TALES FROM THE FORT

An Introduction

“We Dispatch From Inside”

Before the city was Payson the town was called Peteetneet.

Fortresses built in the city’s central area in the mid-19th century reflect this order. First there was Fort Peteetneet, then it was called Fort Payson.

“The fort had a four-foot deep moat at the bottom, a base of rocks and an eight-foot wall of adobe with bastions on the corners,” according to Payson Historical Society accounts. “It was about four city blocks square. The main gate was on the east side. The name of the settlement was changed to Payson in the latter part of 1851."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' second president, Brigham Young changed the name to honor James Pace, its founder, note the historical society's records. The town and fort’s original name had been given with respect to Chief Peteetneet, leader of the native Timpanogos band who called the region home. 

The fort’s walls, which expanded in response to conflict and a growing settler community, have long since vanished. What remains are materials recycled in subsequent developments, wood and stone artifacts buried beneath the ground, the stories, and a handful of contemporary monuments marking the fort’s perimeters.

We dispatch from inside

The Payson Chronicle is among businesses and homes that exist today on turf once fortified inside these walls. The Commercial Place building, the site from which the newspaper has operated since late-1996, is located at 145 East Utah Avenue. Two brick monuments sit on the west side of 200 East Street, right off and north of Utah Avenue, right around the corner--east--from the newspaper office. These monuments mark Fort Payson’s eastern main gate.

Metal plaques share a small part of the story. They allude also to part of the region’s history. 

An iconic wagon wheel in each bears a symbol of the community’s pioneer past.

Mourning the Passing of Friends: Forthcoming Funeral Service

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. 

All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”

~ Helen Keller 

GORDON DOUGLAS THOMAS

Gordon Douglas Thomas passed away on October 20, 2022.  He was born on December 11, 1949 to Douglas and Lucille Thomas of Genola, Utah.  He was the second of 7 children, the oldest son.  He graduated from Payson High School in 1968. He also received an Associate Degree of Diesel Mechanics from Utah Valley University. 

Gordon worked in the Burgin mine, he assisted with the relief efforts in the Sunshine Mine tragedy and continued work in the mines until a fall he took down a shaft.  He purchased the Genola Mercantile, he also ran the Genola hunting unit from the Merc. He put on the Lil’ Buckaroo Rodeo in town and announced countless others. He helped organize the and was part of the first volunteer fire department in Genola, drove truck for Davis Brothers Cabinets, and was a manufacturer at Pre-Corp with his son. 

Gordon was part of the Diamond Fork Riding Club, and was a talented showman, he will be remembered for the role he played as Santa in many homes and communities across the state. He performed as a cowboy poet and singer with The Ranch Hands. He was a lover of music, horses, and a simple way of life.

Gordon is preceded in death by his parents (Doug and Lucille Thomas), wife (Patricia Ann), son (Sidney David), daughter (Crystal Hardy). He is survived by his siblings and children: Perry (Caroline) Thomas, Michelle (Brannen) Guthrie, (David Hardy), Nena (Josh) Cox.  Gordon has 14 grandchildren and one great grandson.

 

Graveside services will be held Saturday October 29. 2022 at 11:00 a.m. at Santaquin City Cemetery. Friends may greet family Friday October 28th from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Brown Mortuary, 66 South 300 East Santaquin. Share condolences at www.brownfamilymortuary.com

Coming up in The Payson Chronicle: TALES FROM THE FORT

 

F O R T  P A Y S O N

In This Week's Edition: October 19, 2022

 

Discovering Where We Came From

A page from Payson's history and book showcased in the Lee and Jean Staheli Western Room at the Peteetneet.

#discoveringwherewecamefrom #peteetneetmuseum #paysonutah #utahcounty #utahhistory #thepaysonstory #cockleburrs #paysonchronicle #thepaysonchronicle #readthepaysonchronicle #paysonpeople

PICTURES TELL THE PAYSON STORY--CONFECTIONARY STORES: CHIPMANS CHIPMAN'S CONFECTION

 

PHOTO: According to Payson Historical Society records, Chipman’s was one of several confectionery stores to have operated in a building located directly west of the old Star Theatre. Chipman’s Confection was open from 1944-1979.

Harold and Florence Chipman from American Fork purchased the store next to Star Theatre from Mr. Henry Naylor in 1944. The Chipmans, along with their two children, Carol and Cordell, resided in the apartment that was located in the rear of the building. They remodeled and expanded the apartment to include a second bedroom, a front room, and a bathroom. They moved into their new home in November, 1944.

The Chipmans operated a market and confectionery store for thirty-five years–until Harold passed away in 1979–then the store was sold.

The store had a soda fountain where they carried many ice cream flavors, malts and shakes, ice cream sodas, and banana splits. The sodas were created with carbonated water and virtually any flavor a person wanted added, straight from the fountain.

Mrs. Chipman made some of the best hamburgers in town. The burgers were thick, with a fresh sliced tomato, sliced onion, pickles, lettuce, and a handful of chips on the side. You could also buy fresh sandwiches and other goodies in the store.

The prices seem very inexpensive by today’s standards.  Fountain drinks were a nickel, malts were 24 cents, sodas were 15 cents and banana splits with three scoops of  ice cream was just 35 cents. The hot dogs were 15 cents and the hamburgers were 25 cents.

The store was located just west of the old Star Theater and the newer Huish Theatre was located just a short distance west, down the street.  One of the special things the Chipman store had was the selection of “penny” candy.  The kids would come in on their way to the movies and buy a sack of the candy to take to the show with them.

After the operation of the store came to an end, it has had a variety of businesses located there over the years.  We have seen an insurance office, a realty office, a tax office, a barber shop and other varied enterprises located there.

 In 2015, the Computer Corner and Payson Lock and Key moved from a unit in the Huish Theatre building into the building.  The exterior was updated and plastered to obtain a new modern feeling.

PART 2: Centenarian Nurse And Veteran Audrey Kent Recalls Memories Of Service

A young Audrey Kent tucked a dollar bill into her pocket, then made her way to the revelry spilling out onto sidewalks and streets in the city. The end of World War II had arrived.

“I was right there in the hospital and so us nurses that weren’t on duty walked down to San Francisco--I mean, to town--and, oh! It was just chalk-full of people. A lot of military. And they were all yelling and clapping and everything.”

She brought the dollar bill in case a purchase would be needed. “I got home and I didn’t have it anymore,” Audrey, now 101, laughed. “Someone picked it!”

Before the war was over, San Francisco offered an escape valve from the pressures felt healing the wounded and sick at Presidio Letterman Hospital, where she was based as a military nurse.

“All us group of nurses that were kind of close and friendly, when we had a night off we would go down to town and go to one of the big hotels.” Like the Sir Francis Drake on Union Square or the Mark Hopkins’s Top of the Mark, its height a bird's eye to the gleaming bay landscape.

“And, you know, we didn’t have to pay anything. We’d go where the dance was and they had all the big bands would come there.”  Tommy Dorsey, Wayne King, Lawrence Welk: Audrey loved the music popular at that time.

“They were really romantic songs,” she described it. “Some were sad, you know, and some were jolly.”

Music was a salve to the bittersweet days of early Forties America, a period Ms Kent observes as unique.

“The atmosphere was so different than it is now, with the people and the soldiers and that,” she said. “Because the husbands and sons and much of the civilians were going overseas, usually right there in San Francisco. I mean, they didn’t know if they were ever going to come back and it was a very sobering atmosphere at times. So they would go to the dances to kind of give them something fun to think about.

"Everybody in the country was for the country, you know, patriotic, it seems like.”

TO BE CONTINUED