Corinne Heller Sweet, Interviews with Jews in Utah, Accn 998

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Corrine Sweet side 2 p.15 up in Aqua Fria, Califorinia, and the mexican bandits would come and steal the gold. And they --his father, the two ~weet men who originally came here from Europe in 1830, or 1840, lived in Milwaukee first and got enough money togehte as clerks to come in the years of the gold rush. I gueess they came out in 1850 in California to try and find gold. And Simon Sweet came across the Isthmus on mule back and his brother SOlomon Street went around the horn, byboat. And tey lvied up in the mother lode country, in Aqua Fria and they never found any gold. Then -they had a little general store for supplies for the miners and they would also keep the gold. The miners would bring the dust in. I don't know idf this is of interest ...... [yes it is] And in about 1852 one brother said to the other, I hear there's a town in southern part of the state called the City of the Ange~s, Why don't you go donw and have a look. I think this place is going to dry up and perhaps we should settle someplace else. And so he did and he sai, that City of the Angels is nothing bua dirty Mexicaon adobe village and it never will be anything but. So they decided to move to alia, which was farming and sheep country. and they sold their little store. And four months after they sold their store, th~ people who had bought it needed more room, so they dug out· a basemen and found $20,000 worth of gold where they dug! But. Then the Sweets were in on the early railroad contest between the citizens and the southern pacific railroad and so on and so forth. And then the big vigilante movement even against the railroads, so that you can see that those were extremely colorful days. So that's what made Leon Sweet the rugged fe 11 ow. JK Was Leon the one who started the candy family. (yes) what made him start that ? CS vJell, he had been in the cigar and candy business in Portland Oregon. And he had a partner by the name of SeroneLouis Seronie and Louis S ______ was a sugar broker and he feltthat Utah would be a very good place to have a candy factory. And he had Pop to come over and Leon decided that he would ' open a factory here and for the first 20 years that he was in business, he and Louis S were partners. And then he wanted his brother Arthur to come in the business and I think therewas some disagreement with MR. Seronie on that score. So Pop bought out Mr. Ser . He actually started in the business as a candy man in 1890 in Portland. But opened the company here. in 1900. So we're celebrating our 82nd year here. ]Was it one of the first businesses?] No. J.G. MacDonalds was here at the time that Leon came. In the early days, he would go out in horse and buggy And this is a nturally goo¢lace because Utah per capita I guess is the largest candy consuming state in the union. That has a lot to do with the precepts of the Mormons, you see, not drinking. Supposedly. They would consume more candy. JK But he didn't know that when he started.