A Jewish Colony in Utah

I could sympathize with the citizens of old Clarion. 

The summer of 2020 was almost over and there had scarcely been a drop of rain. Dry, hot and dusty. No condition to grow crops. As I explored this long-abandoned town, I suspected that it felt very similar to how it must have felt to this desperate colony of Jews who attempted to settle here in the early 1900's. 

The ghost town of Clarion is located in central Utah. To have a town entirely inhabited by Jews seems out of place in a region dominated by Mormons. But that's what makes it so fascinating. 

The Jews have much in common with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Both claim to be God's chosen people and each have their own Zionist movement. I would add that both are hard-working, adhere to a higher standard than most, and would prefer to live in a place where they can worship in peace. Put succinctly, each are a peculiar people. 

Foundation of old structure in Clarion.

The impetus for the town of Clarion comes from the “Back to the soil” movement of the late nineteenth century. For years it had been very difficult, if not impossible, for the Jew to own land. They had been driven from Europe and many of them found their way to the eastern United States where they lived in ghettos. They made a living by peddling, working in factories, and owning their own businesses. 

In an effort to pursue a life outside the ghetto, Jewish leaders began pushing an agricultural lifestyle. “He who does not own land is not fully a person,” wrote Rabbi Eleazer. Over forty Jewish agricultural colonies were established throughout the United States. One of these colonies found its home in the Gunnison Valley of Utah. 

Although this was a pioneering effort for the citizens of Clarion, it came much later than the “pioneering era” of the Mormons, which lasted between 1847 and 1869. By the time the Jews arrived in town, the Mormons had become seasoned experts with the dry Utah landscape. And to add to their handicap, most of the new colony had no agricultural experience at all. 

Photo of Clarion, Utah.

The first Jews came to Clarion in 1911 when they purchased 6,085 acres of land and water rights from the state of Utah. They were told it was “the best land in the state.” They were promised that a new canal would be completed to bring them water. To welcome the newcomers, the L.D.S. Church threw in $500 to help with the purchase. 

The settlers came in phases. First came the men to prepare and work the soil. In the following years came the families, most of them from New York and Philadelphia. They planted wheat, alfalfa and oats. Without a canal they had to haul water from Gunnison. 

The colonists built homes and ran forty-acre farms, most connected by a principle street. The machinery and equipment were shared by the community, similar to the Israeli Moshav. Moshav is a Hebrew term to typify a cooperative agricultural community. I can't help but to think of the United Order, a similar concept in Mormon ideology that was practiced during the late 1800's. 

Could this be the site of an old grain silo?

Perhaps the fragment of a rake or farming equipment.

At its peak, the town of Clarion boasted of 156 residents. This included women and children. They built attractive homes, barns and corrals. From the east they brought their fine furniture, china, rugs and art work. A school house was built in the center of town and a community well dug. In 1915 a Post Office was established. For a moment, there was a glimmer of hope for the town of Clarion. 

I came here during the summer of 2020. Like I stated earlier, it was hot and dry, scarcely having a drop of rain in six months. I drove four miles west of Centerfield along farmland, eventually coming to a graveled road at Barex Dairy. Suddenly, hundreds of cows loitered the fields and cattle stench was ever-present. 

A walk-in basement that once was.

The graveled road south of the dairy is the main road of old Clarion. There is not a single house still standing. After the abandonment of Clarion, most, if not all the homes were moved to Gunnison. All that is left are the rectangular outlines of where the houses once stood, some with a short stretch of remaining wall. 

Upon examination of the grounds, there was more to find. Rusty cans and other metal lay scattered. I found what could have been the fragment of a rake. A tangle of barbed wire. Was that from the residents of Clarion, or later from the cattle ranchers? 

A couple of the houses had basements dug out and another had small indentations in the ground which could have been a cellar. A perfectly round foundation, I suspect, was a grain silo. One house had stubby posts in the ground, which could have been part of a fence. I found bricks on the ground. 

Remnants of the old Meeting Hall.

Scattered bricks along the ground.

So, what brought Clarion's demise? 

First, the soil was very difficult to cultivate. The drought left it hard and it had too much alkaline. Although some accounts say that the Piute canal wasn't finished until two years after the colony was abandoned, another account said it was finished, but heavy rains broke the canal's banks, flooding the fields and destroying crops. 

Another factor was the inexperience of these city Jews. Robert Goldberg, who wrote a book on Clarion, stated the following: “These people had come directly from Eastern cities. They were not prepared for the hardships and requirements of this kind of life. Their knowledge of farming and their funding were both inadequate to sustain them. As each new disaster presented itself, it became harder to accept the difficulties, harder to say 'wait until next spring,' harder to deal with dissension and division.” 

By 1916, the colony went bankrupt. 

Most of the colonists boarded trains back to Philadelphia and New York. Some continued west to California. A small handful, including Benjamin Brown, stayed in Utah for a while. Brown, a leader in the colony, helped form the Central Utah Poultry Exchange, which originally focused on chicken and egg production. This eventually morphed into Intermountain Farmers Association, or I.F.A., which is a large supply store for farmers, located in many locations throughout Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. Brown returned to the east in the 1930's. 

Benjamin Brown, a leader in the colony of Clarion.

Now I had another matter of business. 

My goal was to find the two isolated graves on a hill, the only two known burials from the existence of Clarion. In fact, I knew where the graves were located and from one vantage point I had spotted them in my binoculars. The problem was that they sat on the other side of the fence. (They sat on a hill adjacent to the massive diary.) 

I waved down a lady on a four-wheeler who was working at the diary. When I asked her if it was possible to cross the fence and get to the graves, I quickly learned that she didn't speak much English. I tried flipping on my Spanish switch, but it sputtered as it turned on. We were finally able to communicate and she said I would have to talk to the dueño and he would be at the lechería. 

So, there I drove. 

I walked inside the first door of the dairy and found three Central American men milking cows on some sort of revolving turn-table. I caught the attention of one and he told me to check the owner's house. 

Finally I found the owner driving up in an old blue milk truck. It turns out he doesn't even own the property with the graves, but thought it would be fine as long as I closed the gate. He made it clear, however, that he had no authority to say one way or the other. 

One of two graves on a hillside near Clarion.

I drove to the two graves. They are each surrounded by a small fence. Both headstones are mostly in Hebrew, although one is larger than the other. I couldn't help but to think of how far away these two burials are from any of their posterity. 

There are stories beneath these headstones. 

The larger is that of Aaron Binder, a young man who hadn't arrived at the age of thirty. On August 14, 1913 he was in a nearby canyon gathering a wagon-load of logs for a barn. On the way down he was unable to negotiate the road with his heavy load, and his wagon tipped, burying him under the load. He was buried on a remote corner of his farm. 

Translated from Hebrew, his headstone says the following: 

“A son of our people, a humble, 

hardworking Jew, 

With a great Jewish soul, 

He died a martyr, in the cause of 

raising our level,

And not permitting shame on the

Jewish name.”

 

The other grave is that of an infant that died a few months later of meningitis. 

The two burials stand as lonely reminders of a colony that once lived, with hopes for a future, but died and withered away. ♠

 

Headstone of Aaron Binder.