St. Charles

On May 1, 1864, Brigham Young's younger brother, William G. Young, led 15 souls from Salt Lake by way of Soda Springs to start the town of St. Charles which was named after Apostle Charles Coulson Rich. They came by ox teams and forded the swollen Bear River near Nounan and worked their way along the Indian trails by the foothills in the Bern/Ovid area until they reached Paris. Agnes Lane Pearce Arnell was the first white woman to cross Big Creek.

In that first group were Swan Arnell, his wife Agnes and two children, Charles G. Keetch, Robert and Richard Pope, with a wife and three young children, Jonathan Pugmire and John Windley and his wife. Weeks later, the families of William Allred, John Hunt, William Beers, Daniel Jacobs, William G. Young, Martin Jacobsen, Peter Jensen, John Sorenson, Ola Transtrum, Mosiah (Si) Booth, Andrew Jensen, John and Randolph Stewart, Leonard Floyd, Sjuni Bunderson, Brothers Fister, Jake Michealson, Augustus Pearce and the Hardy families followed.

William G. Young was called to be the presiding elder of the branch. When the St. Charles Ward was organized, John A. Hunt was called to be the first bishop, he was also the first person buried in the official St. Charles Cemetery.

They built a stockade on Tithing Square with a guard house at Center and First West streets. Then they dug three miles of irrigation ditch, leveling it with a stand and a glass of water.

Joseph C. Rich surveyed the town and divided it into four sections. Each family was given an allotment in which to build. They immediately started a town garden. They built homes of the available cottonwood or quaking aspen trees, with roofs of willows and mud. The floors were made of dirt and rushes. These cabins were cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Cattail and flock mattresses were placed in the cabins for sleeping.

Food was quite scarce the first few years, but they had plenty of pigweed greens, thistles, and sego bulbs when spring came. Clabber milk was also a favorite dish. The grass in the lowlands was plentiful but had to be cut with a scythe until Swan Arnell got the first mowing machine, which was called "Old Buck Eye." Swan and Si Booth also owned the first self-wire binder in town. The first threshing they did was with two sticks that were tied together with rawhide. The straw was thrown out and the grain was gathered up.

The Bear Lake Valley was thought to be in Utah and St. Charles was selected to be the county seat for Richland County, Utah.

In 1864 the first school was held in a covered wagon box with Martha Elizabeth Pugmire as the teacher. Then it was held in the Bergreen home. In 1865 first school building was made of logs with two rooms and a room for the teacher at the back of it. It was 40' x 22' in size with a dirt floor and used from 1865 to 1894. It was also used for a church until a church was built. The second school was built and furnished in 1894 and bonded for $2,000. In 1930 it was condemned by the state. The last school built is now used as a city Hall.

St. Charles was the first town in the valley to organize a drama club and they produced ''East Lynn" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that winter. The Scandinavians in this town started the first community fair and old folks party in the valley. They were also one of the first communities to start a town band with Saul 'Pop" Tremelling as director. Brother Fister made the first furniture, a sawmill was set up, Carl Hansen developed a sawmill using water for power, Martin Jacobsen operated the first grist mill, John A. Hunt was the first bishop, Annie Laker was the first doctor/midwife, David Taylor is thought to have opened the first store. Carl Hansen also had the first shingle mill up Big Creek. Swan Arnell and Si Booth bought it and their boys hauled logs to the mill to make the shingles.

In the past, St. Charles has had many businesses, John Windley's Furniture Store, Auguire's Drug Store, Dillion's Store, a grocery store, meat market, shoe shop, cafe, blacksmith shop, car dealers, George Stock Chevrolet dealer, Henry Monson Ford dealer, a service station, Henry Monson's flour mill and saw mill and two creameries (one was Brooklawn's) and Johnathan Purgmire's Mercantile Co-op.

Interesting St. Charles tidbits-

Gutzon Borglum was born in St. Charles on March 17, 1867. This is the sculptor that carved the president's heads on Mt. Rushmore.

In Feb. 1944 Weldon Peterson purchased an old house from Pete Peterson which stood on the east side of Bear Lake, about a mile from the Utah border. They put the house on four bobsleds, then chained them together and with four teams of horses and moved the house across the ice. They hooked long cables between the house and the teams so that if the ice should break under the weight of the house it would not pull the horses into the water. The teams were owned by Steve Nelson from Fish Haven, Weldon Peterson, Lovell Booth and Leon Swenson from St. Charles:

On Jan. 7, 1953, a C46 military airplane crashed in the mountains by St. Charles. Military men were going home to Georgia. The plane was found Jan. 12, 1953, in Pat Hollow near Green Canyon. All the servicemen aboard were killed. It was spring before the remains could be obtained and sent home.

Resources:

1. J. Patrick Wilde, "Treasured Tidbits of Time" Vol. 1 now owned by the DUP
2. Unpublished History of St. Charles by Roger Pugmire
3. History of the Bear Lake Pioneers, Daughters of Utah Pioneers,
4. Arnell, Young, Pugmire and Bunderson histories.