Utah Historical Quarterly
Some recent issues of 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. Most libraries have copies of back issues, or you can get back issues through 2003 as part of the Utah History Suite CD.
You may:- Search online issues (2002-present)
- Join the Utah State Historical Society
- Browse a table of contents for all volumes.
- See info on the current issue.
- See our submission and style guide for information on submitting articles. We seek articles on all aspects of Utah history.
- Buy the Utah History Suite CD
Search the Utah Historical Quarterly, 2002-present
| ||||
|
CURRENT ISSUE: Volume 77, Number 2 (Spring 2009 Issue)
ARTICLES
The Big Washout: The 1862 Flood in Santa Clara
By Todd M. Compton
Soldiering in a Corner, Living on the Fringe: Military
Operations in Southeastern Utah, 1880-1890
By Robert S. McPherson
Friends at all Times: The Correspondence of
Isaiah Moses Coombs and Dryden Rogers
By Sandra Dawn Brimhall
Did Prospectors See Rainbow Bridge Before 1909?
By James H. Knipmeyer
IN THIS ISSUE
One constant in history is nature. The forces, whims, and bounties
of nature affect our lives in obvious and not so obvious ways. Hurricanes, floods, droughts, earthquakes, tornadoes, severe snow
storms, global warming, set limits on our actions, disrupt our plans
and dreams, and demand our resources, our time, and our energy. The disruptions
of nature are never opportune, yet since the earliest days of history our
ancestors have sought to avoid, anticipate, and prepare for disasters.
Our first article for the Spring 2009 issue recounts the ferocious Santa Clara
River flood of January 1862 that swept away much of the infant settlement of
Santa Clara in southwestern Utah. The flood spared neither recent Mormon
settlers nor the Paiute people who had lived along the river for centuries and
required adaptations that neither group had anticipated. In recent years,
modern residents living along the Santa Clara have also been severely
challenged notably in January 2005, when flood waters rampaged down the
river’s course toward its junction with the Virgin River, destroying scores of
homes, disrupting hundreds of lives, and testing a new generation’s abilities to
deal with an unexpected crisis, floods in a desert.
In the minds of many people the
history of the American West is the
story of three groups — Indians,
cowboys, and soldiers. Our second
article examines the experience of
soldiers in a remote area of the
West—southeastern Utah during the
decade of the 1880s. Ten years after
the end of the American Civil War,
during which approximately three
million American men served in the
armies of the North and South, the
United States Army numbered only
27,000 men. Charged with defending
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts,
maintaining peace in the Reconstruction
South, protecting settlers
and placating Indians in the West, the
United States Army faced no small
challenge in carrying out its responsibilities.
This was certainly the case
for the few hundred soldiers at Fort
Lewis, Colorado, and Fort Douglas,
Utah, who served among the
Mormons, cattlemen, Paiutes, Utes, and Navajo of the Four Corners area.
Throughout history individuals, organizations, and even nations have
struggled with the difficulty of maintaining respect and fostering good will in
the face of fundamental differences in belief and action. The failure to do so has
resulted in tensions, animosity, hostility, and even war. When Isaiah Moses
Coombs left his pregnant wife in Illinois to join his fellow Mormons in Utah
and, in time, take up the practice of polygamy, his friendship with Dryden
Rogers, a physician and Baptist, was put to the test. Their friendship overcame
their differences as their correspondence between 1855 and 1886, the subject of
our third article reveal.
Rainbow Natural Bridge is truly one of the natural wonders of the world.
The sandstone bridge, rising 290 feet above Bridge Creek and spanning 270
feet, has been a sacred site for native peoples for centuries, however, it was not
until two expeditions, one led by Byron Cummings of the University of Utah
and the other by William B. Douglass of the United States General Land Office,
reached the remote bridge on August 14, 1909, that the bridge became known
to the outside world. Our final article for this issue commemorates the
centennial anniversary of that 1909 “discovery” in fine historical tradition by
considering the question did prospectors along the Colorado River see the
natural bridge before 1909? As with many historical questions, there is no clear
or easy answer.
BOOK REVIEWS
Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Jr., and Glen E. Leonard.
Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy
Reviewed by Melvin T. Smith
Shannon A. Novak. House of Mourning: A Biocultural History of
the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Reviewed by Richard E. Turley, Jr.
Stan Hoig. The Chouteaus: First Family of the Fur Trade
Reviewed by John D. Barton
Jay H. Buckley. William Clark Indian Diplomat
Reviewed by H. Bert Jenson