On summer evenings, LeGrande Davies and his grandfather Otto Kesler loved to sit outside their Cove Fort home and watch the sunset, while a group of coyotes began its serenade. Davies recalled that “‘Grandpa would always say, “Ah. Can't they sing well. Can't they sing well.” There was a peacefulness that would come because the wind quits blowing in the evening.’” So notes Rebecca Andersen in the opening article of the spring 2022 Utah Historical Quarterly, which focuses on land in the Intermountain West and a handful of the entities—whether personal, familial, or corporate—that have made a living off it. The action in this issue takes place mainly in Utah but also in Nevada, Wyoming, and other neighboring states, on the traditional homelands of Indigenous tribes, a testament to the reality that watersheds, economies, and interpersonal networks do not always adhere to neat political boundaries.
In 1903, William Henry...
