In 1859, James Pace and James Butler built a large adobe home on this site, and Joseph E. Johnson purchased it in 1861. He and his brothers Benjamin F. and George W. operated many industries, including drug stores, a fruit-tree nursery, a trunk factory, a sorghum mill, a cannery, a broom factory, a wholesale seed house, and a printing office where Utah's first farm paper, the Farmer's Oracle, was published. Benjamin F. Johnson became the first bishop, Samuel Openshaw served as Justice of Peace, and Don Carlos Babbitt was Constable.