Beehive History, Volume 8, 1982

BEEHIVE HISTORY

Transportation-

8

DURING WORLD WAR II OGDEM UNION STATION WAS OME OF THE BUSIEST PLACES IN UTAH. TONS OF FREIGHT AND THOUSANDS OF SOLDIERS CAME THROUGH.

BY RICHARD C.ROBERTS

The good times of the 1920s came to an end in Ogden, as in other parts of the United States,

How Trains Helped Win a War. ....... Richard C. Roberts 2 Getting Around Town ............. C.W. McCullough 6 Fritz Zaugg Teenage Immigrant . . . . . . . .Douglas D. Alder 10 The Beginnings of Commercial Aviation .......... Charles S. Davey 13

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Horses, Wagons, Drivers,

Kids .............C. Ray Balmforth 16 Utah's Newspapers 100 Years Ago ......... Sherilyn Cox Bennion 18 Lester F. Wire Invents the Traffic Light. .............. Linda Thatcher 22 The View from the North Rim.. ................. W.D. Rishel25 The Telenrawh Comes o ~ t a ...........

6 Miriam 5. Murphy 29

during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Business declined, and many companies and industries even went broke. The railroads suffered along with other businesses. Both freight and passenger traffic declined.

Thor Blair, who ran a newsstand at the Ogden Union Station, remembered that during the 1930s the trains were "sporadically" ridden by "gaunt men led by a faint hope of finding some employment" in a city somewhere along the line.Sometimes the passenger cars ran almost empty.

The 1930s were hard times, but the 1940s brought new business to the railroads as trains became a part of the nation's military system during World War II. The railroads &d their greatest volume of business carrying materials and hoops for the war effort. By 1944 the total railroad volume in the United States had increased to 783 billion ton-miles of freight.

Passenger travel saw similar increases,with 95 billion passenger-miles recorded in 1944.

During the war American railways carried 43 million members of the armed forces in 114,000special troop trains.

The Ogden Union Station on America's main east-west rail line serviced a bemendous amount of this wartime freight and passenger traffic. LeRoy Johnson, a Red Cap at the Ogden Union Station for over 40 years, recalled those busy days: "At one time, during World War 11, 62 passenger trains left the depot every day - streamliners from all over the nation carrying presidents, kings, ambassadors, movie stars, doctors, lawyers, authors, poets and just people - thousands of them, every day, from all walks of life." During that time 18 Red Caps "worked around the clock to help all these people on and off the trains."

TrwpTmh Tom Zito, who worked in the Ogden Union Pacific shops beginning in 1941, also remembred the war years at the station. He said the hoop irains "would come in there so fast and so thick that people [would] just run

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How Trains Helped Win a War

BeforeWorld War II this "MacArthuf' type engine was known as "Mikado" because the first engines with this wheel arrangement were bullt for Japan ca.1910. They were the workhorses of the Union Pacific system for many years. USHS collections.

around in circles. There were just too many people. Nobody knew where they were going or where they came from."

Sometimes the soldiers passing through Ogden got off the trains to relax or have some fun,Zito said.

Boy those soldiers just didn't care where they went, how they went or when they came back. They were just out for a11 the fun they could have. Some of them had no way of cleaning themselves up, they had whiskers and they were actuolIy dirty. But then there were so many of them that they muIdn't keep the passenger trains clean because those poor soldiers would be riding for days and nights getting to where they wanted to go. They would sleep in the aisle and anywhere they could curl up and get a Iittle rest. . . . much of the time . . . there wasn't enough food. It was just the wildest place you were ever in amund the d e p o t . . . .

Some of' the soldiers looked for a place to rest away from the crowds and confusion.

They would

just go outside in the summer time

and drop anywhere they could get a little sleep.

Of course they moved them out as fast as they could . . .for a long time during the war a passenger train [came] in and out of the depot every five minutes around the clock.

Angus Hansen, who worked as a carman and welder for the Union Pacific in Ogden, said of the war years, At the time I worked there it was actually the peak during World War 11. Well, they hod freight and passenger tmin service. I don't think you could go down to the depot anytime, night or day. that you didn't find that depot full of people wanting to ride the tmins. Of course, during the war there was a restriction put on [civilian] h v e ! to a certain extent, because they didn't have enough passenger tmins to handle the service or military personnel.

The freight load was heavy, too, Hansen remembered, and in addition, our freight tmins had an awful lot of repair work.

Well, there wasn't a time when there wasn't four or five tracks, well four mostly, thot we used for repair work. You wouId never find anytime that there wasn't three out of those four that were full of bad ordered cars that needed repair.

Lamar Belnap, who was a switching engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad, remembered the soldiers: 1 was down there when the war first started. These troop tmins would come in, the soIdiers had been confined to the trains and were anxious to get

Ogden Unlon Statlon is In the Natlonal Registerof HIstohc Places. USHS cdlerctlons, historlc presewatlon office photograph.

. . . . They'd head u p 25th Street and find a bottle or drink . . . . There were a lot of troop trains going through Ogden to the West Coast.

When a hospital tmin came in, they were marked with red crosses on the cars. The soldiem that couid walk would get off the tmin and walk around.

It was a sad deal seeing a lot of the feIlows . . . on crutches and bandaged up. out

Unusual Cargo When trains with unusual cargo arrived at Ogden they got special treatment. Lamar Belnap remembered trains loaded with gasoline coming into the depot. When they stopped they were immediately surrounded by armed guards to protect the cargo. Another time, a train carrying gold bullion came to Ogden. The bullion was shipped in special cars that had U.S. Army written on them. They were a short car with an extm set of frucks [wheels] under them to help support the weight. They were a kind of square car. . . only onehalf the size of a regular box car. They had a little platform on the sides so the armed guards could sit on the outside and guard them, especially when they stopped, I don't think they rode on &em when they were moving

. . . . they were very noticeable with the U.S. Army signs and warning signs d1 over. ,

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During the war years as many as 120 bains a day moved through the Ogden Union Station.

There were 17 hacks for passenger service. An underground passageway led from the station

to the platforms so that passengers didn't have to walk across the backs.

The 1940s were the busiest times for the Ogden Union Station. They were also good economic times for the workers. The war years were not the happiest of times, however, because war brings with it much tragedy, as those at the station witnessed when troop trains and hospital trains arrived. Another kind of bagedy occurred when the Southern Pacific Railroad suffered a major train wreck.

The Ogden depot served as the center for receiving the dead and injured.

A Tragic Train Wmck In the early morning of Gcember 3 1,1944, a fast-moving express and mail train crashed into the rear of a passenger train, the Pacific Limited from Ogden, at Bagley, 17 miles west of Ogden on the Lucin Cutoff track. The crash

killed 48 people and injured 79. Local sheriff's officers, National Guard hoops, and medical personnel came to the Union Station to meet the rescue trains. The first casualties arrived at 10:45 a.m. Some 15 to 30 ambulances lined the track to receive the dead and injured. This was the worst accident in which the Ogden depot played a part.

The railroad continued to enjoy some prosperity after the war and into the 1950s.

Visitors to Ogden could still say that Union Station was a busy place. Clarence Werner, who came to Ogden in 1959 to work for the Union Pacific, remembered many passenger hains arriving in Ogden each day: When I first started in 1959, I counted them. They were going in every direction and I worked on a lot of them in 1960. 1 can't say exactly how many [run] from here to Los Angeles or to Frisco . . . . Any direction you wanted to go, you could catch a pa* senger[tmin] out of here.

He remembered, too, that the trains were

always full.

However, the railroads were in a sharp decline. Between 1849 and 1967 railroad travel was cut in half. A few years later, passenger service was discontinued by most private railroad companies and turned over to a government agency.

The decline of the railroad business after World W a r I1 greatly affected Ogden. The Ogden Union Station, once busy and bustling with passengers, became nearly deserted. One penon compared it to a mausoleum. Another said, "Now that there are no passenger trains, it's almost deserted, with the exception of maybe one-half hour when the Amtrak comes in. There is no restaurant now, no beauty shop, no Red Cap." The crowds and noisy confusion of train travel during the war years have not been forgotten, though. That busy era in Utah's transportation history played an important role in winning the war.

Dr. Roberts is professor of history at Weber State College. This article was extracted from a larger history of Ogden Union Station written by him.

Scenes 01me rraglc I* rrarn w m wesr or Ogden, photographed by L.V. McNeely.

This 1883 mule ear included Main Street, part of the Avenues, and the D & RG depot on Its route. USHS

collections.

Getting Around Town BEFORE TODAY'S MOTOR BUSES THERE WERE MULE CARS, STREETCARS, AND TROLLEYS. A RIDE HOME MIGHT TURN INTO AN ADVENTURE.

BY C.W. MCCULLOUGH

On May 31, 1941, the last streetcar to operate over Salt Lake City tracks made its final run.T h tracks were then torn up and the s h e t s repaved. Thus closed an era of urban transportation of great local and national significance, one that U t a h may look at with pride.

To the oldsters of Salt Lake City, the history of mass transportation is a page out of the book of their lives. But to oncoming youth, the scrapping of outmoded rails and trolley wires gives only a small hlnt of the drama of the trolley car's heyday and its early predecessor, the mub car.

In common with the beginnings of streetcar service throughout the world, Salt Lake City's first streetcars depended on animal baction. From 1872 to 1889 the lowly mule served as "horsepower" to operate a system that included some 14 miles of track and a total of 21 cars. The first streetcar line charged a l m e n t fare.

The electrification of the city's streetcar

system began in 1889, one year after the first successful operation of an elecbic car line in the United States at Richmond, Virginia. Local service was then in the hands of two companies, the Salt Lake Rapid Transit and the Salt Lake City Railroad Company. Cornpetitors for eleven years, the two Iines finally merged into the Consolidated Railway and Power Company. A third line, the Fort Douglas Rapid Transit,was organized in 1890 but was taken over by the SLRT before operating.

The trolley cars of this era marked a definite advance over the slow-moving mule car. Yet, they, too, left much to be desired in service and comfort. Open cars were the rule rather than the exception, and no provision was made for heating them in winter.

Because of the danger of frostbitten feet in very cold weather, straw was spread deeply over the car floors. Thus, in a few short blocks; a passenger's clothing might acquire the appearance to be gained from a day's visit to the Ogden Livestock Show.

Roadbeds and trackage were not engineered to present-day standards of smoothness.

The single-track cars then in use had a habit of centering themselves on the many humps in the tracks. Once stopped, the vehicles would refuse to move until passengers and crew unloaded and rocked the balky car over the hump. The bouncing of a homebound sb-eetcar over bumps appears to have been listed among the stock excuses to which wives had to listen when husbands arrived late for dinner.Despite h e shortcomings, the trolley cars met a definite need and were widely used. New lines and extensions were built to keep pace with the city's growth.

With the development of new mutes came a need for transfer privileges. In keeping with the nationwide practice of streetcar com-

panies, these bansfer slips bore the notice "Not Transferable." Just how such a rule might be enforced has ever been a mystery to streetcar riders. It is doubtful that many riders ever gave their hansfers to other patrons or that the sbetcar companies lost much money from the practice.

Nevertheless, local officials tried to put teeth into the "Not Transferable" rule. Salt Lake City fransfers sported a gallery of seven faces, five men and two women. When a rider asked for a transfer, the conductor punched out the usual time and place information. In addition, he also punched the face that looked most like the patron's. Foolproof! Only an identical twin could beat that game. Lst us see!

The five men pictured displayed the typical male facial hair styles of that era.

Passing on to the ladies, we find the emphasis turning to hats. The younger miss sported a sailor hat and the older woman a bonnet. Imagine allotting the men of today five faces while the women rate only two!

And what modem bus driver would want to distinguish younger from older women!

Transfers would need to assume the size of an around-theworld have1 ticket to classify the range of zany hair and hat styles seen on any bus today.

Rumor has it that neither the company nor the riders liked these transfers. Some of the more mature ladies of that time had young ideas and resented being thought of as oldsters.

And there were complications with the males, too. Mr. Muttonchops thought he was p aa fast one when he dashed into the barbershop and reappeared clean-shaven to match his

h o v e : Sa~r~ a k Clty e Railroad trolley of the type that sornetlmes had to be rocked over humps in the track.

Below: Transfer featuring seven faces for conductor to match wlth customer. USHS collections.

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These streetcars ran between Caldefs (now Nlbley) Park and Warm Springs, a public bathhouse In the northwest part of Salt Lake City. UStlS collections.

bogus transfer. T h n again, there was the case of a rider who boarded a streetcar and presented a transfer punched to provide free transportation to a smooth-shaven individual.

The conductor noted this and, in turn, the ample growth of stubble on the mads face.

When confronted with this, the passenger insisted that he had waited so long for the car that his whiskers had grown! Whether this latter incident is true, it appears that after a reasonable trial Salt Lake City's "keep 'em honest" transfers were abandoned.

A third era in urban transportation saw sbetcar and lighting companies in Salt Lake City and Ogden brought together under one management, the Utah Light and Railway Company. Thls occurred in 1904. Two years later, this company's entire holdings were purchased by E. H. Harriman and operated as a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad until 1914 when the Utah Light and Traction Company took over. The UL&TC, in turn, gave way in 1944 to the Salt Lake City Lines.

The early 1900s were the golden years of the streetcar. The automobile was still in its infancy. Sbetcars were the accepted means of urban travel. Young and old, the rich and poor, everyone rode the trolleys.Larger, heavier cars were introduced. New lines were extended into

growing suburban areas. At their peak, trolleys ran over 150 miles of track within the metre politan area.

With h coming of the automobile, the tables were turned. Trolley patronage fell off as the use of private cars increased. Mo$ cars on the road led to a demand for paved roads.

This paving tended to follow the routes u s d by the streetcars. Often one-third of the paving expense was charged to the streetcar company because of the outdated franchises under which they operated. The speed and comfort of the automobile led streetcar patrons to demand faster and more luxurious trolleys.

In addition, the growth of the city created pressure for new streetcar lines and extensions that gave no promise of producing adequate revenue.

During these years the public often cried out against large corporations and utilities. " D m with the h s t s ! " and "Soak the rich!" were popuIar sIogans of the day. City and state officials were generally unfriendly, too. The streetcar companies could hardly seek help from them. So, operating costs rapidly went into the red. The sbeetcar was doomed.

The success of the automobile and the lughway motor bus led to the development of a rubber-tired trolley bus that would not need to

The intersectionat Main Street and Second South was torn up In 1928 to lay tracks. Note streetcar on right.

USHS collections.

run on tracks. The advantages of pneumatictired buses over track-type streetcars were many: 1. Cost of instollation and maintenance of tracks would be eliminated 2. Opemtion would be quieter.

3. Maneuverability would be increased.

4. Traffic capacity of streets would be increased.

5. Passengers could be picked up and unloaded at the curb.

6. Routing of buses could be changed at wi1I to meet any emergency.

The first successful pneumatic-tired holley bus to operate over any city street was engineered and developed by officials of the Salt Lake Traction Company under the direction of E.A. West, general manager, and

Jed F. Woolley, chief engineer. Their contribution to mass transportation included introducing many new ideas that are still in use. The basic feature of their revolutionary bus was a new type motor with a lower s t a r m torque that permitted the use of pneumatic tires.

Strangely enough, engineers and financial backers were sold on Woolley's idea by a photograph of a trackless trolley car that never existed. As much as West and Woolley believed in their dream trolley, they knew that hard-headed businessmen and financiers would be difficult to convince. Blueprints alone were unexciting. They needed a way to dramatize their idea. They found it!

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~ a ~ k l e trolley ss buses representeda major improvement In public transportation worldwide.

USHS collections.

h v r a r r I~IJL:

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A gasoline highway bus was passing through the city at that time. The driver was induced to park his bus on South Temple where it could be photographed with the Mormon Temple in the background. Using photographic tricks, they superimposed a trolley with its overhead arm and wires onto the bus. The final photograph showed an eleckic trolley bus operating on Salt Lake City streets! This luxurious and practical vehicle could compete with the automobile in comfort, maneuverability, and rider appeal.

With this fake photograph, plus the complete plans and specifications for a real trolley bus, West and Woolley were able to negotiate a contract for the manufacture of a fleet of buses by the Vesare Corporation of Albany, New York. Without knowing it, Vesare had agreed to build buses from an unproven, experimental design - an amazing result from a single photograph.

When delivered and put into service in 1928, these buses focused the attention of the world on Salt Lake City.Representatives from 26 states and 13 foreign countries were sent here to study their design and operation. The success of the backless holley bus was sensational. A new era in urban kansportation was born. The streetcar was definitely on its way out.

But, the economic operation of local lines was only half solved by the trackless trolley bus. There still remained the problems of service over very hilly routes and to outlying areas where the number of riders would not justify the cost of trolley wire installation.

The gasoline motor bus appeared to be the logical answer. But the frontengine gas bus had disadvantages that made it unsuitable for city use.

Again, engineer Woolley worked out the details of a new model - a rear-engine gasoline bus - and found a manufacturer willing to build it. In 1933 Salt Lake City enjoyed another hanspsortation "first" when these rearengine buses were put into senice.

The trackless holley and the gasoline bus replaced the streetcar. These improvements helped to meet the demand for better public transportation through the difficult years of the depression and World War II. Mr. McCullough was a safety engineer for the United Park City Mines Company in 1956 when he wrote "The Passing of the Streetcar" for Utah H i s t o r i d Quarterly. vol. 28. The above article is an edited version of the eadier piece.

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Fritz Zaugg Teenage Immigrant THIS SWISS BOY'S ADVENTURE WAS SHARED BY OTHER YOUNG IMMIGRANTS INCLUDING GREEKS AND ITALIANS WHO CAME TO AMERICA AND UTAH ALONE, NOT KNOWING THE LANGUAGE OR CUSTOMS OF THE COUNTRY.

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BY DOUGLAS D. ALDER

Something elechifying happened to fourteen-yemld Fritz Zaugg that afternoon in the year 1884. He walked home from school through his Swiss village as he always did. But when he entered the house his parents were waiting for him. That was unusual. His father was seldom home before dark. They had a most subdued look in their eyes. Fritz could tell that there would be some long talking, just like the times when he was in trouble. But he sensed he wasn't in trouble. Nonetheless, his f o b had that low pitch in their voices, like when there was to be serious talking.

The story came tumbling out as Fritz listened, dazzled with the picture that opened before his eyes. As his f a b r said, the Mormon elders had been by that day. (The Zaugg family were members of the Mormon faith.) They told of a farmer with the good Swiss name, Christian Hirschi, who lived in faraway Utah. Brother Hirschi had sent some money to the Mormon mission president in Switzerland to purchase boat and railroad tickets for a healthy boy who would come to "Zion" and be his farmhand in Park Valley, Utah, for four years. He asked the president to choose a willing boy who would agrea to the terms - four years of farm labor with room and board in return for the price of the fare. The missionaries had come to the Zaugg cottage with the invitation, asking if their son wanted to be that boy.

Fritz's parents had talked soberly before their son had come home. It was a great opportunity. For Mormons, the chance to "gather with the Saints" in Utah was their ultimate dream. The cost of the long journey was an obstade for many families like the Zauggs who wanted to go. Thus, an invitation to go to Utah could be a breakthrough for the Zauggs. Fritz could be the first arrival and could help the others come. But it was such a long distance - 10,000 miles. And in a com-

plete wilderness! ~ g hFrik t face unkindness or danger? There would likely be no school for him. And they didn't really know much about Brother Hirschi. Would Fritz be able to earn enough money after his indenture period so that he could pay the way for other members of the family to come? Would the railroad get Fritz through without an Indian attack?

Would Brother Hirschi dependably meet Fritz at the station? How would Fritz know Brother Hirschi? Could they take risks with the life of their own son?

So went the questions between father and mother that afternoon before Fritz came home from school. The missionaries assured the Zauggs that John G. Hafen, traveling with the emigrating Mormons as president of the voyaging group, would take special care of Fritz.

In the end, the fact that tipped the balance was that the Zaugg family had no way of saving money for their family's fare to Zion. Fritz could be the first foot in the land of opportunity,in the new Zion on the American desert.

So the Zauggs had sober faces when they asked Fritz if he would like to go to Utah to work for a homesteader in Park Valley.

Fritz didn't weigh any of the questions that bothered his parents. He shouted a Swiss holler, whooping and yelling, So what if he had to bavel alone! There would be ships and trains and eventually Indians and horses. He trusted the missionaries, even idolized them.

There was no question in his mind that he was ready for a man's adventure.

He c d d hardly wait for the next day when he could tell his schoolmates that he was heading for the American West. Their staring eyes made him puff up his chest. But he was taken aback when he found his teachers were

horrified at his announcement. They tried to dissuade him, talking of wild tales about the Mormons - of polygamy, of schemes to abuse immigrants, of physical dangers, of ignorance, of dry deserts, of savages. Fritz was used to criticism of the Mormons; he ignored their warnings. After all, none of them had ever seen Utah, but the ~ o n a r i e had s lived there.

So it was decided. On the 10th day of M a y Fritz left Switzerland in company with several families and returning missionaries. They traveled by train to the English Channel, by boat to England, and by train again to Liverpool where they met many other Mormons.

After a wait of several days they boarded a steamship, descending deep into the hull where the steerage compartment was. That large dormitory-type room in the heart of the ship accommodated scores of Mormons in bunks and hammocks through the many days of seasickness.

To Fritz, traveling was exciting. It all went so well that he did not even record his train trip from the East Coast to Utah. He simply said, "All arrived happily in the dreamed-of Utah."

Then crisis struck.Their voyage had been so successful that they were at their destination, Ogden, Utah, four days ahead of schedule. Fritz stood on the train platform and watched as families came to meet members of the immigrating company. One after another the newcomers left with their friends. But no one called his name. No one came to claim him. No Christian Hirschi came.

Suddenly the fourteen-year-old lad who had been so strong in hls determination discovered that people could not understand his Swiss language. He asked people for Christian Hirschi. No one knew him and no one knew what Fritz was saying. Fritz felt the h o r s of panic rising in his veins. He must think. He must do something. As he recalled: According to instructions, 1waited at the depot on info the nighf but no one came lo claim me. I couldn'l ask for information because it was all in English. It seemed to me that I remembered the conductor naming the town where I was to finally go park Valley) on the stretch before Ogden. I decided to enter a returning train and go to that place. Soon the conductor cume for my ticket - but I didn't have one, then he wonted money, which I also did not have. Then he tried to talk fo me, but that didn't work either as he spoke English and I. German. Soon we came to a town called Box EIder where I got out, accompanied by the conductor, and

in the same traveling company in which I came

lfrorn Europe). They stopped at the French family's neighbor, who also happened to be a friend of Brother Hirschi. When Brother Himchi discovered that he had arrived four doys foo late at he station to meet me,he decided to drive to his friend's house to inquire after me. There he was told that I r e mained in Ogden. But no one knew of me in Ogden.

So Brother Hirschi decided to take the other young man in my place. As they were possing I recognized the young fellow.

Quickly an exchange was made so Frib could go with Christian Hirschi to his original destination, Park Valley, Utah. The wagon ride in that direction took them through an in-

Frledrlch ("Fritz") Zaugg. went into the waiting room. There the conductor talked to one of the employees who later - around I I p.m. - took me to a nearby town.

Because Fritz spoke the Swiss dialect of German, the stationmaster didn't recognize the language the boy was speaking. He took Fritz to a home where he thought the people might be able to understand his speech. Both were disappointed when they discovered that the Danish family there also could not comprehend Fritz's message. But the family did understand enough to realize that the boy was alone and very scared. They invited him to stay the night with them. The stationmaster went on his way.

The Danish wife prepared Fritz some bread and milk but Fritz was too apprehensive to eat the food. So the family gave him a bed and he tried to sleep. After a fitful night Frih arose with an idea. He described his predicament on a piece of paper in both German and French languages. He wrote of his desire to find Christian Hirschi and Park Valley. Fritz felt better. He ate a healthy breakfast. Then the good Danish farmer took the note and went from house to house in the village until he found a young man who spoke to Fritz in French. Fritz was astounded to hear that Park Valley w a s a 25-hour wagon ride away. The Frenchman told Fritz that he could come and live with him until they found a way to get to Park Valley.

As Fritz told the story: Soon thereafter, as I was working in the garden, a wagon passed in which were two men, one older and one younger. The young man was one of those

creasingly dry desert. After two days of hot and dusty riding, they approached a tiny village, hardly a dozen cabins. Fritz was quite surprised. He turned to farmer Hirschi and inquired, "Is this Zion?" The reply was, "It will be when we build it into a Zion." Fritz said to himself: Then I first realized that Zion wos not yet a heaven, rather a place where the Saints gother ond where they wouId make a Zion. But soon I Iiked it right well, although it was nof as beautiful as my homeland.

At first Fritz hardly realized how people could grow crops in such a parched, dry climate. His village at home was surrounded with lush green fields that were kept ever fertile by frequent rainstorms. In Park Valley it hardly ever rained. Everything seemed dry.

But he soon learned how irrigation could bring water to the crops.

Fritz worked hard, even earning enough to repay his fare in one year. Soon he sent money for one sister to come to America. The next year they earned enough together to send for two brothers. In the meantime, their mother died, so the next year they sent for their father and remaining two sisters. On the very day that the sisters received money for the three of them to buy a ticket their father died in the village of Erlach, Switzerland. So Park Valley, Utah, a snug village on the edge of a desolate desert in the Rocky Mountains of America, became the refuge for the Zaugg children. They found Park Valley to be a good place to work and a homeland from which has sprung several generations of Zauggs who now live throughout western America.

Dr. Alder is professor of history and geography at Utah State University. The article by Friedrich Zaugg entitled "How I Got to Zion" appeared in Der Stern, vol.

64. The English banslation may be found in appendix D of Dr. Alder's master's thesis, "German-speaking Immigration to Utah, 185&1Q50," University of Utah, 1959.

Photographs in the Salt Lake Tribune,September 9,1920, heralded the first airmail plane to land in Salt Lake City with pilot Buck Hefron. Another pilot, S.S. Boggs, lower left, wasscheduled to fly to San Francisco.

The Beginnings of Commercial Aviation A WIND SOCK WAS THE ONLY HELP MOST PILOTS HAD WHEN LANDING, AND THE FIRST PASSENGERSWERE SQUEEZED IN BETWEEN MAILBAGS.

BY CHARLES S. DAVEY

Airmail service in the United States began on May 15, 1918,over a single route between Washington, D.C., and New York City with a refueling stop in Philadelphia.

From 1918 to 1920 mutes were expanded to include Chicago, Cleveland, and Omaha.

The last leg of what was developing into a transcontinentalroute linked Omaha with San Francisco via North Platte, Cheyenne, Rawlins, Rock Springs, Salt Lake City, and Reno.

This route was opened on September 8,1920.

Salt Lake City offered little more than a safety landing strip and a refueling stop in the

first months of the airmail run. In fact, one pilot flying in from Reno on September lo, 1920, had difficulty finding the temporary landing strip at Buena Vista Field near 8th South and 14th West. While he circled the valley, officials lighted a smudge pot as a signal. The flyer saw the smoke and finally made a safe landing at 4:15 p.m. He had left Reno at 9:25 that morning on an allday flight that now takes an hour or less.

Just before Christmas, on December 21, 1920, Woodward Field was dedicated at 22nd West and North Temple. At the suggestion of

Salt Lake City Mayor Ciarence Neslen, the new facility was named after John P. Woodward, an airmail pilot who was kiHed November 6, 1920, when his plane crashed in a snowstorm in Wyoming.

With its 106 acres, Woodward Field was one of the largest of the 15 U.S. airfields used by the Post Office Deparbent. In addition to runways, it had an office building, a hangar for eight planes, and a service area to rebuild planes. Later, W o o d w d Field was renamed Salt Lake City Airport. According to Vern Halliday, airport manager from 1927 to 1936, a large wind sock indicated the wind direction during the day, while a large illuminated arrow, free to turn, provided pilots with landing information during the early evening hours.

The Post Office Deparlment began transporting mail by airplane in cooperation with the U.S. Army, but they hoped to encourage private enterprise to take over the mail contracts.

With the passage of the Air Mail Act of 1925, individuals began to compete for airmail

contrack. Walter T. Varnsy was awarded the contract from Pasco, Washington, to Elko, Nevada. This route was described by one Post Office official as "starting nowhere and ending nowhere, and over impossible country getting

there."

Salt Lake City was quickly pinpointed by Varney S p e d Lines and Western Air Express as a connection for points east. So, on October 1, 1926, seven months after Varney began the Pasco-F,lko route, Salt Lake City replaced Elko as the southern terminus.

Meanwhile, Western Air Express delivered the first airmail from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City on April 17, 1926. WEA had been incorporated a year earlier by a group of young Los Angeles businessmen who felt that their city was being deprived of airrnail service. Not to be outdone by San Francisco,these LA men pushed for a Los Angeles to Salt Lake City route. Five weeks after its first airmail flight, WEA (later Western Airlines) carried its first passengers.

The early airmail carriers were permitted by their conlxacts to carry passengers only if

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priority was given to the mail cargo. The average mail load per plane was 400 pounds.

About a quarter of a million letters were flown across the country daily.

Western's first passenger flight on May 23, 1926, carried Ben Redman and John Tomh o n from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles with a stop at Las Vegas. Pilot Charles N. James flew the route in eight hours. During its early years, air travel was expensive. A one-way ticket from Salt Lake to Los Angeles cost $90 and a round-trip $150, large sums in those days.

From 1926 to 1929 commercial aviation expanded rapidly in Salt Lake City. Walter Varney extended his PascwSdt Lake mute to include Portland and Seattle. Two other contractors, Pacific Air Transport and Boeing Air Transport, began operating in the western United States about this same time.

Varney was enthusiastic about carrying passengers to and from the Pacific Northwest, connecting in Salt Lake City with Boeing Air Transport which had the San Francisco to Chicago airmail contract. Passenger facilities were simple: a crude mimeograph machine

cranked out tickets and safety instructions and a small percolator provided coffee for those waiting to board flights. In 1931 Varney joined with three other airlines to form United Airlines.

The Salt Lake City Airport kept pace with airline growth. A hard-surfaced runway, runway landing lights, a primitive aircraft approach control (a siren blew once for landing, twice for takeoff), and improved buildings demonstrated that the transportation of mail, commodities, and passengers by air was here to stay.

From the beginning of transcontinental airmail service by the Post Office Departnwnt, through the development of large cornmerical airlines, Selt Lake City has filled an important role in aviation. And commercial aviation has provided Utah with economic growth, good access to other American cities, and a basis for attracting additional business and industry to the area.

Mr. Davey is a travel agent. Information for this article was compiled from airline histories, newspaper accounts, and interviews.

Horses, Wagons, Drivers, Kids FOR MANY YEARS AFTER THE INVENTION OF f HE AUTOMOBILE, MUCH OF SALT LAKE CITY STILL RAN ON HORSEPOWER. ,

BY C. RAY BALMFORTH

Practically everything was hauled by teams and wagons -milk, sand, coal, ice, ice cream, furniture, bread, and even water for sprinkling the dusty streets. Each of these teams and wagons had a part in our childhood activities during the early 1920s in Salt Lake City.

The sprinkling wagon, pulled by two big horses, was a huge wooden tank on four wheels. The driver sat on a spring seat and had two big pedals by his feet. There was an opening in the top of the tank and a length of firehose on the side. When the driver wanted to fill the tank, he'd attach the hose to the fire hydrant, turn on the water, and fill it up. A gang of us kids was always there to get a drink when he removed the hose from the hydrant and to wade barefoot in the g u s h , fanlike spray that spewed out behind the wagon when he pushed on the foot pedals.

The iceman with his wagon and horses came about every other day. This iceman wore a heavy leather cover over his back to protect it when he carried blocks of ice weighing from twenty-five to one hundred pounds each into the homes and stores. His wagon was loaded with ice blocks weighing about five hundred pounds. The iceman chipped off the size he needed with an ice pick. The kids were always there to pick up little chips of ice to suck or to stick down someone's shirt.

The milk wagons came very early in the morning,sometimes as early as 3:00 a.m., and

Kids Iwed to follow the Ice wagons. USHS collections.

we were usually awakened by the clippity-clop

of the horses' hooves and the rattle of the milk bottles. On most routes the horses knew the way so well that they could start and stop at the various homes without any guidance from the driver. The bottles were capped with a plain round waxed cardboard seal. On winter days if the bottle was left too long outside, the milk would freeze and push up the seal, some times as much as a couple of inches. In the hot summers the milk would swell and push the seal loose. In each case, the cats in the neighborhood could fare quite well.

When the ice cream man came to the neighborhood, there was usually a lot of scurrying in the various homes - everyone wanted some ice cream. The ice cream man drove a small boxlike wagon pulled by one horse. The wagon was loaded with five gallon cans of vanilla ice cream packed in salt and ice. To let all know that he was in the area, the ice cream man blew a pea whistle [that's a whistle with a small, round, hard object like a pea in the sound bowl to make it trill). This had a distinctive sound -three low notes, a high and a low, and another high and low. When we could talk Dad into it, we'd go out with a big bowl and tell the man, "Fifty cents worth!"

Then we'd watch very closely to see that he gave us full scoops and the right number.

Sand and gravel were hauled from the pits north of the city, above the city cemetery. The wagon box was about ten feet long, four feet

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Leo Anoeraon ana his sprin~~lng wagon In dldvale, Utah. USHS collections.

wide, and eighteen inches deep. When loaded, it made a heavy haul for a good team of horses.

The bottom of the wagon was made of two-byfours the same length as the width of the wagon, laid side by side from front to rear.

Before the wagon was loaded, gunny sacks were placed to cover the openings where the sand could leak out. When the job site was reached, the driver would undo the tailgate, and with a handpick loosen the two-by-fours - one by one, letting the sand fail out under the wagon.

And who could forget the horsedrawn side walk plows in the wintertime? Always after a heavy snowstorm, and there seemed to be far more of them then than now, the snowplow man would come along and push the snow off of the sidewalks. This plow was made of t w e by-twelve planks standing on edge and shaped k e a V. A seat was arranged in the center of the V, and a single-tree fastened at the vortex so that a horse could be hooked up to it.

The back of it opened up to a space about four feet wide - the width of the sidewalk.

This h o d r a w n , V-shaped plow pushed the snow aside and piled it high on either side of the sidewalk. Chasing after the snowplow man was'fun if we were outside early enough.

Like the milkman, he began early.

I can't leave horses in the city area without saying something about their leavings. The city employed quite a number of men who had the task of keeping the uptown streets clean. Each man pushed a little twwwheeled cart shaped like a wide scoop shovel. And each man wore a white cotton jacket, thus they were called "white wings." The men would push their little carts up and down the streets in the business district, and whenever they came upon the

leavings of a horse, they'd take a longbristled broom with a scraper attached to the long handle and sweep the debris into their cart When it was full, they'd wheel it to one of the large metal cans that stood at each intersection and dump it. Just as the automobile replaced the horse, it also replaced the picfiimsq~~e "whifF!wings."

Watering troughs for horses were located at strategic places throughout the city.

They were also good places for kids to get a cold drink of water, soak bare feet, and even to dip in on a hot day.

Once in a while, a driver wwld be kicked by a horse. He could usually be assured of an audience of kids watching a doctor or some good Samaritan taking care of him. Other times a horse would fall from heat exhaustion or by slipping on the ice. This would be a real show for us kids as the driver bid to unharness the horse and get it back on its feet, a real problem when the streets were icy.

"White wlngs" clean-up crew. USHS collections.

Finally, 1 remember the banana man. He had only one eye and a crooked arm, both the m l t of an accident in times past. He pushed a twewheeled cart - no horse for him. It was a box four feet square and fourteen inches deep. The two wheels were about five feet in diameter. The box held a bed of straw on which were bunches of ripe bananas. We always knew when he was coming as he would call in a very strong voice as he pushed his cart down the sheet, "Bananas! Bananas!"

We'd ask the banana man if he had any bruised bananas he could give us. And usually h had two or three tucked away, almost as if he were saving them just for us.

Wagons - four-wheeled, two-wheeled, onehorse, two-horse or no horse, drivers, kids tagging along - a familiar part of the sbeet scene in the city.

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had his left foot severely cut by the saw at Mr. Kenner's saw mill, Six Mile Canyon," and that "Prof. A. C. Smyth is training a special choir for singing at the dedicatory service of the new school building, which will take place on the 15th of next month." These columns also carried notices of parties, visits, meetings, and births.

Some state, national, and international news appeared in the weeklies, Almost always it was copied from other newspapers. It was a common practice to exchange subscriptions, and editors borrowed anything they thought rmght interest their readers from the papers they received. Sometimes credit was given; sometimes i t was not. For example, the

Messenger used a Salt Lake Tribune story about a disastrous fire in New York that had burned two factories, five houses, and a store. Another article in the same paper gave no source for a report of a shooting in Wyoming that occurred when a railroad watchman came into the cabin of a sleeping friend and was shot twice in the head before he cwld identify himself. "Drunkenness seems to have been the cause," the story concluded.

In some cases the national and international news came not from exchanges but from organizations that put together whole pages and then sold them to the weeklies. These were called "patent pages" and could be printed along with the pages that the editor had p r e pared locally. A paper might use patent pages for the front and back and fill the two inside pages with town news, editorials, and advertising for local businesses. An 1898 number of the Piute Pioneer had patent pages that included articles titled, "Temperature in Tunnels," "An Oriental Beauty," and "A Submarine Boat," along with jokes and small woodcut illusha tions. l3omte-

Even the papers that used patent pages found plenty of space for praising their towns.

In both news articles and editorials, this boosting was common, for the editors wanted to attract the settlers and businesses that would mean prosperity - including new subscribers and advertisers. A statement from the Uintah Pappoose of 1891 is typical: From a small store on a sagebrush flat, Vernal had grown "in less than four years to a bright busy town, with substantial business houses, pretty homes, shade and fruit trees. . . . Fertile fanning land, unlimited grazing, thousands of acres of coal and gypsum, and as rich gold, silver and copper prospects as there are in the territory." A "glorious future" was expected.

Editorials might also call for community improvements, encourage participation in meetings or projects, express support for political parties and candidates, or greet nsw businesses, including the newspapers that popped up frequently in towns across the state.

The Warntch Wave complimented Candace Alice De Witt on the improvements she had made in the Piute Pioneer after she became editor in 1898 and stated, "It reminds one of the change a female is competent of malung in the appearance of some bachelor's hall after giving it a going over for about ten minutes."

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Fighting wolds However, editorial comments were not always so friendly. The Daily Enquirer of Provo commonly called the Utah Gazette the "Guzzle." The Southern Utonian of Beaver in 1887 referred to the Southern Utah Times as "that lying contemptible sheet, printed by devils, edited in Hell, and issued from the Western part of ths county." Sometimes this personal journalism led to fist fights. The Wasatch Wave reported that its news editor received a "thumping" in 1895 and added that it was looking for a "fighting editor . . . . One who stands six feet eleven inches in his stocking feet and tips the beam at 197 pounds fighting weight, who can handle his fists, feet, agunor aclub . . . ."

Along with news articles and editorials, most of the papers used pmQ now and then.

The Uintah Pappoose printed a poetic welcome in its third issue: The Uintah Pappoose, so it is said, Is growing fast, and we hope it wiI1 spread Both far and near, to the great and small, And get to be, Big Chief after OH.

Another common kind of content was the filler, consisting of a few lines of type used to fill a small empty space on a page. It might be a joke, a short local item, or a fascinating fact. Here's one from the American Fork Item of October 27,1894: 'What would you do if you were a mon, Ethel?" asked Mr. De Sappy. "I'd work as hard as I knew how for the good of my country. What would you do if you were a man, hh.De Sappy?"

A d v m Most important of all, as far as the survival of the papers was concerned,were the advertisements, for without the money that businesses paid for the privilege of having information distributed to prospective cup tomers, newspapers could not exist. Subscriptions alone did not come close to paying the publishers' expenses. Most of the ads, like mcst of the news,were local. An 1894 number of the Millard Progress contained ads for such local businesses as the Fillmore Roller Mill Co., manufacturers of and dealers in Best Grade Flour; Greenway's General Merchandise Store; Mrs. Merrill's Dressmaking and Millinery Store; The Fillmore Dairy Co.; The Cosmopolitan Saloon; Ashrnan and Giles Stage Line; and the Hotel Millard. There were also a few ads for products that were distributed

The newspsper staff In Corinne, Utah, 1869, worked out of a tent. W.H. Jackson photograph,USHS collections.

nationally, like Royal Baking Powder and patent medicines that made extravagant claims about their healing powers and were later put out of business by the Pure Food and Drug laws. Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery, for instance, advertised that "Children who are weak, thin, pale, and puny are made strong, plump, rosy, and robust by the 'Discovery.' " Still another sort of ad was for the paper itself. These ads sought subscribers by listing appealing articles that were coming up or by offering special subscription prices when the paper was taken in combination with some other publication. There might be special prizes for readers who found 10 or more new subscribers. If the newspaper publisher also did other kinds of printing, and most did, the ads would mention that service as well. Some of the printing offices sold stationery and office supplies, too.

Editing a weekly newspaper was not an easy task. Editors had to persuade advertisers to buy space and readers to subscribe at the same time they were gathering news and writing articles and editorials. Some of them had assistants. But others worked on their own even doing the typesetting themselves. Yet, their papers were usually good looking and readable, if much more personal than the newspapers of today, and they give an excellent picture of what Utah was like a century ago.

Dr. Remion is associate professor of journalism at Humboldt State University, Arcata, California.

Lester F. Wire Invents the Traffic Light PEOPLE LAUGHED AT HIS "FLASHING BIRD HOUSE," BUT NO ONE WOULD WANT TO DRIVE ON CITY STREETS TODAY WITHOUT A SIGNAL LIGHT.

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BY LINDA THATCHER

Today we take things for granted that have not always existed - the traffic light, for example. Have you ever wondered how traffic was conbolld before the traffic light? What happened when cars met at an intersection?

Who had the right of way?

In the early 1900s automobiles were just starting to appear on the streets of Salt Lake City, joining horses and buggies, trolley cars, and pedestrians. As more and more vehicles appeared on the roads, traffic problems began to occur.

To help solve some of these problems, Lester Farnsworth Wire, at the age of twentyfour, was appointed by Police Chief B.F.Grant in 1912 to head the first traffic squad, Born in Salt Lake City on September 3, 1887, Lester Wire attended Salt Lake High School where he was a football star and an expert marksman. He also helped organize the first high school boys' and girls' basketball

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teams. After graduating from high school in 1909, he enrolled at the University of Utah as a law student He found that too expensive

and quit to take a job with the Salt Lake City Police in 1910.

Until Lester was appointed to the traffic squad there had never h e n a police traffic patrol in Salt Lake. Streetcars stopped wherever they liked to Iet passengers off, cars made U-turns anywhere, and vehicles traveled on either side of the s b e t . PedesMans were fair game and had to cross the street quickly or be run down. As head of the traffic squad, Lester was supposed to bring order out of chaos. He started by writing the city's first baffic regulations, but citizens were divided over accepting them and his job was not an easy one.

Whenever there was a traffic accident, a patrolman walking the beat would settle it.

Lester could see that traffic problems were getling bigger and n d d more manpower, so he appoint4 a patrolman to stand at the busy intersection of Second South and Main Street to direct traffic. The patrolman stood on a small platform in the middle of the intersection to direct the flow of traffic. In order to be fair he timed the traffic going each way, giving each direction an equal amount of

traffic lights. Lester spent many hours sitting in the city commission chambers waiting to ask them for more traffic lights, but whenever he stood up to speak they ignored Mm.Finally, thgr did ask bim if he had something to say.

"No,I just got up to spit," he said in disgust and walked out of the meeting. Next time they listened to his request.

People from larger cities were impressed by the light, but local residents thought it a curiosity and a nuisance. Pedestrians would yell at drivers waiting in cars for the light to change, "Are you waiting to see if the birdies

will come out?" or "I saw a birdie that time; now you can go!" The traffic light became known as "Wire's bird cage" and "Wire's pigeon house." Sometimes officers arrived to find that the light had been knocked over and destroyed during the rught. But as time went on the signal became better accepted and Lester kept hying to improve it.

In 1914 a platâ‚Źormwas attached to the side of a hght pole on the corner of the intersection where the traffic light was located. An officer sat in the cupola, or "the coop" as it was called, and controlled the light from h r e .

An umbrella was placed over the top to protect the patrolman from the weather. The coops were removed from the poles in 1926 with the

time.

Traffic patrolmen had to stand in all kinds of weather for many hours. Concerned about the long hours and poor working conditions for his men, Lester wanted to find a better way to control traffic. After experimenting, he came up with the design for what is believed to be the world's first electric traffic signal. The signal consisted of a square wo&n box with a slanted roof, painted a bright yellow and containing red and green lights inset on each of its four sides. It was mounted on a tall pole, placed in the middle of the intersection,-and connected to the electric lines used by the troiley cars. The signal was operated with a tweway switch by a patrolman standing at its base.

At first the signal was a novelty and even a joke to the local community. No one wanted to stop for a "flashmg bird house." People stood on the corner just to watch it. Needless to say, Lester became very discouraged. However, a few citizens thought it was an improvement and wanted more placed around the city.

Chief Grant Lester to go before the commission and ask for funds to build more

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Lester Wlre, right, points out differences between his metal stoplight In foreground and modern th-light signal. Courtesy of Wire Memorial Library.

In March 1963 the Wire Memorial Museum and Historical Association was started in his family home. His sister, Edith, Med to secure the original stoplight from the Tracy Aviary where it had been used as a bird house, but it had disappeared shortly after Wire's death.

The original metal stoplight had been displayed in Syracuse, New York,for many years.

In 1964 Edith asked if it could be returned to Utah for display in the museum, but the people in New York replied that it had been thrown out two days before her letter arrived.

Edith died in 1973. She left her money to keep the museum operating, but there were not enough funds to do that. Trustees for the estate referred the problem to the courts. As a solution, the Utah State Depariment of Transportation agreed to use the assets of the estate to create and maintain a suitable memorial to the inventor of the traffic light. To that end the Lester Farnsworth Wire Memorial Library was included in the new Department of Transportation building at 5401 South 2700 West in Salt Lake City.

invention of "iron mike," an automatic system that relieved the officers from having to control the stoplights manually.

In 1917 Lester enlisted in an ambdance corps sent to France during World War I. When he returned in 1919 the man who had replaced him as traffic sergeant did not want to give him his job back. So Lester walked the beat for a short time before being promoted to the Detective Bureau where he remained until his retirement in 1946.

Even though he worked in the Detective Bureau, Lester did not lose interest in the traffic light and continued to make improvements on it. Finally, he devised a durable metal stoplight, using the smokestack from an old locomotive engine for the frame. This metal stoplight looked much like the stoplight of today. except that it did not have the yellow caution light. Lester thought of having his traffic light patented, but he found that he had waited too long. Too much time had elapsed since his original invention. So, he never received any money for inventing the traffic hght. He died on April 14, 1958, at the age of seventy.

Ms.Thatcher is a librarian at the Utah State Historical Society. This article uses information from the Wire Memorial Library.

The safety of children sledding on city streets also concerned LesterWlre. He devised the stop sign at right to alert motorists. Courtesy of Wlre Memorial Library.

24

The View from rne lvorth Rim DRIVING TO ONE OF THE WEST'S GREAT NATURAL WONDERS USED TO REQUIRE BOTH COURAGE AND RESOURCEFULNESS! t

Grand Canyon from the North Rim. Photograph by L.V. McNeely.

In 1913 one great section of the Intermountain West had not yet been covered by the Tribune Pathfinder. It was the section of the country just south of Kanab, Utah, and on to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I was anxious to see this section for its scenic possibilities. Zion and Bryce Canyon were practically unknown at that time and therefore were not put on the schedule.

The Grand Canyon had been set aside as a National Monument; it was not to become a National Park for several years yet. A11 of the activity was on the South Rim. A spur of the Santa Fe Railroad was bringing in numbers of tourists who stopped off on h way to and

from California. A rim railroad gave an almost continuous view of the canyon from El Tovar

to Grandview Point. Quite a few automobiles were also reaching the South Rim. But few cars and spectators were seeing the view from the

north.

Uncle 'Dee'' Woolley of Kanab asked me to make the trip to the Grand Canyon He told me that the forest supervisor, Jim Pelton, was then constrvcting a road to the top of Kaibab Mountain plateau] that would make the trip possible to Bright Angel point. I contacted the Continental Oil Company and made arrangements with them to ship gasoline to both Kanab and a point on Kaibab Mountain and

organized a party of e&t automobiles and 21 people to make the trip early in September.

We made Richfield the first day out from Salt Lake. We held a meeting with the Richfield Commercial Club that night to enlist their efforts in opening a twrist route to the North Rim. We were unable to interest them and, in fact, were told that such a kip was impossible.

Even if it were possible, Richfield was not interested in any tourist travel that might come through the town. It is amusing to remember this incident in view of the efforts civic and business groups made in later years to detour all the tourist travel in southern Utah through Richfield.

W. D. (Bill) Rishel. Courtesy of Virglnla Rishel.

We left Richfield early the next morning and reached Panguitch with no trouble. Here we were received with open arms in a meeting held that night and pledged all possible assistance. The next morning we bought shovels and other implements to help us on tt.le roads ahead and started out for Kanab.

It is fortunate that we were well prepared, for we encountered by far th warst roads on the trip between these two points. We were unable to do more than thirty miles on the first day. We dug miles and miles of high centers out of the road and frequently had to swing out into the sagebrush alongside of the road to get through. We camped that night at the head of Johnson Canyon without supper or water.

The next day, just before noon, we reached the one lone ranch in the canyon and got a good meal. From there on it was slow traveling

through the town of Johnson on account of heavy sand. That night we reached Kanab where the town had -prepared dinner for us.

Their dinner had been carried wer from the night hfore because we were a day late on our schedule.

We spent the entire next day overhauling our cars and preparing for the final dash down to the Grand Canyon. Our cars were the fist that had ever reached Kanab. Many of the citizens had never seen an automobile before.

At that time Kanab had a woman mayor, women councilmen, and women in control of all city offices. I took the mayor for a ride around town in my car. She perched behind the steering wheel and steered the car while I manipulated the throttle, dutch, and brakes.

However, to all of Kanab, there was their mayor driving an automobile around the stxeets of the town.

We took Uncle "Dee" Woolley and forest supervisor Jim Pelton aboard and headed for the North Rim next mornmg. We found that Pelton had built a pretty fair road up Kaibab Mountain, and from there we followed the forest floor down to the North Rim. The present highway follows very closely the route we took. This trip through the forest, although slow, was one of the finest drives I had ever taken. The country was beautiful, with tall stands of pine, as well as dense groves of aspen and juniper and here and there shady glades or open green meadows. We saw deer everywhere and an occasional mountain lion or . bear.

When we arrived at Uncle "Dee's" cabin we camped for the night. The next morning we walked up to Bright Angel Point for what is m l y one of the most magnificent views in all of the world. We spent the day there. The view is a thousand feet higher than on the south and, to my mind, much more spectacular. We could see almost the entire South Rim stretched out before us. The next day we drove over to Point Lookout to see the canyon from another breathtaking view and also to look at the river winding through the bottom of the canyon.

Reluctantly, we began the trip home. The good luck that had sustained us on our trip down took abrupt leave. About halfway through the forest the rear axle of one of the cars - a car from Michigan - broke. Pelton said there was a sawmill located in the northern part of the forest; so he and I took my car and started a night drive to the mill, taking

The Tribune Pathfinder mr with Bill Aishel at the wheel pioneered auto routes to the West's scenic attractions.

Courtesy of Virghia Rishel.

got lost in the forest and had to camp until daylight when we could again see to continue on our way.

What followed was an example of what two unskilled men could do on a job of welding at a sawmill forge. It took some time, but we finally got our entire party back safely to Kanab.

Our trip home was without further incident. We had practically built the road b e tween P a w i t c h and Kanab on our way down.

So what had taken us two days to drive on the trip south, took only about six hours on our way back north. The trip to the Grand Canyon was exploited by the Salt Lake Tribune, and work was gradually started to improve the road from Panguitch to Kanab.

About two years later, in order to direct further attention to the route to the Grand Canyon, I organized another party to make the drive down We planned to return home via Zion Canyon, thus demonstrating the possibility of making a loop trip and seeing the broken axle with us. We

both of the canyons at the same time. The exploitation of Zion had begun shortly after my first trip to Grand Canyon, and I , therefore, decided there should be a route connecting these two great scenic attractions.

The second party, in eight cars, traveled without trouble to Panguitch. From there to Kanab we ran into so many difficulties that our previous trip looked like a picnic. We were compelled to camp out two nights between Panguitch and Kanab instead of one night as on the first trip. Heavy rains had washed out roads and bridges, and at times we had to use low gear for mile after mile to get through.

We found an especially bad wash in Johnson's Canyon and had to drag all of our cars through with block and tackle and manpower. And also, some woman power. After we finally got through, Ben Redman staged a "lynching party," showing the bunch hanging me from the rim of the wash. Ben declared that the next time it would be "for real" if I led the party into any more holes like the one in Johnson's

Canyon. The pictures appeared in the Tribune and I got a lot of ribbing.

From Kanab we found the road in fairly good shape down to the North Rim. The Forest Service had greatly improved it since my last trip there, and the entire party reached Grand Canyon without further incident.

We then turned toward the town of Hurricane on the route to Zion Canyon. Here we were forced to send a team of horses ahead to pull us through the Kanab Wash east of Pipe Spring.

As we left Pipe Spring we met a party traveling in a big white bus, including Gov. William Spry of Utah and a number of Union Pacific Railroad officials. They were headed for the North Rim of the canyon to inspect its potential as an attraction and to see if the Union Pacific could bring in visitors there and compete with the Santa Fe on the South Rim. I told the bus driver he had better arrange with the owner of Pipe Spring to get a team of horses to pull the bus through the Kanab Wash.

But the driver was one of those wise guys from the factory, and he told me he did not "need horses to get through anywhere." I said it was okay by me, and let the matter drop. When I returned home I learned the party had been stalled all one night in the Kanab Wash and had to get a team of horses from Kanab to pull them out .

But my own trials were just ahead. About halfway to Hurricane trouble began to develop in the rear end of my car. I sent the rest of the party on and started the search for my difficulties. After considerable delay I found that one of the gears in the differential was broken.

Nothing could be done to remedy it. It was a case of camp out for the night and await help or walk into Hurricane - about thirty miles away.

There were four people with me. We camped that night and the next morning decided to wait a while to see if anyone would come along before I started out with one of our two canteens of water for the long hike to Hurricane.

About noon we saw a team of horses and a wagon approaching. It was a farmer taking a load of fruit to Kanab to sell. I asked him what he expected to get for his fruit, and he said fifty dollars. I saw myself going into the fruit business right then and there. I made a deal to buy the fruit for his price if he would pull the car into Hurricane. The farmer agreed but

was worried about what I would do with the fruit. When I told him I would dump it out and

let the coyotes enjoy it, he rebelled at the idea of a whole wagonload of fruit going to waste.

Finally, we compromised by leaving the fruit in his wagon by the side of the road and using the horses to pull the car into Hurricane. He could then return to get my wagonload of fruit and take it on to Kanab. This was fine with me - so long as I got to Hurricane.

On our way to Hurricane we came upon attorney Andrew Hoppaugh of Salt Lake and his party in a Hudson with a broken axle. We sent a team out from Hurricane to pull him in also.

We were delayed for two weeks in Hurricane while we waited for parts for our cars from Salt Lake. We made the trip into Zion where we saw for the first time the Great White Throne and the other monumental red rocks that tower above the canyon floor. We finally got back to Salt Lake, several weeks later than we had planned.

Since then, a new route has been built into Zion Canyon, and the Zion Tunnel route wount Carrnel Highway] has cut out the long drive through northern Arizona we had to make.

This extract appears here by arrangmnent with Howe Brothers, publishers of Wheels to Adventure - Bill Rishel's Wesfern Routes by V i w a Rishel.

From Rishel's Routes, 1924, a tour guide with detailed sectional maps.

Woman telegraph operator taps out Morse Code message. Drawing from Harper's Weekly.

The Telegraph Comes to Utah THETRANSCONTINENTAL LINE WAS COMPLETED IN 1881 ANDSOON THE "TALKING WIRE" LINKED ALL OF UTAH WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD.

BY MIRIAM B. MURPHY

On May 24, 1844,the message "What hatkt God wrought" was sent by telegraph from Baltimore, Maryland, to the Capitol in Washington, D.C. A new era in long-distance communications had begun. Within a few years local companies were busily stringing the "talking wire" between many cities and towns.

In 1861 the Pacific Telegraph Company made plans to complete a telegraph line from Omaha, Nebraska, to California. The Overland Telegraph Company agreed to build the western portion of the line to Salt Lake City while Pacific built the line from Omaha to the Utah capital. The two companies completed their work in October 1861. President Abraham Lincoln, Brigham Young, and other officials sent the first messages over the new banscontinental telegraph line.

Most of Utah's early settlements lay north or south of Salt Lake City. Because the new telegraph line ran generally east to west across Utah, it did little to improve com-

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munications within the territory. So, Brigham Young and others decided to build the Deseret Telegraph to connect the outlying Utah towns with Salt Lake City. The difficulty of obtaining supplies during the Civil War delayed the building of the Deseret Telegraph until 1866.

But before any wire was strung for the Deseret Telegraph a call went out for one or two young men from every town to come to Salt Lake City on December 15, 1865, to attend a telegraphy school during the winter.

William A. C. Bryan of Neph was one of those who signed up for the class taught by telegraph operator John C. Clowes.

Telegraphy fascinated William Bryan.

Once he even climbed a telegraph pole hoping to "see" a message "fly" by on the wire. His curiosity unsatisfied, he followed the wires to the telagaph office in Salt Lake. Instead of flying messages the operators showed the boy batteries, keys, sounders, relays, switches,

registers, arid tape punched with Morse dots and dashes. No wonder he was ea learn more.

As segments of the Deserat Telegraph were completed, students from the telegrap school took charge of operations in the various settlements, William Bryan ran the telegrapl office in his hometown of Nephi - but no$ for long, Years later he remembered why sLA many young women learned telegraphy; There was not much commercid business, and the line did no1 pay its way. AII of the opemtors wen men, and some of them had families ta support Quite o lot of us worked gmtis [without payJ bu there were some who could naf do that very 10% and b s i d e n t Young mlled upoir all of the men and boy operators to teach the arl to young ladies, as he thaught it probable that .they could give more conomicaE service, so we told the girls tta put on their bonnets and come to see us. ' Four young wornen of Nephi tc-" jab with enthusiasm: Elizabeth Clar Parkes, Hem Grace, and Mary Ellel Mary Ellen recalled: We girls had a happy, busy time thot summer and enjoyed aur study and prmctiw of telegmphy so thnf the time passed swiftly: in the fall we were assigned to take chuqe of different ofices. We dreaded the separation but. . . knew that we could keep h touch with each other by making use of the privilege of ofhutting over the Iirre after business h o w . . . . The offie closed eurIy, and folks were supposed to go to bed in goad season, no uJl-nlght jabs in our day . . . . President Young's policy was to place the girls in safer situations and sertd the boys out to the overland m d l S ~ U ~ ~ O I mining IS,

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ussell photographof telegraph In Weber Canyon. Below: Transcribed

rincid Poirrtr in ~ l a h

camps, etc.

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Belle Parks, later the wife of WiJBtam man, took over the Nephi telegraph office.

Elizabeth was sent to Mona, Hetty to Round Valley (presentday Holden), and Mary Ellen to Fountain Green.

Belle remained the telegraph operator at Nephi far a long time. Since some mall-town teleaaph "offices"were in homes, women Iike Belle could go about their usual housework h between answering the call of the telegraph Some of them earned a little money for themselves or their families by providing this vital < ., ::g communications service. r4*% 2,(LLcpy> + 3 Elizabeth, who was just l5"@ag0ld when .he learned telegraphy, saved enough money om her small salaq to buy a few clothes. was a skiUed' operator with a great ganizational ability. In 1870 Erastus Snow --*t her from the MudA--River settlements I< Z

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eleatrlq and

office in St. George, William Bryan became a te' operator west of Salt Lake City on tl Fargo mail line. He also acwmpeded Young as his private operator w pioneer leader- made hb tours of t h mftlelfrents. Then, as now, M r- ' of th& day was imiortan~,and tk pr6vided services noy render6 radio,' end television. Wil his trips with Brighan - VIEPmident ojwt

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