Early Dragerton;
by Marjorie Predovich
The town was built during the war yrs. after the Pearl Harbor attack. I had two uncles who help build the tipple at Horse Canyon. They lived in tents next to the project as the town of Dragerton was in the first phase of being built. They then worked helping to build houses after their jobs building the tipple was finished.
The first Postmaster elected, was Agnes Scow by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, appointed in 1941. She served in that capacity until retirement 1963. She had to open the postoffice in her home and hand the mail out a front window. The town out grew the space in her home that they moved a small trailer in where the old postoffice was on the east corner of the shopping center. It soon became too small with the influx of people moving in that they had to build a post office in the space where the trailer stood. I was employed in 1953 and postoffice was remodeled twice while I was there. Postage was 3cents for a letter, 2cents for Christmas cards. 1cents for local Christmas cards. Everyone in town received one from the whole community. We spent many a night putting Christmas cards in the boxes after business hrs. Every one sent boxes of presents to everyone of their relatives living out of town and they in turn sent them presents. What a mad house it was!!
The post office started out as a 4th class in her home and soon advanced to 3rd but didn't remain in that status very long. With more and more people arriving, having no boxes for their mail-one person spent most of their shift handing mail out of Gen. Del. It soon became 2nd class and remained in that level until 1985 when it was moved back to 3rd class. We lost Horse Canyon, Carbon Co. railway, bank and several other good postal customers. We had two robberies while I was there. They broke in thru the back door, had walkie-talkies located in the lobby and blew two safes open. It was my day off but remember it so well they came and got me to come to work. It was a big mess. We couldn't open for business but had to count our drawers. Luckily they were safe but money orders, money and stamp stock was gone. In two wks. time they robbed the Sunnyside Post Office the same way. But they were apprehended-robbers from Texas out to have a lark! That was the worst of the break ins. The first one that took place just broke the safe open and took the money.
I received my appointment as Postmaster in 1963 from President Lyndon Johnson. When I started working in 1953 postage was 3cents for a letter. Christmas cards 2 cents local 1cents.I also witnessed the transition from the old Post Office Dept. to the U. S. Postal Service in 1972. At the time I feared it was a big mistake as it seemed they ignored the post office people working at the offices to bring in business
people to overhaul the offices to make them payable. It seemed all the older postmasters felt the same way-we were honored to be called Postmasters but that name seemed to become just a postal worker. They tried to remove the name postmasters but we belonged to NAPUS Union and they put up a battle for us-and won out. They were going to call us supervisiors. I really enjoyed my years spent there-I loved all the people and had such a good time over all.
We had such a trumatic tragedy with Jack that still hurts. Yes, I do remember you. I believe you were in the same grade as Linda. You were such a handsome looking young man as I remember you. I also remember Fermin. Both of you were nice boys. East Carbon is no longer them same-we go back almost every yr. to see old friends that are still above ground. Sad but it's smaller every yr. Lost so many old timers, breaks ones heart when you remember them. So many died young like Jack. I often think of Jay Fowler, Jr., and many others, Bev Cortese.
We were friends even with Lloyd and Edna Hunt. Lloyd use to come sit on our porch and talk for hrs. Now he's gone. That's life I guess. We have to except it-They die young and die old. Our daughter, Linda married Dr. Dorman's oldest son, Jaime and live in Poway, CA. They had one child, Heather and she's married so now we have two great grand kids. The oldest is 7 and pretty red-hair. The girl is blond, blue-eyed and is 31/2. Very good kids. We see them often as we live about 350 miles from them.
We moved to Dragerton in 1944 from Illinois. I had just graduated from high school.
I lost my father in Jan. of "44 due to a sudden massive heart attack. My Mother and
I had to find employment somewhere, so my two uncles and aunts insisted we come to
Utah. We both got employment immediately. I worked in the big dept. store sometimes
as a clerk on the floor, but most of the time as an office clerk which was located
above the main floor and was like an open balcony looking down onto the main floor.
At that time, the store provided everything. They had a butcher shop, Ellis Peacock
and Charlie Bezack were the main butchers, grocery,dress shop, men's & boys
clothing, household appliances,bedding, really anything you needed to set up house
keeping.
My mother went to work at the hospital as a cook. She worked with Mrs.
Norton from Wellington. Later she got a job at the boarding house when it was built
and miners started occupying the rooms. Karl Jamison was the store manager under
Price Trading Post. I worked with Vic Waite in the office. On the floor I remember
some of the clerks: Doris Waite, Jerry Harvey, Kate Grevon, Larue Reed, Karl
Peterson from Green River, Utah.
We lived in the third house west of the store on Geneva. Next door at the first house were Mr. & Mrs. Justesen and Lorraine, their daughter. They were Craig Justesen's parents. The construction of A section was completed and they had hired people to water the lawns through out A section as it was all freshly seeded. I remember getting acquainted with one of the girls, she was from Wellington but don't remember her name. They were in the process of building B & C section.
I was really a home sick gal so when I turned 18 I went to Sunflower,
Kansas to live with my sister-in-law and work at Hercules Powder plant. My bro. was in
the navy at that time. I stayed with the plant until the war ended in May 1945.
They were turning the powder plant into a plastic plant. I returned to Utah and got
a job with Dr. Colombo and Dr. Fred Jones as their receptionist.
The town had really grew in the year I was away. Mark had just returned from the war after serving 31/2 years in the European theater. We were married Oct. 27, 1945 at the time of our marriage he was employed at the Rock Asphalt up Sunnyside Canyon. He then went to
work at Horse Canyon as heavy equipment operator in April 1947. He was there for 35 years.
They had built the elementary school along with Junior High. Geniel Douglas was
their first grade teacher. My children both attended school their until high school
when they went to East Carbon High. The students who were in high school at the time
before the new high school was built had to ride the bus to Price. I believe the new
high school was built approximately in 1957. Jack started there in the fall of
1960-1965.. Jerry Coggins was one of the high school main athlete. They had an
excellent football and basketball teams. He had graduated before Jack started there.
Linda attended the following year she graduated in 1966.
They then built the Peterson elementary school and eventually tore down the old school building. For a while they used it to park school buses in it. Had remodeled it to accommodate the buses. I believe they housed the fire truck until they moved to their present location behind
the old post office. I don't know where it's at now. They were the ones used to
transport the kids to high school in Price.
I remember the old theater in Sunnyside and the school building there that sat up on the side of the hill along with several houses. We attended a dance held there in 1945. They also had a grocery store that I shopped at in old Sunnyside. They built the tipple at Sunnyside so they moved the grocery store down where Nick's club use to be on the highway. Next to Nick's and attached was the A & H grocery. Ace Boulter was the owner. I remember Joe Galliard worked for Ace even in the old Sunnyside store. Dr. Demman use to come up from
Helper once a week. to attend to patients that he had coming to Helper to see him. He
had a small office in the upper part of Sunnyside that he used. At the time we were
patients of Dr. Demman as he was the Rock Asphalt's Dr. Henry Jones owned the Rock
Asphalt Co.
Mark brought home to me a couple of love birds that Henry gave him. They
were in a cage. I didn't have them for long as they scared me to death-they wouldn't
stay in their cage-got out and flew all over the house. I had to go get Mrs. Wilson
who lived behind us to come rescue the birds. I made Mark take them right back after
a couple days of chasing those birds!
The kids started to school in 1953. I decided to take the Cilvil Service exam for post office clerk. I passed with luck being one of the top three. A school teacher was ahead of me,-but moved away so it left a chance for me to be hired. And with luck Mrs. Scow did just that. I and Vera Carey were hired at the same time. Later on I remember Rae Coleman working with us. We had quite a full day at that time-all money orders were hand written and we all worked
out of the same drawer. Sold money orders at one window-took in packages, sold
stamps, handed out mail and packages out the other window. We had to pull down iron
bars over our windows in those days. Whoever was available and not busy would wait
on the customers.
As I look back those were the hectic yrs. At Christmas time we would get huge toilet tissue boxes to put the overflow of Christmas cards in until we got time to sort and put them in the mail boxes. We also was receiving two deliveries of mail from Price. Truck would come in the early morning and then in the afternoon another load of mail. We were shipping out two money deposits sometimes three as money orders were being used to pay all their bills.
In 1965, Mrs. Scow retired and I was appointed acting Postmaster the very same day. She had to turn everything over to my charge. I stayed there until retirement Jan. 1984. I had Nora Cassano, Mina Hackney, Diane Deporto, Bessie Pressett, Lois Hall, Angie Cortese, Kathy Bean, Naomia Trujillo all worked under me at some time during my tenture as Postmaster. I also had a janitor, Babe Justesen worked until she got ill, then I hired Gina Parr. She was still there when I retired. I inherited the mail route delivery over to Columbia residents. But at first when Ephia Foster retired one of my clerks was put over there to service the residents until the mail route was established.
I don't know the exact date the old boarding house was torn down but do recall an elderly
gentleman Matt Mattiea, living there with a long stove pipe sticking out of a window
as he had to have a stove for heat as no heat was provided for the building. I remember when Nora Grider(at that time) we stood at the old post office window and watched the old house across the railroads tracks burn down. Guy Law resided there during the week going home to Orangeville over the weekends.
I recall the many long strikes the coal miners had-especially the 5 mo old strike over trying to oust Dr. Colombo, in which they accomplished after a long bout. I remember Mr. Frank Hicks providing mine trucks to go pick up potatoes from Idaho for the striking miners. He
always had sympathy for the families when their fathers weren't working. After his
retirement Von Storch took his place. We use to be able to close our office for July
24th to celebrate Mormon Day-but Von Storch put a stop to that right away.
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