A History of Box Elder County

The towns of Box Elder

C H A P T E R 1 3 THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER T J. he chief means through which people make their mark upon the landscape are in their farmland and cities. Before the coming of people, particularly the nineteenth-century coming of industrial-agricultural people, Box Elder County was virtually a desert land, its topography broken here and there by watercourses, springs, moun­tain peaks and ridges, and their attendant oases of green amid the alkali playa, grass, sagebrush, and rock of the high desert which make up the valleys, slopes, and alluvial fans of the Great Basin. Those who settled Box Elder County at the beginning of the sec­ond half of the nineteenth century had to impound available water resources, divert the flow of the natural watercourses, and bring the precious life-giving water to bear on the virgin soil in order to raise the crops they needed for subsistence in a largely inhospitable land. Plowing, planting, ditching, and fencing of the land have resulted in the patchwork of fields which dot the arable land of Box Elder County with many-hued and multi-textured crops. In addition, those early colonists had to build settlements-places both habitable and inhabited-where water could be concentrated for gardens, mills, 306 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY and other industrial and mercantile pursuits. Those settlements blos­somed into the towns of Box Elder, and seeded later towns and vil­lages which now dot the landscape. There were two main waves of village-settling in Box Elder, com­ing approximately fifty years apart, and two other periods of estab­lishment of railroad towns, sidings, and attendant settlements. The first white settlement period is exemplified by the county's chief town and county seat, Brigham City, the first settlement in Box Elder to be explored and sited, and the first settlement of the Mormon colonization north of the Ogden River. The site for Brigham City's predecessor, Box Elder settlement, and its physical manifestations, Davis Fort and Box Elder Fort, was chosen for two main reasons. It was at the mouth of Box Elder Canyon, where the water of Box Elder Creek could be diverted to irrigate the land, and it was near a significant Shoshoni settlement and on the Shoshoni trail between Box Elder and Cache valleys. It was also bisected by the great Salt Lake Cutoff, the road to the gold fields of California Brigham Young sent his first main colonies to settle near the major bands of Indians-the Ute, the Paiute, and the Shoshoni. Box Elder Settlement was the first settlement among the Shoshoni. With that objective gained, other settlements could be built along the streams of Box Elder. What became Brigham City was, then, one of only a handful of the most important colonies established by Brigham Young. We have discussed the founding and development of Brigham City at some length. We have also discussed Brigham City's gentile complement and rival, the archetype of railroad towns, Corinne, the Burgh on the Bear. They are paradigms, in Box Elder County, respec­tively, of the first-tier agricultural settlements and the railroad towns. The third type of settlement, which we will call second-tier towns, those settled around the turn-of-the-century with the coming of Cutler Dam and the Bear River canal system-making possible more irrigated farmland, and hence more settlements-are exemplified by Tremonton and Garland on the gentile side and Thatcher and Fielding on the Mormon side. This chapter provides historical sketches, in alphabetical order, of Box Elder County communities.1 THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 307 Bear River City Bear River City takes its name from its proximity to the major tributary of Great Salt Lake, which flows in its deep channel east of the town, giving its name not only to the town, but to the valley through which it flows, from its passage through what were once called "the Gates" where it enters the valley, to its debouchment into the Great Salt Lake south of Corinne.2 Bear River City is located on State Highway 13, about eight miles south of Tremonton, about four miles north of Corinne, and about ten miles northwest from Brigham City. The site was settled in 1866, by a group of Scandinavian immi­grants who set out from Brigham City to found a colony on the Bear River. They first lived in dugouts in the river bank, just north of the old iron bridge across Bear River, which was demolished in 1998. The settlers intended to dam the Malad River, and divert the water for their farmland. After only a year, they found it necessary to build a fort to protect themselves in case of Indian attack. The fort, on block twenty of the Bear River survey, was perched on the brow of the hill, and commanded a sweeping view. It was a number of years before the settlers dismantled their fort and built houses on town lots. In building the dam, the settlers thought that the water from creeks near Malad, Samaria, and Portage would provide enough fresh water to make the project successful. Promoters of the project included some of Brigham City's prominent men: Judge Samuel Smith, Peter Adolph Forsgren, and Christian Hansen. Water from the Malad canal irrigated sorghum cane which was crushed in a molasses mill built southeast of the old iron bridge. Though the mill was close to the Bear River, it was high on the bluff, and its water wheel was powered by Malad River water. As settlements were established in the Malad River Valley, farther north, water from the creeks was diverted for irrigation there, and the waters of the Malad, true to its name, became alkaline, and useless for irrigation. The settlers were discouraged, but Brigham Young encour­aged them to stay and promised that they would some day use water from the Bear River. 308 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY The town was incorporated in 1885, and platted in 1888. Water was purchased from Blind Springs and Wheatley Spring, to be used for culinary purposes. It took until 1924 for sufficient funds to be raised and the project brought to completion. Their first church-school building was replaced by a sturdy brick chapel, which was dedicated in 1899 by Lorenzo Snow, who by that time had become president of the LDS church. The first funeral held in the building was that of Bishop Carl Jensen. A later addition was made to the building, providing a recreation hall and classrooms, with additional changes being made in 1939, 1952, and 1978. The roof of the addition was taken off by a ferocious wind in the mid- 1990s, and the entire building was condemned, demolished in 1996, and replaced with a much more functional and much less attractive "standard" LDS chapel. After the damming of Bear River and construction of the canals, Bear River City was finally served by Bear River water. The now-fer­tile land produced canning crops, such as tomatoes, peas, corn and beans. With closure of the canneries, local fields now produce mostly hay and grain, or silage corn for beef and dairy animals. Many local residents are employed at Thiokol, Nucor Steel, and La-z-Boy. Community growth is hampered by a limited supply of culinary water. There is only one store left in the business district, adjoining the post office. The social life of the community centers around the church and the large city park, complete with rodeo grounds, little league ball diamond, baseball diamond, and soccer field. Each summer the com­munity celebrates the 24th of July, with parades, a baby show, races, programs, and a rodeo. In 1900 Bear River City had a population of 390. By mid-century the population had increased slightly to 438 and in 1990 to 700. Bear River City has remained a small Mormon agri­cultural community. Beaver Dam Beaver Dam is located on Utah Highway 30 between Collinston and the Cache County line, about twenty-two miles north of the county courthouse in Brigham City. It lies north of the northern tip of the Wellsville range, just south of the canyon of the Bear River, and THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 309 east of the river channel. Since completion of Interstate 15, Highway 30 has been one of the major highways to Cache Valley, and has brought increased traffic along the edge of Beaver Dam.3 Beaver Dam takes its name from the beaver dams found along Bear Creek when the town was first settled. Bear Creek, which runs through the town, was later named Willow Creek. The creek origi­nates in the Wellsville Mountains, and, after quitting Beaver Dam town, empties into the Bear River west of the Union Pacific railroad tracks west of town. In 1863 and 1864 Jonathan Bowen and Henry Busenbark into the area came looking for a place to pasture cattle. The town was set­tled in 1867 or 1868 by people from Providence in Cache Valley. Others came north from Deweyville. Early settlers came from the Bowen, Durfey, Miller, Dunn, and Busenbark families. The foothill and bench land around the townsite were found to be ideal for dry-farming. They dammed Bear Creek, dug an irrigation ditch, and laid out a seventy-two acre field. As is the sad reality in many of Utah's val­leys, overgrazing caused the creek to cut a deep channel along its course through town. In some places the channel is fifty feet deep, and is gouged down to bedrock. The first school was built in 1883. The most prominent building in Beaver Dam is the outstanding rock chapel, completed in 1898, under instructions from LDS stake president Rudger Clawson. Rock for the building was cut by John H. Bott, who had learned his trade working on the Salt Lake Temple. The building, which cost between $6,500 and $7,200 was dedicated by Rudger Clawson, by then one of the twelve apostles in the LDS church. A recreation hall, classrooms, and a relief society room were added to the chapel about 1948, and the renovated building was rededicated by Le Grande Richards. Another addition was con­structed in 1987, providing a new, larger chapel. The new addition, by Cooper-Roberts architects, was sympathetic to the original struc­ture. Though the original massing of the little chapel has been lost, the new addition is the best possible compromise. Beaver Dam is the nearest town to Cutler Dam, about a mile north of town, and to the Brigham City Mercantile and Manu- 310 HISTORY OF Box ELDER COUNTY facturing Association's cheese factory, built in the canyon south of town, in the foothills of Wellsville Mountain. The original Beaver Dam schoolhouse was replaced by the "yel­low brick schoofin 1905, which in turn was replaced by a larger school in neighboring Collinston in 1927. The town has had three stores, one at a time. When the Oregon Short Line was built through Bear River Canyon, the tracks passed close to Beaver Dam. A flour mill was built in 1916, powered by electricity from the old Wheelon power plant. The mill produced good flour, but the cost of electricity was so high that the mill, which went through several owners, proved unprofitable. The Johnson Hay Fork was an invention of Joseph S. Johnson, son of early Beaver Dam settler Jarvis Johnson. Some five hundred of the forks were produced and sold in Box Elder County, Cache Valley, and other areas. Conrad Johnson operated a wheat puffer and produced King Kernel puffed wheat in the old rock school house behind the flour mill. Apparently the old advertisements for puffed wheat were accu­rate. According to Russell Johnson, "The puffing action sounded like a large cannon being fired." The people of Beaver Dam installed a pumping plant large enough to irrigate five hundred acres of land, in 1921. The $18,000 cost of the project, plus the cost of electricity to operate the pumps made the project ultimately unprofitable. The chief source of employment in Beaver Dam is farming, but, besides Alton Veibell's well-known gas and diesel engine rebuilding operation, Beaver Dam residents are employed at Thiokol, La-z-Boy, Autoliv, Moore's Business Machines, Utah Power and Light, and Utah State University. Beaver Dam has never been incorporated, and community ser­vices and functions are furnished by the cooperation of the citizens. Besides Cutler Dam, and Early Park, one of the local sights is Garth and Veda Kidman's "Tractor Patch," a menagerie of old tractors and farm equipment. Bothwell The town of Bothwell lies 4.5 miles west of Tremonton, on Salt THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 311 Creek. Bothwell is twenty miles northwest of the county courthouse in Brigham City.4 It covers an area 4.5 miles wide and six miles long. It has a population of approximately 400 people. The elevation is 4320 feet with 120 to 140 frost-free days each year, and eleven to fif­teen inches of annual precipitation. The topography is level to slightly sloping, and the land is adaptable to raising wheat, barley, corn, oats, alfalfa, onions, beans, potatoes, peas, sugar beets, tomatoes, sunflow­ers, and safflower. There are few days in the summer when the tem­perature exceeds 100 degrees. Winter days and nights are seldom colder than 20 degrees below zero. The earliest accounts written about the Bothwell area tell of beautiful waves of tall bunch grass covering the lower region and of tall sagebrush growing on the hills. From inscriptions found on the rocks at the head of Salt Creek and artifacts dug up on the farms adjacent to the creek, it is apparent that Indians obtained water from Salt Creek and used this area for hunting grounds and camp sites. The first white settlers came to the Bothwell area to take advan­tage of the Homestead Act. They settled near Salt Creek, as it was the major source of water for the region west of the Bear River and Malad River. The first white home in this area was built by Andrew Anderson from Bear River City. Soon others followed to take up homesteads and plant dry land wheat. They hauled water from Salt Creek. In 1892, after several years of construction, the Bear River canal system was completed, and water flowed into the arid region in suf­ficient quantities to irrigate thousands of acres of land. The commu­nity was named for John R. Bothwell, the engineer and promoter of the canal system Most settlers were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, and an LDS branch was organized in 1894. Joseph M. Stokes was set apart as presiding elder. In 1898 a ward was orga­nized, and Stokes was called as bishop. He presided for fourteen years. Three LDS buildings have served the community. The present one, a beautiful red brick structure dedicated in 1948, has been remodeled twice. The church is the center of all entertainment, such as dances, drama, banquets, ball games, and socials, as well as wor­ship services. It remains the center of all community activities. 312 HISTORY OF Box ELDER COUNTY Some of the first settlers who bought land under the Homestead Act, and became farmers in Bothwell, were of German descent and were members of the Christian Apostolic Faith. They attended church in Tremonton. These people came about the same time as the settlement of Tremonton, and shared aspects of their culture with the Tremonton settlers. The first school was held in 1894 in a small frame building on the west banks of Salt Creek. There were about twenty pupils, who walked or were transported in wagons or sleds to the school. The sec­ond school was also frame, located a half mile west and a quarter mile north of the first school. The third school was a brick structure and was located just west of where the LDS church now stands. The bricks were made by John Sommers on the banks of Salt Creek. After a series of earthquakes in 1908, the building was condemned. In 1909 a new brick building, with four classrooms, was erected. It served ele­mentary students until 1967, at which time the students were bussed to Tremonton. Mail service was established in the area by James Ipsom. He would pick the mail up at Bear River City and bring it to his home in Bothwell where the residents would go to collect their mail. In 1895 Mrs. Margaret Priest was appointed the first post mistress. The post office consisted of a room in her home. In 1898 the post office was moved to the Foxley Store and was given the name of "Point Look Out Post Office." A Rural Free Route for mail delivery was established in 1909, and mail is still delivered six days a week to all RFD box holders. The first telephone lines were extended from Tremonton to Bothwell in 1907. The first phones were the old oak crank type that were attached to the wall. Only a few lines were brought into Bothwell, so everyone who signed up to have a phone installed was on a party line. As many as twelve to fifteen homes were serviced by one line. It proved to be a very efficient method for everyone to get the local news and happenings in the community. The dial system was installed in about 1950, and the number of parties on one line was cut to five or six. Improvements were gradually made until all residents were provided a private line. The first settlers used tallow candles to light their homes, and in THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 313 Hauling sugar beets from Appledale, now West Corinne, May 1911. (Box Elder County) time coal oil lamps became available. Later several families had car­bide light systems installed in their homes, and some bought gaso­line- powered washing machines. Before World War I, attempts were made to bring electricity to Bothwell, but war scarcities made mate­rials unavailable. Later committees were organized, and after several unsuccessful attempts electricity was finally turned on in Bothwell in April 1926. At first, people were interested in electricity only for light­ing. All the comforts and conveniences of electric power came later. When the first settlers came to Bothwell, they got their water from Salt Creek, hauling it in barrels on skids or in wagons. When the canal was completed in 1892, nearly everyone used water from it. They dipped the water, strained it through cloth into barrels, and let it settle. It was used for drinking, washing, and other purposes. Later many of the citizens dug deep wells. Most of the water from wells was too salty to be good. However, Rasmus Anderson, Fred Dienger, and Thomas Payne were able to get good water from their wells, which they shared with their neighbors for drinking. In 1935 Eli Hawkins started work on a project to get federal funds through the PWA or WPA to pipe water from the spring east of Bothwell to supply the community with good clean culinary water. It was necessary to incorporate the area into a town so it could be 314 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY bonded in order to get funds for the water project. In February 1937 Harry Drew was elected mayor. The county commissioners were approached with a petition to form a town, and it was approved for incorporation in April 1937. Work was started on the water project in the spring of 1938. By July 1940 nine miles of trenches had been dug, the pipes all laid, the water turned on, and the system accepted. The water system continues to serve the community in 1999. Before 1960 the community was totally dependent upon agricul­ture for its economic base. Every farmer raised acres of sugar beets, the main cash crop. Many farmers had feed-lot cattle and raised lambs and hogs. Most farmers had small herds of dairy cattle, raising grain and alfalfa to feed all their animals. The milk from the dairy herds was picked up daily and taken to Tremonton or Cache Valley to be processed. In the late 1930s a few of the local men tried raising large flocks of turkeys. They met with enough success that through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, at least one-fourth of the farmers were involved with brooding, growing, and finishing the holiday birds. Some had several flocks of over 5,000 birds in size. This proved a successful enterprise most years, but some years disease would cause severe losses. Several farmers also had chicken farms, and produced eggs for consumers in Tremonton and surrounding communities. Bothwell is now an unincorporated area. At this writing, there are only three dairies in Bothwell and only one farmer is involved raising turkeys. The U&I Sugar Factory closed its doors in 1975, and there­fore there are no sugar beets grown in the valley. There are now no egg producers. There are still a few hog producers and also some feed-lot cattle and beef cattle producers, as well as a sod farm and a large potato farm. Only half of the residents now depend on agricul­ture for their livelihood. Many work at nearby industries. Thiokol Corporation is located ten miles west of Bothwell, and employs many residents of the community, as does Nucor Steel, located twenty miles north, and La-Z-Boy Company in Tremonton. Some are also employed by the school system. All of these industries help to pro­vide a healthy economy for the area. Tremonton is the business and shopping center for Bothwell, providing banking services, a hospital, and stores, which supply most of the needs of the valley. THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 315 Brigham City Because the history of Brigham City has been extensively covered in the main body of the text, only highlights will be given in this sec­tion. Brigham City, that is, Box Elder Creek, was a place of habitation by prehistoric Indians, who used Flatbottom Canyon as a route to and from Cache Valley. There was, when the Mormon settlers came, in the middle of the nineteenth century, a Shoshoni camping ground on the creek where John Adams Park now lies. The area was explored by the fur trappers of the early nineteenth century, and by the government explorers who came some years later. Jesse C. Little explored the area for the Mormons shortly after the main body of pioneers arrived in 1847. The first permanent settlers, William Davis, James Brooks, and Thomas Pierce, came in the fall of 1850, to reconnoiter, and then returned with their families in the spring of 1851. Their camp, called Davis Fort, was along the banks of the creek, in northwestern Brigham City. Rising spring runoff and vermin caused abandonment of the fort. An "Indian scare" forced construction of another fort in 1853, called Box Elder Fort, or the Old Fort. Lorenzo Snow, an LDS apostle, was called at the October 1854 LDS general conference, to take fifty families to Box Elder. Most of them came in the spring of 1855. At that time a city plat was sur­veyed, and the settlers moved onto city lots. The first industrial building was a grist mill, at the northeast cor­ner of Plat A, overlooking the Indian camp. The first public building was the court house. Though expanded, the original portion remains in use, the oldest-functioning court house in the state. Box Elder settlement was renamed Brigham City by Lorenzo Snow, in honor of Brigham Young. It was in Brigham City that Brigham Young delivered the final public address of his life, just ten days before his death, as he completed the reorganizations of the stakes of Zion and of the priesthood, according to a revelation he received in St. George in April 1877 at the time of the dedication of the temple in that city. Brigham City was one of the showplaces of the Utah Zion. It was 316 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Brigham City Main Street shortly after the dedication of the sign 19 September 1928. (Utah State Historical Society) the cradle of the United Order movement, started by Lorenzo Snow in t h e 1860s. Brigham City was one of t h e most successful of the cooperatives established t h r o u g h o u t the Mormon kingdom in the 1860s and 1870s. It did not breathe its last gasp until the national financial Panic of 1893. Brigham City was founded as an agricultural community. It was bypassed by the Transcontinental Railroad, but was on the line of the Utah Northern, the Utah Idaho Central, and the Oregon Short Line. During World War II it was the site of the Bushnell Army hospi­tal, which closed immediately after the war ended. The hospital buildings later became a boarding school for Native American chil­dren. In the 1950s Thiokol Chemical C o r p o r a t i o n built its Wasatch Division plant west of Brigham City, a n d its coming changed the demographics, the face, and substance of the town. Brigham City is the county seat of Box Elder County. Until 1892, THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 317 when a municipal water system was constructed at a cost of $24,000, water came from three sources-irrigation ditches, open wells, and pumps. Twenty years later the system was upgraded and expanded, at a cost of $35,000. Electric power came first about 1890. A generator was attached to the waterwheel at the old woolen mill building, but an unreliable supply of water, slippage of the belts operating the generator, and the limited capacity of the generator itself, led to abandonment of the effort. The Knudson family spearheaded installation of a new source of electric power. A generator was installed in a small building near the OSL depot and operated by a coal-fired steam boiler. The system went into operation on 15 January 1892 with a capacity of seven hundred lamps. The steam engine was too expensive to be profitable, the generator was installed at the mouth of Box Elder Canyon and operated by water power. The plant was insufficient to meet the city's needs and voters approved a $30,000 bond on 1 September 1902 for a new power plant. The Brigham City Municipal Corporation built the one unit, 470 horsepower capacity plant in 1903-04.5 By 1920, the plant was at capacity, and the Knudson Investment Company sold its rights to Brigham City Corporation, paving the way for a new plant. The 1,200 horsepower plant went into operation 10 January 1922. Besides being the county seat, and the largest city in Box Elder County, Brigham City is the location of the school district offices and is, with the exception of Logan, the largest city in Utah north of Ogden. It is located almost equidistant from Logan and Ogden, and is a hub of business, industry, and commerce. In 1990 the population was 15,644 and in 1996 16,398. Cedar Creek Cedar Creek is one of Box Elder County's ghost towns. The site is located near the dry stream bed of Cedar Creek, as it comes down from the Raft River Mountains, eastward, into Curlew Valley. Farmers and ranchers moved into the area in the 1860s and 1870s, and by the first decade of the twentieth century a small community had devel­oped. By the end of the twentieth century, the community had been long abandoned. 318 HISTORY OF Box ELDER COUNTY In 1889, James Alonzo Tracy and Margret Melinda Whitaker as newlyweds took up a homestead on the main stage and freight road at Cedar Creek. The Tracy family owned and operated the only store for many years. Stephen Carr recounts the history of Cedar Creek in his book, The Historical Guide of Utah's Ghost Towns: By 1900-10 some twenty to thirty families lived in town and on the surrounding farms and ranches. Some of the homes were attractively furnished, others made do with comic papers for wall­papering in the upstairs rooms. The new school marm in 1916 was so homesick she couldn't sleep. She spent the first night roaming around her attic bedroom reading the wallpaper and chuckling, which no doubt relieved the anxiety of her situation. A frame school-church house was located on the eastern edge of town, in the vicinity of a log inn and store, called the Halfway House, where freighters and travelers stopped to eat and rest along the old over­land trail. Later, as the new highway system was being developed, the highway ran due west from Snowville to Cedar Creek, then southward and westward around Crystal Peak to Park Valley and beyond. The town had at that time a service station in addition to the store. Much of town activity centered in the school building, with hoedowns, home theatrics and talent shows. Bands of Indians were often seen migrating through town, making their living catching rabbits and collecting pine n u t s . . . . In as much as many of the chil­dren rode horses three to four miles to school, a supply of cheese and crackers was kept on hand for the occasional times a blizzard came up and marooned them overnight.... The little town never felt the need for more than the tiny gro­cery store, as Strevell, Idaho, a somewhat larger town, was just three and a half miles northwest up the road. The folks drove over every two to four weeks to do their marketing. The mail wagon dropped off the town mail at the Tracy home, and folks came by there to pick it up instead of having a regular post office. Around 1920-25, farming became extremely hard with cold winters and ever present low water in summer. Travelers were now bypassing Cedar Creek and finally the residents all moved way. Some of the best buildings were moved to other towns, others were left to crumble away. Only a few old, weathered, fallen and falling log and frame THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 319 houses remain in an area covered with sagebrush and grass. The small but forlornly picturesque town remnants lie eight-tenths of a mile on a dirt road south off U.S. Highway 30-S five miles west of the exit of State Highway 30.6 Collinston Collinston is one of the oldest communities in Box Elder County. Its center has been located in several places, and its history is closely linked to the development of transportation and industry in north­ern Utah.7 Collinston is located on Utah Highway 30 at the north end of the Wellsville range. Four miles to the east is Beaver Dam near the entrance into Cache Valley. Approximately five miles downstream from the mouth of the canyon where the Bear River enters the Bear River Valley is located the ford where Indians, trappers, and early explorers crossed the river. John C. Fremont probably crossed the Bear River at this location on 14 September 1843, on his way to Fort Hall. Captain Samuel J. Hensley used the ford in 1848, as he established the Salt Lake Cutoff. In 1848-49 some of the Mormon Battalion members, following Hensley's route, returned this way, from California. Captain Howard Stansbury crossed with wagons in 1848, and the Gold Rush emi­grants used this crossing to go to the gold fields of California, by way of Fort Hall or the Salt Lake Cutoff.8 As routes became better established, more and more travelers crossed at the Bear River ford. It was a good ford, with a stable bot­tom, but it was not always an easy ford. The river was wide, swift, and deep, and some of those who crossed were swept down the river. Each year several lives were lost. Two early settlers, Benjamin Hampton and William S. Godbe, foresaw the need of a ferry as a safer means of moving emigrants and freighters across the river. An act approved 30 January 1852, Laws of Utah Territory, granted the right to establish a ferry across the Bear River. In 1853 Hampton and Godbe established a ferry at the Bear River Ford. Toll charges were ten cents for a horse, twenty-five cents for a wagon. The first permanent settlers to the area came in 1860. Among them were Henry Busenbark and sons Alonzo and Monroe, who 320 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY * yc,? The central area of Collinston in the early part of the 20th century. (Courtesy Sonja Secrist Shelton) came from Providence in Cache County.9 They were followed by the families of Henry Jemmett, Thomas Potts, Mark Bigler, John Barnard, and the Sprague family. As travel increased through the area, traffic became too great for the ferry. In 1859 a bridge was constructed by Hampton and Godbe a few hundred feet south of the ferry crossing. It was said to be the first bridge over the Bear River. A small log building with a thatched roof was built near the bridge and became a stopping place for travelers. On 30 June 1864 the Holladay Overland Mail and Stage Company, coming from Salt Lake City, made its first run through the territory to Virginia City, Montana, and Boise, Idaho. In 1866 Benjamin Hampton obtained a charter from the Utah Territorial Legislature to build a new bridge across the Bear River. It was built on the original piers of the first bridge. In the same year William Godbe, Ben Hampton, Alvin Nichols, Sr., Mark Bigler, and others erected an eighteen-room, two-story rock THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 321 hotel and restaurant south of the bridge.10 Called the Stage Coach Hotel, it served as a home station for the Oliver and Connover, Ben Holladay, and Wells-Fargo stage lines. The hotel was the first overnight stop north of Salt Lake City. The trip from Salt Lake City took an entire day, and the horses were changed every ten miles. Shortly after the hotel was finished, a barn was built to accommodate the stage coaches and horses. In 1875 James Standing and his wife Mary exchanged property they owned in Salt Lake City with Hampton and Godbe for 584 acres of land, the stone house and the bridge known as the Bear River Bridge, together with all other improvements. The place became more of a home than a business venture, but the Standing Family continued to operate the toll bridge and provide meals and lodging for travelers. Leonard W. Standing opened a store and blacksmith shop down by the bridge in 1880. School was held at the inn and Hyrum Standing was the teacher. James Standing operated the toll bridge until 1883, when he sold it to Box Elder County. In 1864 Asenath Patton from Farmington, who had helped cook and serve meals at the old log structure that predated the hotel, mar­ried Mark Bigler. One of their sons, Jacob A. Bigler, married Agnes Standing, the youngest child of James and Mary Standing. After the death of James Standing, Jacob and Agnes Bigler acquired the home and property from the Standing estate and continued to run the hotel. The Bigler family owned and occupied the property longer than any others. On 26 August 1871 construction began for the Utah Northern Railroad, a narrow-gauge line from Ogden through the northern Utah communities to Franklin, Idaho. The railroad passed north through Brigham City, Deweyville, and crossed the top of the hill north of the quarry above present-day Collinston and over the Mendon Divide into Cache Valley. A train station was built northeast of present-day Collinston and named Hampton Station. The Utah Northern Railroad was completed to Hampton Station in June 1872, to Mendon by 19 December 1872, and to Logan by 31 January 1873. It was completed to Franklin, Idaho, by May 1874. According to tra­dition, local citizens changed the name of their community to 322 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Collinston to honor Collins Fulmer, a favorite conductor on the Utah Northern Railroad.11 With the building of the railroad, the importance of stage coach transportation began to diminish. Hampton's Crossing at the river remained, but the center of activity moved to the railroad east of the river. A railroad siding was established at the northern boundary of the track, and named Ukon. Not much is known about this first com­munity located on the northwest boundary of the railroad. A post office was first established in Collinston (located at the Ukon siding) in 1881, with William S. Hansen as postmaster. Mail was sent from Brigham City to the Ukon siding on the Utah Northern Railroad for the Malad Mail Route. Records mentioning the Malad Mail Route at the Collinston post office date to 1888. The nearby Hansen Dairy shipped its products from the Ukon siding to locations to the north and south. On 3 April 1878 the Utah Northern Railroad was sold at public auction and the name was changed to the Utah and Northern Railway. On 1 August 1889 it was consolidated with the Oregon Short Line. By that time it had become evident that the route over the northern tip of Wellsville Mountains was too steep for the narrow-gauge trains to pull through the deep snow during the harsh winters. The decision was made to widen the tracks and to change the route of the train to a location parallel to the old Utah Northern tracks, but approximately a half mile to the west. It followed a route parallel and east of the Bear River northeast through the Bear River Canyon into Cache Valley. The new Oregon Short Line route was completed through the canyon in 1890. When the railroad route east over the Wellsville Mountains was abandoned, so was the town of Collinston at the Ukon location. The new railroad siding for Collinston was located on the new Oregon Short Line tracks, about a mile to the north and west down the hill from Ukon. A map of Collinston dated 24 March 1891 shows a detailed street plan for the town of Collinston located in the north­east quarter of Section 9. This ground belonged at that time to Monroe Busenbark. Post office records also indicate that a post office was being operated at this location in 1891, and that Eliza Jemmett was the postmistress. THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 323 This second town of Collinston did not survive long. Again the railroad was directly involved. Not long after the new railroad station was established, it became evident that the choice of locations was poor. At the north location, the tracks left the flat land and climbed toward Bear River Canyon. Just when trains should have been build­ing up speed for the steep ascent, they had to stop at the Collinston station. Regaining speed for the climb through the canyon was diffi­cult. The decision was made to relocate the station farther south down the tracks at the present town site. Post office records indicate that application was made on 29 September 1892 to change the site of the post office from the north location to a new site situated on the southeast quarter of Section 17. This location became the center of the new and permanent site of the town of Collinston. The town was surveyed and laid out in lots on 12 November 1892. The post office had been moved to the south location by January 1893. Because all freight for Malad and Boise, Idaho, was unloaded at Collinston, it became as important a shipping center for points to the north and west as Hampton's Crossing had been for the stage lines, as all freight for Malad and Boise, Idaho, was unloaded at Collinston. The January 1898 issue of The New West Magazine, published in Brigham City by F. Will Ellis, states that in 1897 100,000 bushels of wheat were shipped from the Collinston station and that it was pre­dicted that "not less than five carloads of alfalfa seed, besides great quantities of barley, potatoes, onions, etc." would be shipped in 1898. During the prosperous years of the 1890s, businesses opened. John Baxter and Sons, Jed Earl, Boothe & Pierce, Evan Morgan, and Royal and Busenbark carried on mercantile businesses. Henry G. and Eliza Jemmett ran a large hotel and restaurant. In addition, Mr. Jemmett ran a livery, feed, and stage stable. Eliza Jemmett was post­mistress and also a licensed physician. Timothy and Julia Bigler Covert ran a store near the hotel. Mr. Covert was also the postmaster for a time. Dr. William G. Freiday practiced medicine in Collinston around the turn of the century. Benjamin Williams, the proprietor of the Malad and Collinston Stage Line, made daily trips between these points, a distance of thirty-five miles for a two dollar fare. Another store, owned by G. G. Sweeton, boasted a second floor which was used as a dance hall. A 324 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY confectionery and barbershop was owned by Jack Standing. A. J. Jenson ran a pool hall. In addition to his duties as a local doctor, Frederick Wach ran a drugstore. Hyrum Jensen ran a lumber yard, a hardware store, and a furni­ture store, and Jack White ran a blacksmith shop and store. Mr. Robertson sold Studebacker buggies to the people in the area. Dances were popular, and admission to the silent motion picture shows was twenty-five cents for adults and ten cents for children. Many of the town's young men played in the area's baseball league. In the years from 1893 to 1905, Collinston was the rail center for the northeastern part of the valley. In 1904, because of the building of the East Hammond Canal and the railroad, Collinston reached its peak as a shipping and business community. Hogs and cattle were shipped from the stockyards located by the railroad tracks. Wheat and beets and other farm products were shipped from the town to outside markets. In 1905 the Malad Branch of the Oregon Short Line was built through the center of the valley. Completion of the Malad Branch dealt the same kind of blow to Collinston that had been dealt by the Utah Northern Railroad to Corinne some thirty years before. Collinston began to wither as its importance as a shipping center began to wane and Tremonton started to bloom. The post office was an important institution in Collinston, func­tioning continuously for over 100 years. All of the mail for the north­ern part of Box Elder County was distributed at one time through the Collinston Post Office. When the post office closed on 9 April 1982, a rural route was established from Brigham City. Until 1900 Collinston had been maintained almost entirely by freighting, but at this time farming began to come into prominence. From 1889 to 1907, the East Hammond Canal was built to irrigate hundreds of acres of ground in the Bear River Valley. The area around Collinston became a rich farming district. More families moved in, building homes and planting crops. Some of the early per­manent residents were the Robert A. Fryer family, the Jacob A. Bigler family, the Hyrum Jensen family, and the John M. Saunders family. Other longtime residents of the area were the T.W. Potter family, the Sterling W. Secrist family, the William Rucker family, the James A. THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 325 Peterson family, the Ormes, and the Marbles. Some members of these families still live in Collinston today. Around the turn of the century, a one-room schoolhouse was built approximately a quarter of a mile to the south and east of the center of Collinston. In 1912 a two-room grade school was built just to the south of the first building. The number of children who attended the Collinston School dwindled over the years, and in 1962 the school was closed and the children were bussed to grade school in Fielding. In 1914 the Ogden Rapid Transit Company consolidated with the Logan Rapid Transit Company to operate an electric railway between Ogden and Preston, Idaho, that ran on the same roadbed used by the old Utah Northern Railroad above Collinston. It was called the Utah Idaho Central and was also known as the Bamberger. The Bamberger railroad proper came north as far as Ogden, where the Utah Idaho Central, or UIC began. To the people who lived along the line, however, the entire electric interurban, north to Preston, was known as the "Bamberger" line. In the mid 1920s the residents of Collinston put away their can­dles and oil lamps. Electricity lighted their homes. About that time telephone lines arrived. When Bear River High School was built in 1921, it was not large enough to accommodate the students east of the Bear River. Many of the high school age students from Collinston traveled on the Utah Idaho Central to Box Elder High School in Brigham City. Later, when Bear River High was enlarged students from Collinston began attending high school there. Many of the settlers in the Collinston area were members of the LDS church. In the early years Collinston members belonged to the Deweyville Ward. In 1896 the ward was divided, with Collinston and Beaver Dam (and later the residents at the Cutler Hydroelectric Plant) being joined as the Beaver Ward with Francello Durfey as bishop. In the early years church meetings were held in the little rock schoolhouse located just north of the Collinston School. Much of the social life and church activity of the early community was centered around Collinston Hall. Collinston Hall was built and used for a business. The LDS church bought the hall in about 1928, to be used 326 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY for church functions. T. W. (Bill) Potter offered Saturday night "pic­ture shows" there. During the 1950-51 remodeling and construction of the Beaver Ward building, the Collinston Hall was used quite extensively. After completion of the recreation hall at the Beaver Ward in Beaver Dam, the Collinston Hall was no longer needed by the ward. The hall was sold and was now owned for many years by LeGrande (Dick) Jensen, a life-long resident of Collinston, until his death in the early 1990s. In 1932-33 the State of Utah planned to put a state road through the Collinston area. The new state road was built west of the county road through about two hundred acres of prime farm ground straight into the town of Collinston. The state road shed was built just north of the LeGrande Jensen home. The residents of Collinston get their drinking water from springs or wells that they own themselves. Irrigation water comes from the East Hammond canal. Collinston is no longer the metropolis it once was. Most of the old buildings have been taken down or destroyed by fire. The one remaining store which housed the post office is closed, as is the fer­tilizer plant. The old hotel still stands, and has been for many years the home of Ed and Orpha Bowers, longtime Collinston residents. The old schoolhouse has been remodeled and turned into a home. The Hyrum Jensen home, the Mark Bigler home, and the John Saunders home, all built near the turn-of-the-century, still house town residents. The only businesses that remain in operation are a sandblasting and paint shop operated by Garren Anderson, the Hampton's Ford Restaurant owned by Sherrie and lunior Goring, the Bingham Truck Wash, and Wheatland Seed Company. As the twentieth century comes to a close, Collinston has a pop­ulation of about one hundred people and is unincorporated. The center of the town is located at approximately 14600 North Highway 30. Most of those who now live in the area no longer obtain their livelihood from farming. They work at Thiokol, La-Z-Boy, NuCor and various other places around the valley. Some new homes are being built by people who have come to work in the Tremonton- Garland area or in Cache Valley, but want to raise their families in the rural atmosphere of the Collinston community. THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 327 Corinne Corinne is located five miles west of Brigham City at the spot where the tracks of the westward-moving Union Pacific Railroad crossed the Bear River.12 Corinne's history is unique among the towns of Box Elder County. Corinne was founded primarily as a railroad town. It was the railroad town of Utah, founded to be a bastion against the Mormon Kingdom of Brigham Young and his apostles. As such, its history is fascinating and colorful. As the Union Pacific tracks entered Utah from Wyoming early in 1868, the raucous tent-town familiarly known as "Hell-on-Wheels" moved along with it, setting up at each end-of-track camp. Though the individual sites bore names like Wahsatch, Echo, and Bonneville, those "towns" were only repeated incarnations of the same group of merchants, saloon-keepers, shillers, camp-followers, and brothels, with temporary quarters, put up and torn down week after week as the tracks moved on, inexorably westward, toward the point of junc­tion with the eastward-pushing tracks of the Central Pacific, coming over the mighty Sierra Nevada from Sacramento. The Union Pacific came down Weber Canyon, and established a station at Ogden, but Ogden-at that time-was a Mormon town. North of Ogden was Bonneville camp. The tracks turned west before reaching Brigham City, and Corinne rose at the crossing of Bear River. West of Corinne, the tracks crossed the marshes, then began climbing more slowly the rocky east slope of the Promontory Mountains. There, Hall's Camp and Camp Dead Fall saw the erection of Hell-on-Wheels in its penultimate manifestation before its final glory at Promontory Station, serving the needs of the workers not only of the Union Pacific, but of the Central Pacific as well. It was not long after the driving of the ceremonial spikes and the drinking of the ceremonial champagne that both railroads agreed that Promontory Summit was far too isolated to be the division point. They agreed that the Central Pacific would buy and lease the UP tracks and right-of-way as far as Ogden. Promontory Summit became only Promontory Station, one of many small towns along the CP line. Ogden, however, was a Mormon town, and the railroad had not 328 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY yet gained ascendancy over the town and changed its culture. The only place in between suitable for a real railroad town was Corinne. Thus it was that the mass of Hell-on-Wheels withdrew to Corinne, to form the nucleus of a city. Not only was this a railroad town, it was a rallying point for all those who hated, feared, or were discomforted by the Mormon cul­ture. Colonel Patrick Connor, who had been virtually isolated at Fort Douglas on the bench east of Salt Lake City, threw in with the rail­road people. Because he had been in Utah the longest, the infant set­tlement was named Connor, or Connor City, in his honor. The town site was surveyed in February 1869 by the Union Pacific Railroad. The railroad company received alternate city lots for its service. By 25 March the survey was complete, and a grand survey it was, three miles square. Founders hoped the city would become the capital of Utah. There was an entire block set aside for a university, and another for a Catholic church. From this bastion, the Gentiles, as the Mormons called them, would ultimately take over the state. It was decided by the proud founding fathers that the city needed a more suitable grand name, and the name they picked was Corinne. Various stories are told about the origin of the name. It was the name of a character in a popular novel of the day; it was the name of a pop­ular actress of the time, Corinne LaVaunt. The most likely source, however, is Corinne Williamson, daughter of General J. A. Williamson, land agent for the Union Pacific (which surveyed the town and held alternate lots). Williamson was the first temporary cit­izen- mayor of the city. For whom his daughter was named is not specified. Perhaps it was the actress. Though Corinne was the city's official name, she was given many appellations. It's founders fondly called her Corinne the Fair. The Mormons called it the Burgh on the Bear, or the City of the Un- Godly. Initially, the city took hold, and grew. It was incorporated on 18 February 1870, and eventually had a population between 3,500 and 10,000, depending upon the time of year. Corinne was positioned to be a hub of transportation and com­merce. Trains of freight wagons lumbered between Corinne and the Montana mines. Produce went north, ore came south. Before long, THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 329 steamboats were plying the waters of Bear River and the Great Salt Lake, serving the mines in the area of Stockton, Tooele, and Ophir. The most famous steamboat was the City of Corinne. The city had banks, stores, a grist mill, a smelter, even a cigar factory. It had a grand Opera House, with a spring dance floor (underpinned by springs from box cars). It was the largest such hall north of Salt Lake City. Corinne had a baseball team, an ice skating pond, and hotels, one of them-the Central Hotel-a fine two-story brick structure. There were, according to some reports, twenty-eight saloons and eighty "soiled doves" plying their wares among the men of the railroad and freight yards. The law firm of Johnson and Underdunk provided a handy device which operated somewhat like a slot machine. With the inser­tion of a $2.50 gold piece and the pull of a handle, one had a signed, sealed, legal divorce document lacking only the names of the parties involved. The first water system utilized steam pumps to raise water from the Bear River into settling tanks. It was then distributed in wooden pipes to homes and businesses in the community. Corinne had a large population of Chinese, and laundries, cook­eries, and other establishments were crowded into Corinne's Chinatown. Corinne was unique in Utah for its grand celebration of Independence Day, the Fourth of July. Throughout the rest of Utah, the big summer celebration was twenty days later. To further distin­guish itself, the city fathers passed an ordinance prohibiting polygamy within the city limits. There was even a petition requesting the removal of the territorial capital from Salt Lake City to Corinne. Rallies and caucuses of the Liberal Party of Utah, numbering among its supporters the likes of William S. Godbe, Elias L. T. Harrison, Edward W. Tullidge, Eli B. Kelsey, William H. Shearman, and excom­municated Mormon apostle Amasa Lyman. The Liberal party sought to bring the economic system of the rest of the United States to Utah. After the Utah Northern was extended north through Brigham City into Idaho, Corinne began a decline. Ogden was the junction 330 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Main Street in Corinne during the summer of 1940. (Utah State Historical Society) city. The building of the Lucin Cutoff and rerouting of through rail traffic west over the cutoff was another blow. Though there were spurts and gasps, one incident to the build­ing of the Bear River Canal system, Corinne declined. Even the canal turned against Corinne. The water leached alkali salts up through the soil, and the crops and trees died. Corinne withered on the vine. It was not until Clarence G. Adney, John Craner, and others organized the Corinne drainage district and laid miles and miles of drain tiles underneath the farmland that the alkali was leached out and the ground returned to productivity. Corinne survived as a town because of the land, not the railroad. Brigham Young had said that agriculture was to be the mainstay of Utah, and his prophecy has come to pass. Corinne has struggled for sources of fresh water. C. G. Adney and others bought a spring on the foothills of Wellsville Mountain and built a good water system for Corinne. A. V Smoot and others began planning a water system for West Corinne in the 1940s, before that, THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 331 "Corinne City had a water tap as a courtesy to west Corinne people. They would come sometimes several times a day (in the summer) to fill up their ten-gallon milk cans to haul out to their homes and stockyards. This happened for fifty-two years . . . "13 More springs were added to the system in 1957 and as late as 1990. Corinne had the first U.S. weather station in Utah, the first non- Mormon meeting house, the first water system, the first drainage sys­tem, the first export of precious metal ore to the outside, the first public school, and, of course, the first (and only) divorce vending machine. One by one, the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, and the Methodists left as Corinne withered, and Mormon farmers bought up the surrounding land. The Opera House became the LDS chapel, until it was razed to construct a "proper" chapel in 1952. As of 1993, Corinne had a population of 635 in the city proper and 1,200 in the greater Corinne area, most of them members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . However, citizens have undertaken an important project to restore and preserve the 1870 Methodist-Episcopal Church in Corinne-the oldest non-Mormon church in Utah. The main occupation is farming, with many employed at Thiokol, Morton (Autoliv), Hill Air Force Base, and other local busi­nesses and industries. Corinne, with one of the most unique histories in all of Utah, is now a fairly typical small Utah town. Elwood Elwood is located two miles southeast of Tremonton, and four­teen miles north from the courthouse in Brigham City. The first set­tler in the area was a sheep and cattle rancher by the name of Davidson. He sold his interests in 1879 to Abraham and Allen Hunsaker. Later others joined them at the site. Another influx of set­tlers came from Bear River City in 1882. Apparently the name of early Elwood was Fairview. When the Bothwell Canal was completed, other settlers came in 1894-95 from Mona in Juab County and from Salt Lake City. They settled about a mile north of the main settlement. The Fairview Branch became the Manila Ward on 16 December 1900.14 As was its 332 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY arbitrary custom, the U.S. Postal Service dictated a name change to avoid confusion with the Manila Voting precinct in Utah County. The town became Elwood, and the northern settlement North Elwood. The Manila Ward Built a chapel, but was made a part of the Tremonton Ward in November 1914. For a period of time in the early years of the twentieth century, Elwood had its own school. By 1937 the children of North Elwood were bussed to Tremonton. Eventually the Elwood school was closed. An LDS ward was later organized in Elwood, and a brick chapel built in 1928. The building was sold in the 1980s, and the people of Elwood attend church services elsewhere. The population of Elwood was 525 in 1910, but dropped to 294 in 1970 before rising to 575 by 1990 and 632 in 1996. Etna Etna is located five miles south and west of Grouse Creek, and is the westernmost settlement in Box Elder County. It is located on Etna and Warm creeks four miles east of the Utah-Nevada border. Etna is over a hundred miles northwest from Brigham City as the crow flies, and half that again by the nearest paved route. According to one account, Etna was settled "in 1875 by Valison and Alma C. Tanner, and its early name was West Fork (of Grouse Creek)."15 In fact, the two early school precincts at Etna and Grouse Creek were called East and West Forks.16 Because a permanent name for the location was required before mail could be delivered, the mail carrier, Charlie Morris, named it Etna.17 Etna shares its history with Grouse Creek. There are five ranches in Etna in 1999. About a mile west of the site of Etna is Etna Hot Springs, the water of which is now pumped and piped some distance to the east to provide geothermal resources for a large home built in recent years. Fielding Fielding is located twenty miles west of Logan and fourteen miles north of Tremonton.18 It is bordered by the Bear River on the east and the Malad River on the west with Plymouth Peak to the north. In the past this area has been referred to as "The Flat" and "Poverty Flat." THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 333 In the 1870s John W. Hess and Isaac Zundel were called by the LDS Church as missionaries to watch over and help the Shoshoni Indians in this part of the Malad Valley (now Bear River Valley). While riding through the valley, Hess noted the springs and the growth of the grass and sage brush. He stated to Zundel that, after returning to Farmington, he intended to bring back one of his wives and some of his boys to homestead the land and use it for farming. At that time the land was being used for grazing by the larger cattle ranchers from this valley and also the ranchers of Cache Valley dur­ing the summer. With the Hesses came others from Farmington who settled in various parts of the valley. Some of them obtained pre-emption rights from the government to homestead the even-numbered sec­tions of land, and others laid claim to odd-numbered sections that the government had given to the railroad company as compensation for building the transcontinental railroad. Some of the people who claimed the railroad land could not show legal title to it; therefore, they lost their claims and moved on, declaring that the government did not have the right to give the land to the railroad. Some of the early homesteaders who were able to prove up on their land were: Myron J. Richards, Jed Earl, John Earl, Oliver Wood , Willard K. Welling, Joseph Pratt, Arthur Stayner, Mary T. Richards, Calvin Richards, and Ezra T. Richards. With the building of the earthen dam across the Bear River and the Bear River Canal System in 1888-90, more people came to the valley for work. They bought land and made their homes here. Fielding was founded in 1892, and named for the sixth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Fielding Smith (1838-1918), at that time second counselor in the LDS First Presidency. The settlers sought a place for a townsite to bring them together from their scattered condition throughout the "Flat." At first they considered a site to the north and east of where the townsite is today. The building of the Bear River Canal System was the deciding factor for the present site. If they had built where they first planned, they would have been above the canal, high and dry. Before the canal, the settlers raised mostly alfalfa and grain. Irrigation water made pos­sible lawns and gardens, and they started to cultivate sugar beets. 334 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY The committee working on the townsite then negotiated with Micah Garn, Oliver Wood, and Ebenezer Wilcox for land. The first home in town was a log cabin built by Chase Petersen on his home­stead. He later relinquished his holdings to a Mr. Briggs, who then passed them on to Micah Garn. Garn proved up on the land and received a U.S. patent on it. This home, along with a rock home built by Ebenezer Wilcox on land that he homesteaded, still stands in 1999. The original Garn home is at about 45 South and 200 West, and the rock house is 45 Center Street. These homes were built before the set­tlers brought their cabins into town. Some of the settlers who moved into town included Alice Ann Smith, Willard K. Welling, Frank Walker, Milton Earl, Lemuel Rodgers, James H. Hess, and Jed M. Hess. Fielding was incorporated in 1914, with a population of about 300 people, and the population has remained between 350 and 420 since then. On 18 October 1892 Micah Garn received permission from the Post Office Department to operate the first post office in Fielding. His office was at about 25 South 200 West. The town at one time also supported three stores: a meat market, a pool hall, and later a service station. Fielding has a very large facility to support the now consoli­dated schools. In the 1980s a community hall with a fire station was built. The town now has a volunteer fire department and a First Responder Group which also provides services to Collinston, Beaver Dam, and part of East Garland. Agriculture has always played an important part in the economy of the community. With the coming of the Second World War, Hill Army Air Field (now Hill Air Force Base) and the Ogden Defense Depot played an important role by providing employment for local people. Now Thiokol, La-Z-Boy and Nucor Steel support a large part of the economy The LDS Church is the predominant religion. The Fielding Ward was divided in March 1987, resulting in the people in the south end of Fielding being joined with people form the north end of Garland East Ward to form the Hampton Ford Ward. The middle school and high school students are bussed to Bear River Middle School and Bear River High School in Garland. THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 335 Fielding has a combination service station, grocery store, and U.S. Post Office. Electricity is furnished by Utah Power and Light, natural gas comes from Mountain Fuel Supply Company (Questar), and telephone service from Continental Telephone Company. Those who do not have their own wells are serviced by the community culi­nary water system. Residents usually travel to Tremonton or Logan for business, shopping, and medical services. Garland Garland is located about twenty miles south of the Idaho bor­der. 19 It covers an area from the east bank of the Malad River to the foothills on the west. It is in the middle of the Bear River Valley, about twenty miles north and some west of Brigham City, and twenty-five miles west of Logan. It is enclosed by mountains on three sides. The Bear River, which begins on the north slopes of the Uintah mountains, winds its way for 300 miles through Wyoming and Idaho, back through Cache Valley, through a rocky gorge in the Wasatch range, down through Bear River Valley and into the Great Salt Lake. It ends about eighty miles west of where it begins. The water from this river has had a profound effect on the history of Garland. Without that water, Garland would not be like it is today. Garland lies on the bottom of the ancient bed of Lake Bonneville, and people who live here enjoy the rich soil that was deposited during the period of the lake's predominance in the area. Most of western Utah including the territory all around the Great Salt Lake was the hunting grounds for the Fremont Indians. A great drought led to the downfall of this culture in A.D. 1300. In later times the Shoshoni Indians used northern Utah as their fishing and hunt­ing grounds. They wintered on the foothills west of Garland, partic­ularly at Point Lookout. In the 1820s trappers came through this area to trap and explore. Among them were Etienne Provost, Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, and Jim Bridger. In 1844 Captain John C. Fremont and his party explored this area. Fremont refused to accept the idea first presented by Joseph 336 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Redford Walker that the Great Salt Lake was actually a basin until he explored the region. The first permanent while settlements in the Bear River Valley were along the foothills and east of Garland-Bear River City, Collinston, Fielding, and Plymouth, near springs coming from the Wasatch Mountains. These people, and others from Brigham City, grazed their livestock in the valley, and found that the soil was better and easier to cultivate where access to natural spring water was avail­able. Some ploughing was done and water was diverted from the Malad River to irrigate the ground, but the undertaking did not prove successful and was given up. By 1889 homesteaders were attracted to the western part of the valley. The monopoly of the Corinne Mill Canal and Stock Company was almost broken up and there were rumors of a canal to take water from the Bear River to water the entire valley. The construction of a dam was already underway. Land could be obtained from the government merely by home-steading it-living on it for five years and making improvements, or by purchasing it from the railroad or from the Corinne Mill Canal and Livestock Company. At the time of settlement, the land was not covered heavily with sagebrush, but with rabbit brush, wheat grass, and bunch grass. Thomas E. King, one of the first permanent settlers, said: "On coming here we found this part of the country a range for grazing sheep and cattle. However, when we fenced, the land was cov­ered with a native grass, and in June 1890, the grass waved in the breeze just like a grain field, with a bunch of rabbit brush here and there." A. R. Capener, another early settler, said that he didn't get enough sagebrush off his 160 acres to fill a wagon. Mr. and Mrs. David E. Manning of Farmington, Utah, also came to the valley in the spring of 1889 to homestead. That spring Mr. Manning ploughed ten acres before returning to Farmington. He came back to his homestead in the fall and planted grain. After spending the winter in Farmington, the Mannings returned to their farm in the spring of 1890 to stay. They settled in what is now north Garland on one-quarter of Section 22. Thomas E. King of Farmington, Utah, came to north Garland on 23 March 1890. The next day he settled on his homestead-the THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 337 northeast quarter of Section 22, Township 12 North, Range 3 West Salt Lake Meridian. He and E. E. M a n n i n g purchased and hauled their fence posts from Washakie and shipped wire from Ogden to Collinston. They t h e n fenced the east half of Section 22, their land consisting of adjoining quarter sections. During this summer he did "much plowing, planted a s t r ip of corn which m a t u r e d and made splendid ears, built a house and shed, harvested 25 acres of wheat, planting that fall quite an increased acreage of winter wheat." In the spring of 1891 he brought his wife and baby from Farmington and took u p permanent residence on the farm. Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Vanfleet came from Farmington to Garland in 1889. Their purpose was also to obtain land by homesteading it. They o b t a i n e d 160 acres in Section 34. They b r o u g h t a t e am and wagon so they could do farm work. A. R. Capener was also one of t h e first settlers. He s t a r t e d to homestead in Bear River Valley on 30 November 1891. Capener obtained 160 acres, 80 of which had been ploughed. He paid $1,000 to Mr. Tommy Doman for a relinquishment. His land was included in Section 26. The deed to his farm was signed by President William McKinley. Capener brought with h im six small, poor workhorses, a double A h a r r ow which he had made, and a twelve-dollar plough. The valley at that time was very dry, and ploughing was difficult. The horses were so weak-their only food being from grazing at night- that they did well to make ten rounds a day on the mile-long farm. When they would hit a b u n c h of sod grass, t h e horses would stop dead in their tracks. Capener lived in a small shack that Doman had built. He married Mary Larelda Garn of Fielding on 12 July 1893 and built his own house. Other early settlers were A. H. Gleason, H y r um Rice, Walter Grover and Oscar Harris. William "Bill" Johnson settled by the spring west of Garland and fenced off 5,000 acres which he held against all comers for ten years. The railroad finally forced h im to relinquish his claim. The railroad had been given every other section of ground on both sides of the railroad for twenty miles. This was done to encour­age completion of the line. During this early d r y farm period, work consisted of ploughing, harrowing, drilling or broadcasting, and heading. Each settler did his 338 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY own work, except during the harvesting season when they would combine forces to work on the header or thresher. A man worked nine hours a day on a header for which he received one and one-half bushels of wheat or three bushels with a team of animals. Women worked long hours doing what had to be done for which they received no pay. Many people including the settlers had long dreamed of what could be if only the water from the Bear River could be diverted onto the land. Alexander Toponce, a freighter, miner, cattleman, contrac­tor, and promoter, purchased 52,000 acres of land from the Central Pacific Railroad Company for $1.25 per acre. In 1883 he took as a partner John W. Kerr, owner of a sheep herd, and they bought more land on the hills west and north of Garland for 47 to 50 cents an acre, bring their holding up to 90,000 acres. Toponce then filed on the water rights of the Bear River. Toponce and Kerr formed the Corinne Mill Canal and Stock Company. At one time they had 5,000 head of cattle, 26,000 sheep, and 1,000 horses and mules. Quoting Mr. Toponce: "Kerr made a contract with a man named John R. Bothwell to bring out a canal on the west side of the Bear River to water our land and the government land [by this time Kerr and Toponce had split, and their company failed]. John R. Bothwell was one of the best promoters I ever saw. He first filed on the water to be diverted from the Bear River where it came through the canyon in the Wasatch range. I held a filing on this water for 17 years and had spent thousands of dollars on surveys, but finally had to give it up." (M. J. Richards stated that there were prob­ably eleven different surveys before the final one.) "Bothwell then went to Kerr and got a contract with our Company. Kerr and I, by our fighting, knocked ourselves out of a half a million dollars." Just why John R. Bothwell of Kansas City came west and became interested in the irrigation possibilities of the Bear River Valley is not clear. After sizing up the situation, Bothwell returned to Kansas City to secure funds with which to carry out the enterprise. He succeeded in interesting the Jarvis-Conklin Mortgage and Trust Company, and they secured the support of Quaker societies in Glasgow, Scotland, New Castle, Ireland, and Burmingham, England. These societies bought two million dollars in bonds underwritten by Jarvis-Conklin. THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 339 A final survey was made at the cost of over $40,000. Bids were then called for, and in June 1889, the contract to build the canal was given to William Garland of Kansas City. Excavations began in September 1889 at the site of the old power plant at Wheelon. Camps extended from above the dam in Bear River Canyon to the standing bridge. A diversion dam was built in the Bear River just east of the Cache Divide. The dam was 375 feet long, 18 feet deep, and 100 feet thick. Two canals were then dug. The one on the north side of the canyon would water the land on the west side of the valley and was known as the West Canal. The other canal, the East or Hammond Canal, would take water to the east side of the valley. Each canal was 10 feet deep and 15 feet wide with a capacity of 500 second ft. of water. During the fall of 1889, about 7,000 men were working on this project. Some settlers, including Thomas E. King, worked on the canals. When it was learned that the Bear River Valley would soon have irrigation water, interest in the area rose sharply. Land agents in the East were promoting the valley, and people from places in Utah came to settled. At first, the families settled in North Garland. They came from Farmington, Cache Valley, and even Japan. The settlement in and around Garland was called Sunset, and the first LDS. organiza­tion was the Sunset Branch. These first settlers went to the Little Green Schoolhouse in East Garland for school, church, and social functions. Mail was delivered by horse and carriage from Hessville. Because of road conditions and poorly fed horses, the trip took two days. The people in Garland said they had "tri-weekly" service. The mail came one week and would "try" to come the next. Some of the leading cit­izens of Sunset met in the home of A. R. Capener in 1889 to see what they could do to get a post office. It was decided at this meeting to change the name of Sunset to Garland in honor of William Garland who was the contractor, builder, and at one time owner of the canal. Residents were also tired of hearing their town referred to as "Poverty Flats" and "Mud Flats." Plans for the new post office were approved in 1895. John Q. Leavitt built a frame building in North Garland, and A. H. Gleason was appointed as the first postmaster. Mr. Gleason would pick up the mail at Collinston and deliver it to the people. This he did until the railroad reached Garland in 1901. 340 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY The first school in Garland was built in 1889. It was one mile north of the main intersection in Garland. Eva C. Wilcox, a graduate of the University of Utah, was the teacher. She was highly respected by her students and their parents. This school building now became the center of activity for the residents of Garland. A tithing granary was built just south of Thomas E. King (now the Lorus King) home. It was 16 feet by 18 feet and 8 feet up to the square. An LDS Relief Society granary was constructed by the David E. Manning (now Glenn Manning) home. It served from 1899 to 1918. Walter L. Grover opened his mercantile business in North Garland. He also installed in his store the first telephone system in the valley, which was a toll telephone. When the Sugar Factory was built in 1903, the Utah Sugar Company bought forty acres from W. R. Vanfleet, surveyed it into town lots, and recorded it as Garland Plat B. North Garland was Plat A. The company then pro­ceeded to build fourteen homes to house its workers. The homes were placed along Factory Street and in the blocks south of Factory Street. Grover Mercantile, the Post Office, and other businesses were soon moved into Garland proper. By this time the canal system was owned by three different com­panies. There was a great need for a locally owned unifying agency whose interest was development-not just speculation. David Evans was one of the new successful owners of the Lehi Sugar Plant. He had arranged to have several Lehi farmers settle on lands in the Bear River Valley. Under his urging and along with that of George Austin, sev­eral Bear River Valley farmers, including Mr. Welling and Myron Richards, Sr., experimented with raising sugar beets. The beets they produced were yielding a higher percentage of sugar, and the tonnage per acre was much higher, than in Lehi. The Utah Sugar Company purchased large tracts of land and gained control of the canal system. The land was sold to farmers under long-term credit arrangements, with special encouragement to sugar beet growers. In 1902 this com­pany extended the East Canal to a point near Collinston. They let a contract to J. T. Hammond and the Hammond Brothers Construction Company which, in 1903, completed the canal to Calls THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 341 Garland's business district in the early 1900s. (Utah State Historical Society) Fort. The Utah Sugar Company then took steps leading to the con­struction of a railroad connecting Garland with the main line of the Union Pacific at C o r i n n e , Utah. The Oregon Short Line (Union Pacific) completed the branch line to Garland in 1903, in time to haul the needed machinery and material for the Garland factory which was ready to process the 1903 crop of beets consisting of 2,400 acres. The building of the sugar factory had a tremendous impact on the growth of Garland. The key personnel for the plant came from Lehi. They were young, well-trained, civic-minded people. Many other people came to farm the land and to establish businesses, and Garland began to grow rapidly. William Garland, in accordance with his contract, had built the West Canal as far as Fielding Street, east of the junction. From there, Amos Corey and his brother continued it to Corinne and thence to Thompson Ranch in 1890. The canal was built through Garland in 1890. Bishop Carl Jensen signed a contract to take the canal to a place about two miles from the middle of Thatcher. This work was com­pleted in 1892. In 1894 William Miller, S. L. Miller, and Tony 342 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Christensen extended the canal to Connor Springs. This completed the main line of the canal. A branch line of the canal, extending west of Garland through Tremonton and south to Appledale just west of Corinne, was built in 1896. Upon the completion of 111.5 miles of canals and main laterals and 125 miles of small laterals, about $2.5 million had been spent-$1.8 million by Garland and the Corey brothers. After the construction of the sugar factory and the building of fourteen houses for employees, the business buildings that had been established in Plat A or north Garland were moved to Plat B or the present location of Garland. People came from many places to start businesses in the new town. The Garland Globe was begun on 10 February 1906 when J.A. Wixom issued the first publication-a six page weekly of which he was editor and manager. Records indicate that thirty businesses were operating in 1914. That same year the Garland library and the LDS Tabernacle were built. In 1905 a new school was built on Tabernacle Square. A new water and sewer sys­tem were built. In 1904 a town government was organized. The tele­phone, a toll telephone, was moved from North Garland to Boothe's store. When the Riter Brothers store was built, a telephone exchange was placed in its top story. In 1911 Garland City spent $400 to buy a chemical engine with double tanks to fight fires. Garland grew fast. In the 1920s there were about sixty-five busi­nesses in the town, including three livery stables, three blacksmith shops, three medical doctors, a dentist, one Japanese store, two gro­cery stores, and a bank. The population was just over one thousand people. The Great Depression of 1929 started Garland on a downward trend as far as business was concerned. The Liberty Theatre closed. The number of grocery stores decreased. The bank closed its doors, one of the two pool halls failed, the Japanese store locked its doors and all businesses were affected adversely. The routing of the freeway through Tremonton had a negative impact on business in Garland and the community became a quiet residential area. In early 1999 Garland's population was just under 1,700. There are four LDS wards in the community and in 1999 a new LDS church was under construction. THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 343 Golden Golden was a western Box Elder County gold mining town estab­lished in 1899 and located twenty miles north from the Central Pacific Railway station at Terrace and six miles west of Park Valley. It was located just outside and south of the national forest in Century Hollow Canyon. The town was a prosperous gold and silver mining camp between 1910 and 1913 with an estimated five hundred work­ers. 20 During the 1890s prospectors and sheepherders Johnny Ango and Chubb Canfield located several likely claims. The largest of these became the Century Mine. Other mines were opened in the canyon, along the creek, and in the ravine, including the Golconda, the Buffalo, and the Susannah. Several log cabins were built to house the large number of workers. Other buildings included a store, postoffice, assay office, saloons, cook kitchen, and tool sheds. One of the saloons was given the name "Hurry Back," a name given for the large number of freighters and teamsters who stopped in the area. Teamsters would haul supplies and equipment from the rail terminus and make a long hard pull up the canyon, before hurrying back to the saloon for a drink. The team­sters also hauled ore from the mines to the railroad line at Terrace. About 1910 a five-stamp mill was built about 1,000 feet south of the original smaller mill. Hauling the equipment to the mine location from the railroad proved to be a major endeavor. Each boiler weighed over seven tons, and a large metal drive wheel that supplied power to different parts of the mill measured twelve feet in diameter. The heavy equipment was loaded onto heavy 33A size wagons that were built especially to haul the large machinery. Each wagon was pulled by sixteen-head of horses. About three miles from the mine, the road became too steep for wheeled wagons, so large bob sleighs were used. Each piece of machinery was transferred to the sleigh from the wagon. It took thirty head of strong work horses to pull the loaded sleigh over the rocks and up the steep hill. Whenever the sleigh would drop through the hard crusted snows onto the rocks underneath the snow, it would take very large jacks and strong men to place wood planks under the sleigh runner before the sleigh could continue. Once the boilers were in place, coal was the principal source of 344 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY fuel. It had to be hauled by wagon to the mill. In addition, hundreds and hundreds of board feet of lumber were used inside the mines and for buildings and boardwalks. All the lumber came from sawmills in the region including the Tracy Sawmill in Yost Valley and the Chadwick Sawmill on the Park Valley side of the mountains. The mines around Golden remained prosperous for many years. About 1907 the mines began to close when it became evident that the veins were pinching out. About 1930 a new group of men under John Marshall resumed mining operations as the Century Consolidated Mining and Milling Company. With new methods and equipment, they explored above and below the old mine strata in search of prof­itable veins. Some miners claim that after the 1934 earthquake, the fault in the earth slipped and concealed the veins even more. Although other prospectors have tried to find the vein, its location is still unknown. The old mill was torn down piece by piece by individuals trying to find any gold lost through the cracks. Grouse Creek Grouse Creek is located at the extreme west end of Box Elder County near the Nevada and Idaho borders.21 It is a hundred miles from Brigham City as the crow flies, and well over that via the nearest paved road, Utah Highway 30, south from Interstate 15 at Curlew Junction, then north from Grouse Creek Junction on an unpaved road. The first white settlers of Grouse Creek came in 1875 from Tooele, and settled on the West Fork. They were attracted to the area because of the many acres of natural meadows. Valison Tanner, Sr., and his brother Alma C. were the first to arrive. They brought with them co-op herds of cattle to feed on the natural meadow lands in the area. John Ferguson and Oliver Calgary came to help with the cattle. The settlement was first named Cooksville, from a family of early settlers including Benjamin Cooke who dug the first well in the area, finding good water at the sixteen foot level.22 William (Cotton) Thomas came from Brigham City, Utah, and shortly after he arrived, he named the valley Grouse Creek, for the plentiful Sage Grouse in the valley. THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 345 In 1876 other settlers arrived on the West Fork, later called Etna. They were Richard E. Warburton, William Gallagher, Ezra Rowberry, Seth Fletcher, Henry Merrill, Elisha Hubbard, Levi Beetal, Charles Brizzee, Thomas Atkison Philemon Merrill, Ara Sabins, Charles Smith, Sr., Charles Smith, Jr., Walter Henningway, Charles Kimber, Sr., Charles Kimber Jr., William Kimber, and B. F. Cooke. They came from Rush Valley, Tooele, a n d Grantsville, Utah, to engage in stock raising and some farming. D u r i n g the winter of 1877, Isaac Kimball, son of Heber C. Kimball, wrote a letter to the Deseret News in which he described the Grouse Creek Valley as a good place to locate homes and raise live­stock. This letter attracted the attention of Albert F. Richins, William C. Betteridge, Sr., Phillip P. Paskett, William P. Paskett, R. Allen Jones, and James R. Simpson of Henefer, Summit County. They decided to investigate the suitability of the location with the idea of establishing homes. It was decided the following men should make the t r i p as soon as weather permitted in the spring. Phillip A. Paskett, William C. Betteridge Sr., Albert F. Richins, and Robert Allen Jones started on 16 March 1877 and arrived five days later, locating claims on the East Fork. The land had not yet been surveyed, and was covered with large sage brush. Even so, t h e men decided to establish their claims. The first women to come to the East Fork were Ellen Simpson, wife of James R. Simpson, and Jane Richins, wife of Albert F. Richins, from Henefer, Utah. Soon to follow were David H. Toyn, Isaac Lee, Joseph B. Lee, Danial McLaws, Thomas Davis, James W. Betteridge, and Samuel H. Kimball. The first settlers built dugouts t h e n later log houses with dirt roofs, t h e n later modern homes. In 1878 the settlers on b o t h forks cleared land and raised some wheat. There were several very dry years with very little irrigation water, but the settlers continued to clear land and build their livestock herds. They endured many hardships. The closest place to get mail, groceries, a n d supplies was Terrace, a railroad town twenty-five miles across the m o u n t a i n or forty miles a r o u n d the m o u n t a i n . Later different individuals had stores in Grouse Creek. For several years the people owned a coop store, that was sold to a private owner in recent years. Irrigation Company of the East Fork, Grouse Creek, was formed 346 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY and incorporated according to the laws of Utah. In 1908 a pipeline from Buckskin Springs was built to service the community. It has been upgraded several times. On 17 July 1879 the Grouse Creek LDS Ward was organized by Oliver G. Snow, president of the Box Elder Stake. Samuel H. Kimball was set apart as bishop, Benjamin F. Cooke, first counselor and Philip A. Paskett, second counselor. The meeting was held in the home of B. F. Cooke. Meetings were held in homes until a log social hall was built in 1891. In 1912 a new chapel of native sandstone was com­pleted. It was a beautiful building with stained glass windows and a basement for recreation purposes. This building served the commu­nity for seventy-one years. It was torn down and a new brick chapel was built in 1983. The people hated to see the old building go but have enjoyed the new building. In 1882 a school was started with Phillip A. Pasket as teacher. School was held in a log tithing granary. Later a building of logs was built. A four-room school house was built of native dressed sand­stone. It has since been remodeled, and a gymnasium was built in 1980. The school teaches kindergarten through grade ten. Children attend grades eleven and twelve in larger communities and have to board away from home. The first mail was brought from Terrace by horseback or teams and wagon. Later the mail was picked up from the train in Lucin. Now the mail is delivered daily from Snowville. The first post office was built about 1890. Isadore H. Kimball was the first postmaster. In the early years a school and church were held on the West Fork (Etna) also but have been consolidated and held on the East Fork or Grouse Creek. Since the area was first settled, there have been no doctors in the community, but in the early days there were two trained mid-wives: Mary Hadfield and Ellen Blanthorn who delivered babies until about 1928. There was also a male nurse, George A. Blanthorn, who assisted in times of accidents and sickness. With the coming of cars, people have gone to larger cities for medical attention. At present the com­munity has an ambulance and some trained emergency medical technicians. In the 1910s Grouse Creek had a brass band that played at cele- THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 347 brations. They also had a good dance orchestra, which provided music for almost weekly dances. For years, at market time, cattle were trailed twenty-five miles to Lucin, and loaded on the train to be marketed in Ogden. Sometimes they were trailed fifty miles to Oakley, Idaho. Now they are trucked to market. The main occupation of Grouse Creek residents has been cattle and sheep ranching. In years past large bands of sheep grazed in the area. Electricity was brought to the community in 1952, mak­ing it possible to have modern conveniences. Though remote, life in Grouse Creek is enjoyable. Harper About five miles north of Brigham City, and just south of Honeyville, is the community of Harper, with one street (Utah Highway 38) about eight miles long, running north and south along the base of the Wasatch Mountains, prompting the remark that it is the longest block in the state of Utah.23 Homes are built on either side of the road, and the farms run from the mountains on the east to the cattails and tules on the west where the ground is fertile. Not long ago it was a rural village with Herefords and Holsteins cropping the bunch grass of large fenced pastures. Chickens and roosters pecked the dirt, their squawks and friendly crowing distinct in the country stillness.24 The early mountain air carried the yelps of the coyote from the nearby hills, and in the evening sunset could be seen the flight of ducks and geese above the western marshes. Today it is still rural and somewhat unchanged, but many new frame and brick homes and modern barns stand side by side with the native rock and mortar and heavy beamed original pioneer homes. Some of the pioneer rock homes have been preserved and are still inhabited; others are crumbling, half intact reminders of another era-of a basic, sturdier time when an uprooted people strived to find permanence and put down roots in a new land. Prior to the time of the first white settlers, the area was covered with the native grasses and vegetation. The high ground was too dry for cultivation and crop production, and the lower land except for a few fertile spots was too shallow and too full of alkali. The upper slopes were covered with loose rock, sage, sumac, and cedar trees, and 348 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY in the high rugged mountains on the east were found white and yel­low pine trees.25 The community was first known as Call's Fort after Anson Call. In July 1855 Call recorded in his history that Brigham Young " . . . called at my farm and counseled me to build a fort to secure the people I had with me against the Indians." The people he spoke of were immigrants, brought in by the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, who needed work and provisions. Again, from Call's earlier records: "I laid the matter before President Young, and he told me to select a tract of land where I pleased and open a large farm and set as many to work as I could and teach them to farm." This was the fall of 1854. In July 1855, after Young's visit, Call commenced to build an adobe house surrounded by a stone wall three feet thick, six feet high, and 120 feet square, laid up in mortar by a good stone mason. Call's Fort was in the northernmost outpost in northern Utah until Honeyville was established in the early 1860s. Call's Fort was also the first overland stage station north of Brigham. Call kept a blacksmith shop, a tavern, and furnished general accommodations for travel. Anson Call was not the earliest white inhabitant of the area. John Gibbs was the first to establish a homestead. He, along with George Foster, built a little shanty of rocks in the spring of 1852, and made a few other improvements. However, they moved to Brigham the fol­lowing winter because of danger from the Indians. In the spring of 1853, they plowed more ground and planted, and several families moved their implements and belongings into rough log houses. This nucleus of families working their small homesteads survived the win­ter of 1853-54, making it the first permanent settlement in the region.26 In the spring of 1856, Thomas Harper was hired to manage the Call farm, and he moved onto it with his family. Over the years the area has been called by various names: Call's Fort, North String, North Ward, and Lakeside. On 6 June 1906, the name of North Ward was changed to Harper Ward in honor of Thomas Harper, who was the first LDS bishop when the ward was organized 19 August 1889.27 Some early settlers were group of Welsh colonists who came from Salt Lake to the Brigham area. There are indications that there must have been some friction between the Welsh and the other set- THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 349 tiers, because they left Brigham, settled in the large area of Harper, and built some of the first homes and the first log meeting house. Their individual farms were divided into long narrow strips extend­ing from the east mountains and westward to the alkali. They stayed for a short time, but found the ground unsuitable for providing a good livelihood. About 1869 the Welsh moved from Harper to settle in Malad and Samaria, Idaho. To the early settlers and pioneers of Call's Fort, later named Harper, two objectives stand out. While making a living, their reli­gion and faith on God came first, and education or search for knowl­edge followed. In consequence, two school houses were con­structed- one at the north end and one at the south end of the com­munity. 28 These rock buildings were completed in 1872. The Lakeside School measured 22 feet by 36 feet29 (four walls and part of the floor of this building are still intact). The Call's Fort or North School was 22 feet by 40 feet. Most precincts found it difficult to support even one school. This community, however, was unique in that the Union Pacific Railroad had a line that ran the length of the community from north to south, and the tax from the railroad helped support the two districts. It continued to do so until 1907, when school consolidation came to Box Elder County.30 A new building was completed and put into use in the fall of 1911, combining both schools. This was called the Lakeside School, and was located just south of the LDS ward meeting house, which was also built of stone and was in the center of the area and dedicated in 1893. This was the fourth and last school house to be constructed in Harper. It consisted of two classrooms and a furnace room providing a central heating system. The restrooms were farther out on the hill. Originally, the students were transported in wagons or "hacks" pulled by horses. The first officially recognized hack driver was Thaddeous Wight, who served in that capacity from about 1906, into the 1920s, when Eli Pierce took over the duties.31 Before 1925 the high school students rode the U. I. C. railroad to school in Brigham. The prospective passenger stood on the tracks as the train was coming and waved a flag or other attention-getting device, and the strain would stop.32 One person recalls how he and his brother had to crawl out of bed at 4:30 A.M. on wintery school mornings and ride their 350 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY two big work horses down the lane to the UIC tracks to break a path in the snow for those catching the street car to high school. As in most of the early settlements, the LDS church was the gov­erning body of the community, and so it was in Harper. The first Presiding Elder of the settlement was John Gibbs (1853-56). In 1858 the branch moved to the new fort on the Anson Call farm. At that time John Gibbs returned to the area and again assumed leadership of the Call's Fort Branch, serving until 1860. In 1860 Chester Loveland became branch leader and served until 1865. From 1865 to 1866, the branch was presided over by James May. In 1866 Thomas Harper became branch leader and served in that capacity until 19 August 1877, when he was sustained bishop of the branch. The branch became a ward in 1879, with Thomas Harper continuing as bishop. He served in that capacity until his death in 1899.33 Bishops who followed him were Thomas Yates, Paul Hunsaker, Elbert Beecher and Jack Webster. Bishop Webster was the last bishop to serve in the original rock chapel when the building was sold in 1977. The Harper Ward now meets in the Honeyville Chapel. The water supply for the area comes mostly from mountain springs and wells on the property of each resident or group of resi­dents. The irrigation water also comes from springs and ponds. In later years farmers in the north end of the area have benefitted from the Hammond Canal which was put into use by the Bear River Canal Company. Mining was also part of the early history of Harper. East of the Elbert Beecher home there were four canyons, and each canyon has a mine that was opened in the early years. Antimony Canyon opened about 1945, for the purpose of digging antimony for government use in World War II. In a canyon to the north, located high on the south side of the canyon not too far below the top of the mountain, is a mine where most of the mining was done. It was begun in the late 1800s by Henry C. Baker and others and was quite impressive in its day. Harper was and is the kind of community with the kind of rural landscape that can be known and loved down to the last rabbit hole. In a region thick with human history, it changes according to older, seasonal rhythms: sowing and harvest, sun and cold, rain and THE TOWNS OF Box ELDER 351 drought. Basic human cycles also continue to matter: the joys and sorrows of family life, sickness and health, triumphs and failures, birth and death. Those who settled Harper were rugged and religious people. They struggled daily in the mud and mire of hard work and fed bread and milk to LDS apostles who came and stayed the night. They raised sheep, spun thread, wove cloth, and sewed their own clothes. They built homes, school houses and churches. They were true inhabitants with a razor sharp sense of place and purpose. Honeyville Honeyville is located between Harper Ward and Deweyville, on Utah Highway 38, ten miles north of Brigham City.34 It was pioneered about 1860 by Abraham Hunsaker of Brigham City, who secured land in the area for pasture and grazing. The first man to cultivate land in the area was Lewis N. Boothe, who came with his brother, John, and rented land from Abraham Hunsaker in 1861. It was not until 1866 that Joseph Orme of Call's Fort purchased land from Chester Loveland (later the first mayor of Brigham City) and built the first permanent dwelling. The first white child born in the new settlement was Emily Orme (Boothe), daughter of Joseph and Emily Green Orme. In the 1860s Abraham Hunsaker moved one of his wives, Eliza Collins Hunsaker, and two of his sons, Isaac and Allen, from Brigham City to the new settlement, which was named Hunsakerville, in his honor. He was made the first bishop of the settlement. According to local legend, Bishop Hunsaker humbly declined the honor, and the people named the settlement Honeyville, in honor of the hives of bees kept by the bishop. Some believe the settlement was named by the settlers "to remind them of their location, which was like Canaan-a land flowing with milk and honey." Some local residents say that Honeyville is a contraction of Hunsakerville (Hun-eville), and that the shortening came with the Utah Northern's station. Other settlers came to the new town from Brigham City, from England, and from Malad, Idaho. Early industries included charcoal burning, a lime kiln and brick factory, and a grist mill, built in 1867. There was a Honeyville Cooperative Institution during the period of the cooperatives established under the direction of stake president 352 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY Lorenzo Snow, and his successor and son, Oliver. Abraham Hunsaker and his family were active in establishing settlements in Carson Valley and in Northern Arizona. In 1865 a stage coach station on the east end of the pond was built and a grist mill was built west of town on Salt Creek in 1867. A ferry was established on the Bear River just north of the town. The Ferry was brought up the Bear River from the Great Salt Lake by a man by the name of Thurston. Later a man named Empey owned it, and it was known as the "Empey Ferry" for years. It was used by emi­grants going to California to cross the Bear River.35 The stage station was moved north to Crystal Hot Springs after a short time to serve the stage line and freight road that came from the west side of Salt Creek, along the mountains to Collinston, and over the divide and on to Montana. Honeyville Ward was established by Brigham Young with Abraham Hunsaker as bishop and Benjamin H. Tolman and Lewis N. Boothe as counselors at the time that Young reorganized the Box Elder Stake of Zion. The first public building, a rock structure, served as both school and chapel. It was later to become the Tolman store. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, ice was cut from the Bear River and stored by Benjamin H. Tolman and Jedediah M. Grant. It was cut in blocks about two feet by two feet square and stored in log build­ings and covered with saw dust. Benjamin H. Tolman also raised sugar cane which he made into sorghum and molasses using a horse-powered mill that he built. In May 1872 the Utah Northern Railroad Company built a nar­row gauge railroad through Honeyville. John W. Young was the man­ager. The first engine was called the John W. The three other engines were called: Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. To show the size of the engine, the story was told that a few miles south of here the engine tipped off the track. A yoke of oxen was hitched to it and pulled it on the track again.36 Honeyville received its town charter in 1911. The town president and board purchased some springs on the E. C. Wheatley and John Flint property, and a year later a culinary water system was put into service. According to Norma Grant Gilmore and Ray Boothe, THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 353 July 31, 1911, a meeting was called for the purpose of calling a special election concerning the question of incurring a bonded indebtedness fo $1,200.00 to be used for the waterworks system and lighting purposes. It was voted in favor of such a bond. Judges for this first election were B. H. Tolman, D. W Hunsaker and J. M. Grant with Enoch Hunsaker as an alternate judge. There were 56 eligible voters and 52 votes were cast; 31 "yes" votes, 20 "no" votes and one spoiled ballot. E. C. Wheatley and John K. Flint offered their rights to the water known as the Wheatley Springs for power purposes at a cost of $4,500.00 which was accepted. The springs had a three quarter foot flow per second which could be used for culinary purposes. A second election had to be held as there was not suffient water to furnish a town owned and operated electric plant. The order of voting was to be $3,500.00 for electricity and $11,500.00 for water for a total of $15,000.00. The judges elected were: B. H. Tolman, Enoch Hunsaker and I. M. Grant. The results were as fol­lows: Bonding for the Electric System: 34 yes votes; 18 no votes with one spoiled ballot. Bonding for the water system: 36 "yes" votes; 16 "no" votes with one spoiled ballot. For some reason the electric system never materialized. The water system was estab­lished in 1912. A cement reservoir was built and has been improved upon until we have as good a water system and as pure water as can be found in the state. In 1918 more springs were pur­chased and added to our water system and in 1920 the water sys­tem was extended. Also a new galvanized 2 inch pipe was laid under the railroad tracks and a 3 inch pipe was laid west of Salt Creek.37 After installation of the water system, "It seemed too different just to t u r n on a tap, a n d the water flowed into the trough to water the animals instead of standing there working the ' p u m p ' handle to fill the trough in the old corral. After the coming of the water, many old pumps just stood silent and abandoned."38 In 1912 Honeyville had two railroad stations, one with an elec­t r i c t r a i n r u n n i n g every two h o u r s , between Ogden, Utah, and Preston, Idaho, and the other, the Oregon Short-Line railroad, oper­ated with four passenger trains stopping daily in Honeyville. The rail­road brought mail to the Honeyville post office. Honeyville business 354 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY establishments included a mercantile store, candy kitchen, butcher shop, confectionery, barber shop, a blacksmith shop, and flour mill. Recreational and educational facilities included a closed-in swim­ming pool, an ice-skating pond, hand sleigh riding hill, toboggan hill (Killer Hill, by name), a little red brick school house, and a sewing school where young girls and women were taught sewing. Electric power came in 1915. About that time reports circulated t h a t a sugar factory was to be built by the U t a h - I d a h o Sugar Company on a site near the Bear River west of town. A railroad spur was built from the main line to the site a n d a good sized hotel was built, also an office building was made ready. But the factory was not built. The hotel is n ow the Buddist church and recreation center, and the office was converted into a private residence. Over the years there have been four LDS chapels in Honeyville and four school houses. Gilmore and Boothe relate the story of the schoolhouse bell: We had a large bell hanging in the school house belfry. We all loved to swing on the rope and ring the bell. It could be heard for miles. It had a delightful tone sounding in the crisp air. It almost became a second Liberty Bell as it was rung when peace was declared at the end of World War I. It was rung by Ray Boothe and others. It is said that they rang it for several hours until Bishop Wheatley put a stop to it. When the school house was not needed for holding school any more, the bell was torn out of the belfry and sold to the Oregon Short-Line Railroad Company and it was taken to Sun Valley, Idaho where it now resides. Shame, shame on whoever did this dastardly deed.39 Just n o r t h of Honeyville is one of n o r t h e r n Utah's best-known water resorts: Crystal Springs. The spot, known in earlier years as Madsen's Hot Springs, is reputed to be the location of the largest hot and cold springs which arise next to each other in the country, if not the world. The water is said to be quite saline and have a radioactive component, salutary to arthritis and other joint ailments. On 8 July 1911 Honeyville was granted a town charter by the Box Elder County Commission. Israel Hunsaker was selected town board president; Elazrus Hunsaker, Orson Loveland, Abraham Wheatley THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 355 and A. R. Burke members of the town board of trustees, with Abinadi Tolman as town clerk. Israel Hunsaker, Enoch Hunsaker, Leo Hunsaker, John G. Wheatley, Thomas Wheatley, John M. Boothe, Parley Hunsaker, B. Albert Bingham, Horace N. Hunsaker, H. Ross Coombs, D. Leon Gardner, Ray Boothe, Bryon E. Hunsaker, and Boyd K. Gardner all served as Presidents of the town board of trustees. In November 1981 a general obligation bond election was held in Honeyville. The citizens voted in favor of bonds to construct a city hall and fire station. On 22 August 1983 Utah governor Scott M. Matheson issued a proclamation declaring Honeyville a third class city. Steven B. Johnson, David L. Forsgren, Boyd K. Gardner, Abran R. Garcia, and H. Paul Orme have served as mayors of Honeyville. In 1986 the city council passed a revenue bond to raise funds to construct water storage facilities and upgrade the city water system. In 1996 the city council again passed a revenue bond to raise addi­tional funds to dig a well and provide a water storage facility on property given to the city by the William S. Ellis family. Currently the city has well storage facilities on the south and north ends of the community. Howell Howell is a farming area located just off Utah Highway 83, and about two miles south of Interstate 84, nearly thirty miles north and west of the Box Elder County courthouse. Howell townsite was laid out in 1910. It was a project of the Promontory-Curlew Land Company of which Congressman Joseph Howell was president. In an advertisement for the project, in 1914, a grand picture was painted of the opportunities in Howell Valley: The non-irrigated and grazing lands of western Box Elder County owned by the Promontory-Curlew Land Company of Logan, Utah, are the best cheap lands in the state. They were acquired from the Charles Crocker estate, and originally were a part of the govern­ment's land grants to the Central Pacific Railroad Company. The towns of Snowville, Howell, and Promontory are adjacent to company holdings. Thousands of acres have been sold since 1910.40 Many of the first settlers of Howell did not come from afar, but 356 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY from other areas in northern Utah. They included Charles E. Gunnell, Cyrus W. Bailey, and John L. Baxter of Wellsville, Nephi Nessen of Newton, Christian Fennesbeck of Logan, William Andersen of Petersboro, all of Cache County, and Thomas L. Davis and George J. Wood of Willard, Box Elder County.41 A two-room brick schoolhouse was constructed in 1911. A branch of the LDS church was organized on 18 July 1911, and in April 1915 a ward was created. Church services were held in the schoolhouse until completion of a chapel that was dedicated by Apostle Rudger Clawson on 24 June 1917. Irrigation water came from Blue Creek Springs-three miles north of the townsite. The water was stored in a reservoir a mile north of the townsite, and two canals on both sides of the valley car­ried water to farms. Culinary water was obtained from Hillside Springs and provided to homes through a water system. Iowa String The Iowa String is a local designation given to an area of farms along 6800 West between Utah Highway 83 and the Box Elder County Fairgrounds in Tremonton. The area was settled in April 1898 during Box Elder County's "Second Tier" of settlement by people from New Sharon, Iowa, who were led by Harvey Catell. After Catell journeyed to Utah for an onsite inspection with VS. Peet, land agent for the Bear River Land 8c Canal Company, he returned with high praise for the project. The Utah-bound settlers loaded their cattle, horses, equipment, and pos­sessions into railroad box cars, along with a good supply of lumber with which to build houses. Among the group were tradesmen who expected to become part of the community. Among the early settlers were the Hazel, Vickers, Knudson, and Watland families. It was suitable for settlement, this land in the Bear River Valley, irrigated by the new canal system, but it was not par­adise. "The Vickers family and most of the tradesmen became dis­couraged and returned home. However, the Harts and Watlands cleared the land of the huge sagebrush, plowed the ground, and planted crops which were too late to mature so were cut for hay. Next THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 357 A herd of sheep on the Iowa String in January 1928. (Box Elder County) season they were more successful; wheat yielded sixty bushel to the acre, and oats, one hundred fifteen bushels."42 About two years after the Iowa group came, a group known as the German Colony came from Tremont, Illinois. Among them were the Ricker, Goder, Kickok, Bairs, Filburn, Bishop, Stone, Kniefel, Tallmarc, Croner, Winzeler, Baer, Keatly, Bennet, Vance, Brinkman, and other families. The people of the Iowa String built a hall which served for school and church meetings in 1899. It was known as the Union School because several denominations used it for religious services. Both groups built attractive homes and substantial outbuildings. The qual­ity of the farmland was enhanced with the coming of the drainage district for which John Somers built a tile plant near his home on the bank of Salt Creek to produce tiles for the drainage system.43 Kelton The site of Kelton is located on the line of the old Promontory branch of the transcontinental railroad, north of the northernmost point reached by that line, about eight miles west of Monument Point, and some seven miles west of Locomotive Springs. Kelton is 358 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY about sixty miles northwest of Brigham City and sixty-four miles from the Utah-Nevada border. Originally known as Indian Creek for the stream flowing south­ward from the Raft River Mountains, the area was renamed Kelton for an early stockman in the area.44 The town of Kelton developed in 1869 after completion of the Central Pacific Railroad. Kelton became a stage stop and freighting point for goods shipped north to Idaho, Montana, and Oregon as well as Snowville, Yost, and Park Valley. "Kelton, at its peak, contained quite a number of buildings. One of them was a fine brick school house. It boasted several fine two story hotels, well stocked stores, comfortable homes, a whole row of saloons and gambling halls, and even a telephone exchange. The Post Office there was established on December 16, 1869."45 The town was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1934. Three-foot wide cracks opened in the earth, buildings and houses shook violently, and the schoolhouse had to be abandoned. Kelton was virtually totally dependant upon the fortunes of the railroad. When the Lucin Cutoff was built in 1903, the town began to decline, and when the tracks of the Promontory Branch were removed in 1942, Kelton died. The old railyards and homesites are vacant, and only the cemetery remains to mark the spot. Lucin Lucin is located in far western Box Elder County seven miles from Nevada, and vies with Etna for the honor of being located near­est the Nevada border. It is one hundred miles northwest of Brigham City on a direct line and over one hundred twenty miles by road or along the old railroad line. Lucin was a creation of the railroad, and its name has achieved permanence chiefly due to its becoming the junction point of the old Promontory line of the Central Pacific and the new cutoff, built just after the turn of the twentieth century. The cutoff was given the name of the junction of the old and new lines, and became the Lucin Cutoff. It was named, according to most accounts, for a fossil bivalve mollusk, Lucina subanta, found in the area. Lucin's movements and reincarnations form an interesting foot- THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 359 note to the history of the transcontinental railroad and Box Elder County. Apparently there was an end-of-track camp named Lucin along the Central Pacific tracks as the railroad moved east toward its meet­ing with the Union Pacific. Historians Anan Raymond and Richard Fike state that their "Field investigations identified remains of a sid­ing and foundations of dugouts and other structures. Artifacts observed on the surface of the site suggest a short-lived occupation established in 1869 by Euro-Americans and Chinese."46 According to Raymond and Fike, "Engineering records indicate that section station called Lucin was established on July 6, 1875, at mile post 680.5."47 Facilities were relocated from the camp site to the 1875 Lucin. Raymond and Fike note that "Railroad documents show that Lucin contained a foreman's house and train car body north of the grade and a section house and Chinamen house south of the grade. Onside investigations verified the locations of these structures. Analysis of artifacts found on the surface suggests that occupation lasted into the 20th Century."48 With construction of the Lucin Cutoff in 1904, the junction of the old line and the new line, just a half mile west of the end-of-track camp and 1.7 miles west of historic Lucin, became known as Umbria lunction. The nearby railroad facilities were given the name Lucin. With the transfer of the name Lucin from historic Lucin to the rail­road station in 1904, "historic Lucin was renamed Grouse and finally dismantled by the railroad in 1907."49 Lynn Lynn is a small ranch area located in the southern half of Junction Valley in northwestern Box Elder County. The head waters of the Cassier Creek (South Fork of upper Raft River) flow through the narrow valley which widens as the valley slopes north towards the Utah-Idaho border. Lynn is approximately 95 miles west of Tremonton, and fifty miles south of Burley, Idaho. The settlement is within a few miles of the Vipont and Lucky Guy Opportunity mines, the latter in Cotton Thomas Basin. The name Lynn is a corruption of the surname of John Lind, who, with his half-brother, Alexander Anderson, came to the valley 360 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY from Grantsville, to which they had immigrated from Sweden. Their stay in Grantsville was less than cordial and they moved to Junction Valley in 1882. In the 1920s there was an LDS church, an elementary school, and mail service to homes in the valley. All of these services, however, have been abandoned. Raft River Rural Electric Power provides ser­vice to the valley. The roads are gravel and are maintained by the Box Elder County Road Department. This area is somewhat isolated, and the winters can be hard and long, with considerable snow and wind. The ranchers' source of income was from the cattle and sheep that grazed on the mountain ranges in the summer and in the lower ranges in the spring and fall. Under controlled and good manage­ment, the forage is a sufficient and satisfactory feed supply for seven to eight months of the year. Supplemental feed (hay and concentrate) must be fed for four to five months during the winter, depending on the severity of the winter. Only two families reside in Lynn year round, but four to six other ranchers spend the summer months in Lynn caring for their hay and grain crops. The irrigated crop land is generally sloping and is watered by sprinkler or flood gravity flow irrigation method. A fair water supply is available from natural creeks and springs and from the Lynn Reservoir. Under normal conditions, the rangeland has an ample stock of water available. Mantua Mantua is located in what was known as "The Little Valley" five miles east of Brigham City, on U.S. Highway 89. The valley was first used as a cattle "herding ground" by people from Brigham City. Abraham Hunsaker of Brigham City and Honeyville had a summer home in the area where members of his family herded cows and made butter and cheese. Mantua was settled in 1863, largely by Danish immigrants sent from Brigham City. They were sent to raise flax for the Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association, hence the early names "Flaxville" and "Little Copenhagen." At one time the settlement was also known as "Geneva." Among the names identified with Mantua are Jeppsen, Olsen, Nelsen, Nielsen, Jensen, Andersen, Sorensen, Petersen, Rasmussen, Schow, Keller, and Hailing. THE TOWNS OF Box ELDER 361 The town's current name derives from Mantua, Portage County, Ohio, the birthplace of Lorenzo Snow. In 1864 some of the original settlers moved to Bear Lake, but were replaced by other families from Brigham City, and the town plat was laid out. Its main street was the road leading from Brigham City to Logan, and which later became U.S. Highway 89. The flax enterprise met with success. "Hans P. Jensen was appointed to oversee this work. In 1864, Mr. Lars Hailing had less than half an acre in flax; from this he raised twenty bushels of seed. The flax was prepared for spinning by Peter Olsen Hansen, who had learned the trade in Denmark. The coarser part was spun and woven into cloth from which grain sacks were made, and the finer parts were spun into threads used for sewing purposes. For many years this work was carried on successfully by many of these settlers."50 Mantua was also known for producing large crops of wheat, oats, alfalfa, potatoes, and fruit, especially strawberries. After having been made the first president of the newly completed Salt Lake Temple, Lorenzo Snow organized a Temple Workers' Excursion to Brigham City, on the train. Along with the temple workers came the First Presidency and other LDS church leaders. Among other activities, they were taken on a side trip to Mantua to dine on the strawberries there. Some of the settlers from Mantua participated in settling north­ern Arizona, as well as furnishing men and teams to bring immi­grants from the Missouri River to Utah. From the beginning, Mantua was considered a suburb of Brigham City and was represented by one member of the Brigham City Council until 1911. From its settlement until the reorganization of the stake by Brigham Young in 1877, Mantua was a branch of the Brigham City Ward. On 9 September 1877, Mantua Ward was orga­nized. Mantua received electrical service from Utah Power and Light in 1914, at a cost of $3,000.00, and its culinary water system was com­pleted on 16 July 1921, at a cost of $20,270.97. The event was cele­brated by a rally, a luncheon, and a dance. In the 1960s, under the driving force of Brigham City mayor Ruel Eskelsen, Brigham City obtained rights to many of the springs 362 HISTORY OF BOX ELDER COUNTY in Mantua, in order to secure an adequate water supply for future growth in Brigham City. The county seat also purchased much of the farmland in Mantua Valley, and constructed a large reservoir for irri­gation purposes in Brigham City. It was good for Brigham, and pro­vides a spectacular view coming down from Logan, but it raised the water table so much in Mantua that the land, the homes, and future development were significantly hampered. Mount Hope, which had been named by Lorenzo Snow in 1865, became a promontory in the Mantua reservoir. With the widening of Highway 89 in the early 1950s, the road was re-routed west of Mantua town, and bypassed the business dis­trict. Further widening of the highway in the 1990s changed accesses from the highway to the town, providing an overpass at Willowmere west of Mantua, closing the northern junction of the highway and Mantua's main street, and moving the one in the center of town. On the eastern edge of the valley are a couple of pure, cold springs which furnish a significant flow of water, which is now being utilized by a state-operated fish hatchery that provides Bear Lake cut­throat and rainbow trout to surrounding lakes and rivers. Mantua is also the jumping-off place for the beautiful but unpaved road leading south into the Wasatch Range to Devil's Gate Valley and on past the Willard Basin CCC Camp and the spectacular Willard Peak overlook, from which the viewer can see from Point-of-the Mountain on the south to Idaho on the north, to Logan, and into Wyoming. The Park Valley Area Park Valley is located one hundred miles west of Brigham City, bordered on the north by the Raft River mountains, on the south by the Hogup and Dove Creek Hills, and on the west by the Cove Creek Mountains.51 To the east, the valley opens toward Snowville and the Hansel Mountains. To the northeast lies Black Pine mountain, and to the southeast lie glistening white salt pans, and beyond them Great Salt Lake itself. The valley itself is roughly oval in shape, about thirty miles in length east to west, and about twenty-five miles north to south. What is now known as Park Valley includes the locations of THE TOWNS OF BOX ELDER 363 Rosette, Dove Creek, Muddy, Clear Creek, Rosebud, and Kelton, as well as the long-forgotten sites of Ten-Mile, Rosen Valley, Terrace, Golden, and others. Since all these areas currently belong to a homogenous community, they are known collectively as Park Valley, though the community of Park Valley proper, in the valley center, is the hub of activities and contains the church house, store, hotel, com­munity park, and schoolhouse. The elevation of the valley itself varies from about 4,200 feet on the Kelton flats, to just under 10,000 feet in the Raft River Mountains, which, unlike most other mountain ranges in the Basin and Range, are aligned like the Uintas, east and west. Precipitation ranges from twelve inches to thirty-five inches annually, at different locations and at varying altitudes in the valley. Early explorers in northern Utah returned with glowing reports of bunch grass waving around their horses' knees, and occasionally nearly as high as the stirrups of the saddles. George Parsons, the sec­ond herdmaster for early Brigham City, said that "The Promontory was a mountain of waving grass when I became the flockmaster."52 The Park Valley area was said to be the same. The abund