Pond Brothers Store records, 1886-1912

In 1889, the Webster-Pond Brothers Store opened in Lewiston, Utah, and under the management of brothers Brigham Pond and Louis Pond and the funding of W. M. Webster of Franklin, Idaho. Commonly known as the Pond Brothers Store, it sold general merchandise, functioned as butcher shop, and served as an outlet where grain farmers could market their produce locally. By 1891, Lewiston's LDS Mercantile Cooperative Store went out of business, leaving the Pond Brothers Store as the only local store until 1895. In 1895, Hyrum G. Hayball, a ZCMI-trained businessman from Logan, Utah, came to Lewiston and established a store in competition to the Pond Brothers, but his business failed within three years.

With the construction of the Lewiston Sugar Beet Factory in 1905, Charles Pond, the son of Brigham Pond, established a small outlet of the Pond Brothers Store on the factory's grounds. From this originally small outlet, Pond's business blossomed into a substantial store that sold coal, lumber, general merchandise, and other materials needed by the factory and its workers. The Pond Brothers Store operated until 1917, when the Ponds sold their property and moved to Island Park, Idaho to pursue the lumber business.

Source:

Lewiston City Compiled Works; Histories, Diaries, Minutes, and Notes, compiled by Lewiston City Historical Commission, Lewiston, Utah, 1987 (USU SC&A: 979.27 L589)

Biographical Sketches:

Brigham Pond was born June 9, 1853. He and his wife, Aroetta Whittle Pond, and their young sons, Charles, came to Lewiston in the spring of 1877. Later, Brigham and his brother Louis bought one-hundred and eighty acres of land near Lewiston. Brigham Pond practiced polygamy and had two wives. His second wife, Catherine Whittle Pond, married Brigham in 1885. This second family moved around from place to place for a number of years. However, Catherine and her nine children eventually settled in Lewiston on Brigham's farm where the two families lived together. Active in Church and civic affairs, Brigham was the first mayor (or president) of Lewiston Town Corporation. In 1890, he was called to serve a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission in Kansas. Brigham Pond passed away December 26, 1933.

Source:

Bernhisel, John Milton III, History of Lewiston, Lewiston City Council, Lewiston, Utah, 1965, p. 253.

Charles Pond was born December 21, 1876, in Richmond, Utah the son of Brigham and Aroetta Whittle Pond. Shortly after Charles' birth, the family moved to Lewiston. In October 1898, he was called to serve a two-year Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission in California. On September 12, 1900, Charles married a school teacher, Wilhelmina McCan of Smithfield, Utah who was teaching school in Lewiston. After their marriage, they both taught school at Lewiston. In 1901, Charles was appointed manager of the Peoples' Mercantile & Creamery Co. at Richmond, Utah. In the spring of 1904, Charles and his family moved to Boise, Idaho then to Hood River, Oregon. In 1908, he returned to Lewiston where he was the principal owner of a new store near the Amalgamated Sugar Co., of which he soon became the sole owner and manager. In 1924, Charles sold his business and bought the Island Park Lodge near Yellowstone. Charles and Mina had seven children together.

Source:

Bernhisel, John Milton III, History of Lewiston, Lewiston City Council, Lewiston, Utah, 1965, p. 267.