Snowville
Rabbits,
thousands of them, were the chief troublemakers in early Snowville
history. Other localities in the pioneer west had their cricket
invasions, as did Snowville in 1877. Rabbits, however, were the
chief pest both in 1877 and 1879. Crop destruction during these
years caused such a crisis that there were some who advocated breaking
up the settlement in 1880 on the grounds that people could not make a
living there. Had the movement to give up the town succeeded,
Snowville's ten-year history of difficult frontier problems and
sacrifices on the part of its settlers may never have reached further
attention. But there were many who had faith in Snowville's
future. They stuck to their lands, undaunted by nature and
rabbits, and they finally began to harvest some sizeable crops.
Their town, though still not large, has farms and homes that are secure
because of the land's productiveness.
Snowville, about three miles
south of the Idaho border in Box Elder County, is the center of farming
and dairying activities in the Curlew Valley. This valley extends
approximately forty-two miles from southern Idaho to the Great Salt
Lake on the south. Snowville is on the east side of Curlew Valley
and is separated from Park Valley on the west by a low spur of
mountains extending from the Clear Creek Mountains in a southeasterly
direction toward the Great Salt Lake.
Deep Creek, which occupies an
important place in the history of Snowville and Curlew Valley, rises
from springs twelve miles north of Snowville and sinks near Houtz Ranch
seven miles to the southwest. Lorenzo Snow, then a member of the
quorum of the Twelve of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
and later the Church's fifth president, prophesied that Deep Creek
would be an "everlasting stream whose water should never diminish, and
one from which many should come to drink." Even in parched years,
Deep Creek never lowered.
In 1870 the first settlers
came to the Curlew Valley from Malad, Idaho, and settled near the
present site of Snowville on Deep Creek. The settlement got a
shot in the arm on May 12, 1876, when Arnold Goodliffe arrived to "take
charge" of the few families there, under instruction from Lorenzo
Snow. The history of the next thirty years was pretty well built
around Goodliffe who seemed to be a first-rate colonizer. Upon
arrival, he promptly took over the spiritual and temporal direction of
his small flock.
Many people have wondered, and
still do, if the community received its name because of its climate,
since temperatures have dropped to 40 degrees below zero in the
winter. But the brethren wanted to honor Lorenzo Snow who had
been almost like a godfather to the community. They probably had
no thought of winter when they selected a name.
A log house, 26 X 20 feet, was
dedicated on April 22, 1877, as a combination school and
meetinghouse. Logs for the building had been hauled in from the
Black Pine Mountains, thirty miles to the northwest. The town
changed its location on October 24, 1878, from the west side of Deep
Creek to the east side where the present town site was surveyed and
lots were issued to the citizens. Another milestone was reached
in 1887 when the first rock schoolhouse was built.
Another disastrous date in
Snowville's history which ranks in importance with the rabbit invasion
in 1879, was March 12, 1934, when a series of earthquakes centered
around the north end of Great Salt Lake caused considerable damage in
Snowville. The meetinghouse, the public school building, and a
number of homes were damaged.
The town was incorporated
November 6, 1933. Hard surfaced roads came to the community on
November 15 of that same year. The community now had a telephone
system, electric power, culinary water system, a post office, service
station and convenience store, eating establishments, R. V. campground,
motel, park, an international fish food-processing manufacturing
company, and a beautiful all-brick L.D.S. church house.
Students from grades 6 through
12 are transported 40 miles by bus to schools in Tremonton. The
last population census taken in 1989 reports 251 people living in
Snowville. Many of them now have employment elsewhere, such as
the Black Pine Mine ten miles west, and Thiokol Corporation, thirty
miles to the east.