ORICAL An IClfLl
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
BOARD OF TRUSTEES j . GRANT IVERSON, Salt Lake City, 1967 President
MRS. J U A N I T A B R O O K S , St. George, 1969
MRS. A. c J E N S E N , Sandy, 1967
JACK GOODMAN, Salt Lake City, 1969 Vice-President EVERETT L. COOLEY, Salt Lake City Secretary
CLYDE L. MILLER, Secretary of State
Ex officio NICHOLAS G. MORGAN, Salt Lake City, 1969
MILTON c ABRAMS, Smithfield, 1969 HOWARD c. PRICE, J R . , Price, 1967 j . STERLING ANDERSON, Grantsville, 1967 DEAN R. BRIMHALL, Fruita, 1969
L. GLEN SNARR, Salt Lake City, 1967
EVERETT L. COOLEY, Director
T. H . JACOBSEN, State Archivist, Archives F. T. J O H N S O N , Records Manager, Archives
J O H N J A M E S , J R . , Librarian MARGERY w . WARD, Associate Editor
IRIS SCOTT, B U S I N E S S MANAGER
T h e U t a h State Historical Society is an organization devoted to the collection, preservation, a n d publication of U t a h and related history. I t was organized by publicspirited Utahns in 1897 for this purpose. I n fulfillment of its objectives, the Society publishes the Utah Historical Quarterly, which is distributed to its members with payment of a $5.00 annual membership fee. T h e Society also maintains a specialized research library of books, pamphlets, photographs, periodicals, microfilms, newspapers, maps, and manuscripts. Many of these items have come to the library as gifts. Donations are encouraged, for only through such means can the U t a h State Historical Society live up to its responsibility of preserving the record of Utah's past.
T h e primary purpose of the Quarterly is t h e p u b l i c a t i o n of m a n u s c r i p t s , p h o t o graphs, and documents which relate or give a new interpretation to Utah's unique story. Contributions of writers are solicited for the consideration of the editor. However, the editor assumes no responsibility for the return of manuscripts unaccompanied by return postage. Manuscripts and material for publications should be sent to the editor. T h e U t a h State Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements of fact or opinions expressed by contributors. T h e Utah Historical Quarterly is entered as second-class postage, paid at Salt Lake City, U t a h . Copyright 1965, U t a h State Historical Society, 603 East South Temple Street, Salt Lake City, U t a h 84102.
SUMMER, 1965
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V O L U M E 33
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NUMBER 3
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY THEATRE IN ZION: THE BRIGHAM CITY DRAMATIC ASSOCIATION BY RUE C. JOHNSON
187
COOPERATIVE COMMUNITY IN THE N O R T H : BRIGHAM CITY, UTAH BY L E O N A R D J . A R R I N G T O N
198
A GREAT ADVENTURE ON GREAT SALT L A K E — A TRUE STORY BY KATE Y. NOBLE Introduction and editorial notations BY DAVID E . M I L L E R
218
OGDEN'S "ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY," 1920-1955 BY T H O M A S G. A L E X A N D E R
237
THE ROAD T O " F O R T U N E " : THE SALT LAKE CUTOFF BY L . A. F L E M I N G A N D A. R. S T A N D I N G
248
REVIEWS AND PUBLICATIONS
272
Brigham City, Utah — county seat of Box Elder — was first settled in 1851. Under the leadership of Apostle Lorenzo Snow, the community thrived. With a population now in excess of 10,000, Brigham City is famous for its fruit crop, as the gateway to the Bear River Bird Refuge, and as the center of Thiokol Chemical Corporation's missile industry. BRIGHAM CITY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR ART EDITOR
L. COOLEY Margery W. Ward
EVERETT
Roy J. Olsen
B R O O K S , J U A N I T A , ED., On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout, 1844-1861,
BY S. GEORGE ELLSWORTH
272
N E W C O M B , F R A N C J O H N S O N , Hosteen Klah: Navaho Medicine Man and Sand
BOOKS REVIEWED
Painter, BY ROBERT C. EULER
U D A L L , S T E W A R T L., The Quiet
273
Crisis,
BY JACK GOODMAN
274
BROWNING, J O H N , and GENTRY, C U R T , John M. Browning, American Gunmaker, BY ROBERT W. INSCORE
274
B A N N O N , J O H N F R A N C I S , Bolton and the Spanish Borderlands,
BY MICHAEL E. T H U R M A N . . 275
S A N D O Z , M A R I , The Beaver Men: Spearheads
of Empire,
BY J A M E S C. OLSON
277
D A R R A H , W I L L I A M C U L P , Stereo Views: A History of Stereographs in America and Their
Collection,
BY PARKER HAMILTON
P r i n t e d b y A L P H A B E T P R I N T I N G C O . , Salt L a k e City
277
U T A H STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY B E R N I C E GIBBS A N D E R S O N C O L L E C T I O N
Box Elder County Courthouse at Brigham City was the home of the community's theatricals. This photograph was taken about 1890.
first
THEATRE in ZION The Brigham City Dramatic Association BY R U E C. J O H N S O N
In the winter of 1855-56, with his Brigham City home still under construction, Lorenzo Snow converted its largest room, 15 by 30 feet, into a "theatrical department." He furnished appropriate scenery for the small stage located at one end of the room and then invited the citizenry Mr. Johnson, former U t a h n , is assistant to the director of Indiana University, Fort Wayne Campus.
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free-of-charge, but in shifts so that all could be accommodated, to pass a pleasant winter evening viewing the efforts of the amateur dramatic company. "Here the old and the young, the grey-headed and the little prattlers, met and mingled — the people were drawn together and a union of feeling was awakened."* Thus, two years after church President Brigham Young called him to lead 50 additional families to settle in Box Elder County and strengthen the settlement there, Apostle Lorenzo Snow initiated a significant contribution to his community. Following Brigham Young's example and sharing with him a love for the theatre, Lorenzo Snow nurtured and supported that love in those over whom he presided. It was fitting that the settlement named Brigham City should have a theatre. T h e following summer saw the establishment of a more commodious, new theatre, 22 by 45 feet, in the basement of the partially completed courthouse. With this facility Lorenzo Snow "determined to have a dramatic company of ability, and capable of attaining to celebrity in the profession." T o reach this goal he called from his own family and from the community a group 3 of talented young people and hired Salt Lake City actor Henry E. Bowring 4 to instruct the group in the fundamentals of acting. Bowring, accomplished and experienced, was probably free to travel to Brigham City, because the approach of Johnston's Army had caused the Deseret Dramatic Association, of which he was a member, to disband temporarily. T h e newly trained group enjoyed its "improved circumstances" and probably performed "successfully" during the winter such plays as Rip Van Winkle and the Carpenter of Rouen.5 Spring weather, however, brought high winds; and before the courthouse could be completed, gales destroyed the building, all the stage fixtures housed in the basement, and for the moment put an end to theatricals. 6 In spite of these difficulties, the people of Brigham City rebuilt the courthouse complete with basement theatre, and, according to Eliza Snow, 1 Eliza Roxey Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow . . . (Salt Lake City, 1884), 267. 2 Ibid. 3 For information regarding this group, see Daughters of U t a h Pioneers of Box Elder County, comp., History of Box Elder County (Brigham City, [1937]), 167; and Wain Sutton, ed., Utah, A Centennial History (New York, 1949), 1013-14. 4 Smith, Lorenzo Snow, 267, mentions, but does not name the actor. LeRoi C. Snow believed it was Bowring. For additional information on Bowring as an actor, see Winifred Snell Margetts, "A Study of the Salt Lake City Actor from 1850 to 1869" (Master's thesis, University of Utah, 1948), 162 ff. 5 Sutton, Utah, 1013. 6 Smith, Lorenzo Snow, 268.
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the Dramatic Association resumed its activities. However, no production dates or details of the initial offerings in the rebuilt Courthouse Theatre can be found. Perhaps interest waned during the interval required for reconstruction, or, more likely, with Bowring's return to Salt Lake City direct leadership was lacking. Whatever the situation, by May of 1864 when he returned from a church mission to Hawaii, Lorenzo Snow reorganized the Dramatic Association. Alexander Baird, a Scottish convert to Mormonism who moved to Box Elder County in 1863, recorded an account of how he became the new stage manager. I n the winter (of 1864) the young people of T h r e e Mile Creek [now known as Perry, and located approximately three miles south of Brigham City] started a kind of a theater. I was their leader and we got u p the play, Barbars of the Parennes [sic]. After playing in the school house in T h r e e Mile Creek we came u p to Brigham City and played in the lower p a r t of the Court House. We h a d a couple of wagon covers for curtains a n d scenery. We m a d e eight dollars in cash. T h e house was filled to over flowing. J o h n Burt was door keeper and gathered in the proceeds. We seemed to please the audience. Even Brother Snow was there. Well do I remember the night. Well do I remember the proceeds. I got them. Bought one half pound of tea and eight yards of factory wool, a pair of staggy shoes, which came to the nights proceeds. D i d n ' t I feel big. 7
Continuing, Baird reported that in the spring of 1864, Lorenzo Snow asked him to come to Brigham City to work in the woolen factory. Well just as soon as I got to Brigham, Brother Snow wanted me to start a theater. So we went to work to get u p a dramatic troupe. I was chief cook under Brother Snow. This was in the spring of 1864. H e , Brother Snow, gave me the names of the ones he wanted in the troupe . . . . We started and practiced well. I worked in the mill all day and studied and rehersed [sic] at night. I did well in the mill all summer and fall. We played short dramas and farces, once a week on Saturday evenings. We took well and prospered well and made money which all went to get properties and scenery. 8
Only a few details of these properties, scenery, and the stage are known. T h e basement was 22 by 45 feet, so the stage had a maximum width of 22 feet and a probable depth of 10 to 12 feet. This left an auditorium 22 by 33 feet, barely room for an audience of 100 people. Some of the scenery, in addition to the wagon covers mentioned by Baird, was painted on the rear wall of the stage by Porter Squires and Andrew J. Caggie. Traces of it remained 60 years later. 9 No doubt the group acquired 7
Alexander Baird, " T r u e Story of My Life" ( M S , possession of J. Edwin Baird, Brigham
City). 8
Ibid. Smith, Lorenzo Snow, 267; D.U.P., History of Box Elder County, The Founding of Utah (New York, 1923), 343. 9
168; Levi Edgar Young,
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additional curtain pieces, drops, and flats as its repertoire and popularity grew. Such cramped quarters were soon overtaxed. Both the actors and the audience needed more room. As Alexander Baird recorded, "During this time the railway came along . . . . I contracted on the railway and played in the theater, which now had become something to deal with." The Dramatic Association solved the problem temporarily by staging plays in the dance hall over Rosenbaum's store and permanently by moving its theatre to new quarters provided on the upper floor of the courthouse. Baird provided some of the details: W e now h a d got u p stairs to play in what was then the meeting house with a pretty good stage. T h e fitting up of the house for the purpose of a theater cost us three thousand dollars. We never received one cent for our labor, until we h a d paid the last cent of our investment. It was not like a large theater where they took in thousands per night. T h e most we ever took in was some h u n d r e d and twenty-five dollars. T h e town was small! Not two thousand in the whole town altogether — young and old. Only one ward. I n two years we were out of debt and receiving pay. I had been sent to Salt Lake City to see and learn all I could about the stage, the curtains, the wings and plays. All else I could learn. I then came home and got the carpenters to work. Brother Pett led the workmen. H e was a good w o r k m a n ; but knew nothing about a stage. So he a n d I at times had strong arguments. Brother Snow h a d told him to do just as I said and if there was a wrong he would blame me. So with this we got along fine. 10
Twice the size of the old, the new theatre offered many advantages. A stage 18-feet deep and 45-feet wide accommodated more complex productions than any previously attempted. The larger auditorium, 45 by 47 feet, with a balcony across the west end, and equipped with solidly constructed benches, curved to fit the body — probably permitted 350 theatre lovers to squeeze in for special presentations.11 Of course, the larger stage required additional scenery and properties. To acquire them the Dramatic Association spent $300, perhaps as a part of the $3,000 renovation cost or as a later supplement to the theatre's stock of scenery.12 The new facility provided wardrobe storage for costumes, at one time designed and sewn by the local tailor, Ola N. Stohl. It may have been at this time that coal-oil lamps replaced the candles originally used for lighting. The lamps were used as footlights, suspended 10
Baird, "My Life." Smith, Lorenzo Snow, 269; and personal interview with Mr. C. N. Christensen, formerly of Brigham City. Mr. Christensen remembered hiding under the benches early in the day to escape paying admission for the evening's entertainment. 12 Rena Baird, Through the Years (Brigham City, 1953), 8 1 . 11
Brigham City Dramatic
Association
191
from the ceiling or mounted with brackets on the UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY walls of the set. When Peter A. Forsgren acted as stage manager, he devised a method for dimming the footlights by drawing a tin shade between them and the stage. Such an innovation typified advances that were no doubt made in the theatre's facilities during the two decades of its use. Many of the plays presented on the Courthouse Theatre stage were those witnessed in Salt Lake City by a Brigham City representative, laboriously transcribed, and brought home for local production. Sometimes the right to present a play was purchased. 13 Occasionally, a member of the Dramatic Association or some literaryminded resident of Brigham City wrote an original piece. 14 For the most part these and other plays staged at the Courthouse Theatre were typical nineteenth century farces, melodramas, or domestic pieces. Brighamites often saw and applauded an instructive temperance drama. Although the claim cannot be substantiated by any e x t a n t review or a d v e r t i s e m e n t t h a t most of Shakespeare's plays were produced, it is likely Lorenzo Snow (1814-1901), leader Brigham City and patron of the that some were staged. T h e Dramatic Associa- of theatre. tion produced Hamlet during the winter of 186869 in the dance hall over Rosenbaum's store, and it probably produced other Shakespearean plays in the renovated Courthouse Theatre. 1 5 T h e first play staged in the Courthouse Theatre for which there is a definite record was The Stranger, produced in June of 1867. Earlier productions included Jacob Jones' drama The Carpenter of Rouen (1844), J. R. Planche's farce The Loan of a Lover (1834), Dion Boucicault's Octaroon (1859), one of the several stage versions of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle, W. S. Pratt's temperance play Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1858), and a piece called The Milky Way. I n succeeding decades theatre 13
Ogden Daily Herald, April 28, 1887. " D . U . P . , History of Box Elder County, 168; Andrew Jensen, "History of Brigham City" (MS, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historian's Library, Salt Lake City), July 24, 1867. 15 Veara Southworth Fife, "Sketch of the Life of Chester Southworth" ( M S , possession of Mrs. C. T. Anderson, Brigham City).
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goers to the Courthouse Theatre saw J. S. Jones' The People's Lawyer (1856), J. T. Haines' Idiot Witness (1823), J. Lunn's Family Jars (1822), M . Barnett's The Serious Family (1849), D. Boucicault's Willow Copse (1849), and, of course, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.ie Only one of these plays is still staged with regularity, the temperance tract, Ten Nights in a Bar Room. Modern audiences laugh at its broad deliniations, but nineteenth century Brighamites found it deeply absorbing. Alexander Baird reported that, O n e evening I was playing Joe M o r g a n in T e n Nights in a Bar R o o m , when I came to the p a r t where my child is knocked down with a tumbler, one of the Irishmen there [a railroad worker] j u m p e d u p and pulled a bottle of whiskey out of his pocket, dashed it to pieces against a bench and cried aloud, "I'll never taste another d a m n drop in my life again." I bawled right out, " I hope he keeps his word." 17
William L. Watkins, a schoolteacher in early Brigham City and bookkeeper for the Mormon Church cooperative industries, acted as prompter for the Dramatic Association. H e copied parts for all the actors in the various casts, and attended the usual four rehearsals a week. The group evidently built a sizable repertoire, Ten Nights in a Bar Room and Uncle Tom's Cabin were often repeated, for it was the Dramatic Association's custom to play each Saturday night. Some weeks included Wednesday night productions, and during the RUE c . JOHNSON construction of the railroads larger 1S Personal interview with Joseph Watkins, late of Brigham City. Also, D.U.P., History of Box Elder County, 168; and Sutton, Utah, 1013. For a complete listing of the plays see Rue C. Johnson, " T h e History of the D r a m a in Corinne and Brigham City, U t a h , 1855-1905" (Master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1954), Appendix D, pp. 195-224. 17 Baird, "My Life."
LEFT
TO
RIGHT:
Alexander Baird, who became stage ager of the Courthouse Theatre in
man1864.
Lydia Snow Peirce, one of at least 14 daughters of Lorenzo Snow who appeared on the Courthouse Theatre stage. Mortimer H. Snow, son of L. Snow, appeared as a member of a juvenile company at the Courthouse Theatre and later became a professional actor.
Brigham City Dramatic
193
Association
audiences required a third performance. T h e season at the Courthouse Theatre ran from September to May, although summertime productions were staged for special occasions. No doubt lapses occurred in this weekly schedule, particularly when traveling troupes occupied the stage or when no enterprising stage manager could be found. Although Alexander Baird, and possibly other key figures during the years, received pay for acting and managing the Courthouse Theatre productions, most participation was voluntary and without pay. 18 Presentations, however, were not free-of-charge. At one time tickets cost 25 cents for children and 50 cents for adults; at another time adults paid 75 cents in "Home D " — the scrip issued by the Brigham City cooperative. In addition to meeting operating expenses, profits often went for charitable purposes, to members of the Dramatic Association, or to support such projects as a new organ for the tabernacle. 19 The volunteers included the members of the Theatre orchestra. In 1954 Joseph Watkins, then 93, recalled his experience as one of "about 18 Alexander Baird mentioned receiving $15.00 per week at one time; Henry Bowring, with his professional background, also may have received pay for his management. 19 Ogden Junction, May 1, 1875; Ogden Daily Herald, December 30, 1886, January 29, 1885.
RUE C. JOHNSON
RUE C. JOHNSON
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fourteen" members who considered it an opportunity to contribute musical talent to enhance productions at the Courthouse Theatre. T h e orchestra attracted little attention, either commendation or condemnation. "Dick," critic from the Ogden Daily Herald, noted that the orchestra "played some fine music," but could improve !20 "Candor," who wrote to another Ogden newspaper was less ambiguous. " T h e music rendered by the orchestra on the occasion was very nice, and the boys deserve the compliments bestowed upon them by their hearers," he said. 21 Records contain the names of over 50 actors who participated in Brigham City theatricals, and if accounts were complete the number would be much higher. Not only the number of participants, but the diversity of their backgrounds indicates the integrality of the Theatre with life in early Brigham City. Alexander Baird, who managed or acted in the Courthouse Theatre for 25 years, based his impersonations on a colorful background. Prior to locating in Brigham City as a worker in the woolen mill, he spent his youth in Scotland, went to sea, married unsuccessfully, sailed to J a p a n with Admiral Perry, returned to Scotland, and remarried. As an actor he specialized in "heavy" parts, and gained reknown for his portrayals in Ten Nights in a Bar Room and in Black Eyed Susan.22 Henry E. Bowring brought a wealth of experience to the Courthouse Theatre productions when he moved from Salt Lake City to Brigham City in 1877. His home in Salt Lake City had housed the Mechanics Dramatic Association in the fall of 1859 and was the first building actually known as a theatre in the territory — Bowring's Theatre. 2 3 Before his move north Bowring h a d appeared over a hundred times on Salt Lake City stages and had co-managed the Salt Lake Theatre with Phil Margetts. For short periods after the move, Bowring toured the territory with a company under the management of Margetts. Courthouse Theatre productions under Bowring's skillful direction brought forth glowing reviews, as did the comic acting of this first-rate comedian. 24 Traveling troupes supplemented local talent on the Courthouse Theatre stage. T h e 16 troupes for which records exist were probably only a fraction of the total. Some of the visiting companies were professional, such as the John Langrishe Troupe from Denver, Colorado, that played at the Courthouse Theatre for several nights in 1868.25 Amateur com20
Ogden Daily Herald, J a n u a r y 4, 1887. Ogden Semi-Weekly Standard, March 28, 1888. 22 See various reviews in Johnson, " D r a m a in . . . Brigham City," Appendix D. 23 Margetts, "Salt Lake City Actor," 162 ff. 24 Johnson, " D r a m a in . . . Brigham City," Appendix D. 25 "Journal History" (L.D.S. Church Historian's Library), December 9, 1868. 21
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panies from Wellsville, Logan, Ogden, Willard, and Plain City made appearances in Brigham City, probably in exchange for a visit from the Brigham City Dramatic Association. Phil Margetts — sometimes termed the "dean of western theatre" — performed several times with the Brigham City Association, and at least one troupe under his direction trod the boards at the Courthouse Theatre in 1875.26 The great influx of professional road shows did not come, however, until the last decade of the century after the stage lights in the Courthouse Theatre were permanently darkened in 1889. The Courthouse Theatre was essentially the home of the Brigham City Dramatic Association. In today's era of mass entertainment provided by radio, movies, and television, it is difficult to imagine the importance of the Courthouse Theatre to its patrons. The theatricals helped fulfill the need for entertainment, romance, and escape, as well as offering delightful instruction and new experiences, albeit vicariously, as attested by the crowds that filled the auditorium for performance after performance during the three decades of the Theatre's existence. Extant comment unanimously affirms the "well-filled," "crowded," or "turn-away" houses. When "Dick," from the Ogden Daily Herald, visited the Theatre he found a "tumultuous" crowd. "When I arrived at the steps," he continued, "it was five minutes to seven o'clock, and when I arrived at the door, it was 7:20 . . . . When I obtained a view of the ticket man, I was greeted with 'All tickets sold.' ' Fortunately, "Dick" obtained admission at the "actors' private staircase."27 Such acceptance supports the claim that the Brigham City group was "justly acknowledged as the best dramatic company in the Territory outside Salt Lake City."28 Additional support came from an anonymous visitor to Brigham City who found the Dramatic Association "a very creditable affair," that with a little more study and attention to "side speeches to the audience, and dialogue three-quarter face to the front. . . need not fear the criticisms of older and more experienced players."29 No less an authority than Phil Margetts was "loud in his praise of the Brighamites' home company . . . ."30 when he visited with the editors of the Ogden Junction on his return from performances in Brigham City. Moreover, when the Dramatic Association disbanded after the close of the 28 Ogden Junction, September 11, 1875, November 26, 1879; Ogden Daily Herald, March 17, 1886; Salt Lake Herald, March 4, 1879. 27 Ogden Daily Herald, January 4, 1887. 28 Smith, Lorenzo Snow, 270. 29 Ogden Junction, December 12, 1874. 30 Ibid., April 5, 1879.
(A. W . C O M P T O N )
The Opera House, which replaced the old Courthouse Rosenbaum's store in 1891 at a cost of $10,000.
Theatre,
was transformed
from
Courthouse Theatre, patrons soon pointed out that with a new theatre Brigham City could once again have a home company "ranked second in the Territory." Lack of dissent from neighboring towns lends credence to the claim, but perhaps the crowning compliment came from the "Gentile voice" of Corinne in the following newspaper article. A crowd from town went to Brigham Saturday night to attend the regular Saturday night performance in the court house there. T h e play was " T h e Sergeant's Wife," and the building was packed with saints and saintesses, making it about an even thing to squeeze in. T h e troupe did well enough, considering, yet there is no particular danger of their turning the world over with their efforts for awhile to come. N e a r the close a small boy in the audience m a d e a slight noise, which was m a d e the occasion for "Chief-of-Police" White mounting to the stage and with hat on declaring, "This 'ere noise has got to be stopped; yer didn't come 'er to make fools of yerselves, and if you don't [stop] I'll see that yer d o ! " W h a t the bold policem a n meant by this rambling we could only conjecture, but the boy looked wise and we suppose he understood it. 31
Although only implied the praise is eloquent when considered in the context of vituperation usually directed toward Brigham City from this source. 31
Corinne Daily Mail, February 13, 1875.
Brigham City Dramatic Association
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Even though the record is incomplete, no evidence indicates that comparable amateur companies in other Utah towns approached the Brigham City Dramatic Association in regularity of performance, continuity of organization, and consistency of acceptable quality of production. By 1889 demands for space for the conventional uses of a courthouse required closure of the theatre and the consequent disbandment of the Dramatic Association. And although by 1891 the Brigham City Theatre Company transformed Rosenbaum's store into an elegant, $10,000 opera house and a second generation of Brighamites acted in a reorganized troupe, Brigham City never recaptured the same spirit, born of need and cooperation, that imbued the Courthouse Theatre.
(A. w . COMPTON]
The old tannery as it appears today. As part of the Brigham City cooperative program, the tannery produced leather which was reputed to be "equal in quality to the best Eastern oaked tanned leather." An extension of the tannery in 1870, the shoe factory soon after it was founded ployed 30 workers who by 1877 had produced $132,000 worth of merchandise. U T A H STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
em-
by
Leonard J. Arrington
T h e first i m p o r t a n t M o r m o n community to organize itself for cooperative activity under a system later incorporated in the United Order of 1874 was Brigham City, Utah. T h e Brigham City cooperative is especially noteworthy because it attracted the attention of Edward Bellamy in 1886 while he was writing Looking Backward, and Bellamy spent several days in Brigham City observing the system and conversing with Apostle Lorenzo Snow, the community leader. Functioning over a period of more than 15 years, the cooperative city of Brigh a m exerted profound influence on the history of Utah and surrounding areas occupied by the Mormons. Several Latter-day Saint communities, notably Hyrum, Utah, and Paris, Idaho, adopted the Brigham City system. It was the essential structure of the Brigham City Order that Brigham Young followed in establishing t h e first U n i t e d Order at St. George in 1874, and the St. George U. O., in turn, was the model for most of the organizations later that year. Finally, the promoter and leader of the Brigh a m City cooperative, Lorenzo Snow, later b e c a m e p r e s i d e n t of t h e c h u r c h he h a d served so long as an apostle, and was to exert a lasting influence on its policies. Brigham City is situated on Box Elder Creek at the base of the Wasatch Mountains, some 60 miles north of Salt Lake City. With a population now in excess of 10,000, it is not only the principal fruit-producing Long a student of the Mormon cooperative movement, Dr. Arrington is professor of economics at U t a h State University. This essay was written under a grant from the U t a h State University Research Council. T h e writer acknowledges with gratitude the assistance of Lester T. Hansen, Leon N. Christensen, and Marie T h o r n e Jeppson, who were economics students at U.S.U. when the initial research for this article was done.
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center in northern Utah, but also one of the leading manufacturers of missiles in the nation. It is also the site of the Intermountain School for Navajo Indians. The town was founded in 1851, and consisted of some six families until 1854-55, when Lorenzo Snow moved to Brigham City with 50 additional families. Snow, as a member of the L.D.S. Council of Twelve Apostles, was called to settle there and preside over the Latter-day Saints in that region.1 The families to settle Brigham City were selected with special care to include a schoolteacher, mason, carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and other skilled craftsmen and tradesmen who would insure the economic success of the community. Some of these were recent emigrants from Europe, some of whom previously had had experience with cooperative movements. The group was specifically instructed by Brigham Young to grow and manufacture all that they consumed. The construction of a fort, canal, gristmill, sawmill, and other primary tasks of colonization occupied the settlers until 1864 when a considerable influx of Scandinavian immigrants permitted (and made necessary) the establishment of small manufactures, retailing, and other crafts and trades. Lack of transportation facilities and good roads prevented the development of a specialized economy. Brigham City was not connected by railroad with Salt Lake City until 1871. With a city of almost 1,600 inhabitants to provide for, Apostle Snow supervised the organization in 1864 of a cooperative general store. It was his intention to use this mercantile cooperative as the basis for the organization of the entire economic life of the community and the development of the industries needed to make the community self-sufficient.2 Snow 1 See "Journal History" (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historian's Library, Salt Lake City), October 7, 1853. Also see Deseret News (Salt Lake City), October 15, 1853. There were 60 families and 204 souls in the Box Elder settlement in 1854, most of whom were Welsh and Danish. All were very poor. 2 T h e primary source material on the Brigham City cooperative and United Order includes: (a) Letters of Lorenzo Snow to Brigham Young, Bishop Henry Lunt, and Franklin D. Richards, as published in the Deseret Evening News, August 20, 1873; Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine, II (January, 1883), 400-7 (hereafter cited as T.Q.M.) ; and Eliza Roxey Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow . . . (Salt Lake City, 1884), 291-96. (b) T h e manuscript "History of Box Elder Stake" (L.D.S. Church Historian's Library), which is largely a typescript of periodic reports to newspapers and other pertinent information relating to the social, economic, and ecclesiastical development of the Brigham City area, (c) T h e "Journal History" which contains numerous entries between 1864 and 1880 relating to the Brigham City cooperative, (d) "Scribbling Book" of Brigham City, containing copies of letters by Lorenzo Snow. This manuscript was in the possession of LeRoi C. Snow at the time the writer examined it (1948), and is now in the L.D.S. Church Historian's Library, (e) Minute books and account books of various Brigham City cooperative enterprises (L.D.S. Church Historian's Library). T h e writer has not been able to examine the latter systematically. Secondary source material includes "United Order of Northern U t a h , " Heart Throbs of the West, I ( 1 9 3 6 ) , 5 3 - 5 6 ; Daughters of U t a h Pioneers of Box Elder County, comp., History of Box Elder County (Brigham City, [1937]) ; and Edward W. Tullidge, "Box Elder County," Tullidge's Histories . . . (2 vols., Salt Lake City, 1889), I I , 289-304. Treatments of the United Order and cooperation which contain references to or studies of the Brigham City Order include Feramorz Y. Fox, "Experiments in Cooperation and Social
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explained the origin of the movement in a letter to Brigham Young, as follows: Some ten years ago and upwards, a number of small mercantile establishments were located in our city, owned principally by speculators, who possessed no interest in common with the people. I proposed to such as were inclined to do so, to unite on some co-operative system for the general welfare and interest of the community. Some consented, whereupon we organized the Brigham City Co-operative Association, giving all an opportunity of taking stock and enjoying equal rights and privileges. At first we limited our operations to mercantile business, and as it progressed it gained the confidence of the people, and gradually increased in number of stockholders, till about the fifth year from its commencement [1869] it consisted of some two hundred shareholders, with a capital stock of twenty thousand dollars. O u r dividends were paid in merchandize at the selling price rates, and averaged about twenty five per cent per annum. 3
This original association, it is to be noted, was nothing more than a joint-stock enterprise to which Snow and three others subscribed $3,000. It was an immediate success, however, and other stockholders were attracted by moral suasion, by the generous commodity dividend policy, and by reducing shares to $5.00 each. T h e profitability of the concern (by 1870 it was the only store in town) and the policy of giving no dividend in cash or imported merchandise made possible the accumulation of sufficient savings to establish home industries. This, of course, had been part of the original intention. Some stockholders, as one would expect, objected that this reinvestment would cut dividends. As Snow later related: It required some effort on the part of our stockholders to reconcile their feelings with a knowledge of their duty and obligations as elders of Israel and servants of God. A good spirit, however, prevailed, and a desire to build up the kingdom of God and work for the interest of the people, outweighed all selfish considerations; hence, consent was granted by all the stockholders to establish home industries and draw dividends in the kinds produced. 4
Eventually, the association was to sponsor the development of virtually every industry and craft in the city. Utilizing the labor of the community available after the fall harvest of 1866, the group built, at a cost of $10,000, a two-story tannery building, 45 by 80 feet. Virtually all the labor and materials were furnished in Security Among the Mormons" (typescript, L.D.S. Church Historian's Library), Chapter V I ; Edward J. Allen, The Second United Order Among the Mormons (New York, 1936) ; and Arden B. Olsen, " T h e History of Mormon Mercantile Cooperation in U t a h " (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1935), esp. 109-17. 3 Lorenzo Snow to Brigham Young, August 6, 1873, Deseret Evening News (Salt Lake City), August 20, 1873. 4 Lorenzo Snow to Bishop Henry Lunt, October, 1876, T.Q.M., I I (January, 1883), 401.
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return for capital stock, although one-fourth wages were paid out of the store in merchandise to "those who needed it." The construction of the tannery, the selection of the equipment, and the procuring of the workers and supplies were under the direction of a Mormon convert who had tanning experience in England, Cincinnati, and Salt Lake City. T h e leather produced under his direction was reputed to be "equal in quality to the best Eastern oaked tanned leather." 6 T h e tannery enterprise came to produce $10,000 worth of goods annually, and was expanded in 1870 to include a boot and shoe shop and a saddle and harness shop. T h e boot and shoe shop was soon producing $700 worth of boots and shoes per week and employing 30 hands. By 1877 the boot and shoe shop had manufactured $132,000 worth of goods. With these enterprises all the leather needs of the community were met, and some leather products were sold for cash in the Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Logan markets. Dividends to the stockholders of these and other enterprises consisted of goods produced by the jointly owned cooperatives. 7 After incorporating these enterprises under the name "Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Company" in 1870, with seven directors and 126 stockholders, 8 the group then planned the construction of a woolen factory. Using, as with the tannery, the winter labor of the community, materials contributed in return for capital stock, and the profits of enterprises already established, a $35,000 woolen factory was constructed in 1870-71 and equipped with machinery purchased in the eastern states. 9 T h e building was 44 by 88 feet, and two-stories high. T h e factory originally contained a spinning jack with 200 spindles, four broad looms, and three narrow looms, and other facilities for washing, drying, carding, dyeing, etc. T h e factory came to employ 32 hands and eventually did a $40,000 annual business in yarns, blankets, men's and women's wear, and similar products. This and the tannery were both powered by water. 5
Ibid., 4 0 1 - 2 . "History of Box Elder Stake," July 12, 1872. A daughter of the tannery manager, Abrah a m Hillam, told the writer that her father received a large chart from England showing the cooperative organizations at Bradford, England, where a successful cooperative movement was being conducted. This may have served as a model for the structure of the Brigham City cooperative. 7 "History of Box Elder Stake," October 28, 1877; Snow to Lunt, T.Q.M., I I (January, 1883), 4 0 1 - 2 ; Snow to Young, Deseret Evening News, August 20, 1873. 8 T h e articles of incorporation are to be found among the records in the Box Elder County Courthouse, Brigham City, U t a h . Of the 126 stockholders, only 13 held more than 100 shares of stock (par value, $5.00 e a c h ) . Lorenzo Snow was the largest stockholder, with 1,566 shares valued at $7,830. Samuel Smith, who possessed 1,000 shares valued at $5,000, was the second largest stockholder. 9 Snow to Lunt, T.Q.M., I I (January, 1883), 4 0 2 ; Snow to Young, Deseret Evening News, August 20, 1873. T h e machinery was purchased for $7,000 in greenbacks. D.U.P., History of Box Elder County, 105. 6
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY B E R N I C E GIBBS A N D E R S O N C O L L E C T I O N
Brigham City looking west from the county courthouse is in the right foreground.
about 1895. The old co-op store
Simultaneously, the association began to build up the sheep herd from 1,500 head to 5,000 head, by retaining the natural increase, and by banding together additional sheep contributed for capital stock by those joining the organization. In this way a "dependable supply of wool" for the factory was provided. T h e sheep were wintered on two farms near Bear River City, Utah. By 1879 the U. O. herd h a d grown to well above 10,000. Soon afterward, a horned-stock herd of a thousand animals was established which, together with the sheep, supplied an association meat market. A hog enterprise also served the same purpose. 10 By 1874 when the United Orders bearing much resemblance to the Brigham City co-op were organized in every Mormon settlement in the West, virtually the entire economic life of this community of 400 families was owned and directed by the cooperative association. Some 15 departments, later to be expanded to 40, produced the goods and services needed by the community, and each household obtained its food, clothing, furniture, and other necessities from these departments. 1 1 Almost complete 10 Snow to Lunt, T.Q.M., I I (January, 1883), 4 0 2 ; Snow to Young, Deseret Evening News, August 20, 1873. 11 Information on the various departments can be obtained from "History of Box Elder Stake," July 12, 1872, October 28, 1877, April 28, 1878, and passim.
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self-sufficiency had been attained, and some textile products, leather, furniture, and dairy products were "exported" to other northern Utah settlements. 12 T h e paid-up capital of the Brigham City co-op in 1874, which amounted to $ 120,000, was owned by 372 shareholders. 13 Food enterprises, in 1874, included a model dairy at Collinston — "perhaps . . . the finest, best and most commodious of any dairy in this Territory" — consisting of 500 milk cows. Established in 1871, it was reputed to be the first "commercial" dairy in Utah. In addition to fluid milk, the dairy department produced nearly $8,000 worth of butter and cheese annually. Almost 40,000 pounds of cheese were produced for exportation alone in 1875. Some 100 hogs were raised in connection with the dairy to consume the waste products of the dairy and to supplement the supply of beef and mutton. A butcher department prepared the meat for "sale." Several molasses mills were operated, providing food for both m a n and milk cow. A number of farms, including a "dry farm" at Portage, Utah, were operated by the agricultural department for the production of food, feed, and other supplies. A horticultural department planted and cared for flowers, shrubs, vines, and orchards. Farm machinery and equipment, to the tune of $12,500 yearly, were manufactured or repaired by a special machine and repair shop. T h e group also maintained an "Indian F a r m " upon which Indians in the vicinity were established and taught the art of agriculture. 14 Textile enterprises included, in addition to the woolen factory, a hat and cap factory or millinery shop, employing up to 25 girls and producing fur, wool, and straw hats, valued at $5,000 annually; tailor and "fancy work" shops, employing nine hands and turning out $14,000 annually; a silk department which planted several thousand mulberry trees, raised silkworms, and manufactured silk; a 125-acre cotton farm in southern Utah, 300 miles away, to which some 20 young men were called in 1873 12 Correspondent John R. Morgan, writing to the Deseret News under date of July 12, 1872, summarized the objectives of the system as follows: "A mercantile house was established, that for the time being it might serve the purpose of a paymaster, to enable other enterprises to be established; the tannery to avoid the importation of boots and shoes, and to produce a home market for hides; a shoe factory followed, to give employment to home operatives, and avoid the exportation of valley tan leather; a factory to use up the wool, and manufacture cloth for the people; a dairy to avoid the importation of cheese; a cooperative farm to supply the operatives in the various departments with flour." 13 Edward L. Sloan, ed., Gazeteer of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1874), 55. In 1872 the capital stock totaled $75,000. "History of Box Elder Stake," January 4, 1872. In 1877 the secretary of the institution represented the total capital stock to be $191,000, with 585 shareholders. Some 340 hands were employed, and the income from the various departments was in excess of $260,000. Ibid., October 28, 1877. " S n o w to Lunt, T.Q.M., I I (January, 1883), 4 0 2 ; D.U.P., History of Box Elder County, 49. This "Indian F a r m " is present-day Washakie in Box Elder County and is still administered by the L.D.S. Church for the benefit of the Indians.
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and thereafter for a period of two years at a time, to raise cotton for use in the woolen factory. Besides making needed alterations and improvements on the farm, the group produced enough cotton the first year to obtain 70,000 yards of warp. The cotton farmers also maintained a farm on which to grow their own food and produced raisins, wine, and sugar cane for transporting north to Brigham City. President Snow also called a group of people to settle a valley 10 miles east of Brigham City, originally called Flaxville and now called Mantua, for the purpose of raising flax. Largely Danish, these colonists produced grain sacks and sewing thread.15 Construction enterprises included a shingle, lath and picket mill; three sawmills, including a large steam sawmill located in Marsh Valley, Idaho; brick and adobe shops; a lime kiln; a blacksmith shop; a furniture or cabinet shop, which dressed white pine to make baby carriages and other furniture; a large two-story factory fitted with machinery for wood turning, planing and working mouldings; and architect, carpentry, mason, and painting departments. During the years 1874-75 these departments employed 46 hands and built 46 houses, plastered 163 rooms, and did work valued at $21,000. A public works department built roads, bridges, dams, canals, and public buildings. The latter included church, civic, and cooperative buildings. By 1874 the cooperative mercantile establishment was doing $30,000 worth of business annually. It was the only store in the city. According to Apostle Snow, 15
Snow to Lunt, T.Q.M., II (January, 1883), 4 0 2 ; D.U.P., History of Box Elder 111-13, 286.
County,
Mantua, as it appears today, is located 10 miles east of Brigham City. It was originally called Flaxville and settled by Danish converts primarily for the purpose of raising flax for the cooperative industries. UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
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Several parties h a v e set u p stores at various times since the organization of our Co-operative, a n d entered into competition b u t could not obtain sufficient p a t r o n a g e to m a k e it a success, and while they received the sad experience of disappointment the city treasury received the benefit of their licenses. All the business men a n d the majority of the people have more or less interest in this co-operative association, and the profits arising from their patronage, in r o o m of going to individual hands, to be applied for private aggrandizement, or p e r h a p s spent outside of the interests of the community, goes to support h o m e institutions, therefore, the people generally feel to sustain their own mercantile establishment. 1 6
So profitable h a d the Brigham City business become, that they contemplated opening a branch house in Logan for the sale of their productions. 17 This would have come in competition with the Logan Branch of Z C M I , and with the Logan U. O . store, and perhaps that fact dissuaded officials from consummating this plan. Other enterprises, in addition to the tannery already mentioned, included a tin shop, rope factory using hemp grown on the co-op farm, pottery shop, broom factory, cooperage, greenhouse and nursery, brush factory, and a wagon and carriage repair shop. An education department supervised the school a n d seminary. There was also a "tramp department" which utilized the labor of tramps who sought handouts by chopping wood and other odd jobs. 18 T h e cooperatively owned departments were to comprise the economic life of the community. Indeed, plans were developed to build the city expressly with this thought in mind. All the shops and factories of the departments were to be located on a 12-acre square around the center of the town. Street cars were to run from this square to various parts of 16 Snow to Young, Deseret Evening News, August 20, 1873. According to the local history, ecclesiastical authorities advised the people to give all their patronage to cooperative industries after 1869. D.U.P., History of Box Elder County, 118. A descendant of one of the men whose concern failed as the result of the cooperative told the writer that his grandfather formed a partnership with another prominent Brigham City citizen in the late 1860's for the purpose of establishing a haberdashery. T h e business was the only place in Brigham City where other than homespun material could be purchased, and succeeded beyond the best hopes of its founders. This man and his partner were asked to join the association, but they declined. Immediately, according to the story, the people of the city were instructed not to trade with them. When some townspeople persisted in trading with these men despite the orders of church officials, members of the church were placed at the door of the haberdashery to record the names of all persons who traded therein. This, despite the fact that the members of the partnership were members of the church in good standing. As the result of this tactic, the business soon failed and the men were forced to seek a livelihood elsewhere. " T h e United Order Minutes," of July 20, 1880, contain the following: " I t was moved and carried unanimously that the council disapprove, discountenance, and disfellowship all persons who would start an opposition store or who would assist to erect a building for that purpose." (Copies of the resolution to be sent to the bishops in neighboring settlements.) Cited in Fox, "Experiments in Cooperation," Chapt. V I , 12 fn. 2. 17 Salt Lake Herald, October 25, 1876. 18 "History of Box Elder Stake," October 28, 1877. More than $950 was rendered by this department in 1877.
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the town and to the railroad station. 19 This arrangement was never quite completed, however. Each department or enterprise had clearly delineated responsibilities, and was operated by men and women of all ages under the supervision of an overseer or superintendent. Typically, the superintendent had learned his skill in Europe. A general superintendent (Lorenzo Snow) was in charge of the operations of all departments. T h e bookkeeping was described by Apostle Snow as follows: T h e accounts of each department are kept separate and distinct, in stock taken annually, separate statements and balance sheets m a d e out and kept by the secretary of the association, so that the gain or loss of each may be ascertained and known at the end of the year, or oftener if required. At the close of each year a balance sheet is m a d e from the several statements, giving a perfect exhibit of the business. From this exhibit, a dividend on the investments or capital stock is declared. T h e profit or loss of each department, of course, is shared equally by the stockholders. 20
Superintendents and workers alike were paid wages which appear to have been commensurate with those being paid elsewhere in the nation at the time. T h e secretary and bookkeeper of the association received $1,200 per year; a clerk, $900; the overseer of the dairy, $1,000; the overseer of the sheep herd and farm, $1,200; the woolen factory superintendent, $3.50 per day — equivalent of, say, $1,200 per year; carders, spinners, and weavers were said to have been getting equal pay with their counterparts in other Utah factories. T h e overseer of the tannery was paid $3.00 per day, and the overseer of the boot and shoe shop received an equal amount. T h e general superintendent, Lorenzo Snow, reported himself as working "for nothing." Being the largest stockholder, his dividends were presumably sufficient for his support. Undoubtedly, members of his five families worked in some of the departments. Snow added: I have labored to inspire the overseers of the various departments with a proper sense of their obligations to the people, to be satisfied with a reasonable wage, and be willing that their abilities should be employed, to a certain extent, for the building up of Zion. I endeavor to influence all our laboring hands not to be greedy for high wages, a n d also those who furnish the capital, to be satisfied with reasonable dividends, a n d thus work together in harmony on principles of equal justice, that the Lord may take cognizance of our works, and bestow blessings of prosperity and salvation in the hour of necessity. 21 19
L. F. Moench in the Deseret News, as cited in D.U.P., History
109 fn. 20 21
Snow to Lunt, T.Q.M., I I (January, 1883), 403 . Snow to Young, Deseret Evening News, August 20, 1873.
of Box Elder
County,
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T h e management of the Brigham City cooperative was in the hands of a board of seven directors, a president, secretary, and general superintendent, all of whom were elected annually by the stockholders. Lorenzo Snow was the president and general superintendent throughout all of the life of the association. Ecclesiastical influence was strong throughout, and the motto in business transactions was said to be "as with the Priest, so with the people." 2 2 In June 1874 at the climax of the drive to organize United Orders throughout Utah, a delegation of members of the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles of the church attended a stake conference in Brigham City and asked the people to reorganize under the United Order. T h e reorganization was made without any difficulty and the only notable change, besides altering the name to the "Brigham City United Order," was the creation of a "United Order Council," consisting of "sixty influential citizens" of the county, which functioned as a kind of congress for the determination of policy.23 As Brigham Young said, "Brother Snow has led the people along, and got them into the United Order without their knowing it." 24 There was no change in any of the fundamental institutions and regulations of the system after it was incorporated into the United Order. Each member was made a steward over all his possessions, including his home, farm, livestock, and shares of capital stock in the cooperative institution. A man saved simply by accumulating credits or certificates of indebtedness, which could then be used to make additions or improvements on his home or farm, or for any other purpose. One observer noted that: If [any Brigham City] brethren should be so unfortunate as to have any of their property destroyed by fire, or otherwise, the U . O. will rebuild or replace such property for them. When these brethren, or any other members of the U . O., die, the directors become the guardians of the family, caring for the interests and inheritances of the deceased for the benefit and maintenance of the wives and children, and when the sons are married, giving t h e m a house and stewardship as the father would have done for them. Like care will be taken of their interests if they are sent on missions, or are taken sick. 25
Co-op officials attempted to provide suitable work for every person desiring employment, and by 1874, approximately 250 persons were fur22
The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, X X X V I I I (Liverpool, 1876), 695. "Journal History," June 28, 1874. 24 Sermon of April 2 1 , 1878, Journal of Discourses (26 vols., Liverpool, 1854-1886), X I X , 23
345. 25
Deseret News, August 31, 1875.
The Brigham City cooperative included a "model dairy [constructed in 1871] at Collinston — 'perhaps . . . the finest, best and most commodious of any dairy in this Territory' — consisting of 500 milk cows." LESTER HANSEN
FmsT Sicmm BAHK
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY NICHOLAS G. MORGAN COLLECTION
The Baron Woolen Mills succeeded the Brigham City cooperative woolen mill, which was established in 1870-71. The original mill burned in 1877 and was reconstructed the same year.
The old cooperative store, constructed directly across from the Box Elder County Courthouse, survived until 1896, when it became a bank, a function is still serves today.
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nished employment in the various departments. Wages were paid almost exclusively in the products of the departments. Experience demonstrated that the community was five-sixths self-sufficient, and for that reason employees were usually paid five-sixths in home products and one-sixth in imported merchandise. 26 T o facilitate this arrangement the employees were paid each Saturday in two types of scrip. One type was redeemable at the various industrial and agricultural departments, and was known as " H o m e D " (for home department) scrip. It would buy furniture, pottery, boots, hats, brushes, dairy products, meat, and other locally produced products. T h e other type of scrip was stamped with the word "Merchandise" in red letters, and was redeemable at the cooperative store or mercantile department, at which the purchaser might obtain imported goods. (These might be imported from no farther than Salt Lake City.) Both types of scrip bore a resemblance to currency, being two by three inches in size, and were in denominations ranging from five cents to $20.00. 27 They were also the medium for exchange for admission to concerts, plays, and other community productions. More than $160,000 of this scrip was paid out in 1875 and the total production of all the departments in the same year was valued at $260,000. 28 Thus, in that year some $100,000 can be said to have been reinvested in cooperative enterprises. (These figures would have to be multiplied by something like four times to obtain 1965 equivalents.) T h e operations of the various departments required $30,000 in cash in 1874, of which half was paid to employees in imported merchandise, and the other half devoted to the purchase of such imported materials as iron, horse shoes, nails, furniture, boot and shoe trimmings, paints, dyestuffs, warps, etc. 29 Dividends to stockholders were also paid in the scrip, although stockholders were encouraged to reinvest their profits. Because virtually the entire town worked for the cooperative, the opening and closing of the departments were uniformly regulated by the ringing of a bell in the courthouse tower. "At fifteen minutes to seven the department doors were opened and the ringing of the triangle told the workmen to begin the labor of the day." 3 0 26 Snow to Lunt, T.Q.M., II (January, 1883), 403. In 1873 the hands received one-fourth their wages in merchandise, and the remainder in home products. 27 A photograph of a specimen is reproduced in Nels Anderson, Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah (Chicago, 1942), 377. Merchandise script was "Good only to Stockholders and Employees of Brigham City." 23 Snow to Lunt, T.Q.M., II (January, 1883), 403. 29 Ibid. I n 1873, according to Snow, the production of all the departments was about $60,000, and some $10,000 to $12,000 in cash was required to keep them in operation. This cash was supplied "in part by the profits of the store, the balance by sales of products. It is only to make up this balance," wrote Snow, " t h a t we are required to seek a market for our manufactured products. . . ." Snow to Young, Deseret Evening News, August 20, 1873. 30 D.U.P., History of Box Elder County, 110.
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All in all, the town must have been a hive of industry. One correspondent to the Deseret News stayed eight days in Brigham City observing the working of the United Order, and reported: "I did not see a loafer, or an idle man, boy, woman, or girl during my visit; industry, prosperity and contentment seemed to characterize the entire community." 31 Publicity concerning the Brigham City Order even reached England, as Edward Tullidge wrote: It was in review of just such a social problem as t h a t which this apostle [Lorenzo Snow] brought to a promising issue [at Brigham City] which caused the learned socialist, Brontier O'Brian, a quarter of a century ago, to proclaim to his class in Europe t h a t the Mormons h a d "created a soul under the rib of death." T h e article was published in Reynolds' Newspaper. At that time the attention of the socialists of England was attracted to the social problems of the M o r m o n people. Reynolds, Bradlaugh, Holyoak, Barker, O'Brian and others held the M o r m o n s u p to admiration . . . , 32
Most observers of the system thought the chief advantage which the so-called cooperative system gave to the city was in its promotion of "home industry." One correspondent wrote to the Salt Lake Herald in 1876, in regard to the Brigham City system that: If the example of the inhabitants of this town was more generally followed, U t a h , would be far more prosperous and her people much better off. O u r present suicidal policy of exporting raw materials a n d importing manufactured articles would be stopped, we would be far more independent of our sister states and territories; the financial panics of the east or west would not affect us; our people would all have good homes and enjoy more of the comforts of life than they can hope for under present regulations; and our children would stand a m u c h better chance of receiving good educations and becoming useful members of a society. 33
Other writers gave similar emphasis to the manner in which Brigham City industry could "bid defiance to the fluctuations of trade, or commercial depressions": A visit to the various departments of this institution will at once convince a person . . . , how a community can control their own industries, and live independent of commercial disasters, so fearful in their effects, especially to the dependent classes of France, England, and America."34
Nevertheless, Brigham Young's successor as president of the church, John Taylor, did not want to put the final stamp of approval on the BrigDeseret News, August 31, 1875. T.Q.M., I I (January, 1883), 400. 1 "Successful Co-operation," Salt Lake Herald, October 25, 1876. 1 Millennial Star, X X X V I I I ( 1 8 7 6 ) , 694.
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h a m City organization, just as a few years later, he did not want to give official sanction to the Orderville United Order. Said President Taylor: T h e r e are some things that Brother Lorenzo Snow is doing t h a t are very creditable; b u t it is not the U n i t e d Order. H e is working with the people something after the same principle that our sisters teach the little ones to walk. T h e y stand t h e m in a sort of chair which rolls along, a n d the babies a p p e a r delighted; they think they are walking. But we have not learned h o w to walk y e t . . . . I suppose these things could go on and increase, and everything in regard to your commercial relations could be operated with one c o m m o n consent, u n d e r the proper authority a n d administration of the priesthood, a n d you all labor unitedly, with singleness of heart before God. . . . [You will then] get, by a n d by, to w h a t is called the U n i t e d Order. 3 5
T h e Brigham City O r d e r seemed to be functioning beautifully in 1877; it was attracting widespread attention in U t a h and elsewhere. Not only was it maintaining a high rate of investment, but the 500-odd employees were as well paid as elsewhere in U t a h where the prospects of future development were not so bright. It was apparent that further growth would bring incalculable management problems. T h e build-up of the cooperative through reinvestment, the multiplication of enterprises under central direction, and the assumption of responsibility for many decisions which are normally made by families and individual business units, magnified the problems of the spiritual-temporal leader, Lorenzo Snow. Decentralization became mandatory, and once the process began it was almost inevitable that a larger and larger share of community activity would be delegated to private enterprise. T h a t church leaders were aware of this problem, and that the relegation of increasing responsibility to individual enterprise may have been purposeful, is indicated in a letter from Apostle Snow to Brigham Young shortly before the latter's death in 1877. Apostle Snow reveals the anxieties which plagued him as he witnessed the little voluntary cooperative store burgeoning into an immense community enterprise employing hundreds of people in diverse tasks, and "philosophizes" on the meaning of his creation. Hitherto unpublished, the letter is quoted in extenso because of the glimpse it gives of the behind-the-scenes reflections of a wise man. 86 I n working u p to the principles we call the U n i t e d O r d e r we have shouldered very serious responsibilities. O v e r one thousand persons, little 35 Sermon of J o h n Taylor, August 4, 1878, Journal of Discourses, X X , 4 4 - 4 5 . See also Leonard J. Arrington, Orderville, Utah: A Pioneer Mormon Experiment in Economic Organization (Logan, 1954), 2 7 - 3 6 . 3G First called to the writer's attention by the late Feramorz Y. Fox, the letter is found in "Scribbling Book."
Brigham City Cooperative and big are depending entirely upon the Institution for all their supplies, for their food, their clothing, and all their comforts and conveniences. Over one thousand more living in our City are more or less dependent upon this Institution because in its progress it has gradually monopolized and gathered to itself all the main arteries and channels of business . . . . We give a very few families, in harvest time, their supplies of breadstuff for the year. Last year the Institution disbursed on an average per week 125 bushels of wheat over and above those yearly supplies. This year our weekly disbursements reach 150 bushels. Two-thirds of this, or more, we have to purchase by our home manufactures, and more or less outside of our county. This considerably encroaches upon our requirements for our manufactured goods to raise cash to assist in defraying our money expenses which average at least one h u n d r e d dollars per day. Wheat is held as a cash article, and nothing satisfies the seller but cash articles of which at our present stage of progress we have difficulty in producing a sufficiency to meet these two heavy demands, the cash and breadstuff. These two demands coming upon us at once constitute our one serious source of difficulty or fear of future embarrassment. We can very well meet either one alone but it requires more faith and financiering ability to meet them both than I like to assume. We are now exerting ourselves to the utmost of our ability to extend our farming business so as to raise our breadstuff as soon as possible. We have over 300 acres of fall wheat sowed which, in connection with what we shall sow in the spring, will give us a much better show for our bread next season if crops prove favorable, than we have had at any time previous. We have been now twelve years engaged in this business, striving to unite the people in their business affairs, classifying and assigning them severally to such departments of industry as would best promote individual and general interest and of building up the K i n g d o m of God. I guard against adopting the principles faster t h a n the virtue, faith and intelligence of the people will sustain them lest I be left alone, and I think I move quite as fast as can be done with safety. I try to keep two objects in view — to amalgamate the feelings of the people and to establish a financial system in which everybody can secure necessaries and conveniences of life through their labour and be preserved from the evils and corruption of outside influences. These two objects have already been achieved to some extent and the prospects for the future are very encouraging; but the care, the anxiety and the excessive mental toil and labor are quite sufficient to subdue any feeling of pride and vanity if any such existed for any outside applause. A greater weight of responsibility comes upon us to supply necessities and conveniences by furnishing employment to those who have accepted the O r d e r and classification (of labor) than we otherwise would feel if each pursued his own course, and this is expected by the people. When Israel left their leeks and onions by the direction of Moses they looked to him for their supplies, and became very quarrelsome and troublesome whenever they failed. This is a feature in the United Order which I contemplate with no small degree of anxiety, viz. concentrating a multitude of individual responsibilities upon one m a n or a few men. O n e m a n may assume the responsibility of looking after the general interest of a community but to be required to provide for their daily wants, their food
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and clothing, one might do very well in prosperous times, but not very desirable in a financial crisis unless abounding in resources. . . . I confess, in the solemn silence of the night, that I have sometimes inquired of myself, where are we drifting, in following this untrodden path for many generations, and in sailing upon a sea so little known and unexplored? Is there not danger of getting an elephant on our hands (to use a common phrase) that our wisdom and ability cannot manage or support? I n other words, may we not drift into responsibilities that would be difficult or even impossible to discharge ? I have sought to avoid such a dilemma as m u c h as I could consistently with a knowledge of what was required of me. I thought it necessary to establish some industries and to classify the people in their labors and to assign them to their several departments of business as fast as they were organized and as fast as the people could be brought to a willingness to comply with counsel. This was a gradual work but it has been progressing since its inauguration by three individuals with myself. We invited the people to invest, as capital stock, in labor, money or property such portion of their surplus as they felt disposed to part with. This surplus labor or property was used to start, from time to time, these departments of industry, at the same time without diminishing any one's actual resources or means of living. We have gradually, imperceptibly, and without calculation or previous design, drifted into possession of all the principle channels, and main arteries of business, trades, manufacture, and all industries which are carried on in Brigham City and in many of the surrounding settlements. Most of these, however, have been created by the energy of the Institution, or very greatly improved and enlarged, and this in a m a n n e r that could not have been done by allowing things to have gone on in the old way of private enterprise, everyone doing in his own way what seemed right in his own eyes. If it could have been done in some other settlement, it could not in Brigham City, for the men with the necessary ability and capital were not here. But this amalgamation, absorption, monopolizing and gathering into one, and centralizing of all our industries, thrown upon myself, is a responsibility that I should never dared to have assumed. In fact I never anticipated such a result, though I have felt it gradually approaching, but yet could not see how to escape and be justified.
It was during these months of introspection that a series of disasters befell the Order which sounded the death-knell of this leading Mormon cooperative. Once again, the factors occasioning difficulty are best described by the highly literate Apostle Snow, writing in 1879 to Franklin D. Richards, two years after the misfortunes began: T w o years ago today, about two o'clock in the morning, we were aroused from our slumbers by the ringing of bells and startling cries of fire! fire! fire! O u r woolen factory was all in flames, and in less than thirty minutes, the whole establishment with its entire contents of machinery, wool, warps and cloth lay in ashes. This involved a cash loss of over $30,000. While viewing the building, as it was rapidly consuming, my mind became agitated with painful
U T A H S T A T E H I S T O R I C A L SOCIETY
Lorenzo Snow (1814-1901), was the leader for 40 years in Brigham City, not only in spiritual matters but in every enterprise looking to the development of the community. From 1898 he served as president of the Mormon Church. thoughts and reflections, whether the people could sustain the severe pressure which would bear upon them through this unforseen calamity, or lose heart and courage in supporting our principles of union. These misgivings, however, were unfounded; for the people resolved, at once, to try again, and went to work with a hearty good will, and by extraordinary exertions, in less than six months had erected another factory, and in operation, superior to the one destroyed. But this involved us in a large indebtedness. In view of liquidating this liability, we engaged a large contract to supply timber and lumber to the U t a h & Northern Railroad, incurring a heavy expense in building a saw mill in Marsh Valley, Idaho, and moving there also, our steam saw mill, and were employing about 100 men, everything moving along prosperously: when, suddenly, through the influence of apostates, aided by a mobocratic judge, a raid was made upon our camps, thirty or forty of our workmen were arrested and imprisoned and our operations stopped. 3 7 And, although the embargo on our business was withdrawn and the men liberated by order of the President of the United States through the influence of Jay Gould, it came too late, so we were compelled to abandon 37 The charge against the Brigham City workmen was cutting United States timber reserves. The Mormons believed, as Snow intimated, that the charge was unfair, and was motivated by the desire to hamper their economic growth.
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Utah Historical Quarterly this enterprise, sell our saw mill for one-fourth its value, a n d move back our steam mill, etc., the whole involving an expense and loss of $6,000, besides the vexation in our disappointments in raising the money to pay our indebtedness. T h e following July [1878], a tax of $10,200 was levied on our scrip, by O . J. Hollister, U . S. Assessor and Collector of Internal Revenue. T h o u g h illegal, unjust and highly absurd, the payment could not be avoided; therefore we borrowed the money and paid this assessment. 38 T h r o u g h these and other unfortunate occurrences we became greatly embarrassed in our business. This embarrassment, as may be seen, is not the result of the natural pressure of the times, nor financial crisis which has broken u p thousands of banking institutions and business firms throughout the world; neither that of mismanagement nor any defect in our systems of operations; but as before mentioned, it has been brought about, through a succession of calamities, unparalleled in the experience of any business firm in this or any other Territory. T h e following is a showing of our losses, including the assessment, all occurring in the space of about nine m o n t h s : Crops destroyed by grasshoppers, Crops destroyed by drought, Burning of Woolen Mills, Losses in I d a h o , By Assessment on Scrip, Total,
$ 4,000 3,000 30,000 6,000 10,200 $53,200
We were now compelled to raise, within eighteen months, $30,000, independent of the $45,000 required during the same time to carry on our home industries. T h e r e appeared now but one course left for us to pursue, viz: curtail our business, close several of our departments, lessen the business of others, and dispose of such property as will assist in discharging our cash obligations; thus using every exertion to outlive our misfortunes and save ourselves from being totally wrecked. Accordingly, we have labored faithfully to this end, and, although no one has made any abatement of his claims against us, except Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution, in cancelling the interest on what we owed them, we are now nearly out of debt, having but one cash obligation to discharge of $2,500 to Z. which will, be paid this fall. O u r checks in the hands of employees or other parties, have now all been redeemed, with the exception of a very few, which we are prepared to settle whenever presented. W e now have eleven industrial departments in operation; the business, however, is not carried on quite so extensively as formerly. T h e mercantile department is doing three times the business it was previous to the curtailing of our home industries; and has the patronage of nearly the entire people of Brigham City and surrounding s e t t l e m e n t s . . . . 38 Federal agents in U t a h in the late 1870's and 1880's were not only hostile to the Mormons, but to cooperative enterprises as well. They found in the thriving Brigham City and similar orders a threat to the establishment and growth of non-Mormon capitalistic enterprises. Hence a number of fines, court actions, and other harassments.
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Notwithstanding our severe reverses a n d the fiery ordeal through which we have passed, the confidence of the people in our principles of union has been preserved and they feel that we have worked earnestly and unselfishly to secure their interests and promote their general welfare. 39
As intimated in Apostle Snow's letter, Brigham City leaders decided, in view of these misfortunes and difficulties, to permit private individuals to establish business houses, and thus to return to a system of semi-private property. This tendency was never reversed. Department after department was sold, usually to the superintendent, and the only remnant of the once proud cooperative combination in 1880 was the general store. All others had become individual enterprises. It is true that the federal government restored, in 1884, the $10,200 tax on scrip which had been collected by O. J. Hollister. This sum was used partly to pay accumulated outstanding debts, and partly to erect a cooperative store building. It was hoped that the cooperative store might be able eventually to accumulate the funds necessary to reestablish cooperation once more, but this hope proved futile. In 1885 Lorenzo Snow was indicted on a charge of unlawful cohabitation and served 11 months in the U t a h Penitentiary before his conviction was set aside by the United States Supreme Court. Continued federal prosecution under the Edmunds and Edmunds-Tucker Acts further hampered the activities of community and ecclesiastical leaders. Finally, as the result of the depression of the 1890's, the cooperative store went bankrupt. O n November 30, 1895, the local court appointed a receiver for the corporation with instructions to sell all properties and pay the creditors. T h e association charter expired early in 1896, and all the affairs were completely wound up by that time. T h e cooperative store building and grounds were taken over by the Deseret Savings Bank.40 T h e experience of the Brigham City cooperative is perhaps best summarized by the last entry in the minute book, which attributes to Lorenzo Snow these words: Because of many losses and disasters . . . we have discontinued some of our enterprises and curtailed others. Yet for a period of fifteen years, our union has prevented division in mercantile business; say nothing about many other things which have been done by our union, and I have nothing to regret of all we have accomplished. We have kept out our enemies, and in all these matters we did them by common consent. 4 1
39
Lorenzo Snow to Franklin D. Richards, November 1, 1879, T.Q.M., II (January, 1883).
40
D.U.P., History of Box Elder County, 117-18. "United Order Minutes" (MS, L.D.S. Church Historian's Library), July 20, 1880.
403-5. 41
A Great Adventure on Great Salt Lake A TRUE STORY by KATE Y. NOBLE introduction and editorial notations by DAVID E. MILLER Wallace Stegner, western author, studies the old Wenner home on Fremont Island. Since this photograph was taken more of the building has collapsed. DAVID E. M I L L E R
Fremont Island
219 INTRODUCTION
T h e Great Salt Lake has been an important factor in the development of the Far West. Rocky Mountain trappers explored it in search of beaver streams; to California-bound emigrants it was a serious barrier around which they had to pass. For scientists the lake has held a peculiar fascination, and some of America's noteworthy explorers have sought it out and made surveys of it. With the permanent settlement of white men on its shores, the lake began to assume economic importance — salt was extracted from its brine; boats were launched on its surface; its islands were occupied and put to use, chiefly as grazing lands. Of these islands and their occupation, none has a more fascinating and varied history than Fremont Island, third largest in the lake. John C. Fremont and four companions (Kit Carson, Charles Preuss, Baptiste Bernier, and Basil Lajeunesse) were the first white men known to have visited any of the lake islands when they launched their frail Indiarubber boat at the mouth of the Weber River and rowed to the "nearest" island September 9, 1843. 1 Fremont's visit to the Great Salt Lake resulted in the first scientific survey of that body of water. T h e lake waters were sounded for the first time; the elevation of the surface was determined (4,200 feet above sea level); samples of lake water were obtained and evaporated over a fire, five gallons yielding 14 pints of salt; the first reliable Great Salt Lake m a p was made. T h e Fremont company reached the island about noon and climbed the highest peak, some 800 feet above the surface of the lake. From this point of vantage Fremont, with the aid of Charles Preuss, drew a m a p of the lake, a m a p that is as accurate as could be expected, drawn from one point only. T h e island was found to be approximately 13 miles in circumference, "simply a rocky hill on which there is neither water nor trees of any kind although the Fremontia vermicularis, which was in great abundance, might easily be mistaken for timber at a distance." Fremont was so dissatisfied with what he found that he named the island "Disappointment island." Dr. Miller is professor and head of the Department of History, University of Utah. I n 1949 he obtained permission from Blanche H . Wenner (only living child of K a t e Y. Noble) to have her mother's account published in The Western Humanities Review, I I I (October, 1949). This issue was subsequently exhausted, and by 1965 the growing interest in Great Salt Lake led to a general request for a reissue of this account. The editors of the Review and Miss Wenner gladly consented to have "A Great Adventure on Great Salt Lake" reprinted here. 1 John Charles Fremont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the years 1843—44 (Washington, 1845), 148— 58. For an account of Fremont's activities in the Great Salt Lake vicinity see David E. Miller, "John C. Fremont in the Great Salt Lake Region," The Historian, X I (Autumn, 1948), 14-28.
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While Fremont and Preuss were busy with the m a p work, Carson and others busied themselves by carving a cross, a true crucifix, "under a shelving rock" near the summit. Fremont did not mention the cross in his own journal and it was not until Howard Stansbury discovered it in 1850 and made note of it in his report that its existence was disclosed.2 Stansbury, however, did not know who had chiseled it into the rock. Since Stansbury's visit to the island numerous people have visited the site of the cross, wondered about its origin, and attributed it to various early explorers. Speculations are completely disposed of by Kit Carson himself, as a careful reading of his own account of his life will disclose.3 Another item of interest connected with Fremont's island visit was the loss of his spy glass cap which he accidentally left on the summit and later recorded: ". . . it will furnish matter of speculation to some future traveller." As a result of this report almost everyone who has visited the island during the past century has made a search for the missing cap. The cap, however, was found by Jacob Miller during the 1860's when the Miller brothers of Farmington, Utah, were using the island as a sheep range. 4 After the Fremont party left the island, September 10, 1843, the next to visit it, so far as is known, were members of the Mud Hen crew headed by Albert Carrington in the spring of 1848.5 This was the first Mormon exploration of Great Salt Lake. T h e expedition consisted of six men who launched a small boat, subsequently named the Mud Hen, in the Jordan River, and visited several of the lake islands. They reached Fremont Island April 22, 1848, and made a brief survey of it. This party branded the lake " T h e Briny Shallow" and gave Fremont Island the name of "Castle Island," a name subsequently often used by the Mormon settlers and by at least one prominent U t a h historian, H. H. Bancroft. During the summer of 1850 Howard Stansbury made his notable Great Salt Lake survey. Well aware of Fremont's visit in 1843, Stansbury gave the island its proper name, "in honor of him who first set foot upon its shore." 6 With the aid of his assistants, primarily Albert Carrington, 2 Howard Stansbury, Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, . . . (Philadelphia, 1852), 159. 3 Christopher Carson, Kit Carson's own Story of His Life as dictated to Col. and Mrs. D. C. Peters about 1856-57, . . . (Taos, New Mexico, 1926), 56-57. 4 Seymour L. Miller, "Experiences on the Great Salt Lake and its Islands" (MS, editor's possession), 10. Says Miller in his statement: "Just off the top of this peak [the summit of Fremont Island] Jacob Miller also found the brass cap of Fremont's spy glass which had been accidentally left on the summit when Fremont visited the island." 5 Albert Carrington, "Log of the Mud Hen," in "Journal History" (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historian's Library, Salt Lake City), April 24, 1848. 6 Stansbury, Exploration and Survey, 159.
DAVID E. M I L L E R
David E. Miller examines the famous Carson Cross at the highest point on Island. The cross was carved by Kit Carson on September 9,1843.
Fremont
Stansbury made a complete survey of Fremont Island and noted its potential value as a sheep range. Stansbury erected a triangulation station on the island peak and used it as one of the key positions for his survey. Although other boatmen may have, and probably did, visit the island between 1850 and 1859, there is no known record of such visits. According to the diary of Henry W. Miller it had evidently not been used for grazing purposes: In the Spring of 1859 I went to the Island known as F r e m o n t Island in the Great Salt Lake and explored it, accompanied by my brother Daniel and Quincey Knowlton. I built a boat and after we h a d sheared our sheep we took them to the island. T h e r e were about 153 head. I t was said that there had never been any stock on that Island before we took our sheep there. This island is about 25 miles from Farmington and about six miles north of Antelope Island, where the C h u r c h had some stock. This Fremont Island is opposite the m o u t h of Weber River. After we had taken our sheep on the island, it became known locally as Miller's Island. It proved a good place for sheep, it being about four miles from the mainland and no wild beast on it to destroy the sheep. T h e herd increased very fast in number and needed no herder to take care of it. We used to visit the Island every few weeks to clean the spring, and at times of lambing, shearing and marketing we spent days on the island at a time. 7
Fremont Island was thus occupied for the first time, and for the first time put to practical use. Henry W. Miller and Daniel Miller formed a partnership for the enterprise. Their sons and grandsons later took active part in the business, Jacob Miller being one of the most active participants. It was he who designed and supervised construction of a 50-foot sail boat, The Lady of the Lake, used for many years for lake shipping. 7
Henry W. Miller, "Journal of Henry W. Miller" ( M S , editor's possession), n.p.
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Fremont Island was found to be ideal for sheep. Small seepages of water were developed into sufficient supply for a flock of approximately 2,000 head. For use during the shearing seasons and regular visits to the island, the Millers built a cabin near the south end of the island not far from the east shore. T h e lake reached its highest recorded level during this period, shipping was practical and relatively inexpensive, and the business thrived for many years. T h e Millers called the island peak "Courthouse Rock" because of the resemblance to the Davis County Courthouse at Farmington. 8 It was during the Miller occupation of Fremont Island that the grave digger, John Baptiste, was banished there after having been found guilty of robbing graves in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. Henry W. Miller helped transport him to the island where he remained a few weeks before making his escape, supposedly on a raft constructed of planks torn from the Miller cabin. 9 During the same era, Fremont Island was prospected for precious metals. Initial surveys were so promising that the Fremont Island District was organized August 3, 1871. Says an official government publication concerning it: Small veins carrying gold, silver, copper and lead occur and were first developed by the U t a h a n d Nebraska Mining Co., 38 claims having been located by 1873, but none was ever patented. There is said to be on the island a great abundance of slate, some of which is suitable for roofing. 10
Nothing significant came of these mining ventures, and mining has long since ceased to be a serious consideration there. In 1886 Judge Uriah J. Wenner of Salt Lake City obtained possession of the island and moved there with his wife and two small children. 11 8
The island was commonly known as Miller Island. References to the Baptiste episode are found in "Journal History," January 27, August 4, 1862; Salt Lake Herald, April 2, 1893; Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 27, 1893. Dale L. Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (Indianapolis, 1947), 274—82, is the best published account. 10 B. S. Butler, G. F. Loughlin, V. C. Heikes, and Others, Ore Deposits of Utah (Washington, D . C , 1920), 502, 503. 11 Fremont Island contained federal, railroad, and (after 1896) state land. According to a letter to Dale L. Morgan (dated October 21, 1946) from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Judge Wenner filed "desert land application No. l608 . . . Dec. 15, 1885 . . . for 390.83 acres [on Fremont Island] (further description lacking). This was canceled by relinquishment Oct. 10, 1892. . . . We also find a homestead entry, No. 9971, made by Kate Y. Wenner, Oct. 10, 1892 and patented to her July 6, 1893." The Union Pacific Railroad Company sold the "railroad" land of the island to Mrs. Wenner, according to railroad company files and verified by a letter from the Union Pacific Railroad Company to David E. Miller, July 3, 1944: "Under a ten-year contract of sale No. 90226 dated October 31, 1892, the Union Pacific Railway Company sold to Kate Y. Wenner, administratrix of Estate of U . J. Wenner, deceased, 1,109.90 acres of land . . . [on Fremont Island] at $2.00 per acre, and the purchaser was to assume all unpaid taxes for the year 1885 and thereafter. 9
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T h e family lived there until the death of Judge Wenner in September 1891. Since that time the island has been used primarily as a sheep range, having been leased to various persons for that purpose. 12 By far the most fascinating chapter in the history of Fremont Island is that of the Wenner occupation, 1886-91, and it is with this phase of the story that we are here primarily concerned. 13 This story begins in 1880 with the arrival of Uriah James Wenner and his young bride, Kate, 14 in Salt Lake City. Mr. Wenner established a law office and the young couple were soon numbered among the city's leading citizens. When the Edmunds Act (1882) disqualified Utah's elected judges and canceled the elections of that year, Governor Eli H. Murray appointed Mr. Wenner to the office of probate judge. Although Elias A. Smith, disqualified probate judge, contested the appointment, Judge Wenner won his case in court. 15 O n September 22,1882, Governor Murray issued the commission to the newly appointed judge. T h e rest of the story will follow in Kate Wenner Noble's own words. KATE WENNER NOBLE'S STORY Before the sails are spread for my Desert Island home [I might say that] I lived five consecutive years without a tree, without a neighbor, and during this isolation from the world I made just one trip to the mainland. Since this is a true story, I should tell some facts regarding my early life. After a succession of seven brothers, I surprised the family by being a girl and wisely chose the time of my arrival April Fool's Day, 1857. I feel I was fortunate in having lived in my own time when childhood ran far into the "teens" and youth far into the twenties, and I would rather be eighty-five years old now than my grandmother in 1857, w h o m I remember wearing red flannel and a balmoral petticoat. She would gasp if she knew I flew from the Pacific to the Atlantic — and be absolutely shocked if she knew I was the only woman in the plane. I shall not dip far into my young lady days; b u t they are an exhilarating memory to me. " T h e contract of sale was paid in full, and . . . the Railroad Company issued a warranty deed No. 902 dated January 29, 1903 to Kate Y. Wenner." This sale involved all the railroad land on the island. In the course of time, the Wenner interests also bought the remaining acreages from the State of U t a h . 12 Charles Stoddard operated the island as a sheep ranch for many years prior to 1960, when Miss Wenner sold the island to Henry Richards and Associates. 13 T h e best published accounts of the Wenner experiences on Fremont Island are: Morgan, Great Salt Lake, 329—37; and Charles Kelly, "They Built an Island Home in the Desert," Desert Magazine, V I I (February, 1944), 4 - 7 . 14 Kate Yates Greene, daughter of William Graham and Louisa H u r t Greene. 15 Reports of Cases determined in the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah from June Term, 1884 to June Term, 1886 (Salt Lake City, 1890), I V , 238-46.
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After graduating from an exclusive Eastern school, 16 followed by three years of study and travel in Europe, I returned to my loved America and met again the man God made and kept for me. His first words were, "Is there anybody else? If so, breathe the answer softly so as not to disturb the ashes of a deeply buried happiness." A short engagement, a wedding, and a honeymoon ending in Salt Lake City where my husband opened his law office, and the home we built on Brigham Street (now politely called East South Temple Street) is standing a witness to our happy days of health and hope when all life was fair before us. 17 T h e second year George V. 1 8 arrived and was a few months old when the big social event of the winter was the opening of Mrs. Kimball's new home on M a i n Street. I h a d been secretly holding for this occasion a beautiful gown my mother h a d sent me from the East. When I burst forth in this finery and heard those things dear to the heart of every wife — we never went to that party. I was addressed as Miss G 1 9 — and courted all over again, and our baby asleep smiled his benediction. T h e next day I m a d e an honest confession to my hostess and she put her arms around me and said, "God bless you for your love and truth." After three years of joyous living came a precious baby daughter to bless our happy home. 2 0 Fourth of July, 1883, U t a h ' s big celebration was held at Fort Douglas and General [William T.] Sherman was the guest of General [Alexander McDowell] McCook. My husband was the orator of the day and I was proud when he paid this tribute to the American woman, "Bow low to every American girl for she is a queen and princess in her own right." 21 Interested in silver mines, our gold went in, but neither silver nor gold ever came out. We were getting poorer all the time, but so happy we did not seem to mind it; servants dwindled down to one; the best of books we never resisted as long as we could pay for one. T H E D E S E R T ISLAND About the fifth year a shadow came into our sunshine; my husband was not so well. 22 T h e doctors prescribed a perfect rest from all business cares. Knowing of Fremont Island, Great Salt Lake, then owned by the Government and Central Pacific Railroad, 2 3 we began planning the purchase which we could manage by selling our city home and buy a few sheep, and I was so delighted the children would see little lambs play — I felt like a real frontier woman to begin "home steading" our first acres. I 18
Moravian Seminary, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. T h e house was located at 639 East South Temple Street. 18 George U. Wenner, born October 20, 1881, died May 30, 1920. Here he is called George V (George the Fifth). George U. Wenner I, fought in the American Revolution. " Miss Greene. 20 Blanche Howard Wenner, born December 5, 1883. 21 T h e Salt Lake Daily Tribune, July 6, 1883, called this oration "chaste and beautiful . . . ; happy in arrangement, exalted in thought and patriotism, and most scholarly and lofty in diction. It is a specimen of clear-cut, exquisite English. . . . Some of the figures are delicious. " 'Lift up your hats and make obeisance to every American boy, for he is by right of his inheritance a prince of the royal blood. " 'Bow low to every American girl, for she is a Princess and Queen in her own right.' " 22 Judge Wenner had tuberculosis. 23 It was the Union Pacific Railroad Company. 17
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loved the sound of it. Relatives and friends were horrified at our desolate summer on a desert island. My heart was beating health, health for him. Boats were few on Great Salt Lake then and winter trips were seldom if ever made. Anyway, we would try it for the summer. We tried to think of everything we would need for camping and tent life. We arranged for an old sail boat to carry us over. I thought of the Ark as we marched in two by two, the little boy and girl, age four and two years, two men, the hired girl 24 and [the] captain, as he called himself. It seemed fun at first, but with calms, head winds, squalls, and seasickness, -— for hours that treacherous body was like "a tempest in a teapot." I felt as if a demon had a huge egg beater and was trying to beat something out of the dense water; between waves we could almost see the ground and we were so encrusted with salt we looked like the salt ornaments now on sale in the Hotel U t a h , Salt Lake City. We were nearly three days on the way, about twenty miles from the mainland. After the wind h a d gone down, it took a day to iron out the heavy wrinkles of that 2 2 % salt water. O n that unsteady trip I made u p my mind I would not take my family back to the mainland very soon, and perhaps I would wait until the lake dried up. N o w Hughes 2 5 would make that same trip in one breath. We had taken along our two grey-hounds, Echo and Dart, not knowing then they would not agree with peaceful sheep raising. When we finally landed I shall never forget the leap they gave; after three days' misery and confinement in the hold of the boat they surely struck for "Freedom and Liberty." I thought they would never stop running. I t was a Sunday morning when we anchored in the Bay of our future home where we faced nearly three thousand acres of sage brush and grease wood. T h e shore was of very fine gravel or coarse sand, not unpleasant to the feet. I missed the church spires and the call of church bells. T h e children, like the dogs, began to run and enjoy land again. W h e n a bit settled, I started my little Sunday School. T h e silent surroundings were conducive to concentration with me, but not so with the children. I t seemed to me they had turned Natives at once and just wanted to explore. Near where we landed there was an old shanty, built of drift wood and pieces of wrecked boats, and the winds and rains must have blown through it for years. 26 I suppose way back some one thought of a home on that lonely Island, but wearied of the isolation. I wondered if I would get accustomed to the creeping things, which just amused the children. 27 In the afternoon a swim in the Lake, after supper a walk over the hill where a glorious sunset held us, and then the moon lit u p our little world and hope built happy days ahead. We had come prepared for camping all summer, but when we unpacked I discovered we h a d left our small looking-glasses behind. My husband was highly amused; 24
This was possibly Rodah Rollins. Evidently a reference to some aerial accomplishment of Howard Hughes, according to Blanche Wenner. 26 This was the old Miller cabin, built by Jacob Miller and associates. 27 T h e island was notorious for its lizards, mice, and especially, snakes. Snakes were primarily whipsnakes and blowsnakes; rattlesnakes have not been observed there. Snakes are seldom seen on the island today, most of them having been killed by fires that have swept the island. Charles Stoddard reported having found numerous dead ones after a fire in 1940. Charles Stoddard, "Facts about Fremont Island" ( M S , editor's possession), 3. 25
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he was to wear a beard for throat protection. He waited for my vanity to send for a looking glass and I did not have one for six months. Fifty years ago women did not carry little mirrors in their bags and peep at themselves every few minutes. If any woman wishes to be pleased with her appearance, let her forget her face for six months and then behold herself again. I shall always believe this omission of a looking-glass was done purposely. When the old Salty boat, after a month, came over with cedar posts, lumber and fresh provisions, my hired girl could not resist the opportunity of returning to the mainland, more I think to see herself than her friends. We had pitched our tents not far from the Beach and near the old Shanty. We had no screens then and the spiders and other insects would creep into the tents. After the children were asleep I put cotton in their ears and it worked two ways, kept out intruders, and prevented the early strange noises at crack of dawn from reaching their ears; when I removed the cotton it was only a few minutes until their blue eyes were open to their new world of wonders. For my protection I soon made myself a night cap such as my grandmother wore. Only one "do not" in the children's lives and that was not to go in the Lake unless we were with them. If the briny water is swallowed it brings on a terrible strangulation! I can only liken it to smelling too much ammonia. The summer proved a wonderful benefit to my husband and we decided to spend the winter there. We had no boat of our own, but made arrangements for the same boat that brought us over, to bring our mail and other necessities about once a month. The captain knew our tastes and would arrive with a regular little store, that we might select to satisfy our needs. At that time old fashioned row boats and little sail boats were the only transportation. Launches were tried occasionally, but the machinery rusted very soon and in a storm they were more dangerous than a sail boat. The lake's greatest depth then was about forty-five feet and every foot seemed solid, yet wildly seeking a new place, when the dense body of water was in commotion. Fremont writes of that first visit to the Island 1842 [1843] and his unwillingness to remain longer and trust his explorers' lives to the uncertainties of this lake; he lost the cap of his telescope on the Peak, the highest point of the Island, and we always hoped to find it28 his book and Stansbury's were two of our interesting books in those frontier days. After Fremont, someone built the old shanty I mentioned, and it certainly had stood the storms of years. I papered it with magazine pictures and it was our crude gay kitchen. Some early adventurer had braved the treacherous water and on the Peak had carved roughly a cross well enough defined for us to know a prayer had broken the silence of that lonely island.29 The Indian, too, had been there, for we found and have in our possession now, several flint arrow heads. 30 The fall weather was spicy, but sunny. We had lumber brought across and the two men who were working for us, with my husband's management and assistance, built a little house, which we thought should have a very small name; cabin sounded too 28
See footnote 4. See footnote 3. 30 Numerous I n d i a n artifacts, such as metates and grinding stones, have been found on the 29
island.
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pretentious so we named it the H u t . With a tent, a shanty and a H u t we were prospering. We rented the boat for a m o n t h and had horses, cows, chickens, a big wagon a n d thoroughbred rams from Iowa brought over. All hands combined, rock was collected, a n d while it may have been a rudely constructed house, the weather being favorable, it was finished by spring and it had an upstairs and a downstairs. We sent for our household goods, which were stored in Salt Lake City, and we lined the house with our books, and h u n g on the rough grey plastered walls my loved pictures I brought from Europe. Corregio's Magdalene looked as if she had crept in at the window and was simply resting there. We started our ranch with a few sheep and they browsed on the south side through the winter and took care of themselves, and imagine our joy in the spring when many ewes came proudly over the hill with twin lambs. O n account of the salt air we were not successful with trees nor garden. O u r fuel was dead sage brush and grease wood and the combination was fine. Nothing better than a broiled lamb chop over the grease wood, which is a hard, glowing, clean coal. There was so much to do, so m u c h to think about in this new life away from the world, the only family on the Island. I began to feel much of my life would have been wasted living in the outside world imitating fashions, wondering about neighbors' affairs, worrying about my children's companions. We learned to know ourselves, enjoy ourselves, children and books. O u r relatives and friends were calling hard for us to get off that Desert Island and come back to civilization. Time was slipping by so pleasantly that the months were slipping into years. O u r sheep industry was increasing and the sheep shearers were greatly excited about our lives when they came over. Their wives who felt sorry for me, because I lived way off and had no neighbors, always sent me their choicest j a m and pickles. I asked two of these well-to-do shearers why they did that h a r d work and one reply was, "Well, my children have gotten to the place where they w a n t gold teeth and an organ." Another husky fellow replied, " M y children have learned to dance and have joined the Episcopal Church, and that means they are in Society, a n d surely they need money." We always observed Sunday and it was a long day for the shearers; resting was their hardest work. We finally purchased an old boat whose quivering masts h a d pointed to the stars for years; she was overhauled, made steady and staunch again, a n d carried our fleeces and lambs to the Mainland. We named her the Argo; some of us carved a crude ram's head on her bow. We extracted all the poetry we could out of our sheep industry. In those days Depression had not m a d e all sheep "black sheep." " T h e Lord was our Shepherd." We did not need herders, fences, nor feed. T h e r e were natural springs, a bit brackish. With our other improvements we drove wells, and the water while not perfectly fresh was analyzed as very beneficial and we who lived there found it most palatable except in coffee, and we soon became accustomed to that. Happy with returning health and the beautiful spring time, things began to happen. Someone sent the children a donkey a n d we called him Adam, and the first
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born on our Island was a little colt and we named her Eve, and about that time I received a package from the Governor addressed t o : " T H E LADY OF T H E L A K E "
Now, did we not have a great beginning? T h e children were amused by homem a d e pleasures, such as would make the poor little rich girl envious. Even then they were making little boats that put out to Sea with their hopes, and oh, what homes in the sand just to be washed away! Pebbles were people and sometimes sheep. O u r little girl learned to swim first, just before her fourth birthday, which embarrassed her brother and he argued some good swimmers might go with one foot on the bottom, but in a few weeks he could outdistance her. T h e family's afternoon entertainment was the lake, and my husband being a very able swimmer would go far out with the children and I did not lag very far behind. Floating in that dense water was great fun. T h e mice and lizards sometimes interfered with the solemnity of my little Sunday School. O n e time with the twenty-third Psalm still on their tongues, I heard my little boy say, as he ran gleefully out of the H u t , "And lizards runneth over; that's why M o t h e r sat on her feet." I had held in reserve my Mainland finery, forgetting it would be old-fashioned; some dresses several years old were still in perfect condition. Occasionally it occurred to me I might go off some day. About this time it was decided I should go back to my old home in Illinois for a few months. T h e Argo carried us across to a little settlement called Hooper; imagine the children after two years; they kissed everything on the Island good-bye. We were a funny procession going up the street in Ogden, Utah. I, unconscious of my old-fashioned clothes in perfectly good order, somewhat uncomfortable I admit. T h e boy with a squeaking pet Pelican close to h i m ; the little girl with a box of horned toads; the children would not leave me and they would not leave their pets. O u r friends, who were so amused at our appearance then, have now so magnified that little procession until one would think no circus excitement ever equalled it. T h e poor lame pelican, which the children found h u r t on the Island shore, was so appreciative of their care that he became a great pet and was often to me a nuisance. H e was presented to a park finally with the understanding he must be taken to walk, since he could not fly, and be treated with respect. My husband returned to the Island as spring and summer were busy times, and the children and I left for the East, our first break in the Island life. Back to the old home with my little Islanders, although so young, readers and thinkers, for every day they had had their lesson. We certainly were curiosities to relatives and friends, with unusual experiences and children whose only punishment had been not to play together for one hour. While East there was an epidemic of whooping cough and my father, concerned, said, "Children, have you h a d i t ? " and little Blanche replied, "Grandpa, I think we had all the diseases but Polygamy before we went to the Island." 31 After three months I returned to the Island and brought home our new baby boy. 32 31 The Wenners were not Mormons. This was during the most extensive anti-polygamy activity in U t a h . 32 Lincoln Greene Wenner, born July 8, 1888, died September 25, 1906.
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With seventeen miles of shore line their own again, the children were happy on that Island. They found two Shetland ponies, Dot and Cricket. T h e r e was a goat and harness and a little wagon, — the days were not long enough for all the fun, and a fine new companion, a Shepherd dog from the famous Philadelphia Kennels. O n e day the help reported Dot had the colic, but she was getting over it and my small boy thought a good rubbing would do her good, and he found a bottle of varnish, instead of oil, and rubbed her the wrong way until her beautiful glossy coat looked even queer to him, and when he came for help, we found the poor pony so stiff from excess of varnish she could not lie down without difficulty. T w o men, with oil and other things applied gradually, softened her coat and in a few days she was in riding order. T h e boy loved and cared for her and was always sorry for that mistake. T h e wise pony soon knew his tender h e a r t ; at a steep hill he always got off to make her load easier. W h a t a play ground was the Sand Hill instead of the city child's limited sand box! Those children knew the first flutter of the wind and would play on, knowing it would quiet down again; or if a certain breeze stiffened, how quickly they grabbed their playthings and ran for home. They did not forget how they h a d been caught and peppered by the swift stinging sand. Over a hill they used to play, and our signal for their return was a flag at the upstairs window, and they must watch for that. It occurred to the boy, whose conscience was more elastic than his sister's, that if he did not go to the top of the hill to see it, they could play on and on. Having no trees on the Island we were without switches or shade, but Wellesley and Yale have been told mother h a d a slipper. 33 O n hot summer days, which were not often, we moved around the house and the b a r n for shade. Life with us meant home-made bread a n d home-made pleasures, and how many times we found "Necessity the mother of Invention." H o w much fun we had over substitution and make-believe. Once I forgot to send for sugar until I found myself entirely out. I bridged over that forgetfulness without my husband ever knowing it. While waiting for the boat to return with other things and sugar, I said, "Let us try coffee without sugar for several days. I am sure we are better off without it." I talked so hard that I changed our taste for sugarless coffee. W i t h our chickens, ducks, turkeys and sheep we lived well and once a m o n t h usually sent our boat over for fresh provisions and mail. O h , the mail and how the newspapers were devoured — that part of life we never gave u p . Crude as Island life was in many ways, there were certain amenities that were never neglected. W e expected and respected proper appearance at the evening meal. O n c e I had a stiff neck, sounds Biblical, or a " C a t c h " as my grandmother would say. I was sitting on a little bench by the door watching a workman plane a board and thought w h a t fun the children will have with the shavings. As I stiffly turned around I spied a snake midst the shavings and believe me I gave one j u m p and unhitched my neck, a n d I will tell the doctors that is sure a speedy cure. H o w the baby grew and thrived and how soon he toddled after the others; he knew n o boundary line and feared nothing. All holidays were celebrated that the children might always know their importance and they recited "Barbara Fritchie" and other poems suitable for the days. 33
Blanche H. Wenner graduated from Wellesley, George U . Wenner from Yale.
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T h e y hoisted the Flag, and it was impressive to see the Red, White and Blue waving over Fremont Desert Island. T h e animals so felt the quiet of life there, that one Fourth of July a few rockets created such a disturbance that our choice Jersey cow bolted over the hill and stood in the briny lake "watchfully waiting" for peace a n d quiet again before she ventured to return. O u r Christmas tree was always brought from the Mainland, and Santa Claus knew the way to the Island, and often the children wondered how things happened. O n summer evenings the children would skip down to the Lake for a snappy dip and then to bed. T h e i r father at the foot of the stairs would sing — Sleep, baby, sleep. Thy mother is shaking the dreamland tree, Down falls a golden dream for thee, Sleep, baby, sleep.
and always ended with a muffled sleepy "Boom, Boom"; they rarely heard the end. T h e little girl, called by her father Cush La Machree, would stand on the shore and repeat for him very dramatically — " W h a t are all these kisses worth, If Thou kiss not m e ? "
H e r brother would say, pointing to the sheep — My name is Norval; on the Grampion Hills M y father feeds his flock.
T h e n they would straddle their Shetland ponies a n d charge to the hills shrieking — Blue Bonnets across the Border!
O u r baby boy, not yet three years old, though not able to read, knew the titles of books and where they belonged. O u r book shelves were open and the children were taught early the care of books; they absorbed the titles a n d authors. For instance, they were watching carefully a family of horned toads, their pets. O n e they called "Achilles," one " T h e Bride of L a m m e r m o o r " and one was " T h e Country Doctor" and we heard the little boy tell his brother, " T h a t name is so long let's call him Balzac." O n e day little Lincoln disappeared and we scattered in every direction on foot and horseback searching for him. We always told the children if lost to follow the shore-line and they would come home safely. After a half day's search he was spied far away, keeping very close to every little curve of the shore; his father soon had him in his arms. H e was a sorry sight with his tear stained, dirty face and he said, "Sometimes I lay down on the shore-line and said: 'Now I lay m e down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep' — and then I got up and went on." I know God heard and understood that prayer as the little fellow trudged on so near to the shore-line, never realizing the curves could be cut across; he did his "little best." My husband a n d our m a n left very early one morning in our little row boat; the lake was calm and everything encouraging, with a gentle, favorable wind, and they would cross to a point of land, where the water was too shallow for the Argo, and then drive to Hooper Post Office and return by midnight anyway, probably by milking time. T h e r e came one of those sudden squalls, which upset their plans for returning. I knew why they were not home and was not uneasy. Early the next morning I saw
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coming over the sand hill two men w h o looked queer and rough as they neared the house; they were encrusted with salt from the the briny spray. I said with a trembling voice, " W o n ' t you have breakfast?" and the reply was, "Sure, we will, where is the axe?" My heart stood still and I remembered out of reach of the children was a loaded revolver; but shooting a tin can is very different from shooting a m a n . I began to recover when I saw them chopping and stacking sage brush for my future use. T h e children must have felt my excitement, although I thought I was calm, but imagine my feelings when I saw my three standing like three statutes with their bows and arrows; they believed in Preparedness and Defense; but I knew the men were safe from their aim. At eight o'clock I went to the barn and wondered if I could ever perform that job of milking, entirely new to me. I pulled and tugged •— a n d not a spatter of milk, and then I wondered why I h a d not asked the m e n for that service. I tried first one h a n d and then the other; in two hours I filled my bucket, but did not empty the cow. My poor "lady fingers" were lame for a week. About an hour after my milking seance, I saw our little boat coming in the bay; how I wished then I h a d waited. My husband brought the world to us; everything was news and the gunny sack of mail was like a post office. His greatest surprise on the Island was my bucket of milk, a n d I a m sure it was the cow's greatest surprise too, which she hoped would not be repeated. O u r lives were never h u m d r u m by any means. Once the children decided they ought to be sick, they heard us reading letters about their little cousin being sick, and not to be outdone, the two older ones began by letting "the old cat die" in their swings, then caught hands and whirled as long as they could, then staggered over to a can of sheep dip a n d sniffed t h a t until they knew they were sick or something. We found them laid out in the shearing shed — and that was their only sickness on the Island and was brought on by their own determination. Hearing us read and discuss news, the children h a d absorbed some presidential information. It seemed a big leap from the White House to a hen house on Fremont Island; but this happened. T h e r e was a new big hen house painted white, empty and clean, awaiting a certain breed of chickens. M y eight year old boy decided he would be the President in the White House and his little sister could come a n d ask favors; but when she came to the door her imagination ceased, and to her it was a hen house and she ran away laughing and cackling which incensed the dignity of her brother. O n e of our favorite walks after the evening meal was to Sunset Rock, and as the brilliant colors of the sky faded, my brave husband, w h o then was struggling with his health unbeknownst to me, would repeat: — God's in his Heaven — All's right with the World!
Shearing and dipping were great excitement and I never ceased to sympathize with a sheep whose big fleece had just been taken off and then was pushed into a dipping vat of w a r m tobacco juice and could only get out of it by swimming, his first lesson perhaps. T h e men kept at a distance when he shook himself and the shearers rarely ever smoked tobacco in any form; I wonder if the sheep dip supplied it, or they faithfully kept the M o r m o n " W o r d of Wisdom." Anyone who dared sail a boat in those days was a Captain, so we mostly h a d a captain w h o looked after the Argo in the bay and the cows and horses on land. H e kept
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my old shanty kitchen shining and could prepare a meal — not with cream puffs, but no French Chef could turn out a finer roast of lamb. With my husband's supervision corrals were improved and things put in order again after the chaos of shearing, dipping a n d shipping. With spring came all day picnics on horseback to the far end of the Island; it was a great caravan. We surely nibbled close to the bones of our fried chicken and snapped the "wish bone," and I am sure our wishes came true, since they were not extravagant and mostly confined to the Island. An occasional little sail boat would cruise the lake, trusting to fair weather, and it was our delight when it came our way and people shared our plain hospitality. O n e boat, a c a t a m a r a n , with her snowy sails spread, came silently into our harbor, and how my little boys chased up and down the beach and my little girl was holding on to her skirt ready to drop her curtsy with the arrival of the crew. I had my tea kettle boiling ready to do the Island's best. O n the boat was the gallant Captain [David L.] Davis of Salt Lake City, the father of Noel Davis, later one of our brave aviators. After five years of Island life, we decided to spend the winter in California. T h e Island would take care of itself and we would give our little Islanders a taste of civilization. W e sent our man 3 4 of all work to the mainland for mail and purchases needed. Returning, the Argo struck a storm and heavy head winds and the m a n was detained mid-lake just the time when he was needed most. Just once I realized things might change. I thought my husband was taking a n a p and from the other room I heard him softly saying, " I n my Father's house are many mansions." I ran to the shore where the children were playing to gain strength to fight my own anxiety and to catch their cheer and sunshine for him. T h a t night I awakened many times wishing the wind would go down. Next morning busy with preparations for our California trip, I heard h i m call and the voice sounded far away a n d between the upstairs and the downstairs, I knew, oh I knew! With these words, " I love you, love the children," and so he left the Island really living until he died. T h e r e I stood alone facing death for the first time in all my life; the three little children were on a far away hill, happy in their play. I wondered what their brave father would say were he in my place and I in his. I met them and explained as best I could. Did anyone ever stop the laughter and halt the happiness of little children? It takes something from one that never comes back. N o sign of the boat. All day long those heavy waves beat against the shore as though tearing up the Island. I heard once that two fires close together meant a call for Help. My feet and hands were busy climbing the hill pulling and piling the sage brush high ready for my signals at night; I thought, turn the spreading roots toward the sky that they may emphasize my distress. 35 D u r i n g the night I would replenish those fires and then back to my children peacefully sleeping upstairs and I would not have them hear my sorrow as I sat below where their blessed father was resting beside the books he loved so well. O n watch my second night the wind began to quiet down moaning and sighing. I thought, " H o w long, O h Lord, how long." T h e r e came a faint light in the heavens and gradually a broad stream of moonlight like a path of gold a n d I saw 34 35
Charles Rollins, of Centerville, Utah. People on the mainland saw and recognized the signals but could do nothing to help.
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the Argo sailing "wing and wing" toward me. I felt like an angel was treading softly across the water. T h e m a n called, "What's h a p p e n e d ? " By the light of a lantern we worked that night in the barn and m a d e as best we could the box and I lined it not with cold white satin but with a softly tinted precious shawl. Morning did come again and the first words I heard were from my little eight year old boy, "Mother, I am half a m a n , " and no sermon in all the world could have strengthened me more. His words brought the "Everlasting Arms" which supported m e through our little service. I sent my children to a far away beach for pebbles, and told t h e m when they saw their flag at the upstairs window to come home. W h e n all was over they came and with these beautiful pebbles of all colors we each m a d e a letter and spelled the word L O V E on that newly m a d e grave. T h e n came a shower like sympathy from Heaven and soon a rainbow and the sunshine lit u p my world again — the glorious memories of our life and love on that Desert Island.
SEQUEL
Shortly after this tragic event, Mrs. Wenner took her family from the island. But the place always commanded a prominent position in her affections and when she died on December 29, 1942, her only living child made arrangements to place the ashes of the mother beside the father's grave. So it was that in June 1943, accompanied by a few friends, Blanche H . Wenner returned to the island grave site and in a brief ceremony deposited the mortal remains of Kate Y. Wenner Noble 36 beside the grave of her former husband. After the burial of Judge Wenner in 1891 a board picket fence was built around the burial plot. As years passed the posts rotted away, and in 1941 Charles Stoddard was authorized to build a new one — the one now standing. This fence consists of a concrete foundation with steel posts and galvanized combination wire. A bronze plaque bearing the vital statistics of those buried in the plot was subsequently attached to the gate. Mr. Stoddard also placed a large stone to mark the grave. During the summer of 1948 Miss Wenner authorized Mr. Stoddard to construct a cairn at the grave site. This was constructed of rocks taken from the walls of the old stone house. T h e bronze plaque was removed from the gate and firmly fixed to the cairn to form a permanent marker for the two noble people who took civilization to Fremont Island. In granting permission to publish her mother's memoirs, Miss Wenner expressed the desire to have four other items printed also — a short 38
Mrs. Wenner married John Scott Noble in 1903.
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statement by John E. Jones concerning his connection with the grave site, two letters to Mr. Jones from Mrs. Noble, and one letter from Miss Wenner to Mr. Jones. Salt Lake City — February 25, 1943 Last fall while making a trip on the Lake with Dr. T . C. Adams a n d two Sea Scouts, we anchored overnight at the north of Antelope Island and the following DAVID E . M I L L E R
This bronze plaque is attached on a cairn erected at the grave site.
More than 50 years after the death of Judge Wenner, the ashes of his wife were placed (in June 1943) beside his grave on lonely Fremont Island by their daughter, Blanche Wenner, and John E. Jones. U T A H STATE H I S T O R I C A L SOCIETY CHARLES K E L L Y COLLECTION
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morning sailed over to the south end of Fremont, where we landed and visited an old ranch with a flowing artesian well. Dr. Adams and the two scouts decided to climb to the top of the island while I put in my time exploring the ranch and across to the west side of the island. I n these peregrinations I came across a small plot of ground enclosed in an iron fence, set in cement posts. Within the fence were the initials, " W . U . J. V. E." partly buried in the sand. O n returning to Salt Lake I m a d e inquiry and found that the island was the property of Mrs. K a t e Y. Noble, then residing at the Women's University Club in Seattle. I wrote to her explaining the trip and offered to do anything that I could towards straightening u p the initials. T h e following correspondence are letters from Mrs. Noble and her daughter. Further interest developed when I discovered that my good friend Shelton Baker, now a rancher just south of Jackson's Hole, went with M r . Wenner, Mrs. Noble's first husband, to Fremont Island back in the late 1880's, when M r . Wenner purchased the island. Believing that the material in Mrs. Noble's article would be of interest to others interested in the Lake, I have reproduced it herewith. J. E. J. [John E. Jones] Seattle — November 24, 1942 My dear Mr. Jones: — I wish to thank you for your kind and thoughtful letter, Nov. 19 received yesterday. For five years Fremont Island was my happy home, not a neglected sheep ranch as it is now. A real home with a big library, pictures from Abroad and Shetland ponies for my three little children. Life was a joy until death came to my husband, U . J. Wenner, Sept. 19, 1891. M y two sons have passed away; Lieut. George U . Wenner lies beneath the Flag he loved and served (in World W a r I) at Presidio, San Francisco. T h e other son, Lincoln Greene Wenner, rests beside his g r a n d p a Greene near Salem, 111.; my father and A b r a h a m Lincoln were boyhood friends. I still own the Island and my daughter, Blanche Wenner, who is a high school teacher and a war worker, hopes some day to make the improvements we once had, artesian wells, etc. Blanche is keenly interested in your calling attention to the initials U . J. W. and however you think is best to arrange them to master the sand and wind, and your expense I will attend to. Originally the galvanized letters were filled with bright pebbles. T h e V. E. were the last letters of the word L O V E , a letter for each one of the family left behind. Of course, the Salt Lake Tribune did not get the tragic news until late in Sept., 1891 and one account is given in the same paper, Sunday, Oct. 4, 1891. T h e hired m a n h a d taken our boat, T h e Argo, over for the mail. My husband died on the Island and on account of the wild storm the m a n could not return for days. O n his return we buried my husband on the Island he h a d loved. It was kind of you to tell me of the grave. Whatever seems best to you will be right with us and gladly I will pay expense. Very cordially yours, (Mrs. J. S.) K a t e Y. Noble
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Utah Historical Quarterly Seattle — D e c . 7, 1942
My Dear M r . Jones: — Your letter of Nov. 20th received and we do appreciate your kindly interest and help for the grave on the Island. I like the simple inscription: U . J. Wenner Born July 31, 1849 Died September 19, 1891 Enclosed you will find an account of my Island life, which I wrote a few years ago so that my daughter, family and friends might have it in my own words. I really think it belongs to the State of U t a h , and I appreciate so much your interest. Again thanking you, Sincerely — K a t e Y. Noble S e a t t l e — 2 1 January, 1943 M y dear M r . Jones, Very shortly after my wonderful little mother had written to you last came her very sudden death, Dec. 29th, as perhaps you read in the Salt Lake Tribune. You don't know how much Mother and I appreciated your interest and kindness about my father's grave. Little did I realize that I would so soon be planning to place her ashes beside him! This I plan to do, if possible, when school closes in J u n e . Again I w a n t to thank you from my heart for all that your interest in Fremont Island meant to my dear mother. Sincerely yours, Blanche H . Wenner
BY T H O M A S G. A L E X A N D E R
After World War I the United States attempted to ignore, or at least to minimize the effect of, military and political developments in the rest of the world. George Washington's Farewell Address and the sentiments of Thomas Jefferson were cited as proof that we should have no "entangling alliances." Though commercially aggressive, the American people remained politically disengaged.1 Consistent with this isolationist attitude, the end of World War I signaled a contraction in military expenditures. Most unused ammunition was concentrated in five depots along the Atlantic Coast which had been used as forwarding centers for overseas shipment. In 1920, however, the War Department decided to construct two new ordnance depots to disperse part of the munitions away from the Atlantic. Some 25 per cent was to be left on the eastern seaboard, 15 per cent was to be taken to a new depot to be constructed near Ogden, Utah, and the rest was to be sent to Thomas G. Alexander is an assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University. T h e writer expresses appreciation to Professor Leonard J. Arrington of U t a h State University for his aid in the preparation of the manuscript. The research for this article was,done under a grant from the U t a h State University Research Council. Photographs for this article are courtesy Ogden Air Materiel Area. 1 Richard Hofstadter, William Miller, and Daniel Aaron, The American Republic (2 vols., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1959), I, 280, 294; I I , 546-49.
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Savanna, Illinois. 2 T h e Ogden site lay about 10 miles southwest of the city — at Sunset, a suburb on the Ogden-Salt Lake City highway and railway routes. Metropolitan Ogden, because of its position on the main east-west transportation arteries, presented an excellent site for efficient storage and rapid transshipment. 3 T H E O G D E N A R S E N A L AS A RESERVE D E P O T ,
1920-1935
After the Army had found the suburban location suitable, the War Department authorized the purchase of 1,200 acres in March 1920. The site lay partly on a sand hill, and partly on farm land just east of Highway 91. Though the purchase included several larger units, most of the land consisted of small plots of between 20 and 50 acres. In addition to the main reservation, the government purchased a 212-acre watershed and a right-of-way to bring water to the installation. The land and water supply cost the government $153,914, but clear titles to the land were hard to obtain, and as late as 1945 much of the land was still under dispute in the courts. The government also acquired additional land between 1921 and 1935. 4 T h e Army assigned Ora Bundy, later mayor of Ogden (1930-34), to supervise the construction under the direction of the Third District Construction Service at Fort Mason, California. Under his stewardship the majority of the construction was done by W. M. Sutherland, and was completed between the spring of 1920 and the fall of 1921. As each unit was completed, it was turned over to Major O. H. Presbrey, the first commander. 5 The main buildings consisted of 35 hollow-tile 220 by 50 feet magazines with rubberoid roofs. Other buildings which helped serve the purposes of the installation included an administration building, a gen2 Constance McLaughlin Green, Harry C. Thomson, and Peter C. Roots, United States Army in World War II, The Technical Services, The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War (Washington, D . C , 1955), 3 7 - 3 8 ; Harry C. Thomson and Lidda Mayo, United States Army in World War II, The Technical Services, The Ordnance Department: Procurement and Supply (Washington, D . C , 1960), 360. 3 Material relating to the history of Ogden Arsenal is found in the Historical Archives, Office of Information, Hill Air Force Base. Miss Helen Rice, base historian, provided a clipping file entitled "Publicity, Newspapers and Magazines — Clippings, 1936-38, and 1939-40"; xerographic copies of newspaper clippings from the personal clipping files of Frank M. Browning; "Addendum Number 1 to O O A M A Histories," which is a compilation of documents relating to the history of Hill Field; a file entitled "Arsenal Letters 1921" which contained information on the early construction; and "History Statement of Ogden Arsenal," by Ray S. O d d (typescript, ca. October, 1954). Unless otherwise noted, all information in the article is from the Hill Archives. 4 Verifax reproduction of a document giving data on land procurement dated August 4, 1928, revised March 16, 1929, re-revised June 16, 1936, pp. 1-5 (hereafter referred to as Land Procurement D o c u m e n t ) , in "Addenum Number 1 to O O A M A Histories." Also Salt Lake Tribune, April 9, 1937, September 17, 1945. 5 O r a Bundy to Chief, Third District Construction Service Fort Mason, California, April 27, 1921, and a series of forms turning over property to Major O. H . Presbrey, dated between February 19 and October 15, 1921, in "Arsenal Letters 1921-"
Warehouses, motor pool, transportation facilities, headquarters, and other storagemanufacturing facilities of Ogden Arsenal, now part of Ogden Air Materiel Area.
eral warehouse, two repacking houses, a machine shop, and a locomotive house. Although the contractors installed a sewage system, the government furnished 11 four-hole latrines — undoubtedly for the convenience of those who might not appreciate more modern facilities! Total improvements made during this early construction were appraised in 1928 at $1,077,187. 6 T h e government designed the Ogden Arsenal as a reserve depot to receive stocks in bulk from factories and hold them for emergency use. T h e installation was activated April 22, 1920, with an employment of about 20.7 Employment remained stable at that approximate figure until 1925. Between 1926 and 1935 a sergeant commanded the post, with one other sergeant usually on duty. Part of the magazine and lower area were 6 John D. McConahay, " T h e Economic Impact of Hill Air Force Base on the Ogden Area" (Master's thesis, U t a h State University, 1955), 15; Land Procurement Document, 6. 7 Thomson and Mayo, Ordnance: Procurement and Supply, 3 5 3 ; Odd, "History Statement," 1.
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leased for grazing. During these years the materiel stored at the Arsenal was classified as excess and obsolete. T h e general neglect of the base is evident in the fact that although all but six of the storage magazines blew down in June 1929, at an estimated loss of $781,000, no attempt was made to repair them until 1935. 8 PRE-WORLD WAR II
EXPANSION
By the mid-1930's those buildings which had not blown down had become old and useless. T h e railroad tracks h a d rusted and roads had become run-down. However, the worsening of the international situation made it imperative that this and other facilities be up-dated. Mobilization regulations of February 1935 provided for the increased production of munitions, and a proposal for expansion of the Air Corps brought the need for bomb storage space. Money which was being used for antidepressionary public works projects could defray the cost of expansion. 9 A board of five officers headed by Colonel Norman F. Ramsey was chosen to decide what factors were important in the expansion. These men concluded that strategic location, proximity to raw materials, nearness to probable areas of action (assuming that the theatres of action would be in the West and Southwest), economy of operation, and climate were the most important considerations. Secretary of W a r George Dern, who had previously served as Utah's governor, accepted the board's recommendation that there be no construction east of the Appalachian Mountains or west of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges. It was also concluded that depots should be located at a reasonable distance from the United States' northern and southern borders. O n this basis, the board and Secretary Dern decided that the Pacific Coast States could best be served by the already existing Benicia Arsenal in San Francisco and an expanded Ogden Arsenal. New construction at Ogden was also suggested by Brigadier General E. M. Shinkle, chief of the Ordnance Field Service, who later served as commander of the Arsenal during part of World W a r II. 1 0 Meanwhile, because of the impact of the Great Depression on Ogden, the Chamber of Commerce, working through its military affairs committee, petitioned the government to rehabilitate and reactivate the functionless Arsenal. T h e Works Progress Administration appropriated $299,525 in 1935 and $336,885 in 1936 to help in the reconstruction, and in 8
Tribune, April 9, 1937; Green, et al., Ordnance: Planning Munitions, Thomson and Mayo, Ordnance: Procurement and Supply, 361—62. 10 Ibid.; Ogden Standard Examiner, February 8, 1942.
9
61—62.
Ogden Arsenal
241
1936 and 1937 the Chamber itself purchased land and gave it to the government to aid in the expansion.11 This construction and expansion represent a fine example of a local business group working together with government to help generate new jobs for the unemployed. National attention was drawn to the area on September 9, 1936, when Harry L. Hopkins, chief of the federal Works Progress Administration, officiated in a ground-breaking ceremony for a new $221,000 ammunition loading plant. Whereas the Arsenal had been designed only for storage, it was now expected to manufacture munitions and would thus provide work for at least 100 persons. So important was the expanded enterprise to the state's economy that when a railroad spur to the loading plant was completed on October 30, Governor Henry H. Blood drove a silver spike at a celebration attended by Senator William H. King and Congressman Abe Murdock.12 The cost of the reconstruction of the old facilities and the construction of new buildings and improvements was estimated at $3.5 million. This amount included storage igloos, a bomb loading plant of 12 large buildings, and railroad facilities. Because much of the work was done by WPA labor, the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed a tent camp to house 250 single men who worked on the new buildings.13 During the period between 1935 and 1938 the WPA employed an average of between 100 and 500 workers on Arsenal construction projects. By June 1938 the plant was supposed to open, but construction was behind schedule, so the number of employees was increased to 1,150. Late in June, Congress tentatively decided to turn the construction projects over to private contractors under the Public Works Administration. WPA workers, estimating that more than 400 of the 1,000 employees would lose their jobs, petitioned the government to leave their agency in charge. Congress finally concluded that both WPA and PWA should work on the project and appropriated $1.3 million to employ PWA contractors. By June 12 with the new appropriation, 1,159 workers were employed on construction.14 After the first phase of rehabilitation, which lasted between 1935 and 1939, the Army undertook further construction in 1940. Between then " M e m o r a n d u m by William P. Stephens, April 10, 1940, p. 1, in "Addendum Number 1"; Tribune, February 24, 1937, January 26, 1938. 12 Ogden Standard, September 9, October 30, 1936. 13 T h e expenditure estimate was made by General E. M. Shinkle on a four-day inspection trip during the course of construction, Ogden Standard, November 2, 1936. Also, ibid., M a r c h 27, 1938; Tribune, March 9, 1937. 14 Estimate of the average number of workers made from Tribune, June 5, 24, July 6, 1938; Ogden Standard, June 25, July 12, 1938.
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and 1942 the facility was completely modernized. Construction in 1940 cost about $2.6 million, and in June 1941 a contract was let for an additional $3.5 million in facilities. This second phase of construction was designed to include plants for the loading of 20 mm. and 37 mm. artillery shells. T h e construction included 40 additional warehouses, 2 shell loading plants, a small calibre shell assembly plant, a black powder pelleting plant, roads and ramps, and a new railroad line.15 In addition to the $3.5 million put into the construction of new facilities at the Arsenal between 1935 and 1938 and the additional $6.1 million between 1940 and 1942, the Army purchased machinery and rolling stock for the new operation. During construction, T N T , locomotives, amotol mixers, and ammunition cars flowed into the installation in preparation for the time when full-scale production could begin. 16 When the bomb loading plant opened in the fall of 1938, the government engaged approximately 100 employees on a permanent basis to load aerial bombs varying in weight between 100 and 2,000 pounds. By April 1941 the number had grown to 300 full-time employees. In September 1941 the second phase of construction was far enough along that the trial loading of the 20 mm. and 37 mm. artillery ammunition began, and on November 11 actual production began with a force of 100 men and 40 women. 17 In addition to the ammunition loading operations, the Arsenal undertook other missions. In 1938 Ogden was named as an ammunition storage base for the Air Corps, and 40 warehouses were filled with inert ammunition and components and empty practice bombs. When the installation also undertook the reconditioning of ammunition, a controversy arose. Representative Paul W. Shafer, of Michigan, called for a congressional investigation of defense costs. Ammunition was being shipped from Hawaii to Ogden, he said, and the freight from San Francisco, one way, had been $210,000. Shafer opined that the whole plant could have been duplicated in Hawaii for $30,000. 18 15 Anthony T. Cluff, " T h e Role of the Federal Government in the Industrial Expansion of U t a h During World War T w o " (Master's thesis, U t a h State University, 1964), 3 7 - 3 8 ; Thomson and Mayo, Ordnance: Procurement and Supply, 373, 379; Odd, "History Statement," 1; McConahay, "Economic Impact," 16; Ogden Standard, June 30, July 10, 1939; Tribune fanuarv 4 February 2, 12, 1941. 16 Ogden Standard, October 26, November 2, 19, December 6, 1936; Tribune, April 17 1938. 17 McConahay, "Economic Impact," 16; Tribune, April 20, November 11, 1941; Odd, "History Statement," 1—2. " G r e e n , et al, Ordnance: Planning Munitions, 6 3 - 6 4 ; clipping for January 30, [1939], Hill Archives.
Ogden Arsenal
243 WORLD W A R II
During the pre-war period, the Arsenal h a d been constructed and readied for the task it was to perform in the service of the American w a r effort. T h e Arsenal could store ammunition — the purpose for which it h a d originally been designed; and the expansion of its facilities between 1935 and 1941 h a d m a d e it capable of producing bombs and small caliber artillery shells. During World W a r I I its facilities were greatly expanded around the nucleus w r hich h a d been built during the depression of the 1930's. By December 1941 the last phase of construction h a d not yet been completed. Twenty miles of railroad track h a d been laid and 12 miles remained to be put down. A large force of civilians worked day and night so the numerous warehouses, the shell loading plant, and a recently completed locomotive repair shop could be linked to the outside world. O n December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the commanding officer took the precaution of doubling the guard force. H e closed all roads to the Arsenal, and later sealed the entrances. General supplies began arriving in M a r c h 1942, and the inert ammunition and practice bombs were removed to open storage areas. 19 With the outbreak of war, the Ogden facility was in a position to be one of the "arsenals of democracy." During World W a r I I , the Arsenal performed numerous tasks to help promote the w a r effort. I n addition to the bomb and artillery shell loading, in J a n u a r y 1942 plants for linking 30 and 50 caliber cartridges into machine-gun belts were activated. As a strategic link in America's supply system, the Arsenal played host to several national and regional conferences dealing with ordnance procedures and packing for overseas shipment. In December 1943 the Arsenal was assigned the duty of distributing all items of ordnance supply a n d equipment to all areas and stations in the far western United States. This assignment m a d e the Arsenal a master depot. Among the items shipped were vehicles, ammunition, small arms, artillery pieces, and other O r d n a n c e Corps materiel. At this time industrial operations were suspended; the Arsenal no longer served as a m a n u facturing center. Ogden was later designated as a distribution depot to handle supplies from the master depots for the West Coast export centers. 20 19 Thomson a n d Mayo, Ordnance: Procurement and Supply, 3 8 0 ; Tribune, December 8, 1941, M a r c h 3, 1942; Ogden Standard, December 22, 1941. 20 Tribune, December 30, 1943; McConahay, "Economic I m p a c t , " 16; O d d , "History Statement," 2 ; Thomson a n d Mayo, Ordnance: Procurement and Supply, 389.
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In the spring of 1944, an attempt was made to refine the master depot technique. Lewis H . Brown, president of Johns-Manville Corporation, advised the use of the master depot to speed the procurement of tank and automotive parts for overseas troops. An attempt was made to concentrate at one depot all parts for certain makes of vehicles. T h e aim was to locate all interchangeable parts in one location and enable employees to specialize more narrowly. Ogden was given limited specialization under the system. Later in 1944 Ogden was designated as a back-up depot for Benicia Arsenal, which supplied Pacific bases. 21 Under wartime conditions, it was inevitable that waste occurred. Employees reported the burying of tools and implements, and at least one former employee claimed that he was ordered to open the valves on a tank car filled with aviation gasoline and allow it to run out on the ground because an officer did not want the demurrage on the railroad car to his credit. One of the major problems met by the installation was the procurement of personnel to work on the assembly lines and loading docks. Naturally, wartime conditions meant the employment of a greater number of women. In August 1942 the Ogden police force released two policewomen to form the nucleus of a women's guard force at the Arsenal. In September the commanding officer, in calling for 3,000 workers, emphasized that it was the "patriotic duty of the highest order" for workers to engage in defense work. In the late fall the situation was so desperate that a call was issued for men and women to work part-time up to seven days per week. Whereas in 1941 $3.76 per day had been offered for anyone willing to work on the assembly line loading ammunition, by 1943 $4.96 was the going rate for anyone willing to unload freight cars. In August 1943 there was a slight reduction in force, but the expansion of the installation to a master depot late in that year made it necessary to bring in more 21
Typical
Thomson and Mayo, Ordnance: Procurement
warehouse
and Supply, 387, 3 9 0 - 9 1 .
building of Ogden Arsenal, now part of Ogden Air Materiel
Area.
Ogden Arsenal
245
workers. A call was made to local labor unions to furnish new employees, and farmers who had harvested their crops were requested to volunteer for work. At the height of the war, the depot employed 6,000 persons, more than half of whom were women. 22 FROM WORLD W A R II T H R O U G H T H E KOREAN W A R
During the second World War, the Arsenal had served both as a storage and shipping point for ordnance materiel and a manufacturing plant for ammunition. With the conclusion of hostilities, the Arsenal's activities were reduced. In November 1945 the Army ordered a cutback of between 600 and 900 employees, and by June 1946 the Arsenal employed less than 1,500 persons. 23 In the retrenchment and consolidation process, the Army expanded the jurisdiction of the Arsenal to include several other plants in Utah. Between July 1944 and June 1946, the U t a h Ordnance (Remington Arms) Plant in Salt Lake City served as a sub-depot to the Arsenal. T h a t plant had been constructed as an ammunition manufacturing installation, and became an Ordnance Department reclamation plant until it was closed in June 1946. T h e Army transferred its duties to the Tooele Ordnance Depot. For a short time after December 1946, the Army even placed Tooele Ordnance Depot under the control of the Ogden Arsenal. 24 With the occurrence of the Korean War, however, the number of employees increased once more; by 1953 the installation employed 3,000. Once again women employees — some of them the same ones who had worked during World W a r II—performed blue-collar jobs such as ammunition loading, operating sand-blasting machines, and checking greasy parts. 25 T h e plant engaged in the production of Mark I I tracers, hand grenades, 60 mm. lumination shells, 37 mm. shells, 81 mm. mortar shells, and other armaments. In addition workmen repaired and refurbished small arms by sand-blasting and acid-surfacing to prevent their corrosion under battle conditions. At the same time, the Arsenal opened a program to train industrial and personnel management in the principles of ammunition and ordnance production. 26 22 Tribune, November 11, 1941, August 2, September 14, October 3, 1942, M a r c h 13, August 15, 1943, January 6, May 29, 1944, March 2, 1945; Ogden Standard, January 3, 1943; McConahay, "Economic Impact," 16. 23 Tribune, November 18, 1945, June 19, 1946. 24 Thomas G. Alexander and Leonard J. Arrington, "Utah's Small Arms Ammunition Plant During World War I I , " Pacific Historical Review, X X X I V (May, 1965), 185-96; McConahay, "Economic Impact," l 6 ; Tribune, February 12, 1946. 25 McConahay, "Economic Impact," 16; Tribune, August 20, 1951. 2G McConahay, "Economic Impact," 16; Tribune, August 28, 1950, March 17, 1951.
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Utah Historical Quarterly EMPLOYMENT AT THE OGDEN ARSENAL: 1920-1955
(SOURCE: John D. McConahay, "The Economic Impact of Hill Air Force Base on the Ogden Area" [Master's thesis, Utah State University, 1955], 15-17; Ray S. Odd, "History Statement of Ogden Arsenal" [typescript (ca. October, 1954), Hill Archives]; Constance McLaughlin Green, Harry C. Thomson, and Peter C. Roots, United States Army in World War II, The Technical Services, The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War [Washington, D . C , 1955], 6 1 ; and various articles in Salt Lake Tribune and Ogden Standard Examiner.) Year
Civilian
1920
-
1925
-
Military
20
1
25
1
1926-1935
2
1935-1938* 1940
100
1941
-
440
1942
-
1943 1944
3,000 6,000
-
1945
1,500
1946
-
-
1,200
1949
3,200
1953
-
3,000
1954
-
2,700
1955
35
2,000
-
500
* During the years 1935 through July 1937, between 100 and 500 persons were employed on construction; from July 1937 until the fall of 1938 more than 1,000 persons were employed on construction and about 50 on Arsenal activities.
For almost two years after the Korean conflict, the Arsenal functioned with repeated cuts in employment. By the fall of 1954, only 500 employees worked at the Arsenal. On August 7, 1954, the War Department announced that the Arsenal would discontinue its operations and transfer its real estate and facilities to nearby Hill Air Force Base. On April 1, 1955, all ordnance functions of the Arsenal were transferred to Tooele Ordnance Depot (now Tooele Army Depot), with the exception of a railway repair shop which was left at the old Arsenal grounds, but which was placed under the jurisdiction of Utah General Depot (now Defense Depot Ogden). From the official appraisal at the transfer, one learns that the total value of improvements and land was $17,190,252,
Ogden Arsenal
247
including $10 million in buildings and structures. T h e base railroads were valued at $1.2 million, and the roads and pavement at $1.5 million. 27 T h e Ogden Arsenal had become a casualty of the Missile Age. As early as 1941 when the second phase of pre-World W a r I I construction was undertaken, Major Carroll H. Dietrick, who was sent to examine the location, found that the Arsenal was hemmed in by Hill Air Force Base, the main Ogden-Salt Lake City highway, and farm and orchard land. There was no place to enlarge the facility. H e recommended that the Army acquire 20,000 acres near Tooele, which was done. By 1954 space had become even more necessary for an ordnance installation. T h e rapid dispersal of large quantities of materiel might become necessary at a moment's notice, and a small hemmed-in installation like the Arsenal could not serve the purpose. As a result, its duties were assumed by the larger depot at Tooele. 28 With the transfer of the functions of Ogden Arsenal to Tooele Ordnance Depot on April 1, 1955, came also the conveyancy of the physical plant and facilities to the Ogden Air Materiel Area at Hill Air Force Base. These buildings for the storage of ammunition gave O O A M A an inside track when, in January 1960, the Air Materiel Command (later Air Force Logistics Command) approved the consolidation of all airmunitions functions into one organization, the 2705th Airmunitions Wing, with headquarters at Hill Air Force Base. This organization was given world-wide responsibility for Air Force ammunition. In addition the buildings and storage igloos available at the former Arsenal (now redesignated West Area Complex) provided facilities for the assembly and storage of Minuteman missiles, and the Boeing Company occupied part of the old buildings, which with some modifications are used to assemble this modern warrior. 29 For the Army the Atomic Age created the necessity for both the dispersal of operations and for a larger physical area. T h e Air Force, however, required storage and maintenance facilities close to an air base at which it could handle long-range Missile Age transport planes. T h e Army's liability thus proved the Air Force's advantage, and the old Arsenal has survived and grown. From a small storage depot, the Arsenal has become an integral part of the operations of Utah's biggest employer, Ogden Air Materiel Area. 27 Tribune, September 29, 1954; McConahay, "Economic Impact," 1 6 - 1 7 ; Real Estate Cost Total Report (Hill Archives), April 1, 1955. 28 Thomson and Mayo, Ordnance: Procurement and Supply, 3 7 3 ; Leonard J. Arrington and Thomas G. Alexander, "They Kept 'Em Rolling: T h e Tooele Army Depot, 1942-1962," Utah Historical Quarterly, 31 (Winter, 1963), 20, 23. 29 Helen Rice, History of Ogden Air Materiel Area, 1934-1960 (Ogden, 1963), 192-93.
The Road to "Fortune ":
THE SALT LAKE CUTOFF BY
L . A. F L E M I N G A N D A. R. S T A N D I N G
INTRODUCTION
Both of us have had a lifelong interest in western history. This has led us along paths where information about the Old West can be obtained. These byways have included talks with a few remnant pioneers we knew in boyhood, or with first generation descendants of pioneers; reading numerous printed journals, books, and magazine articles on western history; personal visits to many places connected with pioneer events; and enjoying many days finding and retracing hundreds of miles of western trails, from Chimney Rock in Nebraska to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, by pickup truck or on foot. Each bit of information obtained fanned our zeal to learn more and added to our appreciation of the hardy, courageous people who made the history. O u r major objective in writing about old trails is to describe where they can be found and to record data about them that is rapidly being lost. As we have hunted for the trails, we have been amazed and alarmed by the scarcity of accurate information, considering the relatively short time since they were in almost daily use. Most of the people who had first-hand information have passed away, and the few who are now living will not be with us long. T h e trails can still be found, but like memories of them, they are growing dim. It is regrettable that much more was not recorded about all old trails while knowledge was fresh and accurate. L. A. Fleming, a resident of Ogden, was born in southern Nevada. He attended the University of Nevada, and for the past 36 years has been affiliated with the Post Office Department, Postal Transportation Service. A. R. Standing was born and reared at Brigham City, Utah. He is a graduate of U t a h State University, and spent 41 years in the U.S. Forest Service in the Intermountain and Pacific Regions. Mr. Standing is president and Mr. Fleming vice-president of the Weber Valley Chapter of the U t a h State Historical Society. T h e photographs for this article were furnished by the authors.
Salt Lake Cutoff
249
We are frequently asked how we find the exact location of a trail. There are several signs that help to identify it. O u r first approach is to find and consult local people who can give us information. Often the old roads are still visable, either because the soil was so compacted or eroded by heavy use that vegetative growth is not sufficient to cover the rut marks, or because occasional use since pioneer days has retained the roadbed. Another method of identification is a more robust growth of sage or other brush along the sides of the old trails. T h e road dust, mixed with the manure of the thousands of animals that traveled the trails was blown into windrows along the route. This created a more favorable habitat for plant life, and the additional plant growth resulted in more deposition of organic matter, which in turn increased soil fertility and moisture-holding capacity. Under such conditions the location of old trails can sometimes be seen several miles away. In places the pioneers rolled rocks out of the roadbed, and the rows of rocks still clearly mark the trail. Old dugways can occasionally be found, but these are rare as the pioneers usually chose to go straight up and down, even very steep hills, rather than perform the work required to construct dugways and risk overturning the top-heavy wagons. Sometimes the worn-down roads became water channels which developed into deep gullies. A very useful sign is wheel marks on rocks in the roadbeds. T h e iron tires of the wagons rubbed off on the rocks. These bits of iron in turn rusted, and the resulting brown stains became a permanent part of the rock. Wherever a wagon passed over hard rock it remains plainly visable even after more than a hundred years. These stains do not show on lava rocks, but chipping and scratching of lava rocks by the turning, slipping wheels can still be detected. When ruts, depressions, or changed plant growth are no longer evident, rock stains faithfully indicate where the roads were. Sometimes the location of old roads are verified by the finding of artifacts such as oxen shoes, square nails, broken dishes or household utensils, hardened bits of leather, or pieces of iron from the wagons. We used most of these signs in locating the Salt Lake Cutoff, which is the subject of the following narration. E S T A B L I S H M E N T OF T H E SALT L A K E C U T O F F
When a party of men with saddle and pack horses under Samuel J. Hensley headed north from Salt Lake City in early August 1848, they
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did not realize they were about to make history. The event was mentioned in a letter dated August 9, 1848, from Parley P. Pratt, John Taylor, and John Smith to Brigham Young, who was en route his second trip West. T h e letter stated, "Ten of the U. S. troops under Captain Hensley lately arrived in our valley on their way to California; they tried the Hasting's route, 1 but the desert was so miry from heavy rains that they have returned and gone on by way of Fort Hall." 2 Captain Hensley was not new to the West. H e was a member of the Joseph C. Chiles party of 1843 and was one of the horseback group that traveled with Chiles from Fort Hall down the Snake River and across southeastern Oregon into California. In California he worked for John A. Sutter, of Sutter's Fort fame, participated in the Bear Flag Revolt, and served as an officer in John C. Fremont's California Battalion. H e returned to the East and testified at the court-martial of Fremont of November 1847 to January 1848. He was passing through Salt Lake City on his way back to California when he drew the attention of the Mormons. Hensley's party did not go to Fort Hall, but forded Bear River about 80 miles north of Salt Lake City 3 and rode west along the general route of U.S. Highway 30 by present Snowville, Utah. Here he joined the California Trail from Fort Hall in Emigration Canyon just south of the City of Rocks. O n Sunday, August 27, Hensley met a party of discharged Mormon Battalion men who were traveling up the Humboldt River en route from California to Salt Lake City. T h e meeting was recorded by Henry W. Bigler in his diary. . . . Laid by at 3 p.m. the c a m p came together at Addison Pratts tent and held prayer meeting, just as meeting was over Captain S. Hensley and Company of ten on packs came up we were informed by Capt. H . that it was not more than 380 miles to Salt Lake by takeing a certain route that he had found and h a d just come he gave us a way bill saying the route was a good one and easy to be found saveing at least 8 or ten days travel as it was our intention to go by way of Fort Hall. Mr. Hensley had got defeated in attempting to take Haistings Cutoff and h a d turned back by so doing discovered this new route and found it to be much nearer than Hasting's. . . .4 1 The Hastings route was across the salt flats south of Great Salt Lake followed by the Donner and other parties in 1846. For an account of the location of this trail, see Henry J. Webb, " T h e Last Trek Across the Great Salt Desert," Utah Historical Quarterly, 31 (Winter, 1963), 26-33. 2 "Journal History" (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historian's Library, Salt Lake City), August 9, 1848. 3 George R. Stewart, The California Trail: An Epic with Many Heroes (New York, 1962), 202. 4 Quoted in West from Fort Bridger, U.H.Q., X I X ( 1 9 5 1 ) , 250.
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T h e Salt Lake City-bound company decided to follow Hensley's route. 5 T h e party consisted of 45 men and one woman, wife of William Cory, 17 wagons, 150 horses, and about the same number of cattle. 6 T h e night of September 14, the group camped at Granite Spring just east of Granite Pass on the west side of Junction Valley. T h e next day as they journeyed eastward from Junction Valley, they saw two "towering" rocks on their left that dominated a rocky ridge which forms the south boundary of the famous City of Rocks. Addison Pratt, a member of the group, named these rocks the "Twin Sisters," and they are still so called. Here the party separated from the road to Fort Hall, which passed northward over the ridge into the City of Rocks, thence via present Almo, Elba, and Malta, then down Raft River to the Oregon Trail along the south side of Snake River, and up this trail to Fort Hall. Instead, the returning Battalion men began a new wagon road, going eastward down Emigration Canyon about six miles to Raft River where they camped. According to the diary records of Bigler and Pratt and a narrative of the trip prepared by L.D.S. Church Historian Andrew Jenson from material contained in the journal of Azariah Smith and perhaps other journals, 7 on September 16 the party went down Raft River 10 miles and "encamped again on Cajnes [Cassia] Creek" in a "notch in the mountains," according to Jenson, and "on the Cazier [Cassia] a large stream 5 For a more complete coverage and documentation of their trip to Salt Lake City, see " T h e Salt Lake Cutoff," West from Fort Bridger, U.H.Q., X I X , 248-68. 8 Stewart, California Trail, 198-99. 7 Andrew Jenson inserted this narrative in the "Journal History," under the date of September 28, 1848.
The Twin Sisters looking north from Fort Hall road and Salt Lake Cutoff.
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The Salt Lake Cutoff from Emigration Canyon going east-north-east toward the first ford of the Raft River. The lower Raft River Narrows or "notch in the mountains" is in the background.
abounding in trout," according to Pratt. 8 The various spellings then used for Cassia Creek actually apply to Raft River. Present Cassia Creek heads above Elba, Idaho, and flows eastward into Raft River near Malta. 9 The "notch in the mountains" is clearly the lower Raft River Narrows, about nine miles below and east-south-east from Almo, Idaho. On September 17 Henry Bigler stated, "At this camp we left the Cashier it turning and running north while our course was east over and through sage brush for 10 or 12 miles and campt on the side of a mountain where there was plenty of cedar timber." The Raft River turns northward at the lower end of the Narrows. For this date the Jenson narrative stated, "The company traveled 10 miles further in an easterly direction and encamped on a spring at the point of a mountain." Pratt recorded: Leaving this stream we followed a pack trail [probably Hensley's] that led through a n ascending valley a n d encamped toward evening on a mountain stream which came down from the hills and sank in the ground near the place of our encampment. But judging from the course of the dry bed below us it empties in to Casier Creek in times of high water. I n the evening I went up the stream and cought some beautiful trout. 8 All quotations from the Addison Pratt a n d Henry W. Bigler diaries are found in West from Fort Bridger, U.H.Q., X I X . 9 Cassia Creek does not head in the City of Rocks as stated in ibid., 255 fn. 10. Almo Creek heads in and near the City of Rocks and flows into Raft River about four miles east-southeast below Almo.
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This camp was undoubtedly on Clear Creek near present Naf. T h e ascending plain and indicated distance traveled fit the topography quite well. As there is some confusion and uncertainty about the route of the Salt Lake Cutoff between Clear Creek and Emigration Canyon, some discussion is merited here. Some of the local people and some historical writers think the main road went west from Clear Creek by Stanrod, hugging close to the foothills of the north side of the Raft River Mountains and southwest to present Yost.10 Probably some of the users of the Salt Lake Cutoff did travel to Emigration Canyon by way of the Yost area, for marks of an old road along this route can still be seen. A footnote on page 255 of West from Fort Bridger adds to the confusion by stating that "the road, from the first crossing of the Raft River took a nearly east course for the notch." If taken literally this would place the road about three miles south of the Narrows, but the author probably intended to describe the route through the Narrows. T h e preponderance of evidence indicates that not only did the returning Mormon Battalion members go through the lower Narrows, but also that this became the main route. As one emerges from the mouth of Emigration Canyon looking eastward, one sees comparatively smooth terrain southeastward to the meadowed country around and below Yost, and comparatively easy travel northeast to the Raft River Narrows. But between these points, directly east of Raft River, there are many ridges and canyons that would make travel difficult. T h e Mormon Battalion group probably crossed Raft River about where they first reached it, then kept south of it to avoid following its complete swing to the north and went on a direct course to the upper end of the Narrows. Here the group must have crossed to the north side, as the river crowds against a steep hill and talus slope on the south side through the Narrows. They had to recross to the south side at the lower end of the Narrows. This accounts for three crossings of the Raft River mentioned by several people who traveled the route later. In his book11 Alonzo Delano relates an interesting and enlightening experience in this area in 1849. H e tells of a large number of trains traveling together, of the trains consuming all the grass causing thousands of cattle in late season companies to perish, and of the roads being lined with deserted wagons. His party went by way of Fort Hall and Elba. T h e 10 Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner (New York, 1943), 307, indicates that the road went from Yost through the upper Raft River Narrows to Junction Valley. No evidence has been located by the authors to support this claim. 11 Alonzo Delano, Across the Plains and Among the Diggings (New York, 1936).
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night of July 22, they camped about a mile north of the pass between Elba and Almo. In his journal for July 23, he records that after crossing the dividing ridge We saw a large basin, surrounded by high mountains, the road apparently running around at their base, to avoid, as we thought, marshy ground in the valley, and from which a pretty creek took its rise. From the place where we stood we could see a line of dust all around the basin, with wagons moving on the opposite side. It seemed as if the road led out between a gap in the mountains to the southeast, in the direction which the creek ran, for we could trace its course by the willows. At a point nearly opposite, we judged the distance to about twelve miles; and as it was the intention of the train to reach that place about noon and halt I thought I could save six miles travel by walking straight across, which I concluded to do.
When Delano reached the road on the opposite side of the valley, he came to six wagons "standing near the roadside." H e discovered that rather than his route leading through the "gap in the mountains to the southeast," the Salt Lake Cutoff came up through it, and the occupants of the wagons told him that "this is the route from Salt Lake and we came that route." H e learned that the Fort Hall road his train was following "turned off from the basin through a narrow gorge which we could not see, and the Salt Lake road, with its flying dust and moving trains, gave us the impression that our road was there." Rather than retrace his hike across the valley, Delano continued on the Salt Lake Cutoff to its junction with the Fort Hall road south of the City of Rocks, where he was reunited with his party after they emerged from the City of Rocks. From a study of Delano's account, it is evident that the wagon trains on three sides of the valley consisted of those on the Salt Lake Cutoff going up Raft River on the east side, then turning west across the south end of the valley to Emigration Canyon. T h e wagon trains on the Fort Hall road passed across the north and west side of the valley as far as the "narrow gorge" leading west from Almo to the City of Rocks. To resume the trek of the discharged Mormon Battalion group, on September 18 they traveled around the foothills to Emigrant Spring where they camped. T h e following day they went east across Curlew Valley by Pilot Springs, and camped on Deep Creek about five or six miles west of Snowville. O n September 19 they traveled east along the north side of Deep Creek which they forded near its bend about two miles southwest of Snowville, and went on along the general route of Highway 30 to a "spring in the mountains" as reported by Jenson, or according to Pratt, "a cold spring situated in a deep valley between two high mountains and
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though the spring is a large stream it sinks in the valley not more than a quarter of a mile from its source." T h e spring became known as Hansel's Spring. 12 A footnote on page 258 in West from Fort Bridger states "Hansel Spring is not seen from the present highway" and indicates it is located in Hansel Valley some distance south of the highway. From the description it is felt that the spring near Highway 30 at the W a r d Ranch headquarters five miles southeast of Snowville, is Hansel's Spring. A township plat printed in 1856 places Hansel Spring at the Ward Ranch. T h e Mormon Way Bill to the Gold Mines gives the distance from "Hansells Spring to Deep Creek Crossing" as six miles, which is the approximate mileage from the spring at the W a r d Ranch to Deep Creek Crossing. 13 Hansel Spring later became known as Dillie Spring, after a former owner of the ranch on which it is located. 14 September 21, 1848, found the returning Battalion men camped at Blue Springs, about three miles north of Howell, Utah, and on the west bank of the Malad River the next day. They h a d trouble crossing the Malad, for on September 22 Pratt wrote, "A hard days journey brought us to Malad Creek which we on account of its m u d and steep banks found difficult to cross. T h e water was also deep and some of the wagons capsized in crossing." Bigler recorded for September 23, This morning in crossing the M e l a d we broke down a wagon the crossing was very b a d the stream was n a r r o w a n d not very deep b u t the b o t t o m was very soft a n d m u d d y in comeing out on the opposite side passing on for 6 or 7 miles we came to Bear River the fording of which was good in consequence of breaking down we m a d e b u t a short drive and c a m p t on the east side of Bear River. 1 5 12 T h e name "Hansel" given to a mountain, valley, and spring in this area is a derivation from "Hensley." T h e evolution of the change from Hensley to Hansel can be detected in the Mormon Way Bill to the Gold Mines, by Joseph Cain and Ariah C. Brower printed in 1851, which uses the name "Hensell's Spring." O n the old map the name "Hazel Spring" is used. It is unfortunate the name Hensley was not preserved to give Captain Hensley the credit and honor he deserves. 13 N o other spring has been located by the authors in upper Hansel Valley, and none of the local residents who were asked knew of any other spring in this vicinity. 14 This ranch has been in the possession of the Ward family for the past 30 years. An old rock fort was constructed here, of which two walls and a fireplace and a two-room dugout were still standing when the Ward family obtained the ranch. Rulon A. Ward found some old coins while digging at the site, and names, inscribed by gun shots around the fireplace, could still be discerned. Members of the Ward family believe the fort dates back to the 1860's. 15 For the previous day Jenson's narrative stated they "encamped on a small stream about a mile from Bear River," or three miles according to Pratt. As they traveled six or seven miles (Bigler) or "about four miles" (Jenson) to reach Bear River on September 23, it seems they traveled on a diagonal, southeasterly between the Malad and Bear rivers.
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Addison Pratt wrote We crossed the [Bear] river which was low at the time and the crossing good. T h e bed of the river is about fifty yards wide and the banks high. In the spring of the year it is a most formidable stream with a strong current. After crossing Bear River, we traveled six miles and encamped by some springs where we found plenty of grass for our stock.
Andrew Jenson said, T h e company crossed the stream on which they h a d camped during the night. O n e wagon broke down but the brethren repaired it and traveled about four miles and encamped. At this point the company found some wagon tracks leading to the Great Salt Lake settlements.
Either the estimates of miles traveled varied considerably or some groups traveled further than others before camping. T h e Battalion men camped in the vicinity of Brigham City September 24 and reached Ogden the following day where "they encamped at Captain Brown's settlement on Ogden River" and stayed over a day. C a m p was established near Farmington on September 27, and the group reached Salt Lake City September 28. Thus was the Salt Lake Cutoff begun. T h e Mormons were not the first to travel with wagons from their crossings of the Malad and Bear rivers to the new Mormon settlement at Ogden. In 1843 John C. Fremont and his party came west via Soda Springs, turned south down Bear River, then west near the north end of Cache Valley, and crossed over the mountains to the Malad River. 16 Fremont's "camp equipage, and provisions were transported in twelve carts, drawn each by two mules, and a light covered wagon, mounted on good springs had been provided for the safe carriage of instruments, with its 12 pound howitzer." 17 Fremont states, Descending to the bottom of Bear River we found good grass for the animals, and encamped about three hundred yards above the mouth of the Roseaux [Malad] which here marked its junction [with Bear River] . . . . Among the useful things which formed a portion of our equipage was an I n d i a rubber boat, eighteen feet long . . . . T h e Roseaux being too deep to be forded, our boat was filled with air, and in about one hour all the equipage of the camp, carriage and gun included, ferried across.
Fremont traveled down the west side of Bear River to "a delta which formed the mouth, and then 16 Dale L. Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (Indianapolis, 1947), states that Fremont went up Weston (Idaho) Creek. 17 John Bigelow, Memoirs of the Life and Public Services of John Charles Fremont (New York, 1856), 73.
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. . . returning about five miles up the river we were occupied until nearly sunset in crossing to the left [east] bank, the stream, which in the last five or six miles of its course is very much narrower than above, being very deep immediately at the banks, and we had great difficulty in getting our animals over . . . . The people with the baggage were easily crossed in the boat and we encamped on the left bank where we crossed the river.18
Fremont and his party then traveled down the east side of the Great Salt Lake City to a few miles south of present Willard, Utah, near the Hot Springs then southwest to the Weber River. After several days exploration of the lake, during which he visited Fremont Island, he went north along the base of the Wasatch Mountains and on September 13 "encamped on Bear River, immediately below a cut-off, the canyon by which the river enters the valley bearing north by compass." For September 14 he recorded, "About four miles from this encampment the trail led us down to the river, where we unexpectedly found an excellent ford." The party then traveled up the Malad River en route to Fort Hall. T h e wagon tracks which the discharged Mormon Battalion party saw on the east side of Bear River on September 23 were made the previous March by the two wagons of Hazen Kimball, one Pollock, and one Rogers, who traveled from Salt Lake City to Fort Hall to join emigrant parties on their way to California. T h e three men were dissenters from the Mormon Church. 19 IMPORTANCE OF T H E SALT L A K E C U T O F F
T h e route of the Salt Lake Cutoff surely had been used by Indians long before the arrival of white men, and probably early trappers had made unrecorded use of it. Peter Skene Ogden traveled over part of it between Snowville and the Bear River Valley in 1828-29. Credit is due Captain Samuel J. Hensley and his companions for being the first known group to use the route as an integral part of the road to California, and for being instrumental in starting its use as a major wagon road. Credit for opening the road for wagons and making first use of it belongs to the group of discharged Mormon Battalion members en route to Salt Lake City in 1848. T h e immediate benefit was considerable reduction in the time and distance the Fort Hall route would have required. T h e longrange benefits were tremendous. In the spring of 1849, the great California gold rush began en masse. Those who traveled up the Platte and Sweetwater rivers had several 18
Ibid., 222-23. For a more detailed and documented account, see Stewart, California Trail, 201, and especially West from Fort Bridger, U.H.Q., X I X , 261. 19
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choices after going through South Pass. Some headed west over the Sublette Cutoff to reach the Bear River a few miles northwest of Cokeville, Wyoming, and then down the Bear River to Soda Springs. Others went to Fort Bridger and then northwest to reach Bear River a few miles west of Sage, Wyoming, and on to Soda Springs either via present Cokeville or possibly around the west side of Bear Lake. Those who reached Soda Springs traveled onward either by way of Fort Hall to Raft River, or by Hudspeth Cutoff, opened in 1849. T h e Hudspeth route went west through present Arimo, Idaho, Hawkins Basin, and the Sublette Mountains to join the established California Trail on Raft River near Malta, Idaho. Those who reached the Malta area, either by way of Fort Hall or the Hudspeth Cutoff, had a choice of going west up Cassia Creek to Elba and then south to Almo, or staying along Raft River to unite with the Salt Lake Cutoff at the lower Raft River Narrows. Many of those who went to Fort Bridger followed the Donner-Mormon Trail through Echo and East canyons to Salt Lake City, and then used the Salt Lake Cutoff. A very few followed Hastings Cutoff across the Salt Desert, and some who arrived in Salt Lake City late in the season went on to California by way of southern Utah. Estimates of the number of emigrants who traveled by various routes to the Humboldt River and over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to California in 1849 vary from 22,500 to about 40,000. George R. Stewart, who probably has made the most conservative and most accurate calculations, estimates there were 21,500 people with 6,200 wagons plus another 1,000 people traveling with riding and pack animals for a total of 22,500 in 1849. H e estimates in addition, there were 40,000 draft animals pulling the wagons plus about 20,000 riding animals, packhorses and mules, milk cows, and "oxen driven along as spares or to be slaughtered for food," which adds up to a total of 60,000 animals. Mr. Stewart estimates that the migration over the California Trail totaled about 45,000 in 1850; only 1,000 in 1851; 52,000 in 1852; 20,000 in 1853; 12,000 in 1854; only a few hundred in 1855; 8,000 in 1856; 4,000 in 1857. H e sums up as follows, T h e covered wagon migration is a folk movement of considerable size and of definite historical significance. Down to 57 (the last year for which statistics are at present available) the summation of annual figures indicates that more than 165,000 people crossed to California. T h e number of animals must have approached a million. 20 20 Stewart, California Trail, 231-32, 319. See also West from Fort Bridger, U.H.Q., X I X , 265, 266, for more details on emigrants through Salt Lake Valley. Detailed descriptions of life on the emigrant trails are given in many historical books. Two masterpieces are Dale L. Morgan, The Humboldt, Highroad of the West (New York, 1943), and Stewart, California Trail.
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By the middle of June 1849, the first of the gold seekers arrived in Salt Lake City. T h e hardships and suffering of most of the emigrants were tremendous. Most of them started the journey with more goods than their animals could haul. T h e loss of animals through death and straying and abandonment of broken-down wagons forced discarding of goods. Salt Lake City, being the only settlement along the trail, aside from Fort Laramie, Fort Bridger, and Fort Hall, immediately became an important place where goods could be sold or traded, food and clothing purchased, and where worn-out animals could be traded for fresh ones in condition to travel. All this resulted in an economic boom in the Salt Lake Valley. A prominent historian recorded, Among the causes that led to the prosperity of the people of U t a h at this period was the migration of Gold seekers to California. H u n d r e d s of emigrants turning aside to Salt Lake City, wearied and dispirited, their cattle worn out and their wagons broken were glad to exchange them together with their tools, household furniture, and spare clothing, for provisions and pack animals at very low rates. M a n y were glad to remain during the winter, and work their livelihood. T h o u g h reports were freely circulated to the contrary, there is sufficient evidence that as a rule they were kindly treated and not a few abandoned their search for gold to cast in their lot with the saints. Horses, harnesses, carriages, wagons, etc. were bought of eager emigrants at one fifth of their cost in the states. 21
T h e Mormon people saw the hand of providence in the situation, for Heber C. Kimball had prophecied that "states goods would be sold in the streets of Great Salt Lake City cheaper than in New York and that the people should be abundantly supplied with food and clothing." This prediction was fulfilled with the advent of the gold seekers eager to reach the Pacific Coast. . . . Impatient at their slow progress, in order to lighten their loads, they [emigrants] threw away or "sold for a song" the valuable merchandise with which they h a d stored their wagons to cross the Plains. Their choice, blooded, though now jaded stock, they eagerly exchanged for the fresh mules and horses of the pioneers, and bartered off, at almost any sacrifice, dry goods, groceries, provisions, tools, clothing etc. for the most primitive outfits, with barely enough provisions to enable them to reach their journey's end. 2 3 " H u b e r t H . Bancroft, History of Utah, 1540-1886 (San Francisco, 1889), 297 fn. 28. For additional information see Levi Edgar Young, The Founding of Utah (New York, 1923), 127-29. 22 Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball . . . (2nd ed., Salt Lake City, 1945), 389-90. 23 Ibid., 390-91.
It has been estimated that about 10,000 gold seekers passed through Salt Lake City in 1849. Parley P. Pratt, a Mormon leader, wrote that hundreds of people arrived daily to stop and refit. T h e percentage of California-bound emigrants who passed through Salt Lake City apparently increased year by year. George Stewart stated that "much of the later California migration went that way." 2 4 Besides the migration to the gold fields, people went to Idaho and Oregon to settle, many of whom used the Salt Lake Cutoff. There was much use of the Cutoff and road down the Humboldt River for various purposes, by Mormons going to and from California and by the settlements in the Carson Valley in western Nevada. It became an important trade route. When the railroad to California was completed on May 10, 1869, overland travel by wagon and pack train decreased, but did not stop completely for many years. With the completion of the railroad, some of the wagon trains left the Salt Lake Cutoff near Snowville and went southwest through Park Valley and Lucin to the Humboldt. A road was opened south of the Great Salt Lake via Fish Springs in 1859, which took much travel away from the northern route. Stage and freight routes were established from Kelton, Utah, to Boise, Idaho, to Dallas, Oregon, and other northwest points. T h e days of pioneer use of the Salt Lake Cutoff passed away, and people now travel in comfort at high speeds over a modern highway where emigrants once trudged their weary way. T H E R O U T E OF T H E SALT L A K E C U T O F F
After emerging from Emigration (and later Parley's) Canyon, the western trail led west and north through Salt Lake City. Between Salt Lake City and Farmington, the route was close to the old highway through 24
Stewart, California Trail, 205.
Bountiful a n d Centerville. I m m e d i a t e l y north of Farmington, approximately where the Utah State University Experimental Farm is located, the emigrant road wound westward near the base of the bluff on the north side of the golf course and near the remains of the old Eli Manning store. It went southwest to about the present location of Shepherd Lane, then west approximately a mile, and then northwest about a halfmile along S h e p h e r d L a n e to w h e r e it crossed Baer Creek. From this point the old road does not follow an existing road for several miles. T h e e m i g r a n t road from Farmington almost to Plain City was located to avoid the sand hills, or sand delta, deposit of Lake Bonneville and the wet ground just below the terminus of the sand. This was accomplished by making the road along the foot of the sandy bluff and at the upper edge of springs, sloughs, and marshes. The old road 25 intersects Gentile Street about four miles due west of Layton, where a present road turns off to the northwest. From this point the old road is on the location of what is designated as Old Bluff Road, to its intersection with the West Point Road, 25 The road is near the southwest corner of Sec. 30, T 4 N, R 1 W, and the corner of the present road that goes along the south and west sides of Sec. 30.
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about a mile west of the town of West Point. T h e old road continued northnorth-west beyond this point along the base of the bluff for about a mile, but there is no present road along its location. Fortunately, the marks of the old road can still be seen where it crossed the present location of the Clinton Road. 26 It crossed at right angles about two-tenths of a mile east of the Hooper Canal. T h e old road is no longer visible where it crossed the Clinton Road, but can be seen beginning about two-tenths of a mile north, and thence on north for about one-third of a mile. This is across an alkali, greasewood flat that apparently has never been cultivated. Another of the few places where the marks of the old emigrant road have not been obliterated by cultivation in this area is located about twotenths of a mile north of the corner of 5900 West and 4000 South, and then about 90 yards west in a field owned by Vern G. Taylor, who resides at this corner. T h e old road is a little west of due north of Mr. Taylor's house and may be recognized as a depression through the field. Before this area was so intensively cultivated, the marks of the old road were plainly visible at other locations. From this field the old road continues on north-northwest about two-tenths of a mile to Hastings Spring, which now flows west a short distance in a covered pipe before reaching its outlet in a slough. John M. Belnap, born in 1883, has lived in the Hooper area all his life and has made a detailed study of its history, including the location of the old emigrant road. H e furnished information that a large area southwest of the Weber River to the shore of Great Salt Lake was granted to Captain William H. Hooper as a herd ground in 1854 before the area was settled. Years ago, John F. Stoddard, one of Captain Hooper's cattle herders, told Mr. Belnap that he h a d seen many wagons passing over the old emigrant road in this area on their way to California and Oregon. From Hastings Spring the emigrant road made a gradual curve northeasterly intersecting 4700 West about halfway between 3250 South and 2550 South. It went through the Hyrum Hadley farm at 3133 South 4700 West, across the Walker Slough to approximately 1400 South, then generally north to Plain City. T h e exact spot where the trail crossed the Weber River has not been ascertained, but it was probably near the present bridge on the road from West Weber to Plain City, about a mile south of Plain City. 26
In the northeast quarter of Sec. 30, T 5 N, R 2 W.
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A ferry was built here at an early date. John Belnap learned that the ferry operated somewhere between the old Skene home near the Four Mile Slough and the old Pioneer Road, southeast of Plain City and the Blair home in the West Weber area.27 The emigrant road went through or near the present site of Plain City and then northeast on the approximate location of the "North Road" to Hot Springs. From Hot Springs the road generally stayed along the foothills of the Wasatch Range to Collinston, Utah, passing by various springs along the way. The springs provided water for livestock and were popular camping spots for the wagon trains. Included in the springs were Cold Spring, now partially covered by the highway (about seven-tenths of a mile north of the Weber-Box Elder County line) ; Marsh Spring, just west of the highway (two and six-tenths miles north of the Weber-Box Elder County line and about a mile and a half south of Willard) ; and the Wight Spring (about two and a half miles north of Willard). A short distance west of the highway, at the north end of the town of Perry, is Porter Spring. It is located on the property of Isaac A. Young. Here, according to Mr. Young, may be seen a segment of the original road as it passes the spring. From Porter Spring the emigrant road ran almost through the center of Brigham City to within a few blocks north of the courthouse, and then turned northeast to pass the Wright and Rees Spring along the foothills. The old road is shown on the 1856 township plat. It still can be seen along the foothills. The trail turned northwest through the present William Kotter farm. Mr. Kotter said that an old road passed just below the Kotter home, but its marks have been obliterated by cultivation. No doubt the road went along the foothills rather than where the present road is located, to avoid marshy ground north of Brigham City. From the Kotter farm the old road followed the approximate location of the highway from Brigham City and Honeyville, Deweyville, and Collinston. It passed by Harper Spring, located just north of the Harper Ward Chapel; Cold Spring, at the south outskirts of Honeyville; Dewey Spring, at the south end of Deweyville; along the foothills past the upper Barnard Spring; and near the present site of the Collinston schoolhouse and store. The trail turned diagonally northwest to the point where the present Collinston-Fielding Road starts down the dugway to Hampton's 27 I n an article in the Ogden Standard Examiner, October 26, 1964, Robert Agee wrote, " O n e big problem in the early days was fording the Weber River. At one time there was a ferry, then later a footbridge was put in. I n 1866 Plain City and West Weber joined efforts and built a bridge for wagons and teams."
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Bridge at the Bigler Ranch. The old road crossed the present canal location about 100 yards south of the canal bridge. Evidence of the road can be seen in the sagebrush halfway down the dugway just above the present road and a few feet east of the fence which parallels it. The old ford was located about where the bridge now spans Bear River.28 For many years the road has turned northwest at the north end of the bridge and gone up the dugway to the south end of Fielding, Utah. The original road, however, went a little east or north across the river bottoms, dodging the sloughs, to ascend the bluffs north of the river about a mile east of the present road into Fielding. From the top of the bluff, the 28 This is an historic site. John C Fremont probably forded Bear River here in 1843 on his way to Fort Hall. Hazen Kimball and Mr. Pollock with their families and Mr. Rogers very probably crossed here. According to Stewart, California Trail, 202, Captain Hensley and his companions probably used the ford as they are said to have gone "north about eighty miles, following Kimballs track" before crossing Bear River and turning west. Hampton's Bridge is approximately 80 miles north of Salt Lake City. It is also very probable that Captain Stansbury forded Bear River here in September of 1849 on his way to Fort Hall. Benjamin Hampton and William Godbe operated a toll ferry here in 1853. The tolls were 10 cents for a horse and 25 cents for a wagon. In the late 1850's a bridge was constructed, and a toll charged for its use.
Modern bridge at the site of the old ford and Hampton's erected about 1866 stands nearby.
Ferry.
An old rock
home
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road went north-north-west to the southwest edge of present Plymouth, Utah. From here a road ran up the Malad River Valley en route to Fort Hall. The Salt Lake Cutoff went west to Rocky Ford across Malad River, which is about two miles west of the south end of Plymouth and can be reached by a county road.29 Most writers generalize about the Salt Lake Cutoff by stating that the emigrants turned west after crossing the Bear River. Evidence indicates that they continued north-north-west seven or eight miles to utilize the excellent Rocky Ford across the Malad River. This does not mean they traveled that much further, for it would require three or four miles to reach the Malad going due west from the Bear River crossing. As has been pointed out, it was very difficult to cross the Malad with wagons; it was well worth a few extra miles travel to avoid trouble. The site of Rocky Ford was much used by Indians. Doubtless they had used the ford for centuries, and since the ford at Hampton's Bridge was a good crossing over Bear River, there was probably a well-used Indian trail between the two fords that invited use by early emigrants. The 1856 township plat for this area, and other early maps, shows an "Old Salt Lake Road" from Hampton's Bridge on Bear River to the west side of present Plymouth, but no roads leading west to cross the Malad below Rocky Ford. This suggests that no such road existed when the survey was made in 1855 or 1856, but this is not conclusive proof. It is probable that the Bartleson-Bidwell party crossed the Malad at Rocky Ford in 1841 after entering the Bear River Valley from the Clarkston, Utah area over the ridge north of the gorge through which Bear River flows from Cache Valley. The party men29 In Howard Stansbury, Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, . . . (Philadelphia, 1852), 87-88, Captain Stansbury wrote: " . . . I left the city [Salt Lake City] on the 12th of September [1849], with teams and pack-mules, for Fort Hall, to procure the supplys for the party . . . and at the same time to carry out that portion of my instructions which directed me to explore a route for a road from the head of Salt Lake to Fort Hall. . . . O u r route, as far as the crossing of Bear River, near the head of the lake, was that usually pursued by emigrants passing through Salt Lake City to California. It skirts the eastern shore of the lake throughout its whole length, from north to south, as far as the ford, where the road turns off to the west. . . . "From the crossing, the emigrant road pursues a W.N.W. course, until it intersects that from Fort Hall [near the City of Rocks]. T h e ford of Bear River at this point is not very good. The banks are high and steep on both sides, and the stream, which is about two hundred and fifty feet wide, is quite rapid. T h e bottom is a hard, firm graveL In the spring and early part of summer, the waters are too high to admit of fording and temporary ferries become necessary. Leaving the emigrant road at this point, our route may be described, generally as following up the Malade (called by Fremont the Roseaux) to its head; . . . About two miles above the ford, Bear River, in emerging from Cache Valley, breaks through the chain forming the eastern boundary of the valley of Salt Lake. T h e range, which here sinks quite suddenly, for a short distance to the south of the canon or gate through which the river has forced its passage, consists of low, rounded hills, which present no trace of rock on the surface. T h e river indeed appears to cut through rock, but an opportunity did not occur to ascertain this by actual observation. After crossing and following up its right [north] bank for two and a-half miles, we left the river, and struck into a broad and beautiful valley, formed by the Roseaux, or Malade, . . ." After obtaining supplies at Fort Hall, Stansbury returned by the same route, except he crossed over the divide into Cache Valley to explore it before returning to Salt Lake City.
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tioned passing a hot spring, which Dr. David Miller identified as the Udy Hot Spring. This spring is only a mile or two below Rocky Ford. For August 18 John Bidwell recorded, Traveled b u t a short distance, when we discovered that a deep salt creek [Malad] prevented our continuing near the [Bear] river. In ascending this stream in search of a place to cross it, we found on its margin a hot spring, very deep and clear. 30
It seems logical that in their search for a place to cross, the party would discover the Rocky Ford, as it is the only tolerable place to cross the Malad River in this area, and they probably found an Indian trail leading to it. Local residents know of no other place the Malad River could be forded with wagons. From three sources the location of the emigrant road from Rocky Ford southward to the vicinity of Garland and then southwesterly to Point Lookout has been established. T h e 1856 township plat shows the location of a road in existence at that time. Thomas E. King, who was reared on a farm north of Garland and whose father was one of the first settlers, remembered where there was a road in existence when he was a boy. Ruts, tire marks on rocks, and other signs substantiate the road location. The road went south from Rocky Ford to a spring at the former Alex Toponce Ranch, 3 1 approximately six miles north of Garland. It passed along the hillside about a mile and a half west of the Garland business district, and about an eighth of a mile west of the Pierce Airport, by a stock water-tank. It intersects an existing road 32 located three to four miles southwest of Garland. At first thought one may wonder why the old road was so far up on the hillside, but it is a direct route to Point Lookout Ridge and much of it is about the same contour. T h e route passed by several springs, and the soil is gravelly and firm and provided good traveling conditions when valley soils were muddy or loose and dusty. There were other routes between the Brigham City area and Point Lookout. Three other fords across Bear River are known. Adolph M. Reeder, a local historian at Brigham City, is informed on the Corinne Ford located about a mile up river from Corinne, just above an island in the 30 Quoted in David E. Miller, "The First (Winter, 1962), 44. 31 The ranch is located approximately in 32 The road runs along the south side of east of the southwest corner of Sec. 32, which of a mile west of Garland.
Wagon Train to Cross Utah, 1841," U.H.O., X X X the center of Sec. 34, T 13 N, R 3 W. Sec. 32, T 12 N, R 3 W, about a quarter of a mile is located a mile south and two and three-quarters
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river. He believes his father was the first to use this ford in 1862 and doubts that loaded wagons used it. The desirability of a crossing at or below the site of Corinne was recognized in the years of immigrant travel as well as now, for in a letter to the War Department from Benicia, Calif., August 25, 1855, Captain Rufus Ingalls wrote as the fruits of his travel through this area with Steptoe's command during the summer, "The road should cross Bear river below the confluence of the Malad. Had we crossed there, more than 20 miles traveling could have been avoided . . . . But what was abstractly desirable was not physically practicable.33
Another ford across Bear River was located about 200 or 300 yards upstream from the bridge on the road from Honeyville to Bear River City. Channel changes make this appear improbable now. The 1856 township plat34 shows a road meeting the Malad River and a bridge indicated. At the upper end this road probably intersected the road from Rocky Ford to Point Lookout Ridge. None of the older local residents remember the bridge, but at the point indicated there was an old ford which is clearly remembered by Amos A. Iverson, on whose farm the ford is located. Mr. Iverson says the ford was used to some extent until about 1895. When he first came to this locality, the land had not been cultivated, and a road went from this ford through the sage and brush southeast to the ford across the Bear River west of Honeyville.35 There is an area of sandy soil at the top of the bluff east of the Malad River ford on the Iverson farm that was much used by Indians as a camping ground, so they probably had used the ford long before the advent of white men. The third old ford across Bear River is about two and a half miles east of the Elwood schoolhouse. The road going east on the north side of the schoolhouse leads to this ford. It passes through the Keith Fridal Ranch and goes down a narrow ridge between a large bend in Bear River. There is a concrete block bearing the inscription "Boise Ford, 1853,"36 partially hidden in the willows, marking the place where the road entered the river. Evidence of the old road can be seen leading up the hill on the 33 West from Fort Bridger, U.H.Q., X I X , 265 fn. 32. No evidence has been found by the authors that the Salt Lake Cutoff, or a branch of it, went west from Corinne across Promontory Mountains to Snowville, although such is the contention of Irene Paden in Wake of the Prairie Schooner. 34 This plat for T 11 N, R 3 W shows a road from the northeast corner of Sec. 5 going southsouth-east to the southwest quarter of Sec. 26, where it met the Malad River. 35 T h e present dam across the Malad River a short distance above the ford was started in 1865 and completed in 1866 to put water in a ditch to irrigate land in the Bear River City area. Later, Alex Toponce built a dam below the ford to convey water in a canal southwest toward Little Mountain and then eastward to Corinne to furnish water power for his gristmill. T h e dam washed out the following year. The canal now carries water to a duck club. 36 It is unknown where the Elwood boy scouts and their leaders who installed the marker obtained the information inscribed on it.
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north bank. No doubt this road joined the emigrant road between Honeyville and Deweyville. It has not been learned where the users of this road crossed the Malad River going west. The emigrant road from Point Lookout followed along the general route of U.S. Highway 30 to the vicinity of Snowville. It passed Blind Spring, which is in a deep gulch just south of the highway about five miles northwest of Point Lookout Ridge, where the highway bends west. A short distance west of the pass into Blue Creek Valley, the emigrant road bears to the left and can be seen where it passes over the foothills about due east of Blue Springs. Blue Springs can be reached by going north from Howell, Utah, about three miles or by leaving the interstate highway at the valley exit and going west eight-tenths of a mile and then south half a mile. From Blue Springs two branches of the Salt Lake Cutoff were traveled to Rattlesnake Pass into Hansel Valley. From Rattlesnake Pass the old road went south of U.S. Highway 30 and followed around the base of the hills to Hansel [Dillie] Spring at the Ward Ranch. It passed south of Snowville. Marks can be seen where the trail crossed the road from Snowville to Locomotive Springs, about one and three-tenths miles south from where this road leaves Highway 30. From this point the old road went eastward across the fields to the foothills at the north end of Hansel L. A. Fleming pointing to iron stains on rocks where the Salt Lake Cutoff approaches from the east the "notch in the mountains" or lower Raft River Narrows.
"'â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘"'SCI
Looking toward the east at A. R. Standing examining the rutted emigrant road west of Pilot Springs.
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Mountain. It can be followed west to the ford across Deep Creek just above the bend. The emigrant road continued west along the north bank of Deep Creek to the location of the Rose Ranch37 about six and a half miles west of Snowville. From the Rose Ranch the Salt Lake Cutoff went west across Curlew Valley in a direct line to Pilot Springs. The marks of the trail can still be seen. An existing road to Pilot Springs goes south from Highway 30 about 16 and three-tenths miles west of Snowville, along the east side of a fenced experimental range. About nine-tenths of a mile south, a road turns off southwest, and it is eight-tenths of a mile along this road to Pilot Springs. From Pilot Springs the emigrant road can be seen both east and west. The old road goes along the side of a later road westward from Pilot Springs. It is one and nine-tenths miles to a gravel pit and the highway to Park Valley. This is about two and one-tenth miles southwest from where the Park Valley road leaves Highway 30, and near mile post seventy-three. The emigrant road continues on westward, but at about two-tenths of a mile it forks â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one branch going northwesterly to Cedar Springs and the other west-south-west to Emigrant Spring. From Emigrant Spring it is a little west of north about two miles to Cedar Spring, where the two branches rejoined.38 The Cedar Spring is located up the canyon about a mile and a half southwest of the old Cedar Creek town and stage station. If a stream 37 T h e Rose Ranch has an interesting history. This entire area was once the range of the Bar M Ranch, which ran thousands of head of cattle. The Rose Ranch area was homesteaded by Messrs. Howell and Showell about 1870. A Mr. Conant acquired Howell's share and sold it to Albert Rose about 1900, and Mr. Rose later bought Showell's interest. T h e place was formerly known as the Showell Post Office and was a prominent stopping place on the roads leading to Kelton and Park Valley. 38 T h e following description of this section of the Salt Lake Cutoff in the Mormon Way Bill to the Gold Mines is enlightening, though lacking in detail. "From Blue Springs to Hensell's Spring, take the right hand road from Blue Springs, good grass on mountain side, water rather brackish. 11 miles. "From Hensell's Spring to Deep Creek crossing, follow the creek a little way down on the right hand side, feed and water good, sage for fuel. 6 miles. "From Deep Creek sink to Pilot Springs; these are 2 lone springs in a desert place, with little or no grass. 10 miles. "From Pilot Springs to Stoney Creek [Clear Creek] (about 4 miles from the springs bear to the right; the main road leads to some springs on the mountain side which is about 6 miles further; you will intersect the main road about 3 miles from where you leave it, have a better road and a much shorter one) feed, wood and water good. 14 miles. "Thence up De Casure Creek [Raft River]; this creek you cross three times, good feed, willow and sage for fuel. 12 miles. "Thence up De Casure to the upper crossing, feed good, willow and sage for fuel. 6 miles. "Thence up to the junction of the Fort Hall and Great Salt Lake road, no camping at the junction. 5 miles." The forks in the road are actually closer to two miles west of Pilot Springs, rather than four; it is about five miles from there to Emigrant Spring rather than six; and four or five miles to the Cedar Spring junction with the road by way of Emigrant Spring rather than three. However, the distance up the right-hand branch is shorter as indicated in the Way Bill. T h e authors interpretation of th ; s account as it relates to road mileages and descriptions differs a little from West from Fort Bridger, U.H.Q., X I X , 257 fn. 17.
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flowed from the spring, as it probably did, emigrants would not have needed to go all the way to the spring for water. Cedar Creek townsite is eight-tenths of a mile south of Highway 30 along a road which leaves the highway four miles southeast of Strevell. Emigrant Spring is two miles south of Cedar Creek, then west up the canyon about a mile. From Cedar Spring the emigrant road wound through the junipercovered foothills to Clear Creek, following fairly close to a road now in use. T h e old road can frequently be seen near the present road. It crosses the road u p Clear Creek about one and eight-tenths miles south of the road from Strevell to Naf and goes on west by the old Naf schoolhouse, then northwesterly to the Raft River Narrows. It can be seen where the trail crossed the present road about one and one-tenth miles west of the Naf store. T h e emigrant road can also be seen where it crossed a road that goes north-north-west from Stanrod to the Raft River, about three and one-tenth miles north of the place this road leaves the Naf road and about one and one-tenth miles south of its junction with the road up Raft River from Highway 30 near Bridge, Idaho. T h e emigrant road can be seen again above the Raft River Narrows, south of the road from Almo to the Narrows. It continues on west-northwest to the upper ford of Raft River at the present Durfee Ranch. It is easy to find where it leaves the Durfee Ranch headed southwest toward Emigration Canyon. T h e trail crosses the road that goes south from Almo about three and eight-tenths miles south of the corner where a road turns east about a mile south of Almo. The old road crossing is about one-tenth of a mile north of the place where a road now in use turns off southwest toward Emigration Canyon. What was probably a branch of the Salt Lake Cutoff goes west from Clear Creek, keeping close to the edge of the foothills south of the present road from Naf to Stanrod. Its marks can still be seen. The trail passed by the Stanrod Cemetery and the Sandy Barnes Spring about a mile northeast of Stanrod. A mile north and a mile west of Stanrod the old road and present road come together near a spring. For about two miles west of here the old road was very near the one now in use. It then turned southwest along the old road to Yost, while the present road turns northwest by the Stacey Ranch. T h e old road drops into the Yost Valley, almost a mile and a half north of Yost. About a half-mile west of this point, along the present road from Yost to Almo, the dim marks of an old road can be seen going northwest. An old road goes due east from the mouth of Emigration Canyon to Raft River, then down Raft River about a half-mile to
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an old ford, then east up the hill that borders Raft River. At the top of the hill this road turns southeast up a gently sloping plain directly toward the old road going northwest from Yost. This could have been an emigrant route. The junction of the Salt Lake Cutoff and the Fort Hall road can still be found. The junction is in a field about due south of the Twin Sisters and south of the present road and the fence that parallels it. The old Fort Hall road crossed the ridge on the south side of the City of Rocks about a mile east of the Twin Sisters, then turned southwest through a patch of junipers and sage, down through a field planted to crested wheat grass where the ruts of the old road can still be seen, across the road from the City of Rocks and over a low, juniper-covered ridge, across the present road to Junction Valley, and into the field where it joins the Salt Lake Cutoff. The deep ruts of the California Trail can be seen going west where they finally fade in the distance crossing Junction Valley and over Granite Pass. Following along the Salt Lake Cutoff, the stream of emigrants joined the river of California-bound travelers who were seeking their fortunes in the gold mines and golden sunshine.
REVIEWS and PUBLICATIONS On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout, 1844-1861. Edited by JUANITA B R O O K S . T w o Volumes. (Salt
Lake City: University of U t a h Press a n d U t a h S t a t e H i s t o r i c a l Society, 1964. Vol. I, xix + 327 p p . ; Vol. I I , 330 + 769 p p . $17.50) Without doubt the Hosea Stout diary is one of the most significant of diaries, an astoundingly vital mirror of life and times on the Mormon frontier from the last days at Nauvoo to the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Mormon life in all its aspects is well portrayed: ideals of the K i n g d o m ; making a living; political affairs (especially police, judicial, legislative) ; internal struggles; conflicts with neighbors a n d officers of governments; folkways a n d customs; the family in death, sickness, and health; Indian relations on the Missouri, on the Plains, in the Mountain West; patterns of M o r m o n settlement; a n d community development a n d affairs. Stout was close enough to officialdom to be in on decisions of moment yet far enough away to lend perspective. Hosea Stout h a d the fortune (for us his readers) t o be in the right place a t the right time, to reveal a n d document for us so m u c h of importance in Mormon a n d U t a h history â&#x20AC;&#x201D; much of which is here shown for the first time in such rich detail, so frankly a n d honestly told. At Nauvoo h e was head of the police force, guarding church leaders and the city from "strangers" a n d the threatening mob. H e was in t h e vanguard of those crossing over into Iowa a n d in crossing Iowa (one of the most significant contributions of t h e diary!). H e
headed police work a t Winter Quarters, had close relations with t h e Brigham Young Pioneer Company of 1847 though he remained a t Winter Quarters that winter of 1847-48 (another significant contribution!), and arrived in Salt Lake Valley in September 1848. I n Salt Lake City, as intimate of Brigham Young and other leaders, one among them, as lawyer and legislator, Hosea Stout gives us a view rarely h a d before of U t a h society and politics â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the daily business of the courts, the daily happenings in the legislature; his accounts sometimes are like minutes. T o China on a mission, 185253, he gives us a glimpse of the California Mormons in San Bernardino a n d the San Francisco Bay region, a n d a bit of a description of H o n g Kong in 1853. H e is in on the U t a h W a r from causes to consequences. Wherever t h e action is, there also is Hosea Stout! T h e diary is almost daily from October 4, 1844, to July 10, 1861, then from January 1, 1869, to January 1, 1870. T h e years between a n d his closing years are narrated by the editor. T h e "Autobiography of Hosea Stout . . . ," has been published previously in the Utah Historical Quarterly, X X X (1962). We are assured that the printing of the diary is a literal transcription of the handwriting. T h e text is amply footnoted, chiefly with biographies, sometimes with b a c k g r o u n d information, sometimes with corroborating evidence from other diaries or personal records. This reader could wish that there h a d been more by way of background statements in lead paragraphs to the sections, that notes h a d been documented (the
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Reviews and Publications reader is asked to accept statements of fact a n d interpretation without documentation m u c h of the t i m e ) , that a wider variety of primary sources h a d been used (the impression is given that the editor knows mainly w h a t some will consider anti-Mormon sources whereas many other primary materials are equally available). W e are indebted a n d deeply grateful for the notes. W e are so grateful to all w h o have labored so long to produce this work. This reviewer found that reading the diary alone, straight through, to be one of his richest reading experiences. T h e two volumes are well indexed. T h e jacket design, a portrait of Stout by Alvin Gittins, is both startling a n d penetrating, reflecting so well the m a n of character, of dedication, of steady determination, of one w h o hated w a r a n d solitude alike, w h o knew life and death, joy and sorrow, life at its best and at its roughest â&#x20AC;&#x201D; on the M o r m o n frontier. T h e work will become at once a basic, standard primary source for future studies in Mormon, U t a h , and Western history. I t will be read by all with pleasure, and studied keenly with much profit. T h e printing should soon be exhausted. S. G E O R G E E L L S W O R T H
Utah State Hosteen
Klah:
Navaho
and Sand Painter.
University
Medicine
Man
By FRANC J O H N -
SON N E W C O M B . ( N o r m a n : University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. xxxiii + 227 pp. $5.95) This is the story of a well-known Navajo Indian w h o lived in an era of reservation life now obscured by dynamic postwar changes. I t was written by a woman w h o knew K l a h a n d the religion of " t h e People" better than most during the quarter of a century she and her husb a n d operated a trading post between Gallup a n d Shiprock in western N e w Mexico. But, it is neither history nor anthropology.
Almost one-third of the book discusses the conditions of contact between Navajos of N e w Mexico a n d Spanish, Mexicans, a n d Anglo-Americans in t u r n as these European groups controlled the Southwest. Central to the theme are Klah's relatives, Narbona, a Navajo band leader killed in 1849 w h o was his great-grandfather, a n d Klah's mother, Slim W o m a n , or G r a n d m a K l a h as the Newcombs knew her in later life. A n d t h e i r story, g e n e r a l i z e d w i t h " t r i b a l " events to Klah's birth in 1867, is one that really needed n o retelling. T h a t is, several such popular accounts relating "Navajo history," one of which also was issued by the University of Oklah o m a Press, have appeared already. This one by Mrs. Newcomb unfortunately smacks too m u c h of generalization a n d romanticism ("Great religious ceremonials were held . . . . W h e n such a ceremony was planned, swift runners were dispatched to every place where Navahos were known to live . . ." [p. 10] and, " I t was a wildly hilarious cavalcade of Navahos w h o returned to their homes . . . shouting defiance to all enemies of the Navaho tribe." [p. 15]) or half-truths and lack of authoritative documentation ( " T h e Utes rode south to the T u n i c h a Valley, burned all the hogans, killed as many sheep as they could find . . ." [p. 67] a n d , " K l a h came immediately a n d treated it by cutting the wound open a n d filling the cut with snake-bite medicine, the same root used by the Hopi medicine men w h o hold the snakes in their mouths during the Snake Dance." [p. 149]). But, for one more personally interested in the aberrant Hosteen Klah, his ceremonialism, a n d his association with M a r y Cabot Wheelwright (the founder a n d patroness of the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art in Santa F e ) , the remainder of the book will make for entertaining reading. Certainly, K l a h became an important respondent for Miss Wheelwright's several books on Navajo religion as well as a major donor of cere-
Utah Historical Quarterly
274 monial paraphernalia to that small b u t fine museum. I t is a tribute to people like Miss Wheelwright, Mrs. Newcomb, a n d the late Oliver LaFarge, president of the museum's board at t h e time of his u n timely death last year, that such an institution was founded a n d provided for in a sound fashion. These associations a r e discussed briefly in t h e final chapter. I n sum this volume is not so well done as some of M r s . Newcomb's previous works, especially her Navajo Omens and Taboos. Yet, perhaps, she has fulfilled her purpose "to write at least a portion of the biography of Hosteen Klah . . . " and has p u t on record something of t h e story of this unusual Navajo singer. R O B E R T C. E U L E R
University
of Utah
The Quiet Crisis. By STEWART L. U D A L L . I n t r o d u c t i o n by J O H N F . K E N N E D Y .
(New York: H o l t , R i n e h a r t and Winston, 1963. xiii + 209 p p . $5.00) Having hewn down woodlands from Maine to Oregon, extinguished the passenger pigeon, excised our grasslands, and subdued the Indians, we are currently befouling o u r lakes a n d streams, subdividing the countryside, and despoiling our beaches. Fortunately the realization is spreading — slowly a n d late — that we are guilty, as a people, of shamefully abusing a n d misusing the land that is our heritage. O n e of the n e w generation of true conservatives helping spread the gospel of conservation is Stewart L. Udall, w h o may prove to be our most effective secretary of the interior since the well-remembered Harold Ickes. I n The Quiet Crisis the outspoken cabinet member from Arizona helps us recall the land as it was, a land of wilderness a n d wildlife, a land in which nature's balance prevailed. His book, too, is balanced, since h e spends considerable time calling the roster of m e n who sought to halt the d e s p o i l e r s — such m e n as Powell a n d
Schurz, Pinchot a n d Muir, Theodore Roosevelt a n d Franklin Roosevelt, men who helped slow the devastation of forest lands, t h e woeful overgrazing of rangeland, the destruction of entire townships by placer mining. Due to the selfless efforts of a thoughtful few, we can still count Yosemite and Yellowstone, the Tetons a n d our own U t a h canyon country among our blessings. But Stewart Udall also tallies u p the battles that have been lost — with Hetch Hetchy chief among them — and reminds us that inner space is being chopped u p a n d paved over far faster than it is being safeguarded or retrieved. The Quiet Crisis is, of course, history with a message, propaganda, if you will, but it is nonetheless valid history. We are sadly in need, as Secretary Udall points out, a land ethic, there is an urgent need to "rethink" before we redevelop. T h e r e are planners and planners — those w h o plan solely for the motorcar, those who plan for people. Since this well-illustrated, easily read work is a reflection of the mood, as well as of the philosophy, of a cabinet member already known as an activist, we may be about to witness a reversal of our witless, maltreatment of our federal, state, and local land a n d water resources. I t is to be hoped our children's children may one day honor Stewart Udall as the Gilford Pinchot of the Kennedy-Johnson J A C K GOODMAN
Salt Lake City John
M. Browning,
American
Gun-
maker. By J O H N B R O W N I N G and C U R T
G E N T R Y . (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated, 1964. ix + 323 p p . $7.95) This book has been called a biography, and mention has been m a d e of its application to Mormon history. I must disagree with both applications and cannot recommend it to the reader whose only interest lies in those fields. Biographical
275
Reviews and Publications material is limited to the application of the family to firearms, and any connection with M o r m o n history is purely incidental. A justifiably proud son supplied the information which was p u t together in excellent prose by a fine professional writer, b u t the book does not deal with the "whole" J o h n Moses Browning. My own feeling is that John M. Browning, American Gunmaker was not intended to be a biography per se. I t is an outline of the monumental strides of a genius in the development of firearms in an unbelievable b u t documented record of 128 firearm patents — developing 80 separate guns within the space of 47 years. Many of these guns, such as the Browning automatic shotgun and the famous Colt "Woodsman," are still foremost in their field. " G u n Nuts," hunters, indeed all those with more than a passing familiarity with firearms will be completely absorbed and amazed with the information this book reveals. Browning developments in autom a t i c s , s e m i a u t o m a t i c s , slide-actions, and lever-actions eclipsed developments of centuries of firearm development from matchlocks, wheel locks, flintlocks, a n d percussion-lock guns in the space of a short 47 years. T h e serviceman a n d the ex-serviceman will be interested in the Browning development of military arms. All of the automatic and semiautomatic weapons used by the U.S. Armed Forces in World W a r I, World W a r I I , a n d Korea — including the 37 m m . anti-aircraft artillery — were Browning inventions. H e designed and invented the .50 caliber m a chine gun and the 37 m m . cannon at the express request of the U . S . Army, realizing a t the time that monetary gains could be far exceeded by application to sporting arms. T h e 37 m m . cannon, which was later used as anti-aircraft a r t i l l e r y a n d w a s a b o a r d some U . S . planes and shipped to Russia, was not even purchased by the United States government until after the death of M r .
Browning which occurred in 1926. His Colt .45 automatic pistol is still the official side a r m of the U . S . armed forces and has been since 1911. A Browning machine gun was used by U . S . forces in the Spanish-American W a r a n d was largely credited with saving the U.S. legation during the Boxer Rebellion. My own reaction to the contents was one of great pleasure. I t is well organized and well written. T h e technical information is adequate without being overwhelming, and most of it is in a separate section to be studied if desired. T h e entire book is a story of a genius, of an unlettered m a n with a mind which seemed to know no limitations in the mechanics and theory of the extremely technical firearms field. It is a story of a simple m a n concerned with creating a better p r o d u c t a n d e v i d e n t l y g i v i n g little thought to the fame and fortune which his genius could produce. T o those of us who find some guns beautiful, this is a story of an artist: to those w h o find unstinting devotion in response to the needs of his country admirable, it is a story of a patriot. Above and beyond all of this, it is the story of an unbelievably talented inventor whose talents should long since have ranked him among the most prolific and successful inventors the world has ever known. _, R O B E R T W. I N S C O R E
Salt Lake
City
Bolton and the Spanish Borderlands. Edited a n d Introduction by J O H N FRANCIS B A N N O N .
(Norman:
Uni-
versity of O k l a h o m a Press, 1964. xi + 346 p p . $5.95) Professor J o h n Francis Bannon, of St. Louis University, has published a sparkling anthology of Bolton's most definitive works relative to that historian's greatest single passion—the Spanish Borderlands. This new volume strikes a harmonious chord with two previous tributes to Herbert E. Bolton, each published during the maestro's lifetime: Greater
276 America and New Spain and the AngloAmerican West. This new disciple-offering is entirely different in form and content from the earlier student publications but it should be just as p o p u l a r — m a i n l y , we suspect, because it is pure gold from the refiner's fire. T h e editor, Professor Bannon, has performed a signal service for the profession ; it is appropriate on the tenth anniversary of Bolton's death for one of his most ardent students and a first-generation scholar to compile w h a t should become the standard "Borderlands Reader." Because of Bannon's editorial contribution, the graduate and undergraduate student alike will now have access to many of the classic Bolton articles, addresses, and biographical excerpts which are vital in the field of Hispanic Southwestern history. T h e format of the book is strikingly simple, yet effective. T h e Spanish Borderlands c o n t a i n s 17 s e p a r a t e p i e c e s which in turn are grouped into five major headings or sections. In every instance Professor Bannon is to be commended for his judicious selections from Bolton's voluminous published and unpublished materials. With only one exception, Bolton's presidential address before the American Historical Association in 1932 entitled " T h e Epic of Greater America," these selections are definitive statements which the California professor expostulated about the many facets of Spain's northward advance — t h a t is, the problems involved and the remedies attempted. T h e editor has grouped together works from every period of the professor's productive era including his Texas Southwestern Historical Quarterly days, his early years at Berkeley under C h a i r m a n and Professor H e n r y Morse Stephens, and his years of greatest historical production as director of the Bancroft Library and History Departm e n t chairman ( 1 9 1 9 - 4 0 ) . Professor Bannon's major contribution in this volume is a stimulating Introduction plus shorter headlines and
Utah Historical Quarterly comments relative to each of the individual Bolton articles. T h e Introduction has a special appeal for those who, like myself, have never known this wizard of the classroom, lecture hall, seminar session, and archive. For illustrative materials the editor has chosen four maps and left the photographs and plates to another tribute-bearer. With some disappointment, however, I note that these are original Bolton maps, History of the Americas' vintage, and they scarcely supply the necessary detail for complete understanding of the Californias or any of the Pimeria locale. T h e controversial aspects of this hum a n dynamo, Herbert E. Bolton, may be said to have diminished somewhat during the years from 1955 to 1962. T h e n quite suddenly, Bolton and his fellow historian-behemoths, Frederick Jackson T u r n e r and Walter Prescott Webb, were back in the limelight again. Recent historical conferences — both local and national — have featured special papers and symposiums dealing with the American West as defined a n d highlighted by the illustrious trio: Bolton, Turner, and Webb. I t is also noteworthy that reissues and new editions of each of the authors' works are now appearing with regularity and certainly today's American historian is much more fully aware of what Bolton believed in, whether it was "right or wrong, fact fad or fancy" (p. 3 ) . J o h n Walton Caughey, renowned professor and a Bolton student from the University of California, has recently penned a worthy sketch of the "Borderlands Professor" including an allusion to his craftsmanship: " H e could not write worth a damn, but he went right ahead and wrote and wrote" {The American West, Vol. I ) . Editor Bannon notes that Bolton was a "trail blazer," a scholar who spent much of his life opening paths. " H e found the mines of materials in the Mexican and the Spanish archives and showed how they could be worked to the great advantage of American History." I would personally wish for more like
277
Reviews and Publications Bolton " w h o could n o t write" b u t w h o could point t h e younger student toward worthy projects among the archives. M I C H A E L E. T H U R M A N
East Texas State The Beaver Men: Spearheads By M A R I SANDOZ.
College
of Empire.
(New Y o r k : Hast-
ings House, Publishers, 1964. x v + 3 3 5 pp. $5.95) T h i s , a v o l u m e in t h e p u b l i s h e r ' s American Procession Series, is also part of the author's Great Plains Series. Although t h e sixth of t h e Great Plains books to b e published, in terms of subject-chronology it is first in the series, being followed by Crazy Horse, Cheyenne Autumn, The Buffalo Hunters, The Cattlemen, Old Jules, and a final volume yet to be written, which, Miss Sandoz states in t h e Introduction to The Beaver Men, "is t o illustrate the rise of Plainsrooted power that grasps for wealth anywhere in the world a n d often molds t h e nation's foreign policy, reversing the era when the Plains were the prey of empires seeking the power of beaver gold a n d of a river that was to lead to the Western Sea a n d the wealth of China." The Beaver Men is spread over a wider canvas than t h e author's other Great Plains books. This is as it should be, because the beaver, which first lured m e n to the Plains, ranged over virtually all of North America prior to t h e coming of the Europeans, constituting the "soft gold" which led adventuresome trappers and traders u p rivers a n d across mountains in all parts of t h e continent. I n deed, when compared with the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes region or the Rocky Mountains, t h e Great Plains area was not particularly good beaver country, and it was important to the beaver men primarily as a barrier between t h e Missouri, the great highway of t h e western fur trade, a n d the mountains. Miss Sandoz recognizes this, a n d her account puts the first coming of the white m a n to t h e
Plains in proper perspective. She also contributes to our understanding of t h e lore of the beaver a n d of the p a r t played by the Indians in the beaver trade. H e r f o o t n o t e s , t h o u g h n o t as full as t h e scholar would like to have them, are valuable. The Beaver Men will n o t supercede the works of Chittenden, Phillips, a n d others who have written on the fur trade, but it provides a synthesis not achieved by any other work on t h e subject. J A M E S C. O L S O N
University
of Nebraska
Stereo Views: A History of Stereographs in America and Their Collection. By W I L L I A M C U L P DARRAH . ( G e t t y s b u r g :
Author, 1964. xii + 2 5 5 p p . $6.00) T h e prime interest that this book holds is for collectors. T h e work covers t h e growth a n d decline of stereography beginning around 1850 and ending around 1930. Five periods are defined u p t o the point of decline. Among them " T h e G r a n d Flowering in America" between 1865 a n d 1873, while t h e time around 1880 was the time of the revival of popular interest a n d enthusiasm. Mr. D a r r a h starts with the Daguerrotype, then t h e Talbotype, a n d then t h e glass negative. Methods of producing the prints a n d means of viewing them are well described. T h e book was written after some 20 years of leisurely investigation by the author. Since no such m a n u a l h a d been written, h e felt that his work would be of great help to the growing number of collectors. H e also h a d in mind t h e possible value of these collections to historians. T h e emphasis is heavily on collecting, not so much where to look b u t h o w to look. Types a n d conditions of prints, titles, signatures, curved or square corners, cards purposely m a d e concave along their horizontal axes with a n eye to enhancing t h e stereo effect, t h e color of mounts, the finishes, the art work em-
Utah Historical Quarterly
278 bellishing the marginsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;all this and more is carefully described to help a collector determine the source a n d value of his finds. A section on cataloguing a n d preserving is given. Listings are included covering photographers a n d manufacturers in this country a n d in Europe. T h e r e are geographical listings; listings of reasonable costs and values; a n d listings of expeditions, Indians, railroads, and expositions. Almost no space is devoted to the theory of stereo vision. Forty-six illustrations are included but, a n d it would have been hard to accomplish, there is no viewing device, permitting the reader to see the three-dimensional effect, accompanying the book. T h e r e are few people w h o can "wall" their eyes to meet the interocular involved. Considerable space is given to the early workers a n d manufacturers such as Langenheim, Anthony a n d Kilburn, and on through many others down to Underwood, 1905-12 a n d Keystone, 1914-22. Oliver Wendell Holmes is mentioned, for his faith in the value of stereo to education was strong. Holmes designed but did not patent the type viewer that so many of us saw a n d used back in the teens a n d twenties. This book, being the only one of its kind, should be of great help to a collector. PARKER HAMILTON
Flagstaff,
Arizona
NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS History of the Expedition Under the Command of Lewis and Clark. Edited by ELLIOTT C O U E S .
T h r e e Volumes.
(New York: Dover Publications, Incorporated, 1965) In 1893 Elliott Coues published a four-volume edition of the "authorized edition" of 1814, of the journals of the Lewis a n d Clark expedition, which h a d been edited by Nicholas Biddle. T h e distinguished naturalist a n d historian added
copious notes a n d editorial comments, and his edition was certainly the best one of the several available at that time. Not until the publication in 1904-05 of an eight-volume edition, edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites, was the value of the Coues set challenged. This paperback edition (in three volumes instead of four) is, therefore, a welcome addition to the library shelves of the student of Western history for, of course, the Lewis a n d Clark journals are basic items. I t might be mentioned that the magnificent Thwaites edition was reprinted in 1959, b u t at a prohibitive price, a n d that the one-volume edition by the late Bernard DeVoto is still available.
The Southwest of John H. Slaughter, 1841-1922: Pioneer Cattleman and Trail-driver of Texas, the Pecos, and Arizona and Sheriff of Tombstone. By ALLEN
A.
ERWIN.
R A M O N ADAMS and
LEOD RAINE.
Forewords WILLIAM
by
MAC-
(Glendale: T h e Arthur
H . Clark Company, 1965) T h e career of J o h n Horton Slaughter was that of a full a n d useful life on the advancing frontier in the Southwest. H e and his family were among the pioneers in the development of the cattle industry in south a n d west Texas, and were a part of the advance with their herds up the Pecos into the virgin territory of New Mexico. John Slaughter went on to settle at the historic San Bernardino R a n c h on the Mexican border at Arizona's southeast corner. His earlier years h a d given him experience as a Civil W a r soldier, Texas Ranger, Indian campaign army scout, and trail driver. Later he served a term in the Arizona Legislature, and was a developer of the town of Douglas, Arizona. As sheriff of Tombstone's Cochise County, Slaughter's name gained wide attention as one of the frontier West's most noted, fearless, and efficient law
279
Reviews and Publications officers, in his suppression of rustlers, Apache depredations, highwaymen, and the exhuberant lawlessness of the mining and cattle towns.
Utah, The Incredible Land: A Guide to the Beehive State. By WARD J. R O Y LANCE. (Salt Lake City: U t a h Trails Company, 1965) W a r d J. Roylance has written a n extremely useful a n d informative guidebook to U t a h a n d its incredible wonders. Into 208 pages he has crammed pertinent facts, helpful statistics, brief descriptions, historical highlights, a n d a great n u m ber of excellent photographs (including 16 pages in full color) a n d maps. Following the system developed by the U t a h State Tourist a n d Publicity Council (dividing t h e state into regions based primarily on major physical characteristics) , Mr. Roylance devotes the largest part of his book to "touring U t a h . " A n d here h e has performed a much-needed service, for not since the justly famous W P A guidebook of 1941 ( U t a h , A Guide to the State) was published, has a book appeared which approaches it in helpfulness a n d usefulness. T h e vacationing visitor will be grateful for this new guidebook, but t h e local citizen w h o enjoys touring U t a h on long weekends will be equally appreciative. California Gold: The Beginning ing in the Far West.
of Min-
By RODMAN W .
PAUL. Reprint. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965) The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and Express
Routes.
By A G N E S W R I G H T
SPRING. Reprint. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965) Family Recordings of Nauvoo â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 1845 and Before, Including Minutes of the First LDS Family Gathering. Compiled by O R A H A V E N BARLOW.
Lake City: O. H . Barlow, 1965)
(Salt
Fort
Union
and the Winning
Southwest.
of the
By C H R I S E M M E T T . (Nor-
m a n : University of O k l a h o m a Press, 1965) The Four Major Cults. By A N T H O N Y A. H O C K E M E . (Grand Rapids, Michig a n : Eardmans, 1963) [chapter on Mormonism] "A History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in C a n a d a , 18301963."
By
MELVIN
SALWAY
TAGG.
(Ph.D. dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1963) Irrigation Water Use in the Utah Valley. By J. W. H U D S O N . (Chicago: U n i versity of Chicago D e p a r t m e n t of Geology, 1963) Last of the Great Scouts: The Life Story of Col. William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill." As Told by H i s Sister Helen Cody Wetmore. Reprint. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965) The Life and Ministry
of John
Morgan.
By A R T H U R M . R I C H A R D S O N . Historical Research N I C H O L A S G. M O R G A N ,
SR. (Salt Lake City: Nicholas G. Morgan, Sr., 1965) " T h e Salt Lake T h e a t r e as an Organizational U n i t . "
By AARON A L M A R O Y -
LANCE. (Ph.D. dissertation, University of U t a h , 1963) Sources of Mormon History in Illinois, 1839^18: An Annotated Catalog of the Microfilm Collection at Southern Illinois University. Compiled by STANLEY B. KIMBALL. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 1964) The Taylorsville Story. By L U I S E P U T CAMP. (Salt Lake City: Zions First National Bank, 1964) Vanguards of the Frontier: A Social History of the Northern Plains and Rocky Mountains from the Fur Traders to the Sod
Busters.
By E V E R E T T D I C K .
Reprint. (Lincoln: University of N e braska Press. 1965)
Utah Historical Quarterly
280 " T h e Vegetation of the Wasatch M o u n tains, U t a h a n d I d a h o . " By ROBERT R A Y R E A M . (Ph.D. dissertation, U n i versity of Wisconsin, 1963) Wind Before the Dawn. By OLIVE W . BURT. (New York: J o h n Day, 1965) [story of t e e n - a g e girl crossing t h e Plains]
bilitation process a n d c e n t e r ] , " by G E O R G E A. BARCLAY, 341—65.
Montana,The Magazine of Western History — X V , Spring 1965: "Samuel Mallory, O n e M e m b e r of America's Oldest H a t - M a k i n g Family Left His M a r k on T h e Western Frontier [traveled t h r o u g h Salt L a k e City]," by A G N E S W R I G H T SPRING, 2 4 - 3 2 ; " M o n -
t a n a Miracle: I t Saved t h e Buffalo," ARTICLES OF INTEREST American Heritage — X V I , February 1965: "She W h o Shall Be Nameless [Augusta Adams, 4th wife of Brigham Young]," by Mary Cable, 5 0 - 5 5 . The Journal of American History — L I , M a r c h 1965: "Grenville Dodge a n d the Union Pacific: A Study of Historical Legends," by W A L L A C E D . F A R N -
H A M , 6 3 2 - 5 0 ; "Repudiation of a R e pudiation [repudiation of the J . R e u b e n Clark, Jr., M e m o r a n d u m on the Monroe Doctrine, t h e notable document which repudiated the Roosevelt Corollary of 1905]," by ROBERT H . F E R -
by J O H N KIDDER, 5 2 - 6 7 .
NMA: The National Micro-News — L X X I I , October 1964: "Legal Considerations for Microfilming in t h e State of U t a h , " by T . HAROLD JACOB-
SEN, 62-69. Natural History — L X X I V , April 1965: "Fossil Lakes Form the Eocene, Green River Formation Discloses Its 10-Million-Year History," by BOBB S C H A E F FER a n d M A R L Y N M A N G U S , 10-20.
The Palimpsest —XLVI, April 1965: " T h e Great Northern in Iowa," by F R A N K P. D O N O V A N , 1 9 3 - 2 0 8 ;
"The
Union Pacific in Iowa," by F R A N K P. DONOVAN, 2 0 9 - 1 8 ; " T h e Santa Fe in
RELL, 6 6 9 - 7 3 .
Arizona Highways — X L I , April 1965: "Georgie White, Queen of the Rivers,"
I o w a , " by F R A N K P. D O N O V A N , 2 1 9 -
24 [entire issue devoted t o railroads].
by J O Y C E R O C K W O O D M U E N C H , 2 - 3 ;
" O n e of O u r First Generals in t h e Fight for L a n d Reformation & Conservation, J o h n Wesley Powell," by J O Y C E R O C K W O O D M U E N C H , 4 - 8 ; "A
White W a t e r Adventure: River T r i p T h r o u g h the Marble and G r a n d Canyons," by J O S E F M U E N C H as told to JOYCE ROCKWOOD M U E N C H ,
10-35;
" T h e G r a n d Adventure [Grand Canyon]," by J O H N M . SCOTT, 36-39.
Arizoniana — V , Winter 1964: " T h e Steamboat W a r that O p e n e d Arizona [concerns freighting on the Colorado R i v e r a n d C a l l v i l l e ] , " by O D I E B . F A U L K , 1-9.
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society — L V I I , Winter 1964: " T h e Keeley League [early alcoholic reha-
Sunset, The Magazine of Western Living—CXXX.IV, April 1965: " T h e Utes Invite You I n [Ute Indians of northeastern U t a h have opened certain areas of their tribal reserve to fishermen, campers, a n d hunters]," 6 6 ; " T h e M o r m o n City [Salt Lake City]," 77-91. The Trail Guide [Kansas City Posse, T h e Westerners] — V I I I , December 1963: "High Spots of Western Illustrating [entire issue devoted to art in the West separated in " T h e Documentary Years ( 1 8 3 6 - 1 8 8 7 ) , " 3 - 7 ; " T h e Golden Age ( 1 8 8 8 - 1 9 3 8 ) , " 8 - 1 4 ; " T h e Last Q u a r t e r Century," 1 5 - 2 2 ; "Photography a n d the Western Scene," 2 3 - 2 6 ; "High Spots of Western Illustrating," 2 7 - 3 2 ] , " by J E F F C. D Y K E S , 3 - 3 2 .
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Membership in the Utah State Historical Society is open to all individuals and institutions who are interested in Utah history. We invite everyone to join this one official agency of state government charged by law with the collection, preservation, and publication of materials on Utah and related history. Through the pages of the Utah Historical Quarterly, the Society is able to fulfill part of its legal responsibility. Your membership dues provide the means for publication of the Quarterly. So, we earnestly encourage present members to interest their friends in joining them in furthering the cause of Utah history. Membership brings with it the Utah Historical Quarterly, the bimonthly Newsletter, and special prices on publications of the Society. The different classes of membership are: Student
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5.00
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For those individuals and business firms who wish to support special projects of the Society, they may do so through making tax-exempt donations on the following membership basis: Sustaining
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$ 500.00 $1,000.00
Your interest and support are most welcome.
