Signing Dynamics of the Signature Rocks

Abstract: This article establishes more clearly the character of a significant but not yet fully explained phenomenon of one of the most iconic episodes in American history. From 1839 to 1869, approximately 400,000 Euro-Americans made the overland passage from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of signatures inscribed onto the immense rock formations that were often used as landmarks along the way—the signature rocks—one rock alone being said in 1860 to have 40,000 to 50,000 signatures. This study identifies the various cultural dynamics of self-assertion motivating this mass signing, including a sense of trespassing, participation in a great historical movement, "vainglory," and, for the vast majority, the dynamic of tourism (traditional "curiosity" but also Romantic ideas of landscape and the sublime). Native American petroglyphs appear to have been respected within the context of emigrant signing practices, an attitude in keeping with "trespassers" claiming passage but not land. It was largely only with the first generation of settlers, those who did claim the land, that intentional dominance appears to have become a distinct factor in overwriting petroglyphs.