Brief Utah State Prison history: Prison sites always located 'way out of town'

                    Sugar House Park, where Utah's first State Prison was located.

A new Utah State Prison is being built in northwest Salt Lake City. And, S.L. County residents have always seemed to favor a prison “way out of town.”

According to the Salt Lake Telegram of March 12,1951, when the first prison in the territory was constructed in 1849, it was located at 1400 East and 2100 South, or “way out of town.”

The Telegram story stated that just over two years after settling in the S.L. Valley, residents were surprised to find they needed a prison. This may have come after a 49er on the way to California robbed a pioneer family of food and money.

(Prior to the prison, the most often-used penalty for stealing, for example, was a $10 fine or 10 lashes. Cattle or other stock trespassing by emigrants headed to California was another common crime in Salt Lake’s early years.)

With 18-foot-high walls, this first prison was described as resembling an adobe Spanish fortress. This Utah Territorial Prison was built in stages over five years. It was located in Sugar House.

(A BYU Thesis on the history of Utah’s Prisons, by James B. Hill, reveals a complicated and history. It states that the prison at Sugar House may not have started until at least 1854. And, in the 1870s, Antelope Island and Fremont Island were seriously considered as future prison locations, since they were surrounded by Great Salt Lake water.)

The Telegram account states that the Sugar House prison, at times called the Utah Penitentiary, had begun to crumble by 1885, some 36 years after opening. So, a new federally operated state prison was made of brick, at the same site, to house up to 284 men.

In the early 1900s, prison inmates made saddle niches, brushes, shoes and knitting. By 1908, inmates were also working on local road construction. Yet, it would not be until 1920 that electric lighting was installed in the Sugar House Prison.

By 1935, the prison had its own farm and 75 percent of the meats and vegetables consumed by prisoners were raised by prisoners. One trusted inmate also often pushed a cart of prison-grown vegetables downtown and sold them at a profit for the prison.

As early as 1934, R.E. Davis, State Prison Warden, had urged moving the prison to a larger, 700 to 1,000 acres site, suitable for farming. The Telegram of Oct. 31, 1934 said the warden felt the lack of enough farming jobs for inmates meant because of their idleness, they returned to society in worse shape than when they were incarcerated.

“Point of Mountain New Penitentiary Site” was an Oct. 21, 1938 headline in the Rich County Reaper newspaper. The story stated that 848 acres were purchased near the Point of the Mountain (Draper) for $48,920. This site was chosen over two locations in Box Elder County and one north of the Salt Lake Airport (perhaps not far from the new prison site today). Proximity to the state’s population, as well as excellent farmland were the main reasons for the Draper selection.

The Murray Eagle newspaper of Nov. 11, 1943 reported on a visit by the Murray Lions Club to the new Draper Prison site. It stated that despite wartime handicaps, prisoners had raised 600 tons of hay, had a herd of 118 cows, hundreds of turkeys and had installed underground pipe and dug irrigation ditches.

The Sugar House State Prison was fully closed in 1951 and the Draper facility was then in full operation. The former prison site is where Highland High School and Sugar House Park are located today.

-However, the Sugar House prison is not to be confused with the “City Prison,” mentioned in the Deseret News of Oct. 5, 1859. This stone prison was originally built to mostly contain drunks, often “high toned” or respectable gentlemen, who were intoxicated.

The Deseret News of Dec. 18, 1867 also mentioned a “new city prison,” being erected at the rear of City Hall (120 East 100 South), for $30,000.

 -Supplemental reference and very detailed prison history, a BYU Thesis by James B. Hill, can be found at:

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5790&context=etd

-Originally published in the Deseret News.

1902 quake shook the life out of the Utah hamlet of Hebron

        This map shows with the "X," approximately where Hebron was located.

TREMBLER was the last straw to break Utah town's back …

You won't find the city of Hebron on most Utah maps these days. It's a ghost town, having met its demise almost 100 years ago when earthquakes — possibly including the famous San Francisco quake of 1906 — sent the residents packing by damaging most of its brick buildings.

Located seven miles west of Enterprise in Washington County, this biblically named town thrived in the late 1800s because of mining work in the area.

The Pine Valley earthquake on Nov. 17, 1902, damaged almost all houses in Hebron, many severely. There may not have been a chimney left standing in the town.

The quake destroyed so many homes that residents slept in the tithing granary or in Orson Welcome Huntsman's slab-type house at night.

"People are frightened, seven distinct shocks were felt at Pine Valley" was a Salt Lake Herald headline from Nov. 18, 1902. Aftershocks continued for weeks. Snow and cold increased the suffering in late November.

According to a 1902 diary excerpt from Huntsman, the quake got people seriously thinking about moving down canyon to Enterprise. The quake wasn't the only difficulty in Hebron. Water was sparse in dry years and yet other years there was flooding.

St. George and Santa Clara also had substantial damage from the quake. "St. George damaged by earthquake, Buildings shaken and cliffs torn asunder; some made seasick" was a Deseret News headline from Nov. 21, 1902.

Salt Lake County residents, mostly those in the southern end, also felt the Pine Valley quake. The shocks produced lots of fear and frenzy and even stopped clocks in Salt Lake City, though no damage was reported.

"Earthquake sways big buildings of Salt Lake" was a Herald headline from Nov. 18, 1902.

No one knows the exact magnitude of those early 20th Century quakes in Utah. There were no seismographs in the state then.

The Pine Valley quake is believed to have been 6.0-plus and its largest aftershock on Dec. 5, 1902, is estimated at 5.0.

Some 3 1/2 years after the Pine Valley quake, the great San Francisco earthquake came along and may have destroyed what was left of Hebron, according to one historical report. This apparently caused its remaining residents to move away.

Today a few remote home sites dot the road west of Enterprise. One small side road leads to the Hebron Cemetery, about all that's left of a once thriving pioneer town.

The San Francisco quake was recorded by seismographs all over the nation and was believed to be about 7.7 in magnitude. It apparently had a greater effect on Hebron than any other area in Utah, perhaps because of the damage that still existed there from the previous quake.

Sue Nava, seismic network manager at the University of Utah, said the Pine Valley quake was significant and caused considerable damage. However, she disputes claims that the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 would have caused any damage in Utah, even in southwest Utah and Hebron.

She said the San Francisco quake would have produced some shaking in Utah, but she's skeptical and unaware of any damage it caused here.

U.S. Geological Society records show that the March 12, 1934, "Kosmo" (Hansel Valley) earthquake has been Utah's largest since the pioneers settled here, being a 6.6 magnitude.

-Written by Lynn Arave and originally in the Deseret News, March 4, 2001.

April 1876: The General Conference that started with a big bang

Salt Lake's original Arsenal was located near here in the 1870s.

IT was the Church General Conference that started off with a big bang. On April 5, 1876, 4:48 p.m., the powder magazines at Arsenal Hill (west of where today's state Capitol stands and near today’s DUP Pioneer Museum), exploded with a fury of 40 tons of gunpowder that Deseret News reports compared with the devil himself.

A trio of explosions rocked the city the afternoon before the semiannual four-day conference started. The Arsenal, the only building then on Salt Lake City's northwest bench, was leveled."Terrible disaster. Terrific explosion of forty tons of Giant, Hercules, blasting and other powder. Four persons killed instantly and others injured. Great damage to property" was the following day's headline in the Deseret News.

The raining debris covered a two-mile radius. The explosions were felt in shaking buildings as far north as Kaysville. Four different gunpowder magazines exploded, creating four separate bombs of debris.

Some people shouted "A volcano!" Others "An earthquake!" as an immense mass of flame shot heavenward. One reporter described the calamity as the former with "a column of smoke and debris as grand as Vesuvius ever belched forth."

Hundreds of people were lying on the ground, women and children screamed and many men turned pale, according to Deseret News reports. Some ran toward the explosion, others away. Many animals bolted away from wagons, frightened by the loud noise.

Two young men, identified as Frank Hill, 18, and Charles Richardson, 18, were near the building at the time of explosion. They had been tending cattle on the hill earlier in the day and were known to have been shooting a rifle at birds. They were killed instantly by the explosion. The men were suspected of causing the explosion when a burning paperwad from their shotgun ignited some loose gunpowder.

No specific blame for the explosion was ever laid, but a jury requested additional precautions for any other explosives kept in the city.

Vandals had previously shot through the Arsenal's main iron doors with guns for used for sport and target practice. The Arsenal building was made of rock, with a tin roof, but a thicker iron door was added after repeated vandalism.

Also killed were Mary Jane Van Natta, struck by a rock on the head as she was pumping water outside. James Raddon Jr., 5, died when he was struck in the chest by a rock while playing outside. Another woman was said to have died from fright after the explosion.

Broken glass created the biggest problem, with virtually all Main Street businesses and several nearby Church meetinghouses hardly having an unbroken window left. The walls of the 20th Ward schoolhouse were badly damaged. There were no reports of damage to the Salt Lake Temple, under construction at the time, but it was likely only in the first story stage.

Several merchants were charged with selling glass at twice the usual price in the days after the explosion.

A large boulder went through the mayor's roof and two floors of his new home. A flying rock also took away part of the ear of a son of D.P. Kimball.

Several residents reported moving babies or children from rooms that were soon thereafter heavily hit by raining debris. Several dozen boys playing baseball to the west of the armory were knocked to the ground twice by the explosions and found shelter to avoid the biggest shower of debris.

President Brigham Young's flour mill, a half-mile away up City Creek, was destroyed, as were the covers for the city waterworks and the adjacent building near City Creek. One of President Young's daughters, siting near a window on South Temple, also suffered a head wound from shattering glass.

One Civil War veteran said after the explosion he saw less damage in Fredericksburg after a month of cannon bombardment there.

"The Prince of the Power of the Air had a roisterly time on Wednesday afternoon . . . Not many of our citizens, previously, had any realizing idea of the immense reserve force stored up in a few grains of charcoal, and nitre and sulphur . . . The explosion has been the main topic of conversation in the city ever since and will be more or less for future days to come. Years in the future, the time of it will be referenced to as an era, whence and with which the happenings of other events will be calculated and compared," the Deseret News reported two days after the explosion.

Other newspapers made the disaster sound even worse. For example, one other newspaper headline read: "Nearly every house in Salt Lake more or less wrecked." Other stories also spoke of 200-pound boulders, although the largest confirmed boulder of debris to hit downtown was 115 pounds - a rock that struck the Theatre Saloon on 100 South.

Still, the Deseret News reported every building within a 1.5- to 2-mile radius of the explosion sustained some sort of damage. But apparently no general conference talks made reference to the disaster, or at least nothing was recorded by conference reporters.

The Arsenal building was reduced to craters. It was privately owned by the DuPont Co. and had cost $26,000 to build. According to some sources, the Arsenal was at the top of Main Street, about two blocks north of Temple Square and approximately where today's Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Building stands at 300 N. Main. However, photographs taken in the Arsenal area after the explosion make it look more likely the building was at about 200 N. Main. The arsenal was never rebuilt.

The area surrounding Arsenal Hill in the 1860s and 1870s consisted of bare, open fields. The Arsenal Hill area was vacant, probably because not until the late 1880s was a year-round water supply secured for the area.

This, of course, was long before the area came to be known as Capitol Hill. The entire plateau between Ensign Peak and Temple Square was originally called Prospect Hill. Then, when the Arsenal was placed there - probably in the early 1860s - it became Arsenal Hill.

Not until Feb. 28, 1888, did Elder Heber J. Grant propose that the Salt Lake City municipality donate 20 acres of the former Arsenal Hill property for a future Capitol site. The actual donation took place on March 1. The Capitol building was slow in coming and wasn't started until 1913 and completed in 1915.

-By Lynn Arave and previously published in the Deseret News, April 2, 1995.

The myth of a treeless Salt Lake Valley in 1847

                                Downtown Salt Lake City contains numerous trees today.


THE Salt Lake Valley wasn't devoid of foliage in 1847, despite a myth to the contrary.

How did the myth of the lack of trees in the Salt Lake Valley of 1847 start?

Richard Jackson, professor of geography at Brigham Young University, said that idea developed in later years, probably for three reasons:

"First, as the settlers celebrated the 24th of July, the oratory often included a certain amount of hyperbole about the magnitude of the trip across the plains, settling and developing the Salt Lake Valley, etc. As with most reminiscences, the story tends to grow with the retelling, so the Salt Lake Valley became ever more arid in those accounts," he said.

"Secondly, by the 1850s and 1860s when these myths became common, the only land not being farmed or built upon was in fact the worst land that was more arid and so later arrivals concluded that the entire valley found in 1847 by the pioneers was basically the same as the remaining marginal lands in the valley.

"Thirdly, as Brigham Young and the leaders encouraged the settlers to go south to Dixie, etc., the idea that Salt Lake Valley was a treeless desert implied that the farms and city that the settlers had developed with the help of the Lord could be replicated in the more marginal sites he was encouraging settlers to move to," Jackson concluded.

The late Stanley Kimball, a Utah historian, once said he also believed it came about after the desirable valley filled up — consciously or subconsciously to foster the idea that it had been tamed and to encourage people to settle in Dixie and other frontier areas.

Besides paintings, the biggest myth supporter is perhaps the "Lone Cedar Tree" monument in Salt Lake City, in the median on the south side of the intersection at 600 E. 300 South.

The Daughters of the Utah Pioneers erected this monument on Pioneer Day in 1934 to what was supposedly the only cedar tree in the valley when the 1847 pioneers arrived. Some original pioneers are reputed to have sung hymns and prayed by the tree.

One problem with that story is that the pioneers followed the Donner Party trail to about 1700 South, then headed to a small grove of cottonwood trees near today's 300 S. State Street — missing the "Lone Cedar Tree."

Vandals cut the Lone Cedar Tree down on Sept. 21, 1958. A related controversy ensued with the DUP when the media said the tree's status was a fraud anyway. (Ashes from the stolen cedar tree were purportedly found later in a Greyhound bus depot locker.)

A new plaque was added to the monument in 1960 and is still there today — for anyone to see and decide from themselves if the tree's legendary status holds merit.

(-Originally published in the Deseret News on July 24, 2004, by Lynn Arave.)

When elephants and buffalo roamed downtown Salt Lake City

                             Elephants at Hoge Zoo in 2008.

SALT Lake City had a number of large loose animal incidents in the early 20th Century and we’re not talking about cougar, deer or moose, but elephants and buffalo.
“Elephant flees from zoo; Captured after a long race; Princess Alice escapes from Park and enjoys brief jaunt in hills” was a Nov. 15, 1916 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune.
The elephant got as far as Parleys Canyon and was adorned with a necklace of barb wire and chicken fence. During her jaunt, she had waded through various fences as though they were weeds. She also overturned some outhouses in her path and went through a barn.
No one was hurt in what the newspaper termed “a lively escapade,” but the elephant was bleeding a few places from the wire fences.
The newspaper stated: “The path of the elephant's
night was lined with astonished gazers, who stood long and looked in the direction in which she had vanished. Small boys followed until they were winded. Automobiles took up the chase and were lost in the network of roads
to the eastward. A considerable crowd was in at the capture.”
This would not be the last time Princess Alice would escape. She broke loose and roamed 700 East Street periodically, putting the community in an uproar. A menagerie of clothing often adorned the pachyderm’s back after she ran through various backyard clothelines in the area. Her jaunts were the main reason Hogle Zoo is located where it is today – further away from downtown.
The elephant’s offspring, “Prince Utah,” also got loose from Liberty Park, as an Aug. 5, 1918 story in the Salt Lake Herald reported.
“Mother hard to comfort until her offspring is brought back,” was part of the Herald’s headline.
A Telegram story from Sept. 25, 1935 reported that Princess Alice didn’t leave the Zoo grounds, but that overnight she had broken her chain and smashed through a steel railing, enjoying “a night out” at Hogle Gardens Zoo.

                                   Buffalo on Antelope Island.

“Buffalo runs wild through S.L. streets; Women and children rush from path of crazed frontier beast” was a Salt Lake Telegram aheadline on July 23, 1931.
The 1,800-pound beast was in town for Pioneer Day, then called “Covered Wagon Days,” got loose after its rope broke at the State Fairgrounds and ended up being captured near the City dump, west of Redwood road. It had snorted furiously and send many people scurrying to safety. Forty cowboys and a squadron of police were involved in the chase. 
Salt Lake City was not the only Utah city with loose animal incidents -- “Gorilla at large” was headline in the Ogden Standard on Sept. 16, 1887. Somehow, a gorilla from a circus at Union Square had gotten loose just after dark and disappeared. Men were searching with torches trying to find the animal at a late hour.
Two days later, on Sept. 18, it was reported in the Standard that the gorilla had eventually been found, happily eating at a bakery on the lower side of town.

(-Note: This was originally published in the Deseret News.)

1936: When Hogle Zoo almost moved back to Liberty Park

                                                     The front to Hogle Zoo today.

SALT Lake City’s Hogle Zoo moved from its original Liberty Park Location to its current mountainside residence near the mouth of Emigration Canyon in 1931. However, less than five years later there was a seldom reported in history effort to move the Zoo back to Liberty Park.

“Plans to move Zoo to Liberty Park Indorsed (sic)” was an April 24, 1936 headline in the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper.

The Zoo, then called “Hogle Gardens,” had originally moved because its elephant, Princess Alice, periodically broke free and roamed 700 East Street, putting the community in an uproar. A menagerie of clothing often adorned the pachyderm’s back after she ran through various backyard clothelines in the area.

A petition signed by a large group of S.L. citizens sparked the return to Liberty Park proposal. It not only believed the Park was a more central location for the zoo, but noted that some animals – especially Princess Alice – were homesick for their former home.

Indeed, an April 29, 1936 headline in the Salt Lake Telegram stated, “Princess Alice pining for Liberty Park, says ‘Dutch’ Shider, once her trainer.”

“She isn’t happy at the Gardens,” Shider said, “She pines for Liberty Park.”

                                             An elephant at Hogle Zoo in the late 1980s.

(On Nov. 15, 1931, the three-ton elephant had rebelled and injured a trainer and demolished a wooden trailer that was to move her to the new Zoo site.)

In 1936, there were 93 animals and 133 fowls housed at the zoo. (However, strangely the bears were not moved from Liberty Park and resided there alone for some years.)

Harold B. Lee, Salt Lake Commissioner of Streets and Public Improvements said he wanted to see the zoo in a place where the greatest majority of the people desire it.

The Zoo had resided at Liberty Park for nearly 25 years.

Not mentioned at the time were controversies that happened soon after the move to the mouth of Emigration Canyon. For example, the water supply to the Zoo was cut off in 1934 for failure to pay a $195 bill. The Zoo’s flamboyant superintendent threatened to turn all the animals loose if the water was not turned back on – and service was soon restored.

In addition, some of the original Zoo buildings at its mountainside location were not first class, or well kept.

Yet, the Zoo remained at the Mouth of Emigration Canyon, where it has expanded today to become one of the largest animal collections in the western states.

(Note: This was originally published in the Deseret News.)

A slew of encounters with bears around 1900 in Utah

                       A stuffed bear at the Prairie Scooner restaurant in Ogden.

UTAH residents had an unusually high number of encounters with bears around the turn of the 19^th Century.

Here are some of the tales:

-“Bear killed at Bountiful. Melon patch lured a grizzly too near a Sunday-School” was an Aug. 31, 1897 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune. A 400-pound grizzly took a Sunday morning stroll to a melon patch just as an East Bountiful Sunday School let out. Dick McLean grabbed a Winchester and downed the bear with one bullet. Simon Bamberger gave McLean $25 for the bear’s hide, while McLean dined on bear steaks.

The Logan Herald of Sept. 16, 1897 carried the headline, “Killing a bear.” Thomas Clegg killed a big brown bear in Provo Canyon, near a mill he operates. The bear was almost 600 pounds and Clegg expected to earn $50 from the animal’s hide.

 -“If you kill a bear in Weber County, you will get five dollars” was a headline in the Aug. 24, 1897 Salt Lake Tribune.

-“How bruin was killed” was an Oct. 14, 1897 headline in the Ogden Standard. Davis and Weber Counties Canal Company workers were on their way from Morgan up East Canyon, when they noticed a large black bear comfortably resting up a tree. Being without arms, some of the men watch the animal, while the others went in search of a rifle. The bear growled and snorted at his watchers.

“It took three well directed shots to dislodge him from the top of the tree … A couple of more shots laid him out,” the story stated. The bear weighed about 500 pounds and it took 4 men to drag him from the creek, where he had fallen.

The Salt Lake Tribune of June 12, 1903 had the headline, “Black bear killed. Herder slays beast short distance from Mt. Pleasant.” N.C. Peterson killed a large black bear while herding sheep. Six other bears have been seen in the area.

“Bear steaks in order. Gabriel Johnson brings bruin’s carcass to town after exciting hunt” was an Oct. 25, 1904 headline in the Deseret Evening News. A bear was killed in Parley’s Canyon. Johnson only had 5 bullets. He shot the bear twice with little effect and then the bruin came after him. Running away, Johnson fired two more, missing the beast. Finally, after a half-mile run and with just one shot left, he turned and fired, finally bringing the bear down. However, the noise brought other bears into sight and Johnson departed quickly. He returned the next day with a wagon to pick up the bear and sell it to a local butcher for $50.

“Adventure with bears. Miner on Gold Mountain chased by two ferocious beasts” was a March 21, 1898 headline in the Salt Lake Herald. William Morrison encounter two bears while leaving a mine near Richfield. “The grizzled terrors looked at him  and he looked at them; then they humped up, grunted and started for him,” the story stated. Morrison raced to a cabin and nearby woodchoppers chased the bears away.

-"Killed a Monster Bear” was an Oct. 17, 1904 headline in the Ogden Standard-Examiner. Frank Adams of Hooper killed a 900-pound grizzly

 “in a desperate encounter” in northeastern Weber County. The man only had a .22 rifle.

“With a nerve and accuracy which is astonishing under the circumstances, he began firing as rapidly as possible … The little missiles seemed to have no effect … Thirteen shots were fired while the bear was approaching, the last striking under the eye and penetrating the brain; but none too soon, for the brute literally fell at the feet of the brave hunter,” The Standard reported.