Notices

Legends, Lore and True Tales of UtahBy Lynn AraveThe History Press, 2022. 219 pp. Paper, $23.99In this book, Lynn Arave, a former editor and reporter for the Deseret News, describes minutiae in Utah's history, culture, and folklore, gleaned primarily from historic newspapers. The book contains forty-five chapters divided into six sections. The first section, “What's in a Name?,” describes place names, including spelling variations, throughout Utah. The second, “Utah's Supernatural World,” features legends such as Bigfoot and several lake monsters. Part 3, “Historical Beehive Myths,” provides context for commonly (but sometimes inaccurately) told pioneer stories. “Unforgettable True Tales,” the fourth section, features a few historical anecdotes, including sporting events and pranks. The fifth, “Tales of the Briny Great Salt Lake,” features historical and environmental stories of Utah's most prominent body of water. And the sixth and final section, “Key ‘What If?’ Scenarios,” describes historic events that almost went a different direction.The Dugout Ranch: A Land Use Perspective, 1875–1965By Lee BennettBennett Management Services, 2023. xvii +412 pp. Paper, $24.99Lee Bennett was the district ranger of the Monticello unit of the Manti–La Sal National Forest, and The Dugout Ranch represents thirty years of her research on the history of the area. Dugout Ranch, located near Monticello, grew from a 320-acre homestead to a mega ranch. The book is divided into three sections. In part 1, Bennett describes how stockmen acquired the public-domain land and established Dugout Ranch in 1885. In part 2, she explains how the government struggled to gain control over the rangeland, especially in response to overgrazing. And in part 3, she shows how other forces, such as the oil, uranium, and defense industries, nibbled away at grazing lands. Bennett also provides four appendixes: Appendix A consists of forty information-dense tables, and appendixes B, C, and D list employees and workers on the ranch. The Dugout Ranch will be a valuable reference for historians of agriculture and southeastern Utah.Great Plains FortsBy Jay H. Buckley and Jeffery D. NokesUniversity of Nebraska Press, 2023. xxxv +216 pp. Paper, $17.95Great Plains Forts is part of the Discover the Great Plains series, published by the University of Nebraska Press. Brigham Young University professors Jay Buckley and Jeffery Nokes provide a history of forts on the Great Plains, a sizeable geographic region extending from Alberta to Texas. Though this area does not include Utah, migrants passed through the Great Plains on the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. The Great Plains forts profoundly influenced the lives of Indigenous peoples, people traveling west through the region, and new settlers. Various nations, including Native Americans, Spain, France, Britain, and the United States, established forts at strategic locations. The book has a chapter devoted to each of the following types of forts: Indigenous fortifications, fur factories and trading posts, overland trail emporiums, military outposts, and Canadian Prairies posts. The end of the book consists of a site guide that lists various forts and the years they were active.Images of America: Salt Lake City's Modern ArchitectureBy Steven D. Cornell and John D. EwanowskiArcadia, 2023. 127 pp. Paper, $24.99Architects Steven D. Cornell and John D. Ewanowski have compiled a collection of black-and-white photographs of Modern buildings in Salt Lake City. This architecture is Modern with a capital M, referring to the period from roughly the late 1930s to the late 1960s. The collection is divided into eight chapters: “Civic and Public Architecture,” “Religious Architecture,” “Commercial and Office Agriculture,” “Industrial Architecture,” “Hotel, Motel, and Apartment Architecture,” “Department Stores and Retail Architecture,” “Educational Architecture,” and “Arts, Sports, and Recreation Architecture.” The images come from the Utah Historical Society, the University of Utah Special Collections, Westminster University's Giovale Library, and the authors.Selling Sex in Utah: A History of ViceBy Eileen Hallet StoneThe History Press, 2023. 204 pp. Paper, $23.99In Selling Sex in Utah, Eileen Hallet Stone, an author and former columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune, describes the history of prostitution and its consequences, including venereal disease, throughout the Beehive State in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This practice happened in Utah's mining and railroad towns, such as Frisco, Corinne, and Eureka, but it also occurred in locales with a strong Latter-day Saint presence. In fact, scattered throughout the pages are provocative, semierotic pictures of women by Charles Ellis Johnson, a photographer who also took pictures of Latter-day Saint leaders around the turn of the twentieth century. Selling Sex in Utah is Stone's final book published before she passed away in April 2024.Dr. Martha Cannon of Utah: The Unexpected Victorian Life of America's First Female State SenatorBy Joan JacobsonThe History Press, 2023. 174 pp. Paper, $24.99Martha “Mattie” Hughes Cannon was a female physician and suffragist and the first woman state senator, beating her polygamist husband Angus Cannon in the election of 1896. Joan Jacobson tells Martha's story in the context of Victorian-era Britain and the United States, including sexual mores and the suffrage movement of the late nineteenth century. Written in an informal, irreverent, and even bawdy style, the book has a decent bibliography but no footnotes or endnotes, making it more suitable for the general public than for professional historians. Latter-day Saints may be offended by Jacobson's flippant discussion of Joseph Smith and polygamy. Accompanying the text are numerous black-and-white images in the public domain, many of them not relating directly to Cannon but to the Victorian era more broadly.Monumental Lies: Early Nevada Folklore of the Wild WestBy Ronald M. JamesUniversity of Nevada Press, 2023. xii +239 pp. Paper, $29.95In Monumental Lies, Ronald M. James, who worked as a state historic preservation officer in Nevada, analyzes the folklore of the Silver State. James acknowledges that the Indigenous peoples of Nevada have maintained their culture in spite of colonization, but “their folklore is best addressed with Native voices and by specialists” (10). Thus, Monumental Lies instead focuses on the folklore of new arrivals in the nineteenth century. According to James, Nevada's early folklore was a result of several factors: explosive population growth, the transience and diversity of early settlers, and mining. A nineteenth-century writer named William Wright, with the pen name Dan De Quille, collected and told many of these folk tales, and James relies on his writings, as well as those of others. Monumental Lies will appeal to scholars of folklore, mining, and the West.Life and Death on the Mormon Frontier: The Murders of Frank Lesueur and Gus Gibbons by the Wild BunchBy Stephen C. LeSueurGreg Kofford Books, 2023. xiv +317 pp. Paper, $32.95In 1900, Frank LeSueur and Gus Gibbons were shot at close range by members of Butch Cassidy's “Wild Bunch” gang. Frank's great-nephew, Stephen C. LeSueur, retells the story of these men's murder, untangling mythology from historical fact. Life and Death on the Mormon Frontier provides the overarching context for the killings, both before and after. The book recounts the settlement of St. Johns, Arizona, by Latter-day Saints, including the Gibbons and LeSueur families. It also details Butch Cassidy's journey from growing up in a Latter-day Saint family to becoming a notorious bank robber and cattle rustler—not, LeSueuer argues, a noble antihero. Tension arose in Apache County, Arizona, between Mormon settlers, Mexican Americans, and non-Mormon whites in the late nineteenth century, and criminal gangs and vigilante justice roiled the region. Members of the Wild Bunch killed Frank and Gus (ages nineteen and twenty-six, respectively) while they were in a posse that sought to bring the gang to justice. Distinctive Latter-day Saint beliefs about the afterlife brought comfort to the grieving families. Life and Death on the Mormon Frontier will appeal to those interested in the history of Mormon colonization, outlaws, and folklore of the American West.The Book of Bauer: Stories from a Forgotten TownBy Stephen S. LottridgeUniversity of Utah Press, 2024. ix +142 pp. Paper, $24.95Stephen Lottridge lived in the now-abandoned town of Bauer, Utah, three miles from Tooele, as a teenager for one year, August 1950 to August 1951. The Book of Bauer consists of twelve chapters, plus a prologue and epilogue, describing various anecdotes of that year. The book is a slice of life of postwar rural Utah through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy, including outdoor recreation, sexual development, wild snakes, mourning the family dog, and the rare technological treats of radio and television.Images of America: Catholic UtahBy Colleen McDannellArcadia, 2023. 127 pp. Paper, $24.99Religion scholar Colleen McDannell has compiled more than one hundred pages of pictures of Catholicism in Utah, spanning from the state's first Catholic church in 1871 through the twentieth century. Each image has an in-depth caption that provides analytical context. The black-and-white photographs come from several collections in Utah, including the Utah Historical Society and the Diocese of Salt Lake City, as well as a few outside the state. The book is divided into six chapters: “Sacred Spaces,” which shows several Catholic church buildings; “Educating,” which depicts Catholic schools; “Healing,” which features Catholic hospitals and nurses; “Caring,” which includes Catholic orphanages; “Leading,” which introduces readers to various clergy members; and “Having Fun,” which focuses on Catholic recreational activities. Since so much of Utah history centers around Latter-day Saints, Catholic Utah fills a needed niche of one of the state's religious minorities. The images, as well as their helpful captions, illustrate how Catholicism interplayed with twentieth-century developments, such as how nuns simplified their habits following the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s and how Catholics interacted with Indigenous communities.Westwater Lost and Found: Expanded EditionBy Mike MilliganUtah State University Press, 2024. xxvi +286 pp. Paper, $33.95In 2004, Mike Milligan, a river-running enthusiast, published Westwater Lost and Found, describing the history of Westwater Canyon near the border of Utah and Colorado, not far from Moab. Since that time, more sources have become digitized online, making it easier to conduct research. This expanded edition of Westwater Lost and Found has new research and answers that were unavailable in the previous edition, as well as a new foreword by Roy Webb. The book describes the history of the canyon and its river since the early nineteenth century, including an early camp along the Old Spanish Trail, a railroad station, and harrowing river trips. Milligan also includes his own thoughts and experiences throughout the book. He has included seven appendixes, which consist of primary source documents, a chronology, and a description of locations. The book's pages also feature numerous black-and-white photographs from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Westwater Lost and Found: Expanded Edition will appeal to students of outdoor recreation and environmental history.The 1864 Diary of Mrs. Sarah Jane RousseauEdited by Janelle MolonySelf-published, 2023. 172 pp. Paper, $15.98Author Janelle Molony has published a straightforward transcription of the diary of her ancestor Sarah Jane Rousseau, who traveled overland from Iowa to San Bernardino, California, between May and December 1864. Rousseau's party consisted of four families, including that of Nicholas Earp, Wyatt Earp's father. Part of their journey included a journey south through Utah Territory, and Rousseau recorded her thoughts about various Mormon settlements and individual Latter-day Saints, whom she generally described as friendly. Her traveling company met a few prominent figures in Utah history, including Ute chief Kanosh and Brigham Young, who “touched his hat and bowed very politely” (100). The journal is a primary source that will interest scholars of overland travel and 1860s Utah. Molony also includes an excerpt from an upcoming fiction she is writing based on the diary, From Where I Sat.The Devil Sat on My Bed: Encounters with the Spirit World in Mormon UtahBy Erin E. StilesOxford University Press, 2024. 224 pp. Paper, $29.95In her introduction, anthropologist Erin E. Stiles concedes, “Despite the title, the book is not really about the Devil.” The title comes from incidents she remembers from her childhood when her Latter-day Saint friends (Stiles is not a Latter-day Saint) would casually mention the devil visiting them. Instead, the book more widely focuses on folklore of the spirit world in Latter-day Saint circles, specifically in northern Utah, mostly in Cache Valley. Through interviews with current and former church members, the book compares Latter-day Saint doctrines about the spirit world with the lived experiences of the faith's members. It discusses encounters with both benevolent and evil spirits. The Devil Sat on My Bed will appeal to folklorists, especially those interested in the Latter-day Saint tradition.Images of America: DraperBy Katherine L. WeinsteinArcadia, 2023. 127 pp. Paper, $23.99This entry in Arcadia's Images of America series focuses on Draper in southeast Salt Lake County. Katherine Weinstein, a theater historian and writer for Draper Journal, has divided the book's black-and-white images into five chapters: “The Pioneer Era,” “An Agricultural Community,” “Draper Businesses of Yesteryear,” “A History of Draper's Schools,” and “Church, Pastimes, and Celebrations.” A brief introduction provides a quick summary of Draper's history, from Indigenous peoples who called the area “Sivogah,” through Latter-day Saint settlement, and up to the present day, when the iconic “Claw” at the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium has a noticeable presence on the city's skyline.Bright Lights in the Desert: The Latter-day Saints of Las VegasBy Fred E. WoodsUniversity of Nevada Press, 2023. xv +264 pp. Paper, $29.95In Bright Lights in the Desert, Fred E. Woods tells the story of Latter-day Saints in Las Vegas, Nevada, who were the first Euro-American settlers in the area. The first two chapters tell the chronological history of Latter-day Saints in Nevada, up to 1960. In 1855, Brigham Young sent several men to establish a mission at Las Vegas, the homeland of the Paiutes and other Native Americans. Latter-day Saint leaders intended for Las Vegas to serve as a way station for emigrants (especially Latter-day Saints) between California and Salt Lake City, but the mission closed less than two years later. Railroad travel led many people to settle Las Vegas again, and Latter-day Saints were among them. The rest of the chapters are divided by theme in the second half of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first: “Ignorance, Education, and Cultural Refinement,” “Business and Entertainment,” “Latter-day Saints in Elected Office and Community Service,” “Ecclesiastical Community Service to a Local Congregation in Need,” and “The Story of the Las Vegas Temple.” Bright Lights in the Desert will appeal to scholars of the Mormon diaspora.