Stansbury couple’s work provides a look into county’s past

This is what it used to look like,” historian Ouida Blanthorn explained, pointing to a painting of Black Rock hanging on the wall of her Stansbury Park home. The painting, an original by Jill Quarnberg, features the iconic limestone massif rising along the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake, with an 1860’s-era ranch house in the foreground.

The ranch house disappeared long ago, but the topography and angles depicted in the painting provide a sense of its former location relative to the extant terrain.

“It would have been right there,” she deduced, “right about where the highway is now. There’s nothing left of it, though.

“It’s hard to picture it now because the lake levels were higher then,” added her husband, Boyd.

When it comes to history, Boyd and Ouida Blanthorn form a sort of super duo. The genial couple has spent the last half-century working to document Tooele County’s past. Their collective efforts to preserve history — both physically and in print — provide an invaluable glimpse into the people, places and events that made the county what it is today.

Boyd, is originally from Grouse Creek, a small, remote community in northwestern Box Elder County. He fills the duo’s hands-on preservation role. The soft-spoken 82-year-old’s handiwork is notably visible in the area of the restored Benson Grist Mill. Ouida, 79, grew up in Cache Valley. She’s the analyst and writer. When it comes to Tooele County history, she wrote the book. Literally.

“It was my eighth-grade teacher, Mr. Rose, who sparked my interest in history,” she recalled. “That was during World War II. History was his favorite topic, and it became mine.”

Boyd and Ouida met at Utah State University and were married in 1952. Soon after, Boyd took a civilian electrical engineering job at Dugway Proving Ground. The young couple moved their mobile home to Rush Valley in 1953 and later built one of the first homes in Clover.

Ouida had written various pieces for the local newspaper in Dugway, but it was their time in Clover that kindled an insatiable desire to chronicle the region’s history.

“The house was kind of on a hill. I remember looking across the valley where Ophir and Mercur were and thinking about all the history there,” she said.

Ouida began writing articles to submit to the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin. Her first piece was on the mining history of Ophir. She reminisced about her work for the newspaper with a grin.

“They started me at 10 cents per inch, so I tried to make the articles as long as I could.”

“I’m kidding about that,” she qualified. “I actually didn’t write for the money. I wrote because I wanted to.”

Ouida continued to pen the Transcript-Bulletin’s history column through the 1960s. She enrolled at Brigham Young University, graduating in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in history and an English minor.

“It was quite a commute from Clover to Provo,” she remembered.

The Blanthorns relocated to Stansbury Park in 1972. That’s when the dilapidated old mill along SR-138 caught their eyes. Built in 1854 by LDS apostle Ezra Taft Benson, the mill was once the bustling focal point of E.T. City, a sprawling collection of settlements that spanned from the mill north to Black Rock.

The Benson Grist Mill produced wheat and corn by the ton, becoming a major contributor to the county’s economy and earning the temporary designation of Tooele County seat. After nearly a century of production, the mill was shut down in the 1940s. The structure stood abandoned and deteriorating, the victim of time and vandalism. According to Ouida, one man in Salt Lake claimed to have built his entire house out of its lumber.

In 1983, a group of concerned volunteers formed a committee and began to preserve the site. Boyd and Ouida were appointed to the committee in 1984. Boyd played a major role in the physical restoration of the building. Ouida was the committee’s first historian.

“The building was in very poor condition,” Boyd recalled of his first walk-through. “Half of the siding was off and the windows were gone. It was dangerous just to walk in there.”

Boyd’s team worked to stabilize the structure. Some of the original equipment remained intact, but some was imported from the Echo Mill in Summit County. “Finding replacement windows was the hardest task,” he said.

Ouida sought out and interviewed a man who had actually operated the mill. Her eyes gleamed as she spoke about the interview — the way a historian’s eyes do at the rare opportunity of meeting an eyewitness.

“He was very old then, but we did get to talk to him,” she said.

The restored Benson Grist Mill is considered to be the most significant historical building between Salt Lake City and Reno. Both Boyd and Ouida downplay their roles in its preservation, modestly deferring to their fellow committee members.

Because of her work in chronicling the mill’s history, Ouida was appointed by the Tooele County Commission to compile a history of Tooele County in the early-1990s. The tome, “A History of Tooele County,” was published in 1998 as part of the Utah State Historical Society’s Centennial County history series. The work is detailed, yet concise and accessible. Each county produced a similar work. The Blanthorns proudly display their copies of most of the volumes in the collection, alongside numerous other historic works.

The Blanthorns continue to make contributions to historic research and preservation. Ouida has written numerous catalogued essays, and recently donated a number of historically significant publications to the Tooele City Library.

Boyd helped place rail post markers marking points along the Hastings Cutoff of the Oregon Trail in 2005. One of the posts stands at the west end of the Millpond in Stansbury Park. He continues to serve as a maintenance operator at the Benson Grist Mill. The Blanthorns occasionally travel back to Boyd’s family ranch in Grouse Creek to participate in the ranching operation and visit one of their sons who lives there.

The Blanthorns current home in Stansbury Park sits less than a half mile away from the Benson Grist Mill site. They revel in the views of Stansbury and Antelope islands from their back window.

“See that painting?” Ouida pointed toward another original work on their wall. “That’s the same view we’ve got out this window.”

She lamented the fact that few people know the county’s history. “And organizations these days are just full of old people. It’s too bad.” She hopes younger generations will get hooked on history the same way she did when she was young.

“It’s important,” she said. “It’s true what they say: If you don’t learn from history, you’re bound to repeat it.”