Blue Mountain: Using Song, Art, and Words

to Understand the Past

Hist. 2700

Service Learning Project

Vicki Tracy

December 6, 2002 

The Horse Head looking out from the Blue (Abajo) mountains.

Why this project?

     As a first grader at Monticello Elementary School, I was a participant in a school concert that was centered on the history on our town.  We sang a song called, “Blue Mountain” by Fred Keller.

     It was this song that inspired me to choose this project.  I remember thinking about each verse.  I was amazed at what the song revealed about Monticello’s past. Line after line tells a captivating story that has stayed with me today.

     I have always felt that a person should love the their home, and I think that it is necessary for a person to understand their home in order to love it.  I want others to feel the same pride and loyalty that I have for the windy city of Monticello.  I hope that by bringing this knowledge to the students of Monticello Elementary’s fifth grade, that I can instill in them a love for learning and a love for their home.  This project will not only benefit the fifth graders, but it will hopefully carry on to help them inform their families and other community members. 

The Project:

Research: I started looking for information from the source that I had first heard it from, my first grade teacher.  Mrs. Hunglentober and my mother, a fifth grade teacher at MES, sent me copies of town histories, calendars with historic photos, and different songs and poems. 

     The articles they found were not only plentiful, but sufficient for me to gather the story behind the song.  There were even a few pages that were written by Keller himself, these proved invaluable.

     The next step was to learn the song, which I suppose is considered research.  I have been playing the guitar for several years now, so it wasn’t too tough, I had to transpose it to another key in order to hit the high notes.  I hope the guitar will be a valuable teaching aide because I’m planning on going into the education profession.

History:  I will begin by handing each student a copy of the words to the song “Blue Mountain” by Fred Keller.  I will then tell them about the songwriter.

     Fred Keller came to Monticello from Manti Utah in    1919.  Keller was fresh out of law school, and he was   looking for a county seat where it would be possible to make a decent living.

     He chose Monticello for its frontier qualities—100   miles from the closest rail point—and he was soon a member of the “Old Folks Committee.”

     Members of the committee were responsible for giving      an annual party to residents that were over sixty    years old.  As the entertainment one year, Keller    wrote a song—Blue Mountain—that featured some well     known characters in Monticello.  It was a success, and      was even sung to the boys as they left town for the army in World War II.

     I will then explain the story behind each verse of the    song.

Chorus:

Blue Mountain your azure deep

Blue Mountain with sides so steep

Blue Mountain with horse head on your side,

You have won my love to keep.

     The claim to fame on the Blue Mountains is the Horse Head.  This is a slope where the trees have actually grown in the shape of a horse’s head.  It has been that way since white settlers first came to the area, and it is a popular site for all those passing through.  The Blues are also well, blue.  This is where the basis of the song came from.

VERSE ONE:

     My home is was in Texas

     My past you must not know

     I seek a refuge from the law

     Where the sage and pinion grow.

     Monticello was considered a beautiful oasis in the middle of the desert for cattle companies.  It was the perfect pit stop.  It was also far away from any true form of law enforcement, so often cattlemen were outlaws that joined the companies.  The big cattle drives north were a good opportunity to escape from their pasts, and a good opportunity to earn a little money.

VERSE TWO:

     For the brand “L.C.” I ride

     With the sleeper calves on the side

     I’ll own the “Hip Side and Shoulder when I grow older

     Zapitaro don’t tan my hide.

     There were two major cattle companies that ran through the valley.  The L.C. outfit was owned and run by Widow Lacy and her brothers on the south and east of Blue Mountain.  Her husband was killed in a saloon brawl when they were on their way to the valley.

     A sleeper calve was what the ambitious cowboys called the cattle that they sort of smuggled.  If a calf was found and it didn’t yet have a brand on it, the cowboy would half-brand it.  Then the next year if the rightful owner had not yet branded it, the cowboy would finish his own branding and claim the “sleeper calf” as his own.

     The “Hip Side and Shoulder” was another big outfit, they got their name because they branded their cattle in three places; the hip, side and shoulder.

     “Zapitaro’s” means shoemaker in Spanish, and it refers to a Mormon shoemaker by the name of Nephi Bailey.  Bailey was also the Justice of the Peace, and he tried the local cowboys for and offences they might commit.

VERSE THREE:

     I chum with Latigo Gordon

     I drink at the Blue Goose Saloon

     I dance at night with the Mormon girls

     And ride home beneath the moon.

     Latigo Gordon was the round-up foreman of the “Hip Side and Shoulder.” Hence the nick-name Latigo—a roper.  He also built the saloon in town called the Blue Goose Saloon.  The swinging doors can be seen at the local museum. 

     To take a good-looking Mormon girl to the dance was a big-time event in the life of a cowboy.  There weren’t many feminine friends on the range.  Although the ride to and from town after the dance was often 20 miles or more, the cowboys gladly took their chances.

VERSE FOUR:

     I trade at Mons’s store

     With the bullet holes in the door.

     His Calico treasure my horse can measure

     When I’m drunk and feeling sore.

     Mons Peterson started a general store in the Mormon town.  It was a log cabin with a dirt roof and was called “Mons’s store.”  The front door was shot up by cowboys who would celebrate whatever they could.  One day a drunk cowboy decided to ride into the store, took hold of a bolt of calico, attached it to his saddle horn, and rode down the street unraveling it as he went.

VERSE FIVE:

     “Yarn Gallus” with gun and rope.

     “Doc Few Clothes” without any soap

     In the little green valley have made there sally

     And for “Slick’s” there’s still some hope.

     It was no uncommon practice to give the cowboys nick-names.  One such cowboy was known as Yarn Gallus because his mother knitted him galluses every year for Christmas.  “Slick” was a cowboy who didn’t gamble or drink.  He saved his money and married a handsome widow.  She stayed around only long enough to get her hands on his money and then took off.  He lived on with the hope that one day she would return.

VERSE SIX:

     In the summer time it’s fine,

     In the winter the wind doth wine

     But say dear brother if you want a mother

     There is “Ev” on the old chuck line.

     The winters in Monticello were and still are quite harsh; however, the summers are very mild and refreshing.  The long winters left cowboys without work.  In order to get food they would ride from one ranch to the next. This was called riding the chuck line.

     Evelyn Adams was a talented, charming young Mormon wife who always had a welcome mat out for the cowboys.  She became a foster mother to many, and is the heroine of the Blue Mountain song.

The Activities:

     After the students have heard the history behind the song, I will attempt to teach them the song.  I will play my guitar and the students will read from their copies of the song.

     Once I feel they have the basic idea of the song down, I will assign each group a verse of the song. As the children read their assigned verses they will be instructed to either write a story or poem about their verse, or draw a picture for the verse.  The stories and pictures do not have to be real, but they should reflect the concepts in their verse.  For example, if they have verse four, which is about the general store and the calico treasure, they could draw a picture of what they think the store looked like, or maybe write a story about a women who cut off some material as the cowboy rode by to make herself a new dress.  I want to encourage the students to be creative with this.  I want them to try and imagine what life was really like for the early residents of Monticello.

     I have talked to their teachers, and we have arranged for the students to have ample time throughout the week to work on their projects.  I will be in the classroom during these times to help make sure the students know what is expected of them.

     When the students are finished with their projects, we will display them on the walls outside of their classroom doors.  We will also video tape our performance of the song.  I am trying to extend this project into next semester and I hope to use the fifth graders to teach others what they have learned.