Lewis Leo Munson, and Entrepreneur in Escalante, Utah, 1896-1963

This U.S. Forest Service photograph of Escalante's Main Street shows Leo Munson's store. USHS collections.

Lewis Leo Munson, an Entrepreneur in Escalante, Utah, 1896-1963

BY VOYLE L. MUNSON

IF MY FATHER, LEWIS LEO MUNSON, KNOWN AS LEO, had been born in 1826 instead of June 29, 1896, he would have been happy owning a trading post at a critical junction of two pioneer trails. After starting small, within twenty years he would have offered every conceivable service travelers needed, with each of his children big enough to work involved in the delivery of those services. In addition, he would have known of the opportunities at other posts along the trail, thinking that some day his children might want to buy one of these locations and provide needed services there.

Leo, the eldest living child of Lewis T. and Emma A. Morrill Munson, was born in the year of Utah's statehood in a one-room log cabin in the mouth of Circleville Canyon approximately two miles south of Circleville, Piute County. During the eleven years the Munsons lived in this location, their family Bible records the births of two brothers and two sisters.

In 1907 the family moved into "a nearly new, nine room frame house in Tropic."1 Tropic, Garfield County, was not the luxuriant land the name implies. I remember hearing my parents laugh at a story about a relative who was working near the rim of Bryce Canyon A tourist looking east saw Tropic and its bare surroundings a few miles distant. "What can you ever grow in a place like that?" he asked. The Tropic resident replied, "Wormy apples and kids."

But the Munsons' orchard produced bushels of good apples and other fruit The four cultivated fields produced feed for the horses and milk cows, plus some corn and other grain for the family Range cattle furnished meat and some cash, augmented by wages from jobs Lewis found. By careful management of their resources they lived well.

Dad's sister Ila wrote that when Leo finished the eighth grade, the school principal came to their home and told the parents that "Leo could outdo the teachers, and the principal, in mathematics, spelling, and English." As a result, he was offered a scholarship to attend high school in a larger town. However, his parents thought he was too young to leave home, so he attended the eighth grade again because he was so anxious to learn.2 Ila added, "from that time on Leo showed his potential of being a leader. When our Father would go away to work to provide for his family, Leo would lead out, and with the help of our mother, and his younger brothers, Forest and Levar, was able to keep the work on the farm rolling quite smoothly." Moreover, "While other men sat by the store and whittled wood and visited, Leo would be doing any kind of work he could find to make money."3

One of thosejobs was selling Wearever Aluminum Dad once told me of the first home where he gave a full sales presentation He took each item from his carrying case, pointing out the quality of the construction, how easy each pot was to use and clean, and how suited it was to the preparation of delicious foods. Soon he had pots and pans all over the floor. When it came time to leave, he was unable to get everything back in his case. But he persisted and did well selling aluminum cookware.

On April 4, 1917, Dad married Hortense Cope in the Manti LDS Temple. Although they differed in many ways, for forty-six years they supported each other in rearing and providing for their nine children: Voyle (1919), LoRee (1922), Evelyn (1924), Lasca (1926), LoRell (1928), Orpha (1930), Lloyd (1931), Howard (1934), and Vaunda (1936), plus Dad's youngest brother, Pratt (1920), who lived with them part-time for several years and full-time from 1935 to 1943.

In the spring of 1918 my parents began farming some undeveloped land in Losee Valley, east of Tropic. Six days a week they lived in their one-room log house, building corrals, grubbing brush, plowing, planting, cultivating, irrigating, and reaping a meager harvest from the blue clay soil. Saturday afternoons they went to town for barrels of drinking water and other supplies and stayed for church. Winters they lived in the Lewis Munson family parlor.

In 1921 they moved into a two-room frame home on a Tropic lot with a good orchard. Dad supplemented his farm income by building wood racks in his blacksmith shop, hauling wood, working on the Tropic Reservoir, selling fruit, custom cutting grain with his binder, or by any means he could find.

When I was five or six I accompanied Dad with a load of apples to Panguitch. He divided the wagon box into compartments and covered the bottom with straw. The brilliantly red, almost black, Ben Davis apples filled one compartment, the Pearmaines another, and perhaps other kinds in another. We camped the first night in a small log cabin at a sawmill in Red Canyon, rolling our bed out on a dirt floor In Panguitch the next day Dad showed the beauty and taste of the apples to prospective buyers and soon sold the load. Traveling home we stopped at the sawmill for a load of lumber. During the night rain and mud dripped through the roof onto our bed. By sunrise we were headed for home. Going down the steep "dump"4 dugway, the lumber slid forward and jammed into the rear of the horses. Frightened, they tried to run away, but Dad turned them into the inside bank so they had to stop Then he spoke softly to them and patted them until they quieted down. He adjusted the load, tied it more securely, and we arrived home without further difficulty.

When my sister Evelyn was born on August 27, 1924, Mother wrote, "As our family grew, Leo could see he had to do something besides farming. He became a traveling salesman in his spare time. He sold women's dresses, silk hose, [men's] socks, suits, and neckties He was a good salesman and made good at it going to all the adjoining towns."5 Later, he added Stark Brothers Trees to his line. He and two other men from Tropic sold products on a circuit south to Kanab, east to Escalante, and north to Beaver. But neither Leo nor Hortense liked him to spend so much time away from home.

In July 1926 Leo and his brother-in-law, J. Austin Cope, who had a store in Tropic, took their eldest sons and went to Escalante to sell hot dogs, hamburgers, soda pop, and other refreshments at the 24th of July celebration. Mother went along, noting, "While there, Leo decided to buy a little store . . . sort of an ice cream parlor and butcher shop."6

Although Mother wrote, "Leo decided to buy," she was certainly involved in making the decision, for the two of them committed all they had to the new enterprise. By July 30 the family goods were loaded on a truck and on their way to Escalante That same night they unloaded their possessions in part of a rented house near the little store. How difficult it must have been to sever ties with both of their families and their lifetime friends in Tropic. Their moving so quickly is congruent with an axiom Dad sometimes quoted, "It is easier to take off a dog's tail in one whack than to cut it off a piece at a time."

Dad was not a complete stranger to Escalante residents because many had purchased merchandise from him during the past two years. He knew that Escalante people had more money to spend than those in most southern Utah towns. The Sanitary Meat Market was the only source of fresh meat in Escalante, and he could also expect to sell ice cream and sandwiches to some of the town's thousand residents.

The market had no display case or automatic refrigeration The meat hung in a walk-in boxjust large enough for one beef, one pork, a keg of wienies in heavy brine, a few sides of salt pork, and some smoked bacon A tin-lined box along the north side held a piece of ice for refrigeration. Copper tubing drained water from the melting ice onto the ground between the back of the meat market and the Star Amusement Hall.

During the summer ice came from the South Ward Relief Society ice house. I remember taking my express wagon to the ice house and helping a lady struggle to remove a piece of ice from the sawdust and to weigh it using a steelyard After a careful trip down the Meeting House Hill, I swept the ice and then rinsed it with a bucket of water to remove the clinging sawdust. Then it was a man's job to get it into the cooler Within a short time, though, Dad rented the ice house and "put up" his own ice. He froze ice cream in a hand-turned freezer.

Since the nearest packing plant was in Salt Lake City, Leo bought local cattle and pigs and butchered his own meat. He had no problem with government grading and no trouble selling grass fat beef or pork that had been fed a little dishwater along with its grain or corn. The carcasses were separated into primal cuts. If a customer wanted a Tbone steak, the butcher wrestled the loin onto the block, cut the desired amount with the steak knife and hand meat saw, and placed the cut onto a piece of waxed paper on the scales, which gave the weight and helped compute the price. When a customer wanted salt pork or bacon, the butcher placed the slab on the block and cut and wrapped a chunk near the desired size. The process worked when the butcher was on duty, but it was a terrible struggle for Mother when she had to mind the store. Once Edward (Teddy) Wilcock, who owned the largest store in town, came for some T-bone steak Doing her best, she brought out a piece of the neck and cut the requested number of steaks. What Wilcock thought of the steaks is not known, but the incident became a family tale repeated for many years.

The little building, located east of the pool hall on the north side of Escalante's Main Street, soon underwent some changes. Leo bought an adjoining building and stocked groceries. Having limited capital, he ordered Blue Pine groceries every night from John Scowcroft and Company to be delivered by mail. The order would arrive within three to five days It was an exciting day for the family and of great interest to the townspeople when Leo had a cement slab about 12 feet wide poured in front of his store, the first cement sidewalk on Main Street. By then merchandise was coming by freight to Garfield County, and before long Leo had bought his own truck and was making regular trips to Salt Lake His brother Levar was the store butcher and truck driver.

On July 15, 1929, three months before the stock market crash that heralded the Great Depression, we moved into a new brick home, the second in town to have a bathroom and running water. By May31, 1931, the store was in a new 40-by-60-foot brick building west of the pool hall.

In 1931 Escalante was a relatively isolated community where most people lacked transportation to travel very far and the roads discouraged such travel. In 1932, of my five closest friends age thirteen and fourteen only one had been as far as Marysvale, the railroad terminus, some ninety miles away. Some had never been sixty miles to the county seat in Panguitch So, until the end of World War II the town's isolation encouraged shopping at home.

But Dad had to compete with three other stores that had been operating longer and were better established and with the catalogs of Sears, Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and the Chicago Mail Order Company. Most ranchers went to other towns to sell their livestock or wool, and with a check in their pockets they were ready to buy there Also, the truckers that freighted wool and cattle were always happy to pick up flour, sugar, and other staples for the "big city price" plus freight. Many Escalanteans bought their yearly or at least a six-months' supply of these items in the spring and fall.

Dad's business expansion came at a time when Escalante's economic conditions had begun deteriorating. Many residents ran sheep or cattle on mountain ranges supervised by the Forest Service in the summer or on public lands in the desert areas in the winter. Periodic summer floods that sometimes overran the banks of Escalante Creek and Harris Wash resulted from the overgrazing west and north of the town. But government reductions in livestock numbers incensed the owners and reduced their income.

The depression heralded by the stock market crash of October 1929, the devastating 1931-34 drought, and the reduction of cattle and sheep on public lands decimated the livestock industry. Lowrey Nelson described conditions when declining livestock prices deflated the value of bank loans secured by cattle and sheep. When payments were not made, he wrote, "Thousands of cattle and sheep were driven from the community by financial institutions which foreclosed on loans."7 Of the Taylor Grazing Act, which eventually ended summer grazing on the Escalante Desert and other lands not controlled by the Forest Service and greatly reduced the number of winter permittees, Nelson wrote, "One of the most important acts of the federal government in the thirties, as far as Escalante was concerned, was to place the public domain under controlled use."8 Adverse conditions also affected small farm owners and those with only a few cattle or milk cows to furnish cash income. Lack of feed forced many to further reduce their small holdings. Many milk cows were among the Escalante cattle purchased by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in August 1934.

But government activities eventually replaced lost farm income. By November 1932 some direct relief funds were available for community improvements. By 1934 two CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) camps near Escalante added possible customers to businesses, and some residents joined the camps. From 1936 to 1943 the WPA (Works Progress Administration) employed the largest number of Escalante men and women Although wages were fifty dollars a month at first, many families with a garden, fruit trees, chickens, and a milk cow had more money than ever before. In addition, through the state, Old Age Assistance provided twenty to thirty dollars a month for eligible recipients. Edward Geary quoted a report stating that by 1935 two-thirds of Escalante's residents were receiving some form of government relief.9

As Dad moved into the new store, so began my observations of why he was a successful merchant. He had a clean, well-kept store, stocked with saleable, competitively priced merchandise, available at convenient times and terms because serving the customer was most important. He bought wisely, paid promptly, and carefully controlled credit accounts. Foremost, though, was his concern for others.

As one entered Escalante and drove east down Main Street the first sign of Dad's enterprise was two gas pumps that stood in front of the new store. About eight feet tall, they were plumbed to an underground storage tank and each had an enclosed ten-gallon glass bowl near its top. Marks along two sides of the bowl calibrated it into ten one-gallon segments, with the top mark being number one and the bottom mark number ten. A long hose attached near the bottom of the bowl had a nozzle and a hand-controlled valve (much like those on gasoline dispensers today) To dispense gas the nozzle was placed into the mouth of the tank or other container, opened, and the required amount of gasoline released as measured by the marks on the sides of the bowl. To begin each day's work someone pumped the attached handle back and forth, filling the bowl with the purplish Pep 88 gasoline. After each sale the bowl was again filled to capacity. At closing time, the gasoline was released from the bowl back into the storage tank.

At first Dad freighted gasoline in 52-gallon drums from the Utah Oil Refining Company Bulk Plant operated by H. Spencer Gibbs in Marysvale, Utah. It was a feat of strength and judgment to roll a 300pound barrel from the back of the truck so it would land on one edge of its bottom. Nor was it easy to rest a full barrel across a log or large timber, place a funnel under it, remove the plugs, and empty the gas into the storage tank without spurting gas all over. About 1935 Dad obtained a large tank like the ones on gasoline tankers that could be put on or removed from our truck as needed Three or four years later, Spence Gibbs began to deliver gas to us in his tank truck.

The store faced south. A wooden culvert covered the irrigation ditch between the gas pumps and the slab of cement along the front. The entry, centered in the front of the building, was recessed about three feet, and there were two large plate-glass display windows Later, a wooden canopy extended over the entrance.

Inside, the store was designed so clerks could "wait on" customers. Shelves on the west and east walls extended almost to the back of the store. About four feet in front of the shelves were counters and glass showcases to display merchandise. Drugs and groceries filled shelves on the west. Drugs included Mercurochrome antiseptic, Paregoric, Hall's Canker Medicine, Vermifuge (for internal worms), Epsom Salts, St.Joseph's aspirin, adhesive tape, Black Oil (for animal cuts), Lydia E Pinkham's compound, and other necessities for the house and corral. Most people in Escalante bottled the common garden vegetables but still purchased spices, Pierce's pork and beans, tomato ketchup, mustard, canned milk, Log Cabin syrup, etc., and the sheepmen needed all kinds of canned goods as well as buckets of Hewlett's preserves. During prohibition cans of malt syrup and packages of Owl brand yeast cakes sold well because some people made home brew. Every household needed yeast to make bread, and on holidays many mixed yeast, sugar, and Hires root beer extract to make soda pop.

At first Dad's meat department was much like that in the Sanitary Meat Market, but later it had a small display case and an electrically operated refrigeration system. Pails of lard and cans of corned beef, Vienna sausage, deviled meat, and salmon were shelved nearby Butter was kept in the meat case; and eggs close bywere counted into a sack when someone wanted a dozen.

Hardware belonged in the back of the store. Kegs of nails in each size stood on the floor. Above them the different sizes of horse and mule shoes hung along a wooden rail Horseshoe nails, caulks, copper rivets, hinges, bolts, screws, combs and cutters for sheep shearing outfits, pieces of shoe sole leather, knives, guards, and pins for mowing machines, and many other items were neatly stored in containers on the shelves. Horse collar pads and saddle pads were stacked on the highest shelf. A rolled up "side" of stiff harness leather and a piece of finer tanned leather could be custom cut to any width. Somewhere on a platform a 52-gallon barrel of vinegar, tapped by a spigot, lay on its side. A new clerk had plenty to learn.

Clothing filled most of the east side of the store. Here one found men's union suits of various sizes and different weights (because men riding horses in cold weather or gathering sheep in the snow needed heavy underclothes), bib overalls for men and boys, Levi Strauss jackets, waist overalls, stockings in both work and dress weights, several styles of shirts, Stetson hats, straw hats, Newton Bros, boots, belts, etc Nor were the ladies forgotten Dad tried to have a good assortment of colors and sizes in rayon hosiery, the affordable top style at the time. Stock included petticoats, a few house dresses, bloomers, and blouses. Everyone had to learn to measure yard goods, including prints, flannels, white cottons, and cheesecloth. Various colors of thread, embroidery floss, and quilting yarn, pillow cases and other items to be embroidered, and needles for hand and machine sewing were also available.

A display of the Wild West Weekly, Western Stories, True Romances, True Confessions, and other popular magazines filled the east window. Dad tolerated the hours I spent reading "the pulps." From the western magazines came my later craving for the tales of Louis L'Amour. Periodically, shipments of the latest issues arrived to replace the old magazines. We removed the covers of the unsold magazines to return for credit. The magazines themselves were either discarded or their pages used to wrap the eggs boxed for transport by truck, wagon, or pack mule to some sheep camp.

Along the west side, about four feet from the shelves, the candy showcase caught the customers' gaze as they stepped into the store. Six or eight bins, separated by glass dividers, sloped toward the glass front of the case Varicolored candies waited to be scooped up, weighed on a candy scale on top of the case, and sacked for a purchaser. Popular one-cent, five-cent, or ten-cent candy bars such as Opera, Nobbinut, Creme Cake, Baby Ruth, and others were displayed on the center shelf. One-pound boxes of cheaper cherry chocolates, only twenty-nine to thirty-nine cents, as well as one-pound boxes of better Sweets Renown chocolates filled the bottom of the case. During the days when the more expensive chocolates were used as prizes, a punchboard, costing five to ten cents a chance, also sat on top of the case. Each day someone washed the candy case to remove the hand and face marks of wishful children.

The center of store activity was a linoleum-topped counter where customers placed orders for merchandise on the shelves or brought items from elsewhere in the store Using a hand-operated adding machine, the clerk totaled the cost of items to be purchased by cash or barter and rang up the sale in the cash register. For a charge sale each item was entered in the day book lying nearby If the customer brought eggs or butter to trade, the eggs were counted into a box under the observant eye of the person who brought them. The butter was checked to be certain that the weight and name of the maker were written thereon. Any additional credit or charge on the sale was computed and payment made or the credit or charge entered into the day book A certain amount of cheerful visiting or sharing of news accompanied most sales and always a "thank you."

Bins containing rice, beans, macaroni, or sugar filled the space under the north end of the counter. In the center of the store stood a display of assorted bulk cookies and two white paper covered tables stacked with sacks of sugar, flour, cracked wheat, and cereal. After Dad visited the markets of his cousins in Bountiful he began packing nuts, cookies, beans, macaroni, dried fruit, candy, and other bulk items into cellophane bags and arranging them attractively on accessible island displays.

The prospective buyer knew that six days a week Dad would be in the store by 5:30 A.M., sometimes earlier, and that he would stop whatever he was doing to serve them Although he left for breakfast about seven, the doors would be open for the day before eight and would not close until dark. In an emergency, regardless of the day or the time, he would respond to a special need.

Usually by eight o'clock the front cement and store floor had been swept Dad's appearance—clean shaven, hair combed, clean clothes with a necktie every day—set the standard The clerks also dressed neatly. They donned large aprons when doing dirty work. Clean aprons were always available. The shelves and store surfaces were dusted and washed as needed. Grocery shelves were kept full, or the cans on the shelves faced so the front was filled. Each can was right side up, the label to the front. Showcases were kept neat, items of clothing folded, boxes of merchandise kept straight on the shelf. Accumulations of boxes and trash out in back were burned or hauled away.

Dad's stock of merchandise was limited only by his space and his resources. Several times he increased his space to keep pace with people's wants until his slogan was "We Sell Everything"—not needing to add "that is honorable to sell." He special-ordered items for his customers, and on every trip to Salt Lake City the truck brought back such orders.

He used many angles to keep his prices competitive Most days he worked at least fourteen hours, often more. He knew where he could buy most advantageously. As soon as practical he purchased his own truck to cut freighting costs. He kept all his bills current so that wholesalers who offered good prices wanted to sell to him Since discounts on dry goods and hardware were often available if payment was made by the tenth of the following month, he always paid up to get the discount. He once told me, "two percent per month is 24 percent a year."

Dad always knew what he owed and what was owed to him. He kept current invoices for his purchases, sorted by company, on a clip with a running total of the amount owed For accounts receivable, each day one of his children, or a clerk who wrote well, entered each person's purchases from the day book into the account ledger and totaled them. Many early morning hours Dad would check those accounts and plan where the money was coming from to pay his bills. In the early thirties, most of these accounts were tied to yearly sales of cattle or to wool sales in the spring and lambs in the fall. Later, his accounts became more manageable when those with Old Age Assistance or WPA checks paid their accounts each month Both Dad and the customer were happy when the account was paid After the money was rung up and in the cash register, Dad or a clerk would mix up a sack of candy for the customer to take to his family. There was always some treat when a bill was paid. That was positive reinforcement!

Looking back, I wonder how he managed the large number of credit accounts during difficult financial times and still paid his own bills. Everyone, except a few whose financial records and reputations were poor, could have a charge account with Leo Munson. Generally, there was a mutual understanding as to when the account would be paid If all went well and the person received money as anticipated, most paid. If not, Dad really put the pressure on them. For instance, he knew when sheepmen received their wool payment checks. Once or twice he sent me with a statement of the account to someone who had delayed coming in for two or three days.

However, if the person or his family became ill or had some other emergency Dad usually offered additional help All of the children remember Christmases when, after closing the store, we took packages to a home or homes where Dad or Mother knew the Christmas would be sparse. And in the days before everyone had a car, I pulled my express wagon to deliver flour and sugar to the homes of the older people, the sick, or perhaps to a wife with a houseful of kids whose husband was with the sheep herd. No pay was expected or received, but the people certainly appreciated the service. Later, such deliveries were made in our car.

One unforgettable circumstance arose during the depression. As more and more people were unable to find work, Garfield County issued Direct Relief Vouchers The voucher, a sheet with the name of the recipient, countersigned by the issuing authority, authorized a merchant to deliver X number of dollars in merchandise to the named person. The merchant listed on the voucher the items delivered, and the recipient signed that he had received them. The merchant then signed the voucher and sent it to the county for payment. The procedure publicly proclaimed to anyone in the store that the recipient was a relief client. Many Escalanteans, too proud to undergo what was for them public humiliation, came to our home at night after the vouchers were issued My parents welcomed them Dad took the vouchers, credited their accounts with the amount, and let their purchases be written in his day book like charge purchases. Or, if they preferred, they received a book of coupons of various denominations that could be torn from the book to pay for purchases. Later, the items purchased were listed on the voucher. Perhaps these procedures were not completely legal, since people signed before they received the merchandise, but they helped many self-reliant people maintain their self-esteem.

To Dad and Mother the most important factor in their success was their support of church and community affairs. Dad's habit of smoking kept him from attending church, but he supported mother in seeing that the children were always there All their married life they tithed. They contributed time, money, equipment, and unfailing support to church construction projects or any other church need.

A clean, well-stocked store that catered to a customer's needs, a willingness to render an extra service, astute management of credit, a genuine concern for people—all made it possible for Dad to utilize another great asset—his ability to sell Walter Mulford of Torrey, Utah, once told me, "Your Dad could sell a headgate to a dry-land farmer."

My brother LoRell recalled one Fourth of July when Dad sold eight Warm Morning coal and wood-burning heaters from his truck in Boulder, Utah.

To some, the completion of a new, well-stocked store would be a good time to begin coasting along, watching the dimes and seeing what happened. But Dad could not stand still or drift along. Through depression and war he made changes in his business that kept it a source of income and support for his family and of service to his customers As my sister Evelyn wrote, "As long as his health permitted, Dad had a project of some kind going."

Owning a freight truck that made regular trips to Salt Lake but was not busy all the time led Dad to contract the hauling of wool, sheep, and cattle to market. Often, after the truck unloaded wool or livestock in Marysvale, it took on flour, sugar, rock salt, livestock salt, cement, jumbo plaster, or similar items for the return trip. Taking cow hides from the cattle butchered for sale in the meat market soon led him into the business of buying and trading for cow hides, sheep pelts, and coyote, fox, or lynx furs trapped by Escalante residents. That business is a story in itself. Also, since he had a large corral and a boy to care for the cattle, he purchased or traded for an assortment of wild range cattle, aged bologna bulls, "kicky" milk cows, and choice heifers and steers to haul to Salt Lake when the truck made its monthly trip for freight.

In 1932 the garage occupying his old store building ceased operations. Dad arranged for his father, Lewis, to move his pool hall into that vacated space and to let the store expand into the adjoining pool hall space. Two openings between the buildings, shelves, and additional showcases soon made the extra space usable. Dad then added some sporting goods and a greater variety of hardware and clothing, and he was able to display his merchandise more attractively. An enclosed room provided office space with a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet, and a bed where Dad's brother Pratt, thirteen, and I, fourteen, slept at night to discourage the rash of night-time store burglaries. That was a fearful job for us, but it proved effective.

Sometime prior to 1932 Dad was elected mayor of Escalante. He served until the end of 1933. In Tropic the family had enjoyed a piped culinary water system, but Escalante depended upon water drawn from wells or irrigation water stored in cement-lined cisterns. Livestock had to be driven to the nearest irrigation ditch or to the canal above town during the summer. In winter they went to the creek north of town When federal funds, loaned on a long-term basis, became available for community water systems, Dad and Wallace Roundy, using a surveyor's chain, measured the distance (approximately twenty miles) from Escalante to a spring below Posey Lake in the mountains north of town. Dad made at least two trips to Salt Lake City to consult with lending agencies. He also contacted many people in town to get their written support for construction of the water system. Although Alvey Wright replaced him as mayor in 1934, Dad was a member of the town council when the water system was completed on May 23, 1936.

All through the thirties Dad was also busy with his own projects. Many people in Escalante milked a few cows, separated the cream from their extra milk, and shipped it by mail to Salt Lake. Dad reasoned that they could get more money by selling the milk and that if he could make it into cheese he would have the freight to Salt Lake and some profit between the cost of producing the cheese and its wholesale price So he purchased a piece of land, including a spring, east of Escalante from Wallace Roundy, enclosed it with a cement headhouse, and built a cheese factory on the site. It opened in 1933 with Rex (Fat) Thompson of Circleville as the cheese maker. Everyone in town was intrigued with the process. Many, including me, were there when enough whey had been drained away so that the curd could be eaten. But the amount of milk available did not justify the operation. In 1934 Dad instigated a cheese operation in the isolated town of Boulder, east and north of Escalante, that his brother Levar and Levar's wife Thora took charge of; it was sold on April 1, 1935

Dad's 1935 construction project was a grocery store and meat market in Kanab, named Grand Canyon Market, which opened that summer. Levar and Thora made a quick move to Kanab to manage it. Although Levar understood merchandising, and he and Thora were sociable and fit into the community well, the depression affected both the livestock business and the tourist traffic By mid-1937 the store was closed, and later Dad sold the building.

Onjuly 31, 1936, Dad bought the Wilcock Building on Center Street, one of Escalante's first store buildings, and the business from the heirs of Edward (Teddy) Wilcock. Some of the merchandise was old but still saleable Since the Escalante water system had just been completed, Dad was now stocking plumbing supplies. A large shed at the west end of the Wilcock property, and several yards from the back of Dad's Main Street store, provided convenient storage for pipe, range boilers, other plumbing items, and some farm machinery.

Soon the old red brick Wilcock Building housed a cafe, a barber shop, and an upstairs apartment and storage area. Later, the Soil Conservation Service rented the barber shop space.

When I returned home from college in the spring of 1937 Dad had another big project. Pratt and I immediately began to hand load and unload many truckloads of gravel and some of rocks. Only a small space separated the back of the pool hall building and Dad's original building from the old Star Hall, a tinder-dry firetrap. Dad had decided to build a thick concrete fire wall around the outside of his building and Grandpa's building and to pour a cement roof on the brick store. The cement for 110 feet of walls and for the roof was mixed two wheelbarrows to the batch and then wheeled and hoisted by pulley and derrick to the roof of the store.

The whole project may have seemed foolish when the old Star Hall was torn down a few years after the work was finished. But later the Cowles store to the east burned down. The fire leaped across the space With help from a bucket brigade and water from the nearby irrigation ditch, damage to Dad's store was limited to a small one-room appendage outside the main wall. He believed his buildings would have burned without the wall

In August 1932 an enormous flood had destroyed the Shurtz light plant that furnished electric power to Escalante Thereafter, the Shurtzes relied on a gas-driven generator to supply their customers. Despite their best efforts, the supply was neither adequate nor dependable In May 1936 federal legislation had created the Rural Electrification Administration. Onjuly 8, 1938, a local historian wrote, "at Panguitch, Utah, the Garkane Power Company was organized with ten men and three women from Kane and Garfield County as directors. Two of these, Leo and Hortense Munson, were from Escalante."10 That same year, the association qualified for a loan of $1.5 million and construction began on a generating plant at Hatch, Utah, and 108 miles of transmission line to Hatch, Tropic, Cannonville, Henrieville, and Escalante in Garfield County and Orderville, Glendale, Mount Carmel, and Alton in Kane County.11 Power delivery began on December 20, 1939. Mother served on the board until 1940. Dad was elected president on August 20, 1942, and served until 1948 when he resigned because of ill health.12

Until 1938 home hotels furnished the only accommodations for Escalante visitors. That year Dad and his brother Forest built five motel cabins, the first in Escalante.13 A family account noted, "The walls were adobes about 15" long by 4" thick by 6" wide, mixed in a horse-powered adobe mud mill located above the big ditch west of Escalante. Eldon Twitchell prepared the mud and filled the adobe molds Each mold held three adobes, all Pratt and I could stagger with. The adobes were dumped on the ground to dry. Later, they were hand-loaded onto the truck, taken to the building site, unloaded by hand, and laid up with blue clay mud After the roof was completed, Lester Blackburn of Orderville plastered the inside walls and stuccoed the outside."14 Most of the time the warm, comfortable cabins were rented as apartments until Claron Griffin purchased them in 1946 When Garkane Power Company began delivering power in December 1939 Dad was ready for the increased demand for electrical supplies and appliances. By that time the pool hall had closed. He expanded into it, his original building, with a stock of large and small electric appliances as well as electrical wiring supplies and fixtures. He also increased his stock of furniture. Selling refrigerators, electric ranges, water heaters, and washing machines was his game Some of his friends from Tropic, Henrieville, and Cannonville came to buy because he had a good stock and delivered. Probably each delivery, if he went along, offered him a chance to sell to their neighbors Of course, he had competition in Escalante but still made his share of the sales.

During World War II the rationing of canned foods, meats, sugar, shoes, tires, and gasoline reduced the amount of those items Dad could sell and created a time-consuming headache of collecting, counting, accounting for, and paying stamps as well as money for what he purchased. My brother Lloyd, age eleven to fourteen during the war, counted and prepared the stamps for deposit, but Dad had to be responsible for the various regulations related to rationing and for observing the price ceilings of the Office of Price Administration.

Merchandise shortages were most perplexing. It was doubly troublesome when merchandise was not available for the truck to bring back from its monthly trip to Salt Lake. Not only was there less to sell, but a truck without a full load increased the cost of what it did bring. Dad found out that furniture manufacturers were stymied by a shortage of lumber. Thereafter, on each trip to Salt Lake he took a load of lumber bought from local sawmills. Stover Bedding and Manufacturing Company then gave him preference in obtaining mattresses, box springs (without springs), and upholstered furniture. Dad's clerks improvised, too, making root beer with honey instead of sugar and then bottling and selling it instead of the usual soda pop.

After the war's end in 1945 Dad encouraged his four oldest children, as well as his younger brother Pratt, to own a business. He felt that they, like himself, could best provide for their families with a business The unfilled demands for consumer goods during the war years, plus the increased population of returning servicemen, forecast successful businesses in most towns. By fall 1946 Pratt, Kim (husband of Evelyn), and Hal (husband of Lasca) were selling appliances and furniture in buildings that were cooperatively constructed under Dad's direction, with assistance from LoRell, Lloyd, and Howard, and which they rented from Dad. The following year, with his help, I had a business. In 1948 he helped Doyle (husband of LoRee) establish a locker plant in Escalante.

Affected by shrinking markets, competition, and lack of business experience, needs of growing families, or changing individual priorities, none of these enterprises became lifetime family businesses Before each closed, Dad and the operators, in a loving environment, reached a satisfactory settlement for ownership of each rented building.

By 1948 Dad's periodic uncomfortable back problems and occasional headaches became excruciating daily events that often took him away from the store and brought expenses for medical treatment. That same year knee surgery required Uncle Levar to leave his employment at the store. Lloyd, still in high school, kept the store operating, with the help of Nelda Twitchell, while LoRell oversaw the trucking and outside work By 1950 LoRell and Nelda had almost complete responsibility.

By the spring of 1952 Dad's absences from home and work and his medical expenses required that he dispose of his business holdings. On March 13 he sold the Wilcock store building to Blake Robinson. On March 20 he sold the store on an installment contract to William L. and Minnie Davis. Dad had undoubtedly suffered a nervous breakdown. Until May 1955 he and Mother spent most of their time in Salt Lake or Magna while he visited various doctors She read to him a lot Sometimes they visited family members in the vicinity Mother and Dad were both happy when his health improved and they could return home.

While returning from a trip to St. George about May 1, 1957, they stopped at the Swan Motel in Hurricane, Utah, to see Ruth Baugh Adams, one of Mother's childhood friends. They learned that the motel was for sale. Within a few days, my wife Lillian and I were with them in Hurricane. They wanted our judgment about the feasibility of making the motel pay and what it would cost to make it more comfortable and attractive Dad was thinking ahead of possible expenses after the purchase and was excited about the challenge of making the motel a paying proposition. Outside, the motel showed neglect. Inside, it needed new bedding, linens, carpet, drapes, paint, and repairs to the showers and heaters. We made some cost estimates, and soon they made a deal with the Adamses, using the home in Escalante for a down payment and an installment contract for the balance. On May 29, 1957, Mother and Dad made the move to Hurricane.

Mother wrote, "We moved there when the cherries were ripe, and we were really thrilled with the place. We acted like two happy kids. This was ajob where we could both work together and be together. We did enjoy the first three or four years there until Leo began to fail in health again. We did so much work and improved it until it didn't look like the same place. We had a nice peach orchard, cherry orchard and planted grapes. Everything was so dear to us."15

With their family's help every room was refurbished and the equipment repaired The shrubbery and trees outside were carefully pruned, and the large front lawn kept mowed and trimmed. A new neon sign lighted the front and roadside signs informed travelers that the Swan Motel waited a few miles ahead A carport was enclosed to enlarge their own living quarters, and some new units were constructed and new concrete walks poured.

Dad would have called his last enterprise a great success, not only for the days of family happiness while they lived there but because his greatest desire was realized. He wanted to leave Mother with sufficient income to enjoy life. When he died on December 21, 1963, he had achieved that. As the almost prototypal small town American entrepreneur, Dad had lived his dream and succeeded Equally important, he also had succeeded as a family man and a community leader.

NOTES

Dr Munson, a retired educator, lives in Bountiful, Utah

1 Ila Munson Pollock, "Life's Story," p 1, copy of MS in author's possession.

2 Ila Munson Pollock, "Leo and Hortense Munson," The Cope Courier, August, 1976, p 7.

3 Ibid.

4 To residents of Garfield County, the road from the top of the Bryce Canyon Plateau down into Bryce or Tropic Valley was known as the "dump."

5 Hortense Cope Munson, "History of Lewis Leo Munson," copy of MS in author's possession.

6 Ibid.

7 Lowrey Nelson, The Mormon Village: A Pattern and Technique of Land Settlement (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1952), p 110.

8 Ibid., p 111.

9 Edward A Geary, The Proper Edge of The Sky (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992), p 162 Geary quotes Peter S Briggs and Brian Q Cannon, Life and Land: The Farm Security Administration Photographers, 1936-1941 (Logan: Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, 1988).

10 Nethella Griffin Woolsey, The Escalante Story (Springville, Ut.: Art City Publishing Co., 1964), p 207.

11 Garfield County News (Panguitch), December 14, 1939.

12 Brochure of the Garkane Power Company prepared for the company's 40th anniversary, December 1979.

13 Woolsey, The Escalante Story, p 162.

14 Leo Munson Family Organization, Munson Memories: History of Lewis Leo and Hortense Cope Munson Family (Bountiful, 1993), pp 33-34.

15 Hortense Munson, personal history, copy of MS in author's possession.