A History of Uintah County

Agriculture and the livestock industry

To Plow and to Sow-to Reap and to Mow AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY T J. he first white families who settled Uintah County had to pro­duce everything needed for their survival. Farming and raising live­stock met their basic needs at first, but as more people came into the valley, needs became more diversified and cooperative efforts devel­oped. In those early years agriculture, livestock, timbering, mining, apiculture (bee keeping), and freighting provided the economic base for the county. Many of the settlers had professional and skilled train­ing and began to practice professions, although most continued to do some farming to provide food for their families. Within the first decade of the settlement period, blacksmith shops, sawmills, flour mills, shingle mills, planing mills, livery stables, general stores, and, of course, saloons appeared. These were followed by brickyards, stone quarries, an ice cream factory, creameries, dairies, and a variety of other commercial endeavors. By 1893, 169 homes were located in the county. These included sixty houses valued from $75 to $500 each; six cabins valued from $50 to $200 each; ninety-eight log homes valued from $10 to $250 each; two brick homes valued from $1,400 to $1,500 each; three stone 107 108 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY homes valued from $250 to $1,200 each; eleven shops valued from $200 to $700 each; three saloons valued from $200 to $700 each; and one mill valued at $1,250. The county records that year also showed 3,457 horses and mules valued from $18.79 to $40.75 each; 7,358 cattle valued from $9.30 to $27.06 each; 33,706 sheep valued at $1.50 per sheep; 703 pigs valued from $2.20 to $3.55 each; and 865 beehives valued at $2.50 each. A large increase in homes and businesses was noted by 1894, with 505 homes, two mills, four saloons, eleven shops, and fifteen stables. This may have been partly due to the Gilsonite activity. By 1900 records showed 811 homes, five shops one saloon, one opera house, and four mills. In 1907 the numbers had increased to 977 homes, seven shops, and two mills. These figures indicate that the economy of the county was increasing yearly.1 Livestock Livestock initially was the main industry of Uintah County. When the Ute Indian Agency first located in Whiterocks, the men at the agency began to build up cattle herds. The cattle were eventually brought east as far as the Green River and then taken to the sur­rounding mountains. Large cattle herds had been coming to Brown's Park from Texas and other eastern areas since as early as the 1850s. Nearly 5,000 head of cattle wintered in Brown's Park the winter of 1872-73. When Pardon Dodds was released as Indian agent, he and Morris R. Evans brought to Ashley Valley Dodds' herd of cattle and the herd Evans purchased from Hoy brothers in Brown's Hole. Dodds set up a trading post in 1873 that effectively began the town of Ashley. Many of the Brown's Park cowboys began riding over the mountain for supplies and sought board and room in Huffaker's upstairs rooms or in the attic of Britt's store. The K Ranch, located on the Utah-Colorado line with property in both states, was a big cattle operation owned by P.R. Keiser which brought many cowboys to the area. Keiser first brought a large herd of cattle north to Brown's Hole, but when the grass became over­grazed by the 4,000 head of cattle which had been moved into the Hole in 1871 and 1872, he moved his herd out and began the K Ranch. A large syndicate from New York managed by S.K. Royal AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 109 established the Red Butte Ranch west of the K Ranch on Cockle Bur, about seven miles east of Jensen, and brought in a large herd of cattle. A.C. Hatch brought cattle from Heber City and encouraged other cattlemen to follow suit. Mosby Mountain west of Vernal was named after another Ashley Valley cattleman, Dan Mosby. Many cattle were ranged around Ouray. Charley Hill, who came to Ashley Valley as a trapper for the Hudson Bay Company, started a cattle company on Hill Creek and Willow Creek in the Book Cliffs. When the govern­ment set aside this section for the Ouray Indian Agency, the cattle­men had to move out. Two factors-free grass and the availability of water-influenced cattlemen to move their herds to Uintah County. Most of the land in the region belonged to the federal government or was part of the public domain and open to anyone who would use it. As long as the land remained public domain, no territory or state could tax it, so cattlemen took advantage of the situation by allowing their cattle to roam at will. Roundups were held in the fall, with all the cattlemen working together to bring the cattle off the mountains. During the hard winter of 1879-80, most of the cattle in Ashley Valley were lost. Cattle owners who entered the winter worth from $5,000 to $30,000 came out in the spring practically broke. Many of the settlers had just arrived that summer and neither hay nor grain was available to sustain the cattle. A big snowfall followed by a thaw settled the snow down to eight or ten inches, and it then froze like a sheet of ice. Some cattle died standing erect, frozen stiff-they simply starved and froze. More than 75 percent of all the cattle perished. It was ironic that lames McKee, who owned more cattle than anyone else, lost a lighter percentage than any of the others, possibly because his cattle had been in the area a few years and were better acclimated to the range. Some of the heavy losers were S.D. Colton, Lycurgus lohnson, Nathan Davis, Isaac Burton and his sons, Teancum Taylor, loseph Hardy, and Alf lohnson. Even with their great losses these men restored their herds, built many other industries in Ashley Valley, and became leaders of the community. Cattlemen continued to bring cattle to the county, and in 1893 a record number of cattle were sold. As herds continued to grow, so did the problem of cattle rustling. Following 1893 and for the remainder 110 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY of the decade, Utah and the nation faced particularly difficult times economically, and perhaps this was one reason for cattle-rustling activities in the county and elsewhere. During the years 1896 to 1898 many rustlers were caught and sent to prison. Some were young men from Mormon families who had gone astray, others were outlaws from Brown's Park and other areas attracted by the success of the rustling enterprise.2 Large herds roamed the land unattended and some men acquired their start in the cattle business by stealing unbranded calves. Constant conflict resulted between the small and large cattle companies. In fact, the cattle business proved to be so dif­ficult in the early days that many men gave up the business.3 Still, the county assessment rolls in 1902 listed 9,591 head of cattle valued at $155,828. In 1912 the Uintah Cattle and Horse Growers Association was organized to protect the livestock industry from thieves and to issue an authorized brand book. Part of the old cattle range was included in the Ashley National Forest when it was set aside by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. Permits were issued to area stockmen based on the number of stock owned, prior use, and commensurate ranch property. Cattle raising has always been one of the most important enter­prises of the county; most of the farm produce raised was livestock and their by-products.4 No attempt was made to fatten them, as the distance to railroads was too far to market grain-fed stock. The cattle were turned onto either the free summer range or the forest reserve and then driven to the railroad each fall and sold as feeders and stockers. The cattle were trailed to either Craig, Colorado, or to Green River, Wyoming, where they were shipped by train to Kansas or other points. When the Uintah Railway came to Dragon, cattle were shipped from the county to market by rail, ending the long cattle drives. Later, when trucking became available, cattle were trucked to Craig, Colorado, and sold as prime beef. Although the cattle industry was at one time the dominant industry in Uintah County, with the decrease in the prices of feeders, the large herds were disposed of until today only a remnant of the former vast numbers that grazed the hills remains. Instead of the large herds, cattlemen began running smaller herds of a better grade AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 111 of stock. Dairy herds also were started and the production of milk and butter helped the local economy. The sheep industry also has been part of the backbone of Uintah County's economy. Sheep were first introduced to the valley during the hard winter of 1879 when Robert Bodily brought in sixty head. The sheep survived the rigors of that winter much better than did cattle. Tom Caldwell brought a small herd of sheep into the area and located them in Naples Ward. He sold the sheep to Isaac Burton, Sr., and his son-in-law, Ben Chestnut, who took the sheep onto Diamond Mountain. George Young and C.S. Carter were the first to bring big herds of sheep to the valley. By the mid-1890s more than 50,000 head of sheep were in the region. Wool became one of the county's most important industries as the sheep herds built up. As early as 1897 C.S. Carter built shearing corrals. In 1899, 500,000 pounds of wool was shipped from Uintah County and sold for twelve and one-half cents per pound. County assessment rolls in 1902 showed 86,722 head of sheep valued at $196,250. In 1906 the Uintah Railway Company built shearing pens on the Green River to encourage the shipping of wool by train. In 1908 some 600,000 pounds of wool was clipped. In 1912 pens were built at Bonanza and Dragon; in 1914 the Uintah Sheep Shearing Association and the Uintah Woolgrowers Association were formed. Sheep shear­ing was a big industry with many crews employed. In 1917 George Wardle's sheep-shearing crew sheared 21,000 sheep in May. Corrals were built in lensen, and by 1929 Watson had a shearing plant. In 1932 sheep-shearing plants were handling 4,000 head a day. More than 200,000 head of sheep, producing 1,800,000 pounds of wool, were owned by Vernal sheepmen by 1934. If sheepmen were located too far from these shearing plants to bring in their herds, many small crews were available that would go to the individual sheep ranches and shear the herds. Beginning in the 1940s Mexican sheep-shearing crews began coming to the area with big outfits, shearing fast and going on their way to another ranch. The introduction of sheep into Uintah County contributed to the decline of the cattle industry, creating conflicts. Cattlemen, pro­tective of their range, feared the encroachment of sheep; to stop the 112 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY spread of sheep, they sometimes resorted to violence. Sheep and cat­tle "wars" occurred on both Diamond Mountain and Blue Mountain, resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 sheep and one herder. In 1909 range conditions were noted as being "exceptionally good" and about 80,000 sheep were under permit on the Ashley Forest. This number increased in 1914 to 96,110. In 1919 there were 100,000 sheep and 11,000 cattle on the forest range.5 In 1929, 102,000 sheep and 10,000 cattle and horses were grazing on Ashley National Forest summer ranges. These numbers do not include sheep in the county not on the forest reserve. According to county assessment records, livestock increased and decreased in the county, as the fol­lowing chart depicts: Year 1879 1893 1902 1900 1910 1914 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1979 1993 Sheep 60 33,706 86,722 70,162 124,524 104,321 128,451 175,492 102,272 62,239 77,011 27,335 18,200 Cattle 5,000 7,358 19,591 17,898 6,154 8,106 30,404 13,492 14,406 14,239 17,785 20,430 48,0006 Horses 3,457 2,737 3,060 3,565 10,793 3,575 3,430 2,134 1,405 1,726 Swine 703 607 479 1,744 1,497 When settlers first arrived in Ashley Valley, livestock was placed wherever the feed was best, as most range was public domain. In win­ter cattle were kept in the lowlands and in summer the herds were taken to the mountains. Fighting over waterholes and choice loca­tions was constant. Then the government became involved. At the end of the nineteenth century, settlers had spread across the United States. The frontier was vanishing and a growing number of conser­vationists worried about protecting the remaining unsettled lands. Several laws were passed as a result of pressure from the conservation movement. In 1891 Congress passed the General Land Law Revision AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 113 Act; it included a provision authorizing the president to set aside for­est reserves from the unreserved public domain. This was a major legislative breakthrough in the long fight for federal forest protection and the first step in closing America's vast nineteenth-century open-land frontier. One of the reserves created by President Grover Cleveland in 1897 was the Uinta Forest Reserve, which was headquartered in Provo and included most of the Uinta Mountains. Local opposition to the reserve was evident in the early letters and reports of early for­est rangers, who struggled to maintain a good relationship with local inhabitants, particularly the ranchers who had been using the reserve for grazing. Assistant ranger Grant Carpenter and forest guard Albert Hardy served the county. In 1905 the U.S. Forest Service was created when the Bureau of Forestry and the Forestry Division of the General Land Office were merged. Later that year President Theodore Roosevelt removed the mountainous area of the Duchesne River drainage from the Uintah Indian Reservation and made it part of the Uinta National Forest. The Ashley National Forest was created on 1 July 1908 from the eastern portion of the Uinta National Forest. This forest had several districts, including Altonah, Whiterocks, Vernal, Manila, and Mountain View, Wyoming. Each district had a district ranger, and the forest headquarters was established in Vernal. The ranger was given authority to sell timber, create grazing allotments, and make most of the decisions essential to operating the forest in the particular area. In 1971 the Ashley forest was consolidated from five districts to four. At that time 133,000 acres was taken from the Roosevelt District and added to the Vernal District. New grazing allotments, timber sales, and special use areas were added to the district. In 1994 the process of combining the Roosevelt and Duchesne districts was undertaken, reducing the districts to three. Many new changes are under consideration by the Clinton administration. A tremendous amount of timber has been harvested from the forest. Prior to 1945 a yearly average of five to ten million board feet (MMBF) was taken from the forest. From 1945 to 1975 an average of fifteen MMBF was taken per year. Local infestation of trees by the mountain pine beetle resulted in an accelerated harvest of twenty to 114 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY twenty-five MMBF per year from 1975 to 1985. From 1985 to the present thirteen to fifteen MMBF per year have been taken. There is still much salvage material due to the mountain pine beetle kill, and with the passage of the Taylor Salvage Amendment the Forest Service is looking at an average of twenty MMBF to be harvested in the next two years.7 On 1 October 1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson approved legis­lation establishing the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area as part of the Ashley National Forest, adding approximately 120,000 acres to the forest. The High Uinta Wilderness Area is of great interest to outsiders as well as local residents. As early as 1949 a forest report stated that 115,000 acres of the Ashley National Forest-"where primitive con­ditions of transportation and habitation will be preserved as much as practical"-had been set aside. This designation continued until 28 September 1984, when Congress passed an act establishing the High Uintas Wilderness Area. The 460,000-acre wilderness included most of the original primitive area. Over half of the wilderness is in the Ashley forest, with the remainder on the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. It is the largest wilderness area in Utah.8 Besides early forest reserves withdrawn from Uintah County, and the large amount of land withdrawn when the reservation was opened to homesteading, Dinosaur National Monument land was withdrawn from the public domain in 1915. It originally included eighty acres but grew to 209,000 acres (318 square miles) by 1938. The public domain which remained was still used freely by all of the stockmen of Uintah County. This process continued until 1934, when public land-use policies were radically changed. Earlier some Colorado stockmen had taken their concerns to U.S. Congressman Edward T. Taylor of Colorado, while Utah stockmen had been expressing their concerns to U.S. Congressman Don B. Colton of Vernal. The resulting Taylor Grazing Act was passed in 1934, the out­come of several years of work by Colton. After Republican Colton's defeat in the 1932 election, the fight was taken over by his Democratic neighbor from western Colorado.9 Taylor introduced a bill to extend grazing regulation to the public lands under the man­agement of a division in the Department of the Interior. The bill was AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 115 quickly passed by Congress. By its terms some 173 million acres of unreserved federal lands were w i t h d r a w n from public e n t r y and placed under the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of t h e Grazing Service in the Department of the Interior. The law allotted specific areas to stock­men for livestock grazing. Grazing districts were established and per­mits were issued for their use. Preference was extended to established stockmen, land owners, settlers, and owners of water. The fees were based on the cost of a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . The I n d i a n grazing area in Uintah County also came under the Taylor Act. Rules were issued to permittees to protect the land from overuse. Under the Taylor Grazing Act, local advisory boards had consid­erable authority. Board members were elected by land-permit hold­ers. Meetings were held in U i n t a h C o u n t y to organize a grazing district. Hugh Colton was named secretary of the Vernal district. In August 150 cattlemen, sheepmen, and farmers met in Vernal at the county courthouse and formed the Vernal Grazing Association. The Taylor Grazing Act was in some respects the forerunner of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which was established in 1946 and eventually assumed responsibility for the administration of grazing laws o n public land. The BLM initially was only concerned with livestock operations, but soon the agency's role extended to mineral leases, recreation, wildlife, water development, and various other functions under a concept of multiple use. Greek sheepmen from the Price and Helper area h a d brought many herds of sheep into the area, which caused a conflict with local sheepmen until the Taylor Grazing Act was passed and the public domain was placed under federal regulations. Some of the newcom­ers did not have citizenship papers and were unable to secure graz­ing permits.10 When sheepman Cliff McCoy was asked in an interview how the Taylor Grazing Act affected him, he replied: It was good when it first started. It was suited most to the live­stock people because it got rid of a lot of transients off our county. We had thousands and thousands come here from Price and down in that country. You had to watch close or a lot of them would take your sheep when they left. They used a lot of our feed. I remember one year when one sheepman brought in 15,000 head of sheep and wintered right on the range where we were located. The Taylor 116 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY Trucking lambs from Vernal to Craig, Colorado in the 1930s. World War I doughboy statue was located in the center of town at that time. (UCLRHC, L. C. Thorne collection) Grazing Act did away with those people. The Taylor Grazing was run at first by sheepmen and ranchers then they began sending in people out of the east who had never seen our country-dictating to us. The forest was the same way. Our allotments weren't cut down, but the number of livestock we could run on the allotments were cut to about half.11 By 1935 a grazing office was set up in Vernal. Herds of both cat­tle and sheep were decreased in order to stop overgrazing of the range. When grazing permits were issued in 1935, William Siddoway obtained one of the first permits, allowing him to run 9,000 sheep. At the peak of the industry in the early 1930s, around fifty sheepmen ran about 100,000 sheep in Uintah County. In 1960 twenty-nine sheepmen ran 44,538 head of sheep. Twenty-two of these had herds of over 1,000 head. The balance was owned by farmers or small ranchers running from one to three hundred head. There were only two large year-round herds left in the county in 1996. One herd of about 3,500 head belonged to Lynn Siddoway, grandson of William Siddoway; another of about 1,200 belonged to Doc Nile Holmes. A few sheepmen from Colorado lease winter range south of Vernal, and a few Utah sheepmen also winter sheep south of Vernal. A number of people keep up to twenty or thirty head of sheep on their farms or ranches. AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 117 T. G. Alexander with knife in hand butchering hogs (UCLRHC, T. G. Alexander collection) Thousands of wild horses ran in the hills in the early days. The A.C. Hatch Cattle and Horse Company came into Ashley Valley in the 1870s; it placed its livestock along Ashley Creek and then down on the Green River before eventually establishing the A H Ranch on Blue Mountain. Horses were plentiful by 1897 and needed to be thinned out. Thomas Davenport bought 675 horses for canning purposes at $7.50 a head. The Hatch company began raising thoroughbred horses, and other blooded horses were brought to the area. By 1907 Ashley Valley claimed eight stallions including three Percherons, two Shires, one coach horse, one Clydesdale, and one thoroughbred, besides sev­eral good jacks. Eventually thousands of well-bred wild horses were running free on Blue Mountain. In 1927 many of the wild horses were disposed of by the county. Again, in 1929, the woolgrowers and cat­tlemen of Ashley Valley held a meeting and decided that an extermi­nation campaign against wild horses on Diamond Mountain was necessary to preserve forage needed for livestock. Under the direction of Ernest Eaton, 700 horses were gathered and eliminated. Hogs, turkeys, and poultry were other early livestock industries. 118 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY Almost every family raised its own chickens and a few pigs, which were also raised commercially in Uintah County for many years. In 1906 poultry men met together and held the first annual poultry show. By 1914 turkeys and chickens, along with butter, clover seed, and honey, were in demand and shipped out of the basin. In 1915 William Witbeck shipped 1,000 turkeys to Salt Lake City parcel post. It was stated in the local newspaper that "hen fruit" was coming into demand, as 13,000 eggs were shipped from the Acorn Mercantile on 7 May 1915, and another 12,000 on 28 May by U.S. mail. In 1916 ten tons of turkeys were mailed in five days. The demand for turkeys was such that poultry thieves began infesting the valley. By 1920 turkeys had become a big part of the local economy, with 10,000 pounds shipped in November; 40,000 pounds were shipped in 1923. The turkey business thrived until 1934, when it began to dwindle. With the opening of Dudley Poultry Farm in lensen in 1927, A. DeMar Dudley became one of the largest poultry producers in the county, running the business for fifty years. In 1960 Dudley's opera­tion had grown to 8,000 birds. The Charles Olsen family in Naples also had a thriving egg business which commenced in 1934 and ran for at least fifty years, with assessment books indicating that Olsen owned 1,650 hens in 1960. Eggs were delivered to grocery stores as well as being sold from the farms. Jennie Hunting also was in the poultry business and had about 1,000 birds. In the early days some people made money killing wolves, moun­tain lions, and coyotes and collecting the bounty paid by the county. In 1943 the Utah State Board of Agriculture appointed three men- Harold Reader, lohn Bennion, and W. N. Preece-to the county's Predatory Animal Control Board. The bounty was fifteen dollars on mountain lions and grey, black, or timber wolves; it was six dollars each on coyotes, lynxes, and bobcats. Wool growers paid a mill levy for the service-twenty-five mills on the bounty program and five mills for cooperation with the Bureau of Fishery and Wildlife Service.12 Many hide and fur companies operated in the area. By 1938 a prosperous domestic fur industry had developed in Uintah County. Eventually the selling and exchange of some fox and mink breeding stock became more profitable than the selling of pelts. The value of AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 119 lohn D. and Van Massey, dealers in hides and furs. (UCLRHC, L. C. Thorne collection) the pelts varied, with fox pelts bringing from twenty-five to one hun­dred dollars and mink pelts bringing from ten to forty dollars. Between 750 to 1,000 domesticated fur-bearing animals were raised on fur farms near Vernal. Among the pioneers of this industry in the county were Joseph Hacking, John W Pope, and Phil Stringham, who introduced the silver fox. Others breeding and producing these ani­mals in the 1930s were H. Walter Woolley, J. Ferron Hacking, Bud Powell, Milas Y. Colton, and Earl Schmid. Milas Colton's mink ranch had grown into a major business by 1956 and for a long time was a landmark on the Maeser Highway. This company owned 1,250 mink in 1960 and was one of the largest mink farms in the state. Farming As the economy of the area became more diversified, farming also evolved from the subsistence level to a thriving industry. Settlers began growing gardens to feed their families and grew hay for their livestock. When more hay was produced than was needed, it was sold to others arriving in the valley. An early experiment in Ashley Valley was the attempt to produce silk. Mulberry trees were planted, silkworms imported, and special instruction provided on the care and feeding of the worms. The silk produced was good, but not enough profit was made to justify the 120 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY • • ' • ' . :••• : • y leremiah H. Murray on horse with his threshing machine crew at the Vernal Roller Mill. (UCLRHC collection) time and expense; in addition, a proper factory was lacking, and the project gradually failed. Permanent agricultural prosperity was based on irrigated land. Most of that land was very productive and, as near as can be ascer­tained, prior to 1919 the average crop yields per acre by a majority of the farmers were: alfalfa, three and one-half tons; wheat, thirty-three bushels; oats, fifty-five bushels; barley, fifty bushels; corn, forty bushels; and potatoes, 150 bushels. In addition, many varieties of fruit were successfully and profitably raised. Agricultural marketing and processing had taken a big step for­ward in 1897 when Jerry Murray purchased a threshing machine and threshed the local wheat crops; William Ashton threshed 2,126 bushels of grain that year. By 1903 another threshing machine threshed 63,930 bushels of wheat. The grain crop of Ashley Valley continued to thrive and was valued at $132,923 in 1915. Potatoes, watermelons, corn, turnips, and apples have been a viable part of the farming enterprise throughout the years. Other crops that grew well in Uintah County included onions, beans, sweet clover, and sugar beets. Sugar beets were raised in Vernal AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 121 as early as 1879 and plans for a sugar-beet factory were discussed in 1916 when about twenty-five tons of sugar beets were being pro­duced annually. The factory was not built, however, and in time sugar beets were no longer grown in the Uinta Basin. The greater portion of the county's irrigated land was used for raising alfalfa and other crops that could be fed to cattle and sheep during the winter months. In 1899 farmers began raising alfalfa seed and freighting it to Meeker, Colorado; by the 1920s it had become big business in the county. Congressman Don Colton promised to fight for an alfalfa-seed experimental wet-and-dry farm. In 1925 a bill was passed in the Utah Legislature through the efforts of T.W. O'Donnell for an $8,000 experimental farm. The J.G. Peppard Seed Company moved into the old Workman Opera House at 40 South 500 West and installed a seed-cleaning plant. By 1926 the Peppard Seed Plant had received 0.5 million pounds of alfalfa seed from basin farmers, and this seed won national prizes. The seed company did a good business with local farmers until 1931, when the Depression made it impossi­ble for farmers to obtain loans from commercial banks to continue purchasing seed for their operations. This forced the Peppard Seed Company out of business. The building was sold in 1935 to Henry Wyman to be once again used as an entertainment center; however, in lanuary 1936 the building burned to the ground. Apiculture (beekeeping) was prospering at the time of statehood in 1896. In lune 1896 C.P. Bartlett left for Leadville, Colorado, with 4,000 pounds of honey. In October 1898 James Hacking made a ship­ment of 35,000 pounds of honey to Chicago.13 In 1899 another bee­keeper, Franklin Beers, ordered 8,000 gallon cans for honey from tinsmith Robert Witmer. By 1910, 1,360 colonies of bees were located in the county. The honey industry in the county brought in $40,000 in 1914, and ten tons of honey was shipped by parcel post in 1917. Thirty-five hundred colonies of bees were situated in the county in 1928. Bee colonies had decreased to 2,211 in 1960, but many bee­keepers are still in operation at present. Due to the abundant sweet clover crop, the bees do remarkably well in the county. Vernal's honey has become known throughout the United States as well as in Europe. Area farmers organized several times to promote and improve their production. In 1891 the Farmers Alliance Club was organized. 122 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY Stacking hay with an "A" derrick and a lackson fork. Harold Alexander on horse. (UCLRHC, T. G. Alexander collection) After several months the name was changed to the Farmers Mutual Benefit Equitable Association. In 1909 another group organized the Uintah County Farmer's Association. In lune 1917 a chapter of the Farm Bureau was formed with S. D. Colton president in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Extension Division of Utah State Agricultural College, and the county commissioners. The county's best farmers joined. The association was concerned with everything that would improve farming, including irrigation and roads, crop improvement through better seeds, improved marketing and processing facilities, and labor conditions. Crickets have created havoc with county crops every ten to twenty years from 1878 through the 1990s. Various government agencies have helped area farmers and ranchers combat the problem by spraying and setting up experimental sites. The crickets travel together across the county and appear as thick black carpets often a mile wide. When cars pass through them the road soon becomes slick as if covered by oil. They eat everything in their path. From the beginning, they have been called "Mormon Crickets"; however, AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 123 George Miller called them "Sierra Club Crickets" because that club opposed spraying crickets in Dinosaur National Monument because it might affect endangered species. A Vernal woman recalled that in the early 1920s the crickets marched in like an army and to get home the children had to walk through them barefoot, as they had no shoes.14 Dry farming has always been successful on Diamond Mountain north of Vernal but not on the more arid Blue Mountain east of Vernal. Beginning in 1918 eighty-five families of homesteaders moved to Blue Mountain with the hope of establishing profitable dry farms. However, a drought hit and crickets invaded. By the early 1930s most of the homesteaders had left the area. The drought of 1932 and the Great Depression hit county farmers hard, but $738,693 received for wheat allotments from the govern­ment helped alleviate the disaster somewhat. The Agriculture Adjustment Administration (AAA) office opened in the county court­house to administer government money to the farmers. The Federal Resettlement Administration (FRA) also aided county farmers. In 1937 farm crops were better than they had been for ten years. Farming continued to progress through the 1940s, but gave way to building booms when the oil industry arrived. Crops have dimin­ished throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with farmers selling out to housing and commercial developers and thus decreasing the amount of productive farmland in the area. Area farmers needed a means of grinding their grain for flour, and the first gristmill was erected between 1870 and 1873 near Whiterocks. lohn Blankenship helped move the mill into the basin along with lerry Hough, George Drake, and Ed Williams. The steam-powered mill was operated by Blankenship until the steam boiler exploded and the mill was destroyed.15 Several mills were built in Maeser, which for a time was known as "Mill Ward." In 1880 Robert Bodily gave William G. Reynolds forty acres of land for a mill site. William P. Reynolds, father of William G. and Bob Reynolds, assisted with the building of the Reynolds mill, which was completed with one room by Christmas 1880. This mill was run by water power, the water being flumed to the building with about a fifteen-foot fall. The following year another room was built, 124 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY which was also used for dancing. Martin Oaks hauled all the logs for this mill. Between 1900 and 1905 the Reynolds mill was purchased by WD. Fletcher and new machinery was purchased and installed. It then became known as the Farmer's Mill. Reynolds continued to work in the mill until 1920. The mill operated until it was destroyed by fire during the summer of 1934. In 1888 Lycurgus lohnson, who was in the mercantile business in the town of Ashley, erected a flour mill which he operated until his death in 1908. It was later torn down and sold to NJ. Meagher, who in turn sold it to E.H. Peterson of Duchesne. George Goodrich ran the mill for lohnson for several years. He told a story about an Indian couple who came in for a sack of flour. The Indian told his wife to pack the flour out. Goodrich started giving him a bad time about let­ting a woman do his work, and so the Indian picked up the sack of flour and put it on his shoulder, but fell and broke his leg. The Indian's wife was furious at Goodrich, so he kept the couple in a spare room at the mill and took care of them for six weeks while the leg healed. In 1893 a roller mill was built in Vernal by ten investors and operated by James Coupe. It was located near 266 North and 600 West and burned to the ground in April 1900. The Vernal Milling and Light Company erected a flour mill between 400 and 500 North in 1907 which operated until 1946. S.R. Bennion was president, William H. Siddoway was vice-president and manager, Herbert Tyzack was secretary, J.K. Bullock treasurer, and Tom O'Donnell director. The mill was brought into the valley by team and wagon from Watson and traveled across the Green River by ferry. The large white mill was in constant operation from February 1907 until early in 1946, when it was closed for repairs. At this time, E.H. Peterson purchased the old flour mill, which burned down in lanuary 1952. The milling com­pany owned the mill as well as an electric power plant, which was sold to Utah Power & Light Company in 1925.16 Creameries, Canning, and Packing Plants Closely related to the county's agricultural economy were facili­ties such as creameries and canning and packing plants for processing agricultural products. The dairy industry in the county continued to AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 125 grow, and by 1899 there were 459 dairy farms annually producing nearly 450,000 gallons of milk, 80,000 pounds of butter, and slightly more than 3,500 pounds of cheese.17 To meet the growing production of dairy farmers in the county, the Uintah Creamery Company was built in 1900 at 500 North Vernal Avenue. Sixty-one Vernal stock­holders invested $7,500 at twenty-five dollars a share, and a pipeline one-third of a mile in length carried springwater to the tank in the refrigerator room. Drivers with wagons gathered milk from all over the valley. In November 1911 the Calder Brothers company purchased the Uintah Creamery and in 1912 built a new building and moved the creamery to their ice cream factory and bottling works at 760 North Vernal Avenue. Calders had purchased the Vernal Bottling Works in 1910 and were making and selling ice cream and candy before that time.The company's ice business, which had started around 1900, was the largest in the area. The Calder creamery did a big business in 1914, with a standing order from Salt Lake City for 1,000 pounds of butter a day. Two thou­sand tons of ice was also harvested and stored. The following year six million pounds of crystal ice was produced. Ice was delivered on a regular route with two mules from 1906 to 1911, at which time a "delivery auto" was purchased. By 1922 the daily capacity of the creamery was 6,000 pounds of milk and 5,000 pounds of cream. Still, milk supplies were insufficient to make enough butter to fill Denver and Salt Lake City orders. Calder Brothers ice cream and soda pop were shipped from Vernal to Price, Utah, and Craig, Colorado. The company later became involved with the Hi-Land Dairy Association. In 1947 Piedmont Dairy purchased from the Hi-Land Dairy Association the Vernal retail route of Calder Brothers dairy. In the first part of the century dairy herds were increasing all over the Uinta Basin, bringing a steady payroll to basin farmers. About 4.36 percent of the dairy cows were located in the Vernal area. In 1916a creamery was opened on the west side at Leeton. The Uinta Creamery opened at Neola and established a cream station in Vernal in 1922. Cream stations were provided by the creameries in order that people could bring in small amounts of cream to sell. The Nelson-Ricks Creamery set up cream-receiving stations at LaPoint 126 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY and Vernal in 1935. Other cream stations were located around the county. Successful garden crops led to the organization of a canning club in 1917 which offered demonstrations on canning. This was soon fol­lowed by the launching in 1919 of the Uintah Cannery, a $40,000 project under the direction of CA. Cawley. It was owned by farmers and businessmen who purchased the old Workman Opera House property. The factory had a maximum daily capacity of 800 cases. Even though there was a short crop due to a drought in 1919, 120,000 cans were filled. The cannery operated until 1921 when it failed and was sold at a sheriff's sale after one of its members embezzled a large sum of money. The bank sold the equipment to regain some of its loss.18 The J. G. Peppard Seed Company purchased the building in 1925. Several government cannery projects were opened under New Deal funding in 1935 and 1936 and were operated under the direc­tion of Jenny Weeks and Lola Christensen. These included one at the Vernal Community House and another at Leota. In 1936, 1,444 cans of food were prepared for use in school lunches in the county. Another cannery was located in the green buildings behind the Central School and in 1939 one was located in the Second Ward Scout House. Local residents trying hard to make ends meet during the Depression were very pleased to have the opportunity to use the canneries, and many cans of chili, vegetables, and other items were preserved for personal use. A packing plant for the Uintah Packing and Provision Company was constructed southeast of Vernal in 1919. The processing capac­ity of the plant was 5,000 hogs, 3,000 sheep, and 2,000 head of beef per year. Everything was modern for the time, including feeding pens and sheds, a slaughter room, cooling room, fresh-meat cooler, sweet-pickle room for hams and bacon, an egg-and-poultry storage room, large sausage room, and workroom. On the north side of the building were located two smokehouses, and offices were at the front of the building. Eight men were employed permanently, with more during the rush season. The company operated a farmer's market in town to sell its products. The plant failed in 1924 and was sold at a sheriff's sale; Charles Hatch and Charles Howell purchased the market. AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 127 In 1907 brothers Elmer, Orlando, and Earnest Eaton began slaughtering and butchering meat in Glines for the several meat mar­kets owned by family members. Economy Meat & Processing Plant began in a small white build­ing on 135 West Main on 1 September 1943 with LaRell Anderson and Byron Fisher as owners. Six months later, Anderson bought Fisher's share and changed the name to Ashley Meat Products Company. After several fires broke out at this location, the owner decided to move. A new plant was built on 400 North Vernal Avenue in 1947 and the name changed to Uintah Packing Plant. This loca­tion supported a much larger operation, and a retail outlet was opened. Anderson ran the plant until October 1971, when he turned it over to his son Don. The plant has had up to twenty employees. Doctor Farley G. Eskelson started the Sanitary Butchering Company on the Naples Highway with Fred Reynolds as manager. In 1939 Reynolds opened his own shop at 1255 South Vernal Avenue, calling it Reynold's Meat Company. In 1942 he moved the building to 480 North 500 East. Reynolds sold it to Cecil Tungut in 1944, and Tungut later sold to less Caldwell. In 1953 A. M. Gray and Delos Reynolds bought the plant and named it Gray's Cutting Plant. Gray sold to Woodey Searle in 1957, and the name was changed to Superior Meat Company. Searle sold his interest to Reynolds, who was the sole owner until 1992 when he turned it over to his oldest son, D.J. Reynolds. The packing plant has had an average of six employees. Glen's Cutting Plant was opened in Naples by Glen Reynolds in 1957 and operated by him and his wife. Arza Adams also operated a cutting plant in Maeser from about 1965 to 1987, when he sold out to Becky Pinkham. When the packing houses opened, most people did not own freezers but liked to purchase a whole or half beef because it was cheaper; others raised their own meat and had it slaughtered. Cold-storage lockers were opened around town which customers could rent to store their meat. Agriculture and related industry were basic factors in the early settlement and growth of Uintah County. With the diversification of the economy, the improvements in transportation, and the growth of 128 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY main food source for residents to becoming an important income-producing industry. ENDNOTES 1. Taken from the official assessment rolls of Uintah County for the respective years by Uintah County Recorder Randy Simmons in 1994. 2. See Vernal Express, 27 August 1896, 7 lanuary, 18 February, 4 March, 29 luly, 2 and 9 September, 4 November 1897, 3 February, and 29 September 1898. 3. Ibid., 3 February 1898. 4. Sarah Helen Harvey Simmons, "The History of Tridell, Utah," unpublished manuscript, copy located in the Uintah County Library Regional History Center, 20. 5. Byron Loosle, "The Ashley National Forest" unpublished manu­script, copy located in the Uintah County Library Regional History Center. 6. In 1981 the state law was changed and livestock was no longer assessed. Totals for swine were not included every year by the author, as in later years they were grouped together with "other animals." The figures do not include wild horses running free on the range. The actual number of all livestock would have been larger, as not all livestock was turned in or picked up by the assessor. The 1879 figure of cattle is an approximate number including cattle in the part of Brown's Park which was in Uintah County and cattle at the Uintah Agency belonging to the Indian agent and workers. The 1993 figures were provided by the Uintah County Agent. 7. Dave Hattis, forester, Ashley National Forest, to author, 6 November 1995, in telephone conversation. 8. Loosle, "Ashley National Forest." 9. Vernal lost one of its most influential citizens when Don B. Colton died in 1952. He had been elected from the first Congressional District in 1920 and served continually for six terms. In 1934 he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and in 1940 he entered the race for governor of Utah but was defeated. While a member of Congress, he served as chair of the Public Lands Committee and on the roads committee and the irrigation and recla­mation committees. He sponsored much legislation vital to western inter­ests. 10. NJ. Meagher, Ir., telephone interview with author, May 1995. 11. Cliff McCoy, oral interview with Mike Brown, 8 February 1978, tape and transcribed history located in the Uintah County Library. 12. Vernal Express, 7 September 1943. 13. Ibid., 18 lune 1896 and 13 October 1898. AGRICULTURE AND THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY 129 14. Ibid., 27 luly 1923, 24 May 1985, 10 luly 1987; Walt Goldsmith, "Wild Old Days," True West, luly-August 1978, 32. 15. Mable Haube, "Uintah County," unpublished manuscript, copy in Uintah County Library Regional History Center, 7; Wanda Richardson, "lohn Boner Blankenship," unpublished manuscript, copy in Uintah County Library Regional History Center, folder 777. 16. Vernal Express, 8 December 1938. 17. Census Reports, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Agriculture Part I (Washington, D.C, 1902), 576. 18. Vernal Express, 8 April, 23 September, 4 November, and 2 December 1921.