Mt. Pleasant, a small town nestled at the foot of the mountains in Sanpete County near the geographical center of Utah, was settled early in 1859. During June the men kept busy tending their crops and building a fort, twenty-six rods by twenty-six rods, enclosing about five and one-half acres of grounds between Main Street and First North and State Street and First East.

The wall was twelve feet high, four feet wide at the bottom tapering to two feet at the top, and constructed of native rock laid with lime mortar, according to specific instructions. Sixteen feet of the fort wall was allowed for each cabin built inside the fort; each had one porthole about seven feet from the ground. Water was obtained from Pleasant Creek, which passed almost parallel east and west through the center of the fort. Corrals for all the live-stock were built to the north, just outside the fort, leaving a roadway between. Completed on July 18, 1859, the fort had the distinction of being the finest in Sanpete County.

The first break in the fort wall was made in 1878 to make room for the new, enlarged ZCMI store to be built in the southwest corner of the fort. The town had grown from about 800 to 1,200, but only a few families still lived inside the fort, then called the Tithing Yard.

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