Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, Number 3, 1994

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY (ISSN 0042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF

MAX J. EVANS, Editor

STANFORD J LAYTON, Managing Editor

MIRIAM B MURPHY, Associate Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS

KENNETH L. CANNON II, Salt Lake City, 1995

JANICE P. DAWSON, Layton, 1996

AUDREY M GODFREY, Logan,1994

JOEL C JANETSKI, Provo, 1994

ROBERT S MCPHERSON, Blanding, 1995

ANTONETTE CHAMBERS NOBLE, Cora, WY, 1996

RICHARD W. SADLER, Ogden,1994

GENE A. SESSIONS, Ogden,1995

GARY TOPPING, Salt Lake City, 1996

Utah Historical Quarterly wasestablished in 1928to publish articles, documents, and reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah's history. The Quarterly is published four times a year by the Utah State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 Phone (801)533-3500 for membership and publications information Members of the Society receive the Quarterly, Beehive History, and the bimonthly Newsletter upon payment of the annual dues: individual, $20.00; institution, $20.00; student and senior citizen (age sixty-five or over), $15.00; contributing, $25.00; sustaining, $35.00; patron, $50.00; business, $100.00.

Materials for publication should be submitted in duplicate, typed double-space, with footnotes at the end Authors are encouraged to submit material in a computer-readable form, on 5 l/4 or 3 */2 inch MS-DOS or PC-DOS diskettes, standard ASCII text file. For additional information on requirements contact the managing editor Articles represent the views of the author and are not necessarily those of the Utah State Historical Society

Second class postage ispaid atSalt Lake City, Utah.

Postmaster: Send form 3579 (change of address) to Utah Historical Quarterly, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

THE COVER CCC workersfrom State Camp S-206 constructed a trailfrom Camel Pass to an erosion area in the mountains east ofProvo and Springuille. USHS collections.

MARTHA SONNTAG BRADLEY Kidnapped from That Land: The Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamists

KEN DRIGGS 289

Dreams, Visions, and Visionaries: Colorado Rail Annual No. 20 STEPHEN L CARR 290

LOUISE TEAL Boatwomen of the Grand Canyon: Breaking into the Current GARY TOPPING 291

WILLIAM G. HARTLEY. My Best for the Kingdom: History and Autobiography ofJohn Lowe Butler, a Mormon Frontiersman....STEPHEN B. SORENSEN 292

ROBERT WOOSTER Nelson A. Miles and the Twilight of the Frontier Army

PAUL L. HEDREN 294

In this issue

Public education, especially its funding, often generates controversy in Utah. Some readers may recall the media coverage J. Bracken Lee and George D. Clyde received decades ago when they grappled, in quite different ways, with this thorny subject An earlier governor, John C Cutler, found himself at the center of a debate during 1905-7 over the future of the Agricultural College of Utah in Logan. Along with many legislators and citizens concerned about the lack of high schools in some rural areas, he believed the ACU was wasting scarce state funds by duplicating courses available at the University of Utah Others feared that the ACU was losing sight of its agricultural mission as its curriculum continued to expand under the leadership of William J. Kerr whose vision embraced the traditional university. The consolidation controversy detailed in the first article affected the careers of several key players and provided political drama as it moved toward resolution.

The following two articles take us to the small towns of Hurricane and Keetley and the challenges of building communities in Washington and Wasatch counties respectively The first study analyzes demographic data, while the second weaves its narrative from personal recollections. Both include dramatic episodes and remarkable individuals struggling to survive economically.

Next we see how the Civilian Conservation Corps shaped the lives of the unemployed who left home and family behind to work on various projects on the public lands in Utah. Although the CCC camps provided adventure of a sort for city boys, that aspect of the experience was only incidental to their work, training, and achievements But adventure for adventure's sake was the goal of the two young men whose trek through the San Juan back country in the summer of 1923 is chronicled in the final article. In overcoming unforeseen difficulties, though, they too gained a priceless sense of accomplishment.

Agricultural College of Utah, Logan. USHS collections.

BY ALAN K PARRISH

Buildings at the Agricultural College of Utah in Logan, left to right: 1891 dormitory later used by the School ofDomestic Arts to 1935, Smart Gym built in 1910, and the president's home. The plowing of Old Main Hillfor a victory garden in 1918 seems to symbolize the victory that proponents of agricultural education achieved a decade earlier. USHS collections, courtesy ofA. J. Simmonds.

Dr Parrish is associate professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University

DURING 1905-7 A BATTLE WAS WAGED OVER the maintenance of Utah's institutions of higher learning. At the center of this controversy was the question of whether to consolidate the Agricultural College of Utah (ACU, now Utah State University) with the University of Utah (U of U). In addition to fomenting serious divisions among Utah's principal educators, the issue divided both houses of the legislature and was the chief political agenda item of the governor. The course followed shaped Utah's higher education profile for decades The controversy had its most immediate impact on the lives and careers of three distinguished educational leaders: John A. Widtsoe, William Jasper Kerr, and William S. McCornick.

At age eleven, John Andraes Widtsoe immigrated to Logan, Utah, from Norway After completing his courses at Brigham Young College, he graduated from Harvard,joined the ACU faculty, and obtained his doctorate at the prestigious Georg Augustus University in Goettingen, Germany. Ashis career progressed he served as director of the Experiment Station at the ACU, principal of the School of Agriculture at Brigham Young University, president of ACU, and president of the U of U. For three decades he was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

William Jasper Kerr was born and raised in Richmond, Utah. He attended the University of Deseret and Cornell. He, too, climbed the academic ladder, first asafaculty member at the U of U and later aspresident of Brigham Young College, president ofACU, president of Oregon State Agricultural College (now Oregon State University), and commissioner of higher education for Oregon.

William S McCornick was the first president of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, twice a member of the Salt Lake City Council, the first president of the Alta Club, and president, vicepresident, and director of several banks, mining companies, railroads, and land and cattle companies. He was treasurer of Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company and an original member and president of the Board of Trustees of ACU, serving from 1890 to

1907.1 McCornick's influence is of particular note because he was not a member of the dominant religion in the state.

Within a two-year period all three men left the ACU. At the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of the ACU on July 8, 1905, Widtsoe was dismissed. On March 21, 1907, McCornick tendered his resignation as president of the Board of Trustees, and, a week later, on March 28, 1907, Kerr resigned after serving seven years as ACU president The consolidation controversy brought these giants to the lowest ebbs of their professional lives.

The Land Grant Act of 1862 (the Morrill Act) made 30,000 acres of federal land available for every senator and representative from each state Proceeds from the sale of such lands were to be used to establish and fund college programs for the industrial classes of the nation Their emphasis was on agriculture and the mechanical arts. The Hatch Act of 1887made an additional $15,000 available for experiment stations associated with the land-grant colleges. With these federal acts in mind, Anthon H. Lund presented a bill in the Utah House of Representatives on February 28, 1888, that created the Agricultural College of Utah It passed unanimously in both houses and was signed into law by Territorial Gov. Caleb W.West on March 8, 1888. The Lund Act provided $25,000 to purchase land and erect buildings. The cornerstone of the main building at the ACU was laid on July 27, 1889, and its doors were officially opened the first week of September 1890 As the new college in Logan progressed, certain lawmakers began to worry that courses at the ACU duplicated those at the U of U, creating a substantial waste of money Although the land-grant ACU was a product of federal legislation, the legislature could decide whether to use the federal funds for the university or for a separate institution. This controversial question was carefully considered by the legislature in 1894and apparently resolved at the constitutional convention in 1895 when the delegates affirmed the existence of the two separate schools.2

Nationally, nineteen states and one territory chose consolidation to achieve land-grant legislation that provided college programs for the industrial classes at existing institutions, while seventeen

1 Orson F Whitney, History of Utah, 4 vols (Salt Lake City: G Q Cannon 8c Co., 1904), 4:624-26; J Cecil Alter, Utah, the Storied Domain, 3 vols (Chicago & New York: The American Historical Society Inc., 1932), 2:285-86; Kate B. Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage, 20 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1958-77), 10:337-39

2 Constitution of the State of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1895), Article X, Section 4

states and two territories established separate institutions. In the fall of 1906 this national division set the stage for the debate over whether to consolidate the ACU and the U of U. This issue became a major political controversy in state elections and in the sessions of the state legislature. Across the state public education was still undeveloped, and secondary education was not available in many places. Many felt that funding high schools for all areas of the state was a higher priority than maintaining two institutions of higher education. Most citizens thought that the small number of students attending the two colleges did not justify the operating costs

The strongest advocate of consolidation was Gov John C Cutler,3 who appealed to the Senate and House on February 2, 1905, to appoint a joint committee to make a thorough study of the situation and then "formulate recommendations as to legislation."4

After three weeks of investigation the ten-memberjoint committee presented two reports to the legislature. Five members favored an amendment to the state constitution, arguing that "the State cannot possibly maintain two separate institutions aspiring to become universities, and make each one an institution creditable to the State of Utah."5 They recommended that the ACU be made a department of the U of U permanently located in Salt Lake City. Their proposed constitutional amendment required a two-thirds majority vote of the Senate. Only ten of the twelve needed votes were obtained and the

5 SenateJournal. Utah, 1905, p 408

Gov. John C. Cutler. USHS collections.

3 Heber M Wells, the state's first governor and Cutler's immediate predecessor, was also concerned about duplication He sought to resolve the problem by bringing the two governing boards together in a special meeting. See Board of Regents Minutes, University of Utah, January 24, 1903.

4 Herschel Bullenjr., "The University of Utah-Utah Agricultural College Consolidation Controversy 1904 to 1907 and 1927," p. 2, manuscript in author's possession.

bill failed The otherfivejoint committee members felt that "the duplication of courses at the institutions mentioned is a matter of serious and mature thought."6 Their view became Senate Bill 150, passed by a unanimous vote,7 which recommended the formation of a special commission. Such a commission was created and charged with the difficult task of finding away to control the two schools and to avoid the "duplication of studies consistent with the finances and the educational advantages of the State ."8

Although further action on consolidation awaited the College Commission report, the legislature had passed a bill, signed by Governor Cutler on March 20, 1905, that limited expansion of the college's curriculum by defining the courses of study the ACU could offer. They included:

agriculture, horticulture, forestry, animal industry, veterinary science, domestic science and arts, elementary commerce, elementary surveying, instruction in irrigation . . . , military science and tactics, history, language, and the various branches of mathematics, physical and natural science and mechanic arts. . . .But the Agricultural College shall not offer courses in engineering, liberal arts, pedagogy, or the profession of law or medicine.9

On June 30, 1906, the College Commission submitted three reports. The members had evidently found consensus on the thorny issue of consolidation as difficult to achieve as it had been for the legislature'sjoint committee. The majority report filed by five members found expensive duplication at the two institutions and recommended a constitutional amendment to combine the two schools "on one site."10 The report bore the signatures of two members from Salt Lake County and members from three counties south of Salt Lake County. The first minority report, signed by two members from Cache County where the ACU was located, argued that the constitutional provision for the perpetuation of both the U of U and the ACU had passed by an overwhelming vote of 98 to 3 An extreme emergency did not exist and, therefore, a constitutional amendment was not needed. They recommended continuation of both institu-

6 Ibid., p 402

7 Ibid., p 403

8 Ibid See also HouseJournal. Utah, 1905, Joint Senate and House Bill No 1, March 1905, p 647

9 Laws of the State of Utah 1905, pp 125-26

10 Summary of the Majority Report of the College Commission, 1906, p 10, copy in Papers of John A Widtsoe, Special Collections, Utah State University, Logan

tions with each school limiting its work to specific departments to minimize duplication. The second minority report, signed by the member from Weber County, which lies between Cache County and Salt Lake County, recommended that the two institutions be united under one president and one board to eliminate their "unseemly rivalry." These recommendations were widely discussed during the election campaign of 1906, the southern counties of the state favoring consolidation while the northern counties remained torn on this politically significant issue.

Governor Cutler, who had been an ex officio member of the commission, offered his suggestions to ajoint session of the legislature onJanuary 15, 1907.The budget requests of the two institutions concerned him greatly: "They are now asking for over $579,000, or over one-third of the expected revenue for the next two years." To satisfy "even a reasonable part of these demands," he asserted, would "deprive the primary and secondary schools of the State and other institutions and departments, of funds absolutely necessary for their support." The legislature should at the very least, the governor believed, place the ACU and the U of U "under one board, with the proviso that one sum be asked for both schools." Cutler went on to decry the intense rivalry for state funds that had developed between the schools and the persistent lobbying by school officials who "should work together for the educational betterment of the youth."11

The alumni associations of both institutions actively campaigned across the state. After fifty-three years the U of U had an extensive list of alumni and a record of successfully providing for the educational needs of the state Aside from competition for funds, the U of Uwas under no threat in the controversy and stood to make significant gains by absorbing programs developed by its perceived rival in Logan.

At the ACU the consolidation controversy ran deep and deserves careful analysis The very composition of the college seemed to justify the opposing views held by some of its principal leaders. The college had twomajor divisions and subsequent differences in emphasis. President Kerr oversaw the faculty, academic programs, welfare of students, and fiscal maintenance of the college. Widtsoe, director of the experiment station, supervised research, the operation of laboratories

" Bullen, 'The Consolidation Controversy," pp 11-12

and experimental farms, and the dissemination of information through published bulletins, a farm newspaper, and farmers' institutes These differing responsibilities undoubtedly influenced their opposing views on consolidation. Kerr held the traditional view that college work should extend to all areas of learning His interests paralleled those of great educators in established American universities. He endeavored to build a faculty and student body that would advance classical academic subjects and prepare students for life. Widtsoe, in establishing the experiment station, had produced rich benefits for the agricultural industry of the state. His statewide "student body" followed the plow, planting and reaping as aided by the learning of those at the college, on its experimental farms, and in its laboratories He believed that this hands-on work experience was the essence of the ACU Although Widtsoe did not oppose academic learning, the broad educational agenda of Kerr surely threatened Widtsoe's vision of agriculture and education.

Addressing the annual convention of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations in 1905,Kerr defended his belief that land-grant colleges should offer the broad curriculum espoused by conventional colleges in addition to the distinctive "technical courses required in the development of the varied industries and resources of the country."

12 Guided bythat philosophy, the seven years of the Kerr administration (1900-1907) represent a period of remarkable expansion; "the whole Institution started moving and spreading,

119-24

WilliamJ. Kerr. Trom A History of Fifty Years.

12 W.J Kerr, "The Relation of the Land-Grant Colleges to the State Universities," reprinted from the Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Convention of the Association ofAmerican Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, U S Department of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations, Bulletin No 164, pp

especially in the Engineering department."13 Faculty rank advancement policies adopted the criteria embraced at traditional colleges, and college governance and the rights of students similarly evolved In 1901 the semester system replaced the quarter system In Kerr's first biennial report, he noted that the departments of the college had been expanded into six schools with each school growing to meet the needs of the expanding curriculum. The school of general science, for example, now included "the broad field of general science, mathematics, language, history and literature."14 In 1902 the Board of Trustees added courses in mining and electrical engineering. In 1903 a school of music was established, and summer school was added to the college calendar. Kerr did not wish to preside over a school that "merely catered to the immediate needs of the time, he sought to establish a real college expanding into the various fields of knowledge."15

Kerr was the principal proponent of expansion at the ACU and thus the principal rival of consolidation. Ironically, the debate that ensued in the Senate, the House, and the press on the topic often focused on his earlier views as a delegate to the 1895 constitutional convention where he had been the most ardent supporter of consolidation—stating that "under no circumstances" would he favor separate institutions. His lengthy testimony then, published in the proceedings of the convention, became convenient fodder for those who favored consolidation ten years later.

Widtsoe reported that he laid low in this controversy, limiting his opinions to official faculty meetings That was an understatement Available materials do not reveal his personal assessment of the matter until much later Three years after the controversy wasresolved, Widtsoe responded in a lengthy letter to an official in Alberta, Canada, where a proposed agricultural college was the subject of debate. The official specifically wanted to know if Widtsoe thought agricultural colleges were "most successful when combined with a university or when each is conducted separately."16 Widtsoe answered that this had been a crisis in Utah for eleven years and the

14 Ibid., p 62

15 Ibid., p 63

13 William Peterson, as quoted in Joel Edward Ricks, The Utah State Agricultural College: A History of Fifty Years (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938), p. 59.

16 J W Woolf to J A Widtsoe, January 8, 1910, box 102, Papers ofJohn A Widtsoe, Special Collections, Utah State University, Logan

most prominent subject in at least two sessions of the legislature. He felt duplication was an unnecessary concern if attendance at one institution required additional staff Another argument for consolidation was more compelling. When agriculture is taught as part of many other professional subjects, "the prospective farmer has a chance to measure himself with men in other pursuits and in that way acquires a certain dignity and faith in himself that only comes by such contact."17 Then he emphasized the need to have at the head of the college someone devoted to its agricultural mission:

William S. McCornick. USHS collections.

There are some three or four agricultural colleges as departments of universities in the United States that maintain a very high rank There is a very much larger number of separate institutions that stand high among the schools of the country It would generally be found that the attendance of agricultural students is, in proportion to the population, very much greater in a separate agricultural college than in one combined with a university. All in all, while the question is difficult of full solution, it seems clear that the agricultural college of the future which is to serve the people in the best waywill be a separately maintained institution.18

To understand Widtsoe'sviewsduring the crisis, it may be useful to look at those expressed by his assistant, LewisA. Merrill.19 Widtsoe was president of the organization that produced the weekly newspaper, the Deseret Farmer, and Merrill was the editor during the controversy. This newspaper provides insight into the polarization that grew between Merrill and the policies advanced by Kerr Merrill charged

17 Widtsoe to Woolf, January 1910, ibid

18 Ibid.

19 In June 1905 Merrill so opposed Kerr's policies that he sent a letter of resignation to the Board of Trustees Days later he sent a letter to Kerr seeking to withdraw his resignation In his appeal he wrote, "Why am I singled out? Surely you don't mean to infer that I alone am the offender, because John A Widtsoe isjust as deep in this as I am." LoganJournal, June 17, 1905, p 1

that the expansion of the ACU under the Kerr administration was detrimental to the school's programs and emphasis on agriculture. This overarching concern clouded the consolidation issue Had agriculture been given the attention Widtsoe and Merrill perceived it should have, perhaps any expressed views on the issue of consolidation would have been significantly different.

Changes in the ACU Board of Trustees aggravated tensions at the school. Governor Cutler, who opposed Kerr's policies, attacked them through appointments he made to the board, replacing three of its seven members with loyal supporters—Thomas Smart, Lorenzo Stohl, and Susa Young Gates—early in 1905

The scrutiny of Governor Cutler, the examination of the joint committee and special commission, the composition of the Board of Trustees, and the growing sentiment for consolidation in the legislature brought burdensome pressures to the ACU Board and President Kerr During the summer of 1905 the board's president, William S.McCornick was traveling abroad and did not attend board meetings. Reports of a board meeting scheduled for May 12 hint at problems to come. The three new appointees opposed continuance of the meeting and forced an adjournment against the opposition of the three members of the old board News coverage reported that the action amounted to the opening gun of a conflict being fired. The primary purpose of the meeting was to confirm appointments for the next year and take action against persons the president opposed. The Salt Lake Herald reported, "President Kerr has discovered that two of the professors on his staff are not in harmony with him, if they are not altogether disloyal."20

Then, on June 2, 1905, pursuant to the call of the newly appointed trustees, a meeting of the board was held Motions for the election of college officials in a block vote failed in a standoff between old and new board members. Trustee Smart had moved that Kerr "be elected President of the College Faculty for the ensuing year" and that Widtsoe remain as director of the experiment station and professor of chemistry and Merrill as agronomist with the station and professor of agronomy. 21 It was evident from the vote that Widtsoe or Merrill or both would not be rehired. With the growing tension both Widtsoe and Merrill may have considered leaving the

20 "A Sensible View of the College Situation," LoganJournal, May 16, 1905, p 1

21 Minutes of the Board of Trustees, ACU, June 2, 1905, p 143

ACU.22 On Saturday,June 3, 1905, the Deseret Evening News, Salt Lake Tribune, and Provo Daily Enquirer all reported that the two men had submitted their resignations from the ACU following the June 2 meeting The Tribune got to the crux of the matter:

Of course the refusal of the old members of the board to support the motion simply means that they do not intend to consider the two professors at all, and that they will make no concessions whatever. It was so taken by the two men in question, who, upon hearing of the action of the old members, immediately resigned and accepted other positions

When seen by the Tribune last night, Dr Widtsoe said: "This is all I have to say—I have resigned because of the conditions which exist at the Agricultural college at the present time, and because of unjust and false rumors circulated upon the streets of Logan and throughout the State, which the directors of the institution have not seen fit to correct, though they knew these rumors were false."

Professor Merrill was equally brief and to the point—"I must frankly state that I am not in harmony with President Kerr's policy in administration of the Agricultural college It is not favorable to agricultural work He is attempting to make a university out of it instead of an agricultural college 3

OnJune 5when the Board of Trustees met in regular session no allusion was made to the reported resignations. Kerr read his report with recommendations regarding changes in the faculty for the ensuing year. 24 In the afternoon session a motion to sustain Kerr, Widtsoe, and Merrill by a block vote was made repeatedly by Trustee Stohl, a new appointee Each time it failed or was ruled out of order Adopting Kerr's report would amount to the dismissal of both Widtsoe and Merrill. The minutes of the next board meeting, three days later on July 8, reveal that Kerr intended to stick by his report.25 By then, McCornick had returned from his travels and stood solidly behind the embattled college president Kerr's report lists the names and salaries of the college faculty for the following year, with the names of Widtsoe and Merrill conspicuously missing. According to Kerr,

22

In a letter to G H Brimhall, president of Brigham Young University, May 3, 1905, Widtsoe wrote what appears to be the acceptance of a job offer made earlier: "I am now ready to accept the proposition that you made some days ago. .. . My term of office in the A. C U. closes Sept. 1st, 1905."

Brimhall Presidential Papers, box 11, folder 3, BYU Archives

23 "Row in State Institution," Salt Lake Tribune, June 3, 1905, p 2

24 Minutes of the Board of Trustees, ACU, June 5, 1905, p 147

25 Ibid., July 8, 1905, p 153

. . . These Professors had given ample evidence that they were not in harmony with the faculty or in sympathy with the policy of the Board of Trustees or the President One of the fundamental requisites to success in all educational institutions is . . . unquestioned loyalty to the institution and its authorities. He further stated that he was prepared to prefer specific charges against each of these professors, and to call witnesses before the Board and submit other evidence. ... in as great detail ... as might be desired by the Board.26

Kerr's report carried, with McCornick and the three old members of the board prevailing against Cutler's three new appointees. As a last ditch measure, perhaps, an amendment to a motion to reelect Kerr as president of the ACU was advanced; it called for the election of Widtsoe as president of the college instead of Kerr.27 The amendment failed by the same 4 to 3margin The board's action dismissed Widtsoe and Merrill from the ACU. The specific charges against them referred to by Kerr were not read into the minutes, and files containing other information pertinent to the meeting have been lost.

Even if Widtsoe and Merrill disagreed with the expansionist ideas that competed heavily with their views of the agricultural interests of the institution, it is hard to justify the severe action taken against them at this critical point in the ACU's development. Perhaps it may be explained simply by noting that the college was a political football. The pressure from the governor and his appointees and from the legislature and its commission may have created an institutional paranoia that could result in the dismissal of such valued employees.

The offices of the Deseret Farmer were moved from Logan to Salt Lake City following the dismissal of Widtsoe and Merrill. The newspaper had been noticeably silent on the consolidation controversy up to this point, but the continuing investigation of the commission appointed by the legislature made it a statewide issue of interest to readers. Several letters published in the Deseret Farmer suggested that the programs of agriculture would be improved if consolidation occurred. Other letters focused on balance in the overall educational interests of the state and asked for a better distribution of educational monies, "pleading for consolidation on the grounds of the greatest good to the greatest number, and for an extension of the

privilege of acquiring at least a high school education by the young men and women of this state."28

Another view published in the Deseret Farmer alleged that Kerr had utilized money appropriated for agriculture for other needs of the college, including tile floors in the president's residence and oak tables in the library. This commentator suggested: "Let the dean of the Agricultural College be responsible for the expenditures and leave the amount to be appropriated with the Legislature as is now done with the Mining School and Utah will have the greatest Agricultural College in the West in avery short time."29

Joseph F.Merrill, director of the School of Mines at the U of U, also wrote a letter favoring consolidation. He pointed out that many strong agricultural colleges operated as departments of universities, as did other special programs, including his own:

We already have two state schools existing as departments of the University—the School of Mines and the Normal School—and so satisfactory is the union that no officer of either school would consent to its separation from the University.30

Both of these schools had achieved distinction quickly on small appropriations compared to independent operations. Merrill asserted that the ACU would enjoy the same benefits through consolidation. Each school controlled itscurriculum, faculty selection, course development, and admission and graduation requirements, and each enjoyed all the freedoms of a separate college. Rather than absorbing and destroying the ACU, consolidation would liberate and strengthen it, he claimed.

For it will put the college at once into the hands of a director and his faculty—all of them specialists in the technical departments. . . . The college will therefore be run and managed by those who are especially trained and interested in the work . . . qualified to determine how the college can best serve the people. Hence the college should, by consolidation with the University, thrive more than it has ever done for the conditions would be more favorable for growth.31

If there was fiscal discrimination against agriculture at the ACU, the independence described byJoseph Merrill would have been most attractive to men like Widtsoe and Lewis Merrill.

29 "A Difference," Deseret Farmer, August 25, 1906, p 5

30 Joseph F Merrill, "Urges Consolidation," Deseret Farmer, September 1, 1906, p 3

31 Ibid., p 3

28 Melvin C Merrill, "Another Agricultural College Graduate Favors Consolidation," Deseret Farmer, September 29, 1906, p 12 See also Deseret Farmer, September 22, 1906, pp 13-14

The consolidation controversy continued to polarize those who believed they had a major stake in the outcome Lewis Merrill's editorial response in the Deseret Farmer to a letter printed in the Logan Journal illustrates this. The letter writer had charged that "every great and good cause has its traitor. The Agricultural College cause has its,L.A.Merrill."32 Merrill's editorial argued for loyalty to the institution's best good:

It is a little strange that every one who does not support the President of the Agricultural College isclassed as traitor to the College There isa difference between loyalty to the institution and loyalty to the man who for the time being stands at the head of that institution

As a matter of fact, we do not consider Mr. Kerr disloyal to the State University because he isnow against consolidation, though he isa graduate from a two years course of the University. Neither is any alumnus of the Agricultural College a traitor to that institution if he happens to favor consolidation He may honestly believe that a greater and better Agricultural College may result from such union,—and such being his views, he iscertainlyjustified in working towards his ideals.33

The controversy spread beyond academia and the legislature. Removing the ACU from Logan would affect many people in the community. Local citizens and businessmen joined in the struggle through the Logan Chamber of Commerce. Cache County organizations and related groups from surrounding counties (Weber, Rich, and Box Elder) alsojoined forces.

On March 4, 1907, a bill proposing consolidation of the ACU with the U of U was advanced in the Senate.34 On March 7 it passed by a margin of 12 ayes, 6 nays, 0 absent and not voting—the necessary two-thirds majority for a constitutional amendment. When the bill reached the House of Representatives, however, member^ opposed to consolidation accomplished a near political miracle Although defeated in the Senate vote, Sen Herschel Bullen of Logan continued to lead the legislative fight against consolidation, working hard to form political alliances. When the vote was taken at 11 p.m. on the 57th day of the session, the bill failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority on a roll call vote: 24 ayes, 20 nays, 0 absent and not voting.35 A group of six senators and twenty representatives had

52 LoganJournal, as quoted in Deseret Farmer, September 8, 1906, p 4

33 Deseret Farmer, September 8, 1906, p 4

34 SenateJournal. Utah, 1907 (Salt Lake City, 1907), p 353

35 Bullen, "The Consolidation Controversy," p 17

unitedly opposed consolidation during the sixty-day session. Senator Bullen wrote of their determination:

On the morning of each day out of the sixty, when the legislature was in session, and after our group was organized, they met at my room at the Wilson Hotel for roll call and report, or were represented by proxy, or excused If ever a group of men entered into a compact, dedicating every ounce of energy and every spark of ability they possessed, it was this loyal group of defenders.36

Although the fight against consolidation had been won, the legislature and Governor Cutler had in 1905 thwarted Kerr's expansionist policies by limiting the courses that li i i i * ^ T T i r-

john A. Widtsoe.

could be taught at the ACU and refo- USHS collections. cussing the school's efforts on agriculture and industry. Widtsoe and Lewis Merrill had been dismissed for opposing the policies of President Kerr. The legislative sanctions against those policies marked the defeat of the Kerr/McCornick regime and brought about their resignations

On March 21, 1907, the Logan Journal announced McCornick's resignation:

After mature reflection and careful investigation, President W S McCornick of the Board of Trustees . . . reached the conclusion that the seeming intention ofJohn C Cutler and the party behind him, to destroy the Agricultural College, was real, and declining to be a party to such an outrage upon the people of the state, he has tendered his resignation

Mr McCornick was asked not to resign, and what were the terms which he laid down as the price of remaining upon the board, do you think? Simply this—that the administration of William J Kerr should remain undisturbed "If Kerr and his policy are to go, then I'll go too,"was his

ultimatum, and having satisfied himself that the board was packed to carry out a scheme of revenge, he lived up to it.37

One week later Kerr submitted his resignation to the Board of Trustees "to take effect at the end of the school year following the usual plan in such cases."38 He pledged to finish the year's work and prepare the annual report for the board and to cooperate in any desired way. After accepting Kerr's resignation, "on motion of Trustee Smart, Dr.John A. Widtsoe, head of the School of Agriculture of the B Y University at Provo,waselected President of the College to begin at the pleasure of the Board, and end June 30, '08."39 The motion passed, and a new chapter in the history of the ACU thus began. The crisisover consolidation had festered for more than a decade, and itseffect would linger for several more years. Years later Widtsoe expressed some personal feelings about the controversy and his regard for the college.

The dismissal shocked me. It was not so much because of losing ajob; I felt I could get another. But it was unfair, the kind of thing big men don't allow I was subjected to much unfavorable newspaper notoriety inspired by the President or his friends as means of self-defense Most of all, Iwanted to bring toward conclusion the experimental work initiated by me I had so completely identified myself with the work of the Station that I felt as if I were leaving a child It was some comfort to know that the Station and itswork had been brought to national recognition and that Iwas leaving behind a group of men trained in the progressive policy of the Station.40

Widtsoe also revealed hisview of the controversy in a letter to the superintendent of the Ogden city schools:

There are two sides to the question without a doubt I propose, as far as lieswithin my power, to conduct the Agricultural College in such a way as will prevent any ill feeling arising between the University and the Agricultural College, and to prevent any discussion that may tend to injure for a second time, the cause of education in our beloved state.41

The issue of consolidation was past His duty was to set a new course for the ACU in developing industrial education in Utah. The legislature had issued guidelines to minimize the duplication of instruction

17 LoganJournal, March 21, 1907, p 1

38 Minutes of the Board of Trustees, ACU, March 28, 1907, p 226

:;

'' Ibid., p 226

40 John A Widtsoe, In a Sunlit Land (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1952), pp 86-87

11 Widtsoe to Superintendent John M Mills, August 7, 1912, Papers ofJohn A Widtsoe

at the two institutions, setting the bounds each was to work within. Widtsoe announced his intention to comply with the new laws governing course offerings. The minutes of the ACU Board of Trustees contain a lengthy report on the courses of study and the direction of the college. According to the law passed in 1905,42 the ACU was not allowed to offer courses in engineering, the liberal arts, pedagogy, law, or medicine; however, only engineering was taught at the college at that time.43 Accordingly, engineering courses were phased out, although students who were pursuing engineering prior to passage of the lawwere allowed to complete their degrees Some doors had closed, but other doors opened. A glimpse of Widtsoe's vision for the school is conveyed in his report to the board. He acknowledged the limits that had been set by the legislature, but he emphasized that there was, nevertheless "a splendid chance for expansion and construction."44

That expansion included the establishment of a traveling school of agriculture and domestic science. To head it and related programs Lewis A Merrill was employed as superintendent of agricultural extension work with headquarters in Salt Lake City. This illustrates the statewide view the ACU has followed since.45 The faculty instituted night schools in domestic science and mechanical arts.Attendance was phenomenal and the students included representative citizens of Logan.46 Widtsoe also advanced programs that imbued harmony between the two schools U of U officials proposed a joint irrigation engineering course, with the university providing all the technical work in engineering and the ACU all the work relating to the duty, use, and measurement of water. Similar ventures were pursued with the State Normal School, exposing its students to agriculture and agriculture students to pedagogy.47

In its first three decades the ACU achieved an international reputation in agriculture Much of this acclaim wasdirectly tied to Widtsoe's influence. Extensive pioneering in arid farming and irrigation,

42 Ricks,

4S Minutes of the Board of Trustees, ACU, April 23, 1907, p 239 This report spans several pages with the lengthiest description under the title of agriculture

44 Ibid., pp 243-44

45 Ibid., June 2, 1908, p 258

46 Ibid., November 30, 1908, p 265

47 Ibid., April 23, 1907, pp 242-43

The Utah State Agricultural College, pp 65-66 The law referred to is entitled an "Act prescribing and limiting courses of instruction in the Agricultural College."

combining classroom instruction, laboratory analysis, and experimental farms paid huge institutional dividends. That greatness may never have been achieved had Kerr remained president. On the other hand, the greatness that Utah State University has achieved in fields outside of agriculture may have come earlier had the Kerr administration been allowed to follow its charted course

The institutional development that the leadership of the state rejected seemed to be the very guidance Oregon sought. That isevident in the duration and success of Kerr's service as president of Oregon State University and commissioner of higher education for the state of Oregon. At the same time, the educational vision and practices of Widtsoe became increasingly attractive to the governing boards of Utah's three institutions of higher education. On at least two occasions he was considered for the presidency of Brigham Young University, and for manyyears he oversaw developments there as commissioner of education or as a member of its Board of Trustees Moreover, after nine distinguished years aspresident of the ACU, Widtsoe was asked to take the helm at the U of U He continued in that position until he was called into full-time service as an apostle of the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Consolidation was a legitimate public controversy in Utah and across the United States. Ultimately, it may be said that its resolution in Utah was the consummate compromise. The advocates of consolidation of the ACU with the U of U were defeated in 1905 and 1907, and the continuation of the college as a separate entity was assured. The policies of expansionism that had created unnecessary duplication in the eyes of those who favored consolidation were limited by law and by changes in the leadership of the Board of Trustees and the college presidency. Consolidation advocates could thus claimvictory for their ultimate goal.

"A Little Oasis in the

Desert": Community Building in Hurricane, Utah, 1860-1920

BY W PAUL REEVE

Hurricane Canal control gates. Historic American Engineering Record photograph.

Mr. Reeve is a graduate student in history at Brigham Young University.

ON E FEBRUARY NIGHT IN 1910 THE TORRENTIAL Virgin River came thundering down in a tremendous flood, laying waste to everything in its path.JamesJepson,Jr., a resident of Virgin City, Utah, lost his farm to the surging waters. He lamented, "The next morning there wasn't enough land in my main farm to turn awagon around on. But I had another choice bit of land further back, four acres, where I had lucerne and orchard [The river] didn't even leave me that!"1 This was not the first time the Virgin had defied its name and leapt its bounds to destroy farmlands, vegetation, livestock, and the settlers' livelihood Along with their personal property, the river all too frequently washed away the pioneers' determination; many packed what few belongings remained and moved on in pursuit of a more stable environment in which to eke out a living Historians studying "The Stability Ratio" of nineteenth-century Mormon towns found the region of southern Utah the least stable of the four they examined—"fewer than half stayed.2 Although southern Utah experienced a low persistence rate compared to other Utah areas, it scored remarkably high in comparison to the almost 75 percent turnover rate one analyst found among the "non-dependent population" of Jacksonville, Illinois.3

Thus, persistence in Utah's southern region marks a midpoint between the relatively stable areas of central and northern Utah and the extremely fluidJacksonville, Illinois. Even placed within this context, however, the area's persistence rate is not startlingly significant; it isonly through first understanding southern Utah's harsh environment and the circumstances under which the settlers came to colonize it that the stability rates begin to personify the dogged determination of the region's pioneers. In Utah's southwestern desert this determination gave rise to a unique community-building experience—that of Hurricane, Utah.

In 1906 Thomas Hinton became the first colonizer to settle in Hurricane; over the next fourteen years the town experienced a

1 Etta Holdaway Spendlove, "Memories and Experiences of James Jepson, Jr.," p 28, typescript, Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City

2 Dean L May, Lee L Bean, and Mark H Skolnick, "The Stability Ratio: An Index of Community Cohesiveness in Nineteenth-century Mormon Towns," in Generations and Change: Genealogical Perspectives in Social History, ed Robert M Taylor, Jr., and Ralph J Crandall (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1986), p 155

3 Don Harrison Doyle, The Social Order of a Frontier Community: Jacksonville, Illinois, 1825-70 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), pp 261-62 Doyle's "non-dependent population" included all household heads and family heads, all gainfully employed persons, and all males age twenty or older

remarkable growth rate that placed its population second only to St. George in Washington County (see Charts 1 and 2) To determine the reasons behind such rapid growth and early community success, this study explores the Hurricane colonizers' backgrounds and places the Hurricane experience within the broader context of the Mormon colonization of the region. The characteristics of the town's early settlers and the community's early leaders and their role in providing stability will also be discussed. In examining these factors it will become evident that Hurricane's early prosperity and growth emerged from the rugged determination of its pioneers; most endured decades of hardship in southern Utah's harsh environment before investing their labor and money in the Hurricane Canal Company in the hope of improving their economic conditions and escaping the violent flood waters of the Virgin River The canal's completion fulfilled the investors' expectations as settlers eagerly poured onto the Hurricane bench and established the town of Hurricane. The new community's rapid growth was largely sustained by an abundance of land and the instant, respected leadership the canal company authorities provided Thus, the canal became the key in Hurricane's community-building success.

For Thomas Burgess the October 1861 conference of the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held far-reaching implications. Active membership in the Mormon church for nineteenthcentury Saints often dictated much of their daily lives, including, at times, prescribing where they would live and thus the hardships they might face. Such was the case with Burgess in 1861 as the "call" came from President Brigham Young to relocate his family to southern Utah to help strengthen the struggling Cotton Mission.

The great colonizing efforts of Brigham Young form an extraordinary chapter in the story of America's western frontier. The Mormons, who arrived in the Great Basin in 1847, had fled the religious persecution that had driven them from Ohio, Missouri, and, finally, Illinois. Eager to live in peace, they willingly committed to settle on undesirable lands, believing that in isolation they could practice their religion and build the kingdom of God on earth free from outside detractors. The Mormons' tragic experience in the Midwest further created a desire among church leaders to establish their godly society based upon the principles of independence and economic self-sufficiency Thus, as southern Utah historian Andrew Karl Larson perceived it, the primary reasons Brigham Young sent a band of

Community Building in Hurricane 225

CHART 1: TOTAL POPULATION OF UPPER VIRGIN RIVER TOWNS AND HURRICANE, 1860-1920

CHART 2: TOTAL POPULATION OF HURRICANE AND ST GEORGE, 1870-1920

Source: U.S. Population Census, 1870-1920

"intrepid settlers" to the rough country of the Virgin River Basin were to "build up the out posts of Zion and to aid the church in achieving the goal of economic self-sufficiency."4 Their mission was to produce enough cotton to supply the church members' needs; with this goal in mind the Mormon prophet directed Burgess and a large group of colonists to relocate in Utah's warm southern climate to establish new settlements and reinforce those already existing.5

The Saints, in their attempt to cultivate the parched lands of the West, quickly discovered that the successful solution to the problem of aridity "was the price of existence." That price, as William E. Smythe described it, was paid by "the free and unlimited coinage of labor," which became the "cardinal doctrine" in Utah's economy. 6 The Saints believed that "all should work for what they were to have, and that all should have what they had worked for." "In order to realize this result," he further explained, "itwas necessary that each family should own as much land as it could use to advantage, and no more. '

These were the principles applied among the southern Utah Saints; yet, in the region's harsh environment 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. For residents of the eastern half of the Cotton Mission who were located along the banks of the Virgin River—in particular the communities of Virgin City, Duncan's Retreat, Grafton, Rockville, Springdale, and Shunesburg— even providing for their families proved difficult. For them, accepting the prophet's call included contending with the unpredictable and often violent Virgin River which all too frequently overflowed its banks to claim increasing portions of farmland

These uninviting conditions were all that welcomed the Thomas Burgess family and Burgess's daughter Emma and son-in-law Robert

4 Andrew Karl Larson, "Agricultural Pioneering: Virgin River Basin," Utah Magazine 9 (June 1947): 28 Larson, in a subsequent article, "The Cotton Mission: Settlement of the Virgin River Basin," ibid 9 (August 1947): 6; and in his "Agricultural Pioneering in the Virgin River Basin" (Master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1946), noted other factors motivating Brigham Young's efforts to settle southern Utah, including "controlling the approaches to the Great Basin where [Young's] empire was centralized," serving as a way station for a "new routing of Mormon immigrants over the old Spanish Trail," providing a link with a "proposed new trade route by way of the Colorado River," converting Indians to Mormonism, and protecting travelers from Indian depredations

' Larson, "Cotton Mission," p 25

6 William E Smythe, The Conquest ofArid America (New York: MacMillan, 1907), p 54

7 Ibid., p 57

Warne Reeve to the area about the first of December 1861 This small group camped between the new towns of Duncan and Grafton "until the land was surveyed and drawn." Burgess drew "ablank" and Reeve "two fractions," and so on December 20 they started towards St. George hoping to better their land allotment. When they arrived at Virgin City, however, Reeve's wife delivered her first baby, forcing the group to stop for a few dayswhile the new mother rested During this time they were offered another draw of land and received "only 3 1/2 acres of farm land and a[n] acre city lot."8

Five days later a tremendous rain began to drench the area. The Virgin River and its tributaries all ran high floods that obliterated the first colonizing attempt at Grafton and swept away much of the land at Virgin City and Rockville. For the first settlers of Duncan's Retreat the floods proved too great a challenge; they sold their claims and moved away. Reeve, Burgess, and eight others, looking to improve upon their poor draw of lots in Virgin City, bought the claims in Duncan's Retreat and settled there. The river continued to take its toll in the ensuing years. Reeve described their difficulties: "From time to time heavy floods have come down the river taking our land, orchards and gardens and causing many to leave. At the

8 Robert Warne Reeve Journal in "Thomas Robert Reeve," ed Fern S Reeve, p 1, manuscript in possession of the author.

present time, 1866, there is not more than one half the bottom land left that was here when we came, but we have been told ... to hold our positions as long as possible."9

Certainly, as Reeve indicated, many could not endure the hardships of the region; and, after thirty years along the river bottom and the complete abandonment of his community, even Reeve moved away. Despite the continual flow of settlers leaving the area, examples of remarkable staying power can be found in some of the communities. In Duncan's Retreat, according to the federal census records, over 80 percent of the families living there in 1870 remained in 1880. The same was not true twenty years later. The community itself was completely abandoned by 1893 due to continued flooding, and less than one-fifth of the town's families found new homes along the upper river basin (see Table l). 1 0 The rest, like Reeve, found land more suitable for farming, no doubt far removed from the destructive forces of the Virgin River. In May 1892 Reeve moved his family to Hinckley in Millard County, Utah, where he described things as "quite different" from the "crowded" conditions in Dixie.11

Even though Robert Reeve decided to seek better conditions elsewhere, his son Thomas stayed and took up residence with his new wife in Virgin City.12 One cannot help but wonder what motivated those who remained in the face of such adverse conditions and, further, what separated those who stayed from those who left. Apart from Duncan's Retreat, the other communities along the Virgin River Basin experienced a comparatively high turnover rate, especially in the first ten years of settlement For example, in Virgin City only one-third of the town's original settlers remained by 1870, and by 1880 only two of the original sixteen families persisted amid

9 Ibid., p 3

10 U.S Manuscript Census, Washington County, Utah, 1860-1900; Kane County, Utah, 1870 All census references are from Washington County, Utah, except 1870 when boundary changes included the upriver communities in Kane County

" Reeve, "Thomas Robert Reeve," p 4

12 If at least one family member was traceable through the census records, then that family was counted as persisting Hence, in the case of the Reeves, even though Robert Warne Reeve moved away in 1891 and thus did not appear on the 1900 census, his son Thomas Robert Reeve was listed as a resident of Virgin City in 1900, and therefore the family was included among the persisters The problem inherent with this methodology is the difficulty of tracing daughters who might have married during the decade between census counts; however, among the families studied there were only a few whose children were all girls This, of course, excludes young couples with only one child who would not have been of marriageable age by the next census Overall, there is a minimal likelihood of these numbers being skewed by families with daughters who may have married and remained in the area but were untraceable The other difficulty in this type of study is compensating for those who may have died between census records; yet, by calculating persistence based upon traceable family members this problem should also be minimal

Source: U.S Manuscript Census, 1860-1900

^Includes any male member of the family traceable through census records See note 12 for a further explanation of methodology

the hardships of the region In Rockville the results are similar for the first decade, with slightly over one-third of the town's pioneers enduring; and twenty years later less than half of those remained. The numbers vary from community to community, but the general pattern seems to indicate that those who arrived after the initial settlement period were more likely to persist, excluding Duncan's Retreat and Shunesburg which were abandoned by 1900 It is plausible that because many of the difficult tasks of colonization, such as building roads, irrigation ditches, and community structures, had already been accomplished, new settlers could integrate more easily into an established social order. Even with these advantages, the turnover rate was still around 50 percent among the later arrivals, the low being 33 percent persistence in Rockville and the high 67 percent in Grafton (see Table 1). In the end, the results for the four communities still existing in 1900 are remarkably similar; close to half of the total families in the region had at least one family member who had persisted for twenty years or more along the upper Virgin River Basin (see Table 2).13

13 U.S Manuscript Census, 1860-1900

TABLE 1: FAMILIES* ALONG THE UPPER VIRGIN RIVER WITH AT LEAST ONE MEMBER PERSISTING, 1860-1900.

TABLE 2: FAMILIES IN 1900 WH O PERSISTED FOR TWENTY YEARS OR MORE ALONG THE UPPER VIRGIN RLVER GORGE

In explaining the distinction between those whostayed and those who left, a natural assumption isthat the persisters enjoyed a financial security that perhaps mitigated the otherwise harsh conditions. As a whole, however, neither group commanded great wealth In comparing the persisters' real estate and personal estate values listed in the 1860 and 1870census against that ofthemovers, thedifference in economic conditions between the two groups only partially explains why some stayed and others left. For example, the 1860median real estate value for the persisters was 67 percent higher than for the movers; however, the median personal estate valueswere identical at$300.The results varied in 1870when the difference in real estate value fell to a 33 percent margin in favor of those who stayed while the persisters' personal estate value jumped to 75 percent higher than those who left.14 In general then, those whostayed appeared toenjoy abetter economic condition than those who left, which maypartially account for the latter groups' movement Yet,it isalso interesting to note that the largest landholder in 1870,Ansom Winsor at$3,000,wasamong those who had moved by 1880.Therefore, taken asawhole, an economic interpretation fails toprovide acompletely satisfactory explanation.15

14 Ibid For persisters in 1860 the median real estate value was $250, compared to $150 for nonpersisters The average real estate value was $250, with a low of $100 and a high of $440; for nonpersisters the real estate average was $309, with a low of $75 and a high of $1,200 In 1870 the median real estate value for persisters was $300 versus $225 for nonpersisters In personal estate the median was $350 for those who stayed and $200 for those who left In the same year the average real estate for persisters was $483 with a low of $0 and a high of $1,500; for nonpersisters the low was also $0, the high was $3,000 and the average was $387

15 Neither age nor occupation was significant in explaining the difference between the two groups In general, the male heads of household in both groups were around 42 years old and the majority were farmers In 1860 the actual statistics for persisters were: average age, 35; median age, 36; youngest, 26; oldest, 45; occupation: farmer, 60%; farm laborer, 20%; and other, 20%; for the same year among nonpersisters: average age, 42; median age, 40; youngest, 23; and oldest, 64; occupation: farmer, 100% In 1870 the persisters' statistics were: average age, 45; median age, 47; youngest, 22; oldest, 79; occupation: farmer, 64%; farm laborer, 13%; and other, 23%; the figures for nonpersisters in 1870 follow: average age, 43; median age, 42; youngest, 21; oldest, 85; occupation: farmer, 61%; farm laborer, 19%; and other, 19%

Perhaps the answer resides in the individual character traits of those who were called upon to endure the hardships of the Virgin River Basin Robert Reeve gave one indication of his staying power when he wrote, "butwe have been told from time to time to hold our positions as long as possible."16 His statement implies a devotion and submission to church authority asa reason for remaining despite the adverse conditions. As sociologist Lowry Nelson discovered through in-depth examinations of several Mormon settlements, religion played a key role in establishing a social order in the Mormon West Most Latter-day Saints,with their reverence for church authority and belief that Brigham Young was divinely inspired, would make personal sacrifices to accept the call to colonize; this was certainly the case for those settling along the Virgin River Basin.17

In addition to this religious zeal, the Saints possessed a unique mindset concerning marginal lands As previously described, they were willing to accept the hardships of the semiarid West in exchange for isolation and religious freedom. Thus, they saints were often officially instructed, even from the pulpit, to colonize unattractive areas. A discourse by Apostle George Q. Cannon on August 10, 1873, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle provides a notable example. He told the Saints, "good countries are not for us" but "the worst places in the land we can probably get and we must develop them." If the Saints took the "good country" it would not be long "before the wicked would want it," he warned. They should instead "thank God" for what they have even if it is "a little oasis in the desert where a few can settle."18 Considering that a fundamental tenet of Mormonism is the belief that the words of the prophet or an apostle are inspired messages from God, this sermon becomes all the more powerful. In essence then, the Saints were consigned to their difficult circumstances by their devotion to a church hierarchy they believed to be divinely inspired.

In southern Utah local authorities promulgated similar messages. At a church conference in St. George during May 4-6, 1866, H. W. Miller compared his farming experiences in the East with that

16 Reeve, "Thomas Robert Reeve," p 3

17 Lowry Nelson, The Mormon Village: A Pattern and Technique of Land Settlement (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1952) For specific examples of devotion among those called to the Cotton Mission see Andrew Karl Larson, "I Was Called to Dixie"; The Virgin River Basin: Unique Fxperiences in Mormon Pioneering (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1961), chap 8

18 Journal ojDiscourses, 26 vols (Liverpool, 1854-86), 16:143-44 Cannon was specifically addressing a failed Arizona colonizing attempt; however, his words reflect church teachings for all regions

in northern and southern Utah and concluded "to his entire satisfaction that a small piece of land well cultivated was more lucrative in yielding comfort and wealth than a very large piece with common cultivation."19 The Saints were often encouraged and directed concerning their utilization of these "small piece[s] of land." On one occasion the presiding authority for the area, Erastus Snow, toured the upriver settlements and delivered his counsel. The report of his visit states, "the brethren were encouraged to plant cotton more extensively, and although the season is far advanced were advised to plant all they can within the next few days, as the crop of cotton will otherwise be light this season, and the mills will be idle."20 Snow also played down the recent floods the settlers had experienced: "We found the saints in . . . cheerful spirits. The high waters of the Rio Virgin have done less damage than was at first reported. The prospect for fruit this season is very flattering: orchards are laden with everyvariety of the climate."21

If the reports in the Desert News are any indication, Snow was correct about the cheerful attitudes, at least until the next floods hit. A.J. Workman, one of the original settlers of Virgin City, expressed to the church newspaper his perfect contentment with conditions: "I have quite a family, about a dozen in all, and by the help of the Lord I live and have plenty, and raise it from four or five acres; and I believe I could live well and support my family on three acres. We do not know what we can do until we try."22 With such a positive outlook and religious devotion, it isno wonder Workman was one of only two Virgin City original settlers to persist along the basin for over forty years.

Thus, the religious devotion of these faithful Mormons, coupled with a mindset programmed to accept less than desirable lands and further enhanced by particularly positive dispositions, largely accounts for the persistence of these rugged individuals in the face of devastating circumstances. Generally speaking, however, this devotion and determination appeared in at least three distinguishable levels and led to different responses from the settlers. The first level, demonstrated by Workman's optimistic attitude and religious piety,

19 Deseret News, 15:197.

20 Ibid., 16:201

21 Ibid.

22

15:189, and 16:49

likely characterized those who persisted The next group, while still demonstrating their reverence for church authority, perhaps lacked Workman's sanguine outlook or his sturdy fortitude to remain in the region despite its unfavorable environment. For example, many colonizers revealed their continued devotion to the Mormon hierarchy by seeking releases from church authorities prior to leaving Charles Burke, like so many others, had been called to the Cotton Mission and had settled in Virgin City.As the floods continued to destroy his means of existence he opted for brighter prospects elsewhere. His daughter wrote, "When father decided to move to Hin[c]kley he went to St George and asked the Stake President for a release from his Dixie Cotton Mission call. They gave it to him with their blessings."23 Joseph Black, a Rockville resident, was also discouraged by the hardships of the Cotton Mission. After determining he could not make a proper living for his family, he wrote to Brigham Young describing his valiance in settling the region but regretting that due to the growing size of his household and the difficult conditions along the river basin he could no longer subsist in Rockville Young gave permission to Black to move to Millard County and buy a wheat farm.24

A final group of colonizers lacked both devotion to authority and dogged determination. Among these Saints, releases were not obtained prior to leaving; in particular, following yet another devastating rampage by the Virgin River in 1868, a number of families simply deserted. They were not highly regarded for abandoning their posts, and when the local 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 "alittle cast down over the loss of their farms" and then noted that many of them had "stampeded last winter" without first obtaining a release. Those who remained were admonished to follow "the Savior's parable: that the wise man built his house on a rock, and when the winds blew and the floods came, that house stood!"25

It seems apparent that the Virgin River, in effect, served as a winnowing agent. It separated those with rugged determination, religious zeal, and a mindset accepting of difficult conditions from

25 Deseret News, 17:135

23 Carrie Burke Wright, "Memories" in "Mary Jane Burke Reeve," ed., Fern Reeve, p 3, copy in possession of the author

24 Hazel Bradshaw, ed., Under Dixie Sun (Panguitch, Ut.: Garfield County News, 1950), p 283

CHART 3: ORIGINATING TOWNS OF 1910 HURRICANE, UTAH HOUSEHOLDERS

Source: U.S Manuscript Census, 1900-1910

CHART 4: ORIGINATING TOWNS OF 1910 HURRICANE, UTAH HOUSEHOLDERS WH O MOVED FROM THE UPPER VIRGIN RIVER BASIN

Source: U.S. Manuscript Census, 1900-1910.

those lacking one or more of these characteristics. Indeed, by 1900 the Mormon community-building experience along the upper Virgin River Basin had produced a determined group of individuals with extraordinary staying power. Therefore, when a proposal was advanced and accepted in 1893 to construct a canal nearly seven miles long to bring water to the thirsty land known as the Hurricane Bench, families scraped together what little money they had and

joined together to incorporate and take stock in the Hurricane Canal Company. They were investing in their hopes for an improved future; and even though two previous surveys had deemed the canal impossible to build, the hardships these colonizers had already endured had molded them into a perfect group to accept this difficult challenge

On August 6, 1904, following eleven years of tedious manual labor, the first water flowed through the Hurricane Canal onto the desert soil of the Hurricane Bench However, there were still many miles of distribution ditches to dig before widespread agriculture and settlement could begin In fact, not until 1906 did Thomas M Hinton, the first resident of Hurricane, arrive. Interestingly, he was not one of the builders of the canal. Although born in Virgin, he had moved away prior to the canal's construction. Unlike Hinton, over two-thirds of the fifty-eight households found in Hurricane by 1910 had moved there from farmlands along the upper Virgin River (see Chart 3). Of those, 64 percent had originated, likeJames Jepson, in Virgin City.The remaining 36percent had migrated from the other river communities of Rockville, Grafton, and Springdale (see Chart 4).26 The significance of these figures lies in the fact that of those families moving from the basin to settle Hurricane, over ninetenths had persisted along the river bottom for at least twenty years. 27 These findings, coupled with the fact that nearly three-quarters of the canal company stock-holders by 1907 were persisters of over thirty years, demonstrate the durability of those who were among Hurricane's original settlers (see Table 3).28 Such a legacy of perseverance virtually ensured the new community's success.

For Thomas Hinton, it seems that Hurricane provided the economic opportunity he needed to raise his family. According to Vera, his oldest daughter, the family had been extremely mobile prior to their arrival in Hurricane. She recalled that from 1900 to 1906 they had moved five times before making Hurricane their home.29 Using

b U.S Census, 1900 and 1910 Specifically, 17% were from Rockville, 17% from Grafton, and 2% from Springdale

'" Almost two-thirds persisted for thirty years or more

"H Records of the Hurricane Canal Company, Hurricane Canal Company Office, Hurricane, Utah These numbers were obtained by comparing the stockholders listed in company records with federal census records Most of Hurricane's original settlers held stock, at least from 1902; the latest year one of them purchased their first stock was 1907

'"'Vera Hinton Eagar, "The Life of Vera Hinton Eagar," photocopy of holograph in possession of the author

his skills as a carpenter, Hinton built a lumber granary for Thomas Isom which he wasthen allowed to use as a place of residence until he could construct a more suitable dwelling.30 By 1910 Hinton owned his own home free of mortgage and undoubtedly kept busy constructing houses and barns for the newly arriving residents.31 Hinton was thirty-three in 1910; he had been married for eleven years and had three daughters. Hewasfairly typical of the town's sixteen new arrivals who originated from outside Washington County and accounted for one-fourth of the Hurricane's families in 1910.It seems certain that all but one, Edward Cuffs, moved to Hurricane from within Utah. Even his move wasnot from a great distance. His three youngest children were born in Nevada, and he likely moved to Hurricane from that state.32 The average age of a head of household among the newcomers wasthirty-six—a full eight years younger than the average for the persisters. The oldest among the newcomers was Joseph Retty, a sixty-one-year-old widowed farmer, and the youngest wasJoseph Spendlove, a twenty-five-year-old farmer and father of six-month-old twins.33

By occupation, exactly half of the town's carpenters and almost three-fourths of its day laborers were newcomers. In contrast, only one-fifth of the town's farmers had moved from outside the county;

30 Larson, "I Was Called to Dixie, "p 400

31 U.S Manuscript Census 1910 Hinton listed zero months unemployed on the census record

32 In fact, if Cuff, as seems likely, moved from a location in southern Nevada such as Mesquite or Panaca he would have been closer than someone leaving central or northern Utah

33 U.S Manuscript Census, 1910; the median age for the newcomers was also 36 The average age for the persisters was 44, just one year older than the average for all heads of household combined

TABLE 3: YEARS OF PERSISTENCE ALONG THE UPPER VIRGIN RLVER BASIN AMONG HURRICANE'S 1910 HOUSEHOLDS AND HURRICANE CANAL COMPANY STOCKHOLDERS

Hurricane Householders who Moved from the River Basin*

Hurricane Households Holding Canal Company Stock by 1907f

Source: *U.S Manuscript Census, 1860-1910; fRecords of the Hurricane Canal Company, Hurricane Canal Company Office, Hurricane, Utah.

the vastmajority working in this occupation had moved, no doubt, to escape the destructive floods of the Virgin River. From these data one may concluded that nearly half of the newcomers were farmers seeking a new start, while the incoming carpenters and day laborers hoped to take advantage of the construction and employment opportunities to be found in a new community

If the articles printed in the Washington County News are any indication, these men should have had no problem finding employment. On January 23, 1908, the newspaper reported, "There are now 29 families here, mostly young people. ...Now isthe time for some enterprising shoemaker to locate here. We need one very much, and our population is increasing rapidly. Also a good blacksmith would find plenty of work." The article further described the construction stages of several new houses aswell as the continuing improvements, mending, and cleaning the canal needed. It then concluded by declaring that "No one is idle in Hurricane. There is plenty of work for a great many more men than available."34 The canal certainly kept its share employed, as it was often in need of repair For example, on April 27, 1908, the newspaper reported, "The canal broke Monday morning causing what is known as 'the big slide.' It will take a large force of men several days to repair the damage."35

Public works projects also provided employment as the community began establishing a social order. Given the religious background of these settlers, the first public structure in the new town was built to hold church services. As Vera Hinton remembered, "It wasn't long until the men built a 'Bowery,' which was made by putting posts into the ground and across the tops . . . putting limbs from cotton wood trees, ...with the green leaves on for shade. ... In the Bowery we held church." Then, after Ira Bradshaw finished his home, the first permanent dwelling in Hurricane, "church services, school and other gatherings were held there,"she said.36

Unlike Ira Bradshaw, most of the town's original settlers followed the pattern set by Thomas Hinton and first constructed small granaries that their families lived in until permanent homes could be built. Even before the completion of these granaries, however, many of the canal company stockholders, who had sacrificed considerably

34 Washington County Nexus, January 23, 1908, St. George, Utah.

35 Ibid., April 27, 1908

36 Eagar, "The Life of Vera Hinton Eagar."

to see the canal completed, anxiously took advantage of the nearly 2,000 acres of new farmland. Many of them camped in Hurricane during the week while they irrigated and tended their crops there and then returned home to their families along the Virgin for the weekend.JamesJepson and hiswife had planned to remain in Virgin "until such a time as [they] could have a good home to move into at Hurricane."37 Yet, as previously explained, the river did not cooperate, and after hisVirgin City farm was destroyed he moved his family into their sixteen-by-sixteen-foot granary and cellar in Hurricane.38 Those persisters, like Jepson, who moved their families from along the Virgin River Basin, were generally suffering from poor economic conditions. The 1900 tax assessment records for Washington County reveal nearly five-sixths of them owned less than $500 in real estate and less than $360 in personal estate. In fact, almost half only owned between $100 and $249 in real estate.Jepson was above average, having paid taxes in 1900 on real estate valued at $625 and personal estate valued at $340.39 Yet, according to his own account, following the flood in 1910his real estate sold for only $50—a considerable loss.40 Marcellus Wright, who also lived in Virgin, was much worse off thanJepson in 1900. His real estate consisted of a cabin valued at $200, and his personal estate included some machinery, two horses, and one cow totaling $95.41 This poverty certainly gave them a strong motive for moving to Hurricane

Besides providing new farmlands, Hurricane also enabled more heads of households to own rather than rent their homes Although the number of homeowners rose by only 3 percent, it still demonstrates the opportunities the new community provided.42 In addition, one-third of those who persisted had not been married and were not heads of households in 1900; by 1910 they were. This change is largely attributable to the ten-year age progression; nevertheless, it is still evident that Hurricane provided young couples with new economic opportunities that, more than likely, would not have been available in the county had the canal not been built.

37 Spendlove, "Memories and Experiences of JamesJepson, Jr.," pp 27-28

38 Ibid., p. 28.

39 Assessment Roll of Washington County, 1900

40 Spendlove, "Memories and Experiences of James Jepson, Jr., p 28

41 Assessment Roll of Washington County

42 U.S Manuscript Census, 1900 and 1910 In 1900, 89.7% had owned their homes before coming to Hurricane while in 1910, 92.9%

of the same group owned their homes in Hurricane

An article in the March 30, 1908., Washington County News confirms that it was mostly young settlers who first inhabited the community: "This town is unique, being composed of almost entirely young people. There are only about 3 persons over 60 years of age and the majority are under 40."43 The two years following this article saw the arrival of older household heads such as fifty-six-year-old JamesJepson, Morris Wilson, sixty-four, and Marcellus Wright, fiftytwo But the town's population was still young; the average age for household heads was forty-three with the oldest being seventy-seven and the youngest twenty-three. The average age of Hurricane's total population in 1910 was twenty-one, and the average household included six members.44 Hurricane residents were clearly middle-age couples with large families who came to partake of the new town's opportunities.

To generalize broadly then, the early settlers of Hurricane, Utah, formed a fairly homogeneous group. Nearly all were nativeborn Americans of whom half descended from at least one foreignborn parent No doubt these parents had immigrated to Utah after converting to the Mormon faith and then were called by Brigham Young to endure the hardships of the failed Utah Cotton Mission. Their religious devotion, sheer determination, and a mindset for settling undesirable lands helped them to persist. Itwas their children's hard work and continued determination that completed the Hurricane Canal and provided a chance for economic betterment. Nearly three-quarters of those hoping for upward mobility in Hurricane had moved from within Washington County, and of those all but one came from the difficult and challenging Virgin River Basin. Even the newcomers did not migrate long distances; in every case except one they originated from within Utah. As a whole, these were generally young to middle-aged farmers with large families Among the newcomers, over half were either carpenters or day laborers seeking employment readily available in the growing community. Hurricane thus provided an economic haven for those left impoverished by the Virgin River floods. It attracted newcomers hoping to take advantage of the plentiful work available in a new town

Hurricane's economic opportunities seemed obvious to many, and its population almost tripled over the next ten years. In addition,

43 Washington County News, March 30, 1908

the newcommunity proved remarkably stable during its first decade and a half, as 76 percent of the town's 1910 household heads remained in 1920.During the same period the closest persistence rate of the upriver communities was Springdale at 61 percent, and the least stable for the region was Grafton with only a third of its 1910 residents remaining through 1920 For the previous decade, however, the results are slightly unusual, with Springdale demonstrating the region's highest persistence rate for anyten-year period—83 percent—and with Grafton and Rockville next at around 55 percent and Virgin much lower with only slightly over one-quarter of its 1900 residents remaining through 1910 (seeTable 4)

Virgin City's low stability rate can largely be attributed to the heavy involvement of residents in the Hurricane Canal Company. Soon after its incorporation the company chose Virgin City as its base town, and many of its inhabitants not only held stock in the company but also served on itsgoverning board.45 Thus, itisnot surprising that of the thirty-five households that left Virgin City during the century's first decade nearly three-fourths moved to Hurricane.46 Similar correlations are true for the other upriver communities; the towns with the lowest persistence rates had the highest number of former residents living in Hurricane by 1920 (see Table 4). In the absence of significant statistical information it seems probable that the people in the upper basin communities, especially Virgin City, invested sweat capital in the Hurricane Canal in the expectation of a 45 Records of the Hurricane Canal Company 46 U.S. Manuscript Census, 1900-1910.

TABLE 4: PERSISTENCE IN UPPER VIRGIN RIVER TOWNS AND HURRICANE, 1900-1920

Source: U.S Manuscript Census, 1900-1920

Community Building in Hurricane 241

better life in Hurricane. Particularly following a devastating flood, many, likeJames Jepson, likely sold their land for less than the assessed valuation in the hope of improving their economic condition in Hurricane

While Virgin City's population became extremely fluid due to its heavy involvement in the canal, Springdale residents remained unusually stable from 1900 to 1910. During the following decade, however, Springdale's stability rate dropped to 61 percent and was remarkably close to that of Rockville At the other end of the scale, almost identically low rates characterize Virgin and Grafton. To explain these differences and similarities it is necessary to take a closer look at each community. In general, the farmlands in these towns lay in very narrow strips along either side of the Virgin River and its tributaries and were subject to erosion from flooding In addition to the unpredictable river, the limited availability of land presented an obvious problem in these communities In a meeting held December 13, 1861, at Grafton, John Nebeker described a recently completed land survey that showed not more than a thousand acres of tillable land available from Virgin City to Rockville.47

The Cotton Mission's agricultural reports seem to substantiate this claim In 1864 Grafton reported 150 acres under cultivation, Virgin City 205, Springdale 110, and Rockville 105. Two years later the report shows even less acreage under cultivation in each community except Rockville.48 This is explained in part by the temporary abandonment of Grafton and Springdale due to "Indian depredations" during the Black Hawk War, but even the reported 1864 acreage appears small.

The problem of limited lands certainly prevented these communities from experiencing the same type of rapid growth Hurricane demonstrated in its early years and made it equally difficult for second-generation settlers to remain in the region and support their young families. Yet, Rockville and Springdale demonstrated surprisingly high stability rates from 1900 to 1920, especially compared to Virgin City and Grafton. Perhaps the individual characteristics of these towns provide the best possible answer At Rockville and Springdale the Virgin River gorge widens, making portions of higher

47 James G. Bleak, "Annals of the Southern Utah Mission," Book A, p. 79, typescripts in Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Ut.

48 Ibid., Book A, p 249 The 1866 report shows Grafton with 91.5 acres under cultivation, Virgin City with 106, Springdale with 96.5, and Rockville with 113.75

ground available for farming. According to Larson's study of the region, the original settlement of Rockville was located on "some low ground," but following the floods of 1862 the settlers moved to higher ground and established the town anew, this time with relative success. 49 Springdale, like Rockville, also benefitted from the availability of higher ground; in addition, its location along the Virgin River's rocky north fork, unlike the quicksand typical of the river bottom in other locations, provided a solid base for the Springdale settlers' dams.50

Grafton and Virgin City were not as fortunate with regard to dam sites and available high ground to farm. As previously mentioned, the first attempt to settle Grafton was obliterated by floods in 1862, and even the lands at the new townsite were "gradually reduced" by subsequent high waters. Virgin City, although never completely destroyed, was often victimized by the river that shares its name. The town's location, at a low spot on the banks of the river, earned it the Indian nickname of Pocketville and explains its susceptibility to flooding.51

In essence, Rockville and Springdale maintained some degree of stability due to their more favorable locations, yet even in these communities land was scarce and the opportunity for growth limited. With the completion of the Hurricane Canal a relative abundance of land became available for cultivation, and the fact that it was far removed from the violent waters of the Virgin River only added to its attraction. The Washington County News indicated the different effects the floods of 1909 had on the various communities. An article dated September 3, 1909, from Virgin City described the record high water that came down the gorge and "carried away much valuable land," including "the lower city lots"and "all bottomlands."52 An article from Rockville three days later concerning the same flood described similar damage in that community where even "land that was thought to be safe was swept away in the surging waters." The land was not the only victim; fencing, farming implements, milk cows, "two big stacks of hay," fourteen hives of bees, chickens, melons, squashes, and other valuables were also carried

49 Larson, "Agricultural Pioneering," p. 140. Rockville's farmlands were still susceptible to flooding, but the city lots remained comparatively safe from destruction

50 Ibid., p 145

51 Bradshaw, UnderDixie Sun, p 268

,2 Washington County News, September 3, 1909

downstream. The article concluded that some of the residents of Rockville were "feeling very discouraged" over their losses.53 In contrast, Hurricane's report of the same flood described how "remarkably well" the people had done in "counteracting the evil effects of the flood." Only the dam suffered damage Following a canal company stockholder's meeting, "men and teams set to work at once getting timber and doing such other work as necessary," and by the end of the month "water was again running through [the] town ditches."54 It seems that in Hurricane the battle with the Virgin River had diminished to an occasional skirmish while the upriver communities were still suffering from heavy losses

The final important factor contributing to Hurricane's stability stemmed from the new town's instant leadership. Not only did Hurricane benefit from the respected authority inherent in the Mormon hierarchy called to lead each community, but, in addition, the eleven years of canal board leadership provided another, perhaps more significant, leadership mechanism.55 In fact, prior to Hurricane's incorporation in 1912 the canal board had served as the town's governing body. It comes as no surprise, then, that James Jepson, who had served ten terms as canal board president, was elected to the town board's highest office, serving two terms followed by an additional term as a board member. Similarly, of Hurricane's first three town presidents, each had previously served at least seven terms on the canal board as either president or vice-president; and one man, Thomas Reeve, was elected to the first town board while simultaneously serving as a canal board member.56 Furthermore, this overlap in leadership extended even beyond the two boards and encompassed the town's early religious leadership aswell (see Table 5).

For example, Samuel Isom, the Mormon bishop in Virgin City prior to his move to Hurricane, was called on September 5, 1907, to fill the same position when Hurricane was organized into its own

"

>:! Ibid., September 6, 1909

54 Ibid., October 4, 1909

>5 To those familiar only with Mormon settlements this might not seem significant; however, when compared with Robert R. Dykstra's The Cattle Towns (New York: Atheneum, 1976), the importance of respected authority is apparent. Dykstra concluded that incessant conflict, due in part to the lack of a well-defined structure of leadership, was a large hindrance to the community-building process in the frontier towns he studied.

,fi Records of the Hurricane Canal Company; and Minutes of the Hurricane Town Board, Hurricane Canal Company Office, Hurricane, Utah A term on the canal board was originally for two years but was latter changed to one year The town board was reelected every two years

religious unit.57 From 1893to 1920Isom served eleven terms on the canal board, many of them aspresident. After arriving in Hurricane, he simultaneously served the community in a religious capacity as well as filling six terms as a canal board member.58 Prior to 1907 Isom had often worked alongside fellow board members Charles Workman, E.N.Stanworth, andJoseph Witwer. They evidently developed a strong working relationship, for Isom chose the former two as his counselors and the latter as his clerk to complete Hurricane's ecclesiastical leadership.59

In the end, Hurricane's early prosperity and rapid growth can be attributed to a number of factors centered around the success of the canal. First, the religious devotion of the Cotton Mission colonizers, coupled with a mindset to accept marginal lands and a fierce determination, created an unusually rugged group of individuals who

TABLE 5: HURRICANE CANAL COMPANY BOARD MEMBERS ELECTED TO FOUR TERMS OR MORE AND THEIR LEADERSHIP OVERLAPS IN HURRICANE, UTAH, 1893-1920.

Name* Joseph Witwer

John Langston Samuel Isom

James Jepson

J.W Imlay Martin Slack

Alfred Hall

E.N Stanworth Charles Workman R.P Woodbury

Religious Position§ Ward Clerk Bishop

Second Counselor First Counselor

Sources: ^Records of the Hurricane Canal Company; fMinutes of Hurricane Town Board; §Hurricane, Utah, Ward Manuscript History

57 Hurricane, Utah, Ward Manuscript History, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City.

58 In 1912 Isom was elected again to the canal board where he served as president until 1914 and then vice-president until 1915

:'9 Records of the Hurricane Canal; Hurricane, Utah, Ward Manuscript History.

Community Building in Hurricane 245

were willing to devote eleven years of labor and what little money they had to a canal project previously deemed impossible. Once water reached the Hurricane Bench nearly 2,000 acres of land became available for cultivation, which far surpassed the minimal acreage being farmed along the upper river basin. In addition, the new land wasfar removed from the violent flood waters of the Virgin River, providing a comparatively secure environment for farming. Hurricane also produced other economic opportunities for newcomers seeking employment, and its stability rate proved to be remarkably high in a region generally plagued by low persistence. Finally, the new town undoubtedly benefitted from an instant group of respected leaders who had gained recognition as members of the canal board and thus were easily elected as Hurricane's early community leaders. The canal was the overall key to Hurricane's community-building success It not only opened new economic avenues for the destitute settlers of the Virgin River Basin but also served an important stabilizing role by providing the respected authority important to Hurricane's success.

Keetley, Utah: The Birth and Death of a Small Town

BY MARILYN CURTIS WHITE

THE RESERVOIR BEHIND JORDANELLE DAM in the Heber Valley has inundated much of the area that was once Keetley, Utah. By 1995 water will cover the last relics of farms and flood the mine tunnels that once brought work and life to this community.

The story of Keetley is not much different from that of other small Utah towns that have boomed and then vanished. The Heber Valleywassettled in 1859 by Latter-day Saint pioneers before Wasatch County was officially organized by the Utah Territorial Legislature in 1862 Early ranchers raised sheep and cattle and grew feed crops in the area, but mining provided the incentive that created the town of Keetley.

Keetley store and apartment house. Courtesy o/Alargery Fisher Sinclair.

Mrs White is a history consultant in Beaumont, California

The discovery of silver on the Ontario claim in 1872 gave birth to Park City and, ultimately, to Keetley. David Fisher was first to prospect the Keetley area His claim, the Columbus, became the Star of Utah mine that was later incorporated with others into the New Park Mine None of the diggings produced much ore before the turn of the century. For years Keetley wasjust a mining shaft at the mouth of a drain tunnel.

John 'Jack" Keetley, born November 28, 1841, grew up in Marysville, Kansas In his youth, as a pony express rider, he was known for completing the longest ride without stopping, except to change horses. He rode 300 miles in twenty-four hours.1 It wasJack Keetley who engineered the Ontario Drain Tunnels. By 1898 Tunnel No. 2 had been completed to drain the Park City properties of the Daly Mining Company and the Ontario Silver Mining Company.2 In June 1917 the Park Utah Mining Company was incorporated and secured rights to use the five-mile drain tunnel The Park Utah mining operation became a success, but not until the 1920s did it affect the surrounding area.

Miners were not the only ones interested in the site. In 1917 the Fisher brothers, George and Donald Gail, bought a 4,000-acre ranch east of Ontario Drain Tunnel No. 2. They mortgaged their livestock to purchase the property from Henry and Kerzia Cluff. It is not known how old the ranch actually was, but a barn on the property was built with ten-inch square timbers pinned with wooden spikes. In January 1918 Gail and his new bride, Luvernia, moved into a ranch house on the property that had been a home for livestock for many years It faced south on the mine road, just east of a smaller home that was later occupied by a Mexican migrant named Casias and his family. Gail hauled sawdust chips from the mill in Kamas to insulate the walls of the house that first winter. Although Luvernia made the place clean and comfortable, no major improvements were made for four years. 3

While Gail and his family worked the ranch, George was elected to the Utah State Senate in 1922 He and his family continued to live

' Kate B Carter, comp., "Utah and the Pony Express," Our Pioneer Heritage, 20 vols (Salt Lake City: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1958-77), 3:385-88

" William James Mortimer, ed., How Beautiful upon the Mountains (Wasatch County: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1963), p 1108 See also George A Thompson and Fraser Buck, Treasure Mountain Home, Park City Revisited (Salt Lake City: Dream Garden Press, 1981), p 27

; Interview with Doris Fisher Gates, Heber City, Utah, April 26, 1988

in Heber. Until the depression his family only summered in Keetley. He was not a rancher but became widely known as a newspaper editor, forest ranger, and politician. As a lobbyist he represented the Utah Woolgrowers Association in Washington, D.C.

From the beginning, due to George's varied interests, the ranch was a one-sided partnership. Gail and his sons Neil and Bert worked the ranch, while George and his family pursued a different lifestyle. In later years this caused bitterness between the twofamilies.4 One visible indicator of this inequity was a large sign George painted on the roof of the Keetley Store It read, "George A Fisher and Brothers."

Major improvements in 1922 changed living conditions in Keetley. Water was piped into Gail and Luvernia's house, and electricity and telephone service were installed. That same year Gail built three new rentals and an ice house as well as slaughter and shearing sheds.5

Water to the ranch came from two systems Springs nearby furnished culinary water, and irrigation water was piped down from Drain Tunnel No. 2. The drain water was never adequate since Midway Irrigation claimed most of the rights from the tunnel.6 For this reason, historically, the Fisher ranch was dry farmed and seeded in pasture grass.

Gail Fisher contracted to set the poles from the power plant to the property, bringing electricity to the upper valley. The Utah Power and Light Company, tagged "Utah Pilfer and Loot" by Gail Fisher, provided the power. The main line ran directly through the property.7

The Fisher ranch was connected to the outside world by telephone when the Elkhorn Telephone Company was organized by local ranchers. Along the main line to Heber City Lyman Wooten, Harry Morris, Bob and Bill Davis, the Fishers, and others hooked into the service. Each provided and maintained the line across his property to the next connection The party-line system worked well for many years until Mountain Bell bought out the ranchers.8

From the beginning the success of the ranch depended on the

4 Interview with Bert Fisher, Salt Lake City, April 4, 1988

' Gail Fisher, 1922 Diary, in possession of his daughter Doris Gates, Heber City

h Interview with Harry McMillan, Heber City, April 1, 1988

' Bert Fisher interview

8 Ibid

mining interests. When the mines prospered the Fishers sold meat and poultry to the boardinghouses at the mine and the grocers in Park City. This required daily trips to deliver the freshly slaughtered animals. When the Fishers were butchering for the mines they kept 1,500 head of cattle at the ranch. They delivered a beef each day to the Park Utah Mine George and Gail divided the herd equally until George sold his cattle and purchased sheep

With the sheep came additional responsibilities. Annually in April two shearers named Ford and Meecham came up from Wallsburg In the large shearing sheds at the ranch these men clipped the Fisher sheep and those of their neighbors This job took a whole month to complete, and then the shearers moved on to other ranches. The Fisher brothers also raised chickens to sell to the mines.When grown and dressed out they soldfivefor a dollar.9

Keetley, the town, had itsbirth in the mining boom of the 1920s. In 1923 Charles Roy Lenzi was hired by the United Park City Mines Company to paint the houses and mine structures at the mouth of the drain tunnels. As the operation grew, new facilities were built for the increasing number of employees.10 Supervisory personnel occupied new homes down the ridge along the road The company also

Mining camp dormitories or boardinghouses at Keetley. Courtesy ofPenrod Glazier.

9 Bert Fisher interview

10 The new camp was called Keetley and was constructed at the former site of Camp Florence See Thompson and Buck, Treasure Mountain Home, p 157

constructed new offices, shops, acommissary, four bunkhouses, and a boardinghouse These facilities accommodated almost 600 men. 11

Lack of transportation and the inclement winters in Keetley forced most of the miners to remain in the camp during the week, returning home only on weekends when weather permitted.

While single miners stayed in the two-story boardinghouses, homes were provided for the families of key personnel. These were located in a small canyon north of the main tunnel,just over the hill from what is now Deer Valley. In 1928 Richard Glazier brought his wife Myrle and three-year-old son Penrod to the Park Utah mining camp This would be their home for the next twenty-four years Their two-story house was old and shoddily built. It did have electricity and a cold water sink but no bathroom. A large coal- and woodburning stove provided heat.12

Myrle Glazier recalled that the family tried to plan something special to do each day. In the summer the choices might include a walk on the train tracks, searching for watercress along the stream banks, gathering chokecherries or elderberries, hunting rabbits, and fishing. Picnics were spontaneous affairs; Joan Glazier remembered pulling the kitchen table into the yard for supper. Or they often filled a big cast-iron skillet with fried potatoes and sliced frankfurters, steak, or fish and carried their meal down to the stream so that the family could eat while they fished in the evenings Another favorite picnic spot was the old mill east of Heber

They enjoyed other activities aswell, such asswimming at Luke's Hot Pots and Schneitters Hot Pots in Midway, Utah. There the hot mineral water bubbles up from fissures in the ground, and several areas are dammed to form pleasantly warm, relaxing pools. In the winter entertainment included sledding, skiing, and ice skating on the settling ponds associated with the mines.

The Glaziers, like other mining families, kept a small garden in the summer and bottled fruit and vegetables. In their root cellar they kept apples, potatoes, and carrots. They supplemented storebought meat with fish caught in nearby streams or rabbit and deer. Household commodities were available at the Heber Exchange or in Park City. Weekly shopping visits were often combined with stops at

11 Mortimer, How Beautiful upon the Mountains, p 1114-15

12 Interview with Myrle Glazier, Richard Glazier, and Joan Glazier Pitts, Provo, Utah, August 18, 1988

Chick's Cafe, Everett's Ice Cream Parlor, or a movie at Heber's Ideal Theater.13

Although the mining community was composed of several different racial groups and members of different religious sects, it was still extremely homogeneous. Those who lived there still get together to reminisce about old times. Life at the mine camp, though difficult, isremembered fondly byformer residents.

During World War II, with gas rationing, the miners phoned in their orders either to the Heber Exchange or O. P. Skaggs in Park City.The Heber Exchange delivered once aweek and Park Utah officials picked up the Park City orders when they went in for supplies. In addition to gas there were shortages of rubber tires, sugar, flour, meat, butter, and shoes. Only a limited amount could be purchased with the government-issued ration books.

The war affected the Keetley mining district in several different ways. The demand for minerals increased, allowing the mines to remain open, but conversely, the labor force diminished, affecting production. Social life in the community expanded to include Mothers' Camps. These weekly gatherings of the miners' wives met in individual homes to knit gloves and scarves for U.S. servicemen. After the Glaziers purchased the community's first radio-phonograph console they hosted other families for evenings of music and radio programs such as Little Orphan Annie, Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy, Helen Trent, and the children's favorite, Let's Pretend. The radio was their link to the outside world.

By 1952 the golden days of mining in the Keetley area had faded. The ore no longer earned top dollar on the market, and the coming of the unions brought lengthy strikes. Many miners could not afford towait the strikes out and sought work elsewhere.

During the early years the mining companies were not the only ones interested in expansion When the Union Pacific Railroad ran a spur to the mine in 1923 it looked as if the time was right for development of the area. In December of that year the Wasatch County Commission approved a townsite at Keetley. The plat, submitted by George A. Fisher and his wife Annie McMillan Fisher, contained forty-one lots. Each lot, approximately 100 feet by 50 feet, included the promise of sewer and water connections.14

14 Plat of the original townsite of Keetley, entry No 39951, December 6, 1923, Wasatch County Recorder's Office, Heber City

The following summer mail service began to the little community with Charles Roy Lenzi as postmaster and Lettie, his wife, as assistant The post office sign arrived with the name spelled incorrectly To correct the mistake the Postmaster General of the United States had to cancel Lenzi's appointment as postmaster of "Keatley" and reinstate him as postmaster of "Keetley." Thirty years later when Lenzi retired the post office closed.15

George Fisher built himself a home east of the highway and surrounded it with six rental units. Across the highway on the west he built a store that furnished meat and produce to the mine and local residents and provided a gathering place in their free time. South of the mine road George erected a row of small cabins and, on the north, a two-story, ten-unit apartment building Each unit contained a small kitchen-dining area, a living room, and one bedroom. Most of these structures housed miners and their families and provided services for them.16

15 Mortimer, How Beautiful upon the Mountains, p. 1115.

16 Bert Fisher interview There is some discrepancy in dates In a letter to the author from Phyllis Fisher Heath, February 18, 1988, she gives the date as 1922; in a later telephone conversation Neil Fisher said the apartments went up the same year as the new school which was 1925; an undated 1988 letter from Marjorie Fisher Sinclair sets the date in 1933 I am inclined to go with the 1925 date as that was when the mine production was at its peak and the need for such housing at its greatest

George Fisher. Courtesy of Margery Fisher Sinclair.

Children at the ranch and the mine attended the Elkhorn School, a small wooden building that housed all twelve grades. In 1924 Mrs. Horton's second grade class was the largest, having four students. That year the school graduated one student, Orville Ross. During the Thanksgiving holiday in 1924 the Elkhorn schoolhouse wasjacked off its foundation and dragged across the fields to a new location just south and west of the Keetley store. The one-room school served grades one through eight until a new school was built the next year High school students were bused into Heber

The new school was an impressive two-story brick building The first three grades met in one room and grades four through eight in the other. Each grade sat in its own row, and there were about twenty-five students per room Victor and EldaJackson, husband and wife, taught the classes and lived in the former schoolhouse at the rear of the new building. By 1929 the school board found it too expensive to keep the school open and required all students to attend school in Heber.17 Bythe time the bus reached town itcarried almost ninety elementary and high school students. For nighttime activities, such as plays and sporting events, the bus transported both students and their parents.18

In 1927 George and Gail Fisher leased some land west of the ranch buildings to an outfit out of Butte, Montana. These men, remembered only as Big and LittleJoe, built an 80-foot square amusement hall on the property. They painted it blue and named it the Blue Goose. It was outfitted regally with a heavy marble-topped bar and stained-glass barroom doors.19 For a few years this was a favorite entertainment spot for miners and out-of-towners, and it quickly developed a reputation that rivaled the dance halls of Park City. The Blue Goose offered a variety of entertainment, including weekly smokers—boxing and wrestling matches that listed out-of-state as well aslocal talent on the card.20

On weekends dances were held at the Blue Goose A Salt Lake City socialite, who also ran a string of girls in Park City, furnished dance partners. Later, when it became more lucrative to take the girls to Salt Lake City, the dances were attended bylocal girls.21

17 McMillan interview; see also Bert Fisher Interview

18 Interview with Wilson Young, Heber City, April 1, 1988; see also Glazier interview.

19 Interview with Marjorie Fisher Sinclair, Flintridge, Calif., February 1, 1988

20 Interview with Neil Fisher, Salt Lake City, April 7, 1988

21 Ibid

Gambling was popular at the Blue Goose, and card rooms were open nightly. Game stakes could run ashigh as$1,000 in an evening. There were also pool and craps tables. The biggest draw was panguingue (pan), a fast-moving card game usually played by six. Charlie Thompson was the local champion One evening, the story goes, he won a service station, an oil and gas distributorship, and a diamond ring.22

During prohibition the grounds around the Blue Goose became a popular hiding place for locally produced whiskey. Heber's newspaper, the Wasatch Wave, reported several "Big Whiskey Catches" by Sheriff Fraughton during 1927 and 1928.23 The Fisher ranch had its own problems with bootleggers The Fishers had leased some bottom grazing land to an Idaho hog raiser who sold the Fishers pork to supply to the mines. This worked well for several years until Neil Fisher noticed a strong odor, one not usually associated with pigs. He and his father quickly identified the smell as mash and uncovered a complete bootlegging operation in the pens The sheriff ran the man out of the area. 24

When the depression hit, transportation became a problem and business at the Blue Goose declined. It closed its doors in 1930. Later, Wilson Young and Dick Glazier held Boy Scout activities there, and on Saturday mornings Guy Coleman brought movies from his theater in Midway. He also furnished Wednesday night films at the mine boardinghouse The Blue Goose was finally torn down sometime between 1937 and 1941.25

The depression hit mining hard, and most mines eventually closed or operated with skeleton crews. In the spring of 1929 mine executive Paul Hunt warned George Fisher about the impending crash, telling him to "put his house in order." George immediately sold his sheep at six dollars a head and with the money was able to retain the ranch through the lean years A month later the price of sheep fell to a dollar a head.26

Many of Keetley's citizens went on relief, but they stayed in Keetley where rent was cheap. When vacancies occurred in his rentals,

George filled them with needy family members. Times were hard for everyone. The men would drive a sleigh into the mountains and chop wood for fuel. Often diets consisted of only what could be trapped or shot Beans and porcupine held center stage at one savored Thanksgiving meal. Disputes frequently broke out over supplies that mysteriously "disappeared."27

One of the most tragic results of the depression at Keetleywas the death of Carl McMillan He had worked at the mines until they closed and then took a job at the Keetley store. One morning when the school bus stopped at the store to pick up students,Wilson Young, the driver, found Carl hanging in the basement. His suicide was traumatic for the small community. He is still remembered as a kind, generous man who donated many items from his shelves to the needy.28

During the depression Gail Fisher let residents charge milk, meat and eggs. Only one man, Stubb Schooler, ever settled his account. He was also the only resident to pick up his supplies; the others expected the Fisher kids to deliver. It surprised no one when, after twenty years, Gail Fisher sold out to his brother George in 1937 and moved his family into Heber.29

During World War II Keetley became the wartime home of 140 Japanese Americans, the largest such group to resettle voluntarily away from the West Coast.30 Fred Wada, a thirty-five-year-old California businessman, organized a nonprofit cooperative enterprise of Japanese Americans to engage in farming, in part to help the war effort by producing foodstuffs and also to avoid being sent to an internment camp He quickly recruited 140 members.31 Ultimately, almost 5,000Japanese Americans would voluntarily relocate. Wada first visited Duchesne County but found that although they needed farm labor there, it was too remote from transportation lines to make it profitable He then visited Keetley, and George Fisher offered to lease Wada his "farm." Earlier, George had written U.S. attorney Dan B. Shields to see if this transaction was legal.

27 Young interview

28 Bert Fisher interview; see also Young and Gates interviews.

2(1 Bert Fisher interview

30 Sandra Taylor, "Japanese Americans and Keetley Farms: Utah's Relocation Colony," Utah Historical Quarterly 54 (1986): 333

31 Masao Tsujimoto, "A Letter to Ophelia about Keetley Farms," pp 3-4, MS dated 1943, in the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

Shields reported that it could be done "without violating the law in any respect."32 Fisher's offer appealed to Wada, and he put down an immediate deposit. Later, he executed a one-year lease with a four-year option. Rent was $7,500 annually for 3,800 acres. 33

The co-op group left Oakland on March 28, 1942,in eighteen cars, eleven trucks, and two house trailers, organized into caravans. The homes and possessions they left behind were never recovered after the war. It took three days to travel the 800 miles to Keetley. When they arrived the weather was bitterly cold, and snow still covered the ground. The water pipes in the housing units had frozen and burst. Masao Tsujimoto recalled that "Afew of the cabins were really snow-bound The pick and shovel crew had to get busy making roads to them."34

Although they could do little farming until the snow melted there was much for the newcomers to do. Four boxcar loads of farm equipment, furniture, and personal belongings and two of Japanese foodstuffs arrived at the Keetley Union Pacific spur and needed unloading. The men built an eleven-car garage behind the apartment building and two additional cabins. They also built a structure to house a largeJapanese bath.35

Historian Leonard Arrington found that Utahns, while not free of discrimination, generally avoided violent acts against the Japanese Surprisingly, resident Japanese Americans in the state opposed the influx of evacuees for fear it might tarnish the reputation they had built up over several generations.36 The mayor and city

32 Dan B Shields to George Fisher, March 13, 1942, in possession of Marjorie Fisher Sinclair

33 Tsujimoto, "Letter to Ophelia," p. 4. See also 'The Keetley Story," Salt Lake Telegram, June 6, 1942.

34 Tsujimoto, "Letter to Ophelia," p 2

35 Ibid

36 Leonard J Arrington, "Utah's Ambiguous Reception: The Relocation ofJapanese Americans," in Roger Daniels, Harry H L Kitano, and Sandra C Taylor, eds., Japanese Americansfrom Relocation to Redress (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986) pp. 95, 97.

Fred Wada, center, at Keetleyfarm operated byJapanese American evacueesfrom the West Coast. USHS collections.

council of Park City aswell as the Wasatch County sheriff wrote Gov. Herbert B. Maw asking that the Japanese be kept out of the area. They feared their presence would lower the standard of living.37

Although the colony caused much discussion, there were only a few incidents of overt hostility at Keetley. Soon after the group arrived, on the night of April 9 as the miners were getting off shift, someone in a passing car threw a stick of dynamite toward the ranch buildings. No one was injured. There were other blasts during the month, but eventually everything settled back to normal.38

The newcomers had little time to worry about what others thought. As the snow melted they could see what a monumental task lay ahead of them This was not farmland as they had supposed It was hilly, rocky, and covered with sagebrush. "Hell," said Fred Wada, "we had to move 50 tons of rocks to clear 150 acres to farm."39 During those difficult first months, using the farm equipment they had brought with them, they cleared the sagebrush and dug out the rocks by hand. They laid out a large truck garden, planting it mostly in lettuce and strawberries. Another thousand acres went into hay. Land too hilly to plant was subleased to a rancher. The colonists also built a large chicken coop and a pigpen to house the fifty chickens and eight pigs they owned. "The chickens, however, didn't live long, Masao Tsujimoto recalled, "since fried chicken came constantly in our minds whenever we saw them pecking around."40

After the garden was planted there was not enough work to support all those in the colony. Wives and children remained behind to tend the crops while many of the men contracted to work at a sugar beet operation in Spanish Fork and several others at an orchard and produce farm in Orem, returning on weekends to help at Keetley. The energetic newcomers also found time to help neighboring farmers in the Heber Valley.41

The summer harvest was good and required the help of all ages. Children as young as ten and grandparents over seventy-five worked

,7 Park City Record, March 19, 1942

18 "George A Fisher Given Just Praise—Keetley Story," Deseret News, April 10, 1942; also noted in the Park Record, November 11, 1948

19 "Fred Isamu Wada: Businessman, Community Leader, and Philanthropist," Oral History in the Oral History Program, Claremont College Graduate School, Claremont, Calif., 1984. See also A Tribute to Fred Isamu Wada, published privately by Omni Bank, Los Angeles, November 14, 1984

40 Tsujimoto, "Letter to Ophelia," p 12

41 Ibid

side by side They sold much of their produce to Safeway and sent some to the Topaz internment camp in Millard County. They also sold to locals at a roadside stand. Proud of their achievement, they sent abox of their "finest" beets, lettuce, peas, turnips, and onions to Governor Maw. His thank you letter to Fred Wada, dated July 30, 1942, praised the Japanese colony: "You are proving by your work that you are loyal high-class citizens."

The Mormon cooperative in Heber taught them how to can their surplus for winter consumption, but winter came to this mountain valley all too soon for the haggard farmers The first snow fell on September 9. With the farming season over the Japanese women knitted for the Red Cross and the men found odd jobs. Those who remained at the ranch began raising fingerling trout donated by Sen.Abe Murdock.42

Although work occupied much of their day, the small colony still had time for recreation. The Californians especially enjoyed snow sports and took up ice skating, sledding, tobogganing, and skiing with varying degrees of success. In the summer horseback riding was a favorite activity. The girls had a glee club and the boys a baseball team, the Keetley Green Waves, captained by Kaoru Honda, that had a successful season. The colony's young men also formed a basketball team that participated in games sponsored by the Japanese American Citizens League of Salt Lake City.43

When the war ended the Japanese colony remained to harvest their last crop before returning to the West Coast. About one-third remained in Utah.44 Today only a handful of locals remember the Japanese colony, but in 1988 the survivors of the Keetley camp gathered in Culver City, California, to share memories of that time with their posterity.

With the Japanese colony gone and work at the mine slowing again, Keetley returned to a quiet existence. George Fisher made a final attempt to establish his dream. With monies received when the federal government widened U.S Highway 40 in 1947, he converted the apartments into a motel. There was not much to attract tourists to the area, however, and itwas eventually sold.45

When George Fisher died in 1954,his dream died with him Just before his death he divided and sold the ranch. A. L. Buchanan bought the 300 acres south of the mine road. D. S. Brown, a former Utahn then ranching in Mexico,bought the other 1,200 acres of bottom land north of the mine road and the foothill property along the west In turn he sold toVerne Crandall and his sons. 46

For thirty years the Crandalls summered their cattle at the ranch between May and September—"never later than Thanksgiving."They carefully rotated the animals between twenty-two different pastures to prevent depletion of the grasses Four generations of Crandalls lived in the renovated farmhouse.47 With the Jordanelle Dam completed and the reservoir filling, ranchers in the area have been bought out and relocated. The Crandalls now take their cattle to Wyoming. One small remembrance of their activity in the area is that State Parks and Recreation has named one of the sites at the reservoir Crandall Point

For some, uncertainty still hangs over the Keetley area. Clark Wilson, aretired geological engineer and former leader of the mining

Keetley, Utah, including school and apartment building. Courtesy ofMargery Fisher Sinclair.

46 David H Mann, "Keetley Valley Returns to Grass," Utah Farmer, October 18, 1956, p 5

47 Interview with Lamar Crandall, Springville, Utah, March 28, 1988

interests in the area, opposed the construction of the Jordanelle Dam. According to him and other knowledgeable men, the dam is built on land laced with fissures and weak underground formations Moreover, there is a history of seismic activity in the area. 48 The Bureau of Reclamation has repeatedly assured Heber Valley residents that the dam is safe and can withstand an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude on the Richter scale directly below it.49 Wilson and his supporters have their doubts. Perhaps someday this controversy will add another chapter to the history of Keetley. When the reservoir is filled and all the recreational facilities in use, people are not likely to remember Wilson's warning or the small town of Keetley, Utah, far below them in itswatery grave.

8 Interview with Clark Wilson, Salt Lake City, April 22, 1988

9 Jordanelle Dam, brochure published by the Central Utah Project, Heber City, undated

Utah's CCCs: The Conservators9 Medium for Young Men, Nature, Economy, and Freedom

BY BETH R OLSEN

TH E CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS HAD A PROFOUND EFFECT in Utah. During the nine years of its operation (1933-42) it provided jobs and training to thousands of young men and produced both immediate and long-term improvements to public and private lands The CCC program was the most popular part of the sweeping changes made by the newly inaugurated New Deal government of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Congress authorized it to reverse the ravages of the 1929 depression that sent an estimated 16 to 25 million unemployed men roaming the country looking for afuture. Of those unemployed, 5 to

Group photograph ofFarmington, Utah, CCC men, March 16, 1936. USHS collections.

Mrs Olsen lives in Pleasant Grove and recently completed a master's degree in history at Brigham Young University

7 million ranged in age from sixteen to twenty-five. The corps was swiftly set into action on April 5, 1933, to employ U.S. citizens age seventeen to twenty-five who were unmarried and unemployed and whose parents were on relief They earned $30 per month, $25 of which was sent home to help support their families. The young men signed up for six-month periods. Many of the enrollees werejust seventeen; others were college graduates; most were under twenty.1

Applications for the corps far outnumbered allotments. Unemployment was so great that nationwide three and one-half men applied for each vacancy. In Salt Lake County the ratio was almost five and one-quarter men for each vacancy on the initial enrollment.2 Although Utah had twice the relief caseload of the national average, county population governed allotments of men to serve; so in spite of the need for employment locally, the enrollment of Utah men remained low because of the state's small population. Young men from eastern states with large city populations and little public land to work on in their home states made up the majority of CCC enrollees serving in Utah by six to one. 3

Less than sixweeks after President Roosevelt had signed the bill, construction started on Utah camps such as the one at Granite Flat in American Fork Canyon Lumber was bought from the local Chipman Mercantile and delivered by May 19 to the site where three barracks were built to house fifty men each. Typical of the camps built, American Fork Camp F-5 consisted of officer's quarters, a mess hall and kitchen, a shower room, a hospital, a recreation hall with a library and reading room, and utility buildings for trucks and a repair shop. Later camps were standardized with four barracks and 200 men per camp. American Fork Camp was dedicated and in use by June 30, 1933. Some men were taken to nearby work places by truck while others were dispersed to live in tent facilities placed near work assignments.4

By the end of the first year, twenty-six camps had been built in Utah with four more requested by Gov. Henry H. Blood for 1934. Throughout the nine years the CCC operated, 116 camps were built

1 John A Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A Neiu Deal Case Study (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1967), p. 1.

2 Kenneth W Baldridge, "Nine Years of Achievement: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Utah" (Ph.D diss., Brigham Young University, 1971), p 24

3 Ibid., p 98

4 Pleasant Grove Revieiv," American Fork Department," May 19, 1933; June 30, 1933

in Utah, though only one-third that number operated in any given year. Federal or state agencies sponsored camps, outlined needed projects, and hired experienced local men to oversee the projects to completion. The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management were the largest users of the corps, with every part of the state benefitting.5

The Civilian Conservation Corps became a vast youthful army that literally rescued the American wilderness from the blatant and often deliberate destruction that had occurred in over a century and a half of westward movement. During that era 700 million acres of forest were destroyed, and rangelands were vastly overgrazed, depleting those resources aswell as allowing erosion and dangerous flooding. And 300 million acres of America's best farmland lay wasted, worn out with overuse and vulnerable to destruction by water and wind. The wind was especially devastating to the midwestern and western stateswhere, during the drought years of the depression, the land took to the air in black billowing clouds that shut out the sun for days. The need to renew the land had long been recognized, yet little had been accomplished Before 1933 there had never been an organized group large enough to tackle the overwhelming task of setting nature's time clock back Roosevelt "brought together two wasted resources, the young men and the land, in an attempt to save both." The marriage proved to be a good one. The majority of the improvements the CCC made are still in use and are important parts of the public lands we now enjoy.6

The summer of 1933 began a flurry of activity in the mountains and rangelands of Utah, where over the next nine years more than 3.2 million trees were planted. Nationwide more than 2.2 billion seedling trees were planted, over half of all the forests planted throughout history; the Corps earned the nickname of "Roosevelt's Tree Army."7

CCC workers managed land erosion in several ways: a pilot planting of artificial range reseeding proved a success in Sheep Creek (the rangeland between Spanish Fork and Springville) and served to demonstrate that artificial seeding worked; the first experimental mountain contour terracing was successful in Little Rock

Baldridge, "Nine Years of Achievement," p 98

Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, pp 3, 4, 120

7 Ibid., p. 121

Canyon near Provo; rivers were faced with rocks to prevent bank deterioration; and newly built rock check dams and catch basins controlled the spring runoff. The CCC also built several large dams and accomplished much of the preliminary work on the Deer Creek Dam and the related Provo River Project, including an extensive system of dams, tunnels, and canals to bring water from the Weber and Duchesne rivers into the Provo River to fill the Deer Creek Reservoir.

Many of the ranger stations built by the CCC are still in use. Building fire guard stations and fighting fires were also part of the CCC forest preservation projects. New groups of recruits received extensive training in fire fighting, and when fire erupted these skilled reserves were nearby, equipped, and ready to conquer the blaze. The corps also implemented insect control measures in the forests and on the ranges.

The CCC men also built much-needed roads. They renewed streams and lakes with rich soil and plants and stocked them with fish. The Bear River and Ogden Bay bird refuges are large artificial wetlands built by the CCC that became a critical habitat for migrating waterfowl. The corpsmen developed and improved thousands of campgrounds and recreational areas in the mountains of Utah.8

The purpose of the corps was notjust to temporarily employ the unemployed and improve the land but to teach skills and trades that could help men secure permanent jobs when jobs became available Enrollees learned rock masonry, carpentry, heavy equipment operation, truck driving, road construction, cooking, and other occupations during the average eighteen months they served. After their original six-month enlistment many were enticed into staying by promotions and slight raises in pay.From the beginning, the CCC offered optional evening classes to help the young men develop hobbies or improve their knowledge in avariety of subjects

To consider the CCC strictly as nature's reversal agent or a relief agency for the depression years would ignore another extremely important aspect of its existence, that is, the impact the corps had on the nation's preparation for World War II. Hitler's Brown Shirt youth army began as a conservation program that also employed youth during a time of depression, much the same as the CCC; but

8 Charles DeMoisy, "Some Early History of the Uinta National Forest," typescript, July 8, 1963, Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City; Pleasant Grove Review, May 26, 1933. The author participated in a study done by the Utah State Historical Society and the Forest Service documenting the Utah County CCC camps and their work, June 1993

in Germany it soon became a machine that trained youth for war. While the U.S. government did not officially sanction full military training for the CCC, almost all aspects of the corps' activities contributed to war readiness.

When the CCC began in 1933 itwas put directly under thejurisdiction of the War Department, the only government agency equipped to rapidly mobilize and set the CCC into motion. The CCC program was so accelerated that Fort Douglas, the Army's center of mobilization for the Ninth CorpsArea, which included Utah, Nevada, California, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, processed more men daily than did the combined Army and Navyfor the Ninth Corps Area in World War I. The rapid mobilization of the CCC required the use of nearly half of the active commissioned officers in both the Army and the Navy.As a consequence, several thousand reserve officers were called to active duty to relieve the regulars. Thus, the active dutyofficers in the U.S. fighting forces had increased byhalf by 1935 Two years later the secretary of war declared the corps to be the most valuable officers' training opportunity the Army had ever had The very act of fast mobilization proved a training exercise for whatwas to come in 1941.9

The corpsmen wereunder thejurisdiction oftheWar Department from their first physical examination until their discharge. The Army provided their uniforms, transported them in troop trains, furnished their food, housing, and equipment, and disbursed their pay.A camp's commanding Army and Navyofficers controlled the corpsmen except during working hours. CCC regulations governed the officers' actions and exempted the enlistees from a fully regimented life, though a quasi-military order and discipline wasfollowed. The young enrollees were impressionable, and the process of living with 200 men, taking orders from officers and civilian work leaders, learning to do physical work,waiting in line for meals, standing inspection, and earning weekend passes through good behavior conditioned them for military service The majority ofmen, when asked to comment on their time with the CCC, agreed that it was a very developmental experience One Utahn, with tears in his eyes, said, "Itmade a man out of me."10

9 Salt Lake Tribune, May 18, 1933; Baldridge, "Nine Years of Achievement," p 31, 135; Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, p 85

10 U.S War Department, Civilian Conservation Corps Regulations (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1937); Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, p 132; interview with Lowell Duvall, Pleasant Grove, Utah, May 5, 1993, in Pleasant Grove Certified Local Government Files (hereinafter referred to as CLG files), Pleasant Grove City Library

From the beginning a general improvement in the physical condition of trainees resulted from the good food, regular hours, supervised physical endeavor, and healthful environment Mealswere high in quality, quantity, and variety; and most enrollees enjoyed a better diet than they had had at home. Nationally, the average CCC man posted a weight gain of eight to fourteen pounds and a height gain of one-half inch. It did not take long for the new corpsmen to recognize the benefits of camp experiences When foreman E W Simons of Mount Nebo Camp F-9 asked his men to write their opinions of camp life after only two weeks, they included gaining good health, learning an occupation, and developing discipline.11

Because of the sheer number of new camps that had to be established, a system of quickly building a camp was developed and in use by 1935. Frame barracks and related buildings were prefabricated in Spokane, Washington, shipped, and hurriedly assembled on designated campsites. This method revolutionized camp building, and later, without a doubt, this process cut the time spent building camps during the massive mobilization for World War II.12

Even before the CCC reached its second anniversary, high-ranking military officers eyed the enrollees as a possible reserve army Gen. Douglas MacArthur proposed that the enrollees be permitted to enlist in the Army Reserve and be given two months of "intensive military training" at the end of their CCC service. Such a bill was drawn up but died in the House Military Affairs Committee because of public opposition. From then on, though, there was constant controversy between Army brass, CCC personnel, and the news media about whether the CCC had already gone or should go military When war rumblings in Europe became deafening in 1939, clamor arose for military training for what some viewed as a ready-made army. One of the main arguments against full military training was that the youth of the CCCwere all from the working class,making an "undemocratic" balance in the military.13

Gen. George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff and a former CCC company commander, spoke out against formal military training for the enrollees but suggested that they be trained in noncombatant work that would be helpful to the military. When the Appropriations

13 Salt Lake Tribune, March 17, 1935; Provo Herald editorial, March 12, 1939

" Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, p. 129; Deseret News, June 15, 1933.

12 Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, p. 136.

Committee met in 1940 to renew funding for the corps, Sen. James F. Byrnes of South Carolina tacked onto the funding bill an amendment providing educational courses for noncombatant Army support Instructions issued by the War Department to all CCC districts—entitled "Training for National Defense in Civilian Conservation Corps Camps"—called for eight hours of training weekly in general fields and twenty hours per week of "defensive training" geared directly to Army needs in motor vehicle operation, mechanics, construction, cooking and baking, clerical, radio, photography, telephone, first aid, mess management, mapping and map reading, military hygiene, blueprint reading, concrete work, forging and blacksmithing, machine shop practice, and welding. The educational and vocational classes then became compulsory.14

The acceleration of military support training can be seen at the Pleasant Grove Camp as the European conflict developed into World War II. One of the camp's first 1935 inductees recalled that little discipline was enforced, reveille and taps were not observed, and every weekend was free. By 1937 news from the camp indicates that the company followed a strict daily routine The men stood a weekly inspection by the officers where the complete OD uniform was required with shoes shined, and beds and personal appearance were checked thoroughly. Weekends away from camp had to be earned through satisfactory weekly inspection and daily personal behavior. Aswar steadilyworsened in Europe the national director of the CCC, Robert Fetchner, declared that the corpsmen were "85% prepared for military life and could be turned into first-class fighting men at almost an instant's notice." In 1938 President Roosevelt ordered a new dress uniform he believed would strengthen the morale of the men.

In Pleasant Grove the men cleared additional space north of the barracks for morning calisthenics and the retreat formation when the men were to be "shaved, showered, and dressed in complete dress uniform for evening retreat each evening." Here camp officers inspected and reviewed the troops.15 From 1938 on programs presented periodically to a captive audience in camp indoctrinated the enrollees in the advantages ofjoining the flying cadets or the merchant

14 War Department to Commanding General, Ninth Corps Area, October 7, 1940, Folder 1, Training Instruction, Ninth Corps Area CCC Headquarters, Box 10863, Bureau of Land Management Records, Salt Lake City; Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, pp. 196, 197.

15 Interview with Feb H Hames, Pleasant Grove, Utah, August 29, 1993, CLG files.

marine when their CCC enlistments were up, stating that they were very similar to the CCC, i.e., theywere now being trained and mobilized by Army personnel. During 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany, and both the Army and the press in the U.S. became extremelyvocal in pressing for military and vocational training for the CCC men During 1940 the devastating European war spread to Scandinavia, and German forces overran small Central European countries and France, while the British were being bombed mercilessly. In January 1940 the Pleasant Grove Camp took on a definite militaristic look when chevrons were added to all uniforms to designate rank. All members of the company had the official insignia sewed on their new "overseas"caps, and passes were needed to leave camp. The corpsmen became aware that their everyday activitieswere vital to their country when buildings were moved in or converted for educational and vocational training. Classes taught at Pleasant Grove in 1940 included leadership training, diesel mechanics, heavy equipment operating, truck driving, first aid, bookkeeping, photography, reading, college preparation, journalism, and telegraphy A large metal flagpole was installed in the center of a clearing where marching exercises took place. Still,James M. McEntee, the new national director of the CCC, denied that theywere going militaryjust because Army infantry drill was ordered to be practiced. He claimed the program would be helpful for physical conditioning and would "spruce these kidsup."16

Mapping training at the CCC camp in Veyo, Utah. Many skills learned by the enrollees had military applications. USHS collections.

16 Interview with Eldon Schoonover, Pleasant Grove, Utah, June 1, 1992, CLGfiles;Pleasant Grove Review, May 21, 1937, June 18, 1937, February 11, 1938; Baldridge, "Nine Years of Achievement," pp. 127, 128; P. G. Bee (CCC camp newspaper), January 11, 1940, November 20, 25, 26, 1940, Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City; Duvall interview

A persuasive article byjournalist Harold Martin cited the vital role of the CCC men, claiming they were too valuable to carry guns and were already adapted to barracks life and Army-type discipline. Martin pointed out that yearly the corps trained 20,000 cooks, 9,000 automotive mechanics, and 72,000 heavy equipment operators, and that it had the largest fleet of mechanized equipment in the U.S. Considering all the other skills learned by the CCCs, such as bridge building, road building, and first aid, they constituted a major contribution to the preparedness program. In fact 70 percent of the CCC taskswere those of combat engineers. Martin sawno difference in patching a torn tractor or a torn tank, no difference in patching the leg of a comrade injured by a falling rock or a comrade injured by shrapnel. "They have been soldiers all along," he said, "trained in everything but the techniques of slaughter."17

By October 16, 1940, the federal government had set up local draft machinery throughout the nation. Every man between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five, inclusive, was required by law to register that day for the Selective Service from which the U.S. would build its armed forces to a record peacetime strength. However, some men were exempted from draft registration: those already on active duty in the armed services, in the Army and Navy Reserves or the ROTC, and those currently serving in the CCC.All were considered to be in the service of their country.18

As the nation stood on the threshold of another war, war machinery was running at top speed. Unemployed numbers throughout the U.S. began to dwindle because of weapons production for our allies and the building of our own defense system.Also, CCC enlistment dropped off considerably in view of policy changes in the corps; prospective enlistees sawcorpsmen ascannon fodder. To keep the corps alive and stress its vital role in defense, the directors switched fifty-five CCC companies from conservation to direct military support on military reservations. Wide in scope, this work ranged from building railroads to mosquito control.19

When CCC camps began to close, afewbecame storage facilities for the military. After Pearl Harbor, an extremely crucial time when the nation was suddenly jarred into war, the Pleasant Grove Camp

17 Baldridge, "Nine Years of Achievement," pp. 128, 129.

18 Pleasant Grove Review, October 11, 1940

19 Salmond, The Civilian Conservation Corps, p 209

became the short-term base of three separate groups, an all-white Army unit, an Air Force group, and an all-black Army unit, each staying an average of two months until more permanent stations were readied. The War Department dismantled some camps and moved them to different locations to provide larger military camps The Army Chemical Warfare Service took over camps near Jerico, Juab County, and Lucine, Davis County. CCC Company 2517 was transferred from Simpson Springs to Camp DG-155 at Black Rock, both in Tooele County, and asked to stay on to operate another chemical warfare station for a short time after theJune 1942 deadline when all CCC camps were to be closed. The Black Rock Camp was then renamed G(D)-1 and operated at what is now Dugway Proving Grounds. The Army and Navy Engineers took over much of the large fleet of CCC heavy equipment.20

It is not known how many of the approximately 3 million men who served in the CCC entered the armed services; however, even the oldest of those who served in the initial corps in 1933 were between the draft ages of twenty-one and thirty-five. All CCC men who ever enrolled were prime draft age in 1940 when the Selective Service Act provided for nine hundred thousand men to be called each year. Interviews with former CCC men indicate that about 98 percent served in some branch of the military. It is likely that most of the remaining 2percent worked in defense-related industries. Because of the experience and discipline afforded some 3 million men, the U.S entered World War II a great deal more prepared than if the Civilian Conservation Corps had not operated during the previous nine years

How the CCC gave the state's dying economy a financial boost is another aspect of the program that has not often been explored. The CCC provided its greatest economic impact almost as soon as the cogs began to turn in Washington in April 1933.When the initial camps were built in May, lumber and materials were purchased locally; it was two years before prefabricated barracks were shipped in. For each camp six to eight local men were hired immediately as supervisors and foremen to direct the work of the enrollees, and each was paid $1,680 to $1,860 per year. Utah camps numbered twenty-six by the end of the first year Work equipment and food supplies were

20 Pleasant Grove Review, April 10, 17, 1942; interviews with Pleasant Grove people who remember all three groups stationed at the Pleasant Grove CCC Camp, July 1992, and interviews with Paul J Dolan of Tonawanda, New York, and Tom Mooney, of Westwood, New Jersey, in Pleasant Grove, July 29, 1992, in CLG files. Both men were attached to the 382d Air Force unit stationed in the Pleasant Grove CCC Camp, July to October 1942; Baldridge, "Nine Years of Achievement," pp. 131, 132.

purchased locally or in Utah whenever possible. Since the average camp cost $20,000 to build and another $5,000 annually per man to operate and maintain, excluding the enrollees' pay, local businesses received major transfusions of cash to help in their recovery. 21

Compared to the national average, Utah had twice the economic and employment need but fell far short of the number of men enrolled in the CCC Nevertheless, Utah gained economically through federal monies spent on numerous forest and range projects on public lands—a three-fourths slice of the state. CCC men in Utah proved successful at some of the best remedies to renew and protect those resources: artificial range reseeding, mountain terracing, riprapping rivers, water diversion tunnels and retention dams, insect control, fire fighting methods, and improved water conditions for fish and fowl. They created recreational opportunities for far more people than had previously been able to enjoy the state's resources. All Utahns may not realize the development that went on in every part of the state during these years Before the CCC impetus there was only one state park—the territorial capital block in Fillmore There were very few developed campsites; roads into the mountains and ranges were limited and rough or nonexistent; hiking trails in the mountains were narrow and dangerous or undeveloped; ranger stations to facilitate the care and management of the forests were scarce and small. The CCCs nine-year reign created a revolution in all these areas Most of the forest, range, and wildlife improvements used by the Utah populace during the past fifty-plus yearswere built by the CCC.

The many new recreational facilities built and made available to the public, in turn, created new jobs not thought of before such areas were widely expanded. Lucille Walker, wife of forest ranger Thomas Walker stated, "Many of the CCC fellows received their education while in the CCC and along with their experience were able to get good jobs with the Forest Service and National Parks Service after discharge."22

Another plus for Utah was that almost all Utah men enrolled served in the state, keeping their wages at home; albeit paltry, it added up and was better than nothing during those years. From out of state came six men for every Utahn enrolled. They also spent

21 Baldridge, "Nine Years of Achievement," pp, 146, 328

22 Telephone interview with Lucille Walker, May 4, 1993, CLG files.

their wages here. Feb H. Hames of Arkansas, who served in Pleasant Grove Camp BR-91 during 1939-41, enjoyed spending his money; "I had all my dress khakis tailor-made to go to town in and I bought me two tailor-made suits, and for an old cotton-patch boy, boy I was in high cotton."23

The 116 camps built throughout the state gave rural Utah a glimmer of hope through the nine-year period of CCC operation. Towns appealed to their congressman for the establishment of a camp in their vicinity to help generate revenue Twice during the seven years that the Pleasant Grove Camp operated, rumors rumbled threatening removal of the camp. Immediate pleas from two different mayors went out to Washington to retain this valuable asset to their town. Mayor Lyean Johnson sent telegrams to Utah's congressional delegation asking them to use their influence to keep the camp in operation because "We feel we are receiving much good from the same."24 Supervisor George C. Larson of the Uinta National Forest said that a community would benefit at least $50,000

CCC camp on the Soapstone, 1933, in the Uinta National Forest. USHS collections.

each year from a nearby camp Others estimated more;Vernal Mayor R. C. Cooper believed that his city benefited $60,000 annually from DG-31 in Vernal.25 In small towns throughout Utah little money other than that of the CCC circulated during those years. In addition to the revenue generated, town officials welcomed the new employment opportunities as well as the conservation work going on around them.

Large numbers of Utah young men were at loose ends: farms no longer supported families let alone full time farmboys, laborers were not able to find work or learn trades, college students were unable to earn tuition Many a youth apprehensively viewed a future with little means of support or preparation for life. The younger CCC enrollees could fill those otherwise unproductive depression years learning skills and trades that raised their self-esteem and self-reliance and contributed to their family's support while doing worthwhile work. Glen Newman of Pleasant Grovejoined the corps to dismiss his feeling of insecurity without work. He said of his experiences in the CCC, "I felt secure making $1 a day and I learned how to work." Newman drove a truck during his twenty-seven months with the corps then went on to drive trucks for large companies after his experience in the Utah County CCC camps. He eventually became police chief of Pleasant Grove. Ray Luke and one of his brothers from Midway leapfrogged each other in the CCC to stayemployed; Rayworked asa lifeguard at the Midway Hotpots in the summer and milked his uncle's cows as a secondjob Hejoined the CCC in the fall for a sixmonth stint, got out in the spring to repeat his summer work, and thenjoined again in the fall. His brother traded off with him, milking his uncle's cows in the winter months and joining the CCC for the summer. Another brother alsojoined the corps; there was no other work available in Midway Eldon Schoonover came from a large family in Ohio. His mother needed medical help during the first year of his CCC experiences; his monthly allowance sent to his family filled that need. He reported, "I worked as a rock mason, carpenter, and truck driver all twenty-seven months in the Cs. I was made assistant leader of the rock masons The CCC taught me my trade and then I passed it on to my son who became the best darn rock mason there was."As Eldon laid rock for both the Aspen Grove and Mutual Dell amphitheaters during 1935-36 and for other projects, his interest in

it grew, and he followed the masonry and building trade all of his life. Eldon married and remained in Pleasant Grove to raise his family.

26 Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corp saved a generation of men from the streets and renewed the nation's depleted environment; these have long been established facts In hindsight even more credit can be given to the corps It contributed much towards keeping Utah's economy alive, and it made a tremendous contribution toward training officers and men for defense purposes all the while keeping the military system alert, functioning, and actively preparing the United States for World War II.

26 Interviews with Glen Newman, June 11, 1993, and Ray Luke, June 10, 1993, both in CLG files; Schoonover interview

An Adventure for Adventure's Sake Recounted

by Robert B. Aird

EDITED BY GARY TOPPING

TH E FOLLOWING NARRATIVE HAS BEEN ASSEMBLED from various materials in the Polly Aird Papers at the Utah State Historical Society. It is a firsthand account of two college boys who ventured into the back country of SanJuan County, Utah, in the summer of 1923 in quest, as the title indicates, of an adventure for its own sake. Even as recently as 1923 SanJuan County was a good place for an adventure, for it offered not only spectacular scenery, prehistoric sites, a physical environment to test both human and animal, but, as the narrative indicates, even leftover tensions from a recent Indian war. As

Robert B. Aird in Monument Valley, 1923. All photographs arefrom the Polly Aird Collection in the USHS Library.

Dr. Topping is an instructor in history at Salt Lake Community College.

things turned out, the adventurers got their wish. Although the trip produced no new scientific or geographic data, nor any imminent threat to life or limb, it is an engaging episode in the world's oldest story, the encounter of man and nature

"Boys, I'd just as leave take you out and shoot you down, as let you go out there." Zeke Johnson, the most knowledgable backcountry guide in southeastern Utah,1 waved his arm "out there" to the West, toward the Natural Bridges to which, on June 28, 1923,we proposed to go.

Things had reached a climax, and although I had experienced the like on other trips and so more or less expected it, affairs indeed looked discouraging John Newell and I2 had just finished our stay at Deep Springs College in California3 and planned to spend our summer exploring the cliff dwellings and natural wonders of this remote section of the country, but now, in the little settlement of Blanding, on the very verge of the land we wished to see, it looked as though we would have to turn back For one thing, we could find no pack animals. The packers and guides had animals, but none for sale, and we refused to tie our hands with guides, packers, or even rented animals.

In addition, we learned that SanJuan County had just passed through a bitter Indian-white conflict known as the Posey War, and that things were still tense enough to render travel away from the settlements by two unarmed young men inadvisable The Posey War, in fact, seemed to be the only subject of conversation in Blanding. Everyone had his own version of the story of forty years' pent-up frustration and tension that had erupted in the shooting deaths of two Indians, one of them Posey himself. The climate of fear and apprehension was pervasive And now Zeke Johnson's discouraging words threatened to deprive us even of the directions we needed to the Natural Bridges, to Monument Valley, and perhaps to the great Rainbow Bridge itself.4

1 Harvey Leake and Gary Topping, "The Bernheimer Explorations in Forbidding Canyon," Utah Historical Quarterly 55 (1987): 137-66, gives biographical information on Ezekiel Johnson and cites additional references.

2 Dr Robert B Aird, M.D (1903- ) in 1923 was living with his parents, Dr John W Aird and Emily McAuslan Aird (later a member of the Utah House of Representatives) After finishing his undergraduate work at Cornell, his medical degree at Harvard (1930), and further postgraduate training in the East and at the University of California, San Francisco, Robert Aird started the Department of Neurology at the University of California Medical School, where he served as chairman from 1947 until his retirement in 1971 John M Newell (1904-71) was a son of Frederick Newell, first director of the U.S Reclamation Service under Theodore Roosevelt John Newell majored in chemistry at Cornell and in 1932 received his doctoral degree in that field from Johns Hopkins University He eventually became chief of laboratories of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health

3 Deep Springs College, now a two-year college for men, was founded in 1917 by L L Nunn, a pioneer in electrical power development at Telluride, Colorado. Its unique program links rigorous academic work with labor and self-government to prepare its students, all of whom attend with full scholarships, for service and leadership. It was a three-year program until 1960.

4 Aird and Newell had learned of the San Juan country from articles by Charles L Bernheimer, "Encircling Navajo Mountain with a Pack Train," National Geographic 43 (February 1923): 197-224; Byron Cummings, "Great Natural Bridges of Utah," National Geographic 21 (February 1910): 157-67; and W. W. Dyar, "Colossal Natural Bridges of Utah," National Geographic 15 (September 1904): 367-69.

The local wall of resistance began to crumble when Marion Hunt, a local forest ranger, offered us an old pony for fifteen dollars, and his son rounded up one of the wild burros that roamed through the town When others saw we were truly determined to go through with this adventure, suddenly advice, warnings, and help in getting ready came from all sides. Later the following day, we helped Zeke Johnson unload a rack of hay, and even he came through Sitting on the ground, he drew a crude map in the dirt and gave us directions and many helpful pointers, including Navajo expressions for "Where is water?"

{Ha to?) and "Where is trail?" (Ha teen?).5 His map, directions, and language instructions indelibly imprinted on our minds, we departed with his precautionary warnings and blessing

Our provisions must remain somewhat of a mystery, as my diary contains one inventory andJohn's diary two—all conflicting Our food included flour, baking powder, ham, bacon, dried fruits, beans, macaroni, cheese, chocolate, sugar, and other odds and ends We also had extra clothing, two water containers, and some basic medical supplies Our outfit was not without its absurdities, as things turned out: John had a .22 rifle he had purchased earlier for $9.75, and I had borrowed from my older brother a bolt action relic from the Franco-Prussian War John added an utterly useless fishing rod and three flies Itwas hard enough to find water on the trip, let alone fish! Our total outfit weighed about 140 pounds and was enough to last for two to three weeks, when we could resupply at Bluff or Mexican Hat With the animals and a pack saddle for the burro, our cash expenditures at Blanding were forty-seven dollars, which suggests that postwar inflation had not reached that community by 1923 John was frugal enough, but I, as a full-blooded Scot, may have relished this phase of the trip more than he!

Our first problem in taking off on June 30th was to break in the burro and this proved no easy task. The burro's kicking, scraping, and lying down required frequent repacking, and our first day out was both exciting and

Correct

Repacking the burro

Navajo spellings for these questions would be Haadi to?and Haadi atiin?

fatiguing. Enroute we were passed by an ancient Indian we had encountered on the edge of town. Mounted on a burro, with long white hair, a scraggly beard and wrinkled face, he personified to us the mystery of the Indian past His wife followed on a horse, while a small burro and a dog brought up the rear. He pointed out a seep spring to us which, considering the midday heat and our exertions with the burro, was a godsend.

We pushed on in the afternoon, and the trail climbed steadily. John grew tired, and by repacking our loads, he was able to ride the pony. Our progress was delayed by darkness, but we started out again when the moon rose. By this time we were well up on Elk Ridge and it became cooler. Finally, the burro lay down and refused to rise. Perhaps he was more sensible than we! In any case, we unpacked and established a dry camp under the trees. It had been a long, hot, and exhausting day and we slept like rocks on the ground.

After a breakfast of raisins, our trek the next day proved much more pleasant as we left behind the brushy canyons and climbing of the previous day and progressed through the woods and meadows of the high plateau The pinion [pinyon] pines and cedars of the forest gave way to aspens as we reached higher levels.

By midday we reached the Kigalia Ranger Station, 2,000 feet above Blanding The ranger was on hand and gave us a good welcome and a hearty meal. We slept most of the afternoon, but were up and about by evening, when a cowpuncher arrived in time to join the ranger and ourselves for supper After an evening chat that provided still another version of the recent Indian war, we all settled in for the night, John and I spreading our blankets on the ground outside.

The ranger and the cowpuncher, who was to participate in a roundup, left early the following morning, July 2nd. After a brief breakfast, we caught our animals, packed, and were off by 9:00 A.M. Our trail continued westward, and five or six miles further on we passed between the Bear's Ears, two prominent buttes on the south rim of Elk Ridge. The view at that point affords one of the most extensive panoramas in southeastern Utah, from which one can see into each of the Four Corners states Directly west and immediately below the Bear's Ears, we could see White Canyon, which contained the Natural Bridges we were seeking.

After surveying this vast country, we continued down the broad notch between the Bear's Ears and descended into a rugged draw of high brush off to the right. The trail quickly disappeared and we were forced to descend a steep slope for mile after mile through heavy brush. Near the bottom of the draw, we reached a stream bed and still further along found a little alkali water Eventually we picked up an Indian trail over a flat covered with scrub pine and cedar. Luckily, the trail led into upper Armstrong Canyon, and in the early afternoon we reached Owachomo, the first natural bridge, and rested under it at a small pool with tadpoles

Owachomo's thin, elongated arch struck us as being a bit insecure, but its flat top, which nicely spanned the canyon, seemed more like a

bridge than the others that we saw later, and I calculated that it could accommodate three railroad tracks. After taking pictures and exploring the region, we worked our way down Armstrong Canyon using both ledges and canyon bottom, and by late afternoon we arrived at Kachina Bridge at the junction of Armstrong and White Canyons This made a good campsite at a central location, and we stayed there for two nights while we further explored the surrounding territory

At our Kachina camp we did our first cooking, which John's diary says produced "sand in the ham, burnt doughy bread." But in spite of our hardships the first and third days, we had covered some fifty-seven miles and had found the bridges. Our burro was now fully broken in, and we were in an entrancing land of red and white rock, through which White and Armstrong Canyons etched their ways in intricate, encircling patterns.

On July 3rd we arose late, and after breakfast and taking care of the animals, we walked up White Canyon to Sipapu, the third bridge, which was very large and impressive. It is difficult to get the full effect of this bridge from photographs, but its impressive size and beauty fit well with its Hopi name, which suggests the poetic concept of an opening allowing one to emerge from a deep, dark underworld to the brilliant sunlit world of the Southwest.

After photographing the Sipapu Bridge, we hiked down White Canyon a few miles and back up Armstrong, where we had noted some cliff dwellings the previous day. We had heard of the cliff dwellings, of course, and realized that they were part of an older culture quite distinct from the Navajo and Paiutes. Although Zeke Johnson's admonitions had not included mention of the cliff dwellings, we were careful not to disturb the ruins, knowing that they might have future archaeological value. After looking over some twenty structures, we returned to our camp

The combination of the winding canyons with their three bridges and many cliff dwellings against the backdrop of the surrounding red bluffs constitutes a wonderland of great beauty and interest. It was with some little reluctance, therefore, that we left the bridges on July 4th. Zeke Johnson had mentioned that he was bringing a party to the bridges directly after the 4th, and because we wanted to obtain directions to Comb Wash, we decided it would be best to meet him at Kigalia, the one spot where we would be reasonably certain to catch him. Our object was to go south via Comb Wash and cross the San Juan River into Monument Valley at Mexican Hat.

We made an early start and reached the Owachomo Bridge by midmorning. From there we retraced our steps across the flat and then made the hot and dry climb up the wash to the Bear's Ears We managed to keep on the trail on our return up the wash, but even at that, it was a tiring climb of nearly 3,000 feet. We arrived at Kigalia by late afternoon. No one was at the station, so we cooked our supper and turned in.

Aside from John's riding the pony the first day out, and possibly a bit between the Kachina and Owachomo Bridges, we never rode. The going

was too rough for this, especially on the steep climbs and descents with packs. Furthermore, the pony was not big, and we became conscious of the fact that, on the climb back to the Bear's Ears, he was having a hard time of it.

We rested on July 5th and reorganized our pack Zeke Johnson arrived in the late afternoon with his party on horseback, and that evening gave us the directions to Comb Wash Unfortunately, these were less clear cut than for our bridge trip, inasmuch as there were no good landmarks like the Bear's Ears to guide us

On July 6th we made an early start, but lost the faint trail after several miles, and our trek became a hectic and tiring affair. After a false turnoff into Cottonwood Wash which necessitated some backtracking, I finally found a trail that led south. Precisely where our route went has never been clear, except for the fact that we passed a remarkable balanced, reddish rock, which I later learned was the Goblet of Venus.6 In any case, when we finally got into Comb Wash, there was no mistaking it Comb Ridge extended straight south as far as we could see. It is a steep, broken monocline extending from the slopes of the Abajo Mountains almost one hundred miles south to Kayenta, Arizona. In the late afternoon we reached a ranch in the wash where John recorded we encountered "two unpleasant men," and continued on to Mule Canyon, where we camped.

The next morning we examined the Mule Canyon cliff dwellings. In contrast to the cliff dwellings in the bridge region, these obviously had been worked over and were in a more ruinous state In spite of this, John found a cache of arrowheads. We then returned to camp and continued down the wash Below Fish Creek, where John noted strongly alkaline water, we encountered a very sandy stretch and a heavy sandstorm in the afternoon We camped at Navajo Springs, still well above the San Juan River, which cuts its way through Comb Ridge.7

On July 8th we hiked on to Mexican Hat, arriving at the Indian trading post on the San Juan River late in the afternoon. We bought some grain for the horse and established camp We washed in the river, but it was so muddy we merely exchanged old dirt for new! As we lounged in our "mud spa," we took stock of our situation Counting the sidetrips to the cliff dwellings, we had covered well over 150 miles. Because the pony was showing the effects of the trip, we decided not to restock. We still had provisions for twelve to fourteen days. Our plan was to cross the SanJuan, turn west into Monument Valley, and if possible reconnoiter a passage to Rainbow Bridge

On our tenth day out, July 9th, we crossed the San Juan in the early morning. The stream was swift and dirty and in the coolness of the morning

6 The Goblet of Venus, which years later was knocked off its pedestal, was a conspicuous landmark beside the road from Blanding to Kigalia Aird and Newell had missed it on the outbound leg of the trip because they were following a more northerly trail that paralleled the later road

7 Navajo Spring was located at the point where modern Utah Highway 163 cuts through Comb Ridge; it was obliterated when the highway was built

we wondered how we could have enjoyed bathing in it the previous day Our course was a westerly one across Douglass Mesa and roughly parallel to the river Roads in the sand crisscrossed in various directions and we passed several wagons connected with the oil drilling in Monument Valley. It seemed like another world to us Civilization, in the form of the roads, the suspension bridge at Mexican Hat, and the oil drillers, was making its inroads Nevertheless, Monument Valley was still a vast wilderness It was a barren country except for the sagebrush, and animal life was restricted to some horses and a few Navajo goats. We saw only one rattlesnake.

We encountered several Navajos during the day, but unlike some Paiutes we had encountered south of Kigalia, who mysteriously disappeared into the trees and brush as we spotted each other at a distance, they were not shy At Cedar Springs, an old man with long walrus whiskers came out of a little cabin and cursed the "Navvies" long and vehemently for stealing his horses and clothing We pushed on, passing Train Rock close on the right and in late afternoon reached Oljato, or Moonlight, Creek. Some undrinkable water was in the creek, but it later dried up as we watched it. Aside from the poor condition of the horse, water was our great problem, and the extra supply we carried saved us on more than one occasion. Although our spot in the creek was not much of a campsite, we unpacked and cooked dinner and stayed the night.

Realizing that Moonlight Creek was probably a good stream at a higher level, we turned up the creek the next morning and found the old trading post of Oljato several miles on. This had been established by John Wetherill in 1906, but now it was in ruins and no one was there to advise us about a route to Rainbow Bridge.8 At that point, the high bluffs of the Nokai, No Man's, and Monitor Mesas to the west appeared formidable to us. Leaving the animals behind us under the cottonwoods at Oljato, we skirted this western wall of Monument Valley as far north asJacob's Monument and Copper Canyon. Men at an oil rig near Organ Rock assured us that the mountains and canyons to the west were impassable.9 Our experience in descending and climbing some of the steep ravines and canyons had convinced us of the dangers involved, and the poor condition of our horse considerably increased the hazards We could have gone to Kayenta for provisions and struck out for Rainbow Bridge from there, but at that point it was obvious that the horse could not have made it John hated to give up on the idea of reaching Rainbow Bridge, but the evidence was overwhelming, and he agreed that we must turn back We returned to our Oljato camp for the night.

8 John and Louisa Wetherill had abandoned Oljato and moved to Kayenta, Arizona, in 1910 Another trading post was established at a nearby site later in the decade, but the original Wetherill buildings were leveled. Although the narrative soon makes it clear that Aird and Newell were unaware of this, they had come to the right place in their quest for Rainbow Bridge, for it was from Oljato that one contingent of the party that discovered the bridge on August 14, 1909, had departed Mary Louise Comfort, Rainbow to Yesterday (New York, 1980), pp 41-48, 62-71

9 As a matter of fact, they were right on the original Wetherill trail to Rainbow Bridge, but the length, difficulty, and obscurity of the trail, especially considering the inadequacy of Aird and Newell's outfit, as they realized, made turning back a wise decision

On July 11th we started our return via a broad circle through Monument Valley Going up Oljato Creek, we turned left through The Gap, between Tse Kizzi (Big Back Door) Mesa and Old Baldy Mesa, and passed near the place where Harry Goulding's trading post was later located.10 As John and I emerged from The Gap, we headed for The Mittens The day had become excessively hot, and we had trouble urging the horse on. We made poor time and so had a good chance to take in the Monuments as we went along. Their sheer walls, beautiful red coloring, and fantastic forms sculptured by water over the ages, lend an eerie and ethereal aspect to the valley. Even though

I had heard of Monument Valley previously, the gigantic size and beauty of the Monuments was still quite overwhelming, an effect probably enhanced by our intimate and prolonged encounter with them

We descended the Rim, a sharp dropoff between Sentinel and Mitchell Mesas, then kept to the south of the West Mitten. After hunting around, we hand two springs, one with sulphur and the other dirty. We were able to use the latter by letting the sediment settle out, and so established camp at a nearby hogan in which we decided to spend the night just for the experience of it Three Navajo youths came by late in the afternoon and offered to trade us a horse for our burro, but refused to consider a trade on our horse They soon departed to round up cattle Sunset on the Monuments was beautiful, and with dusk they seemed even more gigantic and mysterious As we sat beside our hogan and faced the Merrick Butte close by and the Mitchell Mesa farther to the right, we were reminded of the fate of the two prospectors for whom they were named, who were murdered

John M. Newell accompanied Bob Aird on this adventure.

10 Harry and Leone "Mike" Goulding established their trading post, which later became the headquarters for several famous John Ford movie projects, in 1924 Richard E Klinck, Land of Room Enough and Time Fnough (Albuquerque, 1953); Samuel Moon, Tall Sheep: Harry Goulding, Monument Valley Trader (Norman • University of Oklahoma Press, 1992)

in their vicinity while searching for the legendary Pishlaki silver mine of the Navajos in 1880.11

Our schedule was largely determined by the sun, and this meant long days On July 12th, for example, we set off at 6:00 A.M., which meant that, with breakfast and packing, we must have been up well before 5:00 A.M We headed south into the Inner Valley, Tse-begay, or Valley Within the Rocks, exploring the famous formations as far south as the Totem Pole and Yei-biChai Dancers In retrospect, I believe thatJohn and I should have spent another day in that area, which would have been better for the horse and we would have been well rewarded by the beauty and unique features of this rock paradise However, our minds had now been directed to the trek east to southwestern Colorado, and we realized we had a long and hard hike back to Mexican Hat, so we turned north and passed out of the Tse-begay between Spearhead Mesa and the Totem Pole Further to the east, we got into a very rough area, but eventually worked through a canyon and found a trail to water. It was another excessively hot day, but in spite of this and our fatigue, we managed to drag on to Mexican Hat by midafternoon. We had covered a distance of about twenty-two miles in nine hours

The SanJuan appeared quite different in the heat of the day and after a long, hot, and dirty hike. We soaked in its warm, muddy water and loafed the rest of the afternoon. The mineral bath in the San Juan perked us up considerably This was our one spa on our entire trip!

The next day,July 13th, was to be a rest day, and indeed it was for the animals However, we helped Arthur Spencer, the Indian trader at Mexican Hat, fill a tank of water on his truck and aided him with several tire repairs. Pumping tires was especially tiring in the heat of the late morning. At noon we received a nice lunch for our efforts and met his wife, Mrs Midora Spencer, and their daughter, Helen. Spencer then offered to drive us in his truck to his oil well, which was a few miles northwest of Mexican Hat and not too far from the Goosenecks of the SanJuan River We readily accepted when all the Spencers emphasized that it was a natural phenomenon we should not miss. The trip was fouled up by further blowouts, but we were eventually rewarded when we hiked on to the Goosenecks After taking pictures, we returned to Spencer's truck and rode back to Mexican Hat

On the 14th we started out again, but the horse went poorly and after five miles became completely recalcitrant. Our pack by now was diminished to only about four or five days' provisions and we were able to load it all on the burro We returned to Spencer's store and arranged to leave the horse with Helen Spencer, who promised to take good care of it. We cut and drained a pus pocket on the burro's back, which had developed from a pack saddle sore Because a rainstorm started at that time, we loafed about for the rest of the day Our next objective was Bluff, Utah, which would require a good day's hike.

Before starting on the last lap of our expedition, we had time, while

11 Robert S McPherson, "Navajos, Mormons, and Henry L Mitchell: Cauldron of Conflict on the San Juan," Utah Historical Quarterly 55 (1987): 50-65

loafing at Mexican Hat in the rain, to review our trek through Monument Valley and to plan for the future In our last five days, counting the side trip to the Goosenecks, we had walked approximately one hundred miles and the animals about eighty We were now reduced to one animal and provisions for four or five days Because of our inability to penetrate the canyons west of Monument Valley, we had decided to go up the SanJuan to the east and to end the trip in southwestern Colorado John had ideas of obtaining a job at Mancos with Dr J W Fewkes, a Smithsonian ethnologist,12 and I wanted to visit Telluride before returning home

Realizing that our trip would soon be over, it was with some little sadness on July 15th that John and I again turned east There was scant promise of much ahead that would match the wonderful adventures we had experienced, but we knew there would be much heat and hard hiking. The first leg of our trip, from Mexican Hat to Comb Wash, was the only stretch except that between Kigalia and the Natural Bridges where we retraced our steps. When we ate lunch at Navajo Spring, we were encouraged by the thought that we would then be entering new country to us. The appearance of clouds that shielded us from the sun was also encouraging, but even so it was a hot and dusty hike of some twenty-five miles for the day. John's diary records, "Long walk to Bluff. Very tired and peevish." Although I do not recall the peevishness, he was probably right, for all the psychological and physical conditions were present to make it so.

Kigalia Ranger Station.

12 Jesse Walter Fewkes, an archaeologist for the Smithsonian Institution, excavated both at Mesa Verde and Cajon Mesa, 1908-22 Robert H and Florence C Lister, Those Who Came Before: Southwestern Archeology in the National Park System (Tucson, 1983), pp 134, 140

We camped by the main road in Bluff near a flowing well where we could get water. Many of the houses in Bluff had been boarded up and were abandoned This probably represented the exodus of those who had left for better farmland in the Blanding area. The mosquitos were terrible that night and kept us awake. Because of the previous dull and tiring day, we were tempted to take the stage to Blanding, but the next morning we decided to carry on. The route from here on would be new country, and we had a good burro and provisions. Also, our objectives involved points in southwestern Colorado which would be difficult to reach by the roundabout stage routes of that day

We followed up the San Juan, sometimes using the trails on the bluff above the river and again following along the bank We passed several Indian farms and at one point crossed a section of trail John described as "hanging by skin of its teeth to cliff above river."

Further on, our trip almost came to a disastrous end. The burro, walking slightly ahead and to one side, suddenly started disappearing in the shallow sandy river bank Fearing that we were in quicksand, we danced about the burro and removed his pack within seconds. Our broader "hoofs" and lighter load, plus quick footwork, saved us from sinking. The burro sank more slowly after his belly reached the sand and we had removed the pack. With ropes and much tugging, as well as tremendous struggles by the burro, we finally got him onto firmer ground. Toward the end of this episode, some Navajo boys passed above us on the bluff and were convulsed with laughter at our plight. The danger was over by that time, and we waved back at them.

At Montezuma Creek we saw nothing to indicate a Mormon settlement, as originally planned by the leaders of the San Juan Mission. That colony, which settled at Bluff, had spread from there to Blanding rather than up the river, and only an old man and a boy, who ran a small store, were at Montezuma Creek to greet us. Because our ultimate goal was on McElmo Creek only some twenty miles further, and the burro was fatigued and shaken by the quicksand episode, we camped near the store The old man invited us to supper and we enjoyed it greatly in comparison with our campfire cooking. We cleaned up the sore on the burro's back and then took to our blankets

Our route after leaving Montezuma Creek on July 17th is uncertain, but modern topographic maps and later study of the area suggest that we probably followed the route of the present dirt road along the open slope between Montezuma Creek on the west and the rugged Allen Canyon complex on the east This route leads to the Cajon group of ruins, part of Hovenweep National Monument, which we unexpectedly arrived at in time for lunch. The ruins are at the head of a ravine on the southern tongue of Cajon Mesa We were attracted to this ravine by a small stream and green brush in it which indicated water. As we worked up the ravine, we noticed the ruins of old towers, and under a huge rock that capped the end of the ravine, we discovered a beautiful, protected spring with cedar trees on both

sides The cave formed by the white rock roof was cool, and we had a delightful rest and lunch that contrasted sharply with the hot trip of the morning. The high square towers on the west of the ravine were large and impressive, and we realized that they were quite distinctive from the more crude dwellings of the present Indians. They also appeared different from the cliff dwellings we had seen in White Canyon and Comb Wash

The present appearance of the Cajon ruins suggest vandalization since our 1923 visit. Other changes involve the cave, which is now almost half full of debris, and the spring, which is now a mud pool and had been replaced by a cement-lined well nearby Cedar trees still abound, but they appear scraggly and probably have suffered from use of the water by Navajo sheep.

It was with great reluctance that we tore ourselves away from this delightful and intriguing spot and set off in an easterly direction in the early afternoon. By avoiding the hills and ravines, we made good progress, setting our course for a point on McElmo Creek just left of Ute Mountain which loomed up ahead We finally entered McElmo Creek through a side canyon a mile or so short of the Colorado border, then followed a ranch road up the creek to the Ismay Trading Post in Colorado. We continued on to a ranch, where we made arrangements for a ride to Cortez, then established our last camp nearby We treated the burro's back and turned him loose. Aside from the wound, which was slowly healing, he was in good shape and past experience assured us that he could take care of himself.

The remainder of the trip involved a ride to Cortez in the mail truck, a stage ride to Mancos, where John hoped to see Dr. Fewkes, and a wait in Mancos for John's suitcase and funds being wired from his father Dr Fewkes was not there, in spite of his schedule which John had learned of earlier, and John's hopes of getting an interesting job with him were dashed. After much ado with other people and less interesting job prospects,John decided to return home to Washington, D.C

I waited on to be sure John was not stranded, then left for Durango. There I connected with the narrow gauge railroad for Telluride, where I explored sites connected with Mr L L Nunn, founder of Deep Springs College, then returned home, where I arrived nearly a month after we started our trip.

Although the trip, going and coming, had taken a month, we were on the trail for only eighteen days In this period we had hiked probably 320 miles Considering that we had rested for more than two days of this period, we averaged nearly twenty miles per day when on the go. The long summer days help explain these long distances, but it may also help to explain why the horse couldn't keep up!

Although the San Juan country in 1923 was one of the wildest and most remote regions in the United States, John and I were aware of the hardships of a trip in such a country and deliberately proposed to enter it and see the worst it had to offer. Some are satisfied with the quiet beauties of nature; others seek the unusual phenomena; while in yet others it is the

untamed ruggedness and the grandeur of extreme nature that touches a responsive chord, perhaps arousing and challenging some primal impulse

It is true that the rugged nature of the San Juan country, the great scarcity of waterholes, and the very meagerness of our outfit prevented our attaining that almost perfect sense of freedom of Wordsworth when he said, "and should the chosen guide be nothing better than a wandering cloud, I cannot miss my way." In fact, those limitations prevented our even exploring as much as we wished. As with many experiences in life, our trip turned out differently than we had anticipated It fell short ofJohn's dream of exploring new worlds in the wilderness, but in terms of rich and unexpected experiences which neither of us could ever forget, it far surpassed our fondest expectations.

Kidnapped from That Land: The Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamists. By

MARTHA SONNTAG

BRADLEY (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993 xii + 260 pp

$29.95.)

This book must be read with an appreciation of which people's history it is Over the years a series of fractures have created several unique and distinct groups, as well as "independents," that outsiders collectively call "Fundamentalist Mormons." They have common beliefs in plural marriage, United Order efforts, traditional temple or priesthood garments, and a division of priesthood and temporal religious authority; additionally, their histories and families intertwine However, there remain great differences Bradley's book is primarily a history of the group centered on the Utah/Arizona border, on the "Arizona Strip," in a community historically known as Short Creek

Since 1935, when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated many in the Short Creek congregation, that area has been an important center of the religious movement It provided an isolated safe haven for plural families and in the depression an opportunity to experiment with United Order efforts called the United Effort Plan

The book begins with brief histories of plural marriage in the LDS church, the settling of the Short Creek area, and Mormon dissenters after the turn of the century For the most part these draw from sources readily available to diligent researchers. Bradley then moves through short summaries of

Arizona prosecutions in Short Creek in 1935,which sent two men to prison She recounts a major federal-state "raid" of 1944 in both personal and legal narratives, describing each of the major appellate decisions from state and federal prosecutions

The bulk of the book concerns the 1953 Arizona invasion of Short Creek where nearly every citizen—122 adults and 263 children—was taken into custody. Bradley draws from her own extensive interviews with the late Arizona governor, Howard Pyle, and a number of Short Creek mothers who were swept up in the raid These women describe their experience at the hands of state authorities and well intended but insensitive Mormons. The strongest writing in the book comes from these interviews, enlarging on Bradley's 1990 Dialogue article on the same subject.

Probably the newest material in the book can be found in the chapters "The Women of Fundamentalism" and "Short Creek in 1992." The author issympathetic and effectively conveys that women in the community are firmly committed to it These chapters provide insights into why Fundamentalism remains strong and will continue to grow. There is also a discussion of their United Effort Plan Her phrases "family as community" and "community as family" wonderfully convey the Short Creek experience.

In my opinion the book's greatest strength is Bradley's willingness to hear and report the voices of these "Old Fashioned Mormons," relating their lives as they have experienced them. I am unaware of any other history of this religious community that attempts to do this. Her strongest chapters draw the most from these sources and go a long way toward ad-

dressing some of the more stubbornly persistent stereotypes about Fundamentalists A serious student of Mormonism certainly will find the book interesting, as will anyone concerned with small, close-knit religious communities.

KEN DRIGGS Austin, Texas

Dreams, Visions and Visionaries: Colorado Rail Annual No. 20. (Golden: Colorado Railroad Museum, 1993.239 pp. $42.95.)

The Colorado Railroad Museum has been in the forefront in publishing material dealing with rail activities in the Intermountain West, mostly within Colorado, but nonetheless has published three treatises regarding railroading strictly within Utah over the last thirty years Although there are five topics treated in the current annual, the first work is entitled "In the Mountains of Utah" which itself takes up almost half of the volume

Written byJackson Thode and James L. Ozment,

the treatise is the result of many years of library and field research using the journal of Francis Hodgman, the chief surveying engineer of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway in the 1880s The authors are well qualified in this work; Thode isa retired career officer of the D&RGW in Denver and the unofficial historian of the railroad Ozment was the Utah Division engineer, living in Salt Lake City for many years until his reassignment to Denver. He has researched in the Utah State Historical Society library files for this and other publications

The D&RGW is possibly the most written about railroad in the country, as well as one of the most photographed; but the section of the rail-

road between Provo, Utah, and Grand Junction, Colorado, is the least wellknown, especially in the early construction years. Built between 1881-83, the original line was entirely three-foot narrow gauge all the way from Denver to Ogden, via the Royal Gorge In 1890 the line was made standard gauge, and in so doing many long stretches of the narrow gauge in Utah were bypassed For the seven years between 1883 and 1890, this little railroad, the longest narrow-gauge rail line in the world, traversed some of the wildest and most remote country in the West—right here in Utah

The authors have presented Hodgman'sjournal, often word-for-word, in a very thoughtful manner and show on-site photographs of these early surveys, some of which were used for the railroad and some of which were not. Only one other book, Utah Ghost Rails, has delved into the early railroading in this part of the state and that in lesser detail than Dreams; much of the information was obtained from Jack Thode, anyway. Some of the most interesting reading concerns the fortymile-long railroad grade that was built westward from around Green River, Utah, to Castle Valley Junction, a remote location in the San Rafael

Desert that never felt the weight of a single cross-tie let alone a rail Another choice bit regards the tortuous line along the Price River and through a tiny ninety-eight-foot long tunnel Despite the fact that today's D&RGW Railroad is known for its many tunnels in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, when the original narrow-gauge predecessor was built this was the only tunnel on the entire 735mile route It still exists and in fact is the only narrow-gauge tunnel ever bored in Utah. The book's front cover painting by John Green depicts an eastbound passenger train coming out of the tunnel Having been at that site, this reviewer agrees that the scene presented is probably very like the actual one.

Other aspects of eastern Utah railroading covered are the inclusion of the Utah & Pleasant Valley Railroad into the D&RGW, with an aerial photo of an abandoned section snaking around the point of a mountain; great time-line views of the trackage through magnificent Castle Gate (at least it was magnificent until the state highway department blasted away one of the remarkable buttresses of the remarkable rock formation in order to widen U.S. 50-6, which was necessary as there was no space in the narrow canyon for the river rail line and more than a tight two-lane road); the construction of the Pleasant Valley Branch up to Scofield.

Many photographs of Hodgman's surveying activities, several of his own

watercolor drawings, early train photos by Springville photographer George E Anderson, and present-day photos of the remains of the early trackage, including crossties still in place—unused and untouched for a century—and modern D&RGW trains rambling across the eastern Utah desert complete the story of this very interesting yet almost unknown section of Utah rail history

The remainder of the book includes the account of D&RGW Railway builder William Jackson Palmer and his narrow-gauge railroad in Mexico, some Union Pacific show trains in Wyoming and Colorado, and an exceptional photo essay of Union Pacific's giant articulated locomotives (including several photos of the engines in Utah) by prominent photographer Richard Kindig.

To complement the book, a large 24-by-36-inch folded map of all the rail activity and surveys discussed in the volume between Provo and Green River is included It details the graded but never used line between Green River and Castle Valley Junction, the treacherous route along the Price River, the site of the narrow-gauge tunnel, and the present D&RGW route

Although filling a relatively small niche in Utah's history, the book is nonetheless a valuable resource for those interested in Utah's rail history.

STEPHEN L CARR Holladay, Utah

What a shame that it has taken river running for their story to be told, twenty years since women began in But how fortunate that they should numbers to break into commercial have found at last such a competent

Boatwomen of the Grand Canyon: Breaking into the Current. By LOUISE TEAL (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994 xvi + 178 pp Cloth, $25.95; paper, $14.95.)

chronicler as Louise Teal, who is both the author and one of the subjects of this engrossing collection of biographical sketches.

The greatest virtue of the book is Teal's literary gift Weaving together extensive quotations from interviews with her subjects and her own extensive knowledge of the river and the river-running business, Teal fashions a fully rounded view of the adrenaline-fueled life on the big water. More than just a story of river runners, though, the resulting product is the story of one phase of the larger movement of women integrating themselves into all currents of modern American culture

With some few exceptions, the subjects of these sketches are substantial human beings with real lives, as a musician, an artist, a photographer, or a scientist, apart from their adventuresome river seasons In this, they contrast refreshingly with their typical male counterpart, the macho-posturing bronze river god whose conversational resources end with the story of his last run through Lava Falls. These women can talk river running as well as the guys, but repeatedly one finds an additional appreciation for the intellectual and emotional delights of the canyon, of living on the river rather thanjust running it

There are occasional errors of fact: it was P T Reilly, not Martin Litton, who introduced the colorful dories to

the river, though it was Litton who made the first commercial use of them after increasing their payload (p. 137); the Glen Canyon Dam went into operation in 1963, not 1964 (p 8), and it wasn't the canny Huck Finn whom Tom Sawyer tricked into painting the fence (p 53)! There are dubious interpretations as well: Georgie White, the pioneer woman river guide, gets off too easily during this mourning period following her recent death Georgie had a tough, foolhardy courage, but she was a crude, ignorant person whose knowledge of the geography and other scientific aspects of the river was nonexistent, and whose immense "triple" or "G-rigs"— three huge pontoon rafts lashed together—muscled their way through those big rapids and concealed the fact that she never really learned to handle a boat.

One hopes that this book signals an upturn in the literature of the river, which at present is clogged with banal guidebooks, mindless coffeetable color photography, rehashes of other people's research (including the errors), and New Age mystical effusions. Books like Boatwomen, with its original topic, thorough research, felicitous prose, and solid link with the larger skein of American culture, are most welcome

GARY TOPPING Salt Lake Community College

My Bestfor the Kingdom: History and Autobiography ofJohn Lowe Butler, a Mormon Frontiersman. By WILLIAM G HARTLEY. (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1993. xiv + 511 pp. $24.95.)

The broad and colorful tapestry of Mormon history is enlarged through William Hartley's interesting study of

early Mormon convertJohn L Butler Hartley wrote this as a book-length family history and later "upgraded" it

under the auspices of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church Histoiy at BYU. The whole fabric of Mormon history is enriched through events in Butler's life Yet, My Best for the Kingdom does not try to be an all-inclusive church history. Instead, Hartley adeptly places Butler in the circumstances that surrounded him, and though a broader history is included, the focus of the narrative stays close to Butler's activities. The most interesting writing comes from Butler's own autobiography. Where this written record is thin, Hartley has painstakingly reconstructed the narrative through parallel events recorded in diaries and journals of contemporaries who describe Butler's activities. Where there is conjecture on Hartley's part it is rarely strained or overstated On the contrary, it is usually documented well enough to accord adequately with the author's conclusions.

My Best for the Kingdom makes two important additions to the large amount of pre-exodus Mormon scholarship. First, it considers the most prominent LDS diaries and accounts, including Butler's, in detailing the August 6, 1838, election-day battle at Gallatin, Missouri A serious brawl resulted when townspeople refused to let Mormon settlers cast their votes in the election. Hartley's sympathetic account describes Butler's actions as he "neutralized" a number of the mob with well-placed head blows from his oak club. The author also details Butler's involvement in the somewhat secret and paramilitary Mormon group, the Danites Hartley attempts to clarify the many misconceptions concerning what he believes to be a very misunderstood organization. Through it all the author creates a context for understanding the pivotal year of 1838 and the depredations of the Missouri "Mormon War."

Hartley makes a second contribution by providing a serious and extensive exploration of the little-known James Emmett expedition Following the martyrdom of Mormon leader Joseph Smith, the church leadership attempted to keep its people united and centralized Emmett and a number of followers, apparently acting on earlier orders from Joseph Smith (rescinded by Brigham Young after the prophet's death) left Nauvoo, against counsel, in an attempt to find a western settlement for the Saints Butler was sent by Young to accompany Emmett both to oversee the group and to maintain a cohesive link with Mormon faithful in Emmett's party. As a capable and proven frontiersman, Butler eventually led Emmett's party back to the migrating Saints, helped early Mormons interact with Native Americans, and took part in settling the Spanish Fork area of Utah Valley. Many additional experiences woven throughout the narrative of his life illustrate the confidence of early Mormon leadership in his talents and abilities.

The book is indexed and includes an extensive bibliography and a full transcription of Butler's autobiography It is well documented and has the detailed richness of an eyewitness perspective through the extensive use of diaries and journals. It inserts an additional colorful thread into nineteenth-century Mormon history through the involvement of John L Butler in the important events of that period. As a result, My Bestfor the Kingdom goes far beyond being a book of ancestral hero worship and contributes significantly to early Mormon church history

STEPHEN B SORENSEN Salt Lake City

Nelson A. Miles and the Twilight of the Frontier Army. By Robert WOOSTER (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993 xvi +391 pp $35.00.)

Nelson Appleton Miles (1839-1925) was an American military giant in the late nineteenth century, rising from the elected grade of captain of a Civil War Massachusetts volunteer infantry unit to lieutenant general of the United States Army, the nation's highest ranking officer. Miles was not a West Pointer, but what he lacked in formal military training was compensated for by personal intuition, audacity, and style. He played pivotal roles in the close of the Civil War and in many of the West's most consequential Indian wars, including the Red River War, Great Sioux War, Nez Perce War, Geronimo campaign, and Ghost Dance strife. Miles was commander-in-chief of the American Army during the Spanish American War where he saw some combat but is better remembered for controversial political battles waged against the president and secretary of war. Scorned in the end by the Roosevelt administration, he was ignominiously retired in 1903 "by operation of law."

Miles suffered a split personality that colors history's memory of him

An extraordinarily gifted field commander, he ought to be remembered for his critical participation in the great Indian campaigns His were enormous victories during the 1876-77 Sioux War, for instance, where he and his Fifth Infantry almost single-handedly closed that conflict. But Miles's unbridled ambition, vanity, and self-righteousness consumed his persona and typically shrouded his battlefield successes. Moreover, he married a Sherman and unflinchingly used the family at every opportunity His bombastics led the media and contemporaries outside his circle to paint him a buffoon: "Too much cir-

cus, too little brain," added one colleague; "the most ambitious officer" in the army, said another; a "brave peacock," chortled President Roosevelt.

Robert Wooster, associate professor of history at Corpus Christi State University and author of several significant books on the Old Army, unveils this enigmatic soldier in an eloquent biography Miles's gifts as a field commander are clearly evident, but so are his failings as an army administrator. In the larger context, Miles's story is also that of the Old Army and its twilight During his watch as commander-in-chief the nation learned that the tactics of the Indian wars were useless beyond the frontier, and the bickering and infighting of the army staff left the line ill-prepared to function in the global community Miles's reputation clearly rose and set on the western frontier.

Wooster's work is a deftly crafted biography of this paradoxical soldier. He availed himself of significant collections of Miles papers that surfaced subsequent to the Johnson and Tolman biographies of the 1960s Aswell, Wooster exhibits poised writing skills and a wry sense of humor. During Reconstruction, for instance, Wooster notes the North Carolinians' difficulty in "cooperating with a Massachusettsborn officer who led black troops and [had] married a woman named Sherman." Of Miles's insatiable self-promotion, even to his well-positioned inlaws, always did his lengthy letters close, Wooster notes, with the colonel informing them of "his loyal support and unappreciated military genius."

Noting Miles's appetite for military fashion, even during the most stressfilled times, the author notes that Miles was known frequently to get a

new uniform and, "when in doubt, [have] his photograph taken." This is notjust good history, it is a delightful read.

In retirement Miles dabbled in politics and was active in veteran's affairs And as only the "brave peacock" could, while taking his grandchildren to the Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1925, he rose for the "Star-Spangled Banner" with frame erect and chest

extended, then slumped over from a heart attack and died. Wooster's biography of this great and colorful officer is destined to become the standard and should be added to all western and military collections.

PAUL L HEDREN National Park Service Williston, North Dakota

Book Notices

The Trans-Mississippi West, 1804-1912; Pari I: A Guide to Records of the Department of State for the Territorial Period. Compiled by ROBERT M. KVASNICKA (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1993 x+131pp Paper, $8.00.)

The genuinely American process of state-making constitutes part of the fascinating and complex political and administrative history of the American west. This history isdocumented in the records of dozens of U.S. government agencies. The documents illustrate a similarly confused story of how the federal bureaucracy has historically exercised control over the territories Mining the records held by the National Archives, organized as they are by the agency responsible for their creation, requires a knowledge of the administrative history of the bureaucracies

This guide, one of a series of finding aids published by the National Archives, will help a scholar navigate

the maze of records The introduction describes the history of the territorial papers project It tells how this guide is a logical and practical alternative to the older practices of producing letter press (and later microfilm) editions of the territorial papers

Part I, this volume, describes the records of the Department of State, which maintained records related to treaties as well as exercised authority over the territories at various times.All the records described in the guide are located at facilities in Washington, D.C.Although Part I implies that there will be at least a Part II, it is not clear what subsequent guides will cover.

Life and Manners in the Frontier Army.

By OLIVER KNIGHT (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978

+280

pp

Paper, $13.95.)

x

This fine treatise on the cultural fabric of the Old Army is built largely

on the novels of Charles King. It was out of print for many years until this reissue in 1993, ten years after the author's death. Enhanced with a foreword by Paul Hedren, this handsomely packaged reprint will delight readers and collectors for many years to come.

ship and interpretations of Mormon history, revises the bibliography, and updates the final chapters in order to extend the scope into the 1990s.

Oklahombres, Particularly the Wilder Ones. By EVETT DUMAS NIX as told to GORDON HINES. (1929; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993 xxxi + 280 pp Paper, $12.95.)

Nix's memoir of his years as U.S marshal in Oklahoma Territory, beginning in 1893, may help to put late twentieth-century criminal activity into historical perspective Like today's urban jungles, O.T was a violent place populated bygangs, including the Dalton brothers, as well as large numbers of crooks, cattle thieves, counterfeiters, and whiskey peddlers. A man of integrity, Nix was determined to clean things up with the help of 150 deputies—men like Bill Tilghman, Chris Madsen, and Heck Thomas. In less than four years they made 60,000 arrests A high point of a different kind came on September 16, 1893, when Nix "fired the gun that sent homesteaders rushing into the Cherokee Strip," a scene he "described with cinematic vividness."

Views from the Apache Frontier: Report on the Northern Provinces of New Spain by Jose Cortes, Lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Engineers, 1799. Edited by ELIZABETH A H JOHN and translated by JOHN WHEAT ( 1989; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. xx + 162 pp. Paper, $12.95.)

A keen observer of the Apaches, Cortes's report provides the most informed, well organized understanding of them available at the end of the eighteenth century The document, archived in the British Library, is enhanced by an excellent translation and extensive annotations.

A Road from El Dorado: The 1848 Trail Journal of Ephraim Green. Edited by WILL BAGLEY (Salt Lake City: Prairie Dog Press, 1991 58 pp Cloth, $24.50; paper, $11.00.)

The Story of the Latter-day Saints. By JAMES B. ALLEN and GLEN M. LEONARD 2d ed. (1976; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992 xiv +802 pp. $25.00.)

The second edition of this standard work incorporates the latest scholar-

Mormon Battalion veteran Ephraim Green served as a captain of ten in the Samuel Thompson company that left the California goldfields inJune 1848 and headed east to join the Mormon settlement in the Great Basin He and his forty-five cohorts blazed a new wagon trail on the California road, opened the Carson Pass trail, and brought the first wagons across the Salt Lake Cutoff Green'sjournal may not rank as one of the great trail diaries, but it is certainly a worthy and entertaining account of high adventure in the unexplored American West.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Department ofCommunity andEconomic Development Division ofState History

BOARD OF STATE HISTORY

MARILYN CONOVER BARKER, Salt Lake City,1997 Chair

PETER L GOSS, Salt Lake City, 1995 Vice-Chair

MAX J. EVANS, Salt Lake City Secretary

DALE L. BERGE, Provo, 1995

BOYD A. BLACKNER, Salt Lake City, 1997

DAVID D. HANSEN, Sandy,1997

CAROL CORNWALL MADSEN, Salt Lake City, 1997

DEAN L MAY, Salt Lake City, 1995

CHRISTIE SMITH NEEDHAM, Logan,1997

PENNY SAMPINOS, Price,1995

THOMAS E SAWYER, Orem,1997

JERRY WYLIE, Ogden, 1997

ADMINISTRATION

MAX J EVANS, Director

WILSON G. MARTIN, Associate Director PATRICIA SMITH-MANSFIELD, Assistant Director

STANFORD J. LAYTON, Managing Editor

DAVID B. MADSEN, State Archaeologist

The Utah State Historical Society was organized in 1897 by public-spirited Utahns to collect, preserve, and publish Utah and related history. Today, under state sponsorship, theSociety fulfills itsobligations bypublishing the Utah Historical Quarterly andother historical materials; collecting historic Utah artifacts; locating, documenting, and preserving historic and prehistoric buildings and sites; and maintaining a specialized research library Donations and gifts to the Society's programs, museum, or its library are encouraged, for only through such means can it live up to itsresponsibility ofpreserving therecord ofUtah's past.

This publication has been funded with the assistance of a matching grant-in-aid from the Department of die Interior, National Park Service, under provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as amended This program receives financial assistance for identification and preservation of historic properties under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 The U.S Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or handicap in its federally assisted programs If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, U.S Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C 20240.