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Show ArEI. l'S OF LTAH'S PAST FROJI THE I Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Graande Salt Lake City. lTT 84101 ( 801) 533- 3500 FAX ( 801) 333- 3503 The Richest Little City in the World h o w 100 MILBS SOUTHEAST OF SALTL AKE C ~ liYes F ountain Green, gateway to Sanpete Valley. While perhaps not sleepy, the town is quiet-- except on Lamb Day when thousands of visitors converge for the talent show, livestock competition, free lamb sandwiches, and Mammoth Parade ( as it is billed with deadpan humor). Most days the only noise comes from bleating sheep and traffic speeding to Snow College, the Manti Temple, or the 1- 70 cutoff. An occasional car stops at one of two convenience stores for gas and ice cream, but otherwise the commercial district is vacant and decaying, and away from Main Street the sidewalks have disintegrated and many roads are unpaved. Recently, Fountain Green has become a suburb of ProvoJOrem. A few citizens still ranch and farm, there is a carpentry shop, and another few raise their own meat, produce, and dairy products as well as home- school their children. Over the years newcomers have bought and restored those old Victorian cottages not yet replaced by new brick rectangles. Clean water laws have forced a sewer system and culinary water upgrade on the town. But with a population of about 800 Fountain Green is still quiet. It was not always so. At the turn of the century Fountain Green was known both as the ' Wool City of the West" and ' The Richest Little City in the World." Not only did it produce more and better quality wool per capita than any other Intermountain market, but it had its own flour mill, hydroelectric plant, adobe brickyard, and railroad depot. In 1859 a father and son had been called by Brigham Young to settle the town. Within two years Fountain Green had a school/ meeting house, store/ hotel, post office, and brickyard in addition to its cluster of log cabins. Within seven years the flour mill was in operation, along with a cooperative livestock herd of 600. By 1875 a narrow- gauge railroad ran from Nephi to the coal mines of Wales, Ephraim, and Morrison. After the mines played out the line stayed busy carrying livestock and bricks to the East. Each decade brought progress. The first sheep flocks totalled 3,000 Spanish Merinos which produced only three to six pounds of wool per head. Fountain Green women sheared for four cents per head, and the wool sold for 6.5 cents per pound. In the 1880s sheepmen, as an improvement on winter- feeding their herds in corrals, began taking them out on the west desert to forage. The land and water rights they acquired at that time in Juab and Millard counties are still exercised today. After separating into independent herds, in 1908 sheepmen organized again as the Fountain Green Woolgrowers Association and expanded in both numbers and quality. They developed a pool ( more) of 100,000 Rambouillet sheep which produced the so- called Jericho Wool Clip commanding the highest prices paid for western wools. Shareholders became wealthy, and yellow brick mansions began to intersperse with the red brick Nauvoo- style homes of the 1870s and 80s and the tiny adobe cottages of the kheepherders. The early 1900s were a golden age for Fountain Green. The Big Springs was enclosed and piped, a hydroelectric plant built- and the city had lights. After 1922 a larger plant also supplied power to Moroni, Wales, and Levan. A bank went up on Main Street. In 1917 cement sidewalks, a public drinking fountain, and community amusement hall were added. By 1918 so many residents owned automobiles that three men started a garage still in business today. By 1923 the city had a mercantile, theater, ice cream parlor, and large new elementary school soon joined by a junior and senior high school. As late as 1930 Fountain Green was expanding its railroad depot and installing the first dial telephone system in Utah. But the Great Depression inhibited further development of America's nual communities. By the 1940s Fountain Green was in decline. Its young people left to attend college and build careers elsewhere in the state and nation. The dance hall, theater, and bank closed; many of the homes became vacant as their elderly owners passed away; and the sidewalks fell into disrepair. If not for the turkey cooperative the town might had died altogether, but that's another story. Sources: Daughters of the Utah Pioneen, History of Sanpete County ( Manti, 1947); Stephen L. Carr and Robert W. Edwards, Utah Ghost Rails ( Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1989); interviews with Fountain Gmn senior citizens by Becky Bartholomew, 1991 - 92. THEH ISTORBYLA ZER is produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant fiom the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533- 3500. 951207 ( BB) |
