Book Review: Beyond the 100th Meridian, Wallace Stegner, 1953

      Wallace Stegner, the brilliant writer who taught writing courses at Stanford University until he passed away, wrote a treatise on the West that covered the career of a well known American icon: John Wesley Powell.  Powell is well known among students of 19th century America as the man who was first to run the Colorado River.  By running the river, we mean he floated its unknown course from Wyoming near its source(s) to near the end as it emerged from the deep cut canyon in Arizona.
    Powell himself published his report in the early 1870's, about 5 years after the event, and after a 2nd running of the river under slightly different circumstances(he had already seen the entire river).
Stegner provides a brief overview of the first running, including details of the biographies of the crew that joined Powell for the first exploration effort.  He identified details that included earlier efforts in the high plateau country to locate potential crossing/fording locations, and to separate fact from myth concernng the known history of the region.  Despite these efforts, Powell was not a waterman nor was he a mountain man.  The crippled Civil war veteran had only one good arm, losing half the other to artillery fire at Shiloh.
     After the successful river run, Powell became an instant American hero.  He lectured far and wide, and began to seek a position that could afford him an opportunity to shape the future development of what amounted to over 40% of America, that land west of the 100th meridian.  The 100th meridian is well known among geographers, geologists, agronomists, and other scientists for this meridian is the western boundary of rainfall that can sustain agriculture without irrigation.  Powell correctly identified its importance to western development.  Stegner tells the story of Powell's political career as one of the country's original bureaucrats.  He was, to put it mildly,  a genius who was endowed with an ability to inspire confidence and to rally other equals to a cause greater than oneself.  It is a broad plank in the platform of American history and is worth a reader's efforts to understand how Powell's genius has followed his early career into the 21st century.
5 star rating
available in many editions, and paperback