WWI 1918 Military Draft Map of Salt Lake City

More map fun! This is a World War I (WWI) 1918 military draft map of Salt Lake City. This map shows men where they needed to go to register for military service, both citizens and non-citizens.

Clip of map from SL Trib 1918/06/04 Page 11

Detail of the same (above) clip of map from SL Trib 1918/06/04 Page 11

Of interest, the Japanese Association Headquarters building at 168 S West Temple is specifically noted and marked. The Japanese Association was the precursor to the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL).

The building at 168 West Temple was part of Salt Lake’s old Japantown which was mostly demolished for the construction of the Salt Palace in the 1960s.

Image 3 shows what the building looked like in 1918. The “Lodge Pool Hall” is the location of the Japanese Association. As it was mostly a fraternal association of men, it is sometimes identified as a Lodge.

I’ve denoted the approximate location of this building on the other images by using a torii gate icon in red.

Image of the building at 168 S West Temple in 1918. From USHS Shipler 18591.

Clip from a postcard of the Salt Palace in the 1960s

 Modern Google Maps showing the Convention Center in downtown Salt Lake City.

Concrete Arrow is a Remnant of a US Airmail Beacon Station, Timpie Junction in Skull Valley

US Air Mail arrow, north end of Skull Valley.
Designation SALT LK AWY BN 59.

This large concrete arrow in Utah’s West Desert is part of the old Post Office Airmail system. These arrows are scattered all over the country but this one is my favorite because access is easy in that 1) it is on public land, and 2) it is right off Exit 77 of I-80.

Just a few years after the Wright Brothers' first flight, airplanes were used sporadically to carry the mail. During WWI, significant advancements were made by the US Army (no Air Force until after WWII) in airplanes and they had proven their utility.

So, in 1918 the Post Office asked the Army to create a system to fly mail on a regular basis for faster delivery. The Army developed and ran the airmail for the first 3 months using converted Army planes.

The Army then handed the system off to the Post Office to manage. Initially airmail only ran in the eastern states but slowly the rest of the US was included.

By Sept of 1920, airmail was flown across the country, from NYC to San Francisco, but only by day because night flying was difficult due to the inability to see the railroad tracks that they typically followed. So, a national system of night beacons atop concrete arrows showing the way was developed to guide the pilots.

As usual, Utah’s West Desert was a challenge and took until 1929 to complete the east-west transcontinental route. Each arrow pointed the direction to the next arrow on the route, typically 10-15 miles away.

Atop the tower was a rotating beacon with 2 directional spotlights showing the proper direction. Red lights were chosen over white lights as they could be seen from a farther distance. Green lights were used when there was an emergency landing strip nearby.

Mail Arrow beacon layout.
Excerpt from Air Navigation by P. V. H. Weems 1938

This was the system the airmail used for decades. Innovations in the technology that aided pilots were constantly developing. And eventually, the air beacons became unnecessary.

The Timpie airmail beacon was dismantled in May 1965 along with several others in Salt Lake and Tooele Counties.

This arrow was painted orange by a local boy scout troop, about 2017. Historically the arrow would have been yellow.  

Arrow in May 2022

Here is how the arrow looked in 2016, before it was painted. 

And here are various maps of the airmail routes: 

United States Post Office Department map of air mail routes, 08/21/1928.
(Source)

Clip of the 1924 airmail route, showing Salt Lake City to Timpie, via Grantsville.
From US Army, Air Corps, US Army Corps of Engineers & Geological Survey, USTB. (1924) Aeronautical strip maps of the United States.

Source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2009582531/.

There is lots of information available about these US Airmail beacons and their concrete arrows. The two sites I like are below:

• Google Map of Concrete Arrows
• Arrows Across America

Update Sept 1, 2022:

I added video directions to the arrow from Exit 77 of I-80 in Tooele County, Utah.

Cucumbers and Zucchini

My garden is overflowing with cucumbers and zucchini.  After looking on the internet for creative recipes it got me thinking about past ways people prepared these items. 

It turns out, unlike cucumbers, zucchini is a rather recent addition to American gardens.  Originally brought over by Italian immigrants in the 1910s it was commonly known as Italian Squash for a while (Zucchini being too weird a word, I suppose) and was considered an ethnic curiosity to those not of Italian heritage.  

After WWI, Italian foods in America became less stigmatized and more integrated into domestic American gardens and products. Refer to my post about Antonio Ferro, SLC’s Pasta King who saw booming times after WWI and started publishing recipes in local newspapers on how Utahans could prepare spaghetti noodles.

I was even surprised to see that zucchini bread didn’t make it into the American recipe book until the 1970s.   

Since zucchini is a relative newcomer, these older recipes focus on cucumbers.  I also chose not to include any dill or sweet pickle recipes since those are still common today.

Personally, I’m planning on making a spicy pickled relish sometime soon. 

Spanish Fork Press 1910-07-28

 Ogden Evening Standard 1911-07-29

Carbon County News 1914-08-27

 Ogden Daily Standard 1916-03-25

Emery County Progress 1916-07-01

Salt Lake Tribune 1924-09-28

Salt Lake Telegram 1937-09-10

Springville Herald 1964-02-27

 Salt Lake Tribune 1924-09-28

Spooky SLC: Unsolved Murder of Frances Korous

Frae Korous, graduate of St Marks nursing school.
From Weekly Sentinel 1909-02-10

Today, 100 years ago on Oct 17 1920, Miss Frances “Frae” Korous was last seen alive. Her dead body would be discovered weeks later in the lake at Liberty Park. Part 1 of 2.

Frae Korous (1879-1920) was an unmarried working woman; she was a graduate of the 1906 St Marks Nursing School, served in the US Navy as a nurse in WWI, and worked with the Salt Lake Public Health department when it was first organized. She was well regarded in her profession and well liked as an individual.

Just a few months after her discharge from the US Navy, Frae returned to SLC in Oct 1920 to live and work. Although most her family was back in Iowa, her sister Rose (also a nurse) and her half-brother Yaro lived in SLC. 

She soon got a job in a local Doctor’s office and was planning to move into the Keith Apts. Meanwhile, she got a room at the YWCA women’s boarding house located at 306 E 300 S (also the location of the current YWCA).

On Oct 17 1920, Frae went to the Methodist church and then visited her brother Yaro and his family at their home, 556 N Dexter St (~850 West). She ate a large Sunday dinner and gave some candy to her nieces and nephews. Her brother escorted her to catch a streetcar which would take her back to the YWCA for the night.

Frae never made it to the YWCA that night nor work the next morning. Her friends and relatives became concerned. Search parties were organized by the SLC Police and local Boy Scouts to look for her in the nearby canyons

A reward of $150, with the Governor’s endorsement, was offered. But there was no sign of Frae. Some thought she might have committed suicide while others thought she may have been hit by a car and dragged away.

Continued next post

The backside of the YWCA building in 1918, at 306 E 300 South.
From UDSH. Color by imagecolorizer.

Frae's brother Yaro Korous house at 556 N Dexter St (~850 West) in 2020.

Hate Crime in Murray in 1922: Jim Bing

4863 South State, Desert Star Playhouse, constructed in 1930.
This building replaced the one at which this incident occurred.

On the night of March 30, 1922, a group of White men terrorized the only Black man living in Murray, Jim Bing. The ordeal started at the location that is now the Desert Star Playhouse..
This is one of the stories documented in the book Blazing Crosses in Zion.

In 1922 the Ku Klux Klan had started to publicly recruit for members in SLC and the surrounding communities. The aura of mystery around the KKK prompted several local incidents that were never tied to official KKK activities.

Jim Bing was an honorably discharged veteran of WWI who had just moved to Murray from the Pacific Coast and started working as a bootblack (shoe shiner) for Joseph Chivrell at his store, Champion Shoe Repair, at 4863 South State Street.

Three Murray men, George B. Studham (1896-1949), J. Eugene Bringhurst (1901-1961), and Amos Jensen (1900-1948), “rigged themselves up in ghostly attire” and burst in upon Mr. Bing while he was sleeping in the rear of the store.

Bing initially fled but was captured, “severely beaten,” and then taken by automobile (probably Studham’s car since he had one and was a chauffeur) to Murray City Cemetery where he was further tormented by being forced to “offer up prayers for his ancestors” while “kneeling upon a grave with his hands clasped around a tombstone.” The men also threated Bing with a coat of tar and feathers if he reported the incident.

The next morning Bing’s face showed signs of a beating and his neck was so swollen that he could not swallow. Two days later, on April 2, Bing disappeared leaving all his belongings in the back of Chivrell’s shop.

On the complaint of Bing’s employer, Joseph Chivrell, the three men were arrested and charged with assault and battery. But without Mr. Bing to testify against them the charges were ultimately dropped.

Sources: Blazing Crosses in Zion by Larry Gerlach p34-35; SL Trib 1922-04-15; SL Telegram 1922-04-14 & 1922-05-02

Note: I looked for Jim Bing in the historic records but could not find any other info on him. Unfortunately I am not convinced the local papers that reported the incident even got his name correct (they misspelled nearly everyone else's involved as well). I could not find a Jim Bing WWI vet that was a Black man that ever left the South. His name could have easily been King or Binge or something else just one letter off. I do hope he made it out if town alive.

Antonio Ferro: SLC Macaroni King

Antonio Ferro. From Utah Since Statehood 1919.
Colorization done by My Heritage

The Pasta King of Salt Lake City was Mr. Antonio Ferro (1872-1944), an Italian immigrant who built a pasta empire and made it fashionable for Utahans to eat spaghetti. 

Mr. Ferro was born in Italy and immigrated to the United States in 1894 at the age of 22.  Initially he worked as a miner in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and then Mercer, Utah.  

In 1896 he gave up mining and moved to Salt Lake City where he established a small grocery store at 598 W. 200 South in what is now Old Greektown.  At some point Ferro started making pasta and selling it out of this small store.

In 1906 the Western Macaroni Manufacturing Co was incorporated with Antonio Ferro the Secretary and General Manager.  The company established their factory at 244 S 500 West, which is still standing.

In Oct 1909, Ferro and the company got into a bit of trouble.  Ferro was arrested and eventually found guilty for stealing $10 worth of electricity from Utah Power and Light by placing a “jumper” on an electric wire which carried the electricity past the meter.  According to newspapers this was a common practice for many at the time but Ferro was the first arrested and convicted for it.  The power company vowed to deploy special agents to inspect all power lines to see who else was engaged in this practice. 

By 1916 Western Macaroni was the largest company of its kind west of Chicago.  And it kept growing through the WWI years which caused imports to be cut off from Europe and people in America turned more towards domestic products.  The company doubled its capacity to fill the void mostly selling to foreign born peoples. 

By the end of WWI Western Macaroni had a daily capacity of 6 tons of pasta and 45 varieties under the label “Queen’s Taste.”  The factory had been expanded with manufacturing taking place on the ground floor, shipping and office on the 2^nd floor, drying and storing on the 3^rd, and storing of raw materials on the 5^th floor.  At this time the company started publishing pasta recipes in the local paper and spaghetti and other pastas became more accepted outside the Italian American community.

By 1935 Ferro had bought out the other partners and was owner and manager of the business.  He retired in 1942 due to ill health; the company was dissolved at the same time. 

The Western Macaroni building is still standing and was recently rehabilitated to historic standards.  It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Advertisement, Salt Lake Tribune April 3 1912

Western Macaroni Manufacturing Co Building at 598 W. 200 South in April 2020.

Western Macaroni Manufacturing Co in 1927, From UDSH.

Western Macaroni Co., Interior of Packing Room 1924. From UDSH.

Western Macaroni Co., Presses 1924. From UDSH.

Estelle V. Collier: First Woman Nominated & Confirmed as Customs Collector

Image from: The Independent Volume 102,
May 8-15 1920. Available on Google Books.

Today in History. 100 years ago, Sat Feb 28 1920, a Salt Lake woman- Mrs. Estelle V. Collier- was nominated by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to hold the position of Customs Collector for the states of Utah and Nevada.

This was the first time a woman had been nominated by a Untied States President (and later confirmed by the U.S. Senate and appointed) to this position in the United States.

Estelle V. Collier was active in civic affairs and was well-connected in the Utah Democratic Party. She had been the Utah State Chair of the Women's Democratic Committee where she worked for women's suffrage, was Chair of the Women in Industry during WWI, and also worked with the Red Cross during WWI. All this while she raised 4 children.

In response to the nomination Mrs. Collier said "It is a feather in the cap of the women of this state and of all the states who are working for advancement of women's rights. I am as much pleased for the sake of the women generally as I am for myself personally." And "...I am confident that I can discharge all of the duties efficiently, even to directing raids on opium dens." Deseret News March 1 1920 p3.

In the 1920s, the duties of the Customs Collector were a combination of overseeing law enforcement and collection of import duties of foreign goods. Customs Special Agents investigated smuggling and other violations of customs, narcotics, and revenue laws... hence the comment about opium dens.

Note: 

Later, I found that Mrs. A. J. Harris (Victoria Bell Shuman Harris) succeeded her husband as Collector of Customs when he was forced to step down due to ill health. This was in Fairport Ohio in 1901. So it seems Estelle Collier was the 2nd woman to hold this position.