Saturday, July 23, 2011

WISTER, OWEN 1866-1938

     The entries in Owen Wister's Journal from October 11 through December 2, 1892 include some interesting descriptions of a visit to Eastern Washington, including my home town of Coulee City.  These entries have been published in Owen Wister Out West: His Journals and Letters, ed. Fanny Kemble Wister (Chicago: 1958), pp.132-147, and quoted by  Robert B. Olafson, who was a professor of English at Eastern Washington University,  in Wister's Washington,  at the following link: http://www.narhist.ewu.edu/pnf/articles/s1/ii-4/wistler/wisters.html
One notable error in Mr. Olafson's paper is that near Coulee City, on October 19, it was not the Columbia river (over 25 miles away), but the Dry Falls that Wister viewed.

     Nat Washington, a State Senator from Ephrata in the 1960s, suggested that some of the details about Medicine Bow were taken from Wister's impressions of Coulee City.  While I am not inclined to agree, it is nevertheless an interesting observation.

     The "Hotel Grand" Wister mentions in his journal, quoted in the Olafson paper, was still standing in the early 1960s, vacant, but used for storage.  The rooms may not have been "about the size of a spittoon ... ", but they were not much larger than a small walk-in closet.  It was torn down a few years later.  It was located next to the alley on the west side of 6th, between Main and Walnut, about a block from where I lived during my school years.

    Les Lillquist, who was the principal at the high school in Coulee City in the late 1960's, wrote a history of Coulee City as part of the requirements for his master of arts degree. Wister's journal entry is quoted on pp. 68-69 of that manuscript. http://cousinsam.blogspot.com/2011/12/lillquist-chapter-v-pt-2.html

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Rocky Mountain Online Archive
Owen Wister papers
http://rmoa.unm.edu/docviewer.php?docId=wyu-ah00290.xml#a0

Owen Wister Out West: His Journals and Letters
University of Chicago Press, 1958
copy available in Northwest Room, Spokane City Library

American Heritage Center Digital Collections
University of Wyoming
Search Results: All Fields similar to 'Owen and Wister'
http://digitalcollections.uwyo.edu:8180/luna/servlet/view/search?QuickSearchA=QuickSearchA&q=owen+wister&search=Search


Novels

The New Swiss Family Robinson: A Tale for Children of All Ages  (1882)

http://www.archive.org/details/ofwantleyh00wistdragonrich
The Dragon of Wantley: His Rise, His Voracity & His Downfall  (1892)
http://www.archive.org/stream/ofwantleyh00wistdragonrich#page/n5/mode/2up

Lin McLean  (1897)
http://www.archive.org/details/linmclean01385gut

http://www.archive.org/details/virginianahorse00wistgoog
The Virginian  .   A HORSEMAN OF THE PLAINS
New York  .  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY  .  1902
http://www.archive.org/stream/virginianahorse00wistgoog#page/n6/mode/2up

Philosophy 4: A Story of Harvard University  (1903)
http://www.archive.org/details/philosophy400862gut

A Journey in Search of Christmas  (1904)

Lady Baltimore  (1906)
http://www.archive.org/details/ladybaltimore01386gut

Padre Ignacio; or, the Song of Temptation  (1911)
http://www.archive.org/details/padreignacioorth01388gut


Non-Fiction

U. S. GRANT: A BIOGRAPHY  (1901)

Oliver Wendell Holmes, in the "American Men of Letters Series"   (1902)


http://www.archive.org/details/muskoxbisonsheep01whit
Musk-Ox, Bison, Sheep and Goat
with George Bird Grinnell and Caspar Whitney  (1904)
http://www.archive.org/stream/muskoxbisonsheep01whit#page/n9/mode/2up

Benjamin Franklin, in the "English Men of Letters Series"  (1904)

The Seven Ages of Washington: A Biography  (1907)

The Pentecost of Calamity  (1915)
http://www.archive.org/details/thepentecostofca32098gut

The Aftermath of Battle: With the Red Cross in France  (1916)
     (preface to Edward D. Toland's autobiography)

A Straight Deal: or the Ancient Grudge  (1920)
http://www.archive.org/details/astraightdeal01379gut

Neighbors Henceforth  (1922)

A Monograph of the Work of Mellor, Meigs, & Howe  (1923)

Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship, 1880-1919  (1930)


Story collections

RED MEN AND WHITE  (1895)  (aka Salvation Gap and Other Western Classics)

The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories  (1900)
http://www.archive.org/details/thejimmyjohnboss01390gut

Members of the Family  (1911)

Safe in the Arms of Croesus  (1927

When West Was West  (1928)


Short Stories

Hank's Woman  (1892)

How Lin McLean Went East  (1892)

Em'ly  (1893)

The Winning of the Biscuit-Shooter  (1893)

Balaam and Pedro  (1894)

The Promised Land (Wister short story)  (1894)

A Kinsman of Red Cloud  (1894)

Little Big Horn Medicine  (1894)

Specimen Jones  (1894)

The Serenade at Siskiyou  (1894)

The General's Bluff  (1894)

Salvation Gap  (1894)

Lin McLean's Honey-Moon  (1895)

The Second Missouri Compromise  (1895)

La Tinaja Bonita  (1895)

A Pilgrim on the Gila  (1895)

Where Fancy Was Bred  (1896)

Separ's Vigilante  (1897)

Grandmother Stark  (1897)

Sharon's Choice  (1897)

Destiny at Drybone  (1897)

Twenty Minutes for Refreshments  (1900)

Padre Ignazio  (1900)

The Game and the Nation  (1900)

Mother  (1901, 1907)

Superstition Trail  (1901)

In a State of Sin  (1901)

The Vicious Circle  (1902)

With Malice Aforethought  (1902)

Stanwick's Business  (1904)

The Jimmyjohn Boss

Napoleon Shave-Tail

Happy Teeth

Spit-Cat Creek

In the Back

How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee  (1907)

Timberline (Wister short story)  (1908)

The Gift Horse  (Wister short story)  (1908)

Extra Dry  (1909)

Where It Was  (1911)

Safe in the Arms of Croesus

With the Coin of Her Life

The Honeymoonshiners

Bad Medicine (Wister short story)

Captain Quid

Once Round the Clock

The Right Honorable, The Strawberries  (1928)

Little Old Scaffold  (1928)

Absolom of Moulting Pelican  (1928)

Skip to My Loo

At the Sign of the Last Chance  (1938)


Essays

Where Charity Begins  (1895)

The Evolution of the Cow-Puncher  (1895)

Concerning "Bad Men" The True "Bad Men" of the Frontier, and the Reasons for His Existence  (1901)

Theodore Roosevelt, Harvard "80  (1901)

The Open Air Education  (1902)

After Four Years  (1905)

High Speed English and American Railroad Flyers  (1906)

The Keystone Crime: Pennsylvania's Graft-Cankered Capitol  (1907)

According to a Passenger  (1919)

How One Bomb Was Made  (1921)

Roosevelt and the 1912 Disaster: A Friend Remembers - and Interprets  (1930)

Roosevelt and the War:  A Chapter of Memories  (1930)

John Jay Chapman  (Wister essay)  (1934)

In Homage to Mark Twain  (1935)

Old Yellowstone Days  (1936)


Poetry

"The Pale Cast of Thought"  (1890)

"From Beyond the Sea"  (1890)

"Autumn on Wind River"  (1897)

"In Memoriam"  (1902)

Done in The Open  (1902)

"Serenade"  (1910)

Indispensable Information for Infants: Or Easy Entrance to Education  (1921)


Operas

Dido and Aeneas  (1892)

Watch Your Thirst: A Dry Opera in Three Acts  (1923)

1 comment:

  1. Do you know the names of any of the other hotels in the early days of Coulee City? My grandparents, John and Mary Kearns, ran a Hotel or boarding house there until 1897.

    ReplyDelete