Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 85, Number 3, 2017 by Utah Historical Society

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY EDITORIAL STAFF Bnid Westwood - Plblidier/EdJtOJ Holly GeOJge -Co-Managing Edi1or Jeded11hS. Rogen -Co-M�ging Editor

A DVIOORY BOARD OF EDITORS BmnQ-Ctlln,oJ\.Provo,2016 C111.igfuller,S,ltLtkeCity, 2018 Lee AM Kreutur,S,11 UkeC1ty, 2018 luthryn L.M,cluy, Ogden, 2017 Jeffrey n Nichols, Moun11in Green, 2018 Rober1 E. hnon, Benson, 2017 Chnt Pumphrey, Logt.n, 2018 W. Ptul Reeve,Slit UkeCny,2018 SunnSoe-moN Rugh, Provo, 2016 JohnSll!Jto,Ogden, 2017 RomldG. W.tt,SouthJordan,. 2017

In 1897,pubbc-,pm1-edUuhN orga.mzed lheUu,h St11eHu:ton c1I Soc1etym order tof!Xp1nd pubhc undersundmgofUi,h's put. Today, the Ut,h Dlvillon of St,te History administen the Society ,m:I, u pu1 of its sbtutory oblig,tions, pubhshn theUt1h Historical Qutrterly (ISSN O 04l-l43X), which hucollected ind preserudUtth's h1Aoty anO@, 1()28. The DIV1S'icn, whkh 1, part of theUtth Department ofHenttg,e wd Arts, allO coll�ts r1111m11' rel,ted to the ha;tory ofU1,h and mikes them 1vailable onhne ind m • re1euch library; auuts comrnUJUnes, 11genc1es, bU1ldmg owners, t.nd consultt.nrs with stale md fedenil processe1 ttgt.rdmg uchteolog,ctl ind histone1l resources; 1dminis1en the 1.ncien1 humw rern1ins program; 1drnirusten theUtthHistory Dty pro gnirn; olkn: extens1ve onbne resouroes; and tss::tSts in pli'!lic pohcy ind the promouoo ofUah's rich h1i1ory: UHQ tpPffJS in winttr, spring. swnrner, tnd ft IL Members of the Soctety r«eillf: UHQ upon ptyrnent of 1nnwil dues: lnd1vldu1l,$JO; 1Nt1tullon,$40; student t.nd '1en1or (•ge 6S ot older), $lS; bUSJneu, $40; s\.litf.imng.$40; patron,$60; sponlOr,$100. D11«1 rnwusc:npt sli'irniuions to ,he •ddms luted below. Visit h1i1ory.ut11h.gov for ,umiii&:i.on gui.debne&. A rbcltt ,nd book reV1eWi represent the views of lhe 1uthon ,nd 1:.e not n«essanly

The Rio Grande Depot, home of the Utah State Historical Society. history. utah.gov

thost of thtUuhStttt HlstorictlSociety. POSTMASTER;Send addreu ch,� to UtllhHIStoricalQaarierly, JOOS. RloGnnde,5'ltL,ke City, Ut•h 84101. Penodx•l, poi1,ge 1s pudus,1t LtkeCity,Ut1h.

224

238

257

273

CONTENTS 204 Appropriation and Accommodation: The University of Utah and the Utes By Larry R. Gerlach

224 Rape Law in the MidTwentieth Century: Sexual Violence in Salt Lake City By Michaele Smith

238 Staking Claims on the Markagunt Plateau: Creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument, 1916–1934 By Dale Topham

257 From Tire Tracks to Treasure Trail: Cooperative Boosterism along U.S. Highway 89 By Clint Pumphrey and Jim Kichas

273 Making an (In)delible Mark: Nineteenth-Century Mormon Girls and Their Manuscript Newspapers By Jennifer Reeder

203 In This Issue 279 Book Reviews & Notices 285 In Memoriam: Charles “Chas” Peterson, 1927–2017 287 Contributors 288 Utah In Focus

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

204

201

Book Reviews

279 Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory By Brent M. Rogers • Reviewed by Bruce W. Worthen

280 Utah and the Great War: The Beehive State and the World War I Experience Edited by Allan Kent Powell • Reviewed by Branden Little

281 Water, Agriculture and Urban Growth: N O .

A History of the Central Utah Project, the CUP: The First Fifty Years By Craig W. Fuller, Robert E. Parson, and F. Ross Peterson Reviewed by Thomas G. Alexander

8 5

282 Charles Ellis Johnson and the Erotic Mormon Image

U H Q

V O L .

By Mary Campbell • Reviewed by James R. Swensen

202

Book Notices

284 Westerns: A Women’s History By Victoria Lamont

284 A Kingdom Transformed: Early Mormonism and the Modern LDS Church, 2nd edition By Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd

At this writing, the Bill Cosby rape case remains very much in the news, as do incidents of rape and harassment on campus. Sexual violence is, of course, not a new problem. Our second article broaches this topic by examining the legal and cultural context surrounding rape in the 1930s and 1940s. Puzzling out the exact number of rapes that occurred during those years is an impossible task. Then—as now—many instances of sexual violence went unreported. Further, the legal definition of rape, hinging on the elements of force and resistance, has changed since the mid-twentieth century, and the successful prosecution of rape was diffi-

Boosterism, or the full-throated promotion of a place, played a conspicuous role in the settlement of the American West. Today, the same kind of activity is associated with chambers of commerce and local economic development. The final article in this summer issue of UHQ takes us on the road to look at the history of boosting U.S. Highway 89, as well as the towns and attractions it transects. Necessarily, the promotion of Highway 89—which stretches throughout the mountain West from the Mexican to the Canadian border—involved business and government figures from many places in an attempt, among other things, to attract increasing numbers of tourists to the area. Because they used modern marketing techniques and championed the development of the highway itself, their efforts eventually bore fruit.

N O . I 8 5 V O L .

Our third essay, a history of the creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument, illustrates contending ideas of public lands management and use in Progressive Era–Utah. The author triangulates among local interests in Cedar City and Parowan, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Forest Service to demonstrate differences between federal agencies over state conservation and also between federal-local interests over proper management and protection of valuable resources. These lands had a deep history of local use, and, as this essay demonstrates, locals in Iron County disagreed over their value as the stage for tourist travel or as traditional forest uses. The story is familiar in Utah; and yet, in this piece we see a sharp focus on the peculiarities of a people and place.

Few subjects are as much of a hot-button as race and sports in America. The debate, now spanning many years, over the name of the Washington Redskins NFL team, for instance, reveals the intransigence and intractability that accompany issues of this sort. Our lead article brings this question to Utah and one of the state’s revered institutions. The University of Utah took up the Ute name and imagery in the early twentieth century, just when other professional and collegiate teams did so, and since then its representation has run the gamut from the offensive to the more benign. The university’s continued embrace of the Ute name in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, despite some previous calls for abandonment, signals its renewed commitment not just to a tradition but to a Native tribe to whom that name belongs.

cult. Yet even with these qualifiers, the article argues, it is possible to discern an environment in wartime Utah where rape increased and “the courts favored male suspects over female victims.”

U H Q

From time to time, the UHQ publishes pieces of such contemporary resonance that we are certain they can to contribute to public dialogue and inform modern challenges in more than superficial ways. It occurs to us that the essays in this issue—all about topics have some contemporary corollary—have the potential to do that.

IN this issue

203

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

204

The 1963 game program illustrates the warlike image of Indians then current in white popular culture. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

J. Willa rd Ma rriot t L ibra ry, Un ive rsit y of Ut a h

L A RRY

R .

G E R LAC H

As the result of social sensitivities and political pressures accompanying the post–World War II civil rights movements, most publicly expressed derogatory religious, racial, and ethnic references fell into disfavor save for continued disparagement of Indigenous peoples of the United States.1 Consequently, the National Congress of American Indians campaign launched in 1968 against media stereotyping of Native Americans was expanded in the 1970s to sports imagery. The use of nicknames, logos, and mascots had the potential of mocking Indigenous culture, disrespecting sacred objects, and promoting negative imitative behavior. Specifically, ersatz “Indian” mascots and cartoonish images like Cleveland’s “Chief Wahoo” were deemed insulting; the use of “tomahawk chops,” “war chants,” and face paint by fans ridiculing; generic labels like Indians, Braves, Warriors, and Chiefs denials of individuality and tribal diversity; and terms like “Redmen” and “Redskins” racial slurs.2 The response was mixed. As commercial enterprises operating in the marketplace, professional sports franchises resolutely retained Indian imagery. But since a different standard applied to educational institutions where human values are the core mission, from 1970 to 2005 numerous secondary and thirty-two collegiate institutions voluntarily changed Native American identifications.3 On August 4, 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the largest regulatory body for intercollegiate sports programs, announced that effective February 1, 2006, “institutions with hostile or abusive racial/ ethnic/national origin mascots, nicknames or imagery” would be prohibited from hosting national championships or displaying such imagery on athletic uniforms during championship tournaments, and that by August 1 the ban would apply to mascots, cheerleaders, dance teams, and band members. The policy was not universal, as it did not apply to regular season contests or major college football bowl games, but banishment from NCAA championship competition effectively required compliance with

3 U H Q

V O L .

8 5

the university of utah and the utes

N O .

appropriation and accommodation:

205

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

the policy.4 While the mandate did not identify specific offensive representations, subsequent guidelines expressly mentioned the elimination of Native American mascots and marks as recommended by the NCAA’s Minority Opportunities and Interest Committee.5

206

The application of policy, even one unquestionably appropriate in reducing racist and discriminatory behaviors, is rarely simple. Anticipating opposition from some institutions with tribal names, NCAA president Myles Brant conceded: “Some Native American groups support the use of mascots and imagery and some do not; that is why we will pay particular attention to special circumstances associated with each institution.” The appeals review committee specifically noted that tribal approval would be “a primary factor” in determining use, because “the decision of a namesake sovereign tribe, regarding when and how its name and imagery can be used, must be respected even when others may not agree.”6 Here, then, a case study of the University of Utah’s identification with the Northern Ute Tribe is instructive not only regarding the use of Native American imagery by non-Indian sports teams, but also the relation-

ship between an educational institution and local Indigenous peoples, the Northern Utes of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation.7

I The NCAA listed the University of Utah among nineteen offending institutions. Surprised by this inclusion, university president Michael K. Young opined: “I wonder pretty seriously if they actually have a clue what we’re doing.” The school in 2002 had advised the MOIC that its mascot was a red tailed hawk; that there was no Native American imagery, rituals, or “cheerleader antics” during games; and that the feathered drum logo and “Utes” nickname were used with “the express knowledge and permission of the Ute Tribe.”8 The Northern Utes also took exception to the ruling, Irene Cuch declaring: “A non-Indian organization should not be the one to make the decision. This should come from tribal leaders.” Members of other Utah tribes as well as participants in the annual Native American Festival and Powwow also regarded the name inoffensive. (Doyle Conetah, a fourteen-year-old Ute, had a bottom-line

Phi Kappa Sigma won the 1949 fraternity homecoming award for the caricatured display entitled “Dam’ruff.” —

J. Wi l l ard Mar r i o t t , L i b ra ry, Un i vers i t y o f Ut a h

In challenging the NCAA’s decision, President Young supported the ban of “hostile and abusive names and images,” but objected to “the uninformed conclusion that the University of Utah somehow runs afoul of the new policy.” The petition detailed the school’s “overarching commitment to Native Americans populations on and off campus,” emphasizing the “unique relationship with the Northern Utes and the tribe’s support for the appeal.” Appended was a letter from Maxine Natchees, chairperson of the Uintah and Ouray Business Committee, identifying how an “effective partnership” for “many years” had “benefited the tribe” and the official resolution authorizing “the Ute name as the representative symbol for the university’s athletic teams.” Far from being “hostile or abusive,” the identification was “honoring and respectful of Tribal culture” and “a source of pride for Tribal members.”13 On September 2, the NCAA granted conditional approval of Utah’s waiver request pending assurance, promptly given, that the Northern Utes supported use of the feathered drum logo.14 The debate over Native American identifications raised the fundamental question: Why did educational institutions adopt Indian imagery for sports teams?15 Individual institutional motivation aside, the underlying answer is twofold. First, since the earliest days of European colonization, white Americans have repeatedly

From the 1870s to World War I numerous amateur and professional baseball teams adopted Indian names including the Hiawatha, Osceola, and Mohawk teams in Brooklyn, New York. In the early twentieth century Indian achievement in sport—the success of the Indian school teams Haskell and Carlisle, the prominence of baseball’s barnstorming Nebraska Indians, the fame of major league pitcher Albert Bender and catcher John Meyers, and the extraordinary achievement of Jim Thorpe—led to extensive newspaper accounts of the strength, courage, sportsmanship, and athletic superiority of Native Americans.20 Between 1912 and 1932, nine professional sports teams adopted Indian names, including those that presently retain them. The first collegiate team with a Native American nickname, the William and Mary Indians, debuted in 1917.

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

Local sports writers predicted the university would change the identification, as seven schools had done, but administrators decided to challenge the edict.11 After Florida State, with extensive and controversial Indian representations that had no actual connection to Seminole history, received a waiver on August 23 based on approval from the Seminole Tribe, Utah filed an appeal on August 31. Forrest Cuch, a Ute and executive director of the state’s Division of Indian Affairs, was optimistic: “If they can remove Florida State from the list, they can certainly remove the Utah Utes.”12

appropriated and conceptualized Native American traditions, customs, and imageries for a variety of cultural and political purposes.16 Second, Native American imagery had long been used in American sport.17 Preceding animal nicknames, Indian identification in sport began in the 1850s corresponding to heightened portrayals of Indians in American popular culture. As depicted by authors like James Fenimore Cooper and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and artists such as George Catlin, Alfred Jacob Miller, and Karl Bodmer, and followed by the post–Civil War work of Frederick Remington and Charles M. Russell, Native Americans were romanticized, uncorrupted “primitives” who personified independence, courage, resourcefulness, physical strength, and communal solidarity.18 Descriptions of two midcentury Seneca pedestrians (race walkers), Louis “Deerfoot” Bennett and John Steeprock, promoted Native American prowess in sport. Steeprock was patronizingly termed a great “natural talent” who “undisciplined and undertrained” ran “on a lope as if he was going through underbrush, frequently bounding sideways as if jumping a fallen tree.”19 These depictions, combined with popular perceptions of a disappearing American frontier where the Indian had once roamed free and unencumbered, contributed to culturally constructed notions of “Indianness,” including the idealization of the Native American warrior as a symbol of strength and indomitable bravery deemed applicable for sport.

U H Q

view: “I think they should be able to use [Ute] as long as they keep winning.”)9 The other Utes in the region—the White Mesa Utes in San Juan County, Southern Utes and Ute Mountain Utes in Colorado—are not included in the identification agreement but did not voice objections to use of the tribal name.10

207

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

208

Founded in 1850, the University of Utah launched its intercollegiate athletics program in 1892. Sportswriters for Salt Lake City’s three daily papers and the student newspaper, the Utah Chronicle, initially referred to teams as “the Utahns,” “the University,” “the Crimson,” or simply “Utah.” To provide an element of “local color,” expanded sports coverage after World War I saw periodic use of “Utes” and “Redskins,” and occasionally “Red Devils,” without descriptive characterization.21 “Redskins” was not, then, always regarded as derogatory by Indians and non-Indians—to wit, a laudatory article in the New York Times about Jim Thorpe headlined: “Indian Thorpe in Olympiad; Redskin from Carlisle Will Strive for Place on American Team.” Indeed, the Cherokees originated use of “red” in the eighteenth century as a cultural self-identifier in diplomatic relations with Europeans; “red men” and “red people” were initially positive designations until white people gave them negative connotations.22 Reflecting the phenomenal growth of football after World War I, teams became “public symbols of universities,” serving as “a powerful source of community identity and pride.”23 The University of Utah’s adoption of Native American identification for athletic teams embodied romanticized imagery but was also apropos of place, history, and religion. Indigenous peoples were a conspicuous part of the state’s historic landscape, from pre-Columbian Fremont people and Ancestral Puebloan Anasazi to the five Indian cultures resident when the Mormons arrived in 1847—Shoshone, Ute, Paiute, Goshute, and Navajo.24 The largest tribe then was the Northern Utes; the state’s name, Utah, is an Anglicized version of the Spanish term for the tribe, “Yuta” or “Utas.”25 And because the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), the dominant religion in the state, teaches that Native Americans are descendants of Lamanites, “House of Israel” inhabitants of ancient America, Indians have a special place in Mormon society.26 It was during the Golden Era of Utah football, signaled by the arrival in 1925 of the coach “Ike” Armstrong, “the Rockne of the Rockies,”

The 1927 program for the dedication of the new football stadium heralded the use of Native American identification for Utah sports teams. —

J. Willa rd Ma rriot t Libra ry, Un ive rsit y of Ut a h

and the opening of a new stadium in 1927, that a school virtually without an Indian presence officially proclaimed Native American identification generally and the Ute Tribe specifically.27 (The school was likely unaware that Utica, New York, was the first to use “Ute” for its baseball team, 1901–1917.) The cover of the dedication program for the homecoming football game on October 22, 1927, depicted an Indian wearing a headdress astride a horse in the middle of the stadium; inside were numerous Native American illustrations and the words to a new student cheer: “You—u—u—u Redskins, Fight! Fight! Fight!” The 1927 Utonian yearbook included a sketch of the new stadium captioned the “New Camping Ground,” sundry drawings of Indians, and football team photos headlined “Utes”; game summaries occasionally called players “Redskins” and “warriors.”28 The 1929 Utonian solidified “Utes” as the primary nickname. With an “Indian” design bor-

As at other schools with Indian identifications, the intent was honorific—recognition of the Utes’ heritage—but representations soon became increasingly disrespectful, ridiculing, and ultimately racist. Deprecating references, which mirrored the routinely negative stereotyping of ethnic and racial minorities in the national sporting press, increased after George Preston Marshall, owner of the National Football League’s Washington Redskins, in 1937– 1938 expanded Native American depictions through halftime shows, uniform logos, the marching band, and the team fight song, “Hail to the Redskins,” whose lyrics—“Scalp ‘em, swamp ‘um—We will take ‘um big score”—were unabashedly derogatory.31 More broadly and effectively, popular “purple-sage” novels and Hollywood westerns promoted negative “frontier era” attitudes by invariably typecasting “Redskins” as cunning, warlike savages.32 Utah athletic references became increasingly insensitive, demeaning, even violent. In 1947 students chose the name “Hoyo,” imagina-

More serious than college student indiscretions were willful slights. Newspapers used “Utes” and “Redskins” interchangeably and regularly employed derogatory, hostile terms like “Injuns,” “scalping,” and “warpath” in their game

Most egregious were tomahawk-wielding “Indians” confronting a Wyoming “cowboy” tied to a stake on a 1960 float.

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

tively translated as “little hunter,” as the name of a cartoonish drawing of a young Indian boy that became the unofficial school mascot. Sometimes referred to as a “Papoose,” Hoyo appeared on school publications and in public events as a costumed character resembling the Cleveland Indian’s “Chief Wahoo.” However, Hoyo did not serve as a games mascot save in 1953 when a transfer student from Wisconsin dressed in ersatz Indian attire performed an “Indian dance” at home football games.33 Offensive depictions were routine in fraternity and sorority house displays and on downtown parades during fall homecomings. Most egregious were tomahawk-wielding “Indians” confronting a Wyoming “cowboy” tied to a stake on a 1960 float titled “Hoyo burn ‘um Cowboys.”34 That Native American identifications at the university had steadily devolved from iconic to insulting was untoward but not athwart, as they reflected pervasive national racism and ethnocentrism, shockingly exemplified locally by a popular restaurant in Salt Lake City from 1925 to 1957, the Coon Chicken Inn, with a caricatured, grinning face of a black porter near the entrance.35

U H Q

dering every page, the yearbook contained several narrations of Ute mythologies, including “Legend of the Bluebird and Coyote” and “Legend of the Peace-Pipe,” as well as a tribal history, “The Story of the Utes,” by the western historian Levi Edgar Young. Enhanced with numerous rare photographs, the article simultaneously incorporated the Utes into state history and the socioreligious views of a predominantly Mormon campus and community. Of the two bronze plaques of a bonneted Indian chief’s head donated by an alum to adorn the entrances to the stadium, the yearbook proclaimed: “We can think of no more appropriate ornament to greet people at the entrance of the stadium than these Indian heads, standing for the school and typifying the spirit of Utah.”29 Although the school’s identification was tribal, the athletics application was gender specific. Football’s appeal—vicarious combat and exaggerated masculinity—led to an exclusive focus on “brave” warrior imagery. (Although few non-Utes knew it, the name Ute was apt for athletic competition: In Ute religious tradition, Senawahv, creator of all Indigenous peoples, declared that “this small tribe will be Ute, but they will be very brave and able to defeat the rest.”)30 The Utes were not consulted about the use of the tribal name.

209

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

The 1960 homecoming parade float in downtown exemplified white America’s notion of Indians as violent “savages.” The original caption reads “Hang on to that stake cowboy, only four more blocks to go.” —

J. Wi l l ard Mar r i o t t L i b ra ry, Un i vers i t y o f Uta h

210 coverage. University stationery, posters, and merchandise featured depictions of Hoyo and the stylized profile of an Indian “chief” in full headdress. Athletic department publications routinely featured Hoyo drawings and invariably referred to teams as “Redskins” rather than Utes. “Redskins” had come to connote warlike behavior: the cover of the 1963 football media guide depicted players mounted on horses and armed with bows and arrows attacking a stagecoach carrying conference teams. Paradoxically, despite the prominence of Hoyo imagery and Redskins label, in the 1960s there were none of the racialized displays during football and basketball games that occurred at the other twenty-eight schools with similar mascots.36 If the periodic rhythmic beating of drums and cheerleaders wearing short fringed skirts and a single-feathered headband signaled cultural insensitivity, Utah featured no mocking performances by faux “Indians” like the University of Illinois’s “Chief Illiniwek” and Florida State’s “Sammy Seminole” and “Chief Fullabull” or imitative “warlike” fan behaviors. The civil rights movements of the 1960s engen-

dered heightened political awareness and activism on campus, yet even then University of Utah students and faculty apparently remained oblivious to athletic and cultural references that belittled Native Americans. Eventually, the national controversy over the use of Native American identifications in sport prompted change.

III George S. Grossman, first-year law professor and World War II refugee, sparked the university’s awareness of the issue.37 Finding a November 1969 newspaper advertisement for the opening of the new Special Events Center on campus that featured Indian caricatures “extremely objectionable—and insulting not only to the race they allege to depict, but also to those who would adopt or permit them to be published in their name”—he urged university president James C. Fletcher to “cease” using Native American designations for the school’s athletic teams. Fletcher, disingenuously noting the ad was “entirely” generated by the newspaper, demurred: “To change the name of our

The cartoonish depictions in November 1969 newspaper advertisements for the Special Events Center sparked opposition to the university’s use of unflattering Indian imagery in merchandise and publications. —

Sa lt L ake Tr i b un e

athletic squads would take a very great effort.”38 Grossman’s subsequent complaint in January 1970 about the bookstore selling merchandise with “degrading images of Indians” had an effect: the faculty advisory committee unanimously ordered the discontinuation of items depicting the “comic Indian characterizations” of Hoyo and the “Ute Chieftain Head.”39 Then, in April, eight Indian students on campus demanded the Athletics Department eliminate the “degrading” names “Ute” and “Redskins.” The athletics director James “Bud” Jack, sensitive to racial issues stemming from the growing political activism of black athletes since 1968, including the boycotting of games against Brigham Young University owing to the LDS church’s denial of priesthood to blacks, decided to eliminate “Indian” artwork on athletics materials.40 The Athletics Department action coupled with what Fletcher termed Grossman’s “pestiness in this matter”

Belatedly admitting that because of “an unfortunate lack of communication with Native American people, the proper and dignified representation of the Ute Indian name fell into a prolonged period of neglect,” university officials in 1981 endeavored to “once again accurately portray to the community, the honor, dignity and spirit of the Ute Tribe and all Native American People.” To that end, all athletics department use of the Ute name and drum logo

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

It was the unannounced appearance by a group of Indian students in his office that prompted President Fletcher to meet with tribal leaders. Fletcher asked Floyd O’Neil, the associate director of the American West Center who had grown up on the reservation, to invite the Ute Business Committee, comprised of two members from each of three Ute bands—Uintah, Uncompahgre, and White River—to a dinner at the Alta Club in Salt Lake City. Among the Utes in attendance were Fred Conetah and Homey Secakuku, the committee’s vice chairman who served as the principal spokesperson for the tribe. At the May 20 meeting the Ute leaders pointedly objected to the use of sacred items by university sports teams and cartoonish images in the student newspaper but supported use of the nickname.42 In 1972, following meetings between administration and athletics representatives with Native American students and upon the recommendation of Tom King—a Cherokee, campus director of Native American Studies affairs—and the Ute Tribe, the university decided to eliminate usage of “Redskins” and “encourage the news media to refer to Utah teams only as the ‘Utah Utes.’” Subsequently, in 1975 the tribe approved the school’s adoption of a block “U” inserted in a drum with two feathers as its athletics logo. 43

U H Q

prompted a university-wide review of “caricatures of Indians or anything that may seem undignified.” The university announced on June 1 that there would be no further use of Indian imagery on school documents and publications. Moreover, school officials finally realized in view of mounting protests on campus and “litigation elsewhere by the Indians” that it was imperative to consult with the Ute Tribe “to see how they feel” about the name “Utes” and “if they do object, in view of some sentiment among faculty and students, we may have to consider some changes.”41

211

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

212

had to be “conducted through prior consultations with the campus Native American Affairs advisor” to “represent as nearly as is possible . . . legitimate and authentic Native American values and customs.”44 In recognition of the recruiting efforts that increased Indian student enrollment from eight in 1970 to 196 in 1982 and created greater understanding and goodwill on campus, the Native American advisor, Lacee Harris, a Northern Ute, in September 1983 presented to the university a war bonnet with thirty-two imitation eagle feathers—red and white, the school’s colors—for display as a “gesture of respect” for the Ute Tribe’s association with athletics and the school’s honorable respect for the tribe.45 In 1985 the new vice president for University Relations, Ted Capener, determined to revitalize “Ute Pride” on campus. Sensitive to the growing national opposition to Native American imagery, he surveyed practices at the other twenty-seven institutions with Indian identifications before discussing ideas with the Ute Tribe. During an August meeting on the Uintah-Ouray Reservation, the Ute Business Committee, which exercised both executive and legislative authority, suggested a variety of possibilities including a “fully regaled Ute chief/mascot” horseman appearing at football and perhaps basketball games, a student contest to name the rider’s horse, the Utahna drill team wearing “headbands with feathers,” and sending “30 to 50 kindergarten through six graders” to perform “traditional dances” at football games. Remarkably, they also unanimously approved use of the term “Redskin” if “suitable and advisable” (they suggested “Ute-Redskins”) and even supported possible caricatured artwork.46 The school had a narrower focus. Eschewing the mascot frenzy that engulfed sports in the mid-1970s, Utah was one of a few schools without a physical representation at athletic events. It was a delicate issue. A task force, formed in 1979 to examine the creation of a mascot, failed to make a recommendation, noting that such a representation would create “continuing problems because even though the Utes may think it is okay, other Indians tribes may not like it.”47 Subsequently, during homecoming in 1980, a Ute student wearing a full headdress rode onto the football field and hurled a lance into a straw

bale as a challenge to the opposing team. The intent was “to assert a proud heritage and renew a University tradition,” but the rider never appeared again. Then, inspired by Florida State’s 1978 debut of Seminole “Chief Osceola” and his Appaloosa horse “Renegade,” it was proposed in 1985 to create a “Crimson Warrior,” not as a mascot but as a symbol of “strength, courage and bravery.”48 The Crimson Warrior received a mixed reaction, but not from Indians. The Ute Tribe endorsed the idea as “synonymous with the dignity, achievements and perseverance of the people whom it represents.” So did Indians on campus, including the Native American student advisor, Stella Clah, a Navajo; the director of Native American Studies, Dan Edwards, a Yurok; and the Intertribal Student Association, co-chaired by Randy Simmons, a Paiute, and Darrell Watchman, a Navajo. ITSA members not only enthusiastically supported the Crimson Warrior, but they also agreed to take turns

The initial appearance of the Crimson Warrior astride Qea-oontz at a football game, November 2, 1985. —

J. Willa rd Ma rriot t L ibra ry, Un ive rsit y of Ut a h

Initially hailed as a revitalization of “Ute Pride,” the Crimson Warrior renewed campus debate on Native American identifications owing to unintended, if predictable, consequences, as some fans initiated derisive behaviors—tomahawk chops, war whoops, face paint, and feathers. The editorial staff of the student newspaper, besides using quotation marks to distinguish athletic “Utes” from tribal Utes, launched a campaign to eliminate the costumed rider, the Ute name, and the drum logo. ITSA, now

The debate over the name “Ute,” which mirrored the growing national controversy over the use of Indian imagery by sports teams, continued for several years in the Chronicle as well as the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News. Indian and non-Indian students and faculty were on each side of the issue, although a clear majority of both groups appeared to favor retaining the logo and name.56 The discussions mirrored undercurrents of the national debate. That whites were the predominant critics of Native American identifications spoke to the paternalism of non-Indians telling Indians how to act and what to believe. Indian students resented the Chronicle staff protesting Indian identifications without first consulting them.57 And that the most vocal Native American opponents to the Ute name were non-Utes—mostly Navajo—brought into question the propriety of members of one Native American tribe judging how brothers and sisters of another tribe should handle internal affairs. The lone exception to the oft-heated but consistently civil exchanges occurred in October 1994. The imposing eight-foot-tall “Ute Brave”

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

Indian students were offended by a non-Indian representing a Native American warrior, while university officials—and more importantly, Ute leaders—were disappointed by the onset of derisive fan actions. The Ute Tribal Council chairperson Luke Duncan warned: “If it gets worse, you’ll hear from us more.” To curtail embarrassing conduct and avoid confrontation with the Utes, the school in fall 1991 distributed “Standards for Appropriate Fan Behavior,” which significantly reduced disrespectful conduct at football games.55 Finally, in 1993 the Crimson Warrior, who never caught on with the public, was quietly retired without protest from students, fans, or alumni.

The Crimson Warrior astride an Appaloosa named Qea-oontz (Ute for grizzly bear) was presented as the tribal symbol during halftime ceremonies at a football game on November 2, 1985. Members of the Ute Business Committee and guests joined university president Chase Peterson in viewing an innovation designed to honor both institutional tradition and the Ute people “in an appropriate and dignified manner that is responsible to Native Americans and will make the stadium alive with atmosphere.”50 There were three problems, however. With no Ute students on campus, the rider, Thad Baldwin, was a Navajo from Arizona. (When asked about a Navajo posing as a Ute, Floyd Wopsock, Uinta Band, said: “Aw, why not?”)51 The lance was a decorated javelin borrowed from the track team. Most important, the rider’s face paint, headdress, animal fur, and breastplate were genuine war adornments. The Ute Tribe immediately objected; consequently, Crimson Warrior pictures are rare.52 The Crimson Warrior next made an expanded appearance on November 9 prior to the homecoming game against New Mexico. Navajo student Darrell Roberts, dressed in representative regalia, led the Utah football team onto the field, then circled the stadium before driving a spear into a hay bale at midfield as a challenge to the Lobos.53 He then left the field, not to return during halftime nor after the game.

chaired by Diana Midthun, a Sioux, withdrew from participation, urging elimination of the “derogatory” rider since he had “disintegrated from a symbol to a mascot.”54 Absent Native American involvement, the Crimson Warrior for several years was a non-Indian, former Ute football player Chuck Johansen, who rode his own horse onto the field before football games and, after planting a lance into a hay bale, dismounted and made threatening tomahawk gestures toward the opponent’s bench.

U H Q

appearing as the horseman and be responsible for furnishing regalia as authentic as possible— roach (headdress), breastplate, leggings, moccasins, and face paint; the horse would also be outfitted in appropriate battle attire. However, they insisted the rider wear only one or two eagle feathers because a full headdress, even with artificial feathers, was inappropriate given the eagle’s “religious, spiritual, and cultural significance.”49

213

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

214

statue adjacent to the student union building, modeled after the son of a Ute chief, was vandalized—head, bow, and back sprayed with red paint. Graffiti in front of the statue and a follow-up letter to the Chronicle signed “Indigenous Warriors” underscored the political motivation of the vandalism, which occurred during the early morning after Columbus Day. The culprits were never identified, but the tone of their letters and nature of the graffiti indicated they were almost certainly not Native Americans.58 The near-annual campus debates, intensified by a growing controversy over the name of the NFL’s Washington Redskins, raised the possibility of a name change. Pat Albers, professor of anthropology, spoke for those who thought the Native American identification should be eliminated, notwithstanding endorsement of the Ute Tribe, because it invited “national ridicule, embarrassment and even protest.”59 While admitting “there has been no pressure to drop ‘Utes,’ and there were presently no plans to do so,” President Arthur K. Smith conceded: “We’ve been looking at the name for two years, and in the fullness of time, those discussions could lead to a change” since “the fewer people you offend, the better.” 60 In reality, a change in identification was unlikely. University officials favored retaining the name Utes, a position reinforced by a 1993 Survey Research Center poll that showed 74 percent of Utahns wanted to keep the name; only 7 percent favored a change.61 However, controversy over the Crimson Warrior, exacerbated by offensive fan behavior, had prompted Clifford Duncan, Cultural Rights and Protection Officer for the tribe, under whose jurisdiction resided the university’s use of the Ute name, to suggest the school find a new name and symbol. But Stewart Pike, chair of the Ute Tribal Council, supported continued use of the identification, contending that mascot and name were separate matters.62 The mascot issue persisted after the demise of the Crimson Warrior. Never utilized as a true mascot, the rider had appeared only briefly as the football team took the field for home games. As the only school without a costumed mascot, the university was increasingly pressured by Western Athletic Conference officials as well

as fans to create a sideline creature to perform at home games, conference basketball tournaments, and other public functions. In 1992 an ad hoc committee representing a variety of campus organizations was formed to address the mascot issue. ITSA’s suggestion, a coyote, known as a “trickster” in Ute mythology, was apropos the tribal connection.63 But since a mascot with a Native American association could arouse controversy, it was decided to not link name and mascot. After almost three years of discussions, the Red-tailed Hawk, a raptor indigenous to the state, was chosen with concurrence from the Ute Tribe; “Swoop,” who debuted at a basketball game on January 2, 1996, remains the school mascot.64 The mascot controversy underscored the extent to which media reportage on the national level about Native American identifications had increased sensitivity on campus and in the community. The highly publicized 1992 federal challenge to the Washington Redskins’ ability to trademark its name was followed in 1994 by a successful challenge to the use of “Redskins” on a Utah vanity license plate.65 In 1995 a Utah student body assembly replaced its stylized headdress logo as “kind of dated” and “in the gray area” of Indian imagery.66 The administration, aware of the feelings of non-Ute Indians about use of ceremonial symbols, began in 2008 to phase out the drum and feather logo. Disingenuously referring to it as “a circle and a feather,” the administration, to avoid antagonizing tradition-minded alums, gradually and without commentary replaced the drum and feather with a block “U” on university stationery and publications as well as the center of the football field and basketball court while retaining the drum and feather on football helmets.

IV Always in agreement about athletics identification, the university and the Ute Tribe in 1995 found themselves for the first time disagreeing over academic opportunity. Historically, Utes rarely attended the university, despite the reservation’s 150-mile proximity to the school. During the 1995–1996 academic year, only three of two hundred Indian students were Ute. To address the low enrollment, Adam Martinez, the education director of the Uintah and Ouray

Athletics Department stationery and publications in the 1950s and 1960s routinely portrayed Indians in outlandishly insensitive guises, as with this image of cartoonish Utes in headdress. —

Ja me s C. Fl e t ch e r Pa p e rs, Un i vers i t y o f Uta h Arch i ve s an d Rec o rd s Ma n a g em en t C en te r

At a meeting on January 23, 1996, the university, which had never trademarked the Ute name or the drum and feather logo, made clear its determination to maintain an honorific, cooperative relationship, and not to enter into a contractual quid pro quo with the tribe. Smith told the group that, having adopted a new mascot, the school was willing to face the wrath of tradition-minded fans and change its identification: “We don’t want to continue to use the Ute name if it offends you. We don’t want to disparage your traditions or caricature the tribe.” When some Business Committee members then suggested that twenty annual scholarships for Ute students would be adequate compensation for keeping the Ute name, Smith refused to link permission to use the name

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

The letter of notification came as a shock to the university because of its tone and content, both of which seemed to counter the Ute Business Committee’s enthusiastic support in the past. Larry Cesspooch, a spokesperson for the committee, said: “Sometimes, you have to move it over to lawyers, who say things in a different way.” But rather than a reasoned proposal, the letter, which had to be resent for lack of sufficient postage, constituted an ill-conceived bargaining chip. Indicating the law firm’s unfamiliarity with the school–tribe relationship, it curiously requested recompense only for “Running Utes” and “Lady Utes,” designations limited to basketball teams, and made no mention of the drum and feather logo. And instead of threatening to withdraw permission to use the “Ute” name, it requested compensation for future use of tribal identification, thereby countering the claim that usage was offensive. President Smith, who had been told the threat did not represent all tribal members, agreed to discuss the situation.69

When discussions failed to achieve “the desired result,” the Ute Tribe’s general legal counsel, Whiteing & Thompson of Boulder, Colorado, in December 1996 requested a meeting with President Smith “to discuss recompense to the Tribe for the University’s use of the terms ‘Running Utes’ and ‘Lady Utes’ to designate its athletics teams.” Rather than seek financial compensation for “decades of character-appropriation,” the tribe would forego legal action “in exchange for certain concessions,” namely, twenty four-year scholarships, the addition of “The History of the Ute Indian Tribe” to the curriculum, an undetermined number of memberships in the athletics booster Crimson Club, parking permits and season tickets to athletic events, gratis use of university “facilities and grounds for Native American culture awareness activities,” and a statement from the president or other “high ranking official” that the school “does not and will not support or condone any actions which demean or stereotype Indian people in any way.” The letter concluded

by asserting that tribal leadership “strongly believes” the Utes and, “to a somewhat lesser extent, all Indian people have been denigrated and subjected to ridicule by the University’s characterization and caricature-ization of its athletic teams and mascots as the ‘Utes,’” and that the tribe “hopes that the University will acknowledge and publicly apologize for its past insensitivity to the effect that its actions have had on the collective psyche and public opinion of the Ute people, and will make appropriate recompense for its wrongs.”68

U H Q

Agency, noting that the tribe’s Higher Education Grant Department had produced only nine graduates, suggested the university offer “at least ten (10) or more” tuition waivers to Ute students. When the school responded that Utes were already eligible for financial aid as “underrepresented students,” the tribe’s Business Committee decided to force the issue by requesting scholarships for members of the tribe in exchange for continued use of the name “Ute” for athletic teams.67

215

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

216

with scholarships. “If the use of the Ute name offends you, no amount of money will change that. We can’t buy you off. . . . This should not be seen as reparation or a conscience-salve.” Nor would Smith apologize for past actions taken with the expressed approval of the tribe, promising only that the school would offer more financial aid and academic support to facilitate Utes attending the school. Educational support programs and initiatives were negotiable, the use of the Ute name was not. Its use was offensive or it was not.70 The Business Committee ended the impasse by proposing a future meeting to discuss educational opportunities for Ute students without linking use of the name with scholarships. As committee member Roland McCook explained, the university could continue, no strings attached, to use “Ute” and the drum and feather logo as long as it was done “in a positive manner that preserved the integrity of the Ute tribe.” In its survey of attitudes toward the use of Indian identifications and imagery, Sports Illustrated in 2002 thought “the Utes’ experience with the University of Utah might serve as a model for successful resolution of conflicts over Indian nicknames.”71 The Northern Utes, who had derived substantial income from producing and leasing gas and oil since the 1940s, were now acutely aware of the greater future economic and employment opportunities as the 1.3-million-acre Uintah-Ouray Reservation, the second largest in the United States, was located in the oil-shalerich Uinta Basin. Since Indian people represented “a pool of talent that has previously been under-developed in educational institutions and consequently untapped by industry and government,” the tribe approached the university about ways to increase Ute enrollment in scientific, technological, and business fields. The result was an agreement in 2003 stipulating how each party would contribute to “innovative educational programs” designed “to matriculate greater numbers of competent and experienced Ute Indian scientists, engineers, technicians, and business professionals who are available to Native American Tribes, private industry, and government agencies.”72 The “Memorandum of Understanding,” not a written or oral contract, was the first official

acknowledgement of an ongoing relationship. The university pledged not only to “use the Ute name in a considered and respectful manner, reflecting the pride and dignity of indigenous people and their traditions,” but also to “devote human and financial resources toward the Utes and other American Indians to encourage, inspire and support tribal youth to lead healthy lives and to pursue post-secondary education.” Correspondingly, the Ute Indian Tribe said it “desires to reaffirm the long and valued relationship between the University and the Tribe to promote educational benefits for its youth” and therefore “encourages the University of Utah to use the Ute name for the University’s sports programs with its full support” because the association “raises tribal visibility and community awareness, and generates a source of pride to members of the Ute Indian Tribe.” Both parties deemed the association beneficial. For the university, the Ute name was a merchandise mark, a unique athletic identity that resonated with fans and intrigued national audiences, and a means of connecting the institution with the indigenous heritage of state and nation. Identification with the university was a source of pride particularly for the Northern Utes, and publicity generally for all Ute people. With six-thousand-plus members widely dispersed in Utah and Colorado, the Utes had had a low profile with the state, region, and nation; their nomadic past precluded the artwork and crafts—jewelry, pottery, and weaving— that brought distinction to their Southwestern neighbors: the Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblo peoples. (Examples of early Ute bead and quillwork are virtually nonexistent.) Understanding that most Native American tribes exist in anonymity beyond the immediate locale, Ute Forrest Cuch, director of the state’s Division of Indian Affairs, observed: “One reason we support it is if it weren’t for that, there would be no other landmark that the tribe existed. We are otherwise invisible in the state.”73 In addition to “What’s-A-Ute?” awareness created in locales across the country where Utah sports teams competed, the tribe’s increased visibility and influence were apparent in its prominent role in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Clifford Duncan was part of the delegation that picked up the Olympic flame in Greece; the Utah portion of

Ute concerns about educational opportunities continued to fester. Too few Utes were prepared for or desired to attend college. Of Utah’s nearly 31,500 students in the 2013–2014 academic year, only “one or two” of the 171 Native Americans were Utes. The tribe wanted more aggressive recruitment efforts, more financial assistance, and better advisory programs not only to increase enrollments but also to create better employment opportunities. The election of three new members to the six-person

Whatever the objections and sensibilities of members of other tribes, for the Utes a continued relationship was not an issue. In March 2013, the nine members of the Ute Tribal Alumni Association (Utah graduates) had written to the university’s Board of Trustees supporting the Ute name and symbols. Noting that “the other institutions throughout our state have largely ignored our people, the Ute Indians and our Ute heritage,” they felt “to eliminate the drum and feather logo, and eventually the Ute name, thus our affiliation with the university, would be worse than disrespectful; it would be cruel.” And in response to the ISAC petition, Forrest Cuch took “major exception” to students and faculty, mostly not from Utah, for “demonstrating disrespect by opposing and totally disregarding the sovereign rights of the Ute Indian Tribe” in authorizing use of the nickname and logo while negotiating a new understanding with the school. He did, however, challenge the university to do more to “curb the disrespectful behavior” and educate “the greater community” about the history and culture of “native people.”78

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

However, non-Ute Indian students on campus took a more radical stance. In December 2013, Indigenous Students and Allies for Change— co-chaired by graduate students Samantha Eldridge, a Navajo, and Monique Thacker, a Makah—presented administrators with a petition advocating the discontinuation of “the drum and feather” logo and “Ute” nickname. The petitioners not only resented some students wearing face paint and headdresses at football games, but they also argued that the use of Indian imagery was perforce “discriminatory and harmful” in general to Native American “traditions, customs and religious symbols.”77

Emboldened by their Olympics prominence and crucial role in Utah’s obtaining a waiver from the NCAA, the Utes again raised the issue of compensation for naming rights. Forrest Cuch, the most publicly visible and politically influential Native American in the state, argued that there “should be some financial consideration since the University benefitted financially from the use of the Ute name. Frankly, in all due respect, this is the business world and that’s the way it works.” Reasoning the best way to do that would be through “educational endeavors,” he asked President Smith to consider offering free tuition for Utes as well as scholarships for members of the other Utah tribes, something tribal leaders thought had already been promised in return for supporting the NCAA waiver. Smith replied that while the university had only one scholarship designated for a Ute, there were other scholarships available for minorities, including Utah Indians. To Cuch, lumping Native Americans with other ethnic minorities was a “mistake.” Not only were the Utes indigenous to the state, but also, like other Indians, have “a whole different set of issues” due to their “political relationship with the U.S. government as a result of war.”75 For its part, the university, a public school—impacted by the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision barring the use of tax money for “race-based” scholarships—was determined to avoid the kind of commercial relationship that existed between Florida State and the Seminoles.

Ute Business Committee in April 2013 led to the formation of a task force in October to negotiate a formal agreement concerning the use of the Ute name and related imagery. Believing that the 2003 MOU, which had expired in 2009, did “not go far enough to promote tribal human resources,” tribal leaders in November proposed, among other things, that the school establish the office of “Special Advisor to the President on American Indian Affairs,” headed by a Ute, and provide tuition waivers for all members of the tribe. Ute and university officials met on November 21 to begin talks about the terms of a new formal relationship.76

U H Q

the Torch Relay began in historical tribal land with Frank Arrowchis offering a blessing, Nagki Nupa Woodhouse playing a flute, and Stephanie Spann running the first leg. Thanks to the organizational work of Larry Blackhawk, an international television audience witnessed members of the five Utah tribes providing a lavish ceremonial start to the Opening Ceremony.74

217

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

218

Signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ute Tribe and University of Utah, 2014. —

Mar ke ti n g an d Com m u n i c a t i o n s De p a rt m e n t, Un ive rsit y of Ut a h

As the result of “fruitful and productive” discussions between tribal and school officials, university president David W. Pershing in April 2014 traveled to Fort Duchesne for the formal signing of a new five-year Memorandum of Understanding, subject to annual review. In exchange for permission to continue use of the Ute name and associated logo, the university agreed to add a non-student Ute to a variety of campus programs to enhance Native American perspectives; to create a special advisor to the president on Native American affairs (not necessarily a Ute but with tribal approval); to fund a full-time position on the Ute Reservation dedicated to assisting high school students to prepare for college; and to provide additional financial aid for Native American students, including two $8,000 scholarships for Northern Ute students from revenue generated by private donations and the sale of licensed merchandise, including a “Ute Proud” tee shirt designed by a Ute artist. The tribe celebrated the historic agreement by offering a prayer in the Ute lan-

guage, presenting Pershing with a ceremonial blanket, and performing traditional songs, dances, and drum music. Pershing asserted: “This isn’t about money; we need to be clear about that. This is about educational opportunity.”79 Nonetheless, the memorandum was a marked departure from the traditional informal cooperation to a de facto formal agreement. Following the MOU, the school and the tribe jointly developed educational initiatives that met Cuch’s challenge to promote “the customs, culture, and history of the Ute people” as well as “factual information about Indian people today.”80 The Utes became a greater presence on campus as consultants and conspicuously by performing tribal dances at the half time of football and basketball games. More substantively, Utah athletic events program inserts, pregame announcements by a Ute spokesperson, half-time JumboTron videos, and a “Ute Proud” website convey information about the tribe, past and present. And academic initia-

V While singular in particulars, the intercollegiate athletics relationship between the University of Utah and the Northern Ute Tribe speaks to fundamental sport and society issues. It illustrates the pervasive prominence of sport in America, given how effectively Native American advocates have used the popularity of team sports to call attention to racism and cultural insensitivity, as well as to how fervently some school administrators and alumni defended disrespectful traditions. It also demonstrates how sport both reflects and affects the larger society through the negotiation of contemporary social sensibilities and the legacies of historic ethnocentric violence and discrimination. The process was marked by both

The historic and ongoing association between the Northern Utes and the University of Utah, which involves much more than an athletics identification, is a story of cultural appropriation and accommodation. The controversy over the use of Native American identifications and imagery by non-Indian schools is nuanced by the discrepancy between unilateral, generic appropriation, and specific tribal endorsement. As yet undetermined is whether all components of a given tribe must consent to an identification or, irrespective of tribal approval, whether courts might rule against the use of Indian identifications as contrary to acceptable public policy.84 And while opinion polls show that a majority of Indians and non-Indians do not object to Native American names and images, numerous Indian peoples and tribes throughout the country resent Native American representations per se, and studies indicate possible negative psychological ramifications of such identifications.85 In the end, it is the collective will of the Northern Ute Nation that will determine the University of Utah’s identification with Ute history and culture. The prescient observation of the Penobscot student in 1988 still obtains: “The symbolism in the Ute mascot is in the eye of the beholder.”86

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

Such measures are recent extensions of the school’s longstanding academic commitment to Native American history and culture, expanded greatly since 1964 with the founding of the American West Center. The center has conducted more than two thousand oral histories of Indians in six western states, facilitated creation of tribal archives and school curricula, and assisted eighteen tribes in publishing written histories; it is also responsible for naming after prominent Utes selected by the tribe all seven streets in the university’s Research Park adjacent to the campus.82 More visibly, in addition to the activities of Native American student organizations, the school since 1972 has hosted periodic Ute ceremonial performances and an annual Indianconducted Native American Awareness Week, culminating in the Sustaining Our Culture Pow Wow of Intermountain West tribes. Visits from prominent Indian advocates—among them Dennis Banks, Michael Bird, and Floyd Red Crow Westerman—have raised awareness of issues affecting Native Americans, including Indian identifications for sports teams. Speaking at the invitation of Indigenous Students and Allies for Change, Banks, an Ojibwe and cofounder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), criticized the use of “Ute,” a position challenged by Ute spiritual leader Larry Cesspooch who attended Banks’ talk.83

sincerity and arrogance—the arrogance of a school initially appropriating the name of an Indian tribe without consultation (let alone permission), of non-Indians telling Indians what they should believe and how they should act, and members of one Native American tribe judging how their brothers and sisters in another tribe should handle their internal affairs. If the tale of the Utes and the university reveals how traditional Euro-American disparaging attitudes toward Indian peoples transformed an association initially intended to be honorific into one marked by “hostile and abusive” athletic representations, it also shows how the cultural importance of intercollegiate athletics ultimately facilitated the creation of a substantive relationship of palpable pride and mutual benefit to both tribe and school. As in all historical events, context is crucial. For both the Utes and the “Utes,” their athletics association is uniquely informed by history, place, and even religion, and actuated by a desire to use sport as a means of gaining greater public recognition.

U H Q

tives, such as the summer Native American Internship program in science and medical fields, enhance undergraduate education.81

219

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

Web Extra

220

Visit history.utah.gov/uhqextras for a gallery of images of Utes in the student yearbook Utonian.

Notes 1 For convenience, hereafter I use interchangeably the common generic Euro-American terms for Indigenous peoples—American Indian, Indian, and Native American. 2 For example, C. Richard King and Charles Fruehling Springwood, Beyond the Cheers: Race As Spectacle in College Sport (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001); King and Springwood, eds., Team Spirits: The Native American Mascots Controversy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001); Carol Spindel, Dancing At Halftime: Sports and the Controversy Over American Indian Mascots (New York: New York University Press, 2002); Kristine A. Brown, “Native American Team Names and Mascots: Disparaging and Insensitive or Just a Part of the Game?” Sports Lawyers Journal 9 (2002): 115–30; and Jennifer Guiliano, Indian Spectacle: College Mascots and the Anxiety of Modern America (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2015). Ezra J. Zeitler, “Geographies of Indigenous-Based Team Name and Mascot Use in American Secondary Schools” (PhD diss., University of Nebraska, 2008) assesses the motivations, uses, and consequences of Native American imagery. For an overview, see National Congress of American Indians, “Ending the Legacy of Racism in Sports & the Era of Harmful ‘Indian’ Mascots,” October 2013, ncai.org/resources/ncai-publications/Ending_ the_Legacy_of_Racism.pdf. 3 For a chronological listing of institutional actions, see Amy Wimmer Schwarb, “Where Pride Meets Prejudice,” NCAA Champion Magazine (Winter 2016). 4 NCAA News, September 28, 1998; July 4, 2005; and August 15, 2005. NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interest Comm., Report on the Use of American Indian Mascots in Intercollegiate Athletics to the NCAA Executive Committee Subcommittee on Gender and Diversity Issues (October 2002); NCAA Executive Committee Minutes, August 5, 2005, and NCAA Press Release: Executive Committee Guidelines for Use of Native American Mascots at Championship Events, August 5, 2005, Mascot File, Office of the President, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter Mascot File). 5 The policy sparked considerable opposition, ranging from defense of tradition to concerns about legalities.

For an overview of the background and institutional reaction to the policy, see André Douglas Pond Cummings, “Progress Realized? The Continuing American Indian Mascot Quandary,” Sports Law Review 18, no. 2 (2008) 309–35, and Schwarb, “Where Pride Meets Prejudice.” For legal issues, see Kenneth B. Franklin, “A Brave Attempt: Can the National Collegiate Athletic Association Sanction Colleges and Universities with Native American Mascots?”, Journal of Intellectual Property Law 13 (2006): 435–46; Brian R. Moushegian, “Native American Mascots’ Last Stand – Legal Difficulties in Eliminating Public University Use of Native American Mascots,” Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal 13, no. 2 (2006): 465–92; Ryan Fulda, ”Is the NCAA Prohibition of Native American Mascots from Championship Play a Violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act?”, American Indian Law Review 31 (2006–2007): 163–86; Spencer D. Kelly, “What’s in a Name: The Controversy Surrounding the NCAA’s Ban on College Nicknames and Mascots,” Willamette Sports Law Journal 5, no. 1 (2008): 17–33; and André Douglas Pond Cummings and Seth E. Harper, “Wide Right: Why the NCAA’s Policy on the American Indian Mascot Issue Misses the Mark,” University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class 9, no. 1 (2009): 135–79. 6 Ted S. Warren, “NCAA: Tribes Must OK Use of Their Names,” Associated Press, August 19, 2005, and Emily Badger, “NCAA Sets Mascot Appeal System,” Chicago Tribune, August 20, 2005. 7 For an overview of the identifications at the University of Illinois, Miami of Ohio, and Eastern Michigan, see Mark R. Connolly, “What’s in a Name?: A Historical Look at Native American-Related Nicknames and Symbols at Three U.S. Universities,” Journal of Higher Education 71, no. 5 (September–October 2000): 515–47. Danielle Endres, “American Indian Permission for Mascots: Resistance or Complicity within Rhetorical Colonialism?,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 18, no. 4 (Winter 2015): 649–89, treats the post-2005 relationship between the Utes and the university as “a form of self-colonization.” 8 Salt Lake Tribune, August 9, 2005; “American Indian Mascot Study for the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interest Committee” (2002), Mascot File; “Institutional Information: Mascot, Nickname and Logo” (2004), Mascot File; Ronald J. Stratton to Bernie Machen, November 8, 2004, Mascot File. 9 Deseret News, August 28, 2005; Salt Lake Tribune, August 6 and 7, 2005. 10 The three tribes have never taken a formal position on the issue, but Floyd O’Neil, who knows the regional tribes well through his outreach work with the university’s American West Center since 1966, reports having “never heard a word of criticism” from them about the use of the Ute name. Larry Gerlach, telephone interview with O’Neil, February 11, 2017. That was also the opinion of Forrest Cuch, then director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs, when interviewed by the author on October 1, 2009. Their assessments coincide with informal conversations I have had with Utes, primarily Northern Utes, from 2002 to 2014. 11 Salt Lake Tribune, August 7, 2005; Deseret News, August 6 and 9, 2005. 12 Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune, August 24, 2005. 13 Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune, August 9, 2005; Natchees to Bernard Franklin, August 29, 2005, Mascot File. The petition included a pro-forma letter of support, same date, from Craig Thompson to Franklin.

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

23 Michael Oriard, King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, the Weekly and the Daily Press (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 7, 18. 24 Shoshone, Goshutes, Paiutes, Utes, and Navajos (Dineh). For profiles of each group, see Forrest S. Cuch, ed., A History of Utah’s American Indians (Salt Lake City: Utah Division of Indian Affairs, 2000). There being a difference between a “culture” or “people” and a “tribe” as a socio-political unit, today there are eight recognized tribes in the state: the Ute tribe of Utah (aka Northern Utes), the Northwest Band of the Shoshone Nation, the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes, the Confederated Bands of the Goshute Reservation (Ibapah), the Paiute Tribe of Utah (Southern Paiutes), the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, the White Mesa Community, and the Navajo Nation. Gregory Smoak to Larry Gerlach, February 13, 2005. The Timpanogos Ute claim of Snake-Shoshone ancestry is without foundation. See Jared Farmer, On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians and the American Landscape (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010). 25 The Spanish derived the name from neighboring tribes who referred to the Utes variously as “Yu Hta” (Comanche), “Yota” (Hopi), and “Yu Tta Ci” (Southern Paiute). The Utes call themselves as “Nu Chi” or “Noochee” (“the people”). See Donald Callaway, Joel C. Janetski, and Omer C. Stewart, “Ute,” in Warren L. d’Azevedo, ed., Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 11, Great Basin (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution., 1986), 336–67; Fred A. Conetah, A History of the Northern Ute People (Duchene, UT: Uintah-Ouray Ute Tribe, 1982); Jan Pettit, Utes, The Mountain People (Boulder, CO: Johnson Books, 1981); and Lynn Arave, “Utah, the Riddle behind the Name,” Deseret News, July 19, 1994. 26 The Book of Mormon, First and Second Nephi, relates the religious-based conflicts between two groups of Israelites who traveled to the Americas around 600 BCE culminating with the wicked, darker-skinned Lamanites annihilating the righteous, lighter-skinned Nephites. The traditional teaching that Lamanites were “the principal ancestors of the American Indians” was revised to the belief that they were “among” the ancestors of Native Americans. See Gordon C. Thomasson, “Lamanites” in Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 2:804–5; Thomas Garrow and Bruce A. Chadwick, “Native Americans: LDS Beliefs,” in Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 3:981–85; “The Church and Descendants of Book of Mormon Peoples,” Ensign, December 1975; and Peggy Fletcher Stack,” Salt Lake Tribune, November 8, 2007. 27 Utah’s winningest football coach, Armstrong in twenty-five years compiled a 141–55–15 (.704) record highlighted by 13 conference championships, six in a row (1928 to 1933), and five undefeated seasons. The new Ute Stadium accommodated 20,000 fans, 7,000 more than the old Cummings Field. 28 Dedication Program, October 22, 1927, p. 35; Utonian 1928, 182–83; both in Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. 29 Daily Utah Chronicle, November 11 and 18, 1927 (hereafter Chronicle); Utonian 1929, 10–15, 181. 30 Virginia McConnell Simmons, The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2000), 1; “Creation Myths,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 20, 2004.

U H Q

14 Franklin to Michael Young, September 2, 2005; Robert W. Payne to Delise O’Meally, September 2, 2005; “University of Utah Media Statement Re: NCAA’s Ruling on Ute Name,” September 2, 2005; all in Mascot File. That same day Central Michigan also received a waiver because of its relationship with the Chippewa. The University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux appeal was denied because of opposition from some branches of the Sioux tribe, notably the Spirit Lake Sioux. Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, September 3, 2005. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, founded as a school for Native Americans and with 21 percent Indian student enrollment, was given an exemption. 15 For the array of school mascots, see Mike Lessiter, The College Names of the Games (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989). 16 Phillip J. Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). 17 For the early use of Indian names for sports teams, see J. Gordon Hylton, “Before the Redskins Were the Redskins: The Use of Native American Team Names in the Formative Era of American Sports, 1857–1933,” North Dakota Law Review 86, no. 4 (2010): 879–904. 18 “The white man’s Indian” studies include Roy Harvey Pearce, The Savages of America: A Study of the Indian and the Idea of Civilization (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1953); Louise K. Barnett, The Ignoble Savage: American Literary Racism, 1790–1890 (New York: Praeger, 1976); Robert Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York: Knopf, 1978); Lucy Maddox, Removals: Nineteenth-century American Literature & the Politics of Indian Affairs (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Elizabeth S. Bird, ed., Dressing in Feathers: The Construction of the Indian in American Popular Culture (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996). 19 The Spirit of the Times, October 19 and November 2, 1844; American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine 15 (December 1844): 737; Edward S. Sears, Running through the Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008; 2nd ed., 2015), 62; Sears, George Seward: America’s First Great Runner (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 2008), 48. 20 Jeffrey Powers-Beck, The American Indian Integration of Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004); Michael Oriard, Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 233–47. 21 Salt Lake Tribune, October 14, 1920. Exceptions are the football headlines “U Grid Braves Leave Today to Scalp [Colorado College] Tigers,” Salt Lake Tribune, October 14, 1920, and “Red Devils Have Spears Sharp to Repel Tigers,” Deseret News, November 3, 1922. 22 New York Times, April 28, 1912. And it isn’t today for some Native Americans, to wit the “Redskins” (Navajo) of Red Mesa, Arizona, high school. The Shiprock, New Mexico, high school designation “Chieftans” applies gender equitably to men’s and women’s teams. On the traditional meaning of the term, see the linguistic report of the Smithsonian Institution’s Department of Anthropology, Ives Goddard, “‘I Am a Red-skin’: The Adoption of a Native American Expression (1769– 1826),” European Review of Native American Studies 19, no. 2 (2005): 1–20. On Native American color identification, see Nancy Shoemaker, “How Indians Got to Be Red,” American Historical Review 102, no. 3 (June 1997): 625–44.

221

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

222

31 Hylton, “Before the Redskins Were the Redskins,” 901– 2; “Hail to the Redskins,” Wikipedia, accessed March 22, 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Redskins. 32 See Michael Hilger, The American Indian in Film (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1986), and Neva Jacquelyn Kilpatrick, Celluloid Indians: Native Americans and Film (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). 33 Chronicle, October 3, 9, 20, 1947, and October 9, 1953. 34 For example, Chronicle, October 18, 1951; Utonian 1949, 137, 139; Utonian 1960, 129–32; Utonian 1965, 239. 35 Founded in Salt Lake City, branches subsequently opened in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, in the 1930s. “Coon Chicken Inn,” BlackPast.org, accessed March 22, 2017, blackpast.org/aaw/coon-chicken-inn. 36 For a listing of schools, see Guiliano, Indian Spectacle, 8. 37 Born in Czechoslovakia in 1938, Grossman had fled with his family to Hungary to escape Nazi persecution, emigrated to the United States under the auspices of the Jewish Community Service program, and, prior to arriving at the University of Utah, graduated from the Stanford University Law School. George S. Grossman, interview by Richard C. Wydick, April 4, 2008, at dctv. davismedia.org/show/25233. 38 Salt Lake Tribune, November 21, 1969; Grossman to Fletcher, November 21, 1969, and Fletcher to Grossman, November 25, 1969, box 45, fd. 14, James Clinton Fletcher Presidential Records, University Archives and Records Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter Fletcher Records). The twenty-four page advertisement supplement announcing the opening of “The Wigwam,” the new Special Events and Physical Education Complex, also appeared in the Deseret News, November 20. Despite Fletcher’s denial of involvement, the extensive coverage of facilities in the five-building complex, athletics department personnel, and the men’s basketball team clearly indicates the supplement was a university production. 39 Grossman to Fletcher, January 20, 1970; Gerald R. Walk to David Laird, January 16, 1970; Eldon R. Cox to Neal A. Maxwell, February 2, 1970, Mascot File; Bookstore Advisory Board Meeting Minutes, January 28, 1979, Mascot/Symbol File, fd. 11, University Archives and Records Center, University of Utah (hereafter Symbol File). 40 The student petitioners did not sign their names. “The Demands of American Indians,” n.d., and Bud Jack to Neal Maxwell, April 29, 1970, Mascot File; Lane Demas, Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American College Football (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010): 102–74; Ryan Thorburn, Black 14: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football (Boulder, CO: Burning Daylight, 2009). 41 Fletcher to Maxwell, April 23, 1970, box 45, fd. 16, Fletcher Records; Maxwell to Eldon Cox and Bud Jack, April 27, 1970, Mascot File; Cox to Maxwell, May 4, 1970, Mascot File; Cox to Gerald Walk and Maxwell, June 1, 1970, Mascot File; Chronicle, April 19, 1972. 42 President Fletcher’s Appointment Book, May 20, 1970, box 51, fd. 1, Fletcher Records; Larry Gerlach interviews with O’Neil, July 7, 2016, and February 11, 2017. 43 Athletic Board Meeting Minutes, March 8, 1972, fd. 11, Symbol File; Chronicle, April 19, 1972. Utah’s director of Native American Studies 1971–1973 and coordinator of the Indians of the Americas Program 1977–1979, King became a renowned writer of Native American fiction. Eva Gruber, ed., Thomas King: Works and Impact (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2012). 44 Robert K. Weidner to David Midthun and Lacee Harris,

December 9, 1980; Agreement on the Use of the Ute Indian Symbol, April 27, 1981; both in Mascot File. 45 Chronicle, November 18, 1982; R. J. Snow to Property Management, October 15, 1984, Mascot File; “The Ute Symbol,” Mascot File. 46 Ted Capener, memorandum, August 20, 1985; Capener to Lester Chapoose, August 21, 1985; both in Mascot File. 47 Athletic Board Minutes, November 26, 1979, February 7 and May 19, 1980, fd. 11, Symbol File. 48 Chronicle, October 18, 1980; University of Utah Review 4, no. 3 (December/January, 1980–81): 5; Byron Sims to Ted Capener, February 15, 1985, Mascot File; Chronicle, October 18, 1985. 49 Utah grads Dan and Art Monson, the latter Salt Lake County Treasurer, provided the two-year-old filly Chronicle, October 29, 1985; University of Utah News Release, October 30, 1985; ITSA Newsletter, November 1985, Mascot File; “Symbol Proposal Agreed Upon at ITSA Meeting,” n.d., Mascot File. 50 Peterson to Ute Business Committee, October 1, 1985, Mascot File; University of Utah News Release, October 30, 1985, Mascot File; Chronicle, October 18 and 29 and November 4, 1985. Alums Dan and Art Monson provided the horse. 51 Deseret News, November 5, 1985. 52 Author’s recollection of discussions with the Athletics Department’s Sports Information personnel about acquiring a picture of the Crimson Warrior. Photos of the Crimson Warrior are rare. University of Utah archives has a single black and white picture. 53 ITSA Newsletter, November 1985; Ted Capener to Peterson, November 19, 1985; both in Mascot File. 54 Chronicle, October 21, 1987; ITSA Newsletter, October 1987. 55 Chronicle, November 30, 1988; Salt Lake Tribune, October 23, 1991; El Paso (Texas) Herald-Post, November 15, 1991. 56 Stella Clah to Peterson, February 17, 1988; Dan Edwards to Ted Capener, November 2, 1988; Larry McCook to Capener, November 28, 1988; Clah to Capener, December 6, 1988; Nola Lodge to Afesa Adams, December 12, 1988; all in Mascot File. See also Chronicle, November 7 and 9, 1988. 57 ITSA Newsletter, Fall 1987, Mascot File. 58 Chronicle, October 13, December 5 and 9, 1994; undated and unsigned document from the perpetrators explaining their views received by the President’s Office on December 6, 1994, Mascot File. More than linguistic evidence points to non-Indian vandalism. The swastika drawn in front of the statue was likely intended as the hostile Nazi sign, but Indians would have known it is also the Hopi symbol for peace and prosperity. That the protest was “in honor of Leroy Jackson and Mike Barry”—the former in 1962 became one of the first African Americans on the Washington Redskins and the latter a former football coach then working with minority youngsters in Chicago—seems an unlikely tribute from Native Americans. 59 Patricia Albers to Arthur K. Smith, September 1, 1993; Ted Capener to Albers, September 16, 1993; both in Mascot File. 60 Salt Lake Tribune, October 12, 1993. 61 Ibid., December 8, 1993. 62 Beverly Sutteer to Ted Capener, May 25, 1993; Capener, memorandum of telephone conversation with Pike, July 7, 1993; both in Mascot File.

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

University of Utah ‘Ute’ Nickname on Change.org,” Indian Country Media Network, December 6, 2013, accessed March 22, 2017, indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/12/06/petition-change-university -utah-ute-nickname-changeorg-152604. 78 Deseret News, November 11, 2013; Salt Lake Tribune, December 16, 2013. 79 Deseret News April 15, 2014; Salt Lake Tribune, April 16, 2014. For the MOU, see University of Utah, accessed March 22, 2017, admin.utah.edu/ute-mou/. 80 Christina Rose, “The University of Utah Utes: Working Toward Understanding,” Indian Country Media Network, February 20, 2014, accessed April 26, 2017, indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/20/ university-utah-utes-working-toward-understanding-153661?page=0%2C4. 81 Jeremy Pugh, “Next Gen Healers,” Continuum: The Magazine of the University of Utah (Summer 2016): 16– 21. 82 Floyd O’Neil to Chase Peterson, November 5, 1985; Ted Capener to O’Neil, January 31, 1986; both in Mascot File. 83 Chronicle, March 21, 2013. 84 For example, in 2013 the much larger Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, which long opposed Florida State’s agreement with the Florida Seminoles, officially condemned the use of Indian mascots by sports teams. Washington Post, August 14, 2005, and December 29, 2014. On the question of tribal inclusion and potential court challenge, see Stephanie Jade Bollinger, “Between a Tomahawk and a Hard Place: Indian mascots and the NCAA,” Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal 73 (2016): 73–115 (esp. 86–88). 85 Stephanie A. Fryberg, Hazel Rose Markus, Daphna Oyserman, and Joseph M. Stone, “Of Warrior Chiefs and Indian Princesses: The Psychological Consequences of American Indian Mascots,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 30, no. 3 (2008): 208–18; and Chu Kim-Prieto, Lizabeth A. Goldstein, Sumie Okazaki, and Blake Kirschner, “Effect of Exposure to an American Indian Mascot on the Tendency to Stereotype a Different Minority Group,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 40 no. 3 (2010): 534–53. For opinion polls, see S. L. Price, “Indian Wars,” Sports Illustrated, March 4, 2002, 66–72; C. Richard King, et al., “Of Polls and Race Prejudice: Sports Illustrated’s Errant ‘Indian Wars,’” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 26, no. 4 (2002): 381–402; Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “Most Indians Say Name of Washington ‘Redskins’ Is Acceptable While 9 Percent Call It Offensive,” The Annenberg Public Policy Center, September 24, 2004; D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark, “Indigenous Voice and Vision as Commodity in a Mass-Consumption Society: The Colonial Politics of Public Opinion Polling,” American Indian Quarterly 29 (2005): 228–38; and “Most Native Americans Not Offended by the Washington Redskins’ Name,” Washington Post, April 12, 2016. 86 Chronicle, November 30, 1988.

U H Q

63 ITSA Newsletter, October 1987. 64 Chronicle, September 29, October 12, and November 3, 1993; John Ashton to Ted Capener, September 29, 1993, Mascot File; Capener to Jeff J. Clawson and Steve Gustavson, November 5, 1993, Mascot File; Capener to Norman D. Riggs, December 3, 1993, Mascot File; Salt Lake Tribune, January 30, 1996; Athletics Board Minutes, January 31, 1996, fd. 11, Symbol File. 65 Both the state and federal challenges ended successfully. For Utah, see Deseret News, December 23, 1994; Salt Lake Tribune, March 4, 1999; McBride v. Motor Vehicle Division of Utah State Tax Commission 977 P.2d 467, 473 (1999); and André Douglas Pond Cummings, “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My or Redskins and Braves and Indians, Oh Why: Ruminations on Mcbride V. Utah State Tax Commission, Political Correctness and the Reasonable Person,” California Western Law Review 36, no. 11 (1999): 11–37. For the appeal to the Federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, see Lee Sigelman, “Hail to the Redskins? Public Reactions to a Racially Insensitive Team Name,” Sociology of Sport Journal 15, no. 4 (1998): 317–25, and C. Richard King, Redskins: Insult and Brand (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016). For a personal account, Suzan Shown Harjo, “Fighting NameCalling: Challenging ‘Redskins’ in Court,” in King and Springwood, Team Spirits, 189–207. 66 Salt Lake Tribune, May 4, 1995; Chronicle, May 5, 1995. 67 Deseret News, February 15, 1996; Adam Martinez to Arthur K. Smith, October 10, 1995; Suzanne Espinoza to Martinez, November 27, 1995, Mascot File. An “Agency” is an administrative office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs charged with supervising relations between Native Americans and other peoples. 68 Sandra Hansen to Arthur K. Smith, December 27, 1996, Mascot File. Firm general partner Jeanne Silvas Whiteing, a member of the Blackfeet tribe, specialized in representing Native American tribes and tribal entities. 69 Mary Shea Tucker to Smith and John K. Morris, January 10, 1996; Sandra Hansen to Liz McCoy, January 18, 1996; Vickie Chapoose to Smith, January 25, 1996; all in Mascot File. 70 Deseret News, February 12, 13, and 15, 1996; Salt Lake Tribune, January 24, 1996. 71 Price, “Indian Wars,” 72. 72 “Resolution No. 03-259, Unitah & Ouray Reservation,” November 10, 2003; “Memorandum of Understanding Between the Ute Indian Tribe and University of Utah Relating to the Establishment of Cooperative Educational Programs and Initiatives for the Mutual Benefit of the Ute Indian Tribe and the University of Utah,” December 16, 2003; both in Mascot File. 73 In 2013, some 3,100 Utes lived on the Uintah and Ouray in the northeastern section of the state, 2,000 on the Ute Mountain reservation in the southeast corner, and some 1,000 Southern Utes are based primarily in Colorado. Salt Lake Tribune, February 16 and 19, 2013; Deseret News, November 11, 2013; and indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/20/university-utah-utes-working-toward-understanding-153661?page=0%2C4. 74 Larry Gerlach interview with Larry Blackhair, November 17, 2009. 75 Deseret News, August 24, 2005, and September 17 and 19, 2006. 76 Deseret News, November 11, 2013; Salt Lake Tribune, November 12 and December 5, 2013. 77 Salt Lake Tribune, December 5, 2013; Chronicle, December 9, 2013; ICMN Staff, “Petition to Change

223

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

224

An 1897 stereopticon view of the Salt Lake City and County Building. Many of the cases discussed in this article played out in Utahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Third District Court. The Third District covers Salt Lake, Tooele, and Summit counties. Some of these cases were likely heard in the City and County Building. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

L ibra ry of C on gre ss

M IC H A E LE

SMI T H

On July 22, 1944, two Californians visiting Utah—Ramona Mae O’Brien, fifteen, and Gale Sloan White, eighteen—accepted a ride from a group of teenage boys, an action that would lead to them being held in a Utah jail as material witnesses in a rape trial. Between 1939 and 1946, the number of reported rape offenses in the United States increased by approximately 45 percent.1 This article examines rape cases in Utah during World War II and the years preceding it to explore the difficulties women faced when reporting rape, the issue of consent, and why crime rates of rape are so unreliable. While the number of reported rapes definitely rose, it is extremely difficult—impossible really—to discern the number of actual rapes. Part of the problem is that the legal definition of rape has changed since the mid-twentieth century, so what we might consider rape now was legally consensual sex then. Before the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s led to changes in rape law, the legal definition of rape was much narrower than it is today. The concept of “‘yes’ means ‘yes’ and ‘no’ means ‘no’” did not exist in law and in the popular imagination. Force and resistance were two important—and problematic—elements of the legal definition of rape. How does one decide how much resistance and force qualify an act as rape? This question is critical because if a woman did not resist enough, then she had legally consented to sex. Statistics are also misleading since rape has historically been, and continues to be, underreported. Furthermore, a woman could file a rape complaint, but police or prosecutors might charge the suspect with a lesser offense or decide not to proceed at all. In addition to a legal system that made the prosecution of rape difficult, the culture of wartime America sometimes fostered aggressive male behavior. All of this added up to an environment where more rapes occurred, even as the courts favored male suspects over female victims.

3 N O . U H Q

V O L .

8 5

Sexual Violence in Salt Lake City

rape law in the mid-twentieth century:

225

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

226

Understanding the changes that transpired in Utah during the war years and the effects the war had on overall crime rates sets the stage for understanding the rape cases discussed in this article. The bombing of Pearl Harbor had the same effect on Utahns as it did on other Americans. It outraged, incited, and scared them. Young men rushed to enlist for war and those left behind focused their attention on the war effort. Utah’s resources, geography, and infrastructure made it a crucial staging ground for the war effort.2 Utah became the home to thirteen new military installations, as well the Topaz Relocation Center and industries such as Geneva Steel, which was founded with federal money in 1941.3 These new installations brought an influx of war workers and service personnel to Utah in a short period of time, which led to a population boom and overcrowding, as in many states with war industries. This population boom affected living conditions in Utah and had significant social ramifications, including a lack of sufficient housing, the skyrocketing cost of necessities, the inadequacy of local grocery stores, and transportation problems. The overcrowding of cities led to higher rates of crimes such as theft, larceny, and burglary.4 Crime became a major concern to Utah communities, something local newspapers made mention of. In 1945, for instance, the San Juan Record reported on the increased numbers of murders and negligent manslaughters in the nation’s cities from 1943 to 1944. As the article also noted, “Rapes rose 4.2 per cent and aggravated assaults 12 per cent. On the basis of these figures, approximately 27 per cent more rape violations occurred during 1944 than in the average prewar year.”5 The Park Record, a newspaper published in Park City, also reported that crime rates rose and blamed the increase on “the upheaval resulting from war.”6 Several pieces in Utah’s newspapers quote J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who said, “The arrests of girls under 18 have increased 198 per cent since 1939, while arrests of boys under 18 have increased . . . 70 per cent for rape.”7 As these articles demonstrate, Utahns were aware of this national trend and worried about the same trend in Utah.8

Community newspapers focused much of the discussion of the growth in crime on racial minorities and outsiders. Most journalists carefully mentioned the race of nonwhite criminals in their stories. They only designated someone as white in cases where a nonwhite person attacked a white person; for example the Vernal Express reported that an “Indian boy” sexually assaulted a “white woman.”9 The Tooele Transcript Bulletin listed the names of people arrested each week and included their races only when they were nonwhite. For example, it described a so-called “Indian week,” when police arrested four Native Americans on “drunk charges.”10 Another article detailed an “attempted murder in gambling row,” and announced that “Herman K. Carter, 28, negro, was practically disemboweled . . . by Roy Hattley, 32, also negro.” The article also focused on the fact that the two men were newcomers: “The inevitable has happened . . . Tooele’s first gambling attempted murder has taken place, since the influx of defense workers.”11 In another case, when several women were brutally assaulted in the streets of Tooele, the newspaper focused on the class and ethnicity of one of the men who was eventually arrested.12 It described the assailant as “Raul Perez Brito, age 24, an American citizen of Spanish extraction, who has been employed at the International Smelter.”13 Brito reportedly attacked a young woman on Christmas night, when he knocked out two of her teeth, broke her nose, gave her two black eyes, and cut her across her forehead. After finding the woman, a group of Tooele residents searched for and found Brito in a nearby beer parlor and had him arrested. The newspaper offered these details and noted that he had only been in Tooele a few months.14 Beth Bailey argues that during WWII, “the increasing power and presence of the national institutions and national culture upset ‘traditional’ ways—be it Jim Crow or sexual mores— and created openings for contestations and change.”15 In her study of Lawrence, Kansas, Bailey found that the influx of a large number of single men into established communities raised questions regarding how they would spend their free time and paychecks. Local officials and newspapers centered much of the wartime concern with venereal disease and promiscuity on newcomers, especially war industry workers.16

The Tooele County Courthouse, circa 1939. Some Third District cases would have been heard at this courthouse. —

US HS

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

Some Americans worried about the activities of women and girls as well as male defense workers. National and local newspaper articles placed most of the blame for widespread venereal disease during WWII on prostitutes and “victory girls”—women who allegedly engaged in sexual activity with servicemen and officers in order to improve morale.19 Com-

munities in Utah attributed the rise in “loose” women to newcomers, not local girls. For example, the Transcript Bulletin ran a short article about the recent arrests of drunken women who were “making themselves a nuisance,” and ended the article by stating, “Some communities may delight in this type of actions on the part of women, but to the people of Tooele, it is extremely offensive.”20 The article did not identify these women as outsiders, but it implied as much by offering outsiders advice on how to fit into the community. Another article detailed how the police began a “Clean-up of Doubtful Women.” The police started a “campaign to arrest questionable women characters who are hanging around beer parlors . . . seeking too freely the company of men.”21 Much of the concern around juvenile delinquency focused on “victory girls” because they seemed to be flouting the prescribed gender and sexual norms. Teenage girls received negative attention (and sometimes harsh criminal punishment) even when they did not have extramarital sex. While the people of these communities worried about the activities of defense workers and women, they rarely expressed unease about local men or soldiers.

U H Q

Communities in Utah had similar responses. The editors of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin issued several warnings to “newcomers” as early as 1942. They wrote, “Tooele City is fundamentally conservative and decent in its conduct, and expects the same action of new citizens, who come here for employment and sometimes, before this lesson is learned some become at cross purposes with the law.”17 They blamed the increase in crime on the newcomers, noting that, “petty and major law offenders appear to have followed the influx of ordnance plant workers.”18 This trend of focusing on outsiders and racial minorities also affected rape cases. Law enforcement, prosecuting attorneys, judges, and juries took white women’s reports more seriously than those of nonwhite women, especially in cases that involved outsiders and nonwhite assailants.

227

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

228

Underneath the hostility to outsiders was concern about the kind of influence the newcomers, especially unmarried men, would have on young Latter-day Saint women. Families often took in boarders to help with the housing shortage, which disrupted family life and exacerbated this concern. Parents worried that daughters would date or marry outside their faith or race and that men might have a “love-them-and-leave-them” mentality.22 Native Utahns also worried about women’s safety around outsiders. One marine stationed in the South Pacific wrote a letter to the Transcript Bulletin expressing his dismay over reports of women being brutalized in Tooele. He wrote that the “other boys on the island” from Tooele and he felt very disappointed when we read about how girls are grabbed from the streets, badly beaten and then scared off. . . . I’m not the only serviceman that thinks this as I have seen and talked with several Tooele boys over here and we all feel the town needs a good shakedown and a ridding of the bad ones. They, the ‘bad ones,’ are in our estimation no different that [sic] the Japs or Germans, both are trying to destroy what we hope to win, that is, peace and security.23 This letter writer expressed alarm over the safety of women, which was a legitimate concern considering the increase in crime during the war. Between 1936 and 1945, Utah’s Third District Court tried 113 cases of sexual assault.24 This included twenty-six rape cases, eleven attempted

Even if a woman reported an attack there was no guarantee that the police would take her claim seriously.

rapes, eight assaults with intent to commit rape, thirty-five unlawful carnal knowledge cases, one attempt to commit unlawful carnal knowledge, and thirty-two cases of indecent assault.25 The number of rape and rape-related cases peaked in 1943 at seven; this number, of course, only included those cases that made it all the way to court. Unlawful carnal knowledge cases peaked in 1945 with six cases. The highest number of indecent assault cases was six per year in both 1937 and 1945. In every year but 1944, more than 50 percent of defendants pled or were found guilty. In 1944, juries found 86 percent of defendants not guilty, and only one defendant pled guilty.26 Since some of these crimes are now known by different names, it is worth taking a moment to define these terms. Unlawful carnal knowledge is now referred to as statutory rape. More specifically, WWII-era officials charged men with unlawful carnal knowledge who “wilfully, unlawfully, feloniously and carnally know . . . a female over the age of thirteen years and under the age of eighteen years . . . being then and there an unmarried female and not the wife of the [defendant].”27 The state charged indecent assault when someone “wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously make an assault upon a female [or male] child under the age of fourteen years . . . without committing, or intending or attempting to commit the crime of rape.”28 The rape statute also specifically stated that the victim could not be the wife of the defendant. At this time there were no laws prohibiting marital rape; such laws were not enacted in Utah until 1991.29 One challenge of studying sexual assaults is that they are underreported. Although comparable statistics are not available for the 1930s and 1940s, in 2005 only an estimated 41 percent of sexual assaults were reported in the United States.30 It stands to reason that this percentage was even smaller in 1940, given the burden of blame victims bore at the time.31 Even if a woman reported an attack there was no guarantee that the police would take her claim seriously. Moreover, her attacker might be charged with a lesser offense based on whether or not the police believed her claims, further obscuring the number of rapes that actually occurred. Furthermore, the criminal justice system took (and still takes) some rape cases far more seri-

One Utah case from four years before the United States entered WWII helps provide legal context for the later wartime incidents and illuminates how difficult it was for rape victims to navigate the criminal justice system. In July 1937, Veda White reported to police that Jim Stockfish had sexually assaulted her. The county attorney did not believe that this was a case of rape because he felt that she was of “sub-normal intelligence.” Instead, he chose to believe that White had consented. However, because she was married, the county attorney decided to charge Stockfish with adultery, a

In addition to the defendant being untrained in any particular line of work, and having been out of work considerably during the past several

3 N O . I 8 5

A few months later, the judge in the adultery case, Roger McDonough, wrote a letter providing these details to the Board of Pardons. McDonough also noted that a third woman had previously accused Stockfish of sexual assault but later wanted the charges dismissed. According to McDonough, Stockfish had no particular occupational skills and had been out of work most of his adult life; furthermore Stockfish’s “criminal record [was] confined to [these] sex crimes” and he had been intoxicated during all of the (alleged) attacks. The judge also offered information about Stockfish’s upbringing. His parents were residents of Salt Lake City, having immigrated to Utah from Holland. They were respected members of the community and had raised several daughters who were also well respected. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of their sons. Stockfish and his brother both had criminal records. Just a month before McDonough wrote this letter, Stockfish’s brother had pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary. McDonough offered the following insight into Stockfish’s past:

V O L .

Because of all of these factors, women who were victims of acquaintance rape or “simple rape” were usually reluctant to report it. Those who did were taken less seriously by police and prosecutors, which made it unlikely their cases would even make it to court and even less likely that they would result in a guilty verdict. This view of rape did not begin to change until the last few decades of the twentieth century when rape laws began to shift; the women’s movement played a vital role in making those changes happen.34 All of this supports my argument that the higher number of rapes during the war years represented an increase in the number of rapes—not an increase in reporting.

charge to which he eventually pled guilty. Adultery had long been considered a crime in many states and remains so in over twenty states, into the twenty-first century.35 In many states the law addressed both parties, but Utah was not such a place.36 In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the state prosecuted both men and women in the Third District Court for adultery charges, but in the majority of cases the person charged was married: in other words, if a married man slept with a single woman, he was the only one charged and vice versa. The court sentenced Stockfish to imprisonment for a term not to exceed three years and then gave him a stay of execution. A stay such as this functioned like a suspended sentence and offered a defendant an opportunity to avoid serving time as long as he or she kept out of trouble. Stockfish did not stay out of trouble. During his stay another woman reported that Stockfish had sexually assaulted her. He denied the claim but admitted that he had “unlawful sexual relations with the girl in question.” The court then revoked the stay and sent Stockfish to prison.37

U H Q

ously than others. Legal scholar Susan Estrich argues that judges and juries are more likely to punish men guilty of “real rape” but are reluctant to sympathize with the victims of “simple rape.” The criminal justice system defined “real rape” as rape with “aggravating circumstances,” such as the use of “extrinsic violence (guns, knives, or beatings) or multiple assailants or no prior relationships between the victim and defendant.” In contrast, a case in which a single defendant knew his victim and did not use violence against her constituted “simple rape.” Estrich found that juries were four times as likely to convict in a case of “real rape” over “simple rape.” Juries also showed less sympathy for victims, or were less likely to punish perpetrators, in cases where there was “contributing behavior,” that is, when the woman had been doing such as hitchhiking or partying when she was raped.32 The list of “contributing behaviors” has also included things like a woman’s clothing and her prior behavior, such as if she hung out in bars or had previously had sex outside of marriage.33

229

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

should have yielded to her husband’s authority, an idea consistent with a national concern with mothers who raised weak sons. A popular psychologist, J. B. Watson, argued that “mothers must guard against their own impulses in shaping the lives of their offspring.”40 In 1942, only a few years after the Stockfish case, Philip Wylie wrote his infamous Generation of Vipers. In it, Wylie coined the term “momism” to describe what he saw as an epidemic of frustrated women who smothered their children, especially their sons, who became enervated and passive as a result.41 When McDonough wrote about a “conflict of authority” in the raising of the Stockfish family, then, he did so within a popular context of attention to the relationship between parenting and gender development.

230

Roger McDonough, the judge in the case of the State of Utah v. Jim Stockfish. McDonough showed a degree of leniency to Stockfish, even though three women accused him of sexual violence. —

US HS

years, there seems to have been during the course of the raising of the family a conflict of authority in the home relative to the proper discipline of the children, the mother taking the attitude that the father has been not only to [sic] severe, but not in any way helpful in attempting to properly guide the children.38 It is unclear whether McDonough included this information as a criticism of Stockfish’s parents. On one hand, McDonough noted the father’s lack of involvement, an aspect of family life that had become more commented upon thanks to the popularization of Freudian psychology in the 1920s and the thought that parental participation was requisite for the healthy development of a child’s gender and sexuality.39 Perhaps the judge felt that an uninvolved (or poorly involved) father had led to Stockfish’s inability to hold down a job. Conversely, McDonough might have been implying that Stockfish’s mother was too involved and that she

After giving the Board of Pardons these details, McDonough asked that Stockfish not be released from prison until he had served at least two years of his three-year sentence. However, he ended his letter by requesting that Stockfish be released in six to eight months if his friends could secure a job for him. If we believe his accusers, Stockfish was a serial rapist, yet the judge argued that he should only have to serve six months as long as he obtained a job.42 McDonough could have been concerned with the possible burden Stockfish would become to the state, either as a prisoner or as an indigent person, hence his focus on Stockfish obtaining employment. Additionally, the judge might have believed that having a steady job would make Stockfish more secure in his manhood—as unemployment often damaged male confidence— and that he would no longer need to prove his masculinity through sexual aggression.43 The Stockfish case also demonstrates that the number of sexual assault cases (especially rape) heard by Utah’s Third District Court likely made up only a small percentage of actual sexual assaults. Many victims chose not to report or to withdraw the charges, and the police and prosecutors did not always take their accusations seriously. In the end, the judge in the Stockfish case showed more concern for the accused than he did for the (alleged) victims. He might have even held the women responsible for their own assaults. McDonough noted that the first woman to accuse Stockfish had not given “testimony sufficient to support the charge,” but he offered no reason for her

Deputy Sheriff German Dean filed a complaint in the Third District Court on July 27, charging the boys with rape and unlawful carnal knowledge. The court held the two girls, Ramona Mae O’Brien, fifteen, and Gale Sloan White, eighteen, in the Salt Lake County Jail because they had tried to leave Utah before the trial (likely to return home to California).52 Even though the court admitted a “rusty hunting knife” as evidence of the violent nature of the alleged attacks and acknowledged the fact that the girls were outnumbered, the defense asked for a directed verdict of not guilty based on its argument that “no sufficient evidence [existed] . . . that [the defendants] used force or violence or threats of immediate and great bodily harm.” The defense further argued that no evidence existed that the girls “did not consent” or that they “used the utmost resistance to any force or violence.” While the judge refused to give a directed verdict of not guilty, he did instruct the jury that White should have called for help

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

In Utah, as in the rest of the country, courts and public opinion held women responsible for putting themselves in potentially dangerous situations, further undermining their desire and ability to report sexual assault. Single women who spent time alone with men or went to secluded places with them were typically seen as wanting sex.50 On July 22, 1944, Dr. U. R. Byner was driving near the University of Utah when two teenage girls from Tahoe City, California, flagged him down, screaming that five young men had raped them both. The girls had been hitchhiking when the group of boys picked them up. According to the girls, the boys then drove up Mill Creek Canyon, near Salt Lake City, and threatened them with a knife. The doctor and a Forest Service man were able to find the boys, detaining them until the police arrived.51

Because of the limited information available, we do not know why Harrington, the judge in the first case, found the victim’s story so unconvincing. It is possible that her chastity came into question. Both legal authorities and contemporary observers considered a woman’s chastity in relation to the question of consent and the believability of her testimony.46 McDonough also glossed over the third case, and even though the girl reported the alleged assault and Stockfish admitted to “having unlawful sexual relations” with her, no case ever came before the court in regard to this charge. Perhaps the judge felt that the three-year sentence was sufficient punishment for Stockfish’s interactions with Veda White and the unnamed girl. The court interviewed White and decided that she had consented, again based on its belief that she was of “sub-normal intelligence.” By today’s standards, Stockfish would be guilty of rape because of White’s diminished capacity, but in 1937, the judge and county attorney ruled the opposite: that her below-average intelligence implied consent rather than a lack of consent. American courts had an ambiguous history with rape cases involving “mentally incompetent women,” and no legal consensus existed regarding consent in these cases.47 It is also likely that, because of the sexual double standard, the judge expected women to set the limit on sexual activity and linked White’s inability to do so to her “sub-normal intelligence.” Finally, eugenicist thinking still held

sway in the late 1930s and almost certainly affected McDonough. As the historian Johann Schoen has noted, eugenicists described “the feeble-minded’s inability to control their primitive instincts . . . [and] maintained that individuals who engaged in sex outside of marriage lack the self-discipline to control their sexual urges.”48 Meanwhile, Stockfish could assault three women and only face six to eight months prison time and his behavior was explained with a discussion of his drinking, unemployment, and upbringing.49

U H Q

withdrawal of the charges and seemed unsympathetic to the possible cause for her change of heart. He also failed to mention that this case made it to a preliminary hearing. After reviewing the evidence a different judge, Daniel Harrington, decided that Stockfish was not guilty and then assigned the cost of the court action to the complaining witness.44 Judges were inclined to believe that women’s rape accusations were false. John Henry Wigmore, a noted legal scholar, wrote numerous treatises throughout the 1930s and 1940s urging judges to have complaining witnesses in rape cases psychologically examined before trial. He argued that women were likely to make false accusations in order to get attention and that these accusations stemmed from, as he cited, “fantasies of being raped . . . [which] are exceedingly common in women, indeed they are probably universal.”45

231

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

232

when she realized that one of the defendants, Cardinal Fernandeezess, intended to have sex with her. The judge told the jury, “In determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant . . . you should consider failure to make such outcry at the time of the said alleged assault.” As the defense and the judge saw it, the two teenage girls willingly got into a car with five teenage boys, they did not cry out for help (although it seems unlikely anyone would have heard them considering their location), and they did not do their utmost to resist. Therefore they consented to sex.53 Resistance was a key component in rape cases. During this time, rape laws in the United States supported the premise that “no women can be raped against her will” and presumed that the victim was making a false accusation.54 Military law was especially blunt: “It has been said of this offense that it is an accusation easy to be made, hard to be proved, but harder to be defended by the party accused, though innocent.’”55 Rape laws also required women to resist and men to overcome that resistance with force. If the police and, later, courts found that a woman did not show the proper level of resistance they determined that she had consented. The military law read: Mere verbal protestations and a pretense of resistance are not sufficient to show want of consent, and where a woman fails to take such measures to frustrate the execution of a man’s design as she is able to, and are called

for by the circumstances, the inference may be drawn that she did in fact consent.56 Civilian law also called for resistance on the part of women. Utah’s law was simpler, stating, “Rape is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a female, not the wife of the perpetrator, under the following circumstances; where she resists, but her resistance is overcome by force of violence.”57 None of this was unique to the laws of Utah or the military. Throughout the United States, qualification of an assault as rape required, among other things, “evidence that the victim physically resisted the offender.”58 The problem is that resistance is very subjective; this inherently left in doubt how much force was necessary for an assault to be considered rape. For example, a study of rape in Canada at the turn of the twentieth century showed that the press only portrayed victims sympathetically when they died during an attack. Arguably, the only victims who showed enough resistance were those who died defending their “virtue.”59 Nationally syndicated cartoons such as The Wolf and Male Call reinforced the popular belief and legal premise that women were not only capable of resisting but that resistance was easy. Several cartoons depicted women fighting off men. Milton Caniff, the cartoonist of Male Call, drew a Women’s Army Corps member beating up two “zoot suits” with her handbag (fig. 1).60 In The Wolf, cartoonist Leonard San-

Figure 1. “Auxiliary Power,” an installment in the Male Call comic strip by famous cartoonist Milton Caniff. The main character of Male Call was the attractive Miss Lace. —

H ill f i e l de r, Ju l y 7, 1 94 3

be reluctant witnesses, possibly because they blamed themselves—or knew that they would be blamed. The results of the trial are not surprising: the jury acquitted all four defendants.63

H ill f i e l de r, Fe b r u a ry 22, 1 94 5

sone depicted a woman easily flipping the Wolf on his head using only one arm (fig. 2).61 These images—which were printed in the Hill Air Force Base newspaper—implied that if women were not willing partners, they were more than capable of taking care of themselves. Cartoons such as this reinforced men’s belief that women could resist if they really wanted to and helped shift the blame from rapist to victim. Women received this message as well and might have felt responsible for their own victimization. Using this logic, the girls in the Cardinal Fernandeezess case should have overpowered the men even though they were outnumbered and the men were armed. Such images contributed to a cultural discourse that situated the blame with the victims. Just so, the jury instructions gave the impression that the two girls willingly had sex with the boys, even though the case included many of the “aggravating circumstances” attributed to “real rape” or, in other words, cases more likely to garner guilty verdicts.62 The victims’ “contributing behavior,” hitchhiking, outweighed the aggravating circumstances. Additionally, the girls appeared to

In this particular case, the “prosecutrix” and a friend were walking down the street when a man approached them and persuaded them to go for a ride with him and two other men. After driving around downtown for a while, they eventually took the girls to a secluded area near Sandy, Utah. Both of the young women—Hagberg, seventeen, and her friend, twenty-one— were deaf and mute and communicated to the men through notes. After parking, Smith, the man who had approached them on the street, and Hagberg’s friend got out of the car, leaving Hagberg alone with George Scott Miller and Dale Ellis Molyneux in Miller’s car. Miller slept while Molyneux and Hagberg “made love” and Molyneux tried to persuade her to have sex with him. Eventually Miller woke up and placed Hagberg in the back seat. Molyneux then held her hands while Miller raped her and Miller returned the favor for Molyneux. After both men were through, Smith returned to the car and had sex with her as well. The men drove the women back downtown and left them on the street where the women summoned help.65 The state charged Miller and Molyneux with rape but not Smith. During the trial, the defense argued that the level of Hagberg’s resistance was not sufficient and equaled consent, even though two men overpowered her. The jury

N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

Figure 2. A single-panel cartoon from The Wolf, a syndicated comic by Leonard Sansone. The leggy young woman in this cartoon effortlessly fends off “the Wolf,” suggesting that women could deflect advances if they wanted to. —

You are instructed that if you believe, from all of the circumstances as shown by the evidence, that although the prosecutrix, Juanita Hagberg, was first laid hold of by force and violence but that she did not afterward resist because, in some degree, she voluntarily consented to what was then done to her, defendant so having sexual relations with her cannot be guilty of rape.64

A woman’s resistance also had to be maintained throughout the attack; if she resisted at first but then gave up, legally she had consented. In another case also involving multiple defendants, the judge offered the jury the following instruction:

233

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

234

must not have agreed with the defense: they found both men guilty. The jury did, however, recommend leniency. The recommendation of leniency for both defendants is perhaps a bit surprising, considering the victim’s disability and the fact that both men admitted to having sex with her and holding her down for each other. Further, Miller admitted he had previously been “mixed up with the same thing,” meaning he had been involved in a sex case before and also had stolen a car.66 The court sentenced both men to be “confined and imprisoned in the Utah State Prison for a term of not less than ten (10) years.”67 Ten years seems fairly lenient when compared to another case, that of the State of Utah v. Jack Dirks. Dirks received a twenty-year sentence for attempted rape in 1945. The difference in the severity of the two sentences lies in the race of the men: Miller and Molyneux were white and Dirks was black. The harshest sentences for rape were reserved for black men whose victims were white (and usually middle class).68 The difference in the length of sentences also demonstrates how lenient the ten-year sentence was for a rape conviction.69 Timing could also work against the victim, particularly through a consideration known as the fresh complaint rule. In the State of Utah v. Wayne Phillip Bess, the judge gave the jury this instruction: “The Jury are instructed that, if they believe from the evidence that the prosecuting witness failed to make prompt disclosure of the alleged crime this is a circumstance against her, and tends to disprove the truth of her charge.”70 The prosecution tried to counteract this direction with one of its own, asking the jury to remember the victim’s age and mental condition when considering her delay in reporting: she was fifteen, and Wayne Bess, the defendant, was twenty.71 In the end, the untimeliness of the girl’s disclosure outweighed her young age, and the jury found Bess not guilty.72 This part of rape law was not peculiar to Utah. The “fresh complaint rule” sprang from a distrust of women and the notion that a woman who had once willingly engaged in sexual relations might call foul when she became pregnant or the relationship deteriorated.73 As the scholar Susan Estrich argues, by “adopting and enforcing the most insulting stereotypes of women victims of simple rapes, they have enshrined distrust of women in law . . . and

ensured that rape trials would indeed be real nightmares for the women victims.”74 Even when the court found men guilty of rape, it did not always sentence them to prison time. For some the military became a way out of a prison term, even before the United States entered the war, but especially during the war as the need for servicemen increased rapidly.75 According to the Rich County News, the Selective Service regulations barred men from service who had been convicted of “certain heinous crimes,” including “treason, murder, rape, kidnapping, arson, sodomy, pandering, any crime involving sex perversion, or any crime involving illegal dealing in narcotics or other habit-forming drugs.”76 However, the Third District Court sometimes suspended sentences for the crime of rape so that the defendant could enlist. On November 14, 1942, Clara Harmon filed a rape complaint against George Rex Barney. In early January 1943, Barney was found guilty and sentenced to the Utah State Prison for a term of not less than one year and not more than ten. The court then ordered that the “execution of said sentence is suspended upon condition that the defendant enter the armed forces . . . and for such a time as the defendant is in said armed forces.”77 Even though the military said that it would not accept convicted rapists, courts sometimes gave them the option of enlisting. The judges in these cases may have actually thought these men’s sexual aggressiveness would have made them better soldiers, an idea reinforced in popular culture. As one U.S. naval captain said, “Armies and Navies use men . . . of the very essence of masculinity . . . [they] are sexually aggressive . . . they must be if they are going to be good soldiers and sailors.”78 In the end, military service did not offer Barney a way out of prison. On February 20, 1943, the court remanded him to the state prison.79 Cases like Barney’s did not go unnoticed. The Salt Lake Telegram published an editorial about this case and drew comparisons to another rape that occurred in downtown Salt Lake City involving a soldier, Francis Line. The court initially charged Line with the rape of a fourteenyear-old girl, but the charge was later changed to unlawful carnal knowledge. According to the Telegram, Elsie LaRue Perkins told her mother

As these cases show, studying sexual violence can be complicated, especially because rape law itself has changed so much. Rape statistics at any point in history can be misleading. The increase in rape cases during the war years could reflect an increase in women willing to report and not in actual rapes. In reality, a combination of the two factors likely took place: more rapes occurred and more women were willing to report them. However, a larger percentage of the increase reflected the number of rapes and not women feeling empowered to report their attack. As the cases discussed here show, the court system was still quite hostile to female rape victims, and many cases included women who only reluctantly reported or refused to cooperate with police. While the upheaval of the war years contributed to the increase in the number of rape cases reported, the manner in which the criminal justice system handled the

N O . I 8 5 I

Web Extra

V O L .

cases also factored into it. By allowing individuals to swap a prison sentence for military service, the courts just relocated rapists to a new town where they could offend again. And by showing more compassion to rapists than to their victims the courts compounded victims’ trauma and privileged men over women.

Timing could also work against the victim.

U H Q

that Line had offered her some candy and then dragged her into a vacant lot and raped her. Her mother reported the crime to police, and they tracked him down on the air base. Line had already confessed the crime to a chaplain and was being held in the guardhouse. According to the article, Line told police that he wanted to marry the girl. Line eventually pled guilty to unlawful carnal knowledge, which is where the court record ends. However, the Salt Lake Telegram offered more information. The judge gave Line a one-to-five year sentence but then suspended the sentence on the condition that the army take him back. The army transferred Line to Tucson, Arizona, but, as the editorial put it, “the suspended sentence and the change of scenery didn’t change Line’s character.”80 Less than three months later he was sentenced to death after raping a girl there. The editor expressed concern with the “present alarming increase in sex crimes,” and stated that the judges of the Third District Court should have learned their lesson from the Line case, arguing that, “obviously . . . suspending a sentence isn’t the answer; and certainly such a penalty will be no deterrent to other rapists in the city . . . we need far more drastic action against proven sex criminals than has been evidenced to date in the sentences handed down by our courts.”81 Not everyone agreed with the Salt Lake Telegram; clearly, the judges in these two cases felt the need for soldiers outweighed other considerations.

235

Visit history.utah.gov/uhqextras to view a primary source related to the Jim Stockfish case.

Notes 1 The number of rape offenses known to the police in 373 cities with over 25,000 inhabitants, and a total population 50,616,919, increased approximately 45 percent from 1939 to 1946 (with a fairly steady increase each year). Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports for the United States and Its Possessions (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), 7, no. 1 (1936), 16, no. 2 (1945), and 17, no. 2 (1946). 2 Allan Kent Powell, “Utah and World War II,” Utah Historical Quarterly 73, no. 3 (Spring 2005): 108–31. 3 Ibid. 112; Gerald D. Nash, The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 24. Nash also notes that, “In addition to more than 60,000 military personnel stationed in Utah in wartime, the bases employed another 60,000 persons. 4 Thomas G. Alexander, “Utah War Industry during World War II: A Human Impact Analysis,” Utah Historical Quarterly 51, no. 1 (Winter 1983): 81.

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

236

5 “Crimes Increase,” San Juan Record, September 13, 1945, 5. The San Juan Record was first published in Monticello, Utah, and changed owners several times and moved back and forth between Monticello and Moab, Utah. 6 “Crime Increases,” Park Record (Park City, UT), December 6, 1945, 4. 7 “Crime Wave Sweeps Nation,” San Juan Record, December 20, 1945, 1. 8 This was not unique to Utah; the Seattle Times, for instance, also ran articles quoting Hoover discussing crime rates. 9 “Ute Indian Will Go on Trial for Life in Statutory Charge,” Vernal (UT) Express, June 12, 1941, 4. This is based on a sample of weekly newspapers in Utah for the war years. 10 “City Prisoner Gets Drunk on Duty,” Transcript Bulletin (Tooele, UT), September 15, 1942, 1. 11 “Tooele Has First Attempted Murder In Gambling Row,” Transcript Bulletin (Tooele, UT), September 25, 1942, 1. 12 It is unclear how many women were involved: The newspapers named two women but alluded to others, and although the attacks were similar in their brutality, there were two different attackers. It appears that both men were charged with either assault with attempt to commit rape or attempted rape. While the Tooele Transcript Bulletin discussed Brito’s ethnicity and citizenship, it did not offer similar information on Louis C. Renburg, the other man convicted. The newspaper instead focused on Renburg’s criminal record, which means he was likely white. 13 “Fiend Attacks Local Woman Tuesday Night,” November 12, 1943, 1; “Officers Appear Near Solution on Mrs. Parson Attack,” November 16, 1943, 1; “Former Convict Charged With Woman Attack,” November 23, 1943, 1; “Hearing Set in Assault Case of Mrs. Mary Parsons,” December 17, 1943, 1; “Officers Get Confession from Fiendish Criminal,” December 28, 1943, 1; “Attacker Makes His Escape From Police,” January 3, 1944, 1; “Recent Attacking Bring Comment From Servicemen,” January 28, 1944, 1; and “Renburg Is Convicted of Brutal Assault,” February 15, 1944, 1; all in Transcript Bulletin (Tooele, UT). 14 “Officers Get Confession from Fiendish Criminal,” Transcript Bulletin (Tooele, UT), December 28, 1943, 1. 15 Beth Bailey, Sex in the Heartland (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 6. 16 Ibid. 17 “County Called Upon to Handle Prisoner Overflow,” Transcript Bulletin (Tooele, UT), August 11, 1942, 1. 18 “Sheriff Vows the Arrest of Owners Leaving Key in Car,” Transcript Bulletin (Tooele, UT), August 18, 1942, 1. 19 Leisa Meyer, Creating G.I. Jane: Sexuality and Power in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 104. Beth Bailey also found this to be true in her study of Lawrence, Kansas. 20 “Women Are Arrested for Drunkenness,” Transcript Bulletin (Tooele, UT), February 22, 1944, 1. 21 “City Police Start Clean-up of Doubtful Women,” Transcript Bulletin (Tooele, UT), December 3, 1943, 1. 22 Alexander, “Utah War Industry during World War II,” 81. Alexander states that these generalizations are based on his experiences growing up in Ogden, Utah, during WWII. 23 “Recent Attacking Bring Comment from Servicemen,”

January 28, 1944, 1. 24 The district courts handle both civil and criminal cases, and the Third District Court has jurisdiction over Tooele, Salt Lake, and Summit counties. I looked at court cases from 1936 to 1945 to learn how things changed from the prewar period to wartime. 25 The thirty-two cases of indecent assault include one case that fit this definition but wherein the defendant was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. 26 This number might be inflated because it includes one case with five defendants, all of whom were found not guilty; the percentage drops to seventy-eight when this case is excluded. 27 State of Utah v. Burton Charles Virgo, Case No. 11659 (1941), Third District Court, Criminal Case Files, Series 1471, Utah State Archives and Records Service, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter USARS). 28 State of Utah v. Marieno Gonzalas, Case No. 11652 (1941), Third District Court, Criminal Case Files, Series 1471, USARS. 29 Carol Sisco, “Panel Supports Outlawing Marital Rape,” Salt Lake Tribune, February 16, 1991, A4. 30 “Statistics,” Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, September 9, 2005, accessed March 21, 2017, rainn.org/ statistics. 31 The feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s led to changes in the handling of rape cases and a decrease in victim blaming. As a result of these changes, which included the creation of rape crisis centers, the number of women willing to report rape has increased. 32 Susan Estrich, Real Rape (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 4–5. 33 Lawrence M. Friedman, American Law in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 248. 34 Ibid., 248–49. Friedman offers some chilling statistics regarding rape prosecutions: “In 1969 there were 2,415 complaints of rape in New York, 1,085 arrests—and eighteen convictions.” 35 Ethan Bronner, “Adultery, an Ancient Crime That Remains on Many Books,” New York Times, November 15, 2012, 12. Bronner notes that these laws remain on the books because no politicians are willing to go on record as being in support of adultery. 36 Mel Lipman, “Government Involvement in Adultery: An Unnecessary Threesome,” Humanist (November/ December, 2004): 12–13. 37 State of Utah v. Jim Stockfish, Case No. 10575 (1937), Third District Court, Criminal Case Files, Series 1471, USARS. The Stockfish and White episode was the only case I encountered in my research where the person charged with adultery (Stockfish) was single, while the married party (White) was not charged. 38 Ibid. 39 Michael Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (New York: Free Press, 1996), 201. 40 Kimmel, Manhood in America, 203. 41 Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1988), 74. Wylie wrote that “the women of America raped the men, not sexually, unfortunately, but morally, since neuters come hard by morals.” Thus, any problems men, or even the country, faced were laid at women’s feet. According to Peggy Sanday, by the 1950s, “male sexual aggression was considered a natural reaction to momism as men took out their hostility toward allegedly suffocating mothers on the women in their lives.” Philip

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

64 Utah v. Miller and Molyneux, Instruction No. 10. Susan Brownmiller explained that prosecutrix comes from a “time in English history when a female had the burden of instituting a civil suit in order for a rape trial to take place.” By the time of Brownmiller’s writing, in the 1970s, it was “the state, not the woman, that prosecutes for rape, yet ‘prosecutrix’ continues to appear with regularity in appellate briefs that are written by rapists’ defense attorneys, where it is used interchangeably with ‘complainant’ and ‘alleged victim.’ Much of the legal language is archaic, but in this instance it is hard not to conclude that the word is favored for the harsh, vindictive quality of personal prosecution that is plainly connotes.” Brownmiller, Against Our Will, 27. 65 Utah v. Miller and Molyneux. 66 Id. 67 Id. 68 Estrich, Real Rape, 107 n2. Estrich points out that “between 1930 and 1967 89 percent of the men executed for rape in the U.S. were black.” 69 Utah v. Miller and Molyneux; State of Utah v. Jack Dirks, Case No. 12484 (1945), Third District Court, Criminal Case Files, Series 1471, USARS. 70 State of Utah v. Wayne Phillip Bess, Defendant’s Request No. 4, Case No. 12014 (1943), Third District Court, Criminal Case Files, Series 1471, USARS. 71 Utah v. Bess, Instruction No. 6; United States Census, 1930; “Army Kidnappers Get One Year to Life Terms,” Salt Lake Telegram, May 22, 1943, 9; “Rites Slated Friday for Crash Victim,” Salt Lake Telegram, August 21, 1951, 20. 72 Utah v. Bess. 73 Estrich, Real Rape, 54. 74 Ibid., 56. 75 I could not find statistics on how frequently men were given the option to get out of a prison term through military service. This option might not have always left physical records, so it is impossible to know. A few cases occurred in Utah, but it must have also happened in other states. The practice did not go unnoticed, as it appeared in publications as disparate as a Salt Lake Telegram editorial and Chester Himes’s If He Hollers Let Him Go (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1945). 76 “Regulations Revised for Selective Service,” Rich County News, May 30, 1941, 1. 77 State of Utah v. George Rex Barney, Case No. 11902 (1942), Third District Court, Criminal Case Files, Series 1471, USARS. 78 Joel T. Boone, “The Sexual Aspects of Military Personnel,” Journal of Social Hygiene, No. 3 (1941): 114, 117; see also Elizabeth Clement, Love For Sale: Courting, Treating, and Prostitution in New York City, 1900–1945 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 153. 79 The record does not mention why Barney did not join the military. 80 “No Answer to Sex Crime,” Salt Lake Telegram, January 6, 1943, 6. 81 Ibid.

U H Q

Wylie, Generation of Vipers (New York: Rinehart, 1942), 200; Peggy Reeves Sanday, A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 150. 42 Utah v. Stockfish. 43 Beth Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1989), 114; Kimmel, Manhood in America, 192. 44 “Defendant Freed of Attack Charge,” Salt Lake Telegram, December 10, 1936, 8. 45 Sanday, A Woman Scorned, 136. 46 Estrich, Real Rape, 47. 47 Sanday, A Woman Scorned, 102. 48 Johanna Schoen, Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 93–94. 49 Utah v. Stockfish. 50 Bailey, Front Porch to Backseat, 91. While Bailey’s focus is on white women, her findings would apply to nonwhite women as well, because they were often portrayed as sexually promiscuous. 51 “Complaint Charged 5 in Morals Case,” Salt Lake Telegram, July 28, 1944, 12; “Five Youths Face Morals Charge,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 28, 1944, 14; “Jury Acquits Four on Morals Charge,” Salt Lake Tribune, October 21, 1944, 21. 52 It is unclear if O’Brien and White tried to leave in order to avoid testifying or if they were simply trying to return home. 53 “Complaint Charged 5 in Morals Case,” July 28, 1944, 12; “Five Youths Face Morals Charge,” July 28, 1944, 14; “Jury Acquits Four on Morals Charge,” Salt Lake Tribune, October 21, 1944, 21; State of Utah v. Cardinal Fernandeezess, ital, Case No. 12294 (1944), Third District Court, Criminal Case Files, Series 1471, USARS. 54 Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975), 312. 55 A Manual for Courts-Martial U.S. Army 1928 (Corrected to April 20, 1943) (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1943), 165. 56 Ibid. 57 State of Utah v. George Scott Miller and Dale Molyneux, Case No. 26901 (1945), Third District Court, Criminal Case Files, Series 1471, USARS. 58 Jennifer McMahon, “A Comprehensive Examination of the State-to-State Changes in Rape Laws in the United States” (Ph.D. diss., University of Georgia, 2009), 1. McMahon writes that “the crime of rape was limited to female, non-spousal victims of rape committed by a male, and the essential elements of the crime included penile-vaginal penetration, force, and the non-consent of the victim.” 59 Karen Dubinsky, Improper Advances: Rape and Heterosexual Conflict in Ontario, 1880–1929 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). 60 Milton Caniff, “Auxiliary Power,” Male Call, Hillfielder (Ogden, UT), July 7, 1943, 4. 61 Leonard Sansone, The Wolf, Hillfielder (Ogden, UT), February 22, 1945, 5. 62 Estrich, Real Rape, 5. 63 Utah v. Fernandeezess, ital. The fifth defendant, Ferrel D. Lawrence, was listed as a defendant on the early court documents but not on the later documents, including the verdicts. He was only sixteen years old and was likely charged in juvenile court.

237

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

238

Silhouettes of unidentified individuals and a horse on a crest overlooking Cedar Breaks National Monument, 1935. The Breaks presented a dramatic landscape with towering cliffs and scenic views. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

USHS

DA L E

TO P H A M

3 N O . I U H Q

8 5

Creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument, 1916â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1934

V O L .

staking claims on the Markagunt Plateau:

On August 22, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a proclamation creating a national monument at Cedar Breaks, a spectacular fanshaped basin three miles wide and two thousand feet deep, featuring pink and orange limestone spires, located on southwestern Utahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Markagunt Plateau. The following July, residents of Iron County, joined by state and national dignitaries, gathered to celebrate and formally dedicate the monument. Approximately three thousand people attended the ceremonies, which included a barbecue, a variety of games, sports, and entertainment, and a formal program of speeches and musical numbers.1 The celebration masked nearly two decades of wrangling between the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, as well as between the towns of Parowan and Cedar City, over management and form of the proposed monument. The dispute between federal land management agencies was rooted in their legislated purposes. The 1897 Pettigrew Amendment to the Sundry Civil Appropriations Bill, more commonly referred to as the Forest Service Organic Act, became the basis for management of the forest reserves. Originally, it mandated the protection of the timber supply and regulation of the water supply. Subsequently, it was amended to emphasize use. The Forest Service would protect the rights of occupants of forest reserves (renamed national forests in 1907) by protecting and conserving grazing land, contribute to the well-being of the livestock industry, and, ultimately, protect the interests of local settlers against those of outside competition.2 In contrast to the Forest Service Organic Act, which promoted multiple uses of forest land, including those by extractive industries, the 1916 act establishing the National Park

239

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

Service (NPS) dictated a single purpose for the new agency: “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”3 While the Forest Service belonged to the Department of Agriculture, Congress housed the Park Service in the Department of the Interior.

240

The historian Hal Rothman has argued that the terms of the conflict between the two federal agencies heavily favored the Park Service. NPS officials chose which parcels of land to fight over, defined the aesthetic value of those parcels, and, ultimately, “orchestrated the conflict that occurred.” However, because only Congress had the authority to create national parks, NPS officials were careful to consider local interests and to choose truly exceptional sites as possible parks so as not to generate hostile opposition.4 Even then, bills proposing particular national parks often languished for years in Congress. Happily for them, Park Service personnel found a way around congressional deadlock through the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gave the executive branch unilateral authority to reserve as national monuments public lands that the president of the United States believed contained significant historic, prehistoric, or natural features. Originally intended to preserve archaeological ruins, the act was subsequently used to withdraw a much wider variety of lands from the public domain.5 NPS officials facing strong opposition or interminable delays in Congress hoped that, applying the Antiquities Act, the president would create a national monument that could, at a later time, be enlarged and formed into a national park. Two national parks in Utah—Zion and Bryce Canyon—were created in just this fashion.6 Zion began as Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1909, proclaimed by William Howard Taft, and became a national park in 1919. In 1923 Calvin Coolidge designated Bryce Canyon National Monument; five years later it became a national park.7 Rothman, in a 1987 Utah Historical Quarterly article, examined the inter-agency conflict between the Park Service and Forest Service in the creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument. He argued that the terms of the dispute involv-

ing Cedar Breaks helped shape the NPS into its modern incarnation. A major step on this road was Executive Order 6166, which became effective on August 10, 1933, twelve days before Cedar Breaks became a national monument. This executive order “reorganized the entire federal bureaucracy and changed the balance of power in the NPS–USFS relationship,” according to Rothman, by transferring fifteen national monuments from Forest Service to Park Service control. Rothman concluded that “on its merits as a scenic or scientific site alone, Cedar Breaks might well have remained an undesignated part of the Dixie National Forest,” but as a pawn in the turf war between two federal agencies, Cedar Breaks became a crucial parcel of land. For Rothman, the outcome of the conflict serves as proof that the National Park Service came to dominate the rivalry. In contrast to Rothman’s study, this essay focuses not on the wrangling between two agencies of the federal government, but rather frames the creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument in terms of the moral complexity of state conservation, while putting local residents at center stage.8 Where Rothman’s study offers a top-down institutional perspective, this essay offers a bottom-up view that focuses on the actions of local citizens—residents of Utah’s Iron County—in the creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument. Early scholars of conservation history viewed the expansion of federal land management agencies into the West as a triumph. In their telling, scientists and other officials hired by the government to carry out conservation are heroes, while the local residents in the West are ignoramuses who destroy natural resources. A later generation of scholars examined state conservation and the later environmental movement much more critically. Concerned with the ways in which federal conservation laws and regulations affected local people, whose livelihoods or subsistence methods often centered on resource use, these scholars emphasized the darker side of preservation as embraced by the Park Service—one in which elite conservationists were, at best, deeply hostile toward rural people, whom they view as “obstacles to the exercise of state control necessary to implement conservation,” and, at worst, imperialistic and racist.9

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

241

Cedar Breaks National Monument, 1956, published in the Historical Handbook series produced by the National Park Service. The map shows the various stops tourists can take to enjoy views along the Cedar Breaks Rim. Parowan was 13 driving miles from the north rim. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

US HS

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

In contrast, the long road to the creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument illustrates that state conservation was more complex than these two generations of scholars suggest. Conservationists were neither heroes, as the historian Samuel Hays wishes us to believe, nor villains, as the historian Karl Jacoby suggests. Furthermore, state conservation was not always a monolithic force that steamrolled over powerless locals. Instead, conservation consisted of separate government agencies with competing visions that often fought each other more than they did local resource users. For their part, people in the West not only possessed power to influence the policies of large government bureaucracies, but also at times actively courted the extension of whichever state conservation agency best fit their needs or wishes. In Iron County, during the 1920s and 1930s, there were no violent uprisings over conservation measures, as happened in other regions. Instead, locals sought change (or to prevent change) through letters and petitions to members of their state’s congressional delegation

242

That Albright was thwarted in his ultimate goal and had to settle for a consolation prize [of a smaller monument] illustrates just how much power the locals and their allies possessed.

and to government agencies, as well as through meetings and mediation. And in the case cited below, those who fought against the creation of a national park or national monument at Cedar Breaks—the “losers” in the conflict—did not resort to extra-legal means in an attempt to resolve the issues. Indeed, after the creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument and its transfer to the Park Service, members of the livestock industry, who had vociferously opposed the action, actively embraced and celebrated the monument. Had the plans of NPS director Horace Albright for a national park roughly six times the size of the eventual national monument become reality, and in so doing destroyed the livestock industry in just the way the graziers feared, they most likely would not have been so gracious in defeat. But that Albright was thwarted in his ultimate goal and had to settle for a consolation prize illustrates just how much power the locals and their allies possessed. Conservation was negotiation and compromise, not dictation. Iron County residents involved in the livestock and timber industries during the nineteenth century knew of Cedar Breaks, but its existence was not widely known until the beginning decades of the twentieth century, when its fame began to spread. In 1906, George W. Middleton, a physician and former mayor of Cedar City, relocated to Salt Lake City. He introduced state leaders and Salt Lake residents to the possibilities of a tourism industry in southern Utah focusing on the colorful canyon scenery. Middleton befriended University of Utah geology professor Frederick J. Pack, and the two of them arranged and led small-scale horseback expeditions to Cedar Breaks and Zion Canyon.10 During the same period, Middleton’s brother-in-law Menzies J. MacFarlane, a prominent Cedar City physician and member of the Commercial Club, also led expeditions to Cedar Breaks and advertised its scenic value.11 Meanwhile, Randall Jones, secretary of the Cedar City Commercial Club, toured the eastern United States, giving presentations on southern Utah’s spectacular scenery through a lantern slideshow. Other promoters soon joined in. In 1912, Reverend Frederick V. Fisher, a Methodist minister in Ogden, Utah, left his ministry and began traveling the country on the lecture circuit, showing people his photographs of California to interest them in the West’s sce-

In September 1916, tourism booster Frederick Fisher visited recently discovered Flanigan Arch near Cedar Breaks. Within weeks, the Park Service sent the topographical engineer William O. Tufts to investigate Cedar Breaks and determine if it deserved the status of a national monument. After visiting Mukuntuweap National Monument, whose centerpiece was Zion Canyon, nineteen air miles to the south, Tufts concluded not to endorse the monument. “At first sight this bridge seemed impressive, and to a certain extent it is,” he wrote to NPS officials; “but I find that there are natural wonders of so much more remarkable nature in Mukuntuweap, in the same part of Utah, that it would hardly be advisable to divide up the energies of the Department upon objects of second-rate importance.”14 In 1920, the Salt Lake Commercial Club began discussing the possibility of making their city attractive as a potential site for large business conventions. After seeing the presentations of Jones and Fisher, Commercial Club members traveled to Cedar City to experience the land-

At some time prior to December 3, 1920—most likely at the Denver convention—Mather had told Salt Lake Commercial Club members that there was a good possibility that a bill providing for exactly that could be passed during the upcoming session of Congress. (One USFS official speculated that the NPS favored combining Zion Park with Cedar Breaks because the former had “proven a failure owing to the excessive heat encountered in the area during tourist season.” Combining Zion Park with additional parcels and building a road to circumvent Zion Canyon, he thought, would resolve the problem.)16 Since becoming NPS director in 1916, Mather had wished to create a series of national parks in southern Utah linked via highway and railroad to the Grand Canyon and, thus, to the rest of the country. The key to the enlargement of Zion National Park, Mather said, was to assure Congress that high quality tourist accommodations would be built. The NPS director supported such efforts personally, taking $1,000 worth of stock in the hotel then under construction in Cedar City that the Commercial Club hoped would accommodate a large influx of visitors, and subscribing $250 toward improving the road stretching from Fredonia, Arizona, to Zion Canyon.17 The Board of Governors of the Salt Lake Commercial Club enthusiastically embraced Mather’s

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

Frederick Pack attended the American Geological Society meeting held in Boston late in 1919 to present a paper titled “The High Plateau Country in Southern Utah.” The presentation included such areas as Zion Canyon (part of the recently created Zion National Park), Bryce Canyon, and Cedar Breaks. After Pack’s return to Salt Lake City, Robert Sterling Yard of the National Parks Association asked Pack to prepare a report on the “scenic wonders of Cedar Breaks” and to send him photographs of the “Breaks” for a pamphlet that he planned to circulate nationally. Yard intended, he said, to push for the creation of another national park in Utah.13

scape for themselves. These Salt Lake City businessmen thought that, by encouraging and facilitating tourist traffic to the southern portion of the state, they would provide the capital city with an economic boost. To that end, the Commercial Club sent a delegation to the convention of the National Park-to-Park Highway Association, held in Denver that November, where NPS Director Stephen Mather was the keynote speaker, to request that the planned 5,599-mile roadway spanning twelve states and connecting all of the national parks in the West be rerouted to include Zion National Park, the newest member of the park system. They hoped to accomplish this, in part, through a presentation given there by Commercial Club member and scenic photographer J. E. Broaddus on the beauties of Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Cedar Breaks. Within several days of the close of the convention, the Commercial Club chose as one of its goals for the year 1921 the enlargement of Zion National Park so that it would take in Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks.15

U H Q

nic attractions. In 1915, he brought his lecture back to Utah and was surprised to learn from a University of Utah student that southern Utah had scenery that rivaled California’s. The following year, he journeyed to Zion Canyon and Cedar Breaks and was reportedly overcome with “pious awe” at the canyons and geological formations. From this visit, Fisher created a lantern-slide lecture titled “Utah, the Crown of the Continent” and once again took to the lecture circuit, this time promoting southern Utah instead of California.12

243

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

244

Tour bus at Cedar Breaks, 1920. —

US HS

suggestion, quickly appointing another delegation to make a return trip to Cedar City and investigate conditions at Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon, and Zion Park. The hotel being built by the Cedar City Commercial Club was to be their first stop.18 During the first half of 1921, the Salt Lake Commercial Club continued its campaign for a large national park that would include Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Cedar Breaks, only now they added the north rim of the Grand Canyon to their proposal. They pushed for this through contact with members of Utah’s congressional delegation in Washington. Arno B. Cammerer, then acting NPS director, told Commercial Club members that a decision on the consolidation of these four areas had been deferred pending an investigation of each location then underway.19 In October Mather visited southwestern Utah along with famed writer and conservationist Emerson Hough, two naturalists, and officials from the Union Pacific Railroad. While

stopped in Cedar City, Mather told residents that Cedar Breaks should be made a national park and outlined which parcels he thought should constitute the park.20 Two months later, Mather called a meeting at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City to propose a transfer of 35,000 acres of the Sevier National Forest to the Park Service and the addition of Cedar Breaks to Zion National Park. Convention attendees resolved to replace the name “Zion” with one more suitable for the enlarged park. Governor Charles R. Mabey, “an early advocate of promoting the state’s tourist industry,” was to appoint a committee to determine the boundaries of the new addition, and another committee was tasked with coordinating the expansion effort with Utah’s congressional delegation. This plan, according to the Parowan Times, did not receive “a dissenting voice from any source.”21 Notwithstanding the newspaper’s claim, Mather’s proposal appears to have galvanized local opposition. Up to this point, newspapers

A week after the State Woolgrowers’ Association meeting, Parowan’s newspaper, which had previously supported advertising campaigns and road building in an effort to bring tourists—and their money—into the area, became a vocal defender of the livestock growers. The Parowan Times argued that livestock growers in the county were just pulling out of financial conditions that had “been almost disastrous” to many of them. And now, just when the outlook for them was improving, “their business is . . . threatened with complete annihilation by the conversion of their summer range to other uses.” The newspaper estimated that the number of livestock affected by the change ranged from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand, depending on which areas were included. The writer lamented, “That the park is coming

Applying the criteria established by the Secretary of the Interior for the transfer of Forest Service land to the Park Service—that it be unique, that its paramount use be recreation or enjoyment of landscape features, and that it form a “practical administrative unit” on its own—Gery asserted that Cedar Breaks was not

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

According to a USFS official, Cedar City residents had anticipated a much smaller park than the one Mather proposed to them during his October visit. Henry Lunt, an LDS church leader in Parowan, informed Acting Assistant District (later changed to “Regional”) Forester R. E. Gery that locals had been trying for years to get access to timber near the eastern edge of Cedar Breaks and “would not tolerate the timber area being included within a national park.” The only timbered land the townspeople expected to have as part of the park was a half-mile-wide strip of land adjoining the sheer drop-off that marked the beginning of the Breaks. Dr. Menzies J. McFarlane, president of the Cedar City Chamber of Commerce, expressed surprise at Mather’s proposal and added that he wanted the Forest Service to retain the land, given the “curtailment of individual privileges in the National Parks.” Lunt and McFarlane’s concern was a valid one for lumber interests, given the fact that timber harvesting was one type of resource usage that conservation agencies had clamped down on elsewhere.26 Gery estimated that the timber inside the proposed boundaries was worth $56,640 and that the park’s creation would block access to 101.3 million feet of timber worth $304,281. Taking this timber off the market, Gery believed, would be a great loss to the people living in the settlements at the base of the Markagunt Plateau and to local timber-related businesses such as sawmills and lumberyards. As for the livestock industry, 620 cattle and 13,500 sheep grazed within the area of the proposed park. Grazing permittees would lose at least $44,800 paid in permit fees, as well as an annual loss of between $5,200 and $6,585 for livestock feed withdrawn from use.27

Though Wilford Day, one of Parowan’s most prominent stockmen, did not initially object to Mather’s plan, in early 1922 he and two other prominent Parowan sheep raisers petitioned the Utah State Woolgrowers’ Association to help in blocking the creation of a national park at Cedar Breaks or, at the very least, in limiting the park’s size.23 Agreeing to help, attendees at the Woolgrowers’ Convention unanimously adopted a resolution “vigorously” opposing the creation of new national parks or the enlargement of those already in existence if doing so took land away from the national forests.24 Utah’s woolgrowers preferred Forest Service management of the lands, which they thought would preserve their grazing rights, over Park Service management, which they feared would eliminate those rights.

seems almost inevitable . . . to attempt to block it is, in the opinion of those who pretend to know, worse than useless.” Thus, Parowanites needed to “use every effort to minimize the area to be included in the proposed park, [and] to get whatever concessions are possible relative to grazing privileges.”25

U H Q

reported no hint of opposition to designate Cedar Breaks a national park or combine it with Zion National Park. But the day after the meeting, those residents of Iron County who engaged in stock raising or harvesting wood on the Sevier National Forest were up in arms over the proposal. They argued (before the exact boundaries of the parcel had been set) that the acreage to be withdrawn had between 18 million and 20 million board feet of timber that would be needed for future building in the region, and that 13,000 sheep and several hundred cattle were then grazing on the land. They feared the destruction of local industries and the loss of their livelihood if the proposed park became a reality.22

245

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

246

Photographer in Cedar Breaks National Monument, circa 1950s. Some locals and Park Service and Forest Service officials debated tourism or grazing and timber production as the highest economic value of the Breaks. —

US HS

unique (a bill then pending in Congress would have made Bryce Canyon a national park), that its paramount use was for timber and grazing, and that creating a satisfactory boundary line would be very difficult, given the rough terrain. As for Navajo Lake, part of the area proposed for inclusion in the park, it was “not a particularly attractive body of water,” Gery politely observed.28 Recognizing the boosterism of the Cedar City Commercial Club, and the admission of its secretary that the only economic value of the park to the city was the money it would bring in through advertising, Gery echoed the words in the Interior Secretary’s policy letter: “National Parks should not be created ‘as a result of the desire of some locality to secure Federal appropriations or to obtain the advertising advantages naturally inherent in the term National Park.’” Unable in 1921 to envision the mid-twentieth-century rapid growth of tour-

ism and its vital economic importance for the county, Gery predicted that, long-term, the lumber and livestock industries would be more important economically to the local townspeople than would tourists and their dollars. Gery recommended that, because of the areas’ “high forest values” and “low National Park values,” Director Mather’s proposal should be rejected. But he went even further, suggesting that even the small park envisioned by Cedar City residents not be created. If it were, he said, “every town in the western country will want like consideration and Parkitis will become chronic.”29 Gery’s opposition was echoed by District Forester Chester B. Morse. This opposition, combined with local agitation, squashed the proposal.30 Renewed controversy appeared on the horizon in 1929, shortly after Horace M. Albright succeeded Mather as NPS director. Albright, whom Hal Rothman characterizes as “perhaps

The Forest Service, hoping to improve its standing with locals, argued that under its management the Breaks and the surrounding land would be developed as a recreation area and tourist destination, and that paved roads would be rapidly extended throughout the area, offering easier access to a greater portion of the mountainous country. In the summer of 1930, Chief Forester Robert Stuart and Assistant Regional Forester Dana Parkinson examined existing recreational facilities in Dixie National Forest and evaluated possibilities for expanding these in the near future.34 Subsequently, the Forest Service made plans to erect a large campground on the land between the Breaks and Brian Head peak. Dixie Forest officials also allocated $7,500 of the $10,000 they were given for road improvements to the construction of a “first class” road around Cedar Breaks.35 In addition to pursuing campground and road-building plans, the Forest Service

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

In the meantime, Albright had begun pursuing the acquisition of Cedar Breaks in earnest. Largely on the basis of its scenic value, he wanted to add it to either Bryce Canyon or Zion National Parks, keeping it a separate geographic entity but treating the two parcels (Bryce and the Breaks, or Zion and the Breaks) as a single

In the autumn of 1930, hosted by long-time local booster Randall L. Jones, Albright and his wife Grace, in company with Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur, his wife Marguerite, and other NPS officials, toured southwestern Utah. Jones drove them through the fall foliage up Cedar Canyon to Cedar Breaks, whose grandeur far exceeded their expectations. Reportedly surprised that the Breaks was not part of the National Park system, Secretary Wilbur said it “was one of the finest things he has ever seen.”32 Later, Wilbur said the federal government was willing to add the Breaks to the national park system, as long as the locals wanted it that way.33

withdrew land, at first a narrow strip and then a larger parcel, around the rim of Cedar Breaks from grazing. Though the second withdrawal affected the sheep-grazing practices of three Parowan residents, as well as that of two “Coop” herds, the Forest Service happily invited the public to come enjoy the livestock-free land. To encourage greater use of the area, the Forest Service also “pull[ed] down many of its ‘don’t’ signs.” Ultimately, the plan was to offer “all the advantages of a national park,” but with fewer restrictions and no admittance fees.36

U H Q

even more aggressive and acquisitive” than Mather, actively sought to “fill out the park system” by transferring management of many of the national monuments to the Park Service. He did this by putting pressure on the Forest Service in several western states. Though Cedar Breaks was further down Albright’s list of priorities than many of the proposed expansion sites, the engineering office of the Forest Service began receiving inquiries about the status of the area, which the Park Service still listed as a “proposed National Park” despite years of inactivity. In turn, the engineering office sought a report from district headquarters in Ogden concerning the possibility of creating a national monument at the Breaks.31

247

The Forest Service, hoping to improve its standing with locals, argued that under its management the Breaks and the surrounding land would be developed as a recreation area and tourist destination.

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

248

administrative unit. His proposed park contained eighty-three square miles, more than two-thirds of which were national forest land. Its boundary line extended east of the Breaks to the west side of Hancock Peak. Oddly, this proposal did not include Brian Head, a prominent mountain (elevation 11,307 feet) about a mile to the north, from the top of which one could see into Nevada and Arizona. Albright’s plan differed greatly from the one espoused by Cedar City residents. They anticipated a much smaller park, but one that included Brian Head, which would anchor the park on the north. Cedar Breaks would anchor the park on the south, and a mile-wide strip of meadowland would connect the two anchors. Though they had for years supported the creation of a park, initially of mammoth proportions, townspeople were unnerved to learn of Albright’s scheme. Their plan, they claimed, had been to obtain a small park that affected the grazing rights of only Parowan’s sheep growers. Now, however, Albright was proposing a plan that would also withdraw from use a considerable portion of the range used by Cedar City ranchers.37 Longtime park promoter Randall Jones, now a publicity agent of the Union Pacific Railroad system for the southern Utah parks, conveyed the news of Albright’s plan to Iron County residents. He expressed excitement at the renewed prospects for establishing a national park, but, like most Cedar City residents, wanted a smaller one than Albright suggested. Recognizing, however, that the meadowland was prime sheep-grazing country and that primarily Parowan livestock owners would be affected, Jones thought Parowan residents ought to be the ones to offer Cedar City’s park plan as a counter-proposal to Albright.38 Responding to Jones, Warner Mitchell of the Parowan Times predicted that Parowanites would not be enthusiastic about the creation of a park at Cedar Breaks if the only thing it meant for them was the loss of grazing rights and privileges. Livestock owners depended on these rights for their very livelihood, he said. Nevertheless, Mitchell thought a national park would not necessarily inflict much damage on graziers. He saw the coming of a large-scale tourism industry to that corner of Utah as inevitable and thought Parowan should work to protect its interests. Because most tourists wishing to

access southern Utah’s national parks and the Grand Canyon traveled U.S. Highway 89 along the eastern edge of the Markagunt Plateau, Mitchell feared they would bypass Iron County altogether. Thus, he wrote, “It is obvious that something must be done if we are to hold on this side of the mountain a fair share of tourist travel to southern Utah’s wonderland.” The creation of a national park at Cedar Breaks, he thought, was the best way to accomplish that. He urged Parowan residents to aggressively pursue the park.39 As Mitchell predicted, stock growers rose up in opposition to the park proposal. Cattlemen of Cedar City who had grazing permits in Cedar Canyon feared that, once established, the park would be expanded to the point where it infringed on their grazing rights. They appointed Walter K. Granger, stockman and Cedar City mayor, to compose a resolution to that effect. For its part, the Iron County Wool Growers’ Association called for all the sheep raisers in the region to attend a meeting in the Parowan courthouse to discuss the matter. However, nearly all those in attendance at the meeting presided over by Association president Albert E. Adams were Parowanites. These woolgrowers unanimously resolved to “fight” Albright’s plan “to the last ditch.” A park occupying that much land, they feared, “would be fatal to our major industry and would no doubt put our bank and other commercial institutions out of business as well.”40 To the local livestock industry alone, the State Woolgrowers’ Association estimated the annual loss to the lamb and wool crop at $107,085, the value of the affected sheep at $165,000, and the cost of lost grazing privileges at $49,000.41 While the cattle growers of Cedar City and the sheep growers of Parowan were organizing for a fight with the National Park Service, the Cedar City Chamber of Commerce issued a request to the Forest Service that it join with the Park Service in re-examining Cedar Breaks and the surrounding area and work together to determine what portion should be included in a park.42 Subsequently, two Forest Service officials, an NPS official, and two members of the Cedar City Chamber of Commerce’s National Park Committee spent two days hiking around Cedar Breaks and to the top of Brian Head peak together. They were to come up with a new

Representing the Forest Service, Dana Parkinson asked Allen why Park Service officers wanted the land. Allen explained that they wanted Cedar Breaks to “round out” national park holdings in southern Utah and northern Arizona. This, he said, included gaining control over the lodge at Cedar Breaks and those running it, as well as control of the roads and the bus service to the Breaks. In response, Parkinson said that he saw “no end to the Park Service’s rounding-out program” given the enlarged boundaries of Bryce, Zion, and Grand Canyon National Parks. Allen acknowledged that the Park Service

When attendees asked Mitchell for Parowan’s attitude toward the various proposals, he said that the town “as a unit” was opposed to a park of any size at Cedar Breaks. If the Park Service could guarantee that the creation of a park would not ruin Parowan’s livestock industry, the townspeople probably would not oppose it, but he knew such assurance was not possible. To “destroy” the livestock industry, he said, would mean disaster for the community. Allen then asked Mitchell why Parowan “had gone so far in opposing a park without ever trying to learn the Park Service’s attitude—without getting both sides of the question.” Mayor Granger interjected, explaining that, to Parowan, there was only one side to the issue. Practically the town’s “very existence,” he said, was at stake. He did not blame its residents for their stand.48

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

Responding both to Allen’s national monument idea and the Cedar Chamber of Commerce’s goals, Parkinson and Forest Supervisor James E. Gurr argued in favor of Forest Service management of the national monument and strongly objected to the transfer of major roadways within the proposal that the Forest Service had either constructed or improved at a cost of nearly half a million dollars. They also suggested that since regular bus service at the railroad terminal in Cedar City already served Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, and Cedar Breaks, the creation of a fourth national park would probably not bring additional business to Cedar City, as its business leaders hoped.47

At the conclusion of the field investigation, the participants met with members of the Cedar City Chamber of Commerce to discuss their findings. A large group of men attended the meeting, including the mayor of Cedar City and State Representative John S. Woodbury. At the outset of the meeting, according to Mitchell who was in attendance, two things were clear: first, the Forest Service and the Park Service had not come to an accord on the matter, and, second, no one in attendance wanted a large park. Zion National Park Superintendent Thomas J. Allen assured the audience that the Park Service did not really want the larger park as shown in the map that Albright had sent, and he was prepared to recommend the much -reduced acreage for the park.44 This is an odd statement on the part of Allen, given the fact that Albright continued to maintain an interest in the eighty-three square-mile-parcel, as subsequent events showed. It appears that NPS officials on the scene held views that differed from Albright’s. Perhaps they were more interested in compromise than was their boss.

was actively pursuing additions to Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks, which the people of Wyoming and Arizona were vigorously opposing, but said it would not pursue a similar course in Utah. In fact, because Bryce Canyon, which had become a national park in 1928, was so similar to Cedar Breaks, and because the Breaks was small in comparison, Allen said the Park Service now favored national monument status. He also promised that if the monument were established, the Park Service would not seek to add to its acreage unless the locals wanted it and a Utah congressman or senator introduced a bill to that effect.45 Several Cedar City residents then offered their views. Those whose opinions were recorded spoke in favor of making the Breaks a national park rather than a national monument.46

U H Q

park proposal, but use as their starting point the original Cedar City plan. The chairman of Cedar’s National Park Committee argued for the inclusion of Brian Head, which had been part of Cedar City’s plan. Interestingly, the NPS representative suggested a smaller park. Brian Head, he said, “stuck out like a sore thumb from the rest of the area.” The others agreed to eliminate that from the proposal and then sketched out a map of their proposed park—one far smaller than that envisioned by Albright. The smaller area they settled on supported only 540 sheep and 50 cattle; only five allotments and twenty-six permittees would be affected by the exclusion of these from the park.43

249

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

250 Union Pacific Railroad Station in Cedar City, 1926. The new station served as transportation hub for tourists traveling to Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, and Cedar Breaks. —

US HS

Learning of the meeting in Cedar City, Parowan residents asked for a similar meeting, which was held with the Parowan Chamber of Commerce, thirty-five men attending. As might be expected, Parowan provided these men with a rather different audience. Whereas several men in Cedar City, including former Forest Service employee William Mace, pushed strongly for national park status even after Allen had proposed a national monument designation, those in attendance in Parowan—with a few exceptions—voiced opposition to the creation of a national park. The body voted in opposition to it.49 Commenting on the vote—and failing to account for the few, including his uncle Walter C. Mitchell, who favored the park but apparently dared not vote against the overwhelming majority—Warner Mitchell observed, “Parowan is

probably unique in one particular. There isn’t another city in the world that would unitedly oppose the government’s locating a National Park in their immediate vicinity, we’ll venture.” Displeased with Parowan’s stand against the park, the editor of the Iron County Record, Cedar City’s newspaper, offered a retort. The sheep industry, he said, had been promoted and supported to the exclusion of all other industries. Consequently, Iron County’s economic well-being rose and fell with the price of wool and mutton. Believing it potentially fatal to base an entire economy on one industry, he urged people to work toward diversifying the economy. Although he only recommended poultry-raising and farming as alternatives, he argued that, in regions where such “diversification” occurred, people did not talk so much about the Great Depression as they did in Iron County. The editor also expressed con-

Through much of the year 1932, regional and local-level Forest Service and Park Service officials debated and re-evaluated which parcels should be included in the planned park at Cedar Breaks. In October, the Park Service asked the Forest Service to conduct yet another joint field investigation. Rather than quibble over which small parcels should or should not be included, as the lower-level government officials had been doing, this team was to examine the eighty-three square miles that Albright still wanted as a national park.52 However, with the local support for it all but gone, and local NPS officers more inclined toward national monument status, his proposal seemed less likely to be adopted. Regional Forester Richard Rutledge advocated keeping Cedar Breaks National Monument under Forest Service administration and advised Stuart that “there is no agitation by the local people for a change” in land management agencies.53 When Stuart received the report from Rutledge, he asked him, “Should we make a National Monument of the Breaks?” In reply, Rutledge argued that the Forest Service could preserve or create any recreational opportunities that people might want. Therefore, he concluded, “I see no need for changing the status of an area to accomplish

Two months after this exchange, NPS and USFS officials hammered out several proposals. As Stuart understood it, the Park Service wanted Cedar Breaks because it was “the primary phase of the geological sequence of the region, of which Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, [and the] Grand Canyon are later phases.” Thus, it was necessary to “round out the cycle of geological action; to complete the picture being presented to the public through the program of the National Park Service.” Furthermore, given the Park Service’s claim that its sole interest was in the geology of Cedar Breaks, it would not in the future try to add a larger section of land to the agreed upon monument, neither would it attempt to control outlying recreational areas or main highways and railroad routes in the vicinity. Lastly, the Park Service promised not to obstruct the locals’ use of timber or other natural resources on surrounding national forests. What Stuart did not realize, however, was that Albright wanted, at some point in the future, to obtain national park status for Cedar Breaks.57 Nevertheless, given the assurances of the Park

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

Albright, undeterred, told Stuart that the Breaks’ geological features were the area’s “dominant value” and that it also had educational and “inspirational” potential “of a high order.” On these grounds, he recommended national park status. Stuart responded by repeating several of the usual arguments against placing the Breaks within a national park. He then suggested that the best course of action would be for the president of the United States to declare Cedar Breaks a national monument under the provisions of the 1906 Antiquities Act. If Albright consented to this, Stuart said he would happily join the NPS director in recommending the action. However, he wished the Forest Service to administer the national monument, pointing out that that agency administered fifteen national monuments then inside national forest boundaries.55 Albright replied quickly, expressing great disappointment that Stuart would not join him in recommending that management of Cedar Breaks be transferred to the Park Service. He urged his Forest Service counterpart to submit to the transfer of Cedar Breaks to the NPS “in the interest of harmony and as a measure of cooperation.”56

By the end of 1931, most of the inhabitants of Iron County, apparently including members of Cedar City’s Chamber of Commerce and even its three-member National Parks Committee, were in favor of the Forest Service administering the area, rather than the Park Service. The Chamber’s National Parks Committee informed Supervisor Gurr that the Chamber “would not take any further action looking toward the creation of a Park at Cedar Breaks.”51

this development, nor do I think the public deems it necessary.”54

U H Q

cern about overgrazing in the mountains above town and the erosion and flooding that resulted from it. Whether or not there was a demand for it, he thought the park’s creation to be inevitable. Therefore, there was no cause for “any division among the people of the county and right now is a time to look to the future with greater hope for the accomplishment of greater things.”50 Clearly, just as state conservation was not monolithic, neither did locals approach the issue as a united front. These two meetings reveal divisions not only between Parowan and Cedar City but also among residents of both cities.

251

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

Service that it had limited designs on Cedar Breaks and would strive to keep any negative impact of the move on local citizens to a minimum, Stuart indicated that the Forest Service would not object to the land transfer.58

252

Upon learning that the Forest Service had approved the creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument and the transfer of its administration over to the NPS, Dixie National Forest Supervisor Gurr expressed surprise and asked Rutledge to furnish him with information explaining the factors that caused the Forest Service to reverse its longtime stand on Cedar Breaks. Both federal agencies had kept their negotiations a secret, and Gurr, the highest-ranking Forest Service official in southwestern Utah, feared that local citizens would be very upset with the Forest Service’s reversal. He suggested Rutledge refrain from keeping it secret, since it would materially affect many of the locals. Nevertheless, if the Forest Service wanted the deal to remain secret, he agreed to respect that wish.59 Within two months of Gurr’s letter, local residents had learned that, in all probability, Cedar Breaks would become a national monument. The Iron County Woolgrowers Association met together once again and “sent in a vigorous protest.” Meanwhile, recognizing the likelihood of the land’s transfer to the NPS, the Forest Service had stopped its development of recreation sites. In July, Assistant NPS Director Arno B. Cammerer, who was slated to replace Albright as director on August 9, visited Utah. He announced at a Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce luncheon that President Franklin D. Roosevelt would proclaim Cedar Breaks a national monument as soon as arrangements between the Forest Service and Park Service were “perfected.” He further predicted (incorrectly) that, during the upcoming session of Congress, an act making Cedar Breaks a national park would be passed.60 Cammerer’s statement is interesting, given the fact that Zion National Park Superintendent Allen had assured Iron County residents two years earlier that the NPS would not pursue national park status for the Breaks. On-scene NPS employees appear to have been more inclined to compromise with Iron County residents than were Park Service administrators based in the nation’s capital.

In August, Forest Service officials petitioned the Department of the Interior to draft a presidential proclamation for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signature. Later that month, on August 22, Roosevelt signed the proclamation setting aside 7,000 acres (instead of Albright’s hoped-for 40,900 acres, or eighty-three square miles) as a national monument “for the preservation of spectacular cliffs, canyons, and features of scenic, scientific, and educational interest therein.”61 Placed in charge of the new monument was Preston Patraw, then superintendent of Zion National Park. Aware that Parowan was the seat of opposition to an NPS takeover, Patraw conducted a good-will tour, visiting the Parowan Chamber of Commerce. He pleaded for local cooperation with his efforts and pledged to be open to the desires of community members. Chamber president Wilford Day, the prominent sheepman who had presided over the meeting of two years prior when the city unanimously voted against having a park of any kind at the Breaks, assured Patraw that, though many locals opposed a park, now that one (of sorts) had been created, townspeople would “undoubtedly be glad to cooperate with him.”62 But Parowanites went even further than cooperation—they wholeheartedly embraced the new monument. In fact, the idea to hold a “dedicatory celebration” of the monument originated with the people of Parowan, not Cedar City. Members of the Parowan Chamber of Commerce invited Cedar City to join the festivities, and residents of the latter town enthusiastically did so.63 The long road to the creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument pitted the residents of two towns roughly twenty miles apart against each other. Residents of Parowan, with its heavy (but not sole) reliance upon sheep raising and wool production, feared the repercussions of the creation of a national park or monument and its grazing restrictions upon their major industry and, by extension, the town itself. Furthermore, at least some Parowan residents valued Cedar Breaks as sacred space. In a 1920 discussion between members of the Salt Lake Commercial Club and representatives from Cedar and Parowan, members of the Parowan delegation told those from Cedar City that Cedar Breaks had been incorrectly named. “Those Breaks,” they said, “are and constitute ‘Jehovah’s Celestial Paradise.’”64

3 N O . I

In contrast, businessmen of Cedar City saw the Breaks strictly as a potential economic asset. Cedar City was a larger town with a more diversified economy, and its residents hoped the creation of a national park would attract tourists and give the community an economic boost. Parowan’s fears and Cedar City’s hopes only increased with the onset of the Great Depression. In the end, neither town got exactly what it wanted, although Cedar City came close. And, although economic goals separated them, these were not as strong as the religious bonds that connected them. Fellow Mormons bound by a common set of beliefs and belonging to the same ecclesiastical unit of their church—the Parowan Stake—the people joined together to celebrate the outcome. The same could not necessarily be said of the two government agencies involved. The Forest Service and the National Park Service had been at odds virtually since the latter agency came into existence in 1916. Both were agents of state conservation, and their goals and constituencies often overlapped, but they also had distinct differences. Horace Albright later argued that neither he nor Stephen Mather “ever had any idea of challenging the Forest Service for lead-

ership of the conservation movement.” Yet, in almost the same breath, he said that the Forest Service “stood for use of anything within their border: water, minerals, forests, and other commercially attractive enterprises. They allowed hunting, dams, summer homes, and unlimited roads for lumbering. Their beliefs contradicted all of ours.” He continued, “I’ll admit that Mather and I gave little thought and had less concern when reaching out for their land because we were so philosophically opposed to them. We genuinely believed we were preserving while they were destroying.”65 The Forest Service, dedicated to a utilitarian form of conservation focused on preserving and maintaining a supply of natural resources for the use of future generations, viewed itself differently. As R. E. Gery’s concern about the people of Cedar City retaining their “individual rights” to the resources in the area, and his belief that “in the long run people of Cedar City will be much more satisfied if the area remains under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service” suggest, Forest Service officials saw themselves not only as conservers of resources but also protectors looking out for the best interest of their constituents.66

V O L .

8 5

US HS

U H Q

Cedar City’s main street with its hotels, theaters, cafes, and other businesses, 1938. As the county seat of Iron County, Cedar City was considerably larger with a more diverse economic base than Parowan, twenty miles to the north. —

253

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

254

The Park Service’s acquisition of national forest land put the Forest Service on the defensive. In 1921, District Forester Chester B. Morse had worried about the aggressive behavior of the Park Service, particularly as it concerned Cedar Breaks. There was hope for the Forest Service, however. Morse wrote, “the people of American Fork, [Utah] were advised to ask for the creation of a National Park to include Mt. Timpanogos but the movement stopped through the efforts of the Supervisor and the local ranger.”67 As Hal Rothman observes, Forest Service officials saw in the “single-use” national park “an overwhelming threat to their agency.” National parks were “anathema, and anytime they prevented the establishment of one they considered it a triumph.”68 Clearly, state conservation, in the form of multiple agencies, was no monolith.

Given these circumstances, and the onset of the Great Depression, it is no surprise that Parowan, the center of sheep ranching in the county, feared the loss of grazing lands to a national park or monument. Thus, they favored Forest Service management over Park Service control. Many Iron County residents, in fact, recognized that those agencies focusing on material aspects of conservation such as watershed protection and range management generally acted in their best long-term interest. With timber lands cut over and grazing areas denuded of vegetation, locals who wished to sustain the lumber or livestock industries for themselves and for future generations recognized the need for oversight by a federal agency with enough clout to create and enforce changes that would make this possible. Thus, some locals, at least part of the time, were conservationists.

Established in the mid-nineteenth century, Cedar City was to be the basis of the iron mining enterprise, while Parowan was intended to be a farming community that supplied food to the people of Cedar. The Iron Mission did not work out as planned, and the county’s two major industries soon became livestock raising and timber harvesting. As early as the late 1860s, overgrazing had become severe on the valley floor, and livestock owners gradually began using mountain land for grazing. That same decade, deregulation of natural resources resulted in fierce competition in the timber harvesting business, as large quantities of timber were cut and hauled to the mining communities in what is today southeastern Nevada. During the first few decades after Mormon settlement, cattle had been dominant in the livestock industry, but by 1900 sheep had surpassed cattle in dominance. At that time, livestock raising and farming produced 95 percent of the income in the county. Clearly, the importance of timber harvesting had dropped precipitously. By the time the Sevier Forest Reserve was created in 1905, the mountain ranges were severely overgrazed. Depletion estimates ranged anywhere from 25 to 100 percent, depending on location. Notwithstanding the severe overgrazing, Iron County sheepmen experienced their most productive years between 1910 and 1930, when total herd sizes ranged from 190,000 to 200,000 sheep. In 1930, these sheep produced in excess of one million pounds of wool.69

In general, Iron County residents welcomed the arrival of state conservation agencies to their region. Townspeople disagreed over which agency should be in control of a certain parcel of land, based on their own interests, such as promotion of the livestock industry or the creation of a tourist industry. They did not band together to oppose state conservation, as some people elsewhere did. Furthermore, it is clear from the struggle over Cedar Breaks that without substantial support from locals no conservation agency could fully achieve its aims. Web Extra At history.utah.gov/uhqextras we reproduce a number of foundational documents and reports regarding creation of Cedar Breaks.

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

1 “Roosevelt May Come to Cedar Breaks Fete,” Salt Lake Telegram, June 19, 1934; “Plans Maturing for Celebration at Breaks,” Parowan Times, June 22, 1934; “Celebrate the Glorious 4th at Cedar Breaks,” Parowan Times, June 29, 1934; “Cedar Breaks Area Fittingly Dedicated,” Parowan Times, July 6, 1934; “Breaks Monument Dedication Attended by Thousands,” Iron County Record, July 5, 1934; Leo A. Borah, “Utah, Carved by Winds and Waters,” National Geographic Magazine 59, no. 5 (May 1936): 592, 601, and Plate X; and “Cedar Breaks Wonderland is Dedicated,” Salt Lake Telegram, July 4, 1934. 2 Harold K. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service: A History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976, reprint 2004), 34–36, 75–76, 78–79, and 324–25. Page numbers are to reprint edition. 3 “The National Parks Act (1916),” in American Environmental History, edited by Louis S. Warren (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 200), 241. 4 Hal Rothman “Shaping the Nature of a Controversy: The Park Service, the Forest Service, and the Cedar Breaks Proposal,” Utah Historical Quarterly 55 (Summer 1987): 214. 5 Hal Rothman, Preserving Different Pasts: The American National Monuments (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989); reprinted as America’s National Monuments: The Politics of Preservation (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), xi–xv. 6 Robert W. Righter, “National Monuments to National Parks: The Use of the Antiquities Act of 1906,” accessed December 30, 2016, nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/ npshistory/righter.htm. This article was originally published in the August 1989 issue of the Western Historical Quarterly. 7 Ibid. 8 As used in this essay, “state conservation” refers collectively to the various federal-level land management agencies and their goals—conserving, preserving, or managing natural resources. Usage of this term is commonplace among environmental historians whose work deals with these agencies. See, for example, Karl Jacoby, Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), and Benjamin Heber Johnson, “Conservation, Subsistence, and Class at the Birth of Superior National Forest,” Environmental History 4 (January 1999): 80–99. 9 For an example of the early generation of scholarship, see Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Movement, 1890–1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). Examples of the second generation’s perspective include Jacoby, Crimes Against Nature, and Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). For quotation, see Benjamin Heber Johnson, “Conservation Reconsidered,” in A Companion to California History, edited by William Deverell and David Igler (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd., 2008), 252. 10 George W. Middleton, Memoirs of a Pioneer Surgeon, ed. Richard P. Middleton (Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1976), 266. 11 Lloyd W. MacFarlane, Dr. Mac: The Man, His Land, and His People (Cedar City: Southern Utah State College

Press, 1985), 209–10. 12 Janet Burton Seegmiller, Community Above Self: A History of Iron County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1998), 399–403; MacFarlane, Dr. Mac, 166–69. 13 “Seek New U.S. Park in Utah,” Salt Lake Herald, January 13, 1920. 14 Hal Rothman, “Second-Class Sites: National Monuments and the Growth of the National Park System,” Environmental Review 10 (Spring 1986): 48–49; Seegmiller, Community Above Self, 401–2. 15 “We Told You So,” Parowan Times, September 22, 1920; “Utah to Make Strong Play for Highway,” Salt Lake Telegram, November 9, 1920; “Commercial Club Takes Action on ’21 Program,” Salt Lake Telegram, November 19, 1920. 16 R. E. Gery, “Memorandum Report: Area Desired by National Park Service,” October 31, 1921, p. 1, box 85, fd. “LP – Boundaries – Dixie – Cedar Breaks park, 1921–1933,” USFS Region IV historical archives, Ogden, Utah. (Hereafter cited as “USFS Region IV historical archives.”) 17 “Tourist Tide to be Welcomed,” Salt Lake Telegram, December 3, 1920; Gery, “Memorandum Report,” 9; Seegmiller, Community Above Self, 399–403; Wayne K. Hinton, The Dixie National Forest: Managing an Alpine Forest in an Arid Setting (U.S. Forest Service publication, 1987), 77, 81. 18 Gery, “Memorandum Report”; “Committee Sees Park Facilities,” Salt Lake Telegram, December 10, 1920. 19 “Capital Defers Action on Park,” Salt Lake Telegram, July 27, 1921; “Officials End Canyon Trip,” Salt Lake Telegram, July 23, 1921. 20 Rothman, “Shaping the Nature of a Controversy,” 219– 20; “Prominent Men Arrange Utah Southland Trip,” Salt Lake Telegram, October 7, 1921; “Rail Officials to Join Party in Scenic Trip,” Salt Lake Telegram, October 15, 1921; “Utah’s Scenery Delights Hough,” Salt Lake Telegram, October 19, 1921; “Railroad Officials Coming,” Parowan Times, August 10, 1921; Gery, “Memorandum Report”; William M. Mace to R. E. Gery, November 4, 1921, p. 9, USFS Region IV historical archives. 21 “Advertising of Utah’s Wonders to be Outlined,” Salt Lake Telegram, December 17, 1921; “May Unite Cedar Breaks and Zion Park,” Parowan Times, December 28, 1921; “The Park,” Parowan Times, January 25, 1922; MacFarlane, Dr. Mac, 220; Stanford J. Layton, “Charles Rendell Mabey,” in Utah History Encyclopedia, ed. Allan Kent Powell (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 341. 22 “May Unite Cedar Breaks and Zion Park,” Parowan Times, December 28, 1921; “National Park Idea Opposed,” newspaper clipping dated December 21, 1921, USFS Region IV historical archives. 23 “General Items,” Parowan Times, January 11, 1922. 24 “Woolgrowers Oppose Park Extensions,” Parowan Times, January 18, 1922. 25 “The Park,” Parowan Times, January 25, 1922. 26 Gery, “Memorandum Report,” 7–9; “Death Claims Pres. H. W. Lunt,” Iron County Record, December 31, 1926; Seegmiller, Community Above Self, 401. 27 Gery, “Memorandum Report,” 2–7. 28 Ibid., 9–13. 29 Ibid., 8, 13–14. 30 Chester B. Morse, Ogden, Utah, to “The Forester,” Washington, D.C., November 1, 1921; R. E. Gery, to William Mace, January 30, 1923; Richard H. Rutledge to “The Forester,” May 22, 1929. All three letters are in

U H Q

Notes

255

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

256

Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection, MSS 4, box 15, fd. 897 “Cedar Breaks National Monument,” Special Collections, Gerald R. Sherratt Library, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah. 31 T. W. Norcross to “District Forester,” May 10, 1929, USFS Region IV historical archives; Richard H. Rutledge to “The Forester,” May 22, 1929; Rothman, “Shaping the Nature of a Controversy,” 220. 32 “‘Tour Par Excellent’ ‘Most Satisfying Trip’: Distinguished Government Official Amazed and [illegible] at Magnificence of Scenic Attractions,” Iron County Record, September 24, 1930. 33 “Is It Advisable?” Iron County Record, July 15, 1931. 34 “Dixie Forest Doings,” Iron County Record, July 18, 1930. 35 “Forest Service Would Build Big Camp at Breaks,” Parowan Times, August 12, 1932; “$7,500 to be Spent on Road around Breaks,” Parowan Times, August 19, 1932; “Forest Service Takes up Recreation Projects,” Iron County Record, October 20, 1932. 36 “Forest Service Would Build Big Camp at Breaks,” Parowan Times, August 12, 1932. 37 “Park Service Desires to Create Park at Breaks,” Iron County Record, July, 25, 1931; “Parks [sic] Service would Take Big Area at Cedar Breaks,” Parowan Times, July 24, 1931; James E. Gurr, Forest Supervisor, Cedar City, to Richard H. Rutledge, Regional Forester, Ogden, July 1, 1931, USFS Region IV historical archives; Gurr, “Report on Area Proposed by Director Albright in His Letter of June 16, 1931, to the Forester,” December 31, 1931, 1–2, Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection. 38 Rothman, “Shaping the Nature of a Controversy,” 221; James E. Gurr to Richard H. Rutledge, July 1, 1931; “National Parks [sic] Service Would Include Cedar Breaks,” Parowan Times, June 26, 1931; “Parks Service Would Take Big Area at Cedar Breaks,” Parowan Times, July 24, 1931. 39 “A Park at Cedar Breaks,” Parowan Times, June 26, 1931; “Parks [sic] Service Would Take Big Area at Cedar Breaks,” Parowan Times, July 24, 1931. 40 “Cedar Cattlemen Opposed to Park,” Parowan Times, June 26, 1931; “Woolmen Oppose Park at Breaks,” Parowan Times, July 31, 1931. 41 “Woolgrowers Start Opposition to Park,” Parowan Times, August 7, 1931. 42 James E. Gurr to “Regional Forester,” August 24, 1931, in Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection. 43 Dana Parkinson, “Memorandum for Regional Forester,” October 14, 1931, in Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection; “National Park at Breaks is Being Investigated,” Parowan Times, October 2, 1931. 44 Parkinson, “Memorandum for Regional Forester”; “National Park at Breaks is Being Investigated.” 45 Parkinson, “Memorandum for Regional Forester”; “National Park at Breaks is Being Investigated.” 46 “Cedar City News,” Parowan Times, June 26, 1931; Parkinson, “Memorandum for Regional Forester”; “National Park at Breaks is Being Investigated.” 47 Parkinson, “Memorandum for Regional Forester.” 48 “National Park at Breaks is Being Investigated.” 49 Parkinson, “Memorandum for Regional Forester”; “Parowan Votes Against Park at Cedar Breaks,” Parowan Times, October 9, 1931. 50 “Creating a National Park at Cedar Breaks: An Editorial,” Iron County Record, October 14, 1931; “Parowan Votes Against Park at Cedar Breaks,” Parowan Times,

October 9, 1931. 51 Gurr, “Report on Area Proposed by Director Albright in His Letter of June 16, 1931, to the Forester,” December 31, 1931, 4–5. 52 “Cedar Breaks to be Examined for a Park,” Parowan Times, October 7, 1932; Preston P. Patraw to “Regional Forester,” September 28, 1932; Richard A. Rutledge to “The Forester,” October 15, 1932; both letters in Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection. 53 “Cedar Breaks to be Examined for a Park”; Richard A. Rutledge to “The Forester,” October 15, 1932. 54 C. H. Squire, “Memo for Mr. Kneipp,” November 15, 1932; Leon F. Kneipp to Richard Rutledge, November 16, 1932; Dana Parkinson to “The Forester,” November 23, 1932; all in USFS Region IV historical archives. 55 Robert Y. Stuart to Horace Albright, February 8, 1933, Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection. 56 Horace Albright to Robert Y. Stuart, February 20, 1933, Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection. 57 Stuart to Albright, April 25, 1933; Albright to Stuart, April 29, 1933; both in Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection. 58 Edward A. Sherman to Representative Abe Murdock, June 9, 1933, Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection. 59 Gurr to Rutledge, May 19, 1933; Parkinson to Rutledge, May 23, 1933; both in USFS Region IV historical archives. 60 “Albright’s Successor to Visit S.L. and Parks,” Salt Lake Telegram, July 21, 1933; “Cedar Breaks Area Likely to Become National Monument,” Parowan Times, July 14, 1933; “National Park Director Guest at Chamber Luncheon,” Iron County Record, July 27, 1933; “National Park Status is Seen for Cedar Breaks,” Parowan Times, July 28, 1933; “Cedar Breaks Now National Monument,” Iron County Record, September 21, 1933. 61 Edward A. Sherman, “Memorandum for the Secretary of Agriculture,” August 9, 1933, Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection; “A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America: Cedar Breaks National Monument – Utah,” August 22, 1933, Dixie National Forest Historical Papers Collection; “Area Withdrawn for Cedar Breaks Monument,” Parowan Times, September 15, 1933; “Roosevelt Issues Proclamation for Monument in Utah,” Salt Lake Telegram, September 11, 1933. 62 “Park Superintendent Seeks Local Cooperation,” Parowan Times, October 20, 1933. 63 “Plans Completed for Dedication of Breaks Monument July 4,” Iron County Record, June 21, 1934. 64 “We Told You So,” Parowan Times, September 22, 1920; “Utah to Make Strong Play for Highway,” Salt Lake Telegram, November 9, 1920; “Commercial Club Takes Action on ’21 Program” Salt Lake Telegram, November 19, 1920. 65 Horace M. Albright and Marian Albright Schenck, Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 293. 66 R. E. Gery to William M. Mace, November 7, 1921, USFS Region IV historical archives. 67 Chester B. Morse to “The Forester,” November 1, 1921. 68 Rothman, “Shaping the Nature of a Controversy,” 214– 15. 69 Seegmiller, Community Above Self, 302–5, 351, 361.

C L IN T

P U M P H R E Y

A N D

J I M

K I C H AS

For anyone who has ever struggled to find a parking place at a crowded trailhead in Utah’s backcountry, it is hard to believe that there was ever a time when the state’s scenery was inaccessible and unknown to many Americans. This was exactly the case, however, when representatives of civic clubs from ten Utah counties descended upon Richfield in September 1930. The resulting organization, which became known as the Associated Civic Clubs of Southern Utah, declared its aim “to develop Southern Utah and its resources . . . thereby developing and benefiting the entire state.” They laid out four initiatives by which to achieve this goal: [t]o attract tourists and homeseekers; to call the world’s attention to the wealth and beauties; to work for good roads and transportation; to broadcast by every conceivable means what Southern Utah has to offer in scenic wonders and partly undeveloped agricultural and mineral resources; and to work unitedly for such purposes.1 The plan—a combination of marketing and infrastructure improvements—was so ambitious and far-reaching that it could not be carried out solely by the Associated Civic Clubs of Southern Utah or any other single group, for that matter. Instead, these aims required significant contributions from leaders across the spectrum of business and government, including good roads promoters, highway boosters, state agencies, and local commercial and civic groups, many of whom came to see United States Highway 89, with its proximity to both major cities and national parks, as a backbone for Utah’s tourist economy.

3 N O . I 8 5 U H Q

cooperative boosterism along U.S. Highway 89

V O L .

From tire tracks to treasure trail:

257

258

Map of Highway 89.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

This article examines how these contributions from government and commercial groups played out not only in a specific region of Utah but along a specific route: U.S. Highway 89. It largely focuses on the first half of the twentieth century, a period when boosters lacked the benefit of postwar prosperity and road infrastructure in their bid to attract visitors. Their efforts succeeded thanks in large part to two parallel factors that the Associated Civic Clubs of Southern Utah identified at their 1930 meeting that had served tourism promoters well since the railroad days: utilizing modern marketing methods to attract people to local attractions and taking advantage of a robust national transportation infrastructure to get them there.

This “Good Roads Movement,” as it became known, highlighted the two major hindrances to innovation at the time: a lack of technical expertise to construct quality roads and dearth of tax revenue with which to finance them. Unlike Europe, which boasted institutions like France’s Ecolé des Ponts et Chausseés (School of Bridges and Roads), founded in 1747, the United States had yet to educate engineers on a large scale. Without the supervision of trained professionals, many American road builders continued to rely heavily on primitive construction materials, methods, and technologies. Further restraining progress in the United States was a system of road financing dependent on local taxes, which worked fairly well in densely populated urban areas but proved woefully inadequate in rural areas where the tax base was much smaller. Exacerbating both the expertise and taxation issues was the practice of statute labor in which residents of many states could pay taxes with labor instead of cash, virtually guaranteeing a deficit of both revenue and know-how for road construction.6

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

Tourist promotion kicked into overdrive in the post–World War II era, when the baby boom, paid vacations, interstate highways, and growing consumerism drew more Americans into the outdoors. Utah, like many states across the nation, sought to capitalize on the flow of money that came with these developments. State and local agencies, together with civic and commercial groups, saw tourism as a panacea for the economic woes brought about by the decline of extractive industries, particularly in the southern part of the state. Their shared goal was to brand Utah and market it to a national audience. 3

At the turn of the twentieth century, roads, not railroads, were the most sorely neglected part of the national transportation infrastructure. With the expansion of railroads after the Civil War, roads became a secondary form of transportation and their quality began to suffer, particularly in rural areas. Commonly constructed of little more than earth smoothed by a heavy wooden plank, they were often rough in good weather and impassable in rain or snow. Early roads promoter and cycling enthusiast Colonel Albert Pope related one Connecticut resident’s frustration with the situation: “We let our road-menders shake us enough to the mile to furnish assault-and-battery cases for a thousand police courts.”4 In response, an unlikely coalition of cyclists, farmers, and railroad companies brought attention to the muddy and cratered conditions of American thoroughfares and pressured lawmakers to finance improvements, beginning in the 1880s. Cyclists sought smoother roads on which they could practice their sport, while farmers and railroad companies hoped that better roads would provide easier access to markets (via the railroads, of course).5

U H Q

Collaborative efforts between public and private entities to promote tourism in the United States originated long before the Associated Civic Clubs of Southern Utah gathered in 1930. Railroads and national parks, for example, began a highly visible campaign to promote sightseeing in the United States during the waning decades of the nineteenth century. Using modern marketing methods, these boosters sought to publicize tourism not only as a recreational activity but also as a confirmation of American identity. For these early travel advocates, soaring peaks and dizzying chasms were monuments to American grandeur that were just a train ride away. Such targeted promotion continued into the automobile era, when highways began to supplant railroad routes as the gateway to the country’s treasures and automobile clubs and “good roads” advocates soon joined the chorus of tourism boosters.2

259

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

260

Despite the efforts of cyclists, farmers, and railroads, what really spurred innovation and funding for better roads was the proliferation of the automobile. Between 1900 and 1917, the number of motor vehicle registrations in the United States jumped from just 8,000 to over 5.1 million. Motorists formed consumer groups such as the American Automobile Association during this period to promote their interests, while other groups, like the American Road Makers, represented state engineers, road contractors, road machinery manufacturers, and others with a financial stake in road construction. Together with local civic organizations, which stood to gain by attracting auto tourists to their communities, these groups lobbied state and federal lawmakers for better roads. In response, both states and the federal government created dedicated agencies to bring scientific design principles and a coherent vision to road projects and instituted significant increases in road funding throughout the 1910s and 1920s. These developments led to an increase in surfaced roads (using such materials as gravel, stone, shells, sand-clay, or macadam) from about 153,662 miles in 1904 to some 299,135 miles in 1919—a trend that would only accelerate in subsequent years.7 Utah, given its sparse population and remote location, was quick to realize the insufficiencies in its road system. In 1905 Governor John Cutler called delegates from every county in the state to attend a Good Roads convention held in Ogden on June 2 and 3. There, in the Ogden LDS Tabernacle, road advocates from across

What really spurred innovation and funding for better roads was the proliferation of the automobile.

the state convened and listened to speeches from a variety of guests, including Colonel W. H. Moore, president of the National Good Roads Association, and Cutler himself, whose speech extolled roads through an economic lens. “The building of good roads is a matter of economy,” the governor declared to the crowd: In transportation, as in all other matters, the line of least resistance is always followed with the best results. Looking at the matter from the economic standpoint, therefore, no wellsettled community can afford to have poor roads.8 At the end of the convention, delegates formed a state Good Roads association and voted James H. Anderson, a former chairman of the Republican State Central committee and aide to Senator Reed Smoot, as its president.9 The statewide Good Roads movement fizzled after an October 1905 convention drew scarcely more than twenty attendees, but it soon made a comeback.10 On January 10, 1908 advocates again founded a Utah Good Roads Association and elected Ogden lawyer and civic leader Joseph S. Peery as the group’s president and Ogden banker and Ben Lomond Hotel founder A. P. Bigelow as its vice-president. The purpose of the organization was clearly defined from its first meeting, during which “the association adopted resolutions favoring the ‘Brownlow good roads’ bill . . . before Congress,” which would create a federal agency to oversee public roads and provide matching funds for state and local road projects. Peery’s group also appointed a committee to work with county commissioners in northern Utah to consider the continuance of a state road north through Davis and Weber counties that would link Salt Lake City to Ogden.11 Good roads, they hoped, would be such a popular idea that they could even get both political parties to adopt it as part of their platforms.12 The correspondence that flooded the offices of Utah government officials in the early twentieth century provides further evidence of the concerted push to systematically implement a coordinated road-building effort. Writing to Utah governor John Cutler in 1906, Pope, the cycling enthusiast and good roads promoter,

From its inception, the road commission performed a variety of duties that directly reflected the questions and concerns held by road boosters and citizens alike. Among the new agency’s roles and responsibilities was the directive to begin selecting roads that would comprise an overall coherent state road system. The legislature also gave the road commission direct charge of the State Road Building Fund, and charged them with the development of plans, specifications, and estimates for future road construction projects in the state. Finally, the road commission served as the primary source of information and guidance for all officials having supervision over road construction projects in Utah.16

Of course, “better roads” represented something of a fluid concept that changed with advances in both engineering methods and available road surface technology. From its beginnings as general supervisor of road building in the state, the road commission advocated that all engineering associated with roads (such as culverts, bridges, and drainages) be built using concrete or metal, so as to ensure their viability over time.18 Similarly, while the first roads overseen by the road commission tended to be of gravel, broken stone, or macadam construction, by 1913/1914 the road commission was pushing for the use of concrete construction for heavily trafficked roadways whenever possible.19 These advances in material were matched by improvements in road construction methods as well, such as the shift in 1915 away from using horses to motor tractors for road grading work.20 In the early 1920s, the road commission began to work closely with the federal government to coordinate the connection and signage of Utah’s roads with the rest of America’s highways. The 1923/1924 biennial report from the road commission articulated this position, stating that “the motor car has changed our conception of the roads from local thoroughfares designated and located to serve the needs of separate communities only, to routes of first State, and then

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

Sustained calls for action, such as those from Pope, Davis, and local Good Roads advocates, encouraged bureaucratic shifts within Utah government to address the issue of improving the state’s roadways. The first such shift occurred on March 23, 1909, when the Utah Legislature created a commission to oversee and coordinate road issues for the state. The original composition of this new Utah State Road Commission included the governor, state engineer, and state treasurer, as well as faculty from the Agricultural College of Utah (now Utah State University) and the University of Utah. Given that both these schools offered engineering courses in highways, bridges, road construction, and road maintenance, it was clear that the state’s road construction efforts would, from this point forward, involve a degree of technological expertise that had been lacking prior to the formation of the commission.15

The formation of the road commission can be seen as an important response by Utah government officials to the broad spectrum of concerns raised by the Good Roads Movement. Importantly, the road commission provided a needed bureaucratic layer of government that could effectively receive comment and respond to concerns raised by both citizens and road groups. In turn, the road commission could then use its power as an entity of state government as well as its technical expertise to make recommendations to the governor and legislature for actions that would specifically address those concerns. From the beginning, a broad contingent of Utah’s people looked favorably on the activities of the road commission. Writing in the 1911/1912 biennial road commission report to Governor John Christopher Cutler, Road Commissioner J. W. Jensen stated, “the people [of Utah] are in favor of the good roads movement and are willing that their property should be taxed in order get better roads.”17

U H Q

posited the commercial need for better roads when he stated that “the time seems ripe for a serious consideration of the question of Federal aid in the construction and maintenance of such highways as would connect our larger cities and bring into closer relation the people of neighboring states, thus benefitting both State and Inter-State commerce.”13 National Highways Association president Charles Henry Davis made another case for improving roads and connecting the nation’s highways when he wrote to Governor William Spry in 1915. Davis asked the governor to contact President Woodrow Wilson and impress upon him the “importance of highway intercommunication in any effort made towards preparedness for the adequate defense of the nation.”14

261

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

262 Road construction in the Salt Lake City area, September 1914. Note the use of a horse. In this instance, laying a supply main—a job handled by the firm of Lyman and Samuels—appears to have been part of a larger project to improve transportation in Salt Lake City. See Salt Lake Telegram, September 10, 1914. —

US HS

National importance, the "Federal aid Act" being admirably adapted to permit Federal participation, but with State control.”21 That “Federal aid Act” was the Federal Seven Percent System, which grew out of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 and was the first coherent, nationwide attempt to create a long-term plan for future road building. It provided all states, including Utah, with access to matching federal funds that could be used to designate and build up to 7 percent of the state’s roadways. 22 One important result of the expansive growth of American roadways under the Seven Percent System was the creation of the first unified system of national highways and uniform sign designs. Officials hatched the plan during a series of meetings between state and federal highway representatives in Washington, D.C. beginning in February 1925. Among the red lines plotted

on the group’s map was U.S. Highway 89. Early planning for the Seven Percent System hinted at its creation as state officials sought to improve access to scenic destinations in southern Utah. Highway 89 did just that, as indicated by the 1927/1928 Road Commission report, which detailed a route beginning in Spanish Fork, Utah, continuing through towns “on the Grand Canyon Highway to Kanab,” crossing into Arizona through Flagstaff and Phoenix to the border near Nogales.23 The American Association of State Highway Officials in 1926, then the Utah legislature in 1927, approved the map born of these meetings.24 As the national highway system evolved, so too did Highway 89. With the opening of the Zion– Mount Carmel Tunnel in 1930, local boosters began an aggressive campaign focused on advertising and signing the road as a connection

3 N O . I 8 5

Certainly, improvements to Highway 89 were critical to the expanding tourist economies of southern Utah and Arizona, but extending the road north and connecting it to the Rocky Mountain parks of Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier became an increasingly important discussion in the 1930s. Writing to Utah state highway engineer K. C. Wright in 1935, W. D. Rishel, manager of the Utah State Automobile Association, promoted this viewpoint, insisting, “It is important that Highway #89 be continued on north with a view of reaching the Canadian border.” Early boosters for expansion,

U H Q

Yet while the potential of Highway 89 as a tourist magnet was evident from its earliest designation, improvements to the road came slowly. In 1930, a local newspaper described the section of the road running through Sanpete County between Fairview and Thistle as being in “very

poor condition,”26 while a 1935 headline in the Garfield County News decried, “Portions of U.S. Highway 89 Are a Disgrace to the State.”27 In each of these cases, local officials appealed directly to the road commission to improve roads and turn them into “asset[s] to the county.”28

V O L .

to this and other attractions. Both the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Southern California Automobile Association joined in this effort, reflecting the potential for interstate commerce that opening the road would provide. A host of dignitaries, including Utah governor George Dern, attended the July 4, 1930, ceremony opening the tunnel, and the Road Commission report for that year designated it as hugely important moment in fueling the growth of Highway 89 and promoting the tourist connection between southern Utah’s national parks and the Grand Canyon.25

263

Tourists in the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel, 1930s. The Mount Carmel Tunnel connects Highway 89 to Zion National Park. —

US HS

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

like Rishel, saw the powerful potential of tourism along 89, further suggesting, “the road is bound to become the most important link between Salt Lake and Jackson Hole as well as to Yellowstone Park when completed. It will be the shortest and most scenic to these points.”29

264

In June 1936, Rishel and other proponents got their wish. That is when representatives at the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) designated the northern section of Highway 89, which extended from Spanish Fork to Piegan, Montana, on the Canadian border. There was some disagreement between highway officials in Utah and Wyoming about how the road would pass through those states, but in December 1938 the AASHO’s executive committee decided to route it from Provo to Salt Lake City, Ogden, Logan, Garden City, Montpelier, Star Valley, and finally to Yellowstone National Park.30 Even before this decision, however, government officials and local civic organizations praised the northern extension and began to envision its future as a tourist thoroughfare. A 1937 meeting between such officials in Flagstaff underscored this point, as a report from that meeting in the Kane County Standard commented: “Highway 89 . . . is a most important link connecting the northern and southern part of the nation west of the Rockies. At the present time it is a desirable route for the tourist and traveler, who wishes to see the scenic wonders of the west.”31 The Logan Canyon road, which connects Cache Valley to Bear Lake Valley and is now part of U.S. Highway 89, offers a specific case study about how the Good Roads Movement played out along the route. In 1866, the Utah territorial legislature incorporated the Logan Cañon Road Company to build the route but provided no funding, instead approving the sale of stock to shareholders and the institution of a toll to fund construction and maintenance. Crews headed by men like Henry Ballard (farmer), Peter Maughan (businessman and judge), and William Budge (farmer) almost certainly had no formal training in road building but nevertheless completed a road from Logan to St. Charles, Idaho, by 1871. In 1880 workers forged an alternate route that traveled from Logan to Garden City, along a similar alignment to present-day U.S. Highway 89.32

Despite the addition of several tollgates, revenues were evidently insufficient to provide basic maintenance. An 1892 editorial described the road as “hardly passable. Here and there huge bolders [sic] adorn the drive way, while deep mudholes and dangerous washouts render a ride by that route somewhat exciting.”33 The author implored the Cache County government to make the repairs needed to encourage trade with the agricultural and mining interests in the Bear Lake area. A week later the county court made the canyon route a county road and approved $500 for immediate repairs. Logan City also helped pay for maintenance in the ensuing decades as evidenced by a November 23, 1903, agreement between the county and Logan mayor Lorenzo Hansen that required the city to pay “[o]ne-half cost repairing Logan Canon [sic] Road.” Still, a June 1916 article in the Logan Republican stated, There is considerable criticism due some body for the bad condition of the road between the Forks and Temple fork. There are at least five mud holes between these two points which should be repaired at once . . . . There is required the work of draining the water off the road and putting in a few loads of gravel which could be done with little expense and put the road in pretty good shape.34 Like many rural roads across the United States, maintenance on the route through Logan Canyon suffered from insufficient local funding.35 The types of people pushing for better roads in Logan Canyon and the surrounding areas resembled national trends as well. Farmers, in particular, were outspoken in their support for good roads. A November 1891 editorial in the Logan Journal entitled “More Trade Wanted” professed the benefits of an improved Logan Canyon road to agriculture in Bear Lake County and commerce in Cache Valley. “Not less than $75,000 a year in produce goes out of that county to the Evanston market that could as well find a market in Logan—which could find a better market in Logan,” the editorial suggested. “All that needs be done is to build between Rich and Cache Counties . . . and the trade is ours.”36 Bear Lake rancher Elias Kim-

C ou r t e s y USUS CA

ball agreed: “I need not say that I am heartily in favor of The Journal’s proposition. It will help us.”37 As the number of automobiles in Utah increased, so did interest in improving the Logan Canyon road. While virtually no motor vehicles traveled down the state’s roads before 1900, the number grew to 9,177 by 1915. Largely in response to this trend, a network of local civic leaders, good roads advocates, and automobile groups pushed for state and federal funds to fund improvements. A resolution adopted by the Logan Commercial-Boosters Club on February 19, 1913 read: Whereas there is no practical road extending between Logan, Cache County and Rich County, and Whereas, there is an urgent demand for such a road, Now therefore be it resolved that we ask the assistance of the Weber Good Roads Association and the Salt Lake

Of course, civic leaders, good roads advocates, and automobile groups did not push for better roads—and state and federal governments did not build them—simply for the benefit of local residents. They intended for these improved thoroughfares to form a smooth, well-engineered connection with distant populations, supporting traditional commerce as well as the burgeoning trade promised by automobile tourism. For western boosters, good roads were just one aspect of an extensive marketing campaign aimed at attracting mobile American vacationers, who increasingly associated their national identity with the region’s unique landscape. Road and automobile technology could bring tourists West, but it was ever-evolving print, broadcast, and electronic media technologies that convinced them to go.

N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

Logan Canyon road, circa 1910. —

In 1914 the Utah State Road Commission designated the Logan Canyon road as a state highway, and construction began in 1919. Because it was considered a Forest Road Project, the United States Bureau of Public Roads39 supervised the work but shared the cost with the Utah State Road Commission. The road remained earthen; however, crews graded and widened it, constructing new culverts and bridges for the first time according to professional specifications. A report by the Logan Chamber of Commerce (formerly known as the Commercial-Boosters Club) and the Rotary Club reflected confidence in the technical skills of those involved: “Mr. Hart, the engineer in charge, has full knowledge of the work and is apparently a very competent and experienced construction man. He has the whole job fully in hand and knows exactly what he is doing.”40 After these modifications, completed in 1922, the Utah State Road Commission described the thoroughfare as an “improved road generally good in all weather” by 1930. The Logan Chamber of Commerce continued to communicate its desire for improvements with road commission representatives until state crews eventually paved the highway and kept it plowed year-round by 1940.41

Automobile Association to render their good offices in behalf of the bill now before the State Legislature . . . asking for the construction of the said piece of new road.38

265

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

266

U.S. Highway 89, with its proximity to the some of the West’s most iconic scenery, was a prime candidate for promotion by Utah’s boosters. The resulting route traveled across five states—Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana—and through or adjacent to seven (current or future) national parks: Saguaro, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier. This happy coincidence of geography earned Highway 89 numerous nicknames including, “Highway to Grandeur,” “Fabulous Boulevard of National Parks,” “The Scenic Route of Three Nations,” “Treasure Trail,” “Route of a Million Tourists,” “Border to Border National Park Highway,” and “Highway to New Enchantment”— monikers that boosters used in numerous brochures, guidebooks, films, and songs.42 Even before federal officials designated the route as a federal highway, local commercial and government entities realized the road’s potential to attract tourists. As early as August 14, 1912, the Logan Commercial-Boosters expressed their desire for an improved Logan Canyon highway they claimed would bring tourists through Logan to Yellowstone National Park. Other groups tried to push the idea of an international highway stretching from Canada to Mexico with U.S. Highway 89

at its core. The first mention of such an effort occurred in the December 29, 1915, edition of the Parowan Times, despite the fact that many road segments along the proposed route had not yet been constructed. According to the article, local members of the Forest Service district office conceived of the route, described as “not the most direct route but the richest in interest, scenic beauty, and comfort to the travelers.” Cities along the circuitous route included Douglas, Phoenix, and Flagstaff in Arizona; Kanab, Salt Lake City, and Ogden in Utah; Pocatello, Boise, Garden Valley, Lowman, Stanley, and Salmon in Idaho; Missoula and Kalispell in Montana; and Spokane and Seattle in Washington. Later, local civic organizations centered their efforts specifically on Highway 89, promoting it as a route convenient to many of Utah’s natural wonders. In March 1930 members of southern Utah’s commercial clubs, Lions Clubs, Kiwanis, and others met in Kanab, aiming “to advertise Highway No. 89 on the largest scale possible, and to convince the traveling public, eager to see the wonders of scenic southern Utah, that the logical route leads over that highway.”43 While their plan to promote the road through billboards, maps, and advertisements in Scenic Utah Motorist represented fairly rudimentary marketing methods the effort certainly laid the

Billboard directing tourists to Big Rock Candy Mountain on U.S. Highway 89, 1965. —

C ou r t e s y USAR S

By the 1940s, the growth of tourism’s share in the Utah economy compelled the state government to join the effort in promoting Utah as a tourist destination. The work of the road commission to envision, build, and maintain Utah’s roadways remained a critical imperative, but new methods and ideas were needed to translate those roads into tourist dollars. As a result,

Throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, the Department of Publicity and Industrial Development worked closely with the Road Commission for the express purpose of opening and maintaining roads in southern Utah that were targeted as vital to Utah’s economic future.52 As part of the effort to promote the state’s scenic

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

The first iteration of a Utah government agency specifically focused on developing the state’s tourist economy was the Department of Publicity and Industrial Development, a state agency born of legislation that initially came as part of a plan put forward by Governor Herbert B. Maw to overhaul and streamline state government. As part of this plan, the governor slated numerous existing state boards and commissions for dissolution or consolidation into new government agencies. Although many Utah legislators supported the creation of the Department of Publicity and Industrial Development, the department was controversial because its budget would come primarily from class B and C road funds (from motor vehicle registration), which until that time had gone directly to counties and local municipalities.48 Rural legislators, in particular, opposed the plan. They felt that the current funding structure was necessary to shift money from wealthy urban areas to poorer districts that needed it for road improvements. Ultimately, the state legislature authorized the government reorganization and thereby formally established the Department of Publicity and Industrial Development; however, they did not approve the $800,000 in funding that Maw had called for.49 Instead, that money was again allocated to counties and local municipalities, while the new department received the approximately $600,000 in motor vehicle registration funds that were left over.50 Initial agency mandates included providing opportunities for increased employment in the state, sponsoring a program for industrial development of the state’s natural resources, cooperating with the federal government in the development of industries in the state, and cooperating with the federal government in national defense issues.51

In February 1938, J. R. Price, a local leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, revived the border-to-border highway proposal by incorporating the Great International Highway of America non-profit organization. “The project has a special significance to the members of the Mormon Church because it will tie together our activities in Arizona with those in Utah and Salt Lake City,”45 said Price, president of the church’s Maricopa County stake. An international highway, traversing the present alignment of U.S. Highway 89 for much of the distance, would also be a boon to tourism, commerce, and relations with Mexico and other Latin American countries, Price reasoned. Media would play an important role in this endeavor, explained Bailey Russell, organization director for the Great International Highway group: “A newspaper and radio campaign is planned which should focus the attention of motorists throughout North America on the scenic and recreational advantages of the area served by the highway.”46 Although the group’s activity appears to have waned by 1941, it succeeded in pressuring Arizona to pave the final thirty-five-mile stretch of the road and exciting commercial clubs and politicians alike about the possibility of an international highway.47

the bureaucratic landscape of the state’s government would shift again, leading to the birth of new agencies whose sole focus was to bring tourists into the state of Utah. Highway 89, and the various groups dedicated to promoting it, would become vital to this larger effort.

U H Q

groundwork for future endeavors. This loose association of local civic organizations soon consolidated under the name “Associated Civic Clubs of Southern Utah,” and by June 1931 their efforts resulted, albeit cryptically, in an advertising deal by longtime good roads advocate and Arrowhead Trail founder C. H. Bigelow, with “one of the largest and most successful commercial organizations in the Southwest.” The company, which he claimed boasted “radio sending stations, motion picture and nation wide newspaper and magazine releases,” would work with him to promote an area “between U.S. Highway 89 and the Colorado river, and from the Colorado River to the Mesa Verde National Park.”44

267

But while this focus on attracting tourists to the state was of vital importance to the department, annual reports to the governor reveal that it put even more effort into attracting Hollywood to the red rock deserts that were becoming increasingly accessible from Highway 89. Looking to Cedar City and Kanab as temporary home bases for film producers, the department began contributing funds to aid road development in southern Utah. Additionally, the department took on an advocacy role for the film industry, requesting a larger share of

revenues from the state legislature to be spent on ongoing road development that department officials hoped might lure more filmmakers to the state.54 These early efforts by the Department of Publicity and Industrial Development were progressive in the sense that they identified early on that tourism had the potential to become “Utah’s number one source of income.”55 The department’s 1944/1946 report to the governor laid out a plan to achieve this end that entailed placing information centers at all state entrances, constructing access roads to open new scenic areas across the state, developing an educational promotion program for use throughout Utah, and distributing literature touting Utah as an ideal tourist destination. Much of this effort focused on southern Utah, which state officials felt could be marketed as a place of both remarkable landscapes and

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

wonders to potential tourists, the department spent heavily from its budget on advertising, primarily in western publications. Often, it was aided in this effort by civic clubs that tirelessly promoted the state’s rich tourist offerings on the pages of newspapers and journals—promotional efforts that, in effect, produced a wealth of free advertising for the state.53

268

John Ford, Maureen O’Hara, and John Wayne on the set of Rio Grande, a western filmed in Utah, 1950. —

US HS

The logo of the 89’ers International Highway Association, taken from a piece of letterhead. —

C ou r t e s y USUS CA

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

The culmination of the effort to promote U.S. Highway 89 as the gateway to Utah’s scenic attractions was a collective of tourist-dependent businessmen known as the 89’ers International Highway Association. Commercial boosters had attempted in 1941 and 1950 to form two different groups specifically promoting Highway 89, but neither organization gained much traction. The 89’ers International Highway Association was a different matter.59 Founded in 1954 and based in Salt Lake City, Utah, this organization consisted of a diverse coalition of boosters from Canada to Mexico, including motel operators, restaurant owners, car dealers, travel agents, and other interested parties—some 300 by September 1955. Their stated goal was simply to “improve the economy and increase the prosperity of every city and village served by and adjacent to, this three-nation Boulevard of National Parks.”60

The role of chief tourism advocate for the State of Utah would shift in form and composition in the decades ahead. In 1953, the legislature abolished the Department of Publicity and Industrial Development and assigned its duties to the newly created Utah Tourist and Publicity Council. The council, appointed by Governor J. Bracken Lee, was born during the 1953 general session out of a legislative compromise over two competing bills regarding the oversight of advertising for the state and its charge was to publicize scenic attractions while also generally promoting the state’s overall tourist trade.57 To that end the council planned and conducted a program of information, advertising, and publicity relating to the recreational, scenic, histor-

ical, highway, and tourist attractions of Utah at large. The bipartisan importance of tourism to the state was reflected in the fact that the Council’s seven-member board (appointed by the governor from each of Utah’s judicial districts) could not include more than four members of the same political party.58

U H Q

recreational opportunities, without alienating tourists who were wary of the state’s Mormon past.56 This focus dovetailed well with the push for ever-better roads, a goal that the Department of Publicity and Industrial Development continued to pursue throughout the 1940s in its efforts to boost the film industry, tourism, and resource development. The development of roads such as Highway 89, the agency felt, would unlock the state’s potential as a magnet for travelers.

269

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

270

The 89’ers International Highway Association set itself apart from previous groups with its ambitious media campaign. In addition to tried-and-true highway signs, the 89’ers explored radio and film as avenues to get their message out. One early effort to break into radio involved the production of a Highway 89–themed album featuring “Treasure Trail: The Official 89’ers Song,” composed by Bernie Williams and performed by Frank Barker and his Latin Aires. Williams claimed in his discussions with the 89’ers that “‘I Get My Kicks on 66,’” referring to the song “Get Your Kicks on Route 66,” had “increased traffic about 670% on Highway 66.”61 The group hoped for similar success with their LP single—ruby-red with a bright yellow label—which they intended to be distributed to radio stations nationwide and placed in jukeboxes throughout the West. A radio audience could also be reached, they hoped, through public service announcements by stations along the highway: Fifteen minute scripts in interview form and spot announcements would be prepared and key 89’er members in each area would work with their State Director in presenting the programs. The material used would serve to acquaint local folks with attractions adjacent to the entire route. Other scripts and spots could be worded, and directed to the special attention of tourists listening en-route. Such items as an “89’er Weather Report” would assist certain areas that are open all winter.62 The 89’ers hoped to reach the public through a visual medium as well, endorsing the production of a “colored motion picture film featuring as many . . . attractions as footage would permit for showing on television and before various civic groups.”63 Unfortunately, it is unclear if the group brought any of these plans to fruition or what ultimately happened to the 89’ers, because the person whose papers became the main source of archival documents about the group, vice president Edgar Bentley Mitchell, died in a plane crash on December 18, 1959.64 Over the last century, the efforts of good roads promoters, highway boosters, state agencies,

and local commercial and civic groups have made Utah, with Highway 89 at its backbone, a major tourist destination for travelers across the country and around the globe. This renown was, in part, the result of collaborative action to improve roads from earth and gravel to asphalt and concrete surfaces while simultaneously broadcasting the message of Utah’s scenic beauty ever farther through the airwaves. Such efforts have been so successful that the state now faces a new set of issues involving congestion and air pollution at some of its most popular natural attractions. Perhaps a new generation of boosters will find ways to address these problems with the enthusiasm of their predecessors.65 Notes 1 Parowan (UT) Times, September 5, 1930. 2 Marguerite S. Shaffer, See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880–1940 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2001), 4–5. 3 For more on the decline of extractive industry and the rise of tourism in southern Utah and the greater Four Corners region during the postwar period, see Arthur R. Gomez, Quest for the Golden Circle: The Four Corners and the Metropolitan West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994). For more on the role state agencies played in marketing Utah to a national audience during the postwar period, see Susan Sessions Rugh, “Branding Utah: Industrial Tourism in the Postwar American West,” Western Historical Quarterly 37, no. 4 (Winter 2006). 4 Albert A. Pope, The Movement for Better Roads (Boston: Pope, 1892), 9. 5 Federal Highway Administration, America’s Highways, 1776–1976: A History of the Federal Aid Program (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977), 36; Stephen B. Goddard, Colonel Albert Pope and His American Dream Machines: The Life and Times of a Bicycle Tycoon Turned Automotive Pioneer (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000), 118; Stephen B. Goddard, Getting There: The Epic Struggle between Road and Rail in the American Century (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 44–47. 6 Goddard, Getting There, 44, 55; Federal Highway Administration, America’s Highways, 37. 7 “State Motor Vehicle Registrations, by Years, 1900– 1995,” April 1997, Federal Highway Administration, accessed September 17, 2014, fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/ summary95/mv200.pdf; United States Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1919), 306–307; Federal Highway Administration, America’s Highways, 50, 52, 64, 67, 76, 87. 8 Salt Lake Tribune, June 3, 1905. 9 Salt Lake Tribune, June 4, 1905. This contradicted the long-standing tradition by which the state vice-president for the national association—in this case former Governor Heber M. Wells—would be selected as president of the state Good Roads association. The Salt Lake Tribune cried foul, claiming that Anderson’s election

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

38 Commercial-Boosters Club minutes, February 19, 1913, Cache Chamber of Commerce papers, Series I, box 3, fd. 1, COLL MSS 293, USUSCA. 39 According to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration website, the Bureau of Public Roads was first created as the Office of Road Inquiry in 1893. Housed under the Department of Agriculture, it was known successively as the Office of Public Road Inquiries, the Office of Public Roads, and the Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering before assuming the name Bureau of Public Roads in 1918. In 1939, the bureau was absorbed into the Federal Works Agency and became known as the Public Roads Administration. Transferred to the Department of Commerce in 1949, it was again referred to as the Bureau of Public Roads. Beginning in 1967 the bureau briefly operated under the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) before its functions were completely absorbed by the FHWA on August 10, 1970. 40 Logan (UT) Republican, August 5, 1920. 41 U.S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919), 309; State Road Commission, Sixth Biennial Report: 1919–1920 (Kaysville, UT: Inland Printing Company, n.d.), 60; State Road Commission, Seventh Biennial Report: 1921–1922 (Salt Lake City: Arrow Press, n.d.), 47, 77, 103; State Road Commission, Eleventh Biennial Report: 1929–1930 (n.p., n.d.), rear map insert; “Special Meeting of Roads Committee,” box 3, fd. 4, Series I, Cache Chamber of Commerce Papers, COLL MSS 293, USUSCA; State Road Commission, Seventeenth Biennial Report: 1941–1942 (n.p., n.d.), 65, 145. 42 American Association of State Highway Officials, “For the Convenience of the Traveling Public a Limited System of State Roads Have Been Given Continuous Numbers Across the Country,” American Highways 6, no. 2 (April 1927); Mt. Pleasant (UT) Pyramid, June 26, 1936. 43 Richfield (UT) Reaper, June 12, 1930. 44 Piute County (UT) News, June 5, 1931; CommercialBoosters Club minutes, August 14, 1912, box 3, fd. 1, Series I, Cache Chamber of Commerce Papers. 45 Kane County (UT) Standard, February 18, 1938. 46 Garfield County (UT) News, May 5, 1938. 47 Garfield County (UT) News, June 12, 1941; Kane County (UT) Standard, July 15, 1938; Piute County (UT) News, September 30, 1938 48 Salt Lake Telegram, January 14, 1941. 49 Roosevelt (UT) Standard, June 16, 1941. 50 Iron County (UT) Record, July 10, 1941. 51 Laws of the State of Utah, 1941 (Kaysville, UT: Inland Printing, 1941), chapter 75. 52 Boxes 11–15, Public Documents Serial Set. 53 Richfield (UT) Reaper, June 4, 1931. 54 Box 13, fd. 1, Public Documents Serial Set. 55 Ibid. 56 Stephen C. Sturgeon, “The Disappearance of Everett Ruess and the Discovery of Utah’s Red Rock Country,” in Utah in the Twentieth Century, ed. Brian Q. Cannon and Jessie L. Embry (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2009), 24–44. 57 Iron County (UT) Record, February 19, 1953. 58 Laws of the State of Utah, 1953 (Kaysville, UT: Inland Printing, 1953), chapter 123. 59 Boosters formed the U.S. Highway 89 Association in Manti, Utah, on November 12, 1941. Its effectiveness was limited by a membership from just six counties and an advertising agenda that never seemed to advance be-

U H Q

was the work of Smoot, an LDS apostle and U.S. senator. “It is always a serious question how far any good project or enterprise can be carried in Utah without encountering the trail of the hierarchic serpent,” the paper fumed in reference to the Mormon church. It should also be noted that Smoot was an ally of Governor Cutler, who beat Wells in the 1904 Republican gubernatorial primary. 10 Salt Lake Tribune, October 5, 1905. 11 Salt Lake Tribune, January 11, 1908. 12 “Utah Awakening,” Good Roads Magazine, February 1908, 63. 13 Box 2, fd. 37, Governor (1905–1908: Cutler), Correspondence (incoming), Series 202, Utah State Archives and Records Service, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter USARS) 14 Box 11, fd. 21, Governor (1909–1917: Spry), Correspondence, Series 226, USARS. 15 Laws of the State of Utah, 1909 (Salt Lake City: Skelton, 1909), chapter 119; University of Utah, “Bulletin of the University of Utah,” June 1908, accessed September 23, 2014, content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ir-eua/ id/1438; Utah State University, “Catalogue of the Agricultural College of Utah for 1908–1909,” May 1908, accessed September 23, 2014, digitalcommons.usu.edu/ universitycatalogs/33/. 16 Laws of the State of Utah, 1909, chapter 119. 17 Box 4, fd. 2, Secretary of State Public Documents Serial Set, Series 240, USARS (hereafter Public Documents Serial Set). 18 Ibid. 19 Box 5, fd. 1, Public Documents Serial Set. 20 Box 5, fd. 4, Public Documents Serial Set. 21 Box 7, fd. 5, Public Documents Serial Set. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Richard F. Weingroff, “From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System,” AASHTO Quarterly, Spring 1997, accessed April 27, 2016, www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/numbers.cfm; Laws of the State of Utah, 1927 (Salt Lake City: Arrow Press, 1927), chapter 21. 25 Gunnison (UT) Valley News, June 19, 1930. 26 Box 9, fd. 3, Public Documents Serial Set. 27 Manti (UT) Messenger, December 5, 1930. 28 Garfield County (UT) News, August 23, 1935. 29 Box 3, fd. 41, Governor (1933–1941: Blood), Correspondence, Series 14207, USARS. 30 Salt Lake Telegram, December 13, 1938. 31 Kane County (UT) Standard, April 9, 1937. 32 Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, Passed at the Several Annual Sessions of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah (Salt Lake City: Henry McEwan, public printer, 1866), 218–19; Henry Ballard, transcribed journal, October 25, 1869, Special Collections and Archives, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University, Logan, Utah (hereafter USUSCA); Deseret News, February 8, 1871; Leonard Arrington, Charles C. Rich (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1974), 274. 33 Journal (Logan, UT), September 3, 1892. 34 Logan (UT) Republican, June 17, 1916. 35 Journal (Logan, UT), September 10, 1892; The County of Cache to Logan, Utah, February 12, 1904, box 7, fd. 23, Cache County records collection, #316, USUSCA. 36 Journal (Logan, UT), November 28, 1891. 37 Journal (Logan, UT), December 1, 1891; see also Journal (Logan, UT), September 23, 1893; Journal (Logan, UT), April 21, 1894.

271

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

272

yond highway signs. “Cement construction seemed to be favored by the majority of those in attendance,” read a report from one meeting. Another group composed of representatives from commerce and civic groups along the entire length of Highway 89 organized on October 26, 1950, in Montpelier, Idaho. Officers from Utah included E. W. Timberlake and Guy Glassford of Logan and Homer Bandly of Richfield. Though one account of the meeting expressed hope of “getting publicity long lacking on Highway 89,” little is known about what happened to this association. Piute County (UT) News, January 23, 1942; Manti (UT) Messenger, November 17, 1950. 60 News Bulletin, January 1957, box 1, fd. 15, Edgar Bentley Mitchell Papers, COLL MSS 322, USUSCA; Garfield County (UT) News, January 27, 1955; First Annual 89’ers membership meeting minutes, box 1, fd. 1, Edgar Bentley Mitchell Papers; Manti (UT) Messenger, September 23, 1955. 61 Board of Directors’ meeting minutes, October 24, 1955, box 1, fd. 3, Mitchell Papers. 62 Ten Point Promotional Program for 1957 and 1958, box 1, fd. 12, Mitchell Papers. 63 Convention Edition News Bulletin, November 1956, box 1, fd. 15, Mitchell Papers. 64 Ten Point Promotional Program for 1957 and 1958, box 1, fd. 12, Mitchell Papers; Manti (UT) Messenger, September 2, 1955; Logan (UT) Herald Journal, December 20–21, 1959. 65 For more information on the history of Highway 89, see the Highway 89 Digital Collections initiative (www. highway89.org). This project seeks to document the history of Highway 89 by providing digital access to an assortment of materials from special collections and archives throughout Utah and Arizona. Initially started as a joint project between Utah State University, the Utah State Archives, Salt Lake County Archives, Brigham Young University, and Southern Utah University, and Northern Arizona University, the online collection currently offers about 1,400 historic photographs and documents that help illuminate the history that has grown up alongside Highway 89.

DOCUMENTS

Making an (in)delible mark: Nineteenth-century mormon girls and their manuscript newspapers

The Brigham City Young Ladies’ Star was one of a couple dozen manuscript newspapers produced by nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint teenagers. Beginning in 1877, the Young Ladies’ and the Young Men’s MIAs created a location for Mormon adolescents to socialize, receive religious instruction, and develop a distinct identity. A close examination of Utah young women’s manuscript newspapers demonstrates first their context and history, followed by insight into the creation of Mormon adolescence, and then the development of agency and authority of young women in Utah. First, information exchange of handwritten newspapers presented a distinct opportunity for Utah young women to participate in and take advantage of communication through cheap and accessible media: pen and paper. Before the 1867 invention of the toy press—a small, mechanized, movable printing press—young people were drawn to the dissemination of information via pen and paper.2 The difficulty in production—actually handwriting each paper— belied the inevitable temporality of the process.

An April 1886 issue of the Advocate, a manuscript newspaper issued by the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the LDS Ogden First Ward. Handwritten newspapers provided Utah girls with a space to develop their own agency and authority. —

L DS C hu rch Hist ory L ibra ry

N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

Kenneth Faig called holograph amateur newspapers “fragile entities,” not only because of the tediousness and difficulty of copying them, but also because of the challenge of preserving them.3 And yet the few that remain extant indicate their value to writers, readers, and those who preserved them. Nathaniel Hawthorne and his sister Marie Hawthorne handwrote a family newspaper, the Spectator, for two months in 1820.4 Other youth-oriented popular authors produced manuscript newspapers, including Louisa May Alcott and, later, Lucy M. Montgomery. Perhaps the most well-known manuscript newspaper was the fictional Pickwick Portfolio, published by the March sisters and described in the 1868 novel Little Women. Alcott wrote from personal experience with newspapers; she and her sisters organized their own manuscript newspaper. Both the Alcott

U H Q

On June 1, 1878, Amelia M. Hansen wrote in the Young Ladies’ Star, “Dear sisters it was quite unexpected to me when my name was called to write a piece for our paper, as we are young, and have not much experience, but we often hear those that are placed over us, say there is a great work for us to do; we have got to work out our own salvation and not wait for somebody else to work it out for us.” Hansen, a member of the Brigham City First Ward Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association (MIA), was contributing to the first issue of the organization’s manuscript newspaper. In her short essay, she expressed fears about writing while at the same time she boldly encouraged her adolescent peers to speak up in their community.1

By Jennifer Reeder

273

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

274

paper and the March paper inspired others, including the Lukens sisters in Pennsylvania, to create manuscript newspapers.5 Members of the Bliss family wrote the Amherst Juvenile, a children’s paper, in Massachusetts in 1874.6 The Young Ladies of the Independent Literary Society in Jacksonville, Oregon, produced the Honeybee in 1874, “devoted to Art, Wit, Poetry, and Science.”7 Each of these publications, whether they were known by young, Mormon women in Utah or not, contributed to the larger culture of American adolescent manuscript newspaper. Both territorial publications and the Mormon press influenced the manuscript newspapers by girls in Utah. The Deseret News was the first printed newspaper in Utah in 1850, and others quickly followed. The Salt Lake Tribune commenced in 1870, and by 1885, there were five significant Salt Lake City printed papers. Dozens of manuscript newspapers circulated throughout small towns in Utah Territory that could not obtain a press, including the Heber Herald and the Sanpitcher of Mount Pleasant.8 The Vepricula, a St. George newspaper, was written, edited, revised, criticized, and rewritten in each author’s own handwriting from 1864 to 1865.9 In Payson, Utah, members of the Philomathean Society published the Philomathean Gazette, dedicated to the love of learning; the paper included poetry, travel accounts, stories, and correspondence.10

rative among Mormon women filtered down to their daughters as girls mimicked their mothers in their own manuscript newspapers. Young women of various communities along the Mormon corridor in the Utah Territory engaged in similar activity with their institutional newspapers. While they did not have access to (nor could they afford) toy printing presses, they used their ready resources of pen and paper. The first known paper was created in St. George. The Young Ladies’ Diadem, like most other papers, was edited by a different young woman each issue and included personal writings from several writers.13 Manuscript newspapers soon appeared among young women’s groups in Bountiful, Pinto, Brigham City, Fairview, Goshen, Hyrum, Fountain Green, Ogden, Taylorsville, and Orderville, spanning from 1877 to 1924. Young women’s publication efforts influenced young men to mirror their efforts. The Ogden First Ward young women started their paper, the Advocate, in April 1886, with a decorative masthead. Ten months later the Ogden First Ward young men produced the Surprise. In the first edition, one young man wrote: “Dear Editors: could we as young men, only partially see the good to be derived, to us, by the foster-

As the press in Utah developed, so did particular readerships. In January 1866, George Q. Cannon began printing the Juvenile Instructor, purportedly the first children’s magazine west of the Mississippi River. The magazine served as the official voice of the LDS Sunday School until 1929, when it was renamed the Instructor, and continued until 1971.11 Young women often hand-copied essays and poetry from the Juvenile Instructor into their manuscript issues. The Woman’s Exponent, owned and published by LDS women from 1872 to 1914, was dedicated to such issues as polygamy, suffrage, and Relief Society reports, and often included reports from young women’s manuscript newspapers. Many of these hard copies no longer exist beyond their second printing in the Exponent, so the Exponent became an important form of preservation for these “fragile entities.”12 The pattern of devotional writing and personal nar-

The masthead of the Young Ladies’ Diadem, a manuscript newspaper created in St. George, Utah. The motto reads “Prove all Things / Hold Fast that which is good.” —

USHS

Mastheads from two editions of the Beehive, a manuscript newspaper issued by the LDS Young Men and Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Associations in St. George, Utah. —

US HS

The organization of the Young Ladies’ and the Young Men’s MIAs set a location for the creation of a specific Mormon adolescence. By the end of 1870, every local ward in the Salt Lake Valley had organized groups, following in nearly every settlement in the territory.19 Just like high schools in the East developed school newspapers, many of these Mormon adolescent associations also produced manuscript newspapers.20 Additionally, LDS publications influenced a developing Mormon adolescence. Junius Wells inaugurated the Contributor in 1879, an institutional printed paper for the Young Men’s MIA. As the founder of the Young Men’s MIA, his intent was to provide a medium for youth to develop literary talent.21 The Contributor ran until 1896, seven years after Susa Young Gates founded the monthly Young Woman’s Journal. The Young Woman’s Journal included curriculum, fiction, and personal experiences, written mostly by adult women for young female readers, and ran until 1929, when it merged with the Young Men’s Improvement Era.22 Young authors addressed the topic of adolescence directly in their manuscript newspapers. “The young especially—should take their stand,” wrote one author in the Beehive

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

Education was important to Mormon settlers in the West, and local LDS congregations organized elementary schools in the 1850s and 1860s. The transcontinental railroad in 1869 introduced additional access to American culture and influenced the creation of district public schools. While Brigham Young established academies along the Mormon corridor, and other denominations followed suit, Utah’s first territorial legislation regarding free public education did not occur until 1890. Public secondary education did not become viable until the 1910s.18

Secondly, young women’s manuscript newspapers mark a significant transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood with a distinct emphasis on late-nineteenth-century Mormon female teen identity. The development of American adolescence occurred over

the second half of the nineteenth century. The shift of the market economy and the subsequent redefinition of the middle-class family fostered a period of change for youth no longer required to contribute to the family economy.16 The institutionalization of education, specifically public high schools, created a new space for young women to both express and eschew expectations of Victorian domesticity.17

U H Q

ing and sustaining of a ‘Manuscript Paper’ in our association, we would esteem it one of the greatest privileges within our reach, as well as a source of encouraging self-development to frequently contribute our ‘little piece’ to the life and improvement of the same.” He went on to note that “some excellent articles have appeared in the ‘Young Ladies’ Advocate,’ and why should we not show some of equal, if not of superior merit?”14 Some teen girls and boys combined efforts on joint manuscript newspapers, such as the Beehive, produced by the combined MIAs in St. George in the 1880s and 1890s.15 The historical context of manuscript newspapers and other Mormon publications, along with a catalog of Utah young women’s productions, demonstrates the value of this largely unnoticed historical medium.

275

3 N O . U H Q

V O L .

8 5

in 1888.23 An article in the Little Girls’ Magazine specifically addressed “the little girls of our association,” assuming a perceived difference between younger and older girls. “Learn all you can, now, while you are young, for now is the best time. When you get larger, you will find that there are many things for you to attend to that you do not think about now.”24 In the same issue, editor Juie Ivins addressed her “dear little friends, as the greater portion of our members belong to this class.” She reminded them that they would soon be “grown up young wom[e]n.”25 Manuscript newspapers provided a space for Mormon female adolescence to ferment. Third, young women’s manuscript newspapers allowed girls to establish community and to create an emerging adolescent female agency. “Editress” Annie E. Bentley intended the Young Ladies’ Diadem to be “a benefit to our little society.”26 Janie McAllister, in another publication, wrote “I think these meetings unite and bring us together as nothing else can, and I feel doubly blessed in coming.”27 The St. George Lit-

tle Girls’ Magazine editors took pride in their work: “we can have the nicest little paper in the world.”28 Bentley, also in St. George but writing for a different newspaper, remarked on their “barren country,” which “proves that although we are in an isolated location we are not forgotten.”29 These young women from a small town in southwestern Utah inserted themselves within a global sphere. Membership in an identifiable community presented space for personal authorship. The Vepricula, an 1860s manuscript newspaper compiled by St. George men, admitted “the motivating force which produced this unusual newspaper was undoubtedly an intense hunger for learning and a strong desire for self expression.”30 Manuscript newspapers illustrate how teenage girls participated in a larger public discourse, although that discourse was admittedly limited by technology and local readership. “Auntie Lou” literally issued a call for articles in the Little Girls’ Magazine, listing people by name. “If we don’t hear from them in our next paper, we will think they are sick, or have turned

276

The St. George Little Girls’ Magazine, November 12, 1879. The motto reads “Perseverance conquers all things.” —

US HS

Manuscript newspapers provided a location where young girls could explore and develop their female agency. Juie Ivins, in the Little Girls’ Magazine, employed male examples of character but then she encouraged her readers: “Oh! girls, let us strive and pray always to be delivered from such characters, for they are sure to bring misery and degradation to all with whom they are connected.”35 Her council positioned St. George young women as active subjects with their own form of agency in social relationships, influenced by LDS doctrine.36 In another article, Ivins keenly observed, “We can scarcely find two persons who are alike in everything. They may strongly resemble each other in some one or more particulars, but still, if we will observe closely we will see those that are so many different traits of character.” She encouraged the young women to develop their minds as well as their individual gifts.37 Annie Bentley bravely asserted: “Let us then go to with our might and talents God has given us.”38 Rhoda Young invited readers to write for the Diadem: “It is a unity of effort, a little time and labor given by all, to make the paper a success. I am sure we all ought to try and do our part, by contributing an essay to the paper.”39 Maggie Ivins emboldened readers to “learn for ourselves.”40 Each of these young women recognized her abilities, even as adolescents, with pen and paper.

Notes 1 Amelia M. Hansen, “Slander,” Young Ladies’ Star (Brigham City, UT), June 1, 1878, 2, manuscript, LR 988 22, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City (hereafter CHL). 2 See Paula Petrik, “The Youngest Fourth Estate: The Novelty Toy Press and Adolescence,” in Small Worlds: Children and Adolescents in America, 1850–1950, ed. Elliott West and Paula Petrik (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992). 3 Kenneth Faig, “Passion, Controversy, and Vision: A History of the Library of Amateur Journalism,” in One Hundred Years of the Fossils: 1904–2004, ed. Kenneth Faig Jr. and Guy Miller (Springfield, OH: Potpourri, 2005), 1. 4 “Hawthorne: Bicentennial Exhibition at the Phillips Library,” Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, accessed October 2016, pem.org/sites/hawthorne. 5 Daniel Shealy, “The Growth of Little Things: Louisa May Alcott and the Lukens Sisters’ Family Newspaper,” Resources for American Literary Study 30 (2006). 6 Amherst Juvenile, 1874, Bliss Family Papers, 1834–1921, Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts. 7 Honeybee, 1874, manuscript, Special Collections, Knight Library, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. 8 Chad Flake, “Early Utah Journalism: A Brief Summary,” in Utah’s Newspapers: Traces of Her Past, ed. Dennis McCargar and Yvonne Stroup (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1984), 9–25. 9 “Forward,” “The Vepricula” or Little Bramble (St. George, UT), typescript, 1, MSS A 6091, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter USHS). 10 John Redington, Philomathean Gazette, February 24,

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L .

Despite their fragility and loss, the nineteenthcentury manuscript newspapers written by Mormon girls in Utah render valuable information about technology, community identity, and female agency. Placing these publications within the larger American context situates Mormon young women in the newly developing transitional period of adolescence.

Initially authors often expressed fears or insecurities in writing. “Rose” opened her article: “as this is my first attempt in writing, you must excuse me and I will try and do better next time.”33 Rhoda M. Young wrote for the Young Ladies’ Diadem, “It is with a feeling of diffidence, that I take upon me the responsibility of editing this issue of our monthly paper. And as this is my first attempt, I hope you will excuse anything that is amiss with my efforts . . . . I hope it will prove satisfactory to all.”34 Preliminary efforts led to increasing empowerment based on experience.

In conclusion, the production of manuscript newspapers was significant. “Charity” wrote in the Young Ladies’ Diadem: “I hope the girls will not forget it is paper day and that they will all write something for the paper and that it will be an interesting one.”41 The temporality of the medium, however, belies a sense of loss of historical records. So few manuscript newspapers remain extant today; many are known only by second-hand report and are rarely used by historians today as a viable historical source. Separate issues of the Philomathean Gazette exist today in three different archival collections: the Utah State Historical Society, Brigham Young University’s Special Collections, and the LDS Church History Library.42

U H Q

traitor to the course, and forsaken us entirely.”31 Many writers used pen names, something they had surely seen among writers in the Woman’s Exponent and other printed publications. This was a common feature for manuscript papers; even the men’s Vepricula used pseudonyms.32 Name, fake name, or no name, the girls had a site for expression.

277

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

278

1873, manuscript, MSS A 2591, USHS. An 1872 edition had a female editor, E. Dixon. Philomathean Gazette, 1872, manuscript, MSS SC 1319, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (hereafter HBLL). 11 Ruel A. Allred, “Juvenile Instructor,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 777. 12 See, for example, the Fairview Young Ladies Companion piece published in the Woman’s Exponent 8, no. 3 (July 1, 1879): 81, and the Goshen Gem article, published in the same issue. 13 Young Ladies Diadem (St. George, UT), 1877, manuscript, MSS A 1051, USHS. See Roy Atwood, The Handwritten Newspapers Project, handwrittennews.com/ category/1877, accessed October 21, 2016. 14 Ogden First Ward YMMIA, Surprise (Ogden, UT), February 1887, manuscript, LR 6391 29, CHL. 15 Beehive, 1886–1889, manuscript, MSS A 1053, USHS. 16 Mary Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 17 Jane H. Hunter, How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Childhood (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). 18 Frederick S. Buchanan, “Education in Utah,” in Utah History Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995), uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/e/EDUCATION.html, accessed October 20, 2016. 19 Elaine Anderson Cannon, “Young Women,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1616–19. 20 See Lucille M. Schultz, “Editing the Jabberwock: A Formative Experience for Nineteenth-Century Girls,” in Blue Pencils and Hidden Hands: Women Editing Periodicals, 1830–1910, ed. Sharon M. Harris (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004), 3–19. 21 Petrea Gillespie Kelly, “Contributor,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 320. 22 Petrea Kelly, “Young Woman’s Journal,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1615–16. 23 Observer, “A Few Lines,” Beehive, April 10, 1888, 3, manuscript, MSS A 1053, USHS. 24 [Juie Ivins], untitled, Little Girls’ Magazine, November 12, 1879, 3, manuscript, MSS A 1052, USHS. 25 Juie Ivins, “To the Little Girls,” Little Girls’ Magazine, November 12, 1879, 10, USHS. 26 Annie E. Bentley, “Editorial,” Young Ladies Diadem (St. George, UT), March 13, 1878, 1, USHS. 27 Janie McAllister, “My Attendance at These Meetings,” Little Girls’ Magazine, November 12, 1879, 9, USHS. 28 Aunt Lou, “Letters from Aunt Lou, Letter 2nd,” Little Girls’ Magazine, November 12, 1879, 5, USHS. 29 Bentley, “Editorial,” 2, USHS. 30 “Forward,” “The Vepricula” or Little Bramble, 1, USHS. 31 Aunt Lou, “Letters from Aunt Lou, Letter 2nd,” 5, USHS. 32 According to the Vepricula, “‘Veritas was Orson Pratt, Jr; ‘Signor’ was George A. Burgon; ‘Cerus’ was Joseph Orton; and ‘Mark Whiz’ was Charles Lowell Walker.” “Forward,” “The Vepricula” or Little Bramble, 1, USHS. 33 Rose, untitled, Little Girls’ Magazine, November 12, 1879, 7, USHS. 34 Rhoda M. Young, “Editorial,” Young Ladies Diadem (St. George, UT), January 30, 1878, 4, USHS. 35 Juie Ivins, untitled, 1–2, USHS. 36 See Catherine A. Brekus, “Mormon Women and the Problem of Historical Agency,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 59–87.

37 Juie A. Ivins, “Editorial,” and “To the Little Girls,” Little Girls’ Magazine, November 12, 1879, 1, 10, USHS. 38 Bentley, “Editorial,” 2, USHS. 39 Young, “Editorial,” 4–5, USHS. 40 Maggie Ivins, “Prayer,” Little Girls Magazine, November 12, 1879, 8, USHS. 41 Charity, “Always Tell the Truth,” Young Ladies Diadem (St. George, UT), March 13, 1878, 3, USHS. 42 Philomathean Gazette, 1872, HBLL; Philomathean Gazette, February 24, 1873, USHS; Philomathean Gazette 4, no. 18 (1875), manuscript, box 5, fd. 9, reel 6, Isaiah M. Coombs Collection, MS 1198, CHL.

Rogers argues that the framers of the doctrine of popular sovereignty were so eager to remove slavery from congressional debates that they seemingly forgot that the territories were not states. The territories came under a federal supervision that sought to guide their development, in order to assure that their governments were consistent with the principles of republicanism and loyalty to the Union. Not surprisingly, residents of the territories often resented the exclusive power of the federal government to choose their territorial officers and the ability of Congress to veto the enactments of their territorial assemblies. Rogers argues that in Utah Territory, resistance to federal authority was particularly strong and grew only more intense in light of the expectations of the doctrine of popular sovereignty. This soon came to light thanks to Mormonism’s “peculiar institution.”

Rogers also notes that the Mormon philosophy of government posed a threat to the doctrine of popular sovereignty. In the first place, a theocracy could hardly pass muster as republicanism in Washington. Meanwhile, the anger of the Mormons over past religious persecution in the United States made the federal government suspicious of their loyalty to the Union. These suspicions only grew when non-Mormon federal officials encountered Mormon resistance and anger in 1851. Fearing for their lives, they left the Great Basin and returned to Washington with tales of Mormon disloyalty to the Union. While Mormon leaders managed to avoid serious consequences after this first exodus of federal officials, repeated occurrences only reinforced the belief that the Latter-day Saints could not be trusted to govern themselves the way the proponents of popular sovereignty had envisioned. Rogers’s greatest contribution to our knowledge of this conflict comes from his discussion of Indian policy. He makes the case that Mormon practices in managing Indian affairs were often in direct competition with federal policy. Accordingly, the Mormons had arguably vio-

N O . I 8 5

In this excellent study, Brent Rogers examines the conflict between Washington, D.C. and early Utah Territory through the lens of popular sovereignty. While most historians concentrate on the violence in Kansas Territory as an explanation for the ultimate failure of popular sovereignty, Rogers argues that Utah Territory played a key role in dooming the doctrine. He makes a convincing case that the conflict between the Mormons and Washington over polygamy, theocracy, and the administration of Indian affairs exposed popular sovereignty as little more than “a situation-based, ad hoc sham” that left its proponents with little choice but to backpedal when it only created new conflicts, instead of resolving the debate over slavery (19).

V O L .

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. xiv + 383 pp. Paper, $32.00.

By Brent M. Rogers

The practice of polygamy in Utah Territory grew to become one of the primary challenges to the viability of popular sovereignty. When Democratic leaders first proposed a policy of allowing territorial residents the autonomy to arrange their domestic relationships, they were thinking of slavery—not the practice of polygamy. Unfortunately, the Republicans were all too quick to tie them together as the “twin relics of barbarism.” While Mormons saw the slogan as an affront to their religion, the real target of the Republicans was the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Democratic leaders soon found themselves in an awkward position when they discovered they could not logically ban polygamy while still allowing territorial residents the freedom to choose or reject slavery.

U H Q

Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory

BOOK REVIEWS & NOTICES

279

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I U H Q

280

lated the Trade and Intercourse Act. While this conflict is rarely discussed in depth in scholarly treatments of the period, Rogers declares that Mormon actions constituted the “gross dismissal of federal sovereignty” (97). For example, the Mormons sought to control regional Native Americans through a policy of making them economically dependent on the Latterday Saints rather than Washington. Mormons also proselytized to the Indians and earned their loyalty at the expense of Washington. This competition added urgency to the federal government’s decision to send troops to Utah Territory in 1857, where it proceeded to dismantle popular sovereignty among the Mormons. It was perhaps a more dramatic expansion of federal power in the West than Washington’s actions in regard to bleeding Kansas. Unpopular Sovereignty increases our understanding of the West during the antebellum period. While readers of other scholarly studies of Utah Territory may find Rogers’s coverage of polygamy and the Mormon conflicts with federal officials familiar, his attention to Mormon Indian policy makes a unique contribution to the study of the expansion of federal power in the territories. This is an important and long overdue addition to the knowledge of this period and emphasizes the importance of the study of Utah Territory’s role in the history of the American West. — Bruce W. Worthen Salt Lake City, Utah

Utah and the Great War: The Beehive State and the World War I Experience Edited by Allan Kent Powell Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and University of Utah Press, 2016. x + 421 pp. Paper, $24.95.

Allan Kent Powell’s Utah and the Great War— although timed with the centennial of World War I—features essays whose publication dates stretch from 1973 to the present. All but one of these articles were published in the Utah Historical Quarterly; the exception appeared in Brigham Young University Studies. The crisply

edited collection demonstrates the transformative effect of WWI on American society. The essays testify against a longstanding but erroneous belief that the war’s outbreak in 1914 mattered little to Americans. They demonstrate that the seemingly local concerns of Utah communities were anything but narrowly construed. The war resonated deeply in a state in which the population maintained strong ties to European homelands and overseas missions sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Whereas Utah is often unfairly characterized as a racial and religious monoculture, these essays show its cosmopolitan demography. Utahns reacted instantly to the war. German immigrants raised money for the German Red Cross to aid wounded soldiers fighting for the fatherland. Two hundred Serbian immigrants from Carbon County heeded the call to colors that beckoned tens of thousands of immigrants from across the United States to fight for their homelands. Richard C. Roberts’s two essays establish that Utahns were privy to a dress rehearsal for war in 1916, through the National Guard’s deployment to the Mexican border. The mobilization challenges confronted by the Utah Guard—including physically unfit soldiers, soldiers whose service would constitute a terrible financial burden to their families, and the necessity to flesh out understaffed units— were problems the U.S. Army would also experience in 1917–1918. Utah and the Great War describes the experiences of war in extraordinary detail. Soldiers from the Beehive State, for instance, separately witnessed a military balloonist burned to death while attempting to escape by parachute and American troops slaughtering German soldiers who were attempting to surrender. We learn of the acreage of war gardens in Salt Lake City, restrictions on gasoline purchases, the armed prosecution of Navajo draft resisters, and the militant responses of southern Utah cattlemen to warnings that German saboteurs might target their livestock. The establishment of prisoner of war camps in Utah for German soldiers ensured that local communities were privy to a grand saga of imprisonment that ensnared nearly ten million troops and civilians worldwide.

Certainly, not all Utahns embraced the Great War as a constructive endeavor. Some Utahns resisted the coercive pressures to conform to local, state, and national war imperatives. The essays in Utah and the Great War featuring an Episcopalian bishop named Paul Jones, German-Americans who ardently supported Berlin’s war policies, and draft-resisting Goshute Indians are some of the finest contributions to the volume for their presentation of America’s multifaceted responses to war. This collection of essays demonstrates that the questions elicited by the war did not simply end with the armistice in 1918. Utahns earnestly debated the postwar problems of crafting a durable peace through such solutions as the League of Nations. Even as Utahns generally welcomed the war’s end and the illusory return to “normalcy,” one Utah veteran so haunted by the echo of battle killed himself in 1925. The trauma of war endured. The war, its contested meaning, and its commemoration are all explored in Powell’s compilation. Drawing as it does on obscure local newspapers, oral histories, interviews, and unpublished papers in private collections, this volume illuminates otherwise hidden contours of the war. Few local histories more richly detail the global concerns and interactions of

American society in the First World War than Utah in the Great War. — Branden Little

With Water, Agriculture and Urban Growth, Craig Fuller, Robert Parson, and F. Ross Peterson have provided a carefully researched study of the Central Utah Project (CUP), the most far-reaching reclamation project in Utah. The book is based on research in secondary sources, in documents, and in interviews with those responsible for the project. A predecessor to the CUP occurred in 1879 with the diversion of water by Heber Valley farmers from the Strawberry River into Daniels Canyon. In the 1880s, Heber Valley farmers converted small lakes on the west slope of the Uinta Mountains into reservoirs. Early in the twentieth century, Uinta Basin farmers converted lakes into reservoirs on the south slope of the Uinta Mountains, and the Bureau of Reclamation constructed the Strawberry Valley Reclamation Project (SVRP). The Bureau of Reclamation planned the SVRP as the first major diversion of water from the Colorado River drainage into the Great Basin. It supplemented water for farmers in southern Utah Valley. Completed in 1915, the SVRP contracted in 1921 with the Strawberry Water Users Association. An addition to the CUP was a Bureau of Reclamation Depression-era project on the Provo River to provide water from the Deer Creek Dam to the Salt Lake Metropolitan Water District. Much of the story of that project appeared in Water for Urban Reclamation: The

N O . I 8 5

Salt Lake City and Orem: Utah State Historical Society and Central Utah Water Conservancy District, 2016. xiii + 475 pp. Cloth, $29.95.

V O L .

By Craig W. Fuller, Robert E. Parson, and F. Ross Peterson

Water, Agriculture and Urban Growth: A History of the Central Utah Project, the CUP: The First Fifty Years

Weber State University

U H Q

State and church leaders encouraged universal subscription to war bonds drives and myriad relief initiatives, hoping to dispel the suspicions of disloyalty about a state born in rebellion. Their ambitions were achieved. The war catalyzed “the Americanization of Utah,” (3) which established Utah as an essential part of the national tapestry. Reports of Utah’s soldiers in training camps located across the United States and during overseas deployments confirmed the identity of Utahns and validated their citizenship; observers praised Utah’s Doughboys for superlative discipline, martial virtues, and moral qualities. Unlike many of their fellow servicemen, troops from Utah actually upheld the moral standards for soldiers expected by American society. Perhaps for the first time, Utahns became paragons of Americanness as the nation took on the charge to transform the world into an American ideal that celebrated individual rights and political freedoms.

281

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

Provo River Project (Logan, 1966), by Leonard J. Arrington and this reviewer. The authors of Water, Agriculture and Urban Growth seem to have overlooked it. The Provo River Project was unusual since it supplied water for urban use rather than irrigation.

282

Utah could not achieve its goal of utilizing a share of Colorado River water until the states the river drained reached an agreement on how much each state could legally divert. Such an agreement became an absolute necessity after the Supreme Court ruled in Wyoming v. Colorado (1922) that prior appropriation allowed water diversion in one state to prevent the diversion of the same river in another state. This meant that one state within the Colorado’s drainage could effectively preempt a large portion of the river water and block diversions in other states. Senator Hyrum Johnson and Congressman Phil Swing threatened to give California this benefit by constructing a reservoir on the Colorado. A provision of the Constitution that authorized states to negotiate interstate agreements led to a conference on the Colorado River in Santa Fe in 1922. After solving several problems, the states agreed to divide the river at Lee’s Ferry, with the upper and lower basin states each receiving 7.5 million acre-feet of water annually. The upper basin states—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and part of Arizona—negotiated an agreement on the division of upper basin water. Although 3.4 million acre-feet originated in Utah, Utah received 1.71 million acre-feet in the division. Utah intended to use its allocation by diverting Colorado River water into the Great Basin, constructing features in the Uinta Basin, allocating water to the Uintah Reservation, diverting water from the Weber River to the Provo River, and constructing several other features. Originally the CUP would have furnished water for the Uinta Basin, the Wasatch Front, Juab, Millard, and Sevier counties and possibly Piute and Garfield counties on the upper Sevier River. Eventually, however, the Sevier River counties withdrew from the CUP. The Bureau of Reclamation faced a number of problems because of the need to satisfy various demands. Water users in the Uinta Basin

resented the priority given to expanded diversion to the Wasatch Front. The Utes rightly resented the decisions to place projects for their water use on the bottom of the list. Under the Supreme Court decision in Winters v. United States (1908) their 1861 water right predated many of the competing demands. Congress authorized the CUP as part of the Colorado River Storage Project in 1956. Construction moved ahead at a slow pace under congressional appropriations. A hit-list by President Jimmy Carter threatened to kill the CUP, and opposition by environmental groups endangered its completion as well. Congressman Wayne Owens and others stepped in in 1992 to secure passage of the Central Utah Completion Act (CUCA). The CUCA authorized the project to continue but required the CUP to protect environmental values such as stream flows and wildlife. The CUCA required the Central Utah Water Conservancy District to assume the responsibility to complete the CUP, a provision that caused considerable consternation to the Bureau of Reclamation. As the authors show, parts of the project still remain uncompleted, but the CUP is nevertheless functioning to supply water to multiple users while protecting environmental values. — Thomas G. Alexander Brigham Young University

Charles Ellis Johnson and the Erotic Mormon Image By Mary Campbell Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 192 pp. Cloth, $45.00.

Mormon and erotic are words that are not typically paired. Together they might seem contradictory—especially in light of the LDS church’s entrenched position against pornography—yet tantalizing. In her new book, art historian Mary Campbell brings these disparate elements together in an exploration of the work of Charles Ellis Johnson, a lesser-known Salt Lake City photographer who proudly boasted “you see Johnson all over the world” (3). The creation of pornographic photographs dates to the earliest

In investigating Johnson and his context, it is inevitable that there will be what Campbell calls a “slide” or “point of instability” (106). There simply are a lot of unknowns “in the back corners of Johnson’s archive” (56). Campbell overcomes this challenge through intensive research and penetrating analysis of the photographs. This is particularly true of Johnson’s bluer images, which invite speculation on who made up Johnson’s audience, the identity of the women in these photographs, and how these images could coexist alongside photographs of pious prophets and polygamous wives. The highlight of the text might be the discussion of Johnson’s stereographs of young women posed like eastern odalisques (chapter four). While not unique to Johnson, odalisque poses provide an opportunity to investigate the supposed parallels between polygamous Utah and Middle Eastern harems, which were frequently noted at the time. In chapter five Campbell utilizes Johnson’s portraits of Emmeline B. Wells and Martha Hughes Cannon to examine how these “Lady Saints” pushed gender boundaries in Utah and actively engaged in national movements (115).

At its finer moments, however, Charles Ellis Johnson is very well done. Campbell’s writing is informative, witty, and intelligent. It is well researched and engaging and, when read with texts such as those from Thomas Alexander and W. Paul Reeve, it helps piece together this crucial period in LDS history, as Mormons struggled to find their footings in the arenas of politics, culture, race, gender, and sex. — James R. Swensen Brigham Young University

3 N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

In many ways, however, the lure of the erotic Mormon image is merely a tease (pun intended), and is not the true subject of Campbell’s text. Her larger objective is the investigation of that complicated and thorny period in Mormon history when the LDS church struggled to move beyond its polygamous past. Johnson’s photographs, therefore, provide entrée into an important period, a moment of compromises that eventually transformed Mormons from “peculiar” pariahs into mainstream Americans. According to the author, “it’s a book about the complicated ways this process and its aftershocks played themselves out” in Johnson’s work (14).

In general, this book gets weaker as it becomes unmoored from Johnson and his work. This becomes especially apparent in the final chapter, which seems disjointed and lacks the cogency of the previous chapters. In it, Campbell presents an intriguing premise: that Joseph Smith’s use of the Urim and Thummim is comparable to stereoscopy in its ability to transport and decorporalize its viewer. This idea, however is weighed down by a discussion that winds through images of Joseph F. Smith (by an unknown photographer), the Book of Mormon, and the transcendentalists, which are all thinly tied to a final, enigmatic stereograph by Johnson. By and large, Campbell also ignores local connections in lieu of national interests. There is no discussion, for example, of how Johnson’s work compares to that of his photographer peers and competitors, or how his work relates to the nude sketches brought home by the Utah painters trained in the academies of Paris. Johnson was also not the only one to create nudes in his studio; see, for instance, C. W. Carter’s Beauty Unadorned, Paiute.

U H Q

uses of the camera, and, in truth, Johnson’s extant images of scantily clad and bare-breasted young women are tame in comparison to what his contemporaries were producing. The presence of these so-called spicy pictures, however, provides a sharp contrast to Johnson’s other subjects, including his better-known photographs of Wilford Woodruff and other church leaders. It is the contradictions of this photographic chameleon that make Campbell’s book intriguing.

283

NOTICES

Westerns: A Women’s History By Victoria Lamont

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016. xii + 194 pp. Cloth, $55.00.

284

Westerns: A Women’s History is a series of case studies about women writers of westerns at the turn of the twentieth century. Victoria Lamont aims to incorporate women authors’ influence on western fiction to debunk the perception that western writing and mythology has been solely a male profession. She describes how popular westerns emerged during a time of “frontier anxiety” after Fredrick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis and the perceived closure of the West. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show helped to preserve western mythology and elevated masculinity with the myth of the cowboy, which overshadowed women’s frontier experiences. Lamont juxtaposes male western authors’ themes with the themes from overlooked women writers. Men tended to focus on outlaw violence, vigilante justice, and class lines between cowboys and ranchers. Women writers chose subjects that evoked the “frontier heroine” through populism, suffrage, and moral authority. Lamont also claims that women writers had a more complex understanding of gender and racial hierarchies in the West. Overall, Westerns is designed to help readers rethink how women have been portrayed in western fiction and how an emphasis on female writers can help create a more accurate portrayal of gender history in the West.

A Kingdom Transformed: Early Mormonism and the Modern LDS Church, 2nd edition By Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016. xxii + 406. Paper, $35.00.

The original edition of a Kingdom Transformed, written by the sociologists Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, is a linguistic analysis of conferences of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) from 1830 to 1979. It demonstrates how LDS leaders adjusted their language to develop and modernize the church from a fringe religious movement into a successful, mainstream, and international religion. The second edition incorporates new data from 1980 to 2009, offering a comprehensive account of changes in church themes over time. Shepherd and Shepherd use a new coding method from Brigham Young University’s LDS General Conference Corpus that digitally tracks conference rhetoric, whereas the first edition used human coders. Shepherd and Shepherd offer a brief history of the LDS church and describe how its doctrine and practices evolved with anti-polygamy legislation and pressure to conform to a broader national identity in order to achieve statehood for Utah, specifically the church’s shift from collective ideologies to an emphasis on American individualism. Through rhetorical analysis, Shepherd and Shepherd illustrate the power that church leaders had in navigating and adapting doctrine to survive and even flourish in nineteenth and twentieth century America.

Chas Peterson, as photographed December 22, 1952. —

US HS

In Memoriam Charles “Chas” Peterson, 1927–2017

Utah lost one of its finest historians on May 10, 2017, when Charles S. “Chas” Peterson passed away in St. George at the age of ninety. Chas was an effective advocate for state and local history whose enthusiasm for Utah’s history was boundless and infectious. His papers housed at the Utah State Historical Society contain a treasure trove of documents and insights, assembled over a lifetime of research and teaching Utah, western, and Mormon history. Chas was a fellow of the Utah State Historical Society, a former director of the society,

As a boy, Chas believed that Snowflake was the center of the universe, an illusion that was shattered after Uncle Sam drafted him in 1945 and shipped him overseas. Chas entered the military only weeks before Germany surrendered and was stationed in Japan as part of the American occupation force after the war ended. Shortly after he returned home from Asia Chas honored his mother’s wishes and answered the call to serve an LDS mission in Sweden, his ancestral homeland. Taking advantage of the GI Bill following his mission, Chas enrolled at Brigham Young University, where he earned a degree in animal husbandry. Then he and his bride Elizabeth “Betty” Hayes moved to San Juan County, where they leased a dairy farm from Charlie Redd beginning in 1953. Dairy farmers struggled in the Eisenhower era as scientific advances enabled farmers to produce more milk than Americans could consume and as Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson

N O . I 8 5 V O L . I

Chas was born in 1927 in Snowflake, Arizona, a town not far removed at the time from its pioneer era, and grew up as the tenth of thirteen children in the blended family of Joseph Peterson and Lydia Jane Savage. Along with many of his generation he transitioned from the farm to academia, but, unlike most, his career entailed both agricultural and academic pursuits. As a young man, Chas relished life on the family farm—raising crops, milking cows, and butchering hogs—and his love affair with the yeoman tradition helped to shape his professional trajectory, including his research and writing about agricultural history.

U H Q

and editor of the Utah Historical Quarterly and the Western Historical Quarterly. He served as president of the Mormon History Association in 1975–1976. As a history teacher and professor at Carbon College, the University of Utah, Utah State University and, following his retirement, at Southern Utah University, Chas mentored numerous students and professionals, myself included.

IN MEMORIAM

285

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

used his discretionary authority to slash dairy price supports. After four disappointing years of low income, Chas reconsidered his career choice and returned to the Y for more training. Initially he planned to certify as a vocational agriculture teacher but, fortunately for the historical profession, he soon converted to western history under the influence of Richard Poll and LeRoy Hafen.

286

Chas graduated from BYU with a master’s degree after defending a thesis on Territorial Governor Alfred Cumming and was offered a position teaching history, political science, economics, and agriculture at Carbon College in Price. In 1963–1964, he took advantage of a leave from Carbon to begin working on his Ph.D. at the University of Utah. Under the direction of Gregory Crampton, a scholar Chas admired immensely, in 1967 Chas completed a first-rate dissertation on Mormon colonization of the Little Colorado in Arizona. Partly on the strength of that dissertation, Chas was hired in a soft-money teaching and administrative position at the University of Utah. Yet the history department was badly divided, and he was blackballed by a cadre of young faculty members who disparaged western history. Chas found safe harbor in 1969 in the public history arena, securing an appointment as director of the Utah State Historical Society and editor of Utah Historical Quarterly. The impulse to teach ran strong in his blood, though. Chas soon applied for a teaching position at Utah State University, successfully selling himself to Department Chair George Ellsworth as someone who was ideally qualified to teach western history because he had experienced an important part of it as a yeoman rancher and farmer in the Arizona and Utah outback. From 1971 until his retirement in 1989, Chas taught in USU’s history department, serving over the same interval as associate editor and then editor of Western Historical Quarterly. Chas once commented to me that the editorial position gave him professional influence and esteem that humbled and surprised him. Despite his modesty, Chas was a gifted wordsmith and resourceful researcher with an impressive talent for placing the events he studied within a broad interpretive context. He encouraged students to ask big questions, exercise their histor-

ical imagination, and “let the good times roll” stylistically in their prose. Chas was the author of Take Up Your Mission: Mormon Colonization along the Little Colorado River, 1870–1900 (1973), which won the Best Book Award from the Mormon History Association, and Look to the Mountains: Southeastern Utah and the La Sal National Forest (1975). In 1977 Chas wrote Utah: A Bicentennial History as part of a prestigious series of state histories commissioned by the American Association for State and Local History. I had the privilege to serve as Chas’s co-author for his final book, The Awkward State of Utah: Coming of Age in the Nation, 1896–1945 (2015). In addition to these books, Chas wrote several book chapters and over twenty articles dealing with Utah, western, Mormon, agricultural, and environmental history. Through this rich array of scholarly publications, Chas’s careful research and intellectual imagination will continue to influence our writing and teaching of state history. — Brian Q. Cannon Brigham Young University

CLINT PUMPHREY has worked as the manuscript curator in Utah State University’s Special Collections and Archives since 2011. Previously, he was employed as the National Register Historian for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. Clint holds a master’s degree in history from USU and received his Digital Archives Specialist certificate in 2014. JENNIFER REEDER is the nineteenth-century women’s history specialist at the LDS Church History Department. She earned a Ph.D. in American History at George Mason University, focusing on women’s history, religious history, memory, and material culture. She is a member of the Mormon History Association, Western Historical Association, Utah State Historical Society, and Vernacular Architecture Forum. Recent publications include At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses of Latter-day Saint Women (2017) and Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies of the Restoration (2016).

N O . I 8 5 V O L .

DALE TOPHAM, a native of Orem, Utah, earned a Bachelor of Arts in History and Master of Arts in U.S. History, both from Brigham Young University. He then attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, in pursuit of a Ph.D., focusing on environmental history and the history of the American West. The essay on Cedar Breaks National Monument is derived from his doctoral dissertation, which is a history of environmental politics in Iron County, Utah. Dale currently teaches U.S. History at Brookhaven College in Farmers Branch, Texas.

JIM KICHAS is the Archives Manager at the Utah State Archives and Records Service. He holds a master’s degree in the environmental humanities from the University of Utah and a master’s in library and information science from Drexel University. He currently serves as president of the Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists. He is also a representative on the Utah Manuscripts Association, a member of the Council of State Archivists SERI Advocacy Subcommittee, and a member of the Cottonwood Heights Historic Committee.

MICHAELE SMITH earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William and Mary and taught in Virginia for several years at William and Mary and the University of Mary Washington. She recently moved to Utah and now teaches history at Utah Valley University and Salt Lake Community College. She is also an archivist at Salt Lake County Archives and contributes to its blog.

U H Q

LARRY R. GERLACH is Professor of History Emeritus, University of Utah. He has written extensively on the history of sport in America and served as the university’s NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative. His current research includes the role of the Utah Native American tribes in the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games.

CONTRIBUTORS

287

U H Q

V O L .

8 5

N O .

U TA H I N F O C U S

288

Summertime at Lagoon, June 1937. The popular resort of Lagoon opened in Farmington, Utah, in 1896. As with similar resorts throughout the nation, it was built by a railroad company—in this case, Simon Bamberger’s line from Salt Lake City to Ogden—to drum up

business. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Lagoon increasingly offered mechanical rides and transformed into an amusement park. The carousel and fun house are visible in this 1937 image. —USHS

Outside the Denver and Rio Grande Depot, 1910. Utah State Historical Sociec:,

UTAH DIVISION OF STATE HISTORY UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD Of STATE HISTORY Din•Bites, l017,S1l1LtkeCuy,Chtu Stn-e Buth, 20H\ Murny JohriB. D'A.rcy,2018,S1lt UkeC1ty Yvette Donoao, 2019, Sandy Ken G•ll•cher, lOl.a, ll.verton D,vid Rich Lew:is, 2019,Lopn Dunne G. M,theny, '2017,Lrndon StevenLloyd Olsen, 2017, H�erCity David Sec>tt Richudson, 2019, SaltL•ke City PanyTimb1rnboo·M•dsen, 2019, Plymouth Wesley Robert White, 2017, s,lt t..ke City ADMINISTRATION Bnd Westwood, Director md Slue Hatonc Pruuwtion Officu UTAH STATE. HISTOR.ICALSOCil.TYFELLOWS Lf(inudJ. Armwton(1917-1999) Fawn M.Brodie (191.S-19&) Jw,ruuBrook,(189'8-1989) ObveW.Burt(l80-4-J98i) Eug!'ne E. Ctlllpbell (1915-1986) ETI!ttttL.Cooley(l917-2006) C. Cregory Cffmpton (1911-1995)

S. George tllrworth(l916-lW7) Austin£. Fife(1909-1986)

C.rolCornw•ll Madsen

LeRoy R. . Ht fen(1893-1985)

WllsonMamn

A. Ku!Larson (1899-1983)

Robert S. MePhenon

B.Carmon Hudy(1934..2016)

Philip F. Notuianm

Gustiv-e 0.Luson (1897-1983)

FloydA. O'Neil

Brigh•mD.Mad1en(l914-2010)

AllinKent Powtll

Dttn L Mty(19l8-200l)

RlehlrdWS•d!u

Dr11d E . MJ\ler(1?09-1978)

CaryLShumwJy

0.kL.Mor8'n(1914-197l)

MtlvmT. Snuth

Vlilbrn Mulder(1915-2008) Helen Z.Papuukolu(l9l7-l004) Chtrles S.Peterson(19'27-2017)

HONORARYLIFE ME MBERS CunBench

Wall..:-e E. Stepr(l009-199l)

O.vidL. Bigler

W'ilhrn A. W11ron(l9JJ.2016)

CnigFuJler

ThomtS G. A.ltxtndtr

MuhnK. J ensen

JametB.Allen

StwifordJ.Llyton

VlillBagley

Wilh,rn P. MacK:mnon John S. MeCorm1d:

DtvidL.Big!u

F; RouPtterson

Mmh1Bt1dley-Euns

Riehud C. Robtn,

Multvan1

Wll!i1mB.Smut

Pe1erl.GOA:

Melv1nT.Srn1th

Mlch1el W. Homer

LindaThttcher

Jotl.Jtnetski

Gary Topping

Jdfery Ogden Johnson

RlchardE .TurleyJr.

The .et1vity th,1 is. the subJeet of this iourml hu �en fumieed m part with Fedenl fW'lds. from the t-lJMml Put Service t.nd US. Depnlment of the Intenor .rid adminis.tered by the Stue Hlstoric Pre�rvation Office ofU11h. The contenu ,nd opinions do not neceuuily 1eeect the views or polie1es of the Deputrnent of the Interior or the U11h Sate Hlstonc Preservtt10n Office, nor does the mention of tr1de 111me1 or commucial products coostitute endontmen1 01 recommend,0on by the Deputmtnt of the Interior or the Utth SUit Hi stone Presenuion Office. Tim prognm recei.fts.Fedenl 6.nmoal llm�nce for ident16e10on tnd p rotection of his.tone properties. Under Tule VI of theCm! Rights.Act of 1064, Section SO-t of the Rehlb1lmt1«1Aet ol l97J,1nd theAg,t DucrirruNtionAct ofJ97S, u 1mended, the US �pulmtnt of the Interior prohibits dUenrnin•tion on the buu of not, color, n1tion1\ origln, dinbihty, or 1gein its fedenlly 1uisted programs. lf you �Iieve you have been diserirnint.ted agtinst in lllY prognrn, activHy, 01 heility IS described tbove, or if you des1re funhuinform1tion, pleuewrite to: Ofh<:e for Equ1l Opp0ttun1ty,N1t1on1l h.rk Serv:ice, &49C St.rttt NW, 1Nuhirgton, D.C. 202-10.

IN THIS ISSUE The University of Utah and the Utes Rape Law in the Mid-1\venrieth Century Creating Cedar Breaks National Monument

Promoting U.S. Highway 89 Mormon Girls and Manuscript Newspapers

Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 85, Number 3, 2017

Articles inside

In This Issue

Notices

Book Reviews

Contributors

In Memoriam

Appropriation and Accommodation: The University of Utah and the Utes

Rape Law in the Mid-Twentieth Century: Sexual Violence in Salt Lake City

Staking Claims on the Markagunt Plateau: Creation of Cedar Breaks National Monument, 1916-1934

From Tire Tracks to Treasure Trail: Cooperative Coosterism Along U.S. Highway 89

Making An [In]delible Mark: Nineteenth-Century Mormon Girls and Their Manuscript Newspapers