Cultivation
Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “called” a group of settlers, including some from the Southern United States, to Washington City in 1857 with the intention of long-term settlement and farming.[1] The goal of this mission was to grow cotton and other agricultural products associated with the American South, which they hoped would thrive in the warm environment in Washington County, including cotton, indigo, olives, and grapes. Young was an adamant believer in the necessity of self-sufficiency for the territory.[2] In response to initial signs of success with cotton growth and the United States Civil War raging in the East, Young continued to expand the Cotton Mission, calling more settlers to found towns in Southern Utah, including St. George in 1861.[3]
For some of the early efforts at cotton production, read “Farming Towns.”
Attempts at cotton production continued for decades, largely out of the iron-will and dedication of local settlers.[4] Despite some promising harvests, cotton never became a major industry the way that Brigham Young and many early farmers and leaders had hoped. They faced many difficulties, including lack of production infrastructure, alkali soil, floods, droughts, and insect infestations. In addition, following the Civil War, renewed cotton production from the Southern United States affected prices and competition.[5] Later, national economic struggles in the 1870s and 1890s and improvements at the wool factory in Provo impacted the settlers’ potential market.[6]
Cotton was far from the only product to be grown by Southern Utah’s settlers. Silk production was attempted, but efforts were even less profitable than cotton.[7] Sweet sorghum grew well in Southern Utah and its "molasses" attracted more demand than cotton.[8] Having been unable to sell much of the cotton from 1858, the next year Toquerville settlers emphasized growing "Chinese Sugar Cane [sweet sorghum]" instead.[9] Fruit cultivation was also lucrative and quickly became a major industry. Peach orchards thrived in early communities.[10] Fruit production was successful enough that, despite a small population, for a time, Southern Utah supported a publication devoted to "fruit growing and the garden,” The Utah Pomologist.[11]
Grapes were particularly successful and both grapes and ”Dixie Wine” were well known products from Southern Utah with a ready market.[12] Elizabeth Kane, a non-Latter-day Saint visitor, stayed in Southern Utah in 1872 and 1873 and wrote about the wine.[13] She preferred the wine grown in Toquerville, but her husband preferred the Santa Clara wine which was described as ”a little rough, but with keeping will be much prized as a high class Burgundy.”[14] Wine-making was lucrative and originally supported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for use in weekly sacrament services.[15] Religious leaders, however, spoke vehemently against drunkenness and the Church eventually stopped accepting wine as tithing payments. In addition, demand may have been influenced by the abandonment of Silver Reef and other mining towns. By the early 1900's, the winemaking industry had largely disappeared from Southern Utah.
Citations
[1] James G. Bleak, Annals of the Southern Utah Mission, (Greg Kofford Books, 2019), 22.;
G. D. Watt, "Remarks by President Brigham Young, Tabernacle; January 5, 1862," Deseret News, January 15, 1862, 1-2, Utah Digital Newspapers, https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=2590958&q=remarks&sort=rel&year_start=1862&year_end=1862&month_t=%22january%22.
[2] Watt, "Remarks by President Brigham Young,” 1-2.
[3] Bleak, Annals of the Southern Mission, 47, 49.
[4] Leonard J. Arrington, “The Mormon Cotton Mission in Southern Utah,” Pacific Historical Review 25, no. 3 (1956): 235, https://doi.org/10.2307/3637013.
[5] Peter Schwartzstein, "How the American Civil War Built Egypt's Vaunted Cotton Industry and Changed the Country Forever," Smithsonian Magazine, August 1, 2016, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-american-civil-war-built-egypts-vaunted-cotton-industry-and-changed-country-forever-180959967/.
[6] Arrington, “The Mormon Cotton Mission,” 233-234, 236-237.
[7] Mary A. Hafen, Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer of 1860: With Some Account of Frontier Life in Utah and Nevada, 2nd ed., (St. George, UT: Heritage Press, 1980), 58-59.
Katherine Lillywhite, "Sorghum Day; Dixie's Other Crop and a LaVerkin Walkabout," St. George News (St. George, UT), December 18, 2016, https://archives.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2016/12/18/kli-sorghum-day-the-other-crop-and-a-laverkin-walkabout/.
[10] Mary A. Hafen, Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer, 45.;
Zadok K. Judd, “A Western Pioneer. Autobiography of Zadok K. Judd,” In Autobiographies of Zadok Knapp Judd, Mary Minerva Dart Judd, and Wandle Mace, 31, The Huntington Digital Library, https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p16003coll15/id/40643/.;
Mary Minerva Dart Judd, “Autobiography of Mary Minerva Dart Judd,” In Autobiographies of Zadok Knapp Judd, Mary Minerva Dart Judd, and Wandle Mace, 16, The Huntington Digital Library, https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p16003coll15/id/40643/.
[11] J. E. Johnson, The Utah Pomologist (St. George, UT), May 1, 1870, Microfilm, Utah Tech University Special Collections and Archives.
[12] Andrew K. Larsen, The Education of a Second Generation Swede: An Autobiography (St. George, UT), 1979, 18.;
Arrington, “The Mormon Cotton Mission,” 237-238.
[13] Elizabeth W. Kane, A Gentile Account of Life in Utah's Dixie, 1872-73: Elizabeth Kane's St. George Journal (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Tanner Trust Fund, 1995), 46.
[14] Kane, A Gentile Account, 46.
[15] Nels Anderson, Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), 374.;
Andrew Karl Larson, I Was Called to Dixie (Andrew Karl Larson, 1979), 2nd printing, 348-350.;
Bob Nicholson, Peggy Child, Joe Stohel, and Roger Roper, "St. George Social Hall," National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1991), Section 8 page 3, https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/91000360_text.
Images
"C.W. Seegmiller," Dixie (St. George, UT: Dixie Normal College, 1918), digital page 76, Utah Tech University Library Digital Collections, https://digital.library.utahtech.edu/items/show/685#?c=&m=&s=&cv=.
Grape Vineyard P.7, digitally published 2008, Utah State Historical Society, Classified Photograph Collection, used by permission, https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=438866&q=six+people+standing&facet_setname_s=dha_%2A.
"Pure Home-Made Dixie Wine," St. George Union (St. George, UT: August 9, 1878), microfilm, Utah Tech University Special Collections and Archives.
Washington Cotton Mill, Utah Tech University Special Collections and Archives, undated, Peter Van Valkenburg Collection (WASH-033), Washington Cotton Mill, Utah, 1951-06, 1980-08, 1986-06 (Box:2, Folder:154), https://archives.utahtech.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/4718.