Oral History Program Reed Gunderson Interviewed by Lowell Draper 15 May 1972 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Reed Gunderson Interviewed by Lowell Draper 15 May 1972 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Gunderson, Reed, an oral history by Lowell Draper, 15 May 1972, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Reed Gunderson. The interview was conducted on May 15, 1972, by Lowell Draper, in Ogden, Utah. Gunderson discusses his life and Mt. Pleasant. LD: What period of time did you live in Mt. Pleasant? RG: I was born in Mt. Pleasant February 18, 1908 and lived there until 1928. I went to school there worked there in the summer in different places and organizations LD: What was life like in Mt. Pleasant? Was it hard or was it pleasant? Just what was it like during that time? RG: Mt. Pleasant was quite a community: A community that seemed to be more or less for one and other. All the activities and everything was related to all the people that all joined in to it, it was a unit so to speak. They all entered in to it they all took part in everything that was done. They had a baseball games and they had a baseball team. Mt. Pleasant in about the 20 had a really good team two or three of them throughout the years. They all so had a band every one took part in it: The Mt. Pleasant City Band. All the schools had a lot of competition in them. There were two schools, Wasatch Academy and North Sanpete High School. There was also two religions, they was the dominating ones. There was the L.D.S. Church and the Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian Church was a function with the Watch Academy and the L.D.S. Church was with the Worth Sanpete School. So with all the games that came up, basketball games, football games, and track, they had a lot of activity. The community was back of each school. During the football games the schools would close the afternoon of the 1 games. The basketball games were played at night. But they were all well represented of the activity of the town the people would turn out in full force for the football games the schools would close. They played them in the afternoon. They played two games one at the Watch Academy and a return game at the North Sanpete football field which was known as the Longs Dar Field. These football fields were graded but there was no grass, the rocks were picked up but the ground was hard. But the boys played there and they played well, the people would really turn out for the games. LD: What kind of activities was there during the winter and what happened after the football season was of? RG: In the winter time Mt. Pleasant was a really enjoyable place to live, there was a lot of harmony among the people: A place you could raise your children in a good atmosphere. The churches would go all out for the entertainment of the young people, for the young in the winter and also the grownups. The L.D.S. church had two wards there they would have competitions. They would have dancing and teach dancing. They had Mutual on Tuesday nights and after Mutual if you had been there you would be eligible to go to a dance at the Army Hall they didn't have recreation halls or cultural halls like they have now, they had their Army Hall. Both Wards would meet there and dance for an hour or so. If you had been to Mutual you could get in free if you hadn't you had to pay $25 to get in. They had dance instructors there and they taught round dancing, square dances and quadrilles. Now the Watch Academy they did not dance, but they had a lot of activity for their students in their Gymnasium at the school. As you know it was a private school they had their own dormitories to house there youth. People came there from all over the world to go to school, they had to register to get in 2 and it was quite difficult to get in to the schools because they didn’t have the facilities for to many around 500 or so. The older people they had quit a lot of activity for them in the winter. They had the overall and calico ball then there was the formers ball held in the Army Hall that dance was really one of the seasons biggest events every one come in their best clothes. They had prizes for the dances. They served a Swedish beer and sandwiches. This beer was nonalcoholic. This dance was in dedication to the pioneers. What it was, was a pioneer celebration. This pioneer celebration has been carried on through the years, every spring in March they’d hold a big banquet or homecoming for the people that us to live there to come back to Mt. Pleasant, to have their dinner then go to Pioneer hall where they keep all of the Pioneer relics. They are working on that all the time and they .do have a lot of things there. Then that night they have their dance and it is a good day well spent to attend it. Many people from all over Utah go to it especially people that at one time or other lived there are there relatives lived there. The activity bloomed up from there, they had when spring and summer came they had, well they had all kinds of dances through the school years, they had the Junior Prom and the Senior hop and the sophomore load soft day and they had a million other things to keep the youth happy, content, and busy. It certainly paid off because there was very little crime in that city and as for as that goes in any of those cities down around there. When the summer came there was a group of business men that started an open air dance hall it was located on about first west and about a half a block north of Main Street they called it the Moon Winks, it was a really nice dance hall and in this dance hall they had sets all around for spectators. The orchestra was on the end to the west with kind of an arch way over it to reflect the sound out over the dance floor. These dances were held 3 twice a week Wednesday and Saturday night. The Wednesday nights ones went till about 1 in the Morning and the Saturday night ones had to quit at midnight. It was well attended they had large crowds each night. Of course on holidays that was another thing. There was the Fourth of July and the twenty-forth, then there was another celebration in the area it was the Black Hawk celebration to honor the Black Hawk Indian War. But this dance was well attended. They had a lot of fun there and there was no trouble a lot of harmony but no trouble, very few drunks come to it, you didn't see much drinking in those days. The Moon Winks was the name of it there was a large moon up in the top of a tree looking down on the dance hall, this moon up there was kind of happy looking with one eye winking down all the time and that’s the way it got the name of the Moon Winks. These dances lasted for a period of about 8 or 10 years. LD: What kind of Social clubs was there in Mt. Pleasant for the men and ladies? RG: Well there was some clubs and organizations for the women, there was 6 or 7 ladies’ clubs and 1 or 2 men’s clubs. There was the gun club that had about 35 members or more. The ladies clubs, I don’t know how many members they had but I would imagine they had about 24 or so in each club. In the ladies clubs the men were affiliated with them because they had social functions and parties they would accompany their wives to. They would have conventions and sometimes clubs would come to Mt. Pleasant or they would go to other clubs. Several times they went to Richfield with all the clubs from the other northern cities and different towns, Moroni, Spring City, all there would meet down there at this Convention. They had quite a bit of culture in Mt. Pleasant in that respect. The people all respected the clubs and all went out of their way to help them. 4 There were donations taken UP and fundraising projects such as cake bakes and such things as that. They even held dances some times to raise money for the clubs. LD: What did the people do for a living in Mt. Pleasant? RG: Well Mt. Pleasant was the Hub of Sanpete County, sometimes called the Hub City. There were a lot of cattle and sheep men and lots of sheep raisers with sheep and cattle, there was many other smaller organizations and sheep raisers with smaller flocks but they could make a living at it and the people in Mt. Pleasant the sheep raisers and cattle raisers they hired there help from the citizens of Mt. Pleasant the people that would work for them. There were a lot of farms down around there they raised a lot of hay, the ground down around there in quit fertile and when the ground is once watered it holds it, it doesn’t just run off in kinds of reservoirs, and so it actually don't have to have as much water as other parts of the state. They can always be a herd of a good crop of hay if they get it watered. If it rained there dry farm grain would develop if they got one or two rains in the in the spring they could make it on that because of the ground holding its water. So they did have it kind of prosperous. They had nice flocks of pure blood sheep cattle and horses. They were probably a little more wealthy city than some of the cities around there they did have a good income. They had two banks one was the North Sanpete Bank and the other was the Commercial bank, there was several store, and two department stores, there was the progress Mercantile store and the J C Penney’s store, the Sanpete store down in the lower end of town and a smaller store that was quit a nice little store for out in the south west part of town it was called a branch it was a branch of the progress store, there was several meat markets and they were good ones they had their own meat, did their own butchering ageing their own 5 meat. Both meat markets did that. There was the Erickson meat and Groceries Company, and the Madson Brothers Groceries, Safeways was in there too, there was several cafes in fact there was 3 cafes two pretty good ones and one kind of a snack bar they all had a lot of patronage and able to going and they served good food. The people had quit a rounded out community they didn’t have to go to Salt Lake and other places to do there shooing probably a lot of them did because they liked a little vacation to get away from Mt Pleasant. But Provo was only 53 miles and they had good roads down there. People did spend their money there in Mt. Pleasant they were more concerned with its development and livelihood of the people in Mt, Pleasant, so they invested there money there and did their shopping there. LD: What was the population in Mt. Pleasant at this time? RG: I would say it was around in the late 20 it could have been 5000 people. All the houses were filled, there was no vacant homes. There were very few places to rent. The people took a lot of interest in the landscape and appearance of their homes and as long as they were working good and had an income they keep their homes up really well. Most places had reels but they keep them clean. Now they have dwindled away they have did away with the barn and stuff because they don’t have animals and milk cow's in the city as much as they us to. But they did have them then. The people were working there they all had a little band of sheep that they could have their own meat in the winter, most of them had pigs I don’t know of anybody that didn’t grow a few pigs through the winter they would kill them and they would quarter the meat there was two or three places in town that smoked the hams and you could have them smoked with apple 6 wood or walnut and difference kind of cherry wood. The people in the meat smoking business really did well. LD: When I lived in Mt. Pleasant it wasn't too prosperous or anything, what happened to it? RG: Well during 1928 and 29 were probably the two most prosperous years. The sheep price was high, the wool price was high, the cattle market was high, and they had a lot of business. Then came the Depression, and it hit Mt. Pleasant really hard the sheep and cattle business went to nothing the sheep at one time was baled at 20 to 25 dollars a head and probably droned down to 3 or 4 dollars a head there was several out fits that went broke. There was one outfit in Fairview the Anderson Brothers that offered to sell their sheep for 5 or 6 dollars a head when a few years earlier they were worth 20 dollars. So with the decline in price, no demand in sheep cattle and horses, they went broke. With that down fall the banks went broke. They went broke within 3 days of one and other. So you see it was quite a jolt to Mt Pleasant so from that time on they never did recover. It got so bad that the P.W.A. come in there. There was no work for the people and different organizations like the Desert Land and livestock took a lot of it and bought a lot of land, so the headquarters was moved from Mt. Pleasant. The people lost their jobs they didn’t have work like they had before so the P.W.A had to come in they was a good thing to help the people with a living at least they had something to do and were able to eat. It probably wasn't handled right and they didn't get their money’s worth out of it. They built sidewalks and things like that but the people just didn't understand the problems. It was like a lot of other things they just didn't do what they should have with the money. But there were some projects that did turn out all right. And that’s why Mt. Pleasant never has come back to its position in the county like it had. So the sheep 7 men went broke, there are some sheep men down there now and they own some of the land now but most of the sheep people that once had large flocks had gone out of business there was no work for the people so the just had to be laid off. The people without work just had to move out so now at this time there are only about 1500 people in Mt. Pleasant now. Now there are a lot of retired people from California moving in to the Mt. Pleasant valley. They are buying up all the empty houses and remodeling them and fixing them UP so they are very desirable to live in, so with the mountains and atmosphere that Mt. Pleasant has to offer it makes it a very enjoyable place to live . There are tired with the life of California. They may have good weather during the winter, but they are tired of the smog and traffic and the fast life. They should like it up here and they have no qualms about saying that they do like Mt Pleasant valley. Mt. Pleasant is a very beautiful place with its mountains and good spring water there is probably none better in the state of Utah. So I think Mt. Pleasant has more prospect of becoming a more prosperous city it least population wise than they did. 8