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Show THE ZEPHYRDECEMBER 1991 PAGE 18 "a place to raise cotton." by B.J. Eardley Consider the following history of Moab, written by Lula Shafer, age 10. "On April 1, 1855, Alfred Billings, president of the mission, with 40 men, left Manti, Utah, to find a place to raise cotton. They came to this place and thought it would be a good place to raise it These men build the 'Mormon Fort'...and put in grain in the month of June, and watered it with water which then flowed in their irrigation ditch the remains of which is now known as the 'Roya'. The next people that came here came in the year 1880. They had to build a raft to cross the river. They had to take their wagons apart and bring a part at a time across. When they arrived here there was tall sage brush and grease wood growing all over the valley. The people lived in the fort that the first settlers made! When the people were over fearing the Indians, they came up town, cut the sage brush and grease wood and started farming. They used the sage brush for firewood. When they came up town they built a bowery where they held their meetings. They met in that a few years then built a log house for meeting, but it was soon burned down. Randolph Stewart, O.W. Warner and Mr. Wilson were the men who laid out the town in the year 1882. The valley is about twdve miles long and a mile and a half wide. It was called Grand Valley when the people first came here, but is now called Moab. The town is noted for its fine fruit, good climate and splendid Public and High Schools. The number of people have increased until now we have a population of nearly eight hundred. The town has been improved until now it is incorporated and we have the officers who are Mr. Somerville, Marshall, Mr. Starks, Clerk and Mr. Allison, Treasurer. Mr. Green is the president of the town board which consists of Mr. Johnson, Mr. Grim, Mr. Martin and Dr. Williams." Written in 1903, just after the town of Moab had been incorporated, Lula's essay is a testimony to the promise of beginnings. Moab was new and mudi "improved" thanks to the efforts of its new citizens. Lula's own grandfather had built the first ferry over the Colorado River to provide access. Both her parents had helped dear the land for the new settlement As a carpenter, her father had been a part of many of the homes that lined Moab's streets, and he would soon receive the contract for the woodwork on Star Hall, a fine stone building that would be a solid improvement over early community meeting houses. The success of Moab Irrigation Company's was providing an effective delivery system to the town's burgeoning fruit industry and the public school system that Lula calls "splendid" was, indeed, exhibiting progressive attitudes towards education by the establishment of a formal high school program. While it was still without a piped water system, or electridty, or any of the other in a list of needed d Main improvements, the community had already come a longway. A glance at it's Street showed a town of growth and progress. Who of the town's newly formed town board might have imagined the changes that were to occur? Appointed by the Grand County Commission to sit on the first town board, a banker, a store merchant, a blacksmith, a Mormon bishop, and the town doctor sat together to tree-line- initiate their new town government. Four ordinances later, the board had established the town, created license-fe- e rates for its businesses, and set salaries for its officers, which included the town marshal By providing for the position of a town marshal, incorporation supporters hoped to put an end to the chronide of cowboy festivity and outlaw revelry that punctuated Moab's history in short-th- ey hoped to eradicate "public carousing". And so it began. Soon the wagons and horses that kicked up dust along Main Street were being replaced with automobiles. A piped water system brought dean water and a workable system. Trees came down and irrigation ditches were buried to make way for the of the roadways. Public carousing... well...it continued in spite of prohibition. Meanwhile, paving north of town, the "Mormon fort" lay mostly in ruins, but die vestige of this first pioneer attempt at settlement, what Lula called the "Roya", was still evident in town. Of course, the Billings party had not Intentionally left their irrigation to rip a hole through Moab valley. They had dug the irrigation ditch to water their crops (history shows that fire-fighti- |