In 1889 the Webster-Pond Brothers Store opened in Lewiston, Utah and under the management of brothers Brigham Pond and Louis Pond, and funded by W. M. Webster of Franklin, Idaho. Commonly known as the Pond Brothers Store, it sold general merchandise, functioned as butcher shop, and served as an outlet where grain farmers could market their produce locally. By 1891 Lewiston's LDS Mercantile Cooperative Store went out of business, leaving the Pond Brothers Store as the only local store until 1895. In 1895 Hyrum G. Hayball, a ZCMI trained businessman from Logan, Utah came to Lewiston and established a store in competition to the Pond Brothers, but his business failed within three years.

With the construction of the Lewiston Sugar Beet Factory in 1905, Charles Pond, the son of Brigham Pond, established a small outlet of the Pond Brothers Store on the factory's grounds. From this originally small outlet, Pond's business blossomed into a substantial store that sold coal, lumber, general merchandise, and other materials needed by the factory and its workers. The Pond Brothers Store operated until 1917 when the Ponds sold their property and moved to Island Park, Idaho to pursue the lumber business.

Source:

Lewiston City Compiled Works; Histories, Diaries, Minutes, and Notes, compiled by Lewiston City Historical Commission, Lewiston, Utah, 1987 (USU SC&A: 979.27 L589)

Biographical Sketches:

Brigham Pond was born June 9, 1853. He and his wife, Aroetta Whittle Pond and their young sons, Charles, came to Lewiston in the spring of 1877. Later Brigham and his brother Louis bought one-hundred and eighty acres of land near Lewiston. Brigham Pond practiced polygamy and had two wives. His second wife, Catherine Whittle Pond, married Brigham in 1885. This second family moved around from place to place for a number of years. However, Catherine and her nine children eventually settled in Lewiston on Brigham's farm where the two families lived together. Active in Church and civic affairs, Brigham was the first mayor (or president) of Lewiston Town Corporation. In 1890 he was called to serve a LDS mission in Kansas. Brigham Pond passed away December 26, 1933.

Source:

Bernhisel, John Milton III, History of Lewiston, Lewiston City Council, Lewiston, Utah, 1965, p. 253.

Charles Pond was born December 21, 1876 in Richmond, Utah the son of Brigham and Aroetta Whittle Pond. Shortly after Charles' birth the family moved to Lewiston. In October 1898 he was called to serve a two-year LDS mission in California. On September 12, 1900 Charles married a school teacher, Wilhelmina McCan of Smithfield, Utah who was teaching school in Lewiston. After their marriage they both taught school at Lewiston. In 1901 Charles was appointed manager of the Peoples' Mercantile & Creamery Co. at Richmond, Utah. In the spring of 1904 Charles and his family moved to Boise, Idaho then to Hood River, Oregon. In 1908 he returned to Lewiston where he was the principal owner of a new store near the Amalgamated Sugar Co., of which he soon became the sole owner and manager. In 1924 Charles sold his business and bought the Island Park Lodge near Yellowstone. Charles and Mina had seven children together.

Source:

Bernhisel, John Milton III, History of Lewiston, Lewiston City Council, Lewiston, Utah, 1965, p. 267.