Rural Life Trends project, 1945

              UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Bureau of Agricultural Economics For administrative use Rural Life Trends Project H. Otto Dahlke June 1945 CURRENT AND ANTICIPATED RURAL MIGRATION, SUMMIT COUNTY, UTAH GENERAL BACKGROUND  The geographical features of the county place distinct limitations upon the economic structure of the county.  Minorals are the most important natural resources, and mining is, therefore, the dominant industry of the county.  It is confined to a small area in the southwest portion of the county centering around Park City.  This industry attracts men from the outside but it also employs many part-time farmers who commute to the mines from various parts of Summit and neighboring counties.  Vagaries of economic fortune have produced a shifting population.  When times are slack, a greater burden is placed upon the limited agricultural resources to maintain more people.  Mountains and foothills cover the major part of the county.  The amount of arable land is small.  Most of it is located along the Weber River, Chalk Creek, and Round Valley.  The high altitude of the county limits the growing season which varies from 75-90 days depending upon the location of the farm.  Summers are short and dry, winters long and severe.  Crops are limited to wheat, barley, oats, hay, and forage.  Though there is some dry farming, irrigation is necessary.  With this geographic basis the agricultural structure is simple.  At present farms are either in dairying or livestock.  Of these, dairying is the most important both by number of farms and by value of farm product produced.  There are also some farms specializing in poultry and poultry products and field crops.  About 15 percent of the farms in 1940 grew products primarily for home consumption.  Eighty-seven percent of the farms were owner-operated and 20 percent on a part-time basis.  Many part-time farmers worked in the mines.  Both types depended upon family labor for the operation of a farm.  Hired and seasonal workers have been few.  The agricultural structure also reveals itself in the gross value of farm products produced.  In 1940, 30.8 percent of the farms produced a value of farms produced a value of farm products under $600; 34.6 percent a gross value between $600 to $1,499-a total of 65 percent of farms producing a value of farm products under $1,500.  Only 9 percent or 46 farms producing a value of product over $4,000.  In terms of money returns agriculture has not offered much inducement, and this fact in conjunction with the limitations presented by the physical milieu has had an effect upon population movement.  Since 1890 the country has had an unstable population growth.  Reaching a high of almost 9,500 in 1900, the population both urban and rural declined during the next twenty years until it was 7,862.  The next decade witnessed -2- an upswing to the 1900 level.  During the lean thirties the population declined once more, a trend accelerated during the war years.  These changes seem to point out the instability of the county’s economy which mining apparently introduces.  Some of the largest decreases, however, have occurred in the rural population.  In 1940 the total population was 8,741.  Of this numer, 3,379 (43 percent) was urban; 2,905 (33 percent) rural nonfarm; and 2,070 (24 percent) rural farm.  The county is in the Mormon culture area and is well over 80 percent Mormon in rural farm areas.  Traditionally this region has had a high birth rate.  The fertility rate is unusually high.  In 1940, for example, there were 537 children per 1,000 women 15-44 years in the county, 555 children per 1,000 women for the rural nonfarm population, and 534 children per 1,000 women in the rural farm population-and this in spite of the statement by most people that families are much smaller than they used to be.  As a result of the relation of fertility rate and economic resources, there has been a heavy out-migration prior to 1940 in a search for better economic  opportunity.  Thus a net change in the rural-farm population due to migration 1930-40 is estimated as 900, or 35 percent of survivors to 1940 of persons living in 1930.  1/ Employment has been, moreover, a continuous problem.  As late as 1940 the census recorded 16 percent of males 14 and over in the labor market as seeking work or employed on Government work projects.  This was also true of 20 percent of the males in the rural nonfarm and 10 percent of the males in the rural-farm population.  WAR-TIME MIGRATION The war  accelerated existing population changes.  Increased migration which was primarily military brought about a net decrease in the total population (table 1).  At present the population of the county is about 7,400 but a further decrease is expected.  Military migration took out all males between 18 and 26 years except those on farm deferment.  The tremendous development of war industries and army camps in the Salt Lake-Ogden area, 40 miles from the county, took the majority of other migrants.  Because of their proximity many war workers have been commuting to work, several cars and a bus leaving every day.  The greatest change took place in the mining area, especially in Park City which suffered a tremendous loss of population.  Population loss was also large in Coalville, Kamas, and Henefer. It was primarily the urban population and the small subsistence or part-time farmers who left either for the war industries or for better farming opportunities elsewhere.  The rural farm population, however, was not immobile.  Its greatest loss was family labor to the armed forces, but others moved on elsewhere.  Of 110 Farm Security Administration clients, for example, twelve sought better agricultural opportunities outside the country, many of these moving up to Idaho.  Seven went into war 1/ Eleanor H. Bernert.  County Variation in Net Migration from the Rural-Farm Population, 1930-40.  Bur. Agr. Econ. Washington, D.C. 1944, p. 40.  -3- Table 1. - Estimated Population Changes, Summit County, Utah. 1940-1945 1/  1/ Data secured from ration boards, State Department of Education, State Department of Public Welfare, members of the Selective Service Board, Extension Service, and Farm Security Administration.  2/ Data for years 1940-1944.  industries.  The activities of an additional seven who left the county are not known.  A 15-percent turn-over took place among farm operators (table 2).  The number of operators who have died or retired suggests the completion of a generation cycle.  Most of these men have been replaced by their sons.  Table 2. -1945 status of farm operators on agricultural conservation program farms in 1940  Based on data from Agricultural Adjustment Agency tract sheets.  -4- PRODUCTION AND LABOR CHANGES The main lines of agricultural production have not changed except quantitatively.  Crops remained about the same. The prices received in the Salt Lake Milkshed and from Government subsides stimulated still more the trend toward dairying.  Even with scrub stock dairy farmers have been able to make out well.  The number of sheep and beef cattle, however, declined.  Range deterioration on both publicly and privately owned land, labor scarcity (sheep herders, for example), and prices have been important factors in this decrease.  Sheep decreased in some herds by 20 percent.  Many sheep men are not keeping their ewe lambs so that herd replacement will be more difficult.  Many who had small flocks of sheep sold out and turned to dairying or the war industries in which case they leased their land to others.  Nevertheless it is estimated that about 8 percent of the land is not fully used.  Work had to be carried out with the residual population since so much family labor was gone, and that meant a greater use of younger children and women, an accentuation of the traditional pattern.  There was furthermore a good deal of cooperation in the exchange of work and of machinery.  In fact, without such mutual aid many claimed that it would have been impossible to harvest their crops and put up hay.  Most of the older teen-age group has tried to get work in the war industries.  Those remaining and those still in high school have not been very interested in farm work because of the traditional low wages and long hours.  In dickering with farmers, however, they have used the example of wages and hours in the war industries as an argument to secure maximum advantages for themselves.  Obsolescent, wornout, and inadequate farm machinery has become a serious problem.  The county has not been heavily mechanized in the past, relying upon horse power.  In 1940, for example, only 32 farms reported having 34 tractors.  As others who were confronted with labor problems, farm operators tried to secure additional equipment.  Since the county has not been a large market for farm equipment, its allotment of machinery was exceedingly small.  Consequently few farmers were able to secure what they wanted.  Applications for tractors, hay stackers, grain binders, pickup balers, combines were hence also strongly discouraged by the War Rationing Board.  About 8 tractors were sold during the ration period, and in 1944 there were still 18 requests for wheel tractors on file.  Most prevalent reason was the replacement of horses and the second was the inability to get custom work done.  Farmers feel that the county has been discriminated against in the distribution of machinery, not even securing milking machines which, as some say, were the only thing that saved them.  The war has made the farmer more machinery conscious, and the post-war period may witness increased mechanization.  The desirability of using tractors rather than horses on the small farms, however, is questioned by some farm leaders.  Two developments represented a response to the growing importance of the dairy business.  A dairy marketing co-operative was started in 1940, selling whole milk to Salt Lake stores.  It began with 26 men, survived a -5- brief war with independent distributors, and now has about 60 members.  This co-operative, it is claimed, is now the third largest distributor of whole milk in Salt Lake City.  A feed and milling co-operative was organized in the fall of 1941 and began operating in February of 1943.  It was set up with a Farm Security Administration loan.  The organization has about 50 members.  It its second year of operation it has doubled its business.  Another development representing the culmination of long-time trends and problems was the establishment of two soil conservation districts which excepting a few small areas and the national forest cover the entire county.  The Kamas district is concerned with a water problem which is linked up with its system and method of irrigation, soil depletion and erosion, drainage, and other problems which related to the valley’s main industry of dairying.  The North Summit district is primarily concerned with a rebuilding of grazing and range land.  POST-WAR MIGRATION AND REEMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES	  The consensus in the county is that there is little to come back to.  The return of many war-time migrants whether military or otherwise is not expected unless there is a severe depression.  The continued out-migration of young men and women is taken for granted.  Soldiers and sailors who have been home on furlough and the few that have been discharged have as a whole indicated that they will not stay in the county.  At present they go to the war industries in the Salt Lake Basin with the thought that it is now their chance to get in on some of this big and easy money.  Agriculture does not present much opportunity.  Some outside people, mostly business men from Salt Lake City, have bought up property.  Replacement of older operators will not be a vital factor since it seems that a large amount of such replacement has already taken place (table 2).  The unbalanced man-land ratio will continue to persist in the post-war period so that the pre-war employment problem will reassert itself.  All arable land is under cultivation so that the probabilities of expansion are slim.  Land cannot be subdivided much further without creating a larger number of part-time or subsistence type of farms.  Farmers themselves leave to look for better opportunities in agriculture elsewhere.  The significance of the expansion of the dairy industry as regards employment is an unsettled questions.  The only other industry in the county is mining upon which a great many part-time farmers depend.  It does not appear that a major upswing will take place in this area in the post-war period, either in ore- or coal-mining.  It is also unlikely that Park City will be able to recoup its population loss.  The pattern of commuting to work seems preferable to living in Park City, and in the post-war period the means to bolster this pattern will be handy.  -6- POST-WAR PROGRAMS AND PLANNING  There are no special groups nor plans in addition to the current organizational setup of the county established specifically for the purpose of dealing with the post-war situation.  In general, people are not worrying about the future.  The county has, however, set aside a road building fund.  One of the towns is thinking of installing a sewage system as a post-war project.  The fundamental problem is the reorganization of the county’s agricultural practices and structure.  Whatever planning for the future is being carried out is directed to the improvement of the beef cattle, sheep, and, especially, the dairy business-and that occupies the attention of individuals, groups, and governmental agencies.  Post-war planning is then a matter of dealing with the changes and problems which involves a transition from one type of agricultural production to another and with the readjustment of agricultural practices which have become traditional, stabilized, and inefficient.  Both advisory and certifying committees for veterans wishing to settle down as farmers have been established.  SOURCES OF INFORMATION  For the county as a whole:  Mr. Lee Guyman, County Agent, Court House, Coalville, Utah.  Miss Carlson, Home Demonstration Agent, Court House, Coalville, Utah.  Mr. Vern Boyer, Agricultural Adjustment Agency secretary, Coalville, Utah.  Mr. A. J. Gardner, Farm Security Administration supervisor, Court House, Coalville, Utah  Each of these covers the county and each has a somewhat different perspective.  Mr. Lister, of the Kamas Soil Conservation District, Kamas, Utah, and Mr. Merriott, of the North Summit District, Coalville, Utah, can supply specific information on developments in their districts.  UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Bureau of Agricultural Economics For administrative use Rural Life Trends Project H. Otto Dahlke June 1945 CULTURAL RECONNAISSANCE, SUMMIT COUNTY, UTAH I. CULTURAL ORIGINS A. The Cultural Heritage  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints arose during the religious revivals and sprang out of the humanitarian and social fermentations of the early 19th century.  Cult characteristics speedily became transmuted into the attributes of the sect.  Regarding themselves as a peculiar and chose people, Mormons were at the start a conflict group with a tremendously strong and unified in-group feeling supported by a religious ethos which had profound spiritual and temporal significance.  In this religious atmosphere, in the period of trouble and travail leadership was charismatic, personified in Joseph Smith and later on in the colonizing genius Brigham Young, but the framework for rational domination, i.e., institutionalized order and control, was already implicit and organized in the first settlements and migrations of this group.  The emphasis upon their mission and uniqueness, perhaps also their economic success, usually resulted in a breakdown of amicable relations with non-Mormons, or Gentiles as they were called.  Hostility, persecution, and mob violence drove the Latter-Day Saints from Ohio to Missouri, then to Illinois, and finally to Utah.  The Gentiles, the world of Satan, had driven the Children of God into the wilderness where they again hoped to establish the divinely-ordered city of Zion.  The break with the hostile out-groups and the United States ironically failed, for after the tremendous hardships of the epochal trek to the Great Basin of Utah, they discovered that by the treaty of Guadalupe Hildago this Mexican territory had become part of the United States.  In spite of this quirk of fate the Mormons decided to remain.  In this mean land, “hard, dry, and fit only for the plodding, thrifty, sober Mormons,” the institutional organization of the Latter-Day Saints church and their method of colonization took definite form.  It was during this period of persecution, migration, and struggle with Utah environment that the priesthood received its claim to the direction of all activities of its people; that the function and purpose of the bishop was fully realized, not only as a spiritual leader but also as an economic and temporal leader; that the tithing system and fasting became established; that the prophet became the political authority; that the church spread out in business activities; that polygamy was extensively practiced and that the family received its special place in -2- Mormon theology.  1/ Without strong central authority the group would have fallen apart under the hostility of the Gentiles, the hardships of the migration, and the building of communities in the Great Basin.  Without the tithing and fast offerings the colonizing efforts could not have been carried out.  Most of the families which had migrated and many which came from England and Scandinavian countries had little chattel and money.   This fact in addition to the hostilities and difficulties of the physical milieu probably had an important effect upon the cooperative practices and use of family labor.  Conditions in the early days of the settlers in Utah were described by Parly Pratt, who was instrumental in the settlement of the eastern part of Summit County, in his journal of 1848:  My family and myself in common with many of the camp suffered much for food…. I had ploughed and subdued land to the amount of near forty acres and had cultivated the same in grain and vegetables.  In this labor every woman and child in my family… had joined to help me….Myself and some of them were compelled to go with bare feet for several months….we toiled hard and lived on a few greens and on thistle and other roots.  We had sometimes a little flour, and some cheese, and sometimes we were able to procure from our neighbors a little sour skimmed milk or buttermilk.  2/  The technique of colonization was designed to maintain the group in the struggle with a hostile physical environment.  The method was a type of group-settlement and the structure a farm-village arrangement.  The practices and problems of the frontier period are summarized in a letter upholding traditional ways which John Taylor, President of the Latter-Day Saints church wrote:  In all cases in making a new settlement, the Saints should be advised to gather together in villages as has been our custom from the time of our earlies settlement in these mountain valleys….By this means the people can retain their ecclesiastical organizations, have regular meetings of the quorums of the priesthood, and establish and maintain day and Sunday schools, Improvement Associations, and Relief Societies.  They can also cooperate for the good of all in financial and secular matters, in making ditches, fencing fields, building bridges, and other necessary improvements.  Further than this they are a mutual protection and a source of strength against horse and cattle thieves, land jumpers, etc., and against hostile Indians, should there be any; while their compact organization gives them many advantages of a social and civic character which might be --------1/ Ephraim Erickson. The Psychological and Ethical Aspects of Mormon Group Life.  Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago. p. 55.  1922.  2/ Writers’ Project. Utah. Hastings House, New York. P. 62. 1941 -3- lost, misapplied, or frittered away by spreading out so thinly that intercommunication is difficult, dangerous, inconvenient, and expensive. 3/ This village system is often compared to the peasant villages in Europe.  House, barn, and garden are in the village.  A man does not live on his farm. The fields are scattered around the periphery of the settlement.  The farmer commutes from the village to the various fields which he cultivates.  The main policy of the earlier days of Mormon settlement was to establish communities based on an agricultural economy.  “The business of a Saint is to stay home and make his fields green.”  Mining was hence strongly discouraged.  As a result it became the main business of the Gentiles.  The exhortation of Orson F. Whitney, “Who wishes to see Deseret, peaceful Deseret, the home of a people who fled for religious freedom and quiet to these mountain solitudes, converted into a rollicking, roaring mining camp.  Not the Latter-Day Saints!” 4/ was a plea made in vain by Gentiles plus railroads plus mines.  The development of mining and growth of mining towns helped agricultural development, for they furnished an outlet for farm products and timber.  In some areas a mining-agriculture relationship was established.  Some venturesome Mormons also became miners.  Once established, tried, and its ways proved, the Mormon farm-village society with its marked religious structure and control became traditional, and it withstood successfully the encroachments of the Gentiles and the onslaughts of the Federal Government which culminated in the rather infamous “polyg” hunts of the late eighties.  The Gentiles sought to break down the social and economic domination of the Mormons.  The issue in the words of Judge McKean was a matter of “Federal Authority versus Polygamic Theocracy.”  This struggle strengthened the existing institutional structure and in-group conservatism, especially among those living in rural districts, even though the practice of polygamy was renounced in the revelation of 1890.  The renunciation of this practice, however, introduced dissension within the church which has not been settled to date.  After 1890 the Gentile world and the Mormons effected a rapprochement to such an extent that “The philosophy of the church leaders which was at one time radical and socialistic…is now conservative and capitalistic.  The United Order is as far from their minds as is the socialism from the minds of the owners of large corporations….The older members of the church, who live in rural districts and have not kept pace with this developing  business spirit, holding still to the old cooperative and communistic notion of the pioneers…are inclined 3/ Wallace Stener. Mormon Country.  Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, New York. Quoated p. 31. 1942.  4/ Writers Project. Utah. Hastings House, New York, p. 120, 1941.  -4- to question some of the business attitudes of their leaders and (are) inclined to hold to the traditional notion that the church should promote the interest of Zion and her people.” 5/ Thus, coming to terms with the world introduced on internal instability and shift from social innovations to theological purity, doctrinal integrity, spiritual exercises, and emphasis upon faith.  The original creative impulse had run its course.  All these factors are visible in the history of Summit County.  When small groups of Mormons entered the high mountain valleys of the Wasatch range around 1859, they took along the social, cultural, and economic achievements of the pioneers of 1847: mutualism, cooperative irrigation, the retail cooperative patterned after the Zion Cooperative Mercantile Institute in Salt Lake City, mining, small farms, isolation, Mormon-Gentile hostilities, the farm-village, familism, the pervading religious ethos and church structure-the establishment of a patriarchal, theocratic society. “In early days,” said an old-timer, “we had to do everything-farm, mine, irrigate, clear land.  At that time we had log cabins and sod roofs.  About 1880 we burned bricks locally and built some one- and two-story houses.  Farming wasn’t of much account.  The valley was too narrow.  The church had a coal mine.  There were other mines too.  When they stopped, people moved out.  People farmed or otherwise they had to leave.  Work just wasn’t around.  It’s the same story today.  People used to walk or ride horses to Salt Lake City or Ogden.  That was hard.  Now Salt Lake is too close.  Grab a car and drive in.  People were more together in those days, cooperated and worked together more.  Now there are several small organizations in the town instead of the original unity.”  Early Mormons had little of material goods, but they had the spirit and hope of a new world.  Settlers in Summit County came from New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa-areas where the Mormons had their first origins and tribulations.  Later they also came from California and other Rocky Mountain States.  Proselyting activities of the church’s missionaries brought a large influx of settlers from England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the Scandinavian countries.  Many of those were also in want and perhaps quite a few walked the thousands of miles from the Omaha outpost to Utah, pushing and pulling their few belongings in wheelbarrows and handcarts.  Not all settlers were Mormon.  Mining took an early start in the country with the opening of coal veins around Coalville in 1861, and this became an important industry until the Carbon Emory coal fields became prominent producers.  One was discovered in the Uintah section in 1869, and in 1872, with the opening of the Ontario, mining became the dominant industry in the county.  Development of the mines also rested 5/ Ephraim Erickson.  The Psychological and Ethical Aspects of Mormon Group Life.  Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago.  pp. 71-2.  1922.  Hamilton Gordon. “Cooperation Among Mormons.” Quarterly Journal of Economics. Vol. 21, May 1917.  pp. 461-99.  -5- upon the development of railroads, so the period between 1867 and 1882 marked a period of railroad construction.  These activities brought in the Gentile-not only north Europeans but also Slavs, and Slovaks.  Many of the miners and railroad jacks were Irish Catholics.  Lutheran Norwegians and Danes also went into the mines and into the timbers and quarries of the county.  Park City was the headquarters of the non-Mormon population, native and foreign-born.  The foreign-born, once 42 percent of the population is now only 5 percent.  The denominational groups dwindled.  Their fortunes rose and fell with the fortunes of the mining industry.  Gentiles, mining and railroads, Mormons and agriculture, a complex of contending groups until a rapprochement and accommodation came about in the passage of time: Summit County was in miniature Utah history.  The Mormons in the county were caught almost immediately in a mining-agriculture relationship which has been maintained to the present day.  It is highly probable that the more secular and mundane influence of the miners and mining towns counteracted the more rigid behavioral codes of the Mormon church.  The population of the county never became very large.  In fact, there was so little to induce large settlement that Mormons themselves thought that natural increase would have to populate the area.  The population reached a high of 9,439 in 1900 and then steadily declined for the next twenty years until 1920 when it was 7,862.  This period was characterized by a severe contraction in mining operations.  During the next decade the population was 9,527 by 1930 and during these ten years mining operations expanded considerably.  Between 1930 and 1940 the trend reversed itself again. Mining operations again decreased, and the population moved out.  Part of this out-migration, however, was surplus population and involved young men and women leaving the county for better economic opportunity elsewhere.  The loss of this young group may have strengthened the conservative character of the farm population. Thus, the last decade witnessed a further decline (4.2 percent) of the rural farm population but an increase (6.3 percent) in the rural nonfarm.  In 1940 the population was distributed as follows: urban, 3,379 (42.9 percent); rural nonfarm, 2,905 (33.3 percent), and rural farm, 2,070 (23.8 percent).  B. The Physical Environment The physical environment imposes definite limitations upon economic activities in the county.  The county has an area of 1,190,400 acres of which 3 percent is available for crops.  This cropland is primarily in the Weber, Chalk Creek, and Round Valleys.  The greater part is in foothills and rugged mountains which furnish  spring-fall and summer range.  Precipitation is high, averaging yearly 20 inches at Marion, 21 at Park City, and 18 at Henefer, so that there is ample run-off for irrigation.  In some parts of the county dry farming is attempted.  The growing season is quite short-about 80 days at Henefer and 70 at Kamas.  This difference -6- may be a matter of altitude, as Henefer is at an elevation of 5,317 feet and Kamas 5,437.  Summers are short and dry, winters long and cold.  Hence crops are limited to small grain, hay, and hardier vegetables as lettuce, cabbage, and spinach.  The valleys are also laid out in pastures and meadows.  Foothills and mountains furnish the range for grazing.  Agricultural resources immediately stamped a range-livestock type of farming upon the county.  More important economically are mineral resources, coal in the northern part and nonferrous metals in the southwest.  The mining of coal, however, has declined and is unimportant.  The ore mines have been exceedingly rich producers, but their importance has varied considerably after the heyday of silver kings.  The mines have given employment to farmers during the slack winter months and to part-time farmers year-round employment.  Since the settlement of the valleys man-made complications have arisen.  Soils originally were quite fertile, but now there are problems of soil depletion, erosion, drainage, mineral deficiencies, leaching of lime, and others.  The original vegetation has almost disappeared, being replaced by less palatable grasses, as Russian thistle.  This loss has been primarily a result of overgrazing by sheep, both local and outside herds.  Spring flooding of meadows and fields has led to the growth of inferior types of grasses.  This practice became imprinted into the country by law when irrigation laws were revised.  The physical environment may also have strengthened the social and economic system the Mormons established, especially in earlier days, and contrariwise weakened it in later years.  Settlers were few because of the limited resources, and hence there were was additional inducement  and support of the polygamic folkway and the patriarchal family.  In this way the valleys could be populated and the Gentile kept out.  The limitations imposed upon agricultural practices easily made them traditional and relatively unchanging.  A living could be made without great mental and physical exertion.  The long winters and vicinal isolation set the pattern more firmly so that life flowed easily if not leisurely around the simplicities of livestock raising, the activities of the village communities and the church, varied nevertheless by the boisterous behavior of the miners.  The large families coupled with limited amounts of land brought about a division of farms through the process of inheritance to a size which tended to make them uneconomical unites for either livestock or dairy production.  As a result people had to look elsewhere for additional income, and this meant for many the mines, an undesirable type of contact from the church’s point of view.  C.  Post-Settlement Adaptations and Adjustments The general economic and social of the county has not undergone many fundamental shifts, whatever changes have taken place may be said to be primarily quantitative, i.e., in size of population and size of family, number of sheep or beef cattle, number of schools, -7- number of acres in wheat or alfalfa.  The institutions, economic and social practices, and rituals remained the same except for one instance.  Their perpetuation and their interaction with the physical environment produced a gradual accumulation of interrelated problems so that the county is now in process of revitalizing its agricultural system.  To periodize the history of the county is a rather arbitrary matter.  Up to 1900 the county was expanding in all aspects.  Agriculture probably had its maximum expansion.  The number of farms increased from 180 in 1870 to 608 in 1900, the largest number the county ever had in a census year.  It was also the year when the county had the greatest number of large-sized farms.  It was also the year when the sheep industry hit its highest point, by census figures.  In this period improved land rose from 4,927 acres to 35,296 acres.  Irrigated land steadily increased.  Transportation had improved somewhat.  Railroads had been built to the mines, but the county itself remained isolate.  Roads were still poor.  Cattle were driven to Wanship and shipped by train.  The ore mines around Park City were producing at a maximum.  The coal mines around Coalville had diminished in importance.  The Mormon church was functioning in full capacity.  Summit Stake was organized in 1877 with ten wards.  Its members went through the shock of this 1890 revelation which was a fundamental institutional change affecting both church and family living, but by this time a wide network of kin relations had become established.  Mormon families became locality groups.  Most of the public district schools had been established, competing with Mormon and denominational schools.  Four denominational schools were in Park City and one in Kamas.  By the turn of the century they had declined in favor of the public school system, which was now free and compulsory.  From 1900 to 1920 the county went into a tailspin and came out of it the next decade, but by that time its structure began to undergo some severe jolts and strains.  Mining went a tailspin and came out of it the next decade, but by that time its structure began to undergo some severe jolts and strains.  Mining went into an eclipse and along with it the population.  Miners and their adherents left.  The small farmers straddled the land, working out a living while waiting for the mines to open again.  The number of sheep declined rapidly, a 100 percent difference between 1910 and 1920.  The number of beef cattle fluctuated erratically.  Milk production went down, 22 percent between the census years 1900 and 1910 and 9 percent in the next decade.  Religious life underwent slight modifications.  The Mormon church added a few more words, closed its academy in Coalville when high schools were organized and proved too much competition, but otherwise its path was more or less serene without major upheaval until the big relief jolt in the thirties.  The other denominations began to shrink in numbers, a decline directly linked with the conditions of the mines.  Vicinal isolation began to diminish with the grading and improving of roads.  The elaborate horse culture complex began to wane.  Freighting, -8- hauling, breeding of superior draft horses gradually gave way to the truck.  The automobile increased mobility.  The solid little communities began to crack.  The outside world and secularization began to creep in.  the first World War was another impact that turned attention outside of the county and disturbed existing conditions by drawing out its manpower.  Nineteen hundred twenty seems to mark a fin de siècle in American living, a time when the full impact of technology and communication broke the shells of isolated rural communities and poured in the standardizations of modern life through the movie, radio, telephone, paved road, and motor transportation.  The decade 1920-30 hence marked the beginning of a transition period from the past.  People had to wait a little longer for the better roads, the telephone, electricity, and other new goods.  Living a fairly leisurely pace, they jumped into a race “keeping up with the Jones’.”  The lure of the automobile, the blandishments of the supersalesman proved  too much, the installment plan a too-attractive way to secure the new goods.  Debts and mortgages popped like mushrooms.  The “rubber-tire” farmer began to make his appearance.  The sudden zoom into a faster moving pattern of action was accompanied by a growth of special interest groups, a somewhat growing indifference or conventionality of religious behavior which the church’s theological seminaries sought to overcome.  Increased secular education and mobility and new interests weakened the old forms.  Paramount was a shift in the country’s economic life, the slow end of the range livestock period.  The quality of beef suddenly deteriorated during the twenties.  As a compensatory response, and also stimulated by Salt Lake City dairy companies, there began an increase dairy activity, the sale of whole milk.  In the meanwhile the maladjustments in agricultural practices were reaching a point that called for action.  The Mormon co-ops died out.  Retail business was in private hands.  Debts, mortgages, drought, low prices, relief, Agricultural Adjustment Agency, Farm Security Administration, county agricultural planning committees, these items culminated in the thirties.  The time was ripe for drastic action, but traditional practices held their own.  Worries accumulated.  Nothing was done, however, until the 1940’s when two soil conservation districts were established.  In the meanwhile, the Agricultural Adjustment Agency, Farm Security Administration, and Extension Services had been pecking away at traditional practices.  D.  Contacts and Relationships with Other Areas  Contacts with the outside were few and sporadic until modern roads and cars provided the means of going beyond the country boundaries.  The Mormon village remained much the same except for variations which miners may have introduced, primarily lodging houses and liquor.  Construction work at various times brought in a temporary population, as the construction of the Echo dam and the Weber-Provo diversion ditch whose influence was also evanescent.  Mormon missionaries left the county to serve their two or three years, and if they returned to the county, they had little effect upon its traditional pattern.  Furthermore, the long winters with -9- their heavy snows blocked the roads so that the county was isolated from the outside during that period.  Only recently have roads been open the year-round.  Of modern influences, the school is probably the most effective agency for bringing contact from the outside.  The second source is other public agencies and programs, such as the Agricultural Adjustment Agency, Farm Security Administration, and Extension Services, who have both educational and practical objectives.  The auto brought Salt Lake City and Ogden closer.  The main effect was to shift certain types of purchases to these cities.  This brought a decline in local business.  II. TECHNIQUES AND PATTERNS OF MAKING A LIVING  A.  The Agricultural Products Produced  Currently it is estimated that 40,000 sheep are resident in the county and 70,000 outside the county.  The relationship between dairy and beef cattle has reversed itself.  Dairy cattle number approximately 5,400 and beef cattle about 3,800.  The dairy industry is localized predominately in the Kamas area and sheep in the northern area, especially between Wanship and Coalville.  In this latter area, however, sheep are giving way to dairy cattle.  Local cheese factories have declined.  The one remaining plant now serves as a milk collection depot.  The whole-milk market has taken precedence.  Table 1. - Acreage of field crops, Summit County, 1879 to 1939 Table 2. - Number of livestock and gallons of milk produced 1879-1939 1/ -10- B.  The Machines and Tools of Production  The county up to 1940 exhibited a horse culture complex.  The few types of machinery used were mostly horse-drawn and powered.  At one time the county had a high reputation of breeding draft horses, but this activity has dwindled.  The position of the horse as the main source of power has sunk, and the machine (tractor) culture complex has been ascendant.  In 1940, however, only 32 of the 513 farms reported having tractors, so that the machine in practice did not have the importance of the horse, but since 1940 farmers have become tractor conscious with all the implications which motor-powered equipment involves.  Prior to rationing, farmers hurried to get tractors so that the number now is much higher.  During the rationing period only eight tractors came into the county and 18 applications were still on file.  Most of the applicants wanted to replace their horses.  There is no unanimity on the role of the tractor.  Some think that the practice of selling horses and buying tractors among the small farmers should be discouraged and that instead horses should be bred and used on such farms.  Most of the equipment in the county is used in connection with its livestock and dairy production, primarily haying and putting up grain crops.  Plows, harrows, mowers, rakes, hay loaders and stackers, manure spreaders, grain binders and combines are the most common types of equipment.  Milking machines have been used since the war.  In addition, there is the sheepherder’s wagon which spots the county at intervals.  The truck is also important.  Value of implements and machinery was rather low, $539 per farm (1940 census).  Since the war much of it has become worn out and obsolescent.  Implements and machinery do not have any special position of prestige among other objects.  The status of different types is in flux.  Those who have gone over to the tractor are developing a machine-value complex.  Others keep a traditional place within the horse-culture complex.  C. The Nonmaterial Technique of Production  “We had to do something to improve our farms.”  This statement by one of the progressive farmers suggests the plight into which traditional practices had gradually pushed the county’s agriculture.  “We had to do something.”  This concern is not shared equally among all farmers, for the drive for technical knowledge characteristic in areas of intense competition is lacking.  There is, however, a difference between generations.  The younger farmers are more interested and enthusiastic about securing new ideas.  “They (the older men) don’t do anything to hinder but they won’t push,” observed a young farmer, but then again: “We know that things should be done be we just slide along.”  Improved methods are hardly in the county, and the few that slipped in have been Government subsidized, either Agricultural Adjustment Agency or Farm Security Administration.  This fact led a small farmer to observe that the Government knew what to do and could tell the farmers what to do, otherwise nothing would get done.  Here then is a resistance to change and innovation which characterized a traditional culture group, rejecting the new, suspecting the outside, and adhering to -11- the past.  The loss of young people, the part-time farm and mine relationship, the old patterns of the range livestock days may have been contributing factors in fostering this cultural inertia, but many believe that they are in a period of transition, even though the shift from range livestock to dairying has been completed.  The old system balances on the negative side.  As county planning committee reports since 1938 show, every aspect of agriculture needs improvement-the system of irrigation, livestock breeding and feeding, range pasture, soils, general crops, dairying, weed control, farm and home finance, and technical knowledge.  To take one example, the practice of heavy spring flooding.  In earlier days people thought that the water supply was unlimited and used it copiously.  Some say that it was “squandered.”  This practice was based on the idea that if the ground were thoroughly soaked it would retain sufficient moisture to keep things during the late season when the runoff was less.  There was some basis for this in their experience.  Such flooding, however, favored the growth of shallow rooted grasses, as sedges, wire grass, and horsetail.  The practice also leached lime out of the soil, produced drainage problems, and favored erosion.  Famers also thought that the flooding of bottomlands by silt-laden spring run-off added fertility to this land.  This traditional practice became codified into law during a revamping of irrigation laws, for farmers were interested in duty rather than in use.  In addition to previous problems which arose out of this practice, most of the fields burn out toward the end of the dry season.  When water is needed the most, they cannot have it.  The resolution is partly legal.  It also rests upon the development of adequate storage facilities so that the spring run-off can be held until needed, and this part involves a reorganization of the system of irrigation both as to enterprise structure and technique.  The effects of the past practices can be seen in the value of land and buildings over a period of years (table 3).  The ratio of debt to value Table 3. - Value of land and buildings and ratio of debt to value of farm owners, 1910-40  of farm land and buildings for farm owners also increased.  Examining the -12- debt situation in the county, a committee stated: “Facing this condition it seems evident that something must be done to encourage rural people to reduce their standards and so live within their income, or in some way increase their present income…..”6/ It made three recommendations: “1. Permanent reduction on all interest rates, especially Government loans; 2. Discourage installment buying unless on necessities; 3. That the family plan to increase the income and budget this income so that they can live within it.”  7/ In-and-out farmers, absentee, and “rubber-tire” farmers may have contributed to this problem, for part of the problem lies in the living and working habits of the people.  Cooperation has also been traditionalized so that newer developments have had a more difficult time getting started.  Earlier cooperation was also strongly conditioned by family relations, whereas, the more recent represent the association of interested individuals.  The older types are the numerous small irrigation companies, now dated and less efficient, the cooperative sheep herds, cattle and horse associations, and wool pools.  Cooperative bull blocks and cooperative use of machinery have not worked out.  A dairy marketing cooperative and mill and feed cooperative have been established since 1940.  Agencies concentrating upon farm problems include: Agricultural Adjustment Agency, Farm Security Administration, Soil Conservation Service, Extension Service, Bureau of Animal Industry, the Agricultural College, and the high schools with adult education.  The Future Farmers of America and 4-H clubs are also becoming significant.  The Lion’s Club has a Livestock Improvement Committee which has funds to buy desirable bull calves for breeding purposes.  All of these agencies have to struggle with this cultural inertia.  D. Man-Land Relations  People live in small villages along the Weber River, Chalk Creek, and Round Valley.  A few are scattered in other canyons.  There are 11 villages.  The smaller range between 100-300 people and the larger from 600 to 900.  The village-farm system still predominates, and many farmers live in the village, commuting to their scattered fields.  Marion is probably the only section where farmsteads are spread out on the land.  There are some traces of line development.  Hoytsville, it is facetiously observed, is a village seven miles long.  Even though the rural nonfarm population predominates in the villages, there is hardly a person in town that does not have some connection with a small farm or acreage.  In fact, about one-fourth of the employed males in this group are engaged in agriculture.  Settlement now is a mixture of village, line, and dispersed types.  Rural nonfarm population composed one-third of the 1940 population and rural farm one-fourth.  6/ Utah County Planning Report, p. 176. 1939.  7/ Ibid. p. 177.  -13- Summit County deviates somewhat from the Mormon pattern of small farms cultivated intensively, a pattern more characteristic in the Great Basin, but popular opinion is inclined to stress the small 10- and 20-acre farm.  Farms began in a small way, over 80 percent were under 49 acres in 1870.  As settlement increased, as more land was brought under cultivation and irrigation, and as the range-livestock pattern became established, farms rapidly increased in number and in size.  The smaller farm, in fact, decreased, but between 1930 and 1940 the trend reversed itself.  Though the number of small farms has increased, the size remained about the same (table 4).  Variations in acreage occurred primarily in the amount of rangeland used for grazing.  More than 31 percent of the farms are considered inadequate for a livestock or dairy setup.  From this point of view the local emphasis upon the number of small farms indicates recognition of a difficult problem.  Table 4-Number of farms and average number of acres per farm in 1940; average number acres of cropland per farm, 1939; Summit County, Utah  The original pattern of land ownership has maintained itself.  Buying and selling land in the pioneer period was frowned upon as disruptive of the unity of the group.  At present, full owners compose 77 percent of farmers, part-owners 10 percent, and tenants 11 percent.  An increase in number of farms due to a division of land among heirs apparently has not taken place on a large scale, and this in spite of the fact that there is an usually high fertility rate in the county.  The usual explanation lies in out-migration.  Invidious distinctions among these various farm groups are not very strong.  The part-time farmer is apt to receive more adverse comment.  There is also some sense of difference and superior worth between progressive and less progressive farmers, but it is more of a functional distinction than an evaluation one E. Nonfarm Activities Work off the farm for pay and income plays an important part in the county’s economy.  In 1934 when the country was inching its way -14- out of the depths of the depression, 62.0 percent of the farm operators worked off their farms, in 1939 it was 37.0 percent of the operators.  Of the 190 who worked for pay or income, 158 (31 percent) averaged 5 months of nonfarm work.  Nonfarm work in North Summit centers in the cement plant, railroad, and coal mines.  In the upper Weber Valley, i.e., South Summit, such work will center primarily in the silver-lead mines around Park City.  The mines cater to the part-time farmer as this insures them a dependable labor supply.  Most of the employed rural nonfarm population work in the mines.  Next in importance for this group are professional and trade services.  The small farms of these two groups are considered somewhat of a stumbling block in the development of the dairy industry.  Since they can devote little time to agricultural activities, their stock and land are likely to receive less care and planning.  The backward condition of farming is, however, not solely the effect of the small farms, though one is apt to receive that impression from local people, but it is characteristic of the whole county.  Still the part-time farmer is somewhat of an unstable element in the agricultural structure.  Some think that the unsteadiness of employment, hours of work, wage income of the mines do not gibe with the rhythm of work and returns in agriculture.  The drinking problem in the county about which there is much talk and contradictory evidence is supposed to be linked with this group.  F.  Cycles of Activities The county has a relatively simple pattern.  During spring there is lambing, shearing of wool, gradual collection of the co-op herds of sheep and livestock which are then driven to pasture in the hills.  Most of the plowing and sowing of crops is done during the spring months.  During May and June the greater part of irrigation is completed.  Haying is completed by September, and other crops are in.  Sheep and cattle return the latter part of September and first part of October.  Some of the nonresident herds will then be taken to the western part of the Great Basin for winter pasture. The co-op herds are split up among the owners, and the sheep and cattle are pastured and dry fed on the valley farms.  At this time livestock is also sold.  The long winter months then set in.  Some farmers may go into the mines or into the remnants of the timber industry, but for others their dairy and poultry business keeps them busy the year-round.  Since farmers range their cattle and sheep during the months of June to September and hire herders, they are relieved of part of their work, except for their grain crops, hay and forage, and dairy cows.  To this degree they can have considerable leisure and quite a few take it, as rural nonfarm people have rather acrimoniously observed.  Aside from the national holidays, there are several local and Statewide events of importance.  These include the county fair, usually held the first of September at Coalville, Pioneer Day on July 24 (the Mormon 4th), and the Kamas Valley Festival, also held in September.  During the winter months high school events and Mutual activities take over.  The high schools reserve Friday evening as their night and Mutual continues its -13- traditional Tuesday and such weekends as needed for budget dances.  In May, Mutual and school events come to a close.  G.  Levels and Standards of Living from the Land  There are few differences between the rural-farm and rural nonfarm level of living.  The Hagood index is eight points higher for the latter.  There is little difference in the following items: electric lighting, radios, mechanical refrigeration, cooking with coal or coke, having a heating stove.  About 40 percent of the dwelling units have been built before 1900.  Many of them were built out of native rock and stone.  Quite a few dwelling units in North Summit were built with bricks which were made in Coalville in 1888.  There are hence more substantial structures in the northern part of the county, and they also give it a rather distinctive architectural character.  The addition of wooden sections to this native architecture has tended to spoil its charm and simplicity.  In most villages and towns remnants of  the frontier log cabin can be found.  In Coalville, for example, the entire architectural history of the county can be traced.  Rural housing probably reflects the old Mormon stress upon the large family.  There was a need for room.  Only 20 percent of the dwelling units have 3 or less rooms; 47 percent are 4- or 5-room units.  This size is in startling contrast to the rural nonfarm dwelling units where 42 percent have 3 rooms or less and 46 percent 4 and 5 rooms.  It is not improbable that many of these are wooden structures.  A few basement houses are found scattered through the county.  A goodly number of dwelling units are now in need of major repairs.  It has been said that a pattern of “keeping up with the Joneses” has prevailed in the county.  This effort to keep up with or outshine one’s neighbor with material possessions has perhaps straddled the county with its heavy debt load.  The expression of this conspicuous consumption is not very apparent, unless it has been in having a good time, in competitive entertainment, or in going to Salt Lake City, or a competitive display of automobiles.  The latest model car has probably been the more obvious expression of social competition.  Debts, however, do not appear to have diminished the pattern for getting along with life as is.  III.  SOCIAL ORGANIZATION	A. Class and Status Groups  Very marked and distinct status groups do not occur in the county at the present.  The sharp demarcation between Mormons and Gentiles which characterized the early history of State and county has become blurred and relatively unimportant.  Non-Mormons, however, in the agricultural areas do sense that they are a minority group and that the Mormons as a church group are likely to wield more political power and secure special concessions.  There are, however, few if any barriers to interaction among individuals.  They are friendly, talk but do not necessarily visit.  There are some recognized differences between part-time farmer, the -16- progressive farmer, and the traditionally less progressive farmer, each viewing the other with a certain amount of disfavor and dislike.  The first and last type are less likely to become members of special interest groups.  In the larger villages there are cliques, based on occupational lines, but these cliques do not represent individuos distinctions.  The Mormons are not a homogenous entity.  Differences in status are linked with position in church structure.  Further, membership in a pioneer Mormon family confers special prestige.  Some of the early families were also the larger landholders, and still control developments today by their ownership of property.  These families are also localized in area.  A family name is hence an index of social position and locality.  These groups impart a familisitic principle to the organization of the social structure.  B.  The Family  The family is still one of the most important human groupings in the county, and not merely because of the important position it occupies in Mormon theology.  The family, it might be said, is just coming out of the frontier period, from those days when a man as patriarchal head of a large family received special esteem, when family cooperation and family labor were of utmost importance in the welfare of both family and community.  The large pioneer families are still dominant.  They became identified with localities and proliferated into a wide network of kin relations.  The tradition of the pioneer family, however, has dimmed with the passage of years.  The renunciation of the practice of polygamy was a radical change in family form as well as a defeat inflicted by the power and mores of the greater society.  The impact of external ideas and manners continues to weaken the old Mormon family idea.  When once families of eight to ten children were considered normal, such a size is considered by present generation as extraordinary.  The trend is toward four children.  The younger generation views a family from a modern urban slant.  The argument for a small family is primarily in terms of changed conditions and standard of living, costs of raising a large family, and providing opportunity for children, but at the same time the social values of the large family are acknowledged….reluctant turning from the past.  Though size of family may have decreased, family functions still remain much the same.  Family labor is an indispensable part of agriculture.  Family labor equals farm operators in numbers.  Children work at chores at an early age, driving teams, milking, etc.  Such work is considered necessary training for the future which some farmers think is more important than book learning and agricultural school training.  While the economic and educational functions of the family continue, in-roads have been made by the school system and extension work which take up time and direct activities of farm youth.  The consolidated school, moreover, has weakened locality ties.  -17- There are no general aspirations which characterize families.  The type of occupation will be the child’s choice, so many say.  Some want their children to continue in agriculture.  Others think that the limited opportunities in the county will force most of the children to migrate when they have matured.  Some try to send all their children to institutions of higher education, but others consider it a waste of time.  C.  Schools The history of schools in Summit County marked a transition from privately to publicly supported education, from schools used as a tool in social conflict to an instrument of public policy.  There were three types of schools in the county-denominational, territorial, and Mormon.  Three denomination schools were in Park City, the Gentile stronghold, and one in Kamas.  After 1900 they all passed out of the picture.  The remnant of Mormon education is confined to religious instruction in the seminaries.  Each small community in the county had its elementary school.  They were originally local institutions, supported and directed by the town, but in 1890 free public education was established throughout the territory.  By 1905 all the elementary schools had been built.  In this year the boards of county commissioners were given the right to consolidate the schools in their counties.  In 1910 the State legislature voted a special tax for the support of high schools.  In 1911 counties were authorized to consolidate for high school purposes.  The Summit Stake Academy closed in 1913 when high schools began to operate.  The closing of this school marked the loss of a focal point of many Mormon activities.  At present there are three school districts-North Summit, South Summit, and Park City.  The South Summit schools were completely consolidated in 1940.  All instruction takes place in Kamas and includes a territory extending from Pexoa [Peoa] to Woodland.  Consolidation has taken place less rapidly in North Summit.  Distances may have an effect here, but nevertheless, the seventh and eighth grades are taught in Coalville.  There are six elementary schools still operating in North Summit.  Rockport consolidated recently.  Other localities fear that efforts will be made to consolidate the other schools into Coalville.  Opposition will undoubtedly be strong and hot.  Current school laws compel full-time attendance to the age of 16 and part-time four hours a week for a period of 20 weeks between the ages of 16 and 18.  There is almost 100 percent attendance.  Vocational agriculture and home economics have been taught in the two Summit school districts since the past ten years.  The schools in this aspect may become an important factor in social change.  The Future Farmers of America group in one school, for example, has carried out a butter-fat testing program involving 700 cows.  Both schools have conducted adult classes primarily in the care and repair of farm machinery.  Farmers were at first reluctant to respond to the school programs, but their suspicion has now been overcome.  Enrollment in the agricultural course has dropped during the war. -18- The schools are closely linked with the community.  Friday night is set aside for school activities.  One district supported this program from school funds in 1943 and intends to continue with policy.  With free admission community attendance to these various school events has increased.  This same school district is also carrying out a summer program in which the teachers in agriculture, foods and textiles, music, physical education, and speech are available for community service functions.  May teachers, moreover, are active as leaders in Mutual activities.  D. The Church  The dominant church is, of course, the Mormon church.  Sixty-three percent of the population in 1939 was Mormon.  Non-Mormon churches have dwindled and some have died.  The only non-Mormon churches are in Park City.  Non-Mormons in other parts of the county, hence, do not attend a church unless they go to one of the Latter-Day Saints churches.  Table 5.-Membership in selected denominations, 1926 and 1936, Summit County, Utah  Religious behavior has become more conventionalized.  Church attendance is less than 25 percent of ward population.  In the smaller villages the church is the main center of activities, and people participate more extensively.  Some think that church attendance is more of a women’s affair.  In the larger villages, special interest groups compete with church functions.  The breakdown of the original unity of the county, a unity in and through the Mormon church, is deplored by older residents who refer to the special groups with contumely.  It does not appear that patterns of work, cooperation, drinking, playing slot machines are strongly influenced by the church.  The church, however is endeavoring to re-establish greater interest in mutual aid and cooperation through its welfare program.  In spite of secularization of the population, the church is still the main institution outside of the family for many individuals in the county.  -19- E. Community Organizations There are not many special organizations in North and South Summit, but Park City has quite a complex group life which has, however, little relationship with the rural population.  In most every village the Relief Society, a mother’s club of some sort, 4-H, and Boy Scout group will be found, and these in turn are activities of the Latter-Day Saints church and extension service.  Special groups are found primarily in three of the thirteen villages.  These include the Lion’s American Legion and Auxiliary, art clubs, and professional organizations.  These groups are composed primarily of the village people.  There are several farm organizations, but most of these deal with production and marketing.  There are three cattle and horse associations and two cooperative sheep grazing associations.  The Farm Bureau is the only general farm organization which is open to all.  Its membership is around 275.  It is more active in the northern end of the county, presumably because of the wool pool, for sheep industry is largest in that section.  Local evaluations of the organization vary considerably.  F.  Social Welfare Activities Public welfare and assistance did not become organized and established until 1935.  Prior to that date there was only a statutory provision passed in 1888 which charged county commissioners with care of the poor and indigent.  Later provisions, optional, however, empowered county commissioner to make special levies for mothers’ aid (193), old age pensions (1929), and aid to the needy blind (1931).  At least in terms of legislation, Utah and its counties had a program anticipating the current types of public assistance.  These statutes mark the legal institutionalization of social welfare activities and a narrowing of the activity of private philanthropy and local community responsibility.  The Mormon church, however, is endeavoring to regain lost ground by the establishment of its relief program.  It was jolted into this new effort by the tremendous relief load, one out of four Mormons during the thirties.  Though it has sought to take its members from public assistance, they have preferred the impersonality and regularity of State support to neighborhood mutualism.  The social welfare program consists of the following activities: old age assistance, aid to dependent children, aid to the blind, general relief, foster care, transient aid, boarding care of adults in institutions, sight conversation, burials, and child welfare service.  Funds for the welfare program are derived from a State sales tax, county property tax, and Federal grants-in-aid.  Since 1940 the number of persons receiving some form of public assistance has been cut in half.  The greatest number of cases are old age pensions.  Direct relief is primarily a need in the mining district where the county’s public welfare office is located.  Lack of personnel has cut out the child welfare service temporarily.  In addition to this program, the schools have a public health nurse, financed by State, Federal, and county funds.  -20- Health has been and still is a major concern of many.  The public school health nurse, a relatively new innovation, has fostered health education, pre-school clinics, etc., in which local doctors cooperated.  There is also interest in group medical care.  Some people belong to a dental cooperative in Ogden, but the distance makes it somewhat unsatisfactory.  There are two hospitals in the county, one in Park City and one in Coalville.  The latter was completed in 1940.  It serves a wide area including part of Wyoming.  In spite of the obvious needs, the hospital was meeting, it has been commented “that it was difficult, at first, to interest people in its value to the community.”  The project encountered strong opposition but was finally voted in.  The incident illustrates the somewhat static and conservative character of the county.  G.  Informal Groupings  People don’t get around any more, so it is claimed, and still less since the war.  People are friendly but they do not visit.  To recent settlers coming from more rural areas this is rather puzzling.  The increased growth of secondary groups, cliques, and relations have tended to supplant somewhat primary group contacts.  While visiting among different families may be less, visiting in the wide network of kin relations in the older families is still quite strong even though it is claimed that the traditional Mormon family reunion has diminished.  The breakdown of the neighborhood and neighborhood activities is usually laid to the automobile, improved roads, and consolidation of schools.  Older people in the community invariably refer to the unity, cooperation, and communal activities in the earlier days in contrast to the individualized behavior that has now developed.  Most intensive activities recreationally take place during the winter months when the Mutual Improvement Association and the schools are functioning.  “During the summer,” it has been said, “people around here go to seed.”  Such a pattern is fostered by the production cycle in agriculture.  Consequently there is an older youth problem which is more than a matter of employment.  There is a juke box crowd that is off by itself, not fitting too well in either Mutual or school functions.  Among adults card clubs have been almost indispensable, though they have been less active since the war.  H.  Leadership  There is little distinction between Mormons and non-Mormons when it comes to community leadership.  Leadership will arise from professional and business people, the more progressive farmers, and from the old families.  The part-time farm group, the group with a laissez-faire attitude towards life do not furnish much leadership.  They probably do not care, preferring local gossiping to local planning.  Membership in county agricultural planning committees over a period of years seems to be about the same. -21- I. Size and Location of Communities  The location of villages and towns are shown on the map.  The three most important towns are Park City, Kamas, and Coalville, but the entire county falls into the metropolitan orbit of Salt Lake City, and the northern  end is directed  towards Ogden.  All those centers have been established about the same time, and each is the locus  for an almost autonomous area.  Park City is a unit of, by and for itself.  Kamas, in South Summit, and Coalville, in North Summit, exert a miner centralizing influence.  Park City has had a population of 3,700, Coalville 950, and Kamas 680.  They have all declined since the war, especially Park City which is beginning to look like a ghost town.  There many stores are closed and houses are empty.  The buildings cling in a rickety fashion to the canyon walls.  There is an unkempt, dingy clapboard atmosphere.  Yet there is civic pride and interest and the numerous social organization impart a variegated life.  The other two towns are primarily small trading centers and headquarters for the Latter-Day Saints church.  In both towns there are remnants of the old settlement plan.  IV. PATTERNS AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE OUTSIDE A. Channels of Contact with Outsiders Up to the time of the automobile and improved roads, the county was relatively isolated except for communication by train from Park City to Salt Lake City and Ogden.  Until roads were kept clear of snow, the people were confined more or less to the towns and valleys even with the automobile.  The main direction of travel was usually to Salt Lake City, either for economic or religious purposes.  Until the Silver Creek road was put through the villages along the Weber river did not have a direct route to Salt Lake City.  At present buses have supplanted the trains.  Channels to the outside have been various.  The church has been a large factor, both through its system of missionaries and semi-annual conferences.  Dairy companies in Salt Lake City have stimulated the production of whole milk.  Others pick up eggs.  Most of the extra feed was imported from Salt Lake City.  The Agricultural College has held classes in the county.  Extension Service, Agricultural Adjustment Agency, and other agencies have been channels for new ideas and practices.  Salesmen have been important.  Children living elsewhere have linked families in and out of the county.  Some of these channels nevertheless cover a limited sphere of activity and contacts are perhaps more external than penetrating.  B.  Acceptance of New Traits  The traditional structure of the county is undergoing gradual modification.  Even today people still feel that they are in a transition period, even though the county was primarily a dairy county during the -22- thirties.  Evidently they have as yet not achieved the goal or standard to which they aspire with regard to the dairy industry, and there are still many other problems involved in the reorganization of its agriculture.  It is only since the past fifteen years, a comparatively short time, that attention has become focused upon these fundamental readjustments, and it is also during this period that the county has been subjected to intensive outside influence.  Vicinal isolation makes for the characteristics of a sacred society and traditional controls.  These become reinforced when outside contacts are kept within the boundaries of the in-group.  Out-migration of young people also strengthens traditional ways and ideas.  The loss is greater when those having higher education do not return.  The acceptance of new ideas is common among younger farmers and among the older with a more progressive point of view.  There is much larger growth of associations both in social and economic relations.  Such a change moves the county more into the direction of a secular society.  A certain amount of commercialization of leisure, the juke box, slot machines, drinking, dancing; the trend toward the smaller family and decline of family customs and rituals indicate a greater anonymity and individualization of behavior.  V. VALUE SYSTEMS, ATTITUDES, IDEAS, AND IDEALS  A.  Land  Land has undergone varying uses.  The range has been excessively exploited until a program of retrenchment and rebuilding has become necessary upon private and public lands.  The quality of the land has been dependent upon attitudes concerning assumed returns.  In practice, numbers of livestock were considered more important that quality in order to “break even.”  Land in the valleys was similarly used in a traditional and somewhat exploitative fashion which the numerous problems concerning land usage and agricultural practices indicate.  Naturally there are manifold individual variations from those who have an extreme interest in the quality of their land to those who do not care.  Such differences in attitude clusters around the various farmer-type groups previously mentioned.  B. Basic Agricultural Techniques  There is no unanimity on this topic.  Public agencies have their idea about range use and management, farmers until recently had an idea of exploitation or none at all.  From “scientific” standards on farming practices, a large number of farmers are inadequate in method of irrigation, livestock management, and cropping practices.  The inadequacies in methods of farming of the county as a whole have been noted by the county agricultural planning committee since their organization.  No marked invidious distinctions obtain between the more and less progressive farmers.  -23- B. Tools and Machinery There are no special values with regard to the care of tools and machinery.  At present there is a marked shift between the value of horses and tractors, and it indicates an acceptance of the power-machinery culture complex.  In recent years schools have made a strong effort to interest farmers in better care of machinery.  Some farmers have built equipment in the school shops.  Horses still predominate as a source of power, and a good team or set of teams is an object of pride.  Farmers do not have a lot of equipment around which a complex set of values can develop.  D.  Security  Farming has not brought large returns.  Many are dependent upon outside sources for income.  Large returns, however, accrue primarily on ranch farms.  The big money attitude does not exist.  Nor is the security the sole value.  Farming as a way of living is a more appropriate term, but it is not subsistence type of farming either.  It is a mixture of all these elements; money, security, and just getting along with living.  E.  Worth of Man  Leadership in church activities, in the cooperative associations, membership in the old families confer and recognize a man’s or woman’s status and worth.  Property ownership is recognized as power.  There seems to be a feeling of distinction between the more well-to-do and those of moderate or less means, but it has also been quite commonly observed that rivalries and jealousies have been so frequent and strong among individuals in the county that there is little unanimity among those in the same group.  The more progressive value one another in terms of the managerial skill, appearance of farmstead, and work habits.  The absence of these traits in the less progressive is deplored.  The latter, however, see no special virtues in the activities of the farmer, and as long as they get along fairly well, they are more interested in enjoying life.  F.  Family Life  The family as a social and working unit is still highly prized.  The significance of the family is still hallowed by frontier and church traditions, such as size, maintenance of kin relations, etc.  Church, community, and school events are attended on a family basis.  There are various special places, as the Hot Pots, where families have picnics and outings.  The family has always been a fertile supply of labor.  The demands for family labor in the limited economy are not too great, so that children have a large amount of free time.  In recent years, among the older high -24- school and youth group, there is stronger individualization, family unity is less.  Dispersal of families and out-movement is more important now, for in previous years many settled nearby on land which they received during the division of an estate.  The desire not to leave the family setting, and the numerous family locality groups witness this.  Such division has reached, according to local opinion, its limit.  G. Education Children are expected nowadays to have at least high school training.  Not to have it involves a loss of esteem.  The emphasis to have at least high school training is, however, a national characteristic retharn [rather] than local.  Cultural achievement is considered important, though not as high as vocational training, but music, art, and dramatics have community expression, not only through special interest groups but also the Mutual program of the Latter-Day Saints church.  It is not expected that children will go on to higher education.  In the past the numbers that have graduated from high school and entered the State university or the agricultural college are not high, but in recent years there has been increase.  The limitations of opportunity in the county will turn them elsewhere for occupational adjustment.  Quite a few are not interested in higher education for children, taking the point of view that practical experience is more important.  H. Religion The basic theological system is the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It follows in general a fundamentalist point of view.  Adherence varies from good Mormons to lukewarm Mormons to “Jack” Mormons.  Major defection is in use of stimulants and non-payment of tithes.  Church control in earlier days was “exercised in an energetic fatherly care over the infant colonies,” and since this control has become institutionalized, a form of rational domination, the personal and to certain extent familistic touch has disappeared, except in the rural areas.  The revivalist and Pentecostal type of religious behavior is not found.  I.  Neighborliness This social trait has diminished somewhat in recent years when the villages open to outside influences and mobility of the people increased.  People are friendly but do not visit, a common observation.  In spite of this trend, helping out a neighbor is still a fundamental folkway, but it is said that such mutual cooperation increases in bad times and decreases in good times.  At present cooperation and mutual help have increased and have been the only way by which farmers have been able to get their work done.  There is little hesitation in asking for assistance.  -25- J. Ethocentrism  This type social relation is of relative unimportance.  Difference among Mormons are as wide as those existing between Mormons and Gentiles.  K.  Other General Values Even though statistics show otherwise, people believe that the county is in a state of transition and that they are converting from a livestock to a dairy type of farming.  The culture of the county until recent years has been of a tight traditional nature, limited in agricultural scope, social experience, and held within the molds of the Mormon church.  People hope to reach a higher plane of living and especially to get out of the debt and farming troubles that have plagued them.  At present they are making even stronger efforts to effect a social change, but when they look into the future they are haunted by the thought of another depression debacle such as occurred in the early part of the thirties.  In spite of this latent fear, they know that they must go into new directions.  UNITED STATES DEPARMENT OF AGRICULTURE Bureau of Agricultural Economics For administrative use Rural Life Trends Project H. Otto Dahlke June 1945 CURRENT PROBLEMS AND POST-WAR PROSPECTS SUMMIT COUNTY, UTAH Summit County represents a traditional agricultural economy that has apparently run its course, an economy that had become stabilized and inefficient.  The compliance with the old forms has produced a cultural inertia so that there is little internal push to redirect the county’s agricultural setup, and as a result there is dependence upon outside agencies to produce the necessary stimuli for change.  Whatever change has taken place has been a matter of drift and the chance concentration of events.  Since 1930 there has been a gradual change from range livestock to an emphasis on dairying, occasioned by a decline in the quality of the livestock on the one hand and on the other by Salt Lake milk companies which stimulated the production of Grade A quality milk.  The main problem hence centers upon the organization and direction of the county’s agriculture.  This problem has not been settled since some favor dual purpose farms, both livestock and dairying, and others lace sole emphasis upon dairying.  Regardless of this unsettled question under either setup there are other basic problems.  Some of these are the following: (1) soil problems-erosion of benchlands, drainage, soil fertility (lack of nitrogen and phosphorus), soil depletion, flash floods; (2) agricultural production-low alfalfa, and hay yields, livestock improvement (culling of herds, bangs and mastitis, adequate bulls for siring), weed control; and (3) agricultural techniques-inadequate crop rotation, use of barnyard manure and fertilizer, methods of irrigation and organization of irrigation system; excessive division of farm land; overgrazing of range land, especially the foothills, need for technical knowledge and guidance.  This enumeration consists of only part of the problem complex.  These problems, moreover, interrelate, as overgrazing of rangeland, burning of June grass, flash floods, mud flows, and erosion; and spring flooding of fields linked with the system of irrigation, drainage problems growth of poor types of grass, low yields of alfalfa, lack of water in late summer and fall.  The resolution of this network of problems into more satisfactory economic relations is impeded by an inertia and resistance to change which poses a difficult problem in extension work and the efforts of other agencies.  It is also complicated by numerous small and part-time farms.  The more progressive elements have brought about the establishment of the soil conservation districts as one of the major means of getting out of their difficulties.  There was quite frank recognition that expert help was needed.  -2- After two years of operation in the Kamas district 14 percent of farms have signed co-operative agreements and 24 percent are on the waiting list.  Among others there is indifference and a contentment with the old haphazard in other counties where competition is strong does not exist.  Wornout machinery and lack of equipment is an important current problem.  Because if of existing restrictions and small supplies this need cannot be met immediately.  Improvement and maintenance of farms and irrigation system has been difficult.  The labor shortage has aggravated this problem.  The unbalanced man-land ratio will continue to plague the county’s resources.  The problem of employment for older youth will probably start anew in the post-war period.  If the mines do not expand, the problem will become more acute for the entire rural nonfarm population.  A large return of war veterans and war industry workers would aggravate the imbalance still more. There are some who think that the adjustment of these people to the slow routine and low returns of farm living will be inadequate, thus adding to possible psychological problems and tensions.  Housing in the county will need considerable attention.  In 1940 35 percent of the houses needed major repairs, 34 percent of the rural nonfarm dwelling units and 38 percent of the rural-farm.  With war restrictions, conditions have become worse.