A History of Box Elder County

The natural setting

CHAPTER 1 THE NATURAL SETTING X he northwestern corner of Utah, the area which comprises Box Elder County, is a vast land of stark contrasts. Its terrain ranges from alkali flat to desert to scrub oak-covered foothills to aspen-sloped and pine-crowned mountains to barren subalpine crags. The county is named for the large number of Box Elder trees growing in Box Elder Canyon at the time of settlement. Box Elder County is the fourth largest county in Utah at 5,594 square miles-only San Juan, Tooele, and Millard counties are larger. The county covers about 5,600 square miles, depending on the level of the Great Salt Lake. Approximately 48 percent of the county is pri­vately owned which is double that of private land ownership statewide. The largest federal land agency in the county is the Bureau of Land Management which controls 2,041 square miles, followed by the United States Forest Service, the Department of Defense, the Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, and Indian tribes. Box Elder County is rich in history, geology, flora, fauna, tech­nology, and has a heritage of human habitation, dating from prehis- HISTORY OF Box ELDER COUNTY toric times. The diverse climate, topography, and geology have helped shape the lives of generations of people-from prehistoric peoples to present generations. Within Box Elder County's boundaries lies the bulk of Utah's (and North America's) saltiest permanent body of water, the Great Salt Lake, one of the chief geographic features of the Great Basin and the Intermountain West. The Great Basin is a series of closed basins, each bounded by north-south trending mountains. Box Elder County is located in the northeast corner of the very large Great Basin physiographic province. The eastern boundary of the county follows exactly the eastern boundary of the Great Basin. The northern boundary of the county is nearly the northern bound­ary of the hydrologic Great Basin. The northern county line follows the 42nd parallel of latitude, covering nearly two degrees of longi­tude- nearly 100 miles-from just west of the 112th degree to just beyond the 114th degree west longitude. The western county bound­ary, which also forms the Utah-Nevada stateline, extends exactly one full degree, or about 84 miles, from 41 degrees north to 42 degrees north. The county's southern boundary-from the west-follows the 41st parallel to the west shoreline of Great Salt Lake and Carrington Bay. From there it angles north to the middle of the lake, then northerly to a point just west of Utah Hot Springs, from there east to the crest of the Wellsville and Clarkston Mountain Ranges then north to the 42nd parallel. The Great Basin hydrologic province of the North American continent is a quarter-million square mile area of the western North American continent which has no outlet to the sea. Among the lakes located within this hydrologic basin are Utah and the Great Salt Lakes. There is also a physiographic Great Basin, with boundaries slightly more constricted than those of the hydrologic Great Basin.1 The western border of the physiographic Great Basin is formed by the snow-capped ridge of the Sierra Nevada, the highest range in the continental United States. The great wall of the Sierra Nevada Mountains stretches diagonally from the Klamath region of southern Oregon and northern California to the Mojave Desert in southeast­ern California, walling in the Great Basin on the west. On the north, a less-well-defined boundary meanders east from THE NATURAL SETTING the Sierra Nevada Mountains across the low mountain ridges which mark the lava-covered country defining the Snake River Plains of southeastern Oregon and southern Idaho. Streams which arise on the northern slope of these mountains flow into the Columbia River including the small annual steams of Goose Creek, Birch Creek, the Raft River, and Johnson and George creeks located in the extreme northwest corner of Box Elder County. The southern rim of the physiographic Great Basin Province is ragged and indistinct, caused by erosional encroachment of the great Colorado River drainage. Utah tributaries with names such as Paria, Rio Virgin, Kanab Creek and Muddy empty into the Colorado River through deep canyons called Parunuweap, Mukuntuweap, and Meadow Valley Wash. The basin rim is also defined by plateaus with Paiute names such as Markugunt and Paunsagunt, and the formida­ble Black Ridge in Washington County which was such an obstacle to the Mormon pioneers who settled in Utah's Dixie. The Pine Valley and Bull Valley mountains form the watershed in southwestern Utah.2 The eastern perimeter of the physiographic Great Basin is formed by another well-defined wall of mountains, the great diago­nal upthrust of the high gentling rolling High Plateaus which encom­pass the Wellsville and Clarkston Mountains in Box Elder County. The hydrologic Great Basin province is similar nearly to the just described physiographic province. The hydrologic Great Basin stretches farther eastward taking in the drainage of the Bear River which has its headwaters in the Uinta Mountains-the only major east-west trending mountain range in the United States. One of the major features of the Great Basin is the Great Salt Lake, a remnant of Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric Ice Age lake which filled much of the area west of the Wasatch Mountains to what is now the Utah-Nevada state line. The elevation of Box Elder County ranges from 4,200 feet (the "standard" level of Great Salt Lake) to nearly 10,000 feet. Dunn Peak in the Raft River Mountains reaches 9,925 feet, Willard Peak attains an elevation of 9,764 feet, and Box Elder Peak rises to 9,372 feet above sea level. HISTORY OF Box ELDER COUNTY Geology and Topography The most noticeable geologic features of Box Elder County are its mountains and the valley of the Great Salt Lake.The mountainous boundary which forms the eastern border of Box Elder County is a result of one of the unseen features of the area: the Wasatch Fault Zone which extends from Malad City, Idaho on the north to Nephi on the south and paralleling Interstate 15 for about two hundred miles. The uplift begun in the Miocene epoch continues today. The Wellsville Mountains mark the northern end of the Wasatch Range proper. The greater Wasatch Fault line extends much farther in both directions.3 The eastern boundary of Box Elder County is delineated by the craggy Wellsville and Clarkston Mountains, separated by a six -mile sag where the Bear River flows through the Bear River Narrows from Cache County to Box Elder County. These mountains tower over the communities of Brigham City, Harper Ward, Honeyville, Deweyville, Collinston, Fielding, Plymouth, Washakie, and Portage It is claimed that using the measurement of base-width to height, the Wellsville Mountains are the steepest in the world. Anyone who has walked the knife-edged ridge of the Wellsvilles and looked down the western slope would surely tend to agree. Though the western face of the Wellsville Mountains looks out over the vast Bear River Valley, its eastern foothills are punctuated south of Cache Valley by two small valleys: Dry Lake, and Mantua. The Wellsville and Clarkston Mountains-the latter part of the Malad Range-are composed mostly of marine sedimentary rock laid down during the Cambrian-Silurian-Dovonian-Pennsylvanian Periods when much of the western United States continent was sub­merged under an ancient sea. On the east side of both mountain ranges are outcroppings of non-marine sedimentary rock layed down during the more recent Tertiary Period. The Wellsville Mountains are known for deposits of trilobites and other Devonian fossils. Minerals, including copper, silver, lead, zinc, antimony, and gold, have been found in the Wellsville Mountains, principally in Cataract, Baker, and Antimony Canyons northeast of Brigham City. The mountains are tilted to the east, exposing layers upon layers THE NATURAL SETTING of rock strata. The mountains have been forced upward and tilted by numerous ancient seismic events. The fault scarp shows in the rugged west face of Wellsville Mountain, while the eastern face is covered with topsoil and is heavily vegetated. One of the interesting features of the east side of the Wellsville Mountains is Dry Lake in Cache County where runoff from the east side of the Wellsville Mountains collects in the spring. When Grove K. Gilbert made his survey in October 1879, he noted that Dry Lake (which he called Boxelder Lake) was-as it is at that time every year-dry. As he followed Box Elder Creek down the canyon, he postulated that the creek had begun to build a delta on the edge of the mountain at or just before the Provo Epoch of Lake Bonneville. He noted that "the Provo delta was rather small and its upper surface was nearly obliterated by the next. The same proximate obliteration was the fate of several other deltas whose remnants remain only at the extreme right or left."4 Dry Lake in Cache County is a basin which gathers spring runoff. In the summer of the great wet year 1983, the level of Dry Lake rose until US Highway 89-which has traversed Dry Lake Valley since 1947, when the highway was re-aligned from Sardine canyon to Wellsville Canyon-was under water, and the roadbed had to be raised. It is said by local old-timers that there is a "drain" of sorts at the east edge of dry lake through which the waters of the lake perco­late, providing the source for springs which issue from the western foothills of the Wellsville Mountains, from Brigham City to Collinston.5 Five miles east of Brigham City and on the east side of the Wellsville Mountains lies Mantua Valley, once known as "the Little Valley." Many of the springs in Mantua Valley provide culinary water not only for the town of Mantua but for Brigham City as well. Mantua Reservoir, built in the 1960s, impounds runoff for Brigham City's irrigation system. Though a boon for Brigham City, the reser­voir has raised the water table in Mantua Valley to the point that home construction and agriculture have been adversely affected. West of the Wellsville Mountains is the lower Bear River Valley, one of several valleys that compose a group of Wasatch Front val­leys- Utah Valley, Salt Lake Valley, and the Malad River Valley. Each of the valleys is separated by east-west tending spurs and salients of HISTORY OF Box ELDER COUNTY the Wasatch Mountains. The Pleasant View salient separates the less well-defined valley of Weber County and the lower Bear River Valley located in Box Elder County. At the far northwestern corner of the county are the Raft River, Goose Creek, and Grouse Creek Mountains. Between them and the Wellsville and Clarkston Mountains in the northern section of the county are a series of north-south mountains and valleys. Moving west is the broad Bear River Valley. The Bear River valley blends into the Malad River Valley north of Fielding and Riverside. It is here in these two valleys that most of the agriculture takes place. Farther west, are other mountain ranges (including Little and Curtain, West Hills and Blue Springs Hills), playas, valleys, and streams. On the west side of Blue Creek Valley rise the North Promontory Hills, which stretch southward becomingthe Promontory Mountains. The Promontory separates the two "arms" of the the Great Salt Lake and, along with Fremont and Antelope Islands, divides the lake north to south. West of the North Promontory range is Hansel Valley, delimited on the west by the Hansel Mountains.6 Between 1-15 and Utah Highway 30 is the expansive Curlew Valley, punctuated by Cedar Hill and the Wildcat hills to the west. The next major ridge begins with the eastern slope of the Raft River Mountains on the north, continuing in the Baker Hills and the Hogup Mountains, which run down the western edge of the Great Salt Lake. West of the Baker Hills rise such landmarks as Red Dome, the Matlin Hills, Terrace Mountain, and Pigeon Mountain, far to the west, which were to give their names to sidings on the old transcon­tinental railroad route. West of Curlew Valley, south of the Raft River Range, and north of Red Dome and the Matlin Mountains is Park Valley, where the set­tlements of Park Valley and Rosette are nestled. The next major range in Box Elder County, proceeding west, are the Grouse Creek Mountains, which intersect the Raft River Mountains on the north. The Raft Rivers comprise the major moun­tain range in northwestern Box Elder County, and extend north from Rosette and Park Valley to the state line. The highest peak in the the Raft River Range is 9,890 feet above sea level. The Raft River Mountains coalesce into the Goose Creek THE NATURAL SETTING Mountains, their peaks and crags broken up by the Upper Raft River Valley (just north of the Raft River Mountains), Junction Valley (sep­arating the northern Raft Rivers from the Goose Creek Range,) the spectacular Cotton Thomas Basin, and the Grouse Creek Valley, to the west of the Grouse Creek range. In the far northwest corner of Box Elder County lies the expan­sive Yost Valley, which extends north into Idaho. From the isolated community of Yost, one can see across the valley the tiny community of Almo, Idaho, as well as glimpse to the northwest one of the chief landmarks of the California Trail: The Twin Sisters (known during the Gold Rush as the Castle Rocks or the Steeple Rocks). The Raft River Range is metamorphic in nature and consists of the oldest rocks in Utah, more than two billion years old, according to geologists.7 There is also evidence of glacial activity in the Raft River and Grouse Creek Mountains.8 The northern slopes of the Goose Creek, Grouse Creek, and Raft River ranges constitute the only portion of Box Elder County not in the Great Basin. They are part of the Snake River Plain and drainage which is a tributary to the mighty Columbia River.9 At the southern edge of Box Elder County, rising from the playa of the Great Salt Lake Desert, are (west from the western edge of the lake) the Lakeside Mountains, the Newfoundland Mountains, and the Silver Island Mountains, which are continued to the north in the Little Pigeon Mountains, just south of Pigeon Mountain proper. In southwestern Box Elder County is evidence of considerable ancient volcanic activity, which can be seen from 1-15 between Tremonton and Blue Creek, and on U-30 between Snowville and Lucin, including some volcanic buttes or cones rising from the valley floor. There is said to be a volcanic dike in the Promontory Range near the southern tip of Promontory Point. Igneous intrusions are also found in the Pilot Range, on Crater Island, in the Grouse Greek Mountains, at the north end of the Newfoundland Mountains, in the Raft River Range, and in the Wasatch Range. Significant exposures of extrusives are found at the north end of the Pilot Range, in the Goose Creek Mountains, Hogup Mountains, Wildcat Hills, Summer Ranch Mountains (Hansel Mountains) and in the North Promontory Mountains.10 HISTORY OF Box ELDER COUNTY Copper, zinc, and silver were discovered near the south end of the Promontory Range at the turn of the twentieth century. By World War I, the Lakeview Mining Company was the largest producer of zinc ore in the county.11 Minerals were discovered in the Grouse Creek Mountains as early as 1860. In July 1874 the Ashbrook Mining District was orga­nized. It is the second most important mining district in the county.12 To the east in the Raft River Mountains are the Park Valley, Yost, and Clear Creek Mining districts. The districts produced a variety of minerals including copper, gold, lead, silver, and tungsten. In the southern half of the Grouse Creek Mountains is the Rosebud Mining District. One of the newest mining districts in the county, there was little mining activity here before 1900. Tungsten has been the major ore mined, although the district has produced smaller amounts of lead, silver, and copper. The Curlew Valley is a wide tract of level land north of the Great Salt Lake and between the Raft River and Hansel Mountains. It is part of a much larger area that extends into southern Idaho. The valley lacks the soil and vegetation typical of the Great Salt Lake Desert to the south.13 Dividing the Curlew and Malad valleys is a series of low, north-trending ranges and narrow valleys that are significantly dif­ferent from surrounding sections of the county. The topography is best described "as rolling or rounded [with] few outcrops of bare rock [and] is typical of the weathering and erosion of the Oquirrh Formation that produces mainly small, blocky fragments."14 Large accumulations of gravel and sand are found in this section of the county and along Lake Bonneville shorelines.15 West of Great Salt Lake, dividing the lake bed from the Great Salt Lake Desert to the west, lie the Hogup and Terrace mountains on the north and the Lakeside mountains on the south. Between these mountain ranges is a convenient open area for the tracks of the old Southern Pacific's Lucin Cutoff, now part of the larger Union Pacific Railroad system. West of the Great Salt Lake is the Great Salt Lake Desert. It is composed of sand, mud, and salt, punctuated by the Newfoundland Mountains and other smaller mountains. The Newfoundland Mountains were formed, like other moun­tain ranges in the Great Basin, from ancient sea deposits. The THE NATURAL SETTING Newfoundland Mountains and the Silver Island Mountains have igneous intrusions; as a result there have occurred mining activities in both mountain ranges, primarily tungsten as well as limited amounts of copper, gold, silver, lead, and molybdenum. The Newfoundland Mining District was established in the early 1870s. Mining activities occurred mostly during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Mining activities commenced in the Silver Island Mountains in the early 1870s as well. However, no real production took place until shortly after the turn of the century. The Silver Island Mining District encompasses the entire mountain range which extends into north­west Tooele County. Much of the mining activity in the Box Elder County section of the Silver Island Mountains has taken place in the smaller Crater Island District. Between 1908 and 1913, the Crater Island District produced about $90,000 in various metals. Little pro­duction occurred following World War I until 1934 when the Great Depression encouraged reworking the claims in the district. Between 1934 and 1948, less than 100 ounces of gold, more than 1,100 ounces of silver, 23,600 pounds of copper, and 91 pounds of lead at an accu­mulated value of more than $7,800 were produced. In the 1970s lim­ited mining activity resumed in the district, primarily prospecting and mining tungsten and molybdenum. Bordering the Utah (Box Elder County)Nevada State line are the Pilot Peak Mountains composed chiefly of marine sedimentary rock laid down eons ago. The mountains also have instrusive igneous rock from which deposits of copper, silver, gold, lead, and zinc have been mined. As the name of the mountain range suggests, the Pilot Peak Mountains have been an important topographical landmark for adventurers, overland travelers, explorers, and fur trappers. Zenas Leonard was one such fur trapper who, in 1833, traveled through the western part of the county from a rendezvous on Green River to California. At the Pilot Peak Mountains Leonard wrote: "After travel­ing a few days longer through these barren plains; we came to the mountains described by the Indian as having its peak covered with snow. It presents a most singular experience-being entirely uncon­nected with any other chain. It is surrounded on either side by level plains and rises abruptly to a great height, rugged and hard to ascend. 10 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY To take a view of the surrounding country from the mountain, the eye meets with nothing but a smooth, sandy, level plain. On the whole, this mountain may be set down as one of the most remark­able phenomena of nature. Its top is covered with the pinon tree, bearing a kind of seed, which the natives are very fond of, and which they collect for winter provision."16 Thirteen years later another group of adventurers welcomed sighting the Pilot Peak Mountains. The Edwin Bryant and William H. Russell Party was one of several emigrant groups to travel around the south end of the Great Salt Lake using Hastings Cutoff to make better time on their way to California. By August the Bryant-Russell Party had reached the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake and had crossed much of the Great Salt Lake Desert before entering present-day Box Elder County. After many hard and dry hours of travel, Bryant reached the Pilot Peak Mountains. The mountains provided welcome relief of water which at one of the springs was "very cold and pure, and tasted to us more delicious than any of the invented beverages of the epicure to him."17 The Pilot Peak Mountains were, in places, richly endowed with thick vegitation. Bryant wrote that a traveling companion discovered a "blade of grass" which was measured at thirty-five feet in length and the diameter about a half inch.18 James Clyman, one of the earliest Euro-Americans to cross the Great Salt Lake Desert, wrote of the desert east of the Pilot Peak Mountains: To the South and East you have a boundless salt plain without veg­etation except here and there a cliff of bare rocks standing like monumental pillars to commemorate the distinction of this por­tion of the earth . . . [We] soon entered on the great salt plain, the first plain 6 or 7 miles wide covered in many places three inches deep in pure white salt pass . . . [t]his is the [most] desolate country perhaps on the whole globe there not being one spear of vegetation and of course no kind of animal can subsist, and it is not ascer­tained to what extend this immince salt and sand plain can be south of where we [are] ...19 Mines were first discovered in the Pilot Peak Mountains in the THE NATURAL SETTING 11 Summer of 1868, a year before the completion of the transcontinen­tal railroad. Three years later a small smelting furnace was built at Buel City, located in the eastern foothills of the Pilot Peak Mountains. Between 1870 and 1917, over $3.2 million of metals-gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc-was mined from the igneous formations of the Pilot Peak Mountains.20 The Wasatch Mountains south of Brigham City are composed of Precambrian sedimentary and crystalline rock which have been metamorphosed. The Wasatch Mountains were uplifed by ancient orogeny episodes. This section of the Wasatch Mountains has yielded a modest amount of mineral ore. The first discovery was made on the King Solomon vein in 1897. Five years later the Sierra Madre Mining District was formed. Between 1901 and 1905, the several mining claims produced 205 tons of ore containing $100 worth of gold, 152 ounces of silver, and over 3,000 pounds of copper for a total value of about $1,000. A second mining district, the Willard Mining District, was orga­nized near the turn of the century. Some lead-silver ore and copper were discovered. The yields from the several mining claims were insufficient to cover expenses and the claims were closed. Over the years, there has been significant prospecting and min­ing activity in Box Elder County, as well as considerable commerce in rock and gravel. Between 1951 and 1974, the total mineral pro­duction was valued at $59,982,616. Of that amount, over $8.6 mil­lion worth of base metals was produced in the county. Most of the value from mining has come from construction materials, primarily stone, sand, and gravel. Nearly half the cumulative value of mineral production in Box Elder County between 1951 and 1974, came from construction of the Southern Pacific causeway from Promontory Point to Lakeside between 1956 and 1959. Over 43.7 million cubic yards of rock fill came from the quarries on the Promontory penin­sula. In addition salts have also been harvested in the county. Through 1874 salts harvested from the Great Salt Lake provided 17.9 percent of the cumulative mineral value in the county.21 12 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Great Salt Lake The Great Salt Lake and the Great Salt Lake Desert dominate the county's landscape. It is the largest lake in the nation apart from the Great Lakes and is a remnant of prehistoric Lake Bonneville. Named for a nineteenth century U.S. Army captain B.L.E. Bonneville, who never set foot in Utah, Lake Bonneville is the most recent of several ancient lakes that covered Box Elder County and western Utah. It was formed more than 50,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. Climatic changes resulted in the fluctuation of Lake Bonneville. At its largest, Lake Bonneville covered the greater part of western Utah with arms stretching into Nevada and southern Idaho. The ancient lake level rose during wet cycles and leveled off during dry spells, finally reaching it highest point, about 5,200 feet above sea level, with a depth of about 1,050 feet and carving out a shoreline at what is now known as the Bonneville Level or Bonneville Bench. At that time Lake Bonneville covered at least 75 percent of Box Elder County. After an extended period at the Bonneville Level, the lake breached Red Rock Pass (located on US Highway 91 about nineteen miles northwest of Preston, Idaho). Red Rock Pass is the lowest point in the northern rim of the Great Basin, and through it poured a tremendous flood of water and debris. The Great Bonneville Flood, which drained and uncovered much of the land in Box Elder County, was one of the greatest geological "catastrophes" in the history of the continent. Some scientific evi­dence indicates that the maximum discharge was about fifteen mil­lion cubic feet per second of water passing through the Red Rock pass outlet or about three times the average flow of the Amazon River.22 An associate of the famous John Wesley Powell and co-worker for the U.S. Geological Survey, Grove Karl Gilbert, was, in 1878, the first to report on the Great Bonneville Flood and to extensively study Lake Bonneville. Later studies of flood gauging of the Snake River Canyon in Idaho substantiates much of Gilbert's study of the Great Bonneville Flood. After the great flood, the ancient lake level rested a while at what is called the Provo Level, before continuing to drop. The Provo Bench or Terrace is the second major level of the lake and is approximately THE NATURAL SETTING 13 400 feet below the Bonneville Terrace and more than 500 feet above the current level of the Great Salt Lake. At 300 feet above the current lake level, the Stansbury Terrace-the youngest of the several major terraces-was formed. In Box Elder County, the evidence of Lake Bonneville is visible in terraces on the Wasatch Range and most clearly on the Promontory Range, which bifurcates Great Salt Lake, dividing it into two arms-the Bear River Bay and the smaller North, South, and Willard bays on the east side; and the Gilbert, Gunnison, and Spring bays on the west. Beginning about 25,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville receded to its current shoreline. Hydrologists and others have set the mean or stan­dard level of the Great Salt Lake at 4,200 feet above sea level. Over the years the lake level has fluctuated with wet and dry cycles.. The his­toric high was equaled during the wet cycle of 1983 to 1986. Even now, the Great Salt Lake covers about 12 percent of Box Elder County's nearly 6,400 square-mile area.23 The lake has an average depth of thirteen feet, and a maximum mean depth of thirty-five feet, though many locals claim a depth of a hundred feet just off Promontory Point. The lapping waters of the receding Lake Bonneville coupled with periodic flooding created alluvial deposits in the county. Located at the mouths of the various canyons on the west face of the Wellsville Mountains, these alluvial deposits are composed of soil, gravel, and sand. On these alluvial fans some of the state's best fruit is grown and construction materials are mined. Brigham City is situated on one of the most prominent of ancient alluvial deposits in the county. It is the narrow band of watered land where the first settlements in nine­teenth- century pioneer Utah were founded. Elsewhere in the county are other bodies of lake-deposited silt and fanglomerate which escape the casual eye. In the valley between Corinne and the Promontory, thousands of feet of lake deposit over­lie the valley bedrock. In some places the fill is 10,000 feet deep. Poking through these lake deposits are the north-south trending Little Mountain, the Newfoundland Range, Pilot Range, and the Promontory Mountains. 14 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Water Resources Between the Wellsville Mountains and the Malad Range to the north flows the Bear River, the Great Salt Lake's major tributary and the major source of water to irrigate eastern Box Elder County.24 Bear River has its origin on the north flank of the Uinta Mountains. It takes a tortuous and meandering course through Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and again into Utah. The waters of the Bear River are con­trolled by diversion into Bear Lake, and by Cutler Dam, one of the nation's largest hydroelectric structures when it was built in the 1920s. It is from Cutler dam that the east and west Bear River canals flow, irrigating the vast arable land in Bear River Valley which other­wise could not be irrigated from the sunken riverbed. West of the Bear River and on the other side of the West Hills flows the Malad River, down the Malad Valley from Idaho. In the early years after the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the Malad Valley was a major freight corridor between the mines of west­ern Montana and the railheads at Kelton and Corinne. Donald Mackenzie, a French-Canadian trapper from the Hudson's Bay Company, is credited with naming the river. While trapping for beaver on the Malad River, MacKenzie and some of his men became ill after eating beaver meat. The root word from which Malad or Malade (French for "sick') is derived is the same word from which comes our English term "malady."25 American explorer Captain John C. Fremont called the river the Roseaux. One of the most lovely and pastoral spots in Box Elder County is the confluence of the Bear and Malad rivers, as their serpentine paths merge in the midst of some of Utah's most picturesque and fertile agricultural land, about two miles north of Corinne. The Bear River continues past Corinne flowing leisurely through the marshes and sloughs which provide sanctuary and nesting grounds to great flocks of waterfowl-an area encompassed within Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge-before entering into the Bear River Bay, which forms the north arm of Great Salt Lake. Though the Bear and the Malad are the largest rivers in Box Elder County, and flow through the most populous areas of the county, numerous other streams that are also vital to life and agri- THE NATURAL SETTING 15 culture in the county. Box Elder Creek carries water from the moun­tains above Brigham City; Blue Creek flows through Blue Creek Valley, west of the Blue Springs Hills; Deep Creek provides needed water in Curlew Valley, as does Tenmile Creek between Black Butte and the Wildcat Hills. One of the major watercourses in western Box Elder County is Dove Creek, flowing from the junction of the Raft River Mountains and the Grouse Creek Mountains to the sinks of Dove Creek, between the Baker Hills and the Matlin Mountains and next to the long-abandoned transcontinental railroad grade built by the Central Pacific Railroad in 1869. The Raft River range is drained by Indian Creek, Pine Creek, Black Hills Creek, Johnson Creek, George Creek, Onemile Creek, Clear Creek, Rice Creek, and Tenmile Creek. From the Grouse Creek Mountains flow Grouse Creek and its tributaries: Kimbell, Pine, and Red Butte, as well as Muddy and Rosebud creeks on the east side. The Goose Creek Mountains give rise to Basin, Joe Dahar, Cotton, and Straight creeks (all tributaries of Grouse Creek), and Hardesy, Pole, Birch, and Long creeks, which flow west or north out of Box Elder County (and out of Utah), except Long Creek, which joins Junction Creek, draining Junction Valley, and then in its turn joining the Raft River, which flows north into Idaho, a tributary of the Snake River. The north slope of the Raft River range and the west slope of the Goose Creek mountains are outside the Great Basin. The Snake River flows eventually into the great Columbia River, and finally into the Pacific Ocean. Besides its creeks and rivers, Box Elder County is dotted with springs. Box Elder County's most significant historic route, the Salt Lake Cutoff, followed a line of springs from the base of the Wasatch and Wellsville mountains west across the Bear River Valley. The springs rise here and there across the otherwise arid valleys of Box Elder County. Springs, large and small, bear a veritable potpourri of names: Burnhope Spring, Blue Springs, Garland Springs, Cedar Springs. There are springs along the pioneer trails with names like Immigrant and Pilot. There are springs named for people: Madsen, Udy, Chambers, Callahan, Porter, and Connor. There are springs with colorful names like Crystal, Mound, Locomotive, Dipping Vat, Pole, Mahagany, Boundary, Owl, and Rabbit. 16 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY In a desert land, water is the key to settlement. Box Elder County, over the years, has gained its complement of water impoundments. The largest is Willard Bay, holding 193,300 acre-feet of water. Other Box Elder County reservoirs include Cutler, Blue Creek Reservoir, Rose Ranch Reservoir, Mantua Reervoir, Etna Reservoir, and Death Creek Reservoir. Other water impoundments include the ponds dammed up at Locomotive Springs and the Newfoundland Evaporation Basin, the short-lived lake created by the ill-fated pro­ject to pump Great Salt Lake overflow into the desert during the wet cycle of the 1980s. Box Elder County has a significant number of hot and warm springs. Utah Hot Springs-known to local residents simply as "Hot Springs"-is located on the boundary between Box Elder and Weber counties in the Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way. At one time a resort stood on the spot, but within the last twenty years it was razed in favor of an explosives plant. The water at Utah Hot Springs is highly mineralized and its water temperature is scalding at 135° Fahrenheit. Just north of Honeyville is Crystal Springs, Box Elder County's major hot springs resort. Earlier known as Madsen Hot Springs, Crystal Springs has been a bathing resort since the Shoshoni and their predecessors inhabited the land. In the 1970s the pools were rebuilt and a waterslide installed. A natural cold springs next to the hot springs has led to the assertion that at Crystal Springs are to be found the largest-volume hot and cold springs arising side-by-side in the United States. Ten miles west of Corinne are the forlorn and neglected "Stinky Springs." This high-sulfur spring, officially known as Stinking Hot Springs, is a sad tale in history. It was owned in the nineteenth cen­tury by Corinne pioneer Hiram House. At his death he bequeathed the springs to Box Elder County with the stipulation that no one would ever be charged to use the healing sulfurous waters. Box Elder County officials agreed, in turn, to maintain the spring and its build­ings, and keep the place clean. A subsequent owner of land around the spring moved the bathing building across the highway. Over the years Box Elder County forgot its part of the agreement and the building was allowed to disintegrate. At this writing, only the con- THE NATURAL SETTING 17 crete pools remain, which bathers have covered with a black-plastic "tent." The site is filthy, and many people dare not go there any more. More's the pity, for waters of Stinky Springs are said to contain heal­ing power, especially for those suffering from arthritic conditions. Many local old-timers testify of the curative powers of the waters. Etna Hot Springs, the other major hot spring, lie on the far west­ern border of the county. Within the past few years, its waters have been harnessed and piped to provide geothermal heat for a house built nearby. Climate In addition to the geography, hydrology, and topography which affected Box Elder County is its climate. Box Elder County covers exactly one degree of latitude from 41 degree to 42 degree north lati­tude, placing the county well within what is called the Temperate Zone or mild climate. The climate is affected by the wide difference in altitude of nearly 4,500 feet, from a standard lake level of 4,200 feet above sea level at the Great Salt Lake to nearly 10,000 feet in the far northwestern corner of the county in the Raft River range. The salinity of the lake, which never freezes, has a moderating effect upon local weather. Moisture-laden storm fronts leave the Pacific Northwest and have most of the moisture wrung out as they pass over the Sierras and the Cascades. The Wellsville Mountains force most of what moisture is left out of the clouds and on to the communities along their base giving a much higher annual amount of precipitation to Brigham City, with an average of eighteen inches a year, than locations like Corinne and the Bear Lake Migratory Bird Refuge, which average five inches or less a year. The annual average mean temperature is nearly 51 degrees Fahrenheit, the same as Ogden and Salt Lake and three degrees warmer than Logan's 48 degrees.Brigham City's record high temper­ature was 108 degrees Fahrenheit in July 1931; the record low was minus 27 degrees in February 1963. The annual snowfall averages fifty-two inches a year, with the heaviest snowfall on record during 18-20 December 1929 leaving twenty-eight inches. The county's highest official recorded temperature of 109 degrees occurred at Corinne in June and August 1940, eight degrees below 18 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY the highest recorded temperature of 117 in St. George in 1985. At the other end of the scale, minus 30 degrees was recorded at the Thiokol Plant in February 1984.26 The frost-free season in Box Elder County (except in the moun­tain elevations) averages from 120 to 160 days, roughly from May to October.27 The average date of the last frost is 14 May; and the aver­age date of the first frost is 28 September. That gives an average of 138 consecutive days without frost in a normal growing season. The average normal annual precipitation varies from location to location, from the lake to the mountains, between thirty and thirty-nine inches at the highest elevations to less than six inches on the Great Salt Lake Desert.28 The moderate climate is very good for agriculture and helps explain why Box Elder County is the largest producer of winter wheat in the state and why a third of the peaches grown in Utah come from the Brigham City area. In 1992 the combined market value of all agricultural and livestock produces sold amounted to more than $138 million, placing the county fourth behind Cache, Utah, and Sanpete counties.29 Box Elder County has experienced its share of severe weather. A report in the Brigham City Bugler chronicled a storm on 29 July 1897: We learn from Ben Williams, the Collinston stage line propri­etor, that one of the heaviest rain and hail storms occurred on the east side of Bear River flat last Thursday afternoon that ever hap­pened in that section to the knowledge of the earliest settlers, says the Malad Enterprise. The storm came up during the afternoon and inside of two hours Bear River had risen to a point much higher than the high water mark of the regular spring floods. The whole sides of the mountain around Square Town [Plymouth] were washed clean and many acres of lucern and wheat were washed away. The water poured down from off the mountains in regular torrents and roads, bridges and fences were swept away like chaff. In some places along Bear River, where the water had over­run the banks, hail was piled over the land to a depth of 18 to 20 inches and thousands of pounds of fish were left on the shores by the receding waters. Wagon loads were gathered up by settlers on the river and thousands were left to rot in the sun. The storm only THE NATURAL SETTING 19 lasted about two hours and was mostly in the mountains, but the damage done the settlers in the valley was very large. No such storm has ever occurred in that section before.30 In the late 1920s through the mid-1930s the lack of precipitation in the west end of the county forced ranchers to haul thousands of gallons of water by rail to thirsty livestock. A terrific windstorm in the early 1950s toppled scores of trees, tore off roofs, and took a couple of pinnacles off the Brigham City LDS Tabernacle. Five tornados have been recorded in the county since 1847.31 Late spring frosts and occasional hailstorms have brought economic difficulties to parts of the county. The afternoon of 31 May 1918 a hailstorm stripped young pea plants of their blossoms and an estimated 75 percent of peach, apricot, and cherry fruit was stripped from trees causing thou­sands of dollars in damage.32 On 30 July 1958 a two-inch downpour in forty minutes killed 1,300 turkeys in Fielding. In Bothwell a flash flood drowned eight cattle and flooded fourteen homes.33 Flora and Fauna The canyons and hillsides of Box Elder County are covered with maple trees. The scrub-oak which covers the foothills above Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Provo reaches its northern limit in Box Elder County. In the canyons and mountains are found Mountain Mahogany, Chokecherry, and Serviceberry or Shad Brush. Aspen are found higher up on the mountains between 6,500 to 8,000 feet aspen. Atop the Wellsville and Raft River Mountains are stands of Douglas Fir and Spruce. In the valleys streams are outlined by the rough-barked and gnarled-limbed Cottonwood. The desert flats are covered with native grasses, rabbitbrush , and the ubiquitous sagebrush . Box Elder County has its share of pests as well, plants such as Salsola, an annual forb, greasewood, and Halogeton-introduced to the Intermountain West from central Asia in the 1930s. Perhaps the most discussed in recent years is the cursed Dyer's Woad, also known as mustard weed. Box Elder's flora has some features of its own. One species of wild onion is found nowhere but in the area between Promontory and Thiokol.34 The careful observer will find a plethora of plant life in the county. From the marshes between Corinne and Blue Creek cattails 20 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY and rushes have been used for many purposes. The tuberous roots of the cattail were used by Natives and pioneers alike for a potato-like food, the pollen was used as flour, and the fluff of the cattail heads made soft mattress stuffing. In addition to food or fiber, many plants have a wide variety of medicinal purposes. The leaves of sagebrush were pulverized by Indians and pioneers into a powder and was used to soothe skin chafing. Indians used sagebrush as a disinfectant. Sagebrush leaves were used to cover seeds and berries to protect them from bug and rodent attack.35 Cocklebur leaves were boiled to a tea for use as a diuretic. Cocklebur seeds, when crushed, were used as an antiseptic for skin abrasions. Boiled leaves and spring rods of dande­lion helped to dissolve kidney stones, and Mormon tea, also known as Cowboy Tea or Brigham Tea among other names, was brewed and drunk as a decongestant.36 In May the fields and foothills around Promontory are dotted with Utah's state flower-the Sego Lily. In far-western Box Elder County are pinon pine trees which produce pine nuts, an important food source for Native peoples. Wildlife habitat is directly tied to the plant life of the county. This is especially true with the lower herbivores. There is, for example, a small "sagebrush vole" or meadow mice which eats primarily the leaves and bark of sagebrush. The deer mouse ranges only in the areas covered by saltbush or shadscale. While some of the smaller mammals are limited in their range, larger rodents and mammals have a much wider range in the Great Basin. The porcupine is an exception. It is found only among trees. Some of the wider-ranging mammals found in the county are mule deer, badger, an occasional elk or moose, bobcat, an occasional puma, and perhaps (although it is rare these days) a bear. Mule deer, some scientists and other argue, are more plentiful than in the nine­teenth century and earlier. Archaeological studies suggest the mule deer was rather sparse in the diet of the prehistoric Indians of the area.37 The carnivores are not as limited in habitat as are the small herbivores, although a change in small mammal population affects, to a greater or smaller degree, the predator population. Farther west, in the desert areas of the county, are found popu­lations of mice in the grasslands and wheat fields, rats, and ground THE NATURAL SETTING 21 squirrels, as well as badgers, and coyotes. In the same area are large populations of cottontail and the black-tailed jackrabbits. Reptiles range from horned toads and geckos to blowsnakes and rattlesnakes. Although rattlesnakes are usually limited to the rocky foothills and arid benchlands, occasionaly they are found in inhab­ited areas including Brigham City. More common are the water-snakes found near springs and marshy areas of the county. Human activity has in some cases altered dramatically animal population in the county. For instance, the increased need for food and fiber by the Indians of northern Utah eliminated a very small herd of mountain bison. Large amounts of bison bones were retrieved from several archaeological sites near the mouth of the Bear River.38 As settlement has developed, human population grown, and hunting increased, many of the mammals which historically ranged near and around the present site of towns and cities have been hunted to lower populations or withdrawn to less populated areas. Among these are the bear, cougar, and wolf. In the marsh areas of the county are muskrat, and higher in the mountain canyons are found beaver and their dams. Skunks are com­mon. Less common are the weasel and the wild mink. The fresh waters of the county have limited endemic fisheries but include carp, catfish, trout, Utah chub, Utah sucker, and Bluehead There are many birds in the county including many migratory birds that find refuge in the marshes and bird refuges along the Bear River and the Great Salt Lake. A few of the birds include: blue grouse, pheasants, mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds, meadowlarks, yellow-headed blackbirds, western screetch owl, common night hawk, northern flicker, willow flycatcher, black-capped chickadee, song sparrow, pigeon, magpie, raven, crow, hummingbird, California Gull, blue heron, loons, agrebes, cormorants, ibis, egrets, goose, snipe, curlew, and many kinds of ducks. Geographic Place Names It is the nature of people to give names; however, geographical names often change as one culture displaces another. So it has been in Box Elder. We have no knowledge of the names given the rivers, 22 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY streams, and mountains of Box Elder by the ancient cultures. The earliest names we have for the features in Box Elder's valleys and mountains are those of the native Shoshoni, who were in possession of the land before the French-Canadian trappers, government explorers, and the Mormon settlers came. The Bear River was known to the Shoshoni by two different names. Above Bear Lake, it was known as tsy-guy-o-guy (sag-wy-og-way), and lower Bear River was called pe-og-wa. Beaver Dam was ha-na- te-ya-tih-up, and Box Elder Creek was wo-go-bas. The Shoshoni called the Malad River tope-pah (or tope-og-way).39 The community of Portage takes its name from Portage County, Ohio, the county in which Lorenzo Snow, Box Elder County's fore­most religious leader, was born. Mantua, five miles east of Brigham City, was named for Snow's birthplace. Mantua was earlier known as Flaxville (from an early agricultural venture) and Little Copenhagen (from the colony of Danes sent there to found the settlement). Snowville, in far northern Box Elder County, was named for Lorenzo Snow. Many places in the county were named for persons. Wellsville Mountain and the town on its eastern slope were named for Daniel H. Wells, early Mormon pioneer and counselor to Brigham Young. The town of Willard was named for Willard Richards, also a coun­selor to Brigham Young. Porter Spring, one of the springs along the Salt Lake Cutoff, was named for early Utah lawman Orrin Porter Rockwell. Deweyville, formerly known as Empey Springs, was named for John C. Dewey, "who settled the area after William Empey left in 1864." Honeyville was so named after founder Abraham Hunsaker declined the name "Hunsakerville," but agreed to name it for his occupation as a beekeeper.40 One of the most intriguing area names is Hansel Valley. The evolving name of Hansel Valley indicates the orthographic transfor­mation which can take place in the absence of written records. The Salt Lake Cutoff was pioneered in 1848 when discharged members of the Mormon Battalion returning from California after the discovery of gold at Sutter's sawmill met Captain Samuel J. Hensley, a U.S. Army captain, who, along with ten other men, were on their way west. Hensley's name, applied to the route, a spring, a mountain, and THE NATURAL SETTING 23 a valley in the immediate area of his meeting with the returning bat­talion members, was heard, orally transmitted, and became, in turn, "Hensell," "Hansel," and even "Hazel" on one map.41 A number of Box Elder County names are what might be called "railroad names." Some were conferred with the coming of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, others were added later. They include Kelton, Terrace, Lucin, Surban, Umbria, Metatarus, Cosmo, and Watercress. Collinston was named for Collins Fullmer, a con­ductor on the Utah Northern Railroad. Perhaps the most famous of the railroad towns in Box Elder is Corinne, known derisively in surrounding Mormon communities as "The Burg on the Bear" (from its location at the spot where the transcontinental railroad crossed the Bear River). Corinne has also been labeled "The Gentile Capital of Utah" and "The City of the Un­godly." 42 There are several accounts of the derivation of the town's name. Some say it was named for a famous French actress of the time, Corinne La Vaunt. Others say the name was derived from the name of a character in a popular novel. The most plausible is that it was given the name of Corinne Williamson, the young daughter of Col. J. A. Williamson, who surveyed the town for the railroad. From the beginning, to the present day, people have had difficulties spelling the name "Corinne." Some give it two "r"s instead of two "n"s. Early on, some Corinnethian wag came up with a bit of doggerel verse to make the job easier: "Two ns, an i, and an e; an r, an o, and a c." A number of Box Elder County towns were settled and named during what might be called the "second tier" of Utah colonization. Around the turn of the twentieth century, dams were built, canals dug, irrigation systems constructed, and communities established on the plains of the county, where land could not be brought under irri­gation in pioneer days. A whole cluster of communities bear the names of LDS church leaders during this era of commercial irriga­tion development including: Fielding (Joseph Fielding Smith), Penrose (Charles W. Penrose), and Thatcher (Moses Thatcher). Howell was named for politician and canal-magnate Joseph Howell. In 1903 Tremonton was settled by a group from the area of Tremont, Illinois.43 Another community which didn't last, and didn't live up to the grand prognostications of its promotors, was Appledale, an 24 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY expansive development of homes and orchards which failed when the irrigation water leached alkali and salt to the surface, killing the apple trees and crops. It was not until the later organization of the Corinne Drainage District and the laying of an extensive system of drainage tiles to drain the area that it became productive farm land. On Promontory, besides the locations of five small communi­ties- Promontory, N o r t h Promontory, East Promontory, Booth Valley, a n d Saline-each with a schoolhouse, was the mining town of Lakeview, in the Lakeview mining district, with a magnificent view of t h e lake, a n d the m u c h later c o m m u n i t y of Little Valley, which bloomed and faded with the c o n s t r u c t i o n of the Southern Pacific Causeway in the late 1950s. Other places, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps camp built in Willard Basin in t h e 1930s, "Chatfield's Dam" at t h e head of a failed i r r i g a t i o n project in Devil's Gate Basin, a n d "The Russian Settlement" near Park Valley, have been named because of a group or undertaking with which the location is associated. Box Elder County has it share of ghost towns. Not only has the h i g h l y - t o u t e d Appledale disappeared, b u t so have others. Kelton, Terrace, a n d all their sister towns of t h e t r a n s c o n t i n e n t a l railroad between Corinne and Lucin are gone. So is La Plata, the booming sil­ver- mining town on the border between Box Elder and Cache coun­ties in the high Bear River Mountains. ENDNOTES 1. See Stephen Trimble, The Sagebrush Ocean: A Natural History of the Great Basin (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1989), 5-8. 2. Don R. Murphy, "Physiographic Provinces," in Wayne L. Wahlquist, ed., Atlas of Utah (Ogden: Weber State College, 1981), 17. 3. The Wasatch Range proper extends from Mount Nebo (where Juab, Sanpete and Utah counties meet) on the south to Wellsville Mountains (dividing Box Elder and Cache counties) on the north. The greater Wasatch line, however, extends through the 400-mile length of Utah, and further, into Idaho and Arizona. Ward Roylance, Utah: A Guide to the State (Salt Lake City: Utah Arts Council, 1982), 20. 4. Charled B. Hunt, ed., "Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, Ancestral Great Salt Lake, as Described in the Notebooks of G. K. Gilbert, 1875-1880," THE NATURAL SETTING 25 Brigham Young University Geology Studies Vol. 29, Pt. 1 (Provo: Brigham Young University Department of Geology, 1982), 116. 5. Geologists dispute that belief, since the upthrust of the Wellsville Range would seem to direct water east instead of west. 6. The name "Hansel" is a corruption by oral transmission of "Hensley." See L. A. Fleming and A. R. Standing, "The Road to 'Fortune': The Salt Lake Cutoff," Utah Historical Quarterly 33 (Summer 1965), 255, n 12, who give as their source loseph Cain and Ariah C. Brower's 1851, Mormon Way Bill to the Gold Mines. 7. William L. Stokes, Geology of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah Geological and Mineral Survey, 1986), 39. 8. Helmut H. Doelling, with lock A. Campbell, J. Wallace Gwynn, and Lee I. Perry, "Geology and Mineral Resources of Box Elder County, Utah" Utah Geological and Mineral Survey Bulletin 115 (Salt Lake City: Utah Geological and Mineral Survey, 1980), 66. The Raft River Mountains and river were named after rafts used to cross the river. The Pilot Range was named by lohn C. Fremont. The mountains were used as a guide by over­land travelers. Grouse Creek was named for the numerous sage grouse found in the valley. For a study of these and other geographic place names, see lohn W. Van Cott, Utah Place Names (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990). 9. Stokes, Geology of Utah, p. 256. 10. Doelling, et al., "Geology and Mineral Resources of Box Elder County," 66. 11. Ibid., 108. 12. Ibid., 145. 13. Stokes, Geology of Utah, 256. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. lohn C. Ewers, ed., Adventures of Zenas Leonard Fur Trader (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959), 67. 17. Edwin Bryant, What I Saw in California Being the Journal of a Tour in the Years 1846, 1847 (Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, inc., 1967), 183. Pilot Peak itself, located just inside the state of Nevada, is 10,716 feet above sea level. 18. Bryant, What I Saw In California, 184. 19.1. Roderic Korns, "West From Fort Bridger-The Pioneering of the Immigrant Trails Across Utah, 1846-1850," Utah Historical Quarterly, 19 (1951): 33. 20. B.S. Butler et. al. The Ore Deposits of Utah, U.S. Geological Survey 26 HISTORY OF Box ELDER COUNTY Professional Papers #111 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1920), 489. 21. Doelling, et. al., "Geology and Mineral Resources of Box Elder County," 85-86. 22. Cort Conley, Idaho for the Curious: A Guide (Cambridge, ID: Backeddy Books, 1982), 507. (For more detailed information, see USGS Paper No. 596, 1968.) 23. Helmut H. Doelling, Geology and Mineral Resources of Box Elder County, 1. 24. The average annual flow of the Bear River measured between 1941 and 1990 at Corinne was 1.231 million acre feet. Utah State Water Plan: Bear River Basin (Salt Lake City: Utah Division of Water Resources, 1992), 5-6. 25. Van Cott, Utah Place Names, 242. 26. R. Clayton Brough et al., Utah's Comprehensive Weather Almanac (Salt Lake City, 1987). The coldest spot in the state is Peter Sinks in Logan Canyon where the temperature dropped to minus 67 degrees in February 1985. 27. E. Arlo Richardson, Gaylen L. Ashcroft, lohn K. Westbrook, "Freeze- Free Season" in Wahlquist, Atlas of Utah, 63. 28. E. Arlo Richardson, Gaylen L. Ashcroft, lohn K. Westbrook, "Precipitation" in Wahlquist,, Atlas of Utah, 66-67. 29. Agricultural census for Utah and various counties. 30. Brigham City Bugler, 31 luly 31 1897, 1. 31. Brough,. Utah's Comprehensive Weather Almanac, 73. 32. Box Elder News, 31 May 1918. 33. Brough, Utah's Comprehensive Weather Almanac, 168, 182. 34. The author expresses thanks to Brigham Young University botanist Stanley L. Welsh for pointing this out. 35. Michael Moore, Medicinal Plants of the Desert and Canyon West (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1989), 103-4. 36. Ibid., 59, 69, 109. 37. lesse D. lennings, Prehistory of Utah and the Eastern Great Basin, University of Utah Anthropological Papers, Number 98 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1978) , 223; and Dale L. Stevens, ed., The Great Salt Lake Desert, a Geographical Survey (Provo: Department of Geography, 1995), 412. 38. lennings, Prehistory of Utah and the Eastern Great Basin, 162, 233. 39. From "Shoshoni Place Names in Utah and Vicinity," typescript in possession of the author. THE NATURAL SETTING 27 40. Van Cott, Utah Place Names, 110. 41. L. A. Fleming and A. R. Standing, "'The Road to 'Fortune': The Salt Lake Cutoff," Utah Historical Quarterly, 33 (Summer 1965): 255. 42. Noted Corinne historian Bernice Gibbs Anderson wrote a small his­tory of Corinne, published with the title, "Corinne: City of the Un-Godly." 43. Ibid. See also Van Cott, Utah Place Names, 37'4.