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This vintage hardcover book is The Road to Virginia City : The Diary of Janes Knox Polk Miller: as edited by Andrew F. Rolle and Published by University of Oklahoma Press in its American Exploration and Travel Series . This is the 1960 First Edition. ************************************* It is a remarkable and fascinating record! From the dust-jacket blurb : Three years of adventure in the West awaited young James Knox Polk Miller, who traveled the Overland Trail from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Salt Lake City, and on to Virginia City, Montana, in 1864. He savored the drinking, gambling, gold-frenzied atmosphere of Virginia City in its heyday as naturally as any other runaway nineteen-year-old. This hell-roaring camp, however, was not all that he found. His account, challenges the traditional view of life beyond the Rockies during the 1860s and provides a badly needed amendment to the notion that the West was populated only by outlaws, cowboys, and Indians. While Miller never under underplays the violence that occurred, he also gives an intimate view of more orderly and hence, more obscure activities: the rise of law and order, the founding of cultural groups on the frontier, the influence of merchants and sutlers (sutlers were persons who sold goods and supplies to the army, whether at large or from a storefront), and the pattern by which the orderly facets of society were establishing themselves alongside the saloons and hurdy-gurdy houses. Unusually literate and intelligent, Miller combined youthful enthusiasm with a remarkably developed historical perception. His assessment of such controversial figures as Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and William A. Hickman contributes many details for the illumination of frontier Mormanism. ************************************ It wasn t just Utah and Virginia City, but life upon the trails and aboard the riverboats that is illuminated. Indians, outlaws, common cowboys, miners, riverboat men … and again amazingly enough - Miller was involved with a theatre group (in 1866 - there is a photograph of the players - including Miller - and the theatre broadside). Mr. Miller - at long length - finally built the Miller Building in Deadwood, Dakota Territory - which happened to be one of the first brick structures in that wild and wooly city. ************************************* SERIES : American Exploration and Travel Series (No. 30 in the series) / TITLE The Road to Virginia City : the Diary of James Knox Polk Miller / AUTHOR : James Knox Polk Miller (1845 - 1891) / EDITOR : Andrew F. Rolle / IMPRINT : University of Oklahoma press / PLACE : Norman, OK / DATE : (1960) / EDITION : First Edition - so stated. / STATUS : Out of Print - OP (No longer listed on publisher s site) / DETAILS : Trade hardcover; contains two maps, 12 plate illustrations printed on calendered paper (mostly photographs - one of them a map of Idaho and Montana Territories); there are also line vignettes heading each chapter; contains the editor s Introduction and an Index; [xxiv] + 143 pages; cloth-covered boards and spine (the cloth is divided horizontally into two different colors :top a pale sand color, and, bottom, a terra-cotta color; on the spine are both brown and white lettering; top edge dyed terra-cotta; pictorial dust-jacket features a man riding a galloping horse toward a small settlement. ************************************ CONDITION : BOOK : NEAR VERY GOOD ; JACKET : NEAR VERY GOOD - - This is a previously owned book that has been well-read and shows the signs of that reading, with the following particulars noted :: EXTERIOR : Head of spine is compressed, else cover is clean and free of marking; top text-block edge is slightly weathered, the fore-and bottom edges also display some weathering - the fore-edge some smudging, but else the edges are clean and free of marking. / BINDING : The book opens easily - it has obviously been read, but the whole remains solid. / INTERIOR : Front end-papers have slight weather. Seller Inventory # 2319
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