By Lynn Arave
Mention
“Muskrat Springs” today and you’re likely to only cause bewilderment, as that
title for today’s Hooper City was replaced more than a century ago.
Notwithstanding,
there’s still a somewhat obscure pioneer monument to be found to that unusual
moniker and even a ward of the LDS Church in town titled that.
Hooper was
an early herd ground for pioneers. A fresh water source for area became known
as Muskrat springs, presumably, because some of those critters were originally
found there. The springs formed a large pond of water in the 19th
Century. There were several other springs in southwest Weber County, but this
was the most famous.
It was 1853
when William H. Hooper built a herd house in the area. Other settlers followed
and by 1869, there were 22 families living in Hooper.
The Muskrat
Springs name was popular enough that resident John Thompson wrote a song titled
“The Muskrat Springs” in 1869. It was even sung more than five decades later in
the summer of 1927 during a city pioneer celebration.
A Deseret
News correspondent, known only as “G.C.L.” wrote this on Dec. 14, 1870:
“I was
particularly pleased with the appearance
of the settlement formerly known as “Muskrat Springs” but lately renamed in honor
of our respected delegate Hooper city. It is situated on the Weber range midway
between the Weber River and Kaysville and near the shore of the lake. It is a
thrifty and well organized young settlement containing a number of good frame
houses. The soil there is of a warm sandy nature and well adapted to fruit
growing and the settlement will without doubt in a few years become one of the
best in the territory. I have visited nearly all parts of the territory and as
a suitable place for starting a new farm, I consider it the most desirable
locality I have yet seen. The canal by which the water is conveyed to it is to
be enlarged the coming winter and much more land will then be brought under
cultivation.”
The name
“Hooperville” for the community was prevalent from the 1880s until the early
1900s. “Fair at Hooperville was an Aug. 26, 1890 headline in the Ogden
Standard-Examiner. But “Hooper” as a name took over for good in the 20th
Century.
Hooper’s
original boundaries went far south into Davis County, including part of today’s
Syracuse City. It also went east into today’s Roy City and was for decades the
only notable Weber County settlement southwest of Ogden.
Incorporation
of Hooper City finally took place on Nov. 30, 2000.
-The Muskrat
Springs monument is found near where the original springs was. That’s
approximately at today’s 5300 South (that’s “Pingree Lane” to veteran
Hooperites) and 5550 West. This metal marker is also near today’s Hooper Canal
and was dedicated on Nov. 7, 1977 by Daughters of Utah Pioneers.
(-Originally published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner on March 28, 2016.)
