On the Fringes of Power: The Life and Turbulent Career of Stephen Wallace Dorsey

by Mari Grana

Overview

Touted in his time as one of the “great men of the West,” Stephen Wallace Dorsey was a Reconstruction carpetbagger who went to Arkansas and finagled and bribed his way into getting elected to the US Senate after living only two years in the state before heading West to seek his fortune. From a fraudulent New Mexico land claim to taking up mining claims and real estate in Southern California, he used sheer cunning and guile to manipulate the system of the Gilded Age to his own ends.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442247352
Publisher:	TwoDot
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.99(h) x 0.32(d)

About the Author

In 1988 Mari Grana left a career as an urban planner in California and retreated to New Mexico to write. Her first book on New Mexico regional history, Begoso Cabin, won the 2000 Willa Cather award from Women Writing the West. She has also written about her grandmother’s life as a physician in the Old West and about the extraordinary story of a woman politician in 19th century Utah. She works as a freelance writer and editor in Santa Fe.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 New Mexico, 1877 1

Chapter 2 The War, a Railroad, and a Seat in the Senate 7

Chapter 3 Washington, 1873-1879 14

Chapter 4 Congressional Investigations 20

Chapter 5 The Presidential Election of 1880 27

Chapter 6 An Unexpected President 32

Chapter 7 Chico Springs and Washington: The Star Route Trial 39

Chapter 8 Back at the Ranch 59

Chapter 9 President Cleveland, Governor Ross, and the Surveyor General 73

Chapter 10 A Changing West 79

Chapter 11 New Challenges: The Bessemer Consolidated Iron Company 86

Chapter 12 A New Life 97

Chapter 13 Los Angeles, 1901-1916 102

Chapter 14 A Man of the Times 109

Endnotes 113

Bibliography 125

Index 131

About the Author 138