If you just look at the surface, you might think that Hillsdale was a failure — one of the few early Mormon settlements that did not thrive, did not evolve into a modern town; a barely there remnant of the frontier.
It is that. But if you look beyond that sketchy outline, you also find that Hillsdale was — and is — a place that inspires deep feelings.
If you walk through the cemetery and notice dates of death from as late as the 1990s, you realize that something about the place was strong enough to call people back long after the final settler had packed up and moved away. If you read stories about the little town, you appreciate the faith and fortitude of those who spent time there.
And, if you talk to Bobbi Bryant, you soon see the place in a whole new light — not only as a relic of the past, but also a place with potential.
Bryant did not grow up there, did not even grow up in Utah. But, she says, "There's too much here. We couldn't just let it die." And so she and her partner, Vince Salvado, are almost single-handedly pulling Hillsdale back from the brink of extinction.
Already, they've restored one of the old houses and turned it into a bed and breakfast. They've fixed up another one to house their fly-fishing shop. They are working on restoring the little schoolhouse. They hope to eventually move the old blacksmith shop and maybe another cabin closer to the road, so they can create a little open-air museum.
All they need, she says, is for UDOT to put up a sign, and Hillsdale will be back on the map.
It hasn't been listed there for a long time — the last house in town was built in 1910, and by the 1930s most of the remaining families had drifted away. But it has a history, says Bryant, that is worth remembering.
Located about nine miles south of Panguitch and about six miles north of Hatch, what's left of Hillsdale lies along U.S. 89 and just to the east of the Sevier River.
In 1871 two men came to this area, sent by their ecclesiastical leaders to find a place for a sawmill. Joel Hills Johnson and George Deliverance Wilson were brothers-in-law. At ages 70 and 63 respectively, both were pioneers in every sense of the word.
Johnson, who had been with the LDS Church since Kirtland and Nauvoo, entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1848 and was almost immediately sent south. Looking back at the end of his life (he died in 1883) he noted: "After being baptized in 1831 I never lived but a short time in any one place on account of mob violence. And since I have been in Utah I have made 11 new places. Was never called on a mission without responding to the call and never asked to speak in public on the principles of religion when I excused myself."
Johnson left his name on a variety of locations: Johnson's Fort later became Enoch, but Johnson Canyon in Kane Country is his. Hillsdale was either named for him or his mother; no one was quite sure. Two of his sons came with him to Hillsdale, but Johnson himself only stayed for a few years before moving on.
Wilson also lived in Kirtland and Nauvoo before joining the Mormon Battalion. He, in fact, crossed the plains on foot three times after marching with the battalion; he returned to Winter Quarters to get his family and bring them west. He would stay in Hillsdale for the rest of his life; he died in 1912.
Many of the Hillsdaleites were Johnsons and Wilsons, although other names showed up in the records as well: Asay, Degraw, Frederick, Merrill, Pratt, Schow and others. At its height, Hillsdale had a population of just over 300. And life there was very much the same as in any other little community; church and school were at the center of life, with meetings, socials and classes.
But other than the sawmill, there was little commercial potential, and most families lived off agriculture. And therein lay the problem. Hillsdale's elevation of roughly 7,000 feet meant a short growing season. And frequent floods on the Sevier River wiped out dams and hindered irrigation.
But they gave it their best. A Wilson family story tells of the time a ferocious summer hailstorm threatened to wipe out crops. George Deliverance knew that a loss of crops would lead to starvation, so he walked out to the mill and rebuked the storm in the name of his religion.
Afterward, he took the family out to survey the damage; piles of hailstones, broken limbs from pine trees, but fields of wheat still in perfect order as the storm had apparently split and gone around them. "There was no hail in the wheat field," wrote Sixtus Johnson, who was a boy at the time, "but plenty piled along the fence line, which extended about one-half mile. It was as if the fence was an impassable barrier through which the hail could not go."
But in the end, as original settlers died and others moved away, the little town faded. A few descendants maintained summer cabins in the area, but the rest was left to wither away.
Bobbi Bryant grew up in St. Joseph, Mo., home of the Pony Express, so she grew up loving history, she says. In the mid-'90s, she lived in Albuquerque, where she worked as a wholesale rep for a company that supplied gifts and jewelry to national parks, and business frequently took her to Panguitch. "I loved the area, and I'd always had a dream of restoring an old house." So, in 1997, she bought a home in Panguitch and went to work.
"After that, I said, 'Never again.' But I learned you can't ever use that word," she laughs. Because about that time Salvato moved up from Las Vegas; the two opened a fishing business in Panguitch and then decided to move it to Hillsdale.
It's an ideal location, she says. After all, you can go right outdoors and try out your latest tackle. "Within an hour's drive, there are more than 40 different fishing locations," she says, "and some are within minutes. You can't believe how good the fly fishing is here. There's a phenomenal number of fish, lots of brown trout."
They have put in a two-acre pond of their own out in back of the B&B. And in addition to work on their little town, they are working to restore and renovate the Sevier River ecosystem. Salvato serves on the new Blue Ribbon Fisheries Advisory Committee and is working with landowners to restore streambanks, improve habitat and water quality.
They own about 155 acres altogether, which is not the entire town by any means, but their property includes a number of the old buildings. And Bryant knows it will take time and effort to bring the town back to life.
The first house they tackled was in "very bad shape. Cows had been in the upstairs — how, I don't know." The first contractors they called in told them to burn it down and start over. "There was so much pack rat damage we couldn't save the interior walls. But we did keep the outside," Bryant said.
Eventually, they also hope to excavate the old saw mill. The roof has caved in, and there's probably too much damage to restore it. And, she says, at one time the old schoolhouse had apparently been used as a poaching station for deer. So, she says, whatever they are able to do, it's better than what it was.
"There's a certain peace and tranquillity here that's hard to describe. We want a place where other people can experience that. This place is different that anywhere else. That's why it was settled to begin with."
And that's why, even though it has suffered from the ravages of time, no one who knew it then or knows it now would consider Hillsdale a failure.
E-MAIL: carma@desnews.com