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Show THE HISTORY BLAZER XE'ItrS OF LTTAH'S PAST FROilI THE Utah State Historical Societlr 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City. ITT 84101 ( 801) 533- 3500 FAX ( 801) 333- 3303 A Kentucky Presbyterian in Vernal AMONG VERNAL'FSO UNDERS AND MOST INFLUENTIAL CITIZENS was a transplanted Kentucky Presbyterian, Lewis Curry. In 1880 his brother Oran saw a government notice that parts of the Uintah Indian Resewation in eastern Utah had been opened to white settlement. Oran came, saw, and established a trading post in the Vernal area seven years before any real settlement existed. In 1887 Lewis, a banker in Harrodsburg , Kentucky, followed Oran to Utah to become his partner. Through additional involvement in a mill and furniture store they helped to make Vernal the regional commercial center and by 1893 the county seat. In 1909 local Mormon leaders, frustrated with the lending policies of the Bank of Vernal, came to Lewis to ask if he would head an alternative bank they were founding. This signalled a new era in Lewis Curry's business, civic, and cultural life. The Cuqs celebrated their new prominence by acquiring a new house. In 1910 Lewis and his wife Sallie commissioned a carpenter named Mr. Cook and brickmason David Manwaring to build them a simple but spacious two- story home on Vernal Avenue. The house still stands- the only one from Vernal's early history that retains its original character. Locally fued brick and pine from the Uinta Mountains were used as construction materials. But the ornamental oak staircase came from Chicago. It is said that the carpenter, unauthorized, trimmed two feet from the staircase's width while the Currys were in Chicago on one of their annual opera tours. Out of his love for opera Lewis became one of the powers behind the establishment of Vernal's theater and opera company. He was also a great lover of poetry, exchanging favorite volumes with LDS President Heber J. Grant, whom he came to know, along with Governor Simon Bamberger, while serving as chairman of the county's War Finance Committee. Curry remained an ecumenical force in eastern Utah throughout his life. He was elected by a large majority to the state legislature. He had been nominated to be the Utah Elks' next grand master, but poor health prevented his actually serving. Few stories exist revealing the particulars of Curry's influence, but the large Ute delegation that came to view the body after his death in 1922 is evidence of how well he was loved. They filled the entire downstairs and staircase of the Curry home, standing on sofas and chairs to make room for more mourners. Sallie married her brother- in- law, Matt Curry, after Lewis's death, and voters then made Matt their state representative. Sallie outlived Lewis by 40 years and Matt by 23 years. In her later ( more) years she would sit in her rocker and " grandmother" neighborhood children from a second- story window. She willed the family home to her son, who lived in it with his wife until 1979. Source: National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Preservation Office, Utah Division of State History. Information on the form is based on 1979 and 1981 interviews with descendants and issues of the Vernal Express from 1910 to 1939. THEH ISTORYB LAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centenriial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533- 3500. 960404 ( BB) |
