Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, Number 1, 2014

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY (ISSN 0 042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF

BRAD WESTWOOD, Editor HOLLY GEORGE, Managing Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS

BRIAN Q. CANNON, Provo, 2016

CRAIG FULLER, Salt Lake City, 2015

LEE ANN KREUTZER, Salt Lake City, 2015

ROBERT E. PARSON, Benson, 2013

W. PAUL REEVE, Salt Lake City, 2014

SUSAN SESSIONS RUGH, Provo, 2016

JOHN SILLITO, Ogden, 2013

GARY TOPPING, Salt Lake City, 2014

RONALD G. WATT, West Valley City, 2013 COLLEEN WHITLEY, Salt Lake City, 2015

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, documents, and reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah history. The Quarterly is published four times a year by the Division of State History/Utah State Historical Society, 300 S. Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. Phone (801) 245-7231 for membership and publication information. Members of the Society receive the Quarterly upon payment of the annual dues: individual, $30; institution, $40; student and senior citizen (age sixty-five or older), $25; business, $40; sustaining, $40; patron, $60; sponsor, $100.

Manuscripts submitted for publication should be double-spaced with endnotes. We encourage authors to submit both a paper and an electronic version of the manuscript. For additional information, contact the managing editor or visit our website. Articles and book reviews represent the views of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Utah State Historical Society.

Find Utah Historical Quarterly online at history.utah.gov.

Periodicals postage is paid at Salt Lake City, Utah.

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

UTAHDIVSION OF STATE HISTORY

UTAHSTATEHISTORICALSOCIETY

Department

of Heritage and Arts

BOARD OF STATE HISTORY

MICHAEL W. HOMER, Salt Lake City, 2014, Chair

DINA WILLIAMS BLAES, Salt Lake City, 2017

SCOTT R. CHRISTENSEN, Salt Lake City, 2014

YVETTE DONOSSO, Sandy, 2015

MARIA GARCIAZ, Salt Lake City, 2015

DEANNE G. MATHENY, Lindon, 2017

ROBERT S. MCPHERSON, Blanding, 2015

STEVEN LLOYD OLSEN, Heber City, 2017

GREGORY C. THOMPSON, Salt Lake City, 2015

PATTY TIMBIMBOO-MADSEN, Plymouth, 2015

WESLEY ROBERT WHITE, Salt Lake City, 2017

ADMINISTRATION

BRAD WESTWOOD, Director and State Historic Preservation Officer KRISTEN ROGERS-IVERSEN, Deputy Director

In 1897, public-spirited Utahns organized the Utah State Historical Society in order to expand public understanding of Utah’s past. Today, the Utah Division of State History administers the Society and, as part of its statutory obligations, publishes the Utah Historical Quarterly, which has collected and preserved Utah’s unique history since 1928. The Division also collects materials related to the history of Utah; assists communities, agencies, building owners, and consultants with state and federal processes regarding archaeological and historical resources; administers the ancient human remains program; makes historical resources available in a specialized research library; offers extensive online resources and grants; and assists in public policy and the promotion of Utah’s rich history. Please visit history.utah.gov for more information.

The activity that is the subject of this journal has been financed in part with Federal funds from the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, and administer by the State Historic Preservation Office of Utah. The contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior or the Utah State Historic Preservation Office, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Department of the Interior or the Utah State Historic Preservation Office.

This program receives Federal financial assistance for identification and protection of historic properties. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Age Discrimination Act o f 1975, as amended, the U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, or age in its federally assisted programs. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to: Office for Equal Opportunity, National Park Service, 849 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20240.

2 IN THIS ISSUE

4

Building in Hell: Conflict and Compromise between Engineers and Environmentalists along the Logan Canyon Highway, 1961-1995

By Clint Pumphrey

27 All Hail to the President! Theodore Roosevelt Comes to Utah, May 29, 1903

By Michael S. Eldredge

43 Howard Stansbury’s Expedition around the Great Salt Lake: An Examination of the Route and the Maps

By Jesse G. Petersen

65 When Salt Lake City Became Hollywood: The Premiere of Darryl F. Zanuck’s Brigham Young

By James V. D’Arc, Ronald L. Fox, Photo

77 BOOK REVIEWS

Editor

Will Bagley. With Golden Visions Bright Before Them: Trails to the Mining West 1849-1852.

Reviewed by Tom Rea

J. Spencer Fluhman. “A Peculiar People”: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America.

Reviewed by Polly Aird

William R. Swagerty. The Indianization of Lewis and Clark.

Reviewed by Elise Boxer

Brandon S. Plewe, S. Kent Brown, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard H. Jackson, eds. Mapping Mormonism: An Atlas of Latter-day Saint History

Reviewed by Michael E. Christensen

Mary S. Melcher. Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Choice in Twentieth-Century Arizona.

Reviewed by Heidi Orchard

W. C. Jameson. Butch Cassidy: Beyond the Grave. Reviewed by Joel Frandsen

87 BOOK NOTICES

IN THIS ISSUE

Volume eighty-two of Utah Historical Quarterly opens with three articles that bear witness to the importance of the land in the American West. Scenic beauty and physical difficulties are overarching aspects of life in this diverse, mostly arid section of the continent. As Wallace Stegner put it, “The West is a region of extraordinary variety within its abiding unity, and of an iron immutability beneath its surface of change. The most splendid part of the American habitat, it is also the most fragile.”1 How then, have humans interacted with this splendid, fragile place? This, of course, is a key question in the history of both Utah and the West.

Our first article examines road development in Logan Canyon and a conflict that stretched from the 1960s to the 1990s. On one side were groups and individuals who wanted to preserve the aesthetics and ecology of the canyon; on the other, those who wanted a safer, faster highway through it. It was, in many ways, a classic contest about man’s relationship with the natural world, as

COVER: Linda Darnell and Tyrone Power, co-stars in Brigham Young, acknowledge paradegoers in downtown Salt Lake City, August 23, 1940. SALT LAKE CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT

IN THIS ISSUE (ABOVE): The Logan, Hyde Park, and Smithfield Canal, near the mouth of Logan Canyon, photographed in 1947. Utah State Historical Society. UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

the people of the Cache Valley and government administrators struggled to decide what constituted the greater good: ease of transportation (and all the economic and safety benefits that went with it) or the protection of a lovely place. This article is also about change over time—throughout the course of the Logan Canyon debate, the attitudes of many northern Utahns toward the environment evolved, from mostly utilitarian to more open to preservation.

Complex dealings with the land were hardly new to the late twentieth century, as our second article demonstrates. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt traveled through the West, in part to promote his conservationist ideals. The conservation of natural resources fit neatly with the progressive ethic, as reformers hoped to mitigate the effects of laissez-faire capitalism and industrialization through well-informed government involvement. Accordingly, in Utah, Roosevelt delivered a major speech at the LDS Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, wherein he expounded on the need to wisely manage irrigation systems, grazing lands, forests, and other resources. (As this issue’s opening article notes, places such as the Cache Valley were suffering from the ill effects of overgrazing and deforestation by Roosevelt’s time.) Notably, Roosevelt paid homage to the pioneering irrigation efforts of Utahns, a testament to the warming relationship between Utah and the federal government.

Half a century before Roosevelt delivered his speech at the tabernacle, another representative of the federal government made a trip to Utah that concerned the land as much as anything. Captain Howard Stansbury of the U.S. Army’s Topographical Corps led a surveying expedition around the Great Salt Lake in 1849. The details of this often arduous journey are preserved in a journal, an official report, and beautifully drawn maps—and yet, as our third article argues, these sources do not always agree with each other. Specifically, Jesse Petersen finds that significant discrepancies exist between Stansbury’s journal and report, on one hand, and his maps, on the other hand. Petersen’s examination of the Stansbury expedition also makes clear the difficulties experienced by that 1849 party: exploration was a key element in development and settlement of the American West by Euro-Americans, and it was far from easy.

The final piece in this issue, a photographic essay, takes us from the shores of the Great Salt Lake in 1849 to a moment of pomp and glamour in the Salt Lake City of 1940. That August, the executives of Twentieth Century Fox opened a major film, Brigham Young, not in Hollywood, but in Utah—and Utahns responded with verve. For some Utahns, much of the excitement came from Darryl Zanuck’s sympathetic portrayal of the Latter-day Saint story. And perhaps it was more than a little thrilling for Utahns to entertain some of Hollywood’s brightest stars (no one less than Tyrone Power) that August evening, when seven sold-out theaters premiered the film.

1 Wallace Stegner, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), 57.

Building

in Hell: Conflict and Compromise between

Engineers

and Environmentalists along the Logan Canyon Highway, 1961-1995

BY CLINT PUMPHREY

On September 13, 1960, readers of Logan, Utah’s Herald Journal awoke to the headline, “Blasts to Interrupt Logan Canyon Highway Traffic.” Crews planned to dynamite rock from the canyon walls for several days in an effort to straighten and widen U.S. Highway 89, which travels through the scenic gorge. The placement of the minor headline and accompanying four-paragraph story, tucked away on the lower left side of the newspaper’s front page, indicated how little the community was concerned about the project at the time. For most residents of the small Cache Valley town, nestled at the foot of the Bear River Range, the rumble of collapsing debris in the canyon was the sound of hard-earned progress.

While this utilitarian mindset still prevailed among Cache Valley residents, some in the community began to adopt new attitudes toward the environment. Prior to the 1960s, the locals’ approach to environmental protection was “conservationist” at best, meaning that they only supported environmental regulation primarily intended to maximize resource use or protect private property. Meanwhile, a growing segment of the national population began to espouse a

Crews perform cut and fill work for the Logan Canyon Highway near Beaver Mountain, 1939.

Clint Pumphrey is the manuscript curator in the Special Collections and Archives division of Utah State University’s Merrill-Cazier Library.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, MERRILL-CAZIER LIBRARY, USU

more aesthetic mindset. Represented by groups like the Wilderness Society and Sierra Club, these “preservationists” took the conservationists’ aim of responsible resource use to a new level, advocating the unconditional protection of certain natural landscapes and the plant and animal life that they supported. The first major victory for this “activist brand of conservation” that became known as “environmentalism” was the defeat of a proposed dam at Echo Park, Colorado, in the mid-1950s.1

In Cache Valley, the initial clash between the utilitarian goals of public works promoters and the preservationist ideals of environmentalists occurred several years later, in the 1960s, during a series of construction projects on the Logan Canyon highway. The two sides disagreed over the extent to which the canyon should be altered in order to accommodate what highway proponents termed “improvements”: straighter curves, wider shoulders, and passing lanes. This contentious debate raged on for twentyfive years, and in the process fundamentally changed the highway design and construction process in Cache Valley.

The Logan Canyon highway controversy emerged in a region where residents have long experienced a close connection with the environment. Like much of the West, Cache Valley is one of the “frontiers of real or perceived abundance whose regional identities have eventually been shaped by the experience of emerging scarcity.”2 Early settlers initially praised the valley’s bounty upon their arrival in the 1850s, only to struggle with the effects of widespread overgrazing and deforestation by the end of the century. The creation of federal forest reserves in the early 1900s helped local residents adapt to this scarcity and implement better policies for resource utilization. After World War II, the growth of tourism among the middle class made the scenery of the valley and its adjacent canyons an important resource just as the timber and grazing range had been in the previous century. The perceived threat to the aesthetic abundance of the landscape and the delicate habitat it supported was an important motivationfor those opposed to the Logan Canyon highway construction beginning in the 1960s.

Among the earliest and most enthusiastic reports of Cache Valley’s abundance came from Mormon explorers sent north by Brigham Young in August 1847. They described “a most beautiful valley, having seen the most timber of any place explored. From 9 miles to 17 ½ miles from Camp are 12 Streams running thro a good country to the Salt Lake.”3 The valley was not permanently settled until April 1859, when Peter Maughan led a small

1 Hal K. Rothman, The Greening of a Nation? Environmentalism in the United States Since 1945 (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998), 48; Mark Harvey, A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), xv.

2 William Cronon, “Landscapes of Abundance and Scarcity,” in The Oxford History of the American West, eds. Clyde A. Milner II, Carol A. O’Connor, and Martha Sandweiss (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 604.

3 Thomas Bullock, Journal, August 14, 1847, in The Pioneer Camp of the Saints, ed. Will Bagley (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2001), 256.

group of Mormons to an outpost near present-day Wellsville named Maughan’s Fort. The early settler boasted of the valley’s bounty in an 1859 Deseret News article, calling it “the best watered valley I have ever seen in these mountains” with “a reasonable amount of grass land in the vicinity of each settlement” and “plenty of timber consisting chiefly of pine, maple and quackenasp.”4 Brigham Young added his praise in a speech given at Richmond on June 6, 1860: “No other valley in the territory is equal to this. This has been my opinion ever since I first saw the valley.”5

Thanks in part to these glowing accounts, the population of Cache County ballooned from about 100 families in 1859 to 18,139 residents by 1900, creating the scarcity that so often accompanied growth in the West. The rising demand for timber needed to construct buildings and heat homes led to extensive deforestation in areas like Temple Fork, Tabernacle Hollow, White Pine Hollow, Blacksmith Fork Canyon, Millville Canyon, Blind Hollow, Brush Canyon, Beaver Canyon, and many others. One estimate suggests that crews extracted one-half billion board feet of lumber from the mountains surrounding Cache Valley between 1870 and 1900. Widespread overgrazing further stressed the region; between 1890 and 1900, the number of cattle in Cache County increased from 10,637 to 24,007, and the number of sheep jumped from 5,262 to 85,817.

Albert Potter, a former Arizona stockman sent by the United States Bureau of Forestry to survey the area and report on its condition, documented the damage caused by timber and grazing activities in his 1902 diary. 6 His observations, which included descriptions of clear-cut canyons and range denuded by sheep herds, were validated by the opinion of George L. Swendsen, a hydraulic engineer at the Agricultural College of Utah. Potter noted that Swendsen

Is opposed to grazing, thinks it should be prohibited for two years. Gave measurements of Logan River and Summit Creek showing that since deforestation and damage to range, floods have come down earlier in the spring and streams have almost gone dry later in season when water was most needed.7

Despite intense cooperation among Utah’s early Mormons, such evidence of scarcity in turn-of-the-century Cache Valley supports the assertion that they were unable to prevent widespread environmental degradation in their early settlements.8

4 Joel Edward Ricks, The Beginnings of Settlement in Cache Valley (Logan: Utah State Agricultural College, 1953), 17.

5 Ricks, Beginnings, 17.

6 After surveying the area in the summer of 1902, Potter estimated that the number of sheep grazing in Cache County was closer to 150,000, thanks to “tramp” sheep brought in from other counties to summer in the mountains surrounding the valley.

7

“Diary of Albert F. Potter: former associate chief of Forest Service: July 1, 1902–November 22, 1902,” July 18, 1902, Special Collections and Archives, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University, Logan, Utah (hereafter USUSCA).

8 Ralph B. Roberts, “History, Cache National Forest, Volume No. 1,” unpublished typescript, Cache National Forest papers (unprocessed), USUSCA; Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900: Number and Total

Because of problems associated with deforestation and overgrazing, local residents showed cautious support for a federal forest reserve in the mountains surrounding Cache Valley. While the idea of individual control was strong in Utah as in other parts of the West, competition for range and the deterioration of water quality were problems that many locals felt could only be solved through government intervention. Area livestock owners sought restrictions concerning transient herds that passed through Cache Valley and the surrounding mountains, which vied for already-stressed rangeland and caused cutthroat rivalries between herders.9

Other residents showed concern about water quality issues. Albert Potter, after meeting with citizens in favor of the forest reserve on July 3, 1902, noted that “they think the health of the town is endangered by stock dying near the stream and by the pollution of the water by the manure and the urine.”10 The following day, another supporter “said the sheep fouled the water and tramped the range up so that the amount of silt in the streams was much greater after a heavy rain than it was formerly.” 11 Interestingly, Potter wrote that the residents did not seem concerned about deforestation; rather, he observed “all evils being charged to stock.”12 With the support of the Logan city council and Mayor William Edwards, as well as U.S. congressman Joseph Howell of Utah’s first district, the federal government created the Logan Forest Reserve on May 29, 1903. While this could be considered Cache Valley’s first large-scale venture into conservation, the citizens’ reasons for protecting the forest showed the utilitarian mindset that influenced their actions.13

Much of the timber and grazing activity occurring in the mountains east of Logan was possible thanks to the construction of a road through Logan Canyon. The first mention of this undertaking was in the journal of Henry Ballard, a prominent early settler of Cache Valley. On February 23, 1862, he wrote, “Br. [Ezra Taft] Benson proposed that we open Logan Kanyon [sic] and A Committee was appointed to go and Explore it.”14 He and others began work just a few weeks later on March 17, clearing trees and large rocks to build what might best be described as a trail by today’s standards. Progress was slow and difficult. Ballard noted a significant setback on June

Value of Specified Domestic Animals on Farms and Ranges: Utah (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902), 487; Albert F. Potter, photocopy of original diary, July 18, 1902, USUSCA; Dan L. Flores, “Zion in Eden: Phases of the Environmental History of Utah,” Environmental Review, 7, no. 4 (Winter 1983): 325–44.

9 Roberts, “History, Cache National Forest.”

10 “Diary of Albert F. Potter,” July 3, 1902, USUSCA.

11 “Diary of Albert F. Potter,” July 4, 1902, USUSCA.

12 “Diary of Albert F. Potter,” July 3, 1902, USUSCA.

13 Charles Peterson and Linda E. Speth, “A History of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest” (Logan: Utah State University, 1980), 43.

14 Henry Ballard, transcribed journal, February 23, 1862, in Joel E. Ricks, Joel E. Ricks Collection of Transcriptions (from Diaries and Journals of Pioneers Who Settled in Cache Valley) (Logan: Library of the Utah State Agricultural College, 1955).

15: “it had been raining for two Days and then a Cloud Burst on the Mountain between the Green Kanyon and Logan Kanyon Part of the Water coming each way it washed all the Bridges away and all the Dug ways in Logan Kanyon that we had just made this Spring.”15

The Utah territorial legislature formalized the Logan Canyon road construction effort when it approved the incorporation of the Logan Cañon Road Company on January 19, 1866. The act assigned William Hyde, Thomas E. Ricks, William Budge, George Ferrel, and Thomas Tarbitt with the task of organizing the company to construct and maintain a road from Logan to the Rich County line. To accomplish this undertaking, the legislature gave the company the power to erect a toll gate, and on March 5, 1867, the Cache County government set the toll at a maximum of one dollar for a four-horse team and seventy-five cents for one pair of horses.16

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, under the direction of Brigham Young, was a strong proponent of Logan Canyon road construction. Young wanted to expand settlement of the Bear Lake region, and in a June 24, 1869, address to Logan residents, he “spoke upon the subject of the work of wisdom and cooperation and called upon us to open Logan Kanyon through to Bear Lake and put up the telegraph line through the Kanyon to Bear Lake Valley.”17 On October 25 of that year, Henry Ballard reported that he, Peter Maughan, and a crew of 270 men had completed the road to Ricks Spring. Meanwhile, Bear Lake residents worked to open the road from the eastern end. They initially constructed a route that originated in St. Charles, Idaho, and wound southwest through the mountains to Logan Canyon. Apparently, this road was not yet complete on August 24, 1870, when William Budge, of Paris, Idaho, reported to the Deseret News: “As soon as the harvesting is over, the people of Bear Lake calculate to go to in earnest and construct their portion of the Logan Kanyon road, connecting Rich and Cache counties.”18 However, a letter to the editor of the paper dated January 31, 1871, suggested that they had finished the route, noting, “Cache Valley is not far distant from St. Charles, via the Logan road.”19 By 1880, workers forged an alternate route that traveled west from Garden City and connected with the original road at Beaver Creek, following a course similar to present-day U.S. Highway 89.20

In addition to its role as an important connection between Logan and the Bear Lake Valley, the Logan Canyon road served a number of other

15 Ballard, transcribed journal, June 15, 1862.

16 Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, Passed at the Several Annual Sessions of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah (Salt Lake City: Henry McEwan, 1866), 218–19; County Book A, 1857–1878, 979.212 C113, USUSCA.

17 Ballard, transcribed journal, June 24, 1869.

18 Deseret News, August 24, 1870.

19 Deseret News, February 8, 1871.

20 Leonard Arrington, Charles C. Rich, Mormon General and Western Frontiersman (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1974), 274.

The

purposes in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1877, builders began traveling up the road to harvest timber from Temple Fork, a side canyon of the right hand fork of the Logan River, to build the Logan LDS temple. To pay for repairs necessitated by increased use, the Logan Cañon Road Company set up four toll gates along the route by August 1880, each charging twenty cents for passage. Additional traffic came in the 1890s when mining discoveries at places such as Devil’s Gate, Amazon Mine, and Cache Mammoth created a brief flurry of mineral extraction in Logan Canyon. Though traffic between Logan and Bear Lake increased, travel on the road was not necessarily easy. Logan’s newspaper, the Journal, printed an editorial on September 3, 1892, describing the road as “hardly passable. Here and there huge bolders [sic] adorn the drive way, while deep mudholes and dangerous washouts render a ride by that route somewhat exciting.” The author implored the Cache County government to make the repairs needed to encourage trade with the agricultural and mining interests in the Bear Lake area. A week later the county court made the canyon route a county road and approved $500 for immediate repairs. Logan City also helped pay for maintenance in the ensuing decades, as evidenced by a November 23, 1903, agreement between the county and Logan’s mayor, Lorenzo Hansen, that required the city to pay “one-half cost repairing Logan Canon [sic] Road.”21

By 1913, support for a state road connecting Cache and Rich counties grew among government officials and prominent citizens of both regions. The idea was particularly popular with the Logan Commercial-Boosters Club, which passed a resolution endorsing legislation to fund the project on February 19, in the hope that the new road would become a popular route for the increasing number of automobile tourists driving from Salt Lake City and Ogden to vacation at Bear Lake. These groups, together with the Utah State Road Commission, then chose which of the existing routes

21 Ballard, transcribed diary, October 25, 1869; F. Ross Peterson, A History of Cache County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and Cache County Commission, 1997), 181–84; Journal (Logan, UT), September 10, 1892; County of Cache to Logan, Utah, February 12, 1904, Cache County Records, box 8, fd. 23, USUSCA.

Logan Canyon Highway, from Logan to Garden City.

to Bear Lake the new road would follow: the one up the left hand fork of the Logan River to Garden City or another up the right hand fork of the Logan River to Meadowville.22 Officials ultimately settled on the former option, designating it as a state road in 1914 and ensuring its place today as the main thoroughfare from Logan to Bear Lake.23

The first round of construction on the “Cache–Rich” or “Logan–Garden City” road began in 1919. Because it was considered a “forest road project,” the United States Bureau of Public Roads supervised the work but shared the cost with the Utah State Road Commission. 24 Crews finished construction, which included grading and widening the earthen road as well as installing new culverts and bridges, by 1922 at a total cost of $151,788.75.25 After these modifications and several years of annual maintenance, the Utah State Road Commission described the thoroughfare as an “improved road generally good in all weather” in 1930.26

On December 11, 1925, the Logan Chamber of Commerce (formerly known as the Commercial-Boosters Club) Roads Committee moved to examine the cost of “surfacing and repairing certain places in Logan Canyon,” signaling its desire for further construction on the road. This wish became a reality in the 1930s and early 1940s, when the state and federal governments again collaborated to update the Logan Canyon road, this time through a series of fifteen building projects that cost a combined total of $900,000.27 Segment by segment, crews first laid a gravel base for the road and then paved it with a light-duty mixed bituminous surface. Gravelling took place between 1930 and 1939, while paving commenced in 1933 and concluded in 1941. With most of the work complete, the American Association of State Highway Officials designated the Logan

22

Formed in 1909, the Utah State Road Commission created the Utah State Department of Highways in 1959 to assist in the planning and construction of roads throughout the state. Effective July 1, 1975, the newly formed Transportation Commission and Utah Department of Transportation absorbed the responsibilities of these agencies.

23 Commercial-Boosters Club Minutes, September 19, 1913, October 13, 1915, Series I, box 3, fd. 1, Cache Chamber of Commerce Papers, COLL MSS 293, USUSCA; State Road Commission, Third Biennial Report: 1913 and 1914 (Salt Lake City: Arrow Press, 1915), 77.

24 The Bureau of Public Roads was first created as the Office of Road Inquiry in 1893. Housed under the Department of Agriculture, it was known successively as the Office of Public Road Inquiries, the Office of Public Roads, and the Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering before assuming the name Bureau of Public Roads in 1918. In 1939, the bureau was absorbed into the Federal Works Agency and became known as the Public Roads Administration. Transferred to the Department of Commerce in 1949, it was again referred to as the Bureau of Public Roads. Beginning in 1967 the bureau briefly operated under the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) before its functions were completely absorbed by the FHWA on August 10, 1970. “Records of the Bureau of Public Roads,” National Archives, accessed October 15, 2013, http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/030.html.

25 Federal funds supplied $79,468.75 of the cost; $72,320.00 came from the state.

26 State Road Commission, Sixth Biennial Report: 1919–1920 (Kaysville, UT: Inland Printing, n.d.), 60; State Road Commission, Seventh Biennial Report: 1921–1922 (Salt Lake City: Arrow Press, n.d.), 47, 77, 103; State Road Commission, Eleventh Biennial Report: 1929–1930 (n.p., n.d.), rear map insert.

27 “Special Meeting of Roads Committee,” December 11, 1925, Series I, box 3, fd. 4, Cache Chamber of Commerce Papers, COLL MSS 293, USUSCA.

LOGAN CANYON HIGHWAY

Canyon road as a part of U.S. Highway 89 during their annual convention in Dallas, Texas, in December 1938.28 By the winter of 1940–1941, crews used plows to keep the road open year-round for the first time. These developments, together with the construction projects that made them possible, facilitated a significant increase in traffic. Usage increased from 66 vehicles per day in 1929–1930 to 821 in 1940.29

While construction on the Logan Canyon highway proceeded without resistance throughout the 1930s and 1940s, road work in such environmentally sensitive areas would face increased opposition in the second half of the twentieth century. Such preservationist sentiment was rooted in three broad changes to outdoor recreation that occurred between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II: the proliferation of the automobile, an increased emphasis on consumerism, and the willingness of governments to fund highway projects. These developments certainly gave Americans a greater appreciation for nature, but they also made it more difficult for tourists to find the pristine landscapes and solitude they often sought. For this reason the concept of wilderness and other preservationist ideals were “more a response to than a product of the ways in which Americans were coming to know nature through leisure during the interwar years.”30

Each of these changes in outdoor recreation was present in northern Utah during the interwar period. The number of vehicle registrations in the state rose dramatically, from 32,273 in 1918 to 150,493 in 1941. Consumerism among outdoor enthusiasts was alive and well in Logan, which, by 1941, boasted four tourist courts and a commercial ski area in the Sinks area of nearby Logan Canyon.31 Finally, by working cooperatively to pave the Logan Canyon highway, both the state and federal governments indicated their commitment to fund highway projects. It was this continued willingness to expand and realign this road to accommodate greater

28 The Utah and Idaho road commissions had a long-standing dispute with the Wyoming commission over the routing of U.S. Highway 89 between Provo and Yellowstone National Park. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Utah and Idaho’s commissions wanted the highway to travel from Provo to Salt Lake City, Ogden, Brigham City, Logan, Garden City, Montpelier, Star Valley, and the Grand Canyon of the Snake River to Yellowstone. Wyoming’s commission preferred that the route travel from Provo to Heber, Coalville, Echo Junction, Evanston, Kemmerer, and Big Piney to Yellowstone. When the American Association of State Highway Officials designated the former route as U.S. Highway 89, they labeled the latter route as U.S. Highway 189. Salt Lake Tribune, December 13, 1938.

29 Salt Lake Tribune, December 13, 1938; Federal Works Agency, Public Road Administration, “Plans for Proposed Project 1-A10,” 1947, located at the Utah Department of Transportation Region One office, Ogden, Utah (hereafter UDOT); State Road Commission, Seventeenth Biennial Report: 1941–1942 (n.p., n.d.), 65, 145; State Road Commission, Twelfth Biennial Report: 1931–1932 (Salt Lake City: Arrow Press, n.d.), 197; State Road Commission, Sixteenth Biennial Report: 1939–1940 (n.p., n.d.), 190.

30 Paul S. Sutter, Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), 20.

31 United States Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921), 355; United States Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1942), 472; Logan City and Cache County Directory, 1939–1940 (Salt Lake City: R. L. Polk, 1939); Logan (UT) Herald Journal, January 17, 1941.

numbers of tourists and outdoor enthusiasts that drew the initial ire of Cache Valley environmentalists in the 1960s.

The Utah State Department of Highways (USDH) finalized plans for a new round of Logan Canyon highway construction on September 7, 1960. The plans included specifications to widen five miles of U.S. Highway 89 from 1500 East in Logan to Spring Hollow, resurface it with four inches of asphalt, and straighten out some of its curves. On August 2, the State of Utah awarded the contract to the Jack B. Parson Company of Smithfield at a bid of $527,737. The absence of legal obstacles and minimal environmental protest enabled the contractor to begin construction just one month after the plans were finalized.32 The sole voice of opposition came from the State Department of Fish and Game, which feared consequences to fish habitat along the proposed route. The concern was over the Logan River and three small dam-formed lakes, which shared the canyon bottom with the road segment in question. One ecological concern was the straightening and rechanneling of the river, which could increase water velocity and its erosive ability, causing siltation that endangers aquatic vegetation and spawning beds. The removal of overhanging vegetation was also problematic; such plant life provides shade, food, and a habitat structure in aquatic systems. Because of these threats, the United States Forest Service (USFS), which had to issue special use permits for construction projects in areas under its control, insisted that USDH compromise with the State Department of Fish and Game on its original plans. However, partly because of the public’s indifference, the final design failed to prevent the majority of environmental malfeasance. Most notably, one-third of the lake at Third Dam was filled in order to straighten a curve.33

Though the public did nothing to alter, delay, or halt the construction, it did not go entirely unnoticed. Once the work began, several columnists, local citizens, and past tourists offered their opinions on the editorial page of the Herald Journal. Local residents, especially, supported the construction and foresaw no negative effects. “Whether we like it or not, Logan Canyon is a commercial route,” stated Alan Conrad, a Logan resident. “The necessity of trailing behind a large, slow truck or a slow sight-seer’s car is not conducive to business efficiency.” 34 Owen Brown of Logan added his approval: “I can say, after driving through the construction area, that no harm is coming to Logan or its people through this project.”35

The opposition, though less local in its composition, was equally confident in its stance. Some blamed commercialism and consumption for the

32 Utah State Department of Highways design plans, project F-021-1, 1960, UDOT; Logan (UT) Herald Journal, August 3, September 2, 1960.

33 Jack H. Berryman, “Logan Canyon Road Controversy, Anatomy of a Principle,” National Parks Magazine, July 1963, 13, 14; Richard T. T. Forman et. al., Road Ecology: Science and Solutions (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2003), 340.

34 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, October 9, 1960.

35 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, October 3, 1960.

decision to modify the highway. Virgil Walker, a Missourian who had once visited the area with his family, lamented the threat to the canyon and hoped it would not be “debased or dissipated in the pursuit of the ‘almighty dollar.’” 36

Another man, a Washington, D.C., writer named John Bulger, cynically charged that USDH’s goal was simply “to get people into Logan City faster so they have more time to spend their money.” 37 Others questioned the necessity of a faster, straighter road. “Who wants a speedway to drive so fast you can’t see or enjoy the beautiful canyon?” asked Mrs. Floyd Kendrick of Providence, Utah.38

Most notable among those opposed to the canyon construction was Dr. Jack H. Berryman, a wildlife management specialist at Utah State University (USU). Berryman had just returned to Logan after a stint with the Federal Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife in Minnesota, and he was appalled by the public’s seeming indifference to the alterations in the canyon. “Cache Valley residents can now see at first hand the effects of straightening and widening the highway up Logan Canyon,” he wrote. “If this scene of the first phase of the work is projected on up the canyon, it should give every Cache resident—and in fact, every Utah resident—cause for serious reflection.”39 For the next five years, Berryman used his position at the university to promote this awareness.40

Not long after the bulldozers rolled out of the canyon, the College of Forest, Range, and Wildlife Management, under the direction of Berryman and Dean J. Whitney Floyd, decided to study the impact of highway

36

Logan (UT) Herald Journal, October 18, 1960.

37 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, August 13, 1960.

38 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, October 3, 1960.

39 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, September 16, 1960.

40 Vitae and biographical sketches, box 1, fd. 1, Jack H. Berryman Papers, COLL MSS 289, USUSCA.

Jack H. Berryman, a USU wildlife management specialist, circa 1960.

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construction on land and resource use. In a letter dated March 28, 1961, Floyd announced to C. Taylor Burton, USDH Director of Highways, the appointment of two faculty committees: one to examine “the broad regional and state-wide implications of highway development with respect to urban and rural development, resource use, outdoor recreation, and other factors” and another to study “the impact of the proposed road construction on the fishery resource and fisherman utilization of the Logan River.”41

The result of this effort was a university publication entitled, “Road Construction and Resource Use,” printed in late 1961. Whether he intended to or not, Chase put his school squarely in the center of the Logan Canyon highway controversy with this work, declaring in the foreword: “It is my belief that universities have educational responsibilities that go beyond the campus—responsibilities for creating an informed public aware of issues and prepared to act intelligently.”42 In the following pages, the booklet dealt with the impact of highways on “three major resource groups: (1) Forest, range, and watershed resources; (2) Wildlife resources, and (3) Scenic and recreational resources.” The first section mainly addressed the unnatural erosion caused by highway cuts and fills and the effect of such erosion on aquatic wildlife; this was reminiscent of the concerns expressed the previous year by the State Department of Fish and Game. The next section emphasized the role of highways as barriers to migrating species and the often-fatal result when animals try to cross them. The writers of the final section focused on the need to preserve the scenic nature of highway corridors for the sake of those who seek out such beauty for recreational purposes. The book concluded with recommendations for coordinated planning among the public and private interests of agriculture, wildlife, and recreation.43

Though penned exclusively by university faculty, the manifesto served as a concrete sign that organized environmentalism was beginning to take hold in Cache Valley. Burton, of the USDH, saw the publication as an attack on the Logan Canyon project and aired his frustration in a letter to President Chase dated November 20, 1961: “It is extremely disheartening to those of us engaged in the very complex and demanding endeavor of highway building to have such a statement issued under your sponsorship at a time when more heat than light has been generated on the subject by demand and counter demands relating to Logan Canyon.”44 Floyd responded a few days later, assuring Burton that the university committees wanted the

41 J. Whitney Floyd to C. Taylor Burton, June 23, 1961, Historical Materials, College of Natural Resources, University Archives 14.7:17, box 8, USUSCA.

42 College of Forest, Range, and Wildlife Management, “Road Construction and Resource Use,” No. 3 Land-Grant Centennial Diamond Jubilee Series, 1961, 4, USUSCA.

43 College of Forest, Range, and Wildlife Management, “Road Construction and Resource Use,” 9–15.

44 C. Taylor Burton to Daryl Chase, November 20, 1961, Historical Materials, College of Natural Resources, box 8, USUSCA.

road in Logan Canyon to be completed and would not involve themselves in administrative decisions regarding the project. He and his colleagues simply expressed the hope that the state agencies involved could find a solution that included “a satisfactory design, adequate financing, with minimum damage to the natural resources affected.”45 Nevertheless, it was clear that the USDH’s decisions would no longer go unchallenged.

By the end of 1961, mounting concern for the environmental integrity of Logan Canyon brought the phase-two design process to an impasse. The USFS refused to issue a special-use permit, even though the State Road Commission and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads had approved a redesign of the Spring Hollow-to-Right Hand Fork construction that included an additional $100,000 for resource protection work. Their studies indicated that the proposed highway alignment would encroach too far into the Logan River channel, damaging its aquatic habitat. Citing the potential displacement of the natural pools and vegetation necessary for the survival of the river’s trout population, the USFS recommended another $127,000 of work needed to meet what they called “‘minimum damage’ requirements.” “I cannot,” Regional Forester Floyd Iverson concluded, “in the absence of the facts to the contrary, agree to a proposal set at a level below that which meets the ‘minimum’ resource protection need.”46

A July 1963 article in National Parks Magazine, written by Jack Berryman, brought the Logan Canyon controversy to a national audience. In this four-page spread, complete with maps and photographs, Berryman argued that “we must have a modern highway network. This, however, cannot continue to be engineered at the expense of irreplaceable public resources.” He went on to call for “mandatory coordination between highway planning agencies and public and private organizations concerned with resource use,” legislation to protect natural resources, and increased public involvement. 47 Given the increasing publicity of the highway project, the USDH eventually bent to the pressure of the USFS and again modified its designs. They accepted the USFS requirements to avoid the most significant riverbed disturbance, and by 1968 work was underway on the 4.2-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 89 from Spring Hollow to Right Hand Fork. While environmentalists might not have received all of the concessions they wanted, in comparison to the 1961 project, the 1968 construction represented an important compromise.48

Following the reasonably contentious debate with the USFS, the USDH, intent on improving safety in the canyon, did not wait long to resume their

45 J. Whitney Floyd to C. Taylor Burton, Harold S. Crane, Floyd Iverson, and Grant E. Meyers, November 25, 1961, Historical Materials, College of Natural Resources, box 8, USUSCA.

46 Floyd Iverson to J. Whitney Floyd, December 4, 1961, Historical Materials, College of Natural Resources, box 8, USUSCA; Floyd Iverson, “The Forest Service Position on the Logan Canyon Highway,” Historical Materials, College of Natural Resources, box 8, USUSCA.

47 Berryman, “Logan Canyon,” 15.

48 Utah State Department of Highways design plans, project F-021-1(3), October 1967, UDOT.

highway alteration efforts in Logan Canyon. On August 27, 1969, the State Road Commission of Utah quietly held a public meeting to discuss the design features of a section of U.S. Highway 89 from Right Hand Fork to Twin Bridges. This proposal resulted in another article from National Parks Magazine, written by the conservationist George Alderson, which criticized the 1968 construction as “the same old cut-and-fill job”—despite the compromise between the USDH and the USFS. Alderson also condemned the most recent proposal, arguing that by funding a portion of the highway construction, the U.S. government was irrationally using federal money to destroy federal land. With enough public pressure, Alderson hoped that “Logan Canyon can be the proving ground for a new concept of scenic road conservation.”49

Indeed, the third phase of construction would play out much differently, thanks to potent legal weapons provided by new federal legislation, namely the recently signed National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). Debated by Congress in 1968 and 1969 and signed into law by President Richard Nixon on January 1, 1970, NEPA fulfilled the need for an encompassing strategy of environmental consideration and protection for the country’s invaluable wildlife and habitats. Section 102, part C, of the legislation required “all agencies of the Federal Government” to include in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on— (i) the environmental impact of the proposed action, (ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented, (iii) alternatives to the proposed action, (iv) the relationship between local short-term uses of man’s environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and (v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented.50

The “detailed statement” required by NEPA—which officials eventually termed an environmental impact statement—pushed ecological concern to the forefront of highway planning.51

This significant adjustment in federal environmental policy was accompanied by a change in leadership for those fighting Logan Canyon highway construction. When Jack Berryman departed USU in 1965, William T. Helm, an associate professor of wildlife resources, assumed the reins of the Logan Canyon cause. In June 1970, Helm formed a new faculty group

49 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, September 10, 1970; George Alderson, “Logan Canyon: Standards for Destruction,” National Parks Magazine, November 1969, 20.

50 National Environmental Policy Act, sec. 102, 1970, accessed November 15, 2006, http://www.nepa.gov/nepa/regs/nepa/nepaqia.htm.

51 Ray Clark and Larry Canter, Environmental Policy and NEPA: Past, Present, and Future (Boca Raton, FL: St. Lucie Press, 1997), 10, 12.

known as the Northern Utah Environmental Advisory Committee to review the latest plans. He then forwarded a list of questions about the ecological, recreational, and scenic impacts of the latest project to the head of each agency required to approve designs for construction: Ross Plant, Utah State Road Commission; Vern Hamre, USFS; and George Bohn, U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. Unlike Berryman’s committee in the 1960s, Helm’s committee consisted of many members outside the College of Forest, Range, and Wildlife Management. Participation by engineers, botanists, social scientists, and a philosopher attested to the widening appeal of environmentalism in Cache Valley, though such interest remained concentrated at the university.52

Despite initially positive correspondence, Helm’s committee and the USFS soon found themselves opposite the highway agencies on many key issues. By August 1970 both the Utah State Road Commission and the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads had approved the plans without the execution of any environmental analysis. Believing that the work would lack the environmental consequence necessary for extensive study, Ross Plant suggested in a letter to Helm that “provisions of the Environmental Policy Act probably do not apply to construction in Logan Canyon.” 53 Nevertheless, Helm and his committee had several aesthetic and ecological concerns. Like Berryman before him, Helm feared the disruption of canyon scenery and the intrusion of the road into the river, this time due to the USDH’s initial proposal to widen each lane from twelve feet to sixteen feet to add six-foot shoulders to the existing alignment. He also rejected the department’s assertion that straightening and widening the road would make it safer, suggesting instead that such modifications would encourage motorists to drive faster and would thereby increase accidents. Helm recommended widening the road by only a few feet and adding passing lanes only where room permitted. “Moderate improvements are needed,” he said, “but not a new road.”54

With pressure mounting on the USDH, the USFS issued an “environmental analysis report” in April 1971, which the author claimed “responds directly to the intention and direction given by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.”55 The report made fifty-three recommendations to minimize the road’s impact on the canyon, from landscaping disturbed areas to avoiding alterations of the Logan River channel. The Utah State Road Commission

52 William T. Helm to Ross Plant, Vern Hamre, and George Bohn, June 23, 1970, Logan Canyon Highway Reconstruction Correspondence, item MSS 78, USUSCA.

53 Ross Plant to William T. Helm, July 28, 1970, Logan Canyon Highway Reconstruction Correspondence, item MSS 78, USUSCA.

54 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, August 31, September 10, 1970; U.S. Forest Service, Environmental Analysis Report: Logan Canyon Highway, 1971, p. 26, Logan Canyon Highway Construction correspondence, item MSS 78, USUSCA; C. Arthur Geurts to Blaine J. Kay, October 8, 1970, Logan Canyon Highway Reconstruction correspondence, item MSS 78, USUSCA.

55 U.S. Forest Service, Environmental Analysis Report, 1.

continued to push for the construction until 1972, when the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) decided that the Logan Canyon project required the preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS). This decision represented a setback for the Utah State Road Commission and the USDH, which did little to promote the construction for several years.56

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) seemed ready for another fight in April 1979 when it reproposed highway alterations between Right Hand Fork and Ricks Spring in a Class III “non-major” federal action category, thus exempting the project from the necessity of a full EIS. Reaction to the recommendation was swift and stern. The Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club expressed apprehension over UDOT’s compliance with NEPA guidelines. Utah First District Representative Gunn McKay echoed this concern, writing to George Bohn, the division administrator of the FHWA, “There are those who feel that the assignment of a Category III classification does not reflect a correct assessment of the changes which are to be made in the canyon.”57 The controversy also drew attention from the Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon (CPLC), a local group of concerned residents that organized in 1976 to oppose development in Stump Hollow. The group compiled “an analysis of the proposed re-alignment of U.S. 89 in Logan Canyon, Utah,” and presented it to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on August 20, 1979. The document’s authors, who included USU professors Jack Spence and William Helm, noted apparent errors and discrepancies in UDOT’s traffic forecasts and accident statistics, the foundation of the agency’s argument for road improvements. They also explored the potential environmental impact of the project on Logan Canyon, particularly its riparian habitat.58

With pressure from the FHWA, UDOT decided to accept the added costs of the full EIS and upgrade the project to the Class I “major” category in December 1979. Politicians and businessmen who supported the highway construction criticized this decision, including state senator Charles Bullen, who represented Cache and Rich counties at the time. “We have been studying that roadway for 15 years and nothing has been done,” Bullen said. “I’m recommending to the governor that we not put any more money into the project and that we just not do it period.”59

56 Utah State Department of Highways design plans, project F-021-1(4), 1972, UDOT; Utah Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration, “U.S. Highway 89 Logan Canyon Highway Cache and Rich Counties, Utah: Final Environmental Impact Statement,” 1993, 1-1.

57 Gunn McKay to George W. Bohn, August 2, 1979, box 450, fd. 14, Gunn McKay Papers, COLL MSS 86, USUSCA.

58 Utah Statesman, December 5, 1979; Brian Beard to M. J. Roberts, November 21, 1979, Series VIII.B, box 28, fd. 8, Sierra Club, Utah Chapter archives, 1972–1986, COLL MSS 148, USUSCA; Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon, Logan Canyon Newsletter, November 8, 1976, box 1, fd. 4, Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon/Logan Canyon Coalition Papers (hereafter CPLC/LCC Papers), COLL MSS 314, USUSCA; Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon, “An Analysis of the Proposed Re-alignment of U.S. 89 in Logan Canyon, Utah,” August 20, 1979, Series VIII.B, box 28, fd. 12, Sierra Club archives, USUSCA.

59 Salt Lake Tribune, December 13, 1979.

Just one week after approval of the EIS, a bleak state roads budget and continuing environmental opposition led UDOT to abandon its decision to perform an environmental study on the highway. It would instead begin work on plans to improve guardrails and signage, which the agency completed in 1984 and implemented the next year. Interestingly, not even these minor modifications went up without criticism. “The Sierra Club is concerned about the numerous new reflectors and posts that were placed along the lower portion of Logan Canyon Highway,” read a June 16, 1986, letter from Rudy Lukez of the Sierra Club’s Cache Group to UDOT’s Lynn Zolinger. “We feel that these closely spaced markers are very unsightly.”60

The new guardrails, reflectors, and signs were hardly in the ground before UDOT regrouped and began to again push for more extensive changes to the unmodified stretch of the Logan Canyon highway from Right Hand Fork to Garden City. In June 1986 UDOT, in cooperation with the USFS, awarded the environmental and engineering consulting firm CH2M Hill with $530,000 to complete “a comprehensive, year-long study” of this twenty-eight-mile stretch. Because of the FHWA’s past assertion that proposed construction in the canyon required the completion of a full EIS, the contract stipulated that the report be prepared as a less-intensive “environmental assessment” with the expectation that a full EIS might ultimately be required.61

The three main goals of the study were “to identify locations on the road where problems exist in safety, maintenance, road design, and capacity; to propose several alternative means, through repair or improvements, to the problems; and to conduct an analysis of the potential impacts on the environment of the proposed alternatives.” 62 UDOT, conscious of the controversy CH2M’s recommendations would stir, soon assembled an “interdisciplinary team” charged with reviewing the firm’s findings and presenting them to the public and other government agencies as part of a “public involvement program.” The team consisted of representatives from UDOT, CH2M Hill, the USFS, the FHWA, and representatives of the environmental community, including Jack Spence and Rudy Lukez of the Sierra Club, Tom Lyon of the Utah Wilderness Association, Steve Flint of the Bridgerland Audubon Association, and William Helm of USU’s wildlife resources program. Most of these men were also involved with the Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon, and all but Lukez, a rocket scientist at Morton Thiokol in Brigham City, were affiliated with USU.63

60 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, December 15, 1978; Utah State Department of Highways design plans, 1984, UDOT; Rudy Lukez to Lynn Zolinger, June 16, 1986, Series VIII.B, box 27, fd. 9, Sierra Club archives, USUSCA.

61 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, August 10, 1986.

62 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, August 10, 1986.

63 “Agenda—Logan Canyon Study, Interdisciplinary Study Team, Meeting No. 2—Ogden, Utah, June 23, 1986—7:00 p.m.,” Series VIII.B, box 27, fd. 1, Sierra Club archives, USUSCA.64 Logan Canyon Environmental Study Public Meeting, Logan, Utah, September 23, 1986, Series VIII.B, box 27, fd. 10, Sierra Club archives, USUSCA.

In the fall of 1986, UDOT held two public meetings to allow Logan and Garden City residents to air their opinions. At these hearings groups supporting and opposing canyon construction coalesced in much the same way that they had in the past. On one side were environmentalists (many of them affiliated with USU) and some members of the USFS, who both felt that little or nothing should be done to the highway. The other side consisted of business owners, elected officials, and citizens who regularly traveled the canyon and viewed the highway as inadequate and in need of repair. The concerns of the first group hinged mainly on the preservation of the scenic beauty and river habitat in the canyon. “You might talk about change rather than improvement, or if you want another word that is loaded use bulldoze rather than improvement,” quipped Wendell Anderson, a USU professor of political science. The latter group consisted mostly of people who traveled the canyon on a regular basis and had an understandable interest in safety. “There are some damn serious places in that canyon,” said Ted Seeholzer from Beaver Mountain Ski Area, addressing the assembly. “I’ve had family members who have been injured because of severe turns, and I’m sure a lot of you have.”64 This type of comment was largely echoed in the Garden City meeting. “How many lawsuits do we have to file to get this sub-standard road improved?” asked one frustrated resident.65

64 Logan Canyon Environmental Study Public Meeting, Logan, Utah, September 23, 1986, Series VIII.B, box 27, fd. 10, Sierra Club Archives, USUSCA.

65 Logan Canyon Public Meeting, November 3, 1986, Series VIII.B, box 27, fd. 10, Sierra Club archives, USUSCA.

A public scoping meeting concerning the Logan Canyon environmental study, Logan City Hall, March 4, 1987.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, MERRILL-CAZIER LIBRARY, USU

Pressured by the growing controversy, the FHWA upgraded the incomplete Environmental Assessment to a full EIS in December 1986. Financially overextended by the rising expectations, CH2M Hill requested and received an additional $90,240 in 1987 and $91,000 in 1988, bringing the report’s total price tag to over $700,000. What was originally intended to be a year-long study slowly became more costly in both time and money.66

As the public awaited the delayed release of the draft EIS, the controversy over the Logan Canyon highway construction intensified. The Cache Chamber of Commerce board of directors voted to make the road project a “priority.”67 The city councils of both Smithfield and Logan approved limited improvements to the canyon, including the replacement of narrow bridges and the addition of several turnouts. In March 1987 UDOT held another pair of public meetings in Logan and Garden City addressing the highway construction. Thanks to a heavy turnout at the Logan meeting by representatives and members of the Utah Wilderness Association, Cache Group Sierra Club, Friends of Bear Lake, Bridgerland Audubon Society, and Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon, most of the comments called on UDOT to either leave the canyon alone or make only minor safety improvements. Throughout the summer of 1987, these groups circulated newsletters, organized publicity events, and wrote numerous letters to UDOT and the USFS in opposition to the construction. Many shared the sentiment of the CPLC that “protection of Logan Canyon’s scenic beauty, fish and wildlife habitat, rare plants, recreation sites, and naturalness must be a prime concern.”68

As the draft EIS neared completion, environmentalists felt that UDOT was increasingly ignoring their concerns over the proposed Logan Canyon highway construction. Although the interdisciplinary team held twenty-five meetings between June 1986 and July 1987, environmentalists did not meet formally with highway officials again until a “citizens’ review committee” convened in September and November 1989. This group—appointed by UDOT to ensure that the draft EIS was “understandable” and “appropriately addressed” environmental and safety concerns—included just one environmentalist, Bruce Pendery of the CPLC. The other four members represented the Cache County Chamber of Commerce, the City of Logan, and the Cache and Rich county commissions. Like the interdisciplinary team, the citizens’ review committee provided UDOT with input for the design plan but had no role in the final approval of the project. That decision would be made by UDOT, USFS, and FHWA.69

66 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, May 31, June 22, 1987, October 18, 1988.

67 Paula O. Bell to Todd G. Weston, January 7, 1987, Series VIII.B, box 27, fd. 9, Sierra Club archives, USUSCA.

68 Logan (UT) Herald Journal, March 4, 12, April 15, 1987; Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon, Logan Canyon Bulletin, February 1987, box 1, fd. 4, CPLC/LCC Papers, USUSCA.

69 Utah Department of Transportation, “U.S. Highway Route 89 Logan Canyon Highway Cache and Rich Counties, Utah: Draft Environmental Impact Statement,” 1990, 7-2 to 7-6; Salt Lake Tribune, December 8, 1987; Logan (UT) Herald Journal, January 1, 1988.

In November 1990, CH2M Hill finally completed and released the much-anticipated draft EIS. The document included eight alternatives, ranging from no action to a recommendation that ignored environmental concerns, to bring the highway in line with national standards. However, the two main alternatives fell between these extremes: the “composite alternative,” agreed upon by the FHWA, UDOT, and USFS; and the “conservationists’ alternative,” a more environmentally conscious approach spearheaded by CPLC. Both accepted the notion that the highway needed to be modified with consideration for the beauty of the canyon and its environment, but differed on what the extent of those changes should be.70

The composite alternative and the conservationists’ alternative began with similar plans for the highway just north of Right Hand Fork, but the proposals became increasingly dissimilar as the highway continued toward Garden City. In the Middle Canyon (Right Hand Fork to 1.8 miles east of Ricks Spring), both alternatives recommended that the road retain its original 23-foot width and 25 miles-per-hour design speed for the first four miles. Beyond this point, the composite alternative called for straighter curves and a 34-foot pavement width in order to increase the design speed to 35 miles per hour, while the conservationists’ alternative sought to maintain the same road width and design speed throughout the entire section. Both plans included the replacement of five bridges, and neither required the river to be rechanneled. For the upper canyon (1.8 miles east

70 Utah Department of Transportation, “Draft Environmental Impact Statement,” 2-1 to 2-56.

Activists from the CPLC mark the new road alignments under consideration in the canyon, June 1987.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, MERRILL-CAZIER LIBRARY, USU

of Ricks Spring to the Rich County line), both alternatives endorsed the replacement of six bridges and the construction of three passing lanes, but that is where the agreement ended. The composite alternative recommended that the road be widened from 23 feet to 40 feet and four curves be straightened to increase the design speed from 40 to 50 miles per hour. The conservationists’ alternative rejected all of these changes. Perhaps the most significant point of contention was the composite alternative’s plan to rechannel Beaver Creek, a suggestion that the CPLC’s Tom Lyon called “an environmental outrage.”71 There was even less overlap in the alternative’s designs for the Rich County segment (Rich County line to Garden City). The conservationists’ alternative did not include any changes to the highway’s 23-foot pavement width or the alignment of its curves, leaving the road’s 25 miles-per-hour design speed unchanged. The composite alternative, on the other hand, called for a pavement width of 47 feet and the flattening of 16 curves, increasing the design speed from 40 to 50 miles per hour.72

Clearly, highway officials and environmentalists had yet to reach a compromise. UDOT and CH2M Hill cosponsored a public hearing at Mount Logan Middle School on January 15, 1991. More than 150 environmentalists and construction advocates attended the four-hour meeting. “The loss of wetlands, reduction of fish population, threats to plants and loss of migratoryspecies—to me is not worth the five or 10 minutes we will save traveling through Logan Canyon,” said Logan resident William Stone, echoing the concerns Cache Valley environmentalists had expressed for three decades. Supporters of the construction also chimed in with recycled appeals. “The road through Logan Canyon is truly our lifeline,” said Laketown City Council member Craig Floyd. “Our economic present and economic future hinge on this lifeline.”73

Unwilling to fold in the face of controversy for a third time, UDOT decided in June 1991 to push the process forward and move ahead with the final EIS. Angered, environmentalists heightened their protest of the impending construction. In April 1992, four hundred protesters gathered in Logan Canyon wielding signs that read “UDOT, Go Build in Hell” and “We Don’t Prefer It.” Amid threats of a lengthy court battle, UDOT and CH2M Hill completed the final EIS in March 1993.74

The final EIS referred to the design recommendations of UDOT and the FHWA as the “preferred alternative,” a slightly updated version of the composite alternative in the draft EIS. This new set of proposals included some changes sought by environmentalists, including the elimination of a passing lane on a narrow section of road in the middle canyon known as

71 Thomas J. Lyon to Dave Baumgartner, January 17, 1989, box 1, fd. 1, CPLC/LCC Papers, USUSCA.

72 Utah Department of Transportation, “Draft Environmental Impact Statement,” 2-21 to 2-36, 2-38 to 2-56.

73 Salt Lake Tribune, January 17, 1991.

74 Salt Lake Tribune, June 2, 1991, April 26, 1992, March 3, 1993.

This design was emblazoned on T-shirts for the 1993 Giardia Run, a fundraising event once held annually in Logan. The logo features a giardia protozoan holding a monkey wrench—a symbol of environmental protest—and kicking a UDOT construction cone. It also alludes to the Branch Davidians, a cult besieged by state and federal law enforcement outside of Waco, Texas, just months earlier. Proceeds from the 1993 run benefitted groups opposed to UDOT’s Logan Canyon Highway efforts.

“the dugway” and a retraction of the previous plan to rechannel Beaver Creek. However, the preferred alternative did include the straightening of nineteen curves along the Rich County segment, an increase from the sixteen recommended in the composite alternative. In an effort to hammer out a final compromise, UDOT invited representatives of the CPLC to participate in a series of meetings held between December 1993 and October 1994. These sessions resulted in one last significant concession to the environmentalists: UDOT agreed to narrow the pavement width in the first eight miles of the Upper Canyon from forty feet to thirty-four feet. With this change the CPLC offered its “provisional and conditional approval” of the preferred alternative, though it still opposed many of the design proposals and ultimately remained unconvinced of the project’s necessity. In January 1995 the FHWD and UDOT approved the final “record of decision,” recommending the modified preferred alternative as a guideline for the highway modifications.The USFS released its own Record of Decision in March, accepting the preferred alternative and ostensibly bringing an end to the twenty-five-year battle over the Logan Canyon road construction.75 Not everyone readily accepted the preferred alternative, however. A group of environmentalists frustrated by the CPLC’s willingness to compromise formed the Logan Canyon Coalition (LCC) in 1995 “to seek further modifications through the Forest Service appeals process.”76 The

75 Utah Department of Transportation, “Draft Environmental Impact Statement,” 2-54; UDOT and FHWA “Final Environmental Impact Statement,” 2-2 to 2-16; Steering Committee, Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon, to David W. Berg, October 27, 1994, box 1, fd. 1, CPLC/LCC Papers, USUSCA; Utah Department of Transportation, “Record of Decision,” 1995, USUSCA; U.S. Forest Service, “Record of Decision,” 1995, Utah Wilderness Association Records, 1980–2000, box 6, fd. 7, COLL MSS 200, RG: Forest Service, Series: Wasatch National Forest, USUSCA. 76 Logan Canyon Coalition, Canyon Wind, August 1, 1995, box 1, fd. 8, CPLC/LCC Papers, USUSCA. Kevin Kobe, a USU employee, led the LCC.

PHOTO BY JENNIKA ANDERSON

LCC, in conjunction with the Utah Rivers Conservation Council, submitted an appeal on May 10, 1995, which claimed that “the Forest Service’s Record of Decision violates guidelines within the Wasatch-Cache National Forest Land and Resources Management Plan concerning wildlife, fisheries habitat, road construc tion, water quality, and economic impacts.” 77 The USFS promptly denied the petition on June 29, 1995. “We have carefully examined the decisions and mitigation measures taken by the Regional Forester and find them reasonable and supportable,” insisted Sterling J. Wilcox, the USFS appeal deciding officer, in a response letter. “Accordingly, Regional Forester Bosworth’s March 31, 1995, decision for the U.S. Highway 89 rehabilitation project is affirmed.”78 This was the final word in the matter; plans were completed for Burnt and Lower Twin Bridges that same year and unveiled the next. The Logan Canyon highway was under construction for the following decade.79

From humble origins on the editorial pages of the Herald Journal, concern over the Logan Canyon highway grew into an organized and influential protest that changed the highway design process in Cache Valley. Jack Berryman’s group of professors from the College of Forest, Range, and Wildlife Management was an unusually active and organized environmental association for the time. Their scientificallyreasoned protest encouraged unprecedented compromise from the Utah State Department of Highways in 1968. The successor to Berryman’s group, the Northern Utah Environ-

77 Kevin Kobe to Jack Ward Thomas, May 10, 1995, box 1, fd. 7, CPLC/LCC Papers, USUSCA.

78 Sterling J. Wilcox to Kevin Kobe, June 29, 1995, box 1, fd. 7, CPLC/LCC Papers, USUSCA.

79 Logan Canyon Coalition, Canyon Wind, August 1, 1996, box 1, fd. 8, CPLC/LCC Papers, USUSCA.

Steve Flint of Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon leading a protest meeting at the Guinavah amphitheater in the canyon, May 1993.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, MERRILL-CAZIER LIBRARY, USU

mental Advisory Committee, experiencedeven greater success, effectively heading off construction plans in 1971. By 1979 new citizen action groups, like the Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon, formed to fight the continuing possibility of highway modifications. Their demands for the completion of an EIS once again hindered the highway department’s intentions. The deterioration of bridges and of the road surface convinced UDOT in 1986 that something had to be done. Still, UDOT was met at every turn by a growing number of concerned citizens willing to attend public meetings, stage protests, and even file legal appeals. When UDOT made its final decision in 1995, the details were partly a product of a strong environmental voice that had been muted in the original 1969 proposal and nearly absent in 1960.

The result of Logan Canyon highway debate should not be characterized as an environmentalist victory over UDOT, however. Certainly, UDOT became more open to the importance of protecting certain ecological and aesthetic resources. “Thirty years ago, we were not as environmentally conscious,” conceded UDOT’s Logan Canyon project engineer, Luke Mildon, in August 1998. “We have undergone a philosophical change, and we recognize that there has to be a balance. Not all people have the same values.”80 But environmentalists also came to acknowledge the necessity of certain alterations to the Logan Canyon highway. In a brochure produced after the 1993 release of the final EIS, Citizens for a Safe and Scenic Canyon (a group associated with Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon) conceded, “We support making the canyon safe by replacing and widening bridges; constructing more pullouts for slow drivers; adding several climbing lanes, turning lanes, and parking areas; and putting more and better signage in the canyon.”81

In the end neither side got everything it wanted. There was no winner— but there was no loser, either. The final outcome of the Logan Canyon controversy was a compromise: a product of federal legislation that gave each side a place at the negotiating table.

80 Salt Lake Tribune, August 17, 1998.

81 “Logan Canyon: Make It Safe, Keep It Beautiful,” box 1, fd. 5, CPLC/LCC Papers, USUSCA.

All

Hail

to the President!

Theodore Roosevelt Comes to Utah, May 29, 1903

By MICHAEL S. ELDREDGE

In 1903, the forty-fifth and newest star on the national ensign represented Utah. Since its statehood in 1896, Utah had enjoyed relative prosperity. This had occurred under the Republican administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and, indeed, the state was in the midst of an evolving relationship with the party. When the Republican Party first organized in Utah in 1891, Frank Cannon lamented that few Mormons joined. 1 During the presidential election of 1896, Republicans and Democrats alike voted for the Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Then in 1900, the McKinley-Roosevelt ticket carried the state, even as a growing number of Latter-day Saints were switching from the Democratic Party of their fathers to the Republican Party.2

When Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office as the twenty-sixth

Michael S. Eldredge is a lawyer pract icing in Salt Lake Cit y. A political and legal historian who concentrates on the Progressive Era, Eldredge has taught history and political science at the University of Phoenix for the past fourteen years.

1 After serving terms as a Republican congressman and senator, Frank Cannon switched to the Democratic Party in 1901. He did so because of his commitment to free silver and other issues. See Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O’Higgins, Under the Prophet in Utah: The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft (Boston: C. M. Clark, 1911), 117–18.

2 Allan Kent Powell, “Elections in the State of Utah,” in Utah History Encyclopedia, ed. Allan Kent Powell (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 158. Many Republicans voted for Bryan in 1896 because of the silver issue.

Theodore Roosevelt, photographed in 1903.

LIBRA RY OF CONGR E S S

president of the United States on September 14, 1901, at Buffalo, New York, he was forty-two years old and the youngest man to ever hold that office. Roosevelt was a progressive Republican who favored social, political, and economic reform, in opposition to the traditionally conservative policies of the nineteenth-century Democratic Party. While the funeral train bore the body of the recently assassinated President William McKinley back to Washington, Roosevelt confided in his colleagues his goal to break up the large trusts that controlled over 65 percent of the nation’s wealth—a problem presidents Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley had largely ignored.3 Within a few short months after taking office, Roosevelt declared his intention to implement his new conservationist policies; principal among them were his plans to irrigate the West and reclaim millions of acres of arid lands.

In the mid-1880s, Roosevelt had proved his ability to live “the strenuous life” in an area near Medora, North Dakota, where he ranched, hunted wild animals, herded cattle, and even chased down horse thieves. Now the president longed for the West again; he wanted to learn firsthand what needed attention, and he wanted to protect the forests and immense interior lands before industrialists destroyed it. On April 1, 1903, scarcely eighteen months into his presidency, Roosevelt began a two-month trip into the West. This trip established him as a “wilderness warrior,” a legacy of his love for the West.

By late May 1903, Roosevelt was nearing the end of his journey through the West. Over the course of sixty-six days, he had visited twenty-five states, travelled over 14,000 miles (averaging 212 miles a day), and delivered 260 stump speeches and five major addresses.4 He had hunted in Yellowstone Park, camped in Yosemite with John Muir, and enjoyed the company of governors, mayors, senators, and congressmen eager to show off the young president to their constituents. Throughout the trip, he kept a close eye on the natural resources that he had sworn to protect and thought of ways to balance their use while conserving their legacy. Most of all, however,Roosevelt reveled in the adulation of thousands upon thousands of the people whom he came to see, people he considered to be his fellow pioneer frontiersmen and women. Among those he would visit were the people of Utah.

Presidential visits, although rare, gave Utahns a chance to demonstrate their loyalty and showcase their hospitality. Roosevelt’s visit promised special recognition for the state because of the remarkable irrigation system that Utahns had developed over the last five decades. Despite the sizeable contingent of Democrats among older generations of Utahns, both parties joined together in anticipation of the country’s attention. For once, newspapers around the country might highlight the good features of Utah.

Shortly after seven o’clock on Friday morning, May 29, the pride of the

3 Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001), 28–29.

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A Union Pacific engine that pulled Roosevelt’s train. Pictured (left–right) are Joe Sorenson, engineer; George Smith, road foreman; Sam Welch, brakeman; Sam Murphy, fireman (in cab).

Oregon Short Line, Engine No. 659, “one of the handsomest and finest ever run over the western roads,” arrived at Ogden’s rail yard, pulling the presidential train.5 A hand-picked crew led by Abe Hatch drove the train to Utah with the president. The weather was absolutely beautiful in a week plagued by wind and rainstorms. The train came to a stop northwest of the depot, where the “Wye” junction either took trains into the depot, or switched trains to bypass Ogden altogether. Several dignitaries boarded the train, including senators Thomas Kearns and Reed Smoot, Governor Heber Wells, Judge George W. Bartch, Senator Clarence D. Clark of Wyoming, and Ogden Mayor William Glasmann. All but Glasmann remained on the train bound for the capital city.6

In Salt Lake City, crowds began gathering at the Oregon Short Line Depot at 6:00 a.m., patiently awaiting Roosevelt’s scheduled arrival time, 8:30 a.m. By eight o’clock, journalists estimated that some 40,000 people lined the parade route that began on west South Temple Street and ran eastward to Main Street, thence south. The entire station platform was roped off down to South Temple Street. Shortly after 8:00 a.m., soldiers from Fort Douglas and the Utah National Guard marched up the platform and formed two lines. Minutes passed ever so slowly. Soon after 8:30 a.m.,

4 Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (New York: Harper, 2009), 509.

5 “Ogden, a Radiant City, Greets the Nation’s Chief,” Ogden Standard, May 29, 1903.

6 Ibid.

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the unmistakable whistle signaled the train’s approach. The crowd began to chatter noisily as the anticipation grew to a crescendo.Then the train came into view, and the crowd began clapping and cheering. Engine No. 659 approached the station, with its immaculate enamel, polished brass, American flags, ribbons, and bunting. A picture of Roosevelt in a horseshoe frame hung on the engine’s front. The train pulled into the station, hissing blasts of steam while the cars ground to a halt.

Three Secret Service men in Prince Albert coats and silk hats emerged from the carand spread out, their eyes scanning the scene. Next came the journalists, followed by senators Kearns and Smoot, Congressman Howell, Governor Wells, and, of course, the president. The cameras began snapping.7

After a “hearty” reception at the depot, the mayor of Salt Lake City, Ezra Thompson, escorted Roosevelt to his carriage, amidst a cheering crowd. The president “looked to be in the pink of condition, brown as a berry from the influence of the tanning winds and sunshine that he has encountered since April 1.”8 Roosevelt climbed into the lead carriage with his personal secretary, Thompson, and Wells. The party then began the journey up South Temple Street. “As the carriage passed under the archway the buglers from Ft. Douglas broke into a fanfare and the crowd assembled waved their hats and cheered themselves hoarse, the president bowing right and left with his hat in his hand.” The procession continued

7

“Arrival of the Party in City,” Salt Lake Herald, May 30, 1903.

8 “A Brilliant Street Pageant,” Deseret News, May 29, 1903.

A stereopticon image bearing the caption “Beautiful Salt Lake City receives an honored guest.”

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

up South Temple Street, with the shouts of the onlookers and “the glitter of steel” marking its progress.9

Multitudes of mounted soldiers swung into the parade at 300 West and South Temple Street ahead of the carriages. Four Secret Service men walked close by Roosevelt’s vehicle, carefully searching the crowd, while two Salt Lake City policemen on horseback flanked the two-horse team pulling the lead carriage. Though the four Secret Service men around the carriage were the most visible, a second tier of protection—composed of 222 federal and state officers and soldiers—surrounded Roosevelt and spread throughout the crowd.

Everywhere people cheered as Roosevelt doffed his hat and flashed his famous grin. A cavalcade of carriages followed behind him, each one carrying dignitaries and government officials. As Roosevelt passed Civil War veterans, Indian fighter veterans, and Rough Riders, they saluted and then joined the parade.10

The parade turned south at Main Street, where the tumultuous crowds included people in upper story windows. People crowded on marquees and large signs to get a better view of Roosevelt as he went by. The exclamations grew louder as the parade passed down the “canyon” of Main Street’s buildings and Roosevelt stood up in his carriage to provide the crowds with a better view. Everywhere along the parade route buildings were festooned with American flags and bright red, white, and blue banners and bunting. The crowd was jubilant. Truly, Salt Lake City gave Roosevelt an overwhelming reception.

At 500 South and Main Street, the parade swung to the east and continued to the City and County Building. More than 25,000 people— nearly half of them school children—crowded on the building’s grounds. Roosevelt’s carriage continued around the building, coming to a stop at its east entrance. The president exited his carriage and went through the building to a platform built for the occasion at the west entrance. When Roosevelt emerged, thousands of school children and their teachers greeted him with loud cheers and clapping. More than 12,000 children—“from the little tot of the kindergarten to the nearly grown young men and women of the higher schools”—packed the grounds and demonstrated their patriotism “in a manner that visibly moved the chief executive.”11

Roosevelt obviously was pleased with the show of so many children.

9 Ibid.

10 The First United States Volunteer Cavalry, formed in the Spanish-American War, was known as the Rough Riders. Roosevelt acted as second in command of the Rough Riders, and his regiments numbered approximately 1,200 officers and enlisted men. He took about 560 men to Cuba, and the rest did not see action. The Rough Riders were recruited mostly from cowboys, prospectors, and hunters from Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, territory much like Cuba. They disbanded on September 15, 1898. The Rough Riders who accompanied Roosevelt on his trip west were a loose organization of veterans, admirers, and imitators; there was no formal organization of Rough Riders.

11 “President Gives Advice to School Children,” Salt Lake Herald, May 30, 1903.

Mayor Thomson raised his hands to quiet the crowd, and for the first time since Roosevelt had arrived in Utah, the public heard him speak:

Children, I have but one word to say to you, I am glad to see you. I believe in work and I believe in play; play hard when you play, and when you work don’t play at all. That’s good advice to old people as well as children. I am very glad to see you. Good-bye! Good luck to you!12

Roosevelt then stood on the small elevated stand while the various military units passed in review in front of the City and County Building. Looking concerned for the safety of the children, the president admonished the riders to proceed carefully. He returned the salute of each passing unit by raising his hat. When the Civil War veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic paraded by, he raised his hat even higher. Roosevelt reserved his most enthusiastic salute for four hundred horsemen dressed as his beloved Rough Riders, commemorating the regiment he had guided on horseback during the Spanish-American War. After sharing a few words with citizens who followed after the Rough Riders in buggies, the president departed for the LDS Tabernacle at 9:50 a.m.

Earlier, while the parade had moved on to the City and County Building, people hurried from Main Street to the tabernacle to get a seat for the president’s address, which was scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. When the tabernacle opened its doors, a mass of humanity surged forward, “crowding, pushing and struggling” to find one of the six thousand seats.13 The tabernacle was filled to overflowing and colorfully decorated, a state that combined with the appearance of the audience—men in their Sunday best and women in spring hats and holiday dresses—to make a festive scene.14

Promptly at ten o’clock, the presidential party arrived at the northwest entrance, and the dignitaries and guests took their places in the choir gallery and the stand. Not another soul found a seat in the tabernacle; its aisles, staircases, and galleries were jammed beyond their capacity. At 10:10 a.m., the First Regimental Band of the Utah National Guard struck up “Hail to the Chief” as Roosevelt entered the tabernacle, smiling and waving amidst the ecstatic crowd. As the audience continued its cheering, Senator Smoot introduced Roosevelt to President Joseph F. Smith and other general authorities of the LDS church. Smith and Roosevelt shared a private conversation that they both seemed to enjoy, while the onlookers roared their approval. Governor Wells appeared on the podium, and he and Roosevelt doffed their hats and posed for pictures. Still the crowd cheered; it was bedlam in the tabernacle.

Finally, Wells raised his right hand high over his head, signaling for the audience to quiet down. It grew relatively calm for a moment, but the

12 “Utah’s Best Crop Gives Greeting,” Deseret News, May 29, 1903.

13 Because it was the largest auditorium in Utah, the LDS Tabernacle hosted many ecclesiastical and secular events. “Roosevelt Day: A Glorious Occasion for Salt Lake,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 30, 1903.

14 “Tribute to the Pioneers,” Deseret News, May 29, 1903.

applause began again as the crowd sensed the time neared for the president’s address. Again, Wells motioned for silence, and he then launched into a lengthy welcome speech, filled with approbations and platitudes. When he came to the conclusion of his remarks, it still was not time for the president to speak. Instead, Wells introduced Emma Ramsey, “the Utah Nightingale,” who sang a soprano solo, “The Flag without a Stain.” She finished to wild applause led by the president, whose appreciative attention made Ramsey blush.15

Senator Kearns came to the podium, introduced the president, and ended by saying, “I now take pleasure in presenting to you our much beloved president, Theodore Roosevelt.” Then came a sight that the Deseret News claimed had “never before been seen in Salt Lake”: when the president stood, the entire audience rose to its feet and “rent the air” with cheers and applause that were audible a block away.16 Roosevelt looked over the audience as the ovation finally subsided, acknowledged Wells, and launched into his address.17

The parade in honor of the president, making its way down Main Street. Roosevelt appears to be the figure in the center of this image.

Much of Roosevelt’s speech recalled a concept articulated by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893: that Americans must appreciate their frontier past in order to meet the modern “crisis of democracy.” Roosevelt and Turner agreed that the frontier—and the hardiness required to survive on the frontier—had been instrumental in shaping American institutions and “that mystical entity they both called ‘national character.’”18 The president’s

15 “Tabernacle a Mass of Enthusiastic Humanity,” Salt Lake Herald, May 30, 1903.

16 Ibid.

17 “Tribute to the Pioneers,” May 29, 1903.

18 Richard Slotkin, “Nostalgia and Progress: Theodore Roosevelt’s Myth of the Frontier,” American Quarterly 33, no. 5 (Winter 1981): 608. Roosevelt endorsed Turner’s frontier thesis, even though it seemed to conflict with the thesis of his Winning of the West. Roosevelt considered that Turner’s thesis supplemented and corrected his own writings. See alsoBrinkley, Wilderness Warrior, 241, for an account of Roosevelt’s speech before the Historical Society of Wisconsin, which Turner attended six months before he delivered his famous thesis.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

first statements at the tabernacle acknowledged that his progressive government promised a great deal toward helping conserve natural resources. He then tied the ideal of conservation to the Turnerian concept that the character of the people was a necessary ingredient in the effort to make arid frontier lands “blossom as a rose.” The pioneers in Utah, Roosevelt said, exemplified this ethic. The pioneers and their succeeding generations had not come to Utah to exploit the land and move on. They came to improve the land for their children and grandchildren. Roosevelt alluded to the egalitarian, aggressive, and innovative qualities of these people. They left for their children “an abiding home” and “an enriched heritage,” created not with a “boom growth” but with gradual, sustained growth. The president then connected Utah’s example to the expressed purpose of his western states tour: the conservation of national resources for generations to come.19

Roosevelt praised Utahns for their achievements that were in accordance with progressive ideals. He pointed out that during the past decade the population of Utah had doubled and its wealth had quadrupled—even as its laborers received as high a compensation as laborers anywhere else in the world. Further, he said that although Utah was not known as a mining state, it had produced $30 million in ore the previous year, and its people had paid $5 million in dividends and invested the balance in labor and surplus, again illustrating progressive principles.20 He also mentioned Utah’s agricultural products, such as grains, and its stock-raising industry, including wool, both of which promised to survive long after the depletion of the mines.

Roosevelt again referred to the multiple problems of irrigation, natural pasturage, and forests and said that these things needed to be treated uniformly as one resource. This formed a basic tenet of his agenda to preserve, not exhaust, natural resources. He spoke of preserving the land against the few wealthy speculators for the benefit of people who made the land their homes. The question was how to make arid and semi-arid lands produce not only the greatest number of high-quality horses, cattle, and sheep this year, but also for years to come. The range lands should not be overgrazed, but should be treated as a capital investment and managed for prudent growth. He spoke of summer and winter ranges that must be expanded within a complex system that would preserve grazing pastures from over-use. Irrigation was essential not only to stockmen, but to agriculturists as well. The president warned of the dangers of overgrazing in the forests and said,

It is and it must be the definitive policy of this government to consider the good of all its citizens—stockmen, lumbermen, irrigators, and all others—in dealing with the forest reserves; and for this reason I most earnestly desire in every way to bring about the operation between the men who are doing the actual business of stock-irrigated agriculture.21

19

“Practical Talk by President at Tabernacle,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 30, 1903.

20 Ibid.

21 Theodore Roosevelt, A Compilation of the Messages and Speeches of Theodore Roosevelt, 1901–1905, ed. Alfred Henry Lewis(Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1906), 454.

Roosevelt—once a stockman himself—did not have to tell an informed audience about the dangers of overgrazing. He admitted he was not sure of the best answer to the problem, and he remained unsettled about what was the best method of solving the issue.

The greatest objective of Roosevelt’s forest and land policy was to provide families with a continuous supply of timber, grass, and most importantly, water, not only for their present use, but for future generations as well. “While citizens die, the government and the nation do not die.”22 He emphasized that no matter what policy the government decided upon, it was up to the states to believe in it and sustain it. Without the support of the people of Utah, the policies were doomed to fail.

Roosevelt next spoke about the importance of irrigation. He made direct reference to the leadership position that Utah enjoyed over the rest of the nation. “Here the government had to a large degree to sit at the feet of Gamaliel in the person of Utah: for what you had done and learned was of literally incalculable [value] to those engaged in farming and getting through the national irrigation law.”23 In Turnerian fashion, he acknowledged the role of frontier ingenuity in the widespread use of irrigation from the beginning of the Utah Territory. The pioneers developed an irrigation system, Roosevelt remarked, “to a degree absolutely unknown on this continent before.” He commented that the federal government necessarily controlled all the major rivers and streams, but he recognized the concern of farmers that their water source would remain unchanged and promised that no disruption in the water supply would occur. The biggest mistakes, Roosevelt argued, were the decisions hastily made; accordingly, federal officials charged with enforcing the law would move with caution. Again, he referred to the Turnerian principles of “the sturdy courage, the self-denial, the willingness with iron resolution to endure the risk and suffering of the pioneers.”24 He ended with a hearty thank you to Utah from the federal government for all the state had done to advance the causes of protecting the watersheds and to perfecting knowledge of irrigation.

The president expounded extemporaneously at several points during his speech, making it much longer—the longest speech of his western tour— and loud applause caused him to pause frequently. When he finished, bedlam returned to the tabernacle, and Roosevelt seemed delighted. He motioned for quiet and then introduced his Secretary of the Navy, William Henry Moody, who spoke briefly. Moody’s comment, “I hope you have in your heart a warm spot for the American navy,” elicited a prolonged applause from the audience, to which he replied, “I see you have.” Utah’s governor, Moody explained, had requested that one of nation’s battleships bear the name of Utah. Again the crowd replied with enthusiasm and again

22 Ibid., 455.

23 Ibid. Gamaliel was a famous Jewish teacher. Roosevelt’s language echoed that of Acts 22:3. 24 Ibid., 456.

Moody remarked smartly, “I see you wish it too.” The secretary then assured the group that if the navy could get five new “splendid, powerful battleships,” one of them would be called Utah 25 The comments of both Roosevelt and Moody bore witness to the changing relationship between Utah and the federal government. With the end of Moody’s remarks, the events at the tabernacle concluded at about 11:30 a.m. Roosevelt climbed back in his carriage and was whisked up to Senator Kearns’s mansion on South Temple Street. Onlookers lined the street, hoping to catch another glimpse of the president, and yet another crowd gathered at the Kearns residence. By then, Secret Service men, policemen, and soldiers completely surrounded the mansion. Roosevelt alighted from the carriage and, with Senator Kearns, climbed the marble steps in front of the mansion, pausing for a brief moment at the top of the stairs to turn around for pictures. Inside, Roosevelt met the senator’s wife, Jennie Kearns, and the party quickly went to the dining room where about twenty dignitaries and guests had just arrived from the tabernacle. A “T” shaped table was set, and the president took his place at the head of the table. With no formal speaking planned, the gathering soon evolved into loud conversation, with the tinkling of glasses and plates. The talk grew animated, with “the president taking the lead” in humorously relating “yarns” from his western tour during the McKinley-Roosevelt campaign.26

25 “Secretary Moody Says Utah Will Be the Name of One of New Battleships,” Salt Lake Herald, May 30, 1903. Roosevelt was a devout disciple of Alfred Thayer Mahan, who took the world by storm with his 1890 publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660–1783.

26 “Presidential Breakfast and Guests,” Deseret News, May 29, 1903.

The interior of Thomas Kearns’s mansion. Note, in the corner, the hat rack—a gift from Roosevelt to Kearns.

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At 1:30 p.m., the Secret Service passed the word to hitch up the president’s carriage waiting on “F” Street, the signal that Roosevelt was about to leave for the Oregon Short Line Depot. First, however, the president made a quick stop at the Alta Club. When Roosevelt finished at the tabernacle, several city officials, political people, and leading citizens had gathered at the Alta Club in anticipation of a promised visit by Roosevelt.27

A few minutes past 1:30 p.m., Roosevelt’s carriage pulled up to the entrance of the Alta Club, and the president entered the building. Not many people remained, however. A rumor that Roosevelt had gone directly to the depot via 100 South Street had sent the crowd scurrying to the Oregon Short Line station. The few Alta Club members and employees present were treated to a private, albeit short, moment with the president. He shook hands, signed the register, and then left for the depot.

A huge crowd surrounded the station when Roosevelt arrived. He conversed with the reception committee and senior officers of the military detachments and then quickly boarded the train for Ogden. It was almost two o’clock in the afternoon.

The Roosevelt Special pulled into the Ogden Depot shortly before 3:00 p.m. with Mayor William Glasmann and a welcoming committee of prominentOgdenites waiting on the platform.28 The scene that took place in Salt Lake City earlier that morning was repeated, this time with Mayor Glasmann replacing Mayor Thompson in the lead carriage. Before the parade commenced, Glasmann leaned over to the president and told him that an assembly of children awaited him in Lester Park and would be honored to hear a few extemporaneous words. Roosevelt replied that “if conditions were favorable, he would say a few words to the children.”29

The parade led off with an automobile brigade. The same military and veterans’ groups—Civil War veterans associated with the Grand Army of the Republic, Spanish-American War veterans, and Rough Riders— gathered to greet the president, only in smaller contingents. Drill teams from the Woodmen of the World joined the veterans and acted as an honor guard behind policemen and sheriffs from Weber County.30 The parade proceeded throughout the city’s thoroughfares, but at Lester Park, the situation became unsettled. From Twenty-fifth Street and Jefferson Avenue, the president’s carriage took a detour through Lester Park, while the rest of the procession continued north on Jefferson Avenue to await the return of the presidential entourage. At the park, children from the public schools, Weber Stake Academy, St. Mary’s School, and the School for the Deaf and

27

“Alta Club Reception to President’s Party,” Deseret News, May 29, 1903.

28 William Glasmann was the owner of Ogden Standard, the major newspaper of Weber County. He served as Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives in 1901, just before he ran for mayor of Ogden. In all, he was elected for three terms as mayor, in 1901, 1903, and 1909.

29 “Children in Lester Park,” Ogden Standard, May 30, 1903. 30 “Radiant City,” May 29, 1903.

This stereopticon image depicted “Utah’s snow-capped mountains and sturdy citizens greeting President Roosevelt at Ogden.”

Blind gathered with their teachers and parents to form a sizeable crowd. Behind the students, a large American flag blocked the view.

The Secret Service had not received word that Glasmann intended to stop. Instead, the carriage continued along the path that took the carriage out of the park. Glasmann stood up and asked the Secret Service to stop, but the carriage went somewhatfurther along the path than Glasmann intended. A large, upright flag display caught the attention of the Secret Service agents, and they ordered the carriage to proceed. Meanwhile, an excited crowd of adults ducked under the ropes and surrounded the carriage, grasping at the president’s uplifted hands. The students and parents were confused at the chain of chaotic events and became exasperated when Roosevelt ordered the carriage to “move on!”31 Glasmann’s planned speech by Roosevelt to the school children was a failure, and a disorderly crowd threatened to end Roosevelt’s visit. A few moments later the president’s carriage emerged from Lester Park, leaving behind many frustrated people.

The parade arrived at the center of Grant Avenue a few moments later. Roosevelt turned to Glasmann, apologized for the confusion, and asked the mayor to print his speech in the Ogden Standard. Then Roosevelt and the party of dignitaries climbed upon a substantial platform erected for the occasion. Following a rendition of “Hail to the Chief,” Glasmann welcomed the president to Ogden. Next, Senator Reed Smoot introduced Roosevelt. The senator called him a “statesman and a soldier; a patriot and a scholar.”32 With that, a roar of approval and applause greeted the president.

Roosevelt opened with a reference to the beautiful valley as evidence for the wisdom of his irrigation policy. He then used the thriving sugar beet industry as an example of how innovation and irrigation agriculture could yield successful results. He mentioned the National Irrigation Congress

31 “Children in Lester Park,” May 30, 1903. 32 “Radiant City,” May 29, 1903.

scheduled to take place in Ogden that fall. Roosevelt congratulated the Utah State Legislature for appropriating funds to set up such a congress, the first state in the union to do so. He stated there was nothing more important for the growth and well-being of the Rocky Mountain region than irrigation. Prosperity and adversity knew no state lines, for “fundamentally, we go up or go down together.”33

The president emphasized that everyone should think not only of his rights but also of his duties to his neighbor, by which he meant every other American, not simply those of the same class or region. He pledged the power of the federal government to accomplish these goals. Citing the proverb that the Lord helps those who help themselves, he stated that neither providence nor the federal government could help with everything. The government could merely give Utah the opportunity to accomplish its own goals. He expressed hope that Utah, and all the other states interested, would make the irrigation congress a success.

The president next turned to the internal difficulties America faced because of industrialization. Noting the progressive concern for social and industrial problems, Roosevelt called for cool heads and common sense in dealing with troubles at home and throughout the nation. Further, these complex questions called for new methods. He had acknowledged the presenceof Civil War and Spanish-American War veterans—praising them, but especially praising their wives—and he emphasized that Americans must to learn from such veterans how to conduct their peacetime affairs. He pledged his part in doing what he knew his fellow countrymen expected of him.

Roosevelt next spoke of foreign relations. The president recalled a proverb he had learned during his cowboy days in North Dakota: “Don’t draw unless you mean to shoot.”34 He said the advice applied to nations as

33 Roosevelt, Compilation of the Messages, 457.

34 Ibid., 460.

Roosevelt speaking in Ogden.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

well as individuals. America must treat other nations with absolute courtesy and not make claims that it was not prepared to back up. Roosevelt expressed his belief in the Monroe Doctrine and his intent to honor it. Alluding to his embrace of the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan (an influential advocate of naval power), he said that he planned to go ahead with the buildup of the United States Navy. He argued that the Navy ought to appeal to everyone, including men who live on the plains, in the Mississippi Valley, or on the coast of either ocean. “I believe our interests in the Pacific are such that we need always to be ready to protect them in the Atlantic.”35

With that, Roosevelt introduced Secretary Moody, who again announced the plan to name a battleship USS Utah, if Congress obliged him with what he wanted. Amid raucous cheers and applause, the president bid adieu to Ogden and boarded his carriage for the short two-block ride to the depot.

While the president toured Ogden, the Oregon Short Line Engine No. 659 detached from the Roosevelt Special to return to the Pocatello, Idaho, railroad yards. Union Pacific Engine No. 1831, appropriately decorated with flags and bunting, was attached as the pilot engine, with Engine No. 1835 assisting in the uphill pull to Green River, Wyoming. The train was ready and waiting when the president’s party arrived. Roosevelt said goodbye to Glasmann, Wells, Kearns, Smoot, and other dignitaries, and he and his party boarded the train. It was almost five o’clock in the evening.

About an hour later, the Roosevelt Express stopped at Echo Junction, where a crowd had gathered in hopes of glimpsing the president. They were not disappointed. Roosevelt emerged at the rear of the train and spoke for a few minutes. After expressing his pleasure at meeting with the people of Echo Junction, the president particularly mentioned the men and women “who came here with babies in their arms.” He had fully enjoyed his day in Utah and remarked that whenever he came to Utah, he was “struck with your prosperity, and with the evidence that it has been won primarily with the character of your men and women. . . . I congratulate you upon the State, but I congratulate you most upon yourselves.”36

The president’s visit was over. It was not his first visit to Utah, or his last. Yet it occurred within the context of critical questions and events. Of prime importance was Roosevelt’s message on irrigation. Equally significant was his acknowledgment that Utah—particularly the Mormon pioneers—had led the nation in irrigation efforts. In the tabernacle, however, he chose his words carefully and avoided mentioning the LDS church at all. Instead, he invoked the principles of Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis by describing the pioneers as egalitarian, aggressive, and innovative—a characterization that could well apply to the early Mormon settlers. Further, his audience also knew that the Mormons had done much to develop irrigation techniques.

“President Roosevelt Bids Farewell to Junction City,” Ogden Standard, May 30, 1903.

Roosevelt argued that private enterprise could not build the dams and canals needed for reclamation in the West; progressives believed this enormous undertaking to be an obligation of the federal government.

A year before the president’s Utah visit, on June 17, 1902, Congress had passed the Newlands Act, which established the Reclamation Service (later the known as the Bureau of Reclamation).37

As revolutionary as the act was, Roosevelt knew it needed to be a joint effort between the government and the people; he knew he needed to enlist the support of Utah’s experienced irrigators to make reclamation work. Judging from the response at the tabernacle, he would get what he wanted.

The president’s careful omission of the name of the LDS church from his tabernacle speech hinted of another matter. Slightly more than a month before Roosevelt left for the West, Reed Smoot—in his capacity as senator newly elected by the Utah State Legislature—had called on Roosevelt. The president asked Smoot if he was a polygamist, to which Smoot “pledged” that he was not. 38 Roosevelt responded that Smoot’s pledge was good enough for him. When hearings began a year later over the matter of seating Smoot as a senator, Roosevelt championed the Utah politician. Without Roosevelt’s support, Smoot probably would have lost his seat. In later years, when Smoot was asked who the greatest statesman he ever met was, he quickly responded with the name of Theodore Roosevelt.39

In his Ogden speech, Roosevelt spoke indirectly of problems with Colombia and the Panama Canal. His reference to the Monroe Doctrine and his use of the cowboy proverb—“don’t draw unless you mean to shoot”—alluded to a policy that became known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.40 Later that year, Roosevelt confronted the issue

37 Brinkley, Wilderness Warrior, 422–24

38 M. R. Merrill, “Theodore Roosevelt and Reed Smoot,” Western Political Quarterly 4, no. 3 (1951): 440–53.

39 Ibid.

40 Morris, Theodore Rex, 215.

The three central figures in this image are (left–right) William Glasmann, Theodore Roosevelt, and Heber M. Wells.

of Colombia’s rejection of the Panama Canal treaty by supporting a revolution that created the nation of Panama and facilitated the recommencement of work on the canal.

Last, but by no means least, Roosevelt had a purpose for announcing the name of the proposed battleship Utah. Since the 1890s, Roosevelt had strongly believed in Mahan’s geopolitical theory of sea power. This theory went hand-in-glove with the president’s plan to complete the Panama Canal. Further, as the former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he knew the political capital that came with a state having a namesake battleship. At his speech in the tabernacle, and again in Ogden, Roosevelt wanted the excitement of the people to push through his appropriations agenda. Things did not work out according to the president’s plan. Five long years passed before the Navy Department could announce, in May 1908, that it had received approval for two new battleships. Finally, in December 1909, Utah received its christening.41

In both speeches on May 29, 1903, President Roosevelt clearly articulated his progressive political agenda. Still, the enthusiastic response to his speeches indicates that Roosevelt remained popular in Utah midway through his first term. In the 1904 presidential election, that feeling resulted in Roosevelt receiving almost twice the number of votes from Utah than did his Democratic competitor, Charles Fairbanks. Roosevelt’s popularity lasted long after his departure from office on March 4, 1909.42

41 Michael S. Eldredge, “Silver Service for the Battleship Utah: Naval Tradition under Governor Spry,” Utah Historical Quarterly 46, no. 3 (Summer 1978): 302–318.

42 Unlike today, the presence of the President of the United States brought a sense of respect and dignity to the gathering. The majority of the accounts of President Roosevelt’s visit to Utah on May 29, 1903, were taken from four of Utah’s leading newspapers, Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, Salt Lake Herald, and Ogden Standard. Almost without exception, they praised Roosevelt and honored his presidency, even though sharp lines divided the newspapers politically.

Howard

Stansbury’s

Expedition around the Great Salt Lake: An Examination of the Route and the Maps

By JESSE G. PETERSEN

We find history written in documents—but history is also written on the land. Consider the Great Salt Lake, surveyed by Captain Howard Stansbury in 1849. The resulting map and report shone a light on this little-known area. However, most historical sources have an imperfect nature because they are representations created by limited human beings. In this case, Stansbury’s journals, report, and maps, as well as the land itself, do not always agree. This article offers a tour around the Great Salt Lake with Stansbury’s expedition, using these historical sources and showing where the sources conflict. The land itself, though changed in some respects since 1849, resolves the differences.

Jesse G. Petersen spent thirty years in law enforcement, including twenty years as chief of the Tooele City Police Department. He has authored and edited books on the Lincoln Highway, the James H. Simpson expedition, and emigrant diaries.

Howard Stansbury’s “Map of the Great Salt Lake and Adjacent Country in the Territory of Utah.”

DAVID RUMSEY MAP COLLECTION

In the summer of 1849, Stansbury arrived in what is now the state of Utah to conduct a geographical survey of the Great Salt Lake and the country immediately surrounding it. Stansbury,a civil engineer and a member of the U.S. Army’s Topographical Corps, had previously conducted engineering and surveying projects in the Great Lakes area. Lieutenant John W. Gunnison, also a military engineer, accompanied Stansbury to Utah as his second-in-command.

The nineteenth century was a time of exploration in the United States. Much of this was accomplished by private individuals (such as fur trappers and traders) and through business ventures, but the U.S. government was also involved in exploration and surveying. Government-sponsored explorations essentially began with the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Northwest (1804–1806). Zebulon Pike’s journey to the southwestern region of the current United States soon followed (1806–1807). During the 1840s, the U.S. Army sent John Charles Frémont on several expeditions to learn about the geography of previously unexplored areas of the West. As more and more of the country opened up and settlers began moving to the West, the emphasis began to shift from exploring to surveying, for it was increasingly important to know what was where and who controlled the land. A few months after members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints began to settle in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, the Mexican War ended and the United States acquired the area that is now Utah. Just a little over a year later, Stansbury received orders from Colonel John J. Abert, the chief of the Army’s Topographical Bureau, who had the responsibility for the exploration and development of the country west of the Mississippi River. Abert’s orders instructed Stansbury to survey and map the Great Salt Lake valley, locate suitable routes for travel and supply, note natural resources, and observe indigenous tribes and the Mormon settlers.1 This article deals with the journey of exploration that Stansbury made around the western side of the Great Salt Lake.

At that time, as far as Euro-Americans were concerned, the area lying due west of the Great Salt Lake was truly terra incognita—and it remains little-known today. A few mountain men, including Peter Skene Ogden and Joseph R. Walker, had traveled through the country on the northern side of the lake, and emigrant parties who had followed the Hastings Road in 1846, 1849, and 1850 had passed by the southern shore of the lake. No one, however, had ever traveled along, or even near, the western shore. Stansbury wrote that he had been told by mountain men and Indians that a number of trappers had attempted to travel around the western side of the lake in search of beaver, “but always without success; the adventurers being invariably obliged to return with the loss of most of their animals.”

1 William H. Goetzmann, Army Explorations in the American West, 1803–1863 (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1991), 219; Brigham D. Madsen, ed., Exploring the Great Salt Lake: The Stansbury Expedition of 1849–50 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1989), xviii.

Stansbury planned to fill in this gap, explaining the need to do so as follows: “The expedition was deemed necessary, to enable me . . . to gain some knowledge of the means and appliances necessary to carry on the survey with safety and expedition.”2 In other words, he felt that in order to accomplish his main goal of completing a survey of the lake, he had to know something about the country to the west.

Stansbury arrived in Salt Lake City on August 28, 1849, and began meeting with local officials, including Brigham Young; making arrangements to house and feed his men and livestock; and starting the surveying operations. On September 12, with a party composed of several soldiers and at least five or six civilians, Stansbury left Salt Lake City and set off on a trip to Fort Hall, which was located on the Snake River in present-day Idaho. On the return trip, the party camped on the Bear River just below where it comes out of the narrows between the Cache and Salt Lake valleys. From this base, he began the journey that would take him around the Great Salt Lake.

A number of years ago, I became interested in Stansbury’s journey around the lake and began examining the route that he followed. The major sources of information for this study were Stansbury’s personal journal and the report that he submitted to the United States Senate following his explorations and surveys in Utah.3 In both his journal and his report, Stansbury included extensive descriptions of the country he traveled through and the route that his party followed each day. In many instances, these descriptions include his estimates of the distances between certain geographical features along the route. However, it is important to keep in mind that during this trip, all of his distance figures were estimates. Entries in his journal show that during the trip to Fort Hall he used an odometer that was presumably mounted on a wagon, but during the trip around the lake he traveled without wagons and had to rely on estimation. As we shall see, a number of his estimates seem to be well off the mark.

Two maps accompanied Stansbury’s report to the Senate. The first covers

2 Howard Stansbury, Exploration of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988), 97.

3 Stansbury’s original journal is located in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., but selected portions of it appear in Madsen’s Exploring the Great Salt Lake. The Smithsonian reprinted his original report in 1988 as Exploration of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake

HOWARD STANSBURY

Howard Stansbury, the U.S. Army officer who commanded a military survey party that was sent to Utah in 1849.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

the area between the Missouri River and the Pilot Range, which is located along the Utah–Nevada border; it is entitled “Map of a Reconnoissance between Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri River and the Great Salt Lake.”The second map, entitled “Map of the Great Salt Lake and Adjacent Country,” isdrawn to a larger scale and covers only the area between the Wasatch Mountains and a point just west of the Newfoundland Mountains.4 According to information that is found on the maps, Stansbury directed their preparation with the aid of Gunnison and Albert Carrington; Charles Preuss and Gunnison did the actual drawing. The scholar Carl I. Wheat stated that Gunnison apparently “had primary responsibility in the construction of the map.”5 Carrington’s personal journal indicated that in early 1851 he was in Washington, D.C., engaged in “plotting” various locations for the maps. For example, on February 8, 1851, Carrington wrote, “laid Fremont Isle into general map & it fitted exactly.”6 The nature of Preuss’s responsibilities remains unclear. Wheat also suggested that Stansbury’s maps relied heavily on “the composite Frémont map” but had been “elaborated in certain areas on the basis of more intensive investigation.”7 Notably, of the four individuals involved in making the maps, only Stansbury participated in the actual expedition around the lake. Of critical importance to this study is the fact that both of Stansbury’s maps have lines on them that were intended to show the route that the party followed.

An in-depth comparison of Stansbury’s day-by-day journal entries and subsequent report and the route of the expedition as it is depicted on his maps has convinced me that, in a number of instances, the trail on the maps does not correspond with Stansbury’s descriptions of his route. I fully realize that challenging the accuracy of these historic maps is not something to be taken lightly, but the discrepancies are so profound that I have had to conclude that either Stansbury’s descriptions or his maps have some serious flaws. After considering two facts—that Stansbury wrote his descriptions every day, on location, while those who drew the trail lines were not members of the party—I have concluded that where differences exist, the route shown on the maps must be incorrect.

Further, I also found that two of the mountain ranges on Stansbury’s maps were misplaced to some extent. The mapmakers placed the Newfoundland Range approximately ten miles too far to the north and the Silver Island Mountains about eight miles too far to the east. These errors apparently contributed to the trail being drawn through the center of the Newfoundland Mountains, rather than passing by their northern tip.

4 These maps are available in Madsen, Exploring, rear insert, and on several Internet sites.

5 Carl I. Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West, 1540–1861, vol. 3, 1846–1854 (San Francisco: Institute of Historical Cartography, 1958), 118.

6 Madsen, Exploring, 750.

7 Wheat, Mapping, 118.

During the several years that I was investigating the Stansbury expedition, I made several extended trips into the general area of the route in order to observe the terrain firsthand. I quickly learned that it is not possible to simply get on the trail and follow it all the way from the Bear River to the Pilot Mountains. The route simply does not exist as a continuous drivable route. For example, a securely locked gate bars the way along the western shore of the Promontory Mountains. The extensive mud flats that lie between the Newfoundland and the Silver Island mountains create another inaccessible section. But other than these two places, I made my way into the general area of most of the expedition’s route.

At this point, the reader might very well ask why it is important to know that the expedition followed a route that did not exactly match the trail that is shown on the maps. For many people, the fact that the expedition went on one side or the other of a certain mountain might not seem important to the outcome of the mission. But on the other hand, there are others who have a deep interest in knowing, as closely as possible, the exact routes that the early western explorers traveled. When they look at a map or travel through an area of historical importance, they value knowing where explorers and other earlier travelers were and what they experienced. From a historical standpoint, these discrepancies demonstrate that the creator of a historical source is influenced by place, time, and perspective. They show that the more sources used, the more complete and accurate the picture of the past is. And finally, for those who love Utah’s geography and the layers of history on the land, this investigation into Stansbury’s route will deepen their sense of place and past.

We will now begin to follow Stansbury’s route around the lake, first through excerpts from his journal and report, and then through my interpretations of how his descriptions compare with the landscape and the trail on his maps. On the accompanying maps, dotted lines depict the route that I believe Stansbury actually followed. The dashed lines represent my adaptation of the trail as it is shown on Stansbury’s maps. Stansbury and all of the members of the Fort Hall expedition left the base camp on the Bear River sometime during the afternoon of October 19, 1849:

JOURNAL:Having completed my preparations, accompanied the provision wagons from the encampment 2 ½ miles above the ford of Bear River, to this ford, saw them safely over the stream & on their way to Salt Lake City. . . . Turning to the S.W. followed the emigrant trail to Oregon & California about four miles which brought us to the crossing of the Malade.8

REPORT:From the ford of Bear River we followed the emigrant road westward for about four miles, which brought us to the Malade River.9

The groups apparently split up at or quite near the site of what later

8 Madsen, Exploring, 173.

9 Stansbury, Exploration, 98.

became known as Hampton Ford. The major portion of the Fort Hall expedition, with all of the wagons, crossed the river and headed south for Salt Lake City. Stansbury headed west with his smaller exploring party, which, as he indicated in his report, consisted of “five men and sixteen mules.”10 However, in his journal, Stansbury listed the names of six people, in addition to himself, who belonged to the party: Dr. James Blake, August Archambault, August Tison, Piche, Boyer, and Louis Rivard.11 Blake was a physician and naturalist whom the army employed to accompany the survey party. Archambault, a mountain man who had traveled with Frémont in 1845, acted as a guide for Stansbury.

Note that a conflict exists between the journal and the report in regard to the direction of travel. The journal says that the group traveled southwest along the emigrant trail, but the report states that their direction of travel was west. An examination of the local topography shows that the report was in error. If the party had traveled directly west from Hampton Ford, they would have reached the Malad River after traveling only 1.6 miles, rather than the four miles mentioned in both the journal and the report. But by heading in a southwest direction, they could have traveled four miles before reaching the Malad at a point just east of the present-day community of Garland. After a difficult crossing, the party made camp on the west bank of the river.

During this day’s journey, we encounter the first major discrepancy between the route drawn on the map and the written sources. Although both the journal and the report state that the party followed the emigrant road while traveling between the Bear and the Malad rivers, the map shows that Stansbury’s trail left the emigrant road at the Bear River and was approximately a mile south of the emigrant road when it reached the Malad River. The emigrant road that Stansbury referred to was a section of what was known as the Salt Lake Cutoff, which at that time was used by California-bound emigrants traveling between Salt Lake City and the California Trail.

REPORT:October 20 . . . Continued on the emigrant road about four miles, when we left it and turned more to the southward. . . . In about a mile we came upon three or four beautiful springs of clear, bright water: they were gushing out from a rocky point . . . and unite to form a branch which runs southward some miles, and then sinks in the sand, before reaching the lake.12

From the crossing of the Malad River, the emigrant road continued in a

10 Stansbury, Exploration, 98.

11 Stansbury never mentioned the names of the other members of the party. One of his field notebooks, which is published in Madsen’s book, contains a list of the civilian members of the main body of the surveying team. Archambault is spelled Archambeau; Tison is spelled Tesson; Piche is listed as Louis Piche; and three Boyers are listed as Nelson, Sid, and Vide. According to this list, regardless of whether there were five or seven members, Stansbury was the only military person on the expedition around the lake. Madsen, Exploring, 10, 174.

12 Stansbury, Exploration, 98.

Bear River to Salt Spring. On this and following maps, a dotted line represents the route Stansbury described in his reports and journals, while a dashed line represents the route shown on his maps.

slightly southwest direction to make its way past the southern tip of Point Lookout Mountain. Although Stansbury recorded that he followed the emigrant road for four miles, his Great Salt Lake map shows the route as being well south of the emigrant road. Stansbury also wrote that upon leaving the emigrant road he turned to the south and traveled another mile and came to some brackish springs. His Great Salt Lake map identifies this feature as Emigrant Springs. This spot is now known as Salt Spring and is located at the foot of Point Lookout. The springs are the source of a creek that flows to the south. On the maps, the trail is located approximately two miles south of the springs and does not show a turn to the south in this area. If Stansbury had followed the trail that is shown on the maps, he would have missed the springs entirely.

REPORT:Following down this stream for several miles, we struck on a succession of bare, level plains, composed of white clay and mud, with occasional pieces of limestone and obsidian scattered on the surface.13

The stream that comes out of Salt Spring is known as Salt Creek and it flows in a slightly west of south direction for about five or six miles and then enters the Salt Creek Waterfowl Management Area. The trail that is shown on the maps does not follow the stream at all, but crosses it at a point about two miles south of Salt Spring and continues in a generally westward direction until it comes to the eastern base of the Promontory Range.

JOURNAL: In the afternoon being fearful of being caught without water, turned farther to the west & made for the foot of the range of hills constituting the western boundary

JESSE G. PETERSEN

of the Valley, when we came upon a small stream running slowly to the south with marshy banks. It is about 15 ft wide & 1 foot deep, quite salt & almost unfit to drink. Having no prospect of finding better however we encamped on its right bank for the night. . . . Days travel estimated at 22 miles.14

The party’s route through the swampy area that lies to the south of Salt Spring is somewhat uncertain, but it probably skirted the western side of Little Mountain and then crossed today’s Salt Creek Waterfowl Management Area. Stansbury noted that at some point during the afternoon, the party “turned farther to the west” and headed toward the Promontory Mountains.15 Though Stansbury did not provide a definite time or a mileage estimate, it appears that the party had been traveling mostly south since leaving Salt Spring and that by turning more to the west, they would have begun heading in something of a southwest direction. I have worked out a route through this area that has the party traveling twenty-two miles during this day’s journey; on this possible route, the spot where they made the turn is in the vicinity of Hull Lake, about sixteen miles from the previous night’s campsite. However, this turn to the southwest does not appear on the trail that is shown on Stansbury’s maps. At sixteen miles from the campsite, the trail on the maps heads almost due west, and when it does make a turn, it is to the south. Additionally, the trail on the maps does not cross “a succession of bare, level plains, composed of white clay and mud,” nor does it ever come to “a small stream running slowly to the south.”16

Maps of this area show several small, unnamed drainages, but only one that appears to be large enough to match Stansbury’s description of the stream where they stopped. The most likely spot for this campsite is about 6.8 miles directly south of the junction of State Route 83 and State Route 102, and 4.5 miles east of the unpaved road that follows the eastern base of the Promontory Mountains. This drainage runs in a slightly east of south direction; the water probably flows infrequently.

JOURNAL: Oct 21—We struck diagonally for the foot of the mountain still travelling over the hard dry mud . . . Before reaching the base of the hills some Indians were discovered, . . . As we came along we passed their encampment, . . . Following down at the base of the hills for about two or three miles encamped on a small spring branch, . . . At the spot where we left the Indian Camp there is a spring with plenty of water but it is brackish & bad. Days travel about 8 mils.17

REPORT:October 21 . . . There being neither grass nor water at this point, we left it early, and made in a south-west direction for the foot of the mountain, travelling over a hard, even surface of dry mud, as level as a floor and without a particle of vegetation of any kind. Before reaching the base of the hills, we descried some Indians at a distance, who as soon as they discovered us, commenced a most rapid and precipitate flight. . . .

14 Madsen, Exploring, 174.

15 Ibid.

16 Stansbury, Exploration, 98; Madsen, Exploring, 174.

17 Madsen, Exploring, 175.

Following down the eastern base of the promontory for about two miles, we encamped on a small spring-branch, coming down from the mountains, furnishing very tolerable water and plenty of grass.18

If the group had traveled on the trail that is shown on the maps, at twentytwo miles from the Malad River they would have been near the eastern base of the Promontory Mountains, and if they had then begun to travel in a southwest direction, they would have been climbing into the mountains, not crossing a level plain. The Indians’ camp was probably at Sweetwater Spring, which is located only a few yards from Promontory Road, a graded dirt road that runs north and south along the eastern base of the Promontory peninsula. At this spring, for the first time since leaving the Bear River, the trail that is shown on the maps finally begins to coincide with the party’s route as it was described by Stansbury. From Sweetwater Spring, the party turned south and followed a route that would have been the same, or nearly the same, as today’s unpaved road. The campsite for the night of October 21 was probably at the mouth of Choke Cherry Canyon. During the following three days the party traveled along the shoreline of the Promontory peninsula, first continuing south, then rounding Promontory Point, and then heading north along the peninsula’s western side. Late in the evening of October 24, they approached the northeast corner of Spring Bay and an area known as Salt Wells Flat.

18 Stansbury, Exploration, 99.

Salt Spring to Sweetwater Spring.

JESSE G. PETERSEN

R EPORT :October 24 . . . At ten o’clock we reached a small sluggish stream, containing some water entirely too salt for our use, but which the poor animals drank with great avidity, having been without for more than twelve hours. Here we lay down for the night, both man and beast much fatigued with the day’s march.19

Since it was already dark when they reached the stream, Stansbury was unable to get any real sense of the terrain until the next morning.

REPORT: October 25 . . . We had an opportunity this morning of seeing fully the ground over which we had passed the night previous. It consisted of an oval flat of clay and sand, some four or five miles broad from east to west. . . . Three streams came down from this low ridge, and, flowing to the southward, either sank into the sand or discharged themselves into the lake, which we now judged to be some six or eight miles to the southward, the flat extending in that direction to the water’s edge. Two of these streams (all of which were salt) we crossed without much difficulty; but the third, on the western side of the flat, was impassable, and we had to ascend it for three miles before we could obtain a crossing.20

Three small streams flow in a southwest direction through Salt Wells Flat. Finding that they could not cross the third stream, the party turned to the northeast and made their way upstream until they came to the vicinity of Salt Wells, where they found a place to cross. Here again, the trail that is depicted on the maps does not correspond with Stansbury’s description of the route. Even though Stansbury mentioned three streams, the map shows

19 Ibid., 104. 20 Ibid.

Salt Wells Flat.

JESSE G. PETERSEN

only two; further, the map shows that the trail crossed the northernmost stream at the point where it first reached the stream, rather than changing directions and following it upstream, as Stansbury described.

JOURNAL:Crossing over to the western ridge we crossed its summit & descended into a plain somewhat similar to the last in form only much more extensive in all directions & forming at no time any part of the Lake but only an extended plain or valley.21

REPORT: Leaving it [Salt Wells Flat] behind us, we ascended a ridge to the west of it, two or three miles broad. . . . Descending its western slope, we came into another plain, somewhat similar to the last in form, but much more extensive in all directions.22

Once they had crossed the third stream, Stansbury’s group turned to the northwest; after traveling about five and a half miles, they crossed the summit of a wide pass between the southern end of the Hansel Mountains and Monument Peak, which Stansbury identified as “Teton” on his Great Salt Lake map. After crossing the third stream at the point where Stansbury said they could not cross it, the trail on the map continues almost straight ahead along the eastern side of Monument Peak and rejoins the actual route near the summit of the pass.

At the northern foot of the pass the party turned to the west and began traveling across Curlew Valley. Near the western side of this valley, at a point about nine miles northeast of the old railroad town of Kelton, the routes separate again, and this separation marks the beginning of the most serious discrepancy between Stansbury’s descriptions of the route and the trail that is shown on his maps. The route that Stansbury’s party actually followed began to veer slightly to the south, while the trail on the maps continues west for another six to eight miles, and then begins a long sweeping curve that eventually heads south.

REPORT:Over this desolate, barren waste, we travelled until nearly dark, when we reached a rocky promontory, constituting the southern point of a low ridge of hills jutting into the plain from the north. . . . The mules having been without water or grass the whole day, and our stock of the former being insufficient to give them even their stinted allowance of one poor pint, we halted for a couple of hours, and drove them upon the side of the mountain to pick what they could get from the scanty supply of dry bunch-grass that grew in tufts upon its side.23

At the western edge of Curlew Valley, the group came to the southern tip of the Wildcat Hills. These low hills lie to the east of the Raft River Mountains and about eighteen miles to the southwest from the town of Snowville. The southern point of these hills is marked by several small knolls that rise sharply out of the surrounding terrain. It was here that Stansbury and his party stopped for about two hours in order to give their animals a chance to rest and to graze on the scattered bunchgrass.

JOURNAL: We loaded up again & continued on in hopes of finding water. . . . Rode on until nearly eleven o clock, in a southward direction about ten miles, when finding the

21 Madsen, Exploring, 179.

22 Stansbury, Exploration, 104–105.

23 Ibid., 105–106.

indications of water growing worse & the mules nearly worn out, halted for the night on top of a ridge, & bivouacked on the ground.24

REPORT: At eight o’clock we replaced the packs upon our mules . . . and rode on till near midnight by the light of the moon, in a south-westerly direction, over a country similar to that we had traversed during the day; when, finding the indications of water growing less and less promising, and that our animals were nearly worn out, we halted, and covered with our blankets, we lay down on the ground till morning.25

Although Stansbury’s journal notes that they traveled in “a southward direction” for ten miles, this could not be correct because that would have put them in the lake or on the swampy mud flats, depending on how high the lake level was at that time. But by traveling in a southwest direction (as the report notes), they would have passed very close to the now-abandoned site of Kelton and then climbed into the foothills of Baker Mountain. When they reached what Stansbury described as a ridge, they stopped and made camp.

Today, a fairly well-travelled dirt road known as 8560 North heads in a southwest direction from Kelton and climbs into the eastern foothills of Baker Mountain. Stansbury’s party probably followed this same general route. The point at which this road crosses the eastern ridge of these hills is about thirteen miles from the southern tip of the Wildcat Hills. In his journal, Stansbury stated that they had traveled about ten miles, but considering the fact that they had been traveling in the dark, this error can be considered as minimal. In this area, Stansbury’s maps lack much detail, and even though the summit of Baker Mountain rises over 1,200 feet above the level of the flats around Kelton, the maps show the entire area as a level plain.

JOURNAL: Oct 26 Started in the morning in search of water for the mules without which we could not go any farther. By the spy glass discovered some willows & grass which looked as if there might be water. Directed our steps thither, & after some search found a small spring coming out from under a bank. This we cleared out, dug a hole to contain its waters, & soon had plenty of excellent water for all.26

REPORT: October 26 . . . Sweeping the horizon with a telescope, I thought I discovered something that looked like willows to the north-west, distant about four or five miles. Reanimated by this gleam of hope, we saddled up quickly and turned our steps in that direction. We soon had the lively satisfaction of finding our expectations confirmed; for, arriving at the spot, we found, after some search, a small spring welling out from the bottom of a little ravine, which having with some labour been cleaned out, we soon enjoyed a plentiful, most needed, and most welcome supply of excellent water for all. The whole party being much exhausted from their long abstinence and unceasing exertions, we halted here for the day.27

The wording in the report makes it sound as if Stansbury was still at the campsite when he sighted the willows, but this presents a problem. If he

24 Madsen, Exploring, 180.

25 Stansbury, Exploration, 106.

26 Madsen, Exploring,180.

27 Stansbury, Exploration, 106.

was still at the campsite, all he could have seen to the northwest would have been the bulk of Baker Mountain. However, the journalentry states that he was “in search of water,” which suggests that he was no longer in the immediate area of the campsite when he spotted the willows. If this search had taken him less than a mile to the west, he would have come to the ridge of the mountain and would have had a clear view to the northwest and the Dove Creek drainage area. Stansbury was aware that willows can indicate the presence of water, and he decided to investigate this possibility. Leaving the ridge where they had camped, the group circled around the southern foothills of Baker Mountain and reached Dove Creek at a point near its confluence with Cotton Creek. The distance traveled would have been about four and a half miles.

It should be noted that the trail on the maps would have crossed Dove Creek at a point somewhere within two or three miles upstream from where the party found the spring. However, that trail would have been traveling in a southwest direction when it reached the creek, rather than northwest, as Stansbury suggested.

JOURNAL:Oct 27—Started early sun 1/2 hour high, ascending a ridge for about two miles, struck across a large sage plain in the direction of a high peake on a ridge, to the left of which we passed.28

REPORT:October 27 . . . Resuming our journey, we took a course south by east, which led us past the ridge upon which we had halted two nights before. . . . We then passed along the base of a range of low hills, composed apparently of trap and basalt. After

Madsen, Exploring,180.

Wildcat Hills to the Hogup Mountains.

JESSE G. PETERSEN

travelling ten miles, we came to a range of higher hills extending northwest and southeast.29

A section of the Hastings Road, which Stansbury followed to Salt Lake City. He would have passed this point just before reaching the Grayback Hills. This image conveys the austerity of the land through which Stansbury and his team traveled.

What Stansbury’s party did upon leaving the campsite on Dove Creek represents the most critical factor in my theory of the expedition’s route. If they had traveled south from this area, as the maps indicate, their route would have taken them well to the west of the Hogup Mountains. But Stansbury described a route that went in a southeast direction and took them to the eastern side of the Hogup Mountains. In his journal, Stansbury wrote that when they left camp on the morning of October 27, they climbed up a slope for about two miles. Further, in his report he stated that they traveled in a southeast direction and passed by the ridge where they had camped on the night of October 25. This route would have taken them up and over Baker Mountain’s southern foothills. Soon after crossing today’s 8560 North, they would have come to an area that fits Stansbury’s description of a “sage plain.” Upon reaching the eastern edge of this plain, they would have skirted the base of some low hills of volcanic origin, composed of “trap and basalt.”

In his journal Stansbury mentioned a “high peake on a ridge, to the left of which we passed.” Madsen wondered if this peak was either Table Mountain or Peplin Mountain, but it is quite certain that the party’s route would have been to the right, rather than the left, of both of these peaks.30 Their route was probably along the southern edge of a large cove-like area known as the Hogup Bar. Immediately to the south of this area there is a relatively high butte that makes up the northernmost point of the Hogup Mountains. The party’s route would have been to the left of this butte,

29 Stansbury, Exploration, 107.

30 Madsen, 180, n. 58.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

which at its highest point is about a thousand feet above the surrounding terrain. Stansbury also noted in his report that they had reached this place after traveling ten miles. My plot of the most likely route through this area measures just ten miles.

A quick look at a map of this area will show that the shortest route to Pilot Peak, which is where the party eventually ended up, would have gone southwest from the camp on Dove Creek. Why then did Stansbury decide to travel in a southeast direction? The answer to this question must lie in Stansbury’s priorities at that time and the likelihood that he was not yet desperate enough to divert from those priorities. The major objective of the expedition was to travel around the Great Salt Lake, staying as close as possible to its shoreline. Apparently, on the morning of October 27, Stansbury wanted to get back to the lake. A route to the southeast would take him there. The following day, Stansbury encountered circumstances that persuaded him to change his mind about traveling along the shore of the lake.

REPORT: We then passed, in a southerly direction, through deep sand, along what at one time had been the beach of the lake, as drift-wood was frequently seen lying on the sands that stretch out to the eastward for many miles. In one instance a drifted cottonwood log was seen, lying near what had evidently been the water-line of the lake. . . . On our right was a high ridge or promontory, with a narrow bottom sloping down to the edge of the flat. . . .

The country today has been similar to that passed over previously—dry, barren, and entirely destitute of water. We dug a well some five feet deep in the edge of the flat, which soon filled with water. The mules crowded around the hole, and seemed to watch the process of our labour, as if sensible of the object of our exertions, but upon tasting the water, refused to drink, although they had been travelling the whole day without a drop. Day’s march, about sixteen miles.31

Today, a narrow zone covered by a heavy growth of greasewood, or salt brush as it is sometimes called, extends along the entire length of the eastern base of the Hogup Mountains. If the same growth existed in 1849, it is quite certain that the party would have avoided this heavy vegetation by traveling along its eastern edge. This would have put them in the “deep sand, along what had at one time been the beach of the lake.” Stansbury was describing the wide western beach of the Great Salt Lake.

After reaching this ancient beach and turning to the south, they traveled for about six miles and then made camp on the edge of the sand. It appears to me that this campsite was about seven miles northwest of Dolphin Island. Stansbury mentioned passing numerous pieces of driftwood. It is unlikely that they would have encountered driftwood if they had been to the west of the Hogup Mountains.

JOURNAL: Oct 28—There being no water, it became imperative on us to keep moving . . . Followed the edge of the sand with the promontory on our right for some miles when

31 Stansbury, Exploration, 107.

we ascended it, . . . Then crossing ridge we descended into a plain or sort of bay extending to the north some twenty miles partly covered with sage & partly to the west with mud & salt. It appeared to be bounded on the west some 20 or 30 miles distant by a high ridge running north which was I think the same near which we encamped on Friday.32

REPORT:October 28 . . . We were on the road very early, and followed for several miles, down the edge of the sand at the foot of the range of hills on our right, when we ascended it, taking a course south-west by west. . . . The ridge was about five miles wide, stretching off to the southward, and about five hundred feet above the level of the beach.33

Stansbury’s journal implied that the group was traveling between the lake and the eastern base of the Hogup Mountains. As they approached the southern end of the mountains, the party made a turn to the southwest and climbed over the ridge, crossing it at a point about a mile to the north of Broom Mountain.

The location of the ridge that Stansbury mentioned in the above entries is a key element in determining the actual route of the expedition. Stansbury’s maps show the trail going about halfway down the eastern side of what he called “Rocky Ridge” and then abruptly turning to the west, through the mountain. It is quite evident that his Rocky Ridge is today’s Newfoundland Mountains. It appears that most people who have studied Stansbury’s expedition have relied on his maps rather than his descriptions; they have assumed that when he mentioned the ridge that he crossed on the 28th, he was referring to Big Pass, which is located near the center of the Newfoundland Mountains. However, it is my conclusion that in this area the maps are in serious error, and Stansbury’s party did not go through Big Pass. There are a number of reasons for this conclusion, and we will get to them later, but for now we will continue to follow the route as described by Stansbury.

JOURNAL: The plain seemed to contain several Island mountains or hillocks rising from it as from the water. To one of these distant about 12 miles, &S W by West we directed our course, over sage at first & then the usual mud plains. We arrived here about 1 ½ hour before sundown and stopped to get supper & give the mules a chance to pick a little grass. . . . The mountain at the foot of which we stopped extended some miles to the South & S.W. The Dr ascended it but could see no signs of the Lake in any direction. This point was about 20 miles from our starting point in morning.34

REPORT:Leaving the ridge, we entered upon a plain or sort of bay, partly covered with artemisia [sagebrush], and partly (to the westward) with mud and salt. . . . The plain contained several island mountains, rising from it as from the water. To one of these, distant about twelve miles south-west by west, we directed our course and reached it about an hour before sunset. Here we stopped for a short time to prepare our scanty supper, and to give the mules a chance to pick a little grass, which was scarce and dried up. Not a drop of water had we met with the whole day. . . . The rocky island, at the

32 Madsen, Exploring, 180–81.

33 Stansbury, Exploration, 107–108.

34 Madsen, Exploring, 181.

north end of which we halted, extended many miles to the southward, and was apparently surrounded on all sides by the mud-plain. One of the party ascended it, but could see nothing of the lake, nor any appearance of water in any direction.35

Hogup Mountains to Pilot Peak. On this map, unlike the other maps pictured in this article, the dashed line does not conform to the alignment of the trail as it appears on Stansbury’s map. Instead, it has been adjusted to conform to the actual geography of the area.

From the ridge near Broom Mountain, Stansbury would have had a clear view of the Newfoundland Mountains, the Silver Island Mountains, and Crater Island, all of which are surrounded on all sides by extensive mud flats. He would also have been able to see the Pilot Range, rising to the west of these “island mountains.” After crossing the ridge Stansbury recorded that they traveled in what he called a “southwest by west” direction and came to one of the islands. Stansbury clearly stated that they stopped at the north end of an island that extended many miles to the south.36 The Newfoundland Mountains run almost exactly north and south, for about eighteen miles. He also noted that the distance from the ridge to the spot where they stopped was about twelve miles. The actual distance from Hogup Ridge, just north of Broom Mountain, to the northern tip of the Newfound Mountains is 14.8 miles—which, under the circumstances, would not have been a significant error.

JOURNAL:It now became a serious point to find water for the mules, who had been without two days & a night. I accordingly determined to go on during the night as far as possible so as to be able to reach the Western ridge bounding this basin as early as possible the next day. . . . We accordingly loaded up & proceeded on the same course, across a mud & salt plain quite soft in some places which made the travelling quite

35 Stansbury, Exploration, 108.

36 Ibid.

JESSE G. PETERSEN

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

heavy. The mules were very weak & tired & the whole party were on foot nearly the whole march. We continued on until 12 at night when we encamped on the north side of a small isolated butte of Volcanic rock, having just before crossed a very soft muddy drain with water in it, but as salt as brine. . . . To the north & to the south of us rose a butte similar in character to the one near which we encamped. The southern of which had evidently formed part of a Crater.37

REPORT: We accordingly saddled up about dark and proceeded on the same course, directing our steps toward another island in the plain, which appeared to be about fifteen miles distant. . . . Our course lay over a flat of damp clay and salt mud, in many places soft and deep. . . . We continued on until after midnight . . . when we reached a small isolated butte, which was only a pile of barren rocks, with scarce a blade of grass upon it. . . . On each side of us, to the north and the south, was a rocky island or butte, similar in character to the one near which we had halted, but much larger.38

Significantly, Stansbury stated that they continued to travel “on the same course” that they had been following before stopping for their supper. Thus their direction of travel would have continued to be west-southwest. After traveling twenty-two miles, rather than the fifteen that Stansbury estimated, they came to a stop at the base of a small butte. Stansbury wrote that to the north of their campsite was a larger butte and to the south there was an even larger one that contained a crater. There can be little doubt that they were at the northern end of Crater Island, which lies to the north of the Silver Island Mountains. At the northern end of Crater Island there can be found a small isolated knoll, which at its highest point is about three hundred feet above the surrounding mud flats. About a half mile to the south is a smaller knoll, and then, immediately to the south, is the main part of Crater Island. According to Stansbury’s description, the party’s campsite was near the northern base of the smallest knoll.

REPORT: October 29.—On awaking early, we found the mules gathered around us, looking very dejected and miserable. . . . Before us, indeed, lay the mountain where we hoped to find both food and water for them, but between lay a mud-plain fifteen or twenty miles in extent, which must be crossed before we could reach it. I was much afraid the animals were too weak to succeed in the attempt, but it was our only hope. We set out, the whole party on foot, pursuing the same general course of south-west by west that we had followed yesterday. . . . We soon came upon a portion of the plain where the salt lay in a solid state, in one unbroken sheet, extending apparently to its western border. . . .

At two o’clock in the afternoon we reached the western edge of the plain, when to our infinite joy we beheld a small prairie or meadow, covered with a profusion of good green grass, through which meandered a small stream of pure fresh running water, among clumps of willows and wild roses, artemisia and rushes. . . . Both man and beast being completely exhausted, I remained here three days for refreshment and rest. . . .

We had encamped at the eastern base of a range of high mountains, stretching a great distance to the north, and terminated, three miles below, in an abrupt escarpment, called Pilot Peak.39

37 Madsen, Exploring, 181–82.

38 Stansbury, Exploration, 109.

39 Ibid., 109–111.

From the north end of Crater Island the party traveled in a southwest direction, crossing the mud and salt flats that lie between the Silver Island Mountains and the base of Pilot Peak. Stansbury estimated that the mud and salt flats between the Silver Island Mountains and Pilot Peak were “fifteen or twenty miles in extent.” This section of the Salt Flats is about twenty miles in length. By crossing the flats in a southwest direction, the party traveled eleven miles before reaching the western edge of the flats. At that point they made camp at a good spring and decided to stay for a few days. One might be tempted to assume that they were now at Donner Spring, but they were still some distance north of that location. Charles Kelly, an early trails researcher and Utah historian, identified the spot where they camped as McHouston Springs.40 Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any further information relating to a spring of this name, and there are at least a dozen springs in the first few miles to the north of Donner Spring. However, in his journal entry for November 2, Stansbury wrote that it was two and half miles from this campsite to Donner Spring. Based on this information, it would appear that Kelly’s McHouston Springs was probably two and a half miles north of Donner Spring, where a spring and a well can now be found at the lower end of a drainage channel known as Bettridge Creek. This small, intermittent stream could have been the one that Stansbury observed meandering through the willows near his campsite.

The final discrepancy between Stansbury’s description of the route and

40 Charles Kelly, Salt Desert Trails (Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1996), 132, n. 4.

Near the east side of the Silver Island Mountains. Stansbury passed by this location on his way from Donner Spring to Salt Lake City.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

the maps concerns the area between Crater Island and Pilot Peak. The trail on Stansbury’s “Fort Leavenworth to the Great Salt Lake” map skips the McHouston Springs campsite entirely and runs in a direct line from the north end of Crater Island to Donner Spring. However, in his writings, Stansbury noted:

JOURNAL:Nov 2 The course from camp is East, but we followed the edge of the bay South 2 – ½ miles to a point where a road from Mormon city crosses to take advantage of the beaten track as the mud is quite soft. At this point there are several excellent springs & numerous company of emigrants have lately encamped there.41

REPORT: November 2 . . . Following the western edge of the mud-plain at the foot of the range for three miles, we came to the southern point of the mountain. . . . The route from Salt Lake to this point was first taken by Colonel Frémont, in 1845. A year afterward, it was followed by a party of emigrants under a Mr. Hastings.42

Upon leaving camp on November 2, the party travelled south until they reached Donner Spring. After a brief stop at the spring, they turned to the east and proceeded on their journey. Because the party’s journey from Donner Spring to Salt Lake City involved no new exploration and simply followed Hastings Road, the route of which has been well established by numerous trails researchers, our examination ends at this point.

Before ending this investigation of Stansbury’s route around the Great Salt Lake, it might be useful to take a closer look at the arguments against Stansbury’s crossing of Big Pass—for while Stansbury’s maps clearly show the trail going through Big Pass, I contend that Stansbury’s party did not cross Big Pass. My reasons for this belief follow.

First, consider Stansbury’s description of the ridge itself: “The ridge was about five miles wide, stretching off to the southward, and about five hundred feet above the level of the beach.”43 A measurement taken across the Hogup Ridge just north of Broom Mountain gives us about six miles compared to Stansbury’s estimate of five miles, but the distance across Big Pass is only two and a half miles. The point where I believe Stansbury crossed Hogup Ridge stands about 400 feet above the level of the beach. Big Pass is 720 feet above the mud flats that surround the Newfoundland Mountains. Although neither elevation is the same as Stansbury’s 500 foot figure, the Hogup Ridge elevation is much closer to it. Then there is Stansbury’s use of the word “beach.” There is clearly a sandy beach at the eastern base of the Hogup Mountains, while mudflats surround the Newfoundland Mountains on all sides, with no beach in sight.

Second, while on the ridge, Stansbury noted that about twelve miles to the southwest, an island rose out of the plain. If Stansbury had been on Hogup Ridge, he would have been looking at the Newfoundland Mountains, the northern tip of which would have been fourteen miles

41 Madsen, Exploring, 183–84.

42 Stansbury, Exploration, 112–13.

43 Ibid., 108.

from the ridge. However, if he had been at Big Pass, the only “island” visible to the southwest would have been the Silver Island Mountains, whose eastern tip would have been nearly twenty miles away.

Detail of Stansbury’s “Map of a Reconnoissance,” with additions. The broken lines have been added to show the actual shape and location of the Newfoundland and Silver Island mountains. The superimposed dotted line shows Stansbury’s actual route. It is quite apparent that the misplacement of these mountains contributed to the inaccurate depiction of the expedition’s route.

Third, due to their misplacement of the Newfoundland Mountains, the expedition maps depict Crater Island as lying in a southwest direction from Big Pass. Modern maps, however, plainly show that the northern tip of Crater Island is almost due west from Big Pass. This is significant because Stansbury indicated that his party followed the same “south-west by west” course for the entire distance between the ridge and the base of the Pilot Mountains. If you go southwest from Big Pass you end up at the base of Cobb Peak in the Silver Island Mountains, not at the northern end of Crater Island and not at Donner Spring.

Fourth, if Big Pass was the ridge, an entire mountain has gone missing. Stansbury stated that after crossing the ridge, the group traveled to an “island mountain,” stopped for supper, and then continued on to Crater Island. This means that there was a mountain between the ridge and Crater Island. No mountain, however, exists between Big Pass and Crater Island.

In summary, examining Stansbury’s descriptions of the route his expedition followed after crossing a ridge on October 28, 1849, yields no evidence that Big Pass was that ridge. On the other hand, everything that

JESSE G. PETERSEN

Stansbury wrote supports the concept that they crossed Hogup Ridge and then pursued a straight-line course to the base of the Pilot Range, passing the northern tips of the Newfoundland Mountains and Crater Island as they did so.

Of course it is impossible to consider this information without wondering how it could have happened. What could have caused these discrepancies in the layout of the trail? Certainly, a serious lack of communication must have existed between those who participated in the expedition and those who created the maps. Moreover, it seems quite clear that of the five or seven men who made the trip around the lake, only Stansbury had any involvement in the preparation of the maps. The question then becomes, by what method did Stansbury communicate the information about the location of the trail to Carrington, Gunnison, and Preuss? Did they first draw the maps with the lake, the rivers, and mountains in place, and then have Stansbury point out the trail? Did Stansbury give them written information about the trail? Did they have access to his journal and his report? Unfortunately, answers to these questions are apparently unavailable. Further research might provide some of the answers, but for now, we can only wonder.

None of this, however, should detract from Stansbury’s significance and from his accomplishments. As William Goetzmann wrote of Stansbury’s journey around the lake: “It had been a daring feat of exploration; succeeding where the mountain men had all failed, and by means of his map of the western portion of the lake Stansbury had painted at least one more bold stroke into the unfinished portrait of the national landscape.”44

Goetzmann, Army Explorations, 222.

When Salt Lake City Became Hollywood: The Premiere of Darryl F. Zanuck’s Brigham Young

By JAMES V. D’ARC RONALD L. FOX, PHOTO EDITOR

Star-studded movie premieres— complete with searchlights, parades, and studio-generated ballyhoo—originated in 1922 when the legendary theater entrepreneur Sid Grauman opened his Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard with

James V. D’Arccurates the BYU Motion Picture Archive and directs the BYU Motion Picture Archive Film Series; he is the author of When Hollywood Came to Town: A History of Moviemaking in Utah (2010), now in its updated second edition. He may be contacted at james_darc@byu.edu.

Ronald L. Foxowns a public affairs business in Salt Lake City. He is an author, historian, and collector of early photographic images, U.S. presidential material, and material related to political history of Utah.

Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell, romantic leads in Brigham Young, interact with Officer George H. Volkert during a parade celebrating the film's premiere.

SALT LAKE CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT

the DouglasFairbanks swashbuckler, Robin Hood. Eighteen years later on a warm, late-August evening, that event was eclipsed by the festivities connected with the world premiere in Salt Lake City of a Twentieth Century Fox production, Brigham Young.

In 1938, Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of production at Fox, seized upon the drama of the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS or Mormon church). A junior studio writer had submitted a treatment dealing with the Mormon founder Joseph Smith, his martyrdom in 1844, the persecutions that drove his followers out of the Midwest, and the founding of Salt Lake City, culminating with the 1848 “miracle of the gulls” that helped save the Mormons’ crops from decimation by crickets. Zanuck favored subjects steeped in Americana, and he linked this inherently American saga to the contemporary persecution of Jews by the Nazis. Zanuck engaged the novelist Louis Bromfield to fashion a screen story and purchased the rights to Children of God (1939), by the Idaho author Vardis Fisher. Zanuck’s enthusiasm for the story led him to personally supervise the story conferences, the casting,the choice of director Henry Hathaway, and even the final editing process.

Brigham Young had a budget of nearly two million dollars, making it one of the largest studio productions of 1940. In fact, Zanuck cast his two biggest stars—Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell—as the romantic leads. Surprisingly, given the status of his lead performers, Zanuck put all of the story emphasis on the title role of Brigham Young. For that reason, he wanted to feature a relatively unknown actor as the Mormon prophet. After dismissing casting suggestions that included Walter Huston, Albert Dekker, and Spencer Tracy, Zanuck found his Young in the stage actor Dean Jagger. The thirty-six-year-old Indiana native had scored big on Broadway, but had enjoyed less success in Hollywood movies. Yet Jagger’s authoritative delivery of dialogue and his physical stature, which closely resembled the Brigham Young of the 1840s, convinced Zanuck of his ability to handle a meaty role. Vincent Price, well before his typecasting as a horror star, gave a brief, but powerful portrayal of Joseph Smith. Mary Astor played Mary Ann, Young’s “favorite” wife; the finished film showed four of the prophet’s wives. The veteran character actor John Carradine was a standout as a lively and humorous Porter Rockwell.

Brigham Young was distinguished by the fact that most of it was filmed away from Hollywood on location in California’s Big Bear mountains, near Elko, Nevada, in southwestern Utah, and in Lone Pine, California, where

PREVIOUS PAGES: A band, a contingent from the United States Navy, newsreel cameras, and thousands of Utahns wait at the Salt Lake City Municipal Airport to greet the celebrities. Before they departed for downtown Salt Lake City, the stars and studio officials participated in a short program at the airport. Note the many vehicles at the perimeter of the airfield, an indication of the response to this event. UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Fox Studio celebrities—all smiles, at least for the camera—aboard one of the two twentyone-passenger DC-3 airliners that the studio chartered from United Air Lines for the premiere of Brigham Young. Harry Brand, Fox’s publicity director, sits in the first visible row. A moustached Caesar Romero, whom the studio was currently promoting as the Cisco Kid, and the child star Jane Withers are in the next row back. Brenda Joyce, another Fox contract performer, sits behind Romero. Dean Jagger, who played the title role in Brigham Young, is across from Joyce; Virginia Zanuck, the wife of the studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck, is behind her. Sixteen-year-old Linda Darnell stands in the aisle. Darnell co-starred in Brigham Young as Zina, “the outsider.”

more than fifty log cabins were built to replicate early Salt Lake City against the dramatic backdrop of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The climactic invasion of seagulls that saved the pioneer settlement from destruction was filmed on the shores of Provo’s Utah Lake. Together with the studio publicist Harry Brand, Zanuck decided to open Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, the headquarters of the church that numbered nearly 700,000 members at the time—most of whom lived along the Wasatch Front. LDS church president Heber J. Grant was all in favor of Zanuck’s plans, as he, along with his counselors David O. McKay and J. Reuben Clark, had watched an advance showing of Brigham Young at the Studio Theater in Salt Lake City three weeks before the premiere. It was an unqualified success. “I thank Darryl F. Zanuck for a sympathetic presentation of an immortal story,” declared Grant afterwards. “I endorse it with all my heart and have no suggestions to make for any changes. This is one of the greatest days of my life. I can’t say any more than ‘God bless you.’”1 What most church members did not know was that Grant and the LDS apostle John A. Widtsoe had advised Zanuck and his writing team

1

“High L.D.S. Officials Preview ‘Brigham Young’,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 14, 1940.

The stage actor Dean Jagger earned himself a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century Fox as a result of his performance in Brigham Young. A decade later, he received an academy award as “best supporting actor” in Twelve O’Clock High (1949).

A smiling Mary Astor, who played Mary Ann Young, leads the group arriving from Hollywood for the opening of Brigham Young. The others are Ken Murray; Nancy Kelly and Brenda Joyce, contract starlets whom the Fox studio was eager to promote; Tyrone Power, who played Jonathan Kent, “the Mormon scout”; and Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of production at Twentieth Century Fox. Zanuck took on Brigham Young as one of his few personally produced motion pictures for 1940.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Hollywood notables emerge from a DC-3 airliner to greet the thousands gathered to see them at Salt Lake City’s Municipal Airport on August 23, 1940. From left to right, they are Ken Murray, unidentified, Tyrone Power, Darryl F. Zanuck, Nancy Kelly, Gregory Ratoff, Brenda Joyce, and Mary Astor. Murray acted as the master of ceremonies at five theaters that evening.

Back row, left to right: Ken Murray, Nancy Kelly, Mary Astor, Tyrone Power, Dean Jagger, Linda Darnell, Caesar Romero. Front row: Darryl F. Zanuck, Jane Withers, Jean Rogers, Brenda Joyce, and Gregory Ratoff. Rogers played Clara Young, Brigham Young’s second wife in the film.

Dean Jagger, Mary Astor, and Tyrone Power before the microphone at Salt Lake City’s Municipal Airport moments after their arrival on the afternoon of August 23, 1940.

A Salt Lake City radio reporter covers the arrival of Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell at the airport as a powerful late August gale threatens to remove their hats. Salt Lake City’s mayor, David Abbott “Ab” Jenkins, is seen at the wheel of his “Mormon Meteor.” A few hours later, the movie stars rode in Jenkins’s famous car for the parade in downtown Salt Lake City.

Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell wave to the crowd at the parade’s starting point, Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Mayor Ab Jenkins drives them. Out-of-town premieres, complete with parades and appearances at multiple theaters, were rare at this time in the movie industry. Seven theaters sold out for the opening night of Brigham Young.

MOTION PICTURE STILLS COLLECTION, PERRY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, BYU

throughout the screenwriting process and gave their approval to the finished storyline. Widtsoe even took Louis Bromfield on a five-day automobile tour of Utah when Bromfield was preparing his story treatment.2

The August 23, 1940, world premiere (dubbed “Brigham Young Day” by Governor Henry H. Blood), began with the arrival of Zanuck, Bromfield, the principal stars, and the studio personnel on two chartered DC-3 airliners. One source estimated that Salt Lake City’s usual population of about 150,000 swelled to over 200,000 for the gala parade down Main Street that afternoon. All of the Salt Lake City Police Department motorcycles were necessary to break a path through the packed sidewalk-to-sidewalk crowd. Power and Darnell led the way atop Mayor David Abbott “Ab” Jenkins’s “Mormon Meteor” race car. Dean Jagger and his wife rode in another vehicle, as did Darryl Zanuck and Governor Blood. Zanuck, meanwhile, also used the event to give a boost to his up-and-coming stars Jane Withers, Caesar Romero, and Brenda Joyce. The parade began at the Brigham Young statue and proceeded down Main Street, then across Fourth South, and up State Street to the Lion House, where that evening Grant hosted the Hollywood dignitaries to a buffet dinner before the premiere.3

Initially, two Salt Lake City theaters were sold out weeks in advance for the premiere, with the Centre Theater serving as the anchor venue. However, interest rose dramatically as the opening day approached. By Friday, August 23, seven theaters were sold out to nine thousand patrons, and this at the increased ticket price of $1.10 (in contrast to normal admission

Tyrone Power, Fox studio’s biggest star, shares a moment with the director and sometime actor Gregory Ratoff. They are backstage at Salt Lake City’s Center Theatre before making their first of four appearances on premiere night, August 23, 1940. Darryl Zanuck’s emphasis on Brigham Young and the epic trek in Brigham Young resulted in rather colorless roles for Power and his co-star, Linda Darnell.

2 Detailed in James V. D’Arc, “Darryl F. Zanuck’s Brigham Young: A Film in Context,” BYU Studies 29, no. 1 (Winter 1989), 5–23.

3 “Salt Lake Offers Welcome to Screen Visitors,” “Premiere, Parade Honor Utah Founder Today,” “Salt Lake City to Become Glittering Capital of Film World for Premiere Showing of Pioneer Epic ‘Brigham Young’,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 23, 1940.

prices of forty to sixty cents). This established a record for the number of theaters sold out for a simultaneous premiere screening. Ken Murray emceed the visits of Power, Darnell, and Jagger, first to the Centre at seven o’clock p.m. and then to four other theaters. The Fox Movietone Newsreel of the day, narrated by Lowell Thomas and shown in theaters nationwide, heralded the premiere events as unprecedented against film footage of a Main Street jammed with star gazers.4

Jane Withers was a popular child actress under contract with Twentieth Century Fox. She first appeared in Bright Eyes (1934) with the studio’s shining light, Shirley Temple. Fox let both Temple and Withers go in 1942, as age began to limit their attraction as child stars. In this image, Withers meets with young fans in her room at the Hotel Utah.

While Brigham Young’s high budget and publicity costs—and the loss of lucrative foreign markets with the start of World War II—prevented it from bringing in the financial returns for which Zanuck had hoped, the critical response to the film was virtually all positive. Life magazine chose it for its “movie of the week” and devoted several pages to a photo spread about it. A Los Angeles newspaper reviewer called Brigham Young “one of those rare distinguished motion pictures which makes up in two hours for every sin of mediocrity committed in Hollywood. . . . [It] is the best Twentieth Century-Fox production since Grapes of Wrath and a credit to the entire industry.”5 Other reviewers immediately picked up the connection between the film’s dramatic and sometimes gruesome depictions of persecutions of Mormons and the atrocities visited against Jews by Nazis in Germany. In addressing some criticisms of the film by his own church members, Grant took time at the beginning of

4 Formal studies calculating how many theaters have simultaneously sold out on a premiere night are rare. However, in thirty years of research, I have never read of another premiere with seven sold-out theaters.

5 Louella Parsons, Review, Los Angeles Examiner, August 21, 1940.

his October 1940 general conference address to remind the faithful that “There is nothing in the picture that reflects in any way against our people. It is a very marvelous and wonderful thing, considering how people generally have treated us and what they have thought of us.”6

All of this occurred over seventy years ago, when Utah was on the verge of becoming a movie production location that would soon rival any filming site other than Hollywood and perhaps New York City. In a culture not usually associated with parties, Salt Lake City put on the one of biggest movie premieres ever.

6 Heber J. Grant, “Gratitude for Faith of People,” One Hundred Eleventh Semi-Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1940), 96. Grant’s address was reprinted on the “Editor’s Page,” Improvement Era 43 (November 1940): 654.

Linda Darnell, Jane Withers, and Brenda Joyce—all dressed for a major movie premiere.

BOOK REVIEWS

With Golden Visions Bright Before Them: Trails to the Mining West 1849–1852.

Overland West: The Story of the Oregon and California Trails, vol. 2. By Will Bagley. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. xxi + 464 pp. Cloth, $45.00.)

IN THIS AMBITIOUS STUDY, Will Bagley examines the routes taken by emigrants bound for the California gold fields. Near its end he notes that stories are not history. Professors, he adds, have been telling us this for one hundred years. It is a cheerful, bald statement that begs the question, what exactly is history? This book—a cumulative effort that combs hundreds, perhaps thousands of accounts, and shapes them into prologue, event, and consequence—offers a clear answer.

Late in the book, Bagley admits that “nothing conveys the reality of crossing the plains as well as the story of someone who made the trek,” and proceeds to give a compelling, six-page account of the sufferings of the Oregon-bound diarist Chloe Ann Terry and her family and friends. The remarkable thing is that he does not do this more often. Many historians, having set themselves to a task of this magnitude, would use perhaps a dozen representative figures and families to elucidate places, themes, and big events.

Instead, Bagley draws on hundreds of narratives. In a single paragraph, he might mention the experiences of six or eight different people, unknown to each other but connected by geography, motive, or timing. What he loses in narrative drive by using this technique, he more than gains back by delivering a profound sense of the diversity of the people, events, and landscape on the trails during the peak years of the gold rush. All kinds of people made the trek, for all kinds of reasons; all kinds of tribal people did or did not resist the migration, for all kinds of reasons; all kinds of landscapes were deeply changed by what happened. These are generalizations, but by the end of the book they have taken on rich meaning from Bagley’s careful marshaling of vast armies of facts.

For example, at various points he provides emigrants’ descriptions of the small lakes and marshes of the Humboldt Sink, where the Humboldt River disappears into the Nevada desert. The place is full of waterfowl. From account after account, we come to understand that by this point in the trip all the travelers were low on rations and often weak from scurvy, and the surviving mules or oxen were likewise exhausted. The travelers still had the worst part of the trip to go—across the Forty-mile Desert or the Black Rock Desert to one of three main routes over the Sierras, one of which was bad and two of which were considerably worse.

The Humboldt Sink and other watered places like it in the Great Basin had drawn Paiute, Bannock, and Shoshone people for centuries to hunt birds and cut cattails for food and arrow shafts. Now, quite suddenly, tens of

thousands of white travelers were rolling through the middle of the country every summer, their animals eating all the grass and the people fouling the water supply.

These tribes obtained a substantial part of their diet from roots and tubers; Anglos had called them Diggers and held them in murderous contempt since fur-trade times. The Natives began a kind of guerilla war against the emigrants, stealing or wounding their cattle in order to force the travelers to abandon the animals, after which the Indians slaughtered and ate them. The contempt grew, and emigrants often chased and killed the thieves. By this point in Golden Visions, Bagley has lined up enough evidence to succinctly link culture clash with ecological change: “Violence escalated as natural resources declined” (364).

Bagley makes a few important arguments in this book. First, the California gold rush was the first time in U.S. history when people genuinely believed they could get rich quick, “a strange faith that was virtually unknown before” (xvii). A few did, though many more died trying. Most of the emigrants were single men or married men traveling without their families. They had no intention of staying in California, but only of making a pile and then returning home to a lifetime of wealth and ease. Their attitude—their eager dreams—changed us as a nation.

Second, if the trails journey itself was extremely difficult for the emigrants, its consequences were ruinous for the tribes who lived in the West already. As testament to this, Indians appear in Golden Visions almost entirely through the accounts of others, as very few of their own accounts survived.

Finally, California development patterns spread across the West through the mining and mineral rushes—rushes that became key to boom-and-bust economies. In the nineteenth century, gold was “discovered” along routes— in the Sierras, at Pikes Peak, in southwest Montana, in southwest Idaho, at South Pass, and in the Black Hills of Dakota—where its presence had been known for some time. The rushes came only after someone who planned to profit from the rushers loudly publicized the “discovery.”

In 1849, around 30,000 hopefuls made the trek to California by land, ten times the number that had already taken the route since overland emigration began in the early 1840s. Bagley devotes nearly half the book, the first four of ten chapters, to detailed descriptions of the trails as the emigrants found them, based on the three hundred firsthand accounts of the 1849 crossing that survive.

The fifth chapter concentrates on shortcuts and cutoffs; the sixth on the troublesome Lassen Cutoff into northern California; the seventh on trails events of 1850, when around 50,000 people crossed; the eighth on 1851, when traffic on the trails nearly ceased altogether; and the ninth on 1852, the busiest year of all. The final chapter draws conclusions about greed,

gold, and settlement, how the trails that began and enabled the gold rush were in turn changed drastically by its events.

Golden Visions is the second of four volumes the University of Oklahoma Press plans to issue in Bagley’s history of the overland trails. The third will cover 1853–1860 and the fourth 1861–1870. I look forward to both.

In the first volume and again in this one Bagley works hard—and successfully—to be neither booster nor debunker, to simply say what happened and what choices people made, so that we may better understand the choices that face us in our time. The California gold rush, he argues, was second only to the Civil War in its effect on the nation in the nineteenth century. The trails made the rush possible and then quickly spread its effects. To call this book a story of a place and time would be to undersell it. It is much more than that—it is a big, good history, with all the troubling insights, complexity, and understanding those words imply.

TOM REA WyoHistory.org

University of North Carolina Press, 2012. 229 pp. Cloth, $34.95.)

THE FIRST THING ONE NOTICESin picking up this book is the dust jacket—the devil, pitchfork in hand, is kicking Joseph Smith into the air. Smith’s broad-brimmed hat and cane have flown from his grasp, but he still has his gold bible tucked tightly under his arm. Taken from the frontispiece of Eber D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed (1834), this image is the first visual representation of Mormonism and depicts a supposed Smith family story of the Mormon prophet with his famous book, being kicked while running from Satan. The publishers have colored Howe’s black-andwhite woodcut so that the midnight blue background contrasts dramatically with the red devil and the golden bible. The image is worth the price of the book. The original must have delighted early anti-Mormon writers, for it looks as if even the devil saw Mormonism as a fraud.

In this slim but densely written volume, Spencer Fluhman has immersed himself in nineteenth-century anti-Mormon literature. This allows him to trace how Protestants, the dominant religious authority in the antebellum United States, came to define the nature of religion and to weigh all belief systems against their own orthodoxy. “Critics first found Mormonism to be a fake religion, then an alien or foreign religion, and finally a merely false one” (9). The chapters follow this pattern: the first and second cover those

“A Peculiar People”: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America. By J. Spencer Fluhman. (Chapel Hill:

who denounced Mormonism as a fraud and delusion; the third and fourth explore polygamy and Protestant ideas of civilization, which revealed Mormonism as alien; and finally, the last treats the post-polygamy period, when critics found Mormonism partially acceptable but still mostly false. “This study,” writes the author, “is thus less a history of the Latter-day Saints than it is a history of the idea of religion in nineteenth-century America” (10). With its focus on religion, it is also not the definitive word on anti-Mormonism, for other studies remain to be written on political and cultural anti-Mormonism.

With the American Revolution, the United States cast off both British colonialism and an established church, but the resulting religious freedom came with a price of great uncertainty among the leading Protestant churches about how to deal with new religious upstarts. Americans believed that “true” religion, by which they meant Protestantism, was critical to America’s strength. And conversely, religions from outside cultures or disturbing movements within America could harm the country. Making themselves the arbiters of what was true religion, anti-Mormon writers quickly linked Joseph Smith to figures they viewed as imposters, especially Muhammad, even before the announcement of polygamy. Smith’s Book of Mormon, like the Qur’an, was viewed as counterfeit. The Mormon gatherings to Missouri, Nauvoo, and then Utah were made parallel to the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. Mormon militarism brought to mind the image of Muhammad on a charging horse with the sword in one hand and his holy book in the other.

Polygamy, the establishment of the Mormon kingdom in the West, and the faith’s theocratic and military ambitions confirmed for anti-Mormon writers that the church was religiously and culturally alien. Polygamy was the radical marker of Mormonism’s foreignness, and when that was finally eliminated, Protestants were at somewhat of a loss as to what to make of the faith. “With polygamy and theocracy presumably in the past, Mormons of the 1890s suffered more from near-omission than from wide-eyed alarm” (139).

My one criticism of this seminal work is that several of the illustrations, taken mostly from period political cartoons, are too small in scale to read the text in them. That aside, this inquiry into how American Protestants came to define religion is an exceptional and well-researched study, one I can highly recommend.

POLLY AIRD Seattle, Washington

The Indianization of Lewis and Clark, 2 vols.By William R. Swagerty. (Norman: Arthur H. Clark Company, 2012. 778 pp. Cloth, $90.00.)

THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITIONhas occupied the imagination of Americans since their return in 1806 and into the twenty-first century. While much of the scholarship produced about Lewis and Clark has focused upon the historical narrative of the expedition, this two-part volume by William R. Swagerty offers a riveting and thorough analysis— which Swagerty frames as “Indianization”—that utilizes anthropological theory. The title and thesis of this study center around the work of the anthropologist A. Irving Hallowell and his employment of the term Indianization (10). In essence, Indianization was a process in which the men of the Lewis and Clark expedition adopted Native ways and practices along their journey, making them their own. Thus, Indianization became evident in the men’s physical appearance and in their use of everyday items. Swagerty’s work seeks “to demonstrate that the men were profoundly transformed and the potential for a different understanding of the Indian impact on America was revealed” (46). The author asserts that Indian peoples had a greater impact upon the expedition and American society as a whole than has been previously understood by historians.

The first chapter provides an overview of the cultural history of each man making the journey. The analysis begins with the first U.S. census and explores the “cultural hearths” of the men who composed the Corps of Discovery, in order to better understand the societies in which they lived. This becomes an important foundation for the remainder of the book because it serves as the starting point for understanding how these men became “Indianized.” The second chapter explores the interactions between Indians and non-Indians, highlighting the relationships between the Indians and the French as an example of a Euro-American people who experienced a level of Indianization.

The subsequent nine chapters, topically organized, analyze how “the ‘known’ technological world changed considerably as Indians’ ways and techniques were developed” (149). One prominent marker of this change occurred with the adoption of moccasins by the explorers. In addition, diet and medicines were altered as the Corps incorporated foods and plants used by Indian peoples. These adaptations made travel easier and allowed the explorers to find subsistence along the way as opposed to having to bring and carry innumerable supplies. Swagerty argues that the men’s diets became almost completely Indianized. He concludes with the aftermath of the expedition and explores the return of the Corps of Discovery to the eastern United States. The Lewis and Clark expedition made notable contributions to science, culture, and American Indian diplomacy.

The most impressive aspect of this study is its creative use of primary sources. Swagerty grounds his analysis in the journals of Lewis and Clark, focusing his attention on the Indian perspective contained within the journal entries. This monograph will serve those scholars interested in the American West, the Lewis and Clark expedition, Euro-American identity, and the influence of indigenous peoples upon the cultural and social landscape of America.

ELISE BOXER University of Utah

Mapping Mormonism: An Atlas of Latter-day Saint History. Edited by Brandon S. Plewe, S. Kent Brown, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard H. Jackson. (Provo, UT: BYU Press, 2012. 272 pp. Cloth, $39.95.)

IN 1981, I CAME ACROSS An Atlas of Utah. This book was a geographical treasure trove of maps, facts, figures, and histories of the state of Utah. I had never seen such a wonderful book, and I spent hours looking at the maps and reading the accompanying text. I saw the state from perspectives that I had not even thought about before. The book was a marvel. It gave me an appreciation for geographical research and its ability to teach. Over the years (too many of them), I have waited for a new edition of this work, but it has not come.

Then last year Mapping Mormonism appeared. Though it is not a replacement for the Atlas of Utah, it is nonetheless a wonderful application of the principles and concepts used in the Atlas, and on a topic that, like Utah, I have a great interest in. The book has united the research and writings of sixty scholars in geography, history, and economics to provide a sweeping view of the history of Mormonism. More than an atlas, it has fascinating timelines and informative charts. The sixty-plus authors have produced fine pieces of scholarship, but the editors have done an equally terrific job of compiling this research into a book that is organized, structured, and crisp.

Though the authors are mostly professors from Brigham Young University, there are scholars representing other universities, the Catholic Church, and the Community of Christ, along with independent writers. The book is divided into four main sections: “The Restoration,” “The Empire in the Desert,” “The Expanding Church,” and “Regional History.”

The book is filled with information you would expect, but also with unexpected insights. Who knew, for example, that the explosion of Mt. Tambora in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) might have influenced Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Smith to move their family from Vermont to

western New York? This gigantic eruption sent volcanic ash into the air, cooling summers for several years in the early 1800s and prompting thousands to move from the New England states to more promising areas.

Other pages are equally interesting. A world map accompanied by a timeline at the bottom of one page shows when and where the Latter-day Saint scriptures have been translated into other languages for worldwide use. Impressive maps and timelines of the New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois periods allow the reader to see these periods in a spatially fascinating way. The much-analyzed missionary work of the early Quorum of Twelve Apostles is shown, including Orson Hyde’s trip to the Holy Land. Mapping Mormonism presents an informative snapshot (with some admitted imperfection) of plural marriage as it lists the percentage of families who did or did not practice polygamy in communities from St. George to Logan— with Paris, Idaho, and the Muddy River Mission in Nevada thrown in to boot.

“The Expanding Church” opens with maps of the world and the United States on the bottom third of the page and a linear graph on the top two-thirds of the page that shows by year, from 1900 to 2010, the total membership; annual increase; annual growth rate; and number of missionaries, stakes, and temples in the LDS church.

In summary, the authors and editors of Mapping Mormonism have made an impressive achievement. It is colorful, arresting, and educational in a way that would attract a student with the shortest attention span. The writing is generally clear and concise, and the graphics are easy to follow and understand. Needless to say, I really liked this book and can now put to rest my anxiety of not having a wonderful atlas that can truly educate and inform in an attention-grabbing way. To the authors and editors: well done!

MICHAEL E. CHRISTENSEN Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel State of Utah

Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Choice in Twentieth-Century Arizona. By Mary S. Melcher. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2012. x + 248 pp. Cloth, $50.00.)

IN THIS WORK,Mary Melcher details how the differences imposed on humankind by race, culture, religion, government, and economic status can be considered not only hindrances to women’s physical ability to give life but also to women’s power to control that ability. In 1912, 69 percent of Arizona’s inhabitants lived in rural areas with 2,500 people or fewer. This meant little or no infrastructure, lack of professional medical care, economic struggles, and disadvantages due to race. All of these factors contributed to

the fact that Arizona had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the nation, as well as other struggles regarding womanhood and choice.

While describing the difficulties faced by Arizona women in the twentieth century and making the case for the need of choice and control, Melcher also advances the insight that the ability to provide life is the one thing that joins women together—despite race, culture, religion, government, or economic status. She argues, further, that through childbearing, women share another commonality: the ability to choose. Melcher fills her work with examples of this commonality. In the 1950s Euro-American women blurred socioeconomic lines by assisting the less prosperous Mexicans or African Americans in getting access to birth control resources through a Tucson birth control clinic. Women of faith banded together with the support of ecclesiastical leaders willing to think unconventionally, such as the Reverend Michael D. Smith, a Presbyterian campus minister at the University of Arizona in 1971. Smith declared that because women were created in God’s own image, it was therefore part of a woman’s divine nature to decide how and when to have children. Melcher also focuses on the irony of government involvement in women’s reproduction—being willing to make the choice for women through legislation while denying them the opportunity to choose.

Though Melcher certainly focuses on Arizona, she incorporates historical details about other western states not only to back up her research but also to provide an overall picture of this aspect of western women’s history. This is especially true with regard to Utah. The author details the Utah and Mormon perspective on womanhood, motherhood, and choice throughout the book. In 1940, for instance, Utah shared Arizona’s high birthrate, but it had a lower infant mortality rate. As factors in this lower mortality rate, Melcher notes the medical training of some of Utah’s women, both as doctors and midwives, as well as the success of the LDS Relief Society. She also notes the geographical clustering of settlements along the Wasatch front as a factor. Given the fact that the majority of Utah’s population was centered in and around Salt Lake City, this is understandable. Melcher’s reliance on statistics alone, however, does open the door to the question of rural communities in Utah between Salt Lake and St. George, such as mining towns, where the Mormon church was not as prominent. Did these areas suffer from the same high infant mortality rates as Arizona? Did the lack of infrastructure negatively affect women’s ability to get quality care? How did Utah’s ethnic minorities fair? Though an in-depth study of these questions was obviously not within Melcher’s scope, a comparison between rural Utah and rural Arizona is warranted.

There are moments when Melcher seems to discredit women’s personal convictions and the influence of religious or cultural beliefs on decisions regarding motherhood, pregnancy, and choice. She notes the Catholic and

Mormon religious perspective, as well as the Navajo cultural perspective, that reproduction is a matter for a higher power to decide. Her tone suggests that women from these traditions would surely choose family planning over nature if they were not under such ecclesiastical or cultural sway, as if these women were somehow lacking intelligence for following personal conviction based on faith or tradition.

Part of Melcher’s thesis outlines the “pattern of change” of women’s reproduction in the twentieth century, as illustrated by the shift in the late 1960s and 1970s regarding sexuality. Likewise, she adds historic context about why Roe v. Wade occurred when it did and why it was received or rejected so passionately. While the ability to give life once provided common ground for Arizona women, the sexual liberation of women did not have the same unifying effect. Hence, the emergence of two separate distinct groups: pro-life versus pro-choice.

Melcher’s passion for her subject is evident, but she maintains an objective voice throughout Pregnancy. The fifty-three pages of endnotes bear witness to Melcher’s extensive historical research, as do the variety of sources. Current events, such as the debate over an age restriction of access to the “morning after” pill, add force to her general subject matter, giving it increased relevance not only historically but contemporaneously as women continue to define their place in various cultures and defend their freedoms with regard to reproduction.

HEIDI ORCHARD Utah Division of State History

Butch Cassidy: Beyond the Grave. By W. C. Jameson. (Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2012. 187 pp. Cloth, $22.95.)

THE NOTED AUTHOR and treasure hunter W. C. Jameson has just completed his second book on famous outlaws (Billy the Kid was the first) and their “bigger than life” legend. In this case he features the Utah native Robert Leroy Parker, otherwise known as Butch Cassidy. Jameson’s well-researched book provides an analytical approach to the hypothesis that Butch Cassidy did not really die in a shootout in Bolivia. He gives plenty of examples that Butch returned to the American West “beyond the grave.”

Jameson draws from many different authors as he traces Butch’s life from his origins to his path across the West, until his imprisonment in Wyoming. He follows the later adventures of Butch and the Wild Bunch and their deeds across the West, and then covers the voyage of Butch and the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh) to South America. Here with Etta Place they established a nice ranch and went “straight” until the Pinkerton

Detective Agency discovered them; they eventually returned to the outlaw trail. Unfortunately, while Jameson cites respective authors on these various incidents, he does not include specific pages in his footnotes, which would have been a nice addition for other researchers.

Jameson argues that because credible records do not exist, there is only scanty evidence that the two outlaws died in the shootout at San Vicente and were buried there. He puts forth twelve points that raise doubts about the identities of Butch and Sundance and other American outlaws who were possibly operating in South America. He states that it was not until publication of an article by Arthur Chapman twenty-two years after the shootout, based on the information Chapman obtained from Percy Seibert, that most people came to believe that the people killed were Butch and Sundance.

Following Chapman’s article, many folks stepped forward to dispute his assertion that Butch was dead. Jameson presents numerous accounts of people who claimed to have seen and visited with Butch after he returned to the American West. He presents the evidence of these various accounts, including a purported visit to the Parker family home. Some people believed that the man who penned the manuscript “The Bandit Invisible”—William T. Phillips from Spokane, Washington—was Butch Cassidy because information contained therein must have come from someone who had been on the scene. Jameson makes a thorough analysis of the Phillips/Cassidy comparison, but cannot really tie down a conclusion. He calls it “Occam’s razor,” essentially saying he needs more evidence.

Unfortunately, while Jameson was finalizing his book, an expanded manuscript of “The Bandit Invisible” surfaced and was acquired by a Utah rare document collector. This enlarged manuscript was turned over to the Montana author Larry Pointer for analysis. In this process, Pointer concluded that William T. Phillips was really William T. Wilcox, a fellow inmate with Butch Cassidy in Wyoming’s territorial prison.

W. C. Jameson’s book is a nice addition to the expanding library about Utah’s most famous outlaw. It of course leaves the legend alive for someone else to prove whether the mystery of Butch’s life “beyond the grave” can be solved.

JOEL FRANDSEN Elsinore, Utah

BOOK NOTICES

Later Patriarchal Blessings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

By H. Michael Marquardt. (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2012. liv + 591 pp. Cloth, $90.00.)

This book contains the text of eight hundred patriarchal blessings given to members of the LDS church between the 1830s and 1980s. These blessings, unique to Mormonism, are important rituals meant to bolster faith and give prophetic guidance; scribes write them down and the church keeps copies. The volume includes blessings given to well-known and lesser-known people in Utah history. The introduction discusses the office of the patriarch and gives a detailed account of the controversial appointment and term of the last church-wide patriarch, Eldred Smith.

The Avenues. Images of America Series. By Cevan LeSieur. (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2012. 127 pp. Paper, $21.99.)

Historic photographs of the buildings and people of Salt Lake City’s Avenues fill the pages of this book. Along with a chapter on the architecturally eclectic houses of the neighborhood, there are chapters about construction projects, places of worship and learning, apartment buildings, and public buildings.

The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America. By Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. 340 pp. Cloth, $32.50.)

This groundbreaking book argues that the color of Christ in American art has had—and does have—significant political and social implications: Jesus’s race has been involved in slavery, struggles for emancipation, Native peoples’ struggles with whites, KKK activities, civil rights, immigration issues, warfare, and more. The authors state that the “color of Christ” provides a compelling way to grasp the meaning of religion and race in American history. They discuss the Mormon views of Christ vis-àvis Mormons’ attitudes toward race. They also suggest that Mormon view of Christ might also have been influenced by the fact that Mormon whiteness was at times under attack. (One person described the children of polygamists as members of a degraded new race.) Perhaps because of such persecution, early Mormons became committed to the “whiteness” of Jesus, and hence their own.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY FELLOWS

THOMAS G. ALEXANDER

JAMES B. ALLEN

LEONARD J. ARRINGTON (1917–1999) MAUREEN URSENBACH BEECHER DAVID L. BIGLER

FAWN M. BRODIE (1915–1981)

JUANITA BROOKS (1898–1989) OLIVE W. BURT (1894–1981) EUGENE E. CAMPBELL (1915–1986) EVERETT L. COOLEY (1917–2006) C. GREGORY CRAMPTON (1911–1995) S. GEORGE ELLSWORTH (1916–1997)

MAX J. EVANS AUSTIN E. FIFE (1909–1986) PETER L. GOSS

LEROY R. HAFEN (1893–1985) B. CARMON HARDY

JOEL JANETSKI A. KARL LARSON (1899–1983) GUSTIVE O. LARSON (1897–1983) WILLIAM P. MACKINNON BRIGHAM D. MADSEN (1914–2010)

CAROL CORNWALL MADSEN DEAN L. MAY (1938–2003)

DAVID E. MILLER (1909–1978) DALE L. MORGAN (1914–1971) WILLIAM MULDER (1915–2008) PHILIP F. NOTARIANNI FLOYD A. O’NEIL HELEN Z. PAPANIKOLAS (1917–2004) CHARLES S. PETERSON RICHARD W. SADLER GARY L. SHUMWAY MELVIN T. SMITH WALLACE E. STEGNER (1909–1993) WILLIAM A. WILSON

HONORARY LIFE MEMBERS

DAVID BIGLER CRAIG FULLER FLORENCE S. JACOBSEN MARLIN K. JENSEN STANFORD J. LAYTON WILLIAM P. MACKINNON JOHN S. MCCORMICK F. ROSS PETERSON RICHARD C. ROBERTS WILLIAM B. SMART MELVIN T. SMITH LINDA THATCHER GARY TOPPING