ORIGINS OF BLUE MOUNTAIN

On a cool summer evening in the year 1929, most of the people of Monticello were attending the annual Old Folks Party at the old red schoolhouse. Just before 10 o'clock, the sound of several loud gunshots was heard. Two tall cowboys in Stetson hats, boots, spurs, chaps, and gun belts swaggered through the doors and forced their way through the crowd. Everyone was relieved when they recognized two local men, Fred Keller and Roland Adams. They sang to the residents of Monticello a song Judge Keller had written to the tune of "Bound Down in the Walls of Prison." The song told the story of cowboys that plagued the Monticello pioneers when the town was new. The song eventually found its way into a publication of ballads of the West. The boys of World War II were honored before they departed and they requested that it be sung.

"Blue Mountain" has come to be known as Monticello's anthem. To this day, when people outgrow our little community and go away to different parts of the world, they take with them the words and music of a song that can always take them home.

Judge Fred Keller tells the story of his song.

"Following my discharge from the United States Army in the summer of 1919, I began to search for a county seat where an untried young lawyer might make a living. Frontier life has a glamour and charm. . so it was quite natural that I chose as the spot for this very serious experiment the little cow-town of Monticello, Utah, more than 100 miles from the nearest rail point. It is a custom in Monticello to give an annual party to all the inhabitants over sixty years of age. As a feature of one of the entertainments, I composed from the local cowboy lore a ballad which I call "Blue Mountain." I have had some satisfaction from the fact that it became one of the songs that was sung at the farewell parties held in Monticello for the boys summoned to the armed forces in World War II. The following is a brief statement concerning the life of the characters that inspired the song.

The Blue Mountain is an isolated range crowing the divide between the Colorado and San Juan Rivers in Utah. Until about the year 1875, the renegade Utes and Piutes were the only human inhabitants of this mesa, the Blue Mountain.

The first white settlers were cowmen and cowboys. The Carlyles were prominent figures among these. They established a ranch on Spring Creek. They branded with three swipes or bars, one on the hip, one on the side, and one on the shoulder. Among the cattlemen . . . of the region, their outfit was referred to as the "Hip, Side, and Shoulder". They had two large competitors, The "LC" outfit and the Pittsburgh Cattle Company on the LaSal Mountains some forty miles north of the Blue Mountain.

On an otherwise naked slope of the Blue Mountain, spruce trees grow in the outline of a horse's head. This feature is very distinct in the winter, one sees the head of a blazed-faced horse . . looking over the mesa. From earliest times the cowboys have considered the "Horsehead" a scenic wonder.

Many of the cowboys who did the punching for the Blue Mountain cow outfits. . had been in difficulties with the law in Texas and took sanctuary in the remoteness of the Blue Mountain. Some had the ambition to acquire herds of their own. The easy way to get into the cow business was by the process of "sleepering" calves. A cowboy would find a young calf with its mother in a secluded canyon that isn't ridden very often. He catches the calf and burns a line that may become a part of the finished brand which the mother of the calf carries, or it may be used as part of the brand that the cowboy making it claims. The calf is then released. The cowboy returns at the time the calf has grown to a weaner and if the owner of the cow has not completed the branding of the calf, the cowboy completes what he began on his own brand and then the calf belongs to him. The calf is referred to as a "sleeper" during the time it is first caught and the completion of the brand. If a cowboy was careless and other cowboys with whom he worked got in on the secret, he was referred to as "a hand with a long rope." A cowboy with a "long rope", if in the employ of the "LC" outfit, got along better with his foreman if most of his "sleepers" were from the "Hip, Side and Shoulder."

Nicknames were common among early cowboys. Bill Gordon, the round-up foreman of the "Hip Side and Shoulder" outfit was known as "Latigo". Another well-known cowboy was "Yarn Gallus" so called because of the fact that each Christmas his mother back in Missouri sent a present of some knitted galluses. Another bore the title of "Doc Few Clothes." There are conflicting versions about how he acquired his name. Some say it was on account that he had a very scanty wardrobe and was not over-scrupulous in the matter of sanitation. "Slick", is a cowboy who neither gambled nor drank hard liquor, but saved his money and married a good-looking grass widow who came on to the frontier. She lived with him for just long enough to steal his roll (money) and then left for parts unknown. The efforts of "Slick" to catch her was a matter of jest around the Blue Goose Saloon and Mons's Store. "Slick" lived on and on through the years with the hope that she would someday return.

To the north of Monticello, some sixty miles is a beautiful little valley. In it sits the charming little town known as Moab. The early cowboys of the Blue Mountain referred to it as the "Little Green Valley". More than one of the cowboys dreamed of the day when he could marry a good-looking school teacher and settle down in the "Little Green Valley."

Mon's Peterson, a member of the Mormon colony that settled Monticello, started a general store. The front door of "Mons's Store" was full of bullet holes fired from the guns of celebrating cowboys. One day, to be a little more original than the rest, a cowboy rode his horse through the door, took hold of the end of a bolt of calico, dallied it on the horn of his saddle, and rode out on a run. Some Ute squaws were in town that day and I have it on good authority that they ran the cowboy' horse down and each cut off a dress pattern.

"Latigo" the foreman of the "Hip Side and Shoulder" outfit liked life on Main Street so he established the "Blue Goose Saloon." The conservator of law and order in Monticello was a Mormon shoemaker by the name of Nephi Bailey. He held the high office of Justice of the Peace and tried the cowboys for their offenses as well as making and repairing their boots. The cowboys called him "Zapitaro" which is the Spanish word for shoemaker.

The occasional dances given in the old log church were popular. To date, a good-looking Mormon girl for one of these events was a stellar event in the life of one of the cowboys. They found no hardship whatever in riding horseback fifteen or twenty miles into Monticello and back to his camp in the early morning hours after the dance was over.

During the spring, summer, and fall, the larger cow outfits required a considerable number of cowboys to brand up the calves and gather up beef. In the wintertime, there was very little that could be done for cattle, and all except the top hands were laid off until the spring. Many of them existed through the winter by riding the "Chuck Line". The consisted of riding from one ranch to the other with no other object than to obtain sustenance by partaking of the hospitality of the rancher.

Among the Mormon settlers was a very talented, charming, and hospitable woman by the name of Evelyn Adams. She and her husband founded a small ranch at Verdure Creek, some six miles south of Monticello. She was known to all the cowboys as "Ev". She fed them when they were hungry, and nursed them when they were ill, and most of them looked upon her as a foster mother. Her cabin was the most popular spot on the "Chuck line". She is the sweetheart or heroine of my song. I think of her very tenderly.