On May 23, 1825, Peter Skene Ogden led a Snake River Expedition for the Hudson’s Bay Company from Flathead Post to the Bear River, thence into Cache Valley and Ogden’s Hole. Ogden was camped along the Weber River near present-day Mountain Green, Utah, when an American fur brigade leader Johnson Gardner approached him. Ogden wrote of the scene: “This morning Gardner came to my Tent & after a few words of no import, he questioned me as follows[:] Do you know in whose Country you are? To which I answer that I did not as it was not determined between Great Britain and America to whom it belonged, to which he made answer that it had been ceded to the latter & as I had no licence to trap or trade to return from whence I came.”  Ironically, neither Ogden nor Gardner had proper claim to the territory they were trapping in, as at the time it was Shoshone land claimed by Mexico, being south of the 42nd parallel. Gardner nevertheless told Ogden, “remain at your peril,” and then went to see the Iroquois (Mohawk/Metis) Freemen trapper John Grey.

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The Jacob Hamblin home has its stone foundation buried deep in the history of southern Utah. As a teenager, Jacob Hamblin had a spiritual experience wherein he felt called to work as an intermediary between the Latter-day Saints and Natives, which he felt was a lifetime calling. In 1854, Brigham Young called Hamblin and two dozen men to serve in the Southern Utah Indian Mission to work among the Paiutes. Hamblin founded the town of Santa Clara that same year, naming it after the nearby Santa Clara River. Hamblin and other Latter-day Saint newcomers recruited local Paiutes to assist them in the construction of Fort Clara. Hamblin and his family lived there until a great flood destroyed the fort and much of the settlement in 1862.  With Fort Clara destroyed, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent skilled stone mason to build Hamblin a home for Hamblin and his family, consisting of wives Rachel Judd, Sara Priscilla Leavitt, and their respective children in 1863. After Rachel passed away he married Louisa Bonelli in 1865. The Hamblin home operated as the mission home, yet his important duties as president of the Southern Utah Indian Mission and as an Indian agent kept Hamblin from being home on many occasions. Yet, his endeavors in the region proved influential and significant for the Church and to Utah Territory. In 1868 the families moved to Kanab, where he continued his missionary labors among the Hopis and Navajos. Hamblin’s wife Priscilla fondly recalled, “With regrets, we left the big rock house in Santa Clara [in 1868]. This had been our first real home.” Jacob Hamblin’s work took him throughout Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona. Between 1858 and 1863 he circumnavigated the Grand Canyon by boat. Later, in 1867, Hamblin floated down the Colorado River from the mouth of the Grand Wash to the Virgin River. In addition to his exploration ventures, Hamblin worked hard to establish peaceful relations with the neighboring tribes. In one such instance, local Paiutes worked with Latter-day Saints to build a dam to hold water for irrigating land around Santa Clara. In 1856, little rain fell and the crops wilted. Some Paiutes blamed Hamblin.  The next morning Hamblin prayed, asking God for rain so that the settlers and Paiutes might maintain good relations. Having received an answer, Hamblin reported to all that they would indeed have the water they needed. The following day it began to rain, and that year the settlers and Paiutes grew record crops. From that time on, Hamblin held great standing among the Paiutes. Hamblin also brokered a peace between the Latter-day Saints and the Navajos at Fort Defiance, Arizona. Hamblin’s life is replete with moments like these—miracles, treaties, and the development of great relations with Natives. While Jacob Hamblin and his family only lived in the Jacob Hamblin home for several years, it stands as a lasting testament to the man who proved so instrumental in the development of southern Utah.

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In 1946, Charles Kelly and friend Frank Beckwith visited Chief Wakara’s burial site in Dry Canyon, near Meadow, Utah. Unfortunately, the grave had been robbed and emptied in 1909. Kelly and Beckwith confirmed this, finding the hole Wakara had once rested in and the stones and poles that once covered it. The monument built in 1973 does not mark Wakara’s exact burial place. Chief Wakara was born in the Utah Valley in the early nineteenth century. According to historian Gustive O. Larson, he was seen as “subtle, vain, and cruel.” According to others, he was “looked upon generally as unpredictable, clever, and savage.” When his father the chief died, he and his siblings entered a bloody succession struggle from which he wrested tribal leadership. Not many details exist of Wakara’s childhood, so historians looking at his life often cite the general history of the Western Utes. Very important to the Utes’ migration patterns and economic activities were horses. Horses made hunting and combat more efficient and allowed the Utes to expand the area (and people) they extracted resources from. To ensure that horses had plentiful grass, the Utes migrated back and forth between California and Utah along the Old Spanish Trail. The Utes raided more horses from California missions and also traded Paiute and Goshute enslaved persons along this trail as well.  In 1847, the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Great Salt Lake valley. This was the beginning of a near-complete disruption of Wakara and the Utes’ way of life. Trade was a central tenet of Wakara and Brigham Young’s initial friendship. Brigham Young’s policy towards Indians was to establish peace through trade and gift-giving. For Wakara, he saw the arrival of the Mormons as the start of a convenient and profitable trading relationship.  While peaceful at first, their relationship soured as resources that Wakara’s Utes had once relied on were exhausted and as Mormons interrupted the highly profitable Indigenous slave trade. In July 1853, the Ivie Incident served as the catalyst for the Walker War, which lasted into the spring of 1854. Interestingly, Wakara spent most of the war outside the territory on the Old Spanish Trail. In 1855, Wakara died of pneumonia, and with his death, Ute territory became gradually incorporated into Utah Territory.

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Despite its name, the western explorer John C. Frémont was the first to traverse the trail that came to be known as Hastings Cutoff. The route was named after Lansford Warren Hastings in the following summer of 1846 when Hastings made it famous in his Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, encouraging those headed westward to take it and save three hundred miles. He also promised that he would meet emigrants at Fort Bridger and guide them the rest of the way. That promise further convinced the Donner brothers and James Reed of the wisdom of taking the cutoff, though several in the party decided to stick with the proven trail. Unfortunately, Hastings had already left Fort Bridger to guide emigrants already on the trail by the time the Donner-Reed Party arrived at the fort. He promised to leave letters with directions for them. Edwin Bryant, a fellow expeditioner, advised in a letter to Reed that the plans to take the cutoff be abandoned. There was a forty-mile stretch devoid of water and the trail was simply not fit for wagons. Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez withheld Bryant’s letter, however, since they had a financial interest in seeing Hastings Cutoff traveled. Partly because they did not receive that letter, the Donner-Reed Party pressed on.  Almost nothing that the Donner-Reed Party understood about the cutoff was accurate, from the easiness of the way to the length of the trail and the available supplies of water and provisions. In her diary, Virginia Reed Murphy recorded that “at times it was hard to find any trace of the cutoff.”  Hastings left extremely vague directions along the way and refused to guide the Donner-Reed Party when Reed, C. T. Stanton, and William Pike went and asked for his help. It was too dangerous to continue through Weber Canyon, so they took their chances in uncharted territory, where there were no roads or clear paths through the trees and underbrush. Virginia noted that “It took the men six days to clear a trail only thirteen miles in length.” They finally got through the Wasatch Mountains and by the time they reached the Great Salt Lake, the cutoff had taken a month (as opposed to the promised week) “and our cattle were so exhausted that they were not fit to cross the desert.”  It truly is no wonder that once Virginia was settled in California, she wrote the following to friends back in the East who were planning to travel West: “Bring nothing but provisions and just enough clothing to last until you get here…and don’t take any cutoffs.”  Much of the scholarship about Hastings Cutoff is about Hastings himself, if he were just as much a victim of the hard trail as the others or a scheming charlatan. Most people choose to believe the latter, especially as he received several death threats for his advice.

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William Temple Hornaday (1854-1937) was among the first and most notable individuals in the fight to protect the American bison. In his The Extermination of the American Bison, Hornaday noted the decimation of the bison and called for the animals’ protection by state and national governments. By 1886, concerns about the potential extinction of the bison loomed, so Hornaday, as Chief Taxidermist at the Smithsonian Institution, traveled to Montana to collect specimens. These bison were some of the last from the wild herds found between the Yellowstone and the Missouri rivers, an area that had witnessed the last Blackfeet buffalo hunt in 1879.  Hornaday killed and conducted the taxidermy on these six bison specimens and exhibited them at the Smithsonian in 1887. They remained there on permanent exhibit until 1955. The Smithsonian decided to dismantle the display and returned them to Montana. The group of bison were split up and put into storage, lost for years. Eventually, Doug Coffman (who studied the history of the bison at the Smithsonian) set out to find them in the 1980s. After being found and restored, the bison were put back on public display in 1996. Today, these six bison can be seen at the Hornaday Smithsonian Buffalo and Dean & Donna Strand Western Art Gallery, located within the Fort Benton Museum & Heritage Complex in Fort Benton, Montana.  The bison are exhibited in the same arrangement in which they originally appeared at the Smithsonian. Notably, the large bull in the collection has served as a model for various national symbols and government designs, including coins, paper currency, postage stamps, and the Great Seal of the Department of the Interior, cementing its place as a symbol of American heritage. In 2016, President Barack Obama signed a bill into law naming the bison as America’s mammal.

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In March 1862, the Battle of Glorieta Pass emerged as a pivotal moment in the Civil War as Confederate troops attempted to seize control of New Mexico, a territory long coveted by the South for its mineral wealth and strategic position along important routes of trade. After capturing Santa Fe on March 13, Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley and his Confederate forces sought to consolidate their gains by advancing toward Fort Union, the last major Union stronghold in the New Mexico territory. However, their path was obstructed by the determined forces of Colonel John Slough, who were preparing to mount a counteroffensive against Sibley’s attack. Slough's division, bolstered by 800 Colorado volunteers, began their march from Fort Union to engage Sibley’s troops. The Union strategy hinged on thwarting the Confederate advance and securing vital supply lines. As the two armies maneuvered toward each other, they both sought to control the strategic high ground at Glorieta Pass. On March 28, the two sides met in Apache Canyon, with skirmishes erupting as the Confederate forces attempted to strike the enemy first. Initially caught off guard, the Confederates regrouped and engaged the Union troops ferociously. The fighting soon escalated, with the Union holding the high ground and utilizing artillery to devastating effect against Confederate assaults. Despite this advantage, Colonel Sam Shropshire was killed, a critical blow to the Union’s command. As the battle raged, the Confederate forces made a series of bold charges in an attempt to break through Union lines. They managed to push the Federals back, but their success was tempered by heavy casualties. By the afternoon, Sibley’s forces found themselves at a critical juncture. Their position had begun to erode under the relentless fire of Union artillery, which had effectively neutralized many of their advances. In a dramatic turn of events, the Confederate forces received alarming news from their base of operations at Johnson’s Ranch. A Union column, led by Captain John Chivington, had launched a surprise attack on the Confederate supply camp, destroying vital resources and inflicting further damage. With eighty supply wagons burned and many pack animals lost the Confederates faced a tenuous situation, exacerbated by their own diminishing supplies. Recognizing the untenable nature of their position at Glorieta Pass, Sibley ordered a retreat to Santa Fe to regroup. Meanwhile, Colonel Slough seized the opportunity to coordinate a follow-up attack, intent on pushing the Confederates further back. The Union forces, now reinvigorated, were ready to capitalize on their opponent’s misfortunes. By March 29th, it was clear to the Confederate commanders that the battle had not yielded the decisive victory they had sought. Retreating to Santa Fe, Sibley hoped to reestablish communication with the Texas government for reinforcements. However, dwindling supplies hampered their efforts, leading to a chaotic withdrawal from the region as they attempted to escape the approaching Union forces.  The Battle of Glorieta Pass marked a turning point in the New Mexico Campaign, symbolizing the failure of Confederate ambitions in the Southwest. Although both sides incurred significant losses—432 Union casualties and 187 Confederate—the aftermath proved disastrous for Sibley’s forces, setting the stage for further Union advances in the territory. The battle ultimately underscored the Confederacy's vulnerability, dashing their hopes of establishing a stronghold in the West, and left them to retreat back to Texas with little more than the remnants of their once-promising campaign.

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Born in 1796 in Kentucky, Thomas Rhoads fought for the U.S. Army in the War of 1812. Marrying his first wife Elizabeth Forter in 1817, having sixteen children together, he then converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1835. Rhoads belonged to the Danites and to the Nauvoo Legion as Lieutenant. He moved his family from Illinois to Missouri and finally to California. Rhoads led the first LDS pioneers into future Utah Territory in 1846, before continuing west into California, where he struck gold. After Samuel Brannon refused church leaders’ call to return to Great Salt Lake City, Brigham Young wrote to Rhoads asking him to lead members and tithes back to Salt Lake.

Sent by his wealthy merchant father, Curtis Edwin Bolton sailed to Europe in 1832 to study French and German, leaving his fiancée behind in New York. At twenty-years-old Curtis Edwin Bolton was 5’9” with blue eyes and black hair. He returned stateside in the fall of 1834. As a new convert, he pilgrimaged with the diaspora of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1848. His first winter, he taught French in the evenings in their bedbug-infested fort. In 1849, Curtis accepted a mission call to serve in France, embarking with a small group of missionaries. While Curtis labored to translate the Book of Mormon into French in his Paris apartment in 1851, a tangible stillness fell upon the noisy bustling city as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte’s troops flooded through the streets nearby. On signal, the soldiers leveled their weapons at the innocent bystanders watching out their windows. With an infernal roar of artillery, they bombarded thousands of men, women, and children. After hiding in his apartment for two days, Curtis stepped out, stunned by the destruction of the coup d’état. He resided in France until 1853.  Life pulled him to the frontier desert areas of southern Utah Territory. He led a Fourth of July celebration in Santaquin, rode the rapids in the Muddy Mission, and taught school in Long Valley and Monroe. Popular in local elections, he served as Piute County Clerk and Justice of the Peace, in addition to merchant, miner, and sawmill owner.  Proud of his robust nature, he boasted he could walk fifty miles in one day. His strength and endurance fueled many of his accomplishments. In his sixties, he homesteaded in Piute County near the Sevier River, where he built his final home, a two-room log house with a shingle roof and board floor. He also dug miles of irrigation ditches and cultivated twenty acres (SLC Land Office, Curtis Bolton homestead file). He founded a town called Boltonheim, meaning “Bolton home” in German, located five miles south of Marysvale, where he served as the postmaster from 1878 until 1880. In those days, a letter only cost three cents for postage. A stroke in 1883 prompted Curtis to transfer ownership of his homestead to Sarah Howes, in exchange for her pledge of lifelong care. After battling stiffness in his right hand for two years, he stepped down from his role as county clerk at the age of seventy-three. Curtis’s life reflects the adventurous drive that brought many pioneering individuals westward.

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Lonetree, Wyoming, is situated just north of the high Uinta Mountains and twenty miles south of Fort Bridger. Henrys Fork River, a tributary of the Green River, first brought fur-trading Europeans to the area. Those who stayed were the descendants of LDS pioneer Captain Isaac Bullock. Bullock was sent to the area by Brigham Young in the early 1850s. The Bullocks were joined by many other families. These homesteaders eventually turned to ranching.  In 1897, an immigrant from Manchester, England, named Herbert Joshua Gregory came to Lonetree. Since the old post office run by R. Handley had burned down, Gregory built his own. Gregory’s store provided necessary supplies and correspondence to the ranchers and townspeople in the area. A visitor to the store could expect news of deaths, births, stolen livestock, grazing permits, events, and even outlaws. Dances, turkey hunts, games, and gatherings of all kinds took place around the Gregory store. It is said that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were among the outlaws who stopped by Gregory’s store and interacted with members of the community. Gregory was the postmaster until his death in 1952, and the title of postmaster would remain in his family until 1982 when the post office closed.

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Over a thousand years ago, Fremont Indians inhabited southern Utah in an area known as the Parowan Gap. Once a flowing river, the Parowan Gap dried out over time. Erosion by wind and rain have further shaped this 600 foot deep notch or pass used by Natives and newcomers to traverse the Red Hills, a low range of mountains that forms the western border of the Parowan Valley. Hopis, Utes, and Paiutes used this area to travel back and forth to obtain resources and mingle with one another.

About 13 miles west of Parowan are the famous petroglyphs, carved or pecked into the sedimentary rock walls of this historic landmark. Petroglyphs depict images of people, animals and different lines and shapes, although the meaning of some of the depictions remains a mystery. Images of humans, snakes, mountain sheep, and lizards fill the wall panels. Archaeologists believe the gallery represents rock art extending over a thousand years. Some researchers postulate the wall was used for religious purposes and others contend the engravings represent a hunting ritual. One petroglyph depicts a calendrical system indicating when to plant and harvest crops. Zipper Glyph, the most famous petroglyph, depicts the route Paiutes traveled and indicates how long their journey through the gap might take.

The petroglyphs at Parowan Gap are fragile and can be ruined by human touch or by trying to chalk over them. Enjoy them at a distance by taking a photo or sketching them yourself. Everyone shares a responsibility to help preserve archaeological and historically significant sites.

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In 2006, an archaeological discovery in Nephi, Utah, shed light on a tragic event that occurred in 1853 during the Walker War, also known as the Wakara War. The excavation revealed a mass grave containing the remains of seven Goshutes, including a young boy. The bodies were found piled on top of each other. Forensic analysis discovered gunshot wounds, shattered bones, and evidence of blunt force trauma.

The Wakara War between settlers and Utes was infuriated by the encroachment of additional LDS settlements in Utah and Sanpete counties in Utah Territory. The incident in Nephi occurred on October 2, 1853, when a group of Utes or Goshutes came to the fort. The account reported in the Deseret News portrayed the Natives as aggressors in a tussle they initiated with the militia. Recent research, including the discovery of journals of witnesses Adelia Wilcox and Martha Spence Heywood, however, contradict this narrative.

The forensic evidence from the mass grave suggests that the Native men, ranging in ages from 16 to 25, were not killed in a skirmish but were executed. Gunshot wounds in the back of the head and traumatic injuries indicate a cold-blooded killing, challenging the original historical account. The discovery of the mass grave by construction workers laying a foundation for a home in 2006 provided an opportunity to combine scientific discovery, archaeology and forensic analysis, and historical records to correct and update the historical narrative and include the perspectives of those killed. The story of the Nephi mass grave is a significant reminder of the complexities surrounding historical narratives and how archaeological revelations can amend those stories.

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Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane ventured through Yellowstone National Park in the early 1870s on a commission by the United States government to explore the western territory. In 1871, the Hayden Geological Survey named a prominent mountain after the military leader, effectively preserving his legacy. Mount Doane stood as a monument to the lieutenant’s efforts and exploration in the West. But this narrative by the Geological Survey left much untold.

Doane participated in several conflicts with Native people including the Sioux War, the Nez Perce War, and the Apache Campaign in the years leading up to his exploration of Yellowstone. In 1870, he led an attack against the Piikani/Piegan Blackfeet, now known as the Marias Massacre. On January 23, 1870, the United States Army attacked Chief Heavy Runner’s Piegan village at dawn, killing some 173 people, including elderly and children. The camp had been ravaged by smallpox, leaving them defenseless. Such an atrocity went unacknowledged while Mount Doane stood as a legacy to one of the men who perpetrated it.

To better represent Indigenous peoples and their histories, Yellowstone National Park sought to change the name of Mount Doane and other controversially named sites. The park reached out to organizations like the Rocky Mountain Tribal Council and the Wyoming Board of Geographic Names. In collaboration with and recommendations by these groups, the National Park Service changed the peak’s name to First Peoples Mountain on June 9, 2022. With a vote of 15-0 in support of the change by the US Board on Geographic Names, the mountain became a monument to the memory of the people killed in the Marias Massacre. This change marks an important shift in the ways Indigenous peoples are represented in the historical narrative and historical memory.

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Antelope Island holds great historical and geographical significance to the current and previous inhabitants of the Great Salt Lake, whose water levels rose and fell repeatedly. The interactions and ties between Natives and the Island are deeply embedded in the island’s history, encompassing exploration, resource utilization, cultural exchanges, and adaptation over millennia.

Paleo, Archaic, and Fremont Peoples:

The earliest residents of Antelope Island, Paleo peoples, are estimated to have arrived in the region over 12,000 years ago. Like more recent Indigenous peoples, First peoples found the area accommodating for hunting, gathering, fishing, and insect roasting. These shoreline populations resided in caves, bush dwellings, or shelters constructed with nearby natural resources. Shoreline peoples hunted geese and rabbits and gathered berries, roots, and seeds along the Great Salt Lake’s shoreline. As climate changes occurred, island inhabitants adapted. The transition from Paleo-Indians to Archaic peoples (roughly 8000 B.C.E.) and later to the Fremont (300 B.C.E.) is evident, with each group utilizing the island’s resources differently. Archaic peoples used fine-pointed spears to hunt megafauna, big game, smaller mammals, rodents, and birds. About 2,000 years ago, the Fremont practiced many of the same food gathering techniques as their predecessors, but also farmed corn and traded with the southern Ancestral Puebloans. Around 1100 A.D., immigrants from southern California entered the scene and marked the end of the Salt Lake Fremont era, transitioning into occupation by the Numic speaking peoples including the Shoshones, Utes, and Goshutes.

Nineteenth century: