A History of Garfield County

The great depression to post war recovery

CHAPTER 11 THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY I.t was called the Great Depression, "great" referring to its mag­nitude, duration, and the social change that the economic depression of the 1930s wrought upon the United States and much of the indus­trialized world. The use of "great" also set apart that economic crisis from all others the United States had previously endured. Residents of Garfield County certainly felt its impact, but their experience dif­fered from that of those living in more heavily populated and indus­trialized centers of the nation. Living in close proximity to supportive extended family members and being able to produce some of their own food sustained local citizens during those trying years. So too did cooperation on community projects and participation in recre­ational activities-both the traditional home-made variety and new, innovative ones. County residents, however, also took advantage of relief pro­grams offered by the federal government. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, conceived to remedy the emergency, created an altered economic focus of government involvement in the lives of its citizens and a reorganization of the infrastructure in Garfield 283 284 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY County. This included the relocation of most citizens of one of the county's communities, thus hastening that town's demise. Additionally, World War II, which helped pull the nation and the county out of the Depression, introduced new challenges and a trans­formation of county life, as the population of the county declined considerably during the 1940s. After the Stock Market Crash For most residents of Garfield County the initial huge crash of the nation's stock market on 29 October 1929 held very little mean­ing. But the ensuing lean years of the Great Depression filtered down into their day-to-day lives substantially. Similar to most farming areas in the United States (except those affected by the Dust Bowl drought conditions), a majority of the people could raise the products with which to feed themselves. Utahns did this in spite of suffering through their own drought during portions of the early 1930s, 1934 generally being the worst year.1 The only bank in the county, the State Bank of Garfield, closed its doors within two years after the stock market crash, causing much hardship to investors and area stockmen.2 Because many in the county lost their savings, they had to make do with old equipment and could not expand their land holdings. Even if they could raise additional crops or animals, markets for them were scarce or nonex­istent. George Thompson recalled that times were indeed hard for many locals: "Some of the poor folks in Cannonville were forced to eat animal feed to survive. Ground wheat and cottonseed cake were common in the diet. . . . [W]ere it not for home produced fruit, veg­etables, and meat the people could not have survived."3 Each individual old enough to remember can offer insight regarding this era. Alma and Mabel Ott of Tropic had not been mar­ried many years before the stock market crash. In recognizing her daughter-in-law's sacrifice and contribution to their family's well-being, Alma's mother wrote: There has been a depression on and it has been very hard to get the necessities of life. When I think of the nice comfortable home Mabel left and went out on the farm and worked side by side with THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 285 _ n,„u. J MI w limn i. • •• m ii ifi t i - n H B - I Tropic's new LDS Church in 1932. (Courtesy June Shakespear) her husband, helping him make a home and gain a livelihood from the soil! She has never failed in doing her part.4 People survived by helping each other out and by using the barter system-a situation not so different from pioneer days. Others simply made do with what they had until their situations improved. Luetta Partner from Henrieville married Orlo Davenport in July 1928. They had begun to raise their family just when the Depression hit. She wrote of the hard times they experienced living in a small house at Orlo's homestead: "[We] lived mostly on boiled sagehens, had no salt and no grease to fry them in. One day we walked up where the cows had a salt lick and got a chunk off it to use for salt." Eventually, after living for a time at Red Canyon, where Orlo worked part-time at the sawmill and on road construction, the little family moved to Panguitch. He secured sufficient lumber to build his family a home of their own. They moved in as "soon as our frame was up and boards over the top," Luetta wrote in her autobiography. "It had no doors on and we put old quilts up to the windows. It rained quite 286 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY a bit that spring and summer of 1933.1 would hold quilts up over the kids some nights to keep them dry. We finally got some shingles."5 Government statistics also testify to the hard times felt by the county's citizens. Garfield ranked second in the state in per-capita federal relief expenditures between 1932 and 1936. Many asked why this should be the case; the answers varied. In 1938, sociologists at the University of Utah came to some conclusions as to why the relief problem was so great in the county. To begin with, they found the region to be "poorly adapted for agricultural purposes, as less than one percent of the total land surface [had] even been sowed to crops and harvested, due principally to a lack of sufficient water." The data they collected also indicated that "increasing competitive individual­ism, decreasing co-operation, unintelligent land use, very limited natural resources, [and] an excessively high rate of natural increase" rendered the county unable to withstand a "prolonged depression."6 County residents obviously didn't like such conclusions, and anec­dotal evidence and some later natural resource development chal­lenges some of the conclusions. Soon after the onset of the Depression, the LDS church intro­duced its own welfare program to help meet the needs of its mem­bers during the economic crisis. However, evidence indicates it had little impact on the LDS families that made up more than 99 percent of Garfield's population. By 1939 the program had failed to remove anyone in the county from government relief.7 Whether this was due to failings in the church program or to an unwillingness of county residents to leave government relief benefits is uncertain. Like many throughout the nation, most county residents only began to over­come their economic woes with America's entry into World War II. Some Garfield communities had to deal with additional chal­lenges during these hard economic times. The people of Antimony lost two ecclesiastical leaders within three days of each other in the summer of 1931. The first counselor in the ward bishopric, Mont Chesney Riddle, was helping the second counselor, Herbert S. Gleave, put up his hay when a rope suddenly broke and Riddle was severely injured.8 A little over a week later he died. Meanwhile, Bishop Lawrence Gates suffered a ruptured appendix and died soon after. His funeral took place the day after Riddle's. THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO PQST-WAR RECOVERY 287 Almost a year to the day after these untimely deaths, a damaging flood struck Grass Valley. The home of Levi King, Jr., in Antimony suffered the worst damage, when mud and water thirty-four inches deep inundated the house. Many other homes also sustained consid­erable damage. The deluge either covered or swept away fences and sheds, washed out roads, bridges, and canals, and destroyed many crops. Damages were estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dol­lars. Even more tragically, within six months of the flood outbreaks of spinal meningitis occurred in the community. The disease affected several families, causing death, deafness, and other afflictions to vic­tims. Archie George and Stella Stoker Gleave and their three children had been in Antimony only a year when the epidemic hit their family. Their third child, Kenneth, died first. Archie described their ordeal: We were heart broken and I thought Stell would lose her mind, so I took her, Erwin, and Eldon [their two older children] to the sheep herd with me. While we were camped out with the sheep Eldon got spinal meningitis. We had the doctor come and he gave Eldon treatments; he tapped his spine and really worked hard to save his life. It left Eldon deaf. This was almost more than we could take. We later had our fourth baby boy, little David Phil. He died with pneumonia when he was thirteen months old.9 The Gleaves, like their neighbors and others in the county, came from pioneer stock and viewed tribulation much the same as their fore­bears did: one must get past personal tragedy and move on. Archie Gleave and his family moved away from Antimony for a time. When they returned, he played an important role in local politics and pub­lic service positions. In Escalante the people took advantage of the ready labor supply during the Depression to get a new church built. A local dance hall had served the community for church services for some time. After securing a lot from the Twitchell family and clearing it of house, barn, and fruit trees, the community held a ground-breaking cere­mony for their church in 1929. The men hauled rock and gravel to the building site, as well as bringing in the wood needed for heating the brick kilns. 288 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY The following spring construction work began. Perry Liston took charge of making bricks and Samuel Alvey molded the clay bricks to be fired. Willard Heaps managed the excavation, W.J. Osborn over­saw the freighting of cement from Marysvale to Escalante, and Arthur O. Mclnelly supervised general construction and roofing. Will Davis directed men in laying the brick and joined with Earl Woolsey in the carpentry, plastering, and painting of the structure. Members of the Relief Society presidency-Margaret Mitchell, Sally May King, Polly Spencer, and LaVern Woolsey-sponsored a ward banquet in the basement dining room of the nearly completed building on New Year's Day, 1932. They used the money earned from the dinner to furnish the kitchen and Relief Society room of the new structure. Ward clerk Earl Woolsey, together with Bishop Lorenzo Griffin and his counselors, Parley Porter and Ushur L. Spencer, proudly hosted the stake quarterly conference on 8 August 1932, at which time Apostle Richard R. Lyman dedicated the Escalante North Ward chapel.10 Other communities also completed new buildings. The previous year, on 31 May 1931, church members in Tropic dedicated a new chapel, which would serve that community for more than fifty years.11 Boulder residents found themselves with an unexpected building project. On 21 February 1935 school janitor Lorin Moosman lit fires in the two wood-burning box heaters before sun-up and then returned home. He wanted the building to be warm when the stu­dents arrived, but there was more heat than he bargained for. Nearby residents soon saw black smoke and flames coming from the school-house. With telephone communication, word of the catastrophe spread almost as fast as the fire. When the crowd gathered, all they could do was watch the structure burn to the ground, unable to sal­vage one thing; "even the bell was found cracked open on one side when the rubbish was cleared away," wrote one.12 For the rest of the year Boulder children attended school in the front room and kitchen of Chris Moosman's home. Meanwhile, construction began on a new school. Arthur Mclnelly, Sr., of Escalante built the structure and David M. Woolsey and Earl Woolsey painted the building. When school began in the fall THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO PQST-WAR RECOVERY 289_ of 1935, Golda Peterson taught her class again in the Moosman home and Thomas Memmott taught the upper four grades in the Relief Society room of the church. However, by November teachers and stu­dents moved into the newly completed schoolhouse. Another room was added to the edifice in 1941. Simultaneously with building a new schoolhouse, members of the LDS church in Boulder decided to erect a new chapel. Half the money for construction came from church headquarters in Salt Lake City. Each family was assessed an amount towards the building's completion that they could either pay in cash or in donated labor. Chris Moosman deeded one-quarter acre of land in central Boulder for the new church. Ernest Jackson of Teasdale secured the contract to build it. Much of the material had to be trucked in over the East End Road, which itself was still under construction by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Workers cooperated in assisting all trav­elers as they came to sections where men and equipment were work­ing. With everyone's help and cooperation, the church's workers completed the basement by February 1936 and finished the $30,000 structure one year later, in February 1937. The following August the local LDS stake conference convened in the new structure and Apostle Charles A. Callas dedicated the building for worship. That fall the community turned a work party into a town party. Men hauled in loads of wood for the meetinghouse furnace, and afterwards everyone sat down to a supper prepared by the women, Everyone then attended a dance in the structure's new recreation hall.13 Garfield County residents did not forget how to have fun even though resources were scarce. Ruby Moore remembered how the cit­izens of Henrieville and Cannonville took turns hosting weekly dances. According to custom, as people walked into the dance hall, the men went to the west side of the hall and the ladies to the east side. When . . . the music started playing, the men came across to their wives and the single men to their girl friends and started that way. Then they took turns dancing with everyone. . . . There was a dance manager so everyone had to act just right or they were escorted outside. . . . At the end of the dance the musicians started playing the Home Waltz and the boys found their girl friends and 290 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY The old showhouse (left) in Escalante was built by Lorin Griffin in 1938. In 1998 the Utah State Historical Society provided a grant to assist with the restoration of the showhouse facade. (Utah State Historical Society) the married men their wives and always danced that dance together.14 Few people in those communities had automobiles at that time, so they usually went by horse-drawn wagon to the dances. The girls often brought quilts in the wintertime to pad the bottoms of the wag­ons and to snuggle under. A new form of entertainment helped county residents escape momentarily from the Depression-induced poverty. With the excep­tion of Panguitch, no Garfield community had a movie house, but that did not keep residents from enjoying the cinema. Beginning in the fall of 1929, Kay Heywood came to Cannonville each week- weather permitting-with a movie projector powered by a small gasoline generator. The audience thrilled to the popular silent films of the day. They gained admittance by producing a dime or some product of their industry such as a squash, a bottle of fruit, or a freshly baked loaf of bread. George Thompson wrote that "one woman I talked with remembers picking a quart of dry beans up off the ground, to get a show ticket."15 THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 291 Tropic had a similar situation. Levi Bybee would jack up the wheel of his old Model T and attach a small generator to it to run the silent films. June Shakespear remembered: "In February of 1934, the new town hall was filled to capacity as the first talking picture show was presented-'Sunset Pass' by Zane Grey."16 Escalante viewers attended the Star Dance Hall to see the silent movies. They also used a gasoline engine to power the projector. The films often would break, and if one couldn't be repaired immediately those in attendance received a ticket to come back next time. Audiences especially enjoyed a serial entitled Stingeree with Francis Bushman and could hardly wait for the next installment. Unfortunately the hall in Escalante was torn down in 1934, and the residents of both Escalante and Boulder had to wait four years for Lorin Griffin to build a new theater before they could once again attend picture shows. Music had always played an important role in Garfield County society, whether it was for dances, funerals, church meetings, or patri­otic celebrations. In the mid-1930s a new organization brought together ten women who shared a fondness for music and who pro­duced a definitely new sound. These women formed the Panguitch Rhythm Band in 1936. The original members of the band included Eve Bell, Belle Boyter, Elinore Bruhn, Bell Cooper, Cora Cooper, Florence Houston, Isabell Ipson, Dean LeFevre, Rate Owens, and Lois Seaman-Maloney. Using tambourines, kazoos, washboards, sticks, triangles, drums, combs, tin plates, wooden spoons, always accom­panied by a piano, these musicians played traditional songs as well as the latest compositions. The band proved to be an enduring organi­zation, and it continues to perform to the present day. The women dress in vintage costumes and spruce up their instruments with rib­bons, lace, and bows. No one can remember when they first played in the 24 July parade, seated on a decorated float, but the group has continued to appear in the parade each year.17 William Isabell had a hand in helping some Garfield residents forget their Depression woes during the Prohibition era. A Canadian, Isabell drifted into Boulder about the year 1930 after a short stay in Escalante. He established a camp for himself at Salt Gulch, where he installed a distillery near the bank of the Sweetwater inside a cellar 292 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY that had belonged to the Gresham family many years before. He suc­cessfully- and stealthily-peddled his "good grade of whiskey" on horseback and pack mules to customers in Boulder, Escalante, and Wayne County despite frequent visits by Sheriff Frank Haycock of Panguitch, who could never seem to find sufficient evidence to jus­tify arresting Isabell. For awhile he provided welcome refreshment across two counties, but his business ceased to thrive after national repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution by passage of the Twenty-first Amendment, ending Prohibition in 1932.18 Garfield residents could always find simple and inexpensive plea­sure and recreation in their natural surroundings. Such untamed beauty attracted a young man from California during the mid-1930s. Everett Ruess-artist, writer and adventurer-spent several days at Bryce Canyon in November 1934. After spending a weekend in Tropic at the home of Maurice and De Esta Cope he left on Monday morn­ing leading two burros. He walked down the street and east out the lane to Losee Valley toward the Pink Cliffs and on to Escalante. After having dinner with Clayton Porter at his sheep camp near the con­fluence of the Escalante and Colorado rivers, twenty-year-old Ruess left to explore the Indian cliff dwellings in the canyons south of the Escalante Desert and along the Colorado River. This was the last any­one saw of him. Gale Bailey of Escalante later found Ruess's burros at the head of Davis Gulch where the young man had corraled them. The animals had little feed and no water, indicating that their owner had intended to return soon. Ruess's parents came to Escalante to help local citi­zens search for their son. But his disappearance has remained a mys­tery. In 1950 a book about Ruess, On Desert Trails with Everett Ruess, was published. It included some of his pictures, letters, and poems. Since that time Ruess and his works have increased in popularity and he has become the object of much interest. His life, his art, and his writings are the subjects of several publications.19 Garfield County and New Deal Programs Measures embodied in the various programs of the Roosevelt administration's New Deal-most of which produced positive results-had a profound influence on life in Garfield County. Many THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 293 agencies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration became involved in the county, such as the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the Resettlement Administration (RA), but conservation pro­grams perhaps had the most widespread effect. Some of these started when forest reserves came under federal government control around the turn of the century. Throughout most of the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a popular and effective program that focused on conservation and reclamation projects. The initial goal of the New Deal was to put people to work. The government paid men to reseed ranges and forests and to build range fences and flood-control structures, roads, and trails. One Cannonville resident recalled that they even built outhouses accord­ing to government specifications.20 Perhaps the most appreciated pro­jects involved establishing dependable culinary water systems. With the founding of county settlements in pioneer times, getting water to farms and residences was the most important priority. Culinary water for home use remained somewhat inadequate, however, until imple­mentation of some New Deal projects. Escalante residents had made strides to improve the situation by constructing cement-lined cisterns to store water for home con­sumption and using gasoline-powered pumps or gravity flow to pipe the water to individual houses. With the help of the WPA, town lead­ers saw an opportunity to improve their water system. They secured $90,000 from the federal government and put hometown men to work earning WPA wages of two to four dollars a day. Roy Lee spear­headed the plan to pipe water from mountain springs located some eighteen miles up Pine Creek Canyon. The town board under Mayor Alvey Wright secured permission from the Pine Creek Irrigation Company on 25 February 1934 to purchase needed water from Deep Creek and the springs that fed it. After trench digging, mostly by hand, and pipe laying through rocky hills and mountainsides, pro­ject superintendent Howard Clark of Panguitch brought the enter­prise to a successful conclusion two years later. Local leaders held an impressive dedicatory service for the new water system on 23 May 1936. For almost three decades it delivered economical water that was 294 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY reported by locals to be "pure, soft, and sparkling with no disagree­able flavor."21 Antimony also took advantage of the opportunity to secure a culinary water system through the WPA. A few people in the town had wells which provided pure water, but prior to 1938 most resi­dents carried buckets of ditch water for household use. In September of that year WPA workers began laying pipe from a spring near Coyote Canyon. The community bonded for $20,000 for the project, while the federal government paid labor costs. When the project became operational only the thirty-five residences within the town proper benefited. Those living on the bench and in other outlying areas either had to continue carrying water or dig additional wells. With the outbreak of World War II there were no funds to extend the system.22 Even though the people of Tropic had built a canal long before to bring East Fork water to their community, they felt a need to build a reservoir. However, two early attempts resulted in dam failures. In November 1935 work began on a new reservoir as a federal relief pro­ject. 23 Robert A. Middleton of Henrieville was a foreman before becoming superintendent of the project. The completion of the reser­voir helped residents somewhat, but problems of too much or too little water continued, with heavy seasonal rains followed by dry peri­ods. A later installation of sprinkler-irrigation systems throughout the valley has remedied the situation for the most part. Tropic resi­dents also benefited from the completion of a "Scout House" built by WPA workers. During the mid-1930s when the unemployment picture appeared critical to county leaders, commission members headed by Walter B. Daly applied to the WPA for help in building an airport. After land was purchased from James P. Cameron on the East Fork of the Sevier River near Bryce Canyon, workers built roads and cleared the land for the hanger and runway. Daly and fellow county com­missioners Jennings Allen and Sam Pollock supervised both the design and the construction. Ruby Syrett brought tractors from his Ruby's Inn resort and graded the 7,586-foot-long runway. Civilian Conservation Corps workers cut the native ponderosa logs used to build the hanger as part of a program to control a black THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 295 beetle infestation that was ravaging forests of southern Utah. Volunteers split and sawed the logs at the East Fork Sevier River sawmill and then hauled them to the airport site using horse teams and wagons. With much of the building labor also donated, the struc­ture began to take the form of a barn, with "sheds" on either side. The log construction provided an intricate network of large timbers, many with the bark still on them, which supported a gabled tin roof. The finished structure measured 45 by 45 feet, with a row of double-sashed windows letting in light on both sides. Completed in 1937, wrote one, the building is truly an oddity, as many pilots from all over the world will testify. The barn-like construction of the native materi­als reflects the ranching-agricultural background of the men who built it. Having no previous experience in designing or building an airplane hanger, they built in the style they know with what they had.24 After the hanger was completed, the Lions Club of Panguitch hosted a countywide celebration and dance within the facility. This successful money-raising gala inspired the Lions and other civic orga­nizations to hold similar events annually at the Bryce Canyon Airport to raise money for public projects. The WPA funded labor for another building project that spawned a later enterprise. The people of Panguitch wanted to build a civic center. After they hosted several money-making projects, work on the building began. For various reasons, however, the project was abandoned sometime during the Depression. Later, after World War II, when the economy improved, the Panguitch Junior Chamber of Commerce began efforts to turn the incomplete building into a hos­pital. Members challenged each family in the county to donate twenty-five dollars to the project. Other civic clubs joined in the fundraising. They received a release from the federal government for the earlier work done by the WPA workers. Carnivals, auctions, races, and other events brought in thousands of dollars for the hospital. Finally the LDS church matched the collected funds to complete the facility. On 12 November 1946 LDS Presiding Bishop LeGrand 296 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY The Carnegie Library in Panguitch, 1938. (Utah State Historical Society) Richards offered the dedicatory prayer at services conducted by local stake president Samuel Pollock. The WPA provided another benefit for the schoolchildren of Boulder. In 1935 the agency launched a nationwide hot-lunch pro­gram in the schools. Surplus foods such as dried peas and beans came from the WPA to make soup. The school board furnished the dishes, utensils, and other equipment. In Boulder, Gertrude Moosman and Preston Porter cooked hot soup in Moosman's kitchen and served it to the town's fifty-five schoolchildren to supplement their sandwiches brought from home. The children either paid ten cents for the soup or brought meat and vegetables from home to contribute to the pot. As the government began to purchase a greater variety of surplus foods, the school-lunch program expanded until the children received a complete, well-balanced, hot meal. Schools in Antimony, Escalante, Panguitch, and Tropic also participated in the program.25 Public Health Nurses The Public Health Nursing Service, administered and funded under New Deal agencies, became another program that benefited Garfield county children as well as adults when county nurses were appointed. These nurses had many duties, including monitoring the THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 297 general health of schoolchildren and securing needed medical atten­tion for them. The government supplied each nurse with a five-gal­lon can of cod liver oil to be used to dispense to needy families without charge. Nurses also assisted local doctors and held pediatric clinics in each community. The first county nurse appointed in 1934 was Nelda Henderson. Many competent women followed after her, serving in the various towns.26 Shanna Goulding of Henrieville described her duties- which were typical-in this capacity: During those ten years I was in every home in town at different times for different illnesses, giving "shots," dispensing sulfa tablets or helping during the stress times of someone's loved one being called home. Sometimes I was the one to take patients to the doc­tor. 27 Rural Electrification Panguitch was the first Garfield town to have electricity. Citizens received the service and hook-ups through the Teluride Power Company after it reached Circleville in 1910-11. As more and more lovely brick homes graced community streets throughout the county, lighting them by modern means became a priority. Homeowners in Escalante exported locally produced cheese to Salt Lake City, often receiving in exchange barrels of coal oil and small glass lamps. Eventually gas lights were installed in some homes. By 1909 several Escalante citizens had organized a stock company to finance the construction of a new flour mill to replace the now-defunct one built by Isaac Riddle in 1892. The mill, east of town, had been run by steam power, fueled by coal. In late 1919 the Escalante Light and Power Company brought electricity to the town by installing a generator at the mill, thus transforming it into an electric plant. P. Orin Barker served as the firm's first president, Peter Shurtz as vice-president, Joseph Larsen as secretary-treasurer, and EL. Fisher as director. They now could power the gristmill with an electrically charged generator. By March 1920 the company had installed poles and electric wiring to some local homes. Electrician Neils M. Peterson of Richfield oversaw the operation, and lights were on the following year, in April 1921. However, residents found they couldn't 298 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY yet put away their kerosene lamps for good. This early foray into elec­tric power for Escalante had mixed success, but the pioneering effort anticipated better things in time.28 By the early 1930s the LDS church and recreation hall in Hatch had electric lights. Several nearby residences had this electric service extended to their homes for a monthly fee.29 One of the most exciting changes that came to Garfield County involved the Rural Electrification Administration, created by an act of Congress in 1935 to help bring electric power to areas of rural America. Much of the county's populace still depended at that time on kerosene or gas lamps and lanterns for lighting. A real step for­ward came with the organization of the Garkane Power Association on 8 July 1938, a cooperative venture involving several towns in Garfield and Kane counties. The association met and was organized in the office of Garfield County Attorney Warren W. Porter at Panguitch. Ten men and three women from the two counties com­prised the first board of directors, with Ralph B. Blackburn as presi­dent, Harold Heaton as vice-president, and Luvera Covington as secretary.30 In order to get the federal REA money to bring electricity to its small towns, the county had to obtain a 135 subscribers to the ser­vice. Robert Middleton of Henrieville and others worked very hard to get the required number, going from home to home to sign people up. It cost each family five dollars, a lot of money during the Depression, and some folks had no cash. Middleton recalled one inci­dent that illustrates the singular dedication the people had in com­pleting the task: "I went to Serielda and Lee Savages home one evening and talked to them. They were both in bed so I sat on the foot of the bed and talked Garkane Power to them and got them to sign up while they were in bed."31 With such persistence, organizers soon had the requisite number of subscribers. Late in 1938 the organization received word that their REA loan for $1.5 million had been approved. Based on a recommendation of one of the directors, Leo Munson, the field representative for the agency, engineer Ben Crimm interviewed Middleton and hired him as supervisor of the project. The board approved his appointment. Edward P. Eardley of Salt Lake City became the construction engi- THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 299 A Henrieville resident drinking from culinary water barrels just before the arrival of piped water in 1941. neer, Bessie Sandin was office secretary, and Warren C. Porter served as attorney. The project took about a year to complete, including the instal­lation of 110 miles of line and the building of an $80,000 generating plant. On 20 December 1939, residents of Hatch, Tropic, Cannonville, Henrieville, and Escalante, along with four towns in Kane County, received electricity at the same instant. Ruby's Inn and Bryce Canyon National Park also benefited from the project. A day­long and all-night celebration accompanied this momentous occa­sion. A program, barbecue, electrical demonstrations, and the turning of the switch to energize the lines took place in Hatch near the plant; festivities then moved to Tropic for a dance and more feast­ing. 32 For the people in the communities served by the Garkane Power Company the coming of electricity conveyed the promise of a better life and new experiences. One resident wrote: "No one had the 300 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY remotest idea of how to prepare or the possibilities that it brought us. We were modern and up-to-date if we had one light at the ceiling and one receptacle on any wall of the main rooms."33 Many humorous incidents accompanied the electrification of so many homes. When one turned off a gas lamp, the glowing mantle gave an extra few seconds of light. The afterglow gave some people time to walk across the room and get into bed before darkness engulfed the room. This didn't work with electric lights. It was writ­ten that "one man . . . was so surprised there was no lingering light when he turned the electric switch that he went back and turned it on again to see if he could beat it the next time."34 Local historian George Thompson reported that one unnamed resident of Bryce Valley applied for and received a General Electric dealership. Mostly through the barter system he managed to sell fifty-eight refrigerators in six months. People bought radios and other appliances from him as well. He accepted all kinds of livestock and other marketable items in exchange for the appliances and then ped­dled the items throughout the valley. As people realized the broad range of help electrical devices could be to them they purchased other appliances, which necessitated "an almost constant job of updating everyone's wiring to make it safe."35 Garkane electric power did not arrive in Boulder until 1947. In May 1946, company directors met with Boulder residents to discuss the possibility of bringing electricity to their community. Twenty-three homeowners contracted to pay $350 in advance or seventy dol­lars down and seventy dollars a year for five years to have the lines installed. Alton Talbot of Panguitch and Spencer and Lorin Moosman wired area homes. Residents had an additional reason to celebrate 25 December 1947, for that day they received electrical power along with other Christmas gifts.36 In 1946 Garkane employees worked with Antimony citizens to bring electricity to that community. The Ivan and Avera Montague home became the first to be hooked up, because that is where the workers stayed while they installed the lines. Daughter Peggy had the honor of flipping the first switch to turn on the lights. A handful of Salt Gulch families did not obtain electricity until 1953. Installation THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 301 cost them each $1,000-paid in monthly installments over a ten-year period. The Civilian Conservation Corps Of all the federal programs to help fight the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was particularly important to President Franklin D. Roosevelt because of its dual role of providing jobs and conserving natural resources-both being his priorities.37 The Civilian Conservation Corps also probably had more impact in Garfield County than did any other New Deal program. This agency employed jobless young men throughout the United States, provided them with room and board and paid them thirty dollars a month, most of which was required to be sent home to their families. By 1935 more than half a million young men had joined the corps. Since their main function involved reforestation, park maintenance, and erosion control, the men lived in camps close to the projects-sometimes in quite isolated locations. These camps operated under military disci­pline and organization. Locally the agency became important not only for the projects it undertook in Garfield County but also because it employed a number of young men in the area. However, many of their assignments kept the CCC men away from home for long periods of time. Periods of enlistment were six months, with the opportunity to reenlist. Enlistees could be sent anywhere in the coun­try. Local experienced men (LEMs) were older men hired to super­vise projects in areas in which they lived. At Bryce Canyon, CCC work began in May 1934. The agency established a Bryce Camp NP3 in the same area the Union Pacific Company had their staging ground when they built part of the rim road. A spring used earlier by the Utah Parks Company provided the water for the camp. Many of the men came from a Zion National Park camp of Utah Company 962 and returned there for the winters. The CCC workers, who numbered over 200 that first summer at Bryce, took on a number of different projects: building new roads; controling erosion along existing roads; general roadside cleanup (particularly removing downed trees along them) and improvement; constructing or upgrading old horse, hiking, and fire trails; and putting up boundary fences.38 302 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY By the end of September 1935, the work force was reduced to about eighty. Except for a small group of twenty-five, most workers left at the end of October to work at Zion National Park for the win­ter, returning to Bryce with the warmer weather the next spring. Along with the depletion of the work force came drastic cuts in the Bryce camp's allotments for overhead, equipment operation and maintenance, and purchased materials. The next two summers, however, saw improvements of the pub­lic campground at Bryce Canyon, including the dividing of it into individual campsites and the building of fireplaces and tables. Workers cut and split logs, positioned them around the campground lecture circle, and constructed a 500-foot walkway from the camp­ground to the lecture circle. The new camping facilities opened to the public during the 1936 tourist season. The CCC continued to keep workers at Bryce Canyon until the end of the corps in early 1942 building a "comfort station" at Sunset Point, several other pit toilets, a checking station at the park entrance, and an employee's dormitory and cabin. A beetle infestation caused the workers to turn their efforts to cutting and burning more than 3,000 Douglas fir and ponderosa pine trees over two seasons. They continued to improve roads and parking areas throughout the park as well as around the lodge, built cattleguards, and assisted the Garkane Power Company in erecting power lines to the park's resi­dential area. These efforts helped the park handle the ever-increasing tourist traffic.39 As important as was the CCC work at Bryce Canyon, ending the profound isolation of the community of Boulder (known to some as "the last frontier in Utah") became perhaps the greatest contribution of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Garfield County.40 This involved completing three good dirt roads. The first connected the Wayne County town of Grover to Boulder; the second was a dependable route between Escalante and Boulder by way of Posy Lake; and the third, which came a little later, was a new road at a lower elevation between Escalante and Boulder to provide year-round travel. The first and third of these roads anticipated the later Utah Highway 12. To facilitate this construction, CCC camps sprang up by 1934 at both Escalante (Camp F-18) and Grover (Camp F-19, Company THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 303 1339), with spike camps later located in various places along the routes under construction. Work had begun in 1933 on what was called the East End Road from Grover, along the east side of Boulder Mountain. Forest Ranger Wilford Bently of Wayne County super­vised the building of this road as it left Grover, and Neil Forsyth of Teasdale supervised construction of the road from Boulder toward Wayne County. As work progressed, the men established additional spike camps at Pleasant Creek, Wildcat Ranger Station, and the Boulder Ranger Station. In the midst of construction, Forsyth and one of his crew on one occasion were using dynamite to remove ponderosa pine stumps. After laying the charge the two men scrambled away, the crew man climbing over a ridge with the battery. For reasons shrouded in mys­tery, Forsyth returned to the stumps and perished as the blast exploded. His accomplishments and those of the other workers, how­ever, eventually produced a byway flanked by spectacular beauty that shortened considerably the travel time between Boulder and Wayne County. The two sections of the road, measuring a total of twenty-nine miles, finally met at Pleasant Creek, with work concluding in November 1935. The second road-more difficult to construct but completed more quickly-involved the building of an overpass referred to as Hell's Backbone Bridge. The route went north out of Escalante along Pine Creek and veered to the west toward Posy Lake before it turned east and then south, traversing some treacherous terrain. Supervision of the crew for the road fell at first to Forest Ranger T. Carl Haycock, and later to John C. Tolton. The CCC workers started building the bridge long before an approach road reached it. Lionel Chidester took charge of its construction. Brothers with the surname of Liston packed in all the necessary supplies by mule train-including lum­ber, cement, and sand. The men worked under extremely dangerous conditions as they laid the bridge across an old mule trail that passed over a narrow sandstone ridge that skirted first the deep chasm of Death Hollow on the west side, then Sand Creek on the east. Those who operated the heavy equipment during this difficult construction included Kenneth Beckstrom and Martin McCallister of Panguitch and Wanless Alvey and Loral Mclnelly of Escalante. 304 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY Hell's Backbone bridge and road built by CCC workers in 1935 between Escalante and Boulder. (USDA Forest Service) THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 305 Meanwhile, additional CCC recruits cleared debris from approaching roads with hand tools. The men called the road that wound around the head of Death Hollow the "Poison Road: one drop-sure death."41 The workers anchored huge ponderosa pine logs next to the rim of the gorge to inhibit vehicles from plunging down­ward. Amazingly, the bridge was completed by October, before many of the CCC men left for a winter camp in California. For more than a quarter century the bridge served travelers. (In 1960 Forest Service personnel replaced the old bridge with a new wider and longer struc­ture.) The road into Boulder, although not finished, was passable in the fall of 1933. By 1935 crews had completed construction on this good dry-weather road between the two communities. Because this road could not remain open during heavy winter weather, residents of Boulder and Escalante pleaded to have another route established. Work by the Civilian Conservation Corps on such a route began dur­ing the winter of 1934. It also presented some daunting challenges, as the men had to blast through sandstone ledges to the Escalante River and along the sheer canyon walls east of Calf Creek. Construction of the road included building a concrete bridge to span Escalante Creek. The twenty-nine-mile stretch of road cost more and took longer than anticipated. When CCC funds ran out, Forest Service, Division of Grazing, and Garfield County money went toward completing the bridge. Thanks to the leadership and work of men like Albert Delong, Dan Covington, Osro Hunt, Wanless Alvey, and many others, the road opened five years later. Before the completion of the latter two roads, mail and supplies had to be hauled from Escalante to Boulder on pack horses and mules over Hell's Backbone or the Boulder Mail Trail-both precar­ious routes. Residents claimed that milk and cream Boulder residents sent to Escalante would often arrive as butter after being jostled along the trail. To celebrate the access provided by the three good dirt roads, local residents staged festivities on 21 June 1940 to honor vis­iting dignitaries and the builders themselves. With more than 600 people in attendance, the revelry began in Boulder and included a barbecued beef dinner (John King donated the meat and the local 306 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY The Escalante Dam on the North Fork, looking upstream through a break in the dam in 1938. (Utah State Historical Society) LDS Relief Society prepared the meal), a program, speeches, and rodeo. It ended with an open-air dance in Escalante. The outdoor dance hall in Escalante had been built in 1934 by Leander Shurtz, who saw a need for places of recreation for both townspeople and CCC men living in close proximity to the commu­nity. The hall doubled in winter as a skating rink. The facility remained open until 1943, at which time the high school gymnasium became the center for local social functions. W. Kay Clark, in recalling his life in Henrieville, wrote about dances held each Friday night in Cannonville and local clannishness or mistrust of outsiders that has continued through the years. Some CCC men camped near the community between 1936 and 1938, and when they came to the dances Clark reported that "the Hometown boys and husbands didn't want them to dance with the Hometown girls and wives."42 Corpsmen at other CCC camps located within the county worked on improving and building other roads and trails, installing telephone lines, building ranger stations, and planting trees in forest THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 307 areas. A Dixie National Forest CCC camp, supervised by Treharne Leigh and located at Duck Creek, had a spike camp at Panguitch Lake. This group accomplished much in working on various conser­vation measures around the lake and surrounding area and also built several new roads. In 1938 an extensive reseeding program by the CCC enhanced range quality in areas of Upper Valley, Johns Valley, Cameron Wash, Reed Ranch, Duck Creek, Pine Valley, and Jones Corral. The Demise of Widtsoe Not all New Deal programs and relief efforts proved successful and beneficial to Garfield County residents, however. Although the community of Widtsoe showed great promise during its second decade of settlement, trouble loomed on the horizon. As mentioned in the previous chapter, one of Widtsoe's main problems involved securing a dependable source of water. Only 210 people remained in town by 1930; by 1935 only seventeen families were still living there. The Resettlement Administration moved in to purchase the land from the townspeople and homesteaders, most of whom were behind in paying their property taxes. The agency planned to return the land to public domain as a possible grazing area and help the inhabitants to relocate to more productive parts of the state. The citizens agreed with this strategy, but the plan went awry. According to former resident Reed Beebe, the cost of adminis­tering the program more than doubled the money paid out for the land. Those who represented the Resettlement Administration also moved slowly in settling with the residents-usually taking months and years when it had promised it would only take weeks. Beebe's father died before reaching an agreement with the government-his son claimed the death was from a broken heart. A month after the elder Beebe's death, the Resettlement Administration came with their offer. Beebe described the situation: "interest on mortgages and delin­quent taxes ate all the equity we had in our 3,000 plus acres of land. Vera [Beebe's sister] was relocated on a run-down fruit farm in Orem. I was given the choice of buying the farm of a cousin of the attorney for the government-or nothing. So ended our sojourn in Johns Valley."43 308 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY The government reportedly did not allow those who had been resettled to freely spend the money they received; their checks could not be cashed without being countersigned by someone in the Resettlement Administration office, another process that took time. Some resented the government methods, but the program was intended to benefit those who were already in the process of losing their land, which probably provoked some resentment in other tax-paying citizens that these people were being bought out at all. The Resettlement Administration reportedly expended $81,300 to buy people out in Widtsoe. That sum, however, did not include the cost of administering the program. Those who did not receive funds from the government to relocate received supplemental loans to finance their move. When everyone had left, government personnel razed almost all of the buildings in town and placed the 26,143 acres under the supervision of provisions of the Taylor Grazing Act.44 Some county residents still feel, however, that had there been diligent efforts undertaken by the Soil Conservation Service in those days, Widtsoe might have survived, even thrived.45 World War II America's entry into World War II brought an even greater sad­ness to many Garfield residents. Because America's part in this war lasted so much longer than its fighting in World War I, the impact was far greater. Garfield County also provided a greater than average percentage of troops to fight in Europe and Asia. The war altered population trends in the county. After almost steady growth from decade to decade, the county's population dropped between 1940 and 1950 by more than a thousand people- more than 20 percent. The young men and women who heeded the call to serve received assignments to military installations through­out the country for training. Most of them left home for the first time in their lives, and some came to believe that greater economic or social opportunities awaited them beyond the confines of their for­mer homes. For others, the lure of a more temperate climate and comfortable lifestyle (such as that found in California) proved to be overwhelming. This held true for those who left to work in war industries as well. THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 309 The county seat, Panguitch, contributed about 350 young people to the war effort, including nurses and Women's Army Corps recruits, out of a population of just under 2,000. The women included June Haycock Kessler, Barbara Kenney, Edith Broadhead Lindsay, Mary Dickenson Calcara, Cleo Allen Henrie, Coris Slack, and Evelyn Marshall Roe. Ten young men lost their lives in the war. Julian Cherrington went down with his ship, the aircraft carrier Saratoga, in the Pacific. Carl Englestead, Earl Excell, and Homer Hatch also died in the Pacific theater. Erwin Kockerhans died in an army camp, while Ellis Adair and Arthur Dickenson lost their lives as the result of accidents in their respective camps. The body of one young man, Boyd Riding, never received a burial; the transport plane he was in went down in India, and he and the other sixteen on board were never found. Other Panguitch military men who died included Lindon Lemmons and Thomas Sevy. One young local soldier, Lt. Richard Haycock, son of Panguitch City Marshal and Mrs. J. Scott Haycock, saw duty during a significant event near the end of the war-while serving in Germany, he was an usher at the Potsdam Conference. Hatch contributed fifty-four young men to the war effort, almost 18 percent of the town's population. Six of these men received Purple Hearts for valor-Ira Ray Barnhurst, Merrill Burrows, Mark C. Fallis, George H. Middleton, Ray Porter, and David G. Sawyer. Two lost their lives. Ira Ray Barnhurst died in France on 19 August 1944; his body was sent home for burial. Merrill G. Burrows was killed in action on the Pacific island of Tarawa on 20 November 1943. From Antimony and surrounding farmlands forty-two men saw duty during the war. For a population of less than 300 in the area, this again was a large percentage. As many as four sons per family heeded the call of duty, and all served honorably. Three young men were killed in action: Ted Riddle died in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944; Lark Allen first suffered injuries in Africa and then in Italy, and then both he and Arthur E. Twitchell met death during the invasion of Normandy. Escalante had a population of 1,161 people in 1940 according to census records. When the United States went to war, 165 of the com­munity's population served their country, more than 14 percent of 310 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY the citizenry. Among this number, four women enlisted-Evelyn Barney, Ruby C. Cowart, Rosella Osborn, and Emma Spencer. In the fall of 1944, some Escalante parents began receiving news of their sons' deaths. Two local men died in October: Wallace Arnold Barney, an aircraft gunner was killed in action in the Philippines and Milan W. Cottam died in Pacific waters. In November Farlan L. Spencer died in an airplane accident at McDill Air Base in Florida. The next spring Gren Mclnelly died on the island of Luzon. Eldon Earnest Griffin was killed in action near Tamboch, Germany, close to the end of the war in Europe. The communities in the upper Paria and Bryce valleys sent loved ones to fight with the Allies as well. George Thompson sums up their contribution: "Those in the service, due to their experience in han­dling problems and their skill with weapons and equipment, along with their dependability and courage, advanced to officer ranks and received the admiration and trust of their associates."46 Out of a pop­ulation of about 250 people, Cannonville sent twenty-eight young men to the military during the war. Fortunately they all returned home. Henrieville sent thirty-three men to war out of a citizenry of approximately 240. Only one did not make it back-Guy Nephi Smith. He served aboard the USS Indianapolis. On its return from the island of Tinian after it had delivered key atomic bomb components, the vessel sustained heavy damage from a Japanese submarine tor­pedo attack. The ship became the last U.S. naval vessel to be lost dur­ing World War II, taking 880 crew members-including young Guy Smith-with her when she sank.47 Tropic also did its share in supplying young men for the military. Forty-four men and one woman (Pearl Adair joined the women's navy organization the WAVEs) went to war from a community of about 500 people. Leon Barton paid the ultimate price for his patrio­tism. Other valley war casualties included Eddie Henderson, Roy Henderson, Jr., and Bernard Cope.48 Completing the catalog of Garfield participation in the military, nine young men from Boulder served with distinction in World War II. To add further perspective concerning the personal sacrifice of county residents, it is interesting to note that four grandmothers liv- THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 311 ing within the county sent seventy-one grandsons and three grand­daughters to the cause: Elizabeth Smith of Henrieville had twenty-four grandsons, eight great-grandsons, and two granddaughters serving; Sarah Ann Shurtz of Escalante had eleven grandsons and grandsons-in-law who participated; Elizabeth Jolley of Tropic had twenty-three grandsons in the military; and Jane Haycock of Panguitch had thirteen grandsons and one granddaughter who served in the war. On the Home Front Supplying troops for the U.S. military was not the only measure of Garfield County loyalty during World War II. Many citizens vol­unteered to assist on local draft boards or to plan special occasions to honor those who served. As with the rest of the nation, county res­idents also took part in scrap drives, supported rationing programs, bought bonds when they could, and did without those items that were needed for the war effort. Heber H. Hall taught high school in Boulder during the last school year that secondary classes were taught there (1941-42). He organized his pupils for a scrap collection. They visited the farms and ranches in the Boulder area and collected a small mountain of scrap iron. Horace R. Hall took the truckloads of metal to Salt Lake City. Among the items collected went the cracked bell from the burned-down schoolhouse.49 In Antimony, Les Smoot volunteered to have his store be the depot for all iron scrap collected by citizens from throughout Grass Valley. Trucks then picked up the material to be taken to foundries for melting and recycling into war material. Since farmers could not buy new equipment during the war, Lloyd Marshall worked locally as a welder to help keep the farm machinery running.50 As in other localities of the country during the war, some of those involved in agriculture lacked needed labor at harvest time. Three men from Antimony found a ready source of workers to take up the slack. It had been the habit of Glenn Crabb, Charles Riddle, and Milo Warner to take their potatoes to the Phoenix area to sell throughout the winter months. In October 1943 Crabb and Warner stopped at some of the Navajo communities along the way to offer 312 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY the people there jobs picking and hauling potatoes. Two truckloads of field workers returned with the men. This began a practice that lasted for more than twenty years. The Navajo workers did such a good job and seemed so appre­ciative of the opportunity to earn the money that the next year they also went on to the sugar beet harvest in Sevier County after com­pletion of the two-week potato harvest in Antimony and surround­ing areas. Local residents learned about Navajo native customs while these men worked in their midst. They observed Native American habits of camp life, healing ceremonies that included sand paintings, and purification practices.51 Another source of labor came from the county's young people. Teora Newby Willis of Henrieville recalled that in 1942 when she was in the eighth grade she and her friends and siblings could get jobs picking and cutting potatoes and picking peas. This not only helped the farmers, but with the money earned the youths could buy their own school clothes. School let out for a few days each fall for potato picking and a few days in the spring for potato cutting.52 The lack of adequate health care during the war caused difficul­ties for Garfield County people. From Richfield on the north to Kanab on the south, locals had to do without the services of a doctor for most of the war years. They had to travel anywhere from 80 to 150 miles for hospital care in cases of serious illness or injury. When the war began, except for a few experienced in nursing and midwifery, all medical personnel left. Shortly before the war ended, with plans in the offing for a hospital in Panguitch, residents there persuaded Dr. Sims E. Duggins of Gunnison to relocate to their community.53 Memphis Sudweeks Talbot remembered when her husband, Russell, suffered an appendicitis attack. Dr. Duggins determined that he needed to get Talbot to the hospital in Cedar City, but he had used up all his gas-ration stamps and the Talbots did not own a vehicle. In desperation, Memphis Talbot went throughout the town to gather enough stamps to fill Duggins's gas tank, and the three of them finally took off for Cedar City for the emergency surgery.54 For the Talbots and their county neighbors the completion of the hospital the following year came none too soon. Dr. George Monnet joined Dr. Duggins on the staff a few years later, followed by Dr. William L. THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 313 Mason. These physicians also held monthly clinics in various Garfield County towns. From Country Schoolhouse to Post-war Modernity In 1948 the Salt Lake Tribune decided to run a human-interest story regarding the old country schoolhouse in Antimony. They heard that the lcoal schoolchildren and their teachers had planned a three-day trip to Salt Lake City. The paper sent a photographer and reporter down to Antimony to gather background for the article. There the two found school still being held in a structure first built in 1883 that had since been enlarged to three rooms. Heat came from pot-bellied stoves in each room. The requisite school bell summoned students grade one through eight to school each day or back from recess. On 5 May 1948 fifty excited children, their teachers, principal, and chaperoning parents boarded two Greyhound buses headed for the big city. After the children visited points of interest along the way, motorcycle policemen met them at the Point of the Mountain and escorted the entourage to the Hotel Utah, where they were guests. For the next three days the group saw urban sights and took a roller-coaster ride at Saltair Resort. They toured the Tribune headquarters and met and shook hands with Governor Herbert Maw in the Gold Room of the Utah State Capitol Building. They also met the presi­dent of the LDS church, George Albert Smith, visited Temple Square and the Cathedral of the Madeleine, and attended some water follies. The students even flew in a DC-3 airplane over Salt Lake City. Throughout their visit, the newspaper reporter and photographer followed them around and took pictures, later adding captions that gave the impression to some readers that the children from Antimony lived lives of deprivation. Not only did the state newspapers cover their activities, national news services also picked up the story. When the students returned home, most of the town turned out to meet them.55 This proved to be a marvelous experience for these youngsters; but the news stories promulgated a somewhat false impression of what it was like to live in a southern Utah rural area. By the end of the war, the majority of Garfield County residents were beginning to 314 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY enjoy most of the same conveniences that their urban counterparts did. All communities had electricity, telephone service, much improved culinary water systems, indoor plumbing, and roads. The county had an up-to-date hospital, an airport, a consolidated public school system w i t h improved facilities, and the beginnings of an i n f r a s t r u c t u r e to accommodate a fledgling tourist industry. Increasing numbers of county citizens traveled regularly to Salt Lake City a n d other u r b a n areas a n d h a d been exposed to life in other parts of the country and far-flung localities around the world. It was true that the county's population dipped during the immediate post­war period, but this t r e n d soon abated. In future decades, Garfield County would begin to see increasing in-migration because of the unique quality of life it h a d to offer. ENDNOTES 1. Vernon Davies, "Garfield County's Relief Problem," Garfield County News, 2 November 1938. 2. Ida Chidester and Eleanor Bruhn, Golden Nuggets of Pioneer Days: A History of Garfield County, 312-13. 3. George W. Thompson, "Cannonville History," 34. 4. Janet M. Johnson Ott, "A Sketch of the Life of Joseph Alma Ott," 6-7. 5. Luetta Partner Davenport, Autobiography, 2, copy obtained by authors from Nancy Twitchell. 6. Vernon Davies and Arthur L. Beeley, "The Survey of Relief and Rehabilitation in Garfield County, Utah; Results and Implications," in Proceedings of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (Salt Lake City: Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, 1939), 103. 7. Ibid., 104. 8. M. Lane Warner, Grass Valley 1873-1976: A History of Antimony and Her People, 52. 9. As quoted in Warner, Grass Valley, 72. 10. Woolsey, Escalante Story, 260. 11. June Shakespear, "Tropic," 7. 12. Lenora Hall LeFevre, The Boulder Country and Its People: A History of the People of Boulder and the Surrounding Country, 182. 13. Ibid., 211-12. THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO POST-WAR RECOVERY 315 14. Ruby Moore, "Charles Luther and Ruby Moore," 2, copy obtained by the authors from Nancy Twitchell. 15. Thompson, "Cannonville History," 36. 16. Shakespear, "Tropic," 8. 17. "See The Spectrum, 23 July 1997, Al. 18. LeFevre, Boulder Country, 223-24. 19. Ibid., 261-62. 20. Thompson, "Cannonville History," 34. 21. Nethella Griffin Woolsey, The Escalante Story: 1875-1964, 202-3. 22. Warner, Grass Valley, 54-55. 23. Shakespear writes that this was a project under the Resettlement Administration; see "Tropic," 7. However, in a letter written to Utah Governor Calvin L. Rampton on 4 February 1970, Middleton states that it came under the WPA, which seems more logical. Copy of letter obtained by authors from Marilyn Murdock. 24. "Bryce Canyon Airport Hanger," Bryce Canyon Country's Scenic Byway 12 (1992), 8-B, copy in possession of authors. 25. LeFevre, Boulder Country, 195; and Woolsey, Escalante Story, 293-94. 26. Woolsey, Escalante Story, 219-21. 27. Shanna Goulding, "My Early Memories of Henrieville," 2, copy obtained by authors from Nancy Twitchell. 28. Woolsey, Escalante Story, 206-7. 29. Effel Harmon Barrow Riggs, History of Hatch, Utah and Associated Towns, Asay and Hillsdale, 310. 30. Woolsey, Escalante Story, 207. Riggs, History of Hatch, 311, lists those in attendance at the first meeting; however, she records Blackburn as president and Warren Porter as secretary-treasurer. 31. Robert A. Middleton, "Life of Robert A. Middleton," 10, copy obtained by authors from Marilyn Murdock. 32. See Garfield County News, 14 December 1939; Robert A. Middleton to Governor Calvin L. Rampton, 4 February 1972; Woolsey, Escalante Story, 207; and Riggs, History of Hatch, 311-12. 33. Thompson, "Cannonville History," 36. 34. Riggs, History of Hatch, 312. 35. Thompson, "Cannonville History," 36-37. 36. LeFevre, Boulder Country, 269. 37. Paul S. Boyer et al., The Enduring Vision (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1995), 546, 555. 316 HISTORY OF GARFIELD COUNTY 38. Kenneth W. Baldridge, "Nine Years of Achievement: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Utah" (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1971), 110. 39. See Nicholas Scrattish, Historic Resource Study: Bryce Canyon National Park, 153-63. 40. See LeFevre, Boulder Country, 231-34; Woolsey, Escalante Story, 191-94. 41. LeFevre, Boulder Country, 231. 42. W. Kay Clark, "Henrieville Town History," 2, copy obtained by authors from Nancy Twitchell. 43. Quoted in Sandberg, "Widtsoe Inside Out," 17. 44. Grant Nielsen, "'Mercy Death' for Towns," in lohns Valley The Way We Saw It (Springville, UT: Art City Publishing Co., 1971), 7; Carr, Ghost Towns, 122. 45. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 143. 46. Thompson, "Cannonville History," 35. 47. Van Dorn Smith, One and One Make Eleven (Ogden, UT: n.p., 1993), 54. 48. The local high school yearbook paid tribute to these three young men along with Guy Smith and Leon Barton, but it is uncertain which com­munities the three came from. See the Brycconian, 1946. 49. LeFevre, Boulder Country, 182. 50. Warner, Grass Valley, 56. 51. Ibid., 56-57. 52. Teora Willis, autobiography, 5. Although Willis's school days were spent in nearby Monroe, Utah, her experiences parallelled those of youths in Garfield County communities where growing potatoes was an important commercial enterprise. 53. Chidester and Bruhn, Golden Nuggets, 277. 54. Memphis Ula Sudweeks Talbot, interview with Vivian L. Talbot, August 1997, notes in possession of the authors. 55. Warner, Grass Valley, 59-60.