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Show the first United Order was organized when the stockholders of the Heberville Cooperative Farm turned over their interests to the United Order. The action pleased Brigham Young greatly and he asked the group to rename the area Price City instead of Heberville. (Some say that he felt the area was not worthy yet to be named after his trusted aide and friend, Heber C. Kimball.) At any rate, the name change was made and, fittingly, the order was named the Price City United Order. President Young cal led for volunteers to strengthen the company. Eleven famil ies from Santa Clara volunteered. Four families from Cache Valley in the North of Utah also joined the company. A temporary lumber building was erected where all the members first slept and ate. Houses were constructed, orchards were planted and excellent crops were produced. The efforts to conduct farming under a United Order proved difficult, however. Despite continual urgings and, at times, perhaps threats from Brigham Young, who was now spending all of his winters at his new home in St. George, the First Order was terminated after one year. A second order was started at Price City but also broke up. Milo Andrus, grandfather of Isadora Blake, who first occupied the Blake House, headed up the third attempt to form a United Order. It is probable that the large rock meeting house, whose stones later became the Blake House, was constructed under the guidance of Milo Andrus in 1876. Andrus resigned in 1877 and was replaced by William Lang. The farm prospered but there was apparently continual unhappiness under a United Order system, probably due to feel ings on the part of some that others were not pulling their share of the load. On August 29, 1877, the Dixie area was saddened by the news of the death of President Brigham Young, whose influence and direct involvement was amply evident throughout his beloved Dixie. Some projects, however, had probably only progressed through the sheer dominance of Young's personality. The United Order of Price City was apparently one of these since immediately after President Young's death, Lang, who now headed the order, submitted a report to President Young's successor of the farm's history and requested that he be reI ieved of his responsibil ity. He was granted his request and on December II, 1877, the attempts to establ ish cooperative farming at Price City ended. 50 people, comprising 12 famil ies, who I ived at Price City divided up the produce. The land was divided into individial lots and distributed to the shareholders of the Order. The settlement of Price continued until after the turn of the century. A permanent ward (the designation for a local Mormon conjugation) was established in 1879. Although Price City lacked any cuI inary water, and the Price City residents had to haul drinking water from St. George about five miles distant, the soil was extremely productive and yielded excel lent crops, particularly the fruit. The lack of drinking water and a probable shift in the Virgin river which made irrigation difficult for some of the most productive land doomed Price City, or Heberville, as it was originally cal led. Thus, the area whose success at cotton raising in 1858-1859 led to the official establ ishment of the Cotton Mission and St. George was finally abandoned. Today, only an occasional foundation stone is left to mark this historic townsite. |
