When Peach Day was held in Farmington

PEACH Days is Brigham City’s premier annual celebration and dates back to 1904. This year’s celebration is set for Sept. 9-12. However, strangely, the event hasn’t always been held in Brigham City.

“Annual Peach Day to be held at Lagoon Sept. 12^th” was an Aug. 24, 1923 headline in the Standard-Examiner.

So, the 19^th annual Peach Day was actually held in Farmington that year, some 43 miles away from Brigham City.

Why was the event held at Lagoon?

The story stated that the State Board of Health wanted to call off Peach Day entirely in 1923 for health reasons. There was a lot of sickness in the town.

“While the health condition is rapidly improving in Brigham, the drinking water made pure and the sanitary conditions of the city brought to an almost perfect condition, it is possible that the visitors may be somewhat endangered by coming in contact with sickness in visiting with relatives here, at their homes,” the story stated.

“So rather than bring thousands of people here, it was decided to take Peach Day to where there is no contagion, and where the mingling of thousands of people together can have no serious results,” the story continued.

Peaches were shipped by rail, in a refrigerator car, from Brigham City to Lagoon. The railroad also featured special rates for passengers.

Peach Day returned to Brigham City the following year, in 1924 and every year thereafter, later expanding to a multiple day event.

More historical tidbits:

--‘”Crazy people shipped from Farmington: Sheriff Abbott takes peculiar methods to rid Davis County of unwelcome citizens,” was an April 4, 1902 Standard headline.

According to the story, the Farmington Sheriff had put a mentally unstable family on a train to Ogden.

“As a result of his misdirected efforts, Ogden City is burdened with a man and wife, both demented, and their three children,” the story stated.

Police Chief Browning of Ogden initially refused to have anything to do with the family. So, the railroad conductors took the family from the depot and left them at the corner of Lincoln and 25^th Street. The mother soon became violent several times in the area and her actions attracted a crowd. Finally, a few hours later the two police leaders communicated and found a solution to what to do with the family, through the story doesn’t mention what that was.

-“Wolves attack sheep and driven off only after two men use their rifles” was a Feb. 14, 1918 Standard headline.

A marauding band of wolves in the area just north of South Fork Canyon, east of Huntsville, produced heavy losses of sheep in the area that winter.

John Coffin and Louis Allen of Huntsville had to shoot several wolves and move in on the rest, before they were driven away. The men said the pack showed little fear of them. The bounty for Utah wolves in 1918 was $50.

The story stated this was the first time the northern part of Utah had suffered a wolf problem recently. Most of the recent wolf problem had been centered in southern Utah.

-A huge cloudburst on Aug. 6, 1912 in Bair Canyon, east of Fruit Heights, cut a 20-foot-deep gorge in sections of the canyon.

 (-Originally published on-line on Sept. 3, 2015 in the Ogden Standard-Examiner, by Lynn Arave.)

-NOTE: The author, Lynn Arave, is available to speak to groups, clubs, classes or other organizations about Utah history at no charge. He can be contacted by email at: lynnarave@comcast.net