9 minute read
Leaving the Labor Ranks
Utah Historical Society
Vol. 38, 1970, No. 2
Leaving the Labor Ranks
AFTER THE WAR, the American Legion led a campaign against the South Europeans in the country. Returned immigrant soldiers, some naturalized before entering the army and others granted citizenship for their service, found themselves sitting with other Legionnaires, hearing national leaders denounce Greeks and Italians and demand a compulsory education program for all aliens. The Legion singled out the Greeks for their backwardness: clinging to their native language; establishing Greek schools for their children; and reading Greek newspapers in coffeehouses.
The money the Greeks, as well as other Balkan and Mediterranean people, sent to their families, was a source of anger to the native Americans. This money was an important propaganda means used against the Greeks in the Bingham Strike of 1912, in the 1914 Ludlow Massacre in Colorado, during the war years, later in the Carbon County Strike of 1922, and the Ku Klux Klan attacks of 1924.
The money sent to Greece multiplied as immigration increased, reaching a peak in 1921. In that year the money sent to Greece by her emigrant sons in the United States totaled $121 million. This changed Greece's extremely unfavorable balance of trade, strengthened the Greek drachma, and enabled entire districts of peasants to free themselves from crippling mortgages. The standard of living was raised dramatically. Not only could necessities be bought, but also a few luxuries. Greek history acknowledges this enormous debt to the United States.
The young Greeks, older now and with money saved, began leaving the mines and smelters to become store owners and sheepmen. Laundries, restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, hayfeed-coal-and-ice businesses were established at a rapid rate. Among the first businessmen in the Salt Lake area were Tom Politz, George Castles, Alex Rizos, Nicholas P. Stathakos, George sons and Louis Strike, and Andrew and George Floor. Early businessmen in Ogden were Gus J. Cutrubus, George Dokas, Sam Vetas, and Andrew Batestas. Among the first Greek businessmen in Bingham were Peter Pitchios, Anast Chipian, Charles Demas, James Jimas, John and Steve Leventis, George Adondakis, Christ Pappasoteriou (Soteriou), Tom Praggastis, and Alex Pistolas. In Magna businessmen were Gus and Charles Paulos; Emmanuel, William, and George Papanikolas; Milt, Harry, and John Stamoulis; Chris Tryfon; Pete and Chris Athas; Kost Papanikolas; Con Chlepas; and Ernest Mantes.
In Helper early Greek businessmen were James Galanis, the Gegonas brothers, Tony Michelog, Tom Avgikos, John Diamanti, Gust Pappas, Pete Jouflas, James Papacosta, Gus Tsangaris, John Gerendas, George Zeese, Theros Sargetis, and the Lenderis brothers. In Price businessmen were Gus Platis, Stylian Staes, Nick Karras, Nick Michelog, Harry Dragatis, and the Salevourakis and Georgides brothers. In Black Hawk Steve Diumenti, in Spring Canyon George Zoumadakis, and in Logan George Lamb were in business.
Throughout the state Greeks were converting their savings into property and buildings. The contract for the water pipeline through Price Canyon and into Helper was awarded to Stylian Staes and George Zeese. This was the first time in Utah that Greek immigrants were the employers of a large labor gang rather than part of it.
Many Greeks became sheepmen and contributed greatly to the economy of the state. They came mostly from Roumeli, the mountainous province in Central Greece. A few were from the Island of Crete. Supplying meat for Greek boardinghouses was their starting point.
The butchering of carcasses was known to all immigrants. Every village family raised a few lambs or kids to provide wool, meat on holidays, and milk for cheese making. To supply crowded boardinghouses with meat proved to be hard work, but not an unfamiliar trade. The men raised young lambs and slaughtered them before they became yearlings. In the Bingham area John Condas, John Louras, and John Leventis raised their lambs on the road to Lead Mine above Copperton. The three formed the Condas Slaughterhouse Company and held lucrative contracts with Bingham boardinghouses.
In the Scofield-Clear Creek area, George Metos and John Cavalas supplied both meat and bakery goods to boardinghouses for miners working in the Pleasant Valley coal mines. They kept between four to six hundred lambs for this purpose.
In Helper, the railroad terminal for the thirty mines in Carbon County, John and Nick Diamanti, Pete, John, and Ted Jouflas, Gust and Angelo Pappas were all involved in the business to provide meat for boardinghouses. They raised small flocks of lambs and were not primarily concerned with breeding ewes. The flocks were kept on nearby farms. On farms beyond Price, Angelo Mahleras, Sam Sampino, James Giannopulos, Nick Malkogiannis, and Angelo Theos raised their lambs.
James Koulouris raised lambs in Black Hawk for his own boardinghouse. After three years, he moved to Helper where he and his brotherin-law, John Papoulas, raised lambs on a farm at Blue Cut, between Helper and Price. They also kept goats and made feta cheese from the milk.
A few men in Magna principally John Kochonis and Pete Melos, who had reputations as excellent butchers, also raised and provided lambs for boardinghouses and for the Greek population. Flocks in Magna were small; when Greek laborers left the mill and smelter, some butchers added ice, coal, feed, and grocery items to their diminished meat business.
Supplying meat to mining town boardinghouses had its dangers. Although some of the men were able to sign contracts with mine companies and could conduct business unchallenged, others had to confront entrenched mine company store owners. All competition with company stores was discouraged, often through vandalism. The higher prices of the company stores were not questioned by mine and mill officials. Miners were cautioned and often threatened with loss of their jobs if they bought elsewhere. At times scrip was issued to prevent clandestine buying. The demand to abolish scrip was made in every strike.
Town officials upheld the unwritten law of company store supremacy. Harry Mahleras was stopped on the outskirts of the coal camp, Hiawatha, by the town marshal who refused him entrance. At gunpoint Mahleras forced the marshal out of the way. He delivered his meat that day and continued to deliver it with his gun on the wagon seat. Many assault charges on court calendars of this period were the outcome of Greeks attempting to deliver meat to "restricted" areas.
By the end of the first world war and the beginning of the 1920's, the Greeks became sheepmen in the complete sense of raising, breeding, and marketing their lambs and wool. John Condas bought out his partners and continued to sell lambs to Bingham residents until the abortive strike and labor troubles of 1917 and 1918. This period of labor unrest greatly depleted the Greek mining population, already disillusioned by the long, unsuccessful strike five years earlier. Condas was left with a large flock of lambs, no longer yearlings, but unsaleable breeding ewes — a financial failure. With his market gone, he bought rams and became a full-fledged sheepman.
The decline in the number of Greek boardinghouses by the early twenties when the immigrants were rapidly leaving the mines, mills, and smelters to enter business brought less demand for the wholesale buying of meat. Failure in other business enterprises turned many men to sheep, to what they knew best. Ironically they returned to the very life they had left Greece to avoid; yet they were well suited by temperament for it.
Some had tried other businesses in conjunction with their meat supply ventures: restaurants, candy stores, grocery stores, and real estate. A Christmas Eve fire destroyed the Ideal Meat Market in Helper owned by John Diamanti, James Koulouris, and Pete Jouflas. To recoup their losses, they concentrated on breeding and marketing sheep.
Of the sheepmen only John Condas lived in Bingham. He held a lifetime franchise of grazing rights on the Oquirrh Mountains. From the winter desert grounds in Skull Valley, the sheep were trailed to Copperton and Lead Mine for lambing. In 1921 and 1922 a total of eight hundred sheep were killed by the arsenic wastes from Utah Copper operations. In 1924 Condas moved to the Park City junction where he acquired grazing land under the Homestead Act.
George Metos, John Cavalas, George and Tom Telonas, Gus Mavroandreas, Gus Nikolodemos (known as Gus Mormon because he had been an interpreter in the Castle Gate mines "among the Mormons"), and the brothers Andreas, John, and Christ Maniotis lived in Scofield. George Metos did not drive his sheep to winter grounds. He raised hay on a farm in Fish Creek and fed his sheep throughout the winter. When the Scofield Dam was built, his farm was condemned and his sheep dwindled in number.
Angelos Theos, John Papoulas, and the three Pappathanasiou brothers Nick, Gust, and Pete, drove their sheep to summer pasture in the Uintah Mountains and lived in Vernal. Theros Sargetis lived in Altonah.
The sheepmen of Helper and Price kept their sheep in the Scofield country during the summer and moved them to winter grounds in the desert country around Castle Dale, Centerfield near Green River, and as far as Woodside in the vicinity of Grand Junction, Colorado.
Greek sheepmen had little trouble with each other. They respected each others' grazing and water rights. The Greeks and the French also had good relations with each other. There was one long feud between a Greek sheepman and a French family; everyone rode the range with high-powered rifles. With native Americans, however, water, grazing rights, and quarrels over stray sheep were a constant source of trouble. Carbon County district court records of the early 1920's list many trespassing cases. The Maniotis brothers of Scofield, who had been involved in many altercations (in one fight, one brother lost an eye), later moved to Craig, Colorado, where American sheepmen drove 150 of their sheep over a cliff. In Scofield a bitter feud between the Telonas brothers and a Scandinavian immigrant family lasted for years. An old-time sheepman said: "Confidentially, we all stole sheep from each other, Greeks, Frenchmen, Americans — a few here, a few there."
By the middle 1920's many Greek sheepmen left Utah for Colorado. The size of their flocks was restricted by the lack of land in Utah. The Scofield mountains were mostly forest reserves; little land in this area was privately owned. Around Craig and Grand Junction, Colorado, there was rich grazing land, privately owned and available for leasing. Of the men who left Utah, Angelo Theos and John Papoulas rose to own substantial bands of sheep. Many sheepmen left America during this time and returned to Greece where they married and raised families.
The men who remained in Utah but drove their sheep to the Colorado mountains for summer grazing were reluctant to leave because of the Greek Orthodox church in Price. Neither Craig nor Grand Junction had Greek churches. Price and Helper were the center of Greek life in the sheep v country. There children attended Greek schools, fraternal lodges abounded, and old-country friends were many.
In the summer families spent the three months "at sheep." Mothers cooked for crowds of men. Patches of hay were grown and the sons helped with the cutting. They also took supplies to sheep camps, drove to town for food, and, when older, were expected to take their turns as sheepherders.
Girls helped their mothers with the monumental task of canning enough fruits and vegetables to last the family and the sheepherders until the next canning season. The youngest daughters bottle fed the "bum" lambs—lambs rejected by their mothers, orphaned, or the weaker of twins.
Mothers rolled out great numbers of paper-thin sheets of dough which were spread out to dry on clean sheets covering beds, bunks, tables, and planks on saw horses. These were stacked and stored between newspapers. When the women left with their children for school, the men mixed Greek feta cheese with eggs and butter, spread the mixture between layers of the filo pastry, and baked it — a delicacy called pita.
Each sheep camp was the domain of the sheepherder who spent the entire summer there, moving from place to place as the grass was eaten. Every two or three weeks, he was brought supplies, his only contact with human beings.
Almost all of the sheepherders were Greeks. A few were native Americans and Mexicans. Sometimes the owner of the outfit, the "boss," sent tickets to relatives and fellow villagers in Greece in return for a specified amount of work. One Greek sheepherder, who had entered the country illegally, worked ten years without once leaving the sheep camp.
The loyalty to the boss was deep and lifelong. A ninety-year-old sheepherder said of his boss:
The boss knew his men well. He knew there were as many kinds of men as there were sheep camps. Some men seldom lost a sheep; others lost them not only in blizzards, but on fine summer days. Some sheep showedsigns of untended injuries; others were cradled as if they were babies. Some sheepherders had superficial concern for their sheep and dogs; some mourned the death of a lamb and grieved a lifetime for a dead sheep dog. The boss refused to eat at certain camps.
Sheepherders depended on folk cures they brought with them from Greece. If they became sick, they could not leave the sheep for medical help. For infections they used a bandage made of clean sheep tufts dipped in the film that formed on top of goatcheese liquid. For colds they drank hot wine and spices. Garlic was chewed for every ache and pain. Each sheepherder had favorite cures he used for himself and for his sheep.
Many sheepherders took part of their wages in sheep and with a modest number went into business for themselves. This took many years of contract labor. Greek men who found work as sheepherders in isolated Mormon communities became sheepmen there, married Mormon women, and lost Greek ties. Their obituaries stir vague memories among their countrymen.
Lambing, shearing, and marketing were the times of greatest activity for the sheep families. Shearing was done by traveling bands of Mexican shearers who worked their way from Mexico to Montana. When electric shears took the place of hand scissors, the Greek sheepmen accepted them with trepidation. It was unnatural, a process that nicked the skin and often made deep cuts that led to infections. Greek men formed wool pools and sold to brokers, most often to Warren Snow who represented Boston manufacturers.
In the fall the lambs were brought to the Price railyards for marketing. The livestock freights stopped at Craig, Colorado, at Denver, Kansas City, and Chicago. Individual sheepmen who had a great number of lambs traveled with them to market. Those with smaller numbers sold to sheep brokers. Stylian Staes, Gus Boulos, and Gus Mormon (Nikolodemos) were among the Greek sheep brokers of the 1920's.
Sheepmen bought their supplies twice a year in great bulk, at lambing and at marketing. They paid their bills after the lambs and wool were sold. After a brief recession, lambs reached a high of $18.00 a head; wool was also selling at profitable prices. Of all Greeks the sheepmen were then the most prosperous.
For full citations and images please view this article on a desktop.
