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Show Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grailde Salt Lake C i t L~ T 88101 ( 801) 533- 3500 FAX ( 801) 333- 3303 Adventures of an Early Hot Rodder AMERICALO'SVE AFFAIR WEH THE AWOMOBIL~ h as shaped much 20th- century history from the development of suburbs and interstate freeways to the latest battle over air quality. In the early days of motoring, though, owning a car conjured up images of romance and adventure, especially in the minds of young men like S. Alva Matheson. One of the state's gifted raconteurs, Matheson was born on May 10, 1903, in Cedar City, Iron County. At about age 15 he began to long for a car. He had no money to buy one, of course, and in those days parents were not expected to supply it. Still, he was an ingenious lad, and he knew how a car's engine worked. In his life story, Refledom, he told of finding loads of discard-ed car parts at the dump. Worn parts were often replaced with new ones because garages lacked the equipment to rebuild parts. Young Alva thought he could coax some of these discards into working a little longer, so he began collecting the parts needed to build a car of his own. He wrote: ' When it was finished I had eight different cars represented in it, such as a Ford motor, a Buick ignition, a Chevrolet oil pump, a Star radiator, Franklin front springs, a Brisco rear end, Dort clutch and Studebaker driveshaft. It was a sight to behold and whenever I stopped I usually had a crowd of spectators. " Soon after school let out in the spring, Matheson took his car on its fist extended trip to a fathers and sons outing at Duck Creek in the high plateau country east of Cedar City. Others were going by wagon, but Matheson, in the timeless manner of young men, wanted " to show people I knew enough to build a usable car." The vehicle had no body as such. He had wired a seat to the frame and wired a box behind the seat to hold food and bedding for himself and his friend Elmer. At slow speeds on a rough road the car had a tendency to jackknife, throwing Elmer off the seat and onto the road, usually on his feet. And they had to stop at almost every stream to add cool water to the radiator. Other than that ' the trip was enjoyable and uneventful" until the rough road dropped from Deer Flat on its way down to Navajo Lake. Rounding a curve the car again jackknifed, propelling Elmer and the bucket of eggs he was holding off the seat and down a steep hillside. " All he could do, " Matheson wrote, " was to go hopping from one lava boulder to another as his momentum dictated.. . . with the bucket of eggs dangling at arms's length.. . . By the time Elmer had reached the bottom I had rounded the turn and was right in front of him.. . . When we realized that no harm was done it seemed so comical that we just sat and laughed.. . ." That was only the beginning of Matheson's adventures with his first car. Later, he owned a Model T Ford when it was a fad to ' take the touring body off. .. and build a two- seater speedster type body. This was the early Hot Rod and.. .. was the kind of a car I ( more) had. ' One day he and a friend, Jeff Woodard, decided to do a little prospecting and set off on an old wagon road toward Modena near the Nevada border. High centers, washouts, and ankle- deep dust were the hallmarks of such roads. Twenty rniles from any possible help Matheson's car threw a rod. He tried driving slowly but knew from the banging that the car would be ready for the junk heap before long. He soon found the problem- brush he had driven over had opened an oil petcock, causing the oil to leak out. They decided to eat lunch while waiting for someone to come by who might help them. Lunch ' consisted of salt pork to fry our eggs, some beans and bread. As I cut the pork 1 remarked at how tough the rind was. My fiiend said ' Yes, we used.. . a strip for windless bearings and they never did wear out so far as I know.' Wheels began to turn in my head. It didn't take me long to decide to try it in that connecting rod. It was about the right thickness and I could see no hann that it could do.. . . I set to work with my wrenches and.. . had a bacon rind co~ ectingro d bearing in and ready to try.. .. by being careful it might get us to Desert Butte.. . . When we reached the Butte.. . . all was going well so we came on home.. . . I left that bawn rind bearing in the motor for another two weeks of running before I changed it." Matheson's hot rod had a tendency to lose oil in remote places. One day he and Jeff traveled through Lund, on to Blue Mountain, and west to Pine Valley, heading toward the Peerless Mine. Again, brush on the road's high center flipped open the oil petcock. This time he had no bacon rind to fall back on. Moreover, they were thirty miles from Lund on a road infrequently used. Ever inventive, they ' heated some water and shaved and dissolved a bar of castile soap in it and used it instead of oil and by coasting whenever possible and blowing bubbles for miles we made it back to Lund with the cleanest motor on record and with no apparent harm." Alva Matheson and his pals were not the only hot rodders or adventurers on Utah's dirt roads in the early years of motoring, but when it comes to telling the story of those times Matheson has few peers. Source: S. Alva Matheson, R@ ctions ( Cedar City, 1974). THEH ISTORYBL AZER is produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533- 3500. 960608 ( MBM) ArEIVS OF UTAH'S PAST FROM THE ~ t a Shta te Historical Society 300 Rio Grande * Salt Lake City. LTT 84101 ( 801) 533- 3500 FAX ( 801) 533- 3303 The Rise and Fall of Ogden's Packing Industry h 1901 A GROUP OF MEN ORGANIZED THE OGDEN PACKINGC OMPANYW ith a capital investment of $ 7,500. In 1906 the first packing plant was built. During the next decade the facility was constantly expanded until by 1917 the Ogden Packing & Provision Company, as it was then called, encompassed almost six acres or 240,650 square feet. It was reportedly the largest meat packing plant west of the Missouri River and comparable to large eastern plants in its output. The development of the packing industry in Ogden was a direct outgrowth of the Junction City's prominence as Yhe livestock capital of the Intermountain West. Millions of head of cattle, sheep, and hogs were bought and sold annually at the bustling Ogden Livestock Yards and processed by local slaughterhouses and packing plants. " Located at the west end of the 24th Street viaduct, Ogden Packing & Provision Company had a daily capacity in 1917 of 1,250 hogs, 1,500 sheep, and 300 cattle, numbers that wuld be increased with the addition of refrigeration space. The manufacturing or processing divisions of the company could handle twice that amount. In addition to fresh pork, beef, mutton, veal, and lamb, the company also produced ham, bacon, sausage, cooking compounds, lard, tallow, and by-products, including fertilizer. These products were shipped throughout the Intermountain Area and into all regions of the United States and abroad. During World War I exports to Great Britain and France enhanced company profits. In addition to its main plant in Ogden the wmpany had branches in Salt Lake City, Price, Butte, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The two California facilities were new, having been completed in 1917. To keep the operation running at capacity the company's officers worked with representa-tives of the livestock industry in the West and urged stockraisers to increase their herd size especially the number of hogs. To that end they " brought brood sows into the country for distribution among the farmers and their boys." Their slogan in Utah was " Raise a Pig." OP& P claimed to employ the largest number of men and women in any single factory in Utah. Indeed, the company had expanded during World War I at a pace that R. & L. Polk's Ogden Ciry Directory for 1917 called breathtaking. At war's end Utah's booming canneries and meat packing plants were forced to cut production as demand dropped. Not only was the govern-ment not buying as much armed goods and meat for the troops, but postwar recession was causing the average family to cut back on its purchases as well. By 1920 OP& P was unable to pay its creditors. Officers and board members of the company were forced to resign and a committee of stockholders took over in an attempt to salvage the business. ( more) |
