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On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape
Shrouded in the lore of legendary Indians, Mt. Timpanogos beckons the urban populace of Utah. And yet, no “Indian†legend graced the mount until Mormon settlers conjured it—once they had displaced the local Indians, the Utes, from their actual landmark, Utah Lake. On Zion’s Mount tells the story of this curious shift. It is a quintessentially American story about the fraught process of making oneself “native†in a strange land. But it is also a complex tale of how cultures confer meaning on the environment—how they create homelands.
Only in Utah did Euro-American settlers conceive of having a homeland in the Native American sense—an endemic spiritual geography. They called it “Zion.†Mormonism, a religion indigenous to the United States, originally embraced Indians as “Lamanites,†or spiritual kin. On Zion’s Mount shows how, paradoxically, the Mormons created their homeland at the expense of the local Indians—and how they expressed their sense of belonging by investing Timpanogos with “Indian†meaning.
This same pattern was repeated across the United States. Jared Farmer reveals how settlers and their descendants (the new natives) bestowed “Indian†place names and recited pseudo-Indian legends about those places—cultural acts that still affect the way we think about American Indians and American landscapes.
472 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
July 19, 2013
Comparing other reviews of this book on GoodReads is interesting. Some complain Farmer spent too much time with Mount Timp (the first part of the book actually deals with Utah Lake, the Utah Valley, not the mountain that later came to dominate the landscape in the mind of residents), while others complain that Farmer derailed too often (there are frequent excursions into other parts of the United States in interesting discussions about music, toponyms, folklore, tourism, masculinity, scouting, etc.) As a formerly avid Utah hiker I especially enjoyed his discussions of the rise of national hike culture which I was completely unfamiliar with. As a Mormon I was unsettled by his straight-forward treatment of Mormon/American Indian relations in the 19th century. As a religious studies scholar I was impressed by the range of topics discussed and the geographic and cultural scope. This is a truly ambitious book, and should serve as a model for other works exploring relationships between religion, politics, class, ethnicity, gender, memory and forgetting--all through a guiding lens of the social construction of geography.
August 13, 2020
Hardcover. This is one of the most interesting books I've read in a long time. Moving back to UT, I've had a keen interest in the local history and geography, and Farmer provided that in spades. I'd call him the Bill Bryson of Utah. The level of extralocal knowledge he spews is astonishing.
On Zion's Mount changed how I think about Mormon-Native American relations, the hydrological oasis that is (or was) the Wasatch Front, place-names, and the collective forgetfulness of Utahns.
4 stars because (a) the last few chapters digress in a long-winded, unnecessary manner (curse of Farmer's encyclopedic knowledge about Indian toponyms and folklore), (b) Farmer's occasional one-sided treatment of non-environmentalists + euro settlers, and (c) the content can be repetitious and, rarely, border on conjecture. Still, highly recommend for those intrigued by the settlement of UT, native relations, and perceptions of the natural landmarks.
On Zion's Mount changed how I think about Mormon-Native American relations, the hydrological oasis that is (or was) the Wasatch Front, place-names, and the collective forgetfulness of Utahns.
4 stars because (a) the last few chapters digress in a long-winded, unnecessary manner (curse of Farmer's encyclopedic knowledge about Indian toponyms and folklore), (b) Farmer's occasional one-sided treatment of non-environmentalists + euro settlers, and (c) the content can be repetitious and, rarely, border on conjecture. Still, highly recommend for those intrigued by the settlement of UT, native relations, and perceptions of the natural landmarks.
July 9, 2022
On Zion's Mount by Jared Farmer is the book I chose to read as the Utah pick for my 50 States Challenge.
As a child, I remember driving past Mount Timpanogos, my aunt telling us that the mountain is in the shape of a woman lying on her back. She continued to tell us the legend of an indigenous couple who took their lives by jumping off the mountain.
While this book did cover the history of Timp and it's recreational appeal to white people, it really zooms out to show the way colonial settlers created "Indian" legends to assuage their guilt throughout America. It also looks at the way Anglo Europeans used native-adjacent words to name places to stand out from the European countries they left.
It also paints a picture of what Utah looked like before Mormon pioneers showed up. Utah Lake and the rivers that fed into it were a vital part of indigenous culture, which was entirely destroyed by white settlers through fishing and direct violence to the local native tribes. I didn't know much of this history, having received the Mormon version of history through my religious upbringing. It also goes into the literature and stories that were created by Anglo Europeans at this time which they claimed to be Indian ethnographies. This led to a stereotype of Indians as evil, violent marauders that continues to this day.
This is an important look at the history of the Great Basin and Western America, and the effects of settler colonialism on the environment and the Indigenous peoples. More white people should be reading this.
"Literature could be used in the service of nationalism as well as in the service of regionalism. Throughout the New World, postcolonial authors turned to the legendary form. Legends could provide a sense of antiquity in the absence of a deep history."
As a child, I remember driving past Mount Timpanogos, my aunt telling us that the mountain is in the shape of a woman lying on her back. She continued to tell us the legend of an indigenous couple who took their lives by jumping off the mountain.
While this book did cover the history of Timp and it's recreational appeal to white people, it really zooms out to show the way colonial settlers created "Indian" legends to assuage their guilt throughout America. It also looks at the way Anglo Europeans used native-adjacent words to name places to stand out from the European countries they left.
It also paints a picture of what Utah looked like before Mormon pioneers showed up. Utah Lake and the rivers that fed into it were a vital part of indigenous culture, which was entirely destroyed by white settlers through fishing and direct violence to the local native tribes. I didn't know much of this history, having received the Mormon version of history through my religious upbringing. It also goes into the literature and stories that were created by Anglo Europeans at this time which they claimed to be Indian ethnographies. This led to a stereotype of Indians as evil, violent marauders that continues to this day.
This is an important look at the history of the Great Basin and Western America, and the effects of settler colonialism on the environment and the Indigenous peoples. More white people should be reading this.
"Literature could be used in the service of nationalism as well as in the service of regionalism. Throughout the New World, postcolonial authors turned to the legendary form. Legends could provide a sense of antiquity in the absence of a deep history."
September 25, 2023
Not necessarily an enjoyable read, but I think it would be good for everyone in Utah Valley to read at some point. Farmer chronicles the history of Mt Timpanogos - "Timp" - especially how it became a landmark revered throughout the valley (a position that used to be held by Utah Lake). Through it all is interwoven a history of the native peoples of the area and their relationship with Latter-day Saint settlers.
January 13, 2020
Excellent read. Explores how the stories related to Native Peoples living in what is now Utah have changed over the years to meet various storytellers' needs. How myth and legend take over the historical narrative, how those changing narratives shaped the way we interact with places today.
July 10, 2025
This book was not without its blemishes, but I loved it all the same. Farmer's depth of research results in a thorough and wide-ranging read about Utah Valley and the erasure of its native history through a primarily geographical lens. I expect this will become a book that I revisit over time, because I hope to remember this reflection on Utah Lake and Mount Timpanogos––two topographical features that defined my youth––for a long time.
March 25, 2014
Excellent synthesis of topic related to western history, including scientific expeditions, muscular Christianity, Mormon history, and many other related topics. My only problem with this well written and researched work was that it often left me wanting even more, even when I knew it was beyond the scope of the project. In particular, even though the book was about Mormon appropriation of Native American land, history, and labor I was left wanting more of this history from the Native American perspective.
November 5, 2020
Having grown up in New Mexico and recently arrived from Hawai’i, I read this book to become familiar with my new Salt Lake City home. This topography/history approach is exactly what I was seeking.
On Zion’s Mount is largely a history of the valley surrounding Utah Lake. At the time of settlement this lake was the prominent feature of the entire Wasatch front because it was an incredibly productive food source. Since tribal members returned to this area regularly Brigham Young’s pioneers settled 30 miles north, in Salt Lake valley. A very few years later they built a small fort at Provo and during crop failures began decimating the lake’s fishery. It wasn’t long before the natives were degraded from sacred Lamanites to Indian pests and virtually exterminated.
As the lake lost importance in the area’s physical geography, the beautiful nearby mountain, Timpanogos, gained importance as the prominent landmark. The book describes strife between Young’s ambitions for a separate country and the US’s Mexican and Civil wars. It describes how the railroad brought tourists west to see the Mormon harems and the beautiful landscapes. Back to Timpanagos, the book describes how the Indian-sounding name was a way to make white immigrants comfortable with eviscerating its native people. The settlers put their own stories on what they consider a blank landscape.
I rank the first half of the book as among my favorite readings because of how it illuminates geography's affects on society. The second part of the book describe the literature and music of the time after settlement and often discusses the broader US. The first half deserves me returning to the book with a highlighter while the second half I may skip.
I learned not only about my new home but also about the historical importance of Santa Fe and the Pikes Peak. As trade developed, native slaves would be sold and brought to Mexican mines via Santa Fe. Pikes Peak symbolizes US mountains and Colorado Springs resorts were built with money extracted from Utah mines. Provo aimed to promote Timpanagos the way Colorado developed its Rockies.
This is easily a four star book for me. It answers a lot of my questions about the area’s history but I am now more interested in Farmer’s thoughts on what was lost in pioneer-native translations. That’s an area we’ll probably never know.
On Zion’s Mount is largely a history of the valley surrounding Utah Lake. At the time of settlement this lake was the prominent feature of the entire Wasatch front because it was an incredibly productive food source. Since tribal members returned to this area regularly Brigham Young’s pioneers settled 30 miles north, in Salt Lake valley. A very few years later they built a small fort at Provo and during crop failures began decimating the lake’s fishery. It wasn’t long before the natives were degraded from sacred Lamanites to Indian pests and virtually exterminated.
As the lake lost importance in the area’s physical geography, the beautiful nearby mountain, Timpanogos, gained importance as the prominent landmark. The book describes strife between Young’s ambitions for a separate country and the US’s Mexican and Civil wars. It describes how the railroad brought tourists west to see the Mormon harems and the beautiful landscapes. Back to Timpanagos, the book describes how the Indian-sounding name was a way to make white immigrants comfortable with eviscerating its native people. The settlers put their own stories on what they consider a blank landscape.
I rank the first half of the book as among my favorite readings because of how it illuminates geography's affects on society. The second part of the book describe the literature and music of the time after settlement and often discusses the broader US. The first half deserves me returning to the book with a highlighter while the second half I may skip.
I learned not only about my new home but also about the historical importance of Santa Fe and the Pikes Peak. As trade developed, native slaves would be sold and brought to Mexican mines via Santa Fe. Pikes Peak symbolizes US mountains and Colorado Springs resorts were built with money extracted from Utah mines. Provo aimed to promote Timpanagos the way Colorado developed its Rockies.
This is easily a four star book for me. It answers a lot of my questions about the area’s history but I am now more interested in Farmer’s thoughts on what was lost in pioneer-native translations. That’s an area we’ll probably never know.
June 10, 2014
For the past several years, I have lived in a place with Mount Timpanogos practically in my backyard and a great view of Utah Lake close by. I have been aware of some of the recent history of American Fork and Provo canyons and Utah Lake as well as the folklore told about Timpanogos Cave. However, like most people in Utah Valley, I have been unaware of where these places really fit in history. This book was written to inform us of the forgotten history – that Utah Lake was once the dominant feature that this valley was known for, and that Mount Timpanogos (often referred to locally as “Timp”) is actually a very recent landmark. The book is made up of a long introduction, which gives a good summary of the entire book, followed by three parts that tell different aspects of the same story.
In the first part, the book tells about the Indians that inhabited the valley (not the mountains) and depended on the lake and rivers for trout and other food fish. When the Mormon pioneers came, they coexisted with the Indians in both the Salt Lake and Utah valleys for a time, sharing the hot and warm springs near the Great Salt Lake as well as the fishing places at and near Utah Lake. At that time, the mountains to the east were simply that – “the mountains.” The Indians were eventually forced out to reservations, and the settlers continued using Utah Lake until the 20th century when it was polluted and forgotten, except as a shallow lake mostly populated with trash fish, and the site of Geneva Steel.
Part two explains that as the lake vanished from prominence, Mount Timpanogos was turned into a landmark in the 1910s and 20s in a campaign spearheaded by a BYU faculty member, Eugene Roberts, who led hikes to the top and made up the legend of the Indian princess that is still retold to visitors of Timpanogos Cave. The book goes into great detail about how the hike became an institutionalized yearly event which was repeated into the 1960s before being discontinued, although individuals and smaller groups still continue to make it today. It also traces the history of hiking from Europe to the United States to fit the Timp hike into context, as well as giving a brief history of places such as Sundance, Mutual Dell, Aspen Grove, and Timpanogos Cave.
The third part discusses the history of naming places throughout the United States in memory of the original inhabitants, often creating legends to go along with them. It shows that what has happened in Utah is similar to what has happened in the rest of the country – as the Native Americans were forced out of the land, Indian-sounding names and legends were created to commemorate them, so that what we tend to know about them was largely fabricated. Ironically, some of these legends have now been picked up and retold by Indians living today as authentic - including the one that is retold about Timpanogos Cave, even though the particular formation mentioned is in a part of the cave that was not accessible until a passage was made between the original two caves.
I found most of the book to be very interesting, although parts of it were very tedious to get through. In putting everything in perspective in history, it seemed as if the author was continually going off on tangents, although I’m sure others may find these parts more interesting than I did (there were over 45 pages devoted entirely to “Lover’s Leaps,” for instance). I also found that a dictionary was often a handy accessory.
The author tends to write very long paragraphs with a single footnote at the end, so it is difficult to pin down many of the sources, and for some of the material which should have had sources cited, there were none. Near the beginning of the notes the author states that many secondary sources regarding LDS history aren’t cited because there is a great bibliography available for them, but it would have been much more helpful to not leave the reader wondering where some of the information came from.
The history of the LDS Church is recited in varying degrees of detail from its founding to the settlement of Utah, dealings with the Indians (although they were considered to be descendants of the Lamanites, there was limited success in coexisting peacefully), and then up through the present day in relationship with the subject of the book. However, there are some dubious claims made, some exaggerations, and some things that are arguably untrue. In some cases this is a result of using questionable theories from secondary sources and stating them as facts.
For instance, it is stated that "A reluctant pragmatist, Woodruff meant his 1890 edict (popularly known as the Manifesto) to be a delaying tactic. On the basis of a revelation given to Joseph Smith, many Mormons expected the Millennium to begin in 1891." While there is evidence that some members expected the Second Coming to happen at about that time, due largely to a revelation given to Joseph Smith that is contained in Doctrine and Covenants section 130 (at the end of which Joseph notes that he’s unsure of the actual meaning), it seems unlikely that the Manifesto would have even been issued if Wilford Woodruff expected it to be that imminent.
Another example is the statement that “In 1981 the Church quietly revised the Book of Mormon passage relating to the promise of the Lamanites: they would become ‘pure and delightsome’ instead of ‘white and delightsome.’” The implication is that the text was changed to try to make the Book of Mormon less racist. This change was actually made in the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon, but was then forgotten (because later editions were based on the 1837 edition) until it was restored in the 1981 edition, where it is noted that "Some minor errors in the text have been perpetuated in past editions of the Book of Mormon. This edition contains corrections that seem appropriate to bring the material into conformity with prepublication manuscripts and early editions edited by the Prophet Joseph Smith." It’s doubtful that Joseph Smith had racism in mind when the change was made or other similar verses would have been changed as well.
To Farmer’s credit, when he discusses the recent studies that show no relationship between the DNA of “contemporary native peoples of Israel and the Palestinian territories and of contemporary native peoples of the Americas,” he states that it’s possible that the Lamanites were absorbed by other population groups, and that “The science of historical genetics is young; the evidence is sure to change.” However, in the footnotes he only cites the works of those that claim the DNA issue to be problematic.
For anyone interested in the history of Utah, the West, Native Americans, place names, hiking, environmentalism, or any of the other topics covered, there should be something of interest in this book. Even the casual reader can read the parts of the book they find to be of most interest and learn some of the history that has largely been forgotten. It seems that the author has met his goal in writing it – I have a new appreciation for and a renewed interest in the landmarks that make up my surroundings, both the lake and the mountain.
In the first part, the book tells about the Indians that inhabited the valley (not the mountains) and depended on the lake and rivers for trout and other food fish. When the Mormon pioneers came, they coexisted with the Indians in both the Salt Lake and Utah valleys for a time, sharing the hot and warm springs near the Great Salt Lake as well as the fishing places at and near Utah Lake. At that time, the mountains to the east were simply that – “the mountains.” The Indians were eventually forced out to reservations, and the settlers continued using Utah Lake until the 20th century when it was polluted and forgotten, except as a shallow lake mostly populated with trash fish, and the site of Geneva Steel.
Part two explains that as the lake vanished from prominence, Mount Timpanogos was turned into a landmark in the 1910s and 20s in a campaign spearheaded by a BYU faculty member, Eugene Roberts, who led hikes to the top and made up the legend of the Indian princess that is still retold to visitors of Timpanogos Cave. The book goes into great detail about how the hike became an institutionalized yearly event which was repeated into the 1960s before being discontinued, although individuals and smaller groups still continue to make it today. It also traces the history of hiking from Europe to the United States to fit the Timp hike into context, as well as giving a brief history of places such as Sundance, Mutual Dell, Aspen Grove, and Timpanogos Cave.
The third part discusses the history of naming places throughout the United States in memory of the original inhabitants, often creating legends to go along with them. It shows that what has happened in Utah is similar to what has happened in the rest of the country – as the Native Americans were forced out of the land, Indian-sounding names and legends were created to commemorate them, so that what we tend to know about them was largely fabricated. Ironically, some of these legends have now been picked up and retold by Indians living today as authentic - including the one that is retold about Timpanogos Cave, even though the particular formation mentioned is in a part of the cave that was not accessible until a passage was made between the original two caves.
I found most of the book to be very interesting, although parts of it were very tedious to get through. In putting everything in perspective in history, it seemed as if the author was continually going off on tangents, although I’m sure others may find these parts more interesting than I did (there were over 45 pages devoted entirely to “Lover’s Leaps,” for instance). I also found that a dictionary was often a handy accessory.
The author tends to write very long paragraphs with a single footnote at the end, so it is difficult to pin down many of the sources, and for some of the material which should have had sources cited, there were none. Near the beginning of the notes the author states that many secondary sources regarding LDS history aren’t cited because there is a great bibliography available for them, but it would have been much more helpful to not leave the reader wondering where some of the information came from.
The history of the LDS Church is recited in varying degrees of detail from its founding to the settlement of Utah, dealings with the Indians (although they were considered to be descendants of the Lamanites, there was limited success in coexisting peacefully), and then up through the present day in relationship with the subject of the book. However, there are some dubious claims made, some exaggerations, and some things that are arguably untrue. In some cases this is a result of using questionable theories from secondary sources and stating them as facts.
For instance, it is stated that "A reluctant pragmatist, Woodruff meant his 1890 edict (popularly known as the Manifesto) to be a delaying tactic. On the basis of a revelation given to Joseph Smith, many Mormons expected the Millennium to begin in 1891." While there is evidence that some members expected the Second Coming to happen at about that time, due largely to a revelation given to Joseph Smith that is contained in Doctrine and Covenants section 130 (at the end of which Joseph notes that he’s unsure of the actual meaning), it seems unlikely that the Manifesto would have even been issued if Wilford Woodruff expected it to be that imminent.
Another example is the statement that “In 1981 the Church quietly revised the Book of Mormon passage relating to the promise of the Lamanites: they would become ‘pure and delightsome’ instead of ‘white and delightsome.’” The implication is that the text was changed to try to make the Book of Mormon less racist. This change was actually made in the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon, but was then forgotten (because later editions were based on the 1837 edition) until it was restored in the 1981 edition, where it is noted that "Some minor errors in the text have been perpetuated in past editions of the Book of Mormon. This edition contains corrections that seem appropriate to bring the material into conformity with prepublication manuscripts and early editions edited by the Prophet Joseph Smith." It’s doubtful that Joseph Smith had racism in mind when the change was made or other similar verses would have been changed as well.
To Farmer’s credit, when he discusses the recent studies that show no relationship between the DNA of “contemporary native peoples of Israel and the Palestinian territories and of contemporary native peoples of the Americas,” he states that it’s possible that the Lamanites were absorbed by other population groups, and that “The science of historical genetics is young; the evidence is sure to change.” However, in the footnotes he only cites the works of those that claim the DNA issue to be problematic.
For anyone interested in the history of Utah, the West, Native Americans, place names, hiking, environmentalism, or any of the other topics covered, there should be something of interest in this book. Even the casual reader can read the parts of the book they find to be of most interest and learn some of the history that has largely been forgotten. It seems that the author has met his goal in writing it – I have a new appreciation for and a renewed interest in the landmarks that make up my surroundings, both the lake and the mountain.
June 2, 2016
A few weeks back one of my favorite history professors recommended a book in passing: Jared Farmer's 2008 volume On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape. The professor was using his book as an example of how our views of geography change according to our own perspectives and needs, even when the land itself doesn't. As a longtime resident of Utah and a history teacher myself, I was interested in the subject and checked the book out.
What I found was a fascinating look at how we create the landscape around us, based on our culture, philosophy, and needs. It's also about how legends are created and passed on from generation to generation, including some that I had heard growing up, and even passed on to my own sons. The book is focused on the Utah Valley--the valley just to the south of my home in Salt Lake City--where the city of Provo and the Mormon Church-owned Brigham Young University is located. Utah Valley was historically the home of bands of Ute Indians, who used the ample fishing grounds of Utah Lake and the Provo River to build up their food supplies. The valley was visited in 1776 by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante, who were trying to find a convenient route from Santa Fe to Monterrey, and is described as a an oasis in the desert of the Great Basin by Farmer.
The focus of the Indians, of the Mountain Men, and of the early Mormon settlers in the 1840s, was always on Utah Lake. For food, for the streams that fed into it (which could be diverted for irrigation), for the center of civilization. Despite that focus, Brigham Young (president of the Mormon Church, and first territorial governor) didn't want his people to settle in Utah Valley, fearing it would provoke violence with the Utes. Not all of Brigham's flock were sheep however, and soon enough there were Mormons settling along the shores of Utah Lake, and a war erupted between the Utes and the trespassers. All of this is set up in the first section of On Zion's Mount, Liquid Antecedents.
The other two sections of the book document a tectonic shift (almost literally) in the thinking about Utah Valley, as the focus slides away from Utah Lake, and to a mountain located to the east, Mount Timpanogos. Mount Timpanogos is a mountain I've known since I was a child, and has always been one of my dad's favorite mountains along the Wasatch Front--the last range of the Rocky Mountains before entering the Great Basin. 90 percent of Utah's population lives in a strip of cities clustered along the Wasatch Front, including Utah Valley and Mount Timpanogos. The intriguing thing according to Farmer is that early maps of the area don't even show Mount Timpanogos as a distinct mountain, and in fact it may not even be one--but a "massif," an area of uplift that includes a lot of rock and several peaks, but isn't necessarily its own landform like a mountain. In fact, Mount Nebo, a mountain looming at the south end of Utah Valley is taller than Timpanogos, and more impressive in most ways--but has retreated from memory as Timpanogos has received better PR over the last century.
So how did Timpanogos become the mountain so revered by so many Utahns? Why, in a region so arid and so dependent on water as the source of life, did attention and devotion shift from the waters of Utah Lake to the barren rock of Mount Timpanogos? That's the real story, and where Farmer spends the other 200 pages of the book. The answer is complicated, but includes the religious refuge that the Mormons were seeking in the Rocky Mountains; it includes a promoter who "sold" Timpanogos as a destination for hikers from across the country; it includes Robert Redford discovering the lush canyon behind Timpanogos and creating the Sundance Resort (and eventually, the film festival); and it includes creating a Native American legend that would raise the profile of this previously unnoticed mountain to timeless status.
The Legend of Timpanogos is essentially a twist on the "Lover's Leap" -- a tale of doomed love between an Indian Princess and her suitor -- by the end of the story, she's been turned to stone, and the mountain is in the shape of her slumbering body, Sleeping Beauty-style. There's also Timpanogos Cave, on the north side of the mountain, which has a formation called "the Heart of Timpanogos" which sometimes figures into the legend. The thing is, the Utes who lived in the Utah Valley never HAD a "Legend of Timpanogos;" it was written by a man named Eugene Roberts who was promoting mountain hikes in the early 20th Century.
The Legend of Timpanogos survived because it was embodied. People imagined the mountain itself as an Indian body, and the bodies of performers acted out the legend. After encountering the legend around a smoky campfire or deep inside the chill, damp darkness of Timpanogos Cave, many listeners became tellers, repeating the legend--performing it--to family and friends. In this way, by the mid-twentieth century Eugene Roberts' printed story was transformed into pageantry and folklore.
What does it say about us (white Americans) that we eliminate the Native Americans from the land and then proceed to name the landmarks of their former homes after them? Farmer spends a good deal of time explaining the idea of "Indianification" -- a perverse kind of retroactive respect for Indians and a romanticized view of their culture after they're no longer a threat to "civilization." It's an intriguing idea, and one that you can find evidence of not just in Utah or the West, but in most parts of the United States where Anglo culture has superceded Native culture. Which...is just about everywhere. Farmer makes a compelling case, and some of the most damning evidence is his finding that in Utah County "the Legend of Timpanogos constitutes the most memorable 'knowledge' about the Indians who once possessed the place." So what little cultural memory we do have of the Utes who lived here was invented by a white dude to sell tickets to his hike.
This was a fascinating read, and I learned much more than I thought I would. I have a love for Utah's geography and history, and as a resident this may be more interesting for me than readers outside of Utah--but the larger part of the book is really about how we construct our own ideas about where we live. Our homes, our landscapes, and how we view our own history as Americans. If you've ever given a second thought to how you ended up where you are today, On Zion's Mount is an excellent place to start.
What I found was a fascinating look at how we create the landscape around us, based on our culture, philosophy, and needs. It's also about how legends are created and passed on from generation to generation, including some that I had heard growing up, and even passed on to my own sons. The book is focused on the Utah Valley--the valley just to the south of my home in Salt Lake City--where the city of Provo and the Mormon Church-owned Brigham Young University is located. Utah Valley was historically the home of bands of Ute Indians, who used the ample fishing grounds of Utah Lake and the Provo River to build up their food supplies. The valley was visited in 1776 by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante, who were trying to find a convenient route from Santa Fe to Monterrey, and is described as a an oasis in the desert of the Great Basin by Farmer.
The focus of the Indians, of the Mountain Men, and of the early Mormon settlers in the 1840s, was always on Utah Lake. For food, for the streams that fed into it (which could be diverted for irrigation), for the center of civilization. Despite that focus, Brigham Young (president of the Mormon Church, and first territorial governor) didn't want his people to settle in Utah Valley, fearing it would provoke violence with the Utes. Not all of Brigham's flock were sheep however, and soon enough there were Mormons settling along the shores of Utah Lake, and a war erupted between the Utes and the trespassers. All of this is set up in the first section of On Zion's Mount, Liquid Antecedents.
The other two sections of the book document a tectonic shift (almost literally) in the thinking about Utah Valley, as the focus slides away from Utah Lake, and to a mountain located to the east, Mount Timpanogos. Mount Timpanogos is a mountain I've known since I was a child, and has always been one of my dad's favorite mountains along the Wasatch Front--the last range of the Rocky Mountains before entering the Great Basin. 90 percent of Utah's population lives in a strip of cities clustered along the Wasatch Front, including Utah Valley and Mount Timpanogos. The intriguing thing according to Farmer is that early maps of the area don't even show Mount Timpanogos as a distinct mountain, and in fact it may not even be one--but a "massif," an area of uplift that includes a lot of rock and several peaks, but isn't necessarily its own landform like a mountain. In fact, Mount Nebo, a mountain looming at the south end of Utah Valley is taller than Timpanogos, and more impressive in most ways--but has retreated from memory as Timpanogos has received better PR over the last century.
So how did Timpanogos become the mountain so revered by so many Utahns? Why, in a region so arid and so dependent on water as the source of life, did attention and devotion shift from the waters of Utah Lake to the barren rock of Mount Timpanogos? That's the real story, and where Farmer spends the other 200 pages of the book. The answer is complicated, but includes the religious refuge that the Mormons were seeking in the Rocky Mountains; it includes a promoter who "sold" Timpanogos as a destination for hikers from across the country; it includes Robert Redford discovering the lush canyon behind Timpanogos and creating the Sundance Resort (and eventually, the film festival); and it includes creating a Native American legend that would raise the profile of this previously unnoticed mountain to timeless status.
The Legend of Timpanogos is essentially a twist on the "Lover's Leap" -- a tale of doomed love between an Indian Princess and her suitor -- by the end of the story, she's been turned to stone, and the mountain is in the shape of her slumbering body, Sleeping Beauty-style. There's also Timpanogos Cave, on the north side of the mountain, which has a formation called "the Heart of Timpanogos" which sometimes figures into the legend. The thing is, the Utes who lived in the Utah Valley never HAD a "Legend of Timpanogos;" it was written by a man named Eugene Roberts who was promoting mountain hikes in the early 20th Century.
The Legend of Timpanogos survived because it was embodied. People imagined the mountain itself as an Indian body, and the bodies of performers acted out the legend. After encountering the legend around a smoky campfire or deep inside the chill, damp darkness of Timpanogos Cave, many listeners became tellers, repeating the legend--performing it--to family and friends. In this way, by the mid-twentieth century Eugene Roberts' printed story was transformed into pageantry and folklore.
What does it say about us (white Americans) that we eliminate the Native Americans from the land and then proceed to name the landmarks of their former homes after them? Farmer spends a good deal of time explaining the idea of "Indianification" -- a perverse kind of retroactive respect for Indians and a romanticized view of their culture after they're no longer a threat to "civilization." It's an intriguing idea, and one that you can find evidence of not just in Utah or the West, but in most parts of the United States where Anglo culture has superceded Native culture. Which...is just about everywhere. Farmer makes a compelling case, and some of the most damning evidence is his finding that in Utah County "the Legend of Timpanogos constitutes the most memorable 'knowledge' about the Indians who once possessed the place." So what little cultural memory we do have of the Utes who lived here was invented by a white dude to sell tickets to his hike.
This was a fascinating read, and I learned much more than I thought I would. I have a love for Utah's geography and history, and as a resident this may be more interesting for me than readers outside of Utah--but the larger part of the book is really about how we construct our own ideas about where we live. Our homes, our landscapes, and how we view our own history as Americans. If you've ever given a second thought to how you ended up where you are today, On Zion's Mount is an excellent place to start.
April 4, 2015
Jared Farmer crafts this cultural history around the creation story of a "natural" landmark—a beloved peak in the American West: Mount Timpanogos. It began as a mount that was neither visible nor haunted, but Farmer demonstrates how now it is both. As a beginning point, he lays out how the peak--a limestone massif--was anonymous among the many mountains in the Wasatch front. During Native American times prior to European settlement, there was a lake-centric view of the region that shifted to a focus on the iconic “Mount Timpanogos” by 1996 (2). This in spite of the fact that Utah Lake remains at the center of Utah Valley which is the center of Utah County, which occupies the center of Utah. Quick sidenote: “Utah” was not endemic but imposed on the land by colonial invaders—they were the people of the lake—“Utahs” (1).
The reason for the geographical focus of place's shift from lake to mount occurred due to a cultural construct. The mountainous space became a mountain-place called “Timp” due to a promotional campaign in the 1910s/20s. Boosters from BYU-Provo desired their own celebrated mountain. Not the highest part of the Wasatch but thought to be by a federal survey at the time (3). Great landmarks are storied landmarks—Eugene “Timpanogos” Roberts, BYU’s athletic director, created an Indian princess legend jumping to her death from the peak (4). The sense of “Timp” as place involved a double displacement: a literal displacement of the Timpanogos Utes, and the symbolic displacement of their Lake—they were branded “mountain” people. Aquarian Age when people used to develop an intimate relationship with their local water resources is a thing of the past; now we are disconnected from source with “magical”/invisible pipes. Landmarks are cultural and physical—nature and man-made blur (5).
“Environmental perception is more concrete than image and representation. Out in the world, as within our bodies, mental causes can produce physical effects.” Intensive use follows landmark imagination/creation. “….a perceptual landscape overlaps the physical one” (6). Landmarks need to be large enough to be seen by humans and not so big that they cannot be visualized by humans. Pike’s Peak is a landmark, the Rockies are not. Neither is the Grand Canyon—no one thing to fixate on. It disorients rather than orients—you feel small and lost rather than mapped in space (6). Mount Timpanogos is Provo’s skyscraper” (7). Landmarks are contingent and timebound—historical and cultural forces are more deterministic than environmental forces (9). “London has Big Ben; Paris has the Eiffel Tower. Boston has the CITGO sign.” Beloved by BU students and Red Sox fans at Fenway Park. 1983 defense by locals—citizen groups and the Boston Landmarks Commission—to keep the 1965 sign from being dismantled (10).
“Collective memory involves forgetting as much as remembering. Societies, like individuals, forget passively when they make no effort to remember or when their attention gets diverted. Less often, societies choose to forget. they erase or suppress historical knowledge [<—>] considered discomforting or dangerous. Hierarchal churches and totalitarian states excel at memory suppression. A combination of passive and active forgetting explains the fading of the Lake Utes in the collective memory of the second-generation Mormon residents of Utah Valley” (13).
Three parallel narratives:
1) Bioregional history in the eastern Great Basin (the Wasatch front): reconstruct the water-based geography of the fish-centric indigenous peoples—narrate the American colonization by Brigham Young and the Mormons—then outline the gradual process of Utah Lake becoming a diluted as a fishery, a resort, and a symbol
Cultural geomorphology of Mount Timpanogos (Utah Lake’s foil) split in two halves:
2) Local History (Provo): Mormons and mountains—surveyors, painters, and hikers. Mass annual hike organized by Eugene Roberts BYU’s athletic director 1910s/20s figures centrally. Late 20th century enduring legacy of the hike (15).
3) Extralocal History (nonlinear): Euro-Americans “playing Indian”—American culture and Mormon culture “converged significantly, though never fully, in the twentieth century” (16). Colonizers are haunted by the colonized in the place-stories of landmarks.
How nonnatives became neonates. “Utah offers a powerful case study because only here can we find a colonial U.S. population that speaks of having a “homeland” in the Native American sense—an endemic spiritual geography. They call it Zion” (16). While this book is very particular to the Mormon culture and Mount Timpanogos, Farmer does a masterful job of giving his story depth while connecting it to larger American trends--breadth. Even though Mormons have a unique conceptualization of Native Americans--God's chosen people that will be redeemed and empowered in the last days--their relationship played out in ways typical of European-American encounters with natives elsewhere. Examining Mount Timp helps us better examine America's relationship with Native Americans.
Here is the most beautiful analytical part of the essay in relation to the naming of a 1990s temple Mount Timpanogos Temple:
“Besides, in pursuit of globalization, the modern LDS Church downplays its Zionist past. Downplays rather than disavows, for the Church still needs its Utah base. As a temple name, ‘Timpanogos’ works both ways. Many Utah Mormons continue to read local significance into Isaiah’s prophecy about the ‘mountain of the Lord’s House.’ Thus Mount Timpanogos can (to those who know and care) reference Zion; but as a mountain with a non biblical name that became loved through secular means in the twentieth century, it has no necessary or official connection to Zionism, Out of the present and the past, Latter-day Saints have found a way to make Zion’s mount without Mount Zion” (236).
Epigraphs from the book that are interesting to consider:
“…All these memorials bring us closer to our past; and, so doing, they bring us closer to our own present; for we are living history as well as recording it; and our memories are as necessary as our anticipations.” —Lewis Mumford (1927)
“There is nothing less permanent than geography.”—United States Democratic Review (1842)
“Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.”—Deuteronomy 19:14 (King James Version)
The reason for the geographical focus of place's shift from lake to mount occurred due to a cultural construct. The mountainous space became a mountain-place called “Timp” due to a promotional campaign in the 1910s/20s. Boosters from BYU-Provo desired their own celebrated mountain. Not the highest part of the Wasatch but thought to be by a federal survey at the time (3). Great landmarks are storied landmarks—Eugene “Timpanogos” Roberts, BYU’s athletic director, created an Indian princess legend jumping to her death from the peak (4). The sense of “Timp” as place involved a double displacement: a literal displacement of the Timpanogos Utes, and the symbolic displacement of their Lake—they were branded “mountain” people. Aquarian Age when people used to develop an intimate relationship with their local water resources is a thing of the past; now we are disconnected from source with “magical”/invisible pipes. Landmarks are cultural and physical—nature and man-made blur (5).
“Environmental perception is more concrete than image and representation. Out in the world, as within our bodies, mental causes can produce physical effects.” Intensive use follows landmark imagination/creation. “….a perceptual landscape overlaps the physical one” (6). Landmarks need to be large enough to be seen by humans and not so big that they cannot be visualized by humans. Pike’s Peak is a landmark, the Rockies are not. Neither is the Grand Canyon—no one thing to fixate on. It disorients rather than orients—you feel small and lost rather than mapped in space (6). Mount Timpanogos is Provo’s skyscraper” (7). Landmarks are contingent and timebound—historical and cultural forces are more deterministic than environmental forces (9). “London has Big Ben; Paris has the Eiffel Tower. Boston has the CITGO sign.” Beloved by BU students and Red Sox fans at Fenway Park. 1983 defense by locals—citizen groups and the Boston Landmarks Commission—to keep the 1965 sign from being dismantled (10).
“Collective memory involves forgetting as much as remembering. Societies, like individuals, forget passively when they make no effort to remember or when their attention gets diverted. Less often, societies choose to forget. they erase or suppress historical knowledge [<—>] considered discomforting or dangerous. Hierarchal churches and totalitarian states excel at memory suppression. A combination of passive and active forgetting explains the fading of the Lake Utes in the collective memory of the second-generation Mormon residents of Utah Valley” (13).
Three parallel narratives:
1) Bioregional history in the eastern Great Basin (the Wasatch front): reconstruct the water-based geography of the fish-centric indigenous peoples—narrate the American colonization by Brigham Young and the Mormons—then outline the gradual process of Utah Lake becoming a diluted as a fishery, a resort, and a symbol
Cultural geomorphology of Mount Timpanogos (Utah Lake’s foil) split in two halves:
2) Local History (Provo): Mormons and mountains—surveyors, painters, and hikers. Mass annual hike organized by Eugene Roberts BYU’s athletic director 1910s/20s figures centrally. Late 20th century enduring legacy of the hike (15).
3) Extralocal History (nonlinear): Euro-Americans “playing Indian”—American culture and Mormon culture “converged significantly, though never fully, in the twentieth century” (16). Colonizers are haunted by the colonized in the place-stories of landmarks.
How nonnatives became neonates. “Utah offers a powerful case study because only here can we find a colonial U.S. population that speaks of having a “homeland” in the Native American sense—an endemic spiritual geography. They call it Zion” (16). While this book is very particular to the Mormon culture and Mount Timpanogos, Farmer does a masterful job of giving his story depth while connecting it to larger American trends--breadth. Even though Mormons have a unique conceptualization of Native Americans--God's chosen people that will be redeemed and empowered in the last days--their relationship played out in ways typical of European-American encounters with natives elsewhere. Examining Mount Timp helps us better examine America's relationship with Native Americans.
Here is the most beautiful analytical part of the essay in relation to the naming of a 1990s temple Mount Timpanogos Temple:
“Besides, in pursuit of globalization, the modern LDS Church downplays its Zionist past. Downplays rather than disavows, for the Church still needs its Utah base. As a temple name, ‘Timpanogos’ works both ways. Many Utah Mormons continue to read local significance into Isaiah’s prophecy about the ‘mountain of the Lord’s House.’ Thus Mount Timpanogos can (to those who know and care) reference Zion; but as a mountain with a non biblical name that became loved through secular means in the twentieth century, it has no necessary or official connection to Zionism, Out of the present and the past, Latter-day Saints have found a way to make Zion’s mount without Mount Zion” (236).
Epigraphs from the book that are interesting to consider:
“…All these memorials bring us closer to our past; and, so doing, they bring us closer to our own present; for we are living history as well as recording it; and our memories are as necessary as our anticipations.” —Lewis Mumford (1927)
“There is nothing less permanent than geography.”—United States Democratic Review (1842)
“Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.”—Deuteronomy 19:14 (King James Version)
October 23, 2024
Super interesting discussion of Mormon relationship to American Indians and the social construction of land generally. As a person who loves being outside, this book makes me curious about the history of the land around me and why I relate to it the way I do.
I appreciated this book's discussion of appropriation both through place names and legend making. Creation of Indian legends to share white ideas makes sense as a way to deflect guilt and remove oneself from contemporary experiences of American Indians. The "Indianist" names being reflections of the taking of the land is also both eerie and ubiquitous.
Something that makes Mormons so interesting to me is the conflict of the desire to be place oriented (Utah Valley=Zion) without being able to genuinely connect to place. This feels especially ironic because of historical Mormon obsession with American Indians who are actually place oriented in practice.
I appreciated this book's discussion of appropriation both through place names and legend making. Creation of Indian legends to share white ideas makes sense as a way to deflect guilt and remove oneself from contemporary experiences of American Indians. The "Indianist" names being reflections of the taking of the land is also both eerie and ubiquitous.
Something that makes Mormons so interesting to me is the conflict of the desire to be place oriented (Utah Valley=Zion) without being able to genuinely connect to place. This feels especially ironic because of historical Mormon obsession with American Indians who are actually place oriented in practice.
July 20, 2021
Farmer is a master researcher and storyteller and his passion for his subjects clearly bares itself on the pages of this book. The writing in chapters 7 & 8 is especially witty and inspiring -- some of the most impressive I've read in years, regardless of genre. I plan to read his other work as well.
Received as a gift when moving to SLC, this book was a perfect introduction to the Mormons, Indians, and their shared experiences with the landscape. While I can see this as especially interesting to northern Utah residents, the themes and introspection on the American experience will resonate with many people.
Received as a gift when moving to SLC, this book was a perfect introduction to the Mormons, Indians, and their shared experiences with the landscape. While I can see this as especially interesting to northern Utah residents, the themes and introspection on the American experience will resonate with many people.
May 12, 2023
Jared Farmer compellingly argues that European Americans, most notably early-twentieth-century BYU Athletics Director Eugene "Timpanogos" Roberts, promoted Mount Timpanogos as the principal geographical landmark in Utah Valley. This cultural invention displaced the historical geographic importance of Utah Lake. Farmer backs his claims with nuance and within the contexts of environmental, cultural, social, and political history of Utah Valley and its Indigenous and colonial inhabitants.
June 10, 2025
"Under the guidance of Brigham Young, the Saints aspired to redeem their 'red brethren,' the 'Lamanites.' In practice, hostility supplanted harmony. Settlers and Indians clashed repeatedly. Ultimately, with the federal government's blessing, the Mormons forced the starving remnants of the Indians to move to a distant reservation."
June 29, 2020
Gives a wonderful account of pioneer settlement in Utah and Salt Lake Valleys, Mormon culture's abandonment of the lifeblood of water in the desert to the spiritual respite of Mount Timpanogos.
October 27, 2020
3.5/5 stars
Read
May 4, 2023Utah history. Indigenous relations. Myths. Timpanogos. Dated now.
Read
April 28, 2015Jared Farmer wanted to write a book about Mount Timpanogos in Provo, Utah. He began researching, and he could not stop. He tells the backstory. He tells a side story. He tells another side story. When he wants to talk about the mountain's Indian name, he backs up to tell how places throughout the nation received Indian, or Indian-sounding names, and about the different ways that place names can be assigned in general. When he wants to talk about the tradition of hiking Mount Timpanogos, he backs up to tell how the sport of mountain climbing developed in Europe, and how the idea of "physical culture" encouraged people to exercise for recreation, and the whole biography of Eugene Roberts, who promoted group hiking, and how Mormon's communal culture tends toward group activities in general. And so on for everything he wants to say.
While I believe this book could easily have been edited down to a less rambling form, I didn't mind, really. It is a good story. Farmer has a thesis. It is that before the Mormons came to the Utah valley, the defining local landmark was the lake, Utah Lake, which unlike Great Salt Lake, was a freshwater lake, and full of fish. The fish were so abundant that the Indians could scoop them out of the water with their hands as they poured down the river and into the lake. The Indians who lived on the lake shore were known as "Fish Eaters," and other bands would come every year at fishing season and camp out.
There was a brief period of coexistence, when Indian and Mormon fished and socialized side by side on the shores of the lake, and Indian and Mormon children played together. But soon enough there were conflicts over stolen cattle, and stolen shirts, and soon there was war and starvation, and the Indians were driven out. I hated to read that part. It happens everywhere throughout American history, a sad and bitter story, and I always hate to read that part.
Another familiar old story followed. The white men ruined the lake by overfishing, by siphoning off water for agriculture, by industrial pollution, and by paving over the wetlands where native species spawned. I didn't like to read that part, either. As the lake became less a fountain of life, the people no longer valued it. The lake became ignored, and the people turned their attention to the mountain, as a source of local pride, and as a defining landmark. When this happened they told themselves that the Indians, too, had always valued the mountain. So the Mormons gave the mountain an Indian name, and invented an Indian legend to attach to it, and imagined that it had been central to Indian culture. But all of that was false, just a story. But it was easy for the local people to believe they were honoring the Indians, when the Indians weren't actually there to contradict them.
All of this supports Farmer's thesis that landmarks aren't really landmarks until we tell stories about them, and that landmarks change over time as culture changes, even when the earth itself does not.
While I believe this book could easily have been edited down to a less rambling form, I didn't mind, really. It is a good story. Farmer has a thesis. It is that before the Mormons came to the Utah valley, the defining local landmark was the lake, Utah Lake, which unlike Great Salt Lake, was a freshwater lake, and full of fish. The fish were so abundant that the Indians could scoop them out of the water with their hands as they poured down the river and into the lake. The Indians who lived on the lake shore were known as "Fish Eaters," and other bands would come every year at fishing season and camp out.
There was a brief period of coexistence, when Indian and Mormon fished and socialized side by side on the shores of the lake, and Indian and Mormon children played together. But soon enough there were conflicts over stolen cattle, and stolen shirts, and soon there was war and starvation, and the Indians were driven out. I hated to read that part. It happens everywhere throughout American history, a sad and bitter story, and I always hate to read that part.
Another familiar old story followed. The white men ruined the lake by overfishing, by siphoning off water for agriculture, by industrial pollution, and by paving over the wetlands where native species spawned. I didn't like to read that part, either. As the lake became less a fountain of life, the people no longer valued it. The lake became ignored, and the people turned their attention to the mountain, as a source of local pride, and as a defining landmark. When this happened they told themselves that the Indians, too, had always valued the mountain. So the Mormons gave the mountain an Indian name, and invented an Indian legend to attach to it, and imagined that it had been central to Indian culture. But all of that was false, just a story. But it was easy for the local people to believe they were honoring the Indians, when the Indians weren't actually there to contradict them.
All of this supports Farmer's thesis that landmarks aren't really landmarks until we tell stories about them, and that landmarks change over time as culture changes, even when the earth itself does not.
November 24, 2008
Just found this one in the Library of Congress bookstore. Looks like it will be very interesting. Besides, when you get 20% off at the LOC bookstore you can't hardly pass 'em up! :-)
---- and after finishing ----
I found that JF had written a well-researched look into a number of related topics. As the title implies, the book is about Mormons, and how poorly the pioneers treated the Indians, and about the many features of the American Landscape that are related to indian legends.
He spends a great amount of time discussing numerous rock outcroppings and ledges across the American landscape that have become the stuff of indian legends. He seems to follow numerous 'rabbit trails' investigating legends. This was all very interesting but it seemed largely like a lot of filler-material.
JF starts out by relating a well-documented history of the unfortunate lot of both the Mormon pioneers and the Nuche (Utes and other related tribes in Utah Valley). He then chases off on legends and wanders for page after page discussing how most of the indian legends seem to come from shadowy historical happening and many tellings and re-tellings of stories.
He goes into much depth on how 'Timp' came to be so popular.
Having lived in the Utah Valley for a number of years I can see that he has done his research well in this area.
JF next runs off on another rabbit trail disecting indian music and its origins, conversion into diatonics and how it evolved into what we know today as indian tribal rhythmns and tunes. Again, interesting, but seemeingly so much more filler material.
Finally the author gets down to modern times in UV and the LDS Church. It appears that JF has definitely done his homework. He has a lot of things to say that reveal that there really is a lot more that can be said about the veracity of much that is usually taken for granted by the average LDS reader. Many people accept much that is really questionable but they've been taught not to question but to accept on faith all that is given.
This book is well written and well researched. It is good for stimulating a thinking person into wondering just how much is smoke and mirors and how much just can or cannot be true. If you are LDS I would suggest you read it for yourself and think for yourself.
---- and after finishing ----
I found that JF had written a well-researched look into a number of related topics. As the title implies, the book is about Mormons, and how poorly the pioneers treated the Indians, and about the many features of the American Landscape that are related to indian legends.
He spends a great amount of time discussing numerous rock outcroppings and ledges across the American landscape that have become the stuff of indian legends. He seems to follow numerous 'rabbit trails' investigating legends. This was all very interesting but it seemed largely like a lot of filler-material.
JF starts out by relating a well-documented history of the unfortunate lot of both the Mormon pioneers and the Nuche (Utes and other related tribes in Utah Valley). He then chases off on legends and wanders for page after page discussing how most of the indian legends seem to come from shadowy historical happening and many tellings and re-tellings of stories.
He goes into much depth on how 'Timp' came to be so popular.
Having lived in the Utah Valley for a number of years I can see that he has done his research well in this area.
JF next runs off on another rabbit trail disecting indian music and its origins, conversion into diatonics and how it evolved into what we know today as indian tribal rhythmns and tunes. Again, interesting, but seemeingly so much more filler material.
Finally the author gets down to modern times in UV and the LDS Church. It appears that JF has definitely done his homework. He has a lot of things to say that reveal that there really is a lot more that can be said about the veracity of much that is usually taken for granted by the average LDS reader. Many people accept much that is really questionable but they've been taught not to question but to accept on faith all that is given.
This book is well written and well researched. It is good for stimulating a thinking person into wondering just how much is smoke and mirors and how much just can or cannot be true. If you are LDS I would suggest you read it for yourself and think for yourself.
May 18, 2010
I very much enjoyed this, but must deduct a star. As long as Farmer is staying with his Mormon history vs. Actual Indian history dichotomy, this is really great stuff, but he goes off on long digressions into things like the history of 'Indianist' music as it relates to early 20th Century Opera, and that gets a little old. I know it relates back to what he is trying to say about Utah, but I think the book would be better with a little more editing.
However, a lot of what he has to say is really fascinating. Basically this is about the way the history and folklore of the white settlers of Utah (and other parts of the country) changed as they displaced the Indians and altered the landscape. In central Utah, the old history of conflict between Mormons and Indians, and the importance of Utah Lake and fishing to the settlers, all that faded away, and the focus shifted to the mountain overlooking the cities and new legends and history sprung up about the mountain. Farmer makes a pretty good case for neither the Indians nor the Mormons caring much about the mountains until the pioneers had basically ruined the fishing and farmed out the valley. Then as the mountains grew in importance, new history grew up around them.
Farmer also has some great stuff in here about the mythology around the 'lover's leap' that started in the early 1800s all over the country and almost always included some story of an Indian maiden throwing herself off a precipice. He uses this to illustrate the tendency of European settlers to invent Native American history for places so that America would have more of a romantic history, and so the stories we told wouldn't be more along the lines of "this is the spot where we starved the Shoshone to the point that they finally capitulated and moved to the reservation". Much nicer to come up with some tale of an Indian love triangle and a bad chief and a heartbroken princess, etc.
However, a lot of what he has to say is really fascinating. Basically this is about the way the history and folklore of the white settlers of Utah (and other parts of the country) changed as they displaced the Indians and altered the landscape. In central Utah, the old history of conflict between Mormons and Indians, and the importance of Utah Lake and fishing to the settlers, all that faded away, and the focus shifted to the mountain overlooking the cities and new legends and history sprung up about the mountain. Farmer makes a pretty good case for neither the Indians nor the Mormons caring much about the mountains until the pioneers had basically ruined the fishing and farmed out the valley. Then as the mountains grew in importance, new history grew up around them.
Farmer also has some great stuff in here about the mythology around the 'lover's leap' that started in the early 1800s all over the country and almost always included some story of an Indian maiden throwing herself off a precipice. He uses this to illustrate the tendency of European settlers to invent Native American history for places so that America would have more of a romantic history, and so the stories we told wouldn't be more along the lines of "this is the spot where we starved the Shoshone to the point that they finally capitulated and moved to the reservation". Much nicer to come up with some tale of an Indian love triangle and a bad chief and a heartbroken princess, etc.
February 12, 2012
I quite enjoyed the first few chapters of this book. I apreciated the the depth and background he provided on the Mormon migration. I was fascinated by the chapters about Mormon and Indian relations. Not that I have read much, but this was the first account of these interactions that did not feel like it was written by a strong Mormon apologist.
After the first few chapters, however, the book got very tedious. It began to reveal its true nature. The book would more appropriately be titled, Mount Timpanogos: An Exostive Biography or Everything You Never Wanted to Know about Mount Timpanogos. But who would buy that book, right? I am just not enough of a history buff to want to know that much about ANY land form. The thesis of the book concerns the shift in the love of the people from Utah Lake to Mount Timp, which was an interesting phenomenon, but, to me, not 400 pages interesting. Not to mention the fact that each chapter not only gave ridiculous amounts of attention to one minor aspect of the mountain's history, but in order to do so as comprehensively as possible, spent the first half of the chapter giving the history of said topic nation wide. So not only was I forced to trudge through page after page about the history of hiking on Mount Timpanogos (a topic that seemed highly irrelevant to me), in order to do so, I first had to trudge through page after page about the history of mountaineering and hiking nation-wide and internationally. I understand that this is what good history does--examining text, context, and subtext--but I found it painful. I need to significanly improve my skim/speed reading skills in order to get through another book like that.
After the first few chapters, however, the book got very tedious. It began to reveal its true nature. The book would more appropriately be titled, Mount Timpanogos: An Exostive Biography or Everything You Never Wanted to Know about Mount Timpanogos. But who would buy that book, right? I am just not enough of a history buff to want to know that much about ANY land form. The thesis of the book concerns the shift in the love of the people from Utah Lake to Mount Timp, which was an interesting phenomenon, but, to me, not 400 pages interesting. Not to mention the fact that each chapter not only gave ridiculous amounts of attention to one minor aspect of the mountain's history, but in order to do so as comprehensively as possible, spent the first half of the chapter giving the history of said topic nation wide. So not only was I forced to trudge through page after page about the history of hiking on Mount Timpanogos (a topic that seemed highly irrelevant to me), in order to do so, I first had to trudge through page after page about the history of mountaineering and hiking nation-wide and internationally. I understand that this is what good history does--examining text, context, and subtext--but I found it painful. I need to significanly improve my skim/speed reading skills in order to get through another book like that.
August 26, 2012
Farmer's well researched and wittily written history is riveting. The myth-busting account of Utah Valley's Indians was especially fascinating. The book is informative, interesting on to often tragic history behind specific local places: Battle Creek, Squaw Peak. The books both offers a loving account of Timpanogos and needed, redemptive story of Utah Lake. I also enjoyed how the book fanned out into erudite discussion on "Indian" place names, hiking, etc. My only gripe was a comment that went something like Geneva being missed only by its undereducated and overpaid workers. It struck me as an unworthy and damaging sneer, the kind that makes it sound like environmentalists only come from and care about a privileged upper class. But that was only a phrase in an otherwise remarkable book.
June 12, 2014
This book had plenty of good information. My issue with it is that Jared Farmer has some obvious biases. Critical thinking and writing are fully acceptable to me, but you should use the same ruler for all parties involved. Robert Redford and Brigham Young should be judged by the same academic standards if academic and scholarly are your goals. If one is an isolationist they both were for attempting many of the same methods. If we aren't being critical than sing praises the same way. If Walkara was a great leader and compromiser then so was David Evans. I did enjoy the historical depth of review. I just wish it was written in a more scholarly and unbiased manner.
April 8, 2010
For an adapted dissertation, this was quite an engaging read. The first section chronicles Mormon-Indian relations in early Utah; the second recounts the making of Mount Timpanogos into a monument of nature, situated within a history of outdoor recreation; and third (the least compelling of the three) discussed the appropriation and invention of Indian myth by white settlers. Farmer is a fantastic writer and historian - although the subject matter of Glen Canyon Dammed appealed to me even more, his voice is more measure and mature in On Zion's Mount.
October 2, 2008
I picked this up because I had lived in the area he describes, in the shadow of Mt. Timpanoogos. I have to say, I learned a great deal about the history of that area...and much of the U.S. Farmer definitely has a soapbox and makes a number of stretches, but I found it entertaining in parts and even laughed out loud. It's a much better read if you're familiar with the Provo-Orem, UT area as well as with Mormons.
April 2, 2017
Farmer's research on the history of Utah was pretty laid out, I think. He goes to unravel the memories that were being forgotten involving Utah's history with Latter-day Saints and the Native American peoples. Farmer was fair in writing about LDS church buildings and temples that exist near the Wasatch Front; he came off rather satirical when talking about the Mormon Pioneers and his criticisms of President Brigham Young. I read this for my Utah history class at Brigham Young University.
July 8, 2009
This was written by a fellow Timpview High classmate of mine. It read a little like a textbook on mostly Utah County, where I grew up, and the surrounding areas. I found lots of interesting information about Utah Lake, the Pioneers, and Timp. Not a leisure book for me, but very informative.
June 16, 2012
2009 Parkman Award winner. Usually like these winners, but disappointed in this one. Not what I was expecting. Thought it was going to be more about the history of the Morman church and the settlement in Uath. Too much repetition.
September 12, 2015
This is my favorite book on the history of Utah so far, as it includes the histories of the Native Americans and debunks the silly- but still often repeated- legends about them. Everyone who calls Utah home should read this book.
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