We all live downstream of history and upstream of the future.
Spring 2003
Random Acts of Thinking:
LAYERS OF THE PAST
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In 1998 light rail workers found what the state archaeologists affectionately called South Temple Man. He was an old man of the Fremont culture, buried lovingly maybe 1000 years ago.
Before that, although the news of a skeleton on South Temple would have caught my attention, I wouldn't have thought too much about it. But that was before I realized that the air along the streets of Salt Lake is thick with past lives. There are layers upon layers of stories here. Sometimes I feel them around me.
The year of South Temple Man, I had taken a job working for the Utah State Historical Society at the Rio Grande Depot. As I settled in, I was sure this would be a pleasant job, maybe even interesting.
But then the stories began to come. History manuscripts crossed my desk, and in each one, someone had dug into some corner of the past and pulled out real people. I began to see the different ways that people have figured out what to do, how to survive, how to live.
When I saw the skull of the Fremont man down in the archaeology lab--a temporary resting place for him--I wondered, who had laid him in the spot where TRAX now runs? Who had cried at his death? What did he love on the earth and what did he regret leaving?
And what other mysteries lie beneath the pavement? Whose fields were here once? Whose footprints?
South Temple Man is only one of many who have been buried here, if not under the pavement, then beneath our consciousness. East of the Rio Grande is where the Mormon pioneers of 1847 made their third camp in this strange new place. Northwest--I can see the block from my office window--is the site of the prostitute "Stockade." Here, in a brief experiment in controlled morality during the early 1900s, city officials corralled and regulated the ladies of the night. What was the world like for them, in their rows of tiny cribs shut away from "respectable" people?
And then there are the thousands of immigrants who stepped off the train onto the platform in back of the Rio Grande Depot: Lebanese, Mexican, Greek, Cornish, Basque, and so many more, all trying to make a new start.
Over where they built the Fourth South freeway ramp stood the Guadalupe Mission, where the devoted Father Collins shepherded his Latino parishioners.
Near the tracks lived the families of the track workers, sometimes in boxcars. Their homes rattled when the train rumbled by, and soot and grime covered things as fast as a woman could clean.
By then, middle-class families had already escaped the city grime--as well as the immigrants whom they so little understood--by moving to higher ground and the new subdivisions. Commuting was born.
All of these lives and more brush against me as I walk in the city. The energetic newsboys who peddled papers on downtown streets, the merchants who sold carpets or milk, the maids at the Hotel Utah, the men in suits who made deals over lunch at Lamb's Cafe--they all seem to have left echoes.
We can only catch glimpses of these people, like archaeologists find stray pottery sherds and seeds in piles of sifted dirt. But why dig them out now? Why resurrect these lives?
Maybe for this reason: to understand the present. As the sculptor Dennis Smith once told me, "the present moment is made pregnant by my awareness of the future and of the consequences of past events."
For me, that awareness has grown through acquaintances with people and experiences more diverse than I had ever imagined. These dead people are teaching me about the community I live in now. They're teaching me more about how to live. It's a nice relationship we've got going.
We at the Utah State Historical Society invite you to start a relationship or two of your own. Make some new acquaintances, even though they may have departed this life.
The publication you hold in your hands can give you a start. Enjoy it. Let us know what you think--and what you discover as you explore the layers of history.
Kristen Rogers, Currents editor
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| The grave of Eva Turner, a child, by the Dewey Bridge (up the Colorado River about 20 miles from Moab). |
It seems like the most unlikely of obsessions. No fine afternoons playing golf, going to lunch with the girls, catching up on phone calls or appointments for me...just dirt tracks and lonely crosses and sandstone slabs left to mark the passing of somebody's loved one.
As a member of the Grand County Historical Preservation Commission, I have volunteered to locate and identify "outlying graves." These are the graves located outside of the Moab Valley and its "official" cemeteries. Little did I know that identifying just one person's final resting place would be enough to make me go back again and again, driving the desert red rock country, interviewing old-timers, and sitting in front of a microfilm reader looking for clues.
I live near a fairly large cemetery (21 graves), which is about all that remains of the ghost town of Castleton, at one time a rip-roaring livestock and mining supply town in the foothills of the La Sal Mountains. Since the majority of the graves here are no longer marked with names, I was curious. I often walked among the humps of dirt. Beautiful stones gathered from the desert lie like necklaces around the sandy plots, but no grass grows here; the only flowers in a region of rabbitbrush, scrub, and juniper trees are stubby irises planted long ago and now gone wild. Yet the feeling of peace and tranquility that I so often associate with cemeteries is just as strong here as in those manicured acres of Salt Lake City where my relatives lie beneath engraved marble stones.
So I decided finding graves would be a good volunteer job for me.
Several years have passed since this assignment began, and I believe I have a pretty good working plan. After finding a grave, I try to research the history. I register any completed maps, identifications, and information with the county and the Preservation Commission.
When people hear that I am looking for graves, many willingly share locations with me. Sometimes they, too, are curious. Perhaps they've run across graves while moving cattle, driving up some backcountry road, mining, camping, or hiking. At other times I may read about someone who died in a particularly strange way or location. Such information sends me off, usually alone, with graph paper, 100-yd measuring tape, camera, maps, cell phone, and notepaper.
I may end up sitting forlornly beside a grave, reading the name on a headstone--no year, no age. Only the size of the small grave and enclosure indicates that this was a young child. Or I may ponder the story behind two graves located on a bluff overlooking the Dolores River, always resplendent with artificial flowers, windmills, and plastic birds, but with no identifying names. I'm always surprised how many passers-by pause at these various outposts to leave something...a silk flower or even a toy.
Not all graves are human or even genuine. For example, one imitation grave apparently started out as a prank on one of the Jeep Safari trails, perhaps as a "warning" to those who didn't take the difficulty of the trail seriously. At first a simple cross made an appearance, then later a pile of large rocks. Eventually, someone took the trouble to carve out a sandstone marker with a fictitious name and dates. Unfortunately, much time was spent ferreting out these details in order to determine the authenticity of the site?time that could have been spent more productively on other, valid graves.
Another stumbling block is the determination of some to memorialize loved and trusted animals. In a gravesite along scenic Highway 128, which parallels the Colorado River, a little hill in the middle of a pasture served as the local burial plot. There, in addition to the graves of a baby, a father, and a son from various families, are the headstones marking the remains of three of the ranch's dogs. The graves are now registered as such.
One trek I particularly remember took me several hours north to pick up an elderly woman whose memories might unlock some clues. Her mother had died from childbirth complications, and this woman had been raised by a grandmother who regularly took her to the cemetery where her mother was buried. The grandmother had told her stories of other relatives and burials, and now this woman had become the living link with unmarked graves in that plot.
Her name was Carmen, and she told me about her father's lost marker and his service in World War II. She told me about the grandmother who had been murdered by a jealous husband, and she told me about the young man, unknown among locals, whose body was found along the railroad tracks and buried among her kin.
One by one, she walked between the 18 plots, reciting names or stories. Desolate is an understatement when describing this tiny graveyard near Thompson Springs, a once-thriving railroad town and spot of humanity located halfway between Green River and the Colorado border. You cannot imagine my joy when later, accompanied by a local mortician who had found and retrieved the father's lost stone, we were able to return to Thompson and permanently place the marker on her father's grave.
Even if the simple headstones are there, they never tell the whole story. The cattle rustler's father who was shot by mistake, the traveler who fell under the wheels of a train at Thistle, the mine deaths of those hunting silver, gold or coal, the sheepman shot by another in a fit of anger, the woman who became mired in the quicksand of the Colorado while her son and husband were out with the cattle, the murdering three-fingered gambler who shot another over a $10 loan?these are the stories that keep the work interesting.
Not all deaths were "dramatic," as is testified to by the tiny graves of babies, that of the old settler who reached 100 years of age, or perhaps those of the young men struck down during the influenza pandemic. As each story is researched and correlated with the grave or cemetery, I feel that one more person has been "found" for posterity. The graves may never all be identified, but each time I receive a phone call or e-mail that asks about a long-lost relative, I am encouraged to keep up the hunt.
--Rusty Salmon, editor of Canyon Legacy and president of the Grand County Historical Preservation Commission
Explore Utah's cemeteries on your own. To learn the location of cemeteries large and small, go to the USHS burials/cemeteries database. This site also lists 400,000 burials in Utah, so if you are looking for information on a deceased person buried here, try looking on this easy-to-search database.
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Finding the Family:
How the USHS Library Might Help
If you are exploring your family history, you might want to take a look in the Utah State Historical Society library, located at the Rio Grande Depot at 300 S. Rio Grande St., Salt Lake City. We answer some of your questions here:
What do you have that might help me with my family history?
We have quite a few resources. One is the obituary index. This index covers the obituaries that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News between 1850 and 1970. For obituaries between 1970 and 1991, we have a Salt Lake Tribune yearly subject index that shows the obituaries for each year. Once you find your ancestor in the obituary index, you can look at the newspaper here, since we have the Salt Lake newspapers on microfilm. We also have several smaller community newspapers.
We also have city directories for Salt Lake City, Ogden, Logan, Provo, St. George, and Tooele. These directories give the residence and occupation of individuals and sometimes include other valuable information such as a person's death date, name of spouse, or where he moved. The directories include a business section, so you can see the place where your ancestors may have worked.
If my ancestor had a journal, how could I find it?
Our online catalog tells what journals are housed in our collection. We also have reference books such as Davis Bitton's Guide to Mormon Diaries and Autobiographies, which tells where diaries and autobiographies are located. If you can't find a journal, you might try other biographical sources, such as Andrew Jenson's L.D.S. Biographical Encyclopedia, our manuscripts of personal histories and memoirs, or our biography index, which catalogues articles that have appeared in magazines and newspapers.
I heard my ancestors had some property in downtown Salt Lake City. Do you have any maps showing land?
We have a pioneer plat map that shows who owned property in the downtown area in 1851. The map was compiled from survey records and is a very popular item. We have copies that you may purchase. We also have thousands of other maps in our collection, ranging from detailed city maps to railroad maps.
How can I locate a photograph of an ancestor or family house?
We have thousands of photographs in our archive, with images of people, businesses, homes, cities, and scenery from throughout the state. You can search our general photograph catalog under the person, place, or thing you are looking for. We also have a photograph collection from the Salt Lake Tribune that covers the years 1938-1967. The Shipler collection, our largest photograph collection, includes more than 100,000 images from 1902-1980. We recently launched a website that has more than 9,000 searchable images from this collection.
Can I find other information online?
Visit the library to see the extensive information that we have online: catalogs, registers, lists of resources, databases, and more.
What are your hours?
We are open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
We invite you to come to the Utah History Information Center and see what information we have. You might just fine a picture of Great-aunt Mabel or the journal that Grandpa Harold wrote.
--Janell Tuttle, information services manager
Phil Notarianni Takes the Helm
"I live and breathe history," says Philip F. Notarianni, who was recently named director of the Division of State History/Utah State Historical Society.
Notarianni, a Utah native and the son of Italian immigrants, hopes to foster a broader understanding of the history of all the peoples of Utah. He teaches in the University of Utah's Ethnic Studies program and has written numerous articles and books on Utah's Italian history, ethnic and mining communities, and other topics. "The state is much more diverse than many people perceive," he says. "I want to create a respect for and understanding of different values."
Notarianni has been serving as acting associate director under the leadership of Wilson Martin. He has also worked as the division's coordinator of public programs, directing the division's outreach programs, including exhibits, public education, and technical assistance. Notarianni holds bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Utah and also a master's degree in history from the University of Minnesota. He lives in Magna with his wife, Maria Teresa.
Find Great Photos Online
Using a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Utah State Historical Society has digitized more than 10,000 images, which are now available on the Internet at http://history.utah.gov/Photos/C275/. They include
The Salt Lake City Engineer's Photograph Collection
Salt Lake City Engineer's Photograph Collection gives an excellent look at city development during the Progressive Era. The collection covers the 30 years between 1902 and 1932 and documents the construction of infrastructure in and around Salt Lake City. This includes roads, sewers, irrigation systems, curb and gutters, street lighting, street repairs, comfort stations, mills, dams, reservoirs, bridges, and more. One thousand 8" x 10 " glass plate negatives have been scanned for this collection.
Shipler Commercial Photograph Collection
The Shipler Commercial Photograph Collection contains approximately 100,000 negatives, and it documents the people, places, and events of the Intermountain West from 1903 to 1980. While the Shiplers were photographers for hire, they were also avid recreational photographers who documented their own interests, which included travel and leisure activities such as fishing, biking, and auto racing. The Utah State Historical Society has digitized 10,000 images from this rich collection. (A grant the Utah State Library Division assisted.)
Olympic Legacy Photograph Collection
As a legacy of the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games, the Utah State Historical Society collected artifacts and other materials generated as a result of the games. The Olympic Legacy Collection is available for future generations to view as a tribute to the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Some 400 items from the collection can be viewed online.
A Gift of History
Recently the Utah State Historical Society library received a generous donation--$75,000--from the John Williams James family (John Williams James, Georgia Williams James, John Williams James Jr., Dorothy Marion Wells James and Richard Williams James). The family asked that the money go toward library acquisitions.
John Williams James Jr. was the Society's first librarian. Starting in 1952 and continuing for 20 years, he tackled the job of bringing order to a not-yet-catalogued library housed in a crowded room at the State Capitol. Mr. James worked vigorously to build a Utah, Mormon, and western history collection and he was instrumental in building the photograph and manuscript collections. Richard Williams James was also interested in Utah and family history and compiled several publications.
All Utahns will benefit from the James family's generosity as the Society collects and preserves important records of Utah history.
Olympic Exhibit
Items from the USHS Olympic Legacy Collection will be on display at the Rio Grande Depot, Salt Lake City, until May 1. Because the Games both drew on Utah history and have become a part of the state's history, costumes, uniforms, commercial items, signs, photos, pins, and more have been incorporated into our permanent exhibit. You may also view some 400 items from the collection online.
Discover the Ancient Past: Utah Prehistory Week
Events around the state will recognize and celebrate Utah's varied prehistory the week of May 3 to ay 10. Archaeological groups throughout Utah will sponsor tours of archaeological sites, lectures, workshops, demonstrations, and other activities. On May 10 the Division of State History archaeologists will offer tours of Danger and Jukebox caves, significant archaeological sites near Wendover. The size of the group is limited. To register, call (801) 533-3564.
The Division/Utah State Historical Society will also host a Prehistory Open House for adults, children, and families at the Rio Grande Depot on May 3. Food and fun activities will give participants hands-on experiences in archaeology and anthropology.
If you would like a free Prehistory Week poster, you may pick one up at the Rio Grande Depot.
Call for Papers
The Utah State Historical Society invites submission of paper proposals for its 2003 annual meeting, to be held in Salt Lake City on Friday, September 12, 2003. Proposals on any Utah-related topic will be considered. Send a one- or two-page proposal to Kent Powell, Utah State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101, no later than April 30. Please include a brief description of the topic and research base as well as a brief biographical profile of the presenter. Proposals can also be e-mailed to Kent Powell.
READING THE LANDSCAPE:
How to Recognize Early Utah Homes
It's a fair bet that your city or town--maybe even your neighborhood--still has some homes that were built in the 1850s, 1860s, or 1870s.
Once you become aware of the kinds of houses that settlers built, a journey through a small town or old neighborhoods can become an adventure in discovery. How was a house designed? Why? What was it built of? Why? What would family life have been like in this house? What changes or additions have been made over the years?
The early Anglo settlers in Utah built their homes out of materials close at hand: adobes (mud bricks), stone, wood, and, later, locally fired brick.
They also built simple homes based on proven designs--for the obvious reason that most didn't have a lot of extra cash, materials, or time. In fact, cash-strapped people were still building one-room homes and even dugouts into the 20th century.
If you start looking for these early houses, you will start to recognize them--and you might be able to figure out the basic interior configuration just by looking at the outside. The earliest settlers built their one- or two-story homes in a few basic types:
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The single cell One room, and that was it. Log cabins were often single cells, but settlers typically built single cells out of adobe, wood, or brick. A family might build a lean-to kitchen on the back. Or, if they built a two-story single cell, they might put the staircase outside the house--after all, space inside was already tight. Not surprisingly, many of the old single cells have received additions. You'll find this type most often in central and southern Utah, mainly because those areas haven't seen as much development pressure as the Wasatch Front has. |
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The hall parlor This house has one main room (the hall) and one smaller room (the parlor). Like the single cell, this is an old type of house, maybe dating back to the 13th century in England. The front of this plain rectangular house usually has a door in the middle with one or two windows on each side. Because the rooms are different sizes, if you see an off-center chimney, you are probably looking at a hall parlor. But a chimney at either end could still mean a hall parlor--or it might mean a central passage (see below). The hall parlor was the most commonly built house of the 19th century. |
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The double cell This house, with two equal-size rooms, has two front doors. In Utah, those two doors immediately bring polygamy to mind. However, although many double cells did have polygamous families living in them, not all of them did. In the mid-1800s, people liked classical design, and that meant symmetry, so they put in the two doors to balance the look. Really. Double cells are common in the East and Midwest--hardly bastions of polygamy. Still, the double doors would be a convenience for two wives living under the same roof. |
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The central passage In this house a hallway running front to back separates two rooms. The door is in the center of the facade and opens onto the hall. You might see chimneys on the ends of the house or closer together, built into the hallway walls. Almost every Utah community has a few central passages. |
PRESERVATION PUZZLER
Identify the historic building in this photo and win a membership to the Utah State Historical Society or a $15 gift certificate for USHS publications. Send your response (one guess per contestant) to Preservation Puzzler, 300 S. Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, UT 84101. Responses must be postmarked by April 15, 2003. A drawing will be held of the winners to determine who receives the gift certificate.
Answer to previous Puzzler: The historic building shown in the December 2002 Puzzler is the Toyack FFA Chapter House in Roosevelt. It was constructed in 1933-36 by high school boys in the local chapter of the Future Farmers of America, under the direction of their teacher, Walter E. Atwood. They cut trees for the lumber, hauled stone and gravel by wagon teams, salvaged scrap metal for rebar in the concrete, and contributed untold hours toward its construction. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
On the Road
THE WESTERN MINING AND RAILROAD MUSEUM, HELPER
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As you look up at the Helper Hotel, you can't help but wonder about the people who have found shelter within its brick walls over the years. Who traveled by dusty road or rail in 1914 to stay in Helper's brand-new hotel? Who slept in the fine rooms to the whistles and chugging of steam engines nearby? Immigrants from many countries came to Helper to work in the coal mines or related enterprises. So no doubt the hotel housed a great variety of people.
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Museum volunteer Ronald Jewkes points to Silk Stocking Road on a photo of the company coal town Kenilworth. Ronald has lived for 75 years on this street. |
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A whiskey still and bottle capping equipment show tools of the bootleggers' trade. |
The hotel now houses the Western Mining and Railroad Museum. One of the delights of visiting the museum is wandering in and out of the old hotel rooms and discovering the treasures they now contain. You will find model trains, railroad artifacts, household items, a "coal mine," a whiskey still, jail cell, blacksmith shop, company store, schoolroom, doctor and dentist offices, displays on mine disasters, railroad office, fascinating photos, and much more.
But don't just walk through the exhibits. You can make your own discoveries if you take the time to chat with those who know first hand about life in coal towns: the volunteers at the front desk.
For instance, you might meet Ronald Jewkes, who can tell you about living his whole life on Kenilworth's Silk Stocking Road--so called because the better-paid mine bosses and engineers lived there. Or you might meet his friend Guy Adams, deputy sheriff of Carbon County. Guy can tell you stories about the "malicious mischief" he got into as a kid--before he grew to be cop.
Next time you are driving into or out of Price, don't pass by the little sign pointing to Helper. Turn in. Discover the old Helper Hotel and its gem of a museum.
Western Mining and Railroad Museum, 296 South Main, Helper, Utah, (435) 472-3009
Hours: May 1 -- Sept 30: 10 a.m. -- 6 p.m., M -- S; Oct 1 -- Apr 30: 11 a.m. -- 4 p.m., T -- S
THE JENSEN SITE DIG
We are blessed in our area of southeastern Utah with numerous Ancient Pueblo sites--some even within cities and towns. I feel awe when I think that only 800 years ago there was a people walking over the same mesas, growing crops on the same land, drinking out of the same creeks, having babies, raising children, and attempting to stay warm in the winter. We find many evidences of their hunting, cooking, and living all about us.
One ancient site lies close to the Edge of the Cedars Museum and ruin and just across from Blanding's nursing home and medical facility. Winston Hurst, a local archaeologist, noticed the remains of two pithouses (structures dug into the earth and covered with a roof) following some bulldozer work on a vacant lot. He watched the property for some time hoping to study the site before further development took place.
Speaking to our local Utah Statewide Archaeological Society chapter (called "The Trails of the Ancients," or TAAS), Winston expressed his desire to study the site. Our members, who come from Halls Crossing, Hite, Bluff, Blanding, Monticello, and Moab, decided to take on the project.
The owner gave us permission to study; the Division of State History gave us a grant; and the Edge of the Cedars Museum lent us expertise. We combined these with TAAS's resources of people and a little cash. On August 17 last year, fifteen persons met to begin the project.
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Winston Hurst and Deborah Westfall, Edge of the Cedars archaeologist, taught us how to lay out a ten-meter grid. After flagging the corners, we walked over each section collecting artifacts, which included pottery sherds, rock flakes, rocks used for tools, and pieces of bone. Amazingly, we found two perfect arrow points, a large rock tool, and a bone awl--quite a find for land that had been so well used for nearly 100 years. Our mentors taught us the process of collecting, cataloging, photographing, and processing artifacts.
We decided we didn't enjoy working in 90?+ heat, so we moved our future dig times to early mornings. On ensuing days we removed 36" of the soil and exposed the outline of the two pithouses we were to study. During this process we found numerous other marks, including the outline of a rectangular pithouse lying between the two round ones.
The archaeologists patiently taught how to map the site and each individual feature with drawings and notes. They showed us how to dig small features: remove dirt, take soil samples, take pollen samples, take other samples, measure, draw.
When we began work on the rectangular pithouse, we started by laying out a grid, including a square meter in the center marked for the initial excavation. We sorted artifacts by type: lithics (rocks), ceramics (pottery), and bone. Any special finds get a specific bag or container. Each layer (10 or 20 mm) received a new set of bags.
Now, several months have passed, with some 25 days of digging. It has been wonderful to experience archaeology firsthand. I find it especially interesting to learn about the different soil types that have collected over the last 1300 years.
Some of the interesting artifacts we have found include a 1" ball of red ochre pigment, some little animal bones, a broken pinch pot with azure blue and red oxide pigment, several broken pots, and a hammer stone. The most surprising find so far is the base of a Folsom Point (age 70009000 B.C.), which was screened out of the fill of the rectangular pithouse.
Two Abajo red-on-orange pottery sherds date that pithouse and the adjacent features in the early Pueblo I period (750800 A.D.). Right now, Winston and Debbie think that the other two pithouses were occupied at least a generation or two before that, during the early 700s or earlier. By the time of this settlement, there had been people in the Four Corners area for more than 10,000 years.
Originally I thought archaeology was some kind of a treasure hunt, but I have come to understand that it involves so much more: mapping, art, geometry, soil study, botany, history, chemistry, weather, photography, record-keeping, organizing...
It has also been very interesting to meet people who are willing to come and help us dig for a few hours or a few days. Some have been professionals; some have been highlytrained and experienced amateurs. Others are just lay people interested in the project. We even had two "Anasazi Wall Inspectors" come to check whether we were keeping the walls straight on the dig. Mine flunked, but I wasn't fired.
We are currently seeking funds to make a yurt for some protection from rain and sun. After the ground thaws, we will continue our project, and we welcome help. We have much left to do. The rectangular pithouse is less than half dug; we have just started one of the round ones; and the other round one remains untouched. Please reach me at for information or to help with time or money.
--Nancy Kimmerly, TAAS
TRACKS: THE BIRTH OF MASS TRANSIT:
a photo essay
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Mass transit arrived in Salt Lake City in 1872, when a mule pulled the first streetcar down tracks laid on Main Street (Brigham Young himself took the first ride). Within a few years, the Salt Lake City Railroad Company was running 41 cars on nine miles of tracks. One line took bathers to Warm Sulphur Springs, at what is now north 300 West. People used the bathhouse, built in 1850, for changing clothes but also for dancing and enjoying other entertainments. |
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Given the speed of mules, mass transit did not mean rapid transit. But when the company electrified one line in 1889, things sped up. People watching a streetcar pass "stared as though an apparition were flying by." This 1895 photo shows two uniformed drivers standing by an early electric car.The early streetcars sometimes got stuck on humps in the tracks. When that happened, passengers and crew piled out to rock the car over the hump. |
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TRAX construction at the turn of the 21st century may be a hassle for Salt Lake drivers, but it pales compared to tracks construction at the turn of the 20th century. By 1900 the valley had more than 100 miles of tracks, with more being laid all the time. Here a track gang--apparently from the state prison--works at the intersection of Fourth South and State Street in 1903. Obviously, the city has changed some since then. |
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Construction at South Temple and Main Street. A close look at the photo and a little research can tell us when it was taken. The Brigham Young Monument went up in 1897, and the Deseret News building came down in 1910 to make room for the Hotel Utah. But what really pinpoints the photo is the Brigham Young Memorial Building under construction (where the cascading fountain east of the LDS Salt Lake Temple is now); it was built in 1902-1903. |
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Fun-seekers rode the streetcars to parks and resorts. These cars ran between Calder's Park (now Nibley Golf Course, on 2700 S. 700 East) and Warm Springs. The photo probably shows them on 700 East. Here, in order to pass each other, the cars had to meet at a small section of double track. |
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Fun-seekers rode the streetcars to parks and resorts. These cars ran between Calder's Park (now Nibley Golf Course, on 2700 S. 700 East) and Warm Springs. The photo probably shows them on 700 East. Here, in order to pass each other, the cars had to meet at a small section of double track. |
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In the end, busses and private automobiles--and road projects built with federal and state taxes--doomed the trolleys. One by one, the trolley routes became bus routes, the overhead wires came down, and street crews paved over the tracks. In 1941, car number 712, bedecked with a flowered wreath, made a "final" nostalgic run. The run turned out to be not so final, however. Because of gasoline shortages during the war, a few trolleys continued running until 1945. |
TRAX: REBIRTH OF THE RAILS
The use of public transit dwindled after World War II as people bought automobiles and drove them on federally funded roads. Public transportation in Utah didn't again become a priority until the late 1960s. Just prior to the 1974 energy crisis, in 1969, the legislature passed a bill allowing individual cities to address transportation needs by forming local transit districts. That same year, voters from Salt Lake and the surrounding communities of Bingham, Midvale, Murray, and Sandy voted overwhelmingly to form a public transit district. The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) was formed on March 3, 1970.
Since then, UTA has expanded its operations to include express bus routes, paratransit service, and carpool and vanpool programs in six counties and more than 60 municipalities. In 1999, UTA re-introduced electric railcars in the Salt Lake Valley, calling its new light rail system TRAX, short for "transit express."
TRAX might be reminiscent of early 20th-century streetcars, but a TRAX car, in comparison to a 1913-edition Emigration Canyon Railroad oak and steel car, is 34 feet longer, three inches narrower, and able to carry 210 people--three times more than the old cars could carry. Also, TRAX light rail vehicles are made of not only steel, but also of plymetal and plastic.
Since opening TRAX, UTA has seen ridership steadily increase. Nearly 20,000 riders boarded the Sandy/Salt Lake Line on opening day, December 4, 1999, exceeding initial projections of 14,500 riders per day. Opening the University Line ahead of schedule and under budget in December 2001 helped boost average TRAX weekday ridership to nearly 35,000 trips, about 35 percent higher than it was a year earlier.
In its early years, UTA reported an average of three million rides taken per year. In 2002, approximately 30 million trips were taken.
In November 2000, voters in Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties approved a quarter-cent sales tax increase to fund more transit. The approval of this tax increase indicates growing support for the expansion and improvement the Wasatch Front's public transportation system. With the increased funding, UTA is planning expansions of its light rail line. One extension will be a 10.5-mile line from the 6400 South station to a planned development called Sunrise, in South Jordan. The other is the five-mile West Valley line from the 2100 South station to the Valley Fair Mall. Both projects will be complete by 2012.
Many Utahns remember Utah's last interurban train, the Bamberger Line, which, because of highway subsidies and low fuel prices, ceased passenger train service in 1952. The electrified Bamberger Line was a predecessor to light rail; however, UTA visualizes a different future for interurban rail travel.
As early as 2007, commuters traveling between Ogden and Salt Lake City will be traveling at 70 miles per hour by commuter rail. Commuter rail, one of Utah's largest transportation projects, is based on 175 miles of right-of-way acquired from Union Pacific in January 2002. As the largest land acquisition ever made by a transit agency in the U.S., this $185-million purchase preserves rail corridors along the Wasatch Front for development of north-south service from Brigham City to Payson.
The rails are back for good, and mass transit will continue to grow, giving Wasatch Front residents expanded options for getting around.
--Marti Money, Utah Transit Authority
EXPLORING THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL:
Utah's Newest National Historic Trail
The Old Spanish Trail. The name evokes romantic images of long lines of sweating mules and horses, jingling spurs, bones bleaching on deadly dry desert stretches, Paiute children sold or stolen into slavery. Though the bones bleached mostly in Southern Nevada and California, not Utah, the image is accurate. But the name is not. The trail is not particularly old. Nor was it Spanish.
What could properly be--but isn't--called the Old Spanish Trail would be the one blazed by the Catholic friars Dominguez and Escalante in 1776, half a century before the Old Spanish Trail became a trading route. The two trails are often confused, but they are entirely separate. Dominguez and Escalante entered Utah near its northeast corner, traversed the state diagonally to the St. George area, and finally exited at Crossing of the Fathers, now buried under the waters of Lake Powell.
By contrast, what we call the Spanish Trail entered Utah south of the LaSal Mountains and swung in a great arc through what is now Moab, Green River, Castle Valley, Richfield, Paragonah, and Mountain Meadow before exiting at the southwest corner. Explored bit by bit by various traders and trappers, including the redoubtable Jedediah Smith in 1826 and 1827, it was first traveled in its entirety in 1830. By then, Mexico had won its independence from Spain (in 1821). Traders on the trail were Mexicans, not Spaniards.
Only at one point did the two trails even touch, where they crossed at right angles west of Cedar City. But, though different, the trails were related. Escalante and Dominguez were charged to establish a trail opening commerce between the Spanish missions at Santa Fe and Taos and those in Southern California. Defeated by mud and snow in the Escalante Desert and by the late season, they failed. It took what we now, improperly, call the Spanish Trail to finally establish that commerce.
What commerce it was! Caravans of 200 or more men, mounted on horseback and driving long trains of mules loaded with blankets, serapes, and other woolens from the sheep country of northern New Mexico would typically leave Santa Fe in October, hoping to get out of the high country before snowfall. Two and a half months later, if all went well, they would arrive at the Southern California missions and start trading for horses and mules. In April, before spring runoffs flooded the rivers, they started back, driving great herds. One caravan set out with 4,150 legally acquired horses. More typically, a caravan would be half that big. But in the 20 and more years of this traffic, the numbers were huge. So were the profits. A horse acquired for less than a dollar--or in many cases stolen for nothing---in California would sell for 20 or 30 times that amount in New Mexico. Mules brought higher prices.
Slavery was a profitable sideline. Both going and coming, traders bought or stole children and women from the primitive and impoverished Southern Paiutes and sold them for servitude in missions at either end of the trail. In his book Forty Years Among the Indians, the Mormon Daniel W. Jones describes the system. Traders setting out from New Mexico, he wrote, would trade their used-up horses or mules to the poorer Indians for children. "The horses were often used for food...the children bought on the down trip would be traded [in California] for horses, goods or cash. Many times a small outfit would return with large herds of California stock. All children bought on the return trip would be taken back to New Mexico and then sold, boys fetching on an average $100, girls from $150 to $200."
Not only Mexican traders used the trail. In fact, the first to travel its length, in 1830,was a party of 20 trappers led by William Wolfskill and George C. Yount, who intended to trap beavers en route to and in California. Others followed?adventurers, California-bound settlers, explorers like John C. Fremont and Kit Carson, military expeditions, Mormon Battalion members returning from California, gold-seeking Forty-Niners. Not to mention some highly specialized bands of horse thieves based largely in Utah.
In the 1840s, with the market for beaver pelts and the beaver population both largely gone, trapping was no longer profitable. Unfit or unwilling to settle into a sedentary lifestyle, Mountain Men like Pegleg Smith, Old Bill Williams, Phil Thompson, Joe Walker, James Beckwourth, and others turned their attention to the vast California horse herds. So did Chief Wakara and members of his Ute band. They had no woolens to trade or money with which to buy; instead, they simply stole.
In January 1840, for example, Robert Newell wrote in his diary at Browns Hole on the Green River that "about l0 or 15 [trappers] have gone to California for the purpose of Robbing and Steeling." They succeeded, driving off more than 3,000 horses, 1,200 from the mission of San Luis Obispo alone. As the story goes, more than a hundred Californians pursued but were left afoot in the desert when the trappers ambushed them near the Nevada border and drove off all their horses. The raids continued. James Beckwourth wrote that in 1846 "I, together with five trusty Americans, collected eighteen hundred stray horses we found roaming on the Californian ranchos and started with our utmost speed from Pueblo de Angeles."
Through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War on February 2, 1848, California as well as Utah became part of the United States. Subsequently, either patriotism or reluctance to face American rifles ended the Mountain Man raids. As Pegleg Smith wrote, "I never make war on my own people. In driving off Spanish horses I might be brought in contact with my own countrymen, and you know that would not by any manner of means do."
But Ute Chief Wakara made no such distinctions. He and his band continued their raids, including the traffic in Paiute children. In fact, it was his anger at Brigham Young's order ending the trade that in part led to what is known as the Walker War in 1853.
The misnamed Old Spanish Trail has been called the longest, crookedest, toughest pack trail in North America, if not the world. Of its 1,200 miles between Santa Fe and Los Angeles, more than a third, 450 miles, are in Utah. The late Gregory C. Crampton, University of Utah historian, spent years tracing the trail's various routes. His maps and descriptions published in the Utah Historical Quarterly, Fall 1979, and later in his book In Search of the Spanish Trail, Santa Fe to Los Angeles, 1829-48, are the best guides for following the trail on the ground.
Unlike on stretches of the Nevada desert, in the NoPah Mountains on the Nevada-California border, and elsewhere, very little remains visually of the trail in Utah. But there are places where anyone with good imagination, and in some cases a reliable four-wheel-drive outfit, can sense the drama and hardship of life on the trail.
One is where, between the towering laccolithic peaks of the LaSal Mountains to the north and the Abajos to the south, the trail wound down East Canyon wash. Orville Pratt, a lawyer traveling with an 18-man escort in September 1848, describes the ordeal and his astonishment at the beauty of the country around Moab: "The mountains all about us are covered with snow...through a cold and heavy rain we began descending one of the longest & steepest mountains yet passed over. But we got down it with safety. After reaching the bottom the scenery in the valley was the most rugged & sublime I ever beheld." Some say it's possible to four-wheel down this wash; we've never tried it.
Another place is the crossing of the Colorado, about half a mile below the highway bridge near Moab. Pratt described the river as "the most rapid for its size I ever saw. It is dangerous to cross when high, & falls into a deep canion about 600 yards below the crossing."
Or stand at the crossing of the Green River near the town of that name--the only feasible crossing, since the Green flows through the deep, forbidding Grey and Desolation canyons to the north, Labyrinth Canyon to the south. Here George Brewerton, traveling east with Kit Carson in 1848, describes how the raft they built deposited them on the same side of the river a mile downstream. "Our situation was now far from pleasant, the only article of dress which we wore being our hats.? To go up against the rapids against the stream was out of the question, and to cross from where we were, with a considerable fall and jagged rocks just below us, equally impossible. So we had no resource but to shoulder our baggage and travel back on foot...uttering more than one anathema upon the thorny plants, which wounded our unprotected feet at every step."
His account of the animals' crossing, once the men were over, is a classic: "In a few moments the whole caballada was under way; the old bell-mare striking out and breasting the waves gallantly, while the mules, with only their heads and long ears visible above the water, came puffing like small high-pressure steam-boats in her wake. The yelling on our side now commenced, in which concert the Indians took the thorough base, performing to admiration; while our Mexican muleteers rent the air with their favorite cry of 'anda mula,' 'hupar mula.' The animals, attracted by the noise, made straight for us and we soon had the gratification of seeing them safely landed, dripping and shaking themselves like so many Newfoundland dogs."
In the crossing, Brewerton reported, Kit Carson lost "six rifles, three saddles, much ammunition, and nearly all our provisions."
A dirt road roughly follows the trail west from Green River through country that lawyer Pratt called "sandy, hilly & utterly barren. Water is also scarce, & if there is no mineral wealth in these mountains I can hardly conceive of what earthly use a large proportion of this country was designed for."
But in addition to sensing the harshness and loneliness of the region, the trail follower has the bonus of examining exquisite stone culverts and bridges built by Chinese rail-grade gangs in 1882 when the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad undertook to build a line along the Spanish Trail route through the northern end of the San Rafael Swell to Castle Valley, then over the Wasatch Plateau to join its Los Angeles line at Salina. After 50 miles of grade-building at an 1882 cost of $217,000, reality set in, and D&RG abandoned the route in favor of the present one to Provo by way of Price.
Near the favorite watering hole of Red Seeps, eight miles east of Castle Dale, the trail can actually be seen. Clearly visible swales mark where thousands upon thousands of hoofs pounded over the low, rocky hills. On through level and well-watered Castle Valley there was no need for horses to single-file, and they didn't. Captain John Gunnison, traveling through the area in 1853 unknowingly en route to the massacre of his eight-man party on the Sevier River by renegade Pahvant Indians, noted that "The Spanish trail though seldom used of late years, is still very distinct where the soil washes but slightly. In some such spaces today we counted from fourteen to twenty parallel trails...on a way barely fifty feet in width."
Perhaps the place to experience the trail at its wildest is where it leaves the Sevier River and climbs the northern end of the Markagunt Plateau to reach the Little Salt Lake. A dirt road leaves Highway 20 seven miles west of Orton and follows the trail up Bear Creek into Upper Bear Valley and around the shoulder of 10,142-foot Little Creek Peak before descending Red Creek into Paragonah. In this vicinity, Wolfskill and Yount nearly lost their lives in 1830.
Yount later wrote that in crossing the Markagunt Plateau "they encountered the most terrible snowstorm they had ever experienced--During several days, no one ventured out of camp--There they lay embedded in snow, very deep, animals and men huddled thick as possible together, to husband and enjoy all possible animal warmth, having spread their thick and heavy blankets, & piled bark and brush wood around & over them... Several of their animals had perished in the piercing cold."
Years later, in 1848, Orville Pratt crossed the same summit and described what today's four-wheelers can experience in descending down Red Creek to Paragonah and Little Salt Lake Valley. He wrote of traveling "up the steepest of hills, then down places which it would seem almost impossible to descend, again in deep and precipitous canions: until at length suddenly broke upon us one of the finest and most extensive valleys I have seen in the whole western country!"
Stand at a small, lonely stone monument hidden away on a dirt road five miles east of Newcastle. Here, nearly 500 California-bound gold seekers made a decision that would cost many of them their lives. Reaching Salt Lake City in late summer 1849 and aware of the Donner Party tragedy in the Sierras, they knew of the danger of that route so late in the season. But spending the winter among the Mormons held no appeal. So they contracted with Jefferson Hunt, a veteran of the Mormon Battalion who had been over the trail, to guide them and their hundred wagons over the Spanish Trail to southern California. That would mean hacking out the first wagon road over the trail, a task that soon left the group disgruntled and rebellious.
A packer named O. K. Smith brought out a map supposedly drawn by Mountain Man Bill Williams showing a shortcut that would save 500 miles to the gold fields. One of the company recorded a short, memorable speech by Hunt: "Gentlemen, I agreed to pilot you through and if only one wagon goes with me I will go with it. If you want to follow Captain Smith I can't help it, but I believe you will get into the jaws of hell." Only seven wagons continued with Hunt on the Spanish Trail. The rest of the company soon fulfilled Hunt's prophecy. Fragmented and following various routes, they all suffered terribly. Many died in the waterless wastes of southern Nevada and California, several of them in the furnace of what, as a result, became known as Death Valley.
Finally, there is Mountain Meadow. The horror of what happened there in 1857 obscures the fact that this was the crucial place on the Spanish Trail. Here caravans entering or emerging from the desert rested their animals for days, preparing for or recuperating from the ordeal of those hundreds of pitiless miles. Look beyond the massacre monument, to an earlier time. Imagine a thousand or more horses and mules grazing on belly-high grass. Smell the smoke of campfires.
As Lieutenant George D. Brewerton, traveling with Kit Carson, wrote in 1848, "Imagine upward of two hundred Mexicans dressed in every variety of costume, from the embroidered jacket of the wealthy Californian, with its silver bell-shaped buttons, to the scanty habiliments of the skin-clad Indians.... Their pack-saddles and bales had been taken off and carefully piled, so as not only to protect them from damp, but to form a sort of barricade or fort for their owner. From one side to the other of these little corrals of goods a Mexican blanket was stretched, under which the trader lay smoking his cigarrito, while his Mexican servant or slave--for they are little better--prepared his coffee and atole."
Imagine all that, and listen on a quiet summer evening for the high-pitched cry of the Spanish Trail muleteer: "Anda mula!"
--William B. Smart, author of Old Utah Trails and other books on Utah and its history
In November, Congress voted to make the Old Spanish Trail a National Historic Trail. (Utah also has portions of these National Historic Trails: California, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express.)
SOURCES
C. Gregory Crampton, "Utah's Spanish Trail," Utah Historical Quarterly, Fall 1979; Crampton and Madsen, Steven K, In Search of the Spanish Trail, Santa Fe to California, 1829-48; Hafen, LeRoy R. and Ann W., Old Spanish Trail: Santa Fe to Los Angeles, With Extracts from Contemporary Records and Including Diaries of Antonio Armijo and Orville Pratt; Smart, William B.: Old Utah Trails; Smart, William B. and Donna T., Over the Rim: The Parley P. Pratt Exploring Expedition to Southern Utah 1849-50.