Author | Jackson Ellis |
---|---|
Cover artist | Nathaniel Pollard |
Language | English |
Genre | Literary, historical, coming-of-age |
Publisher | Green Writers Press |
Publication date | April 10, 2018 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (paperback) |
Pages | 184 |
ISBN | 978-0-999-07668-2 |
Lords of St. Thomas is a 2018 historical novel by American writer Jackson Ellis. The novel won the inaugural Howard Frank Mosher Book Prize in 2017, selected by Howard Frank Mosher himself shortly before his death in January 2017. [1]
The novel is set in the real-life ghost town of St. Thomas, Nevada, in Clark County, approximately 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas. It was flooded in June 1938 by Lake Mead following construction of the Boulder Dam and remained underwater for 64 years. Due to ongoing drought, the ruins of the town permanently resurfaced in 2002. [2] It is now located within Lake Mead National Recreation Area adjacent to Valley of Fire State Park.
In 1933, six-year-old "Little" Henry Lord lives in the village of St. Thomas, Nevada, with his mother, Ellen Lord, father, Thomas Lord, and paternal grandfather, Henry Lord, an auto mechanic. St. Thomas is to be flooded entirely by Lake Mead following construction of the Boulder (Hoover) Dam.
The elder Henry believes that water will never reach his home, and refuses the government's attempts to buy his land. However, Thomas takes a job with Six Companies, the construction group building the Hoover Dam, to earn enough to buy his own home.
Living and working in Boulder City, Thomas only visits St. Thomas every few weeks. On one visit, Thomas takes Little Henry into the crawl space below the family home. Here, he shows his son a safe where he keeps his valuables, and makes Little Henry promise to safeguard the contents should anything ever happen to him. On July 6, 1935, Thomas falls to his death at the dam.
In the spring following Thomas's death, Henry buys a rowboat with an outboard motor. Fishing on the Muddy River becomes a favorite pastime.
Water finally reaches St. Thomas in mid-1938. Henry finally decides to purchase a new home in Overton, Nevada, and he and Little Henry go out on the Muddy for one last boat ride. While boating, a violent thunderstorm begins, flooding their house. Little Henry realizes he cannot reach the safe; worse, his mother has vanished.
Two days later, on June 11, 1938, Henry sets his house on fire and leaves St. Thomas with Little Henry in the rowboat.
In Overton, Henry opens a new auto garage near his new home. His grandson continues to attend school and develops into a fine athlete, as well as an apt mechanic. Henry plans to give his business to his grandson, but Little Henry wishes to attend college in Montana. In August 1944, they plan a trip to Yellowstone National Park, and Henry promises to visit his grandson in Montana. However, the night before Little Henry's departure, his grandfather dies of a heart attack.
It is now December 8, 2002. Little Henry is now a 76-year-old widower residing in Las Vegas. An article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal explains that drought has exposed the ruins of St. Thomas, underwater for six decades. Accompanying the story is a photo of the elevated concrete foundation of the Lord homestead. Little Henry sets off to find his father's safe.
Unfortunately, the safe is impossible to open. In frustration, Little Henry strikes the safe with a crowbar, inadvertently digging a small hole in the silt and knocking over his bottle of water, which spills into the hole. In the hole he finds a white object, which appears to be a large shell. He begins to dig it out and uncovers his mother's gold necklace. He realizes that the white object is actually a part of her skeleton. During the storm, Ellen attempted to remove the contents of the safe herself, but was trapped under the house and drowned. Little Henry decides that he will return to St. Thomas to once again attempt to open the safe but determines that his mother's remains will stay in St. Thomas, along with the remains of many other family members.
Ellis visited St. Thomas for the first time in 2012 and was intrigued by the remains of the Fenton Whitney home. Entering the crawl space beneath the elevated concrete foundation, he wondered what it would have been like for someone who left St. Thomas as a child to return more than 60 years later, and what they might have left behind as a child that could be retrieved after six decades underwater. [3]
Further inspiration was provided by the story of Hugh Lord. [4] Lord refused to leave St. Thomas until June 11, 1938, when the water was high enough for him to step out his front door into his boat. Then he set fire to his house and watched it burn. He was the last resident of St. Thomas to leave.
Author Howard Frank Mosher, who selected the novel to be the inaugural winner of the book prize named in his honor, stated that "Lords of St. Thomas is both a terrific coming-of-age story and an exact and haunting evocation of a bygone time and place. What's more, it's a great read."
New England Review of Books called it "a thrilling story where readers measure how much they value their rights and how far they're willing to fight for them. Ellis does a compelling job of showing the Lord family's nearly noble hopelessness in their fight to change a fait accompli, without capitulating to sentimentality." [5]
Midwest Book Review stated, "Lords of St. Thomas masterfully couples a historic event with a classic coming of age story...[offering] a glimpse into the past and a glimmer of hope for the future." [6]
Pam Ferrell of the Historical Novel Society wrote, "Beautifully written, Lords of St. Thomas is the story of tragedies leading to subsequent tragedies [and] a thoughtful portrayal of the human consequences of major environmental changes," [7] while Margot Harrison of Seven Days called it "a sparsely eloquent, elegiac novel." [8]
Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, during the Great Depression, it was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over 100 lives. In bills passed by Congress during its construction, it was referred to as the Hoover Dam, after President Herbert Hoover, but was named Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. In 1947, the name Hoover Dam was restored by Congress.
Boulder City is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It is approximately 26 miles (42 km) southeast of Las Vegas. As of the 2020 census, the population of Boulder City was 14,885. The city took its name from Boulder Canyon. Boulder City is one of only two places in Nevada that prohibits gambling, the other being the town of Panaca.
Six Companies, Inc. was a joint venture of construction companies that was formed to build the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in Nevada and Arizona.
Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, 24 mi (39 km) east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. Lake Mead provides water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada as well as some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland.
Interstate 515 (I-515) was a 20.54-mile-long (33.06 km) spur route of I-15 in the US state of Nevada that ran from the junction of I-15, US 93 and US 95 in Downtown approximately 20 miles (32 km) southeast to just north of Railroad Pass in southeastern Henderson. The freeway connected traffic headed from Boulder City and Henderson to Downtown Las Vegas via a direct, high-speed route, and it ran concurrently with, US 93, and US 95 along its entire length.
The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Statistical Area is coextensive since 2003 with Clark County, Nevada. The Valley is largely defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a 600 sq mi (1,600 km2) basin area surrounded by mountains to the north, south, east and west of the metropolitan area. The Valley is home to the three largest incorporated cities in Nevada: Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas. Eleven unincorporated towns governed by the Clark County government are part of the Las Vegas Township and constitute the largest community in the state of Nevada.
St. Thomas, Nevada is a ghost town in Clark County, Nevada, United States, near where the Muddy River flows into the Colorado River. St. Thomas was purchased by the US Federal Government and abandoned as the waters of Lake Mead submerged the town in the 1930s.
Interstate 11 (I-11) is an Interstate Highway that currently runs for 53.9 miles (86.7 km) on a predominantly northwest–southeast alignment in the U.S. state of Nevada, running concurrently with either or both U.S. Route 93 (US 93) and U.S. Route 95 from the Arizona state line and Boulder City. The freeway is tentatively planned to run from Nogales, Arizona, to the vicinity of Reno, Nevada, generally following the current routes of I-19, I-10, US 93, and US 95. Planners anticipate upgrading two existing highway segments to carry future I-11: US 93 in Arizona from Wickenburg to the Nevada state line on the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge over the Colorado River and US 95 in Nevada from the Las Vegas Valley to Tonopah. The most recent extension came in 2024, when officials replaced I-515 signs in Las Vegas with I-11 signs and added I-11 signs on US 95 north of Downtown Las Vegas, which extended I-11 northward about 30.5 miles (49.1 km). An extension of the Interstate northward along US 95 to Mercury, Nevada, is planned after that. An exact alignment for I-11 has yet to be determined outside of these sections; a number of corridor alternatives, however, have been identified for further study and refinement. The building of I-11 in Arizona is also facing local opposition from conservation groups.
Hoover Dam Lodge is a hotel and casino near Boulder City, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Richard Craig Estey. It was previously the Gold Strike until it was largely destroyed by an accidental fire on June 16, 1998. It reopened the next year as the Hacienda and then took on its current name in January 2015.
The Archdiocese of Las Vegas is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in southern Nevada, United States.
The settlement of Las Vegas, Nevada was founded in 1905 before the opening of a railroad that linked Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. The stopover attracted some farmers to the area, and fresh water was piped in to the settlement. In 1911, the town was incorporated as part of the newly founded Clark County. Urbanization took off in 1931 when work started on the Boulder Dam, bringing a huge influx of young male workers, for whom theaters and casinos were built, largely by the Mafia. Electricity from the dam also enabled the building of many new hotels along the Strip. The arrival of Howard Hughes in 1966 did much to offset mob influence and helped turn Las Vegas into more of a family tourist center, now classified as a Mega resort.
Overton is a community that is part of the unincorporated town of Moapa Valley in Clark County, Nevada. Overton is on the north end of Lake Mead. It is home to Perkins Field airport and Echo Bay Airport.
Lake Las Vegas is a 320-acre (130 ha) reservoir in Henderson, Nevada with a 3,592-acre (1,454 ha) developed area around it. The area is sometimes referred to as the Lake Las Vegas Resort. It is being developed by 5 companies including Lake at Las Vegas Joint Venture LLC.
Vegas Vacation is a 1997 American comedy film directed by Stephen Kessler in his feature directorial debut. It is the fourth installment in National Lampoon’s Vacation film series, and was written by Elisa Bell, based on a story by Bell and Bob Ducsay. The film stars Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, Wayne Newton, Ethan Embry, and Wallace Shawn. It tells the story of Clark Griswold taking his family to Las Vegas to renew his vows to Ellen as the series' usual hilarity occurs. The film opened at #4 at the box office and grossed over $36.4 million domestically. Vegas Vacation is the first theatrical Vacation film not to carry the National Lampoon label or a screenwriting credit from John Hughes. Also, this is the final film released before National Lampoon magazine folded. This was also the last Vacation movie to be released until New Line Cinema, a production company of Warner Bros., produced a reboot that was released 18 years later in 2015.
Railroad Pass Hotel & Casino, named after nearby Railroad Pass, is a hotel and casino located in Henderson, Nevada.
Charles Jon "Chip" Mosher was an educator, poet, author and newspaper columnist who wrote social commentary about education and history, as well as satirical fiction.
Callville is a former settlement of Clark County in the U.S. state of Nevada. Abandoned in 1869, it was submerged under Lake Mead when the Colorado River was dammed, Callville Bay retaining the name. At one time, it was noted to be the southernmost outpost of the Mormon settlement.
Boulder Dam is a 1936 American drama film directed by Frank McDonald and written by Sy Bartlett and Ralph Block. The film stars Ross Alexander, Patricia Ellis, Lyle Talbot, Eddie Acuff, Henry O'Neill and Egon Brecher. The film was released by Warner Bros. on March 7, 1936.
Hoover Dam has made frequent appearances in various forms of media on account of its size and national prominence within the United States. Prior to the dam's completion in 1936, the Boulder Dam construction project was likewise the subject of a number of films.
Cliff Segerblom was an American documentary photographer for the United States Bureau of Reclamation and later a Justice of the Peace and municipal judge in Boulder City, Nevada. Best known for his photographs of Hoover Dam, Segerblom also photographed landscapes and local architecture, creating a visual record of the infrastructural changes throughout Southern Nevada in the 20th century.