Men to Match My Mountains : The Opening of the West 1840-1900

by Stone, Irving

• ISBN13: 9780425105443
• ISBN10: 042510544X
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1987-03-15
• Publisher: Berkley Trade

Summary

Our most acclaimed author of biographical and historical fiction has turned his magnificent talent to telling America's most colorful and exciting story-the opening of the Far West. Men to Match My Mountains is a true historical masterpiece, an unforgettable pageant of giants-men like John Sutter, whose dream of paradise was shattered by the California Gold Rush; Brigham Young and the Mormons who tamed the desert with Bible texts; and the silver kings and the miners who developed Nevada's Comstock Lode and settled the Rockies. America called for greatness ... and got it. There is nothing else in history to match the stories of these men who braved a wilderness to bring a new nation to the shores of the Pacific. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Irving Stone was born in San Francisco on July 14, 1903. He wrote several books in a genre that he coined the “biographical novel,” which recounted the lives of well-known historical figures. In these novels, Stone interspersed biography with fictional narrative on the psychology and private lives of his subjects. He also wrote biographies of Clarence Darrow and Earl Warren, and short biographies of men who lost presidential elections. He died on August 26, 1989.

Table of Contents

Revolt in Paradise
The Time, the Place, the Cast	p. 3
One Man Wants a Wilderness ...	p. 4
A Good Soldier Is Embarrassed	p. 8
Heroic Frauds, or None at All	p. 11
An Honest Scoundrel Thickens the Plot	p. 15
The Time of Action Begins	p. 18
The Opening of a Land
John Sutter Takes the Big Plunge	p. 25
"The state of society is exceedingly loose"	p. 29
"The difficulty of coming here is imaginary"	p. 32
Schoolteacher Bidwell Lands in Jail	p. 37
A Fort Plays Host	p. 40
The Scene Shifts to Colorado, "a Legal Fiction"	p. 42
"There is no man to whom I owe as much as Fremont"	p. 46
Commodore Jones Goes out on a Yardarm	p. 48
[pound]1,000,000 to Drive out the Americans	p. 51
Wagons? Impossible!	p. 54
The Men Match the Mountains	p. 57
Larkin Becomes Consul with a Gold-headed Cane	p. 60
Seed Wheat of the Western Migration	p. 64
A Democratic Army, Out for No Good	p. 68
The Rugged Individualist Train	p. 73
"Why is Captain Fremont here?"	p. 77
Confidential Agent	p. 82
Paradise Grows a Trifle Ugly	p. 88
"There's that damned flag again!"	p. 94
Armed Conflict	p. 98
The Furies Pour Their Pent-up Vengeance	p. 104
"It is enough. This is the right place."	p. 116
A Curse Is Removed, San Francisco Is Born	p. 123
"It's GOLD!"	p. 128
Color in a Country
"A frenzy seized my soul"	p. 133
It's as Easy to Find Gold as Steal It	p. 138
What Gambler Ever Refused to Play?	p. 143
Dedicated Saints	p. 148
Give Colorado Back to the Indians	p. 151
The Men Do Not Match the Mountains	p. 152
"How do we get to the gold?"	p. 158
New States for the Union	p. 164
Death Valley Earns Its Name	p. 170
Nevada and Colorado Show Their Color	p. 176
Gold and Mormonism Settle a Land	p. 181
Rise of the Vigilantes	p. 185
The Glory of Polygamy	p. 189
Enterprising and Excitable Young Men	p. 193
For Los Angeles, Neither Boom Nor Bust	p. 200
"Don't shoot, I am unarmed!"	p. 204
"You have struck it, boys!"	p. 209
The Mountain Meadows Massacre	p. 217
"There is gold in Colorado. We saw it ourselves!"	p. 225
The Building of a Civilization
Pike's Peak or Bust!	p. 235
"Crazy" Judah and the Big Four	p. 243
The Civil War Makes Its Way West	p. 249
The Comstock Has as Many Troubles as It Has Prospectors	p. 254
You Have to Get Up Early to Beat Brigham Young	p. 261
Inside the "Twin Relic of Barbarism"	p. 270
... With Presses Ready at the Drop of a Frontier	p. 277
"They built the Great Wall of China, didn't they?"	p. 283
The Saturnalia of Virginia City	p. 290
Billy Ralston's "crackling, pleasure-loving town"	p. 298
Manana Land Gets Itself Subdivided	p. 305
The Sweatbox of Ralston's Ring	p. 312
The Saints War with the Gentile Merchants	p. 324
It Is Hard for a Land to Be Born	p. 333
A Polished Laurel Tie, and a Solid Gold Spike	p. 347
Giants Stalk the Land
The Tiger and the Octopus	p. 355
Four Miles to the Mineral Belt	p. 366
Four Irishmen Become Silver Kings	p. 373
A Run on the Bank	p. 380
Nevada Cycle of Life and Death	p. 389
"Only force can settle the Mormon problem"	p. 399
For Brigham Young, Time Runs Out	p. 412
Colorado Is a Character	p. 424
"Come provided with a pair of navy revolvers"	p. 435
Baby Doe Finds H.A.W. Tabor	p. 442
The Climate Is Perfection ...	p. 450
They suffered; they wept; sometimes they died ...	p. 455
An Era Ends, a New Story Begins
Southern California Has Its Eighty-Seveners	p. 469
The Southern Pacific Loses Its Fence	p. 477
"This sure is some Cripple Creek!"	p. 481
H.A.W. Tabor Completes His Cycle	p. 491
The Saints Come to Judgment Day	p. 497
Utah, Forty-fifth State	p. 504
The Rose of Sharon	p. 512
The Far West Sits for Its Portrait	p. 519
The Time, the Place, the Cast	p. 526
Acknowledgments and Bibliography	p. 527
Source of Quotations	p. 537
Index	p. 551
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