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CONTENTS 183 IN THIS ISSUE
236 BOOK REVIEWS
244 UTAH IN FOCUS
194 William Hope Harvey
208 A Personal Tribute
ARTICLES 184 This was the place: The Making and Unmaking of Utah By Jared Farmer
220 Conquering the Black Ridge: The Communitarian Road in Pioneer Utah By Todd Compton
and the Ogden Mardi Gras By Val Holley
234 The Palmer and Driggs Collections at Southern Utah University By Janet Seegmiller
to the “Real” Historic Twenty-Fifth Street By Fred Seppi
236 JOHN gary maxwell Robert Newton Baskin and the Making of Modern Utah Reviewed by Thomas G. Alexander
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Book Reviews
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237 JOHN L. KESSELL Miera y Pacheco: A Renaissance Spaniard in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico Reviewed by Steven K. Madsen
238 Allan Kent Powell, Ed. Nels Anderson’s World War I Diary Reviewed by Douglas D. Alder
239 Robert S. McPherson, Jim Dandy, and sarah e. burak Navajo Tradition, Mormon Life: The Autobiography and Teachings of Jim Dandy Reviewed by Farina King
240 Linda Scarangella Mcnenly Native Performers in Wild West Shows: From Buffalo Bill to Euro Disney Reviewed by Robert S. McPherson
241 Allen V. Parkham and SteveN R. Evans Lewis and Clark among the Nez Perce: Strangers in the Land of the Nimiipuu Reviewed by John D. Barton
IN this issue
Brad Westwood, Editor Holly George, Co-Managing Editor
The Summer 2014 issue of UHQ also marks our first effort to present a mixture of web and print material, with an extended version of Jared Farmer’s essay, “The Making and Unmaking of Utah.” The online version of this piece contains over fifty images that support Farmer’s text and tell stories in a way that print cannot match. Look for web extras at the end of this and other articles. This is a humble beginning to what will become a robust online resource for those who love accessible, thoughtful history. We have reorganized the Quarterly’s office into two equal and complementary sections. Dr. Holly George will remain largely responsible for print content, and Dr. Jedediah S. Rogers—who joined UHQ’s staff as this issue went to press—will pursue
WEB EXTRA: For all of this issue’s web features, visit history.utah.gov/summer–2014. View UHQ’s past graphic designs at history.utah.-gov/past-uhq-designs.
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Though much is changing with UHQ, much will stay the same. We remain especially committed to publishing peer-reviewed articles that explore the breadth and depth of Utah’s past. In addition to the pieces mentioned above, this issue features three articles that offer something of a variation on the theme of the “making of Utah.” In our second article, Val Holley tells the story of William Hope Harvey, a booster determined to draw attention to Ogden by mounting a lavish Mardi Gras celebration there in 1890. The third article carries the history of Ogden forward to the mid-twentieth century, with the reminiscences of Fred Seppi about his childhood experience of watching life on Twenty-Fifth Street Finally, Todd Compton describe the struggles of nineteenthcentury pioneers to build a road through the Black Ridge area of southern Utah.
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With this in mind, during the last year we have reached out to Utah’s leaders, to our readers, and to the broad history-loving community in Utah, and we have decided to make some changes to UHQ. In addition to long research articles—which will always constitute the bulk of the Quarterly—we will periodically publish essays, primary documents, updates from archives around the state, and a historic image spotlight, among other features. In this issue, for instance, Janet Seegmiller describes the valuable Palmer and Driggs collections at Southern Utah University. The issue concludes with a charming photograph from a party held in the midst of the Great Depression. Most noticeably, the Quarterly has a fresh, new graphic design. Throughout its long history, UHQ has gone through several redesigns, the last in 2000; a gallery of representative covers is available online (see below).
digital content. Both sides of the Quarterly will be offered as a seamless reading experience.
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The history of Utah—and the very human desire to understand the past—has kept the staff of Utah Historical Quarterly busy for more than eighty-five years. As the new director of the Division of State History and as the editor of the Quarterly, we see Utah’s history as Tip O’Neill saw politics: it’s all local. In other words, the success of the Quarterly is tied to our ability to understand, listen, and respond to you, the reader, and to the citizens of Utah.
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The Four Corners. —
utah state historical society
The Making and Unmaking of Utah By
Ja r e d
Fa r me r
How many Utahns have driven out of their way to get to a place that’s really no place, the intersection of imaginary lines: Four Corners, the only spot where the boundaries of four U.S. states converge. Here, at the surveyor’s monument, tourists play geographic Twister, placing one foot and one hand in each quadrant. In 2009, the Deseret News raised a minor ruckus by announcing that the marker at Four Corners was 2.5 miles off. Geocachers with GPS devices had supposedly discovered a screw-up of nineteenth-century surveyors. The implication: no four-legged tourist had ever truly straddled the state boundaries. A television news anchor in Denver called it “the geographic shot heard around the West.” In fact, the joke was on the Deseret News. After receiving a pointed rebuttal from the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the newspaper printed a retraction with this unintentionally amusing headline: “Four Corners Monument Is Indeed Off Mark—But Not by Distance Reported Earlier and in Opposite Direction.”1 The confusion stemmed from the fact that geocachers had anachronistically used the Greenwich Meridian as their longitudinal reference, though the U.S. did not adopt the Greenwich standard until 1912. The mapmaker in 1875 who first determined the location of Four Corners actually got it right; he was only “off mark” by the subsequent standard of satellite technology. More to the point, surveyors after him validated his work and made the boundary concrete with an official marker. As America’s chief surveyor explained to reporters, “Once a boundary 1 Lynn Arave, “Four Corners Monument is Indeed Off Mark,” Deseret News, April 23, 2009.
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monument has been set and accepted, it generally does define the forever, even if later found to be not located where originally intended.”2
your inner compass.
The issue here was not just academic or journalistic. It had economic ramifications. Tourists won’t come to Four Corners unless they have faith in the rightness of imaginary lines. This matters to Navajo jewelers, hoteliers, and gas station owners. The land where Utah meets three other states belongs to the sovereign Navajo Nation. To refute the Deseret News, the tribe fired off a press release: “Four Corners Monument Still the Legally Recognized Landmark Despite Reports.”3
The making of Utah was related to a larger U.S. project: the national map. And this national map was a product of the so-called Rectangular Survey. If you take the perspective of, say, Dead Horse Point, it seems preposterous that surveyors drew straight lines over jumbled topography to create legal boundaries. Nature abhors squares. But the United States—indeed, even its precursor, the Continental Congress—fell in love with the rationality and mathematical purity of the grid: a nation composed of squares within squares. The basic cartographic building block is the section, or one square mile. Put together thirty-six sequentially numbered sections and you have a township of six miles squared. After the Civil War, U.S. surveyors took this quadrilateral thinking to the next level and mapped out a series of more or less rectangular territories and states adjoining one another. Today, easterners often confuse Wyoming with Colorado, and Utah with Arizona and New Mexico (much like westerners transpose Vermont and New Hampshire). From an East Coast point of view, the big western rectangles seem more or less interchangeable.
This little story of place-making has a big moral: U.S. states such as Utah are examples of the make-believe made real. And like all imagined things, they have histories. “Landscape is history made visible,” wrote the discerning critic J. B. Jackson.4 What did he mean by that? Think about discoverers, conquerors, invaders, colonists, settlers, migrants, pioneers, and other people on the move: all throughout the past, in all four corners of the world, people have encountered unfamiliar spaces and then transformed them, familiarized them, into places. People give meaning to landforms and thereby make landmarks. They place names on mental maps and tell stories about those named and mapped places. They burn, cultivate, build, and otherwise remodel the terrain: they turn land into landscape. This endless process—simultaneously local and global—can never be harmless. Outside of Antarctica and scattered islands, there has been no true terra incognita (land unknown) or terra nullius (land unoccupied) for millennia; no uninhabited, unstoried, unmeaningful terrestrial space. Thus every act of place-making has on some level been an act of remaking, if not displacement—an act of cultural encroachment, even violence. Or, to drive the point home: the making of our Utah involved the unmaking of older Utahs. My purpose in this essay is to get you thinking, through various examples, about place creation and landscape loss; and, along the way, to unsettle your mental geography, and adjust—ever so slightly— 2 Ibid. 3 Navajo Parks and Recreation Department, “Four Corners Monument Still the Legally Recognized Landmark Despite Reports,” April 22, 2009, accessed April 4, 2014, http:// navajonationparks.org/pr/pr_4Cmarker.htm. 4 John Brinckerhoff Jackson, Landscape in Sight: Looking at America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 10.
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In fact, boundary lines matter. Even though they are invisible on the ground—even though they are social artifices, environmental lies—they create reality. They can engender or reinforce differences, inequalities, and conflicts. Consider the MasonDixon Line, the Radcliffe Line, the Berlin Wall, the DMZ, the West Bank Barrier, or the U.S.-Mexico border. Or, on a local scale, think about the Salt Lakers who cross over to Evanston, Wyoming, for fireworks (or now to Colorado for marijuana), or who drive the opposite direction on I-80 to West Wendover, Nevada, for gambling and other adult entertainments. Some residents of Logan travel from one part of Cache Valley to another—to the Idaho side—for lotto tickets and malt liquor. Three hundred fifty miles to the south, just over the Arizona border, members of the FLDS church still practice polygamy. Colorado City’s location was chosen in part to elude Arizona law enforcement. Because of the awesome barrier of the Grand Canyon, the state government in Phoenix historically found it difficult to enforce antibigamy laws in the Arizona Strip, a swath of land effectively in Utah. Borders are as mutable and arbitrary as they are important. Recall how the map of Europe changed in 1918 and again in 1945 and again in 1989. Look
Borders and boundaries are not the only invisible lines that create reality. There’s also the issue of metageography, a word that refers to large-scale geographic concepts such as continents. Students today learn that the world has seven continents; Wikipedia agrees. But go to the library stacks (or Google Books), and you can readily find learned authorities of yesteryear presenting the plain facts that the continents numbered four—or five, or six. If you follow current events, you see almost daily how the metageographical informs the geopolitical and vice versa. Think about the enduring power of concepts such as “the Third World,” “the Middle East,” and “the West,” to name just three. Utah, like other nations and U.S. states, can be grouped into or divided among larger metageographic regions. Textbooks divide the Beehive State into three physiographic “provinces”: the Great Basin, the Colorado Plateau, and the Rocky Mountains. Like most simplifications, this tripartite division can be misleading. From a geologist’s point of view, the Uintas are the only mountains in the state that rightfully belong with the Rockies because of their shared origin in a wonderfully named tectonic event, the Laramide Orogeny. The borders of Utah also overlap with areas of cultural metageography. For instance, many Ger-
The current regional identification with mountains—our high country bias—replaced an earlier hydrological emphasis. In the nineteenth century, Mormon settlers in Great Salt Lake City (as it was called) emphasized that they were a Great Basin people. Outsiders agreed. Tourists flocked to “America’s Dead Sea”—a national attraction, a natural curiosity, and a sublime landscape worthy of towering artists such as Thomas Moran. Now, by contrast, hydrography hardly matters to outsider or insider conceptions of Utah. Except when the Great Salt Lake threatens the capital with flooding—as it did after the 1982-83 El Niño—modern residents of the Wasatch Front evince little awareness that they live on the edge of a vast interior drainage basin. During the 2002 Olympics, the global media reinforced the symbolic connection between Utahns and mountains. The standard blimp’s-eye-view showed downtown buildings, including the LDS temple, backed by snowy peaks. On NBC, Utah looked much like any other Winter Olympics venue: a generic Alpine or Nordic landscape. For their part, city officials did nothing to turn the camera’s gaze from east to west, from the mountains to the lake. Once a font of curiosity, the city’s namesake had become a reservoir of indifference.
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When contemporary Utahns appeal to a supraregional identity, they tend to speak of the Intermountain West, the Mountain West, or the Rocky Mountain Region. The locution Intermountain West originated around 1900. A coalition of boosters, LDS and non-Mormon alike, promoted Salt Lake City—the “Mormon Metropolis”—as a regional capital. Given that Las Vegas was barely a cow town, and Boise not much more, these hopeful Salt Lakers had a point. In the same era, Spokane, Washington, billed itself as the hub of a rival “Inland Empire.” With the coming of freeways and airports, these geographic inventions (based on railroad networks) became passé. Today, the best-known Inland Empire (or “I.E.”) is in Southern California. The preferred metageographical container for Utah has become Rocky Mountain.
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man tourists come to Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation to experience the “Indian Country” of the Southwest, of which Utah’s largest county, San Juan, is one small part. Other tourists come to Salt Lake City to see something that seems equally exotic: “Mormon Country.” Geographers call it the Mormon Culture Region, which, for them, includes southeastern Idaho, southwestern Wyoming, southeastern Nevada, and the valley of the Little Colorado in Arizona.
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at Africa before and after decolonization. Compared to Africa, the map of North America has been quite stable for over a century. But go back to the nineteenth century, and you see the U.S. national map in a constant state of flux, as the republic gained new lands and states through purchases, wars, treaties, and referenda. Prior to the western states came the western territories. For example, the original Oregon Territory included all of present-day Washington State as well as Oregon. Mormon settlers, newly ensconced in their Great Basin headquarters, proposed a state called Deseret that would have stretched from the Sierra to the Rockies. Even though Congress spurned that proposal, it created a Utah Territory much larger than today’s state. During the long probationary period that ended only after the LDS church promised to give up polygamy, Congress repeatedly sawed off chunks of Utah, awarding them to Nevada and later to Nebraska and Colorado; it even entertained the idea of shrinking Utah to a narrow strip or dividing Salt Lake City right down the middle. Thus the current semirectangular shape of Utah was the result of happenstance and politics as well as the grid. It had nothing to do with nature.
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Salt Lakers are Wasatch people, but it wasn’t always so. The term Wasatch Front arose from the glossaries of geologists, and it took time to catch on. It didn’t become the standard descriptor for the state’s main population corridor until the last quarter of the twentieth century, when I-15 tied together instant communities even as it disrupted historic community centers. Before the interstate, one had to travel US-89 (that is, State Street) through every small downtown. As recently as the 1970s, it took a long time to get from Salt Lake City to Provo, and Point of the Mountain felt like a true divide. The state prison, surrounded by horse pastures, seemed oddly rural, even remote. Today, of course, subdivisions line the freeway from Santaquin to Brigham City, two towns once known for their fruit orchards. The Wasatch Front has become Utah’s equivalent to Colorado’s Front Range, where development along I-25 is creating a suburban megalopolis. Someday Tooele and Cedar valleys—maybe even Cache Valley—may merit inclusion in the greater metropolitan area. Residents of the Wasatch Front are united primarily by dependence on I-15, secondarily by earthquake hazards, lake-effect snowfalls, and world-class inversion. In addition to the Wasatch Front, Utah contains various other large-scale topographical subregions, some of which also function as social subregions. Consider the Uintah Basin, Emery County’s Castle Valley, Sanpete Valley, Sevier Valley, or Dixie. In Utah Valley, the coinage “Silicon Slopes,” invented by Google in 2013 upon announcing that Provo would be the third city in the nation to receive a Google Fiber network, has been picked up eagerly by business leaders to replace a moribund branding initiative from the 1990s: “Software Valley.” At the scale just below the state, Utahns resort to vague descriptors based on cardinal directions: the west desert, northern Utah, eastern Utah, southeastern Utah. The popular phrase “southern Utah” is particularly elastic. Today, it often serves as a metonym for red rock or slickrock. Moab seems like classic southern Utah, whereas Beaver, located farther south, does not. Since the 1960s the Utah Travel Council has valiantly tried to create touristic subregions by lumping adjacent counties into groups: Color Country, Panoramaland, Dinosaurland, and so on. These names have never really stuck. A few evoke heritage, such as Bridgerland, Golden Spike Empire, and Mormon Country (since renamed Great Salt Lake Country), but the majority call attention to Utah’s abundant and seemingly timeless natural attractions.
Surprisingly, natural attractions can have very short cultural lifespans. In the nineteenth century, northern Utah’s lionized sights included Echo Canyon, Devils Slide, and Black Rock. Relatively few people care about these places today. Or consider Castle Gate, which once consisted of two pillars on either side of the canyon of the Price River. For late nineteenth-century railroad tourists traveling west from Colorado, this “natural wonder” marked the entry into the real Utah. Alfred Lambourne, Utah’s first noted landscape painter, made Castle Gate his subject, and countless photographers sold collectible views. By 1966 the rock formation had fallen so far in stature that the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT), without qualms, dynamited half of it to make room for a wider highway. Over the first half of the twentieth century, as cars replaced trains as the primary form of transportation, the geography of Utah tourism changed. As of 1900, the leading attractions were built landscapes in the north: the resorts of the Great Salt Lake, Salt Lake City’s warm springs, and the Mormon sanctum sanctorum, Temple Square. Sightseers traveled to the “Center of Scenic America” by railroad, most often through Ogden, the undisputed second city. Gradually, interest shifted to the more unsettled landscapes of southern Utah, especially its remarkable sandstone canyons. By 1950 tourists for the most part came by private automobile on newly paved roads. The sites for which Utah is now world-famous—Zion, Bryce, Arches—were commercially undiscovered until the automobile age. The attractiveness of natural attractions depends significantly on media attention. In the mid-twentieth century, Hollywood filmmakers and New York City advertisers recast Monument Valley, an inhabited Navajo landscape, as wild American scenery. More recently, Delicate Arch has become Utah’s most branded landmark besides the Salt Lake Temple. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, this freestanding arch, which went by various names, was virtually unknown beyond Moab. It was exponentially less renowned than Augusta Bridge, a place few contemporary Utahns could identify (even by its current name, Sipapu), though a heroic canvas of “Utah’s Greatest Scenic Wonder” hangs in the ceremonial Supreme Court chamber at the State Capitol, and a near-identical painting was presented to U.S. president William Howard Taft.5 Only in 1996, Utah’s centennial year, did Delicate 5 H. L. A. Culmer, “Who Shall Name Our Natural Bridges?” Western Monthly 11 (February 1910): 38–41.
Utah’s imperiled heritage includes more than geosites. Practically all of the state’s ancient and historic indigenous ruins and burial grounds have been looted if not obliterated; much of its exquisite Native rock art continues to be vandalized; and most of its settler-era scenes have been bulldozed to make room for tract houses and big-box stores. Only in a few locales, notably Sanpete Valley, can you still see vestiges of the old Mormon landscape that has vanished from the Wasatch Front. Unlike the New England village or the Santa Fe style, Utah’s vernacular architecture was neither codified nor protected by historic preservation law. For every Brigham Young Academy saved, three Coalville tabernacles have been torn down. Furthermore, land trusts and conservation easements have struggled to gain traction in Utah’s terrain of property-rights fundamentalism. Paradoxically, beliefs and practices about sacred space do not necessitate a land ethic. When I consider the contemporary Mormon Culture Region, I’m struck by the disjunction between the cultivated sense of place and the stunted sensibility of place. Utah’s leading real estate developer and its greatest shaper of community standards, the LDS church, does little to promote stewardship and sustainabil-
I don’t mean to suggest that Utah is culturally out of line. Quite the opposite: when it comes to land use and real estate development, Utah long ago joined the mainstream. It is locales and regions like Santa Fe and New England that seem peculiar now. In these United States, where consumer capitalism is the de facto state religion, landscapes are generally more cost effective if they are mass producible, mass destructible, fungible, and irreverential. For better or for worse, the story of our nation’s built environment—especially in the post-WWII era of car-based suburbanization—has been more about disposability than durability. To reinforce my theme of geographic impermanence, I want to share one of my all-time favorite maps. It comes from a book with a charming title: Through the Heart of the Scenic West.6 What’s interesting about this map is its time-boundedness. Only in the 1920s, the onset of the age of auto tourism, could this map have been drawn. How many living Utahns, I wonder, have heard about these map features: Wayne Wonderland? Temple of the Sand Pillars? Today, these places don’t exist as such. As for beautiful Maple Canyon, it hasn’t gone anywhere, but relatively few folks (besides Sanpeters and rock climbers) go there. If you asked the Utah 6 J. Cecil Alter, Through the Heart of the Scenic West (Salt Lake City: Shepherd, 1927).
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For various reasons, then, the traditional, idiosyncratic, somewhat shambolic Mormon landscape—a legacy of local craftwork—is largely doomed. The sturdy buildings made of adobe, brick, and roughhewn native stone; the cockeyed wood-and-wire fences; the rows of upright poplars; the use of cottonwoods as ornamentals; the compact villages with double-wide streets on a grid; the close mixture of church lots and civic lots and vacant lots; the backyard gardens and the outlying fields: this distinctive geographical matrix will soon be a memory or perhaps even a lost memory.
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One of the Beehive State’s most extensive landscape losses has happened virtually without comment: the disfigurement of Pleistocene topography. Landmark shorelines of Lake Bonneville have recently been used as platforms for cookie-cutter suburbs, cheapo McMansions, and prefab temples. Laws protecting antiquities do not as yet extend to geoantiquities. No matter that geologists and geomorphologists rate the benches of the Wasatch Front as world-class features. Grove Karl Gilbert, one of the geological geniuses of the nineteenth century, marveled at the “great embankment” at Point of the Mountain, a magnificent sand and gravel bar. In its own way, it was more impressive—and more evocative of the deep past—than any ziggurat or pyramid. But where geologists saw epic earth poetry, others saw real property. Gravel companies gouged out the point from Point of the Mountain, and advertisers erected billboards upon the wreckage.
ity or to preserve historic landscapes or to nurture place-based aesthetics. Instead the Corporation of the President erects edifices by the numbers—ample parking included—according to centralized master plans. Church architecture has gone from artful stonework built to last through the millennium to a stuccoed simulacrum. In urban Utah, even as the interior sacred space of Mormonism has expanded with the construction of new temples to serve growing populations, the exterior sacred space—farms and fields and orchards, former sites of sacralized work—has contracted to virtual oblivion.
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Arch first appear on license plates. Someday, inevitably, the arch will collapse like New Hampshire’s Old Man of the Mountain. Another one of Utah’s formerly celebrated landscapes, the Bonneville Speedway, may be as fleeting as the Mormon Meteor. The salt flats have shrunk in thickness and area because its sustaining brine flow has been partly captured by a nearby mining operation.
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Utah to bathe in sulfur water and float in salt water. Currently, of course, the Wasatch Front is more about “Life Elevated®” and the “Greatest Snow on Earth®.” Salt Lake City’s once-famous hydropathic resorts—the warm springs and the adjacent Hot Springs Lake—were long ago blotted out by a gravel mine and an oil refinery. In the hearts and minds of twentieth-century Utahns, the lowland Great Basin underwent a great desiccation.
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I’ll illustrate the drying out of Utah’s old waterworld with a short history of the place-name Utah. Place-making is an act of power, and it begins with words. It starts with naming. Today, Utah’s capital and social center is Salt Lake City in Salt Lake Valley. It didn’t use to be that way. It’s no coincidence that Utah Lake occupies the center of Utah Valley, which occupies the center of Utah County, which occupies the near-geographic center of Utah. The names are concentric for a reason. In the nineteenth century and for untold ages before, this lake and its fishery defined a people. This was the place. In its original usage as a toponym, Utah signified the lakeside home of the “Utahs.” Now we would call them Utes; in earlier times, these Utes of Utah Lake were also known as the Fish-Eaters, the Lake People, and the Timpanogos.
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Through the Heart of the Scenic West. —
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Travel Council to produce a map like this—well, that’s what they do, isn’t it? But their current maps feature a wildly dissimilar list of landmarks and attractions. It’s even more interesting to imagine an analogous map produced in the nineteenth century. On that map, there would be no Zion National Park, because it didn’t exist. There was a chasm known locally as Little Zion—also Mukuntuweap—but it wouldn’t have merited attention. Neither Bryce Canyon nor Natural Bridges nor Mt. Timpanogos would appear. In the nineteenth century, Utah was recognized as a land of lakes more than canyons or even mountains. People came to northern
In 1850 Congress created something semantically new: Utah Territory. Mormons had previously applied for territorial status under the name of their choosing, Deseret, as engraved in the ceremonial stone donated to the Washington Monument. Congress overruled the choice. Until this moment it had been customary for the national legislature to affirm local usage. More often than not, American settlers called their region by the name of the major river— which usually carried a variant of a Native name—or by its major indigenous group. “Deseret” did not follow that pattern. The name wasn’t Native; it wasn’t even from a language spoken in America. The word came from the Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith had translated from “Reformed Egyptian,” in which Deseret means honeybee. The word Utah has its own exotic origin in Spanish New Mexico. It derives from Yuta, a Hispanicized version of a Native word—possibly Western Apache for “one that is higher up.” A nineteenth-century authority defined Yutas as “they who live on mountains.” In English-language sources, the word appeared in various spellings—with a first letter e, g, j, or y—before stabilizing as a four-letter word starting with u. Whereas Spaniards used Yutas to refer to all Utes (called Nuche, or “the People,” by them-
Needless to say, by the time of statehood in 1896, Mormons had closeted polygamy and abandoned Deseret—both the political idea and the place-name. The idea became a half-forgotten lost cause, and the name became, in Maurine Whipple’s observation, “merely a colorless term with which to entitle laundries or places of business.”10 After reconciling with the once-despised name Utah, Mormons gave it new significance. In 1923 Levi Edgar Young, the head of the history department at the University of 7 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Journal of Discourses, vol. 1 (London and Liverpool: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1855; reprint, Salt Lake City, 1967), 1:167. 8 “The Utah Expedition; Its Causes and Consequences,” Atlantic Monthly 3 (March 1859), 361–75, quote on 368. 9 Quoted in Dale L. Morgan, The State of Deseret (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1987), 113–14. 10 Maurine Whipple, This Is the Place: Utah (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 56.
Having displaced the Utes of Utah Lake, the settlers and especially their progeny went on to create a substitute totem out of a previously unnamed and uncelebrated local landform: Mt. Timpanogos (colloquially shortened to Timp). In the frontier period, nobody saw this massif as a discreet landform. It never showed up on maps. A mountainous space existed, but the mountain-place Timp did not. Thanks to a 1920s civic booster project—including a huge annual community hike—this once “invisible” mountain became conspicuous, beloved, and the site of a national monument. Meanwhile, the invented landmark began to function as a signifier of Indianness thanks to the power and pervasiveness of the “Legend of Timpanogos.” Since the 1920s, people in Utah Valley have repeated and enacted this pseudo-Indian folklore about an Indian princess petrified in profile. In the same era that Timp became visible, Utah Lake became overlooked. Due to overuse and mismanagement, this haven for native cutthroat trout degenerated into a sewage-laced carp pond 11 Levi Edgar Young, The Founding of Utah (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923), 3–4.
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As for the actual Utahs—the Timpanogos people—they tried for one generation to coexist with Mormon settlers in and around Provo. In practice, hostility supplanted harmony. Settlers and Indians clashed repeatedly at the mouth of the Provo River, the best fishing site at Utah Lake. Ultimately, with the federal government’s blessing, the Mormons in 1865 forced the starving remnants of the Timpanogos to sign a treaty and move to a distant reservation.
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At the national level, “Utah” took on a very different meaning after 1852, when Mormons publicly announced—and stoutly defended—their practice of plural marriage. To easterners, the name now brought one thing to mind: “the Mormon Problem.” The conflict first came to a head in 1857. President Brigham Young told his followers that President James Buchanan had dispatched troops to put down the saints and blustered that “they constituted henceforth a free and independent state, to be known no longer as Utah, but by their own Mormon name of Deseret.”8 His words turned out to be hot wind: in the aftermath of the so-called Utah War, Mormons pursued statehood in the regular way. Multiple Deseret constitutions went to Congress, where they faced intransigent anti-Mormon opposition. In 1872, at yet another constitutional convention, LDS delegates debated the wisdom of retaining Deseret when this name “might be made a basis of prejudice.” Others worried that the name could be confused with “desert.” The delegates stuck with the familiar because it referred to honeybees, whereas the alternative brought to mind a “dirty, insect-infested, grasshopper-eating tribe of Indians.”9 Talk about prejudice.
Utah (and a general authority in the LDS church and a relative of you-know-who), published a chronicle of the state in which he asserted that the Indians “tell us that their forefathers called this the land of ‘Eutaw,’ or ‘High up.’ ‘Utah’ means ‘In the tops of the mountains.’”11 This was a crucial semantic shift. Whereas Yutas had originally been a Hispanicized word referring to Indians who lived in a mountainous region, Utah became an Anglicized word for the region itself. Professor Young’s definition, “in the tops of the mountains,” had scriptural resonance, as in Isaiah 2:2: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains.” Moving full circle from Deseret, contemporary Mormons have been known to spread the faith-promoting rumor that Congress unwittingly fulfilled prophecy by imposing the name Utah.
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selves), pioneer Mormons used Utah exclusively to refer to the Fish-Eaters who lived around Utah Lake. The U-word also gained geographic referents for four coextensive entities: a lake, a valley, a Mormon stake, and a territorial county. For instance, in 1853 Brigham Young reported to Salt Lake City residents, “It is only the Utah who have declared war on Utah.”7 Translation: only the Lake Utes have raided the settlements of Utah Valley.
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Thus I circle back to my initial point: the making of our Utah cannot be separated from the unmaking of earlier Utahs—“Utahs” with an s, plural—both a homeland and a people.
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by WWII. In the postwar period, even as the lake became differently polluted and additionally scorned because of a massive steel plant built on its shores, the mountain earned new honors through the designation of a wilderness area and the siting of Robert Redford’s Sundance Resort. Various schools, hospitals, and even an LDS temple were named after Timp. These various geographic changes accompanied—and contributed to—a revision in collective memory. As early as 1950, the historical Timpanogos people in the watery lowlands had been entirely supplanted in collective memory by a fictional Princess Timpanogos in the rocky highlands. In short, the modern sense of place surrounding Timp concealed a double displacement from the past: the literal displacement of native inhabitants and the symbolic displacement of their landmark lake.12
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192 Now for a coda. In your mind, picture a feverish Brigham Young— suffering most likely from a tick-borne infection— looking down from Big Mountain. At the time he reportedly “expressed his full satisfaction in the Appearance of the valley as A resting place for the Saints.”13 His exact words are unknown. Forget the folklore; never mind the monument at This Is the Place Heritage Park; no one on July 24, 1847, recorded the legendary utterance, “This is the right place; drive on!” However, Young did say something similar on July 28 during an evening meeting on the valley floor. As one pioneer wrote in his diary, the camp was called togeather to say whear the City should be built. After a number had spoken on the subject a voat was calld for [and] unanimosiley aggread
12 See Jared Farmer, On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 13 Scott G. Kenney, ed., Journal of Wilford Woodruff, 1833–1898 Typescript (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1983), 3: 234.
that this was the spot After that Pres Young said tha[t] he knew that this is the place. he knew it as soon as he came in sight of it and he had seen this vearey spot before14 After the vote, Orson Pratt, the closest thing to a scientist in the Pioneer Camp, immediately went to work establishing a so-called initial point for surveying the City of the Saints. While the national map has one master meridian, the historic rectilinear mapping of the trans-Mississippi West occurred unevenly, much like settlement. Initially, many settlement zones were anchored cartographically to temporary locations where a regional east-towest “baseline” intersected a “principal meridian.” In the Far West, these “governing” points of intersection were typically prominences. Had U.S. surveyors gotten their choice, they probably would have picked Mt. Nebo as Utah’s initial point. But Mormons got to choose first because when they arrived, the Great Basin still belonged to Mexico. 14 Levi Jackman, Diary, MS 79, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
I must tell you, as my terminal point, that the Salt Lake Meridian at Temple Square does not cartographically govern every part of Utah. There is one anomalous sector of the state where the original cadastral maps corresponded to a separate base and meridian. Back in 1875 (the same year Four Corners was marked out), the U.S. government established the Uintah Special Meridian to survey the Uintah Basin reservation where the Lake Utes and other Nuche bands had been relocated. This cartographic project later facilitated the government giveaway of tribal property—a communal disaster for the People. As a result, the greater part of the Uintah Basin within the boundaries of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation now belongs to non-Indians as private land. Having served this dispossessing purpose, the initial point on the reservation was literally buried and paved over in the 1950s when UDOT improved State Route 121. In 2009—the same year, by apt coincidence, as the Four Corners brouhaha—the survey marker was ceremonially exhumed and replaced. Larry Cesspooch, a noted Ute historian, came to the site for the occasion. He offered a prayer with the aid of an eagle feather and a sweet grass braid. “I’ve struggled with what to say today because this
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That’s what landscapes do when we look deeply. They haunt us. They remind us that the past—as inscribed in our present landscape—is a record of tragedy, hope, and considerable irony. Think about the Nuche of 1847, and think about the saints. For all the remarkable successes of the pioneers, they failed in their larger project to redeem the desert and to build a self-contained kingdom for the End Times. Consider that most of the acreage within the old proposed boundaries of Deseret is uninhabited and unredeemed—indeed, much of it wild by the definition of the Wilderness Act—and belongs to the feds. Brigham Young would not be pleased. And he wouldn’t be alone in disappointment. If you scrutinize a rectangular survey map of the Beehive State, you can see how history did not turn out as anyone in the nineteenth century wanted or expected—not for Mormons, not for anti-Mormons, and not for any of the region’s indigenous peoples. Utahns today, not unlike the Yutas in 1847, inhabit a place in a state of fateful transition.
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When “Gentile” surveyors got around to officially mapping Utah Territory in 1855, they accepted and used this established initial point, even though it didn’t make utmost cartographic sense. The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey later constructed an official meridian base at Temple Square—a little piece of federal property within the holy walls—where it still stands, though most visitors miss seeing it. More noticeable is the unofficial marker (actually a replica of the original) at the outer southeast corner of Temple Square. This waist-high sandstone obelisk doesn’t look impressive compared to the temple or the Church Office Building or the Capitol, but, just as much as those edifices, it represents the making of Utah: a story of settlers (albeit peculiar settlers on a delayed timeline) colonizing Indian land, organizing a territory, dispossessing natives, disposing property, and achieving statehood. Overall, the story couldn’t be more American.
[marker] is not a good thing for us,” Cesspooch said. “It’s like showing you something that’s always going to remind you what happened.”15
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Pratt went ahead and created a “Great Salt Lake Meridian” with the future Temple Square as the initial point. In other words, every plat made by Mormon settlers would have as its reference point a religious site. Every gridded street in Great Salt Lake City would be measured and numbered according to its precise distance from the sacred place where the House of the Lord would rise to welcome to the imminent Second Coming of the Messiah.
193 15 Brandon Loomis, “Bittersweet History Revisited in Eastern Utah,” Salt Lake Tribune, September 18, 2009.
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Jared Farmer is an associate professor of history at Stony Brook University and the author of On Zion’s Mount, winner of five book prizes. He delivered a version of this essay as the keynote speech for the Sixty-First Annual Utah State History Conference.
— WEB EXTRA: An extensive audio/visual feature is available at history.utah.gov/farmer.
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Rocky Mountain Carnival program for July 2, 1890. At bottom left is an invitation to purchase lots in William Hope Harvey’s Iliff College Hill addition. —
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and the Ogden Mardi Gras By
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William Hope Harvey H o lle y
In the late nineteenth century, cities west of the Mississippi River promoted themselves through spectacular festivals in hopes of competing with eastern metropolises for capital and increased population.1 Most took their inspiration from New Orleans’s annual Mardi Gras. The Veiled Prophet of St. Louis, in its inaugural year of 1878, purchased seventeen floats from New Orleans.2 The extinct Seni-Om-Sed and Ak-Sar-Ben carnivals, organized in 1889 and 1895 to keep the Iowa and Nebraska state fairs from leaving Des Moines and Omaha, also imported floats from the Crescent City.3 Beginning in 1883, San Francisco mounted onenight Mardi Gras celebrations annually, while Pueblo, Colorado—notwithstanding its concurrent publicity campaign as the “Pittsburgh of the West”—cloaked itself in New Orleanian garb during its own six-day Mardi Gras in February 1889.4
1 This article is adapted from the author’s September 20, 2012, keynote address at the Sixtieth Annual Utah State History Conference, whose theme was “Encounters: Moments of Change.” 2 “History,” Veiled Prophet Organization, accessed August 12, 2013, http://www. veiledprophet.org/parade/history. 3 Dave Elbert, “Bring Back Seni Om Sed,” Business Record, July 19, 2013, accessed August 12, 2013, http://www.businessrecord.com/Content/Opinion/Opinion/Article/TheElbert-Files--Bring-back-Seni-Om-Sed/168/963/59120; “History,” Knights of Ak-SarBen Foundation, accessed August 12, 2013, http://www.aksarben.org/history2. Omaha held a one-day Mardi Gras in 1886; see Omaha Daily Bee, April 8, 1886. 4 Sacramento Daily Union, March 3, 1883; San Francisco Daily Alta California, February 27, 1884, February 18, 1885, February 15, 1888; Pueblo (CO) Daily Chieftain, February 26, 1889. For “Pittsburgh of the West,” see Pueblo (CO) Daily Chieftain, March 1, 1889; Ogden Standard, August 21, 1889.
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Looking north on Ogden’s Washington Boulevard, circa 1892. This view shows the Reed Hotel with its six-story tower on the right, kitty-corner from the three-story Broom Hotel on the left. —
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Perhaps the most surprising contender in this cavalcade was Ogden, Utah, which staged a full-fledged Mardi Gras, called the Rocky Mountain Carnival, in July 1890. This occasion fostered some of the most improbable encounters between diverse populations that Utah has ever seen. From New Orleans came a special train bearing Mardi Gras royalty and dignitaries representing cotton exchanges and shipping enterprises. Two hundred cowboys from the open ranges of Utah and Idaho arrived to exhibit their skills at riding, roping, and bronco-busting. Shoshones and Bannocks journeyed from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation at Ross Fork north of Pocatello, Idaho, to perform war dances for the amazement of Rocky Mountain Carnival audiences. This motley group converged on a city brimming with boosterism and delusions of grandeur. In the spring of 1887, Ogden’s advantages as a railroad junction had begun to interest eager capitalists. Nationally, the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 had just become law, which led to hopes of equalized
railroad rates and the establishment in Ogden of branch houses of national manufacturers.5 Locally, the city had broken ground for a grand Union Station and had improved the streets between its railroad depot and downtown. According to the Ogden Standard, discerning merchants and manufacturers now perceived Ogden as “the coming Chicago” or the “great metropolis of the west.”6 By 1890, Ogden’s new class of Midas-touched men was touting the city as “without a rival between Denver and San Francisco,” destined to achieve a population of three hundred thousand by the turn of the century.7 They concocted the Rocky Mountain Carnival as a high-profile way to advertise Ogden to real estate investors throughout the country. In so doing, they applied to Ogden the well-established formula for western land speculation described by the urban studies scholar Richard C. Wade: proclaiming a rising city’s “matchless situation,” then urging investors “to buy quickly before the price of town lots began to skyrocket.”8 5 Act to Regulate Commerce, U.S. Statutes at Large 24 (1887): 379–87. The Interstate Commerce Act aimed to prevent “unjust discrimination between persons, places, commodities, or particular descriptions of traffic.” U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Interstate Commerce, 49th Cong., 1st sess., Sen. Report 46, Part I, 1886, 215. 6 Ogden Standard, March 22, 1887. 7 San Francisco Call, May 11, July 13, 1890. 8 Richard C. Wade, The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 32.
On Tuesday morning, July 1, 1890, crowds thronged the new Union Station for the arrival of the special train from New Orleans. Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Fourth streets and Washington Avenue were awash in purple, green, and gold bunting. Horsedrawn vehicles sported the royal colors, and bicycle wheels revolved with kaleidoscopic hues. As the train pulled in, it was a sight to behold: two gilded sphinxes adorned the engine. Murals painted on the cars depicted the tropical splendor of New Orleans—palm trees, exotic fruits—and the mountains of the West.11 Among the royalty and dignitaries on the train were Sylvester Pierce Walmsley, crowned King Rex at the
How was a small city like Ogden, whose population was under fifteen thousand, able to marshal its manpower to bring off a Mardi Gras–sized festivity in just four months? And who in Ogden had the chutzpah to conceive of such an undertaking? The answer lay in the entrepreneurs who had moved to Ogden to get rich. Colonel William Hope Harvey, “by all odds the most picturesque and original character of Ogden’s ‘Golden Age,’” had launched his career as an attorney
9 Val Holley, 25th Street Confidential: Drama, Decadence, and Dissipation along Ogden’s Rowdiest Road (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2013), 4. The laws were the Edmunds Act, U.S. Statutes at Large 22 (1882): 30–32, and the Edmunds-Tucker Act, U.S. Statutes at Large 24 (1887): 635– 41.
12 Salt Lake Tribune, July 2, 1890; Washington, D.C., Evening Star, May 21, 1887.
10 Ogden Standard, July 1, 1890; Salt Lake Tribune, June 18, 1890. The New York Sun of June 5, 1890, said the Carnival Palace’s dimensions were 314 feet by 136 feet.
14 Accounts of the carnival’s first day appeared in the Ogden Daily Commercial, Ogden Standard, Salt Lake Tribune, and Salt Lake Herald, July 2, 1890.
11 Salt Lake Herald, July 2, 1890; Ogden Standard, July 2, 1890.
15 Ogden Standard, February 27, 1892.
13 Perry Young, The Mystick Krewe; Chronicles of Comus and His Kin (New Orleans: Louisiana Heritage Press, 1969), 178.
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As soon as the New Orleans delegation had disembarked from the train, Frederick J. Kiesel, Ogden’s first Liberal mayor, presented the keys to the city to Captain William Beanham, spokesman and Lord High Chancellor to King Rex of New Orleans. With the Louisiana Rifles in the vanguard, a procession of royalty, military companies, and costumed knights and Arabs marched eastward on Twenty-Fifth Street, with the cowboys bringing up the rear.14 Mayor Kiesel quartered the guests from New Orleans at his mansion and entertained them lavishly all week. A trout breakfast hosted in Ogden Canyon would prove to be one of the best investments Ogden ever made.15
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In the weeks preceding the Mardi Gras, a temporary Carnival Palace went up on Twenty-Fifth Street; it was the size of a football field and was said to have the seating capacity of the Salt Lake Tabernacle.10 At the western end of Twenty-Fifth Street, craftsmen erected a twenty-foot-high Arch of Welcome, under which carnival royalty would parade, expertly painting it to look like granite and festooning it with royal purple, green, and gold. Carpenters transformed Twenty-Fourth Street between Lincoln and Grant Avenues into a tournament field for armored knights on horseback, with bleacher seating. Organizers planned cowboy exhibitions, military drilling competitions, bicycle races, excursions to the Great Salt Lake, a grand parade with costumes from New Orleans, and nightly grand balls, each with a different theme.
New Orleans Mardi Gras four months earlier; Major John Henry Behan, a designer of floats and spectacles; Captain Thomas Pickles, a shipping magnate; Captain William H. Beanham, the commander of the Louisiana Field Artillery; and Kate Bridewell, a singer who would enchant audiences in the Carnival Palace. The celebrated Louisiana Rifles, who had won many national drilling competitions, served as the royal party’s military escort.12 However, the names of the two most important members of the royal party were unknown. They were Rex II, king of the Rocky Mountain Carnival, and his queen, and their faces would be concealed by veils—black for Rex II and pink for his consort—during the entire week, until midnight at the grand masked ball on Friday, July 4. The identity of these mysterious figures was the subject of intense speculation among the public and the press.13
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To the chagrin of its organizers, the Rocky Mountain Carnival was hijacked by conflict between Mormons and non-Mormons, just then at its zenith in Utah. A handful of other circumstances exacerbated this conflict, including recent federal laws that sought to stamp out polygamy through the confiscation of Mormon church property and the disenfranchisement of polygamists; a sizeable influx of non-Mormon voters who had come to Ogden to get rich; and the Mormon People’s Party’s much-lamented defeat in the Ogden and Salt Lake City municipal elections.9 The organizers did not foresee this outcome. They cared primarily about making money and felt that religious wars were a waste of time.
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lured hundreds of real estate and precious metals investors to Colorado. His success in growingColorado’s population prompted the governor to place the state’s military regiments under his command.17
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The same prescience that informed Harvey’s Colorado investments prompted his discernment of Ogden’s potential. By late 1888 he claimed Ogden as his home and said he would move there “as soon as my business in Colorado is settled up.” Already he was saying that Ogden must “control the trade along all the railroads that center there” and “should not let Salt Lake City get ahead of you as a commercial center.” He boasted that he could submit a plan within ninety days for Ogden to build the finest hotel west of Chicago. Harvey insisted that “if your town goes progressive in February [1889]”—in other words, if Ogdenites elected a non-Mormon, Liberal Party city government—“I can bring gentlemen with me there in sixty days representing five million dollars. . . . If you were to take a Denver man’s advice and follow it, he could tell you how to down Salt Lake City within two years.”18
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Although William Harvey lived in Ogden less than five years, he made great contributions to its development. —
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in West Virginia and Ohio.16 He later owned and operated a silver mine in Ouray, Colorado, before going into real estate development in Denver and Pueblo. His title, colonel, was ironic, since Harvey had never seen military service. Through his natural flair for publicity, he was said to have 16 Olin A. Kennedy’s characterization of Harvey, from the Ogden Standard-Examiner of May 6, 1931, was later used without attribution in Works Projects Administration for the State of Utah, Utah: A Guide to the State (New York: Hastings House, 1941), 212. Kennedy’s article was the first in a nine-part series of reminiscences about Harvey and the carnival.
Addressing a Liberal Party rally preceding Ogden’s February 1889 municipal elections, Harvey said, “One hundred thousand dollars in advertising would not do as much good as news flashing over the wires . . . that Ogden is [now] a Gentile town.” Soon after his January 1890 election to the Ogden Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors, he proposed an advertising campaign comparing Springfield and Chicago, Lincoln and Omaha, Colorado City and Denver, and Salt Lake City and Ogden. The first-named town in each pair, he said, represented the old, noncompetitive town, while the second stood for the new, progressive, active city.19 Accustomed as Ogden soon grew to Harvey’s penchant for ballyhoo, his scheme for a Mardi Gras, kept tightly under wraps until it was ready, came like a surprise attack. Harvey appeared in the Ogden mayor’s office on February 25, 1890, and presented an epistle from His Majesty Rex of the Royal Host of New Orleans that approved “with satisfaction” of the steady growth of the nation’s population west of the Mississippi and desired to establish “a second seat of empire . . . [and] the City of Ogden finds first favor with my royal consort.” Kiesel was in New York, but deputy mayor Watson N. Shilling 17 Lois Snelling, “Coin Harvey of Monte Ne,” typescript, Special Collections, Pueblo City-County Library, Pueblo, Colorado. 18 Ogden Standard, November 29, 1888. 19 Ogden Standard, February 10, 1889, February 26, 1890.
To manage the Rocky Mountain Carnival’s daunting logistics, Harvey organized a counterpart to New Orleans’s Royal Host, christening it the Order of Monte Cristo. The journalist, historian, and Monte Cristo man Olin A. Kennedy said that the order’s members—at least two-thirds of whom had not lived in Ogden more than one year—were real estate dealers, businessmen, and newsmen. Aside from paying dues to support the carnival, members were expected to rehearse and drill as costumed Arabs, medieval knights, or cowboys—or if not, to assist in 20 Ogden Standard, February 26, 1890. 21 Salt Lake Tribune, June 29, 1890. This account dated Harvey’s in-person appeal to the Rex Organization in March, but for an official edict to be on the Ogden mayor’s desk on February 25, Harvey had to have been in New Orleans earlier, possibly during Mardi Gras, which began February 17. Harvey knew New Orleans from visiting his uncle, the canal builder Joseph Hale Harvey, who lived there. Allyn Lord, email message to author, September 26, 2012.
Boosters of western land booms “always inclined toward enthusiastic exaggeration and self-interested promotion,” writes the historian William Cronon, and perhaps Ogden’s most extreme example of this was Clifton E. Mayne, marshal of the Monte Cristos.28 According to Omaha Illustrated, Mayne had “caught the first high flood of the Omaha boom” in 1883 and was “more closely identified with the wonderful growth and prosperity of Omaha” than anyone else.29 But by 1888, Mayne had lost everything and moved to San Francisco. Early in 1890 he established the C. E. Mayne Company, a real estate brokerage in Ogden, and with Harvey was elected to the Chamber of Commerce board. Mayne was a con artist and scoundrel. The single most 24 Salt Lake Herald, April 26, 1890; Ogden Standard, May 9, 1890; Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 6, 7, 1931. 25 Ogden Standard, May 9, 1890; Salt Lake Herald, June 22, 1890. Levy’s role in the Pueblo Mardi Gras is detailed in Pueblo (CO) Daily Chieftain, February 15, 23, 1889; Aspen Weekly Times, February 16, 1889. Young, Mystick Krewe, 177, implies that Major John Henry Behan of New Orleans was the Rocky Mountain Carnival’s designer, but Behan’s job in Ogden was chief of protocol. Levy clearly designed the Ogden show. 26 Levy, whose “major” signified not military rank but prowess in marching bands, designed San Francisco’s February 1884 Mardi Gras. Although he traveled to New Orleans to buy properties and get ideas, his 1884 event did not have the Royal Host’s charter or consultation. Los Angeles Herald, January 10, 1884; San Francisco Daily Alta California, January 24, February 27, 1884; Salt Lake Herald, July 23, 1890. 27 Stephen Hales, the present-day archivist of the Rex Organization (and a native Ogdenite), writes, “The only other instance I have found where Rex Royalty and officials made, or offered to make, a trip to the site of [a] Carnival transplant was the fizzled effort in Saratoga Springs, New York.” Email message to author, March 11, 2012.
22 Pueblo (CO) Daily Chieftain, February 26, March 1, 1889; Leadville (CO) Evening Democrat, February 26, 1889.
28 William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 34.
23 Ogden Standard, July 22, 1890; Harvey to Clifton E. Mayne, March 30, 1890, reprinted in Ogden Daily Commercial, April 6, 1890 (quotations).
29 Alfred Rasmus Sorensen, Omaha Illustrated: A History of the Pioneer Period and the Omaha of Today (Omaha: D. C. Dunbar, 1888), 86–87.
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Late in March 1890, Harvey, his older brother Robert Smith Harvey (“the only man competent to fill my place [after I am back in Ogden]”), and his Denver stenographer invaded New Orleans to establish an advertising bureau. New Orleans, Harvey felt, “had an effect in claiming attention that would [be] impossible [in] Ogden.” Over the next three months the bureau sent out 70,000 five-color lithographic sheets; 20,000 letters signed by the Rex Order, with gold leaf seal; and 11,000 marked copies of New Orleans newspaper articles on the carnival to all newspapers, governors, congressmen, mayors, chambers of commerce, and railroad passenger agents in the United States. “I will set substantially everybody in the United States to talking about Ogden and Utah,” Harvey confidently asserted.23
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To construct the parade’s floats and supervise decoration of the Arch of Welcome and Carnival Palace, Harvey recruited “Major” David L. Levy of San Francisco, whom he had known as the designer of Pueblo’s Mardi Gras.25 Harvey and Levy account for the similarities in program and design between Ogden and Pueblo celebrations, but the most notable difference was Pueblo’s apparent lack of any New Orleanian authorization or presence.26 Ogden’s Rocky Mountain Carnival was the only known “transplant” Mardi Gras to win the enthusiastic endorsement and participation of the Royal Host.27
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The Salt Lake Tribune later reported that Harvey’s “proposition . . . was not viewed favorably at first [in New Orleans] and it was with some difficulty that he secured the favor of a special meeting of the royal council to consider his plans.”21 The Tribune’s account may not be accurate. The Utah press never seemed aware that Harvey already had considerable experience as an organizer of the Pueblo, Colorado, Mardi Gras in 1889 and that he was the ideal advocate for a Rex franchise.22
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such tasks as leading horses who would pull floats in the grand parade on July 4.24
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outrageous scheme of his career, which occurred five years after the Rocky Mountain Carnival, stemmed from his knowledge of a deceased Colorado mining magnate whose estranged young daughters, heiresses to a $15 million estate, had vanished. Mayne advertised in newspapers for two girls who might pass as the missing daughters. He connived to become legal guardian of the winning “sisters” and to claim the magnate’s estate on their behalf. However, Mayne’s political enemies in San Francisco derailed the scheme through a trumped-up rape charge, sending Mayne to prison.30 Ogdenites, however, viewed Mayne’s 1890 maneuverings as merely another aspect of their city’s real estate boom. In the spring of 1890, high-ranking Monte Cristos, designated as ministers plenipotentiary, fanned out across the country to advertise the Rocky Mountain Carnival. Harvey’s target was Chicago. Albert Richardson, who had speculated in Kansas City real estate before he discovered Ogden, traveled to New York. Richardson told the New York Sun that Ogden had no Mormon–Gentile conflict and that the “speculative fever had found no habitation there,” assertions that were untrue. Flattering New York’s high self-regard, Richardson said Ogden’s queen would be selected from the legendary List of Four Hundred, the compendium of New York society, and implied that he was in the city to escort “Her Majesty” to Utah. Further, said Richardson, he wanted Ward McAllister, ringmaster of New York’s grandest social occasions, “to take charge of [Ogden’s grand masked] ball and make it . . . an example of taste and order and perfection.”31 Meanwhile, Clifton Mayne returned to Omaha, the scene of his first fortune, where he was still considered the man who had made it a metropolis. In telling the Omaha press that Ogden was absolutely in the throes of a boom, he contradicted Albert Richardson, but for once was telling the truth. However, he falsely claimed that Ogden’s population had increased by five thousand in the past three months and boasted of schemes to establish stockyards, to mine iron and granite within four miles of the city, and to build a power dam on the Ogden River to electrify the city’s streetcar system.32 While Mayne was in Omaha, his company in San Francisco ran daily ads proclaiming, “Fortunes may be made 30 San Francisco Call, September 21, 1908. Mayne was freed from prison after his accuser confessed that her testimony had been false and part of a conspiracy. See Los Angeles Herald, October 26, 1897. 31 New York Sun, June 5, 1890. 32 Omaha Daily Bee, May 13, 1890.
by investing in Ogden real estate now!”33 Despite Harvey’s good intentions, it was impossible to stage the Rocky Mountain Carnival in a vacuum devoid of the Mormon–Gentile conflict, which had escalated after the Liberal Party’s victory in February 1889. Ogden’s newly installed city council soon appropriated the city block on which the Mormon tabernacle sat “for use as a public square,” believing the church had never secured legal title.34 During a stormy Ogden school district meeting at the tabernacle in July 1889, Mormons nominated one chairman and non-Mormons nominated another. Olin A. Kennedy, who was there, recalled that both chairmen repeatedly ruled each other out of order, fistfights ensued, Mormons were shouted down as “mossbacks,” and Gentiles were jeered as “carpetbaggers.”35 An 1884 Mormon–Gentile donnybrook in Salt Lake City would also haunt the carnival. The editor of the Deseret News, John Q. Cannon, a tall man who weighed two hundred pounds, assaulted a bantam-weight Salt Lake Tribune reporter, Joseph Lippman, who had written that Cannon had secretly taken a plural wife.36 Henceforth, the Tribune considered Cannon persona non grata. Six years later, Cannon, by then associate editor of the Ogden Standard, ran the paper while its editor, his half-brother Frank Cannon, negotiated in Washington, D.C., to stymie a pair of Congressional bills that would disenfranchise all members of the Mormon church.37 Just before the carnival, a feud of daily mutual insults erupted between John Q. Cannon (who was a Monte Cristo) and the Tribune’s Ogden correspondent. Cannon berated the Tribune cor33 San Francisco Call, May 11, 24, 25, 27, 31, 1890. 34 Ogden City Council, Minute Book H, March 1, 1889, p. 29, Ogden City Recorder’s Office. Five years later the city council returned Tabernacle Square to the Mormon church. See Ogden Standard, December 21, 1893. 35 The school district meeting was reported in the Ogden Standard, July 9, 1889, and remembered by Kennedy in the same newspaper, July 12, 1919. 36 Kenneth L. Cannon II, “The Tragic Matter of Louie Wells and John Q. Cannon,” Journal of Mormon History 35, no. 2 (Spring 2009): 151–55. 37 Michael Harold Paulos, “Opposing the ‘High Ecclesiasts at Washington’: Frank J. Cannon’s Editorial Fusillades during the Reed Smoot Hearings, 1903–07,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 9 (Fall 2011). For an account of Frank Cannon’s work against the Cullom and Struble bills (S. 3480 and H.R. 9265, 51st Cong., 1st sess., 1890), see Robert Newton Baskin, Reminiscences of Early Utah (Salt Lake City: Tribune-Reporter Printing, 1914), 183–86. Frank Cannon returned to Ogden on June 10 and, on July 2, delivered the chivalric charge to knights competing in the carnival’s tilting tournament. See Ogden Standard, June 11, 1890; Ogden Daily Commercial, July 3, 1890.
respondent for writing “rot manufactured to fill space” and “dirty and malicious flings.” The Tribune man called Cannon “the imbecile brother.”38
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On the evening of July 1, a sumptuous king’s banquet in the Carnival Palace featured buffalo, bear steaks, and choice champagne. The hides of barbequed animals were garishly displayed on butcher blocks to evoke an Arthurian feasting hall.43 Mayor Kiesel was the toastmaster, and one of his many tributes was to the Mormon pioneers.44 According to Kennedy, everyone sprang to their feet, cheering and clinking their wine glasses. Someone stood on a chair and proposed “three cheers for the Utah pioneers” and someone else added “and Brigham Young!” The cheers resounded, and the Louisiana guests gave the “old rebel yell,” the blood-curdling whoop of Confederate soldiers.
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While most Utah newspapers bent over backwards to boost the carnival, the sentiment was not unanimous. In the Logan Journal, a letter signed “Mormon Elder” condemned the character of cowboys and Ogden establishments most likely to benefit from the presence of cowboys. Most of the crowds in attendance at the carnival, said the writer, would be “ignorant, desperate, and wicked.”39 The Deseret News advised its readers to shun the carnival, calling it “senseless frivolity,” “sickening to common sense,” and a “heterogenous heap of rubbish.”40 While the Deseret News did cover the goings-on, it emphasized the discomfort of the heat and inconvenience.41 It deplored the carnival’s “direct variance with the spirit of the Gospel” and its “aspect more vile than buffoonery.”42
201 Two years after John Q. Cannon’s assault on the Salt Lake Tribune’s Joseph Lippman, the Tribune called Cannon (seated left) “reporter smasher.” —
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Years later, Kennedy recalled that the old rebel yell angered Union Army veterans inside the Carnival Palace. Nor did cheers for Brigham Young amuse non-Mormons. Standing with the press behind the king’s throne was Samuel M. Preshaw, judge of the
Ogden police court. Judge Preshaw was a Methodist and teetotaler.45 He was no fan of Brigham Young.
38 Ogden Standard, June 19, 1890; Salt Lake Tribune, June 20, 1890. Monte Cristo membership listed in Ogden Standard, May 9, 1890.
The judge muttered to Kennedy, “Look at ‘em! Sitting there guzzling and swilling wine! And
39 Logan (UT) Journal, July 2, 1890. As if to rebut the Logan Journal’s blast, the Salt Lake Tribune noted on July 6, 1890, that the cowboys “have vindicated the words of their friends, who told the carnival committee that they could depend on the cowboys as natural gentlemen to behave themselves.” 40 Deseret Evening News, June 7, July 5, 1890. 41 Deseret Evening News, July 1, 1890, cited in Logan Journal, July 2, 1890. 42 Deseret Evening News, June 7, 1890. 43 Ogden Daily Commercial, July 2, 1890. 44 Ogden Standard, July 2, 1890; Ogden Daily Commercial, July 2, 1890.
45 Ogden Standard (semi-weekly ed.), March 6, 1889; Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 11, 1931. Kennedy’s recollection that Preshaw “had served four years in the Union army during the Civil War and had heard the rebel yell at close quarters” cannot be verified and appears to be inaccurate. Preshaw’s only known service was in the short-lived, “bloodless” Colorado Cavalry, Third Regiment, Company A. Find a Grave, accessed June 4, 2013, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/ fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=75524018&PIpi=78310394. Ogden’s Liberals, however, included Union Army veterans such as General Robert H. G. Minty, whose Rocky Mountain Carnival role was chief of staff to the commander of King Rex II’s forces.
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cheering for Brigham Young. The mayor and everybody else. It’s a disgrace!” A special police force volunteer, who had innocently yelled for Young, stood behind Preshaw. Glaring at the volunteer, the judge sneered, “Young man, ain’t you ashamed of yourself to stand there wearing the badge of Ogden City and cheering for Brigham Young?” The volunteer stammered that his pioneer heritage gave him the right to lionize Utah’s earliest governor. “Very well, then,” replied Preshaw. “You just come around to the police court tomorrow morning at ten o’clock and turn in that [badge].”46 Such petulance would morph into an epidemic by week’s end and hijack the Rocky Mountain Carnival.
July 4 show-stopper to compete with the Mardi Gras, tried brazenly to steal the tribal show away.51 The Salt Lake Herald’s version alleged the opposite: that the capital city first announced the Indians as its main Independence Day event, after which Ogden swooped in and preempted it.52 Indian agent Fisher had apparently written the Salt Lake City real estate exchange on July 8 that it could count on the Fort Hall tribes’ appearance. Five days later, Fisher sent another letter saying, “Since writing you . . . I have been called on by one of the promoters of the Ogden carnival and have made arrangements to visit their city during the celebration with Indians from the reservation.”53
The official program for Wednesday, July 2, featured cowboy lasso and horsemanship exhibitions, a bicycle race, the royal tournament (in which knights at full gallop “tilted,” or caught two-inch iron rings on a long spear), and the tournament ball to honor victorious knights. But an unheralded event turned into one of the day’s major attractions: the arrival, by Union Pacific train, of some 160 Bannocks and Shoshones from Idaho. These tribes, said the Salt Lake Herald, traveled the country giving war dance exhibitions.47 Accompanied by interpreters, the tribal police chief, and the Indian agent S. G. Fisher, they wore brightly colored shawls and blankets, and some had painted their faces. As they walked the five blocks from the station to the campground reserved for them at Twenty-Eighth Street and Grant Avenue, they “chanted a doleful dirge” and were followed by a large and curious crowd.48 That evening the Indians were escorted to the tournament ball, quietly conducted through the Carnival Palace amidst the stares of waltzing couples, and presented to the royal households of New Orleans and Ogden upon their thrones.49 Earlier that day, Kiesel issued a proclamation not to sell or share liquor or intoxicating substances to the Indians under penalty of U.S. law.50
Conceding that “Ogden had outwitted her neighbor,” the Salt Lake Herald lamented that “Salt Lake’s diplomacy is of the two-penny postage stamp, while little Ogden utilizes the telegraph and ministers plenipotentiary.”54 The secret to trumping Salt Lake City, however, may have been cash. Arthur B. Hayes, editor of the Ogden Daily Commercial, later told a Pennsylvania reporter that the Indians “demanded five thousand dollars for their work . . . and they got it.”55
The inspiration to bring the Shoshones and Bannocks to the Rocky Mountain Carnival was not attributed, but Ogden and Salt Lake City had competed fiercely for an appearance by the tribes. The Ogden Standard said the idea originated in Ogden, but Salt Lake City, needing a
As an entr’acte between Thursday night’s drilling competition and the military ball, the Shoshones and Bannocks assembled in the Carnival Palace to give their much-anticipated war dance for ten thousand spectators. According to Salt Lake City newspapers—and reflecting the language of the era—the older men and women beat tom-toms, while the young men, “clad in the light of the moon and fancy rings of paint,” formed a long line, emitting a “hum and drone and falsetto shout” and swaying to and fro. Suddenly, as if forgetting their lines, they sat down on the floor in silence. Harvey, on his feet at once, told the audience the dancers were miffed at its failure to throw money. An interpreter promised the performers belated manifestations of audience approval.56
51 Ogden Standard, July 4, 1890, cited in Deseret Evening News, July 5, 1890. 52 Salt Lake Herald, June 17, 1890.
46 Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 11, 1931.
53 Ibid.
47 Salt Lake Herald, June 11, 1890.
54 Ibid.
48 Ogden Daily Commercial, July 3, 1890; Ogden Standard, July 3, 1890. 49 Ogden Daily Commercial, July 3, 1890.
55 Pittsburg Dispatch, November 30, 1890. Hayes was later the U.S. solicitor of internal revenue; see Salt Lake Tribune, March 17, 1903.
50 Salt Lake Tribune, July 4, 1890.
56 Salt Lake Herald, July 4, 1890; Salt Lake Tribune, July 6, 1890.
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From the outset, journalists and others had speculated about the identities of Rex II and his queen. Some newspapers insisted the queen was Nellie Bly—the New York World reporter famous for her recent trip around the world in less than eighty days—or Mrs. James G. Blaine Jr., the daughter-in-law of the U.S. Secretary of State.58 The morning of the grand masked ball, the Salt Lake Herald published its final guess, which would 57 Salt Lake Tribune, July 6, 1890; Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, August 2, 1890. 58 Salt Lake Herald, June 22, 1890; Salt Lake Tribune, June 26, 1890; Deseret Evening News, July 1, 1890.
Two versions exist of what happened next, both seemingly credible. Olin A. Kennedy reported that the non-Mormon newspapers complained bitterly of the coronation of the Ogden Standard’s John Q. Cannon. “Here we’ve been boosting this [blessed] carnival from the very first,” they reasoned, “giving whole pages of publicity and sending out thousands of copies free, only to see it turned into an advertising stunt for the Standard, our hardest competitor. There’ll be merry hell in the morning if Colonel Harvey persists in putting that over.” They warned that costumed companies of Arabs would march into the grand masked ball and throw their spears and robes in a pile in front of the throne and that cowboys would gallop into the palace and shoot out the lights. Kennedy, a personal friend of Harvey, was pressured by his fellow journalists to break the news of the imminent mutiny. Harvey protested, “You don’t think that selecting a prominent Mormon to be king 59 Salt Lake Herald, July 4, 1890. 60 The Andersons had lived in Kansas City before moving to Ogden that year; see Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 8, 1931.
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The drummers resumed beating, surrounded by women, children, and dogs. Now the young men went into “spasmodic” bodily contortions under an incessant shower of Liberty Head nickels. They imitated grizzly bears, coyotes, bulls, ponies, pigeons, and chickens. “Each warrior represented a different character,” reported Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. “It was like a great character play.” The audience roared its approval of the “aboriginal tactics.” When the applause died down, the chiefs were presented at Rex II’s throne and decorated with royal medals, in appreciation, they were told, for saving many white men’s lives.57
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prove correct. The young son of the Chamber of Commerce president, Alfred Nelson, with whom Rex II was lodging, had recognized the king’s voice and spilled the beans.59 Rex II was John Q. Cannon, the Mormon associate editor of the Ogden Standard and the nemesis of the Salt Lake Tribune, and the queen was no New York diva but Ogden’s own Minerva Anderson, the daughter of the owner of the Harrisville Brick Yard.60 However, the carnival officials could only maintain silence.
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Fort Hall Indians perform a traditional dance. —
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Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana, circa 1900. —
his assigned duties in assisting the Order of Monte Cristo in presenting the carnival.62
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would be a graceful and conciliatory thing to do? In other words, has the time come to put an end to this senseless antagonism between Mormons and Gentiles in this city and Utah?” However, he also asked Kennedy to tell the newsmen they would not be disappointed.61 The other version, reported decades later by Sylvester Pierce Walmsley, attributed the rebellion not to the non-Mormon press but to an unspecified committee of non-Mormons who showed up at Kiesel’s home and demanded an audience with Walmsley, the reigning Rex of New Orleans. The committee made the same complaints as those reported by Kennedy, but its threat was far more serious: regicide. Any Mormon unmasked as king, the ad hoc committee informed Walmsley, would be shot dead. Walmsley said he could do nothing beyond 61 Ogden Standard Examiner, May 12, 1931.
While the Monte Cristos and the Royal Host of New Orleans scrambled to resolve the eleventh-hour palace intrigue, costumed revelers, brass bands, railroad men, Shoshones, Bannocks, cowboy brigades, and five elaborate floats formed in procession for the evening’s parade, or “great street pageant,” south along Washington Avenue. Stateof-the-art pyrotechnics lit up the street and skies in red and blue. The five floats, interspersed between marching courtiers and groups on horseback, featured King Rex II on his throne, the queen on her throne, tournament knights, the king of the cowboys, miners, and Indians. From Kennedy’s perspective, the audience furnished entertainment 62 Young, Mystick Krewe, 184–85. Abraham H. Cannon’s diary of July 8, 1890, records a telephone call from his half-brother Frank Cannon, which communicated “that John Q. was Rex II in the recent Mardi Gras Carnival until the night of the unmasking, when Gov. Thomas and O. W. Powers were so chagrined at the fact that they had sworn allegiance to a Cannon that a disturbance was threatened, and to avoid trouble he withdrew and Behan of Louisiana was substituted.” Abraham H. Cannon diaries, 1879–1895, July 8, 1890, MSS 62, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. My thanks to Kenneth L. Cannon II for this information.
The gorgeous and grotesque costumes of 2,200 masked dancers provided a spectacle not previously beheld in Utah. Giraffes, zebras, unicorns, lobsters, and grasshoppers; Harlequins, Punchinellos, Helen of Troy, Satan, and Siamese twins all tripped the light fantastic. One standout was Josephine, empress of France, in a décolleté black gown trimmed in roses and diamonds, displaying a lovely pair of shoulders. Hours later, when everyone unmasked, Josephine proved to be Mr. Will Stoddard of Park City, escorted by Mr. T. W. Clayton.66 Walmsley’s account of the ball relates that three solemn-faced men, not costumed but in evening dress, appeared at the foot of King Rex II’s throne during the ball, ready to annihilate any Mormon king. What these three men never realized, Walmsley said, was that a detail of the Louisiana Rifles had them covered with loaded guns from the minute they appeared, ready to drop them in their tracks if they made any false move.67 At midnight Harvey led His Majesty, Rex II, to the edge of the stage, unveiling Major John Henry Behan, the New Orleans carnival designer who had
To Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, a national periodical, it was “all and more than its promoters claimed it would be. Perhaps it was the most unique and altogether interesting series of scenic events and animated and picturesque life ever seen in America. . . . The writer has seen the greatest masked balls in New York and New Orleans, but nothing to equal this ball.”73 Major John Henry Behan—the last-minute King Rex II and a veteran Mardi Gras impresario—paid the Monte Cristos a premium compliment: “You have done wonderfully well . . . . I have found but few defects in your arrangements and those that have been noticed have been trifling.”74
68 Syndicated identification of Cannon as Rex II was carried on July 5, 1890, by (among others) the Washington, D.C., Evening Star; Washington, D.C., Daily Critic; San Antonio Daily Light; and Grand Forks (ND) Daily Herald; and several more newspapers on July 6, 1890. The Salt Lake Herald showed little curiosity about the switch, reporting merely that “for some reason, however, known only to themselves, at the last moment, John Q. Cannon resigned and his place was filled by J. Henry Behan, of New Orleans” (July 6, 1890). 69 Young, Mystick Krewe, 185. 70 Salt Lake Herald, July 4, 1890. 71 Salt Lake Herald, July 6, 1890.
63 Ogden Daily Commercial, July 5, 1890; Ogden StandardExaminer, May 12, 1931.
72 Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 10, 1931; Salt Lake Herald, July 6, 1890.
66 Ogden Daily Commercial, July 5, 1890.
73 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, August 2, 1890, 554. The Salt Lake Tribune of July 6, 1890, mentioned a “correspondent of Frank Leslie’s” at the Thursday war dance, so the rave review might have come from an outside observer rather than a hometown scribe.
67 Young, Mystick Krewe, 190.
74 Ogden Standard, July 8, 1890.
64 Young, Mystick Krewe, 188–89. 65 Salt Lake Herald, July 6, 1890.
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When it was over, the Salt Lake Herald said the Rocky Mountain Carnival “has not been a burlesque but a very creditable presentation.”70 If it lacked the “frivolity” of New Orleans, its gangs of cowboys and dancing Native Americans lent the affair a western air.71 Signs of cultural disconnect appeared at various moments, as the New Orleans folks were “not the least interested” in the Wild West exhibitions, while the Utahns were underwhelmed by the armored knights’ jousting, “which was not as interesting to them as a game of baseball would have been.”72
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Before the dancing began at the grand masked ball, the Shoshones and Bannocks performed their big horse dance. The chiefs wore elaborate headdresses; the warriors wore little more than war paint, smeared from head to foot in yellow ochre and daubed with blue spots. As Perry Young reported, they formed a large circle and began a whoop that might have put the old rebel yell to shame. As women beat the tom-toms, the warriors pranced around the hall in contorted postures, sometimes falling to the floor in unison.64 Some felt that the Indians “smacked more of the Mardi Gras spirit than any other feature” at the carnival.65
mingled without mask at all tournaments and ceremonial events. The substitution came too late to prevent newspapers all over the country from printing a syndicated dispatch on Saturday morning saying Rex II was John Q. Cannon of the Ogden Standard.68 Walmsley recalled that Cannon had not been afraid to risk assassination and was persuaded to abdicate “only with the greatest difficulty.”69
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on par with the pageant. “For the first time,” he wrote, “Ogden saw and learned to throw confetti. And the giddier element blew horns in one another’s ears.” If Kennedy’s memory was accurate, bonfires lighted on Mount Ogden, Ben Lomond, Willard Peak, and even one of the Promontory peaks framed the pageant impressively.63
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For the major participants of the carnival, the experience yielded both personal successes and disappointments. Harvey succeeded in selling lots in his Iliff College Hill subdivision to New Orleans guests.75 Kate Bridewell, the New Orleans songstress who brought down the house in her Ogden performances, married Will Anderson, brother to
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The gorgeous and grotesque costumes of 2,200 masked dancers provided a spectacle not previously beheld in Utah. the carnival queen, and became one of Utah’s most popular vocalists.76 Clifton Mayne’s real estate company shuttered within a month of the carnival, but his San Francisco office went into high gear hawking Ogden real estate. The Sacramento Daily Record-Union, however, warned, “The very fact that Ogden is advertising its growth and its townsite additions in Chicago and San Francisco is a proof that a swindle is intended.”77 The Ogden Standard praised the Shoshones and Bannocks for their “orderly” and “sober” visit. Knowing the Indians had admired the bunting and flags displayed throughout Ogden, the Monte Cristos collected the decorations and shipped them to Fort Hall. Tepees at the Grant Avenue campsite were to remain as standing advertisements for an 1891 carnival. As Ogdenites resumed normalcy, many of them still assumed an encore would occur 75 Ogden Standard, September 24, 1890, recorded that two Harvey lots sold to Captain Thomas Pickles; the Ogden Standard of March 29, 1892, described Pickles as “a large property owner in Ogden.” Pickles’s daughter, Josie, later married Harvey’s brother, Robert Smith Harvey. The Ogden Standard of June 27, 1890, first mentioned the Iliff College Hill. Its name came from Thomas Iliff, the superintendent of Methodist missionary work in Utah, and Ogden’s proposed (but never realized) Methodist University. See Salt Lake Herald, March 3, 7, 1889. 76 Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 8, 1931; Deseret Evening News, April 26, 1902; Ogden Standard, March 8, 1904. 77 Salt Lake Tribune, August 6, 1890; Sacramento Daily RecordUnion, September 13, 1890.
the following summer.78 The Monte Cristos met in early August to strategize for 1891 and “retained” Levy not only to design a second carnival but also to supervise the construction of a large warehouse for storing floats and building more.79 From the carnival’s inception Harvey had envisioned it as self-sustaining and recurring. “[We shall] place it on a financial basis that will each year clear expenses and leave a balance in the treasury,” he had written from New Orleans.80 However, when the treasurer’s report finally appeared in September, the Monte Cristos learned they were ten thousand dollars in the hole.81 They were probably unaware that the 1889 Pueblo, Colorado, Mardi Gras had likewise yielded sunny projections of doing it again, but then quietly faded out.82 Olin A. Kennedy’s 1931 articles about the Rocky Mountain Carnival, which became its most commonly cited reference source, described a bleak financial aftermath. Kennedy wrote that the Monte Cristos held only one tense meeting before dissolving forever; that Harvey lost his home and the Iliff College Hill subdivision in paying off creditors; and that litigation over unpaid bills dragged on for several years.83 However, a closer look seems to show that Kennedy’s recollections were excessively pessimistic. Some suits brought against Harvey and the Monte Cristos were dismissed. The Monte Cristos continued meeting regularly throughout the remainder of 1890.84 The Rocky Mountain Carnival left no permanent landmark to bolster Ogden’s skyline. Its Carni78 Ogden Standard, July 8, 1890; Salt Lake Tribune, July 10, 1890. 79 Ogden Standard, August 7, 1890; Salt Lake Tribune, July 8, 1890. The retention of Levy was probably not formalized. Levy settled in Salt Lake City and for the next decade organized and designed many public entertainments there. See Salt Lake Herald, February 8, May 19, 1891, February 25, 1900. 80 Ogden Daily Commercial, April 6, 1890. 81 Salt Lake Tribune, September 20, 1890. 82 Pueblo (CO) Daily Chieftain, February 23, 1889. 83 Ogden Standard-Examiner, May 14, 1931. 84 Salt Lake Tribune, September 3, 1890. Boyle Furniture’s suit against the Monte Cristos and the S. J. Burt Company’s suit against Harvey were dismissed; Salt Lake Herald, March 11, 1891; Ogden Standard, April 9, 1891. Kennedy was probably referring to the California Fireworks Company’s suit against Harvey, which finally found Harvey liable for $866 after he had been gone from Ogden for two-and-a-half years. Ogden Standard, December 11, 1895; “Harvey’s Fireworks in Dispute,” Chicago Tribune, Apr. 27, 1896. Monte Cristo meetings were noted in Ogden Standard (semi-weekly ed.), September 10, 1890; Ogden Standard, November 9, 16, 1890.
val Palace and Arch of Welcome were dismantled within two months. The temporary transformation of Twenty-Fifth Street into a tableau of pageantry could not lift it out of mundane squalor. No sooner had the revelers left town than the newspapers resumed their complaints about vagrants who loitered in front of saloons and bothered women at Union Station.85
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Harvey, far from slinking out of Ogden in disgrace, became Chamber of Commerce president. In 1892 he returned to New Orleans for the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress, an annual convention during which initiatives to benefit the West were debated and formalized as proposals to the U.S. Congress.86 Although Harvey was Utah’s only delegate, he brought home a major trophy: Ogden’s selection as 1893 Trans-Mississippi Congress host city, beating out Houston, Texas, and Sioux City, Iowa. Harvey’s old friend Captain William Beanham of New Orleans seconded Ogden’s nomination from the floor.87
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Ogden was euphoric. “If this should happen to meet Captain Beanham’s eye,” wrote Frank Cannon in the Standard, “he will confer a favor by receiving this as an invitation to another trout breakfast in Ogden Canyon. We thought that the hot biscuits and trout which were cast upon the dancing waters of his soul two years ago would return after many days in the shape of frosted cake and goldfish.”88
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The “very creditable” Rocky Mountain Carnival served as the apogee of Ogden’s experimentation in nineteenth-century boosterism, as speculators feverishly advertised its utopian climate. Since so many western cities mounted similar campaigns, in the end Ogden seemed merely ordinary rather than unique. What could not be duplicated elsewhere was the carnival’s unforeseen detour into thickets of religious conflict. The eventual easing of that conflict would free Ogden to implement William Hope Harvey’s legacy: that a highly effective chamber of commerce can work miracles.
85 Salt Lake Herald, July 11, 1890; Salt Lake Tribune, July 28, 1890 (citing Ogden Daily Union). 86 Ogden Standard, February 26, 1892; San Francisco Call, February 24, 1892. 87 New Orleans Daily Picayune, February 27, 1892; Report of the Proceedings of the [Fourth] Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress (New Orleans: A. W. Hyatt, 1892), 165-68. 88 Ogden Standard, February 27, 1892.
This purple and gold ribbon is a rare surviving relic of the Rocky Mountain Carnival. —
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Val Holley is an independent historian in Washington, D.C. His book, 25th Street Confidential, was published last year by the University of Utah Press.
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A dance at Ogden’s Union Depot, circa 1930. —
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to the “Real” Historic Twenty-Fifth Street By
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A personal tribute S e p p i
Long before city council members dubbed it “historic,” Twenty-Fifth Street in Ogden, Utah, was notorious in the predominantly LDS community, particularly the three blocks just east of the Union Station between Wall Avenue and Washington Boulevard. By day the area differed little from Twenty-Fourth or Twenty-Third, the business streets running parallel to it. But after seven in the evening, several establishments, including my father’s National Tavern, opened their doors and Twenty-Fifth Street lit up. In those days, during the Big War, the train depot, located one-and-a-half blocks west of my father’s place, was where passengers—soldiers, most of them, on the way to their deployments overseas—had to disembark for a two-hour layover in one of the driest, most pious places in the United States of America. Ours was a prosperous railroad center where train crews were changed, where food from the station commissary was prepared and loaded onto the diner, and where minor repairs to the cars, brakes, and engines were made following the steep and mountainous descent through Weber Canyon just east of town. After traveling seven hundred miles from Omaha on the Union Pacific tracks and before enduring another seven hundred miles to San Francisco on the Southern Pacific after this stop, for many civilians, Ogden was just an inconvenience. But for the soldiers on the way to an overseas assignment, it might have meant the last two hours of real entertainment stateside. Everyone got off the train, and if they were lucky, Mr. John Steele was on
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the street to greet them. Mr. Steele was a grandfatherly, impeccably groomed gentleman who, toward the beginning of the evening, was the most respectable-looking person in town. He always wore a dark suit, white shirt, and red tie—in the coldest of winter he simply added a heavy sweater beneath the suit jacket—and attired this way, he might be taken for a college professor or a physician. Perhaps it was this gentle, elderly, furrow-browed appearance that encouraged the easterners to tap his shoulder and explain their situations and their confusion, walking along a street differing so radically from their native haunts in Boston. Could he direct them to a local lounge where they could buy a drink? By the time the train arrived, about eight o’clock p.m., Mr. Steele would be a few beers on his way to the moon and more than happy to help. “Right here on Twenty-Fifth Street you have three city blocks of saloons. Just depends on what you want to drink. If you want Salt Lake beer, ask for Fisher’s; Ogden, then get Becker’s, and if you want to pay double the price, ask for Milwaukee beer and get Budweiser. Much better than the local stuff.” If the visitors requested wine, Mr. Steele looked heavenward as if he might expect a vision. “For wine you’ll have to take a taxi two miles up the street to the state liquor store,” which he knew full well was near the more expensive homes in Ogden on Harrison Boulevard. There, he’d mention, they’d have to fill out an application and prove they’d lived twenty-one years before the liquor store manager would approve the purchase of two bottles of alcohol. “Wine or whiskey, no matter.” “But we only want one glass each,” the visitors might object. “Then you better settle for beers in Freddie’s saloon, right here,” Mr. Steele would say, pointing to my father’s bar and ending the dialogue with a wink for any witnesses he thought he might have entertained. We never did find out much about Mr. Steele. There were rumors around that the drama department at Weber College had employed him until the administration found out about his drinking habits and his escapades in the bad part of town. Dad once said that Mr. Steele found the bars on Twenty-Fifth Street paid him more for his acting abilities merely walking the street, greeting strangers, and enticing them to enter the various establishments than he could ever make teaching drama to youngsters at the college.
My mother, my youngest sister, and I, inside our 1931 Chevrolet, angled to the curb, were usually among the Twenty-Fifth Street spectators on weekend evenings. Parking on “Two-Bit Street,” as the town teetotalers called it, was at least as appealing as staying at home listening to the Montgomery Ward Airline radio—an imposing appliance, which stood on four legs like the thirty-inch console television that would one day replace it—with an aerial wire that pierced the wall and ended ten feet above the rooftop. Hopefully there would be no thunderstorms between Denver and Salt Lake City, replacing the human voice with static—and certainly here on Twenty-Fifth Street, the show went on, rain or shine, the comedy of real life, music, pathos. In his hometown of Ruffrè, in northern Italy, my father would have been more than respectable, but in Ogden of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s he was anything but. His establishment is now a tavern called Brewskis. Inside, the long, hand-carved bar with its ten stools has been moved from the west wall to the east wall. But the tables on the west, the two pool tables in the center of the room, the bandstand, and the restroom near the back door are still the same, as are the gaudy neon signs and beer displays behind the front windows. In those bygone years, every weekend the pool tables disappeared to accommodate a small dance area, the local college band, and just enough room between tables to seat the customers who found that slumming on Twenty-Fifth Street for the cost of several ten-cent beers was enjoyable and economical. The main attraction for much of the town, though, was what went on outside the bars on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Even the local gentry, who would never be seen in a drinking establishment, could be found parked on the street, enjoying the camaraderie of the crowd—entertained by antics of the half-schnockered, as well as by simple friendly conversation. The music of the day spilled out along the street; a little jazz but mostly Benny Goodman’s romantic songs: “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” “I’ll Be Seeing You,” and “Harbor Lights.” And then there was the fashion show, courtesy of men and women disembarking the eight o’clock train. The gentility of Boston and New York sifted in among the gold miners, cowboys, and bronc riders, their clothing presaging styles that wouldn’t reach us until six months hence—astonishing to women like my mother and her closest friends, Consolata and Virginia. Like many people, my parents would park the Chevy on Twenty-Fifth and spend a couple of hours
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Twenty-Fifth Street, circa 1930. —
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watching the show on the sidewalks—which probably reminded my folks of evenings sitting in the old-world piazza where their townspeople would gather and mingle. We preferred the spot in front of the three-story building in the middle of the block, the building housing my dad’s bar on the first floor. On the second and third floors above it was the Shy Ann, known to be the brothel over which Mary Belle, as I’ll call her, presided. My parents would cast knowing glances whenever they saw a soldier meet a pretty girl, talk a while, and then accompany her into a tavern or into the Shy Ann itself. But viewing these encounters was of no interest to me at all. Weekend nights on Twenty-Fifth Street mattered to me for three reasons: number one, the treats—root beer, candy, and ice cream brought to our car by the visiting wives of the Trentini farmers or Twinkies and candy bars brought by my father from the bar; number two, playing with kids my age; and number three, the musical entertainment provided by the Salvation Army Band.
My parents looked forward to sitting on TwentyFifth Street because it afforded the possibility of meeting old farmer friends who worked seven days a week to provide vegetables, meat, and milk for the community as they tried to eke out a meager income to sustain themselves and their families. The farming community surrounding Ogden City had many immigrant farmers from the same Italian-speaking region as my parents, Trentino, in the Tyrolean Alps. On Saturday nights, whole families of the Trentini convened in their cars along this stretch of road. By and by, the farmers and their older boys entered the bars to drink a few beers and discuss events of the past week—mostly politics, the economy, and some personal aspects of their lives. The firstgeneration Trentini wives, brought up with the virtues of the old country, wouldn’t be caught dead in a bar. Crossing that threshold would be left to the second-generation Trentini, the wives who accompanied their husbands for a night out. Dancing in the bars cost a couple of beers, much less than the five-dollar admission fee to either the White City or Berthana dance halls cloistered on the upper, more respected part of Twenty-Fifth. The bars on lower Twenty-Fifth Street realized their economic advantage and so started clearing enough floor space for some dancing.
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from California were to be delivered. Or how Mrs. B, during her illness, learned that Mr. B was courting Widow C.
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One thing I found hard to understand when discussion centered around the Shy Ann and Mary Belle was the degree to which Mrs. Rauzi found Mary Belle to be the equivalent of a suffragist and a modern, independent American woman, while my mother viewed Mary Belle as a tool of Lucifer and an embarrassment to the Trentini community. As soon as I developed a losing streak in the games, my mother would glance toward the back seat and me. The other women in the front seat, after noting mother’s wink, quickly changed the subject to my dad’s rose garden or some other innocuous thing. But before long they were back talking about why the young T’s or the second-generation P’s were getting a divorce because they weren’t old enough to understand the rigors of married life.
The author, Fred Seppi, as a child. —
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212 Older women like my mother instead gathered two or three at a time in friends’ cars to gossip. These informal meetings did not require a prior telephone call to set up a time and date for a visit, even among the closest friends, as prescribed by the day’s etiquette. Meanwhile we kids sat in the back seats eating treats and playing games: checkers, tic-tac-toe, and sometimes the new game called Monopoly. But often Monopoly extended beyond the two-hour limit for parking in a single location, and we had to disband prematurely without a clear winner—or without me having my fill of the stories the mothers told, which I would be relating far into the future. The treats and games quickly lost their appeal when the women got together per chiacchierare, an Italian phrase pronounced like the cackle of a hen. What I learned about the Trentini community from these chiacchierare amazed me. Often I’d lose a game simply because I became more interested in hearing about Mr. P’s drinking problem or the details concerning the concealment in a shed of Mr. R’s homemade wine or when and where the grapes
Of course, part of the wonderful spectacle on those evenings could be credited to alcohol, much to the dismay of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (many of whose adherents were in attendance). Yes, there were disagreements between friends sitting around a bar table, disagreements that ended up with fisticuffs either in the center of the bar or on the street curb outside. Although we always tried to avoid a parking place that might become a boxing ring, there were occasions when we happened to park right in the middle of a dispute—such as the night when a burly man was knocked down against the front of our car onto our double-steel bumper, necessitating an emergency call from Dad’s bar to the police. Once the police had hauled the brawlers away and Dad had cleaned the blood off his bumper with the bar towel he always had draped over his arm to wait on bar patrons, my mother (ever the pragmatist) said, “I hope he finds a clean towel for the customers.” For those of the LDS faith who ran our town, Twenty-Fifth Street was a disgrace, especially the threeblock stretch on the north side between the Union Station and the Broom Hotel on Washington Boulevard. But for many—those in transit on the trains and the many farmers who had emigrated from Trentino to Weber County—it was a refuge, a place to talk politics, economy, or whatever topic governed the local news. And, of course, to listen to the music and to dance. The saloons had limited space, but every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at five p.m., the chairs and tables in Dad’s bar were crowded together to
permit the half-circular stage resting with its flat side against the wall to be lowered into position to accommodate Mr. Pilcher’s five-piece band. Mr. Pilcher played the violin, and his orchestra consisted of coronet, trombone, bass drum, viola, and on occasion a singer to render the Tommy DorseyGlenn Miller genre of song popular during the war. Since the dance floor was very small, during the summer the entry doors were left open so couples could dance outside in the fresh air, and of course, the sound of music filled the cars at the curb.
Some nights, Mr. Pilcher’s musicians had competition from the Salvation Army band directly across the street. The maestro’s name was General Toscano (he was in the army, after all), which was close enough to be confused with the name Toscanini, a man a few years older and more well known, but to me, equally famous. Nevertheless, the adults seemed amused by what I couldn’t understand: Maestro Toscano’s name implied an adult man from the region of Tuscany, Italy—an adult of some wealth and appreciation. And since in Italian the suffix -ini means little or childlike, Maestro Toscanini was therefore the little, insignificant orchestra leader from Tuscany. The entire Army orchestra consisted of one trumpet, one violin, a piccolo, castanets, a drum, cymbals, and a chorus of five Salvationettes dressed in red and black. To my young ears this band rivaled the New York Philharmonic. Conducted by General Toscano, the Army always played eight numbers, half of which were either Neapolitan songs or operatic melodies. Before each selection the band played in its half hour on stage (which was a portion of sidewalk next to the curb) the maestro explained the composition and something about the composer. Of course, nine times of ten the composer was Verdi. And the compositions were all the well-known arias often heard on radio soap opera commercials,
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During the musical intermissions every hour or so, Mr. Pilcher himself stood by the opened door of the National Tavern while his musicians mingled with the customers and accepted the drinks they sponsored. Mr. Pilcher had devised a collection bag, something like a sock that hung from his violin. He came outside to play Strauss waltzes on his violin and graciously thanked anyone walking by or standing on the sidewalk for their contributions. Somehow his clever arm movements allowed him to continue playing “Blue Danube” while he picked coins out of the stocking and put them into his pocket without missing a note. It was one trick for getting by during hard times.
213 A calendar from the National Tavern. —
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such as “Brindisi” from La Traviata or the elephant march from Aida. Come to think of it, every school child was singing the toreador song from Carmen: “Oh! Toreodory / Don’t spit on the floory, / Use the cuspidory, / That’s what it’s fory.” And the child that I was, listening in the parking stall to these concerts, I became a devotee of opera forever. But beyond the boisterous spectacle on TwentyFifth Street there was the sorrow of the war. How many young soldiers and sailors walked the pavement to meet the girls who motioned to them and asked, “Buy me a drink, soldier?” Together they entered the bar, only to emerge a half hour or so later and pass through the door to the Shy Ann.
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Unlike my father, most Trentini immigrants in the vicinity of Ogden resided on family farms, planting and harvesting crops as they had back in Italy. Generally, those who stayed on the farm did quite well thanks to the agricultural economic policies of the U.S. government. Because they knew how to improve the alkali soil near the Great Salt Lake, they could buy that otherwise unfarmable land for almost nothing and have it producing in a short period of time.
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Pete Rauzi often discussed with my parents how he was able to acquire his large corn and vegetable fields at a reasonable cost. When he first arrived in Weber County from the coal mines in Superior, Wyoming, he bought a few acres of seemingly worthless land for $1,000 he borrowed from First Security Bank in Ogden for one year. Periodically he drove his wagon to a friend’s sheep camp in the mountains east of the city and transferred sheep dung to his farm to enrich the soil. Well before his loan was to be repaid he returned the $1,000 to Mr. Squires, head of the bank, and asked for another $1,000 to buy additional acreage. The banker found it hard to believe the land could be so profitable. When Mr. Rauzi requested a fourth loan, Mr. Squires suggested that he might be manufacturing and selling some hooch in violation of the prohibition laws. Mr. Squires wanted to see this miraculously profitable farm for himself. After touring the hospital-clean stables that housed the cows and milk production and seeing the abundance of tomatoes, corn, and the like, and plants common to Italy such as flat beans, zucchini, eggplant, grapes, and peppers—the seeds for which had all been sent to Pete Rauzi from relatives in Trentino—Mr. Squires was impressed enough to approve any additional loans Mr. Rauzi might apply for. Good for Mr. Squires. But no one in the Trentino community ever doubted that the liquids derived from the California grapes arriving nightly by truck at the beginning of each autumn also helped make the bank loan payments. What Mr. Squires didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. In general, the first generation of Trentini immigrants found success by either staying with their parents to help on the farms or by attending the local agricultural college, studying methods to improve production efficiency. The Trentino farming community was large enough in Weber County that the Trentini formed their own social organization called the Friendly Club for periodic social
gatherings. The club thrives even today; within the past twenty years the Ogden chapter has hosted two of the quaternary meetings of the Trentini nel Mondo International Club, with officials from the old country in attendance. The original Trentini immigrants were such a cohesive and insular group that many of the wives saw no need to learn English. Whenever Mrs. Prevedel came to downtown Ogden from her country farm and my mother was not home, Mrs. Prevedel had no difficulty telling me in the Nonese dialect what she wanted. I understood her perfectly from listening to mother and her friends Consolata and Virginia, who visited every second week. But, since I could not speak Nonese, I had great difficulty making Mrs. Prevedel understand that mother would be home on the next bus from downtown, and that she should have a chair for a few minutes. And when my mother did arrive there was the discussion about how difficult Mrs. Prevedel found coming to America (meaning downtown Ogden) when she was content to stay in Little Italy (that is, her farm) where she understood her own language. Translated: Mrs. Prevedel felt out of place in downtown Ogden and preferred to stay home on the farm where her neighbor friends spoke her native language. Her husband and other Trentini farmers who wanted to sell their produce in town—along with immigrants like my father and their families who established businesses and homes in Ogden—had to learn English to live and trade among their neighbors. At a relatively early age, I became aware that the religious community to which all of my friends belonged, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, strongly approved of mother’s ethnic culinary abilities, but would have certainly and strongly disapproved of my father’s business calling. Although friends knew and said little, strangers who asked what my dad did for a living were told he was a co-owner with Ralph Profaizer, a fellow Trentino, of the grocery store located in West Weber. In those days, when so few had automobiles, that store in the countryside could have been in Chicago, and few were curious enough to want further information. Mr. Newey, my friend Joe’s dad and our next-door neighbor, was constantly after my father to apply for a job at Southern Pacific Railroad. Mr. Newey was one of the executives who would evaluate the application and be sure to hire Dad at a better salary than he could ever make delivering beer to customers’ tables on Twenty-Fifth. My three older sisters and I, overhearing Mr. Newey’s offers, hoped on
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hope that they would take hold. But each time, Dad simply replied that he knew nothing about railroads and even had trouble sometimes speaking English, so what kind of work would he be doing at Union Station—a janitor, ticket seller, or some other menial duty? No, he liked to take care of his own business, on occasion giving younger people his opinion on their problems. Not lucrative, but very satisfying. Listening to Dad’s denials, we prying siblings would shake our heads in disappointment. We didn’t really care about job details. But Dad did. To us, being able to say “My father works for Southern Pacific” or “He has a job at Hill Air Force Base” would mean we’d have a chance to fit in, to be accepted—hardly possible were the truth known: “He owns the National Tavern on Twenty-Fifth.”
In contrast, my high school friends Tom Pappas and Eddie Simoni—also first-generation immigrant sons—enjoyed relative social ease. Eddie was a star swimming athlete, popular in high school for himself alone and very proud that his father had become half-owner of the National Tavern. Eddie’s family were devout Catholics: when his dad Joe was at the bar, Eddie’s mother went door to door to sell DouayRhiems Bibles to the Mormons, a very expensive edition illustrated with paintings by Giotto, da Vinci—all the famous Catholics. Even our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Newey, a pillar of the LDS Twenty-Second Ward, bought a bible—to her dismay when she learned it was the Catholic Bible, not the Protestant King James. But the full-color plates of the art were worth the mistake. As for Tom, his family owned the tavern called The Club a block from Union Station. Tom was very popular in high school. His dad had given him a Buick Roadmaster in exchange for Tom’s promise to graduate. Mr. Pappas was inordinately proud of his Greek heritage; the Greeks had founded western civilization long before the local church was founded in New York and then transplanted to Utah, so no one could dictate what was moral or not to him. Whereas my parents discouraged my sisters and me from learning Italian, Tom, like all Greek children, was required to learn to speak his parents’ language fluently and to take great pride in his heritage. Like his father, Tom would not bow down to any religion but the Orthodox. Quite a difference from one of Italian ethnicity, who might be
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I was always walking a tightrope between the few friends who knew about the bar and where it was and those probing for information. It was a predicament I detested—and probably why I avoided large social gatherings, a habit that persists even today.
215 The author’s parents. —
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cowed further into social withdrawal by reports in the daily news of the Mano Nera terrorizing New York and Chicago’s Capone spreading corruption and death. e The past harbors some regrets, but also it also supplies wonderful memories that seem even more vivid now, some seventy years later. Cameras, film, and development were too expensive for families of modest means; photography was an indulgence reserved for the few occasions when a cherished relative or friend visited. I don’t need a photograph, anyway, to remember Twenty-Fifth Street. From the twelfth-floor restaurant on top of the Hotel Ben Lomond, the contrast between those few blocks and
Bus Widmer and His Clevelanders playing at the Ben Lomond Hotel, December 14, 1935. —
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the rest of Ogden was stark. Back then, one-hundred-watt globes lit all the other streets, one fixture in the center of the street and two at the ends of each block. One small area of town, tainted perhaps according to some, was bright and alive. The rest of the city died at sundown. I don’t need a photograph to confirm what I can see clearly in the mind’s eye; sometimes, though, it’s an image more clouded than I’d like. e Tonight, on a Sunday evening in June 1939, it is already 6:30 p.m. We drive down Twenty-Fifth Street to Union Station, turn over to Twenty-Fourth Street, back up three blocks to Washington Boulevard, over to Twenty-Fifth, down Twenty-Fifth, and around again three times. Nope. We’re too late to find a parking place in front of the Shy Ann or the National Tavern or the Salvation Army across the street. So for the first time I can remember, my father has decided to park on the first block from Union Station in a vacant angle parking stall on the south side of the street. Strange the difference in entertainment between the north side of Twenty-Fifth and the south, where people of all color and ethnicity can walk. But luck is still with us: we can still enjoy the concert in front of the Salvation Army a few doors away. About two years before, the Army had converted the old Lyceum Theater into a shelter for all people in need. You can still see the outline of the theater ticket box office, now a fashion window advertising the menu for the day. Tonight the menu reads chicken stew, exactly the same as the last time we parked in this stall. Some of the brickwork on the building has decayed during its twenty years
of existence, but the four Doric columns holding the front face intact appear as polished as those in front of any other theater in town. Oh, look! The door has opened and all ten members of the symphony have come outside and lined up on the street curb double file. But something’s wrong. The trumpet player hurriedly goes back through the door, and the maestro has not yet appeared. Maestro Toscano has been looking rather old. I hope he is not sick. After about five minutes of apprehension, everything is all right again. The trumpeter had forgotten to bring out the donation pot on its stand, and the maestro never showed up before the stage and players were set. At the center of the front row are a boy and a girl, identical in looks and manner, facial features, and even in their clothing. They are the young twins of the maestro. Their violins are as polished and well-kept as they themselves. Behind them stands the trumpeter, a nervous black man at least six feet tall who continually wipes his brow with a starkly contrasting white hanky to suppress the heat of the evening. You really cannot see all of the instruments in this orchestra from here, but the two instrumentalists on the ends of the second row are obvious. The girl wearing a Mexican dress plays the castanets, and the boy on the other end has the cymbals. During concerts past, the maestro explained that he is a devotee of French and Italian opera and only occasionally plays Mexican music. So he seldom uses the castanets. He has this girl because she is so gracious and beautiful and seems to attract larger contributions to the donation pot supervised by the trumpeter. And at the end of each concert the maestro enjoys taking a quarter from his pocket and personally tipping the beautiful castanet player. As for the man with the cymbals, he never plays in a composition either and is not handsome enough to
My mother asks Mr. Steele what was going on across the street and how come the police only put one man, not two, into the paddy wagon. “The preacher of the Second Methodist Church for colored people was up to his old shenanigans again,” says Mr. Steele. “The rev stopped his protests, lying down in the middle of the intersection of State Street and South Temple in Salt Lake, when the police finally refused to erect barriers to prevent him from getting run over. So he moved to Ogden, Twenty-Fifth and Washington. But then, the police let him know no more barriers in Ogden either. So now he protests on Twenty-Fifth Street.”
That night’s events made me begin to wonder about things like justice, truth, rights, dignity. My eyes opened just a bit to see that people in power or in established groups thought they knew ultimate truths that in reality were simply arbitrary, unjust, and harmful. Tonight, in the twenty-first century, I’m waiting for the pizza I’ve ordered from Brewskis. The third floor is gone, and the entry from the front sidewalk to the apartments above the bar has been bricked over. During my childhood, that entry was guarded by an ornate frieze of hand-carved demons and angels, reportedly sculpted by the same artist who built the bar counter inside my father’s tavern—as well as the intricate meshwork adorning the altar in a local church. The artist was an alcoholic whose name no one considered important enough to record.
“What did he do?” my mother asks. “What did he do?” Mr. Steele repeats. “He walked down the north side of Twenty-Fifth Street just like he belonged there. You know colored people can’t do that. A white guy told him to go to the south side where he belongs, over here in front of the Porters and Waiters Club, and he refused. So the white guy roughed him up pretty good.” “But the police only arrested one person, not two, didn’t they?” my mother asks. “Yes, because the rev was the only one that broke the law and caused the disturbance. The white guy was in the right. And the rev insists on repeating
The intricately carved doorway, with its bright neon sign mounted above, announced the residence of Mary Belle and her business. The spelling on the sign was, however, a consternation for the city council. Mary Belle, a Trentina like my mother and her friends Consolata and Virginia, owned or managed several of the buildings on Twenty-Fifth Street. She evidently pursued her business exclusively on the second and third floors of these buildings, including the one housing my father’s tavern. She preferred to remain behind the scenes, but her enormous influence upon the city council members, all men in those days, was obvious.
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Mr. Steele, who has witnessed the conflagration, has noticed our car parked on the duller part of the street. My father explains that we had been too late for the premium parking and that was the reason we parked here in front of the Porters and Waiters Club.
Later, tucked in my bed, I decide the south side of Twenty-Fifth Street is no fun—unless we’re parked in front of the Salvation Army on the second block from the station. The Army concerts with the castanet lady are still okay.
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The Prevedels and deGiorgeos have been late parking too, so the two farm wives see our car and crowd into the front seat to chiacchierare about the week’s Trentini social news. After little more than a half hour of gossip, we note commotion across the street in front of The Club, a lounge—no, of course, nothing so seedy as a bar—run by the Greek brothers. We can see that people have formed a circle around two men who seem to have gotten into a fistfight. From our location across the street the scuffle looks like a boxing match to settle some score. The police have been called to stop the turmoil. When they arrive it looks as though they arrest only one person, rather than two, and haul him off.
every now and then, even though he always gets beat up. You know some of the porters or waiters on the Union Pacific or Southern Pacific trains who are new at their jobs and aren’t familiar with the laws in Ogden occasionally make the mistake of walking over to the north side of the street; but when a resident of the city points out the law to them they graciously follow directions and go to the Porters and Waiters Club across the street for overnight accommodations until their train returns the next day to bring them home. But the rev is stubborn like a mule and continually returns with his protests. Like the rev is going to change the world and get his way.”
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be attractive. The maestro uses him at the beginning of each selection to make sure the audience remains awake.
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One of the first newspaper articles about her that I remember described a meeting in which council members objected to the sign above the entrance to her establishment above the National Tavern. Originally the sign in bright red letters above the door, Cheyenne, referred to a western town 450 miles east,
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That night’s events made me begin to wonder about things like justice, truth, rights, dignity. which was considered Ogden’s only valid contender for rodeos of national importance. After several years, Mary Belle’s marketing and entrepreneurial instincts suggested that changing the spelling to a more descriptive homonym might increase profits significantly. The city council continually voted to require Mary Belle to change the name Shy Ann back to the correct spelling. Ogden’s Mayor Harman Peery had succeeded in competing seriously with the capital of Wyoming for the title “Rodeo Capital of the World.” Mary Belle had simply used the name of that city for her establishment as an honor to the mayor’s achievement. Her argument: the city council certainly could not make her change the name simply because she had displayed a phonetic spelling over her door. According to the news article, most of the council did not know the meaning of the word phonetic and after some private discussion and, likely, tacit memories evoked by Mary Belle, the council somehow forgot their objections. The sign above the entrance remained incorrectly spelled until Mary Belle decided to retire years later. My most indelible memory of Mary Belle concerns the local high school, which still sits on top of the bench about three miles from historic Twenty-Fifth. No question why that commanding edifice is still referred to as the “Castle on the Hill.” It and two other buildings were erected in the city during the depths of the Depression. In the 1930s, when the national economy appeared darkest, the federal government initiated two major make-work programs: the Work Projects Administration (WPA) and the Public Works Administration (PWA). When few people had enough money for necessities, these federal
governmental efforts provided work and along with it, tangible evidence that everything would be all right again one day in economically devastated areas. During this time, the WPA erected a building in Ogden on Twenty-Fifth Street to house the offices of the Forest Service. The edifice was ornate, adopting the fashionable art-deco style of architecture of the Chrysler building in New York. City governments that could show a need for the construction of municipal buildings to improve their city’s functions also had access to funding from the federal government. The Ogden city council, of course, decided that old city hall needed replacement, and in accordance with the federal regulations, requested one million dollars to build a new city hall constructed in the same art-deco style as the Forest Service building. At another meeting, the council voted to petition for funds to rebuild the overcrowded local high school, asking for a mere quarter of a million dollars to construct an addition to the existing building. A week or so after the request for the high school appropriation was announced, the newspapers reported an emergency council session requested by a citizen known only as Mary Belle. During this subsequent meeting, Mary Belle insisted that if the council could seek the one million dollars from the federal government to build a new city hall for city and county employees, it could find it necessary to ask for a similar sum to build a new high school in the same attractive art-deco style for the kids who really needed improved educational facilities. Naturally, council members were reluctant to submit a request for two expensive buildings when it seemed unlikely that even the city hall would be approved. But, according to the Examiner, after a short deliberation (and likely private conversations between some council members and Mary Belle, recalling old times), the council voted that a new high school, appointed with modern equipment and decorative architecture, would be necessary regardless of the additional cost. Editorials at the time took the city council to task for not giving Mary Belle the credit due her for the artistic masterpiece that was our high school. Even so, I recall school teachers who, some years later, occasionally criticized Mary Belle in class, but never explained why exactly she was so bad. Few of them credited her for the beautiful building in which they worked. Even Consolata, Virginia, and my mother, sitting on our mohair sofa and chair, expressed their disapproval of Mary Belle. Consolata pondered once what kind of art and statues might lurk behind
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A half-century ago, Ogden’s gentry was more than disconcerted when Al Capone, the infamous Chicago millionaire Mafioso, reportedly congratulated the people of the town for their free enterprise and their famous street. My dad’s bar, the National Tavern, was situated in the middle of the block amid all the shops and stores on the north side of street—the white side. The tavern faced Willie’s Barber Shop on the south side, two doors east of the Salvation Army and the Porters and Waiters Club. On the day of my father’s retirement party, Willie had to cross the street to the National Tavern with a bag over his head to attend. Time and wisdom relieved the racism of those days. My father retired; I often wait in my car outside of the building that housed his National Tavern and Mary Belle’s Shy Ann for one of Brewskis takeout pizzas. These days, something is missing from Twenty-Fifth Street: authenticity. The authentic Twenty-Fifth Street included the rabble mixing with the religious and dance music creating the background for the gossip of my mother and
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A crowd gathered on Twenty-Fifth Street to see Herbert Hoover, 1932. —
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the red Shy Ann sign they had to look at when they parked at the curb on Twenty-Fifth Street to watch the weekend dramas unfold. Whenever I stopped playing with my toy cars on the floor and seemed too interested in the mystery they were pondering, the topic of their conversation abruptly changed. Little did those three know that a few years hence their little Freddie would be able to tell them that no disgusting décor was evident on the third floor. In fact, Mary Belle’s halls were more subdued than those found in the Hotel Ben Lomond.
219 her friends. It included the tavern operator who befriended a civic-minded madam and a black barber, all that the upstanding city councilmen wished to eliminate. Inside the Summit Hotel on TwentyFourth Street is a lounge known, until recently, as Electric Alley; the hotel called the upscale restaurant on the west side of its lobby the Porters’ and Waiters’ Club; and the café on the east side was named after Mary Belle. They were strange, though conspicuous, tributes. Thirty years ago Twenty-Fifth Street was designated “Historic Twenty-Fifth Street,” but its history is largely erased and forgotten. For many years I kept a scrapbook of articles clipped from the Ogden Standard-Examiner, stories and photographs that pertained to Mary Belle. When I think of what Ogden was and is, what an individual citizen, an immigrant’s daughter, can do to shape a legacy for generations to come, I think of her.
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Fred Seppi, a lifelong resident of Ogden, Utah, retired from Hill Air Force Base in 1986, where he was employed as a physicist. He is completing a memoir, The Boy Under the Stairs.
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WEB EXTRA: UHQ has published several memoirs throughout the years. Read some of them at history.utah. gov/uhq-memoirs.
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An 1891 map showing a road on the east side of Ash Creek (above Belleview) through difficult terrains. —
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The Communitarian Road in Pioneer Utah By
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The Black Ridge—a formation of jagged volcanic rock that fills Ash Creek Canyon for some three miles north of Pintura in Washington County, Utah—was one of the legendary barriers that made traveling to and from Southern Utah’s “Dixie” difficult, if not impossible.1 Crossing the ridge became almost a rite of passage for the region’s pioneers, as evidenced by several accounts of Dixie’s settlement. Maureen Whipple’s great Mormon novel, The Giant Joshua (1942), opens with a company of pioneers struggling to navigate the Black Ridge. Likewise, George Hicks, one of the early settlers of Washington, wrote a poem on life in Dixie that highlights the geological formation: 1 Halka Chronic, Roadside Geology of Utah (Missoula, MT: Mountain Press, 1990), 244. A volcanic eruption about two million years ago caused lava to flow down present Ash Creek Canyon. After it hardened into black basalt, it eroded much more slowly than surrounding rock and so became a ridge. The Black Ridge basaltic rock is of “the same age and composition” as that on top of the Hurricane Cliffs to the east. The history of the Black Ridge road has been told in such sources as James Bleak, “Annals of the Southern Utah Mission,” holograph, MS 318, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter CHL); Richard E. Turley Jr., ed., Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2 vols., 74 DVDs (Provo, UT: BYU Press, 2002), 1:19; Andrew Karl Larson, “I Was Called To Dixie”: The Virgin River Basin: Unique Experiences in Mormon Pioneering (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1960), 514–19; Janet Seegmiller, A History of Iron County: Community Above Self (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and Iron County Commission, 1997), 380; Douglas D. Alder and Karl F. Brooks, A History of Washington County: From Isolation to Destination (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and Washington County Commission, 1996), 225–26. Of special value are the writings of Morris Shirts, a descendant of Peter Shirts. See Morris A. Shirts, “The Black Ridge: Extracts from ‘Peter’s Diary’,” typescript, M277.9248 B627s 1970, CHL, and “Black Ridge Mountains,” typescript, F 832.S68 S54, Special Collections, Gerald R. Sherratt Library, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah (hereafter SLSUU). None of these accounts covers the important Hamblin-Judd expedition in 1856.
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Conquering the black ridge
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At length we reached the Black Ridge where I broke my wagon down, I could not find a carpenter so far from any town, So with a clumsy cedar pole I fixed an awkward slide; My wagon pulled so heavy then that Betsy [Hicks’s wife] could not ride.2
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Indeed, the Black Ridge was punishing for wagons, which often broke down there and somehow had to be repaired on location. A long stretch of sand, another barrier dreaded by the pioneers, followed the fearsome ridge. Hicks continued:
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When we reached the Sandy, we could not move at all, For poor old Jim and Bolly began to puff and loll. I whipped and swore a little but could not make the route, For myself, the team, and Betsy, were all of us give out.3
This difficult route was necessary because it served as a lifeline between southern Utah and the rest of the state. The first town south of the Black Ridge was Santa Clara, founded in late 1854 on the Santa Clara River. The road closest to it was the Spanish or California Trail, which passed through Mountain Meadows and continued southwest past Santa Clara, avoiding Ash Creek Canyon.4 However, after Mormon settlers established Washington, Toquerville, and St. George (in 1857, 1858, and 1861, respectively), creating a usable road over the Black Ridge became a high priority because they needed a direct route to Dixie. It was relatively easy to traverse the Ash Creek Canyon by horseback or on foot, following Indian trails. Bringing wagons and other vehicles by that route, however, was almost impossible without a workable road, and wagons were crucial to pioneers and the freighters who brought necessary supplies—including food—to pioneer communities. Creating the road over the Black Ridge represented a monumental task, which tried the dedication, ingenuity, and will of the settlers of Dixie. Their conquest of the Black Ridge became a 2 As quoted in Andrew Karl Larson, The Red Hills of November: A Pioneer Biography of Utah’s Cotton Town (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1957), 69. 3 Ibid. 4 See Edward Leo Lyman, The Overland Journey from Utah to California: Wagon Travel from the City of Saints to the City of Angels (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2004). The Spanish Trail provided the more direct route from northern Utah to southern California, so overland travelers rarely took the Ash Creek Canyon route. One exception was the Dukes-Turner company in 1857; see Lyman, Overland Journey, 140–41.
major communitarian accomplishment in southern Utah, as local Latter-day Saints contributed tithing and tax work hours toward its building and upkeep.5 In addition, they were supported by financial allocations from the government of Utah. Indian trails had passed by the Black Ridge, and the earliest whites who traversed Ash Creek Canyon undoubtedly followed these.6 Paiute names for the formation show that it challenged Indians, as it later would whites. According to LaVan Martineau, Paiutes knew the Black Ridge as Kaw’uwhaim Awvee (Ankle Lying) or Too’Yoonuv (Lava Flow). They called the wider area Chuhngkawweep (Rough Land), “due to the roughness of the area caused by the large lava field.”7 The Black Ridge served as the boundary between the Tave-at-sooks, the Paiutes who lived near modern Kanarraville, on the rim of the Great Basin, and the Toquer-ats, the Paiutes who lived near modern Toquerville, south of the Black Ridge.8 The Black Ridge canyon enters written history with the 1776 expedition of fathers Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez. Two Indians led the padres into the canyon on October 13, 1776, after the company had traveled south through the Kanarraville area. They “entered a ridge-cut entirely of black lava rock which lies between two high sierras by way of a gap.”9 Escalante and Domínguez recognized that this difficult ridge acted as a kind of gateway. In the roughest part of the canyon, the two Paiute guides suddenly disappeared. “We applauded their 5 For Mormonism’s communitarian history, see Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation among the Mormons (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992). For the wider American background, see Donald E. Pitzer, ed., America’s Communal Utopias: The Developmental Process (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1997), which has a chapter on Mormonism. 6 See Shirts, “The Black Ridge: Extracts,” appendix, “Probable Road History,” SLSUU, for evidence of Indian use of the Peter’s Leap area. 7 LaVan Martineau, The Southern Paiutes: Legends, Lore, Language, and Lineage (Las Vegas: K.C. Publications, 1992), 186 (quotations); William R. Palmer, “Indian Names in Utah Geography,” Utah Historical Quarterly 1, no. 1 (January 1928): 22. Pauites also called Ash Creek Too’Yoonuv. 8 William R. Palmer, “Pahute Indian Homelands,” Utah Historical Quarterly 6, no. 3 (July 1933): 794–95. 9 Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, The Domínguez-Escalante Journal: Their Expedition through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico in 1776, trans. Fray Angelico Chavez, ed. Ted J. Warner (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995), 93–94. The Spanish reads “entramos en una cuchilla toda de mal país que está entre dos sierras altas en forma de puerto.”
cleverness in having brought us through a place so well suited for carrying out their ruse so surely and easily,” Escalante wrote ruefully. The company “continued south for a league with great hardship on account of so much rock,” then descended to Ash Creek and camped in a cottonwood grove.10 The next day the Spanish explorers passed over stretches of hilly sand. Thus the first historical description of Ash Creek Canyon already depicts its difficulty.
Intrigued by Pratt’s discovery of iron in southern Utah, Brigham Young soon sent an “Iron Mission” to the area, and this group founded Parowan in January 1851. Later in the year, Mormons expanded southward to Cedar City. In the spring of 1852, they founded the first Fort Harmony, close to modern Ash Creek Reservoir.14 John D. Lee led Fort 10 Ibid. Ted J. Warner places this camp 2.4 miles north of Pintura. 11 Dale Lowell Morgan, Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), 197, 238. 12 William B. Smart and Donna T. Smart, eds., Over the Rim, The Parley P. Pratt Exploring Expedition to Southern Utah, 1849–50 (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1999), 180–81, 86–88. 13 Ibid., 180–81. 14 Morris A. Shirts and Kathryn H. Shirts, A Trial Furnace: Southern Utah’s Iron Mission (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2001); Bleak, “Annals,” 17, CHL; Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Washington County Chapter, Under Dixie Sun: A History of Washington County by Those Who Loved Their Forbears (Panguitch, UT: Garfield County News, 1950), 127.
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Harmony; Peter Shirts was another resident.15 Both of these resilient frontiersmen would help pioneer the Black Ridge route. On January 27, 1852, Lee headed a company of twelve men (including John Steele and Zadok Judd), four wagons, and thirteen horses that explored the Virgin and Santa Clara Rivers.16 As they approached Ash Creek Canyon, Lee wrote, “The country for the next 15 miles appears forbidding being a low range of rocky broken mountains covered with brush and service bushes.” Not far into Ash Creek Canyon, 15 For Lee, see Juanita Brooks, John Doyle Lee: Zealot, Pioneer Builder, Scapegoat (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1985). For Peter Shirts, see Peter Shurtz Jr., “History of Peter Shirts,” from Ambrose Schurtz, “History of the Shurtz or Shirts Family,” typescript, MSS A 1746, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter USHS); Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, index. 16 John D. Lee, letter to the editor, February 20, 1852, published as “Letter from Elder John D. Lee,” Deseret News, April 3, 1852.
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The Mormons arrived on the scene some twenty years later, in 1849, when the Parley P. Pratt expedition explored southern Utah. Pratt arrived at the modern site of Parowan with his full company, then left his wagons and part of the company there, while he proceeded southward with twenty men on horseback. According to Pratt’s official report, on December 29, the company was “forced to leave the stream [Ash Creek] and take to our right over the hills for many miles. Country rough and marred with huge stones, the North side a foot deep with snow, on the Summit and South side very miry. . . . Night found us encamped on a stream in a rough broken country.”12 This camp might have been near the site of modern Pintura.13 Just as the name “ridge” implies a hill of some sort, the Pratt report talks of a summit dividing the north and south sides of a formation.
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The next white visitor to Ash Creek Canyon might have been Jedediah Smith, as he traveled from the Great Salt Lake to California in the late summers of 1826 and 1827.11 Unfortunately, he left no detailed descriptions of Ash Creek Canyon.
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ROADS OVER THE BLACK RIDGE ROAD DATES LOCATION
Hamblin-Judd Road First used spring 1856 Apparently just west of Ash Creek
Road east of Ash Creek (sometimes called the County Road)
Arrowhead Highway 1924–1925 West of Ash Creek, following the 1862 Duffin Road
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June 1868–1924
East of Ash Creek
U.S. Highway 91 1926 West of Ash Creek (formerly Arrowhead Highway) Interstate-15 Late 1960s / early 1970s–present they decided that wagons could not proceed and left them there, with some guards. Another part of the company proceeded onward on foot and with horses. Lee described passing by “low broken sand mounds” and “sand hills.” He thought that his group came near Ash Creek’s conjunction with LaVerkin Creek (where the banks of both creeks were three hundred feet high, in Lee’s estimation); however, this is problematic, because both creeks reach the Virgin at about the same place, near the modern town of LaVerkin. According to Lee, they ascended a “mound” here and saw the Virgin River in the distance. Apparently they now sent back for the wagons and successfully brought them over the Black Ridge, a historic event. Five miles later, Lee and company came to a welcome landmark in the lower Ash Creek Canyon route: “the Grapevines springs.” These springs “boil up” at the foot of a sand mound and “moisten about one acre of land which is completely interlocked with vines,” Lee wrote, adding, prophetically, “Good place to camp.” The area would later become a welcome oasis for travelers who ventured south of the rim. (For example, George A. Smith wrote in 1857: “Our slow progress caused us to suffer for want of water; when we reached the ‘Grapevine’ Springs it was regarded by me as one of the pleasantest spots upon the earth—a little cool water in a desert!”)17 Lee 17 George A. Smith, “History of the Settling of Southern Utah,” in Turley, Selected Collections, 1:3.
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left the wagons here and with a few men explored the Virgin and Santa Clara rivers. That summer of 1852, a group of seven men, led by John Calvin Lazelle Smith and John Steele and including John D. Lee, explored east of Parowan in the Sevier Valley. They followed LaVerkin Creek southwest until the terrainforced them to leave the creek, and they eventually came to the convergence of the Virgin River, LaVerkin Creek, and Ash Creek. There Steele and Lee followed their former route north over the Black Ridge.18 When the members of the Southern Indian mission arrived at the first Fort Harmony on May 2, 1854, a new chapter in Dixie history began, as some of them hoped to proselytize the numerous Paiutes who farmed on the Virgin and Santa Clara rivers in the Dixie basin. In mid-May, Brigham Young and other LDS general authorities visited the Iron Mission and helped to locate and lay out the second Fort Harmony, a few miles northwest of the first Fort Harmony.19 Young asked the men who had visited Dixie whether “a wagon road could be made across the Black Ridge down to the Rio Virgen.” If this is 18 J. C. L. Smith and John Steele, letter to the editor, June 26, 1852, published as “Letter from Parowan,” Deseret News, August 7, 1852; J. Cecil Alter, ed., “Journal of Priddy Meeks,” Utah Historical Quarterly 10 (1942): 187. 19 New Harmony, west of this, was laid out in 1862. Only New Harmony is inhabited today.
reported correctly, we see that Young already had an interest in the territory south of Harmony. Those who knew the Black Ridge doubted that such a road could be made: “Their replies were very discouraging.”20 Despite the fact that Lee had apparently crossed the ridge with wagons in 1852, no recognized road existed there yet.
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However, James Bleak noted that “notwithstanding this report, President [Heber C.] Kimball prophesied that [a] wagon road would be made from Harmony over the Black Ridge.”21 Thomas Brown’s contemporary report of the LDS hierarchy’s visit does not mention this prophecy. However, if Kimball did say something like this, it would demonstrate that Utahns viewed the idea of a road over the Black Ridge as close to miraculous.
On June 7, Rufus Allen led another venture southwards, as recorded in the diaries of Hamblin and, especially, Thomas Brown. Guided by three Indians, the company left the second Fort Harmony, and then crossed Ash Creek near the old fort. Brown wrote, For the first four miles till we again struck Ash Creek we had a long rocky bench or rolling hill then descending around the same, by a long steep rocky hill, thence for some miles on a good level bottom of Ash Creek, then over other rolling ridges of sand and rocky bolders alternately till at near sundown 16 miles from old carrel [the first Fort Harmony] & 20 from our camp [the second Harmony] we reached Toker’s Wickeups [near modern Toquerville]. 20 Bleak, “Annals,” 23, CHL. 21 Ibid.
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The Indian missionaries soon began exploring the surrounding country. David Lewis, first counselor to Rufus Allen, leader of the missionaries, led a company that included Jacob Hamblin south over the Black Ridge in late May 1854.22On the twenty-sixth, “after passing over an unbroken & rocky road down south,” the party “camped on 2 springs of good water—plenty of grapes vines around & called these Grapevine Springs.”23 Peter Shirts. —
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According to Brown, then, after leaving old Fort Harmony, the group first encountered a long rocky bench or hill, possibly the north face of the Black Ridge. They “struck” Ash Creek again, and then stayed close to the creek while descending “a long steep rocky hill” (possibly the ridge’s south face). A “good level bottom of Ash Creek” followed it. Finally, the group traveled through a stretch of sand and boulders until they came to the area of modern Toquerville. This account, while vague, shows that the Black Ridge included rocky and steep descents and ascents. The company proceeded to visit the Paiute population centers at Toquerville and the Santa Clara, and then returned to Harmony via the California Road.24
22 Juanita Brooks, ed., Journal of the Southern Indian Mission; Diary of Thomas D. Brown (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1972), 38–39; Jacob Hamblin, Diary, June 7 [sic], holograph, Jacob Hamblin Papers, 1850–1877, MS 1951, CHL; Todd M. Compton, A Frontier Life: Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2013).
On October 23, 1854, David Lewis led another exploring trip, which included Hamblin, Shirts, and two Paiutes. The company crossed the Black
23 Brooks, Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 39.
24 Ibid., 43.
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Ridge, and then turned east up the east fork of the Virgin, possibly becoming the earliest explorers of the southern part of modern Zion Park.25 Lewis’s report of the trip, however, barely mentioned the Black Ridge, for the hazards of that territory were becoming well known.
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The next crossing of the Black Ridge occurred in the spring of 1856 and represented an epic accomplishment: a company took wagons from Santa Clara, across the future sites of St. George and Washington, along the Virgin, and then up Ash Creek Canyon. Jacob Hamblin led this company, which included the first known white woman to traverse the ridge, Mary Minerva Judd, the wife of the Mormon Battalion veteran Zadok Knapp Judd. She left three accounts of the experience.26 Though Hamblin and Mary Judd documented this important pioneering expedition, the event is not well known. Rufus Allen had sent Hamblin and four other missionaries (Thales Haskell, Ira Hatch, Samuel Knight, and Augustus Hardy) to live among the Paiutes in Santa Clara in early December 1854. In the late summer of the following year, Hamblin brought his and other families from northern Utah to Santa Clara. He also recruited the Zadok and Mary Minerva Judd family to leave Parowan and help him settle Santa Clara. (Zadok was his brother-in-law.) The Judds arrived at the newly built “Fort Clara” in March 1856. After only a day in this settlement, an express arrived from Harmony with news of an Indian outbreak in northern Utah, and all the missionaries were called back to Harmony. Faced with this directive, the missionaries decided against returning by the California road, which they felt might be snowy and open to Indian attack. Instead, they looked eastward. “Thare was aneu [a new] rout through the Mountains and no snow of onley half the distance but we had allways herd that it was impasable for wagons,” Hamblin wrote. Nevertheless, “We all felt like trying it,” an attitude typical of these pioneers.27 Even if this route was commonly viewed as “impasable” for wagons, many of these missionaries had crossed the Black Ridge 25 Lewis’s diary is excerpted in a November 9, 1854, letter that Thomas Brown sent to Brigham Young; see Brooks, Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 93–97. 26 Mary Minerva Dart Judd, “Autobiography of Mary Minerva Dart Judd, 1879–1926,” holograph, Huntington Library, San Marino, California (hereafter HL). This holograph contains two different versions of Judd’s autobiography, which I will refer to as “autobiography one” and “autobiography two.” “Autobiography three” is a typescript, copy in my possession. 27 Hamblin, Diary, March 1856, CHL.
multiple times, on foot or on horse, so they knew Ash Creek Canyon fairly well. Zadok Judd, for instance, trekked through the area with John D. Lee in 1852. The party—which consisted of four wagons, eight mounted men, Mary Judd, and possibly other women—set out eastward. On the first day after leaving Fort Clara, they traveled five miles and camped at a spring above modern St. George. “There was nothing inviting on the surrounding benches,” Mary wrote, though a plat of grass below the springs provided a welcome variation from the desert landscape. The next day, the horsemen rode ahead while the wagon company “made a wagon track” over a black ridge that lay between modern St. George and Washington.28 They reached the Virgin River, nooned there, and continued on, camping at some springs that night. On the third day, they ate lunch at a creek with a few cottonwoods and then camped that night on a creek with more cottonwoods—which they named Big and Little Cottonwood creeks. On the next day they passed Grapevine Springs; they must have camped near Ash Creek shortly thereafter. On the fifth day, the company faced the Black Ridge. “With quite a precipitous ascent of two miles, and covered with boulders of black volcanic rock, interspersed with brush and cedar trees [Utah juniper], it looked impractical for wagons,” wrote Mary.29 Nevertheless, “Br knite [Samuel Knight] and Colman [Prime Coleman] ^thales hascal^ [rode] a head to serch out the best track for us to follow.”30 With “great labor,” the missionaries found a route and probably cleared the boulders that were movable out of the way; the hard-pressed oxen then pulled the wagons to the summit. Then the company “passed down its western face a further distance of two miles,” onto Ash Creek.31 Those members of the party in wagons made camp, but the horsemen rode ahead to Harmony. They returned with news that the women of Harmony were preparing a celebratory meal for this intrepid group of pioneers—a welcome reward after their grueling adventure. Mary Judd was proud of this accomplishment: “We obeyed orders and made the first wagon tracks that there ever was made 28 Not to be confused with the Black Ridge in Ash Creek Canyon. Quotes from Mary Judd, autobiography three. 29 Ibid. 30 Mary Judd, autobiography two, HL. 31 Mary probably meant “northern” or “northwestern.” Mary Judd, autobiography three.
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south of harmony ^over the black ridge.^ We travelled about 75 miles without any wagon track,” she wrote.32
When Zadok and Mary Judd returned to Santa Clara, traveling with Oscar Hamblin, they surmounted the Black Ridge again. This time they had to navigate the rocky route in a heavy downpour of rain. “This made the ground so slippery that in steep and sliding places, it was difficult to keep our wagons right side up,” Mary wrote.35 Just so, bad weather often compounded the danger, difficulty, and misery of the Black Ridge passage.36
According to Hamblin, “We looked out the rout . . . and arived safe in Harmony in 4 Days which surprised some of the Brothren.”33 Later travelers through Ash Creek Canyon complained freely even when they had a defined, if primitive, road. But the Santa Clara Indian missionaries had brought four wagons over the Black Ridge without a road. They were considerably the worse for the journey. Mary Judd said they “stoped [at Fort Harmony] to fix up as we had torne our close [clothes] terably travling thrue brush and rockes with no road of any kinde.”34 32 Judd, autobiography one, 4, HL. Lee apparently brought wagons through Ash Creek Canyon in 1852, but there was certainly no wagon road in the canyon. In the second autobiography, Mary wrote “We . . . packed up and started over the mountaines where there had no wagon had ever travelled before.” 33 Hamblin, Diary, 68–69, CHL. 34 Judd, autobiography two, 11–12, HL.
John Woodhouse apparently used this same route over the Black Ridge route in the spring of 1857, when Indian difficulties made travelling the California Trail dangerous. “The new route proved very rough,” Woodhouse wrote, “and for six miles over the Black Ridge all the wheels of the wagon 35 Judd, autobiography three. 36 In his autobiography, George Hicks recorded getting trapped by a major snowstorm at the Black Ridge for four days. Polly Aird, Jeff Nichols, and Will Bagley, eds., Playing with Shadows: Voices of Dissent in the Mormon West (Norman, OK: Arthur H. Clark, 2011), 171–72.
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could not touch the ground at once.”37 This is hyperbole, but the Black Ridge demanded hyperbole.
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At about this time, Brigham Young was contemplating founding a cotton-growing colony in Dixie. Perhaps in preparation for this outpost, on December 1, 1856, the Iron County Court appointed Peter Shirts to the office of county road commissioner.38 He had apparently located a road through Ash Creek Canyon near the Pine Valley Mountains on the west and reported to LDS church authorities that its only drawback was a canyon 165 feet deep and a thousand feet across. When asked how he would get by this, Shirts reportedly said, “Leap it.” Though Shirts did excavate a dugway through the canyon, it was so dangerous that travelers often had to lower their wagons by ropes down a sheer cliff and then climb a steep incline on the other side.39 The site became known as “Peter’s Leap,” and the creek at the bottom of the canyon is still called Leap Creek.40 Evidently, Peter Shirts did not create the first road through Ash Creek Canyon. According to John Woodhouse, “The road to our Dixie, over the Black Ridge was considered so bad that Brother Peeter Shirts had been appointed to explore a better one.” The road that was “so bad” was apparently the Hamblin-Judd route, which had preceded Shirts’s road. Woodhouse continued, “He [Shirts] explored one nearer the foot of the mountains, and as he expressed it, it had one bad place in it, namely the so called Peeters Leap. But this proved so bad that it more than compensated for all the rest.”41 In fact, the historian Morris Shirts concluded that Peter Shirts’s road would have easily been the best of all the Black Ridge roads, if Leap Creek Canyon had not interposed a serious barrier to wagons halfway down it.42 The people who founded Washington in May 1857 had access to Peter’s road, but they did not universally appreciate it. When the “Texas Company”— probably a group of settlers from Texas and other 37 John Woodhouse, John Woodhouse: His Pioneer Journal, 1830–1916, comp. James Mercer Kirkham, Kate Woodhouse Kirkham, and family (Salt Lake City: Elbert C. Kirkham, 1952), 27, electronic resource, CHL.
southern states led by Robert D. Covington—saw Peter’s Leap, they proposed killing Peter Shirts. They made the crossing only by chaining several wagons together, letting “the hind one hold back the front ones.”43 When Shirts presented a bill for his work at the June 1857 session of the Iron County Court, the court flatly rejected it and accused him of spending money unwisely, causing the county a “total loss” of three hundred dollars. (Presumably this bill went beyond what they had previously authorized.) The county court promptly released Shirts from his road-building duties and appointed John D. Lee and Elisha H. Groves “to locate road to Washington ‘City’ which Peter Shirts late County Road Commissioner laid on the track called Peter’s Leap.” The court apparently appropriated fifty dollars for work on the section of the road south of Grapevine Springs.44 In subsequent county court records, acts relating to road building appear frequently: the Black Ridge road constantly needed repair, new roads replaced inadequate ones, and other roads soon replaced Peter Shirts’s route. Roads made trade, food supplies, and communication with the outside world available, and they were a major concern for all the early pioneer communities in southern Utah. In August 1857, the LDS apostle George A. Smith toured the southern Utah communities and used Shirts’s road, as improved by Lee, Groves, and others. In one widely quoted description of the Black Ridge, Smith called the passage “the most desperate piece of road that I ever traveled in my life, the whole ground for miles being covered with stones, volcanic rock, cobble heads . . . and in places, deep sand.”45 James Martineau, who traveled in the same company, wrote “Went down ‘Peter’s Leap,’ which is a narrow road down the side of a deep gulch about 100 or 200 feet deep, the sides being perpendicular. The wagons were let down by ropes and men holding behind, the wheels sometimes dropping down two or three feet at a time. Got safely down. Stopped at Grape Vine Springs for the night.”46 43 Woodhouse, Pioneer Journal, 29.
38 Bleak, “Annals,” 55, CHL.
44 Bleak, “Annals,” 55–56, CHL.
39 Seegmiller, Iron County, 379 (quotation); Shirts, “The Black Ridge: Extracts,” appendix, “Probable Road History,” SLSUU. I have not yet found an early source for this story.
45 George A. Smith, “History of the Settling of Southern Utah,” in Turley, Selected Collections, 1:3.
40 Bleak, “Annals,” 56, CHL. 41 Woodhouse, Pioneer Journal, 28–29. 42 Shirts, “Black Ridge: Extracts,” appendix, “Probable Road History.”
46 Donald G. Godfrey and Rebecca S. Martineau-McCarty, eds., An Uncommon Pioneer: The Journals of James Henry Martineau 1828–1919 (Provo: Religious Studies Center / Brigham Young University, 2008), 70. Martineau claimed that he coined the name Peter’s Leap, but if the court records quoted by Bleak are correct, the name was in use by June 1857.
Another major wave of pioneers passed through Ash Creek Canyon in late 1861, as Young sent three hundred households south to found St. George. One of these pioneers, Hugh Moon, seemed to portray the pioneers using the Hamblin-Judd road, close to Ash Creek.50 After passing the first Fort Harmony, the Moon company camped on Ash Creek. On November 30, the group crossed the creek “and struck the black Ridge which is about 3 mile of very rough road, nothing but rocks. We crossed Ash Creek 5 times, crossed the south fork and Ash Creek and camped.” The next day, he noted, Here is a road made on a back of a ridge of black rocks, a large mountain of yellow rock on the east. . . . At the bottom of the hill the road forks, the left hand goes
Moon then turned to overstatement:
As Moon’s account demonstrates, the pioneers sometimes personalized their descriptions of the Black Ridge country, viewing it as a conscious, malignant stretch of land. In fact, it did seem to have a vindictive streak. When a Swiss company passed it on their way to Santa Clara, the group’s trumpeter, George Staheli, carefully tied his cornet to the top of his wagon to protect it from harm. It somehow came loose (probably because of the wagon’s constant rattling), fell under wagon wheels, and was smashed flat.52 One 1861 company “journeyed to Ash Creek, which they crossed, and climbed the very steep road over the black volcanic ridge, on the right [west] bank of Ash Creek. After descending, they arrived at the forks of the road.” Some accounts, such as this one, seem to locate the Black Ridge just west of Ash Creek. This was apparently the Hamblin-Judd route.53 But travelers were still using Peter Shirts’s road and crossing in late 1861. Mary Ann Mansfield Bentley, one of the settlers of St. George, described crossing Peter’s Leap, unloading wagons, taking them apart, and then lowering them a piece at a time down the cliff.54 John D. Lee apparently used this route, as he reported wagon breakdowns near “Iron Mountain” 51 Ibid.
47 Ibid., 101.
52 Shirts, “Black Ridge: Excerpts,” 15.
48 Bleak, “Annals,” 79, CHL; see also the County Court actions of December 27, 1859, ibid., 76.
53 Bleak, “Annals,” 100, CHL.
49 “President Young’s Visit South,” Deseret News, June 12, 1861. 50 “A Difficult Mission: Obedient to a Call,” typescript of Hugh Moon journal, accessed May 9, 2012, http://moonfamily.4t. com/mission.html.
54 Mary Ann Mansfield Bentley, “The Family History of Mary Ann Mansfield Bentley,” typescript, 7, MSS A 1561, USHS; see also “The First Christmas in St. George,” in Daughters of Utah Pioneers, An Enduring Legacy (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1978), 1:166.
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After the twist, they faced two miles of sand, which sometimes reached ten inches in depth, and then came to Grapevine Springs. Marveling at the local sights—cacti and yuccas, “black nasty rocks that looked as if the Lord had made them for nothing but to bluff off our enemies and spoil the land,” and mountains of sandstone—they continued on and camped at the first Cottonwood Creek.51
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The brethren told us we should soon come to Jacob’s Twist and Johnson’s Twist, but I thought we had come to the Devil’s Twist. It was down into a sandy canyon and remarkably crooked, small rocks about the size of a load of hay.
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The next chapter in the development of the Black Ridge road occurred several months later. The March 1860 Iron County Court actions note the approval of a bill for $297, paid to Thomas W. Smith (acting as supervisor), Samuel Pollock, and John D. Lee for labor on the Black Ridge road. Further, “provision was made for the expenditure of an Appropriation made by the Legislature on the 20th of January, 1860 for road on the Black Ridge.”48 Then, on May 30, 1861, Brigham Young and an entourage of twenty-three carriages and sixty-four people traveled the Black Ridge road, going north.49 Apparently, Smith, Pollock, and Lee had built a usable road. At the same time, this trip would have given Young a clear idea of how rough it was to cross the ridge.
to Stokerville [Toquerville]. We took the right to go to Washington.
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Later, in July 1859, Martineau again accompanied Smith on a tour of southern Utah and made a nightmarish crossing of the Black Ridge. Necessity forced the company to use a “balky,” unbroken horse that “tried to run away several times over a very dangerous road—the black ridge.” In addition, it was raining. Though the party left Harmony at nine o’clock in the morning, they made slow progress, due in part to wagon wheels falling apart. They did not reach Washington until eleven p.m. that night and thus had to travel a good portion of their journey in the dark. At times, Martineau had to go in advance of the wagon train and feel on the ground with his hands for the track.47
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and the Pine Mountain foothills, between Washington and Harmony, in 1858 and 1859.55
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Clearly, complaints about the Black Ridge road continued unabated, and in 1862, Brigham Young and the local LDS apostle, Erastus Snow, directed that a new road should be built.56 Snow appointed three men, Charles Stapley Jr., Robert Lloyd, and Daniel D. McArthur, as road commissioners. On November 27, Apostle Snow traveled with the three commissioners from St. George to Harmony “and located the road . . . by way of the West side of Ash Creek, over the high volcanic ridge.”57 The road they located might have roughly followed the Hamblin-Judd route; but now, what had been nothing more than a wagon track would become a smoothed road. Accordingly, in November 1862, southern Utahns began building a road west of Ash Creek known sometimes as the Duffin Road, after Isaac Duffin, appointed superintendant of construction in 1863.58 The pioneer photographer William H. Jackson crossed the Black Ridge using this road on January 8, 1867, and wrote, “Road very rough over the ascending part, consisting mostly of a good dug way. Very rock[y], alternating with deep sand.” Even though the Black Ridge was rough, rocky, and sandy, Jackson viewed the new road as good.59 The people of Dixie built this road as a communitarian project, just like a public building or an irrigation ditch. All roads in southern Utah were built this way, but the Black Ridge road was simply the most difficult road to create and keep in working condition. In 1862, as the new pioneers began to settle in Dixie, Snow made sure they understood and would support the concept of “labor tithing.” (As southern pioneers often had no hard money, they could pay tithing, taxes, or assessments by communal work, including working on roads.)60 Church leaders required all settlements in southern Utah to contribute money or labor or both to the effort, even though some of the towns, such as Cedar City, 55 Robert Glass Cleland and Juanita Brooks, eds., A Mormon Chronicle: the Diaries of John D. Lee, 1848–1876, vol. 1 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1983), 1:163, 166, 185, 196, 207. 56 Bleak, “Annals,” 148, CHL. 57 Ibid., 161–62 (quotation), 163. 58 Larson, I Was Called to Dixie, 517. 59 William Henry Jackson, The Diaries of William Henry Jackson, ed. LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1959), as cited in Seegmiller, Iron County, 379. 60 Ibid., 149, 155; Alder and Brooks, Washington County, 226.
did not depend directly on the road.61 The county court judged a ten-hour day’s work on a road to be the equivalent of a two-dollar poll tax.62 Southern Utahns also received funds for road building from the territorial legislature at times. However, it was not easy to maintain the Duffin Road, and it became “almost impassable.”63 Therefore, at an LDS conference held on November 1, 1866, Snow proposed making a new road—now on the east side of Ash Creek. (The fact that the Dixie saints kept moving the road to either side of Ash Creek shows that the Black Ridge continued to baffle them. Each time they laid out a new road, it required a monumental expenditure of money and human effort.) They received an allotment from the territorial legislature and set to work.64 On June 29, 1868, Snow wrote to Brigham Young, “Work upon the Black Ridge Road is being prosecuted to completion.”65 Travelers began using the road—which was sometimes known as the County Road—that same month, though it was still incomplete.66 In 1868, the legislature spent $4,551 on this road, a substantial sum for that place and time.67 In 1870, the photographer Charles Savage, traveling to Dixie with President Young, expressed his appreciation for the new road: “A magnificent road has been made down Ash Creek avoiding the black ridge costing an immense amount of cash and labor, we soon reached Bellevue, thence on over sand and rocks to Harrisburg.”68 Morris Shirts referred to the 1868 road as “a model of early pioneer roadbuilding. It was the first attempt at establishing ‘sensible grades.’ Equipment other than picks and shovels was used. The road was built to last, and was
61 Bleak, “Annals,” 163, CHL. 62 Larson, I Was Called to Dixie, 515. 63 Erastus Snow, report to the Territorial Assembly, in Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, Eighteenth Annual Session, for the Year 1869 (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon, [1869]), 71; Seegmiller, Iron County, 379–80; Shirts, “Black Ridge: Extracts,” appendix, “Probable Road History.” 64 Bleak, “Annals,” 358, 372, CHL; Ezra C. Knowlton, History of Highway Development in Utah ([Salt Lake City]: Utah State Department of Highways, [1964]), 236; Seegmiller, Iron County, 380. 65 Erastus Snow to Brigham Young, June 29, 1868, in Bleak, “Annals,” 399, 412–13 (quotation), CHL. 66 Erastus Snow, report to Territorial Assembly, 71. 67 Bleak, “Annals,” 446, CHL. 68 “From the Diary of Charles R. Savage,” in Kate Carter, comp., Our Pioneer Heritage (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1958–), 14:41.
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constantly improved.”69 Indeed, the 1868 “County Road” would serve southern Utah for the next fifty-six years.
231 Kumen Jones driving a carriage on the road east of Ash Creek, 1898. —
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Despite Savage’s enthusiasm, the County Road was still very rough and required navigating a dugway down cliffs with heart-stopping drop-offs. In late 1872, Elizabeth Wood Kane and her husband Thomas Kane traveled to St. George with Brigham Young. Elizabeth memorably described the hair-raising descent through Ash Creek Canyon in Twelve Mormon Homes.70 “We were told to prepare for eighteen miles of rough road when we left Kannarra,” she wrote, “and we certainly encountered them. We were fairly in the rocks, and the lava blocks are the flintiest stones I ever heard ring against horse-shoe and wheel-tire.” The line of carriages came to “a great sloping down or moorland, sparsely studded with yuccas,” and Elizabeth relaxed as the road ahead looked entirely uninteresting. 69 Shirts, “The Black Ridge: Extracts,” appendix, “Probable Road History.” 70 Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes: Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona (Salt Lake City: Tanner Trust Fund / University of Utah Library, 1974, first pub. 1874), 123–26.
Then the carriage ahead of the Kanes stopped, and its driver came back to the Kanes with a message from Young: “Please watch yon crack, Mrs. Kane.” The plain seemed to have “a fold or wrinkle in it,” and Elizabeth watched it out of politeness. Then she saw that it was “a crack in the earth” and the road was running toward it. “A few minutes more, and we are winding down a narrow road painfully excavated along the side of what I now see to be a chasm, sheer down which I can look hundreds of feet—and I much prefer not looking!” she wrote. But teased by her husband and children, she gazed down in “fascinated terror.” Far below was a tiny stream, Ash Creek. “We wind in and out of the corners of the great chasm, making short half-turns,” Elizabeth wrote. When they reached the bottom, the Mormons told the Kanes that they had descended a thousand feet.
The Kanes stayed the night at one of Elizabeth’s “twelve Mormon homes” in Bellevue (modern Pintura), which had been founded as a town in 1868.71 Bellevue was the first town south of the rim, and it would become a welcome stopping place after travelers braved the Black Ridge dugway.
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Angus Cannon, an LDS church leader, visited southern Utah in 1869, and in a letter to the Deseret News dated March 22, 1869, he gave a similar description of the road east of Ash Creek:
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In our descent we found ourselves winding around at the base of the mountain east of north ash creek a dugway made in a serpentine form amongst the black masses of volcanic rock from which the traveler in a very perilous position can gaze upon ash creek as it winds its course southward through a deep chasm several hundred feet below this dugway.72 Despite the “perilous” nature of this road, it received extensive use. During the boom years of the mining town of Silver Reef, from 1878 to 1882, as many as 200 wagons, laden with silver bullion, might traverse it in a single day. Morris Shirts found broken springs, horse shoes, and silver ore samples on the road in modern times, all evidence of its frequent use during the silver boom. During this period, it was an economic lifeline for southern Utah.73 Partially because of this heavy use, the road required continual upkeep. In 1878 the territorial legislature awarded southern Utah three thousand dollars “for widening dugways, removing rocks from the roads, and graveling or otherwise covering what is known as the Grapevine Sand, and generally repairing and straightening the Territorial Road from the head of the Black Ridge Dugway . . . through Bellevue and Leeds, to St. George.”74 Thus the “County Road” became a one-lane dirt road with turnouts. Travelers, freighters, ranchers, and tourists continued to dread the Black Ridge stretch of road, though 71 Bleak, “Annals,” 448, CHL; Althea Hafen, “Bellevue (Pintura),” in Under Dixie Sun, 357–59.
Elizabeth Kane, circa 1872. —
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they had no other option but to use it. Then in 1924, a new road was built west of Ash Creek, “along the old pioneer route” laid down by Erastus Snow and the Road Commission in 1862, which might, in turn, have followed the Hamblin-Judd route.75 With this road, the pioneer Black Ridge era came to an end. Arrowhead Highway and Highway 91 followed this route, as does today’s Interstate 15.76 As we drive effortlessly and quickly along I-15 today, it is far from easy to imagine the difficulties of the old Ash Creek Canyon roads, the ridge strewn
72 Letter from “Nonnac,” Deseret News, April 7, 1869. 73 Shirts, “Black Ridge: Excerpts,” 19. 74 Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, Twenty-Third Session, for the year 1878, as quoted in Alder and Brooks, Washington County, 226; see also Laws, Memorials and Resolution of the Territory of Utah, Passed at the Twenty-Third Session of the Legislative Assembly (Salt Lake City: Star Books and Printing Office, 1878), 57.
75 Knowlton, Highway Development, 236; Seegmiller, Iron County, 387; Angus M. Woodbury, “A History of Southern Utah and Its National Parks,” Utah Historical Quarterly 12 (1944): 205. 76 Edward Leo Lyman, “The Arrowhead Trails Highway: The Beginnings of Utah’s Other Route to the Pacific Coast,” Utah Historical Quarterly 67, no. 3 (1999): 257.
with boulders that Mary Judd, Jacob Hamblin, and other pioneers of Santa Clara had to surmount and descend in spring 1856; the wagons breaking down on jagged basaltic rocks as pioneers made their slow way to St. George in late 1861; the disassembled wagons lowered down the steep ravine of Peter’s Leap; or the precipitous dugway with its terrifying drop-off to Ash Creek that so unnerved Elizabeth Kane in 1872.
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As Joseph Fish wrote, “The next generation will never know how their parents came to Dixie without roads, just rocks and sand.”77 Creating roads in Dixie—and keeping them usable—presented just as much a challenge and a communal accomplishment as did carrying out cooperative economic ventures and erecting civic and religious buildings in town centers. If the St. George Tabernacle and Temple are testaments to early Mormon communitarian culture, the Black Ridge roads are no less so.
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77 Joseph Fish, “History of Enterprise,” 248, typescript, SLSUU, as cited in Seegmiller, Iron County, 380.
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Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco’s map (detail) of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante expedition. This famous map depicts the Black Ridge area above the Rio Sulfureo or Virgin River. —
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Todd Compton is the author of In Sacred Loneliness (1997) and A Frontier Life (2013). He lives in Northern California, but visits his relatives in Utah every summer.
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The Palmer and Driggs Collections at Southern Utah University By
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If your research interests begin in a time when trails crossed the vast American West or, on the other hand, if your family’s migration trail ended in southwestern Utah, there is an archive that warrants your investigation in Cedar City at Southern Utah University (SUU). The Gerald R. Sherratt Library Special Collections Department celebrated fifty years in 2013. Its mission is to collect, preserve, and provide access to unique and often rare materials for historical research. As the regional archival repository for southern Utah, as well as the university’s institutional archives, it contains a wide variety of historical manuscripts, photo-images, maps, artifacts, newspapers, and microfilms of government records from five counties. SUU’s Special Collections has focused, in part, on the Paiute Indians and the community development of southern Utah. This focus began in 1963 with the acquisition of the papers of the local historian and volunteer state archivist William R. Palmer, although Palmer himself had much broader interests. He documented the growth of villages and cities and the lives of Utah pioneers who crossed the American continent; Palmer participated himself in
LDS missionary work in Indian Territory and studied his own family roots in Wales and England. For more than fifty years, thousands of researchers have used Palmer Collection photographs and have quoted Palmer’s stories, articles, and speeches. During the early 1940s and 1950s, he delivered radio programs on the local station, KSUB, where he shared biographical sketches of “Men You Should Know” and later, “Forgotten Chapters of History.” The topics of these programs ranged from grazing grants and fence watching to pioneer postal problems and iron mining. Recordings of the “Forgotten Chapters” are accessible digitally through the Special Collections Digital Library. The Palmer Register can be searched at archive.li.suu.edu/archive/ index.jsp?d=Ms.1, and more than 1,500 images collected by Palmer are online at contentdm.li.suu. edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/palmer. Dr. Howard R. Driggs had similar interests to Palmer; the two were lifelong colleagues, dating from the time that Driggs taught in Cedar City at the turn of the twentieth century. The Sherratt Library acquired Driggs’s papers from his estate in 2004. Although there are more than two hundred collections in the archives at SUU, the Driggs and Palmer
Tom Parashont and three boys in Cedar City, 1947. —
Driggs’s Collection is described at li.suu.edu/page/ special-digital-collections-howard-r-driggs-collection-about. It is searchable at archive.li.suu.edu/ archive/driggs.html. What unique materials can be studied in these collections by coming to the Sherratt Library in Cedar City? First, many stories and articles (some of them unpublished) about education and literature, the teaching of religious principles, and local, state, and national history—not to mention Native American legends. Second, photographs, sketches, paintings, artifacts, memorabilia, commemorative coins, and souvenirs that celebrate the Old West, wagon trains, fairs, and the monuments placed along the trails of the Old West. Palmer worked with Driggs to mark the Old Spanish Trail across Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico in 1950.
The Sherratt Library’s Special Collections room is open for research Monday through Friday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. or by appointment by calling 435-5867945. The Library website is www.li.suu.edu.
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Janet Seegmiller will retire this summer after fifteen years as Special Collections librarian at the Sherratt Library. This has been a time of unprecedented growth and technological change in the Special Collections and Archives Department.
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Fourth, seventy years of correspondence between Palmer and Driggs and their business associates, historians, historical societies in many states, and LDS church leaders. Driggs served as the president of both the Oregon Trail Memorial Association and its successor, the American Pioneer Trails Association (APTA), and he kept the files of these associations. These files contain minutes, conference proceedings, announcements, publications, and correspondence that document the work of these groups and affiliated societies. With William Henry Jackson on the APTA staff, the trails group produced maps showing the Pony Express Trail and the Oregon Trail, as well as the collector’s book, Westward America (1942). Prentice-Hall first published Palmer’s book, Why the North Star Stands Still, and Other Indian Legends, in 1957; the Zion Natural History Association reissued it in 1978.
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Driggs’s educational pursuits took him to New York City, where he earned a doctorate and became a professor of English education. He also had a parallel career as a researcher, author, and advocate, and as a national leader in preserving America’s trails. He wrote and edited books for school children about traders, explorers, freighters, pioneers, miners, and rangers in World Book’s Pioneer Life series. Driggs’s associates and coauthors included the ox-team pioneer Ezra Meeker and the pioneer artist and photographer William Henry Jackson, as well as handcart pioneers, Pony Express riders, and trails experts.
Third, early southern Utah church records, oral histories and other documents about the national parks, the ledgers of the Deseret Iron Mining Company, and documents by and about Native Americans.
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collections form the foundation of the materials pertaining to historic trails and the settlement of the West.
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Robert Newton Baskin and the making of modern Utah
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Norman: Arthur H. Clark Company, 2013. 408 pp. Cloth, $45.00
In my view, the most significant portions of John Gary Maxwell’s Robert Newton Baskin are his essays on Baskin’s life after Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto and the Mormons began the long process of ending the practice of polygamy. Maxwell tells us how Baskin left the anti-Mormon Liberal Party long before such luminaries as Orlando Powers. He reconciled himself with prominent Mormons such as George Q. Cannon and William H. King, he distinguished himself as mayor of Salt Lake City, he served as chief justice of the Utah State Supreme Court, and he worked to promote tax-supported public elementary school education in the state. As Maxwell points out, James Allen and I were two of the few who recognized Baskin’s significant role in improving Salt Lake City’s public utilities infrastructure. The city had woefully underfunded its street, sewer, and water systems prior to Baskin’s tenure as mayor. Recognizing this, he successfully promoted such needed improvements. Maxwell praises much of Baskin’s work in promoting anti-Mormon legislation before these events. Most of the bills he drafted failed to pass. Baskin wrote failed bills introduced by Illinois Senator Shelby Cullom and Iowa Congressman Isaac Struble. Instead, Congress passed two other pieces of legislation that incorporated some of Baskin’s ideas, the Poland Act (1874) and the Edmunds Act (1882). Baskin also helped to write a bill introduced by Cullom and Struble that would have enacted for the territories something like the Idaho Test Oath, which prohibited believers in polygamy from voting. Maxwell seems to have favored this bill, but it
seems to me to have been ill conceived. The Cullom-Struble bill would have permitted the disfranchisement of American citizens for their privately held beliefs rather than for their illegal acts, as the Edmunds Act did, but Congress never passed it. Personally, I am relieved that the federal government’s prosecution of illegal acts led President Wilford Woodruff to review the practice of polygamy and to receive inspiration to begin the process of abolishing polygamy. Imagine, however, the prosecution of people today under Baskin’s bill who believe in or oppose same-sex marriage or who believe in or oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps the most controversial section of Maxwell’s excellent biography is the discussion of Baskin’s role in the investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Baskin believed that Brigham Young had ordered the massacre. The available literature on that question is mixed and, given the variety of ways in which historians can weigh evidence, it will most likely remain so. Juanita Brooks (The Mountain Meadows Massacre, 1950), Ronald Walker, Richard Turley, and Glen Leonard (Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 2008), and John Turner (Brigham Young, 2012) have argued that he learned of the massacre only after the horrible deed took place. Sally Denton (American Massacre, 2003) and Will Bagley (Blood of the Prophets, 2002) have written that Young ordered the massacre. Neither Baskin nor Maxwell seems to have understood that although no courts martial were held on the perpetrators, the federal government could have conducted trials with Young’s assistance as early as 1859. In 2006, I pointed out (Brigham Young, the Quorum of the Twelve, and the Latter-day Saint Investigation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre) that after trying to conduct an investigation, Young, the church leadership, and some federal officials proposed to arrange for trials at Cedar City. In 1859, the same year that Judge John Cradlebaugh investigated the massacre in Iron County, Young sent George A. Smith and Amasa Lyman to Cedar City. The two of them released the principal perpetrators from their church positions and told them to prepare for trials. At that time, expecting
In 1876, Sumner Howard, who had replaced Carey as U.S. Attorney, prosecuted Lee. Unfortunately, Lee, who did not bear the principal responsibility for the massacre, was the only one of the leaders who was convicted. In addition, William H. Dame, Isaac C. Haight, John M. Higbee, George Adair, Jr., Eliot Wilden, Samuel Jukes, Philip Klingensmith, and William C. Stewart were indicted. Lee reportedly said, “Catching is before hanging.” Klingensmith turned state’s evidence, and Dame was also caught but released for lack of evidence. Contrary to Baskin’s views, I believe that Haight bore the principal responsibility for the massacre and that he should have stood trial, but the lawmen never caught him. Maxwell quotes me correctly as pointing out that “recording history is ‘always perspectival’” (13). This book views Utah’s history from Baskin’s perspective. It is an excellent and well-written biography that deserves careful attention from the general reader and scholarly community alike. We all need to understand the role that Baskin played in the modernization of Utah. —
Thom as
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Al e xa n d e r
Brigham Young University, Emeritus
A Renaissance Spaniard in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico. By
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The author and historian John L. Kessell investigates in depth each phase of Miera’s life and times with one notable gap, where the historical record fails, between his early life in Spain and his marriage in Mexico. New to readers is the unfolding of Miera’s life story, his family history, and his many achievements. However, this is more than a simple biography; it is a captivating look at New Mexico’s culture in the late Spanish colonial period. Drawing on archival records in Spain, Mexico, Great Britain, and the United States, and collaborating with New Mexico’s state historian Rick Hendricks and other scholars, Kessel brings together numerous facts about colonial New Mexico and gives us an eloquently crafted biography of this “universal” man. A “peninsular Spaniard” by birth and a member of the lower nobility (hence the title “don”), by 1776 the aging Miera had distinguished himself as a landowner, a municipal magistrate of Pecos and of the Keres district, prolific religious artist, and a mapmaker. The historically significant notations and graphic art on Miera’s maps were carefully consulted by New Mexico’s governors and studied by Spain’s Royal Corps of Engineers. (Maps of Spain’s distant borderlands were an invaluable resource to
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Those familiar with Utah’s early history know the epic story of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante expedition, which explored a circuitous 1,500-mile route through the Four Corners region in a failed attempt to link New Mexico and California and to defend northern New Spain against the encroachments of European powers and indigenous peoples. An important member of the Spanish exploring party was the engineer-cartographer Don Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco (1713–1785). Using a compass and an astrolabe packed in his saddlebags, he made astronomical observations along the way and, later, he drew multiple, beautifully adorned maps of the terrain he surveyed, which included much of present Utah.
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Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. xviii + 194 pp. Cloth, $29.95
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Working on their own, the judges, marshal, and acting U.S. Attorney could not collect enough evidence to bring the guilty to trial in 1859, and no trial of a perpetrator occurred until 1875. At Lee’s first trial Baskin, instead of U.S. Attorney William Carey, played the principal role. Instead of working to convict Lee, however, Baskin tried to elicit testimony implicating Brigham Young and other church leaders. Nine of the twelve jurors voted to acquit Lee, so the trial resulted in a hung jury.
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to stand trial, Philip Klingensmith, John D. Lee, and Isaac C. Haight retained defense attorneys. At about the same time, territorial marshal John Kay, a prominent Mormon, offered to assist in arresting the perpetrators. Young also offered to go to Cedar City with Governor Alfred Cumming to help maintain order. Like Baskin, who came to Utah later, the sitting federal judges and the U.S. Marshal believed Young had ordered the massacre. They refused to cooperate with him, with any other Mormons, or with the governor, the U.S. Attorney, and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs who wanted to try the accused at Cedar City as well.
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the crown and to the Catholic Church.) His brilliantly painted and carved wooden and stone altar screens adorned several churches in Santa Fe and the Zuni Pueblo. Not prone to boast, however, Miera left many of his artistic renderings unsigned.
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Miera’s array of accomplishments included serving as engineer on several military campaigns, militia captain, dam construction supervisor, merchant, silver miner and metallurgist, presidial soldier, rancher, and debt collector. But he also had blemishes. In January 1755 he served time in jail for nonpayment of a loan. Furthermore, fathers Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante complained of his “peevish” attitude when their party, well into the journey, decided to return to Santa Fe rather than continue to Monterey. Nevertheless, in the closing years of his life, Miera became a trusted advisor to New Mexico’s famed governor, Juan Bautista de Anza. By the time of his death in 1785 Miera “had expressed himself more artistically, more notably, worn more hats, planned more projects, drawn more maps, known more Indians, explored more of the boundless Kingdom and Provinces of New Mexico than any other vecino before or after him,” writes Kessell (9). He possessed “unrivaled knowledge” of the region and its people (164). Considering the impact of Miera on the history of Utah and the Southwest, Kessell asks, shouldn’t his name grace the political or physical geography? Kessell informs us that thousands of New Mexicans today can trace their ancestry to Miera. Ironically, since he “attained a regular military rank” in Santa Fe during America’s Revolutionary War period, his descendants can apply for induction into the Daughters or Sons of the American Revolution. A generous grant from the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico enabled the reproduction of eighteen color illustrations in Miera y Pacheco and reduced its publication price. In addition to these color images, sixty-two black-andwhite illustrations beautifully enhance Kessell’s well-researched biography and his masterful narrative. —
St e v e n
Sandy, Utah
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Nels Anderson’s World War I Diary E d it e d
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K e n t
P ow e ll
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2013. xxiii + 308 pp. Cloth, $34.95
Nels Anderson lived in and near Utah for only about fifteen years, yet he had a memorable impact on the state then and later when he wrote Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah. Unfortunately, today very few Utahns know of him. Anderson arrived in Utah as a young hobo, only fifteen years old, trying to get to Panama to help build the canal. Train crews discovered him near Clover, Nevada, just west of the Utah border, riding in hiding as hobos do, and ejected him. It was 1908, and he wandered into the ranches owned by the Terry, Hafen, and Wood families. They fed Anderson, employed him, and then nominally adopted him, discovering that he was bright and a hard worker. Through the influence of these families, Anderson joined the Mormon church. He attended one year at Brigham Young University, stopped to work, and then attended Dixie College for two years, where he decided to be a lawyer. He returned to BYU with that intention but ran into a sociology professor, John C. Swenson, who changed his direction. After teaching for a year in Arizona, Anderson departed for the army in 1917 at age sixteen. While in the military for a year and a half, Anderson kept a diary, one of the very few soldiers to do so. The diary details his training in the Engineering Corps and his experiences in England, France, and Germany. He was a private during the whole period, but a most capable one. Commanders continually used him as their assistant, keeping him from most direct combat. Anderson was always on the lookout for fellow Mormons. Since he had access to records and could roam about, he found other Latter-day Saints, sometimes enough to hold a small meeting. Some he had known in Utah and others he met for the first time in Europe, but they became immediate pals. Anderson himself was a straight arrow, avoiding alcohol, gambling, and sex. It was not hard for him to do so, because he considered himself to be one of the
Anderson returned to the United States and registered at BYU, where he studied for two years. Under Swenson’s guidance, he studied sociology and soon launched into a major career at the University of Chicago, where he completed a famous master’s thesis about hobos. He then went to New York University and was employed with Harry Hopkins in the service of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He followed Hopkins to Washington, D.C., and had a long career in government. Kent Powell’s footnotes add a great deal to this work. For instance, in October 1918, Anderson’s platoon endured several hours under fire. In his words, “We had one killed, four hurt and several gassed which is quite a loss for being under cover” (131). The footnote for this entry provides the names and ranks of all these men. In his research, Powell especially looked for Utah fatalities. This book is amazing, mainly because of its subject, Anderson, but also because of Kent Powell’s marvelous footnotes and the foreword written by Charles Peterson, who discovered the diary.
D.
A ld e r
Dixie State University
Navajo Tradition, Mormon Life: R o b e r t a n d
S .
McPh e r s o n ,
Sa r a h
E .
J im
B u r a k
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press 2012, xiv + 292 pp. Paper, $27.95
Navajo Tradition, Mormon Life follows the life of one man who has found balance between his traditional Navajo upbringing and his conversion to the Latter-day Saint faith. Jim Dandy, a descendant of traditional healers, a devout Mormon, and public intellectual contributed to his community primarily as an educator and counselor in southeastern Utah, especially among Navajos who live near the Four Corners region. Some of the greatest strengths of this book are also its weaknesses. The book stems from the collaboration of three authors and Dandy family interviewees, such as his wife and siblings; primarily, however, two of the authors’ voices are decipherable, those of Robert McPherson and Jim Dandy. The different voices allow the reader to understand Dandy’s life story on various levels. McPherson’s voice narrates and provides transitions, positioning him as an editor who frames the autobiography of Dandy. In the first section, for example, he relates Dandy’s life experiences and teachings to broader dialogues of Mormon Indian history and “religious syncretism.” McPherson amplifies Dandy’s voice, which tells his life story focused on Navajo and Mormon learning experiences and life pathways. The transitions and narration from the third-person voice (McPherson) sometimes disrupt the flow of the story. Dandy and his family’s words are italicized in most of the book, which distracts the reader, who questions why the central sections are not completely in Dandy’s first-person voice. Bighorse the Warrior (1994) provides an example of a book with effective multiple narrations. Tiana
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The diary also discusses Anderson’s experiences near the front. His group spent time near the St. Mihiel Offensive and, in October 1918, they were transferred to the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. There, the soldiers became more involved with direct combat and with bomb-making. At one point, Anderson’s commander appointed him to be a teacher for the illiterate soldiers in his unit. The reading group met daily. The soldiers were less motivated than Anderson, but he kept at it for several weeks until he had another unusual opportunity: studying at a French university, an experience that would help him later during his doctoral work.
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Yet in his diary Anderson often wrote, “I am very lonesome,” noting that he found few other soldiers with whom he had things such as books, art, and music in common (60). As he roamed through towns, he looked for historic sites and art galleries and almost always visited the local Catholic churches. As he wandered, he was always thinking. On September 5, 1918, he wrote “This war is a great silent creator of men or rather a recreator of men” (97).
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Hafens, Woods, and Terrys, and he stated clearly that he was saving himself for a wife from Utah. Anderson kept up regular mail contacts with several young women (almost every delivery brought letters from Utah girls interested in a relationship with him) and he received a page or two from the Washington County News on occasion.
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Bighorse collaborated with Noel Bennett to write the story of her father, Gus Bighorse, and chose to narrate in her father’s voice. The authors framed the story with the explanations of their approach and interpretations of Bighorse’s oral histories, but the main narrative of the book flowed nicely because of the consistent first-person voice of Bighorse. Following this model, McPherson, Dandy, and Burak could have unified the main parts of the book under the first-person voice of Dandy. The last section of Navajo Tradition demonstrates this single focus on Dandy.
Native Performers in Wild West Shows:
I also question how McPherson refers to religious syncretism. He could have considered Dandy’s perspective and ways of life as cultural and religious hybridity, which Homi Bhabha (1994) popularized as an analytical concept for understanding such transitions and the interstices between distinct life paths, Mormonism and Dinéjí Na’nitin (Navajo traditional teachings) in this case. McPherson needs to define analytical terms such as religious syncretism and his usage of them.
Native Americans, both past and present, find public performance enjoyable and a significant part of heritage preservation. Whether traditional dance and ceremony in religious expression, contemporary powwow activities steeped in cultural pride, or performances for sheer entertainment, these activities express important values. In Native Performers, Linda Scarangella McNenly examines the experiences of Indians who professionally worked in Wild West shows from 1885 to 1930 and three Mohawk families in the early twentieth century; she concludes by looking at contemporary performers in Disneyland, Paris and Buffalo Bill Days in Sheridan, Wyoming. Her purpose is to explore “Native perspectives and experiences . . . through the archival record and oral histories up to the voices of contemporary performers, revealing additional meanings and alternative interpretations of this experience” (ix). McNenly sees her work as “revisionist,” going against the prevailing attitude of many contemporary historians and anthropologists who enjoy barbecuing Native American history in the flames fueled by interpretations of colonialism of indigenous people. Wild West shows represent just one aspect of this view of imperialism, which chooses to see Indians only as a downtrodden, controlled minority without self-expression or agency.
On the other hand, Navajo Tradition succeeds in preserving a rich primary source from a man who clearly defines how he lives as Navajo and Mormon and who believes in respecting the traditions of his ancestors and times immemorial while following the Mormon path of Christianity. General readers and academics continue to debate whether Native Americans can preserve and perpetuate their distinct identity and peoplehood after adopting ways of life (such as religion) introduced by European Americans. Scholars of decolonization and postcolonial theory could take issue with the book’s brief attention to past Mormon romanticism and the application of Lamanite identity to Native Americans to justify actions such as the development of the Indian Student Placement Program, which encouraged the separation of Navajo children from their families. Dandy’s story provides another valuable perspective. It is a story that does not necessarily deny moments of struggle and conflict between the divergent identities and groupings of Mormons and Indians. It shows, instead, how they are reconciled in the life of a remarkable man and his journey, one that many Navajos of the late twentieth century shared whether or not they embraced Mormonism as Dandy did. Hopefully, this book marks only the beginning of works to come that analyze and discuss the experiences of Navajo and other Native American Mormons in the twentieth century. —
Farina
Kin g
Arizona State University
From Buffalo Bill to Euro Disney By
Li n d a
Sc a r a n g e l l a
McN e n l y
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. xviii + 254 pp. Cloth, $34.95
McNenly feels differently. She argues that Native American performers chose (and choose) this profession because it allowed them freedom to express their Indianness; it provided them with opportunities to work and travel with their families, hone valued traditional skills, wear and design clothing that spoke of their heritage, and earn much-needed money in a career that held promise. While the effects of colonialism were present, these performers could still adapt, survive, and thrive. Those pursuing this type of career today feel valued and respected—almost as ambassadors representing all of Native America.
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Robert
S.
Mc p h e r s o n
Utah State University, Eastern Blanding
Strangers in the Land of the Nimiipuu By R .
A lle n
V.
P a r kh a m
a n d
St e v e n
E va n s
The early chapters of Lewis and Clark detail many Nez Perce (or Nimiipuu) legends. From this oral tradition, obtained from tribal elders, the authors advance the case that the Nez Perce lived in their ancestral homeland for tens of thousands of years, dating back to the time of prehistoric animals. Having made this argument early in the book, without subtlety or apology, Parkham and Evans proceed thereafter as though it is an unquestioned fact. While this case sets the stage for the tragic loss of the Nez Perce homeland three generations later, the authors support it only tepidly in the concluding chapters. This book uses oral histories to outline the experience and culture of the Nez Perce. The narrative jumps from story to story, event to event, at times without any logical flow, consistent chronology, or transition; even the telling of Lewis and Clark’s arrival suffers. Likewise, the account provided about the era between the tribe’s acquisition of horses and the coming of the desperate Corps of Discovery is rather thin, considering the tremendous significance of that time. Notwithstanding, the authors provide a wealth of information on the Nez Perce, their homeland, and the time the expedition members spent among them. The Nez Perce initially had planned to kill Lewis and Clark and their men. This would have made them the strongest and best-armed tribe in all the
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A generation ago, the historian James P. Ronda reversed the trend of looking at Native peoples through the eyes of whites in his groundbreaking work, Lewis and Clark among the Indians (1984). Allen Parkham and Steven Evans have drawn that focus even more sharply with their new study, Lewis and Clark among the Nez Perce, which carefully examines the Lewis and Clark journals and oral interviews from Nez Perce tribal members.
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North Dakota: Dakota Institute Press, 2013. xx + 299 pp. Cloth, $29.95
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One might ask, “Does this ‘voice’ still exist? Is it important for Indians today to express cultural pride?” The answer is a resounding “yes.” While Wild West shows constitute only a small but important part of the answer, one finds the same motivations from the past in public performance now. Take, for instance, the powwow circuits that extend not only across the United States but also into Europe. These gatherings are much more than people wearing traditional dress and competing for prizes. They are events invested with cultural pride, heritage, family values, traditional skills, sociability, and religious aspects that speak to the American Indian experience. McNenly’s work is significant for that reason. She has identified values important to Native Americans and shown that, far from being the trampled remnants of a “colonial period,” they are still charting their future and finding meaning in a long-standing, ever-changing heritage.
Lewis and clark among the nez perce:
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More than thirty pages of notes provide extensive documentation in support of the book’s thesis, which is supported by a scholarly tone accessible to the layperson. My only criticism is of the author’s stated purpose to use oral history and the Native voice to provide an insider’s perspective. Only two chapters truly attempt this and, even in those chapters, there is no real, intense Indian view. Given her goal, McNenly misses a number of easily accessible opportunities. In the case of early Wild West shows, such as Buffalo Bill’s, plenty of Indian performers—Black Elk, Luther Standing Bear, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and many lesser-knowns—went on record to share their experience, yet the book never substantially cites these autobiographical accounts. Even in those chapters looking at the contemporary experience of seventeen interviewees, the reader obtains only a cursory understanding of the interviewees’ perspectives. McNenly proves her point, but she loses a good opportunity to let Native Americans provide the voice.
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Northwest. However, after an admonishment by an elderly woman, Watkuweis, to leave the explorers alone, the tribe befriended them and became their allies in hopes of military and armament support.
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Between its stays with the Nez Perce on the way to the west coast and back, the Corps of Discovery spent more time with the Nez Perce than any other tribe it encountered. And considering the condition of the expedition’s members as they staggered into the villages of the Nez Perce, that tribe made perhaps the most significant contributions toward the success of the venture. The Nez Perce provided essential support to the Corps of Discovery at a crucial time. They fed the explorers when they were at their weakest, nursed them to health, adopted them as nonblood relatives, guided them, drew maps of the region, cared for their horses, taught them how to build dug-out canoes, and forgave them for many breeches of courtesy. The authors provide further insight and evidence into the persistent story that Clark’s liaison with a Nez Perce woman produced a child. In the last chapters, they briefly outline the loss of ancestral Nez Perce homelands through encroachment and military action in 1877. While this reviewer found the writing style of the authors lacking in transition, flow, and logical organization in several places, Lewis and Clark is still noteworthy. It provides a significant look at the junction of time and people, with the meeting of the Corps of Discovery and the Nez Perce in the early nineteenth century. —
J ohn
D.
B a rto n
Utah State University, Uintah Basin
utah state history conference
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awards program and keynote speaker, dr. margaret o’mara • september 26, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., At the LEONARDO Sessions covering more than 13,000 years of innovation, industry, and technology • september 27 – Tours
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september 25-27, 2014 • september 25, 7 p.m., at The city Library
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Technology—automobiles, movies, electricity— fills this photograph of Sugar House, taken in December 1950 at the intersection of 2100 South and 1100 East. — utah state historical society
conference is free and open to the public
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hIStory.utah.gov/conference
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PARTY GROUP, 1936 Clifford Bray took this image—simply labeled “Carrigan, Party Group”—on November 4, 1936. Bray worked for Shipler Commercial Photographers from 1933 to 1938. The photograph collection
named for him and housed at the Utah State Historical Society contains 3,100 images of everyday life during the height of the Great Depression.
