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EVANSTON, Wyo. — A mystery about a man's disappearance in the Uinta Mountains during the summer of 1940 is receiving new attention, thanks to the combined efforts of KSL, the Summit County Sheriff's Office, and the missing man's relatives.
Lynn Simmons, 25, disappeared on the afternoon of Sept. 4, 1940, while working with a government survey crew in the High Uintas. More than 100 searchers mounted a nearly two-month-long effort to find Simmons, but failed to locate him.
The search received significant news coverage at the time, but the story soon fell out of the spotlight. Several of Simmons' relatives told KSL they recalled hearing vague accounts decades later during family campouts in the Uintas. Those campfire stories didn't include specifics about where or how Simmons went missing.
"There were little details that were ever talked about," Simmons' nephew Ron Loock said. "We knew little, other than that he was lost."
The story faded further as Simmons' parents and siblings aged, then died. Official records of the search were also lost or discarded.
Lynn Simmons' story was not mythologized or covered in books, as happened with another unsolved disappearance from the same period, that of Everett Ruess. But Simmons' story is no less dramatic or perplexing. No physical remains have surfaced in the 84 years since Simmons disappeared, leaving open the question of what happened to him.
KSL, in cooperation with Simmons' niece Merrilee Petersen, has rediscovered many of the forgotten details by scouring archived news reports, Simmons' personal letters, and old survey records. These sources have provided the location, circumstances, and story, allowing Simmons to be added to state and national missing persons databases for the first time.
"That's what we as his family desire, is that he be remembered," Loock said.
Lynn Simmons' life story
Lynn Simmons was born in Payson in 1915. His parents moved to Salt Lake City when he was a boy. Simmons attended East High School, where his father worked as a teacher and coach, and graduated high school in 1933. He went on to attend Westminster College, where he played basketball and tennis and was a sprinter on the track team. Records suggest he later attended the University of Utah, but only briefly. It's likely Simmons dropped out to seek work during the Great Depression.
At the start of 1939, Simmons married Irita "Rita" Fullmer. The couple welcomed a son, Lawrence, later that year. The young family lived with Simmons' parents in Salt Lake City.
The following summer, in 1940, Simmons took a job working for a neighbor who was an engineer with the U.S. General Land Office, a precursor to today's Bureau of Land Management. That man, Ralph Gentry, was conducting what are known as cadastral surveys of public lands, using tools to measure, mark, and map large parcels of federal property.
Survey notes, obtained by KSL from BLM archives, show Simmons served as an "axeman" on Gentry's survey crew. That was a physically arduous job, involving the hauling of gear, clearing of trees and brush, and construction of stone monuments.
On Aug. 5, 1940, Gentry's survey party established a base camp along the Hayden Fork of the Bear River, just above its confluence with the Stillwater Fork in the northwestern corner of the Uinta Mountains. That location is today alongside the Mirror Lake Highway, near the turnoff for Gold Hill Road.
The survey crew was assigned to measure boundary lines and subdivisions within a square six miles long and six miles wide, centered on the Christmas Meadows area. The 36-square-mile parcel extended from near the Whitney Reservoir road in the northwest corner, to Lamotte Peak in the southeast; and from what is today the Hinckley Scout Ranch on the East Fork of the Bear River in the northeast corner, to near Kletting Peak in the southwest.
Lynn Simmons' letters to home
Simmons wrote a letter to his wife upon arriving at the camp on Aug. 5, 1940.
"Boy, this country up here is nothing but one cliff after another," Simmons wrote. "I'll be glad to get out of here, and we haven't even started to work yet."
The terrain in the survey area ranged from about 8,600 to 12,600 feet above sea level, with thick pine forest rising to about 11,000 feet. In subsequent letters, Simmons described life in camp and expressed an eagerness to return home to his wife and 8-month-old son. Simmons wrote of frosty mornings, of fast fishing at nearby lakes, and how spooked the party's horses seemed to be.
"They can probably smell bears," Simmons wrote. "When you are riding one of them alone, they will go down the trail shying at everything, from stumps to rocks, and sometimes they jump just to try and get rid of you."
The letters also made it clear Simmons found being separated from his wife and young son difficult. Simmons often talked about his plans to visit home on weekends, when the work schedule allowed. Each letter with Xs and Os, and a request from Simmons to his wife that she kiss their son on his behalf. Simmons wrote the last of these letters home on Aug. 20, 1940.
"I am writing you from fly camp and I don't know when this letter will be delivered," Simmons wrote. "We are 14 miles from the main camp, and we are supposed to stay out here until Labor Day."
A fly or "spike" camp was a satellite camp away from the survey party's base camp. Labor Day in 1940 fell on Monday, Sept. 2.
Simmons had previously sent money home to his wife, and asked her to use some of it to purchase him a new pair of boots suited for work in the rugged terrain.
"I want a pair of 8 inch high tops," Simmons wrote. "Everyone else seems to like those kind so I guess they are alright. … I want you to take them to the shoe shop and have him put some horseshoes on the heels."
Simmons noted several younger members of the party were planning quit so they could return to school. Summer was coming to an end and cooler weather would soon bring snow, limiting access to the High Uintas. Simmons' request for new boots, and his willingness to spend hard-earned money for them, was evidence of his intention to continue on with the survey work until weather made it impossible.
"It is really hard work up in here," Simmons wrote. "All we do is climb up one steep mountain and then down over cliffs usually. And then when we do get down, we find another mountain right in front of us to go up."
