This monument marks the site of the Grantsville Fort built in1853 as protection against the Indians. The fort was thirty rods square with walls twelve feet high five feet thick at the base ad eighteen inches thick at the top. The north wall was one hundred forty three feet north of this point.
About fifty people lived inside the fort during the early settlement of the town of Grantsville, which was named in honor of George D. Grant, one of its pioneers.
This historic marker is located at the Grantsville First Ward Chapel at 297 West Clark Street in Grantsville, Utah. It was erected July 24, 1934 by the Grantsville Chapter of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and by the Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association.
The first yearlong abode of white men in what is now Utah, was Antoine Robidoux’s Indian and fur trading post (Fort Wintey or Uintah), which was built 8 miles north of here in 1832. It was on the trail from Taos, New Mexico to the Pacific Northwest, and from Utah Lake to the Platte River region. Many Trappers traded and wintered here. Several distinguished travelers sojourned here, including Kit Carson, Joseph Williams, Rufus B. Sage, Marcus Whitman, A. L. Lovejoy and John C. Fremont, all prior to the burning of the post by Indians in 1844.
In Honor of James Bridger 1804 – 1881 Early western fur trapper, frontiersman, scout and guide.
To settle a wager among the trappers who were making their first winter rendezvous in Cache Valley Bridger floated alone in a bull boat down Bear River to its outlet to determine the river’s course in the late autumn or early winter of 1824, thus making the original discovery of Great Salt Lake. But believing he had discovered a salty arm of the Pacific Ocean, he halted at such view points as this en route to reconnoitre.
This historic marker is #10 in a series by the Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association (see those here), which was adopted by the Sons of Utah Pioneers (see those here).
This page is to document a historic marker that is no longer there, it was part of the Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association series which is documented on this page.
Tyler Thorsted has gathered the following information, he has an awesome resource and is one of the best researchers I know.
No 31
Erected Nov. 11, 1933
Donner-Reed Trail
The ill-fated Donner-reed party, California immigrants, passed here about September 10, 1846 and continued northwesterly attempting to follow the Hastings Cutoff across the Great Salt Desert.
Feed and water were exhausted, thirty six oxen died or were lost, several wagons were cached or abandoned. Struggling on, they recuperated in the “Valley of Fifty Springs” but were later overwhelmed by early snows in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Thirty six of the eighty one persons died before rescue parties arrived.
Caches mentioned by Captain Howard Stansbury were located in 1933 by the Grantsville High School.
Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association and Grantsville High School
In 1845, it took six months to get a message from the east coast of the United States to California. By the time it arrived, the news was old. In the late 1850s, a half million people had migrated west, and they wanted up-to-date news from home. Something had to be done to deliver mail faster and to improve communication in the expanding nation.
“The Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company,” a subsidiary of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, announced the formation of the Pony Express on January 27, 1860. They planned to carry letter mail between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California in only ten days. Although the Pony Express was a financially risky enterprise, the company hoped to attract a lucrative contract with the U.S. Postal Service.
Knowing that a healthy horse could run at a full gallop for only 10 to 12 miles, the Pony Express needed stations for its riders to change mounts. They utilized existing stage stations on the eastern end of the route, but needed to build many new station in remote areas across the Great Basin. Alexander Majors said that 400 to 500 mustang horses were purchased, 200 men were hired to manage the station, and 80 riders signed on to begin the run of the Pony Express.
Although the Pony Express captured the admiration, imagination, and hearts of people, it was a financial disaster for its founders. The Pony era, however, was not brought to an end by its financial failure, weather, or even problems with Indians – but by the completion of the Transcontinental Telegraph on October 26, 1861.
“Every neck is stretched, and every eye stained… Across the endless prairie a black spec appears… In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling – sweeping toward us – growing more and more distinct, and the flutter of hoofs comes faintly to the ear – another instant a whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider’s hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go winging away like belated fragment of a storm.” – Mark Twain – Roughing It, 1872.
Expedient Delivery
The goal of the Pony Express was to provide speedy and dependable mail service between Missouri and California. Before the first ride, an important task was to develop a shorter route – especially across the wild open spaces between Utah and California. With only two months to prepare, the owners of the Pony Express needed to insure that the mail would get through in a timely manner. to do so meant finding a route that would be more expedient than the established California Trail.
Settlements and homesteads between Utah and California were rare prior to the Pony Express. Fortunately for Russell, Majors, and Waddell, recent explorations southwest of Salt Lake City and work already in progress by other private companies provided the means to shave nearly 300 miles off the Humboldt River Route.
In the mid-1850s, a Mormon settler named Howard Egan scouted and developed a trail across the Utah west desert to drive his cattle between Salt Lake City and the markets in California. Learning about Egan’s route, entrepreneur George Chorpenning, who had previously developed three different routes along the Humboldt River, quickly realized the value this new route would have for his mail and freight business. Together, Chorpenning and Egan began building the road and developing provisioned way stations for passenger stagecoaches, freight wagons, and transporting mail.
Learning about Chorpenning and Egan’s roadwork, U.S. Topographical Engineer Captain James H. Simpson spent a few weeks in the late fall of 1858 exploring the desert area southwest of the Great Salt Lake. The following spring the U.S. Army ordered Simpson to survey the entire route as a potential road for transporting supplies to its outpost at Camp Floyd. On Simpson’s recommendation, in 1859 and 1860, the Army made some route adjustments and vastly improved the road and the water holes located along it for use by military freight wagons.
When the Pony Express began its first run in early April of 1860, only a handful of way stations existed across the new Central Overland Route. These first stations were toughly 20 to 25 miles apart. Pony Express riders would have to push their mustangs 50 to 70 miles between stations at Salt Lake City, Faust, Willow Springs, and Deep Creek until the new 10-mile relay stations were in place. With only two months to prepare , those new replay stations often began with nothing more than a tent canopy for the station keeper and a makeshift corral for the horses.
When the Pony Express began its first run
Only The Finest Horsemen
Both speed and stamina were required of the horse and rider team as they relayed mail back and forth between Dt. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California in 10 days or less.
Pony Express rider Thomas O. King recalled: “[the Express] required the best riders, [those] physically able to stand the strains of endurance by day or night and in all kinds of weather and other dangers.”
Eighty tough, experienced youths were hired to ride either active and nimble western mustangs or the best-blooded American racing horses money could buy. Upon seeing his first express rider while en route to Salt Lake City in 1860, British explorer Sir Richard Burton wrote: “They ride 100 miles at a time – about eight per hour – with four changes of horses, and return to their stations the next day.”
Express riders had to be able to stay in the saddle over grueling distances – with or without relief. Nick Wilson, who had ridden in Nevada and Utah, recalled: “Not many riders could stand the long, fast riding at first, but after about two weeks they would get hardened to it… When we started out, we were not to turn back no matter what happened, until we had delivered the mail at the next station… We must be ready to start back at half a minutes’ notice, day or night, rain or shine, Indians or no Indians.”
“Not only were they remarkable for lightness of weight and energy, but their service required continual vigilance, bravery, and agility. Among their number were skillful guides, scouts, and couriers, accustomed to adventures and hardships on the plains – men of strong wills and wonderful powers of endurance.” – Alexander Majors, 1893 memoirs.
This monument marks the S.E. corner of fort built by Anson Call and associates in 1855 under direction of President Brigham Young as protection against Indians. The fort was the most northerly outpost in Utah. It was one hundred twenty feet square, with walls eight feet high and three feet thick, built of rock, part of which is in this monument. The circular stones were taken from one of the first burr flour mills built in northern Utah, in 1852, owned by Omer and Homer Call. The three Call brothers were early pioneers and builders of northern Utah.
Courageous Missionary to the American Indians (1838-1868)
Father De Smet became well acquainted with the region of the Great Salt Lake, and gave much valuable information to Brigham Young and the Mormon Pioneers while they were at Winter Quarters, Nebraska, in November, 1846.
This historic marker is located in Lester Park at 24th Street and Jefferson Avenue in Ogden, Utah. It is part of this series by the U.P.T.L.A. and this series by the S.U.P.
This monument marks the site of Fort Herriman built in 1855 by Thomas Butterfield, Henry Herriman, Samuel Egbert, Robert Petty, and John Stocking, as protection against the Indians.
The Fort was abandoned in 1858, under instructions from Brigham Young upon the approach of Johnston’s Army. Some of the settlers returned a few years later and established the Town of Herriman. The Fort was named for Henry Herriman and Butterfield Canyon nearby for Thomas Butterfield, pioneers of this section.
On 19 July 1847, scouts Orson Pratt and John Brown climbed the mountain and became the first Latter-Day Saints to see the Salt Lake Valley. Due to illness, the pioneer camp had divided into three small companies. On 23 July, the last party led by Brigham Young reached the Big Mountain. By this time most of the first companies were already in the valley and planting crops. Mormons were not the first immigrant group to use this route into the Salt Lake Valley. The ill-fated Donner Party blazed the original trail one year earlier. They spent thirteen days cutting the trails from present day Henefer into the valley. That delay proved disastrous later on when the party was caught in a severe winter storm in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Mormons traveled the same distance in only six days. Until 1861, this trail was also the route of California gold seekers, Overland Stage, Pony Express, original telegraph line, and the other Mormon immigrant companies, after which Parley’s Canyon was used.
This monument, erected and dedicated 25 August 1984, by South Davis Chapter, Sons of Utah Pioneers, replaces the original plaque erected 23 July 1933, by Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association and the Vanguard Association of the Salt Lake County, Boy Scouts of America
