Book: "A History of Emery County"

A few years before my grandfather Andrew Charles Tucker passed away, I visited him at his home in Murry, Utah. He had a book called "A History of Emery County" by Edward A. Geary. The book talks about the various towns and communities that make up Emery County. On pages 179-180 it talks about the community of Elmo. At the time I hand copied the contents of the pages and tucked them away with my genealogy stuff.

A few weeks ago I came across the paper which included the ISBN. I decided to check Amazon and see if they had the book. Sure enough they did, and the book arrived today. It will be very interesting to gain an in-depth knowledge of the area.

Here is an excerpt:

Elmo. In 1904 several residents of Cleveland, including Bouther H. Erickson, Samuel Richards, James A. Oviatt, Adolph Axelson, and William J. Atwood, filed on homesteads some four miles northeast of that community and constructed the Eagle Extension of the Cleveland Canal to bring water to the land. In 1907 George T. Oviatt, Lars P. Larsen, H. H. Oviatt, Sr., Hans F. Mortensen, Henry Rasmussen, and others filed on land farther out on the Washboard Flat and built another extension of the Cleveland Canal. The Emery County Progress reported, "The land is amongst the best in the county and it is expected quite a prosperous community will soon spring up there." These second-generation pioneers reenacted in large part the colonizing experience of their parents a generation earlier, living in tents or log shacks on their homesteads while they labored to bring their desert land into production. In 1908 Eliza Oviatt filed on eighty acres and Worth Tucker purchased eighty acres of an adjacent school section. These properties became the Elmo townsite, platted into lots that were sold to prospective residents for $10. By July 1908 the Progress reported the town "already has several small houses and is
rapidly acquiring a population." 26

26. Emery County Progress, 9 November 1907; 18 July 1908.

Here is a link for any that are interested in obtaining this book:



You may also be able to find the book at the Western Mining and Railroad Museum.