Helper, Utah anyone?

[3DOP]

So my daughter and her family are moving from Washington State to South Carolina this week, Hopefully with a stop to see us here in Kansas for Christmas. But the trip has been pretty chaotic. The latest is that husband and wife have lost cell phone contact somewhere out on this Highway 6 from Spanish Fork to Green River, UT. In this fluke in Oregon, Martino was allowed to go east on I-84 in the Penske with their oldest son, when the freeway was suddenly shut down causing Ellie and our little granddaughters to spend the night in Pendleton, OR, while the boys made for their original destination just west of the Idaho border. They are trying hard to make it here for Christmas despite our saying to just take it easy. Ellie seems to have lost contact after Martino left the freeway for Green River. Now we have lost contact with both. My question for Utahns: Should we expect to have cell phone service before they make Colorado? Green River? It does have a few hotels. But its less than a thousand people! Maybe we shouldn't expect to hear from them until they get in to Colorado tomorrow after they spend the night? It looks pretty desolate, and Grandpa and Grandma would appreciate any insight on whether it is realistic to expect any communications.       

[3DOP]

19 minutes ago, 3DOP said:

So my daughter and her family are moving from Washington State to South Carolina this week, Hopefully with a stop to see us here in Kansas for Christmas. But the trip has been pretty chaotic. The latest is that husband and wife have lost cell phone contact somewhere out on this Highway 6 from Spanish Fork to Green River, UT. In this fluke in Oregon, Martino was allowed to go east on I-84 in the Penske with their oldest son, when the freeway was suddenly shut down causing Ellie and our little granddaughters to spend the night in Pendleton, OR, while the boys made for their original destination just west of the Idaho border. They are trying hard to make it here for Christmas despite our saying to just take it easy. Ellie seems to have lost contact after Martino left the freeway for Green River. Now we have lost contact with both. My question for Utahns: Should we expect to have cell phone service before they make Colorado? Green River? It does have a few hotels. But its less than a thousand people! Maybe we shouldn't expect to hear from them until they get in to Colorado tomorrow after they spend the night? It looks pretty desolate, and Grandpa and Grandma would appreciate any insight on whether it is realistic to expect any communications.       

Ah, hey. A happy update already...Ellie is on I-70 now, has communicated with her husband and everybody is well. I guess Martino has a new phone number and maybe that is why I couldn't reach him. Anyway...Just for fun, if anybody lives in, or has knowledge of Price, Wellington, or Helper, I am all ears. I knew you all would be sympathetic if we were still concerned. I am sure you are happy for our being very relieved to have good news before you could commiserate. Thanks for being there for us!

God love y'all...and a happy, holy, and very Merry Christmas.

Rory

Edited December 23, 2022 by 3DOP

[Calm]

It is named Helper because that is where the coal cars had to pick up an extra engine to help them get to or from the mines…at least that is what my Utahn husband told me when we drove through it, iirc.  I will ask him later today if he has any other tidbits about the drive and its towns.  I have probably been through there 20 times at the most from when we first were at BYU and visited my family in Colorado, then when I lived in Kansas and drove out to Utah every summer (cheap month long vacation staying with husband’s family in Orem with a stopover with my family in Fort Collins) and then driving to visit my family in Colorado once again when we moved back to Utah after Canada (which came after Kansas).  I remember it as a quaint little mountain town.  Price was rather blah to me, flat and long for its size.  But it is the last town before we got home or first when we left (Mapleton is right at the mouth of the canyon you drive through to get to Price from Provo, Spanish Fork on one side of the highway, Spanish Fork on the other; it’s 5 minutes from our house to the canyon as long as you don’t get stuck at a light), so the feeling was always wanting to get through it as quick as possible so we could speed up again, lol.  Wellington, I am spacing on.  It has been over ten years, maybe almost 15 since I last went through them due to not being able to travel well any more.

So it sounds like your family drove right past us as we are next door to Spanish Fork.  If my daughter could handle new people visiting, I would offer my home as a definite rest stop on the way back.  Let me know if they are coming this way on the way home and I will talk to her and see if she is up for it.  She is usually fine with kids around, but she’s very unpredictable for being up for a party.  We don’t have enough room for a comfortable sleepover though (sleeping bags in the TV room in the basement works in a pinch probably) and the kids might prefer a restaurant where they have more to choose from than soup and sandwiches (though my waffles are to die for, so I am told) and winter’s not a good time for climbing trees, laying in hammocks, and running through the sprinkler to cool off while adults sit on the deck talking so it may not be worth their time, but if they get separated again and want to meet up, it might be handy to have us in mind.  My daughter can hibernate in her room if necessary in an emergency.   I can PM you our phone numbers if they would like them as backup.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Calm

[3DOP]

13 hours ago, Calm said:

It is named Helper because that is where the coal cars had to pick up an extra engine to help them get to or from the mines…at least that is what my Utahn husband told me when we drove through it, iirc.  I will ask him later today if he has any other tidbits about the drive and its towns.  I have probably been through there 20 times at the most from when we first were at BYU and visited my family in Colorado, then when I lived in Kansas and drove out to Utah every summer (cheap month long vacation staying with husband’s family in Orem with a stopover with my family in Fort Collins) and then driving to visit my family in Colorado once again when we moved back to Utah after Canada (which came after Kansas).  I remember it as a quaint little mountain town.  Price was rather blah to me, flat and long for its size.  But it is the last town before we got home or first when we left (Mapleton is right at the mouth of the canyon you drive through to get to Price from Provo, Spanish Fork on one side of the highway, Spanish Fork on the other; it’s 5 minutes from our house to the canyon as long as you don’t get stuck at a light), so the feeling was always wanting to get through it as quick as possible so we could speed up again, lol.  Wellington, I am spacing on.  It has been over ten years, maybe almost 15 since I last went through them due to not being able to travel well any more.

So it sounds like your family drove right past us as we are next door to Spanish Fork.  If my daughter could handle new people visiting, I would offer my home as a definite rest stop on the way back.  Let me know if they are coming this way on the way home and I will talk to her and see if she is up for it.  She is usually fine with kids around, but she’s very unpredictable for being up for a party.  We don’t have enough room for a comfortable sleepover though (sleeping bags in the TV room in the basement works in a pinch probably) and the kids might prefer a restaurant where they have more to choose from than soup and sandwiches (though my waffles are to die for, so I am told) and winter’s not a good time for climbing trees, laying in hammocks, and running through the sprinkler to cool off while adults sit on the deck talking so it may not be worth their time, but if they get separated again and want to meet up, it might be handy to have us in mind.  My daughter can hibernate in her room if necessary in an emergency.   I can PM you our phone numbers if they would like them as backup.

Calm, you are so sweet and generous. Thank you. They are all passed by okay now. They are in a place called Cheyenne Wells, Colorado tonight. They had to detour off of the interstate for some screwball reason reason. Its okay. Out of the mountains and gladly so I know. They were a little spooked coming into Denver. But they are okay. Almost Kansas and Central Time now. We will see them tomorrow, God willing. It was hard for them (and us with them) I know. But those are the best memories. Laughing and smiling about the fears and cares we have had when God was above it all. Thank you Calm. God bless you and yours in this coming season and always.

Rory

[Scott Lloyd]

On 12/22/2022 at 8:40 PM, 3DOP said:

Ah, hey. A happy update already...Ellie is on I-70 now, has communicated with her husband and everybody is well. I guess Martino has a new phone number and maybe that is why I couldn't reach him. Anyway...Just for fun, if anybody lives in, or has knowledge of Price, Wellington, or Helper, I am all ears. I knew you all would be sympathetic if we were still concerned. I am sure you are happy for our being very relieved to have good news before you could commiserate. Thanks for being there for us!

God love y'all...and a happy, holy, and very Merry Christmas.

Rory

Wish I had seen this thread earlier. 
 

I lived in Helper between mid-1980 to the end of 1982. My first job after college graduation was as a reporter for the Sun Advocate, a little, twice-weekly newspaper in neighboring Price, the county seat. 
 

Jobs for journalism graduates were hard to come by back then. It was the post-Watergate era, and a lot of liberal activist types wanted to be muckrakers like Woodward and Bernstein of All the President’s Men fame. 
 

I stayed there until I could get a better job at the Ogden Standard-Examiner up in northern Utah, where I stayed another 2 1/2 years before finally landing at the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, where I spent 33 years before retiring in 2018. 

[Scott Lloyd]

On 12/23/2022 at 7:32 AM, Calm said:

It is named Helper because that is where the coal cars had to pick up an extra engine to help them get to or from the mines…at least that is what my Utahn husband told me when we drove through it, iirc.

This is pretty much correct. 
 

The depot for the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (which has since merged with Union Pacific) was is in the heart of Helper. Between Helper and Spanish Fork in neighboring Utah Valley (where Provo is the county seat) is a steep grade that runs up to a high point called Soldier Summit before the route descends down the other side of the mountain. Historically, the trains hauling coal from the mines in Carbon County have needed extra engines, called “helpers,” to make the grade, and that’s where the town got its name. The railroad is very much the raison d’etre for the town of Helper. 
 

In fact, when I lived there (see my above post to Rory), I dwelt in an apartment across Main Street in Helper from the train depot. I can’t vouch for this, but word was that the building I lived in had been one of the brothels that served the railroad workers and miners in the days of yore. 
 

When I was there, the railroad was still running a remnant of its old California Zephyr passenger train, though the route had been greatly shortened by then and the train was simply known as the Zephyr. Within a few years, it would be absorbed by the government, made part of the AMTRAK system and restored to the entirety of its former route between Chicago and San Francisco. 
 

On one occasion, I needed to visit my parents in Sandy for the weekend, but my car had broken down. I simply walked across the street to the train depot and booked a fare up to Salt Lake City, where my folks picked me up at the railroad terminal. Except for my time in Sweden on a mission, I had never before ridden a passenger train. I’m glad to this day I took the opportunity to ride that vestige of the historic California Zephyr. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by Scott Lloyd