The price of progress

When people talk about the price of progress, they are often referring to replacement of older buildings with “modern” buildings or public amenities. In the case of Green River’s Centennial Park, some century-old houses as well as an old church were razed to make way for green space in downtown Green River. Carl Morck remembers the houses in that neighborhood as mostly being small buildings with deep lots, probably originally Union Pacific Railroad housing. The lots were handy for storing non-running cars, or for growing tumbleweeds, or as repositories for what dogs leave behind. By 1990, according to an article in the Green River Star headlined “Recreation translates into relocation,” the dwellings were mostly rentals, home to folks whose age made them nearly contemporary with the structures that were slated to be removed.

Ironically, while tearing down the old places the new park strove to retain what was billed as a turn-of-the-century look, and by that they didn’t mean the twentieth century! Nearly everything old had to go, including the First Baptist Church but excepting some trees. Also spared the wrecking ball was a former coal shed turned sharpening workshop owned by former railroad carman Harold “Lefty” Mabile.

In the old days, the small houses on the block between U. S. 30, formerly West 1st North Street and now Flaming Gorge Way, and West Second North Street, were home to families with several kids and usually a dog. In the case of the Crossons who lived in the neighborhood, that dog was a huge St. Bernard, which Carl recalls as being friendly although there were rumors that it once bit someone. The Crossons were a ranching family, which Carl says was “the story of Green River before the railroad, the Taylor Grazing Act—which ended the open range—and the trona industry, which gave us jobs.” Some of those neighbors made a little extra by renting out spare rooms and basements to single teachers. Other names of folks in that neighborhood Carl recalls include Mrs. Gasson, his aunt Carol Morck, Margery David, and his Grandma Gerda, Freddie Welch, and Dillon. The town of Green River just about petered out near this area, and kids could amuse themselves watching folks cut the heads off chickens, cheering the resulting headless race. There were a lot of open lots, and lots of pigeons as well as lots of retired railroad workers, men who retained the skills of machinist and millwright that they learned on the job.

Many retired men knew how to sharpen tools, but in Carl’s memory, only one was the best. That one, Harold Mabile, opened a sharpening shop on his property, at first just to help out friends with their sharpening needs but later an actual place of business as well as a place for customers to trade some news and local gossip, or talk politics and revisit old times while waiting for their sharpening to get done. Before Harold’s entrepreneurial effort, people could take their tools to a lesser skilled local sharpener or send them to Rock Springs or Salt Lake, or else try their hand—supposedly all you need is a file—at fixing their own lawn mowers, scissors, saws, chisels, etc.

Harold Mabile moved his family from Cheyenne to Green River in 1940, where he retired from the railroad in 1972 after 49 years of service. He learned during his tenure on the railroad the importance of sharp tools. His sharpening business really took off. According to his nephew, Robert Hadley, “trona mine expansions, the Dutch John town site, Flaming Gorge Dam, and other construction,” greatly increased the need for well-sharpened tools, and Harold expanded his business to meet that need, purchasing new equipment and enlarging his old coal shed into a bigger shop.

Early on, there was a log house rumored to be the oldest structure in Green River in this same area, later moved by the Episcopal Church and now vanished. It was busy downtown and new businesses needed the room. Carl recalls Mrs. E. A. Gaensslen’s Millinery Shop, a service station, City Hall, and the telephone office. Where the First Baptist Church sat on the corner of North Second West which was once Pine Street, and West First North which was once North First Street, was once upon a time a Latter Day Saints hall.

Across the street was the Chrisman family’s townhouse. They were a ranch/banker family who owned the world’s meanest, nastiest, vulgarest, most aggressive, very large green parrot—what one could call a vicious, very, very loud guard bird who had a bad attitude and let everyone in sight and sound know about it. It spent the summer hanging out on their well-used porch between the front and rear doors, where it could keep an eye or two on its region and challenge all with perhaps poor grammar and structure but a seemingly endless vocabulary. To the young it was both educational and entertainment, and educational plus experience. All of us went past its lair as often as possible to pay homage and learn. I think it was named Polly (of course), a green bird with a black heart.

A bit later on, after the street went commercial, the Sugar Bowl was built on the lots of a couple or three of those old original houses on south side of Highway 30. Moedl’s Drug was located in this area, the Hadley—later Star—Café run by Harold Mabile’s brother-in-law, and the Piggly Wiggly butcher shop attached to the Merc.

A block east of the future Centennial Park, Bill Hutton took care of the courthouse (his daughter Eunice went on to become a librarian), and across the street from the courthouse the post office bustled with business. The courthouse was the scene of lots of relaxation and visiting, with people sitting on the lawn and kids like Carl and his cousin Jackie letting their horses eat the grass. Before the advent of diesel engines, everything for blocks around the railroad was covered in cinders. Dig in the soil around the old downtown neighborhoods and the evidence of the continual “black always raining down” is still here.

Carl says, “Very few people cared about tearing things down. Kids not only didn’t care, they didn’t notice. People wanted Green River to grow.” But he cautions that the urge to raze and modernize and grow can become like a metastasizing cancer, as the urban sprawl of many big cities including Salt Lake can demonstrate.

And even those who most support the modernization movement must secretly admit some nostalgia for the charm of old places. There was an effort to save the stained glass from the First Baptist church, and of course, the sharpening shop was spared. And why else would the little park building, now transformed into restrooms and parks department storage, bear a saw blade sign made by Harold Mabile’s grandson Randy Hadley, commemorating the existence of Harold’s Sharpening Shop, in business in Green River on that location from 1952 to 1978?