Keith Petersen is the Idaho State Historian and Associate Director of the Idaho State Historical Society. The author of numerous articles and books about Idaho and the Northwest, he is the only person to have twice received the Idaho Book Award for the Outstanding Book on Idaho. His research for John Mullan: The Tumultuous Live of a Western Road Builder literally took him from coast to coast tracking down pieces of the Mullan story in local museums, county historical societies, and some of the nation’s largest archival repositories.