The History Blazer, November 1995

1

THE HISTORY BLAZER ATEWS '

OF UTAH'S PAST FROM THE

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake Cit? C ' T84101 (801) 533-3500 FAX (801) 333-3503 J

November 1995 Blazer Contents Mexican Families and the Sugar Industry in Garland Utah's Other Women Legislators in 1897 Are Almost Forgotten Rural Emery County Was an Entertaining Place Brigham City Cooperative Spurred Economic Development, Pioneer-Style

Preston Nutter Made Utah the Home of His Cattle Kingdom

Utah School Children Won Recognition for Philo T. Farnsworth Mark Twain's Utah Gardner Mill and the Birth of Salt Lake Valley's West Side A Look at Working Women in the Early 20th Century

Games of the Coal Camp Children Mail Call in Rural Utah

The Shooting of Arthur Brown, Ex-Senator from Utah Old La Sal Was Once a Thriving Cow Town

The Beginnings of Commercial Aviation Trout Fishing on the Utah Frontier

Sophie Reed Taught Ogden to Dance President Kennedy Received a Warm Welcome in Utah Folk Cures for the Common Cold Traveling Alone to Utah Was an Adventure for Teenager Fritz Zaugg Isabell Birch Bryner Saves Price City

THE HISTORY BLAZER A'EM'S OF WAH'S PAST FROIM THE

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City. L7T84101 (801) 533-3500 FAX (801) 533-3503 A

Mexican Families and the Sugar Industry in Garland

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FROM JUAREZ, MEXICO, came to Box Elder County in 1918 to work in the

sugar beet fields. They established a colonia on the outskirts of Garland where Utah-Idaho Sugar Company had built a sugar factory in 1903. Farmers in the area had increased their sugar beet acreage over the years. That and labor shortages associated with World War I led the company to seek workers outside the United States. D u ~ the g hamest season the company brought an additional 150 Mexican workers to Garland.

In 1920 Frank A. Arnold visited the Mexicans in Garland. His account of the coloaia, including several photographs, was published in the Solt Lake Tn'bune. Today's readers may find fault with Arnold's simplistic and sometimes stereotypical view of the residents, but he clearly liked and even admired the people he met there. Regardless, he provided a rare look at the workers from Mexico who contributed so much to Utah's agricultural success.

The houses furnished by the company 'look[ed] like cross sections of freight cars, and.. .rent[ed] for $2 a month. " Each house contained "a good range" that the tenants bought with small monthly payments and a corn mill. In back of each house the family grew chilies, corn, beans, garlic, lettuce, and cilantro-"so good in soups"-and kept chickens and rabbits for fresh meat. In the fall "the front of the house...is gay with drying red peppers and beef." The houses were evidently sparsely furnished with whatever each family had been able to bring with them from Mexico or acquire locally. The women, Arnold reported, sat on the floor much of the time ta do their work: ' .washing dishes, mixing tortillas or grinding corn. The tortillas they roll out as thin as paper on a board and then bake on top of the stove."

Arnold amived at the colonia just before beet thinning began, so most of the women were at home with their children. "A few days later," he noted, 'and most of the women would have followed their sons and husbands into the fields to cook for them, for beet work is a season of camping for the whole family.. The reporter was rebuffed at first by the shy and modest women who did not feel comfortable talking with a strange male, especially one who wanted to photograph them. He fmally convinced them of his sincerity, and several of them eagerly posed for a photograph with their children: 'First came Francisco Torres with her month-old baby. Then Guancha Ramos retreated into her house, all papered with the colored advertising pages of American weeklies, and in a few minutes came forth with the most embroidered baby in Utah in her arms." All the edges of the infant's layered white silk dress were embroidered. Many women in the village were accomplished embroiderers, he discovered, most notably Seiiora Salome Sermeno. (more)

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The company had paid the workers to build a schoolhouse. This they did by making adobe bricks from clay found near the Malad River flats. The county furnished a teacher, and, Arnold wrote, 'the work of Americanization is evidently succeeding, for the children are feported as being uncommonly bright. In fact, they gave much pleasure to the church-going population of Garland by singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' one Sunday night in meeting." According to Arnold, the Mexicans received a very friendly reception from Garland's townspeople, and unlike the situation in southern California, he noted, the Mexicans,were welcome at local movies and restaurants &d even, if the sad occasion arose, in the local cemetery. Still, Arnold related, 'now and then a Garland small boy has to fight with a Mexican boy to show him that he belongs to the old aristocracy of Garland."

The Mexican worker was "malleable and dependable," Arnold wrote, spent his earnings locally for food and clothing-'a welcome addition to the trade of any town"-and when not needed in the beet fields was 'willing to work on the railroad." Moreover, the women of the community made 'excellent housekeepers. " When they were not hard at work, the residents of the colonio knew how to enjoy themselves on such Mexican holidays as September 16, celebrating their country's independence from Spain with feasting and music. 'Many of them play the guitar well enough to go on a vaudeville circuit," Arnold averred. He said the men were planning to build a high adobe wall so they could play their favorite ball games. With a sense of irony Arnold noted that the roosters to be found in Box Elder County were 'tame, spiritless birds," implying that cockfighting-an activity frowned on in America-would not be found in the back alleys of the Garland colonia.

The idyllic pichue Arnold painted of Mexican life in Garland focussed on the positive aspects of the residents' activities and their relationship with townspeople. The life of migrant workers and their families was arduous, a fact only hinted at by Arnold. After 1930, historian Vicente V. Mayer wrote, these early agricultural colonius disbanded. To meet the demands of Utah farmers, more and more Mexican migrant workers came to toil in fields and orchards.

Seilora Francis Yanez recalled 'working on the farm, from the time I was about seven.. .We started topping beets in the early season. You were down on your knees.. .hour after hour.. .and the sun would be beating on you, and it would rain on you. But we were hungry our parents would tell us, 'We have to do it-to feed the younger ones.'" Migrant workers in Utah and elsewhere often faced discrimination and hostility from the local community and lived in crowded, squalid conditions in the camps provided for them. They endured, however, and many of these unsung heroes and heroines of agriculture took up permanent residence in the state part of Utah's growing and diverse Spanish-speaking community.

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See Salt Lake Tribune, June 13, 1920; Vicente V. Mayer, "After Escalante: The Spanish-speaking People of Utah," in 2 7 PeopIeS ~ of Utah, ed. Helen 2.Papanilcolas (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1976), and "Migrant

Labor" clipping file, Utah State Historical Society Library.

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

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THE HISTORY BLAZER A'EIt'S OF UTAH'S PAST FROlW THE

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Utah's Other Women Legislators in 1897 Are Almost Forgotten

mm HUGHES CANNON, THE FIRST WOMAN STATE SENATOR in Utah or any state, Was one of the most colorfid figures of her era, and much has been written about her. The two other women elected to the Legislature in November 1896, Eurithe K. LaBarthe of Salt Lake City and Sarah E. Anderson of Ogden, did not capture as much attention as the more dynamic Cannon, and few Utahns even remember their names today. However, as the f ~ swomen t in the House each made her own contribution to Utah political history.

LaBarthe, a prominent clubwoman and the wife of an express company official, was particularly active in the Ladies Literary Club and was its energetic president when she served in the legislature. Although called a clubwoman-sometimes a pejorative term-LaBarthe was also a teacher and a former principal of a school in Colorado. Perhaps because of this experience, she chaired the Education Committee in the House. A native of Peoria, Illinois, she came to Utah with her husband in 1892 and became active in Democratic politics.

The 'High Hat Law" was LaBarthe's most memorable contribution to legislative history.

Often cited by critics of the time as an example of trivial interests that women pursue in politics, it provided that "any person attending a theater, opera-house or an indoor place of amusement as a spectator shall remove headwear tending to obstruct the view of any other person." Violators wuld be fined from one to ten dollars. The 'High Hat LawBwasvigorously defended by the Ladies Literary Club historian a quarter of a century after its passage: 'Only those who can recollect the high hats, the broad hats, the waving plumes and nodding flower gardens that women carried about on their heads thirty years ago, and who remember how utterly impossible it was to enjoy a performance at the theatre if you happened to sit directly behind one of these monstrosities, can fully appreciate how great a public benefactor Mrs. LaBarthe really was.. ."

She also introduced H.B. 50 establishing a curfew for children. The House rejected the bill on the grounds that such regulations were the province of cities and towns. Her memorial to Congress, passed by both houses and approved by Gov. Heber M. Wells, also failed to achieve its goal. She asked that the Industrial Home on Fifth East, built by the federal government as a refuge for women and children fleeing from polygamous marriages, be granted to the state for educational or charitable purposes. The building had stood idle for several years and could have been used to ease the shortage of educational facilities. Apparently Congress turned a deaf ear to this memorial, for the building was sold a few years later.

After her legislative s e ~ c e LaBarthe , moved to Denver, where she continued to be active in

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women's club work. She returned to Utah for a visit, became ill, and died in Salt Lake City on November 22, 1910, at the age of sixty-five.

Sarah Elizabeth Nelson Anderson of Ogden, the other woman House member, was described in the Ogden Stan&rd iis "naturally a strong woman, mentally and physically" and as 'one of the most prominent and popular women in Ogden. " A legislative colleague, S. A. Kenner, called her a staunch advocate of equality of man and woman, "yet she did not lose her sweet womanly -see" A Salt Lake Wbune writer pointed out that she was "not what might be termed a clubwoman, her large property interests and her home life with her children occupying the greater portion of her time." She was 'remarkably well posted on matters of current interest and public concern."

Born in 1853, Sarah married an Ogden physician, Porter L. Anderson, at the age of seventeen. He died in 1888, leaving her with five children. She died on December 22, 1900. Her major contribution to Utah political history was not her legislative record but her part in a lawsuit.

Section 2 of the Enabling Act required that voting for the ratification or rejection of the new constitution be confined to 'persons possessing the qualifications entitling them to vote for delegates [to the 1895 Constitutional Convention] under this actW-ormale voters only. However, Section 4 stated that the "qualified voters of said proposed State" should vote in November 1895 for or against the constitution, and women were clearly part of the "qualified voters" of the new state under the new constitution. Some women asked to be registered, and the Utah Commission, which had supervised elections since 1882, apparently did not want to interpret the Enabling Act. It was relieved of that burden when Sarah Anderson appeared at the office of deputy registrar Charles Tyree in Ogden's Second Precinct on August 6 to be registered to vote both on the ratification of the constitution and on the election of state officials. Tyree refused to register her because she was a female. The next day Anderson went to court, seeking to compel Tyree to register her. The battery of lawyers acting on her behalf-r perhaps using her as part of a scheme to show Democratic sympathy for woman suffrage (as the Republican Og&n Standard asserted)-included a number of prominent Democrats, both Mormon and non-Mormon. Anderson won the first round. Judge H. W. Smith of the District Court in Ogden ruled that women were qualified to vote not only for state officers but for adoption or rejection of the constitution as well, and he ordered Tyree to register Anderson. The case was promptly appealed to the Utah Temtorial Supreme Court by Tyree's equally prominent attorneys. Two of the three justices ruled that Anderson had not been enfianchised by the Enabling Act. Associate Justice William H.King offered a dissenting opinion. Utah's women had to wait until after statehood to vote.

Sarah Anderson served as chairman of the House Committee on Public Health, which handled a number of important bills. However, she was not particularly active in introducing and getting her own bills passed. Her H.B. 39, regarding police and fire commissioners, was killed by an unfavorable committee report, and H.B. 26 providing for teaching the effects of alcohol and narcotics in schools, was superseded by a bill with similar provisions. Anderson's legacy was not legislative success but her wiIlingness to fight for her right to vote.

See Jean Biclrmore White, 'Gentle Persuaders: Utah's First Women IRgislators,"U?uh Historical QmrterEy 38 (1970).

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

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Rural Emery County Was an Entertaining Place

hBEFORE THE ADVENT OF RADIO, MOVIES, AND TELEVISION, d Utahns found entertainment in locally produced dramas, musicals, and plays. During its first hdlf-century (1875 to 1925) the communities of Emery County developed a well-deserved reputation for outstanding productions and appreciative audiences. John Taylor of Orangeville r d e d that large crowds could always be expected, and with limited seating the play was presented enough times so that everyone in the wmmunity who wanted to see the performance would have the o p p o d t y . Half of the seats were "resemed" and sold at a higher price, with the remaining seats available for general admission. Tickets, usually 25 cents, were obtained at one of the local stores or businesses in advance and could be purchased with cash, eggs, grain, or other products. Complimentary tickets were provided to widows and old folks. After expenses were met, proceeds were donated to a worthy church or civic project.

Prelude music was usually performed by a small orchestra composed of an organ, violins, and one or two brass instruments, and sometimes specialty numbers such as songs, recitations, or dialogues were performed between acts.

In Emery County the dramas and plays became a wonderful source of local folklore, much of which was wllected by Elmo Geary, a Huntington native and drama teacher at Carbon College-now the College of Eastern Utah. Above all, the stories indicate to what extent the audience became absorbed in the stories.

When James W. Johnson completed a memorable performance in a drama about a Roman who during the course of the play lost his mind, a woman still drying her eyes explained: 'James, it was wonderful. You sure played the crazy part; it was so natural."

Another actor, A. G. Jewkes, Jr., usually played the role of a villain in many of the productions. When he was called to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, the children of the Orangeville congregation were encouraged to pray for his success.

However, Myron Robertson, son of Bishop Jasper Robertson, declared: 'I won't pray for him; he kills women. " The eight-year-old Margaret Johnson Young attended a play in the Huntington church house at the turn of the century when one of the actors threw the thirteen-year-old Nellie Crandall into the ocean: 'He picked the girl up and completely tossed her off the rear of the stage and down the back stairway onto a feather bed; a stage hand splashed water back upon the stage. The whole scene, with the ocean back drop, the lighting and the effective acting, was so vividly realistic that the observer, Margaret, went home and cried all night. " (more)

At another production, James W. Johnson recalled that at the climax of the play the leading lady was to stop a mob from destroying her property by shooting over their heads. When Johnson told the director that there were no blank bullets available for the pistol, the director jokingly told him to use real bullets.*Johnson took him at his word, loaded the revolver with live ammunition, and told the actress to be sure and shoot into the air. He then held his breath out of fear that the heaven-bound bullets would knock shingles off the roof.

On another occasion, during the performance of ihe Cuban Spy, a building was supposed to bum during the second act. A controlled fire was set offstage, but when someone knocked it over the flames spread to the basement area where cloth and cotton were stored. According to James Johnson, "When the hero picked up the frightened leading lady, her clothes were actually burning. The rest of us behind the crowded wings were fighting fire." After the performance the audience was high in its praise for the 'most realistic fire we ever saw."

The 1920s brought movies to rural Utah, and they led to the demise of local dramatic associations. Nevertheless, the stories that grew out of these local productions remain a rich part of Utah's history.

See Elmo G. Geruy and Edward A. Gepry, YCommunityDramatics in Early Castle Valley," Utah Historical Quurterrj, 53 (1985).

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

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THE HISTORY BLAZER ATEM'SOF UTAH'S PAST FROM THE

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Brigham City Cooperative Spurred Economic Development, Pioneer-Style

DURING THE NTH

CENTURY A NUMBER OF EXPERIMENTS in communal living were

attempted by American and European religious groups. One of the most successful-so much so that it received international attention-was the Brigham City Cooperative.

In 1850 Mormon Apostle Lorenzo Snow led 50 f d e s to reinforce a tiny settlement north of Ogden. Most were European immigrants chosen for their varying work skills. For ten years the settlers had little use for their Old World skills, being preoccupied with building a fort, saw- and gristmills, and irrigation dams and canals.

But in 1864 Snow, wanting to jump-start an economy but lacking experienced entrepreneurs, opened a cooperative general store. By reducing share prices and using "moral suasion, " he would eventually extend ownership from four men to nearly 2,000 joint stock holders-virtually the entire community.

Coop leaders used store surpluses to malce it a hub for small satellite industries: a tannery in 1866, boot and saddle shops in 1870,and a woolen factory in 1871.By 1879 six other 'departments" had been added to the cooperative, including a 500-cow dairy, butter and cheese factory, butcher shop, and molasses mill. In 1880 beef and hog herds were established along with three farms, including a dry farm for raising feed.

An influx of Scandinavian craftsmen and women allowed creation in the 1880s of a millinery factory, tailor shop, silk department, and two woodworking mills (one for shingles, laths and pickets, another for planing and moulding). As the city grew, three more sawmills were added, plus an adobe brickyard, blacksmith and finish cabinetry shops, and architecture, masonry, and painting departments.

Eventually the moprative would include tin and machine shops, the Mantua flax f m , a horticultural department, and the cotton farm (maintained by young men "calledn to two-year missions to Southern Utah) which also produced raisins, wine, and sugar for Brigham City.

Shareholders became real venture capitalists, adding rope, broom and brush factories, a pottery shop, cooperage, and a carriage repair shop. Even a "tramp departmentn supervised vagrants looking for odd jobs.

Only a decade after the store first opened, this remarkable cluster of home industries was producing $260,000 in goods per year, or about $3 million in 1995 dollars. A total of 250 workers were employed, with 1,000 Brigham City residents wholly dependent on the co-op and another 1,000 partly involved. Many departments produced surpluses that were sold to other settlements.

Even more impressive, the community had become five-sixths self-sufficient. Calculating (more)

this, co-op officers paid workers and shareholders in scrip: five-sixths 'Home Department" scrip for locally made goods, and one-sixth 'Merchandize" scrip to redeem at the general store for items imported from Salt Lake City or the'East.

The cooperative Iiad its problems. Necessities not manufactured locally had to be purchased in cash. For instance, efforts to raise local wheat were marginally successful, and the coop had

difficulty meeting shareholders' annual needs for the staple. Sometimes "in the solemn silence of the night" Lorenu, Snow agonized over co-op finances as well as his persod responsibility for so many families' economic well-being. Cooperative ventures were an 'untrodden path," he wrote to Brigham Young. "Is there not danger of getting an elephant on our hands.. that our wisdom and ability cannot manage.. .?"

In addition, not everyone subscribed to the communal ethic. Occasionally a private store was attempted. Most soon failed, but one succeeded until church leaders (who were also co-op leaders) sent agents to write down the names of anyone patronizing it.

The cooperative movement eventually ended in Brigham City. Its downfall came in the same way as its creation: by increments. When a fire destroyed the woolen mill in 1877 shareholders went into heavy debt to rebuild it. To pay off the debt they contracted to supply lumber for the Utah & Northern Railroad. But federal agents, who mistrusted Mormons, stymied this effort through permit interference and a one-time $10,000 tax on co-op profits (a tax later struck down in federal court). Add to these such natural calamities as drought and grasshopper infestation, the national Panic of 1893, and the imprisonment of b r e m Snow and other leaders for cohabitation, and the m o p gradually died.

Leaders' initial response was to divest the cosp of satellite industries. Sold to their superintendents, these continued to operate as private ventures. By 1880 everything had been privatized but the geneml store, which finally went bankrupt in 1895. But the co-op had proven its point: for roughly three decades an isolated American village had almost entirely supported itself through community effort.

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Source: Lemad J. Anin*, "Brigham City, Utph: Cooperative Community in the North," Utah Historical Quanerly 33 (1965). Quotatiom from 1877 letter to Brigham Young are in Snow's 'Scribbling Book," LDS Church Archives.

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Preston Nutter Made Utah the Home of His Cattle Kingdom

WHEN PRESTON NUTTER DIED IN JANUARY

1936 at the age of 86, the Salt Loke Telegram him as 'Utah's last great cattle king" and 'one of the last links between the old west and the new." As 'king"of the range, Nutter was one of the best known cattle barons in Utah,with herds of cattle numbering in the thousands roaming over vast areas of Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. Nutter was able to carve out such a successful cattle enterprise due to his business and marketing sawy and determination.

Born in Virginia in 1850, he was orphaned at the age of nine. After spending a miserable two years with relatives whom he disliked, he ran away, only to end up floating down the Mississippi River working as a cabin boy. He soon tired of this adventure and caught the next wagon train headed for San Francisco. After attending business college there, Nutter again decided it was time for a change and journeyed to Provo, Utah, where he joined Alfred Packer and his group of gold prospectors. Nutter traveled east with the prosptors into Colorado, but he soon realized that their searching was fruitless and that Alfred was a 'whining fraud." So, Nutter decided to spend the winter with Chief Ouray of the Utes while Packer and some of the other men continued on into the ominous snow-packed mountains. The following spring Packer returned alone, looking fat and contented. Nutter, suspecting that something was amiss, soon discovered that Packer had eaten his five companions while trapped in a bad snowstorm. In 1883 Nutter was the prosecution's chief witness during the trial of 'Alfred Packer the Man-Eater" whose notoriety spread throughout the West.

Having had enough of prospecting adventures, Nutter turned his attention to the cattle industry. After purchasing a small herd in Colorado, he looked for a sizeable piece of good rangeland. Remembering the lush mountain pastures of Utah, he drove his cattle westward into their new Utah range between Thompson Springs and Moab. Soon after arriving he struck a deal with the Cleveland Cattle Company to exchange 1,000 head of his mixed breed cattle for the Cleveland's Herefords. At the time, Herefords were not very popular with ranchers, but Nutter, with uncanny foresight, wuld see that in time Hereford cattle would dominate the West.

By 1888 Nutter had formed the Grand Cattle Company with his partners Ed Sands and Tom Wheeler. During the next few years the size of their herd increased dramatically, and Nutter was able to buy out most of the cattlemen around the Utah-Arizona border. Although many ranchers were wiped out by the summer droughts and severe winters of 1886 and 1887, Nutter was able to stay on top by wintering his cattle at Thompson Springs, located near a railhead, making it possible to ship in feed for the hungry herd. On the business side of the cattle industry he gained (more)

advantages by negotiating special 'deals in Washington and maintaining business contacts with

friends in New York. Through them he was able to acquire some of the best grazing land ,in the Uinta Basin and access to valuable springs in the deserts of southern Utah. Arguments over who "owed" the springs w&e common, and Nutter met with a lot of resistance from cattle ranchers and sheepherders alike who all wanted sole access to the water. However, rather than duking it out in a "range war" Nutter preferred to settle water-rights disputes in a legal manner and as a result spent ma& hours of his life in the courtroom.

To keep his cattle business running smoothly he spent days on end in the saddle and when riding across the state on a horse or a mule, he was occupied with selling and buying cattle, checking out new grazing land, hassling with the sheepherders who were invading his land, or dealing with rustlers. As a result, Nutter was 58 years old before he got married and started to settle down. His wife, Katherine Fenton, often joked that the only way she was able to catch him was "to agree that the honeymoon be incorporated into an eastern cattle buying trip." Katherine and Preston settled in at Nine Mile Canyon, the ranch headquarters for the Nutter Corporation which stretched across 300,000 acres. The ranch in Nine Mile Canyon is stiU an important historical landmark and was operated by the Nutter family until 1986 after which it was sold to the owners of the Sabine corporation who to this day use Nine Mile Canyon as their ranching headquarters.

Preston Nutter was a man who looked to thesfuture; he was always trying to find ways to improve his herds and to presewe the wild, rugged land that he loved so much. Right before his death he had started to negotiate with J. N. Darling, head of the U.S. Biological Survey, about turning some of his rangeland into a big game preserve. During his lifetime Nutter had built up a herd so vast that many old-timers reckoned that even Preston didn't know exactly how many cattle he owned, for he truly was the great cattle king of Utah.

Sources: Virginia N. Price and John T. Darby, "Preston N-r: Utah Cattleman, 1886-1936," Utah Historical Quarterly 32 (1964); James H. Beckstead, Cowboying: A Tough Job in a Hard Land (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991).

THE ~

O

R

BLAZER Y is produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah

Statehood Centemid Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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Utah School Children Won Recognition for Philo T. Famsworth

ONECAN ~~ITLE IMAGINETEIB WOD

m o m TELEVLSION. ~ t impact s can be felt

everywhere. Yet few people today know who the 'Father of Television" is or that he came from Utah. In 1971 when Philo T. Farnsworth died he had still received little recognition for his contribution, the first modem electronic television.

Farnsworth was born in 1906 near Beaver, Utah. He became interested in electronics and decided to become an inventor early in life. By the age of 13 he had won his first national contest, sponsored by Science Md Invention magazine, for a thief-proof lock. In 1922 he drew a design for his high school chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman. The drawing had nothing to do with the class assignment, but Tolman kept it. Farnsworth believed that he could transform electricity into pictures by controlling the speed and direction of fast-flying electrons. This 'image dissector" drawing would become legally important years later.

Farnsworth had very little advanced education, only two years at Brigham Young University. Most of what he learned about physics came from reading anything that he could get his hands on. He also took correspondence courses in physics from the University of Utah.

Farnsworth moved to Salt Lake and met George Everson who helped him obtain financial backing to further develop his image dissector. Philo married his college sweetheart, Pem, and they moved on to California. With no experience in high-vacuum physics, Farnsworth nevertheless found a way to seal a flat lens end on a dissector camera tube and create a very high vacuum in the tube. On September 7, 1927,he demonstrated the first operational, all-electronic tekvision system. The image seen was of a simple line. Later, in May 1928 a two-dimensional image was seen-Farnsworth's wife Pem. Many people were working on ideas for the transmission of visual images at that time. By using the sketch that his teacher had kept, Farnsworth won a legal suit against RCA. This victory entitled him to be legally called the 'Father of Television."

At the time of his death Famsworth owned two patents personally, his corporation over 150 patents. Eight patents were pending, with an additional eight not having been acted upon.

Referring to six of the patents, his wife said, 'Indeed, if they were to be removed from present day television, we would be left with.. .just a radio. " Farnsworth died in 1971 at the age of 64. He was bitter and nearly destitute, but, primarily, he felt hurt by the lack of public recognition for being the creator of television.

In 1985 students and teachers from Ridgemont Elementary School in Salt Lake City set about to correct this oversight. The students had gone to the legislature to learn about the process (more)

by be:q a part of it. They heard U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch say, 'Isn't it too bad that we are authc .x d to have two statues back in Washington and we only have one, that of Brigham Young. " In 1864 a law crating S t a t u a ~Ha ~l l in the United States Capitol and providing for two statues from each state was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. On June 1, 1950, a marble statue of Brigham Young, culonizer of the West, and the first governor of Utah Temtory, was placed in Statuary Hall as Utah's first representative. The students wanted Philo T. Farnsworth to be the second. Their f i s t attempt to achieve legislative recognition was thwarted by supporters for J. Willard Marriott, who is credited with inventing the drive-in restaurant. The 1985 Farnsworth bill had passed the House of Representatives but was held up in a Senate committee by determined Marriott supporters.

The students and teacher did not give up, though. The next year brought them the hoped for success. Initially bottled up in the Rules Committee of the Senate, the resolution was released when students asked for help from the media. In 1987 the Legislature passed House Joint Resolution No. 1 sponsored by Donald R. LeBaron and Richard B. Tempest. Governor Norman H. Bangerter signed the legislation and commissioned James R. Avati to sculpt a bronze statue of one of the greatest electronic inventors, Philo T. Farnsworth.

After two years of struggle, the students saw the statue of Farnsworth join Brigham Young in Statuary Hall in Washington. The inventor of television was also recognized for his contributions in developing radar systems, peaceful uses of atomic energy, vacuum tubes, electron microscopes, and incubators as well.

Today Philo T. Farnsworth is recognized as one of Utah's most brilliant citizens. His examples of innovation and hard work are credited for all to see, as he is titled publicly the 'Father of Television." Utah's children, Ridgemont Elementary School's students, had righted a wrong.

Sources: Elma G. "Pem" Farmworth, Distant Vision-Romance and Discovery on an Invisible Frontier (Salt Lake City, 1989); Allan Kent Powell, ed., Utah History Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press 1994); Aaxqtance and Dedication of the S t a b of Philo T.Famsworth (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office 1991).

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Mark Twain's Utah

MARK TWAIN HAS BEEN CALLED THE 'LINCOLNOF AMERICAN LITERATURE" and with good m n . Nearly every school child has read his most famous classics set along the Mississippi Adventures of Huckleberry R i v e r o m Adventures of Tom Suwyer, published in 1876, and FiM, which first appeared in 1884. However, an earlier book, Roughing It, published in 1872, contains a wonderful mixture of truth and tall tales of Twain's journey to the West, which he began by stagecoach from St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1861. Traveling with his brother, who had been appointed secretary of the newly created Nevada Territory, Mark Twain stopped in Salt Lake City and wrote an engaging description of his entry into the Salt Lake Valley and humorous accounts of its people.

As the stagecoach reached the summit of Big Mountain fifteen miles east of Salt Lake City, Twain was much impressed writing, ' .all the world was glorified with the setting sun and the most stupendous panorama of mountain peaks yet encountered burst on our sight. We looked out upon this sublime spectacle from under the arch of a brilliant rainbow." Arriving in the city that evening, the two brothers found lodging in the Salt Lake House.

The next morning gave Twain an opportunity to take in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake and his awe was not diminished. He described the city as lying '...in the edge of a level plain as broad as the state of Connecticut, and crouches close down to the ground under a curving wall of mighty mountains whose heads are hidden in the clouds, and whose shoulders bear relics of the snows of winter all the summer long. Seen from one of these dizzy heights, twelve or fifteen miles off, Great Salt Lake City is toned down and diminished till it is suggestive of a child's toy village reposing under the majestic protection of the Chinese wall." The city itself he found to be very healthy and in one of his witticisms noted that there was only one physician in the city, and he was arrested every week on a charge of vagrancy since he had no visible means of support.

Their second day in the city, Twain and his brother visited Brigham Young. Twain found himself ignored by the Mormon leader, especially in his attempts to direct the conversation toward Young's attitudes about Congress and politics. As the two brothers left, the elderly church president smiled at Mark Twain and patted him on the head, saying to the older of the two brothers, 'Ah-your child, I presume? Boy or girl?"

Mark Twain took his revenge on Brigham Young with the best weapon at his disposal-his pen. He jabbed unmercifixlly at Brigham Young and the difficulties he had managing his extensive polygamous family. He wrote of the demands for equal treatment made when Young gave one wife a breast pin; the avalanche of demands that were unleashed when a stranger gave one of his (more)

..

children a tin whistle; and the 7-foot-long, 96-foot- wide bed that Young allegedly had built to accommodate all his wives.

The famous writer enjoyed his two-day visit to Salt Lalre City, noting upon his departure that he and his brother were 'hearty and well fed and happy--physically superb

...."

THEHJS~ORY BLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and b d e d in part by a grant fiom the Utah Statehood CatemiaI Commission. For mote information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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Gardner Mill and the Birth of Salt Lake Valley's West Side

h THE PAST TWO DECADES SALTLAKEVALLEY'SWEST SIDE has come into its own, with booming population and economic growth. Yet few people know moving 'over Jordan" is a valley tradition that began with 'Archie" Gardner and his gristmill.

Canadians Archibald and Margaret Livingston Gardner were not the first couple to cross the Jordan River and settle along Bingham Creek. But their arrival changed the future of 'West Jordan," which then comprised everything west of the Jordan River, ranging from Point of the Mountain to the Great Salt Lake.

Archie had built his first flour mill at age 17 plus two other mills in Canada before joining the Mormons. Arriving in Utah in 1847, he quickly obtained rights to Warm Springs and attempted to install a mill there. The water volume proved insufficient, so he moved his machinery to Mill Creek and later claimed to have sawed the first lumber in the new Mormon community.

But Mill Creek 'dried up" (according to his brother Robert), so in 1849 the Gardner brothers dismantled the mill and carried it across the Jordan River to Bingham Creek, where four or five families had already 'moved over" and were attempting to farm despite the Oquirrh Range's shortage of year-round water courses.

The Gardners and their crew immediately set to digging a 2.5-mile millrace for their planned sawmill and gristmill. The channel would be enlarged time and again as an important irrigation canal. They had to construct a low dam at approximately 90th South to raise the river to a level that would feed the canal. The millrace alone cost $5,000, and they financed the entire enterprise themselves.

The Gardners built well. Many years later a grandson helped to tear down one of these pioneer mills with grandfather Archie looking on. The young laborers quickly learned that earlytype mills were built not with nails but with mortises and pins that tightened under use until there was 'hardly a quiver when running." The demolition crew was stymied until Archie, smiling broadly, instructed them to 'start at the key comer where the last brace.. .was located. " Wrote the grandson, 'When that was found, all was easy. " Gardner Mill inspired a cluster of small industries, including blacksmith shops, logging and hauling operations, woolen and carding mills, a tannery, several stores, a shoe shop, and later a broom factory. Each employed more settlers, entrenching the Gardner Mill as hub of the west side's frst industrial center.

As for Archibald and Robert Gardner, their families grew along with their modest business empire. Archie would eventually boast 11 wives and 48 children and build a total of 35 mills in (more)

his lifetime. A descendant wrote that Archie's 'real pleasure" was to construct the milis, turning them over to others to operate. On occasion he would almost give a mill away so as to raise capital for yet another. For a time Archie sought to make Spanish Fork his primary home, but this ambition ended when Brigham Young called him to be bishop of the West Jordan Ward. Archie served as Jordan's chief church and civic leader for more than three decades.

Poor brother Robert, on the other hand, learned that 'settling down to any kind of labor in a 'Mormon' life was very uncertain." He was just beginning to enjoy the h i t s of the Jordan mill when he was called on a mission to Canada. He returned, rebuilt the Mill Creek mill, and was once again becoming a man of substance when he was asked to colonize Utah's Dixie. He never thought to reject a church calling. Apparently his frontier experience had taught him, with many other Utahns of his generation, to subordinate individual ambition to the community welfare.

Soweex James H. Gardner, "Archibald Gardner, the Miller," in Kate B. Carter, Hurtthrobs of the Wcst,vol. 3 (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1948); B. S. Furse, ed., A History of W& Jordon (Salt Lake City: City of West Jordan, 1995); "Journal and Diary of Robert Gardner* in Carter, Heartthrobs, vol. 10, (Salt Lake City:

Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1951).

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A Look at Working Women in the Early 20th Century

TIIB2oTH CENTURY PRODUCED DRAMATIC CHANGES AN11 OPPORfor Women. The events leading up to statehood brought to an official end at least the practice of polygamy, and the state constitution restored women's right to vote and guarantd other equal rights. Laws pas& in 1911 and 1913 set maximum hours and minimum wages for working women. Technology dramatically altered women's lives, especially in urban areas. Electric service, indoor plumbing, central heating, and the small power motor revolutionized homemaking. The growth of commercial laundries and expanding factory production of clothing, processed foods, and other household items relieved women of many tasks and created hundreds of jobs for them outside the home.

Manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade, banking, and s e ~ c e sgrew rapidly in the early 20th century. The success of many of these ventures depended on women.

During these years Ogden, for example, became a center for the canning industry, and by 1914 Utah ranked fifth among the states in canning. World War I stimulated growth of this industry as 22 Ogden canneries secured government contracts. This industry relied on female workers; many wen young and unmarried, but the seasonal nature of canning also attracted married women. The Utah Manufacturers Association (UMA) called canning 'light work that could be done as well by women and children as by men." Tomatoes topped the list of canned items. Jets of hot steam followed by a cold spray loosened the skins, enabling women and girls to peel 14 to 16 bushels a day.

Textile mills and clothing factories are traditional employers of women. Utah-made underwear and work clothes found a large market, especially in mining towns. The ZCMI clothing factory, which shipped overalls and other heavy cotton wear throughout the West and into Canada and Mexico, was managed by Annie Bywater, probably the most important woman in Utah manufacturing. Trained in the industrial center of Manchester, England, she was associated with ZCMI for many years and was described as 'a remarkably shrewd woman, with exceptional executive ability. " She supexvised a production line of 100 powerdriven sewing machines, bought all the m a t e a , and personally directed the filling of wholesale orders. Whether Bywater reoeivsd pay comparable to male manufacturing executives is not known, but most female factory workers did not. The UMA reported in 1915 that Utah's 13 knitting factories employed nearly 300 workers-mostly women who earned an average of $9 for a six-day week while men earned an average of $17 a week.

By 1920 the variety of products women were making in Utah factories includcd chemicals, soap, cigars, crackers and other baked goods, and candy. Women also continued to be an

important factor in the printing and publishing business in Utah where one in every seven workers was a woman in 1920. Women began working as typesetters as earl:. as the 1880s when the Salt Lake Herald hired Sadie Asper. Asper and a Mrs. Sylvester Sewed w n g with men as officers in the Salt Lake Typographical Union. Many women found employment in wmmunications, retail stores, offices, and hotels in fast-growing cities aqd towns throughout the state. From the beginning women had predominated as telephone operators but few advanced beyond the lowest supervisory positions. Women also staffed retail stores all over the state and owned and managed many of them. They dominated the teaching and health care professions as well. Low salaries and the failwe of school boards to provide equal pay for female and male teachers, as required by state law, led many women to leave classrooms for the greater financial rewards of office employment.

O&ce workers were usually young, single white women who liked their jobs besiuse they were 'cleaner and less strenuous than factory work, and socially much more acceptable."

Many women fought for better working conditions. In April 1911 some 2,000 people paraded in Salt Lake in support of the laundry workers' drive to unionize. Many women laundry workers went out on strike. The Crystal Laundry finally signed a closed-shop agreement with the union. Other women had a more difficult time unionizing. When female w o r h s at the McDonald Candy Company petitioned for higher wages, the company denied their request. The women walked off the job and organized the Chocolate Dippers Union of Utah with Sarah Rindfleish as president and asked for a flat $10 a week for eight-hour work days. While they were organizing, however, girls ages 12 to 15 who were helpers at the factory replaced the striking women.

As the new state developed and grew, working women filled important roles in many businesses, industries, and professions, but society would continue to underestimate and undervalue their contributions for many decades to come.

See Miriam B. Murphy, "Women in the Utah Work Force fbm Statehood to World War 11," Utah Historicual Qmerly 50 (1982).

Tme HEIURYB I A is~ produced ~ by the Utab State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant horn the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more informstion about the Historical Society tekphone 533-3500.

NOTE The Utah State Historical Society originally published "Games of the Coal Camp Children," written by Marianne Fraser, in Beehive History 7 (1981): 8–12. The following History Blazer article paraphrases and quotes from Ms. Fraser's 1981 piece. When the History Blazer article was first published online at history.utah.gov, the Society incorrectly attributed Miriam B. Murphy as its author. We regret this error and apologize to Ms. Fraser for it.

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Games of the Coal Camp Children

GAMES PLAYED AN I M p o R T m PART IN COAL CAMP LW in the 1920s and 1930s. Most of the families of Utah coal miners were poor. Their children had few "store-bought" games or toys.

But the rugged mountains surrounding the coal camps of Carbon County offered ideal hiding places for run-sheeprun and an excellent setting for topsecret adventures. For some, movies and radios were rare. And television, well, that was an invention of the future. This lack may sound temble to today's children, but those who grew up in the camps remember many adventures and humorous situations that rival today's factory-made games or computer activities.

Through imagination, the children made the best of what they had. Evelyn Jones Patterick remembered playing house, a favorite pastime of girls: 'My first doll was a beer bottle.. . My mother said that was my doll so I wrapped it up. It worked just fine." When they played house on a smaller scale, furniture was needed: 'We made [doll house] furniture out of clay in Hiawatha. We'd make little couches and chairs and set 'em out [in the sun] and let 'em dry.. .,"said Fern Jones Boyack. Boys also built their own private world: 'Everybody built a shack," Edwin E. Hardee noted. 'Two or three boys would.. .find material and tin and build a shack.. ..rigged up real nice.. .with a bed and a stove.. .. They'd spend a lot of time in there playin' cards, drinkin' coffee and maybe wokin' some eggs."

Playing house was fun and helped to prepare children for adult roles. Games let them practice possible careers. A common job for some women during the 1920s was telephone operator.

Practicing for that occupation was great fun. Fern Boyack explained: "We'd take a piece of cardboard...and poke holes all along [in columns and rows] with a nail.... We'd put telephone numbers over these holes and then we'd take two or three nails and those were our plugs...and then we put strings on the nails and then we'd plug those in and [say] 'Number please.' ...We had fruit jar rings tied together for the operator's headdress. " Besides talking to make-believe callers, the girls practiced skills of a higher sort. She said: '...We played Sunday School all the time and I always had to be the organist. ... So I'd sit at the sewing machine and it had the treadle at the bottom, well that was my pump for the organ and I'd just play away and we'd sing songs.. .."

Most activities, like playing Sunday School, followed the better deeds of the adult world.

Unfortunately, some children also imitated the hate displayed by a few adults. During the 1920s the ' violence, hate, and racism of the Ku Klux Klan appeared in Carbon County. Some children in Castle Gate were quick to follow this model, according to Edwin Hardee: 'The kids used to organize in gangs.. .. They had [coal]] strike trouble and there was some problems with the Ku Klux Klan.. ..burning a cross on the hill.. .and it started the kids to playin' games like that.. . Some (more)

.

.

...

of the meaner kids organized...'The Gunny Sack Gang.' They put gunny sacks over their heads with eye holes cut in.. .lib the KKK and they'd catch kids and h a m s 'em. They were quite mean."

Fortunately, most children did not become involved in that kind of activity. But they did get into mischief! Adults recalled many pranks. One often-told story occurred in Castle Gate and involved a mischievous boy and a bakery truck, Hardee :elated: "We use to swim by the old highway, there's a little hill there. And this baker, Ed kcheda, he'd come along with all the fresh bakery [items].. .. [A boy] ran up behind [the tcuck], and opened the two back doors and swiped a tray of donuts and then ran.. Course the truck kept goin' up the hill with the doors open.. ..Well a tray of bread would slide out, a tray of rolls. He lost most of his load Richeda] caught him but not 'till after he'd passed the donuts to all of us. " The children played jacks. This popular game had a hazard not too common today-slivers.

Since jacks were played on thk wooden porches, splinters posed a problem. Jump-the-rope and hopscotch could be really dangerous. Both games were played on the dirt streets. The children had to move quickly when cars drove by. The hopscotch grid had to be continually redrawn since the traffic and dust kept erasing it. The children also enjoyed roller skating.

One taboo for girls was skiing. It was not considered ladylike. That did not stop the advmf~resomeyoung girls, according to Saline Hardee Fraser: 'We watched the boys skiing or making skis out of barrel [staves] and so we decided to try it.. .. We went up on the mountainside [in Castle Gate] and there was an awful lot of snow so we figured it covered everything and we didn't have to watch out for the trees. We tied the barrel [staves] to our feet with rags and started down the hill. We darned near killed ourselves.... I got the darnedest spanking...not because we could've gotten hurt but 'cuz little girls weren't suppose to do things like that."

One vigorous activity that was all right for girls was swimming. Although the boys and girls swam together, bikinis were definitely not in style: 'We didn't have swimmin' suits then. We wore overalls, striped overalls, and our pockets would get full of water, Fern Boyack said.

TafQ pulls were a favorite at evening parties, Evelyn Patterick remembered: 'You'd make the taffy and then.. .pull it.. .till it got really nice.. .. You buttered your hands, stretched the taffy out, made a rope, and cut it in little pieces. Everyone with their dirty hands." Remembering that the children seldom washed hands prompted Saline Fraser to muse: 'Maybe that wasn't chocolate taffy after all.. .." Ice cream was also a favorite food. There were no ice cream stores, but the mountain location of the coal camps proved ideal for ice cream production: 'We made ice cream out of snow, canned milk and vanilla or lemon extract. ..,* Fern Boyack said.

In many ways the world of the coal camp children moved more slowly than life today. The challenges were different, but the games served many of the same purposes as those played today.

Knowing that one's parents and grandparents experienced the rivalry, anger, and mischief of childhood sometimes makes growing up a little easier. After all, they survived! Not only did they survive, they cherished the memory of childhood: 'Some people think, 'What poor little kids.' But it was a fun time, " Boyack said. The games the children played reflected the creativity, joy, sadness, and adventure that were part of growing up in the Carbon County coal camps.

..

.... w.

See Marianne Fmm, "Games of the Coal Camp Children," Beehiw History 7 (198 1).

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Mail Call in Rural Utah

Tm ~

generated a social occasion that was tinged with both excitement and anxiety. Historian Andrew Karl Larson captured this experience in his recollections of the early mail senrice in his hometown of Washington in Utah's Dixie.

The post office was located in the postmaster's house in a room that had an outside door and window. The atfivdl of the mail and its distribution was an event of considerable social as well as practical importance. There would usually be a good-sized crowd assembled outside the window with its sliding panel. After the postmaster had finished sorting, he opened the window and began calling out the names of those who had mail. When one heard his name d e d , he answered "Here! " in a loud voice, and the postmaster then passed the letter out to the crowd where it went from hand to hand until it reached its addressee. Often one took his neighbor's mail when no member of the family was there to receive it. Newspapers were distributed in the same manner-there were no d e n , and a M y paper was unknown.

Inevitably, someone complained if an expected letter did not arrive, and the harassed postmasters, who somehow was held to blame by those who received no mail, would petulantly retort that he was being held responsible for letters that never had been written! If it seemed a bit long before the postmaster got the mail sorted, some wag was always ready with the crack that 'they're taking a lot of time to read the post cards today!"

During this waiting time the farmers talked about their crops, housewives chatted about the kids' illnesses and the proper remedies for them, and the little children chased each other in and out among the crowd in an improvised game of hide-and-seek. Choice bits of gossip were exchanged. Men who engaged in occasional freighting of wool at sheepshearing time or bringing in stock for the local store sat around regaling each other with impossible tales of the loads their teams were able to pull up steep hills without doubling.

The post office was moved to the co-op store in Washington in 1913. Its location on Highway 91 made it more central, and the crowds grew at mail time--especially with the passing of the parcel post law. When the mail arrived from the north late in the afternoon or early in the evening the whole town literally presented itself at its distribution. Carried in a light buggy or 'buckboard" and drawn by a nervous team of small 'buggy horses," the mail came dashing up at a rapid pace and came to a stop with a grand flourish. Mail sacks were quickly exchanged, and with a crack of his whip the driver was once again on his way, his horses rearing and plunging A OF THE L MAIL IN A SMALLUTAHCO-

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until he gave them the reins as off they went in a cloud of dust. The crowd loved this bit of "grandstanding."

Source: Andrew Karl Larson, 'Reminiscmces of a Mormon Village in Transition," in a s o m E. Cheneiy, ed., Lore of Frrith Md FoUy (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1971).

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The Shooting of Arthur Brown, Ex-Senator from Utah

OND W ~ 13,R 1906, ARTHURBROWN,one of the first two U.S. senators elected after Utah gained statehood, died in the Emergency Hospital in Washington, D.C.,from complications following a gunshot wound. He had been shot on December 8 by Anne Maddison Bradley, his mistress of several years, after a turbulent and well-publicized love affair. Residents of Salt Laire City were 'shocked but not surprised by the news? His death concluded a sordid episode in Utah's history much written about at the time.

Arthur Brown was born March 8, 1843, on a farm near Schoolcraft, Michigan. When he was 13 the family moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he attended Antioch College, graduating in 1862. Two years later he obtained a law degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He practiced law in K a h m m ~ building , a large and lucrative practice, and married a woman later known only as Mrs. L. C. Brown, and they had one child, Alice. He became enamored with Isabel Cameron, the daughter of a Michigan state senator. The afTair became public knowledge, and Brown and his first wife separated. He moved to Salt Lake City in 1879 in the hope of being appointed U.S. district attorney for Utah. Failing to do so, he set up a private law practice. Isabel Cameron followed him to Utah, and they were b e d after his divorce and had one son, Max. As a successful attorney, close to forty, Brown had apparently settled down to respectable family life. He rose in the Republican party ranks, and in 1896 the predominantly Republican Legislature elected him and Frank J. Cannon as Utah's first U.S. senators-the great political prize of statehood and an office sought by several prominent men. Brown drew the short term, sewing in the Senate, until March 4, 1897. Through his work in the Republican party Brown had become acquainted with Anne Bradley in 1892. By the time of his election in 1896 the 53-year-old-senator and the 23-yearsld Bradley were close friends.

Anne Bradley was born January 7, 1873, in Kansas City, Missouri. She moved with her family to Utah in 1890 and worked as a clerk in the Salt Lake Water Works Department, quitting a week before her marriage on September 20, 1893, to Clarence A. Bradley who worked for the Rio Grande Western Railroad. They had two children, Matthew and Martha Clare. Anne appears to have been a young woman with a wide range of interests. She belonged to the Salt Lake City Woman's Club, the Utah Woman's Press Club, and the Poets' Roundtable. She was also, for a time, editor of the Utah State Federation of Women's Clubs' publication. In 1900 she served as secretary of the fifth ward Republican Committee and as secretary of the State Republican Cornmi= in 1902. Local records reveal that she was a charter member of the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City.

According to her testimony at her trial, she stopped living with her husband in 1898 and (more)

after first spurning Brown's advances discovered that she loved him: '...Finally, he began coming to my house at very unseemly hours, and I told him it must stop, but he answered. 'Darling, we will go through life together. I want you to have a son' and after several months we did." Brown assured her that he was-talring the necessary steps to get a divorce and that the only problem was the property settlement. She said that he gave her an engagement ring. They took a trip to Washingtan, D.C., accompanied by his daughter Alice. On this trip, Bradley said, she traveled as Brown's wife.

Brown had separated from his second wife and was living in the Independence Block in 1902. Isabel Brown and District Attorney Dennis C. Eichnor hired private detective Samuel Dowse to follow Brown and Bradley, and on September 28, 1902, both were arrested on c h q e s of adultery. Mrs. Brown allegedly lodged the adultery complaint because Arthur had begun divorce proceedings against her. She was against the divorce as '...she intended to be presented at court in England next year and, as divorced women are restricted fiom that court, she.. .[objected] Jeriously to being divorced at all." She offered to withdraw the charges against Brown and Bradley if he would dkp the divorce. In January 1903 Brown and Bradley were once more arrested on adultery charges. According to Soren X. Christensen, a lawyer, Arthur and Isabel Brown had attempted to make a financial settlement with Anne Bradley that included a home and $100 a month for her and h a children, but she rejected the offer, saying that 'she wanted nothing but the Senator." The illicit affair continued with all parties involved in a dramatic confrontation in a Pocatello, Idaho, hotel where Isabel Brown, according to Christensen, threatened to kill Bradley and intimidated Arthur by ordering him to open the door to his hotel room or she would "mash it in." The former senator did.

The combatants spent the night accusing each other of all sorts of indiscretions, and Brown, according to Christensen, gave Bradley a revolver as protection against his wife.

Bradley apparently believed matters had been settled. Brown would make a financial settlement with his wife, secure a divorce, and marry her. When Bradley returned to Salt Lake, however, she found the wuple had reconciled. She was three months pregnant with a second child she claimed Brown had fathered. Brown promised to arrange matters to give Bradley and her children 'the protection necessary." When Isabel Brown died of cancer on August 22, 1905, a solution seemed at hand. Bradley obtained her divorce and expected a quick marriage to Arthur, but he was in no hurry to gain legal access to what he had enjoyed illicitly, postponing wedding dates and evading all attempts to pin him down about marriage or his promise to set her up in business.

In December 1906 she followed Brown to Washington, DOC.,where she found letters to him fiom Annie Adams Kiskadden, mother of the famous actress Maude Adams and an actress in her own right. Enraged by the letters and believing Brown and Kiskadden planned to marry soon, Anne Bradley confronted Brown in his hotel room and shot him.

At her trial Bradley claimed temporary insanity. Orlando W. Powers, a prominent Utah attorney and former judge in Ogden, and a young Washington lawym defended her. Brown's will renouncing Bradley and the two sons she claimed he had fathered swayed public opinion against him. The jury acquitted Bradley. She returned to Utah, working at various jobs before opening an antique store in Salt Lake City that she operated until her death at age 77 on November 11, 1950.

...

See Linda Thatcher, "The 'Gentile Polygamist': Arthur Brown, Ex-Senator fmm Utah,"

Utoh Historical Qwnerly 52

(1984).

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Old La Sal Was Once a Thriving Cow Town

GHOST TOWNS, c o m m ~

E

R OF STHE OW

WEST, are generally relics of the

mining industry. Utah, however, has several ghost towns of other origin. This is the story of old La Sal, the ghost site of a once vigorous ww town,now stripped of its houses, stores, barns, corrals-and even its name.

According to the hles of the Utah Writers' Project, old La Sal lay in the northeast comer of San Juan County, a few miles from the Colorado line. It was first settled in 1877 when Tom Ray, seeking greener pastures, found a valley he liked, turned his herd of shorthorns loose to graze, and built a cabin to house his family.

A few months later the Maxwells and the McCartys moved in with 2,000 head of cattle, selecting a site on Coyote Creek a few miles west of the Rays. The La Sal Mountains offered excellent grazing, and by 1878 more than twenty new f d e s had arrived. For protection against Indian attacks, cabins were built along Coyote Creek, and the town of La Sal came into existence.

During the next few years the valleys of the region filled with settlers. Steers sold for $10 a head in Utah settlements, but in Colorado they brought $35. Profits began to pour into the pockets of the La Sal ranchers.

Having nothing better to spend their money on, they evolved horse racing pools that might have matched the daily 'take" at one of our modem tracks. Thoroughbreds were unknown, but plenty of ww-ponies had amazing speed for short distances, and 'Tobe," 'Sagebrush Jack," and 'Swayback Johnny," to mention a few of the more famous entries, provided thrills to suit the blood of the settlers. It has been estimated that more than $75,000 changed hands at a single race in this era.

During the eighties and nineties, however, Indians moved onto the lands, provoking the settlers to arms and causing them economic losses in cattle and range overcrowding.

No sooner had the Indian threat been averted than the Robbers Roost gang moved in to prey upon the district. This gang, run out of Brown's Hole, transferred operations to the lower Green River region. Although this new base of operations lent itself beautifully to bank and train robbery, the outlaws were not above rustling a whole herd if food or spending money got low.

By this time the settlers had been stripped of most of their wealth, and to make matters worse they were now beset by drought years and falling cattle markets. This change of events brought in an era of sheep raising and relegated the cattle industry to a secondary position. On the brighter side, rustling became an unprofitable business and the Robbers Roosters departed.

Added to economic troubles, the site of La Sal had been unwisely chosen, as the rushing of (more)

cloudburst waters down the main street periodically evidenced. This yearly threat of extinction by floods at length bemme tiresome, and in the late twenties La Sal residents looked for a new site closer to the highway and less isolated. Finally tley packed up bag and baggage and moved to Coyote, some miles west along Coyote Creek. But they took the old name with them; Coyote became La Sal.

Today,old La Sal is forgotten by all but old-timers. It is a ghost site lacking even ghosts.

Alone and forsaken, the old site is marked only by gaping cellars to show that men had been there.

Its weed-strewn, sage-grown streets are traveled only by prairie dogs, crawling ants, and the hot sunshine. The thousands of cattle that once passed hence to Colorado markets are seen no more, and only an occasional band of sheep visits the deserted site.

Swrce: "Tales of Utah, 1941-1942,n Utah Writer's Project, W o k Projects Administration, copy in Utah State Historid Society collecticms.

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The Beginnings of Commercial Aviation

AIRMAIL SERVICE IN THE UNITEDSTATES began on May 15, 1918, over a single route between Washington, D.C., and New York City with a refueling stop in Philadelphia.

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

The last leg of what was developing into a transcontinental route linked Omaha with San Francisco via North Platte, Cheyenne, Rawhs, Rock Springs, Salt Lake City, and Reno. This route was opened on September 8, 1920.

Salt Lake City offered little more than a safety landing strip and a refueling stop in the first months of the airmail run. In fact, one pilot flying in fnnn Reno on September 10, 1920, had difficulty finding the temporary landing strip at Buena Vista Field near 8th South and 14th West. While he circled the valley, officials lighted a smudge pot as a signal. The flyer saw the smoke and finally made a safe landing at 4:15 p.m. He had left Reno at 9:25 that morning on an all-day flight that now tales an hour or less.

Just before Christmas, on December 21, 1920, Woodward Field was dedicated at 22nd West and North Temple. At the suggestion of Salt Lake City Mayor Clarence Neslen, the new facility was named after John P. Woodward, an airmail pilot who was killed November 6, 1920, when his plane crashed in a snowstorm in Wyoming.

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

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

With the passage of the Air Mail Act of 1925, individuals began to compete for airmail contracts. Walter T. Varney was awarded the contract from Pasco, Washington, to Elko, Nevada. This route was described by one Post Office official as 'starting nowhere and ending nowhere, and over impossible country getting there. " Salt Lake City was quickly pinpointed by Vamey Speed Lines and Western Air Express as a connection for points east. So, on October 1, 1926, seven months after Vamey began the Pascu-EIko route, Salt Lake City replaced Elk0 as the southern terminus.

Meanwhile, Western Air Express delivered the first ainnail from Los Angeles to Salt (more)

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Trout Fishing on the Utah Frontier

L m ON THB WESTERN FRONTIER WAS o m A STRUGGLE for survival, but recreation was important in frontier life as well. So it was that many Utah pioneers turned to trout fishing: it was fun, and it put food on the table. Trout to Utah pioneers meant the cutthroat trout, the native trout of the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin, which they called 'speck1ed"or 'spotted" trout. All of those names describe this beautiful fish well. The spots noted by the pioneers cover the olive-green back and become more concentrated toward the tail, while the 'cut throat" refers to two scarlet stripes under the gills. Colors along the sides vary according to the many subspecies: the gill plates are hues of pink, orange, or lavender, and the sides silver to golden brown. Utah even had its own subspecies not found anywha else. It lived in great numbers in Utah Lake and its feeder streams but is probably extinct today.

Trout fishing in Utah preceded white settlement by a thousand years or more, for archaeologists have found evidence of fish use by the Sevier-Fremont Culture (A.D.800-1300). All of the Indians encountered by the early white explorers and settlers depended heavily upon trout for food whenever they were in the vicinity of trout-bearing streams or lakes. Trout fishing by the Indians was not, by the white man's standards, a sporting proposition. The fish were plentifhl enough that they could be speared or netted from boats along lake shores or trapped in willow baskets called weirs, which were placed across streams.

A more sporting approach to trout fishing came to Utah with the very first party of Mormon settlers. Wilford Woodruff was a Connecticut Yankee who joined the Mormon church and was sent on a mission to England. During leisure hours he found himself being converted-to the English technique of fishing with artificial flies. When he returned, he brought with him an English-style cane rod and an assortment of trout flies. Before reaching Utah, the Mormon advance party under Brigham Young, of which Woodruff was a part, stopped over for a rest at Fort Bridger, Wyoming. After some of the men had attempted unsuccessfully to catch trout, Woodruff got out his fly rod and proceeded to catch all the trout he wuld carry. That evening he triumphantly recorded in his diary that he had clearly demonstrated the superiority of the artificial fly.

Most of the other pioneers, though, were more concerned with putting food on the table than with the ethics of their fishing techniques. In other words, they caught their fish any way they could. Parley P. Pratt, who explored much of central and southern Utah in 1849, reported catching trout in their shallow spawning beds by simply flipping them out on the ground. Others borrowed their fishing techniques from the Indians. In 1854 George A. Smith wrote of a trip where three of his fiends 'amused themselves by fishing in the Provo, and caught some splendid trout, Brother (more)

Porter kindly furnishing the net."

Trout were plentiful enough in Utah, even late in the nineteenth century, that almost anyone owld catch them. Some, like George A. Bird, who wrote the following humorous account, felt uneasy about the lack of sportsmanship. After a trip to Fish Lake in 1888, Bid wrote that he 'visited the lake early in the spring to capture some of the celebrated trout, I was in company with a friend, and landed between fifty and sixty pounds. The mode of capture is to get quietly below the fish, at about daylight in the morning, as they wriggle up the steep shallow creek to spawn, and armed with a club, strike them just behind the ears, and the fish is yours." One has to have sharp eyes to spot a trout's ears! Bird continued in a less humorous vein: 'I must acknowledge that I felt some compunctions at this mode of slaughter, for no true disciple of 'Isaac Walton' would stoop to such unskilled barbarity. But my friend had been there before, and told me to wade in, which I did. But even now, as my mind reflects upon the slaughter of those 'speckled beauties,' conscience convicts me, as a piscatorial assassin. But then, I never wuld 'catch them on the fly.'"

Reports of trout catches numbering in the hundreds are common in historical reoords f h m mid-19th-century Utah, and it is obvious that no stream or lake could long withstand fishing pressure of that kind. But fishermen were not the only enemies of the speckled trout. The cutthroat requires purer, wlder water than most other fish, including other species of trout. The pollution of streams by agriculture and livestock, along with the general warming of the water caused by timber removal, made it impossib1e for cutthroats to survive in most streams near civilization.

Consequently, within the brief period of 30 years after the amval of the fist settlers, one finds complaints of trout depletion.

Well before the end of the 19th century, local laws established fishing seasons and bag limits, and restocking programs had been started. Both failed to prevent the virtual disappearance of the cutthroat trout from settled areas. In 1891 Garfield County prohibited fishing in Panguitch Lab from Febrwry 15 to June 15 in an attempt to protect the trout during their spawning season, but members of the Bear Lake Stake of the Momon church had already found that such laws were difficult to enforce. Their president had announced in 1886 that 'it is altogether wrong for people to fish contrary to law, " indicating that the game laws were poorly obeyed.

Restocking programs were equally ineffwtive. The cutthroat is relatively difficult to aise in captivity, so most restocking was done with rainbow or brown trout, or with other types of fish.

And the cutthroat breeds readily with the rainbow, so most of those not driven out of settled areas were hybridized out of existence.

Cutthroats are still available in Utah, even though they are embattled by civilization. They live for the most part in high mountain lakes and streams where Wilford Woodruffs technique is often the best way to catch them. Those who pursue them are led by a promise of something uniquely wild and beautiful-and a piece of living Utah history.

See Gury Topping, "Trout Fishing on the Utab Frontier," Beehiw History 9 (1983).

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Sophie Reed Taught Ogden to Dance SOPHIEWETHERELL REED WAS

and occasionally intimidating, figure to a generation or two of Ogdenites. She taught self-discipline, both physical and intellectid, instructed children about how one behaves, quoted from great authors, recited poetry while washing dishes, and, most important, taught dancing. Born September 22, 1889, to Sarah Jane and Richard Wetherell in the Cumberland district of England, she received a scholarship to attend Carlisle High School for girls. Upon graduation she was awarded an Oxford Certificate, which made her eligible to attend that university, but lacking funds she apprenticed as a teacher of English. In 1912 she traveled to America to see family members who had emigrated earlier. During her visit in Ogden she was persuaded to stay. Finding that her English credentials would be honored, she acquired a teaching position first at Pingree Elementary School, later at Lewis Junior High. During her tenure on June 14, 1919, in Ogden. at Lewis she met Harry S. Reed, also a teacher, whom she &ed Her career took a new turn in 1917 when the school superintendent asked her to become certified to teach physical education. She attended the Chautauqua School of Physical Education in New York and was president of her graduating class. In September 1918 she was promoted to s u p e ~ s o of r physical education for the Ogden City Schools, a position she held until 1922. She annually staged, in cooperation with the music supervisor, dance festivals or operettas.

The Ogden Standard-Emminer of May 16, 1920, reviewed one such performance: 'Leading among the entertaining and enjoyable events of the week was the.. .presentation of the operetta 'The Pixies' by five hundred children from the Ogden public schools.. .at the Orpheum Theatre. Under the supervision of Miss Valentine Preston and Mrs. Sophie W. Reed...[tlhere was not one pause or hitch in the whole performance.... Small folks and older folks were well pleased and delighted....

At each of the presentations, the theatre was crowded to the fullest extent."

Following the 1920 festival two Ogden mothers whose children had participated in it suggested that Sophie Reed open a dancing school. To refine her skills she traveled to New York, a journey she would make for many summers. She opened the Reed School of Dance in 1920 with eight young ballet students and a piano accompanist at the Maids and Matrons' Hall. Subsequent locations were the Knights of Pythias Hall and the Weber College Ballroom. In 1934 Reed School's permanent studio at 2360 Adarns Avenue was completed. Reed journeyed to New York in 1921 to become a student of Louis Chalif (1876-1948) at the Chalif Russian Normal School of Dancing-a school for teachers of ballet. In addition to this ballet technique, Reed students were taught acrobatics, national dances, and "natural dancem-new to the ballet world in the 1920s-that used natural body movements and was performed in short silk tunics and bare feet. The natural (more) AF A-,

dances were choreographed rather than improvised and p q s were often used. In one dance a large gold-painted ball was tossed from dancer to dancer on the old Salt L a k Theatre's stage. It bounced out of reach of the girls, and the novice performers abandoned the choreography to chase the ball.

When tap dancing became the rage in the -1920sthrough the influence of the movies, mothers wanted their little girls tb learn to tap. So, in 1925, after a period of study in New York, Reed added tap dancing to her school's cumculum, although she did not like it much. Still, 'she was very precise; her tap training was first-rate," r d e d Colleen Price Moore.Intermittently during the 1930s and '40s she taught ballroom dancing. Students were sent by their mothers to learn the waltz, foxtrot, two-step, larnbeth walk, and lindy hop, whatever was the current rage. The boys would learn to ask a girl politely for a dance, and the girls would learn to accept graciously.

The word precision enters every reminiscence of Reed's dancing students. 'Those who didn't try their very hardest didn't last too long. " One remembered, ' She would point her finger at you and say, 'Do it!' and you just did it." Marian Ure Pugmire said, 'She had a way of getting people to work and liking it. I was always scared stiff of her; we all held her so much in awe, you know.

She inspired us, made us feel that we could really do something."

Each May the Reed School of Dance presented a review, often performed at the Orpheum Theatre during the 1920s and '30s and in the 1940s and '50s at the Ogden High School auditorium.

The Orpheum, formerly a vaudeville theater, had real dressing rooms, complete with lighted minors, lending a big-time atmosphere to the performance. To add to the excitement, photographs of the students were mounted outside to advertise the review. Costume design, with national and period authenticity, and prop details were well researched by Reed and Edris Jesperson Utterback, her student and assistant. Mothers sewed tutus, sailor suits, military uniforms, and floating gowns.

With so many children, costumes, props, and behind-the-scenes details, daughter Sophie Reed Richards said, 'Mother could never have done it all without Dad." Harry Reed would 'make the props, dye shoes, see that the theater was set up or the studio was clean-whatever had to be done."

By the 1950s Reed had become a familiar figure in American dance. Her students who continued their study in New York found themselves as well trained as any and ready for competition. Recognized by her professional colleagues, she sewed as president of the American Society of Teachers of Dance from 1948 to 1950. In 1956 her school enrolled 400 students, and Reed ended her career of 36 years as a teacher of dance. She died in 1986.

'What Mrs. Reed had was more than just a dancing school," Marian Pugmire stated. 'She taught children how to work hard, how to work together." Another student, Colleen Price Moore, said, "She inspired us. She challenged us to study the background of the dances we were learning.. " 'She was a great teacher of teachers," recalled Jackie Hearn Crawshaw. 'She taught each of us to be a better person. She'd post quotations from great writers on the bulletin board and expect us to read them." Inspiration, hard work, challenges, preparation, and discipline-these were probably Sophie Wetherell Reed's greatest contributions to dance and to the hundreds of young people who learned to dance at her studio in Ogden.

..

See Susan White Dow, 'Teaching O g h to Dance-Sophie Wetherell Reed, " Beehive History 13 (1987).

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President Kennedy Received a Warm Welcome in Utah

LESSTHAN TWO MONTHS BEFORE HIS NOVEMBER 22, 1963, ASSASS~ATION, President John F. Kennedy conducted an eleven-state, five-day tour that included an eventful stop in Utah. Upon his arrival at the Salt Lake m r t the Tooele High School band came alive with 'The J.F.K. March," and a surging crowd of more than 1,000 cheered the popular president. After meethg Utah Governor George D. Clyde and other top political officials, Kennedy warmly approached the crowd and extended his hand to many eager Utahns. He then boarded the presidential limousine and headed toward downtown Salt Lake City. All along the route Kennedy's motorcade passed thousands of onlookas who had wme to welcome the president to Utah and catch a glimpse of the nation's leader.

Salt Lake police estimated the crowds to be from 100,000to 125,000 strong. Children perched on top of cars and on dads' shoulders to get a better view, and many spectators sat on the concrete wall around the LDS Temple. The president shortly arrived at the Hotel Utah where he would spend the night. Before retiring, however, Kennedy met with Mormon church president David 0. McKay and was escorted to the Tabernacle on Temple SqUare where he delivered what was touted as a major foreign policy speech.

Over 8,000 persons jammed under the curved dome of the Tabernacle while another 2,500 crammed into the adjacent Assembly Hall to hear and watch the president. An additional 4,000 to 5,000 packed the grounds on Temple Square peeking into the Tabernacle doors during the president's speech. The enthusiastic Utahns applauded Kennedy for two and a half minutes before he quieted them and began his address. In his remarh he vigorously denounced proponents of American isolationism and declared that 9 n world affairs, as in all other aspects of life, the days of the quiet past are gone forever." His speech was well received by the Utah crowd. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir ended the evening with a stirring rendition of the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic. ' The next morning Kennedy shared breakfast with President and Mrs. McKay and other Utah dignitaries. The menu included fresh Utah mountain trout, scrambled eggs, lamb chops, link sausage, ham, crenshaw melon, orange juice, and milk. Following this feast Kennedy journeyed to the airport where, in another ceremony, he pressed a red button starting the first generator at the newly completed Flaming Gorge Dam. Prior to pushing the button Kennedy joked, 'You never know about these buttons.. .I might blow up Massachusetts." Nevertheless, thvty seconds after activating the device the voice of Jean Walton, the project engineer 150 miles away at Flaming Gorge, boomed over the loudspeaker: 'Mr. President, the generator is running." The crowd (more)

cheered and soon Kennedy boarded Air Force One and was gone. Before leaving, however, he made a pledge to one Utah woman who held a sign that read 'Come Back." The president happily promised the sign carrier, 'Don't worry, I will! " Unfortunately, he never had the chance.

-

SOWWE Sak Lake mbune, September 27-28, 1963; D e s m Nnus, September 27, 1963.

'I'm H I ~ O R BLAZER Y is produced by the Utah State Historical Society and fundsd in part by a grant from the Uteh Statehood Centemid Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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Folk Cures for the Common Cold -

THROUGHOUT MUCH OF UTAH'SHISTORY, its citizens have not had access to supermarket pharmacies or bottled and packaged cold medicine. Instead they had to rely on an assortment of folk cures for the common cold-some that had been handed down for generations and others that were based on plants and treatments developed after the settlement of Utah. Folklorists have collected a rich treasure of stories and methods to prevent and cure colds. Not everyone subscribed to all or even any of these proposed cures, but cold sufferers of an earlier day were just as anxious to avoid or cure a cold as we are today, and many of our ancestors might have tried one or more of the following techniques.

Colds might be prevented by catching a falling autumn leaf or wearing such things as a necklace of amber beads, a black silk cord, an old string, a silk-stitched chain, a dirty sock, or a piece or bag of garlic, onion, or asafetida around the neck. Eating onions was held to prevent colds, and placing a piece of onion under the pillow at night might help ward off a cold. Dousing one's head with water after a haircut could keep away a cold. Another preventive measure touted by some was putting your feet in salt water every day.

To cure a cold-if one fded to prevent it-there were plenty of possibilities. You might plant a rusty nail six feet from the east side of your house and in two or three days your cold would go away. If you tied a lock of your hair to a stick, it would cure a cold. Onions were considered a cure for a cold if you crushed them with your bare feet, wore them around your neck, inhaled their odor, or placed a section of one on each window of the house. Besides onions, potatoes were also held to have curative power. A piece of potato might be cut and placed under one's bed with the cut side up for the purpose of drying up a cold.

A sock hung around the neck would help cure a cold-though some argued that it had to be a dnty sock while others would use only a clean one. Often the sock was used with ointments placed on the neck and chest. These ointments might be goose grease, hot skunk oil, goat tallow, plain grease, or onions soaked in kerosene. An ice pack on the head or a hot brick placed on the neck would help cure a cold's symptoms. Plasters applied to the chest were far more varied than the f d a r mustard plaster. They might be made of a slice of pork fat under a flannel cloth, a strip of salt pork bawn with drops of turpentine, onions, carrots, and even chicken droppings.

All kinds of teas and other conwctions were considered helpful in bringing about a quick recovery. Hot ginger tea, horehound tea, a tea made of sage and catnip, and Brigham tea were used. Other possibilities included vinegar and honey; lemon juice and honey; a syrup made of vinegar, butter, and molasses; a drink made of three parts mustard and two parts cornstarch; (more)

tabasco sauce; and two or thrre-dropsof kerosene in a teaspoonful of sugar. But by far the most popular drink for colds in the homes of all but the most devout Utah Mormons was, according to folklorist Wayland Hand, whiskey-taken straight, often hot, with rock candy or aspirin.

Wayland D.Hand, 'The C o n Cold in Utah Folk Medicine," in Thomas E. Cheney, ed., Lore of Faith and Folly (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1971).

T ~ HJSTORY E

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Traveling Alone to Utah Was an Adventure for Teenager Fritz Zaugg S

O

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G

in 1884. He walhd home from school through his Swiss village as he always did. At home his parents were waiting for him. That was unusual. Then the story came tumbling out as Fritz listened, dazzled by the picture that opened before his eyes. Mormon elders had been by that day and told of a farmer with the good Swiss name of Hirschi in faraway Utah. He had sent some money to the Mormon mission president in Switzerland to purchase boat and railroad tickets for a healthy boy who would come to 'Zion" and be his farmhand in Park Valley, Box Elder County, for four years. He asked for a boy willing to agree to the terms-four years of farm labor with room and board in return for the price of the fare. The missionaries had come to the Zaugg cottage with the invitation, asking if their son wanted to be that boy. It was a great opportunity. The chance to 'gather with the Saints" was their ultimate dream. The cost of the long journey was an obstacle for families like the Zauggs. Fritz could be the first arrival and help the others wme. But it was such a long distance. And in a complete wilderness! Might Fritz face unkindness or danger? Would he be able to earn enough money after his indenture period for other members of the family to come? So went the questions between father and mother before Fritz came home. The missionaries assured them that John G. Hafen, leader of the emigrating Mormons, would take special care of their son. Fritz did not weigh any of the questions that bothered his parents. He shouted a Swiss holler, whooping and yelling. So what if he had to travel alone! There would be ships and trains and eventually Indians and horses. He trusted the missionaries, even idolized them. There was no question in his mind that he was ready for a man's adventure.

He wuld hardly wait for the next day when he could tell his schoolmates that he was heading for the American West. Their staring eyes made him puff up his chest. But he was taken aback when his teachers told wild stories about the Mormons-polygamy, schemes to abuse immigrants, dry deserts, and savages. He was used to criticism of the Mormons and ignored their warnings.

After all, none of them had ever seen Utah, but the missionaries had lived there. On May 10 Fritz left Switzerland with several f d e s and returning missionaries. In Liverpool they boarded a steamship, descending deep into the hull where the steerage compartment was. That large dormitofytype room in the heart of the ship accommodated scores of Mormons in bunks and hammocks through many days of seasiclmess.

To Fritz, traveling was exciting. It all went so well that he did not even record his train trip to Utah, simply writing, 'AIl arrived happily in the dreamed-of Utah. " Then crisis struck. Their voyage had been so successful that they arrived in Ogden four days ahead of schedule. Fritz stood (more) G E-

HAPPENED TO ~ ~ - Y E A R - o DFarrz ZAUGG

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Traveling Alone to Utah Was an Adventure for Teenager Fritz Zaugg S

O

~

G

in 1884. He walhd home from school through his Swiss village as he always did. At home his parents were waiting for him. That was unusual. Then the story came tumbling out as Fritz listened, dazzled by the picture that opened before his eyes. Mormon elders had been by that day and told of a farmer with the good Swiss name of Hirschi in faraway Utah. He had sent some money to the Mormon mission president in Switzerland to purchase boat and railroad tickets for a healthy boy who would come to 'Zion" and be his farmhand in Park Valley, Box Elder County, for four years. He asked for a boy willing to agree to the terms-four years of farm labor with room and board in return for the price of the fare. The missionaries had come to the Zaugg cottage with the invitation, asking if their son wanted to be that boy. It was a great opportunity. The chance to 'gather with the Saints" was their ultimate dream. The cost of the long journey was an obstacle for families like the Zauggs. Fritz could be the first arrival and help the others wme. But it was such a long distance. And in a complete wilderness! Might Fritz face unkindness or danger? Would he be able to earn enough money after his indenture period for other members of the family to come? So went the questions between father and mother before Fritz came home. The missionaries assured them that John G. Hafen, leader of the emigrating Mormons, would take special care of their son. Fritz did not weigh any of the questions that bothered his parents. He shouted a Swiss holler, whooping and yelling. So what if he had to travel alone! There would be ships and trains and eventually Indians and horses. He trusted the missionaries, even idolized them. There was no question in his mind that he was ready for a man's adventure.

He wuld hardly wait for the next day when he could tell his schoolmates that he was heading for the American West. Their staring eyes made him puff up his chest. But he was taken aback when his teachers told wild stories about the Mormons-polygamy, schemes to abuse immigrants, dry deserts, and savages. He was used to criticism of the Mormons and ignored their warnings.

After all, none of them had ever seen Utah, but the missionaries had lived there. On May 10 Fritz left Switzerland with several f d e s and returning missionaries. In Liverpool they boarded a steamship, descending deep into the hull where the steerage compartment was. That large dormitofytype room in the heart of the ship accommodated scores of Mormons in bunks and hammocks through many days of seasiclmess.

To Fritz, traveling was exciting. It all went so well that he did not even record his train trip to Utah, simply writing, 'AIl arrived happily in the dreamed-of Utah. " Then crisis struck. Their voyage had been so successful that they arrived in Ogden four days ahead of schedule. Fritz stood (more) G E-

HAPPENED TO ~ ~ - Y E A R - o DFarrz ZAUGG

on the train platform and watched as families came to meet members of the immigrating oompeny.

But no one called his name. No one came for him. Suddenly the boy who had been so strong in his determination felt tremors of panic rise in his veins. People could not understand his Swiss dialect.

As he recalled: 'According to instructions, I waited at the depot on into the night but no one m e . . .. I remembered the conductor naming.. .(Park Valley) on the stretch before Ogdm. I decided to enter a returning train and go to that place. Soon the conductor came for my ticket-but I didn't have one, then he wanted money, which I also did not have. Then he tried to talk to me, but that didn't work either Soon we came to a town called Box Elder where 1got out, accompanied by the conductor.. ..one of the employees.. .took me to a nearby town. " The stationmaster took Fritz to a home where he thought the people might be able to understand him, but the Danish family could not comprehend Fritz's Swiss dialect of German. But they realized that the boy was alone and very scared. They invited him to stay the night with them.

After a fitful night Fritz arose with an idea. He described his predicament on a piece of paper in both German and French. He felt better and ate a healthy breakfast. Then the good Danish farmer took the note from house to house in the village until he found a young man who spoke to Fritz in French. Fritz was astounded to hear that Park Valley was a 25-hour wagon ride away. The Frenchman told Fritz that he could come and live with him until he found a way to get to Park Valley. As Fritz told the story: 'Soon thereafter, as I was working in the garden, a wagon passed in which were two men.. .. The young man was.. .in the same traveling company in which I came (from Europe). They stopped at the French family's neighbor, who also happened to be a friend of Brother Hirschi. When Brother Hirschi discovered that he had arrived four days too late at the station to meet me, he decided to drive to his friend's house to inquire after me. There he was told that I remained in Ogden. But no one knew of me in Ogden. So Brother Hirschi decided to take the other young man in my place. As they were passing I recognized the young fellow."

Quickly an exchange was made so Fritz could go with Christian Hirschi to his original destination. After two days of hot, dusty riding they approached a tiny village with scarcely a dozen cabins. Surprised, Fritz asked, 'Is this Zion?" The reply was, 'It will be when we build it into a Zion." Fritz said to himself: 'Then I first realized Zion was not yet a heaven, rather a place where the Saints gather and where they would make a Zion. But soon I liked it right well, although it was not as beautifid as my homeland" with its lush green fields watered by frequent rain. In Park Valley it hardly ever rained, but he soon learned how irrigation could water the crops.

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

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See Douglas D. Alder, "Gem-speeking Immigration to Utah, 1850-1950" (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1959.)

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

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THE HISTORY BLAZER A7EM'S OF UTAH'S PAST FRO31 THE

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Isabell Birch Bryner Saves Price City.

WHENFRONTIER CIRCUMSTANCES AND =GAL ISSUES involving property ownership bumped against each other in Price in 1892, the unexpected result was the emergence of a local heroine-Isabell Birch Bryner Permanent settlers began establishing homesteads along the Price River in eastern Utah in 1880. The future of the area was greatly changed in 1883 with the completion of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad,which followed along the Price River as the railroad wnnected Denver and Salt Lake City. The town of Price was created partly because it served as the terminus of a freight road that w ~ e c t e dthe railroad with Fort Duchesne and the Uintah Indian Reservation more than one hundred miles away.

According to local tradition, the settlers of Price had all used their rights to homestead land in the area when they realized that they should incorporate their town. Their concern was heightened when a rumor circulated that someone from the area was headed by wagon to Salt Lake City to file a homestead claim on the townsite. Residents feared they might lose their homes and businesses if the rumor proved true.

The leading residents called upon a young widow, Isabell Birch Bryner, who had not yet used her homestead right, and asked her to file on the property that was to be the townsite. She quickly agreed and, with the help of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad,a locomotive and flatcar were secured. A tent was pitched on the flatcar and Mrs. Bryner, along with her child and a female companion, set off for Salt Lake City. Because of railroad construction across the mountains, the journey took three days. Still, this proved faster than the individual traveling by wagon. Isabell arrived at the filing office a half-hour ahead of the unknown competitor and in so doing is remembered as the heroine who saved Price.

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Source: "I'he Price Mural," a two-page description and history of the mural available at the Price Municipal Building.

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