Paul Dayton Bailey

Paul Dayton Bailey (July 12, 1906 – October 26, 1987) was the owner/publisher of Westernlore Press and a writer of many books himself that focused on the Western American experience and, in particular, Latter-day Saint history.

Early years Bailey was the son of Eli and Olive Bailey and the grandson of Joseph Forbes. He was raised in American Fork, Utah until the age of 13 when his father went to Grants Pass, Oregon to take part in the building of a new sugar beet-processing factory for the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. As Eli helped build the factory, he sent letters and money home, finally persuading his family to join him.

The family did not stay in Oregon long. Utah-Idaho failed to persuade local farmers to pick up the new crop and, two summers later, Eli was put in charge of dismantling the factory and loading it upon rail cars for reassembly in Yakima Valley, Washington. During the years he ran it, Westernlore continued to publish books focused on the Western United States that were highly regarded by libraries and well purchased. Westernlore published some of Bailey's own work, but his better known books were published by larger companies.

Many of his later books proved, to his and his publishers' surprise, to be controversial. For instance, For Time and All Eternity—a book about the anti-polygamy crusade in the 1890s—caused a small uproar among the Utah faithful (although, according to Samuel W. Taylor, "Bailey . . . [said the uproar] resulted from the objections of one man to a single passage in the book" ), as did his book on Zion's Camp, the Missouri Contingent, the Nauvoo Legion and the Mormon Battalion— The Armies of God. Bailey believed the book was "a warm, honest appraisal of Mormon heroism in conquering the West" and his publisher had arranged for numerous interviews and signings in Utah; however, in the end the book was never so much as reviewed in the State.

Works