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Reviews
JOHN FRANK STEVENS: AMERICAN TRAILBLAZER
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by Odin Baugh
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| Arthur H. Clark, Spokane, Wash., 2005. Illustrations, photographs, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 251 pages. $32.50 cloth. |
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| John Frank Stevens, the subject of this modest biography, stands in the pantheon of great engineers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in 1853 in West Gardiner, Maine, he followed his engineer uncle to Minneapolis at age twenty-one. Despite lacking technical training, Stevens became a surveyor in Minnesota. The rugged, outdoor lifestyle of railroad surveying drew him to Texas, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Canada, and elsewhere. Work on the Canadian Pacific's transcontinental line through the Rocky Mountains honed the young engineer's considerable talents in locating and constructing railroads, which attracted the attention of tycoons who eagerly hired him. James J. Hill referred to Stevens as "the most capable engineer in railroad construction that I have ever known" (p. 73). Scouting for Hill's Great Northern route, Stevens located Marias Pass in Montana and the pass through the Washington Cascades that would later bear his name. Hill personally recommended him for the job of chief engineer on the Panama Canal, whose route and design are credited to Stevens. During World War I, he headed an American commission of experts charged with improving the rail system in Russia. Foreign governments and universities showered Stevens with accolades for his extraordinary record of engineering excellence, and the American Society of Civil Engineers elected him president of the organization in 1927. He died at age ninety in Southern Pines, North Carolina, in 1943. |
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Of interest to Pacific Northwest historians are chapters Three and Five of this study, which deal with Stevens's role in railroading for James J. Hill in Montana, Washington, and Oregon. Within a year, he had identified both Marias and Stevens passes as routes for the Great Northern, the railroad he would serve for seventeen years as head surveyor, chief engineer, and eventually general manager. Acting as Hill's stalking horse, Stevens clandestinely bought right-of-way on the Deschutes River in central Oregon and then directed construction of the Oregon Trunk Line between Celilo and Bend. Hill made Stevens president of the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle rail lines, as well as two subsidiary lines. Baugh's recounting of Stevens's close relationship with Hill is especially compelling, revealing his subject's deft abilities in handling powerful superiors as well as armies of admiring subordinates. |
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Baugh does an admirable job of tracking Stevens around the world, although chasing might better characterize the pursuit. Baugh captures the human dynamo at his best, enduring bone-chilling blizzards on Marias Pass and sweltering Congressional hearings on Capitol Hill. Less flattering is Stevens, representing the U.S. government (a role with which he was never comfortable), establishing wage scales of twenty cents an hour for unskilled white workers and ten cents an hour for black laborers in the Canal Zone. In that instance and in his active disdain for organized labor, Stevens appears less than heroic, although not out of character for a white corporate executive of his time. |
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Many engineers, members of Congress, and perhaps Theodore Roosevelt favored building a sea-level, ditch-type canal in Panama. That solution would likely have proven unfeasible. In Congressional hearings and at least one private meeting with the president, Stevens forcefully promoted the series of locks and dams that eventually constituted the Panama Canal. His efforts alone may have prevented the United States from embarking on a disastrous course that would surely have tarnished Roosevelt's legacy. Baugh carefully traces the growing exhaustion and disenchantment with government bureaucracy that led Stevens to tender his resignation, thus embittering the president whose trust and support he had enjoyed. Whether Stevens or his successor as chief engineer, George W. Goethals, should be credited with the Canal's ultimate triumph is debatable. Baugh may be excused for favoring his subject in that debate; Goethals, too, generously praised Stevens for his monumental contributions. Roosevelt failed to mention him in his autobiography, however, diminishing what would have been a prominent public recognition of Stevens's role in the project. |
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This biography would have benefited from the use of more primary source materials in documenting John Frank Stevens's life. Having held prominent leadership positions in major railroad corporations and federal government commissions, Stevens left paper trails in many record groups and manuscript collections that could have been consulted. Baugh relies for the most part on secondary sources, too often single sources for successive pages of the book's text. Not entirely relevant detailed historical contexts occasionally detract from the book's focus, although its readability is good overall. Editing and better illustrations would have improved the book considerably. |
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In his 1965 Pacific Northwest Quarterly article, "John Frank Stevens, American Engineer," Tom H. Inkster wrote that Stevens "deserves more attention than he has yet received" (p. 82). That is still true today, though this informative biography brings us closer to knowing an important figure in our history. Stevens is bound to be the subject of further historical examination. |
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| Craig Holstine
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Washington State Department of
Transportation, Olympia |
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