A History of Davis County

A new era of progress-1

CHAPTER 8 A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS Cco mmercial agriculture, with its supporting industries, pro­vided a stable economic base for Davis County throughout the first half of the twentieth century But the expansion into new forms of agriculture and related businesses around the time of Utah's state­hood in 1896 spurred other transformations in economic life. Taken together, these changes marked the transition to a world where pri­vate enterprise rather than cooperative economics governed the eco­nomic life of the region. In the absence of Mormon church direction, the LDS business­men of the Progressive Era formed their own informal networks and formal organizations to discuss common interests. In some towns, business owners formed a Commercial Club, the forerunner of the modern chamber of commerce. These groups hoped to improve their communities by promoting business growth through the sale of local products and services. Organizations began appearing around 1913 and remained active until the 1920s.1 Local newspapers echoed their voice of optimism that Davis County would soon become a com­mercial Mecca. The editor of Kaysville's Reflex observed in 1914 that 262 A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 263 visionary businessmen could plainly "see the future of Davis County as one continuous city from Salt Lake to Ogden."2 To them, it was a pleasant prospect. Many of the signs of a newfound prosperity became evident by the end of the nineteenth century Local brick plants and lumber­yards supported the construction of a new generation of handsome brick homes on county farms and in towns. These Victorian show-places and their adjacent carriage houses represented the entrepre­neurial success of commercial agriculture and expanding commerce.3 Another sign of private enterprise was the appearance of busi­ness districts in Davis County's towns. These commercial zones began to replace the meetinghouse, the school, and the cooperative store as the centers of activity in towns. In many of the county's older settlements, the center of trade extended a block or two along Main Street, not far from the meetinghouse. In the newer homestead towns, a commercial core formed around an established gathering point such as a school or business, an old stage stop, or a railroad depot. In every community, it was private enterprise that created these new commercial centers.4 The Growth of Private Enterprise The transition of Utah's local economy to a national model encouraged local entrepreneurs to pursue new private business opportunities. Feeling a release from the constraints of cooperative economics, Davis County merchants opened stores and specialty businesses to compete in the marketplace. Prosperous businessmen joined with commercial farmers to found banks. Local newspapers touted community interests. Professional services became increas­ingly available, and new technologies introduced other businesses. Telephone service, interurban railways, electricity, and automobiles changed the way people lived. All of these business, manufacturing, service, and technological developments convinced the people of Davis County that they truly had entered a new era of progress. Modern Merchandizing. With the end of LDS church regulation of the economy, local cooperative mercantile stores became private businesses, most of them with the same management as before. Owners felt free to buy and sell their stock in the company without 264 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY considering church counsel, and the co-ops became more interested in profits. The stores were not long without competition. During the decades of the 1880s and 1890s, new mercantiles appeared in almost every town. A second transition took place in the late 1920s and 1930s. At that time, many of the small hometown stores disappeared. In their place came self-service markets and regional mercantile affil­iates with names such as Golden Rule Stores, Associated Grocers, and O. P. Skaggs. North Davis County's commercial expansion served a growing population in the area. The mercantile business in Syracuse was launched in 1888 by a Salt Lake City investor who saw the need for a general store. Local residents soon owned the store, and by 1901 seven partners were operating it as the Syracuse Mercantile Company The company's building housed Syracuse's grocery stores under various owners for most of the twentieth century. In nearby Clearfield, Richard Hamblin opened a mercantile around the turn of the century to serve that region. By 1918 Albert T. Smith was manag­ing Consolidated Stores Company in Clearfield. He advertised a broad line of "general merchandise, dry goods, notions, hardware, groceries, grain and produce and agricultural implements." In South Weber, George W. and Adelia P. Kendell operated a well-stocked, one-room mercantile west of Kingston Fort.5 In Layton, where no cooperative store had existed, Burton, Herrick & White opened for business in 1879. Two other general mercantile stores appeared in 1882 on opposite corners of Main and Gentile Streets. One was Farmer's Union, the other Barton and Company, which was soon purchased by George W Adams and Sons. Layton's new merchants competed for local patrons who had previ­ously looked to Kaysville for trade goods. In addition, they reached out to new settlers on the Sandridge and in West Layton.6 Competition to the north of Kaysville did not prevent the devel­opment of a thriving Main Street business district in the region's par­ent community The privatized Kaysville Cooperative Mercantile faced three competitors. One of them was E. A. Williams, who pulled out of the co-op to reestablish his independent store; but that closed around 1898. The others were Hyrum Stewart and Heber J. Sheffield. After the last of these stores closed during the Great Depression, the A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 265 The typical Davis County mercantile offered a wide range of products, from dry goods to groceries, flour, and coal. L. H. Oviatt & Co., on Farmington's Main Street, had added gasoline (far left) to its products by 1912, when this photograph was taken. (Utah State Historical Society) co-op survived for a time as an affiliate of the Golden Rule chain and later under the name of its owner, Joseph J. "Junior" Bowman.7 In the central and south Davis County communities of Farmington, Centerville, and Bountiful, the story followed a similar pattern. The cooperative stores survived under private ownership for many years, with new mercantiles competing for customers. Fred Coombs became sole owner of the Farmington co-op in 1881. Within a decade, J. D. Wood had his own mercantile, and a group of investors were operating the Farmington Commercial and Manufacturing Company. L. H. Oviatt launched a fourth store a few years later, but by 1936 the town's grocery business had been consolidated under one owner, Milt Hess. His successors, DeVaughn Jones and Ward Warnock, built the Farmington A.G. Market in 1956 and the building housed a series of short-lived ventures during the next forty years.8 266 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Centerville's privatized cooperative, under a number of managers over the years, competed for customers with postmistress Mary M. Brandon and George W Cleveland. These merchants operated their own mercantiles over a thirty-year period. Other general stores served residents for shorter lengths of time during this period.9 The Bountiful Cooperative Mercantile Institution found its ini­tial competitors in mercantiles owned by Richard Duerden and John S. Thurgood. Over the following twenty years, four or five general stores were always in business in the town to serve local needs. Among the merchants were James Burns, William O. Lee, Mary Manger, W Walter Barlow, and George Briggs. In West Bountiful, the Deseret Live Stock Company (DLS) opened a general mercantile in 1891 to serve the needs of stockholders and the general public. The DLS "mere" stayed in business for forty years.10 During the horse-and-buggy days, many of Davis County's rural residents could buy from itinerant salesmen who would stop by every three or four months peddling their wares. Some of these peddlers purchased gasoline-powered trucks to continue their services of bringing dry goods, spices, liniments, or other products to the cus­tomer's doorstep.11 A new form of general store appeared in Davis County near the end of World War I. The most widely known of these carried the Golden Rule name and represented the customer-service principles espoused by Wyoming founder James Cash Penney. By 1918, outlets formed in partnership with Penney were open in Bountiful, Farmington, Kaysville, Layton, and Clearfield. The Golden Rule stores specialized in dry goods and a full selection of clothing. In contrast, the earlier mercantiles carried a wider range of products that might include dry goods, groceries, drugs, small hardware items, glassware, grain, flour, farm produce, butter and eggs, coal, and lumber. Penney's stores in Bountiful and Layton were the only ones to sur­vive the Depression. The operator of the Farmington and Kaysville outlets, Joseph J. Bowman, had included groceries in his stores and continued in business as a grocer under his own name. Another name in the regional grocery business was O. P. Skaggs, who fran-chised short-lived stores in Layton and Bountiful in the mid-1920s.12 As the mercantiles in the larger communities of Davis County A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 267 Specialization changed the look of business districts in the county. The influence of outside franchises is evident on Layton's Main Street in the locally owned Rexall Drug store, the Sanitarium Market, and (far right) the Morrison Merrill 8c Co. lumber yard. (Utah State Historical Society) specialized in dry goods, grocery stores besides those noted above appeared. Stephens Brothers of Layton offered a typical range of products. A listing in 1918 included "Fresh meats and Provisions, Fruits and Produce, Poultry, Eggs and Butter, Fish and Game in Season." A competitor, Arthur H. Ellis, advertised "Staple and Fancy Groceries, Fruits and Produce and General Merchandize."13 In addition to the mercantile and grocery stores, most commu­nities in Davis County were served during the first decades of the century by meat markets. Many meat dealers made weekly deliveries to the homes of customers in horse-drawn wagons or, later, in motor­ized vans. Many of the meat markets closed during the 1930s. Factors influencing these closures were the onset of the Depression, the hir­ing of butchers to work within grocery stores, and the creation of Cudahy Packing Company in North Salt Lake.14 Other Businesses and Banks. Until near the end of the century, a 268 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY few sawmills still operated in Davis County, including that of William Beasley and the mills of Sheffield & Blamires of Kaysville, William Whipple of Farmington, and Robert Moss and lohn Lewis of Bountiful. These mills sold to both wholesale and retail customers. Some of the mercantiles of Davis County offered small stocks of lumber and operated coal yards to meet the needs of customers.15 The larger communities in the county were able to sustain spe­cialized building supply dealers. The earliest of these was the Bountiful Lumber and Building Association, organized in 1892 by local contractors Levi S. Heywood and Heber A. Holbrook in associ­ation with William Loder and brothers Robert, Hugh, John, and Joseph Moss, who operated a steam-driven sawmill at the head of Bear River. The company opened a branch yard in Syracuse in 1900, but sold it three years later to Syracuse Mercantile. L. S. Heywood and Sons launched their own business in Layton in 1904. Jed Stringham joined the Bountiful firm in 1905 as manager, and eventually his fam­ily gained controlling interest. The company occupied a new brick building on Main Street in 1919 under the name Bountiful Lumber and Hardware. Conditions during an economic downturn forced the company into receivership in 1925. It was quickly reopened by Thomas L. Fisher, whose family was still operating the company at the dawn of the twenty-first century as the longest continuously operating retail store in Davis County16 Other major companies opened lumber stores in Davis County before 1918. The Utah and Oregon Lumber Company served the Clearfield area. Morrison, Merrill and Company, with roots in Woods Cross, opened dealerships in both Layton and Bountiful. This firm became Tri-State Lumber in 1938 and Boise Cascade much later. These companies hired local agents to manage their stores.17 The era of specialization spawned a great variety of other com­mercial ventures in the business districts of the county. Among the businesses with the greatest lasting power were the furniture stores established in Bountiful, Kaysville, and Layton. In earlier decades, res­idents had depended upon local cabinetmakers or bought from fur­niture makers and import dealers in Salt Lake and Ogden. The twentieth century furniture stores of Davis County competed with the big-city businesses by importing furniture to supplement locally A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 269 made items. Increasing prosperity brought on by the commercializa­tion of agriculture created a customer base to sustain the new stores. Customers wanted the most fashionable contemporary items to fur­nish their new brick homes.18 John Barton operated one of the earliest furniture stores in the county He was doing business as a sole proprietor in Kaysville before 1884. His inventory included fine Chippendale style furniture and Wilton rugs. During this time, Edward Thomas served south Davis County customers from a store on Bountiful's Main Street. Cabinetmaker Anson Call was a partner with Thomas for a time. Thomas sold his store in 1904. Barton and his son, Clifton, remained in business until at least 1918.19 The consortium of buyers who bought out Edward Thomas in Bountiful launched what would become the dominant furniture business in the county for a half-century. The partners in the new Holbrook-Smedley Furniture Company included Mark C. Holbrook, Ira C. Holbrook, and Frank Smedley A few years later, Mark Holbrook formed the Bountiful Furniture Store. In 1914 he moved into the Old Opera House and, in partnership with G. E. Briggs and Chester M. Call, formed the Davis County Furniture Company Two years later, the firm opened a branch on Layton's Main Street. A con­solidation of the Davis County Furniture and Holbrook-Smedley companies in the early 1920s resulted in Union Furniture Company20 Among the products made locally at these furniture stores were caskets. It was only a short step to the related service of undertaker. Until professional undertakers were available, women selected by the local LDS Relief Society laid out the dead, made their burial clothing, and lined the caskets built by local craftsmen. Cabinetmaker John Barton served the north end of the county as both casketmaker and undertaker. Edward Thomas began offering homemade redwood cas­kets in 1893. Holbrook-Smedley partner Ira Holbrook was Bountiful's first undertaker. The Bountiful Furniture Store hired George Graham as mortician. After the consolidation, he became manager and undertaker for Layton's Union Furniture. The two sides of the Bountiful business were separated in 1935 to create the Bountiful Union Mortuary in 1935, with Mark Holbrook's son 270 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Farmers State Bank of Woods Cross moved out of the Deseret Livestock building into its own quarters in 1928. lust beyond the railroad crossing in this 1934 photo is the Wasatch Oil Company, which dominated the gaso­line distribution business in Davis County for many years. (Utah State Historical Society) Merrill as funeral director. Union Mortuary later opened a facility in Clearfield to serve that part of the county21 Banking services became available in Salt Lake City beginning with the founding of four banks in 1864 by midwestern merchant-freighters. Another sixty banks were created before 1890-half of t h em in the capital city, a dozen in Ogden, and the rest in other areas-but none in Davis C o u n t y Only a few of these early banks survived to establish a permanent banking presence in Utah.22 Perhaps it was because of the distance from existing banking ser­vices that Davis County's first banks were founded midway between Salt Lake City and Ogden. Barnes Bank was organized in Kaysville in January 1891; it was followed a year later by Davis County Bank in Farmington. These two locally owned banks were capitalized at $25,000 each with funds drawn heavily from prosperous farmers and A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 271 businessmen. John R. Barnes and others organized the Barnes Banking Company with Barnes as president and Will Barnes as cashier. The bank operated at first in a small annex to the co-op. In 1910 the bank, the cooperative, and the post office moved into a new yellow-brick business building designed by William Allen and known as the Barnes Block.23 The first president of the bank in Farmington was Ezra T. Clark. His son Amasa L. Clark worked as cashier, and L. S. Hills served as vice-president. Davis County Bank operated out of a room in the Farmington Commercial and Manufacturing Co. store for thirty-eight years before erecting its own building across Main Street. Deposits were protected in a two-ton steel safe.24 During their first years, the banks in Farmington and Kaysville successfully reached out to serve patrons in neighboring communi­ties. It was more than a decade before the next banks were organized in Davis County, then three more appeared in succession to serve res­idents a distance from the county's geographic center: the First National Bank of Layton (1905), Bountiful State Bank (1906), and Farmers State Bank, located in West Bountiful (1909). A group of Layton agriculturists and businessmen organized the Layton bank, with Ogden banker James Pingree as president, Ephraim P. Ellison and Rufus Adams as vice-presidents, and James E. and Laurence E. Ellison as cashiers. The bank operated from an office at 50 West Gentile Street until 1981, then moved into the renovated Farmers Union building.25 The first two banks in the southern part of the county sought residents in their own communities as clients. Soon after its found­ing, Bountiful State Bank established permanent quarters on Main Street. The bank's main clientele resided in Bountiful and Centerville. James E. Eldredge was president, N. T. Porter vice-president, and Charles R. Mabey cashier. The farmers, businessmen, and ranchers who invested $20,000 to start the Farmers State Bank defined their core service area as West Bountiful and South Bountiful but also attracted clients from as far north as Farmington and south into Salt Lake City. They elected William Moss as the first chairman of the board and Joel R. Parrish as cashier. Offices were in the Deseret Livestock Company building until 1928, when the bank built its own 272 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY building nearby. In 1951 the bank moved to a new building at 530 West 500 South.26 Prior to World War I, Union State Bank was capitalized in Bountiful with $50,000 in stock. Henry H. Blood served as president, Herman Bamberger as vice-president, and Stephen H. Lynn as cashier. Key officers of the new Clearfield State Bank included E. P. Ellison and George E. Holt, with W W Steed, Jr., as cashier.27 Bricks, Building Materials, and Other Businesses. Many of the new merchants in Davis County sold their wares in handsome buildings made of locally manufactured bricks. The county's brickmaking industry, established in the 1870s, thrived during the building boom. Commercial brick plants were concentrated in two areas in the county-Kaysville and North Salt Lake. Other building materials were available at local lumber and hardware stores. In Kaysville, Thomas and Samuel Brough pioneered brickmak­ing northeast of town in 1868. Samuel Ward established an enduring operation in 1875. For almost forty years Ward's kilns produced a molded, reddish brick that was widely used in the area. A competi­tor, Kaysville Brick and Tile, was organized in 1890. Amos Bishop later purchased the company and operated it for several years. Around 1908, Salt Lake industrialist Simon Bamberger established the Kaysville Brick Company. This firm quickly became one of the town's largest industries. During busy summer months one hundred men were involved in producing the wire-cut bricks from an imported light yellow clay. These bricks were used in the local ele­mentary school, bank buildings, and the Kaysville LDS Tabernacle. Except for Kaysville Brick, which was served by the Bamberger Railroad, the town's brickmakers lacked a convenient rail connection and could not easily compete beyond the limited local market.28 In south Davis County, brickyards thrived in an area southwest of Bountiful known for its quality clay. In pioneer times five adobe yards in the greater Bountiful area furnished material for sun-dried adobe bricks. Fired bricks were produced as early as 1849. The Bountiful cooperative operated two of the late-nineteenth-century brickyards. Most of the commercial brickmakers succeeded by locat­ing along the railroad lines in what is now North Salt Lake. The descendants of Ira S. Hatch owned or operated six of these compa- A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 273 nies. Eastern capital helped launch some of the plants. Over time, area brick firms included the Viglini Brickyard, Howard & Leddingham Brickyard, Empire Brick Company, F. F. Brickyard, Fryers Brickyard, Enterprise Brickyard, Hatch Brick Company, Simpkins Brickyard, the Improved Brick Company, and Leddingham Brickyard. The larger companies produced upwards of 30,000 bricks daily29 The county's brickmakers served many local clients, and the south Davis yards shipped large quantities of brick by railroad to Salt Lake County. When the construction boom slowed during the Depression, the county's brick plants closed. From then until the end of World War II, many new homeowners built smaller, less expensive, frame homes. By 1930, eight large commercial plants, most of them in Salt Lake City Ogden, and Provo, provided the brick for Utah's res­idential and commercial needs and exported bricks and tiles to sur­rounding states. However, many of the homes, churches, and business structures built with Davis County bricks during the Progressive Era remain in use as evidence of a once-thriving local industry30 Much of the construction of houses, barns, and commercial buildings was accomplished at the turn of the century by hired tradesmen. In most Davis County communities, residents could find carpenters, cabinetmakers, plasterers, and painters. Stonemasons and brickmasons were available in the county as well, along with tin­smiths and sheet-metal workers. A few contractors were available to manage commercial building projects. William Allen was the county's only registered architect. Allen left his mark not just on many homes in various Davis County communities but on a number of fine busi­ness, religious, civic, and school buildings. Most were constructed using local brick and reflected architectural styles of the time.31 A number of the traditional trades were in transition during the era of commercialization. A watchmaker in Davis County in the early 1900s, for example, was more apt to repair and sell watches made elsewhere than to make them locally. Shoemakers, however, were actively plying their trade in every town in the county well into the 1920s. Tailors, milliners, knitters, and a stocking maker advertised their services in gazetteers of the period, but their skills were being challenged by imported goods offered at the new clothing stores. The 274 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY industrialized eastern United States could mass produce and ship to Utah most clothing and many other products more cheaply than they could be made by hand in Davis County homes and shops. Besides, with the increasing availability of cash, many residents preferred to buy stylish imported goods.32 Professional Services. The new era of progress also challenged other practices common among families living a rural, agrarian lifestyle. Health care for many generations had depended upon home remedies, herbal medicines, and Thompsonian doctors. By the time of World War I, the medical field was become more professionalized, with standardized education defined by the American Medical Association. Doctors, dentists, and druggists were establishing them­selves outside the major urban centers. During this time, citizens of almost every Davis County town gained access to a resident physician. Unlike their predecessors, who often practiced medicine part-time, the new doctors were better edu­cated and kept regular office hours besides making home calls. They opened small hospitals in Layton and Kaysville for short-term spe­cialized care. The first of the university-trained physicians began arriving in Davis County in the 1890s. By 1910, licensed physicians were available in nearly every community Most of these doctors remained until retirement. Among them were Walter Whitlock and A. Z. Tanner in Layton; William T. Ingram, Sumner Gleason (who also practiced dentistry), and G. D. Rutledge in Kaysville; Clarence Gardner in Farmington; J. E. Young in Centerville and Bountiful; and Byron L. Kesler (a dentist before he became a doctor) and John C. Stocks in Bountiful.33 A number of these physicians were active in civic life or con­tributed in the emerging public-health field. Doctors Kesler and Stocks served mayoral terms in Bountiful; Dr. Gardner served in the ambulance corps during World War I; Dr. Gleason became Davis County's first school doctor in 1920, launching baby clinics and sponsoring preschool immunizations. Dr. D. Keith Barnes, one of the few native sons to practice in the county, left his private practice after ten years to become director of the newly formed Davis County Public Health Department in 1937. Most of the doctors served on city health boards. A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 275 The county's first professional dentists, unlike most physicians, tended to be natives of the county. Those practicing in 1918 included Silas S. Burnham and Ernest W. Smedley in Bountiful, Charles H. Bird in Farmington, and Walter E. Whittaker in Kaysville.34 Traditionally, women gathered and prepared medicinal herbs for their families. New "patent" medicines were widely promoted in the nineteenth century Both these new bottled medicines and traditional folk remedies could be purchased at local mercantiles. As these gen­eral stores were replaced by more specialized dry goods and grocery outlets early in the twentieth century, the marketing of drugs also became specialized. Most physicians compounded the drugs they administered, but an increase of mass-produced drugs in the United States between the Civil War and World War I led to the founding of drug stores. Pharmacists dispensed commercially made drugs and formulated others prescribed by doctors. John V. Long may have been the first druggist in Davis County; he was doing business in Kaysville before the turn of the century Another early dispensary was the Prescription Drugstore, set up by Dr. Byron Kesler and his brother Murray and later renamed Bountiful Drug Store. Farmington blacksmith Walter Rampton opened a drug and sundries store in 1907. Three years later, he built a fine brick building with oak interiors. He partnered with his son Walter, a trained pharmacist, who managed the operation. A. E. Williams carried a line of drugs in his mercantile in Kaysville until Robert Birkin opened a competitive drug store. The Utah State Gazetteer in 1918 listed Frank E. Gibbs as operator of the Kaysville Pharmacy. Robert Birkin was managing the Layton Drug Company, and C. H. Hesser was dispensing medicines at Bountiful Drug. Most of these outlets sold products other than drugs, and they attracted a young clientele with their ice cream and soda fountains.35 Other specialized services could be found in the county, includ­ing laundries, photo galleries, and barbers. The laundry of Hop Gee served Kaysville residents, while Ray and W L. Riley operated their Davis County Laundry in Bountiful. Pioneer photographers were Reuben Kirkham, a Bountiful settler of 1864, and Stephen Hales, who set up his Centerville gallery in 1882. Alma Hardy and Oscar Lewis established photography studios around the turn of the century in 276 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Bountiful and Kaysville, respectively. James Proudfoot opened Kaysville's first barber shop around 1885. Barbers appeared in a half-dozen other communities within the next decade or so. By 1945, beauticians were functioning in the larger towns.36 New Technologies An industrialized America and the growth of private enterprise in Utah went hand-in-hand with the emergence of new technological developments that impacted life in Davis County. Some of them, such as telephones, community newspapers, and electricity, first served the needs of businessmen. Interurban trains, automobiles, and farm machinery reached broader clienteles. All of these developments of the 1880s to 1930s expanded horizons for residents of Davis County. The new forms of communication and transportation made the resources of Salt Lake City and Ogden even more available to county residents. Life improved with electricity Telephones and Newspapers. The two most important turn-of-the- century developments in communication in Davis County were the telephone and local newspapers. The first telephones arrived in Utah in 1880, just five years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the device. As with all new technological advancements, no one could anticipate how well telephones would be accepted or how widely used they would become. At first, phone service was an alternative to the telegraph or mail for placing orders or conducting business. Local exchanges appeared first in Ogden and Salt Lake City In 1883 Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company, organized to provide long­distance service in four states, connected the two Utah exchanges with a line through Davis County. The first Davis County subscribers on this intercity line were businessmen Richard Duerden in Bountiful, Fred Coombs in Farmington, and John R. Barnes in Kaysville. The courthouse in Farmington installed a line in 1896 in the recorder's office. Subscribers paid $100 per year for the service.37 Eventually a demand for service away from the Main Street line developed. In 1903 Rocky Mountain Bell secured franchises to expand service along selected streets in Kaysville and Bountiful. The Kaysville exchange opened in August with twenty-seven subscribers; the Bountiful exchange began service in November to twelve cus- A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 277 tomers. Other families soon signed on for party-line service at $1.50 per month, plus a fifteen-cent charge for out-of-town calls. The num­ber of customers quickly grew to several hundred for each exchange, and service expanded into neighboring towns. The first party line reached lower Syracuse by way of Hooper in 1903 to serve Walker Brothers' mercantile. In 1906 Rocky Mountain Bell installed public telephones in the county for non-subscribers.38 When Rocky Mountain Bell raised its monthly rates to two dol­lars, a competitor entered the market and forced the price down again. Davis County Independent Telephone Company put up lines on city power poles in 1909 and opened exchanges in Clearfield, Layton, Kaysville, Farmington, and Bountiful. This awkward com­petitive system required subscribers to connect to both services in order to reach all patrons. Rocky Mountain Bell pulled ahead, and in 1911 the Independent company went into receivership. That same year, Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company took over Rocky Mountain Bell and bought out the Independent franchise. Mountain States Telephone kept open the exchanges in Bountiful, Farmington, and Kaysville (which served all of north Davis County). The final step in establishing a stable telephone service was the addi­tion of transcontinental service, available after a line was connected near Wendover in 1914.39 Local newspapers created a greater sense of community and touted local accomplishments. In six of Davis County's communities during the 1890s, publishers and editors seeking advertisers and sub­scribers founded local newspapers. It was a time of rapid expansion in the local newspaper industry, but many weeklies lacked a sound economic base and lasted but a short time. All of the county's papers were politically neutral at a time when many of the state's newspa­pers lined up with a political party. Short-lived papers in south Davis County included Centerville's Call, founded in 1897 by publisher Melvie Smith and editor E.S. Carroll. It closed the following year. Nor did the Watchman of Woods Cross survive its first year. Samantha Sessions edited the paper, which was published in Salt Lake City More successful was Farmington's Davis County Argus. The eight-page paper was launched in 1903 by D. P. Felt and F. Vernon Felt. It 278 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY served more than 700 readers until at least 1911, and possibly through 1916.40 In Bountiful, the county's first and longest lasting newspaper appeared in February 1891 as an expanded advertising flyer issued monthly by merchant Lamoni Call on a small press in the basement of his watch repair and jewelry shop. It became a regular Friday newspaper a year later, with John Stahle, Jr., as editor. Call named the paper the Little Clipper after a Clipper ship model that he owned. John Held, a Salt Lake City artist later nationally known for his flap­per girl illustrations, created the woodcut for the Clipper's masthead. The paper adopted its present name-the Davis County Clipper-in April 1892 and secured correspondents from communities as far north as Farmington to increase neighborhood news coverage and report on county courthouse business. Subscriptions were $1.25 per year. A few years later, the partners divided the business and its equip­ment. Call took the job printing function, while Stahle became sole owner and editor of the newspaper. Call's son-in-law, Willard G. Carr, continued the printing business as Carr Printing Company, while Stahle's family was still publishing the paper more than a cen­tury after its founding.41 Publishers believed that Kaysville had a potential market like that of Bountiful. Kaysville's Eagle, an eight-page weekly founded by William E. and Eva B. Smith in February 1893, closed after a year when they moved to American Fork.42 John V. Young and James McLaren followed in May 1896 with the Kaysville Post. That paper carried one page of local news for residents of Kaysville and Farmington, plus three more pages printed in Salt Lake City It went out of business in 1898.43 Possibly as early as 1904 LeRoy Shelby and John S. White were publishing the Weekly Reflex at the Davis County Argus office in Farmington. Benjamin F. Cummings managed and edited the Reflex under a lease for one year.44 The Reflex survived because of financing provided by six local investors who purchased the newspaper in 1912 to preserve it as a local voice when its founders moved on. The investors were Henry H. Blood, John G.M. Barnes, Heber J. Sheffield, lohn R. Gailey, Marchtin Kessler, and the Stewart-Burton Company Colorado pub­lishers William P. Epperson and his son Clyde moved to Kaysville, A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 279 became stockholders, and leased and operated the paper. Within a year, they doubled its business. They attracted 1,200 subscribers with expanded news coverage of schools, government, and local sports and an unprecedented use of photographs. The paper was soon advertising itself as "the largest country paper published in the state of Utah."45 In common with most local papers, the company also ran a let­terpress job printing operation beginning in 1916 when the opera­tions moved to a new building and the firm was reorganized as Inland Printing Company The Reflex served the Kaysville- Farmington community with a strong local focus. Following the senior Epperson's death in 1930, his family continued the business. In January 1965 the paper and its job printing operation were acquired by the Clipper Publishing Company Though produced at the new owner's Bountiful offset presses, the Weekly Reflex continued to provide its 1,800 subscribers with a focus on north Davis County news and advertising until it ceased publication in 1987.46 The north Davis area had its own newspaper for a time. Hector C. Evans began the Weekly News-Express in 1926 to serve residents of Layton, Kaysville, Clearfield, and Syracuse. He printed the paper in his job printing plant in Ogden. In November 1933, John Stahle, Jr., purchased the paper, moved production to Bountiful, and published it as the Layton News-Journal until it merged with the Reflex in 1970.47 The local papers of Davis County prided themselves on their attention to local news and interests. Salt Lake City's newspapers had provided some local reporting, much of it Latter-day Saint church news. They named subscription/distribution agents in most towns and around 1900 began same-day carrier service in Davis County48 A regional news approach worked adequately for the nineteenth cen­tury but in the era of commercialization, businesses wanted targeted advertising and subscribers welcomed more neighborhood news. Local boosters wanted to build a sense of civic pride around a public community rather than a religious one. The county weeklies pro­vided that needed local identity The Salt Lake City and Ogden dailies increased their local coverage late in the twentieth century to attract readers and advertisers to their regional editions. But the local papers continued with their news and advertising specialties, and the Clipper 280 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Electricity furnished by the Utah Power and Light Company allowed this Davis County farmer to pump water from an irrigation pond onto his fields in 1913. (Utah State Historical Society) included among its subscribers many who had left the county dur­ing the agricultural expansion but wanted news from "home." Electrification. Thomas Edison's invention of the electric light bulb in 1879 introduced a practical use for electricity that ushered in a new age. By 1881, local generating plants were operating in Ogden and Salt Lake City Utah's capital city became the fourth American city to set up lighting under a central power station. Local power plants appeared elsewhere using coal or water to generate a some­what unreliable direct current. New technological developments and the development of alternating current increased the use of electric­i ty This led to cooperation among small companies and, in the 1890s, to the first consolidations.49 In Davis County, J. E. Willey and N. T. Porter received a charter in 1905 to build a generating plant to provide electricity to Bountiful homeowners. Two years later, seven other investors founded the Bountiful Light and Power Company to distribute electricity in A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 281 Bountiful and south Centerville. This company purchased electricity from the Utah Light and Railway Company, which had a line running through Davis County connecting its Ogden and Salt Lake opera­tions. Businessmen in Farmington organized Davis County Light and Power Company in 1908 and built a power plant in Farmington Canyon to serve central Davis County. It also sold power to Farmington City, which organized its own municipal distribution company, and to Home Telephone and Electric Company, organized by local investors in 1908 to serve north Davis County50 The consolidation effort entered a new phase with the creation of Utah Power and Light Company (UP&L) in September 1912. It acquired numerous power plants and distribution systems, including those of Davis County Light and Power, Home Telephone and Electric, and the Salt Lake and Ogden Railway In 1915 it added Utah Light and Railway to its holdings; the following year, the Farmington distribution system was added. Utah Power upgraded existing gener­ating plants, developed new generating capacity on the Bear River, and connected its local components into a single network. Power lines reached the Syracuse area in 1913 and South Weber four years later. By 1922 UP&L was serving more than two hundred towns in four states. Desiring to preserve local control when Utah Power obtained controlling interest in Bountiful Light and Power, Bountiful City built its own municipal generating plant in 1934 to serve patrons within city limits. The city distributed electricity over lines purchased from Bountiful Light and Power. The private company then sold the rest of its property to Utah Power.51 When electricity reached into the average home, lifestyles changed dramatically Exposed wiring for hanging light globes ran along walls through ceramic holders. Kitchen appliances multiplied through an aggressive sales campaign originating with the power company. Refrigerators, electric stoves, irrigation pumps, toasters, irons, and washing machines began to find their way into Davis County homes.52 One of the most useful new appliances was the electric refrigera­tor. For more than a half century, Davis County residents had depended on ice to keep their food cool. Each winter, workers had harvested two or three crops of large blocks from mill ponds and 282 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY other pools. The cubes varied in size from one to four feet. Harvesters stored the chunks in sawdust or straw inside an ice house, granary, or cool cellar for summer use. Like many other pioneer efforts, the pro­duction and distribution of ice had been commercialized by the 1890s. Owners of gristmills, mercantiles, creameries, and resorts were among those who stockpiled ice and then delivered it to customers until their supplies dwindled, usually in August. Meat shops and ice cream stores were among the commercial customers. Homeowners also gradually replaced their burlap-covered coolers with ice boxes. Electric refrigerators changed all this and soon eliminated local ice businesses.53 The availability of electrical appliances created new enterprises in Davis County Some national manufacturers looked to direct sales marketing; others franchised local dealers or power companies to set up display rooms. R. C. Willey of Syracuse began going door to door selling electric refrigerators and ranges to supplement his income as a power company employee. He secured his inventory from Graybar Electric, an appliances distributor. From this beginning in 1932, Willey's sideline soon became a full-time job. After eighteen years, Willey built a small store in Syracuse in order to keep his business license, but continued his door-to-door contacting. Family members expanded the operation after his death in 1954. With outlets all along the Wasatch Front by the 1990s, R. C. Willey and Sons had become the largest furnishings retailer in the West.54 As previously noted, refrigerated railcars supported an expansion of Davis County's livestock industry In the 1940s cold-storage plants in Layton, Kaysville, and Bountiful served patrons who brought in slaughtered farm animals or the harvest from the annual deer hunt. On-site butchers cut, wrapped, labeled, and froze the meat for patrons. When home freezers became available after World War II, the need for commercial cold storage diminished and these facilities closed.55 The Interurbans. The creation of viable electric plants spawned a new generation of railcars in American cities to replace mule-drawn trolleys. Electrified trolleys began operation in Salt Lake City in the fall of 1889. For Davis County, this beginning led to a half-century of short-distance passenger and light freight service by what came to be A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 283 called the Bamberger Electric. Simon Bamberger, a Salt Lake City restaurant and mine owner, launched his Salt Lake to Ogden service in 1892. At first, the trolley was pulled by a small, steam-powered engine known as a "dummy" because it was enclosed with a wooden body to look like a passenger car. The "Dummy Line" reached as far as Beck's Hot Springs, near the county boundary, and was called the Great Salt Lake and Hot Springs Railroad. The following year, Bamberger extended the line along Bountiful's 200 West Street to serve a resort named Eden Park. By 1894, the cars were carrying pas­sengers to Centerville, and the following spring to Farmington's State Street, where connecting passengers could take the stagecoach for Kaysville. Then, financial problems stopped expansion.56 From the first, the railroad had supplemented its income by car­rying light freight. In addition, it had added a special caboose in 1895 to transport milk and butter for Davis County farmers. But the com­pany's primary business was passengers. The initial success of the routes to the Hot Springs resort and Eden Park prompted Bamberger to create a pleasure park in Farmington to ensure a higher passenger load for his railroad. He moved buildings from the old Lake Park Resort on the shores of the Great Salt Lake west of Farmington to a new location right on the path of his trolley line. Opened in 1896, the Lagoon Resort could be entered only on Bamberger's trolley The company was reorganized as the Salt Lake and Ogden Railway Company. Trains left Salt Lake City every two hours from 7:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. A round-trip Lagoon fare was sixty cents.57 Profits from the new resort helped fund a steady expansion of the railroad northward. Bamberger continued his policy of buying the land for his right-of-way and maintaining a maximum grade level of 1.1 percent. Service reached Kaysville in 1903, Layton the next year, and Clearfield and Sunset the year after that. Tracks reached Ogden in 1908, following a court battle with established railroad companies that opposed Bamberger's franchise request. The thirty-six-mile line was electrified two years after that and renamed the Bamberger Electric Railroad. To keep costs down, the company generated its own electricity with a steam-powered plant at Lagoon. Substations in Ogden, Clearfield, Farmington, and North Salt Lake converted the high-voltage power to 750-volt alternating current. The electrified 284 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Simon Bamberger's Salt Lake and Ogden Railway extended service into Ogden in 1908. A year later, this Shipler photo documented one of the pas­senger trains at the Bountiful station. (Utah State Historical Society) line increased service with ten high-speed trolley cars. The interur-ban trolleys left Salt Lake and Ogden "on the hour every h o u r " for a forty-five-minute ride through Davis County. During rush hours, the t r a i n s r a n every half-hour, with as many as eighteen trains a day. Double tracks were completed in 1913 from Kaysville to Salt Lake City to serve what a local paper called "The Little Kingdom of Davis."58 Bamberger's original d r e am had included an extension from downtown Ogden through Weber Canyon to Coalville. That plan was dropped for lack of financing, and the company concentrated on its Salt Lake-Ogden service. The bright orange Bamberger railcars served Lagoon p a t r o n s , students heading for the Davis County Central High School in Kaysville, shoppers, and commuters, with more than a dozen designated stops and small depots in each city. A devastating fire in 1918 destroyed the Ogden car barn and ten cars, challenging the company's ability to survive. To preserve profits, A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 285 Bamberger secured a franchise through Union Pacific to haul fruit and vegetables from the county's productive orchards and market gardens.59 The increase of private automobiles, fluctuating national eco­nomic conditions, and a world war all had their impact on Davis County's interurban. In 1926, the year of Simon Bamberger's death, the company organized the Bamberger Transportation Company and put buses on the highways in an attempt to retain some of its pas­senger traffic. Some local communities initially opposed this move, feeling that the trolley and trains provided adequate service and that busses would only add to road traffic and endanger lives. They finally accepted the transition and urged the Public Utilities Commission to accept the Bamberger application over those of two other compa­nies. 60 Eventually, only the bus service would survive. The Depression cut Bamberger's trolley business to a single rail-car daily in 1933 and forced the company into receivership. A reor­ganization six years later retained Julian M. Bamberger as president. Five high-speed coaches, each seating fifty-four passengers and oper­ated by a single conductor, attracted new passengers. World War II increased the freight business. Railway passenger service peaked in 1945, then rapidly declined. In 1952 a fire destroyed the company's North Salt Lake maintenance shop. The company increased bus ser­vice and cut back on trains. A second fire, in the Ogden substation, forced the end of passenger rail service. The last car drove north through the county on 6 September 1952. A few months later, Bamberger Transportation sold its bus line to Lake Shore Motor Coach Company61 The Bamberger Railroad continued to haul light freight until December 1958. Its major clients during World War II were Hill Field, the Naval Supply Depot, and the Ogden Arsenal. That need declined rapidly after the war, with trucks and the interstate railroads filling the need. The Bamberger Railroad was the last interurban rail service in America to close. The line's founder was memorialized in 1963, when a bronze bust of Simon Bamberger was placed in the gar­dens at Lagoon.62 Supplementing Bamberger's service in south Davis County was a competitive trolley along a more eastern route. The Oregon Short 286 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Line (later part of the Union Pacific) formed the Utah Light and Railway Company to provide local electric service and operate a trol­ley line. The "Electric Trolley" served Bountiful, and commenced ser­vice to Centerville in December 1913. The trolley continued until Bamberger's buses appeared on the route thirteen years later.63 None of the trolley lines passed through northwestern Davis County Bamberger had considered routing his line through Syracuse and Hooper in 1910 but decided that business would be greater on the direct route from Layton to Ogden. In 1914 Utah Light and Railway Company explored the viability of extending its line from Centerville on a route through west Layton, Syracuse, and West Point to Hooper, then northward through Roy to Ogden. The new compe­tition was expected to force lower rates on Bamberger's line. However, a limited rural population along the proposed route north of Kaysville and existing freight lines killed the idea.64 Automobiles and Highways. Ultimately, electric trolley service through Davis County bowed to the gasoline engine. Bus lines on greatly improved roads served as public transportation, while private automobiles eventually threatened even that service. The first auto­mobile appeared in Utah in 1899; and Eli Olds introduced the mass production of cars in the United States two years later. In 1908 the American automobile industry began targeting a general market that reached into Davis County In that year, Henry Ford introduced the first Model T and William C. Durant bought out Buick, Cadillac, Oakland, Oldsmobile, and other makers to form General Motors.65 The first purchasers of gasoline-powered motor vehicles in Davis County were market gardeners, merchants, and doctors. Produce growers, such as Andrew Sjoblom, who purchased a truck in 1910 to haul his fruit and vegetables to the Salt Lake market, found business reasons for buying. Physicians purchased cars to visit patients, but found a horse and buggy more reliable on muddy roads during wet and wintry seasons.66 Others who could afford motorized trans­portation for business travel and pleasure rides were successful busi­nessmen and farmers. By 1915, when the first automobile registration law passed in Utah, auto purchases had begun to climb in Davis County. The number of locally owned cars continued to rise until the onset of the Depression, then stabilized until the end of World War A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 287 II. Studebaker, Paige, Franklin, Case, Ford, Dodge, Pierce Arrow, Hupmobile, Buick, Oldsmobile, and Chevrolet were among the makes seen in Davis County before 1920.67 The shift from horsepower to the internal combustion engine marked the end of livery businesses and the beginning of automobile dealerships, repair shops, and service stations. The need to buy gaso­line for motorized vehicles created a new industry that emerged grad­ually By 1913 an "oil wagon" was delivering gasoline to stores in Davis County weekly, and the Continental Oil Company had gaso­line for sale at some of the Oregon and Short Line railroad depots. Repair shops began appearing at this time-some of them in reno­vated livery stables-to meet the specialized needs of motorized vehi­cles. 68 As demand for gasoline increased, retailers added underground storage tanks served by hand-cranked pumps in front of their stores. Electric pumps soon followed. By the early 1920s, selling gasoline was no longer a sideline-full-service garages existed in many parts of the county offering gasoline, auto parts, and repairs. The number of ser­vice stations increased rapidly during the 1930s to serve a growing clientele. Conoco, Shell, and Sinclair were familiar company names. Wholesale distributors, such as Wasatch Oil, supplied local stations with oil products.69 Car buyers could look to Salt Lake City or Ogden for dealers sell­ing motorized vehicles, but local agents soon appeared in Davis County. The Studebaker Wagon Company set up an outlet for wag­ons and carriages in Layton in 1896, and the firm began selling motorized carriages after moving into expanded quarters on Layton's Main Street in 1910. Another early car dealer was Lucius Laudie, who moved his Layton Auto Company into a new showroom in 1916. In Bountiful, descendants of one of the town's early blacksmiths became involved in automobile sales. While Fred Rampton remained at the forge, Lewis S. and James H. Rampton joined with William C. Hardy to found Rampton Auto Company. Several other implement and wagon companies served the county during the early decades of the twentieth century; however, their numbers decreased with the advent of motorized machinery and the appearance of tractors and other farm machinery Dealers specializing in the newly popular automo­bile prevailed. Because new cars were not manufactured during the 288 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY latter part of World War II, local dealerships closed at the time or traded only in used cars. A new generation of automobile dealers appeared in the 1940s.70 Automobiles needed better roads than horses, wagons, and car­riages. As a result, a highway improvement campaign spread throughout the nation and impacted Davis County. With the arrival of the railroads in 1869-70, the construction and maintenance of wagon roads between cities in Utah had shifted to county courts (county commissioners after statehood). Designating major public roads and maintaining them with property and poll taxes was a local responsibility. Cities took care of streets under a similar arrangement. Funding subsidies from territorial and state governments were sparse,71 thus limiting progress toward better roads. Impetus for improving roads came through lobbying by auto­mobile clubs and citizens who met in "good roads" meetings. This was a national movement that included the creation of the Lincoln Highway, an east-west route that crossed through Salt Lake City on a route from New York City to San Francisco. The first road improve­ment meeting in Utah was held at Farmington in July 1908. Commercial interests in the two adjacent counties were especially anxious to create better roads between them. A Deseret News report noted, "Beautiful, bumpy boulevards are what stretch from Salt Lake to Lagoon via Davis County, and from Ogden to Lagoon via Weber and Davis counties, according to the testimony of a great force of good roads enthusiasts who yesterday launched a good roads boom at the Davis county resort. Good roads in Utah from now on are to be demanded with a vigor heretofore little known."72 After hearing a pledge from Governor John Cutler to promote passage of a law cre­ating a uniform state road program, the one hundred delegates orga­nized a three-county road commission to improve the main roads through Davis County As a result of this and other cries for improve­ment, the 1909 legislature created the Utah State Road Commission. The commission was charged with designating and administering a state highway system.73 In 1911 the road commission sent its state road convict gang into Davis County to improve the designated state road, Highway 1. A prominent Ogden resident that year had described the route as A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 289 The concrete road built through Davis County can be seen running along the middle of a wide right-of-way in this August 1920 view of Kaysville's Main Street. (Utah State Historical Society) "rougher than a newly made road through a growth of heavy sage-bush" and virtually impassable in wet weather. Deciding against macadamizing the Salt Lake-Ogden road in favor of packed earth, the commission had the workers install a sprinkling system along the main road with stand pipes at designated intervals. "The sprinkling wagon, the road grader, and the split-log drag became the order of the day on this important road," according to highway historian Ezra Knowlton.74 Two years later, the State Road Commission provided convict labor and the Davis County Commission passed a road tax levy to buy materials for the first concrete paved roads in the county (and the second in Utah). The convicts set up camp and work began at the south county boundary. The four-mile section built in 1913-14 extended northward to the south limits of Bountiful City A segment laid in 1915 began just north of Clearfield and reached into north Layton. After three years, Davis County claimed over ten miles of 290 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY paving-nearly one-third of all concrete roads in Utah. The new highway was a two-lane road measuring eighteen feet wide. Work moved ahead slowly during the next two years, extending the road north through Bountiful. The pioneering project served as a test of the appropriateness of concrete highways in Utah.75 During this time, the shift from horse-drawn to motorized vehi­cles was well underway, as evidenced by a survey of traffic at North Salt Lake. On 23 April 1915, the census station counted 276 wagons, 43 carriages, and 87 saddle horses traversing the all-weather highway, compared with 287 automobiles, 74 motorcycles, and 11 trucks.76 After Governor Simon Bamberger took office in January 1917, the legislature authorized bonding for state roads. This shifted some of the tax burden from counties, which were still required to buy the rights-of-way The road commission ended sprinkling of state roads and authorized more paving. Commissioners in Davis County agreed in 1918 to levy heavy taxes to pave the remaining fifteen miles of dirt road through Layton, Kaysville, Farmington, and Centerville and a short section from Clearfield to the Weber County line. Reinforced concrete was installed along all of this central section except through Centerville, where a hard oil surface failed within three years and was eventually replaced with concrete.77 In August 1920 the mayors and many residents of the seven cities along the route joined in a automobile parade that converged on Lagoon to celebrate completion of the "Million Dollar Highway" Governor Bamberger and former Governor Spry addressed the cele­brants from the tri-county area at a gathering sponsored by the Kaysville Commercial Club. The paved road was applauded for its usefulness for commercial traffic. "It is the longest stretch of hard surfaced country road in the vast region which lies between the Missouri River and California," the Weekly Reflex reported.78 The newspaper lauded the accomplishment as a step toward realizing the day "when Davis County would be a continuous city from Salt Lake City to Ogden." "It no doubt means the most to the interior portions of the county," the Davis County Clipper said, "as it has practically brought them as near to the big cities on either end as the nearby set­tlements were."79 A road previously impassable during wet weather now served farmers throughout the county sending produce to mar- A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 291 ket. Local governments were urged to hard-surface major connecting routes and oil other roads. Farmers in East Layton organized their own road improvement association in order to gravel local roads.80 Increased traffic on the completed road led to accidents involv­ing vehicles and some pedestrians.81 Even before the new ribbon of concrete passed through Davis County, city councils worried about the safety of their citizens. In every town, councilors set speed limits for motor vehicles and bicycles-another popular means of trans­portation at the time. Typical laws limited automobiles to thirty miles per hour on the paved state road, fifteen on county roads, ten on city streets, and four miles per hour in business districts. Bicycles could not exceed eight miles per hour. Enforcing these regulations was a constant challenge for city marshals. City and county officials also had to deal with billboards (which they banned from city streets), street lighting, traffic signs, and the impact of heavy truck traffic and roving cattle on oiled roads.82 The state legislature passed a uniform code for vehicles and pedestrians in 1921 that set speed limits and made age sixteen the minimum age for drivers on public highways. Licensing of drivers was introduced in 1933. Utah adopted the U.S. numbering system for national highways and created its own state numbering system in 1927.83 Highway construction provided work for some local laborers hired by contractors, since using convict labor was only one option available. The state launched a period of gravel road construction in 1924 that created many new jobs over a six-year period. These roads cost one-sixth that of a concrete surface and could be built faster, but they required more careful maintenance. Oil-mix roads came to Utah in the late 1920s. In the late 1940s, a two-lane paved highway west of Bountiful, Centerville, and Farmington was widened to four lanes to eliminate the "Death Strip" highway created in 1935. Designated U.S. Highway 91, it connected in north Farmington with the existing state highway and the Mountain Road (U.S. 89).84 The improvement of the main arteries led to increased commer­cial traffic, which sustained a steady hospitality industry. The small inns and hotels in Davis County served a new traveling business clientele along with a few tourists and some unmarried boarders. As always, the hotels were located along the main-traveled roads of the 292 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Among the locally owned cafes that served motorists in Davis County was Tommy's Place at the North Farmington Junction of Highway 89 and Farmington's Main Street. (Harry Thompson Collection, Utah State Historical Society) county. A number of the newer hotels occupied the upper rooms of business buildings.85 Hotel-keeping in Davis County was an enter­prise that often involved couples. In the first decades of the twenti­eth century, women were just as likely as their husbands to be listed as the proprietor. Women looked after the front desk, food services, and housekeeping; their husbands often managed the adjacent livery and boarding stable. By the 1920s, local residents were patronized hotel dining rooms as part of a new interest in "eating out." Near the close of the Second World War, motels began to appear in the county- catering to the automobile tourist.86 The new age of automobiles also inspired entrepreneurs to start restaurants and cafes apart from hotels. In the largest towns, a num­ber of lunch-stand cafes targeted local workers. Locally owned and operated, the cafes changed owners rapidly in the early years, but a few of t h em became familiar landmarks and popular gathering places A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 293 in their communities. Typical of restaurant offerings was that of William Johnson of Kaysville, whose 1918 directory listing adver­tised: "Short Orders and Regular Dinners, Catering to Auto Parties, First Class Service."87 Commercialization and Community The new era of progress had an impact in areas of life other than the work-a-day world, including that of leisure time. For generations, rural Americans had enjoyed community-centered recreation. Utah's founders continued the simple pastimes of their youth and handed them on to their children. New commercialized forms of recreation emerged at the end of the nineteenth century Many of these leisure-time activities reflected patterns created by urban lifestyles-living in apartments, eating in restaurants, and working in offices, with hours that left evenings free for socializing. Among the options appearing in Davis County and adjacent cities were private halls, cafes, saloons, pool halls, bowling alleys, roller skating rinks, movie theaters, and pleasure resorts. These and other activities were made more accessible by trolleys, automobiles, and improved highways. A new generation that had not known the hardships of pioneering basked in an era of relative prosperity and increased leisure time. They worked hard and they played hard.88 Recreation and Resorts. Before halls were built especially for recre­ational activities, the people of Davis County met in larger homes or in the community building that doubled as a school and meeting­house. Summertime gatherings, especially those for the July holidays, often took place in a shaded grove. For Layton and Kaysville residents it was Webster's Grove. Haight's Grove attracted people from Kaysville and Farmington. By the 1870s most communities had access to a multipurpose cultural hall that was used by organized groups and for dances, dinners, and socials.89 During the thirty-year period beginning in the mid-1880s, a new generation of halls was built that replaced the older recreation halls while hosting similar activities. People went there for dances, dinners, and music concerts, such as those of the newly organized brass bands. Local and traveling theatre groups performed in them, as did traveling vaudeville acts. In most communities the hall was known as 294 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY The Centerville Dramatic Club took its production of A Noble Outcast on the road in 1914. Following a showing in the West Bountiful Amusement Hall, the troupe entertained and were photographed in the Kaysville Opera House. (Intellectual Reserve, Inc., courtesy LDS Church Archives) the Opera House. A hall manager or sponsoring groups collected admission to offset expenses. Some places were operated commer­cially and were known by their owner's name; others were built by local Latter-day Saint wards or were funded through the time-honored process of selling shares to stockholders.90 New recreational interests during this period included both play­ing and observing organized sports and competitive games of skill. Baseball became popular in the 1880s as a community sport. Intercity leagues under the sponsorship of local merchants vied for champi­onships, and playing fields could be found in every community Bicycle racing emerged around 1900 and survived as a sport for a shorter time. A track at Beck's Hot Springs and an annual race from Salt Lake to Lagoon attracted dozens of participants and hundreds of spectators. Basketball began as a neighborhood pastime and emerged as a team sport after local halls suited to the sport became available. Wrestling matches attracted competitors from neighboring towns. Roller skating rinks, pool halls, and bowling alleys were built during A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 295 Spencer Adams, third from left, was second baseman for the Layton Baseball Club when they were Wasatch League Champions in 1920. Adams became the first Utahn to play major league baseball and played with the champi­onship Washington Senators (1925) and New York Yankees (1926). (Roselyn Slade) the early part of the century to house these and other specialized recreational activities.91 The first movie theaters appeared around 1910, and Bountiful and Layton led the way in this new kind of entertainment. Lamoni Call of Bountiful offered an early experience with motion pictures in 1909 with a hand-cranked projector. Electric projectors were intro­duced in Bountiful in 1916 by a Mr. Gabbott and a few years later by Jed Stringham. Layton's first theater, the La'Tonia Picture Show House opened in 1914; it was renamed the Roxy Theater in 1936. A second facility, Latona Motion Picture Theater, opened in 1917. All of these halls offered silent movies, with live musical accompaniment. The "talkies" appeared in the 1920s. Some Latter-day Saint wards offered weekly movies in the ward amusement hall. This sponsorship also allowed the church to exercise some control over the kinds of movies available to the public.92 The commercial resorts developed along the shores of the Great Salt Lake attracted the greatest general interest in the new age of 296 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY enterprise. Of those opened between 1870 and the late 1890s, more than half were in Davis County. These popular resorts offered swim­ming, dancing, dining, boating, and other entertainment. All of them depended on rail service to bring passengers to their doors. In fact, the railroad companies were often major investors in the resorts. The lake was ideal for development; its waters were expanding and deep­ening to a degree unprecedented since the Mormon settlers began recording its fluctuating size and depth. The Great Salt Lake had attracted swimmers and boaters before the establishment of commercial resorts. The resorts simply made it easier for visitors by providing boats, changing rooms, food services, and other recreational activities-all for a small fee. The first to open were Lake Side in south Farmington and Lake Point (also known as Steamboat Landing) on the south shore. John W Young operated the pleasure grounds near Farmington, and in 1872 made it the home port for the converted freight steamboat City of Corinne. Moonlight excursions on the triple-decker stern-wheeler took pleasure seekers to Jeter Clinton's Lake Point and back for twenty-five cents. Church groups, families, and youth found Lake Side an attractive site for socials, reunions, and outings. It had convenient access from the Utah Central Railroad. When a rail line reached the south shore in 1875, Lake Point added a hotel and other facilities and replaced Davis County's recre­ational center as the most popular site for Salt Lake area pleasure seekers. The steamboat was renamed the General Garfield, and the south shore became its home port. As summer visitors increased, new competitors appeared. Black Rock Beach opened in 1876 at a south shore location that had been used for bathing since Brigham Young visited it in 1847. Three years later, Ephraim Garn and George O. Chase developed a small bathing resort called Lake Shore north and west of Centerville. Patrons used the Utah Central to get there.93 To investors it seemed an ideal time in the ancient lake's history to build shoreline resorts. The lake reached its highest historic level in the mid-1870s, a record 4,211 feet above sea level. However, it was about to enter a ninety-year downward cycle that would soon leave the resorts stranded in the mud. Optimistic businessmen could not foresee the lake's future, and during a temporary rise in the lake level A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 297 A spur of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway brought patrons to the pop­ular Lake Park Bathing Resort west of Farmington. The resort's open-air pavilion (later moved to Lagoon) offered band concerts and dancing. (Utah State Historical Society) in the late 1880s, they ventured forth with new resorts that offered more comfortable facilities.94 The first of the new offerings was Lake Park, which opened in July 1886 in west Farmington on a 215-acre tract of lakeshore prop­erty. During its second year of operation, the resort attracted more than 50,000 visitors. Patrons paid a fifty-cent train fare to reach the facility on a spur built by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. Lake Park offered bathhouses, picnic kiosks, a shooting gallery, band con­certs, race track, and an open-air pavilion for dancing-all for a fifty-cent admission. Special holiday activities, footraces, a restaurant, rental cottages, rowboats, and island cruises attracted thousands, including school and church groups. The resort became the most popular of its time.95 In 1886, the same year that Lake Park opened, the Utah and Nevada Railroad built a huge pavilion and added other improve­ments at the Garfield Beach resort. Lake Park attracted 60,000 visi­tors in 1887, but Garfield Beach had deeper swimming water than the shallow, muddy-bottomed beaches west of Farmington. When Daniel 298 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Patrons enjoyed fine beaches at the Syracuse Bathing Resort and a picnic grove shaded by tall poplars among other offerings at the popular Great Salt Lake resort. (Utah State Historical Society) C. Adams and Fred J. Keisel opened the Syracuse Lakeshore bathing resort in 1887, patrons discovered one of the lake's finest beaches, with a mud-free swimming area. The new Syracuse resort soon had a hundred bathhouses, freshwater showers from a deep artesian well, a horse-drawn merry-go-round, a restaurant, boating, and special con­certs. Crowds gathered for baseball games and bicycle races, while a transplanted grove of poplars and willow-covered boweries attracted picnickers.96 With the successes at Garfield and Syracuse, Farmington's Lake Park responded with plans to build an on-shore saltwater bathing pool. But the Great Salt Lake was receding rapidly Because the lake's b o t t om is essentially flat, the retreating water soon forced all of the resorts to close. In twenty years since its high point, t h e lake had dropped ten feet; it would drop another five feet before beginning a ten-foot rise over the twenty-year period beginning in 1905. Lake Park struggled until 1893 to survive. The Syracuse resort, served by a spur of the Union Pacific Railroad, closed its bathing facility in 1892, but for about ten years it continued its dances and picnic facility. Adams allowed the community to use the pavilion for holiday cele- A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 299 brations. The shady grove sheltered an annual conference for the six north Davis LDS wards.97 When Saltair opened in 1893 on the south shore with its grand pavilion built out over the lake on pilings, only the nearby Garfield Resort remained, and it burned in 1904. Saltair became the longest-lived of the pleasure resorts. Even though the Syracuse resort offered some recreational opportunities until 1906, Davis County's church groups chose Saltair for many of their outings. The resort's owners, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, promised a morally safe environment at the "Coney Island of the West."98 Lagoon Resort. The death of Lake Park led to the immediate birth of a freshwater pleasure park in central Davis County. Simon Bamberger, one of Lake Park's investors, opened Lagoon Resort in wet pasture land against Farmington's west edge in 1896. By drain­ing the swamp, harvesting the frogs-selling many of them as a deli­cacy in Montana mining camps-and scraping out a large four-foot-deep boating pond, Bamberger created an immediate attraction. He brought in boats from Lake Park and expanded the pond over several years until it covered more than eight acres.99 A natural spring supplied the water. Using ten teams, workmen hauled in a partially dismantled dancing and concert pavilion and placed it on a new stone foundation. They also moved and reassembled the Lake Park restaurant and erected a bowery100 Bamberger extended his railroad line into the new park and opened Lagoon on Sunday, 12 July 1896, two months behind schedule. In subsequent years, Memorial Day marked the official commencement of the season.101 Bamberger had developed the Eden Park pleasure garden along the line of his steam rail line in Bountiful in 1894. The three-acre park along Barton Creek offered shaded picnic tables, a dance pavil­ion, bowery, ball field, and refreshments. The resort closed when Bamberger shifted his resources to develop and promote Lagoon. The Eden Park pavilion was hauled to the Hot Springs Resort, owned by Bamberger's friend John Beck.102 Lagoon quickly captured the market vacated by Davis County's lake resorts. Under the management of Lewis Bamberger, the resort attracted hundreds of visitors from Salt Lake City and, later, from Ogden, with inexpensive rail transportation and a variety of enter- 300 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY tainment. Groups of all kinds rode the Dummy Line to Lagoon for scheduled outings. Two thousand patrons, most of them from Salt Lake City, crowded the resort on the first Pioneer Day holiday A year later, nearly 7,000 people bought twenty-five-cent train tickets on Independence Day103 Lagoon offered dancing, band concerts, boating, swimming, bicycle racing, and picnicking-the staple of the lake resorts. And Lagoon emphasized its parklike character with dozens of trans­planted shade trees and shrubs, garden arbors, flowers, and walking paths. But the Farmington resort quickly built upon that beginning. Officials contracted with concessionaires for special entertainments and later introduced rides that led gradually to the creation of a mod­ern amusement park. Added attractions included a fun house, merry-go- round, balloon ascensions, reenactments of the sinking of the Battleship Maine, high divers, a shooting gallery, waterchutes, and a miniature steam engine railroad ride. The county's first "moving" pictures were shown at Lagoon in 1896 on an instrument called the Edison vitascope.104 The following year, a German-made "orches-trian," a twelve-foot-high, electrically powered musical instrument, replaced live bands for dancing. Lagoon contract workers also began collecting wild deer, elk, bears, and birds for a menagerie.105 Before long, Lagoon's dance pavilion became a roller skating rink. Competitive baseball games were introduced early in the cen­tury By mid-century the resort's freshwater swimming pool was one of its primary attractions. Advertisements declared, "Swim in Water Fit to Drink." A wooden roller coaster became another popular draw­ing card at the fifty-acre resort. Other action rides followed over the years,106 and a Pioneer Village added a historic component. Values and Leisure Time. In many instances, the offerings of Davis County's privately operated recreation halls and commercial resorts raised questions in the minds of the moral guardians of the county's religiously based communities. As might be expected, the competing values introduced by secular recreational opportunities created tensions. Resort owners listened to concerns, and local gov­ernments constrained the activities complained about through police patrols and by licensing concessionaires. The result was a balance A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 301 Moonlight dancing at Lagoon Resort's new dance pavilion, seen here in May 1905, attracted large crowds and raised complaints from an LDS church watchdog committee. (Utah State Historical Society) between personal values on the one hand and individual and com­mercial freedoms on the other. A commonly voiced concern was that certain activities would adversely affect the moral character of the youth. Religious leaders in Davis County cautioned against drunkenness, profanity, rowdyness, and immoral behavior. Mormon bishops and their counselors dis­couraged swimming parties that involved both young men and young women. They also disapproved of skinny-dipping by young men, whether at the lake or in the local canyon streams.107 The concerns of church officials were magnified when dancing, boating, and other recreational activities were offered outside church or parental supervision. "Have nothing to do with it," one leader cau­tioned when the steamboat City of Corinne docked at Lake Side. Similar counsel advised youth to stay away from Lake Park and Lagoon.108 In response to central church direction, local retrenchment committees were organized to exert pressure on resorts. Lagoon 302 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY manager Andy Christensen responded to specific displeasures when one of these committees took its complaints to the city. Christensen agreed to halt moonlight dancing and to prevent dancing on Sunday to the music of an electric organ.109 Swimming at the resorts prompted regular complaints. Speakers at a Mormon stake conference in 1896 condemned scantily clad bathers. In 1920 a citizens group in Farmington lobbied the city to prevent a "Ladies Bathing Review" at Lagoon. That summer, another group asked the city council to build dressing rooms at the aban­doned Lake Shore resort. Pleased with the idea of a community bathing beach isolated from the influences of commercial operations, the council purchased building materials and volunteers built the pri­vate cubicles.110 The consumption of alcohol troubled many citizens. Even though Lagoon's founder suggested "that no saloon will be run in connection with the resort," liquor had been sold at Lake Park under a county license.111 It was not long before a concessionaire at Lagoon was selling beer without a permit. When discovered by a Farmington City officer, the bartenders "moved all their goods over the line into the county and took out a county license." The Davis County Clipper explained: "The west line of the city runs through the centre of the barroom." Thereafter, bartenders dutifully applied each year for city licenses. Councilmen limited the number of bars and prevented sales to minors through monitoring by city police officers whose salaries were paid for by the resort.112 Because most of the objectionable activities were not prohibited by law, Farmington's government used its licensing power to limit access. Concessionaires were required to keep youth away from Lagoon activities such as boxing exhibitions, lotteries, and horse races.113 Gambling at the race track became a public issue of special concern in Davis County The race track, built in 1911 on forty acres at the north end of the park, extended beyond city boundaries, rais­ing the question of city versus county jurisdiction. The matter was solved when Lagoon owners threw their support behind a city pro­posal to annex the county land.114 Racing attracted a large following, and horses from many parts of the world participated. Stables were located on two sides of the A NEW ERA OF PROGRESS 303 Fans await a racing event at Lagoon's muddy track in October 1914. (Utah State Historical Society) track, and a large grandstand held hundreds of spectators. Racing was good for local businessmen. The season was concentrated in a three-week period in the summer and was sometimes repeated in the fall. Supporters rented local cottages and filled hotel rooms.115 Racing at Lagoon ended abruptly after two years through legislative action. Representative Charles R. Mabey a Republican banker from Bountiful and a later governor, introduced the controversial bill at the request of Davis County citizens concerned about the influence on young people of open betting at the race track. A statewide letter-writing campaign helped shore up support for the action.116 With the track closed, horse owners shipped their animals to Couer d'Alene, Idaho, for racing there. Local farmers bought many of the animal sheds for use in their pastures and barnyards. In November 1919 a wind flattened many of the remaining sheds and stripped the grandstand, causing $20,000 damage. Racing was revived at Lagoon around 1925 for a short time on a parimutuel betting system. That ended when Democrat Henry H. Blood, a Kaysville businessman and LDS stake president, became governor 304 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY in 1933. He sought and approved another legislative restriction on the sport.117 Utahns had allowed most commercial recreational activities, but gambling was one of those excluded from the list of permitted pas­times. Other recreational activities at the commercial resorts, halls, and movie houses continued. They became the legacy of a new era of cultural opportunities, tolerated but not always trusted. ENDNOTES 1. Margaret Steed Hess, My Farmington: A History of Farmington, Utah, 1847-1976, 401; [Clayton Holt, ed.], The Community of Syracuse, 1820 to 1995: Our Heritage, Centennial Edition (Syracuse: Syracuse Historical Commission, 1994), 136; lohn S. White, Farmington, The Rose City (Farmington: Farmington Commercial Club, [1913]). 2. Weekly Reflex, 26 February 1914, 5. The prospect of a border-to-bor­der city was remembered as a prophecy of Brigham Young (see Reflex, 12 August 1920); interview with Harris Adams, May 1999. 3. Peter L. Goss, "William Allen, Architect-Builder, and His Contribution to the Built Environment of Davis County," Utah Historical Quarterly 54 (Winter 1986): 52-73; Glen M. Leonard, "William Allen's Clients: A Socio-Economic Inquiry," Utah Historical Quarterly 54 (Winter 1986): 74-87. See also LaRue Hugoe and Edith Deppe, West Bountiful: A Pictorial History, 1848-1988, 56, 58, 70. 4. For examples see Leslie T Foy, The City Bountiful: Utah's Second Settlement, from Pioneers to Present, 175; Arlene H. Eakle, Adelia Baird, and Georgia Weber, Woods Cross: Patterns and Profiles of a City (Woods Cross: Woods Cross City Council, 1976), 20-22; Hugoe and Deppe, West Bountiful, 437-38; Carol Ivins Collett, Kaysville-Our Town: A History, 121-22; Oma E. Wilcox and E. Harris Adams, "Layton Businesses," in Dan Carlsruh and Eve Carlsruh, eds., Layton, Utah: Historic Viewpoints, 285, 287, 319. 5. Holt, The Community of Syracuse, 120-21, 136-37, 365; Utah State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1918-19 (Salt Lake City: R.L. Polk 8c Co., 1918), 43; Lee D. Bell, South Weber: The Autobiography of One Utah Community, 395-96. 6. Wilcox and Adams, "Layton Businesses," 288-90. 7. Collett, Kaysville: Our Town, 94, 121-22, 113-14; Annie Call Carr, ed, East of Antelope Island: History of the First Fifty Years of Davis County, 395. 8. Hess, My Farmington, 304-9.