St. Thomas History To Be Featured on ABC Program

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

A national TV news program will be include a key moment in Moapa Valley history this week. The ABC program 20/20 will be airing a segment entitled “Secrets of the Lake” on Thursday night, May 4 at 10 pm. A portion of that program will include a brief history of the last days of the pioneer town of St. Thomas.

Local historian Beezy Tobiasson was recently contacted by representatives of the popular news program to provide materials for the show..
“They asked if I could provide photos and information about Hugh Lord, one of the last ones to leave St. Thomas before it flooded,” Beezy said. “I told them that I sure could if I could only find them; and I did.”

The main focus of the program will be on the many disappearances of people that the lake has seen since it began to fill in the 1930s. Since that time, Lake Mead has been the site of over 300 drowning, making it one of the deadliest lakes in America.

However, a segment of the program goes back to the beginnings of Lake Mead and talks about the inundation of St. Thomas.

First settled by Mormon missionaries in 1964, St. Thomas became a thriving settlement by the early 1900s. It was a bustling community that exceeded the population of Las Vegas in those early days. It was a crossroads that brought together farmers, miners, ranchers, prospectors and travellers from all over the region.

But the town of St. Thomas fell victim to the tides of progress. In 1931 the start of construction on Hoover Dam began the town’s demise.

Completion of the dam in 1935 began a final deathwatch for the town. Gradually people began to gather up their belongings, sometimes moving their entire homes north to Overton, outside the range of the coming flood.

There were a few holdouts who didn’t believe that the water would ever rise that far. Hugh Lord was one of those. He sat tight and wouldn’t move until the summer of 1938.

Early in June of that year, Lord went fishing in the rising lake. He drove his car down the Muddy Valley and parked about 100 yards from the water on a gentle slope. He spent several hours fishing with some success.

As night began to fall, he decided to pack up and head home. He went to where he thought he had parked his car, but it wasn’t there. Looking out into the water, he discovered his car with water swirling around its running boards. As he drove back to St. Thomas that night, he began to reconsider his position on how far the water would rise.

Arriving back in town, Lord sought out his friend and fellow holdout Rox Whitmore and told him that the time had come to leave. He spent the next several days gathering workers to help him move his shop and vehicles to higher ground.

Finally on June 11, Lord awoke in his St. Thomas home to water swirling around his bed. Loading his last few possessions into a rowboat that was standing by, he lit his house on fire and rowed away.

More information about the last days of St. Thomas are expected to be featured on this week’s 20/20 episode.