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Show Volume XIX Issue XX The Ogden Valley news Page 9 November 15, 2011 Historical Information on the Ogden Ranger District Note: Blaine A. Gardner compiled and transcribed the following information during 2010 while trying to learn about the road to Monte Cristo. Much of the initial history below was gathered by Clark Anderson and LeRoy Stoker around 1940. This is the first of a three-part series. Part I The history of the Ogden River District reads much like that of the major portion of the western part of the United States. In the early days when the settlers first came to this country there were vast acreages of open land. The headwaters of the Ogden and Weber Rivers were rather accessible from the population centers of Utah and therefore they began to be heavily used by large numbers of cattle and sheep and by lumber operators. This heavy use continued and competition grew keener as larger numbers of sheep moved in and the population grew larger. One township in district 2 was set aside in 1905 as a Forest Reserve, being designated as the Monte Cristo Division. Old timers state that at one time prior to 1905, they used to run more than 2000 head of cattle on this township, in addition to large numbers of sheep. When it was placed in the Forest Reserve, the numbers began to be cut down to the carrying capacity due to the depleted condition of the range and it has only been within the last ten years that some improvement has been seen in this range area. Over the balance of this district, no form of control was initiated until later with the coming of the Grazing Homestead Law when the major portion of the government land inside the present district boundaries was patented. At the present time, of a total gross acreage of 520,320 acres there is a net acreage of Federal land of 39,400 acres; this includes the full township in the Monte division which is owned by the government, making the balance of the area of government-owned land slightly scattered over the balance of the district. The government-owned land consists mainly of timbered areas and portions of the range inaccessible to domestic livestock and less desirable from a range standpoint. As time went on, some of the sawmill operators withdrew from the lumber business due to the competition from outside and others moved into other locations. At the present time there are four sawmills operating in this district, one of these partially on National Forest land. Most of them are operating on a rather small margin due to the difficulty in logging operations and the lack of accessibility to the timber of high value. The story of the range history reads about the same. The operators who owned land or were purchasing land in the early days are still in the business or have sold out to someone financing their outfit. This forced the transient operator onto government land and as homesteads were taken up, the government land grew scarcer, thus forcing the transient owner entirely out of the picture. At this point the livestock operator who controlled the range adjacent to the government land used this land to whatever advantage he saw fit. In many cases, more than one operator used the same government land. Since there was no grazing control on any government land until 1935, this continued to deplete the range resources to a point where little value is attached to large acreages of range land in this county. The state and railroad lands in the district were leased to various livestock operators and they, in turn, were used extremely heavy until at the present time the major portion of these lands have passed into private ownership and the value of them is so low that little grazing value is attached. The area of this district centers very largely in Ogden Valley around Huntsville where the first settlers moved from Ogden in the fall and winter of 1860 and ‘61. Capitan Jefferson Hunt and his two sons, Joseph and Hyrum, along with their families moved in at this time, accompanied by Joseph and Charles Woods, Edward Rushton, and Abigale Coffin, a widow, and their families. Earlier in the summer of 1860, Isaac and David McKay went into Ogden Valley and mowed and put up a patch of hay in the South Fork above where the present town is located. When they came back that fall they found the Indians had burned it. In the fall of 1862, the Garner family moved from Ogden. One member of that family, Albert, states that it was in the latter part of May when they moved and due to the high water in Ogden Canyon, they could not go that way over the toll road, making it necessary to go over North Ogden Canyon. They left by ox team at 3 o’clock in the morning, arriving in Huntsville considerably after dark. S. V. Grow, with his father’s family moved into the valley in1873. From Mr. Grow and Mr. Garner, considerable information has been obtained relative to the valley and Monte Cristo areas. The two sons of Stephen Nye, Victor and O. L. Nye of Ogden, also have given considerable information regarding the Monte Cristo area. Names of Places For some time past we have made an effort to obtain the origin of some of the important names on the Forest; especially were we interested in the derivation of the name Monte Cristo. Two stories are told and both could logically be the source of the name. It appears that Levi Wheeler, wishing to get into the dense stand of timber east of Monte Peak, constructed a road up Wheeler’s Fork from Beaver Creek into Dry Bread Hollow and thence up a steep dugway and onto Monte Cristo about where the present road is located. The story is told of one man on the crew who always carried a book in his pocket and whenever time was taken for a rest or in the evenings and early mornings he would become intensely interested in his book. At the time the dugway was being constructed immediately under Monte Cristo Peak this particular book was “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Another story which seems more likely is told of Gold Miners returning from the gold rush in California in the late 1850’s. They had heard of a gold strike on lower Sugar Pine Creek. There are numerous old diggings in this section. Since the country resembles the Monte Cristo Mountains of Northern California, the mountains were named for that mountain range. This latter story was given to us by O. A. Kennedy, who states that again in 1897, a man named Pitcock made a small gold strike in lower Woodruff Creek, which did not amount to anything later on. The origin of the name Huntsville of course is evident from Captain Hunt and his sons who were among the first settlers. It was later attempted to change this name to St. Joseph but Huntsville has successfully coped with all opposition. The origin of Dry Bread Hollow is substantiated by several. The story goes that at the time the road was being constructed over the head of Wheeler Fork and the lower part of the Monte Cristo dugway, the workers ran out of supplies and rather than leave their work which was about completed, they lived on bread since they had a sufficient amount of flour to carry them through. Sugar Pine Creek originated from the spruce there in which shingle mills were operated. The early settlers called this spruce Sugar Pine. The origin of Wheeler Creek, Wheeler Fork, and Wheeler Basin came from the fact Jackson Fork Inn CHRISTMAS PARTY TIME that two brothers, Levi and Simon Wheeler, both operated sawmills at various times in the early history in these areas. Causey Creek was named for Thomas Causey who operated a sawmill, first in Bear Wallow and later at a site on Causey Creek where the present Boy Scout Camp Kiesel is located. The story is told of Mr. and Mrs. Causey being routed out one night by a grizzly bear ripping open the tent for supplies which they had inside. They both went out the other end of the tent and then hiked about three miles up the canyon to a mill operated by Stephen Nye. The location of these mills was then known as Bear Wallow. Goodale Canyon, running north from just above the Hermitage of Ogden Canyon was named for Mr. Goodale who, in company of Lorin Farr, built the first road through Ogden Canyon in 1859. This was a toll road and one dollar per team was charged for passing through. The road was later bought by Weber County for $12,000 and thrown open to the public. Lost Creek was so named because the water would sink into the gravel bed some distance up the canyon and did not reappear again since the underground [strate] took the water into the bed of the Weber River. Many other names of important streams, ranges, etc. were taken from the peculiarities of the areas adjacent thereto, Cotton Wood Canyon being named thus because of the large numbers of cottonwoods. Mr. Grow Describes S. V. Grow, who is dead now, stated to us recently that the entire area at the head of Beaver was at one time tall grass and that he spent several seasons herding more than 1200 head of cattle in that area. There was very little sage brush at that time and the grass reached the stirrups. He states that the deer and sage hens in this locality were so abundant that they literally shot wagon loads of both and brought them down to sell. The elk were plentiful and coyotes unheard of. It was not until sheep men began operating extensively that the coyotes and wolves entered the country. Cross (grouse?) red foxes were plentiful and wolverines and marten abundant. About the same statement regarding range conditions was reported by Mr. Grow who stated that the quality of the timber found in this region in the early days was unsurpassed. The Ogden Valley news is looking for Ogden Valley and Ogden Canyon historical biographies, stories, and photos to use in its publication. Please mail, email, or call Shanna at 801-745-2688 or Jeannie at 801-745-2879 if you have material you would like to share. From The Past . . . Valley eleMeNTary 1963-64 FourTh GraDe Front row left to right: Marie Peterson, Valerie Minnoch, Debra Jackson, Marilyn Withrow, Kaye Storey, Bobi Shurtz, and Kathy Lindsay. Middle row: Paul McKay, Roy Wilcox, Kevin Hogge, Ron Montjomery, Sharie Allen, Carol Huddleston, Vickie Roberts, Patty Christensen, and Mildred Shupe, teacher from Liberty. Back row: Janet Shaw, ? Jan Stallings, Judi Probasco, Kathy Anderson, Allen Story, ? Roger Bailey, and ??. If you can identify any of these missing students, please call Shanna at 745-2688 or Jeannie at 745-2879. Photo courtesy of Fern Carver Manning and Marie Petersen Higgins. attention timeshare owners! Are you no longer using the timeshare you once enjoyed? Have you given $$ to a resale or listing company and no results? Are the maintenance fees & special assessments becoming a burden? 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