Old Deseret Live Stock Company

219 Pages·2013·2.51 MB·English

by  W. Dean Frischknecht

Utah State University
Old Deseret Live Stock Company
Old Deseret Live Stock Company
A Stockman’s Memoir
W. Dean Frischknecht
Utah State University Press
Logan, Utah
Copyright ©2008 Utah State University Press
All rights reserved
Utah State University Press
Logan, Utah 84322-7200
www.usu.edu/usupress
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on recycled, acid-free paper
ISBN: 978-0-87421-711-7 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-0-87421-712-4 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Frischknecht, W. Dean.
Old Deseret Live Stock Company : a stockman’s memoir / W. Dean Frischknecht.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-87421-711-7 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-87421-712-4 (e-book)
1. Frischknecht, W. Dean. 2. Sheep ranchers--Wasatch Range (Utah and Idaho)--Biography.
3. Ranch life--Wasatch Range (Utah and Idaho) 4. Deseret Live Stock Company--History. 5.
Wasatch Range (Utah and Idaho)--Biography. I. Title.
SF375.32.F74A3 2008
636.3’01097922--dc22
[B]
2008007384
Contents
Prologue 1
1 Expanding Horizons 9
2 Shearing 22
3 The High and Glorious Summer Range 35
4 Great Trail Drives 49
5 Shaping Up for Winter and Shipping to Skull Valley 56
6 Skull Valley 67
7 It Happened During Breeding Season 76
8 Old-Time Range Strategy 85
9 Lambing 93
10 Western Hospitality 103
11 A New Addition 109
12 Timely Moves 115
13 The Big Snow 122
14 Approaching Disaster 128
15 Looking Up 136
16 A Great Recovery 141
17 All in the Day’s Work 147
18 Moving Up 155
19 The Best of Times 162
20 The Dugway Withdrawal 168
21 Major Changes 173
22 End of an Era 182
23 Bad News 188
24 Life’s Big Decisions 193
25 Transitions 199
Index 206
Prologue
The Deseret Live Stock Company in northern Utah was organized and
incorporated in January 1891. “Deseret” is a Book of Mormon word for “hon-
eybee,” a symbol of industry. Brigham Young and many of the early Utah
pioneers hoped that the Territory of Utah would become a vast state named
Deseret. Those early settlers knew that if they were to succeed in the high
dry country of the Great Basin, they would have to work and cooperate like
honeybees. In 1896 the Territory of Utah became a state named Utah, in rec-
ognition of the ancestral home of the Ute Indians. The Deseret Live Stock
Company, though, retained the name early Mormon Utahns had applied
hopefully to a large section of the West.
Before the company was incorporated, neighboring ranchers from Davis
County and other parts of northern Utah laid the groundwork for a large coop-
erative enterprise. Led by members of the Hatch and Moss families, a number
of woolgrowers sought to join together in a large outfi t with a hired manager.
After they had determined the outside limits of a desirably sized ranch in the
northern Wasatch Mountains, property owners within the tentative, desired
area would be invited to join the larger entity. This idea caught on and, at
the time of incorporating, successfully attracted ninety-fi ve stockholders, who
jointly owned twenty-eight thousand sheep, a number of horses, and some
sheep camp equipment, valued at $90,000. The Deseret Live Stock Company
was incorporated with seventy-fi ve thousand shares. The incorporation papers
stated that the purpose of the company was to “promote stock raising, slaugh-
tering, butchering, mercantile business, and other commercial enterprises in
the Territory of Utah and other states of the U.S.”
The Deseret Live Stock Company was prosperous, and after six months
of successful operations, a 10 percent dividend was paid to all stockholders.
The Moss and Hatch families were the largest stockholders, and held the top
managerial and executive positions in the company. Substantial profi ts allowed
the company to increase the number of sheep it ran to fi fty thousand, to get
into the cattle business, and to purchase additional land for grazing and the
production of farm crops such as hay and grain. Much of the land was pur-
chased in northeastern Utah, from the checkerboard grants the Union Pacifi c
1
2 Old Deseret Live Stock Company
Railroad had received from the federal government to subsidize construction
of the transcontinental railroad. The company acquired other land from the
state of Utah and from private individuals. Following the entry of the United
States into World War I, livestock producers such as Deseret profi ted greatly
from the demand for wool, beef, and mutton by the U.S. government.
In 1917 the Deseret Live Stock Company purchased the Iosepa Ranch
in Skull Valley, Tooele County, Utah, from the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints (LDS, or Mormon, Church). This fertile, irrigated ranch
would serve as winter headquarters for grazing sheep and cattle seasonally
driven out of the high mountains and for the production of hay and grain.
This historic ranch in Skull Valley had been purchased by the LDS Church
from John Rich in 1890 for $58,000. Iosepa had been created in 1889 as a
colony for a group of Hawaiian converts to the church who wished to move to
Utah. Church offi cials looked over several possible locations not too far from
Salt Lake City before settling on the Skull Valley Ranch. The LDS Church
helped build the town of Iosepa there, which became home to 230 Hawaiians.
The town was surveyed and laid out in square blocks, and a pressurized water
system was installed. A store, schoolhouse, church, and many homes were
built. However, the church built a temple in Hawaii during the years 1916
to 1919 on Oahu, across the island from Honolulu. Most of the Hawaiians
at Iosepa chose to move back there, although some of the younger colonists
moved to Salt Lake City. The church had owned the property at Iosepa and
paid the Hawaiians a living wage, which enabled the community to last for
twenty-eight years.
Soon thereafter, the Deseret Live Stock Company bought the Tom Jones
ranch, which adjoined company property along the Utah/Wyoming line, for
something over $200,000. This was followed by the 1918 purchase of the
neighboring Neponset Land and Livestock Company in northeastern Utah
for another $200,000. Deseret continued to prosper and buy more land; by
the 1920s it owned nearly 225,000 acres and was said to be the largest private
landowner in Utah.
After the stock market crash inaugurated the Great Depression in autumn
1929, the early 1930s value of livestock dropped to less than 30 percent of
its 1929 value. The days of high profi ts and dividends had vanished. Sales
of livestock and wool would not pay production expenses. The company
was unable to pay dividends from 1930 through 1938. During this time,
several stockholders wanted to sell their stock. Most of this was purchased
by an original stockholder and member of the board of directors, James H.
Moyle, and his family. Moyle eventually owned two-sevenths of the company,
nearly one-third. He had served as undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury in