The Greatest Inventor in the West. By Bill Gulick. Niwot, CO: U P of Colorado, 1999. 157 pages (hardcover), $22.50.

Reviewed by Rick Van Noy, Radford University, Radford, VA

The Greatest Inventor in the West begins by declaring, "Perceptive historians agree that it was not the gun that won the West. It was the inventive genius of imaginative, daring, clever young men who devised new ways to transport people, water, ore, and grain." Truly "perceptive" historians may get no farther than these first few lines, for they generally agree that the West was not "won" at all but was taken. But the tone of Inventor is more popular than literate, amusing rather than scholarly.

The "inventive genius" in this book is the heroic Joseph Malone, who uses his powers of "creative improvisation" to design a slide to transport grain down a thousand vertical feet to steamboat landings. Before that event, Malone designs a municipal water system in Goldtown, Wyoming. When town boosters are present for the opening ceremony, including the mayor's daughter, the system fails, due to a minor flaw, and Joe narrowly escapes. The pattern repeats in Silver City, Montana: Malone designs a chemical process for silver mining. At the opening ceremony, mayor's daughter present, someone bumps into a control valve and the system fails. Then in Walla Walla, with more time and financial backing from Henry Burke, banker and financier, Malone designs the grain slide. During the opening ceremony, it too fails, in a sense, when the grain sacks catch on fire just as Malone is daringly riding them down the steep slide. This time, however, Malone has earned the faith of the town officials, farmers, and teamsters, and he will make minor adjustments, save the day, and get the girl: banker Burke's once mute and stunningly beautiful daughter who regains her voice during the excitement and due to her love for Malone.

Malone is a Paul Bunyan with a surveyor's transit, a Pecos Bill who studies maps and diagrams, endowed with a leading man's good looks, wit, and charm. He's an exaggerated personification of Western (capital "W") values. The Greatest Inventor in the West is a frolicsome tall tale, though the humor is somewhat low, poking fun a farmers who mistake "teamsters" for a "team" of mules. If Westerns are your type, and you can suspend being a "perceptive historian," this book provides a fast ride down a somewhat slippery slope.