time and evoke memor ies of happines s and romance On e for mer b and memb er said th at a band me ant “balmy d ay s [ wh en ] ever y b arefo ot boy wh istl ed th e n ewest band number s from mor n till eve, and young lovers sat dreamy-eyed under the influence of the organ-like music of the best bands. ” 1

D u r in g it s te r r i t o r i a l p e r i o d , m o re th a n s i x ty U ta h t ow n s h a d th e s e fon dly re m e m b e red co mmun ity brass ban ds. 2 De spi te the f a ct tha t mo st communities had bands, little has been wr itte n ab ou t t he m i nd ivi d ua l ly o r c o l le c tive l y. The Tooele Serenading Band.

1 Quoted in Margaret Hindle Hazen and Robert M. Hazen, The Music Men: An Illustrated History of Brass Bands in Amer ica, 1800-1920 (Washington, D.C., London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987), 200.

2 I have found references to the following community brass bands: Amer ican Fork, Bear River City, Beaver, Bountiful, Br igham City, Cedar City, Center ville, Clarkston, Coalville, Ephraim, Escalante, Eureka, Far mi ngton (Deseret Brass B and), Fillmore, Fo untai n Green, Grantsville, Heber Cit y, Henefer, Hooper, Hoy t s v i l l e, Huntington, Huntsville, H y ru m , Kaysville, Laketown, Layton, Lehi, L og a n , Manti, Mendon, Midway, Morgan, Moroni, Mt. Pleasant, Nephi, Nor th O gden, Oak Ci ty, Ogden, Ophir, Pa r a d i s e, Park City, Parowan, Payson, Plain City, Pleasant Grove, Providence, Provo, Randolph, Richmond, Salt Lake City, S an ta Cla ra, Santaquin, Smithfield, S o uth Jo rd a n , S pan ish Fork, Spr ingville, St. George, Tooele, Ver nal, Wellsville, West Weber, Willard, and Willow Creek (Draper).

Linda Lindstrom is an infor mation secur ity officer for the Department of Veterans Aff air s in Salt Lake City She is a g reat g randdaughter of band leader Alfred Mar shall Fox.

This paper seeks to illuminate the activities of the Lehi Brass Band which was i n ex is te nc e from 1 8 7 1 to 189 0 , and to provi de a g limp se of o th er community bands dur ing the ter r itor ial per iod.

T h e re we re t hre e ma j or i nfl u en c es w h ic h c a us ed th e pro li fera tio n of b an d s i n U tah F i r s t , P res id e nt B r i g h am Yo un g o f T h e C h u rc h o f Je s u s C h r i s t o f L a t t e r - d a y S a i n t s e n c o u r a g e d c h u r c h m e m b e r s t o b e c o m e i nvo l ve d i n mu s i c a l a c t iv i t i e s . I n n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y U t a h , o rc h e s t r a s , bands, and musical societies were for med not only in Salt Lake City but in the outlying communities as well. These musical organizations utilized the talents of the numerous g ifted musicians who were LDS converts. 3

A second major influence on the creation of community bands was that of the militar y The Utah Ter r itor ial Militia was initially for med in Nauvoo, Illinois, as the Nauvoo Leg ion along with the Nauvoo Leg ion band. Both were reo rg ani zed s oon after Mor mo n settlemen t o f the S alt Lake Va l l ey Later, Nauvoo Leg ion militia units were established in numerous outlying communities throughout the ter r itor y E. P Duzette, chief of music for the Nauvoo Le g ion, travele d to the se ou tly in g u nits to crea te ma r tial b and s (fife and dr um cor ps) or brass bands. The pr imar y function of these bands was to perfor m at muster s and dr ills, although the bands also perfor med for communities on holidays and other special occasions. 4 These militar y bands led directly to the for mation of community bands.

A th ird impor tant influenc e on the c reation of community bands was the brass band movement which began in the 1830s in the United States. By the 1880s and 1890s, most towns had civic bands. The increase in the number of brass bands was made possible by the availability and the low co st of th e in str uments, and th e f ac t that the instr umen ts were relatively easy to play and could be played interchangeably with similar mouthpieces and identical finger ings. 5

De sp ite th e f ac t th at co mmu ni ty b and s a re remembere d no sta lg ically, they did p lay an impo r tant rol e in Utah co mmunities. Fir st, a ban d was viewed as a measure of civilization and as a culturally elevating institution.6 For Utahns, a local band placed their town on a par with other Utah communities; and collectively, all of the community bands placed Utah on a par with the easter n states.

Hamilton Gardner echoed these thoughts in his Histor y of Lehi:

One of the f avor ite pretensions of those who have cr iticized the pioneer s of Utah is that they were largely illiterate and uneducated. They attempt to insinuate and inveigh against the pretended lack of refinement and culture in Utah as compared with that of her sister states east of the Missour i.

3 Kate B Carter, compiler, “Bands and Orchestras,“ in Our Pioneer Her itage, 20 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughter s of the Utah Pioneer s, 1958-1977), 20:69.

4 R alph Ha n sen , “ A d m i n i s t r a t ive H ist o r y o f t he Na u vo o Leg i o n i n Ut ah , ” ( M . A . t h e s i s , B r i g h a m Young Univer sity, 1954), 83-94.

5 Hazen and Hazen, The Music Men, 4, 11, 12-13.

6 Ibid., 12; H. W Schwa rt z , Bands of Amer ica (Garden Cit y, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1957), 170.

LEHI BRASS BAND

But the slightest examination of early Utah histor y reveals the utter f allacy of these cr iticisms. The pioneers of Utah were among the most highly civilized and cultured Amer icans of their time Ar t, literature, music, the drama, soon found and kept a place among the founder s, and of other kinds of cultural development there was not lack.7

Second, community bands bestowed the results of their musical talents on all of the citizens of the community. An impor tant activity of a community band was to serenade the town on holidays and other impor tant days, t h e re by al l ow in g eve r yo ne to e n j oy i ts mu s i c M a ny c om mun i ty ba n d s played a wide var iety of music, which was appealing to most individuals.8 Third, typically the most impor tant source of instr umental music in communities in the second half of the nineteenth centur y was the local band.9 Four th, community bands played for dances, which were a f avor ite pastime in nineteenth-centur y Utah. Fifth, since community bands generally drew large crowds, bands were often used to raise money for var ious causes and to under score the philosophies espoused by relig ious, social, and political organizations.10

Besides the benefits accr ued to communities, there were benefits to band member s as well. Healthy benefits were thought to be der ived from playing musical instr uments and from marching in bands thereby developing good l u n g s , b ro a d s h o u l d e r s , s t re n g t h , a n d v i g o r L e a r n i n g t o p l ay a mu s i c a l instr ument was considered a means of self-improvement.11 Most impor tantly, being in a band forged meaningful relationships with other member s of the band and community.

By 1871 Lehi’s population had reached a thousand when twelve musically inclined residents for med the Lehi Brass Band under the leader ship of twenty-eight year old school teacher, George William Thur man. Thur man had ser ved in the Kentucky Home Guard dur ing the Civil War and was undoubtedly exposed to brass bands there.12

The Lehi Brass Band was not the fir st band in Lehi, however A fife and d r u m c o r p s h a d b e e n o r g a n i z e d i n 1 8 6 0 a n d wa s th e p r i n c i p a l mu s i c provider in the community until the brass band was organized. 13 The fife and dr um cor ps was probably associated with the Lehi militia unit of the Nauvoo Leg ion.

Lehi resident John Beck, whose mining career began in 1870 and who later made a for tune in the Bullion-Beck mine in Eureka, ag reed to fur nish

7 Hamilton Gardner, History of Lehi (1913), in Thomas F Kirkam, ed. and comp, Lehi Centennial Histor y, 1850-1950 (Lehi: Free Press Publishing Co., 1950), 70.

8 Hazen and Hazen, The Music Men, 12.

9 Ibid., 5.

10 Ibid., 11

11 Ibid., 11, 13.

12 Kirkham, Le h i Ce nt ennia l Hist or y, 70, 301; Willia m Fra nc is B u t t Co llect i on, Ms. 1300, Histor ical Depar t men t Archives, Th e Ch urch of Jesus Chr i st of Lat ter- day Sai nts (herea ft er cited as LDS Church Archives).

13 Kirkham, Lehi Centennial Histor y, 70.

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

one-half of the money necessar y to purchase the instr uments for the new band.14 The other half of the money probably came from benefit performances. James Kirkham, a member of the Lehi Brass Band, recalled in his diar y that on March 1, 1872, “I helped to play for a par ty for the benifiet [sic] of the Lehi Brass Band.”15

Band members likely purchased their instruments from the Grant Music Empor ium in Amer ican Fork since other instruments were purchased there later. The Grant Music Empor ium, established in 1869, sold musical instr uments of all kinds William Grant, leader of the Amer ican Fork Brass band, was owner of the store. 16 Cost of the instruments was around two hundred dollars .

Tragedy str uck the Lehi Brass Band shortly after its organization. Band organizer Thur man was murdered on Chr istmas Eve 1871. Thur man was in the meetinghouse prepar ing a Chr istmas tree for the town Chr istmas celebration when Jed Woodward, who had earlier been chastised by T h u r man, broke through the door. Thur man attempted to eject him, but Woodward drew his revolver and shot him Thur man died a few hours later 17

T h e f o l l ow i n g A p r i l , t we n ty - n i n e ye a r o l d A l f red M a r s h a l l Fox wa s elected leader of the band by unanimous vote of the whole town and was g iven the cour tesy title of “Professor ” 18 Fox, a f ar mer who had emig rated from Great Br itain to Lehi in 1860, lacked any for mal musical training, but he did come from a musical f amily, his f ather and brother s being fine musicians. Fox ser ved as leader of the band until it was dissolved in 1890.

In addition to Fox as the leader of the Lehi Brass Band, there were other o f f i c e r s t h a t i n c l u d e d a s e c re t a r y, t r e a s u re r, c h a p l a i n , a n d c o l o r b e a re r Eventually, the Lehi Brass Band was gover ned by a set of by-laws.19

The twelve char ter member s of the band were all young males rang ing in ag e from ei g hteen to thi r ty-four. T h ey were b or n i n Eng l and, Wales, Scotland, Denmark, Ger many, and the United States, and all were member s of the LDS church. The names of the char ter member s, their ages at time of band creation, and places of bir th are:

Joseph Ashton 34 England George Beck 23 Ger many John Beck 28 Ger many

14 Ibid.

15 James Kirkham Jour nal, Ms. 1431, LDS Church Archives.

16 Li f e a n d Di a r y o f A l f r ed M a r sh a ll Fox , M a y 9 , 1 8 8 0 , t y p e s c r i p t (c o py i n a u t h o r ’ s po ss es si o n ); Kirkham, Lehi Centennial Histor y, 488; George F Shelley, Early History of Amer ican Fork (Amer ican Fork City, 1942), 114; Ter r itor ial M ilit ia Reco rds, Ser ies 2 210, Reel 8, Box 2, Fo lder 6 5, Record no 3205, microfilm, Utah State Archives.

17 Kirkham, Lehi Centennial Histor y, 140.

18 Kirkham, Lehi Centennial History, 301-2; Life and Diar y of Alfred Mar shall Fox, Apr il 1872; Jour nal Histor y of The Church of Jesus Chr ist of Latter-day Saints, December 13,1882, LDS Church Archives; Deseret Evening News, September 23, November 22, 1887.

19 James Kirkham Jour nal, December 20, 1881, Januar y 21, December 23, 1882, September 17, 1887; James M. Kirkham, undated letter to editor, Lehi Free Press , William Francis Butt Paper s, Ms. 1397, L. Tom Per r y Special Collections and Manuscr ipts, Harold B Lee Library, Br igham Young Univer sity, Provo, Utah (hereafter cited as BYU Library).

Joseph Colledge 21 South Wales

Thomas Cutler 27 England

Thomas Fowler 32 England

Alfred Fox 29 England

Isaac Fox 22 England

Rober t Gilchr ist 25 Scotland

Chr istian Racker 18 Denmark

Samuel Taylor 31 England

David Thur man 24 Kentucky 20

T h e L e h i B r a s s B a n d a t t r a c t e d v a r i o u s f a m i l y m e m b e r s a s b a n d m e m b e r s . I n t h e c h a r t e r g ro u p, A l f r e d a n d I s a a c F ox w e re brother s, and S amue l Tayl or wa s mar r ied to t h e i r s i s t e r. G e o r g e a n d J o h n B e c k w e r e brother s. And David Thur man was a brother to the founder of the band.

M a ny l o c a l b an d m e mb e r s , h avin g g o o d i n t e n t i o n s , o f t e n l a c ke d s u f f i c i e n t mu s i c a l training or talent to perfor m well. One cynical obser ver of bands wrote what is perhaps an apt descr iption of the Lehi Brass Band:

A desire is manifest in the community for a band. Men who aspire to things of this kind voluntar ily organize into a body Instr uments are purchased and a “professor” is secured to teach them. A room is engaged and the men are ready for their fir st lesson.

H e re a wonde rful sur pr ise await s them—they cannot re ad a not e of mu s i c. T h ey don’t know “A” from a bale of hay. This is a condition to be deplored, but I can safely say that not one amateur bandsman in five is in the possession of the merest r udiments of music 21

The instr umentation of the Lehi Brass Band was probably similar to that of the Amer ican Fork Brass Band, which was for med in 1866 and included 1 E flat cor net; 4 B flat cor nets; 2 E flat tenor s; 1 B flat bar itone; 2 B flat basses; 1 bombardon (bass tuba); and 2 dr ums.22

In order to have a suitable place for the band to practice, the Lehi Music Hall at 451 Nor th Center Street was built in the f all of 1872, under the d i r e c ti o n o f P ro f e s s o r Fox . T h e bu i l d i n g wa s f u n d e d by Jo h n B e c k , a M o r mo n c o nve r t w h o s t r u c k i t r i c h a t t h e B u l l i o n - Be c k m i n e i n t h e Tintic Mining Distr ict. The music hall, approximately 32 feet by 63 feet, was built of adobe and cost $2,500. The fir st g rand ball in the new hall was held on December 25, 1872. 23 A stage on the west end of the building was

20 William Francis Butt Collection, LDS Church Archives.

21 Quoted in Schar tz, Bands of Amer ica, 171.

22 Ter r itor ial Militia Records, ser ies 2210, microfilm.

23 D i a r y of A l f red M a r sh all Fox , 1 8 7 2 , p h o t o c o py in au t h o r’s po ss essio n ; K i r k h a m , Le h i C ent e nnia l History, 71; Lehi Ward Minutes, 1871, LR 4817, Ser ies 11, LDS Church Archives,; James Kirkham Jour nal, December 25, 1872.

Alfred M. Fox, leader of the Lehi Brass Band.

bu ilt o n sti lts over Dr y C reek. “The stag e settings an d scener y were the wonder and admiration of the people, and attracted many visitor s as well,” Hamilton Gardner later wrote 24 The Music Hall became the social center of Lehi.

Band practices were typically held in the Music Hall on Saturday nights and more often pr ior to a special event. 25 Apparently band member s had a good time at band rehear sals. Band member George Kirkham recalled, “We went to band practic They had some beer and cheese and cracker s. We had a liveley time ”26

Of pr imar y impor tance to any band were good instr uments and sheet music. Dur ing its existence, the Lehi Brass Band often appealed to the Lehi City Council for funds to buy new instr uments and music For example, in 1880 the city purchased a bass dr um for the band at a cost of twenty-five dollar s, and four year s later the city approved the purchase of a new instr ument for Professor Fox at a cost of for ty-three dollar s and music at a cost of two dollar s.27

The Le hi Brass Band an d othe r c ommu nity band s in ter r itor i al Utah p l aye d a w id e re p e r t o i re of mu s i c. Fo r p atr io ti c oc c as i on s t y pi c al so n g s were “Amer ica,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “Hail Columbia,” “The S tar S pang l ed Ban ner, ” a nd “Yanke e Doo dle ” M a rch es were f avor ites a s well: “Bonnie Blue Flag,” “Marching through Georg ia,” “Nor mal March” by E. B u r to n Hay n e s ; an d “ P r i m ros e M arc h ” by M on ro e M. A l t h o u s e. Among the popular songs were “Dixie,” “Old Dan Tucker,” and “Listen to t h e M o c k i n g b i rd ,” a n d mu s i c b y S t e p h e n Fo s t e r, “ M y O l d Ke n t u c k y Home,” “Oh! Susanna,” and “Old Folks at Home.” Over tures, quicksteps, and waltzes were equally popular For more somber occasions a band might play Handel’s “Dead March from Saul” or “Henr y Wadswor th Longfellow’s Funeral March” by Chopin.

There were inevitable conflicts in community bands. Solutions to these conflicts were handled in var ious ways. On one such occasion in the Lehi band Professor Fox offended band member s, ended up submitting his resignation, and Lehi’s LDS bishop, Thomas Cutler, stepped in to tr y to solve the pro bl e m . The disp ute was over an invitatio n Fox as band l eader h ad received from a Mr Lee in Bingh am C anyon ask ing that the Lehi Bras s B a n d a n d a l o c a l s t r i n g b a n d h e l p c e l e b r a t e B i n g h a m C a n y o n ’s Independence Day in 1884. Fox called a meeting of the band where it was explained that the brass band would go for one hundred dollar s and the str ing band for thir ty dollar s. A misunder standing quickly followed when

24 Kirkham, Lehi Centennial Histor y, 71.

25 Numerous references to practices and meetings from 1880 through 1889 are made in James Kirkham Jour nal and in the George Kirkham Jour nal, Ms. 1173, LDS Church Archives.

26 George Kirkham Jour nal, Febr uar y 21, 1885. George Kirkham mentions numerous times in his journal of such after practice activities as does James Kirkham in his jour nal.

27 Life and Diar y of Alfred Mar shall Fox, May 4, May 9, 1880; Lehi City Council Minutes, December 23, 1884, Ser ies 13742, microfilm, Utah State Archives.

Fox wanted to take only half of the band. Many of the band refused to go and the meeting was dismissed in a bad way; Fox, before submitting his resignation as band leader, sent a teleg ram to Lee infor ming him that the band would not be in attendance. Bishop Cutler, after a week’s wor th of discussion with Fox, per suaded him not to resign and to continue as the band’s leader Fox met with band member s and apolog ized.28

It is n ot kn own w h eth e r b an d me mb er s s h ared in th e pro fi ts o f th e band; however, perhaps the reason half of them were upset about not going to Bingham Canyon was because they would not have received any of the money paid to the band for appear ing.

B an d u n i fo r ms ad d e d a n a i r o f re s p ec t ab i l it y an d af te r e ig ht ye a r s , a c o m mi tt e e o f t h re e b a n d me m b e r s wa s a p p o i n te d i n Ja nu a r y 1 8 7 9 t o obtain the unifor ms. James Kirkham approached Bishop Cutler to ask for h i s s u p p o r t i n r a i s i n g fu n d s to p u rc h a s e n ew u n i f o r m s . B i s h o p C u t l e r ag reed and helped to organize three fund raising g rand balls and a “dramatic perfor mance ” The necessar y funds of one-hundred dollar s were raised and local tailor, John Hasenfratz, made the unifor ms. They were g ray with brass buttons, tr immed with red and g old lace 29 Professor Fox’s unifor m was a little more or namented than the other member s’ unifor ms. An additional amount of $72.20 was raised at a benefit concer t at the Music Hall to co mp lete th e b and unifor ms w ith th e p urchas e of b elts and epaul ets . Later, as new member s joined the band, benefit balls or par ties were g iven to raise money for their unifor ms. 30 The Lehi Brass Band unifor ms were so impressive that the Lehi cor respondent to the Salt Lake Daily Herald wrote of the band’s July 4, 1880, appearance that the band looked “radiant in their new unifor ms. ”31

Often brass bands played in parades r iding in wagons, car r iages or their own bandwagons. In 1881 the Lehi Brass Band attempted to purchase its own bandwagon. A local wagon dealer offered to sell the band a wagon and a committee was appointed to raise the needed funds. The histor ical record indicates that the funds were never raised nor the bandwagon purchased. The Lehi band had to make do r iding in temporar y bandwagons fitted up for the band to r ide in dur ing the city’s celebrations.32

One of the main activities of the Lehi band was serenading. It seldom mis sed op por tu nitie s to play on New Year’s Day, May Day, Ju ly 4 th an d 2 4 t h , e l ec ti o n d ay, C h r i s tm as E ve, C h r i s tm as D ay, N e w Ye a r ’s Eve, a n d m o r e T h e b a n d f re q u e n t l y s e re n a d e d re t u r n i n g m i s s i o n a r i e s , p o l i t i c a l

28 Lehi City Council Minutes, January 21, 1888; Life and Diar y of Alfred Mar shall Fox, June 14, 19, 21, 23, 26, July 3, 1881.

29 Life and Diar y of Alfred Marshall Fox, January 1879, January 1, 1880; James Kirkham Jour nal, January 4, 5, 6, 7, 24, 1879, Febr uar y 10, 1879, January 1, 1880; George Kirkham Jour nal, March 8, 1879.

30 Life and Diar y of Alfred Marshall Fox, December 27, 1881; George Kirkham Jour nal, Febr uar y 3, 1885.

31 Salt Lake Herald, July 8, 1880.

32 James M. Kirkham, undated letter to editor, Lehi Free Press; George Kirkham Jour nal, July 3, 1882.

UTAH

HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

candidates, newly mar r ied couples, and even when men were released from t h e p e n i te n ti a r y f o r c o h a b i t a t i o n I t s e re n a d e d L D S C h u rc h P re s i d e n t Br igh am Young, Apostles Georg e Q. C annon and John Taylor, and other i m p o r ta n t c h urc h l e ad er s w h en th ey vi s i ted Le h i i n A u g u st 1 8 7 4 3 3 O n

numerous other occasions local church leader s and city officials were serenaded. Band member s were often invited into homes of prominent citizens for breakf ast or dinner Impor tant relationships were created or reinforced dur ing these meals.34 On many special occasions, band member s played at a ll h ou r s , s o me p l ay i n g ex t en d i ng i n to th e ea rl y mo r n i n g ho u r s . Ja m e s K i rk h a m w ro t e, “ To d ay [ Ju l y 5 , 1 8 8 0 ] we c e l e br a te d t h e b i r th o f o u r nation. At 3 a.m. I put on my band unifor m and joined our band. We serenaded our city until 9:30.” 35 On Chr istmas Eve 1885, the band serenaded until 3 a.m. and was out again at 10 the next mor ning.36

Th e band wa s sc he dul ed to se renad e the res ide nts o f Leh i on July 4 , 1881, but two days earlier word was received that President James Garfield had been shot and the festivities were canceled.37 George Kirkham wrote, “There was no music out on the streets, the flag was at half mast. There was n o s h o u t i n g a n d a l l s e e m e d g l o o m y ” H owe ve r wo r d c a m e t h a t t h e President was out of danger and was doing well, so the band came out and serenaded the city 38 Four year s later, on July 2 4 , 1885, the band did not perfor m on P ion eer Day be cau se a na ti ona l day o f mou r nin g h ad bee n designated for the death of President Ulysses S Grant.39

O n e o f t h e mo s t f re q u e n t f u n c ti o n s o f t h e L e h i B ra s s Ba n d wa s t o provide music for community dances, or band par ties as they were called. The events were usually held at the Music Hall where people from Lehi and the nor ther n end of Utah County gathered with their bugg ies laden w i t h b a s ke ts o f f o o d to e n j oy p a r t i e s t h a t o f t e n c o n t i nu e d u n ti l a f t e r midnight. 40

Many times the Lehi band played for special benefit prog rams and char itable causes. On four different occasions, the band held benefit concer ts to help one of its own member s. Band leader Professor Fox provided for his

33 See the numerous entr ies in James Kirkham Jour nal and George Kirkham Jour nal for band performances of important visitor s to Lehi as well as the Salt Lake Daily Herald, July 8, 1880; Deseret Evening News, January 9, July 8, 1886; Ter ritor ial Inquirer, July 9, 1886; the William Francis Butt paper s, July 4, 25, 1887, June 7, 1890, BYU Library,; William Francis Butt Collection, LDS Church Archives.

34 See numerous entr y dates in James Kirkham Jour nal George Kirkham Jour nal, and Life and Diary of Alfred Mar shall Fox, July 24, 1880, December 26, 1881; Deseret Evening News, January 9, July 8, 1886.

35 James Kirkham Jour nal. See also Kirkham, Lehi Centennial Histor y, 479.

36 George Kirkham Jour nal, December 24 and 25, 1885. See also George Kirkham Jour nal, June 27, 1885.

37 James Kirkha m Jour nal, Ju ly 3, 1881; George Kirkh am Jour nal, Ju ly 2-3, 1881; Life and Diar y of Alfred Mar shall Fox, July 3, 1881.

38 George Kirkham Jour nal, July 4, 1881. President James Garfield died on September 19, 1881, from the gunshot wound.

39 James Kirkham Jour nal, July 24, 1885.

40 See several ent r i es fro m 1 878 thro u gh 1 885 in James Kirkha m Jour nal; s everal ent r ies from 1883 through 1888 in George Kirkham Jour nal; Lehi City Council Minutes, January 21, 1888.

f a m i l y by f a r m i n g a s m a l l t r a c t o f l a n d a t what is now Thanksg iving Point. Fox was not a ve r y s u c c es s f u l f a r me r a n d s u p p l e me n te d h is me ag e r in c o me g ivi n g mu si c an d vo i c e lessons to some of Lehi’s residents. Shor tly after Fox was appointed band l e a d e r, o ne of h i s d au g hte r s c on tra c ted bl ac k mea sl es , a de ad ly fo r m o f me as le s w hi c h c au s ed h em or r ha g es i n to th e s ki n . U n t re a t a ble at h o me, Fox’s daughter was admitted to Deseret Hospital in Salt Lake City for an extended per iod of time. The daughter’s ser ious illness and extended stay in the hospital exacerbated the f amily’s already poor financial circumstances. The band held fund raising perfor mances to ease the financial burden of their leader

The band played benefit concer ts to raise money for depar ting LDS missionar ies; played for LDS events such as Sunday School concer ts and picn i c s , M u t u al I mp rovem e n t A s s o c i at i o n ( M IA ) f a i r s , a n d R e l i e f S o c i e ty bazaar s. Community events such as Lehi f air s also benefited from the band’s presence. On more sor rowful occasions, somber notes from the band were heard dur ing funeral processions.41

When word was received in Utah of the devastating Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania in whic h 2,20 0 lives were los t, the Lehi Bras s Ban d held a benefit concer t to help the victims of the flood. 42

41 George Kirkham Jour nal, December 17, 1880, December 22, 1884, July 10, 1886; James Kirkham Jour nal, October 2, 1883, December 22, 1884; William Francis Butt Collection, LDS Church Archives, N ove m b er 2 1 , 1 8 8 8 ; Ja m e s M K i r k h a m , u n da t ed le t t e r t o ed i t o r, L e h i F r e e P r e s s ; Jo u r n a l H i st o r y, December 13, 1882; Deseret Evening News, November 22, 1887.

42 James Kirkham Jour nal, Januar y 4, 1889; Salt Lake Herald, June 13, 1889.

LEHI BRASS BAND

The Midway Brass Band, November 28, 1899, in front of the John Watkins Home in Midway.

O l d f o l k s e x c u r s i o n s w e r e e n j o y a b l e events for the Lehi band. The band frequently played to “cheer the hear ts of the old folks.”43 On one such excur sion, as many as 750 individuals from Salt Lake City rode the train to Amer ican Fork and then were shuttled by wagons to Chipman Grove where the Lehi Brass Band serenaded them. For one band member the highlight of the day wa s s e e in g a o n e - h u n dre d ye ar o l d wo m a n d a n c e to t h e mu s i c o f t h e band. 44

The band played and traveled in all seasons of the year. One of the band’s perfor mances was at Cedar Fort and Fairfield in Januar y 1879. In the dead of winter, the band, “serenidded the village and the people were delighted. In the evening a ball was g iven in our honor and we injoyed our selves in the mer r y dance until 6 a.m.”45

Three year s later, the band traveled to Cedar For t and Fairfield on the S al t Lake a nd We s t e r n Rai lro a d . On e b an d memb er c o mmen ted of th e tr ip: “We road in the coboos e and was the fir st band of mu sic that ever went over the road.”46

State and national holidays were busy times for community bands. Utah c e l e b r a t e d t h e c e n t e n n i a l o f t h e s i g n i n g o f t h e D e c l a r a t i o n o f Independence on July 4, 1876. In Lehi the day long activities began with the fir ing of one hundred guns in honor of the one hundred year s since

43 George Kirkham Jour nal, June 8, 1876, July 12, 1888; Life and Diar y of Alfred Mar shall Fox, June 8, 1876, June 24, 1879; Utah Enquirer, July 17, 1888.

44 James Kirkham Jour nal, June 29, 1886.

45 James Kirkham Jour nal, Januar y 21, 1879 .

46 James Kirkham Jour nal, Januar y 31, 1882.

The Grouse Creek Band, 1911.

t h e f o u n d i n g f a t h e r s s i g n e d t h e i r n a m e s t o t h e d o c u m e n t d e c l a r i n g Amer ica’s independence The flag was unfurled at sunr ise following which t h e L e h i Br a s s a n d ma r ti a l b a n d s s e re n a d e d th e c i t i z e n s A t 9 : 3 0 a m , thir teen guns were fired to honor the thir teen or ig inal states, which was the signal for the people to assemble in the meetinghouse for a patr iotic p rog ra m o f mu s i c, s p e e c h e s , an d re a d i n g s . I n t h e a ft e r n o o n th e re we re spor ts in the tithing yard and a dance for children in the tithing bar n. In the evening there was a dance for adults, again in the tithing bar n, and the climax of the day came when fireworks were set off It was the fir st time fireworks had been displayed in Lehi. 47

Perhaps the most unusual invitation for the Lehi Brass Band came from LDS Church President John Taylor inviting band member s to par ticipate in a parade in Salt Lake City to honor the release of Daniel H. Wells from p r is o n fo ll ow in g h is two day s of in c arc e r a t i o n . 48 We l l s , a fo r me r se c on d co unselor to P resid ent Br igh am Young and a for mer mayo r of Salt Lake City, was called to testify at a tr ial in what was called the “Miles polygamy case ” Wells had perfor med one of the mar r iages under consideration in the s u it a n d w h en h e re fu s ed to an swer c e r t ai n qu e st io n s h e was fo u nd i n c ontempt of co ur t and plac ed in cus to dy o f the mar shal. Later, after hi s release from custody, Wells was g iven the oppor tunity to purge himself of the contempt charge, but he again refused to answer the questions about the Endowment House mar r iage ceremonies. Wells was found in contempt o f c o u r t a n d w a s o r d e r e d t o p ay a f i n e o f o n e - h u n d r e d d o l l a r s a n d sentenced to two days at the ter r itor ial pr ison. 49

Dur ing Wells’ two-day impr isonment, the S alt Lake Ci ty C ounc il met and planned a g rand procession to celebrate his release Local and ter r itor ial o f f i c i a l s , c h u rch le a d e r s a nd b a n d s f ro m th ro u g h ou t th e te r r i t o r y we re i nv i t e d . S a l t L a ke C i t y m e rc h a n t s we r e a s ke d t o c l o s e t h e i r p l a c e s o f business on the day of the procession. 50

Th e Leh i Br ass Ban d was g iven a free r id e to S al t Lake C i ty o n th e 5 p. m . t r a i n . Fo l l owi ng d in ner, the ban d p erfo r me d at C ity Ha ll b efo re retir ing for the night sleeping on the floor of the hall. The next mor ning the band, along with the Amer ican Fork City Band and other s, escor ted We ll s i n a g r a nd p a ra d e fro m 6 0 0 S o u th t o t h e Ta b e r na c l e o n Te m p l e Square.

As President Wells neared Temple Square a herald on hor seback sounded his coming and there was a g reat shout and cheer ing from the multitude.

47 Andrew Fjeld, “How Lehi Celebrated Four th When Amer ica Was a Hundred,” Deseret News, July 10, 1926; James Kirkham Jour nal, July 4, 1876; George Kirkham Jour nal, July 4, 1876.

48 James Kirkham Jour nal, May 5, 1879; George Kirkham Jour nal, May 5, 1879.

49 A n d rew Jenson, LDS Biog raphica l Encyc l o p e d i a, (Salt Lake Cit y: Deseret News, 1901), 1:65; Deseret Evening News, May 2, 3, and 5, 1879; Br yant S Hinckley, Daniel Hanmer Wells and Events of His Time (Salt Lake Ci ty: Deseret News Press, 1942), 265-70; James Kirkh am Jour nal, May 5, 1879; Geo rge Ki rkh am Jour nal, May 5, 7, 1879; Life and Diar y of Alfred Mar shall Fox, May 5, 1879.

50 Hinckley, Daniel Hanmer Wells, 271-73; Life and Diary of Alfred Mar shall Fox, May 5, 1879.

The bands played “See the Conquer ing Hero Comes.”The Lehi and Amer ican Fork bands j o in ed o the r ban ds to provid e mu si c at the Taber nacle.51

Following the Taber nacle prog ram, the Lehi and Amer ican Fork bands escor ted the city’s firemen to City Hall where the firemen enter tained the mu s i c i a n s w i t h a “ f i re f u n c ti o n . ” La t e r t h e L e h i B r as s B an d s e re n a d e d P res id en t Wel ls an d p layed at va r io us oth er l o ca tio ns in th e c ity In th e evening the firemen gave a ball in the band’s honor Band member James Kirkham recalled the eventful occasion, “We had a ver y enjoyable time and a time never to be forgotten.” 52

D u r i n g th e 1 8 8 0 s th e ba n d p l aye d a t p ol i ti c al ra l li e s a n d eve n t s . O n Monday October 30, 1882, the Utah County Central Committee of the Peoples Par ty invited the Lehi Brass Band to par ticipate in a ratific ati on meeting at the Provo Taber nacle. Member s of the Peoples Par ty were pr imar ily Mor mons. Its opposite par ty, the Liberal Par ty, was composed chiefly o f n o n - M o r m o n s . T h e p u r p o s e o f t h e m e e t i n g w a s t o a d o p t t h e De c larati on of Pr in ci ple s o f th e Peo pl es Par ty and to ratify th e Peoples nominee for ter r itor ial delegate to Cong ress, John T. Caine. The Lehi band, along with the Amer ican Fork and Payson bands, par ticipated. In the late after noon the bands played at the cour thouse and in the evening the bands

51 James Kirkham Jour nal, May 5 and 6, 1879; George Kirkham Jour nal, May 7, 1879.

52 Ibid., May 7, 1879.

The Park City Independent Band, 1915.

j o i n e d a t o rc h l i g h t p a ra d e t o e s c o r t c a n d i d a te C a i n e t o t h e t a b e r n a c l e w h e r e s p e e c h e s w e r e m a d e a n d the music continued. 53

T h r e e d a y s l a t e r , o n Thur sday, November 2, the band par ticipated at a simil a r m e e t i n g o f t h e L e h i Pe o p l e s P a r t y h e l d a t t h e L e h i Ta b e r n a c l e T h e H o n o r a b l e Jo h n T C a i n e w a s “ t h e r e i n p e r s o n a n d d e l i v e r e d a p o w e r f u l s p e e c h .” 5 4 B a n d m e m b e r J a m e s K i r k h a m r e m e mbered, “Th e band atten [d]ed and we had a fine time. T h e af f ai r wa s a p o l i c ti c a l o n e a n d w a s f u l l o f t h e spir it of such.” 55 O n t h e e v e o f t h e N ovemb er 6 , 1 8 8 5 e le c ti on , t he Leh i B ras s Band went again to Provo by train to par ticipate in a Peoples Par ty rally, which was held in the Taber nacle and Academy Hall. “[T]he Lehi Brass Band, gayly unifor med, were there playing popular air s in excellent and ar tistic style ”56 This political rally was not without some confrontation from the opposing par ty “Dur ing the meeting a Mr O J Hollister, a member of th e Li beral par ty of Utah, came in an d was allowe d five (5) minutes to make a reply to one of our speakers but he soon forgot himself and abused the Peoples Par ty and was soon hissed out.” 57

Bands at political rallies and at other political events often encouraged large number s to attend. The Lehi band’s appearance at the Peoples political rallies in Utah County must have helped voter tur nout as the Peoples Par ty candidate won over the Liberal Par ty candidate by a count of 14,552 votes to 4,101 in the Ter r itor y with the Utah County vote 2,562 for the Peoples Par ty and 235 for the Liberal Party 58

53 Ibid., October 30 and 31, 1882; Deseret Evening News, October 31, 1882; Jour nal Histor y, November 1, 1882.

54 Jour nal Histor y, November 4, 1882.

55 James Kirkham Jour nal, November 2, 1882.

56 Jour nal Histor y, November 8, 1882, and James Kirkham Jour nal, November 6, 1882.

57 James Kirkham Jour nal, November 6, 1882. See also Jour nal Histor y, November 8, 1882.

58 James Kirkham Jour nal, November 10, 1882.

The Garfield Beach Resort, with an unidentified band posed on the steps, looking east.

Two year s later, Utah’s two unusual political par ties aligned by relig ious per suasion had changed to the two national political par ties. On July 14, 1888, the Lehi Brass Band went to Provo to a Democratic ratification meeting. The pur pose of the meeting was to ratify the nominations of Grover C l eveland and Allen G Thur man as Democratic candidates for President and Vice President of the United S tates. The Lehi Brass Band ar r ived at 6:15 p.m. via th e Utah C entra l Rai lroad w here th ey were met by th e Provo S i l ve r B an d a n d th e D e mo c ra ti c C en tr al C o mmi tt ee. A p roc es s i on wa s for med which marc hed along Main Street (present-day Univer sity Avenue) to the bank cor ner where the combined bands played “Hail, Columbia.” At d u s k , h u g e b o n fi re s we r e bu i l t wh i c h il l u mi n a te d M a in S t re e t an d t h e parading bands brought citizens from their homes. Later in the evening, the Lehi band joined with se veral other bands at the Provo T h e a t re to play a s e l e c t i o n o f p a t r i o t i c t u n e s B e t wee n s p e a k e r s t h e c o m b i n e d b a n d s perfor med “Hail, Columbia” in what a local newspaper descr ibed as “in a s p i r i t e d m a n n e r. ” T h e m e e t i n g r a t i f i e d C l e v e l a n d a n d T h u r m a n a s candidates; however, they were defeated in the general election. 59

A number of resor ts on the shores of the Great Salt Lake provided excellent recreational oppor tunities for all ages as well as venues where the Lehi B ra ss B an d a n d o th e r s p l aye d o ft en d ur i n g th e s u mm er m o n th s i n th e 1880s. Lake Point, Black Rock, and Garfield Beach, on the south shore of the lake were all easily ac cessible by the Utah and Nevada Railroad. Lake Park, located on the lake’s easter n shore was ser ved by the Denver and Rio Grande Wester n R ail road.60 Frequently, railroads offered d iscoun t rates to i n d ivi d u a ls a n d g ro u ps t o t h e s e re s o r t s . A n d o f te n , b a n ds a c c o mp a n i e d excur sions to the lake re s o rt s . Edward Tullidge noted, “In the bathing season, our city is ever and anon awakened to an excur sion enthusiasm by the joyous bands marching throug h the city to the train, calling the excursionists to hur r y to the pleasures of the day at Black Rock, Garfield and Lake Point.” 61

Among the bands that provided music for some of these excur sions was the Lehi Brass Band. Besides exper iencing good fellowship and fun, band member s were often g iven a free train r ide and free meals, and on occasion t h e b a n d wa s a l l owe d t o s p l i t t h e p ro fi ts o f t h e d ay w i t h t h e r a i l ro a d company. 62 One such excur sion occur red in July 1884, when about fivehundred people fro m Utah C ounty, accompanied by the Lehi, Amer ican Fork, and Grantsville Brass Bands, traveled by train to Black Rock. At the resor t and on board an excur sion boat, the bands took tur ns playing for the passenger s. For some band member s, these excur sions were not as whole-

59 Utah Enquirer, July 17, 1888. See also William Francis Butt Collection, LDS Church Archives, July 14, 1888.

60 For a discussion of the var ious resor ts on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, see Dale L. Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Mer r ill, 1947), 353-66.

61 Edward W Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City: Star Pr inting Company, 1886), 724.

62 James M. Kirkham, undated letter to editor, Lehi Free Press

s o me as th ey b el i eve d th ey s h o u l d h a v e b e e n 6 3 B a n d m e m b e r G e o r g e K i r k h a m was troubled by what he saw at one of the bathing beaches: “. so me o f us [ went] out on the pier to wach the people go in bathing. It was r e a r e s p o r t t o w a c h t h e s e b o t h m e n a n d wo m e n . I t look ver y vulgar to me and something I did not approve of . ” 64 A month later the Lehi Brass Band was j oined by the Nephi Brass Band to provide mus ic fo r a bo ut 3 5 0 pe op l e from Jua b a nd Utah counties who traveled by train to Garfield Beach. George Kirkham stated that one of the best features of the day was the dinner they had on board the General Garfield.65 The General Garfield was or ig inally chr istened the City of Cor inne and used to car r y ore and freight between Lake Point an d Co r r ine Wh en it b ecame u npro f i t a bl e, it was s old , rechr is tened th e General Garfield, and used for pleasure excursions. In 1881, it was anchored p e r ma n en tl y at G a rfi e ld Be ac h . 66 Th e l a st e x c u r s i o n to G re at S al t La ke resor ts by the Lehi band was made in 1889. 67

Th e Leh i b and often pl aye d at var i ou s c hu rc h you th o uti ng s In Ju l y 1886, th e ban d pl ayed a t a fo ur-day outi ng at th e S outh Fo rk of P rovo Canyon attended by nearly four hundred member s of the Young Men’s and Yo un g Lad ie s’ Mu tua l Imp roveme nt A s s o c i a t i o n , in c lu di ng mo re t ha n a hundred from Lehi. The Lehi attendees left home about 9 a.m. on July 13 and drove to a toll gate at the entrance to Provo Canyon where they were t o m e e t s o m e o f t h e c o m m i t t e e m e m b e r s f o r d i n n e r. H owe ve r, t h e committee member s did not show up and the band member s ate all of the food brought by one of the Lehi young women for the four-day outing. Consequently, band member s took care to make sure the young lady had enough to eat while they were in the canyon. Attendees camped in a large g rove of trees alongside a beautiful stream of clean, cold water Activities included meetings, games, foot races, gather ing ber r ies, fishing, and climbing mountains. They also laughed, sang, ate, drank, and endured some rain. On the second day, LDS Apostle Heber J. Grant and Junius Wells, founder

63 George Kirkham Jour nal, July 27, 1884; James Kirkham Jour nal, July 12, 1884; Salt Lake Daily Herald, July 13, 1884; Salt Lake Tr ibune , July 13, 1884; James M. Kirkham, undated letter to editor, Lehi Free Press

64 George Kirkham Jour nal, July 27, 1884.

65 George Kirkham Jour nal, August 14, 1884.

66 Morgan, The Great Salt Lake, 354-55; John D C Gadd, “Recreational Development of the Great Salt Lake,” (M.A. thesis, Univer sity of Utah, 1967), 14, 15-18, 20.

67 James Kirkham Jour nal, July 29, 1889.

An excursion train in front of the Black Rock Resort.

of the Young Men’s MIA, spoke. That night the Lehi Band held a moonli g ht co nc er t an d the fo llowi ng evening, th e ban d prov ide d mus ic for a dance.68 The Ter ritor ial Inquirer remarked of the band’s perfor mances, “The Lehi band caused the mountains to re-echo their sweet strains of music ”69 Nationally, band contests were ver y popular dur ing the 1870s and 1880s, a n d th e c o n t e s ts i n U t ah we re n o e x c e p ti o n . C o n t e s ts g ave b a n d s t h e incentive to improve The fir st band contest held in Utah County was in Provo in September 1888. Par ticipating in the band jubilee were the Provo S i l ve r B an d , S p a n i s h Fo rk B ra s s Ba n d , S a le m Br as s B an d , Pay s o n Br a s s Band, Huish [Spanish Fork] Brass Band, Lehi Brass Band, and Kirkham’s [Lehi] Silver Band. 70 As many as 135 musicians played, marched and serenaded dur ing the contest. The Utah Enquirer wrote of the band contest:

An event occur red in Provo on Fr iday last, the equal of which has never been known in Utah, or, we presume in any of he r sister Ter r itor ies. We refer to the grand band jubilee that occur red that day For weeks and weeks past our county musicians have been anxiously awaiting the ar r ival of September 28th, knowing that on that day they would meet with their band-fellows from other por tions of the county, and participate with them in having a time of g reat rejoicing and recreation.71

At 7 a.m., the Provo Silver Band marched to the depot to welcome the bands from the south. The combined bands marched back along presentday University Avenue to the bank cor ner playing alter nately, then for med a circle and played two marches in concer t. They then paraded to the Provo Theatre (in the same block) and “here a prog ramme was adopted for the reception of the bands fro m the nor th.” The bands then marc hed to the depot, for med a semicircle and played while the bands from the nor th were unloading. Next, all the ban ds, a total of 1 35 musicians, m a rched to the ban k c or ner wh ere they rendered two sele ctio ns i n c onc er t. Then, with music by the Lehi Brass Band, the musicians continued on to the Provo Theater where a business meeting was conducted and the constitution of the Utah C ou nty Band As so ci ation was read, amended, and ad opted . At 2 p.m. the band contest began with Major E. W Kent from Salt Lake City ser ving as the judge. The Lehi Brass Band played the “Fashion Quickstep” by T h e o d o re M o el li n g as it s s el e c tio n for th e c o mpe ti ti on T he Pay s o n Band won first pr ize honor s with the Spanish Fork Band taking second. The band contest concluded with all of the bands par ticipating in a parade followed by a dance at the Provo Theatre “It was a g rand sight,” wrote the U t a h E n q u i r e r. T h e eve n i n g ’s g r a n d b a l l wa s a h u g e s u c c e s s w i t h 1 2 5 couples “tr ipping the light f antastic ” The Utah Enquirer summed up the day as fo l low s , “ Tak i ng eve r y th i ng i n to c on s id e rat io n th e j u b il e e o f c ou n ty bands for 1888 was a g rand success, and too much praise cannot be lavished

68 Terr itor ial Inquirer, July 16, 1886; George Kirkham Jour nal, July 13-16, 1886; James Kirkham Jour nal, July 13-16, 1886.

69

Terr itor ial Inquirer, July 16, 1886.

70 Utah Enquirer, October 2, 1888; James Kirkham Jour nal, September 28, 1888.

71 Utah Enquirer, October 2, 1888.

u p o n t h o s e w h o c o n c e i v e d t h e i d e a o f i n a u g e r a t i n g s u c h a n a f f a i r , a n d w h o s o successfully car r ied it out. They have done something that will be recorded i n h is tor y. ” 72 Afte r th e c on tes t, wh il e th e b an ds rema in ed se ate d o n th e stage, Lehi’s band leader, Professor Fox, was elected president of the Utah County Band Association.

The band contest was planned to be an annual event in Utah C ounty H oweve r, r a t h e r t h a n a c o n te s t i n 1 8 8 9 , s e ve n - h u n d r e d U t a h C o u n t y musicians and residents traveled by train to Garfield Beach for a combined outing and band concer t on August 24, 1889. The bands stopped in Salt Lake City where they paraded on the city streets. The Salt Lake Tr ibune noted, “The united bands number ing 105 pieces paraded through the streets of this city making a deci ded i mpression.” 73 Th e U tah Enqui re r wro te in superlatives, “The band parade in Salt Lake City drew forth from ever ybody unbounded praise It was the g reatest event of the kind ever known.” 74 In the after noon a concer t was g iven at Garfield Beach by the combined bands. This is the last known event in which the Lehi Brass Band participated.

A year later in 1890, the Lehi Brass Band met its demise. The last apparent references to the band were by band member William Francis Butt in July 1890, “Down to the band practice Quite a few not there” and on July 24, 1890, “[Brass band] didn’t play The mar tiuel [mar tial] band, the silver, and the str ing band played.” 75

72 Ibid.

73 Salt Lake Tr ibune, August 25, 1889. See also James Kirkham Jour nal, August 24, 1889.

74 Utah Enquirer, August 27, 1889.

75 William Francis Butt Paper s, BYU Librar y

LEHI BRASS BAND

Garfield Resort, looking west.

Over the year s the band had increased in size from twelve member s to twenty In the last kn own tally of band membe rs , eleven of th e o r ig inal member s were still playing in the band. The heyday for the band was the mid-1880s.

Why did the Lehi Brass Band end after about nineteen year s of ex istence? The answer may have been that there was a new competing band in town. In Januar y 1887, a Young Men’s MIA Silver Band was organized. 76 By then most member s of the Lehi Brass Band were in their for ties, with one player fifty year s old. It was now time to pass the baton to a younger, more energetic generation.

In addition, the Lehi Brass Band lost one of its better musicians. Shor tly after the Silver Band was for med it presented a petition to the Lehi Brass Ban d as ki ng that Jo se ph K irkh am be rele ase d so that h e c oul d l ead th e Silver Band. Only three people voted in f avor of the petition. In spite of the negative vote, Joseph Kirkham did leave the Brass Band a week later and became the Silver Band’s new leader There were inevitably some hard feelings over the matter, but they apparently did not last because Professor Fox, leader of the Lehi Brass Band, ag reed to conduct the practices for the Lehi Silver Band, thereby continuing his musical influence 77

The Lehi Silver Band, inspired and nur tured by the Lehi Brass Band, has continued off and on until the present day Unlike the Lehi Brass Band, the Lehi Silver Band obtained a bandwagon, which is still in existence today, and ser ves as a rallying point for the band.78

Largely forgotten today, the Lehi Brass Band was an impor tant par t of Lehi’s musical scene for nineteen year s, providing musical enter tainment for all of nor ther n Utah County and elsewhere A f actor for the success of the Lehi Brass Band—or any brass band—was its adaptability. It played music indoor s and ou td oor s; it played a w ide var iety of music: waltzes, polkas, hymns, patr iotic number s, and fo lk songs The band marc hed in parad es, and perfor med before seated audiences.

The Lehi Brass Band stimulated pr ide among the citizens of Lehi. It was on hand to promote most events in Lehi, and it raised money for var ious good causes. Impor tant relationships were forged between band member s and prominent citizens; the men who worked together in the band ultimately worked together to br ing a sugar f actor y to Lehi in 1890, an economic boon to that community

Perhaps most impor tantly, the Lehi Brass Band brought much enter tainme n t an d ma ny h a ppy me mo r i e s t o t he c i ti z en s o f Le hi Fo r m er ba n d

76 Ja m es Ki r kh a m Jo u r n a l , Ja n u a r y 4 , 1 8 8 7 ; G e o r ge Ki r kh am Jo u r n a l , Ja nu a r y 1 9 , 1 8 8 7 ; Y M M I A Minutes, Lehi Ward, LR 4817 (ser ies 16), LDS Church Archives; William Francis Butt Collection, LDS Church Archives.

77 George Kirkham Jour nal, Febr uar y 12, 1887 (the Febr uar y 12 entr y says “1888,” but it is actually 1887), January 2, 1888; James Kirkham Jour nal, Febr uar y 19, 1887; Kirkham, Centennial History of Lehi, 488.

78 Kirkham, Centennial Histor y of Lehi, 488.

m e m b e r, G e o rg e K i r k h a m, fo n d l y re c a l l e d one July 4, “I was wakened by the fireing of guns and so for th, and the old f amiliar sounds of the brass bands sur nading of the town, something I used to look forward to as one of the g randest thing to live for when I was a boy ”79 Wr iting thir ty-six year s after the demise o f the Lehi Brass Band, Lehi c itiz en Andrew Fjeld lauded, “[The brass band] was the delight of Lehi citizens, especially of the younger set, who think to this day, that no band that they have ever heard quite equalled the old Lehi brass band.”80

79 George Kirkham Jour nal, July 4, 1892.

80 Fjeld, “How Lehi Celebrated Four th.”

The Lehi Silver Band in 1905.

PassingThrough:ArthurRothstein’s

PhotographicAccountofUtah, March1940

By JAMES R. SWENSEN

“. . . As so often before, another traveler was about to discover Amer ica.” Wr ight Mor r is1

In Marc h 1940, Ar th ur Ro ths tein, a photog rapher in the employ of the Far m Secur ity Administration (FSA), was slowly working his way westward across the United States from Washington D.C. His assignment was to document the conditions of Califor nia’s mig rator y labor camps simil ar to those the pu blic was read ing ab out in John S teinbec k’s The Grapes of Wrath, published a year earlier 2 This was to be one of his last a s s i g n m e n t s f o r t h e N e w D e a l a g e n c y I n Apr il he would leave the Histor ical S ection of the FSA to join the nascent staff of Look m a g a z i n e, t h e n o n l y t wo ye a r s o l d . 3 A s h e

LEFT: State line Wyoming–Utah (1940). RIGHT: State line UtahNevada (1940).

James R. Swensen is a graduate student at the Univer sity of Ar izona where he is working on a doctorate in the histor y of photography and ar t histor y

1 Wr i gh t M o r r is, “ P h o t ography in M y Li fe,” fro m P h o t o g ra p hy a nd Words (Car mel, Califor nia: The Fr iends of Photog raphy, 1982); repr inted in Wr ight Mor r is, Time Pieces: Photographs, Writing, and Memory (New York: Aper ture Foundation, 1999), 114.

2 For more infor mation on Rothstein’s activities in Califor nia in 1940 see Carl Fleischauer, and other s, eds., Documenting Amer ica 1935-1943 (Berkeley: Univer sity of Califor nia Press, 1988), 188-90.

3 For more infor mation regarding Arthur Rothstein’s career see F Jack Hurley, A Por trait of a Decade: Roy Str yker and the Development of Documentar y Photography in the Thir ties (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univer sity Press, 1972). There has yet to be an adequate study detailing his distinguished career and his contr ibutions to photog raphy

ALL PHOTOS BY ARTHUR TOTHSTEIN

worked his way through Nebraska, Colorado, and into Wyoming on Route 2 8 7 , h e p ho to do c u men te d eve r y th in g th at wou l d b e o f i nte re st to h i s agency and to anyone seeing this par t of the countr y for the fir st time. His assignment continued into Utah traveling on U.S 30.

R o t h s t e i n ’s p o r t f o l i o o f U t a h i s c o m p r i s e d o f ro u g h l y t we n t y - f ive photog raphs and is not, by any means, a comprehensive view of the state. No r is i t a s ol itar y ex amp le of do cu menti ng one ’ s j ou r n ey ac ro ss Utah In the rather recent past, for the last nearly two centur ies, numerous traveler s have documented their visits to Utah, and the unknown West with images and words. Ar thur Rothstein’s photog raphs add to this body of infor mation.

In examining Rothstein’s photog raphs it is possible to conclude that his jour ney across nor ther n Utah was br ief He left his car on only six or seven occasions to photo document scenes that appealed to him. 4 Although br ief , he was deliberate; his work in Utah testifies of a photog rapher who was ac c u s to me d to ph o tog r ap hi n g th e vi s u al d e tai l s o f h is li fe on th e ro a d . Beg inning with a strateg ic photog raph taken at the Wyoming-Utah border and ending at Wendover on the Utah-Nevada state line, one can easily trace th e p h o tog r a p h e r ’s ro u te a c ro s s th e s ta te. T h e two p h ot og ra p h s ac t a s bookends, of sor ts, to what might be called Rothstein’s visual jour nal or more appropr iately, a photog raphic day book of his excur sion through the nor ther n par t of the state Photog raphy was the perfect medium in which to create such a visual account of one’s jour ney. Other noted Amer icans, including Edward Weston and wr iter Wr ight Mor r is, used their cameras as well in their discover y of Amer ica. 5

Ar thur Rothstein was bor n and raised in New York City. While attending Columbia University he became a student, colleague and later fr iend of R oy S tr y ke r, a n ec o n omi c s p rofe ss o r from C o lo ra do wh o, i n 1 9 3 5 , l e f t C o l u m b i a t o h e a d t h e H i s t o r i c a l S e c t i o n o f t h e R e s e t t l e m e n t A d m i n i s t r a t i o n — t wo ye a r s l a te r i t b e c a m e p a r t o f t h e D e p a r t m e n t o f Ag r iculture’s Far m Secur ity Administration. Pr ior to joining the Histor ical Section in 1935 at the age of twenty—the fir st employee Str yker hired— Roths tein had neve r trave led outsid e nor theaster n United S tates . With a camera, unlimited film, car, and a five dollar per diem Rothstein would trave l eventual ly throug h ever y s tate i n th e Union . Year s later R othstei n remembered, “To me, being a New Yorker and finding myself out west in the Great Plains—anywhere west of the Hudson River—was a revelation. It was like getting a PhD. I spent five year s traveling; I went to ever y one of

4 It seems clear from the shadows in the photog raphs that Rothstein might have made the tr ip through Utah in no more than two days.

5 See Char is Wilson Weston and Edward Weston, Califor nia and the West (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941); Wr ight Mor r is, The Inhabitants (New York: Charles Scr ibner’s Sons, 1946). The travels of bo t h Wes t o n fro m 193 7 t o 1 9 3 9 a n d M o r r i s i n t h e e ar ly 1 9 4 0s we re f ac i li t at ed by g ra n t s fro m t h e Guggenheim Foundation. In the late 1930s the freedom to photog raph whatever one wanted was limited by one’s financial resources. Indeed it was the lucky few who enjoyed, thanks to grants or gover nmental suppor t (i.e FSA), the relative freedom to produce the images they desired to make

the 3,000 counties in the United States.”6 Although he f ailed to visit the numb er o f c ou nti es he cl ai med , h e di d, in f a c t , s pe nd more tha n n in e mo nth s ou t of th e ye ar o n th e roa d c r i s s c ro ss in g an d d oc u men ti ng th e U n i t e d S t a t e s f ro m t h e B a d l a n d s o f S o u t h D a k o t a t o G e e s B e n d i n Alabama, and numerous sites in between.

The or ig inal pur pose of the FSA’s Histor ical Section was to photog raph Amer ica’s r ural population dur ing the Great Depression. Str yker sought to c a p t u r e i m a g e s t h a t wo u l d m o l l i f y o p p o s i t i o n t o t h e F a r m S e c u r i t y Administration’s ex ten sive and c os tl y rel ief prog rams. In ord er to ga r ner suppor t for this prog ram, Str yker’s team of photog rapher s, which included Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee and other s, collected images of the pover ty and destitution that plagued r ural Amer ica. Over time, however, the objectives of the Histor ical Section changed. Usur ping the or ig inal intention of photog raphing unblinking poverty, by 1938 the agency took on an in ter na l mand ate to p hotog rap h wh at wa s r i gh t with th e na ti on . Accordingly, Str yker and the other s introduced “Amer icans to Amer ica.”7 B y 1 9 4 3 , e i g h t ye a r s a ft e r i ts c re a t i o n , S t r y ke r ’s Hi s t or i c a l S e c t io n h a d amassed more than 2 70,0 00 imag es of Amer ic a—most of whi ch showed Amer ica as a bastion of hope and resilience Str yker instr ucted his photog rapher s to photog raph anything that “they f e l t s h o u l d b e re p o r t e d a n d d o c u m e n t e d ” 8 To p re p a r e t h e m f o r t h e i r assignments, he assigned vast amounts of reading, gathered local infor mation, and he prepared shooting scr ipts, which outlined what they should be t ar g e t i n g w i th t h e i r c a m er a s 9 T h rou g h t h i s c a re f u l p re p a r a t i o n , S t r y ke r h op ed th at h is p ho tog r a p h e r s wo u ld have a g re ate r ap p rec i ati o n o f th e p e o p l e, t h e i r c u s t o m s , a n d t h e d ive r s e l a n d o f A m e r i c a t h ey we re t o capture on film.

Str yker reproved those on his staff who f ailed to appreciate the countr y’s diverse landscape Mar ian Post-Wolcott, for example, was scolded for her derogator y remarks about the landscape of easter n Wyoming. “Now I just can’t have you talking about the West like you do,” he chided, “You’re an FSA photog rapher and by god you gotta like ever y State.”10

The real genius of Str yker, however, was that he left the core choices of what to document up to his photog rapher s. It would be the field photog rap h e r s w h o wo u l d b e re s p o n s i ble fo r fo r wa rdi n g th e i r a g e n c y ’ s a g e n d a . According to Rothstein, “[Str yker] wasn’t just satisfied with the [activities

6 B ill Ga nzel, “Ar t h u r Rot hst ei n: An In t er v i ew , ” Exposure: Th e Jour na l of t h e Socie ty fo r Ph ot og raphic Education 16 (Fall 1978): 2.

7 R oy E S t r y ker an d N an c y Wo o d , I n t h is Pr oud La n d: A m e r ic a 1 9 35 -1 94 3 : As se e n in th e F. S. A .

Photographs (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society LTD, 1973), 9.

8 Thomas H. Gar ver, Just before the war; urban Amer ica from 1935 to 1941 as seen by photographers of the Far m Secur ity Administration (Los Angeles: Rapid Lithog raph Co., 1968), n.p

9 For examples of some of Str yker’s shooting scr ipts see Ibid, n.p

10 Letter, Roy Str y ker to Mar ian Post-Wolcott, S eptember 19, 1941, Mar ian Post-Wo lc ott Archive, Center of Creative Photog raphy, Univer sity of Ar izona, Tucson, Ar izona.

o f th e ] FS A , bu t wa n t e d t o p h o t og r a p h eve r y t h i n g i n th e c o u n t r y, a l l details, anything significant, and some things that were of no significance ” 11 Elsewhere Rothstein ex plained: “A pr inc iple was establis hed in the early days that there was no such thing as wasted film or wasted time I like to t h i n k th a t e a c h p i c t u re we m a d e wa s b e i n g s h o t w i t h a g re a t d e a l o f thought and not just to expose film.” 12 This gave the FSA photog rapher s a l e g e n d a r y am ou nt o f free do m—a c a r te bl a n c h e — to p h otog ra ph any t h i n g they des ired w hethe r i t p er tain ed to thei r as sig nme nt or not. T h e re f o re, they would not only photog raph their prescr ibed assignments but would also br ing out their camera anytime they had an oppor tunity.

Ro ths tei n rel ish ed th is o pp or tu ni ty o f pho tog raph in g “anything, a nywhere in the Uni ted S tates—Any thing that we came ac ross that seemed interesting and vital.” 13 In keeping with his ideas of documentar y photog raphy, he believed that “ever y phase of our time, and with its people and their environment had vital significance.”14 This was a natural and oft repeated reaction for many seeing the immensity and diversity of the United States, and par ti cul arl y the West, for th e fi rs t time Rothstein’s res pons e was n o different. In many ways Rothstein’s photog raphic jour nal produced dur ing h i s h a s t y e x c u r s i o n t h ro u g h U t a h r e f l e c t s t h e v i ew s a n d o p i n i o n s o f numerous other s who have been exposed to the state for the fir st time.

Despite a long and suc cessful career in photog raphy, Ar th ur Rothstein has f ailed to re c e ive th e s ame level of re c ognition as many of h is fell ow member s of the FSA’s Histor ical Section. Some, such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, have achieved the lofty recognition as major ar tists. Yet it is not the pur view of this investigation to state whether this is just or not. What is evident, however, in many of these images is that Rothstein was tr ying to make interesting and aesthetically pleasing photog raphs. It must be remembered th at Ro ths tei n’s imag es , as with the l io n-s hare of oth er images in the vast FSA archives, were never designed to stand independently as works of ar t. (It is not the intention of this investigation to drag these images out of the histor ical archive into the vaunted halls of the ar t museum.) 15 Accordingly, these works were created to be infor mative documents th at we re t o be in c lu de d w ith oth er t y pes o f i n for m a t i o n . A s s uc h , th e photog raphs from Rothstein’s entire por tfolio of Utah and accompanying text, pres ented below in what I s ug ges t is a c hronolog ical o rder, will, I

11 Ar t h u r R o thst ei n, A r t hur Ro th st ein: Wo rds a nd Pict ure s ( N ew York: A m e r ic an Ph o t og rap hic B o o k Publishing Co., Inc., 1979), 8.

12 Gar ver, Just before the war, n.p

13 Ibid.

14 Rothstein, Words and Pictures, 6.

15 For more infor mation on the slipper y and potentially detr imental transition of moving photog raphs from the archive to museum (i.e making artists out of photographer s / operator s) and its consequences, see Rosalind Krauss, “Photography’s Discur sive Spaces,” and Douglas Cr imp, “The Museum’s Old / The Librar y’s New Subject ” i n T he Co nt est of M ea ning : C rit ica l Histo rie s o f Pho to graphy, ed. R i c h a rd Bolto n (Cambr idge, Mass: MIT Press, 1992).

h o p e, sh ed l ig h t on dee pe r m eaning s latent with in these r ich vis ual documents from 1940. 16

O n e o f S t r y ke r ’s p r i m a r y a i m s f o r h i s H i s t o r i c a l S e c t i o n wa s t o c reate “a p ic tor ial enc y c lo pe dia o f Amer ic an ag r iculture ” 18 To d ay th e sum total of photog raphs of similar objects from all across the nation— p r e s c r i b e d i n s h o o t i n g s c r i p t s by S t r y k e r — by h i s d i ve r s e c a d r e o f photog rapher s suppor ts an encyclop e d i c re a d i n g . F rom Ve r m o n t to Ohio, Wyoming to Oregon, in one such example, hay and hay stacking was a frequent subject of FSA photog rapher s. Hay der r icks represented m a n y d i f f e re n t t h i n g s t o d i f f e re n t i n d i v i d u a l s . F o r t h e f a r m e r t h e y

TOP LEFT: Hay Stacker — Summit County, Utah. (1940) TOP RIGHT: Hay Stacker — Summit County. (1940) BOTTOM: Untitled (hay stacker), March 1940.17

16 Overall the basic chronology is most likely cor rect. It is possible and even probable, however, that a few of the par ticular images might be slightly out of order

17 In the vast FSA files located in the Librar y of Cong ress (and on its website) this work is one of the many photog raphs lacking both a title and an attr ibution. In examining the visual infor mation – snow, route, etc – and its placement among the other works from this sequence, it seems ver y unlikely that this image, and other images to follow, could have come from anyone other than Rothstein in the spr ing of 1940.

18 Roy Str yker, “The FSA Collection of Photog raphs,” in Photography in Pr int: Writings from 1816 to the Present, ed.Vicki Goldberg (Albuquerque: Univer sity of New Mexico Press, 1981), 351.

ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN

were the practical way of moving hay from one place to another. It is clear, however, that, like oth er road si de e mblems, th eir me ani ng we nt beyond p r a c t i c a l i t y. Der r i ck s are abo ut a s pe ci fic time and pla ce in Amer ica, i ts histor y, and the frontier 19 For today’s scholar of social histor y they may represent marker s of reg ional differences and Yankee ingenuity Other scholar s see them as sy mbols of Utah’s dis tinc tive folk c ulture an d c raft. 20 For an ur ban p ho tog rapher, like R oth ste in , t h ey were mo re th an a re lic of th e dwindling past and a marker of the West, but an interesting composition. He photog raphed the der r ick three times from different angles where one would have sufficed. He clearly enjoyed the way the dark, linear for ms of the der r ick contrasted with the distant, snow-covered Wasatch Mountains and the chang ing sky

The type of der r ick photog raphed by Rothstein was commonly known a s a “ M o r m o n S t a c ke r ” a n d wa s , a s n o t e d by R i c h a rd F r a n c av i g l i a , a distinctive sign of a Mor mon community. 21 Later, in 1940, Russell Lee, a

19 S e e Ka ra l A n n M a r li n g , T h e C o l o s s u s o f Ro a d s : M y t h a nd S ym b o l a l o n g t h e A m e r i c a n H ig h w a y, (Minneapolis: Univer sity of Minnesota Press, 1984), xii.

20 Richard Paulsen has noted that the der r ick was a “folk ar tif act” that stood as a symbol of pioneer values for later generations. See Richard Paulsen, “Folk Mater ial Culture of the Sanpete-Sevier Area: Today’s reflection of a reg ion’s past,” Utah Histor ical Quar terly 47 (Spr ing 1979): 144. For an in-depth investigation o n der r i c k s , t h eir evo l u t i o n , u ses a n d mec h an i cs , an d st yles see A u st in Fi fe an d Ja mes M F i f e, “ H ay Der r icks of the Great Basin and Upper Snake River Area,” Wester n Folklore 7 (July 1948): 225-39.

21 See Richard Francaviglia’s The Mor mon Landscape: Existence, Creation, and Perceptions of Unique Image in the Amer ican West (New York: AMS Press, 1978). Dur ing Dorothea Lange’s visit for the FSA in 1936, she also targeted the “Mor mon” elements of r ural Utah. See the author’s, “Dorothea Lange’s Por trait of Utah’s Great Depression,” Utah Historical Quar terly 70 (Winter 2002): 60. This der r ick is most likely an example of what Fife an d Fife refer to as a Type 6a der r ick co mmon to t he S alt Lake Valley but also fou nd from Parowan to Idaho Falls. Dur ing their investigation they noted that twenty-six out of thir ty-six der r icks in the Salt Lake Valley were of this type See Fife and Fife, “Hay Der r icks of the Great Basin,” 232-33.

LEFT AND RIGHT: Snow Fence, Summit County, Utah. March 1940.

c o l l e a g u e o f R o t h s t e i n ’ s i n t h e F S A , p h o t o g r a p h e d s i m i l a r “ M o r m o n S t a c ke r s ” i n u s e i n B ox E l d e r C o u n t y 2 2 I n t e r e s t i n g l y, h e wo u l d a l s o p h o t ogra ph a s imi lar “Mor mon s tac ker” o n th e f ar m o f a rehabilitation bor rower in Oregon. When Austin and James Fife made a one thousand mile jour ney across the West in the 1940s they obser ved more than fifteen h u n d r e d h o m e m a d e d e r r i c k s w i t h 4 1 7 e x a m p l e s f o u n d b e t w e e n Bunker ville and Salt Lake City 23 Today they are still visible but dwindling rapidly in number s.

Rothstein might have been attracted to this seemingly banal scene for many reasons. He might have been interested in this fence as an example of a “Mor mon Fence”—a cr ude, unpainted fence made of disparate components.24 More likely, however, by investing two negatives to such a subject h e was o bv io u s l y d raw n to i t by th e p i c t ure s qu e d ia g o n a l o f a s im p le, snow-bur ied fence r unning across the frame of the photog raph.

LEFT: Farm. Summit County, Utah, March 1940. RIGHT: Wasatch Mountains. Summit County, Utah, March 1940.

D u r i n g h i s w o r k w i t h t h e F S A , R ot hs t ei n d o c um en te d s eve ra l U. S f a r m s i n g re a t d e t a i l . T h i s f a r m , h owe ve r, w a s q u i c k l y p h o t o g r a p h e d f ro m t h e ro a d . A d e e p e r i nve s t i g a t i o n mu s t n o t h ave b e e n necessar y. The f ar m and its environs, which he also photog raphed, would, however, provid e a str iki ng co ntras t to Ro ths tein ’ s l ater si de tr ip to th e Bingham Canyon Mine.

22 See Wr iter’s Prog ram, Utah, a Guide to the State, (New York: Hasting House, 1941), 163.

23 Fife and Fife, “Hay Der r icks of the Great Basin,” 225, 229.

24 Francaviglia, The Mor mon Landscape, 67-68.

As he entered the Salt Lake Valley on U.S. 40, Rothstein tur ned a blind eye on the city that one 1934 tour ist book called “the jeweled citadel one of the most beautiful cities on ear th.”25 Instead, he photog raphed the then spar s ely pop ula te d footh ills and s now -cap ped M oun t O ly mpus Yet Rothstein knew well that the pr imar y agenda of the FSA was to emphasize r ural Amer ica.26 According to Str yker, “Our job was to educate the citydweller to the needs of the r ural population.”27

LEFT: The eastern side of Salt Lake Valley looking south to Mount Olympus. RIGHT: Copper Pit, Bingham, Utah. (1940)

By 1940 Bingham Canyon was producing one-twelfth of th e world’s co pper.28 One o f th e e arl i es t e x amp l es of o p en st r i p m in in g , B i n g h a m h a d re m ove d 6 5 0 a c re s o f e a r t h reaching a depth of fifteen hundred feet into the g round by that same year It was heralded as “One of the most amazing sights of its kind in the world.” 29 This sense of awe is conveyed in Rothstein’s images of the enor mity of the man-made canyon.30 In his images of the mine, it is possible to see what was descr ibed in the WPA’s Guide to the State: “The mountain, or what is left of it, r ises like a huge stadium, its levels like bleacher seats for g iants. Ant-like electr ic

25 Ut a h a nd t he I nt er m ount a in Em pire: “ N a t u r e ’s Gre at e st S cenic C ent e r” (S alt Lake Ci t y: Ch am ber o f Commerce, 1934), 3.

26 Str yker, In this Proud Land, 7. In the entire FSA catalog there is only one photograph of Salt Lake City In 1940 Russell Lee photog raphed the assaying offices of C Cowan and B Bandwell and the Union A s s ay o n c e lo c at ed w i t h i n t h e d ow n t ow n a re a . (S e e Li br a r y o f C o n g re s s P h o t o g r a ph L C- U S F3 3012952-M2.)

27 Roger T Hammarlund, “Por trait of an Era,” US Camera 25 (November 1962): 71.

28 Utah, Guide to the State, 317.

29 Utah and the Inter mountain Empire, 27.

30 S ee James G uimo nd, Amer ica n P hot ogra phs and Amer ican Drea m (Chapel H ill: U n iver sit y o f No r th Carolina Press, 1991). According to Guimond, Rothstein created the “gr immest industr ial landscapes” duri ng h is t r ip t h rough the West i n t h e spr i ng o f 194 0 In add it ion to B ingh am C anyon, h e a lso ph otog raphed the mines of Butte and Meaderville, Montana, and another str ip mine in Ruth, Nevada.

ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN

shovels sur vey back and for th on tracks along these levels and snake-like ore trains crawl between the shovels and waiting railroad car s.”31 Again g iving a glimpse of the incredible size of the mine is only par t of Rothstein’s interests. The carefully ter raced walls of the pit, the flow of melting snow, and the small snake-like trains create a wonderful play of line and contour, contrast, and shape.

T h e m in e p rop e r was o n l y p ar t o f w h a t R o t h s t e i n wo u l d p h o t o g r a p h t h a t e a r l y spr ing day. In shar p contrast to the industr ial order and har mony of the mine was the disheveled nature of the miner s’ h o m e s . I n 1 9 3 7 , Wa l l a c e S t e g n e r d e s c r i b e d t h e l i v i n g c o n d i t i o n s i n Bingham Canyon: “Miner s prefer to live in the crowded gulch of Bingham proper [that is] barely wide enough at the bottom for a wretched, steep, impossible road. Houses went up steeply, overhang ing the canyon bottom, piling on top of one another up the sides, and in them the miner s lived as they pleased or as they could.” 32 Simply titled Miners’ Homes. Bingham Utah, Rothstein’s image provides a visual counter par t to Stegner’s words. In his photog raph the dingy homes of the miner s crowd the nar row, disheveled c a nyo n . Th e w r i t e r s of th e W PA s aw a s imi la r si tua tio n, “ d we ll in g s r i s e

31 Utah, Guide to the State, 317. See also Utah and the Inter mountain Empire, 27.

32 Wallace Stegner, Mor mon Countr y (New York: Bonanza Books, 1942), 263.

Miners’ Homes, Bingham, Utah. (1940)

abr uptly from the street, and second stor y balconies lean precar iously over t h e s i d e wa l k s . Un p a i n t e d bu n ker s h a c k s a re s t rew n c a re l e s s l y ove r t h e countr yside, and here and there is a handkerchief sized plot of g rass. There is little or no class distinction in Bingham.”33

TOP LEFT: Untitled (smelter), March 1940.

TOP RIGHT: Sign on the Road leading to the Salt Lake Desert, Utah. (1940). LEFT: Road leading to the Salt Lake Desert, Utah. (1940)

Ro thstein mad e one last imag e o f t h e m i n e a n d i t s o p e r a t i o n s b e f o r e t u r n i n g w e s t a l o n g U. S 5 0 —l at er to b ec o me U. S. 4 0 . A n u n t i t l e d i m a g e c a re fu l l y re c o r d e d t h e m i n e ’ s s m e l t e r a n d i t s l a r g e s m o ke s ta c k s w h o s e e x h au s t mi ng le d d el ic a tel y w ith th e l ow - l y i n g clouds. All of whi ch reflec ts haz ily across the tailing pond that was, and still is, a transitional piece that marks the nor ther n most point of the Oquir rh Mountains and the souther n tip of the Great Salt Lake

Followi ng this i mage his i ntenti ons retur ned to pus hin g westward. As any traveler on this road knows the lush Salt Lake Valley quickly tur ns to i n h o s p i t a b l e d e s e r t w i t h i n a m a t t e r o f m i n u t e s . I n 1 8 4 4 , t h e i n t re p i d e x p l o r e r Jo h n C h a r l e s F r é m o n t l o o ke d a t t h e s a m e d e s e r t t h a t f a c e d Rothstein with despair “We are evidently on the verge of the deser t which

33 Utah, a Guide to the State, 317.

ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN

had been reported to us, ” he noted, “and the appearance of the countr y was so forbidding, that I was afraid to enter it ”34 By the time that Rothstein began his jour ney a paved road, which stretched, according to Stegner, like a “ black r ibbo n acros s the des er t,” made travel s muc h more ho spitabl e 35 T h e re wa s , h oweve r, a l i t t l e fo re b o d i n g t o b e fo u n d i n two s i g n s t h a t Rothstein photog raphed somewhere along the way. Hand-made signs, billb o a rd s , and h andb ills were c ommon sub je cts fo r th e FSA p hotog rapher, because they added local color and wit to their works. Both of the signs Rothstein photog raphed on this day war ned traveler s that they had better fill up their car s and their thir sts before they began the long, empty stretch ahead. With “Deser t Ahead” this was the point of no retur n.

LEFT: Wasatch Mountains, Summit County, Utah. (1940) RIGHT: Road Through the Salt Lake Desert, Utah. (1940)

Of all the photog raphs that Rothstein took dur ing his br ief visit to Utah, these two best epitomize one of the state’s defining charact e r i s t i c s : t h e v is i bl e c o n tra s ts A l i ke i n th e i r composition but extremely different in their s u b j e c t m a t t e r, t h e p h o t o g r a p h s o f a ro a d leading through Summit County stands in beautiful contrast to a photog raph taken somewhere in the Utah Deser t. Within these two photog raphs R o th s t e i n reve a l s a l a n d o f d i c h o t o my a n d s h a r p c o n t r a s t s S n ow a n d mountains contrast shar ply with sand and open deser t. In the distance of the Summit County road a small f ar m is barely noticeable This scene was obviously one that he saw as impor tant for he made six exposures of the e m p t y ro a d i n r a p i d s u c c e s s i o n I n c o n t r a s t , t h e we s t e r n d e s e r t b a re s nothing but what was considered wasteland. The WPA’s Guide to the State

34 Quoted in Glor ia Gr iffen Cline, Exploring the Great Basin (Nor man: Univer sity of Oklahoma Press, 1963), 210.

35 Stegner, Mormon Countr y, 40.

proclaimed “Utah is many things at once, ” explaining that “Utah is g reencar peted vales lying peacefully under the shadow of the Wasatch; Utah is wide solitude of rolling dr y valleys, with hills marching beyond hills to blue hor izons; Utah is unear thly white deser t; Utah is tall snow-crowned mountains; Utah is blue lakes; Utah is canyon and plateau wonderfully frag rant with pines.”36 In these photog raphs one may sense Rothstein’s realization that in the space of only a few minutes he had photog raphed and exper ienced two different worlds.

These two photog raphs are interesting from an autobiog raphical point of view as well. As he had done before and as he did after his tr ip through Utah, Rothstein exited his car to photog raph the open, distant road that lay ahead. Th e pho tog raph of the road to b e trave led was a c ommo n trope used by other photog rapher s as disparate as Dorothea Lange and Rober t Frank to descr ibe the symbolic jour ney of life and the unknown destination. 37 For Lange the image of the open road leading to Califor nia represented an ominous look at what lay ahead for the “Okies,” “Arkies” and other s who had traveled this road in search of a better life—one that, for m o s t , n e v e r c a m e. F o r F r a n k , a S w i s s p h o t o g r a p h e r o n e g e n e r a t i o n younger, a similar road, U.S 285 in New Mexico, represented an existential f u t i l i t y t h a t t y p i fi e d h i s i nve s ti g a t i o n o f A m e r i c a n l i f e. Fo r R o t h s t e i n , however, they represented something else Str yker encouraged photog raphs that showed the viewer “what it would feel like to be an actual witness to the scene ” 38 Rothstein’s photog raphs of deser ted roads stretching off into eter nity do just that. They represent something less pretentious, something m o re a d ve n t u rou s eve n s o me t h i n g wo n d ro u s l y l o n e l y. U l ti m a te l y th ey reveal, better than any other source, the love of seeing and photog raphing something new.39

The final pictures of Rothstein’s travels to Utah were the border town of We n d o v e r, U t a h , a n d t h e s t a t e - l i n e t h a t d i v i d e s t h e t o w n . T h e s e photog raphs of th e small town mark the fin al stanz a o f h is work i n th e state In a letter to Rothstein, Str yker was obviously pleased with what he

36 Utah, a Guide to the State, 8.

37 Rothstein would follow a similar photog raphic convention of photog raphing the open road on the same tr ip in Wyoming and later in Nevada. See Highway U.S 40 through Elko County, Nevada (LC-USF34029569-D) and Highway U.S. 30. Sweetwater County, Wyoming. (LC-USF346- 029598-D). This composition wa s n o t t h e i nvent ion of R oth stei n, however Th e di st an t ro ad an d the j our ney ah ead is a c onst an tly repeated t heme an d mo ti f in the histor y o f visu al re p re s e n t a t i o n . D o rothea Lan ge’s image o f t he o pen road, U.S 54 Nor th of El Paso, Texas, 1938, appeared in her seminal work Amer ican Exodus, wr itten with her husband Paul S Taylor in 1939. Robert Frank’s photograph of the open road marked a ver y different message than those of Lange or Rothstein, and was included in his pivotal work, The Amer icans published in the United States in 1959.

38 See William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thir ties Amer ica (Chicago and London: Univer sity of Chicago Press, 1973), 62-63. In a letter to Str yker, dated August 22, 1941, FSA photographer Mar ian PostWolcott relayed a similar exper ience to what clearly possessed Rothstein. “I tr ied to get the feeling of space and distance and solitude, etc, in some pix – using var ious devices – the road, telephone poles and wires along trains . ” See her letter in Mar ian Post-Wolcott Archives.

39 See Ganzel, “Ar thur Rothstein,” l 9.

h a d p h o t o g r a p h e d . On March 28, 1940, h e w r o t e h i s employee and fr iend, “ I h a v e b e e n t h r o u g h y o u r . . . N e v a d a , Wy o m i n g , U t a h P i c t u r e s a n d y o u h a v e s o m e e x c e l l e n t t h i n g s . ” 4 0 Exac tly wh at imag es he liked of Utah, or w h a t h e th o u g h t o f t h e p o r t f o l i o a s a w h o l e, n o o n e w i l l ever know It appear s obvious, however, that Str yker’s enjoyment of a photog raph was tied m o re to i ts fu n c t i o n al i ty th a n i t s i n n e r a e s th e ti c s . H e wan t ed t he FS A i m a g e s t o b e u s e d i n b o o k s , a r t i c l e s , g o v e r n m e n t d o c u m e n t s a n d pamphlets, or any other venue that could disseminate their ideas. At least two of Rothstein’s images of Utah were published shor tly after his visit. One of these, the bleak image of Wendover, was used as an illustration in the WPA’s guide to the state. 41 While these two photog raphs mark the end of his travels through Utah, they also herald the beg inning of g reater adventures on the hor izon in the r un-down min es and bustlin g cas inos of Nevada. They do n ot, however, mark the end of Rothstein’s work in the state. In the early 1980s Rothstein re t u r n e d t o U ta h t o p ar ti c i p ate i n t he p ho tog ra p hi c d oc um en ta ti o n o f Utah’s minor ity populations. Along with Kent Miles and George Janecek, he photog raphed selected member s of the state’s minor ity g roups. When I asked a fr iend, FS A s ch ol ar Jac k Hurl ey, w hat R oth stei n tho ug h t o f hi s time working in Utah, Hurley mentioned that he loved being in a place where he, as a New York City Jew, was considered a “Gentile ” Their work culminated in the 1988 book The Other Utahns: A Photographic Por tfolio 42 It is one of the last projects that the for mer FSA photog rapher would take on. Ar thur Rothstein died in 1985 at the age of seventy

40 L e t t e r, R oy S t r y ke r t o A r t h u r R o t h s t ei n , M a rch 2 8 , 1 9 4 0 , R oy S t r y ke r Pa p e r s , U n ive r s i t y o f Louisville Archives.

41 See Utah, Guide to the State, 323. Rothstein’s image of a Summit County Hay Stacker [LC-USF346029534-D] appeared as an illustration of “The Great West” in a photo essay from 1942 titled, Fair is Our Land See Fair is Our Land, Samuel Chamberlain, ed. (Chicago, Peoples Book Club, Inc., 1942), 131.

42 Lesli e G Kelen and Sandra T Fuller, eds., photog raphs by George Janeck, Kent Miles and Ar thur Rothstein The Other Utahns : A Photographic Por tfolio (Salt Lake City: Univer sity of Utah Press, 1988); F Jack Hurley to the author, email cor respondence, January, 2003. Letter in possession of the author

Wendover, Utah. (1940)

BOOK REVIEWS

Pueblo Indian Agr iculture. By James A.Vlasich. (Albuquerque: Univer sity of New Mexico Press, 2005. xix + 363 pp Cloth, $34.95.)

THE PUEBLO INDIANS of New Mexico have f ascinated Euro-Amer icans for centur ies. Their tenacity in retaining their culture, their still extant adobe, multistor ied villages, and especially their communal ir r igated ag r iculture (so unlike the ag r iculture of other Native-Amer icans in the area) has created an image in the popular consciousness of a timeless people who, even today, live exactly as their ancestor s did. The value of James Vlasich’s book is to show that while there is a ker nel of tr uth to this view, the Pueblos have also undergone enor mous change over the year s, and today t he administr ation of t r ibal land a nd wat er is accomplished through a complicated mix of local, state, and federal agencies.

Vlasich has done a tremendous amount of research and the span of the book (from pre-histor ic times until the present) is impressive The most or ig inal par t of the book is the discussion of Pueblo water r ights dur ing the Spanish, Mexican, a nd A m e r ic an er a s. A nyon e w ho ha s s t ud ie d i n t h is f ie ld kn ow s t h e d au nt i ng com plex it y of t he t opic. The aut hor, however, d oes a g ood j ob o f m ov ing th e reader through these issues in a thorough, but not necessar ily lively, way Vlasich also makes three interesting histor ical obser vations that have often been neglected by histor ians. One is the confusion over whether the Pueblos should be classified as roaming Indians like the Comanche, Apache, Ute or Navajo, or as citizen-f ar mer s. This confusion began with the Spanish and continued into the Amer ican per iod. In f act it was not until 1913 that they were declared, once and for all, to be Indians and therefore wards of the federal gover nment. The second point is that while Spanish, Mexican, and Amer ican gover nments acknowledged the pr imacy of Pueblo land and water r ights, those r ights have only been loosely enforced by unsympathetic locals. The final obser vation is that not all problems with Pueblo a g r i c u l t u re ca n be bl am e d on no n- I nd ia n s. F l o o d i n g , e x ce s s s il t , d ro u g h t , a n d insect pests have plagued the Pueblo Indians from the time they began f ar ming.

Reading this book one cannot but help to admire the pluck and deter mination of this g roup of people whose land and water have been constantly under siege fir s t f ro m I ndi an r ai der s, lat er by S pa nish and Amer ican set t ler s, an d f ina lly by severe demands for water by a g rowing New Mexican population. Despite these pressures, the book ends with several positive notes. In the 1970s and 1980s there was a strong “back to the land” movement among the Pueblos that took advantage of the niche market for specialty foods such as blue cor n. In addition the Pueblos h ave b e co m e mu c h m o re a g g re s s ive i n pro t e ct i n g t h e i r wa t e r r i g h t s . F i n a l l y, despite tremendous change, the ag r iculturally focused Pueblo relig ion is still widely obser ved even if the major ity of the Pueblo people are no longer practicing f ar mer s.

T hi s b oo k i s b a se d o n V l a s i c h ’s di ss er t a t i on an d, u n f o r t u n a t e l y, s u f f e r s f rom the same sor ts of flaws generally found in student paper s (dr y wr iting, jumbled

pr imar y source anecdotes connected by vague and/or bland generalizations, and an ex tremely na r row f ocus t hat onl y o cca siona lly ad dre sses t he “B ig Pictu re”), although the wr iting does rally towards the end of the book. While this book will probably be chief ly of interest only t o wat er r ig hts ex per t s and Pueblo Indian scholar s, it does ser ve as a g ood reference source on t his topic One thing that Vlasich is to be commended for is the absence of histr ionics that sometimes mar Native-Amer ican histor ical wr iting.

D. M. DAVIS Utah State University

Mapping and Imagination in the Great Basin: A Car tographic Histor y

By Richard V Francaviglia. (Reno and Las Vegas: Univer sity of Nevada Press, 2005. xviii + 231 pp Cloth, $44.95; paper $24.95.)

THE GREAT BASIN is an extremely large sub-reg ion of the Amer ican West, yet through year s of traveling in and studying and wr iting about its physical and cult u r al ch a r ac t e r i s t i c s , R i c h a rd F r a n cav i g li a ha s be e n abl e t o po r t r ay a d e so l at e, rather spar sely populated reg ion, in ways that have helped make it picturesque, less myster ious, and perhaps, even bucolic Because of his per sistent scholarly focus on the Great Basin, we are for tunate to have, among other things, a detailed identification of features that denote the Mor mon Landscape, an insightful per spective on the reg ion’s “spir itual geog raphy,” and now we have, in Mapping and Imagination in the Great Basin, an extraordinar ily readable car tographic histor y of the Great Basin.

Francaviglia states that Mapping and Imagination in the Great Basin: A Car tographic Histor y is a book “about the process by which maps and related images reveal the character of places. More par ticularly, it is about how mapmaker s have depicted t h e G r e a t B a s i n i n t h e t r a d i t i o n o f We s t e r n , w h i c h i s t o s a y E u ro p e a n a n d E u rope a n A m e r i c a n , m a p m a k i n g . I t is al so ab ou t t he pe op le wh o m a ke t h os e maps and the other people who motivate them to do so” (xiv – xv). The author includes dozens of maps of the Great Basin, side-by-side, created over hundreds of year s, so that the reader can visually obser ve a “process of change or evolution,” or the geog raphy of the Great Basin as it changed through time. This is, perhaps, histor ical geog raphy at its best – a ser ies of maps with associated nar rative descr iptions and explanations.

The book is organized chronolog ically so that Chapter 2 contains infor mation a bo ut t he ol d es t m a ps an d C ha pt er 8 t h e m os t re c e n t . T he ch a pt e r t i t le s a n d c h ro n o l o g y a re a s f o l l ow s : C h a p t e r 2 , “ T h e Powe r o f Te r ra I n c o g n i t a ( 1 5 4 0 –1700)”; Chapter 3, “Maps and Early Spanish Exploration (1700 – 1795)”; Chapter 4, “In the Path of Westward Expansion (1795 – 1825)”; Chapter 5, “Demystifying Ter ra In c og ni ta (1 825 – 1 8 5 0)” ; C ha pte r 6 , “ Maps in t he S a nd (1 8 50 – 1 8 6 5) ”; Chapter 7, “Filling in the Blanks (1865 – 1900)”; and Chapter 8, “Maps of the

Moder n/Postmoder n Great Basin (1900 – 2005).” This str ucture per mits a visual por traya l o f th e G re at B asi n a nd a ll ows fo r t he Gre at Ba sin ’ s g eog raphy t o b e comprehended through maps and other visual images.

Fo ur e l em e n t s m a ke t h i s b oo k es pe ci a l ly e n j oya bl e F i r s t , it i s w r i t t e n i n a remarkably lucid style that per mits one to read on-and-on. Francaviglia’s skillful nar ration removes what could have been a dr y, tediously detailed, descr iptive histor ical account of the numerous maps contained in the book. Second, the mapmaker s’ l ive s were b roug h t t o lif e Francav ig lia was able t o cap t ure pe r sonality traits of per sons involved in the constr uction of many of the maps. This adds a component to the book that increases its ability to captivate the reader Third, I appre ciat ed the cont ent of C hapt er 1 , “Compre hend ing th e Grea t B asin ” This chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book by providing an excellent, although shor t, account of the physical geog raphy of the Great Basin. Four th, Francaviglia’s insi ghts a nd pe r spective prese nte d in C hap te r 9 , Comprehe nding C ar t ographic Change, and the Epilogue are par ticularly enjoyable Here he notes the impor tant role that maps and other images play in our lives, yet by themselves, they are mere fragments of our total comprehension of places.

M y o n l y c r i t i c i s m o f t h e b o o k i s w i t h C h a p t e r 8 , “ M a p s o f t h e Moder n/Postmoder n Great Basin (1900 – 2005).” I think that it should be divided into two chapter s, one cover ing the per iod 1900 to about 1950 and the other cover ing the per iod from 1950 to 2005. While Francaviglia’s chronolog ical portrayal moves through time in previous chapters methodically and at a reasonable speed, I feel that in Chapter 8, his presentation of maps, images, and his nar ration quickly gained speed as if he became tired of the project and was eager to complete it. Perhaps too much infor mation was presented too rapidly in one chapter A c o nve n i e n t b re a k i n C h a p t e r 8 c ou l d o cc u r w i t h t h e c o n s t r u ct i o n o f t h e Inter state highway system. That would allow for a separation of the moder n from the postmoder n era where remotely sensed imager y and technology provide our visual images of the Great Basin.

High, Wide, and Handsome: The River Jour nals of Nor man D. Nevills. Edited by Roy Webb (Logan: Utah State Univer sity Press, 2005. xii + 308 pp Paper, $21.95.)

THROUGHOUT THE LAST SEVENTY YEARS, r iver r unning has g radually emerged as a substantial tour ist and commercial activity, not only in the United S t a t e s , but a l s o t h rou g h ou t t h e wo r l d , w h e r eve r r ive r s f l ow t h rou g h ca nyo n s . White water rapids, the roller-coaster r ide, is often touted as the main attraction, but after a few days, most voyager s on any r iver, whether placid or rapid-filled, feel

BROOKS GREEN University of Central Arkansas Conway, Arkansas

the exper ience as their sublimation into the environment, as if they become par t of the cliffs, the tumbling water, the scene of dusk f alling over a shadowy beach, or, in the mor ning, the creeping line of sunshine descending down gleaming red rocks. For the passenger s, identities established in other spheres become meaningless as the shared exper ience beg ins to dominate Only the expedition captain r ises above it all. And one of the best captains was Nor m Nevills.

Nevills was not a cultural aesthete, nor was he a poet. However, as much as he appreciated the flowing r iver, the sunsets and sunr ises, he was, first and foremost, a businessman. His f a the r dr ille d for oil, unsuccessfully, ne ar Mex ican H at , Utah, then sur rendered to his next alter native, the establishment of a motel alongside the San Juan River From this vantage point, young Nor man began his r iver career, first as contractor for a scientific investigation, then on his own, taking paying passenger s down the San Juan into Glen Canyon and on to Lee’s Fer r y. His boats were simple wooden aff air s (the fir st was called “hor se trough”), but they proved adequate for the generally flat, slow-moving cur rent.

Having vir tually no patter n to follow, Nor m and his wife, Dor is, in the mid1930s, initiated an intensive publicity campaign to lure boat passenger s. When on the r iver, he devoted full time to keeping his guests happy, and was almost never at rest. He was an “A” type per sonality if there ever was one As darkness fell on a r iver tr ip he would often push bur ning logs off a high ledge while sing ing a myster ious, creepy echoing chant. And the tour ists loved it. Dur ing daytime on the r iver he was also known to tiptoe out onto a floating log and stand on his head. A lo ng qu ie t s t retc he s o f t h e r ive r he wou ld re la t e h is t or i ca l t a l e s o f do ub t f u l veracity—but who knew the difference?

Although the San Juan River business was f airly good, Nevills recognized that general public interest was more focused on stretches of white water rapids—the “wild” Grand Canyon, death-defying Cataract Canyon (Colorado River), or the S almon and S nake—the “River of No Ret ur n. ” Dur ing th e 193 0s, newspaper s and t he public we re avidly attract ed to a ny boa t par ty or le ader who ventured down one of these dangerous r iver s. To Nor m here was guaranteed publicity— cer t ain t o enhance his name and the possibility of m ore pay ing passenge r s. He therefore constr ucted newly designed wooden “Cataract” boats, with an upsweep b ow a n d s t e r n a n d w i t h wa t e r p ro of com p a r t m e nt s— a ct ua l l y p ret t y f a i r bo a t s before the advent of r ubber rafts.

Then he was off , in 1938, from Lee’s Fe r r y down throug h the Grand Canyon. Altog ether he made seven successful tr ips throug h t he Grand from 1938 to 1949, and was the first to take women through the canyon. Tirelessly he scout ed rapids, locat ed campsit es, and t hen direct ed his boat s t hrough tr icky cur rents, tr y ing t o avoid whir lpools and rocks. In his jour nals he occasionally chast ises associate boatmen for m istakes in judgment , but he also chides himself for near boat ing disasters.

Exclusively featured in the book High, Wide, and Handsome are Nevills’s white wat e r r iver j ou r nals, t ha t is, tr i ps d own Gr an d C anyon, Cataract, a nd Salm onSnake These are exciting and show the deter mination, ingenuity, and stamina of

Nevills himself Because he had no major accidents or deaths, one should not surmise that his white water tr ips were easy Just as in his business pioneer ing of guest management, he also had to pioneer techniques of navigating oar-powered wooden boats through rocky rapids—a f ar more difficult task than piloting today’s r ubber rafts. Consequently, Nor m was confronted with new challenges around almost ever y bend in the r iver. Only by complete awareness and quick thinking was he able to avoid disaster More than anything, these jour nals reflect Nevill’s concentration, energy, and sound judgment as he confronted each new obstacle

N evi l l s b e c a m e a n a t i o n w i d e c e l e b r i t y, a n d h i s bu s i n e s s a t M e x i c a n H a t boomed. By 1949 he was making a good living and was anticipating a scheduled 1950 expedition down Glen Canyon with the Sier ra Club director s—ostensibly to show them what was to be inundated by Glen Canyon Reser voir. But the tr ip was cancelled.

On September 19, 1949, Nor m and Dor is took off in a light aircraft from the pr imitive Mexican Hat air por t, headed for Grand Junction. They were airbor ne over the rocky canyon only a few seconds before the eng ine died. Lacking power, their small plane nose-dived into the rocks, killing both Nor m and Dor is.

Roy Webb, an outstanding scholar of r iver r unning, acting as editor, has done a splendid job of editing Nevills’s jour nals, enter ing carefully researched notes about p la ce s m e nt i on ed , p e r so na l it i es e nco un t ere d an d a d ve n t u ro us e pi so de s. We b b ’s notes are absolutely essential t o a full under sta nding of N evills’s jour nals. These notes are substantive—not reference—and they should have been entered in the book as footnotes, that is on the same page as the jour nal reference, instead of as endnotes at the back of the book. To read Nevills’s jour nal without the editor’s notes close at hand is to miss half the stor y

So reading High, Wide, and Handsome takes a bit of per sistence, dedication, and interest. Yet it is all wor th it. Nevills was one of the most interesting individuals ever to r un commercial tr ips down the Colorado, Salmon, and Snake r iver s. And he was the founding f ather on how to do it, to keep passenger s excited and happy, to make a substantial profit, and to enlist prospective new customer s.

W. L. RUSHO Salt Lake City

Sacagawea’s C hil d: The L if e a n d Ti mes o f J ea n-Ba pt ist e (P omp) C ha rb onne au. B y S u s an M C o l by ( S p o k a n e : T h e A r t h ur H C l ar k C o m p any, 2 0 0 5 . 2 0 3 pp C l o t h , $28.50.)

J E A N - B A P T I S T E C H A R B O N N E AU ( 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 6 6 ) , t h e h a l f b r e e d s o n o f Tou ss a in t C ha r b on ne a u, a F re n ch C a n a di a n f u r t r ad e r a nd in t e r p ret er f o r t h e Lewis a nd Cla rk E xp edit ion, an d his S hosho ne I ndian wif e, Sacagawea, l ived a

lo ng a nd eve nt f ul lif e pa r t i cipa t ing in even t s of ou r n at io na l hi st or y t ha t have largely gone unnoticed. That over sight has now been rectified by Susan M. Colby whose most recent work does much to place Jean-Baptiste in histor ical per spective, tracing the stor y of the development of a half-breed Indian child into a highly educated per son who could be equally at home in two diver se cultures. The wo r k c o m m e n c e s w i t h t h e c u l t u r a l a n t e c e d e n t s o f t h e p a r e n t s , t h o ro u g h l y descr ibing the physical and social conditions, which influenced their worldview It then moves on to a descr iption of the Lewis and Clark Expedition emphasizing t he rol e t hat t he C har bonn eau f a mil y played in it Thereafter, th e f ocus of th e study is entirely on Jean-Baptiste.

Subsequent to the retur n of the Cor ps of Discover y from the Pacific, William Clark willingly assumed the guardianship of Jean-Baptiste and dur ing the ensuing year s educat ed t he boy in a ma nner con sistent wit h t he wo r l d v i ew of Thomas Je f f e rson and the idea ls of t he E nl ightenment S ometime dur ing his eig hteenth year Jean-Baptiste had the good for tune to come under the influence of Fr iedr ick Paul Wilhelm, duke of Wur ttemberg, a twenty-five year old man of royal parentage who likewise espoused the ideals of the Enlightenment. Together they sailed to Ger many whe re f or the ne xt five year s the young N at ive Amer ican re c e ived a “cla ssic educat ion.” By 183 0, Jean -Ba pti ste retur ned t o t he Amer ican Wes t a nd entered into the Rocky Mountain fur trade dur ing which time he came into contact with the major per sonalities of the fur trade With the advent of the Mexican War in 1846 he was contracted by General Stephen Watts Kear ny to ser ve as a g uide fo r C olon el Phi lip S t . G eor ge C ooke’s Mor mon Ba ttal ion on t he ir e pic overland march to San Diego. Subsequently he held the office of mag istrate in the civil gover nment of Califor nia at the for mer San Luis Rey Mission before resigning and heading nor th t o the g old fields on t he Middle For k of t he Amer ican River where for the next eighteen year s he at fir st mined and later went into par tn e r s hi p w i t h J i m B e ck wo u r t h t o op e r a t e a h o t e l . U p o n h e a r i n g o f t h e g o l d discover ies in Montana he depar ted Califor nia in early spr ing and while fording a r iver in southeaster n Oregon he soaked his clothing, contracted pneumonia and died May 16, 1866, at Inskip’s Station near present-day Danner Colby, a distant cousin of Jean-Baptiste, had no easy task in the preparation of this biog raphy Despite an education unordinar y in his time, Jean-Baptiste left this world without a memoir or, for that matter, hardly a parag raph or scarcely a signat u re M ost o f wh at i s kn ow n a bo ut hi m com es t o u s by way of t he re c o rd e d obser vations of his contemporar ies. That aside, Colby’s bibliog raphy testifies to her exhaustive effor ts to gar ner ever y available pr imar y document relating to her subject. Her work differs from other previous works in that her s fills in the lapses in the histor ical record with carefully crafted oblique literar y devices, which create t he il lusion of hist or i ca l cer t aint y bu t a re unf or tuna t ely quit e specula tive (e.g., “ p e r h a p s ,” “ s u g g e s t s ,” “ m u st h ave, ” a n d “ p ro b a bl y,” a re a bu n d a n t l y di s t r i bu t e d throughout the text).

Ha ndsomely bound in red line n cl oth wit h gol d foil st am ped let ter ing, well

indexed and illustrated, containing a thorough bibliog raphy and adequate maps, Sacagawea’s Child is a good read and will be a welcomed addition to the librar ies of Lewis and Clark aficionados, fur trade enthusiasts, and Wester n Amer icana bibliophiles in general.

TODD I. BERENS

Dale L Morgan Memorial Library of Wester n Americana Ripon College, Wisconsin

Junius & Joseph: Presidential Politics and the Assassination of the First Mor mon

Prophet. By Rober t S Wicks and Fred R. Foister (Logan: Utah State Univer sity Press, 2005. xi + 316 pp. Cloth, $45.95; paper, $24.95.)

ROBERT S. WICKS AND FRED R. FOISTER have combined, in their ver y first effor t in the field of Mor mon studies, a fresh, provocative, and award-winning (John Whitmer Histor y Association Best Book Award for 2005) reexamination of the old evidence on the 1844 murder of Joseph Smith. Often challeng ing the current telling of the stor y, they argue that Smith’s murder was, in fact, a thoroughly orchestrated, “militar y-style execution” by a conspiracy that extended well beyond the political limits of Hancock County—even reaching beyond the residence of the Illinois Democratic Gover nor in Spr ingfield nationally to the inner circle of the Whigs’ presidential hopeful, Henr y Clay They attempt, with some success, to unmask the identity of the four men who shot Smith as he lay stunned against the stone cur b of t he now-f am ous well.They continue to plow new g round when they highlight the larger Amer ican political landscape dur ing a presidential election year, providing im por t ant contex t f or the events on t he wester n pr air ie of Illinois in June 1844.

Their effor t s are som etimes mar red by missteps a long t he way For example, they do not know the church changed its name in 1838, not 1837 (16); Sidney Rigdon was baptized before he met Joseph Smith, not after (17); Jackson County, Missour i, was identified as the Garden of Eden, not Far West in Caldwell County (18); the name of the newspaper in Independence, Missour i, was the Evening and t he M o r n i n g S t ar , n o t t he E ven i n g an d M o r n in g S ta r , a pa p e r pu bl is he d la t e r i n Kir tland, Ohio (18); and so for th.

Ironically, as they attempt to provide an accurate word-picture of the events at Car thage, they per petuate a f alse visual image of the physical setting of the assassination. They emphasize Freder ick Piercy’s 1855 sketch of the jail showing a post1844 frame summer kitchen on the nor theaster n side of the br ick building (160) by providing, on the f acing page, a rather large, moder n, detailed “Reconstr uction of the Jail” (161), showing the same frame building. Yet, seemingly unaware or less concer ned for such details, they provide the ver y sources that could have saved them from this misguided visual re c o n s t r uct ion when t hey re p roduce t he 1845

“Sketch of the environs of the Car thage jail” (230) and the 1845 “Illustration from William N. Daniels” (277), which clearly show that no frame str ucture existed at the time of Smith’s murder

In some instances, they depar t from their innovating reconstr uction of the stor y w he n t h ey a cce p t , wi t ho ut q u es t io ni ng , t he o ld a nd wo r n- o ut s t or y l i n e s . Fo r example, they do not acknowledge Glen M. Leonard’s recent conclusion that John Taylor was not saved by his watch (182). They emphasize the stale, yet sensational, inter pretation that Smith’s last cr y, “O Lord, my God,” was a Masonic distress call (178) without asking the significance or acknowledg ing Willard Richards’ similar gesture and cr y just moments later (reminding one of the Jewish attitude of prayer and the cr y of the r ighteous petitioner in the book of Psalms). In f ailing to ask new questions of such old inter pretations and sources, they are unable to provide the kind of thoughtful analysis present in other sections of the book.

N eve r t h e l e s s , Wick s an d Fo i st e r are t o be co ng r a t ul at e d f or a n im a g i n a t ive re c o n s t r uct ion o f som e o f th e m ost s ig nif ica nt a spe cts of t he st or y. T he book , t h e r e f o re, w i l l b e c o m e re q u i red re a d i n g f o r a nyo ne in t e re s t e d i n t hi s p ivo t a l moment in Mor mon histor y.

RICHARD NEITZEL HOLZAPFEL Brigham Young University

Gather ing in Har mony: A Saga of Souther n Utah Families, Their Roots and Pioneer ing Her itage, and the Tale of Antone Pr ince, Sher iff of Washington County.

By Stephen L. Pr ince (Spokane: The Ar thur H. Clark Company, 2004.

334 pp Cloth, $39.95.)

NEARLY A DECADE AGO Los Angeles dentist Stephen L. Pr ince br ushed off a challenge from his brother, Greg, to wr ite a biography of their g randfather Antone Pr ince, longtime sher iff of Washington County, Utah. Stephen later reconsidered and set to work on what evolved into Gather ing in Har mony, not so much a biography of Antone, as a deeply researched and wide rang ing f amily histor y.

As Pr ince sees it, his f amily’s stor y is best under stood when envisioned as an hourglass, the sands at the top funneling through a nar row neck in the per son of A n t o n e, a n d t h e n d i s p e r s i n g w i d e l y a g a i n i n t h e g e n e r a t i o n s t h a t f o l l owe d . Gather ing in Har mony focuses upon the top half of that hourglass, represented here in Mor monism’s doctr ine of gather ing. Antone Pr ince and New Har mony, Utah, a small ranching outpost in Washington County, become the per son and place at the center of the hourglass and the culmination of this stor y.

It is an intr iguing tale, especially as it br ings into shar p focus the wide reaching, a lb ei t so m et i m es f ee ble n at u re o f e ar l y Mo r m o n i s m ’s m iss io na r y e f f or t s . E ve n more clear are the f amilial and per sonal results of those effor ts as Mor monism’s

vast net brought newly conver t ed La tter-day Saints from dispara te backg rounds together into a common cause and, in this case, a common f amily. Antone’s g reatg r a n d p a re n t s , G eo rge a nd S a r ah Bowm a n Pr i n c e, f or e x am pl e, res pon de d t o a s h o r t live d Mo r m on in cur s io n i nt o S ou t h A f r i ca in t h e 1 8 5 0 s a nd even t ua l ly gathered to Utah. Over the year s they and their children and g randchildren met, mingled with, and mar r ied into the William Taylor, Isaac Allred, John H. Redd, James H. Imlay, Hosea Stout, and John D Lee f amilies.

Upon conver sion, the f ate and for tune of these var ious f amilies largely became one with that of the frontier relig ion that they embraced. Stephen Pr ince, therefore, methodically chronicles the stor y of the Latter-day Saints’ troubled histor y in Missour i and Nauvoo, Illinois, the trek of the Mor mon Battalion, the Utah War, colonization effor ts in the Great Basin, and the ensuing difficulties with Native A m e r i c a n s . S t ud en t s o f Mo r m on a nd U t ah hi st o r y w il l f in d t h e t a l e f a m i l i a r, a l t h o u g h P r in c e d o e s p e pp e r i t w i t h a n e c d ot e s f ro m t he va r io u s f a m i l i e s h e follows and largely relies upon pr imar y source mater ials.

The final two chapter s on Antone Pr ince are especially enjoyable They offer f res h s t o r i e s o f l i f e i n s o u t h e r n U t a h d u r i n g t h e f i r s t h a l f o f t h e Twe n t i e t h Centur y. The author, for example, highlights New Har mony’s little known mohair i n d u s t r y a nd it s eve nt u al de m is e a s a re su lt o f t he Gre at D ep re s s i o n . A n t o n e ’s tenure as Washington County Sher iff from 1936 to 1954 is even more colorful. For Antone, those year s were filled with the excitement of manhunts, roadblocks, ro b b e r i e s , ca t t l e r u s t l i n g , a n d mu rd e r. A n t o n e ’s k n ac k a t t ra c ki ng su sp e ct s , h i s for thr ight and tr usting attitude toward his pr isoner s, and his proclivity for enter ing dangerous sit uat ions unar me d creat ed in him not onl y a po pula r she r iff , but a souther n-Utah folk hero

A n t o n e ’s e x p lo i t s n o t w it hs t a nd i n g , t he s e f i n a l ch a p t e r s a l m o s t s t a n d a l on e. T h e re i s n ot a s t ro ng l in k b et we en A nt o ne a s s he r if f a nd t he va st f am i ly an d Mor mon histor y that dominate the rest of the book. In what ways did Antone’s r ich her itage shape him into the fine public ser vant that he was and in what ways did he represent something new at the middle of the hourglass, especially as the Pr ince f a mi ly t ra nsit ione d f rom t he M or m on g a th er ing t o a f a mi lia l disp er sal? Answer ing such questions would more fully unify the stor y and solidify Stephen’s vision of his f amily, with Antone at the center linking past and future generations. Even st ill, Gather i ng in Har mony is a f ine pie ce of f am ily and loca l hist or y t hat should find a ready audience among Mor mon, Utah, and f amily histor y enthusiasts alike

W. PAUL REEVE University of Utah

Goodbye Judge Lynch: The End of a Lawless Era in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin.

By John W Davis. (Nor man: Univer sity of Oklahoma Press, 2005. xiii + 266 pp Cloth, $32.95.)

T H IS CA R E F U L LY R E S EA RC HE D B OOK is a bo ut t h e Bi g H o r n B as in ’ s passage from the lawlessness of its frontier status to social stability, with state and c o u n t y g ove r n m e n t s i n p l a c e, w i t h e l e ct e d o f f i c i a l s , c o u n t r y co m m i s s i o n e r s , s h e r i f f s , d e p u t i e s , a n d w i t h j u d g e s a n d c o u r t s t h a t c o u l d p rov i d e “ l e g a l l aw enforcement.” It is an infor mative jour ney through the legal histor y of the area, and into the subtle changes that impact what “society” accepts or demands.

John W. Davis, a resident of the area and an exper ienced attor ney, br ings his exper tise to examining the official records, newspaper s, and pr ivate accounts, to t el l t his int e re st ing a nd com ple x st or y Whil e f ro nt ier v iol ence is a n Amer ican phenomenon, he reviews violence in Wyoming thoroughly, but focuses on the Big Hor n Basin by examining two water shed cases: the fir st in 1902, the second in 1909 when Judge Lynch presided.

Wyoming came into existence as a ter r itor y in 1869, with the building of the transcontinental railroad. Statehood followed in 1890. Gover nance, directed from the south, was limited and remote Additionally, the geog raphy of the Big Hor n B a s i n f u r t h e r i s o l a t e d t h e r e g i o n , b e i n g s u r rou n d e d by m o u n t a i n r a n g e s : t h e P r yo r s t o t he no r t h , t h e A b s a ro ka s t o t he we s t , t h e Owl C ree k s t o t h e sou t h throug h which t he Win d Rive r f lowed t o be come the Big H or n River at th e “wedding of the water s” south of Ther mopolis. The Big Hor ns ranged nor th and south as the Basin’s easter n boundar y Getting there was not impossible, but from any direction, it was difficult.

The economic base for the Basin was its excellent rang elands, fir st exploited by cattlemen as early as 1879. T h ey could trail t heir large herds in t o g raze, and trail t hei r “beef ” out to ma rke ts a t t he ra ilroad: Rawl ins t wo hu ndred m ile s t o th e s o u t h , a n d e ve n t u a l l y B i l l i n g s , M o n t a n a , o n e h u n d r e d m i l e s t o t h e n o r t h . Thousands of head of cattle were broug ht in and did well until the severe winter of 1 8 8 6 - 8 7 , whe n m any h erds we re de cim at e d. At t he sam e ti me t he ca t t le me n’s tenuous claims on the rang es were beg inning to be challenged by sheep m en who also want ed the r ich ranges for g razing. C attlem en/sheepm en conflicts are histor ic

Another challenge to the cattlemen’s dominion came from the homesteader s, both individuals and those attracted to the major ir r igation projects being developed in the Basin. Among them were Mor mons from Utah who settled on the Greybull River (1890s) and Shoshone River (1900s), tr ibutar ies to the Big Hor n River.

Law enforcement in the reg ion had been the pur view of the rancher s and their cowboys. More than twenty people were killed in the Basin before 1900, with no convictions. Official action was remote with some coming from Johnson County

to the east (Buff alo), and from Fremont County to the southwest (Lander). While Big Hor n County had been designated as a county in 1892, it did not beg in functioning until 1895, with Basin City as its county seat.

The fir st major case that Davis reviews in depth is State v James Gor man (1902). J im G or m a n wa s c ha r g e d wi t h k i ll i ng h is b ro t h e r, To m . To m ’s b e a ut i f ul w if e, Magg ie, was also charged, but she tur ned state’s evidence against Jim, with Judge Joseph L. Stotts from Sher idan presiding. Public sentiment was against Jim, since his brother Tom had been well liked generally. His attor ney, E. E. Enterline, provided an able defense for his client, who was charged with fir st-deg ree murder In such cases, the seating of the jur y is cr itical, both for the prosecution and for the defense In the Gor man tr ial, the patr iarchs of the area were well represented on the jur y. They retur ned a verdict of guilty of manslaughter.

For reasons st ill unclear, Jim Gor man a ske d for a re t r ial, eve n thoug h t o his attor ney, the chance for acquittal seemed remote. The second jur y had a few more Mor mons on it, and retur ned a decision of murder in the fir st deg ree. Davis speculates that the Mor mon peoples’ own her itage of mob violence likely made them l es s t o le r an t of t h os e w ho cho se t o t a ke t he l aw int o t he i r ow n h an ds Ju d g e Car penter sentenced Jim to be hanged on June 26, 1903. An appeal demanded a review and delay of execution.

Gor man’s problem was compounded because of another murder Joseph Walter s had killed a widow, Agnes Hoover of Otto, (1902) because she refused to mar r y him. In State v. Walters, he was found guilty of murder in the fir st deg ree. However, an ap pea l wa s reque st ed beca use his d ef ens e a ttor ney, R. R. McCabe, had not bee n g ive n adeq uat e ti me t o pre p a re a proper def ense Walter s’ attor n ey in t he appeal was also E. E. Enterline. Consequently, in 1903, Basin City had two men on “death row, ” with both appealing their sentences. Davis wr ites: “Something else was stir r ing in Big Hor n County, something ugly, and quintessentially Amer ican” (80).

When sher iff Fenton heard that a par ty of deter mined citizens from Shell and Paint Rock was coming to lynch Gor man and Walter s, he decided to hide them in one of the canyons nearby Gor man managed to escape by swimming the Big Hor n River, only to be captured a few days later, and retur ned to jail in Basin City Fate seemed to str ike another blow against Gor man, as sher iff Fenton had to leave Basin City to pick up a pr isoner in Ther mopolis. His depar ture left the jail under manned with only his deputy George Mead in charge The ang r y vig ilantes fer r ied across the r iver, then approached the cour thouse, where they fired into it, killing clerk/deputy Earl Pr ice instantly They tr ied to break the two pr isoners out to hang them, but the cell was too secure They shot and killed both men, with Walter s standing f acing the attacker s, while Gor man tr ied to hide under his bed. Pro secu ti on o f t he pe r petrator s was at t em pt ed , but a ll char g es were dis mi ssed Davis obser ves: “The society was still immature, and it was hard to know when this would change” (116).

The cat tlemen’s ra iding and killing of shee p herds had be en f a irly com mon.

But the Sheep Creek raid in Apr il 1909, resulted in the deaths of three herders. Rancher s and sheep men had established a deadline dividing their ranges in 1897. S heepm en Joe All emand and Joe Em ge in Apr il 1 909 cha lleng ed t hat a rbit rar y line by moving their herds onto Spr ing Creek, near Ten Sleep, Wyoming.

Seve n local ra nch er s chose to ra id th e t wo cam ps result ing in t he d eaths of Emge, Allemand, and a herder, Lazier Ang r y public reaction called for prosecution an d punis hme nt o f t he per petrator s. This t im e, sher iff Fel ix Alst on a nd coun ty a t t o r n ey Pe rcy M e t z, ha d g o o d su p p o r t a s t h ey b e g a n t he inve s t i g a t i o n . T h e m o n ey f ro m t he Wyo m i n g Woo l G rowe r s A s s o c i a t i o n , a n d t h e he l p o f r a n g e detective Joe LeFor s, were pivotal to the prosecution, directed by E. E. Enterline and fellow attor ney Will Metz, f ather of the young prosecuting attor ney.

But the cattlemen were not g iving up easily They put most of the attor neys in the Basin on retainer, and even bought up several newspaper s to present their version of the case. I t wa s at t his poi nt tha t sher if f Alst on asked for t he m ili tia , a requ est g r ant e d by t he g over nor, t o be st at ione d in Ba sin C it y, in spit e of th e objection of mayor Collins. The g rand jur y indicted all seven men. Davis notes that several Mor mon men were on that jur y also Herber t Br ink was tr ied fir st. Two of the men charged tur ned state’s evidence, ma king the prosecution’s case even stronger. The rem aining f ive we re all found guilty of murder or ar son or manslaughter Still, the cattlemen “honored” them as they left Basin City for pr ison.

Davis g ives a good review of what happened to the people affected over the year s. In his infor mative summar y account, Davis notes: “Under moder n law, Jim G o r m a n ( 1 9 0 3 ) wou l d h ave b e e n co nv i c t e d o f m a n s l a u g h t e r ” A n d , a s Ju d g e Pa r m al e e t ol d t h e 1 9 0 9 g r an d j ur y : “N o b od y of m e n , h oweve r wi se o r we l l i n t e n t i o n e d , m ay sa f e l y b e e nt r us t e d t o p ron o un ce u p on o r t o re d re s s p u bl i c wrongs or pr ivate g r ievances outside the for ms of the law” (210-11). Davis concludes: “Judge Lynch should never have rendered a decision” (211).

MELVIN T. SMITH St. George, Utah

A Navajo Legacy: The Life and Teac hings of John Holiday. By John Holiday and Rober t S McPher son. (Nor man: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005. xxii + 394 pp Cloth, $29.95.)

W I TH O U T A D OU B T, R o b e r t Mc Ph e r so n is o ne o f t h e m o st p rol i f i c a n d conscientious wr iters on the Navajo people in this generation, and an advocate of their life ways, histor y, and place in Amer ican society He is consummately careful n ot t o b re ec h t he r i g ht of li t e r a r y s ove rei g nt y na t ive pe o pl e s eve r y w h e r e a re exer ting over their own culture and her itage. In this latest work one perceives certain humility about his approach to such things, and one enter s into the dialogue

on that same premise As co-author/editor, he is g racious in his acknowledgement of those who helped him br ing the work to pr int: Baxter Benally, who did the extended inter views with John Holiday in his native tongue, ever str iving to br ing out t he most salient and connective stor ie s and teaching s, and Mar y Holiday, a clan relative of John’s, who took on the colossal work of translation. Paramount, of course, is fir st-named co-author, John Holiday John Holiday is a tr ibal elder, medicine man and spir itual leader who is ver y much aware of t he conu n d r um f acing Nava jo yout h in t hese ti me s: dr ug s a nd a l c o h o l , s e e m l y, f l a m b oya n t , n o n - t r a d i t i o n a l d r e s s a n d h a i r s t y l e s , a n d s e x u a l promiscuity, among other things. He would teach them as he was taught, to develop a clean mind and body, to lear n only the good in language, songs, and prayer s, and to then dwell on it and live accordingly. He sees traditional Navajo lifestyle as the best way for these things to be taught. In f act, a large por tion of Holiday’s narrative presents his life, imbedded in traditional living, ceremony, and obser vance, as a g reat backdrop to a stage on which Navajo life continues to be played out over time by successive generations, but in a new-age setting. He wants his legacy to stand as a constant testimony and reminder of how things once were for his people, and how, he feels, they yet can be H o l i d ay an d M cPhe r s on p rovid e f i f ty- f ive pa g es o f not e s t o hel p m a ke t h e stor y more log ical for the reader who lives outside Navajo reality; these are some of the most cogent endnotes possible in such a work; absolutely wonderful explanation is herein presented. They have skillfully placed throughout the book fiftytwo mostly histor ical photog raphs from noted collections from around the reg ion. It is amazing just how many of these photos por tray Navajo life in times past as if they were a snapshot taken by John as he lived his own life The tr uth is, of cour se, that the photos are random, but speak of traditional Navajo life ways over time, and could be plugged into many Navajo lives as easily as they fit into Holiday’s. These are a superb selection, a visual nar rative wherein are reified the ver y worldview and teachings Holiday hopes to pass on in his nar rative. There is even a map, t o g rou nd t h at rea de r who ne ed s t o k now no r t h , e a s t , s o u t h , a nd we st t o t h e events as told in a stor y, to be affixed, as it were, in space as well as in time

Like Walter Dyk’s Son of Old Man Hat , Leslie Mar mon Silko’s Ceremony, and McPher son’s earlier work, The Jour ney of Navajo Oshley, A Navajo Legacy, The Life and Teachings of John Holiday is destined to become a classic in Native Amer ican studies. It is the voice of John Holiday discussing, outr ight, cer tain r ituals and ceremonies that he sees as par ticularly powerful, hoping that he might be able to use the moder n, wr itten word to reach some of those of his people lost to the f astpaced, dominant lifestyle that sur rounds and captivates them. This is all presented separate from his descr iptive life histor y, steeped in tradition and Navajo belief . Anyone who can imag ine, and especially those who have traveled Navajo lands of the four-cor ner s area, will, as they read this life histor y, have a vision in their mind of those events, will vir tually feel the war mth of the sun in its seasons, smell the sa g e a nd sm oke and canvas a nd ani ma ls l ace d int o John’s st or ies, and hea r th e

f lint y sou nd of mul e an d hor ses’ hoove s pa ssing over sha le slop es a nd e ch oing along canyon walls as large as the Navajo Legacy will be significant.

H. BERT JENSON Utah State University

Ear ning My Degree: Memoirs of an Amer ican University President. By David Pier pont Gardner (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer sity of Califor nia Press, 2005. xx + 432 pp Cloth, $49.95.)

B Y T H E E N D O F DAV I D G A R D N E R ’ S f i r s t y e a r a s p r e s i d e n t o f t h e Univer sity of Utah, master por traitist Alvin Gittins’ painting of the for ty year-old leader hung on the west wall of the broad Park Building cor r idor leading to the president’s office Possessing an uncommon abilit y t o capt ure t he essence of his subjects, Gittins’ pres ent ed an al er t and re sol ut e f ig ure a dor ne d wit h acad em ic regalia, including his official medallion. The backg round appear s as a marble slab with the words “David P Gardner” chiseled in stone One-third of a centur y and nineteen year s in two major univer sity presidencies later, Gittins’ image r ings tr ue.

David Gardner will be remembered as one of the last centur y’s most ar ticulate, k n ow l e d g e a bl e, a nd e f f ec t ive un ive r si t y p re s i d e n t s . A rep u t at i on f o r be in g t o o agg ressive about pur suing his own interests, however, has dogged him throughout his career Gardner’s Memoirs vouchsafe this judgment, rendered independently by his fr iends and enemies in both Califor nia and Utah. A memoir, in full usage, is not only a for m of autobiog raphy but also sometimes “a reminder.” In this case, we are reminded of Gardner’s many laudable achievements and made pr ivy to his means of attaining them. But, we are also g iven his per spectives on the long chain of controver sies sur rounding his income, housing, benefits, and perquisites.

Following two chapters on his youth and education, Gardner devotes a third one to his presidency of the Univer sity of Utah and a four th to his leader ship, dur ing t he fi nal pha se of hi s Un iver sit y of U ta h year s, of t he dur able na t iona l cr itique of public education that the Reagan Administration titled and released as “A Nation at Risk.” Chapter s 5 through 8 concentrate on Gardner’s leadership of the Univer sity of Califor nia’s nine-campus system from 1983 to 1992. In chapter 9 h e o f f er s a b ro ad er p er s p e c t ive on hi s p re si de nt i a l e x pe r ie nce s in Uta h an d Califor nia. The final chapter descr ibes his per sonal life over the year s, including t h e d e a t h o f L i b by, h i s w i f e o f t h i r t y - t wo ye a r s , a n d h i s a b r u p t a n d s t o r my depar ture from t he Univer sit y of Cal ifor nia pre s i d e n c y An e pilog ue de als wit h Gardner’s per sonal renewal, mar r iage to Sheila Rodger s, and foundation leadership over the last dozen year s.

Ear ning My Degree inspires a range of responses. Gardner provides a clear and candid account of the demands on a moder n univer sity president. He also emphasizes the issues that buffet academic leaders and, on a more personal level, ar ticu-

l a t e s t h e p r in ci pl e s t ha t g ui d e d h i s d e ci si on - m a k in g H e d id n ot sh r i nk f ro m tough judgments, nor duck when consequences—anticipated or unanticipated— were meted out. Gardner’s frank por trayal of the constant inter play between his official role and his per sonal values constitutes the book’s pr imar y strength. The excessive space he accords to telling his side of the pay and benefits controver sies, and to descr ibing his relationships with national and inter national leader s, are the least endear ing elements of the stor y If he had spared even a few of these lines in f avor of acknowledg ing some of the extraordinar ily dedicated high-level staff on whom he depended to achieve his many successes, the book would have had a much better feel. On balance, this volume will be of value to anyone whose life has been inter twined with the Univer sity of Utah or the Univer sity of Califor nia. The book should also be of interest to those who study higher education histor y, public policy making, and leader ship Finally, having served as a dean under Gardner for nine of his ten Utah year s, admir ing his a stu te def ense of a cade mic values—from publ ic enli ghtenm ent t o scholarly research—and his deft strateg ic initiatives, I benefited g reatly when the responsibility of leading Deep Spr ings College fell to me Ear ning My Degree will provide similar advantages to anyone contemplating or occupying such a position in academe.

BOOK NOTICES

Canyon Spir its: Beauty and Power in the Ancestral Puebloan World. Photog raphs by John L. Ninnemann, essays by Stephen H. Lekson and J McKim Malville (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. xii + 113 pp Paper, $24.95.)

Canyon S pir its cont ains a l arge num ber of beaut iful photog raphs taken by award-winning photog rapher John C. Ninnemann. The images show the beauty of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon and other histor ic sites. Archaeolog ist Stephen Lekson and astrophysicist J McKim Malville provide backg round into Puebloan architecture, science, and their way of life.

Explor ing with Lewis and Clark: The 1804 Jour nal of Charles Floyd. Edited by James A. Holmberg. (Nor man: Univer sity of Oklahoma Press, 2004. xiv + 98 pp. $45.00.)

Sergeant Charles Floyd was bor n in eighteenth centur y Kentucky and has the distinction of being a hand picked member of the Lewis and Clark

L. JACKSON NEWELL University of Utah

Expedition. He was also the only member of the Cor ps of Discove ry to die en route Before his death, Floyd kept a jour nal detailing the expedition, which is repr inted in this installment of the Amer ican Exploration and Travel Ser ies. In this book, a f a c s i mile copy of each page of Floyd’s jour nal is juxtaposed with a pr inted copy, and the editor has supplied backg round infor mation and explanator y footnotes

Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir By Leonard Bird. (Salt Lake City:

Univer sity of Utah Press, 2005. xvi + 152 pp Paper, $14.95.)

A myr iad of works have been wr itten regarding the twin atomic blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II and laid waste to entire cities. Far less is known of a similar detonation in 1957 above the Yucca Flats in Nevada—and what became of those affected by the 58,300 kilocur ies of radioactive iodine that it spewed into the atmosphere

Leonard Bird was one of many exposed to radiation at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s. This is his memoir—and a courageous str ike at nuclear proliferation. Am ong ot her insig ht s, Bird br ing s t o the f ore a f act incom prehensibl e t o most Amer icans today: no matter where you live in the continental United States, you may have been exposed to nuclear poisons In the words of Bird, “we are all dow nw i n d e rs .” In addition to these stunning revelations, Bird meticulously outlines the trail of death left by gover nmental atomic tests—a trail that passes over tens of thousands of Amer ican veterans—and in the process he makes peace with the past.

Forged in Fire: Essays by Idaho Wr iters. Edited by Mar y Clear man Blew and Phil Dr uker (Nor man: Univer sity of Oklahoma Press, 2005. 261 pp Paper, $16.95.)

E a r t h , a i r, wa t e r, a n d f i r e a r e f o u r e l e m e n t s t h a t , a c c o rdi n g t o ancient Greek t hinker s, make up the ent ire composit ion of the world. Having wr itten an anthology on water, Dr Mar y Blew now teams up with fellow teacher and wr iter Phil Dr uker to produce a second anthology on fire Wr itten by native Idahoans, whose state is constantly threatened by wildfire, Forged in Fire presents that most basic “element” in all of its for ms: as a destroyer, as an entertainment, as a protection, as a sustainer of life, and as a link with man’s pr imitive past. From fighting blazing flames r un rampant across the forest to saving a baby bur ned at home, from taming fire in a unive rsity laborator y to building a simple campfire, Blew and Dr uker’s anthology explores the human response to fire—how it “war ms us, fr ightens us, e n t e rtains us, ” according to the book’s introduction—at the same time examining subsequent environmental renewal and rejuvenation.

For t Bowie, Ar izona: Combat Post of the Southwest, 1858-1894. By Douglas C McChr istian. (Nor man: Univer sity of Oklahoma Press, 2005. x + 357 pp $32.95.)

For t Bowie was founded in 1862, dur ing the middle of the Civil War The for t, which is in present-day Ar izona, was at the center of a g reat deal of c o n f l i c t b e t we e n U. S. t roo p s a n d A m e r i c a n I n d i a n s . Pe a c e a g re e m e n t s w i t h Cochise, an Apache chief , and Geronimo were made at For t Bowie In his book, a for ty-year histor y of the for t, McChr istian descr ibes these events as well as details of the westward expansion of the United States.

Hear t Petals: The Personal Cor respondence of David Oman McKay to Emma Ray McKay. Edited by Mar y Jane Woodger. (Salt Lake City: Univer sity of Utah Press, 2005. xvi + 200 pp $21.95.)

The sixty-four letter s David O McKay wrote to Emma Ray span a per iod of thir ty-five year s from July 1, 1898, to November 16, 1932, and exude the love and respect that the Mor mon church leader held for his wife of sixtynine year s. Obviously not all the letter s that McKay wrote to his wife were preser ved, but there are sufficient to reveal the character of a husband who lived by example the counsel he gave other s. The letter s cover their cour tship, the two year s McKay spent as a missionar y in Scotland from 1897 to 1899, McKay’s letter to O.H. Riggs asking per mission to mar r y his daughter and the f ather’s response to his daughter, letter s wr itten dur ing a tr ip to Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and Samoa in 1921, and other letter s from a spr inkling of Nor th Amer ican cities and towns in the Inter mountain West. The editor provides a useful introduction, epilogue, and detailed notes to enhance the book.

Illustrated Emigrants’ Guide to the Histor ic Sites Along the Hastings/Mor mon Trail

For t Br idger to the Salt Lake Valley. By John Eldredge (Salt Lake City: TrailBuff .com Press, 2005. xiii + 178 pp Cloth, $30.00; Paper $25.00.)

This moder n-day trail guide is heavily illustrated with histor ic and contemporar y photog raphs and maps for today’s trail visitor s to the overland trail from For t Br idger to the Salt Lake Valley. The trail guide includes br ief contemporar y descr iptions of dozens of significant geog raphical features and histor ic sites on this once heavily traveled route to the Salt Lake Valley

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY FELLOWS

THOMAS G ALEXANDER

JAMES B ALLEN

LEONARD J ARRINGTON (1917-1999) MAUREEN URSENBACH BEECHER

FAWN M. BRODIE (1915-1981) JUANITA BROOKS (1898-1989) OLIVE W BURT (1894-1981) EUGENE E. CAMPBELL (1915-1986) C GREGORY CRAMPTON (1911-1995) EVERETT L. COOLEY

S GEORGE ELLSWORTH (1916-1997) AUSTIN E. FIFE (1909-1986) PETER L. GOSS

LEROY R. HAFEN (1893-1985)

JESSE D JENNINGS (1909-1997) A. KARL LARSON (1899-1983) GUSTIVE O LARSON (1897-1983) BRIGHAM D MADSEN DEAN L. MAY (1938-2003) DAVID E. MILLER (1909-1978)

DALE L. MORGAN (1914-1971) WILLIAM MULDER FLOYD A. O’NEIL HELEN Z. PAPANIKOLAS (1917-2004) CHARLES S. PETERSON RICHARD W SADLER WALLACE E. STEGNER (1909-1993)

HONORARY LIFE MEMBERS

DAVID BIGLER

VEE CARLISLE EVERETT L. COOLEY JAY M. HAYMOND FLORENCE S JACOBSEN WILLIAM P MACKINNON LAMAR PETERSEN RICHARD C ROBERTS MELVIN T SMITH MARTHA R. STEWART