Utah was hit hard by an influenza pandemic in October 1918. The misnamed Spanish flu started somewhere in East Asia, probably passed from birds to humans, and swept westward, cutting down millions.
Ten to 20 million may have died in India alone. The European armies that faced each other across crowded trenches were decimated. American troops returning home brought it to this side of the Atlantic, and soon American cities were in its path.
Utah saw it coming. Some towns set up barricades and hunkered down to wait it out. But most larger towns and cities were helpless before it. Then as now, travel and commerce were impossible to stop.
Steps were taken to slow its spread. For the first time in its 88-year history, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints canceled its semi-annual general conference. Schools and businesses closed. Some set up tents, believing that fresh air helped. Provo passed a flu ordinance that mandated the wearing of gauze masks in public. Scofflaws could be fined $50 and tossed in jail.
The very young and the very old are usually the first victims of an influenza outbreak. Not so with the Spanish flu. For reasons that are still unclear, healthy adults in their prime suffered disproportionately. The October and November 1918 issues of The Salt Lake Tribune are filled with stories of children orphaned when first one and then the other parent was stricken and died.
One especially lurid story, which also says a lot about the racial consciousness of the times, tells of a white child found with its mother's body among the city's opium dens, which back then meant the Chinese part of town. A man who spoke no English was run in by the police.
By the time the flu made it out West, it was losing its lethal sting. Only one in 50 in Utah who contracted the flu died from it. About 300 died in Salt Lake City. But there were pockets where the mortality rate was much higher. Tremonton, Brigham City, Henefer and Wendover were especially hard hit. The Goshute reservation in the west desert also suffered terribly. Statewide, 1,500 people died.
Meanwhile, World War I ground to a halt, thanks in part to how badly the flu had mauled the combatants. Five years of grinding war had killed around 20 million. Estimates of worldwide mortality from the Spanish flu, on the other hand, range from 20 to 50 million.
It's instructive to look at the numbers of Utah soldiers who died during WWI. Killed in combat: 219. Killed by the flu: 414.
In a curious side note, when the Nov. 11 armistice was announced to prisoners of war housed at Fort Douglas near the University of Utah, a fight broke out among the German prisoners. A quick investigation revealed that they had been digging escape tunnels.
A week later, LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith died, not of the flu but a lingering illness. But because of the ban on gatherings, there was no public funeral for the nephew of church founder Joseph Smith.
In 1918, the treatment for the Spanish flu consisted of rest and fluids. Despite advances in antivirals, there is still no surefire cure for the flu and doctors still recommend . . . rest and fluids. So I tip my cup of chicken soup to whatever it is I have, and am going back to bed.
Pat Bagley is the editorial cartoonist for The Salt Lake Tribune. There is more about Utah during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the book he co-authored with his brother Will Bagley, This is the Place A Crossroads of Utah's Past.
