Provo Had a “Pest House” for Those with Communicable Diseases.

Contagious diseases like measles, diphtheria, and small pox reigned among the most dreaded scourges of frontier life.  No vaccination for measles and diphtheria existed, and the isolation of the patient was one of the only ways to prevent the spread of these diseases. Even though many Provo residents had been inoculated for small pox, travelers sometimes carried the illness into town. They were promptly isolated until they recovered or died.

Provo did not have a specific place set aside for isolating infected patients until the spring of 1873 when a wayfarer, Captain R.C. Thomas, entered the city with little more than the clothes on his back and a case of small pox.

The Provo City Council rapidly authorized the purchase of 50 or 60 acres of land near the mountains and constructed a “pest house,” so called because it was used to confine people suffering from a pestilence, or a communicable disease. Thomas recovered in a little more than two weeks.

In 1877, a transient from California who was also suffering from small pox entered Provo. Workmen added another room onto the pest house for the use of attending nurses, and the new patient moved in. He survived, but a local teenage boy contracted the disease and died.

Increased fear of contagious diseases motivated the city council to pass an ordinance in 1878 that provided for quarantine and sanitary regulations. This ordinance required the appointment of a quarantine physician. The isolation at home of those who were ill with a serious disease and the marking of their residence with a yellow flag were now required by law. The ordinance also levied fines for those knowingly transporting sick people into Provo or for violating any part of the ordinance.

With infected people now confined to their own homes, the use of the “pest house” dwindled and it gradually became dilapidated. Workmen finally razed it in the 20th Century.

This marker is located in Rock Canyon Park, for other markers in this series click here.

Proctor Academy Helped Educate Provo’s Youth.

Formal education developed very slowly in early Provo.  By 1855, only slightly more than half of Provo’s eligible students attended school.  It was not until the 1860s that Presiding Bishop William Miller convinced each Provo ward to build its own schoolhouse.  Education took a large step forward in 1875 wen Brigham Young Academy opened its doors.  It educated students from all levels and tuition was required.

As more non-Mormon families moved to Utah, other Christian denominations established schools in Utah.  In 1883, the Congregational Church established one of its missionary school in a small rented building in Provo.  Not more than 15 students initially attend it but the number of students grew rapidly.

Substantial support from Joseph O. Proctor, a wealthy eastern benefactor, enabled the church to erect Proctor Academy, a substantial brick building which sat on the northwest corner of 100 West 100 South.  The new structure contained an assembly hall, classrooms, and a library.  It eventually included all grades from primary to advanced.  Students came from all parts of the territory and from all classes of society.  At its peak, Proctor Academy enrolled over 200 students a year.

Schools sponsored by the Congregational Church earned the reputation of being some of the best in Utah.  All of their teachers earned normal school training in eastern schools.  Parents paid no tuition for students in the primary grades, and advanced students paid only a dollar a term.

In 1890, Utah passed a law providing free public education for its students, but it was not until 1912 that the Provo Board of Education agreed that a free high school should be established.  After Provo High School opened, the importance of Proctor Academy began to decline, and the school closed in 1917.  The Provo Elks Club bought the building in 1923 and converted it into an Elks Lodge.  Several decades later, it was razed to make room for commercial buildings.

This marker is located in Rock Canyon Park, for other markers in this series click here.

Early Residents of Provo lacked Land Titles.

For the first two decades after its settlement in 1849, a serious problem bedeviled the people of Provo.  None of the residents – or the rest of the inhabitants in Utah Territory for that matter – possed a legal totle to the land that they were living on.  The United States Congress passed laws that made it possible for homesteaders to gain ownership of a 160-acre plot of land, but this law did not help the typical Utah settler.  Because of the scarcity of arable land in the Great Basin, colonists were forced to intensively farm much smaller parcels of land that were ten or twenty acres in size.

Finally, on March 2, 1867, Congress passed a law that gave the elected leader of a city or town the authority to enter a land claim on behalf of its residents for the farmland and city lots held by members of the community.  After gaining legal ownership of the land, the community leader then transferred the deeds to those in possession of the land.

Brigham Young and Moyor Abraham O. Smoot urged Provo residents to file on their lands before land jumpers from the East files claims on the property.  The citizens of Provo held a mass meeting and appointed Jesse W. Fox to resurvey the city plat, a total of 2,240 acres.  Residents paid $1.00 per lot or $6.50 per five acres to have their land surveyed.

Fox finished his survey in March, 1868.  A year later, Mayor Smoot files on the whole town site with the U.S. Land Office.  This entry included not only private property, but public land like parks and roads.  After Smoot received the titles to this property , he sign them over to the rightful owners.

Some people have lived on their land for decades before they received title to it through usuing this creative process.  All of the original titles to land located on Provo are signed by Mayor Abraham O. Smoot.

This plaque is located in Memorial Park, to see other plaques in the series click here.