Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, Number 1, 2011

2 IN THIS ISSUE

4

“Ihad arrived at perfection”:The Lost Canyons of the Green River

By

Roy

Webb 20 Empires and Homesteads:Making a Living in Range Creek

By Steven L Gerber and James M Aton 42 Nine Mile,Minnie Maud and the Mystery of a Place Name

By Jerry D Spangler 52 The Replevied Present:San Juan County,the Southern Utes,and What Might Have Been,1894-1895

By Robert S McPherson 72 BOOK REVIEWS

Will Bagley. So Rugged and Mountainous:Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California 1812-1848 Reviewed by TomRea

Steven K. Madsen. Explor ing Desert Stone:John N.Macomb’s 1859 Expedition to the Canyonlands of the Colorado Reviewed by Edward Leo Lyman

David E Wagner Patr ick Connor’s War:The 1865 Powder River Indian Expedition Reviewed by Robert S. Voyles

Richard E Bennett,Susan Easton Black,Donald Q Cannon The Nauvoo Legion in Illinois:A History of the Mormon Militia 1841 1846 Reviewed by Richard C. Roberts

James M Aton John Wesley Powell:His Life and Legacy Reviewed by Brad Cole

Toby Jurovics,Carol M Johnson,Glenn Willumson,William F Stapp Framing the West:The Survey Photographs of Timothy H.O’Sullivan Reviewed by James R. Swensen

Donna Deyhle Reflections in Place:Connected Lives of Navajo Women Reviewed by Karolyn Romero

William G. Hartley. My Fellow Servants:Essays on the History of the Pr iesthood Reviewed by Kenneth W. Godfrey

Flaming

Minnie Maud,are just some of the names g iven to places along the three hundred or so mile stretch of r iver between the towns of Green River,Wyoming,and Green River,Utah. Place names denote extensive human activity and imag ination and the treasure of names that dot the map of eastern Utah’s Green River Countrymark the human exper ience fromancient peoples to later missionar ies,fur trappers,explorers,ranchers,outlaws,r iver runners,and others.

Our first article for 2011 focuses on the canyons of the Green River in the northeastern corner of Utah that were “lost”with the construction of Flaming Gorge dam and reservoir in the 1950s We then move south along the r iver to Range Creek,a tr ibutary of the Green River that has gained international attention for its near pr istine treasure of prehistor ic sites,structures,and rock art But before more recent interests of archaeolog ists in human activity of the area,a few settlers and ranchers found their way to this remote reg ion and ma i nta i ned an ex i stence under challeng i ng cond i t i ons for half a century Although their business was cattle ranching,some demonstrated an

FRONTCOVER: The remains of an ancient Fremont structure sit atop a natural tower overlooking the Green River. PHOTOCOURTESYOFDANMILLER.

BACKCOVER: Sunrise on the Green River in Desolation Canyon. PHOTOCOURTESYOFDANMILLER. IN THIS ISSUE (ABOVE): United States Geological Survey Camp at Scott’s Bottoms in 1922. UNIVERSITYOFUTAHLIBRARY. (RIGHT) The United States Geological Survey Group at Ashley Falls in 1922. UNIVERSITYOFUTAHLIBRARY.

Gorge,Firehole,Kingfisher,Horseshoe,Red,Brown’s Park,The Gates of Lodore,Ashley Falls,Split Mountain,Desolation,Nine Mile, and

appreciation for the ancient artifacts and helped insure their preservation

Returning to the issue of place names,our third article takes up the question of two of the reg ion’s best known but least understood names—Nine Mile Canyon and Minnie Maud Why the name Nine Mile for a canyon that is much longer than its name suggests?Who was Minnie Maud,or Minnie and Maud,and how d i d the name come to grace an eastern Utah stream and canyon?How do both names relate to the John Wesley Powell expeditions down the Green River in 1869 and 1871?

The location of our last article remains in eastern Utah — San Juan County in the southeastern corner of the state — where prospects for that area’s future hung on a momentous decision in 1895 regarding the removal of Colorado Utes to lands only recently taken up by Mormon settlers and Colorado cattlemen

arrived at perfection”: The Lost Canyons of the Green River

BYROYWEBB

In August 1843,John Charles Fremont,The Pathfinder,camped on the banks of the Green River in Browns Park with his guide,the famous mountain man,Kit Carson It is easy to imag ine Carson regaling the Pathfinder with tales of the old days,but Fremont’s attention was caught by what Carson said about what the trappers had long called the Seeds-kee-dee Ag ie (Prair ie Hen River in Shoshone),the r iver rolling by their camp. The course of the Green and Colorado,he wrote, “…is but little known,and that little der ived from vague report. Three hundred miles of its lower part,as it approaches the Gulf of California, is reported to be smooth and tranquil; but its upper part is manifestly broken into many falls and rapids From many descr i pt i ons of trappers, i t i s probably that i n i ts foam i ng course among i ts lofty precipices, it presents many scenes of wild grandeur ; and though offer ing many temptations and often discussed,no trappers have been found bold enough to undertake a voyage which has so certain a prospect of a fatal termination ”1

Since Fremont’s camp in Browns Park,despite many years of exploration,exploitation,settlement,and the construction of one of the largest dams in the United States, it is still the case that l i ttle i s known about the canyons and valleys of this section of the Green,one of

The Green River and Flaming Gorge in 1909.

1 John Charles Fremont Report of the Explor ing Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the year 1842 and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843-44 (Washington,D C.: Gales and Seaton,1845),129-30

Roy Webb is the Multimedia Archivist in the J Willard Marr iott Library Special Collections Department at the University of Utah

“Ihad

the largest r iver systems in North Amer ica The blank spaces on Fremont’s map remained blank until late in the nineteenth century when some of them began to be filled with ranches,towns,canyons,rapids,and forests However,the Green River between the town of Green River,Wyoming, and Flaming Gorge Dam in northeastern Utah,some one hundred miles downstream,rema i ns, i n some ways,just as unknown as i t was when Fremont talked to Kit Carson so many years ago.

Downr iver at Glen Canyon,where the United States Congress in 1956 author ized the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam—a chronolog ical twin of Flaming Gorge Dam—large teams of archeolog ists,histor ians,biolog ists,and other scientists were organized and sent to survey the cultural and natural resources about to be lost to Lake Powell. The surveys produced shelves of documents,thousands of photographs,and dozens of scientific reports. In the ensuing year s, scores of non-fiction books,hundreds of articles,a number of novels,documentar ies,and memoirs of Glen Canyon have been produced,rhapsodizing about its lost beauty Poems have been penned,songs have been composed,and environmentalists have launched campaigns in all ser iousness to remove the dam

And yet even though the canyons and valleys of the upper Green River were of rare beauty and filled with a r ich histor ical her itage,only two br ief studies were commissioned when Flaming Gorge Dam was author ized and constructed at the same time as Glen Canyon Dam.2 As Flaming Gorge Reservoir filled,the entire stretch of r iver,some eighty miles of valleys and canyons,was flooded and forever changed. Since that time,there have been no books,songs,films,no poems,and no environmentalists calling for the removal of Flam i ng Gorge Dam Flam i ng Gorge Reservo i r,and the truncated stretch of Red Canyon below the dam,has become known as a blue-r i bbon f i shery,a playground for water sk i ers and boaters,and an impoundment that stores water pr imar ily for upper Colorado River Basin states. Along the reach of the Green from Green River,Wyoming,to the middle of Red Canyon,where now only power boats can be seen,there was once a r iver. On land now beneath the cold,clear impounded water, ranchers and farmers and families once lived,deer and elk and antelope and mountain lions and bears thr ived,and millions of waterfowl graced the skies. Simply put,Glen Canyon was not the only “Place No One Knew.”

Before 1956, the Green flowed uninterrupted as it had for millennia From its source in the Wind River Mountains,the r iver traveled for about 175 miles through high mountain valleys Below the town of Green River,

2 See W i ll i am Purdy, An Outl i ne of the H i story of the Flam i ng Gorge Area, Un ivers i ty of Utah Anthropolog ical Papers,No 37 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,1962),which is forty-two pages long and the 121-page document by Angus Woodbury,Stephen D Durrant,and Seville Flowers, A Survey of Vegetation in the Flaming Gorge Reservoir Basin,University of Utah Anthropolog ical Papers,No 45 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,1960) In contrast,the catalog at the Marr iott Library contains almost 250 books about Glen Canyon,not to mention numerous magazine and newspaper articles,photographs, films,and oral histor ies

establ i shed as a “Hell on Wheels”ra i lroad town dur ing the building of the transcontinental ra i lroad i n 1868,the Green flowed through mostly open country for about thirty miles,with only a few bluffs and spires—known today as North and South Chimney Rocks,north of Firehole Canyon—to interrupt the skyline Cid Ricketts Sumner of the 1955 Hatch-Eggert Film Expedition descr ibed this stretch of the Green as follows:

Gradually the scene around us altered The buttes on one side rose higher and more color came into them red and buff mixed with the gray brown. Some were r ibboned masses topped now and then with a small nipple,reminding me of the Paps of Jura At times these formations were close to the r iverside,again they were set back beyond a level stretch of green woods and grasses or a bleak expanse of shale Then,as the buttes grew higher,turreted castles appeared.3

This stretch of r iver was lined with cottonwoods and willows,home to innumerable waterfowl and a number of small ranches. At the mouth of Black’s Fork,however,the landscape changed,as the r iver travelers got their first view of the Uinta Mountains,a seemingly impassable barr ier for the r iver,forty miles downr iver From Black’s Fork to the Uintas was likewise open country,with more cottonwoods,willows,waterfowl,deer,and other wildlife. There were also more ranches,which took advantage of the r ich r iver bottoms to graze cattle,while sheep grazed on the ar id hills away from the r iver. Ranches included the Taylor ranch,the Kraus ranch,the Logan ranch,and a number of others.

The most notable was the Holmes Ranch,located a few miles downr iver

3 Cid Ricketts Sumner, Traveler in the Wilderness (New York: Harpers,1957),45-46 Cid Sumner,author of the “Tammy”ser ies of young adult books,was seventy years old when she signed up for the EggertHatch Film Expedition in 1955

The Green River flowing through Red Canyon.

from Black’s Fork on the left side of the r iver Just about every r iver traveler from 1909 until the area was flooded by the reservoir stopped at the ranch,and commented on the f i ne hospitality afforded by Mr. and Mrs. Walter Holmes The first to descr ibe the ranch was Ellsworth Kolb,who along with his brother Emery visited there in September 1911: Our next camp was at the Holmes’ ranch,a few miles below Black’s Fork We tr ied to buy some eggs of Walter Holmes,and were told that we could have them on one condition—that we visit him that evening This was a pr ice we were only too glad to pay,and the evening will linger long in our memor ies.

Mr Holmes entertained us with stor ies of hunting tr ips—after big game in the wilds of Colorado; and among the lakes of the Wind River Mountains, the distant source of the Green River Mrs Holmes and two young ladies entertained us with music; [and] it was late that night when we rolled ourselves i n our blankets,on the banks twenty feet above the r iver 4

Every other r iver runner who passed by the Holmes Ranch i n the ensuing years stopped for a visit; all left with fond memor ies of the Holmes and their picturesque ranch.

Below the Holmes Ranch,the r iver slowed and widened,meander ing across open bottomlands that,while excellent grazing,were also home to clouds of mosquitoes that feasted on anyone unfortunate enough to be there dur ing the hatch. This stretch was not all bugs and sandbars,however ; a few m i les below the Holmes Ranch, i n Halfway Hollow,was the Buckboard Hotel,a small hostelry establ i shed to serve travelers on the route between the little towns of Manila and Linwood,Utah,and Green River,Wyoming William Purdy,the schoolmaster in Manila,and author of the only histor ical salvage document wr itten regarding this stretch of the Green,wrote “Peter Wall noticed that people traveling from one settlement to the other had to camp out one n i ght He dec i ded to rel i eve the i r discomfor ts, and make a good investment besides,by building the hotel on the banks of the Green in 1912 ”5 Downr iver there were more ranches, including the Lowe Ranch and the Brennigar Ranch,where the settlers had established a ferry to cross to grazing lands on either side of the r iver.

4 Ellsworth Kolb, Through the Grand Canyon from Wyom i ng to Mex i co, (New York: The Macmillan Company,1914),16-17

5 Purdy, History of the Flaming Gorge Area, 29-30 By the time construction was started on Flaming Gorge Dam,the hotel had been abandoned,but it was still standing until taken down by work crews from the Bureau of Reclamation

The John Wesley Powell Expedition lining boats on the Green River at Ashley Falls.

Not far below the Kraus Ranch,about f i fty m i les below Green R i ver, Wyom i ng,the landscape began to change again; the bluffs along the r iver rose, and about ten miles below the Kraus Ranch the r iver cut through the f i rst of a ser ies of hogbacks that had been formed by the r ising of the east-west trend i ng Uinta Mountains Once past the first r idge,the r iver reentered open country for another few m i les,pass i ng the Sm i th Ranch,reached by a ferry and a footbr idge

Downstream,at the mouth of Henry’s Fork,was the little town of Linwood,Utah Linwood was establ i shed by George Solomon i n the 1890s,dur i ng the Lucerne Valley land boom,and by the first decades of the twentieth century it was a thr iving small community serving the many ranches and farms in the area At one time,Linwood boasted a school,a gas station,a number of homes, the Smith and Larsen Mercantile Company,and a post office,but by the time Flaming Gorge Dam was built,the town was in decline. L i nwood was also the downstream term i nus of the Green R i ver Nav i gat i on Company,establ i shed i n March 1908 by a group of local businessmen from Green River and Rock Spr ings,Wyoming. Their plan was to build a steamboat to carry passengers and freight from the railroad at Green River to Linwood,thereby avoiding the two-day tr ip over rough roads After boilers and a steam eng ine were obtained from Chicago,the steamboat was built in Green River and chr istened the COMET Built at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollar s, the sixty-foot long craft was launched on July 4,1908,and the maiden voyage to Linwood undertaken three days later. Passengers i ncluded the off i cers of the Green R iver Nav i gat i on Company and local d i gn i tar i es,refreshed by “ample suppl i es of beer ” L i nwood was reached after a journey of only e i ght hours The return voyage against the current took much longer—thirty-three hours—and the

Beehive Rock at the Mouth of Kingfisher Canyon on the Green River.

boat ran out of coal. The deep draft proved to be unsuitable for the shallow Green and the boat frequently had to be hauled off of sandbars using winches. A second voyage,haul i ng fre i ght for L i nwood, proved to be no more successful,and the effort was abandoned 6 Two other vessels,the SUNBEAM and the patr iotically-named TEDDY R,were no more successful.7

Just below Linwood the r iver’s course changed dramatically,and from this point on,save for a few open areas, is confined by canyons for almost two hundred miles Here r iver travelers first saw the aptly-named Flaming Gorge,where the r iver entered the Uinta Mountains through a narrow cleft between red cliffs that towered more than a thousand feet above the r iver From upstream, it appeared that the r iver flowed into a cave in the mountains,g iving some early explorers anxious moments. William Manly, who floated the Green on his way to California for the Gold Rush in 1849,recorded his first impression of what would later be named Flaming Gorge:

[The] boat came around a small angle in the stream,and all at once there seemed to be a higher,steeper range of mountains r ight across the valley The boys thought the r iver was coming to a rather sudden end…and for the life of me I could not say they were not r ight,for there was no way in sight for it to go I remembered while looking over a map the military men had,I found a place named Brown’s Hole,and I told the boys I guessed we were elected to go on foot to California after all,for I did not propose to follow the r iver down any sort of hole into any mountain 8

6 Today only the bell of the COMET survives, in the possession of the Green River Rotary Club 7 Roy,Webb, If we had a boat:Green River explorers,adventurers,and runners (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,1986),104 Also,http://www wyomingtalesandtrails com/g r iver2 html,(accessed October 2, 2009) The TEDDY R was named for President Theodore Roosevelt 8 William L Manly, Death Valley in ’49:An important chapter of California Pioneer History (New York: Wallace Hebberd,1929),73-74

Brenniger’s Ferry on the Green River, August 10, 1917.

UNIVERSITYOFUTAHLIBRARY

The community of Linwood in 1945.

Named by John Wesley Powell in 1869— like all of the other canyons from this point to the confluence w i th the Colorado,f ive hundred m i les downstream—Flam i ng Gorge was short but spectacular Dur ing spr ing high water,the r iver pooled and swirled as it entered this narrow gap,and the resulting whirlpools gave r ise to the legend of the dreaded Green R iver Suck,wh i ch was supposed to be an i mpassable cataract that would mean certain death to any who tr ied to navigate it 9 It was a good story,but hardly the truth; once the r iver entered the canyon it sorted itself out quickly and flowed with hardly a r ipple until Red Canyon. Despite the imag ined dangers of the Green River Suck,the reality was far d i fferent ; there m i ght be sw i rl i ng waters,but everyone who saw Flam i ng Gorge marveled at i ts beauty Freder i ck S Dellenbaugh,who accompanied John Wesley Powell’s second expedition in 1871,was the first to see beyond the Green River Suck to the beauty of the canyon:

Just below the mouth of Henry’s Fork [the r iver] doubled to the left and we found ourselves between two low cliffs,then in a moment we dashed to the r ight into the beautiful canyon,whose summit we had seen,r ising about 1300 feet on the r ight,and a steep slope on the left at the base of which was a small bottom covered with all cottonwood trees,whose green shone resplendent against the red rocks… The canyon was surpr isingly beautiful and romantic.10

9 T D Bonner, The Life and Adventures of James P.Beckwourth (New York: Alfred A Knopf,1931),59-60 The first account of the Green River Suck appeared in Beckwourth’s ghost-wr itten memoirs,cited above In 1989,as I was prepar ing for a lengthy r iver tr ip in Green River,Wyoming,that would commemorate John Wesley Powell’s voyage,we were told by a number of local residents that Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the r iver below were too dangerous to navigate,even though people had been doing it for well over a hundred years It was the latter-day version of the “Green River Suck ” 10 Freder ic S Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage (New Haven:Yale University Press,1962),17

Ralf Woolley,the USGS eng i neer who was i n charge of the 1922 dam site survey,abandoned his usual d i spass i onate,eng i neer ’ s style and waxed eloquent about the canyon : “[T]he north wall of Flam i ng Gorge,w i th i ts v iv i d hues of red,brown,and ocher, r i ses l i ke a huge flame of f i re ahead . The gorge… forms a very i mpress i ve entrance to the ser i es of canyons below.”11

Three m i les below the dramat i c entrance at Flam i ng Gorge,the r i ver made a long U-shaped bend that was known as Horseshoe Canyon Equally spectacular,Horseshoe Canyon was evidence of the dramat i c geolog i cal forces that had accompan i ed the creation of the Uintas Like Flaming Gorge,Horseshoe was a short canyon,only three miles long,but unlike the flar ing red rocks of Flaming Gorge,Horseshoe was composed of gray quartzite After the r iver worked its way through Horseshoe Canyon, it flowed through a small open area called N i elsen ’ s Flat,and immediately entered Kingfisher Canyon,named by Powell in 1869 for the numerous birds he saw along the r iver in the canyon.

The d iv i d i ng po i nt between K i ngf i sher and Red Canyons was the mouth of Sheep Creek Canyon—one of the most impressive geolog ic areas i n the West 12 After pass i ng Sheep Creek Canyon,the r i ver rounded Beehive Point where the thousands of swallows making homes in the sandstone cliff reminded Powell of a busy beehive Downr iver from Beehive

11 Ralf R Woolley, The Green River and its Utilization USGS WATER SUPPLY PAPER Number 618, (Washington,D C.: U S Government Pr inting Office,1930),40-41

12 Sheep Creek Canyon,where colorful and significant examples of geology can be seen,has been preserved as a Geolog ical Area by the U S Forest Service

A1922 photograph of Amos Hill (seated at far right) with three members of the USGS survey party.

UNIVERSITYOFUTAHLIBRARY

Point was another small open area known as Hideout Flat,long considered a haunt of the many outlaws who had passed through the area dur ing the heyday of the Wild Bunch. In 1911,the Kolb brothers encountered some suspicious characters not far from this part of the r iver :

We had previously been informed that some of these mountains were the hiding-places of men who were “wanted” in the three states which bordered near here Some escaping pr isoners had also been traced to the mountains in this direction; then all tracks had ceased [A rancher] asked us to help him swim some of his horses across the r iver He said the high water had taken out his own boat The horses were rounded up in a mountain-hidden valley and dr iven into the water ahead of the boat After secur ing the horses,[his] welcome seemed to turn to suspicion and he questioned our reasons for being there,wanting to know what we could find in that wild country to interest us [Later they were told] Our former host […] had committed many depredations and had served one term for cattle stealing.13

It was also the site of a forest camp,reached by a rough road from the plateau above. Many early r iver runners started their tr ips here,to avoid the flat water above,with its wind and mosquitoes Since the canyons were all so short,they were usually passed in a single day. Dellenbaugh summed up the whole ser ies thusly: “Flaming Gorge is the gateway,Horseshoe the vestibule,and Kingfisher the antechamber to the whole grand ser ies ”14

Travelers encountered real rapids for the first time below Hideout Flat. There had been small r iffles,such as the one off Beehive Point,but as the r iver entered the durable Uinta Mountain Quartzite that made up Red Canyon,the rap i ds became much more d i ff i cult ; harder rock generally makes for more challeng ing rapids. There were four rapids in the first three miles,and boatmen became cautious and concerned. But this stretch had its enjoyable side,too; there were a number of fresh-water creeks that entered on the south side of the r iver,providing not only good water but open space for camps Carter Creek,just below the head of Red Canyon,was

13Ellsworth Kolb, Through the Grand Canyon from Wyom i ng to Mex i co (New York: The Macmillan Company,1914),41-44 Hideout Flat is one of the few local names that have survived

14Dellenbaugh,A Canyon Voyage, 22

Nathaniel Galloway in Ashley Falls—1909.

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one such place Ralf Woolley,a USGS surveyor who ran the r iver in 1922,wrote:

Carter Creek flows in a rugged gorge with steep walls,enter ing Green River from the south [r ight] The stream carr ied about 100 or 125 second-feet of clear,cold water at the time of our visit and seemed to be very well stocked with mountain trout Thirty-five fine trout were caught dur ing the two or three hours before dark. [...] The camp at Carter Creek was a beautiful spot in a cluster of pine trees,with a fine cold spr ing of sparkling water close at hand for dr inking water 15 Cid Sumner was even more enthusiastic in 1955: The sun,not yet quite cut off by the tower ing cliff opposite,was still shining down here By a cleft in this wall and a wooded widening,a clear rushing stream dashed down over a tumble of rocks to join the r iver. Tall pines glinted silver and green,their straight trunks rosied by the sun The ground sloped gently back to a more level spot under the trees where a rough table had been set,a board bench alongside it,for others had camped here Carter Creek I shall never think of it but with a sense of completion, of fulfillment,as if here at last I had arr ived at perfection.16

But the traveler could never escape a sense of gloom in Red Canyon By now the r iver was committed to an easterly course toward the Gates of Lodore,seventy-five miles downstream The high walls that precluded the sun,the deep red rock th i ckly covered w i th Ponderosa P i ne,and the constant background noise of rapids,made this an intimidating stretch for early r iver runners. Many of them had been told tall tales not only of the dreaded Green River Suck,but of Ashley Falls,where early trappers and prospectors had purportedly lost their boats,and in some cases their lives 17

15Ralf R Woolley,“A Boat Tr ip Down Green River from Green River,Wyo to Green River,Utah,” Accession 1407,Special Collections,J Willard Marr iott Library,University of Utah

16Cid Ricketts Sumner,Traveler in the Wilderness (New York: Harpers,1957),62-63

17None of the tales about Ashley Falls were true; no one is ever recorded as having been lost in Ashley Falls,and there were only two recorded capsizes There was a legend current in Green River about the rapid being named because Ashley,or var ious members of his party,were drowned there and the survivors were forced to climb out of the canyon and struggle back to civilization,but it never happened Powell passed along this legend in his book,but placed the disaster downr iver in the Canyon of Lodore

Norm Nevills and Joseph DesLoge in Ashley Falls, 1947.

There was some truth i n the legends ; prospector Theodore Hook of Cheyenne led a party of fifteen miners that followed Powell’s first expedition by a few days. At one point in Red Canyon,probably the rapid at Skull Creek,Hook’s boat capsized and he was drowned. Freder ick Dellenbaugh as he passed the site of the accident two years later noted that “Their abandoned boats,flat-bottomed and inadequate,still lay half-bur ied in sand on the left-hand bank,and not far off on a sandy knoll was the grave of the unfortunateleader marked by a pine board set up,with his name painted on it Old sacks,ropes,oars,etc ,emphasized the completeness of the disaster.”18 For the most part,however,the rapids above Ashley Falls were difficult but not life-threatening.

Just below Skull Creek,the r iver made a ha i rp i n turn around Gold Point,and passed the mouths of Trail and Allen Creeks,where Ralf Woolley in 1922 met,to his surpr ise,a hermit named Amos Hill: The hermit was at home,and he was as much surpr ised to see the visitors as they were to see him He gave his name as Amos Hill and said that he was 71 years old and had lived in the canyon about 20 years. His house or hovel was a crude tepee of boards over a small hole in the ground […] He conversed freely Among other things he claimed to have gone through the Green River canyons on a raft,taking a horse with him,a feat which one who has been through the canyons would be justified in believing impossible 19

Just a few miles below Hill’s hermit hideaway,r iver runners came on the biggest rapid in Red Canyon—one of the biggest on the entire Green River—and one that everyone had heard of and dreaded—Ashley Falls. Ashley Falls was named by Powell when he saw the inscr iption left there by William Ashley in 1825 While Ashley’s party of trappers portaged their supplies and “bullboats”around the rapid,Ashley painted “ASHLEY 1825” on the left wall Formed by house-sized boulders that had fallen from the canyon wall, it was a tr icky run in low flows,but a truly daunting prospect at high water. Then,huge lateral waves and holes made it seem almost impossible to run safely at first glance,and lining or portag ing Ashley Falls was especially difficult because of the huge boulders on either side of the r iver In 1871 Freder ick Dellenbaugh descr ibed the arduous labor required to carry their supplies around Ashley Falls:

In the morning soon after leaving this camp a dull roar ahead told of our approach to Ashley Falls,for which we were on the lookout […] An immense rock stuck up in the middle of the r iver and the water divided on this and shot down on each side in a sharp fall of about eight feet Each was a clear chute and not dangerous to look at, but the effect of so sudden a plunge on one of our loaded boats was too much of a problem for tr ial A portage was decided on The left bank where we were was a mass of enormous broken rocks where it seemed next to impossible to haul a boat 20

18Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage, 25 It’s hard not to detect a note of self-satisfaction in Dellenbaugh’s wr iting about Hook’s unfortunate demise

19Woolley, The Green River and its Utilization, 42-43 The Todd-Page party did not find him when they came by in 1926

20Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage,27

The name of the first person to run Ashley Falls,rather than portage or line it,has been lost to history,but it was probably Nathaniel Galloway,the famous r iver man from Vernal,who started taking small skiffs down the Green late in the 1880s 21 George Flavell,who ran the entire r iver in his little punt PANTHON in 1896,left what is probably the first record of a run of Ashley Falls. He noted that “One place the r iver was completely dammed up with boulders which caused a falls of four feet,the widest passage being ten feet That was enough for the PANTHON,so we passed on.”22 Galloway wrote about the rapid in his journal dur ing the Galloway-Stone expedition of 1909 Reaching the rapid in September’s low water,Galloway and Julius Stone scouted it and then ran it with no real problems:

After examination I decide to run all the boats thru the center channel running directly towards the large cubelar [sic] rock in the center This channel is so narrow at the entrance that one must fold the oars back by the side of the boat as soon as the first rocks are passed. One has but about 15 ft to direct the boat to prevent dashing into the large rock 23

Virtually every r iver runner,from William Ashley in 1825 until the rapid was flooded when the gates on Flaming Gorge Dam closed in 1963,left an account of Ashley Falls Norm Nevills,the pioneer commercial r iver outfitter,first ran Ashley Falls in 1940,and wrote “Mile 292 ASHLEY FALLS After some study I decided to run thru on the left,with passengers. It’s a bit tr icky,tho not dangerous. […] With the landing of the WEN,look across the r iver and see names of var ious parties on wall Decide to cross

21 Webb, If we had a boat, 87-89

22 George F Flavell, The Log of the Panthon,ed by Neil B Carmony and David E Brown (Boulder : Pruett Publishing,1987),19

23 Nathaniel Galloway,Diary,September 18,1909,Nathaniel Galloway Papers,Accession 1938,Special Collections,J Willard Marr iott Library,University of Utah

24 Roy Webb,ed , High,Wide,and Handsome:the River Journals of Norman D.Nevills (Logan: Utah State University Press,2005),67 Nevills ran it again in 1947 and 1949 with equal success

A.K. Reynolds in Red Canyon, 1950.

Launching boats near Green River, Wyoming, in 1958.

over and put our names up too.”24 Here Nevills br ings up two i nterest i ng po i nts about Ashley Falls First, it was the site of a long-standi ng r i ver reg i ster,where many earlier travelers painted or chiseled their names Start i ng w i th W i ll i am Ashley,numbers of later travelers followed his example, i nclud i ng W i ll i am

Manly in 1849,the Galloway-Stone Expedition in 1909,Amos Burg and Buzz Holmstrom i n 1937,Norm Nev i lls i n 1940,and many others . Pictures of the reg ister are,unfortunately,not existent,but glimpses of it can be seen in films taken of runs through the rapid Dellenbaugh was barely able to make out Ashley’s inscr iption in 1871,and the last time anyone noted the Ashley inscr iption was in 1950,when per ipatetic r iver runner Harry Alesen recorded that he had been able to find it 25

The second salient point about Ashley Falls offered by Nevills is that it was actually a pretty easy run. For all the waves and holes and the huge rocks,and for the huge roar caused by the rapid and the imposing look of it,the route through the rapid was very straightforward,and just below it was a huge calm pool,without another rapid for over a mile Boaters would usually run to the r ight of the main,“cubelar”boulder at low water in the late summer and fall,and to the left at h i gh water dur i ng the spr i ng run-off The high-water run to the left was an exciting one,with big lateral waves coming off both sides of the rocks—in those days,before any dams, the Green could flood up to twenty thousand cubic feet per second—but it was a forg iving one as well.26

Even before Nevills’s comments in 1940,Ashley Falls was beg inning to

25 “Notes on Green R iver tr i p,1951”Harry Aleson papers,p 5,Utah State H i stor i cal Soc i ety Dellenbaugh noted about the Ashley inscr iption: “On one of my tr ips over the rocks with cargo I made a slight detour on the return to see the boulder where the Major had discovered Ashley’s name with a date The letters were in black,just under a slight projection and were surpr isingly distinct consider ing the forty-six years of exposure The “2”was illeg ible and looked like a “3 ”None of our party seemed to know that it could have been only a “2”for by the year 1835 Ashley had sold out and had g iven up the fur business in the mountains ”Dellenbaugh,A Canyon Voyage, 28

26 Indeed,one of the ironies of this stretch of r iver is that all early r iver parties commented on how worr ied they were about Ashley Falls,until they got there and discovered that it wasn’t that bad Then, relieved and incautious,they would go downr iver about twenty miles and wreck their boats in Red Creek Rapid,just above the flat water of Browns Park Red Creek was,and still is,a very difficult rapid that has been the scene of a number of wrecks and at least one death

Construction work at the Flaming Gorge Dam site in the 1950s.

lose its fearsome reputation,for in 1926 the Todd-Page party ran the rapid,walked back upstream,and swam through i n the i r l i fe jackets27 In fact,the only known r iver runner to have any trouble in Ashley Falls was Don Harr is,by 1940 a veteran of Cataract and Grand Canyons In a 1990 interview,Harr is was asked if he had ever capsized a boat: First time is when we were on a USGS tr ip in high water in Ashley Falls and we capsized there Pilot error,let’s see had I known just exactly how the rapid was I should have pulled ashore We ran down the left side of that big rock If I could have had one of the fellows stand on shore and keep tossing some pebbles over where I was supposed to hit the break off then I’d have been in position I was just about a boat width too far one way or the other,too far left I believe If I would have been another boat width over I would have run it without capsizing 28

So all of the worry about Ashley Falls by early r iver runners was actually for nothing Cal Giddings,a pioneer Utah kayaker,ran Ashley Falls in the late 1950s and summed it up thus: “I remember we worr ied a lot about that because we’ d heard about it,but it was pretty simple when we got there So I think that was a little bit over-exaggerated in difficulty ”29

There was still a lot of Red Canyon to go below Ashley Falls,and a number of smaller,unnamed rap i ds,such as the ones at the mouth of Dutch John Draw and Cart Creek 30 It was just below there,however,that

27

28 Don Harr i s Oral Interv i ew,March 14,1990 Spec i al Collect i ons,J Wi llard Marr i ott L i brary, University of Utah

29 Cal Giddings Oral Interview,July 3,1984 Special Collections,J Willard Marr iott Library,University of Utah

30 John W Van Cott, Utah Place Names (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,1990),119 Dutch John was named for “Dutch John”Hanselena,a Prussian immigrant who had mining claims in the Red Creek area in the 1860s German speakers were often referred to as “Dutch” in that per iod Dutch John,Utah, was the home of up to 3,500 workers dur ing the construction of Flaming Gorge Dam,but today is all but a ghost town Cart Creek refers to the large two-wheeled carts that were used in logg ing

F Lemoyne Page,“My Tr ip down the Green River,”1926 copy in author’s possession

the r iver finally met its match In the late 1940s,Congress began debate on the Colorado River Storage Project,whose stated aim was to turn the Green and Colorado Rivers and many of their tr ibutar ies from a “natural menace to a national resource ”Plans were drawn up for one of the most amb i t i ous dam-bu i ld i ng projects ever conce ived,w i th i mpoundments planned for a number of a places on the Green and Colorado Rivers,as well as on many of their tr ibutar ies Downstream on the Green,at Echo Park,controversy over a proposed dam in Dinosaur National Monument threatened to derail the entire enterpr ise,but by the mid-1950s that had been resolved—that dam was never built—and work proceeded apace on some of the other units, including Flaming Gorge Dam,less than three miles downstream from Ashley Falls Shortly after the leg islation was signed by President Dwight D Eisenhower on Apr il 11, 1956,crews moved into the remote reg ion in the Uinta Mountains,previously only inhabited by Indians,outlaws,and the occasional hermit Arch Dam Constructors,a consortium of western construction companies,got to work,bulldozing roads to the dam site,blasting out the keyways,and building a coffer dam to divert the Green from its ancient bed,de-water ing the site so that the dam’s foundation could be prepared and the concrete could be poured Ashley Falls was soon inundated. The huge,“cubelar”rock that gave the rapid its distinctive look is still there,for it was too large to be moved,but the r iver reg ister is long gone In 1957,the Green tr ied to reclaim the dam site,when a huge flood of almost twenty-five thousand cubic feet per second came down the r iver,but the coffer dam held and the construction proceeded Site preparation was not finished until late 1960,but the huge pour of concrete started on September 18 of that year,and did not stop despite floods and snow for almost three years In the meantime,crews were sent out to salvage the thousands of board feet of pr ime timber that would otherwise be lost beneath the reservoir,g iving the canyons a strange shaved look Once the generators were in place,the first power was generated at the flip of a switch by President John F Kennedy on September 27, 1963,two months before he was killed in Dallas. The dam was officially dedicated by Jacqueline Kennedy on August 17,1964

Today Flaming Gorge Reservoir is, in the tour ist board phrase,a “playground for millions.”Even if that number is a bit exaggerated, there is no denying that the reservoir is one of the most popular spots in the West for fishing,boating,and camping Below the dam,literally thousands of people now run the remaining fifteen miles of Red Canyon,which because of the cold,clear water,has become known world-wide as a trout fishery Dur ing the fishing season, it almost seems like one could walk down the r iver,stepping from dr ift boat to dr ift boat. The wait for a launch is sometimes two hours That pressure,and the conflict with trout fishermen for the clear, cold water and splash i ng rap i ds below the dam,has caused the Forest Service to consider implementing a permit system.

With the completion of the dam, the Green is forever changed,at least

forever as measured by man . The w i ldl i fe and the trees are gone,as are the rapids,the ranches,the little town of L i nwood,the herm i t hole where Amos Hill lived out his days Don Hatch,who literally learned the Green R i ver at h i s father Bus Hatch ’s knee, recalled:

[T]he l i v i ng space was the bottom of the canyon…where all the deer were—the an i mals,the geese and all of these; the wildlife was along the bottom. So when you put the dam there and flooded it, it essentially killed all the living space for animals There were a lot of an i mals there…the beauty of the canyons seemed to be the bottomlands of the r iver—the immediate bottomlands…you take a picture of the canyon the way it was then—and it’s a beautiful picture—and then if you take the scissors and cut off the bottom third,that’s what it looks like now.31

Indeed,Ken Sleight,who ran a few r iver tr ips for hunters as the dam was being built,remembered that deer were so thick in the canyons that he had to make a rule that his clients had to wait to get off the boat before shooting a deer ; otherwise,he said, it was like fish in a barrel.32 “Ah Well,”as Major Powell said,“we may conjecture many things ”Better to remember the canyons as they were; to remember that there was once a r iver beneath the waters of the reservoir. Cal Giddings,a University of Utah chemistry professor who was also a pioneer kayaker,remembered what it was like in the lost canyons of the Green River :

One character i st i c of those canyons—those are probably the most i deal places for beg inning r iver runners to get going. They were fairly big waves but easy and straightforward It was very beautiful We worr ied a lot about Ashley Falls but it was pretty simple a good part of that area was forested Iremember one morning having mist hang ing over the canyon,hang ing over the forested walls;it was one of the loveliest sights I’ve seen on the r iver 33

31 Don Hatch Oral Interv i ew,March 10,1984 Spec i al Collect i ons,J Wi llard

32 Ken Sleight Oral Interview,2003 Special Collections,J Willard Marr iott Library,University of Utah

33 Giddings, interview

Marr i ott L i brary, University of Utah

President John F. Kennedy in Salt Lake City on September 27, 1963, for a ceremony to start the first generator at Flaming Gorge Dam.

Empires and Homesteads: Making a Living in Range Creek

BySTEVENL. GERBER ANDJAMESM. ATON

In 2004,four years after rancher Waldo Wilcox sold his Range Creek ranch to the state of Utah,this rugged, isolated place made international news. Stor ies of untouched archaeolog ical treasures in a hitherto unknown,east-central Utah canyon drew reporters from many major U. S. da i ly newspapers,from magaz i nes l i ke Sm i thson i an and Nat i onal Geographic,and even from European per iodicals Acclaimed as the “most pr istine archaeolog ical area in the lower forty-eight states,”Range Creek captured the i mag i nat i on of people i ns i de and outs i de the state. 1 In add i t i on,Wi lcox became a folk hero for hav i ng preserved the cultural resources of Range Creek,particularly its Fremont Indian ruins. Wilcox’s ethos countered the stereotype of the ignorant rancher looting prehistor ic sites willy-nilly.

Wh i le Wi lcox ’s and h i s fam i ly ’s tenure i n Range Creek was always mentioned in the articles about the place,the impression created was that the fam i ly had homesteaded th i s s i de canyon to Desolat i on and Gray Canyons. In fact,the Anglo history in Range Creek (or ig inally called Ranch Creek) pr ior to the Wilcox family is r ich in drama,detail,

Steven L Gerber is a local histor ian who for years has researched Anglo settlement on the Tavaputs Plateau James M Aton is Professor of English at Southern Utah University and the author of The River Knows Everything:Desolation Canyon and the Green published by Utah State University Press in 2009 and John Wesley Powell:His Life and Legacy published by the University of Utah Press in 2010

Waldo Wilcox sold Range Creek to the State of Utah in 2000.

1 Duncan Metcalfe, interview by James M Aton,July 14,2003,Range Creek,Utah

PHOTOCOURTESYOFRENNEBARTON

and confl i ct It i s a story that i ncludes a su i c i de,a death threat,and some unusually complicated lawsuits over land titles It adds an i mportant thread to the saga of nonMormon settlements and ranching in Utah It is also a story that includes one of Utah’s few true cattle barons,Preston Nutter,and a young Ohioan, Joseph E . Wi ng,who could be called Range Creek ’s poet . In fact,the intersection between these two changed the course of land ownership in the canyon.

The canyon’s Anglo history beg ins on October 17,1885,when five men pooled their resources and formed the Range Valley Cattle Company with the stated intention of ranching and livestock production. The group listed assets of seven hundred head of cattle,seven horses,four mules,and assorted personal property.2 Three members of the group held homestead claims, and two others held desert land entr i es ; these hold i ngs were used i n exchange for cap i tal stock i n the company 3 The Range Valley Cattle Company claimed r ights to “all the property and preemption r ights of the incorporators and the lands known as the Brown Cliffs and Range Valley Ranches and the water appropr iations known as North Spr ings,Willow Spr ings,Indian Spr ings,Twin Spr ings,and South Spr ings,and all waterways and improvements on said ranches and property,the lands being bounded

2 Articles of Incorporation,Range Valley Cattle Company,1885,Incorporation Case Files,1869-1961 Salt Lake County Clerk [456],Ser ies 3866,Utah State Archives

3

Articles of Incorporation

Range Creek straddles the county boundary of Carbon and Emery Counties.

East by Green River,South by Pr ice River, North by Nine Mile Creek,and West by the West base of Book Cliffs ”4

It was an unlikely location for a large cattle operation Other large western ranches rel i ed on unfettered access to the vast grasslands of the publ i c doma i n,close prox i m i ty to major tra i ls and ra i lways,and a conven i ent means of meeting their supply needs While Range Creek boasted some first-rate rangeland, its inaccessibility and large sections of unproductive land severely limited its potential If the five incorporators of the Range Valley Cattle Company sought a cattle empire,they were carving it from some of the toughest geography in the United States.

Range Creek is a canyon that runs roughly north and south,somewhat parallel to the Green River It divides the West Tavaputs Plateau between the Green on the East,and the perpendicular impenetrability of the Book Cliffs on the west. Nar row at its mouth,the canyon can easily be controlled by one or two men and a few hundred yards of barbed wire The lower end of the ranch rests at 5,200 feet above sea level,affording a mild winter climate ideally suited as a cold weather harbor for a sizable herd of cattle. The plateaus above the ranch provide vast open meadows of fine grass and numerous small spr ings. At nearly ten thousand feet,a cool summer grazing range could support several thousand cattle.

Despite these attr ibutes,Range Creek was a formidable place Tower ing cliffs on all sides,extremely limited access,ferocious flash floods,and devastating wild fires made this valley an economic gamble. So,why didn’t the Range Valley Cattle Company incorporators r isk their fortunes elsewhere? 4 Articles of Incorporation

Ruins of the Daroli House in Range Creek.

PHOTOCOURTESYOFSTEVEGERBER

The short answer : free graz i ng land was almost gone

Trail off the Book Cliffs from Range Creek to Woodside.

In 1884, The Breeder’s Gazette of Chicago descr ibed the Amer ican range as being completely full except west of the main r idge of the Rockies 5 In Utah,following the settlement of the Great Salt Lake Valley by Mormons,the Sa i nts followed the admon i t i on of Br i gham Young and aggress i vely expanded the k i ngdom of Deseret, occupying virtually all accessible rangeland in the terr itory 6 The Range Valley Cattle Company’s claim to such a vast piece of the Utah real estate was unusual,and one of only a few ever to attempt such a mass i ve undertaking in the soon-to-be state.7

This area formed a ranch over forty miles long and fifteen miles wide, encompassing roughly 380,000 acres However,the five incorporators only filed for legal r ights to eight hundred acres.8 The canyon they chose nestles in one of the most remote,rugged,and geographically foreboding areas in Utah. The only access was by horse and pack mule from the small railroad town of Woods i de The tra i l was narrow,steep,and dangerous Large equipment had to be dismantled at Woodside,packed on mules,and carr ied over prec i p i tous tra i ls to the ranch where i t was re-assembled . Storms sometimes blocked the exit from Range Creek,stranding ranchers in the canyon for weeks.

The or i g i ns of the Range Valley Cattle Company can be traced to Augustus Ferron,a Deputy U S Surveyor He began surveying large areas

5

The Breeders’s Gazette (Chicago,Illinois),October 23,1884: 608

6 John R. Evans,et al.,“Beef Cattle in the Utah Economy,” Studies in Business and Economics 22.2. (December 1962): 11

7 Other large Utah cattle operations included the Webster City Cattle Company,founded in the 1880s and probably the largest operation on the East Tavaputs Plateau For information on other operations and for an overview of Utah’s cattle industry see Utah Histor ical Quarterly,32 (Summer 1964) Also James H Beckstead, Cowboying:A Tough Job in a Hard Land (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,1991)

8 All or ig inal entr ies were filed under the Desert Land Act since the area was not yet open to homesteads;it had not been surveyed by 1886.

PHOTOCOURTESYOFLLOYDM. GERBER

of Carbon and Emery Counties in 1873, in preparation for the opening of the public lands to settlement Eleven years later in 1884,Ferron,who some called “Castle Valley’s First Chamber of Commerce,”took his survey crew into a canyon whose small stream he named “Ranch Creek ”9 This tr ip likely inspired him to believe that this little valley would make an ideal cattle ranch . When he returned the next year,he and four other men formed the Range Valley Cattle Company 10 All were non-Mormon,all were well-educated,and all were prominent in business or professional life

The group hired Clarence Allen as their first ranch manager. Allen came to Utah in 1881 from Pennsylvania to teach at the Salt Lake Academy; he hoped the dry climate would help his tuberculosis 11 Within a short time he was assaying mines for Galena Mining Company. He eventually rose to become general manager of the U S Smelt i ng,Ref i n i ng and M i n i ng Company 12 Through his mining industry contacts,Allen met Ferron and soon he threw in as a stockholder in the Ranch Valley Company.

Although not one of the or ig inal incorporators,Allen had a significant stake in the success of the venture His wife,Cor inne Tuckerman Allen, filed the first land entry along the creek and began the group’s efforts to control the canyon 13 A strong-w i lled woman,she was a prom i nent women ’ s r ights advocate,frequently at odds with Mormon women leaders over the issue of polygamy.14 Allen himself later jumped into politics,and was elected the f i rst U S Congressman from Utah after statehood was achieved in 1896 It is unlikely that Cor inne ever saw Range Valley,but her land entry contr ibuted to the group’s legal claim and increased the couple’s f i nanc i al stake i n the ranch The other partners cont i nued to i mprove Cor inne’s land entry and use it as part of the ranch

Ferron’s second partner was Benjamin Van Dusen,a distant relative of Clarence Allen 15 Van Dusen arr ived in Salt Lake City in the early 1880s and worked for Allen and the Galena Mining Company He was the dr iving force behind the Range Valley partnership. Soon his brother Charles added to the

9 Edward A Geary, A History of Emery County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Histor ical Society and Emery County Commission,1996),x; William J Tidwell testimony, The Heirs of Joseph E.Wing v.John Dar ioli,October 24-28,1922,Records at Division H,U.S. Department of the Inter ior,RG-49,National Archives,Washington,DC

10 Tidwell testimony Ferron left no notes confirming that this 1884 tr ip inspired the idea to form a ranch in Range Creek,but attorneys in Wing v.Dar ioli agreed it was a reasonable assumption based on the testimony of a witness who observed the Ferron survey crew in Woodside,Utah,that year

11 Mir iam B Murphy,“Clarence Allen Was Utah’s First Congressman,” Utah History To Go (1995) http://histor ytogo utah gov (accessed September 1,2010)

12 Ben Hite,“How I Began Life,” Deseret News, December 24,1921.

13 Decision of Reg ister and Receiver, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing vs.John Dar ioli,September 13,1926 Entry #2021A,Patented Ser ial Case Files,1907-1975; Record Group 49,Bureau of Land Management Ser ial Land Patent #950962 (Salt Lake City 019896) issued to John Dar ioli by the General Land Office

14 Joan Smyth Iversen,“Cor inne Allen and Post-Manifesto Antipolygamy,” Journal of Mormon History 26 (Fall 2000): 110-39 See also Cor inne Mar ie Tuckerman Allen Papers,1896-1927,MS A-5,Schlesinger Library,Radcliffe College,Cambr idge,MA

15 In some records Van Dusen is spelled Van Duesen

group’s land holdings by filing a desert land entry along Range Creek.16

c. 1899.

Salt Lake City physician James Dart,who may have known Allen and Van Dusen before they moved west,was the third member of the Range Valley cattle operation “Doc Dart”operated a successful Salt Lake City medical practice pr ior to enter ing the cattle business. His brothers,Edwin and Reuben,filed two of the seven land entr ies the group cla i med i n Range Creek 17 The last two i ncorporators were George Tracy and John Scott. Scott kept books for the Winnamuck Mining and Smelting Company and later formed a successful assaying business with James Anderson 18 Scott probably met Allen and Van Dusen through the mining business. Scott appears to have had little to do with the actual ranch operation Tracy,on the other hand,filed one of the land entr ies along the creek.

The year follow i ng the establ i shment of the Range Valley Cattle Company,Joe Wing,a twenty-four-year-old nephew of Ben Van Dusen, traveled west from Ohio to work for his uncle Wing suffered from dyspepsia

16 Although the Desert Land Act allowed settlers to claim up to 320 acres,the claims filed by the Range Valley partners consisted of seven claims of 160 acres each The law required claims to conform to a specified layout to prevent claimants from claiming long stretches of waterways Additionally,claimants were required to conduct water onto their claims Since the canyon around Range Creek is so narrow,this limited the ability of the claimants to file larger claims

17 Decision of Reg ister and Receiver,September 13,1926 Entry #2021A, Patented Ser ial Case Files, 1907-1975; Record Group 49,Bureau of Land Management Ser ial Land Patent #950962 (Salt Lake City 019896) issued to John Dar ioli by the General Land Office “Salt Lake Doctors Invited East,” Salt Lake Telegram Apr il 14,1909

18 Grand Lodge of Utah,“Most Worsh i pful Brother John Shaw Scott,”http : //www utahg randlodge org/pgm/pgm-john-shaw-scott html (assessed September 2,2010)

Range Valley Cattle Company ranch hands

An 1888 studio portrait of Joseph Wing.

and hoped the cl i mate would cure him A snapshot of life at Range Creek in its f i rst twenty-f i ve years der ives mostly from Wing’s letters to h i s fam i ly and articles wr itten years later His wr itings show both the challenges and pleasures of ranch i ng i n an i solated canyon in eastern Utah.

When Joe W i ng rode into Range Creek in 1886, no one could have been more enthusiastic about the cowboy i ng l i fe that lay i n front of h i m The young Ohioan’s letters back home to his family exude rapture at his new-found life. From the beauty of his surroundings to the quality of the air to the taste of Dutch-oven venison,Wing found all of it wonderful,exciting,and almost too much to dr ink in The tone of his letters suggests that he had found paradise

The main purpose for the ranch,of course,was cattle. Dur ing Wing’s first years there between1886 and 1889,the operation typically ran about two thousand head In the summer Wing and fellow cowboys like Gus Henroid would dr ive their herd up Sheep Canyon on “the Mesa”above Range Creek,or what is today called Range Valley Mountain,or the South Pasture. Descr ibing the pastures to his mother,Wing wrote,“I told you how beaut i ful the Mesa was— i t i s more beaut i ful for the grass i s up l i ke a meadow and there are millions of flowers,beautiful and sweet-scented The air is cool and delightful.”19 The young cowboy not only loved the sublime beauty of the West Tavaputs,he took pr i de i n the fact that h i s bosses controlled “the whole country ”20

19 Joseph Wing correspondence,July 18,1886,MS 289,box 13 folder 26,Preston Nutter Collection, Marr iott Library,University of Utah,Salt Lake City

20 Wing correspondence,June 9,1886,Nutter Collection

After summer ing the cattle on the mountain, in October the men typically moved the cattle down gradually i nto upper Range Creek Snow would eventually force them even lower into the main areas of the canyon between Cherry Meadows and Turtle Creek. Two men could watch the ent i re herd . Mostly they rode up and down the canyon to prevent cattle from bunching in side canyons The hardest time was in late spr ing when the snow had melted h i gh up but before the bunch grass had greened 21 Wing later wrote: “Some of the happiest memor ies of my life cluster around my winter work on the old Range Valley ranch ”22

In his wr itings,Wing referred to the ranch as “Lodore.”Perhaps,he named it after the 1820 Robert Southey poem,“The Cataract of Lodore ”When John Wesley Powell explored the Green River in 1869 he named the canyon in present-day D i nosaur Nat i onal Park “Gates of Lodore.”W i ng l i kely knew about Powell’s use of the name. For the first year,Lodore was managed by “the Professor,”or Clarence Allen At first Wing resented the tubercular Allen’s passivity and physical limitations. But later he praised Allen’s cooking,his genial nature,and the fact that he solicited Wing’s advice. When Allen left Range Creek in the fall of 1886,Wing felt “blue,”and had “forgotten past difficulties ”23

When Allen departed,Wing took over manag ing the ranch as well as oversee i ng the farm i ng tasks near the ranch headquarters H i s cous i n CharleyWing,who arr ived in July 1886,ran the cattle operation while Joe oversaw the farm near the ranch headquarters.24 Besides building a cabin,a corral,a blacksmith shop,and a chicken coop,Joe Wing and his ranch hands were heavily involved in alfalfa farming.25 At first the men tr ied clear ing the nat ive greasewood and sagebrush w i th hoes—backbreak i ng work—but ranch hand Joe Curtis showed them how to hitch a big roller to a team of horses and break the brush. The large piles of it were then burned.26

In the Intermountain West,alfalfa or lucerne,requires irr igation,and

21

Joseph E Wing,“Midwinter Work on a Cattle Ranch,” The Breeder’s Gazette (February 8,1911): 34748 22 Ibid ,348 23 Wing Correspondence,June 20,1886,June 27,1886,November 8,1886,November 11,1886, Nutter Collection 24

Joseph E Wing,“The Story of Lonesome Creek—I,” The Breeder’s Gazette (March 19,1914): 653 25 J R Goldsbrough testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing 26 Joseph B Curtis testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing

Clarence Allen, first ranch manager at Range Creek.

perennial water from Range Creek provided the source Wing and his men constructed a ser ies of ditches to irr igate it. The first year the crop only reached six inches high,and Wing was “disgusted”with the small harvest But an old-timer convinced him to g ive the newly planted alfalfa another year,and in time the field flour ished. Dur ing Wing’s tenure,the Range Valley operation had ninety acres of crop Besides winter feed for their cattle,the men fed the hay to the p i gs . 27 Wi ng ’ s i n i t i at i on i nto alfalfa farming at Range Creek led him to become an international expert on it and its foremost public champion.

In addition to pigs and chickens,the ranch boasted a garden of potatoes, corn,watermelons,str ing beans,lettuce,pumpkins,and squashes.28 After Wing took over from Allen as manager,he directed the men to plant fruit trees—apple,plum,pear,peach,and mulberry.29 He also wanted “a great many”grape vines; as Gus Henroid later testified in a court case: “They were strung practically along the west side. I used to get tired planting them and asked him what the devil he wanted to plant that kind of stuff out there for,and he said he was going to make his home there and wanted fruit ”30 Clearly,Wing had a vision of building his own western version of arcadia at Range Creek. But the Mechanicsburg native did not reside there long enough to see his trees bear fruit In his absence they all withered

Yet when Wing lived there the men not only enjoyed the produce from their garden,their Shorthorn cows gave them all the milk and cream they desired Wing loved how Allen ground their corn meal and baked “Johnny cakes” in a Dutch oven as well as making gr its. He often wrote about the great breakfasts of bacon,eggs,fresh bread,and coffee he ate outside in the canyon air. His appetite and his desires were satisfied by Allen’s cooking. Later a Joseph Shepard worked at the ranch,and his wife did the cooking 31

When the men were not work i ng the cattle and the ranch,they explored the nearby Fremont Indian ruins Like most people then and some now,they took art i facts from the anc i ent Ind i an granar i es . Wi ng commented how Allen had “his trunk half full of dusty prehistor ic corn cobs which I exhumed from a stone built granary.”32 Wing also expressed a fasc i nat i on w i th the “Ind i an h i eroglyph i cs,”or rock art L i ke nearly everyone today,he tr ied to decipher the figures’ meaning. On one long expedition that he and his cousin took from the West Tavaputs down into

27 Joseph E Wing, Alfalfa Farming in Amer ica (Chicago: Sanders Publishing Company,1916),5,8-9

28 Wing correspondence,June,November 8,1886,Nutter Collection; Wing, Alfalfa Farming,9-10; Shadrach Lunt testimony,J R Goldsbrough testimony,Murray Kessler testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing 29 George W Batchelor testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing

30 Gus Henroid testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing.

31 Wing correspondence,June 13,June 20,November 8,1886,Nutter Collection; Wing, Alfalfa Farming, 10; Wing,“Green Pastures in the Desert,” The Breeder’s Gazette (July 11,1900): 32; Shadrach Lunt testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing

32 Wing correspondence,October 17,1886,Nutter Collection Prohibition on digg ing in and collecting from cultural sites did not become law until the 1906 Antiquities Act But it really took the 1979 Archaeolog ical Resources Protection Act to put teeth into cultural resource protection

Rock Creek,Wing was astounded by the s i ze, quality,and quantity of granar i es and rock art they found. And at one po i nt as they were reconno i ter i ng Three Fords Canyon,W i ng was sure that a l i nedshaped petroglyph he found was a tra i l s i gn showing which way to traverse a talus slope.33

Bes i des preh i stor i c Ind i an rock art and ruins,Joe Wing and his men also encountered present-day Nat i ve Amer i cans,the Utes The Utes have occup i ed eastern Utah for hundreds,perhaps even a thousand years By the 1880s they had been removed from their vast homelands and were then crowded onto the Uintah and Uncompahgre Indian reservations in the Uinta Basin north of Range Creek and the East Tavaputs Plateau Nonetheless,some Utes somet i mes ventured to the West Tavaputs to hunt . Wi ng not only noticed signs of their camps—tepee pole impressions and fire r ings— he occasionally encountered them. One such meeting happened his first summer on the mountain in 1886 when he chanced upon a Ute woman and her children huddled in a tepee; Wing reported that they watched him and his men “in stolid silence.”34 He concluded that her husband was out hunting,probably deer or bighorn sheep Eventually, Utes like these trying to maintain their traditional hunting and gathering life ways were forced off their lands Ranchers like Wing and the Range Valley Cattle Company were partially responsible for keeping the Indians confined to reservations

Joe Wing journeyed to Range Creek for adventure,a new life,and a cure for his dyspepsia He found all three and more As he later wrote about himself,he “loved every hill and every mesa and every canyon…

33 Joseph E Wing,“The Story of Lonesome Creek—II,” The Breeder’s Gazette (March 26,1919): 709.

34 Wing correspondence,July 18,August 17,1886,Nutter Collection

Photograph of Ute family taken 1874 in the Uintah Basin.

UNIVERSITYOFUTAHLIBRARY

loved the horses that he rode and the great herd of cattle in his charge,and his comrades, rough as bears and loving as brothers.”35 Wing eventually assumed control of the ranch and became pres i dent of the company He left in 1889,however,because family duties called in Ohio, but he continued to direct the ranch operations from his Ohio home. He returned to Range Creek occasionally dur ing the next decade He proved up on his land entry and was granted title to the 160 acres he claimed near the mouth of Turtle Canyon

By early 1900,the demands of operat i ng a large ranch f i fteen hundred miles from Ohio led him to partner with three Utah cattlemen, Alfred and Murray Kessler and a man named Tilton 36 Wing was the only Range Valley pr incipal involved in the new venture. He contr ibuted three hundred head of cattle to the Kesslers’ and Tilton’s herds,along with r ights to the land claims along Range Creek Of the seven or ig inal desert land or homestead entr i es f i led upon by the Range Valley Cattle Company pr incipals,only that of Joe Wing gained title when he “provided up” in July 1886 on his filing of land at the confluence of Range and Turtle Wash. Follow i ng h i s death,Wi ng ’s land entry would spawn controversy and lawsuits leaving a black mark on his otherwise stellar name

Wi ng ’s partnersh i p w i th T i lton and the Kesslers lasted less than two years Apparently the three men managed the ranch in Wing’s absence,and in 1902 the g roup sold their holdings to Preston Nutter. However,the only property with legal title sold to Nutter was Wing’s desert land entry

After Wing sold to Nutter,he returned to Range Creek in his imag ination

35 Wing, Alfalfa Farming,16-17

36 Murray Kessler Testimony, The Heirs of Joseph E.Wing,v.John Dar ioli

Cows grazing on South Pasture, West Tavaputs Plateau.

UNIVERSITYOFUTAHLIBRARY

in his var ious wr itings; the tone of them was eleg i ac. Range Creek became h i s “Parad i se Lost”and h i s years there his great initiation story,his bildungsroman He often used phrases like “new world”and “when the world was young”to character ize his time there. Besides the loss of his own youth,though,W i ng lamented another kind of “fall”: the loss of native bunch grasses from overgrazing.

In h i s f i rst years i n Range Creek,Wi ng noted that there was “no fear of hunger among cattle and horses,because all the range was near and covered over with fine sweet bunch grass… Little did we foresee that the time would come … when all of this desert country would be denuded of its grass ”37 He said that too many cattle crowded the range,then sheep and horses came along and gnawed the bunch grass too close. Weeds and infer iorgrasses replaced the natives,and the pastures never recovered.38 By the 1910s,Wing joined a growing chorus call i ng for the conservat i on and regulat i on of the publ i c ranges . These efforts ultimately led to the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 and later in 1946 to the creation of the Bureau of Land Management

Thus,the range that Joe Wing and the Range Valley Cattle Company bequeathed to Preston Nutter i n 1902— i n Range Creek and on the mountain—was “a diminished thing.”If Nutter noticed,he wrote nothing about it in his diar ies or letters. The cattle baron himself spent very little time in Range Creek. Usually he was headed through the canyon,dr iving cattle from N i ne M i le Canyon or the mounta i n to the ra i l head at Woodside 39

Nutter,however,left the management of the Range Creek ranch to his ranch manager,L H “Bud”Milton Milton kept Nutter informed with per iodic wr itten reports,detailing the progress of var ious projects at the Range Creek ranch,such as a dam they were maintaining on the creek to irr igate the alfalfa that Wing and his men had planted,although in smaller acreage. Milton and his hands Elmer Randall,Bill Seamount,and Jasper Nutter (the boss’s nephew),however,did not keep a garden,pigs,chickens, or milk cows for consumption on the ranch; they had virtually all their

37 Wing,“Story at Lonesome Creek—I,”652

38 Wing,“Memor ies of Stock Raising,” The Breeder’s Gazette (July 16,1914): 100 39 Preston Nutter,“Diary,”August 25,1918,box 1,book 1,Nutter Collection

40 L H,“Bud”Milton to Preston Nutter,Apr il 26,1906,box 24 folder 2; Milton to Nutter,February 9, 1907,folder 3; Milton to Nutter,November 28,1909,folder 5,Nutter Collection

Preston Nutter bought Wing’s Desert Land entry.

UTAHSTATEHISTORICALSOCIETY

food packed in—flour,sugar,oatmeal,r ice, syrup,dr i ed apr i cots,dr i ed apples,bacon, potatoes,and cans of tomatoes and peas.40

Trail

M i lton ’s reports to Nutter ment i on noth i ng about the cond i t i on or quality of the Range Creek grass He probably had nothing to compare it to He did note that wolves were “working our cattle purty [sic] bad there Seen one steer standing up will die with his flank torn out ”41 The situation would soon change Within less than a decade,all wolves on the East and West Tavaputs Plateau were killed by ranchers with the support of state and federal governments.

One “ i mprovement” i n Range Creek wh i le Nutter owned i t was stocking the creek with trout on at least two different occasions Around 1905 Bill Seamount and Charles McPherson packed in trout (probably rainbow) to the creek,which Seamount claimed made for “pretty good fishing ”42 In 1911 the state government oversaw a program to stock Utah lakes and streams with trout. Range Creek received thirty thousand trout in October of that year.43

The trout planted dur ing Nutter’s ownership of Range Creek arr ived l i ke everyth i ng else—on horse or burro The tra i l from the canyon to “civilization”at Woodside was the main thoroughfare for the Range Creek operation as well as for other ranches located along the Green River in

41 Milton to Nutter,November 8,1908,box 24 folder 5,Nutter Collection.

42 Bill and Mrs Seamount interview by Otis R “Dock”Marston,January 1,1966,Salt Lake City,box 205,folder 23,Huntington Library,San Mar ino,California

43 “Elk for Carbon County,” Carbon County News,October 20,1911 In 1942 the state restocked Range Creek with trout,possibly German brown trout They dominate the creek now and reach lengths of one to two feet According to former ranch owner Waldo Wilcox,they make for good fishing Waldo Wilcox, interviews by James M Aton,November 3,13,15,2009,Green River,Utah

from Woodside to Range Creek.

Desolation and Gray Canyons All farm and ranch equ i pment,food suppl i es,tools,and construction mater ials left Woodside,meandered down the Pr ice River to Trail Canyon by way of Joe’s Spr ing. It then climbed over a mesa and dropped down Turtle Canyon and its intermittent stream to its confluence with Range Creek Joe Wing explained how they once strapped wood floor ing onto the burros (130 pounds on each) and how d i ff i cult i t was on those pack animals The animals’ backs bled,and Wing “felt sick at the sight,”telling his mother not to believe any who said those animals feel no pain.44

Although in 1889 Woodside had a population of only twenty residents and a hotel, it operated as a train stop. It served both Range Creek cowboys com i ng i n from the w i lds and travelers training between Denver and Salt Lake City.45 When Wing had lived in the ranch all of a few months,he felt sufficiently seasoned to sucker some greenhorns alighting from the train He convinced the easterners that the salt blocks strapped to his burros were actually silver ore. The c i ty-sl i ckers nodded i n acknowledgement,and then one of them pointed out to another how one could plainly see the silver in the foothills of the Book Cl i ffs . 46 Hoodw i nk i ng as i de,W i ng generally earned a reputation as a man of integr ity

Utah produced a few noted cattle barons,but Preston Nutter was certainly one of the most colorful Ingenious and aggressive in building his cattle emp i re,at the turn of the twent i eth century Nutter was the dom i nant rancher i n Range Creek,N i ne M i le Canyon,and the surround i ng West Tavaputs Plateau Unl i ke other ranchers,he used the courts to overpower his opponents and secure control over land and scarce water resources His wealth,tenacity,and intimidating nature helped him build a land and cattle empire that extended to the Ar izona Str ip as well as the West Tavaputs Plateau.

The h i stor i c record of Nutter ’s bus i ness deal i ngs i s extens ive,thanks to his organization and careful record keeping. More difficult to document, but present as a subtext in many of Nutter’s business dealings,was his ability and willingness to use questionable tactics to combat threats to his empire. Nutter utilized all the resources of the law to squelch the slightest trespass Many also accused him of resorting to less noble tactics when necessary

44 Wing correspondence,August 12,1886,Nutter Collection

45 Utah Gazetteer,1899, p 20

46 Wing correspondence,July 8,1886,Nutter Collection

Joseph Wing c. 1898.

Along w i th h i s ranch manager M i lton,Nutter operated the Range Creek ranch successfully for several years,building cabins,barns,corrals, and other structures to enhance his operation The canyon was not yet open to homestead settlement or purchase,however,so his legal hold on the land was tenuous,and secured pr i mar i ly by possess i on rather than formal title Still,Nutter likely felt secure with his acquisition of Range Creek property.

Although Range Creek provided excellent grazing ground when used in conjunct i on w i th the summer pastures on the plateau,small ranchers without access to those areas would soon find themselves out of grass. Nutter raised hay in Range Creek for winter feed; smaller ranchers had no such stored hay. Nutter understood that the only threat to h i s cattle empire would come from someone willing to challenge him for the entire canyon. When Range Valley was formally surveyed in 1912,opening the canyon to homesteading under the 1909 Enlarged Homestead Act,an opportunity arose for just such a challenge Before any land could be settled under homesteading laws,the State of Utah had to survey the land as a prerequisite for entrants to obtain legal title

Around this time a dr ifter named John Niles entered Preston Nutter’s life as a cowboy on the cattleman’s Range Creek ranch. Niles was a man of few means,and frequently asked Nutter for advances From time-to-time, he left the ranch to pursue other opportunities. None of them seemed to work out,so he would then wr ite Nutter asking for his job back 47 This pattern continued until 1915 when Niles suddenly filed a claim on 160 acres of Nutter’s improved land He told Nutter : “you have thirty days to remove your improvements!”48 Nutter countered his demand by having the Woods i de mag i strate order N i les off the land . The dr i fter promptly abandoned his plan to homestead on Range Creek and joined the navy A year later,he was dishonorably discharged and once again dr ifted back to Woodside and Range Creek

On February 23,1917,the first official survey plat was filed for Range Creek,and the area was formally opened to settlement under the Enlarged Homestead Act That same day,Thomas Cr i ck,John N i les,and Nutter employee George Long all filed separate homestead claims for the same land along Range Creek. Simultaneously,the State of Utah filed for title to the land under i ts l i eu select i on r i ghts 49 Th i s land was ava i lable to homestead because most of the or ig inal Range Valley partners never proved up on their land entr ies

Meanwh i le,the state had agreed to f i le for the land under i ts l i eu

47

48 John D.Niles vs.Preston Nutter, Nutter Collection

49 When Utah gained statehood in 1896,the federal government granted the state four sections in every township to be used to help fund schools If the designated section was already claimed by a settler, or otherwise unavailable,the state was granted lieu r ights to another section elsewhere in the state

Preston Nutter,Kather ine Nutter and H Byron Mock, John D.Niles vs.Preston Nutter,box 41,Nutter Collection,Marr iott Library,University of Utah,Salt Lake City

select i on r i ghts and then sell i t to Nutter upon ga i n i ng t i tle to the land But Nutter had heard rumors of a conspiracy by Niles and Cr ick to take the land. To ensure he gained title,he enlisted Long to f i le a s i multaneous cla i m i n case the state agreement fa i led (the state frequently sold lieu selection lands to citizens). Clearly Long’s filing was the result of an agreement he had with Nutter Both later denied this in court, but sufficient evidence exists to show that Nutter intended to use his ranch hand as his agent to obtain the land. One corner of the Niles and Cr ick filings overlapped,but they were not identical The two were fr iends and did not intend to compete with one another.50 The Niles-Cr ick relationship notwithstanding,these filings began an eight-year legal battle between the t i tan and the dr i fter. Th i s would ult i mately tr i gger the decl i ne of the Nutter empire.

Long ’s cla i m was d i spensed w i th f i rst,along w i th the state f i l i ng,as conflicting with Niles. Niles claimed settlement in 1911 and had fulfilled part of the law by making improvements when he built a house in 1915 When pressed to expla i n h i s absence from the property for such an extended per i od,N i les countered that he was just respect i ng the mag istrate’s order to vacate; he thought he had lost his r ights His attor ney argued that otherwise Niles would have fulfilled the legal obligation to remain on the land Nutter countered that Niles was worki ng for him dur ing the time he claimed settlement,and that all improvements were made at Nutter’s direction and expense. Nutter’s evidence supports this claim,but the court,somehow,found against him 51

Nutter appealed the court’s finding,and the case was then decided in his favor Subsequent appeals found alternately for Niles,then Nutter,then Niles. The land in question was part of the or ig inal Range Valley Cattle Company hold i ngs . A desert land entry had been f i led by Charles Van

John D.Niles vs.Preston Nutter

Cowboys employed by the Nutter Ranch.

Dusen,Benjamin’s brother,earlier However,Van Dusen’s claim was found to be unsatisfactory due to a filing error. Furthermore,the cattle company under Wing had already sold its holdings to Nutter Van Dusen apparently had not bothered to correct the filing,and his claim was cancelled. Van Dusen died shortly thereafter.

Nutter sent his attorney to Pennsylvania to locate Van Dusen heirs His legal team convinced the family to appeal to the Inter ior Department to reopen Van Dusen’s case and award title to them They, in turn,would sell the land to the cattle baron. Nutterswore in court that no deal had been made between the two parties,but there is little doubt that such an agreement existed In a final ruling,the Secretary of the Inter ior found against Nutter and awarded title to John Niles. Ironically, within six months of gaining title in 1923,Niles sold the land back to Nutter for six thousand dollars. Nutter also paid Niles an additional five hundred dollars as compensation for lost income and damage done while Niles vacated the land dur ing the legal dispute 52

Niles’s claim was not the only attack on Nutter’s holdings. On February 23,1917,the same day Niles,Cr ick,Long,and the State of Utah filed on land Nutter claimed,another entry was made on his holdings two miles south. This land had served as the old headquarters for the Range Valley Cattle Company and Joe W i ng ’s home wh i le he ran the ranch John Dar ioli,an Italian immigrant of extremely limited means,also filed an entry for the 160 acres that had served as the old headquarters for the Range Valley Cattle Company. The cattle company had previously constructed a substantial house,corrals,hay stacks,barns,fruit trees,two cellars,and a shop, all enclosed by a well-made pole fence Dar ioli’s claim included it all 53

The Dar ioli land claim was very similar to Niles’s claim. In another apparent secret deal,a Nutter employee named Arthur Johnson also filed on the land at the same time as Dar ioli.54 An agreement similar to that of Niles and Nutter had been previously struck between the cattleman and the State of Utah,but when the state failed to file for the lieu selection on time,the state became inelig ible for title to the land. Like the Niles claim, the Dar ioli case continued through a long ser ies of hear ings,court cases, and appeals before its eventual conclusion in 1924. Also,like the Niles case, the courts found both for and against each of the parties 55

It should be noted here that shortly after the U S Land Office found in

52

‘Preston Nutter Corporation Records,1876-1981,”Nutter Collection,box 41,folder 13 Niles agreed to relinquish any r ights to is Desert Land Entry

53 Decision of Reg ister and Receiver, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing vs.John Dar ioli,September 13,1926 Entry #2021A,Patented Ser ial Case Files,1907-1975; Record Group 49,Bureau of Land Management Ser ial Land Patent #950962 (Salt Lake City 019896) issued to John Dar ioli by the General Land Office

54 Letter from Patr ick H Loughran to The Secretary of the Inter ior,May 14,1916 re: J.Thomas Cr ick, George W.Long vs.John D.Niles,Patented Ser ial Case Files,1907-1975; Record Group 49,Bureau of Land Management Ser ial Land Patent #019895 issued to John D Niles by the General Land Office All court documents from 1917 to 1923 in authors’ possession

55 Murray Kessler Testimony, The Heirs of Joseph E.Wing

favor of Dar ioli,the house and shop built by Joe Wing and the Range Valley Cattle Company myster iously burned to the ground while Dar ioli was living on the property 56 No official cause was ever determined but some claim to have seen mule tracks leading away from the burned out bu i ld i ngs . One person i n the area known to r i de a mule was Preston Nutter It would be unfair to conclude that Nutter burned the house and shop,although it was known that Dar ioli feared that Nutter or his agents would harm h i m and refused to l i ve i n the ma i n house Instead,he constructed a crude stone cabin on a hillside several hundred yards away from the main house. Even then, it is said that he dared not sleep in the cabin,and preferred to sleep in the open under a ledge where he could not be seen.57

Just when Nutter thought he had exhausted all avenues to defeat Dar ioli,his attorney suggested an ingenious,although improbable strategy. Just like Nutter had dispatched his attorney to Pennsylvania in an attempt to draw Van Dusen into the Niles case,he sent another attorney to Ohio to locate the descendents of the now-deceased Joe Wing.58 Wing had filed a desert land entry for 160 acres of land two miles below the Dar ioli claim at a place called Turtle Wash. He stated in his final proof that he built a cabin, i rr i gated,and made other i mprovements on h i s land cla i m . Nutter determined he could make a case that Wing had erred in his descr iption, and had actually meant to descr ibe the land now claimed by Dar ioli.

Nutter’s attorney convinced Wing’s heirs to ask the land office to change the Wing entry to match the land then in dispute. This was no small task. It would require re-configur ing all earlier claims made by the Range Valley group to conform to this new Wing filing In addition, Wing had filed on four,forty-acre parcels: two contiguous northern ones and two contiguous southern ones separated by about forty acres These configurations were des i gned to span the canyon and would requ i re a completely d i fferent arrangement of the land parcels 59

Nutter’s case would not only have to argue that Wing significantly erred in his filing,but that all the or iginal land filings made by the Range Valley group were also in error Nutter’s case,however,was weak,and Wing’s filing appeared to be solid. Recall that Gus Ferron,one of the founding partners in the Range Valley enterpr ise,was a Deputy U S Surveyor who signed as witness for all the land claims made by the Range Valley Company, including Wing’s

56 Don Wilcox, interview by Steven L Gerber,September 17,2004,Green River,Utah

57 Waldo Wilcox, interview by Steven L Gerber,July 19,1998,Green River,Utah

58 Nutter vs.Niles,Nutter Collection,box 41,folder 9 The attorney for Niles compared the tactics used in the Dar ioli case to those in the Niles case,point by point, in an effort to prove Nutter was pursuing his claim fraudulently These tactics included the use of surrogate claimants,purported to be in Nutter’s employ,to make fraudulent claims which would then be sold back to Nutter upon issuance of title

59 Application to adjust desert land entry allowed Reversed Department of the Inter ior, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing vs.John Dar ioli,January 25,1924 Entry #2021A,Patented Ser ial Case Files,1907-1975; Record Group 49,Bureau of Land Management Ser ial Land Patent #950962 (Salt Lake City 019896) issued to John Dar ioli by the General Land Office

land claim Two other land surveyors also witnessed Wing’s and the cattle company’s land filings. It was a foolhardy undertaking,but it was Nutter’s last hope It prolonged the eventual resolution of the case for another five years Nutter’s effort to realign the Range Valley land entr ies,and thereby gain title to the land claimed by Dar ioli,proved futile in the end. None of the Range Valley pr incipals were available to testify Whatever improvements Wing had made on his Turtle Wash claim had long disappeared by 1920 when his heirs were called upon to help Nutter by claiming their grandfather made an error. To support his case,Nutter had to show that Wing made no i mprovements at Turtle Wash,and that all the i mprovements descr ibed in his proof pertained to the land in dispute He convinced the courts about the lack of improvements at Turtle Wash,but he failed to prove that Wing had intended to claim the land in question The only conclusion the courts could reach was that Joe Wing had filed a fraudulent land cla i m ; therefore h i s Turtle Wash cla i m was cancelled . Dar i ol i was granted title to the disputed parcel 60

Joe Wing was unquestionably an honorable man. He proved his integr ity and honor throughout his life The key point of the dispute in The Heirs of Joseph E.Wing v.John Dar ioli hear ings was whether Wing had constructed a small cabin on the Turtle Wash claim. No physical evidence of a cabin remained at the time of the hear ing,but a few old timers had testified they had seen one. A land surveyor also had descr ibed the cabin,and noted it on a map One feature mentioned by all who remembered seeing the cabin was its unusually small door. Attorneys for Nutter successfully argued that even i f there had been a cab i n at Turtle Wash, i t was just an old trapper’s shed They succeeded in discrediting witnesses claiming to have seen the cabin.

Recently,a descendent of Joe Wing gave the authors a photograph of a cabin with an unusually small door,and next to the cabin stands a saddled horse The note on the back of the photo descr ibes the cabin and the horse as W i ng ’ s 61 Had the photo been produced dur i ng the hear i ngs,the outcome of the dispute may have been different and the blemish to Joe Wing’s reputation would likely have been spared

Neither Niles nor Dar ioli,however,had much in the way of reputation. Moreover,they had limited means So how was it possible for them to retain lawyers to plead their cases,which extended for many years in courts in Washington,DC and in Utah? The answer appears to lie with a banker and civic leader named Joseph Barboglio Nutter claimed that there was a conspiracy by Niles,Dar ioli,and Barboglio to depr ive him of his land.62 While histor ical evidence indicates no direct association between Barboglio and Niles,land records do reveal that the Italian immigrant and Dar ioli 60 Ibid 61 John C Wing to Steven L Gerber,January 3,2003 62 “Contest 020121,” Cr ick and Long v.Niles

were partners when they obtained the land from Nutter. They also partnered in another land entry made by Dar i ol i. Follow i ng the death of Preston Nutter in the 1936 (he was thrown from a horse i n Range Creek), Barboglio filed on another 160 acres of land adjacent to the or ig inal Dar ioli filing.63

Joe Barboglio was a well-known figure in Carbon and Emery counties. He was founder and pres i dent of the Helper State Bank as well as mayor of Helper The Italian was also active in societies and groups that offered aid and assistance to fellow Italian immigrants in Carbon County.64 It is not surpr ising,then, that he would help his countryman Dar ioli.

Evidence suggests that in this case Barboglio had a much more personal goal; he intended to usurp control of Range Creek from Preston Nutter No record of contact between Nutter and Barboglio survives,and the banker’s efforts eventually failed. Barboglio and Dar ioli could not pay the necessary property taxes dur ing the early years of the Depression,and as a result they lost control of their land holdings Later, though,they recovered their propertyand in 1942 sold both parcels to Henning Olsen and his son Lloyd Controversy over ownership of Range Creek did not end there,however.

The two Olsen pieces were isolated from each other by Preston Nutter Corporation holdings,now run by Nutter’s descendants From all appearances,the Olsens struggled for the entire five years they owned the land. Their effort to make it in Range Creek ended in 1947 when Lloyd shot himself to death in the stone house Dar ioli built.65

Follow i ng Lloyd ’s death,Bert and Clarence P i ll i ng bought the two Dar ioli parcels. (Clarence would later gain notor iety as the discoverer of the famous Pilling figur ines )66 Not wanting to live in the house where Lloyd killed himself,the Pilling family built a log home nearby.67 They,too, struggled for several years to make a living in Range Creek,but limited rangeland doomed their ranching venture. Pilling sold his ground to Irvin Gerber and sons

Gerber owned a large ranch on top of the nearby West Tavaputs Plateau

63

Carbon

64

65

“Young Rancher Found Dead by Fr iend on Farm,” Sun Advocate,January 13,1944

66 In 1950 Clarence Pilling found eleven,expertly sculpted clay figures under an overhang in Range Creek Archaeolog ists date them to about AD 1000-1100 and associate them with the Fremont culture They reside in the College of Eastern Utah Prehistor ic Museum in Pr ice,Utah

67 Bud Pilling, interview by Steven L Gerber,September 17,2004

County,Utah Abstracts of Title,Carbon County Courthouse,Pr ice,Utah

Helen B. Leavitt,“The Lives and Times of Joseph and Jennie Barboglio,”Western Mining & Railroad Museum,Helper,Utah

Joseph Barboglio, Helper mayor and bank president.

and a smaller one along the Green River at Rock Creek The Range Creek land prov i ded i mportant w i nter range as well as an eas i er route to h i s summer range on the mountain Difficulties with the Nutter Corporation limited Gerber’s plans,however.68

Shortly after Gerber purchased the 320 acres in Range Creek,the Nutter Corporation constructed a road from the bottom of Little Horse Canyon, fifteen miles down the length of Range Creek to Turtle Wash. The road proved contentious; this conflict eventually drove Gerber from area Pr ior to the road construction,the Gerbers and others had traveled the length of the canyon on horseback Following the completion of the new road,the Nutter Corporation placed locked gates across both ends of the canyon. Gerber contended that the locked gateswere unlawful,so he continued to use the road.

As the conflict between Gerber and the Nutter Corporation escalated, the Nutter Corporat i on sold the Range Creek ranch i n 1950 to Ray “Budge”Wilcox and his sons,Don and Waldo The Wilcoxes inher ited the ill feelings that had developed between Gerber and the Nutter company. Like so many Range Creek disputes in the past,the issue of land ownership landed in court with Wilcox and Nutter as plaintiffs and Gerber and Floyd Hawkins as defendants.69 Hawkins had filed a homestead about five miles south of the Wilcox ranch many years earlier He relied on access to the canyon to reach grazing land he was leasing in Bear Canyon several miles north of the Wilcoxes

Ev i dence presented i n the lawsu i t i nd i cated that Joe W i ng had constructed a wagon road in the canyon in the 1890s; he had used that road to transport supplies a few miles up Range Creek. But Wing had never gone higher than Cherry Meadows,about eight miles above Turtle Canyon. Both sides in the lawsuit agreed that there was an access r ight through the canyon by horseback and mule,but the court found against Gerber and Hawkins with regard to wheeled vehicles. They were allowed to use the old wagon road as far north as Cherry Meadows,but were prohibited from using the new road,except on horseback This decision presented a significant setback for Gerber,who lost much of the advantage he expected from h i s ownersh i p of the two Range Creek properties. In 1953,he sold his properties to Therald N. Jensen,along with all his holdings on the plateau and along the Green River Jensen later sold the Range Creek portion of his ranch to Kaiser Steel Company. The steel g iant’s pr imary interest was the water r ight that accompanied the land;it used the water for its mining operations in Sunnyside.

Following Ray Wilcox’s death in 1981,his sons Don and Waldo operated

68 Lloyd Gerber, Heroes Are Made,Not Born (Eagle,ID: Red Canyon Corporation,1998),316-23 In Gerber’s text he calls the Wilcoxes “The Browns ” 69 Gerber vs.Wilcox,et al ,Preston Nutter Corporation,Preston Nutter,Kather ine Nutter and H Byron Mock,box 48,folder 26-35,Nutter Collection

the ranch for several years before dividing the property Don controlled the land on the plateau,and Waldo assumed sole ownership of the Range Creek Ranch For over five decades the Wilcox family restr icted access to their land in Range Creek. Due to the judgment in the Gerber case,the only two pieces of landnot controlled by Wilcox (the or ig inal Dar ioli pieces) were isolated with no vehicle access from the north Kaiser,meanwhile,sold its property to the Penta Creek Corporat i on,but the access restr i ct i ons remained As a result of this restr iction,and a fervent effort by the Wilcox family to keep trespassers from enter ing the ranch,few people knew much about Range Creek except what old timers said. In December 2000,Waldo Wilcox sold his ranch to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

For many years,archaeolog ists surmised that Range Creek possessed some unusual Fremont cultural sites The Claflin-Emerson expedition in 1931 had recorded several sites,but pr ivate ownership and limited access precluded any further study. Upon assumpt ion of control i n 2000,the BLM hired University of Utah archaeolog ists and histor ians to survey the canyon’s cultural resources. In just a few short weeks in the summer of 2001, it became very apparent that Range Creek contained one of the most important archaeolog ical treasures yet discovered in North Amer ica. The BLM,meanwhile,was caretaking the land until it could be taken over by the Utah Department of W i ldl i fe Resources But the unusual archaeolog ical resources in Range Creek led the state in 2009 to transfer title of the land to the University of Utah The university’s archaeolog ical investigation continues and is expected to unfold for decades to come.70

The remote locat i on,along w i th decades of protect i on afforded by determined landowners such as the Wilcoxes,helped preserve a huge cache of information about the history of ancient societies.

The big story about Range Creek is undoubtedly its relatively pr istine Fremont Indian sites. But the story of one and a quarter century of Anglo occupat i on also contr i butes an i mportant chapter to Utah ’s l ivestock history,especially that of the non-Mormon ranchers And it shows the fervor with which var ious individuals and cattle outfits like Preston Nutter, John Niles,Joe Barboglio,Ray Wilcox,Irvin Gerber,and the Range Valley Cattle Company fought long i n the courts to control th i s last-chance grazing spot. The rhapsodic prose of Joe Wing illustrates why men wanted to live in this isolated reg ion of eastern Utah and says much about this extraordinar ilybeautiful but harsh landscape.

70 Paul Foy,“Utah to Turn Over Fabled Range Creek Canyon to U of U Archaeolog ists,” Salt Lake Tr ibune, August 25,2009

Nine Mile, Minnie Maud and the Mystery of a Place Name

ByJERRY D. SPANGLER

What’s in a name? Probably not much if your name is John and your fr iends call you Jack,or if you were chr istened Margaret and folks prefer to call you Magg ie. But when the moniker happens to be Nine Mile Canyon and the actual canyon is more than sixty miles long, it is a paradox that inspires more questions than answers,as well as plenty of local folk etymolog ies.

How did Nine Mile Canyon,a place renowned the world over for its tens of thousands of prehistor ic rock art images,get its rather inconsistent name? According to Utah Place Names:A Comprehensive Guide to the Or igins of Geographic Names,the canyon was so named because it is nine miles long — an assertion that can be easily disposed of on empir ical grounds 1 From its confluence with the Green River to the point where the main stem diverges into two major branches is about forty-five miles,and from there to the headwaters it extends another twenty to thirty miles

Another legend has it that W A Miles settled the canyon with his wife and seven daughters,hence the “nine Miles.”And while the Miles family indeed is intertw ined w ith the h i story of the reg ion,the dra i nage was known as Nine Mile years before the Miles family arr ived 2

Most accounts today,repeated author itat ively through scores of Internet post i ngs about the canyon,attr i bute the name to Captain Francis Mar ion Bishop,a cartogra-

1 John W Van Cott, Utah Place Names:A Comprehensive Guide to the Or igins of Geographic Names (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,1990),274

2 Edward A Geary,“Nine Mile: Eastern Utah’s Forgotten Road,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 49 (Winter 1981): 45

Jerry D Spangler is the Executive Director of the Colorado Plateau Archaeolog ical Alliance

Francis Marion Bishop, cartographer on the 1871 Powell Expedition.

pher on Major John Wesley Powell’s Colorado River Explor ing Expedition of 1871,although his participation is frequently and erroneously attr ibuted to the 1869 exped i t i on Accord i ng to the off i c i al Bureau of Land Management web site for the canyon,Bishop “used a nine-mile transect for mapping the canyon,”and hence he is responsible for the canyon’s name 3

As a long-time student of the Powell expeditions of 1869 and 1871,I have accepted the “Bishop explanation”at face value even though I was puzzled that the only inference in the expedition journals to a mapping tr i angulat i on was B i shop ’s obscure “I was up on the cl i ff tak i ng the topography of the creek ”4 But there was no mistaking the fact the 1871 expedition journals referred to a Nine Mile Creek,and a later 1875 profile map resulting from the expedition marks the first topographical reference to a creek by that name 5

Dur ing the course of recent archaeolog ical research along the Desolation Canyon port i on of the Green R iver,we found our attent i on d iverted somewhat by what we affectionately dubbed the “John Wesley Powell Slept Here Project,” inspired by a National Reg ister monument to that effect at Sand Wash,even though there is no evidence either of the expeditions ever stopped there,let alone slept there

We wanted to know i f the camp locat i ons of the 1871 exped i t i on throughout Desolation Canyon could be relocated through clues in the journal accounts (there are eight journals,some quite detailed and others qu i te useless) and the h i stor i c photographs of E O Beaman Work i ng from a known location established with a high degree of certainty,we could work forward and backward from each datum using the estimated mileages in the journals,descr iptions of the local landscape,and histor ic photographs.6

We had established two expedition landmarks along the route with a high degree of certainty: Sumner’s Amphitheater and Lighthouse Rock, both of them known from 1871 photos. Other landmarks such as Fretwater Falls,Log Cabin and Pr ice River,were known with a fairly high degree of certa i nty,based on good descr i pt i ons i n the journals (the journals also referenced photographs at those locat i ons but we have yet to i dent i fy them). And,of course,Nine Mile Creek was a known topographic feature. All of these places retain the same names today,as identified by members of the Powell exped i t i on,many of them by Freder i ck Dellenbaugh,a

3 Nine Mile Canyon U S Department of Inter ior,Bureau of Land Management February 2008

4 Francis Mar ion Bishop,“Captain Francis Mar ion Bishop’s Journal,” Utah H i stor i cal Quarterly 15 (1947): 189

5 John Wesley Powell, Report on the Lands of the Ar id Region of the United States,with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah (Washington,D C.: GPO,1879)

6 Jerry D Spangler,James M Aton and Donna K Spangler, Baseline Site Condition Assessment of Histor ic Properties Near the Bureau of Land Management Ranger Station At Sand Wash,Uintah County,Project U-07C1-0035b (Ogden,UT: Colorado Plateau Archaeolog ical Alliance,2007),46-61

seventeen-year-old journalist who offers the r ichest wr itten account of the 1871 adventures down the r iver 7

This liberal application of deductive reasoning,which required a detailed read i ng and re-read i ng of the journals,worked very well and i n most instances the locations of the expedition camps could be narrowed to a spec i f i c area . But there was one notable except i on . N i ne M i le Creek referred to in the journals seemed to be located about forty-two miles farther down r iver from where it is today Enlightenment soon dawned: The Nine Mile Creek referred to in the journals is, in fact,known today as Rock Creek And the expedition seems to have passed today’s Nine Mile Creek without comment (and without any nine-mile tr iangulations).

Debunk i ng the N i ne M i le tr i angulat i on myth beg i ns w i th journal entr ies for August 8,1871,when the expedition arr ived at a camp about thirty-two miles below the Duchesne River (it was known as the Uinta R iver i n 1871) Some of the journal i sts descr i bed a vast amph i theater where the r iver doubled back on itself . 8 And they wrote about considerable efforts over parts of three days to obtain photographs of this remarkable feature Only Dellenbaugh’s account,wr itten many years later,refers to a name for th i s feature : “It was named Sumner ’s Amph i theatre after Jack Sumner of the first expedition ”9 Beaman’s 1871 photographs of Sumner’s Amphitheatre ver ify that this is the same topographic feature known by that name today At th i s po i nt,the exped i t i on would have been about eleven miles below the mouth of today’s Nine Mile Creek Later,on August 10,the expedition floated ten or eleven miles down r iver before camping for the night,commenting little on the local topography This distance would have placed the camp somewhere in the Peter’s Point area Narrowing the location of this camp would likely be impossible if not for a s i ngle reference by Dellenbaugh that “oppos i te our next camp a pinnacle stood detached from the wall on a shelf high above the water suggesting a beacon,and it was named Lighthouse Rock ”10 The presence of a pinnacle is corroborated by Beaman’s 1871 photograph that clearly depicts the same Lighthouse Rock landmark known to r iver-runners today This location is roughly twenty-four miles below the mouth of today’s Nine Mile Creek. It is also thirteen miles below Sumner’s Amphitheatre, not the ten or eleven miles they estimated With two camps established with confidence,we began deducing the

7 Freder ick S Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage:The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition Down the Green-Colorado River from Wyoming,and the Explorations on Land, in the Years 1871-1872 (1908; repr.,New Haven:Yale University Press,1962)

8 Stephen Vandiver Jones,“Journal of Stephen Vandiver Jones,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 16-17,(1948): 57; Walter C Powell,“Journal of W C Powell,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 16-17 (1948): 295; Almon Harr is Thompson,Herbert E Gregory,ed ,“Diary of Almon Harr is Thompson,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 7 (1939): 33

9 Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage,79

10 Ibid.,80.

camps farther down canyon On August 11, wh i le st i ll at the L i ghthouse Rock camp, crew members spent the morning hiking in a side canyon on the west side of the r iver and taking pictures. Thompson indicated it took them an hour and a half to reach the top. Cur iously,there are no notable side canyons in the Lighthouse Rock area on either r iver r ight or r iver left They returned to camp by 10:30 a.m. and resumed floating at 1 p.m. “and ran about three miles when we came to a rapid ”11 This is undoubtedly the Jack Creek Rapid,located about two miles below Lighthouse Rock. Two boats hit a submerged rock,and the third boat, The Canonita,struck a different rock which punctured its side They stopped to repair The Canonita and resumed floating at 3 p.m.,going a total of five miles that day and camping “almost on the spot where the [1869] party camped before ”12

Jones wrote that after repair ing boats from the Jack Canyon mishap,they floated a short distance and camped above the next set of rapids,which would be the Big Canyon Rapids,located about three miles below the Jack Canyon Rapids.13 Dellenbaugh’s account is consistent,showing the camp was located above the rapid that was “a starter”for the next day On August 12,Thompson indicated they left camp at 7:45 a.m. and made 6.25 miles; Jones figured 5.87 miles; and Dellenbaugh estimated 6.75 miles; all noted they camped at the same location as an 1869 camp 14 The journals offer few

11 Thompson,“Diary,”34 12 Ibid ,35 13 Jones,“Journal,”58 14 Thompson,“Diary,”35; Jones,“Journal,”59; Dellenbaugh, A Canyon Voyage,82

Nine Mile Canyon.

clues as to where the camp was located,but if the mileage estimates are accurate,the camp was likely near Dr ipping Spr ings just below the mouth of Flat Canyon

On August 14,after a layover day,the expedition continued down r iver to Fretwater Falls,which still bears that name today and is about thirty-five miles below the mouth of today’s Nine Mile Creek And on August 15 and 16,they were camped somewhere along the extensive flats at the mouth of Steer Ridge Canyon,perhaps above Surpr ise Rapid,located forty miles below the mouth of today’s Nine Mile Creek. The journal accounts are fairly consistent after this point as they collectively refer to a flowing stream they called Nine Mile Creek,beg inning with entr ies for August 17 Thompson wrote,“Left Beaman 3/4 of a mile up r iver to take views. He got some fine ones Left him at the mouth of Nine Mile Creek,a beautiful little clear stream about a rod wide,coming in from the west. It has considerable water now,show i ng that i t must be fed by spr i ngs . ” 15 Steward observed,“It is a beautiful little brook with about 2 feet of water that comes bubbling rapidly down the valley.”16 Walter “Clem”Powell wrote that Beaman and h i mself,and later,w i th A H Thompson i n tow,“all climbed the low foothills back of us. Had a fine view up the valley of Nine Mile Creek and of the different peaks. We concluded to leave the boxes on the bank of the creek and come up in the morning and take views Drank some of its waters but found it strongly impregnated with alkali,though clear and cold ”17

The following day,on August 18,Clem Powell wrote that he,Beaman and “Jack”(probably John H i llers) returned to N i ne M i le Creek, “shouldered the boxes and gallantly marched up the mountain Took a couple of views,one looking up the creek’s valley and one looking down the r iver Came down,repacked the boxes,fixed the negatives,and went back to camp.” 18 These i mages have not been i dent i f i ed i n the U. S. Geolog i cal Survey database Wh i le Beaman was tak i ng photographs, B i shop,who d i d not accompany the photographers,wrote h i s obscure reference,“I was up on the cliff taking the topography of the creek.”19 At th i s po i nt,the exped i t i on would have been forty-two m i les below the mouth of what is today known as Nine Mile Creek. By 10 a.m.,the crew was back on the r iver,suggesting that their foray into “Nine Mile Creek” was br ief

Between today’s Nine Mile Creek on the north and Range Creek on the south,Rock Creek is the only perennial water flowing from the west It or ig inates from spr ings on the West Tavaputs Plateau,and it drains east

15 Thompson,“Diary,”37

16 John F Steward,“Journal of John F Steward,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 16-17 (1948): 219 17 W C Powell,“Journal,”300 18 Ibid 19 Bishop,“Journal,”89

toward the Green River The canyon from headwaters to confluence is roughly eight or nine miles long. That today’s Rock Creek was yesteryear’s Nine Mile Creek is further supported by journal references to a prominent geolog ic feature that “had the appearance of an old-fashioned log-cabin, and from th i s we called i t Log-cab i n Cl i ff,” 20 a name by wh i ch i t i s still known Log Cabin is a major landmark just above the Rock Creek confluence.

These journal accounts clearly demonstrate that the Nine Mile Creek descr ibed in 1871 is not the Nine Mile Creek of today,and that it is likely Rock Creek. But this raises even more questions as to the or ig ins of the name Unlike other landforms to which the 1871 expedition freely applied new names (e . g . ,Fretwater Falls and Sumner ’s Amph i theatre),the expedition arr ived at this location with a place name apparently already known. This is inferred by Steward,who wrote on August 17 “we passed the mouth of a small stream … which we suppose to be what is known as Nine Mile Creek,that is said to pass not far from the Uinta Agency ”21 Today’s Rock Creek is nowhere near the Uinta Agency,whereas Nine Mile Creek today is somewhat closer,about thirty miles south of the agency headquarters.

Could it be that Major John Wesley Powell,the expedition commander who did not accompany the 1871 expedition dur ing its adventures into Desolation Canyon,had merely told the participants to watch for “Nine Mile Creek?”Could they have mistaken the clear brook at Rock Creek for a similarly sized stream forty-two miles up r iver? Was today’s Nine Mile Canyon actually discovered and named dur ing the 1869 expedition,and g iven that none of the 1869 participants were along for the 1871 expedition through Desolation Canyon,was the real Nine Mile Creek simply missed? And if it was named in 1869,why was it tagged with that name,g iven that formal mapp i ng tr i angulat i ons were not part of the 1869 exped i t i on ’ s duties?

The journals of the 1869 expedition offer no clues Neither of the two 1869 d i ar i sts,Jack Sumner and George Y. Bradley,refer to N i ne M i le Creek,or any creek i n the Desolat i on Canyon area for that matter 22 Powell’s journal is the most fragmentary of all,offer ing minimal descr iption whereby the expedition itinerary could be reconstructed 23 A more detailed account is offered in Powell’s later recollections in The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Tr ibutar ies,but this is flawed by his compilation of notes and memor i es from both the 1869 and 1871 exped i t i ons

20

Dellenbaugh, Canyon Voyage,84; see also Jones,“Journal,”62; W C Powell,“Journal,”300; Thompson, “Diary,”37

21 Steward,“Journal,”219

22 John C Sumner,“J C Sumner’s Journal,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 15 (1947): 108-124; George Y Bradley,“George Y Bradley’s Journal,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 15 (1947): 29-72

23 John Wesley Powell,“Major Powell’s Journal,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 15 (1947): 125-39

Nonetheless,th i s account does not ment i on N i ne Mile Creek 24

A close read i ng of the var i ous accounts suggests that ne i ther the 1869 nor 1871 exped i t i ons camped anywhere near the mouth of today ’s N i ne M i le Canyon,nor did they stop there for mapping purposes. Qu i te s i mply,Franc i s Mar ion Bishop’s “nine-mile tr iangulation”never occurred at the canyon that bears that name today. More likely,today’s Nine Mile Creek went unnoticed by both expeditions (the expeditions also failed to note the presence of Range Creek on the Green River and the Escalante River lower on the Colorado River)

If the 1871 participants were mistaken in their identification of Nine Mile Creek, there is no supporting documentation that the creek that bears the name Nine Mile Creek today was called by that name at that time So, if today ’s N i ne M i le Creek i s not the N i ne M i le Creek of the Powell expeditions,what was its name at that time? Some histor ians believe Nine Mile Canyon may be the Euwinty River referred to in the 1825 journals of William Ashley.25 By 1866,a General Land Office map of Utah shows a stream labeled White River in the approximate location of Nine Mile Creek, as well as another nearby White River in the approximate location of the Pr ice River (the latter was commonly known as the White River at the time of the Powell expeditions). It is not a huge leap to suggest that “White” is an Anglo modification of “Euwinty,”but it is speculative nonetheless.

The name Nine Mile Creek first appears in a profile map attached to Powell’s 1875 report to Congress of his 1869,1871 and 1872 expeditions, but its location is clearly marked below Sumner’s Amphitheatre,not in its cur rent location above the landmark. In fact,there are no references to

24 John Wesley Powell, The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Tr ibutar ies (New York: Dover Press, 1961)

25Dale L Morgan,ed ,“The Diary of William H Ashley,” Bulletin of the Missour i Histor ical Society Bulletin 11 (January 1955): 177 See also Fred R Gowan’s, Rocky Mountain Rendevous (Layton: Peregr ine Smith Books,1985),17; Dale L Morgan, The West of William H.Ashley 1822-1838 (Denver : Old West Publishing Company,1964),281 ; Melv i n T Sm i th,“Before Powell : Explorat i on of the Colorado R iver,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 55 (Summer 1987): 109

Sumner’s Amphitheatre photographed by E.O. Beaman in 1871.

creeks in Desolation Canyon above the amphitheatre Adding even more confusion,A.H. Thompson,who commanded the 1871 expedition through Desolation Canyon in Powell’s absence,br iefly descr ibed today’s Nine Mile Canyon in Powell’s Report on the Lands of the Ar id Region of the United States, with a more detailed account of the lands of Utah (hereafter Ar id Lands Report). But he called the creek Minnie Maud,a name now reserved for the upper north fork of Nine Mile Creek.26 Thompson certainly knew that Nine Mile Creek was much deeper in Desolation Canyon,as indicated on Powell’s 1875 map. So he appl i ed a d i fferent name to the stream to the north . Thompson descr ibed water-flow tests of Minnie Maud Creek in 1877 that yielded sixteen cubic feet per second,suggesting the canyon had become known to government surveyors at about the same t i me or somewhat earlier than the first Euroamer ican settlers in the canyon in the late 1870s

The or ig ins of the name Minnie Maud are likewise clouded in local lore. Edward Geary cites local accounts that the name has an abor ig inal or ig in that is sometimes spelled “Minniemaud,”but there is no citation for the source of that infor mation.27 Another account has it that the canyon was named for two twin sisters,Minnie and Maud Hall,born in Escalante,Utah, in 1893,and who moved to the canyon a few years later,although this also occurred after the canyon already carr ied the Minnie Maud name.28

Another popular account suggests that Major Powell named the creek for two relatives,Minnie and Maud,and there appears to be strong support for this particular legend,albeit with some revisions A review of records at FamilySearch. org found that Major Powell’s brother,William Bramwell “Bram”Powell,marr ied Wilhelmina Paul Bengelstraeter. Wilhelmina went by the name Minnie Together,they had a daughter,Maud,born August 22, 1867, in Peru,Illinois. No reference was found in the database that Maud went by M i nn i e Maud,but accord i ng to Maud ’s b i ographer,Karen A Schaffer,her actual g i ven name was M i nn i e Maud,though she later dropped the Minnie.29

According to Donald Worster’s author itative biography of Major Powell, “Bram and Minnie’s daughter,Maud,was a child prodigy on the violin, debuting with the New York Philharmonic Society at the age of sixteen She formed her own Maud Powell Str ing Quartet and,from a base in London,played the leading concert halls of Europe,becoming one of the most renowned str ing artists of her day Uncle Wes, immensely proud of his talented niece,followed her career closely.”30 She would have been about

26 Almon Harr is Thompson,“Irr igable Lands of that Portion of Utah Drained by the Colorado River and Its Tr ibutar ies,” in Report on the Lands of the Ar id Region,159-60

27 Geary,“Nine Mile,”45

28 “Minnie and Maud – Canyons named after twin g irls,” Sun Advocate,November 5,1970

29 Karen A Schaffer, interview by author,October 28,2009; see also Karen A Schaffer and Neva Garner Greenwood, Maud Powell:Pioneer Amer ican Violinist (Ames: Iowa State University Press,1988),10

30 Donald Worster, A River Running West:The Life of John Wesley Powell (New York: Oxford University Press,2001),548

ten years old and f i rst emerg i ng as an accla i med ch i ld v i ol i n i st i n Ill i no i s when the creek came to bear her name

Major Powell ’s fondness for his accomplished niece apparently continued in the decades that followed,even though fame spir ited Maud away to London and the Major off to Wash i ngton, D C ,where he later directed the Bureau of Ethnology and the U S Geolog i cal Survey. When Bram Powell later moved to Washington,D.C.,to become super intendent of public schools,Maud was a frequent visitor to her uncle’s house on M Street where she entertained Washington’s scientific and political elite with her musical virtuosity.31

If the Minnie Maud name can be attr ibuted to Major Powell’s fondness for his favor ite niece,then this name was probably applied about 1877 or 1878,dur ing preparation of the seminal Ar id Lands Report document (first released in 1878,but revised,corrected and re-released in 1879 into the formal report ava i lable today),and dur i ng preparat i on of the map that accompanied it 32 This map uses the name Minnie Maud for the creek,but appl i es the name N i ne M i le Valley to the upper south fork of M i nn i e Maud Creek 33

The fact he d i d not use the name N i ne M i le Creek for th i s stream implies that Powell recognized a distinction between Minnie Maud Creek on the north and Nine Mile (Rock Creek) on the south,although the latter is not mentioned anywhere in the Ar id Lands Report. It can also be inferred that today’s Nine Mile Canyon,explored and tested for its water potent i al i n 1877,was unnamed at the t i me of the Colorado R i ver Explor i ng Exped i t i ons of 1869 and 1871,and that i t was probably

31 William Culp Darrah, Powell of the Colorado (Pr inceton,New Jersey: Pr inceton University,1951), 388-89; Shaffer and Greenwood, Maud Powell,87-93

32 Powell, Report on the Lands of the Ar id Region.

33 Geary,“Nine Mile,”45

Lighthouse rock in Desolation Canyon. Photographed by E.O. Beaman in 1871.

unknown to the part i c ipants,thereby requ i r i ng a new appellat i on where i n Powell honored his niece.34 It would also support the content i on that Rock Creek today is and was the N i ne M i le Creek of the 1871 Colorado R i ver Explor ing Expedition.

So how d i d the name N i ne M i le Creek get transferred forty-some m i les to the north on a creek that was unknown in 1869 and 1871?

The answer to that question remains a mystery that def i es easy answers . Although speculat ive, i t i s qu i te poss i ble that those creat i ng later maps i n the late n i neteenth century mistakenly placed the name Nine Mile Creek on a stream far to the north of where the part i c i pants had actually descr i bed i t . Throughout t i me,the canyon became known as Nine Mile Canyon and the creek as Minnie Maud Creek Eventually it e volved i nto N i ne M i le Creek and N i ne Mile Canyon,with the Minnie Maud name reserved only for the northern tr ibutary.

In other words,the Nine Mile name,as used today,has all been a grand case of mistaken identity.

Utah history is not without such mix-ups when it comes to maps. Ever wondered why Thousand Lake Mountain doesn’t have lakes and nearby Boulder Mountain is swimming in them?

34 Thompson,“Irr igable Lands,”159-60

Maud Powell, born August 22,1867. Aniece of John Wesley Powell, she was given the name Minnie Maud but later dropped the first name.

KAREN A. SCHAFFER, MAUDPOWELLSOCIETY

The Replevied Present:San Juan County, the Southern

Utes,and What Might Have

Been, 1894-1895

ByROBERTS. MCPHERSONTHOMPSON

December 1894 was a bitterly cold month with snow sweeping across the Great Sage Pla i n,p i l i ng h i gh at the foot of Blue Mountain,located in San Juan County,Utah Blustery south w i nds cheated the smoke of i ts heat as soon as i t left the chimneys of the dozen homes braced against the Monticello winter The Mormon settlers went about their daily tasks of feeding livestock,chopping wood,and hauling water,but something weighed heavily on their minds that year True,Chr istmas was in the air,and for the children,there were preparations to be made and presents to get ready. The adults,however, were soon to be involved in their own preparations for something that had been discussed for years,but they never believed would happen. There were now hundreds of Utes either in southeaster n Utah or on their way from Colorado to cla i m the i r present—all of San Juan County—as had been promised, in their mind,by the United States Government The settlers would soon be looking for new homes

Buckskin Charlie with his wife Emma Naylor Buck dressed in traditional Muache attire. He is among the best known Southern Utes, serving as their leader until 1936 when he died, blind and crippled, at the age of ninety-five. While not considered antagonistic toward the federal government, he questioned its right to remove the Utes from Colorado.

Robert S McPherson teaches at the College of Eastern Utah—San Juan Campus and serves on the Utah Board of State History He thanks the Utah Humanities Council for the fellowship that assisted with research for this article

DENVERPUBLICLIBRARY,WESTERNHISTORYCOLLECTION

Preparation for this month had started years ago, in 1888, in the meetings of the Southern Ute Commission then empowered to modify land agreements promised in previous treaties 1 Beg inning on August 9 and ending on November 13,a ser ies of eight councils interspersed with visits on both the Colorado reservation and in southeastern Utah,were held with representatives of the Capote,Muache,and Weenuche bands, identified collectively as Southern Utes.2 Most prominent for those representing the Weenuche were Ignac i o and Mar i ano Bucksk i n Charl i e spoke for the Muache,Severo for the Capote,with forty-five chiefs and subchiefs also attending the agency in Ignacio,Colorado.

The problems facing these people were complex—loss of the ability to hunt and gather,shr inking reservation lands, incursions on Indian lands by wh i te ne i ghbors,neglected payment i n rat i ons and mater i el,broken prom i ses concern i ng agr i cultural ass i stance,and an act ive wh i te publ i c pushing for their removal. Add to this a volatile press,a land-hungry public, and a government who often did not take its treaty obligations ser iously, and one can see why the Utes cast about for a clar ification of their situation and an improved ability to provide for themselves Yet they were tied to the land,while every possibility also had a down side.

Excerpts of the dialogue from these var ious meetings are instructive.3 Insight is gained not only into what the Indians were thinking,but also their agreement with government officials that laid the groundwork for an explosive situation later Ignacio,chief spokesman,echoed the sentiments of many when he suggested he was not even sure he wanted to leave his established home.

Ignacio: I am very glad that I have talked to my fr iends,and am also glad that my fr iends are talking to me.It is all r ight that you come to talk to us about this business.This is my land.The Great Father has told me before that this is my land. Consequently,I do not know how to sell it.I do not know myself what to do,or

1 Space does not permit including all of the congressional activity surrounding this twelve year process of establishing the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute reservations For a good summary of the political activities involving federal and state government and special interest groups see,Gregory Coyne Thompson, Southern Ute Lands,1848-1899;The Creation of a Reservation, Occasional Papers of the Center of Southwest Studies no 1 (Durango,CO: March 1972): 37-59; also,Thompson,“The Unwanted Indians: The Southern Utes in Southeastern Utah,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 49 (Spr ing 1981): 189-203

2 There can be confusion over the term Southern Utes as used then and today. In anthropolog ical literature these three bands are designated as Southern Utes as opposed to the Uncompahgre,Parusanuch, and Yampa in Colorado and the Uintah,Tipanogots,Pahvant,Sanpits,and Moanunts of Utah collectively known to Anglos as Northern Utes Now there are two Southern Ute reservations in the southwestern corner of Colorado The first is called the Southern Ute Reservation,headquartered in Ignacio,with residents who are pr imar ily Muache and Capote When a person refers to Southern Utes today, it often is limited to these people The second reservation is the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation with headquarters i n Towaoc,whose populat i on i s pr i mar i ly Weenuche and are referred to as Ute Mounta i n Utes . Histor ically, in southeastern Utah there was a heavy mixing of Paiutes with Weenuche Utes To avoid confus i on,unless there i s a reason to spec i fy,the general term Ute w i ll be used here The name Weeminuche is often found in the histor ical record but the preferred spelling now is Weenuche

3 All quotes from this meeting are found in U S Senate,“Ute Indian Commission,”Ex Doc 67,50th Cong ,2d Sess January 11,1889

how my people will go into business.I do not know whether any other place is better than this.Also,because I was born here,was raised here,and have lived here all this time,this is the only place we have had to hunt for a long time.We have done everything according to what the government has ordered us to do.I have done nothing wrong.All I have done is just as I have been told.4

Other leaders expressed similar concerns,but once the issue of removal to southeastern Utah arose,a number of new questions became apparent.

Buckskin Charlie feared being pushed onto increasingly undesirable land

Buckskin Charlie: Out there [San Juan County] there is no large r iver;there is no r iver like the Animas;there is no r iver like the Los Pinos or the Piedra.This land is worth a great deal of money;why should we wish to sell it? I have been here ten years farming and getting my family;the first year I did not like it,but the second year I liked it a little better because I got used to it.Here we have watermelons and muskmelons,and all kinds of fruits and vegetables,and here the children are happy and are satisfied,and if we go away we cannot farm,and what shall we eat?

The reason you say that it is a good idea for the Utes to go out there in the Blue Mountains is because it is a deser t;but all the same,we are willing to go if you will give us what we ask.Afterwards,too, if we make a treaty with you,we have nothing to say.Here you cannot come and say we have got a farm,we have got a mighty good country then to farm in.Then you will not have to say,“Get out of here,Utes; you have got too good a land.”No other commission will have to say that.That is the reason I say now,and that the Utes all say,too,that we will take that land that you will not have to dr ive us out of there.5

Buckskin Charlie had other concerns. He was well aware of the conflict existing between the Utes/Paiutes and the white settlers living in San Juan County and feared even more trouble once more Utes moved into that reg ion.

Buckskin Charlie: When we leave this land you [Ute Commission] will have plenty of money.We want Rio Colorado,and want those Mormons taken away from there,for the Mormons have cattle and horses.As long as they are there and have cattle and sheep,they are bound to bother us on the reservation.If the Mormons are kept there the horses and cattle will go on the reservation,and then the Mormons will lie to the Utes and say the Utes stole their horses.And they will say I am lying and that the Utes killed it.If there are no Mormons there to interfere with us it is better.6

Mar iano,a frequent visitor to southeastern Utah,wanted to know what would happen to the Indians already living there

Mar i ano : There i s where I understand the Pa i utes l i ve,there i n the Blue Mountains,and those Paiutes do not receive any money at all from the government. And when the snow comes,that is the place we go in the wintertime.We are together there.And there are also Paiutes living on both sides of the San Juan.That is the

4 Ibid ,30

5 Ibid ,43 The Animas and Los Pinos r ivers are located in southwestern Colorado and were important sources of water as well as hunting areas for the Utes

6 Ibid ,54

reason that I say all these places have people.

What I am tell i ng you now i s more for my people,not for me personally.I would like to have it always the same as it is,that we can go down south if we want to in the winter and come up here in the summer.

Chairman: [J.M.Smith] We know you own this reservation,but it is not wide enough for you, and just as soon as more white people come in they w i ll object to you do i ng th i s,and the Utes w i ll have to live on this reservation.The Paiutes have no reservation out there,and we can go out there and lay out a reservation large enough for all of you,both Utes and Paiutes.And you can sell this land to the government.

Mar iano: I understand that where the Utes live is their own land.I understand that this land is not surveyed,but that is all their land.

Chairman: No, it is not. The Great Father can give you a reservation out there large enough for you to live on and he will dr ive all the cattle away from there and g i ve i t to the Utes and Pa i utes. (That is,he will dr ive the cattlemen away.)

Mar iano: Then what will you do wi th these Paiutes;they were born and raised there,and they live there? I understand that that land belongs to the Paiutes and it has always been known as their land.

Chief Ignacio saw massive changes take place for the Utes during his life. Representing the Weenuche in all of the major treaty negotiations beginning in the 1860s, he had a strong voice during the council in Monticello. When he died in 1913, the Utes lost a great leader. Photo taken 1898.

Bucksk i n Charl i e agreed and feared further consequences assoc i ated with removal.

The government always lies to us.When we lived over on the Cimarron they told us we could come here and live forever,we and our children and grandchildren,and that all could live here and die here,and we would never be bothered,and now they come and try to bluff and scare us out of here.They also said there were not cattle here,nor Mexicans,nor anybody else;but when we came here we found the country full of cows and people.

The government says:“Move from there over here.There w i ll not be any Amer icans or anything to interfere with you.” As long as the Mor mons stay,there will always be lies going back and forth with letters to Washington.If the Utes go there to that new country,the Amer icans will be very contented here....You probably do not hear,but I hear;that is the reason the Utes want it that way.If they are by themselves,nobody will make any complaint against them.7

Follow i ng a v i s i t to San Juan County,the Comm i ss i on and the Ute delegation agreed that it was a desirable move and concluded their talks with an understanding that the settlers located at Bluff,South Montezuma Creek (Verdure),Dodge Spr i ng,Mont i cello,and Ind i an Creek,lack i ng legal claim to the non-surveyed land,would be removed These white men recognized the government’s r ight to do so.8 Commission Chairman J. Montgomery Smith concluded his report of the negotiations stating,“This is considered a very fair and favorable treaty both for the Government and the Indians by all who have any knowledge of it.”9 From all appearances, but especially from the Ute perspective,an agreement had been reached, was binding,and already set in motion Years of congressional haggling and disinterest lay ahead—a modus operandi difficult for the Indians to fathom.

Iron i cally,even though i nd icat i ons from the Ute perspect ive seemed highly favorable for such a move,there were those anxious to protect them who felt duty-bound to prevent a terr ible mistake. Beg inning with Indian Commissioner Thomas J Morgan,there arose a feeling that coercion and power politics were forcing the Indians into one more bad deal. He offered seven reasons for h i s oppos i t i on : the Utes had reluctantly agreed by coercion to the move; any progress previously made toward civilization would be negated; the government would find protecting the Indians more difficult; the allotment process would be put on the shelf,returning to the reservation system of land held in common; administration of the Indian program would face greater difficulties;it would be more difficult for them to become self-supporting; and shifting the responsibility from Colorado to Utah would just slow the civilizing process.10 Besides,they “numbered less than two thousand”and did not require that much land

The str i dent vo i ce from members of the Ind i an R i ghts Assoc i at i on (IRA) headquartered in Philadelphia sounded a frequently loud warning cry. This organization founded in 1882,along with another reformer group i nterested i n Ind i an affa i rs,the Lake Mohonk Conference of Fr i ends, organized a year later,were two watchdogs whose purpose was to advocate for education,support legal protection,and promote general welfare for var ious Indian groups Based in the East,members traveled often to the West for inspection tours,gather ing the necessary ammunition to fight Indian political battles in Washington,D. C. Herbert Welsh,founder of the IRA,outlined clearly in a letter to influence cong ressional representatives that the Utes should rema i n where they were,the i r lands allotted i n severalty,and the remainder added to the public domain for settlement The Indians’ reservation,with its water and agr icultural land,could support the necessary civilizing process as outlined in the Dawes Act,frequent contact

8 Ibid ,71

9 Ibid ,72-73

10 Thomas J Morgan,“Southern Ute Agreement,” Report of the Comm i ss i oner of Ind i an Affa i rs , (Washington,D C.: Government Pr inting Office,1890): XLIII–XLIV

with sympathetic neighbor ing whites provided role models,and to place them on lands that were so “mountainous and inaccessible as to furnish a powerful temptation to lawlessness”was ill-advised At the core of this view was the government’s “weightiest of obligations ... to civilize Indians—to permit them no longer to live as Indians,and to require them to live as white men ”11

Charles C. Painter,an investigative agent for the IRA,provided Welsh with much of his information and additional insight After showing how the government abandoned many of the precepts of the Treaty of 1880, Pa i nter argued that the present reservat i on d i d not bar wh i te contact between the citizens of New Mexico and Ar izona,but served more as a positive opportunity to interact with the Utes.12 While the government was supposedly teaching agr iculture to them and getting them away from hunting, it had expended a huge effort on their behalf so that they could hunt off their reservation in the La Sal Mountains,and where they could maintain their old customs After providing a detailed list of areas in San Juan County where agr iculture was possible,Painter pointed out that other than the San Juan River,which had been proven by the Mormons as unyielding to large scale agr icultural efforts,there was limited arable land compared to holdings in Colorado. Livestock provided the only practical industry. But the end of the open range and profitable grazing were no longer possible He next cited the fact that the government had received “more than eight hundred petitions” (signatures) from both Colorado and Utah protesting the removal and that there were over three hundred industr ious taxpayers that would be displaced if the Utes took these lands.13 Finally,there was the mixing of the Southern Utes with “renegade Paiutes”who had already had a fight. Citing the death of “Hatch,one of the Paiute chiefs,and two Utes, Cowboy and Kid [whose] bodies were by the side of the road two days after the fight,when the wr iter of this article passed through that country,” Painter cast aspersions at the “savage cut-throats” in this wild terr itory 14 Civilization against savagery played as theme throughout his article

Another person,Francis F. Kane from the IRA,traveled through the Southern Ute Reservation and much of San Juan County between August 24 and September 25,1891. His detailed account is g iven with an eye to the resources of the land,noting every spr ing,homestead,and parcel of agr i cultural land encountered along the way Surpr i s i ngly,he saw few Indians but did leave some impressions of the white men he met. With

11 Herbert Welsh to general aud i ence,February 25,1890,Ind i an R i ghts Assoc i at i on,Spec i al Collections,Marr iott Library,University of Utah,Salt Lake City,Utah

12 Following the Meeker fight in 1879,the federal government,with the urg ing of Colorado citizens, removed all of the northern bands of Utes to Utah in accordance with the Treaty of 1880 ratified by Congress on June 15,1880

13 Charles C Pa i nter,“Removal of the Southern Utes,” Lend a Hand (“Magaz i ne of Organ i zed Char ity”) 5 no 4 (Apr il 1890): 258-69

14 Ibid ,267

only a few exceptions,both Coloradoans and Utahns—white and Native Amer ican—felt that the Utes truly wanted to move to Utah. They viewed the Utes as a generally chaste people and felt Ignacio was a good man who fa i thfully pa i d h i s debts,and always p i cked the poorer cuts of meat, allow i ng h i s people the better part . He had prom i sed that i f the government supported the desired move,he and Mar iano would send the Weenuche children to school; as for the Mormons,they spoke well of their Ute ne i ghbors and had no problem w i th the Ind i ans br i ng i ng the i r livestock off the reservation into the county; still,many of them were not anxious to depart.15

A trader named “Gillett”(Peter or Herman Guillet?) owned a post at the confluence of McElmo Creek with the San Juan River. He told of the constant traffic of Utes traveling up and down the canyon,always inquir ing if the government would keep its word. Many of them said that they were going to go regardless,but wiser heads prevailed against that. The trader felt “the best Utes never went to the Los Pinos Agency,for instance Benow, whom he seems to regard as perhaps the most powerful chief among the Southern Utes Gillett seemed to think that the more self-respecting and energetic Wenuche were ashamed now to go to the government agency to be fed.”16 As a side note,he pointed to some of his Ute customers redeemi ng cartr i dges, i nd i cat i ng the ammun i t i on was used i n place of money while gambling and “probably passed through his hands hundreds of times.”

Gambling in Washington took a different form Letters to the public from the IRA urged that removal was synonymous to the “destruction of the Indian”and the civilizing process. Other bureaucrats countered that it was best for all concerned and that the Utes supported the transaction 17 A letter from Ignacio,wr itten to “Our Great Father”gave the Indian perspective They wanted to go to Utah; “We are not children yet you treat us as such”; the Amer icans’ cattle ate all of their grass,Ute livestock would do better in Utah,the agent needed to live closer to the people,and they had agreed five years ago to this move and still nothing had happened 18 It was also five years ago,on November 15,1888,that the government withdrew the disputed terr itory of San Juan County from the public domain,and now the Utah settlers demanded through petition that it be remanded and opened for filing claims 19

At the end of 1892 and the beg inning of 1893,a gold rush erupted

15 Francis F Kane,“Diary of Francis F Kane—Ute Removal,1891,” Indian Rights Association Papers, 1868-1968, (Philadelphia: Office of the Indian Rights Association,1891): 10,14,19,23,81

16 Ibid.,68.

17 Herbert Welsh,“The Case of the Southern Utes,” Harper’s Weekly,Apr il 2,1892,n p.; Welsh to the Public,open Letter,Apr il 22,1892; T S Childs,“A Statement and Appeal for the Southern Utes,”n d , n p ,all in Special Collections,Marr iott Library,University of Utah,Salt Lake City,Utah

18 Ignacio,et al to Our Great Father,Apr il 1,1893,Letters Received,1881-1907,Bureau of Indian Affairs,Record Group 75,National Archives [Hereafter cited as Letters Received—BIA]

19 Caleb W West to Hoke Smith,July 20,1893,Letters Received—BIA

This log church and school, built in 1888, served as the central meeting place for most Monticello activities before being replaced in 1912. The main twenty-by-forty foot room was where federal and state officials, settlers, and the Utes held their conference in 1894. Given the population of the town at the time, this photo probably includes most of its residents.

along the San Juan R iver,add i ng another voice to the white population who favored keep i ng the Utes where they were. 20 The Mancos T i mes h i nted of the mot ivat i on for d i spossess i ng the Ind i ans when a patron wrote,“For the life of us we are unable to see just what great good can come from the removal outside of the few ranches that will fall into the clutches of the old r ing that is still in existence in Durango.”21 Part of that “r i ng”very well could have been t i ed to Dav i d F. Day,new agent for the Colorado Utes appo i nted i n the fall of 1893,who served for the next three and a half years Day,pr ior to holding this position,worked as newspaper editor of the Solid Muldoon published in Ouray,Colorado,and was very aware of the issues swirling about Ute removal. When he transferred to Durango in 1892 he continued in the publishing business,starting the Durango Weekly Democrat through which he fostered additional business ties As a newspaper editor, he took a combative stance in issues,hearkening back to his approach to life in earlier years Dur ing the Civil War he had been wounded four times, slashed by a sword once,was a pr isoner of war three times,and received the Congressional Medal of Honor,all before his discharge at age nineteen.22 So when it came to Ute issues,he was not afraid of a fight Francis A Hammond,LDS Stake President,recognized what he called a “cabal among a certain class in and about Durango”who,through their

20 See Robert S McPherson and Richard Kitchen,“Much Ado about Nothing: The San Juan River Gold Rush,1892-1893,” Utah Histor ical Quarterly 67 (Winter 1999): 68-87

21 “The Ute Removal Bill,” Mancos Times (Mancos,Colorado),February 16,1894,1

22 Helen M Searcy,“Col Dave Day,” The Pioneers of San Juan Country I,(Durango,CO: Sarah Platt Decker Chapter,1942): 76-82

agent,had sent the Utes to southeastern Utah In July he wrote of the sullenness of roving bands of Indians who had been subjected to a “conspiracy”to dece ive them and that “th i s systemat i c decept i on i s hav i ng i ts desired effect in arousing a resentful feeling among these deluded Indians ” All of this was due to the urg ing of their agent and land speculators waiting for the Indians to vacate their old reservation.23 Others chimed in,saying that “Mr Day ...is not a fit man to be in such a position”and that it was an outrage that the people of San Juan County “should be at the mercy of a lot of scheming land-grabbers of Colorado.”24 To the settlers on the ground in Utah,Day had denied them their r ight to protection,had instructed the Utes that the whites had no call to be in that land,that speculators had convinced the Indians that they had already ceded their lands in Colorado, and that “the average Southern Ute mind evidently has been shrewdly educated”to believe that belligerence was justified Day’s response: If there was going to be trouble, it would start with the cowboys and since the land had been withdrawn from settlement and use,all of the cattle companies graz i ng herds on the publ i c doma i n were trespass i ng ;i t was up to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to decide what to do. Meanwhile,because of unsure boundary lines on the eastern edge of the Colorado reservation, “sooners”were claiming lands that were not theirs,but which also could not be denied because of boundary questions.25

With the advent of the fall hunting season,matters became increasingly grave Ignacio and Mar iano along with many of their people moved to the Blue Mountains,leaving their livestock with their Capote and Muache relat i ves Ignac i o sent word to Day that he would not return ; Day countered that h i s leav i ng negated the Treaty of 1880,wh i ch left h i m homeless and without annuities; according to Day,Ignacio’s response was that the “President,Commissioner,and General Armstrong say ‘all r ight’ when he was in Washington [recently] and I [Day] am like a ‘warr ior when big Chief talk’ or in other words ‘I can saw wood.’”26

Petitions,one with more than 151 signatures,flowed from the citizens of Grand and San Juan counties to Utah Governor Caleb W West thence to Washington. Their complaints were literally at the grassroots level—which had been poor that year because of drought Livestock was hard pressed to find feed; the Indians,estimated at 500,were camped around waterholes, denying access to the cowboys’ cattle; Day had directed the Utes to go to Utah but claimed innocence; the Indians threatened to call in the military (what a reversal) if the county residents interfered; Ute livestock had now appeared in large numbers (4,000 horses,10,000 sheep and goats),but the

23 F A Hammond to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,July 16,1894,Letters Received—BIA

24 Charles H Ogden to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 5,1894,Letters Received—BIA

25 David Day to F A Hammond,July 3,1894; Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,July 19,1894, Letters Received—BIA

26 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,October 15,1894,Letters Received—BIA

women had left and more men were arr iving,ready for a fight; there were 300-400 warr iors and 120 white men spread throughout the county in a defenseless posture; plus there were 200 to 300 Navajos ready to ally with the Utes to dr ive the white man out for good 27 Major General A . M . McCook,Command i ng General of the Department of Colorado in Denver,based his response on Day’s position to these allegations,saying that the Utes had always wintered in San Juan County,were quiet,and these reports were fabr icated by cowboys who were themselves the trespassers There was no need for military intervention.28 This was no comfort to Mormon Bishop F. I. Jones,who wrote to West following a conference with Ignacio and four sub-chiefs The Indians’ position was clear. “Ignacio says their Agent sent them here and he further says that he will not leave even though the government commands him to. Our danger as settlers l i es i n the i r dr i v i ng the i r stock down on the cattlemen’s winter ranges. Some of these men,commonly called cowboys, are hot-headed and may either shoot some of the Indians or their stock and thus br ing on a war which would be very disastrous to our defenseless settlements.”29

If there was going to be a war, it would start first in the newspapers A Salt Lake paper sported headl i nes of “Ind i ans—Utah Invaded by the Blood-thirsty Utes,Dr iving the Settlers Out ”30 Citing documents from government correspondence,the author of the article put an additional sp i n on i t when he wrote,“The m i l i t i a of Utah i s ready and w i ll i ng, however,to go to the front at any time in behalf of the citizens of the Terr itory ... [and were] ready to call out at a minute’s notice.”Colorado papers,on the other hand,took an opposite stance Day wrote that white use of reservat i on land had left l i ttle more than sagebrush w i th the interloping cattle dr iving the Utes to greener pastures. He added that the Indians only had 600 ponies and 200 sheep,far fewer than 300 warr iors, had brought their families with them,and that President Grover Cleveland himself had told Ignacio dur ing his spr ing 1893 visit to Washington that “he didn’t care a damn” if he [Ignacio] took his people to Blue Mountain. To Day,the whole problem fell squarely on Congress wh i ch had consistently dragged its feet in ratifying the agreement to move the Utes to southeastern Utah.31 These sentiments should not be confused with those in another Coloradoan camp who accused the Indians of slaughter ing deer,

27 Willard Butt to Caleb W West,November 23,1894; C J Elliot to Frank Hobbs,November 24,1894; A Taylor to West,November 26,1894, Terr itor ial Executive Papers,1850-1896,Utah State Archives,Salt Lake City,Utah [Hereafter cited as Terr itor ial Papers ]

28 A McCook to Adjutant General,U S Army (telegram),November 29,1894,Letters Received— Adjutant General’s Office,Record Group 94 National Archives [Hereafter cited as Letters Received— AGO]

29

F I Jones to West,November 27,1894,Terr itor ial Papers

30 “Ind i ans—Utah Invaded by the Blood-th i rsty Utes,”November 27,1894,n p , i n f i le Letters Received—AGO The clipping does not indicate the newspaper from which it is taken

31 “The Ute Scare,”November 30,1894, Durango Democrat

killing cattle,and acting “saucy”There were bound to be cattlemen who would make some “good Indians.”To these people,“Truly Uncle Sam has in these Indians another case of the ‘white elephant.’ They won’t work,and they are not good to eat. They are simply an expensive ornament to the lands and beyond that are of no earthly use.”32

In December the weather turned bitterly cold,though the controversy gained heat. Conflicting reports and constant finger pointing did little to ease tens i on Everyone had an op i n i on,many of wh i ch d i sagreed For example,one person reported that the Indians could muster two hundred men in six hours while another pointed out that they did not fight in cold weather,had brought all of their women and children with them,and now had all the i r l ivestock there,none of wh i ch portended war. Th i s was countered with the Utes coming in such large numbers to winter in Utah, someth i ng never done before,and true they were qu i et,but “so i s a burglar”when invading a house and taking one ’ s possessions.33 The Utes were peacefully camped in Dry Valley drying meat,but others offered that Indians were threatening to claim Grand Valley and the La Sal Mountains as well as San Juan County

Wh i le hop i ng for a peaceful solut i on,the people of Grand County requested one hundred r ifles and eight thousand rounds of ammunition from Governor West,who pulled them from National Guard units and delivered them to the Moab County Courthouse.34 Rumor had it that on December 15th the cowboys would initiate hostilities and that they had gone to the Mormon settlements,requesting thirty men from each “to jointly go in and dislodge the Indians” if something were not done.35 Day, swear ing that “my Indians will not be shot down to gratify transgressive [sic] cowboys,”wrote to West and asked that he do “all in your power to protect my squaws and papooses who are ignorant of impending danger as well as the i nf i rm and unarmed warr i ors who seek only grass upon unsurveyed lands for the i r starv i ng herds ” 36

As for the Utes,Ignac i o promised,“Soldiers can only kill me I shall die in Blue Mountain,”the “old homestead,”underscor i ng the Ind i ans ’ “earnest des i re for removal”to Utah 37

Enough . Leaders represent i ng the var i ous fact i ons needed to see for themselves On December 7,Governor West boarded a train in Salt Lake City headed for Thompson Spr ings before disembarking to Monticello That same day,General McCook ordered L i euten-ant Colonel H . W.

32 Mancos Times,November 30,1894,1

33 West to Secretary of the Inter ior,December 4,1894; C J Elliott to Frank Hobbs,November 24, 1894,Terr itor ial Papers

34 McCook to Adjutant General of the Army,December 1,1894,Letters Received—AGO; Grand County Petition,December 3,1894,Terr itor ial Papers

35 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 5,1894,Letters Received—BIA

36 Day to West,December 5,1894,Terr itor ial Papers

37 Day to McCook,December 3,1894,Letters Received—AGO

Lawton,Inspector General of the Army ’s Colorado Depart-ment,to head for the same location. Not surpr isingly,Day soon boarded the Denver and R i o Grande and sped off to the same appointment 38 LDS church leader Br i gham Young,Jr . ,on ass i gnment to v i s i t the saints in southeastern Utah, met w i th Ignac i o,Benow, Mar i ano,and Colorow i n Durango on December 4 . They were there seek i ng letters of support from people who were aware of their previoustr ip to Washington and who would vouch for the verac i ty of the i r bel i ef that Pres i dent Cleveland sa i d they could stay i n San Juan County “Ignac i o pr ides himself upon always telling the truth,”and so Young wrote a letter g iving tacit approval for their staying in Utah for the winter 39 Ignacio also said that he had no choice but to keep his cattle there because there was no grass or water on the reservation But “when the weather moderates and the snow melts so as to have water on the reservation,he will return ” Before parting,Young noted that all four swore to the President’s author ization,that Ignacio was “very fr iendly,especially with the Mormons,”and that Young summar ized the situation as “All the Colorado Indians want peace; the renegade band of Utes would like a brush with the cowboys,I believe,and would like to rope in the Colorado Utes; [and] some of the cowboys would like to fight the Indians and rope in the Mormons to aid them We [Mormons] have all to lose and they have nothing to gain ”40 Unbeknownst to all,two days later the Commissioner of Indian Affairs directed Day to return the Indians to the Colorado reservation immediately Leaders were still descending on Monticello in most adverse conditions LTC Lawton and Day g ive an apt descr iption of what travel at this time of year meant As soon as Lawton reached Dolores by tra i n,he h i red a buckboard,met the Indian agent,and started for the meeting. “The weather was very cold,snow deep [six to eighteen inches] and still snowing and a

38 McCook to West,and West to McCook,December 7,1894,Terr itor ial Papers; Day to Adjutant General of the Army,December 4,1894,Letters Received—AGO

39 “Ignacio’s Veracity,”December 7,1894, Mancos Times,3

40 Br igham Young,Jr ,to F A Hammond,December 6,1894,Letters Received—BIA

Governor Caleb West.

UTAHSTATEHISTORICALSOCIETY

blizzard blowing ”41 Fifteen miles out of Dolores,the rear wagon axle broke and so they r igged a pole under it and continued; ten miles further the front axle went The two men unhitched the horses,left everything behind, and rode bareback most of the night until they encountered a lone man with a wagon camped on his way to Monticello. The three hunkered down against the cold awaiting daylight then traveled until noon before reaching their destination and ending their thirty-two hour fast.

On December 12,the discussion started in the log building that served as both school and church. Besides Hammond,Tatlock,(Colonel E.W. Tatlock of the Governor’s staff) and Lawton there was special interpreter Joseph O. Smith,who would later take Day’s place as agent He had been there for a few days to gather infor mation. Also there was Governor West who arr ived about the same time from Moab,having arranged for fifty volunteers from Grand County to be on call as militia. In his buckboard lay a chest of r ifles and ammunition,escorted by a group of San Juan County men.42 He had already gone on record as saying that the Indians must leave immediately, that if the federal government would not act he would call out the terr itor ial militia,and that Day and the government were responsible “This speech put additional ‘pep’into about thirty well-armed cowboys,some of whom had been dr inking freely”and who were known participants in the massacre of Utes camped on Beaver Creek ten years before West,hear i ng the cowboys were ready “r ight now,”realized he had aroused the wrong sentiments so turned on them,threatening arrest if they did not quiet down 43 There were fourteen Ind i ans present,Ignac i o,Mar i ano,and Benow being the most prominent. They were convinced that the meeting had an already-agreed-upon agenda to remove them,although they had received no official word West’s opening remarks increased the tension Soon the Indians branded him as “Little Capitan the Mormons had found,”which shut him down and opened the floor to Lawton and Day,“Washington’s Big Capitans ”44 Ignacio was adamant that orders for his return to Colorado were a tr ick and he would not do it There was no way that the Weenuche could go back without Herculean efforts,loss of livestock and possibly people. Lawton realized that if soldiers were needed,there were two troops of cavalry available in Logan,Utah,more than 350 miles away, and four at Fort Wingate,New Mexico,more than 250 miles to the southeast,but their i nvolvement would “enta i l great expense and also suffer i ng for the Indians.”45 Lawton assured hi s commander that the Utes had peaceable intentions,the settlers did not fear them unless the cowboys started some-

41 H W Lawton to McCook,December 13,1894; Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 13,1894,Letters Received—AGO

42 Chr istian Lingo Chr istensen,“An Indian War Averted,” Improvement Era 31 (July 1928): 776-80

43 Ibid ,777

44 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 14,1894,Letters Received—BIA

45 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 13,1894; Lawton to McCook,December 13, 1894 (both telegrams),Letters Received—AGO

thing,troops would not be necessary,and when a move occurred,“that every facility be g iven these Indians.”46 As for those who had always been here,both Pa i utes and Utes,he had no i ntent i on of mov i ng them to Colorado,but if he did, it would be a different matter He reported that Benow’s group had fifteen lodges or about ninety-five souls and the Paiutes approximately eighty. “Benow’s band belongs to the agency but has never resided there and do not now propose to move there.... Troops only could move them ”47 The colonel agreed with Day that West had made a big mistake in “arming additional cowboys when they are the hostile element” who could tr igger what all hoped to avoid.48

The discussion warmed The Indians accused Day of having a “forked tongue,” i nterpreter Sm i th,although respected,was not perce i ved as defending the Indians’ r ights and so Chr istian Lingo Chr istensen became the main translator using both Ute and Navajo to insure understanding. Accusations of Ute depredations led to a further “bedlam of voices ”49 The Indians reiterated at every opportunity,“The land of their forefathers where they lived and died had been taken from them by the whites; their deer, elk,and antelope had been killed. They nearly foamed at the mouth when engaged in speaking on these subjects ”50 Mar iano went further : Washington City man tell us to come here,sit down,we sit down All over this country it is ours. Now you say get out and go back to your reservation. What’s the matter now?

Our fathers,our grandfathers have hunted here for many,many snows We love this country;it is our ‘happy hunting ground’ for us here on earth. We feel the Great Spir it wants us here Washington City man says all r ight so we stay 51

Around four p.m. Lawton received an official dispatch that the Utes must return “The a i r was f i lled w i th exclamat i ons of ‘l i ar,tra i tor,spl i t tongue,’ and many other Indian expletives ”Ignacio was incensed He held up his fingers to represent telephone poles and said,“Mebbe so wire talk from heaven,mebbe so from hell.”Citing his impression that everything that came from Wash i ngton became garbled and m i sunderstood,“th i s message was dead and had gone into the ground ”52

Hammond watched the tenor of the meeting and arose to urge the Utes to peacefully accept the directive and leave; Ignacio lashed out with an epithet and told him to sit down He followed up with: “We were both in Washington; I sat in the president’s chair ; you never sat in that chair ; you are not fit to take part in this important move.”53 Day offered to help with food (two beeves) for the Indians and hay (seven tons) for the livestock,

46

Lawton to McCook,December 13,1894,Letters Received—AGO 47 Ibid 48 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 8,1894,Letters Received—BIA 49 Chr istensen,“An Indian War,”777 50 Ibid ,777-78

51

Diary of Chr istian Lingo Chr istensen,Special Collections,Harold B Lee Library,Br igham Young University,164 52 Chr istensen,“An Indian War,”777 53 Ibid

which he bought from Mons Peterson’s store that was also doing a br isk business in Winchester cartr idges—“legal tender at all stores in San Juan County”—in exchange for about one hundred deer and goat hides. This was on the same day that Governor West’s arsenal arr ived 54 Hammond and West became i ncreas i ngly assert ive,wh i le Lawton sent a messenger to summon troops for the removal and to break the angry stalemate.

According to Chr istensen’s detailed account,the translator spent the rest of the night trying to persuade the Indians of the futility of resistance They felt he had been a failure because he had not convinced the white leaders that the Utes should stay in San Juan County Chr istensen sat around their campfire,piled up sand to represent all of the whites in the United States, used his thumb to represent all of the Indians in Amer ica,and argued that the Indians had no chance at resistance

They said,“We can whip cowboys. Whip soldiers. Mormons no fight. Mormons mostly good fr iends ” Chr istensen replied,“Yes there are not many cowboys to fight you,and the Mormons do not want to fight if they can avoid it But Washington’s soldiers are like the sands of our great r ivers countless ”

As he talked he took the sand in his hand and let it run slowly through his fingers. “It would be useless for you to fight against Washington’s people Go back to your reservation and Washington will be good to you Stay here and it will mean death to most of you.”55

Ignacio,having been to Washington and stayed in a seven story building where people on the street looked like ants,agreed. Another convincing point was when the interpreter suggested that “buffalo soldiers”would arr ive; “they wilted,for they have an extreme dread of colored troops.”56 They responded,“Go wake up ‘Black Eye’ Lawton Tell him we will go in the five days allowed us to move.”57 The colonel countermanded the order for troops.

There were some happy people Governor West left Mont i cello on December 14,for the railroad depot ninety-five miles away, secure in the knowledge that he had put on a good show and removed any soil that might tarnish the escutcheon of the soon-to-become forty-fifth state in the Un i on . The cattle compan i es—the Carl i sles w i th the i r 20,000 head, Pittsburgh with their 12,000,and L C with its 10,000—were assured that the grass rema i ned the i rs . 58 The Mormons,for better or for worse, held onto their settlements waiting for other opportunities to sell to the government in the future. The military was glad that they had saved their

54 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 14,1894,Letters Received—BIA

55 D L Blake,“Indian Troubles Plague First San Juan County Settlers,” San Juan Record (Monticello, Utah),December 29,1955,6.

56 Chr istensen,“When the Utes Invaded Utah,”, Times-Independent (Moab,Utah),August 3,1933,4; Chr istensen,“An Indian War,”779

57 Times-Independent,August 3,1933,4

58 Chr istensen,“When the Utes,”4

department the costly effort of sh i pp i ng cavalry troops in the dead of winter with all of the attendant inconvenience.

Even lower elevations like Dry Valley north of Monticello were deep in snow during the winter of 1895. Large pony herds, travois loaded with children, tepees, and equipment, lack of food and forage, very cold temperatures, and continuing storms made returning to southwestern Colorado difficult at best.

Among the whites most dissatisfied with this agreement was David Day. As the other off i c i als left,he penned a letter to the Comm i ss i oner to expla i n how “———— r idiculous this entire proceeding”had been from the start 59 The Indians were now trying to gather their livestock in the midst of a blizzard. The agent swore that he would get them back on the reservation as cheaply as possible because he regretted having to leave even a dollar in San Juan County. “The entire affair has been a shameful imposition”on many,“enlisting the disgust of the blanket Indian”who really were the ones to suffer. Not so for the cow men who got their grass or the governor who would receive “political preferment when statehood was achieved ”Day later wrote that Mormon Nephi Bailey swore that the cowboys had forced the settlers to sign the pet i t i ons that brought on the affa i r 60 Wh i le th i s statement should be weighed against other actions to include the visitation of San Juan and Grand county residents in Governor West’s office, it does illustrate the tack that Day took following the incident And it would continue months after when he and Tatlock opened a vehement dialogue,blaming each other for the problem,the diatr ibe being ser ialized in the Solid Muldoon,a Durango,

59 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 14,1894,Letters Received—BIA

60 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 16,1894,Letters Received—BIA

Colorado newspaper published from 1892 to1895

Another enemy made that day was Johnny Benow,son of Benow, believing his father and the other chiefs were cowards for backing down and pulling out. He preferred to fight and felt his large herds of horses and livestock had as much r ight to graze on Utah grass as any cattle company owned by wh i te men In the future,he was i nvolved i n a number of altercations with cattlemen,law enforcement officers,and settlers,causing Chr istensen to claim that he “annoyed us many times since [and] is usually the instigator of all our troubles with the Paiutes.”61

In spite of the rations for the Indians and feed for their livestock Lawton reported to McCook that the “condition of weather made it exceedingly dangerous for travel w i th women and ch i ldren at th i s season . ” 62 Snow descended for the next twenty-four hours adding another eighteen inches and forcing the Indians to take a more southerly return route. Day agreed to have hay,flour,and beef brought to the travelers in sheltered canyons along their way to Sleeping Ute Mountain Although he recognized that the movement would be very slow due to the women and children and weather,he was anxious to get them moving because a delay might prove dangerous “as the Paiutes and renegade Indians urge the Utes to stay.”63

By Chr istmas Eve,Lawton and Day,having spent six days in the saddle checking routes and Indian locations,were back in Dolores 64 Each went his separate way,hoping that the affair was over. The new year proved it was not Representat ives from Grand and San Juan count i es were i n West ’ s office claiming the Utes had not returned to Colorado,but were killing and eating the white men’s cattle,and that Day had told them to remain in Utah but out of the way Something needed to be done On January 5th the governor issued orders to Captains George W. Gibbs (Battery A) and John Q Cannon (Troop C) of the Nat i onal Guard to determ i ne the truthfulness of these allegations as well as the number and composition of the Indian camps—both Utes and “renegades.”The next evening the two men boarded the tra i n head i ng for Thompson Spr i ngs 65 In Moab the officers dressed as civilians,picked up a guide and horses and started their fact-finding tour

At first together and later separated with their own individual guides,the two men covered much of both count i es,rendezvous i ng roughly two weeks later at Moab before returning to Salt Lake City They visited and reported on many of the winter ing spots of the Indian groups,how mixed the Utes were with the San Juan County Utes/Paiutes,and the large size of the Indian livestock herds. They also provided important ethnographic and

61 Chr istensen,“An Indian War,”780

62 Lawton to McCook,December 14,1894,Letters Received—BIA

63 Day to Secretary of the Inter ior,December 15,1894,Letters Received—AGO

64 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs (telegram),December 24,1894,Letters Received—BIA

65 West to George W Gibbs and John Q Cannon,January 5,1895,Terr itor ial Papers

h i stor i cal deta i l,wh i ch points to the complexity of the s i tuat i on For i nstance, the f i rst Ind i an camp encountered,approximately nine miles below Moab on the Colorado R i ver, belonged to Br i dger Jack (“renegade”)—one lodge— and one-legged Dave Root (Ute) who spoke Engl i sh well and presided over five tepees There were f i fteen men,fifty people total,and f i ve hundred horses w i th another five hundred sheep and goats.66

Cannon descr ibed Root as talking freely,explaining that agent Day had encouraged them to stay in Utah for the forage,but to remain inconspicuous. In the spr i ng they planned to perhaps go to the Uintah Reservation in the Uinta Basin,but not return to Colorado; they wanted noth i ng more to do w i th the i r agent . Th i s same conversat i on surfaced in other camps with warr iors who were “sullen and full of curses against the agent and [who] reiterated the story that they had been deceived by him [so] would not go to Colorado their ponies will hardly need much more moving for scores of them are surely about to die of starvation.”67

Following the dialogue with Root and Br idger Jack,Cannon made the mistake of unbuttoning his coat to get at his pocket watch,exposing his army belt and pistol. The ever-observant Indians noticed the distinctive hardware and “instantly took the form of clam-like silence We were soon to learn that,travel as rap i dly as we m i ght—and we rode strong, grain-fed horses—the news of our presence and the nature of our inquir ies had preceded us,and we found the trans i ents uncommun i cat ive and gu i leful . Only a few hours later,on arr iv i ng at Mont i cello s i xty m i les away, the storekeeper told me he had heard his Indian customers talking myster i ously about a ‘Mer i cat [Amer i can] Cap i tan ’ who was i n the i r m i dst f i sh i ng for i nfor mat i on ” 68 Cannon was baffled as to how th i s communication occurred

66 Cannon and Gibbs to West,January 28,1895,Terr itor ial Papers 67 Ibid.,5.

68 John Q Cannon,“When the Utes Invaded Utah,” Improvement Era 32 (November 1928): 42

John Q. Cannon.

Both off i cers feared that the Utes would w i thdraw i nto even more i naccess i ble terra i n once they real i zed people were i nterested i n the i r whereabouts That may be one reason that Gibbs and Cannon put a rush on a camp as soon as it was found. Once they located the tepees,they hastily rode into their midst,“dismounted instantly,and without ceremony entered the var ious lodges and began census-taking Often times we were met with ugly looks but never was there any resistance,though on many occasions we could have been easily overpowered ”69 They found the Utes “generally fat and contented,having obtained supplies from the agency but not yet having crossed into Colorado; their livestock,however,was not as fortunate,“dy i ng by the hundreds In one day ’ s r i de over toward the Colorado boundary,I [Cannon] counted no less than sixty ponies which had per ished on the trail ”70 The San Juan Utes also were not far ing well, being “poverty-str icken and their condition generally is deplorable. There is absolutely no game to be had and any depredations they or the Southern Utes may make upon the cattlemen’s and settlers’ herds are easy to account for.”71 They also did not have many animals. Final tally for both groups: Utes—238 men,women,and children with 1,779 horses and 1,225 sheep and goats; the White Mesa Utes/Paiutes—125 total with 132 horses and 40 sheep and goats.72 The former, in spite of their angry denials,were making their way back to Colorado while the latter remained where they were Thus the two captains ended their nine hundred mile mid-winter odyssey. Two months later,Cannon became the Adjutant General of the Utah National Guard,promoted to the rank of br igadier general.73

If for no other reason,the removal to Utah heightened awareness that the whole Ute question needed to be answered Following acr imonious debate amongst Coloradoans,congressional members,Indian Rights Association act i v i sts,and the Comm i ss i oner of Ind i an Affa i rs,Pres i dent Grover Cleveland signed the Hunter Bill on February 20,1895,separating the Muache and Capote on the eastern end of the Colorado reservation from the Weenuche on the western end When it was put to a vote of the 301 males living on the eastern end,158 voted to accept the agreement which made the entire group elig ible for allotment and the other provisions of the Dawes Act. Within a short time,358 Southern Utes signed the necessary paperwork to receive their individual holdings and become United States citizens; four years later,with the opening of the Indian non-allotted lands for settlement,the number rose to 374 Utes accepting allotments.74 For the

69 Ibid ,45

70 Ibid ,44

71 Cannon and Gibbs to West,January 28,1895,Terr itor ial Papers

72 Ibid

73 Heber M Wells to President and Gentlemen of the Senate,Apr il 5,1896,Terr itor ial Papers

74 Francis E Leupp, The Latest Phase of the Southern Ute Question,A Report (Philadelphia,PA: Indian Rights Association,1895): 24; Louis A Knackstedt,“Report of Southern Ute Agency,”November 29, 1899): 285

Weenuche under Ignac i o,the western end would not be allotted ; the government established a new agency at Navajo Spr ings. The passage of this act also allowed the lands in southeastern Utah that had been tied up for years,to open for white settlement following a six month waiting per iod.

Through it all,agent Day received high marks for fairly representing the Indians, insur ing that they had a clear understanding of policy and were not badgered into agreeing to something they did not want. Consequently, he became a target for expulsion from his position,but he stood firm In his words,“The novelty of a Western man,a resident of this section who believes the Indians have r ights and is willing to maintain them was too sudden for this people and as a result of my efforts in battling for law and justice as against prejudice and falsehood,I have won a degree of unpopular ity in this vicinity that can only be duplicated by a ‘sound money’ advocate.”75 His feelings,however,about the Weenuche—whom he referred to as “Chief Ignacio and his western worthless following”—were still colored by the recent Utah episode 76

Today,with over one hundred years of hindsight,readers may shake their heads at the mistreatment of the Utes; at a governor supplying weapons at a time when more r ifles were the last thing needed; at a church official providing permission that should have been rendered by the government; at the President of the United States g iving the impression that he did not care where the Utes lived; at cowboys,who had already been whipped tw i ce,seek i ng another confrontat i on ; and at an agent who st i ff-armed opposition when collaboration was in order. The entire incident illustrates the complexity of events—something to be kept in mind as new issues now unfold each day,relegated to a two-minute attention-getting blip on our television—the message designed to form an opinion. It is interesting to contemplate what southeastern Utah would be l i ke now i f i t had become reservation land—what of its national parks,the uranium industry of the 1950s and 60s,the Moab recreation corr idor,and other forms of economic development? While one can argue,“what might have been is not,”the transfer of land to the Utes was almost a fait accompli. Emotion and complexity,like oil and water,made a poor,temporary mixture at best For the Ute question, its answer would await another day.

75 David F Day,“Report of Southern Ute Agency,”September 15,1895,Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Washington,D C.: Government Pr inting Office,1895): 141 76 Day to Commissioner of Indian Affairs,December 30,1895,Letters Received—BIA.

BOOKREVIEWS

So Rugged and Mountainous:Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California 1812-

1848 By Will Bagley,Vol 1 The Overland West:The Story of the Oregon and California Trails Ser ies (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,2010 xxii + 458 pp Cloth,$45 00 )

IN THE FALL OF 1844,about forty men and their families from five upper Columbia tr ibes left home and traveled to Sutter’s Fort,on the Amer ican River in California There,the Swiss John Sutter had built a mini-empire,and had recently begun providing work and shelter for some of the first Amer icans arr iving over the Sierras. A few years later,two of those settlers would find gold in a millrace, chang ing the West forever

The native people included a Walla Walla leader,Yellow Serpent,and his educated,Chr istianized son,Elijah Hedding. At Sutter’s Fort they planned to trade furs, skins,and horses for cattle,and hoped,too,that they might pick up some slaves en route But early in 1845,a dispute over stolen horses led to Hedding’s murder by a settler named Grove Cook. The Indians returned to the Columbia discouraged and demoralized,and Yellow Serpent turned bitter

The following year,events were chaotic in California—the year of Fremont’s operatic Bear Flag Revolt and the Amer ican conquest. When Yellow Serpent with forty men and their families returned to northern California in 1846,rumors swept the province that two thousand warr iors had entered the province thirsting for blood. Yellow Serpent probably wanted revenge as well,but the fact that the Walla Walla came with their families made it clear they wanted only Cook and the property they had left with Sutter earlier The Walla Walla were not prepared to make war to get it. “Not surpr isingly,”Will Bagley notes in one of hundreds of revealing accounts in So Rugged and Mountainous,his new account of the pre-gold r ush years of the trans-West migrations,“Yellow Serpent got neither justice nor revenge”(319). What they got was deadly measles,which they brought back to the Columbia country.

At Waiilatpu,the mission the New England Congregationalists Marcus and Narcissa Whitman had established on the Walla Walla River in 1836,the Cayuses, closely associated with the Walla Wallas,began dying in droves. Nearly all the whites,also infected,survived

Relations between the Whitmans and their charges had been deter iorating for years . Gradually,the m i ss i onar i es understood there was no real hope of Chr i st i an i z i ng the Ind i ans i n any mean i ngful way At the same t i me,as the numbers of destitute emigrants landing on the Whitmans’ doorstep each fall grew by orders of magnitude,the missionar ies quickly understood the role Oregon could play in Amer ica’s growing global power They neglected the Cayuses and threw themselves into aiding the Amer ican newcomers And the Cayuses realized no one was going to stick up for them as these same newcomers gobbled up their game,grass,and soon,their land

So when the measles came,and Indians died and whites didn’t, it was obvious to the tr ibes that bad-hearted mag ic was behind the deaths In late November 1847,Cayuses murdered the Whitmans and twelve other whites at Waiilatpu,and took fifty-three women and children hostage.

The next year,Oregon became a terr i tory and memor i es of the massacre became useful in a campaign to separate the Cayuses from their lands Down through the decades and across the nation,the Whitman deaths came to stand for alleged Indian perfidy and duplicity “[T]he martyrs,”Bagley puts it “would help vindicate the calculated and brutal devastation of the West’s Amer ican Indians…” (399).

Bagley’s scatter ing of the Whitman-Yellow Serpent story through this big book is a good example of its geographic,temporal,and thematic scope It’s a book pr imar ily about the 1840s,when traces and pack trails became broad wagon roads to California and Oregon It details the main routes,cutoffs,and events of each year’s emigrations More importantly,as it does with Yellow Serpent and the Whitmans, the book ties events back and forward in time,and laterally in distance: who would have thought the Whitman massacre was so closely tied to events in central California three years before?

Rugged and Mountainous is the first of four ambitious volumes recast from work Bagley undertook ten years ago for the Long D i stance Tra i ls Off i ce of the National Park Service A second volume will descr ibe the gold-rush and mining West,a third the growing conflicts and commercial expansion of the 1850s,and a fourth the Indian wars of the 1860s

Bagley counts himself among the new (and now ag ing,he jokes) histor ians who set out consciously to add depth and diversity to a narrative tradition running from Washington Irving to Wallace Stegner by br ing ing more people,spread over more terr itory and more economies, into the discussion The result,he says, quoting Elliott West,has been “a longer,gr immer,but more interesting story” (405) Bagley uses John Unruh’s The Plains Across:The Overland Immigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West (1979) as “a baseline,”aiming to fill in gaps and enr ich contexts with thirty year s of scholarship since. (Bagley says that for the project,he has made use of more than f ive hundred tra i l narrat ives unknown to scholarsh i p before 1988 )

For example, it was Unruh who first upended the myth that wagon trains had to f i ght the i r way across the cont i nent—by count i ng the actual casualt i es of Indian-white violence Out of around five hundred thousand travelers on the trails between 1840 and 1870,Unruh concluded,362 emigrants were killed by Indians, and 426 Indians were killed by whites (Cholera deaths,by contrast,were in the tens of thousands )

Bagley goes further,w i th a clear sense of the ecolog i cal d i saster that the emigrants and especially their livestock brought west all along the trails,and the consequences of that disaster for the people who lived there already He allows us

to understand that violence was widespread after all; the change was violent,as were its consequences

This is not to imply that whites are the bad guys in these accounts Far from it; Bagley’s respect for the suffer ing,courage,humor, ingenuity,and cur iosity of all his subjects—Indian,white,black,Hawaiian,and mixed-blood—is so profound that he g ives them all the leeway he can to speak for themselves. If he quotes directly too often,I suspect it’s a symptom of his affection He probably should quote less and summar ize more,under a rule of thumb we went by all the years I worked on a daily newspaper here in Wyoming: use the quote to reveal something important about the speaker’s personality or attitude,but tell the story yourself .

Most of the t i me,Bagley does exactly that The result i s a book that ’ s compelling, encyclopedic,and a necessary addition to any personal or publi c library of the West I can hardly wait for parts two,three,and four

Oregon-California Trails Association Casper, Wyoming

xxi + 273 pp. Cloth. $34.95.)

STEVEN K MADSEN,a Salt Lake City educator,was introduced to the thenlittle-known Macomb expedition in the mid 1970s by his mentor and partner on the important In Search of the Old Spanish Trail:Santa Fe to Los Angeles,1829-1848, C. Gregory Crampton,who probably wrote more history of the reg ion than any other scholar In th i s well-wr i tten book,Madsen offers an account of the long-overlooked expedition,br ing ing to it more depth than many such studies, partly because the author has located an impressive number of relevant histor ical documents wh i ch not only i llum i nate the narrat ive,but are publ i shed rather extensively in Part II,the appendix section.

In Apr il 1859,Captain A A Humphreys,Chief of the War Department Office of Explorat i on and Surveys,d i rected forty-e i ght-year-old Capta i n John N. Macomb,Jr ,then the chief topographical eng ineer in the Military Department of New Mexico,to explore the extremely rugged and almost unknown San Juan River basin and the “lower courses”of the Colorado River Macomb was ordered to determine the most direct and practicable route through the reg ion between the Rio Grande River in New Mexico and the southern settlements of Utah Macomb was a typically well-trained member of the elite corps of eng ineers who,particularly through the Pacific Railroad surveys just pr ior to this expedition, collectively filled many large blank spaces and added several representations of myth i cal natural features,wh i ch had been i ncluded on some maps of the

TOMREA

Explor ing Desert Stone:John N.Macomb’s 1859 Expedition to the Canyonlands of the Colorado. By Steven K. Madsen. (Logan: Utah State University Press,2010.

Amer ican West at the time This was pr ior to the more famous surveys of John W Powell,Ferdinand V Hayden,and George M Wheeler,who could not benefit much from Macomb’s reports until they were published in 1875.

The Macomb group left wagon roads behind at Abiquiu,fifty miles north of Santa Fe,and followed the horse and pack-mule trace of the Old Spanish Trail most of the way. The book features a good descr iption of the travel route and exper ience, including important discover ies made on the way Until Macomb’s expedition,most of the Old Spanish Trail had never been accurately traced on any map Although the commander appeared to not appreciate most of what they saw, others i n the exped i t i on waxed eloquent regard i ng the magn i f i cent canyons, colored rock formations of all kinds and several important scientific discover ies.

Humphr ies had specifically directed Macomb to ascertain if, in light of the recent “Utah War,”a practicable supply route between New Mexico and Utah might be possible The Macomb expedition concluded that no such road was possible However,a greater understanding of the geography,natural resources,and other aspects of the reg ion proved a significant contr ibution of the survey.

While military and political in or ig in,the expedition became more notable as a scientific and geographical endeavor because of two energetic civilian assistants, John S Newber ry and Charles Henry Dimmock A civil eng ineer and surveyor, Dimmock contr ibuted greatly to the geographical and map-making success of the exped i t i on . Newberry,w i th connect i ons to the Sm i thson i an Inst i tut i on, discovered the first sauropod dinosaur bones found in the Western Hemisphere Specimens of the ancient reptile were collected with considerable danger from high on a wall of Canyon Pintado near the Old Spanish Trail not far from present Canyonlands National Park This work would be well descr ibed and “splendidly illustrated.”Newberry’s observations also contr ibuted significantly to an emerg ing school of geolog ical thought known as “fluvialism,”the study of landform changes produced by the action of streams. This was significant in supporting Charles Darwin’s recent theor ies of the age of the earth William H Goetzmann, in his classic Army Explorat i ons i n the Amer i can West,1853-1863 ,asserts that perhaps Newberry “more than any scientist since Fremont opened up new and unknown country to the c iv i l i zed world”(397) Madsen i s the f i rst to prov i de deta i l regarding his accomplishments.

One valuable element of Madsen’s volume is the large and beautifully rendered map or ig inally produced by Baron Freder ick Wilhelm von Egloffstein,a Prussian ar i stocrat who had been assoc i ated w i th D i mmock on an earl i er survey expedition led by Lt Joseph C Ives on the Colorado River This previously rare map may be worth the pr ice of the book. But even without it,those interested in the four corners reg ion,especially Utah and western Amer ican history,will find this work fascinating and informative reading

EDWARDLEOLYMAN Leeds

Patr ick Connor’s War:The 1865 Powder River Indian Expedition By David E

Wagner (Norman: The Arthur H Clark Company,2010 296 pp Cloth,$39 95 )

COLONEL PATRICK EDWARD CONNOR entered Utah history when he established Camp Douglas in October 1862. His mission was to protect the Overland Trail and telegraph lines,but his command of California volunteers quickly began to assert a strong federal presence on the Mormons. He is mainly remembered for his attack on a band of Northern Shoshone on January 29,1863, dur i ng wh i ch h i s sold i ers k i lled approx i mately two-hundred-f i fty Ind i ans, including at least ninety women and children. With his reputation as an Indian fighter firmly established,he was assigned to the command of the 1865 Rosebud Campaign in eastern Montana. Returning to Utah in October 1865,he left the army in 1866 and remained in Utah until his death in 1891 Known as the “First Gentile in Utah,”and the “Father of Utah Mining,”he was arguably the second most influential person in Utah terr itory dur ing his lifetime (Br igham Young being the first)

The 1865 Powder River campaign in southeastern Montana and northeastern Wyoming is one of those “what ifs”of western history If General P Edward (he preferred to use his middle name) Connor’s expedition had been successful,the resulting eleven years of conflict with the Lakota,Cheyenne and Arapaho might have been avoided Or,as the author states at the end of the book,“ there may not have been a Fetterman disaster in the following year,and George Armstrong Custer may have died of old age”(268)

The 1865 Powder R iver Campa i gn has not rece ived the attent i on that i t deserves and although th i s book f i lls a vo i d,there st i ll needs to be a work publ i shed on the complete exped i t i on Dav i d Wagoner has done a great job descr ibing the western column of the expedition (one of three columns) that was commanded personally by Connor

Unlike today’s perception of Connor as a killer of women and children,dur ing his lifetime he was considered one of the best Indian fighters of his time His act i ons throughout h i s m i l i tary career reflected the att i tudes of the era He believed that the only way to get the respect of the Indians was to str ike them first,then negotiate from a position of strength,an early version of “shock and awe ”H i s orders to k i ll all males twelve years and older,although i n i t i ally approved,were later countermanded by his super iors In all of his campaigns he ordered his men to avoid killing women and children as much as possible Because of h i s reputat i on for know i ng how to deal w i th “host i les,”he was offered command of the Powder River Expedition and the Military Distr ict of the Plains was established especially for him

The book reviews the initial planning and preparation for the expedition; the discontent of the soldier s who felt that with the end of the Civil War they should be discharged; the march into northern Wyoming; Sawyer’s road building expedi-

tion; the fight on the Tongue River ; and the disbanding of the expedition and return to Fort Laramie

If there is any doubt of Connor’s military leadership and physical courage this book should dispel it. Although a str ict disciplinar ian,he was liked and respected by his soldiers Dur ing the return to Fort Laramie,he gave a shoeless soldier a pair of his own boots. Dur ing the Tongue River battle he led the charge and with a small group recklessly chased a band into a canyon,whereupon realizing that they were being pursued by a small force,the Arapaho turned on Connor chasing him back to the main body of troops in the village. Of the seven soldiers wounded in the battle four were with Connor in the thick of the fight Connor had more i nternal problems to deal w i th than the Ind i ans he was go i ng after. Only h i s aggress ive leadersh i p got the exped i t i on underway Uncooperat ive army quartermasters,mut i nous troops, i nexper i enced and i ncompetent subord i nate commanders,and the unexpected arr ival of a civilian road building wagon train required more of his attention than the Indians It is not as surpr ising that so little was accomplished as it is that the expedition got started at all.

The book is well wr itten and does an excellent job of weaving the stor ies of the many personalities involved in this expedition into an interesting narrative Cop i ously i llustrated w i th maps (essent i al for any m i l i tary h i story) the da i ly progress of the expedition can be followed easily Any cr iticisms of the book are of a minor nature. The inclusion of a complete campaign map would have been useful to put Connor’s western column of the expedition into perspective with the columns of Cole and Walker The footnote on page 239 incorrectly g ives 1861 as the establishment of Camp Douglas. It should be 1862.

In summar y, I highly recommend this book It provides a detailed day-byday account of Connor ’s exped i t i on and prov i des an i nvaluable amount of information for an event that deserves to be better known than it is today

ROBERTS. VOYLES Fort Douglas Military Museum

The Nauvoo Legion in Illinois:A History of the Mormon Militia1841-1846 By Richard E Bennett,Susan Easton Black,and Donald Q Cannon (Norman: The Arthur H. Clark Company,2010. 436 pp. Cloth,$39.95.)

THIS BOOK IS AN IMPORTANT and i nterest i ng contr i but i on to the understanding of the Nauvoo Leg ion,which has been a subject for many who wr ite and study about Mormon,Utah,and Amer ican history This topic, in the past,has been presented in bits and pieces in many works,but not with the detail that th i s volume presents The three authors have brought the i r expert i se i n Missour i,Illinois,Mormon,military,and national history to present in great depth

the details and short history of the Nauvoo Leg ion in Illinois,from its beg inning in 1841 until its demise in 1845

The book is presented in two segments—the first being the narrative history which makes up the first 269 pages (twelve chapters),and a ser ies of appendixes which consists of another 130 pages,and a useful bibliography of twenty-four pages The first four chapters cover the history of the Leg ion from its reason for being,response to the persecutions of the Mormons in Missour i and Illinois,to its founding and the details of its formation and character istics as a military unit In chapter five,the authors discuss the leadership of Joseph Smith as Lieutenant General and commander of the un i t w i th h i s other dut i es as leader of the Mormon church Chapters s i x,seven,and e i ght treat courts-mart i al act i ons, parades and musters,and the call to arms in 1842-1843 to keep the peace and to protect Joseph Smith from being extradited to Missour i.

The growth,display,and use of the Leg ion brought many perceptions and fears into the minds of people in the area as shown in chapter nine,and led to problems of outside mob activity and the use of the Leg ion to try to keep the peace and carry out r idding the community of a menace, The Nauvoo Neighbor newspaper Thisbroughton charges of r iot and treason against the commander,Joseph Smith, and the killing of Joseph and Hyrum at Carthage jail as told in chapter ten. There is a final story of the Leg ion in Illinois after the murder of Joseph Smith,the survival of the Leg ion for a short per iod,which is recounted in chapter eleven One of the Leg ion’s main accomplishments at this time was to keep peace among the Mormons and prevent retal i at i on aga i nst the mobs or government off i c i als Nevertheless,the leg i slature of Ill i no i s i n 1852 revoked the or i g i nal Nauvoo Charter ending the days of the Leg ion in Illinois. The Nauvoo Leg ion would come to life again in Utah Terr itory Many of those who served in Illinois such as Daniel H Wells,George D Grant and Peter W Conover,and many others,would serve in the Utah Nauvoo Leg ion,which took the same name and much of the same organization with a six level military structure The Utah Leg ion suffered the same demise as the Illinois Leg ion with the passage of the Edmunds—Tucker Act in 1887.

Chapter twelve,the conclusion, is an important chapter as it outlines the major points and arguments about the Nauvoo Leg ion in Illinois In fact this chapter could be read first,and then the other chapters studied to fill in the details of the many important issues The authors find that “it may well be argued that the gr eatest contr i but i on of the Nauvoo Leg i on was i n prevent i ng what never occurred—extradition,mass killings,and eventual civil war. Strong and formidable, the Leg ion was a worthy deterrent to wanton persecution,unjust attack,and very real threats of extermination As such it deserves an honorable place in the military history and tradition of Illinois and the United States”(269).

The several append i ces add much to the book . Append i ces A through E include: “An Ordinance Organizing the Nauvoo Leg ion”; “Revised Laws of the

Nauvoo Leg ion”; “A Chronology of the Leg ion”; “A list of Commissioned and Noncommissioned Officers from 1841 to 1845”; and “A list of Pr ivates in the Leg ion”dur ing that same per iod The authors have done an excellent job in making these important records available and in presenting a useful and interesting book that provides a valuable basis for further studies of the Nauvoo Leg ion in Utah.

RICHARDC. ROBERTS Weber State University

POWELL HIS LIFE AND LEGACY is in essence three essays wr itten and woven together by James M Aton about the life of Major John Wesley Powell,one of the great Amer i can explorers and sc i ent i f i c m i nds of the late n i neteenth century The book beg ins with a chapter entitled “Biography”For those seeking to learn about Powell for the first time or to just revisit his story (as I did) this chapter is worth the purchase of the book. However,the volume does not end here Aton does a thorough examination of Powell’s wr itten work and his ideas about western water development g iving the literature a much needed look at Powell ’ s i deas about i rr i gat i on and the last i ng i mpact of h i s i deas on today ’ s wester n environment.

One easily forgets what an amazing individual Powell was until we visit his life h i story. Powell ’s early educat ion was an act ive one. Grow i ng up the son of a preacher,Powell and his family bounced around the Midwest Aton descr ibes Powell’s informal education at the hands of family fr iend George Crookham as following a “course of studies and pedagog ical methodology We now call it the field tr ip”(2) Powell also learned,at a young age,the tr ials and joys of farming on his family’s Wisconsin farm These and other life exper iences ser ved Powell well as he went on to explore the Colorado River and Colorado Plateau,to establish the USGS and the Bureau of Amer i can Ethnology,and to sow the seeds for the creation of the Bureau of Reclamation

After introducing us to Powell,Aton next takes the reader through an examination of Powell’s wr itings,both published and unpublished Aton’s lively wr iting style,along with Powell’s extraordinary body of work makes this chapter more than just the average bibliographical essay Aton’s ability to place the work in the context of the time per iod makes Powell’s ideas jump off the page and leaves the reader i n amazement at Powell ’s breadth and br i ll i ance In add i t i on Powell ’ s mentor ing of scientists and ar tists –Gilbert,Dutton,Hillers,Beaman,etc.—adds other important voices to the wr iting of this per iod

The final chapter,“Interpretations of Powell on Irr igation” is the meat of the

John Wesley Powell:His Life and Legacy. By James M Aton (Salt Lake City: Bonneville Books,University of Utah Press,2010 85 pp,$9 95 )

book. This chapter not only discusses Powell’s ideas about western irr igation,but just as importantly,Aton discusses and demonstrates how an histor ian goes about his work. Aton asks two important questions of Powell: How would he feel about the building of the large “cash reg ister dams” in the Amer ican West and second, would Powell in today’s world be an environmentalist? Aton looks at how Powell’s wr itings have been used to argue both sides of these questions,first by those who advocated the bu i ld i ng of large dams i n the Amer i can West dur i ng the early twentieth century,and then by environmentalists who advocate for free and wild r ivers and a clean environment Even though Aton comes to his own conclusions to these questions, he notes that Powell never directly advocated for large dams, nor,did he ever directly advocate for free and wild r ivers Powell aside,Aton through his essay explains and demonstrates the process under which the histor ian uses pr imary sources to uncover answers,and how often the answers are not directly stated,but interpreted This interpretation is often done through the wr iter’s own time lens,and not through the context of the times In addition to a needed discussion of Powell’s ideas about irr igation and western resources,this section is an excellent piece on histor ical methodology

Aton’s book offers the student of history and of the Amer ican West much to mull and th i nk over The book ’s sl i m s i ze, e i ghty-f ive pages w i th notes and bibliography,makes it the perfect item to slip into one’s duffel bag or backpack and read while traveling and contemplating the beauty of the West

BRADCOLE Utah State University

Framing the West:The Survey Photographs of Timothy H.O’Sullivan. By Toby Jurovics,Carol M Johnson,Glenn Willumson,William F Stapp (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,2010 xv +255 pp Cloth,$60 00 )

IT COULD BE SAID that the n i neteenth-century survey photographer Timothy O’Sullivan is the Great Sphinx of the Amer ican West Because he left no wr itten account of his life,we have but a rough sketch of the man and photographer His most important legacy is a tremendous cache of photographs taken dur ing the Civil War under Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner,and in the Amer ican West as part of Clarence King’s U.S. Geolog ical Survey of the 40th Parallel (1867-1873) and George M Wheeler ’s Geolog i cal and Geograph i cal Survey and Exploration West of the 100th Mer idian (1871-1874). Had O’Sullivan produced images like other survey photographers like William Henry Jackson or others working in the Amer ican West like C R Savage and Carleton Watk i ns, h i s photographs would be noteworthy,but not exemplary. Unl i ke h i s peers,O ’ Sull ivan produced un i que i mages that were cons i stently

austere and utterly “unpicturesque.”Working throughout the ar id West — a reg ion that Page Stegner calls “a stark,ar i d,bony landscape of tw i sted and tortured rock”— clearly added to the stark nature of his photographs Beyond terrain, however,there is a certain matter-of-fact sensibility to his work that profoundly influenced generations of photographers as disparate as Ansel Adams and Lewis Baltz.

Without a history or insight into his intent,O’Sullivan’s work also received a s i gn i f i cant degree of attent i on from h i stor i ans and cr i t i cs l i ke Joel Snyder, Rosalind Krauss,Rick Dingus,Robin Kelsey,and several others. To come to a more rounded understanding of the photographer,they searched his photog raphs, government archives,bur ied correspondences,the journals of his peers,var iant albums,and the actual sites of his work These investigations produced a figure that tended to oscillate between artist and scientist,pr imitive genius and mere operator

Publ i shed i n connect i on w i th an exh i b i t i on of the same name at the Smithsonian Amer ican Art Museum, Fram i ng the West represents an important contr ibution to our understanding of Timothy O’Sullivan. It is a visually stunning book w i th 150 i llustrat i ons – the best and most complete reproduct i ons of O’Sullivan’s work in nearly thirty years Far more than a catalog Fram i ng also features three essays,an extens ive chronology,and seven append i ces . It i s an i nformat ive read that sheds l i ght on the photographer and the challenges of understanding his work. Toby Jurovic’s lead essay, in particular,exemplifies the pitfalls of wr iting about O’Sullivan Unfortunately,but understandably, it does little more than reiterate many claims already in circulation for decades

Located prominently in King’s field of study,O’Sullivan spent a considerable amount of time in Nor thern Utah dur ing the 1869 field season Dur ing that time he worked in Echo Canyon and the Weber River Valley,Ogden,Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons,Provo Canyon,the Heber Valley,the Salt Lake Desert,and high on the summit of Lone Peak Under Wheeler he documented the dramatic landscape of Flaming Gorge in 1872. It had long been assumed that O’Sullivan also worked for King in the Uinta Mountains in 1869 One of the most important contr ibutions of Framing is the reattr ibution of this ser ies of photographs to A.J. Russell,the official photographer of the Union Pacific Railroad who joined King that summer This discovery,made by art histor ian Glenn Willumson, not only adds to our under standing of Russell’s work in the West,but also further refines and makes consistent O’Sullivan’s unique vision

In the end,the most important contr ibution of Framing may be William Stapp’s understated chronology of O’Sullivan’s life Compiled from numerous biographical fragments, it creates a composite portrait that will assuredly be an important aid for future research on the en i gmat i c photographer whose work and l i fe w i ll continue to entice

JAMESR.SWENSEN

Brigham Young University

Reflections in Place:Connected Lives of Navajo Women.

By Donna Deyhle

(Tucson: University of Ar izona Press,2009 xxvi + 242 pp Paper,$24 95 )

RACE RELATIONS — and that is what this book is about — is a well-worn topic that has seen major shifts from the 1960s to present So has San Juan County, Utah,the setting of this work. As a young Navajo woman,I came to Blanding in 1972 from Church Rock,New Mexico,and have lived through much of what the author wr ites about. Dur ing these years my daughter attended school in the San Juan School Distr ict,I was in the first graduating class of the small community college often mentioned,have worked there ever since as a counselor,and have seen hundreds of students graduate from high school and go off to college or trade school So it was with great interest that I read Reflections in Place.

The theme of this book is: (1) to present three women’s lives in a respectful way,(2) “capture the ways in which histor ically rooted racial warfare plays out in their daily lives,” (3) illustrate situational complexity of their lives,and (4) demonstrate their vitality,spir ituality,and “different ways of being Navajo”(xiv) To do this,Deyhle provides a study over twenty-five years of three Navajo fr iends she met starting in 1984,when she came to southeastern Utah as an ethnographer to examine the school distr ict and its relations with Native Amer ican students and their communities. A lawsuit prompted this investigation of inequalities,which she was hired to report Well over half of what is presented here comes from her findings in the 1980s and has since been published in var ious journals dur ing the 1990s . The theme through much of th i s work as well as th i s book i s “The long-standing racial tension in southeastern Utah frames this cross-generational set of portraits that together depict all aspects of this specifically Amer ican Indian struggle”(Jacket)

The author wr ites well,using the ethnographic present as well as the poetry of Luci Tapahonso and other Native Amer icans to paint a portrait to match the difficult lives of three Navajo women Her picture of life on the reservation,the frustration with school administrator s and teachers,and the difficulty of instructing unwilling learners is truthful and reflects the attitude of some Navajo parents at that time She also uses local history to expose the outlook and problems that have plagued Ind i an-wh i te relat i ons over the years wh i ch, i n turn,has been translated into the lives of students Her main focus is to explain how this history and the problematic school exper ience established the pattern for these women’s troubled l ives,and where they are today Few readers w i ll f i n i sh th i s book believing formal education or the dominant society were much help What she presents is accurate but one-sided. Throughout this book blame is placed on the Anglo for all the wrongs; little is said of the role that parents should have played but d i d not . S i nce the author ’s work focused on dropouts and troubled youth,the quiet,hard working ones are ignored All three of the women that become representat i ve of the school exper i ence share th i s d i stress i ng

background. This is not to deny that there were problems with racism,stereotyping, and dysfunction in the educational system,but there was another side that is never mentioned — those Indian students who succeeded From my exper ience,there was as much internal fr iction — racism,feelings of entitlement,jealousy,and factions — within the Native Amer ican communities as there was between them and the dominant culture.

An underlying perspective from the lives of these three women is that they were poorly prepared for later life,the schools readying them only for vocational work, if anything,and that much of their personal difficulties is a result of this exper ience Deyhle character izes their attitude as one of “survivance”which is the “will to resist dominance,”a feeling expressed dur ing their high school years that continued into their present lives (xviii) That may be true for these women,but I do not agree in general There were Navajo people then,and many more now, who are successful teachers,counselors,administrators,and professionals who went through the “system,”were not “pushed” i nto the trades,and d i d not get bulldozed into a life of mediocr ity. In some cases,they found more fr iendship in the white community than in the Indian community I believe the other half of this story needs to be told with the understanding that there were many good people on both sides of the desk,trying to improve a difficult situation at a time (1970s,1980s) when confrontation was a way of life If we see only what we look for,we may miss what is best.

My Fellow Servants:Essays on the History of the Pr iesthood. By William G Hartley

(Provo: BYU Studies,2010 xix + 492 pp Paper,$24 95 )

WILLIAM G. HARTLEY throughout his long and award winning career as an histor ian has studied things in the Latter-day Saint past that others considered quite ordinary and perhaps even uninteresting In this book,Professor Hartley,as he has in many of his other wr itings,displays his rare ability to extract from the sea of the Mormon past fresh insights that are not only instructive but more clearly reveal the fundamental i mportance of the pr i esthood at every organizational level of The Church of Jesus Chr ist of Latter-day Saints Moreover, his wr iting is as fresh as are his insights,and this book reveals him at his best

For more than th i r ty year s Hartley has wr i tten art i cles focused on the restoration of the pr iesthood,LDS Aaronic pr iesthood offices,acting teachers,the b i shop,Br i gham Young and pr i esthood work,pastors and pastorates,the pr iesthood reorganization of 1877,the pr iesthood reform movement,as well as “War and Peace and Dutch Potatoes.”These articles and eleven more,many of

KAROLYNROMERO Utah State University College of Eastern Utah — San Juan Campus

which earned him prestig ious honors,have now been published under one cover by BYU Stud i es. No longer w i ll students of Latter-day Sa i nt h i story have to consult a var i ety of journals and magaz i nes to be i nformed by h i s research regarding the pr iesthood.

Part one of this volume focuses on pr iesthood restoration; part two consists of five essays that deal with the Aaronic Pr iesthood; part three with Melchizedek Pr iesthood operations; and the final section examines the church’s organizational and adm i n i strat ive h i story broadly Hartley ’ s w i de pr i esthood brush i ncludes wagon and handcart emigration, the “down and back system of sending Utah wagons and teams, ... to retr ieve emigrants waiting to cross the plains,”as well as what it meant in “the pioneer era to be active in the Church”(xviii)

Those who believe that there is little left to learn about Mormonism in the nineteenth and twentieth centur ies will be surpr ised at how much new information Hartley has gleaned from ward and stake records found in the archives of the LDS church A few examples follow Newel K Whitney,not Edward Partr idge, was the first Presiding Bishop (117). In the Salt Lake 33rd Ward in the 1920s the bishop assigned a man in his late sixties to preside at the sacrament table to add dignity and sacredness to the sacrament service (65) Women in the Salt Lake 4th Ward,dur ing the 1930s,polished the sacrament trays,laundered,starched and pressed the lace tablecloths,baked and sliced the bread and set the sacrament table each week (70) Dur ing the Second World War,Salt Lake’s 24th Ward lacked deacons and the bishop asked the Beehive Girls to collect half of the ward’s fast offer ings and tithing (71)

Teachers quorums served as courts to try recalc i trant i nd iv i duals for the i r church membership and were sometimes called “the spir itual policemen”of the church (87,93) In the 1850s,some wards had but one pair of teachers visit all of the ward families (92) Initially lesser pr iesthood quorums operated as stake rather than ward quorums and the i r leaders were susta i ned i n the church ’s general conference (90)

Pres i dent Heber J Grant, i n the early 1940s,author i zed boys w i th no pr iesthood to pass the sacrament (107). In the 1930s,ward pr iesthood meetings shifted from Monday nights to Sunday mornings (121) One day when Presiding B i shop Edward Hunter was pra i sed by Br i gham Young as others were be i ng scored,he was overheard mutter ing,“Don’t get the big head,kill you sure,kill you sure,killed more men than anything in the Church”(147) Sometimes,while Br i gham Young led the church,ward b i shops served for years w i thout be i ng orda i ned (178) . Boys as young as fourteen were encouraged to rece ive the i r temple endowment (178) In 1877,the Salt Lake Stake had 19,798 members and the Panguitch Stake had 859 (195) In January 1879,the first endowments for the dead were administered (199). It was not until 1877 that members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles received “a reasonable compensation for their service from church funds”(251) Such facts standing alone might seem insignificant,but the

cumulative effect of such information allows readers to understand how and why the pr iesthood functions as it does today Hartley’s work on pr iesthood matters is, for the most part,unique as well as informative Because the twenty articles that make up this book were wr itten over a thirtyyear t i me frame and appeared i n a var i ety of magaz i nes,books and journals, and w i th only “m i n i mal ed i t i ng”for the book,there i s some repet i t i on and overlapping that, if edited out,might have made My Fellow Servants an even more interesting read Furthermore,this reviewer is not convinced that the chapters detailing Br igham Young’s overland trails revolution nor the one titled “War and Peace and Dutch Potatoes”really fit in a volume otherwise focused on pr iesthood matters Still,Hartley’s wr iting style,his ability to inform readers with new information,and his talent of finding documents that contain information others have not studied,mark this volume as one most Latter-day Saints will not only enjoy reading but one from which they will learn much that pertains to the Mormon past and the development of pr iesthood practices which until now have remained obscure

KENNETHW.GODFREY Logan

BOOKNOTICES

On the Way to Somewhere Else:European Sojourners in the Mormon West,1834-

1930. Edited by Michael W Homer (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press,2010 420 pp. Paper,$24.95.)

This book was or ig inally published in 2006 in a limited hardback edition by The Arthur H Clark Company as Volume 8 in the Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the Amer i can Front i er Ser i es. This paperback edition from the University of Utah Press makes available to a broader audience a fascinating collection of nearly fifty detailed observations about Mormons made pr imar ily by French,German,Italian,and Scandinavian travelers from 1834 to 1930 In his review of the book in the Fall 2006 issue of the Quarterly, the late William Mulder descr ibed the book as “…a work full of surpr ises and meticulous documentation The research has been pr od i g i ous… an arduous undertak i ng over several years…there’s a sense of joyous adventure as the editor strolled the bookstalls, shops,and archives wherever he found himself as he prospected for mater ials” (368) That prospecting yielded a r ich treasure of accounts that shed important light on Utah and the Mormons. The author provides an informative introduction for each of the ten chapters and for each selection within the chapters

The Autobiography of Hosea Stout. Edited by Reed A Stout,revised by Stephen L Pr ince (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press and The Utah State Histor ical Society,2010 xv + 78 pp Paper,$12 95 )

The Autobiography of Hosea Stout was first published in 1962 in four i nstallments of the Utah H i stor i cal Quarterly 30 (1962) . In a jo i nt partnersh i p between the Utah State Histor ical Society,and the University of Utah Press,this valuable account covers Stout’s life from his birth in 1810 until 1844 when he began his diary that was first published in two volumes in 1964 as On The Mormon Frontier:The Diary of Hosea Stout and republished in a single volume in 2009 Both editions are co-publications of the University of Utah Press and the Utah State Histor ical Society. Stephen L. Pr ince has revised the autobiography and penned a new introduction to accompany Reed Stout’s introduction to the 1962 Utah Histor ical Quarterly’s edition ofStout’s autobiography

Orem. By Jay H Buckley,Chase Arnold,and the Orem Public Library (Charleston,SC: Arcadia Publishing,2010 128 pp Paper,$21 99 )

This volume in the Arcadia Images of Amer ica Ser ies provides an illustrated history of the community named in 1900 for Walter C. Orem,president of the Salt Lake and Utah Electr ic Inter-Urban Railroad,after residents voted to

form their own city rather than become a part of Provo City. The eight chapters illustrate early pioneers,fruit growing,the Nunn Power Plant,the railroad,Geneva Steel Plant,the establ i shment of the Central Utah Vocat i onal School and i ts growth to become Utah Valley University in 2008,and the community’s relationship to Utah Lake,Provo River,and Mount Timpanogos The last two chapters deal with events and individuals in the community, including a picture of Gary R Herbert,who became Utah ’s seventeenth governor i n August 2009,h i s w i fe Jeannette,their six children,and their families

Remember ing Salt Lake City. By Jeff Burbank (Nashville: Turner Publishing Company, 2010 x + 134 pp Paper,$16 95 )

Tremendous effort i n select i on and organ i zat i on does not go unnoticed in Jeff Burbank’s Remember ing Salt Lake City. Containing photographs from as far back as the 1890s,the book allows readers to navigate through a visual h i story of Salt Lake C i ty ’s people and places . Burbank comp i les an array of photographs including recognizable buildings,unforgettable personalities,cultural capstones,and forgotten memor ies. The exper ience of longtime journalist Jeff Burbank combined with rare images from both pr ivate and public collections make Remember ing Salt Lake City a great visual piece to own

River of Promise:Lewis and Clark on the Columbia. By David L. Nicandr i. (Washburn,ND: The Dakota Institute Press of the Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation,2009 xvii + 349 pp Paper,$18 95 )

David L. Nicandr i focuses on an often over-looked piece of the well-known expedition of Lewis and Clark River of Promise:Lewis and Clark on the Columbia takes a deeper look at the essential goal of the explorers: to discover headwaters of the Columbia and the water route to the Pacific Ocean. Nicandr i offers some different and refreshing views to the legendary expedition William Clark’s role as pr imary geographic problem-solver,redefining Sacagawea’s contr ibut i ons i n Columb i a R iver country,as well as a provocat ive perspect ive of Mer iwether Lewis’ suicide in 1809 are all presented by Nicandr i. River of Promise: Lewis and Clark on the Columbia fills a significant gap in our understanding of the legendary expedition

This Is The Place,But You Still Can’t Get Good Rye Bread! How The Sandacks Got to Utah and Lived to Tell About It. By Rick Sandack (Salt Lake City: Mischa Goss Press,2009 xi + 247 pp ,Paper,$20 00 )

What would a family history be like wr itten by a comedian? Rick Sandack offers a fine example in this book about his parents,Wally and Helen Sandack Wh i le the book prov i des plenty of chuckles and human i nterest accounts, it is also an insightful look at the Salt Lake City Jewish community,the World War II exper ience,politics,and race relations,among other topics Wally Sandack was a popular radio broadcaster dur ing the 1930s,Utah State Democratic Party Chairman,staunch supporter of the Kennedys,attorney for Utah labor,and fr i end of Judge Wi ll is R i tter Helen,the youngest ch i ld of well-known Utah cloth i er Arthur Frank and h i s w i fe Bertha,was a popular local actress and president of the University of Utah Theater Guild One chapter in the book, “When God Spoke, Alberta Henry Listened,”highlights the association of the Utah civil r ights leader with the Sandacks for whom she started working as a housekeeper in 1949

Traces of Fremont Culture:Society and Rock Art in Ancient Utah. By Steve R Simms.

by François Gohier. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,2010. x + 132 pp Paper $24 95 )

Stevens R S i mms,professor of anthropology at Utah State Un i vers i ty,br i ngs readers back to the anc i ent and complex culture of the Fremont . H i s research and collect i on of work prov i de a generous d i splay of Fremont society,politics,and worldview

As Simms states,“This book employs photography of Fremont rock art and artifacts to investigate the Fremont world… I refer to the society and ideology of Fremont people as they developed before the sixth century A D and continued to evolve i nto at least the fourteenth century”(3) . Soc i ety and i deology of the Fremont are better understood through Simms’ observations of Fremont social and political organization and relig ion.

Add the captivating photographs by François Gohier to make this book both an interesting read as well as a visual treat

Undermining

Race:Ethn

ic Identities in Ar i

zona Copper Camps,1860-1920.

By Phylis Cancilla Martinelli. (Tucson: University of Ar izona Press,2009 x + 225 pp Cloth,$50 00 )

Phylis Martinelli,a professor of sociology at St Mary’s College of Cal i forn ia,offers a look at the soc i olog i cal i ssues of race,culture,and ethn i c identities in Ar izona’s copper industry She covers all of the copper camps,but emphasizes Clifton-Morenci,Globe,and Bisbee Stressing Italians in Ar izona,the author provides insights into the relationship of Italians with Mexican Amer icans, and the interaction with other groups as well Utah’s Carbon County is br iefly

Photographs

ment i oned as are other m i n i ng areas of the West . The study presents some interesting parallels in which to view the Utah exper ience

Zion National Park By Tiffany Taylor (Charleston,SC: Arcadia Publishing,2008

127 pp Paper,$21 99 )

Published on the eve of the centennial of Zion National Park (created first as Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1909 which became Zion Nat i onal Park i n 1919) th i s collect i on of photographs w i th accompany i ng captions illustrates the history of Zion National Park in four sections. The first, entitled “Treasury of the Gods,”depicts the magnificent natural scenery of the park The other sections focus on human activity from early pioneers to National Park Serv i ce personnel,C iv i l i an Conservat i on Corps workers,v i s i tors,and temporary employees at what is Utah’s first national park

Fort Douglas. By Louwane Vansoolen (Charleston,SC: Arcadia Publishing,2009

127 pp Paper,$21 99 )

Fort Douglas has played a key role i n Utah ’s h i story from i ts founding as Camp Douglas in 1862 to the present Today the histor ical heart of the facility is the Fort Douglas Military Museum Its curator,Louwane Vansoolen, has brought together in this volume more than 180 vintage images of the fort that trace its history from the 1860s until the end of World War II The fort housed a recept i on center for i nductees from Utah and surround i ng states . The book includes a collection of photographs that depict the induction process exper ienced by thousands of soldiers at the fort Other photographs from the nineteenth century and World War I era are equally interesting.

Uintah. By Sue Bybee (Charleston,SC: Arcadia Publishing,2010 127 pp Paper,$21 99 )

The town of Uintah in eastern Weber County was first settled by Mormon pioneers in 1850. In 1869,as the Union Pacific railroad pushed westward toward the joining of the rails at Promontory Summit,Uintah became a boomtown with more than a hundred businesses and a population of nearly five thousand The boom d i d not last long,and few stayed Those who d i d,the i r descendants,later arr ivals,and life in the community are depicted in this illustrated history.

Arena Legacy:The Her itage of Amer ican Rodeo. By Richard C Rattenbury

(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,2010 xiv + 416 pp Cloth $65 00 )

From its earliest days as a spontaneous contest between cowboys to it is fanatic following in contemporary times the rodeo has been a regular part of Amer i can culture for well over a hundred years . R i chard Rattenbury has wr itten an impressive volume documenting the histor ic culture that embodies the spir it of the Amer ican West. A combination of his well researched and expansive wr iting with a massive showcase of collections from the National Cowboy and Western Her itage Museum has made this volume into a great read Rattenbury captures the growth of this sport by showcasing the men,women, and venues that def i ned the rodeo As a curator of H i story at the Nat i onal Cowboy and Western Her i tage Museum,h i s access and knowledge of rodeo apparel and equipment helps to add the expansive visuals to this book Arena Legacy: The Her itage of Amer ican Rodeo is a tr ibute to a western Amer ican sport and will be appreciated by rodeo fanatics and western enthusiasts alike

Red Cloud’s War:The Bozeman Trail,1866-1868 By John D McDermott

(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,2010 2 Vol xx + 651pp Cloth,$75 00 Limited Edition Cloth,$225.00.)

John D McDermott has compiled a truly definitive history of the Bozeman Tr ial. This two volume set descr ibes, in detail,the definitive history of the Bozeman Trail from the discovery of gold in Montana to the aftermath of the fr ightful decision of Captain William J. Fetterman to disobey orders and attack retreating Lakota Sioux,Arapahos,and Cheyennes

McDermott g ives a deta i led account of the battles that resulted from the forceful pressures of both United States Army and also Montana bound settlers. Red Cloud,Oglala chief,led a ser ies of attacks to protect their land and hunting grounds that were be i ng threatened by Amer i can settlement . McDermott ’ s attempts to capture the history of the struggle and small clashes of Red Cloud resistance prove successful

Red Cloud’s War:The Bozeman Trail,1866-1868 g ives a strong narrative and also includes a thoughtful conclusion McDermott’s work demonstrates a tale of hubr is and m i l i tary setbacks by the U. S . Army. H i s conclus i on descr i bes the consequences of the Treaty of 1868 and the Northern Plains tr ibes to further delay the ultimate reckoning that would come just a few years later

Home Waters:A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River By George B Handley (Salt

Lake City: The University of Utah Press,2010 xvii + 236 pp Paper,$24 95)

George B Handley,a professor of humanities and comparative literature at Br igham Young University,has composed his perspectives on the natural world within the Mormon relig ious exper ience to create a work reminiscent of Wallace Stegner,Stephen Tr imble,and Amy Irvine Home Waters:A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River combines elements of theology,environmental and local history,to g i ve the reader an i nterest i ng perspect i ve on the role of one r i ver and i ts surrounding beauty Handley ’s descr i pt i on of the Provo R iver i s metaphys i cal H i s connect i ons between the natural world and the Mormon faith’s openness to science allow Handley to enjoy the Provo River for its aesthetic beauty and as a deep spir itual exper ience With his poetic wr iting, Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River is a enjoyable read and is a must-have for any spectator of nature

Histor ic Photos of Outlaws of the Old West. By

Publishing Company,2010 x + 206 pp Hardcover,$39 95 )

For generations,outlaws of the old west have remained an uneasy affection in the United States. We are both compelled by and apprehensive about the myths the cr iminals embodied Yet our fascination still remains This is a book for those who are trying to understand the characters that are both legendary and less i nfamous . Photographs dep i ct i ng the l i kes of Jesse James,the Younger Brothers,Billy the Kid,and others are accompanied with back stor ies that may be new to the reader. Johnson has collected images of bustling towns,notor ious cr i m i nals,and the western stage i n wh i ch the i r drama was played Johnson ’ s research denounces certain myths of the outlaws but still manages to embrace what Amer icans view as the West; a raw arena of new populations,towns,and the character s that helped define an era The images will lead from fascination to surrealism as portraits of fallen outlaws challenge the almost near immortality,the bandits and their reputations have instilled

Larry Johnson. (Nashville: Turner

Unmasking Another Hofmann Forgery Editor,

Polly Aird’s review of David L Bigler and Will Bagley,eds , Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (Norman: Arthur H. Clark Company,an impr int of the University of Oklahoma Press,2008),published in the Journal of Mormon History 36,no 1 (Spr ing 2010): 250–62,states: “The editors might also further explore whether the William Edwards affidavit ...is a forgery, for it was acquired by the Utah State Histor ical Society from rare manuscr ipts dealer Mark Hofmann before he was known to be a forger”(262)

In the wake of A i rd ’s comment,Gary Topp i ng,who worked at the Utah Histor ical Society when the document was acquired,recalled: “It’s been a long time,but I’m pretty sure I got the document from Lyn Jacobs,who got it from Hofman [sic].... I decided just to put a note in the cataloguing that the source of the document was Mark Hofman and let the buyer beware Apparently that note didn’t make the transition when USHS switched to online cataloguing That’s the way my dim memory has it,anyway.”1

We had previously accepted the William Edwards affidavit at face value,cited it in Ronald W Walker,Richard E Turley Jr ,and Glen M Leonard, Massacre at Mounta i n Meadows:An Amer i can Tragedy (New York : Oxford Un ivers i ty Press, 2008),191,354 note 37,360 note 23,365 note 108,395 note 16,and included Edwards’s name in the appendix,257,as a massacre participant After reading Aird’s comment,we became concerned about the document’s questionable or ig in and decided to take a closer look

William Edwards was born October 21,1841, in Bewdley,Worcester,England H i s fam i ly left England i n 1850 and reached Utah i n 1853 . They moved to Parowan in 1857 or 1858 and to Beaver County in 1859 They helped settle Greenville in 1860,where William lived for the rest of his life He marr ied Ellen Miller Apr il 8,1861. William served as bishop of the Greenville Ward,1898–1913, and died Apr il 24,1925 2

The document that bears Edwards’s name is a one-page affidavit dated May 14, 1924,sworn before notary public F. E. Woods in Pr ice,Utah. It includes a notary seal Fredr ick E Woods was born March 23,1861, in Brandon,Vermont,marr ied in about 1889,was admitted to the Nebraska bar in 1886,and moved to Utah in 1890. He practiced law in Provo,Salt Lake City,Castle Dale,and Pr ice. He served as a judge for the Seventh Judicial Distr ict,1921–22 In the early 1930s,he and his wife moved to Los Angeles 3

The Edwards affidavit beg ins: “In September of 1857 your affiant resided at Cedar City,Iron County”Other sources suggest that the Edwards family moved to Parowan — not Cedar City — in 1857 or 1858 4 No Parowan residents are known to have been at Mountain Meadows at the time of the massacre.5

The affidavit also states that Edwards “was but 15 years of age at the time of the said Massacre.... [H]e and a few others who were nearly as young would not

have been perm i tted to accompany the men i f a battle were foreseen .”Th i s statement is also problematic,because there were no Cedar City residents at the massacre “who were nearly as young”as Edwards The youngest known participants from the Cedar City area were Daniel Macfarlane (20),John Ur ie (22),Benjamin Arthur (23),Nephi Johnson (23),and Ellott Willden (23) James Pearce (18) and Columbus Freeman (19) were teenagers,but they traveled to the Meadows from the Washington settlement Furthermore,of the white massacre participants listed in Massacre at Mountain Meadows,Edwards was the only one who was not enrolled in the Iron Military Distr ict of the terr itor ial militia 6

Many of the assertions in the affidavit reflect information found in widely available books,particularly William W Bishop,ed , Mormonism Unveiled;or The Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop,John D.Lee;(Wr itten by Himself) (St Louis: Bryan,Brand & Co.,1877); and Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (Stanford,Calif .: Stanford University Press,1950) For instance,according to the Edwards affidavit,“Affiant accompanied about 30 men and older boys to Mounta i n Meadows .”In Mormon i sm Unve i led ,232,John D. Lee named twenty-four men who arr ived at the Meadows,plus “some others whose names I cannot remember ”

The Edwards aff i dav i t states : “We were told,an Ind i an massacre of a [s i c] em i grant tra i n had been consummated,and our serv i ces needed to bury the dead ”This is similar to a John M Higbee statement quoted in Brooks, Mountain Meadows Massacre,172: “Savages ... had killed all the emigrant company and if Mormons wanted to bury them they could [A] dozen or more of as honorable good citizens as lived in the country volunteered and started at once to go and bury the dead .”(See also Dan i el S. Macfarlane,quoted i n Brooks, Mounta i n Meadows Massacre,178 )

According to Mormonism Unveiled, a couple of days before the massacre Lee sent a messenger — “either Edwards or Adair,(I cannot now remember which it was)” (229)—to Cedar City with a request for reinforcements at the Meadows. A list of massacre participants near the end of the book identifies George Adair Jr and “________ Edwards Cedar City”(379) The sketchy reference to Edwards provided a silhouette to which a br ight and devious person could add enough detail to loosely match existing histor ical accounts Mark Hofmann excelled at such work,evidenced by his forgery of the Charles Anthon transcr ipt and other documents 7

Tracking provenance became another key piece to the Edwards puzzle. Polly Aird suggested that the Utah State Histor ical Society acquired the document from Mark Hofmann,but its catalog record contained no donor information at the t i me of her rev i ew. Brandon Metcalf,who jo i ned the LDS Church H i story Department staff earlier this year,worked closely with our peers at the Division of State History (Utah State Histor ical Society) and the Utah State Archives to look for clues. They conducted a thorough search of available records, including pr ior

catalogs. In a ser ies of Histor ical Society files,Metcalf found a quarterly report for Apr il-June 1983 that stated: “The Library acquired some interesting items from a manuscr ipts dealer this quarter They include a deposition made in the 1920’s by William Edwards,one of the participants in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.” In the same quarter,the library also acquired from this unnamed dealer letters by histor ian Charles Kelly,“a legal document signed by the outlaw Matt Warner,a draft of one of the terr i tor i al laws of Utah s i gned by W. W. Phelps,Wi llard Richards,and Br igham Young,and the papers of George Montgomery Scott ”A finding aide for the Scott papers confirmed that they were acquired from Mark Hofmann in June 1983.8

We also sought the help of forens i c document exam i ner George J Throckmorton The Division of State History kindly supplied us with a dig ital image of the Edwards document and allowed us to borrow the or ig inal for testing purposes The Utah State Archives provided two known signatures of F E Woods, 1922,from case files of the Carbon County Court,where he served as a distr ict judge In LDS Church History Library collections,we located four letters that Edwards wrote to Church leaders in 1902 and 1908 while he was serving as bishop of the Greenville Ward.

After compar ing the signatures on the affidavit with other documents and conducting additional forensic tests,Throckmorton concluded that the affidavit is not genuine Edwards’s signature “is a partial ‘traced-forgery’”based on his Apr il 2, 1908,letter to Joseph F Smith Both the Edwards and Woods signatures were made more deliberately than is customary and “showed tremor and hesitation,”which “frequently appears when someone attempts to i m i tate or s i mulate another person ’ s wr iting style.”Finally,“the ink on both ... had been exposed to an artificial ag ing process,to make them appear older than they really are ”9 Throckmorton referred us to Peter V Tytell,another forens i c document examiner,who specializes in typewr itten works. After examining a dig ital image of the Edwards affidavit,Tytell concluded that it “was prepared with a version of Royal Standard Elite style type that was not available until 1950,over a quarter of a century after the 1924 date on the Affidavit ”10

We also learned that, i n the late 1970s or early 1980s,collector Brent F Ashworth traded several Carbon County documents to Mark Hofmann Ashworth is certain that there were no massacre-related documents in the deal but believes that Hofmann likely “followed the format on this forgery from the many Notary Public documents I traded him ”11

We have corrected on our website (http://mountainmeadowsmassacre org/) our m i staken usage of the forged Wi ll i am Edwards aff i dav i t When a rev i sed ed i t i on of Massacre at Mounta i n Meadows i s publ i shed,we w i ll also make corrections in it. Our thanks to Polly Aird for raising an important issue and to the individuals and institutions that helped to unmask another Hofmann forgery

NOTES

1 Gary Topping,email to Will Bagley,Polly Aird,Richard E Turley Jr et al ,May 12,2010; copy in our possession

2 “Former Bishop of Greenville Bur ied,” Deseret News,Apr il 30,1925,sec 2,p 4; William Edwards, biographical sketch,June 1919, in LDS Church History Department,biographical sketches; Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Company, 1901–36),3:623–24

3 “F. E. Woods Given Second Judgeship,” News Advocate (Pr ice,Utah),March 17,1921,Utah Dig ital Newspapers,http://dig italnewspapers org (accessed May 26,2010); “Official Election Returns for Carbon County,November 7,1922,” News Advocate,November 16,1922; “T E Woods,” Deseret News,May 6,1933, sec 2,p 8

4 William Edwards,biographical sketch,June 1919 His obituary states that the family moved to Parowan “at the time of the move south”(spr ing 1858) William’s father,Samuel,and Samuel’s plural wife had a daughter born in Parowan on June 23,1858 Samuel James Edwards and Holly Jane Tingle,Family Group Record,www familysearch org (accessed May 25,2005)

5 William Barton,statement to Andrew Jenson,January 25,1892, in Richard E Turley Jr and Ronald W Walker,eds , Mountain Meadows Massacre:The Andrew Jenson and David H.Morr is Collections (Provo: Br igham Young University Press/Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,2009),71 Columbus Freeman, “though listed on Parowan militia rolls in June 1857 may have gone to the Meadows from Washington, where his parents and siblings were living ”Walker,Turley,and Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows:An Amer ican Tragedy,257

6 Walker,Turley,and Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows,Appendix C,255–64; William H Dame, “Organization of the Iron Military Distr ict,”June 1857,L Tom Perry Special Collections,Harold B Lee Library,Br igham Young University; Muster Rolls for Iron Military Distr ict,October 10,1857,Utah Terr itor ial Militia Records,Utah State Archives,Salt Lake City

7 George J Throckmorton,R C Chr istensen,and Richard H Casper, Motive for Murder:The Bombs,the Mormons,and the Salamander (Salt Lake City: The Authors,2005),186–90

8 Utah State Histor ical Society,Library Quarterly Report,Apr il-June 1983,p 3,Utah Department of Community and Culture,Division of State History,Library Files,1970–90,Ser ies 3353,Box 17,Utah State Archives; Division of State History,Reg ister of the George Montgomery Scott Papers,http://history utah gov/Findaids/B00128/B0128 xml (accessed July 15,2010)

9 George J Throckmorton,Letter to Richard E Turley Jr ,August 9,2010, in our possession

10 Peter V Tytell,Letter to Richard E Turley Jr ,August 23,2010, in our possession

11 Brent F Ashworth,email to Richard E Turley Jr ,September 2,2010, in our possession; Michael De Groote,“Mark Hofmann Tied to New Forgery,” Deseret News,September 7,2010

Richard E Turley Jr Br ian D. Reeves

LDS Church History Department Salt Lake City

Ed i tor’s Note : A s i m i lar vers i on of th i s letter from the authors to Ph i l i p F Notar i ann i ,D i rector,Utah D iv i s i on of State H i story/Utah State H i stor i cal Society,was posted on its website (http://history utah gov/) on August 31,2010

UTAHSTATE

HISTORICALSOCIETYFELLOWS

THOMAS G ALEXANDER JAMES B ALLEN

LEONARD J ARRINGTON (1917-1999) MAUREEN URSENBACH BEECHER DAVIDBIGLER

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 (1917-2006) S GEORGE ELLSWORTH (1916-1997) AUSTIN E FIFE (1909-1986) PETER L GOSS LEROY R HAFEN (1893-1985) B CARMON HARDY JOELJANETSKI

JESSE D JENNINGS (1909-1997) A. KARL LARSON (1899-1983) GUSTIVE O LARSON (1897-1983) WILLIAMP MACKINNON BRIGHAM D MADSEN

CAROL CORNWALL MADSEN DEAN L MAY (1938-2003)

DAVID E MILLER (1909-1978) DALE L MORGAN (1914-1971) WILLIAM MULDER (1915-2008) FLOYD A O’NEIL HELEN Z PAPANIKOLAS (1917-2004) CHARLES S PETERSON RICHARD W SADLER GARY L SHUMWAY MELVINT SMITH WALLACE E STEGNER (1909-1993) WILLIAM A WILSON

HONORARYLIFEMEMBERS

DAVID BIGLER JAY M HAYMOND FLORENCE S JACOBSEN STANFORD J LAYTON WILLIAM P MACKINNON JOHN S MCCORMICK MIRIAM B MURPHY LAMAR PETERSEN F ROSS PETERSON RICHARD C. ROBERTS MELVIN T SMITH LINDATHATCHER GARY TOPPING