By Mike Donahue
Moapa Valley Progress
Laughter, music and long-missing human voices once again wafted over the lonely ghost town of St. Thomas last Saturday as approximately 1,550 people swarmed the tiny city once inundated by Lake Mead.
During a community event dubbed “St. Thomas Alive,” families of former residents, modern young Moapa Valley pioneers on a handcart trek to history and others just interested in the once-thriving community, strolled slowly over dusty tamarisk-covered streets lined by barren and broken cement foundations lost for decades on the bottom of the huge reservoir behind Hoover Dam.
Descendants of families who once settled and lived in St. Thomas with help from other Moapa Valley residents brought the town back to life for six hours with photos, memorabilia displays and live historical presentations during the event off the North Shore Road several miles south of Overton.
The National Park Service (NPS) which has authority over the Lake Mead National Recreation Area and St. Thomas, allowed organizers to clear a dirt road and special parking lot to facilitate the affair.
Kevin Turner, NPS interpretation and education operations chief and acting public information officer, lauded St. Thomas Alive and its organizers for bringing Southern Nevada history to life.
“We are very excited about having the Moapa Valley community involved in St. Thomas,” Turner said. “It’s a great opportunity for all of us to learn about the history of this wonderful place. It’s been a long, long time – at least 50 years – since we had an event like this here.”
St. Thomas was settled in 1866 and for some 64 years it grew, expanded and thrived. By 1930, however, residents knew their town was doomed and it had long since stopped growing.
Hoover Dam was constructed in the early 1930s and by 1938 water was lapping at the town’s foundations. By then, the town’s 500 residents had relocated and Lake Mead slowly swallowed all that remained.
St. Thomas has been exposed by drought only three times since 1938 – 1953 to 1956, 1963 to 1965 and, finally, since about 2000 to the present.
Weeks ago, Dustin Nelson, a St. Thomas Alive coordinator, using GPS, painstakingly identified some 40 different foundations and locations of lost businesses, important or significant buildings and vacant home sites so visitors to the event could identify the layout of the town.
His map was available during the event and visitors wandered among dusty, designated streets pointing out the different crumbling foundations to one another.
Lindsey Dalley, another organizer, said event planners only received final NPS permits the day before that allowed both St. Thomas Alive event as well as a youth handcart trek which had started from Logandale to pass into the townsite.
“It seemed like it was close, but it all worked out,” Dalley said.
Turner explained that St. Thomas is a protected archeological site and, as such, there are protections built into the designation that had to be addressed before any permit could be issued.
“We had to work within the protection law ensuring we could allow this type of public access,” he said.
As a result of the “amazing cooperation” between the event organizers and NPS, Sen. Dean Heller, R-NV, issued certificates of commendations to everyone involved including NPS, the Logandale LDS Stake and Partners in Conservation (PIC), a local group which participated in the permit procedure, according to Elise McAllister, PIC director.
Ironically, Judge Robert C. Jones, chief of the U.S. District Court in Nevada, was on hand at St. Thomas Alive to hand out the certificates, McAllister said.
“It turns out the judge’s wife was a Bunker before marriage, one of the actual descendants of the Bunkers who lived in St. Thomas,” she said.
One of the highlights of the event was the arrival Saturday afternoon of a three-company handcart trek that had started the day before in Logandale.
Between 350 and 400 youth pioneers dressed in period costumes and pulling 30 handcarts strolled into the townsite giving the event an authenticity that brought cheers and applause from visitors.
Additionally, some 50 actors under the direction of Kenna Dalley, Moapa Valley High School (MVHS) drama teacher, enacted several scenes based on the history of St. Thomas and its residents.
The scenes were performed in the foundation of what was once the St. Thomas School auditorium. The historic vignettes depicted scenes from the histories and recollections of various St. Thomas residents including Ruth Chadburn, Marva Rae Perkins Sprague, Emmiline Huntsman, Berkley Lloyd Bunker.
Also included was a scene from a play written by long time MVHS Drama teacher, Ron Dalley, called One For The Money. This scene told the story of the original Mormon settlers of St. Thomas when they were informed by legal authorities in 1871 that the area had been declared part of the State of Nevada. As such, the settlers were being required to pay taxes which would be retroactive back as far as 1866. In addition all the taxes were due immediately and only cash would do.
This was devastating to the subsistence farmers settled along the Muddy River who maintained a largely cashless barter economy. The settlers were told that their land would be confiscated if the taxes were not paid promptly. The policy eventually lead to most of the Mormon settlers being released from the “Muddy Mission” and leaving the region.
Other performers at the ruins of the St. Thomas school included singers and musicians whose music carried out across the dry townsite much as they might have done when the community was actually alive and vibrant. These included Vicki Willard, Zila Johnson, Bill Bunker, the Nelson Family Band, and the cowboy poetry of Ken Marshall. In addition, an old community tradition which was performed every spring at old St. Thomas was carried on again as part of Saturday’s program: that of braiding the maypole.
After a closing ceremony which ended the day’s activities, the attendees disbanded and began their journeys home leaving the ruins of the old ghost town to the silence of the Nevada desert once again.
