The History Blazer, October 1995

I THE FIlSTORY BLAZER 1 I

hTEWrSOF UTAH'SPASTFROM THE

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio G r a d e (801) 533-3500

Salt Lake Cit? 'CT 84101 FAX (801) 333-3503

October 1995 Blazer Contents Ruth May Fox, Forgotten Suffragist

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The Garfield County W r t Has an Unusual Hangar The Virgin River Doused Cotton Mission Settlers' Hopes Historic Mural Depicts Price History Amval of the Episcopal Church in Utah, 1867 The Old Salt Palace-"The Temple of Amusement" Hilda Anderson Erickson, Working Woman

Quaker Settlers Met I11 Fortune in West Millard County

Miners and Travelers Stopped at Remote Page Ranch An Ideal Place to Learn to Swim Scandinavian Life in Utah Included a Unique Sense of Humor "Welcome to Brigham" Is One of Many Archways in U.S. A Soldier's Life at Fort Douglas in the Early 1900s

A Theatrical Tradition in Cache Valley Artist Mary Teasdel Followed Her Dream to Paris The Telegraph Was the Information Highway of the 1860s Old Juab County Jail Preserves Law Enforcement History Mount Carmel School Served Many Community Needs Oliver B. Huntington and His Bees Castilla Hot Springs Attracted Trainloads of Visitors

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Ruth May Fox, Forgotten Suffragist

h UTAH'SHISTORY THERE HAVE BEEN MANY IMPORTANT WOMEN of whom little has been written; one such person is Ruth May Fox. Besides raising 12 children, she was active in the Utah Woman's Press Club (president), the Reaper's Club, the Utah Woman Suffrage Association (treasurer), the-Salt Lake County Republican Committee, the Second Precinct Ladies' Republican Club (chair), the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society @oard member), and the Traveler's Aid Society (board member). She also served on the general board and as general president of the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association (YLMIA).

She was born November 16, 1853, in Westbury, Wiltshire, England, the daughter of Mary Ann Harding and James May. After her mother died in childbirth in March 1855, Ruth lived with various Mormon families and relatives. In 1865 James May journeyed to America and soon sent for Ruth and a Mrs. Saxon, whom he married, and her daughter, Clara. The two girls worked in factories in the Philadelphia area and did housework to help earn money for the family's journey to Utah. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1867.

James May, Ruth, and Clara all worked in the Deseret Woolen Mill at the mouth of Parley's Canyon for two years. Later, Ruth and her father worked at the Ogden Woolen Mill near the mouth of Ogden Canyon. Ruth returned to Salt Lake to attend John Morgan's College for four months, ending her formal education. When her father bought some used equipment and started his own business in Salt Lake, it was back to the mill for Ruth. She operated equipment meant to be run by a man and developed strong feelings about equality-especially equal pay. Running the jack was a man's job, she later wrote, noting, "I should have had a man's wages for this, but Father thought that his partner would object since I was a girl. ...I was given only $10.00 a week; but that was very good for a girl at the time. " At age 19 she quit to marry 20-year-old Jesse W. Fox, Jr., on May 8, 1873.

The couple prospered financially and had planned on building a three-story mansion when in 1888 Jesse mafzied a plural wife without Ruth's knowledge. About this time financial disaster hit the Foxes. Jesse lost his business and accumulated large debts, and they eventually lost their home. Ruth responded by doing what needed to be done; she let domestic help go and eventually took in boarders. In 1914 Ruth moved in with her son Feramorz Y. Fox to be near her ailing father and to work as a typist for the YLMIA. Always interested in writing, she joined the Utah Woman's Press Club and the Reaper's Club, groups that emphasized literary pursuits. She thus became acquainted with the leading (more)

women of the day, including Drs. Ellis R. Shipp and Ellen B. Ferguson, Emma McVicker, and the person most influential in her later life, Emmeline B. Wells. Ruth was not especially interested in politics per se, but she became active in the suffrage movement and in the Republican party to further the suffrage cause. She actively worked for the inclusion of woman suffrage in the Utah Constitution during the 1895 Constitutional Convention and helped to draft the suffrage memorial presented to the convention delegates. Later, she worked for the election of candidates who would support women's issues and for the approval of the new Constitution. Her diary, now housed in the LDS Church Archives, details her activities during the crucial year of 1895. On February 22, for example, she attended a suffrage meeting where it was decided that the women should interview the Constitutional Convention delegates. She and ''Sister Ebba Hyde.. were appointed to see Samuel Hill, Richard Lambert and Mr Vanhome." Two days later she interviewed Hill, who responded favorably to woman suffrage, and Vanhorne, who 'did not think the constitution was the place for sufferage [sic]to come up. " On March 18, when the women presented their suffrage memorial to the convention she wrote: 'We all felt it a great day in the history of Utah." Later they learned that the committee on suffrage had passed it on to the convention as a whole by a 10 to 5 vote in favor.

Ruth attended the debate over suffrage on March 28 and heard B. H. Roberts's eloquent oratory against including suffrage in the Constitution. Ruth wrote: " ...his only argument was that he thought it would defer statehood." As debate continued over the next few days Ruth wore herself out on April 1 when she spent the entire day at the convention, standing up almost all of the time. She thought it a shame that Roberts did not use his eloquence "in a better cause." She helped to circulate petitions calling for the inclusion of woman suffrage in the Constitution, keeping up the fight until the goal was reached.

When Susan B. Anthony and the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw arrived in Salt Lake on May 12, Ruth was among those at the depot meeting the train. About 40 women breakfasted with the national suffrage leaders and enjoyed other activities during their stay. Then on May 19 Ruth attended a reception for the Constitutional Convention delegates at the Templeton Hotel where again she enjoyed herself and perhaps felt gratified that her hard work had helped the suffrage cause. During the next months she was active in the Republican party and traveled to various towns with Emmeline Wells to attend Republican meetings. On November 5, election day, she said she believed that 'we have got Statehood assured so far as the vote is concerned and that means sufferage [sic] for women." She had given the cause her all and was probably feeling a tremendous letdown when she also confessed that she did 'not much care" how the vote turned out.

Ruth May Fox died on April 12, 1958, at age 104, an achievement that seemed the most significant thing about her to the newspapers of the day. The contributions she had made to woman suffrage were mostly forgotten.

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See Linda Thatcher, "Ruth May Fox, Forgotten Suffragist," Utah Historical Quarterly 49 (198 1).

THEHISTORYBLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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The Garfield County Airport Has an Unusual Hangar THE REALM OF AIRPLANE HANGAR CONSTRUCTION AND DESIGN the Garfield County Airport Hangar is truly an oddity. Its barn-like construction of native materials is a testimony to the ranching/agricultural background of the men who built it. Having no previous experience in designing or building an airplane hangar, they built in the style they knew using materials they had. The soundness of this building bears witness to their excellence of craftsmanship and ingenuity of design. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Native ponderosa pine, still retaining much of the bark, was sawed at the nearby East Fork Sevier Sawmill for construction of the hangar. The gabled roof is supported by an intricate network of large timbers, and a half timbered effect is achieved at the front gable by an angular placement of logs. The logs used for the hangar were cut as part of the CCC project to eradicate the black beetle in southern Utah. Infested trees were cut and sawed at the East Fork Sevier River sawmill by Garfield County men who hauled the logs by teams of horses to the construction site.

The hangar is a tribute to the early days of air travel in the United States. In the mid-1930s remote places such as Garfield County began to realize the benefits that wuld be derived from air service. Simultaneously, the U.S. government realized that a network of ahport facilities was a necessity. The Garfield County Airport, also called the Bryce Canyon Airport, began as a county WPA project in 1936. Since the WPA provided only partial funding, the county called for local men to donate their labor. Design of the structure and construction supervision was handled by three wunty commissioners-Sam Pollock, Jennings Allen, and Walter Daley.

The airport reflects an attempt by local officials and private individuals to encourage tourism to Bryce Canyon which was declared a National Park in 1928. It also reflects the hope that airmail service wuld reach one of the most remote parts of the country. The airport has also served as a recreational center for residents of G d e l d County. Located roughly midway between Panguitch and Escalante, the hangar has been used for dances, celebrations, and other county activities since 1938.

A GarJeU C o w News article on September 25, 1936 reported: 'The project is being sponsored by Garfield County as a WPA project and will cost about $38,669.00. About 320 acres of land has been set aside for the airport, which will consist of an 80-foot by 80-foot hangar of log construction with metal roof and concrete floor and warming-up apron. Two runways, 5,000 feet long and 500 feet wide will be built. There will also be a waiting room with all the modem conveniences." The project was enthusiastically pursued, especially after reports that Western Air Express would make the airport a regular stop between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. The (more)

THE HISTORY BLAZER hTECVSOF UTAH'S PAST FRO.ii THE

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande

Salt Lake Cit~r,LTT84101 (801) 533-3500 FAX (801) 533-3503

The Garfield County Airport Has an Unusual Hangar THE REALM OF AIRPLANE HANGAR CONSTRUCTION AND DESIGN the Garfield County Airport Hangar is truly an oddity. Its barn-like construction of native materials is a testimony to the ranching/agricultural background of the men who built it. Having no previous experience in designing or building an airplane hangar, they built in the style they knew using materials they had. The soundness of this building bears witness to their excellence of craftsmanship and ingenuity of design. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Native ponderosa pine, still retaining much of the bark, was sawed at the nearby East Fork Sevier Sawmill for construction of the hangar. The gabled roof is supported by an intricate network of large timbers, and a half timbered effect is achieved at the front gable by an angular placement of logs. The logs used for the hangar were cut as part of the CCC project to eradicate the black beetle in southern Utah. Infested trees were cut and sawed at the East Fork Sevier River sawmill by Garfield County men who hauled the logs by teams of horses to the construction site.

The hangar is a tribute to the early days of air travel in the United States. In the mid-1930s remote places such as Garfield County began to realize the benefits that wuld be derived from air service. Simultaneously, the U.S. government realized that a network of ahport facilities was a necessity. The Garfield County Airport, also called the Bryce Canyon Airport, began as a county WPA project in 1936. Since the WPA provided only partial funding, the county called for local men to donate their labor. Design of the structure and construction supervision was handled by three wunty commissioners-Sam Pollock, Jennings Allen, and Walter Daley.

The airport reflects an attempt by local officials and private individuals to encourage tourism to Bryce Canyon which was declared a National Park in 1928. It also reflects the hope that airmail service wuld reach one of the most remote parts of the country. The airport has also served as a recreational center for residents of G d e l d County. Located roughly midway between Panguitch and Escalante, the hangar has been used for dances, celebrations, and other county activities since 1938.

A GarJeU C o w News article on September 25, 1936 reported: 'The project is being sponsored by Garfield County as a WPA project and will cost about $38,669.00. About 320 acres of land has been set aside for the airport, which will consist of an 80-foot by 80-foot hangar of log construction with metal roof and concrete floor and warming-up apron. Two runways, 5,000 feet long and 500 feet wide will be built. There will also be a waiting room with all the modem conveniences." The project was enthusiastically pursued, especially after reports that Western Air Express would make the airport a regular stop between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. The (more)

importance of the airport to tourism was recognized by Mormon church leader George Albert Smith in a letter to County Commissioner Daley: "Being airminded and believing that an airport near Bryce Canyon would be of great advantage to your people, in that it would advertise the scenery of your section of the world and induce many people.. .to investigate. ...I feel it would be an excellent investment if it doesn't cost too much. " Despite delays due to a lack of workers and administrative technicalities, the project progressed and by the spring of 1938 was sufficiently complete to schedule the first landing during Air Mail Week. On Thursday, May 19, T. E. Gam,director of aeronautics for the state of Utah was scheduled to make a 15-minute stop at the airport to pick up all the airmail sent that day. The flight was to be a part of the Air Mail Week observance and an experiment to determine the need for an h a i l route through the section. Local residents were encouraged to "send at least one letter to some friend or relative. ..as the amount of mail sent may have a great amount of effect on the determining of whether a regular route will be established through this section." An elaborate reception was planned for the arrival of Garn's plane: "It is expected that more than ihree hundred letters will be carried from Panguitch post office by the pick up airplane that will stop at Bryce Canyon Airport today, Thursday. A special program has been arranged and the fifteen minutes that the plane will rest on the new field will be taken up in musical numbers and talks. Residents from every part of the county are expected to be in attendance," the local newspaper reported.

The elaborate plans for Garn's atfival had to be postponed for two days because of bad weather, but his reception was insignificant compared to the three-day celebration staged to dedicate the airport on July 5, 6, and 7, in connection with the big wild west show and rodeo to be held at the "Y"service station. The official dedication took place on Wednesday, July 6, with short speeches, a dedicatory prayer, and musical numbers. Organizers planned to have at least three airplanes on the ground and performing over the field. Passengers were taken for rides over beautiful Bryce Canyon, and stunt flyers "cut didos," taking dives and exhibiting other stunts in the clear mountain sky. Some of the best pilots in the state were expected to be on hand and take part in each day's program. Dode Burch and Sons presented a wild west show each day. It included a contingent of Navajo Indians from the reservation to take part in the chicken pull, women's races, and other contests. Fancy roping, bronco riding, and horse races by some of the best performers in the Southwest were scheduled. It was a fitting tribute to the efforts of Garfield County officials and residents to bring air service to Utah's scenic plateau country.

Source: National Register nomination form in Preservation Office,Utah Division of State History, Salt Lake City.

THEHISTORY BLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant fiom the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more infomation about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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The Virgin River Doused Cotton Mission Settlers' Hopes 1861 MORMONCHURCH PRESIDENT BRIGHAM YOUNGd e d hundreds of families to relocate to southwestern Utah to help establish a Cotton Mission. The principle objective was to produce enough cotton to supply church members' needs and thereby end reliance upon eastern markets for that product. The influx of settlers strengthened existing communities in the Virgin River Basin and gave rise to new ones such as St. George, the mission's capital.

In the southern region's cruel environment, however, the Cotton Mission never really flourished, and as the century wore on the settlers turned more toward eking out an existence for their individual families than to communal cotton production. In fact, throughout the nineteenth century life in Utah's Dixie was challenging, and many settlers gave up and moved elsewhere.

Colonizers who located in the eastern half of the Cotton Mission along the banks of the upper Virgin River found daily living particularly difficult. Specifically, the early settlers of Virgin City, Grafton, Rockville, Springdale, Duncan's Retreat, and Shunesburg quickly learned that the Virgin was generally untamable. They needed water, yet it often betrayed them with angry tantrums that left their dams, ditches, and crops in chaos. The farmlands in these small villages lay in very narrow strips along either side of the Virgin River and its tributaries and were highly susceptible to erosion from flooding. Families inhabited "tiny plots of soil" and struggled to farm small garden spots called "dinner baskets." In the end, half of the upper basin communities lost the battle with the river and became ghost towns.

Thomas Burgess and his extended family arrived along the Virgin River around December 1, 1861, and camped between the new towns of Duncan and Grafton while they waited for a draw of land. A tremendous rain began to drench the area. The Virgin River and its tributaries all ran high floods that obliterated the fvst colonizing attempt at Grafton and swept away much of the land at Virgin City and Rockville. Houses, furniture, clothing, and other property from Grafton floated down the river. The Nathan Tenney family was camped at Grafbn in a wagon box where Nathan's wife was in labor. To make matters worse the wagon was dangerously close to the surging river.

In an effort to keep her and the wagon from being swept into the river, the men of the town lifted the entire box, Mrs.Tenney included, to higher ground. Fortunately, despite all the commotion, she had a successful delivery, and the proud parents named their son Marvelous Flood Tenney.

Even though the first settlers of Duncan's Retreat did not face nearly the excitement the Tenneys had, the flood still proved too great a challenge; they sold their claims to the Burgess family and nine others. The ensuing years did not prove untroubled for them either, as the river continued to take its toll. One Duncan's Retreat resident described their difficulties: "At the present time, 1866, there is not more than one half the bottom land left that was here when we, (more)

came, but we have been told.. .to hold our positions as long as possible."

In addition to the unpredictable river, residents also experienced difficulties with Indians War (1865-68). In 1866, James Jepson recalled local leaders declared during the Black-k martial law and ordered the people in Virgin to move into forts at Rockville and Toquedle.

Jepson's father tore down their house and moved it to Rockville. But the very day that they finished reconstructing it two men rode into town and announced that a fort would be built at Virgin City and those who wished to return a u l d . Jepson remembered: "Father and I tore the house down again and hauled it back to Virgin, where we rebuilt it and lived in it for two years."

These challenges aside, life on the upper Virgin River was not all bad. Residents gathered on Sundays for worship services and often met during the week for religious or social activities.

Jepson described some of the joys of growing up in the region, including swimming, horseback riding, picnics, peach cutting (for drying) bees, husking bees, melon busts, May Day, Fourth of July, and 'big Christmas tree parties." Leone Russell McMullin recalled 'corn and chicken roasts at a pile of drift wood along the river bed during the summer evenings, and.. .candy making and popping corn in winter" at Grafton.

Still the Virgin River continued to make life difficult. In 1868, following yet another devastating rampage by the river, a number of families deserted. When the local church hierarchy went into the area to boost morale and reinforce the Saints' religious conviction, the report described the residents of Virgin City, Duncan's Retreat, and Rockville, as 'a little cast down over the loss of their farms" and then noted that many of them "stampeded last winter." By 1900 residents of Duncan's Retreat and Shunesburg had completely abandoned their communities and moved elsewhere-many to Arizona and Millard County, Utah.

Even after the turn of the century when most Utah settlements were fairly stabilized, the Virgin River continued to take its toll on the upper basin denizens. The floods of 1909 were particularly devastating. The Washington County News report from Virgin City of that year's flood described the record high water that came down the gorge and "carried away much valuable land," including 'the lower city lots" and 'all bottomlands." In Rockville even 'land that was thought to be safe was swept away in the surging waters. " Fencing, farm implements, milk wws, two stacks of hay, fourteen hives of bees, chickens, melons, squashes, and other valuables were also d e d downstream. The article concluded that some residents of Rockville were 'feeling very discouraged." Grafton was also hit hard by the 1909 flood. By 1920 Grafton's population had dwindled to three families, and by 1930 the river had completely won-it became a ghost town. Virgin City, Rockville, and Springdale, however, all managed to survive. Today they are sleepy little tourist towns that travelers pass through on their way to Zion National Park.

Sources: A. Karl Larson, "I Was Called to Dixie" (Salt Lake City, 1961); Stephen L. Carr, lIhe Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns (Salt Lake City, 1971); Leone R. McMullin, "Grafton, Ghost Town: A Short General and Personal History of Grafton, Utah," typescript, Special Collections, Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo;James Jepson, Jr., Memories and Ekperiences of James Jepson, Jr., ed. Eta H. Spendlove (n.p., 1944); W. Paul Reeve, "'A Little Oasis in the Desert': Community Building in Hurricane, Utah, 1860-1930"(Master's thesis, BYU, 1994).

THE HISTORY BLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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Historic Mural Depicts Price History

WHENPRICE-BORN ARTIST LYNNFAUSETT began work in 1938 on a mural for the newlyconstructed Price Municipal Building, little did residents know that the mural would become one of the treasures of Utah's experience during the Great Depression.

Lynn Fausett was born in Price in 1894. He studied art, math, and geology before entering the University of Utah to pursue a degree in mining engineering. When World War I broke out he joined the Navy and served until 1920 when he returned to Price. No longer interested in becoming a mining engineer, Fausett hitch-hiked his way from Price to San Francisco where he signed on with a merchant ship bound for New York. Once in New York, he registered with the Art Students League and worked several years in a large mural studio. During his stay he also studied and painted during the day and worked at nights for the New York Bus Company, using part of his earnings to spend summers in France and Italy studying Old World frescos and mosaics.

After nearly two decades in the East, Fausett returned to Utah in 1938 and was employed as an artist with the New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA) program. Because he was not able to work exclusively on the Price Mural, the painting took three years and was not completed until 1941 The mural is painted on the four walls of the Municipal Building's main floor foyer and depicts scenes from the early history of Price and Carbon County. The story begins in the center of the west wall where the first cabins in the area, built by Abram Powell and Caleb B. Rhodes in 1877, are depicted. The next scene illustrates the construction of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad through the area in 1882-83 with Chinese workers lifting a rail into place. Other scenes show W. H.Branch surveying the Price Canal in 1884, using a primitive tripod device to establish the proper grade for the canal, and a group of freighters who hauled supplies from the Price railroad to Fort Duchesne in the Uinta Basin. Among this group are A. J. Lee, father of former Utah governor J. Bracken Lee, Sam Gilson, developer of Utah's gilsonite industry, Matt Warner, a former outlaw who became a Price City marshal, and Chuck Fausett, uncle of the artist.

One of the most moving scenes in the mural shows the artist as a child leading his blind grandfather, Hans Ulrich Bryner, by the hand. The Swiss-born Bryner, blinded as a child, crossed the plains clinging to the back of a wagon. Once in Utah he raised a large family and was one of the earliest residents of Carbon County.

Early Mormon, Methodist, Catholic, and Greek Orthodox churches are depicted, along with such religious leaders as Catholic Bishop Lawrence Scanlan and Greek Orthodox Reverend Mark (more)

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Petrakis. The importance of the area's coal mining industry is shown in a scene of a Sunnyside coal mine and wking operations in 1917. It depicts miners of various nationalities who made Carbon County ae most diverse area in Utah.

After completing the mural in 1941, Fausett continued with a distinguished career as a landscape artist. He died in August 1977, but before his death he did touch-up work on the Price mural which was later covered with glass to protect the priceless artwork.

Source: "The Price Mural," a two-page description and history of the mwal available at the Price Municipal Building.

THEHISTORYBLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and fuaded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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Arrival of the Episcopal Church in Utah, 1867 MAY5 , 1867, IS A DATE OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE for Utah Episcopalians. On that date the first Episcopal service was held in Independence Hall in Salt Lake City.

The Right Reverend Daniel S. Tuttle had been elected Episcopal missionary bishop of Montana, with jurisdiction over Utah and Idaho, in October of 1866. He had been four months short of 30, the minimum age for consecration, and while waiting until that time he recruited missionaries to work with him in the West. His trailbreakers, the Reverend George W. Foote, Bishop Tuttle's brother-in-law, and the Reverend Thomas W. Haskins, a deacon directly out of seminary, preceded the bishop to Utah by two months.

A cordial welcome greeted the two Episcopal clergymen. Warren Hussey, a Salt Lake banker, had written to Bishop Tuttle in March of 1867 offering financial and moral support, saying "There is no other church in operation here now but the Mormon. The Catholics will be here during spring or summer, and probably the Methodists; and the first here will get most support."

The Sunday School that had been organized by the Reverend Norman McLeod, the Congregationalist chaplain at Camp Douglas, was meeting in Independence Hall under the lay guidance of Major Charles H. Hempstead, the district attorney. McLeod remained in the East after the murder of Dr. J. King Robinson, who had likewise been associated with the Sunday School, and Hempstead lost no time in turning the "Union Sunday School" over to the Episcopalians.

About 40 to 60 students attended this school, and under the Episcopal clergy the number steadily rose.

In later years Haskins described his fust few days in Utah in a letter. He recalled that the Saturday, May 4, issue of the Union Vedme, the Fort Douglas newspaper, reported the arrival of the two clergymen and the time and place of the first service. That evening, Mrs. J. F. Hamilton, wife of an army doctor, rehearsed the music on the Mason & Harnlin organ at the Hussey's boardinghouse. Haskins remembered that "the service was wnducted without break or omission, as quietly and orderly as it would have been in New York," and that this opening service keynoted the position and policy of the Episcopal church in relation to the Mormons. He reported this policy as that of 'neither antagonizing nor directly assaulting Mormon theology or practice, but planting and maintaining a positive good. " Early in the week after the fust service, an organizing meeting was held in the banking house of Hussey, Dahler & Company. On the committee then appointed were a Roman Catholic, a Methodist (Mr. Hussey, who was later confumed in the Episcopal church and was the first senior warden at St. Mark's Parish), and an apostate Mormon (Thomas D. Brown). Among the first (more)

contributors and regular attendants to the Episcopal services were Jews in the community. Evening adult instruction classes began immediately, and on his arrival Bishop Tuttle found 11 persons awaiting confinnation, a thriving Sunday School, and an operating grammar school of 16 students.

Within a week the latter number had risen to 35.

Immediately upon their arrival, Foote and Haskins were besieged by demands from nonMormons and Mormons alike for a grammar school, and on July 1 the two clergymen opened the first non-Mormon day school in Utah in a rented adobe building located on Main Street between Second and Third South streets. Board partitions created one room for primary students and another for the grammar department. The cumculum was the basic 'three R's" taught in a free atmosphere that attracted students from the entire community without regard for religion.

Haskins was the first headmaster of St. Mark's School and taught several hours a day. He wrote that, "The Episcopal Church considers education as the chief handmaid of religion." Bishop Tuttle seconded this sentiment, adding that, "In Utah, especially, schools were the backbone of our missionary work." But primarily, the Episcopal schools filled a vacuum in education, where no free public schools were to exist until 1890.

St. Mark's School expanded into two rented storerooms, then into Independence Hall,and f111ally in 1873 into its own frame building at about 141 East First South. Episcopal schools were opened from 1870 to 1886 at Ogden, Logan, Plain City, Corinne, and Layton. These functioned until statehood in 1896, when all of the schools had closed, with the exception of Rowland Hall, the girls' school in Salt Lake City.Tuttle reported that during 1886 some 763 students attended the schools.

Episcopalians take pride in the fact that their church brought the first non-Mormon continuous religious services to Utah and concurrently helped light the lamp of learning and enlightenment in Zion.

See James W. Beless, Jr., "Daniel S. Tuttle, Missionary Bishop of Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 27 (1959).

THE HISTORYBLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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The Old Salt Palace-"The

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Temple of Amusement"

BY 1899 RESIDENTS OF SALTLAKECITY had several places they could go to enjoy a variety of leisure activities, including the Salt Lake Theatre, Calder's Park, and Saltair. Early that year some boosters felt the city also needed an exhibition hall similar to the Ice Palace in Minneapolis and the Corn Palace in Sioux City. They conceived the idea of building a Salt Palace to emphasize the uniqueness of the Great Salt Lake.

A stock company was incorporated under the direction of W. A. Nelden, president R. K. Thomas, Jawb Moritz, S. W. Morrison, J. P. Gardner, L. W. Dittman, and M. H. Walker to raise money for the building. The company held mass meetings to try to convince the public of the "commercial good" of the venture, not only for the city but for the state as a whole. The future Salt Palace would serve as an "advertisement" for the city and would help the community economically. Subscription committees visited merchants, banks, and businessmen to encourage them to buy stock in the Salt Palace. Although they raised some capital that way, for the most part they met with discouragement. They also raised some money by holding a masked d v a l , and they paid for the board fence surrounding the grounds by selling advertising space on it. They requested an $8,000 appropriation from the Utah State Legislature, but Gov. Heber M. Wells vetoed it because he believed that public funds should not be used for private enterprise. Eventually the company construction of the Salt Palace began on Ninth South between State and Main streets, despite lacking some funds.

Even though the Salt Palace was not yet complete, it opened with a big celebration on the evening of August 21, 1899. According to the Salt Lake Tn'bune, it was an "impressive spectacle," while the Deseret News called it "a rare and radiant sight." Some 1,200 people attended the ceremonies inside, while another 1,800 milled around the grounds. Speakers included W. A. Nelden, Governor Wells, LDS official B. H. Roberts, and Judge Orlando Powers.

The architect of the unique structure was Richard K. A. Kletting, who is best known for designing the State Capitol and Saltair. His Salt Palace reflected the Beaux Arts Classicism style popular at the turn of the century and characterized by 'large volumes of spaces, exuberant decorative elements and interrelated facade components." The pavilion-like structure was capped by a huge dome, with 30 flagpoles rising from ornate bases on the cornices around the porch. A sculpture representing Liberty rested on top of the front entrance. The most spectacular part of the interior was the circular auditorium on the third floor which was 108 feet in diameter. The interior of the dome was illuminated by 900 lights set in wire and covered with salt crystals. The balcony at the base of the dome was 25 feet from the floor and was decorated with bas-relief figures. (more)

A dance floor filled the center of the auditorium; south of it was a stage, for plays and concerts.

The main floor exhibition hall displayed Utah products. The basement housed concessions.

The Salt Palace was constructed by building a wood frame and then spraying powdered salt under air pressure over the surface. The large interior wall panels and moldings were made by immersing boards and rods in ponds of super-saturated brine that in time deposited salt crystals all over the wood. When the deposits were thick enough they were removed from the boards and rods and installed in the Salt Palace. Rock salt slabs, mostly from Salina, Sevier County, were cut into different shapes. The heavier, darker blocks were placed along the base for footstones, while the light-colored rock salt was used for porch pillars and arches. The building cost about $60,000 to construct. Wiring for the enormous electrical system that lit about 3,000 lights wst over $3,000 and running water lines down Main and State streets required another $25,000.

Through the years attractions on the Salt Palace grounds included the Midway Plaisance, the Streets of Cairo and Temple of Isis with "strange scenes of the Orient," a miniature railway, a steam merry-go-round, an operating mine, a palm garden advertised as the "only one in the West," the Captive Passenger Balloon, a baseball diamond, and the most popular attraction-the Salt Palace Saucer where bicycle races were held. This track, designed by Truman 0. Angell, Jr., was the fist wooden track in Salt Lake City. It could hold about 4,000 spectators who sat around the top of the Saucer and looked down at the track. Utah fans had their favorite racers, including Hardy K. Downing, later a boxing promoter who discovered Jack Dempsey; Carl Smith, known as "The Hard-riding Mormon" ; and Iver Larson, the most publicized Salt Palace racer, who set numerous records, including a world record for the half-mile in 23.9 seconds.

When the Salt Palace did not clear enough in its first season to pay its outstanding debt of $20,544.57, the building "and all the paraphernalia" were sold to 0.D. Romney for $18,000 at a sheriffs sale on January 8, 1900.

From the frequent and often nostalgic mentions of the 'oldn Salt Palace found in diaries, letters, and other historical accounts, one would think that it operated for many years, when in actuality it existed for exactly 11 years. At 3:30 on the morning of August 29, 1910, a fire broke out in the "Third Degree, " an electric concession, and completely destroyed the Salt Palace. In 1912 the area was leased by Joseph Nelson and J. E. Langford who built a large open-air theater in the space where the Salt Palace had stood. In 1913 the name of the site was changed to Majestic Park, and a large pavilion was built that housed an auditorium, skating rink, and dance floor. The bicycle track continued to operate until 1914 when a 'spectacular blaze" destroyed it. The pavilion and other attractions operated until 1916 when the pavilion wllapsed after a giant snowstorm.

Today most who drive by the site of the Salt Palace see only the store fronts, but a few oldtimers remember lazy summer nights when the band played a waltz or a fox trot, the children rode on the steam-powered carousel, or the fans cheered on their favorite bicycle racer. Even though it lasted only 11 short years, the stately structure created enough of an impression to have its name given to later exhibit hall and arena complexes in down downtown Salt Lake City. "Salt Palace" will long remain a special term to the city's residents and visitors.

See Linda Thatcher, "The Old Salt Palace-'The

Temple of Amusement,'" Beehive History 15 (1989).

THKHISTORYBLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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Hilda Anderson Erickson, Working Woman WOMEN'SCURRENT STRUGGLE TO BALANCE HOME AND CAREER may seem new. But long before the turn of the century at least one Utah woman was combining home duties with four outside careers and apparently thriving.

Hilda Anderson came to Utah in 1866 from Sweden as a seven-year-old. In Grantsville she leamed early to work hard. Not yet fourteen, she took a dressmaking course in Salt Lake City and began her first career designing and sewing coats, suits, and ladies' clothing for clients as far away as Tooele. Once her mother "jawed" her for going to a dance instead of working, but the teenager was no slouch. During one 150-day period she spent 104 full days sewing. She could turn out a shirt or boy's coat in one day-before she acquired a sewing machine.

A bit of a coquette, Hilda kept John Erickson waiting for two years before marrying him.

John had already purchased a small farm with money saved from haying for local ranchers. But when Mormon leaders called them as missionaries to the Gosiute Indians, Hilda and John left the fann behind. For the next 15 years they worked "the Church Farm" at Deep Creek, near the Nevada border, helping the Indians fann in that desert environment.

During this second career, Hilda determined that Ibapah Valley needed better midwifery.

She left her infant daughter in the care of her mother in Grantsville and went to Salt Lake to study obstetrics. A year later, licensed and certified, she returned to the west desert where she delivered nearly every baby born there for the next two decades-except her own second and last child. She once traveled 25 miles on horseback to help a woman; another time she steered horse and buggy by herself over a steep mountain trail to assist at a birth. Did John worry? He had probably long since learned that his lovely aubum-haired wife would follow her own mind.

While still at Deep Creek she began her third career-as a merchant. Settlers were traveling over 200 miles round-trip to Salt Lake City for supplies. John and Hilda decided to stock at least some necessities in a small store in their own backyard. Hilda became not only manager, buyer, and clerk but also hotelier for the prospectors, railroad men, and herders whose visits to Deep Creek necessitated an overnight stay. It frequently meant working late into the night preparing knapsack lunches for the men to take with them early the next morning.

Eventually John tired of running somebody else's fm.At first Hilda was not enthusiastic about the beautiful meadow he had discovered 30 miles down the valley, despite its willow stands and wild berries. But eventually she gave in, and John built a shed and ploughed land for alfalfa.

Two years later he built a house.

Ambitious for her children to obtain a good education, Hilda never lived fulltime on the (more)

new ranch but had John build her a home in Grantsville. However, during his three-year mission to Sweden she ran the ranch herself, making day trips six or eight times a season to supervise the work. An excellent horsewoman, she loved livestock and carefully followed cattle prices as they fluctuated from $!60a head to as low as $19. She and John made good money supplying beef to work camps for the Western Pacific Railroad being built across the desert.

John finally sold the ranch to a passing New Yorker who took a fancy to it. Valley lore says the ranch never produced for others as it had for Hilda and John. The Ericbns retired to Grantsville where Hilda opened a general merchandise store. This time she hired a clerk and freighter, but she still kept chickens, pigs, and a ww or two in the back yard. It was in Grantsville that John passed away in 1943.

Hilda continued to serve as a Tooele County civic and church leader. As clerk for the Grantsville Farm Loan Association, she drove hundreds of miles in her Model T Ford gathering accurate data for association records. She was an avid Democrat, reading two newspapers daily and never missing a vote. She also traveled widely as president of the LDS children's Primary organization for the county. She wore out eleven cars between 1908 and 1953, when the state finally took away her driver's license.

In 1964 the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers touted Erickson as Utah's 'sole remaining pioneer immigrant." She was then 104. She liked to say she had traveled by ox team, mule team, horseback, horse and buggy, wagon, bicycle, car, and-her biggest thrill-airplane. She passed away at the age of 108.

Sources: "Hilda Erickson-Pioneer" in Kate B. Carter, comp., Our Pioneer Heritage, vol. 6 (Salt Lake City: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1963); see also "A Century of Living" in Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage, vol. 7 (SaIt Lake City: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1964). Carter obtained much of this information herself from Erickson, who was an active DUP member.

THE~

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Quaker Settlers Met Ill Fortune in West Millard County --

. -

AMONGTHE FEW OUTSIDE GROUPS THAT SOUGHT TOLERANCE and subsistence in the remote areas of Utah, the Quaker colony of 1893 was perhaps the most unfortunate. This group, composed of more than one hundred persons from Philadelphia, settled in Millard County in 1893 and immediately laid plans for mass production of farm products. The group was plentifully supplied with money, arid the leader C. W. Allridge (spelled Aldrich in some sources), is reported to have spent more than $1 million in improving the settlement.

The Quakers were preceded in the area by a group of Mormons-including the families of David Crafts, Henry Hales, and John Chamberlain-who in 1874 located 12 miles west of Deseret. They built a reservoir and miles of canals, but their struggle to survive proved too difficult in that harsh location. Drought, alkaline soil, and crop failures led them to abandon Crafton, or Metown, as the settlement was called.

During their tenure on the land the small settlement extended a friendly hand to the local Indians. Reportedly, 300 to 500 Indians would camp there on the way to and from the mountains to the west in their seasonal quest for food.

The Quakers located their settlement--the Swan Lake Project-along the Sevier River, four miles east of Laketown. Their first enterprise was the erection of the Swan Lake Reservoir, an immense project that covered more than 7,000 acres. The company also secured some 10,000 acres of farm land and began to grow alfalfa on a large scale. More than 14 miles of levee were also constructed to hold the water for the land.

This immediately thriving community became known as Ingersoll, and soon boasted a regular post office. Everything had worked out as planned, and the future looked bright to the colony when without warning the dam burst. Despite heroic efforts to stem the break, the farms were flooded and the town completely ruined.

In 1906, following the flood and the failure of subsequent attempts to raise capital for rebuilding, the tenants became discouraged and left. Some were attracted to a settlement at Clear Lake, a town on the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad line 19 miles south of Delta.

Most of the residents had come from the Midwest. A canal from Clear Lake, a natural body of water, supplied the town and farms with water, but ultimately this source was not reliable enough to sustain the community and its fields of alfalfa and grain. Clear Lake, too, was abandoned and most of its builings transported to other Millard County towns.

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When ghost town authority Stephen Carr searched for remains of these west Millard County settlements he found little to show that Quakers, Midwesterners, or Mormons had plowed, planted, and built there. He saw "a few broken-off corral posts and pieces of rusted machinery" at Uie Crafton site, some concrete and brick at Clear Lake, and nothing at the Quaker community of Ingersoll.

So-: "Tales of Utah, 1941-1942,"Utah Writer's Project, Work Projects Administration, copy in Utah State Historical Society wllections; MilrJonm ofMiUmd. A Century qfHirtov ofMiUmd County, 1851-1951 (Millard County: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1951), Stephen L. Carr, llrc Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns, 3rd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1986).

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Miners and Travelers Stopped at Remote Page Ranch PAGERANCH IS LOCATED ALONG A DIRT ROAD-.fiveIdes east of the small town of Pinto and twenty-five miles west of Cedar City in Iron County. In the 1930s a paved highway was constructed north of the dirt road, bypassing the ranch. Although the location of the ranch is isolated, the road was used extensively by those traveling to the towns of Pinto, New Harmony, New Castle, Cedar City, and points beyond. Travelers were welcome to stay overnight at Page Ranch, which provided food and rest for both man and beast. The ranch provided the only shelter for miles in any direction, and the house was used so much as a "hotel" that the upstairs bedrooms were numberd. Miners working at nearby Iron Mountain also boarded at the house on occasion. The large barn, located to the east of the house, was used to provide food and shelter for travelers' horses. The money earned from boarding and feeding travelers was probably an important source of income for Sophia Page and her children during the years after her divorce.

The Page Ranch House was built in 1900 for Daniel R. and Sophia Geary Page on land originally homesteaded by Dan's grandfather, Robert Ritchie, in the 1850s. Dan and his brother Robert lived at the ranch with their grandparents after their mother's death in the 1860s. In 1890 Dan and Robert received the ranch from their grandparents, and one year later Robert sold his share to Dan. Dan and his wife Sophia AM Geary, whom he had married in 1876, operated the ranch until their divorce around 1905. After that she and her seven children continued the ranching operation through the 1920s.

Located on relatively flat, open terrain with a reliable water supply from Little Pinto Creek and Lockeridge Spring, Page Ranch was the only agricultural and livestock ranch for miles in any direction, although there were two strictly livestock operations, the Grant and Goddard ranches, a few miles away. Most of the several hundred acres of land that made up Page Ranch were used primarily for grazing cattle. Hay and grain were raised on fifteen to twenty acres of meadowland near the house. The family usually planted a large garden. An apple orchard was located between the house and the barn.

Although ranching was for many years Dan Page's main occupation, he was also involved in iron ore mining in the area. He and his brother Robert were among the "pioneer mining men" in the district and were owners of the Homestake Mine at Iron Mountain. The iron industry had first been established there in the 1850s, and, though unsuccessful at first, it proved to be a major industry in the county during much of the 20th century. Page Ranch was the headquarters of Dan's mining partnerships and the informal headquarters of other mining groups.

THE HISTORIC

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The Page Ranch House was constructed by Jack and Harvey Faubian, brickmakers and masons from the n&y town of Enterprise, who built a number of other houses in this part of Utah. The Faubians manufactured the brick on the site, first hand-packing the clay in molds to shape the bricks, then, after letting them dry, arranging them into a kiln and firing them for several days to harden them. The house was completed in December 1900 and the Page family moved in on Christmas day. The Page Ranch House is a well-preserved example of the double cross-wing , a relatively uncommon house type in Utah. The ranch house, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, remains significant as an important stopping place along what was once a major freighting and travel route in Iron County.

The house remained in the Page family until 1931. A son, Daniel Geary Page, had previously taken over the ranch operations, but due to the Depression and the accumulated difficulties in making the ranch profitable the property was taken over by creditors. Sophia Page, an invalid during the last seven years of her life, was allowed to remain at the ranch until her death in 1934. Although the house has been purchased a number of times since the 1930s,none of its owners remained there long.

See National Register file in the Preservation Office, Division of State History, Salt Lake City.

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An Ideal Place to Learn to Swim GREATSALTLAKEIS UTAH'SLARGEST BODY OF WATER, there are few Utahns who learn to swim in its salty waters. Nevertheless, an early visitor to the lake, the Swissborn Heinrich Leinhard, wrote an enthusiastic account in his diary entry for August 9, 1846, about the ease with which one wuld learn to swim in the lake.

Leinhard, en route with a wagon train to California, had just come through Weber Canyon and was circling around the south edge of the Great Salt Lake along the Hastings Cutoff. He and two companions were ahead of the wagon train and decided to go for a swim. His account is the first known written description of swimming in the Great Salt Lake.

He wrote: 'The morning was so delightfully warm and the absolutely clear water so inviting that we soon resolved to take a salt water bath. The beach glistened with the whitish-gray sand which covered it, and on the shore we wuld see the still-fresh tracks of a bear, notwithstanding which we soon had undressed and were going down into the salty water. We had, however, to go out not less than a half mile before the water reached our hips. Even here it was still so transparent that we wuld see the bottom as if there were no water whatever above it, yet so heavy that we could hardly tread upon the bottom with our feet; it was here quite a trick to stand even on tiptoe. " IRinhard went on to note that although he was a poor swimmer anywhere else, in the waters of the Great Salt Lake he became "...an absolutely first-rate swimmer [for] I could assume every conceivable position, without the least danger. I could in a sitting position swim on my side, swim on my back ....For learning to swim, no water in the whole world is so well adapted as the Salt Lake. " Despite enthusiasm for his newly discovered swimming ability and the lake that had made the discovery possible, Leinhard concluded with a note of caution: "Only a single feature had the swimming in this lake that was not conducive to pleasure; this consisted in the fact that when one got a little water in one's eye, it occasioned a severe burning pain; and after we reached the shore and dressed ourselves without first washing in unsalted water, being desirous of hastening on, we soon experienced an almost unbearable smarting or itching over the whole body where the salt water had fded up all the crevices of the skin with an all-enveloping deposit of salt."

A hundred and fifty years after kinhard penned the account of his Great Salt Lake swimming experience in his diary, would-be swimmers in the lake are still cautioned to keep the ALTHOUGHTHE

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water out of their eyes and wash off thoroughly with fresh water after their swim. But perhaps this is a small price to pay to become an instant swimmer.

See excerpts h m Heinrich Leiribad's Diary published in W&@m

FOH Bridger, Utah Historical Q-erly

19

(1957).

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Scandinavian Life in Utah Included a Unique Sense of Humor

D

~ THEG LAST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Sanpete County became home to

hundreds of Mormon converts from the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

Aspects of this heritage remain in the buildings, traditions, foods, stories, and humor that were essential elements of Scandinavian life in Utah.

A closer look at one aspect-humor among the Sanpete Scandinavians-shows that it ranges from the nicknames they gave each other, to humorous incidences involving their use of the English language and their unmistakable accents, to elaborate stories involving social relationships and situations that brought out their individual human characters.

In an area where practically everyone shared his Scandinavian name with several other people, the Jens Jensens, Neils Andersons, Hans Hansens, Lars Larsens, Olof Ottosons, Peter Petersons, and others with commonly shared names were given nicknames by their peers that stayed with them all their lives and for some became more real than their given name. For example, a man arrived in Ephraim and informed a group of Danes gathered around the post office that he was looking for a man named Jacob Jensen. No one could help him,but the stranger persisted, indicating he had his address: "He lives in the South Ward, four blocks east of Main Street. Are you sure you don't know Jacob Jensen?" Finally a light came on as Jake Butcher, one of the old-timers, scratched his head and said, "Hell, that's me." Others were given names like Painter Hansen, Dan Wheelmaker Jensen, Chris Cellar, Chris Tallerass Christensen, Big Mart, Dirty Mart, Soren Chickenheart, Faithful Andrew, Long Peter Peterson, Olof Coffee Pot, False Bottom Larsen, Chris Golddigger, Stinkbug Anderson, Fat Lars, Peephole Soren, Alphabet Hansen, Absolutely Anderson, Bert Fiddlesticks, Otto By-Yingo Anderson, Pete Woodenhead, Little Peter, and Salt Peter.

One of the most enduring of these individuals was a habitual drunk known as "Old Okerman." On one occasion, when an LDS bishop was berating him for his drinking problem in front of a group of other church members, the church leader asked if Okerrnan had anything to say for himself. He responded sadly, "Vel, Biscop and Brodders, you haf all de time asked me how much visky I haf drunk, and scolded me for drinking it; but you nefer did ask me how tirsty I vas."

Old Okerrnan had run up against the Mormon church teaching that strongly discouraged the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee. This proved to be a real trial for the coffeeloving Danes. At the funeral of one Dane, the speaker reported that his friend had gone to that "happy hunting ground where there is no pain nor tears-nor Word of Wisdom." On another occasion when members of the congregation could stand and express their thoughts (more)

in the church meeting, one member boasted that he did not use coffee, tea, liquor, or tobacco and claimed that these things were only for the "yentiles" (gentiles--or non-Mormons). When he sat down, another brother jumped up and asked: 'Brodders and sisters, vy iss it dat all the good tings shall be for the yentiles?"

Most Scandinavians brought with them a very helpful device-humor-for coping with a new home and environment in the isolated valleys of Utah. In doing so they remind us that not always taking ourselves so seriously can often be good for the soul.

Source: William A. Wilson, "Folklore of Utah's Little Scandinavia," Utah Historical Quarterly 47 (1979).

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"Welcome to Brigham" Is One of Many Archways in U.S. SOONAFTER THE BEARRIVER BIRDREFUGE WAS ESTABLISHED local businessman J. E. Ryan began campaigning to build a welcome arch spanning Brigham City's Main Street. The Commercial Club (forerunner of the Brigharn City Chamber of Commerce) sponsored the project and collected donations to finance it. The local newspaper published a weekly honor roll of donors and encouraged a l l citizens to contribute. Most did, and all but $200 of the total wst of $2,400 was collected by the time the sign was installed.

The Thomas Young Company of Ogden constructed the 9x33 foot sign. It originally bore the words: 'Welcome to Brigharn, Gateway to the Worlds Greatest Game Bird Sanctuary."

The 12-inch-high letters in the words 'Welcome to" were m i t e glass, and the word "Brigham" was written in 30-inch channeled letters. A painting of wild ducks and the installation of more than 350 electric lights embellished the finished sign.

The arch was installed across Brigham City's Main Street between Forest and 100 South streets in September 1928. On September 6 the steel girders were hoisted into place 23 feet above the street by block and tackle, using power supplied by Caterpillar tractors. The arched steel framework to support the huge sign was fabricated by the Provo Foundry and Iron Works.

A shallow-arched girder spanning the 66-foot road feet was supported by a fancy vertical framework at each end. Each vertical support had two legs and ascended to a point. The sign itself was attached the following week and was completed and ready for a dedication ceremony on September 13 in conjunction with the local Peach Days harvest celebration. The dedication program consisted of speeches, presentations, and music from the Brigham City Municipal Band before the lights were turned on to illuminate the sign.

Wording at the bottom of the sign was slightly altered about 1945. The original sign read 'Gateway to the Worlds Greatest Game Bird Sanctuary." By 1945 it had been changed to "Gateway-World's Greatest Game Bird Refuge". The small electric light bulbs were replaced with neon tube illumination about 1950.

When the original faces of the sign became impossible to maintain, they were replaced by exact replicas. In the summer of 1984 Young Electric Sign Company repainted the faces and within a couple of weeks the paint began to peel off. The old galvanized metal of the faces would not hold paint anymore. In September 1984 the Brigham City Council authorized city recorder Mike Cosgrove to look into restoring the sign. Young Electric Sign Company meticulously fabricated the new faces to look exactly like the old ones even down to the raised letters for the word 'Brigham." The old neon tubing was colored glass. It was replaced by clear (more)

glass neon tubing that is colored by the gasses inside. The steel support structure for the sign has not been changed over the years.

The $26,000 cost of the project was paid by the Redevelopment Agency, consisting of the Brigham City Council. The new sign was erected during the morning hours of December 27, with the job completed and the street reopened by noon. The sign is obviously a great source of civic pride as evidenced by the large number of local donors.

Since the welcome arch campaign was initiated by the Commercial Club, it was likely intended to promote commerce in Brigham City by enticing travelers passing through to return to observe migratory birds or perhaps experience game bird hunting outside the refuge. Signs like the one in Brigham City were popular in small towns across America between 1915 and 1940. Reflecting both civic pride and boosterism, such signs often advertised some local wonder in an attempt to attract visitors who would, it was hoped, patronize local businesses.

The City of Ogden has a similar arch that since 1952 has advertised Weber State CollegeAJniversity. It was primarily the brainchild of Mayor Harmon Perry who proposed it in September 1936. Built by the Pioneer Days Organization and electrified on November 21, 1936, it spans Washington Boulevard at the Ogden River Bridge.

See National Register File, Preservation Office, Utah Division of State History.

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A Soldier's Life at Fort Douglas in the Early 1900s ON A FROSTY MORNING IN 1902 A U.S. ARMY TROOP TRAIN stopped in Salt L&e City where the 1st Battalion and regimental headquarters of the 12th Infantry detrained. After three years in the Philippines they had been reassigned to regular army posts in the.States. Some units drew Fort Duchesne in the Uinta Basin, Fort Bliss in Texas, or Fort Apache, Arizona.

Assignment to Fort Douglas, Utah, was considered a plum.

Oscar W. Hoop, who served in the army from 1900 to 1943 and rose from private to colonel, wrote a colorful account of his experiences at Fort Douglas where he was a typist in regimental headquarters.

After trudging three miles from the train station to the post the men were assigned to barracks on the north side of the parade ground. The barracks had been "swept, doused with soapy water, and the doors unlocked," Hoop wrote, but the men 'soon found we were not the only occupants. After an enforced famine, the bed bugs greeted us with gigantic appetites."

When the 12th Infantry contingents arrived the post was already housing two batteries of field artillery in barracks on the south side of the parade ground. The enlisted men were mostly young Kentuckians who were 'immediately christened 'Kaywaykies' by the older and more sophisticated infantrymen.. .. The rivalry between artillery and infantry began at once and of course, became more intense as time went on"--especially after the artillery baseball team defeated the infantry nine. Occasionally the rivals resorted to fisticuffs.

When the infantry decided to form a football team, men with "reasonable experience" proved hard to find, and team manager, coach, and right halfback Lt. Moor N. Falls looked everywhere for "suitable materialn-including the artillery and the guardhouse. After "Falls pulled a few political strings and military legerdemain," he secured the release without trial of a six-foot two-inch, two-hundred pound deserter. According to Hoop, the man 'did his part at right tackle quite acceptably for two months in the fall of 1902, and then deserted again. But the season was over and who cared?"

If players were hard to wme by, so were opponents. The soldiers played only four games. Hoop said he had "conveniently forgotten" the score of the Fort Douglas-YMCA game, but he could not forget the score of his team's game against the University of Utah: the U. 30 and Fort Douglas 0. Of this unforgettable match up he wrote: "The game was played in a whirling snowstorm and our defeat was attributed to our inability to see clearly the big blonde Larsens, Hansens, Nelsens, Carlsens, and Christiansens of the university team because of protective coloration." The other two games were played against the Aggies in Logan. One (more)

ended in a scoreless tie and the other the soldiers won 10 to 5. Hoop, who quarterbacked the team, attributed the victory to fullback James Cook who had 'the most accurate and devastating toe" he had ever. seen. He kicked two field goals which "in those days counted the same as a touchdown"-apparently 5 points. Years later Hoop encountered W. M. Jardine, the Aggies' quarterback who went on to a distinguished career as a diplomat and educator. The two men reminisced about the game, agreeing about almost all aspects of it-including the 10-5 score-except that Jardine claimed victory for his Aggies. Hoop was amazed that "a person of eminence and integrity" could distort the facts "to suit his needs and fancies."

Salt Lake City in 1902 did not offer much 'legitimate entertainment," Hoop wrote. He described Calder's Park as a resort with "a dance hall, benches, a little pond or two, several stands that sold beer by the bottle and sandwiches by the chunk, with a cop to keep order." The prices at Saltair were too high for enlisted men. As for the notorious saloons, gambling halls, and houses of prostitution on aptly named Commercial Street, they did not harbor all the sin in the world, Hoop noted, but they tried their best.

Still, Hoop and his fellow soldiers did fmd some 'legitimate" activities. He r d e d the 'excellent" fishing in Strawberry Creek when commanding officer Col. John W. Bubb took a dozen of his men on a week-long fishing and loafing trip to Strawberry Valley. Hoop was 'positive that the governor of Utah did not have any better fare" than the trout, fried potatoes, and tin cup of black coffee that the soldiers enjoyed on their first night in camp.

The men at Fort Douglas associated with the city's civilians on numerous occasions.

Many Salt Lalcers came to the Sunday afternoon concerts performed by the regimental band.

Dances organized by officers and enlisted men on alternate Fridays also drew townspeople.

These encounters resulted in a number of marriages between soldiers and Salt Lake girls, Hoop noted.

Hoop spent two years at Fort Douglas. His account provides a rare personal glimpse of army life at the turn of the century. He did not devote much space to describing the post because, he said, "All army posts of that day had the two lines of barracks, the half circle of officers quarters at one end, headquarters, hospital, guardhouse, quartermaster shops, etc. strewn nearby. " After his long career in the army, including sewice in both World Wars, Hoop taught history at the University of Tulsa and served as fire and police commissioner in that city.

See 0. W. Hoop, "Recollectionsof Fort Douglas at the Turn of the Century," Utah Historical Quarter& 21 (1953).

THEHISTORY BLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more infoxmation about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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A Theatrical Tradition in Cache Valley .

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DUMA IN CACHEVALLEYHAS A LONG HISTORY, stretching all the way back to Nauvoo, the Mormon city in Illinois. Joseph Smith encouraged his followers to build a combined theater and dance hall and to organize a dramatic company in Nauvoo. The first production took place in 1844 with Thomas A. Lyne as director. Lyne came to Nauvoo from New York City where he was known as a "tragedian." Under his direction the Nauvoo Dramatic Company advanced from being amateurs to having many fine actors. Early Mormon leaders such as Brigham Young and Erastus Snow took part in the plays.

When the Mormons arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847 they took care of their physical needs first, building homes and planting crops. But they never forgot the love of drama fostered in Nauvoo, Illinois, and within three years the Deseret Musical and Dramatic Association was organized. As the early settlers gradually moved north, looking for range for their cattle and good farmland, they carried this love for drama and musicals with them. After the early pioneers in Cache Valley had worked hard all day, they needed the diversion and entertainment of a play, square dance, or songfest as much as the food they were growing.

The little town of Mendon proudly claims to have formed the first theater group in Cache Valley, but neighboring towns were not far behind. Soon after 1860 Providence residents began producing plays in their one-room log school. The scenery consisted of bedspreads donated by local residents. One wvered the back wall, and one was used for a drop curtain. So many children costumed as skunks were in one play that all of them wuld not fit on stage at once. So, when it was their turn to appear they were lifted in and out of a schoolhouse window. That must have been quite a sight!

Hyrum's early productions took place in the outdoor bowery. Costumes and scenery were homemade and seating was scarce. Most viewers either sat on the ground or on chairs brought fiom home.

Admission to these early plays, dances, and other entertainments was a small amount of cash, if possible. If not, it became the custom to accept almost anything of value, including vegetables, meat, wheat, household goods, or anything that people wuld spare.

Early productions in Logan took place in Logan Hall,erected in 1862 near the corner of Main Street and First North. Known as the Old Hall, it served as an entertainment center as well as a meetinghouse for the community until the completion of the lower part of the Logan Tabernacle in 1877. (more)

In 1879 the Logan Dramatic Company was organized under the direction of George J. Bywater and his brother Joseph G. Bywater, former members of the Salt Lake Amateur Dramatic Association. Con&tions in the Old Hall were primitive, but the company presented three-act dramas and popular farces every Saturday night to full houses. During the winter of 1882-83 attendance at the plays was so large that the old log building could no longer comfortably seat all who wanted to attend the plays. To solve the problem, David Reese was persuaded to build an opera house on Center Street. The building, constructed of wood, was completed in the fall of 1883. The first play presented by the Logan Dramatic Company in the new Reese Opera House was Z%e Streets of New York, a standard 'sensational" play of that time.

In 1890 construction of the Thatcher Opera House was begun. George W. Thatcher, Sr., president of the Thatcher Brothers Bank, had sometimes acted as manager of the Salt Lake Theatre when the regular manager was on tour. When his Logan bank began to erect a new bank building, Thatcher decided to add an opera house to the upper floors. This building, located on the corner of Center and Main Street was completed in August 1890 at a cost of $50,000. It seated 800 people.

To open the theater the Home Dramatic Club of Salt Lake City presented the Civil War drama Held by the Enemy.

With the construction of the new opera house the Logan Home Dramatic Company was reorganized. This group put on several productions, the most significant of which was the 1903 presentation CoriMton, written by B. H. Roberts. The story was adapted from the Book of Mormon, and the music was written by George W. Thatcher, Jr., manager of the Thatcher Opera House. The chorus consisted of 102 persons, and the cast was made up principally of New York actors. The audience liked the musical so well that the production toured in Utah as well as other states.

Some of the most popular and well-paid road companies of the day played in the Thatcher Opera House. The owners and the manager of the theater wanted to maintain a reputation for securing high-quality attractions. But slowly live theater began to die as other types of entertainment became available. Theater operators found it more profitable to show movies than to pay for stage productions.

See Linda Thatcher, "A Theatrical Tradition in Cache Valley," Beehive History 5 (1979).

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Artist Mary Teasdel Followed Her Dream to Paris THE~ n n MARY s ~ TEASDEL WAS BORN IN SALT LAKE ClTY on November 6, 1863. It was an exciting time. Wagonloads of immigrants continued to arrive each summer and fall. And settlers and Indians continued to fight over who would control the land. Soldiers from Camp Douglas had discovered ore in Bingharn Canyon earlier in 1863 to begin an important industry.

By the time Mary was five and a half the transcontinental d o a d had been completed at Promontory. That event helped to change Salt Lake City from a large farm village to a regional commercial center. Perhaps all the excitement in the air fired this young girl's imagination.

Gifted with imagination and artistic talent, Mary was also lucky to have a wealthy father. Samuel P. Teasdel, a merchant, gave his daughter the best education Utah could offer.

She studied both music and art and graduated from the University of Utah in 1886. In 1891 she studied under James T. Harwood, an important Utah painter.

Samuel Teasdel did not believe in careers for women. Mary,however, was determined to become a working artist. To achieve that end she felt she must continue her training outside Utah. She spent the winter of 1897 studying at the National Academy of Design in New York.

Still, she dreamed of studying in Paris, one of the world's great art centers.

Her brother Henry knew of her dream. When he died suddenly, Mary discovered that his savings had been left to her. With Henry's money and her own savings she was able to pay for three years of study abroad. From 1899 to 1902 she spent long hours in the Paris studios working under the direction of well-known artists. Her fellow students came from many different countries and backgrounds.

Classes met morning, afternoon, and evening. Studios were furnished with little more than stools, easels, and a platform for the model. Women students reportedly paid twice as much tuition as men. This was supposed to cover the cost of keeping their studios cleaner. The women were not so sure that the extra money was used for cleaning.

Teasdel's most important teacher was the famous American-born artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). His studio was different. The rooms were freshly painted. The furnishings were chosen for an artistic effect. Whistler the artist was different, too. He always dressed to perfection. As he went from easel to easel to criticize the students' work he wore black kid gloves. Sometimes he painted on a student's canvas to illustrate a point. Instead of having his students draw the model in black and white, Whistler started them out with brushes and the same colors he used. (more)

Whistler's best-known painting is Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, often called Whistler's Mother. Some of Mary Teasdel's paintings-rite Grandmother's Tale and Dwch Girl Sewing, for example-seem to show the influence of Whistler. They, too, wuld be called 'arrangements in grey and black." These two paintings and some 20 more by Teasdel are hanging in the Smithfield, Utah, public library.

She was also influenced by the spontaneity and clear, bright colors of the French Impressionists. Her painting of apple blossoms, also at the Smithfield library, shows her skill in this style.

Teasdel attended sketch classes in the summer. Some were held in Normandy on the northwest coast of France. The artists lived in an old farmhouse in a picturesque, fortified town.

On their evening walks they studied the changing effects of light on the river and countryside.

The next morning they had to make two sketches from memory of what they had seen.

Success came to Teasdel during her stay in Europe. She became the first Utah woman to have a painting accepted by the French Salon. She also exhibited her work in the International French Exposition. Following this recognition, she returned to Utah and opened her own studio and taught art at West High School. Gov. Heber M. Wells appointed her to the governing board of the Utah Art Institute. Later, she became its president.

Teasdel painted in both oil and watercolor and was skilled at portraits and landscapes.

Her style-daring for its day-was not understood by many Utahns at first. She suffered ridicule and rejection for a time. By 1908 her paintings were winning prizes at the Utah State Fair and other local competitions. Critics praised her work, and it was widely exhibited.

In the early 1920s she moved to Los Angeles. Her paintings continued to be shown in Salt Lake City, however. Her friend Alice Merrill Home, Utah's early art patron, arranged these exhibits. In 1932 the largest collection of her works was acquired by the Smithfield library. On April 11, 1937, Mary Teasdel died. In following her dream she helped to shape Utah's artistic heritage.

See Miriam B. Murphy, "MaryTeasdel Followed a Dream,"Beehive History 6 (1980)

THEHISTORYBLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant fiom the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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The Telegraph Was the Information Highway of the 1860s ON M A Y 24, 1844, THE MESSAGE "WHATHATH 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 transcontinental 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 communications within the temtory. 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 a call went out for young men from every town to wme to Salt &.I City on December 15, 1865, to attend a telegraphy school. William A. C. Bryan of Nephi 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 telegraph office in Salt Lake. Instead of flying messages the operators showed the boy batteries, keys, sounders, relays, switches, registers, and tape punched with Morse Code dots and dashes.

No wonder he was eager to learn more.

As segments of the Deseret Telegraph line were completed, students from the telegraphy school took charge of operations in the various settlements. William Bryan ran the telegraph office in his hometown of Nephi-but not for long. Years later he remembered why so many young women leamed telegraphy: 'There was not much commercial business, and the line did not pay its way. All of the operators were men, and some of them had families to support.. .President Young called upon all of the men and boy operators to teach the art to young ladies, as he thought it probable that they could give more economical sewice, so we told the girls to put on their bonnets and come to see us."

Four young women of Nephi took up the job with enthusiasm: Elizabeth Claridge, Belle Parks, Hetty Grace, and Mary Ellen Love. As Mary Ellen recalled: "We girls had a happy, (more)

.

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busy time that summer and enjoyed our study and practice of telegraphy in the fall we were assigned to take charge of different offices.. ..we.. . [kept] in touch with each other by making use of the privilege of chatting over the line after business hours.. . President Young's policy was to place the girls in safer situations and send the boys out to the overland mail stations, mining camps, etc. " Belle Parks, later the wife of William Bryan, took over the Nephi telegraph office.

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

Belle remained the telegraph operator at Nephi for a long time. Since some small-town telegraph 'offices" were in homes, women like Belle could go about their usual housework in between answering the call of the telegraph. Some of them earned a little money for themselves or their families by providing this vital communications s e ~ c e .

Elizabeth, who was just 15 when she learned telegraphy, saved enough money from her small salary to buy a few clothes. She was a skilled operator with a great organizational ability.

In 1870 Erastus Snow brought her from the Muddy River settlements in Nevada to take charge of the telegraph office in St. George.

William Bryan became a telegraph operator west of Salt Lake City on the Wells Fargo mail line. He also accompanied Brigham Young as his private operator when the pioneer leader made his tours of the distant settlements. Then, as now, knowing the news of the day was important, and the telegraph provided sewices now rendered by telephone, radio, and television. William remembered his trips with Brigham Young: "The President always wanted the news of the day,-every day;-and while on the road from place to place, his secretary in Salt Lake City would read and compile the news from the papers, and such local news as might be desirable for the President, and when 1would cut in with my telegraph apparatus and give my signal to the Salt Lake office, my pen would begin sweeping over the paper like magic, copying the news.. ..Often the President stopped at places where there was no telegraph office.

At such places I would cut the wires and establish my office;-anywhere ." Anywhere was once on top of a wood pile at Scipio in a snowstorm!

Telegraphy may have lacked the daring challenges of the Pony Express and the glamour and big salaries of television, but to the young men and women of Utah who became telegraph operators it was an exciting new field-a scientific wonder as amazing in its way as a computer microchip or a communications satellite. Most important of all, the telegraph revolutionized wmmunications. News that had sometimes taken months to reach Utah took only a few minutes on the telegraph. Business, politics, jobs, home, and family were all affected by the speed with which messages and news could be sent.

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...

See Miriam B. Murphy, "The Telegraph Comes to Utah,"Beehive History 8 (1982)

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Old Juab County Jail Preserves Law Enforcement History Bvnn. IN 1892, THE JUAB COUNTY JAIL IS HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT for -its central role in county law enforcement activities. Located adjacent to the county courthouse in Nephi, the county seat, it served as the principal jail in Juab County for over 80 years. Other jails remaining in Juab County include the Nephi City Building and Jail (c. 1920s), and two jails in the mining town of Eureka-the c. 1892 courthouse/jail building and the detached, c. 1900 city jail; both of those were listed in the National Register in 1981 as part of the Eureka Historic District. Relatively few late 19th- and early 20thcentury jails remain in Utah. The Juab County Jail with its two-story height and intact interior is one of the largest and best preserved.

Nephi was established by Mormon pioneers in the 1850s and became the county seat in 1862. There are only a handful of other towns in Juab County, most of which are small farming communities. The major exception is Eureka, a mining town that had a population of several thousand during the 19th and early 20th centuries. A significant economic boom came to Nephi with the completion of the Utah southern Railroad in 1879, which connected the town with the major population centers and industries in northern Utah. Nephi prospered as a major shipping p i n t for livestock and other goods in central Utah during the 1880s and 1890s, earning the nickname 'Little Chicago" during those years. The county wurthouse and jails were constructed during that period. The rerouting of the main rail lines around Nephi in 1901 ended the local boom.

The first known jail in Juab County was a one-story frame building located behind the old courthouse and direcly south of the present jail. It was built shortly after the county acquired the property in 1883 for use as the center of the county government. Probate judge Charles Foote supervised the construction. In April 1888 the Pauley Jail Building and Manufacturing Company of St. Louis installed heavy iron cells in the jail at a wst of $1,575. That same year the large, twostory courthouse was completed, replacing an older building on the property. Four years later the county decided to build a new jail in Nephi and awarded the $8,916 contract to the Pauley Jail Building and Manufacturing Company. The iron cells in the old wooden jail were to be removed and sent to Eureka for use in its new wurthouse/jail.

The Juab County Jail built in 1892 is a two-story rectangular brick building with a sandstone foundation and a hip roof. The only alteration of note is the c. 1915 addition of a concrete, basement-level heating plant and accompanying large brick chimney attached to the north side of the jail. The only door to the building is located on the east, facing the adjacent courthouse. The solid metal door and the metal bars on all the windows are original. The interior (more)

is also intact. The four cells on the main floor and four on the second floor are qnstructed of metal bars and sheet metal. The east half of the building consists of two sections: an open area which contains the entrance and the stairway to the second floor, and a group of four jail cells, two on the main Xoor and two on the upper floor. The west half of the building is separated from the east half by a wall and locking metal doors. It consists of a single room on each floor containing two cells set in the center of the room and surrounded by a perimeter walkway. The only alteration of note on the interior is the addition of modern plumbing fixtures.

The jail continued in use until March 1974 when a new Tricounty Detention Center was opened in Nephi. The Juab County Daughters of Utah Pioneers acquired the jail and two adjacent buildings in the late 1980s as part of their museum complex. An important element of local law enforcement activities, jails are usually the only buildings in a community specifically devoted to law enforcement. County courthouses and city halls, though the seats of local government, serve a variety of other purposes and are significant in a broader sense. In this instance, the Juab County Courthouse has been substantially altered, so the jail is the only well-prese~edbuilding in Nephi associated with county law enforcement activities. Jails also document both the technology of jailbuilding and the philosphy of incarceration that was accepted at the time of .their construction. This is especially true with the Juab County Jail, which is so well preserved on both the exterior and interior.

See National Register file, Pfesewation Office, Division of State History, Salt Lake City.

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Mount Carmel School Served Many Community Needs M o m CARMEL,KANB Corny,- was first established in 1864-65 by several families as part of the general colonizing effort in Utah Temtory by members of the Mormon church. Indian depredations led to the abandonment of the settlement in 1866, and not until 1871 was the town permanently resettled. Farming and livestock raising were the principal means of livelihood in the community for decades. The town has always been small, and the only businesses until recent years were small mercantile and grocery stores operated from private homes.

The first school in Mount Carmel was established in a log building in 1880. That building served as a one-room school, church, and recreation hall for the town until the present stone schoolhouse was constructed in the 1890s and remodeled in 1923-24 after a fire. It is historically significant as the only remaining building in Mount Carmel that served the community's educational and religious needs. Built to replace the earlier log schoolhouse, the building served concurrently as both church and school for over twenty-five years. It was also used as a civic meeting place and for dances and other recreational and cultural activities. After the fire children were transported to the nearby town of Orderville to attend school, and from 1924 until 1961 the building was used primarily as a church house.

Residents used their teams and wagons to haul rock for the school from a source a mile south of town. The original one-room rock schoolhouse became a two-room school when an addition made of lumber was built. Hardwood floors eventually replaced the rough pine floors, making the building more suitable for community dances. The two-room school served all of the children in Mount Carmel until 1917 when the school district sent those from the fifth grade up to Orderville. There was no school bus in those days and the students rode in a covered wagon that contained a coal burning stove for warmth in the winter months. Heber Covington of Orderville, who had contracted to provide the transportation, recalled that on muddy and snowy days his team of horses struggled to pull the heavy load, and the children were frequently late during bad weather.

On December 10, 1919, a fire that was probably caused by a defective flue burned the Mount Carmel School, but school books and desks were saved from the blaze. The younger students in grades one through four attended class in the nearby Tithing Office of the LDS church for the next two years. After that all grades attended school in Orderville.

The Mount Carmel School was constructed during a period of substantial change in Utah's educational system. The most significant piece of education legislation was the 'free school" law (more)

THE

TOWN OF

of 1890 which, in addition to helping make schools free to the public, also established standards that a school must meet in order to receive territorial funds. With the achievement of Utah statehood in 1896 came additional funds for school purposes. Many new schools were constructed throughout the sfate during the late 1890s and early 1900s. In small communities such as Mount Carmel there was often no demand for enlarged or improved schools, so older buildings were kept in use for years. School consolidation, which took place during the early decades of the 20th century, resulted in the closure of numerous small schools such as the one in Mount Carmel.

The fact that the Mount Carmel School served concurrently as an LDS church meetinghouse during its early decades indicates the close link between church and community affairs at that time. Schools were established as part of the general community development by Mormon settlers, and for obvious economic reasons it made sense to share educational, religious, and community facilities whenever possible. Since the vast majority of the town's population was Mormon there was probably little objection to the arrangement. After the fire, the school board sold the property and what was left of the building to the LDS church, which, through donated materials and labor, rebuilt it in its present configuration in 1923-24. The rear wing added at that time housed a stage and two classrooms. Most of the stonework was performed by a Mr. Anderson, a skilled stonemason, who was a resident of the town at that time. The Mount Carmel Ward used the building until 1961, at which time, because it was such a small congregation, it was incorporated into the ward in nearby Orderville. The building then served as a bishop's storehouse for the LDS church's welfan program until 1983.

The reconstruction and expansion of the building in 1923-24 represents two significant points. First, the use of local materials and labor to complete the project indicates that the community was still operating under the spirit of settlement that required cooperation and thrift for survival. In a larger community with greater financial resources the fire-destroyed building would very possibly have been replaced altogether by a new building, perhaps one constructed by a professional contractor using brick or other "imported" materials. Second, the addition reflects the apparent expansion of church programs and the concept of multi-use buildings that the church adopted during the early 20th century. Previously, Mormon communities often had several churchrelated buildings-a meetinghouse, amusement hall, women's Relief Society hall, tithing office, and so forth. The new buildings of the 20th century, however, combined those functions under a single roof. They also included classroom space to accommodate new methods of formal and specialized instruction. Though the population of Mount Carmel did not increase significantly during the early 20th century, the space needed to cany on church functions apparently did.

Sowces: Adonis Findlay Robinson, ed., History of Kane County (Kanab: Kane County Daughtes of the Utah Pioneers, 1970); National Register files in the Presewation Office, Division of State History, Salt Lake City.

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Oliver B. Huntington and His Bees CANESUGAR WAS EXPENSIVE IN TERRlTORUL UTAHbecause it had to be shipped long distances by sea and railroad. So, many Utahns kept a few hives of bees and traded honey with their neighbors. One beekeeper in Springville was Oliver Boardman Huntington who lived on a small farm where he kept a ww, put up alfalfa hay, pIanted a garden, and kept bees. He was to help all of Utah produce more sweet honey.

Huntington made his own beehives-wooden boxes with a lid on top that could be removed.

Standing upright inside the box were wooden frames that had coarse wire in the center. The bees would use their wax to make honeycombs on the wire frames. He put metal strips on the corners of the frames to keep them from breaking when loaded with honey. At the front of the box near the bottom were holes for the bees to enter the hive. He made his hives so that warm air could easily flow out near the top. On hot days the bees fanned their wings to move the air in the hive and keep the wax honeycombs from melting. These wood hives were easy to open to remove the fiames filled with honey.

The German style of beehive used in the 1850s was made of waxed rope. The rope was coiled on the top of the lower layers and waxed in place until a cone-shaped hive was made. The rope beehive is used as the emblem of the Beehive State. When the honey was removed from the rope hive the bees were killed and the rope undone. Then the honeycombs were removed with a hot knife that melted the wax. Wooden box hives with a lid let fmmes of honeywmb be removed without killing the bees. This way the hive would keep working all summer producing more honey.

As a beekeeper Huntington not only gathered honey but also sold swarms of bees. In 1888 he loaned six swarms of bees to Levi Curtis who kept the hives in Hobble Creek Canyon. After four years Curtis returned six swarms of bees as well as half the honey the swarms had produced.

That same spring Christopher Welcock of Price, Carbon County, purchased six swarms of bees that were shipped to him by railroad express. The hives were carefully wrapped in cloth so the bees could not escape during shipment.

Many people kept bees in all parts of the territory. But, all beekeepers had problems with a disease that would kill an entire hive of bees and spread to other hives. Called foul brood, it killed the young bees while they were still in the comb. A beekeeper could stop the disease by waiting until after dark when all the worker bees had returned to the hive and then moving the queen bee and all the workers to a clean hive. If this did not work the infected hives were burned to prevent the disease from spreading. All the beekeepers in the area needed to clean up their hives at the (more)

same time or the bees would borrow the disease from nearby hives. When all the bees died in a hive other bees would wme to the unguarded hive and take both the honey and the disease back to their own hive.

A beekeepers organization was needed to rid all the hives of the disease. In March 1892 Professor A. J. Cook of Michigan Agricultural College and beekeeper A. T. Root of Medina, Ohio, came to Salt Lake City to help solve the disease problem. They organized for the territory the Utah Bee-Keepers Association. Oliver B. Huntington was named president and R. T. Rhees secretary. The association asked the temtorial legislature to pass a bee inspection law in 1892. It allowed each county to hire inspectors to look at all the beehives and destroy those with foul brood disease. After the law was passed and before the 1893 season started, beekeepers were notified of an April association meeting in Salt Lake City. The beekeepers met in the Brick and Stone Masons Hall over the Western Union Telegraph Office on Main Street. Huntington held several sessions of the beekeepers association on April 10 and 11 to tell beekeepers about the new inspection law, how to get rid of the disease, and how to sell their honey.

Huntington was hired during the spring of 1893 as the bee inspector for central Utah County. For two years he inspected every swarm of honey bees in Provo, Springville, Mapleton, and Spanish Fork. He inspected 3,875 hives and destroyed 247 diseased hives. In 1894 he inspected 1,949 swarms, visited 211 owners, and burned 18 hives. Inspection had reduced the disease. In 1896 as bee inspector he took 30 days to inspect 2,970 hives. He earned $60 as inspector and sold bees and honey for $80; his total cash income for the year was $140.

Money was hard to get in Utah, and people often paid their bills with farms goods or credit at a store. Beekeepers in the Springville area were delighted when in 1892 S. T. Fish and Company of Chicago bought honey from them with gold coins. Samuel J. Chapman from Chicago paid for the honey as it was loaded in a railroad boxcar at Sp~gville.Huntington supervised the loading of both extracted honey and comb honey. The boxcar was sent off on November 3 with 22,000 pounds of honey. After the first season of bee inspections the amount of honey shipped from Springville, Provo, Payson, and Benjamin increased. The same company sent a railroad car to Springville on October 5, 1893. Huntington, who had just turned 70 years old, carefully packed the boxcar so the combs would not break. S. T. Fish sold the Utah honey on the Chicago market to people in eastern cities and in Europe. The amount of honey sold in 1893 from just one part of Utah County was 34,000 pounds of which 11,000 pounds was the high-grade comb honey.

Honey was an important business in Utah during the 1890s. Although beet sugar eventually became the major source of sweets, beekeeping has continued as an industry in Utah. Clover honey from Utah is widely known as a favorite honey. And Utah farmers appreciate another vital bee service: as fruit trees and seed crops increase bees are in demand to pollinate the blossoms. It looks as if bees will remain important in the Beehive State.

Source: A. Glen Humpherys, "Oliver B. Huntington and His Bees,"Beehive History 2 (1976)

THEHISTORY BLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant fiom the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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i

THE HISTORY BLAZER ATEJI'S OF UTAH'S PAST FROAMTHE

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City. LTT88101 (801) 533-3500 FAX (801) 533-3303

Castilla Hot Springs Attracted Trainloads of Visitors TKEUTAHLANDSCAPB IS DOTTED WITH HOT SPRINGS RESORTS that have come and gone..

Although a few remain, most are merely memories to aging Utahns. One such popular resort during the 1890s and early 1900s was Castilla Hot Springs in Spanish Fork Canyon, Utah County.

The name Cast& was suggested either by the castlelike rock formations nearby or because the Spanish priest-explorers Escalante and Dominguez discovered the springs in September 1776 as they followed the Spanish Fork River down the canyon. They called it Rio & Aguas Calientes ('River of Hot Waters*) because of the hot springs flowing into the river.

In 1889, more than 100 years later, William Fuller filed for a patent on the hot springs property with the U.S. government. On the land he built a small house which contained a wooden tub for bathing in the mineral water. Later, the Southworth family became interested in the property. Mrs. Southworth, the family matriarch, felt that her health had been improved by bathing in water from the springs. She urged her two sons, Sid and Walter, to buy the springs to 'make a resort for people who have hopeless afflictions, that they may come and be cured." The Southworths obtained the land from Fuller and began to improve it. They Nled the swampy area with gravel and built a three-story, red sandstone hotel. Other structures included indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a store, a dance pavilion, private bathhouses, several private cottages, and a saloon. Picnic areas, a baseball diamond, and stables were also provided.

During the summer months the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad ran excursion trains to Castilla. One of the most popular runs was the 'moonlight excursion" from the Tintic Mining District in Juab County to Castilla. The train stopped at stations along the way to pick up passengers for an evening of dining and dancing.

Besides providing recreation for many Utahns, the resort area was the site of several enterprises, including a cigar factory and a quarry that furnished silica used as flux by the Columbia Steel Company in Ironton, Utah. Nevertheless, the warm, sulfuric water remained the principal attraction at Castilla. Bathers came from far and near for the relief they believed they would find for such illnesses as rheumatism and arthritis. The springs' water also became popular as a 'cure" for other ailments such as alcoholism, chain-smoking, moral dissipation, and the 'tendency to use profane language."

In 1912 Sid Southworth died. Noted sculptor Cyrus Dallin, a native of Springville, helped his sister Daisy (Sid's window) financially with the resort. Eventually, he gained controlling interest in Castilla, but he had to rely on relatives to run it as he lived in Boston. The resort enjoyed a brief renewal of popularity in the 1920s, but by the 1930s it had fallen into disuse. (more)

Lack of funds and competition from other resorts contributed to its downfall.

In the 1940s a fire destroyed most of the hotel. What remained was eventually torn down.

Today only a few ponds created by the springs mark the spot where the once-thriving resort stood.

See Linda Thatcher, "Castilla Hot Springs," Beehive History 7 (1981).

THE HISTORYBLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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