Abiding faith in God and the determination to protect their freedom to worship led the Mormon pioneers to seek refuge in an unsettled mountain region. This Monument is a tribute not only to those who gave their lives on the trail across the plains, but to those who endured countless trials and privations and loved to make their new desert home blossom as a rose.

The Mormon pioneers moved slowly across nearly 1,400 miles of wilderness. With sweat and faith and fortitude they built hundreds of communities in the mountain vastness. With patient care, they planted and nourished the soil. As the land responded, a new Christian way of life emerged in the wilderness. The faith they embraced lives on today. Encouraging and strengthening a growing number of loves in many lands.

Between 1856 and 1860 some 3,000 handcart pioneers walked from Iowa to the Salt Lake Valley, pushing and pulling two-wheeled carts loaded with their belongings. Some 250 lost their lives on the handcart trail when trapped by blizzards in high mountain passes. The survivors helped build thriving communities in the mountains with a way of life offering eternal hope to all mankind.

Located at the Park/Memorial Garden for Brigham Young’s grave.

Location: 1st Avenue between State & A Street
On June 1, 1974, an eight-foot bronze statue was unveiled at the small Brigham Young Cemetery on 1st Avenue. Sculpted by Edward J. Fraughton, the monument depicts a pioneer father, mother and daughter in an embrace. The plaque is entitled “All is Well”

See other historic markers in the series on this page for SUP Markers.

Provo’s First Colonizers Soon Moved from a River Site to Higher Ground

In September, 1849, only six months after Provo’s original colonizers had build Fort Utah near where I-15 today crosses the Provo River, Brigham Young told the colonists to move onto the slightly elevated land to the east where there was not as much alkali in the soil and where they would be safer from floods.

By the next April, only a year after the colonists had established Fort Utah, they began their very gradual relocation to Fort Provo about a mile east of Fort Utah in what is now North Park at 500 West and 500 North. Colonists used logs salvaged from their old cabins and the palisade around Fort Utah, as well as newly cut logs, to build cabins around a 1,500-foot square at the new site.

The doors and windows of the cabins faced the inside of the square, exactly as they had been at Firt Utah. Some settlers made portholes in their cabins facing outside for defense against the Indians. Inside the square, workmen built a 50-foot-long log structure which they used as a school, church and civic building.

Surveyors began mapping a town play south of the fort in the summer of 1850. They started with the northwest quarter, with the road west of the fort (now 500 West) as Main Street.

Like at Fort Utah,the settlers did not inhabit Fort Provo very long. That fall, settlers began moving out of the fort and occupied lots along Main Street. By the spring of 1852, most of the colonists had moved to lots in town. Fort Provo stood almost deserted by that fall, but the land where it once stood has since been used for a variety of very important public uses, one being an ice skating rink.

This plaque is part of this series of historic plaques and is located in Riverside Park and along the Provo River Trail in Provo.

 

Provo’s Early Colonists Were Caught Between Two Warring Indian Bands

Early on the morning of April 12, 1849, less than two weeks after Mormon colonists arrived in Utah Valley, a frenzied group of Shoshone warriors whipped their ponies down the west side of what is now Grandview Hill and raced toward the sleeping Ute camp a half mile west of Provo’s first fort, located where I-15 today crosses the Provo River.

Screaming shrill war whoops and shooting their guns in the air, Chief Wanship and his Shoshones ran off the Ute horse herd tethered just outside the village. Startled Ute men ran from their lodges with rifles or bows in hand and launched a hurried counterattack to drive off the plundering Shoshones.

Several Ute men, including Little Chief’s son, received wounds, but nobody on either side was killed. Reckless shooting, however killed two horses and wounded two others. In the end, the Shoshones rode off with about 28 Ute horses and a few animals belonging to the colonists.

This raid placed the settlers in a difficult situation. If they sided with one band, their actions would offend the other band. Mormon leaders did try, unsuccessfully to negotiate the return of the stolen horses.

Little Chief borrowed horses from another band of Utah Valley Utes and mounted an effort to recover the horses by force or guile. This attempt proved to be costly for the colonists and the Utes. Little Chief, who had been relatively peaceful and cooperative, and his son died on this expedition. Ope-Carry, who was more volatile and warlike, replaced the former chief. Partially as a result of this, war between the Utes and the settlers broke out the following February.

This plaque is part of this series of historic plaques and is located in Paul Ream Wilderness Park and along the Provo River Trail in Provo.