One-Hundred Three years ago, back in 1918, the Spanish Flu Pandemic raged through Utah impacting big cities and little towns.
In The History of Salt Lake County Linda Sillitoe writes:
“Day after day, obituaries loaded the columns of local newspapers, mourning citizens from the elite to the obscure,….except for hospitals and impromptu clinics, the valley virtually closed down. Schools, their doors, shops locked up early, …even trolley cars limited the number of passengers. Joseph F. Smith [President of the LDS Church] succumbed from the flu… and was laid to rest without a public funeral…”
While 308.5 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, and on November 4, 1918, the Blanding Town Council met and voted to adopt these two measures:
- “Owing to the epidemic of influenza which exists in Monticello, the Board of Health had given notice that all parties coming into the town from the outside should be placed under quarantine for three days.” And further,
- “The mail carrier not to enter the post office, but to put the mail on the platform outside of the office and to wear a mask while in the Town of Blanding…”
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
