James A. Michener - Centennial

Michener is Americas best writer, and he proves it once again in CENTENNIAL.... If youre a Michener fan, this book is a must. And if youre not a Michener fan, CENTENNIAL will make you one.

Pittsburgh Press

Michener is a superb storyteller.... This is an absorbing work.

Business Week

It is certain that CENTENNIAL will be one of the great bestsellers of the decade, if not of the century.

Milwaukee Journal

It is much more than a novel.... Spectacularly written.

Newsday

Big and engrossing novel.... An engrossing book, an imaginative and intricate one, a book teeming with people and giving a marvelous sense of the land.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

It is a hell of a book.... While he fascinates and engrosses, Michener also educates as he has done in the 18 books which preceded CENTENNIAL.

Los Angeles Times

Fawcett Crest Books

by James A. Michener

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CENTENNIAL

James A. Michener

FAWCETT CREST NEW YORK

CENTENNIAL

Published by Fawcett Crest Books, a unit of CBS Publications,

the Consumer Publishing Division of CBS Inc.,

by arrangement with Random House, Inc.

Copyright 1974 by Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce

this book or portions thereof in any form.

ISBN: 0-449-23494-0

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance

to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Lyrics from The Buffalo Skinners on pages 1023 & 1024, collected, adapted and arranged by John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, TRO Copyright 1934 and renewed 1962 LUDLOW MUSIC, INC., New York, N.Y. Used by permission.

Cover Art Copyright 1978MCA Publishing, a division of MCA Inc.

Selection of the Book-Of-the-Month Club

Selection of the Readers Digest Condensed Books

Selection of the Playboy Book Club

Printed in the United States of America.

25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18

To

Three distinguished Colorado newspapermen:

Floyd Merrill of Greeley,

who showed me the rivers;

Otto Unfug of Sterling,

who taught me about cattle;

Clyde Stanley of Keota,

who introduced me to the prairie.

This novel deals with a subject that has concerned me since 1936, when I first came to know the South Platte River. Writing it has been one of the happiest experiences of my life. for it put me in contact with many learned and perceptive people. Among the many to whom I am indebted are these specialists:

Geology: Roger Cuffey and Lauren Wright, Pennsylvania State University; the latter took me on an extended field trip of the Rockies; Gerald Richmond, William Mallory, U. S. Geological Survey; Jack Murphy, Denver Museum of Natural History, who took me on a field trip to dinosaur deposits, Robert Egbert, Phillips Petroleum, who provided preliminary data for the core diagram of Centennial; and especially Ogden Tweto, U.S.G.S., foremost authority on the Rockies, who provided line-by-line checking of the text and the core diagram.

Paleontology: G. Edward Lewis, U.S.G.S.; Don Lindsay, D.M.N.H.; Bertrand Schultz, Mylan Stout, University of Nebraska; G. E. Untermann, Vernal, Utah; Tobe Wilkins, Dinosaur National Monument; Kay McElroy, Greeley, who took me on a field trip to Pawnee Buttes.

Early Man: Frank Frazier, Denver; George Frison, University of Wyoming, who took me on an extended field trip to prehistoric Clovis sites; H. M. Wormington, Denver, who allowed me to read the manuscript of her forthcoming book.

Flint Knapping: Don Crabtree, Kimberley, Idaho; H. M. Wormington, Denver; Bruce Bradley, Cambridge, England, who made a Clovis point for me.

Indian Life: Virginia Trenholm, Cheyenne; Evelyn Nickeson, Kinnear; Nellie Scott, Fort Washakie; Father Lewis ONeill, S.J., Stephens; Reverend David Duncombe, Ethete, all of Wyoming.

Early St. Louis: John Francis McDermott, University of Southern Illinois; Mrs. Odile Trufanow, Denver; George Brooks, Frances Stader, Missouri Historical Society; and Ernest Kirschten, all of St. Louis.

Old Lancaster: Laura Lundgren, S. E. Dyke, John Ward Willson Loose, Lancaster County Historical Society.

Oregon Trail: Merrill J. Mattes, National Park Service; Gregory M. Franzwa, St. Louis.

Fort Laramie: Charles Sharp, Lewis Eaton, Bill Henry, all of Fort Laramie, who showed the most devoted patience in helping on research and field trips; Roger Kent Heape, Belleville, Illinois, who allowed me to read his unpublished thesis on the Treaty of 1851.

Cattle Trails: C. Boone McClure, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas; Dean Krakel, Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City; Mrs. Laura Peacock, Jacksboro, Texas; Jessie Newton Yarborough, Robert Lee, Texas.

Ranch Life: Farrington Carpenter, Hayden, Colorado; Allen Fordyce, Big Horn; Burrell Nickeson, Kinnear, both of Wyoming. The following graciously allowed me to visit their ranches and ask many questions: J. J. Gibson, 6666 Ranch, Guthrie, Texas; Herman Werner, Van Irvine, Casper; Robert and Martha Gibbs, TY Ranch, Arvada, all of Wyoming; and especially Ronald and Virginia Wolff, Two Bar Ranch, Wheatland, Wyoming, who flew me to various historic sites in their ranch plane.

Sugar Beets: Lyman Andrews, William M. White, Denver, Colorado.

Birds: Gustav Swanson, C.S.U., who took me on a beautiful exploration of the Buttes area.

Denver Stock Show: Willard Simms, Denver; C. W. Ferguson, Miami.

Mexican-Chicano Problems: Corky Gonzales, Bernard Valdez, Jim Kent, Minoru Yasui, Denver; Diputado Abelardo Perez Campos, Francisco Almada, Chihuahua, Mexico, the former having shown me extraordinary courtesy; Susan Sellers, Mexico City, who provided much help on Chicano songs.

Dryland Farming: Isabel Blair, James Reed, Dora Good, all of Sterling, Colorado, the last of whom took me on an extensive field trip to an old line camp.

Cattle Industry: Larry Yarrington, Sterling, Colorado, who gave me a graduate seminar on artificial insemination; Tom Risinger, Jack Winninger, Cody, Wyoming, who introduced me to Simmentals; Russell Staats, Chugwater, Wyoming, custodian of the great Swan Land Cattle Company operation; Joe Gloyd, Frank Robertson, Wheatland, Wyoming; Gene Gressley, University of Wyoming; Bill Wadlow, Wyoming Hereford Ranch, Cheyenne.

Guns: Dabney Otis Collins, Ross Miller, Frank M. Sellers, Denver, the last-named being the worlds authority on the Sharps rifle; Vernon Gunnion, Lancaster, expert on Melchior Fordney rifles.