Charles Gregory Crampton (March 22, 1911 – May 2, 1995) was a historian at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

best known for documenting cultures and artifacts in

Glen Canyon Glen Canyon is a natural canyon carved by a length of the Colorado River, mostly in southeastern and south-central Utah, in the United States. Glen Canyon starts where Narrow Canyon ends, at the confluence of the Colorado River and the Dirty D ...

before it was flooded by the

Glen Canyon Dam Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, United States, near the town of Page, Arizona, Page. The high dam was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powe ...

. Born in

Kankakee, IL Kankakee is a city in and the county seat of Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. As of 2020, the city's population was 24,052. Kankakee is a principal city of the Kankakee-Bourbonnais-Bradley Metropolitan Statistical Area. It serves as an ...

, he moved with his parents to Delhi, CA where the family tried to run a farm, mostly unsuccessfully. The family travelled from Illinois to California by automobile, and Crampton credits this trip with inculcating in him an interest in the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

. Crampton attended the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, earning an AB (1935), MA (1936) and PhD (1941) in history. His thesis concerned the history of mining in Mariposa, CA, with an emphasis on the land grant of

John Charles Fremont John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he worked with the quartermaster corps. In 1945 he began his career as a professor at the University of Utah. In the early 1950s, the

Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

at UC Berkeley obtained an original manuscript of a member of the

Mariposa Battalion Mariposa Battalion was a California State Militia unit formed in 1851 to defeat the Ahwahnechee and Chowchillas in the Mariposa War, a part of the California genocide. After a force under Mariposa County Sheriff James Burney was found unequal to ...

expedition. Largely on the basis of the fact that Crampton's PhD thesis covered some of that history, he was requested to edit this work, which was published in 1957. In 1956 Crampton was awarded a grant to study the cultures and retrieve artifacts from the area which was to be flooded by the Glen Canyon Dam. He subsequently wrote several books and articles about his findings. Crampton received an Award of Merit in 1983 from the

Western History Association The Western History Association (WHA), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, was founded in 1961 at Santa Fe, New Mexico by Ray Allen Billington et al. Included in the field of study are the American West and western Canada. The Western History ...

. His book ''Standing Up Country'' won the Best Western Non-Fiction Award of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center. Crampton retired in 1979 and died at his home in

St. George, UT St. George is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Utah, United States. Located in southwestern Utah on the Arizona border, it is the principal city of the St. George Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The city lies in the northe ...

on May 2, 1995.

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External links

* {{morecat, date=February 2022 1911 births 1995 deaths Writers from Utah