CHAPTER 9
THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF TOOELE COUNTY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY X ooele County was an important mining center at the time of Utah statehood in 1896, and was to grow in importance as an industrial center for private corporations and as the home of government installations t h r o u g h o u t the twentieth century. A Utah governor from Tooele County was English-born William Spry, who tried his hand at ranching in Tooele, serving the county for two terms in the Utah House of Representatives from 1903 to 1907. He had married Mary Alice Wrathall of Grantsville in 1890 and moved his family to Tooele County in 1893. A Republican, he was elected governor in 1908 and is credited with bringing Utah's food and drug standards into line with federal Pure Food and Drug acts, promoting the creation of a state road commission, and facilitating the building of Utah's state capitol building. 1 The county was also home to important Democratic party politicians. George H. Dern was a m e m b e r of the Masons of Tooele County who was born in rural Nebraska and was twenty-two years old when his father, who was living in Mercur, asked him to come west to help out as treasurer of the Mercur Gold Mining and Milling 211
