Asa Mercer left quite the legacy. As a young man, he was one of the early settlers of Seattle—where he helped found and became the first president of The University of Washington.
Mercer later imported women from the East to be potential wives for the overwhelmingly male population—the famous Mercer Girls.
He also became an important newspaper publisher and writer. In 1892, he covered the Johnson County (WY) War, offering the anti-cattleman perspective in The Banditti of the Plains (hi

True West May/June 2025
In This Issue:
Features
- Historic Hotels of the American West
- A Journey Through Wyoming’s Outlaw History
- A Journey Through Washington’s Wild Frontier
- Blazing The Oregon Trail
- Journey Through Time
- Did Brigham Young Order a Massacre?
- Mountain Meadows Scapegoat John D. Lee VS. A Firing Squad
- Mormons in the Movies
- An Indigenous Consultant Ensures Accuracy
- The Battle Axe And A Raw Deal
- Showdown: Bridger VS. Brigham
- The Mountain Man and the Mormon Moses
- The Ghosts of Mountain Meadows
- The War Before the War
- Mountain Meadows