A History of Box Elder County

Into the twentieth century

CHAPTER 1 0 INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY W ith Utah firmly in the matrix of the national economy, the Panic of 1893 hit. It caught Utah full force, and Box Elder County as well, bringing unemployment and a depressed economy. The Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association folded like a crumpled paper box, and Box Elder County, along with the rest of Utah, suffered as the economic crisis swept throughout the United States. The economic order of Zion was swept away, as Utah came, for better or worse, into the economic and political mainstream of the United States of America. With the significant changes to the economy, social structure, and the political kingdom of God, and with provision in its constitution forever banning polygamy within its borders, Utah was granted statehood in 1896. And what a time for statehood. The Gilded Age was in full swing. It was the Gay Nineties, a celebration of the coming-of-age of the United States. Just as Utah had become a full-fledged member of the Union, the United States of America had taken her place as a full partner in the community of nations. Once the Panic of 1893 was over, the economy was on the upswing, and it was a time when the INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 189 The Box Elder County Courthouse in 1896. (Box Elder County) technology of the Industrial Age had brought power, money, and glory to the United States. Utah lagged behind many other states in its economic development. It had not had the benefit of the years of financial growth and cooperation with the other states that most had had. It had just come from under crushing political and economic sanctions, but it was a state, "Columbia's Newest Star" the people of Utah sang, and they were grateful. The Coming of Statehood in Box Elder County When statehood for Utah became a fact on 4 January 1896, the Corinne bell was borrowed by Brigham City, placed in the county courthouse tower, and rung so hard it cracked.1 Statehood did not bring an end to polygamy. There were those, laymen and LDS officials, who believed the practice would continue to be sanctioned in spite of the Woodruff Manifesto. Lorenzo Snow's successor to the LDS presidency, Joseph F. Smith, found it necessary to issue an additional manifesto, in 1904, after the brouhaha over the 190 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY seating of Mormon apostle and U.S. Senator Reed Smoot disclosed that polygamy had not ceased; it had only gone underground, and another manifesto in 1910, after Utah's anti-Mormon newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune, had indulged in a bit of what today we call "inves­tigative journalism" and discovered that plural marriage had still not gone away.2 It took a president of the LDS church who had become an implacable foe of plural marriage, a man of the stature and power of Heber J. Grant, to make those who sought to enter polygamy outcasts from Mormonism.3 From this milieu developed a group of Mormon "fundamental­ists" who coalesced into the equivalent of a "church in exile." They flourished in the Salt Lake Valley, and throughout Mormondom.4 There were even a couple of "cells" of fundamentalist activity in Box Elder County, in Brigham City, Perry, Willard, and Beaver Dam.5 It was in that milieu that Box Elder County had its share of "dream mines." During the 1910s and 1920s there were a number of accounts, nowadays relegated to the realm of Mormon folklore, of sources of mineral wealth revealed by divine messengers or inspired dreams to faithful Mormons. The most famous is the "Dream Mine" of LDS bishop John Koyle on the mountain east of Salem in Utah County.6 The dream mines seem to go hand-in-hand with funda­mentalist Mormon beliefs, though not always. Reports of at least three different gold mines located in the mountains east of the Brigham City area circulated from the Dream Mine epoch including one mine associated with one of the Box Elder fundamentalist groups.7 The mines were also a manifestation of the millenialist fer­vor and its anticipation of Christ's second coming carried over from nineteenth-century Mormonism. While the people of Box Elder County listened to their church leaders, they also gave attention to the events of the nation and the economy around them. They followed the campaigns for president of the United States of William Jennings Bryan, and read his 1896 "Cross of Gold" speech, Bryan's panacea for the lingering effects of the Panic of 1893. It was not lost on them that though the Box Elder cooperative had collapsed, the church's finances had been saved dur- INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 191 ing the panic, largely through the instrumentality of LDS apostle and later president Heber J. Grant.8 As the new century progressed, they felt the omnipresence of the LDS ecclesiastical influence less and less, and saw less and less of the apostles and prophets. Lorenzo Snow left Brigham City upon assum­ing the presidency at the death of Wilford Woodruff in 1898. President Snow, the patron saint of Box Elder, died in 1901. Though Joseph F. Smith visited Brigham City, and made one of his greatest doctrinal pronouncements from the pulpit of the Box Elder Tabernacle, he did not have the attachment to Box Elder that Lorenzo Snow had. It was not like the days when Lorenzo Snow became the very first president of the great temple in Salt Lake City when it was dedicated in 1893, and President Snow brought all the temple work­ers, along with the apostles and President Woodruff himself, to Box Elder on the train, for an excursion. They dined on Mantua straw­berries and danced in the Opera House. Wilford Woodruff, too, spoke one of his most significant prophecies from the pulpit of the Box Elder Tabernacle. But those days faded. Heber J. Grant even deeded away the temple site, chosen by Brigham Young, on the point of the gravel bench above Brigham City now known as "Reservoir Hill."9 We can only imagine what Brigham City would have been like, especially that part of town, if the temple had been built. The turn of the twentieth century was a time of transition for Box Elder County, for Utah, and for the nation. Lorenzo Snow died in 1901, as did his first counselor, George Q. Cannon, one of Mormonism's brightest minds. At the death of George Q. Cannon, Lorenzo Snow, who had brought Rudger Clawson from prison, where he had been incarcerated for unlawful cohabitation, to Box Elder, had made him stake president, and then had raised him to the apostleship upon Lorenzo's rise to the presidency and nominated him to be his new counselor in the First Presidency. Though Rudger was sustained in the general conference, ailing President Snow died four days later, and Clawson never served in the First Presidency. Two years after Utah's statehood, the United States found itself at war with Spain over Cuba. During the 1898 Spanish American War, Utah Mormons were divided over the issue of military service. Some leaders insisted that as Mormons they were not justified in joining 192 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY the conflict. Other leaders felt that military service was a test of loy­alty to the United States and as recent recipients of statehood they should serve in the military. The later view prevailed, and as a conse­quence military service as a patriotic duty became a tenet of twenti­eth- century Mormonism.10 All this was witnessed by the residents of Box Elder County, who were by now as affected by national events as were people in other parts of the country.They saw automobiles come to the dusty, rutted roads of Box Elder, about the same time that a major change came to the route of the transcontinental railroad. The Lucin Cut-Off When the railroad came through in 1869, the two rival compa­nies, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, built their tracks around the north end of Great Salt Lake, because the lake was in a high cycle, and technology was not up to the task of bridging the lake. In 1898 Edward Henry Harriman acquired control of the Union Pacific Railroad, and three years later in 1901 he gained control of the Southern Pacific-successor to the Central Pacific. His moderniza­tion of the line included a technological feat of magnificent propor­tions. The cost of helper engines and their facilities for pushing trains over the Promontory range were high, and Harriman decided it was time to revisit the possibility of building a bridge or causeway across the Great Salt Lake as "Traffic had increased to such a point that operation over the steep and crooked old line was becoming con­stantly more and more vexatious and difficult."11 Financial and engi­neering heads came together, and the result was the great Lucin Cut­off. The Lucin Cut-Off was 102 miles in length, from Ogden to Lucin, including thirteen miles of fill and nearly twelve miles of trestle across Great Salt Lake. Forty-four miles were saved in length, and hundreds of feet in grade. The project required the labor of 3,000 men, took one and one-half years of actual construction, and cost over $8 million.12 The cutoff saved considerable time and expense. Two difficult stretches were eliminated-the seven hundred foot climb in eleven miles across the Promontory Summit and the 500 INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 193 The trestle under construction across the Great Salt Lake in 1903. (Box Elder County) feet crossing in five and a half miles of a spur of the Hogback Mountains near Kelton. It was a herculean project. Not only did a mountain of earth and rock have to be blasted, excavated, loaded, hauled, and dumped along the twenty-two mile length of the causeway, a huge forest of trees had to be located, cut, planed, hauled, and driven into the bed of the lake in its deepest part-nearly twelve miles of it-by steam-operated pile-drivers. A temporary trestle had to be built to support the dump-cars for the fill portion. A 1906 account described the complex pro­ject in the following manner: In the construction of that trestle, piling one hundred and twenty-five feet long was to be used. In the main roadway bents were to be of five piles, at sidings of nine. These bents are fifteen feet apart, so that something like twenty-five thousand of these huge piles had to be obtained. They were mostly Oregon fir, and cost, delivered at the lakeside, about sixty dollars apiece. But there was also a temporary trestle to be built-many miles of it. In con­structing the fill, a trestle was first made, on which a track was laid. Over this track trains loaded with rock and gravel for the fill were run out and dumped. In the shallower places this temporary trestle was of forty-foot piles, but in the deeper water approaching the 194 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY permanent trestle seventy-foot piles were used. In the temporary trestle only four piles were driven in a bent, but the bents were the same distance apart as in the permanent trestle. Thus for the two trestles a perfect forest of piles was needed. The agents of the Southern Pacific scoured the great timber districts of the country, and train-load after train-load of the huge timbers was headed toward the Great Salt Lake. And piling was far from all. There were the big stringers and caps for both permanent and temporary trestles, and besides all the res, though a bagatelle compared with it, timber for stations, boarding-houses, and sidings, guard-rails, and even a steamboat.13 In all, "38,256 trees were cut down to make piles for the treat trestle. A forest of two square miles was transplanted into Great Salt Lake."14 In addition 2 million board feet of redwood decking were used for the actual railbed.15 Just the p o r t i o n of the trestle above the waterline contained enough wood to lay a board-walk four feet wide from Boston to Buffalo, or from Snowville to St. George. The railroad company ordered twenty-five steam pile-drivers, which were built in San Francisco while t h e t i m b e r cutters were doing their work. Rock and gravel pits were opened at Little Mountain, Promontory Point, Lakeside, and at the southern end of the Hogup mountains. In the car shops, 400 special steel side-dump cars were built, each with a capacity of fifty-five tons. These were sup­plemented by other dump cars and flat cars for a combined total of nearly 1,000 cars used in the project. Eighty locomotives of various sizes moved the t h o u s a n d cars. Eight great steam-shovels with five cubic yard buckets capacity dug the material out of the banks and loaded it into the dump-cars. A 127-foot long, 22-foot wide steamer, The Promontory, carried supplies and assisted with construction work on the lake. Construction occurred simultaneously at b o t h sides of the lake and b o t h sides of Promontory Point in the middle of the lake. The pile drivers were the workhorses of the trestle. "As fast as the pile-drivers were ready, they were set to work. A station was erected at each mile-end of the projected road. There two pile-drivers went to work back to back, driving away from each other. Five bents of five piles each, or seventy-five in all, was a good day's work."16 INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 195 It was h a r d work, a n d life in t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n camps was not glamorous. "At each station a boarding-house was built on a platform raised on piles well out of the way of storm-waves. There the men lived until their work was finished. The company furnished supplies and cooks, a n d the men paid four dollars a week for their board. They worked in t e n - h o u r shifts, day and night, Sundays and holi­days." 17 Nor were there many distractions for the workers. There was not much to do but work and sleep, and there was no place to spend money. No liquor was allowed. All stores and all packages coming out to workmen were carefully searched, and any liquor found was promptly confiscated. From first to last two car­loads were taken in this way. The company was in a hurry, and it could not afford to have the work interrupted by drunkenness or sprees, to say nothing of the rows and fights inevitable if liquor were in camp. It was not so easy to keep it out on the fills as on the trestles. Two or three times squatters came down on government land adjoining parts of the right of way and set up groggeries. Usually it was not much trouble to drive them away, but one fellow who set up shop near Hogup determined to brazen it out. However, when one of the engineers took a gang of men to his place and began to drill holes under his shanty preparatory to blowing it up with giant-powder, his courage oozed, and he fled.18 Workers were allowed to b r i n g wives and children with them. They were housed in box cars called "out-fit" cars placed on tempo­rary sidings. Some, such as a line of more t h a n forty cars near the Lakeside quarry, were dangerously close to the construction work. At Lakeside, "sometimes, when blasts were unusually heavy, pieces flew uncomfortably near the outfit cars. So it was ordered that at the cry o f ' B l a s t ! ' all t h e women and children should come out of their wheeled houses and crawl under t h em for safety."19 The construction work was dangerous and minor accidents such as broken bones and smashed fingers and hands occurred. A car load of dynamite exploded and several men fell i n to the lake a n d were nearly strangled by the heavy salt water. The company maintained a hospital, staffed by a surgeon, near the work site. The b o t t om surface of t h e lake b e d ranged in hardness from gypsum-crusted sections "so hard that the huge hammers of the pile- 196 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY drivers could not force a t i m b e r through, and it h a d to be cut out with a steam-jet."20 In other places the b o t t om was more t h a n fifty feet of soft mud where single piles disappeared out of sight and had to be spliced, lashed, and braced together in order to hold. The rock fill across these soft spots could also settle and had to be rebuilt. On 24 March 1903 a trial r u n was attempted by a t r a in across the Old Bear River bed. W i t h o u t w a r n i n g the embankment settled. The engine, still o n its rails b u t now in two feet of water, had to be pulled out with a cable. In spite of these set backs, work progressed steadily. When all the bents were driven, braced, and capped, twelve-inch stringers were laid, and three-inch-thick redwood planks were laid as a deck. Atop the planking, three inches of asphalt roofing were applied, and that capped with fourteen inches of gravel and rock ballast. Freight trains began using the cutoff on 6 March 1904 and pas­senger t r a i n s began crossing the cutoff six m o n t h s later on 18 September 1904. The benefits were immediate: With six hundred thousand tons of through freight annually, and that amount increasing, the old road had reached its limit. It took three locomotives to handle nine hundred and fifty tons, and often required from thirty to thirty-six hours. Over the cut-off a single engine has hauled two thousand three hundred and sixty tons in less than nine hours. Passenger-trains that used to go in two or three sections, each with two locomotives, now run from four­teen to seventeen coaches with one engine.21 The building of the Lucin Cut-Off, while a blessing to through passengers and freight, and a plus to the fortunes and the timetables of the railroad, was not a b o o n to Box Elder County. Though most of the tracks of the new cut-off ran through Box Elder County, the ben­efits went to Ogden, strategically located near the eastern end of the cut-off. The Lucin Cut-Off spelled the d o om of the towns and sid­ings which had sprung up along the old line around the n o r t h end of the Great Salt Lake. The old Promontory line became a branch line, and traffic declined from three trains a week to two a week then one a week. By the late 1930s, the line was almost unused. The railroad tried INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 197 to abandon the line, but met with strong opposition from farmers, cattlemen, and the Box Elder Chamber of Commerce.22 Then came World War II and the old route was declared surplus. There was a cry for steel for the war, and the railroad decided that the 120 miles of rails from Corinne to Lucin could be spared. On 8 September 1942, the ceremonial "un-driving" of the Golden Spike took place at Promontory Summit, and work trains began to salvage the rails.23 The towns of Terrace and Kelton became ghost towns as did the grain-loading sidings and water stops along the line. Names like Wyben, Dathol, Lampo, Surban, Rozel, Metataurus, Kosmo, Zias, Peplin, Ombey, Matlin, Watercress, Medea, and Umbria faded into dust.24 Roads & Highways The history of highways in Box Elder county may be said to begin with the travel of the prehistoric bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers who plied the Bear and Malad Rivers, the county's first, nat­ural "highways." Trails along the banks of the rivers and streams and through mountain passes, such as the old trail from Cache Valley over Wellsville Mountain through Flatbottom Canyon east of Brigham City, were opened by those who summered in Cache Valley and further northward and wintered in the caves on Promontory and further west in the Great Salt Lake Desert. The exploration of Jesse C. Little in 1847 may count as the first "survey" for a highway in Box Elder County. The establishment of the Salt Lake Cutoff in 1848 by Captain Samuel Hensley and the return­ing crew of Mormon Battalion veterans opened the first major east-west route across the county and around the north end of Great Salt Lake. The trail along the base of the Wasatch Range was widened by the wagon tires and the countless hooves of horses and cattle belong­ing to the California gold rushers in 1849-1850. It was that tide which made of Brigham City's main street a major thoroughfare. It was, however, the settlers themselves who first opened roads and trails for common use as they explored and settled the farms and communities of Box Elder County. Lydia Walker Forsgren in a chapter on road building in the 1937 198 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY History of Box Elder County provides a good summary of early road construction. During territorial days in Utah, from 1850 to 1896, road building was left in the hands of county officials, in fact, in many cases the matter was handled entirely by precinct supervisors. . . . The diffi­culties encountered by those pioneer road builders were many. Roads, generally speaking, followed the trails made by animals and early day explorers and trappers. When these trails skirted the foothills, there was the danger of rock and gravel slides and avalanches; when they entered and crossed the valleys, there were bogs and marshes with which to contend, and in the canyons the underbrush formed an obstruction . . . they cut the brush, hauled off the loose rocks, and filled in the marshes and swamps. Occasionally they graveled the roads and thus laid a solid founda­tion upon which the roads of the future could be built. In a very early period of road building particular attention was paid to canyon r o a d s . . . . The saw mills were located in the nearby canyons-Willard, Three Mile, and Box Elder-and passable roads were necessary in order that logs and lumber might be hauled to and from these mills. Posts and poles for the building of fences and corrals were also hauled over these roads, and in the fall of the year the highways were lined with men and teams going to the canyons for wood, at that time the only fuel obtainable.25 Road building, along with all other community development was abruptly arrested when the inhabitants relocated to Provo during the "Move South," in 1858, b u t after settlers r e t u r n e d to their homes, farms, and businesses, r o a d b u i l d i n g resumed with even greater attention. A major expansion of territorial highway building occurred from 1860 to 1870. According to Ezra C. Knowlton, funds were appropri­ated: . . . to start opening new wagon road gateways-these included the northern outlet of San Pitch Valley from Fairview to Spanish Fork Canyon; Box Elder Canyon from Brigham City to Wellsville; Ogden easterly to Huntsville and over the mountain to Bear Lake Valley; the important Logan Canyon road connecting Cache and Rich counties; the appropriations for roads connecting the upper INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 199 virgin River settlements with the lower Washington county towns; from Washington County easterly to Kane County; thence northerly from Kanab to Piute County; and the over the mountain crossing from the upper Sevier River to Iron County."26 One of the reasons for the noticeable increase of road-building was a supply of non-Mormon, non-agricultural labor. According to Lydia Walker Forsgren,"... this was just three years prior to the com­mencement of the Civil War; and in anticipation of warfare, many men from both North and South came West to avoid enlistment in the service. Many of these men found their way into Utah, and dur­ing their short stay here they were willing to accept any kind of work."27 They were hired for a variety of activities including road construction. During one summer Mathew W. Dalton and Alfred Cardon kept a dozen of these men at work on a road in Willard Canyon. Brigham City provides an example of the problems in building roads. Only to the south was road building relatively easy, following the old Indian and Gold-Rush road toward Ogden. To the east was the obstacle of the narrow defile of rock-and-brush-filled Box Elder Canyon. To the West was a swamp between the town and the railroad station on Forest Street-the main east-west thoroughfare. Old-timers recalled that "travel to and from the railroad station demanded that the swamp on West Forest Street be drained and filled. It took years of work and many tons of gravel to make the street what it is today."28 To the north, it was as bad as to the west: "North Main Street of Brigham City was a veritable quagmire from near Seventh North to some distance north of city limits. This, too, was graded and made passable."29 To the north-west, it was the same. The "Watery Lane" road was built "through the bogs and marshes which were caused by the overflow waters from Box Elder Creek. Many hundred tons of gravel and rock were hauled by team from southeast of Brigham to be used in making a road bed. The work was slow because the gravel was loaded with a hand shovel. Year after year more gravel was added until finally a solid foundation was laid."30 Out further in the county there were other problems in linking 200 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY t h e far-flung communities together by road. In the "easy" places, roads were surveyed, and then marked out for the builders. In locat­ing the route from Grouse Creek to the Utah-Idaho border, "Lorenzo Jensen of Brigham City plowed a furrow much of the way to mark where the county road was to be."31 The road built in 1885 between Grouse Creek and Terrace required a mile-long hand-built dugway. Early fords over creeks and rivers (the most famous of which are Hampton's Ford on the Bear and Rocky ford t h r o u g h the Malad) were eventually replaced by bridges.32 The first bridges were built by individuals, who were granted the privilege of charging a toll for use of the span, such as Ben Hampton's bridge over the Bear, a n d Hiram House's bridge over the same stream at Corinne. Eventually, those bridges passed into county ownership.33 As towns grew, especially after the "second tier" of settlements were established a r o u n d the t u r n of t h e t w e n t i e t h century, road building grew apace. The construction required a massive infusion of resources. One source of funding was a poll tax. The very first paved "macadamized" road in Box Elder County was laid between Willard and Utah Hot Springs at the Box Elder- Weber county line. Construction was carried out by an experimental gang of "convict labor."34 According to Ezra Knowlton, "the first con­crete pavement placed on the rural roads of Utah" was "1.2 miles of single-lane pavement . . . placed in Box Elder County in 1912."35 By 1919 there was "with a few minor gaps" paved road from Brigham City to Spanish Fork. In 1941 a four-lane high way stretched from Springville on the south to Brigham City on the north.36 Many histories chronicle the epic of the construction of the well-known "Lincoln Highway" through Utah, but there was another such project which directly impacted Box Elder County. An unusual and interesting action of the 1913 legislative session was its designation of the so-called Midland Trail all the way across Utah, the route intended extending westerly from the Colorado line by way of Cisco, Green River, Price, Colton, Spanish Fork, Salt Lake City, Brigham City, and around the north end of the Lake to the Nevada line. This 1913 Midland Trail activity was the first in Utah or other similar efforts, which during the next dozen years were destined to rise, and all of which had as an object the INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 201 improvement of connecting links in the interstate routes across the country. These promotional efforts were chiefly directed at the less populous states which lay across the natural path of the important transcontinental routes . . . ."37 In 1926 there were approximately 1,600 miles of roads in Box Elder County of which 1,350 miles were supervised by the county commission and 250 miles by the by the state road commission.38 Early hard-surfaced roads were paved either with concrete or simply oiled. Oiling a dirt road really did not add a hard surface, it mostly kept down the dust and shed some water.Box Elder County was the site of an experimental project to build roads using oil mixed with gravel or crushed stone. In 1927 a ten-mile-long experimental section of the new paving was laid between Brigham City and Logan. After the tests, it was discovered that the "California method" was superior to the "Oregon method" and better suited to the alluvial gravel available in Utah.39 The Oregon method utilized crushed stone. Over the years since the period of colonization and expansion of towns in Box Elder, the roads have, of course, been upgraded, given new surfaces, and many have been widened.The most notable road construction projects in the county in recent years have been the con­struction through the county, first of Interstate 15, then Interstate 84. As the Interstate project approached reality in the 1960s some county residents resisted seeking to postpone construction and to have the highway go as far west of town as possible. The Interstate, it was said, would take travelers whizzing past town away from main street and their dollars away from local businesses. That concern was an impor­tant reason that when the Interstate was built, there was no Forest Street interchange. The logic was that people would get off the Interstate at one end of town, and would have to go down the entire length of Main Street, thus giving all businesses an equal chance at the travelers' dollars. It was another three decades before Brigham City got its Forest Street interchange in December 1996. After the Thiokol plant was built between Corinne and the Golden Spike Monument, that road was widened and strengthened to bear not only the heavy commuter traffic incident to the facility, 202 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 203 but large t r u c k s c a r r y i n g heavy i n d u s t r i a l loads, such as booster engines for the Space Shuttle. Schools in Box Elder County Though schools existed in Box Elder from the beginning of its settlement by Mormon pioneers, t h e development of an organized school system was some time in coming. According to Lydia Forsgren: During the winter of 1852-53, Henry M. Thatcher, an emigrant enroute to California, stopped over and taught school in the newly erected Willard [North Willow Creek]40 school house. He instructed twenty pupils who ranged in age from five to eighteen or twenty years. The tuition was three dollars a month per capita paid in produce and articles the teacher could use. The course con­sisted of spelling, reading, and a little arithmetic and writing. The texts used were the blue-backed Elementary Speller and a few read­ers which had been brought across the plains as treasured keep­sakes from, childhood homes. The writing was done with pencil and slate.41 In Box Elder settlement private i n s t r u c t i o n preceded public school. According to Simeon Carter, Jr., "every day his mother, a well educated English lady, would call her children in from play and teach t h em to read and spell, using the Bible as their main text book. This no doubt was the custom in many homes in this community."42 Some of the families in the Box Elder Fort provided and educational expe­rience for their children by arranging with Henry Evans, "Brigham City's first teacher" who "taught during the winter of 1853-1854 in the homes of the people who lived in the "Old Fort."43 As the number of families in Box Elder Settlement increased, so did the dimensions and facilities of the Fort. According to an account w r i t t e n when many of the old-timers were still alive, " In 1854 the people erected a long log school house just outside of the Fort limits. If it were standing today, it would be located almost in the center of t h e street east of the T h i r d Ward L. D. S. Chapel."44 D u r i n g the school's first season, 1854-1855, George Bramwell was the teacher. During the next school-year, and for a number of subsequent ses- 204 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY sions, the teacher was Jonathan Calkins Wright (who later became a counselor to Box Elder's presiding officer, Lorenzo Snow.) After the fort was broken up and the city plat established and homes built in town, school was held in the basement of the Court House, at least after 1861. According Lydia Forsgren's account of schools and school buildings: The school hours were from nine to twelve and from one to four, with a recess morning and afternoon. The curriculum con­sisted of reading, writing, spelling, and grammar. Night school was conducted for the benefit of the older people, and many men spent their evenings there, learning to write and getting a knowledge of the four basic processes in arithmetic. At that time there were no graded schools and children of all ages were in the same room. Try to imagine sixty pupils, ranging in age from six to eighteen years, seated on long slabs without backs-say six or eight on a seat, no desks and no particular order of arrangement each studying from any kind of book he could get, and each reciting his lesson when learned. When one lesson was completed, another was assigned him for the next day. At intervals a number of boys who were in about the same place in arithmetic would be called up before the small blackboard to recite. At the same time Miss Susan [Watkins] (later Mrs. L. P. Johnson of Brigham City), would be teaching the letters to a group of little people. Whenever the writing period came, the grown boys and girls would surround the long table which stood in the center of the room and there try to imitate, with bluing ink and all sorts of pens, the copy which was 'set them' by the teacher. Mrs. Johnson says she well remembers seeing her father spend hours in the evening "set­ting copies" by the light of a tallow candle, and then next morning setting off to school with an arm full of "fools cap paper." Many of these copies were taken from the National Blue-Backed Speller For all this work Mr. Watkins received about three dollars a quarter per capita and that was paid in anything from eggs to cedar posts. The conditions under which he worked were not conducive of results; yet he left a lasting impression for good on the life of every boy or girl who attended his school.45 INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 205 Gradually the quality of the educational experience of Box Elder's students increased. Louis Frederick Moench came to Brigham City in about 1871, after having taught at the University of Deseret in Salt Lake City. Mr. Moench was an educated man, having passed his high school grade in his native land, Germany, and taken advanced work at Bryant and Straton's College in Chicago. He was an expert penman, and aside from his store of knowledge, Mr. Moench was a real educator. His discipline, methods of presentation, and the general atmosphere of his room were far above the average.46 Louis F. Moench went on to become principal of Ogden's Central School, and, as his heroic bronze statue attests, became the "father" of what began as Weber Stake Academy and is now Weber State University.47 The work of Professor Moench and his assistant, E. A. Box brought such honor upon their students that Lorenzo Snow "consid­ered the work so meritorious t h a t . . . he gave the school the title of 'Academy'."48 The first school building in the county was built in North Willow Creek in 1852. The structure at Box Elder Fort had been used not only for school classes, but for church and community meetings as well. The North Willow Creek school was "a one-room log building twenty by sixteen feet, with a fireplace in the south end. There were two small glass windows in the west side, and the door in the north was made from boards carried across the plains by ox teams. The roof was made of rough slabs hewed from logs with an ax, and the whole was covered with dirt."49 The first brick school in the county was built in Three Mile Creek in 1874. In Brigham City each of the four wards had a school, usually in or adjacent to the ward chapel.50 Following the lead of Salt Lake City in consolidating its schools in 1890, "Brigham City consolidated its schools on Sept. 28, 1896."51 Consolidation of Brigham City's schools was only the beginning. According to Charles Skidmore, "The Box Elder School district was conceived on May 10, 1907 when more than forty progressive citizens petitioned the Board of County Commissioners to consolidate the county schools."52 The consolida­tion became a reality on 20 June 1907. Steady growth followed consolidation and the creation of the 206 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY School District. A building for the Box Elder Stake Academy was built on a block of the United Order or Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association property, on east Forest Street. It was suc­ceeded by Box Elder High School, which "had its beginning in 1894- 5 when J. S. Bingham was hired by the twelve trustees of the four Brigham City school districts to teach a high school in the old Academy Building on East Forest Street."53 A large, brick, high school, with then-stylish Norman features, was built in 1912 on the site of the old Academy building. An addition was built a few years later in 1918. According to Superintendent Skidmore, "The congestion in the elementary schools of Brigham City was very much relieved at the opening of the school year 1918-1919, when the 7th and 8th grades moved from the Whittier to the new $40,000.00 addition that had been erected on the east side of the Box Elder High School."54 A high school serving the farming areas around Tremonton and Garland began in 1916 when "Bear River High School was founded in the Elementary School building at Garland."55 The main building of the present campus was erected in 1921 with an auditorium and gymnasium added in 1924. The new high school campus was located midway between Tremonton and Garland so it would be only a twenty-minute walk from either town.56 Additions to both high schools were made during the 1930s uti­lizing labor and assistance from Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs. Bear River High School gained new classrooms and a mechanical arts department. Box Elder High School got a large new south wing and a free-standing gymnasium across Forest Street to the north, on the site of the old Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association's Boot, Shoe, Hat, Broom, and Harness factory. In the early 1960s a new Box Elder High School was built in the south-west part of town, and the old High School was demol­ished in 1969 to construct a newer junior high building. Brigham City's four "ward" schools were consolidated into two large, brick elementary schools. The Central School, built on the west half of "Sagebrush Square" across Main Street west from the Tabernacle, was erected in the late 1890s. It served the students who lived south of Forest Street and who had attended the First Ward school57 and the Second Ward School (later the Whittier). In 1912 the INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 207 The first Collinston School. (Courtesy Sonja Secrist Shelton) Lincoln School was built on the site of the old Box Elder Fort between First and Second West and between Second and Third North. When it was ready for classes, t h e students of the old Third Ward school were ceremoniously marched from their old building south to Second South, east two blocks to First West, and then north a block to the doors and stairs of their huge new school building.58 The next major milestone was World War I. O n 22 May 1917 U. S. Commissioner P. P. Claxton said: 'When the war is over there will be such demands upon this country for men and women of scientific knowledge, technical skill and general culture as have never ,come to any country. The world must be rebuilt.'"59 Superintendent Skidmore noted that: On the 18th of January, 1918 President Woodrow Wilson expressed his very urgent concern 'that none of the educational processes of the country should be interrupted any more than is absolutely unavoidable during the war.' Such information was not only advantageous in determining 208 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY the value of education when put to the crucible test, but also was influential in declining the wishes of certain large local organiza­tions of Box Elder District that seemed determined to close the schools, or reduce the length of term to a minimum for war pur­poses. The result was that the schools continued to increase during the worlds war and became very helpful in carrying on many a war drive through the schools, rightly called the 'second great line of defense.' The teachers of Box Elder District went over the top 100 per cent strong in purchasing their quota of war saving stamps and liberty bonds. Captain Henry D. Moyle published the fact that the Box Elder schools led the schools of the State in 1919 W S. S. cam­paign besides averaging more than $20 per pupil for W S. S. and Liberty Bonds. The pupils were enthusiastic in conserving food and clothing, planting war gardens, gathering peach pits, furnish­ing needful war articles such as towels, covers, bed shirts, wash clothes and gun wipers. They dreamed many times of how they had really whipped the Kaiser.60 In 1921 there were 48 schools in Box Elder County. Four schools were in Brigham City: Box Elder High School, Whittier, Central, and Lincoln, c o m p r i s i n g Zone I. In Zone II, were schools at Willard, Perry, Harper, Honeyville, Deweyville, Collinston, Beaver Dam, Corinne, Union, Tremonton, East Tremonton, Garland, Riverside, Washakie, and Portage. Zone III schools included Mantua, Appledale, Bear River, Elwood, East Garland, Fielding, Plymouth, Bothwell, Thatcher, a n d Penrose. The schools in Zone IV were Howell, Blue Creek, Snowville, Cedar Creek, Clear Creek, Standrod, Yost, Junction, Woodrow (in Junction Valley n o r t h of Junction and west of Yost), Grouse Creek, Etna, Lucin, Muddy (on Muddy Creek at the foot of the Muddy Range n o r t h of the Rosebud Ranch), Rosette, Park Valley, North Promontory, East Promontory, Booth Valley (about half-way along the P r o m o n t o r y between the East P r o m o n t o r y school and P r o m o n t o r y Point), a n d Promontory. It is interesting to note that there were four schools strung out along the Promontory. The number of small, rural schools was necessitated by the lack of rapid transportatio n and the primitive condition of many of the county's roads. Superintendent Skidmore noted in 1921 regarding the construction of the new Bear River High School building, that "As INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 209 soon as good roads will permit the 7th and 8th grades from most of the nearby surrounding schools will be transferred to this center to participate in the great advantages it affords."61 Over the years most of the rural schools have been closed and the students transported on busses to larger schools in the cities and towns of the county. Growth has brought more and more of those centrally-located schools. The Central and Lincoln schools, for exam­ple, served Brigham City for nearly fifty years without rivals.62 The coming of Thiokol with its influx of scientists, laborers, and other support personnel brought not only a new Box Elder High School, but several elementary schools and a new Junior High. Other Box Elder communities saw growth and change in proportion. In the 1970s the Board of Education offices moved from the County Courthouse to the old Second Ward Chapel, just west of the still-vacant site of the old Whittier School, when the Second Ward building was declared surplus by the L. D. S. church. In 1999 Box Elder County schools are fully the equal of any in the state, and continue to provide a quality education for the children of the county. Religious and Secular Conflict During the Early Years of the Twentieth Century An example of the birth pains of a new social order was the con­troversy over the Brigham City Opera House that began in early 1903 and lasted for over eighteen months. The affair was covered exten­sively in the Salt Lake City daily newspapers and received some national attention as well.63 When the Opera House came on the market as part of an estate sale, it was purchased by one of the four Brigham City LDS wards. The other three wards then purchased shares in the building. Plans for the building included a variety of church-related activities, with church-sponsored dances the primary purpose. Church leaders in charge of the dances anticipated keeping the Opera House Orchestra, but reducing its size and lowering the musicians pay. Chris Christiansen and Christian O. Anderson, leaders of the Opera House Orchestra, elected not to play and made plans to build a privately 210 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY owned, open-air dance pavilion that threatened competition with church-sponsored dances in the Opera House. In an effort to address potential problems before the pavilion was constructed, Christiansen and Anderson met with the Box Elder Stake Presidency and High Council to outline their plans. The church leaders advised the men not to open the competing pavilion, and when the two men went ahead with the project, LDS members were strongly encouraged not to patronize the pavilion and were threat­ened with a loss of church membership if they did.64 Apparently the accusations of Christiansen and Anderson were not without foundation. In a meeting of the First Ward Relief Society officers, the bishop: Spoke a little about the new dancing floor . . . said it had been built against counsel. Said the authorities had bought the opera house for the amusement of our youth and we don't want our people to patronize the other place, advised the teachers to use an influence with the people against it. Said we don't want to injure anyone, but we should strive to do our duty. Spoke how we should shun discord and disunion, and how we should sustain those placed over us ...65 Critics castigated church leaders for interfering with how indi­viduals made a living and for being unjust and dictatorial.66 Christiansen and Anderson offered the pavilion to the local wards with the stipulation that they be hired as musicians. The local bish­ops felt the Opera House was the only dance facility that was needed and the stake high council concurred, recommending that the "said pavilion be removed and the material in its construction be disposed of."67 The demand by the high council that the building be demolished galvanized the position of the musicians, and the pavilion was opened in June 1903 with some 300 couples attending the pavilion dance while, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, only twelve couples attended the church-sponsored dance at the Opera House.68 Perhaps the stake presidency was surprised at the mass disobedi­ence. Perhaps they were awakened to the fact that they no longer could control the people by the sheer force of edict. Perhaps they INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 211 received word from their superiors in Salt Lake City that controlling the dancing lives of the citizens of Brigham City was not worth the bad publicity the controversy was generating across the nation. In any event, reconciliation was sought. LDS church leaders withdrew objections to members patronizing the pavilion as long as proper order and conduct were m a i n t a i n e d . C h r i s t e n s e n and Anderson admitted that church opposition to the pavilion may have been justi­fied. 69 It was an uneasy truce and problems resurfaced shortly after Christiansen built and opened the Box Elder Academy of Music and Dancing in March 1904. A letter published in the Box Elder Report placed the blame squarely on Box Elder Stake president Charles Kelly. There is ample evidence to show that the men who opposed Kelly in civil and business matters were made to suffer business loss, degradation from church offices, and the loss of standing among their associates. This, be it observed was not for any violation of religious obligations but for . . . daring to start an Academy of Music against Kelly's wishes.70 A formal complaint against Kelly was filed and outside LDS church leaders negotiated a new agreement that t u r n e d control of b o t h the dance pavilion and Box Elder Academy of Music and Dancing to the stake amusement committee of which the president of the academy's board of directors was made a member. Beneath the facade of cooperation and tranquility, hostility and resentment sim­mered. 71 Stake president Charles Kelly came under criticism again in the spring of 1904 for his opposition to the establishment of a municipal electric plant. Kelly held stock in a private power company which he promoted to provide electrical power to Brigham City. Rumors cir­culated that the stake president threatened supporters of the munic­ipal plant with church action. However, the municipal power plant was established and local church leaders t o o k one more step away from open participation in political affairs.72 Peach Days Brigham City's first Peach Day Celebration was held in September 1904 under the organization of local LDS church leaders and city officials. Fruit displays were set u p on the courthouse lawn 212 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY and other activities were held on the school grounds. The first cele­bration did not have concessions or a parade, but after the Box Elder Commercial Club was organized in May 1905, these activities were included and the celebration drew visitors from t h r o u g h o u t Utah and southern Idaho as the commercial club advertized the event in newspapers and highway billboards and extended special invitations to commercial clubs in other Utah cities. By 1927 t h e Peach Days parade was held on b o t h Friday a n d Saturday and had become an elaborate affair with, in addition to the marching bands, twelve dif­ferent divisions consisting of chamber of commerce, city, county, church, a n d school officials; the colors, n a t i o n a l guard, a n d fire department; clubs and organizations; schools; businesses; industries; community floats; livestock; decorated automobiles; display auto­mobiles; children's decorated vehicles, bicycles, tricycles, scooters, express wagons, and doll buggies; and children in costume-fairies, elves, clowns, animal representations, and other characters.73 Peach Days was b o t h a celebration and a part of the promotion to a t t r a c t settlers a n d investors to the county. Local newspapers championed Box Elder's prospects as did the following editorial from the Box Elder Journal in 1914. There is not a better place in the world to live than in Box Elder county. This is not thought much of by the average citizen of our big county but is strikingly t r u e . . .. The truth about the county remains the same however and we can boast of being able to produce as great a variety of products as all the rest of the state. Anything in the line of grasses and grains that will grow in a temperate climate is found in the county if it is profitable. In grains we have anything from corn and wheat to bar­ley in the one extreme and Jerusalem corn in the other. We pro­duce all kinds of temperate fruits both pitted and seeded. We have all kinds of root crops, vegetables etc. and one of the growing industries is the growing of fine nuts. English walnuts that are grown in this section are far better than the imported article. They have a firmer and better meat and will compare favorably in size. Young trees that are properly cultivated will bear heavily in a few years and they are also the best to be had for shade, almonds and hazel nuts are also grown here and their uality is also the very best. INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 213 Home seekers from all over the world can find room here for a good home. The climate is good and the schools are the best that can behad anywhere in the world. Truely Utah is a great state and Box Elder is the greatest county in it.74 DamSy Canals, Sugar, and Land In the beginning, agriculture in Box Elder was restricted to the land below the mouths of canyons and adjacent to streams, where water could be diverted and irrigation ditches dug to water gardens, orchards, and crops. The settlers prayed that the snow-pack lasted until harvest, or nearly so, to provide flowing water for the food which was their subsistence. The next step was to build dams across the streams in the moun­tain defiles, to preserve the water, and hold it in reservoirs, so it would last throughout the season. On land that could not be irri­gated, dry farming was undertaken. Dry farming proved successful and Box Elder County became the largest wheat-producing area of the state. Cattle and sheep herds fed, grew, and multiplied over the hundreds of square miles of grazing land within the county. A number of large ranches grew up in Box Elder County, besides the grand operation of Alexander Toponce and John Kerr. One of the earliest was that of Central Pacific Railroad magnate Charles Crocker. The old Crocker ranch utilized sections of land granted to the Central Pacific as a perquisite of construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Crocker ranch house was a land­mark in Promontory valley. The names of other large land and live­stock operations are familiar to Box Elder County old-timers. The Rose Ranch, the Promontory Ranch, the Adams Ranch, the Browning Ranch, and the Lindsay Land and Livestock Company.75 In recent years, the sheep operations of D. H. Adams and the legendary Nick Chournos, and the presennt-day sheep empire of Malcolm Young and his sons are an integral part of the agricultural life of Box Elder county. Dry farming depends upon the moisture trapped in the soil dur­ing the winter. If there is enough water in the soil-layer, seeds planted in the spring will germinate and grow. Later-season growth and ripening depends upon the moisture which falls during the summer. 214 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY This earth-filled coffer dam on the Bear River was built east of the Cache-Box Elder County line in 1889-1890. (Box Elder County) In Box Elder County the chief dry-farm crop has always been wheat. Abraham Hunsaker reportedly raised the first crop of dry farm grain in the vicinity of Honeyville in 1863. The harvest yielded between 300-400 bushels of wheat.76 There were h u n d r e d s of acres of fertile soil which could be planted, if water could be b r o u g h t to them. The Bear River had plenty of water, and under the leadership of Alexander Toponce and others, the water was brought to once inaccessible areas of the Bear River Valley. Alexander Toponce was b o r n in Belfort, France, in 1839. He came to America with his family when he was seven. Three years later he ran away from an u n h a p p y home, and by age fifteen he headed West as a bull wacker and stage coach driver. In 1858, at age eighteen, he reached Utah with Johnstons Army as an assistant wagon boss.77 Toponce remained in the West in the freighting business, and in 1863 he made a t r ip from Virginia City to Salt Lake City and noted that Call's Fort in Box Elder County "was the first house we had seen since leaving Virginia City. It was just a cabin or two surrounded by a stone wall. Brigham City was only a ' s t r i ng town' settlement, very slow going, with one store." He noted, however, that "There were INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 215 some settlers on Three Mile Creek. At Willard we found the liveliest town n o r t h of Salt Lake City."78 The enterprising Toponce bought produce in Utah and sold it to the miners in Montana. He developed many friendships in Utah, i n c l u d i n g Porter Rockwell, Brigham Young, and Lorenzo Snow.79 After 1869 he became a leading citizen of Corinne, serving as mayor for a t i m e and engaging in a n u m b e r of financial ventures including land and water development. According to Toponce, "In 1873, Sam Howe, George Butterball, Dr. J. W. G r a h am and myself took out a canal on the west side of the Malad River about sixteen miles u p from Corinne. We brought out the canal b o t h for irrigation and power purposes. It t o o k about a year to b u i l d it down to Corinne."80 The earthen d am was two hundred feet long, ninety feet thick at the base, twenty feet across at the top, a n d t h i r t y - o n e feet high while the canal was fifteen feet wide, six feet deep and ten and a half miles long.81 Another businessman, John W. Kerr, p u r c h a s e d land in Bear River Canyon that included a prospective d am site. Kerr made sur­veys and attempted construction of a d am and canal but, at first, met with little success. Then he became involved with Alexander Toponce. According to Toponce: John W. Kerr had gone to California in 1881 and bought a lot of sheep that he trailed across Nevada to Utah. He had part of these sheep left and he wanted to come in on this land deal. So I let him in on the ground floor and he put in his sheep into a company . . . we purchased more land back on the hills to the north and west at from forty-seven to fifty cents an acre, until we had a total of 90,000 acres. We had all the railroad land on both sides of about twelve miles of track. . . . [We] formed a joint stock company, known as the Corinne Mill, Canal and Stock Company, with 120,000 shares of stock of the par value of $5 each. We put in the 90,000 [acres], Kerr's sheep, my grist mill at Corinne [operated by water power from the canal], with the canal and water power; also my ranch above Garland and the live stock on the ranch.82 Toponce was a fair-minded businessman, and in his "contract with the [railroad] company, I h a d agreed to treat the settlers the same as the railroad company had agreed in their pamphlet."83 His 216 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY mistake was in allowing Mr. Kerr to be president of t h e company. According to Toponce : We began to make some money. The mill was running and doing well. A few settlers were coming to Bear River Valley and buying our best land at good prices. We had herds of sheep and cattle and plenty of pasture for them, and we were able to make our payments on the land and pay interest. At one time we had 5,000 head of cattle and 26,00 sheep; also, about 1,000 horses and mules. I had to go once a year down to San Francisco to settle up with the railroad company on our contract and when I went down in 1886, I took my wife with me. She was taken ill, and we stayed there for some time. While I was gone the president of the company, my good old partner, lohn W Kerr, called a meeting, notwithstanding that Mr. Spencer, who had gone to Chicago, and I were both absent. The two Fowlers and Kerr, as directors, constituted a majority of the board. They passed a resolution selling the stock in the treasury, 19,983 shares, to lohn W. Kerr at 10 cents a share, and the stock was at once issued to him and he paid $1,998.30 into the treasury. That fixed that. We had been offered one dollar a share for the stock. Then they voted to levy an assessment of one dollar a share on the outstanding stock, 120,000 shares, which was allowable under our by-laws. The train I returned to Corinne on, got in about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. The first man I saw when I stopped off the train said, "Come over here, Alex." Then he showed me a notice tacked up on the station house to the effect that my stock in the Corinne Mill, Canal and Stock Company would be sold the next day at 12 o'clock noon, to pay this delinquent assessment and that was the first I had heard of any assessment. I talked with my wife and she decided to remain in Corinne, but I got back on the train and went on to Ogden and then down to Salt Lake to raise $50,000, to pay my assessment. By the next morning at 11 o'clock I had the money raised. I got the money from George A. Lowe, H. S. Eldridge, presi- INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 217 dent of the Deseret National Bank; Samuel Teasdale and others. I then wired Kerr and Fowler not to sell my stock and that the money would be up on the afternoon train, but they went ahead and sold it anyway and that left me without so much as a saddle horse, as everything I had in the shape of livestock, or anything else, was in the company.84 Toponce sued for recovery of his stock. The district court decided in his favor. Kerr and partners appealed, and the case ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court. When the verdict was finally rendered in favor of Toponce, b o t h he and the Kerr group were broke: "all I could col­lect was a b o n d of $20,000 they had put up in court."85 Alex Toponce notes that "John W. Kerr took sick about this time; in fact, I t h i nk he was a sick man when he put over the deal."86 Both men were loosers as "much of the company's land was disposed of before either part­ner was able to realize his anticipated profits."87 As Kerr and Toponce fought in the courts, Kerr made arrange­ments for another irrigation promoter, John R. Bothwell, to come to Utah to construct a canal on the west side of Bear River to irrigate public land.88 In Bothwell's favor, Toponce writes that he "was one of the best promoters I ever saw." Bothwell "filed on the water to be diverted from the Bear River where it came t h r o u g h the canyon in the Wasatch range." He then "went to Kerr and got a contract with our company that when he brought out the water, our lands were to be sold and the company was to keep $4 an acre to cover its investment up to date a n d all received above t h a t a m o u n t was to be divided equally between Bothwell and the company." Bothwell's plan was not small in scope. Toponce records that "we went down to Ogden and proposed to buy the city waterworks for a nominal sum. [Bothwell] surveyed a route for a canal down the east side of Bear River to bring t h e water of t h e Bear along t h e foothills to t h e Ogden River just above Farr's mill."89 After a long and tedious wait, Mr. Bothwell succeeded in inter­esting the Jarvis and Conklin Mortgage Trust Company in the enterprise. The took hold of the work and proceeded to put the proposition into shape. 218 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY The first act of larvis and Conklin was to incorporate a com­pany under the name of the Bear Lake and River Water Works and Irrigation Company, with a capital of $2,100,000.00.90 On the evening of 16 August 1888, a cannon was fired at Brigham City to salute the signing of the contract by the contractors. Most of the work was completed by the spring of 1892 at a cost of $2 million. When the work was completed, Garland was owed $89,550.91 When he was not paid, he filed a lien on the entire canal system, on 24 December 1890.92 The reason Garland could not be paid, is that Bothwell, Jarvis, and Conklin, who provided Bothwell with capital, had used the money from the bonds to buy land.93 Gale Welling writes that there were other difficulties. "Another problem was that the government land in the valley had been filed on through an Act of Congress of 1820, which allowed the people to purchase the public land, and the Act of Congress of 1862 when the people could homestead the public lands. The land owners refused to buy the water, waiting for the value of the land to raise. Three years after the canal was started not one acre in fifty was being irrigated by the original entry men."94 Litigation went on for years, and the canal was managed by a receiver. Finally, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mr. Garland. The canal system was put up for sale but when no one offered a bid, the U.S. Marshal turned it over to Mr. Garland for the amount of the lien."95 Gale Welling explains that "In 1898 Garland sold that part of the canal covered by his lien at public auction to David Evans and John E. Dooley for $250,000. These two formed the Bear River Water Co., with a capital of $250,000. The complete system had cost about $2.25 million. Now the old company was broken into three parts."96 Evans and Dooley's company owned most of the canal system. The Roweville part of the system (named for William H. Rowe, the receiver during the Garland lien litigation) was owned by the Bear River Irrigation and Ogden Water Work Co.-the company set up to run a canal as far as Ogden, and which purchased the Ogden water­works. The third was the land owned by the old Corinne Mill Canal INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 219 and Stock Co. That was the company taken away from Toponce by J. K. Fowler, and owned by him, C. W. Bennett, and the Pitt brothers, whose mother, Toponce believed, pushed Fowler i n to shutting out Toponce, for the benefit of her sons.97 The cofferdam was built in 1889-90, the same years that the Box Elder Tabernacle was being completed. The massive project required fifty-two car loads of giant powder and 500 car loads of cement and employed some 7,000 men for over a year. The dam, completed in 1889, was seventeen and one half feet high, thirty-eight feet wide at t h e base, a n d 375 feet along from one a b u t m e n t to t h e other.98 In 1891, two years after completion, t h e d am developed a leak that required extensive repairs. A.C. True described the developments: In laying the foundation, solid rock was found about two-thirds of the distance across the bed, and the mudsills were securely anchored to bedrock. . . . Over the balance of the bed the mudsills were laid on clay, and upon the completion of the dam and the rise of the water in the forebay, it spr[a]ng a leak through the clay underneath the mudsills. This leak was small at first, but soon increased and finally the wh[o]le river, carrying over 20,000 cubic feet per second, passed beneath the crib. The timber crib, being anchored into the rock, remained intact, and when the spring floods subsided a concrete wall 4 feet thick and 15 feet high was built under the dam where the foundation had washed out. This wall rested upon bedrock and was tied into the upper toe of the dam. The balance of the excavation caused by the escaping water was filled with rock. For the past 20 years it had given entire satis­faction. 99 Legal problems surfaced when farmers along the Bear River in western Cache Valley protested the inundation of land in the vicinity of Cache Junction by waters from the dam. A settlement was reached that set the elevation of water above the dam. "In order to meet this condition the t o p of the original d am was cut off and a system of steel flash boards was installed, so arranged as to permit the lowering of the d am crest d u r i n g the flood period. This made it possible to maintain the forebay water surface elevation at the maximum agreed point during the entire year."100 The "system of flash b o a r d s " was, in reality, the Wheelon col- INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 221 president, and $125,000 of new capital from the bondholders, which constructed the Roweville section of the canal.104 Land p r o m o t e r s organized companies, o u t l i n e d projects, and p r i n t e d attractive brouchures such as one by The Bear River Land, Orchard and Beet Sugar Company which boasted that the canal sys­tem: Is by far the best and most complete system for irrigation in the United States. It heads in the Bear River Canyon in Cache County, Utah. A dam across the river eighteen feet high, two hundred and seventy-five feet wide and one hundred feet thick, with a splendidly constructed set of steel head-gates prepares the entrance to the Canals. There are two branches of the Canal starting from the dam, viz.: The East Side Canal and the West Side Canal. The west Side Canal was constructed purposely for the irrigation of the land belonging to the Bear River Land, Orchard and Beet Sugar Company and other lands in the Bear River Valley and lying on the West side of Bear River. The East Side Canal is not completed yet, but it was contemplated to furnish water on all the land lying on the East side of Bear River from Collinston Station to Brigham City and thence on to Ogden, a distance of fifty miles on an air line. Both East Side and West Side Canals are models of workmanship, showing the energy and pluck of the capitalists in putting money into them, and the daring and skill of the contractors in complet­ing a work of such magnitude, as they are blasted out of the solid rock for two and a half miles on each side of the river, with between two and three thousand feet of tunnels, beautiful masonry, head-gates of steel and spillways for the safety of the Canal. The finished Canal of ninety miles, supplemented by sixty miles of laterals or side canals, now form a perfect system of water supply to the fertile valley lands. The carrying capacity of the Canal is sufficient to carry ample water during the irrigation season, and which will be almost twice the amount per acre irrigated than any other canal system in America gives.105 The Bear River Land, Orchard and Beet Sugar Company, owned by Fowler, Bennett, and the Pitt brothers, was promoted by the Union Pacific, the Oregon Short Line, and the Chicago and North-Western railroads. It was not the only project to be organized and promoted 222 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY to bring water to the land and people and their money to the valley of Bear River. Another heavily p r o m o t e d project was Appledale west of Corinne. Appledale was set u p as a model agricultural community, with acres of o r c h a r d s . The water b r o u g h t to the land, however, leached the alkali salts to the surface, the trees died, and the project failed. It waited for the C o r i n n e drainage project, spearheaded by Clarence G. Adney, to place miles of d r a i n tiles b e n e a t h the land, leach out the salts, and make the land productive again.106 In 1901 the canal system was purchased by the Utah Sugar Company (which in 1907 became the U t a h - I d a h o Sugar Company), for a r e p o r t ed $300,000. In 1904 James T. H a m m o n d , Datus R. Hammond, and Lionel Hammond, construction engineers from Logan, began a project to build a canal on the east side of the Bear River Gorge. The East Side Canal was built from Collinston at t h e m o u t h of t h e gorge to the vicinity of Harper Spring. The East Side Canal, sometimes known as t h e H a m m o n d Canal, was originally p a r t of t h e i r r i g a t i o n plans developed by John R. Bothwell, and was surveyed at the same time as t h e West Side or Bear River Canal. In July 1907 a flume which spanned Happy Hollow, only a short distance n o r t h of Collinston, washed out. Several attempts at repair failed, and the canal was of no use that year. That fall the canal went into receivership. The receiver repaired the flume, and the canal was p u t back into operation. In 1919 the entire canal system was purchased by the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, and o p e r a t e d by a subsidiary-the H a m m o n d Canal Company. Eventually "the U t a h - I d a h o Sugar Company sold their power plant to the Utah Power and Light Company, [and] the power company guaranteed to furnish t h em 900 second feet of water at the intake of t h e Bear River Canal. That guarantee was backed by an immense body of water in the Bear Lake. Five large pumps, capable of lifting 2,000 second feet of water into a gravity canal connected with the Bear River in Idaho were installed in 1919."107 In 1998 a total of 64,000 acres were irrigated by the canal system. Electric Power Development As irrigation canals were constructed and more and more acres INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 223 of Box Elder farm land brought under cultivation, another use for the precious Bear River water became apparent-the generation of elec­trical power. A short time after the Utah Sugar Company acquired the coffer dam, Bear River Canal system company officials negotiated a contract to supply electrical power to the Utah Light and Railway Company at Ogden. Construction of a hydroelectric power generating plant was begun some distance below the cofferdam. The work was directed by Utah Light and Railway Company engineer R. F. Haywood and J. C. Wheelon, an employee of the Utah Sugar Company for whom the power plant and community were named. The power plant was built on the east bank of the Bear River, and within ten years the capacity of the plant grew from 2,700 horse­power to 9,500 horsepower in 1912. Primary users were the Utah Sugar Company Factory at Garland and the Utah Light and Railway Company at Ogden. The power plant was acquired by Utah Power and Light Company in 1914. Utah Power and Light initiated an aggressive program to fully utilize the power potential of Bear River at the mouth of the gorge for the generation of electricity. Poles were erected and lines run to Fielding to provide electricity to that com­munity in 1917. Two years later, in 1919, five large pumps with a lift­ing capacity of 2,000 second feet of water were installed on the Bear River in Idaho to bring water into a gravity canal for power genera­tion. 108 In the early 1920s Utah Power and Light decided to replace the entire dam and generating system with a new, modern concrete dam and up-to-date generators. The project began with the assessment of Warren Swendsen and G. F. McGonagle in 1923. The project was underway by 1925.109 The new dam was erected below the old coffer­dam and above the old powerplant. A new powerplant was built near the old plant. Two new turbine-driven induction generators were ordered from General Electric. The company was told that there were two other generators, slightly smaller in size, which had been ordered for another project and not used, and were available. Utah Power and Light was given a good discount, and the two generators were shipped and installed in the new Cutler power plant at Wheelon, Utah. Each of the turbines generates 15,000 kilowatts, for a total of 224 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY View of Bear River Canyon with the Cutler Power Plant, reservoir, dam, pipeline, surge tank, east and west canals, and the railroad. (Box Elder County) 30,000 kilowatts or 40,200 horsepower. At the time of its completion, Cutler power plant was one of the largest hydroelectric generating plants in the United States. It is still (with the sole exception of the huge U.S. Bureau of Reclamation projects on the Green and Colorado rivers) the largest hydroelectric plant in Utah.110 The d am and power plant were named for Thomas R. Cutler, vice president of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, even though the project was initiated ten years after UP&L acquired the system from Utah-Idaho Sugar.111 The Cutler project was one of the first hydro­electric projects built by Utah Power and Light Company. The Grace project (1904), the Oneida plant (1907), and the Bear Lake storage project (1909) were all begun by Telluride Power, which was one of 112 small power companies consolidated into Utah Power and Light Company.112 The new Cutler Dam inundated the old cofferdam and rock-cut canals. The East Side and West Side canals were connected to the new INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 225 dam, and the power company guaranteed to furnish 900 second-feet of water at the intake of the Bear River Canal system.113 It is an interesting footnote on Cutler Dam that, though the dam is a hundred feet high, it is now (1999) silted up to within fifteen feet of the top. Years ago a log jammed against the sluice gate at the bot­tom of the dam. The log was never removed, and the gate rusted shut. It has not been used, and over the years silt from erosion in Cache Valley has all but filled Cutler Reservoir.114 Sugar Beets The climate of Utah was obviously not suited to raise sugar cane, though early Utah pioneers made a useable product in backyard mills and vats from sorghum. Early in Utah's history, an attempt was made to produce sugar from sugar beets. LDS apostle John Taylor was sent to Europe and the British Isles to obtain sugar-processing equip­ment. 115 Unfortunately, the seller did not impart the secret of the techniques of processing beets into sugar. The sugar factory, which gave the Salt Lake borough of Sugarhouse its name, was a failure. More than thirty years passed before Arthur Stayner, an LDS convert from England and a horticulturist, became beet sugar's advo­cate in Utah. After visiting a beet sugar plant in Alvarado, Kansas, Stayner campaigned until he overcame the reluctance of the leaders of the LDS church to invest in another sugar enterprise. The Utah Sugar Company was incorporated on 5 September 1889.116 The Utah territorial legislature subsidized the growing of sugar beets, and a contract was let to E. H. Dyer to built a sugar factory in Lehi. Among the major stockholders were Lehi merchants Thomas R. and John C. Cutler.117 As the Lehi factory sought larger quantities of beets, several Lehi farmers located on lands in Bear River Valley. It soon became evident that the Bear River beets were of a superior quality in yield and per­cent of sugar. The emerging interest in sugar beets led to the organi­zation of the Bear River Land, Orchard and Beet Sugar Company in the late 1890s. Sugar beets quickly became a staple of Box Elder's agrarian economy. In 1901 the Bear River Land, Orchard and Beet Sugar Company was acquired by the Utah Sugar Company, and the 226 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY sugar beet industry in Box Elder County stood on the threshold of even greater possibilities. According to Leonard J. Arrington, "The Utah Sugar Company purchases of Bear River properties broke the legal impasse which had stymied previous efforts and provided precisely the right catalyst for the valley's development."118 Utah sugar provided the money to bail out the canal system, a crop for the farmers to grow, and reason for settlers to come, purchase the land, irrigate it, and farm the rich val­ley of the Bear River. It is only fitting that Thomas R. Cutler's name s h o u l d grace t h e d am which stands as a symbol of t h e miles and miles of irrigated fields in Bear River Valley. The Utah Sugar Company was able to do what previous promot­ers and consortia had failed to do. Arrington notes: The most significant immediate action of Utah Sugar was the ini­tiation of plans to extend the canal on the east side of Bear River. Although $450,000 had been expended on this canal by the origi­nal promoters, it had never been completed to the point of useful­ness. Landowners, tho pressed for the completion, agreed to pur­chase enough water to justify the extension as far south as Willard-a distance of about 30 miles from the Divide. Cost of this construction was estimated at $375,000. Because of the heavy flow, it was proposed that the canal be 6 feet deep and 50 feet wide to a point five miles south of Collinston, 30 feet wide from there to the north boundary of Brigham City, and 20 feet wide from Brigham City to Willard. Completion of the canal would make possible the irrigation of 20,700 acres of land. Utah sugar completed the canal to a point near Collinston in 1902 and let a contract to J. T. Hammond and the Hammond Brothers construction Company in 1903, which completed the canal to Harper Springs ("Call Fort"), immediately north of Brigham City, in 1905. This permitted the irrigation of 8,500 acres.119 Expansion c o n t i n u e d with the c o n s t r u c t i o n of a sixteen-mile branch railroad line by the Oregon Short Line from the main line at Corinne to Garland in 1903. The railroad was used to deliver mate­rials and machinery for construction of the Garland Sugar Factory which was completed later in the year.120 The factory cost approximately $500,000 and had a capacity of INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 227 I II The Brigham City Sugar Factory was built in 1916 and operated until 1937. It was demolished in 1944. (Box Elder County) 600 tons a day. Periodic expansions were made until 1966 when the factory could process 2,500 tons of beets a day. Most of the beets were grown in Box Elder County, but some were shipped to Garland from Southern Idaho and Davis County. Around the factory there developed a company town, to house the workers and serve the needs of the sugar factory. It engulfed the tiny settlement begun in the early 1890s as Mormons moved from elsewhere to new land. According to Arrington, The factory was located at Sunset, later Garland, and a site was acquired for a "company town" three-fourths of a mile west of the factory site, just west of the Malad River. In addition to the factory, the company built a hotel and 14 homes and other facilities for its employees. In keeping with the dominant faith of the settlers, Utah Sugar donated to the Garland Ward Ecclesiastical Corporation a block of land in the center of the town for an L.D.S. ward chapel and amusement hall. By 1906 the town had a newspaper (The Garland Globe), a mercantile business, a bank, and a post office. By 228 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY the 1920's there was a high school, seminary, Carnegie Library, flour mill, and lumber yard.121 During World War I, a sugar factory was built in Brigham City by E. H. Dyer company. It had a capacity of 500 tons, and was built at a cost of $425,000-a considerable savings made by using equip­ment from a cutting at Parker, Idaho.122 The capacity of the Brigham City plant was soon increased to 650 tons before the end of World War I, a n d to 900 tons by the early 1920s. Arrington states that: During its first campaign 506 growers in the Brigham City district planted 5,613 acres, producing 70,253 tons of beets which were converted into 124,255 bags of sugar. In March 1917 the factory was sold at cost to the Amalgamated Sugar Company, which oper­ated it during the years 1917-1919. The plant was re-acquired by U and I in 1920. The factory reached a peak production of 246,060 bags of sugar in 1923. Owing to Curly Top this dropped to only 57,362 bags in 1924. The factory was inactive in 1926, 1930-1932, and 1934-1936. After a short campaign in 1937, the factory was permanently closed. The factory was dismantled in 1943. At that time its capacity was 1,300 tons.123 The Garland factory continued in operation, and farmers in Bear River Valley, using water from the canal system, continued to irrigate land in the Bear River Valley and provide the factory with sugar beets, but times began to change. According to Gale Welling, "The Utah Idaho Sugar co. became aware in the 1960s that the Bear River Canal Company could not operate on the original contracts of one and two dollars per acre and needed more money for maintenance."124 In 1973 the rate was raised to $2.73 per acre, in 1974 to $3.17 per acre, in 1975 $4.73, in 1976 $10.89 per acre. At that point "the Bear River Water Users Association was organized. A law suit was started and a court order forced the rates back to the original contract."125 Then the axe fell. Gale Welling remembers that "In 1979 U & I Sugar announced they were not going to operate the canals for the year of 1980. The Bear River Water Users Association fought this. As a result, Paul Holmgren was named receiver of the canal and the Bear River Water Distribution was organized. After a long tedious battle, they negotiated with U 8c I Sugar, and the canal was purchased April 10, INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 229 1980, for $1,750,000."126 About that time the sugar industry in Box Elder County came to an abrupt end. The major stockholder of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company decided that the sugar industry was no longer profitable and the stockholders' money could receive a better return by diversifying.127 Box Elder County's Ethnic Groups- The Chinese, Irish, fapanese, Hindus, and Mexicans The first ethnic group to settle in Box Elder County were Scandinavian converts to the LDS Church who arrived in the 1860s. Although they became integrated with the Mormon community, ele­ments of their heritage persisted through several generations. The transcontinental railroad brought Chinese and Irish con­struction workers to Box Elder County. Chinese had crossed the Pacific Ocean to participate in the California gold rush. While many remained in the gold fields, others became residents of San Francisco. Officials of the Central Pacific Railroad Company hired all available Chinese as construction workers on the railroad. The demand for workers on the Central Pacific required many more laborers than were available in San Francisco, so the railroad advertised in the urban areas of China. When insufficient numbers volunteered, recruiters resorted to what amounted to kidnapping. Chinese workers did much of the tunneling, culvert-building, grade preparation, and track work on the Central Pacific. Their lan­guage, manner of dress, eating habits, and cultural differences did not lead to integration with other workers on the C. P. The Chinese had their own camps, sang their own songs, prepared their own food, played their own games, and in the evenings smoked their opium pipes in their own isolation. After the completion of the railroad, though some stayed operating laundries in Corinne and pursuing other occupations, most returned to their homeland. Even the graves of those who died during construction of the railroad were opened and the bodies returned to the soil of the Celestial Empire for final repose. Along with the Chinese came the Irish. Many families fled the great "potato famine" in Ireland, and came to the United States. A number of Irish men served in the Civil War, and obtained employ- 230 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY ment on the Union Pacific Railroad after the war's end. After com­pletion of the railroad, it seems that few if any remained in Box Elder County. In addition to the Chinese and Irish, there were Mexicans also among the railroad workers. Alexander Toponce recorded that when Leland Stanford missed the last spike, "Irish, Chinese, Mexicans, and everybody yelled with delight."128 Like other railroad construction workers, the Mexicans did not remain in Box Elder County. They did return after the sugar beet industry began to expand. The initial group was made up of sixty families and more came especially for the sugar beet harvest. A number were victims of the 1918 influenza epi­demic, and in 1920 there were 276 Mexicans in Box Elder County.129 The workers were first housed in the Sugar Factory Hotel until single-walled, uninsulated houses were built for them near the sugar factory. In addition to work in the sugar factory, Mexican laborers worked in the sugar beet fields of the county, on the railroad tracks, as domestics in the Sugar Factory Hotel and in homes of Garland res­idents. During the 1920s many moved to Ogden or returned to Mexico. Others returned as migratory workers in the orchards and fields of Box Elder County. Other agricultural workers were recruited to work in Box Elder County including a group of East Indian Hindus who reached Utah from California and Arizona in the early 1900s. Some acquired farms and remained in the county.130 The Japanese were the largest ethnic group to come into Box Elder County just after the turn of the century when jobs were to be had with the railroad or as a result of the coming of the sugar indus­try. Although those who came "included artisans, merchants, stu­dents, professionals, and bankers, almost all Japanese began their life in America by working fields or on railroad section gangs."131 Most Japanese hoped to earn enough money to return home and buy land and other property to raise the economic status of their families. However, many remained in America and some found a new home in Box Elder County. Others established themselves in Weber and Salt Lake counties. With good land available in Box Elder County and with the new INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 231 Box Elder County lapanese-Americans in a photograph taken 26 February 1926. (Box Elder County) canal system to provide irrigation water, many Japanese immigrants took up land after making enough money working for others. They soon became known for their produce, growing "the n a t i o n a l l y acclaimed Sweetheart and Jumbo Celery and the Twentieth Century Strawberries." Although most found more free­dom in Utah than they had known in Japan, still they were not always accepted on a par with other settlers. In 1922 the Cable Act deprived Nisei (second generation lapanese) women who had married Issei (first generation Japanese) of their citizenship. In 1931 as a result of the J ACL (Japanese American Citizens' League), the 1922 Cable Act was amended, regaining citizenship for Nisei women. American citi­zenships were also granted to 700 World War I Veterans. In 1924 the lapanese Exclusion Act prohibited any lapanese from entering the country, but many of them swam ashore from boats, anchored in harbors or were smuggled across the Canadian and Mexican borders by compatriots.132 232 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY In Box Elder County the Japanese who had settled and become farmers organized a farmers' association, the "Hoshin-Kai," in 1914. They built a hall in 1916. In 1930s they organized a Japanese language school to teach their children. Even though they had settled in a new land, they retained the old Samurai ideals-"courage and loyalty to one's people, esteem for stylized politeness, courteous treatment of inferiors, and exalted respect for elders. Children were taught through the bushido code that they must do nothing that would cause others to laugh at them, or bring disgrace on their families."133 They also experienced some of the class distinctions and social restrictions and taboos under which their ancestors had lived for gen­erations. In 1931 the Japanese community purchased the only structure built on the site of the uncompleted Honeyville sugar factory. The substantial two-story brick building became the Honeyville Buddhist church. As a generation passed and the children (Nisei) grew up attending school with children of neighboring families and speaking English, the wall of prejudice that too often exists between neighbors of different cultures and ethnic groups began to crack. Prohibition and Gambling During the 1910s most Box Elder County residents supported the prohibition of alcohol-first locally, then statewide, and finally nationally as provided with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919. A temperance meeting was held in Tremonton on 22 February 1914. Among the speakers were Milton H. Welling, state representative and president of the Bear River Stake, and LDS apostle David O.McKay. An editor­ial in the Box Elder Journal in 1916 proclaimed, "Let us wake up, elect only men who stand for prohibition.... Let Utah arise in might and drive the accursed liquor traffic from our borders. Leu us clear our skirts from paltering politicians, and cunning shysters who betray the public trust."134 A local prohibition law was passed by Brigham City and almost immediately bootleggers were arrested for violation of the law. In November 1915 three men were jailed for smuggling whiskey into the city. Four bootleggers were arrested in March 1917 and the ring INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 233 leader given a five-month jail sentence. Five bootleggers were arrested at Kelton and Lucin.135 Gambling seemed to go hand-in-glove with the consumption of bootleg alcohol. A raid on the Elberta Club in Brigham City resulted in the arrest of the club president and a $65 fine.136 The First World War On the morning of 28 June 1914, Francis Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist as he traveled in a motorcade through the city of Sarajevo. That event was the trigger which set of the First World War. After nearly three years of conflict, the United States entered the war in April 1917 as an ally of Great Britain and France. A wave of patriotism washed across the United States and engulfed Utah. It was in World War I that Utah first fielded a significant contingent of United States troops. In sharp contrast to Utah's lack of support of the Civil War and the Spanish American War, 21,000 Utahns served in WWI. It is an indicator of how far Utah had come from its pioneer immigrant beginnings that of that num­ber, only 10 percent were of foreign birth.137 It was in WWI that Utah fielded its famous 145th Field Artillery, under the command of Colonel Richard W. Young, with sixty-year-old Brigham Henry Roberts as chaplain. Richard W. Young was not only a son of Brigham Young, he was a graduate of West Point and a veteran of the Spanish American War. According to J. Cecil Alter, "The One Hundred and Forty-fifth Artillery of the American Army was distinctively a Utah organization. It was the particular pride of the people of the state, as it was recruited from the farms and facto­ries, the mines and mills, the stores and shops, from the railways, the ranches, the offices, and the schools, from all trades, occupations and professions, from every valley, village, camp and city throughout the commonwealth."138 At the beginning of the war, British-born Brigham H. Roberts, LDS general authority and prodigious author, convinced Utah gov­ernor Simon Bamberger to appoint him as chaplain to the First Utah Light Field Artillery which became the 145th Artillery Unit. According to his biographer, "Chaplain Roberts soon demonstrated that he did not care as much for his rank of captain as he did for action. In an 234 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY intense recruiting campaign he represented the governor's staff up and down the Rocky M o u n t a i n Corridor, and soon won the hon­orary title of major. In his meetings and conversations Roberts moti­vated h u n d r e d s of young men to enlist in the military rather than wait for the draft. To anxious but committed parents Roberts said, 'You send your sons a n d I will be a father to them.' There were undoubtedly Box Elder County residents in attendance at a patriotic rally in t h e Ogden Tabernacle on 27 March 1917, when Roberts promised " . . . the fathers and mothers of Utah that if their sons go to the trenches I will go with them.' For a full three minutes the audi­ence cheered."139 However B.H. Roberts was past sixty a n d when the 145th was called up for active d u t y in September 1917 his name was not included. Roberts contacted Utah senator Reed Smoot and a com­promise was reached with army officials. If Roberts served, it would be as a lieutenant, not as a captain, and he would have to pass a series of written and physical tests at the Officers and Chaplains School at Camp Zachary Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. Apparently some of the requirements thrown in his path, particularly the drop in rank, were meant to discourage him. His biographer, Truman Madsen, notes t h a t "To t h e chagrin of his family, a n d p e r h a p s also of t h e army, Roberts welcomed the appointment on these terms."140 With a fixed determination to serve with his boys, the old man refused all com­promises at t h e t r a i n i n g camp, a n d passed. When he went to join with his men before embarking for the theater of war, he was offered a sedan. He chose instead a spirited horse. He rode most of the morning and as he approached the regiment [which was "on a coastal hike north of Camp Kearney in the California mountains"], he kept out of sight until he was at the head of the column. Then he galloped into view, reining his horse high on its haunches and lifting his hat to sweep the sky in a symbolic gesture that electrified the men. He had made it. Sixteen hundred men, including the officers, broke rank and cheered him. Then the chap­lain left his mount, shouldered the standard sixty-pound pack, and joined his men in the hike on equal terms. In the following seven days the regiment hiked 190 miles to Santa Ana, took three days of rest, and then in six days hiked back to camp."141 INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 235 It was in tin's spirit that boys from Box Elder joined the United States Army and entered the War to End All Wars. It was not so difficult in Box Elder, where most of the people or their ancestors had come from Scandinavia or the British Isles and the few German or Austrian Americans were a small minority. The Huchel family felt some of the same prejudice during the First World War, when the German-Americans were subjected to some of the same sort of prejudice and bigotry, though they had come from Germany forty-five years before Sarajevo. About the same time the Japanese came to Box Elder County, in the first years of the twentieth century, a number of families of first- and second-genera­tion German ancestry came from the Midwest and settled along what is known as the Iowa String, between Tremonton and Little Mountain. As a result of the war hysteria which accompanied World War I, with its anti-German prejudice, most of those families were made so unwelcome that they left the area. World War I was an economic benefit to Box Elder County. The demand for sugar was high, and the Brigham City sugar factory was built during World War I. The potash plant at Kosmo was built dur­ing World War I. Canneries were built, and the orchards prospered.142 The old, abandoned Box Elder Tannery of the Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association was turned into a National Guard Armory.143 The Liberty Bond Drive in Box Elder County brought an out­pouring of subscriptions that by 1 November 1917 totaled more than $176,000 with most county residents purchasing $50 bonds, although two individuals purchased bonds worth $2,500 and several others bonds worth $1,000.144 Box Elder sugar beet farmers were urged to raise more sugar beets. W.W. Armstrong, federal food administrator for Utah, explained that French soldiers received only 1/5 the amount of sugar that American soldiers received because most the country's 226 beet sugar factories were located in the war zone. Some of the factories had been destroyed and many had been damaged because of the war. In his appeal Armstrong noted that Utah was only one of four states that had fifteen more sugar beet factories but that these factories were operating at only two-thirds capacity because of the shortage of sugar 236 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY beets. Armstrong concluded: "Will you carefully plan your crops for next season so that you can grow more sugar beets? It is one of the things you can do to help win the war."145 Some eighty Box Elder County soldiers were given a grand send off the first week of September 1917. A banquet was held in the Laurel Cafe and Hotel Boothe dining rooms on the evening of Wednesday, 1 September. The next morning at 9:00 A.M. a program was presented in the Box Elder Tabernacle. The soldiers were seated in the choir section. Musical numbers included the congregation singing "America," and several numbers sang by a quartet of soldiers. Among the speakers was Reverend A. G. Frank of the Presbyterian church who "showed how the boys were building their lives in a telling way by giving their lives for us that our civilization might go on and he assured all that our thoughts and prayers were for their safe return to us and more than ever fitted for the duties of life."146 As the soldiers prepared to entrain for Logan on Sunday morning, 5 September 1917, a "parade was formed at the corner of Main and Forest streets which was led by the police officers. Second in line was the Brigham City Military band, then the fire department, which was followed by several hundred loyal and patriotic men, women and children on foot. . . . During the march to the O. L. & I. depot the band struck up 'The Star Spangled banner' which made the thrills of patriotism pass through the veins of those in the parade as well as those who were not."147 At the train station "was the saddest scene possibly ever witnessed in the history of Brigham. Mothers clung to their boys and wished them well; wives could hardly stand the departing of their husbands; sweethearts, friends and relatives of the brave sons grasped their hands in the thought that they may never return again."148 Two young men did not depart as scheduled. Orville Merrell was delayed with an ulcerated ear, and Orlando Peterson received a severe cut while returning to Brigham City from Bear River where he had gone to visit friends and relatives before his departure. Peterson received the cut when he was riding on a motorcycle with Willis Morgan. The back tire blew out causing the motorcycle to overturn and injure the boys.149 Anti-German sentiment was manifest on several occasions. Judge INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 237 J.D. Call spoke against German sympathizers and spies who would receive their deserved punishment. He warned that spies were flying across the county to survey resources for the German enemy and admonished county residents that if they did not report any infor­mation about the unauthorized flights or other information about pro-German activities they would be considered traitors them­selves. 150 Louis and Earl Bowen, two brothers, enlisted together in Brigham City, although Earl was only seventeen years old at the time. By January 1918 they found themselves in France. Writing to his sis­ter at the end of January Louis reported: "Today I received the box you sent before Christmas. The cake was alright and the nuts were good, but the candy was a little hard. We were not particular, how­ever, bout a little thing like that." Louis went on to explain that "It is hard to write because things you would be interested in might also be of value to the enemy in case such information fell into their hands." He then went on to describe life in the army camp, the French peo­ple, their farms, and their railroad cars. Earl admitted that at times he was discouraged, but that he was not sorry he had enlisted, "for I am getting a great experience that will help me in after years." He urged his sister to "not waste anything. . . . Don't even throw away a small potato. People in this country certainly need all you can save at home. There are people in the United States that throw away enough from one meal to keep a family here a week." Not all of the county's enlistees were able to stay together as did the Bowen brothers. Abraham (Abe)Tracy of Yost ended up as a scout for "L" Company of the 3rd Battalion, 307th Infantry of the 77th Division, which gained notority as the "Lost Battalion," in the Argonne Forest in early October 1918. The company was made up mostly of boys from New York and Tracy recalled that it was hard to tell who the real enemy was-the Germans or the New Yorkers who seemed to have little use for a Mormon cowboy from Box Elder County.151 One soldier, Welton Woodland, the son of Mr. and Mrs. John T. Woodland of Willard, was killed during the fighting in the Argonne Forest in October 1917. Five years after his death, his parents received a remarkable letter from a German soldier who had obtained the 238 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Woodland's home address from the New Testament he found among Welton's possessions. Heinrich Sohn, the former German soldier, was one of twelve children and was twenty-five years old when he wrote the following account: It was on October 16, 1918. We were lying in the Argonne, in Grande Pre. facing the American troops. In the morning at about 10 o'clock the American division made an attack towards my divi­sion and in this battle your dear son fought very bravely. After the attack had been repelled and the Americans forced to go behind their embankments again, your son dared to come over his embankment again towards us, for what reason was unknown to us. In doing so he came under our gun fire and was killed. When it was evening and the American troops were back in their former trenches, your dear son was lying dead very close to our lines. Under the protection of the night, I, with a few of my soldiers, crept over to your son to see if he had any food on his per­son, because we were very much in need of food. In searching your son we found some chocolate, cakes and a piece of white bread and the new testament. What other things he had on him I do not know, as we were searching only for food. And since I belonged to the Lord lesus Christ, and am a dis­ciple of Him, I could not leave the testament there to be lost, there­fore I took it with me and I found the name and address.152 The Flood of 1923 The pioneers had ignored the counsel of Brigham Young and had overgrazed b o t h valleys and m o u n t a i n s . The overgrazing of cattle and sheep changed the face of the Utah landscape. Grass and browse were cropped too close, and spring runoff brought serious erosion. Streams which, in pioneer days, ran along the surface of the land, by the 1920s and 1930s ran in deep channels. More seriously, the moun­tain summer ranges were stripped of the erosion-resisting vegetation. It happened all over Utah, but in Box Elder County it was felt most disastrously in Willard. Willard Basin, high up in t h e Wasatch range, h a d been over­grazed for years, and was a catastrophe waiting to happen. According to a history of Willard: INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 239 Willard after the flood of 1923. (Box Elder County) Beginning in the early evening hours of August 13, 1923, a heavy downpour of cloudburst proportions struck Willard and the nearby mountains. This deluge was especially heavy in the hills so that the runoff from the bare hills accumulated in the bottom of the canyon and sent a flood of water down into the settlement, causing great damage to many homes and carrying away many outbuildings. The main highway was made impassable and traffic was diverted to the fields to get around the debris. Several feet of slimy mud was deposited in some homes, and it was weeks before order was restored.153 Mrs. Ellen Ward, Willard town treasurer and LDS Relief Society president and wife of Alfred Ward-who had died years earlier-was drowned in t h e flood that also claimed the life of Mrs. Agnes M. Ward. Three others were hospitalized as a result of the flood. Sylvia Ward, age eleven, was pulled from the flood waters and mud uncon­scious and taken to the Dee Memorial Hospital in Ogden where she later recovered from the frightful ordeal. The terrible flood began about 8:00 P.M. when a terrific clap of t h u n d e r rocked the town. W i t h i n minutes, "a l o u d r u m b l i n g noise was heard." When V.M. Graser when outside to investigate, a flash of lightening revealed a wall of water and m u d streaming into his house. His family miracu- 240 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY lously escaped, although Graser complained of heart problems later in the night. Near the Glasers, Arthur Hanson, his mother, sister, and niece barely escaped with their lives by taking refuge in a nearby tree. One of the women was knocked from the tree by the rush of water, but all were rescued by several neighbors.154 The Willard flood caused extensive damage. Homes and barns were demolished, crops were ruined, and at least 300 acres of prime agricultural land were destroyed. The cement highway running through Willard was closed for several weeks while a crew of 250 men used equipment and dynamite to remove tons of rock, mud, trees, and other debris. The town's water supply and electricity were dis­rupted. A number of horses were drown or had to be shot because of broken legs or backs sustained during the flood. Members of the Utah National Guard were ordered to Willard by Governor Charles Mabey to provide assistance, and thirty Boy Scouts were assigned to burn piles of rubbish. Over $75,000 were raised statewide to aid the communities of Willard and Farmington. Finally, in the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a camp in Willard basin, terraced the mountainsides, built a dike and spillway at the mouth of the canyon, and saved the town below from further flooding.155 The area was made part of the Cache National Forest and is under U.S. Forest Service supervision. Earthquakes On 12 March 1934 Box Elder County suffered a major earth­quake- the most recent in a series of tremors that began before recorded history and continued after the settlement after the county. The first recorded report of seismic activity in Box Elder County was made by John D. Gibbs, who along with his wife, Julia Ann Tompkins, and their two boys, settled in Portage in 1868. Gibbs reported a dozen years later that "at about 120 P.M. [Portage] experi­enced a terrible shaking from earthquakes. There were two shocks, at an interval of three or four minutes, each shock lasting two or three seconds." Gibbs reported no damage; however, the towns folk "rushed out into the streets badly frightened for a little while, but went back to bed on finding their houses were still on their foundation."156 Less than five months later, the railroad village of Kelton was INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 241 shaken by a stronger earthquake which was probably centered in the Hansel Valley Fault. The t r e m o r was accompanied by a rumbling noise and set off a tital wave on t h e Great Salt Lake which left its mark on the surrounding m u d flats.157 The residents of Snowville reported an earthquake in late August 1893. The people of the county seemed to have been more knowl­edgeable about earthquakes for it was reported in the Deseret News t h a t the earthquake "passed from west to east, b e a r i n g a little North."158 There were a n u m b e r of seismic activities in t h e county. The Brigham City Bugler reported, During the past two weeks the people of Corinne have actu­ally felt twenty separate and distinct earthquake shocks. [More] tremors have been felt there than were felt [at any] other place. The town seems to be over the center of some internal disturbance. But more extraordinary than this is the authentic story that comes from Point Lookout. It seems that last lune a great cloud­burst and earthquake occurred near there at the same time. Now that region is marked by great fissures in the earth. Some of these cracks are a foot and a half in width. Stones can be dropped into them and they go rattling down to a depth of eighty feet. Some people attribute the numerous slight shocks recently felt at Corinne, probably ten miles to the south of Point Lookout, to the earth settling back after its upheaval at Point Lookout.159 Another quake, p e r h a p s an aftershock to the October quake, occurred on 13 February 1897. The local newspaper chronicled the event: At about 6:15 Monday evening occurred the last (so far) of the series of quakes that have been playing hide and seek during the past few months in the bowels of the earth beneath us. This was the jumbo shock of all. In five minutes a lighter one occurred. The first stopped clocks; shook bricks from chimneys and swayed the court house tower so that it caused the town clock bell to strike five times. The walls of houses appeared to sway back and forth several inches. Strong men were so frightened that they turned pale in the face and sick at the stomach. Some of the earth motions seemed to 242 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY be directly up and down, but the main vibrations were west to east.160 In the 20 February 1897 issue of the Brigham City Bugler, the edi­tor offered a note of counsel to local inhabitants. "More earthquake shocks Sunday morning. Well, let ' em shock and let ' em shake; it does no good to either worry or fret over them; that will neither augment nor lessen their force."161 The report went on to analyze the series of quakes which had shaken a large area of the county over a period of several months: A peculiar thing about our own pet earthquakes is that they are almost entirely confined to the valley lying on the north and northeast of Great Salt Lake, the center being near the muddy mouth of Bear River, where it empties into the briny lake. They extend only about twenty or thirty miles. There are nearly always two shocks. A shock that is not considered a light one in Brigham is many times more severe near the river's mouth. A hard one in Brigham is frightful out there. One observer said the land there, during a severe shock, rose and felt like a billowy ocean. Even now slight shocks are felt there almost daily. They have so cracked up the ice in the frozen river that the dislodged cakes have floated out into the lake, leaving the river open.162 The e a r t h q u a k e may have been the cause of a m u d geyser, believed by its observer M a r t i n Rowher, to be an active volcano. Rowher, a young farmer living on a ranch west of Corinne, recounted his story to a Brigham City Bugler reporter in March 1897: Three weeks ago he saw a great column of smoke rise up into the heavens. At first he thought it must [be] a sheep camp on fire, as it came right out of the lake, or flat alkali lake lands where noth­ing grows. Later his wife called his attention to the same occur­rence and by closely watching it he found this column of smoke shot high up into the air several times an hour. It was especially active every afternoon. The smoke would first rush up like a great smokestack several hundred feet high; then gradually sink down until it could hardly be seen. Later he could see a mound of earth in the vicinity; one never before seen there. It was undoubtedly cast up by these convulsions of nature. Mr. Rohwer is positively con­vinced it is an active volcano. From his ranch the position appeared INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 243 to him in the region of the mouth of Bear River, nearly 20 miles almost due west of Brigham. At this time of the year when the snow and mud are so deep he says it would be impossible to reach the scene of this natural wonder. Another convincing fact is that its l o c a t i o n is near where the recent numerous earthquakes were severest. In that vicinity for weeks at a time shocks were felt daily, some of t h em making the ground rise and fall like a billowy ocean.163 By mid-March the tremors had apparently ceased, but an addi­tional report on the "volcano" was printed: . . . Martin Rohwer said that since his return to his ranch west of Corinne he has seen no further eruptions. A few days after Mr. Rohwer last beheld the spouter his father was down much nearer the place; within five or six miles. In addition to the big spouter he saw two much smaller eruptions. It will no doubt be several weeks before the mud will be dried up enough to that they can go down to investigate. Mr. Rohwer has no dubiety but that he can find cin­ders and other marks of eruption.164 Other tremors were recorded seven miles n o r t h of Bear River City o n 5 August 1897, at Promontory on 2 and 3 October 1898 and 9 April 1900, a n d at Snowville on 11 November 1905.165 The next major earthquake of record occurred in the first week of October 1909-"electric lamps hanging by the wire swung to and fro, water in buckets and milk in pans rocked from side to side, while windows rattled and articles on the edge of the table were thrown onto the floor." It was only the first of several shocks. "In about half an h o u r after the first shock, there came another just as real as the first a n d having about the same d u r a t i o n . This performance was repeated about midnight again, two quakes being felt by many per­sons who were awakened and arose from bed." The report concluded: "There were some scared people in Brigham all right, many being unable to sleep for fear t h e r e would be s o m e t h i n g dreadful take place."166 The earthquake was felt from Preston, Idaho, to American Fork, Utah. There were high waves on the Great Salt Lake, some "rolling high . . . over the [Lucin Cufoff] structure." During the same seismic 244 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY incident, it rocked a moving passenger train near Logan. "Passengers on a n o r t h b o u n d train when nearing Logan last night [5 October] at the time of the shock felt the shock on the moving train. So strong was it that the engineer brought the train to a standstill until the dis­turbance had ceased. It was thought that the track was shifting and an examination [of the track] was made."167 During this period of seismic activity, chimneys were toppled, clocks and other loose objects were thrown to the floor. During one of the earthquakes in Plymouth, "birds were shaken out of the trees and people were frightened out of their homes." In Brigham City the earthquake was sufficiently strong "to rattle dishes and spill water from wash basins. One lady was so freightened that she ran a couple of blocks to the home of a relative, clad in her night clothes only."168 Dr. James E. Talmage, noted professor of geology at the University of Utah and later a member of the LDS church's Q u o r um of Twelve Apostles, urged the installation of seismographic equip­ment at the University of Utah to monitor the frequency and size of area earthquakes. Shortly after the installation of the equipment and at the time of the Hansel Valley earthquake, Professor Frederick J. Pack, successor to Talmage at the University of Utah, hurried from his home and arrived in time to witness the record­ing of the last tremor, which began at 8:24 and lasted several min­utes. This was the first opportunity anyone at the university has yet had of observing the instrument in action. As the second shock came on, the heavy glass cases in which the seismograph is sta­tioned, shook violently and for a moment the needle threatened to jump from the recording sheet, so wide was its zig-zag path.169 Few deaths have occurred as a result of earthquakes in Utah. At least three deaths since 1900 were a result of earthquakes whose epi­centers were in Box Elder County. According to a 1934 newspaper account, Rufus Tiner, an employee of the cement plant west of Brigham City, was badly b u r n e d when coal dust which had gathered in the rafters of the plant exploded when an earthquake struck on 19 November 1919. Tiner died from the effects of the burns several years later.170 All of the earthquakes fade into relative insignificance, however, INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 245 when the great earthquake of Monday morning, 12 March 1934, shook the county. The 12 March episode was indeed a severe earth­quake. The initial shock, at 8:00 A.M., registered 6.6 on the Richter scale. A second shock came three and a quarter hours later, register­ing 6.1. Aftershocks occurred on 15 March and 6 April. On 15 March two aftershocks, an hour and three-quarters apart, registered 5.1 and 4.8, respectively. The earthquake was felt in Burley, Mackay, Idaho Falls, Paris, and Lava Hot Spring, Idaho, and in Rock Springs and Kemmerer, Wyoming, and as far away as Elko, Nevada.171 The Box Elder News reported that the shaking lasted a full minute and, "The tremor was distinct and quite severe for this section. The motion of the earth seemed to be from east to west, and was felt in all parts of the city. Many families here were seated at the breakfast table and each person experienced quite a sensation when the dishes began to move about the table, electric light chandeliers began to swing and the windows rattle."172 Earl Croft, a trapper who had an old boxcar rigged up as a cabin in the center of the earthquake zone about half-way between Salt Wells and Kosmo, told Reed Bailey, a geology professor at Utah State Agricultural College: "I was in my cabin when the first shock was felt at about 8 o'clock. I ran to the doorway, and was thrown out. From my knees, I watched my car-an old touring car-roll back and forth over the rough ground as the earth rocked. It was impossible to get to my feet." Later in the day Croft, while tending to his traps, experi­enced an after shock. "I was kneeling on the ground setting a trap, when suddenly I felt another shock. Again I tried to rise, but was thrown violently to the ground. On both sides of me, to the east and west, water spouted out of cracks in the ground. I thought my min­utes were numbered; but then, just as suddenly as they started, the shocks ceased, and the water stopped except for bubbling springs which brought black sand to the surface, forming small craters or cones." A sheepherder in the district told Bailey that so violent were the shocks that they threw his horse to the ground.173 Known as the Hansel Valley earthquake, it originated near Kosmo, Utah, and was felt as far north as southwestern Montana. It was one of the largest earthquakes to occur in Utah after settlement in 1847.174 246 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Windows were broken at the power plant below Cutler Dam and as far away as Magna. The tremors were felt from Boise, Idaho, on the n o r t h to Rawlins, Wyoming, on the east, west in Nevada, and as far south as Delta, Utah.175 Closer to the county, severe damage occurred on the Utah State Agricultural College Campus in Logan where the Home Economics Building had to be abandoned. Elmer G. Peterson, president of the college, reported that the quake "split the three-story brick econom­ics building from top to bottom. Students already assembled for eight o'clock classes fled to the campus as the chimney fell with a roar." In Preston, Idaho, the high school building was severely damaged.176 The chimney fell off the school building in Snowville, as also occurred in Kelton, where it was reported that "after the chimney of the building had fallen, school was dismissed and the fire of t h e b u i l d i n g put out."177 N u m e r o u s other buildings were damaged, including the school house in Cove, Cache County.178 In Salt Lake City "furnace doors swung open, while water splashed out of Monday m o r n i n g wash tubs. Late sleepers were awakened as beds were rolled out from walls and frantic house pets scurried for out-of-doors. . . . Dishes were knocked from the pantry walls and stoves jerked off balance until they fell over."179 Even the Angel Moroni statute atop the Salt Lake temple was in danger. Opinion was divided this afternoon on whether the Angel Moroni, tall golden statue on the topmost spire of the temple, had been tipped and turned slightly on his base. Officials of the Church architect's office seemed to think there had been a slight forward movement in the statue, with a slight twist to the right causing the Angel's trumpet to point a few points south by east. Bishop David A. Smith of the Presiding Bishop's office declared that the statue has not moved, but many people disagreed.180 In Ogden a m a n asleep on a bench in the Union Station "woke up to see t h e great s t a t i o n chandeliers swaying overhead and the brass cuspidor beside t h e bench tilting first one way a n d t h e n the other. He was wide awake in a moment and leaped over the bench with a shout and headed for the door."181 248 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY has shaped the landscape of the county. The land remains seismically active, and many await what is referred to as the coming of "the big one. Bear River Migratory Bird Reserve In the early fall of 1843 the county and the area of the present-day Bear River Bay Migratory Bird Refuge was explored by the famous "pathmaker" Captain John C. Fremont. Following the Malad River (which he called the Roseaux or Reed River), Fremont accom­panied by Kit Carson, Basil Lajeuaesse, and others explored the Bear River delta. At one of the campsites on the delta, he described the Bear River "bordered with a fringe of willows and canes, among which were interspersed a few plants. . . . The whole area was filled with multitudes of waterfowl, which appeared to be very wild-ris­ing for the space of a mile round about at the sound of a gun, with a noise like distant thunder."188 The Bear River delta provided food and fiber for a number of Indians living in the county, Fremont identified them as members of the Digger tribe (Shoshoni). Fremont happened upon several fami­lies of Indians who were fishing in the Bear River delta using weirs and nets. Less than a decade later, another government explorer, Howard Stansbury, reported that the Bear River delta was "covered by immense flocks of wild geese and ducks, among which were many swans." Stansbury was astonished at the number of water fowl. "I had seen large flocks of these birds before in various parts of the country, and especially on the Potomac [River], but never did I behold any thing like the immense numbers congregated together. Thousands of acres, as far as the eye could reach, seemed literally covered with them."189 The Bear River delta was highly productive commercially for hunters. Ducks, geese, and other water fowl were hunted prodigiously from the 1880s to the turn of the century. Dressed water fowl sup­plied local markets as well as markets in Chicago, Kansas City, and San Francisco. Acccording to one report, as many as 335 ducks were killed in one day in 1899 and over 5,600 ducks were killed in one sea­son. 190 INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 249 Before being made a federal migratory bird refuge in April 1928, the area was popular for private duck clubs. Three of the important clubs were the Bear River, Duckville, and the Chesapeake. David Moore Lindsay, a renowned outdoorsman at the turn of the century, included a full chapter on duck hunting in the Bear River area in his 1912 book, Camp Fire Reminiscences or Tales of Hunting and Fishing in Canada and the West. Through the efforts of Alexander Wetmore, among others, Congress authorized the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in 1928, and plans were developed for land purchases, river control works, road building, and other work associated with the reserve. In 1929 plans were announced to construct a marginal dike around the first three units between the marshes and the lake. The dike would be twelve miles long, five to eight feet high, and 100 feet wide at the base.191 In September 1932 President Herbert Hoover signed a procla­mation declaring the area a refuge and establishing its boundaries. The high-water cycle that impinged upon so much lake-front property and caused extensive damage to both commercial business holdings and the dikes of the Lucin Cutoff in the mid-1980s all but destroyed the Bear River Bird Refuge. It did destroy the Refuge Headquarters and much of the dike system. At this writing, more than a decade later, the facility has not yet fully recovered. The Depression and the New Deal The prosperous 1920s ended abruptly in the great crash of October 1929, and the ensuing Great Depression. Box Elder fared better than many places, because it had an agricultural base. The farmers and orchardists at least had food. They raised potatoes and corn and tomatoes and peas, and had cherries and apricots and peaches and pears and plums to bottle for the winter. There were cows