Update on the train station

1989 commemorative steam powered passenger train passing Honeyville

I have a little better understanding of what you can see in the photos on an earlier post of the Honeyville train station.  I talked to Joanne Tanaka this evening who lived in the upper portion of the train station for 22 years.  During WWII she just was seven or eight years old, but that was the peak of rail service through town.  During those years the station was staffed 24-hours per day, the morning shift by Mrs. Tanaka's father.  During those years she recalls all the soldiers constantly passing through and how they would all wave to her family as they went by.

What did not make sense to me in the photos were the outbuildings, especially since there really is not very much room between the tracks and the road at that point.  Those photos are looking south and the outbuildings are a coal shed and the outhouses.

Unfortunately the photos I have posted are the best photos I know to exist.

See post The Train Stations

This is what the train station area looks like now.  The rubble of the old foundation is just behind this scene.

The shed to the left was used by railroad workers. They kept their equipment there to inspect and work on the tracks. They even had their own little kitchen inside.

Just for fun, what might the menu look like on a train from 1943?

1943 lunch menu on the Union Pacific

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Honeyville Honey - part 1

How could a town like Honeyville not have a history of honey production (completely unrelated to the town name though).

The following history is from the website:

http://www.honeyvillehoneyutah.com/

About Honeyville Honey, LLC

Honeyville Honey, LLC is locally owned and operated by Mary Elizabeth Anderson, Louis Anderson, and their four sons: Jared, Jake, James, and Josh.
Honeyville Honey, LLC is one of the oldest family owned bee business in the state of Utah and sells all natural raw honey.

History of Honeyville Honey, LLC

In 1914, William S. Ellis came to Honeyville to establish a bee business for Reuben T. Rhees who taught him about bee keeping. In 1925 he established a bee business of his own, he built up his business until he had about 1,000 hives/colonies divided into 15 bee yards along the Bear and the Malad Rivers. When William died, his wife Mary Ward Ellis had to decide whether to sell the bees or to keep them, after much thought Mary decided to keep the bees to give her grandchildren a way to earn money. In 1973 Mary Elizabeth Ellis Anderson, and her husband Louis Anderson moved from California to Honeyville to help Mary Elizabeth's mother with the bee business. They allowed their seven children and grandchildren to help in the bee business starting when they were 8 years old, the boys gradually learned the business until they were old enough to take full responsibility of the business.

I hope to get a more in depth write-up with some photos in a future post.

Journals are priceless

Two of the most influential men in the founding of Honeyville kept great journals.

Abraham Hunsaker

Abraham Hunsaker's journal/history can be found online:
Familysearch - Abraham Hunsaker 

BH Tolman II

BH Tolman kept a very detailed journal which I have, but it is not in the public domain.  There is a short biography on Familysearch and you can purchase the journal from the Tolman Family Organization.
Short Biography
Purchase full journal

So unphotographed

In searching for old photos of Honeyville I have become convinced it is one of the least photographed towns of old Utah.  Anybody been to Terrace, Utah lately?  Well they have more photos than Honeyville.  Collinston (no disrespect Collinston) has more recorded history and photos than Honeyville.  The Compton Studio collection, housed in the USU digital archives, is a great place to look for historic photographs of Box Elder county.

COMPTON COLLECTION

Anyone curious to see the wealth of visual information on Honeyville contained in that massive collection?

Here it is.

Jensen Mill (site of Honeyville Grain)

 Yep - that is it.

If you have old photos please start sharing them, there really are not that many out there.

Mail

Mail delivery has certainly changed over the years.  It seems that early mail service in Honeyville was rather infrequent. At first BH Tolman served as the postmaster staring in 1879. He would have to wait for the mail train, which was generally late, in some cases by a week or more. Once per week he would go out in the evening after the day’s chores and deliver the mail. In 1883 the mail started to be delivered daily, generally during the middle of the night, which could be quite taxing to someone who still had work to do in the day and mail to deliver in the evening. Although mail was supposed to be daily the postmaster would have to wait nightly for the mail train only to find out that there was often no mail for Honeyville.  Mary Tolman took over as postmistress in 1891 and staffed the first post office when it was built.  There seems to have been several residents opposed to a post office, with the Box Elder New Journal reporting that some citizens were writing to Washington to forestall the opening of a post office.  The post office did open July, 1915.  The first post office was located across the street to the north of the Tolman and Son’s building.  The asphalt that ran to the front of the post office is still there. An excerpt from Mary Tolman’s biography states, “In July 1891 she was appointed Postmaster and held this position at different intervals but for a total of 18 years. During this time it was necessary for her to put mail on and take it off the midnight train. Not far from the station lived a boy who was mentally deficient and every night while she kept her lonely vigil, he would wait in the shadows of the station. As soon as the train left, she would grab the mail sack and run for the safety of her home and every night he would chase her and stand pounding on the door demanding his mail.” Mary lived in a home built by Franklin Hunsaker, and still standing at the corner of 6980 N and 2750 W. 

Not long after the new post office was built Mary’s daughter, Paulie Boothe, and Paulie’s husband Hyrum, who lived in the same house, took over the mail service and eventually made a little attachment to their home which served as the post office for several more years.

courtesy: Honeyville centennial DVD

 Over the years other people would take over the post office from time-to-time or take on rural routes as that became a necessity. At some date of which I am not sure the post office was moved to vacant building near the Honeyville store for a short time before the present post office south of the church was built.

Honeyville Post Office - 2014

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Blogs

Sometimes a good place to find interesting tidbits of history is endlessly Googling different word combinations and you can find public family history blogs.  There may only be a small portion of it dedicated to some ancestor who lived in Honeyville, but interesting still.

Here are the few that I have found.  If anyone knows of more I would love a comment on it.

Peter Adolph Forsgren
Fredrick James Graham
James May
Royal Grant

Fun with Google Earth

Want to have some fun using Google Earth to see what structures or roads have changed over the past 50 to 80 years?  You can download historical aerial imagery from the USGS website and overlay it in Google Earth, get it aligned, and then use the transparency slider to go back and forth between old and new.

I will post 3 preset overlays which you can use to try it out.  Download the KMZ files and open them with Google Earth.  If you do not have Google Earth you can download it here:
Google Earth

Once you have Google Earth you should be able to double-click the KMZ file and it will open right up. Once it is opened you will see it as a "Temporary Place", right-click on that particular temporary place and select properties.  It will bring up a dialog box which has a transparency slider and you can slide back-and-forth between old and new.

Temporary Places is underlined in red. The dialog box opens (shown on right) and you will get the transparency slider, circled in red.

1938 Overlay
1946 Overlay
1953 Overlay
                               
 If you would like to look at more historical imagery check out the Utah Geological Survey.

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The Train Stations

Oddly enough Honeyville was better served by "mass transit" 100 years ago than today.  In fact for a time their were two rail lines making stops in Honeyville, one being the electric rail and the other the Oregon Short Line Rail Road.

Looking down at the intersection of 6980 N 2750 W I have superimposed the location of the station

This is labeled as Honeyville, and it is the correct building, but it seems misplaced to me

This is labeled as Honeyville, and it is the correct building, but it seems misplaced to me

The old train station was first moved to Corinne, then to Heber, and as of 2013, a parking lot in Heber

This is taken looking east

A clip from Box Elder News & Journal - 1917

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Honeyville church, school, store, coal dump, shed

The first church in Honeyville was what is now known as the "Tolman and Sons" building.  It served as the first church and was dedicated by Lorenzo Snow on January 5, 1879.  It served as the church until a new one was built more in the center of town.  It only served as a school for a short time as other places seem to have been used soon after.  BH Tolman bought it and remodeled it into a store in 1911.  This was not his first store, he had been operating west of the tracks in a store purchased from Benham Hunsaker.  Sometime before that he had operated with his sons as traveling merchants, and before that ran the town store, which was really part of the LDS church run co-op, out of his house.  Around 1940 (not sure of the exact date) after a new store by Mr. Johnson was built along the highway he used the old Tolman store as a coal dump.

This was likely between 1911 and 1914

This was likely between 1911 and 1914

Not sure of the time frame on this but it does appear to be more of a storage yard at this point

During its use as a coal dump

2013 - nothing inside but some lines in the plaster give a hint about its previous use

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Links

Useful links for Honeyville history on the web:

Crystal Hot Springs
Box Elder County
Honeyville City
Wikipedia

From the Honeyville centenial DVD, compiled by Paul Orme

From the Honeyville DVD compiled by Paul Orme:

BH Tolman, third and final home -

BH Tolman's third house just east of current store as seen looking east

Front of the same BH Tolman house

Same house as seen from 2015 Google Street View

Hyrum, Parley, Ralph Hunsaker house, now owned by the Blanchards

Original house before future additions

After addition

6980 N looking east from 2750 W

The old church  can be seen (located in current church's parking lot) with the stagecoach stop below, also a Hunsaker home

Same view ca.1940 with post office across the street north of the old Tolman Store

Same view courtesy of 2015 Google Street View

6900 N looking west from approcimately top of cemetary

This is before the highway came through and main street was along what is now 2750 west

Approximately same view from Google Street View

Miscellaneous

Early Farming

Old school - south of current post office

Benham Hunsaker store - south of railroad tracks on the west side

Blacksmith shop

Crystal Hot Springs

Crystal Hot Springs

Crystal Hot Springs

Crystal Hot Springs

Crystal Hot Springs

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The beginning...

This page is dedicated to compiling old photographs (1950s or earlier), links to old photographs, sometimes some histories, and some historical tidbits - maybe.  Mostly I want every interested person to be able to find old pictures of Honeyville, Utah.  Having grown up there I am surprised at how few historical photos are archived in any manner.

Any photos shared on this page will be available to all, but whenever possible proper credit will be given to the original source, and lacking that, the source from where I obtained them.  For those who would like copyright protection on their content I suggest registering with Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/choose/

So please pass the word around and upload any old photos of the town of Honeyville.  If you have old photos that you would like me to scan please email me.  I have a mobile scanner and can come to you to help get them scanned and archived.