A HISTORY OF Emery County Edward A. Geary 1996 Utah State Historical Society Emery County Commission Copyright O 1996 by Emery County Commission All rights reserved ISBN 0-913738-050-0 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 96-60167 Map by Automated Geographic Reference Center-State of Utah Printed in the United States of America Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City, Utah 84 10 1- 1182 Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. vii GENERALINTRODUCTION . ix CHAPTER1 Where the Desert Meets the Mountains . 1 CHAPTER2 The Hinterland: Explorers and Adventurers . 24 CHAPTER3 The Last Colony, 1877-1 880 . 58 CHAPTER4 From Colony to Community, 1880-1900 . 94 CHAPTER5 Discovering the Limits, 1900-1920 . 172 CHAPTER6 Hard Times, Good Times, 1920-1945 . 259 CHAPTER7 The Graying of Emery County, 1945-1 970 . 3 15 CHAPTER8 The Boom and After, 1970-1995 . 366 SELECTEDBIBLIOGRAPHY . .. 423 INDEX......................................... 427 Acknowledgments Thisproject could not have been completed without the assis- tance of many people. The officers and members of the Emery County Historical Society have been most helpful in providing mate- rials, correcting errors and omissions, and offering suggestions and support. I have tried to acknowledge specific obligations in chapter notes. I am especially grateful to Sylvia H. Nelson, coordinator of the county history project for the ECHS, who has gone far beyond the call of duty. County officers and courthouse employees have been unfailingly cooperative. Allan Kent Powell and Craig Fuller of the Division of State History were extremely helpful in ferreting out sources of information and in offering editorial advice. This study would not have been possible without the work of those who have gone before. It will be apparent that I owe a large debt to the compilers of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers history, Castle Valley (cited in the notes as CV), and the Emery County Historical Society's Emery County, 1880-1 980 (cited as EC 1880-1 980). I also express gratitude to the editors and correspon- dents of the Emery County Progress (cited as ECP or, from 1968 to vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1977, as ECPL). I hope this newspaper's ninety-five years of service to the county will continue long into the future. My grandparents Edward G. Geary, Huntington pioneer of 1884, and Grace Wakefield Geary, who belonged to the first generation born in Emery County, first awakened my interest in history by their talk of early times. That interest was further stimulated by the research of my father, Elmo G. Geary, into early theater and by the stories told by my mother, Estella Ungerman Geary Guymon. I am grateful for them and for all of the "old folks" whose lives have touched mine. I am grateful also for the support of my wife, Janet, and my children, who have endured with good grace my fascination with a place that must in the nature of things be for them another country. In the course of my research, I have often indulged a lifelong habit of visiting the county's cemeteries and have come to feel some- thing like a personal acquaintance with many of those memorialized there. They have kept me aware that the history of Emery County is the story of people working individually and in family and commu- nity groups. It is not possible in a work of this scope to do justice to all of those who have contributed to the making of the county. For every person included in this book, there are others equally worthy of mention. I hope my omissions will motivate readers to record and preserve their own personal and family histories, both as an intrinsi- cally valuable legacy and as a resource for future work on the county's history. General Introduction WhenUtah was granted statehood on 4 January 1896, twenty- seven counties composed the nation's new forty-fifth state. Subsequently two counties, Duchesne in 1914 and Daggett in 1917, were created. These twenty-nine counties have been the stage on which much of the history of Utah has been played. Recognizing the importance of Utah's counties, the Utah State Legislature established in 199 1 a Centennial History Project to write and publish county histories as part of Utah's statehood centennial commemoration. The Division of State History was given the assign- ment to administer the project. The county commissioners or their designees were responsible for selecting the author or authors for their individual histories, and funds were provided by the state legis- lature to cover most research and writing costs as well as to provide each public school and library with a copy of each history. Writers worked under general guidelines provided by the Division of State History and in cooperation with county history committees. The counties also established a Utah Centennial County History Council to help develop policies for distribution of state-appropriated funds and plans for publication. Each volume in the series reflects the scholarship and interpreta- tion of the individual author. The general guidelines provided by the Utah State Legislature included coverage of five broad themes encompassing the economic, religious, educational, social, and polit- ical history of the county. Authors were encouraged to cover a vast period of time stretching from geologic and prehistoric times to the present. Since Utah's statehood centennial celebration falls just four years before the arrival of the twenty-first century, authors were encouraged to give particular attention to the history of their respec- tive counties during the twentieth century. Still, each history is at best a brief synopsis of what has transpired within the political boundaries of each county. No history can do jus- tice to every theme or event or individual that is part of an area's past. Readers are asked to consider these volumes as an introduction to the history of the county, for it is expected that other researchers and writers will extend beyond the limits of time, space, and detail imposed on this volume to add to the wealth of knowledge about the county and its people. In understanding the history of our counties, we come to understand better the history of our state, our nation, our world, and ourselves. In addition to the authors, local history committee members, and county commissioners, who deserve praise for their outstanding efforts and important contributions, special recognition is given to Joseph Francis, chairman of the Morgan County Historical Society, for his role in conceiving the idea of the centennial county history project and for his energetic efforts in working with the Utah State Legislature and State of Utah officials to make the project a reality. Mr. Francis is proof that one person does make a difference. INDEX MAP EMERY GO WHERETHE DESERT MEETSTHE MOUNTAINS Emery County is located in the southeastern quadrant of the state of Utah. It covers an area of 4,439 square miles in a roughly square outline and is bounded on the west by Sanpete and Sevier counties, on the north by Carbon County, on the east by Grand County, and on the south by Wayne County. The elevation ranges from under 4,000 feet at Saddlehorse Bottoms on the Green River to 10,728 feet at the summit of East Mountain. With only two excep- tions, the county's borders are arbitrarily drawn political lines. The Green River forms a natural boundary on the east (although a shift in the streambed since the boundary was established has put a por- tion of the west bank in Grand County). The other natural border forms one side of a narrow "panhandle" at the county's northwest corner. This boundary line follows the ridge that divides the Huntington Creek watershed from that of the Price River. The population of Emery County in 1990 was 10,332, most of whom resided in the county's nine incorporated cities and towns: Huntington (l,875), Castle Dale ( 1,704),Ferron (1,606), Orangeville (1,459), Green River (744 plus an additional 122 in Grand County), Cleveland (498), Emery (300), Elmo (267), and Clawson (151). The most important industries are mining, electrical power generation, farming, livestock raising, and recreation and tourism. The county has been an important transportation corridor since prehistoric times when the Green River crossing provided a link between the Ute people in central Utah and those in western Colorado. The Green River crossing and Wasatch (Salina) Pass were key points on the Spanish Trail, a nineteenth-century trade route between the Hispanic settlements in New Mexico and those in California. Major trans- portation arteries today include the Denver-Salt Lake City main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which passes through Green River; Interstate 70, which crosses the entire width of the county; U.S. Highway 6, which connects Green River with Price, Carbon County; Utah Highway 10, which links the communities in the western part of the county with Price to the north and Interstate 70 to the south; Utah Highway 31, which crosses the Wasatch Plateau from Huntington to Fairview, Sanpete County; and Utah Highway 24, which provides access to the eastern portion of the San Rafael Swell with connections south to Wayne, Garfield, and San Juan counties. The Lay of the Land Emery County is situated at the western edge of the Colorado Plateau and exhibits the characteristic landscape elements of that large province, including massive uplifts, buttes, mesas, badland hills, deep canyons, and long lines of sheer erosional cliffs where thousands of feet of geologic strata are exposed with textbook clarity. There are five distinct physiographic regions in the county, including the Wasatch Plateau, the lowlands area commonly known as Castle Valley, the San Rafael Swell, the Green River Desert, and the West Tavaputs Plateau.