MORMON SETTLEMENT OF WASATCH COUNTY, 1859-1888
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Transportation During the early settlement period, Utah County residents collected a toll for use of the Provo Canyon road. The 1855 territorial legislature had given the operators a twenty-year charter and the right to charge fares. Although this group did not fodow through, the new owners set a fee when the road was completed. James H. Simpson complained in 1859, "Whether the great national route in this region of the Rocky Mountain passes by Fort Bridger or the Uinta Pass, it must pass down the Timpanogos. The Mormons now charge a heavy toll on the graded road down the "canyon and across the bridge. This road should be free from charge to travelers." Simpson wrote to William H. Hooper asking the Timpanogos Turnpdce Company to sed its franchise rights. Hooper told Simpson the 1860 Utah Legislative Assembly had agreed to sell the road to the federal government for approximately $20,000, but the plan failed and the legislature reincorporated the road for twenty years. Just six years later, however, in 1865, the legislature gave the road rights to a group from Utah and Wasatch counties. The new owners widened the road and repaired it for the right to charge a toll for twenty years. After the twenty-year period, Utah and Wasatch counties were to take control. Territorial leaders repealed that act two years later and gave a new group of men the same responsibdities.65 Wasatch County residents found the tods especiady burdensome. In 1878 Abram Hatch told members of the LDS priesthood that the road should be free. Eleven years later, a Provo resident, Judge J. D. Jones, felt the road should belong to the county, adding it was a "sin to pay 50 cents for the privdege of jolting on rocks and through holes." He argued that the owners should have reclaimed ad their expenses, and he added that citizens paid for the upkeep of most roads with taxes, so they should not have to pay an additional fifty cents. Territorial taxes also paid for the upkeep of the Provo road. The Utah legislature paid $1,000 in 1868, $500 in 1869, and $600 in 1870 on the Provo road.66 Attempts to have the territory fund other roads were not always successful. In 1878 Representative Abram Hatch asked for $1,000 to "improve the road between Heber City and Ashley City." He argued, "The public interests of the Territory would be enhanced sufficiently."
