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Price Band Days: The Intermountain Music Festival
Price Band Days: The Intermountain Music Festival
By RONALD G. WATT
Every year for more than twenty years, Price's streets and public buildings rang -with the sounds of bands, orchestras, and choruses. The Intermountain Music Festival -was a wonderful event. Today its activities have been almost forgotten, but the festival placed this small community on the national music map. There was no music meet to match it in the West, and yet in the 1930s the city had a population of only a little over 4,000. How could it put together a music festival that would bring raves from visitors, judges, band leaders, and student musicians? Besides, during the 1920s Price and Carbon County were torn -with great internal problems such as coal strikes and ethnic tensions. The county had more than thirty different nationalities, including Italian, Greek, Japanese, Slovenian, and German. 1
Into this milieu entered Edgar M. Williams, who was from Emery County and thus was no stranger to Price's diversity. In 1923 the Carbon County School District hired Williams as the music director for the Carbon County High School band and chorus. Because there were two other teachers with the name of Williams in the high school, one of the teachers recommended that they call him "Toot." It was an appropriate name; Williams directed choruses, but his heart was in bands. After receiving a lifetime teaching certificate from Brigham Young University, he taught at Heber City, where he took instruments from a defunct city band and created a school band.
When the Carbon County School District hired E. M. Williams as its new high school music director, it found a man anxious to build a band that would compete with the best. That first year Williams had only nine students in his band. But he began building support in the community for his newly developing music department. In order to help fund the band and purchase necessary instruments to loan to aspiring students, the band played at funerals, receiving $50 per funeral from the Miners Welfare Organization. To gain more students, he began teaching private lessons and providing summer group instruction for the novices.2 Always a taskmaster, Williams marched and practiced his band continuously, concerned with every detail.
In the latter part of the decade Williams heard about the new marching band music meets, and he was anxious to test his students in these contests. His opportunity came when in 1930 the chambers of commerce of Price and Grand Junction wanted to promote the transportation system between the two cities. William Toy, secretary to the Price Chamber of Commerce, approached Williams about taking his forty-three-member band to the Grand Junction music competition, -which had started four years earlier. Desiring to match his band against more experienced ones, Williams accepted the challenge, but with some apprehension. He did not want the members of his small band to be disappointed if they failed to do well. 3
The Price Chamber of Commerce and the city helped fund the trip, and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad provided the band with a special car on the train. In competition against twenty bands, the Carbon High School Band performed magnificently, taking first place in every category and winning the C. G. Conn trophy for the outstanding band of the meet. As Williams said, "Surprise of surprises and wonder of wonders! Our little inexperienced band, seemingly from out of nowhere, walked off with every possible award." The judges congratulated the band leader. "Both men told me that they were awed that such a small group with incomplete instrumentation could render the difficult selections so nearly perfect." Commenting about the excitement in Price, he said, "Our town went wild." 4
Shortly afterward, Toy and Williams discussed the possibility of holding a band meet in Price under the auspices of the Price Chamber of Commerce. Toy was determined to commit Price to a music meet that would give the town great publicity. It would include orchestras, choruses, solos, and ensembles, but the centerpiece would always be bands—marching bands. The members of the chamber of commerce, the Price City administration, and others accepted the idea enthusiastically. In a local newspaper, Toy said he -was gratified at the public response, and he informed everyone that it would be the biggest contest of its kind ever held in Utah. The contest would provide an educational benefit as all these young musicians met together, he said, and it would provide a forum for music directors to discuss their problems. "Commercially, it will bring hundreds of people to our city." Toy concluded by saying, "True sportsmanship, keen competition, friendly rivalry, cannot help but make bigger men and women of these young folks." 5
The meet that would accomplish all this had at its foundation a visionary band director. E. M. Williams's primary purpose was to build great bands and inspire students to do their best. The growing success of the Carbon High School Band would electrify the entire county and create interest throughout the state. It provided a unifying element for the county with its diverse population because the nationality of a student never concerned Williams, only talent. 6 He was a pioneer in the development of marching bands in Utah. Hy Summerhays, owner of a Salt Lake City music store, commented, "Please keep in mind that the big push for bands in Utah actually started in Price. Other communities had bands previously, but the actual competition at Price was the biggest thing of its time, and I don't believe that participation of any contest in Utah has exceeded the competition of the early 1930s held in Carbon County." 7
Musical bands became part of the elementary and junior high school curriculum in Carbon County. The schools of Harding, Latuda, Wellington, Hiawatha, Spring Glen, Sunnyside, Helper, and Notre Dame became feeder schools for Williams's bands through the years. The high school band itself grew until it had close to 100 students. For a while it had both A and B bands, with students playing almost every instrument imaginable. Williams was a perfectionist, and throughout his career in Carbon County he never lost sight of his goal of producing excellent bands. He always wanted to win, but foremost he wanted good relationships with other bands and other leaders. Besides teaching music, he also taught his students good sportsmanship, loyalty, honesty, and a sympathetic feeling for others.8 After a few years of his directorship, the county talked about instrumental players the way we would compare players on athletic teams today.
By early October 1930 Toy had selected a committee, and plans began taking shape for the first annual Price Intermountain Music Meet, which included both individual and group competition.9 The committee set up the same rules that the national meets used. After some deliberation as to which schools should be invited, the committee sent invitations to all schools in Utah and western Colorado that had bands. They invited some top music people to judge the various contests. Bolime Makovsky, the musical authority at Oklahoma A & M at Stillwater, Oklahoma; Clarence J. Hawkins of the University of Utah; and Leopold A. Yost, band leader of the Thirty-eighth Infantry Band at Fort Douglas accepted invitations to adjudicate. The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad joined in by discounting railroad tickets for the participating band and music participants. Finally, eighteen bands—with a total of more than 1,000 students—came to Price in April 1931.
On April 9 and 10 the transportation committee met band members at the train and drove each to a host home or to a public building in Price. Each band also had a headquarters at a local business establishment. For two days Price became the band capital of Utah. On Friday there was a parade, a dinner for band directors and judges at Rinetti and Capitolo Restaurant, and a dance at the Silver Moon Pavilion. On Saturday, band concerts began at 9:00 a.m. in the LDS tabernacle and did not conclude until late afternoon. At 8:30 p.m. there was a massed band concert at the public school grounds, and band members concluded the day with a grand ball at the Silver Moon. 10
In 1932 thirty-two bands with 1,450 students paraded and serenaded the visitors and people of Price. The success of the Intermountain Music Meet stimulated state high schools to sponsor a state contest, and in 1932 Logan hosted the first state contest. At that meet the judges selected the Carbon High School Band to represent the state and Region Ten at the national band meet to be held the next year in Evanston, Illinois.
Again the community stepped forward and organized in order to provide an unusual experience for their youth. Dr. H. B. Goetzman, the chairman, began raising the needed $5,000 during the height of the depression. Goetzman and his committee raised most of the funds in Carbon County, but he also ventured to Salt Lake and obtained donations. Governor Henry Blood even gave a personal check for $10. Emery County also contributed to Carbon County's successful band. 11
Early in June 1933 the eighty-five-member band departed for Evanston—but Williams, who had been diagnosed as having phlebitis in both legs, sat in a wheelchair looking helplessly on while A. B. Caseman from Helper took his band. At the national band contest the band won first place in the first division in marching and in the second division for playing. According to a Sun Advocate reporter, "The Carbon entry was acclaimed by the judge as the greatest marching unit ever to enter a national contest." Williams also commented that the judges had declared them "Number One in all the nation in marching maneuvers." Jessie Rasmussen Holdaway, a student musician in that band, in reminiscing about that event said, "Once we donned our uniforms -we kept standing to prevent wrinkles. We began our march and concert in spotless unwrinkled uniforms....Our front to back lines, side to side lines and obliques were as perfect as possible. Our eyes and our feet moved, but we were otherwise at attention, heads up shoulders straight." 12 When the band returned to Price, the crowd gave the student musicians a royal welcome, and later the chamber of commerce gave them a dance at the Silver Moon.13
After the 1932 meet, Price reassessed the of these young players would importance of band days to the community and decided that the contest was so valuable that it should be continued. In 1933 twenty seven bands participated, with 1,200 students playing for an expected 10,000 visitors. After the 1933 band meet, William Toy resigned as secretary of the Price Chamber of Commerce and therefore as chairman of the music meet. The officials of the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce expressed their thanks for Toy's work, and Price City took over the contest. 14
A music meet needed a superb organization, and Price had the people, clubs, organizations, and commitment necessary for success. Toy had assigned individuals to be in charge of the parade, lighting, housing, transportation, massed band contest, concert contest, and finances. The 1934 organization showed continued community involvement. Norman Hamilton was the general chairman; the Price Post of the American Legion was in charge of the parade; the city, the lighting; Mrs. Henry Ruggeri, housing; Sheriff S. M. Bliss, transportation; Kiwanis Club and Elks Lodge, the massed band concert; Rotary Club, the concert contest; and the high school faculty and Elmie Bernardi of the chamber of commerce handled the finances. Each subgroup also had either its club or a subcommittee to obtain additional help, until this spreading web engulfed the entire community. 15
In 1934 the intermountain band contest in Price merged with the state and Region Ten music meets. Fifty-two bands and fifteen orchestras representing fifty-six schools from three states notified the music committee that they would participate in this gigantic three-day festival. The committees worked overtime because they estimated that approximately 4,000 student musicians would attend and the committee would need to furnish sleeping quarters for about half of them. Mrs. Henry Ruggeri and her committee scoured all of Price to find housing for the students. Standardville, Helper, and Wellington accepted some students, but most would be housed in Price. Norman Hamilton, the committee chairman, finally telegrammed Secretary of War George Dern asking for permission to use 1,500 Fort Douglas army cots. The Army loaned 1,300, which committee members placed in every available vacant building and large hall they could find. Hamilton also estimated that the committee would need fifty "greeter cars" to take visiting students and directors wherever they wished, and he reckoned that 30,000 people would attend the three-day event. 16
Only the national meet, with about 170 bands, was larger than the Price band meet of 1934. For three days the student musicians -were kings and queens in the small city. On Saturday afternoon, bands marched continuously on Price's Main Street from one until five p.m. while onlookers watched appreciatively from buildings and temporary wooden stands. The music committee coordinated the whole affair, and everything took place as planned. On Saturday evening, trumpeters stood on the roof of the high school and on Round Hill, Wood Hill, and Kiwanis Field and opened the evening ceremony with trumpet calls, followed by a Niagara Falls fireworks display over the high school letter "C" on Wood Hill. "With the clear notes of a trumpet trio selection played from the top of the high school building still ringing in their ears, the vast throng heard a welcome address by Mayor B. W Dalton who expressed Price City's pleasure at being the host city for an affair of such magnitude as the state and intermountain music contest." Governor Henry H. Blood also spoke to the crowd. 17
The following year, since Price was not host to the state music festival, twenty-two bands registered. Still, that year's band contest had national ranking, and it was one of only two for the entire nation given that ranking by the National School Band Association. A large number of people volunteered to take students, and the music committee again handled the contest with their usual even-handed coordination. 18
After every contest, letters poured into the city complimenting it on this wonderful event. In May 1934 visitors from Montrose, Colorado, thanked Price for its hospitality. In 1935 Harold Bachman, one of the judges and the director of the "Million Dollar Band of Chicago," commented about the Carbon High School band, "A fine looking, well equipped organization and a credit to any community.... In every fundamental point the band is superb.... The leadership which Mr. Williams gave his splendid group was modest but effective." 19
In 1935 J. Bracken Lee's election as mayor threatened an end to the festival. In January 1936 the city council discussed whether or not to continue sponsoring the band contest and agreed to continue it for at least that year. In 1936 thirty-seven schools sent various groups, including solos, ensembles, and bands, to the meet. Twenty-nine bands assembled for the parade and for the massed band concert at Kiwanis Field with Harold Bachman from Chicago directing them. At the end of the program Mayor Lee thanked the committee, and Bachman commented that Price was an outstanding music center in the West and that a decision to discontinue the contest would be extremely unfortunate. Dr. H. B. Goetzman, the chairman, thanked a large list of organizations for their help in the festival. 20
The following year, 1937, the national regional music committee awarded Price the contest to be held from May 13 to 15. Each school in the contest would have to earn a superior or highly superior rating in district contests. Mrs. William Hakalo immediately began finding housing for student musicians, a task that was extremely difficult; afterward, the committee even considered constructing permanent barracks just for the meet. Thirtyseven bands and representatives from fifty schools—almost 2,500 students representing three states—came to Price for the three days in May. A total of 1,600 students needed housing. Nine judges participated, eight from Utah and Henry Fillmore from Cincinnati, Ohio. At the end of the contest Fillmore commented, "I have never seen anything of its kind to equal the festival you have staged here in Price. In my opinion, the Chicago district is the only one in the nation which rivals your community as a center of music for schools ."Thomas Giles, a judge from Salt Lake City, wrote,
In early 1938 J. Bracken Lee and Price City dropped their official and financial support of the contest, but the withdrawal of Price City did not end band days. Under the leadership of Dr. H. B. Goetzman, the supporters organized a nonprofit corporation known as the Intermountain Music Festival, with Goetzman as president.22 In 1938 eighteen bands and representatives of thirty schools, about 1,000 students, converged on Price for another highly successful three-day meet. The local newspaper had a column entitled "Did You See?"
In January 1939 Carbon High School divided into a senior high school comprised of the eleventh and twelfth grades and a junior high school that included the ninth and tenth grades. This change made it difficult to field as large and fine a band as Williams had previously done. At the same time the committee did not feel that it could continue without donations and support from the businessmen of Price. George Leatham, the finance chairman, canvassed the businesses and found overwhelming support. 24
In 1939 twenty-three bands participated with 1,888 total students and 1,061 needing housing, but the new municipal building helped to ease the strain. Thousands of people watched from the street on constructed stands or rooftops of buildings.25 The Sun Advocate had a column entitled "It Takes a Lot of Work."
In 1940 the music committee decided to stage a smaller state regional band contest and invite only the eastern Utah schools, and seven schools, totaling over 700 students, sent their musical groups. The next year, 1941, sixteen bands arrived in Price. The newspaper commented, "The hallo-wed echoes of bands that have gone before will be replaced by the actualities of today as the students of these bands will endeavor to fit themselves in to the highly competitive places left vacant by the school musicians who have left their names engraved upon the music rolls of the Price City contest." 27
Shortly after the 1941 contest, the National Divisional Band Association slated Price as the site of the national music contest for the southern half of the region. But that day never came; World War II interrupted the plans, and early in February 1942 the national committee canceled all national contests. After that, band days -were never the same. Price continued to hold its own county meet with twelve bands from the county attending that year. In 1943 eight bands participated and in 1944 only six. In 1945 the committee canceled the meet altogether. In 1946 the music meets resumed again -with E. M. Williams as chairman of the committee. That year, twenty-five schools with seventeen bands participated. Besides Carbon County bands, Grand, Uintah, Duchesne, and Emery counties sent bands, as did Grand Junction and a few other Colorado communities. In 1947 Grand Junction schools and Price decided to participate in each other's meet every other year, and so the Colorado schools did not come that year. The biennial agreement never took place, and the connection with Grand Junction ended. In 1947 sixteen bands from all over eastern Utah came, bringing approximately 1,000 student musicians. 28 In November of that year G. J. Reeves, the superintendent of the Carbon County School District and a great supporter of the music meet, died at the age of fifty-nine. The school board replaced him -with Mont Harmon, a Brigham City native. Thereafter, Harmon became the chairman of the music meets.
In 1947 the magazine First Chair of America honored E. M. Williams and the Carbon High School band, calling it "One of the really great bands of America." 29 Price had a music meet in 1948, and in 1949 Region Five, which was composed of all the bands in eastern Utah, held its music contest in Price. In 1950 the committee, under Mont Harmon, announced there would be a band festival, but it only held a county junior high marching band meet. In 1951 the Region Five bands returned to Price, and the school district purchased several hundred cots for the students who invaded the town. Because the routine had become every other year, the bands went elsewhere for the music meet in 1952, and in 1953 they returned to Price. Again the town did itself proud with great bands competing in concerts and marching on the streets, not realizing that this year would be the last band meet.
In August 1953 Williams retired at the age of 64 and went to Clarkston, Washington, to teach private lessons. He said he left because it had become difficult to assemble fine bands since 1938, when the high school divided into a junior and senior high. He commented that he saw great opportunities in Washington, where his son Edgar was teaching in a circumstance that resembled the one the elder Williams had found in Price in the 1930s. But he said that Price was home and that he would return in two years. He never did. Band days and even Region Five marching meets in Price had ended. 30
During its twenty years of existence, band days had become ingrained into the hearts and minds of all the citizens of eastern Utah. Excitement reigned in the city for the festival and everyone participated. Who could help but admire the instrumental groups, choruses, and orchestras that performed in the LDS tabernacle, the Methodist church, and the new municipal hall? But for spectators, the pinnacle of the music meet was the marching bands that did complicated maneuvers on the street, playing music while striding in perfect formation down the streets. To the people of Carbon County, their own high school band represented the ultimate. Everybody stayed to the end to watch the very last band, Carbon High School, a magnificent instrumental marching group, perform. The greatness of the band was equaled by a superbly organized committee that knew how to efficiently run the meet and by a director who was devoted to the art of teaching and inspiring his students to great heights.
NOTES
Ronald Watt is a senior archivist at the LDS Church Historical Department and the author of the centennial volume A History of Carbon County.
1 During the 1920s Carbon County had an active Ku Klux Klan movement that recruited members from Helper, Price,and the coal camps The lynching of anAfro-American, Robert Marshall,southeast of Price in 1925 was a culmination of these divisive days.For the story of the Ku Klux Klan and ethnic conflict see Larry Gerlach, Blazing Crosses in Zion: The Ku Klux Klan in Utah (Logan:Utah State University Press, 1982) and Ronald G.Watt, A History of Carbon County (Salt Lake City;Utah State Historical Society and Carbon County Commission, 1997)
2 Edgar M.Williams, "The Life and Times of Edgar M.Williams as Remembered in theYear 1977 at the age of Eighty-four," Archives and Manuscripts, Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL), Brigham Young University,Provo, Utah
3 Ibid
4 Ibid
5 Sun, April 9, 1931
6 A few last names in the high school band of 1932 and 1933 are Bonacci, Garavaglia, Cook, Litizzette, Reese,Piute,Piacitelli,and Zubick See Carbon High School Annual, 1932,copy in possession of author
7 Derral Lewis Siggard, "School Bands in Utah:Their History and Development between 1928 and 1975,"unfinished Ph.D dissertation draft in possession of author
8 Watt, A History of Carbon County, 272
9 The official name of the music meet is elusive The first year it was named the Price Chamber of Commerce Music Meet The next year the name was the Intermountain Music Meet It was not until 1938 that it became the Intermountain Music Festival After World War II it became the Region Five Music Meet
10 Stm,April9,1931
11 Sun Advocate, July 6, 1933 The Great Depression affected the entire county, but life was more bearable in Carbon County than in many places in Utah and the United StatesThe mines were still working two or three days a week No banks failed in the county or even threatened failure Although Goetzman obtained funds from areas along the Wasatch Front, he especially received generous contributions from merchants in Price.
12 Jessie Rasmussen Holdaway,"Reminiscence," MS,copy in possession of author
13 Sun Advocate, June 15 and 22, 1933;"Life andTimes ofEdgar M.Williams."
14 Price City Council minutes,June 26, 1933,January 14, 1935; Sun Advocate, November 9, 1933.
15 Sun Advocate, January 25,1934.
16 Ibid.,March 15,April 5,12,and 19, 1934;Price City Council minutes,March 15, 1934.
17 Sun Advocate, April 26, 1934.
18 Price City Council minutes, August 26, 1935.
19 Sun Advocate, May 3 and 16, 1934. The Sun Advocate published these letters.
20 Ibid., April 23, 1936.
21 Ibid.,May 6,13,20, and 27,1937
22 Ibid.,June 3, 1937,January 27, 1938, February 10, 1938.Apparently, Lee opposed use of city funds for the meet However, the city continued allowing bands to use the municipal auditorium and gymnasium
23 Ibid.,April 28,1938
24 Ibid.,December 1, 1938,April 6, 1939
25 Ibid., May 4, 1939,May 11, 19393
26 Ibid., May 11, 1939
27 Ibid., May 1, 1941
28 Ibid., May 2, 1946, January 23, 1947, May 1, 1947
29 Ibid., November 6, 1947
30 Ibid., August 30, 1953
