History of Doxey Elementary (copied Monday, 6 December 1999)
originally written by A. LeMar Stuart 18 years after Doxey was opened. (first year of school at Doxey was the 1959-`60 school year—so this must have been written originally 1977 or `78)Boys and girls, your P.T.A. have asked me to tell you the history of Doxey School as I know it from the beginning.
My first recollection of this piece of ground was when I used to come down to Mrs. Ward’s, one of our very best teachers to pick peaches, as this ground was her orchard. It was during this time when I was told the story of how this property was selected as a place to establish a silk industry by Lorenzo Snow, one of the great industrial pioneers of Utah. They planted mulberry trees to raise leaves for the silk worms to eat. This was the reason that a large mulberry tree grew by the south east corner of the building at the time of construction. The tree was taken out by the district personnel who I am sure did not know of its historical value, nor even what kind of tree it was. Some seedlings from that tree still grow along the south ditch between the viaducts of 800 North. I would like to see one or more of those seedlings planted on the school ground to perpetuate the memory. If the students decided to do this, I would be happy to help.
The first year of school at Doxey would be hard for you to visualize so I’ll try and paint a word picture for you. Doxey School only extended to room 13. There were three first grades and two of each of the other five grades, 13 teachers in all. There was no street beyond the school to the south and only a new road dug in the sand to the school.
From the school to 800 North, then called Doxey Street, there was a lane about twenty-five feet wide which had been built as an access road for horses and cattle, it was too wet and boggy for a car. The area from about 1100 North to Doxey Street and west to the railroad was corn fields where they raised cattle in the winter. There were many pheasants in the field which made good hunting in November. From the south boundary of the playground to 800 North was Sub Mahaus’ sheep pasture with only about four houses along the highway. One day during the first year after the lawn had been planted a south wind blew very hard and piled great heaps of sand from this sheep pasture on our new lawn. If you look today you will see on the south end of the school house and north of the main walk that the lawn is about 18 inches higher than the curb and this is the reason. East of the school above the black top and east of the church was one great mass of puncture weeds, not much of a playground.
People were proud of our new school and I well remember how the auditorium could not hold all the people who came to our P.T.A. Meeting. It was after midnight before we could get all of the cars pulled out of the sand where they became stuck as they parked along the new street.
Our school’s first classes were in 1959-60 and my were we all proud of the new school. As I recall the following spring they started to build the new church and the following fall they started to build the new wing on the north which consisted of the resource room, restrooms and class rooms 15 to 27. However before they had it completed we were holding a class on the stage.
In 1961-62 our school had grown up. We had 26 teachers including remedial reading and was as large as any school in the district. Our students came from clear over the Sunset Jr. High area. For a while our school grew so large that we had to send our sixth grades over to the Jr. High but as the children in the area grew up they were able to return.
After the church was completed and landscaped, our area became a most beautiful area in Sunset and our hearts swelled with pride as houses were built and streets were surfaced and our area grew up to a beautiful community. As people and towns and schools grow older they develop a type of “character” as a result of their goals, and I’m proud of Doxey School. I think the most honest children go to Doxey. When things are found on the playground they are brought to the office so the rightful owners may again have their property. Many very valuable things have been recovered in this manner. Children watch for prowlers and help keep the school safe, 99% would never damage the school’s property.
I remember a few years ago when one of our own students was playing ball on Sunday behind the school when vandals with him broke several windows. This boy came to me and told me even though he knew it would cost him a lot of money to pay his share. May, was I proud of that boy.
Just the past year we had a student send five dollars to the school to pay for string they had taken as a student years ago. These people learned one of life’s greatest lessons, that to be true to yourself and others brings happiness.
Students have taken pride in our school and have kept it looking new so others younger may have a new school too, even though it is now 18 years old. Students of Doxey keep important school rules. In my years at Doxey, I can recall only two students who have rung the fire bell to create confusion. However, about three little children have rung it not knowing what it was. I think the children realize how their parents and teachers love them and this makes it easy to be good citizens. Doxey School has always had special interest in children with special problems and looks with pride at their success.
Doxey School lunches have always been tops and are considered by the supervisors to be among the best in the District.
Through the years Doxey School has had 115 different teachers, 28 different cooks, 15 different custodians, 5 different secretaries; 98% still love Doxey best and so do I.Mr. A. LeMar Stuart. Interview with Frank Snow
for Doxey School History
copied verbatim from an old file the school was throwing out that one of the kids found on the way to lunch --- November of 1999 SLBI am a native of this city which I’ve been here for 55 years. I was moved to the town of Sunset in 1922. I have watched the city grow. I have noticed where the Doxey School is. That property was at one time all loose blow sand. I’ve watched it being built up. I have worked on it, have farmed it when it was all in farm ground. They had some orchards there and row crops. I have worked hard the farm when I was a boy coming along with my folks. I was moved into the city of Sunset with a covered wagon back in the year 1922. I have lived here nearly as long as any person that have ever lived in Sunset. I am not the oldest by age, no, but I’ve got the years on me that has lived here the longest.
I was raised just a couple of blocks east of your Doxey School there. I can remember, as a boy, when that 800 down here, it would take a good team of horses to pull a wagon through that loose sand down that road and up across the viaduct. I watched them build that viaduct over here back in the year of 1923, right across the Oregon Short-line Track. I watched them scrape it up with the teams of horses to pull that sand in to build that viaduct.
Right now I’m better known as a Fuller Brush salesman. I go around this city here where I was raised up at. I’m about one of the well known residents that you people will ever know.
The Doxey farm was owned by Alma T. Doxey.
The school, when I first came in here in 1922, the land was owned by a man by the name of Thomas W. Beesley. He was the first man that had it when I came here in ‘22. The farm had changed hands two or three different times and the last man that had it was a man by the name of Colonel Jackson. That’s who the school board purchased the land off from and the park up there. Colonel Jackson had it. I don’t know what ever became of Colonel Jackson, whether he has left the state or what. I haven’t seen him since he sold out.
I really enjoy the city of Sunset. I never got very far from home where I have been raised up at.
The farm where the school is was mostly a fruit farm and a row crop. I have picked up potatoes and picked up fruit from where that Doxey School sits. I’ve worked in the hay. We would go out and harvest the hay off from it.
I don’t know about any mulberry trees on the farm, but there are some mulberry trees down west from the Oregon Short Line Track. Just on the west side, there are mulberry trees in there, but I don’t recall any mulberry trees being around the Doxey School.
Mr. Ward was my neighbor. He came in there in about 1947. Mr. Ward stayed here into the fifties. He was really a nice man. He passed away here a few years back, and Mr. Ward’s wife was a school teacher here at the Doxey School. Mr. Ward had the farm before Colonel Jackson had it.
I still got an interested mind of how it used to look that I wouldn’t take the world for. Where the school stands, it was an orchard and then you had your row crops on some of it. They could grow some mighty fine potatoes. All of us kids would come down to work on the farm, pick up potatoes, help them harvest their crops, help them pick a few fruit - peaches, apricots, apples and cherries. Right along in there, I can remember it mighty well what was there. Right west of the school was where the row crops start, probably where the playground is out in front. That’s where I picked up the potatoes at.
The 250 road was not always there. It was put there back in the fifties if I can remember right. We used to farm where 250 is at. The area west of the school used to belong to a man by the name of Charles Toone and J. E. Miliard. This is where all the row crops were at. Mr. Miliard may have had a few trees on his farm. He had a ten acre farm between Mr. Toone and Mr. Doxey. That big home still sits right to this day, that big white home, use to be a yellow brick but is white now. They painted it. It is still there, one of the oldest homes in Sunset.
The only thing I knew about Mr. Doxey, I knew he was a fine fellow. He was a kinda old man when I came into the country and he farmed all the time. He has a daughter that lives on some of his place right now, which maybe some of you know, Mrs. Nora Cox.
I can remember Mr. Doxey’s farm mighty well. That was kind of a fruit farm and a dairy farm. He raised cows. He ran a dairy hard which he would milk night and morning and then he would grow his fruit. That was a beautiful fruit farm on the south side of 800 right in there.
I can remember just as well as yesterday, back in about 1923 when that little home up on the highway there on the corner was built. It is the American Legion building now. That was built by Mr. Doxey. If you will notice right, if some of you will pay that home strict attention, your going to see that it took a good professional brick layer to lay the bricks out like that. That man was skilled on any kind of a job that you tried to put him on. He could carpenter, farm or plumb. He was good at almost anything you wanted to put him onto. He could do it. I never saw anything ever turn up that Mr. Doxey couldn’t do.
800 North is where Clearfield comes up and joins Sunset. Sunset hasn’t always been a town, only back into the days since 1916. If you notice our town hall over there, you will notice the first baby that was born in Sunset after Sunset gained it’s name in 1916. That was June Martin. The first baby girl that was born was Viola Holms Pitman. Their pictures are over on the wall.
The town was organized by Mrs. Jesse Toone and Mrs. Beesley and another lady by the name of Mrs. Reynolds. We had an awful beautiful view of the sunset. We could sit in our homes and see the sun sat down across the lake, a beautiful sight, and so they called it Sunset. Clearfield comes up here to 800 and joins it. but you take Sunset and Clinton. I don’t think it ever had a town until 1916. It wasn’t called anything except the north end of Davis County or the Sundridge.
Sunset didn’t have much in it. We had one small store over here on 2300 and it was operated by Leroy B. Smith. It was a grocery store. Now I would usually have to walk from home up here on 1103 North Main, up here by the Sunset Café and the Hi-Hat. Well I would have to walk from here and to up to the Smiths store and bring a bag of groceries to my mother. If I didn’t go up there then I would have to go to Clearfield.
Back when I was a boy we had to walk. We couldn’t run out and get into our cars or get on the bicycles like you do now. We had to walk. And I would walk up to Smiths and get a few groceries. That was the only place, after my dad got a car back in 1924, in Sunset that we could buy gas. Mr. Smith had it.
Then up east of him there over the canal, was Sunset gravel pit, from which they hauled an awful lot of gravel out of there with horses and wagons, and they build these roads up in Davis County, especially around Sunset, Clearfield and Clinton. This city would raise the best fruit that you would ever want to eat, like watermelon and cantaloupe. Sunset farming was really good for produce.There weren’t many homes in Sunset. We all knew one another and when I started going to Davis High School, all of the kids, we would come from Clinton, Clearfield, Sunset, Uinta, and all through Davis County - we would all meet over there in Kaysville at Davis High. That is where I graduated from high school. Sunset started to build more homes about in the fifties.
This man that you see right over here North East of you - he’s got the big barn; he used to own that 40 acres that joined Toone’s down to 250 West, and he still has a lot of cows he runs, right behind my place. Mike Called is his name. He came there in 1929. I was there first. I can remember when he moved in. He came out of Wyoming and bought that 40 acres of ground. I don’t think they had to pay very much for it, like what you would have to pay for it now. Then west of him came the Tonne farm which would run west from 20 to the railroad track and as far south to join the ten acres of Miliard’s that I was speaking about. Then east of Miliard ground and maybe a bit of Toone’s by Doxey School, that land belonged to Gus Mahal. He had another 20 acres right in there and it joined 800 and the Tonne place.
That had a beautiful orchard on it when I first came into this city. They had the row crops. I’ve worked on it. They raised some of the nicest tomatoes you would ever want to see, and they could grow most anything with it. It was awfully nice ground.
When Brigham Young first entered the Salt Lake Valley, he said “This is the Place.” Well, I believe it. It is. It is the only place for me.
The main 91 highway was paved with a chain gang - the prisoners. They put the prisoners out to work on it. And I heard people tell me before I ever came in here, that to go to Ogden they would ride horses across the Weber River, back in the horse and wagon days. There wasn’t a bridge. They had to wade through, then they’d stop to water their horses. There used to be a road, I understand, that would come east to Clearfield and go back over about where Hill Field is and keep going north until you came into Ogden. That was the main way you would come out. This was long before my time.
I could show you people where it was predicted by Brigham Young that Ogden and Salt Lake would meet. They would watch Brigham Young ride out of Salt Lake to Ogden and when the people here would see him coming they would ride out to meet him. He told some of them right there in Clearfield that the day was going to come when Ogden and Salt Lake would join. I never dreamed that I would ever see Sunset or Clearfield or any of these towns around here bloom up the way they are. If somebody would have told me fifty years ago the way it was going to look, I would of thought he was funny, that he didn’t know what he was talking about. But you and I can see what changes have been made. I can show you right where Brigham Young predicted that. You know where 700 south, where that South Clearfield Elementary School is. You go up about a block and then you go to the north. Right on that street is where he predicted it at. I think it is what is called 1000 East. That used to be the old road through here.
Right where the Clearfield High School is, that was the worst blow sand that I ever saw in my life when I was a boy coming on. You’d be surprised how that country has changed hands over and over.., how they have worked it up.
That old canal that you see up there. That has been a lifesaver to me. I have swam; I learned to swim in that ditch. All us kids, that used to be our amusement. We’d swim in the canal. That was the only thing we knew - to go swimming - goodness that old canal away from me I don’t know what I would do. That’s always been an old by stand to me. I always did look forward to that canal, always enjoyed it, swam into it. That has built this country up, right in here. That’s what built it, that canal.
Besides Smiths grocery store, other stores we soon built in Sunset. My folks put a store in. I think it was the third one built in Sunset. They had one that sat on the east side of the road right across the street from the Hi-Hat.
The state came along and wanted to put a road right through my folk’s property on up to meet the Ogden Arsenal at the West Entrance. They bought that out and Dad went across the road and bought this property where the Hi-Hat sits (editorial note by sb----a business that is located up on Highway 89 east of Doxey School) and built another store there. He as running a gas station and all of that, and he kept a mechanic afer things got going along in the forties. As years went by, right where the freeway is now, there were (editorial note again: ???? I’m guessing on this spelling—it looks like it might be “l o c a l s” and may mean “bays or areas where the public could come in and use the area and possibly facilities) and places to paint your cars and carpenter shops. Mr. Bush operated that. It was a cabinet shop where you could make your bookcases and things like that. He was awfully good with his tools when it came to carpenter work.
We had one little church when I came into Sunset back about 1922. That I remember very well, about where 1800 is now. Maybe some of you know where that green church is now. That green church wasn’t built there at the time. We would go up across the canal going east and there were two churches right there. One was the Mormon and the other the Presbyterian. All the Mormons would go to the little red brick church on the south, which I have a fairly good remembrance of, and the Presbyterians would go to the church on the north. As time went on the people that went into the Presbyterian Church, some of them joined the Mormon Church and later on that church was closed and those that didn’t join, it seems to me like they went into Ogden where there was a bigger congregation.
The Church sat vacant for awhile until right around 1930 when it was sold to the oriental people. They built it up and remodeled it and started holding church in there for the Japanese people. They’d bring their students from Syracuse, Layton, Sunset and all along in here and they would meet people up there. They taught school there. Well, it went on for awhile until, I don’t know what happened, but they quit.
Then it went on until about 1940 and we sold the little red church house out and we went across the road at 1800 and the highway and built that green church. I helped on it as a young man. We stayed there and we had one ward in Sunset until along about in the fifties and people got coming into the city. Then the ward was divided and that made two wards in Sunset and that put me into the 2nd Ward. Then time went along and we had to divide it again and I went into the 3rd Ward. So we set to work and we built that other church right beside your Doxey School. Before we got it built we had to go over to the Sunset Elementary on Sundays to hold our meetings until we got this church built here on 250 [west]. Then as time wen talong we had to divide again and that put me into the 4th Ward. Then time went on again and I got into the 5th Ward.. and then time went on again and that go tme into the 6th Ward. and that’s where I’ve stayed. Now I understand that they have divided again and now there is a 7th Ward. They have built the other church over on 1800 and now the 3rd and 7th and 2nd Wards go there. There used to be a church on 1800 [north] and 250 [west] but it is closed now. There were no schools at all when I came into Sunset. When I was a boy coming along about 1930, I would walk from where I live now down to the Pioneer School in Clearfield on Main Street, which would be two miles one way. I would have to walk to school as a little kid and I would have to walk home. I’d go about four miles a day back and forth to school—cold or rainy or what not. I’ve had my feet frozen I don’t know how many times. trying to get over there.
The first school in Sunset was built in the early fifties and it was the Sunset Elementary School. Doxey School was the 2nd School built.
Doxey School was built after by boy was through school. He never did attend school there. he would always catch a bus and went to Clinton for the first two years, and then he got into Clearfield District and he then went to South Clearfield through 6th grade. Then he went to North Davis Junior High and then into Clearfield High.
I will say this, when I was a boy I always enjoyed living in the City of Sunset. It used to be considered as a town then. People have always been friendly and nice with me. I wouldn’t want to live any other place. Practically everybody in the town knows me.
When I was a boy coming along before people had their cars, this, that and the other, we used to have the Bamberger. The Bamberger ran between Ogden and Salt Lake. If you wanted to go to Salt Lake you would go up here on about 1300 and go east. Maybe you could still see the tracks. Those tracks ran from Ogden to Salt Lake to the Union Pacific Railroad. We would catch the Bamberger and we would go to Salt Lake, and then if we had enough money we would catch the Bamberger and go to Lagoon, maybe on the Fourth of July or the 24th when they had a big celebration there at Lagoon, which I always looked forward to as a boy.
Sometimes I would go down to Clinton on the Fourth of July where they would have their celebrations and they would have horse racing or a small rodeo in which they would use amateur riders. They weren’t professionals like they have now days. I’ve seen a lot of boys get thrown. I used to get the biggest kick out of that, then watch them rope the calves or whatever they would come up with in the rodeo. We used to have some real goodies. I really did enjoy them. I don’t enjoy the rodeos around Ogden and Salt Lake like I used to when I was a boy. It is all done by professionals, but you get an amateur and he’s all over the horse. I’ve had some mighty good times along in here when I was a boy. I really have enjoyed it.
Then if you wanted to go to Ogden you’d go up there and catch the Bamberger and go on into Ogden. We had the Bamberger Station right there on 24th Street, right in between Grant and Lincoln on the North Side. I think a paint store right now has that. I rode the Bamberger I don’t know how many times during my life until they got the buses going pretty strong. We didn’t have the buses as you people have them right now to this day. You can just stand by your door now and get on the bus and go any place you want to go. We didn’t have all of that.
I might say to you that when the buses came along they could operate the buses much cheaper than they could the Bamberger so they closed the Bamberger up and it was sold to the Union Pacific.
Now, my friends, I hope that you have enjoyed my story of my life about Sunset. I’ve watched this City grow and I’ve raised my one boy here in Sunset. Now he has left and gone to Hooper to raise his family. So I’ll say good-bye to you and I hope if you ever see me out on the street I hope you will always speak to me.
Good-bye