So. Utah’s rivalry: Sorghum Lappers vs. Pine Nut Pickers

No matter where you live there are always rivalries.

In Southern Utah, we like to think we are more laid back than our “city-slicker” neighbors on the Wasatch Front. As far as football goes in the state of Utah, you either bleed red for the University of Utah or blue for Brigham Young University.

But here in Southern Utah, there was once a rivalry so fierce the locals referred to the boundary between Washington and Iron County as the Mason-Dixon Line, which is known historically as a boundary separating the North from the South during the Civil War.

And what good is a rivalry without some good-natured name-calling? So, the question is, are you a Pine Nut Picker or a Sorghum Lapper?

Sorghum Lapper

The term “Dixie” in Washington County brings up memories of the cotton mill, but one of the most profitable crops grown by early Mormon settlers was actually sorghum, according to LaVerkin resident Victor Hall.

The warm temperatures and longer growing season made Washington County a prime spot for sorghum, the plant molasses is derived from. In fact, LaVerkin and surrounding areas boasted as many as seven sorghum mills at one time, Hall said.

In his historical essay, Hall writes, “…sugar was prohibitively expensive for most households, and without molasses, meals would have been bland indeed. Every fall, LaVerkin farmers headed north to peddle sorghum molasses. Sometimes they received cash, sometimes they traded for potatoes or flour. The term ‘sorghum lappers’ was bestowed on Dixie residents by crass individuals who lived in Iron County and points north.”

Although Hall indicates the term came from Mormon settlers, the earliest reference I could find was published in a sports story in the Iron County Record about a 1914 basketball game between St. George Stake Academy, now Dixie State University, and Murdock Academy in Beaver, which closed in 1922.

“The St. George basketball team came into town like a thief in the night and took the scalps of the Murdock Academy with them when they left the next day,” the reporter wrote. “The game was fast and the victory, for the Sorghum Lappers, was more remarkable when we consider that they plowed through the mud from Cedar City and did not get to Beaver until nearly midnight. The score was 40 to 29…”

Former St. George Temple President Dale Larkin recalls both hearing and using the term, mainly at sporting events, and said, for the most part, it was neighbors jabbing at neighbors.

“To the people of Cedar City, if you were a sorghum lapper they thought that is all you ate and drank,” Larkin said. “I never took offense to the term but there were sure some people who did. At sporting events, there were fistfights that would break out.”

In another Iron County Record article, dated February of 1967, reporter Jill Carter previewed a rivalry basketball game between Dixie and Cedar high schools.

“Anyone wearing Sorghum Lapper colors will be forced to wear a dunce outfit,” Carter wrote. “The Redmen will put a hex on the Flyers during a jinxing ceremony.”

Pine Nut Pickers

Gathering pine nuts has been a way of life for Native Americans in southern Utah long before Mormon settlers arrived, according to Todd Prince, manager of the Frontier Homestead State Park Museum in Cedar City.

Don Marchant, adjunct professor of communication at Southern Utah University, said in the past Iron County families couldn’t wait for their yearly pine nut picking excursions.

“Everybody did it,” Marchant said. “Much like the deer hunt people had their favorite spots, some even had their favorite trees and we would all watch the weather waiting for the perfect time.”

According to the National Park Service website, the single leaf and Colorado pinyon pine trees that are prevalent in parts of Utah, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado are the only pine nut producing trees on the continent. Most of the pine nuts bought in stores are grown on farms in Russia and Korea.

Prince said Native Americans have been picking pine nuts for centuries due to their high protein and the fact that they could be stored for future consumption.

Even the “city-slickers” in Salt Lake City were fond of the nut, said Marchant, who recalled his father gathering 100 pounds a year to distribute to family and friends in two-pound bags.

“My father, Elloyd, was a friend of Thomas Monson (current LDS Church President) and would make trips to Salt Lake every fall to conduct church business,” Marchant said. “One time he was running late and when he finally arrived, Monson said ‘I’ve been waiting for those pine nuts.’”

Like Larkin, Marchant recalls the feud mostly centered around high school and college sporting events, although he never took being called a Pine Nut Picker personally.

“But there was more than one time a fight started from someone using the terms and sometimes it spilled out onto the basketball court,” Marchant said.

Marchant recalled Dixie High teams coming to Cedar City the night before a football game and burning a “D” in the 50-yard-line of the field, something that could lead to an arrest today.

“There were plenty of times (Cedar High students) would burn a ‘C’ in our field. It went both ways,” Larkin said when asked about the incidents.

In a previous story in The Spectrum and Daily News regarding the closing of the long-time burger joint Top Spot, owner Craig Barton recalled the cow on top of his restaurant becoming a victim to shenanigans involving the Dixie/Cedar rivalry.

During match-ups between Iron and Washington County teams, the cow would often become “cow-napped.”

“I lost count,” Barton said. “It was always a group of high school or college kids. There was never any harmful intent and we always got the cow back. One year it was down in St. George in front of Dick’s Café, one year it was sitting out in a pasture of other cows here in Cedar City.”

There is one thing that united Sorghum Lappers and Pine Nut Pickers, and that is their dislike for “Prune Pickers,” or those who moved here from California.

Rivalry

Marchant said as schools have grown, regions changed and more high schools built to accommodate growth, the rivalries are not as heated as they were in the “old days.”

Pine nuts still grow west of Cedar City, but families are less inclined to enjoy a day of picnicking and coming home covered in tree sap with bags full of pine cones, Marchant said.

Hall wrote that sorghum still grows well in Washington County, but only the die-hard families grow it out of tradition for use in home recipes.

Although it was a rare occurrence, I personally never took offense at being called a Pine Nut Picker while growing up in Cedar City because it sounded a lot better than a Sorghum Lapper, which I never knew the meaning of.

Lynn White, a professor of phycology at SUU, said rivalries could be the result of “hardwiring” in our DNA.

“Talking from an evolutionary perspective, the competition was necessary for survival,” White said. “With limited resources available, such as food, water, shelter and suitable mates, primitive humans would have had to fight and win to secure such resources.”

In today’s world, the “fight to the death” mentality no longer exists in most cultures, White said, but competition is still rewarded in a lot of societies.

“Winners take the spoils, fame and fortune,” she said. “Competition has become a social behavior leading to improved social ties in many cases.”

So, again I ask you, are you a Sorghum Lapper or a Pine Nut Picker?