The History Blazer, August 1996

THE HISTORY BLAZER h'Et2'S OF UTAH'S PAST FROM T H E

Utah State Historical Societv 300 Rio Grande

Salt Lake City. LTT84101

(801) 533-3500 FAX (801) 533-3503

August 1996 Blazer Contents The Rise and Fall of a Turkey Empire Old Antoine Robidoux Left His Mark in Utah Public Recreation Was Booming in Provo in 1938 Emery County' s Huntington Roller Mill Salt Lake City's First Mexican Restaurant Architecture May Be Beaver's Real Treasure The Female Indian Relief Society Fire and Brimstone in the Second Ward Gathering Mushrooms in the Old Fort Life Was P r d o u s in Tum-of-the-Century Utah

Growing Crops for the Cannery Castle Valley's Version of ' k n a and Ole" Humor Brigham City Relief Society Granary A Paiute Chief Gave a Prophetic Speech SLC Officials Filled a Variety of Posts in 1875

THE HISTORY BLAZER ATEtZr;SOF UTAH'S PAST FROM THE

Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake Citv, LTT84101 (801) 533-3500 FAX (801) 533-3503 .

I

The Rise and Fall of a Turkey Empire

NAMES OF LOSINGCANDIDATES,particularly in local and state elections, are often quickly forgotten after election year hoopla subsides. One such name, William Arthur Barlocker, came within 20,000votes of winning Utah's governor's office in 1960 but was defeated by incumbent Republican George Dewey Clyde. To residents of the small southwestern Utah agricultural community of Enterprise, Bill Barlocker was important for reasons apart fiom his lost bid for the statehouse. Barlocker's turkey fm, though tragically ephemeral, proved an economic boon to residents of the region. His feed mill still towers over Enterprise as a reminder of his once thriving turkey business there.

Bill Barlocker was born July 26, 1921, and grew up on his father's Enterprise potato farm.

At age six he was hoeing potatoes for his father, but by age sixteen he knew a life of spuds was not for him. He talked to Seth M. Jones, Enterprise's local turkey grower, about going into that business. Jones commented that there was money to be made in turkeys but warned that 'they weren't a bit easy to raise."

Undaunted, Bill persuaded his father to give the birds a try. The father and son team had "bad luckn their first two years, but Bill persisted. In 1939, at age 18, he got married and shortly thereafter obtained a $900 loan from the government. With that money he purchased 600 turkeys and began raising them on a relative's Enterprise city lot. He netted $1,200 from those birds and his new business began to boom. He bought a 100-acre ranch and more birds and by 1941 was running 5,000 poults at Enterprise. He added 1,100 acres to his farm and, after being discharged from the army in 1946, began netting around $150,000 annually. He soon expanded into the feed business. With ingredients fiom as far away as South America, his feed mills began churning out enough turkey mash in an eight-hour shift to nourish 100,000 birds.

In 1959 Bill implemented $750,000 worth of expansions at his business and formed three separate cofporations. He created Barlocker Farms, which sold turkey eggs in 33 states; Bill's Best, Inc., which processed three million pounds of turkey meat annually; and Barlocker Hatchery Co., which produced 300,000 turkey poults a year. By that time he had moved his family and much of his company to St. George where he became a three-term mayor and bought controlling stock in the Bank of St. George. He did, however, maintain ties to Enterprise and in 1961 built 'Turkey Town" there. This carehlly structured farm sectioned more than 3,000 birds into smaller groups to prevent them from stampeding and smothering young poults.

It seemed that there was no end to Barlocker's upward climb. His companies employed over 100 Washington County residents and together formed one of the largest integrated turkey (more)

producing industries in the world. He twice won the National Turkey Federation's governor's challenge trophy by raising America's largest turkey-his winning bird in 1961 weighed an incredible 58.2 pounds. From his small start at Enterprise he literally rose to No. 1 in the entire world-'Nobody sold more turkeys than Bill Barlocker. " Life was not just one big Thanksgiving dinner for Barlocker, however. He went through a few difficult financial times over the years, loosing $50,000 on his farms in 1954. Still, he managed to survive while the 12 other turkey f m s that formed on the heels of his success came and went. All of that changed, however, in 1963 when someone shot John F. Kennedy. On November 23 the president was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Across the nation Americans went on a fast for their fallen leader. It was right before Thanksgiving and turkey sales plummeted.

Barlocker had 350,000 turkeys in cold storage waiting for a holiday rush that never came.

Creditors began calling in his loans, but he could not pay, even after selling all his assets, including the turkey farm and bank. 'I lost $500,000 a year, average, for four consecutive years," he said. "My creditors were hounding me. Marital problems followed my financial losses. The world looked pretty bleak. " Things became so bleak that by 1965 Barlocker found himself on the rugged slopes of Cedar Mountain, herding sheep for a living. Nevertheless, he refused to declare bankruptcy. He had wisely held onto thousands of acres of land that gradually increased in value, making it possible to retire all his debts. Following his comeback he served an impressive ten-year stint as Dixie College campus developer and business manager; he died in 1982.

Source: W.Paul Reeve, A Century of Enterprise: Z?zeHistory of Enterprise, Utah, 1896-1996 (Enterprise, Utah: The City of Enterprise, 1996).

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

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Old Antoine Robidoux Left His Mark in Utah

FIVEMILES WEST OF THE UTAH-COLORADO BORDER, not far fiom 1-70,Westwater Creek enters the Colorado River. A dirt road follows the creek up into the north hills. But 160 years ago some travelers chose this minor canyon as the route of least topographical resistance into the Book Cliffs. Other streams such as Sweetwater and Two Water creeks led through the Roan Cliffs to the eastern Tavaputs Plateau, then up the Green River to the rich trapping sites of the Uinta Basin.

Some distance up the Westwater Creek road, a sandstone wall about 9 feet high and 4.5 feet wide overlooks the west bank of the stream. On this wall is a prehistoric pictograph of a red shield. Above the shield is an inscription that reads: Antoine Robidoux passe ici le 13 Novembre 1837 pour etablire maison traitte a la Rv. vert ou wiyte Translated fiom the French, this means: 'Antoine Robidoux passed here 13 November 1837 to establish a trading post at the Green River or White." Or, because the third letter of the word "wiyte"has deteriorated and there is an accent mark over the final 'em, the last phrase may read, 'at the Green River or Winte (Uinta)." Also, " 1837" may read " 1831" instead.

These uncertainties have long been grist for debate among Utah historians. An accurate interpretation is important because it defines where and when Robidoux actually built his first trading post in the area. If he meant White then it was near present-day Ouray, where the White River flows into the Green. If he meant Uinta, then it may have been ten miles farther north, near Bottle Hollow Resort and the confluence of the Green and Uinta rivers.

Antoine Robidoux was born in 1794, one of five sons of Joseph Robidoux, Sr., FrenchCanadian owner of a St. Louis-based fur trading company. One or another of the Robidoux men are mentioned in many an explorer and immigrant journal of the 1840s and 50s.

For the Robidoux family was a prolific clan. In business with Joseph, Sr., were at least two brothers with their sons; one or more had several Indian wives. The men were not quite the cultured scions of St. Louis society that some Wfiters have made them out to be. Most of them maintained rustic, nomadic lifestyles into old age. But they did become wealthy in the fur trade.

Antoine the elder (as distinguished from a nephew Antoine) spoke English, French, and Spanish and as a young man worked for his father, helping to extend their trade farther and farther west. (more)

By the early 1830s Antoine was developing his own trade route along the Spanish intermountain comdor between Santa Fe and the Uinta Basin. He even became a Mexican citizen to facilitate licensing and partnerships, and he built Fort Uncumpahgre on the Gunnison River.

Another of his posts was the Fort Uintah referred to in the Westwater inscription. Kit Carson mentioned encountering Antoine in the Uinta Basin in 1833.

The Westwater inscription reveals that, probably in 1837, instead of ascending the Tavaputs Plateau by way of western Colorado, Robidoux took an alternate route down the Colorado into the Grand Valley and north along Westwater Creek. Upon reaching the Green, speculates one historian, he commandeered Carson's abandoned adobe fort, used it for one season and got flooded out, and then moved 20 miles north to Whiterocks where he built Fort Uintah or Fort Robidoux as it is named on some early maps. He established an almost exclusive trade with the Utes.

By 1841 Antoine, approaching age 50, began wintering in the Midwest. Ris speech on California delivered in Weston, Missouri, inspired John Bidwell to mount the first covered wagon expedition to the Pacific. Perhaps Antoine helped his father-then age 70-found St. Joseph in 1844. Within five years it had a population of 1,800 and for a decade was the main jumping-off point for the Oregon Trail.

In 1844 Fort Uncompahgre was destroyed by Indians, and the trapping business declined.

Antoine spent the next decade as an immigrant guide and army interpreter. In 1846 he was so badly wounded in a Mexican War battle that he applied for a government pension.

Beginning in 1849-50 the Robidoux family amassed another fortune outfitting immigrants at St. Joseph and then reoutfitting them at the only blacksmith and supply station in western Nebraska. An 1851 immigrant described "an old man nearly blind" wintering at the post. This was probably Antoine, who died in 1860 in St. Louis.

Fortunately, his inscription outlived him. Unfortunately, Westwater Creek traffic has increased through oil development and vandals have riddled the stone with bullets.

Sources: William S . Wallace, Antoine Robidow 1794-1860, cited in Nomination Form, National Register of Historic Places, FVesemation Office, Utah Division of State History; Orral Messmore Robidoux, Memorial to the Robidoux Brothers (Kansas City, 1924), family biography cited in Merrill J. Mattes, 'The Great Platte River Road (Lincoln: Nebraska State Historical Society, 1%9). Note: Convention is to spell it "Uinta" when describing natural features, "Uintah"when refisring to man-made boundaries and entities.

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

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Public Recreation Was Booming in Provo in 1938

W m A STRONG INFUSION OF FEDERAL FUNDS, supefviSed recreation 'reached

a zenith, with Provo City, the Provo School District and the Works Progress Administration combining to sponsor a year-around program enjoyed by thousands of children and adults," the city's 1938 annual report stated. WPA recreation programs have probably not received the attention given to construction projects, but they, too, affected communities throughout the state by creating jobs and providing a wide variety of ke activities for all ages. In enjoying these recreational opportunities, people found the gloom of the depression brightened a bit. Provo is a good case in point.

The city had sponsored a recreation program as early as 1923 with Dell Webb as its manager until 1929. Baseball, basketball, and swimming were the major activities. Band concerts were added in 1925, and in 1926 the city built a swimming pool in North Park that operated until 1930. A golf cowse was constructed in 1929, and tennis courts and playgrounds built or improved.

By 1938, with WPA funds, Provo had a recreation program staffed by 40 full- and part-time employees plus 23 National Youth Administration girls and 15 volunteers.

Sports attracted wide participation. Men's and boys' softball leagues proved especially popular, and 'four softball leagues were organized for girls and women from 14 to 50 years."

Free tennis instruction was available to both girls and boys, and some 250 boys played in tennis tournaments. A new swimming pool built by the WPA in 1936 drew an equal number of boys and girls-about 530 children a day during the summer. Girls had exclusive use of the pool on Mondays and boys on Tuesdays. Two evenings a week women were offered instruction in croquet, volleyball, tennis, badminton, and 'numerous other sports peculiar to adult women's interests. " Music, drama, and dancing encouraged people to broaden their interests. The music program was especially ambitious: 'Group piano lessons were given to underprivileged children, and at [tw conclusion of the summer program 100 boys and girls.. .presented.. .a recital. " Instruction in a l l types of band instruments was offered, and '150 persons enjoyed vocal training.

Harmonica bands, toy symphony orchestras, rhythm bands, drum and bugle corps, and song festivals rounded out the summer music program." Instructors worked with both beginning and advanced musicians in orchestral development with some 165 people ages 5 to 25 studying string instruments daily or three times a week. Almost 4,000 boys and girls ages 4 and up attended dramatics classes. They 'memorized dialogues, skits and playlets, and practiced various types of pantomime, commedia dell'ane, etc.," and presented programs to the public. Dancing drew over 1,200 young people who learned 'folk, tap, eccentric, national, creative and social" dancing. A dance festival with 800 boys and girls participating drew a capacity audience. (more)

The city's playgrounds were the scene of daily supervised activities such as "sand modeling, picnic parties, pet shows, marble tournaments, jumping rope, track and field meets, treasure hunts, archery contests, doll shows, baseball, batball, boxing and wrestling, kickball, badminton, etc." Girls enrolled in a home project that emphasized needlework, foods, home management, and beautification. Daily classes were also offered in various arts and c& with participants developing and presenting three puppet shows and two crafts exhibits. The 1938 playground program concluded with the third annual Kiddies Kamival consisting of a parade and a program of 15 acts at North Park. About 4,000 spectators watched some 1,000 children perform.

A unique feature of Provo's recreation program was the costume house. Its wardrobe of some 3,000 costumes was available to groups and organhitions for a minimal charge, and according to Provo officials this resource was used by communities all over central and southern Utah.

Another activity that benefited from WPA funds was golf. An improvised golf course was first laid out in Provo in 1925 "west of the mill race at the First ward pasture site." Two years later the city purchased the ground for a municipal course and in 1929 hired Walter Miller as the professional. In 1938 WPA labor was used to build a long-needed clubhouse. Bricks salvaged from the old Timpanogos School were used for the building. When completed it would include a recreation hall, showers, and locker rooms.

When cold weather closed the swimming pool and the golf course and playground activity slackened, ROVO folks still had something fun to do outdoors: "The recreation discovery of the year was the introduction of ice skating at North Park.. ..[it] will no doubt be the leading feature of Provo City winter sports programs for many years.. ..As many as 800 persons enjoyed skating in a single evening. " Recreation leaders had tried flooding the site, but that proved unsatisfactory.

Spraying at night and shading the rink with burlap curtains during the day solved the problem. At night the rink was illuminated with the bright lights of the softball field, music was played over a loudspeaker, and "discarded Christmas trees set around the borders added greatly to the charm of the rink. " Source: Annual Report of the City of Prow, Utah,for the Year Ending December 31, 1938 (Provo, 1938).

THE H~STORY BLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant &om the Utah Statehood C e n W Commission. For more inforination about the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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THE HISTORY BLAZER ArEIVS OF UTAH'S PAST FRO132 THE

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Emery County's Huntington Roller Mill

h 1980, WHEN

THE

HUNTINGTON ROLLERMILL was surveyed for possible inclusion in the

National Register of Historic Places, it was one of only 250 flour mills left in America, compared to 10,000 in 1920. This made it almost 'the last of the little guys." But in eastern Utah the Huntington Mill is not little at all but an important landmark, once a mecca for every Emery and Carbon wunty wheat farmer.

A consortium of Huntington citizens founded the mill in 1893. Apparently for three years it operated in makeshift quarters on 3.78 acres acquired from the Humbles, one of Huntington's first families. A steam engine from a defunct sawmill provided initial power. But soon shareholders decided to dig a flume and penstock from a nearby canal to a wheelhouse south of the mill and install a metal Pelton undershot wheel eight feet in diameter. To obtain additional water pressure they set the wheel six feet into the ground.

For the 20 years the mill ran on water power it had plenty of patrons. The diary of Teancum Pratt of Spring Glen, for instance, mentions his milling graham wheat at the mill. The son of an Italian immigrant family remembered traveling as a boy to Huntington twice a year in the early 1900s. The trip took five days, and its object was a six-month supply of bread flour plus bran and shorts for pig feed. Out-of-towers camped by the mill while waiting for their wheat to be ground.

In 1896 a permanent, two-story wooden mill was erected and a new company president, Christopher Wilcock, who had previously owned a shingle mill, attempted to upgrade operations by hiring professional millers from outside the county.

According to one account, the mill continued to be barely profitable. Each fall leaves clogged the penstock and slowed water flow. And in winter the canal fkoze, shutting down operations entirely. In 1900 an addition was built to house an auxiliary steam engine, which may have extended the milling season. Despite these problems, in 1910 owners saw fit to construct an on-site miller's residence.

In 1917 immigrant Olof William Sandberg, who had worked in mills since age 14, arrived in Huntington and tried to purchase the mill. This proved more difficult than he expected, for it took him seven years to satisfy all the shareholders, pay off a hidden mortgage, and acquire title.

In the meantime, he and his son Willard set to work upgrading the property.

The mill residence had fallen into disuse. Its roof leaked, the window panes were missing, any greenery had been eaten by livestock straying through the unfenced yard, and 14 wagonloads of junk had to be hauled away. Sandberg renovated the house sufficiently to move his family in and then turned his attention to the mill. (more)

He realized the solution to the power problem was electricity. For $2,500 Utah Power & Light ran a line two blocks from the center of town, and Sandberg himself provided the additional wiring and transformers. He repaired or replaced much of the machinery, buried the old water wheel where it stood, and built a large west addition onto the mill.

He soon discovered that Emery County wheat was of inferior quality. He called it 'twocrop wheat": half of it grew in immediately, She other half only after a summer of irrigation. He ordered two carloads of seed of a better variety, convinced f m e r s to try it, and soon saw better harvests and more work than he could handle. Sandberg's bookkeeping system was simple: for each bushel of wheat brought in, a farmer received 30 pounds of flour and 14 pounds of bran. Any overage went to the mill.

By 1928 Sandberg was able to remodel his house. He put in dormers that opened up the attic area for three more bedrooms; built a new wing to hold a modem kitchen, pantry, bathroom, and den; tore out the old lathe-and-plaster interior walls; and replaced all the windows and doors.

After graduating from high school, son Willard went off to New York City. Eight years later, laid off by a bank during the depression, he returned home and resumed helping in the mill, adding his own improvements. He milled three grades of flour instead of one, installed an electric bag sewer, introduced a new hard wheat, and added livestock pellets to the product line. But Willard's larger innovations were in marketing. In 1961 he instituted wholesale delivery to retailers in four counties. He supplemented local wheat with supplies from northern Utah and Idaho, saving delivery costs since the same trucks that hauled in his wheat hauled out coal from the nearby mines.

In the 1960s the mill's Emery County customer base dwindled. But, Willard observed, "Carbon County...bakes as much now as they did years ago. The Italians and Greeks...they wouldn't take this Wonder bread: take a bite of it and wonder what you got in your mouth."

Sources: National Register of Historical Places Nomination Form,citing "History of Olof William Sandberg," and an interview with Willard Sadberg, M a y 1978, by Elizabeth Hanson, Huntington; Stella McElprang, Castle Valley: A Histmy of Emery County (Emery County: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1949).

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

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Salt Lake City's First Mexican Restaurant

IN THE LATE IWOs SALTLAKE C

m RESTAURANTS advertise a diversity of ethnic cuisines,

including Afghan, Chinese, French, German, Greek, East Indian, Japanese, Korean, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Polynesian, Russian, Thai, and Vietnamese. When Abraham Mejia entered the restaurant business in the early 20th century fewer Salt Lake residents ate meals away from home, and, when they did, their choices were much more limited.

Mejia was one of the first Spanish-surnamed individuals to take up permanent residence in Salt Lake City. After the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, according to historian Vicente V. Mayer, 'a classic push-pull relationship developed between North American capital and Mexican labor" with the havoc of the revolution stimulating the flight of some 1 million Mexicans northward and developing Agriculture and industry in the U.S. requiring a huge pool of workers.

But Utah did not gain many Mexican andlor Mexican American residents until later. By 1930 such individuals totaled slightly over 4,000 in the entire state. That, in a way, is what makes the Mejia family saga intriguing. They came early and came to stay.

Abraham Mejia is first listed in the 1904 city directory as the owner of a lunch counter on the west side. Two years later, in partnership with W. J. Johnson, he ran the Eagle Gate Cafe at 44 East First South and advertised 'hot and cold lunches at all hours, with short orders a specialty." In 1907 Mejia opened a restaurant on Commercial Street. The following year he ran his first advertisement-about a fifth of a page in the city directory-for what was likely the city's first Mexican restaurant. It said 'Abraham Mejia guarantees to serve nothing but genuine Mexican dishes, short orders and all kinds of sandwiches put up." The restaurant was on the corner of First South and Commercial Street. Mejia lived at 55 West Third South. He had a telephone, probably at the restaurant. His ads in the 1909 and 1910 city directories contained the same verbiage but included a photograph of Mejia. A restaurant business, then as now, was difficult to sustain. For most of the rest of his life Abraham Mejia was listed as a cook (in 1924 he was making tamales, the only later reference to Mexican food), and he may have operated a small lunch room on Social Hall Avenue.

After 1927 Abraham's name disappears from the city directory. His widow, Caroline Harris Mejia, is listed in the 1928 directory. She died on November 1 of that year following an operation.

Her obituary contains few facts other than that she and Abraham had six children-only five were named: Manuel, Anthony E., Otto E., Ann, and Clara. Missing from the list was Albert M. Some of the history of the Mejia family can be found in the city directory listings and the

obituaries of Anthony and Albert. The latter place Abraham and Caroline in Texarkana on the (more)

TexadArkansas border in 1897 where Anthony was born on July 26. Sometime between 1897 and 1904, when Albert was born in Salt Lake City on September 22, the family relocated.

Over the years the family moved within the city several times, but from 1920 to at least 1937 various family members lived at 846 Second East. They fded a variety of jobs during that time, including bellboy, elevator operator, clerk, tailor, musician, cleaner. By 1925, with Manuel as manager, the Mejia brothers were running the K1eanrite Kleaners at 157 East Ninth South. All of them had had experience as cleaners or in tailoring. Kleanrite survived the first years of the Great Depression, but after 1932 it is no longer listed in the directory. By 1932 Albert was living in California, and his brothers were operating Sun Cleaners at 980 South State. In 1936 Anthony moved to California, leaving Manuel with Sun Cleaners and brother Otto as a cutter for Pullman tailors. Their sister Clara worked as a stenographer in Salt Lake City for a few years, but by 1932 she had moved to Denver.

Otto Mejia carved out a long career for himself as a clothing salesman with Morris Rosen Furmbilt Clothes from 1937 through the early 1960s. He retired as a salesman with Hibbs men's clothing about 1966. His wife Zelma was for many years a secretary at Webster School. From 1934 on the Otto Mejia family lived at 217 Belmont Avenue.

As sketchy as these data are, they show the Mejia family's enterprise and initiative in finding work during difficult economic times and in establishing businesses in the city. They lived and often worked together and appear to have helped extended family members by boarding them from time to time. Abraham, the family patriarch, introduced Mexican cuisine to Salt Lakers. His restaurant was short-lived-perhaps because of economic hard times and the unfamiliarity of most city residents with Mexican food in those days. Just a few decades after his death, however, several restaurants specializing in Mexican food became very popular in the city. By the 1990s Mexican food would be among the most popular restaurant fare not only in Salt Lake City but in towns from Brigham City to Moab.

Scrlt Lake C 'Directory (1904-79); Sali Lake Tribune, November 5, 1928, June 30, 1969, September 14, .

1970; Toward a Histov of the Spanish-Speaking People of Utah (Salt Lake City: American West Center, University of Utah, 1973).

Sources:

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

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Architecture May Be Beaver's Real Treasure

h THE ~ W CENTURY H BEAVERCOUNTYGAINED RENOWN for its mherd resources and livestock and as a freighting and railroad hub. Its enduring treasure, though, may be the architecture found in Beaver City, the county seat. Three distinct phases of pioneer architecture are observable in the town, comesponding to its settlement patterns.

During the years 1855 to about 1872 settlers lived mostly in dugouts and an occasional log cabin. Few .traces remain to show us what these primitive dwellings were like. One suwiving dugout has a slightly pitched wood and sod roof rising one to three feet above ground. A stairway leads 4% feet below ground to a 14 x 17 foot rectangular living space. Some dugouts were lined with rock that wuld be whitewashed. Toward the end of this period a few more permanent adobe houses began to supplant the original structures.

The next period, beginning in the 1870s, might be called the Frazer era after Beaver's predominant builder at the time, Thomas F m r , a Scottish immigrant and stonemason. Inspired by his British heritage and his observations of eastern American architecture, Frazer at first worked primarily in basalt (black lava rock). He also worked in brick. On Beaver's west side are 16 homes built by Frazer and his apprentices.

The 1877 Duckworth Grimshaw house is the most impressive of Frazer's work. From the contractor's own workbooks we learn that it took ten months to build this home and cost Grimshaw, a farmer with five children, $2,000. It was modestly sized (36 x 30 and 1'A stories) and had the typical Utah 'I" design (two-story rectangle, one room deep). Rock for the 18-inch thick walls was hauled by ox team and wagon from the foothills four miles east of Beaver. The lime mortar was burned at a site in the Mineral Mountains to the west. A section of log wall from an earlier cabin was incorporated into the structure.

The Grimshaw house exemplifies Frazer's design and stonework. The street facades are of finely squared basalt, with beaded (raised) and white-stained or -painted mortar joints. An upstairs gable surrounded by two dormer windows graces the front of the house. The off-street walls are of lessexpensive rubble stone set in mortar. The house's pleasing formality is created by the contrast of black with white, the perfect symmetry, and the Greek Revivalist lines. This design was repeated by Frazer in other Beaver houses.

A third period in Beaver's lgth-century architecture began in the 1880s and flourished in the 1890s. Its instigator was Alexander Boyter, another Swt but not a Mormon, rather an enlisted man stationed at nearby Fort Cameron. After mustering out of the army, "Scotty" Boyter remained in Beaver to apply the masonry skills he had learned (perhaps from Frazer) while a soldier. (more)

It was Boyter who in 1882 located a deposit of pink stone in one of Beaver Canyon's side gullies. At first he intended to quarry only enough tufa or tuff for his own house, but demand for this softer, easier-to-work stone grew so quickly that each time he had quarried a sufficient quantity, he sold it to someone else. Tuff was soon being used for everything but foundations.

Twenty-two pink tuff homes remain from this period; most are located on Beaver's east side.

At the same time that tuff came into use, Beaver's brick industry revived. During the 1860s adobe had been made at a clay pit four miles from town, but the bricks proved soft, heavy, and difficult to transport. The pit was abandoned about the time Thomas Frazer arrived and proved basalt cuuld be worked just as economically. But in the 1880s better clay deposits were found and local production of red brick resumed. Fifty-four pioneer homes constructed of locally fired red brick may be seen in Beaver today.

In the 1890s frame houses began to compete with brick and tuff. The low cost of timber, balloon-frame construction techniques, and the invention of wire-cut nails led to the predominance of h e houses in Beaver as elsewhere.

Sources: Duckworth Grimshaw House Nomination Form, National Register of Historic Places files, Utah Division of State History; Richard C. Podsen, "Stone Buildings in Beaver City," Utah Historical Quarter& 43 (1975); Linda

Bonar, "Historical Houses in Beaver: A Introduction to Materials, Styles, Craftsmen," Utah Historical Quarterly 51 (1983).

THEHISTORY BLAZEZC is produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more infof~8tionabout the Historical Society telephone 533-3500.

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The Female Indian Relief Society

h 1847 H~H~TE SETTLERS

IN SALTLAKEVALLEYsquatted on land claimed for generations

by Shoshonis. The Shoshonis apparently did not occupy the valley all year. The only permanent

Indian village lay at the south end of the valley and was led by a 'Eutaw" (Ute) Indian named Want-A-Sheep whose lodgers all spoke Shoshoni and whose son married a Shoshoni woman.

The Shoshonis and Utes were traditional enemies. Early Mormon settler Adelia Cox Sidwell once observed a Ute victory celebration in which captives were forced to dance while holding poles topped with the heads of vanquished Shoshoni males. Utes laughed and jeered as the Shoshoni women danced and sobbed.

Pioneer Azariah Smith summarized the Mormons' attitude toward this and other Indian behaviors: "We were taught to be kind to the Indian in their low, degraded state. " Mormons attempted to teach Indians to bathe, dress themselves fully, and raise potatoes, cattle, and sheep.

The Indians' distaste for farming did not strike 19th-century Mormons as a desirable cultural trait.

Besides these efforts to make the Indians adopt their values, Mormons organized Indian Missions, both proselyting and charitable. The preaching was done by Mormon men. The charity was usually undertaken by women.

In June 1854 women of the Thirkenth Ward in Sdt Lake founded the Female Indian Relief Society. Its purpose was to manufacture clothing for those Indians 'that should seem to be most necessitous or most deserving our sympathy and assistance."

An earlier Mormon Relief Society had functioned in Nauvoo but became dormant following the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. It is not clear what inspired the Thirteenth Ward women 14 years before women's groups reorganized in wards throughout Utah. Possibly the impetus was Edwin D. Woolley, newly appointed bishop of the ward, whose wife had been a friend of Emma Smith.

The new society was 'neither complete nor permanent." Its first president, Susan Townsend, soon resigned, to be replaced by Matilda Paschal (later Dudley-Busby), who chose as her assistants Augusta Cobb, Sarah Cooke, and Martha Coray. These assistants were later replaced

by Mary Ann Young, Hannah Perkins, and Elizabeth Goddard.

The 'Indian" society had a respectable initial membership of 177 that included every woman in the ward over 18 years. Actual attendance averaged 10. Even Mary Woolley, the bishop's first wife, rarely participated. This may have been because the meetings, held once a month, often in some member's unheated spare room, lasted an entire day, and Mary was in poor health. In the first month of the 1856 Reformation, attendance jumped to 30, then subsided to 10 just before winter adjournment. But the following spring and summer, meeting in the basement of (more)

the Social Hall (which stood inside ward boundaries), attendance averaged 23 and occasionally as many as 50.

The society's primary function fulfilled its name. In four 1854 meetings, members sewed six cotton dresses and two chemises for indigent Indians. Women unable to attend sewing sessions donated money and materials. In September the society hostessed a community ball, netting $39.39 after paying the band $20 and the custodian $18. The money purchased weaving materials.

Another function of the society was to bind women to each other and to Mormonism. Each year members pledged to 'speak no evil of each other nor of the authorities of the Church, but endeavor by means in our power to cultivate a spirit of unison, humanity and love.. ..'

Predictably, given Bishop Woolley's policy of running a tight ship, the society soon bent to male leaders' purposes. Before long Woolley had the women assembling rag carpets for the Tabernacle. In January 1855 he asked President Dudley-Busby to canvass ward members to "find out how many poor there were...that wanted help." This she did on February 19, 20, and 21, discovering two families in want. During 1855 the society manufactured seven quilts, seven garments, and an unstated number of straw hats for poor whites.

In 1856 members of the Indian Society created an exhibition carpet which they presented to Brigham Young at the second annual fair of the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, organized by church and business leaders to promote home industry and agriculture. For the second fair the society sewed another quilt plus a rag carpet.

The Indian Society disbanded during the Utah War and the move south of 1857-58.

Thirteenth Ward sisters did not organize again until 1868, when the women's Relief Society was revived churchwide. For 50 years thereafter wards varied in their interpretation of the relationship of Relief Society president to bishop. When this uncertainty was resolved in the 1920s, it was done the way Bishop Woolley and Sister Dudley-Busby had done it in the 1850s.

Sources: "Minutes of Relief Society Meetings held in SLC in 1854," typescript made from a book sent to the LDS Church ,Historical Department in October 1918 by George Busby, Chester, Idaho, son of Matilda Dudley-Busby, presideat of the society, 1854-57 (this book is now in the vault of the LDS Relief Society secretary-historian, Salt Lake City); Manuscript History of the 13th Ward, LDS Church Archives; Joel C. Janetski, "The Ute of Utah Lake," (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Anthropological Papers, 199I), No. 116.

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Fire and Brimstone in the Second Ward

ALTHOUGH THE FIRST PRACTICAL FRICTION MATCHES were marketed in 1827, they were considered a luxury. Moreover, they smelled tenible and posed a threat to both health and safety.

Mormon settlers in Utah usually "lit their candles at night by a taper and a hot coal from their firesides." This was not always convenient, of course. Alexander Neibaur, who opened a dental practice in Salt Lake City in 1848, needed additional income to support his family. 'Noting the great scarcity of matches and their high cost, he decided to attempt their manufacture. His knowledge of chemistry enabled him to fabricate crude sulphur matches which he advertised," along with his dental practice in the Deseret News in November 1851. Later, in partnership with William S. Godbe, he advertised "Percussion Matches. Encourage Home Manufacture-and you save money. The subscriber manufactures matches in the 13th Ward, that give double satisfaction--i.e., 80 in a bunch in lieu of 40 foreign made. Considerable allowance made to those that wish to retail throughout the Temtory. All kinds of produce and lumber, received in exchange at the market price. Let Utah support her own matches, and that will lessen foreign catches.

Wholesale and retail by Neibaur & Godbe." This was probably the first major match-making operation in Utah.

Much more is known about the Second Ward Match Factory established about 1875 by Swen W. Anderson in an adobe house at 621 South Third East. He and 'a few...neighbors who were interested in his project.. ..would go up City Creek Canyon and chop down.. .trees. " After the logs had been seasoned, they were cut into 2lh-inch lengths and then split into match-sized sticks.

Frank Yeager, Sr., interviewed in 1950, worked as a youth in the factory. From his description, the chemical process used in the Second Ward Match Factory is not entirely clear, since brimstone is an obsolete term for sulfur, not a different ingredient. According to Yeager, the sulfur and brimstone came from City Creek Canyon where "it was found under clay or gravel or sometimes crusted over little pools of stagnant water." A sulfur mixture was boiled in large kettles in the factory, a process that permeated the neighborhood with the well-known "rotten-eggs" odor of heated sulfur. The first fiction matches were made from a mixture of antimony sulfide, potassium chlorate, gum arabic, and starch. Anderson probably used something similar, because his matches, like the first ones made in England, produd "a great flare and shower of sparks when struck, often burning people's skin or clothing," and the fumes, if inhaled, could cause "choking, coughing, or even suffocation." There was good reason to call matches "Lucifers." At Anderson's the matchsticks were handdipped in the solution, dried, and packaged in quantities of 50 for sale to grocery stores, or customers wuld buy them directly from the factory. (more)

These matches ignited easily. It was dangerous to carry them in a pocket where an accidental rubbing could set a person's clothing on fire. "They were also dangerous if nibbled by rats or mice." This, it was believed, caused the first fire in the Second Ward Match Factory in 1879. It burned the entire contents of the building and the roof, leaving only the adobe walls.

Swen Anderson decided to rebuild and 'sent to Sweden for the latest...machinery in match making." This equipment probably was used to produce the safety match that J. E. Lundstrom had developed in Sweden in 1855.

Anderson reorganized his company in 1880 as the Great Western Match Manufactunhg Company and sold stock in it. Then, about 1890,another fire gutted the plant, and 'all the wooden machinery which had been brought over from Sweden at great expense was in ashes." Anderson's match-making business came to an end, and the adobe house was repaired for use as a residence.

Fire and brimstone no longer threatened the neighborhood in any immediate sense at least.

Sources: Leon L. Watters, Z%ePioneer Jews of Utah (New York: American Jewish Historical Society, 1952); J. Cecil Alter, Utah, ttre Storied Domain (Chicago, 1932), vol. 1; Desmet Navs Magazine, December 17, 1950.

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Gathering Mushrooms in the Old Fort

h JULY 1922, ON THE 7 5 ANNWRSARY ~ ~ of the Mormon pioneers' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Utah Fanner published reminiscences by several 1847 immigrants who were still living. Richard S. Home of Salt Lake City, for example, described collecting mushrooms: ' A k r the people moved out of the fort and made their homes on their lots, we used to go to the 'Old Fort' and gather mushrooms which grew very rapidly and afforded considerable food for the people. When a boy I was sent...early in the morning each day or two to gather these mushrooms.

One morning.. .I was on my way.. .to get mushrooms in the company of a young lady who was living with us.. .she began telling me of the great number of mushrooms she had recently gathered in the 'Fort.' She became so earnest and enthusiastic over the matter that she made a fist of her right hand and struck the palm of her left hand ...with all the force she possessed, and said, 'Why, Richard, I gathered forty-eleven of them!' Imagine the awe with which a little boy would gaze upon so august and wise a person." On another occasion, after herding cows near the Jordan River, Richard recalled returning home 'in the evening with my teeth as black as if I had been eating c h a r d . " This startled his mother until he explained that he had been eating thistles. He told how a hungry boy went about eating them: 'These thistles, which by the way were wonderfully plentiful at that time but now are things of the past, consisted of a tall stalk covered with long thorny leaves with a round red flower at the top. We boys would take a stick and knock off the flower then peel the outside of the stalk away. This left the pith on the inside safe for us to gather and eat"-and blacken the teeth.

William C. Allen of Draper, Salt Lake County, recalled the infestations of crickets that destroyed so many crops in the early years of settlement. Food shortages were common and often led people to eat unusual things. William's father, who was logging in Mill Creek, saw a rancher boiling the carcass of a wolf to obtain some grease. Some of the men in the logging camp asked to taste the wolf meat: 'The rancher consented and they ate [the wolfJ meat, grease and all, they were so hungry."

The family of Andrew Cony arrived in the Salt Lake Valley about six weeks after the first company. Writing to the newspaper from Cedar City in 1922, he said his first memory was of 'sitting on the hearth while my mother was gathering pig weeds to cook for food. We did not have any bread for six weeks,but had been living on roots, thistles, pig weeds and other greens. " John P. Porter, reporting from "East Bountihl," Davis County, provided a detailed description of harvesting grain by hand with a turkey wing cradle and scythes and raking it with a

.

...

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wooden rake. Before the first mills were built grain was ground into flour with stones or in a coffee mill. Many times whole kernels of wheat were simply boiled and eaten with milk. But perhaps the most intriguing part of Porter's recollection is the description of his 'lay-out * in the fall of 1867, 20 years after settlement, when he married. The newlyweds had nothing at fist, but after his father had finished building a new house, the young couple moved into the old log cabin: "We had newspaper window blinds, no curtains, our bedstead was made by my wife's father out of some lumber out of Mill Creek that they had discarded.. ..We had no bed cords so we used lumber to lay our straw tick on.. ..We had to nail the bedstead to the wall so it would stand up. We never had a chair, we used an old slab bench with holes bored in it and some pegs stuck in it for legs, just large enough for her and me. We had three tin plates and two tin cups, two or three knives and forks.. ."

Most of those who wrote to the Utah F a m r expressed doubt that the young people of the 1920s could have stood such hardship. Porter said: 'The young class of people of today think these are awful hard times, but they don't know what hard times are. They won't get married, and when they do they want to appear Like millionaires. There is nothing good enough for them." He thought the boys and girls of the 1920s 'would just curl up and die" if they had to harvest grain by hand or make all their clothing from scratch out of wool clipped from sheep. Andrew Corry was equally dubious about youth: "It seems to me that the younger generation are seeking more for pleasure and the temporal things of this world.. .." Temperance Keturah Haight Macfarlane Parry of Cedar City lamented the decline in the moral tone of society, especially immodest dress. In the pioneer era "children did a half day's work before they went to school," and a girl's "music lessons" consisted of practicing on the spinning wheel, she said.

The Utah pioneers survived many difficulties and deprivations and are revered today for their self-discipline and endurance. The unique circumstances they faced in 1847 shaped their lives, but in one matter at least-their view of youth--they were remarkably like generations that

.

preceded and followed them.

Source: Utah Fanner, July 22, 1922.

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Life Was Precarious in Turn-of-the-Century Utah

THEAUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FLORENCE THOMPSON reveals how precarious life could be for citizens of rural Utah at the turn of the century. Florence was born in 1891 near Lawrence, a tiny community a few miles north of Castle Dale, Emery County. Her first brush with death came at age seven when she contracted typhoid pneumonia. Her recovery was slow. That winter her father had to carry her to the LDS ward Christmas party. "On the Christmas tree was the most beautiful doll-I could not keep my eyes off it. You can imagine my happiness when Santa held it up and called my name, " she recalled.

Florence's parents, Peter Alvin Johnson and Hettie Mina Staker, had been "called" by Mormon leaders to relocate from Mount Pleasant to across the mountains in Castle Valley.

Florence's father farmed the bottomlands surrounding Lawrence, obtaining a bountifbl crop the first year. But irrigating caused the alkali to leach up from the subsoil so that the next summer his crops all died.

To support his family he took a job in the Scofield coal mine and moved his family the 30 miles from Lawrence so as not to be separated from them during the week. Florence and her sister Hazel attended the mining camp school that winter.

One day Florence, eight years old, was playing with a box of cloth scraps someone had given her. She scratched her head and a bug fell onto the cloth.

"Mother, what kind of bug is this?" she asked.

"Where did it come from?"

"I scratched my head and the bug fell in my box."

"Come here--let me see. " Her mother discovered lice in Florence's thick hair. Sister Hazel was sent to the store for a fine comb used to painstakingly comb out the mature lice, after which Florence's hair and scalp were washed with coal oil to kill the unhatched eggs. It seems she caught the lice from a motherless girl who sat with her at school.

After a year Florence's father was offered a raise and a better position at the mouth of the mine. But her mother was uneasy and constantly coaxed him to find another living. Finally he obtained a contract to cut and haul timber props for the mine. He hired some help, bought several tents, and moved the family into the mountains for the summer.

It was a glorious vacation for the Johnson children. But one day Florence ran to her mother with a painful, egg-sized lump under her arm. Mrs. Johnson flagged down a passing wagon which carried them to camp atop a load of logs. The doctor lanced the lump, but the next day Florence (more)

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broke out in boils all over her body. Fortunately, she overcame this uncomfortable and frightening ailment.

That winter Florence's father managed a sawmill in Sunnyside, 40 miles east. Here Hazel contracted scarlet fever. The following spring, after she had recovered, Hazel and Florence took to packing a lunch and spending their days 'in the timber."

Nearby lived a woman eight of whose nine children had perished from diphtheria. She would invite the Johnson girls into her cottage and give them cookies, scones, and donuts. 'She seemed to like us," Florence recalled, 'and enjoyed giving us goodies. " One night their mother had a dream in which a lady all in white appeared and just stood by her bed. M s . Johnson shook her husband awake.

'Alvin, did you see that?"

'What? " 'A lady standing by the bed. She was here to tell me something. If I had only spoken to her. " The next morning Mrs. Johnson told the girls they were not to go into the forest any more.

She believed 'the spirit lady" had come to tell her the girls were in danger-from mountain lions, bears, or something else. 'Thus ended our joyful trips into the forest-beautifid forest. " In 1900 the family was farming, again in Lawrence, when news came that a terrible explosion had rocked the Scofeld mine. Their friend Robert Wilstead and his son Willie were among the dead. The body of the man who had replaced Florence's father had been blown clear across the canyon.

In 1904 the Johnsons moved to Idaho where relatives were having success dry-farming. The trip took a month because on the way Hazel came down with a serious case of the mumps.

Source: Autobiography of Florence Elizabeth Johnson Thompson, 1974, photocopy of typescript in possession of Bee@ Bartholomew.

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Growing Crops for the Cannery IN 1925 THE UTAHPACKING COMPANY BEGAN TO BUILD a cannery South of the Spanish Fork River in Utah County, near the settlement of Leland. Later the California Packing Cofporation (Del Monte) acquired the cannery. Completion of the Strawberry Valley Project a decade earlier had made it possible for farmers in the area to grow crops that required more frequent irrigation. Farmers in and around Leland began to grow peas, green lima beans, and sweet corn and some tomatoes and pole beans as cash crops to sell to the cannery. An additional benefit of growing legumes-peas and beans-was their value as soil enhancers. The planting and harvesting of vegetables grown for the cannery was detailed by Glen R. and Genevieve E. Larsen in a recent history of Leland.

Peas, the first crop in the cycle, were planted early in April, weather permitting, using a grain drill 'modified to accommodate the large pea seeds. " In late June or early July "a 'fieldman' employed by the canning company, would make a personal inspection of each farm and notify the farmer when the peas should be harvested." In early years a horse-drawn hay mower cut the peas.

The heavy vines were loaded onto a wagon with a pitchfork, hauled to a pea viner, and unloaded with a pitchfork. A conveyer fed 'the vines, with peas still attached, into a revolving drum covered with light belting material with holes in it. As the vines passed on through the drum, paddles inside would knock the peas from their shells and they would fall through the holes...and down into boxes.. ..The vines would go out the other end of the drum" to be stacked for use in the winter as livestock feed. It was backbreaking work, and scheduling might require a farmer to deliver his peas to the viner at midnight. The manufacture of pea combines pulled by tractors allowed vines to be threshed in the field, and 'the peas were collected in large boxes and handled mechanically." This cut into a farmer's profit, however, as the cannery deducted the cost of this service from his check. Gradually most farmers in Leland stopped growing peas.

The other major crop grown in Leland for the cannery was green lima beans. Farmers planted this crop in May, after the last frost, using a modified beet drill. Limas 'were cultivated with a regular beet cultivator...[and] weeded by hand using long handled hoes" or by hand pulling weeds growing too close to the bean plants. As with peas, the cannery representative would tell each farmer when to hawest the limas. "The beans were cut off at the roots by a bean cutter, pulled by horses,. ..two rows at a time.. .[and] funneled into a single row by metal gathering rods on the bean cutter." Again, the loading and unloading of the beans was done by hand using pitchforks. Lima beans were usually harvested in September, and an early frost sometimes ruined a farmer's crop. (more)

Pole beans, a very labor intensive crop, were evidently not much favored by farmers in the Leland area, but "the Leland Ward Elders Quorum had a fund raising project and grew a small field of pole beans on a plot of land.. .later covered.. .by 1-15.. ..No record is available of how much money the Elders made from their project." Only a few farmers in Leland planted tomatoes because of the heavy soil locally and the problem of getting "irrigation water on exactly the right day that the tomatoes needed it. * In the 1940s some f m e r s began growing sweet corn for the cannery, planting it in late May for harvest in August or September. At first the corn was picked by hand "and the ears h w n into wagons or trucks. It was all hauled directly to the canning factory and unloaded.. ..processed and canned. The cobs and husks were hauled to a storage pit on the canning factory grounds, and.. .sold back to the farmers as silage for livestock." Later, tractor-mounted wm pickers harvested the corn.

Eventually these vegetable crops produced less and less cash income for farmers in Leland as the cannery's &Nice charges increased. The Spanish Fork plant of the California Packing Corporation ceased operations after 1968, and the growing of canning crops came to an end in the Leland area.

Source: Glen R. and Genevieve E. Larsen, Leland 3 Legacy History of Leland (Spanish Fork, 1994).

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Castle Valley's Version of "Lena and Ole" Humor

VIS~ORS TO THE UPPER MIDWESThave a hard time avoiding Minnesota's Ole and Lena jokes. But not too many tourists get to Emery County, Utah, where they might be exposed to our own variety of Scandinavian humor.

The settling of the Colorado Plateau in eastern Utah was Brigham Young's last colonizing effort, begun in 1876. He died the following year-some locals believe as punishment for sending people to Castle Valley. But throughout the 1870s and 1880s scores of Danish and Swedish immigrants migrated from Manti, Mount Pleasant, Spanish Fork, and other established communities to create the settlements that became Ferron, Huntington, Lawrence, Castle Dale, and others.

Soon there were so many Hansens, Hansons, Larsens, Larsons, Petersens, and Petersons that it was necessary to spell people's names when addressing them so they would know whom you were talking to.

Ane Petersen-from Denmark by way of Manti-was one of these immigrants. A frail woman who had a hard time adjusting to Ferron's dry, rugged environment, she comforted herself with her Mormon religion and an occasional laugh. She got such a laugh one Sunday in an LDS Sacrament Meeting. It seems that when the bishop called on 'Brother Petersen" to give the closing prayer, six men stood up. When the bishop clarified himself by adding, 'I meant Brother Caspar Petersen," four of the men sat down.

Another LDS bishop, a Dane, was performing his first marriage ceremony. When he got to the part where he was supposed to say 'By the authority in me vested," he instead pronounced: "Now by de authority under my vest, I pronounce you mudder and fadder."

It seems that these early immigrants were not slow to bring their disagreements to their bishops. One Danish brother had lost his shovel. When he found it at a neighbor's place, an altercation resulted during which the neighbor called him 'a Danish son-of-a-b ."

The brother promptly reported this to the bishop.

'Biscup, vot vould you do if a man called you a Danish son-of-a-b ?"

'Well, I can't say. You see, I'm not Danish."

'Den s'pose he called you de kind of a son-of-a-b vot you iss?"

Then there was Sister Yensen, a widow who lived by herself. She asked her LDS ward teachers (lay 'teachers" who visited the sick and poor) to give her a blessing. After receiving the blessing, she told them all she needed to feel better was someone to rub her feet and ankles.

One of the men kindly began to rub her ankles. But Sister Yensen said, 'No, Brudder, (more)

dat's not quite de right place. It needs rubbing yoost a leetle bit higher."

So he rubbed her legs a little above the ankles. But she said, "No, dat's not quite right yet.

Rub yet a ktle bit higher. " The man stopped rubbing, stood up and said, "Sister Yensen, up there may be where it hurts, but that is just a little higher than my authority goes.

These stories have been preserved in a history of Ferron by Wanda Snow Petersen-spelled with an "e".

Source: Wanda Snow Petefsen, Ferron Creek Its Founders and Builders (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1989).

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Brigham City Relief Society Granary

h BRIGHAMCEY,AS rn MANY OF UTAH'SRURAL C O ~ I E S visitors , may find a small brick or stone building once owned by the local LDS Relief Society. Brigham City's granary dates from 1877, making it one of the oldest women's buildings in the state. Relief Society granaries were built by various chapters of the women's organization founded by the wife of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. In the 1840s Emma Smith and others started the Relief Society as a charitable organization. It was inactive for two decades while the sect relocated from the Midwest to the Great Basin.

In 1867 Brigham Young revived the women's Relief Society. Its purposes, he and its leader, Eliza R. Snow (former plural wife of Joseph Smith), outlined, were to watch over the spiritual welfare of church members, operate and supply local cooperative stores with homemade goods, promote other home industry such as silk production, and oversee midwifery and territorial hospitals. It also dispersed money and goods to the poor as needed.

The Relief Society resumed at about the same time as the Mormon cooperative movement.

While located in Kirtland, Ohio,Joseph Smith had attempted to establish the United Order-a system in which all church members consecrated their surplus resources to the church for use in building up the Lord's kingdom. This effort too had been discontinued for a time while Mormonism moved west and restablized itself.

In the 1860s and 1870s variations of the United Order were attempted in Utah. In Brigham City the Mercantile and Manufacturing Association, a joint stock corporation owned by most of the town's citizenry, began. It was perhaps the most successful cooperative organization in 19thcentury Mormonism, especially during its first two decades. It comprised a mercantile, woolen mill, planing mill, carpentry and construction departments, farms, herds, and even a remote cotton plantation.

The Brigham City Co-op built one of the fvst Relief Society structures in Utah. The impetus was an 1876 assignment from Brigham Young to the Relief Society women to store grain.

Their husbands had been told to do this but had persisted in selling surplus grain for cash. So Young turned the project over to the sisters.

In 1876 Utah women stored over 10,000bushels of wheat. In 1877 the Brigham City Relief Society had its own granary built by a crew from the Co-op's construction department. The site was a corner of the Co-op block where factories already stood or would soon stand. Although the deed was held by the Co-op the building really belonged to and was used by the Relief Society.

The granary is still standing today. Its original purpose may be seen in its structure: a one(more)

story rectangle, 44 x 22 feet, with a slightly gabled roof, one door, and signs of one former window. Its walls are of roughly dressed fieldstone mortared with a lime, sand, and crushed glass mixture. The glass was gathered by Brigham City's Primary children, then crushed and mixed into the mortar to discourage mice from digging into the walls.

For 36 years the Brigham City granary was used for grain storage. Periodically this wheat was dispersed to needy individuals and organizations.inand out of Utah. One such period was during the depression of 1892-93.

In 1892, with the decline of the Co-op, the granary was officially deeded to the Relief Society. Even though the Co-op was disbanded entirely in 1895, grain storage continued. Grain collected by Momon women was sent to Europe after World War I to help assuage famine.

In 1913, however, the Brigham City granary was sold to the local board of education. The school district laid a cement floor, reshingled the roof, and applied a lathe-and-piaster ceiling. For 70 more years the granary was used to store food for the city's school lunch program-a testament to the building's solidity.

Source: Brigham City Relief Society Granary Nomination Form, National Register of Historic Places files, Utah Division of State History.

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A Paiute Chief Gave a Prophetic Speech

h THE MIDWINTER OF 1910, perhaps on the occasion of the New Year's Eve celebration, an Indian entered a dance hall in Escalante, Garfield County, and remonstrated with the Mormons gathered thereone of their group had needlessly shot an eagle.

The Indian's name was not recorded, but he was a Paiute chief whose band spent its winters in the Escalante area and its summers near Koosharem, close to the Sevier-Piute county line. Now his people were destitute, their traditional hunting and watering lands usurped in both places by white settlers.

In 1928 the federal government would add a small Koosharem resewation to three other Paiute reservations. Since all of the resemes consisted of poor acreage they would guarantee subsistence living for the Paiutes long into the future. In 1910, however, the when the chief made his memorable appearance in Escalante, the Paiutes were living in shanty towns outside Mormon villages and surviving on sporadic jobs as household servants and farm laborers.

Apparently the wanton killing of an eagle was the last straw for the chief, because he gave the memymakers a sermon. Probably most paid him small attention. But at least one dancer listened, recording the Indian's words and gestures: 'My friends it is right for white man to have celebration, to talk about land--white man land-white man flag-big United States. White man money--dollar-has eagle on one side. White man like eagle, big bird. Today I find eagle, white boy shoot-holds up eagle--dead now-maybe so last one, last eagle, no more eagle. One time many eagle (pointing toward cliffs). Too much shoot. Indian shoot little bit. White man shoot too much. Eagle all gone.

'Maybe so pretty soon, Indian a l l gone. One time many Indian. Many papoose. Now Indian die. Papoose die. Sleep in cave minting to hills). Indian sleep, Little bit food. One time much rabbit, much fish, much deer. Now little bit. White man give Indian bread. Indian beg. Squaw beg 'Give bread.' No good. Indian no like beg.

'Me Indian chief (gestures to indicate head dress with feathers, then to pull it off.) Now me no chief. No good! No good! Papoose too much die. Eagle all gone. Pretty soon Indian all gone."

The diarist did not record the dancers' reactions. But eventually this story made its way into a published history of Escalante. Perhaps it was read by one or even several school children of the 1960s and 70s,persuading them of the need to respect the environment and appreciate other cultures. Sixty years after the Paiute chiefs sermon the white man is beginning to listen. (more)

Source: Netheila Woolmy, 27ze Escalante Story (Springville: Art City Publishing, 1964); Ronald L. Holt, Beneath lhese Red Ch*: An Ethnohistory of the Utah Paiutes (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992).

THE

BLAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and firnded 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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THE HISTORY BLAZER ATEU'S OF UTAH'S PAST FROM

THE

Utah State Historical Society

Salt ~ a k City. e LTT84101 (801) 533-3500 FAX (801) 533-3503 300 Rio Grande

SLC Officials Filled a Variety of Posts in 1875 VOTERSIN SALTLAKECITY WENT To THE POLLS on the second Monday of

February

every two years to elect a mayor, five aldermen, nine councilors, a recorder, a treasurer, and a marshal. In addition to these elective offices, city ordinances allowed the council to fill a number of appointive offices, including auditor of public accounts, assessor and collector, s u p e ~ s o of r streets, fence viewers, captain of police, water master, sexton, surveyor, attorney, inspector of buildings, inspector of wood and lumber, sealer of weights and measurers, inspector of spirituous and malt liquors, stock inspector, jailor, superintendent of insane asylum, superintendent of water works, market masters, and inspector of provisions.

These jobs likely went to individuals well known to the council members; nevertheless some appointees were required to post bonds ranging from $500 (sexton) to $10,000 (auditor). The water master fded a vital and difficult role in the city at that time, and the council could if it wished require him to post a bond as well. The water master was required to appoint and supervise assistant water masters in each (LDSbishop's) ward of the city and 'adjudicate a l l difficulties arising from the distribution of wakr"-a major responsibility in a community where many residents still farmed and needed water for irrigation.

The sexton of the city cemetery had the potential to earn a fair amount of money from his employment. He was allowed to sell burial lots to the public for no more that $12 each and keep a 10 percent commission on sales. The rest of the sum was to be turned over to the city treasurer quarterly. The sexton could also exact a fee for a variety of services. For example he could charge $1.25 per running foot to furnish and stain a plain coffin. A family could, of course, make or provide a coffin for a loved one. Nothing in the ordinance required them to use one built by the sexton. Graves had to be at least six feet deep. To dig a grave less than four feet in length the sexton could charge $2.00 and for graves more than four feet in length $3.00. He could also charge 50 cents a mile to deliver a coffin anywhere in the city and a flat $2.50 to convey 'the dead from any part of said city to the burying ground in the city hearse." If a family provided the coffin and took the body to the cemetery, burial costs for an adult would total $15.25-$12.00 for the lot, $3.00 to dig the grave, and 25 cents to record the death. With an estimated population of 16,800 in Salt Lake City in 1875 and perhaps 250 deaths each year, the sexton had the potential at least to earn a substantial income. The family was required to mark the boundary of the burial lot and put up a headboard or monument with the deceased name. If they failed to do so, the sexton would do it and charge a fee. The sexton had to record the name of the deceased and his or

(more)

her parents' names, birthplace and date of birth, time and cause of death, and name of attending physician or nurse.

The sealer of weights and measures and the inspector of spirituous liquors also charged for their services. For example, the owner of a business using scales of any type that weighed amounts up to 200 pounds paid 25 cents to have the accuracy of his scales certified. Scales weighing larger amounts cost more. All liquors received, stored, or sold within the city limits had to be inspected for proof standard and to verify the quantity actually contained in a cask. The inspector charged $1.00 to inspect the first cask, 50 cents for each of the next nine casks, and 25 cents per cask thereafter.

One of the unusual jobs in the city at that time was market master. Salt Lake City was divided into market districts corresponding to municipal wards, each with its own public market and supervising market master. (Markets may not have actually operated in every municipal ward.)

One of the most important tasks of this official was to see that vendors kept the market area as clean as possible, paid the fee required to lease a stall or stand, and maintained opening and closing hours required by the city. Butchers had to paint or whitewash their stalls in April and October of each year and were strictly regulated regarding slaughtering of animals and disposal of offal. No butchering was allowed in the market area.

The markets undoubtedly attracted many people and were lively, interesting places where one might visit with old acquaintances and stall keepers, just as people do today in the open markets of many European towns or in a suburban mall. But loitering was discouraged. One section of the ordinance made it 'unlawful for any person having no business to idly sit, lounge, stand, walk or lie in or about the market house. ..." If loafers were not allowed, neither were other distractions. In every time period adults have found some children's activities annoying. In the late 20th century it might be boom boxes, skateboards, and rollerblades. In 1875 it was obstructing 'the sidewalks or streets by games of any kind, playing at ball, quoits, marbles, jumping, rolling of hoops, flying of kites, to annoy or obstruct the free travel of any foot passenger or team." The fine was steep-up to $50 and up to 20 days in jail.

Source Revised Ordinances and Resolutions of the Ciiy Council of

Salt Lake City...1875 (Salt Lake City, 1875).

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 Historid Society telephone 533-3500.

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