A History of Garfield County

The first decades of a New century

CHAPTER 1 0 THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY W ith the year 1910 came the heavenly display of Halley's Comet. It appeared on the western horizon "each evening about dusk with a fan-like tail growing wider and brighter as time went by." Many residents believed that on a particular night in late spring "this great fan would strike the earth and great destruction" would follow. Because of this fear, some reportedly were driven to commit suicide and some farmers even were reluctant to plant their grain that year.1 Residents of Garfield County remembered that two and a half years earlier another bright light complete with a long flaming tail had appeared in the sky. It grew larger and larger until it crashed to the earth three miles west of Antimony in what is known as Pole Canyon. As the meteorite fell, it sheared off part of a cliff and its impact created a huge hole that rapidly filled up with shale rock; the sound of its impact had resounded for miles around.2 Now in 1910 could residents expect an occurrence far more serious? With the der­ring- do of youth, a group of young people in Hatch determined to spend the night of the expected calamity at the local reservoir. They wanted to see what would happen when the "great fan" hit the water. 233 234 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Repairing the Hatchtown reservoir Dam in the winter of 1911-1912. (Utah State Historical Society) With what might have been a mixture of disappointment and relief one of their number reported, "We waited until the hour had passed. No excitement whatsoever! Just a calm, lovely moonlit night!"3 Even though the immediate threat did not live up to their expec­tations, these young people actually had reason for apprehension- during the next two decades the drama of life would produce for them and others in Garfield County its share of excitement and tragedy. Like the rest of the nation, local residents felt the impact of U.S. participation in World War I and the worldwide 1918 influenza epidemic. But advancements in the structure of public education, increased population, the beginnings of economic exploitation of the county's most spectacular scenic attraction, Bryce Canyon, the advent of automobile ownership, and a dam failure all produced their share of excitement and progress. Floods, Fires, and Other Natural Disasters When one looks back on the adventure of these young citizens of Hatch, it seems only fitting that they should have gone to the reser­voir to witness an expected tumult of nature. Within a few short years THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 235 Hatchtown dam site after the failure of the dam in 1914. (Utah State Historical Society) of their nocturnal vigil, the reservoir would indeed be the site of wide-ranging destruction, although, gratefully, with no loss of human life. The Utah State Land Board and state engineer, after studying the suitability of the site for a dam, authorized the private engineering firm of Jensen and McLaughlin to begin construction in 1906 of a third dam along the Sevier River. Despite concerns expressed by the citizens of Hatch, this more sophisticated structure was completed by November 1908 at a cost of more than $84,000. Engineers soon discovered, however, that the water-control gates in the culvert did not function properly. The water was supposed to help raise the flood gates when the dam filled; but, instead, the pres­sure of the water made it impossible for the gates to open. The state engineer determined that the gates would have to be dynamited loose to allow the water to flow and relieve the pressure on the dam. The resulting explosion shook the whole structure but achieved the desired outcome. Workers later replaced the gates and repaired the damage to the culvert and tower. However, the structural integrity of the dam had been compromised. This, along with unstable soil con­ditions, a troublesome spring that the contractors failed to adequately 236 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY • • . . • . • " , •• . . . .. Governor William Spry (far right, looking down) visited Panguitch in 1914 after the dam at Hatch broke. (Utah State Historical Society) deal with earlier, and overall poor design and construction doomed the dam from the start.4 After several trying incidents and the constant efforts of towns­people to try to strengthen the dam, it became clear that a break was imminent. By mid-afternoon on 25 May 1914 residents all along the Panguitch Valley and north in the river's path were warned to move to higher ground. The dam finally broke that evening. It carried with it only one home in the relocated town of Hatch. Sam and Effel Riggs had recently purchased the home and lived there with their extended family. Riggs's mother, Priscilla, had just baked several loaves of bread when the dam broke. Her ten-year-old son, Earnest, grabbed the box of bread and ran with it to safety before the raging waters carried their home away. Those who had been critical of telephone service coming to the valley now had reason to reconsider. Alice Syrett stayed at her tele­phone to send the alarm through to Circleville Valley until the flood-waters engulfed even the telephone lines. A ten-foot-high wall of water began a devastating course, taking with it houses and out­buildings farther downriver, "tossing them like egg shells upon the THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 237 Roller Mill in Panguitch was abandoned after it was damaged during the 1914 Hatchtown Flood. foaming wave. . . . Crops were ruined, ditches and canals destroyed and in some places land was washed away and . . . mud was deposited over extensive areas," wrote one. Floodwaters reached the upper floor of the flour mill in Panguitch, "destroying the machinery, the stored wheat, and injuring the mill itself." The Fred C. Syrett home, a short distance east of the mill, was completely ruined by the flood, and the mill had to be abandoned. From that time until the present no flour mills have replaced it.5 The cost of the damage throughout the valley was estimated at one-half million dollars. One notices that there is no dam or reservoir to the southeast of Hatch today, and it is not likely there ever will be again. Another type of calamity that brought constant concern to early settlers of Garfield County was fire. Since most people built their homes and outbuildings of wood, and few ever painted them, the arid atmosphere caused the structures to become exceedingly dry. Methods of heating homes and cooking also increased the likelihood 238 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY of fires. Only the fact that residents usually lived a little farther apart than did residents of cities kept flames from spreading to other build­ings. People had no hope of putting a blaze out unless they discov­ered it early, since methods of bringing water to the fire were primitive. One could only hope to get loved ones out before it was too late. One devastating fire occurred in Hatch in 1909. Jim Elder had obtained a job working on the new Hatch dam, and he and his wife, Rainy, built a two-room frame home in town. On a calm, sunny day, Rainy left the two older boys playing in the yard and eight-year-old daughter Theda watching her sleeping baby brother while she walked quickly to Jobe Hall's new store. As she arrived, someone shouted that her house was on fire. Running back home, she saw Theda "emerge from the smoke filled doorway . . . choking with smoke and dragging a blanket in which she carried a crying baby."6 Many times such a sce­nario repeated itself throughout the early decades of county settle­ment. The community-minded townspeople of Cannonville had their trials by fire as well. Not long after they enlarged and renovated their schoolhouse, all their efforts literally went up in smoke. Late one night in 1912 a resident discovered a fire in the school and spread the alarm. People came from all directions "pulling their clothes on and trying to keep untied shoes on their feet," but the fire proved too much for them. "The only water they had was part of a barrel, mostly ice, that had been hauled from the creek for drinking water for the children."7 They saved very few school supplies and furnishings. One man did manage to pull the blackboard free of the wall, its frame charred but still intact. Only momentarily daunted by such misfortune, Cannonville cit­izens began anew. An up-to-date structure replaced the old one and included three classrooms with ample windows, entryway, halls, and storage. The bell tower housed a bell of "excellent tone and range." When the old blackboard was installed in the new school, its charred trim reminded everyone of the schoolhouse fire. In the new school, "heat was provided from two large, gravity flow, coal-wood furnaces; each installed in its own concrete [pad] which protected the flue all the way through the building to the attic. They would not chance THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 239 another fire," wrote one historian.8 Thus, out of the ashes, rose a modern building in which the residents took great pride. Sometimes fires produced some immediate fringe benefits. Vera Fotheringham recalled just such a fire in downtown Panguitch dur­ing the early 1920s. The old Myers and Henrie Store had long since been converted into a movie theater, named the Elite and owned by Lyle and Elida Hatch. To take maximum advantage of the space, Lyle Hatch stored his potatoes underneath the stage. After the building caught fire, only the outer shell remained. However, when all the hot spots had cooled down, the "cooked" potatoes remained warm for days. Vera and many of her schoolmates made frequent stops to the burned-out theater and helped themselves to a delicious snack of roasted potatoes.9 The show house was rebuilt and served the com­munity for several years as the Gem Theater. Tragedy at Blue Springs In 1908 the Utah Department of Fish and Game hired John "Jack" D. Morrill to operate a fish hatchery at Blue Springs that was designed to replenish Panguitch Lake and other fished-out waters in the area with rainbow and eastern brook trout. One contemporary described Morrill as "a very intelligent man and a very religious man [who] was kind to everyone . . . the same with his wife, Emma."10 Born in Kanarraville and raised in Parowan, Emma Carson met Jack Morrill in Junction, Piute County, where she had gone as a teenager to work in her adopted sister's hotel. She was eighteen and he twenty-two when they married in 1893. In 1908 Jack and Emma moved their four children (LaBaron, Belle, Melvin, and Clair) to Blue Springs, where they took up year-round residence. Although the fam­ily was often isolated by deep snows throughout much of the winter, they did have a phone that connected them to Parowan and to the Sevy Ranch on the Panguitch side of the mountain. Emma gave birth to another daughter, Mildred, in March 1910 and another son, Ben, three years later. Her widowed mother, Hannah Waggle Carson, spent seven summers at Blue Springs with the family, helping her daughter with children and meals. During those beautiful summer months they entertained streams of visitors with a crank-type freezer full of homemade ice cream and "lots of 240 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Emma Morrill and Children at Blue Springs in 1912. (Courtesy Barbara B. Burt) fresh fish." The two women reportedly fed "people by the dozens." Emma would remember her eight years there as some of her happi­est. 11 Her husband, who had previously been a schoolteacher, home-taught their six children. When the oldest son, LaBaron, was twelve he was sent to Junction to live with relatives and attend a regular school. He had not been there long, however, when he became extremely ill with appendicitis. John and Emma were notified and hurried to Junction, where the boy died in his mother's arms. Emma became pregnant with a seventh child in 1912. As the time for her delivery came closer, Jack took her to Parowan, where her sis­ter, Alta Carson Pendleton, was to help with the birth. But Alta died unexpectedly just a few days after Emma arrived. Another sister, Rebecca Carson Miller, was also expecting a baby at that time, so with no one to care for Emma during her confinement the couple returned to Blue Springs, where the baby boy was soon born. He lived only three days. Jack built a tiny casket for his infant son and accom­panied the body down the mountain to the Panguitch cemetery for burial. The winter of 1915-16 turned particularly nasty, and the Morrill THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 241 family was snowed in for most of December and January. According to one account, the fourteen-foot snowdrifts piled "almost to the eves of their porch." However, the family "happily spent its Christmas with a beautifully decorated tree and gifts long since carried from town." By 26 January the weather lifted. Eager to have mail from family and friends, Jack determined to go to the Sevy Ranch for mail the next day, as they had not had any mail for weeks. Emma wrote several let­ters for him to post at the ranch, including one to her sister Rebecca in which she expressed her uneasiness with her husband's venture.12 Emma watched Jack leave on horseback at 7:00 A.M. on Tuesday morning. She could see him ride across the large meadow to the ridge north of Blue Springs Valley, where the drifts became too much for the animal. Still in sight of the cabin, he tied his horse to a tree and proceeded on snowshoes down the mountain and past William Prince's summer ranch, leaving his warm outer coat strapped to the back of his saddle. At the Sevy Ranch Jack found about twenty-five pounds of Christmas mail and packages waiting for his family. Rebecca Miller recalled that "he phoned Emma and told her he had made it all right, he had rested some, had his dinner and would start back about 2 o'clock. He thought he could reach home around 9 o'clock." By the time he left the ranch, however, a "terrible storm" had begun and the Sevys tried to persuade him to wait it out. Worried about his own family and certain he would be alright, he disappeared into the tem­pest. This storm proved so furious that it blew out a number of large windows in Panguitch. In the mountains, four feet of new snow fell on drifts already ten to twelve feet high. An anxious Emma fought the snow and wind to the barn, where she did evening chores, milking their two cows, feeding the horses, and bringing in more firewood. For two days and two nights the fam­ily watched and waited as the storm raged, plunging temperatures as low as 23 degrees below zero. Emma and ten-year-old Belle, the old­est of the children, took turns around the clock cranking the tele­phone to try to get a message over the storm-damaged lines to someone in Parowan or at Sevy's Ranch to tell them Jack had not returned. At one point, Emma turned to Belle and said, "If you will stay with the children I believe I can put on those snowshoes and go 242 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY out and find Daddy." This frightened the youngsters even more; they "cried and begged her not to go."13 Meanwhile, at Parowan, Clara Matheson Benson took over at the telephone switchboard for her sister on 27 January. The two women had just been discussing their concerns for the Morrill family because they not heard from them in six weeks. Clara hadn't been at the board five minutes when she noticed the little disc (which fell when someone rang in) quivering, but it didn't fall to make a complete sig­nal. She quickly plugged in the connection and heard Emma crying and pleading, "Oh someone please answer me, any one please answer." Clara steadied her own voice. "Aunt Emma, this is Clara, is there something wrong?" "Oh thank God for you," Emma blurted. Then she informed Clara of Jack's venture and that he had not returned. The young tele­phone operator later wrote of her part in the drama: I told Aunt Emma to be sure and not hang the receiver of the phone up. . . . Then I told her my father, Simon A. Matheson, was eating dinner and I would call him to talk to her. He cautioned about the phone and told her to promise she wouldn't leave the house . . . and we would send help to her.14 Immediately after talking with Emma, Clara Matheson went for her sisters, Lizzie Carson Skougaard and Becky Carson Miller, so they could talk to her on the telephone and help keep her on the line. Clara's husband, Philip Benson, began organizing a search party. At a mass meeting that evening, the opinion prevailed that the storm was too dangerous to send anyone out into it. According to Clara, "Phil was so angry he stood up saying, 'You in this building are all cozy and warm, but I am going to that family if I go alone. Is there any one with me?'" Three men-Fred Bruhn, John Dalton, and John C. Gould-agreed to join him. Simon Matheson gave Benson a tele­phone test set to carry on his back. They agreed on a set of pre­arranged signals to let Clara know where they were. "You can't hear us but we will hear you," he said. The searchers left at 5:00 A.M. the next morning. With the telephone lines to Panguitch down, Clara and her father THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 243 decided to send a telegram there for help. The telegraph message had to go from Parowan to Cedar City, then through a number of other stations to San Francisco and back through Salt Lake City to Panguitch. It cost $14.75-a hefty sum in those days. The telegram read: Parowan Utah Regardless of cost or distance and rush, John Morrill missing from Blue Spring Hatchery. Must have help. 4 Parowan men already gone. Simon A. Matheson Clara M. Benson When the message arrived in Panguitch, men there also organized a search party. "The telephone closed at 10 P.M. but I told them I was going to stay," Clara remembered, "I could answer the switchboard as well as keeping in touch [with the searchers], and we had to keep talking to Emma and the children.... What a long day and night." At one point, little Belle came on the line and tried to talk through her tears. "Now listen, Belle," Clara told her, "stop crying and tell me so we can help." "Mom has gone for the horse," she sobbed. Simon took the phone and instructed her: "Call loud. Tell [your] mother to come back to the phone." When Emma returned, Simon made her promise she would not go out again. Finally, the blizzard abated. Emma ventured outside for the first time since the storm began. She cleared a path to the barn and with an ax chopped the ice from the door. She climbed the ladder to the loft, forked down hay for the hungry animals, and milked the cows. Returning to the house, she again talked on the phone with Clara. When the searchers from Parowan reached the other side of the moun­tain just after noon, they plugged in their phone and heard Emma say to Clara, "Bless their hearts, I hope and pray they make it ok." By late afternoon the men reached the ridge above Panguitch Lake. They could see two men carrying something toward William Prince's cabin on the west side of the lake. Frank Worthen and Ruby Syrett had found John Morrill's frozen body laying on one mail sack with another still strapped to his back. He had wandered in the bliz- 244 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY zard until he fell face first into the snow, overcome by the intense cold. The Parowan men reached the Prince cabin a short time later, as did John Gould from Panguitch. They loaded the body onto a makeshift toboggan made from a "cheese board." Worthen and sev­eral men from both groups took the body to Sevy's Ranch. Clara still sat at the Parowan switchboard when Worthen called with the news: "Hello, we found Morrill." Emma, who was also listening, cried out, "Dead or Alive?" "Dead," came the answer. Worthen hung up the receiver, not knowing he had told Emma of her husband's death. Benson, Syrett and another Panguitch man went on to Blue Springs, reaching the Morrill family at about 11:00 P.M. The grieving Emma welcomed them with great relief and fixed them a warm meal. When they told her they wanted to take the family out to Panguitch, she begged them to leave them there; "she couldn't stand to think of the suffering they would have to go through to take her out," Clara wrote. The men found two pair of skis and some lumber in John's shop. They built a box large enough to accommodate the grief-stricken widow and the five children, piled hay in the bottom, and placed heated rocks in the blankets tucked around them, then started down the mountain. They pulled the sleigh themselves until Panguitch men with horses met them. One of the rescuers later recalled, "Mrs. Morrill never uttered a sound of discouragement or fear. She gained the respect of the men who so fearlessly were rescu­ing her and her children." Quantities of food sent by the people of Panguitch awaited them at the Sevy Ranch: "whole hams, loaves of bread, whole cheese, wash boilers of hot coffee-were all results of the wholesome community spirit which existed," according to one account.15 John L. Morrill was buried in Junction, where Emma and the children continued to live. She later married widower George Davies, who carried the mail between Junction and Escalante for many years. They had two more children. Turn-of-the-Century Medical Care For assistance in times of illness or childbirth Garfield residents depended primarily on midwives. In Panguitch, Hannah Brandon THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 245 Shakespear, one of many who deserve mention, is said to have deliv­ered 630 babies. Her charge of five dollars included the delivery and nine days of postnatal care. Mariah Schow and Ida Chatwin played a similar role during Tropic's early settlement years. When the town's LDS Relief Society was organized on 11 November 1895, many of the church women aided in the care of the sick and preparation of the dead for burial. Midwives in the upper Paria Valley included Miriam Adelia Riding, known as "Aunt Dee," who traveled by horse and buggy to deliver babies in Cannonville, Henrieville, and Tropic. Just south of Cannonville, "Grandma" Nielson performed the same task. These women gained their practical knowledge mainly by experience. Gradually, however, midwives started to receive better training, and a number became nurses. Panguitch did not have its first doctor until the 1890s when Dr. Moses Usher Campbell relocated to the town from New York for his health. Dr. J.J. Steiner followed, and he remained in Panguitch until 1904. His father then took over his position until Dr. R. Garn Clark could complete his medical studies and come home to practice. For thirteen years townspeople came to Dr. Clark, but in the end the opportunity to work in a regular hospital drew him to Richfield. Other doctors followed, most staying for only brief periods; an excep­tion was Dr. M.W. Bigelow, who provided medical care to the com­munity for many years. None of the towns in Garfield had a hospital, so the various doctors and nurses set up small clinics and hospitals in private homes. Appendicitis, or inflammation of the bowels, as it was called, was a common affliction and created concern during these early times. Tropic's Jesse Jolley became the first resident of the county to live after an appendicitis operation; Drs. Garn and Cecil Clark performed the operation in Panguitch in July 1911. For setting broken bones, especially if an accident occurred during the winter when travel was impossible, Tropic residents usually went to Waldo Littlefield, a local resident without formal medical training but adept at this procedure. They called upon Sam Pollock to pull their teeth, another resident whose only professional credential was that he owned a pair of for­ceps. He often paid the patient a quarter for the tooth. Throughout 246 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY the county, kitchen tables doubled as operating tables when doctors and dentists came through town to perform tonsillectomies or other procedures. The Automobile Comes to Garfield Excitement came to the county through a manmade source-the automobile. Although information concerning the date this mechan­ical marvel first arrived in most local communities is lacking, locals recollected who owned the first machines. Theodore Chidester intro­duced the automobile to Panguitch with his Model-T Ford around 1912. Soon after, George Hanks bought one and the two men began carrying passengers to the train in Marysvale-a business they con­ducted for years. Alma Barney and his son Newton entered a contest selling farm machinery and won a striking red Chalmers automobile from the Montgomery Ward company. Alma nearly lost his prize, however, when he took the car to Bryce Canyon. The primitive road ended abruptly at the canyon's edge, offering a sudden and spectacu­lar view-so sudden that he almost drove over the brink. The early automobiles captured the interest of the town's young people to the degree that they were willing to pay a whopping fifty cents to ride around town in one.16 John Whitehead Seaman also owned one of the early cars in Panguitch. Seaman already had a certain distinction among his fel­low citizens, and this acquisition simply added to his stature. A Union veteran of the Civil War, he had had the privilege of meeting President Lincoln, even serving as a member of the honor guard at the assassinated president's funeral. Seaman's passion was dancing. He willingly used his car to transport the town band wherever they played so he had an excuse to attend the dances. During his eighty-eighth year, the Republican Club of Utah invited him to speak dur­ing a Lincoln Day celebration. The trip took its toll, however, and he died on 17 February 1930, a few days after his return home.17 In his lifetime this gentleman, along with other early arrivals, experienced much as the county advanced from a pioneer way of life into the wonders of the twentieth century. Virginia Hardy Smith recalled that the first cars in Henrieville belonged to a Mr. Fife and a Mr. Ahlstrom.18 Wallace Ott remem- THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 247 fffi. SAROENT ' a. Fred Sargent and Joe Cherrington's Garage in Panguitch. (Courtesy Dorothy Houston) bered that William Shakespear had the first and for a long time only car in Tropic. Like most early car owners of the county, Shakespear ordered his vehicle, a Model-T Ford, from a catalog; but Ott couldn't remember if it was from Sears, Roebuck ck Company or from Montgomery Ward. Shakespear had to travel two days on the mail buggy to the railhead at Marysvale to claim his car. He spent a short time in that town learning how to drive his new acquisition, then started home. The drive to Tropic took two more days on the poor roads. These early cars had only two forward gears, low and high. Shakespear used the low gear most of the time, once again because of the road conditions. As a result, the automobile made lots of noise, disturbing local horses and other stock. Ott's father reportedly had to "hold his mare by the bit to keep it from running away" whenever the auto went by. When Shakespear wanted to travel up the "dump" road to leave Tropic, he had to back up the hill, since the gas tank was located in the back of the vehicle and gasoline couldn't get to the motor if he traveled forward.19 Coming back down over the dump also presented problems. One time Shakespear's brakes went out and he stopped the car by steering 248 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Building the road through Circleville Canyon about 1912. (Utah State Historical Society) into a road bank, thus averting serious injury to himself, his wife, and family. Horses pulled the car home, and his wife, Matilda, "made new brake bands by sewing bib overall straps together. They worked fine, and lasted as long as the car, but he soon sold the car to Maurice Cope," according to a local historian.20 A crowd of children, with some grown-ups interspersed, greeted the first car to come into Escalante. A salesman known as "Candy" Smith made his grand entrance by automobile around 1914. Going down hills in town did not amaze the crowd as much as Smith's abil­ity to go up them. Al Sherman probably owned the first car in the community, a Ford, but others soon followed, driving Fords, Maxwells, Stars, or Essexes. As automobile numbers increased, Charlie Weiss saw the need for an auto repair shop. He built and operated the first one in Escalante during the 1920s.21 The advent of vehicular travel also spawned road improvements. The U.S. Forest Service reconstructed the road over Escalante Mountain to Winder (Widtsoe), creating a better grade and a smoother surface. Still, where the road crossed the mountain at its lowest point the elevation was 9,200 feet. Travelers had little trouble making it over the mountain during mild weather, but it often THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 249 became impassable during heavy rainstorms and in the winter. An improved route was still decades away.22 The people of Boulder had their first experience with an auto­mobile when brothers Tom and Orin Barker arrived from Escalante after telephoning ahead that they were on their way. They drove a "stripped-down Model T Ford consisting of a frame, wheels, motor, and a seat. A roll of net wire was tied to the floor board." Each time the two came to deep patches of sand, Tom unrolled the wire and spread it over the road so Orin could drive across it. After rolling up the net, Tom hopped back in and off they went. Even though the Ford could make the steep grades on its own power, the trip took them eight hours. A crowd gathered at the schoolhouse to await their arrival and marveled as the Barkers rehearsed all the details of their journey. Prior to their return trip, "they roared away in a cloud of dust the full length of Boulder Valley, scattering chickens and fright­ening all the animals en route."23 Boulder's next encounter with mechanized travel occurred in April 1925 when four young men-Jody Griffin, Cal Shurtz, Emmitt Porter, and Theron Griffin-arrived in a cloth-top Model-T Ford. The men remained in town for Friday and Saturday night dances and further entertained the townspeople with their singing to the accom­paniment of Percy Leavitt's accordion and Amanda Peterson's piano. By the following year residents of the community owned a half-dozen cars. Publicizing Bryce Canyon The coming of the automobile to Garfield County signaled the birth of a new industry-tourism. County residents had known the splendor of Bryce Canyon for decades, but the roads to the canyon were little more than wagon trails, and sight-seeing trips were hardly an option in the working world of pioneers. But the arrival of the automobile and the transfer of forest supervisor W.H. Humphrey from Moab to Panguitch on 1 July 1915 helped catapult the local scenic wonder to the nation's attention. Elias Smith, forest ranger of the East Fork Division, invited Humphrey to go with him to see the canyon. Although Humphrey "was loath to take the time right then . . . the ranger insisted." The first view of the canyon from the west 250 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY "Nooning" in Red Canyon on the road to Bryce Canyon 25 May 1916. (Utah State Historical Society) rim near Sunset Point stunned the new supervisor, who later referred to it as "the most beautiful piece of natural scenery on the face of the earth."24 "You can perhaps imagine my surprise at the indescribable beauty that greeted us," Humphrey wrote. "It was sundown before I could be dragged from the canyon view. . . . I went back the next morning to see the canyon once more, and to plan in my mind how this attraction could be made accessible to the public."25 Humphery assigned the task of publicizing Bryce Canyon to Mark Anderson, foreman of the Forest Service grazing crew. Anderson's first view of the canyon came early the next spring. Immediately after returning to Panguitch he called the telegraph sta­tion in Marysvale, Piute County, and requested that a message be sent to the district forest office in Ogden asking that George Goshen, regional Forest Service photographer, "be sent down to Bryce Canyon with movie and still cameras to take pictures of the grazing crew 'at work' near the plateau rim." Goshen lost no time; he arrived in Panguitch the next evening and worked all the following day. A stack THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 251 of photographs and the movie were sent to Forest Service officials in Washington and also made available to Union Pacific Railroad offi­cials in Omaha, Nebraska.26 The first two descriptive articles about Bryce Canyon came out in the latter part of 1916. One was by a member of the grazing crew, Arthur W. Stevens, who wrote an article illustrated with Goshen's photographs for the Union Pacific publication, Outdoor Life. The sec­ond was an article for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad's periodical Red Book dictated by Humphrey and published under the name of clerk J.J. Drew. Since this railroad had a spur as far south as Marysvale, Humphery tried to interest its owners in the tourism pos­sibilities of Bryce, Zion, and Grand canyons, with Marysvale as the jumping-off station. He may even have hoped that the line would be extended on to Panguitch, which, however, never happened. Meanwhile, a Panguitch couple, Clara Armeda (Minnie) and Reuben (Ruby) Carlson Syrett welcomed their first daughter to the world on 15 March 1916. For some time they had been looking for a place to start a ranch, and they began homesteading a quarter section near Bryce Canyon that May. "Most people in Panguitch thought the Syretts were foolish to homestead in such a desolate locale," wrote one observer. It was not until mid-summer that a Tropic rancher, Claude Sudweeks, stopped by to chat. He asked if they had seen Bryce Canyon. Ruby said they hadn't and asked what it was. "O, just a hole in the ground, but you ought to see it," came the reply. On a Sunday afternoon soon after Sudweeks's visit, the Syretts took their buggy to take a look at the canyon. Minnie recalled, "We were speechless, just stood and looked and looked. When we could talk, we could only whisper." Later that summer friends from Panguitch began visiting the canyon at the Syretts' invitation. "We began to take our friends and advertise as much as we could, we thought everyone should see it," they said. Between 1916 and 1919 the deep snow and cold caused the Syretts to spend most of the winter months in Escalante, where the family had agricultural interests and Ruby helped run his brother's gristmill.27 Not long after the Syretts took up residence on their homestead, J.W. Humphrey secured fifty dollars from the National Forest Service 252 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY One of two mills at the Antimony mines in Coyote (Antimony) Canyon, about 1905. (Utah State Historical Society) to build crude bridges over the East Fork of the Sevier River and the canal in the area. Homesteaders in the area donated most of the labor to construct a road to the canyon that would be passable in dry weather; but it was impossible to travel in wet conditions. The forest supervisor also arranged for another photographer to photograph Bryce Canyon. In Humphery's words, he "secured some of the best pictures taken up to that time" and made postcards from them. "These he placed on sale, and they added to the advertisement of Bryce Canyon." That same summer of 1917 the director of the Utah State Automobile Association, C.B. Hawley, drove to Bryce Canyon. He also came away impressed. As a result of Hawley's visit and later excursions by other Automobile Association officials, Salt Lake Tribune photographer Oliver J. Grimes came to take pictures of the canyon the next summer. He published a full-page article entitled "Utah's New Wonderland," which appeared in the Tribunes Sunday magazine section on 25 August 1918. The article gave detailed direc­tions for finding Bryce Canyon by automobile. "Utah's New Wonderland" became the most widely read article on Bryce Canyon to that date and put the area on the road to national park status. In the midst of this optimistic enthusiasm for Bryce THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 253 Ruby and Minnie Syrett's first home in Panguitch. They began home-steading near Bryce Canyon in 1916. (Courtesy Ruby's Inn) Canyon's potential as a tourist attraction, however, the realities of World War I preempted both local and national interest. World War I In terms of sacrifice, residents of Garfield County suffered com­paratively little as America went to war in 1917; although, consider­ing its population, a comparatively large number of the county's young men served their country. Since U.S. participation came late in the conflict and actual fighting for American troops was of rela­tively short duration, many young Garfield County men did not even leave the United States before the armistice. Local citizens did sup­port President Woodrow Wilson's decision to enter the struggle. Many had to put their personal lives on hold when they volunteered for service. Those who stayed at home did what was asked of them to support the war effort. James Alvin Ott, a twelve-year-old boy living in Tropic when the U.S. went to war, remembered learning patriotic songs in school and that everyone did without things that needed to be sent overseas. He wrote, "This economizing came to be called 'Hooverizing' after Mr. Herbert Hoover, then in charge, nationally. . . . There were liberty 254 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY The original Tourist's Rest established by Ruby and Minnie Syrett and acquired by the National Park Service in 1923. (Courtesy Ruby's Inn) bonds to buy, wheatless and meatless days to observe. I got so tired of cornmeal bread and mush."28 Alvin's older brother, Joseph Alma Ott, although not old enough to be drafted, cut short his education to volunteer for duty. In the fall of 1918 he got as far as Salt Lake City, ready to enter training camp, when the war ended. After being dis­charged, he returned home, never to resume his schooling again.29 Seven young men from Tropic served honorably in the armed forces during World War I. All returned home safely. All eight of those serving from Coyote (Antimony) also survived to receive honorable discharges. Their hometown became involved in the war, too. Even though the mining of antimony up the canyon had ceased long before the turn of the century, when the price of the ore started to rise in 1905-06 two companies resumed operations there. As mentioned earlier, antimony was valued as an alloy for strengthening lead and other metals. Local men helped build two new mills in Coyote Canyon, but only one ever operated. By the time they completed construction of a three-story structure, installed a crusher, and added an assay office the price of the ore once again THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 255 Peter LeFevre (sitting) leaving for World War I in 1918. (Courtesy Steve Marshall) plummeted-going from almost twenty-two cents a pound in 1906 to eight cents a pound in 1908. The beginning of the war, however, caused the price to soar to a record of more than thirty cents in 1915. Local antimony mines sent substantial amounts of ore to Marysvale to be shipped on to ammunition plants before the mines began to run out of the high-grade ore the plants required. By 1918 the price had dropped substantially again, to under thirteen cents a pound, ending the war-time "boom" in Coyote. In 1920, however, because of the large amounts of ore taken out of the canyon, local residents decided to rename their town Antimony.30 Other Garfield towns also saw their young men go off to war. David Quilter from Henrieville had recently emigrated from Great Britain. He served along with four other members of his commu­nity. Quilter did not see action overseas but spent the war in Washington state sorting lumber for building airplanes and training new men.31 Ten men from Cannonville served during the war; Widtsoe sent twenty-five. Hatch contributed twelve men to the U.S. 256 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY fighting forces, with one man, Gilbert Yardley, dying while in the ser­vice. As elsewhere in the county, young men in Escalante between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one had to register for the draft dur­ing the war. Henry Barney took charge of the registration at the local meetinghouse. The first call-up required 5 percent of those regis­tered. William Henry Richards and Ellis Shurtz were the first to go. The ward held a farewell party for them and gave each one a signet ring before they left on 4 September 1917. They did this for each group as they departed until the last inductions in October 1918. The draft eventually took forty-five young men from Escalante. Six of them were sent home because of various physical problems. Thirteen of the inductees saw service overseas, and one of them, William Henry Richards, died in action in France on 28 July 1918. His par­ents, William and Florence Richards, did not receive his body so he could be buried at home until three years later. One of the men who served from Escalante, Cliff Reynolds, later had seven sons, all of whom were in the military, serving either during World War II or the Korean War.32 Among all the towns in Garfield County that sent men to war, Panguitch residents made the greatest sacrifice; forty-seven went from that community and eight of them did not come back alive. James Dodds, Merlin Proctor, and Earl Riggs were killed in Europe and were buried there. Proctor's mother, Martha, eventually went to France with a group of war mothers to visit her son's grave. Henry LeFevre's body was returned home from France and buried in Panguitch, as were those of George Woodard, Christian Best, Douglas McEwen and Glen Miller.33 The families of these young men sacri­ficed much. But even as the war wound down an even greater num­ber of county residents experienced such sorrow. The Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919 The comparative isolation of Garfield County towns proved to be a mixed blessing when the worldwide Spanish influenza epidemic began in 1918. For two communities, at least, it kept the impact of the disease to a minimum. On the other hand, the lack of local trained medical help limited the care available to those who con- THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 257 tracted the disease. From town to town so many became ill that some of the few not affected went among their neighbors offering what assistance they could. In Tropic the townspeople took immediate steps to keep the flu from entering their community. They banned all public and private social gatherings, kept children at home from school, and prevented transients from entering the town. For a time these policies seemed effective, but during 1919 almost everyone in town came down with the flu at the same time, although it was a less deadly strain than that experienced in other communities.34 James Ott and his son Joseph Alma received word while they were out at their ranch that the rest of their family in town were down with the flu. Even though young Joe's mother, Janet Johnson Ott, advised him to stay outside, Joe entered the home and found everyone too sick to even get up for a drink of water or to make a fire. He assured his mother he would not get sick, and he went from bed to bed trying to meet each need. Happily, he was right. He rose often during the night to care for family members. Each morning he did what he could for them, then made the rounds to other homes of flu-stricken families in town. He fed and milked cows-some having been neglected for days-chopped and hauled wood, carried water, and gave food and medicine to the sick. When he returned home in the evening, he once again cared for his own family. Meanwhile, his father checked frequently on them but felt it wiser not to enter the home since someone had to work the farm and ranch.35 According to Joe's younger brother, James, several townspeople died from the dis­ease and perhaps more would have had not people like Joe stepped in to help.36 At Henrieville, the LDS Relief Society had Eda Willis Quilter and Audry Moore check on the sick of the community. Eda had recently married David Quilter in Salt Lake City after he was discharged from military service. He had been exposed to influenza while still sta­tioned in Washington, where he saw many soldiers succumb to the disease. Upon returning home, after traveling by train to Marysvale, by buggy to Panguitch, and then on to Henrieville with the mail, the couple were quarantined. Even though Eda previously had a light case of the flu, her husband never contracted it from her or his army 258 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY buddies. When she was released from quarantine she and Audry Moore made large pots of soup to take to the sick. When they arrived at Jim and Dorie Goulding's house, Jim Goulding was sitting in the middle of the bed holding his pregnant wife, who was dying. Two other Henrieville residents also died during the epidemic.37 In Antimony, John Reuben Jolley and his wife, Kate Effie Wilcox, witnessed friends and family succumb to the disease. As was the case in other Garfield communities, few in the town were well enough to help the very sick. Those who could help did farm and other outside chores, brought groceries to the stricken families, and performed other needed services. Despite this, four residents died from the flu- George Jolley, Arella Smoot, Thomas Ricketts, and Nephi Black. The death toll might have climbed higher had Antimony not had the part-time services of a doctor. Just prior to the epidemic a Dr. Moorehouse began to practice in nearby Junction. During the epi­demic he devoted hundreds of hours to caring for the residents of Piute County towns as well as those in Antimony.38 Widtsoe was not immune from the spread of the disease. Adella Zabriskie recalled, "I look back with sadness on the influenza epi­demic of 1918-19. We lost many young people at that time; nearly the whole town was down with it." She went on to say that her own family and that of Orrel Zabriskie did not catch the flu, so Orrel and her husband, George, "wore face masks and went to the homes, where they chopped and carried wood. They also brought water to the doors," leaving it outside on the porches.39 Like most citizens of that era, residents tried to help each other, particularly close friends. In some places outside the county, however, some people suffered because their neighbors were too frightened to help. Such instances do not seem to have been experienced in Garfield County, at least according to written memoirs. Lillie Zabriskie Cuyler remembered big kettles of soup on the stove and pans of bread baking to help feed the sick. "Mother helped nurse several who had it, and one I remember who died in her arms was a Stoddard boy," Cuyler wrote. Another resident, Vird Barney, related how hard it was to dig graves fast enough. He remembered the time he and Richard Frederick Robinson, a "fine able-bodied young man," were digging the grave of Gertrude Young Bullock and THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 259 Robinson remarked, "One of these days you'll be digging my grave." He died three days later, and his friend Vird dug his grave.40 Although individual community figures are lacking, according to the U.S. Bureau of Census and Utah school census records, the num­ber of deaths in the county increased substantially during 1918 and 1919. Deaths in 1917 totaled forty-three. In 1918 there were fifty-eight deaths, and in 1919 there were sixty-three. By comparison, after the epidemic had run its course, in 1920 deaths numbered only thirty-three. Only once in the next two decades did they rise above fifty again, and that was in 1923 when fifty-three residents died. However, by that time the population had increased by between 100 and 200 residents over what it was during the two epidemic years. Although precise numbers are not available, old-time residents claim that Panguitch suffered a higher percentage of deaths and ill­ness per capita than anywhere else in the county, perhaps even the state. During the winter of 1918, while residents celebrated the Christmas holidays, the flu arrived in that town. By the end of the first week in January the disease had overtaken most of the popula­tion. The call went out to surrounding communities to send help. Many, including two or three doctors, arrived from Parowan and other locales to take care of the critically ill. Dr. Willard S. Sargent and his wife were in Philadelphia when she caught the flu and soon died. When he brought her body by train as far as Marysvale no one could be spared to help him take her body on to Panguitch or even dig her grave. He took her body back to Logan, where they had been living, buried her there, then came back to Panguitch to help the sick. So many people died that residents had difficulty properly bury­ing of the dead. Regular funerals were out of the question, so Sarah D. Syrett, Lovisa Miller, Leona Riddle, and Beulah Allen sewed bur­ial clothing and prepared bodies for internment. Thomas Haycock and John C. Miller went to the homes of the deceased to remove the bodies and transport them to the cemetery. There Brandon Shakespear, Joseph Miller, and Arza Judd dug the graves. These people hardly had time to stop to eat during the worst of the epi­demic. Death often came swiftly. One family lost three members in twenty-four hours. 260 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Each day before seeing to his livestock, James L. Miller went to the cemetery to dedicate the graves. Postmaster L.C. Sargent closed the post office and took over those duties when Miller couldn't be there. Some burials even took place illuminated by automobile head­lights. Adding to the town burden, the electric lights reportedly "froze up" during that cold January and no one could fix them.41 Neither before nor since has the community of Panguitch experienced such a human toll. Fortunately, a few seemed immune to the disease and admirably performed many acts of service similar to those performed by residents in other Utah towns. Only one community in Garfield County escaped the influenza epidemic. Isolated Boulder instituted a quarantine as soon as word came of the outbreak in Escalante. Visiting neighboring communi­ties by town members was strictly forbidden. As a result, no one liv­ing in that valley caught the flu. Even Mercel Liston, living alone on his homestead in the area called the Draw, reported that no one in Boulder came near him when he brought the mail from Escalante. Several people in Escalante died from the disease, including Gilbert Mclnelly and his half-brother Leonard Fallis, Robert Barker, Chester Shurtz, Susannah Spencer Schow, Laura Lay Griffin, Eliza Alvey Porter, and Emma Roe Pollock. Emma's husband, Allen Pollock, only heard of his wife's death when he entered their home in Escalante after returning from the war. Gilbert Mclnelly's widow, Mildred, had four children to care for. Susannah Schow's husband, Andrew, was left with five children. The two surviving parents later married and combined their families and responsibilities.42 Once the crisis of the flu epidemic passed, residents of Garfield County had reason for optimism. Each community could point to its own marked advancements that had made life a little more pleasant and "civilized" for its citizens. Most of these improvements came about because of united efforts among townspeople; outside forces influenced other developments. The Creation of Bryce Canyon National Park Oliver J. Grimes, the Salt Lake Tribune photographer who had written about and lavishly illustrated Bryce Canyon in his earlier arti­cle, had become Utah Secretary of State to Governor Simon THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 261 Bamberger. Although he was unable to persuade the governor to assist in making the canyon more accessible (Bamberger reportedly once said, "I will build no roads to rocks!") Grimes did have more influence with the Utah Legislature, which passed a "Joint Memorial" on 13 March 1919 directed to the United States Congress. "On the public domain within the boundaries of the Sevier national Forest, in the Pink Mountain region, near Tropic, Garfield County, Utah," the document read, "there is a canyon popularly referred to as 'Bryce's Canyon' which has become famed for its wonderful natural beauty." The legislators reminded Congress of the state and federal govern­ments' interest in protecting and preserving "natural attractions" and asked Congress to "set aside for the use and enjoyment of the people a suitable area embracing 'Bryce's Canyon' as a national monument under the name of the 'Temple of the Gods National Monument.'"43 A large group from Salt Lake City ventured south to see Bryce Canyon for themselves later that spring. Homesteaders Ruby and Minnie Syrett pitched a tent near Sunset Point and served lunch to the tourists. Ruby Syrett then went back to his ranch for more food and a half-dozen beds to set up under the pines. He and Minnie cooked breakfast for the campers the next morning. The meal was hardly over when more people began arriving. As one writer said, "Whether by design or chance the Syretts began accommodating tourists. They remained near Sunset Point until that fall."44 The following spring, Ruby and Minnie Syrett put up a number of tent houses for tourists to sleep in and got verbal permission from the Utah State Land Board to build a log lodge on part of the desig­nated state school section in the area. They started construction of a lodge they called "Tourist's Rest." The building measured 30 by 71 feet and had a kitchen, storeroom, several adjoining bedrooms, and a large dining room with a stone fireplace at one end. The big double front doors acted as an informal sort of register where guests delighted in carving their names. Nearby the Syretts built a few small cabins and an open-air dance platform that, at 35 by 76 feet, was larger than the lodge itself. Ruby Syrett carved the center out of a large log, using it for a bathtub, and leaving the bark on the outside. The inside he painted white, "and people who bathed in it thought it a great novelty and talked about it for years."45 262 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Ruby and Minnie Syrett were very good western host and host­ess. Dressed like the real rancher he was, the genial Ruby greeted guests with a smile and a handshake, while Minnie combined her lively personality with courtesy and the serving of good food. But Tourist's Rest would be short-lived, as other forces moved to take advantage of the unique landscape. Over the next four years negotiations between the State of Utah, the National Park Service, and the Union Pacific Railroad took place. Steven Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, urged Governor Charles R. Mabey and the Utah State Legislature to make Bryce Canyon a state park rather than a national park. A meeting was convened in Salt Lake City on 19 December 1921 to create a state park commission. The legislative Committee on Legislation and Geographic Boundaries sent a recommendation to the new commis­sion that "Bryce Canyon be made the first of a series of state parks." Three years later, however, the state had failed to do anything more, and in 1924 Mather agreed to make Bryce Canyon a national monu­ment administered by the National Forest Service. Long and detailed negotiations with the Union Pacific Railroad would eventually result in a spur line being built from Lund to Cedar City, which would become the railroad company's center for its newly formed subsidiary the Utah Parks Company. From the Cedar City depot and the planned El Escalante Hotel (also owned by Union Pacific Railroad) across the street, tourists would be able to board buses that would take them on a loop through Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and Zion National Park. Before this could happen, however, a road from Rockville to Mount Carmel had to be built, as did also an eight-mile section of road from Cedar Breaks to Mount Carmel. The latter was completed in April 1924. The only road that connected Zion National Park to the Grand Canyon went south from LaVerkin to Fredonia, Arizona, seven miles south of Kanab. In 1927 a proposal to build a tunnel and connecting road through Zion National Park to the Marysvale-Kanab road was approved. The 5,600-foot tunnel cost $530,000 and took three years to build, but it cut the distance between Zion and Bryce from 149 to 88 miles.46 Until these new roads could be built and old ones THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 263 improved, however, tourist traffic was routed primarily through Marysvale by way of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway. Three automobile touring companies met the mail train as it arrived at Marysvale each day. Marysvale resident Arthur E. Hanks conducted one-and-a-half-day tours to Bryce Canyon and a four-and- a-half-day trip to the Grand Canyon's North Rim by way of Bryce Canyon. Kanab resident H.I. Bowman had his headquarters in Kanab for a touring business that took in both Bryce Canyon and the North Rim. Only one company, Parry Brothers of Cedar City, served all four area scenic destinations: Zion, Cedar Breaks, Bryce, and the North Rim. These tours, however, were not inexpensive for the 1920s. Parry Brothers charged eighty dollars per person for a five-day trip to the North Rim and Bryce. The company's eight-day grand loop tour of all four scenic locations cost $140. Union Pacific would eventually contract services from Parry Brothers to take rail passengers to these same destinations. For its lodge at Bryce Canyon the railroad needed the water rights Ruby and Minnie Syrett had obtained for their Tourist's Rest camp as well as the land it occupied. The Syretts held the rights to two springs, Hopkins Spring and Shaker Springs (also referred to as Weather Springs). Union Pacific first offered to loan the Syretts $2,500 at 6 percent interest to pay off the debt they had incurred in building the camp, which they then could continue to operate until the Bryce Canyon Lodge was finished. At that time the railroad would move the camp at no cost to a new site with a five-year lease and free water (when available). Unhappy with the Union Pacific offer, Ruby Syrett prepared an inventory of his property, which he valued at $18,000-including water rights. The railroad countered with an offer of $9,000-excluding water rights. A flurry of offers and counter-offers took place in September 1923; finally, on 25 September, Ruby and Minnie Syrett sold Tourist's Rest and the water rights associated with it to Union Pacific for $10,000 and moved back to their ranch.47 Minnie Syrett remembered: "After being back at the ranch awhile, many of our old friends who had stayed with us at 'Tourist's Rest' came back and stayed with us at the ranch house so Ruby 264 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Ruby and Minnie Syrett. (Courtesy Ruby's Inn) decided to have something to make them comfortable." He divided his fifteen acres of homesteaded land down the middle-north to south-and convinced the engineers surveying the new road to the canyon that the appropriate route lay on that line. They agreed, and the Syretts began building Ruby's Inn. They first constructed a sawmill to provide the logs. THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 265 On his frequent forays into the Escalante River drainage, Hole-in- the-Rock, the petrified forest near the town of Escalante, and other scenic highlights of Garfield County Ruby Syrett gathered rock and fossil specimens that he used in building a large open fireplace. This fireplace showcased petrified wood, dinosaur bones, shells, fossils, and colorful rocks. The Syretts kept a cheerful fire burning there which added "to the entertainment and [made] everyone feel wel­come." The establishment grew by stages over the years and Ruby's Inn became a renowned tourist stop, with "entertainment at night where the cowboys sing and recite and slides of the canyon were shown." Afterwards there were "old time dances with the cowboys leading out . . . and with tourists and everybody joining in." Ruby's Inn also pro­vided a favorite local gathering place for family reunions, holidays, conventions, clubs, church outings, and dances.48 Meanwhile, construction of a lodge at Bryce Canyon was under­way, with Gilbert Stanley Underwood, who designed the Yosemite Village project, as architect. Union Pacific park engineer Samuel C. Lancaster oversaw the project from his office in Cedar City. The lodge was located 700 feet from the rim, and Underwood's plan called for stone to be used up to the snow line, the rest of the structure being built from lumber. Union Pacific contracted with the Forest Service for $425 worth of timber to build the framework. Lancaster con­tracted with Ruby Syrett and Owen Orton to provide 200,000 board feet of lumber from Syrett's sawmill at a cost of $27.50 per 1,000 feet, and as many slabs as the building would require at five cents a linear foot. Charles Church and Fred Worthen had the contract to provide building stone, which would be quarried only a mile and a half from the lodge site. The foremen would receive five dollars a day and the workers would be paid $3.20 a day. A progress summary sent to Union Pacific headquarters in Omaha on 15 July 1923 reported that the stone "breaks out from the quarry in the shape required for laying in the walls and it will not be necessary in any case to use a stone cut­ter upon it. [It] is to be laid up in a rough rustic style in cement and mortar, and can be done with the same common labor that is used for quarrying it."49 266 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Construction started in the spring of 1924. By the end of that year the foundation work had been done, as had the skeletal frame construction for the building. By May 1925 the lodge, minus its stone facade, was virtually complete. It housed an office, lobby, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom facilities on the first floor. The second floor provided sleeping accommodations for overnight guests. Just when the stonework was done is not clear, but a wing was added the next year to provide more sleeping accommodations upstairs and a curio shop below; perhaps it was at that time that the stonework was done. In the summer of 1917 a recreation hall completed the struc­ture. By that time five deluxe cabins and sixty-seven standard and economy cabins were also scattered among the trees, with concrete paths connecting them to the lodge. All electric wiring was placed underground. By 1929 there were ten more deluxe cabins added. Bryce Canyon's status as a national park hung on three thorny issues: road access between it and Zion Canyon, acquisition by the federal government of the remainder of the state school land section on which the Syretts had first built their Tourist's Rest, and a change in the proposed name of Utah National Park to Bryce Canyon National Park. In a letter to a member of Congress dated 20 July 1927, Utah Governor George Dern stated "that the State of Utah will exchange the school section in question for some other section of land in order that Bryce Canyon may be made a national park." He also addressed the issue of the park name: first, changing the name to Utah National Park would negate the railroad's extensive and expensive advertising for Bryce Canyon National Monument; second, the name Utah National Park could just as well be used for any scenic attraction in the state; third, it implied that Utah only had one national park, when, in fact, Zion Canyon already had that designa­tion. Dern had no way of knowing that Utah would eventually have five national parks, three of which-Bryce, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef-would occupy parts of Garfield County. The county would also embrace part of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. With the Zion Tunnel under construction and the state willing to trade the school THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 267 Fireplace and Welcome sign inside Ruby's Inn. (Courtesy Ruby's Inn) land for another parcel, the way was cleared for Bryce Canyon to become a national park. On 1 June 1925 Garfield County celebrated the opening of Bryce Canyon as a designated national park-although the area would not officially become one until 1928. Panguitch Mayor James M. Sargent met Governor Dern and his wife and hundreds of people from the north part of the state when they arrived in Panguitch for the festiv­ities. After the appropriate welcome speech and response from the governor, the entourage, numbering 315 automobiles, moved toward Bryce Canyon. At the second tunnel in Red Canyon "they were halted by three brownies at a closed gate. These brownies, Kirk Daly, Thomas Marshall and Lavar Bateman were dressed in costume, turned up toes and all." From the top of the tunnel above the flower-bedecked gate hung a huge sign that read "Welcome to Utah's Fairyland." Then "fairies" appeared from everywhere, tying flowers and ribbons to the governor's car. One jumped onto the running board and asked Governor Dern, "Do you believe in fairies?" He replied that he did. "Then," she said, "Enter into Fairyland." The day, full of food, speeches, and entertainment, ended with a dance in 268 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Panguitch. There would be other celebrations at Bryce Canyon, but none equaled the one that the local people planned and carried out that day. In the summer of 1927 Assistant National Park Service Director Horace Albright laid out a plan for administrating Bryce Canyon in a letter to Steven Mather, first director of the National Park Service. Albright believed that Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Cedar Breaks could easily be combined into one administrative unit with headquarters in Zion. "One permanent ranger and possibly one or two temporary men in summer would be all that Bryce Canyon would need," he wrote. By January 1929 the implementation of Albright's plan had taken place, and "all rules and regulations for the government of Zion were made applicable for Bryce Canyon."50 The National Park Service hired Maurice Newton Cope as the ranger at Bryce. He had been a seasonal ranger there since 1925, working five months a year at Bryce and then moving his family to Tropic for the winter, where he taught school. In 1933 he became Bryce Canyon's first permanent park ranger, a position he held until he transferred to the warmer climes of Zion ten years later. Grazing Rights in Bryce Canyon National Park Not everyone embraced the national park status of Bryce Canyon. Stockmen had grazed their cattle and sheep in the park area since the 1860s, and those who held valid U.S. Forest Service grazing permits on that same land during the 1920s feared losing this valu­able asset. They wanted the National Park Service to either allow con­tinued grazing in the park or buy out their grazing rights. Permits had been issued to ranchers that extended into 1929, so the Park Service director gave the Forest Service authorization to oversee graz­ing in Bryce Canyon through that year. In the transition years from 1928 to 1930 cooperation between the Park Service and Forest Service was particularly important. They put together a long-range "field agreement" in 1930 that guaranteed there would be "no change of existing [grazing] privileges to the detriment of current permittee[s]." There could, however, be no increase in the number of livestock permitted in areas contiguous to Bryce Canyon, and the Forest Service would continue to administer THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 269 the permits and fees. Each permit holder would transfer 20 percent of his or her herd to other fee areas each year, with the elimination of grazing in the park as the long-range goal. President Herbert Hoover issued a proclamation in 1931 that softened the shift of grazing allot­ments by allowing stockmen the "right to drive their animals across the southwestern addition to the park."51 By 1935 grazing had been eliminated from Bryce Canyon's north-central region, and the two services moved ahead to faze it out in the rest of the park. The National Park Service encouraged the Grazing Service "to find nearby ranges on which stock then grazing in Bryce Canyon could be easily transferred." In 1940 only four park permit holders remained: Findlay Brothers, with 500 sheep for one month; John Johnson, 1,000 sheep for one month; Samuel Pollock, 824 sheep for one month; and the East Fork Cattle Association, with 802 cattle and horses for 10 percent of the year-most likely during the summer. Johnson sold his sheep in 1944 and went into cattle rais­ing; the Findlays did the same in 1945, and Pollock sold his sheep in 1946, thus ending sheep grazing at Bryce Canyon. Johnson's cattle grazing came into question when he divided his forest grazing per­mit among several members of his family. The Forest Service policy prevented transfer of permits within the park area, and those permits were canceled. By 1953 only the Findlay Brothers (288 cattle) and the East Fork Cattle Association (484 cattle) retained grazing rights. The East Fork Cattle Association subsequently voluntarily phased out its cattle in the park. The Findlay Brothers became somewhat of a problem. One of their main water sources was Riggs Spring on the Lower Podunk in the park, an area with very little forage and therefore subject to more long-range damage. After much trouble, the National Park Service appropriated funds in 1964 to pipe water from the spring to a trough located outside the park. The service then completed fencing the park boundary, thus ending livestock grazing in the park environs.52 Advancements in Garfield Communities As mentioned, cooperative effort produced a fine new school for Cannonville. Just prior to that venture, area members of the LDS church worked together to build a beautiful new house of worship 270 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY with a design reflecting both English and Scandinavian styles. The completed edifice included a chapel, classrooms, a bell tower, twenty tall, four-paned windows and a foot-pedal pump organ located on a raised dais where speakers and dignitaries sat. Artistic moldings and scroll work enhanced the exterior. Two years later, around 1912, res­idents also completed the Cannonville Recreation Hall. The townspeople pointed with pride to the main feature of the forty-by-sixty- foot building-its beautiful maple floor. The stage included rapidly changeable scenery panels perfect for theatrical and other productions.53 The people of Hatch had been gradually improving their own church building, which was virtually complete by 1910. However, the bishop, James B. Burrow, beginning in 1912, exhorted the ward members to finance the purchase of an organ. Many reminded him that no one in town could play an organ. Not to be swayed, Burrow had faith that if the members would contribute the Lord would pro­vide an organist. By the time the new instrument was installed, William R. Riggs, Jr., had married Merle Snow of Kingston, and she became the organist.54 A little over a decade later, Hatch residents also contributed labor and money to build an amusement hall. In 1927 W.J. Peters, editor of the Garfield County News, suggested a celebration in honor of the building's completion and offered free advertising space in his paper to publicize the event. On 29 March people came in large numbers from neighboring towns to enjoy the concessions and dance. The fol­lowing September the Panguitch LDS Stake Conference convened in the new social hall and church apostle Stephen L. Richards dedicated the building.55 After years of holding classes in homes or multipurpose one-room buildings, the school district decided to build a school for the children of Hatch. The district allocated one thousand dollars for the project. The two-room structure was designed and advertised for bid. William R. Riggs, Jr., received the contract to build the structure for $850. In the fall of 1913 the new school opened, with the versatile Riggs as the new principal and his new bride, Merle, as the teacher. This building served the town of Hatch in housing grades one through eight until it burned down in 1939. THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 271 The first schoolhouse built in Tropic in 1914. (Courtesy June Shakespear) Throughout the county residents continued to focus on improv­ing the education their young people received and upgrading area educational facilities. Elementary students in Escalante had been enjoying their new schoolhouse since returning from the Christmas holidays in January 1900. Voters in that town had agreed to bond the amount of $2,500 to finance the construction of the building, a brick, two-story edifice with room for four classrooms on each floor.56 With Escalante's population increasing substantially, students would even­tually fill up the space. Census figures indicate that by 1920 more than 1,000 people lived in the town. The structure of education in the county changed substantially in 1915 when the state legislature mandated that all counties consolidate their schools into single districts. The following June Garfield County commissioners dissolved the old organization, created five precincts in the district, and also created a county board with a president and representatives from each precinct. J.B. Showalter served as the school district's first president. James Sargent represented Precinct 1, which included the north part of Panguitch and Bear Creek (Spry); Precinct 272 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Garfield County's first high school opened to students in the fall of 1915. (Utah State Historical Society) 2 included the south part of Panguitch, as well as Hillsdale and Hatch, with Fred G. Gardner as its representative; Precinct 3 took in Tropic, Cannonville, and Henrieville, with Maurice Cope from Tropic serv­ing them; Marion King from Coyote (Antimony) represented Precinct 4, which also included the Widtsoe area; and Hyrum Gates served from Precinct 5 and represented Escalante and Boulder.57 In 1914 construction on the first high school in the county began in Panguitch. Previously, some high school classes had been held within the community beginning in 1911. Garfield High School, a commodious red-brick building on ten acres of land, opened to stu­dents at the beginning of the 1915-16 school year.58 Other commu­nities also desired high schools for their students. In 1920, Tropic citizens rented and remodeled a building to begin their own high school. Concerned that not enough students would enroll to justify the county hiring a teacher, a town ordinance was passed requiring school attendance for all students under eighteen years of age. June Shakespear writes that "Even a few adults attended to make it go."59 Despite a leaking roof and a wood stove that smoked, Frank Riggs taught twelve students in the building that year, and Tropic was assured of a two-year high school for the future. THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 273 James Alvin Ott remembered being part of the first high school class held in 1920 and how great it felt to be among the "educational elite" when he completed first the ninth grade and then the tenth. He especially recalled the science field trips they took and the follow-up reports the students had to write. On one occasion, Riggs singled him out as having produced an exemplary report, boosting the ego of the shy lad.60 Ninth grade classes began for Escalante and Boulder students in 1920 in the local stone meetinghouse. There, too, facilities left much to be desired; however, their teacher Roy Lee reminded the young people, "Everything must have a beginning no matter how humble."61 Of the twenty-two original students, six stayed in school to graduate in 1924. By then the school had moved to the old tithing office, where Lee, Cora Golding, and Principal Murray Shields taught all the classes except for sewing; Elsie Baker taught that course in the nearby William Mitchell home. By the 1920s many Hatch families had become increasingly con­cerned about the education of their children beyond the eighth grade-a problem for most county parents. For a number of years many residents with children of secondary school age had resorted to sending them to such places as Beaver to attend academies during the winter. Some families even moved for the school year to towns with a high school, returning to their own homes in the spring. With the school year of 1926 less than a month away, parents from Hatch and Hillsdale took action. Sam Riggs agreed to put a good cover on his truck and transport the high school students to Panguitch each day. School Superintendent Fred Gardiner promised to help finance the endeavor on the condition that each student also pay part of the expense. Fourteen youths from the two areas pioneered the school bus transportation from Hatch to Garfield High School.62 Hatch parents also originated a hot-school-lunch program in the county. Students living in Panguitch could go home for the noon meal, but the commuters could not. Therefore Riggs purchased, then passed around from family to family, a one-gallon thermos jug to be filled with stew, chili, soup, or the like when it was their turn to fur­nish a hot dish. Each child brought his or her own bowl and spoon 274 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Ruby's Inn during the 1930s. (Courtesy Ruby's Inn) along with a sandwich. Once again, the pooling of resources and a spirit of cooperation provided a remedy to a recognized need. Families in Antimony began bussing their secondary school chil­dren to Piute High School in Circleville beginning with the 1928-29 school year. Townspeople had Chester Allen and John Moore to thank for getting the service started, thus improving educational opportunities for their young people. Although parents had to pay for this transportation, they felt it worth the expense and was better than having to send their children away to further their education. America during the 1920s has been characterized by some as the "Age of Play," a time when its citizens first became enamored with sports and sports heros. The automobile and especially the radio allowed more and more Americans to have access to sporting events. Such activities carried down to the local level throughout the coun­try, and Garfield County did not deviate from the norm. Basketball became the acknowledged local favorite as high schools sprang up in county towns. Most of these institutions had relatively small student THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 275 Participants in the Utah Writers Project view Red Canyon about 1940. (Utah State Historical Society) bodies, but they each still could put together a basketball team-all one needed was five players and a coach. Principal Murray Shields filled the position as the first basketball coach for Escalante's high school. He was followed shortly by Herb Adams, who fielded a team of seven players in 1925. Not long after that, the town also had a girls basketball team, coached by Bert Newman. Other schools in the county also soon had their own teams. The crowning achievement in sports during this time period, however, came in 1924 when the Garfield High School boys basket­ball team went to Chicago to play in the All American tournament. To reach that pinnacle, the team won the district championship in Richfield and then went on to Salt Lake City and became state cham­pions. Supporters held a pep rally for the team in Panguitch to help raise money for the trip. Four members of the team held an American flag by each corner and "passed [it] through the crowd and collected $1,000 in ten or fifteen minutes." Before the night was over, a total of $1,500 was raised "to send them on their way."63 Rudolph Church coached the team and Ben Lee managed it. 276 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Team members included Captain Dwayne Henrie, Hayden Church, George Cooper, Clem Davis, Jesse Evans, Clyde Meecham, Elmo Richards, and Darrel Worthen. They won two games in the tourna­ment and officials chose Henrie and Cooper as "All American Stars." The team from rural southern Utah received quite a write-up in Chicago newspapers. As one resident remembered, "I don't know of anything that ever happened in the schools of Panguitch that created as much excitement as this did."64 The enjoyment of sports was not confined to the high schools. Local LDS church congregations sponsored sports activities, and many southern Utah towns supported community teams in both basketball and baseball. Elijah Goulding coached one of these teams. He relocated his family to Henrieville in 1911 and eventually made his home in Widtsoe and Pine Lake. While there he began a town baseball team. One of his sons belonged to the team, his daughter Dessie was scorekeeper, and daughter Caroline Evelyn made the uni­forms for the team. The Growth of Widtsoe and Johns Valley During this period, the community of Winder (Widtsoe), located on the west side of Escalante Mountain, was growing rapidly. Sawmills built in the canyon east of the townsite furnished the lum­ber necessary to construct the needed buildings. By 1916 the com­munity boasted a social hall, two hotels, four stores, a confectionery, and a sawed-log, three-room meetinghouse with a bell that sum­moned townspeople to church meetings and school. Although this structure burned down in 1919, local citizens built a new, larger mul­tifunctional facility in its place. The town also got a post office in 1916. The following year the postal service suggested the town change its name, since it was not the only community in the state called Winder. Residents settled on Widtsoe, named for dry-farming expert and future LDS apostle John A. Widtsoe, "who had helped in provid­ing counsel on types of crops to be grown in this climate and alti­tude." 65 As Widtsoe's population increased substantially, improvements on the mountain road to Escalante encouraged regular mail service between the two towns. George Davies procured the contract to carry THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 277 the mail. A widower who had helped raise t en children, he moved from Escalante to Widtsoe, which was more central to incoming mail deliveries. The Escalante Story gives insight into the difficulties this sturdy m a n encountered: In the winter he had a carrier meet him at the foot of the moun­tain above Liston's ranch and bring back the Escalante mail, Davis [Davies] handling the difficult mountain stretch himself. He used horses for the first four years. With the beginning of a new con­tract he moved to Junction,and began using trucks. The road, though improved . . . changed to mud with every storm. [It] was rough and the trucks broke down, so that George and his son, Jimmy, had troubles.66 The U.S. Forest Service relocated the local office to Widtsoe from Panguitch beginning in 1919. For a time some even mentioned the possibility of moving the county seat to the young but thriving com­munity. By 1920 about 1,100 people lived in Widtsoe and the sur­rounding homesteads. Twenty-five blocks, most with four homes per block, made up the town and s u r r o u n d e d a central city park. Residents also anticipated development at Pine Lake, a recreational site for Johns Valley settlers. Men set to work enlarging the lake and building an earthen d am to supply water for better irrigation of the Widtsoe lots and for a large ranch a new developer had purchased. Just four miles to the n o r t h and slightly west of Widtsoe another colony began in about 1915. The settlers called their community Henderson in h o n o r of William J. Henderson, a resident of Johns Valley who donated some of his land for a town center. Several home­steads increased the population of the settlement, and it t oo h a d a combination church/school building and a post office.67 As in other agriculture areas, t h e farmers of Widtsoe, Henderson, and other areas of Johns Valley suffered the uncertainties of nature and the market. But their situation was complicated by t h e high alti­tude and an apparent ten-year climatic cycle that produced either an abundance of water or an almost complete lack thereof-even insuf­ficient for dry farming. Residents recalled the good times when "the whole of Johns Valley [was] a waving field of grain," a n d when "alfalfa grew splendidly, also enormous crops of head lettuce" were grown 278 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY there and shipped to Salt Lake City, Bryce Canyon Lodge, Cedar Breaks, and Grand Canyon.68 At times Widtsoe's grain crop was greater than that grown in the rest of the county combined. However, Frederika Hermansen Clinch remembered one of the dry periods. During the summer of 1920 they had no rain and the "crops burned in the fields." She recalled "the lines of worry beneath the dust on my father's face." One night she awoke to the sound of the wind blowing, flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder. It was just getting light when the rain started to fall. I ran outside clapping my hands and singing. . . . Mother stood in the doorway and watched, her long braids hanging down over her shoulders. . . . That year there was a good harvest and the grain bins were nearly filled to the top of the cabin. There was just enough room for us to crawl between the grain and the roof. We slept on the grain, on straw ticks.69 These wild climatic swings caused Widtsoe first to produce a spec­tacular display of rapid advancement and then decline. William F. Holt thought he could bring prosperity to Johns Valley. He arrived in 1924 from California, where he had made a rep­utation for himself in helping to irrigate the Imperial Valley. The people of Widtsoe and surrounding areas hoped he could do some­thing similar for their region. Holt established a new community north of Widtsoe and Henderson which he named Osiris-for what reason, no one seems to know, but it proved to be apt: Osiris is the Egyptian underworld god who was killed and dismembered, and the town named after him had a short life-span. Holt's development included a creamery (to which he induced many area farmers to ship their milk), a flour mill, several homes, a telephone exchange, and a ranch with a fine home, one-room cabins where his employees lived, granaries, and acres of land that yielded a substantial grain harvest during good years. Most importantly, he built a water-storage pond at Pine Lake and flumed water seven miles down to the valley. The venture, however, in which he invested hun­dreds of thousands of dollars did not succeed. The town struggled until many settlers driven by drought from Widtsoe relocated there in 1920. The town then blossomed for a THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 279 short time. However, groundwater was insufficient during drought years, a n d high-altitude lettuce proved to be the only consistently reliable crop in the valley. Holt, along with many other settlers, pulled up stakes and moved on.70 Tough times lay ahead for other Garfield County towns, as well. The Great Depression, World War II, a n d a restructuring of the live­stock industry-always the county's economic mainstay-soon chal­lenged the character, ingenuity, and will of Garfield citizens. ENDNOTES 1. Effel Harmon Burrow Riggs, History of Hatch, Utah, and Associated Towns Asay and Hillsdale, 126-27. 2. M. Lane Warner, Grass Valley 1873-1976: A History of Antimony and Her People, 31. 3. Riggs, History of Hatch, 126-27. Riggs recalled this happening in June 1910. However, on 20 May the Halleys Comet came its closest to the Earth, 14 million miles away, and it is believed that the next day the Earth passed through the comet's tail. 4. See Riggs, History of Hatch, 118-23. 5. Quote from the Panguitch Progress, 29 May 1914 in Riggs, History of Hatch, 124-25; Ida Chidester and Eleanor Bruhn, Golden Nuggets of Pioneer Days, 311-12. 6. Riggs, History of Hatch, 246. 7. George W. Thompson "Cannonville History," 25. 8. Ibid., 28. 9. Vera Sevy Peterson Fotheringham, interview with Vivian L. Talbot, July 1996, Salt Lake City, tape in possession of authors. 10. Jean H. Henderickson's seventh grade class, "The Morrill Tragedy," Parowan, Utah, 1959 typescript, 7, copy in possession of authors courtesy of Barbara B. Burt. Information for this section comes from this source and from genealogy information in possession of author Linda K. Newell. 11. "The Morrill Tragedy," 7, 13. 12. Ibid., 7. 13. Ibid., 7-8. Rebecca Carson Miller visited Jean Hendrickson's sev­enth grade Parowan class in 1959 to tell the students what she remembered of her sister Emma's ordeal at Blue Springs. Much of the account here is taken from that section of the written class report. 14. Ibid., 9. The heading for this section of the document reads: "Copied by Barbara B. Burt April 16, 1976, from papers written in Clara 280 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Matheson Benson's own writing, February 17, 1972, age 77, Parowan, Utah." 15. Ibid., 5. 16. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 63-64, 292. 17. "History of John Whitehead Seaman," in possession of Helen Seaman Linford, Cedar City. 18. Virginia Smith, "History," 1983, 1, copy obtained by authors from Teora Willis of Henrieville. 19. Wallace Ott, interview, 1993. 20. June Shakespear, "Tropic," 4. 21. Nethella Griffin Woolsey, The Escalante Story: 1875-1964, 125. 22. Ibid., 188. 23. Lenora Hall LeFevre, The Boulder Country and Its People, 224. 24. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 292-93. 25. J.W. Humphrey, "Notes, Comments, and Letters," as quoted in Nicholas Scrattish, Historical Resource Study: Bryce Canyon National Park, 15. 26. See Scrattish, Bryce Canyon National Park, 15-18. 27. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 292-94; Scrattish, Bryce Canyon National Park, 16-19. 28. James A. Ott and Virginia S. Ott, "A History of the James Alvin and Virginia Spencer Ott Family," 16-17. Copy obtained from Marilyn Murdock. Herbert Hoover served President Wilson as head of food admin­istration. 29. Janet M. Johnson Ott, "A Sketch of the Life of Joseph Alma Ott," 3. 30. Warner, Grass Valley, 30, 35. 31. "Eda Willis Quilter," 2, copy obtained by authors from Nancy Twitchell. 32. Woolsey, Escalante Story, 334-37. 33. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 266-67. 34. Shakespear, "Tropic," 6. 35. Janet M. Ott, "Joseph Alma Ott." Ott evidently had been exposed to the disease about the time he was discharged from the army and only contracted a mild form of influenza. One of his army companions from Tropic, Woodruff Pollock, died from the disease. 36. June Shakespear writes that no one in town actually died of the dis­ease. The Utah Bureau of Vital Statistics does not have a record of the num­ber of deaths by community for that time period. It also could be that THE FIRST DECADES OF A NEW CENTURY 281 Shakespear's and Ott's understanding of who actually lived within the con­fines of Tropic varies. 37. "Eda Willis Quilter." 38. Warner, Grass Valley, 35, 101. 39. Quoted in Karl C. Sandberg, "Telling the Tales and Telling the Truth: Writing the History of Widtsoe," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26 (Winter 1993): 99. 40. Ibid. 41. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 340-41. 42. LeFevre, Boulder Country, 217-18. 43. Scrattish, Bryce Canyon National Park, 18. 44. Ibid., 21-2. 45. Ibid., 19-22. See also Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 294-95. 46. Scrattish, Bryce Canyon National Park, 61-73. The cost of the roads in Zion Canyon alone (including the tunnel) was more than $1.4 million. Another $456,000 of federal and state funds built the sixteen-mile section from Zion to Mount Carmel. 47. Ibid., 48-52. 48. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 296-97'. 49. Scrattish, Bryce Canyon National Park, 112-13. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid., 108-9. 52. Ibid., 111. 53. Thompson, "Cannonville History," 29, 33. 54. Riggs, History of Hatch, 147. 55. Ibid., 189-90. 56. Woolsey, Escalante Story, 275-77. 57. Ibid., 277-79, and Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 78. 58. Woolsey, Escalante Story, 277-79 and Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 78-79. 59. Shakespear, "Tropic," 5. 60. Ott and Ott, "A History of the Ott Family," 15. 61. As quoted in Woolsey, Escalante Story, 282. 62. Riggs, History of Hatch, 226-27. 63. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 84. 64. Ibid., 83. 65. Stephen L. Carr, The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns, 122. 66. Woolsey, Escalante Story, 200. George Elisha Davies's son Wilford 282 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY told the authors that he had seen his father sign his name both Davies and Davis, which may be why it appears as Davis in the Woolsey book. The cor­rect family name, however, is Davies. George Davies had been the first child born in Kanarrah, Iron County, in June 1861. After moving to Junction in 1919 he married his second wife, Emma Carson Morrill, widow of John Morrill, who froze to death near Blue Springs in 1916. 67. Carr, Guide to Utah Ghost Towns, 122. 68. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 143. 69. In Sandberg, "Writing the History of Widtsoe," 95-96. 70. George A. Thompson, Some Dreams Die: Utah's Ghost Towns and Lost Treasures, 87; John W. Van Cott, Utah Place Names, 283.