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Show 0MB No. 1024-0018, NPS Form United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section No. 8 Page 2 Panguitch Historic District, Panguitch, Garfield County, UT History of the Panguitch Historic District Settlement and Resettlement Period. 1864-1882: A promotional article in the Salt Lake Tribune in 1955 declared "Panguitch was so attractive they settled it twice," which was literally true. 16 The first settlement of Panguitch occurred seventeen years after members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon Church) entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. In March 1864, a small band of Mormon pioneers from the settlements of Parowan (settled 1851) and Beaver (settled 1856) came through Little Creek Canyon into Panguitch Valley. The group consisted of fifty-four families led by Jens Nielson. They built a small fort with cabins on the interior near the area where the high school now stands. In 1940, the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) erected a marker to commemorate the fort. They planted crops too late for the area's severe climate and the settlement nearly starved the first winter. In the spring, seven men made a trip to Parowan for supplies, but the snow was too deep. They discovered they could walk on their quilts by laying them end to end. They were able to return to Panguitch Valley and saved the community. This event is known as the "quilt walk" and is commemorated by a monument near the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) marker at 200 East Center Street. The township was surveyed by Edward Dalton in 1864. Over the next two years, crops were planted and a canal was surveyed by Albert Hadden and Alexander Matheson. The community was originally named Fairview, but the town was renamed Panguitch, from an Indian word meaning "big fish" when it was discovered another Utah town had already used the name Fairview. 17 The settlers had several conflicts with the Native Americans and in 1867 the Panguitch fort was abandoned. In 1870, Mormon Church leader, Brigham Young visited the area and decided it was time to resettle. He called George W. Sevy of Harmony to gather a company to resettle Panguitch. The following year, Sevy posted a notice in the Deseret News, which read: "Having been appointed to preside over a settlement to be formed at Panguish [sic], on the Sevier River, Piute County, I wish, through your columns, to inform those desirous of settling there that I wish them to meet me at Paragoonah (Red Creek) on or about the fourteenth (14) of next March, for the purpose of organizing preparatory to crossing the mountains."18 The second group of pioneers arrived on March 18th or 19 to find the dwellings (mostly log cabins) and crops of the earlier settlers unmolested. In 1872, William H. Packer described the settlement to the Deseret News: Panguitch is assuming quite the appearance of a city. A number of the fort houses have been removed to the city lots and some new ones have been built on the city plot. There are about eighty families and five hundred souls here. I am informed there are 1500 acres of land sown this season.... Good mechanics of all trades, I think, can do well here, and farmers too. I think I have never seen a better place inside the Rim for an industrious, honest people to prosper, from the abundance of range and timber. 19 16 Salt Lake Tribune, Home Magazine, November 13,1955. 17 Fairview in Utah's Sanpete County was settled in 1859. 18 Deseret News, March 8, 1871. 19 Deseret News, June 26,1872. |
