A History of Duchesne County

Ealry roads, grazing and schemers and outlaws

CHAPTER 3 EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS T X he geography of the Uinta Basin and the establishment of an Indian reservation kept the area isolated from the rest of Utah for much of the nineteenth century. Wagon roads and trails into the Uinta Basin were virtually nonexistent until the establishment of army posts. Unlike much of Utah Territory, where Mormon pioneers and later the territorial government built or funded road construc­tion, roads in and out of the Uinta Basin were first built primarily to serve the transportation needs of the U.S. Army. The first wagon road built into the Uinta Basin was built in 1882 when the army constructed Fort Thornburg in Uintah County. With the aid of William A. Carter, Jr., son of Judge William A. Carter of the Fort Bridger area of Wyoming, the army had built the Carter Road over the Uinta Mountains to Carter, Wyoming, to supply Fort Thornburg. When the army moved to the newly constructed Fort Duchesne, the Carter Road was extended to the new fort. The Carter Road proved to be very difficult to haul heavy freight over from the railhead to the army posts in the Uinta Basin-espe­cially during the fall, winter, and early spring seasons. Delays in mov- 68 EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS 69 ing army freight from Green River, Wyoming, to Fort Thornburg were frequent, and freight often piled up at Green River. The Salt Lake Tribune reported on the freight conditions at Green River: there seems to be much doubt regarding the route of transporta­tion to be adopted for the new post. There is arriving at Carter sta­tion over one million pounds of freight to be sent forward, and the contractor, Mr. Winston, of Virginia, is pushing it forward as fast as he can, the distance being 130 miles.1 The army looked for an alternative route. Brigadier General George Crook of the Department of the Platte, headquartered in Nebraska, determined that a road from Park City to the Uinta Basin would be open longer during the year than the Carter Road. Soldiers were put to work in August to build the road from Park City to the Uintah Indian Agency. It is likely that this military freight road fol­lowed the south fork of the Provo River in Summit County over Wolf Creek Pass to the Duchesne River down past Hanna and then east to Fort Thornburg in Ashley Valley. Before the snows came in 1882, freight contractors Merrill L. Hoyt and Joseph Hatch were hauling military freight from the railroad depot at Park City to Fort Thornburg. Their rate was ten cents per hundredweight of freight. Other routes to Fort Thornburg and later to Fort Duchesne were constructed across what was later to become Duchesne County. One of the alternative roads constructed and used was the Daniels Canyon-Strawberry Valley route, which is currently followed by U.S. Highway 40. Before it was made into a freight road, the Daniels Canyon-Strawberry Valley route was used by some of the first settlers to trail their cattle to Ashley Valley. Another alternative route was the Indian Canyon route, which became a popular road briefly following the construction of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad tracks through Carbon County in 1883. These three roads over the Wasatch Mountains presented similar problems to the Carter Road for army freighters-deep snow, steep passes, and difficult terrain. Today, two of the early military freight roads, U.S. Highway 40 and the Indian Canyon road, are paved and heavily traveled. The Wolf Creek Pass road has been widened considerably, with a firm gravel roadbed in place. 70 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY Freighting on the Nine Mile Road, hauling supplies to Fort Duchesne from the railroad in Price was a major economic boon to early residents of the county. Freighters hauled supplies to the fort and Gilsonite from the mines to the railroad. The most common method was a double team of horses or mules and tandem wagons. (Uintah County Library-Regional History Center.) One of the best trails into the Uinta Basin, however, was through Nine Mile Canyon. This canyon provided a natural access into the basin and had been used by prehistoric Indians, Utes, mountain men, and others. When Fort Duchesne was built beginning in the fall of 1886 because of increased Indian difficulties, it was immediately decided that a better access road was needed to haul supplies to the new and larger fort. Early on, 275 men and support personnel assigned to the six companies of Fort Duchesne, along with dozens of camp followers, required increased supplies and a better year-round road. The Nine Mile Canyon Road The route through Nine Mile Canyon to the railroad in Price was deemed the best route by the army. For the army's needs none of the EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS 71 Freighters hauling Gilsonite to the railhead at Price before the Uintah Railroad was completed in 1904. The freighters route was from the mines in Uintah County through Fort Duchesne to Myton and then south on the Nine Mile Road. Notice the Gilsonite is sacked for easier handling. (Uintah County Library-Regional History Center, Neal Collection) existing roads provided what Nine Mile offered: the shortest distance from Fort Duchesne to a railroad, a more moderate grade, and a low pass through the Roan and Book Cliff mountains. It was so heavily used for twenty years that the road was aptly named the "Lifeline of Uintah Basin."2 However, the Nine Mile Road did have problems the other roads did not have-slippery rock and stretches without water and feed. Ironically, the Nine Mile Road, once the most-traveled road in northeastern Utah, is today the least used and poorest of the four military roads in Duchesne County. In the fall of 1886 the army, likely aided by John A. Powell, one of the early settlers of Price, located the r o u t e from Price through Nine Mile Canyon and u p Gate Canyon. The army immediately went to work to make the r o a d passable. Starting in August 1886 army labor crews worked on b o t h the road and a telegraph line through Nine Mile Canyon. By January 1887 the telegraph was completed and Fort Duchesne was connected with the rest of the world. A year later, a stage line was established to carry passengers and mail between 72 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY Price and the Uinta Basin. This was a welcome addition. Earlier a bi­weekly buckboard service had been established between Fort Thornburg and Green River, Wyoming.3 The discovery of Gilsonite and other hydrocarbons in the Uinta Basin led to even greater use of the Nine Mile route. Gilsonite, a rare hydrocarbon found in commercial quantities in only a few locations in the United States, has had many uses, including use as a sealant for beer barrels and as a base for paints, inks, and perfumes. The hauling of Gilsonite in 100-pound sacks provided a steady return-trip load for teamsters who were hauling freight to Fort Duchesne.4 An especially important hydrocarbon find occurred in 1888, and it promoted the Nine Mile Canyon Road as a general freight road. A small section of land about one mile east of Fort Duchesne subse­quently was removed from reservation lands by an act of Congress. With the Indians' consent, obtained through questionable means, the 7,040-acre "Strip" was segregated from the Uintah Indian Reservation and opened to mine Gilsonite. A wild, lawless mining town quickly sprang up on the isolated Strip. Being outside the boundaries of the Uintah Indian Reservation and at the extreme western end of Uintah County, the Strip was a place where federal and county law officers were rarely seen. The Strip was a short-lived town and was one of the favorite haunts of Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch, mainly because of the lack of organized law. In its heyday there were four saloons and at least that many "hog ranches," the frontier name for businesses in the red-light (prostitution) district. There were several deaths by gun-fights and a great deal of violence. The army tried unsuccessfully to keep its soldiers off the Strip in their spare time by posting guards on the bridge crossing the Uinta River. However, the soldiers swam the river to get to the Strip. Any soldier caught with a bottle of whiskey at the fort was in serious trouble. It soon became the usual practice of the returning soldiers from the Strip to consume all of their whiskey before crossing the river. A favorite location of the soldiers to get rid of their empty bottles was a small ravine or hollow near the eastern edge of the Strip. The Ute tribe later named a resort there Bottle Hollow Resort for the nearby hollow that contained evidence of the soldiers' discarded whiskey bottles. EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS 73 Another early freighter circa 1910. Although the tandem wagons was the most common, anyone with a team and a sturdy wagon could contract loads to haul. Note the water barrel on the back of the wagon box, the route from Myton to Price had several long dry stretches and the hard-working teams needed water that had to be hauled. (Uintah County Library- Regional History Center) The road from Fort Duchesne t h r o u g h Nine Mile Canyon to Price meandered southwest from Fort Duchesne, crossing the many area benches and gullies as it ascended the s o u t h slope of the Tavaputs Plateau. The summit, at 7,300-feet altitude, was an impos­ing barrier but not as difficult as t h e other mountain passes into the Uinta Basin. Gate Canyon, a steep, narrow, and winding canyon lit­tered with boulders and prone to flooding, sliced downward from the s u m m i t ' s south side to give access to Nine Mile Canyon after descending almost 1,600 feet in seven miles. The hills and canyons were an imposition to travelers, b u t the most serious p r o b l em was lack of water between Fort Duchesne and Nine Mile Canyon. For thirty-seven miles, between Minnie Maud Creek and the Duchesne River, there was n o water along the route. On this dry stretch of the 74 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY Open Gilsonite mine, The Duchesne Vein circa 1910. (Uintah County Library-Regional History Center, Don Snow Collection) road freighters had to haul water for themselves and their animals. Wrote one historian: "The only drink for man and beast was in bar­rels the outfits carried. For men on horseback and light rigs, it was not so bad, but for the freighters it was different; too much of the heavy loads had to be barrels of water."5 Owen Smith, a frequent traveler on the Nine Mile Road from its EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS 75 Smith Wells circa 1910. Smith Wells was the only stopping place between Nine Mile Canyon and Myton. Owen Smith hand dug the well and added the store and home shown here. It became an oasis for freighters, the stage­coach, and travelers. (Utah State Historical Society) beginning, knew the problems of thirty-plus miles of the dusty road without water. About halfway in that long dry stretch between the Duchesne River and Minnie Maud Creek was Gamma Grass Canyon, named for the native gamma grass that grows in the region. Smith recognized that Gamma Grass Canyon offered some shelter and pas­ture and lacked only water to make a good way-station. In 1891, with help from a well witcher, or water finder, from Price, Smith located a well site in Gamma Grass Canyon. He and oth­ers then hand dug a 180-foot hole before they found water. The water contained a high concentrate of salts and other minerals and was deemed fit only for use by animals. Even with this minor setback, Smith moved his family to the newly dug well and established his way-station, which was commonly known as Smith Wells. In time, Gamma Grass Canyon became known as The Wells Draw, the name by which the small valley is known today. The well itself was six feet square, timbered from top to bottom with cedar trees. A sizeable storage tank was made by blasting into 76 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY the solid rock at the bottom of the well. At the top of the well a whim powered by a horse hitched to a pole from a center capstan raised water from the bottom of the well.6 Smith Wells was essentially a collection of small stone and wooden buildings. Smith built his family a small frame house against the cliffs on the west side of the valley. His wife cooked daily meals of chili or stew for weary travelers, who also lodged at Smith Wells on their two-day journey between Price and Fort Duchesne or Vernal. There was another distinct advantage for Smith's way-station. It was midway between Vernal and Price. For the first few years of stage service, the stage between Price and Fort Duchesne operated twice weekly, carrying both passengers and mail. In 1889 the Fort Duchesne Stage Line, owned by Tom Miles, upgraded its service to a daily service between Price and Fort Duchesne. The Price Eastern Utah Telegraph advertised the Fort Duchesne Stage Line service as being "First Class."7 Years later, Frank Alger also operated a stage line between Fort Duchesne and Price. On average it took twelve hours for the stage to travel from Fort Duchesne or Price to Smith Wells. Arriving in early evening after a hard day's travel, passengers and mail then transferred to a fresh team and stage to continue their journey. In 1891 the stage line contracted overnight accommodations with Smith.8 For part of his payment from the stage company Smith was given a measure of potable water brought by the stages from the bridge at the Duchesne River and Minnie Maud Creek. Expanding his business, Smith afterwards added a general store and post office. For twenty-five years Smith Wells became a "refuge for all travelers of the Nine Mile Road."9 Prices for water and feed at Smith Wells varied over the years. For example, the price for water in 1910 for a team of six horses was $1.50; it was twenty-five cents per horse or cow, one cent per head of sheep, and ten cents to fill the radiator of a car. Dogs drank free.10 In its heyday, the Nine Mile Road was used so heavily that it was reported one could not travel for more than fifteen minutes with­out seeing another traveler on the road. The 100-mile trip between Vernal and Price took a teamster driving heavily loaded freight wag­ons an average of six days if the weather was good and much longer EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS 77 Owen Smith family in front of their home at Smith Wells, circa 1910. (Uintah County Library-Regional History Center) if the weather was poor. Most of the freight outfits used on the Nine Mile Road were four- or six-horse teams pulling two wagons hitched in tandem. This method made it possible to haul loads of three or four tons total weight. The impact of freighting was an important factor in establishing Price as a commercial center for eastern Utah. In addition to poor feed and lack of water between Minnie Maud Creek and the Duchesne River, there were other stretches of the road in the county which lacked adequate feed for animals. This required teamsters to haul their own hay and grain for their horses. Other freighter campgrounds were established along the Fort Duchesne and Price road, and there were stage stops about every twenty miles as well. The first campground from Price was at Soldier Station. Two stage stops were located in Nine Mile Canyon, one at the Tom Taylor Ranch, later known as Lee Station, and the other at Brock's Ranch at the mouth of Gate Canyon. Most freighters pushed from Brock's to Smith Wells the third day. The fourth day's haul was from Smith 78 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY Mail Wagon/Stage Coach en route from Price to Vernal, circa 1910. (Uintah County Library-Regional History Center) Wells to Myton, which was then called The Bridge. From Myton to Fort Duchesne was another day's journey; and, for those freighters hauling to Vernal, it was an additional day. The road was constantly a problem; it was hot, dry, and dusty in the summer and fall, cold and icy during the winter months, and muddy and filled with deep ruts in the spring. Many teamsters nar­rowly escaped freezing to death. Occasional winter storms with drifting snow often stranded teamsters and the daily stages. In 1891 the stage was stranded for an entire week before rescuers could reach it.11 Glazed ice made the passes especially treacherous during the winter months. In 1891 the newspaper in Price complained of the road conditions: We have heard a great deal of complaint in the last week in regards to the wagon road up Soldier Canyon. They say it is almost impos­sible for a team to get over it, as the road is a glare of ice, besides great danger of upsetting; and killing their teams and smashing their wagons to pieces.12 EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS 79_ Not only were bad roads and weather conditions a concern to teamsters, so too were Indians. Rarely openly hostile, some turned to running off stock during the night, and the next morning they would offer to find the "lost" stock for a fee. Facing these challenges, the teamsters usually traveled in groups of two or more.13 The road was used to transport millions of pounds of freight and thousands of travelers and settlers between 1886 and the early 1900s. In January 1891 more than 1.6 million pounds of freight was hauled over the Nine Mile Road to Price.14 Using conservative estimates, freighters hauled over 50 million pounds of freight over the Nine Mile Road between 1886 and 1915.15 This represented over 14,000 one-way trips for a team pulling an average load of 3,500 pounds. Light wagons, stage runs, cattle and sheep drives, and horseback rid­ers added to the traffic on the road, making it one of the most used roads in eastern Utah. The average shipping rate was just over a dol­lar for 100 pounds of freight for a one-way trip. High freight rates caused shippers to find ways to reduce the freight costs. Generally, the merchants refused to pay freight charges on the shipping crates. They had the freight weighed without the shipping crates before repacking and shipping the freight. It was left to the freighters to absorb the difference of the extra weight of the shipping crates.16 A freighter with a good team and wagon who was successful in finding freight to haul both ways often grossed as much as eighty dol­lars a week. Expenses for horse feed and care, maintenance of wag­ons, and other road expenses were then deducted from the gross income, leaving the freighter's average wages from fifty to one hun­dred dollars a month. For many, hauling freight over the Nine Mile Road to and from the Uinta Basin was a profitable venture, although it required long days and hard work. Freighting of army and Indian supplies and Gilsonite added significantly to the overall economic development of both the Uinta Basin and Carbon County. Nine Mile Settlement The extensive use of the Nine Mile Road encouraged the first legal homesteading in Duchesne County. Most of the western section of the Uinta Basin was reserved as an Indian reservation by presi- 80 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY Stage arriving in Myton, circa 1915. (Uintah County Library-Regional History Center.) dential proclamation in 1861. Abraham Lincoln's presidential procla­mation specifically stated that all land drained by the Duchesne River was to be included in the reservation. Lands south of the divide that separates the drainage of the Duchesne River from Minnie Maud, Argyle, and the other creeks that are tributaries to Nine Mile Creek and are found just north of the Carbon County line were not included in the reservation. When the Nine Mile Road was completed at about the same time Fort Duchesne was established in 1886, ranchers and settlers claimed land along the thirty miles of Nine Mile Canyon. A few ranchers had wandered into the area a few years earlier, but most came when the road was built and improved. The center point, socially if not geographically, was Brock's Ranch, located at the mouth of Gate Canyon. Here the army estab­lished a relay station for the telegraph line that was manned by sol­diers from Fort Duchesne. Brock's Ranch was also the last campground with good water before one left the canyon traveling EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS This peacock at the Nutter Ranch struts in front of the blacksmith shop and log building that was once the saloon where Pete Francis was killed in a shoot-out. (Utah State Historical Society) towards Smith Wells. This Brock, whose first name is unknown, was one of the first ranchers in the Nine Mile area, but within a short time of settling there he killed a man named Foote in a dispute and fled the country. His place was taken over by Pete Francis, who opened a saloon and a twenty-five-room hotel. Shortly after the establishment of several new businesses, Francis was shot and killed in a gunfight in his own saloon in 1901. Most Utah communities, at least those settled by Mormons in the nineteenth century, included a formal town site that had a religious, educational, and commercial center. The community of Harper, how­ever, was a collection of scattered ranches and stopping places that developed in Nine Mile Canyon as the Price-Fort Duchesne Road grew in importance. The 1890 census listed the larger area known as the Brock precinct as having a population of fifty. Ten years later, the precinct (later renamed Minnie Maud) more than doubled, with a population of 121. The population of Harper reached its largest size in 1910 with 130 residents.17 The popularity of the Price-Fort 84 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY men proved to be too much for the Utes to be able to protect their lands. In 1892 Indian agent Robert Waugh and the Indian Office in Washington, D.C, agreed that Strawberry Valley should be leased to ranchers of the area. Their rationale was twofold: first, the Utes did not have sufficient stock themselves to fully use the grazing grounds; and, second, to try to prevent trespassing was virtually impossible without expending more money or using the army. Waugh and oth­ers reasoned that if Strawberry Valley was leased to neighboring live­stock men the leases would ensure that Strawberry Valley would be kept free of transient cattle herds and other trespassers while at the same time raising money for the federal treasury. Soon after Nutter obtained his lease, other grazing interests, specifically sheepmen, sought grazing leases from the Ute Tribe. For several decades the production of sheep and wool had grown steadily in Utah. As a result, there was keen competition between sheepmen and cattlemen for the little remaining virgin summer grazing grounds found in the eastern part of the state. The leasing of grazing ground by the Ute Indian agent to sheep­men greatly disturbed Nutter. Like many other cattlemen of the time, Nutter viewed sheep and cattle as being incompatible on the same rangeland. In Nutter's view, sheep destroyed grasslands. Rather than risk a range war, Nutter moved his cattle to Nine Mile Canyon and the rangeland of the Tavaputs Plateau after his lease expired, and in 1902 he bought the Brock Ranch from the widow of Pete Francis.21 Nutter had little or no interest in running either a saloon or a hotel, and he converted the hotel into a bunkhouse for his cowboys. Cowboying was not always a lucrative profession; occasionally some cowboys did other kinds of work, which from time to time filled their pockets with more money than did their skills working cattle. Virginia Price, Nutter's daughter, explained: Between train and bank robberies, the outlaws often turned to rustling. Like a lot of other ranchers, Nutter often found it more practical to hire the outlaws to work as cowhands during their cooling off periods. Most of them were cowboys at one time or another and made top hands, but what was more important their code prevented them from rustling from an employer.22 EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS 85 Robert LeRoy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy, and several other outlaws fre­quented the Nine Mile region. (Uintah County Library-Regional History Center) Nutter's ranch headquarters was more than a collection of build­ings and cattle. When he bought the ranch he also acquired a lone­some peacock left by Mrs. Francis. Nutter, who preferred riding a mule to a horse, soon found a mate for the lonesome bird; as a result, 86 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY a flock of peacocks was a distinctive feature of Nutter's ranch for the next several decades. At the peak of Preston Nutter's cattle operation, his cattle ranged across public lands from Blue Mountain on the Colorado-Utah bor­der to the west Tavaputs Plateau, and south to the Arizona Strip in extreme northwestern Arizona. He owned several thousand acres in the bottoms of Nine Mile Canyon as well as on the mountains to the south and east of the canyon. On this sprawling ranch Nutter ran upwards of 25,000 cattle, which made him one of the largest cattle barons in Utah at the turn of the century.23 Nutter continued raising cattle, operating out of his Nine Mile Canyon base for the next several decades. He had gained such noto­riety and high regard that he was a consultant to Washington politi­cians on grazing issues and was a firm supporter of federal regulation of livestock grazing. Preston Nutter died in 1936; the ranch contin­ued in operation under the direction of his daughter Virginia Nutter Price.24 Indian Water: Non-Indian Users Illegal cattle grazing was not the only piracy of Ute Indian resources-water from the upper Strawberry River Valley and the Uintah Indian Reservation was a coveted prize beginning with the farmers from Heber Valley and then, at the turn of the century, with irrigators from Utah Valley. In 1879, farmers from Heber Valley stealthily constructed the Strawberry Canal to divert water from the Strawberry River into Daniels Creek to irrigate their thirsty farms. Four years later, the Strawberry Canal Company was formed with fifty stockholders, most of whom were the farmers who were using the water. Following the example of the Strawberry Canal Company, other farmers during the next several years dug additional canals. By 1904 some 991 acres of land were being irrigated by water diverted illegally from the Uintah Indian Reservation. In 1904 farmers from Utah Valley were planning the massive Strawberry Valley Reclamation Project, the largest of its kind planned in the state at the time. Irrigators were aided by Utah Senator Reed Smoot in their plans to divert water from the reservation. Soon after being elected, Smoot EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS 87 began applying political pressure to permit the diversion of water from the reservation. In a response to an enquiry made by him in December 1904 regarding water use and canal construction in Strawberry Valley, Uintah Indian agent H.P. Myton replied: " . . . while these people [the users of the diverted water] have no legal right to this water, I would recommend if it is at all possible that you permit them to continue to use the water."25 Myton's rationale was that there was only one Indian family living in the Strawberry Valley and the Utes were not using the water. The criminal behavior by white irri­gators was never brought before a court of law. These several early successful efforts to divert water from the Uintah Indian Reservation, the Uinta Basin, and later Duchesne County provided a framework for an even larger and much more costly reclamation project years later-the Central Utah Project- funded in large measure by the federal government and vigorously promoted and support by residents of the Wasatch Front and farmers of central Utah. Stockmore: Boom-Town Busted There were other whites who tried to take advantage of the resources found on the Uintah Reservation with a land scheme prof­itable to the promoters. This scheme involved land promoters who attempted to swindle greedy would-be miners. The mining hoax and land fraud began in a bar in Park City in the summer of 1905 prior to the opening to white settlement of the Uintah Indian Reservation. A stranger in Park City paid for his drink with a small gold nugget. Following several additional drinks, the Park City bar patron will­ingly told his tale of mining the small gold nugget from a discovery he had made in the upper Duchesne River Valley near the present-day community of Hanna. Within days, miners and others were in the valley wanting land. Two supposed owners of land in the valley, a Mr. Stockman and a Mr. Moore, were eager to sell lots in the new town they called Stockmore. Almost overnight a small town of tents and hastily built wooden buildings was established, including a gen­eral store, four saloons, a barber shop, a livery, and an assay office- all necessary businesses for a new mining town. One of the saloons was owned and operated by Frank Defa, who HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY later became well known for his homemade whiskey. It was not long, however, before the new townspeople and prospectors alike grew restless when the anticipated gold was not located. In such situations, tempers grew short and fights were common. It was clear that law and order was needed. By now the Uintah Indian Reservation had been opened to homesteading, and, as word reached county officials that land problems were occurring in Stockmore, a sheriff was sent to investigate. The two mining promoters, Moore and Stockton, took their leave of the valley before they could be questioned. The Stockmore residents and miners quickly came to the realization that they had been "sold" land that was at the time part of the Uintah Indian Reservation and that the land did not contain veins of gold. They soon abandoned their worthless claims and left the valley. Lumber from the abandoned buildings was later used by the legiti­mate homesteaders of Hanna. Months later the story filtered back to the Uinta Basin that the swindlers had made a very small gold strike in the Klondike region in Alaska. However, their small hoard of gold was insufficient to keep them in funds for long and so they had hatched the scheme involv­ing the land near Stockmore. Knowing the western portion of the former Ute reservation in far-off Utah was poorly policed, they planned to get rich selling mining claims and town lots to greedy prospectors.26 The two remained outside of Utah and the reach of the law and were never caught or prosecuted. Outlaws There were other nefarious characters who used the Uintah Indian Reservation for their own illegal purposes. Robert LeRoy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy, and his gang of outlaws known as the Wild Bunch commonly traveled through Nine Mile Canyon en route from Price to the Strip, Vernal, or Browns Park. Many local tales are told of Butch Cassidy and other outlaws visiting, eating with, and being warned of coming lawmen by ranchers and homesteaders along Minnie Maud Creek. One such story, told years later, tells of Butch and some of his men coming to the Nine Mile homestead where Mariah "Ma" Warren lived. The outlaws frequently stopped there while riding through the EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS 89 area and often traded trail-weary horses for fresh ones. O n one such visit, Ma Warren gladly prepared a meal for the travelers before they departed. The travelers made camp for the night a mile or two from Warren's place. No sooner had they gone than a posse from Carbon County came asking about the outlaws. Ma Warren claimed not to have seen or heard the outlaws. Following western courtesy, a meal was offered to the posse members. While cooking her second meal of the evening, Ma Warren had one of the children finish the cooking chores. She slipped out the back door to the corral where she quickly b r i d l e d a h o r s e a n d rode bareback a mile or two to t h e camp of Cassidy to warn h im of the lawmen's presence. She t h e n returned in time to serve the unsuspecting posse their meal.27 For years prior to the opening of the Uintah Indian Reservation, water users, ranchers, miners, swindlers, freighters, and others criss­crossed the reservation, legally and illegally. The extra-legal maneu-verings to gain access to Indian reservation lands were sufficiently l i m i t e d a n d quashed to prevent t h e o u t b r e a k of o p e n hostilities between Indians and whites and between competing white interests.28 However, public demand for prime land and other resources was suf­ficiently strong in the West that Indian reservation lands, including the Uintah Indian Reservation, were coveted. By t h e summer of 1905 Indian Office and U.S. Land Office officials had readied the Uintah Indian Reservation for white settlement and the eventual creation of Duchesne County, Utah's twenty-eighth county. ENDNOTES 1. Salt Lake Tribune, 2 September 1886. 2. Builders of Uintah: A Centennial History of Uintah County (Vernal: Uintah County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1947), 260-63. The origin of the name Nine Mile is obscure. Many have thought that it was named for the Miles family who lived there and had seven daughters; they, when added with the two parents, totaled nine Mileses, but there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the canyon was called Nine Mile prior to the Miles family liv­ing there. For additional readings on the name of the canyon see Edward A. Geary, "Nine Mile: Eastern Utah's Forgotten Road," Utah Historical Quarterly 49 (Winter 1981): 42-55. 3. House Executive Documents No. 1, Report of the Secretary of War, 1882, 47th Cong., lstsess., vol. 1, p. 113, Serial Set, 2010, University of Utah. 90 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY The annual reports of the Secretary of War for 1881 and 1883 also briefly discuss military roads in the western half of the Uinta Basin. 4. Gary Lee Walker, "Recollections of the Duchesne Strip," Outlaw Trail Journal 3 (Winter/Spring 1993): 2-11. See also Geary, "Nine Mile," 47-48. 5. George E. Stewart, "The Wells: Welcome Oasis Between the Duchesne and the Minnie Maud," Salt Lake Tribune, Home Magazine, 16 April 1972, H-8. 6. H. Bert lenson, "Smith Wells: Stagecoach Inn on the Nine Mile Road," Utah Historical Quarterly 61, (Spring 1993): 182-97. 7. Eastern Utah Telegraph (Price, UT), 5 March 1891. 8. Vernal Express, 27 October 1948. 9. See lenson, "Smith Wells," 182-97. 10. Ibid., 186. 11. Edward Geary, "Nine Mile: Utah's Forgotten Road," 50. 12. Eastern Utah Telegraph, 6 November 1891. 13. Edward A. Geary, "The Carbon County Freight Road to the Uinta Basin," in Philip F. Notarianni, ed., Carbon County: Eastern Utah's Industrialized Island (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1981), 138-43. 14. Ibid., 141. 15. This figure is a rough estimate based upon those figures that are available. In fall 1887, 2 million pounds of freight was transported in for the army; in 1895 the amount of freight hauled to Fort Duchesne dropped to 526,870 pounds. Averaging these two figures and then multiplying the years Fort Duchesne was in operation, and then doubling the amount again for hauling Gilsonite and other freight loads on the return trips leads to the fig­ure of about 50 million pounds. 16. lenson, "Smith Wells," 187. 17. See U.S. censuses for 1890, 1900, and 1910; see also Geary, "Nine Mile: Eastern Utah's Forgotten Road," 51. 18. H. Bert lenson, "Minnie-Maud School District," paper, 1992, Utah State University, Uintah Basin Branch Campus. 19. Kathryn MacKay, "The Strawberry Valley Reclamation Project and the Opening of the Uintah Indian Reservation," Utah Historical Quarterly 50 (Winter 1982): 72. 20. T.A. Byrnes to Commissioner of Indians Affairs, 8 November 1887, Letters Received, RG 75 NA, quoted in MacKay, "Strawberry Valley Reclamation Project," 70. 21. See Virginia N. Price and lohn T. Darby, "Preston Nutter, Utah EARLY ROADS, GRAZING AND SCHEMERS, AND OUTLAWS Cattleman, 1886-1936," Utah Historical Quarterly 32 (Summer 1964): 232-252. 22. Ibid., 241. 23. Ibid., 232-51. 24. Spangler, Paradigms and Perspectives, 832. 25. H.P. Myton to Reed Smoot, 5 December 1904, quoted in MacKay, "Strawberry Valley Reclamation Project," 72n20. 26. Elden Wilken, "Stockmore-Boom Town Busted," Outlaw Trail Journal2 (Summer/Fall 1992): 44-46. 27. This story was told to the author by Alma "Doc" Warren many years ago. Warren died in 1986 and was well into his nineties at that time. 28. In this era in other areas nearby range wars did erupt. In both Browns Park and the Blue Mountain region in western Colorado cattle-sheep wars raged for a short time.