John Mullan: The Tumultuous Life of a Western Road Builder

by Keith C. Petersen

Overview

John Mullan's celebrated construction project—a 625-mile link that connected the Missouri and Columbia rivers—established the West Point graduate as an accomplished road builder. After completing the West's first engineered highway at age thirty-two, he lived for nearly another half century, a period of dynamic change. When he died in 1909, automobiles were making their initial crossings along the route he engineered, and his arterial eventually became a critical link in America's longest interstate freeway, I-90. Yet despite frequent mentions in books about the nineteenth century Northwest, the soldier/explorer has remained little more than a caricature: a dashing young Army officer who comes West, builds one of its most important thoroughfares, and then disappears from the region's literature.

Now, in lively prose, Idaho State Historian Keith Petersen takes a fresh look at Mullan's road, which has significantly impacted the development of the Northwest for more than 150 years. The deeply researched biography also probes Mullan's complex personality and continues the story, including business partnerships and personal relationships with some of the West's most intriguing characters: Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet, General William T. Sherman, Chico founder John Bidwell, Idaho gold discoverer Elias Pierce, Yakama Indian chief Owhi, and others. Long overdue, Petersen's comprehensive portrayal bestows a full appreciation of Mullan's life—his rise to fame as well as his fall from grace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780874223217
Publisher:	Washington State University Press
Publication date:	04/28/2014
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

As a former Idaho State Historian and Associate Director of the Idaho State Historical Society, Petersen's fascination with history has been expressed throughout his career. The author of numerous articles and books about the Northwest, he is the only person to have twice received the Idaho Book Award.

Petersen received the first annual Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Humanities from the Idaho Humanities Council in 1986, the Presidential Medallion from Lewis-Clark State College in 2006, and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Idaho in 2014.

Table of Contents

Prologue: New York City, May 7, 1863 1

Section I Prelude: Out West, 1841 3

Chapter 1 Annapolis 7

Chapter 2 West Point 15

Chapter 3 Railroad Survey 23

Chapter 4 Explorer 35

Chapter 5 Killing Time 57

Section II Prelude: Latah Creek, Washington Territory, 1858 67

Chapter 6 "Lieutenant Mullan's Party Has Been Saved From Destruction" 69

Chapter 7 Wright's Revenge 79

Chapter 8 Mullan's Road, 1859-1860 95

Chapter 9 Mullan's Road, 1861-1862 139

Chapter 10 "Capt. Mullan Wishes to be Made Governor of Idahoe" 153

Section III Prelude: Office of the Governor, Sacramento, January 18, 1889 183

Chapter 11 Family Feud 187

Chapter 12 The Chico to Boise Line 195

Chapter 13 "The Notorious Captain John Mullan" 207

Chapter 14 Rise and Fall 215

Chapter 15 Dear Papa 231

Chapter 16 America's Great National Highway 239

Epilogue: Mullan, Idaho, January 1,2001 257

Appendix: Mullan's Children 259

Acknowledgements 267

Endnotes 269

Bibliography 323

Index 327

Editorial Reviews

"The scope and depth of Petersen's research is impressive. This book will serve as the definitive biography of Mullan."

—The Western Historical Quarterly

Well researched and well written. This book is historically accurate and well worth purchasing and reading. "

—Overland Journal

"It turns out John Mullan was a human being. Aspects of Mullan's life have been studied in depth, but few, if any, had taken a clear-eyed look at the whole picture until Keith Petersen came along to fit the pieces together—Mullan's boyhood days, the hunger for success and fame that drove him—sometimes to maniac extremes—in family and professional relationships, in explorations and road building exploits, and in his later careers as a developer and attorney."

—Kim Briggeman, Missoulian reporter and Mullan Road historian

"Petersen's biography infuses John Mullan's many-sided story with both the road-builder's personal energy and a thorough context of the forces that drove his work. It also casts an unflinching eye on the military aspects of Mullan's experience in the Interior Northwest, and what that meant for the tribes. A full account, gracefully rendered."

—Jack Nisbet, author of Sources of the River, The Mapmaker's Eye, and The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Pacific Northwest

"John Mullan places Mullan's life squarely within the context of the times and explains how his driven and sometimes knotty personality led to his success and his failures."

—Jon Axline, author of Conveniences Sorely Needed: Montana's Historic Highway Bridges, 1860-1956 and Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Montana History

From the Publisher