Back when a human life in Utah was ‘worth’ only $2.66 and when 41 head of cattle drowned in the Great Salt Lake

                                              A modern day traffic accident in Layton City.

 “ONE human life -- $2.66. That is the price placed upon life per individual in Utah by those changed with enforcement of the state’s traffic laws,” the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of Nov. 19, 1943 reported.

The Telegram’s headline was “Utah’s 84 traffic deaths this year emphasize trivial cost of killing.”

The story continued: “On the basis of 84 persons killed in Utah traffic (accidents) to date this year, the average fine paid to fix responsibility for each fatal mishap totaled only $2.66. There were no jail sentences imposed. In only three cases have manslaughter charges been filed. In only six of the 12 fatalities in Salt Lake City have any kind of charges been filed.

The story reported that the $2.66 is the average Utah fine assessed for the blame in a fatal accident. The fine averaged $5.76 in Salt Lake and only $1.95 elsewhere in Utah.

The lengthy story then listed a summary of all 84 accidents.

This report, given during the middle of World War II, obviously sought to reduce traffic fatalities and was a precursor to safety campaigns by the Utah Highway Patrol.

(Note that $2.66 in 1943 monetary value is equal to $38.80 in today’s dollar values.)

                        The Great Salt Lake north of Fremont Island.

-“Herd of stampeded cattle meet death in the Lake” was an April 12, 1900 headline in the Salt Lake Herald newspaper.

Some 200 head of cattle were grazing in a pasture between Hooper and Syracuse. Then, Joseph Manning of Hooper reported that a great storm arose and the herd stampeded to the west and even the Great Salt Lake didn’t stop them.

Ultimately the cattle ended up more than a dozen miles to the northwest, near Little Mountain.

“Many of them were swamped in the mud and perished,” the story reported. “Others waded out till they became exhausted, and still others swam for miles. Some were found eighteen miles from shore. In all, 41 perished. Four were extricated from the mud alive.”

The animals belonged to a variety of ranchers in Davis and Weber counties.

In its report of the cattle drowning, the Davis County Clipper newspaper stated that old time residents of the area said that the strong east canyon winds also used to drive cattle from the Farmington area way out west to Antelope Island.

-The first newspaper mention of fog in Utah territory was in the Deseret News of Dec. 15, 1853.

The report described the fog in Salt Lake City as very deep and dark, very much like the English fogs of fall, winter and spring.

          The Little Mountain area, as viewed from the north end of Fremont Island.

-Here’s how some Utah residents of 1881 helped the poor: “Tomorrow morning Mr. A. Greenwell and a party of nimrods are going to the Little Mountain (west of Ogden), in quest of rabbits. They say they will return in the evening, with 400 and distribute them to the hungry free gratis, on Fourth Street (of Ogden).” From the Ogden Herald, Nov. 8, 1881.

-Back in 1910, the early days of the automobile, travel was slow, particularly on rough and out-of-the-way roads. For example, the Ogden Standard newspaper of Feb. 28, 1910 reported that it took residents of Hooper some three hours to travel to Ogden. J.H. Fowles, a Hooper resident, said it ought to only take an hour to travel that distance. (Note it takes approximately 15-20 minutes to travel from Hooper to Ogden today.)

-The Salt Lake Tribune of Sept. 6, 1896 was a report of the Little Mountain area. It stated that the Native American settlers before the pioneers used Little Mountain as a chosen spot. They came to the spot to bury some of their dead.

                                                   The Kit Carson Cross on Fremont Island.


However, the same Tribune story displayed total ignorance over where the cross carved in stone on Fremont Island came from. This report stated the cross was already there when John C. Fremont and company arrived on the Isle in 1843. (In fact, team member Kit Carson himself carved that cross during their 1843 visit).

So, this newspaper report speculated that some earlier Christians – perhaps even Spanish missionaries must have visited the Island and carved that cross.

What might have been – A Great Salt Lake resort at Promontory Point

                              Promontory Point as viewed from Fremont Island.

THE early 20^th Century featured numerous beach-side resorts around the Great Salt Lake, including the Saltair, Lakeside and Syracuse resorts. However, Ogden never had its own such resort.

“A resort on the lake” was a Nov. 17, 1923 headline in the Standard-Examiner. “Ogden has no lake resort. A few years ago the Southern Pacific Company made a preliminary survey, with the object of establishing a resort at Promontory Point, but met with no encouragement from this end,” the story stated.

“The most attractive beach on the entire shore line of the lake is on Promontory Point, where the rocky point enters the lake and a sandy floor makes for ideal conditions for bathing,” the story continued.

“While waiting for this resort to materialize, Ogden should have a boulevard from the city to the lake shore near Little Mountain, so that among the attractions would be an automobile drive to the Great Salt Lake,” the story concluded.

(As early as April 4, 1912, a Standard editorial had urged, “Ogden should have a lake resort” at Promontory Point.)

Of course this resort never happened, but it was proposed and studied. (And, there was a temporary lake resort, or sorts, for the Ogden area, used in 1905, after the completion of the Lucin Cutoff, also near Promonotory Point.)

Compass Minerals (formerly Great Salt Lake Minerals) has dominated the Little Mountain area (straight west of Ogden’s 12^th Street and near the Lucin Cutoff railroad line) for more than four decades, yet there could have been a popular recreational predecessor in the area.

-Little Mountain was in the news a lot in 1923. “Alpine Club visits famous spot on Little Mountain; Flag hoisted at place where Lieut. Fremont and Kit Carson stood 80 years ago to view lake,” was a Sept. 9, 1923 headline in the Standard.

The Alpine Club erected a mound of stone on the historic site of the lake’s first recorded government exploration in 1843 and hosted what was believed to be the first flag seen there in eight decades. A box containing a record book that listed the names of those at the 80^th anniversary gathering was also placed there. There was also a proposal for an auto road to the top of Little Mountain.

More historical tidbits:

-Taylor Canyon is famous today as the access to Malan’s Peak and Malan’s Basin. It was also at one time proposed to be an established campground. However, in the summer of 1925 it was also the site of a musical production in what was described as a natural amphitheater at the mouth of the canyon.

Weber College and the Ogden Tabernacle Choir apparently presented an outdoor performance of Joseph Haydn’s “The Creation” there, according to an announcement in the Standard on March 15, 1925. The audience was to be seated in their cars and in a limited number of seats provided, with natural acoustic properties carrying the music for long distances in the area.

-The telephone was a big part of the Ogden area by 1925, according to a Standard story on Feb. 22 of that year. The Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Company switchboard was handling some 60,000 local calls a day in Ogden then. Another 600 to 700 long distance calls were also being handled back then.

Ogden, with an estimated population of 40,000 then, was believed to have about 7,000 telephones, with 130 persons employed at Mountain States.

 (-Originally published on Aug. 2-21, 2015 on-line and in print 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