The grain harvest is over in "Wheat City", so you can put away your Thresher!

A hundred years ago, Nephi, Utah was known as "Wheat City", as their were miles and miles of dry land wheat on the Levan ridge. Now a days, subterranean aquifers are being depleted from too many wells and no rain or snow to refill them, so not many dry land farms left. We estimate the year of the thresher photos to be 1912, as the one is a post card with the date on the back of Aug. 11, 1912, addressed to Mrs. Maude Worthington of Levan, Utah. In pioneer days, the United States Government would not believe that David Broadhead could produce 47 bushes of wheat per acre, so he was indicted for Perjury by a Grand Jury. When he was acquitted, the ridge was nicknamed "Perjury Farm". Other family names doing threshing was Paxman's; Thomas Belliston; A.J. Gowers, the Grace Brothers and Lewis Garrett. Stephen Boswell as the first Supervisor at the Utah Agriculture College Experiment Station out there. We spoke to former thresher bagger-97 year old Ron Jones, to get an estimate of which combine to purchase for next year's crop. A new John Deere Harvester is $230,000 or you have to round up 10 plug horses with full harness'; steam engine; thresher; 3 baggers; ten men to run the machines and five to six others to feed everybody. In the end, we calculated the one operator Combine from John Deere as cheaper. Other photos are from the Alice Worthington Franks collection, which was recently donated to the Daughters of Utah Pioneer Museum in town down Nephi, USA. East Main Street postcard is addressed to Mr. James Bean of Nephi, while another shows the Whitmore Mansion.