A History of Uintah County

Establishing settlements

'Holding the World Together' ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS T. hree distinct yet sometimes overlapping groups have shaped the settlement history of Uintah County: Ute Indians; Mormons- members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS); and non-Mormons, or "gentiles" as they were labeled by Mormons. Soon after the Mormons arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847, settlements were established to the north and south. The Mormons initially based their perception of the Uinta Basin on early explorations and penetrations by Spaniards and fur trappers.1 Most of these early travelers, including Dominguez and Escalante, Rufus Sage, and lohn C. Fremont, wrote about the area's good settlement potential; yet little attention was given to settlement of the Uinta Basin until 1861, when a proposed overland stagecoach route from Denver to Salt Lake City through present-day Uintah County prompted LDS church officials to call thirty missionaries on 25 April 1861 to settle "Uintah Valley." These missionaries met on 27 August in the church historian's office. Three were excused and eleven new names were added. Church president Brigham Young said, "If I had called for volunteers on Sunday I could have obtained 200 names, but 82 ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 83 this I did not wish to do. I have been requested several times to per­mit a settlement in that valley, but I have never wished to do so until now; but now I want a settlement there and I wish to pick the com­pany. The Gentiles will take possession of that valley, if we do not, and I do not wish them to have it. Antarro, the chief of the Pampe Utes wished me to make a settlement there."2 Before settlement was undertaken, as was customary, the valley was to be explored and in this case a road surveyed and constructed. On 29 August another meeting was held at the president's school-house with Brigham Young, Daniel Wells, and Wilford Woodruff attending. A few more names were added to the group, and several persons volunteered to start with the surveyor on 2 September; six volunteered to start a week later to help make a road to Uintah. The majority believed they would be ready to start in two or three weeks with the main body or when Brigham Young designated. Young said he considered 23 September the time when the general camp should start. On 25 September 1861 the Deseret News reported, "the explor­ing and surveying party that started for Uinta Valley on the 2nd, and also the road makers who followed after them on the 9th inst., have returned with a very unfavorable report in relation to that part of the Territory." The report went on to say, "The area was one vast conti­guity of waste, and measurably valueless, excepting for nomadic pur­poses, hunting grounds for Indians and to hold the world together."3 Young canceled the settlement plan after receiving this information and recalled the missionaries. During this time, the new Indian agent, Henry Martin, learned of the Mormons' planned settlement and proposed instead that the Uinta Basin be set aside as an Indian reservation. On 3 October 1861 the Uintah Indian Reservation was established by executive order of President Abraham Lincoln. Ute Indians were potential allies of the Mormon church, as well as potential converts. Agents and superintendents of the Indian Affairs Office in Utah Territory worked to minimize the church's influence with the Indians and also to weaken the church's political control of Utah. The federal government established reservations, while the church attempted to convert Indians and win their confi­dence on and off the reservations. Indians were pawns in the political 84 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY conflict.4 In the 1850s the Mormons began to try to teach the Indians in Utah to farm, an undertaking which generally was unsuccessful. Indian agent Garland Hurt had set up two Indian farms-one at Corn Creek and another at Spanish Fork-and told the Utes yet another would be set up in Uinta Valley. Superintendent of Indian affairs lacob Forney, who replaced Brigham Young, stated in a letter to the federal commissioner of Indian affairs that this was absurd since there was no road to the Basin.5 In 1863 Ute Indians occupied arable land on the Mormon Spanish Fork and Sanpete reservations. Amos Reed, acting territor­ial governor and former Indian agent, visited the Uinta Basin and found excellent grazing and considerable tillable land. He recom­mended that the Indians be moved to the basin in order to open the Spanish Fork and Sanpete reservations to white settlers.6 This removal would fulfill a plan outlined in 1861 by Martin's predeces­sor, James D. Doty, to have the Indians "removed far away from their old homes-quite beyond the influence of those who may poison their minds against the authority of the federal government."7 Captain Pardon Dodds was the first Indian agent in the Uinta Basin and set up the agency at Rock Creek near Tabiona. In 1868 Whiterocks was selected as the permanent site for the agency, and on Christmas Day Dodds arrived there with seven agency employees. Most of the Uintah Utes soon were moved to the Whiterocks Agency. Dodds began pushing the Indians towards farming. J.H. Head, Utah Indian superintendent, wrote to the new commissioner, E.S. Parker, stating, "Agent Dodds has succeeded even beyond my most sanguine expectations in interesting the Indians in farming operation."8 John Wesley Powell was also impressed when he stayed at the agency for four days during his 1869 expedition and noted that wheat, potatoes, turnips, melons, and other vegetables were being raised on small patches of ground. Later visitors, however, such as A. H. Thompson of Powell's 1871 expedition, were not impressed. Thompson wrote that "the employees at the Agency plough the land, furnish seed, dig the irrigating ditches, cut the grain; in fact do all the work that requires the use of tools." While the Indians did some irri­gating, the men made the women do the work while they raced horses or loafed around the agency. After being at the agency a few ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 85 Mr. and Mrs. Pardon Dodds with the first cabin built in Ashley Valley. (UCLRHC collection) days, Thompson further stated, "My impressions of the Indians, the Agency, are unchanged. The agency as at present conducted it is a cheat, and a swindle." Thompson concluded, "The Indians do not make good agriculturalists."9 The agency remained at the Whiterocks location for over forty years, until 1912. By 1869 a white settlement, the first in Uintah County, was estab­lished at Whiterocks. The settlement was known as Uintah Valley until 1895 when the name was changed to Whiterocks as a post office was reopened that year. Whiterocks remains part of the present Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation. Agent Pardon Dodds obviously recognized the agricultural potential of the Uinta Basin. Upon completing his term as Indian agent, he settled near the reservation in what was to become known as Ashley Valley. He and Morris Evans gathered their personal cattle herd from the reservation, drove the animals east, and settled on the north side of Ashley Creek in 1873. John Blankenship came about the same time and settled on the south side of the creek. With the help of these men, Dodds built the first house and opened it as a trading post for trappers and Indians. This beginning colonization of Uintah County was not by 86 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY Mormon pioneers like most of Utah, but rather by single men who had worked at the Uintah Indian Agency in Whiterocks, as well as by cattlemen, cowboys, drifters seeking refuge from criminal or other­wise troubled lives, and non-Mormon families establishing homes. The settlement became known as Ashley, and it was the first town in Uintah County except for the Indian agency and settlement at Whiterocks. The first white woman did not arrive in Ashley until 1876, although Indian agent John Critchlow's wife, Nellie Ayes Critchlow, had come to Whiterocks in 1874, making her the first white woman in Uintah County. The town of Ashley was about four miles northwest of present-day Vernal. The Ashley post office was created on 27 December 1878. It operated until 17 November 1899; residents then received their mail at Vernal.10 In 1877 Teancum Taylor, a Mormon polygamist, settled one wife in Ashley and prompted the other wife to take out a claim near the big spring in Mountain Dell, which later became known as Dry Fork. Taylor wanted other families near his Dry Fork family, so he offered land and water rights to entice others to move to the area. The settle­ment prospered and soon there were twenty-seven families, a school, and a post office. By 1886, when the town of Ashley became too pop­ulous for Taylor, he moved the family living in Ashley to Deep Creek west of Dry Fork. lensen, which lies on the Green River, was settled in 1877 when Isaac Burton, Sr., with his thirteen children arrived on 17 November and settled for the winter on Ashley Creek near Stewart Lake. The fol­lowing year the family moved to the junction of Brush Creek and Green River. Two weeks after the Burton family arrived a group of Mormon polygamists led by Thomas Bingham settled on what was later called Burns's Bench. Later another group settled south of pre­sent lensen at the mouth of Ashley Creek where the Burtons had spent the winter, and a town was begun in that area. This settlement was called Riverdale; a LDS ward was organized there in 1885. A post office request for Riverdale was denied; however, a later request was approved with the name of lensen. Other families settled farther north along the river where the farming land was much better. Eventually the center of the settlement was moved to the present site of the Jensen bridge. ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 87 First ferry boat crossing the Green River at Jensen, Utah. (UCLRHC collec­tion) The Burtons began the first ferry on the Green River in 1881 at the mouth of Brush Creek; they later moved the ferry down to the new town of Jensen at the present bridge site. The ferry sold in 1890 to Skippsy Johnson and was later purchased by Albert Snow and his sons in 1895. Lars Jensen constructed another ferry in 1882 south of the present Jensen bridge, near the mouth of Ashley Creek. This ferry was later taken down the river in an ice jam. In 1911 a bridge was built across the Green River at Jensen. This bridge was replaced in 1933 at the time U.S. Highway 40 was constructed. In 1993 a new bridge was built north of the old metal bridge which was then hauled away for scrap metal. The ferries and the bridges played an impor­tant role in the development of the Uinta Basin. The town of Jensen near the bridge has died out, with the post office currently a consid­erable distance to the west. West of the post office new businesses are locating around the turnoff to the dinosaur quarry. A new visitors center is scheduled for this area. The site of present-day Vernal originally was nothing but a bar­ren bench which the "Creek People" had named the "Bench." In 1878 the families of David Johnston, Jeremiah Hatch, and Alva Hatch moved onto the Bench and planted crops. Development of the Bench 88 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY into a separate community was hastened by the 1879 Meeker Massacre involving the White River Utes in Colorado who according to rumor tried to convince the Uintah Utes to join with them and kill all white men. Three Indian leaders met with leremiah Hatch, his son Alva, and Thomas Karren and his son David at leremiah's home on the Bench.11 The Indians warned the settlers to move their cabins to a central site, arrange them into a fort, and fly a white flag. The Indians promised to help protect the fort. The people moved their homes to the site, forming a "U" beginning at what is now 54 West Main. A thirty-two foot abutment was built between the cabins with holes through which to shoot. It was planned to complete the U into a square, but the trouble was over before the fortifications were com­pleted. People at Jensen also "forted-up," establishing a fort at the Burton ranch, with settlers and cowboys joining together for protection.12 Settlers living around the north portion of Ashley Valley had been asked to join with the residents of the Bench in establishing a fort. Most of them resisted because of conflicts between the Mormons on the Bench and the non-Mormons on the Creek. People living in Ashley appointed Alma Taylor captain of a mili­tia group, and he ordered the scattered settlers along the creek to move into town. The only other act the militia performed was to seize all the ammunition in James Gibson's store as he had been accused of selling ammunition to the Indians.13 Hostile Indians burned all the cabins on Blue Mountain and appropriated beef from the cattle herds on the mountain, but the uprising was settled with no further incidents.14 The following win­ter was terribly cold with snow so deep that many animals froze and died. People nearly starved, including many new settlers who had arrived thinking wheat for flour could be obtained. However, grasshoppers had taken much of the wheat, leaving the settlers to glean the remaining wheat from off the ground. This short supply of wheat was dirty and soon became moldy. When ground it made "black bread" on which the settlers mostly relied. Settlers remem­bered this as the "bad winter of '79." People were also plagued with a diphtheria epidemic which took the lives of several people. Settlers surviving that bitter winter moved their cabins back to their home- ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 89 Lycurgus lohnson store in Ashley Town. This is the only known photo of Ashley Town. (UCLRHC collection) steads and life went on with the work of providing for their families and each other. Schools and churches were built on the Bench. The settlement was first called Jerico and then Hatch Town, because of the many Hatch family members in the fort, including two cabins for Jeremiah Hatch's polygamous wives. leremiah Hatch did not like the name Hatch Town; in 1884 he met with LDS church officials and it was decided to create a town, naming it Ashley Center. The town was sur­veyed in 1885 and businesses began to be established. A store owned by John A. Blythe and his brother-in-law Thomas L. Mitchell was built on the southwest corner of the main intersection. By 1886 Blythe and Mitchell sent a petition to the Post Office Department requesting a post office called "Ashley Center Post Office" be estab­lished in their store. Postal officials felt the name Ashley Center was too much like the name of Ashley and that mail would become mixed-up between the two post offices. The new post office was approved but assigned the name "Vernal Post Office." Thomas Mitchell was designated as the postmaster. Although Mitchell and Blythe accepted the name, other townspeople rebelled, saying this 90 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY was not Vernal but Ashley Center. However, when mail was received addressed to Vernal, Utah, they relented and accepted the name, which means fresh or new like springtime. Settlers retained a fear of the Indians, and during the next few years much tension and unrest also developed between the three tribes on the reservation. In 1886 the Department of War decided to establish a military post to "discipline and control" the Indians. Fort Duchesne was established about midway between the Uintah and Ouray agencies. As Fort Duchesne was established in the heart of the Indian reservation, it was closed to white settlement until after the opening of the reservation in 1905. Today Fort Duchesne is the cen­ter of Ute Indian activities, with the tribal council offices located at the site. The Bureau of Indian Affairs administers its business from new buildings on the hill southwest of the community. A dominant influence running through the history of Ashley Valley has been that of the LDS church and the establishment of ecclesiastical units or wards. Initially the names of settlements were often the same as the name of the LDS ward at that location. For example, Maeser, or Mill Ward as it was first called, is located a few miles northwest of Vernal. People began settling in that vicinity about 1877. When Hatch Fort was discontinued in 1880, Robert Bodily gave William G. Reynolds forty acres for a mill site. Reynolds moved the flour mill which he had temporarily set up in the fort to this new location and the ward became known as Mill Ward. In 1892 a post office was established about one-quarter mile east of Reynolds's mill. Early stores were established at what is now the Maeser intersection of 1500 North and 1500 West. A town was organized and a number of businesses were established. The town was eventually unincorpo­rated, but many businesses continue to operate around this intersec­tion. In the fall of 1878 Bradford R. Bird, a Latter-day Saint colonizer, located in the part of the county two miles southeast of Vernal that is now included in Naples Ward. By 1881 six other families had moved into the area. leremiah Hatch, presiding elder for the church in Ashley Valley, organized a branch of the church in 1884 and appointed Porter William Merrill as presiding elder over the new dis­trict. It was known as Merrill Ward until 1887 when the name was ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 9J_ changed to Naples at the time application was made for a post office. On 13 May 1982 Naples was incorporated as a city with Lawrence C. Kay as mayor. Glines Ward was created at the same time as Merrill Ward in 1884 when Ashley Center Ward was divided. The Glines area-2.5 miles southwest of Vernal-was first settled in 1879 by two lone homesteaders, Peter Peterson and Peter Shirts. When brothers Isaac I. and Benjamin Slaugh settled in the pre­sent- day Davis area in 1888, it was part of Merrill Ward. In 1912 Davis Ward was organized and named in honor of George A. Davis, a prominent church leader and schoolteacher who started the first Davis school. This area currently has one of the finest elementary schools in the district. Ouray originated across the river from where the first military post, Fort Thornburgh, had been located in 1881. When Fort Thornburgh was moved to Ashley Valley, a settlement began to grow in the Ouray area. Ouray derives its name from Ute chief Ouray of the Uncompahgre Band. It is the topographical center of the Uinta Basin and has the lowest altitude of any land in the basin. In 1892 an Indian agency and an Indian school were located at Randlett, about fifteen miles west of Ouray on the Uintah River. When the Indian boarding school was consolidated with the Whiterocks boarding school, the settlement was abandoned until 1905 when it became one of three townsites laid out by the Interior Department prior to the opening of the reservation to homesteaders. The opening of the Ute reservation for white homesteading in 1905 initiated the beginning of numerous small communities on the west side of the county. In lanuary 1905 a dispute flared up over the location of a second federal land office for the state designed to serve the needs of Uinta Basin homesteaders. The location was important because it meant a boost to that community's economy. Thousands of people would flock to the land office to register for land and await the lottery or drawing for the land. Gentiles opposed placing the land office in a Mormon town such as Vernal, Provo, or Heber City because Mormons would then have an advantage in securing the best land on the reservation and would control land-office activities and homesteading activities on the reservation. The Salt Lake Tribune 92 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY Uintah Basin Land Office about 1905. (UCLRHC collection) pointed out that if the Interior Department decided to locate the land office in Price, gentiles would have a better chance at securing land on the reservation. Community competition also arose. Price citizens felt they had more to offer than the towns surrounding the reservation, such as a ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 93 railroad, telephone and telegraph lines, and an important road to the reservation. Also, Price had been the government outfitting point for the reservation for the past twenty years. Heber City residents dis­agreed, stating their town was equally qualified to host the land office. A bill was passed in March 1905 to include Uintah, Wasatch, and Carbon counties in the land-office district. The site for the land office was to be determined by the president. The act also set the date of 1 September 1905 for opening the reservation. A serious threat to the opening had surfaced in 1902 when two mineral leases, one to Raven Mining Company and the other to Florence Mining Company, were approved. Questions concerning the legality of the claims after the reservation opened and shadowy congressional connections associ­ated with these claims threatened to derail the opening perma­nently. 15 The act passed in March 1905 gave the Raven Mining Company sixty days to locate and file on one hundred mining claims of Gilsonite and asphalt minerals. It also gave the Florence Mining Company the preferential right to locate 640 acres of mineral lands. Residents of Grand Junction, Colorado, were upset. The Daily Sentinel denounced the act as being a "land steal and a farce." The paper reported that hundreds, if not thousands, of homesteaders were camped along the White and Green rivers in eastern Utah awaiting the opening of the reservation in March. The Colorado newspaper fur­ther accused the Florence Mining Company of perpetrating a land steal worth millions of dollars.16 A mud-slinging newspaper fight with each sector blaming the other of fraud continued until 18 luly 1905. On 14 luly President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed that on 28 August 1905 the Uintah Reservation would: "be opened to entry, set­tlement and disposition under the general provisions of the homestead and townsite laws of the United States."17 Provo, Utah, was chosen as the location for the lottery, with drawings to take place on 17 August at 9:00 A.M. Some Salt Lake City residents opposed the choice, think­ing the lottery location should have been Salt Lake City. Land com­missioner Richards responded, stating that past land drawings held in large cities attracted "gamblers, prostitutes, and servant girls."18 These kinds of people were really not homeseekers. The land-registration process was clogged, which caused trouble for local officials. Registration would begin at 9:00 A.M. on 1 August with desig- 94 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY nated places of registration at Provo, Vernal, and Price, Utah, and Grand Junction, Colorado. These towns began to prepare for the rush of homeseekers. Price added more streetlights around the railroad station, warehouses, and other important locations. Extra policemen were hired along with a night watchman. Additional facilities for drinking water were provided. Provo urged the merchants and townsfolk to prepare for the anticipated thousands of homeseekers. Tents ranging in size to ten feet by twelve feet were erected. The reg­istration in Grand Function was held in the city auditorium. Extra toilets were installed. Two hundred cots were set up. The city coun­cil augmented its small police force with men from the Pinkerton Agency. The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad pitched a large circus tent adjacent to the auditorium. The town of Vernal also readied itself. W.F. Stalwill and four land-office clerks were assigned to the Vernal land office. Ira Burton allowed homeseekers to erect tents at Burton Resort. When 1 August arrived the four cities were filled with home­seekers and an army of peddlers selling information and maps indi­cating the best locations for homesteads. For the first two weeks in August, homeseekers could register for a chance at the 160-acre allot­ments and receive a permit to enter the Uintah Indian Reservation to scout possible homestead sites. When the registration concluded, 37,657 individuals-including 18,858 in Provo; 15,387 in Grand Junction; 1,876 in Vernal; and 1,536 in Price-had completed their applications and eagerly awaited the lottery which began in Provo on 17 August 1905. The lottery took three days and a total of 5,772 names were pulled from the barrel. The first 111 names drawn were permitted to return to the reser­vation on 28 August to stake out their homesteads and file with land-office officials in Vernal. All winners were permitted to enter the reservation to locate and file by 26 October. In the first five years of the century animosity had existed among the Indians, Mormons, and gentiles in the state and county over the opening of the reservation to white settlement. The Indians did not want the white people infringing on their land. The Mormons and the non-Mormons each thought the other group was going to receive preferential treatment. What most of these twentieth-century settlers ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 95 found at the end of the rainbow was not a pot of gold-it was inex­pensive land that required extensive irrigation works to make it pro­ductive. Hard work, bankruptcy, conflict, drought, and some cooperation followed in the wake of the Uintah Indian Reservation land rush. That year, 1905, happened to be very wet-over twelve inches of rainfall. Many homesteaders believed that irrigation would not be necessary. In the two succeeding years, however, the rainfall returned to its normal quantity of about five inches and obtaining water became a high priority. The establishment of an irrigation sys­tem was completed in hopes the Utes would assimilate with the non- Indians and that the individual apportionment of their lands would permit them to prosper as individuals, building up estates that could be passed on through generations, making them self-supporting and independent.19 Of the original three million acres set aside as the Uintah Reservation by President Lincoln in 1861, one million became avail­able to homesteaders. About one million acres of forest land, along with another 60,000 acres for reclamation purposes, had already been excluded from settlement. Indian allotments constituted about 111,000 acres, while federal reserves, set aside for exclusive use by Indians for grazing, timber, coal, agency burial grounds, poorhouse, and other uses, claimed 282,000 acres. Four thousand acres were tem­porarily withdrawn for townsites or because of their expected min­eral value and were to be sold at a later date.20 The towns of Leota, Independence, Bennett, and Wilson-Ballard sprang into existence as homesteaders moved onto the reservation. Many of the new settlers were Mormons, so the church organization was often the nucleus of the community structure and activities. The influx of homesteaders also triggered the establishment of many set­tlements on the northern portion of the reservation. Hayden, five miles west and south of Whiterocks, was settled in 1905. Packer was established when a few settlers left Hayden because farming the rocky ground was not profitable. Hayden is now a ghost town and Packer was renamed Neola. Leeton, Tridell, and Bennett were located in the Whiterocks-LaPoint area. In 1908 a group of people settled about a mile south of LaPoint, and in 1909 a post office was approved for them under the name of Taft for President William Howard Taft. 96 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY When it was found the road had been built one mile too far south according to the boundary lines of the Ute Indian Reservation, the store and post office were moved to a new townsite being prepared one mile to the north which became known as LaPoint. Homesteaders settled in the LaPoint area, and in 1913 the Whiterocks Irrigation Company applied for a townsite. It was recorded in 1914 and given the name of LaPoint. The irrigation com­pany hired a crew of men and teams to level the sand domes that dominated the terrain, making the area more enticing to new settlers. At one time LaPoint was the second-largest community in the county; it had a thriving business district boasting general merchan­dise stores, several blacksmith shops, cream stations, pool halls, and a drug store with a fountain. Star Hall Theater was completed with a stage for local performances and the early silent movies. A large recreation hall was built for dances and basketball games. Avalon was settled in 1928 in the Ouray Valley between Ouray and Randlett. Another early settlement southwest of Vernal in the Book Cliffs was Webster City, which was located in Uintah County before 1892 when boundaries with Grand County were changed. This strip of land was only used by cattlemen and was too far from the county seat to be desirable to Uintah County.21 Webster City had been established by a cattle company in 1880 and became the biggest cattle operation in the Book Cliffs. Other settlements were made at Willow Creek and Hill Creek south of Ouray by cattlemen in 1894, and a farming settlement at Leland warranted a post office in 1899. In 1904 cattleman Frank Brewer and his family settled at Bitter Creek in the Book Cliffs about eighty miles southeast of Vernal. Eventually a one-room school was located in the area and the settlement became known as Bitter Creek. While most communities were founded on agriculture, some communities in the Uinta Basin such as Moffat, Dragon, Watson, Rainbow, Bonanza, and Ignatio owed their existence to mining and the railroad. During the 1880s gold and copper mining led to the set­tlement of several mining camps in the mountains north of Vernal. By 1901 Bullion (or Bullionville), Parson's City, Camp Fudgy, and Dyer Mining Camp were abandoned. Moffat, originally called "the Strip," came into existence when a ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS ^J_ 7,040-acre triangle was cut from the Uintah Indian Reservation in 1888 to allow for the mining of Gilsonite. The mining operations attracted a wide variety of people and a tent city quickly was followed by a permanent settlement. Outside of any law jurisdiction, it was wide open to gambling, prostitution, and other activities that came with mining-camp followers. Saloon owners illegally sold whiskey to Indians and the town provided a safe haven for outlaws using the Outlaw Trail traveling from Robber's Roost to Brown's Hole. The Strip was officially named Moffat after the Moffat Railroad that was slated to come through the area. Moffat was granted a post office on 13 December 1905. In 1888 a rich deposit of Gilsonite had been found southeast of Vernal in the area of present-day Bonanza. The ore from the Bonanza mines was freighted out of the basin through Moffat to Price, Utah. With the building in 1904 of the Uintah Railway over the Book Cliffs from Mack, Colorado, a large mining operation began at Dragon in the Bonanza area. Ore was shipped by rail over Douglas Pass on the little narrow-gauge railroad to Mack and then taken east on the Moffat Railroad. Mining at Moffat mostly closed down after 1904 with the build­ing of the railroad to Dragon and with the opening of the reservation to homeseekers a year later. The Moffat post office operated until 1911 when it was closed by the government due to unethical opera­tion procedures. In 1921 residents applied for another post office; however, the name Moffat was denied due to the first closure. The town was renamed Gusher because oil had been discovered three miles north of the community and the residents were hopeful the oil development would produce a real "gusher." Gusher was granted a post office on 2 March 1921 and still exists as a small community on the highway between Vernal and Roosevelt. For a half-dozen years Dragon thrived as the end-of-the-line town for the railroad, even sporting the Uintah Railway Hotel; but in 1911 the rails were pushed ten miles farther north to a new mining camp named Watson. Dragon's days were numbered as its mines closed down and the railroad terminus moved. Watson was settled in 1905 and gained importance as a shipping point for the Gilsonite ore mined there and at Harrison, a small min- 98 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY ing camp nine miles up the canyon. Watson had a company hotel called the Savory and a hotel/boarding house for workers and cow­boys. Ore was also shipped from a mine at China Wall. Children of the miners living at Harrison and China Wall attended school at Watson. Rainbow was another mining settlement, four miles southwest of Watson. The town was situated right over the Rainbow Mine. A rail­road spur was laid in 1911, and, although Rainbow was considered a town at that time, it did not reach its peak until 1920. About 135 people resided in Rainbow in 1931. By 1938 mining operations were switched to Bonanza and the town was abandoned. Bonanza was first settled in 1888 and named because of the rich deposit of Gilsonite near the settlement. Mining began in that area about 1903. Several stone buildings were built in the early 1900s. A boarding house was built in 1904 and was used as a depot for the old Uintah Stage Line which used horses and stagecoaches to convey people from Dragon to Vernal and Ouray. When Rainbow closed down in 1938, a mining camp was established at Bonanza because of its proximity to the Gilsonite deposits. Practically all of the camp buildings were moved from Rainbow and rebuilt around the stone buildings at Bonanza. Many improvements were made to the mine operations and essential utilities were provided to the townsite. New homes were built and old ones modernized. Children from Independence Mine, White River, Eureka, and Little Emma Mine attended the school at Bonanza. For many years a thriving commu­nity existed for the miners and their families. Fire and explosions are a big danger in Gilsonite mines and occurred as early as 1894 at the St. Louis Mine on the Strip, killing two workers-Isaac C. Cook and Charles Hirsch. Another explosion in 1896 cremated two workers, Charles Anderson and Andy Garns, and the fire burned for some time. The Black Dragon Mine blew up in 1908, killing two Greek miners. Several other small fires and explo­sions occurred in different mines through the next few decades. On 9 October 1945 fourteen shafts exploded in the mine at Bonanza, set­ting fire to one of the largest veins of Gilsonite in the United States and throwing timber and rocks more than half a mile from the shaft, with debris crashing through homes and mine buildings. ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 99 Miraculously, not a single life was lost in this calamity. Another explosion of the mines at Big Bonanza on 4 November 1953 was more devastating, claiming the lives of eight workers. Bonanza has modernized its equipment and buildings and still runs a large mining operation, but only a few officials live at the site. Workers live in Vernal and other surrounding communities. When the railroad closed in 1939, the Gilsonite was hauled to Craig, Colorado, by truck and then sent out on trains. Large tanker trucks now load at Bonanza, travel to the West Coast, and drive onto ships which haul them to their destinations in other countries, where the Gilsonite is delivered by the same truck. Ignatio was a small settlement on the White River twenty miles east of Vernal and three miles southeast of Bonanza. It was named by the Uintah Railway but was better known as White River or White River Crossing. The cost of extending the railroad to Vernal was pro­hibitive, so an alternative, a toll road, was built by the railroad with a ferry on the Green River and a bridge over the White River. Ignatio was home for bridge tenders, guards, and maintenance workers on the bridge and toll road. In 1935 the toll-road company went out of business and the property was transferred to the county for mainte­nance. Through the years, many of these small settlements have become ghost towns, lost their identity, or been absorbed by larger, more viable communities. The stories of their settlement, survival, and demise make a fascinating chapter in the county's colorful history. When Congress created the Territory of Utah on 9 September 1850, the area now known as Uintah County became part of Green River County. The area remained in Green River County until 1862, at which time Wasatch County was created with the county seat at Heber. The entire area-with a northern boundary along the sum­mit of the Uinta Mountains and encompassing the Uinta Basin and what is now Daggett County-was made part of Wasatch County. When the first settlers arrived in Ashley Valley and formed the town of Ashley, they were compelled to travel over the mountain to Heber to take care of county business. This could be an extreme hardship, since it took five days to a month depending on weather conditions to travel to Heber by the only available means of travel- 100 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY team and wagon. By 1880 area residents were determined to have their own county. In lanuary 1880, 136 residents signed a petition asking the legislature to form a new county in Ashley Valley, recom­mending it be given the name Coal County. The legislature responded positively and passed an act on 18 February 1880 creating the new county but changing the name to Uintah County. The new Uintah County included what are now Uintah and Daggett counties, with the eastern boundary along the Utah- Colorado border. The boundary then ran from the northeast corner of Utah Territory to the 110th meridian, then south to the main channel of the Green River to the north line of Emery County at the time (along the summit of the Brown Cliffs), and then east to the Colorado border. The county seat was located in the town of Ashley, and the county was made a part of the First Judicial District.22 With the creation of Grand County in 1890, the southern end of Uintah County bordered Grand County. In 1892 part of Uintah County below the "3rd standard parallel south" was added to Grand County, and the new southern boundary ran east from the Green River to the Utah-Colorado line, jogging only at the eastern end along the summit of the Brown Cliffs. Duchesne County was officially designated as a county on the first Monday in January 1915 at twelve o'clock noon and became Uintah's neighboring county to the west. Residents living in the area of present Duchesne County had petitioned the legislature to create a county out of the eastern portion of Wasatch County. A special elec­tion was held on 13 luly 1914, with the majority of Wasatch County residents voting to form the new county. The line between Uintah and Duchesne counties was set at the 110th meridian. When a new federal map came out in 1916, it showed that the meridian passed three-fourths of a mile west of Roosevelt-placing Roosevelt in Uintah County. Some Duchesne County officials were living in Roosevelt, which had been designated as the county seat, and Uintah County did not want this strip of land.23 As a result, there was a dis­pute over the boundaries. To settle the problem the residents of Uintah County and the residents on the disputed strip of land had to vote in the November 1916 election to annex the strip to Duchesne ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 101 County. The vote passed and the legislature defined the boundaries more clearly in 1917.24 On 7 January 1918 Daggett County, lying on the northern slopes of the Uinta Mountains, was created from the northern part of Uintah County. Four young soldiers went to World War I service as Uintah County residents and came back home as Daggett County residents. Except for a minor dispute over the eastern termination of the Daggett County boundary in 1919, settled in favor of Uintah County, the county's boundaries have been constant since 1917, and the official description is as follows: Beginning at a point on the summit of the Uintah range two and one-fifth miles west of the point where the Uintah special meridian intersects the summit of said Uinta Mountains, thence due south parallel with said meridian to the south boundary of the former Uintah Indian reservation; thence due south to the line between townships 11 and 12 south, thence east to the middle of the main channel of the Green River; thence down said channel to the third standard parallel south; thence east to the summit of the Brown Cliffs; thence north to the summit of the Uinta Mountains; thence west along the watershed of said mountains to the point of begin­ning. 25 During Utah's territorial period, county courts remained as the county administrative body in all counties. Each was composed of a probate judge and three selectmen. The probate judge was elected by the territorial legislature for a four-year term; and the selectmen were chosen by the electorate of the county-one for a three-year term, one for a two-year term, and one for a one-year term. Thereafter, one was elected each year for a three-year term. Legislation in 1874 pro­vided that the probate judge was to be elected by the qualified voters of the county. In 1887 the U.S. Congress stipulated that probate judges were to be appointed by the president of the United States. In 1888 the term of selectmen was changed to two years. When Utah became a state in 1896, county courts (selectmen) were succeeded by a board of three county commissioners who were elected every two years. The board of county commissioners was to elect one of its members as chair. The selectmen of the county court 102 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY were to serve as the board of county commissioners until the first election. The transition from the county court to the board of county commissioners was completed on 7 May 1896.26 This structure was changed in 1901, when the terms of office of the commissioners were changed to two four-year terms and one two-year term, alternating in order to keep an experienced commissioner in office at all times. The first meeting of the Uintah County court officers appointed by the legislature was held on 3 March 1880. Jeremiah Hatch was pro­bate judge, with Thomas Bingham, Sr., Isaac Burton, Sr., and Pardon Dodds as selectmen.27 The meeting was held in the house of William Gibson, which had been moved into Ashley town from the Gibson homestead the preceding fall due to the Meeker Massacre distur­bance. In a quit-claim deed dated 7 December 1881 Gibson sold for $300 this sixteen-by-thirteen foot, one-and-one-half-story log build­ing to Uintah County to be used as a courthouse.28 Judge Hatch appointed C.C. Bartlett as county clerk and William Ashton as asses­sor and collector. The more important acts of the county court dur­ing its first year included the creation of voting precincts and school districts as well as the appointment of C.C. Bartlett as county trea­surer and loseph H. Black as county school superintendent. At the first election, Thomas Bingham was elected probate judge, with Isaac Burton, Sr., and Samuel Campbell as selectmen. These offi­cers' names first appear in the records on 6 December 1880. A third selectman, N.C. Davis, took his seat on 7 March 1881. In 1882 William C. Britt, Uintah County Clerk, was given per­mission to move the county desk to his private house and furnish office room, for which he was to be paid a reasonable compensation. Two of the selectmen were authorized to rent the county courthouse to best advantage. The Gibson cabin courthouse was then rented to J. Porter, who established a saloon in it until he was evicted for failure to pay the fifty dollars rent and to purchase a liquor license. It was then planned to fix the building up as a jail, but the selectmen decided instead to purchase a stove so that it could be used for ses­sions of the county court.29 Also interesting is the political history of Uintah County. Ashley remained the county seat until December 1893. The settlement on the Bench, by then called Vernal, had outgrown the town of Ashley, ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 103 South side of Uintah Avenue, Vernal's major street in 1910. (UCLRHC col­lection, photographer L. C. Thorne) so in 1888 an effort was made to move the county seat to the newer and larger settlement. The question to move the county seat was sub­mitted to the electorate in the fall of 1889, but insufficient votes were cast in favor of the change. On 7 November 1893, however, the proposition again was voted on, and this time 300 votes were cast for removal of the county seat from Ashley to Vernal, with only thirty-three against the change. Vernal accordingly was made county seat of Uintah County.30 Vernal was becoming the hub of both Ashley Valley and Uintah County, and the moving of the county seat in December 1893 helped solidify its position. The county records were transferred on 14 December and the log courthouse purchased from Gibson was moved to Vernal for use as the county clerk's office. It was located on the corner of North Vernal Avenue and First North. By 1899 the need for an adequate building for the transaction of county business had become pressing, and on 18 September 1899 the board of county commissioners decided to submit to the voters of Uintah County a request to bond the county for $16,000 to construct a building. The voters approved and contracts were let; work began on the court­house in May 1900. This new courthouse was a two-story structure constructed of 104 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY red brick with a sandstone foundation. A large vault for the use of all county offices was added to the north end of the building in 1924. A wide variety of trees was planted at the same time which, together with a gazebo and a rose garden, made the courthouse block a lovely place for community gatherings and outdoor concerts. Two new courthouses have been built since that time. One was completed in March 1959 directly behind the first one built in 1900. The original building was torn down in October 1959. The new $367,600 county building was contracted out to Hansen Construction Company of Altamont, the low bidder. To complete the project, the county had to tear down the old courthouse, remove the statue in front of it, and remove the old jail, which was built inside the new building. Construction began on a third courthouse in 1983. It was attached to the back of the second one and has a main entrance from the north. It is a combined county-state building, and employees moved into the building in lanuary 1985. A new complex was built to the east for the jail. Bids were opened in December 1983 and the new jail was completed in 1986. The settlement of Uintah County was a slow and difficult process. The resulting communities are a monument to the trials, hard work, heartaches, tragedy, dedication, and ingenuity of the early settlers and those who came later. Today Vernal is the hub of the county, providing a variety of activities and facilities for county resi­dents, including recreation, shopping, and education. Vernal recently has been designated one of the hundred best places in the country to live and raise a family.31 ENDNOTES 1. Gary Lee Walker, "A History of Fort Duchesne, Including Fort Thornburgh: The Military Presence in Frontier Uinta Basin, Utah," Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1992, 13. 2. From the "History of Brigham Young" in Uintah County Library Regional History Center. 3. "Uinta Not What Was Represented," Deseret News, 25 September 1861. 4. George P. Malanson, "The Rise and Fall of the Uinta Valley Indian ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS 105 Reservation: Perception and Policy," in Geology and Energy Resources, Uinta Basin of Utah, ed. M. Dane Picard (Salt Lake City: Utah Geological Association, 1985,) 11; J.W. Covington, "Relations between the Ute Indians and the United States Government 1848-1900," Ph.D. diss., University of Oklahoma, 1949. 5. Inventory of the County Archives of Utah, Uintah County, 16. 6. A. Reed, Governor's Message to the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, 1863, Utah State Historical Society. 7. lames D. Doty to Commissioner Dole, 12 October 1861, microfilm 234, copy located in Uintah County Library Regional History Center. 8. J.H. Head to Commissioner E.S. Parker, 24 May 1869, microfilm 234, copy located in UCL Regional History Center. 9. Almon Harris Thompson, "Diary of Almon Harris Thompson," Utah Historical Quarterly 11 (lanuary, April, and luly 1939): 28, 31. 10. lohn S. Gallagher, The Post Offices of Utah (Burtonville, MD: The Depot, 1977), 57. 11. Alva Hatch, unpublished family history, copy located in the Uintah County Library Regional History Center. 12. Vernal Express, 24 March 1906. 13. Ibid., 17 March 1906. 14. Ibid., 24 March 1906. 15. U.S. Congress, 57th Congress, Senate, Senate Document 154 (28 lanuary 1902). 16. The Daily Sentinel (Grand lunction, Colorado), 18 lanuary 1905. 17. 34 U.S. Statutes 3119 (14 luly 14 1905). 18. Craig Woods Fuller, "Land Rush in Zion," Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1992, 233-35. 19. See Deseret News, 31 August 1905, and Vernal Express, 25 November 1910, 7 lune 1912, and 19 September 1913. For a detailed account of the openings of the Uintah and Uncompahgre reservations, see Fuller, "Land Rush in Zion," chap. 5. 20. At the time of the opening of the Uintah Reservation there were 111,269 acres allotted to and another 282,460 acres reserved for the Ute Indians; 1,010,000 acres were reserved for use by the Forest Service; 60,610 acres were reserved for the future site of Strawberry Reservoir; 2,100 acres were set aside for townsites; and 2,140 acres were temporarily withdrawn as having potential mineral value. Of the initial 3,039,000 acres that were a part of the original Uintah Reservation, 1,004,285 were opened to homestead­ers. See U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, Annual Report (1905). Of the 282,460 acres reserved exclusively for Indian use, 106 HISTORY OF UINTAH COUNTY approximately 250,000 acres were created by joint resolution of Congress, 32 U.S. Statutes 744 (19 lune 1902). The other reserves were created by presidential proclamations. They included land for timber, coal, school, burial grounds, poorhouse, etc. Congress along with the Executive Branch had come to realize the value of commonly owned and federally protected lands, especially for Indians living in arid climates. Information provided by Uintah County planner and researcher Robert Hugie. 21. Grand Memories (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Moab Camp, 1972), 49; Vernal Express, 3 March 1892. 22. Inventory of the County Archives of Utah, Uintah County, 13-14; Laws of Utah, 1880, 92-93. 23. Vernal Express, 31 March 1916. 24. Laws of Utah, 1917, 102-3. 25. Ibid., Revised Statutes, 1933, 19-1-27. 26. Minutes of the Uintah County Commission, vol. A, 223, Uintah County clerk's office. 27. Ibid., vol. A, 1. 28. Uintah County Recorder's Deed Book vol. 12, 35; Shirley Sowards, interview by author at Regional History Center, 19 August 1993. 29. Minutes of Uintah County Court, 4 September 1882; minutes of Uintah County Commission, vol. A, 15-19. 30. Minutes of Uintah County Commission, vol. A, 162. 31. Norman Crampton, The 100 Best Small Towns in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 442.