Clarion, Utah
Encyclopedia
Clarion is a ghost town
in Sanpete County
, Utah
, United States
. Lying about 5 miles (8 km) southwest of Gunnison
, Clarion was the site of a brief, early-twentieth century experiment in Jewish rural living. The Clarion site was 6085 acre (24.6 km²; 9.5 sq mi), extending 5 miles (8 km) north and south along the Sevier River
, and approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) wide.
The project was funded by the Jewish Agricultural and Colonial Association, an organization of some 200 Jewish families living in northeastern cities. Organized in 1910, the Association sent Benjamin Brown
and Isaac Herbst as representatives in 1911 to investigate potential sites in New Mexico
, Colorado
, Wyoming
, and Montana
. The New Mexico option proved to be impractically expensive. As the disappointed investigators were preparing to leave New Mexico, they received a telegram suggesting a stop in Utah. The state was at the time engaged in a campaign to attract settlers, and in the process of constructing the Piute Canal, which was to irrigate
vast tracts of desert. The Association was also encouraged by the financially secure and politically well-connected Jewish community of Salt Lake City. Such prominent local Jews as Simon Bamberger
, Samuel Newhouse
, and attorney Daniel Alexander pledged their support and began to advocate for the group with area business and political leaders. The Utah State Board of Land Commissioners sent a representative to escort Brown and Herbst to inspect available land. They were favorably impressed with a parcel of state-owned land in south-central Utah below the planned Piute Canal. Brown was convinced of the soil's fertility, and with the state's assurances of available water, the Association agreed to purchase the land at auction on August 7, 1911.
Benjamin Brown became the leader of the colonists, returning to the area permanently in September 1911. Although the settlement was small, with just 23 families, optimism was high. Utah had been advertising nationally to receive more settlers, and Governor William Spry
was so pleased with the experiment that he journeyed the 135 miles (217.3 km) from the capital in order to celebrate the community's first harvest.
More than 1,000 visitors celebrated with the colony settlers after their first harvest in 1912. In October 1912, there were about 150 famalies at the colony when the Jewish Agricultural and Colonial Association announced that fifty additional families would join the settlement.
Due to problems with harvests and the inexperience of the urban settlers, the settlement faced financial problems and the state foreclosed on the property in 1915. Most of the settlers returned to New York City.
By 1959, the Clarion community center had been turned into a granary. The fence surrounding the small Jewish cemetery had been torn down and cows had knocked down the headstones which marked the two graves.
By 2008, fences had been constructed to surround the Jewish graves. There are a scattering of foundations, as well as the broken walls of the water cistern that burst and fell apart the first day colonists used it. Today, Brown Rex Dairy abuts the Clarion site and local residents continue to refer to the area as "Clarion" although it is in the Centerfield postal district.
.
University of Utah
professor Robert Goldberg chanced upon the Clarion remnants in 1980. A subsequent interview in Los Angeles with a descendant of one of the Clarion families led to Goldberg authoring the history of the Jewish colony, Back to the Soil. Goldberg placed advertisements for contacts in the Salt Lake Jewish community newsletter. He tracked down 53 families with ties to Clarion, and reconstructed the story from interviews and records.
Ghost town
A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...
in Sanpete County
Sanpete County, Utah
Sanpete County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. The population according to the 2010 U.S. Census was 27,822. It was possibly named for a Ute Indian chief named Sanpitch, which was corrupted to Sanpete. Its county seat is Manti and its largest city is Ephraim.-Geography:According to...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Lying about 5 miles (8 km) southwest of Gunnison
Gunnison, Utah
Gunnison is a city in Sanpete County, Utah, United States. The population was 2,394 at the 2000 census. The city was named in honor of John W. Gunnison, a United States Army officer who surveyed for the transcontinental railroad in 1853.-Geography:...
, Clarion was the site of a brief, early-twentieth century experiment in Jewish rural living. The Clarion site was 6085 acre (24.6 km²; 9.5 sq mi), extending 5 miles (8 km) north and south along the Sevier River
Sevier River
The Sevier River , extending , is the longest Utah river entirely in the state and drains an extended chain of mountain farming valleys to the intermittent Sevier Lake...
, and approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) wide.
History
For several decades, many Jewish reformers and Zionist nationalists had argued that Jews needed to become "a normal nation" and urged the abandonment of both urban living and occupations traditionally associated with Jews. This back-to-the-land movement urged Jews to find a purer life and to renounce sedentary jobs in favor of those based on manual labor.The project was funded by the Jewish Agricultural and Colonial Association, an organization of some 200 Jewish families living in northeastern cities. Organized in 1910, the Association sent Benjamin Brown
Benjamin Brown (developer)
Benjamin Brown was a Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant to the United States who came to develop rural communities in New Jersey, including Roosevelt, New Jersey. Brown attained wealth through a poultry exchange he established between Western states and New York.-External links:*...
and Isaac Herbst as representatives in 1911 to investigate potential sites in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
, and Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. The New Mexico option proved to be impractically expensive. As the disappointed investigators were preparing to leave New Mexico, they received a telegram suggesting a stop in Utah. The state was at the time engaged in a campaign to attract settlers, and in the process of constructing the Piute Canal, which was to irrigate
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
vast tracts of desert. The Association was also encouraged by the financially secure and politically well-connected Jewish community of Salt Lake City. Such prominent local Jews as Simon Bamberger
Simon Bamberger
Simon Bamberger was the fourth Governor of Utah after it achieved statehood from territorial status in 1896. Bamberger bears the distinction of being the first non-Mormon, the first Democrat, and the first and to date only Jew to be elected Governor of the State of Utah...
, Samuel Newhouse
Samuel Newhouse
Samuel Newhouse was a Utah entrepreneur and mining magnate.He was born in New York City of European Jewish immigrant parents and grew up in Pennsylvania. He studied law there before going to Colorado in 1879...
, and attorney Daniel Alexander pledged their support and began to advocate for the group with area business and political leaders. The Utah State Board of Land Commissioners sent a representative to escort Brown and Herbst to inspect available land. They were favorably impressed with a parcel of state-owned land in south-central Utah below the planned Piute Canal. Brown was convinced of the soil's fertility, and with the state's assurances of available water, the Association agreed to purchase the land at auction on August 7, 1911.
Benjamin Brown became the leader of the colonists, returning to the area permanently in September 1911. Although the settlement was small, with just 23 families, optimism was high. Utah had been advertising nationally to receive more settlers, and Governor William Spry
William Spry
William Spry was an American politician and the third Governor of Utah.Spry was born at Windsor, Berkshire, England. He emigrated to Utah Territory with his parents at the age of eleven....
was so pleased with the experiment that he journeyed the 135 miles (217.3 km) from the capital in order to celebrate the community's first harvest.
More than 1,000 visitors celebrated with the colony settlers after their first harvest in 1912. In October 1912, there were about 150 famalies at the colony when the Jewish Agricultural and Colonial Association announced that fifty additional families would join the settlement.
Due to problems with harvests and the inexperience of the urban settlers, the settlement faced financial problems and the state foreclosed on the property in 1915. Most of the settlers returned to New York City.
After the colony
After the demise of the Jewish colony, others moved into the area. Japanese families settled in the Clarion area in 1921, as did Mormons of Scandinavian descent. Brown and a few of the other Jewish colonists stayed and farmed in the area until the 1920s. There were enough persons residing in Clarion in 1925 to establish the Clarion LDS Ward. In 1932, the Clarion Ward had 166 members. The ward met in the social hall constructed by the Jewish settlers. On April 1, 1934, the ward was officially disorganized, "on account of the shortage of water." World War II disrupted the Japanese settlement and the land reverted to the local citizens.By 1959, the Clarion community center had been turned into a granary. The fence surrounding the small Jewish cemetery had been torn down and cows had knocked down the headstones which marked the two graves.
By 2008, fences had been constructed to surround the Jewish graves. There are a scattering of foundations, as well as the broken walls of the water cistern that burst and fell apart the first day colonists used it. Today, Brown Rex Dairy abuts the Clarion site and local residents continue to refer to the area as "Clarion" although it is in the Centerfield postal district.
Historiography
Clarion was featured in the play "Life, More Sweet Than Bitter" which tells the story of a Jewish family from Russia which came through Philadelphia to Clarion. Beth Hatefutsoth in Tel Aviv included Clarion in the 1983 exhibit, "Diaspora Farmers of the 19th and 20th Century". The community was also featured in a segment in the 2007 play Impossible Cities: A Utopian ExperimentImpossible Cities: A Utopian Experiment
Impossible Cities: A Utopian Experiment is multidisciplinary play inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and which deals with the fates of four different utopian communities in the United States. The play was staged by Walkabout Theater and premiered at Peter Jones Gallery...
.
University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
professor Robert Goldberg chanced upon the Clarion remnants in 1980. A subsequent interview in Los Angeles with a descendant of one of the Clarion families led to Goldberg authoring the history of the Jewish colony, Back to the Soil. Goldberg placed advertisements for contacts in the Salt Lake Jewish community newsletter. He tracked down 53 families with ties to Clarion, and reconstructed the story from interviews and records.
Centenary
In September 2011, a celebration to mark the 100th anniversary of the settlement will take place in Salt Lake City and include a visit to the Clarion site.External links
- Clarion at Ghost Towns of Utah