| OCR Text |
Show of the farmyard from the house. Two main types of square homesteads exist: On one, the barn is located to the rear of the house (Figure 10), and on the other, the barn is placed to the side (Figure 11). The choice of barn placement was obviously restricted on the rectangular lots, where the narrow width of the homestead dictated that it be built in a line behind the house (Figure 12). By the late 1860s, the pioneering phase of Sanpete Valley's history was largely completed and a new one had begun. 21 The years between about 1870 and 1890 may be considered the halcyon days of Mormon Kingdom building in the valley--a period of time when the Saints here enjoyed the freedom to transform ideals into action. It was at this juncture that the valley most closely resembled Redfield's folk society. 22 The concentrated village settlement pattern was distinctive; the agrarian economy--base9 upon a system of small-holdings and grain production--was largely self-sufficient; the valley's size and physical isolation gave it an extended sense of community identity; and it was, certainly, religiously homogeneous. It was also at this time that the valley laid legitimate claim to its title, Stake of Zion. If the term "landscape" can be used here to mean "shaped land, land modified for permanent human occupation, 1123 the Sanpete landscape is unmistakeably a Mormon landscape~ written upon the valley. The signature of Zion is indelibly In an early revelation, God told Joseph Smith, "Behold, mine house is a house of order, . .-.and not of confusion. 1124 During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Sanpete Valley was indeed a "house of order," a physical and social world brought under strict control. The land here was shaped, not randomly, but with purpose and skill. This was an orderly; geometric world of farms, 74 |
