Cardon Realty Company Records

COLL MS 173

Papers: 1916-1933
Linear Feet: .25
Register updated by Robert Sidford on October 31, 2001
Restrictions: None

Scope & Content Note

This collection contains a limited number of the records kept by the Cardon Realty Company, Logan, Utah from 1916-1933. Included are records relating to other companies in which the Cardon Realty Company had an interest: the Logan Land and Drainage Company; the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company; and the Rexburg Real Estate Company. The full collection is housed in one archival box, and is composed of four folders and four ledgers. The folders contain the correspondence of the Cardon Realty Company, including manager’s reports, and documents pertaining to land purchases and sales. Of special interest are the letters from the Federal Land Bank of Berkeley that preceded the apparent bankruptcy of the Logan Land and Drainage Company in around 1933, during the Great Depression. The ledgers contain records of some financial transactions of these companies, including land sales and rentals, loans, rent commissions, and business expenses.

Historical Note

The Cardon Realty Company operated at 112 North Main Street, Logan, from about 1905 until closing some time between 1949 and 1953. The company was run by Louis Samuel Cardon (see biographical note in this collection register) until his death in 1930, when it was taken over by his son, Joseph E. Cardon. The company advertised regularly in Polk’s Logan City Directory, and dealt in Utah and Idaho real estate, loans, and insurance. The company had interests in various other business concerns, among which were the Logan Land and Drainage Company, and the Rexburg Real Estate Company. It was also an agent for the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. One land development apparently administered by the Cardon Realty Company was “Richmond Acres.” Shareholders in this venture included several members of the Cardon family, and Reed Smoot, LDS Church apostle and U. S. Senator from Utah from 1903-33. The Cardon Realty Company was one of two companies operated by the prominent Cardon family in Cache Valley. Louis Samuel Cardon’s first cousin, B. T. Cardon, ran the Cardon Jewelry Company, and was an amateur photographer.

Sources:
Johnson, Genevieve Porter, and Edna Cardon Taylor, comp. Cardons! Descendants of Philippe Cardon and Marthe Marie Tourn, 1799-1986. Provo, UT: Stevenson’s Genealogy Center, 1986.
Polk’s Logan City Directory. Salt Lake City: R. L. Polk, various dates.
Warrum, Noble. Utah Since Statehood, Historical and Biographical. Chicago and Salt Lake City: S. J. Clarke, 1919.

Biographical Note

Louis Samuel Cardon, the son of Italian immigrants, was born in Logan in 1869, and graduated from the local Brigham Young College in 1894. After serving a mission to Europe for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the late 1890s, he entered the furniture business in about 1903. Two years later, Cardon founded the Cardon Realty Company, whose records comprise the bulk of this collection. From 1909-14, in addition to running his realty company, Cardon was the manager of the Logan Knitting Factory, serving as its director after 1914. Outside of his business interests, Cardon served in a number of local capacities: Justice of the Peace; judge of the juvenile court; vice president of the Utah State Fair Association; member of the Logan City Board of Education (of which he was president in 1928); member of the LDS church’s Cache Stake Council; and member of the Commercial Boosters Club. According to the Logan Journal, Cardon died suddenly at the age of 61, on December 14, 1930, of “rheumatism of the heart.”

Sources:
Johnson, Genevieve Porter, and Edna Cardon Taylor, comp. Cardons! Descendants of Philippe Cardon and Marthe Marie Tourn, 1799-1986. Provo, UT: Stevenson’s Genealogy Center, 1986.
Logan Journal, December 15, 1930.
Polk’s Logan City Directory. Salt Lake City: R. L. Polk, various dates.
Warrum, Noble. Utah Since Statehood, Historical and Biographical. Chicago and Salt Lake City: S. J. Clarke, 1919.

Please cite this collection in the following manner:
Cardon Realty Company Collection
Mss Coll. #173
Special Collections and Archives
Utah State University Merrill Library
Logan, Utah

For more information: 435/797-2663; Manuscript Librarian.
Special Collections & Archives, Merrill Library, Utah State University Libraries, Utah State University 84322-3000