| OCR Text |
Show - . , 57 ' - W. . SALT FLAT NEWS, DECEMBER, 1970 8 arc Laura Heiner In 1843, John C. Fremont obtained fourteen pints of salt water from five gallons of Great Salt Lake brine evaporated over a camp fire. The translation of By Fremonts simple but effective method into a commercially feasible enterprise in which more than one hundred thousand gallons of lake water may be evaporated in a single day has taken a small army of engineers and scientists more than seven years of sustained effort to develop. This simple process has led to an international business part- nership between two industrial giants, Gulf Resources, Houston, Texas, and Salzdetfurth, A.G., Hanover, West Germany. To date, over thirty million dollars has been spent in the development of the Great Salt Lake Minerals & Chemicals Corporation complex. According to some sources in top management, this is only a drop in the bucket of what will be spent to develop this natural chemistry plant. The future economic potential of the Great Salt Lake is estimated at over a hundred billion dollars. The "slat of the earth will find its way to the farthest comers of the world. December 3rd, 1970, was a day to remember. The official opening of the Great Salt Lake Chemical Company ushered in a new era in technology admist the spirit of the old west. The governor of Utah, the Honorable Calvin L. Rampton, took snip of this event astride a railroad car containing the i' Areas outlined in blade show companys location in relation to lake and Utah dties. first processed shipment of potassium sulfate from Great Salt Lake Chemical Company. I dare say there hasnt been a more important event in these parts since the driving of the Golden Spike. Ironically, that event took place about twenty miles to the north at Promintory, Utah. Promintory Point geographically is where Great Salt Lake Chemical has its headquarters. There was a grand tour of the Companys ponds system and a carful of press representatives got stuck in the mud and were pulled out by some heavy equipment. This minor event did seem to have a whimsical effect on the rest of the days events that included pseechies, luncheons, speeches and a grand ball at the Ben Lomond Hotel in Ogden. Officially the ball, dubbed The Salt Ball by the local press, was little more than a (Thank God its Over) party frequently seen at the La Salle Club in Chicago after a big deal -0 made. But the ceremonies did show that vision, courage and industry tricepts of the old pioneer code are being carried forth in a salty breeze by a new company dedicated to the development of Utahs greatest bathtub. is . Aerial view of plant facilities and solar evaporation ponds, looking northeast toward Promontory Point Peninsula and Bear River Basin. ' 74 Years, Progress m . 'i svv ; v ..i . l rtjwlcv By Richard Mcnzies In Nevada, where journalists and printers are traditionally as WELLS, NEVADA as transient the boom towns whose brief spans they chronicled, the Triplett family of Wells is an outstanding exception. Progress editor C. J. Bud Triplett represents the third generation of Tripletts to publish a newspaper in Wells. It all began with Buds grand father, Phil Triplett, who started the short-live- d Wells Index back in 1896. Phil was the son of Joseph F. Triplett, a frontiersman who first saw Nevada in 1855. Joseph kept a journal of his adventures as Indian scout, rancher, cowboy, vigilante, businessman, teamster, sheriff and justice of the peace, and much of the pithiness and good natured irony that characterized Joes writings survived in Phil. Hie Wells Index ended with Phils departure to serve in the Spanish American war; two years later he returned to edit the Nevada State Herald, a hardy publication that survived until 1933 When Phil died in 1921, his sort Charles became Nevadas youngest newspaper editor, and when the Wells Progress was begun in 1936, Charlie was back in business, training his son Bud in the printers art as his father had trained him. Buds four years in the U.S. Navy were served as a printer. He did some moonlighting on y hours when ashore, working extra shifts as lino-typifor the two San Diego A hand roller used for inking galley proofs was given to the newspaper years ago by the Miles Pain Pill company as an advertising gift. Buds, wife Rose Marie also carries on in the family tradition, keeping the books and the office in reasonable order. Although he . considers himself a printer, not a writer, Bud does everything from writing to typesetting, proofing and printing. Asked how long he has been in the newspaper business, Bud Triplett replied, forty years. Thats quite a record, since Bud is forty-on-e years old. -- A thankless and often dangerous job is that of the highway flagmanl who pickets day and night in support of safer driving. The NEWS urges motorists to slow down and meet their friendly construction but not head-on- . workers, face-to-fac- e, Flagman's Job No Lark 1-- 80 off-dut- st . dailies. Today Bud works with some of the same machines he used as an apprentice, although the newspaper has acquired some new equipment. Recently, the Progress junked its ninety-year-ol- d Scott Cylinder single revolution press, replacing it with a second-han- d Miehle No. 1 press not much more than thirty years old. One who serves by standing and waiting is Phil Wilkerson, a highway flagman for Cox Bros. Construction Company, now completing final stretches of between Wendover and Salt Lake City. Wilkersons job is not as easy as it may appear to the passing motorist, and more fraught with hazards than one would think. Exposed to the ravages of wind and storm and sun, the flagmans complexion becomes tough as a pachyderms epidermis, and on the night shift (the Cox Brothers work around the clock) a man could freeze to death. Phil explains that he used to keep a smudge pot burning to keep One-ma- n seventy-four-year-o- ld newspaper of Wells, Nevada, Bud Triplett carries on in family tradition. warm on the graveyard shift, although that practice tended to coat the warmee . with a flammable veneer of soot. Use of smudge pots was recently discontinued after several .flagmen caught Are. Worst of all are the speeders. Something about the salt flats that brings out the devil, speed. Everyone speeds through here, Few people says Wilkerson. realize it, but the speed limit is twenty-fiv- e . miles an hour. According to Phils figures, Gary Gabelich this fall not only drove a car faster than any man before him, but he also topped the legal speed limit by 597 m.p.h.1 |
