Beehive History, Volume 23, 1997

BEEHIVE HIsTaRY

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Max J. Evans, Director

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Stanford J. Layton, Coordinator of Publications

Miriam B. Murphy Beehive History Editor

O Copyright 1997 Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City, UT 84101

BEEHIVE HISTORY

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Contents

Rob's Reservoir Mavanee Gleave Loftus 2 Heroes and Hoopla: Welcoming the Boys Home from the Philippines 1899 Style Lyndia McDo well Carter 6 When Electricity Came to Torrey, Utah Clay M. Robinson 11 Provo's Infamous Goddess of Liberty Contest of 1894 D. Robert Carter 14 The White Stone Men Blodwen I? Olson 18 Memories of Thinning and Harvesting Sugar Beets Miriam B. Murphy 22 Boxcar in Memory Grove Said "Mercin from the People of France Linda Thatcher 26

Cover art by Cherie Hale of sugar beet harve This publication has been funded w tance of a matching grant-in-aid from Park Service. However, the contents and not necessarily reflect the views or pol Department of the Interior, nor does the trade names or commercial products endorsement or recommendation by the D of the Interior.

BY MAVANEE GLEAVE LOFTUS

Nestled amid quaking aspen and pine, Rob's Reservoir is a small but scenic fishing retreat in the Dixie National Forest on the west face of the Escalante Mountain about twentyfive miles southeast of Antimony, Utah. Its origin is known to only a few people. Not even the U.S. Forest Service has a record of its origin on file.

Rob's Reservoir was constructed in July 1923 by my grandfather, Robert "Rob" Barrowman Gleave, and my father, Otto Wellington Gleave, fourteen years old at the time. Others who worked on the project were Rob's brother, Walter William "Willie" Gleave, Willie's stepson, Golden Shugart, and Rob's brother-in-law, Jack Snyder. The purpose of the reservoir was to provide water to a 160-acre farm of alfalfa, oats, and wheat on Burro Flat at the north end of Johns Valley.

Special-use permits for construction on forest lands have been required since the National Forest Service was established in 189 1, but there is no indication that a permit was obtained in this case. All the builders of the reservoir have passed on, so the record remains silent. Yet the result of their labor still sparkles like a jewel for all to see and appreciate.

Johns Valley Johns Valley in Garfield County is approximately thirty miles in length and lies north of Bryce Canyon, extending to Black Canyon located south of Antimony. Escalante can be reached by traveling a dirt road east over the Mable Woodward Nielsen, a resident of idtsoe wrote, "Originally, Johns Valley was country, a place you had to pass get where you wanted to ,go.The good spring water, gushing mountain streams, and the natural forage gave rise to dreams of conquest for summer ranching, range and dairy projects.. ..

"People entered the valley for either polygamous sanctuary, sheep or cattle grazing and summer dairying, the sawmill industry, the acquisition of land by 'gentlemen's agreement,' squatter's right, homesteading, desert entry, or outright purchase, high altitude dry farming or 1experiments in grains.,root crops and

the basis of race, color, facilitv oeerated b v a recieient of federal assistance should write to: i q u a l opportunity Program, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, P. 0 . Box 37127, Washington, D. C. 20012-7127.

untried country, and finally oil and mineral development."

Rob's father, Walter Gleave, was one of Several to recognize the charm and potential of the region. After purchasing Center Creek prop-

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erty and water rights near Johns Valley in 1900, he worked three years to build a new home there so his wife and seven children, then living in a log cabin on their farm in Kingston Canyon, could move into it. Unfortunately, his wife, Elizabeth Barrowman Gleave, not quite 40 years old, became ill and died just before the home was completed.

Walter had lived in Kingston Canyon and prior to that in Annabella, Utah, and Payson. He had immigrated to Utah from England at the age of 12 in June of 1864 with his aunt and uncle, Mormon converts. Twenty years later his parents and siblings immigrated from England to Rock Springs, Wyoming, and then to Annabella.

Four months after Elizabeth died, their son Willie married Caroline Marie Snyder. They made their home at Center Creek on a place a few miles south of his father's ranch. In 1907, son Rob married Caroline's sister, Edith Maud Snyder, a school teacher. They lived in Antimony for a short time, then joined Willie and Caroline at their ranch. The brothers built two log homes and ranched together.

Burro Flat Rob and Maud Gleave, with their family of six sons-Levere, Otto, Marcus, Virgil, Charles, and Merthell-moved from Center Creek to Burro Flat located in the northeast comer of Johns Valley in the spring of 1917. Burro Flat was named for a band of wild burros that once roamed there. The herd was gone by the time the Gleave family took up the land. It was dry land covered with sagebrush and infested with rattlesnakes.

The family moved into a granary at Burro Flat until Rob could relocate their log house at Center Creek later in the summer. Green lumber

Robert Gleavefamily: front row, 1 to r, Scott, Iwa, Maud, Rob, Marcus, Jack; second row, Varis Sorensen wife of Otto, Margurite Nielsen, wife of Marcus, Mawa, Melba Taylol; wife of Krgil, Beth Brindley, wife of Scott, Bobbie, wife of Gam Bamson; third row, Otto, Garn Barnson, Virgil.All photographs courtesy of the authol:

had been'used to construct the granary and the boards shrank, leaving cracks between them.

Howling coyotes kept the family awake the first night. Otto, who was eight years old, got out of bed in the morning and peered through the cracks. He counted 13 coyotes about a quarter of a mile away.

Working long days, the family cleared the brush at Burro Flat with grubbing hoes and began building sheds and corrals. Before long, the outlines of a ranch took shape.

Cartography by Connie L.S. Bartos.

cemetery tell this grim story. For this reason the Gleaves could not let anyone come to their house, nor did anyone go from the place except to ranch and buy food.

The next girl in the family, Marva, was born twenty months later. Rob, Maud, and some of the children had contracted smallpox. When Marva was three weeks old she was completely covered with them. All family members survived , ' with no scarring.

Everyone in the family worked-some on the farm, others herding sheep, building roads, running the thresher, or doing odd jobs. All earn' ings went into the family fund. If anyone needed anything, Rob would give them the money for it.

Otto said money was always available using this method.

Yet, despite the family's diligence and team-

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vantages additional water would bring, and the idea of a reservoir began to take shape in his mind.

Constructing the Reservoir Using homemade surveying equipment, Rob and Willie first surveyed a ditch through the mountain and built flumes across the canyons.

Then they and their co-workers began work on the reservoir.

Otto later recalled how they chopped quaking aspen to make an eight-mile road to haul equipment to the destination: They left the aspen lying off to the side and were able to complete the road in a week.

The site they selected for the reservoir was located in a swale near the springs. Construction took about three weeks. The men camped at the site during the week, returning to Burro Flat for a well-deserved rest on weekends.

"We had one plow pulled by two horses," Otto recalled. "Rob and Willie plowed the hard ground. There were a few trees in the middle of the swale, but we left them there. We used three fresnoes [small scrapers] each pulled by two horses. Golden, Jack, and I ran the scrapers. We scraped and hauled the plowed ground in the fresnoes and dumped the dirt to build a 10-foot high earthen dam. We used a steel pipe purchased in Marysvale, Utah, to control the size of the stream coming out of the reservoir, and we built a spillway. We got 3 or 4 acre feet of water from the reservoir in wet years and about 2 acre feet of water in dry years."

The extra water made a difference. It nourished the garden, pastures, and fields. The family made butter and cheese and cured their own pork in barrels. They grew all of their potatoes

and vegetables and raised cattle, chickens, and turkeys. Each year Rob and the boys made their annual three-day trip to the grist mill in Kingston with a load of wheat and brought back flour and germade (wheat cereal) for the winter. They made trips by wagon to Escalante or Tropic for fruit. Other sources of food were fish, beef, venison, and mutton.

Farming was not the only Gleave family business. Irva recalled: "The older boys of the Gleave family made regular trips to Japp and George Henderson's sheep herd for dogie lambs.

They had a pack saddle and would cany the lambs home in the alforjas. By this slow process they got started in the sheep business. They later bought sheep and added to what they had, and at the time they left the valley [in 19361 they were running around two thousand head of sheep [on 20 thousand acres of government-owned grazing land]."

Rob ran the school bus to Widtsoe, picking up all the kids on both sides of the north end of the valley and taking them to school. Otto took his turn driving the bus. Many times the road would be drifted so deep with snow that the Gleave boys had to get up early in the morning to clear the road with horses and a scraper. The bus was a second-hand pickup the family purchased, and a cover was placed over the back.

Some 10 to 12 children from the north end of Johns Valley were bused to school during the years 1928 to 1935.

Rob and Willie ran a thresher and threshed for a number of people in the valley and also for all of Antimony. Rob still threshed for Antimony for a long while after the family moved to Kingston in 1936. He was gone for a month or so every fall.

The years at Burro Flat were good ones for the Gleave family. Rob's Reservoir impounded and delivered its quota of water each year, adding greatly to the bounty of the land. In 1927 the

Otto Gleave and granddaughters Mitzi and Michelle Millett by the cabin built in 1882 in Kingston Canyon by Otto's grandfather; Walter Gleave.

family built a new home on the east hill. It was located near a spring which allowed Rob to pipe in running water.

But there were moments of sadness as well as triumph. Levere, who was 15, died from a ruptured appendix on February 26, 1924. As the family had no car at that time, Rob Lay took him to Salina Hospital. He also brought him home in the casket. It was a terribly cold February. The only way to get to the cemetery was by bob sleigh. Uncle Willie was there as usual, and, in the bitter cold, he cemented the grave. Irva heard her mother say she almost lost her mind with grief.

The next additions to the family were two boys, Scott and Jack, then a girl, Bobbie, then Larene and Buddy. Larene died four days after birth. Buddy died at birth.

Uncle Willie lived just a mile from them and was the official toothpuller for the family and for many others in Johns Valley. He was also ' a carpenter, mechanic, surveyor, photographer, and jack-of-all-trades.

Unless there was a dance in Widtsoe, the family was usually at home in the evenings. Rob sang to the children and Maud recited her poetry. The boys participated in baseball, basketball, track, boxing, and wrestling. They were avid horsemen and loved to hunt and fish.

Leaving Johns Valley Widtsoe's days were numbered. The country around it simply could not sustain a population base. Despite an effort by the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station to promote dry farming, one by one the farmers began abandoning their places. In the words of Grant Nielsen, a resident of Widtsoe, "The area is one of those western regions which, because of climatic effects, are richly productive forLa cycle of years and then become unproductive for a cycle. In productive cycles population rushes in and settles--only to meet disaster when the unproductive ebb begins.

Widtsoe found itself caught in the ebb. Almost half of its 200 families were on relief. Many of them had not even paid taxes on their property for four or five years.

"The county, after taking over a few farms for taxes, found that it merely lost money by this practice, so the people were permitted to remain on their land. So the state took a hand. A mass meeting was called and a majority of the citizens voted to close out the town."

The year was 1936. With help from the Federal Resettlement Administration, the 200 families were able to dispose of their property and receive technical and financial assistance in

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Heroes and Hoopla: We coming the Boys Home from the Philippines 1899 Style

BY LYNDIA MCDOWELL CARTER

An overwhelming majority of Utahns championed the United States' involvement in the 1898 war with Spain. Religious, cultural, occupational, and economic differences that had long been divisive were cast aside as Utah citizens united to support the war effort. Young men from widely diverse backgrounds-Mormon farming communities, "gentile" rninin towns, and variegated neighborhoods in the urban centers of Salt Lake City and 0 gen-j oined the military in 1898. As soldiers, particularly the troops in li ht artille Batteries A and B assigned to the Philippines, they served their country we 1 and ma e the folks back home proud. In 1899 Utah welcomed its soldier boys home with an enormous celebration, complete with triumphal arches, processions, feasts, and ceremony. It was an event to be remembered.

In late April 1898 Governor Heber M. Wells called for 425 volunteers in response to the federal government's quota for troops from Utah. In less than a week the quota was filled. By war's end some 800 young men from Utah had volunteered and served in various branches of the military, according to historian Richard C. Roberts. Many of these enlistees in federal service came from Utah National Guard units.

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Utah volunteers during the Spanish-American War served primarily in engineering and cavalry units and artillery batteries. A special group of mounted riflemen from Utah comprised Troop I of Torrey's Roughriders. Though each man who enlisted served his country, only two artillery batteries participated in combat action. In addition, African-American soldiers in the regular Army, who made up the 24th Infantry Regiment and the 9th aamem Cavalry Regiment at Fort Douglas, performed relocating. The entire area-over 26,000 acres-combat and hospital duties in Cuba. was returned to the public domain as potential The men who manned the guns in Batteries grazing land.

A and B distinguished themselves in the PhilipThe G1eave to pine Islands. Led by Captain Richard W. Young March 3, 1936-This was Otto's and Captain Frank Grant, the batteries were musgust 30, 1936, Charlie died as a result of an auto tered in on May 9, 1898, and received some accident in Kingston Canyon. He died onVirgi17s training at camp K~~~on the F~~~~~~~l~~ miliand was buried in the Widtsoe tary reservation before leaving for Sari Francisco In time, and Maud come on May 20. They sailed for the Philippines in to rest in the Widtsoe cemetery as well. Except mid-~uneand by mid-July had disembarked on for a rush of activity on Memorial Day, the place the shore of Manila Bay. Fighting was heavy lies mute and Not far away, howevaround Manila, and the Utah artillery batteries er, Rob's Reservoir, so named by Gus Twitchell quickly became involved in the action. Manning who bought Rob's water rights in 19363 is a vitheir field guns, they helped to repel Spanish brant home to fish and other aquatic wildlife* attacks on the American lines during the last day Rainbow trout, up to three pounds in size, strike ~~l~ and the first two weeks of A ~ at brass spinners then jump and splash as excited according to historian orsonwhitney. on anglers work to land their prize.

August 13 they aided in the bombardment of The road to the reservoir is not in much betF~~~sari ~~~~~i~ de ~ b and ~ the d spanish ter condition today than when first hacked out in trenches, resulting in the capture of ~ ~and ~ 1923, but outdoor enthusiasts still find their way the defeat of the spanish army. spanish troops to that special place. surrendered on August 14, 1898.

Rob Gleave would be proud.

But for Batteries A and B the war was not yet over.

They became part of the occupational Mrs. Loftus is the public information person for force.

Richard W. Young, now Major Young, was Sevier School District, Richfield. This article is based on personal conversations with her father, Otto Wellington named chief However, the Filipinos did not like AmeriGleave, and accounts by Grant Nielsen, Mable Woodard can control any better than Spanish control. In Nielsen, and Irva Gleave Sudweeks in Johns Valley, The February 1899 the Philippine Insurrection broke Way We Saw It (Springville: Art City Publishing, 1971).

Triumphal arch on Main Street sketched by Salt Lake Tribune artist Charles V Worthingtonfrom Kenyon Hotel.

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out as native Filipinos fought for independence.

The Utah artillery batteries assisted U.S. troops in many engagements with the insurgents. Captain Grant commanded several gunboats that patrolled Manila Bay and various rivers and lakes.

The Utah soldiers with their artillery gave valorous and efficient support to the U.S. Army on land as well. During the eleven months Batteries A and B were stationed in the Philippines they fought in more than one hundred battles or skirmishes, by Roberts's calculation. Whitney listed eight men killed in battle, plus five deaths due to disease in the Philippines. Two others died later.

Fourteen men were wounded.

The Utah soldiers left the Philippines on June 24, 1899, arriving in San Francisco July 3 1.

For over two weeks they camped at the Presidio, awaiting their back pay and discharge papers.

Barraged by journalists and paperwork and with little to do, the Utahns bided their time until they boarded a chartered train for home on August 17.

Meanwhile, the folks in Salt Lake City were planning a grand homecoming for their heroes. With all the exuberance and excess typical of the 1890s, they designed a celebration they deemed worthy of the boys who had won fame and honor. For weeks the city's three major newspapers fanned interest by elaborate coverage of the troops' experiences in the Philippines, what was happening at the Presidio, the planning

committee meetings, and the progress of preparations for the gala. Throughout Utah, in the soldiers' hometowns, the people also devised homecoming festivities. In this decade of lavish and exciting celebrations, including Utah's statehood festivities and the Pioneer Jubilee, the Welcome Home for Batteries A and B followed the trend.

The men discharged earlier from the other Utah volunteer units in the Spanish-American War were invited to participate and receive honor and recognition as well.

Under the supervision of an executive committee, various subcommittees raised funds, planned the grand parade, outlined the formal ceremony and speeches, designed and constructed three triumphal arches, and arranged a delicious feast for the troops and dignitaries.

Activity moved at a frantic pace.

The Oregon Short Line and the Rio Grande Western Railroad caught the spirit, scheduling many special trains and offering lower rates to bring huge crowds from all over the state to attend the extravaganza. The Oregon Short Line volunteered to transport the troops from Ogden to Salt Lake City free. Hotels and boarding houses were booked to capacity. Crowds were expected to be second in number only to the 1897 Pioneer Jubilee.

The most conspicuous evidence of the forthcoming celebration was the construction of three

triumphal arches: one at the Oregon Short Line Depot, one at the intersection of Main Street and Second South, and one at the entrance to Liberty Park. The arch at the depot was only temporary, but the park arch was intended to be a permanent memorial. The huge Main Street arch contained 1,300 electric lights and was draped lavishly with bunting and flags. A large turret crowned the center, and small turrets graced the four comers.

Workers fought against time, completing the grandiose structure at midnight before the great procession the next morning.

The decorating committee urged all businesses along the parade route to decorate. Bunting and flags were to be draped everywhere possible.

All children were encouraged to wave flags.

The parade committee outlined a route that wound through the city from the Oregon Short Line Depot to Liberty Park, passing through all the arches, of course. General W. H. Penrose of the U.S. Army would serve as grand marshal of the parade, which would include not only the men of Batteries A and B but all the Utah volunteer units, plus military, fraternal, and community bands, soldiers from the regular Army, and veterans of the Civil War. Governor Wells wanted the troops to march in procession directly from the train to the park before greeting their families. General Penrose warned him against it, reportedly saying, "I tell you Governor, that you must allow the boys a few minutes. I've been there. If I had been away to Manila for fifteen months and my wife was waiting at the depot to see me-well, I'd break ranks and stack arms-that's all."

The Utah troops waiting in San Francisco, reading about the plans in the Utah newspapers they received, had a few things to say in favor of a short parade. The Salt Lake Tribune of August 7 quoted one as stating, "Just let them take us up town to Main Street and after review have us break ranks.. .." Another said, "If they don't there will be a whole lot of falling out, not from fatigue, but because there are some people there that we have been wanting to see for a long while, and when we catch sight of them-well, the sooner the parade ends the better." The committee, determined to carry its impressive plans through, overruled both General Penrose and the men in uniform. The troops were not to break ranks to greet their loved ones, and the parade route would be lengthy.

Controversy erupted when the program committee chose to have lovely young ladies from selected communities pin special sterling silver medals on the returning servicemen.

Working out a ceremony of oratory and music was simple in comparison to satisfying the communities that had sent boys to the war but were not allowed to send charming young women to participate in the award ceremony. Several excluded communities voiced their protests. At last, as a compromise, the number of girls was raised from thirty to forty-five. The committee planned the program and award ceremony to accompany dinner in the park.

The women of the Red Cross took charge of the banquet. They planned a menu of fried spring chicken, Saratoga chips, cold boiled ham, veal loaf, pickles, cheese, Vienna rolls, pineapple sherbet, cake, coffee, and fruit-a far cry from army rations. As evidence of multi-community involvement, Logan would furnish the cheese and Brigham City would provide the fruit. The Utah National Guard supplied the banquet tents, and workers set up 750 feet of tables to seat the 1,250 expected guests.

Saturday, August 19, began early for the people of Ogden. The special train carrying the soldiers would arrive first at their city. This, of course, pleased local residents since rivalry with the larger city to the south was intense in those days. In Lester Park a wonderful breakfast provided by the Red Cross awaited Batteries A and B. A massive crowd of perhaps 10,000 gathered at the Union Depot to greet the heroes. Unfortunately, the train was hours behind schedule.

When at last it arrived, happy pandemonium reigned as soldiers and their families greeted one another at the Ogden depot where no rules forbade such activity. Soon the troops "attacked" the park, and as the Ogden Standard reported, "They stormed the breakfast tables, guards and all, and the capitulation was unconditional. They surrounded the tables and they wreaked havoc with the commissary department." Governor Wells and other dignitaries welcomed them home. The citizens of Ogden cheered as Batteries A and B paraded back to the depot.

As the train left Ogden, Salt Lake City was alerted. Whistles blew and bells rang all over the city to tell the citizens and visitors to congregate along the parade route to welcome the Utah volunteers as they arrived. Governor Wells had declared the day a state holiday; therefore, most businesses were closed as the people thronged the streets to give their "soul-stirring, lung-splitting, heart throbbing" welcome. The Deseret News described the event as "a perfect delirium of greeting, a frenzy of popular enthusiasm.''

The area around the depot swarmed with s~ectators,many of whom had been there since

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early morning waiting for the delayed train. The police and mounted aides held the crowd back so the cavalry units could form ranks. When the train at last pulled into the depot, most of the crowd was kept away; even most sweethearts, wives, and mothers had to save their embraces, although a few soldiers sneaked a hug. The troops got in the parade line in their respective places, Batteries A and B surrounded by units from Fort Douglas, the Civil War Veterans, military bands, and other Utah volunteer units. A carriage transported the wounded servicemen.

Floats and marching bands followed.

The procession moved along South Temple and turned south on Main Street as they passed through the huge, cheering crowd. From rooftops, windows, and balconies, flags and handkerchiefs waved. It took nearly three-quarters of an hour for the parade to pass the Desevet News building (then on the southwest corner of Main and South Temple). A float carried the medal-pinning damsels all dressed in white with blue and red sashes and ribbons in their hair. The Elks Lodge provided a colorful float, but the most interesting float was likely the one bearing Major Grant's alligator from the Philippines.

Thirteen-year-old Patrick Donahue (some sources call him Robbie) also attracted special attention. He had run away from Park City and stowed away on a boat from San Francisco to Manila. He joined the Utah batteries there, and they adopted him as their mascot. As such, he marched in the parade.

A crowd of some 70,000 lined the streets.

As the Utah troops passed under the triumphal arch on Main Street, little girls showered flowers down upon their heads. At Fourth South the procession passed the reviewing stand. Having rushed back from Ogden, Governor Wells and Arch at OSL Depot by Charles V Worthington.

other important political, religious, and military dignitaries occupied the stand as the parade marched in review.

At the grandstand in Liberty Park ceremonies began with musical selections and numerous speakers paying tribute to the men in uniform.

Major Grant presented to Governor Wells the faded, tattered red guidons Batteries A and B had carried in battle. Though the lovely girls in white were eager to pin the medals on the chests of all the Utah volunteers, the ceremony was spoiled.

The press of people around the grandstand prevented the ceremony from talung place there, and so it was moved to the dinner tables. Sections were reserved for particular units, and the badges were organized in boxes and envelopes according to units; so the plan would have worked well except for a small mistake. When the soldiers approached the tables, they waited for orders where to sit. A. J. Malloy, one of General Penrose's aides, announced, "Oh, take seats anywhere you can find them." The hungry men did just that and began to eat. The lovely, but frustrated, young maidens searched the tables for their men, but could locate and pin medals on only about half of them. The rest had to receive their medals later in the governor's office or by mail in their home towns. After all the controversy surrounding the choosing of the young ladies, the event proved ironically disappointing.

No problems occurred during the feasting, however. The highly organized ladies of the Red Cross handled the dinner smoothly. Some 250 young women efficiently served the thousand hungry diners.

The festivities did not end on Saturday at Liberty Park. Celebrations awaited the soldiers in their home towns all over Utah on the following Monday, August 21. Each community that sent young men off to war prepared a herot's homecoming, with parades, programs, oratory, music, banquets, and grand balls. Many towns even constructed their own triumphal arches. In Park City, activities honoring the volunteers from Park City, Heber, and Coalville filled the day. Bunting abounded, and the town was lavishly decorated with the elegant triumphal arch the center of attention. Naturally, young Robbie Donahue, the runaway mascot, was a featured attraction, but his immediate concern was to see his mother. For Park City, the crowd remembered their manners remarkably well. Not one single arrest was necessary, even with all the mine workers in town for the day. Coalville hosted its own celebration the next day. Plain City on the shore of the Great Salt Lake honored Robert Stewart of Battery B with a

souvenir medal, program, and banquet on Tuesday. On Monday, August 21, in Logan, 15,000 people from all over Cache County greeted their heroes at the train depot and formed a grand procession to the Tabernacle where a program honored the veterans.

In Manti a throng greeted the returning troops at the depot and escorted them to a reviewing stand where the soldiers watched a grand procession in their honor. In Ephraim the reception and program went well until near the end when a fire broke out in Hans Breinholt's farm yard and spread to the barnyard of his neighbor, Thomas Peterson. The crowd rushed to put out the blaze, but both farms suffered heavy losses. After the excitement died down, the dinner and ball took place. Breinholt's son Oscar, one of the Utah volunteers, and five other soldiers from Ephraim received gold watches. The towns of Gunnison, Fayette, and Centerfield celebrated together in Gunnison to honor their three volunteers who had fought in the Philippines.

Never before had Gunnison seen such a grand holiday or been so cheerfully decorated.

The mining town of Eureka hosted two days of celebrating. Townspeople greeted their returning soldiers and the band, which had marched in the Salt Lake parade, on Sunday night and then continued activities the next day.

Picture buttons honoring the memory of Richard Ralph who had died on the way home from Manila were distributed. In Carbon County people from Scofield, Price, and Helper assembled at Castle Gate to help welcome the boys home. A highlight of the parade there were two "cannons" assembled from mine props in joyous imitation of the light artillery of the Utah batteries. A mule carried one, and the other was mounted on a cart.

The welcome-home demonstration in Kaysville lasted from one in the afternoon until midnight. Sergeant Meredith, who had brought home a pair of monkeys from Manila, was cheered so much by the crowd that he could hardly give his speech. People from all over Morgan County congregated at the little town of Peterson to pay tribute to the two boys from Milton and Peterson who had served. A procession of carriages and a band escorted the boys to the opera house for the program and dinner.

Spanish Fork, Provo, and Pleasant Grove held celebrations in Utah County. After a program in the Tabernacle, the volunteers from Provo were taken to the Provo Lake Resort for dinner and a relaxing afternoon. At the grand ball that evening the volunteers were given a gift of money to help start their civilian lives. The

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George Teasdale Echersley, 1942.

Eckersley m p 5 e ~ e dhis first pswer plant in Loa, Wayne County, in August 1929, just in time to provide lights and electric power to a traveling circus. When the towns east of Loa asked him to bring electricity to their communities, Eckersley supervised the construction of a power plant on the Hiskey ranch southwest of Torrey on the Fremont River. Photographs courtesy of the Eckersley family and Clay M. Robinson who vividly recalls the changes wrought by the Torrey power plant.

Spanish Fork heroes were met at Springville and escorted home to a banquet and program. The gold badges had not arrived on time, so another ceremony later in the week was necessary for their presentation. Four hundred Sunday school children dressed in red, white, and blue and arranged in the shape of the American flag welcomed the Pleasant Grove veterans by singing the "Star Spangled Banner." The welcoming committee treated the entire town to a banquet.

The festivities also continued in Salt Lake City through the rest of the week. LDS wards honored their servicemen with their own special activities. Saltair Resort hosted a soldiers day on Thurdsay, August 24.

The men who volunteered for the SpanishAmerican War, particularly the soldiers of light artillery Batteries A and B, brought pride to Utah and won the hearts of its citizens. The people abundantly expressed their appreciation and admiration with their grand welcome-home extravaganzas. Such was the hoopla for the heroes.

Mrs. Carter, a former history instructor, is the author of a forthcoming book on the Martin handcart company.

Let There Be Light

When Electricity Came to Torrey, Utah

BY CLAY M. ROBINSON

The people prayed: Let there be light. But it was not God who brought electric light into Wayne County in remote south-central Utah. It was George Teasdale Eckersley. Of course, with considerable assistance fiom God. Prayers of the people, along with prayers of Mr. Eckersley, surely must have helped in founding the People's Power and Light Company with its humble inception near the town of Loa and later with its small hydroelectric plant on the Fremont River a couple of miles southwest of the village of Torrey.

The time was 1929-30, and I was a small boy in Torrey, in the red-rock country of Utah.

My brother, Max, a couple of years older, and I were wide eyed with wonder and anticipation.

Now we could push a button or pull a chain and, like magic, an electric bulb hanging from the ceiling would light up a room. No more carrying the old smelly coal-oil lamp fiom room to room with spooky shadows cavorting on the walls. No more straining our eyes while getting our lessons for school.

So we thought!

But our mother-whom I affectionately called Mums-was somewhat skeptical. She was also practical. She did not throw out the old coal-oil lamp as some more optimistic residents did. Nor did she put away the candles.

"We'll keep these where we can get at them," she said, "just in case.''

That was wise.

When January rolled around the night temperatures often dropped below zero. Water flowing through the canal from the Fremont River into the power plant would turn to ice, curtailing the stream. The generating turbine would slow. The electric bulbs in our home I would flicker. Light in the room would fade into a twilight, brighten momentarily, then zoom into total darkness.

"Oh, no!"Max, a serious student poring over school books at the kitchen kble, always looked bleakly on those blackouts while I felt elated at a possible Generator and diesel standby monitored by Marvzn Forsyth, one excuse for not getting my school lessons. of several managers of the Torrey electric power facility.

I was always disappointed when Mums, a small, energetic teacher in the Torrey school, would bring out the old standby coal-oil lamp.

"I just knew it would happen," she said on that first blackout, as she struck a match, lit the wick, replaced the glass chimney, and set the lamp in the center of the table.

As the sallow yellow light from the old lamp saturated the pages of my book, my hope for a nostudy excuse faded. Yet, I was thankful in a way for the emergency backup of the old lamp, for Mums was my teacher. She took no nonsense from her students, especially when the student was her own child.

But I loved her dearly and respected her. So did all the other boys and girls of the third, fourth, and fifth grades whom my mother taught in one big room of the red sandstone schoolhouse.

Only briefly in the summer of 1925 had we ever experienced the luxury of electric lights in a home.

That was in a rented house in Salt Lake City where we lived for a few months while my father and mother attended the University of Utah to upgrade their teaching certificates. So we were elated at the coming of electric power and lights into Torrey.

When spring came around, the wonders of the new power plant at Torrey inspired Max and me to seek a tour of its interior. We mounted the little white desert pony we shared and off we galloped to the

I d

Fremont River.

One of Mr. Eckersley's hired men, the young powerplant overseer-also the maintenance man and janitor-was big, genial, easy-going, and very slow-speahng. We knew him well and liked him. He was proud of his position, for not everyone had the brains and the technical know-how to run an electric power plant. We sort of likened him to a second Thomas A. Edison. He was more than anxious to give two eager young boys a first-class tour of the interior of the plant. So he led the way into the control room. The loud whir of the turbine overwhelmed us. But we looked with glistening eyes and listened with open ears as our guide proudly told us about the machine components needed in generating electricity.

Pointing to two large, bare-metal terminals, he turned to us with an inviting smile. "Touch-that," he said in his slow drawl as he showed his teeth through a broad grin. My brother, always anxious to obey, reached out a hand and our guide slowly added: "and it.. .will...hll you."

Max, in fright, quickly withdrew his hand which had come within inches of the deadly points. I swallowed hard and felt a chill through my body. I was ever so thankful that our guide had saved the life of my brother. I loved my big brother, although my fist did not always convey that love.

The little hydroelectric plant not only brought electriciClay M. Robinson, age eight, and ty into Torrey, it also brightened other towns of the countyWhitey, in 1929.

Grover, Teasdale, Bicknell, Lyman, Loa, and Fremont. Loa, the county seat, already had a limited experience in the electrical age. Mr. Eckersley earlier had installed a small generator at a water-powered flour mill he operated nearby. But that generator was eventually retired as the Torrey power plant dimmed and glowed its way to success.

The people of Torrey were so grateful for light that they sponsored a celebration in honor of the man who pioneered the People's Power and Light Company. George Teasdale Eckersley and his family were seated in the honor rows near the stage in Torrey's red rock church. On the stage two hefty matrons did a little song and dance. I remember a part of that act: "What's the matter with Teasdale (friends called Mr. Eckersley by his middle name), he's all right," sang one woman. Then the other responded: "Yes, he's a prince of a feller-for he brought the lights into Torrey." Symbolic gestures, stage devices, and lights helped convey the idea. The audience responded warmly.

As time passed-with off-again on-again electricity during the winter months-people, while still most appreciative of the venture and of Mr. Eckersley, made little humorous remarks. One man said he always kept a box of matches handy in wintertime so he could strike a match to see if the electric lights were still on. And my mother, always seeing the funny side of life, once wrote out a monthly payment check of $1.90 (equivalent to about a $22 power bill in the 1990s) to "The People's Light and Shadow Company." I still have that canceled check. I am sure Mr. Eckersley chuckled as he endorsed it and sent it to the bank.

Despite its few shortcomings, the People's Power and Light Company changed the lives of the men, women, and children of Torrey and Wayne County. My parents soon bought a table-top radio for $26 from

Hattie Robinson (Mums) made out the checks in her husband's name. Right: Ellis E. Robinson listens to radio.

the Montgomery Ward catalog. Radio became the evening enjoyment for the whole family. Max and I bustled to finish our chores of helping care for the animals in the corral, getting in the firewood and lundling (we called the lundling "chips"), and fetching in the pails of water from the cistern-all so we could tune in to Amos and Andy, Fibber McGee and Mollie, Gangbusters, Inner Sanctum, The Lone range^ and other fine programs.

With our parents, we boys would sit around the radio listening and picturing the actions in our minds just like people of today do with their television sets. Only we used our imaginations.

But the electricity and the radio got me into trouble. Deeply engrossed in a late afternoon radio program, I had overlooked my chore of getting in the chips. Mums discovered the dereliction later, after it had grown as black as hades outdoors. Neither a star nor a moon flickered, and the light from the house windows did not reach the path to the woodpile. Still, my own dear mother demanded that 1-1 who was dreadfully afraid of the dark-go out to the spooky woodpile and gather a box full of chips so my father could start the stove fires the next morning.

I protested not only to Mums but to my father and to any unseen powers above. I stomped and cried.

Why, there could be ghosts and all lunds of demons out there that would swallow a little boy whole without even chewing. No ma'am, I would not go out that door, leaving behind the security of bright electric lights.

Mums had an answer to that problem. She took me by the arm and marched me out of the house.

Despite my bellowing, she locked the door.

"You're not coming into this house again until you get those chips," she called through the door.

"Now you get the best pitch-pine and cedar. And don't scrape up any dirt."

After several minutes of blubbering and stomping I decided to sacrifice my life just to make Mums feel sorry she had fed me to the Monsters of Darkness.

Carefully, with pounding heart and eyes constantly shifting, I stalked the several hundred feet to the woodpile. Ever alert for dragons, tigers, and other flesh eaters, I gathered the bigger pieces of chipped wood. Then I grabbed up the half-full box and ran like a scared rabbit for the house. Never again would I neglect getting my chores done before dark. Well, except for the time when I failed to get in the night's supply of water from the old cistern.

Again Mums forced me into the dark. Cautiously, I opened the cistern lid and attached the bucket bail to the iron snap on the rope. After drawing up the pail full of water I ran fast for the house. Mums joked that we had the only running water in town.

With the coming of electricity into town Mums graduated from the old gasoline-powered, outside Maytag clothes washer to a new General Electric machine that found a place in the htchen. The Maytag had seemed like such Hattie Robinson. a big step up from the old hand-powered washer with its wooden tank and cow-tit-like agitators. But advancing to an electric clothes washer with a powered wringer-boy, that was like going from stone age to aerospace. However, I did miss the old muscle-building, hand-powered washer-missed it like a sting on the rear end if I didn't work the handle fast enough to turn the agitators.

The coming of the electric age also changed the way we saw motion pictures. No longer did Mr. Garr, the movie man who came once a month to the Torrey church house, have to tote along a gasolinepowered generator. Now he merely had to plug in an electric cord and his projector, from its special place in the attic above the foyer, would come to life.

Vividly, I recall how thnlled we luds were. While the adults sat on the long wooden benches we luds would plop down on our bellies close to the screen. We would whoop and holler and clap our hands as Buck Jones or Hoot Gibson or Tom Mix rode a high-prancing horse onto the screen before us. Then we would settle down to shelling and eating our pine nuts while the movie rolled.

Torrey, far from Mr. Garr's headquarters in Ogden, must have been the last town on his circuit.

Invariably the old, worn film would break at an exciting point-maybe about the time our hero was trying to rescue the heroine who had been tied to a railroad track in the path of a speeding train. A flap-flap plop-plop sound would come down into the audience, and we would see the lights go on up in the projection room. We luds, in unison, would send up a loud, protesting groan. Then we would wrestle, eat pine nuts, or chatter like chipmunks while Mr. Garr tinkered with the film splicing.

More than once the film was damaged so badly that he could not fix it. But Mr. Garr had a solution for that difficulty. Onto the screen would come a terse, hastily penned synopsis: "Buck Jones saves

the young lady by riding fast toward the train and flagging it down. They marry and live happily ever after. Thank you folks. Don't forget the next movie-a month from now."

The lights would come on and someone would grumble: "If I'd knowed it wuz gonna break down I'd a not give that bottle of peaches for gettin' in."

But all was forgotten and forgiven by the time Mr. Garr rolled into town again with the big screen tied onto the fender of his car and the back seat piled high with projection equipment, a bedding roll, and many items he had accepted along his route for admission to his shows: honey, eggs, bottles of fruit, or whatever the good folks along the way could afford. Money was scarce.

There were many other changes in our lives as a result of Mr. Eckersley's electrical power.

Electric motors turned the grinding wheels to sharpen axes and mowing machine knives. And some more affluent townspeople even installed electrically driven pumps to bring running water from their cisterns into their houses.Yet our only running water came when I had to go in the dark to fetch a pailful.

Mr. Eckersley remained at the helm of the People's Power and Light Company until December 1941. Then he sold to the newly established GarKane Power Association for the great sum of $35,000-about $385,000 in 1990s money.

By the time of the sale I had gone through three and a half years of college with my graduation set for June 1942. I had married and was no longer afraid of the dark-just afraid of my new wife. And I had registered for the World War I1 draft. By the fall of 1942 I would be deeply involved in Army Signal Corps training.

Mr. Eckersley went on to become a real estate agent in the Payson, Utah, area and later an owner of a modem dairy in the same vicinity.

There in the summer of 1946, after I had come back from the army, I again encountered him. As editor of a state farm magazine, I took pictures of him and his dairy and interviewed him for a feature story. He lived into his nineties, having made a name for himself as a pioneer in electricity, real estate, and dairying. But best of all he would be remembered by all who knew him as a worthy citizen, with compassion for his fellow people.

When he passed on to the world of tomorrow I suspect that a new star was added to heaven--one lighted by George Teasdale Eckersley.

Mr. Robinson lives in West Jordan, Utah.

Provo's Infamous Goddess of Liberty Contest of 1894

BY D. ROBERT CARTER The people of Provo pride themselves on having one of the biggest, most exciting Fourth of July celebrations in the country. America's Freedom Festival at Provo features, among other things, a baby contest, a golf tournament, a beauty contest, a children's parade, a historic buildings tour, several concerts, a picnic in the park, a balloon festival, a Grand Parade, an extensive fireworks display, and a glitzy evening program billed as The Stadium of Fire. Despite this extravagant modern hype and activity, it was an unadorned, old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration in 1894 and its accompanying Goddess of Liberty contest that provided Provo with one of the most intensely interesting and exciting Independence Day celebrations that it has ever witnessed.

The 1894 celebration began in the usual way. The city council appointed a general committee that created several subcommittees to plan and carry out each of the day's activities. The holiday usually began with the firing of salutes followed by what would be considered today a rather lackluster parade. An orgy of oration in the Tabernacle, a picnic lunch, and an afternoon of contests and activities held on the West Square (Pioneer Park) and at the Provo Lake Resort on Utah Lake normally completed the day's events.

The parade subcommittee appointed three prominent women, Ellen Jakeman, Wilmoth White, and Annie Jones Atkin, to oversee the selection of the Goddess of Liberty, who customarily provided the crowning touch to the elaborate (for those days) Car of State float. The committee usually selected the woman to portray this model of femininity, but this year, to leave no cause for

jealousy, they gave the public the opportunity to vote for this most important of female personages.

In making this change the committee unwittingly ignited a drama of operatic proportions To simplify voting, the committee enlisted the help of the press. The women presented their plan to the Daily Enquirer, Provo's Republican voice, which printed an official ballot in its June 22 issue. The next day two of the committee women visited the Evening Dispatch, Provo's Democratic paper. The editor and his staff, miffed that the Enquirer had been allowed to run the ballot the day before, questioned the women. The editor asked if the contest was open to the public.

The answer was an emphatic, "It is." The newsmen suggested that the contest might be less complicated if the committee picked ten women and let the public vote for their favorite. The ladies again emphasized that the contest was open to all women except "unknown and objectionable" persons. The Dispatch printed the ballot that evening in its June 23 issue The competition would close Saturday, June 30, 1894. People could vote as often as they wanted, but they had to use the ballots published in the two newspapers.

The competition got off to a humdrum start.

The June 25 Dispatch revealed that five women had received a grand total of 32 votes. The next day, however, the contest suddenly became more interesting. Unsubstantiated rumors began to waft about town that votes had been cast at the Dispatch office for a young woman, Edna Twelves, who did not have the approval of the committee. Its three members claimed she was an "impure woman." By the end of that day an ex-

panded field of nine contestants had received 173 votes. Two were nose to nose: May Brown with 5 1 votes and Gertie Thurrnan with 45. Edna Twelves was not far behind with 27 votes.

On June 27, J. B. Pemberton called at the Dispatch office "highly indignant that his wife's name should appear as one of the contestants for Goddess of Liberty.'' Even though she had received votes strictly in accordance with the rules of the contest, her name was withdrawn from the contest with the permission of the committee.

Pemberton apparently looked with disfavor upon his wife's name appearing on a list that included the name of a woman of questionable character.

Astonishment and shock must have strolled the streets of Provo hand in hand on June 28 when the evening issue of the Dispatch came off the press. Readers likely skipped the front page news in a frenzied search for the latest Goddess of Liberty contest results, and they were not disappointed. Edna Twelves, whose wholesomeness was questioned by the committee and the Enquirer, led the other contestants by an astonishing number of votes-1,042; her nearest rival, Gertie Thurman, had a mere 189.

It did not take the town long to find the reason for this amazing turn of events. Edna's boyfriend was Logan Paul, the feisty, wiry, young cigar maker whose establishment was located in Billy Wilson's saloon and near the Dispatch office on Academy Avenue and whose father was chief of police in Salt Lake City. Paul had submitted several votes for Edna to the Enquirer which the paper had refused to accept. The rather prissy and somewhat self-righteous Enquirer even refused to

Turn-of-the-centuryparade in Provo. The Goddess of Liberty and her attendants, Truth and Justice, may well have ridden in a similar carriage during the July 4 festivities. Photo courtesy of Nanalee Johnson Stratton.

list Twelves's name among the contestants. The enraged Paul then ordered 3,000 issues of the rival Dispatch and proceeded to fill in her name and hand in the ballots to that newspaper's office.

Apparently, he had only been able to fill in about a thousand ballots the first day.

The two rival newspapers were always anxious to battle each other, and the contest gave them the chance. The Goddess of Liberty Committee and the Enquirer lurched into offensive gear. The next issue of that paper refused to include Twelves's name in the contest. By so doing, it cast doubt on her virtue, assaulted her character, and tarnished her reputation. The paper also admonished the populace to "Vote for the people's choice for Goddess of Liberty, and ignore the saloon candidates." The Enquirel; in effect, had labeled contestants whose names appeared only in the Dispatch as "saloon candidates." On Thursday, June 28, Mrs. Atlun visited the Dispatch office again an informed the paper that its name and th date needed to be printed on its ballots At the beginning of the contest th newspapers had not been required t print their names or the date on the ba lots, and by this time several thousand ballots without that information had been used by voters.

On Friday the Dispatch received an ambiguously worded card demanding that Twelves be struck from its list of contestants because she was an objectionable person. It had been signed by many people, including Edna's father, Orson Twelves, who later claimed that his signature had been inadvertent. The paper also received a letter from Edna stating that she was of legal age and could act for herself. She steadfastly refused to authorize the withdrawal of her name from the contest. The Dispatch likewise refused to eliminate her as a candidate. The day continued in this combative vein. The committee demanded that the Dispatch remove any notice of the contest from its pages and announced in the Enquirer that no ballot from the Dispatch bearing a date later than June 28 would be counted. Moreover, no vote without a paper's name on it would be accepted.

These actions by the committee effectively canceled most of the votes that had been cast through the Dispatch office. Ignoring the committee's demand, the beleaguered paper pugnaciously published an update on the contest that evening, showing Twelves ahead by the wide margin of 3,054 to Thurman's 192.

The contest ended abruptly on Saturday.

Because feelings in Provo ran so strong, the gen-

era1 committee refused to abide by the results tabulated in either newspaper. It arbitrarily announced that Gertie Thurman would be that year's Goddess of Liberty. Twelves may have lost the contest, but public sentiment seemed to be changing in her favor as indignation mounted against the actions of the committee and the Enquirer.

The Dispatch announced, "It now appears that she will come out of the fire of scandalous rumor that has been waged against her unscathed." The Enquirer retaliated by announcing that the committee acted as it did because Twelves was the candidate of saloon men and gamblers. The Enquirer also insulted the committee headed by Mrs. Athn, accusing it of cowardice for discontinuing the contest and choosing the goddess without public expression.

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Right: James Clove, editor of the Provo Enquirer.

From Pictorial Provo (1907).Left: Samuel S. Jones, father of Mrs. Annie J. Atkin. LDS Church Historical Department.

With the end of the contest, many people expected life in Provo to return to normal, but the fuse on the fireworks had been lit and that Saturday evening an explosive display began. John Graham, the manager of the Enquire6 and James Clove, its editor, passed in front of the Occidental saloon several times on the way to the post office that sultry day. Logan Paul was at work there manufacturing cigars, and he was still smarting from the way those newspapermen had treated his sweetheart. On one of their trips past the saloon, Paul stepped up to Clove and asked him if he had written the offending articles. Graham said that he was responsible for them, not Clove, and both men moved off rapidly.

When Clove and Graham returned from the post office, Paul, who had a slight but solid build, again confronted Clove, a rather robust man, and in a low tone demanded an apology. Again Clove moved off, but this time Paul stayed with him. As

the two approached the Dispatch office the newsmen inside heard Paul say in a slightly raised voice, "You won't, won't you? Damn you, take that." Paul struck Clove a staggering blow just below the left eye and continued to pummel his face as the much larger man retreated across a ditch. Meanwhile, Graham had moved in behind Paul and lucked him back across the ditch. A crowd of men rushed out of the saloon to watch the melee and support Paul, but at that moment Clove reached into his coat pocket, drew out a revolver, swung it from side to side, and finally fixed his aim on Paul. The crowd ran pellmell back into the saloon. Left alone to face the gun, Paul bravely stood up to Clove and cried out, "Oh, damn your gun. I don't care for it. You are too big a coward to turn it loose any how. Shoot, why don't you?" As torrents of blood streamed over Clove's blackening eye, down his face, and onto his shirt, Graham took him by the arm, and the two journalists reeled toward a safe haven.

The final pyrotechnic display took place only a few moments later just a block and a half away. Samuel S. Jones's daughter, Annie Jones Atlun, had served on the committee to select the Goddess of Liberty. Jones, or S.S. as he was commonly called about town, was an English handcart pioneer of 1856, a survivor of the Martin company disaster who later became Provo's mayor. He and his daughter were both prominent merchants.

Graham's paper, the Enquirer, had printed some uncomplimentary things about Annie and her committee that had riled the proud father. A tense confrontation between Annie Atkin and Graham had occurred earlier that morning in her store, and her father's wrath smoldered. When he read the evening Enquirer; which voiced additional complaints about how the goddess contest had been handled, his temper boiled over. He placed a monkey wrench in his pocket and went loolung for Graham. He found him on First West between the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Hines's drug store.

When conversation failed to bring satisfaction, Jones, a rather large man, pulled the wrench from his pocket and took a roundhouse swing at Graham's head. Fortunately he missed or Graham would have been the next subject for a coroner's jury, and the people of Provo would have been looking for another mayoral candidate. City Marshal Knight, who happened to be passing nearby, seized the wrench from Jones's fist just as Graham's hand furtively glided into his coat pocket. That ended the fireworks for the night.

Later the Dispatch summed up the fracas with this prime example of journalistic poetry:

We have two journalist (?) in town-Two pugilists with gall, Who tried to 'do up' Mr. Jones And Mr. Logan Paul.

But in that they made an awful muss As in everything else they do, And for their little blunder They right smartly had to rue.

Jirnrnie was no match at all.

For the man that he picked out; He was so demolished that He didn't know what he was about.

One hit from Logan's number five Brought him down just like fun; And the great big coward that he is Had to pull his gun.

But then he didn't use it-He took to the sidewalk; That great big ox is fast becoming The public laughing stock.

Logan Paul promptly gave himself up to police officers and pleaded guilty to assault in Commissioner Dudley's court. He paid twenty dollars (his friends raised the money) for the privilege of reshaping Clove's face into a beefsteak.

Graham went to city justice Wedgwood and swore out a complaint on S.S. Jones whose attorney appeared before the justice on July 2 and explained that S.S. felt chagrined for letting his temper run away with him. Wedgwood imposed a fifteen dollar fine that Jones promptly paid.

In city court Paul preferred a charge against Clove for carrying a concealed weapon. It was later dismissed on a technicality. The 1877 city ordinance headed "Concealed Weapons" did not

"Antiques and Horribles" like L. Owen Smoat and Ben Bullock, garbed as a pioneer couple, were a popular parade feature in Provo. Courtesy of Fern Smoot Taylor.

The White Stone Men

BY BLODWEN P. OLSON

In 1880 Edward Lloyd Parry took a claim on 368 acres of oolitic limestone deposits northeast of Ephraim, which became the Ephraim quarry, and formed a company called E. L. Parry and Sons, the White Stone Men. In 1888 the Manti quarry was added to the Ephraim claim. When E. L. Parry died in 1906 the company became Parry Bros. Stone Company with Bernard Parry as manager.

In 1882 the first stone from the quarry was shipped to Elias Morris, a dealer in stone in Salt Lake City. George P. Billings was paid $30 for the quarry work and $20 for hauling the stone to Wales, north and west of Ephraim, to be put on a railroad car.

Morris paid $1 16 (60 cents per cubic foot) for the stone which ranged in size from 157 to 257 cubic feet, according to E. L. Parry's account book. Almost 1,100 cubic feet of stone was donated for use in a special place in the Salt Lake Temple. From this beginning the quarry business became very profitable for the owners and also provided cash income for the men, most of them farmers, hired to quarry and haul the stone.

Most of the men who worked at the quarry came from Manti and Ephraim. In later years some of the best workmen came from Wales, Utah. The men stayed at the quarry during the week. They camped in tents until a stone bunkhouse was built. They worked Edward Llovd Parrv. ten hours a day, six days a week, for wages ranging from $1.25 to All photographs courtesy of the author. $3.00 a day for a man and his team. On Saturday they returned to their homes for fresh supplies and to visit their families. Very early Monday morning they traveled to the quarry to begin a new week. contain the word "concealed" anywhere in the text and so the judge declared the ordinance null and void. Logan Paul had no such luck. Clove leveled another assault charge against the cigar maker in the city court. Paul was fined again even though his attorney pleaded double jeopardy. Paul paid the fine undaunted. To him it was a small price to pay for humbling a "small-souled, big-bodied man like Clove."

On the Monday before the Fourth of July parade the Dispatch released its final official vote tally: Thurman, 9,880; Twelves, 8,239. The editor then added, "This is our count not including Saturday's count which would have footed up a grand total of 28,239 for Miss Twelvesv-an impressive vote total for a town of about 6,000.

Miraculously, the parade proceeded without a hitch on Independence Day morning. Its most notable feature was, of course, the magnificent Car of State float featuring Gertie Thurman as the Goddess of Liberty, Stella Knight as Truth, and Mary Wilkns as Justice. However, two moppets nearly stole the show. Little Master Homer and Miss Rawlings dressed as George and Martha Washington rode in a tiny carriage drawn by

Shetland ponies.

The ladies in the crowd found them "just too sweet for anything.''

Two bands, six other floats, and groups on foot and on horseback also participated in the procession.

The two rival newspapers contin- Gertrude (Gertie) Thurrnan ued the feud for the left, and her cousin Sarah next two weeks, and Elizabeth Fletcher. Courtesy then things slowly of Alice Jones Adamson. returned to as near normal as they ever got in Provo. The story eventually came to a happy ending for our would-be goddess and her cigar-rolling sweetheart. On May 14, 1896, slightly less than two years after the controversial Goddess of Liberty contest, Logan Paul and Edna Twelves were united as man and wife.

Mr. Carter, a retired history instructor, lives in Springville. He has written extensively on local history.

E. L. Parry standing in the doorway of his business in Manti, Utah.

bers anchored in the hillside. One timber acted as the post, the other the crane. The crane had a large cable that went through pulleys at the point of the timber and was fastened to a winch or windlass on the post timber. The winch could be turned by hand using a handle long enough for two men to crank, but it could also be pulled by a horse to load the larger rock.

When the overburden at the Ephraim quarry became too deep to remove, the workers tunneled into the hillside to mine the stone. Trash rock, called buttermilk, always lay on top of the solid stone. To remove this, the men drilled holes above the good rock and placed dynamite or black powder with an exploding cap and fuse into the holes. Then "do-gads" (round mud cakes) were carefully tamped into place on top of the dynamite to seal the charge and make it more effective. Each charge was connected to a graduated length of fuse so that there would be an interval between explosions.

When all the charges were ready, the quarrymen left the tunnel and took shelter away from the mouth of the tunnel to avoid possible flying debris. As a safety measure, two men, equipped with carbide lamps and candles, were left behind in the tunnel to light the fuses with a candle and then quickly join the others outside. As the explosions occurred (usually about 12 in a series) the men counted them to be sure each had detonated. Blasting was dangerous work that required skilled, careful workers at each stage in the process.

When all had quieted down and the rock had stopped falling, the men went in to remove the trash rock. They hauled it out in wheelbarrows or one-horse carts

Procedures for getting the stone from the hill were varied and intricate, took skill, and sometimes involved a certain amount of danger.

In the open quarry the overburden consisted of soil, small rocks, bushes, clay, and other natural materials. It was removed by scraping, shoveling, and sometimes blasting. When the solid rock was reached the quarryman drove wedges, one to one and a half feet apart, into the natural cracks or fissures with a heavy sledge hammer. Then he would wait, hit all of the wedges again, and wait.

He repeated this until the rock broke free or could be pried loose. Using big crowbars, he rolled the rock onto steel rollers and moved it into position where huge chains from the derrick could be fastened around it. It was loaded onto a wagon and hauled to the railroad. For short hauls the stone was attached to the running board of the wagon with huge pincers and chain. This was the easiest way, because at the destination the chain was released, the pincer removed, and the wagon driven away, leaving the stone to be trimmed or, as the stone cutters said, "dressed."

Sometimes the rock was lifted onto a sled pulled by horses to where the derrick could load it onto a wagon. The derrick consisted of two large tim-

Stone was moved by wagon to the railroad.

19

and dumped it over the side of the hill. Sometimes the trash rock was used to help shore up the sides of the tunnel. This job was called "mucking" which, next to malring "do-gads," was the lowliest of the quarry jobs.

As the tunnels grew longer they were supported with heavy timbers. Candles were the most common light source used inside the tunnels. The blacksmith made special candle holders of tin with a spike on one side to stick into a timber or a crack in the rock. For additional light each man wore a Bernard Parry, right, and his brother E. I: Parry cutting foundation carbide lamp On his This stone of present Manti City building (formerManti High School). brass lamp had a water reservoir on top. When water dripped onto the carbide in pert teamster were required to pull it. the bottom half of the lamp it produced a gas that Until 1890 the stone was hauled by wagon burned and made light for the miner. to the Sanpete Railroad in Wales. This line was A good blacksmith was essential to every originally built to ship coal mined in Wales to work crew at the quarry. At the Ephraim quarry a Salt Lake City. Then, in 1890, the Denver & Rio stone building about 30 feet square at the foot of Grande Western Railroad built a line to Manti. the hill contained the blacksmith shop. The smith The Parry spur was built at the junction of the kept the chisels, wedges, and drills sharp and requarry road and Highway 89. The remains of this placed handles on the hammers, picks, and shovspur can still be seen three miles north of els. He also kept the winch on the derrick in good Ephraim. operating condition and repaired wagon wheels, In the early 1900s stone was shipped by rail wheelbmows, and harnesses. He shod the horsto dealers in San Francisco. When shipped in the es that worked at the quarry and was a general late fall, the stone had to be "cured" or exposed handyman to fix anything that needed fixing. to air to harden it so that frost would not damage Another important operation in the quarry it. Occasionally, boxcars rather than flatbed cars were used to ship the stone over the high Sierra. business was hauling the stone to the railroad.

For additional protection, straw or even manure The wagons used to hml the stone were built with extra strength and large, well-ironed was packed around the stone.

Oolitic limestone from the Ephraim quarry wheels. When a wagon was loaded with a 20-ton was used in buildings as diverse as a Scottish rock, three teams of horses and the skill of an ex-

Laying the cornerstone of the Sanpete County Courthouse. Man with tmwel is County Commissioner Frank Muyktt; man to his right wearing hat and suit is Bernard Parry who supervised the construction.

ity that took place there or of the contributions the quarries made to the economy and culture of Sanpete County. Still, the most beautiful example of the use of the oolite stone, the Manti Temple, stands as a reminder. Built by pioneer craftsmen, it is a work of art. The arches, win, and trims on the towers, walls, and d m m a are ~ unique. All of the stone in the odghal building was cut by hand. Edward Lloyd Parry supervised this stone work, and some of the actual l a b was dune by him and h sans,

the

Manti LDS Temple, photographed under construction by George Edward Anderson, was built of limestone from the quarries adjacent to the Parry quarry at Manti. Some of the larger rock on the two towers came from the Ephraim quarry.

Children posed for photographer Alma Compton before beginning a day in theJie1d.v thinning beets, c- 1905Special Collections, Merrill Library, Utah S t ~ t eUniversity

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"Smack lift, chop and toss. "

Memories of Thinning and Harvesting Sugar Beets

BY MIRIAM B. MURPHY

Sugar has played a sweet and sour role in Utah history. Attempts in the 1850s to raise beets and process them into sugar had only one lasting effect-giving an area of southeast Salt Lake City its name: Sugar House. Decades later, in 1879, Arthur Stayner produced 7,000 pounds of sugar and received a $5,000 premium for his experiment from the temtorial legislature. Then in 1891 the first sugar factory in the U.S. using American-made machinery opened in Lehi, Utah. By 1920 more than a dozen sugar factories in central and northern Utah hummed, and sugar beets had become an important cash crop for local farmers. When the last sugar factory in Utah closed in 1979 it signaled the end of an era in the state's agricultural history.

Those who lived through part of that era have sweet and sour memories of what it was like to work in the sugar beet fields. Before mechanization and the development of single-seed plants, raising beets was a labor-intensive effort that depended to a large extent on children. Those who thinned, weeded, and harvested beets never forgot the experience. Dozens of them, some now in their 80s, recently put their memories on paper or told their stories to the author over the telephone.

Thinning Beets In late spring, when the rows of beet seed planted by farmers had fully sprouted, children took to the fields to block and thin the plants. For Marie Hunter, who grew up in Joseph, Sevier County, it was the "worst job" she ever had. She began thinning beets at about age seven for her uncle and recalled earning about 50 cents. Like most young beet thinners, she wore knee pads made from old Levis and filled with padding. Alfred ("Fred") E. Young of Logan, Cache County, said that beet thinners cut the hoe handle to the length they liked and then sharpened the blade. They had to furnish their own lunch and water and get to the field on their own. On a good day he could thin an acre. "Remember," he noted, "these were not8-

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hour days!...Days were long, the sun was hot, and your water was always at the other end of the row!

Pay was low, very low! But it was a job that needed to be done."

Some children, like Vergia Scott, who grew up in Sevier County, found ways to make the work seem less tedious. She thinned beets with her two brothers, a sister, and three cousins. The oldest child in the group "herded us down the rows, telling us stories." For Devon Doney, raised in Cache Valley, thinning beets was almost a competitive sport, and he prided himself on being the fastest thinner. He could bend down and do a whole row without stopping.

In 1929, when she was nine years old, Bertha Byington of Logan, and her brother Shirley, "contracted a sugar beet crop for the next four surnmers, and four or five of my mother's six children did the work-thinning, hoeing, and topping the beets. Shirley was paid a percentage of the harvest in the fall. Of course the money was to be used for our family expenses. None of us received any 'spending money,' or expected any." Although it was back-breaking work, Bertha has fond memories of those times. "One year, while thinning the beets, we camped on the top floor of the owner's granary from Monday till Saturday night. We slept on the hay and prepared our own meals." Another time they "slept in a tent on the bank of a large irrigation ditch....During the noon hour we would put on different old clothes and go 'swimming' or play in the tall, thick sweet clover," ignoring all the bees. During the tedious summer hoeing season, Bertha and her older sister Wilda walked down the rows singing songs, reciting poems, or playing guessing games. That was the "most fun" of all she said, and added, "We also hoed a few weeds." The children became well acquainted with the bird life

of the area-meadowlarks, blackbirds, curlews, snipes, and killdeers. There were only "two things we all got plenty tired of+old hard-boiled eggs and artesian well drinking water."

Sometimes children made mistakes. Della Foster Moser grew up on a farm near the Whitney, Idaho, sugar factory. Her family spent many hours working together in the fields. She remembered that "One day my Dad was busy in another field watering...and sent my brother and myself to thin the beets....the rows in that big patch of beets never seemed to end. I didn't want to be there anyway, so I just decided to thin the beets fast and get out of that hot field. I didn't measure like I was told and just cut, cut, cut....When I finished I could see not many beets were left in the row. I began [relplanting those I had cut out.. ..My surprise came that evening when Dad took me back to the field and showed me the beets I had [relplanted were dead. Not a happy day for me!"

The long rows of beets frustrated more than one child. Belle H. Wilson, who lived on a farm south of Payson, Utah County, remembered that about the time school let out in May "the beets were tall enough to block and thin. The blocking was done by using a hoe with a wide sharp blade which with one chop left a twelve-inch gap between small clumps of beets. Children ages ten to fourteen with heavy pads tied over their knees would straddle a row and crawl along thinning out all little plants in said clump except the largest....My younger brother said that the rows were so long you couldn't see the end because of the curvature of the earth."

When Brigham D. Madsen was about 12 years old in Pocatello, Idaho, he and his friend Clarice Johnson took a contract with a farmer in the area to thin four acres of beets for four dollars

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an acre and to hoe the beets twice during the summer for two dollars an acre. The boys rode their bikes out to the farm on Monday morning and spent the week there, living in a tent. Their mothers sent them food, he said, but one summer day a pot of homemade soup turned sour in the heat. On Saturday the boys biked home to spend the weekend. When Madsen's grandmother from Santaquin came for a visit she asked his mother, "Are you so poor that you have to send your 12-year-old son out to live in a tent and work?'At that time, about 1926, Madsen recalled, his father earned only a dollar an hour as a carpenter.

For many families the income brought in by children up through the depression w s was important to their economic survival. When Lilith Morton's father died in the flu epidemic of 1918, her mother was left with five children to raise in a two-room cabin in Vineyard, Utah County. The work of the Morton children was vital to the family. Lilith and her sister thinned beets for 10 cents a row and kept the greens after thinning to take home and cook. LeRoy Wilcox, who spent the first ten years of his life in Sutherland, Millard County, before the family moved to Sandy, said that "Beets were part of my life until I graduated from high school."

Harvesting Beets Reva Whittle Wilson grew up in the Cache Valley, just across the border in Fairview, Idaho. In October "the sugar content in the beets was high enough for the. ..harvest to begin. Schools.. .were let out for the beet vacation as we called it, for two weeks...." After a team of horses went down the rows with a beet plow to loosen the beets from the ground, hand topping the beets began.

Reva remembered it vividly: "We had long sharp knives with a pick on the end. We would pick up the beet...with the pick, hold the beet in our left hand and cut off the top, not too much or that would be wasteful....Some beets were too large for our small hands so we placed them on the ground, turned them around with each whack, and made two or three cuts with our knife before all the top

Beet knife in the Sandy City Museum collection.

was off. We threw the beets in small piles between the rows where they were later loaded on the wagon...by my brothers or hired men....Usually we would finish topping beets by Halloween. I remember going out in the morning in heavy

Mrs. Nephz Nzelsen and two oJ her seven children, Joyce and Wendell, were shown harvesting beets in a 1942 Salt Lake Tribune article on home front workers during World War II.

frost...and in just a short time our hands were freezing cold through our gloves and our feet were tingly in our rubber boots.... Sometimes it even snowed. Those were the times we wished we were back in the school room with our friends....The last fall I topped beets was in 1932 and I was married the next spring."

Kenneth Godfrey, whose family had a farm in Cornish, Cache County, started working in the beet fields when he was able to lift one of the heavy beets. "It was a great family project," he said. His mother topped beets, too, and his younger sister cooked their main meal. He remembers having an apple for a snack in midmorning and eating it with cold, muddy hands. "I have never really liked apples since," he said. Like many children, he had ambivalent feelings about the experience. He looked forward to getting out of school for two weeks to harvest beets, but once out in the fields he often wished he were back in school. Still, in addition to providing a good cash crop, the work created a feeling of community: "When you work with others you can't con each other."

Dan Elmer Roberts of Provo said that whether you were out in the fields or in the U and I Sugar Company factory, it was "work, work, WORK, WOR&" He appreciated having sugar for his mush and sugar for cookies and cakes and bottled h i t but still wondered, 'Was it worth it?' He said the "good, rich dia by Utah Lake made the sugar beets grow too big! You had to wrestle them to top them....You nearly broke your back throwing the big things into the beet wagons. Oh, how you wished you were back in school."

Patricia Newson, who attended Jordan High

There was a strip of old overall material tied to the handle. The idea was to put the strip around your wrist and take hold of the handle. This became...a sling to keep the hand and our tool together; it also seemed to give you a little more swing in the arm." ung worker took a row and began to turned up by the plow. Hansen dehically: "Smack goes the , pull the beet up across a leafy green top (careful, and toss the beet into

School (home of the Beetdiggers), walked three miles from her home in Bluffdale to Riverton to top beets all day and then walked home, bathed, and went to bed. She had her own beet knife and more than once caught the hook in her knee or leg.

Many students used the money they e ping beets to buy school clothes or Chris ents. She used her earnings to and buy glasses. She was the ily who topped beets. She it was kind of neat to h

e rhythm and move mack, lift, chop and ss, smack,---." Meanit would be time for row was in sight yet. ok where it had hit her .One harvest time it had cold and muddy. At

tions. Bingham High S said, and bus loads of s

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were instructed on the use of it was potentially dangerous his shins and felt "totally bus 10-hour days, he "thoroughly enjoyed the e ence." He liked seeing what others had earn a living. Before he turned 18 and was the work made him "feel useful" in the w Until she turned 14 and could join the bee harvest, Karen B. Hansen of Preston, Idaho, thought it sounded "kind of exciting." With her lunch sack and "a new pair of fuzzy white canvas gloves" provided by her father, she joined other children at the employment office and was taken by car to an outlying farm. "There before us were rows and rows of large green leaves, and somewhere out of view was the other end of the field.

Would we ever see that end? Tiventy-five cents a row seemed to be the average pay. We were handed a long butcher knife with a vicious looking hook at the end of the blade where a point should be.

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of those who shared mories of working in the beet fields, thinks most children today "miss the satis' that comes with hard work well done. nding money and feeling good about tough job were not the only motives beet workers. Douglas E. Stringham chfield, Sevier County, recalled that during or and senior high school years the school usually released students for two weeks to "assist the farmers to harvest the beets and potatoes which we raised in great numbers. This...usually , coincided with Utah's deer sencnn

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1 Brothers Bumus, foreground, and Nathan Butterworth topping beets c. 1937 in West Jordan. Courtesy of Nathan Butterworth.

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collld at leait have 3 or 4 d a v ~tn

Other Jobs with the Beets Sometimes those toppim the beets tossed them into a wagon as they went. More frequently, though, they threw the topped beets &to piles and later hand-loaded them into the wagons. Sometimes older boys and men used a specially made beet fork to load the beets. Using a beet fork required greater muscular strength thad thim&p; or toppine.

Other, less phys&illy challeng-

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ing jobs were prized by those lucky enough to get them. When Belle H. Wilson of American Fork was 16, her father told a sugar company official that she was "capable of doing whatever is needed for weighing and recording" the wagons that came to the beet dump. After a two-day trial, she got the job: "I sat in the little office of the weigh station, on a high stool. Through the large window before me I could see the horses pulling the loaded beet wagon onto the platform. As soon as the wagon stopped I weighed the load by adjusting the moveable gauges to acquire a balance. This weight in pounds had to be recorded as tons of beets and any extra poundage. This information was recorded on a printed form after first identifying the farmer."

While the farmer unloaded his beets a worker removed the dirt from a half bushel of beets, weighed the dirt and the beets separately, and calculated the percentage of dirt in each pound. "After I had weighed the returning empty wagon, I subtracted its weight from the original load weight. Then I figured the percentage of dirt on the beets and subtracted that ...and came up with the net weight ...."

At season's end, the information Wilson recorded was used to pay each farmer. She spent her eamings on "a lovely dress and coat which were needed for a winter wardrobe for high school."

Cleone Fox Ferguson remembered her senior year in high school when she drove a team and wagon to the beet dump about three-quarters of a mile away. She had red hair and freckles and was subjected to catcalls from the men, apparently for her looks and for doing a typically male job. She enjoyed it anyway because it was easier than topping beets. After graduation she got a job, but she still took time off in the fall to help with the harvest.

Most of those who worked hard as children in the sugar beet fields are glad they had that experience. It shaped their lives in many positive ways.

For most, the sour memories of long days, heat in summer and cold and mud in fall, sore muscles and aching backs, nicked legs, and seemingly endless rows of beets were outweighed by the sweetness of work well done, earning spending money, contributing to their family's survival, companionship, and occasionally fun on the job. Equally important, these workers remain proud of what they accomplished.

Mrs. Murphy wishes to thank the more than 60 individuals who shared their memories of the beet fields with her.

Their stories will be archived at the Utah State Historical Society. This article has focused on school children who worked in the beet fields. As Utah's sugar industry grew it depended heavily on migrant workers, especially Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican nationals. That is a different story and one that also needs to be told.

BY LINDA THATCHER

Visitors to Memory Grove in Salt Lake City wonder about a forlorn looking railroad boxcar tucked into the southeast corner of the park. Why is it there? What is it used for--an office or a storage unit? It seems misplaced, but in reality it is not. It is one of 49 boxcars that arrived in the United States from France on February 3, 1949, crammed with presents for American citizens. The Merci or Gratitude Train, as it was called, was an expression of thanks from the citizens of France to ~ m e r i c afor aid rendered during and after World War 11.

The Merci Train was organized partly in response to another well-publicized train. In 1947 newspaper columnist Drew Pearson had come up with the idea of an American Friendship Train to collect needed items for European nations that were still struggling to recover from the war. The idea caught fire, and within a few months the Friendship Train had traveled across the country and collected more than 700 carloads of donated food, fuel, and clothing that were sent to Europe.

A French rail worker and war veteran named Andre Picard suggested that France reciprocate.

He originally suggested that France present the United States with one boxcar filled with gifts representative of his country-wines, lace, perfumes, clothing, etc. A French veteran's organization adopted the proposal, and a committee was formed to solicit gifts. The response from French citizens was overwhelming. Despite years of economic hardship, thousands of French people donated items to send to America. As news coverage spread, the project gained national momentum, with hundreds of organizations participating. It soon became apparent that one boxcar would not be enough.

Gifts to Fill 49 Boxcars Eventually, the French War Veterans Association took overihe project and calcu1:cted that they had enough gifts to fill 49 boxcars-one for each of the then 48 states and the one to be split between the District of Columbia and the Territory of Hawaii. (The District of Columbia got the gifts, and Hawaii, which had donated two carloads of sugar to the American Friendship Train in 1947, received the boxcar, by then containing only straw.)

After the French decided to send 49 boxcars instead of one, they began to scour the railroad yards for them. The boxcars were called "Forty and Eights" because during World War I, one boxcar was used to carry 40 men or 8 horses. For

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wooden cars after landing in France, the boxcars of the Merci Train had a familiar look.

Constructed between 1872 and 1885, the 12-ton, 29-foot rail cars hauled freight before their conversion to troop and animal transport. h e r i c a n veterans of World War I had mixed feelings about the boxcars. Although they had saved the men time and shoe leather, the boxcars brought back memories of a crowded and uncomfortable ride. In the history of Utah's 145th Field Artillery Regiment, E. W. Crocker wrote: "On September 16th the outfit again entrained for the long trip across France, an unforgettable experience for most of the men, for it meant being cooped up in tiny French boxcars, designed to carry eight horses or forty small Frenchmen. " Another account is given in a poem by Ralph '%BooDuvall that tells the story of thel45th Field Artillery:

Across the blooming Channel we took another ride.

They loaded us in cattle cars, a hundred side by side, And clanked along on flat wheels until we almost died!

But we never lost a doggone man.

We lined up at the railings and drew our pork and beans, Then packed back in the box-cars as tight as canned sardines, And saved up all the Willie cans and used them for latrines, Yet we never lost a doggone man.

In the end the French collected 52,000 items

for the Merci Train. The assortment of gifts was staggering-ranging from childish drawings,

puzzles mounted on cardboard frames, ashtrays made of broken mirrors, worn-down wooden shoes, hand-crocheted doilies, and battered toys to a bust of Benjamin Franklin by a noted French sculptor, a jeweled Legion d'Homeur medal presented to Napoleon, the bugle that signaled the signing of the Armistice ending World War I in 1918, Louis XV's carriage, and the first motorcycle ever built.

By the end of 1948 the 49 boxcars were filled to capacity. The train was assembled in Paris and pulled to the port of Le Havre for transport to America. As the Merci Train was being loaded on the merchant ship Megellan even more presents from the grateful French arrived. Thousands of gifts had to be left on the docks.

"Merci, America" throughout the state. Some will be exhibited in the When the Megellan reached New York City state capitol while others will be shown in various on February 3, 1949, the New York Times reported public buildings and parks."

Blizzard Delayed Train "a welcoming din surpassing that accorded the The boxcar was originally scheduled to maiden arrival here of an ocean passenger queen." arrive in @den on Febmary 15, 1949, at 5100 As the ship steamed into New York harbor-flya.m.; it would then travel on to Salt Lake City. ing a large banner that read "Merci, America"-it Plans were made to cheer the car all along the was greeted by a fleet of small boats and Air Force routeUnfortunately, things did not work out as planes flying overhead. Bells rang, whistles blew, planned, for the train, which was making its way sirens sounded, and the fireboats escorting the west, encountered a blizzard in Wyoming. Resiship sprayed their nozzles skyward in salute.

The ship docked at Weehawken, New Jersey, dents of Rock Springs and Green River, Wyoming, had planned an ''enthusiastic" weland was unloaded the following day by voluncome for the Merci Train on February 14. Folks in teers. President Truman permitted the cargo t~ Green River7which had set a small town record by enter duty free. Since the French boxcars did not fit American standard gauge donating 728 cases of milk, 5,000 tracks, they were hoisted onto flatpounds of dried beans, 10,000 pounds of macaroni, 100 pounds of cars for their overland journey. mixed groceries, and $200 in cash Next, the Merci Train was divided to the American Friendship Train in into three sections for routing to 1947, were especially eager to different parts of country-the South, the West, and New Enreceive France's thank you.

Because of the storm, however, gland. The New York car was Union Pacific rerouted the train transported to Manhattan where through Colorado, New Mexico, 200,000 New Yorkers gathered to Arizona, California, and Nevada give their little boxcar a ticker tape before sending it on to Utah. The parade and to shout "You're welSalt Lake Tribune reported on Febcome" to the French people. ruary 12, 1949, that the railroad ofIn Utah, the citizens anxiousficials had stated: "When it will ly awaited their boxcar's arrival. A reach Salt Lake City is anybody's committee to determine the dispoguess." sition of Utah's gifts was named Finally, officials confirmed on January 22, 1949, by Governor that the train would arrive sometime J. Bracken Lee. Members of the committee included Harold M. on Friday, February 18, from Barstow, California. The committee McNeil as chair, and committee made plans for a parade and accep members Melvin B. Wright of the tance ceremony to be held the fol Lions Club, J. F. Fitzpatrick, publowing week. According to the Feb lisher of the Salt Lake Tribune and Telegram, and W. P. Miller of the Dolls were among the Merci ruary 19 Salt Lake Tribune, H . M. Train gifts. Maybe a French McNeil took a National Guard tank Ogden City Schools.

The committee began to bisque doll by Jumeau, very carrier to the railroad yards to pick UP the boxcarmake plans to receive the train, but valuable today, was included.

"They wheeled the big Erie final arrangements depended on flatcar, on which the tiny narrow gauge rode picwhether a representative of the French governa-back across country, under a giant crane. They ment would accompany the train. McNeil reporttied a fat chain around the little 40-et-8's tummy. ed that a "public reception would be planned if a They tugged and they tuggedrepresentative accompanies the car to Salt Lake "But the frightened Frenchman just creaked City." However, "If no official appears, the comand groaned like it used to do when Mr. McNeil mittee will exhibit the little French World War I and his World War I buddies rode to battle fronts boxcar at the corner of South Temple and Main." as French railroads guests. . . .

The contents of the car would then be unloaded and displayed in the windows of the Utah Power and Light Co. building. The Salt Lake Tribune &@Urn also reported that "the committee hopes to distribute some of the French gifts to communities P@.PO~@/Z&.~

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"Mr. McNeil had come to show M. Car to its room in the county shops. They were to complete plans for touring the city, meeting the governor and getting unpacked. But the little boxcar wouldn't budge.

"So he will try again Saturday."

The celebration was scheduled for Tuesday, February 22--George Washington's birthday and a national holiday. The program was to include a visit from A. Rousselet, the French vice-consul from San Francisco. Governor Lee would accept the boxcar and its load of gifts for Utah, and Mayor Earl J. Glade would welcome the boxcar to Salt Lake City. Two French war brides, one from each world war, were asked to join the welcoming party. Both women lived in Ogden.

Mrs. James H. Brock came to the U.S. after World War I, and Mrs. William E. Sylvester was a World War I1 bride. They were part of the Ogden entourage that included Mayor Harmon W. Peery.

The day started with a parade from Salt Lake Post No. 2, American Legion, at 404 South West Temple to the Union Pacific Building at South Temple and Main Street. Participating in the parade were American Legion drum and buOgden Mayor Hamon W Peery.

gle corps from Salt Lake City Ogden, and Sugar House; the Bountiful jeep posse; the Utah National Guard; state, city, and Lions Club officials; and members of the Merci Train greeting committee.

The formal presentation and acceptance of the boxcar was held at South Temple and Main Street. Governor Lee received the boxcar from Clinton D. Vernon, Salt Lake City Mayor Earl J. Glade. Governor J. Bracken Lee. Utah's attorney general. French vice-consul ~dusielet'splane had been grounded at Las Vegas by bad weather, and he arrived too late to attend the ceremony. Governor Lee told the audience that the French gift was an expression of "friendship and good will." Mayors Glade and Peery thanked the French on behalf of Salt Lake City and Ogden.

H. M. NcNeil introduced the two French war brides who expressed their gratitude to America in their native tongue.

Entrance to Memory Park, usually referred to as Memory Grove today, at the mouth of City Creek Canyon in Salt Lake City. The Merci Train boxcar is through this entrance on the extreme right. USHS collections.

On February 28 the contents of the boxcar were placed on display in the UP & L building at 136 So. Main. For many, the most significant item received was the American flag made by Parisians by candlelight and then paraded up and down the streets of Paris after it was liberated from the Germans.

Great Variety of Gifts The boxcar contained books, paintings, vases, war mementos, native costumes, a chic white satin Paris wedding dress, sabots (shoes), a bed warmer, dolls, medals, a set of pink lingerie trimmed in black, wine, crystal, and 1,000 other objects. There were simple gifts from French school children as well, such as stamps of the world arranged in star shapes and embroidered kettle holders. With many of the gifts came personal notes in French, some simply saying Nous vous remercions (We thank you). A woman from Toulouse wrote: "My daughter has two infants. There was not much milk for them . . . then came your Friendshp train....So I send this doll which I made." Eventually, the gifts would be distributed to Utah communities that had donated items to the Friendship Train for placement in local museums.

A campaign was started to find a permanent home for the Merci boxcar. The first choice was Memory Grove because it "held so many memories for the veterans and relatives of veterans of two wars. . . ." There the boxcar could stand "amidst the trees, shrubs and memorial markers . . . as a small monument to the good will that has existed for many years between the people of France and the people of the United States."

The officers of the Service Star Legion objected on the grounds that the boxcar would not be in keeping with the atmosphere of the park. Others worried that the old green boxcar might become an eyesore. But after a personal inspection of the car and the site, the Service Star Legion withdrew its protest. Mayor Glade promised to protect the boxcar with varnish or lacquer. Finally, on March 3 1, the permanent mounting of Utah's Merci Train boxcar in Memory Grove was authorized by the Salt Lake City Commission, in the southeast corner of the park, an area once used as a dump.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune of May 4, 1949, the boxcar made its final trip to "become a shrine to memories and international good will." Workmen hoisted the car onto narrow gauge rails set in a 30-by-12-foot concrete pad. "For the pint-sized freight car, it is the end of the road, the last lurch on a trail that led through two world wars to honorable rest in a friendly land," the newspaper said.

Months later the Tribune reported: "A little French boxcar was welcomed as a 'resident' of Utah at ceremonies Sunday [September 181 in Memory grove.

Madame J. James (Adrienne) Buck, French consular agent for Utah, spoke on behalf of the French consul general and the people of France. "'The French people put their hearts into this gift, their own way of thanking America and Americans for the "Friendship train." This plot of Utah land will remain a representation of the friendship of the people of France,' Madame Buck said."

Madame Adrienne Buck, University of Utah professor of French and Honorary French Consul.

Mayor Glade accepted the monument on behalf of the city from Dr. Frank H. Jonas, chairman, United Veterans' Council of Salt Lake County.

The American Legion promised to maintain the boxcar. And, finally, Clarence C. Neslen, Utah commander of the American Legion stated, "Here we have a tangible symbol of a grand fellow republic and its bond with America. A symbol of the understanding between America and France. May it serve to keep alive a love for freedom and a desire to further the principles and perpetuate democracy."

Today, its shields covered with a coat of green paint, Utah's Merci boxcar remains in the southeast comer of Memory Grove, ignored by the park's hundreds of daily visitors. The gifts distributed throughout the state have most likely been lost or lie unidentified on a museum shelf. Yet, for those who know its hstory, the Merci Train represents a vibrant and momentous gesture of good will from the citizens of France to all Americans.

Ms. Thatcher is coordinator of collections at the Utah State Historical Society.

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Koyal crystal Salt company plant near Saltall; March

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Saltair Village Was a Unique Place to Live

BY BECKY BARTHOLOMEW

At the turn of the century a dozen companies mined salt on Great Salt Lake's south shore.

The Royal Crystal plant stood a mile east and a little south of Saltair Beach Resort. The plant, previously owned by both the Intermountain Salt and Inland Crystal companies, was later acquired by Morton Salt. Before automobiles came into general use, it was quite a trip by wagon or train from Salt Lake City out to the salt works, especially in winter. So some 200 employees and their families lived in Garfield, several miles south, or in company housing known as Saltair village. The village was cosmopolitan-about half of its forty families were recent immigrants from Europe-but life there moved at a slow pace. Only the plant superintendent's home had indoor plumbing, central heating, and a telephone. However, since most everyone lived alike, villagers did not think of themselves as deprived.

Periodically, the village negotiated with various school boards to determine who would assume responsibility for educating Saltair children. In the early decades, grades 1-3 attended school in the village, after which they were bused to a large yellow-brick schoolhouse in Garfield. Later still, all elementary students were bused to Garfield, as were students in grades 7-10 who went to Garfield Junior High with the Yugoslavian, Greek, and other Eastern European children of workers at Utah Copper Company's new smelter. Most 1lth and 12th graders boarded in Salt Lake City or took the train, later bus and auto, to West High School. A few attended Cyprus High.

Village children enjoyed the miles of salt flats they could explore. They played Tarzan around the evaporation ponds where greasewood and sagebrush sometimes grew eight feet high. Boys and girls both hunted jackrabbits, ducks, and mudhens with bows and arrows and BB guns, rowed on the lake in crafts they had salvaged from beach wrecks, swam in the freshwater fire reservoir, and rode horseback on nearby ranches. Still, they were normal youngsters: Once several boys crept to the railroad tracks near the plant and borrowed the company's handcar. They took turns pumping it to the junction of the company line with Western Pacific's through tracks. Then they started toward town. Along came a 100-car freight train loaded for bear. The boys pumped furiously Moving salt at the Royal Crystal facility near and barely reached a turnaround before the locoSaltair: USHS collections.

Teensfelt lucky working long days at Saltair!

Colo?fi4l, bustling Saltair war

motive screamed past, its engineer shaking his fist. In the summer they enjoyed the Saltair Resort with its funhouse, ferris wheel, and roller coaster. Village teens got jobs selling popcorn and operating rides. They worked six 16-hour days a week for $80 a month and felt lucky. A few worked at the KSL tower nearer town.

In the late 1920s the plant burned down.

Many workers went temporarily to Morton's Burmeister plant on the southwest shore near Grantsville. When the Saltair works reopened under Morton ownership they were located three miles closer to town just off Highway 40 (now I80).

The new village had only twelve houses, plus an office building, bunkhouses and garages, a brick home for the superintendent, and a small post office. Residents installed a children's playground. But many families never returned because workers chose to commute instead. Many employees spent their entire careers there, and five generations of the Thomas Coslea Thomas family have been Morton employees. Thomas, along with a Mr. Jeremy, started Intermountain Salt (later InlandIRoyal/Morton) .

During the Great Depression the miners earned 50 cents an hour or $4.00 a day. Rather than lay off, some employees, the company put

them on four- and then three-day weeks. To help out, Art Foster's wife ran a store out of their home stocked with homemade sandwiches, pies, cakes, and ice cream. It closed in 1940 when food rationing made business more complex than the slim profits justified.

Over the years mining technology evolved, and the workers themselves suggested many improvements. For instance, the Burmeister plant initially mined potash, not salt, using farm tractors. Someone modified the tractor so it would not sink into the clay mud that underlay the salt ponds. Soon machines did most of the harvesting.

In 1949 the plant burned down again and was again rebuilt. Village population continued to dwindle until the 1970s when the last of the houses was tom down or moved. In 1991 the plant itself was dismantled. The only way to tell where it stood is by the KSL station three-fourths of a mile due north of the village's once-main road.

Ms. Bartholomew, a writer and historian, lives in Castleford, Idaho. This account, first issued as part of The History Blazer (February 1996), is primarily based on histories of former village residents Arthur Henry Foster, Owen Daniel Thomas, John Philips, Mamie Thomas, Arthur G. Foster, and Wanda Foster Frederick, in possession of the author.