Episode 117: The Gunnison Expedition and Massacre

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (0:11)
Bryan, have you ever wondered how this all started? Why we are here and where we came from?

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:18)
Yeah, I had that talk with my dad when I was 12

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (0:21)
No, I don't mean that. I mean how all this came to be.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:26)
You're really starting us off real existential tonight.

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (0:29)
In the beginning, there was little Lindsay Part sitting at her computer desk she had purchased at ShopCo. Rest in Power, ShopCo.
And she was a young Mormon mommy out in Stansbury Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:41)
OK, I see. You're talking about the beginning of this podcast.

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (0:45)
Of course. What else would I be talking about?
Yes, I was just living the rural life in Stansbury Park in Tuala County. And of course, I was curious and in pain about Mormon history. And I started the Year of Polygamy podcast. And it wasn't long before I met you. And we were off to the races.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:02)
And now we have a podcast.

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (1:04)
And now we have a podcast. The point is, though, that I was living in Stansbury Park.
I spent 12 tumultuous years there in that tiny little rural town in the middle of nowhere. Have you ever been there?

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:19)
I have once.

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (1:20)
When?

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:21)
The girl that I was madly in love with in high school, her parents moved there.
And so there were like three houses then there were not many. I remember it was literally in the middle of nowhere. We went there for New Year's. I had been home from a mission about three days once.

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (1:38)
Was she on the lake?

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:40)
Seems like it. I remember we got out there. It was dark by the time we were there. So it was hard to see, but I think so.

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (1:45)
Well, I was born in Murray, Utah. And in Murray, we looked our noses down at Tooele County. So when I moved out there, I was embarrassed for a long time to say I lived in Tooele. But I was less embarrassed to say Stansbury Park. First of all, no one knew where it was.
And it sounded very English to me, like sophisticated and regal. People would be like, oh, you live in Tooele? And I would say, no, I live in Stansbury Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:10)
Stansbury Park. And we mean no shade here, Tooele.

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (2:14)
Well, some shade. Get your act together, McDonald's and downtown Tooele. Anyway, like I said, I've always imagined the town name to be descended from some European town. I was very proud of it.
And so imagine my surprise when I realized Stansbury Park, Stansbury Island and all those Stansbury named things in the West Desert were named for a Gentile government Pinkerton.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:37)
I mean, you're talking about Howard Stansbury. Pretty sure he wasn't a Pinkerton.

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (2:42)
Doesn't matter. He was a federal man, a maricat, if you will, a great among the US. Army Corps of topographical engineers.
And he's the entrance to today's episode.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:13)
You'll just do anything to talk about Stansbury Park, won't you?

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (3:16)
No, I'm serious. This is important history. I don't think people realize how important Howard Stansbury was to the Mormons.
So we're going to dig into this today. And just a warning, it's going to be a long one. I got sucked into this history.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:29)
Fine. But first, a word from our sponsors, because you know who would appreciate a good Stansbury discussion?
Mr. Dale Morgan.

**Lindsay Hanson-Park** (3:37)
Richard Saunders has completed the first biography of Dale L. Morgan, preeminent Western historian of the fur trade, historic trails, and the Latter-day Saint movement.
The book explores how, despite personal struggles, Morgan committed his life to tracking down sources and interpreting the past on the strength of documentary evidence. Connecting Morgan's life with some of the broad cultural changes that shaped his experience, this book engages with methodological shifts in the historical profession, the mid-20th century collision of interpretations within Latter-day Saint history, and the development of a descriptive, scholarly approach to that history. Morgan's body of work and commitment to serious scholarship signaled the start of new ways of understanding, studying, and retelling history, and he motivated a generation of historians from the 1930s to the 1970s to transform their historical approaches.
Sounding board mentor and close friend to Nels Anderson, Fawn Brody, Juanita Brooks, Bernard Devoto, Wallace Stegner, and Leonard Errington, Dale Morgan is the common factor linking the influential generation of mid-20th century historians of Western America. Dale L. Morgan, Mormon and Western Histories in Transition by Richard L. Saunders. New from the University of Utah Press, check them out at uofupress.com. Hi, this is Lindsay Hanson-Park.