USA > Utah > Cache County > Logan > Utah gazetteer and directory of Logan, Ogden, Provo, and Salt Lake Cities for 1884 > Part 6
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NOTES.
The first furrow turned in Utah was done by Willian Carter, now of St. George.
There have been held in Utah fifteen Territorial Fairs under the auspices of the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society. The last was held in October of 1881. Inability to secure permanent grounds and buildings, and the personal risks involved by the members of the Society caused them to suspend exhibitions.
In December, 1870, 60,000 pounds of dried peaches were shipped cut of Utah by Z. C. M. I. alone.
A pomological exhibition took place at St. George on the 29th of December, 1870. Fine samples of wine from local raised grapes were . exhibited, as well as raisins.
During 1869 William Jennings shipped to Idaho, Montana and else- where, about 200,000 pounds of Utah butter. We cannot, or do not, now begin to produce enough for local consumption. Here is a field for the enterprising dairyman and for the establishment of creameries. Cache Valley is already unitedly taking hold of the enterprise. The Territory no where affords a better field for such an investment.
The agricultural products in 1875 were $4, 393, 222.07; horticultural.
* Resources of Utah.
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UTAH GAZETTEER.
$1, 170,248. 50; animals, $6,642,798. 59; animal products, $1,219.094.56; total. $13,425,363.72.
Cache County produced over 15,000,000 pounds of cereals in 1873.
The soil, formed to a very large extent from the mountain washings, consists mainly of a gravelly loam, and is peculiarly adapted to the growth of wheat and other cereals and to fruit.
Wheat is the staple product of the Territory. Over eighty bushels, in instances, have been raised to the acre. Oats, barley, rye and flax are culti- vated with success. All kinds of vegetables grow astonishingly large, and of superior quality. The same is true of fruit.
Cotton has been cultivated successfully in Washington County. The cost of manufacture is so great as to render cotton raising unprofitable. Madder, indigo, figs, grapes, and other tropical fruit can be raised in this county.
The estimated production of Utah's cereal crop per annum is roughly placed at 2,500,000 bushels.
It takes about 900,000 to 1,000,000 bushels of wheat per annum to bread the people and furnish seed for the succeeding year.
It is estimated that the population of Utah, all told, requires from six to six and a quarter bushels of wheat per capita for bread.
6
UTAH MANUFACTURES.
CONSIDERING her economic resources, Utah has made less progress in manufacture than in any other direction. The showing is not satisfactory. There are, however, extenuating circumstances in this connection that should properly be set forth. Up to date the railroads have been of benefit to Utah only so far as inflexible commercial laws compelled them to help the Territory materially. As compared with Colorado, we fail to be her super- ior in two respects only: in the amount of mineral wealth produced annu- ally, and in the establishment of internal industries upon economic resources. This admission is the more painful because of the absence of any legitimate reason why it should be so. We have mines equal in capa- city, richness and extent to any in Colorado. In the materials for manu- facture no section of the west can approach Utah. Colorado, however, has had the advantage of railroad efforts looking to her upbuilding. It has been exactly the opposite with Utah. The history of the only road by which for years communication could be had with the east, if written, would show unfailing opposition to the material welfare of the Territory; a ten- dency to crush inherent independence, and a determination to choke the life out of home enterprises. The effect of such potent influence has been to kill opposition to its policy by the perpetual dread of ruin which stared men incessantly in the face when home industries were thought of. It also begot a lack of self-reliance, cultivated a dependence on external forces, and inculcated a slavish habit of looking to the wrong source for what was needed. The same evils exist to-day, aggravated by an additional through line that pursues the same policy. Nebraska and Colorado are being built up at the expense of Utah, Idaho and Montana, the Union Pacific repre- senting the Nebraska interests, the Denver and Rio Grande those of Colo- rado. There are, however, internal reasons for the unfortunate conditions of Utah in manufacture-though they would probably have been unknown had the railroad evils failed to exist. Men of wealth, permanently residing in Utah, have made their accumulations slowly; they are proverbially cau- tious, and the fire and ambitious desire to have the prosperity of the country they inhabit linked inseparably with the history of their personal pecuniary aggrandizements is by no means as pronounced as it might be, taking, as examples, instances to be found in territories equally as young and less stable than Utah. It is true this caution has not been without good effect. Nothing so engenders a lack of confidence as the precipitate inauguration of industries destined to fail for the reason that existing conditions are not ripe for the industry. It is the absence of failures of any magnitude that inspires such perfect confidence in the founding of local enterprises, looking to the utiliza- tion of the vast resources that meet the gaze of the thoughtful on every side, and which constantly suggest to the energetic and the enterprising opportunities never dreamed of by those of less active temperaments. The success, also, of such industrial enterprises as have been inaugurated after mature deliberation and proper preliminary steps have been taken, is an additional and a certain assurance that similar operations in other directions
51
UTAH GAZETTEER.
would prove equally successful, other conditions being the same. There is barely an industry of any moment or note in the world's commerce that has not been tried in a limited way in Utah. Results have been unsatisfactory financially, but as demonstrating, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the abso- lute certainty that industrial developments are possible, the simple efforts made were invaluable. It requires means, together with energy, as well as educated skill, to succeed in manufactures; but means, too selfish or too weak-kneed, have been found unwilling to combine with intelligence, for which reason, in large measure, the efforts of the latter have been abortive.
The United States census returns for 1850 gave $291, 220 as the value of the product of manufactures, mining, and the mechanic arts in Utah at that time. On the same authority it had increased to $900, 153 in 1860, and to $2, 343,019 in 1870. Similar returns for 1875, published by order of the Utah Legislature, show it to have reached $3,831,817, as follows:
BUSINESS.
NO.
PRODUCT.
VALUE.
Flour mills,
90
311, 833 bbls. at $7.
$2, 182,831
Saw mills,
I28|20,772,800 feet.
491,660
Lath and planing mills, .
15
125,780
Wagon shops,
I
25,000
Stone quarries,
28
28,246
Lime kilns,
52
40,093
Brick yards,
41|11, 846,759 brick.
116,758
Woolen mills,
8
311,034
Potteries,
I5
21,650
Tanneries,
18
42, 190
Breweries,
IO
51,640
Carpets,
7,050
Yarn and hosiery,
40,746
Paper,
12,012
Cements,
22,500
Hats and caps, .
8,350
Brooms, .
18,052
Soap, glue, etc.
9,457
Brushes,
6,600
Willow-ware,
20,875
Straw Braid,
4, 265
Artificial flowers,
3,380
Charcoal,
8,674 tons.
132,837
Coke,
2,070
62,100
Coal,
3,900
9,750
Salt,
3,382
18,388
Ice,
4,600
17,700
Fire brick,
41,500
867
Total value,
$3,831,817
66
The product of silver-lead mining for 1875, which does not appear in above table, was $2,708,000, making a total of $6,539,817. Exclusive of manufactured products, the value of mechanical labor for 1875 was returned at $3,715.000. But as such a return is somewhat indefinite, no account is made of it here.
So far as dependent agricultural branches are concerned, the facts given do not apply with the same force as to branches dependent upon mining.
52
UTAH GAZETTEER.
The manufacture of cheese, of honey, and of other products is growing rap- idly. There are but four single industries that have been pressed forward to anything like satisfactory results: woollen products, shoes, lead pipe and white lead, and soaps. The first-named is most important, the others proba- bly follow in the order given, the capacity of the Territory for consuming these articles considered. Much is done in iron manufactures. Except, how- ever, in rare instances the pig iron is imported from the States-imported to a country that has the greatest iron resources in the world, with every facil- ity for their utilization. As before stated, nearly every industry has been tried, and some are doing well on a limited scale and are encouraged less than they deserve; but as compared with what the economic opportunities of the Territory would warrant, they are as nothing. Reference to the statis- tics on manufacture appearing elsewhere will give a clearer and better idea of what is really being done, and of the comparative importance as to the actual wealth productiveness of the several branches; but it gives no earthly con- ception of the untold wealth awaiting the investment of means, and a mar- ket that will justify the outlay to make of Utah the peer of any section of the globe in the importance of her manufactures.
POSSIBILITIES.
Utah has the greatest iron deposits in the known world. Whatever is necessary to the successful reduction of iron and its subsequent manufacture into articles of commercial value is found in abundance in the immediate vicinity. Iron manufacture in all its branches comprises, in round numbers, one-third the world's commerce: one-third of all the varied products which the world employs is composed of iron in one form or another; one-third the wealth of this Territory, one-third its consumption, is of iron. With the greatest iron deposits alone, supplying only the local wants, there would be a saving of how much?
Lead is almost equally as abundant. It is used for sheeting, pipes, cis- terns, tanks, white lead, and for a thousand things that enter into the daily requirements of civilized communities. The opportunity for the' founda- tion of industries upon the resources of Utah is three-fold as large as the number of minerals, taking the material resources alone. Agriculturally the opportunities may greatly be enhanced. The growing of hops has become an industry that bids fair to assume large proportions. Utah is con- ceded to raise fruit, the character of which, taking the whole field into consideration, is unsurpassed; the same is true of vegetables, and the open- ing of canning and pickling establishments would simply be the inaugura- tion of industries calculated to increase the material wealth of the Territory largely. The same also is true of dairy products; while starch, wine and other manufactured products could be made with equal facility, of as fair a quality, and sell as readily as these articles produced elsewhere. Silk also can successfully be made; the climate, and other essential features having been shown by actual test, to be all that could be desired. Among the other things offering the most glowing inducements to manufacturers in addition to gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, antimony, are soda and salaratus; salt, sulphur, gypsum for plaster of Paris; mica; marbles and building rock gen- erally; pig and sheet lead, lead pipe, shot; lead, iron and chrome pigments; Venetian red; fire-proof paints; green, yellow and chrome, and red and white lead; charcoal, brick, glue, candles, earthenware, willowware, hats and caps, cigars, beer, paper, brooms, brushes; lime and cement, fire brick; drugs and chemicals, of every kind; petroleun and other oils; pottery, glass, slate -- for roofing, sink bottoms, billiard tables-marble for mantle pieces, bureau tops, pillars; and so on until all the principal industries of the world are exhausted, and still the material remains for the establishment of
53
UTAH GAZETTEER.
new industries. It has been said of Utah: "The entire basin is a vast labora- tory of nature, where all the primitive processes have been carried out on a scale so vast as to make man's dominion, at first sight, seem forever impos- sible." In connection herewith two very important considerations must be referred to. While it is true nature has blessed Utah beyond measure with an abundance of all the resources and opportunities that comprise the actual wealth of the world, that alone is not sufficient. They must be available and so situated as to admit of their handling at a minimum figure. If nature has done all in her power to concentrate her wealth of minerals, she has been no less kind in making them readily available. Of the manifold resources of the Territory, none is so situated that it is not easy of access. The sound and unfailing agricultural basis of the Territory, equal to all the demands that can ever be made, is a guaranty to the miner and the manufacturer that the foundation or primal industry will ever be sufficient, will ever fur- nish an abundance of food, thus insuring constant labor and the operation of the varied industries at reasonable prices. Still another point, not immedi- ately associated with the subject under consideration, but nevertheless bearing upon it, is the reliable character of the people. Nearly every person owns a home in Utah, and however small the amount each person has invested, it is sufficient to cause that person to be staid, politic and judicious. Strikes are an unknown occurrence in Utah, and will be just so long as the condi- tions in regard to property ownership exist as they do to-day.
It is not that Utah is deficient in manufactures, but as compared with the opportunities existing, those she already enjoys are as nothing. A field for manufactures superior to that of Utah does not exist. Whether her power and importance in this regard be of slow growth, or rapid development cannot be predicted with certainty, but that she will yet be the peer of any commonwealth is as certain as that she is the center of a vast section des- tined to outstrip the east-as certain as that one day follows another. The subject is too broad, too comprehensive to be dealt with in a moment; but any one conversant with the world's manufactures, who will calmly view the economic resources of Utah, associated with the location of the Territory and the future of the great west, must admit the prediction is not over- drawn.
NOTES.
The first carding machine was brought to Utah by President B. Young in 1849. In 1852, 1853 and 1854 other machines were imported, one get- ting as far south as Cedar City, Iron County, in 1852. Subsequently they were manufactured in Utah.
The first woolen mills were built by President Young on Big Can- yon Creek, and were known as the Deseret Mills; subsequently Hon. A. O. Smoot, now of Provo, Hon. John Sharp, of this city and General R. T. Burton, also of this city, built the Wasatch Woolen Mills, a short distance below the Deseret Mills.
The Provo Woolen Mills were established in 1870; the same year also the mills at Brigham City and at Beaver were established.
Woolen mills were operated near Ogden by Randall, Pugsley & Co., in 1871.
In 1870 the estimated productive capacity of all the woolen mills in the Territory was $700,000.
In the year 1870, George D. Watts and John W. Young inaugurated the manufacture of silk.
Woolen goods, in August of 1870, made at the Deseret Mills, were exhibited at a fair held in Indianopolis, Indiana.
54
UTAH GAZETTEER.
Machinery for the manufacture of cotton was imported from the States in 1870. Later on Mr. J. Birch took into Washington County 57,500 pounds of woolen machinery and started woolen mills at Washington City, which are now in operation.
The foundry at Logan made a successful run August 1, 1871.
The Brigham City Woolen Mills began operations February 27, 1871.
The Southern Utah Iron Manufacturing Company was organized with a capital stock of $100,000. Iron County was the scene of operations. November 6, 1873, an iron manufacturing company was organized in Ogden with a capital stock placed at $250,000. In both these cases iron was made, but from some cause the organizations proved valuless.
May 2, 1873, the Utah Fire Brick Company made an exhibition of its manufactured wares. The clay was obtained near Lehi, Utah County.
The Germania Lead Works began operation in 1883.
The first steam engine built in Utah is now at Richmond, Cache County, in the possession of the gentleman by whom it was made, Thomas Griffin. In October of 1856, he received a silver medal from the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society for it.
The Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society was organized and gave its first exhibition in 1856. In the period intervening between that date and the present time it has given fifteen exhibitions, the last in 1881. The absence of suitable buildings, and the personal risks incurred by the managers have put a stop to further efforts. Two years ago last Winter, in 1882, the Legislature appropriated $10,000 to aid the Society, Salt Lake City tendering one half of Washington Square on which to erect the fair and exhibition buildings. Governor Murray, however, saw fit to put his veto on the appropriation and the whole thing fell through. There have been no exhibitions since.
.
UTAH MINING.
THE history of mining in Utah, so far as relates to accuracy of statistics, is most unsatisfactory. At best, only a broad approximate can be made. For years previous to the existence of a mining excitement it was known that precious minerals abounded. The advent of the railroad, however, brought an unusually large floating population to Utah. Naturally enough there were miners among the number, who, upon inquiry, learned of the existence of minerals and at once began prospecting. The results were astonishing and inside of a year and a half Utah enjoyed the first and only "boom" ever known here, which lasted for a period of perhaps twelve months. Mining speculations ran wild, and though many unfortunate results grew out of the conditions, the effect was to establish for Utah a repu- tation for the possession of varied and extensive mineral deposits, not only superior in numerous respects to any other Territory or State in the west, but surpassing in particular instances anything of the kind known in the world. Subsequent and more thorough investigations showed that while Utah's valleys were pre-eminently fitted for the agriculturist, and her ranges seemingly designed for stock-raising, her mountains were no less a source of attraction to the miner and manufacturer, for it was impossible to stand in the open air at any point anywhere in the Territory from which the eye could not rest upon vast mineral deposits, great in variety, endless in extent. The formation of the Territory geologically and with a view to its mineral features is that of the Great Basin generally. The following regarding this geology is condensed from the reports of Clarence King on the subject:
"The greater part of the rock of the interior mountain area is a series of conformable stratified beds, reaching from the early Azoic to the late Jurassic. In the latter these beds were raised, and the Sierras, the Wasatch and the parallel ranges of the Great Basin were the consequence. In this upheaval important masses of granite broke through, accompanied by quartz, porphyries, felsite rocks, and notably sienitic granite with some granulite and gretsen occasionally. Then, the Pacific Ocean on the west, and the ocean that filled the Mississippi Basin on the east, laid down a system of cretaceous and tertiary strata. These outlying shore beds, subsequently to the miocene, were themselves raised and folded, forming the Pacific Coast Range and the chains east of the Wasatch; volcanic rocks accompanying 'this upheaval as granite did the former one. Still later a final series of disturbances occurred; but these last had but small connection with the region under consideration.
"There is a general parallelism of the mountain chains, and all the structural features of local geology, the ranges, strike of great areas of upturned strata, larger outbursts of gigantic rocks, etc., are nearly parallel with the meridian. So the precious metals arrange themselves in parallel longitudinal zones. There is a zone of quicksilver, tin, and chromic iron on the coast ranges; one of copper along the foot-hills of the Sierras; one of gold further up the Sierras, the gold veins and resultant placers
56
UTAH GAZETTEER.
extending far into Alaska; one of silver with comparatively little base metal, along the east base of the Sierras, stretching into Mexico; silver mines with complicated associations through middle Mexico, Arizona, middle Nevada, and central Idaho; argentiferous galena through New Mex- ico, Utah and western Montana; and still further east, a continuous chain of gold deposits in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. The Jurassic disturbances in all probability is the dating point of a large class of lodes: a, those wholly enclosed in the granites, and b, those in metamorphic beds of the series extending from the Azoic to the Jurassic. To this period may be referred the gold veins of California, those of the Humboldt mines, and those of the White Pine, all of class b; and the Reese River veins, partly a, and partly b. The Colorado loads are somewhat unique, and in general belong to the ancient type. To the tertiary period may be definitely assigned the mineral veins traversing the early volcanic rock; as the Com- stock lode and veins of the Owyhee District, Idaho. By far the greater number of metalliferous lodes occur in the stratified metamorphic rocks or the ancient eruptive rocks of the Jurassic upheaval; yet very important, and, perhaps, more wonderfully productive, have been those silver lodes which lie wholly in the recent volcanic formations."
We quote at some length from an article by Professor J. E. Clayton, as giving perhaps the clearest general idea of the opportunities of Utah min- erally.
'The mining industries of the States and Territories west of the Mississippi River have, in the last thirty-four years, produced the vast sum of $2,230,447,887 in gold and silver. This enormous sum of money has been added to the permanent wealth of the country, and given it an impetus in every branch of national growth and material progress, without a parallel in history. It has made our splendid railroad and telegraph systems pos- sible in the last half of the present century. It has opened up a vast wilderness-with its boundless resources-to settlement and civilized uses, that otherwise would have remained a desolate waste for another hundred years.
"It is a well-known fact that Utah has never given any official aid, or made any united effort to bring her mining resources into prominence before the world, and that other States and Territories -- having no greater natural resources-have outstripped her in this branch of material progress.
"Notwithstanding all this, her mining interest has made a splendid showing since 1870. In the last thirteen years her mines have produced $2,150,000 in gold, $45,790,272 in silver, 258,000 tons of lead, realizing in the markets of the seaboard $23,220,000, and over 1,000 tons of metallic copper worth in New York about $300,000. These items make up a grand total of $71,502,772, since mining became an active industry in Utah thirteen years ago. It must be kept in mind that $47,982, 272 of the total output was in gold and silver-actual money created from the crude ores of our mountains, while the lead and copper products were paid for in coin, or its equivalent, amounting to the large sum above stated.
"Lead and copper do not create money in the same sense that gold and silver do, but they bring money to the producer in the markets outside of Utah, in the same way as wheat, wool, beef, mutton, hides, coal, salt, and other merchantable products, and may be a profitable branch of industry as long as lead and copper will bring remunerative prices in the market. Their value-like the other products named -- depends upon the question of demand outside of Utah. With gold and silver the case is entirely different; those metals are real money, only needing the stamp of the mint to make them the legal coin of the realm. Their value does not depend upon the mere questions of demand or supply, or the fluctuations of trade, like other commodities; they have a fixed representative value. There is no such
57
UTAH GAZETTEER.
thing as an over-production. They form the life blood of all commercial transactions among men. Every dollar in gold and silver that is dug out of our mountains makes it possible for the farmer, the merchant, the manu- ufacturer, the mechanic and the laborer to sell a dollar's worth of whatever he has on hand, independent of any outside market whatever. Every dol- lar dug out of our mines is a dollar absolutely gained to the permanent wealth of the country. If all of her silver and gold mines were actively worked, there would be a home market created that would buy all the sur- plus food, labor, and manufactures of her entire population. In other words, we could create the money and the market for utilizing her entire productive industry. When the world's markets demand lead, copper, antimony, iron, coal, salt, gypsum, marble, etc., Utah can respond to any reasonable demand made for those articles, for in those things her resources are boundless.
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