| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 38.2

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 38.2 | The History Cooperative

*John Frank Stevens: American Trailblazer*. By Odin Baugh. (Spokane: Arthur H. Clark, 2005. 251 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $32.50.)
Civil Engineer John F. Stevens discovered two important passes through the mountains in the Pacific Northwest in the course of construction of the Great Northern Railway. Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains is named for him.	1
Stevens was born 25 April 1853, in West Gardiner, Maine, son of a farmer. He excelled in mathematics and decided he wanted to become a civil engineer. He began by working as a rodman on survey crews, first in Maine. Then in 1873, his uncle, a civil engineer, hired him in the same position in Minneapolis and he began to study engineering texts at night. In 1876, he thought he saw opportunity in Texas and moved there to do railroad surveys, but the railroad went bankrupt and so did he. Nevertheless, he married his Minnesota love, Harriet O'Brien, and struggled to make ends meet. Unable to get engineering work, he went to work as a common section hand. In 1879, Stevens heard the Denver & Rio Grande Railway was planning massive expansion, and he quickly was hired as a self-trained assistant engineer.	. . .

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