June 1996 Blazer

Law and disorder in early Corinne

THE p o R YBL AZER A'EM'S OF UTAH'S PAST FROM THE Utah State ~ istoricaSl ociety 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City UT 84101 ( 801) 533- 3500 FAX ( 801) 333- 3303 Law and Disorder in Early Corinne THEB OOMTOWN OF CORINNEB, OX ELDER COUNTY, bu rst into existence when the east and west arms of the transcontinental railroad finally met at Promontory in 1869. Corinne quickly became a crossroads for freight and passengers heading north into Idaho and Montana. For ten years the town served as the bustling economic and cultural center of Utah's Gentile minority until, in 1878, the Utah and Northern Railroad wrenched away the freighting business, and the little metropolis withered to a quiet Mormon farm village. But while the boom lasted Cori~ beo asted 250 vigorous business establishments. Among them were liquor and tobacco wholesalers, billiard rooms, banks, breweries, freighting wmpanies, ice cream and soda parlors, livery stables, auctioneers, Chinese laundries, gambling saloons, and houses of ill repute. If Corinoe's business sector was lively, so was its municipal life. Corinne was chartered by the Temtorial Legislature early in 1870. That March five political parties ran candidates for city office. The Malshite and Munrorer parties ( named for two leading mayoral candidates- Malsh and Munro) vied with ' towners, " " down towners, " and ' north siders" for the positions of mayor, five two- year council seats, five one- year seats, and two justices of the peace. When Malsh and Munro tied, lots had to be drawn with Munro winning. Corinne now had a government but no funding and apparently no city hall either. The first quarterly meeting of the city council convened in the offices of 0. D. Cass, M. D. The second meeting was held ' at the hay scales," with the new town marshal assigned to provide seats and lights. Neither seats nor lights ( nor the marshal, for that matter) a p e d , so the meeting was adjourned. ' Many wuncil meetings adjourned for lack of a quorum. Yet somehow a number of ordinances were enacted. Citizens were required to control their dogs and pigs, polygamy was disallowed, gambling parlors and houses of ill fame were prohibited, as was swimming in the Bear River within city limits, and visitors were not to carry concealed weapons or shoot up the streets. Because each of these laws was routinely broken, the city had a wnstant list of outstanding fines on its books. In fact, the marshal's primary job was to oollat overdue fines. However, some fines were written off, as when the city recorder tipped while carrying a bottle of ink, blotting out pages 61 through 74 of the city record book. By summer town fathers must have found headquarters, for the local newspaper reported that a 22- foot square jail was to be built on the back of the city hall. The jail wst $ 260.33. The city tried to pay the builder in city wanants, whereupon the contractor ' broke the jail all to pieces, ( more) loaded it up, and d e d it away." For the time being the city had to pay private citizens to house and feed prisoners. If the city had trouble paying its bills, local businessmen did not. In 1871 the same Dr. Cass who had let the council meet in his offices founded the Bank of Corinne. Soon a gracious brick building to house it went up on Montana Street behueen 5th and 6th streets. It was slightly larger than the jail had been, with a vault room, back office, and cashier's living apartment. The bank flourished. The city continued to have trouble collecting its taxes. Eventually there were no funds to pay the marshal. The Retrenchment Committee, appointed to consider this problem, at first leaned toward dispensing with a marshal altogether. But given Corinne's high crime rate, they decided to cut his pay from $ 100 to $ 50 per month and allow him to keep a percentage of his collections. He fared better than the city council. In straitened circumstances, the council abandoned their city hall and rented an old paint shop for $ 25 per month, using the front room for council chambers and police court and the back room for the town Board of Trade ( presumably the town's licensing division). It was a good thing they kept the position of marshal, for brawls and gunfights continued unabated. Two marshals quit, unable to collect their salaries, and a third lasted only one week. Taylor Shipley, the one- week marshal, was not the officer who stopped Horace Greeley ( the Horace Gredey of New Pork Emld and later presidential campaign fame) and Jay Cooke from racing up and down Montana Street at breakneck speed in their carriage. ' This is the not the Bowery, " they were told. In January 1873 the newspaper criticized the current marshal for arresting four of Corinne's leading citizens. The four admitted to having shot a stranger who, during " a friendly game at cards," had accused them of dishonorable behavior. After all, argued the editor, it was purely a private affair among gentlemen, and the leading citizens had buried the man " with every mark of delicacy and respect." By 1875 the Bank of Corinne had closed its doors and the town was already declining. In 1885 the little brick bank was sold to the city, which at last had its own town hall. Sources: Brigahrn D. Madsen, Corinne, the Gentile Capital of Utah ( Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1980); Bank of Corinne Nomination Form, National Register of Historic Places, Preservation Office files, Utah Division of State History. THE - Y BLAZER is produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant fiom the Utah Statehood Centemd Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone [phone] ( BB) Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grailde Salt Lake City, LTT 84101 Guano Sifters on Gunnison Island MAKINA GLIV ING COLLECTING BIRD DROPPINGS doe not exactly sound like the ideal job, nor are mineral patents for the mounds of guano deposits on the islands of the Great Salt Lake particularly a great way to get rich. However, from the mid- 1890s until some time after the turn of the century a guano harvesting business did exist in Utah. The bird rookeries of Gunnison and Hat ( Bird) islands produced thousands of baby gulls, pelicans, and herons. These islands were also the production sites of a substance that was useful as fertilizer. Guano, rich in phosphate and nitrate, had been excreted by the birds for centuries and deeply coated the rocks of the islands. Gunnison Island in the northwest part of Great Salt Lake is only a mile long and contains about 160 acres of land, yet is the nesting ground during early summer for huge populations of gulls and pelicans and some herons. Its rocks provide excellent homes for the infant birds and the surrounding waters protect them from predators. The 22- acre pile of granitic conglomerate that is Hat Island in the southwestern area of the lake sewes the same purpose. Where there are birds there is bound to be bird waste; thus enterprising minds could see value in those deposits covering the rocks the birds chose as homes for their young. Commercial guano gatherers first came to Gunnison Island in the mid- 1890s and began their work. Alfred Lamboume, a Utah artist, lived on Gunnison Island for a year starting in November 1895 and shared the island with guano sifters about whom he wrote in his book of musing and art, Our Inland Sea. He had been living on the island alone until March when the guano sifters came to spend several months harvesting the rich deposits. All at once the island seemed a beehive of activity, causing the pelicans to look elsewhere for their nesting sites. The gulls, however, were not deterred by mere commerce. The guano sifters built a long, narrow cabin of rounded slabs and Nled it with provisions, utensils, and their implements of labor. With their strange occupation and various nationalities and appearances, they intrigued Lamboume who saw them with an artist's eye and enjoyed their company on the island despite their destroying his solitude. In the March wind the guano sifters went right to work. With pick and shovel, some dug up the guano deposits while three men worked at the sieves. Enveloped in clouds of brownish dust they passed the mineral through the screens and put it into bags. The men attacked the guano mightily, and the area soon was cwered with trenches and pits as they gathered the ancient deposits. Among the crew that Lamboume watched were a Pole, a Russian, a Scot, and an Englishman. They had traveled the world harvesting guano in places as distant as the islands off ( more)