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Gorgoza and Gogorza: Fiction and Fact
A photograph taken after 1900 shows the narrow-gauge boxcar used as the Gogorza depot (note spelling on sign) and section house. USHS collections.
Gorgoza and Gogorza: Fiction and Fact
BY CHARLES L. KELLER
THIS IS A TALE OF TWO UTAH CITIES. Gorgoza was a fictional city that never existed, while Gogorza was real enough but barely existed. Both have interesting stories, and together they give an excellent example of how fictional stories, repeated often enough, become accepted as fact, while their factual counterparts fade into oblivion, Gorgoza, as the story goes, is located in Summit County, two and one-half miles east of Parley's Summit. The place was settled in 1889 and was named for Rodriquez Velasquez de la Gorgozada, a Spaniard who reportedly invested almost a million dollars in a railroad from Park City to Salt Lake City. He was promised that a city would be built and named in his honor. The city, of course, was Gorgoza.
The origin of this story is obscure; it first appeared in 1938 when the Works Progress Administration had a group of writers working on a compilation of Utah place names. In the third edition of Origins of Utah Place Names the entry for Gorgoza appeared as follows:
An examination of the WPA records now resting in the Utah State Historical Society archives sheds no light on the source of this story but does raise questions about how it could have been allowed to find its way into the place names book. Correspondence about various place names indicates that the editor, probably Wade W. Kadleck, was very careful about accepting all stories, as indicated by his pencilled note, "Check carefully," on some copies. Had someone taken the time to check a map, such as the USGS Fort Douglas quadrangle that was current at that time, he would have found that the place they were writing about was not Gorgoza at all but Gogorza In 1940 the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad was still running across Parley's Summit to Park City, and until that line was abandoned in 1946 it had a station named Gogorza that was shown on the map.
Curiously, in the first and second editions of Originsof UtahPlace Names, published in March and December 1938, respectively, both the name of the place and of the Spaniard were given as Gorgorza This may explain the name's transition from Gogorza to Gorgoza. The story was essentially the same, but Gorgorza was misplaced in Salt Lake County, an error that was corrected in the third edition.
Origins of Utah Place Names became a standard reference in the years following its publication, and the fallacious Gorgoza name and story were repeated again and again. It appeared in the 1941 edition of Utah:A Guide to the State, which was revised and enlarged by Ward Roylance in 1982. George A. Thompson and Fraser Buck used the story in their Park City history, Treasure Mountain Home.2 Thompson used it again in his Some Dreams Die: Utah's Ghost Towns and Lost Treasures/ and, most recently, John Van Cott used it in his Utah Place Names.4 Even the USGS jumped onto the Gorgoza bandwagon and used the name on its 1961 edition of the Big Dutch Hollow 1:24000 (7/4 minute) map. The name was further used for a small but well known ski area near the site of the fictitious town, and today it still appears as the name of a street, Gorgoza Drive, in the housing development just above the Jeremy Ranch golf course, across Interstate 80 from the now defunct ski area.
Legends are often rooted in fact, and so it is with this one. The real Gogorza also had its origin with John W Young In 1889 he was pushing his narrow-gauge Salt Lake 8c Eastern Railroad, soon to be renamed the Utah Central, up Parley's Canyon en route to Park City. The railroad began in 1883 as the Salt Lake & Fort Douglas, to tap the sandstone quarries in Red Butte Canyon, but for various reasons made very slow progress. When it finally did reach the Fort Douglas Military Reservation and was denied permission to cross government land without congressional approval, a branch line was built to Sugar House and Mill Creek Finding little business there, the owners ran another branch to the shale beds in Parley's Canyon. The mines at Park City,just another twenty miles over the mountain, beckoned; the Salt Lake & Eastern was formed and construction was begun up the canyon. But with many nonproductive years behind it, the railroad was badly in need of money to reach its goal. John W. Young had initiated negotiations for funds during his many trips to the East; he was well known in financial circles and was a familiar face among many high placed people in New York City and Washington Indeed, he had spent considerable time and effort promoting statehood for Utah and dealt with people all the way up to and including President Cleveland.5 In June 1889, however, he chose to remain in Utah to supervise the railroad construction and sent Junius F.Wells east as his emissary and agent. Young wrote a series of letters introducing Wells, one of them to C N. Jordan, president of the Western National Bank, in which he asked that Jordan arrange for Wells to meet Mr Canda, Mr Gogorza, and any others he thought Wells should talk to.6 The next day he wrote privately to Wells, giving instructions about the business he was to conduct and information about the men he was to see He said Jordan "has always done ... a great deal to help our cause and would have been delighted to see us a State." While Young was officially off the statehood team by this time, he had not lost interest in the cause Wells was a Republican, so Young advised him to suppress his inclination to Republicanism, for Jordan "has learned from me that most of the Mormon people are democrats and could be depended on as such. This has greatly pleased him as he is such an ardent Democrat." Young went on to tell Wells about Charles J. Canda, vicepresident of the bank, who "did all he could for Utah." These two men, Young thought, might want Wells to meet "more of the gentlemen of the Bank, especially Mr. Gogorza you must meet. . . . Mr. Gogorza is by birth a Spaniard—small, active and exceedingly eager to make money. Although he is acquainted and friendly with very rich men, he has not yet made his 'pile.'"7
Young was sending Wells into some impressive company here: Jordan had served as treasurer of the United States from June 1885 to May 1887 when he left to organize the Western National Bank in New York. And in 1889 Canda was treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. Gogorza was E. Gogorza, but his exact position in the New York business world is not clear Jordan and Canda are listed in the 1889 and 1890 New York City directories as president and vice-president, respectively, at 120 Broadway, the address of the Western National Bank Eduardo Gogorza, the only Gogorza listed in the directory, appears as a merchant at E. Gogorza 8c Co. Whatever his role in life, Gogorza did fast work, for five weeks later Wells was able to report that arrangements for a loan were all but complete In a few days he hoped to telegraph a credit at the Mercantile Trust Co. of $100,000, as they had agreed to make the loan. There is no doubt that Gogorza was behind this transaction, for Wells continued: "Gogorza says it is worth 5% cash commission to do the work we have done together, but he was perfectly satisfied when I handed him his 1% ."8
This did not end the contact between Young and Gogorza; they continued to correspond and to do business in connection with the railroad and its finances In an October 12 letter to Gogorza, Young gave the status of the railroad construction and expressed his appreciation for the help from Gogorza and his associates. He also made some promises: "I shall be most happy to place you in the Directory of the road as soon as possible, and the best station between Salt Lake and Park City will be called Gogorza." Then, in a swell of enthusiasm, he went on: "One of the two towns that will be built next summer, where land has been sold to residents of Salt Lake who are preparing to build a large number of summer residences, will be called Canda, and a beautiful mountain peak, under the shadow of which I shall build a hotel, will be called Mount Jordan. So you see I am preparing to remember my best friends. . . ."9
Young did fulfil his promises to the best of his ability. He named the site on the east side of Parley's Summit, at the bottom of the grade over the mountain, after Gogorza. At that time Gogorza could boast nothing more than a sidetrack into a local rock quarry. A year later a water tank was installed, and in 1894 an old narrow gauge boxcar was placed there as a section house. It was fitted with a sign proclaiming the name of the site: "Gogorza." C J. Canda was honored by assigning.
his name to a switch and sidetrack in the depths of Parley's Canyon at the cement quarries about a mile and a half above the mouth of the canyon. As for Mount Jordan, Young may have had a peak in mind when he made the suggestion, but the name never survived It was inevitable that the railroad, entangled in financial problems as it was when this story took place, would fail. A receiver was appointed to take over in 1893, and he ran the business until 1898. It was then sold to the Rio Grande Western, which converted the track to standard gauge in 1900 and continued rail service to Park City until 1946 when the line was abandoned. Until that time the site at the base of the grade east of Parley's Summit continued to be known as Gogorza, but with the railroad gone there was nothing to sustain the name. By that time the Gorgoza legend had already been established, and very soon the Gorgoza fiction became fact, and the Gogorza fact was forgotten.
NOTES
Mr Keller lives in Salt Lake City.
1 Works Progress Administration, Origins of Utah Place Names, 3d ed (Salt Lake City, 1940).
2 George A. Thompson and Fraser Buck, Treasure Mountain Home (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1968).
3 George A Thompson, Some Dreams Die: Utah's Ghost Towns and Lost Treasures (Salt Lake City: Dream Garden Press, 1982).
4 John Van Cott, Utah Place Names (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990).
5 C L Keller, "Promoting Railroads and Statehood: John W Young," Utah Historical Quarterly 45 (1977): 289-308.
6 J W Young to C N.Jordan,June 27,1889,J W Young Letterbook, Utah State Historical Society Library.
7 J. W. Young toJ. F. Wells, June 28, 1889, ibid.
8 J F Wells toJ W Young, August 9, 1889,John W Young Papers, LDS Church Archives.
9 J. W. Young to E. Gogorza, October 12 1889, ibid.
