Things get really hectic and fun for the annual Pioneer Day celebration scheduled for Friday, July 24. The parade begins at 10 a.m., games, food and live entertainment; live auction, volleyball, greased pig chase and races, begins at 11 a.m. Proceed go to community projects. The exciting duck race down the creek starts at 2 p.m., with a choice of prizes donated by various businesses around the county.

Tickets are sold for a nominal cost for each duck (no limit on amount of tickets) before the race and then those wild rubber duckies are set loose to race to the finish line. Contact any member of the Mayfield Lions Club for that winning entry.

Contact Lee Sorenson, 435-528-5700 for more information.

History

After Manti was settled, the land to the south was surveyed and canyons along the mountains were called Six Mile, Nine-Mile, and Twelve-Mile canyons, named for their relative distances from the Manti Temple. The land at the mouth of Twelve-Mile Canyon had been an Indian Farm reservation known as Arrapine Valley or Arropeen, named for a brother of Chief Walkara.

Mads Sorenson, Carl Olsen and Simon Hansen, scouted the site on a logging foray in 1870. The next spring they cut meadow hay, built cabins and began water division. Other families joined them by 1873 when they formed a United Order Cooperative Society on the north bank of the creek. The settlement was named Mayfield because of the beauty Mother Nature so lavishly displayed in the month of May.

Early in spring of 1875, 21 families moved from Ephraim and settled on the south side of the creek. They called this new settlement “New London.” The two settlements combined under the name of Mayfield when the first LDS Ward was organized July 4, 1877.

The first house in Mayfield was built by M. P. Sorensen in 1873. Other early settlers were Simon Hansen, Christian Hansen, Hans Tuft and C. A. Madsen. Twenty families from Ephraim joined the colony in 1875 and John Williams opened the first store.

Mayfield is pleasantly situated on Twelve Mile Creek in the southern part of Sanpete County, about four miles east of Gunnison, which is the nearest railroad station. It had a municipal water system, a flour mill, a sawmill, a public school, general stores and some minor business enterprises. It was incorporated in 1909 and in 1918 had an estimated population of 550.

In 1875, the settlement was increased by the addition of 20 families from Ephraim and a town started. The first store was opened that year in a tent and was owned by John Williams, who later sold to the people and the business was incorporated as the Mayfield Co-op.

The affairs were operated for some years under the wise management of Ole C. Olsen, president of the company and later by Joseph Christiansen. In 1894 the company sold out and in a history of Sanpete County published in 1898, the store was then owned by Henry Jensen “who operates a north and south branch, and does a good business.”

At that time (1898) there were three stores, the third owned by O. C. Larsen; two blacksmith shops, owned by Arthur H. Campbell and Jorgeu Knudsen; a fine 40-barrel roller mill, owned by the Willardson family; three well-conducted district schools, under able instructors; a Relief Society hall, used for amusements and religious services, and a ward of the Latter-day Saints under the wise counsel of Bishop Parley Christiansen.

The population consisted of farmers and stockraisers and numbers probably 800 people, “noted for their honesty, industry and enterprise in conquering the desert and building magnificent homes in this mountain vale.”