If You Were an Outlaw, Where Would You Shop?

Diagonally across the street from you was the Ashley Cooperative Mercantile. It began in 1881 as a small, one-story log and rock building. By 1900, a new two-story general merchandise store with groceries, meat, dry goods, hardware, shoes, and a men’s department was constructed. Area residents also used the store to deposit and exchange money, to obtain loans, and to make investments. The volume of money became more than the Co-op could handle, resulting in the establishment of the first Bank of Vernal. The bank opened inside the Co-op in 1903. To discourage local outlaws, a large walk-in vault and a bulletproof screen surrounding a steel-lined counter became added security features to the new bank.

In the early 1880’s, two gun-toting horsemen robbed the Co-op. At closing time, the robbers caught the store clerk up on a ladder, where he was showing off a new, brimmed hat to two customers. In response to the clerk’s reply, they fired a shot, grazing the store clerk’s hatband before making off with the money.

Butch Cassidy (Robert Leroy Parker) was also a Co-op customer. In 1896, he purchased a Colt .45 single-action revolver which may have been used by the outlaw on his exploits with the notorious Wild Bunch.

This is #5 of the 21 stop history walking tour in downtown Vernal, Utah. See the other stops on this page:

• Vernal’s Walking History Tour

This marker is located diagonally across the street from and about the building at 4 West Main Street in Vernal, Utah.

Where Can You Get an Iron Port, Phosphate, or Suicide?

Today it would be difficult, but in 1946 you could have ordered one of these soft drinks at a soda fountain. Vernal’s most popular soda fountain was part of Vernal Drug which was located in the building across the street. At the marble counter, soda jerks mixed a variety of soft drinks and ice cream delights. A popular treat was cherry phosphate (cherry syrup, soda water, and citric acid); you could also order a cherry or vanilla Coke. Vernal was one of the few places you could find “Iron Port,” an old fashioned ice cream soda. If you wanted chocolate ice cream, you would ask for a “dip of mud;” a chocolate cone was called a “black stick;” a “houseboat” was the common term for a banana split. In the 1950s the soda fountain was a focal point where young people gathered after school or with a date.

The soda fountain hosted its first customer in 1900 when Vernal Drug opened its doors. The drugstore relocated several times, but in 1917 it found a permanent home. In 1960 the drugstore expanded into the Vogue Theater building. In 1991 Vernal Drug closed after 91 years in service, giving way to discount store pharmacies and the changing tastes of youth. So today you can’t get a “suicide” (a squirt of everything in the soda fountain) in Vernal.

This is #6 of the 21 stop history walking tour in downtown Vernal, Utah. See the other stops on this page:

• Vernal’s Walking History Tour

This marker is located across the street from and about the building at 23 East Main Street in Vernal, Utah.

Biggest Little City of the Railroad

While the settlers were still in their fort, they sometimes called their community “Jericho,” for the Biblical Walls of Jericho; “Hatch Town,” because of the three Hatch families that lived there; or simply “The Bench,” because the settlement lay on a rise four miles due south of Ashley, the first little frontier town in the valley. Although residents eventually wanted to call the place Ashley Center, the federal postal service refused their request and assigned them the name Vernal in 1886. Few people liked it then, but it obviously stuck.

It wasn’t too many years before Ashley was nothing more than a ghost town. Led by prominent saloon keeper and mayor S. M. Browne, Vernal had become the “biggest little city off the railroad” and a “model of city government.” In 1902 Missouri’s St. Louis Globe gushed:

This little burg is governed in such a manner as to make it the envy of all the other cities in the state. The one thing which makes Vernal unique among the cities of the United States, if not the whole world, is that there has never been a dollar of money raised by a city tax since it incorporated.

There are no boodlers [bride-takers] in Vernal and there never has been a suspicion of scandal since it became a city.

Politics cut no figure in the city elections, and the best men in the place are chosen to fill the offices. To be a member of the city government is considered a high compliment to the business ability of the man, so the offices are sought by the leading businessmen of the place and, when once elected, they gladly served out their terms without pay.

While elected officials have since levied taxes to pay for city services, Vernal continues to be the biggest little city in northeastern Utah.

This is #12 of the 21 stop history walking tour in downtown Vernal, Utah. See the other stops on this page:

• Vernal’s Walking History Tour

This marker is located at Cobble Rock Park, which is at 25 South Vernal Avenue in Vernal, Utah.

One of the Top 50 Small Cities in the U.S.

While the Uinta Basin was originally founded on agriculture and ranching, the area is now a major hydrocarbon producer, and Vernal City serves as the hub of these vast natural resources in northeastern Utah. Vernal’s present economy revolves around the oil and gas industry, enjoying the prosperity that comes with boom years, but suffering periodic busts as well. Among the other products mined from the earth here are Gilsonite, coal, phosphate, oil shale, and asphalt.

Vernal is also a starting point for outdoor enthusiasts and tourists who visit Ashley National Forest, the High Uinta Mountains, with their sparkling natural lakes, and Flaming Gorge Reservoir. The wild Green River watershed, including Split Mountain, Yampa, and Echo canyons, attracts river runners from around the world.

Dinosaur National Monument, established in 1915 after the discovery of an ancient dinosaur fossil bed, lies fourteen miles east of Vernal. The Utah Field House of National History and Dinosaur Gardens, which showcase numerous prehistoric artifacts, call Vernal’s Main Street home and attract thousands of visitors annually. This archeologically-rich region is known as Dinosaurland and provides Vernal with its Apatosaurus-like mascot, Dina.

Not to be outdone by their predecessors, Vernal residents today still take pride in their city. As one of the best equipped inland cities in America, Vernal was named to the top fifty list of small cities in America in 1993 and again in 1995. By 2002, the city’s population has grown to approximately 7,000 residents in a county of 25,000 people. Civic and government organizations continue to be actively involved in the community, promoting economic growth, supporting youth programs, and undertaking city beautification projects, such as the establishment of Cobble Rock Park.

This is #11 of the 21 stop history walking tour in downtown Vernal, Utah. See the other stops on this page:

• Vernal’s Walking History Tour

This marker is located at Cobble Rock Park, which is at 25 South Vernal Avenue in Vernal, Utah.