Bruce Catton's Michigan says this:

Men who ought to have known better feared that those who planned the new [Sault Ste Marie] canal were much too optimistic. E.B. Ward of Detroit was the lakes' chief steamboat magnate, just then, and he wrote anxiously to a Michigan Congressman protesting that the locks, planned to measure 350 feet in length by 70 in width, were much too large; 260 feet by 60 feet would be ample, because steamboats too large for such locks would be too big to get up the St. Mary's River, which had shallow places with hard-rock bottoms.... [page 120]

...Captain Ward, as competent a businessman as the lakes country afforded, had turned out to be a terrible prophet, not because he lacked intelligence, but simply because neither he nor the other men who were industrializing this wilderness had any notion how fast the process was going to go, once it got started. [122]

The CCC's Michigan Guide tells us:

Early in 1853, Captain Eber B. Ward, a Detroit shipping magnate, purchased the [John] Biddle estate [in Wyandotte] and established the Eureka Iron and Steel Company on the waterfront, the first plant of its kind in the Detroit area. A blast furnace and rolling mill were built, and a settlement was platted. In the next 20 years, Wyandotte pioneered in the steel industry with two important firsts: the first steel analysis laboratory in the United States (1862), and the manufacture of the first Bessemer steel [properly, this was Kelly-patent steel] in America (1864).... Because of the mill's position between the ore beds of upper Michigan and the coal fields of Ohio and Indiana, it seemed probably that it would become one of the most successful plants in the Nation; but Ward had overreached himself. When he fell dead in Detroit in 1875, his partners, hit by the panic of 1873, permitted the mill to fall into ruin.... [T]wo years before his death, Captain Ward had drilled an oil and gas well on his property, which, although it proved unproductive, revealed the existence of an immense salt bed of good quality and not too deep to be exploited commercially. [470]

Ward gets quite a bit of attention from Jean McHugh in her biography of Alexander Holley; here's one paragraph:

Ward's sole aim was to build the experimental plant and to rush it into operation. He was a strange person. To his credit, he rarely interfered with Durfee's operation [Wyandotte's Kelly-patent mill]. He has been described as a man of extremes: self-controlled and passionate, shrewd and credulous, persistent yet changeable. He was not an ironmaster in the true sense of the word and had little real understanding of the details of Durfee's experiments. In his anxiety to make a financial success of the venture, Ward seemed always ready to listen to any suggestion, no matter how ridiculous. He probably had no intention of creating difficulties for Durfee, but seemed unable to resist trying out a persuasive scheme, especially if it were put forward by those unfriendly to Durfee. [175]

He's mentioned four times in James C. Mills' Our Inland Seas; this one is typical:

The large steamer Planet, built by Captain Ward at Newport, in 1855, and which was a leviathan of the time, was added to the [Goodrich] line about 1863. She was of twelve hundred tons, and splendidly furnished, but ran only until 1866, when she was taken off the line and dismantled. [240]

Finally, and most surprisingly, Ward and his sons show up in Peter Morris's wonderful Baseball Fever:

For five years, Ward tried desperately to make businessmen of his sons, but failed miserably. He put Charley in charge of a business in Toledo, and Charley proceeded to run up thirty-seven thousand dollars in debts. Captain Ward bailed him out, and Charley ran up another two hundred thousand dollars in debts that his father again had to make good. E. B. Ward made similar attempts with Milton, with no more success. Milton ran up large bills in Ludington, Milwaukee, and Ripon, Wisconsin, without making much pretense of following his father's instructions. Both sons of the state's "first real captain of industry" became notorious for their "questionable industry," though it's unclear whether this should be attributed to insanity, rebellion against their father, or mere laziness. In 1874, the Detroit Evening News announced that "Milt Ward has at last found his strong point. He says that he can sit in a chair, and balance longer on the two hind legs than any man in the West." [235-36]

I've no plan to write Ward's missing biography, but I'm intrigued enough that I'll be posting some things about him in this Journal from time to time.

Context: Macalester is a small liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was a Mac freshman in 1967, and graduated with the class of 1982.

Anyone from the Mac community who stumbles upon this essay is encouraged correct or enhance it in the comments. Thanks.

A Vastly Oversimplified History of Macalester College

Every campus has a narrative, and that narrative shapes the college culture. These stories may emphasize unimportant details; they ignore entire decades. Macalester's, like most, begins with a founder, has a key figure who shaped the college, skips lightly through the decades, mentions some key teachers and graduates, describes a major crisis, and looks brightly to the future. To the best of my ability, here's the Macalester story.

If anyone's done a similar narrative for another school, I'd be grateful for a pointer. Thanks.

Edward Duffield Neill & Charles Macalester

Edward Duffield Neill founded Macalester College in 1874, served as its first president, and taught classes for many years. The minister to St. Paul's First Presbyterian Church, Neill had been Minnesota's Superintendent of Public Education and Chancellor of the State University (The U's ancestor, apparently). He'd subsequently had positions in the Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Grant administrations. Banker/financier Charles Macalester, now famous mostly for owning a fancy house overlooking the Delaware, made a real estate contribution to the young school, but plays no other role in this tale. Since Neill and Macalester were both Philadelphia natives, prominent Presbyterians, and politically active, albeit from different generations, I presume they were acquainted.

James Wallace

James Wallace, who joined the faculty in 1887 and taught until 1939, is the most important single individual in the school's history. Dr. Wallace was Macalester's president from 1894 through 1906; his presidential term both stabilized the college finances and established the college culture. One of the dorms is named after President Wallace, and the Fine Arts Center bears his wife's name.

Among Dr. Wallace's legacies to his college was his son....

DeWitt Wallace

If you've spent a few days on the campus, you've likely heard a Readers Digest joke. All Mac students and alumni recognize a heavy debt to the magazine; that recognition generally expresses itself as irony.

DeWitt Wallace began his student career at Mac about the time Dr. Wallace surrendered his presidency and returned to teaching. The younger Wallace made his fortune as the founder/editor of Readers Digest. While he did not graduate from Macalester, his affection for the school ensured the school's financial stability for much of the twentieth century.

There's more about Wallace down the page, but we'll skip to the end for now: DeWitt Wallace passed away on March 30, 1981. (Concert Choir, of which I was a member, sang at his memorial service.) It soon became clear that his will provided a substantial endowment for the college, though the gift had significant emcumbrances.

The school's library, built in the mid-eighties, bears DeWitt Wallace's name.

Macalester students are told a story involving DeWitt Wallace, a cow, a stairway, and Old Main. Dunno if it's true.

Charles Turck

Dr. Turck was President of Macalester College from 1939 through 1958. The school has a decidedly international focus; this is a Turck legacy.

Digression: Hubie & Others

Hubert Humphrey taught at Macalester during World War II; he returned to the school after his Vice-Presidency. The Humphrey anecdote at Mac describes a class session which continued for hours, adjourned for supper, and resumed in the evening.

Macalester's most generally famous current faculty members appear to be Diane Glancy and Wang Ping; former choral director Dale Warland also has some fame, as does one-time Newton's Apple host Jan Serie. As you'd anticipate, many current and former faculty members are well-known within their academic disciplines. David White, Mary Gwen Owen, Ted Mitau, Dave McCurdy, Hildegard Johnson, Chuck Green--these fine teachers, famous within Macalester's community memory, had less public impact beyond the campus.

Walter and Joan Mondale are Macalester alumni. Kofi Annan graduated from Mac. More recent alums include Tim O'Brien (the writer, not the singer), Bob Mould, Charles Baxter, Dorothy Benham, Jeremy & JJ Allaire, Stephen Paulus, Pete Fenn, and Peter Berg. (Someone please mention more women I should include on this list. Miji Reoch seems to be the best I can manage, and it's likely you've never heard of her.)

The two preceding paragraphs are necessarily time and interest bound. Another author would certainly name different names, though I'd anticipate some overlaps.

Alex Haley spent a lot of time on campus, though he wasn't part of the faculty. Apparently he wrote Roots (or was it Malcolm X's autobiography?) in what used to be International House but is now the President's Residence.

Then there's the football thing.

Steeples

Macalester sought to raise its academic profile during the sixties. This campaign had several components; these included a building spree, several new faculty hires, and a fair bit of curricular experimentation. The key component, to all appearances, was a decision to enlist better students. Ten percent of my freshman classmates were National Merit Scholarship finalists. Other schools recruit football players; Mac recruited--and still recruits--bright kids. The school also went out of its way to encourage the enrollment of international and minority students, with interesting effects on the campus culture.

At my first Macalester convocation, someone (I think it was the provost) compared Mac to Stanford, and talked about creating "Pinnacles of Excellence" within the college community. Rich Greenwood turned this image into a parody of the Up with People theme song: "Up, Up, with Steeples! You meet 'em wherever you go. Up, Up, with Steeples! They're the best kind of profs, you know. If more people met more steeples, more steeples everywhere, there'd be a lot more people to worry about, and a lot less people who cared."

Simultaneous with the change in the student makeup was a political shift; late-sixties Macalester was considerably left-of-center, even after you allow for the national and local political landscapes. This was an engagement politics: One fifth of the student body was active in the 1968 election (I know this because I helped coordinate that effort), and I'm one of scores who remained active in the Democratic Party.

There's some evidence that the college overhaul was built on a risky financial foundation.

The Financial Crisis

The campus changes evidently didn't sit well with our benefactor, as Mr. Wallace severely reduced his commitment to the school around 1970. This reduction nearly undid the college, as the school's relationship with Wallace approached dependency. After a couple difficult years, the trustees appointed a new president and reached an accommodation with the Wallace family. A decade of retrenchment followed, during which maintenance was neglected, school fundraising was diversified, and (according to student memory) the college wandered from its educational mission.

Recovery

DeWitt Wallace's will created several foundations, one of which became the basis for securing the Macalester endowment. This gift made the college Famously Rich, and permitted the school to recover its educational mission. While there've been a few setbacks along the way, the school remains well-to-do.

Except that tuition and board have gotten ridiculously expensive, the school prospers. We all look forward to Good Things.

Remember the headline, atop this discourse: An oversimplified history. This little essay's largely factual, but it's a myth.

I returned to Macalester College as a 31-year-old senior in January of 1981. One reason for the mid-winter start was Mac's January term, which would let me get my feet wet in a differently-demanding fashion than a fall start would have entailed. I signed up for Jim Stewart's one-off course titled 1877; the course description amounted to "1877 was an interesting year. We'll read newspapers from the time on microfilm, and will make presentations about what we learn."

For some reason the 1877 microfilm wasn't available, so Jim fell back to a set of early 1869 newspaper films Ernie Sandeen had acquired for some other project. This changed the focus just a bit, but the main class objective was unchanged: We were learning a particular set of research tools, and practices. We were set to exploring for the first week; the class sessions began with observations about the mechanics of reading microfilm, then moved to discussions of such things as evolving newspaper layout, editorial emphases, and advertising practices. For the second week, Jim assigned us stories to track down without consulting modern sources; we talked in class about how the story-as-reported differed from the story as we recalled it from history textbooks, and what those differences might mean.

The third and fourth weeks were self-assigned projects. My third week project was about newspaper organization; specifically, I compared the layout of the Detroit Free Press as of 1869 with three other papers, and speculated a bit about why they differed. My final week's project was about Railroad Fever.

The entire nation had the Railroad Fever in 1869. Most newspapers in the collection routinely included notes and articles under that rubric, clearly because everyone recognized the symptoms. Michigan was nursing two outbreaks: Promoters were raising money to build a more direct line (an "air line") between Detroit and Chicago which would roughly follow the route of the Chicago Road, and actual construction was occurring for a line connecting Jackson and Grand Rapids. Both remain interesting, for different reasons.

The Air-Line promoters touted their project as a competitor to the Michigan Central line which already connected the terminal cities; MC was widely seen as a monopolist and therefore widely despised. When the microfilm ran out, the project was unsettled--but the fund-raising effort worked. Jackson and Niles were connected by rail in 1871, and an existing line was purchased to complete the Chicago connection. Worth noting: The promoters promptly leased the new line to the Central; indeed, it seems quite likely that they were Michigan Central agents from the start. (I've left out a lot of detail; see Wikipedia's account of the railroad for those.) I gather this rail has been pulled up, but that's a relatively recent occurrence; it still had regular traffic a couple decades ago.

The 1869 news about the Grand River Valley Railroad was always about celebrations. The line reached Morgan, on Thornapple Lake, early in January; by the time our newspapers ran out there were parades and parties in Hastings. GVRR was already a Central captive, but these towns were pleased just to find themselves on the map. It may be that they later learned to hate the monster.

The Valley branch remained in use under the Michigan Central/New York Central/Penn Central/Conrail succession into the 1970s, with CR ceding the line to the State of Michigan in 1979. The State leased the line to the Kent, Barry, and Eaton Connecting Railway until that road failed in 1983, at which time the line was abandoned. The track would soon be pulled up, but obvious remnants of the right of way were left along the entire route. Those remnants are the basis of the Paul Henry-Thornapple Trail.

Which takes me back to Andy's color tour. Life is often circular, as are my tales.

Camera: Nikon D70

In June of every year the Corps of Engineers holds an open house at the Soo Locks, and thousands of fans show up to explore the grounds, view the passing ships from an unusual perspective, and look over the exhibits. Yesterday was that day, and Joan and I were among the crowd. Here we see some of the visitors crossing the massive gate which holds back Lake Superior at the the downriver end of the 105 foot wide Poe Lock.

While Sault Ste. Marie is an ancient city by North American standards--the first white settlers arrived in the 1500s, and there's been a city at this location since 1638--the event which defines the modern Sault occurred on June 18, 1855, when a ship named the Illinois traversed the then-new Soo Locks and opened traffic between Lake Superior and the rest of the Great Lakes--thus connecting the Lake Superior iron and copper mines to the eastern United States. The locks have been rebuilt and expanded since then, but the traffic's been constant, and constitute an important part of the American economy.

They're celebrating the sesquicentennial this summer, and the celebration began yesterday. We missed the opening ceremony, but had a fine time wandering the grounds and watching as St. Clair and Herbert C. Jackson passed through the locks yesterday.

Southern Ontario's across the river from Michigan, even for those who grew up on the west side of the state. For most of my life I routinely found Canadian coins in my change, and before the local NPR stations started overnight broadcasts my late-night radio was often CBC. The Handel harp concerto was one of Clyde's theme songs, at least in the sixties when I made a point of listening to his program. One of the neat things about Clyde's use of this theme was variation--always the same piece, but an array of recordings, each with strengths and weaknesses, all with something to appreciate. A good lesson.

Google found Gilmour's early review of Oscar Peterson's work. Except for the annoying (but probably obligatory in 1950) mention of Peterson's race, it's a good clue about why I found Gilmour's broadcasts interesting.

Thus was the romance of Tombstone. Within six months ten thousand men had placed a city upon that desert mountainside. Silence of the unpeopled hills had been routed by the hum of industry. Curling smoke betrayed peaceful, happy firesides. Life was normal and we looked toward the future with optimism.

---John Clum Mayor of Tombstone editor of the Epitaph page 78 of Apache Days & Tombstone Nights Neil Carmony, ed..

John Clum, Wyatt & Sadie/Josie Earp, George Parsons, Nellie Cashman--all lived in Tombstone in 1881, all lived long lives, and all spent many years in mining camps in many places. This short quotation expresses an important force in all those lives, and in the lives of many less heralded folks who mined, or lived near mines. To all appearances, everyone on this list would have lived pretty much the same life with or without the savage gunfight which appears to define the Tombstone story. (Of course, other folks' lives were profoundly affected by the shootout. This necessary acknowledgement does not change my point.)

Clum, forever a booster, exaggerates the growth of Tombstone a bit. The town may have reached ten thousand, but it was several years, not a few months.

That Sadie/Josie thing is a bother. Josephine Marcus Earp is hardly the only person known to history by a different name than they used in life--Adrian Anson comes immediately to mind--but it's annoying. And I repeat, for emphasis: Tombstone's history is a contentious trap, and has been so from the start. Long-standing disputes make it difficult to find a foothold.

... [T]here saw the hangman burn, by vote of Parliament, two old acts, the one for constituting us a Commonwealth, and the others I have forgot. Which still do make me think of the greatness of this late turn, and what people will do tomorrow against what they all, through profit or fear, did promise and practise this day.

"This late turn":  Burning these acts would expunge them from Britain's official memory, but not from Britain's history.  Pepys was born in 1633; already his life had seen Charles I beheaded, Cromwell's republic, and the restoration of the monarchy.  The issues which drove these revolutions were not settled during Sam's life, and it likely wasn't entirely clear that the situation had fully stabilized. 

An interesting and metaphorical expansion, by the way, of the function of the hangman.

I don't remember the trip, properly, though I do recall arriving in Tucson after dark. The last leg of the flight was via Apache Airlines on a plane (I hope not this one) which held a handful of passengers. I imagine there were Signal School classmates on the flight, but no longer remember those details. Since we arrived at Libby Field late in the evening, long after the staff had headed home, CQ put those of us who were new to the post into an empty office on the Old Fort and told us to get comfortable; someone would come for us in the morning. We stretched out on the hardwood floor and eventually caught some sleep.

Sunrise, and we discovered the Huachuca Mountains, like an unexpected island in the plains. Never--never--have I been so astonished by the morning.

This little reminiscence was provoked, of course, by my recent foray into Tombstone Territory.

Let's look at some maps....

Where, Exactly, is Tombstone?

• In Cochise County; southern Arizona, only a few miles from Mexico. Google Maps.
• The nearest big towns are Sierra Vista (Fort Huachuca's town) & Tucson. Bisbee is nearby, and Nogales isn't far. Google Maps, again.
• Here's an 1883 map of Cochise County (courtesy of Fort Huachuca's museum--excerpt from a larger map). It's worth keeping in mind railroads hadn't reached Tucson, much less Tombstone, in 1879; Tombstone wouldn't have a rail connection until 1903.

Are there maps of Tombstone?

• Yep.
• Here's a map from 1886, courtesy of the Library of Congress. It concentrates pretty closely on the gunfight location.
• Fern Canyon Press, publisher of a book called Wyatt Earp Speaks, offers this delightful map. Wish I knew more about its provenance, but it certainly looks impressive. It seems likely to have been partially based on a fire insurance map, though not necessarily the 1886 version linked to above. Notice the existence of defined neighborhoods for the Mexicans (of course) and for the Chinese (former railroad workers).
• Tombstone's map still looks about the same today, except the modern map's oriented differently. Google Maps, yet again.
• And here's the current view from overhead. Microsoft's Terraserver.

Once again: I style m'self "dabbler" for good reason. This exercise is mainly for my own entertainment. I'm an amateur in this field, though I'm an experienced researcher who's gained some familiarity with nineteenth century mining towns. I know I'm repeating information available elsewhere, albeit arranged to reflect my personal research style. My immediate object is just to survey the resources, as I've said before, I want to better understand the context and evolution of the story the movies tell about the events in Tombstone. I don't expect to contribute anything serious to the main discussion--about the Earps, that is, and about frontier law.

I'll perhaps have something to say about related issues. We'll see what develops.

This page is more a skeleton of the "facts" the OK Corral movies are built around than anything else--I wanted to compile a chronology without the baggage the story always carries. I am not an expert on this story, and don't aspire to become one; what mainly interests me is its longevity, and the interpretations it's always carried.

A few apparently-reliable links are listed at the bottom.

Gunfight & aftermath:

• OK Gunfight, 10/26/1881.
• Clanton/McLaury funeral, 10/28/1881.
• Earps & Holliday arrested, 10/29/1881.
• Earp pretrial, 11/9 thru 11/12/1881.
• Earps & Holliday acquitted, 11/29/1881.
• Virgil shot, 12/28/1881.
• Morgan shot & killed, 3/18/1882.
• Frank Stillwell killed in Tucson, 3/21/1882.
• Wyatt's Vendetta.

Earp family moves; & Wyatt's law enforcement career:

• Family move to Monmouth, Illinois, 1845.
• Family move to Pella, Iowa, 1850.
• Family move to California, 1864.
• Family move to Lamar, Missouri, ~1870.
• Wyatt in LaMar, 1870. Constable. Married Urilla Sutherland. (Rilla died within months.)
• Wyatt jailed in Arkansas, 1871. Horse thief.
• Family returns to California.
• Wyatt in Wichita, Kansas, April 1875. Police Officer. Somewhere around here he took up with Mattie Blaylock.
• Wyatt in Dodge City, Kansas, 1876. Deputy city marshall.
• Virgil in Prescott, Arizona, 1877. Law enforcement.
• Wyatt in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, 1877.
• Wyatt in Texas, 1877.
• Wyatt in Dodge City, Kansas, 1877. Assistant marshall.
• Brothers in Tombstone, 1879/80-1882. Virgil federal marshall. Wyatt deputy sheriff, then deputy marshall. Josie/Sadie.

Earp Family:

• James, born 6/28/1841, "Ohio County".
• Virgil, born 7/18/1843, Kentucky.
• Wyatt, born 3/19/1848, Illinois.
• Morgan, born 4/24/1851, Iowa.
• Warren, born 3/9/1855, Iowa.

Doc, & Wyatt's wives:

• John (Doc) Holliday, born 1853, Georgia.
• Urilla Sutherland Earp; born 1849.
• Cecelia Ann Blaylock (Mattie Earp); born 1850, Wisconsin.
• Josephine (Sadie or Josie) Marcus Earp, born 1861, NYC.

Cowboys & their Allies:

• John Behan, born 10/23?/1845, Missouri.
• Ike Clanton, born 1847, Missouri.
• Billy Clanton, born 1862, Texas.
• Frank Stillwell, born ????, ????.
• Johnny Ringo, born 5/3/1850, Indiana.
• Curly Bill Brocius (perhaps Graham), born about 1840, perhaps in Texas, perhaps in Indiana.
• Tom McLaury, born 6/30/1853, New York.
• Frank McLaury, born 3/3/1848, New York.

Arizona Territory (Southern, mostly):

• Tucson presidio established, 1775.
• Mexican War, 1846-48
• Gadsden Purchase, 1853.
• Whipple Survey Expedition, 1853-54.
• Butterfield Overland Mail (stage coach), 1858-61.
• Fort Bowie, 1862.
• Arizona Territory established, 1863.
• Fort Whipple, 1864.
• Camp Wallen, 1866-69. (Huachuca's most direct predecessor.)
• Powell Grand Canyon Expedition, 1869.
• Clanton Ranch, 1873.
• Camp Huachuca, 1877 (promoted to Fort 1882).
• First Tombstone claim, 1877.
• First Bisbee claim, 1877.
• Tombstone incorporated, 1879.
• Charleston established, 1879.
• Southern Pacific Railroad to Tucson, 1880.
  • This is a California connection; SP reached Yuma in 1878.
• Cochise County established, 1881.
• U.S. President James Garfield shot (in D.C.) 7/12/1881; died 9/19/1881.
• Douglas established, 1901.
• Arizona statehood, 1912.

Useful References:

• BJ's Tombstone History Discussion Forum is a fascinating place. BJ is Billy Johnson.
• The resource archive pages attached to BJ's discussion group are an essential starting point for any serious researcher.

• Tombstone 1880.
• Wyatt Earp Photo Page.
• Tombstone film errors.
• I am certain there are others.

Beware: Although there are some excellent resources about the Earps on the web (and in print), it is unwise to blindly trust any source for this story until you've read several. Already in 1881 the Tombstone tale was known to be so bizarre that it generated preposterous coverage, and distance from the events hasn't improved the situation. The "primary" sources are biased, contradictory, and sometimes just wrong. So are many of the websites, and much of the printed material. Some sources which seem to be reliable are largely fiction. The movies--even the "historically accurate" movies--distort the story for effect. Although an improbable amount of detail is known about virtually everyone involved in these events, their motivations are pretty mysterious. That's one of the reasons we care about the story.