In September 1872, three young men by the names of Thomas Blyth, Charles Pixley, and Griffith Edwards formed a partnership and opened business under the firm name of Blyth, Pixley and Edwards. “We’re told Mr. Blyth’s fate was determined by a flip of a coin,” said Harry Bodine. “As he went through on the train, he took a dime from his pocket and tossed it to see if he were going to stay here and look for a job or go on to California.”
According to deeds on file at the Uinta County Court House, the land occupied by the West Side of the present building, Lot 8, block 15, and was purchased from the Union pacific Railroad Company on the 13th. Day of October 1872. It was on this lot that the original, two-story building was constructed, measuring 25 feet wide by 75 feet long. (Attachment #1) The pioneer citizens of Evanston came to this mercantile shop for their groceries and whatever else they happened to need. In 1875, Mr. Edwards retired from the firm to engage in business in Rock Springs. The company name was then shortened to Blyth and Pixley. Nine years later, Mr. Pixley withdrew his partnership to devote his entire time to his ranch, which was located near Sage, Wyoming. In 1880, a clerk was hired who ten years later was destined to become Mr. Blyth’s partner in the business. This man was Lyman Fargo. With the advent of Mr. Fargo’s buying into the store, the name was changed to The Blyth and Fargo Company (incorporated) with Thomas Blyth, President, and Lyman Fargo, Vice-President. The May 5, 1902 issue of the Wyoming Press recalls the 30 years old business.
The head of the firm, Thomas Blyth, during the past thirty years has by his sterling business qualification built up a trade emporium that is a credit to our city. The firm is deservedly popular as they are not only attentive and obliging to the wants of their patrons, but conduct their business on an honorable basis at all times, and keep strictly first class goods in their various departments and sell the same at competitive prices.
On August 4, 1886, Thomas Blyth and Lyman Fargo purchased the lot to the east from Mr. A. Beckworth. Construction was begun and in 1887 the expended store, standing a full three stories tall and measuring 50 x 100 feet, was completed. Today from the back, one can see the brickwork of the original, two-story building and the later construction that added a story to it, as well as, complete three stories to the east.
From this time to the turn of the century, the company expanded its operation to the surrounding area. Branch stores were opened in Pocatello, Idaho; Park City, Utah; Kemmerer, Coalville, Fossil, Hillard and Almy, Wyoming. All of the branches were fashioned after the parent store in Evanston, but each had its own little peculiarities.
Lyman Fargo opened the store in Pocatello. The original store burned down and was replaced by a high-class clothing store that catered to the college kids. The name of this store was Fargo, Wilson and Wells. Although Mr. Blyth held interest in the store, the name was not indicative of this fact. Wells was Mr. Fargo’s son-in-law and helped manage the store with Wilson. According to Harry Bodine, this store was the most sophisticated outlet and was “quite an operation.” It was such and operation the Mr. Fargo built a building across the street and invited Sears-Roebuck in for competition. This store was sold about 15 years ago.
Sherman Fargo, Lyman’s brother, managed the store in Park City. It was a store more orientated to mining, as this was a big mining area. It also held the only liquor license in the corporation. They had a license that enabled them to import kegs of liquor and transfer it into smaller containers.
The Kemmerer store had a slightly different name also. Its name was Blyth, Fargo and Hoskins. The latter partner, Mr. Hoskins, acted as manager. This store was unique for it along with the Evanston store offered some of the first competition to the merchandising giant J. C. Penney. (Attachment #2)
The store in Hillard was established approximately 30 miles south on the Bear River. It served mainly as an outfitting camp for the ranchers and sheepherders that were in the area. This store was founded to save the herders from having to go into Evanston.
There were two stores in Almy. Their approximate locations were at mine #3 and #5. This would be around Crompton and Lyman Brown’s. Their stores operated in a manner very similar to those owned by the coal companies. They would extend families credit and when the check came out, the debt was withdrawn with the balance going to the family. This situation lead people into a sort of perpetual debt. But, they were not hungry. These stores were in no way connected to the mines; they only saw to it that the families were fed and clothed.
The company also had an elaborate mail order, wholesales distribution business and issued a small mail order catalog. Orders poured in from all over the west, but the main territory was from “Jackson, Wyoming to Fort Duchesne, Utah and into Soda Springs, Idaho.
Those were the days when sen-sen was five cents a package and rickrack braid was a nickel. Horseshoe tobacco was fifty cents a plug and gunpowder tea was forty cents a half pound. Work socks were ten cents and a two – piece boy’s suit went for a dollar. They sold horseshoeing hammers, pincers, knives and rasps. A clothes wringer had a three-year roller warranty and sold for $5.50. Their best men’s silk serge, heavy weight suit was $35; while mother could get a cloth top, plain toe, button shoe for $3.29. Sachet was a dine. Union suits a dollar.
The one story building on the east was added to the store in March 1895. Records show that Mr. Blyth bought Lot 6, Block 15 and the building upon it from Ole Bergstrom for the sum of $1,200. And was given a warranty deed to the property. The storefront is a metal, cast iron piece ordered from a catalog. The front was set in place and rest of the building was built around it. This addition was designed as the clothing store. “This clothing store sold everything that was in fashion,” says Mr. Bodine. “I can show you ladders that ran along the rail at the top of the ceiling and the shelves were so full you had to climb clear up to get the shoes at the top.” They had long, fancy benches to sit on and fancy mirrors to see how you looked from all sides. (Attachment #3)
A May 5, 1906, issue of the Wyoming Press states that business conducted at the Evanston store and its branches grossed over a quarter million dollars in 1905. It goes on to include a fine description of the Evanston Store.
The building is fifty feet front by one hundred feet deep and contains three stories and a basement. Starting at the basement you will find it piled full of groceries and other reserved stock all neatly and conveniently arranged. On the ground floor of the West Side is the grocery and hardware department, and on the East Side, connected with arches, is their dry goods department.
These departments are all well stocked with their respective lines and attractively displayed and attentive clerks are always in attendance to wait upon customers.
Their display of furniture, which occupies one entire room on the second floor, embraces a very extensive assortment and one can secure everything needed in the house furnishing line. Their clothing department is now an additional room on the East Side connected with the main building by a convenient archway. Here they carry a mammoth line of clothing and, men’s furnishing goods where one can secure suits to their liking. The firm operates a tailoring department in connection with their establishment. This acquisition is popular because of the artistic work of which they make a specialty, at popular prices. Gents’ dressing room has recently been added to this department, which is made convenient and comfortable for patrons of the firm. .
This edition also lists the corporate officers and department managers; Mr. Thomas Blyth, President; Mr. Lyman Fargo, Vice-President; Mr. J. W. R. Rennie, managing salesman of the grocery department; Mr. W. N. Tomlinson of the dry goods.
Mr. J. W. R. Rennie took his training in Scotland in a very rigorous apprentice-training program. He came to America at a very young age and with his knowledge about business practices became an assistant purchasing agent for Macys in New York City. According to Mr. Bodine, Mr. Rennie was only 17 at the time. Mr. James Anderson related an interesting story about Mr. Rennie’s employment with the firm. According to Mr. Anderson, Mr. Blyth met Mr. Rennie at Macys and was so impressed that he told him he could come out to Evanston and work for him any time. Mr. Rennie received and offer to work for a big fancy grocery store in San Francisco. Mr. Blyth became privy to this information and met Mr. Rennie at the railroad depot on his way through engaging him successfully to manage his grocery department. This arrangement worked well for Mr. Rennie’s wife was afflicted by T. B. and her doctor suggested that she move to a high, dry climate.
This area must have suited her well for she lived to the ripe old age of ninety-three.
The store owned three warehouses. One was an adapted icehouse at the railroad track. It was used to store feed, hay, wire, nails, etc. It was also used as the intermediate warehouse for storage of the many carloads of merchandise the company received. The other two warehouses were located on Lots #1, #2, and #5 Block 15, next to the store. The front portion of the warehouse on lot #1 was rented out to a printer, according to an 1895 insurance map. It was later used as a theatre and possibly as a schoolroom. In the back of lot 1, there was a brick building measuring 12x25 feet used for grain storage. Harry Bodine remembers, “We used oats like people use gasoline today.” The farmers used to bring their grain to this warehouse in “any available sack.” This meant that the store had to weigh each individual sack. To accomplish this, they had a large platform scale and a pot of lamp black to mark the weights on the bags. They would round off each sack to the nearest five pounds for the sake of calculations. Both Mr. Bodine and Mr. Anderson can remember the names of the farmers and their subsequent generations painted on the wall of this warehouse with lamp black. The other warehouse was situated immediately to the west of these and was used to store general merchandise.
The store stocked fine goods from some of America’s leading manufacturers. Among these were fancy goods from Sprague Warner including the labels Fern Dell and Crosses and Blackwell. Durkey Spices and Burnett’s Extract were added in the grocery department to complete the list of fancy items to be found there. Tabacco products were received from Ligget and Meyers, R. J. Reynolds and the American Tabacco Company. Clothing articles were purchased from Oregon Woolen Milles (later became Pendelton), the Indianapolis Glove Company, Robert Johnson Rand, Ralston Company, Munsing Wear, Stetson, and shoes from Freeman Shoes and Rand.
Feed came in by the carloads from A. E. Staley and Company in Decatur, Illinois and from Purina in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Blyth and Fargo Company acted as a jobber for many of these companies ordering enough to be able to sell to stores around the area. They would add freight and a small profit and sell to stores like those at Bear River or Randolph. The profit margin was used to aid Blyth and Fargo outlets to become established and remain solid in their respective communities.
A delivery system was set up on the store when it began. It was quite necessary because many local residents had no way of providing for transportation for their groceries. As technology progressed, the telephone enabled customers to call in and order and have it delivered to their residence. Mr. Bodine recalls having approximately 1000 delivery tins that were packed by the grocery department and delivered. In the beginning, the store hired a person to make the deliveries. With the advent of the automobile, they contracted out delivery service to Burdett Transfer of Evanston. They had a rig especially foe Blyth and Fargo's deliveries. In the winter, however, the deliveries were made by a ream of horses and a sleigh as the streets became quite clogged. Mr. Bodine remembers this as an integral part of the business at the time because “it took care of customers the way they wanted to be taken care of.”
Upon the onset of the great depression, two young men found themselves very lucky to be employed by the Blyth and Fargo Company. These two young men were Harry Bodine and James 9Jimmy) Anderson. Both had started in the clothing department but remember being extremely flexible. They helped the grocery department when they got swamped, unloaded railroad cars of corn, steel post, wire and grain, and performed janitorial duties as needed. Both men remember being layed off for a brief period during the depression. Harry was layed off for approximately four months, during which he attended a quarter at Brigham Young University. He was rehired after one of the older men suffered a heart attack. Jimmy’s layoff was of considerably shorter duration. According to him, his boss, Mr. Zemp, approached him one day and asked him id he would mind taking a cut-back in hours. Figuring that any job was better than no job at all, he agreed to work only afternoons. The next afternoon, Mr. Rennie asked Jimmy where he was that morning. Jimmy explained the situation and Mr. Rennie told him to go back to full time; there was plenty of work he could find for Jimmy to do.
The store had a very well, rounded stock based on the basics. Their customers had the advantage of Blyth and Fargo’s excellent credit standings with manufactures and the store stretched credit extensions to many of their customers. This arrangement worked on trust and honesty for there was never any serious money problems. In fact, at one time, Blyth and Fargo held the deeds to all of the land held by one of the major sheep ranches in the area. Rather than foreclosing on the man, Blyth and Fargo allowed him to pay off his debt and retain his land. Most of their customers remembered these extensions and continued patronizing the store.
The December 15, 1938, issue of the Wyoming Press offers and excellent insight to the Blyth and Fargo business.
We assume that he believes that you can’t do a good job of work without fine tools. At any rate, one of his practices has been to choose his employees with great discrimination. One reason for his success is that he has seldom made a mistake in that line.
It might interest you to know that the average period of time for the employees at Blyth’s is over twenty years’ steady employment. That means that few are chosen, but once on the payroll, you stay. With one or two exceptions all of the people associated with the firm have been selected in their youth, trained to maturity and now occupy enviable situations. Take Thomas Miller, Clifford Osberg, Kenneth Ewer and Robert Zemp, for instance. Each one today heads a department in the store. Mr. Miller is in the office; Mr. Oberg is the dry goods department chief; Mr. Ewer heads the grocery department. They do not merely hold high positions of trust with Mr. Rennie; they own substantial blocks of stock, too. They are identified most intimately, by possession, which is the best way after all.
A good automobile requires many parts and much planning to make the perfect machine. No car has been built and designed with greater care than the business organization at Blyth’s. Mr. Rennie during the past few weeks has been slightly ill, but the boys at the store know the answers and she has been hitting on all cylinders.
Besides the heads of departments, there is employed Mrs. Lydia Nahrs, the oldest in point of service; Mrs. Rhea Morrow, Miss Ruby Christenson, James Anderson, George Sessions, Harry Bodine, Robert Haines, Wilford Davis, Helen Marlow. Some of these are youngsters coming up, but they will make the grade.
The office structure was set up to accommodate a large central cash section that handled all of the monetary transactions for the store. (Attachment # 4) The money and a sales slip was put into a little wooden trolley cup on rollers that was send down to the office on a spring steel wire. The accountant in the office would send it back to the respective department. The clerk would count the change and give it to the customer. If the incorrect change was made, they would rattle the wire and send the cup back down. The office was a beehive according to Harry. This activity was channeled by having two ledger books for daily changes and receipts. One was for Monday, Wednesday and Friday; the other was for Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The odd days allowed the booker to update the books without being disturbed.
Mr. Rennie and his employees had a unique language system established as an advantage over salesmen. When a salesman was trying to sell a particular product, a familiar scenario would take place. Mr. Rennie would ask Mr. Bodine (or another employee) how much to buy. A reply could be 627 or some such number. This number 627 stood for $20 or $25 or 20 items. Mr. Rennie was of the opinion that the multiplication table was the basis for everything and often used it to taunt his employees with mental, arithmetic games. Every item in the store and the warehouse was code costed to aid with calculations. In fact, the warehouses were so orderly that someone who was familiar with the operation could tell at a glance how much of what kind, what size, and the total cost of the items on hand. Mr. Rennie’s mathematical savvy was so astute that he would thumb through the day’s charges checking for errors. Harry and Jimmy remember him doing this so fast that it would boggle a person’s mind. When he would find a mistake, he would bring the receipt to the particular clerk and say; “You add that over again.” The store was ship shape and spic and span due to Rennie’s excellent policy teachings, and examples. (Attachment # 5)
James Anderson went to fight for his country in May of 1942. The onset of W. W. II. brought about some changes in the store. Panic and the Black Market forced much of the country, as well as some of Blyth and Fargo’s patrons to hord some commodities in short supply. To prevent it the U. S. Government issued regulations to try and insure that everyone got their fair share, each family or person applied for a ration book that was then sent through the mail and signed for. This book contained coupons that entitled the bearer to a limited amount of certain commodities. The store was issued a regulation book that stated the worth in points of various commodities. The clerks then affixed their points to the items. (Attachment # 6) Customers received these items by having the points necessary for their purchase. The ration books were to insure equal amounts were available but items still had to be purchased with cold hard cash. A typical item rationed was sugar. Harry has a poster that proclaims a (#6) coupon was good for two pounds of regular ration sugar and for a (#7) coupon you could purchase an extra two pounds of bonus sugar. He said these specials were run once in awhile to give people a little break.
Until this time, it was relatively unheard of for a grocery store to sell items like drugs, liquor, petroleum products or meat. During this period, however, customers demanded to get basic first aid supplies at their grocery. After much deliberation, Blyth and Fargo decided that they should take care of this phase of their consumer’s needs and opened a small drug section. Harry remembers, “This was a tough decision because we didn’t want to cut anyone else’s throat.”
James Anderson returned from the war in December of 1945. He went right back to work for his former employer. He recalls that even after the war government regulations pertaining to invoices were still in effect. The Office of Price Administration retained regulations to prevent price gouging by retailers. For each item sold the section (s) of compliance had to be denoted by the salesclerk. This procedure added hours to a sale, particularly if it was a large one. Jimmy figured the compliance for the furniture department but Tom Miller was faced with the insurmountable task of compliance for the entire store. Mrs. Noder from the OPA used to come in periodically to spot check records to make sure records was current and correct. The OPA regulations ended during the early fifties bring welcome relief to beleaguered store employees.
A ledger was kept by the store for a “Want List” of items in short supplies. Pages written by Mr. Rennie dated 1946 were typical and listed people waiting for flour.
W. H. Lester - 10 sacks - Big C.
W. A. Wood - 2 sacks - Gold Medal
C. R. Redfield - 2 sacks - Gold Medal
F. E. Johnson - 2 sacks - Gold Medal
Such a list was also kept for shortening to keep track of how much was purchased by whom.
Both Jimmy and Harry agreed the fifties and sixties went by fast. “They went by while our heads ere being so busy we couldn’t pay much attention; we did what we had to do.” Says Harry; “ We always hit the ball. We had a job to do. When you got enough of the job done you could go home to get some sleep and come back the next morning to start again,” The presidency of the company was passed to Mr. Miller as Mr. Rennie’s health had failed. Jimmy Anderson was made the manager of the grocery department and Harry Bodine Vice-President. In the late sixties, a decision was made to put in a fresh meat department. This was another agonizing decision for Blyth and Fargo did not want to stomp on anyone’s livelihood. They had held off until then because right next door to the east was the Palace Meat Market. After they began, however, they had the “best meat in town.” According to Jimmy, people would come in just to buy meat. To that Harry added, “Quality is the way to peoples’ stomachs.”
In January 1969, Harry Bodine took over the presidency of the Company and led it forward. Business was absolutely fantastic and the boom hit Evanston. First seismic exploration crews, then drilling crews, and the associated “oilfield trash” descended on this quiet community.
The boom has been crazy according to Harry. He says that Evanston was a beautiful, clean city, minding its own business and along comes the boom and ruins everything. At the store, they got their fingers burned by extending credit. The fast buck oilfield workers’ checks ere like rubber. Big bucks in the oilfield pulled workers out of the store. Both of Harry’s sons quit, leaving an elderly lady and him to run the store. His workday went from nine to five to five to nine. Harry could not hold up and finally had to go out of business.
This is the way a 109 years old institution faded away. Old customers come up to Harry and Jimmy to express how much they wanted to see Blyth and Fargo still doing business. The old building still stands as a grim reminder of social progress. Harry says that going out of business has saddened him more than anything else in his life.
Transcribed by Phyllis Martin for the Internet, with permission from Harry L. Bodine June 2001.
