Where
the bjerregaard adults went to school.
EPHRAIM
Since the 1850s,
Sanpete County's history has revolved around the
rivalry of its four leading towns--Mt. Pleasant,
Gunnison, Manti, and Ephraim. Ephraim, long portrayed
as the epitome of "the Utah farm village," refused to
concede primacy of place to its nearest competitor,
even though Manti captured both the county seat and
one of Utah's first four Mormon temples. In the 1950s,
Ephraim finally eclipsed all its rivals in size and
two decades later passed the Census Bureau's magic
2,500 mark to become Sanpete's only urban place.
Outwardly, Ephraim
still resembles its Sanpete rivals and the classic
Mormon village, but inwardly it has always differed in
significant ways. From its founding in 1854 until the
end of the Black Hawk War in 1868, Ephraim functioned
as Sanpete's most important fort. Platted across one
of the San Pitch River's largest tributary "creeks,"
Fort Ephraim arose next to a sizable Indian
settlement, "presenting the appearance of two cities,
side by side, with entirely different manners and
customs" according to one early observer.
Its function as a
fort drew a very diverse population to Ephraim, with
Danes forming a bare majority by 1860. Divisions
naturally developed, prompting the church to appoint
outsiders as bishops. The fourth, a Norwegian named
Canute Peterson, arrived from Lehi in 1867 and, after
signing a peace treaty with the Indians, helped bring
stability and prosperity to a newly incorporated
(1868) City of Ephraim. By 1872 the city had built two
imposing structures a block apart on opposite sides of
Main Street--a co-op store and a tabernacle.
Brigham Young's
appointment of Peterson as president of Sanpete Stake
in 1877 enabled Ephraim to serve as church seat and
become in 1888 the site of the stake academy, the
forerunner of Snow College. The school grew very
slowly, not moving into its first permanent building
for nearly 20 years. Not until after the LDS Church
turned the school over to the state in 1932 did it
become a bonafide two-year college. The school now
(1993-94) numbers nearly 2,500 students and rivals
agriculture as an economic base for Utah's smallest
college town. Snow College has had a much more
enduring impact on Ephraim's growth than the ephemeral
railways, agricultural businesses, and light
industries once located on the west side of town. The
college has also made Ephraim the most cosmopolitan
place in Sanpete, connecting it with the other towns
and the rest of the state through its manifold
programs.
The growth of Snow
College has also altered the composition of Ephraim's
population which by 1880 had become about 90 percent
Scandinavian. Then about half of all residents had one
of eight surnames: Anderson, Christensen, Hansen,
Jensen, Larson, Nielsen, Olsen, or Peterson. No wonder
than used nicknames like "Petee Bishop" (a son of
Canute) to keep the identities of the townsfolk
straight! It could be said that non-Scandinavians
married a Christensen, left town, or never felt fully
at home. To compound matters, fully one-fourth of
Ephraim's Mormons had, by choice or birth, entered the
plural form of marriage.
To revive the town's
Nordic heritage, a few Ephraimites started a
Scandinavian Festival in 1976. Held on the weekend
before Memorial Day, the festival now features
numerous events centered on Ephraim Square. Ephraim
almost razed its empty Co-op after tearing down the
old rock tabernacle, but it recently decided to
restore its finest building and make it once again a
central focus of Main Street and the entire town.
See: Albert Antrei
and Ruth Scow (eds.), The Other Forty-niners (1982);
Centennial Book Committee, Our Yesterdays (1981); Gary
B. Peterson and Lowell C. Bennion, Sanpete Scenes: A
guide to Utah's Heart (1897).
Lowell C. Bennion
