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Show Or em Mayor No. 1 LAWRENCE J. SNOW It is one thing to be elected Mayor of a well-established well-established city, as Mayuor Jerry Washburn was elected in 1999. He has a comfortable office in which to hang his hat; a mahogany desk on which to write his proclamations, and an experienced city staff to advise him on crucial matters and to carry out his policies. It is quite another matter for a person to be appointed as the chief executive officer of a brand-new town, which has never held a municipal election, owned no town hall, employed no staff, had no fire department or police department, and has zero money in the town treasury. And when towns get themselves born, it is pretty much a lonely birthing process. The Town of Orem was no exception. Settlers had been coming to this community for nearly 60 years to put down their roots and to tackle the arid bench land, where sagebrush, rattlesnakes and jackrabbits ruled supreme. The prospects of, somehow, bringing water onto the parched soil, however, lit the ambitions of a number to whom homesteading virgin territory presented a challenge and an opportunity. For several years, settlers on the bench were only "summer farmers." During the winter months, they lived in nearby communities, where the necessities of life were more readily available. Located near the center of Utah Valley, the high bench lands of Orem were, at one time, a delta in the ancient Lake Bountiful, which has diminished to the present Utah Lake. The first homes on the bench were typical of some of the most primitive, which have been built by white men in America. For those who had no oxen or horses to haul logs from the Provo River for cabins, dugouts were built on the ground. For cabins, logs from Provo Canyon were split in, two and the chinks were plastered up with mud to keep out icy winds. Walls were uncovered, and roofs were often covered with dirt, or thatched with rushes, gathered from the shores of Utah Lake. A fortunate few enjoyed the luxury of having unbleached muslin stretched across the ceiling inside the cabin. rnt't' mmfliig-iMiaMaiMnng f tmmmmmmmmimml Lack of water on the bench made life extremely difficult, during the earliest years. Regular trips to Utah Lake and Provo River were necessary to secure potable drinking water. In 1863 water did come to the bench. Through the combined efforts of settlers and interested people from surrounding areas, a small canal was dug, conveying water from Provo River out over two thousand acres of thirsty ground. Only six feet wide and two and one-half feet deep, the canal brought a slender stream of water to parched earth, which for centuries had barely sustained sagebrush and reptile life. During the first decade of settlement on the bench which has become the City of Orem, a number of industrious people established themselves here and stayed to populate and build the community. Page 13 |