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Show fll (MING SEEN ISiEWSTAY ' John R. Wallis in Salt Lake Tribune q George, county seat of Wash- irjton county, and the region thereabout, there-about, is generally known as "Utah's pijje," on account ot it having a ui ffucli lower altitude than the rest of 2 the state, cotton and other products associated with the southern states being grown here. '' The first settlement made in $ Washington county was at Harmony ;.f (iben in Kane county), near the Iron : county line, in IS 52, by George W. Seevy, John D. Lee, James Pace, Wil-'t Wil-'t liaa Pace and Harvey A. Pace. In i is53, Santa Clara, five miles west of '. St. George, was settled by Jacob V Hamblin, Samuel Knight, Thales H. 1 Hascal and Augustus Poor Hardy, '): who were sent as missionaries to the ft Indians. In May, 1S57, the city of Washington, five miles east of St. s G-:orge. was settled, and here a large 3 cotton mill was erected by direction of Brigham Young and for many years cotton goods of excellent quality qual-ity were manufactured. The first cotton planted in "Dixie" was in the Santa Clara valley in the spring of 1S55 and enough cotton was produced produc-ed from it to make thirty yards of cloth. Virgin City was settled in lfoS by Nephi Johnson and others. In October, . IS 61, three hundred Mormons undethe direction of Eras-tus Eras-tus Snow and Orson Pratt were sent by Brigham Young to Washington county to fouaa. city. They arrived arriv-ed here in December that year and made camp on what is now the eastern east-ern outskirts of St. George and celebrated cele-brated Christmas, 18 61, there. The site of the city was laid out and nam- ed St. George in honor of George Al-! Al-! bert Smith. S First Temple i The first temple erected by the Mormons in Utah is in St. George. Ground for the structure was broken by President Brigham Young and George A. Smith, April 9, 18 71. It was completed and dedicated on January Jan-uary 1, 1877, ond opened for ceremonial cere-monial purposes on January 9, 1877. The work on the building was largely large-ly by voluntary donation, people coming com-ing from distant points and giving their time and labor. The gray sandstone used in the building was hauled from Silver Reef, 20 miles (where silver worth many millions of dollars was later taken from the sandstone) and the walls of the building are said to be very rich in silver. The St. George temple was formally dedicated on April 6, 1877, at the general conference of the church, which was held in the building. build-ing. ; Pioneering in "Dixie" was hard. The vagaries of the Virgin river caused much hardship .and suffering, i After getting a dam in the river and i cops growing good, floods would i Wash out the dams and crops would .! 1,e lost. Sometimes the river would ) change its channel. When a crop : "as grown it was by almost superhuman super-human efforts, men and women alike sharing the hardships, for while the men worked in the river the women i attended the fields at home. Indi-: Indi-: too, caused considerable trouble for the settlers, raiding the fields and ; living off horses and cattle; every i man was held liable for service against the Indians. The settlers 'ere advised by Brigham Young to avnj,i trouble with the Indians as far as possible, to try and keep peace ,vi'h with them' and above all to avoid bloodshed. The uncertainty of lading crops here continued for many years, until finally rock bottom found in the river and a cement dam put in. "wring these first years of Dixie's spttlement the people were a very f lonS way from aid, over roads un-' un-' 1,e":vaby rough through lava beds f am! broken country. Today St. GeoiRe is hut 5 5 miles from the railroads rail-roads over good roads which are ''"Fully being improved. Summers Long ht- George has a population of 0 0 0 - The altitude is 2SS2 feet. k",!""ci's are long and warm, winters fhn and mild. Snowfall in winter ls vry light and it does not lie long f n th? ground. Some winters there ! ls no snow at all. The proportion of t j sunshine is very high, and the term "Sunny Dixie" is usually applied to it by northern neighbors. St. George is located on the Zion Park highway in the southwestern part of Utah near the Arizona and Nevada state borders. It is a scenic section, some of the grandest scenery in the world being within 200 miles. Zion national park is 55 miles distant, dist-ant, the Grand Canyon 175 miles, Bryce canyon 139 .miles and Cedar Breaks 69 miles. Locally there is Snow's canyon, about three miles distant, remarkable for coloring and cliff formation; and Pine Valley mountain, a beautiful extinct valcano 10,050 feet high, where wonderfu views may be had over a good part of three states. Ninety miles nearly due south of this city is the marvelous Toroweap canyon of the Colorado river. Here one may walk right to the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon and look down into the awesome depths over 3000 feet. The river appears as a band of silver no wider than an irrigation irri-gation ditch, yet it is over 300 feet wide. Waves in this canyon run from twelve to twenty feet high, yet with intent listening only the faintest murmur of water is heard on top of the chasm. The coloring of the walls is wonderful. . Nearby is Mount Trumbull, another extinct valcano val-cano with magnificent scenery. "Dixie" is known to be rich in minerals and oil, but not much is being be-ing done at present along these lines. Some shallow wells are being pumped at Virgin and the product marketed locally. A deep test well is being drilled at Purgatory, about twelve miles from St. George, which is down over 30 00 feet with good prospects. The chief occupation of the people is agriculture, horticulture and stock raising. With the improvement of roads in the county in recent years and the bringing of the railroad nearer, it has become plain' to the people of "Dixie" that the future developer and wealth getter of the county is fruit. They have climate and scenery scen-ery for sale none better on earth but their mainstay will be fruit. The flavor and coloring of Dixie grown fruit is superior to any grown elsewhere. It ripens nearly a month earlier than fruits in other parts of the state and there is an unlimited market for it if properly sorted, graded grad-ed and packed. The little hown of Santa Clara is getting rich by peddling its fruit to mining camps in Nevada and other places. Hurricane, the second largest larg-est town in the county and the largest larg-est fruit grower, has shipped 58 cars of peaches to Salt Lake City this year. This is a big gain over former years," the shipments for 1923 being 12 cars, and for 19 24 16 cars. Probably Prob-ably as much fruit as that shipped on the railroad has been taken out by other means this year. Some of the very best fruit land in the country awaits development. It lies south of the river, starting between be-tween St. George and Hurricane and extending south and east. There is about 30,000 acres of very choice fruit land included in it which can be watered from the Virgin river. Capital with which to bring the water onto the land is lacking and has held the project back for years. But it will go through some day, and we believe be-lieve that day is coming soon. Dixie's future never appeared rosier ros-ier than now. Her hardships are getting to be but a memory, the days long hoped for are coming along in good shape and the people are preparing pre-paring to take care of them when they arrive. |