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Voices from the Past

History of Sugar City, Idaho

By William Albert Pincock and Douglas Pincock

July 14, 1971

Tape # 43

Oral interview conducted by Harold Forbush

Transcribed by: Kurt Hunsaker & Theophilus E. Tandoh February 2005

Edited by: Jacob Abbott October 2009

Brigham Young University-Idaho

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(Through the facilities of the Upper Snake River Valley Historical Society headquartered

on North Center, Rexburg, Idaho, the interview of two brothers that follow, first recorded

on reel-to-reel tape, is now placed on a C-90 cassette this tenth day of April, 1984)

Harold Forbush: It is July 14, 1971. And it is my privilege this afternoon to have come to

my office here in Rexburg, Idaho, two fine brothers from Sugar City, the Pincock boys, I

suppose we could say. I am going to ask you Doug if you will state your full name first

and the date and place where you were born.

Pincock, Douglas: I am Douglas Pincock of Sugar City. I was born on the old

homestead, 160 acres northeast of Sugar City. At the time I was born, we were living in

the Wilford Ward on the north side of the Teton River. We later moved south of the river

when our new home was built and that put us from then on into the Sugar City Ward.

HF: Now would you state the date when you were born.

DP: I was born September 27, 1900, on the old homestead at Willford Ward.

HF: And at that time they did have a post office at Willford.

DP: They had a post office at Wilford. They received their mail from out of St. Anthony.

The railroad went through there and the mail was dropped off in St. Anthony and

delivered to the post office in Wilford.

HF: Now Albert, would you state your full name and the date and place where you were

born?

Pincock, Albert: I am William Albert Pincock, born the 21st of February, 1896, at

Riverdale, Utah. I would like to explain why I was the only child born outside of the old

homestead. Father, at that time prior to my birth, went on a mission to the Southern

States. This took place in November, 1895. I was born in 21st of February, 1896. This left

mother with five small children to take care of. They moved back to Riverdale, Utah, and

stayed with her father and mother during this period of time. Father was gone about two

and a half years. And he never boarded a train from the time he got off in his mission

field until he got on to come back home. He never paid for a bed or a meal in all that

time. In many cases he traveled some three hundred miles to a missionary conference.

HF: This was literally a case of traveling and doing all these missionary labors and

services without purse or script, in other words without money in his pocket.

AP: That’s right. He spent very little money doing this missionary work.

HF: Now Albert, would you present for us some background information and data in

rather a brief way, about the Pincock family name and how do you spell that name for the

record?

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AP: We spell it P-I-N-C-O-C-K. To begin with, I’d like to give you a little bit about the

name that I didn’t figure out would give me a… few years back we run into branches of

the Pincock name that went up into Canada. We run onto a woman by the name of Mrs.

Gillette but her maiden name was Pincock. She lived in Salt Lake City. And she said, in

England they called the name of Pincoe and when she came to Canada they changed the

name and changed the spelling to P-I-N-C-O-E. They spelled it like they had said it in

England. She told me when I visited her in Salt Lake that she wished that they hadn’t of

changed the spelling of the name. Now I might go on a little farther with the Pincock

name. We haven’t found very much regarding the origin of the Pincock name. They came

from Exton, Lancaster, England. But in my research I have found that the name

originated in Germany. My great grandfather, John Pincock and his wife Mary Morgan,

they were married the 13th

of August, 1815, and the family left England in February 1841

on the ship Sheffield under the leadership of Hyrum Clark; this being the third company

of Mormon emigrants to leave England for America. There were 235 saints in this

company. To this couple was born nine children. My grandfather, John Pincock, being

the eighth child, he married Isabelle Douglas the 3rd

of February, 1851. They had 14

children. My father George Albert Pincock, also being the eighth child, married Lucinda

Elizabeth Bingham the 20th

of October, 1886. They had eleven children, myself being the

fifth child. Now I’ll leave the Pincocks there and go to the Bingham side of the family.

HF: Alright and that would be, of course your mother’s side of the family.

AP: That is right, my mother’s maiden name being Lucinda Elizabeth Bingham.

HF: And that is spelled B-I-N-G-H-A-M?

AP: That’s right. The Bingham name appears prominent in English history from the

Norman Conquest of 1066 till the present time. Our first American ancestors came from

Sheffield, England to America in 1642. Thomas Bingham, the number one in the

Bingham family history, immigrated to America with his mother and settled in Windham,

Connecticut, where he was known as a leader and a devout man. His tombstone in the old

church yard in Connecticut bears the inscription, “Here lies the body of that holy man of

God, Deacon Thomas Bingham.” He was a man eminent for his piety, love, and charity.

He died in the 88th

year of his life leaving a large posterity, and we find the Bingham

family entrenched in America, the land of promise. Research revealed that the Church

played a prominent part in their lives. I’d like to insert a little more here. In this Riverdale

Ward, where my grandfather Sanford Bingham lived, he and his son were bishop of that

ward for a period of fifty years continuously. They never had any other bishop only by

the name of Bingham for fifty years.

HF: Is Riverdale in the Salt Lake area?

AP: No it is just south of Ogden, just about three or four miles south of Ogden.

HF: Oh, it would be in Weber County then.

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AP: Yes.

HF: And in passing, I realized that our first counselor in the First Presidency of the LDS

Church is Harold Bingham Lee. Now, is he a relative?

AP: Yes, he is a relative. I can’t give you his genealogy so to know, but I think the

common ancestor would go back to Erastus Bingham. But I can’t give you the genealogy

on that.

HF: Very interesting.

AP: Now to go on, and among the Bingham’s were many Church dignitaries and

missionaries. From this stock descended Erastus Bingham, my great grand father. He

married Lucinda Gates the 21st of March, 1820. He had nine children. My grandfather,

Sanford Bingham, being the 2nd

child, married Martha Ann Lewis the 18th

of July, 1847.

They had twelve children. My mother, Lucinda Elizabeth Bingham, being the youngest

child, married George Albert Pincock, the 20th

October, 1886.

HF: And would this have been solemnized in the endowment house or perhaps in one of

the other temples?

AP: No this was done in the Logan Temple. It had been dedicated by that time. I can’t

give you the dedication date.

HF: Well it was in 1884. That is just a couple of years before, I think. Well now, Brother

Pincock did you have some more that you wanted to add on the Bingham or Pincock

family?

AP: No that is all I give on the names.

HF: Can either one of you, now, explain why your father and mother moved into the

upper Snake River valley? What were the circumstances that encouraged them to come

up here?

DP: I figure to treat that question next. George Albert Pincock already had two brothers

and one sister who came to the Snake River valley in 1883.

HF: What were their names?

DP: John Pincock and James Pincock and Aunt Laudie Pincock or Garner. She married

John A. Garner. These were the names of these three brothers and sisters. Well they

didn’t come to wane; she didn’t come at all as a pioneer. In 1883, he also wanted to use

his homestead right and become independent so he wouldn’t have to depend on working

for wages all of his life. He first came and saw the country in 1884 and then went back to

Ogden and was married the 20th

of October, 1886. In the spring of 1887, they came to

Idaho to stay. They homesteaded on 160 acres located one mile east and one mile north

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of the northeast corner of the Sugar Town site; and that location was the south half of

section 4, township 6. That is all on that particular question.

HF: That’s very good. Now let’s see, that place where he homesteaded was just north of

your uncle’s?

DP: Just north of Uncle John’s homestead.

HF: John Pincock’s ranch. Let’s see, did the north branch of the Teton River pass through

the homestead?

DP: Yes, right through the old homestead.

HF: Now as I understand the first home on the 160 was on the north side of the river.

DP: Yeah, it was on the north side. It was a log cabin, a two room log cabin with a dirt

roof. We had a board floor in it but we Pincocks, most of us are just little fellows. I

remember swinging on the cross logs that carried roof. This was quite a home. There

were nine of the children born in the old log cabin, other than myself.

HF: Isn’t that amazing.

DP: Let me say just one thing. In connection with this home, those days of course, there

was no electricity, no refrigeration. My father built a nice cellar on the west, or on the

east, west side of the home, it was a two roomed home. There was a stairway that led

down into this cellar from the room. And there they were able to keep their milk, their

butter, and their homemade cheese, and a lot of their food stuff was kept in this cellar.

The walls were wide enough and heavily enough insulated that it stayed cool all through

the hot summer and never did freeze in the winter.

HF: Now, was the log made of ah…?

DP: Native pine logs.

AP: I don’t know but what they were just cottonwood. They were awful rough. I believe

they were just the old cottonwood. You know there are many of them that grow very

straight. It was a pretty rough cabin.

DP: And to start with, they didn’t have a ceiling in it. But later they put a factory cloth

ceiling to kind of keep the dirt from sifting through. Course there was times when we had

heavy storms, real heavy rains, that we had pans placed around here and there to catch the

rainwater that made its way through occasionally.

HF: Now as you understand it, was there quite a lot of foliage in the way of willows and

brush and so forth on the property particularly adjacent to the river banks?

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AP: Oh, yes. We had quite a lot of willow growth on the river.

HF: And that had to be cleared away pretty much?

AP: Well, we used that pretty much for pasture land and not until later years did they ever

do much with the brush. Father had plenty to do and plenty to farm besides monkeying

with that brush to begin with.

DP: I recall later Harold that father hired men, Mexicans, to come in. Remember old

brother Kidd, he used to spend hours up there during the summer time. He’d have him

chop brush down in the river bottoms to make more pasture room and have better pasture

for a nice herd of cows that father always had.

HF: What type of foliage in the way of vegetation grew? Name the types. There would

be of course, the willows and how about the haw bushes; much in the way of haw bushes

along the river there?

DP: Well, we didn’t have too many haws in our area. In some sections, however, in that

upper country we found quite a lot of haws. I don’t remember very many haw bushes on

our old 160.

HF: How about chokecherries?

DP: No chokecherries there either, they were higher up in the mountains.

HF: How about quaking aspen, you know regular aspen?

DP: We didn’t have any aspen down that low. We had the native cottonwood but no

aspen.

HF: I see.

DP: The natural willows, the natural brush that grew along the river banks was really…

HF: Now about further from the river did you have sagebrush?

DP: It was all sagebrush.

AP: Heavy sage, a lot of it. They had to grub that and work it out with their plows and

their harrows and their discs, what they had; they didn’t have a disc to start with, they

came up with just a hand plow. They had a little slip scraper. He made those ditches up

through there up to the main river east of the homestead to get his water down.

HF: He diverted water from the river?

DP: Right.

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HF: This was before the Teton Island Canal was constructed?

AP: Yes, and that ditch still brings water to the old homestead.

HF: On the north side?

AP: On the north side.

DP: That reminds me of the names of the two ditches. He had a private ditch in

connection with some of the other neighbors. He had the one on the north side I think

was called Pincock and Barntoo Ditch. The one on the south side of the river was the

Pincock-Garner Ditch.

HF: In other words, two families, two homesteaders were served by the one on the north

and the two homesteaders on the south, Pincocks and Garners?

DP: That’s right. Our immediate neighbors were the Garners. I was going to comment

about them next. That is the next question I think.

HF: Incidentally, did they have to rip-rap the river someway to, I guess, you know in

order to get that, for the diversion to get the water up?

DP: No, I don’t think they made any rip-rap to mount anything at that time. The river

flow was a lot better then, than it is some years now. Some years now it gets pretty low,

the river does. But at that time the river carried quite a stream of water most of the time

and they didn’t have much trouble getting all of the water they wanted where they located

these two particular heads.

AP: They were far enough east from the homestead to get plenty of fall, a natural fall in

that area is southwest and pretty near west. The ditch runs straight west along the section

line and there was fall enough, they went high enough, went far enough east to come out

of the river so that there was fall enough to take it from the bottom of the river without

having to...

HF: About how far down the north fork was your homestead located from the place

where the river forks, the main channel of the Teton? Two miles, four miles?

DP: It is in the neighborhood about two miles or two miles and a half. It is above the

Teton-St. Anthony oil strip, is where the river divides out there north of Teton.

HF: So you were around two and a half miles west of that site?

DP: That’s right.

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HF: Can you recall back fellows, anything about the animal life in the area where the

homestead was located? Starting out with rabbits, was there quite an abundance of

rabbits?

DP: There was quite an abundance of rabbits. There was quite a lot of big game in the

area. Father, I think a number of the times shot a deer within a half mile of the old

homestead. They used to have plenty of wild meat in the winter time.

AP: Deer and elk and antelope were plentiful in the area.

HF: Antelope? That’s interesting. And rabbits?

DP: There were plenty of rabbits.

HF: You boys, I imagine, would go out hunting cottontails, those big white hairs?

DP: We snared lots of rabbits when we were kids where they come in to the hay stack

into the hay yard and have a trail where they come in and we’d hang the snare, wire snare

on the pole fence that father had, the barb wire fence, get rabbits with snares.

AP: They were good eating. In the winter time, they were delicious meat.

HF: How about wild chicken?

DP: Lots of wild chicken, grouse, various types of grouse; didn’t have too many

pheasants at that time, this seems to be a bird that has been transplanted in here.

HF: They used the foliage around the river banks as shelter quite a bit?

DP: Oh yes, they used [it] as [a] refuge.

HF: Now, how about fish life in the river?

DP: It was good fishing, not kidding. We used to go fishing quite often however, our

neighbors were the champion fishers. I didn’t mention that here, I mentioned few things

next time about the Garner boys but I didn’t mention their fishing.

HF: I believe these would have been your cousins.

DP: No, these weren’t related to us at all.

HF: Oh, okay.

DP: I don’t think there was hardly a day, but what one of Will Garner’s boys went

fishing, one of them would go everyday and they always come back with a nice mess of

fish. Those fellers were real fishermen.

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HF: Now, would they go along the Teton River?

DP: Well, they went along the Teton as well as the big canal after it was built, the big

feeder canal. These boys were good fishermen. I went fishing quite a lot; we got quite a

lot of fish out of the old river when I was a kid. It was good fishing in the river, at that

time.

HF: Did you notice any so called trash fish, if you recall?

DP: Well, not very much.

HF: Suckers or white fish?

DP: All we had, we had quite a lot of suckers, but not like we got them now. Not near so

many. Navy trout was more prevalent than trash fish.

HF: Now in those days you pretty well had to implement your own equipment?

DP: Oh yes, a willow pole or a big long cane pole was all that we ever used to fish with.

AP: I remember the last fish I caught in the old river. I was a youngster before I went on

my mission especially that I had an old willow pole and went down below the yard a

ways and threw in where the current come around close to the bank, there was quite a

deep hole, and I can remember well as it were yesterday and I threw out in there and a

nice trout got on. About oh, I imagine he was eight or ten inches long and instead of

dragging him to the side and lifting him up out, I swung him out over my head and

landed him out in the alfalfa field. I had him captured.

HF: (Laughing) Very interesting. Now, let’s consider some of the early neighbors that

had settled on the south side of the river I suppose as well as on the north.

DP: That is right. The immediate neighbor that we had close to where we lived the

closest one was Uncle H. Garner. Well, in the neighborhood we were friendly enough so

that we called the parents in this family, aunt and uncle just like if they were related to us.

These people however we aren’t related to. H. Garner and Frederick our grandfather

Garner, he lived on the south side of the river, they were brothers, and Will was the son

of Frederick. Will Garner, well, I might say here too, these were the immediate neighbors

and then, of course, just about a half mile away was Uncle John and Uncle James Pincock

and Uncle John A. Garner. He married my father’s sister Charlotte Lotty Pincock.

AP: That is where he fits in with the Garner family that lived over by our place.

DP: Well, this man Garner was a brother, wait a minute, he was a brother to grandfather

or Frederick Garner that I named here.

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AP: John A. Garner was a brother of Frederick Garner.

DP: He was a generation further back than Will Garner.

HF: Now, I’ve recently chatted, visited with and interviewed Earl Garner.

AP: He is John A. Garner’s son, and Earl is a full cousin of ours because his mother was

a full sister to our father, George A. Pincock.

HF: I see.

AP: They all come out of Ogden.

HF: And they all came out of Ogden, and just a little before George, your father came up.

DP: Well, father came up as early as they did to look the thing over and spot his ground

but he went back after mother and that of course when he’d come stay was in 1887 rather

than 1884 but he came up in 1884 and ranged for his place. He got everything set up so

when we went back after mother and loaded all his belongings in a wagon and a white

team of mules; he left all they had and came up here to land on that piece of ground that

he had homesteaded.

HF: Now at this same time you had neighbors over on the north side of the river that were

in the Wilford area?

AP: We didn’t have any close neighbors on the north side, north of the east neighbors

that I spoke of.

HF: I see.

AP: To the north and west of us was open territory, no fence; man I remember herding

cows in this area. I mentioned this down here, let me go on and tell a little more about

this Garner group and the immediate neighbors.

HF: Alright.

AP: Will Garner and my father’s family were born during the same period of time. So

they helped each other in time of sickness and exchanged work on many projects. Some

of the unusual things, with due respect, Uncle [Inaudible] always had a fat horse and a

poor cow. In the yard where he stacked his hay he would keep swept, cleaned the floor.

Never a leaf of hay could be lost. His stack yard was always the best place for us kids to

play marbles in the early spring before the snow was gone. The Will Garner boys were

real marble players especially Fred and Jeff. We used to play keeps. They always had a

sack full of marbles and I was always broke. I couldn’t hardly afford to play marbles with

them. (HF: Laughing) I got a “ha ha” here too. (Laughing) The Will Garner children were

natural musicians. They played principally the stringed instruments and the mouth organ.

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We used to have lots of fun because of their music. Another thing I think was unusual

that happened in the neighborhood, my father broke some steers to work. He broke six

head or three yoke of oxen. He was short of horse power; horses and harnesses were

expensive, and he had cattle and there was man in the neighborhood that could carve out

an ox yoke. His name was Joe Garner. So for just a little expense, he broke three yoke, he

used them mostly to plough with, and continued to use them for a number of years. My

brother Sanford and I learned to drive them; he drove them a lot more than I did.

DP: Albert mentioned about them, the last yoke being sold to a timber man. This was Mr.

Beard over in Teton Basin. He kept those old red and rowdy for many years, he used

them at the saw mill site. I remember driving red and rowdy myself on the harrow and I

remember rolling a piece of ground that father had rented from Nick Nelson across from

where the old highway now crosses the Union Pacific Railroad just north of Sugar City.

Nick Nelson had a farm in there and father had a piece of ground rented from him and he

had a patch of peas there and he sent me down with old red and rowdy to roll this piece of

ground. And I used to drive a young team on a harrow in a piece of ground that we had

just north of this Nelson place. I recall one time as I was driving this team, I was hardly

big enough to straddle the back of the near ox. But I was on the near ox and harrowing

and there was a slough near by. And it was getting nearly noon and the old team was

getting tired and I am sure thirsty because they just walked off and I couldn’t do anything

about stopping them or turning them or do anything with them. They headed for this pond

of water and I was badly near ox back and they went right out into this slough up to

where my feet near touched the water. They got cooled off and a good drink and then we

come out, back out onto the ground where we continued my harrowing. It was quite an

experience that I had and I well remember that.

HF: Did you find that the oxen were a little more gentle to handle maybe than the team of

horses?

AP: Well they were in the way, but we had some of them that were pretty wild. Sanford

had an experience with a team that got scared of the disc that he was disking with and

they ran away.

HF: Now this was a team, a team of oxen?

AP: Yeah, a team of oxen, a yoke of oxen and they ran away and before they got rid of

that disc they had it tore all to pieces. They went through brush and crossed ditches and it

went up over their backs and they were balling and running, I’ll tell you they were scared

to death; that outfit was tore all to pieces when got through with it. They were a slow

moving animal, it was awful, slow work. Harrowing or plowing or whatever with the ox

team was extremely slow. And while we were on this ox team business, we laid – the

experience that father had, he worked for the sugar company for quite a lot. Father was a

field man for many years and they had a slicer over to Egym Bench just on top of the

Parker Hill. And father contracted the Hall L’Ecole and the Lamb Rock over there where

they slice these beets and then their juice was put into a pipe line and run over to the

sugar factory.

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HF: How long would that pipe have had to be?

AP: Oh, I imagine that pipe was five miles long.

HF: Was it buried?

DP: Well in some areas they buried them and some places they crossed streams and

ditches and what not.

HF: It would have had to cross the north fork, wouldn’t it?

DP: Yes, and they run it while the juice was warm so that it didn’t freeze. It was always,

they were able to run it across over to the sugar factory without any trouble or freezing.

And this coal and lime was hauled, father had usually three yoke of oxen and they had a

trail wagon so that he hauled a pretty heavy load. Sanford drove many a load over there

and then we had another man hired by the name of Tom McFarlen that was a good hand

with oxen and he drove. In driving those oxen and on the road everyday, they got so sore

footed that it was pretty impossible for them to travel and they had to devise a new shoe

to nail on those oxen’s feet so that they could travel on the road and not get tender footed.

And father implemented an outfit to raise, with the belt on, to raise these oxen off of their

feet, while he stretched the legs back, the hind legs particularly, and fastened it with a

rope so that he could nail these shoes on. And old Joe Nielson was a man that made those

shoes for him, that had the first, one of the first blacksmiths in Sugar City.

HF: What route would they follow?

DP: They went down through Salem, down to the Salem road and then straight north

right over to the Parker slicer that is just on top of the hill a little ways.

HF: I see. That would be about seven miles or so wouldn’t it?

DP: Yes, it was a good seven miles. It was a big day’s trip to go over and back with an

empty wagon; over with a load and unload and then come back to empty.

AP: Unload a cart or two, Harold, a man had to shovel his load off by a hand and this

took quite a while.

HF: You bet.

DP: Lots of time it was well after dark when they got back with their team and then get

ready to go again the next day. They run into a big contract, a big job, very tiresome job.

AP: My say is that the ox team wasn’t too successful on the road, on this type of a job.

We used a horse team more than we did the ox team but we did drive them a summer or

two part of the time.

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HF: Well now let’s turn attention to trails and existing roads in the early days. Now for

example, we are all acquainted with the Highway 33 as the junction where it takes off

and going east up to Teton City. Was there, when you fellows were young, a graded or

improved road along that way, same route?

AP: I can remember the road being graded in my life time and especially the road that

leads over to our old homestead from this Highway 33. I remember helping grade this

and helping haul the gravel on this road. So a lot of this didn’t take place until quite a

while after the early settlers came to the Snake River Valley.

HF: But I mean to say, Albert, the road now designated Highway 33 at that time was

there, was a road there at that time years ago?

AP: Oh yes, there was never another road that went east. It was pretty well laid off on

section line and the road followed the section line.

HF: And what they have done in more recent times, of course, is grade it and gravel it

and now oil it.

AP: That is right.

HF: But it was the same dirt road then.

AP: That is right.

DP: And Harold may I say here that during the first years before they got any gravel on

them, I recall in the spring of the year that road would get so terrible that they could

hardly get through the team and wagon. It would be so soft and muddy and heavy that

they could hardly get through with all these. Father had a big leveler and we put four

head of horses or six if we needed on, and go over and over and over to level that road to

try to make it passable. But in the spring of the year before they graded it up and put any

gravel on, it was terrible.

HF: Now, was there a road going from Teton City to St. Anthony, the forerunner to the

highway that now exists?

AP: I think so.

HF: And it was in the same place?

AP: Same place.

HF: Okay, now in order to get from Teton City to St. Anthony, you at least had to cross

the two branches of the Teton River?

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AP: Right, from Highway 33.

HF: From Highway 33 now. You fellows remember the bridges that were built there, the

very earliest ones. Who built them? Can you tell me something about those two bridges?

DP: I don’t know if I can say who built those two bridges.

AP: I can’t either Harold, I can’t tell you who built those bridges, but in my life time I

just remember the bridge had been there but I can’t tell you anything about those. I know

[Inaudible] Row; the Row family built the bridges down by our homestead.

HF: Now that is the one over the north fork of the Teton River.

AP: That is right.

HF: Which river separated the two parts of the homestead.

AP: That is right.

HF: And was there a road, I mean, who would use that? Was that a public roadway and a

public bridge, or was that mainly there to benefit just two or three families?

AP: Oh, no that was a public road and it went right on through north up to Wilson and

then on up to St. Anthony. It was a well traveled road.

HF: And is that road still existing today?

AP: Yes.

HF: And you recall the first bridge over there, Albert, at your homestead?

AP: Well I don’t know, I think likely I do recall the first bridge it being a partial swinging

bridge. I remember two distinct bridges being built there. I know I broke one of them

down that had to be repaired. Maybe I ought to tell about that incident, this is quite an

interesting incident.

HF: Alright go ahead.

AP: I happened to be hauling beets.

HF: Now these were beets that were produced on your dad’s place on the north side of

the river?

AP: That is right. And I was driving a four horse team hauling beets and this was all in

the evening all, about four o’clock and I had a big load of beets, possibly five ton net

weight of beets. My dad had a lot of good horses and we usually hauled a good load. So I

15

come on to the bridge and a section of the bridge broke down as the hind wheels had

come over. And it just picked, it tipped that load over so quick. I happened to be standing

up on the wagon. It picked it up so quick that it just picked the bed and all right up wagon

and all, and turned it bottom side up and threw me about twenty-five or thirty feet up the

river. And I landed on my feet standing up in the water. The water was only about four or

five feet deep, just pretty near up to my arm pit where I landed in the water. And it

pushed one horse right through the railing and the time went out over the spiel of the –

put there to catch the drift wood in front of the bridge, and she hung there just about

down to the water in the harness. And my leader swung around on the bridge and still

was standing and was holding the rest of them, the other wheeler was laid down, [it] just

slid over the edge of the bridge. And everything was tied, I couldn’t unhook a thing

neither tie nor anything on that team or wheel, I couldn’t get that horse loose that was

swinging down there on the side of the bridge in midair, she was over swimming water

where she was and there was nothing for me to do. [I could] only throw out [my] pocket

knife and start cutting leather and I cut the tugs in two, all the four tugs on my wheelers

and cut the brass strap, and cut the lines in two that fastened the wheelers together and

dropped her into the water. And I just hoped that she would be able to swim out and she

did, she swam out. And I hollered, “Whoa!” and I went off into the water and the leaders

stopped, they didn’t get scared. They just stood there and I went around, and Uncle Will

Garner seen it, and he hollered to mother to get a hold of father that I had gone into the

river with a load of beets. They figured I was gone, but when Uncle Will got there I got

[the] team unhooked. And I didn’t think I was scared to cut that loose not unhooked, they

were cut loosed. (Laughing) I didn’t think I was scared, but when I sat down for a second,

I shook like a beet and I didn’t get over that all fall.

END OF TAPE 1 SIDE 1

START OF TAPE 2 SIDE 2

AP: [Inaudible]

HF: Now Albert you mentioned that a Mr. Row was very active in the very early days.

AP: R. H. Row were his initials.

HF: R. H. Row. R-O-W?

AP: R-O-W.

HF: R. H. Row was very active in building bridges and bridge construction. Did he

perhaps build this bridge that you are talking about?

AP: Well I don’t think so, I think he had at least drove the pile that they set this, well, and

this one and that broke down. I know he built the bridge complete. And the previous

bridge, the first bridge, I think he likely drove the pile for the swinging section the rest of

16

them. The ones next to the bank and I think one section up on each side and the rest of it

was a swinging bridge between. I think he built a pile for that.

HF: Now, can you either of you tell me anything about, say the bridge that first spanned

the river downstream from your range? And would that be the bridge which is located on

191?

AP: That is right, that will be next one.

HF: And what can you tell me about that bridge and do you have any particular

knowledge and recollections about that bridge?

AP: I don’t, I don’t recall those bridges being built.

DP: Then the next one on farther down the stream is the one that is for the Dalling Farm

that goes north out to the Mars’ pig yards.

HF: Do you remember anything about that bridge?

DP: I don’t. I remember when they were built, I remember going across, but I couldn’t

tell you who built them.

HF: Those are wooden bridges aren’t they?

DP: Yes.

HF: What you call the foundation or…

DP: The pile.

HF: The pile.

DP: Yes, that holds the bridge up. Right, they were wooden decked.

HF: Wooden decked bridges.

DP: They were all wooden decks. No cement at that time.

HF: And this would be true with the bridge that is further down on the Parker Salem

Highway.

DP: Same thing.

HF: Same thing.

DP: On that same street, the north fork of the Teton.

17

HF: Now with reference to bridges on the south fork of the Teton, where would we have

bridges?

DP: Well, I would say the first one out of Teton was the one on that road 33 just out of

Teton, then on west of Teton. Then the next one was on the road a mile farther south on

the Row road. We always called it the Row road, or the one that goes up by Aaron Ricks’

today. And there was a bridge there and also one because it forked in that area and then

came back together further down. And the other one was about a half a mile farther west

than the first one crossing just down off of the hill from Aaron Ricks’ or where Aaron is

today.

HF: Now this would be commonly known as the Moody area?

DP: That was the Moody road. That was in on the Moody, well it was this one road. This

Row road wouldn’t be, no. The one further west or farther south, a mile farther south was

on the Moody road.

HF: I see. Let’s see then, the next bridge on the south fork going south westerly would be

the one on 191?

DP: Yes, that was Rexburg. North of Rexburg.

HF: North of Rexburg.

DP: Yeah that’s right.

HF: You fellows remember anything about any of these bridges we are talking about?

DP: About who built them?

HF: About who built them and if they’ve been replaced.

DP: Well, I’m still, I know the one over to on the road on the Moody road was rebuilt and

Mr. Row did that himself and I would rather think that he built the one over on the north

of his farm which is just a- is that a mile or a half a mile north?- It’s a mile north isn’t it

from the Row over to the other road, the Aaron Ricks’ road where Russell…

AP: No, just a half mile across there.

DP: Is it?

DP: Half a mile through there. There is a bridge there; in fact there are two bridges. One

that crosses like I said.

AP: Which one crosses the river there?

18

DP: Well, that slough or that fork that comes around through the Wilding place.

AP: That is over on the muddy road Douglas.

DP: Well no, down there by the old farm that Bill Howard built there are two bridges

there you see, you cross one where the old slaughter house was.

AP: Yes, there is a bridge there now. You drive up there; there is a bridge there and the

one up by, if you come down off of the hill by Aaron Ricks’.

DP: You see they changed that river course too and they, coming down on the south side

of the road that goes up past Aaron Ricks’. And they brought it down where the old

slaughter house yard was and crossed. Bob Ricks made that himself in order to keep the

river from meandering off down through his field.

HF: I see. Robert Ricks you said did [that]?

DP: Yes, Robert Ricks did that.

HF: Well now, we’ve talked about the bridges pretty much in the area where you would

be most familiar I suppose on the north fork of the Teton and the south fork of the Teton.

DP: Yes.

HF: Now were there any bridges that spanned the creek, moody creek flowing into the

south fork?

DP: There’s one on the south, just south of this Moody oil strip just about a quarter of a

mile. Then there’s one a little farther west that crosses, where it crosses this oil strip

across Moody creek.

HF: I see.

DP: And there is another bridge it crosses the street, it goes north over the Ricks’, and

there are two bridges right there close together.

AP: That’s the one we’ve been talking about.

DP: And it goes over there in Ricks’ to the north and it is right on the corner there where

old Leishman lived. There are three bridges right there within about half a mile across

Moody creek.

HF: Now in the early days apparently, there were roads then going through these same

areas. Roads which have now been improved with gravel and some instances I suppose

oil that we are talking about.

19

DP: Nearly all the roads that we’ve mentioned that were on section lines are in the pre

section. They were all straight, north and south, east and west. I don’t remember of a

road, do you Albert, that didn’t go straight on the section line? No, pretty much straight.

In the valley there were all straight.

HF: Now of course in Sugar City, when Sugar City was laid out, the road went through

Sugar city on an east- west direction. Didn’t it?

DP: Well, when the town site was set up, there was no road through the center of this

section. It was on the north side of the town site.

HF: But that was the center of the section.

DP: Yes.

HF: And there was a county road right straight down west of Salem.

DP: Right.

HF: Now, the road coming from Rexburg as I understand it, when it got into Sugar City it

went east to the church.

DP: Right.

HF: And then made a direct quarter north to reach over to the center section by the sugar

factory, then went east to the corner of the factory then went on over to the St. Anthony.

DP: North, right. That is the road.

HF: And it was possibly in the thirties would you say, that they revised that road and

went up through the park, the Sugar City Park?

DP: Oh, I think it was earlier than that.

HF: You think it was earlier than the thirties?

DP: Yes, it was only in the thirties. They hadn’t made this highway through the park

there when World War Two was over with, because we had a big celebration there in

town for Tom Niber on Niber day. And as that road came past the Sugar City merchant

hill up to the corner that turned north by the church house, there was a gateway into the

city park that was a ten acre piece of ground. This ten acre piece of ground was made into

a nice park with a grand stand on the south side and a race track around this ten acre,

which made a half a mile track. And on the, [a] little to the north of the grand stand, far

enough to be away from any balls that might hit it, was a band stand that was built in

there. And every summer, where they would have band concerts and quite a program was

20

carried on, and recreation I will mention that in my report after Albert gets through with

it.

AP: I’m through with it.

HF: Well actually then, this road now they honored Tom Niber and this was about July of

1919.

DP: Yes.

HF: And at that time that road hadn’t been changed?

DP: The highway hadn’t been put through the park of the highway.

HF: So it probably was in the twenties or something like this when it was changed?

DP: I think so, don’t you, Albert?

AP: Yes, I rather think so.

HF: Do you fellows remember that celebration when they had Tom Niber there?

DP: You bet. I’ll say. There were more vehicles in town that day than Sugar has ever

seen since or before. They estimated there were ten thousand people there that day. Every

road that I can remember in town had automobiles or teams of horses and buggies that

were in there to honor Tom Niber when he got off of the train on the west end of Sugar

City, the old depot. When he come in there that is where he was received and was

brought up through town and they came into the park. The gate that entered into the park

was all bannered and flowers and everything. They dropped a bouquet of flowers onto

him as he was driven through the gateway in to the park. It was great day honoring Tom

Niber.

HF: Now, did Tom Niber leave a posterity, children?

DP: Not, yes he had a family. He had a family but I can’t remember just how many he

had. Do you Albert?

HF: Do you know any of his children, who they are today? Does he have any around

here today?

DP: No, not that we know of.

HF: Was he related to the Nibers that were up in Newdale?

21

DP: Yes, brother Niber was relative of the Nibers up there. I think he was an uncle to

Irene and those boys up at Newdale. But he left Sugar not too long after this happened to

gain employment in other areas and the family moved away. They were small.

AP: This was Tom.

DP: This was Tom. And they moved away and of course we never knew much about

them after they left Sugar City.

HF: But he was a tremendous hero wasn’t he?

DP: Yes, the feat that he performed in the service was tremendous. He took captives, a

number of prisoners, and they carried him back, he was wounded; they carried him back

and he marched these soldiers ahead of him into camp.

HF: I have the article which appeared in the Improvement Era in 1919. And it tells all

about him in it. It is very…

DP: Our high councilman reviewed this in our ward not too long ago.

HF: We might interject a little bit of Upper Valley humor here as we go along; [tape

skips] and some of the Garners and also some of the Pincocks. Now, if either one of you

have any little comments about some early day humor, you might just share with us.

DP: I remember father telling about his early days breaking a horse. And the river was

high in the spring of the year. He got on this bucking horse on the north side of the Teton

and he bucks really hard and kept bucking until they got clear down to the river which

would be pretty near a quarter of a mile from the home where he got on to this horse. And

he said this horse jumped right off into that big stream of water. And he said we both

went clear under, head over heels. That the horse come up flounding and he stayed with

him and he finally got him back onto the right side of the river. And then another

experience that father told about, he and mother got so lonesome in the spring of the year

because the water stayed so high and they weren’t able to cross. That was before the

bridge was even built. And they had a crossing that they crossed over to the south side to

go see Uncle Johnny and Uncle James and Uncle Johnny Garner, the ones that lived on

the south side of the river. And they decided one weekend that they’d improvise a raft

and try and make it across the river and go spend a little time with the folks they hadn’t

seen him for quite some time. They got this raft nailed together and fixed together, so

they figured they could make it. Father had a stick he was trying to row with and guide it

by putting it into the water. But the water was quite high and got rough and they got into

a current and they couldn’t make it. They finally got close enough to the bank that mother

got hold of some brush and pulled them back onto the side that they got into, but they

were well down the stream. And they were mighty glad to get out of the river and go

back home. And not having seen the folks, they were ready to go back. They were glad

they were safe.

22

HF: I can just imagine that there were some real problems, that to us now there is certain

amount of humor and to them too there was certain amount of humor, and they just

passed these things on down to, you know, to the youngsters. But I imagine that they

encountered some real, real problems. Albert do you have any experiences like that you

recall?

AP: I don’t think I’ve got any in mind. I haven’t thought in this line at all.

HF: I see. One of my questions too, was some of the earliest grain that was grown in the

Sugar City area. Now do you think that grain was produced almost immediately when

they came up?

DP: They had grain that they planted. I remember father and I saw him and sowing this

grain from the rear end of his wagon and didn’t have a drill. But to start with, he’d put a

pan or hold a bucket, and he’d hold that bucket and as he walked through the field he’d

take a hand full out and throw it and spread it.

HF: Broadcast it.

DP: Broadcast it, and that got to be quite slow and he figured a new way, a better way

that he could do it much faster. And so he put a team on a wagon and he would sit in the

back with the tub filled with grain, and then he would broadcast with both hands, while

someone drove the team down through the field. Before the children were large enough

to drive the team, he had mother do it. But he drilled that way for many years before he

was able to buy a drill to drill with. But they brought grain as I recall father telling about

it, they brought seed and there was seed growing here when he came. And as far as

knowing who brought the first grain into the valley, I don’t know who planted it.

AP: I think Uncle James and Uncle John and John A. Garner you see they come in the

spring of ’83. And there might have been others too, Dave Browning and Hyrum Jacobs

and I guess maybe John Balley. A number of them were early settlers here and this was

one of the first things they planted was a few kinds of grain. I wonder if there was any

plant before ’83 or not. I read in one history regarding Sugar City, the city of this area,

that there were a few settlers over the waters in Lyman town; it was a hand of the group

of Sugar City. So they may have brought grain into the Snake River Valley ahead of this

group. But I imagine Uncle John and Uncle James planted grain in 1883.

DP: And at that time, like Albert said earlier, there was no fences and the cattle and the

stock when they were through out of the, in the spring of the year after the harvesting

when the planting was done and the cows were put out into the area, they could just

browse as far as they wanted to go. There was no farms, no fences, and their horse could

be turned out and they were right out in the open area.

HF: Do you remember- now you were born I think you mentioned about 1900- had your

father erected fences around any of this property by then?

23

DP: Yes, he had.

HF: It was pretty well being fenced then by 1900?

DP: Father finally had a real good net wired fence clear around his property. It was two

barbed wires over the top; he had a very nice fence made.

HF: I think you mentioned, Doug, that your father was quite a leader in bringing good

cattle livestock into the area.

DP: Yes.

HF: Would you go into that a little bit and indicate how he did this, what brought this

about?

DP: Father of course was an industrious man; he was a man that wanted to better

everything that he had. He was desirous to making it better. And he had a few cows, first

he thought he’d like to go into the Guernsey business and he went down to the Utah State

in Logan and there he purchased a Guernsey bull and brought it up here. And there he

raised some pretty fine Guernsey stock. But they were a tender animal and he figured for

our country up here where it was cold, long winters that the host team animals would

weather better than those Guernseys. And so he got rid of the Guernseys then went in to

the Holstein business.

HF: About what year would this be when he had the Guernseys?

DP: I think that was around anywhere from 1912 to maybe ’16. From there on he got into

the Holstein business. Would you say that is about right Albert? And then he sold out his

Guernsey stock and purchased a few host teams. He went out to Boise valley and bought

one cow that held the Idaho State championship in 1916. She had a butter packed record

of 21 pounds of butter in seven days. And that was the foundation cow of his host team

herds. She was a pure bred had papers, and then he bought another one out there that was

an extremely good cow. And he joined the host team free gym association and registered

his cows as fast as he could get them. And with this herd of cows he could see the need of

good sires and so he got some of the men in the valley together and said, let’s form a bull

association. And so they formed a bull association with the neighbors through the area

even down to Herbert. Brother Hendricks down to Herbert was one that joined, and Tom

Genta was one that joined, John Dalling was one that was anxious to get good stock and

Joe Jensen was one, and who were some of the other and…

AP: Charles Myers.

DP: Yeah, Brother Myers. Charles Myers the father of Wayne and Marvin Myers.

HF: Charles Henry?

24

DP: Charles Henry Myers. And they bought young calves to start with, young bulls that

had a good record, a good background, and they placed these bulls in these different areas

so that they could service the cows within the area. And then they would rotate them

every three to four years, oh, every two years. They rotated those bulls so that they could

breed the heifers from those bulls to one of the other bulls.

HF: What was the name of this association they formed?

DP: Madison County Host Team Bull Association is what they called it. Father was

president of that association and he started it and encouraged the men to organize.

HF: Now does this association still exist?

DP: No, they discontinued that a few years; oh they kept it in operation for many years,

didn’t they Albert?

AP: Oh, yes, ten, fifteen, twenty years until artificial insemination came in.

HF: Oh, I see.

DP: And they were able to purchase some very good sires and of course we could see it

in our herd and many other herds and then father could see the need of some good

heifers. And Wisconsin and Iowa were, some of the best host team cattle were raised in

those states and so these men asked father if he wouldn’t go back there and purchase

heifers and bring them out here and so he did. He went back in 1918 and ’19 and ’20

different times to get heifers bring them out. And he would bring the record with them

and then the man that was interested of course, he would have them come and he would

have them all numbered and they would draw for their heifers.

HF: Now as a result of this effort, did your father acquire quite a dairy?

DP: Yes, he had a very fine dairy herd, it wasn’t a big dairy herd. It would run up as high

I guess twenty five, wouldn’t it Albert at the most? Generally we were milking twenty to

twenty-two and three. Of course we had a lot of others because there were some dried up

and they had to replace them, but generally speaking we had about thirty head of fine

host team cows and heifers and father built one of the nicest barns in the valley.

HF: And this is, was on…?

DP: This was on the old homestead but on the south side of the Teton, after he built his

new home on the south side.

HF: I see.

DP: And there we had one side where we took care of the cows which would house, yes

we would take care of eighteen to twenty head of cows and on the other side of the barn

25

we had the horses. So that we could have them in the stalls, we had room enough in there

for, how many teams, six or eight teams.

HF: Now at this time did you have to separate your milk?

DP: We separated a lot of milk at that time before the Nelson and Ricks came into the

valley. And after Nelson-Ricks came in the valley then they bought a lot of milk and he

could see the need of another dairy organization and he was a promoter in the Snake

River Dairyman’s Association.

HF: The Upper Snake River?

DP: The Upper Snake River Valley Dairyman’s Association. And he was pushed heavy

for that and was a stock holder.

HF: Now at that time, the Nelson-Ricks people had established a factory, I guess in Sugar

City hadn’t they?

DP: They had a small factory in Sugar City where they made cheese and they received

milk there. They also had the one in Rexburg. And they felt the need of another and so

they got men together and formed this Upper Snake River Valley Dairyman’s

Association.

HF: Commonly referred to as the Co-op or the Challenge.

DP: Challenge. And father was a great promoter of good stock not only in cattle but also

horses. He had the first pure bread Percheron stallion that was brought into the valley.

And where did he bring him from? Back east somewhere?

AP: I am not sure.

HF: Now your uncle John Garner was quite a man for horses too, was he not?

DP: He had horses he never did run a dairy that I recall of. Of course they always had a

few cows but never did go into the dairy business. He had horses of course enough to run

and operate his farm. But I don’t recall him having any outstanding horses. I remember

Earl had a very fine Clydesdale at one time later on. But father brought in the first

Percheron stallion and they had…

HF: Those were the big horses.

DP: They were big black work horses and they were a very fine animal. We had some

wonderful horses on the farm from those Percheron stallions that he brought in. He sold

one of the stallions after he’d used it a while and one of the horses to the Ogden Fire

Department and they said he is the finest horse that they’ve ever had on their fire

department when they used horses at that time.

26

HF: That’s interesting isn’t it? Turning our attention now to somewhat different subject,

do you fellows remember where you first attended school? Describe where it was and

something about the school building.

DP: Let me start here by saying that we first attended church at Wilford where my father

was bishop for many years.

HF: We want to talk about church first before talk about school? Ok.

DP: Yes, right now. It was just a one room, rough building and the curtain was drawn to

separate the classes. And by the way father helped to build that church.

AP: He was a bishop when they built the rock church.

DP: Yes, and he used his teams to haul the rock and the rock quarry to build that lovely

church, that they built in Wilford.

HF: Alright, now let’s see the church would have been located quite a ways to the east of

your homestead.

DP: It was a mile north and two miles east and then back, [then] north again a half a mile.

It was on the road that led from Teton to St. Anthony, as far as this church was built, just

north of the present church house in Wilford about a quarter of a mile or little more.

HF: I see, I don’t suppose that building remains.

DP: It still standing, it was last year. They thought about taking it down as the windows

are all gone, you can see through it, but the walls are still standing.

HF: Now where would they have gotten the rock?

DP: Do you remember where we quarried that rock?

AP: I think they went into the hog hole, a little hog hole area. It’s up on the north part of

the Teton, possibly six or seven miles east. I think they went into the little hog hole there

to get the rock.

DP: Straight east of Wilford a little north…

HF: Up on the north side of the Teton.

DP: Right.

HF: I see. Well now back to schooling, where did you go to school?

27

DP: I will mention this in here. Later on we moved into our new home south of the Teton

River and we attended the Sugar Ward and still do. It was also a big rock building with a

belfry on top and we had to use the old brick school house for classrooms which was

located just south of the church house on the same park lot, ten acre lot, that was bought

for a park. After a few years the ward built several classrooms onto the rock building and

also put a coal furnace in it. Before this the old pot bellied stove was used. Now this I

was reading the other day where this church was built in eight months over the time they

started until it was dedicated. It took them eight months, and it cost them nine thousand

dollars to build that. And just opposite or south of this where they built the old school

house, they built that about the same year for a cost of ten thousand dollars which was

four big large classrooms, two upstairs and two downstairs. I attended school in Sugar

City and so did Albert, first in the old brick school house located on the city park as I

mentioned before. Then one year in the room back in the back of the old bank building,

which still stands, I attended there one year. They didn’t have room in the old brick

building and so they took one room in the old bank building on the north end and I

attended one year there. Then for the rest of the grades I attended the rock building west

of the depot, which is now torn down and they had a fire and it was destroyed and they

tore it completely down. I went to high school in the same old building, still being used

by the high school. I graduated in 1919; Albert and the other boys and girls all attended

these same buildings right, Albert?

AP: Yes.

DP: I also attended one winter at Ricks College before going on a three year mission for

the LDS church to Mexico. Some of the teachers I remember was Mrs. Mauldy, Mrs.

Web, Mrs. Cole, Mrs. Lewella Garner.

HF: Would this be a relative?

DP: Lewella Garner? No, she was a wife of William Garner that was a cousin to John A

Garner that was a father of Earl Garner. He was no relation of ours. J. W. Philips and

Archer Willy, those were some of the teachers that I recall and Albert, no doubt, will

remember several of these teachers.

AP: I remember some earlier ones that was superintendent in the Sugar district, one of the

first…

HF: Worlton?

AP: Yes, I remember J. T. Worlton when he was principal of the district school before we

had a high school. I remember him, and my sister Martha taught under him. And he

taught the younger girls too. He was a very fine teacher, J. T. Worlton was. And then

after the high school came, I remember a man by the name of Williams that was one of

the first ones. I think there was one other; I don’t recall his name...

HF: Ford? Do you remember Mr. Ford?

28

AP: I don’t remember Ford, I mean he was the first one, a man by the name of Ford, and

Williams was next. And then Bill Oldham was next that lived in Hibbard. And he is still

alive, he goes to California and Reid Oldham is his son. He lives on Bill’s property now.

DP: Do you mean Mr. French? He was a principal down the rock building when I was

young.

AP: I remember him, but J. W. Philips he taught under Bill Oldham, he was our manual

training man and he was a good one.

DP: And under Archer Willey after Oldham left.

HF: He was the Archer, Archie Willey…

DP: Archer.

HF: Oh Archer, A-R-C-H-E-R?

AP: Right.

HF: Willie? W-I-L-L-I-E?

AP: E-Y, W-I-L-L-E-Y. And then I think Robert Biorkman, followed Willey. No, I think

I am wrong on that I think this man Sessions, E. B. Sessions followed Archer Willey and

then this man Biorkman, Robert Biorkman followed E. B. Sessions. This is high school,

after we got to high school.

HF: What year did you graduate from high school?

AP: Well, I was five years graduating. I come over to Ricks for two years and I graduated

in 1916 from Ricks.

HF: So actually you didn’t graduate from the Sugar High.

AP: From the Sugar School, no I didn’t.

HF: But you did in 1919?

AP: Yes. Right.

HF: And you graduated from the school where you are now graduating?

AP: Right.

29

HF: Which used in and was the former building of the town site building where the opera

house was located.

AP: Where the opera house was located, yes.

HF: And now going back just little bit, in the very earliest days when the family were on

the homestead and so on and before actually Sugar City came into existence, where did

the family go to do its shopping, acquire its supplies?

AP: Most of our shopping was done in Rexburg and St. Anthony and in Salem. There

were two small stores in Salem. The Harris brothers had stores. They were across the

road from each other and they both had small stores there.

HF: Could you acquire some hardware as well as maybe some clothing as well as food?

AP: Yes, there were hardware and mercantile stores where you could buy food, you could

buy clothing, you could buy hardware items and leaf vegetables, canned goods, and those

stores handled all that.

HF: They must have been pretty nice stores then.

AP: They were pretty good stores. They furnished most everything that was necessary for

the families throughout the area.

DP: I think before Sugar City came I think they did maybe more in Salem than they did

even in Rexburg and St. Anthony. I don’t remember them ever going to St. Anthony

much. The Garners used to go to St. Anthony when I was a kid quite a bit, but father

never did travel that way, he went to either Salem or Rexburg as I remember.

HF: St. Anthony was quite a gentile town wasn’t it?

AP: That is right.

HF: I mean you didn’t have the closeness of the church over there as much.

DP: Right, you are sure right. I remember father going up there to Falkes and Jacobs,

they had quite a big store up there a time or two, but like Albert said, the majority of

purchasing of the necessities were bought, either in Salem or Rexburg.

HF: Now did they have quite a few stores in Rexburg at this time? I imagine they would.

DP: Well not too many, Flamm’s was one of the first ones that were there, and I don’t

recall any of the grocery stores. Do you, Albert, who run those grocery stores?

AP: I don’t remember any other grocery stores. The Ballack’s had a clothing store. But I

don’t recall any other grocery store.

30

HF: Now in getting some of your machinery was the CW&M?

AP: CW&M was an old standby as far as machinery goes.

DP: That is why they bought their buggies and their wagons and their harnesses and their

implements, their necessities were bought; most all of them were bought at the CW&M.

HF: Now at the same time and prior to the establishment of Sugar City, wasn’t there a

store over at Teton?

DP: I don’t recall a store at Teton.

AP: No, I don’t remember them ever saying anything about it, and I don’t ever remember

a store ‘till later on in my life in Teton.

HF: But there were a few homes over there.

DP: Oh yes.

AP: And they had ward in Teton and Uncle John was Bishop there for a number of years.

HF: Your Uncle John Garner?

AP: Pincock.

HF: Uncle John Pincock.

DP: Uncle Johnny Pincock was bishop of that ward for several years.

AP: But I don’t remember the store at all.

HF: Now you people, though, went down to Salem didn’t you? I mean after you moved

across…

AP: We were really in the Salem School District to begin with. We went to school down

there before they organized this independent school district where Sugar and Salem went

together.

HF: And still went together?

DP: Went together.

HF: Was that referred to after they organized that, forty, school district 40 or four?

DP: That I can’t tell you.

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AP: Oh, I read that the other day too.

HF: I think there was one 40, but there after the high school was organized in the district

and so forth I think they called it independent 4.

AP: It might have been, but I can’t put you straight on that.

HF: But you don’t recall of any store existing up in Teton City?

DP: I don’t remember, I remember the mercantile that is there now, was there, but in my

day I don’t remember father and them ever going to Teton to buy anything up at the

Teton.

AP: I was sent to Salem more than once to get grocery, but I never was sent the other way

as a kid.

DP: And it would be closer to go up to Teton from our home than it would to go to

Salem. So I rather think that there wasn’t store there at Salem. Now the Sugar City Cache

store later became the Sugar City Mercantile and it has retained that name all through the

years since 1906. We also had a hardware and lumber company operated by John and

Fred Swindaman. And later L. A. Bean took over the hardware. We had a drug store

where Jack and Harry Dean were the druggists and they were in part of this building

where there opera house was. They were in the south east corner of that building with

their drug store. A butcher shop operated by Mr. Skelton to start with, George Ricks was

also owner of that butcher shop. And then it was sold to J. W. West and his son in law, J.

W. Harrison, which operated it after brother West passed away for many years. A black

smith shop was operated by Bill Shoup and Joe Neilson and Joe’s father.

HF: When you say George Shoup…

AP: Bill Shoup, Bill S-H-O-U-P was the way they spelled that.

HF: I see. Now there was a doctor by the same name.

DP: Yes, there was a doctor Shoup that built, I guess he built the hospital there. And it

had several rooms in it, upstairs and down.

AP: And that was the first hospital in Madison County and it was a good one. Doc’

Shoup, I don’t remember what his missions were. He was one of the finest surgeons that

had ever come in to the Snake River Valley; they traveled to him from Pocatello north to

be operated on.

END OF TAPE 1 SIDE 2

START OF TAPE 2

32

HF: That’s interesting isn’t it?

DP: He drove a fine team of horses that father sold him to make his way around the

county and the area.

AP: This was before the automobile days. He kept a man night and day, taking care of the

team. He had a team ready to go, hooked onto buggy, ready to go all the time.

HF: Any hour.

AP: And I will tell you, when he got in that buggy he went to town. He would really go.

HF: He knew that he was racing to beat the stork, or some other emergency was going on

huh?

AP: He was a good doctor. And he was a good diagnoser and he could step into a sick

room and tell what was going on right now. He was a doctor.

DP: Well, going on from there now, we also had a livery stable area in Sugar City, before

there was any automobiles around and there was need for transportation and a man by the

name of C. R. White was the first man that set up this livery stable and then it was sold

later to Charles Myers when he came up into this valley. And then after he left and went

to farming, Jim Harris bought it and operated it for a while until there was need of a

livery stable. We had a bowling alley and a skating rink operated by Welder Hyde and B.

R. Walden. Now when they built Sugar City and organized the Sugar City, they put in

there by-laws that there will be no saloons and no gambling joints in the city at all. And

they held to that line all through the years. A printing office where the Sugar City Times

was printed, operated by Lloyd Avinge. A bank, Freemont County bank, was first run and

operated by a man by the name of A. I. Comstock then F. L. Davis was the cashier after

Mr. Comstock left until the bank was moved away. A telephone office was also in Sugar

City and a post office operated by J. W. Williams was the first post office postmaster.

Then D. Rolla Harris took it over and then Chris Swindeman, and then Ezekiel Holman,

and now it is operated and ran by Lloyd Luke. A hotel was built in town operated by Fred

J. Heath. And a garage who operated there was R. B. Gatty.

AP: I might say the hotel was operated a number of years by the Moles in Sugar City.

HF: Where was that hotel located?

AP: It was across the road from this city building just across the road. I don’t believe I

can give the name of the man that built that. I had a hold of that the other day but I

haven’t worked on this end of the questioning so, I haven’t got that.

DP: It was just across the road from the opera house and the big city building where the

training office was and towards…

33

HF: Just to the south right?

DP: Just across the road south, across Main Street. They called that Center Street. We had

a real fine city park we mentioned that before where many baseball games were played

and a race track with a grand stand on the south end. And a band stand, as I mentioned

before, was on the north side where many band concerts were held in the summer. That

was later moved and then opened there a dance hall, was called the Freeman-Ida dance

hall and that served both counties. And the churches up and down the valley patternized

it, the two stakes especially. Some of the men who operated the stores were Ben R.

Freeman…

AP: Furman.

DP: Furman I should say, and then the oldest N. Van Tassel had a building there, a

mercantile business. And then Alfred Ricks bought and operated the mercantile. They

had stock holders. Many of the farmers in the area and business men there had stock and

then they finally sold their stock back to Alfred Ricks. And then Henry Thomas bought it

from Alfred Ricks, his father in law, later. Fred J. Heath also run a little store and B. L.

Waldrom had a store in town, and Heath Ricks also run the mercantile or had an interest

in it. He helped operate to a man named Emory Thomas. And after Emory Thomas sold

out, Earl Scollfield had a store there too in town and Glen Newbold operated the Sugar

City mercantile for five years and he sold out now to Billy Scollfield and he is operating

that. The baseball was the most important of the town activities and the sports and Lynn

Taylor was the one of the head men, Lynn Taylor and Doug Skelly. And those men both

worked at the sugar factory but they were great enthusiasts and had a very fine baseball

team and Z. Coleman was one of their first men on their team which was a very fine

baseball player.

AP: He was one of the last ones to be playing ball too.

DP: Yes, he played all through the years and [was] one of the last that played baseball in

Sugar City, where some of the men who participated. And then dances were held in the

old opera house and the Freeman-Ida. Many plays were put on in the old opera house by

both local and traveling troops. Every week, there would be either a traveling troop or a

local troop that would put on a play and it was very well patternized. They put a big

canvas on the big floor up there to protect it from being scuffed so that it could to be used

for a dance after the opera was over. And there were many a dances played in there.

DP: For many years this was the most popular dance place there was in the whole valley.

HF: You fellows remember taking your girls there to dance?

AP: Oh, you bet.

34

DP: This was one of the main events in my life. This is my main recreation; I had to go to

a dance once a week. I remember we had all of the high school dances were in there. I

remember our junior prom, when I was a junior, was held there. I had a broken foot at

that time or leg. I rode a cab out to the ranch and was thrown off and broke my ankle and

I couldn’t dance that night. And my sweet heart felt pretty bad to think I wasn’t able to

dance.

HF: Well now the high school, apparently in those days, only used the downstairs.

DP: Yes, after they’d discontinued using it for a store and drug store and what not then

they turned it into the high school building.

HF: But the upstairs was still used as the opera house for the dance.

DP: Yes, they retained for some years and they played basketball down there.

AP: They used it for a gym.

DP: Yes, for a gym, that is where they played a lot of the basketball. We were state

championship, high school state championship.

HF: Did you play basketball then?

DP: I didn’t play much, no. I was too small to be a basketball player. The skating rink

drew large crowds. Some of the men who helped with the community affairs were Mark

Austin, Greg J. Heath, J. B. Gatty, Lynn Taylor, Douglas Skelly, Jack Peterson, Frank

Jacobs, Fred Swindeman, Chris Swindeman, Bill Waldrom, and Ezekiel Holdman those

were some of the most active men in our community at that time.

HF: I would appreciate a little comment, personal comments from each of you men,

about Bishop Alfred Ricks who was for so many years- what should we say- a wheel in

the city government there in Sugar, was an enterprising business man and church man as

a bishop, and a sheep man. So would you, Albert make your comment first?

AP: I think Bishop Alfred Ricks served first under Mark Austin as one of his counselors.

And then he followed Mark Austin as the next bishop. And he was a bishop when the

Pincocks joined Sugar Ward and he was the bishop for many years, a very successful

bishop and he was well liked. He was a great financer. I don’t think the ward ever went to

red as long as Bishop Ricks was in charge of the ward. And I remember doing business

even after I was married at the Sugar City Mercantile and doing business with Bishop

Ricks. I bought my dress clothes there. B. L. Waldrom used to clerk in the Sugar City

Mercantile and they sold Royal Taylor and I think one other company’s suits, tailor made

suits. Because I was a little man, I always liked to wear a tailor made suit. I couldn’t get a

hand me down suit that fit very good. I always did my business at the Sugar City

Mercantile, and found that Bishop Ricks was a very fine individual to do business with. I

believe that’s all.

35

HF: Very good. Do you have any comments?

DP: Yes, I remember father and mother mentioning many times how nice it was to go to

the Sugar City mercantile and trade with Bishop Alfred Ricks. And in those days they

usually did a lot of charge accounts. They had a lot of charge accounts because their only

income generally was from the harvest in the fall. And so Bishop Ricks would carry

these, most of these farmers in the area until they harvested their crop and then they

would come in and pay their summer’s bill.

HF: And that connection, it seems to me like I have read where it was that store when it

first commenced in operation, or another one where they went strictly on a cash basis.

Did you know which store that was in Sugar?

DP: It wasn’t the Sugar City Mercantile, I am sure of that. It could have been Van

Tassell, he may have done that, but I know the Sugar City Mercantile as long as I can

remember had charge accounts, and they were very successful. Most of the farmers

leased in the early days were very punctual that as soon as their crops were harvested,

they received their money from their grain and their beets and their, whatever they raised,

[and] they’d go in and pay their accounts.

AP: There is one other item I might tell about the Ricks’. Heath Ricks was a partner in

this mercantile.

HF: Now this is a brother?

AP: This is a brother to Alfred. They were partners in the sheep business too, and the

Ricks’ were industrious people. They put in a full day out and Heath Ricks was a great

fellow to get up in the morning. Uncle John Hamilton he thought he would see how early

Uncle Heath gets up. And so he said “I called him up one morning at five o’clock, and his

wife answered the phone and he asked if Uncle Lee was there.” And she said, “No, he has

been around here all morning, but he is gone with the sheep now.”

HF: Well now this is interesting, I didn’t know that. Now, actually was Hamilton an

Uncle?

AP: No, this is what we called him.

HF: Okay, I just wanted to know.

DP: It was a friendly, family way of respecting the elders.

HF: The Hamilton’s in the early days in Sugar City were a very prominent family though

weren’t they?

AP: Oh yes, the Hamilton brothers were prominent people.

36

DP: They were big sheep operators too.

HF: Now you say the brothers, who would these be?

AP: This was Rob Hamilton and John Hamilton and Charles Hamilton and Parley

Hamilton. There were four brothers that came here from down in Utah and they went into

the sheep business. And they had this farm just on the outskirts of Sugar City just east of

the town side, [and] caddy cornered across them [was] the Sugar factory. And they all

built homes right there on that road.

HF: On the bend in the road now.

AP: They are still there now.

HF: Well, I think as we close, we would like to have each of you comment about your

personal families. Albert if you want to first that would be fine. Your personal family;

whom did you marry, when and where, and something about your children.

AP: Well, I married a girl that came into the Sugar City district teaching school. Her

name was Ruby Rushforth. She was born and raised in Kaysville, Utah.

HF: Now spell her last name.

AP: R-U-S-H-F-O-R-T-H and we were married in 1922. We were married in the Salt

Lake Temple. We went into the temple at 7:00 in the morning and didn’t get out until

7:00 at night. There were seventy-five couples married this particular day. I think it was

an unusual day. We had four children, two boys and two girls. They were all married in

the temple, all good church members. We have a very fine family I think.

HF: Are your boys and girls pretty much in the area today?

AP: Yes. We’ve got three of them living quite close to us. One girl that married Clair

Robinson. Clair is first counselor in the north Rexburg Stake. Then our second child is

William K. He lives in the Wilford Ward over near the stud mill close to St. Anthony but

he is in the Wilford Ward. And then our next son Merrill, he operates our original farm

and lives in the old home that my wife and I established and operates some other

properties besides that that I acquired. And then our youngest daughter lives down at

Bancroft, Idaho. She married a man by the name Toleman, Gerald Toleman. He is the

bishop of the ward they live in, the Bancroft Ward at the present time.

HF: Very wonderful, and your wife is still living and is quite a successful and wonderful

genealogist isn’t she.

AP: Yes, she spends a lot of time in the branch genealogical library, her calling now.

37

HF: But I understand she is a very lovely lady. Alright now Douglas, if you will make,

comment about your personal family.

DP: Well we were married in 1924. I married Rea Dalling, the youngest daughter of John

Dalling, of the family of eleven. She was the baby girl and we have had six children. One

passed away when she was just two weeks old that was our last child. Lorna, is living in

Murray, Utah. She has four children and she is teaching school there with her husband.

Vern has nine children. He is living out near Mountain Home; he has been farming out

there. George is living in Territon. He’s been the bishop of the Territon Ward for nine

years; he has just been recently released. He is working for General Electric as an

electrical engineer at the site out there. He has six children. And Max has three children.

He farms out there, 160 acres of ground and milking about forty head of cows. And Blair

is teaching school here at Ricks College. He is a draftsman. He is one of the teaching

drafting there, and he has three children. All together we have twenty-four grandchildren,

twelve boys and twelve girls. You can’t beat that Harold.

HF: Sure can’t.

DP: And three great granddaughters born to us this year. Now these boys and girls

graduated from Sugar Salem High School, all of them. George happened to be the

valedictorian the year that he graduated there, and also a valedictorian at Ricks College

when he graduated from Ricks that year. And Lorna and George went to the BY got their

degrees from the BY and Blair from Utah State. The other boys went to Ricks College,

some that didn’t complete their study there.

HF: Now what are you doing at the present time?

DP: At the present time I am supervising the field house at the Ricks College up here.

HF: And that is pretty much a full time job?

DP: Right now it is. I go to work at a quarter to eight and come home about 5:30. During

the school year, I go on at four o’clock in the afternoon and stay until 10:00. I supervise

the area and see that there is whatever is carried on there is in order, and assist in

escorting people through that come to go through the building and look it over. And I am

busy from 4:00 until 10:00 at night.

HF: And that is very, very fine. Your health is good?

DP: It’s been well, I’ve had a little problem this year, I had an accident on the first of

December, where I fell on some slick ice and it broke a couple of vertebrae in my back.

And then I got back onto my feet going pretty well, and one of the boys up there kicked a

football in the big dirt floor gym and hit me in the back where, close to where this one

vertebrae was broken and cracked couple of ribs and I had a pretty hard time getting

around from that. But I did fine and then two months ago I went in for a cataract

38

operation and it was very successful and I am getting along real fine now. My health is

good.

HF: Well, that is real, real fine.

DP: And I am enjoying my work at the Ricks College.

HF: That’s real, real wonderful. Albert how is your health then?

AP: Well if I follow a strict diet, I get along pretty good.

HF: For a young man huh? (Laughter)

AP: Yes, I might say I am a retired farmer; I farmed all my life, never done anything else.

And I retired quite a number of years ago. In fact about ten years ago. But I am just tired,

now I have retired. My kids and the work around home a lot and so on keeps me busy. I

work quite a bit on the farm; usually guys bring equipment in the spring of the year to

plant the crop and help harvest it. I still hold a contract on two pieces of property that I

accumulated while I was farming and one of them my son holds, and another is a man out

of Mud Lake on a piece of property that I acquired out there.

HF: Well, gentlemen and brethren I want to tell you sincerely, that I have really enjoyed

this interview this afternoon. I have learned a lot from you men about the Sugar City area

and I hope that it has been somewhat of enjoyment to you. And I want to thank you so

much.