Malad Valley Pioneers

RICHARD T. OWENS

(Written by Stanley Peterson in 1936)

Richard T. Owens was born in April 1854, at Ogden, Utah.  His parents, John E. Owens and Mary Thomas Owens, were both from Wales.  His father, who was a coal-miner before coming to America, started to farm upon his arrival in this country.

The Owens family moved to this valley in April 1866.  R.T. Owens was then 12 years old.  The family lived in the frame house by the Whalen Thomas home for a while and then moved on Bannock Street where Edward J. Evans, Thomas W. Thomas and T. Bush had homes.

Mr. Owens went to school in the first school house built in Malad.  It was a log building located where the city hall now stands.  His teacher was Richard J. Evans.  This was in 1868.  Later, he was taught by the late D.L. Evans Sr. in the school house on the public square.  After driving oxen teams for five years from Saltworks, Wyo. to Boise and many points of Montana for B.F. White, he attended the University of Deseret, now University of Utah.  In those days, he said, they had to save up a summer’s earnings and go to school for 3 or 4 months when snow was on the ground and there was no farm work to do.

In 1866 there were 13 families living in Bannock Street between Deep Creek and Mill Creek.  Later that year about 50 families moved in and began building up to the square along main street.  Malad has been progressing ever since.

Mr. Owens has played an important part in the progress of this community and has a vivid memory of its history and early building.

He served as a Mormon missionary to Wales in 1885-86; and in 1900-07 he was chairman of the Malad city board, and in 1906-07 he served county commissioner and in 1918 he was state senator from this county. 

Mr. Owens taught school in the first school house that was built on the site of the present buildings.

Mr. Owens joined the Odd Fellows lodge shortly after it was organized and held several state offices in that order.

In 1914 he was president of the Oneida Amusement Corporation at the time the LaGrande Hall was built.  He has served for 17 years as treasurer of the Red Cross Committee and had been a member of the board of directors of the First National Bank since its birth.

Mr. Owens worked in the Co-op store when it was first started for two years.  In 1880 he engaged in general merchandising with T.M. Thomas.  Their first store was built on the lot his house is now on.  In 1889 Mr. Owens purchased Mr. Thomas’ interest in the business and moved to the corner across the street west from the First National Bank.  In 1909 J.R. Thomas purchased a half interest in the store and a short time after the R.T. Owens Co. was organized and the brick building which occupies the corner at the present time was constructed.  In 1917 the building and merchandise of the R.T. Owen’s Co. was sold to the Oneida Farmer’s Union.

When Mr. Owens first came here in 1866 there were just cow trails for roads.  Bannock Street followed the Malad River over to Bannock Creek and up the Snake River to Blackfoot.

In the spring of ’66 “Old Murphy” got a charter from the first legislature in Idaho to construct a road over the Downey divide.  Murphy was later shot in court.

Amusement was something very seldom thought of in those days.  They used to dance to the tune of a violin played by B.F. White, and when the Indians would camp on the stretch of land from John J. Evan’s down to the stake tabernacle, they would wrestle and race with them for amusement.

About the only trouble they had with the Indians was when Chief Pocatello would come and demand a beef and some flour from Daniel Daniels, the first bishop in Malad.  He was the grandfather of D.M. Daniels.