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A HISTORY OF Tooele County Compiled by Ouida Blanthorn UTAH CENTENNIAL COUNTY HISTORY SERIES A HISTORY OF Tooek County Compiled by Ouida Blanthorn Tooele County is the second-largest county in the state, extending from the ridge line of the Oquirrh Mountains to the state line in the west across a broad portion of northwestern Utah. Human habitation extends back thou­ sands of years to the period of ancient Lake Bonneville. Tooele was one of the first six counties created in Utah and began to be settled as early as 1850 by Mormon pioneers, who made extensive use of the county's rich grazing and timber resources. Tooele County has been known in recent decades for its vast desert expanses, including Bonneville Salt Flats, its mineral resources from both the Great Salt Lake and area moun­ tain ranges, and its uses by the U.S. military for test ranges and various other facilities, including the storage and disposal of chemi­ cal and other weapons. Growth of the county has been rapid in recent years, due in part to its proximity to Salt Lake City, many residents using Tooele County towns as bedroom communities for the Wasatch Front. Controversy currently exists between such residents and those who would expand use of the county for industrial growth and waste disposal, including nuclear- waste repositories. ISBN: 0-913738-44-1 A HISTORY OF Tooele County A HISTORY OF Tooele County Compiled by Ouida Blanthorn 1998 Utah State Historical Society Tooele County Commission Copyright © 1998 by Tooele County Commission All rights reserved ISBN 0-913738-44-1 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 98-61318 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 84101-1182 Contents GENERAL INTRODUCTION vii INTRODUCTION ix CHAPTER 1 The Geology and Geography of Tooele County 1 CHAPTER 2 Native Americans in Tooele County 33 CHAPTER 3 Trappers, Surveyors, and Wagon Trains: The Coming of Euro-Americans to Tooele County 45 CHAPTER 4 The Early Settlement of Tooele County .... 62 CHAPTER 5 Transportation: Wheel Tracks and Railroad Beds 90 CHAPTER 6 Early Mining and Industrial Activities 118 CHAPTER 7 Society, Cultural Development, and Religion 154 CHAPTER 8 Education and Medical Care 194 VI CONTENTS CHAPTER 9 The Industrialization of Tooele County in the Twentieth Century 211 CHAPTER 10 Agriculture 226 CHAPTER 11 Tooele's Defense Industries 247 CHAPTER 12 Skull Valley and Environs 271 CHAPTER 13 Rush Valley Towns: Stockton, Clover, St. lohn, and Vernon 286 CHAPTER 14 Deep Creek Country, Wendover, and the Great Salt Lake and Its Desert 311 CHAPTER 15 Grantsville and Other Tooele Valley Towns . 331 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 373 INDEX 381 General Introduction W.he n Utah was granted statehood on 4 January 1896, twenty- seven counties comprised 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 1991 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 vn viii GENERAL INTRODUCTION 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. ALLAN KENT POWELL CRAIG FULLER GENERAL EDITORS Introduction T.uilla " County, as it was originally spelled, was one of the five original counties formed as the result of a convention called in 1849 and formalized by the General Assembly of the Mormon proposed State of Deseret on 31 January 1850. Tooele County holds a unique place in the larger Utah story. The development of Tooele County is reflected in the growth of the county's population from a few Mormon pioneers in 1849 to a population of 32,321 in 1998; and the population is projected to increase by the year 2010 to over 46,000 people. Many newcomers are likely to build homes in the county but commute to employment in the Salt Lake City area. Tooele County is known for its great expanses of open space, and the use of this space for recreation and for preservation is one of the county's greatest future assets. It has also been vital to the county's economic growth—with the federal government reserving large areas of the county for defense purposes, military training grounds, and the storage and disposal of weapons. This latter use of the county as a testing, storage, and disposal area of biological and chemical weapons has recently thrust Tooele County into the national spot- IX INTRODUCTION light, and controversy currently swirls around such projects, with both ardent supports and vehement critics vocal for their respective points of view. The natural resources of the county—the remaining timber, grazing lands, mineral deposits, and water—also are subject to increasingly heavy demands, and the effort to preserve and protect them will doubtless occupy county leaders and residents in the decades of the twenty-first century to come. The writing and publication of this history of the county were made possible by funds authorized by the Utah State Legislature as part of a statewide project of publishing histories of all twenty-nine Utah counties. Work on the history project began in 1992, and the Tooele County Commission earmarked additional funds to supple­ ment those of the state. A conscious effort was made by many resi­ dents of the county to promote and research Tooele County's history, with the emphasis being on broad developments rather than on spe­ cific individuals. The compiler, confronted with an enormous mass of material and having to sift through it to make a one-volume history of Tooele county, has no doubt that this book has fallen far short of including everything of importance in the county's history. Only a several-vol­ ume history could do that. Still, it is hoped that this history will high­ light some of the important developments in the county's history and help reveal its place in the greater general history of the state of Utah. The compiler was aided at various times in her research by those who have helped provide records of various wards and stakes of the Church of lesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon or LDS), the Catholic Diocese, school district files, and various federal records and censuses, among others. Records at the Tooele County clerk's and recorder's offices provided additional information. Material in the Utah State Archives and publications from the U.S. Bureau of Mines were of additional help. News articles were obtained from the Salt Lake Mining Review, Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake Herald, Deseret News, Tooele Transcript-Bulletin, Grantsville Gazette, and Dugway Desert Sampler. Research libraries consulted included the special collections at the Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; Harold B. Lee INTRODUCTION xi Library, Brigham Young University, Provo; Merrill Library, Utah State University, Logan; Family History Library, Salt Lake City; and the Historical Department, Church of lesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Assistance from the offices of Public Affairs at Dugway Proving Ground and Tooele Army Depot proved invaluable. The Utah State Historical Society opened its files for much of the historical data.

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