Utah Historical Quarterly
Since 1928, when the first volume of the Utah Historical Quarterly was published, the best scholarship on Utah history usually finds its way into the pages of UHQ.
The journal is filled with articles, memoirs, annotated primary sources, book reviews, and photos.
UHQ is published four times yearly and sent to members of the Utah State Historical Society.
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CURRENT ISSUE: Volume 80, Number 1 (Winter 2012 Issue)
ARTICLES
“In & through the roughefist country it has ever been
my lot to travel”: Jacob Hamblin’s 1858 Expedition
Across the Colorado
By Todd M. Compton
Early Roadside Motels and Motor Courts of St. George
By Lisa Michele Church
St. George: Early Years of Tourism
By Lisa Michele Church and Lynne Clark
The True Policy for Utah: Servitude, Slavery, and
“An Act in Relation to Service”
By Christopher B. Rich, Jr.
Utah and the Civil War Press
By Kenneth L. Alford
IN THIS ISSUE
Travel is a fundamental constant in the human experience. Whether it be
the result of circumstances beyond our control such as war and plague, or
an inner push for more favorable social conditions, greater economic
opportunities, the search for adventure or to enjoy meaningful recreation
opportunities, as individuals and society we recall those trips and journeys that
have taken us from the familiar to the unknown. Often they test our inner
strength, commitment, endurance, and courage.
Here in Utah and the American West, what would our history be without such milestones as the Dominguez Escalante journey in 1776, the Lewis and Clark
expedition in 1804-1806, the California-bound immigrants of 1846, and the
Mormon pioneer trek of 1847? A list of subsequent journeys might include the
Parley P. Pratt expedition in 1849, the John Wesley Powell trip down the Green
and Colorado Rivers in 1869, the Hole-in-the-Rock journey in 1880, and many
others. But, as the first article in this issue contends, the Jacob Hamblin expedition
of 1858 from the southern Utah settlement of Santa Clara, across unmapped
mountains and deserts, through the nearly impassable canyons of the Colorado
River, and on to the ancient Hopi Villages of Arizona deserves recognition as one
of the West’s important epic journeys. The mettle of the fourteen members of the
group that set out in late October 1858, with the last returning to Santa Clara on
December 26,1858, proved to be substantial.
If Jacob Hamblin and his companions were thankful to have a blanket to wrap themselves in and a rock outcropping to protect themselves from the icy blasts of a December storm, later automobile travelers found roads and accommodations in Utah’s Dixie to be luxurious by comparison. Our next two articles, “Early Roadside
Motels and Motor Courts of St. George,” and a photo essay “St. George: Early Years
of Tourism,” illustrate the area’s transformation from a pioneer agricultural economy
to one grounded in travel and tourism.
Keeping within the broad boundaries of our travel theme, our fourth article
addresses the legal status of those African Americans who were brought to Utah as
slaves prior to the Civil War. No longer slaves, they were still not free as the Utah
Territorial Legislature sought to structure an unsteady bridge in protecting property
rights and avoiding animosity by either the North or the South over the nation’s
peculiar institution.
The gyrations and schemes to prevent war were, in the end, unsuccessful as the
nation was swept into four long years of civil war. While Utah was spared the fighting and destruction that devastated
much of the South and disrupted the social and economic
life of both sections of
the country, the territory still
felt the impact of war as carried in Northern and
Southern newspapers. These
newspapers, which occupied
different worlds in their treatment
of the war, its causes,
and consequences, found
common ground, as our final
article for this issue recounts,
in addressing the subjects of
Mormonism, polygamy,
Brigham Young, and Utah
statehood.
BOOK REVIEWS
David Remley. Kit Carson: The Life of an American Border Man
Reviewed by John D. Barton
Richard E. Turley, Jr., and Ronald W. Walker, eds. Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections
Reviewed by Will Bagley
David L. Bigler and Will Bagley. The Mormon Rebellion: America’s First Civil War, 1857-58
Reviewed by Matthew J. Grow
W. Paul Reeve and Michael Scott Van Wagenen, eds. Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore
Reviewed by Brandon Johnson
Reid L. Neilson, ed. In the Whirlpool: The Pre-Manifesto Letters of President Wilford Woodruff to the William Atkin Family, 1885-1890
Reviewed by Kenneth W. Godfrey