FAIRFIELD, Utah County — A former one-room schoolhouse may find new life by summer's end.
Mark Trotter, director of the state park in the tiny west Cedar Valley town, said work has started to convert the building to include modern restrooms that will make it possible for the park to accommodate school field trips.
"We anticipate children will be able to come out and spend a day with us, reliving the past," Trotter said.
He expects the work to take about 60 days to complete.
Trotter said the $22,000 cost of putting in the restrooms — which means running a new water line to the old building as well as installing modern plumbing and fixtures — was underwritten by the Utah Legislature and Bear Construction with some money coming from the Heritage Parks Fund.
The entire budget for the Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park is $21,000 annually.
Bear Construction is also providing the ironwork for the old-style wooden desks that will furnish the 1898 schoolroom.
"That's my next project, getting thirty desks together," Trotter said. Students will work on slates and sit in the replicas of the original desks, following the curriculum of a territorial school day.
Trotter has been charged with pushing up visitation to the state park, which commemorates a time when the U.S. Army based a large army garrison at the site just outside Fairfield to assure federal authorities that the Mormons were kept in line.
Camp Floyd, commanded by Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston operated from 1885 to 1861 and changed the character of the area.
"There are some who say that it was the South's attempt to distract the government from looking at slavery by focusing their attention on polygamy," Trotter said.
Whatever it was, the relics and remains from those six years speak of a boisterous time filled with dust, drama and rough frontier living. Seventeen saloons sprang up in Fairfield after some 10,000 camp followers came to get work and local girls fell in love with soldiers.
Artifacts from that time have been excavated and are on display at the small commissary in Fairfield.
The Stagecoach Inn harks from a time when the Overland Express and Pony Express riders came through town. It also remains as a tourist attraction and visitors site.
E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com