Your Roundup

What is your opinion of the local heritage community? What organizations do you know about? How do you associate things that you see?

I'd really love to see some of you who don't post that frequently get on this one. Your opinion is valuable.

1. not much
2. Historical - Zane Grey-Rodeo
3. Has nothing to do with Old Payson except for the Lone Pine Hotel.

Tim, I will try to respond from the perspective of a relative new comer, 14 years in Payson. I respect the cowboy ranching heritage of the general area and enjoy reading about some of the past personalities. However, I also have come to believe that some individuals that are decendants or related by chance of some of the earliest residents, feel they have some special position of authority over the community in general. This would include Star Valley, Pine areas also. Frankly, I was hopeing Main street would be rejuvinated and cleaned up as a show piece. Maybe western themed building facades with boardwalk sidewalks etc. Personaly, I think the Main st. property owners are just concerned with getting all the rent they can and could care less about fixing up their properties. And some of these owners are decendants of the pioneer families who claim local royalty status. The "Pyle Mansion" (surely a joke) and the crumbling mud shack to the rear are not the best examples to show of Payson heritage unless completely renevated. My 2 cents. Thanks for your efforts.

It is the Pieper Mansion with the mud shack, and once again we agree. The east and west side was added to the Mansion.
The Pyle Mansion is the last house on the S. side of Main at the first lake. Another joke.
One house that has kept most of the original shape and interior is the house west of the Lone Pine. Yes, I am one of the decendants.
I asked to go into that particular house to see what they had done and there are very few changes from when it was built in 1929. My grandmother had it built for $3200. It has had siding and different heating and of course it has cooling now.
On the inside the book case dividers between the LR and DR was removed and the little 6 sided tiles removed from the bathroom. A door removed from between the BR and den.

Don, do you mean the Pieper Mansion on the corner of Main and McClain? How sad that piece of property has gone to the dogs, because at one time it was really a nice property.

The Pieper place should not be referenced as a mansion, certainly as I understand it, the old timers never referred to it as a mansion - that's something the newcomers added.

There are some old families who could care less about the history. Remember with that Pieper property, Luke Ashby bought it first, then spun the smaller piece off. The Ashbys have been around a long time, but for the most part they don't really care and you see that sometimes amongst some families. (Numbers wise, probably just reflecting the general population.)

There are also some old families who have been known to slightly "massage" some of their histories to try to be known as the first ones here. I think that's probably been going on a heckuva longtime. I mean, you have this whole thing on how "Davey Gowan was the first white person to discover the natural bridge." Well, Gowan did plenty, but I don't think he was the first of that era, and certainly some military soldiers would've come upon that place in the 1860s. And that "fact" has been out there a heckuva long time.

I will always refer to that house as the Pieper Mansion. I have no idea who began calling it that, but to me, it is the Pieper Mansion, even though it looks like anything but.

When you say the Ashby's don't really care, I hope you are referring to just Luke Ashby, because I can assure you there is no one that appreciates, and wants to keep the historical aspect of their place in Christopher Creek..Glenn and Rebecca Ashby, and any time something historical is thrown by the wayside, they are angered just as much as I am.

I'm still not over bulldozing the Cowboy Bar in Kohl's Ranch!

I think the Christopher Creek ones are definitely more into the history stuff than some of the others - you're right to correct me there Dean. Most definitely Luke could careless, ashame on that one too.

My feeling on the Cowboy Bar was that it needed change probably, aging structures need an overhaul at some point, just not in the way that it occurred.

Tim,
If you were to go thru the sales records you would be amazed at how many times the Pieper property has been sold and pieces sold off.
If I am not wrong, I think you could homestead up to 160 acres, and I think Ashby only got about 13 acres when he bought it.
I have old time papers to show I am not massaging any thing on my family.
The Ashbys settled up near Christopher Creek, not in Payson.
Mrs. Deming was raised in Star Valley. Related to Gowan?
Wm. Hilligass, my grandfather also had a home stead at or near the Chilson property .

I believe that it was a 160 acre homestead. Ashby got almost 6 acres of it. But you are talking about probably the most significant piece of it. You've got three significant players tied to that part: Pieper, Sidles, and Vogel. Now in the case of Pieper, you get a rich bunch of ties to a whole bunch of others, one of whom isn't even mentioned in Rim Country History. Sidles is a key early player - you can even tie him to Pin early. And Vogel and his business partner Craig were significant in their own right.

That corner was one of two cornerstones of early Payson, the other being where McLane heads up the hill. Thus it is VERY signficant. The Town should've stepped up years ago on it.

I wasn't trying to pick on you when it comes to massaging. But it does happen.

I could swear there's a Deming-Gowan tie but can't tell you what it is off the top of my head. I think Gowan is significant in a way, but certainly not on the level of Burch or Pieper.

What happened to the other six acres?