LIFEAND SETTLEMENT IN RICH COUNTY, 1864-1 896
93
Interior of Will Jacobson's Store, Randolph, ca. 1913. (Courtesy Mildred Jacobson.)
tion of the Oregon Shortline Railroad, Randolph was only eighteen miles south of Sage Junction. Many in Randolph expressed disappointment when the Oregon Shortline selected a route away from the Mormon Bear River Valley settlements, departing instead from Granger, Wyoming, and roughly following the route of the old Oregon Trail. Writing to the Deseret News in January 1876,William Howard revealed his expectation that the valley would be blessed by a railroad the following ~ u m m e r . "The ~ rails never materialized. Still, Randolph grew to become the center of commercial activity in Rich County. In the twenty years between 1877 and 1897 Randolph nearly om Pope's first private store in doubled in p o p ~ l a t i o n . ' ~ ~ rRobert 1871 which bartered mostly in butter, Randolph could boast of two mercantiles by 1892."' Robert and Peter McKinnon established their two-tiered brick store in 1892 in competition with William and 0. J. Spencer's store which had opened a year earlier. In addition, Randolph also included a barbershop, a brick kiln, two lime kilns,
