Collected Leonard J Arrington Mormon History Lectures

8. 11 October 2002 Encountering Mormon Country John Wesley Powell, John Muir, and the Nature of Utah

185 8 Encountering Mormon Country John Wesley Powell, John Muir, and the Nature of Utah Donald Worster “A region whose uses are unimaginable, unless to hold the rest of the globe together.”1 So Samuel Bowles, a newspaperman from green and wooded Massachusetts, described the Great Basin in 1865. He spoke for the many travelers who, like him, were repelled by the Basin’s apparent infertility and bleakness. But not all who came were so unmoved. The piney mountain passes, the spectacular canyon lands, the sparse but sheltering valleys, even the alkali deserts of Utah and Nevada drew admirers and settlers, until their tracks on the land became as numerous as those of water birds on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Among those drawn to this interior West were, of course, the native peoples, whose ancient footprints can still be found incised in rock where they are not obliterated by drifting sand. Much later came the Latter-day Saints, who settled here in large numbers, founding nearly five hundred colonies in the nineteenth century. Pushing aside the native peoples, as other Americans had done, they transformed this arid heart of the West into their home place, Mormon country. Today I want to focus not on that transformation itself nor on Mormon attitudes toward the nature of the Great Basin but rather on two non-Mormons who came to Utah Territory and found plenty to be positive about: John Wesley Powell and John Muir. The first John came in 1869 and then came back repeatedly during the decade of the 1870s, leaving a large imprint on the land of Utah, as it left a large imprint on his mind and career. The second John arrived in the spring of 1877 and stayed only briefly. Utah did not figure largely in his life work, nowhere 186 Arrington Mormon History Lectures near as much as California or Alaska. But John Muir did leave a small pile of words about Utah, published and unpublished, words that are worth uncovering. He was one of the first to celebrate the incomparable wild beauty of this place. Historians have tended to neglect the two Johns as part of Utah’s story, particularly Muir. They are commonly put into another story, the founding of the American conservation and environmental movement. But the two stories should not be kept apart. Through these two men, I will argue, Mormon country became linked to the conservation movement early on and has remained linked right down to the present. Many of this state’s current environmental struggles over wilderness preservation, the management of forests and water, and the role of religion, science, and agriculture in determining how we perceive and use the natural world were anticipated by those two conservationists who passed through more than a century ago, expressing both delight and criticism. Conservation was a movement to change how Americans used the land. But from the beginning, and this will be a key part of my argument , conservationists did not all think alike. Some put more emphasis on preserving the beauty and integrity of wild places and wild creatures, others on establishing what we now call a more sustainable use of the land for the sake of future generations. We can paint the differences too starkly; Powell and Muir, for example, agreed on setting up national parks and on wise use of natural resources. Both wanted a larger role for government, a new ethic in our treatment of the land, and more community control over the self-seeking individual. But there were significant differences in their philosophies; consequently, the two men looked at Utah through different eyes. Muir became an advocate for wildlands and their preservation, while Powell was an advocate of what we might today call sustainable development. This difference in perspective is all the more surprising when we realize that Powell and Muir came from almost identical backgrounds. Somehow both of them grew up to become conservationists, but by the time they arrived here they had acquired different interests and philosophies. The two Johns could have been cousins. Each was raised by evangelical Protestant parents who emigrated to the United States from Great Britain. Powell’s parents were Welsh and English Methodists; Muir’s parents were of Scottish Presbyterian background but drifted away from 187 Encountering Mormon Country any firm denominational identity. Powell was born in New York State in 1834; Muir in...