By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
One strange day, the apparitions of my law firm progenitors—Joseph Rawlins and William Dickson—forced me from a quiet solo lunch in my office and onto the streets to discover downtown Salt Lake City’s history (see part 1). Once there, I heard fascinating stories, about a murdered marshal and a lynch mob, from an anti-establishment banker named Matthew Walker who died in 1916 (see part 2).
Although I was eager to hear more about these intriguing tales, a ghostly horse and rider suddenly diverted my attention further up Main Street. I ran half a block, past the venerable Lamb’s Grill restaurant where I had my own special history (see: The plum blossoms will scatter), towards what I had always known as the Salt Lake Tribune building.
Once there, I found the spectral rider just as he dismounted. “Excuse me, sir” I shouted, “can you please tell me more about the Pony Express in Utah?” The rider smiled and in a slight Irish brogue replied, “Come over here man and I will give you a few minutes after I move this mail pouch off to another horse.”
I watched as the Tribune building vanished, and in its place a smaller building called the Salt Lake House appeared. It seemed to be a combined stable and lodging house. The rider went inside and moments later another spectral horseman flew out and rode west towards Nevada.
I realized that the supernatural rider I’d met was Major Howard Egan. Born in Ireland, Egan emigrated to the United States in the early 1830s. In Massachusetts, he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he sometimes served as a bodyguard for Church President Joseph Smith.
Three years after Smith’s assassination, Smith’s successor Brigham Young selected Egan and others—men all known for their skills in using firearms and handling teams of horses—to lead the first migration of Latter-day Saints to Utah. On July 24, 1847, Egan and his team arrived in the Salt Lake Valley along with Brigham Young himself.
Egan enjoyed several other adventures in the years that followed. When the Pony Express started in 1860, however, Egan signed up as division superintendent, in charge of the express route from Salt Lake City to Robert’s Creek in west central Nevada. His two sons joined him in the work.
Once he exited the Salt Lake House on the day I met him, Egan walked over and reminded me, “The Pony Express had a short but grand tenure as a unique American express mail service. Using dozens of relay riders from April 1860 to October 1861, when the telegraph replaced it, we could move a letter from Missouri to California in only ten days.”
Egan then told me, “I was the first Pony Express rider to bring mail to Salt Lake City. On a rain-drenched night in 1860, I rode 75 miles from Rush Valley. My horse and I slid off a bridge and fell into Mill Creek, but we got right back up and delivered the mail that same night. I was in my 40’s, and probably the oldest of the known riders, many of whom were just teenage boys.”
Pointing to the ghost building behind him, Egan explained, “This also was a rest station for riders and other members of the public. You might recognize this as the place where that Clemens fellow stayed.” I repeated, “Clemens?” Egan said, “Yes, he stayed here for two days and then wrote about it in a book called Roughing It, published in 1872. The fellow called himself Twain.”
“Wow,” I said with unabashed glee, “Mark Twain stayed two blocks from where I work!” Egan said, “Here’s the book.” He tossed it to me. I opened it eagerly and read aloud Twain’s description of the Main Street environs:
“Next day we strolled about everywhere through the broad, straight, level streets, and enjoyed the pleasant strangeness of a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants with no loafers perceptible in it; and no visible drunkards or noisy people; a limpid stream rippling and dancing through every street in place of a filthy gutter; block after block of trim dwellings, built of ‘frame’ and sunburned brick–a great thriving orchard and garden behind every one of them, apparently–branches from the street stream winding and sparkling among the garden beds and fruit trees–and a grand general air of neatness, repair, thrift and comfort, around and about and over the whole. And everywhere were workshops, factories, and all manner of industries; and intent faces and busy hands were to be seen wherever one looked; and in one’s ears was the ceaseless clink of hammers, the buzz of trade and the contented hum of drums and fly-wheels.”
Egan scoffed and said, “That’s a fine description, but I did not like the man much. He also wrote that our prophet Brigham Young had a 7-foot-long, 96-foot-wide bed to accommodate all his wives. I tried to avoid reading those anti-Mormon screeds, just like the one that came out of this building.” He pointed to the Tribune building, which had reappeared. “I liked the newspaper published by two Church elders,” he said, pointing at the old Salt Lake Herald building also on Main Street.
“I need to go tend to some horses now, but that man over there can tell you all about the Salt Lake newspapers on Main Street,” Egan said. I looked across the street and saw the distinguished figure of none other than Thomas Kearns standing in front of the Kearns Building. He waved and shouted to me, “Dickson and Rawlins asked me to see you, so please hurry over. I am a very busy man, even in death.” Next thing I knew I was sitting in a leather wingback chair in his well-appointed office, circa 1901.
“You’re a Catholic?” Kearns asked. “Yes, sir, I answered.” The old senator and business magnate smiled, and said, “Well that’s good, just like me. The Mormons have done great things in this state, but we need people with other perspectives too. My parents moved from Ireland to Canada, where I was born. And I moved to Utah in 1883 at age 21 to work in the mines. I worked hard, taught myself the business, and in a few years my partners David Keith, John Judge, and I opened the Silver King, one of the greatest silver mines in the world.”
I knew his rags to riches story, of course, and even wrote about it from time to time, but it was wonderful to hear it directly from the old man himself. After striking it rich in his silver mines (which eventually produced some $42 million worth of ore), he enjoyed many other successful business ventures as well. In 1901, he even bought The Salt Lake Tribune, which still was in the Kearns family hands when I started doing its legal work 85 years later.
Kearns also served on the Utah state constitutional convention and as a United States senator. He was personal friends with three presidents. Utah’s governors live in Kearns’ old mansion on South Temple. Along with his wife Jennie Judge Kearns—and their relatives John and Mary Judge—Kearns helped build Utah’s iconic and enduring Catholic institutions, including the Kearns-St. Ann’s orphanage and school, the Cathedral of the Madeleine, and Judge Memorial High School.
Kearns also hired several skilled and interesting lawyers to assist his businesses. One of them was named Joseph Rawlins and another was William Dickson…yes, my ghosts.
When we finished talking, Kearns showed me the commanding view from a top floor office in the Kearns Building. At the north end of the street, near Temple Square, I saw a large crowd gathered. “What’s that?” I asked. The old man said, “That’s just Catholic Bishop Lawrence Scanlan helping to dedicate the Brigham Young statue in 1897 [read more about that here]. I dislike that part of town now. In 1918 a reckless driver hit me there and I died eight days later.”
Kearns quickly changed the topic, “By the way, you grew up in Ogden right?” I nodded yes, and so Kearns pointed out two well-heeled ghosts having a rather serious discussion in front of the First Security Bank Building on the corner of First South and Main Streets. “That’s David and Marriner Eccles, father and son bankers who started out in Northern Utah too…Ogden and Logan.”
Eventually, Kearns politely made it clear that our time together was ending. We walked downstairs to the main doors of the Kearns Building and as we said goodbye, he instructed, “Go south down Main Street until you see my old business partner David Keith. He knows a thing or two about O’Briens.” Kearns then waved and disappeared.
As I walked in the direction he suggested, I saw a lone figure rooting around in an empty lot where the recently-razed Utah Theatre once had stood. “Do you need some help?” I asked. The man stood up and walked over. He was wearing some sort of pin-striped uniform. He replied, “Yes, I am looking for a baseball I lost.” He stuck out his hand and said, “By the way, my name is George Herman Ruth.”
(Next week…Babe Ruth and the tale of a partnership with another O’Brien.)
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
