Alphabetically, the first item in the Bancroft collection is a Western Union Holiday Greeting from Franklin Pierce Adams. Fittingly, almost as the final item, is an identical Western Union Holiday Greeting, this from Christian Brevoort Zabriskie. [Both telegrams shown below]
In a letter sent to Stephen later in 1929, Zabriskie writes…
Dear Stephen:
You are always doing some graceful or lovely act. Your telegram to me that you had flowers from both of us placed on the car which was conveying our dear old friend Governor Spry, back to Salt Lake, was greatly appreciated by me…You cannot imagine how pleased I was at your action and your kind thoughtfulness in including me…” [William Spry was the third governor of the state of Utah.]
Who was Christian Zabriskie? Like Stephen, he was a borax man. As the National Park Service site explains ”…in 1885…F.M. Smith hired him [Zabriskie] to supervise several hundred Chinese workers at the Columbus Marsh area of the Pacific Coast Borax Company near Candelaria…He ultimately became vice president and general manager of the company and served in that capacity for thirty-six years until his retirement in 1933. During this time the Pacific Coast Borax Company had phased out most of its borax operations in the Candelaria vicinity and had moved further production into the Death Valley area…All this occurred long before 1933, when the area became Death Valley National Monument, but Zabriskie Point remains to honor a man who devoted many years of service to the Pacific Coast Borax Company.”
If Zabriskie Point sounds familiar, you are either an exceptional geo-
grapher or a devoted fan of obscure movies of the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1970, Michelangelo Antonioni directed Zabriskie Point which was
widely jeered by audiences, failed at the box office, but interestingly, included Harrison Ford in an uncredited role as an arrested student demonstrator.
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