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1 Comment [ View ]Were names in tower a 1911 class gag?
By CHARLES F. TRENTELMANBRIGHAM CITY --The cupola of the old Box Elder County Courthouse contains a penciled historical mystery.
Written on the wall next to one of four clock faces on the tower is a list of names, one on top of the other. Alongside is the date: 4-16-11.
There are about 20 names: Bennie Knudson, Cliff Rogers, Matthew Compton, Seth Reeder, Vern Barker, Emma Hardey, Merry Parry, and many others, some impossible to read.
Who are they? What was so special about April 16, 1911, which was also Easter Sunday?
Not much, if the weekly Box Elder News of April 13, 1911, is any guide.
A local music store was holding a competition to give pianos to the five most popular girls in town. A school bond was up for vote.
Nothing about groups of people meeting Sunday at the courthouse.
A story back on page seven has a hint: "The Bell is Down" the headline reads.
The story says the bell from the town clock had been taken down, broken into five pieces, and shipped to a foundry to be recast. The clockworks were being transferred from the old county courthouse to the "new" one, which the story says "is rapidly nearing completion."
That old courthouse is now where the Box Elder Chamber of Commerce has its office.
Where was the "new" courthouse?
It is what is now the "old" Box Elder County Courthouse, still housing county offices and the County Commission.
The clockworks the story mentions now sit in the lobby of that building, restored and ticking away.
Donny Tarver, the county buildings and grounds superintendent, said the current building was built about 1911. It is undergoing renovation.
In the process, he said, he's made many discoveries that echo the past: An old shoe, a tobacco tin, old newspapers, antique wall paper.
"We've found some things that make you scratch your head," he said, "but not quite as good as the one you found."
A hint of who those names are is a picture that ran in the Box Elder News on April 6, 1911.
It shows the Whittier School basketball team. One member holds a ball that says "champions." There is no story, but listed as members are, among others, Bennie Knudson and Matthew Compton, two names on the list on the wall.
David Morrell, the now retired business manager of the Box Elder School District, said Whittier School was one of four middle-school level schools that dated back to the late 1800s, when the Box Elder School District was first formed.
When Box Elder High School was built in 1908, he remembered, the 7th and 8th grades stayed at Whittier "until about 1918, then they increased the size of Box Elder High and took them there."
Whittier closed around 1930, he said.
Did he know those students? Well, Matthew Compton used to run Compton's Photography Studio in Brigham City, he said. Matthew's son, Glen Compton, carried the business on but is now deceased.
Knudson is a common name, Morrell said. Try State Sen. Pete Knudson, former mayor of Brigham City.
Good advice. Sen. Knudson said Bennie Knudson was his great uncle.
"He had a fruit farm west of Brigham City, over on 800 West and 400 South," Sen. Knudson said. "Every summer we could expect Uncle Bennie to come up with some produce for us." The coach in the basketball photo, Alf Freeman, was principal of Box Elder High when Pete Knudson went there.
What would Bennie have been doing up in the bell tower?
"Probably raising hell," he said.
Probably they all were. It is possible that all those students were members of the same class, Knudson agreed, and went up the still-unfinished court building on a lark. If the building was under construction, it would have been easy.
Can this theory be proven? Sadly, much of the history of Whittier School probably got moved to the old Box Elder High School, which was torn down years ago.
"When they tore it down they invited the public to come in and take whatever they wanted," he said. "A lot of the old history got spread around town in different ways and shapes."
Unless a Whittier yearbook or class list from 1911 is out there, somewhere, all that remains of what may have been a class gag is that list of names.
Which is precisely why they signed them.
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I think this is fantatic! the comments about Christensen is crap. Dont get in trouble and you wont have to go to court. DUH! glad we have a hard ass for a judge, more people should be slapped with alot more than they get. and i think it is awesome that we have some mystery stuff in the old court house! hope they find more.
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