Show the old settler y dear san Jua ners e think in terms of the people and places an which have become the chief objects below eb our horizon I 1 spend five days d ays at the seminary near blanding blandi n g high school where the two buildings stand on a hill in the north edge of town that hill was somewhat higher and was covered with a growth of gnarled cedars when I 1 knew it first fifty three years ago for besides being shorn orf of its forest it has been scraped off on top to make a level place for the school building I 1 for years before that top was smoothed off and while it still remained a forest primeval the hill was wa I 1 a definite factor in my realm of thought I 1 came to it first in 1897 having 0 gone without supper and breakfast and having slept on my saddle the previous night ahing 5 hing the stars most of the hen anc and hoping for day that was my first day on white mesa and I 1 had been following a sharp shod horse track since the previous afternoon in the years when we traveled between bluff and our ditch project on an johnson creek our trail led through the cedars on the east slope of that hill I 1 recall that once as I 1 approached the hill alone in the fall of 1898 1 I stampeded a bunch of pinion bussei austers s that had bien been sleeping ng there among the trees and they ran with a roar to the northwest north west cras crashing the brush and limbs where the school building now stan stands ds later on I 1 wrangled some of my cattle among those cedars and still later when we had begun the town with four families walter C lyman put up a saw mill at the south foot off of the hill the hill became part of the field fi eld belonging to the nielson brothers jense and france and when they continued on liage page 4 the old settler continued from page 1 had cleared it of trees a and tild brush and turned its red soil with the plow it was a very different looking place to what it had been before when they were approached app roache ir with the pro proposition position that th the byl donate it for the building of a high school they generously agreed and in the course of time the site was prepared and a sightly building rose like a temple the pride of the town its white walls could be seen even from distant colorado we loved it we delighted in the ever increasing throng of young people that gathered to it one mor morning riling in march about I 1 twelve years ago we were rifled to see it in flames everybody rushed in desperation to save it but it burned to the ground A feeling of desperation and sorrow came over us and out of that sorrow came the firm resolution that the school should have another home as good or better than the old to undertake to give a list of all the men and women who took active part in getting the appropriation for another building would be to slight some however Hor wever the names of H lloyd hanson and leland W redd can not be left out of the account they went to san francisco and not only asked but pled for the money and announced that they would sit right down there till their plea was granted since a community and its people were praying for them they got the right of franchise to go ahead the twisted tv isted steel beams and rubble of the old building were cleared away aid a id from the ashes arose a magnificent structure costing the seminary building erected a number of years before had escaped the fire I 1 love them they are a part of my philosophy the paved street and the cement walks where young people pass back and forth every day what once was the forest and the bed ground of wild cattle is the main place where here w I 1 live in my world of i thought c S ALBERT R lynman |