Around 1890, homesteads near Salt Lake City entered what Hyrum called "a land boom." So his father sold their place and they moved to the Springville-Mapleton area, south of Provo. A couple years later, Manwaring left home for good to become a section hand on the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, which was then building branch lines to various Utah coal mines. Despite his youth – he was just fifteen years old – Hyrum held his own and was able to earn a man's wages.