| OCR Text |
Show 436 HISTORY OF SANPETE COUNTY. Being a frontier town, the people suffered much loss and continual annoyance from Indian depredations. The savages would attack the nothern settlements, and when pursued by the troops, rush into Gunnison to complete their work of death and destruction. Many hundred head of cattle were stolen by the redskins and several lives lost in defending the people from invasion by the painted warriors. In 1864 several families removed to Salina and Richfield, thereby reducing the strength of this colony, and in 1865, when the Black Hawk war began, the people were almost defenseless, but stood out manfully against their foes, who for six years threatened the lives and property of every colonist. The grasshoppers added to their troubles by coming in vast numbers and destroying the crops, thus leaving them almost without food. The many trials and battles with savage foes, grasshoppers and poverty developed such a determined trait of manhood as seldom witnessed in even the hardiest pioneers, and the present generation of men and women has inherited a legacy of indomitable courage characterHere abide istic of the greatest colonists of the world. honesty and sobriety intermingled with the art of accumulation, and Gunnison is probably the wealthiest town of its size in central Utah.*\ With a population of about 1,S00 industrious and contented people engaged in farming, stockraising and general agricultural pursuits, every class of mercantile and industrial work, and investments of the most generous character, the town ranks among the most important municipalities of the State. The commercial interests of Gunnison have steadily developed through the combined enterprise of her citizens. Among the more prominent mercantile establishments is the Co-op store, organized in 1869, and grown of property >' \ |
