Uintah County, Utah PioneersUintah County, Utah Pioneers
Lycurgus Johnson was born in Washington, Texas, August 25, 1844. He came with his widowed mother to Idaho in Rich County in 1846. After several years they moved to Spring Creek, Wyoming, from there to Ashley Valley on October 15, 1878.
In Old Ashley Town he became the second postmaster in the valley. He was also elected as the first sheriff, and built the second flour mill in the valley in 1885. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention in Salt Lake City in 1896. He was a representative for Uintah County for two terms and was appointed a member of the Continental Congress from Utah to Texas in 1884. He was one of the early merchants in the valley. Died June 29, 1908.
Cora Isabel Johnson was born Oct. 25, 1847, in Bolton, Warren County, New York. During childhood she moved with her parents to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Her parents later to moved to Salt Lake City when she was thirteen years old. After six years they moved to Idaho where she married Lycurgus Johnson March 1, 1867.
Cora moved with her husband and family to Ashley Valley and lived in Ashley Town for nine years. For eight years she acted as postmistress, then moved to Maeser (or Millward) for twenty years. From there to Vernal City she assisted in the store of L. Johnson and Sons. She was the mother of eleven children, and died Feb. 10, 1926.
used by permission, from the "Builders of Uintah"
compiled by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers
"Lycurgus "Curg" Johnson was a Texan whose family had migrated to Bear Lake, Idaho. In 1878 LDS Church officials asked the Johnson clan to resettle in Ashley Valley. Besides operating several businesses in the valley, Johnson also served as the first elected sheriff of Uintah County, a selectman and a deputy U.S. Marshal. He represented the county in the 1890 territorial assemble, attended the Constitutional Convention in 1894 and was elected Vernal City mayor in 1905. Johnson also served as Ashley's second postmaster.1 "Johnson, a well-known entrepreneur opened a general merchandise store with two of his sons, Alfred and Snellen." About 1880 he purchased the Hatch store in Ashley Center, located on the southeast corner of the town's main intersection. He also owned and operated a flour mill, which he built in 1885...2 and one in Maeser in 1888.4 "In the fall of 1893 the Uintah Milling & Flume company was founded by Dry Fork and Ashley Valley water users. The company was begun with $26,000 in their coffers" and with Lycurgus Johnson as president.3
1Burton, Doris Karren, Settlements of Uintah County: Digging Deeper, Uintah County Library, 1998, p. 41.
2 Ibid., p. 39.
3 Ibid., p. 158.
4 Ibid., p. 189.
2 Ibid., p. 39.
Contributed by Marilyn Hersey Brown