Two forgotten spots that dramatically changed American history

Two isolated locations that drastically altered the course of American history and we do not acknowledge either.

The spot where I stand today is deep in the Bitterroot Mountains. Two hundred and fifteen years ago a disappointment near 400 years in the making devastated a young nation’s top explorer. Those of you I had in American History class  know this story, if you were paying attention.

In September 1805, Merriweather Lewis and George Rogers Clark became the first white men to visit what is the present day border of Montana and Idaho. They crossed the Continental Divide just to the east of this spot on the banks of the Salmon River. Fifteen months prior, the two explorers and their party of 30 or so motley frontiersman had been sent by President Thomas Jefferson on the “Voyage of Discovery.”  Their top mission priority was to find and map  the long sought Northwest Passage, a waterway path to the Pacific Ocean via the western flow of the United States’ vast grid of unexplored  rivers, a shortened trade route to China. It had  also been  the goal of Christopher Columbus when he set sail for the New World 312  years before the Voyage of Discovery had left St. Louis. In between, many  men followed and perished in the same searching  quest, all believing the connecting route was somewhere in these  mountains and riches awaited its discoverer.

The dream died here, at this very spot.

“The river,” Clark wrote in his journal, “becomes almost one continued rapid. The mountains close (as) a perpendicular cliff on both sides. The water runs with great violence from one rock to another, foaming and roaring through the rocks in every direction.”

The expedition leaders were crushed. Several days before Clark had written in his journal he was certain they had found the passage that would lead to the Columbia River and the Pacific west coast. It meant the men would now have to abandon the canoes they had paddled all the way from St. Louis and continue west on foot.  More important, it meant the hopes of explorers of the past 400 years had been shattered. There was no Northwest Passage, no gold  lined  shortcut to the Orient. 

The closing of the door on the Northwest Passage was the opening of a new and better one; Westward Expansion. Instead of a port of passage to China, the western United States became the land of opportunity. Within 25 years the Oregon Trail passed near here,  jammed backed with settlers headed for new lives and a new dream, land to put roots down into.

Still, as I stand here with the roaring background of the raging rapids, the disappointment of the ages can be felt. It is palpable.

Second , a street corner in Winslow, Arizona.

 In 1973 Glen Frye was just another long-haired drifter trying to make a living in rock and roll. Then he struck musical gold with a song about standing on the street corner in a little town named Winslow, Arizona. He and his group the Eagles were on the fast track to immortality.

In 1987 Frye’s new year’s party was the “it” place for celebrities to attend. The assured winner for the upcoming 1988 presidential election was Senator Gary Hart. He dominated the polls and most other serious Dems by this point had dropped out. 

At Frye’s party Hart met a young lady named Donna Rice. The married politician and his 25 years younger paramour began an affair. When the press found out about the “Monkey Business,” Hart’s political career was over. The next “best” choice was the very dour George Bush, Sr. A good man, he was not a good president. One term was enough and like Hart, another young glib and handsome man burst on the national scene, Bill Clinton. He made two terms, but also like Hart, he couldn’t keep his pants zipped. It soiled the family name and opened the door for the next generation of republicans, George W. Bush.

After the economy tanked during Bush 2.0’s second term, Hillary Clinton  charged to the front of hopeful democrats. But, the family name had been tainted, the “slickness” had rubbed off.  We are a nation that does like to be called bigoted. So, if we are not ready for our first female president, how about our first man of color? We were not as ready as we thought. President Obama was maligned for 8 years by the newly emerged right-wing talk radio,  racism a constant undertowing force. During the Obama years, skin color was always the two-ton elephant in the room.

The world asks today how could America have elected a man as unstable as Donald Trump? You have to go back to 1973 and a street corner in Winslow, AZ. For, without there would have been no 1987 NYE party at Glen Frye’s penthouse, Gary Hart would have been elected president, the Clinton’s would have stayed in AR, the nation would have not taken the drastic step of electing a man of color president  and there would have been no rallying point for the Tea Party whose agenda would not have been hijacked by the racist platform of Trump. 

See, America  found on the street corner in Winslow, AZ much more than, “a lover who won’t blow my cover.”

Two events that have  dictated our destiny, should they then not be a part of our history, as well?

“Go back to where you came from.”

"Go back to where you came from.”

While walking through the Seattle Airport yesterday I was struck by the social, racial and ethnic melting pot we have become. We are all from somewhere else. One fork of my family arrived 150 years ago in steerage from Wales. Yours, maybe, from a clandestine crossing of the Rio Grande or in chains from the west coast of Africa. We have a sad history of acceptance.

It didn’t start with one ignorant bigot and his Wall. First it was the Chinese over 120 years ago, who were excluded. Then, the Mexicans. In 1917, a law was passed that a new immigrant had to prove they could read. In 1924 the National Origins Act said you had to prove you can read in English. It cut Italian immigration in five years from millions to less than 4,000 a year. Of course, this was after new immigrants had done most of the hard work of building America.

My Italian side of the family were orchard farmers. They came to America and rooted out the subways of New York City. My ancestors from Wales tunneled deep into the mountains of Pennsylvania to supply a new nation’s bursting industrial expansion with its insatiable need for coal. Chinese immigrants built almost one half a million miles of railroad, dangerous and back breaking work that spearheaded the winning of the west.

Forget the hoax of MAGA. It is a racist dog whistle with no historical foundation. By the 20th century, as the upstart nation of America grew into a world power, they kept coming. Their sacrifices Made America Great to begin with. “Go back to where you came from.” If you cannot see this for the blatant racism it is, then you have forgotten that you as well came from somewhere else.