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Show tUfre Page A6 tEtmeg-ftfrepgn&- Thursday, June 3, 2004 mt Idle Thoughts from Mt. Waas Many by Ollie Harris Trails by Adrien F. Taylor WOODSIDE CEMETERY Part of the crew here at The Times this week is pretty excited about the launch this week of our new website, something we have been planning for and working on for some time now. Actually, the web address is nothing new. Its still www.moabtimes.com. But the program creating it and the content are new. As noted on the brief story on page 1 , we are breaking out of the box of traditional weekly newspapering, and will be updating the news on the site as it happens. Well be feeling our way with this, as it is, according to the old rag, ploughing new ground. In the past we have had news from the front page of the paper on the website. We will have that in the future, including color photos. And we will also have news that doesnt necessarily make the front page, but is of importance on the website for other reasons. We are working on an area photo gallery, both people and the land. Were working on a business directory and other useful information. Well be providing a link to the National Weather Service and to the University of Utahs archived files. The possibilities are Times-lndepende- nt endless. We invite you to make our website your home page. That way, every time you go to the Internet, youll see what's new in the news first thing. In the planning are some community surveys, ques- - tions of local interest and some giveaways. Well keep you posted on all of this. As always, advertising is the underpinning of news, and this will be true of the website as well as the printed product of the Introductory specials are being offered to businesses as we get this all underway. For the advertiser, the website will be especially attractive, as ads can be associated with parts of our website that are particularly compatible to the advertiser. In Fiddler on the Roof,Tevia proclaimed: Its a new world, Golda! Like Golda, Sam is having a difficult time with this extension of the news onto the net. Like many in our community, he is not a net surfer. And, of course, hes here every day to get the latest news and rumors first hand. But, based on inquiries and comments we have had from readers over the past year, we are confident that this new endeavor will be popular and Go at take a look successful. www.moabtimes.com T--l. aft Many thanks to the readers who have come in with additions and corrections to the list of World War II veterans. will be accepting those for another week or so, then will turn the lists back to John Keogh, and will be happy to furnish a copy to any other person or organization that wishes. quess could just post it on the website. What think? I I I The way Sam Remembers by Sam Taylor (in this chair for 47.5 years) The owner of a large piece of property located at the intersection of Williams Way and 500 West is investing a considerable amount of money covering it with several feet of fill and leveling it out. That is probably a smart move, given the scarcity of buildable land inside of Moab, and its proximity to the new Senior Center complex which will be built on the north side of the same intersection. The new hospital may also be built in close proximity on land that was once known as the Church Orchard. It is also probably good news to the Moab Mosquito Abatement District and residents of the west side of town since the property was often flooded by the waters of Mill Creek and caused a nearly constant surveillance as a mosquito breeding ground. Im glad to see the project of filling and leveling the property, even though its about the last remnant of an important piece of Moab history. It was once known as the Moab Arroyo, which cut a large swath through the center of Moab, including an active part of Moabs business district. What many folks dont know is that the Arroyo not a creation of Mother Nature. was I'll get into that history as my memory takes me back. The arroyo was almost as deep and wide as Mill Creek, situated just to the south. It went under what is now McStiffs Plaza and the Canyonlands Best Western Motel. It also divided a large part of Old Moabs residential area. The bulk of it was filled during the 1940s during a massive project, probably funded by some federal program aimed at creating jobs as the Moab area recovered from the great depression. remember it well. remember walking from my Dads office on Main and Center to the home of one of my best friends, located south of Mill Creek. had to walk through two deep gorges, one holding the Arroyo, the other across Mill Creeks gully. The highway in those days turned southwest up Center Street, then preceded out of town on what is now Mill Creek Drive. The State of Utah relocated the highway to its present location and built an expensive bridge across Mill Creek in the mid-- 950s, to eliminate all the curves and kinks in the old highway. That project paved the way for all the commercial development that has taken place on Main Street south of 100 South. The arroyo started life as an irrigation ditch, later abandoned by pioneers who could not wait to get out of town (and forgot to shut off the creek waters which fed the ditch). In 1855, the Elk Mountain Mission, consisting of 41 men, entered Moab Valley on orders of LDS Church patriarch Brigham Young. Young saw the man-mad- e, I it . . I I 1 need for a number of established Mormon outposts on the outskirts of the Territory of Deseret. The Elk Mountain Mission was one of them. It was a tough time for the hardy group of settlers, though, who struggled to build a fort, plant and irrigate farmland always keeping a wary eye on the Ute Indians who already had a farm several miles up the valley. The Utes were a cranky bunch, and possessive of a valley they considered their own. Shootings and a couple of killings brought about the abandonment of the fort, and the valley a short time after its establishment. It was over twenty years before permanent settlers came to Moab Valley. The mission was headed by Alfred N. Billings. His journals of the colonization make great reading. A scribe in the group, Oliver B. Huntington, who also kept meticulous journals, makes great reading. Below are some excerpts from those journals, described by the late Faun McConkie Tanner in her now The Far Country. Faun, an Arizona college professor, was a native of Moab. Her work on the first History of Moab, done in the 1930s as a college thesis, and later expanded and brought up to date in 1976. The Far Country, is a valuable, pair of histories, and keeps a prominent place not far from my desk. Adrien and had the extreme pleasure of assisting Faun with her expanded version. From Huntingtons journal, written on June 1 8, 1 855: ... all hands were busily engaged in grubbrush, bing plowing land, building a dam and other performing camp duties; but the dam being on sandy land, it broke away on the night of the 19th, ruining the site, which obliged us to go a mile further up the creek and take water from a beaver dam. All hands turned out on the 20th and made a ditch three miles long to our farm. The farm Huntington wrote about was near the present site of the Super 8 Motel. McConkie wrote: Even the landmark of the old irrigation ditch which men took water out of Mill Creek and which, because they were unable to turn off the water became through the years an arroyo meandering through the town. Now (1 976) it has been drained and covered until the present generation does not recognize it as a landmark. Faun wrote: For many years this arroyo bore silent evidence of an early period in the valleys history, but this, too, has given way to progress. Even the folk tales are rapidly fading into a dim past. But such is the progress of humankind. with an So, the old Arroyo was assist from desert southwest erosion. It is gone, as they say, but not forgotten. It has been an intriguing bit of research for me this week. out-of-pri- I man-mad- e, t tmeslniYepmhcnt 8 ISSN at Moab, Utah under the Act of March 3, 1897. Second class postage paid at Moab, Utah 84532. Official City and County Newspaper. Published each Thursday at: 35 East Center Street, Moab, Grand County, Utah 84532 (UPS) Entered 6309-200- 0) as Second class Matter at the Post 1538-183- Office address: editormoabtimes.com ail P.O. Box 129, Moab, UT 84532 Postmaster: Send changes of address to: The or FAX Samuel J. and Adrien F. Taylor, Publishers Adrien F. Taylor, Editor Sadie Warner, Assistant Editor Times-lndepende- 435-259-75- Tom Taylor Zane Taylor Lisa Church Jeff Richards Marjorie Miller Lisa Taylor Jeannine Wait Michelle Wiley Circulation Manager, T--l Maps Press, Production Manager Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Conributing Writer Contributing Writer 435-259-77- Dorothy Anderson Jed Taylor, Jose Santana Ron Drake Ron Georg Oliver Harris A.J. Long Mail Room Supervisor Backshop Castle Valley Columnist Columnist Columnist Distribution revisited the old Woodside cemetery with the goal of taking photographs the other day. I discovered this lonely spot several years ago, quite by accident, after spending the night camped nearby. I was poking around the desert when I spotted it sitting forlornly down the ridge. It was back then at this cemetery that the seeds of my theory that rocks talk were planted. There is a pervasive sadness about this spot because of the several children buried there. One monument has names and dates of children on three sides. Three families, the Aumillers, the Van Tromps and the Duerdens list four children, none of whom lived more than eight months. One child lived from December, 1891, to August, 1892. Another lived for less than two months in 1896. Another baby lived for twelve days in 1905. Another was an infant that died at birth in 1908. The inscriptions say, Budded in life to bloom in heaven, and Darlings we miss thee. The fourth side of the monument faces west and has mostly worn away. You could probably bring the inscriptions up by doing a rubbing with paper and pencil. There is a homemade cement marker that records a baby born on September 12, 1891, and Died on November 16, 1891. A youth died at age fourteen in 1899. Another young man died at age nineteen in 1896. It must have been a tough place in tough times. The earliest date of birth is for Sarah Wilcox McKinnie, born August 10, 1804. She died March 16, 1881. Another marker records the dates, Mar. 1808 to Jan. 1900. The earliest year of death that I saw is 1860. The most recent death date is 1962. Interestingly, this most recent grave is the one in the worst shape. It has a deep hole at the foot where it is caving in. There is one of the most interesting markers in this little cemetery that I have ever seen. It is carved from sandstone in the shape of a tree trunk. The top of the trunk is flat as if sawn. I There are growth rings carved in the surface. Across the surface, in raised letters, is written, Presset. The carved stump has two branches cut off, one from each side. The front of the stump is carved to appear like the bark has been folded down. Beneath the bark, near the top, is written, Father, Louis Samuel, July 3, 1830 - Dec. 2, 1895. On the underside of the bark that is folded down is written, Henry, Sept. 22, 1854 - May 21, 1888, below which is written, Constance, April 13, 1889, May 19, 1890. My guess is that the stump represents a father and that the branches represent two of his children. There are several graves that have been marked with wooden markers which, of course, have long since split and worn away. They are in essence no different from several other graves that are unmarked. One wooden marker must have been quite beautiful when new. It now lies flat on the ground, so thoroughly desiccated that it feels like balsa wood. Near another grave is poured a square of cement into which are embedded someones favorite pretty rocks, including one nice fossil imprint. The rocks are just the sort I would pack in from my jaunts into the canyons. I felt a kinship for the soul buried there. There are several prickly pear cactus plants growing without apparent order inside this cemetery. Some were in brilliant bloom when I was there, in stark contrast to the otherwise dull, mostly-gra- y atmosphere. Other than the cactus and a few fading plastic flowers, there is little color to be seen. I did find one pretty piece of purple glass in a comer. The glass, cactus and faded plastic flowers, along with the resident red ants, provide what little color there i is. about my photos. Theres nothing A spectacular. couple, though, where I roughly framed a headstone through the gray wood of a falling-dow- n fence are pretty nice. The problem is that the photos all seem to be sort of washed out. But, its a gray, dreary, washed out sort of place. I feel OK High Country News Writers on the Range Where you live is somebody9s recollection by John Clayton ant even posted a Mary Kay sticker on the door. I'm living on Nutting Street now, a friend told me last week. You know where that is? Of course not! I responded. This is a small town! Nobody remembers the names of streets! When I lived in the city, I knew the old saw that rural people give directions us- ing landmarks that no longer exist (Go past the old Jones place, then turn left where the big red barn used to be). Little did I know that I would come to live that philosophy, or that the transformation would happen so quickly. Shortly after I arrived in my small town 13 years ago, I had the misfortune of riding to a party in a car with an arguing couple (it turned out they were on the verge of breaking up). He, of course, kept driving in circles without stopping to ask for directions. She, meanwhile, kept saying, Its near the hospital and Arent we getting too far from the hospital? and Well, the last time I went it was easy because we stayed close to the hospital. But what I found funny was that the argument didnt involve the street address. Neither said, You dont even remember what street it's on? or You didnt even bring the address? In a small town, nobody uses street addresses. They just know what a house looks like, what its near, or who used to live there. In this case, the sparring couple eventually stumbled across a familiar-lookin- g house, and decided it had to be the party because they recognized several cars parked in front of it. When my friends Dave and Sue moved to town, people would ask where they lived and they would give a street address. That would get a blank stare. Then theyd say, Its Joan Cs old house, and people would say, Oh, sure! Joan, meanwhile, had downsized after her kids moved away. You know Eleanors Beauty Shop? she asked me, in describing her new house. d Sure! I said. The sign for the shop had been taken down three years previlong-close- ously. Across You . . . the street, she said. bought Bettys house? Or the one next door? She said it was Bettys house, and I congratulated her: Thats a nice place. But there was another person in the conversation who still didnt know the location we were talking about. Joan had to explain it another way. You know the Mary Kay house? she said. A few years previously it had been painted lavcirculated ender. Rumors untrue, I believe that the owner sold Mary Kay cosmetics, and the paint job was a giant advertisement. A ten- - OK. houses south, Joan said. The transaction was complete: both of us now knew exactly where Joans new house was. And not once had we discussed a street name, cross street, or number. I usually tell people that I live two blocks behind the movie theater. But sometimes I forget and say I live on Haggin. The usual response: Which one is that? I then have to say, The one by the creek, and they understand. Once, near the post office, a driver flagged me down and said in confusion, We were supposed to go to a yellow house at the comer of Hauser and 13th. There were no yellow houses in sight. Puzzled, I asked, Who are you looking for? They were looking for my upstairs tenant. They were visiting from out of town, so shed had to give directions using street names. But she was so unfamiliar with the street names or perhaps I should say because (even though she was bom here) that after six months in the apartment she still thought she lived on Hauser rather than Haggin. Part of the problem may be those street names, most of which commemorate railroad barons. Our town no longer even has a railroad. But I think even renaming the streets (Creekside Avenue?) would fail. The problem is not so much the streets names as the very idea of street names. In larger communities, grids of streets and collections of go on endlessly, with little but names to quickly distinguish them. But our town has big features (the creek, the mountains, the hospital) that provide a more natural guide than any street sign. Too, in the small town, the people have uniquely interwoven histories. We encounter our fellow residents in many different settings, with many different types of connections. Its not surprising that I would know all the parties involved on both sides of Joans move. And so to phrase a houses location in terms of those people is like a celebration of those interrelationships. So where is Nutting Street? I asked the friend whod moved there. Its under the hill around the comer from Jeff and Betsy, he said, and I smiled. I now had a mental map of where he lived, and it was peopled by my friends. John Clayton is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He knows most everybody in Red Lodge, Montana. 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