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Show Max J. Evans, Director Stanford J. Layton, Coordinator of Publications Miriam B. Murphy Beehive History Editor O Copyright 1997 Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City, UT 84101 1 BY MAVANEE GLEAVE LOFTUS Nestled amid quaking aspen and pine, Rob's Reservoir is a small but scenic fishing re-treat in the Dixie National Forest on the west face of the Escalante Mountain about twenty-five miles southeast of Antimony, Utah. Its origin is known to only a few people. Not even the U. S. Forest Service has a record of its origin on file. Rob's Reservoir was constructed in July BEEHIVE 23 1923 by my grandfather, Robert " Rob" Bar- HISTORY rowman Gleave, and my father, Otto Wellington Contents Gleave, fourteen years old at the time. Others who worked on the project were Rob's brother, Rob's Reservoir Walter William " Willie" Gleave, Willie's step- Mavanee Gleave Loftus 2 son, Golden Shugart, and Rob's brother- in- law, Heroes and Hoopla: Welcoming the Boys Home from the Philippines 1899 Style L yndia McDo well Carter 6 When Electricity Came to Torrey, Utah Clay M. Robinson 11 Provo's Infamous Goddess of Liberty Contest of 1894 D. Robert Carter 14 The White Stone Men Blodwen I? Olson 18 Memories of Thinning and Harvesting Sugar Beets Miriam B. Murphy 22 Jack Snyder. The purpose of the reservoir was to provide water to a 160- acre farm of alfalfa, oats, and wheat on Burro Flat at the north end of Johns Valley. Special- use permits for construction on for-est lands have been required since the National Forest Service was established in 1 89 1, but there is no indication that a permit was obtained in this case. All the builders of the reservoir have passed on, so the record remains silent. Yet the result of their labor still sparkles like a jewel for all to see and appreciate. Johns Valley Johns Valley in Garfield County is approx-imately thirty miles in length and lies north of Bryce Canyon, extending to Black Canyon lo- Boxcar in Memory Grove Said cated south of Antimony. Escalante can be " Mercin from the People of France reached by traveling a dirt road east over the Linda Thatcher 26 Mable Woodward Nielsen, a resident of idtsoe wrote, " Originally, Johns Valley was country, a place you had to pass get where you wanted to , go. The good spring water, gushing mountain streams, and the Cover art by Cherie Hale of sugar beet harve natural forage gave rise to dreams of conquest This publication has been funded w for summer ranching, range and dairy projects.. . . tance of a matching grant- in- aid from " People entered the valley for either polyg- Park Service. However, the contents and amous sanctuary, sheep or cattle grazing and not necessarily reflect the views or pol Department of the Interior, nor does the summer dairying, the sawmill industry, the ac-trade names or commercial products quisition of land by ' gentlemen's agreement,' endorsement or recommendation by the D squatter's right, homesteading, desert entry, or of the Interior. outright purchase, high altitude dry farming or 1 experiments in grains., root crops and the basis of race, color, untried country, and finally oil and facilitv oeerated bv a recieient of federal assistance mineral development." should write to: iqual opportunity Program, U. S. Rob's father, Walter Gleave, was one of Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, P. 0. Box Several to recognize the charm and potential of 37127, Washington, D. C. 20012- 7127. the region. After purchasing Center Creek prop- Robert Gleave family: front row, 1 to r, Scott, erty and water rights near Johns Valley in 1900, he worked three years to build a new home there so his wife and seven children, then living in a log cabin on their farm in Kingston Canyon, could move into it. Unfortunately, his wife, Elizabeth Barrowman Gleave, not quite 40 years old, became ill and died just before the home was completed. Walter had lived in Kingston Canyon and prior to that in Annabella, Utah, and Payson. He had immigrated to Utah from England at the age of 12 in June of 1864 with his aunt and uncle, Mormon converts. Twenty years later his parents and siblings immigrated from England to Rock Springs, Wyoming, and then to Annabella. Four months after Elizabeth died, their son Willie married Caroline Marie Snyder. They made their home at Center Creek on a place a few miles south of his father's ranch. In 1907, son Rob married Caroline's sister, Edith Maud Snyder, a school teacher. They lived in Antimony for a short time, then joined Willie and Caroline at their ranch. The brothers built two log homes and ranched together. Burro Flat Rob and Maud Gleave, with their family of six sons- Levere, Otto, Marcus, Virgil, Charles, and Merthell- moved from Center Creek to Bur-ro Flat located in the northeast comer of Johns Valley in the spring of 1917. Burro Flat was named for a band of wild burros that once roamed there. The herd was gone by the time the Gleave family took up the land. It was dry land covered with sagebrush and infested with rattlesnakes. The family moved into a granary at Burro Flat until Rob could relocate their log house at Center Creek later in the summer. Green lumber Iwa, Maud, Rob, Marcus, Jack; second row, Varis Sorensen wife of Otto, Margurite Nielsen, wife of Marcus, Mawa, Melba Taylol; wife of Krgil, Beth Brindley, wife of I Scott, Bobbie, wife of Gam Bamson; third row, Otto, Garn Barnson, Virgil. All photographs courtesy of the authol: had been'used to construct the granary and the boards shrank, leaving cracks between them. Howling coyotes kept the family awake the first night. Otto, who was eight years old, got out of bed in the morning and peered through the cracks. He counted 13 coyotes about a quarter of a mile away. Working long days, the family cleared the brush at Burro Flat with grubbing hoes and began building sheds and corrals. Before long, the outlines of a ranch took shape. Cartography by Connie L. S. Bartos. cemetery tell this grim story. For this reason the Gleaves could not let anyone come to their house, nor did anyone go from the place except to ranch and buy food. The next girl in the family, Marva, was born twenty months later. Rob, Maud, and some of the children had contracted smallpox. When Marva was three weeks old she was completely covered with them. All family members survived , ' with no scarring. Everyone in the family worked- some on the farm, others herding sheep, building roads, running the thresher, or doing odd jobs. All earn- 4,' ings went into the family fund. If anyone needed 7 anything, Rob would give them the money for it. Otto said money was always available using this method. Yet, despite the family's diligence and team-vantages additional water would bring, and the idea of a reservoir began to take shape in his mind. Constructing the Reservoir Using homemade surveying equipment, Rob and Willie first surveyed a ditch through the mountain and built flumes across the canyons. Then they and their co- workers began work on the reservoir. Otto later recalled how they chopped quak-ing aspen to make an eight- mile road to haul equipment to the destination: They left the aspen lying off to the side and were able to complete the road in a week. The site they selected for the reservoir was located in a swale near the springs. Construction took about three weeks. The men camped at the site during the week, returning to Burro Flat for a well- deserved rest on weekends. " We had one plow pulled by two horses," Otto recalled. " Rob and Willie plowed the hard ground. There were a few trees in the middle of the swale, but we left them there. We used three fresnoes [ small scrapers] each pulled by two horses. Golden, Jack, and I ran the scrapers. We scraped and hauled the plowed ground in the fresnoes and dumped the dirt to build a 10- foot high earthen dam. We used a steel pipe pur-chased in Marysvale, Utah, to control the size of the stream coming out of the reservoir, and we built a spillway. We got 3 or 4 acre feet of water from the reservoir in wet years and about 2 acre feet of water in dry years." The extra water made a difference. It nour-ished the garden, pastures, and fields. The fami-ly made butter and cheese and cured their own pork in barrels. They grew all of their potatoes and vegetables and raised cattle, chickens, and turkeys. Each year Rob and the boys made their annual three- day trip to the grist mill in Kingston with a load of wheat and brought back flour and germade ( wheat cereal) for the winter. They made trips by wagon to Escalante or Tropic for fruit. Other sources of food were fish, beef, veni-son, and mutton. Farming was not the only Gleave family business. Irva recalled: " The older boys of the Gleave family made regular trips to Japp and George Henderson's sheep herd for dogie lambs. They had a pack saddle and would cany the lambs home in the alforjas. By this slow process they got started in the sheep business. They later bought sheep and added to what they had, and at the time they left the valley [ in 19361 they were running around two thousand head of sheep [ on 20 thousand acres of government- owned grazing land] ." Rob ran the school bus to Widtsoe, picking up all the kids on both sides of the north end of the valley and taking them to school. Otto took his turn driving the bus. Many times the road would be drifted so deep with snow that the Gleave boys had to get up early in the morning to clear the road with horses and a scraper. The bus was a second- hand pickup the family pur-chased, and a cover was placed over the back. Some 10 to 12 children from the north end of Johns Valley were bused to school during the years 1928 to 1935. Rob and Willie ran a thresher and threshed for a number of people in the valley and also for all of Antimony. Rob still threshed for Antimony for a long while after the family moved to Kingston in 1936. He was gone for a month or so every fall. The years at Burro Flat were good ones for the Gleave family. Rob's Reservoir impounded and delivered its quota of water each year, add-ing greatly to the bounty of the land. In 1927 the Otto Gleave and granddaughters Mitzi and Michelle Millett by the cabin built in 1882 in Kingston Canyon by Otto's grandfather; Walter Gleave. family built a new home on the east hill. It was located near a spring which allowed Rob to pipe in running water. But there were moments of sadness as well as triumph. Levere, who was 15, died from a rup-tured appendix on February 26, 1924. As the family had no car at that time, Rob Lay took him to Salina Hospital. He also brought him home in the casket. It was a terribly cold February. The only way to get to the cemetery was by bob sleigh. Uncle Willie was there as usual, and, in the bitter cold, he cemented the grave. Irva heard her mother say she almost lost her mind with grief. The next additions to the family were two boys, Scott and Jack, then a girl, Bobbie, then Larene and Buddy. Larene died four days after birth. Buddy died at birth. Uncle Willie lived just a mile from them and was the official toothpuller for the family and for many others in Johns Valley. He was also ' a carpenter, mechanic, surveyor, photographer, and jack- of- all- trades. Unless there was a dance in Widtsoe, the family was usually at home in the evenings. Rob sang to the children and Maud recited her poet-ry. The boys participated in baseball, basketball, track, boxing, and wrestling. They were avid horsemen and loved to hunt and fish. Leaving Johns Valley Widtsoe's days were numbered. The coun-try around it simply could not sustain a popula-tion base. Despite an effort by the Utah Agricul-tural Experiment Station to promote dry farming, one by one the farmers began abandoning their places. In the words of Grant Nielsen, a resident of Widtsoe, " The area is one of those western re-gions which, because of climatic effects, are richly productive forLa cycle of years and then become unproductive for a cycle. In productive cycles population rushes in and settles-- only to meet disaster when the unproductive ebb begins. Widtsoe found itself caught in the ebb. Almost half of its 200 families were on relief. Many of them had not even paid taxes on their property for four or five years. " The county, after taking over a few farms for taxes, found that it merely lost money by this practice, so the people were permitted to remain on their land. So the state took a hand. A mass meeting was called and a majority of the citizens voted to close out the town." The year was 1936. With help from the Federal Resettlement Administration, the 200 families were able to dispose of their property and receive technical and financial assistance in I Heroes and Hoopla: We coming the Boys Home from the Philippines 1899 Style BY LYNDIA MCDOWELL CARTER An overwhelming majority of Utahns championed the United States' involvement in the 1898 war with Spain. Religious, cultural, occupational, and economic differen-ces that had long been divisive were cast aside as Utah citizens united to support the war effort. Young men from widely diverse backgrounds- Mormon farming commu-nSiatlite sL, a" kgee nCtiiltey" arnndi n0inf g etno- wj nso, i nanedd tvhaer iemgialitteadr yn einig h1b8 o9r8h. oAosd ss oinld tiheres , u prbaartni ccuelanrtleyr st hoef tcroouonptsr yin w lie f 1h at nadr tmillae7 e Bthaet tfeorilekss Aba acnkd h Bom ases pigronuedd . t oIn t h1e8 9P9h iUlitpaphi nweesl, c tohmeye dse irtvse sdo tlhdeieirr boys home with an enormous celebration, complete with triumphal arches, proces-sions, feasts, and ceremony. It was an event to be remembered. In late April 1898 Governor Heber M. Wells called for 425 volunteers in response to the federal government's quota for troops from Utah. In less than a week the quota was filled. By war's end some 800 young men from Utah had volunteered and served in various branches of the military, according to historian Richard C. Roberts. Many of these enlistees in federal service came from Utah National Guard units. Utah volunteers during the Spanish- American War served primarily in engineering and cavalry units and artillery batteries. A special group of mounted riflemen from Utah comprised Troop I of Torrey's Roughriders. Though each man who enlisted served his country, only two artillery batteries participated in combat action. In addition, African- American soldiers in the regular Army, who made up the 24th Infantry Regiment and the 9th aamem Cavalry Regiment at Fort Douglas, performed relocating. The entire area- over 26,000 acres-- combat and hospital duties in Cuba. was returned to the public domain as potential The men who manned the guns in Batteries grazing land. A and B distinguished themselves in the Philip- The G1eave to pine Islands. Led by Captain Richard W. Young March 3, 1936- This was Otto's and Captain Frank Grant, the batteries were mus-gust 30, 1936, Charlie died as a result of an auto tered in on May 9, 1898, and received some accident in Kingston Canyon. He died onVirgi17s training at campK~ ~~ o n the F~~~~ ~~~ l~~ mili-and was buried in the Widtsoe tary reservation before leaving for Sari Francisco In time, and Maud come on May 20. They sailed for the Philippines in to rest in the Widtsoe cemetery as well. Except mid-~ unea nd by mid- July had disembarked on for a rush of activity on Memorial Day, the place the shore of Manila Bay. Fighting was heavy lies mute and Not far away, howev- around Manila, and the Utah artillery batteries er, Rob's Reservoir, so named by Gus Twitchell quickly became involved in the action. Manning who bought Rob's water rights in 19363 is a vi- their field guns, they helped to repel Spanish brant home to fish and other aquatic wildlife* attacks on the American lines during the last day Rainbow trout, up to three pounds in size, strike ~~ l~ and the first two weeks of A ~ at brass spinners then jump and splash as excited according to historian orson whitney. on anglers work to land their prize. August 13 they aided in the bombardment of The road to the reservoir is not in much bet- F~~~ s ari ~~~~~ i~ de ~ b an~ d tdhe spanish ter condition today than when first hacked out in trenches, resulting in the capture of ~ ~ and ~ 1923, but outdoor enthusiasts still find their way the defeat of the spanish army. spanish troops to that special place. surrendered on August 14, 1898. Rob Gleave would be proud. But for Batteries A and B the war was not Mrs. Loftus is the public information person for yet over. They became part of the occupational Sevier School District, Richfield. This article is based on force. Richard W. Young, now Major Young, was personal conversations with her father, Otto Wellington named chief Gleave, and accounts by Grant Nielsen, Mable Woodard However, the Filipinos did not like Ameri- Nielsen, and Irva Gleave Sudweeks in Johns Valley, The can control any better than Spanish control. In Way We Saw It ( Springville: Art City Publishing, 1971). February 1899 the Philippine Insurrection broke |
