A History of Salt Lake County

New Century. New Status, 1900-1930

Perhaps few Americans felt as modern as Salt Lakers at the turn of the century. So historical had the first settlers become that the Daughters of Utah Pioneers began collecting journals and memora-bilia and interviewing the oldtimers. Now Salt Lake County cradled the largest city in the intermountain area as well as mining villages often defined by ethnicity, agricultural towns, booming enterprises, and newly fashionable country estates. A broadening variety of resi-dents joined efforts to solve common problems but also suffered the anxieties of cultural diversity. In the early twentieth century, Salt Lake County seized every opportunity to show its all-American spirit. It welcomed President William Taft for a visit and sent the Tabernacle Choir to a private per-formance at the White House. World War I's call for troops inspired a hearty response and stiff intolerance toward any not eager to partic-ipate. In fact, the charge of being different flew at newcomers during these decades as disgustedly as it had once been hurled between "unAmericann Mormons and "ungodly" non-Mormons. Progress was the byword as skyscrapers rose on the Salt Lake City By 1925 Salt Lake City's Main Street was a maze of urban technology, with trolley wires and rails lacing the centers of streets lined on both sides by parked automobiles. When car travel won out, the wires and rails were removed. (Utah State Historical Society) skyline, and smaller cities incorporated and imposed order on the mining town bluster. Parks opened, fans cheered at sporting events from baseball to bicycle racing to boxing, and social and environ-mental problems yielded to reform. The clutter of power poles van-ished from downtown streets soon after automobiles chugged into town, nine hundred of them by the turn of the century. Increasingly apparent were the modern implications of living in a high-edged bowl, and valley residents learned to balance clean air and green fields with convenience and prosperity. Still, every modernization moved Salt Lakers toward the sense of national normalcy they craved. These colorful decades also brought the aftershocks of dramatic change. The fiat against polygamy neither transformed lifeways overnight nor disrupted longstanding business and political alliances. The census showed Salt Lake County to be 40 percent LDS, making Mormons a minority who still outnumbered any other religious or ethnic group. LDS church and business leaders resumed power quickly and, with new respectability, sealed alliances in Washington. As cooperation alternated with competition, former antagonists in the abandoned People's and Liberal parties found the spell trans-forming them to Democrats and Republicans did not adhere with the touch of a preemptive wand. In these heady times, the Salt Lake Valley provided 20 percent of the nation's mineral wealth and, as smelters mushroomed and mod-ernized, became a major processing site. Electricity powered drills, fans, rollers, crushers, locomotives, farm equipment, and streetcars, as well as a variety of household appliances. The valley virtually hummed. Human energy infused the labor movement, then organizing nationwide. Workers' increasingly militant efforts met the stern resis-tance of the valley's business hierarchy, backed by the National Guard. Two notorious crimes erupted in this milieu of labor tensions, causing local alarm and drawing national attention. Ironically, while the mining chiefs suppressed labor, they allowed control over the mountains' wealth to slip into the hands of a corporate hierarchy outside the state. The workforce and population diversified as workers were imported by the hundreds and thousands. Ethnic communities sought a lasting place in the overall pattern, despite a nationwide backlash, by the 1920s, against immigration that was felt within the valley. Social and cultural differences were vast and profound; yet newspapers that published in a variety of languages, Greek coffee-houses, Japanese restaurants, Serbian Christmases, and more attested to the variety of roots sinking and finding sustenance in the cultural soil. Nevertheless, the valley remained prominently Anglo and strongly LDS as evidenced by a rather astonished report from the United States Census Bureau. In 1920 Utah's birthrate led the nation among white populations, a fact attributed directly to Mormon influ-ence.' Before 1930 around 159,282 people called the Salt Lake Valley home. Early in the twentieth century, the austere and politically force-ful Joseph F. Smith became LDS church president and personified that era as distinctly as Brigham Young had symbolized colonization and as Woodruff came to represent accommodation. As a boy, Joseph had trekked west with his mother Mary Fielding Smith after his father Hyrum fell with the church founder in Carthage Jail, Illinois. Even Joseph F. Smith's personal life revealed the changing times. One gadfly occasionally provoked Salt Lake County attorney Parley P. Christensen into enforcing unlawful cohabitation laws against the church president whose six wives lived in Salt Lake City. More than once Smith was hauled into court; he pleaded guilty, paid a fine, and went on about his bu~iness.~ This aspect of the job may not have won Christensen many friends. In 1920 he emerged from a fragmented Progressive move-ment as a national presidential candidate on the Farmer-Labor ticket. He garnered only 3 percent of the Utah vote but gained a historical footnote as the first Utahn to run for president on a national ticket3 (later followed by J. Bracken Lee and native Utahn Sonia Johnson). As an apostle, Smith had urged scrapping the People's Party for a conventionally partisan system. Now he pressed to further align the valley's politics with national parties and concerns. Unlike most Mormons statewide, Smith was a strong Republican, despite the per-secution that that party had inflicted on Mormonism, Smith saw no advantage in siding with a loser. Smith played silent partner to Apostle Reed Smoot, elected to the "Mormon seat" in the United States Senate for three full decades, from 1903 to 1933, despite a serious attempt to unseat him due to his church's practice of polygamy. Humorless and powerful, Smoot pro- moted business interests and party regularity. The duo even managed to oust mining and civic power Thomas Kearns from the Senate's "gentile seat" in favor of George Sutherland, a Protestant with an LDS background.* Kearns's anger echoed in Washington as he returned to Salt Lake City and assumed ownership of the Salt Lake Tribune which kept an unofficial alliance with the Roman Catholic Church. Kearns teamed with the American Party which split from the Republicans mainly on anti-Mormon grounds. Essentially the Liberal Party rose again, in 1905, as the American Party claimed elective offices in Salt Lake City and Ogden. Salt Lake City's newspapers virtually became official organs for either Kearns and the American Party or Smith and Smoot. Now, however, the split was complicated by the fact that both Mormons and non-Mormons were divided among political par tie^.^ Although the American Party controlled city government only until 19 1 1, its presence convinced Joseph F. Smith and other Republican chiefs to resist their natural inclination to join the prohi-bition movement then sweeping the nation. The out-of-power Democrats, including most Mormons, supported banning alcohol; so did Republicans generally. But the American Party vehemently opposed pr~hibition.~ Smith's strategy reflected his concern for the Republican vote locally; what's more, the pyrotechnics around prohibition might damage Smoot and his emerging influence in Washington by exacer-bating charges of LDS dominance. Accordingly, Smith instructed apostles to cease their speeches at prohibition meetings; he told stake presidents and bishops to keep rallies out of church buildings; he asked high church leaders to refrain from addressing prohibition at general conference a month before the municipal election. He insisted that LDS Republicans push a local option bill through the legislature rather than prohibition. So it was that, in Utah, each incor-porated city and town decided the liquor question for itself.' Salt Lake City and towns like Bingham revealed their non- Mormon majorities by remaining "wet" while most rural towns opted to become "dry." The reward for allowing liquor to flow near Temple Square came with the election. Smoot and his Federal Bunch, backed by the strict allegiance of LDS Republicans, wrested power from the American Party which weakened and died. In 191 7 Utah became the twenty-fourth state to pass prohibition and, by 1920, Salt Lake County was a two-party bastion again2 Throughout, Salt Lake City offered a metaphor in stone and mortar for both the power split and the thrust toward modernity. Many venerable structures vanished in favor of new ones. The Deseret Store left its choice corner on Main and South Temple streets for the luxurious Hotel Utah. The Bishop's Building and the Deseret Gym, the latter a male recreation facility, rose on the same block. The Deseret News Building went up across South Temple Street from the distinguished, five-story granite LDS Church Office Building con-structed just west of the Beehive and Lion houses. (Echoes of the proximity between church leaders and newspaper editors lingered decades after the newspaper moved to First South and Regent streets; the phrase "going across the street" remained newsroom parlance for seeking church approval on sensitive coverage.) In 1902 the Young family sold Amelia's Palace to mining magnate Samuel Newhouse. Known as the Gardo House, the mansion contin-ued to epitomize luxurious living. Newhouse, dubbed the "Father of Copper Mining in Utah," personified the self-made, non-Mormon aristocracy. His brisk business in Bingham properties turned over $10 million within a decade. Beginning in 1899, huge quantities of both rich and low-grade ore poured from the Highland Boy Mine into Newhouse's Murray smelter. Only two weeks after the smelter was completed, company control shifted to the Rockefeller syndicate for $12 million, making Newhouse a f~rtune.~ Newhouse raised at least thirty buildings on the Salt Lake City skyline, designing Exchange Place between Main and State and Third and Fourth South streets. He even donated sites for the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce and the Mining and Stock Exchange, envi-sioning an equivalent to Wall Street in New York City. The twin Boston and Newhouse buildings rose on the corners of Exchange and Main streets, and work began on the Newhouse Hotel a block to the south.lo If, as some people claimed, the LDS church raced Newhouse to complete the first palatial hotel, it won handily, for the Hotel Utah welcomed guests in 19 1 1. Soon afterward at general conference, Mining magnate Samuel Newhouse shown here on the right in one of Salt Lake City's early automobiles, designed Exchange Place and built the Newhouse and Boston buildings, as well as the Newhouse Hotel. (Utah State Historical Society) Smith defended the hotel's policy of serving liquor. By the time the Newhouse Hotel opened in 19 15, its owner's finances had fallen vic-tim to the Panic of 1907, his ambitious building program, and a pen-chant for luxury; nevertheless, the Deseret News gave his hotel's opening a lavish write-up." The two hotels became the opposite terminals of the divided business district; major LDS concerns held sway at the north end, while non-Mormon enterprises dominated a few blocks south. The latter included the sixteen-story Walker Bank, the tallest structure between the Missouri River and the West Coast. Temple Square was offset by the federal building constructed on Fourth South and Main streets, a metaphor for the manner in which church influence had long been countered by federal power.12 At the top of State Street, the State Capitol Building rose at a cost of $2.7 million, indirectly aided by the industrial surge through inheritance taxes paid by the heirs of E. H. Herriman, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, and business magnate David Eccles. Influenced in design by both the United States Capitol Building and the Maryland statehouse, the Capitol was constructed with a concrete frame covered with granite and featured an impressive marble rotunda. Meanwhile, the Cathedral of the Madeleine rose on South Temple between Third and Fourth East streets, a monument to the efforts of Bishop Lawrence Scanlan whose body would be interred under the main altar. Mining funded this landmark through the gen-erosity of wealthy Catholics including the Kearns family. The Gothic Revival style cathedral was dedicated in 1909, then remodeled and decorated in 191 7 under the direction of Bishop Joseph S. Glass. Within the same block and decade, the First Presbyterian church was built in English-Scottish Gothic Revival style. Constructed of red sandstone quarried from Red Butte Canyon east of the city, the church featured arched vaults, stained glass windows on three sides, and a pipe organ installed in 19 1 1. A second Jewish congregation, the Congregation Montefiore, purchased property for a synagogue at about Third South and Third East streets. The ceremony to lay the cornerstone featured Senator (and future governor) Simon Bamberger and Louis Cohn, both prominent members of the Congregation B'nai Israel, as well as Joseph F. Smith and John Henry Smith, the latter the president of the LDS Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Despite religious differences between the two Jewish congregations, they united socially and orga-nizationally through groups such as B'nai B'rith, the Jewish Community Center, Hadassah, and the National Council of Jewish Women.13 After thirty-nine years of freemasonry in the valley, the Masonic organizations purchased a plot at Second East and First South Streets and built a four-story temple. Erected at a cost of $80,000, it housed meetings from 1906 until 1927 when a new temple replaced it at 650 East South Temple Street. Ethnic neighborhoods developed near the railroad. Beck Street west of the Capitol became the center of Swedetown, with sturdy homes, flower gardens, and fruit orchards. The LDS meetinghouse hosted Swedish converts' weddings, funerals, and banquets. Most men worked for either the Utah Sand and Gravel Company excavat-ing the foothills across the street or for the railroads. Some became merchants, shoemakers, or tailors. Beginning in the late 1920s, Basque immigrants clustered around the Hogar Hotel on Second West Street owned by John and Claudia Landa who would be considered grandparents of this ethnic com-munity. Urban living and employment attracted some Basques, while others followed ethnic tradition, spreading throughout the county and beyond as ranchers and sheepherders.'" Japanese workers arrived in increasing numbers following the Chinese Exclusionary Act, numbering 2,110 by 19 19 compared to four residents a decade earlier. Labor agent Yozo Hashimoto supplied workers for both the railroads and industry, providing workers with imported food and clothing and aiding them with credit and gov-ernment forms. His nephew, Edward Daigoro, managed the payroll, mailing money to the workers' families in Japan. l5 Japanese Town sprang up around Hashimoto's store and ran along First South between West Temple and Third West streets, fea-turing a noodle house, Oriental stores, fish markets, dry-cleaning establishments, restaurants, barbershops, rooming houses, and hotels. Shiro Iida published The Rocky Mountain Times, a tri-weekly newspaper.16 The Intermountain Buddhist Church was organized in 19 12, and the Japanese Church of Christ six years later, both meeting in existing buildings until 1924. As streams of Greek workers arrived by railroad, they disem-barked near Greek Town, where more than sixty businesses lined A Japanese community grew at the turn of the century, and Japanese Town ran along First South between West Temple and Third West streets. Here, members of the Japanese Church of Christ pose in front of the building dedicated in 1924. (Utah State Historical Society) Second South between Fourth and Sixth West streets. In 1905 the Church of the Holy Trinity was dedicated, becoming a center for the Eastern Orthodox community for many years. In the coffeehouses, agents of labor boss Leonidas Skliris signed up workers, collected a fee, and told the men where to do business. The workers quickly resented Skliris's demands on their finances, knowing he lived in a luxurious suite in Hotel Utah, but their need for jobs meant accepting "his extortion in America as they would have in Greece."" A smaller Italian population also gathered near the railroads which employed many of them, while Little Syria and Lebanese Town nestled around Third South and Fifth West streets. Many Syrians and Lebanese became peddlers of notions and clothing in the mining and farming communities. Others found work at the Utah Fire Clay Company on First West Street. Workmen pause amid two rows of "cribs" that in 1908 centralized Salt Lake City's prostitutes in Greektown, between First and Second South streets. (Utah State Historical Society) The altered business district and a suggestion from the police chief prompted American Party mayor John Bransford to move pros-titution from the parlor houses on Commercial Street. He chose Greek Town since, he said, the "better element" had moved away. He hailed Dora B. Topham, known in Ogden's red light district as Madame Belle London, who formed an investment company in 1908 and purchased land between First and Second South streets. Bransford happened to own property across the street and erected a two-story building, housing prostitutes above the Greek businesses at street level.'' Salt Lake City police chief Thomas Pitt then ordered prostitutes to work inside the stockade, leave town, or suffer arrest. They occu-pied one hundred cribs-small rooms with a door and window fat-ing the street. The Deseret News reported: "At the windows, only two feet above the sidewalk, sits the painted denizen of the underworld calling to the passers between puffs on her cigaret."19 Guards at entries on First and Second South kept children from entering the block. The link with law enforcement showed when police, pressured to clean up vice, inevitably served warrants on nights when the stock-ade lay vacant. The Salt Lake Tribune and Salt Lake Telegram sup-ported the stockade as a practical solution to an age-old reality, while the Deseret News, Salt Lake Herald, and Intermountain Republic opposed it. In 191 1 the stockade abruptly closed, despite the misgivings of the police chief and the News's complaint that the timing would loose three hundred prostitutes into the city during general ~onference.~' Prostitutes continued to operate independently near West Second South Street and also returned to Commercial Street, but without the same type of city regulation. Meanwhile other downtown areas transformed. Popperville or Butcherville, at the east end of South Temple, had been named for Charles Popper, a Jewish immigrant from Germany. In Dry Canyon, Popper had grazed a herd, provided beef to Fort Douglas, and oper-ated a slaughter yard and butcher shop; downtown he opened a can-dle shop and a soap factory. Now land annexed from Fort Douglas became a prosperous subdivision called Federal height^.^' Land was also carved from the Fort Douglas military reservation to accommodate the University of Utah. With Joseph Kingsbury as administrator, several buildings rose along the horseshoe-shaped President's Circle. The University of Deseret's secondary school pro-grams had been replaced by college-level courses which dominated by the turn of the century. In 1922 the university affiliated with the Association of American Universities. Each of 2,805 undergraduate students paid $13 per quarter in tuition, while top professors brought home $3,850 per yeara2* Professional schools were added, including a two-year, basic sci-ence medical school which opened in 1905 as the only college of medicine between the West Coast and Denver. Despite small classes, a meager budget, and the need for students to complete their med-ical degrees elsewhere, the school ranked favorably in national rat-ing~. L~a' ter the medical school adopted two teaching hospitals at some distance from campus-the Salt Lake County General Hospital on Twenty-First South and State streets and, to a lesser degree, the Veteran's Hospital on Twelfth Avenue. Athletics quickly became important on the hillside campus. Football and track teams had competed since 1892, and the first paid coach came aboard in 1900. Soon both women and men competed in their own uniforms and sports, including baseball, tennis, and bas-ketball. A gymnasium and the Cummings athletic field were built on the south end of campus. Not only did the football team claim a championship in the Rocky Mountain Conference, but in 1916 the basketball team won the national Amateur Athletic Union Championship in Madison Square Garden. University faculty shared their talents when in September 1926, Sister Mary Madeleva came to Salt Lake City to open a new liberal arts college, St. Mary of the Wasatch. Not only did Madeleva develop an interchange with certain university faculty members, but also opened a museum of European art with the help of Bishop Joseph Glass and his successor, Bishop John J. Mitty. By 1933 the college ranked nationally among four-year colleges qualified to grant degrees in the arts, letters, and ~cience.~' Meanwhile Presbyterians struggled to begin Westminster College, reorganizing the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute as a prepara-tory school. The denomination deemed a college a necessity, feeling the LDS-dominated state colleges promoted a "form of heathenism [that] has fastened itself upon this country."25O nce private donations raised Converse and Ferry Halls on the Seventeenth South campus, Westminster College opened its doors in 1913. Far smaller than the university on the hill, both institute and college united to form a baseball team, taking on all comers. A campus newspaper reported: Each player grasped a bat, struck viciously at the ball three times, then walked with a slow, stately step to first base, and then sprinted gracefully around the diamond to the tune of 'Home Old Boy! Home!' Reaching home, the hero calmly smiled, brushed his hair, adjusted his cap at the most bewitching angle and prepared to do it all over again.26 Along the east bench, a neighborhood called Westminster Heights appeared, featuring California-style bungalow. These brick homes with wide porches and a varying arrangement of rooms sometimes featured dormers, leaded or stained glass windows, or exposed beams. Many such bungalows survived in this neighborhood and others throughout the century. Despite growth in population and enterprise, the Salt Lake Valley shrank in terms of time and distance. In 1900 the Salt Lake City Railroad Company and the Salt Lake Rapid Transit Company merged to form the Utah Light and Railway Company, creating an LDS-owned monopoly in public transportation. One line, originally pow-ered by steam but electrified in 19 19, connected Salt Lake City to the Saltair resort. The trains hauled freight as well as revelers, including salt from the Crystal Salt Company, fresh water for Saltair, livestock, and supplies for a cement plant near the lake. Less known was the Emigration Canyon Railroad, bringing rock and sandstone into Salt Lake City. In 1909 the line also began transporting passengers to the lodges and resorts in the canyon.27 The automobile became increasingly convenient as paved roads eased the wear on rubber tires. In 19 16 the state began building its link to the transcontinental Lincoln Highway, and by 1925 Salt Lake City touted sixty-two automobile dealerships and 30,000 automobiles which sped along concrete highways. In 1928 Salt Lake City became first in the world to use railless trolley buses with pneumatic tires, and a few years later marked another world first by adopting rear-engine motor buses.28 Nor were vehicles the only mobile miracles. Visitors to the State Fairgrounds in 1910 kinked their necks as French aviator Louis Paulhan buzzed the field. A year later a "cinder-covered landing strip in a marshy pasture" became an aviation field called Basque Flats after the area's sheepherder^.^^ On occasion the Great International Aviation Carnival and private companies thrilled earthbound audi-ences with the mid-air antics of daring pilots. Experimental flights were undertaken in West Jordan during 1909 and 1910. L. R. Culver, a farmhand, built a glider in an equip-ment shed near Redwood Road and 9000 South, then later added a motor. His peak adventure as a pilot came with a twenty-minute flight about fifty feet above the ground." The original Salt Palace, on Ninth South between Main and State streets, offered entertainments ranging from circuses and parties to bicycle racing on the outdoor track. The structure burned to the ground in 1910. (LDS Church Archives) In 1920 airplanes were put to work carrying mail. The city pur-chased one hundred acres around the landing strip for $40 per acre and built Woodward Field named for local pilot John P. Woodward. World heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey helped christen the field, and Western Air Express went to work. By 1927 the com-pany claimed delivery of five million pieces of mail without loss or damage. The first commercial flight occurred when two intrepid pas-sengers hopped atop the mail sacks on the regular run to Los Angeles. Modern conveniences allowed time for sports and other leisure attractions. Motion pictures quickly became the rage in theaters fkom Salt Lake City to Bingham Canyon. The elegant Salt Palace, inspired by the Chicago World's Fair and built at Ninth South between State and Main streets, offered a variety of entertainments. Bicycle racing there drew hundreds of fans until the Salt Palace's fiery demise in 19 10. Skiing and hiking became increasingly popular in the nearby canyons, and the Wasatch Mountain Club was established in 19 12 to sponsor outings. Baseball prospered in 19 15, when the Salt Lake Bees entered the Pacific Coast League. Formerly the Seals, the Bees delighted patrons with a decade of homeruns and strike-outs capped by league cham-pionships in both 1922 and 1923. Baseball leagues operated elsewhere as well. Both Murray and Fort Douglas sent teams into competition; then, when the Fort Douglas team withdrew from the league, an African-American team called the Occidentals joined. Meanwhile the Copper Ball Park in Copperton not only hosted the Smelter League but also the Eskimo Pie League, a progenitor of Little League. The Salt Lake Valley twinkled at night now both above and below the horizon, and neon signs added color during the 1920s. Beams for airplanes were placed along the eastern mountains, and the foothills soon sprouted radio antennae. Electric power reached Murray and Holladay by 1905 and the West Jordan area by 19 16, even as the cap-ital city set a national record for the purchase of electric ranges. The Deseret News pioneered radio broadcasting when "Flash" Wilson entered a tin and wood shack on top of the newspaper build-ing and announced: "Hello, hello, hello. This is KZN; KZN, the Deseret News, Salt Lake City, calling, KZN calling. "Greetings! The Deseret News sends greetings to all of you far and wide. "By means of this radio station the Deseret News proposes to serve you daily with news bulletins, music, weather reports, and other data of interest . . . "31 Although KZN (later KSL) and KDYL (later KTVX) were remembered as pioneering stations, others appeared almost as fast. The importance of media backing became apparent, however, when only the prominent two survived the 1920s. Interestingly, the technology was led locally by young people. John N. Cope began broadcasting on KDYV from his parents' home on Michigan Avenue; in fact, so many youngsters transmitted their voices and music over the air waves that the Radio Club of Salt Lake appeared by 1909. Ira J. Kaar obtained his first amateur radio license at fourteen years of age, and a few years later in 1919 came up with KFOO, the first radio station licensed to an educational institution- the Latter-day Saints University. As other stations appeared in the val-ley, Kaar built KDYL and helped to solve technical problems at KZN. He erected KFUT (later KUTE) at the University of Utah even as he pursued an electrical engineering degree in preparation for a long career with General Ele~tric.~~ With so much going on, Saltair no longer dominated leisure attractions, yet valley residents mourned its destruction in 1925. Fire began in the Ali Baba Cave concession beneath the Hippodrome grandstand seats. Employees and volunteers fought the blaze while fire engines sped from the city, including a Sugarhouse truck that could pump salt water, but shifting winds carried the flames to the pavilion. Salt Lakers could see the smoke from the city as fire devoured the resort-or they could duck into a movie theater to view the disaster on the evening newsreel." LDS church leaders decided not to rebuild. By then the Garfield resort had burned, and the lake's ebb had left the Lake Park resort marooned in stinky mud. Simon Bamburger had purchased the latter resort's assets and opened Lagoon in nearby Davis County, attract-ing business away from the Great Salt Lake. Another factor was the ongoing dilemma around opening on Sunday and selling alcoholic beverages.)' The church sold Saltair to the owners of the Salt Lake, Garfield, and Western Railroad: Ashby Snow, David P. Howells, and Willard T. Cannon. Soon an even more elaborate and fireproofed resort offered one thousand white-trellised changing rooms that flanked a vivid Mediterranean-style pavilion. The 25 cents for admission included a fun house, giant racer, and a shooting gallery. What's more, the new Saltair offered an added attraction: visitors could motor there in pri-vate cars and leave at their convenience rather than crushing into the last train back to the city.35 Amid all the conspicuous progress, the valley's infrastructure improved. By 1920 hundreds of miles of sewer, gas, and water mains encouraged sanitation as well as convenience, and Salt Lake City boasted seventy-three miles of paved streets. A board of health over-saw an emergency hospital featuring dental, well-baby, and venereal disease clinics. Around 19 15 the city began chlorinating drinking water. It also appropriated $41,000 for rat bounties, enlisting the The Parley's Canyon Reservoir, dedicated in 1907, improved the supply of clean water. During the next two decades, hundreds of miles of sewer, gas, and water mains improved sanitation in Salt Lake City but came later to the southern part of the valley. (Utah State Historical Society) efforts of school children who were organized into Clean Town Clubs; nevertheless, as late as 1927, diphtheria brought the valley one of the world's worst mortality rates although dreaded cholera virtu-ally disappeared with the pasteurization of milk. Near the Capitol, the failed Deseret Hospital found a spiritual descendant through the generosity of a wealthy dentist suffering from heart disease. On 4 January 1905, Joseph F. Smith dedicated the Dr. W. H. Groves Latter-day Saint Hospital. The $175,000, five-story, eighty-bed facility welcomed nearly one thousand patients during its first year. Later the Primary Children's Hospital would occupy that site, and the LDS Hospital would relocate to Eighth Avenue and C Street. The children's hospital had originated in 1922 in the Hyde House on North Temple Street, caring for more than two hundred children its first year. Children also found solace three years later when the Shriners' Hospital for Crippled Children opened as a ward of St. Mark's Hospital. Salt Lake County acted to improve the wellbeing of its poorest citizens when, in May 1912, Reverend P. A. Simpkins of the Congregational church dedicated the County Infirmary Hospital on Twenty-First South and State streets to the benefit of the indigent poor. Until that time, the county had contracted for indigent care at St. Mark's Hospital. Originally the $200,000 county infirmary could house twenty-five patients plus one hundred inmates. A nursing school opened under the direction of Dr. C. C. Snyder in 1913, and the first class of six nurses graduated three years later.36 The county hospital pitched tents on the roof in 1914 to care for tubercular patients in this "Roof Sanitarium.'' When winter came, the tents were insulated with boards. Three years later, an isolation wing opened to accommodate as many as thirty-five infectious patient^.'^ Medical facilities were expanding none to soon, for the Spanish Flu epidemic of 19 18 cost the valley, the nation, and the world more lives than did World War I. Day after day, obituaries loaded the columns of the local newspapers, mourning citizens from the elite to the obscure, many in the prime of life. Except for the hospitals and impromptu clinics, the valley virtually closed down. Schools shut their doors, shops locked up early, church bells fell silent, and movie reels halted as the epidemic crested. Even streetcars limited the num-ber of passengers who could climb aboard. The seriousness of the epidemic was dramatically illustrated when Joseph F. Smith suc-cumbed to the flu in November and was laid to rest without a public funeral. One month earlier, as fate would have it, Thomas Kearns had died from injuries suffered when he was struck by an automobile near the Brigham Young Monument. Within a month, two of the val-ley's most prominent citizens were gone. Perhaps the most influential individual in improving public health during this era was Amy Brown Lyman. Although Lyman taught at Brigham Young Academy and the University of Utah, her efforts chiefly reached the community through her roles as the LDS Relief Society's general secretary, counselor to the president, then president. In 19 19 the year following the epidemic, she became the first director of the new LDS Social Services Department, launching tireless effort toward improving public health and social condition^.'^ Many women worked to this end, and the jagged rip torn between women's groups by the polygamy issue began to mend in the effort. For instance, the annual benefit for the Orphans' Home and Day Nursery featured prominent women regardless of their religious affiliation. Yet the stitches that intentionally linked women could be ripped in an instant as shown when delegates from the National Council of Women and the International Council had visited Salt Lake City in 1909. Emmeline B. Wells had long participated with both councils and now chaired an event in their honor assisted by both LDS and non-Mormon women.39 The well-laid plans were disrupted when Corinne M. Allen, chair of the welcoming committee, insisted that no "polygamist and viola-tor of the laws of this country"" be seated on the stand at the official banquet. The accused was Joseph F. Smith, invited not as church president but as the husband of committee member Juliana L. Smith. Allen felt it essential that the national delegates see for themselves that "the Christian women of Salt Lake City do not condone nor approve of the social ulcer which exists here."4' At that accusations flew; the split became apparent, and the del-egates' visit proved a fiasco. One anti-polygamist referred to the "craft and stealthy duplicity of the Mormons," while the Deseret News com-mented that Allen had not objected to polygamists sharing the plat-form when her husband ran for Congress. The incident left an atmosphere of regret for this setback to the women's clubs and groups "who have labored for years to reconcile matters of religion in Utah."42 Although "The Great War" proved less deadly than the flu epi-demic, World War I had a tremendous impact in the Salt Lake Valley economically, socially, and culturally between 19 14 and 19 18. The demand for metals increased the output of the valley's mines and smelters, guaranteeing prosperity. The chasm between warring nations simultaneously prompted a surge of patriotism and opened gaps between the valley's peoples. Around 2 1,000 Utahns joined the armed services; about 10 per-cent of those answering the call had been born overseas or repre-sented a racial or ethnic minority.43A mong the Allied Powers joined by the United States were Great Britain, Italy, Russia, Japan, Romania, Serbia, and Greece, all of whom claimed countrymen within the val-ley. So could the Central Powers, including Germany, Austria- Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria. In mining towns and burroughs, the peoples from Europe lived in close proximity, and immigrants from the most involved nations reacted differently. The Greeks refused to join the rush to arms because they feared their homeland might again lose territory to war. If the Croats and Slovenes enlisted, they might well end up fighting their relatives in the Austrian or German armies. In contrast, the Serbs regarded the war as "as a veritable crusade and as the conclud-ing episode in the five-hundred-year struggle for national libera-ti~ n."~Q'u ickly more than two hundred young Serbian men from Bingham alone volunteered, serving in the Serbian and French armies. This approached 10 percent of the town's population which reached 2,676 by 1920. Fort Douglas grew in importance during these years; thousands of recruits trained there. Its prison housed nearly nine hundred dis-sidents and aliens whom the government considered dangerous if only for their pro-German opinions. In a separate portion, the prison confined an additional 686 prisoners of war whose ships had been seized by the American forces in the Pacific." Since 1850 a German community had developed in the valley, peaking around the turn of the century and numbering 7,524 in 1910. The Salt Lake Beobachter fostered the German language from 1890 on, offering news of the old country. Two years before war erupted, Alexander Schreiner emigrated from Nuremberg and became the best known organist of the Salt Lake Tabernacle.'" German loyalty soared when war came-until the United States entered the conflict. Then Salt Lakers of German descent demon-strated their American allegiance in ways ranging from parades and proclamations to registering for the draft and purchasing war bonds. Nevertheless their loyalty was sometimes suspect, and German clubs and LDS organizations suspended their activities. The Beobachter continued to publish, adding the masthead "American in everything but lang~age."'~ Jobs opened to women during World War I in areas never before available. For instance, Utah Power & Light reported in 19 17 its hir- ing of the first woman in its mechanical department. It apologized that "due to the large numbers of men who have entered the govern-ment service . . . , it was necessary to hire a ~oman.'"W~ omen sup-ported the war in other ways. The Salt Lake Army Club provided a social outlet where chaperoned Comrade Girls entertained the troops. After the armistice, Memory Grove was dedicated at the mouth of City Creek Canyon to honor the 665 people who died in military service, most succumbing to illness; another 864 had been wounded. Despite illness, war, and struggle, the Salt Lake Valley exuded pride in its progress. In 1920 the Commercial Club and Chamber of Commerce produced a brochure describing Salt Lake City as con-taining the "Broadest and most beautifully laid out streets in the world. Known to be one of the most scientifically arranged cities in Ameri~a.'"~T he city's dozen banks, its ratio of only 4 percent bonded debt, and the presence of the Intermountain Stock Exchange were augmented in the 1920s by the addition of a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. What's more, the brochure boasted "Electric light and power fur-nished by the roaring torrents of the mountain^,"'^ dry and healthful air, low taxes, commission government in both the capital city and the county, and an absence of slums. Of course this haven was painted with selective strokes, for Salt Lake County also contained its share of grit amid the glitter. A primary concern became air pollution in both "the city" and "the county." Fossil fuels heated residences, ran factories, and pow-ered vehicles. The inexpensive bituminous coal mined locally claimed widespread use, but it produced heavy smoke. In fact, the pollution debate in the 1920s centered more on the efficient use of fossil fuel than on harm to health or the aesthetics of dirty air and blackened snow. Soon after settlement the valley had shown its susceptibility to stale air, for in 1867 it lay fogbound for more than two weeks. Now the addition of coal smoke roused various citizen groups to lobby the conservative city government for relief. Finally, the Smoke Abatement League and other civic groups began to make headway as the American Party's rule gave way to gov-ernment by city commission. In 1915 the commission required a smoke inspector to measure the density of smoke clouds by holding up a grid colored in four shades of gray. By then one magazine described Salt Lake City as "a fit rival of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis as a smoke-plagued citylJS1 During the war years, the growth in industry and railroad traffic boosted smoke pollution to almost unbearable levels. The smelters in Murray, Sandy, Midvale, and near Bingham were blamed as they boomed with wartime business. Finally, in 1919 the Boy Scouts (by then a program of the LDS church), the Kiwanis Club, the Salt Lake City Real Estate Board, and the Federation of Women's Clubs con-vinced the city commission to try again. A city engineer arranged for a cooperative study involving the city, scientists at the University of Utah, and the United States Bureau of mine^.^' Their study found that the smoke produced in Salt Lake City was actually less than in most major cities, but the topography intensified pollution. Almost as soon as experiments began, air clarity improved through education, demonstration, and supervision. Stringent laws created a Smoke Department and required permits for large plant furnaces and locomotives; existing plant furnaces were modified or rebuilt for smokeless operation. On winter days "smoke inspectors roamed the city or watched from atop the Walker Bank Building, while at night a searchlight played upon the smokestacks" in order to spot violators.53T he scien-tists proved that efficient combustion saved taxpayers twice the annual operating costs of the Smoke Department. As industrial pol-lution waned, residential coal stoves became the major culprit. Finally, after World War 11, coal furnaces and stoves in homes were outlawed. Meanwhile air pollution in the south and west valley raised even stronger concerns; sulphur was simply the odor of the air. Farmers' fields adjacent to smelter smokestacks lay barren, and fallout con-taining lead, arsenic, and sulphur trioxide drifted far beyond its sources. Deaths due to lung problems, complications during preg-nancy and birth, and other illnesses related to toxic fumes rose dra-matically between 1890 and 1920. Eventually lawsuits brought by local farmers closed the Utah Consolidated Smelter at Murray and the Bingham Consolidated Smelter at Bingham Junction soon followed by the U.S.S.R. & M. Company, a copper smelter. Others, such as the powerful American Smelting and Refining Company, raised their smokestacks so the vapors would dissipate, altered production methods, and paid "ease-ments" to the farmers in order to stay open.54 Most incorporated towns in the county focused during the early twentieth century in cleaning up more than the dirty air. In free-wheeling Murray, with a population of 2,209 by 1920, a Sunday clos-ing ordinance passed as well as other restrictions on saloons, dance halls, movie houses, and bowling alleys. Gambling and roulette wheels were outlawed while slot machines remained. Pool tables and nickelodeons required licensing, and Murray officials complained to county commissioners of numerous saloons operating just outside city limits. From 1903 on, commissioners could lobby by telephone, for in that year a Murray exchange opened with more than one hun-dred subscribers. The atmosphere in Sandy followed the fortunes of the Emma Mine near ribald Alta in Little Cottonwood Canyon. A boom in 1904 boosted operations for a time, but the old townsite was never reoc-cupied. Silver ore production peaked in 19 17, then steadily declined, and by 1930 Alta could claim only six registered voters. Sandy City not only cleaned up saloons and brothels, but replaced its two-wheeled fire cart and bucket brigades with a mod-ern Ford firetruck. Two fire alarm bells were installed-one on Main and Center streets and the other at the fire station. Within these cities of increasingly diverse population, residents worried about youthful lawbreakers. The phenomenon was blamed on a lack of parental presence and control. In 1909 the legislature established a juvenile court system to emphasize correction rather than punishment for offenses such as truancy, violating bicycle ordi-nances, petty theft, smoking, and alcohol use. Most often county deputies sat down with offenders and their parents rather than pros-ec~ ting.'~ Meanwhile the Holladay-Cottonwood area saw growth of a dif-ferent kind; between 1910 and 1930, the idea of country living became fashionable. Estates began to intersperse small farms, bridle paths wove through the cottonwoods, and swimming pools and ten- nis courts graced commodious homes. The Walker and Bamberger families owned such estates, which offered the charms of bobsled rid-ing and ice skating on frozen ponds in the winter without the hard labor of dry farming. Nearby, a business district prospered along Holladay Boulevard near 2300 East Street, providing shopping and many services.56 Bingham Junction, so called for the tracks that met between Bingham and Alta, became an increasingly important center. Its roundhouse trembled with the thunder of trains headed west to Bingham, Lark, Magna, and Garfield, east to Alta and the granite quarry in Little Cottonwood Canyon, and locally between the Midvale smelter, steel and leaching mills, and the stone plant. This large circular building housed the locomotives, which were greased, oiled, repaired, sanded, and shined by roustabouts. To the south stood an old wooden water tank and sand house, which hobos adopted. They would gather around the big sand dryer stove or sprawl on the dried sand and boast about their travels and conquests. They knew where a handout could be had, where the vicious dogs and mean old ladies were, and stayed clear of "Blue Beard," the tough cop with a black moustache and a big cowboy hat. "Don't stir 'im up. He's quick on the draw and got a dead eye."57 The Bingham Junction Commercial Club organized in 1908 in Woodman Hall, yet confusion reigned over the town's identity. "When I came here the town had three names. The post office was West Jordan, the town was East Jordan, and the railroad was Bingham Junction," one resident explained. "So when you were away from home you mailed a letter to West Jordan; when you talked of the town it was East Jordan; and when you came home you bought a ticket to Bingham J~nction.A"s~ t~h e sense of township grew and the city incorporated in 1909, the name Midvale was selected from more than two hundred nominations, and a city council took charge. By 1920 the population reached 2,209. Farming still dominated throughout much of the south valley. In August 1902, after three years of drought and insect infestations, massive pumps constructed at a cost of over $40,000 on the Utah Lake went into action. They sent four hundred cubic feet of water per Mining camps were often tagged by ethnic or other characteristics. Ragtown or Dinkytown referred to the poverty of new immigrants employed in the nearby mines or smelters. This town expanded into the respectable and still industrial Magna. (Utah State Historical Society) second surging north through the Jordan River; dispersed through canals, the welcome waters nurtured thirsty farms.59 Bennion, named for the prominent William Bennion family, sep-arated from Taylorsville in 1905. In nearby Granger, farmers stopped at Joseph Fairbourne's weight station at 3535 South and 3200 West streets before traveling to Murray or Salt Lake City to sell their goods. In 19 12 the Salt Lake County Commission improved the network of roads that linked the outlying towns. Between 19 15 and 19 19, county workers also dug drains to eliminate swampy sections. Finally, 3500 South Street became the first paved road in Granger and Hunter." Farmers also depended on the railroads, particularly the Salt Lake & Utah interurban and the Orem Line which ran south. Coal was unloaded at 1950 West and 3500 South depot near the Granger Market, and peas, tomatoes, onions, apples, and celery shipped to market; sugar beets, still the main cash crop, went to the mill in West Jordan. Flag stops, bearing the names of residents, halted trains inter- mittently, offering high school students a lift to Cyprus High School which opened in Magna in 19 1 7.6' By then Magna had outgrown several names indicative of its pur-pose. First known as Mill Stone Point for its smooth stones suitable for grinding grain, stagecoach drivers then called it Point of West Mountain. Numerous springs and a proximity to Bingham Canyon brought a mining mill, powered by a steam electric generating plant. Then the clutter of shanties and tents for migrant workers prompted the nickname Ragtown or Dinkeyville. Its fortunes began to improve in 1923 when the Utah Copper Company built housing for Japanese and Korean trackmen.62 Other towns appeared, specifically linked to industry. Garfield, built in 1905, housed the employees of the Utah Copper and American Smelting and Refining Companies. A year earlier, the Garfield resort and pier had been destroyed by fire. The thick Oquirrh forest was gone, and Saltair to the north drew the recreation business, so the pier and resort were never rebuilt. The town popu-lation peaked at more than two thousand.(j3 In 1910 Utah Copper and Boston Consolidated Milling built another town and named it for United States president Chester A. Arthur. Bacchus replaced the pioneer town of Coonville in 1915 when the Hercules Powder Company built an explosives manufac-turing plant. Bacchus featured a hotel, clubhouse, library, dance hall, schoolhouse, and a general store, as more than one hundred employ-ees began turning out 800,000 pounds of high explosives annually.64 Lark and other mining communities in Bingham Canyon became so crowded by 1926 that the Utah Copper Company built Copperton, a model town of freestanding brick and stucco homes to house supervisors, foremen, technical staff, and railroad engineers. Graced by a seven-acre park, well water, and modern sewers, Copperton became a living advertisement with copper plumbing and wiring and even "copper-clad shingles held in place with copper nails."65 The towns bore witness to the valley's importance in the metals industry. By 1920 Utah claimed second place in the world in produc-ing silver, third as a lead producer, fourth in copper, and also pro-vided 38 percent of the nation's zinc, 14 percent of its lead, and 4 percent of its gold. Other nonmetallic minerals mined locally included gypsum, potash, limestone, and salt? While lead and silver markets peaked and vanished, copper min-ing took an innovative turn that bequeathed longevity. Rather than focus on processing ore with high concentrations of copper, Utah Copper Company began turning over huge amounts of ore in order to glean profitable amounts from low concentrations. Daniel C. Jackling, dubbed "the Henry Ford of copper mining" for this approach, left "the idelible imprint of his personality on every facet of operation^."^^ In 19 10 open pit mining began the steady task of turning a mountain into a giant circular pit. Six days every week, "the earth trembled and the canyon walls reverberated with the thunder of the dynamite charges. . . ."6R Dust became as equivalent to air as sulphur was near the smelters. Open pit mining positioned Utah Copper for a long period of prosperity backed by the Guggenheims. They also owned the Alaskan Kennecott which would later swallow the Utah Copper Company in a merger. During these decades, Bingham maintained its reputation as a sin capital, instituting soft drink parlors with liquor sold under the counter after prohibition became law. Brothels in Upper Bingham and near the Starless Mine drew young men from the scandalized neighboring communities which pressured the county sheriffs to raid and fine Bingham establishments. In 191 7 the town council outlawed both bootlegging and gambling, hoping that would suffice to keep outside law enforcment away. Even national mining journals expressed outrage at Bingham's wild side, and company administrators leaned on local government. Drunken shootings regularly followed payday; Mondays brought heavy absenteeism, and mining accidents took a heavy toll. Bingham, nevertheless, proved resistant to outside pressure. "Until the 1930s town fathers ran their town as they wished and fought cleanup attempts. . . ."69 Saloons offered far more than drinking: games from poker to roulette, music, vaudeville acts, and boxing matches that even drew Jack Dempsey, a sometime resident of Midvale. Wrestling matches pitted Greeks against Japanese or Southern Slavs, and folks wishing a breath of air could bet a quarter on a dog or cock fight in the alley. Mining companies focused on improving living conditions, also in need of attention. Within the narrow, crowded canyon, heavy traf-fic endangered children who routinely played in the road. The creek carried debris, and outdoor toilets and cesspools built under houses threatened disease. In 1923 the United States Mining Company built boarding houses for one hundred fifty men; Copperfield gained a four-story dormitory for single white employees, and an emergency hospital was banked by housing for company doctors.70 Meanwhile the Copper and Ritz hotels and the Bingham State Bank added class, but the town's real pride was the Bingham Garage and Storage. Not only did it house Bingham Stage Line buses, but the automotive garage and service center claimed to be the largest in the state, providing parking for fifty automobiles. Occasionally it seemed that Bingham called down the wrath of God. Two fires between July and September 191 8 wiped out the line of brothels and saloons in Copperfield, and burned enough dwellings to leave several hundred people homeless. In 1924 and 1925, fire swept through Bingham and Copperton again. The next year, a three-day blizzard followed by a thaw caused an avalanche that roared two miles down the Sap Gulch, crushing a boarding house, burying homes, and sweeping away the Community church in Highland Boy. Stunned townspeople turned out to aid res-cue workers in extracting the injured from the wreckage. Fire fol-lowed snow, and the death toll reached thirt~-nine.~' Industrial workers shared on-the-job problems despite their eth-nic diversity. Gradually American notions of individual rights grew within the polyglot labor force, and signs of discontent appeared. Mine operators, however, had sworn never to recognize a miners' union, and each camp routinely scrutinized new employees for a his-tory of protest or union membership; nevertheless, strikes for higher wages began as early as 1906. Then in 1912 a gaping crack opened in the fragile dam restrain-ing workers' frustrations. Some five thousand workers struck at Bingham-a collection of Japanese, Italian, Cornish, and Greek workers. The latter particularly resented labor agent Leonidas Skliris, but also wanted a pay raise and the right to organize. Immediately the Utah Copper Company imported hundreds of Mexican strikebreakers experienced from mining in New Mexico and Arizona. Actually many were not Mexicans, but Spanish-speaking Americans from remote southwest communities. Governor William Spry sent in the National Guard to protect the strikebreakers even as mining profits plummeted and costs mounted. The strike forced out Skliris, but many Greek workers lost their jobs also. The Hispanic workers settled in communities around Bingham and in Lake City, but the strike left a bitterness that made their adjustment difficult. They were resented both by the defeated miners who returned to work and by the townspeople. Further, they had no labor agents or patrons, and most had not intended to make Utah their final destination. Ironically, considering the valley's status as Mexican territory at the time of settlement, the Mexicans, as they were all called, formed a fairly late community. Many of the original strikebreakers moved on, but thousands of other Spanish-speaking workers arrived by the end of the decade. The census reported 2,300 first- and second-generation Mexicans in Utah in 1920, comprising 5 percent of the population. By 1930 the number rose to over four thousand.72 Mutual aid societies such as the Union y Patria (later a chapter of the Comision Honorifics Mexicana) served the community. Classes began in both Bingham and Salt Lake City teaching Spanish language and literature. Folk healing or curanderismo prevailed, especially due to the language barrier, expense, and condescension that Mexican- Americans experienced at clinics and hospitals. In 1920 one thousand celebrants honored Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day. La Rama Mexicana, the first Spanish-speaking Mexican branch of the LDS church organized, and La Cuz Azul or Blue Cross was founded to help the needy. The Catholic Mission began focusing on its Spanish-speaking parishioners when in 1927 the Padre Perfecto Arellano from Mexico took charge. Three years later, Father James Collins and several nuns from Mexico's Order of Perpetual Adoration established Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, a long-lived center featuring mass in Spanish, classes, sports, dances, and carnivals.73 Heightened by both the strike and the war, racial tensions in Bingham fairly crackled. One strikebreaker, Raphael Lopez, ran spec- tacularly afoul of the law and his case illustrated tensions far beyond the canyon. Single, handsome, and intelligent, Lopez had an accurate trigger finger matched in speed by his temper. By the time he arrived in Bingham, he had already served eighteen months in the Wyoming penitentiary for shooting a man who was drawing his own weapon.74 Then deputy sheriff Julius Sorensen jailed Lopez for stabbing a companion during a quarrel and hauled him in again after he used his gun butt to defend two girls. Seething, Lopez left the jail a second time in mid-November only to encounter a young Mexican who had testified against him. He struck the youth across the face with his pis-tol and answered a critic with a deadly shot fired from a gun in his coat pocket. Lopez avoided the inevitable reunion with Sorensen by collect-ing his army Winchester and cartridges, then literally heading for the hills. Tracked and cornered by deputies, he fatally shot three of them and escaped-now a prime public enemy. Fights in the canyon were too common to arouse public interest, but the killing of three law enforcers was another matter. The Lopez manhunt was vividly reported throughout the valley, and Lopez was described as a rabid dog that ought to be tracked down and destroyed." Reprisals also began against the Mexican community. Bingham passed an ordinance to ban "foreigners" from carrying concealed weapons. Since one deputy that Lopez killed was Serbian, the Serbs wanted him lynched, and Mexicans gave wide berth to the Highland Boy Mine where Serbians worked. In Salt Lake City, a police inspector swept chili parlors, poolhalls, and saloons rounding up Spanish-speakers, who were searched, questioned, and sometimes booked as vagrants. Meanwhile to the Mexicans, Greeks, Croatians, and Slovenes, Lopez became a folk hero, and they cheered his escapes.76 Week after wintry week, Salt Lake County deputies tracked Lopez through the mountains and mines. He was sighted with gaunt cheeks and bleeding feet, yet he continued to elude capture. Lawmen cor-nered him in the Minnie Mine and filled it with smoke, but Lopez took aim and picked off two more officers. Finally he was trapped inside the Apex Mine which was smudged and sealed, and left to starve. As with Jean Baptiste, however, the Lopez saga did not end when the mine reopened and workers roamed the tunnels. His remains were never found. Legend had it he escaped once again on battered feet and this time made it over the hills to freedom. The overall repercussions of the 19 12 strike rippled through the decade. The five-month delay in resuming production hurt the industry in profits even more than the cost of breaking the strike. The blow to labor lasted even longer; the movement fractured and signif-icant union activity went underground until the 1940s. Yet employees of small businesses in Salt Lake City organized quietly and rather suc-cessfully between 19 12 and 19 14. Plumbers, electrical workers, typog-raphers, and laundry workers all secured union shop agreements. The J.G. McDonald Chocolate Company offered its workers recreation facilities, dining and reading rooms, a roof garden, and even a small ZOO. 77 The overall alienation, however, encouraged a few radical attempts at resistance. The roving Industrial Workers of the World struck in Park City and then against the Tucker-Utah Construction Company. Both strikes were quickly squelched. In 19 19 persistent laborers organized the Workers', Soldiers', and Sailors' Council. Despite divided opinion, the Salt Lake Federation of Labor endorsed the Bolshevik revolution and chose as its president M. P. Bales, a bar-ber, who would soon join the Communist Party.78 The Federation also endorsed the Socialist Party in 19 1 1, 1912, and 19 13, and Socialist candidates won city offices in Salt Lake City, Bingham, and Murray during the early decades of the century.79 Meanwhile labor uprisings were suppressed by the recently orga-nized Utah Associated Industries which clamped down in 1920. Not only did workers fail to get raises, but by 1921 the Associated Industries managed to reduce wages and gain a partial open shop. Three years later, the struggle ended with labor's utter defeat. During that cycle of strikes and strikebreaking, another worker seized the headlines. Joel Hagglund, better known as Joe Hill, orga-nized for the Industrial Workers of the World and penned radical songs to aid the labor movement. One evening in January 1914, Hill asked a Socialist doctor in Murray to treat a bullet wound in his chest Labor unrest marked the early twentieth century. Striking telegraphers march in this 1907 Labor Day parade, a peaceful contrast to the miners' strike of 1912 and the notorious murder trial and execution of labor orga-nizer Joe Hill in 1915. (Utah State Historical Society) that he said he received while defending a woman companion. A few days after treating Hill, the doctor called the police.80 His call was prompted by reports of a double murder the evening he treated Hill. A Salt Lake City grocer by the name of John G. Morrison and his seventeen-year-old son, John Arling Morrison, had been shot to death in the store. One of two masked assailants had been wounded. (Although the incident was presumed a robbery, no money was taken. Merlin Morrison recalled hearing the men say, "We've got you now." The elder Morrison had been the target of an earlier shoot-out, during which he wounded a man.) The doctor's tip led to murder charges against Hill who maintained his innocence.'' The question of Hill's guilt became polarized by labor issues and muddied by trial irregularities. On one hand, it seemed unlikely he could have traveled through the cold night from the capital to Murray with a chest wound; on the other, Hill refused to provide an alibi even to the judge during a private chat in chambers. Meanwhile his trial in the City-County Building within the labor-hostile valley sparked a national controversy as labor leaders insisted Hill was being framed by the copper bosses. His conviction prompted widespread national outrage and precisely the type of publicity the valley had tried so diligently to overcome.82 While Hill languished in the Sugarhouse Prison, protests and telegrams flooded in, including one from the deaf and blind human-itarian Helen Keller. President Woodrow Wilson requested a stay of execution granted by the governor; but when the stay ran out, Hill died in a fury of bullets on 19 November 19 15. Since Hill had told the I W ' s "Big Bill" Haywood (born in Utah in 1869) that he "didn't want to be caught dead in Utah:' his ashes went to I Wgr oups in every other state. A huge funeral demon-strations took place throughout the nation in answer to his admoni-tion, "Don't mourn, organize!" and Hill became labor's martyr.83T he Salt Lake Valley, meanwhile, was viewed as labor's nemesis. Workers' rights, the imprisonment of draft dodgers, and the racial tensions known to valley dwellers were precisely the issues inspiring Roger Baldwin to found the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City in 1920. Slowly, both litigation and rhetoric would begin to establish civil rights in the courts and in the public's con-sciousness. Although the fledgling ACLU would not reach the valley officially for three more decades, local issues were well synchronized with the times. The day of the New Immigration had passed, and federal immi-gration laws rapidly changed to bar all those not Anglo-Saxon. Similarly, Salt Lake Valley maintained a strong Anglo population which claimed majority rule. The racial and ethnic biases heightened by World War I were fed by a worsening economy that no longer wel-comed imported labor. Despite growing consumerism, the national unemployment rate ran at 10 percent or higher, and half of all Americans lived in poverty. In such a climate, the Ku Klux Klan, with its doctrine of an enti-tled white race, flourished and spread from the southern states. No longer did the Klan oppose only the liberation of African-Americans, who represented only 0.3 percent of the valley's population employed mainly as domestics or in manufacturing and mining. Currently the Klan decried immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Orientals, as well as Catholics and Jews. Late in 1921, national Klan organizer E.T. Cain paid Salt Lake City a visit, remaining through spring 1922. He turned over direction of local recruiting to Alexander W. Christensen, King Kleagle of Utah for the next two years, who had little visible success.84 The first public glimpse of the Klan came on 19 April 1922 in the Sandy City cemetery at the funeral of a young Salt Lake County deputy, Gordon Stuart, who had died in the line of duty. Nearly five hundred mourners were shocked to see eight or nine Klansmen in full regalia appear during graveside services, form a human cross, and approach the casket. They placed on it a "cross of lilies, bedecked with a banner inscribed 'Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Salt Lake Chapter No. 1,'" then turned to the west, raised their left hands toward the sun and hurried silently toward idling automobiles chauffeured by their fellow Klan~men.~~ Several charitable donations by the Klan were then publicized, but enthusiasm remained low during the next few years. Then, in 1925, the Klan made a dramatic entry into the Salt Lake Valley, filing articles of incorporation in Salt Lake City and staging demonstra-tions there and in Magna and Bingham. Immigrants seen with American women were threatened, protests erupted, and parades of hooded and sheeted Klansmen wove through the streets. Ensign Peak once again became a focal point. Here, where pio-neer leaders had posted the Stars and Stripes and the Flag of Deseret, and where three powder magazines had exploded, the Klansmen raised a fiery cross and opened their first state convention. A hooded and robed cavalcade then paraded through downtown Salt Lake City.86 Two months later, the Klan lit Ensign Peak once again, choosing 6 April 1925 as visitors swarmed to general conference on Temple Square. Several flaming crosses were visible valleywide. Below them, a Konklave gathered around altars, while sentries guarded the anonymity of the masked inductees and their parked automobiles. Residents and visitors flocked to the foothills to watch the spectacle, and others observed from the valley. The Klan rated this event a tremendous success, noting its "pageantry, mysterious garb, mystical ritual, fiery crosses, billowing flag displays, and martial music" and not without cause. "For the next few days, Salt Lakers were talking and thinking Klan. . . In Magna a group of Greek children "unmasked" Klansmen who paraded through the streets mocking those who were not Anglo- Saxon. As Klansmen headed into the park, the children "pulled off the white Klan masks and exposed a number of leading townspeople.778R Despite its theatricality, the Klan failed to establish a lasting stronghold. As early as 1922, Klan membership had been specifically opposed at LDS general conference and in the Deseret News. In June the Salt Lake City Commission unanimously passed an anti-mask ordinance aimed at curtailing Klan activity in the valley. When Christmas came, the law stung unexpected targets; Santa Clauses were forced to remove their beards-and the Klan received the blame!89 In quiet and homey ways, the differences among peoples in the early twentieth century added color and interest to everyday living whether through the variety of businesses, restaurants, and shops, or the celebration of holidays. Christmas, for example, called forth Greek baklava, English yule logs, German Christmas trees, and a host of other traditions. Salt Lake County's Swedish residents began month-long festivities on 13 December, St. Lucia7s Day. The young girl chosen to represent the saint strolled from house to house, singing carols and serving coffee and cakes. Roast goose headed the menu for Christmas dinner comple-mented by boiled potatoes, vegetables, and raisin-studded rice pudding. Danish families also feasted on roast goose or duck, unveiling the candle-lit Christmas tree to the children only on Christmas Eve. "The children would join hands and circle the tree singing, 'Nu har vi Jul igen' (Now we have Christmas Serbians went all out with a celebration peaking on 7 January; "any friend who came to the house on that day was greeted with the joyous expression, 'Nir Boze Kristos se Rodi,' or 'God's Peace, Christ is Born.' This was accompanied by a kiss on both cheeks followed quickly by a glass of red wine." The valley offered few traditional oak logs for the fireplace, but juniper made a satisfactory sub~titute.~' Outside a suckling pig roasted, and storage pits offered up smoked hams, sausage, salted fish, pickled cucumbers, fruits, and cheeses. The men were served first-red wine, soup, and cold meats joined by sarna made of ground pork folded into a cabbage leaf and baked. Then the pig surrounded by vegetables was brought in on a platter, and the host jovially beheaded it and began carving. Holidays united many communities. Midvale residents were drawn to the social hall. First came the annual children's party where youngsters under fourteen waited breathlessly for their numbered tickets to be called. The party was enlivened by a tree lit with candles, bags of candy and nuts, and Santa's visit. As numbers were called into a suspenseful hush, each child came forward to receive a gift from huge baskets beside the tree. Once the children were tucked into bed, the town's adults went off to a grand ball whose final notes faded only at four in the morning9* Taken overall, the early twentieth century engendered in the val-ley a gusto for innovation, an appetite for prosperity, a determination to solve social and environmental problems, and an unslaked thirst to participate in the American mainstream. While the population remained homogeneous, pockets of diverse communities would sur-vive, thrive, and invigorate social, business, and cultural patterns from then on. Sometimes welcomed and sometimes not, a hardworking and opinionated world had multiplied its numbers within Salt Lake County. Relative newcomers all, whether arriving in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries, Salt Lakers strove in increasingly united ways to improve and enhance their valley home. 1. J. Michael Cleverly, "The Development of an Urban Pattern," Utah's History, Richard D. Poll et al., eds. (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1989), 567. 2. John R. Sillito, "Parley P. Christensen, A Political Biography 1869-1 954," M.A. thesis: University of Utah, 1977, 60-63. 3. Ibid., 185. 4. Charles S. Peterson, Utah: A History (New York: W.W. Norton and CO., 1977), 164-67. 5. Ibid. Also see O.N. Malmquist, The First 100 Years: A History of the Salt Lake Tribune, 1871-1 971 (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1971). The complex power struggle between Kearns and Smoot is detailed in chapters 19-22. 6. Brent G. Thompson, "'Standing Between Two Fires': Mormons and Prohibition, 1908-191 7," Journal of Mormon History 1 1 (1 983): 42. 7. Ibid., 42-44. 8. Ibid., 44-45. 9. Hynda Rudd, "Samuel Newhouse: Utah Mining Magnate and Land Developer," in Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly 1 1 ( 1979): 298-302. lo. Ibid. 1 1. Ibid. 12. John S. McCormick, Salt Lake City: The Gathering Place (Woodland Hills, California: Windsor Publications, 1980), 73. 13. Hynda Rudd, "Congregation Kol Ami: Religious Merger in Salt Lake City," Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly 10 ( 1978): 3 13-27. 14. Lisa Carricaburu, "Basques in Utah," Utah History Encyclopedia, Allan Kent Powell, ed. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 33-34. 15. Helen Z. Papanikolas and Alice Kasai, "Japanese Life in Utah," in Peoples of Utah, Helen Z. Papanikolas, ed. (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1976), 337. 16. Ibid., 345. 17. Helen Z. Papanikolas, "The Exiled Greeks," Peoples of Utah, 4 13. 18. John S. McCormick, "Red Lights in Zion: Salt Lake City's Stockade, 1908-1 1," Utah Historical Quarterly 50 ( 1982): 176-77. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., 177-79. 21. John W. Van Cott, Utah Place Names (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995), 135. 22. McCormick, Salt Lake City, 8 1. 23. The Gift of Health Goes On: A History of the University of Utah Medical Center (Salt Lake City: Office of Community Relations University of Utah Health Sciences Center, 1990), 8-9. 24. For further information on Madeleva, see Gail Porter Mandell, Madeleva: One Woman's Life (New York: Paulist Press, 1944), and Bernice Maher Mooney and Jerome C. Stoffel, Salt of the Earth: The History of the Catholic Church in Utah, 1776-1987 (Salt Lake City: Catholic Diocese of Utah, 1987). 25. Joseph A. Vinatieri, "The Growing Years: Westminster College from Birth to Adolescence," Utah Historical Quarterly 43 ( 1975): 360. 26. Christopher Thomas, "Baseball at Westminster," Westminster Review, Winter 1994, 1 1. 27. John S. McCormick, The Power to Make Good Things Happen: The History of Utah Power and Light Company (Salt Lake City: Utah Power and Light Co., 1990), 35-36. 28. McCormick, Salt Lake City, 74. 29. Deseret, 1 7761 976: A Bicentennial Illustrated History of Utah by the Deseret News (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Publishing Company, 1975), 149. 30. Glen Moosman, "West Jordan," Utah History Encyclopedia, 632. 3 1. Deseret, 1776-1 976, 1 14. 32. Tim Larson and Robert K. Avery, "Utah Broadcasting History," Utah History Encyclopedia, 56. 33. Nancy D. McCormick and John S. McCormick, Saltair (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1985), 53-54. 34. Ibid., 54-60. 35. Ibid. 36. Kate B. Carter, comp., Heart Throbs of the West, 12 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1939), 1 :330-33. 37. Ibid. 38. Loretta L. Hefner, "Amy B. Lyman," in Sister Saints, Vicky Burgess- Olson, ed. (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1978), 97-1 16. 39. Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Kathryn L. MacKay, "Women in Twentieth century Utah," Utah's History, 564. 40. Ibid. 4 1. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Allan Kent Powell, "World War I and Utah," Utah History Encyclopedia, 644. 44. Joseph Stipanovich, "Falcons in Flight: The Yugoslavs," Peoples of Utah, 380. 45. Allan Kent Powell, Splinters of a Nation: German Prisoners of War in Utah (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1989), 13-38. 46. Allan Kent Powell, "Germans in Utah," Utah History Encyclopedia, 223. 47. Ibid. 48. McCormick, The Power to Make Good Things Happen, 71-72. 49. Sam K. Smith, ed., Salt Lake City, Utah (Salt Lake City: Chamber of Commerce and Salt Lake Commercial Club, 1920). 50. Ibid. 5 1. Walter E. Pittman, Jr., "The Smoke Abatement Campaign in Salt Lake City, 1890-1925," Locus (1989): 69-77. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Leonard J. Arrington, "The Commercialization of Utah's Economy: Trends and Developments from Statehood to 1910," in Dean May, ed., A Dependent Commonwealth: Utah's Economy from Statehood to the Great Depression, Charles Redd Monographs in Western History no. 4 (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1974), 22-23. 55. David L. Schirer, "Murray, Utah, Families in Transition, 1890-1920," Utah Historical Quarterly 6 1 (1 993): 149. 56. Stephen L. Carr, ed., Places and Faces (N.p.: Holladay-Cottonwood Heritage Committee, 1976), 55-60. 57. Maurine C. Jensen, ed., Midvale History, 1851-1976 (Midvale: Midvale Historical Society, 1979), 227. 58. Ibid., 11. 59. Melvin L. Bashore and Scott Crump, Riverton: The Story of a Utah Country Town (Riverton: Riverton Historical Society, 1994), 64. 60. Michael J. Gorrell, The History of West Valley City (West Valley City: West Valley City Civic Committee, 1993), 6-7. 61. Ibid., 7-8. 62. Leonard J. Arrington, The Richest Hole on Earth (Logan: Utah State University, 1963), 49-5 1. 63. Van Cott, Utah Place Names, 15 1. 64. James B. Allen, The Company Town in the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), 17 1. 65. Lynn R. Bailey, Old Reliable: A History of Bingham Canyon, Utah (Tucson, Arizona: Westernlore Press, 1988), 149. 66. Smith, Salt Lake City, Utah. 67. Arrington, The Richest Hole on Earth, 67. 68. Bailey, Old Reliable, 66. 69. Ibid., 149. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid., 158. 72. Vicente V. Mayer, "After Escalante: The Spanish-Speaking People of Utah," Peoples of Utah, 442-43. 73. Carol A. Edison, et al., eds., Hecho en Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah Arts Council, 1992), 14. 74. Bailey, Old Reliable, 11 1-34. 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid. 77. Thomas G. Alexander, "Integration into the National Economy, 1869-1920," Utah's History, 444. 78. Thomas G. Alexander, "The Burgeoning of Utah's Economy, 1910-18," in May, Dependent Commonwealth, 84. 79. For further reading, see John S. McCormick and John R. Sillito, "Respectable Reformers: Utah Socialists in Power 1900-1925," in McCormick and Sillito, A World We Thought We Knew: Readings in Utah History (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995), 1 15-29. 80. Gibbs M. Smith, Joe Hill (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1969). This is regarded as the standard account, briefly summarized in this chapter. For another view, see Philip S. Foner, The Case ofJoe Hill (New York: International Publishers, 1965). 8 1. Smith, Joe Hill. 82. Thomas G. Alexander, "Political Patterns of Early Statehood, 1896-19 19," Utah's History, 422-23. Alexander concludes that it "seems probable that Hill was rightfully convicted of the crime, but the state of pub-lic opinion in Utah makes the fairness of his trial questionable." 83. Smith, Joe Hill. 84. Larry W. Gerlach, Blazing Crosses in Zion: The Ku Klux Klan in Utah (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1982), 25. 85. Ibid., 27. 86. Ronald W. Walker, "A Gauge of the Times: Ensign Peak in the Twentieth Century," Utah Historical Quarterly 62 ( 1994): 20-2 1. 87. Ibid. 88. Helen Z. Papanikolas, "The New Immigrants," Utah's History, 458-59. 89. Gerlach, Blazing Crosses in Zion, 12 1. 90. Violet Boyce and Mabel Harmer, Upstairs to a Mine (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1976), 103-106. 91. Ibid. 92. Ibid.