Butch Cassidy Was Here

By James Knipmeyer

"The content of these historic inscriptions, of course, varies. Most are a name and a date, though many are simply a name or initials, while some contain only a date. Occasionally additional information is given: where they were from, where they were going, what they were doing or had done. But all of them proclaim to the world in one form or another that 'I was here. I am a part of history.'"
- from the Introduction to Butch Cassidy Was Here

From overpass walls to bathroom stalls, we humans can't seem to pass up an opportunity to leave some evidence of our passing through. This urge is hardly a contemporary phenomenon and the beginnings of such activity surely date back beyond the beginnings of written language.

In 1960 James Knipmeyer took the first of many vacations to the Colorado Plateau region of southern Utah and northern Arizona. During his years of hiking and camping he grew fascinated with the names and dates carved on canyon walls and painted onto rock boulders. In 1976 he set himself the "modest" goal of locating and photographing all of the old, historic inscriptions to be found in the area dated prior to 1900--thinking there might be some two or three hundred which he could collect in four or five years. More than twenty-five years and almost 1,600 inscription images later, his work has resulted in Butch Cassidy Was Here.

Spanish missionaries and colonizers, Mormon pioneers, amateur archaeologists, outlaws, miners, and pack mail carriers all have left their mark on southwestern history--their names and dates scratched into rock with knives; carved with chisels; painted on with axle-grease from a wagon, a fire blackened stick, or even the lead of a bullet. Knipmeyer gathers them all together in a narrative survey of the West brought

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0874807360
• ISBN13: 9780874807363
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: University of Utah Press
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.5" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Great Book!

I bought this book as a guide to check out Butch Cassidy marks and their history, as I live in the Four Corners region. It's a really great book to read about the history of Southern Utah and its outlaws. If you're interested in old western outlaws or just geographical history of Southern Utah, this is a great read.

The Spell of the Colorado Plateau

The canyonlands of the Colorado Plateau are one of the most unique and captivating landscapes on earth, and they've cast a spell on many visitors, leading to a lifetime of exploration. This exploration takes many forms, sometimes physical explorations such as river running and hiking, sometimes artistic explorations such as painting and photography, but sometimes the canyonlands hook someone in a very unique way. How lucky for us that the canyonlands hooked James Knipmeyer on its historic inscriptions. A young Knipmeyer visited the Southwest and was fascinated by its rock inscriptions and realized that no one seemed to know much about them. He set out to discover and document these inscriptions, and decades later he is still going strong, now having found more than 1,600 inscriptions. Some of these inscriptions were left by the most famous explorers of the Southwest in the most famous places, and others are by obscure people in the most obscure corners. Knipmeyer has devoted substantial research to discovering the stories behind the inscriptions. For years other historians referred to the "D. Julein" who left many early inscriptions along rivers as a complete mystery man, but Knipmeyer has uncovered his story, although some of his inscriptions remain mysterious. For anyone who loves the Colorado Plateau this book offers a unique view into it, and it can be enjoyed either as an adventure-in-itself or kept as a reference to pull out anytime you are reading about some place or person on the Plateau. One is struck by the variety of motives that have drawn people to the Plateau, whether empire for the Spanish conquistadors, science for natural history explorers like Powell, religion for the Mormons, wealth for prospectors, or adventure for river runners. But surely all have been struck by the wonder of the rockscape, and one would like to think that it was to identify themselves with that rockscape that they shared a motivation to carve their names and dates into it.

Among my very favorite books about the West

This book seems to be just about the various names carved into the red rock and ruins of the American Southwest, but it is much, much more. It is about inscriptions, true, and features great photos of alphabetical carvings ranging as far back as (maybe) 1500 B.C. But along the way, the author puts every one of those carvings within their proper (and fascinating) contexts. He places the carvings within the appropriate stories; he describes their characters, and he attempts to explain the various westward movements the inscribers were a part of. This book is a treat for lovers of the West and of the Colorado Plateau; it's obsessively researched, beautifully written, and presents a terrific overview of the history of the West. (One thing though: I realize the author had to decide on a scope for his book--the examined inscriptions, for the most part, stop at 1900--but I would like to have heard his opinion on modern inscriptions. For instance, if Lake Powell ever gets drained, won't it be interesting to see--one hundred years from now--the inane insrciptions of houseboaters, carved hundreds of feet above the river's water level on cliffs completely unreachable by foot? I think so. I think history's never stopped; I think it's still happening.) Anyway, this book is excellent. Buy it, read it, love it, and use it to spark your own adventures in the West.

It's Not About Butch

Knipmeyer's years of exploring and documenting historic inscriptions has produced a fascinating and informative catalog of western life on the Colorado Plateau. It is a great addition to any western history or culture library and a good coffee table piece. But the trite and overworked reference to Butch Cassidy is misleading -- a blatant and bad marketing ploy by the publisher. Knipmeyer's book contains numerous photos and historic snippets of folk more interesting and important in western history. Read it an enjoy a unique glimpse into the region's colorful stories!