A History of Washington County

Stability and isolation - 1

STABILITY AND ISOLATION The Stable Core The dedication of the St. George LDS Temple and the death of Brigham Young six months later, both in 1877, symbolized the end of the trial period for Dixie. There was no longer a question of whether the Latter-day Saints would be forced out by heat, flood, and disease. Partly because of Young's willingness to invest in the Southern Utah Mission and largely because of the ingenuity of set­tlers who chose to remain, the question of survival had been answered by then. Farms were yielding harvests despite the constant need to guard irrigation canals and dams against floods and silt. The pioneers had faced the difficulties of nature and won. The victory was slim, however. Floods would yet destroy Grafton and continue to cripple Virgin. People of Harrisburg and Hebron would move to neighboring settlements-Leeds and Enterprise- where better water could be obtained. Their prized stone homes would become habitations for ghosts. Isolated communities like Bloomington and Atkinville would see their families move into towns 76 STABILITY AND ISOLATION 77 where schools were available for the children. Settlers foresook a full dozen settlements including Dalton, Northrup, Price (Heberville), and Shunesburg. Most dramatic was the decision to abandon much of the Muddy Mission nearby in Nevada for political as well as agricul­tural reasons. The plan to turn the Muddy River region into a major cotton-producing area had run into the same irrigation problems and marketing dilemmas as those along the Virgin and Santa Clara rivers. There were several small communities on the Muddy River including St. Thomas, St. Joseph, Overton, Simons-ville, West Point (now Moapa), and Call's Landing; life there was so bleak that many of those called to reinforce the Muddy Mission either did not accept the call or upon arriving chose to return quickly. Even more devastating for the settlers was the discovery in 1870, after a few years of hard work, that their towns were actually located in Nevada, not Utah. That discovery soon prompted Nevada tax col­lectors to show up and demand back taxes to be paid in coin. These barter-based villages had no access to currency, so, after consulta­tions, Erastus Snow, jointly with Brigham Young and George A. Smith, released the Muddy River colonists from their mission calls on 14 December 1870, allowing them to vote on whether to stay or leave. Most moved, though settlers in Panaca remained. Nearly 200 people from the Muddy River Mission voted to move to Long Valley, founding Orderville in Kane County. A smaller contingent chose the Arizona Strip as a relatively unoccupied area open to settlement. Towns on the Muddy were abandoned as Mormon settlements, later to be taken up by gentiles. Two decades later, some of the towns were reoccupied by Mormons. In contrast, the core colonies in Washington County took root, even deeply enough to serve as the supports of new colonizing efforts on the Little Colorado River in Arizona and in northern Mexico. St. George took on the trappings of a regional capital, despite its isolation. Imposing structures-the tabernacle, the cotton factory, the temple, the courthouse-stood out as clear evidence that perma­nence was the program of the Latter-day Saints. Schoolhouses and 78 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY William Heep and Family at their cabin in Zion Canyon. (J. L. Crawford Collection) homes in surviving communities repeated the statement of endurance-in Harmony, Santa Clara, Pine Valley, Pinto, Washington, Gunlock, Toquerville, Rockville, Springdale, Virgin, Bellevue (Pintura), St. George, and Leeds. To Stay or Go The initially bleak outlook for the Dixie colony caused many of the settlers to consider their personal benefit. It was a tortured deci­sion for them. The church's need was for the experiment to succeed, but what about their families' needs for sustenance? What about their personal needs to improve their condition? How much sacrifice must they give? Charles Walker confided to his diary that his loyalty was sorely tried on a trip to Salt Lake City: My Father in Law wantfs] me to leave my home in the south and move my family up, and as an inducement he offers me a building lot on any lot he has. But I feel like sticking to my Mission until the servants of God tell me to go altho I could do better and get more of the comforts and luxuries of life than I can at St George. Others oft say that I am a fool to stay down in that desert country when I could do better and live easier in this place.1 STABILITY AND ISOLATION 79 George and Annie Howard Home constructed in Virgin between 1876 and 1878. (J. L. Crawford Collection) A classic story from a woman's point of view is the account of Wilhemina Cannon. After just one season of enduring the brackish water, the blowing sand, the unbearable heat, she had had enough. She announced to her husband David that he was free to stay in Dixie but that she was determined to return north. In her exasperation she said, "There is not a single thing of beauty in this whole place." Grasping at a slim opportunity, David replied, "Will you stay if I find you one?" He went out into the fields and foothills until he found some sego lilies and brought them to her. She had softened during his search and she accepted his offering. They remained to become leaders and parents of a prominent family.2 Persistence and Mobility Perhaps the most emphatic statement of stability was the deci­sion of a significant portion of the settlers to remain in Dixie despite the disadvantages. Those who stayed showed great persistence. They 80 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY became the core elements of the culture, but the persisters were not always the majority in most of the towns. A pioneer census gives a picture of the Virgin River settlements around 1864: Washington Harrisburg Toquerville Virgin Duncan's Retreat Grafton Rockville Northrop Shunesburg Springdale St. George 431 128 259 336 50 168 95 17 45 54 748 (in 1862) Total 2,3313 By 1880 as tabulated by the census takers, there were 4,235 resi­dents in Washington County, a solid increase from the 3,064 of 1870 (the count in 1860 was 691, taken before the large group was called to the Southern Utah Mission). The population figure in 1880 reflects a degree of stability that was hard won and crucial to the larger plan of the inland Mormon empire. The critical mass had been estab­lished. Though people would come and go, a core was rooted in Dixie-one sufficient to produce abiding generations. Despite the pleadings and incentives of respected leaders, how­ever, many people chose not to remain in such an unpromising land. Only half of those recorded in the 1870 census appeared in the census of 1880. Their persistence is what made the Dixie Mission succeed. Santa Clara, for example, in 1880 saw at least portions of twenty-one families remain from the thirty-eight listed in 1870. In 1900 forty-one of forty-nine families were represented by some of the parents or children from 1880. Although this may seem like an amazing per­sistence rate, 134 people out of a population of 149 from 1880 were not in the area in 1900. Mobility was about as common as was persistence. Santa Clara had a high degree of solidarity. The ethnic nature of the town-with only four families not being Swiss-created a tight group determined to support one another. Washington City, on the other hand, saw STABILITY AND ISOLATION 81 more coming and going. Though several important families sank roots there, many others moved on. One group came there in 1857 from San Bernardino. Most of those people moved elsewhere after remaining a season or two in Washington. Some went to the Little Colorado River area as an ecclesiastical call. Others sought land else­where in Dixie or outside the county. Thirty-two of Washington's 84 families in 1870 persisted to 1880-38 percent. By that year the town had grown to 110 families; by 1910 there was a slight decrease to 105 families, but 46 of them were still there for the 1910 census taker to find-very close to half. By 1920 the population had dropped from 105 families to 76. It is clear that at least half of the people in Washington were on the move. St. George's persistence rate was 66 percent by 1910-not as high as Toquerville's 80 percent or Hurricane's 76 percent, but still high. The eastern side of the county saw even more moving about of its settlers. For example, Duncan's Retreat saw nine of eleven families persisting from 1870 to 1880; but in 1893 the land was almost com­pletely washed away in a huge flood, and by 1900 only two of the original families remained. Church records indicate that the people moved either to the Arizona LDS colonies or north to Millard County.4 Grafton was a famous case of an unsuccessful fight with the Virgin River. In a protracted struggle, the residents of Grafton kept their town alive until 1921, but it was a constant and losing battle with the waters that repeatedly ate away at the fields and homes of the settlers. Five of seven families of Grafton remained from 1870 to 1880, and four remained until 1890. In 1907 the LDS ward was dis­organized with the membership being transferred to Rockville, but a branch was maintained in Grafton until 1921. Virgin, Rockville, and Springdale have survived to this day although nearby Shunesburg was abandoned in the mid-1890s. By 1900 seventeen of thirty-six families from the 1880 census were still living in Virgin despite serious flooding. Rockville saw even fewer of its residents from 1880 remain. Fourteen of the forty-two families from 1880 remained in Rockville in 1900. In 1900 in Springdale, of the same families that were there in 1880 could still be found. Overall, about 50 percent of the settlers had at least one family mem- 82 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY ber who persisted in remaining for twenty years along the upper Virgin basin.5 A study of other towns, such as Toquerville, La Verkin, St. George, Gunlock, and Pine Valley, reveals several common elements about movement of their residents. For example, Toquerville became quite stable between 1900 and 1910. This was the period when the Hurricane Canal was opened, allowing many people to move from Virgin and other parts of the upper Virgin Valley to take up new lands on the Hurricane Bench. Although people in Toquerville were among the promoters of the Hurricane Canal, they had a good source of water and did not venture beyond the town. When Hurricane lands were opened up, 80 percent of the people of Toquerville stayed put. Why did some people move and others stay? First, the land for farming was limited. Fields were often patches of only three to eight acres, located close to a stream. If families could subsist on such mea­ger plots, they certainly could not divide them among heirs. Second-generation sons knew early on that they would have to seek new lands. Hebron and Enterprise were essentially safety valves for such expansion. The establishment of Hurricane was a clear case of fathers and sons trying to bring water to new lands so their sons would not have to leave Dixie. Developers of Enterprise were similarly moti­vated. Major water projects like the Enterprise Reservoir, the Hurricane Canal, and the La Verkin Canal encouraged people to move from villages within Dixie to new ones in the county, but not until the turn of the century. Those who did not persist in one town very often moved to another within Dixie. For example, many people moved from Santa Clara to Gunlock, Pinto, Hamblin, or Pine Valley or even to ranches outside towns in the Santa Clara Creek drainage area. Similar move­ment occurred between the towns of Virgin, Toquerville, La Verkin, Rockville, Grafton, and Springdale. Interestingly, little movement took place between upper Virgin River towns and Santa Clara Creek towns. Most moves occurred within one of the other water systems. For a short time the two regions actually were in different coun­ties. Kane County was created in 1864, and in 1866 the upper Virgin River area was placed in Kane County with Grafton as county seat. STABILITY AND ISOLATION 83 Kanarraville was included in the county at that time but later returned to Iron County. In 1867 the county seat was moved to Rockville and then to Toquerville in 1869. In 1884 that section of the county was returned to Washington County, and St. George became the county seat of the whole. Another factor that caused people to move was floods. Virgin City, for example, experienced severe flooding that took much of the good land with it. It survived as a community, but many people lost their land and had to move elsewhere. Duncan's Retreat and Grafton were effectively washed away. Early floods damaged Santa Clara and Washington. These disasters drove people away from their towns. Some found opportunities nearby, but others chose to move greater distances. Some people in Virgin and neighboring communities in the upper valley became attracted to Millard County, and several moved there, especially to Hinckley. That introduces another point: people were drawn to land ven­tures. When they found it difficult to prosper in Dixie, many were tempted by reports of available land elsewhere. Several people moved to Wayne County although some of them, like Orson Huntsman, moved back after finding opportunities there no better. The Mormon church itself caused some of the Dixie people to move by calling them to open new colonies. The colonizing effort along the Little Colorado River in Arizona took many from Dixie- some by call and some by choice. Miles Park Romney took his wives and family from St. George to the Little Colorado where they lived for about a decade and then, like others, moved on to northern Mexico to help found yet a new group of colonies. Henry Eyring, one-time mayor of St. George, went to Mexico from St. George, as did others. Some St. George residents were sent to settle Circleville, Marysvale, Panguitch, Hatch, Tropic, Escalante, Orderville, Glendale, and Mt. Carmel, among other places. That brings yet another point to the fore: some people left Dixie to get away from federal officials who were prosecuting polygamists. Escaping these officials was clearly the purpose of the establishment of the Mexican colonies. These towns were directed by Erastus Snow and, in many ways, were an extension of Dixie.6 Some felt the Little Colorado settlements would provide protection but soon found the 84 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY gentiles who had preceded them there were critical of those who moved in because of the polygamy issue. Perhaps that influenced some of them to move on after a few years. Other Dixie settlers simply moved back to the greater comfort of the central LDS communities along the Wasatch Front. They had extended families there who could help them establish farms or other means of support. Some returned to lands they had previously worked. Others obtained a release from their mission and returned to pick up life where they left off. Finally, a few colonists eventually dissented from the Mormon system that pervaded the county. Some merely doubted; others with­drew from activity in the faith; and a few, such as Orson Pratt, Jr., broke with the culture. Some of these people felt a necessity to leave Utah, either going farther west like Heinrich Hug, who went to Oregon, or returning to their midwestern, southern, eastern, or European origins. Orson Pratt, Jr., broke with the faith but not the region, moving to Salt Lake City. It is likely that no more than half of those who came stayed in the same town where they began; it is also clear that there was a constant movement of people from town to town inside Dixie. The biggest factor seems to have been the shortage of tillable land, but certainly severity of the climate and floods pressed people to move. Movement within Dixie was not uncommon. William Ellis Jones, for example, reports moving among several of the communities in Santa Clara Valley as well as in and out of St. George. He came to Dixie originally in place of John Bennion, who had been called to the Muddy Mission. From there Jones tried Beaver Dam before moving to Leeds. He finally settled in Gunlock but worked some seasons in Pine Valley and Hamblin.The Nevada boundary question impacted some, and polygamy laws caused others to move, though sometimes only part of their family left. Despite all these mitigating factors, the main point remains: enough people found a way to stay, despite all the influences bearing down upon them, to create permanent settlements. Those who remained had to have a stamina and an optimism that would shout down all opposition. Paul Reeve recounts the example of A. J. Workman, one of the original settlers of Virgin. In one of his several "booster" accounts Workman said: "I have quite a STABILITY AND ISOLATION 85 family, about a dozen in all, and by the help of the Lord I live and have plenty, and raise it from four or five acres; and I believe I could live well and support my family on three acres. We do not know what we can do until we try."7 Were the Saints abandoning their mission call to Dixie if they moved? Perhaps, but the harsh landscape convinced some it was senseless to spend a lifetime in Dixie, so they returned north. Reeve gives two examples. Charles Burke from Virgin City decided the flooding had destroyed his opportunity. He approached the stake president and asked permission to move to Hinckley. He received the president's blessing. Joseph Black from Rockville wrote to Brigham Young and received approval to move to Millard County to buy a wheat farm.8 In the later period, the new towns like Enterprise, Hurricane, and La Verkin served as a population safety valve. Much of the motiva­tion for their development was to provide new land for new genera­tions. The Hurricane census records stimulated the tentative observation that people who moved to Hurricane after the canal was finished in 1904 came mostly from "up river." That is not surprising because people from Virgin figured significantly in developing the canal. Census Insights Using the methodology pioneered in Utah by Dean May and uti­lized by Paul Reeve, it has been possible to search the census records of Washington County for the years between 1860 and 1920. This allows us to trace people who lived in Dixie during the period, so instead of considering just the leaders or just those who kept journals or who appeared in newspapers or official documents, we can get a glimpse of almost everyone who was in the county long enough to be counted in one of the ten-year censuses.9 A careful study of the federal census records of Washington County between 1860 and 1920 provides us with insights into the lives of people generally not found in diaries, newspapers, or other historical sources. For instance, generally there were hardly any unmarried men in the county between the ages of twenty and thirty. There were a few single senior men in their seventies, but most towns 86 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY had only five or six single men. This suggests that marriage was a high priority in Washington County society. A stunning contrast to this trend was the gentile mining town of Silver Reef. A thriving min­ing town, the 1880 census takers counted 1,013 people, of whom 459 were single men. There were more single men in Silver Reef than there were in the rest of the county combined, though Silver Reef contained people from some of the same places as other Dixie towns-sixty-seven from England, twelve from Wales, twenty-two from Scotland, twenty-nine from Germany, thirty-one from Canada, twenty-three from Scandinavia-there were at least two nationalities there unique to the county: the fifty-one people from Ireland and the fifty from China. The census clearly shows that Santa Clara was also unique in Washington County because it became almost totally populated by Swiss immigrants. Why did the Americans and Englishmen who were originally there move? Jacob Hamblin went to Kanab to be nearer the Hopis and Navajos. Others, including Andrew Gibbons, went with him. Bishop Bunker was called to found Bunkerville in Nevada. Others moved to Gunlock and Pine Valley to find more land, but the Swiss stayed in Santa Clara. At least one immigrant, Heinrich Hug, felt that the Swiss were looked down upon by others in the county and were often the object of ethnic slurs and jokes by non-Swiss res­idents. Certainly it is clear that the Swiss did not let any rejection hold them back from achievement, however. Today one can visit Santa Clara and not find anyone who still speaks German or a Swiss dialect (unless they recently went to Europe and learned the language). The Swiss Days celebration each year is of recent origin, not a continuation from the pioneer past. The families and the genes are there, but current generations have become as Americanized as people in the rest of the county. Census records reveal not only place of birth but also marital sta­tus and nativity. Eleven of forty-three mostly Swiss families in Santa Clara in 1870 appear to have been polygamous. In 1870 Washington City had 108 family heads listed, 29 of them polygamous-about 25 percent. The city moved from being 95 percent American-born in 1860 to only 58 percent in 1870. By 1900 Washington City was 68 percent native-born. The St. George census shows about 23 percent STABILITY AND ISOLATION 87 of the people in 1870 were involved in polygamy, as were 20 percent in 1880. Foreign-born residents made up about 50 percent of the town in the same period; the native-born rate increased steadily each decade thereafter. In 1920 there were ninety-seven widows-22 per­cent of the households. In contrast to many communities, Pine Valley was settled pre­dominantly by native-born Americans. In 1880 eight of the thirty-nine local families were headed by women with no husbands. It was possible that Pine Valley was a hideout for polygamous wives, but it also could merely have been a good place for a polygamist to station one of his families. The majority of the town was made up of regular farming and lumber mill workers' families, but the persistence rate in Pine Valley was only 13 percent in 1880; it had risen to 41 percent in 1910. Did the decline of the lumber mills cause the figure to be low in 1880, then the increase in farming see it rise by 1910? Clearly there was a higher percentage of families moving in the area than in Santa Clara and St. George. There are a thousand details that can be gleaned from the cen­sus, but the important message is that Washington County was made up of people of many stripes-from miners to farmers, from polyga­mous to monogamous, from Native Americans to European immi­grants, from those who moved to those who stayed, from families to singles, from young to old-all of whom made up the sinew of Dixie.10 The land and the weather affected them all, and each had to make the decision whether to wed their lives to Washington County or seek another homeland. Farming The main source of sustenance was farming. In the Dixie com­munities, most farming was limited to small plots, under ten acres. Often farms could only be maintained near streams. In northern Utah, canals often delivered water from the streams out to broad sweeping benches, sometimes many miles from the stream. This irri­gation method was attempted in the Washington Fields, south of Washington City, and much later in the Hurricane Valley and at Enterprise. There broad valleys were watered from long canals, result­ing in large acreages under cultivation. But most early farmers in the 88 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY county fought silting, floods, and drought to such an extent that the water could only be coaxed a short distance, often within sight of the streams, to small plots called pockets-thus the name "pocket farm­ing." Dividing the land among settlers was accomplished in an orderly manner. In the beginning phases of most communities, one person surveyed the land and families drew choices from a hat for a town lot and for one or two parcels outside the town for farming. Each fam­ily's town lot was usually large enough for a corral, chicken coops, pig pens, fruit trees, and a barn, in addition to a home and a good-sized vegetable garden which was often worked by wives and children. In St. George, that town parcel was an acre. In some places, however, it was not that big because settlers in communities such as Santa Clara, Gunlock, Springdale, Rockville, and Leeds were pressed between hills. James G. Bleak, clerk of the Southern Utah Mission, records that the settlers in St. George in late 1861 laid out the city with blocks that were 32 rods square. They made 256 town lots available at eight parcels per block. The census of the community in January 1862 showed 370 females and 378 males, clearly the largest settlement in the county even though it was only one month old.11 Heads of house­holds, usually males, each drew a lot, though polygamous families also had a town lot for each wife and her family. Surveyor notes served as makeshift tides. The territorial legisla­ture authorized the local probate courts to record the survey notes, and the settlers kept them as evidence of possession. Ideally, each family head obtained between ten and thirty acres, even though water seldom reached all lands. Technically, county residents were squatters on the land until 1869 when the U.S. government opened a land office in Utah to implement the Homestead Act of 1862. On 2 March 1869 Congress passed "An act for the relief of the inhabitants of cities and towns upon the public lands." The intent was to accommodate people who had founded communities prior to the federal government's actions to implement its control of the western lands. This act was of crucial importance to people throughout Washington County. By 1869 there were already some twenty communities well under way in the county, so the need for legal title to land was important. STABILITY AND ISOLATION 89 The federal government did not rush to open land offices in Utah; there was considerable distrust of the Mormons among federal officials, based on the complaints of territorial judges and military officials sent to the territory. Some initial federal surveys were carried out along the Wasatch Front in 1855, but surveyor David H. Burr and the Mormons came into conflict, and he left the territory in anger. A successor, Col. Samuel C. Stambaugh, continued the surveying; but Congress had little enthusiasm for selling land to the Mormons because they were seen as potentially disloyal to the Union.12 During the Civil War, volunteer troops under the command of Colonel Patrick Connor were dispatched from California to Utah to protect the overland route from hostile Indians and to keep a watch­ful eye on the Mormons. From his newly-established military post at Fort Douglas, Connor hatched a scheme to wrest control of the ter­ritory from the Mormons. He encouraged his soldiers to prospect for precious metals. The subsequent discovery of some silver and gold encouraged many non-Mormons to pour into the territory to mine precious metals, and in some parts of the counties in the territory, they outnumbered the Mormon populace. In Washington County, for example, non-Mormons controlled Silver Reef. This new popu­lation demanded tide to their mining claims which forced the federal government to open land offices.13 To secure their own title to lands, Mormon settlers of several decades responded quickly. Sermons from church pulpits urged the Latter-day Saints to immediately file for tide on the lands they occupied. Typically, the bishop in each village would file on a section of land, then redistribute the land to the villagers according to their existing uses.14 This situation necessitated some delicate negotiating with the federal government because the Homestead Act required claimants to live on their claim. In 1878 with the passage of the Desert Land Act, the federal government allowed completed irriga­tion ditches to substitute for actual residence on the land, thus adapt­ing to the Mormon village system. Charles Lowell Walker's journal illustrates the organized approach: "Sat December 17th [1870] . . . Br Geo A Smith spoke on the importance of securing our lands according to the Laws of the U.S. Br E Snow spoke on the same subgect"[sic]. Two weeks later on 90 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY 31 December, Walker reports on a session of the Mormon School of the Prophets. "Br McFarlane, R Bentley, and Pres Snow spoke on the Land Laws of the U S and urged the Brethren to secure their lands from the Government and get their deeds Patents 8cc."15 Mormon bishop's courts in each congregation were used to settle disputed land possession, thus avoiding the involvement of the fed­eral land offices and generally preventing claim jumping. In actual­ity, the federal authorities were not averse to this quick and efficient approach. The result of the pressure by miners, including those at Silver Reef, for title to their mining claims actually resulted in facili­tating a solution that enabled Mormon farmers also to gain title to their lands. Irrigation, Dams, Canals, and Floods The desert heat assured that nothing could grow to a harvestable stage without water being brought to the plants regularly. The system of diverting water from streambeds into canals that worked so well north of Dixie proved undependable in the southern land. Town after town in Dixie experienced tragic failures of dams because desert rain­storms turned into quick floods that washed out even the most inventive earthen dams. Sparse undergrowth in the red hills could not hold the moisture back to run more evenly. Following major rainstorms, water poured out of the canyons as floods that swept away everything in their path. Washington City was located just above the area called the Washington Fields. If the Mormons in Washington could construct a dam to control the Virgin River at that point, water could flow onto the most valuable agricultural land in the county. The first three dams constructed were washed out within two years. At flood tide, the Virgin River near Washington City became a torrent. Materials for dams began to get scarce; more importandy, discouragement set in. During the period from 1857 to 1865, the residents somehow ral­lied to rebuild and rebuild again. The workers were credited with two dollars a day for their labor, three if they were working in the water. Using such payment rates, the people of Washington City spent approximately $80,000 building dams in eight years. It was a rare year STABILITY AND ISOLATION 91 Built with trees and boulders, this dam on the Virgin River was located in what is now Zion National Park. (J. L. Crawford Collection) that a dam was not washed out. The story continued with similar results for the next twenty years. George Washington Gill Averett was pressed into service as the watermaster in charge of building and repairing dams in Washington City. What was to be a temporary service soon diverted him from his trade as a gunsmith and wheelwright; the dam dominated his life. Averett had worked at damming the river near Washington for twenty years. In 1885 he once again heard the roar of the river at night after a major rainstorm. He heard the angry torrent and knew what he would find when he rode to the dam site in the morning: He looked at the spot where the dam had been and saw what he had known before he left his house-there was nothing left but a bit of the rock abutment where the canal left the river.. .He looked at the place where the dam had been and unconsciously began to plan its replacement. He shivered involuntarily as he thought of getting into the [cold] muddy stream again to begin the job.16 92 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY This cycle of dam building, washouts, and rebuilding took its toll. Many people decided to give up on the Washington Fields, even though they were the most promising agricultural lands in the county. Each dam washout was a defeat. One of the most difficult was when Bishop Marcus Funk decided to leave the area in 1888. He had been mayor of Washington City, counselor to many families and chairman of the dam-building committees. In that year he was arrested for practicing polygamy and sentenced to six months in the state penitentiary. He served that term and paid his $300 fine but then asked for a release from his Dixie mission to go to the San Luis Valley in Colorado where he felt he could better support his large family. His departure was discouraging for the whole community. Funk left during a time when the area residents decided to undertake a much more ambitious project, a pile dam. They had worked on it for three years under Funk's direction, bringing huge timbers from Pine Valley Mountain. They fashioned a huge pile-dri­ver, cast in the town of Enoch in Iron County, to drive the timbers deep into the riverbed. The dam required great sacrifice because water was not diverted to the Washington Fields for two years. New ditches were built out into the fields. In the fall of 1888, their four years of work was completed; people took deep satisfaction in a labor they believed would last. On the night of 7 December 1889, the largest flood in memory occurred, tearing out the dam. The headgate survived for a day, then it went too. Despondency was universal; it seemed there was no future in the Washington Fields. Such defeat was actually the source of new determination, how­ever, and of a new idea as well. Three men, Charles W. Seegmiller, John P. Chidester, and Isaac C. Macfarlane, developed a different strategy. They determined to go up the river, three miles higher than the pile dam, to a stone outcropping. There they decided to build a diversionary dam that would send the water into a hogback where it could be forced over the stone. This would allow them to control the water. It would thus eliminate the necessity of holding back the whole river with an earthen dam, merely using their dam to send the water into an unmovable channel of stone. The three men convinced the Woolley, Lund and Judd Company which was asked to finance much STABILITY AND ISOLATION 93 ' : * . ; i . > • - : - - v The Washington Field Dam, completed in 1891. (Lynne Clark Collection, donor-Larue Prisbrey) of the undertaking. The St. George firm functioned as a credit source before a bank was developed in the county. The estimated cost was about $30,000. The Seegmiller-Chidester-Macfarlane proposal was accepted by the water company's board of directors. They quickly claimed 640 acres under the Desert Land Act of 1877 and filed on the water with 3,500 inches of the Virgin River at the head of the canal. The story of building the dam is a dramatic one. There was not enough food to feed the workers because the farmers had no harvest until the dam brought them water. Mormon church leaders in Salt Lake City agreed to appropriate funds to help the farmers, who had to forego another year of planting. Those funds were utilized to feed the men. A group of railroad workers was stranded in Nevada by snow and freezing weather at their building site; and they were enlisted by Andrew Gregerson to bring their equipment to the dam site for drilling in rocks-a godsend in the eyes of the dam builders. The railroad men were destitute and willing to work for board. Building new canals for the dam was yet another story. It involved men digging tunnels, silting gypsum stretches, adapting the 94 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY Brigham Jarvis method of eliminating the silt, and getting the water to the fields in time for a crop in 1891. This brought the story to a gratifying conclusion. Later improvements were made on the dam, including using cement to replace the earthen diversionary dam, so the dams at Washington City, begun in 1857, were not successful until thirty-four years later. The result finally guaranteed farming on Dixie's best land at that time. (Hurricane and Enterprise would be developed a decade later.) Cotton and the Cotton Factory With the cessation of hostilities in the U.S. Civil War, the pro­duction of cotton in the southern states rebounded. In fact, the mar­ket soon was flooded with the crop. By 1869 the nation was joined by the railroad, which revolutionized the shipment of textiles. Cotton produced by irrigation on "pocket farms" simply couldn't compete with that which grew from natural rainfall on vast plantations in the south that could now be shipped inexpensively to the West. But the Washington County cotton mill managers adapted by taking on wool to mill and acting as a wholesaler of many products; nonetheless, refunding Brigham Young's investment never happened. The factory was often in debt and had to be helped by funds from the Caanan Livestock Company as well as by further loans from Brigham Young.17 Refinancing and changing leadership was tried into the 1890s. Finally about 1892, the factory was leased to Thomas Judd, a sea­soned businessman from the well-known St. George mercantile firm of Woolley, Lund and Judd. Under his management, the factory was as much a store as a mill. Amazingly, Judd turned a profit for about four years, perhaps because he paid his employees one-third in cash, one-third in factory scrip, and one-third in store scrip. He finally announced the closure of the factory in May 1898, however. The cotton factory made a huge contribution to Washington County. It employed scores of young women, facilitated the use of farmers' harvests, and promoted a wide system of freighting. It was a major link in the trade with the Silver Reef miners, and it kept the Dixie Mission well advertised throughout Mormondom. No one ever became wealthy from the cotton factory, but it operated in the black some years of its existence, particularly when it diversified under STABILITY AND ISOLATION 95 Thomas Judd and became a trading center. Its demise was particu­larly painful to Washington City. Alternatives to Cotton Since the settlers could not eat cotton, a greater urgency was given crops that could nourish them. Gardening on their town lots and farming on small acreages near the towns occupied many, if not most, of the Dixie women. Annie Atkin Tanner much later remem­bered her childhood growing up on such a town lot: I loved every foot of our lot, which was divided into two parts, the north half was our wonderland of trees and vines. We had a spreading apricot tree, which at one time, completely shaded the pig-pen and I used to amuse myself watching the pig eat the ripe apricots and cracking the pits to eat the kernels in them. We also had a chicken-coop and a name for every hen: Snow-Flake because she was black with flecks of white feathers, Limpy acquired her name from an accident which crippled one foot and then there was Speckles and others. At the back end of the lot we had an asparagus bed and still further back a cow corral. The two cows that I remember were Bess and her daughter Betty. Here was the haystack, the shed and of course, the ever present outside toilet, with its Sears and Roebuck catalogue. This I'd like to forget.18 Levi Savage of Toquerville gave a detailed description, almost day by day, of his farming activities. His record provides a picture of the year's agricultural cycle in the desert climate. Savage spent the win­ter months, December and January, milling wheat, digging carrots (which he sold at Silver Reef), building fences, hauling wood, and trimming grapevines. He killed about twenty sheep during that time as well as one beef cow, which he put in salt. He traveled to Virgin and Rockville to buy potatoes and then resold them at Silver Reef and Cedar City. He also sold sheep skins, collected manure and put it on his lucerne fields, watered those fields, repaired a road, plowed the garden, ordered seeds, settled several accounts including his tithing, and by late February was harrowing his fields. In March he planted potatoes and peas and cleaned ditches. By April he set out onions, planted cucumbers, more peas, radishes, carrots, and lucerne. He irri­gated these vegetables and worked six days a week on ditches. 96 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY Beginning in May he was irrigating almost every day, moving from one field to another. He planted beans, parsnips, squash, and more potatoes, searched for lost animals, repaired his wagon that seemed always to break, tried to keep cows out of the fields, and repaired fences and ditches. By June he cut the first crop of lucerne, continued to irrigate, planted wax beans, watered his corn and beans, and conducted a horse drive to Kolob. In July he didn't take time to celebrate the holidays in the 110-degree heat but did horseshoeing and repaired ditches that were damaged in the cloudbursts. He planted Brimbadge corn and cut the second crop of lucerne, gathered more wood (this for making molasses), hauled hay, and watered the squash, carrots, melons. In August Savage worked on roads again and was credited with five dollars per day toward his taxes. He planted turnips, gathered driftwood, and repaired ditches again that were damaged from heavy rains. In September he mowed lucerne, picked corn, gathered drift­wood, killed three sheep, sowed onion seed, and traveled to collect debts owed him. October brought more wagon repairing, including a trip to Silver Reef to buy a king bolt. He purchased a mower for $125. The lucerne was ready for another cutting, and he hauled hay as well as manure. He attended a water meeting and slaughtered two more mutton as well as spending a full day searching for a lost cow. November was spent spreading manure and hauling cedar wood and "choring" about the farm. Then December arrived and the story began again with the winter cycle.19 Throughout Washington County there was one common prob­lem: forage for farm animals. The land was so dry that grasses were often too sparse to support dense grazing. Excessive grazing had already injured the watershed and exacerbated flooding. Most villages used the town herd system-each family would send its cows with the others in the village to be herded by one or more young people during the day. This allowed the animals to be taken some distance from the village in search of forage. But it also used the range too intensively. There simply was much greater need for forage than the sparse landscape could supply. Farmers attempted flood irrigating rangelands and discovered that grasses would come back but not stay long, especially in drought STABILITY AND ISOLATION 97 years, so it was great fortune when they discovered the suitability of alfalfa to the sandy soil. From the very earliest settlement times some alfalfa had been planted. The San Bernardino Saints who moved north in 1857 evidendy brought alfalfa seed with them, increasing the limited supply. Gradually farmers learned that alfalfa was uniquely adaptable to the dry Dixie lands. Each year they planted more. And each year farmers turned more to raising livestock for a living as the alfalfa provided winter feed. Lucerne (as alfalfa was often called in Dixie) was literally a miracle for the settlers. It is doubtful that the Dixie population could have been sustained without alfalfa provid­ing a harvestable feed crop. Ranching, Cattle, and Indians Many of the Dixie settlers brought cattle with them. All needed to be grazed, so it was common for the farmers to set up cooperative town herds. As the farmers discovered how limited the yields would be from their small farms, they increasingly depended upon raising cattle. This necessitated grazing the herds at greater distances from the villages, which also was often done in a cooperative system, each farmer putting some ten to twenty-five head into a larger herd. Both winter and summer ranges were sought out for these herds. Market potential for the cattle was initially near at hand. The builders of the St. George tabernacle and temple had to be fed. Later the miners at Silver Reef were ready buyers. Once the railroad reached central Utah, area cattlemen drove large herds to Lund to be shipped north and east. Within the first decade of Dixie settlement, the church tithing herd grew to such a size that new forage had to be found for them. Herders were sent with the animals to find new range possibilities. These early cattlemen discovered such lands along the upper Santa Clara River. Many of the explorations led cattlemen to take up ranch sites for their personal endeavors. Gunlock, Pine Valley, Hebron, Hamblin, Pinto, and the lands between (such as Mountain Meadows and Dammeron Valley) were locations where cattle raising and ranch life became more important than farming. With each decade, sheep-and cattle-raising activities increased in importance. The Arizona Strip, between St. George and the Grand Canyon, was another prized 98 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY area for grazing sheep and cattle, as was the Kolob Plateau above Toquerville and Virgin. The area between Pipe Spring and Short Creek became the home of a huge undertaking-the Canaan Stock Company. In 1870 Erastus Snow organized the company with several directors including Sixtus E. Johnson, James P. Terry, Richard Ashby, Daniel D. McArthur, and Nathaniel Ashby. Snow served as president with Joshua T. Willis as vice president. The Mormon church had purchased the Pipe Spring Ranch from the Whitmore family for $1,000. Brigham Young appointed Anson P. Winsor to operate the ranch and it became a suc­cessful venture involving several thousand head of cattle. This showed that raising livestock could be a profitable venture and attracted several enterprising people to do the same. The church divested itself of the company in the 1880s and sold to private hands. At that time, 1883, the company had some 4,200 cattle. James Andrus was superintendent of the company for several years thereafter, but it was not as profitable as before, partly because the range was over­grazed. Most ranching in the county was not on the scale of the Canaan Ranch. A different kind of ranching started out on a modest scale. In Santa Clara, for example, there were good small farms for orchards and vegetables, but these generally could hardly sustain a family. Out from town were some fields where alfalfa was raised to feed a few cows and horses. Each farmer generally had five or six head of cattle; some had as many as fifteen to twenty-five. These animals needed to be grazed in the spring and summer, so area farmers organized a cooperative system. To the west, north, and south there was seem­ingly endless rangeland that could be used to supplement their farm­ing activities. The land was very dry, so it took vast amounts of range to support the cattle. It was not a matter of a few animals per acre, rather it was a few animals per section, so herds had to range over thousands of acres. These first settlers soon found that they had to protect their ani­mals from the Indians, and a long and tense contest began. Indians were accustomed to living from the land, gathering seeds, and har­vesting wildlife. The arrival of cattle threatened much of the grazing areas on which the Native Americans had traditionally depended. STABILITY AND ISOLATION 99 The Indians felt justified in killing cattle to provide the sustenance they had lost to the white man's incursion; it seemed fair rent to them. The farmers and cattlemen saw things differentiy, especially when renegade Paiutes, cast out from tribal controls, defied agreements that had been made with their chiefs. Also troubling were Navajos who sent skilled raiding parties into Paiute territory and drove off large herds of cattle and horses maintained by the Mormons. To the live-stockmen this was thievery, if not outright war. So, for the first three decades (from about 1855 to 1885), cattlemen and sheepmen were armed in defense of their flocks. Sometimes the clash between the two cultures resulted in deaths on both sides. A standard Mormon response to Indian trouble was to call people from unprotected set­tlements into larger communities for protection, which could last a few months; sometimes even settlers would build a fort.20 Either response was a burden because the men still had to work the land near those vacated villages and could only do so with guards standing nearby. Charles Walker's journal gives examples of Indian raids: "Sat 10th [November 1866] News has reached us of an Indian raid on Berry Valley in which the raiders took off some 100 head of animals and shot one man in the knee.... Sat 29th [December 1866] The Indians have drove [sic] a number of our horses and mules from the vicinity of Pine and Diamond Valleys. Our men have started in pursuit. God protect them and bring them safe home again. Tuesday, Jan 1st, 1867. . . . The Indians that made the raid a few days ago were surprised in the vicinity of the Pipe Spring by Capt Jas And[r]us. 6 of them were killed and all the stock recovered except 2 animals."21 The settlers of the county worked for accommodation with the Indians of the region. By Christmas 1870 one of the Navajo chiefs promised no more raids on the people of the county.22 On at least one occasion Indians were invited to speak to the people of the county in the tabernacle. Mo-ke-ak was one such Indian. He asked for peace and for help to be educated. Erastus Snow responded to this request with a promise to begin a school where the Indians could be taught to read and write.23 Either by design or by accident, county ranchers soon found 100 HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY themselves outside the protection of the Mormon village settlement system. Theirs was not a lifestyle encircled by community. Schools and churches were distant and neighbors were beyond sight. For some, the possession of cattle, the access to land and water, and the stunning beauty of the open range meant freedom. Some didn't mind being away from the ecclesiastical authority that prevailed in the villages. Others commuted, maintaining a domestic operation at the ranch and another in the community, to keep close ties with the church and community. During polygamy days, it was possible for some family heads to maintain one family on a ranch and another in town. Jacob Hamblin did this with one family at Santa Clara and one at Mountain Meadows. Others made similar arrange­ments. The Mormon church was a major promoter of farming and to an extent was also an advocate of the cattle industry. The cattle trade got its first impetus from the management of tithing herds. Later, many church leaders were direcdy involved in the largest cattle pro­ject in the county, the Canaan Stock Company. In some ranching environments like the Arizona Strip or Pinto, ranchers tried to replicate a community environment by building a school/church structure and fostering neighborly support. Gradually, as roads improved, many families moved back into the villages and men commuted to the ranches, sometimes camping there. The houses at the ranches became more like lodges, used mainly in the summer and only for a few days a week. Today, ranching in the Arizona Strip is entirely a commuter-ranch system. Pinto is largely a summer retreat, and Pine Valley has changed dramatically, becoming a second home retreat for summer vacationers. Atkinville is aban­doned as are many isolated ranches. But some ranches, such as those along the Santa Clara River, are very much alive-Terry's, Holt's, George Chadburn's "New Jerusalem" below Central, the Lytle Ranch at Mountain Meadows, Blake/Gubler's southwest of Pine Mountain, and Fawcett's at Diamond Valley. The Sunset Ranch near Virgin, Maxwell and Canaan Livestock Company near Hildale, and Cane Beds Ranch near Pipe Springs are among the continuing cattle enter­prises on the eastern side of the county. One interesting example of ranching was that of Peter and Anna STABILITY AND ISOLATION 101 Anderson, emigrants from Denmark, who settled in Bellevue in 1868, where six children later were born to them. Peter and his sons wanted more land, so in 1884 they moved a few miles south to Echo Farm near the junction of the Toquerville and Cedar City road. There they took up a homestead of 160 acres, living in a dugout the first winter. The next summer the family camped at the foot of Pine Valley Mountain where they could raise a garden and make butter and cheese to ship north while they began to dig a canal to their ranch. That waterway became the lifeblood of the ranch for two gener­ations. It is a piece of engineering genius, delivering a steady flow of water along the top of a mountain ledge. Ravines on either side would destroy Anderson's ability to control the flow, so the ditch was constructed to prevent water from drifting either to the south or the north. It gradually descends for six miles over a stone-strewn path to the valley floor below where a pond receives its precious waters for distribution on the ranchland. This was a brilliant feat-building a farm where there was no stream. The Andersons constantly had to inspect the ditch for breaks and had to keep it clean. It was a duty akin to marching on the battlements of a casde, always keeping a dili­gent eye against possible enemies. All of the children were trained for life in this guard duty, shovels in hand. The ditch is still running today, and a hike to its path brings deep respect for human genius- this one mostly the design of one man and the achievement of one family. Peter's wife, Anna, wrote: During those early pioneer years and while homesteading Anderson's Ranch, no one can picture the hardships, misery suf­fering and loneliness I experienced. Always my heart yearned to run away. . .to run away to the ease, comfort and luxury of my home in the old country.24 Because of its location on the junction between the Toquerville highway (which later led to Zion National Park) and the highway along the Black Ridge to Cedar City, Anderson's ranch received a steady flow of visitors. At one time President Warren G. Harding stopped there, as did the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden. Most other ranches in Dixie were much more isolated.