| OCR Text |
Show My First Impression of Cedar City, Utah 2.02 West 7Sth Place Inglewood, California I was born at St. Ceorge, Utah, and when I was a lad I frequently frequent-ly went with my father to M1-fonl, M1-fonl, Utah, about V2) miles northest of St. (;eore, and then nearest railroad point to St. George, for freight for the stores of St. Ceorge. At times wo would take a load of copper bullion from the smelter at St. (Jeorge and we would load some freight and bring hack. It would take us a full week to make the trip to Milford and back to St. George. The first night from St. Geoige we would usually camp to Belle-vue; Belle-vue; the next night at Cedar City, the following night on the Minersville ridge or at the town of Minersville, and the following day by noon we would reach Milford. Some of the people that I remember re-member as I took such trips were the Oregersons at Bellvue, the Fords at Kanarra, the Middle-tons Middle-tons at Hamilton's Fort, and the Corrys and David Haight at Cedar Ce-dar City. I remember these people from the fact that we usually-stopped usually-stopped at their places. Father owned some stock in the the Cedar Ce-dar Sheep Assn. and he usually got his dividends in old fat ewes and in merchandise at the store operated by said association, and several times I drove some dividend divi-dend ewes from Cedar City south and left them with the stockholders stock-holders at Leeds, Washington, and with others at St. George. As I first remember Cedar City, it then had a population of about 1.500. There were no paved sidewalks or streets and very little lit-tle gravel on the streets so that after a heavy rain or in the spring after the melting snows the streets were nothing more than mud puddles. If one should get off the beaten path, he would mire in the mud to his ankles. There was no culinary water system but the inhabitants had to get water for house use from the irrigation ditches. Often after af-ter a rain storm the water would be so thick with mud that it would have to stand for some time before it cleared enough to drink. As a result of using such water from the ditches and from Coal Creek many contracted typhoid ty-phoid fever, and many died of the disease. It was later when Dr. George W. Middleton was mayor of Cedar City that his major ma-jor ambition was to provide pure spring water by a piping system to the people of the town. Such a system was installed and as a result it put an end to typhoid fever in Cedar City. The residences of Cedar City, or most of them I remember, seemed to have been designed and built by the same individual, and I think likely that was the case. I think that Bengt Nelson was the designer and the mason who built many of the houses. I remember John Elliker's home on South Main street, George Wood's home on North Main street, John M. B. Higbee's home on West Center street, Bengt Nelson's home on East Center street later lived in by John Nelson, and a number of others of similar simi-lar construction. There was but one church in the town, and that was the old Tabernacle that stood on the corner cor-ner where the Federal building now stands. There was but one grammer school and that a two-story two-story building wher the First ward chapel now stands, and John S. Woodbury, formerly of St. George was the principal. The City hall was located in the southwest corner of the city park. A two story building, with offices of-fices and a jail on the lower floor and a church high school on the upper floor. There were but few stores in the town, but among them that I remember, was the old Co-op Store, managed by Christopher Arthur. There was no bank in the town so the Co op acted as the banker for the community. When the sheepmen or cattlemen sold their wool or sheep and cattle. cat-tle. They would leave their checks with the Co-op and draw the value in merchandise as they needed it. The Co-op had issued many small checks made to bearer bear-er and these checks were used by the people in lieu of currency, until a bank was established there. The Cedar Sheep Assn. had a small store in which it carried merchandise mainly for the use of its employees, although it traded somewhat with other people peo-ple as well. Joseph Cosslett and his brother Gomer had a small store in which they carried most ly music and musinal instruments. instru-ments. Joseph was choir leader at the church at the time. Gomer was a very good tenor singer and his son Ray is now following his example. Richard Palmer had a blacksmith black-smith shop on the main street at the location where the Mary Palmer Pal-mer dress shot) now stands. There was a rock tithing office building on the corner where the Escalante hotel now stands. This building was used as an office building by the bishop of the ward, and for the storage of produce pro-duce that was turned in as tithing tith-ing by members of the church. George Wood was a furniture store owner on the corner just east of the Tithing office. Uriah T. Jones owned the building now known as the Knell Block. In it on the ground floor, he conducted the post office for the city and had a furniture store, and the upper part was for residence purposes. Agriculture was limited there at the time, owing to the scarcity of irrigation water. There was about 4000 acres of land under cultivation by the use of primary pri-mary water. As I remeber it, there were but two farms out in the valley that used high water, those of Alonzo Higbee and Heb-er Heb-er and John Jensen. The main industries of the people peo-ple were sheep and cattle raising. rais-ing. There was an abundance of wood for fuel near by and several sev-eral seams of soft coal in the mountains east of town. |
