Episode 281: Scott Crump Takes Us Back in Time; 100 Years of JSD

Scott Crump:
When Jordan School District turned 100, they asked me to really write a trilogy.

Anthony Godfrey:
So when you see the bus stop at the railroad crossing, that's the result of that tragic accident in the 30s in Jordan School District.

Scott Crump:
We're not going to send it up to the rough Bingham High School.

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Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. In 1905, a loaf of bread cost $0.04, a gallon of milk cost $0.29, and you could buy a brand new car for $500, and in 1905, Jordan School District was established.

On this episode of the Supercast, we take you back in time to the earliest days of Jordan School District, from historic classrooms to the first graduating class of five students at Bingham High School. Join us on a journey 100 years in the making with historian and retired teacher Scott Crump, who authored a book you're about to hear all about, "The First 100 Years, A History of Jordan School District." Listen and find out how you can enter to win one of these beloved books.

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We're here at Bingham High School in the alumni room talking with local historian and former Bingham High School teacher Scott Crump. Thanks for taking time with us.

Scott Crump:
You're welcome.

Anthony Godfrey:
Scott, tell us about some of the projects you've been involved in as a historian over the years.

Scott Crump:
I was a teacher here for 37 years. I taught all at Bingham High School. I taught history and government. Following in the footsteps of my father, he taught at Bingham High School for 36 years. We overlapped a few years. But I love history. I just remember, clear back, when I was in elementary school, the PTA had a history of Copperton and Copperton Elementary that I attended. And I just was so interested in that. Because I knew people who were like the first people to live in Copperton. I loved it so much that when I went to college, I majored in history. And as part of my senior project, everybody had to do a senior writing project of some kind. I chose to write the history of Copperton. So I did a small history of Copperton, which would later become a book. And that was the first history I published back in '78, I think.

And after that, then it just gets in your blood. So I was asked to write the history of Riverton, where I eventually would move. So I co-wrote a history of Riverton. And then was asked to write a history of the Bingham Copper Mine that they sell up at the souvenir place. So that's my biggest seller there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Do you ever go up there and secretly autograph a couple of copies? You've got to take a Sharpie into the store and do a little secret autograph there.

Scott Crump:
I could, but I haven't done that yet. But when Jordan School District turned 100, they asked me to really write a trilogy because I wrote the history of Jordan School District and then Jordan High School, then Bingham High School.

Anthony Godfrey:
What's crazy is that Jordan School District's 100-year celebration was now 20 years ago, and I remember it. I remember the logo that went with it, and we're thumbing through the book here that you wrote. It's really quite amazing. And there are some very memorable things that happened throughout the history of Jordan School District. So 120 years later, what are some of the things that you remember from putting this together about Jordan School District?

Scott Crump:
First of all, there was a lot of opposition to forming the Jordan School District because each community, there were about 36 communities that had their own school district. So every community, whether it be Sandy or Herriman or whatever, they had their own school district area, Bingham had its own school district. And the state urged the school districts to consolidate. The reason why is because the small school districts could only afford to do grades 1 through 8.

Now, most people only went to grades 1 through 8, but when you graduated from grammar school in the 1800s, that was basically it. But in the late 1800s, Utah started to have a few high schools like West and East High School or Salt Lake City High School. And so the only way you could afford that kind of education is for many communities to put in tax money to do that. So they were encouraged to do that. 

So the state legislature passed a law which said that all of these smaller districts had to consolidate. So we would have the Salt Lake City School District, the Jordan School District, and the Granite School District in Salt Lake County. And that way, they then could use the money from many communities to form the 9 through 12 high school education. 

So it took two years, but Jordan District would form in 1905, and then in 1907, they would organize the district's high school, which was Jordan High School. And Granite did the same. They had their district high school, Granite High School. By the next year, it was so inconvenient that people from Bingham didn't want to come down to Sandy every day to go to high school. So they formed Bingham High School in 1908 up in Bingham. So all of our area school district went to Jordan High School except for Bingham and Lark and the Bingham area on the west side.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now, at a certain point, it seems to me that there were only blue-collar mascots at all of the high schools because you had the beat diggers at Jordan, the farmers at Granite, and the miners at Bingham.

Scott Crump:
Exactly, and that's just the way it was for the first years. And clear until 1958, they had the big uproar because Jordan High School was growing so large that it couldn't accommodate all the people from West Jordan, South Jordan, Herriman, and all the east side communities. So the school district proposed that everybody on the west side of the Jordan River go to Bingham High School and everybody on the east side of the Jordan River go to Jordan.

Anthony Godfrey:
So initially, Bingham was only those who were very distant from Jordan High School, and so the boundary expanded. Fascinating. It's very interesting to hear about boundary changes that long ago, but also the legislature getting involved in consolidating districts where most recently in the last 20 years, the law has shifted around dividing school districts, Jordan and now Alpine. So that is a shift.

Scott Crump:
A lot of uproar, especially—well, a lot of the uproar was coming from South Jordan. They were not going to send their kids up to the rough Bingham High School in Copperton.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now, to be fair, things were a little rough around the mine, weren't they?

Scott Crump:
Well, miners can be rough.

Anthony Godfrey:
One of the defining moments in the history of Jordan School District was the tragic incident with the train and the bus from Jordan High School. Can you tell listeners a little bit about that?

Scott Crump:
Yes. This was back in, I think, '39, 1939, and it was pretty overcast and bad weather that day. There was a bus that started in the Riverton-Bluffdale area and crossing the railroad tracks at about 100 south there. The driver did not see the train coming north on the tracks there. The driver stopped. He looked, but the train came and just broadsided the bus and killed, I think it was, 19 students. It was just a horrible, horrible accident. As a result of that accident, they passed national laws to make it required that a bus stops at a railroad crossing.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right. So when you see the bus stop at the railroad crossing and open the door to look, that's the result of that tragic accident in the '30s in Jordan School District.

Scott Crump:
Exactly.

Anthony Godfrey:
Don't go away. Up next, some of the more unique, if not completely strange stories Scott Crump uncovered during his research into the first 100 years of Jordan School District. And stay tuned to find out how you can get your hands on a copy of this important history.

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Never miss an episode of The Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

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Break:
Are you looking for a job right now? Looking to work in a fun and supportive environment with great pay and a rewarding career? Jordan School District is hiring. We're currently filling full and part-time positions. You can work and make a difference in young lives and education as a classroom assistant or a substitute teacher. Apply to work in one of our school cafeterias where our lunch staff serves up big smiles with great food every day. We're also looking to hire custodians and bus drivers. In Jordan School District we like to say people come for the job and enjoy the adventure. Apply today at employment.jordandistrict.org

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Anthony Godfrey:
Now, there was a principal at Bingham High School who actually shot his student at the barber shop. Isn't that right?

Scott Crump:
He did. You read the story.

Anthony Godfrey:
I have read the story. Tell us a little bit about that.

[Laughter]

Scott Crump;
Well, this was around the late teens and there was a principal at Bingham High School and he came home one day and he found a student in bed with his wife. He found the student out at the barber shop. He went and shot him dead.

Anthony Godfrey:
And from what I recall, he would serve no time because he was preserving the sanctity of his home. That was the determination, preserving the sanctity of your home.

Scott Crump:
Exactly.

Anthony Godfrey:
You'll need to read the Bingham history if you want to know more about that story, but it is an interesting one. So that's the formation of Jordan School District. What were some of the big moments through the history of Jordan District up through 2005 when you wrote the history?

Scott Crump:
Well, I would think that one of the big things is in the '60s and '70s just trying to handle all the growth that Jordan School District was growing so fast. The Bingham and Jordan High Schools were formed in 1907 and 1908. There wasn't another high school until Hillcrest in 1962. So you go all those years and you don't have another high school. But then you've got Hillcrest in the '60s and Brighton and all these schools coming online and Bingham moving here in '75. And that's one hard thing for me to believe that this will be the 50th year for Bingham High School here.

Anthony Godfrey:
In this building?

Scott Crump:
In this building.

Anthony Godfrey:
And this is—is this the fourth building that Bingham High School was housed in?

Scott Crump:
This is the fifth.

Anthony Godfrey:
The fifth one?

Scott Crump:
The fifth location. Another fun thing I found was when I was researching the book, in the back I put the eighth grade graduation examination. So if you graduated from high school—

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh. Let's take a look.

Scott Crump:
If you graduated from eighth grade in 1908, this is a partial test that you would take if you wanted to get through your eighth grade diploma.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right. Let's take a look. Name five American inventors. How did the invention of each affect the United States? It's an interesting emphasis on invention. Okay. All right. Let's try some math for those out there. Are you smarter than an eighth grader in 1908? Let's see. 

Find the cost of carpeting a room that is 14 feet 6 inches by 16 feet if the carpet is 3/4 of a yard wide and is worth 210 per yard? That's a very practical question. 

How about this? 7/20 of a square rod is what part of an acre? 7/20 of a square rod is what part of an acre? Express the answer decimally. 

Okay. Go ahead. If you're listening, send me an email with the answer to that question, would you? I'll give you a prize. I buy—oh, yeah. Okay. Let's look at grammar.

Scott Crump:
From memory. Write from memory, at least two verses from some poem you have learned.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now, that one I could do. That what I could do. I could throw out some Frost. I could throw some Edna St. Vincent Millay your way. But I was an English teacher, so that's kind of cheating a bit.

Okay. How about this? What is the value of a tank of oil, which is 8 feet in diameter and 20 feet long—24 feet long if the oil is worth 25 cents per gallon? That's also worth a prize. Email me the answer to that one. That one's worth a prize. Okay.

Scott Crump:
Or you go to the next one and you can see what a Jordan School District contract is.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, yeah. Let's look at the contract.

Scott Crump:
And what you'd be doing and having to—

Anthony Godfrey:
You are to reside in the community where you teach and less excused by the board. Wow. Okay.

Scott Crump:
See, that's why we lived in Copperton because when my dad came to teach at Bingham High School, he was supposed to be living in the community where the high school was. Now, one of the problems was that Copperton was a model community that only rented to minors who worked at Kennecott. So the Jordan School District built the apartments there and the two duplexes by them so teachers could live by the high school. And so we lived in one of those Jordan School District duplexes there by the school. 

Anthony Godfrey:
I've always admired your work, your passion for teaching, that you're a part of the history of Bingham. You're an integral part of the history of Bingham, and you've been able to be a part of the history of Jordan School District more broadly. And obviously, the cities that make up Jordan School District. So thank you for all those contributions and for continuing to represent Bingham and Jordan so well.

Scott Crump:
It's a pleasure. I think history is a great tool to understanding, and that's what makes it so great. I mean, and being a teacher here, I've been many places, and I've never regretted the fact that I was a teacher, because I know that as a teacher, I made a difference.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, I've talked with people who felt that impact from you, and I know there are thousands of them.

Scott Crump:
I mean, you have paydays all the time. 

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Scott Crump:
Next week, I'll start working at the legislature. 

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Scott Crump:
And I will have two students who have been elected as state representatives.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's got to be very rewarding as a history teacher to see that your former students are serving there in the legislature.

Scott Crump:
Or other places. I have two students that are teaching here in the social studies department at Bingham High School.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, thank you for being such a positive influence at Bingham and in Jordan and everywhere you go. Good luck with the legislative session. I've seen you up there in the green coat, helping facilitate things. It was really fun to spot you up there a few years ago. It's an honor knowing you and having worked with you, and I wish you the best. Thanks for talking with us.

Scott Crump:
Thank you, Anthony.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Go to my podcast website at supercast.jordandistrict.org and find episode 281 where you can enter to win a copy of the book. Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. We'll see you out there.

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