Novice Blanding Historian and Mentor See Research Published

Students in their first couple years of college are not the ones you’d think of first as authors of original research in scholarly historical journals.

Well, those not familiar with the remote Blanding campus of Utah State University Eastern.

Student Jesse Grover, Blanding born and raised, is coauthor of an article in the Utah Historical Quarterly, “Turning ‘The Picture a Whole Lot’: The CCC Invasion of Southeastern Utah, 1933-1942.”  His co-writer and mentor is history professor Robert McPherson.

As fledgling a scholar as is this student — he was working toward his associate’s degree — Grover is the third in as many years to publish his research, thanks to McPherson’s guidance and a $1,000 Charles Peterson Scholarship. It’s not a regularly offered scholarship so much as it’s one geared for certain ambitious and focused students. According to McPherson, Peterson, professor of history emeritus at USU and renowned historian of the American West, created the scholarship and asked McPherson to find students who were “motivated and interested in studying and promoting local history in the Four Corners area.”

 And to date, McPherson and other students have ferreted out other nearly forgotten stories of southeastern Utah’s past.

Last year, Blanding student A. Chase Chamberlain and McPherson wrote “Desert Cold Warriors: Southeastern Utah’s Fight Against Communism, 1951-1981,” about the significant role San Juan County played in Cold War preparations. In 2013, McPherson guided Kevin Conti to write “Murder and Mapping in ‘The Land of Death,’ The Cantonment in Monticello,” which researched the story of a short-lived military fort in 1886. Both appeared in the Utah Historical Quarterly.

This newest historical article chronicles the local history of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal program that sent young men ages 18 to 23, often from downtrodden, inner-city areas of New York City and New Jersey, to sites that spanned from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters. Grover and McPherson explore the shakeup in southeastern Utah’s rural, Mormon and closely knit communities by the arrival of these often streetwise youth, some in camps that housed more than 200 rowdy, young men at a time.

“With shovels and axes, bulldozers and predator poison, the Cs did everything,” write Grover and McPherson. “The laborers built roads connecting Blanding, Monticello and La Sal, strung fences, thinned timber, fought forest fires, created parks and, in one case, blasted a sandstone ledge to create a 7-foot-wide path to livestock watering troughs. In the end, they boosted the local economy and population — many ended up marrying local girls.”

In fact, it was just such a connection that attracted Grover to the CCC history. Some of Grover’s ancestors were members of the CCC.

“He had heard his relatives talking about their experiences,” said McPherson. “So it was a fun hook for him because it had relevance to what some family members had lived through.”

McPherson is as a preeminent historian of southwestern Utah. In addition to research he’s gathered, Grover collected oral histories and found other original sources, resulting in nearly 80 footnotes and endnotes, said McPherson. Professional, peer-reviewed journals attract individuals with multiple degrees — generally higher than an associate’s. “Most people on this education level don’t have the experience, in terms of writing, for a professional journal,” said McPherson.

But it’s all great practice and buildup for a young man who plans on becoming a history teacher. Grover is expected to graduate from USU in spring 2017. Adds McPherson, “Knowing Jesse, I suspect he will stay around here in Blanding if he has a choice.” 

McPherson, who’s been in Blanding since he came west in 1976 to work with Native Americans, is planning on retiring at the end of the 2016-17 academic year. He anticipates little slowdown in his work, however. A new book, Mapping the Four Corners, written with Susan Neel, will be released by the University of Oklahoma Press this fall. Autumn of 2017 will see the publication of Both Sides of the Bullpen, about trading posts, from the same publisher.

Related links:

• Read about the Utah Historical Quarterly article online
• USU Eastern-Blanding Campus
• USU College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Writer and contact: Janelle Hyatt, 435-797-0289, Janelle.hyatt@usu.edu