Esther Johnson
History 2700
Earl Mulderink
Historical Pamphlet for the town of Henrieville
I first came to the conclusion for a historical pamphlet on Henrieville, because the community in which it is surrounded by is one of the most scenic areas in the United States. Thousands of people pass through this small town each year, all the while unknowing of the history behind this small, sleepy little town. My thought process was if there was something people could read about Henrieville, then maybe individuals wouldn’t just forget about the podunk town in southern Utah. Perhaps my project would be able to educate more people on the happenings of a certain small town. I have always found the history of little towns interesting, because sometimes of the town’s location and how it looks on the surface. I have found that if an information piece is provided, it makes me feel as if I know the town a little more on the personal side. This little project of mine was also intended for the individuals within the town. Many have know idea of the history of this town and if provided with something short but concise, hopefully the townspeople will become educated on the little town they live in. I have pride when it comes to my town, and I am eager to share what I know with others, because I want them to feel the same way that I do. The history of this town could eventually die out if no one was to preserve it, and that is part of the reason while I chose to do this project.
In order to carry out my project, I needed to consult with individuals that were well versed in the history of Henrieville. One of those individuals happened to be my father, Gary Johnson. He is not a native of Henrieville, but is big on history and has read up on the history of Henrieville and is well acquainted with major events that happened in town. My father was able to guide me towards what to write, and also helped me to find the correct dates with which major events happened. It helped me to have a person that was so readily available to provide me with the information that I needed in order to accomplish my project. Because he is my dad, he was very honest and open to me about certain aspects of my project. If my father didn’t like a paragraph or a particular design, he told me so. This little insider view helped me to create a project that hopefully will take on a professional look.
Because there are no internet sources with which I could use my main benefactor of information was a book that had been compiled of the history of Henrieville. Along with my father, this book was everything that I needed in order to complete my project. This book had the dates of every major, as well as, minor event that occurred in the small town of Henrieville. Within in the book were individual accounts of the history of Henrieville. I found these accounts to be very interesting, and thoroughly enjoyed reading each one. The knowledge that I gained was so great that I have no regret taking on this project. I was able to come to know of how my little town was founded and by who and when would settle Henrieville. Essentially, the town was settled by a group of men in the late 1870s, and the town was named Henrieville in honor of James Henrie who was the LDS stake president in Panguitch at the time the town was settled. I was able to know of the history of the old school building that has been standing for over 100 years, which is now currently being used for town meetings and some town activities. Until 1955, the school was held in this school building along with other activities that included religious meetings, town, and community events. They have remodeled the building, but much of the original woodwork is still there. It is so interesting to me to find out the little things that make up what my town really is, such as a piping system that was not established until 1942, and sufficient irrigation pressure did not come until the mid eighties. The townspeople also buried their dead in nearby Cannonville until they were actually able to obtain a plot of land for burials that would consist of individuals that came out of Henrieville. The town population has basically stayed the same throughout all these years, and one of the reasons is because there is enough surrounding the area for people who don’t farm to find work, but not enough to keep hordes of people moving to Henrieville. In a way the town is sort of economically depressed. It was okay in the early years when a person didn’t feel the need to travel and was content to stay in the community in which they had grown up in. It was just easier for people to stay put with where they were, rather than to uproot their families and try something new. Now people find it necessary to travel in order to find what they want and need. It is just simply easier to move to a slightly bigger town, where the options are in more abundance and products are readily available when needed at critical moments.
Small towns are quickly becoming the thing of the past, and those who live in small towns have no idea what it is like to live in a small town. They even wonder why we still live in such a secluded place, but if they were able to read little clips of the history of a small town then they might be able to have a greater appreciation and understanding for the people and place of which they read. I feel that I have been able obtain a greater level of appreciation for what went on in Henrieville at certain times, and also for the individuals who helped to accomplish the task of forming a community. It is not your everyday person that can build up a community; it takes the strength of many in order for this to be brought about. I really came to admire those who had settled this town, and this has lead to my greater respect for the town in which I spent my childhood years in.
It is really neat take a look around the town now and to be able to see where important events took place, and even the not so important events. I find it very interesting to visualize what the town used to look like, what sort of events took place, and how the people carried on with their lives not knowing of the bigger world that was out there and that would soon come into focus. Quite a few of the people that were featured in the book were individuals that I knew personally. There were many pieces of their lives that I have previously been totally clueless about. It was fascinating to take a more in-depth look at their life than they had mentioned to me. While reading this book, it made me realize many of the sacrifices that community members faced in order to give their children and the community what it really needed to survive. These people were not selfish people by any means, and it really showed it throughout this book. The individuals were hardy and it makes me proud once again to know that I live in a town that was built by the hardy men and women of the west. The great thing about those men and women was that they provided strong posterity to my generation now, so the spirit of their generation lives on. It was really cool to see the events that made my town more modern, because it was such a gradual process that who would have ever thought that now Henrieville has the world at it’s fingertips with the internet so readily available. I found it interesting that although the town may have progressed throughout the years, there are still certain parts of the town that have yet to catch up. It is still enthralling to see the history and past that is still so much a part of the town today. We still use the old school building and the roads, even though now they are paved, are the same roads that those of old walked on. A few of the old houses still linger, and it amazes me every time I look upon one that these people could build something great with equipment that was obviously of a lower quality than now. The individuals in the community now have most certainly learned a great deal from their ancestors, and they try to keep alive their many principles.
I did not really anticipate the workload to be very rough or heavy, and it was not to difficult accomplishing my project. I had figured in that if I was to accomplish the task of making a pamphlet on Henrieville, then I would have to read up on all the material I could get my hands on. But the most relevant piece of information that I was able to obtain was the history book on Henrieville. This book is not a small book by any means, and thus took a period of time to read. Once I read the book, I then had to go back through and decide what was the most valuable and important information that would go in my historical pamphlet. I couldn’t put just anything in the pamphlet, because nobody would really think twice about the little things. I tried to pick out the things that would be the most interesting to readers and at the same time be the more important facts in the history of Henrieville.
With this in mind, I used a program on my parents’ computer to design the layout of the pamphlet. After acquiring a pleasing layout, I then proceeded to go through and write what I had previously decided to include in my pamphlet. My father, again, played an important role in helping me decide where to put my important facts. He suggested chronological order, and I believe, for the most part I followed his advice pretty readily. I tried to make the pamphlet as professional as possible, while also trying to be a little on the personal side. If individuals feel as if they are reading something entirely just for them, then they are more likely to remember what they read and not to just brush it aside. If the people who stop to investigate this small town and read this pamphlet on Henrieville, then maybe they will tell the people they associate with about the cool little things they learned while in southern Utah. I feel like I would just like to have people leave my little town with a better knowledge of what life in a small town was all about. I felt that the information I provided within my pamphlet will hopefully hold the reader’s attention, and instill in those individuals a thirst for more knowledge.
I am unaware of a project that was exactly like mine, but my project could fall under the category of many other projects such as, providing information on historical sites in different areas, or collecting information on individuals who have had plenty of learning and experience behind them. I was able to read recorded histories of people who have lived and died before my time, and they could not have come about if somebody didn’t decide to write down their past.
I feel that these service learning projects are a great way for students to become better acquainted with the history that surrounds them. This is also a phenomenal way to get the community involved in aspects that they would otherwise be clueless about. I was able to learn a great deal about my town that I probably never would have ever known, because I just never would have thought about providing the town with something as useful as a pamphlet that describes the happenings of what went on throughout this small town. There were many things that I learned that was unable to put into the pamphlet, but to me they are forever ingrained upon my brain, and hopefully I will never lose sight of those little details of this small town in Henrieville. It was very remarkable to see that although we are such a small town in such a big nation, we did in fact contribute to major events that happened in the world. Some such events happen to be sending some of our own men of to fight in World War I and World War II. I believe we even sent men off to the Vietnam War. There were very few casualties, but it certainly hit home when there was a casualty. It really put the wars on a smaller scale, and I know it helped to make the events of the world seem not quite so far away. This was also a downside as well, because when events moved to the larger scale then it started taking their men away from their families, but I believe that this strengthened the community and really helped them to pull together in times of the most desperate need. That is truly what makes a community a community, when people are able to pull together during the hard times, and help each other out. This all makes the losses and the successes ten times greater, because everybody in the community is already pulling for you.
I felt like a gained a greater appreciation for the written word during this project, because of some of the lack of information that was not previously recorded. It put a new light on keeping my own personal history, because my future posterity will hopefully one day want to learn about their ancestors and that is where journals come in handy. There was a lot of information that has not been passed on because it was not written down. Many of the little details were fuzzy because of lack of a historian at the time that could write it down. Our memories do not last forever, that is why we have paper to write things down. It is doubly hard to obtain information if nobody is around anymore that remembers the details of what happened. This project of mine also made me realize that Henrieville is, indeed, a very small town and nobody really has any idea that this small town really exists. I searched the internet but I was unable to find anything on Henrieville, other than what the weather was like for the town but even that information is not really for Henrieville, but for the surrounding areas. This made wish I had built a website in honor of Henrieville, but who knows that could be a project for another day. The bottom line is that if I had not decided to do this project I would not have learned the many things about my town that I now know. Knowledge is power, and with my new knowledge I can educate others in this world on things they do not already