the life of Philo T Farnsworth - Early Television Foundation

A BOY S PURPOSE 1J
encouraged this ambition by keeping up the subscriptions to
the periodicals and listening interestedly to the child's imaginative
flights
about building things and making them work. At
the age of twelve, Philo's interests had grown to such an extent
that he entered a contest in one of these magazines. He
won the $25 first With prize. it he bought his first long pants.
In 1920 young Philo's uncle persuaded the boy's father to
over a ranch in Idaho. A caravan was made
join him in taking
up of livestock and farm wagons to carry the family furniture
and belongings to the northern location. As they trekked slowly
through the streets of Salt Lake City, the fourteen-year-old
Philo, called Phil by his family, stood in the back of one of the
wagons and gazed in open-eyed wonderment at the city through
which they were passing. As good Mormons, they stopped in
respectful curiosity to wander through the grounds of the Tabernacle
and the Temple and to gaze at the beautiful monument
to the sea gulls
which legend credits with saving the first
Mormon crops from destruction by grasshoppers.
Most eager and curious of the migrants was young Philo.
Here at the center of the Mormon faith he first saw the great
Tabernacle and Temple as living symbols of what the energy
and industry of man can build if he has a purpose.
Leaving Salt Lake City, the farm caravan moved north over
the rough and barren terrain of northern Utah and southern
Idaho to the eastern section of the state, which borders Yellowstone
Park. Among the household goods were a few of his
greatly prized possessions the products of his early inventive
genius.
With the long journey from southern Utah to the upper
Snake River country ended, Phil's father and his uncle and the
family settled on Bungalow Ranch in Rigby,
Idaho. It was a
large hay and grain farm with two big white houses, huge