In this week’s edition of The Payson Chronicle

 

Memorial Day at Payson Memorial Park

 

Memorial Day at Memorial Park. 

“Light Follows Darkness”

Have a memorable day!

Coming up

 

Coming up in The Payson Chronicle:

The Knob Snob — Turning Doorknobs Of Time Into Timeless Works Of Art

PICTURED: A series of ornate doorknobs, each photographed and together framed as part of Gary and Cindy Thatcher’s collection in their venture, the Knob Snob.

Payson MEMORIAL DAY Celebration

 

Payson People

"WHO Is This MAN DOWDELL?" an ad appearing in The Payson Chronicle on March 11, 1933 inquired. "He is the man who introduced SERVICE to motorists in Payson and vicinity," it replied. And that man was Nephi Dowdell, who — at that time — ran the Conoco Super Service at 1st North and Main. A year later, the Dowdell Motor Co. ad pictured here was published in The Payson Chronicle. Dowdell was born in 1901. He graduated from Springville High School and earned a degree in mechanical drawing from the University of Utah. He worked for the National Cash Register Co. from 1920-1923 before arriving in Payson to begin what would come to be a long automotive career. Later, he worked as the parts manager for the G. Lowry Anderson Ford dealership in Springville, then he took up employment with Johnson Tractor Co. in Spanish Fork. Dowdell was a lifetime member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks — BPOE Lodge 849 of Provo. He was active in the Masonic Order, serving as Master Mason in Story Lodge No 4, F & AM in Provo, and as member of the Royal and Select Masters of Provo Council No. 2, Royal Arch Masons of Provo Chapter No. 4,  the El Kalah Temple in Salt Lake City, Central Utah Shrine Club, and the Knights Templar Ivanhoe Commandery No. 5. At the time of his death in November 1971, the man of service was employed with Cal and Paul's Ford Tractor Co. in Pleasant Grove.

In This Week’s Edition of The Payson Chronicle

 

Submissions Call

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Our American Story

PICTURED: Neighbors, friends, and in a few cases kin — Americans one and all — listed on a sample ballot for Payson City's municipal election of 1903. (Published in The Globe-Header)

The 250th anniversary of our nation is not only a time to look back, but also to look forward. Many see 2026 as an opportunity to confront the country’s imperfections while honoring its resilience. Conversations about democracy, equality, and freedom are as vital today as they were in 1776.

Join the conversation.

We want to know what being an American means to you. What are your hopes for our nation’s future? 

Send us your American story in essay form, as an original poem, or composed in lyrics to a song—all for consideration of publication in The Payson Chronicle in the weeks leading up to America's 250th birthday celebration. 

Send your submission to paysonchronicle@gmail.com, or submit in person or by mail at 145 East Utah Avenue #5, Payson, Utah 84651.

Preloved Payson Spotlight

 

Local Business Spotlight: 

Preloved Payson, A Perpetual Hometown Market

by Paul Johnson

After a lunch date with my wife at Fat Jack's Pizza a couple weeks ago, we dropped by Preloved next door, since I was curious about the new shop. We entered into a small, cheerfully lit shop. Young moms chatted together in the aisles, while busy toddlers played in an area sectioned off by a low wall. Vertically stacked cubbies filled the aisles (the official Preloved term is "booths"); mostly clothing, although after searching, I found a some with decorations and other assortments. 

I recalled hearing something about Saturdays being different, so I dropped in a few days later with my kids on our way back from camping with the Santaquin Boy Scouts, after taking them to Fossil Shack across the street. Fortunately, we didn't get any weird looks as we browsed through the store with the scent of campfire still on our clothes. There had been some apparent turnover. Still mostly used clothing, but after a little hunting, we walked out with a treasure: the complete Harry Potter book series, and for cheaper than I could get it used on Amazon (I rapid-checked on my phone in the aisle).

Seeing that it wasn't all clothing piqued my interest, so I reached out to one of the owners, Payton. I shared my initial impression: "Consignment-based indoor yard sale?" That's the general Preloved chain business model, she said, but her plans for the franchise go beyond that: Too many of the local mom-and-pop stores that adorn Payson don't stay in business long. As a longtime Payson resident, she has wanted to promote the local business community, so besides the thrift-store aspect, she planned to make her store a hub for small businesses in the area. Preloved would be an outlet for home bakers, lotion makers and soap makers, DIY wreath crafters, and anyone who did not yet have their own brick-and-morter shop or website yet. Businesses with an established local presence would also be invited to reserve space to test-drive current and new products on Preloved's customers.

So, you're a year-round hometown market?, I asked. Exactly! she confirmed.

I asked about what the process was to reserve a booth. She explained that vendors just reserve a booth on the website for a week at a time. They drop off a booth's worth of items (the website clarifies that you get 4 shelves and a dowel to hang up about 70 items) on Saturday and pick up whatever is left at the end of the following week. The store then takes a 40% cut on each item sold. While the user sets their own price per item, opting into progressive discounting is highly encouraged. The general expectation is that vendors would set the booth go to 25% off on Tuesday and somewhere from 50-90% off in the lead up to Friday. 

While it takes $30 to rent a booth for the week, the store makes it essentially risk free by refunding that fee if the booth doesn't sell, provided that they follow the store's instructions to set up on time, take down on time, and agree to discount by at least 50% for at least the last two days. I was impressed, as I could see that would make it really easy for businesses to test-drive a new product on Preloved's variety of customers before deciding to fill their own shop's shelves with it.

With regard to the yard-sale model, Preloved's selling point was the chance to make a profit off of getting rid of their stuff, Payton explained. Control over pricing remained with the individual vendors, while Preloved provides booth space, foot traffic, staffing, and tools for sales. The vendors could log into the store website anytime during the week to see how much their booth has earned so far. Many of their customers have a routine where they come in Saturday for early treasure-hunting, then again on Tuesday or Wednesday to catch the first discount wave, and yet again on Friday to get things at fire-sale prices... because no one wants their clutter back.

I asked what made her want to go into business for herself. As a registered nurse on 12-hour shifts and a mother of seven (recently, eight), it was always more work than it was worth to declutter by selling on Facebook Marketplace and Ebay. Her sister, Taylor, told her about Preloved, which had originated in Utah Valley, patterned after Scandinavia's upscale thrifting culture. Taylor rented a booth at the Spanish Fork store for Payton, and by the end of the week, they had earned $200 and decided to keep doing this. Sometimes, a friend would pick up both of their piles of items when they were too busy to come in themselves. Eventually, they had earned over $3000, so they decided to take their grandma on a girls' trip to Disneyland. ("It was fun to spoil her, since she has always spoiled us.") She said they have taken family trips since then on earnings from decluttering. One day she was driving downtown past where Dalton's used to be, and it struck her that this would be a great spot for the sisters to open their own Preloved together. So they did.

Payton shared the mindset change that the Preloved lifestyle has given her and others: At your closet, in the kitchen, or elsewhere at home, just ask "What do I not naturally grab?" Relatedly, having multiple kids meant that she repeatedly went in and out of pregnancy / post-partum, so thrift-selling and thrift-buying was an easy way to cycle through clothing sizes. And since "kids can stain a $6 shirt just as well as a $40 shirt, it's fun to be able to dress them nicely on a budget," too. Elaborating further, "You start to think about the things you bring into your house more intentionally: will I use it, or will it likely gather dust?" As a result, she said, you become less likely to continually bring home nicknacks that will probably just become clutter.

"Your store is mainly targeted toward women, right?" Yes... but she has also seen business from men looking to sell their stuff, whether board games (the most popular booth in the store that particular week), books, or even sports gear and jerseys. One of her favorite moments was watching an older man bring his adult daughter and tell her he would just wait for her to be done. Then, he started browsing and "brought home more than she did!" The store has a kid playplace so moms and dads can browse with less distraction. Occasional kid-focused events like storytime are also in the works. Payton said they will also have event space to rent out when they finish remodeling another part of the building. They hope to offer that space for receptions and graduation parties as an inexpensive counterpoint to Payson's current high-end-only event spaces.

Tips from Payton, for anyone thinking of selling at Preloved:

- Your items don't have to be a specific brand or the newest style to sell well; it's just about looking nice. 

- She has seen people try to bring items with dog hair still on them -- "consider washing your clothes first."

- Price to sell your items, not based on their sentimental value to you.

- No electronics, since the store doesn't provide testing, to avoid buyers ending up with items that don't work. 

- Estate sales? Yes, and you'll want to book a few booths instead for what doesn't sell at the estate.

- And finally, just remember that cycling out stuff you don't want means pocket change to rotate things into your closet and home that you actually DO want.

To return to what I think is the neatest aspect, Preloved as indoor hometown market: Payton has been gradually reaching out to bakeries, home businesses, and local shops to promote their products and even find ways to collaborate. Besides the booths, they offer a little counter space and wall pegs for "Try before you SELL" product test-driving. For Mother's Day, they hosted a local flower vendor with a create-your-own-bouquet event and also invited Roots Coffee to participate. Since they own some of the empty space adjacent to the store, they are thinking of hosting larger groups of sellers on Saturdays, with more diversity than Preloved's average offerings. So for monthly Santaquin Hometown Market fans, consider Preloved as an outlet for all the in-between weeks and non-summer months for showing off your wares to the community.

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In this week’s edition of THE PAYSON CHRONICLE

 

PAYSON PEOPLE

Payson grocer Roy Rodgers (1913-1991) owned and managed Central Market at 11 South Main before building a larger and more modern grocery store a few blocks away — at 190 East 100 North — around 1959. Rodgers ran Roy’s Food Marts located in both Payson and Spanish Fork for 37 years. This advertisement appeared in The Payson Chronicle in 1967.

Memorial Day in Santaquin

Santaquin Legion To Host Memorial Day Program

Santaquin American Legion Post #84 will hold its annual Memorial Day Service on Monday, May 25 at 11 AM at the Santaquin Cemetery Veterans Memorial.

Featured speaker will be William Boardman. Musical numbers will be provided by Ester Slaeker, Keith Broadhead, and Helen Kester.

The program will be conducted by Commander Art Adcock.

A special thank you is extended to Keith Broadhead for providing his sound system.

Please bring your own chairs.

Kachinas

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Our American Story

PICTURED: Educational coloring book “Kachina Dolls: Color and Cut-Out Collection Adapted from Hopi Originals” for which Julie West Staheli created all the artwork and wrote the text. The American costume designer, author, and artist was born in Payson, Utah in 1939. Her color and cutout book was published by Troubador Press of San Francisco, California in 1974.

The 250th anniversary of our nation is not only a time to look back, but also to look forward. Many see 2026 as an opportunity to confront the country’s imperfections while honoring its resilience. Conversations about democracy, equality, and freedom are as vital today as they were in 1776.

Join the conversation.

We want to know what being an American means to you. What are your hopes for our nation’s future? 

Send us your American story in essay form, as an original poem, or composed in lyrics to a song—all for consideration of publication in The Payson Chronicle in the weeks leading up to America's 250th birthday celebration. 

Send your submission to paysonchronicle@gmail.com, or submit in person or by mail at 145 East Utah Avenue Suite 5, Payson, Utah 84651.

In this week’s edition of The Payson Chronicle

 

PAYSON PEOPLE

Seagull Service Station was described as the "most handsome and complete gas service station" in Payson's business district in its day. "When you need gas drive up and let us fill your tank," a narrative ad for the business read — it was published in The Payson Chronicle in March 1929.  A prominent figure in the community, Paul J. Davis owned and managed the station, which serviced every running part of an automobile: oil, grease, battery, and washing. Tires, too. Seagull Service Station was "a model of beauty and a credit to the town and business has been keeping pace with the rapid growth of the community." Davis ran the adjoining advertisement for Miller Tires in The Payson Chronicle in May 1930. 

#thepaysonchronicle #paysonutah #seagull #millertires #akronohio 

Paysonian Advertising: Whistle Bottling Co. (1921)

 

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Fossil Shack

Local Business Spotlight:  Fossil Shack

By Paul Johnson

PICTURED: Owner Seth Sorensen with a dino head and artifacts from "the Shack".

"I'm just a kid who never grew up," owner Seth Sorensen told me when I asked how he ended up in the fossil business. Located at 25 South 100 West, Payson, "the Shack" occupies the northwest corner of the same block as Total Fitness and the Payson Library. It combines a retail outlet with a workshop where Seth and his assistants do the professional work of cleaning, restoring, preparing, and framing fossils, large-scale dinosaurs and ice-age mammals included. Besides fossils, the shop sells a wide assortment of geodes and polished rocks.

It has the great timing of joining Payson's economic scene right after every rockhound's erstwhile favorite outlet, White Feather Rocks, just closed their Santaquin location.

When asked for his business's main takeaway, Seth quipped that it doesn't matter "whether you're some Hollywood A-lister making millions or a 10-year-old kid saving up pocket change," everyone can have their own piece of history.

Fossil Shack is a family business owned by Seth and his wife. He hails from Sanpete County, his wife is from Spanish Fork, and they currently live in Salem. They service customers around the world, including museums in places as diverse as the Philippines and Slovakia, but they decided that they wanted to stay in Utah Valley to raise their kids.

While most of their work represents the "restore" portion of the "dig -> restore -> educate" pipeline, they also do some of the digging and education portions as well. He maintains a small handful of employees working at a private quarry they own, and a few in the shop.

How did he get started?, I asked. "Just a box of fossil rocks in my living room" as a kid. From there, it was project based, taking care of cleaning and preparation work for one buyer at a time. The welding he learned in high school has also been vital to the engineering process of wiring the bones together cleanly for exhibits.

The retail side is only a relatively small side-venture. Their main focus and primary revenue stream has traditionally been fossil preparation for big-ticket customers like museums and wealthy collectors, such as a piece he recently finished on commission for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

Even though selling to local customers doesn't make much in comparison, Seth says it's a rewarding cause -- a mission helping kids get excited to own their own piece of natural history and maybe get them started dreaming about going into paleontology themselves someday.

On that note, one of Fossil Shack's primary purposes is public education. Seth recently made arrangements with the Payson Library to bring over exhibits for kids to see at booths in the library later this year and to have the librarians bring kids to his shop as part of their event programming. He is similarly working with one of the local schools to arrange a field trip. Young visitors will get to see the workshop side in action and learn how artifacts from fossil digs are professionally cleaned and prepared for display. Relatedly, one of his near-range goals is to start his own paleontology museum in South Utah County under a nonprofit that he recently formed.

 

I inquired how a hobbyist like him gets started, and even more interestingly, how a hobbyist ends up as a global-servicing professional. "It's all referral-based." Since there are so few people doing the restoration phase professionally, "someone out in a place like Montana or Morocco digs and finds their first fossil, and they ask their contacts who does prep work. Their contacts tell the guy to call someone like us."

Only a small handful of suppliers like him constitute the fossil-preparation industry worldwide, so it's heavily networking-based. The few businesses who do what he does face constant and high demand; Fossil Shack's current work backlog is 4 to 5 years. That demand comes partly from wealthy individuals like movie stars or famous athletes who acquire big pieces to display at home, like a triceratops he recently installed in a sports star's mansion entryway.

Their other main source of demand is museums. Even though many natural-history museums have a staff display where visitors get to see extraction projects taking place live behind plexiglass, museums tend to outsource most of that work to private shops like his. His recent contracted effort for the Smithsonian emerged from a referral. The Smithsonian had reached out to their contacts asking who could take care of a project they needed done, and another museum he had recently serviced dropped his name. 

It's not just the expertise that high-profile outlets come to him for, it's also his private quarry. For instance, besides his own employees, he also allows staff from Fossil Butte National Monument, the National Park Service center in Wyoming, to dig in his quarry as well and freely donates to the park service whatever they extract.

My own assessment: If I didn't already live in Payson, it would easily be worth coming all the way from Ogden or Delta to give my kids the chance to see live professional fossil-prep work up close... and maybe each come home with a tooth or a trilobite in a box. 

With a showroom of display shelves already set up, Fossil Shack is currently open by appointment as they finish renovating the rest of the building.

Visitors can reach out via their website, https://www.fossilshack.com/. Seth is currently coordinating a grand opening with the Chamber of Commerce, anticipated to take place sometime within the next month.

Mourning the Passing of Our Friend

Pearl Elaine Henline Peters

Pearl Elaine Henline Peters, 89, passed away Wednesday, April 29, 2026, at her home in Ivins, Utah. Pearl was born April 26, 1937, in Magna, Utah, to Alvie Russell Henline and Clara Pearl Lewellen.

When Pearl was seven, her family moved up Spanish Fork Canyon to Mt. Rose Ranch. Her parents and three sisters lived in a tent with an outhouse before purchasing a home in Springville, Utah, which had to be transported 12 miles to the Ranch.

Pearl loved the outdoors and worked hard alongside her father doing chores, proving she was the best “son” her parents ever had. Her horse Blaze was a beloved friend; she enjoyed riding and grooming him.

Her family later moved to Payson, Utah, where Pearl attended junior and senior high school. She was a proud member of the Payson Lion Pep Club.

Pearl met the love of her life, John Peters, in 1953 during her sophomore year. After graduating from Payson High School in 1955, Pearl waited patiently for three more years while John served a mission in South America. She worked as a Bell Telephone operator saving money and planning for their future together.

Pearl married John Allan Peters July 11, 1958, in the Logan, Utah Temple. They lived in Payson, moving to Springville for John’s first teaching position.

In 1963, Pearl and John, along with Jane and Alvie, moved to Buena Park, California, adding three more children, Annette, Pamela, and Paul. Pearl served for years in the scouting program as a den mother, Cub Scout leader, Merit Badge counsellor and Advancement Chairman. Seeing the young boys earn merit badges and live the Boy Scout Oath gave her great joy.

Pearl’s family moved south to Laguna Hills, CA in 1980, where Pearl worked as a special education aide with elementary school children. Pearl loved holidays and delighted dressing up portraying Mother Goose, the Easter Bunny, Mrs. Claus, and more.

Pearl and John returned home to Utah in 1994. They spent their last 30 years thriving in Southern Utah and competing in bowling leagues together year‑round.

Pearl enjoyed crafting, scrapbooking, family history, and exchanging books with her friends. Pearl loved America and was very patriotic. She was widely known as the Red, White, and Blue Lady. She will surely enjoy this summer’s 250th Celebration from above.

One of Pearl’s most cherished memories was traveling with John to South America, where John served his mission in Argentina and Chile. Seeing and experiencing the people and land he loved was a personal highlight of the trip.

Pearl loved reading the Scriptures and sharing her testimony with others. In her later year, Pearl and John served in the Baptistry of the St. George Temple and as service missionaries in a Spanish-speaking ward in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Pearl had a strong testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and The Plan of Salvation.

Pearl is survived by her children: Jane Guthrie (Randy), Highlands Ranch, CO; Annette Peters, Reno, NV; and Pamela Munsterman, Ivins, UT, and Paul Eldred Peters (Rabecca), Oceanside, CA; along with numerous grandchildren and great‑grandchildren.

Pearl is preceded in death by her husband John Allan Peters; her parents Alvie and Clara Henline; her son Alvie Peters; and her sisters Luana Baadsgaard and Janice Lazenby and Son-in-Law David Munsterman.

Graveside service and internment will be held Saturday, May 9, 2026, at 11:30 AM at Payson City Cemetery.

Arrangements entrusted to the care of Metcalf Bonzo Mortuary, (435) 673-4221. Please visit our website at www.metcalfbonzomortuary.com for condolences and funeral listings.