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| Doug and Elaine Alder |
When one drives into Bear Lake Valley from Logan, the first
community one sees is Garden City.
Ironically it was the last village founded. The towns in Round Valley and Laketown were
established by individual families instead of by planned Mormon missions, but
they followed the layout plans of the villages in the north. After they were functioning, the land in the
Garden City area became enticing. It had
less agricultural opportunity because it was not as expansive but a water
project in Fish Haven enticed people to move there. Phineas W. Cook had established a sawmill and
gristmill at Swan Creek. He was an
entrepreneur and innovator. He realized
that farmland in Fish Haven was limited and he began to look south and realized
that a thousand acres was available there.
In 1877 he and his sons began work on the Swan Creek Canal that would
send water in that direction.
Hearing of that possibility, four families moved there. Cook
built the canal to the site and intended it as a profit-making venture. He knew that the land was a bit lower than
the other towns and believed it would be very good for gardens. So instead of having farms outside town, he
set up large town lots to be the site for such vegetable and fruit
gardens. Most Mormon towns had ten-acre
blocks with eight one-acre lots. He set
up the blocks with narrower streets and eight-acre blocks with each family
receiving two acres instead of one. His
predictions were correct. The town soon
became a successful gardening town.
Some had suggested Bellview as the name for the town but the
gardening success led to the name Garden City.
Cook anticipated that the canal could water 800 acres. The vegetable crops grew well. An LDS congregation was organized with
William Wright presiding. Directly south
a similar pattern began in Pickleville.
Later Nathanial M. Hodges purchased land south of that and established
the Hodges Ranch that was expanded exponentially, up to what is now known as
Hodges Canyon and to the lake, where recreational facilities would later be
developed.
Robert E. Parson says: “The history of Garden City is not
one of larger ranches and livestock but rather one associated with small,
specialized operations such as the cultivation of the raspberry introduced by
Theodore Hildt in 1910. Additionally,
Garden City, more than Laketown, became most strangely associated with Bear
Lake itself. . . with the blue waters and sandy beaches of Bear Lake.” (A History of Rich County, p. 108)
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