Cedar Valley’s Flash in the Pan: The Saga of Fairfield

Alright there, gather ’round, you curious cats, and let ol’ Clemmie spin you a yarn about a place that went from a bustling boomtown to a whisper in the wind faster than a tumbleweed in a tornado. I’m talkin’ about Fairfield, nestled right here in our neck of the woods.

Now, you might mosey through Fairfield today and think it’s just a sleepy little village, the kind of place where the chickens outnumber the folks, but let me tell you, there was a time when it was anything but quiet. This all started back in the summer of ’58, 1858 that is, when Uncle Sam sent a whole passel of soldiers marchin’ down Emigration Canyon. Seems there was some hullabaloo, and these fellas, ’bout 2,500 U.S. troops with another thousand or so civilian employees taggin’ along, needed a place to set up camp.

At first, they considered Rush Valley, but then Colonel Steptoe, bless his heart, settled on Cedar Valley. It was a little dip between the Lake Mountains and the Oquirrhs, west of Provo, and it looked like a fine spot with water, wood, and pasture aplenty. They called their installation Camp Floyd.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, wherever you plant a big army camp, a town’s bound to sprout up like weeds after a spring rain. And Fairfield did just that, right alongside the camp. It wasn’t long before word spread, and folks came a-flockin’ thinkin’ they could make a bit of a livin’ off all those soldiers. The sharp-eyed farmers from nearby Lehi, just eighteen miles east, were quick to see the market for their grains, vegetables, eggs, and even squash pies! Why, they were gettin’ a pretty penny, with two dollars for a bushel of grain or potatoes, and hay goin’ for twenty-five to thirty dollars a ton. A fella named Thomas Taylor even made a start as a merchant just by bein’ an agent for these transactions. And John Zimmerman, he took his first profit from sellin’ grain and bought himself a threshing machine so he could take on even more contracts with the soldiers.

It wasn’t just food either. The camp needed wood cut in the canyons and hauled over, so carpenters were in demand. And since many of the barracks were made of adobe, well, adobe-making became a right profitable occupation. And in return for their goods and labor, the locals got all sorts of needed articles from the soldiers – horses, mules, harnesses, wagons, you name it.

That little ol’ Fairfield just boomed! It wasn’t called “Frogtown” or “Dobieville” for nothin’. With all those soldiers and folks drawn to the area, Fairfield and Camp Floyd together swelled to over 7,000 people. Can you imagine? Suddenly, it was the third largest city in the whole Utah Territory, right after Salt Lake City and Provo. Now, with that many folks gathered in one place, you’re bound to have a bit of everything, and Fairfield was no exception. Seventeen saloons popped up, along with their fair share of gamblers, well, ladies of the night, slickers, and maybe a thief or two. It was a lively place, that’s for sure!

But as they say, what goes up must come down, and Camp Floyd’s time in Cedar Valley was shorter than a summer rain. Just a few years later, in July of ’61, 1861 that is, orders came down from Washington, and the whole shebang was abandoned. Seems like things were brewin’ back East, and those soldiers were needed elsewhere.

Now, when the army pulls up stakes, they don’t just pack their bags neatly. They sold off everything they couldn’t take with them, and I mean everything! It’s estimated that $400,000 worth of government stores were bought up by folks in the Territory for next to nothin’, maybe three cents on the dollar. The folks in Lehi got in on that action too, snatching up things like wagon boxes for storing grain, those warm soldiers’ overcoats with capes, and even some cannonballs that John Zimmerman used for casting machinery. One fella, John C. Nagle, even bought the fort building itself for a mere seventy-five dollars, and the wood kept Lehi supplied for years.

But while some folks got a good deal on leftover goods, the leaving of the army meant the bottom fell out of Fairfield’s boom. The market for those farm goods dried up quicker than a puddle in the desert sun, and all those businesses that catered to the soldiers suddenly had no customers. People packed up and moved on, lookin’ for the next opportunity. By September of that same year, 1861, it’s said that only eighteen families remained in that once-roaring town of Fairfield. Can you believe it? From over 7,000 souls down to just a handful in a matter of months. The adobe walls of the empty buildings probably just stood there, baking in the sun, watchin’ the sagebrush start to creep back in.

It just goes to show you how quickly things can change. Fairfield went from a bustling hubbub, the third biggest place in the Territory, to practically a ghost town once Camp Floyd was gone. A real boom and bust story, the kind that makes you think about how fleeting fortune can be. And that, my friends, is the tale of Camp Floyd’s rise and fall in Fairfield.

Bibliography

• Mathis, Don Richard. “Camp Floyd in Retrospect.” Master’s thesis, University of Utah, 1959. (Cited within Alexander and Arrington’s article as a main source of information).
• Furniss, Norman. The Utah Conflict, 1850-1859. New Haven, 1960. (Cited within Alexander and Arrington’s article as a main source of information).
• Arrington, Leonard J. Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900. (Cited within Alexander and Arrington’s article as a main source of information).
• Gardner, Hamilton. History of Lehi: Including a Biographical Section. Published by the Lehi Pioneer Committee, The Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1913 . (Provides context about nearby Lehi and early settlement, and likely contains information about interactions with Camp Floyd).
• Whitney, Orson F. History of Utah. Vol. IV.—Biographical. George Q. Cannon & Sons Co., Publishers, Salt Lake City, Utah, October, 1904. (As a history of Utah, this likely provides broader context for the events at Camp Floyd and Fairfield).
• Alter, J. Cecil. Utah: The Storied Domain, A Documentary History of Utah’s Eventful Career. Issued in Three Volumes. Utah Biography (Gratuitously Published) by Special Staff of Writers, 1932. (Likely provides a historical overview of Utah during this period, potentially mentioning Camp Floyd).
• “Valley Tan” newspaper. (Established by U.S. troops at Camp Floyd).
• “The Mountaineer” newspaper. (Successor to the “Valley Tan,” suspended after Camp Floyd was vacated).