Should a Mormon Apostle be a US Senator?

     The other day I concluded reading one of the most interesting books on early Mormon politics called The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle.  Reed Smoot was elected to the United States Senate in 1903.  However, at the time he was an apostle for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which will be referred to as the LDS Church.

     This election was extremely controversial because many in Washington D.C. felt that Smoot's election was the LDS Church trying to control the political arena in Utah.  Further controversy arose due to the continued practice of polygamy, even after the LDS church stated that they discontinued it (while I understand that this can be a contentious point for several people.  This is at least what the book argues).  Many in D.C. felt that Smoot may himself be a polygamist in addition to hostilities between Mormons and Protestants.  This resulted in several members of the Senate refusubg to seat him.  A huge trial commenced, called the Reed Smoot Hearings, which I believe has the largest collection in the US Library of Congress of trial evidence of any trial in US history.  It was a big deal (and is a really interesting read).  Here is a comic of the Smoot Hearings:

 

Courtesy of Wikipedia

    Smoot was eventually seated in the Senate despite several objections from fellow senators.  He ended up serving in the senate till 1933 and was a very influential and powerful member.  The whole story is a very interesting, and I feel not a well know part of US and LDS history.

     Smoot has a strong connection to Provo, Utah, and his house is located near downtown at 183 E. 100 S. (it is on the corner of 200 E and 100 S).  Smoot lived there from  1892 until his death in 1941.  The house is National Historic Landmark list;  there are only 15 places in Utah that are on the list, including Ft. Douglas, Temple Square, and the Brigham Young House.  It is also the only located on the list in Utah County.  The list is pretty exclusive and quite an honor for the house to be there.

     Here is a picture of the house at some time when Smoot was living in it (he is located on the far right in the top picture) and what it looks like today:

Courtesy of the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah

     The plaque on the front of the house reads: "This house was built for reed and Ellie Eldredge Smoot [his wife who is in the picture above] in 1892.  Richard K. A. Kletting was the architect.  Reed Smoot, born in Salt Lake City in 1862, served as a member of the Quarum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church from 1900 until his death in 1941.  Senator Smoot represented Utah in the United States Senate from 1902 [although this date is controversial, since he wasn't seated until later] until 1933 and became a national leader of the Republican party.  Reed Smoot was the son of Abraham O. Smoot, pioneer, civic, business and Mormon church leader."  The house is still owned by relatives of Reed Smoot and some of his descendants work and live in the Provo area (I met one while researching another blog entry).

    The history surrounding Smoot is extremely interesting, and his legacy is a great addition to Provo.  To answer the question in the title, although the LDS church does not encourage Apostles to be Senators (and I think they may have just come out and forbidden it) in the 1900's the situation was different and they did encourage an Apostle to become a Senator from Utah.  I encourage anyone who has a little bit of time to read a little bit more about Reed Smoot.  Below are a few additional pictures of the house:

 

     I have to add one additional photo.  I love the neighborhood surrounding the Smoot House and feel that it is one of the best in Provo.  Also the orange house below was an inspiration for my sister's own house which she painted orange.  I thought that I'd add a photo of those as well.  Here they are:

The Provo Mayor's House

     Today I wanted to continue with a historic home near the McCoy home.  Today's focus is known as the Ray House and is located at 415 S University Ave in Provo.  It is a beautiful house that I have always been interested in.  Also, I heard a rumor that it was once the designated house for the elected Provo mayor.  Here is what it looked like in the 1970's and what it looks like today:

Photo courtesy of provo.org

On Wikipedia, it states that William Ray (after who the house is named) was "born on December 30, 1864 to William and Martha E. Ray, in Gentry County, Missouri. WIlliam H. Ray grew up on a farm. After becoming certified as a teacher, Ray worked in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, before settling in Salt Lake in 1890. Once in Salt Lake, Ray worked as a car inspector for the Union Pacific Railroad and then the Oregon Short Line Railway Company, and in addition to this invested in real estate. 'In spite of limited salary from the railway company and therefore limited investment funds, in a period of five years he had advanced to become the senior partner in W. H. Ray Company, the largest real estate business in the area (Provo City Library p. 1).' In 1894 William H. Ray married Lottie L. Chappell, and had six children. Ray was a member of the Provo Community Congregational Church. Ray died on October 31, 1936 and was buried in Provo." 

The house is currently on the National Register of Historic Places.  The plaque on the front of the house reads, "The William H. Ray house, built c. 1898, is historically significant for its association with William H. Ray, an important turn-of-the-century entrepreneur in Provo.  He was a financier, banker, broker, and mayor of Provo.  The Ray House, which was probably designed by Richard C. Watkins, a prominent Utah architect, is architecturally significant as the most distinctive Provo example of the influence of the Romanesque Revival style on residential design."

On important achievement of Ray is that he was one of the founding members of the State Bank of Provo.  I had never heard of this bank so I did a little investigating.  The State Bank of Provo merged with the Springville Banking Co. in 1966 and became the Central Bank and Trust (the focus of another blog entry that I did), which was at the time the largest bank in Utah County.  The best information about the State Bank of Provo can be found on the Central Bank's website.  The State Bank of Provo was formed in 1902 by a random group of 16 men.  The bank prided itself on personally knowing every one of its customers.  It continued to grow after its start until its merger in '66.

I don't think that this house was ever the house for the elected mayor of Provo.  I believe that the rumor probably began because it was the house of the Provo mayor for a time, when Ray was the mayor of Provo.  The house is currently divided and used as several different apartments.

Here is one additional view of the house:

Was America's most wanted fugitive a Provo resident?

I love when the past and present come together at the same time.  While traveling around Provo taking photos of historical places, I came across an incredibly interesting story about a fugitive named D. B. Cooper.  Interestingly enough, this fugitive has ties to Provo, and stories about his real identity have surfaced over the past couple of weeks.

On November 24, 1971, a man named Dan Cooper (later referred to as D. B. Cooper) approached a Northwest Orient Airline desk and purchased a one way ticket to Seattle, Washington.  After takeoff, D. B. Cooper passed a note to the airline stewardess, which she put in her bag, assuming it was his number.  Cooper leaned over to the stewardess and told her to read the note, which stated, "I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked."

After showing the stewardess the bomb, he stated, "I want $200,000 in unmarked 20-dollar bills.  I want two back parachutes and two front parachutes. When we land, I want a fuel truck ready to refuel. No funny stuff or I’ll do the job."

The FBI quickly gathered the money and parachutes.  Cooper rejected the army parachutes initially given and the FBI retrieved civilian parachutes from a local sky diving school.  After the money and parachutes were brought to the Seattle-Tacoma airport, the plane landed, the items were given to Cooper, and the passengers were released.  While the plane was refueling, Cooper instructed the pilots to fly towards Mexico City.  It was determined that the plane must refuel once during the flight and Reno was selected as a destination. 

That evening, the plane took off, followed by two F-106 fighter air crafts, one above and one below the plane, so that Cooper could not see them.  The pilots in the cockpit were ordered to stay where they were.  About 20 minutes after take off, pilots noticed the rear plane door had been opened.  The pilots offered assistance but were told that everything was OK. Upon landing more than 3 hours later it was found that D. B. Cooper was not on the plane.  He had jumped out shortly after takeoff. 

It was assumed that Cooper jumped out somewhere north of Portland.  Some of the money given to Cooper was eventually found along the Columbia River.  However, even after years of investigation, Cooper's identity remained a mystery.

So what does this have to do with Provo.  One theory was that D. B. Cooper was actually a Provo resident, named Richard McCoy.  On April 7, 1972, McCoy boarded a in Denver, heading towards San Fransisco.  Armed with a paperweight which resembled a grenade, McCoy demanded $500,000 in ransom and 4 parachutes.  After receiving the ransom and parachutes in San Francisco, he ordered the planed back into the air, and jumped above Provo, Utah.  He was found two days later with the money and arrested after the FBI was able to track him down using his fingerprints he left on a magazine.  He was convicted to 45 years in prison, although he died in a shootout with FBI agents when he escaped after only serving two years of his sentence.

One of the most interesting photos that I came across was McCoy's house in Provo.  It is located at 360 S 200 E.  Here is a photo of it from around the 1980s and what it currently looks like:

Photo courtesy of the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah

As you can tell, little has changed about the house and it probably appears today much as it did for the two days when McCoy was hiding as a fugitive there for two days.

While there have been books written about the connections between the two men (D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy), several people who claimed that they were the same person, and similarities between the two hijackings, it was doubtful that McCoy was the actual D. B. Cooper.  Major flaws in any theory connecting the two men are differences in their ages and appearances and evidence that McCoy was in Las Vegas the day of the Cooper hijacking and in Provo the next.

 The D. B. Cooper case recently came to the public view again when a woman named Marla Cooper claimed that her uncle, Lynn Doyle Cooper, was the hijacker (you can read about it here).  Lynn Doyle died in 1999.  At the same time, the FBI claimed they had a new witness in the case, and although they said that the witness had passed away more than 10 years ago, they did not confirm if it was Lynn or not.  However, other recent news reveals that the FBI's new witness's DNA did not confirm that it was D. B. Cooper, although it did not deny it either. 

Ultimately the case of D. B. Cooper remains a mystery.  Was D. B. Cooper Richard McCoy, Lynn Doyle Cooper, or someone else?  It is an extremely interesting part of US history, and luckily for all of you Utah history fans, one that has a cool connection with Utah.

The Bulloch Mining Claim

     Down by Mount Carmel, on the east side of Zion National Park, there are some really interesting uranium mines.  My friend, Erik, recently featured the mines in his blog Lost and Never Coming Back.  He said that I could use his post and I am excited to talk about this cool place.  Here is what he wrote:

The Bulloch Uranium Mining Claims were started in 1949 by Henry Bulloch (born in Cedar City in 1911).  After World War II and the invention of the nuclear bomb uranium mining became a lucrative business—if
you could find the stuff!

Henry Bulloch married Jean Matheson, the sister of Scott Matheson (later the governor of the State of Utah).  Matheson helped fund Bulloch’s mining claim.

There were three mining claims near Orderville Gulch, Lynn claims 1, 2 and 3.  The 3rd claim was the only to produce significant amounts of uranium ore. There were three main tunnels and several exploration tunnels in the Lynn No. 3 claim, which were started in 1949.  The ore from them was made up of about .20% uranium – a high enough percentage to make a decent profit.

In 1950 Bulloch received a $100,000 grant from the US Government to continue mining.  The mine was open from March to November each year, and at its peak the mine produced about 300,000 tons of ore each year.  The ore was hauled by truck to Kanab and Cedar City where it was then shipped by train to the smelters in California..

The mining claim produced plenty of ore, but the uranium content was not high enough.  Each ton of ore averaged about .12% Uranium, not the .20% they had hoped for.  The mine operated until the end of 1953 when the US Government terminated its contract with Bulloch.  While other uranium mines were producing ore with higher uranium content, there was no need for Bulloch’s uranium mine.

The miners lived in 3 bunk houses, about 1 mile from the mining tunnels. The miners worked 10-12 hour days, 6 days a week.  Because uranium emits radon gas, ventilation was extremely important in uranium mines.  Fans were installed to keep oxygen levels up and radon levels down.  It was later realized that uranium miners developed cancer at a rate much higher than average due to the constant exposure to low levels of radiation.  In 1990 surviving American uranium miners received compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

The miners worked 10-12 hour days, and their pay included room and board.
(Money in parenthesis adjusted for inflation)
5 miners – $12/day  ($107/day)
5 muckers – $10/day ($90/day)
1 hoistman – $10/day ($90/day)
1 Manager – $500/month ($4,500/month)
1 Cook – $8/day ($71/day)

Bunk houses (3) – $500 a piece ($4,500)
Cook Cabin
Storage Tent
Power plant and electric generator (gasoline powered)
One forty ton ore bin
500 gallon Water tank

The three original bunk houses are still standing. 

 The power plant is above the mine tunnels.

The original power generator is still in place.

The caved in entrance to Lynn Claim 3 tunnel 2, the buried entrance to tunnel 1 is to the right.

The entrance to Lynn claim 3 tunnel number 2 has also caved in - there is a very small hole that you could crawl through, but if the mine is as crumbly as the entrance, it's probably not too safe.

The entrance to an exploratory tunnel, with Lynn claim No. 3 tunnel 3 (the deepest tunnel) in the bushes to the right

The entrance to tunnel 3

The tunnel splits about 100 ft into Tunnel 3

Inside one of the exploratory tunnels - it only goes back about 35 feet.

The outhouse is still there

     Thank you Erik for finding out that information!  The bunk houses (and mines which are down a little dirt road to the side of the houses) are located about 8 miles up North Fork Rd. which is located off of Highway 9 just east of Zion National Park.

Pioneer Park in Provo

   Pioneer Park in Provo is one of my favorite areas in Provo, and one of the best parks in town.  The park is one of the oldest in Provo and is over 100 years old.  I found a great picture of it from around the 1920s:

Photo Courtesy of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University

Here is what the park looks like currently:

     There are a couple of big differences between the park today and what it looked like almost 100 years ago.  The biggest difference is the pavilion.  There is actually a plaque in front of the current picnic area that commemorates the old pavilion:

     The plaque is a little hard to read in the picture, but it says, "Provo Bandstand, Pioneer Park: Circa 1930-1991 [I found somewhere else that the pavilion was actually built in the 20s, so the construction date is a little questionable]: A grateful community dedicates this marker in honor of the business and professional women's club of Provo.  The Provo bandstand was funded and build under their direction to encourage the public performance of music and the arts.  The many activities held at the bandstand enriched the quality of life in the city which they loved."
     The bandstand was used mainly for concerts.  However, the concerts began to attract more people than the park could handle and they were moved to North Park, located at 500 N 500 W.  After moving the concerts, the bandstand was only used a couple of times a year.  Over time, the bandstand fell into disrepair.  It was eventually described as an eyesore in addition to a safety hazard.

     Around 1991, there was a lot of discussion about the bandstand and whether to renovate it or to construct something completely different (you can find discussion about it here, here, and here).  Provo City Council set aside $15,000 to renovate the bandstand, although it was initially speculated that the renovation would cost around $22,500 (although potentially up to around $40,000).  Provo was having difficulty raising the funds, and due to this and the lack of events being held at the location, Provo City decided to tear down the bandstand and construct a picnic pavilion.  I am a little confused because from what I can tell the cost of constructing the picnic stand came at the same cost of refurbishing the stand.  The compromise by the City Council was to put up a plaque memorializing the stand (which is shown in the photograph above).  The best quote that I found about the demolition of the band stand was from Mike Leventhal, director of the Utah Historical Foundation, who described the demolition and plaque as "we killed your grandmother, but here's a picture of her."
      The other big change involves an old canal that ran through the park.  The canal ran north and south along the east side of Pioneer Park (along 5th W).  The only picture that I could find of it is courtesy of the Daily Herald:

Around 2005, the canal was closed and filled because it was stated as a safety hazard.  However, recently plans have been created to rebuild some type of water feature at Pioneer Park.  The plan is to create a fountain like feature in front of the picnic pavilion (right where the bandstand plaque is currently located).  Construction on the project should be starting shortly, especially since construction is supposed to be completed around the beginning of Fall. It should bring back some excitement to Pioneer Park, and also add a wonderful addition to the Farmer's Market that is located at Pioneer Park and a great place for people to enjoy throughout the summer.