This article first appeared in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News "Nearby History" column on August 29, 2024.
By Hayley Noble, Executive Director
Did you know that one of Idaho’s most prolific western novelists was born in Moscow? Frank Chester Robertson was born in Moscow on January 12, 1890, to parents, William and Mary Robertson. William and Mary, with their two sons, moved from Nebraska to Idaho in 1888 before Frank was born. The family lived on Moscow Mountain and considered themselves farmers despite not owning any land. The Robertsons lived in poverty and accumulated ever growing debts. According to Keith Petersen, William “was driven to move constantly in search of better land, better work, and quick wealth.” In the late 1890s, missionaries visited the family and convinced William to convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. After that, the Robertson family moved to Chesterfield, Idaho. On July 11, 1919, Robertson married Winifred Bowman in Pocatello, Idaho. They had three children. The family stayed in Chesterfield before moving to Ogden and Salt Lake City, Utah in the 1920s. They eventually settled in Mapleton, Utah in 1937.
Despite not having much of an education, Robertson read all the books he could get his hands on and was initially intrigued by socialism. His first article was published in Lewiston in the Inland Echo, a socialist publication. He lost interest in the ideology but continued writing articles for pulp magazines and serialized stories. Robertson’s first novel, The Foreman of the Forty-Bar was published in 1925, serialized in a magazine before being compiled into a novel. Robertson went on to publish over 150 books, most of which drew on his experience in the West at the turn of the twentieth century.
Best known for his 1950 autobiography, A Ram in the Thicket: The Story of a Roaming Homesteader Family on the Mormon Frontier, Robertson published at a prolific rate from 1925 to his death in 1969, with a few novels published posthumously until 1973. Robertson capitalized on the rising popularity of the Western genre thanks to television shows like Bonanza, Rawhide, and Gunsmoke. Robertson even based his 1961 novel Rawhide on the television show that launched Clint Eastwood to fame in 1959. Some of his other notable titles include, The Firebrand of Burnt Creek, Forbidden Trails, The Lost Range, and Where Desert Blizzards Blow. His 1953 book Sagebrush Sorrel won the Western Writers of American best juvenile award which noted “good suspense and a strong tug at sympathy from the first page, clearcut characterization, authentic background – just plain good, moving story told by a craftsman,” from the award judge. Robertson noted that “My philosophy about writing is to concentrate on three things: authenticity, simplicity, and compassion.”
Although recognized for Sagebrush Sorrel, most of Robertson’s books proved to be more popular in Europe and were published in multiple languages. Robertson remarked at the end of his autobiography that “my parents were always people of the frontier...Their kind and their era are gone forever. They were pioneers if ever people were, yet they never thought of themselves as such, any more than it ever occurred to them that they were helping create a great American tradition – the Old West.” His books draw on these romanticized views of the American West and explain their foreign appeal and widespread distribution.
Robertson also wrote various newspaper columns throughout his life, including “The Chopping Block” for the Provo Daily Herald. He was one of the founders of the League of Utah Writers and a member of the Western Writers of America. Robertson died July 29, 1969, in Las Vegas, Nevada of a heart attack at 79 years old. He remains one of Idaho’s most prolific writers and is perhaps, one of the most overlooked. One mentions the name “Frank C. Robertson,” and most would not know the name, nor that he was born and spent his early life in Moscow. That Moscow upbringing inspired over 150 books and numerous articles - all in the Western Fiction genre.
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