Four more miles to Old Grayson

Years ago, my older brother, born and raised in Kansas, decided he wanted to move his family to a cohesive Latter-day Saint town in Utah.
He looked at a Utah map and decided that either St. George or Blanding would fit the bill. Whichever town offered him a job first, he said, that’s where they’d move.
Blanding came through with the first job offer, so he and his wife packed up their belongings, children, and beagle and headed West.
A few years later, newly divorced and with a young son, I asked my brother to check out any openings for an English teacher or librarian in Blanding. He told me a “baby” college had taken root in town, and they were hiring an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher.
I’d been teaching composition as an adjunct at Emporia State University, but I had no experience with ESL.
I applied anyway, drove out for an interview, and landed the job. That summer, before we moved, I taught in the Intensive English Department at the university, gaining a semester’s worth of experience working with international students.
It was intense and rewarding. However, the infant institution at Blanding was a completely different story.
The workload was heavy; I was unfamiliar with the Navajo, Ute, and Blanding cultures; and in addition to Blanding’s classes, we traveled to the southern part of the county to teach.
One of Blanding’s classrooms was in a repurposed church building. Other classes, a few offices, and the “media center” were located in salvaged trailers behind the old church.
I’d been hired on a three-year Trio grant, but I remember thinking I’d be lucky to last three months.
What held me at the college? In part, it was the absolute passion of those who had established the campus, as well as the dedication of the pitifully few administrators, faculty, and staff.
Those visionaries and educators came on the heels of pioneers who had founded Blanding. Walter C. Lyman inspired me the most.
In 1897, Walter and his brother Joseph (Jody) traveled from Salt Lake City to Bluff to visit their brother Platte who, unfortunately, was away on a trip.
While there, Walter and his brother-in-law, Kumen Jones, drove a team of horses up onto White Mesa where Blanding now stands.
Walter said, “As we came onto the mesa, I was given the impression that there could be a town established there, and saw in vision the exact place on which it should be built.” (quoted from Lyman Family History).
His nephew, Albert R. Lyman later heard him describe the experience. “It was among the sweetest and most desirable influences that ever filled my soul. I felt as I imagined Jacob must have felt when he saw the ladder extending to heaven and angels ascending and descending.”
That night, Walter saw a vision of a beautiful city, Sidon, which would become an “educational and cultural center,” especially for the Indigenous peoples.
The name Sidon lasted only a few months until, as Albert wrote, “‘Uncle Jody’ Lyman, my father’s crippled brother, moved down from “The Park,” to set up his Grayson Post Office in a kind of wickiup shelter improvised for the purpose.”
The post office and town were named after Uncle Jody’s wife, Nellie Grayson Roper. The name Grayson lasted for about nine years until a wealthy man from the East offered a thousand books to any town that would adopt his name.
Thurber and Grayson competed with eventually 500 books going to Thurber, which changed its name to Bicknell, and 500 to Grayson, which changed its name to Blanding, Bicknell’s wife’s maiden name.
Nine years is not long for a name to exist, but here’s a mystery from the Grayson days: When Jerry Holliday was helping to build Recapture Reservoir, he noticed a large boulder inscribed with the words, “Grayson 4 mi.” Then, he lost track of the rock even though he tried to find it again.
In 1978, when his son Punk was a junior in high school, he was riding on a school bus and spotted it again. The family contacted city officials to see if they wanted it, which they did, so Jerry brought it into town with his front loader.
It’s now located on the visitor center’s front lawn. No one I’ve asked seems to know the origin of the inscription, but perhaps a member of the crew building the original road from Blanding to Monticello carved the directions in his beautiful script, pointing toward the town of “destiny.”
In the last 121 years, has Sidon / Grayson / Blanding fulfilled Walter C. Lyman’s vision?
It is an educational center. USU Blanding, with its jewel-like campus, provides a variety of classes at a number of locations.
What about becoming a cultural center? One of my friends recently commented on the professional caliber of the art show currently displayed at the Edge of the Cedars Museum, as well as the gifts of local musicians. “The talent is incredible,” she said, “in a town this size.”
Not all of Walter C. Lyman’s vision has come to fruition, however, since he also saw a temple built primarily for the Indigenous peoples of the area.
The first time I heard a choir singing Stan Bronson’s song, “Prayer of Sidon,” I thought I heard Walter’s angels joining them with the words, “Let mine eyes behold the temple/ On the hill before I die.”
Probably Monticello’s temple fulfills that prophesy, but who knows what the next 100 years might bring.