J. RODERIC KORNS
XV
Shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish-American W a r , the Korns family returned east as far as Chadron, Dawes County, Nebraska, where the elder Korns published another Democratic paper, the Chadron Chronicle. In 1901 they moved again, this time to Salt Lake City, where they settled permanently. William H. Korns bought a half-interest in the Mining Review, a weekly magazine devoted to the interests of that industry, but four years later he left the publishing business to found the Korns W a r e house Company. This flourishing concern he operated until his death on March 29, 1922, and it has since been carried on by his son and grandson. At the time of the change in Salt Lake City's government from the aldermanic to the commission form, in 1911, W . H. Korns was elected one of the first commissioners, being assigned to the water department. Rod's first vote was cast to help elect his father, and the energetic part taken by W . H. Korns in the Mountain Dell Reservoir project in Parleys Canyon, ever since a key source of supply in Salt Lake City's water system, gave Rod a lasting interest in terrain and stream courses—an interest which illuminates all the historical researches of his later years. Apart from his early notoriety as a printer, Rod first achieved distinction as an athlete. Active of body and gifted with a notable competitive will, he won acclaim as Utah's first amateur heavyweight boxing champion, and as a football player was no less prominent. Playing for the old Salt Lake High School, he was all-state center in 1907, and captain and manager of the team in 1908, when it won the state championship. In 1909 he entered the University of Utah as an engineering student, and—freshmen being then eligible for conference competition—became center on the varsity football team. In later life Rod had some amusing reminiscences of that year, particularly of his frustrations in playing against Colorado Mines' muscular all-conference center. The excessive effort required to hold down a job and get an education on the side forced him after a year to give up his college studies. As time went on, he assumed an increasingly heavy share of the responsibility for running the warehouse, and he managed it from 1912 to 1922, when at his father's death he became owner as well. .Early in life Rod became active in Masonry, on October 10,
