pine tree that stood sentinel some seventy feet from the fire might have become an infernal pyramid. The Grand Hotel and many other nearby structures would surely have burned as well. In an article for the Chieftain,Josiah Gibbs used the fire to rally citizens to a bond election scheduled for May: The Question of "yes" or "no" to the water system will confront the property owners of Marysvale, and after Marysvale's unhappy experience with fire during the last few years, is there a "dimesqueezer" in town so utterly, hopelessly and damnably dead to civic progress as to vote "no"?
The Utah State Board of Health had condemned all but one or two of the town wells, and Gibbs pointed out that "danger from epidemics of typhoid, diphtheria and other deadly contagions are ever pre~ent.'"~ The bond passed overwhelmingly. The United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917. Piute County eventually would send ninety-four of its young men to that war, forty-one from Marysvale, twenty-eight from Circleville, fourteen from Junction, six from Alunite, four from Greenwich, and one from Kingston. Of these, only three did not return, and they died from disease: Geoffry B. Hays and Constant Steelant of Marysvale and Otto Beebe of Circleville. Of the 665 Utahns who died in the war, just over 200 were killed in battle. The rest died from the rampant diseases that devastated armies before the development of penicillin and other medical treatrnent~.~~ The Utah State Council of Defense issued to the counties a series of recommendations patterned on national ones to help in the war effort. Along with calling on young men to join the armed forces, general patriotic support, and help in keeping the labor force working and the food suppliers producing, it was recommended that citizens reduce waste in homes, curtail extravagance in public eating places, foster the drying or canning of foods, and aid government agencies in conserving food and fuel. Citizens were also asked to buy savings stamps and war bonds. Piute County residents did all of these things, but they excelled in the purchase of stamps and bonds. By the end of the war in November 1918 they had purchased some $29,400
