Book Review: The Powell Expedition: New Discoveries About John Wesley Powell’s 1869 River Journey by Don Lago
Simply put, Don Lago’s ten years’ worth of research on the 1869 Powell expedition is a great read.
Concerns about Powell as a leader had accompanied me as I went into the read. I finished the book with even more concerns. I also went in thinking the Howlands and Dunn would have been in a severely weakened state when they left the river and headed up Separation. Boating in Grand Canyon with no food is easier than hiking in Grand Canyon with no food. At the books end, I came away with even more concern for the three. If the Canyon didn’t get them, Lago gives the real reasons why the Mormons could have done the deed and why the Indigenous peoples could have done the deed. Lago also teases out who the three were that were shot, and why the shooter was then killed. In the end, he rightly concludes we still to this day do not know what happened to these three men.
The coolest part of the book for me was all the things I didn’t know and learned. Howland was a Civil War hero. The boat on the 1869 trip called the NO NAME might have been referring to another little boat, also called the NO NAME, that made an amazing run not long before the 1869 trip. I also learned a lot about Hawkins.
What was fascinating is that Lago has definitively shown what Dock Marston was concerned about in the 1940s, that Powell historian William Darrah played hard and fast with the facts in an attempt to make Powell look good.
I did find the section on James White lacking in a few key details Marston had teased out of the deep archives. Also, I found the connection between Powell and Walt Disney’s Ten Who Dared to be a bit out of place, but that was so offset by the positives of the book that I highly recommend this read.
Simply put, Don Lago’s ten years’ worth of research on the 1869 Powell expedition is a great read.
Concerns about Powell as a leader had accompanied me as I went into the read. I finished the book with even more concerns. I also went in thinking the Howlands and Dunn would have been in a severely weakened state when they left the river and headed up Separation. Boating in Grand Canyon with no food is easier than hiking in Grand Canyon with no food. At the books end, I came away with even more concern for the three. If the Canyon didn’t get them, Lago gives the real reasons why the Mormons could have done the deed and why the Indigenous peoples could have done the deed. Lago also teases out who the three were that were shot, and why the shooter was then killed. In the end, he rightly concludes we still to this day do not know what happened to these three men.
The coolest part of the book for me was all the things I didn’t know and learned. Howland was a Civil War hero. The boat on the 1869 trip called the NO NAME might have been referring to another little boat, also called the NO NAME, that made an amazing run not long before the 1869 trip. I also learned a lot about Hawkins.
What was fascinating is that Lago has definitively shown what Dock Marston was concerned about in the 1940s, that Powell historian William Darrah played hard and fast with the facts in an attempt to make Powell look good.
I did find the section on James White lacking in a few key details Marston had teased out of the deep archives. Also, I found the connection between Powell and Walt Disney’s Ten Who Dared to be a bit out of place, but that was so offset by the positives of the book that I highly recommend this read.