James W. Johnson

Bio: J.W. Johnson was born February 2, 1885 in Huntington Utah, the oldest of five children. He attended Brigham Young Academy, and later studied classical painting at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. J.W. and a partner went prospecting during the late 1920s, and staked a gold mining claim on the Boise River. They worked the claim on a large scale using hydraulic giants. J.W. was a prolific writer of pulp westerns. In 1929, he started near full time work on The Bitterroot Trail and spent the next six years of his life researching and writing this novel. Copies of the Caxton printing from 1935 remain in great demand at rare bookstores around the USA. J.W. kept on with his painting, but never wrote another novel. He began to investigate meta-physics and religion instead, continuing until his death in November, 1957, in Emmett, Idaho.