Intermountain Histories

Parowan Gap Petroglyphs

2024-09-25T20:44:31+00:00

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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Parowan’s Old Rock Church

2019-02-09T06:40:26+00:00

A symbol of Pioneer accomplishment, Parowan’s Old Rock Church functioned as a Church meetinghouse, community recreation center, and schoolhouse for fifty-two years. Today it continues to preserve the history of Parowan as a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers museum.

On 17 November 1861, the Parowan City Council discussed building a new meetinghouse for their community. This new meetinghouse would replace the original Log Meeting House built by the Iron County Missionaries a decade earlier. A plan was presented to the city council by community members, in which they determined that the building would be 54 by 44 feet and built of locally quarried rock. It would consist of three stories: a basement divided in half to serve as a place for school and other community activities, a middle floor for a meeting hall, and an upper story balcony. On 24 November Parowan residents were asked to make subscriptions to fund the building. Eighty-two men offered financial assistance, and they raised a total of $7, 495. The construction of the Rock Church began in December of 1861 at a site chosen in the middle of the town square.
The small settlement of Parowan in which the Old Rock Church was built had been founded on 13 January 1851 by a group of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints serving in the Iron County Mission led by Elder George A. Smith. This group worked to establish the first settlements in Southern Utah, and were joined over time by incoming settlers. Now the community, a decade after the original founding, came together to build a house of worship and a place of gathering. The varied skills and crafts possessed by these men and women came together in this large project. Some men quarried stone, plastered, did wood working, and a few molded wagon wheel shaped ceiling ornamentations. The women contributed through making rag carpet for the floors of the meetinghouse. In January of 1868 the basement was completed and meetings and dances commenced in it. Finally, in April 1870 construction on all stories finished and the first meeting was held in the upper story of the meetinghouse, which Brigham Young attended on a return trip from Southern Utah.
After its completion, the Rock Church served as a meetinghouse for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a town meeting place, a community recreation center, the first Latter-day Saint seminary in Parowan, a school house, a dance hall, and for a time it housed the Parowan State Academy and Parowan High School. A stage was added to the basement, and for several years the Parowan Dramatic Association put on plays there.
After fifty-two years of use, a new church building was erected nearby in 1919, causing the Old Rock Church to go out of use. Then, in 1927 the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers obtained the site. They worked to restore it to its original condition and converted it into a museum and meeting place for their organization. It remains a museum to this day, filled with photographs, clothing, household items, tools, books, and histories that preserve and tell the story of Parowan and its pioneers.
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The Meeks Homestead

2018-06-08T00:02:21+00:00

Priddy Meeks moved west with other Mormon pioneers in 1847. In 1851, he built a home in Parowan, Utah. Priddy, over the next ten years, adopted an Indian girl, married his third wife, and helped residents as the only doctor in southern Utah.

Priddy Meeks joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1840. He moved with other members of the church to Salt Lake City in 1847 when he was fifty-one years old. When Brigham Young encouraged the Saints to spread across the West, Priddy moved south to Parowan, Utah. Priddy wrote in his journal, “I left Salt Lake to go to Parowan to live to help strengthen the place against the Indians.” When Priddy arrived, everyone lived within the fort for protection. Despite the danger, Priddy built a home outside the fort and was the first to do so.
Priddy decided to build a log cabin with an adobe brick chimney. He chopped down wood with an axe and then flattened the logs with an adze so that they fit close together. He used square nails to hold the house together and chinked the small openings between the logs. The loft on the east side of the cabin was accessible only by a ladder placed outside the home. Due to the heavy snowfall in the area, Priddy decided to shingle his roof and give it a steep pitch so that the snow would slide off. After Priddy finished building his cabin, other residents of the fort began to venture out and build homes as well.
Relations with the Indians were tense at first. The Indians killed the pioneers’ calves for food, and one Indian struck the wife of John D. Lee. Another Indian offered to whip the offending Indian until Mr. Lee was satisfied. Mr. Lee agreed to the whipping and Priddy wrote, “The Indians paid more respect to our rights after that. The more the Indians became acquainted with us, the more they liked us.” Indian relations also changed when the Mormons were exposed to the Indian slave trade. One Indian killed the child he was trying to sell after a Mormon refused to buy. This event contributed to Brigham Young encouraging members of the church to buy Indian children. He asked members to educate the children, adopt them into their families, and teach them Mormon beliefs. Priddy Meeks bought a young Indian girl whom he named Lucy and raised with his other children.
Priddy Meeks had nineteen children from his three wives. He had four children with Mary Bartlett before she died in 1823. Three years later, he married Sarah Mahurin and they had five children together. Then in 1856, while living in Parowan, Sarah encouraged him to take a second wife. Priddy married Mary Jane McCleve on November 12, 1856 and they had ten children together. Priddy took care of his family and the residents of southern Utah as the first doctor in that region. He lived in Parowan for ten years before moving to Harrisburg, Utah.
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