1909: General Conference ‘too large’ and needs divided?

                  Inside the historic LDS Tabernacle on Temple Square.

“Conference has grown too large” was a Sept. 16, 1909 headline of an editorial in the Standard-Examiner.

This story stated that General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “has grown to such large proportions that the Tabernacle and Assembly Hall in Salt Lake City are too small to accommodate the crowds that gather there for their special uplift.”

As a result, this editorial suggested that “With proper representation, we decline to the idea that President Smith can be made to see the wisdom of discontinuing this Salt Lake conference of the entire church and may be persuaded to next year call for a division of the conference.”

This Standard editorial was suggesting that besides a Salt Lake conference, two similar ones for their areas be created and held in Ogden or Logan in the north and Provo or Manti in the South.

This would not only alleviate overcrowding, since many can no longer find a seat at the Salt Lake conference, but would also mean that other businesses in Utah would gain from the economic benefit of conference goers.

As it is, Salt Lake and the railroad receive too much of the surplus wealth of those attending conference.

Of course none of that proposal happened and eventually microphones, speaker systems, radio, TV, satellites and the massive Conference Center meant that just about any LDS Church member could listen to, or see conferences of the church.

Other historical tidbits:

-“Conference rush has begun” was a Standard headline six months earlier, on April 4, 1909. This story reported that eight train coaches came to Ogden from Malad, Idaho, filled with conference hopefuls.

“One coach was filled with Mormon Indians, who evinced deep interest in conference proceedings.”

A six-coach train had also rolled through Ogden from Cache Valley and another train was due from Coalville.

-“Mormons told how to gain a temple” was a Sept. 22, 1927 Standard headline.

Commemorating the anniversary of the Golden Plates, a vast gathering of Church members had gathered in the Ogden Tabernacle to hear Elder Melvin J. Ballard, apostle.

“Interest in temple work is the thing that will bring a temple to Ogden, and not the mere asking for it,” Elder Ballard stressed. He had commended local members for their strong interest in temple work.

Many church members were turned away from the meeting, not being able to find a seat inside the Tabernacle.

-“Facts and figures” on Weber County were provided in an April 20, 1912 Standard article.

There were 25,580 county residents and 40,000 acres of irrigated land back then, valued at an average of $200 per acre. There were two cement plants, one sugar beet factory, five candy factories, five flour mills, two pickle factories, one meat packing plant, seven banks, 15 hotels, six theaters, one brewery and three broom factories in 1912 Weber County.

               The historic Clinton meetinghouse today, a business property.

-“Rejoicing at Clinton Friday” was a Feb. 27, 1911 Standard headline. The story stated that the new Clinton LDS Ward meetinghouse was finished and featured a grand banquet on Friday, Feb. 24, to commemorate the occasion.

The building had cost $15,000 “and is a credit to any community and a building that the people with their bishop, O.D. Hadlock may well be proud of.”

President Joseph F. Smith and President John Henry Smith of the First Presidency attended the banquet. A dance in the hall followed the dinner.

-Today, that Clinton building is still around and in excellent condition. However, it is no longer a Church meetinghouse and was for sale recently for possible business use.

(-Originally published on April 2-3, 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  

A brief history of the Ogden Standard-Examiner

                       The current Ogden Standard-Examiner building.

By Lynn Arave

THE Ogden Standard-Examiner is Utah’s third-largest daily newspaper and the biggest north of Salt Lake City. It serves more than 60,000 print subscribers readers in the “Top of Utah” -- Weber, Davis, Morgan and Box Elder counties --  as well as many more on the Web.

The Standard officially began on Jan. 1, 1888, though its forerunner, the Ogden Daily Herald, had started seven years earlier in 1881.

Founded by Frank J. Cannon, a former Deseret News and San Francisco Chronicle reporter, the Standard, originally an evening paper, opened in the Peery Building, at 23^rd Street and Washington Avenue.

Cannon vowed that the new newspaper would “endeavor to … merit the confidence and esteem of good and true men.”

He had been unable to salvage the Herald and so he purchased its presses, buildings, subscription lists and ad contracts to provide a successor with the Standard.

By 1892, the newspaper had a circulation of 1,500 copies.

A key change came along in1893, when William Glasmann, 37, took charge of the Standard after Cannon was elected a territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress.(Glasmann would later be elected as the mayor of Ogden City in 1901.)

A year later, in 1894, Glasmann purchased the Standard with proceeds from the sale of his ranch at Lake Point, west of Salt Lake. (A family ownership would prevail for almost a century.)

By 1904, Frank Francis, Standard Associate Editor, began publishing the Ogden Morning Examiner, using the Standard’s presses. He sold that paper to Glasmann four month later, who kept publishing both newspapers until 1911.

In 1911, J.U. Eldredge of Salt Lake purchased the Morning Examiner and it became a competitor of the Standard.

Standard Publisher William Glasmann died at age 57 in 1916. His widow, Evelyn, took over and son, Abe, 23, became editor.

The Standard reacquired the Examiner and merges the two papers to become the Ogden Standard-Examiner in 1920.The composite paper was jointly owned by the Glasmann and Eldredge families through the Standard Corporation.

In 1934, the Standard Corporation entered the broadcast market by acquiring KLO Radio, AM-1430 (which it operated it until 1970). The Standard Corporation also started Salt Lake’s KALL, AM-910, radio in 1945.

The Glasmann family bought out the Eldredge interest in the Standard Corporation in 1946.

The Standard Corporation diversifies further by purchasing controlling interest of KUTV, Ch. 2, TV of Salt Lake, in 1956.

The Standard’s daily circulation exceeded 30,000 by 1959.

In 1961, the Standard purchased the old National Guard Building at 455 23^rd Street for its new offices, where it would remain for almost 40 years. (The newspaper has moved locations six times over the decades.)

The Standard purchased a new press, capable of printing 70,000 48-page papers per hour, in 1969. This move helped the Standard eventually become a local publishing company for other products.

Randall C. Hatch, great-grandson of the original Standard Publisher, William Glasmann, became managing editor, in 1981, keeping a family tradition going.

By the early 1990s, daily circulation of the Standard reached 55,500, when almost 85 percent of the homes in Weber County were loyal subscribers.

The Standard became a subsidiary of Sandusky Newspapers, an Ohio media company, in 1993. The Hatch family, descendants of William Glasmann, also sold its majority interests in KALL radio and KUTV.

The Standard offices moved again in 2000, this time to the Business Depot Ogden, formerly the Defense Depot. The newspaper also switched to morning publication after almost a 110-year-run as an afternoon newspaper, as nationally and locally, readers preferred a morning product.

Today, the Ogden Standard-Examiner has more than 63,000 subscribers in the “Top of  Utah.”

The newspaper is also now much more than a printed product. It offers a 24-hour news source, with updated information on-line. It also features photo galleries, video options of news events and other updates.

In addition, the Standard also offers a career and events page on Standard.net

-The Standard-Examiner, 332 Standard Way, offers free public tours, for groups, large or small, or for classes.

To arrange a tour, contact Summer Green at 801-625-4557, or at sgreen@standard.net

(SOURCES: Ogden Standard-Examiner, “Chronicle of a Century” edition, Jan. 1, 1988; and Utah History Encyclopedia.)

-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  

Back when ‘farm days’ postponed school

THERE have been “snows days” of unexpected school recesses in recent years, but how about “farm days"  in olden times?”
“Schools of city may not be opened until October 15, to allow youngsters to work,” was a June 27, 1917 headline in the Standard-Examiner.
An acute labor shortage in Utah some 97 years ago meant that the Davis County School Board had decided to postpone school by at least 10 days for grades seven through twelve.
Soon after that decision, Weber County and Ogden City schools also made similar decisions, referred to as “an expression of community prudence.”
School normally began at the end of September each year.
In a move akin to today’s “Potato Harvest” recess in Southern Idaho, this 1917 decision was so that teenagers could assist in the harvesting of fruits, grains, sugar beets and tomatoes that season.
​(These were the true "field days" for students in olden times.)
The decision was reached after a conference with the canners and sugar company representatives of the area.
Davis County had already been given 150 men from the National Guard to help with their crops, but more manpower was needed.
Davis County farmers had also said that if some Ogden boys had not been sent to assist with thinning their sugar beet crop already in early summer, they would have faced a disaster.
However, the recess was not a “free pass” to miss school. Besides the expectation to do farm work, plans were made by the school board to hold school six days a week until the lost time was made up. Some of these extra Saturday school days were in the winter season, leaving good weather Saturdays in spring still available.
In other historical notes:
- “Deer hunters’ chances good” was an Oct. 17, 1926 headline in the Standard.
For that era, the hunt opened Oct. 20 and closed Oct. 20. The basic rules of the hunt were: no boys under age 16 allowed to hunt; each hunter was allowed one buck with horns at least six inches long; all hunters to be wear a red hat, or red covering; a license for male hunters cost $2 and for female hunters, $1.
Hunting was also prohibited in the game sanctuary, from Weber Canyon to North Ogden Canyon and from east Ogden to the city wells in Ogden Valley. (This “no hunting” area existed only in the 1920s.)
-“Daylight motion pictures at the Orpheum a success,” was an Oct. 2, 1911 headline in the Standard.
This didn’t mean matinees – it meant a new machine projected the moving pictures on a dark background, instead of a white one – to be easier on the eyes.
Motion pictures were shown five nights a week, Saturday through Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. (Thursday and Friday nights were vaudeville nights.) Admission was 5 cents to 10 cents a show.

(-Originally published on Oct. 9-10, 2014 by Lynn Arave in the Ogden Standard-Examiner.)

-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  

The Utah ‘Footloose’ of 1912 and more …

                                  David O, McKay

  YOU could call this the ‘Footloose’ of 102 years ago.
“Apostle M’Kay opposes dance,” was a Feb. 1, 1912 headline in the Standard-Examiner.
Then Elder David O. McKay of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was speaking at a quarterly Utah Stake Conference in Provo and said he was opposed to the trend of public dance halls and the moral decline therein.
He said anyone with the 50 cents admission could enter such a dance hall and that they were filled with dancing of an “immoral nature.”
Elder McKay then singled out a dance hall in Ogden that had posted the sign, “No introductions necessary,” meaning any women entering this dance hall was expected to dance with any man who asked her to do so.
“These conditions will have to be remedied or the public dance will be fought by the Latter-day Saints,” he said.
In the same meeting, it was reported that in this Utah Stake, there were 121 temple marriages and 74 civil marriages performed in 1911. There were only four divorces by any members of that stake that year.
-Jump ahead 15 years and other vices were singled out by LDS Church leaders.
An Aug. 29, 1927 headline in the Standard was “Card playing breaks rule, Heber J. Grant tells throng.”
President Grant of the LDS Church spoke at an Ogden Stake Conference in the Ogden Tabernacle.
He said those who regularly play cards should sing the popular LDS hymn, “We thank thee, O God for a Prophet” differently than what the song book says.
“We thank three, O God for a Prophet, To guide us in these latter-days, providing he does not tell us to leave our cards alone and then we desire to follow our own ideas” is how President Grant said card playing church members should sing the song.
President Grant also advised unmarried young men and women not to put their arms around each other.
“He said in so doing they are running dangerously near the edge of the precipice and Satan has an opportunity to cast over them,” the article reported.
In addition, President Grant said only one-third of the Church was then obeying the Word of Wisdom. He also said there was a church member who thought drinking a little coffee was OK. Then a cigar was alright and then chewing tobacco didn’t seem to hurt him either. However, he said that member was also an apostle and lost that position.
President also said every effort is made to put the best man available in every church position, without personal favoritism of any kind.
“There is no trading and no political wire pulling in his church,” President Grant declared.
Since President Grant had not visited Ogden for some time, this two-hour stake conference was filled to overflowing, with many not be able to find a seat.

(-Originally published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner on Oct. 3, 2014.)

-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