About the Authors and the Cover Art

Morris A. Shirts earned his Ed.D. at Indiana University. He taught at Brigham Young Unversity and at Southern Utah University, where he served as dean of the college of education. He coauthored Silver, Saints & Sinners: A History of Old Silver Reef, Utah, and was a founding member of the Mountain Meadows Monument Committee.

Kathryn H. Shirts is the daughter-in-law of Morris Shirts. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in history at Stanford, she obtained master’s degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard Divinity School, where she studied American religious history.

Cover art: A detail of a painting by R. D. Adams depicting the pioneer iron works beside Coal Creek during the first iron run on 29–30 September 1852. The painter’s grandfather was furnace master David Barclay Adams, who showed him where various buildings were located at the old iron works site. His great-grandfather was iron missionary Peter Shirts. Courtesy Special Collections, Gerald R. Sherratt Library, Southern Utah University.