Pleasant Valley Junction about 1/2 mile south of this site, began in the early 1880’s when the Rio Grande Railroad extended the main line from Tucker over the summit into Carbon County. A round house was built and a branch line extended to the Pleasant Valley Coal camps. All coal shipped from Pleasant Valley used this new route. The area, renamed Colton in the late 1890’s, was important as a railhead for livestock shipment, general freight and a thriving ice industry. Another part of Colton’s economy was the mining and milling of ozokente, a mineral wax found only here and in Austria. The store behind this monument was moved from the original townsite in 1936. Dedicated July 13, 1991.

On September 11, 1776. Two Franciscan Priests, Father Escalante & Father Dominguez entered what is now the State of Utah, and several weeks later camped in a mountain pass.
It is believed that the fathers gave the pass its first name, calling it Grassy Pass. The name was changed to Soldier Pass when Johnson’s Army at Camp Floyd was ordered east in 1861, about 40 officers & enlisted men from the Southern States were given permission to leave the U.S. Army & go south to join the Confederate Army. They arrived at Grassy Pass in a blizzard, six or seven men & a fourteen year old boy were frozen to death & were buried by a spring near the summit of the pass. The Rio Grande Western Railroad Company in 1880 named the pass Soldier Summit in its first time table.