This is the Brighton Village Store in Big Cottonwood Canyon outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. When this photograph was taken, it was owned and operated by Everest Raymond Watrous and his wife Mildred with lots of support and help from various members of his family. The store was sold in the early 1970s and was later razed to make room for an overflow parking lot for skiers.
These are photographs from the late 1940s of Little Mountain Ski Resort in Emigration Canyon outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Everest Raymond Watrous and a friend, Melvin Henshaw, leased the land and built the first hill with night skiing in the west. They played polkas through a loud speaker and hauled everyone back and forth using a rope tow. They operated the area for about two years.
The Home and Garden Variety Store was owned by Everest Raymond Watrous and his wife Mildred Bates. It was located on the corner of 17th South and 17th East in Salt Lake City, Utah. The store sold a variety of goods, offered plants in season and sporting goods. In December Christmas trees were sold. Many family members helped in the store. In the 1960s, the Watrous family sold the store to a company who razed it and built a gas station in its place. The gas station is still on the property as of 2010. Across the street from the store was the Wasatch Presbyterian Church which is still there. Two doors west of the store was the family home, which is also still there and is owned by a family member.
This is the center corral at the Fremont Meadows Ranch in Bicknell, Wayne County, Utah. This property was purchased by Everest Raymond Watrous and his wife Mildred in the early 1970s. Over the years, Ray worked hard to make it beautiful. This photograph was taken about 1975. After Ray’s death in 1989, his widow stayed on the property for three years. She then sold it and moved to Salt Lake City to be near her family.
This keepsake photograph answered a question. Why did Grandpa Ray always thumb his nose at the grandchildren to make them laugh? The question was answered in this photograph of “Grandpa Ray” on the left, his friend Jim in the middle and his father Everest Elliott Watrous on the right. The elder Watrous is . . . yes, thumbing his nose at the camera. The gesture came from father to son ! This photograph was taken on a fishing trip but the location is not known to us although we believe it was not far from home somewhere in Utah. It was taken about 1935.
Henry Reynolds Watrous was born in 1846 in the small, farming town of Terre Haute in Henderson County, Illinois. This town is near LaHarpe and quite close to Nauvoo. Henry was the oldest child and only son born to his parents Jerome Timothy Watrous and Mary June Reynolds. However he had a half-sister named Caroline from his father’s first marriage to Olivia Burke Muse. He was named for his mother’s father Henry Reynolds, who was a pioneer to the area and who had built the first water grist mill.
Henry had a sister Sarah Rebecca and a sister named Mary Ellen Byrnes who was adopted by his parents from the Orphan Train. Henry studied law at Galesburg, Illinois and became an attorney. While in Illinois he was a Mason. In 1878 he married Edith Glendora Pancake in her parents’ home in Blandinsville, Illinois in McDonough County. In 1879, Henry got his first job as an attorney in the small prairie town of Red Oak, Iowa in Montgomery County. He moved with his wife Glendora. Their son Earl Pancake Watrous was born in Red Oak. Also with them were Henry’s parents Jerome and Mary and his sisters Sarah Rebecca and Mary Ellen Byrnes. This family is found in the same place in the census of 1880. While in Red Oak, two additional children were born to Henry and Glendora. They were Wayne and Everest. Everest Elliott Watrous is our direct ancestor. Wayne Watrous died at the age of six months of cholera. He is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Red Oak.
In about 1883, Henry and Glendora and their two sons Earl and Everest, moved from Iowa to Utah. They joined Glendora’s large family who had already migrated from Illinois to Utah. There interest was in mining. They invested, Henry provided the legal support and for many years Henry worked with his father-in-law Samuel C. Pancake and Glendora’s brothers and sisters. After arriving in Utah, Henry and Glendora became the parents of a fourth son. He was born in 1885 and died the same year. His name was Martin.
In 1892, Glendora and Henry divorced. Her family moved on from Utah to California. One sister went to Kansas and two sisters stayed in Utah. Henry and Glendora sent their two young sons to live with Henry’s parents in Terre Haute, Illinois. Their visit lasted two years. When their grandmother Mary June Reynolds Watrous became ill, they were returned to their parents in Utah. While they had been away, their father Henry married a woman who was the age of is oldest son Earl. She was Clara Harriett McGregor. Everest and Earl returned to live with their father. Their mother, Glendora, left Utah in 1895 for Kansas, where she took up residence with her sister Camilla Pancake Elliott and her family. Glendora lived in Kansas for twenty-five years, until her death in 1920.
After a few years, Clara divorced Henry. She cited “drunkenness and failure to provide” as the reasons. They were the same reasons Glendora had given in 1892.
Henry was prominent for many years in the newspapers of the Utah Territories. He defended many in the courts and prosecuted plural marriage claims. He and his sons went into a very aggressive mining venture which was incorporated in 1916. Their partners included the Mayor of Salt Lake City and the primary investor in the Silver King Mine in Park City, Utah. By 1920, the mine was unincorporated which was done by simply withholding the payment of taxes. A complete history of this venture has been compiled by Henry’s great-grandson Thomas Watrous and is on file at The Utah Historical Society.
Henry lived in Big Cottonwood Canyon in a mining camp for the last few years of his life. At the end of his life he became ill and lived out the last few months in the home of his son Everest. He died of meningitis, secondary to carcinoma of the face. The records of the mortuary where his body was handled have been lost. We don’t know if there was a service for Henry. He is buried in the Murray City Cemetery, Murray, Salt Lake, Utah next to his son Earl Pancake Watrous. Henry’s grave remained unmarked until 2002 when a stone was placed by family contributions.
The migration of Henry Reynolds Watrous
Illinois to Iowa to Utah
This keepsake photograph shows Everest Elliott Watrous on the left, an unknown man in the middle and a man we believe to be Henry Reynolds Watrous. Henry is Everest’s father. Since Henry died in 1923 this photograph was taken before then. Taken in about 1921, Everest would have been in his late thirties. For the last three years of his life, Henry Reynolds Watrous lived in a mining camp in Big Cottonwood Canyon outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. When Henry became ill with the complications of skin cancer on his face, he left the canyon and lived with Everest and his family until his death in 1923.
This wonderful keepsake photograph is of Everest Raymond Watrous on the left with a friend. Ray was the youngest of three sons born in 1909 to his parents Everest Elliott Watrous and Mary Maria Jenkins in Big Cottonwood Canyon outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Ray appears to be about eight or nine in this photograph, thus we date it about 1918.
This brochure was just one of the many offerings at the Home and Garden Variety Store at 17th South and 17th East in Salt Lake City, Utah and the Brighton Village Store in Brighton, Utah. Everest Raymond Watrous, the owner of both stores, was the first representative merchant in the Salt Lake City area to offer the goods of Recreational Equipment Incorporated which became today’s popular REI.
This keepsake photograph shows direct ancestor Everest Raymond Watrous, center, and two friends. This photograph was taken about 1930 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Everest Raymond’s parents were Everest Elliott Watrous and Mary Maria Jenkins. He was the youngest of three sons born to his parents. He grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah . . . first in a cabin in Big Cottonwood Canyon where he was born, and later in the family home on Milton Avenue. He married Mildred Bates in 1932. They became the parents of three children; two daughters and one son.