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THE PROMONTORY Any discussion of the Promontory community must first come to some satisfactory conclusion as to where and what is "Promontory." On the map, Promontory is the name given to a range of mountains that runs from the Utah-Idaho border country south, eventually extending into the Great Salt Lake to form a 30 mile-long peninsula. The name probably originates with Captain Howard Stansbury's reconnaissance of the region in 1848. In his report, Stansbury first refers to the mountains in the lower case as the promontory, meaning a point of land jutting into the sea. Later in the work, he begins to capitalize the term. An earlier report by Fremont mentions the range but does not refer to them by any name. The Promontory Mountains rise steeply from the surrounding desert forming the kind of island ecosystem which commonly occurs throughout the Great Basin. Higher elevation and somewhat greater precipitation make it more hospitable to life, and so the place has been home to bison, deer, antelope, and domestic livestock. Throughout the several millennia that the area has seen human visitation, the climate has varied, but it generally has not been conducive to permanent habitation. Today, when locals refer to "the Promontory," they are alluding to this mountainous region. When they refer simply to "Promontory," they mean the string community on the east side of the peninsula. This string community, however, used to be known as the "eastside." Before its demise, the name Promontory was applied to the railroad village that sat atop the pass at the base of the peninsula. Originally known as Promontory Summit on the railroad survey, the small town that was built there was called Promontory Station. The history of this hamlet is the chief concern of this report, but it would be shortsighted and ethnocentric not to acknowledge the lengthy record of human habitation in the region. Indeed, excavations at Hogup Cave reveal that humans have lived around the Great Salt Lake for 10,000 years. Fremont people moved into the area about 500 A.D., spending a good deal of time near the mouth of the Bear River. They often visited the Promontory to hunt; they left bison bones and leatherwork in caves. At one time anthropologists felt that the occupants of the Promontory caves were a distinct culture, but current scholarship considers the caves to have been Fremont hunting camps. Sometime around 1500 or 1600 A.D., Shoshone people moved out of the Great Basin and into the lands surrounding the Salt Lake. There is no solid evidence to indicate the reason the Fremonts left. We do not know whether they were forced out by the Shoshone, or whether disease or climatic change caused their departure. In any case, the Shoshone, like their predecessors, spent a great deal of time living in the lower Bear River Valley. Great Basin Shoshone usually lived in small family groups, but where the land was rich they sometimes congregated in villages. The lower Bear River and nearby Cache Valley were such places. Fish were a dependable source of food, and the Indians built weirs or used seines to catch them. Duck eggs, in season, were plentiful in this locale, seeds and roots could be gathered, bison roamed nearby, and serviceberries and game animals could be taken from the nearby mountains. The bands that frequented this land have now become known as the Northwest Shoshone. They regularly visited the Promontory area on hunting expeditions, on trips to visit relatives in other parts of the Great Basin, or on excursions to gather pinion nuts in the western mountains. About the same time the Shoshone pushed into the Salt Lake region, Europeans established a presence in the Americas. Bringing guns, liquor, disease, Christianity, a variety of foreign plants and animals, and the fur trade, Euro-American expansion sent change rippling across the continent. Sometime around 1700, the Shoshone began to acquire horses, and their lives were revolutionized. The horse allowed greater hunting efficiency and gave advantage over enemies. It allowed the tribe to range farther and to acquire and transport more material possessions. In many respects, the mounted Shoshone took on cultural elements associated with the Great Plains Indians. Other changes, driven by European expansion, followed. The Shoshone had an entrepreneurial streak and were closely tied into trade relationships with their neighbors. Long before initial contact with whites, they certainly knew of the intruders and had traded with other Indians for European goods. No doubt their trade network also introduced them to new and devastating forms of illness. White explorers, traders, and trappers finally visited the Shoshone homeland in the early 19th century. Trapping parties from both the Hudson Bay Company and William Ashley's American Fur Company visited the Northern Wasatch in 1824. Jim Bridger is credited in that year as being the first white man to see the Great Salt Lake. The arid country north of the lake, however, was not beaver country, and received little interest from Bridger and his fellows. The Shoshone established generally friendly relations with the whites, seeing them as allies against their enemies. As they traded beaver pelts and buffalo hides for guns, glass beads, and ironware, they became part of a worldwide economy. However, the newfound affluence of the Northwest bands was not to last. Firearms and horses brought increased hunting efficiency, and large game populations, including the bison herds, declined rapidly. By the early 1830's, bison had disappeared from what is now Northern Utah. As the decade closed, bands of Northwestern Shoshone continued to range through the Promontory country, but hunting prospects were on the decline. The white man's fur trade was also declining as beaver populations plummeted and beaver hats went out of style. The 1840's, though, brought a new wave of Euro-American expansion in the Far West. Mountain men and sea captains had spread tales of bountiful lands on the Pacific Coast, and Oregon and California became the next destination for Americans seeking a new start. A CLASH OF CULTURES For the Northwest Shoshone, the 1840's began a fundamental change in relationships with whites. White trappers and traders, a numerically small group, had largely adapted themselves to an Indian lifestyle. They hunted and gathered to survive and often married into native society. Emigrants, on the other hand, came to usurp the land and to establish their civilization on it. Self assured in their own superiority, they did not sense the injustice. For a while, though, emigrants would just be passing through on their way to more hospitable country farther west. The Bartleson-Bidwell Party of 1841 was the first company of Americans to attempt a wagon journey to the West Coast. They traveled the route of the fur trade caravans up the Platte and crossed the Rockies at South Pass. At the bend of the Bear River, the group split as part of the company headed for Oregon. Bartleson's California-bound group of 31 men and one woman pushed south through Cache Valley, crossed into the Bear River Valley, and began to work its way around the north shore of the Great Salt Lake. On August 22, they camped at Connor Spring. The next morning the wagon train crossed Blue Creek and ascended the saddle of the Promontory Mountains, passing no more than about a mile from the site of the National Park Service Visitor Center. The emigrants then spent the night at Cedar Spring. Hoping to find the headwaters of Mary's River (the Humboldt), but having no guide and no real knowledge of the country, the party traveled an agonizing and circuitous route through the West Desert. The oxen gave out and the wagons were abandoned. However, Bartleson's beleaguered argonauts finally reached Mary's River and eventually crossed the Sierra to California. In the process, they became the first of a long string of transcontinental travelers to journey across Promontory Summit. Throughout the decade, transcontinental emigration flourished but would not follow the difficult Bartleson-Bidwell route. The Promontory country continued to be the uncontested domain of the Northwestern Shoshone. It was not until the arrival of Mormon settlement in 1847 that this would begin to change. The saga of the Mormon trek west is one of the great epics in our history, but from the Indians' standpoint, it was essentially the same story that had been repeated all across the continent. Euro-Americans saw a land that, in their eyes, was being wasted and underutilized by its native inhabitants. They felt perfectly justified in developing that land and forcing the Indians to a new way of life. While the Latter Day Saints took a more benevolent attitude toward Indians than most frontier settlers, the ultimate outcome was the same. Whites took the most productive lands for their own use, bloody confrontations resulted, and the Indians were removed to reservations. For the Northwestern Shoshone, this process began when Mormon settlement pushed northward along the coast of Great Salt Lake. By the late 1850's, Mormon pioneers had established settlements at Willard, Box Elder (now Brigham City), and in Cache Valley. These settlers generally followed Brigham Young's council that it was better to feed their red neighbors than to fight them, but as whites took the best riparian areas for their own use, conflict increased. Even on the Promontory, white grazers were displacing traditional game animals with domestic cattle by the early 1860's. Shoshone families found themselves reduced to starvation and poverty. The crescendo of tension and confrontation between Indians and settlers finally led to tragedy early in 1863. Responding to calls from the northern pioneers, Colonel Patrick Connor's California Volunteers attacked an unsuspecting Shoshone village near the Bear River in northern Cache Valley, annihilating all but a few young children. Several months later, the remaining Northwest bands signed the Treaty of Box Elder, agreeing to live at peace in return for yearly distributions of government annuities. The treaty paved the way for further Euro-American settlement in the region but did not specify the removal of the Indians. The Northwest bands would continue to hunt, roam, and beg along the Utah-Idaho borderlands for a few more years, but times were rapidly changing in the Promontory area. For some 10,000 years, these mountains had been home to aboriginal peoples- not a permanent homeplace as we know it but a place to visit in the seasonal hunting-gathering economy. The Shoshone, Fremont, and their predecessors, in their own way, had made up the first Promontory community. This community was uprooted and almost destroyed in a few short years. True, cultural conflict and change were nothing new in this land, but the land had never seen people like this. The new conquerors were part of a highly organized industrial society with immense power to destroy its enemies and to reorder the landscape. And as Mormon settlers celebrated their newfound dominance, decisions were being made in New York, Boston, Sacramento, and Washington D.C. that would further influence the course of events at Promontory.
THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD By 1860, calls for a transcontinental railroad were nothing new. For nearly two decades, visionary men had pushed for an iron road to unite America's disparate seacoasts. Political bickering between slave and free states, however, had kept the dream from becoming reality. Several surveys for possible routes were completed during the 1850's, but the Congressional deadlock went unabated until the outbreak of the Civil War. Suddenly it became politically expedient to keep Californians committed to the national government, and there was no longer a Southern political opposition in Congress. A bill authorizing construction subsidies to two companies, the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad of California, was passed in 1862. The chosen path for the line was the so-called "Central Route" that ran between Omaha and Sacramento. Central Pacific rails were to build across the Sierra Nevada, Union Pacific rails were to cross the rest of the distance, and the two lines were to meet at the California-Nevada border. This arrangement was not to last. Collis Huntington successfully lobbied for C.P.'s right to build as far as they could before effecting a junction. The new agreement was actually a starting gun, signalling the beginning of a race for empire and subsidies across the Far West. The race got off to a slow start. Financing and labor were difficult to procure in the midst of civil war, and it was not until 1865 that work truly began in earnest. From then on, construction accelerated towards completion. Surveying the exact route of the line was itself one of the major tasks. Never had a railroad faced so many geographic obstacles, and many factors entered into the choice of location. Gradients, degrees of curvature, amounts of earth to be moved, bridge and tunnel work, distance, and the availability of fuel and water all were considered before decisions were made. When the surveyors reached the Great Salt Lake, political considerations also entered into the choice. Brigham Young and his people were most anxious for the railway to pass through Salt Lake City, the Mormon capital. However, the route around the north shore of the lake was more direct and had better availability of wood and water. Eventually, engineering considerations surmounted political considerations, and the north shore route was adopted. Despite Brother Brigham's protests, the survey line was staked across Promontory Summit, by then a Mormon grazing area as well as a Shoshone hunting ground. Meanwhile, the construction race had moved into high gear. Throughout 1868, both companies worked at a feverish pitch pursuing the same strategy. Each railway hoped to build beyond the Salt Lake Valley, stranding its competitor at a junction in the wilderness. In that way, the winner could capture all the traffic and trade of the Mormon Empire. Grading gangs were working up to 200 miles beyond the end of track, and as winter approached, both lines placed men to work on the Promontory Mountains. Rising steeply from the desert floor and cut by deep ravines, the eastern escarpment of the Promontory was one of the most difficult obstacles on the whole of the line. Thousands of men from both companies blasted and struggled as parallel railroad grades ascended the slope. To stay within the specified two-and-one-half per cent gradient, about 13 miles of roadbed were needed to cover the 6 airline miles to the summit. Massive amounts of earthwork and bridgework were required. The Salt Lake Telegraph offered this description: As you approach the Promontory from the east, the scene presented is truly beautiful. At first only the main camp is seen whitening the mountain sides and in contrast with the blackened volcanic appearance on everything around, looming up like masses of pure white quartz. A nearer view reveals new clusters of tents, hitherto obscured by some towering mass of grey rock or intervening hill. From this camp the viewer may delight at the vision with the discovery of camps almost innumerable- above the grade, below the grade, remote from the line and apparently on the line- blasting, carting, shoveling, wheeling, picking, &c. The sheer size of the undertaking meant that the construction force would be involved for several months at this location, and where U.P. laborers settled, the Hell on Wheels was sure to follow. "Hell on Wheels" was the name given to the transient communities that catered to the construction force. While these towns did have legitimate merchants and artisans, the bulk of commercial activity usually amounted to providing base forms of entertainment for workers. Liquor, gambling, and prostitution were the primary stock in trade. Names like Deadfall, Last Chance, and Murder Gulch betrayed the character of these communities. Salt Lake photographer Charles R. Savage said of the camps: Certainly a harder set of men never congregated together before...Every ranch or tent has whiskey for sale. Verily, men earn their money like horses and spend it like asses. The towns were tough, and there are genuine instances of murder and horse-stealing in the historical record. However, there was a real tendency on the part of the press to exaggerate the lawlessness. The evils of the wild and wooly railroad frontier made good copy, especially with the local Mormon readership. It is also likely that the denizens of the Hell on Wheels delighted in telling a windy now and again, and that such tales were oft times repeated in print as fact. Reports of daily murders are highly suspect. Throughout the winter and into the spring, both sides of the Promontory were buzzing with activity. As the rails drew closer together, the Overland Stage was rerouted over the mountain and around the north end of the lake, connecting the two ends-of-track. It is ironic that with thousands of people and numerous camps all around, there was still no habitation at the summit area. Transcontinental travelers on the stagecoach crossed over the site, and certainly large numbers of workers and freighters traversed it. Yet in a waterless location that required but little earthwork, there was no reason for a town to arise. Indeed, there was no reason to think that a town would ever arise there. It was not until the Federal Government finally tired of the wasteful railroad race that a reason developed. On April 9, 1869, representatives of the two railroad companies were brought together in Washington, D.C. to agree on a meeting place for the rails. On that date, they reached a compromise that would found a community and make its name a household word.
HO! FOR THE PROMONTORY! By the April 9 meeting, Union Pacific rails had advanced west of Ogden and it was clear they had won the railroad race. Yet, through political manipulation, Central Pacific had been awarded bond subsidies clear into Echo Canyon. They were also close enough to build their own line to serve the Salt Lake Valley if U.P. pursued its plan to strand them. Clearly it was time for a compromise. An agreement was reached that became a Congressional resolution the following day. It stated, The common terminus...shall be at or near Ogden;and the Union Pacific shall build, and the Central Pacific...shall pay for and own the railroad from the terminus aforesaid to Promontory Summit, at which point the rails shall meet and connect and form one continuous line. At face value, this resolution seemed clear enough. Ogden would eventually become the railroad junction. Both companies would continue building to a meeting at Promontory Summit, and then Central Pacific would purchase the U.P. tracks into Ogden. But the document was remarkable for what it didn't specify. There was no agreement on the price of the sale or the matter of the bonds already issued to the Central Pacific. Major issues remained to be tackled before a permanent terminal could be established, and until that happened, a waterless point in the desert would be the junction point for all transcontinental travel. Parallel grading was halted, and the two railroad giants worked towards the summit of the Promontory and completion. Still, there was no effort to establish any settlement at the temporary junction point. A few days prior to the completion ceremony, a few businessmen from the nearby camps moved up to the summit area and inaugurated the townsite. Photographer Savage noted the embryonic community in his diary on May 9. "Promontory Point consists of a 1/2 dozen Tents and Rum holes, all 9 miles from water." Not only was the town beginning life with a nasty reputation, it was already being confused with the tip of the Promontory Peninsula some thirty miles to the South. During that night, the Union Pacific built into the summit area to establish its claims. The Central followed suit the following morning, May 10. By noontime, about ten more tents had been erected at the site, bringing the total number at Promontory Station to sixteen. Seven were located between the mainline and the Union Pacific siding and may have been railroad related. The balance of the tents were probably business structures moved up from the surrounding Hell on Wheels camps. Six of these formed a commercial street on the north side of the mainline, while the other 3 sat isolated on the fringes. A few of these structures can be identified from photographs. Three tents on the commercial street had signs. One was a restaurant while the other, proclaiming "Red Cloud" on its banner, was probably a saloon (that being the name of a popular liquor). The third tent was signed with the name of its proprietor, "S. Connor," but its function is unknown. Considering the descriptions of Savage and others that appeared in the press, it is likely that some of the unidentified tents were also saloons or eating houses. Around 12 pm, the railroad dignitaries, reporters, photographers, troops, musicians, workers, and assorted spectators gathered to lay the last rail and to drive the final spike. An event of national importance, the telegraph reported the ceremony as it occurred through a nationwide hookup. Speeches were made, a ceremonial tie and precious metal spikes were presented, and then a common iron spike was driven to complete the line of the railroad. Bells rang and canons boomed across the country as the talking wire flashed the word, "Done." For a nation still dealing with the grief of the Civil War, the event was a tonic of magnificent potency. Promontory was the affirmation of national greatness, not to mention the repository of that democratic raucousness that was already part of Western Myth. This arid mountain pass in the middle of nowhere experienced only a moment of celebrity, but the event that occurred there had fired the imagination- Manifest Destiny was made flesh. A correspondent to The Deseret News reported from Ogden Station on May 16, The cry now is. "Ho! for the Promontory!"- no place like the Promontory! While writing this morning in the ticket office, in the rush for passage to the west by next train, I heard but one person ask for a ticket elsewhere.
SODOM WITH POOR HASH A few short hours after the Golden Spike Ceremony, Promontory Station began to settle down to the business of transcontinental railroading. The C.P. operated its agency out of two rough office cars located on a temporary spur track just west of the junction point. Union Pacific probably used a tent for the same purpose. Figuring that the terminal would soon be moved elsewhere, the companies were in no hurry to erect permanent facilities. By the end of the month, the town consisted of the ticket houses of the railways, their telegraph offices, about 14 saloons, some restaurants, assorted gambling dens, and a few stores. There were perhaps 30 tents in all, most of them squatting on the Union Pacific right of way. Tourists and traveling correspondents surely approached their arrival at Promontory Station with an air of expectation, hoping to see the spot where history had been made and perhaps sample a bit of the Wild West. Unfortunately, reality soon killed romantic notions. The place was hot in the summer, cold in winter, and the San Francisco Daily Morning Chronicle reported "hordes of grasshoppers and swarms of sand-fleas." It was a squalid little place inhabited by rogues and toughs, not noble frontiersmen. June turned into July, and the expected agreement on a permanent junction had still not transpired. Rumors, however, flew that the change was imminent. On July 22, a Salt Lake newspaper described the situation in an article entitled, "Promontory Point, Etc.:" One of our types has just returned from a run out west of Promontory. This latter point must be an interesting place; all the water that is used there by the two railroad companies, is brought from six to forty miles- the C.P. hauling theirs from Indian Creek, and the U.P. from six to eight miles this side of the connecting station. There are no accommodations for passengers except in the way of very poor hash. Coming east, passengers are compelled to remain at Promontory fifteen hours-arriving there at ten p.m., and lie around the best way they can-there being no place to sleep. The railroad companies have plenty of side tracks, but no buildings put up. The talk along the line of the C.P., among the employees, was to the effect that they expected to run to Ogden next week; but of course they had no positive information on the subject. Indeed, negotiations on the sale of the line between Ogden and Promontory were continuing. General Dodge had submitted an estimate of the cost of construction to Central Pacific officials, but Collis Huntington seemed in no hurry to dicker. In a letter of July 19, Dodge stated, "The Central do not intend to...pay a fair price for it if they can help it..." Huntington knew that the U.P. was cash-starved and that he could push for a bargain price. On August 3, Union Pacific proposed that the terminal be located in Corinne and that the price of the line be $87,000 per mile. The Central rejected both the price and the terminal location. A second proposal was proffered by U.P. which would have placed the junction in Ogden, and this also was rejected. Collis Huntington was playing hardball while passengers of both railways continued to suffer the indignity of a laying over at Promontory. Henry Carter Austin passed through junction on August 14, stating in his diary, "A fearful place composed almost entirely of open gambling booths and whiskey shops. They tell one someone is killed here nearly every day." Three-card monte, ten-die, strap game, chuck-a-luck, faro, and keno flourished, and "cappers" rode the trains up from Kelton and Corinne to lure passengers into the various dens of iniquity. While tales of rampant murders were certainly blatant falsehood, a genteel passenger might well assume that the denizens of the tent town were capable of anything. Perhaps the best account of a transcontinental traveler through infamous Promontory was left by John Simpson Ross, a minister headed to California for his health. Unfortunately for him, the depot was not open when he arrived in late September. His party waited almost an hour in the bitter cold and wind until it was finally allowed to board Central Pacific coaches. Delayed several hours, he offered this description of the town by night: ...About seven p.m. we were moved down near the station. A large bonfire burned in the street. We could see each den of iniquity and all who came out and all who venture in. A gambling table stood beside the fire and a crowd stood by. In an iron basket, such as men in our country carry suspended from the bow of a canoe when they go to spear at night, blazed a great fire of fat pine that threw its dazzling brightness for acres around. One man was spokesman and actor. He has hands as smooth and white as those of any lady. He held a pack of cards in his hand, and the way in which he fingered them over was only matched by the rapidity with which his tongue moved...We saw several stake down their money and leave it there. This is a wonderful profession. Men see others risk and lose every time, and still they will hazard themselves. During the fall, Union Pacific completed a depot building. Cold weather had arrived, and there was still no sign of agreement on a permanent junction. Not only did the depot provide a greater degree of comfort for passengers, it sent a message (not really true) that the Union Pacific was willing to spend the winter at Promontory. The building housed a waiting room, telegraph office, restaurant, and had two apartments upstairs. S.R. Edwards, local agent for the U.P., was likely one of the tenants. About the same time, the Central also erected a small wooden structure to house its offices. Despite the new depot, Promontory Station continued to be lambasted by the press. Numerous newspaper accounts of varying reliability recounted the moral depravity of the place. The Elko Independent went so far as to compare the town to the biblical city of Sodom. The Utah Reporter of Corinne replied: There has never been anybody robbed by violence there to our knowledge, nor is there likely to be so long as Mr. Edwards, the U.P.R.R. Company's agent remains there. Mr. E. is not a man to be trifled with, he is master of the situation. Not long after, the Mormon Church-owned Deseret News joined the tirade against the town, and the Utah Reporter again replied: ...There is a little secret about those Promontory brigands and their doings that all don't understand...A very large per centage of thieves operating at the Promontory this summer were Mormons, and as they were reaping a rich harvest, of which the 'tithing office' would get its share, it was not policy for the Mormon authorities to interfere with them... There is little doubt that at least some of the businessmen of Promontory were indeed Mormons and that Box Elder County officials did nothing to clean up the town. In September of 1869, Promontory was organized into a formal precinct by the county court, extending the umbrella of county authority over the line of the railroad. Even so, county officials continued to ignore the place, either because it was a railroad town or because they actively supported their brothers in the fleecing of gentile travelers. While we may never know for sure, there is probably some truth in both suppositions. On November 17, the long awaited deal on a permanent junction and the sale of the Union Pacific trackage was finally approved by both railroads. Central Pacific's obstinance had paid well. The new terminal would be Ogden, giving the company its desired access into the Salt Lake Valley, and the price paid for the U.P. trackage was less than $59,000 per mile. Only Union Pacific's desperate financial condition can account for this "fire sale" agreement. The date of actual transfer was to be December 1. Evidently, part of the understanding was that the Central Pacific wanted no part of the nefarious doings at Promontory Station. On December 1, The Deseret News reported that Mr. Edwards and his employees had run the squatters out of the tent town. The Union Pacific Agent and his employees at Promontory, tired of gamblers robbing the immigrants passing through, gave them 15 minutes to leave town. An engine and coach took them to Corinne. This cleaned out the whole tent row and the town is now deserted except for the railroad employees. Considering the timing of the event, this action surely had more to do with the impending transfer of ownership than any supposed moral outrage. There was probably little opposition to Edwards' move. The passing of terminal status meant the end of business, and the exiles were likely relieved to have free railroad transportation back to civilization. The demise of the tent town marked the end of boom times and celebrity status for the infamous community. On December 1, Central Pacific took possession, and Promontory Station became just another whistle stop along the railway.
HELPER STATION A political compromise had brought the town of Promontory Station into existence. With the location of a permanent terminal in Ogden, inertia and geography would now sustain it. The town sat astride what was known on the railroad as "Promontory Hill," one of two helper districts on the Salt Lake Division of the C.P.R.R. In such places, "helper" engines were coupled onto trains to boost them over steep grades. The Promontory district began at Lake station on the West and extended east to Blue Creek Station. Blue Creek, located at the eastern base of the mountain, offered a good water supply and might have been a better location for a townsite. However, Promontory Station was already well established, and helper engines might be dispatched from the summit to either side of the hill. A brief description in the Pacific Tourist gives an idea of Promontory Station in its new role: While the road was under construction, this little place was quite lively, but it's glory has departed, and its importance at this time is chiefly historic. It has a very well kept eating-house for passengers and train men and large coal sheds with a three-stall round-house and other buildings for the convenience of employees. From 1870 through the opening of the Lucin Cutoff in 1904, Promontory served a threefold function on the railroad. First and most important, it was an engine terminal for locomotives in helper service. Second, it was the location of section houses, a base for crews that maintained the track. Third, its depot and eating house served the needs of local shippers and the traveling public. Developments in the town grew from these functions and the need to house associated employees. As noted by the Pacific Tourist, the C.P. constructed a three-stall engine house on the north side of the mainline. It also built a turntable, a sandhouse, and a water tank (of the tankhouse variety). Water for the tank was brought in by train, and it was for emergency use only. Engines normally took water at Blue Creek or Rozel as they shuttled loads back and forth across the hill. Long coalsheds for locomotive fuel were built south and parallel to the main, west of the depot. During the 1870's, helpers were probably of tenwheeler configuration (4-6-0). Immediately west of the depot was the section house. This was where the white section foreman and his wife lived. The Chinese crew lived on the northwest fringe of town in their own quarters. Each morning, they wheeled their handcar from the carhouse, picked up their tools from the tool shed, and ventured forth to maintain rails and roadbed. The depot served as telegraph office, eatery, waiting room, store, and domicile. Here the agent carried on the business of the road while a concessioner operated a restaurant. The number of customers was wired in from Corinne, and meals were waiting when the train stopped at Promontory. Marion Woodward's family operated the restaurant for some time, and she remembered the place employed two chinese cooks, three waitresses, and that her parents acted as hosts. They ran a small store at one end of the restaurant for the convenience of both travelers and locals. Her family and the agent lived in the two apartments upstairs. On May 10, 1875, the Corinne Daily Mail commented, "Promontory is still the favorite station to get a good meal, and most of the trains stop there for that purpose, and are never disappointed." The 1870 census gives us an interesting view of life in early Promontory Station. Forty-three people were enumerated in seven domiciles. William Case, listed as a hotel operator, was the only family man in town. Of his four stepchildren, two were away at school; his wife was noted as "keeping house' and was the only adult female in Promontory. Also listed were a telegraph operator, a car inspector, a conductor, three firemen, and a steam engineer. These men lived in housing provided by the company. The majority of Promontory's inhabitants were 25 young Chinese laborers who lived in two section houses. One more was employed as a cook for the crew, bringing the Chinese population to 26. Only four people were not connected with the railroad. One listed his occupation as "quartz miner," and the other three ran a stock farm. A decade later, there is no distinct record for Promontory Station, but there are figures for the whole of Promontory Precinct. From 1870 to 1880, overall precinct population declined from 158 to 131. This was due to the departure of large numbers of workers that had been upgrading the railroad in 1870. However, an increase in the number of local families, and the growth of the ranching population did much to offset the loss of the construction force. This demographic change manifested itself when the citizenry of the precinct petitioned to form a school district in 1879. A one-room school was built off the right-of-way north of the depot. The other major demographic change was that the number of Chinese laborers dropped to eight. In 1870, much work was still needed to bring the road up to standard, and the demand for labor was consequently greater. Ten years later, only maintenance crews were present. In the event a large maintenance project became necessary, an "extra gang" of chinese workers was brought in to accomplish the task. Wallace Clay lived at Promontory Station as a boy in 1884. His father was a telegrapher, and he wrote several historical sketches of life on the old C.P. He remembered: Promontory Station was still a wild and wooly frontier railroad camp where early Mormon settlers from along the east side of the Promontory Peninsula rode or drove up the Hill to trade or leave by train and while there they mingled with chinese and other railroad employees and often stayed over to watch the trains go by...It was a noisy, smokey transfer point with the puffing of engines, the clanging of bells, the shouting of switchmen, the waving of kerosene lanterns at night, the smell of hot cylinder oil, and a 24 hour bedlam of sounds. ...Most of the railroad employee's residences or "company houses" as then called were on the other side of the mainline (from the depot) and further west. They were painted brownish-red. There was a school-house which was small and unpainted... and it had a bell in a belfry on its roof. ...What was life like in the Golden Spike Era in old camp Promontory? It meant knowing only paraffin candles and kerosene lamps and cast-iron cook stoves. It meant carrying all water needed to a company house in a tin water pail from a water car in the yards. It meant pushing coal in a wheelbarrow from the coal-sheds in the yards. It meant getting a box of groceries from Ogden freight-free and paying double for all in-between supplies at Tom Brown's store. It meant hand-twirling a can of sweetened milk in a wooden tub full of salted ice once or twice each summer to get a taste of homemade ice cream. It meant playing "high five" by kerosene lamp well into the night for entertainment unless there might be a dance in the schoolhouse. It meant most every day and night was similar to every other day and night in a dusty world of noisy monotony... Marion Woodward also described the company houses at Promontory. She remembered most of the engineers and brakemen as having families and living in one-story wooden homes with three to six rooms. Chinese section laborers lived in dugouts. She recalled that the schoolhouse burned during her youth, probably in the 1890's. As the Promontory area grew, so did local commercial opportunities. The historical record alludes to various establishments, but evidence is generally scant and often confusing. N.M. King was listed as the operator of a hotel and general store in business directories for the late 1870's and early 1880's. Later directories list Thomas G. Brown as a merchant and restauranteur, and handbills survive advertising his Golden Spike Hotel. In addition, Wallace Clay remembered, "Two general stores and a saloon were well back from the tracks on the south side..." Despite these references, there is no record of anyone claiming land south of the railroad until 1897. One area of confusion can be resolved by examining the term "hotel." Hotel, it seems, was a name that the railroad might apply to an eating house, and the Central Pacific Station Plan for Promontory refers to the depot as the "Hotel and Telegraph Office." Thus, when William Case called himself a hotel keeper in the 1870 census, he was likely Promontory's restaurant operator. N.M. King, also known as a hotelman, probably ran the same depot restaurant later in the decade, operating a store at one end of the dining room. We know that Brown ran such a store in the dining room after he took over the restaurant in the middle 1880's. There are also references to a store run by Brown in a building off the right of way. Photographs of a store located about 200 feet south of the depot, known to have been operated by the Houghton family from 1907 to 1935, have also been identified as T.G. Brown's store. The land on which this structure was built was not filed on until 1897, so the building probably originated after that date. It is likely that Brown began with a store in the depot, expanded his mercantile enterprise into the new building around the turn of the century, and then sold it to the Houghtons a few years later. As the years went by, railroad operations, too, were expanded. In 1885 a corporate reorganization took place, and the Central Pacific Railroad was absorbed into the Southern Pacific system. This brought an eventual upgrade of facilities to handle increased traffic. The engine house was expanded to eight stalls, a new larger turntable was built, more and larger locomotives were put into helper service, and the depot received a coat of S.P. standard mustard-yellow paint (replacing C.P. red). In fact, the last years of the century must have been optimistic at Promontory Station. Railroad business bounced back after the depression of 1893, and the science of dryfarming was opening up new opportunities for agriculture on arid lands. Residents certainly had no idea of the immense changes that would soon come with the 1900's.
THE RANCHING COMMUNITY Promontory Station was essentially a railroad work camp, however it did serve as the commercial center and focal point of the surrounding rural community. That community had its origins in early cattle operations that predated the coming of the railroad. The tall bunch grass provided excellent forage, and George Reeder, Willis Boothe, and J.L. Edwards are said to have wintered cattle on the Promontory as early as 1863. When railroad construction crews arrived in the vicinity in 1868, ranching was well established. The crews provided a ready market for beef but also brought along an unsavory element. T.A. Davis, who cowboyed for J.L. Edwards at the time, recounted how he recovered twenty one stolen horses from Carmichael's Camp. A few months later, transcontinental traveler John Simpson Ross noted that as his train ascended Promontory Hill, "We saw a great many cattle grazing after we left the Great Salt Lake at its northern extremity." The completion of the railroad was a boon to the local ranchers, suddenly giving them access to nationwide markets. In December of 1869, the Oakland News reported the arrival of Promontory cattle on the West Coast and noted the fine grazing land from which they had come. The 1870 census found one stock ranch near Promontory Station, but this was just the beginning. A Texan named Whitaker is reputed to have brought southern cattle to the range in the seventies, grazing them between the Salt Wells Flats and Locomotive Springs. This outfit was sold to Lonigan and Burke around 1880. Several Mormon families also established ranches on the east side of the peninsula. J.L. Edwards described the area and his community in the April 25, 1877 edition of The Deseret News: The Promontory...is mostly covered with grass, with but a few sage patches, and has sustained four to five thousand head of stock through the winters during a period of ten years past, and about one-fourth that number during the summers, but it is like all other wild ranges in Utah giving out fast. ...Our settlement is composed of thirteen or fourteen families from the various counties of Utah, chiefly ranchmen...Our settlement is a string town, stretched a good length on the east side of the Promontory...in passing by the Davis brothers' ranches your ears are saluted with the sweetest music from brass instruments, that would be a credit to older settlements. This is the only place on the Promontory where farming can be made profitable. We have no organization of any kind at the present, and receive most of our mail matter from Willard Post Office. The local ranching community seemed to be off to a good start until the Promontory Stock Ranch Company was organized. Central Pacific magnate Charles Crocker had set his second son George up in the cattle business in Nevada, and the Crockers decided to enlarge their business in the middle 1880's. They acquired 369,000 acres of the C.P. land grant in Utah and Idaho and established the Promontory Ranch in 1886. Their lands spread in a giant checkerboard pattern across the map of Box Elder County, and they soon set about buying out all their neighbors. It is not known how much, if any, coercion was employed, but about a dozen outfits were sold to the company. The population of Promontory Precinct shrank by almost one-half to only 70 people. M.B. Buford, a former sea captain, was made manager, and the range was quickly stocked with cattle from Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. The company brand was a solid line over the letter M (acquired from Lonigan and Burke), and the ranch was soon referred to as the Bar M. Bar M headquarters were constructed about a mile due north of the present Visitor Center. There the ranch built a three-story mansion with water piped in from a nearby spring. Such opulence was unknown in Northern Utah, and local tongues wagged when the owners came to stay in the "Big House." Shortly thereafter, tragedy struck with the hard winter of 1887-1888. It has been said that some 45,000 head of cattle were being run by the Promontory Stock Ranch Company, and that more than 30,000 perished in the bad weather. The numbers may be exaggerated, but the company surely suffered a severe loss. The Promontory Stock Ranch Company survived the hard winter and continued in the cattle business into the following century. The ranch also became known for breeding fine horses. As the elder Crocker was noted for his love of horseflesh, this is hardly surprising. Folklore recounts that blooded stock from the ranch intermingled with mustang herds. Whatever the case, Promontory horses acquired a reputation for strength and durability that carries on to this day. Sheep were also part of the region's grazing economy. In the 1890's, 100,000 sheep were estimated to winter in western Box Elder County each year, and many went through spring shearing near Promontory before being driven to summer pastures. The presence of the large shearing crews and the excitement of the wool harvest often gave rise to parties and dances.
ON THE FRINGES As a railroad camp, Promontory Station had a social structure that was generally dominated by status within the company. White-collar employees, engineers, conductors, foremen, and skilled craftsmen (and their families) were of more consequence than laborers and section hands. The families of local merchants and ranchmen would also have been towards the upper end of the hierarchy. It was a transient society; most workers hoped to move on to a better job in a larger less-isolated community, and they usually got there chance in two or three years. To an extent, the isolation and small population probably blurred social divisions. There were, however, groups that remained on the fringes of the social order. Among these were the Shoshone Indians. Throughout the 19th century, the Northwest Shoshone continued to visit the Promontory as part of their traditional economy. Marion Woodward reminisced that several Indians lived in the nearby mountains, and that they came into town to trade fine leatherwork for sheepskins and groceries. Even after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Northwest bands continued to roam and hunt through the Utah-Idaho border country. They generally stayed clear of the settlements during summer, but winter months brought them back to the lower Bear River. There Shoshone horses sometimes strayed into cultivated fields, the men wandered through towns begging, and the women prostituted themselves for food. This Shoshone presence both frightened and infuriated the citizens of Corinne who, even under the best of circumstances, were not much disposed to accept cultural differences. As the Central Pacific allowed the Shoshone to ride freight cars for free, this situation probably spilled over into Promontory Station. In 1873, a commission called for the removal of the Northwest Shoshone to the Fort Hall Reservation, but Sanpits' clan returned to the lower Bear River in the winter of 1874. Mormon missionaries approached the group, and a sizable number converted. These Indians lived on a series of church farms until the establishment of the Washakie settlement, near Portage, in 1880. Though taught to farm, the Washakie Indians still traveled frequently, visiting relatives on other reservations and maintaining a semblance of their traditional economy. It is likely that the Indians Woodward recalled on the Promontory were connected with this community. Washakie continued as a viable settlement into the middle of the 20th century. Urban jobs and the attraction of the Fort Hall Reservation finally lured its people away, and the L.D.S. Church sold the property in the 1960's. Transients were also a part of the social milieu of Promontory Station. The agricultural and industrial development of the West fostered a great demand for seasonal labor, and "riding the rails" was the cheapest method of travel from job to job. The term refers not to the rails that made up the track but to the steel truss rods that ran underneath the wooden cars. Seasonal laborers were sometimes young men seeking a stake or married men who left home to earn desperately needed cash. They came from a background that was not much different from that of the workers in the railroad towns through which they passed. It was, therefore, not unusual for railroad families to extend the hand of hospitality to such men, especially in exchange for the completion of a few chores. A correspondent from nearby Kelton commented, "Some of the hobos it seems have money but it is not the class that batter our back door every evening." Seasonal laborers, or hobos, were not the only transients seeking free transportation from the Central Pacific. "Bums" were men who had dropped out of the labor market, surviving on what they could scavenge, beg, or steal. Some were truly hard cases, beating and robbing unsuspecting trainmen or hobos. Both kinds of transients sheltered themselves in outbuildings, empty railway cars, or in camps called "jungles," and their supervision was certainly a major preoccupation of Promontory's deputy sheriff. The most important of these fringe groups, and the one that actually had a peripheral connection to the social mainstream, was the section gang. Track work was hard and the pay low, and it fell to whatever immigrant group at the time was most exploitable. From the 1860's through the 1890's, such work at Promontory was relegated to the Chinese. The location of the Chinese laborers' quarters at the northwest fringe of the townsite was an indicator of their standing in the social order. They lived in rude dugouts lined with railroad ties. Some took in laundry on the side or sold fireworks to the local children, but mostly they fraternized among themselves. A description of Promontory, penned by a transcontinental traveler in 1870, illustrates the curiosity and patronizing attitude with which white Americans approached these people: ...It was there that the excursionists saw the Chinamen. Sam Hing and Ah Lee have little huts with signs vouching for "good washing and ironing done here." A gang of Chinese laborers, in loose blue muslin garments and peaked parasol hats of straw, were grading a switch at the station. Their slow measured way of plying their shovels, explosive cackle of conversation, and frugal midday meal, and manner of eating, amused those who watched them. About once a week, a supply car from San Fransisco delivered special provisions and foodstuffs for the Chinese trackmen. Wallace Clay remembered the cooks toting large sacks of brown rice, sugar, and other supplies from the car to their camp, using long poles balanced on their shoulders. The cooks built outdoor ovens in the dirt banks and cooked on large iron pots over open fires. After their 12 hour shift, the Chinese section hands lined up for the evening meal with ceramic bowls and chopsticks in hand. Following dinner, they sometimes bathed or wrote letters to loved ones back home. Games of chance using chinese checkers, dominoes, or American playing cards were the prime source of amusement, and opium smoking was common. In 1883, nationwide anti-Chinese sentiment resulted in the passage by Congress of the Chinese Exclusionary Acts. Chinese immigration ground to a halt. By the 1890's, Central Pacific was having difficulty recruiting enough Chinese for section work, and the company began to hire Italians to take their place. The 1900 census shows the Promontory track force as being about one-half Chinese and one-half Italian. While the Italians were white Europeans, their appearance and ways were enough different to arouse a large measure of bigotry in the local population. As a group, they were considered to be an undesirable element prone to violent acts and criminal behavior. Their belief in Roman Catholicism tended toward the mystic, and their church was still considered by many to be a subversive foreign power. Because of this, Utah Italians were often referred to as monkeys or dagoes--even in the press. And when a handsome Italian foreman serenaded the Promontory school teacher, it was a matter of sheer horror to her landlady.
A NEW CENTURY In 1869, the town of Promontory sprang out of nowhere and experienced a short period of frenetic activity. It was transformed again just a few months later. The establishment of a permanent junction point in Ogden turned Promontory Station into a sleepy little hamlet where change happened in increments. Railroad traffic increased, facilities were expanded, more and larger engines were brought in, and the ranching community grew, but the essential character of the place remained much the same for three decades. It continued as Wallace Clay remembered it--a helper station with engines coming and going around the clock. During that time, the Far West underwent a massive transformation, and the United States became a global industrial giant. Death took its toll on the partnership that controlled the Southern Pacific Railroad. With each passing, Collis Huntington consolidated his position. Huntington became the last survivor of the "Big Four," and when he finally died in 1898, his estate held controlling interest. This did not go unnoticed by empire builder E.H. Harriman, owner of the Union Pacific. Harriman purchased the Huntington stock three years later. With the stroke of a pen, he assembled a massive railroad system that dominated much of the western United States. He had also acquired an antiquated physical plant. Harriman quickly toured the Southern Pacific to plan its overhaul. As part of the plan, S.P. engineers proposed that the Kelton and Promontory helper districts be bypassed. Using capital and technology that had been unavailable to the original builders, the engineers suggested the company build a long bridge across the relatively shallow Great Salt Lake. Such a cutoff would shorten the mainline and eliminate the two costly bottlenecks. Indeed, the demands of moving traffic over Promontory Hill had taxed the locomotives of the day to their limits. It took three engines to boost 1,000 tons across the divide, and the cost of maintaining the helper service was nearly $1,500 a day. Construction of the Lucin Cutoff began in 1902 and proceeded quickly. Despite construction accidents, occasional bad weather, and problems with the lake's soft bottom, the new route was opened just two years later. The cutoff shortened the S.P. mainline by 44.77 miles and saved the railroad some $60,000 a month in operational costs. Still, Southern Pacific was in no hurry to abandon the old tracks over Promontory Hill. High water and storms could shut down traffic across the lake, and the original line was a convenient backup. There was also some promise that western Box Elder County might develop--the old line might someday bring in a certain amount of revenue. S.P. decided to keep its track around the lake, renaming it the "Promontory Branch." Limited freight and passenger operations would continue to serve the country north of the Great Salt Lake. While the opening of the cutoff was a boon to the railway, it proved a real blow to the town of Promontory. Traffic on the branch did not merit the continuance of helper service. The Promontory enginehouse was closed, and associated personnel were sent elsewhere. The depot and eating house were also shut down, leaving Promontory's leading citizen without a restaurant to run. Thomas G. Brown, who at various times had served as deputy sheriff, school trustee, and postmaster moved his family back to Corinne. (The buildings were finally dismantled and salvaged by local farmers around 1910). Southern Pacific still maintained section crews at the station, but the bulk of railroad activity moved south to the cutoff. In one blow, Promontory lost a good share of its economy, its restaurant and store, and the cream of its citizenry. If this was not enough, the nearby Promontory Stock Ranch Company decided to move its headquarters elsewhere. The company constructed a reservoir on upper Blue Creek where it could irrigate and grow large amounts of winter forage. This became the logical site for the home ranch, and the Big House was dismantled and rebuilt in this location. The ranch also went through a corporate reorganization, dividing its land between the Promontory Ranch Company and the Curlew Ranch Company (both still owned by the Crocker family). The town had taken a severe blow, but all was not lost. Agricultural experimentation was beginning to perfect techniques for raising small grains on unirrigated "dryland." Dryfarming relied chiefly on fallowing--letting land sit idle until it absorbed enough moisture to produce a crop. In practice, this meant that a farmer planted only half his land while the other half lay fallow for use the following year. Using such techniques, grain could be farmed on much of the land surrounding Promontory Station. A few hardy farm families acquired public land on the Promontory in the opening years of the century, and the area began to revive. As the location of a school, store, and postoffice, "the station" found new life as the focal point of the growing rural community. Frederick Houghton purchased the store, probably in 1907, and instantly became one of that community's leading citizens. Both postmaster and merchant, he was a person known by everyone and visited regularly. Though there was no official L.D.S. organization at Promontory, Brother Houghton organized Sunday School outings and sometimes conducted services. An article in the December 29, 1909 Box Elder News gives an idea of Houghton's importance in local society: Our hustling merchant-postmaster-hotelman and all around good neighbor, F.C. Houghton, acted as host and Santa Claus for the entire village on Christmas Day. He invited his neighbors and their children to eat dinner with him and spend a pleasant afternoon, which invitation was accepted in every case. ...We have an abundance of snow out here, which makes the dry farmer smile as it points to a bounteous harvest next season. The Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 also made dryfarmers smile. It provided for the establishment of 320 acre dryland homesteads in Utah and 8 other western states, and thousands of acres in western Box Elder County were opened for entry. The Crocker family, however, still effectively controlled much of this acreage. Though its holdings lay in a checkerboard pattern, it had rights to most of the water sources. This made many of the intervening public sections difficult if not impossible to develop. The Crockers had a lock on much of the county and would not sell out unless a buyer could be found for their entire holding. During 1909, a partnership of five prominent Utahns opened negotiations to purchase and develop all of the Crockers' 369,000 acres. The effort was spearheaded by Congressman Joseph Howell and banker H.E. Hatch, both of Logan. Industrialist David Eccles, banker and rancher Matt Browning, and Box Elder Stake President Oleen N. Stohl also lent their fortunes and prestige to the project. An understanding was reached with George Crocker, and on August 13, 1909 the partners filed articles of incorporation for the Promontory-Curlew Land Company. A public stock offering sold out in a few days. Minutes of a shareholders meeting reveal the terms of the land purchase. The total price was $510,000. $35,000 had been placed in deposit, and another $75,000 was due at closing in November. The unpaid balance was to be paid in yearly installments of $50,000; interest payments of 5% on the debt were to be made semi-annually. S.A. Langton was appointed General Manager, and the tremendous task of appraising the acreage was begun. The land varied greatly, ranging from good irrigated farmland to almost worthless desert. A townsite was plotted near the irrigated lands of the old ranch headquarters on Blue Creek. Centerpiece of Howell, Utah was the Big House in its new role as a hotel. After the appraisals were completed, the land was sold at auction. Grazing land sold for $1.00 to $2.50 an acre, dryfarm land for about $10.00 per acre, irrigated farm land ranged from $45.00 to $55.00 an acre, and town lots generally cost between $100 and $200. By October 1, 1910, more than 143,000 acres had been sold for a total price of $637,565.82. A wopping $110,000 was returned to the stockholders. The effects of the Enlarged Homestead Act and Promontory-Curlew Land Company development were quickly felt. Much of the land surrounding Promontory Station was soon under cultivation, and the houses of dryfarm families spread across the countryside. In 1915, a newspaper reporter commented: Marvelous are the changes of time and wonderful is the development of Promontory. ...Slowly at first, the homesteader made selection in that waste but during the last five years the influx of settlers has all but been a steady stream...Barbed wire fences parallel the roadway everywhere and the homesteaders cabins dot the landscape while acres and acres of white stubble reach out across the prairie...Practically every farmer has a windmill which pumps water from his own well thus making it possible for man to inhabit the country. Were it not for these successful wells, the development of Promontory would be seriously retarded. Train service on the branch line facilitated the boom in dryfarming. The "Alkali Flyer," as it was dubbed by local residents, went from Brigham City to Montello, Nevada on Mondays and returned on Tuesdays. On Thursdays and Saturdays, it made a trip to Kelton and back. Pulled by a small engine, it consisted of two or three freight cars and a combine (half passenger and half baggage car). Bernice Houghton Gerristen recalled that it took two hours to ride from Promontory into Brigham and that it cost $2.04. Besides people, the "Flyer" hauled hay, livestock, grain, the mail, and culinary water. Residents of the station had their barrels filled each time the train passed through. Gerristen continued, "I think the train was the thing, the biggest thing in our life, three times a week. You never knew what it might bring you." The railroad schedule was not the only rhythm that helped to define life at Promontory. The agricultural calendar also played an important role. A dryfarmer's year began in September with fall plowing, harrowing, and drilling seed. This went on until almost Christmas. Winter months were spent repairing equipment, mending fence, and working off the farm to earn feed for teams. Spring brought more plowing and harrowing of stubble and fallow fields. Soil preparation continued until about mid-July when harvest season began. For the next 4 weeks, neighboring farmers pooled their labor to cut the wheat with headers and to stack it. Threshing outfits came through during August, and the grain was then threshed into sacks, loaded onto wagons, and driven to the railroad. Though the work was long and hard, dryfarm life was not all drudgery. Spring sparked interest in baseball, and local teams traveled through the valleys challenging opponents to "field games." Good weather also signalled the beginning of dancing season. Dances were hosted at schoolhouses around the area, and Promontory folk sometimes drove as far as Hansel Valley for their revels. At the Promontory Schoolhouse, furniture was pushed back, the babies were set on the desktops, and merriment went well into the night. Music was provided by a two or three piece orchestra. As summer progressed, there was a rodeo on the 4th of July in the stock pens at Lampo, and the eastside hosted a ball game on Pioneer Day (July 24). Winter travel proved difficult, and the dancing circuit was was temporarily suspended. School programs provided entertainment that was closer to home. Such programs might include music recitals, dramatic readings, elocution contests, or holiday skits, and members of the community sometimes joined with the school children to present them. There was also entertainment in the home on a cold winters night. Card games, singing, candy making, corn popping, and bible reading were just a few of the activities that Promontory families used as diversions. The outbreak of war in Europe further stimulated boom times on the Promontory. The price of agricultural commodities skyrocketed, and production of grain for the Allied countries literally became a holy cause. Constant patriotic appeals exhorted farmers to help defeat the Hun, and patriotism brought ample profits. The price of wheat surpassed 2 dollars a bushel. Driven by their new prosperity, farmers rushed to buy advanced machinery in order to work more land. Many bought automobiles and gasoline tractors. As the Promontory-Curlew Land Company made its final payment to the Crocker family in 1918, the sod was being ripped from thousands of marginal acres that should never have been plowed. Good times continued in 1919. Though the war had ended, the farms of Europe had been devastated and commodity prices remained high--and the boys were coming home. Promontory had sent 5 lads off to battle. Unfortunately, Clifton Barlow and Bartlett Whitaker would not return. Still, the carnage was over, there was money in people's pockets, and the 50th anniversary of the Golden Spike Ceremony was coming on May 10. The people of Promontory had much to be proud of, and they believed this 50th anniversary would be their moment in the limelight. In slightly more than a decade, the place had been transformed from cattle range to a profitable farming community. They had indeed been pioneers, building homesteads out of nothing and scratching a living from the soil. Here was the latest version of the Mormon agrarian ideal. Promontory was ready to show off, but events did not cooperate. An irate letter from James Wadman to the Ogden Standard explains what happened: For two or three years past the papers have been telling us what a great day we were going to have at the celebration to be held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad...and what great excursions we were going to have to see the place where the golden spike was driven, but since the publishers learned that it was not driven at Promontory Point, but really driven...at Promontory Station north of the lake, they have suggested that the trip be abandoned, as the place where the spike was driven was only a desert without shade or water... Though the official excursions had been cancelled, residents of Promontory still expected that a "pilgrimage party" and dignitaries would come out to celebrate. When the great day arrived, Bernice Houghton decorated the concrete obelisk at the spike site with wreaths of yellow flowers. However, as the day wore on, expectation turned to disappointment. Thousands celebrated in Ogden, but no one showed up at Promontory Station. It was a harbinger of things to come.
DROUGHT, DEPRESSION, AND THE END ...In the fall of 1918, before the fighting ceased, it seemed the wheat shortage would continue...With the close of the war conditions have changed...there is likely to be no shortage in 1920. The farmer must not conclude that the same high prices will continue...This is a poor time to speculate in farming. It is a splendid time for the farmer to see his house in order, pay his debts, and put his business on a permanent basis. The Utah Farmer offered this advice in the spring of 1919, and it was indeed timely. Windfall profits during the European War had sown seeds of disaster. The lure of big money and the exhortation of government leaders led many dryfarmers into debt and overexpansion. They borrowed to buy land, and they borrowed more for the machinery to work it. To make matters worse, much of the new land brought into production was quite marginal; yields were so poor that it could only be worked profitably during the inflated wartime economy. When shortages did end in 1920, thousands of American farmers simply could not make their payments. The result was a nationwide agricultural depression. This postwar depression, however, was more than just a temporary downturn in the economic cycle. In an earlier time, new farmers would have bought up the lands of those that went bankrupt. Following World War I, the increased efficiency of the tractor allowed existing farmers to enlarge their holdings. Hard times, coupled with advancements in mechanization, triggered a period of farm consolidation. From an all-time high in 1920, Promontory's population began to plummet. Another factor also hastened the flight from the Promontory. Both roads and automobiles were improving. Farmers that could commute to their holdings need not subject families to rural isolation. Even though the agricultural economy improved as the 1920's went on, consolidation, mechanization, and improved transportation continued to take their toll. Still, at the station life went on. Store owner Frederick Houghton died in 1924, leaving his wife Katy and daughter Berniece to operate the declining business. What had been a promising enterprise during the dryfarm boom was now a white elephant. To proud to walk away from her debts, Mrs. Houghton kept the Promontory store going.
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