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Deliver Us From Ervil

New podcast Alert. Like snowmelt in the spring every few years I dust off this old site. Renewed by old retold, new tales unearthed, 0r connections that hadn’t been made. Hulu is currently running a great series adapted from the early 2000s book by Jon Krakaurer. I remember hearing buzz about it a few months back. So far, two episodes in, I’m a fan.

The second, story is completely new about the Mexican “Deliver Us From Ervil” If you haven’t yet started I highly recommend both.

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Crisis of our own making

We are living in a crisis of our own making. I do not mean to be unsympathetic those suffering and mourning. I write this at the edge of hope. Our communities need support, but we must realize that our economy is built on an unsustainable foundation where workers, ecosystems, and cultures are expendable.

One of the worst mining accidents in the United States occurred on May 1, 1900, in the Winter Quarters coal mine near Scofield, Utah. A planned detonation ignited a build-up of coal dust, causing a cascade of unplanned explosions and cave-ins that trapped 200+ individuals inside.

This event occurred ten years after the closing of the American Frontier but at the height of the Gilded Age. At the time, the economic growth seen was unmatched. It was a time of deregulation, vast income inequality, and growing nationalism.

In the last 4 years, we have seen the normalizing and acceptance of ineptitude as a qualifying trait for political office—the creation of a kakistocracy. We have individuals leading our country who view mass burials as “doing a very good job”. They believe that the wealthy deserve health care, better health care, because “that is life”. In short, we have exactly the wrong type of people leading our country.

At this edge of hope, I long for a better world. In solidarity with those who mourne, I believe now is a time to organize.

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John Koyle

I never knew him. Was he kind? The world he lived in didn’t appear to be.

These are my memories and have been collected from what I’ve been able to scrape from libraries, shoeboxes, and interviews.

John H. Koyle lost his father when he was a young boy. Adlinda Hillman and John senior were ordered by Brigham Young to work in a desert outpost near the Muddy River in the Nevada desert. In 1873 John senior died in a rock quarry accident. John junior was working in the same quarry and watched as the quarry wall gave way.

At age fourteen he began selling goods from a mule he acquired. Saving what he could for 6 years to purchase land in Leland, Utah. At age 20 he married Emily.

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Dream Mine

It seems like a good time to dust off this old domain as a place to share a good story with folks.

A ghostly apparition foretells the building of the Dream Mine.

Odds are that you found yourself here wanting to know a little more about the history of Utah’s Dream Mine. Me too.

I grew up in Utah and of all the strange stories that were told to me, few were guarded with more reverence than the story of John H. Koyle. I loved hearing about this story. In a world where the adults didn’t partake of alcohol, this story served as an intoxicant. The slightest suggestion that the conversation was about to turn to the telling of tales transformed the crowd. Pious aunts and uncles transformed into lushes eager for a refill gathered around. Sending the prudes to search for the exits while making it clear that they did not approve of even a metaphor involving spirits. These stories were meant to be experienced, revealed in, and then forgotten.

Outside family gatherings, I would learn that the stories of the Dream Mine were off-limits. The stories were not safe and had a completely different effect on audiences. This came for two reasons. One, the mine’s relationship with fundamentalist thought and practice. Two, and this is related to the first, how closely this fantastic tale mirrored Utah’s own religious mythology.

The mine’s relationship to the fundamentalist thought is embarrassing, scary, indeed a poison. Fundamentalism creeps into more areas of our society than most choose to believe.

A rural mythology. Utah is not what most believe, it never has been. The dominant religion and culture that claim the territory built their identity on a blank tablet only after first erasing the one before it. Utah was peopled before Mormon settler’s arrived. The settlers forcefully removed (genocide) the native people. The arid land was harsh but clean fresh running water from mountain streams would make it habitable. A perfect place for a theocratic experiment to rebuild.

Here is where I’ll leave for the day.

More soon.