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Solomon Rapids, Kansas. I was born in 1938, in Solomon Rapids Township, Mitchell County, Kansas, the county seat being Beloit, Kansas. Beloit is located smack dab in the middle of the north central part of Kansas, very near the Nebraska border.

Monroe Utah.  Compiled by Rollo Kent Parsons, provides development info from early 1930s in Monroe, Utah, to 2008: A detailed personal life plus history details of the town, including his involvement in the challenging development of rural television throughout the state.

Stillwater, Minnesota. It is a picturesque settlement nestled in the St. Croix River Valley. The river has high banks on both sides and separates Minnesota from Wisconsin. Stillwater is a l9th century town where the clock has stopped. From 1856 to 1914, it was the terminal point for log drives down the St. Croix from 5.4 million acres of White and Norway pine. This was a robust lumberjack town, and so significant was timber, a prime commodity, that Stillwater was once considered to be the Capital of Minnesota. St. Paul eventually won those honors. The river is no longer filled with logs and the mills are gone, but the town that supported this important industry survives to this day.

Tabiona, Utah & Hanna, Utah. Located in a valley about 80 miles northeast of Salt Lake City, this area is rich in the history of Utah development and the nearby Native American reservations.

Emmett, Idaho. Falk’s Store, which was a combination general store and post office with living quarters in the back, was situated a few miles out of Emmett, Idaho, on the road to Payette and was the birthplace of many of our family members. Our great-grandparents lived at Falk’s Store with their son Jonathan and his wife, Mattie, who were our grandparents.

Dutch Fork Section of South Carolina. This book is more like a scrapbook of letters, stories, drawings, photographs, and a few court house records. The stories were written by and about the descendants of Jacob and Mary Ann Chapman Epting, who raised their own children in the Dutch Fork section of South Carolina in the second half of the 19^th century. More than 180 black and white photographs of Jacob and Mary Ann’s descendants and some of their actual children and their spouses have been gathered for this volume.

Draper Fort in Utah 1850s  The Draper Fort was begun and partially completed by1854, but gates were never hung in place, The settlers had followed the counsel of Brigham Young in building the fort. He wanted them to be protected from the Indians who were losing their domain to the settlers, and were naturally becoming warlike over the matter.

Knudsen's Grove in Utah. 1912 to 1922. Almost ten years before Knudsen's Inn was built on the corner of Holladay Blvd. and 6200 South in l9l9, there was a beautiful wooded campground on Cottonwood Creek about one half mile south of the "corner," in the area of Rowell and Royal Sims. In those days, before the gravel pits, this pristine spot was verdant green with many stately cottonwoods, huge clumps of river birch, haw berries, chokecherries, tall oaks, and maples.

Medina, Ohio, is now a suburb of Cleveland located in the heart of the Western Reserve which is the county seat of Medina County Ohio. The Western Reserve area of Ohio is land that was originally set aside and used as payment to the men who served in the Revolutionary War. Rowena Morris Newton Torok was born in 1905 and grew up in Medina, Ohio. Rowena passed away at the age of 94 on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2000 and was buried in Medina.

Rötenberg, in the Black Forest or Schwarzwald area of Germany. In July of 1997, armed with Ted Epton’s information to guide me, I fulfilled a ten-year dream by visiting my tiny ancestral home, Rötenberg, in the Black Forest or Schwarzwald area of Germany. My husband Fred and I rented a car and drove down the Autobahn from Stuttgart about 45 minutes south to exit 33 where we turned west toward Alpirsbach, the town where Ted Epton discovered the very first Epting records–(Christoph Hepting). Christoph (or Stoffel) had his son christened in Alpirsbach in 1648, but later he moved his church home to Rötenberg. The Eptings immigrated from Germany to South Carolina in USA.

Wallace Stone, Sterling Shire Scotland was the birthplace of Annie Easton Hood, emigrant to Wyoming in late 1800s. Her book tells many interesting descriptions of her home life in Scotland.

Daniel Wyoming  "Only native Americans and wildlife visited the area until Wilson Price Hunt’s party passed through on their way to the mouth of the Columbia River in 1811. Captain Benjamin L. E. Bonneville, in 1832, built Fort Bonneville on the Green River. In the meantime, the mountain men arrived in their quest for beaver pelts. They gathered in the Daniel area for their annual rendezvous in 1833, 1835, 1836, 1837, 1839 and 1840. The need for railroad ties during construction of the transcontinental railroad brought lumbermen into the upper Green River valley in 1868."

Hanna Utah  "Little Italy." Early 1900s development. It was called "little Italy" because of the many Italian emigrants. Read stories and see photos of early Hanna development and the people who made it all happen.

Lewisville Idaho Lewisville is a rural town. Its population, 550 in 1995, has probably changed little since I was born there in 1941. The original settlers were Mormons from Utah, who arrived July 10, 1882, to homestead farms. They laid out the town with wide streets that were square with the compass and having square blocks in the typical Mormon fashion. The settlement was called Lewisville because the nearby river was then called the Lewis River in honor of Captain Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. . . .

Uintah and Uncompahgre Reservations  The Uintah and Uncompahgre Reservations were consolidated at Fort Duchesne as the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. Congress passed an act in 1897, giving individual allotments of land to heads of Indian families.

Monroe, Sevier, Utah  Famous for its hot springs, Monroe, Utah, is a beautiful little farming community nestled beneath majestic snow capped Monroe Mountain, and surrounded by the Fish Lake National Forest. Located four miles east of Highway 89 and ten miles south of Richfield, it was to Monroe that for many years people came to bathe in the hot mineral water to heal ailments.     Monroe was first settled in 1864.

Fort Duchesne, Utah  In 1883, Fort Duchesne was converted from a military stockade to an Indian Reservation for the Uintah and Ouray Indians. Old Fort Duchesne, now gone, was located a mile south of U.S. Highway 40, hidden behind a large grove of Cottonwood trees. When the Indian lands in the Uintah Basin were opened to white settlement in 1905, it was Utah's last frontier. A growing network of roads and canals connected the small settlements of Ashley (now Vernal, Utah) in Uintah County and Roosevelt, in Duchesne County.

Rupert Idaho  Together, Samuel and Harriet dreamed a dream. They migrated to Idaho and there confronted by a virgin sea of sage, converted the sea, by beast and brawn, into irrigatable fields. While occupying that frontier homestead they improved it day by day, week after week, and year upon year. Their dream became reality.

Utah Central Train  The Newark Rangers  of Kendall County, Illinois, were listed as the first company to follow Pratt through the pass, which opened a new road through the mountains from the Weber River to the Great Salt Lake Valley. This made available a new route where incoming travelers (whether in wagons, on horseback, the Pony Express riders, handcarts, or stage coach) might safely make their way into the valley. Eventually it became part of the great Lincoln Highway and then much later, I-80 followed the route toward the east from the mouth of the canyon to the turnoff for East Canyon.

St. George Utah   In the General Conference of October 1861, President Brigham Young called 309 families to come to Dixie to bolster the towns already established and to settle a new city, St. George. Elder Orson Hyde was instructed to enlist thirty to fifty families to strengthen the settlement at Fort Clara (Santa Clara). A group of about thirty families, who were from Switzerland, were sent to Santa Clara.

Washington City, Utah  It was these early Southern missionaries who first called the Washington City area "Dixie." It just came naturally to them to call the land Dixie. The name later spread to include all of the Southern Utah area, but mainly St. George, Washington, and Santa Clara. These early settlers formed the mission which was called both the "Cotton Mission," and the "Southern Mission."
    On May 6 or 7, 1857, at a 4:00 p.m. conference, President Isaac C. Haight of Cedar City gave instructions to both groups, and the precinct was named "Washington" in honor of George Washington, the Father of Our Country.

The Cotton Factory St. George Utah 1850s  Of the pioneers who came to Utah from the Southern States in the 1800s, a group was asked to go on to Southern Utah and grow cotton, a commodity needed in the face of the Civil War. Life was hard, food was scarce, and more babies and children died than lived as flood after flood destroyed their crops. Stories of individual pioneers. Over 200 photos (10 color). Statistical Info, maps, surveys, stories about people, folklore, medicines, food, superstitions, script used for money, etc. Sponsored by The Washington City Historical Society.

Salt Lake Community College From converted horse stalls and hay lofts to modern laboratories and high technology, Salt Lake Community College   has experienced a remarkable one-half century. Opening its doors in September 1948 to 175 students registered in 14 courses, the College had modest beginnings. 
    Now, more than 50 years later, Salt Lake Community College serves over 53,000 students

Salt Lake City 1850s Stories and over 60 photos explore the rich and changing history of this Hollow associated with Salt Lake City's early days-from first settlement in 1848, of people, business, industry, agriculture, parks, prisons, wildlife, plants, and much more. Parley Pratt, prominent LDS early leader, discovered this entrance into the Salt Lake Valley. Indexed.

Early Pioneer Places of Salt Lake City  See list of many places.

Early buildings of Salt Lake City 1850s. Photos and drawings.

Draper Utah  Sivogah, meaning Willows, the Indian name for the area later known as Draper, is a beautiful cove of approximately fifteen square miles tucked away in the southeast corner of Great Salt Lake Valley. Draper, nestled west of towering Lone Peak, receives water from glaciated and stream-cut canyons beginning at 12,000 feet and sweeping down to a valley floor of 4,400 feet.

Perry Utah  In northern Utah, along "The Old Road" between Brigham City and Willard, lies a small town. A town once known as "Three Mile Creek"–its name was given to it by the early settlers who chose this part of the country to homestead the land, and establish their roots in a place like no other.
    With the Wasatch Range looming towards the east, and the view of Willard Bay to the west, the town could easily be described as picturesque. Typical of this area, most of the people own farms. Many own fruit orchards and there are several fruit stands selling the produce grown in this fertile soil.

Boulder Utah  Striking names were given to places in this country by early stockmen–Wolverine, Silver Falls, Circle Cliffs, Brigham Tea, Rattlesnake, besides the more prosaic ones such as Long Canyon, Horse Canyon, Wide Mouth, King Bench, Bowns Bench, Moody, and Wagon Box Mesa.

Elsinore Utah  There in Elsinore, Victor was born 12 July 1894, in a nice home that Axel had built. Axel built an opera house in Elsinore. He also did some play acting. They held dancing and church conferences in the opera house. Grandpa held other important offices other than church duties in the civic center. Grandpa bought the flour mill from McClellan in 1899.

Parley's Hollow. Stories and over 60 photos explore the rich and changing history of this Hollow associated with Salt Lake City's early days-from first settlement in 1848, of people, business, industry, agriculture, parks, prisons, wildlife, plants, and much more. Parley Pratt, prominent LDS early leader, discovered this entrance into the Salt Lake Valley. Indexed. 

More to come. . .

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