UTAH CENTENNIAL COUNTY HISTORY SERIES A HISTORY OF Carbon County Ronald G. Watt Carbon County is situated in central Utah, with the Book Cliffs on the north and the Wasatch Plateau on the west. Hundreds of years ago, a group of Fremont Indians lived in Nine Mile Canyon and inscribed their rock art on the canyon walls. White men first became interested in the area as a means to exploit the coal in Pleasant Valley. The Price River Valley was first settled by a group of Mormon pioneers. Within a few years, set­ tlers had founded the towns of Price, Wellington, and Helper. The inhabitants of the valley soon found themselves in political conflict with their neighbors to the south, and when their attempt to move the Emery County seat to Price was thwarted, they founded Carbon County in 1894. The begin­ nings of coal mines in Sunnyside, Castle Gate, and other places encouraged people of many nationalities to migrate to the county, and they have helped create a vibrant and multi- faceted history in this most unique county of the state. That history includes the stories of towns and mining camps, strikes, conflicts, tragedies, struggles, cooperative efforts, and accommodation among the various national and religious groups making up Carbon County up to the present as it and the state begin their second century. ISBN: 0-913738-15-8 ISiilMiiiSliii^liSSiHiSSlE IN MEMORY OF HELEN Z. PAPANIKOLAS A HISTORY OF CarSon County A HISTORY OF Carbon County Ronald G. Watt 1997 Utah State Historical Society Carbon County Commission Copyright © 1997 by Carbon County Commission All rights reserved ISBN 0-913738-15-8 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 96-60678 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 To Frances Cunningham Emma Kuykendall Madge Tomsk J. Eldon Dorman Contents PREFACE ix GENERAL INTRODUCTION xifl CHAPTER 1 The Uniqueness of Carbon County 1 CHAPTER 2 The Land and People Before Settlement .... 9 CHAPTER 3 The Frontier and Settlement Period 18 CHAPTER 4 Agriculture 46 CHAPTER 5 Community and Economic Development... 71 CHAPTER 6 The Coal Industry 107 CHAPTER 7 Mining and Disasters 134 CHAPTER 8 Labor Activities 159 CHAPTER 9 The Coal Camps 183 CHAPTER 10 Cultural Diversity 200 CHAPTER 11 Religion 227 CHAPTER 12 Education 259 vii VU1 CONTENTS CHAPTER 13 The College of Eastern Utah 290 CHAPTER 14 Health Practices 307 CHAPTER 15 Recreation and Entertainment 322 CHAPTER 16 Clubs and Fraternal Organizations 347 CHAPTER 17 Government and Politics 361 CHAPTER 18 1996 and the Future 388 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 397 INDEX 401 Preface G/arbo n County's history is indeed unique in the state of Utah, but that is not a difference that one perceives growing up in the county. To me there were no questions asked about other counties or how they differed from my home county. Didn't everyone have Catholic, Methodist, Greek Orthodox, Mormon, and several other denominations in their home town? Didn't everyone have friends whose parents or at least grandparents immigrated to the United States? Didn't everyone in Utah have friends who knew another language? My good friend knew Spanish, and when we visited his grandmother, she tadced to him in Spanish, and he answered back in English. That was a normal occurrence in my experience of growing up in Carbon County. Most of the rest of the history I didn't know. I only knew the after-effects; I was there for the accommodation or blending part, not the conflict part. Carbon County's early settlers came from the dominant religious group in Utah, but they settled because of the need for land not as a direct "call" from their religious leaders and definitely not for coop­ erative reasons. Less than five years later the railroad built a line ix x PREFACE through the Price River Valley, and the lives of these early settlers changed forever. The railroad company exploited the coal that abounded in this energy-rich area, and it also brought in diverse groups of people from southern Europe and Asia. The county could never be one dimensional again—its history thereafter would be a multifaceted picture. I would like to thank four people especially for their help on this work: Dr. J. Eldon Dorman, Emma Kuykendall, Madge Tomsic, and Frances Cunningham. Dr. Dorman was always the quiet encourager and advocate of a written history. Emma was the stalwart who was the chairperson of the county history committee and was always talk­ ing to her friends, who were many, about the Carbon County history book. Madge Tomsic was always sending me whatever I needed from the Helper Museum and was a good person to send up trial badoons about how it was, and she shot down several of them because of her knowledge. Frances was the person who had gathered extensively on Carbon County history, always let me have copies from her own files, read several chapters in manuscript form, and with whom I discussed aspects of Carbon history for several hours. Other people on the committee and in the county helped in var­ ious ways. Thelma Pierce was my Wellington connection and brought in photographs and manuscripts, and LaRue Bate was the secretary. Elaine Jensen, Birdie Lindsey, and Mary Trabue helped by their dis­ cussions and bringing in source material for the history. Eldon and his late wife, Carole Miller, helped by their discussions with me on the coal camps and gathering oral histories of Hiawatha. James Jensen, Layne Miller, Pam Miller, Lloyd Noyes, Penny Sampinos, Karen Bliss, Walter Borla, and Nancy Taniguchi read parts of earlier versions of the manuscript. I want to thank the archivists and librar­ ians at Utah State University, Utah Historical Society, University of Utah, Brigham Young University, LDS Church Archives, and Bernice Mooney at the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City Archives for their assistance in helping me find sources about Carbon County from their repositories. The people in the offices in Carbon County who assisted me deserve a special thanks: Sandra Baird at Helper City, Charmaine Jones at the Board of Education, Kelly Hansen at the Carbon County Commission, Sue Ann Martel at the College of PREFACE xi Eastern Utah Museum, Joan Lessar at Price City, and Jaylene Marakis at East Carbon City. Dr. Michael Peterson at the College of Eastern Utah willingly shared files and his notes on the history of the school. Helen Papandcolas brought me copies of her files which helped in the history, K. Haybron Adams assisted with microfilms of the newspa­ pers, and Janae Winder, a neighbor, read several draft chapters of the manuscript. I would also like to thank the editors, Kent Powell and Craig Fuller, who tried to teach me more about being a good author and for the reading of Phdip Notarianni who contributed greatly with his comments. I am also grateful for my mother, Norma Watt, who pro­ vided several meals as I traveled to Carbon County, and my wife, Barbara Watt, who was patient with me in my research and writing and listened to me often about historical moments of the county's history. Without all of these people the history would have been poorer, but the mistakes are mine alone. General Introduction Whe, 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 wed 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 Councd xin xiv 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 fads 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.