Show SUNDAYMarch 15 1998 Section B A- - BELL-BARBE- RI Page t f B-- 2 an OBITUARIES Pages B-6- 7 White WaO of Snow Creates Nightmare For Canyon Drivers BY MICHAEL VIGH and GREG BURTON THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE j LITTLE COTTONWOOD CANYON "Avalanches carried a house-hig- h wall of snow onto the road in Little Cottonwood Canyon on Saturday afternoon scattering a UTA bus and seven cars across State Road 210 As many as five avalanches fell between 3 and 4 pm turning what otherwise was a beautiful mountain drive into a whiteout for motorists Witnesses said the first avalanche stopped a handful of cars on the highway and then a second much bigger slide burst into traffic Heavy wet snow pushed five cars off the side of the road where they plunged at least 200 feet into Little Cottonwood Creek Two partially buried cars teetered on the edge but managed to stay on the road Larry Blackburn was flown to LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City where he was in serious condition with a fractured leg and internal injuries At least five others were taken to various hospitals with minor injuries It was huge and big and ugly said Rusty Dassing a veteran guide with Wasatch Guides who was helicopter skiing in the White Pines area when the second avalanche broke loose Rescuers said the snow was 30 feet deep on some stretches of the road Plows cleared the snow Saturday night e workers Twenty to 30 combed the area for about two hours Saturday afternoon looking for other victims said Salt Lake County sheriffs Deputy Peggy Faulkner but found none and called off their search -- Pow-derbi- rd mi TP - M TJ ! $sr search-and-rescu- See AVALANCHE Page cf Leah HogstenTbe Salt Lake Tnbune An aerial view of the avalanches that pushed vehicles off the road Saturday in Little Cottonwood Canyon B-- 3 Leavitts GIFT: A Vision for BY JUDY FAHYS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Teen judges hand down court sentences to their peers in Logan Nephi and American Fork College students spend a couple hours a week with youngsters in Cedar City Mobile-watc- h teams cruise streets in Kamas and in Salt Lake Citys Rose Park neighborhood g Each of these community projects grabbed the spotlight briefly Saturday as a part of the Governors Initiative for Families Today (GIFT) program In a town meeting televised on KUED Channel 7 with others eager to reduce crime Gov Mike Leavitt urged citizens throughout the state to look for ways to prevent crime in their communities We can have a state where children go off to school free of drugs and gangs and walk home from school in groups just for the fun of it not for the fear of it said Leavitt 'Thats our goal Thais the right of every person in this state Thats our expectation for today and our challenge for tomorrow" The program served as an electronic meeting room for people gathered at 30 high schools throughout the stale Their goal was to brainstorm about programs that might work in their areas ! Even New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani offered some tips to the Utahns From a taped interview he told how New York reduced its crime rates mord than any other US city in recent years by adopting the broken window theory of crime prevention J It holds that crime is less likely to take root and flourish when a broken window is repaired immedi-- i ately and the person who broke it is hacked down Swift action makes it clear people care about their community and will not tolerate offenses that make the neighborhood appear run down Giuliani said I We instituted a policy that you have to pay attend ton to everything" from aggressive panhandling tc( crime-stoppin- Haunting 'Former Resident Lynn R JohnsonTbe Salt Lake Tnbune CEU President Grace Sawyer Jones hopes "Reconciliation Day" unites Price residents Wants Reconciliation After Hanging of Black Miner in 1925 BY SHAWN FOSTER ! THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE PRICE In 1925 a mob lynched Robert Marshall a black coal miner Seventy-thre- e years later Craddock Matthew Gilmour is haunted by the memory Gilmour was in high school that summer Now at 88 he still remembers stopping at a store with his father and seeing a man with a rope who said Were going to hang him So that the mobs act is not forgotten Gilmour has organized a Day of Reconciliation for April 4 u There still is silence in the community said Gilmour who now lives in Salt Lake City Im ashamfed of what happened It is important that injustice is acknowledged I know after April 4 1 personally will feel a hell of a lot better ' Like many elderly people in this eastern Utah mining town Dorotha Littlejohn remembers the day of the lynching As a young girl she saw the j caravan of cars taking Marshall to the hanging tree and she was curious ii- my mother took us in the house and made Jt1is stay there Littlejohn said It was in broad daylight My parents did not want to have anything to do with it But many other townspeople did not stay home As many as 1000 people assembled at the tree between Price and Wellington i There are many accounts of the events of June 18 1925 but the stories all begin with the murder bf J Milton Bums a marshal at Castle Gate a pining community in Price Canyon ( ' Rick EganThe Salt Lake Tribune Craddock Matthew Gilmour is ashamed of the hanging that happened 73 years ago near Price He wants to ensure the mob's act isn't forgotten Apparently two children said they saw a black man running from the scene of the crime and soon tales of a black murderer spread through town With each telling the event became more brutal In one version the black man shot the maishal five times then kicked the fallen man struck him with his pistol butt and took $140 The killing outraged many white residents in Price particularly members of the Ku Klux Klan then active in the area Three days after the murder Marshall was caught by mine company officials at a nearby cabin The mine officials met up with the county sheriff and his deputies who accompanied Marshall to the Price jail While the lawmen were inside the building the crowd reportedly took over the car where Marshall was sitting in the back seat and drove out of town southeast toward Wellington By the time the deputies arrived at the site Marshalls body was hanging from a tall cottonwood tree The deputies cut fie rope and as Marshall groaned the crowd reportedly yelled String him up again The officers were overpowered and Marshall was rehanged Later Marshalls body was put on display at the funeral parlor Photos of the hanging were sold to townspeople for 25 cents Two days later 11 men were arrested for the murder of the black miner But the atmosphere in the jail was that of a summer Sunday-schopicnic Maurine Dorman whose father was one of the men in custody recalls visiting her fathers cell There were metal washtubs full of soft drinks lemonade and ice cream said Dorman 80 Kids were visiting their fathers It was like a birthday party Her husband J Eldon Dorman 88 quotes a telegram from the Castle Gate mine to the Salt lake City offices in his book Confessions of a Coal Camp Doctor Boys treated royally at Price When it came time to present evidence before a grand jury none of the 125 people called to testify would identify any of the participants many of them prominent residents of Carbon County Community solidarity and racism precluded the grand jury from gathering enough evidence to bring the lynchers to trial wrote University of Utah historian Larry Gerlach in Blazing Crosses in Zion: The Ku Klux Klan in Utah Because of the lack of evidence the murder charges were dismissed District Attorney FW Keller responded to the court proceedings by saying How can these people who testified demand others to uphold the laws of the United States of America to give equal justice to all races live next to and around all men involved in the lynching? I am ashamed at the disgraceful mockery of the law and order which has resulted in the affair right from the beginning and the manner in which the state has been held up to ridicule May God have pity on you Gerlachs research shows that the Klan did not organize the lynching But in his book he wrote Although the Klan as an organization was not See LYNCHING Page t f7 don know that its a big deal png as they're not hocking big perns out on the greens To each his US punt" Todd Grossenbach owner of a West Bountiful golf shop sees no heed to ban tobacco chewing on the golf course i ! i ! V B- -j Local Elks Celebrate i 50 Years of Good Willi BY MARK HAYNES THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE 4 ST GEORGE When asked what qualities a per son needs to be a member of the Benevolent Order vf Elks Carlon OMalley does not hesitate 3 US citizenship patriotism and a belief in Go5j And common throughout the ranks says the grand! exalted ruler of the fraternal organizations 23 mil- lion members is the typical American concern for those less fortunate OMalley a former fighter pilot and judge is in St' George through the weekend for the Utah Elks Asso- See LOCAL ELKS Page CORRECTIONS B-- 9 & CLARIFICATIONS A 1991 investigation by the Utah legislative auditor found Utah Navajos had been cheated out of a portion of a $52 million trust fund of oil and gas royalties A story in Thursdays edition wrongly indi- cated the entire amount had been misspent Vi All QUOTES J B-- 3 See GIFT Page "I warned them this will become a flippin ' slush fund for the governor arid Legislature and Ill be dipped if my words weren 1 prophetic " Mark Walker a past president of the Utah Petroleum Marketers Association on lawmakers skimming highway funds from an account earmarked for the cleanup of leaking underground storage tanks "They are the biggest team in America You talk about David and Goliath this is it The only thing is we're going to need more than slingshots We need guns" Arkansas Razorbaeks Coach Noon playing the Utes lan Richardson "We could shots you a area in Park City that would be e and we could show pretty area that you a would blow Beverly Hills out of the water" Michael Lawson chief executive officer of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah on Park City having the highest lucorae per capita In Utah "Everybody wants to do the same be the same : good Its a little heaven on earth It really is " Student body President Randy Gain on the Ricks College experience thing and 1 |