History of the 

Uinta National Forest

A Century of Stewardship

United States Forest Uinta National Provo, 

Department of Service Forest Utah 

Agriculture 

 
 

History of the Uinta National Forest

A Century of Stewardship 

Editor: 

Shaun R. Nelson

 Contributions By: 

 Loyal Clark 

 Stephanie Hall 

 Rebecca Hirschi 

 Peter Karp 

 Bevan Killpack 

 Lola Murray 

 Debra Tatman 

 Charmaine Thompson 

Cover photos, clockwise from upper left: Silver Lake Reservoir with Mount Timpanogos in the background, Dan 

Gull and A. Taylor looking over Ray’s Valley reseeding, 1951, Boy Scouts volunteering at Tibble Fork Reservoir, 

and Provo Peak Watershed Project meeting at the mouth of Slate Canyon, 1935.

Copyright 1997 Uinta National Forest 
 

Forward

We have no way of knowing who first named the area called the Uinta National Forest. 

We do know that the word “Uinta” comes from a Native American word meaning “pine tree” 

or “pine forest.” The forested areas, wonderful streams, meadows, striking mountains and 

rock formations, along with the native wildlife, fish and plants make this National Forest one 

of the finest lands that we have in our entire country! 

We expect the early inhabitants relied very heavily on the natural resources that were 

produced on the Uinta. Their lives depended on the wild animals, fish, plants, and clean water 

that came from the Uinta. Products from the Forest were undoubtedly used for clothing, 

shelter, and heat for warmth and cooking. 

While little is known about the early people’s use of the Forest, much more is known 

about the settlers that moved here from the East. These people were very dependent on forest 

resources to carve out a settlement suitable for their needs. Their use of the land actually 

resulted in the designation of the Forest as Utah’s First Reserve. The designation was, in part, 

to protect the resources for future generations through wise-use of renewable natural resources. 

The Forest Service was created as the conservation leader to manage these national treasures.

While we are not nearly as dependent 

today on forest products from the Uinta 

National Forest, the need to provide natural 

resources for the American people and the 

challenge to protect the ecological and social 

values has never been greater. Today, 

recreation use on the Forest, along with clean 

air and clean water, are the most important 

“products” we provide. With the many 

stresses that life and work present us, the 

opportunity to come to the Uinta National 

Forest to “re-create” oneself is an invaluable 

resource for the American people. There are 

still many places on the Forest that have 

changed little since designation as a Forest 

Reserve 100 years ago. Yet, many areas 

have changed due to our use and the large 

numbers of people that come to enjoy their 

National Forest. 

No one will dispute the large 

population increase around the Uinta National Forest and the increasing numbers of people, 

with diverse uses on the Forest. At the same time Federal budgets and work force are 

declining. We have been successful in the past to work in partnership with the owners of the 

Uinta to make it a better place for all. The local people have been especially generous in the 

many hours they have given to improve and protect “their Forest.” We could not have done 

as much in the past without them and we must ask for more of their help and support in the 

future. 

Peter W. Karp, Uinta National Forest Supervisor
 

Our challenges for the future 100 years of the Uinta will be quite different from the 

first 100 years. The Uinta is now one of about 15 National Forests in the whole country that 

is designated as an “Urban National Forest.” That is, a forest within a one hour drive of a 

million or more people. Our needs for the future will include clean air, clean water, and a 

place to “re-create” oneself. With increasing populations, we will face new challenges to 

meet those needs. Continued volunteering and partnering by the owners and managers of 

these lands will help provide solutions for the future. Designation of some lands as 

wilderness areas will help protect part of what existed over the last 100 years and more. 

Creation of other areas, such as a “Children’s Forest,” will provide an outdoor learning center 

for the youth that will eventually care for these lands. Wise and careful use by all of us 

ensures that these lands will be available to provide the joy we experience today and well into 

the next millennium. Each of us has a responsibility to care for the lands and resources of the 

Uinta National Forest. 

Peter W. Karp 

Forest Supervisor 

Uinta National Forest Centennial Logo. Adopted as the official Forest Logo on 

February 22, 1997. 
Contents 

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: Early History of the Uinta National Forest 3

Native Americans and the Uinta National Forest 3 

European and American Exploration 6 

Mormon Settlement and Resource Use 9 

Competition for Forest Resources Between the Mormons, Utes and Gosuites 13 

Federal Troops Come to Utah 17

The Railroad and Early Mining 19 

Chapter 2: Creation of the Uinta National Forest and the Pre-War Years 25 

A National Forest is Born 25 

Timber 28

Grazing and Watershed 31 

Wildlife and Fisheries 35 

Recreation 38

Fire 41

Changes in the Forest Boundary 42 

Civilian Conservation Corps 43 

Chapter 3: The Uinta National Forest: Post-War to Present 47 

Timber 48

Grazing and Watershed 51 

Wildlife and Fisheries 55 

Recreation and Wilderness 59 

The Changing Role of Fire and Urban Interface 65 

Expanding Responsibilities and Management Challenges 66 

Central Utah Project 71 

Strawberry Valley Management Area 73 

Children’s Forest 81 

National and State Christmas Trees from the Uinta 82 

Looking into the Future on the Uinta 85

Appendices

Appendix A: Bibliography 

Appendix B: Uinta National Forest Boundary Maps-Major Changes over Time

Appendix C: Uinta National Forest Offices and Phone Numbers 

 
1 

INTRODUCTION 

An unusual combination of land, 

people, and events has given the Uinta 

National Forest and surrounding areas a 

unique place in history. Within the current 

National Forest boundary is land originally 

included in the first Forest Reserve 

established in the State of Utah on February 

22, 1897, one year after Utah received 

statehood. Large portions of the original 

Uintah Forest Reserve were later 

incorporated into the Ashley and Wasatch 

National Forests. 

Like all National Forests in Utah, the 

Uinta was created at the request of local 

communities. Although early EuropeanAmerican settlers tried to use the land 

wisely, they did not fully understand the 

basic facts of ecology. By the 1890's, 

many of the range, timber and watershed 

resources of the Uinta and Wasatch 

Mountains were seriously depleted. The 

newly created Forest Service was seen as 

the best organization to turn this around. 

Its mission was to manage these public 

lands for the best use by the largest number 

of people. This goal continues today, with 

the addition of greater knowledge about 

how ecosystems function. This means 

managing resources under the best 

combination of uses to benefit the 

American people while ensuring the long 

term health of all parts of the ecosystem. 

One of the things that makes the 

Uinta National Forest unique is the degree 

to which these goals have been promoted 

by local community leaders and 

organizations. For example, private lands 

above the eastern edge of Utah Valley were 

added to the Uinta as a result of lobbying 

by Dr. Vasco M. Tanner and the Provo 

Chamber of Commerce, who were 

concerned about repeated flooding off the 

overgrazed lands. Citizens of Juab County 

pressed for reforestation in Salt Creek in 

the earlier part of this century, and even 

helped plant thousands of the trees 

themselves. Watershed rehabilitation 

projects in Santaquin Canyon in the 1950's 

were a cooperative effort between 

Santaquin, Genola, Utah County and the 

Forest Service. More examples of these 

kinds of partnerships are described in the 

pages to come. 

In telling the story of the 

development of the Uinta National Forest 

and the surrounding area, we will set the 

stage for early land use, the creation of the 

Forest, and its subsequent management. 

Our focus will be on the relationship 

between the people of the nearby settled 

valleys and their forests. By looking 

through the eyes of the Native Americans, 

early European settlers, Forest Service 

leaders and those who have built from their 

foundations, perhaps we can better 

understand how to prepare for resource 

management challenges in the future. 

This document revises and updates 

the Forest History created as part of the 

celebration of the Forest’s 75th 

Anniversary; Utah’s First Forest’s First 75 

Years. Its purpose is to convey the unique 

history of the Uinta National Forest, its 

successes in resource management and 

challenges for the future. 
2 
3 

CHAPTER 1: 

EARLY HISTORY 

OF THE 

UINTA NATIONAL FOREST 

LANDS 

The Uinta National Forest 

experienced widespread use before its 

designation as a Forest Reserve in 1897. 

From the first mammoth hunters 12,000 

years ago to the European settlement 150 

years ago, the Uinta National Forest and 

the lands surrounding it have always 

provided people with the resources 

necessary for survival. These include game 

animals, wild plant foods, clean water and 

timber for construction. The following is a 

brief account of the people that relied on the 

Forest lands prior to 1897. 

NATIVE AMERICANS AND THE 

UINTA NATIONAL FOREST LANDS 

Paleo-Indians: The First Forest Users 

10,000 B.C. to 6500 B.C. 

The first humans probably entered 

North America as early as 35,000 years ago 

as they followed populations of mammoth 

and other big game species from the Asian 

continent. By about 12,000 years ago, these 

people passed through Canada and into the 

southern half of the continent. They are 

known to us as the Paleo-Indians who 

spread rapidly throughout North America, 

a continent rich in diverse populations of 

plants and animals. But this was also a 

period of climatic change in North America 

and game followed changes in vegetation 

communities. As a result, the PaleoIndians lived a highly mobile lifestyle, 

tracking the game year-round (Kelley and 

Todd 1988). Paleo-Indians followed 

migrating big game into Utah and were 

probably the first humans to make use of 

resources in what is now the Uinta National 

Forest. At that time, the shore line of Lake 

Bonneville extended near or into the 

present day forest boundary and PaleoIndians likely hunted mammoth and other 

big game species along the shoreline and 

into the Forest lands. Though no PaleoIndian sites have been found on the Forest, 

the remains of large Ice Age mammals in 

Utah Valley attest to the diversity of game 

populations in the area. 

Archaic Cultures: 

Expanded Hunting and Gathering 

6500 B.C. to A.D. 400 

By about 6500 B.C., the climate had 

become warmer and drier and the 

mammoth and other large mammals had 

disappeared. As a result, people took 

advantage of a broader selection of plants 

and smaller game such as mountain sheep. 

Though big game species were still 

important, these Archaic peoples hunted 

small mammals and collected plant foods 

on valley floors left dry by the receding 

waters of Lake Bonneville (Fagan 1991). In 

Utah and Juab Valleys, Archaic huntergatherers were tied closely to the highly 

abundant resources in the valley bottoms 

along the Wasatch Front. Wild raspberries, 

choke cherries, service berries and other 

plants located on Forest lands were 

essential foods, especially in the fall. 

Many big game species lived primarily in 

the higher elevations and Archaic hunters 

tracked big horn sheep, deer, elk and other 

animals across Forest lands. Seasonal 

camps were established and many Archaic 

people probably spent the late summer 

months on the Uinta. 

Excavations have been conducted at 
4 

two temporary Archaic camps on the Uinta. 

American Fork Cave, in American Fork 

Canyon, contained mostly bone from big 

horn sheep. This suggests that groups of 

Archaic men were hunting in the canyon 

during the fall and returning with the meat 

to family camps in the valley (Janetski 

1990). This contrasts somewhat with 

findings from Wolf Springs, a temporary 

camp along the Wolf Creek Highway on the 

Heber Ranger District. Here entire 

Archaic families were going into the 

mountains, for extended periods of time, to 

hunt, process hides, gather plants and make 

stone tools out of locally available 

quartzite. These people probably came 

from the valleys in the Uinta Basin or along 

the Wasatch Front (Reed 1994). 

Formative Culture: Utah’s First Farmers 

A.D. 400 to A.D. 1300 

About A.D. 400, farming began in 

the valleys along the Wasatch Front, a 

practice adopted from North American and 

Mexican cultures to the south. The 

Fremont, as these people are known, 

established scattered farmsteads and small 

villages in the valleys and on the benches 

around Forest lands. They cultivated corn, 

beans and squash, but continued to rely on 

wild plants and game as well (Madsen 

1979). The Fremont continued to utilize 

resources in the higher elevations but 

probably spent less time on Forest lands 

than their predecessors. Around A.D. 

1300, the weather became colder and drier 

which made the cultivation of corn very 

unreliable. The Fremont people abandoned 

their villages and moved out of the area or 

adopted hunting and gathering as their 

ancestors had done (Janetski 1991). 

Late Prehistoric: 

Return of the Hunter-Gatherers 

A.D. 1300 to A.D. 1800 

By A.D. 1300, a group of people 

known as the Numic spread out across the 

Great Basin from either southern California 

or northern Mexico. In northern and 

central Utah, they replaced the Fremont. 

The Numic continued a way of life based 

on hunting and gathering as the Archaic 

peoples had before them. They gathered 

roots, seeds and berries and hunted small 

game as well as deer, mountain sheep, 

bison and other large mammals. The Utes 

and Gosuites, two distinct groups of Numic 

people, settled the lands in and around the 

Uinta National Forest. For these people, 

like their Archaic predecessors, the lands of 

the Uinta provided resources important for 

survival (Fowler and Fowler 1971). 

The Utes probably began calling the 

land around the present Uinta National 

Forest home around A.D. 1400. They 

populated areas from Utah Lake to western 

Colorado and from the High Uintas to 

northern New Mexico and Arizona. The 

Utes that occupied the lands of the Uinta 

are known as the Timpanogots (or Utah 

Valley Utes) and the Uintah Utes. 

The Timpanogots inhabited Utah 

Valley, north central Utah, and frequented 

areas as far east as the Strawberry Valley 

region. Their territory was defined on the 

north by the Traverse Mountains that 

separate Utah and Salt Lake Valleys, and 

areas north of that boundary were used by 

Shoshone peoples. At the time of the first 

European contact, Ute villages were located 

on the rivers on the east side of Utah 

Valley. The people fished in Utah Lake, 

used marsh plants and animals and hunted 

for small game, deer, elk and bison in the 

valley. Timpanogots used the present 
Forest lands to hunt deer, elk, bear and 

mountain sheep and gather wild 

strawberries, raspberries, service berries, 

choke cherries and black berries. Most of 

the food gathering that took place on Forest 

lands probably occurred late in the summer 

when temperatures were warm and upland 

berries were ripe (Janetski 1991). 

The name Timpanogots translates as 

rock (tumpi-), water mouth or canyon 

(panogos) people (ots), perhaps referring to 

a rocky canyon, like Provo Canyon, from

which a river flows (Steward 1938). The 

Timpanogots have also been referred to as 

the Timpa-nuu-cii which translates to mouth 

(tipana) people (nucci) (Smith 1974). 

Early explorers suggested that the Utah 

Valley Utes named themselves after Lake 

Timpanogos (Utah Lake). 

The Uintah Utes occupied the Uinta 

Basin of northeastern Utah, but they ranged 

as far west as the Wasatch Front. Because 

of this, they probably had a close 

relationship with the Timpanogots. One of 

the journal entries of the DominguezEscalante expedition noted that the Utes 

frequented Strawberry Valley: “The guide 

told us that in it [Strawberry Valley] there 

had dwelt a portion of Lagunas [Utes], who 

depended on the said river’s fishing for 

their more regular sustenance and who had 

moved out for fear of the Comanche, who 

were starting their incursions through this 

part of the sierra...” (Warner 1976:50). 

The name Uintah is derived from Uint-a-nu-kwints, which is the Ute name for 

the Uinta River (Fowler and Fowler 

1971:178). Venita Taveaponts, a Ute 

linguist, states that the word Uinta, which 

is derived from the Ute word Yoov-we-tueh, 

means pine tree or pine forest. The Uintah 

Utes called themselves the Pag-wa-nu-chi, 

the Water-edge People (Calloway et al. 

1986). 

The Gosuite people inhabited the 

regions around Rush Valley, Skull Valley 

and adjacent areas, including lands within 

the present boundaries of the Vernon 

Management Area of the Wasatch-Cache 

National Forest which is managed by the 

Uinta National Forest. More widely 

distributed resources prevented the 

formation of large groups in any single 

area. Therefore, the Gosuites hunted and 

gathered in small bands of twenty-five to 

thirty people and lived in small, temporary 

camps. In the winter, several bands might 

combine into villages located in sheltered 

areas where water and wood were 

available. One of these areas was the north 

end of Rush Valley, along Vernon Creek. 

These people lived on a diet of plants, 

Ute home in the Uinta Basin, 1873. National 

Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian 

Institution. 

5 
roots, berries, pine nuts, seeds and greens. 

This diet was supplemented by game 

species that included rabbits, birds, 

mountain sheep, deer, bear and elk. Prior 

to contact with the Mormon settlers, the 

Gosuites had little contact with their Ute 

and Paiute neighbors to the south and east, 

though they did associate with the Western 

Shoshonis of Nevada (Allen and Warner 

1971). 

EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN 

EXPLORATION 

The Escalante-Dominguez Expedition 

The first documented European 

explorations into Forest lands occurred in 

1776. Father Silvestre Velez de Escalante 

and Father Francisco Antanasio de 

Dominguez, two Franciscan Priests, were 

sent by the Spanish to find a direct route 

from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Monterey, 

California (Isebell 1972). The priests and 

eight other men began their journey on 

August 1, 1776. Two Ute guides, Joaguin 

and Silvestre, later joined the party. 

6 

On September 20, the party left 

their camp near Red Creek and continued 

west, past present day Fruitland, past 

Currant Creek and set camp at a spring 

they called Ojo de Santa Lucia. The next 

morning, the party descended into 

Strawberry Valley. 

On the 21st we set out from El Ojo 

de Santa Lucia toward the south 

west along the same narrow valley 

which we just ascended through a 

grove of white poplar [aspen], and 

after going a quarter league we 

swung west for a league and threequarters, now over bothersome 

sagebrush stretches, now through 

low, narrow valleys of very soft dirt 

and many small holes in which, 

because they lay hidden in the 

undergrowth, the mounts kept 

sinking and stumbling at every 

instant. Then we went down to a 

medium-sized river [Trout Creek] in 

which good trout breed in 

abundance, two of which Joaquin 

 the Laquna killed with arrows and 

caught, and each one must have 

weighed more than two pounds. 

This river runs to the southeast 

along a very pleasant valley with 

good pasturages, many springs, and 

beautiful groves of not very tall or 

thick white poplars. In it there are 
7 

all the conveniences required for a 

settlement. We named it Valle de la 

Pruisima [present day Strawberry 

Valley] (Warner 1976: p.50). 

The party continued on across Trout 

Creek, now under the northeast bay of 

Strawberry Reservoir, crossed the valley 

floor and entered Bryant’s Fork. They 

climbed Bryant’s Fork to Strawberry 

Ridge: 

Along this ridge we went southwest 

for a quarter league and descended 

it, breaking through almost 

impenetrable swaths of choke cherry 

and scrub oak and passing through 

another poplar forest so thick that 

we doubted if the packs could get 

through unless they were first taken 

off (Warner 1976: p.51). 

The party dropped into Sixth Water Creek 

and made camp. 

The day of September 22, the party 

traveled down Diamond Fork and camped 

at the junction of Diamond Fork and 

Wanrhodes Canyon near the present site of 

Palmyra Campground. On the 23rd, the 

party followed Diamond Fork to its 

confluence with the Spanish Fork River and 

continued down Spanish Fork Canyon. 

Escalante noted how suitable the area 

would be for sheep herding. “After going 

west downstream for three-quarters of a 

league, we passed by three copious springs 

of hot water [Castilla Hot Springs] that we 

touched and tasted, and it is of the same 

sulphurous quality as the one adjacent to El 

Pueblo de San Diego of the Jemez Indians 

in New Mexico” (Warner 1976: p.53). 

They exited Spanish Fork Canyon, climbed 

a small hill, probably the bench at the 

mouth of the canyon, and caught their first 

glimpse of Lake Timanogotzis (Utah Lake) 

and Nuestra Senora de la Merced of the 

Timpanogotzis, Our Lady of Mercy of the 

Timpanogotzis (Utah Valley). There, they 

encountered the Timpanogots, the Utah 

Valley Utes. Escalante and Dominguez 

noted the rich resources not only in the 

valley bottom but in the adjacent mountains 

as well. The Dominguez-Escalante Journal 

describes Utah Valley as having “plenty of 

firewood and timber in the adjacent sierra 

which surrounds it - many sheltered spots, 

waters, and pasturages, for raising cattle 

and sheep and horses. This applies along 

the north, the northeast, and the eastern and 

southeastern sides” (Warner 1976: p.60). 

This exploration by Escalante's 

party led to a claim which established Utah 

first as part of the Spanish domain, and 

later as part of the Mexican Territory in 

1821. In the 75 years that followed, the 

Spanish and Mexicans traded actively with 

the Utes southern Colorado, and the 

Timpanogots participated in this trade 

through their neighbors. Spanish miners 

also made prospecting trips into the area. 

Mountain Men and the Fur Trade 

It wasn't until the 1820's that a new 

group of people entered these mountains 

and valleys. The mountain men, as they 

were called, were after beaver skins. Top 

hats made of beaver fur were high fashion 

for men in Europe and America and it took 

a rugged individual, like the mountain man, 

to cash in on the economic bonanza found 

in beaver pelts. American and British 

trappers had been competing for control of 

the western fur trade since 1808, and their 

entry into Utah was part of a three pronged 

convergence on the fur country located 

where Idaho, Utah and Wyoming meet. 
The British sent expeditions out of the 

northwest, independent trappers worked out 

of Taos, New Mexico, and American 

companies sent expeditions from St. Louis. 

The first American Fur Trapper 

known to enter lands of the Uinta National 

Forest was Etienne Provost. In August of 

1824, Provost left Taos and entered Utah in 

search of beaver, probably following the 

same route Escalante and Dominguez had 

followed almost fifty years before. In 

October, Provost and a party of 

approximately fifteen men entered 

Strawberry Valley. Very little regarding 

Provost’s expedition into this area is 

recorded and where the party went from

Strawberry Valley is uncertain. They 

either crossed over Daniels Summit into 

Heber Valley and followed the Provo River 

into Utah Valley or they crossed the 

Wasatch into Kamas Valley and followed 

the Weber into Salt Lake Valley. While 

traveling north along the Jordan River from

Utah Lake, Provost and his men were 

attacked by a group of Shoshone braves and 

at least half of Provost’s men were killed 

(Tykal 1989:48-50). The Provo River and 

Provo City are named after him.

8 

In the spring of 1825, William 

Henry Ashley entered the area and 

described the Wasatch Mountains as 

“fertile and closely timbered with pine, 

cedar, quaking-asp, and a dwarfish growth 

of oak; a great number of beautiful streams 

issue from them on each side, running 

through fertile valleys richly clothed with 

grass” (Dale 1941: 148). In August of 

1826, Jedediah Strong Smith traveled along 

the Wasatch Front from the Great Salt Lake 

through Utah Valley in search of new areas 

to trap beaver. There he traded knives, 

tobacco, lead, black powder and other 

items with the Utes in Utah Valley (Morgan 

1964). In 1827, Smith returned to the 

Wasatch backtracking along Ashley’s route 

down Provo Canyon and into Utah Valley. 

Morgan’s (1964:237) account of the event 

is as follows: “Here he found a large band 

of Utes encamped, the same with which he 

had made a treaty the year before. The 

Utes told him that in the spring some white 

men had come up from the south and 

turned east in the direction of Taos; these 

men were nearly starved to death. What 

had been an unknown land only a year 

before was already being transformed into a 

crossroads.” In February of 1842, a 

trapper by the name of Osborne Russel 

entered Utah Valley. Like Ashley, he was 

struck by the resources available in the 

area. He wrote: “This is a beautiful and 

fertile Valley intersected by large numbers 

of fine springs which flow from the 

mountain to the Lake and could with little 

labor and expense [be] made to irrigate the 

whole Valley” (Russel 1984:120). 
Early Expeditions through the West 

In May of 1844, John C. Fremont, 

acting as a lieutenant for the Bureau of 

Topographical Engineers, led an expedition 

through the Wasatch, the second of five 

expeditions he would lead through the 

West. This was part of a growing 

movement by the U.S. government to 

explore the northern portions of Mexican 

territory. In passing through Utah Valley, 

Fremont mistakenly assumed Utah Lake 

was the southern arm of the Great Salt 

Lake. From Utah Valley, the expedition 

climbed Spanish Fork Canyon, taking note 

of the variety of fossil shells present in the 

limestone escarpments. The party crossed 

Soldier Summit and headed east toward the 

Uintah Basin and Antoine Robidoux’s Fort 

Uintah to purchase supplies. In October of 

1845, Fremont led his third expedition 

along the Provo River (which Fremont 

referred to as the Timpanogos River), 

through Heber Valley and down Provo 

Canyon. From Utah Valley, the party 

turned north into Salt Lake Valley (Egan 

1977). The entire area soon came under 

limited U.S. control at the end of the 

Mexican War in 1848. In the mean time, 

Fremont’s text (as well as the verbal 

accounts by trappers and other explorers) 

provided the first detailed information 

about the Uinta National Forest area for the 

rest of the United States. This information 

strongly influenced the next major event in 

the Forest’s history. 

9 

MORMON SETTLEMENT 

AND RESOURCE USE 

Members of the Church of Jesus 

Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) 

were the first Europeans to settle in Utah 

Valley. These people left their homes in 

Kirtland, Ohio, in Missouri, and Nauvoo, 

Illinois to escape religious persecution. 

The first group arrived in Salt Lake Valley 

on July 24, 1847. By the end of the year, 

17,000 had migrated to the State of 

Deseret, as Utah was first known. Soon 

thereafter, Provo, Heber, Nephi and other 

towns were established along the critical 

boundary between the fertile valleys and 

resource rich mountains. Mormon 

settlement was unique in that their use of

both sets of resources was done as a 

community. 

“Pioneer Camp,” a lithograph by John Hafen. Utah 

State Historical Society. 

Water 

After settling in Utah, Mormon 

leaders realized that the nearest industry 

and agricultural markets were several 

hundred miles and many months away. No 

time was wasted as they geared their people 

for survival. Water was needed to plant 

crops for winter food. Without water, the 

crops would burn up and attempts at 

colonization would be futile. Mormon 

frontiersman O.B. Huntington and others 

were sent to Utah Valley to look for 

suitable farm lands and water sources. He 

tells in his diary about the naming of 
Hobble Creek: 

...went on 18 miles and crossed the 

Provo river, the bottom lands of 

which are covered with large 

cottonwoods, boxelder, ash, oak 

and maple. Five or six miles from 

there, south, we came to a small 

creek which had no name until we 

stayed there over night and I lost a 

pair of iron hobbles used for 

fastening the forefeet of horses 

together. We called it Hobble Creek 

and afterwards it went by that 

name... (Huntington 1942: p.48). 

All Utah Valley settlement 

developed along the streams that flowed out 

of the adjacent mountains. 

Timber 

Their next basic need was the 

acquisition of timber for the construction 

of shelter for homes and livestock, and to 

provide fuel. William Gardner, another 

settler, explored the headwaters of the 

Weber and Provo Rivers in September 

1852, and his description of the region 

highlights the settler’s interest in acquiring 

timber: 

10 

...the Provo River is as handsome a 

stream for floating purposes as 

could be desired, it is not as rapid 

as the Weber River and the channel 

is deeper, but it’s pretty rough at 

the mouth of the canyon, which is 

the best canyon for a road that I 

have ever seen, having fine narrow 

valleys with rich soil and good 

pasture....the streams can also be 

utilized pretty well for floating down 

timber (U.S. Department of 

Agriculture 1972). 

Readily accessible sources of 

firewood disappeared quickly along the 

mountain-valley margins, and the work of 

obtaining firewood grew. Joseph Rawlin's

diary gives us a glimpse of the laborconsuming effort: 

One of the severe tasks that 

faced the settlers each fall was the 

securing of the winter's fuel supply 

of brush and wood, since coal of 

course was not available....the start 

for the canyon would be made early 

in the morning and the return with 

the load of wood took place in the 

afternoon of the next day. 

I remember the steep roads 

and the wild nature of the canyon. 

The wagon would be taken as far as 

possible to the camping place and 

then the horses, with single-trees 
11 

and drag chains, would be led up 

some steep ravine on a drag road, 

the pine timber felled, and arranged 

in piles in the dragway. To these 

the horses were attached by means 

of chains and thus the timber was 

dragged to the wagon, usually about 

the time darkness was settling upon 

the scene....The succeeding morning 

after breakfast the logs were cut to 

suitable lengths, lifted upon the 

wagon, bound with log chains and 

ready for the start tomorrow. About 

twenty such trips were required to 

lay in the necessary supply of wood 

for the winter (Rawlins 1956). 

The canyons on Mt. Nebo were one 

of the areas which produced building 

materials. In Salt Creek, east of Nephi, a 

sawmill was located where Bear Canyon 

Campground exists today and logs from 

Bear Canyon were floated to the mill in a 

flume. In 1851, Morris Phelps established 

one of the first saw mills in the north end 

of Utah Valley. He built the mill above 

Alpine at the mouth of a canyon known 

today as Phelps Canyon. Timber from 

these canyons supplied the people of 

Mountainville [Alpine] and other nearby 

communities with building materials. That 

same year, Isaac Houston and James 

Preston built a saw mill in American Fork 

Canyon (Wild 1982). In the years that 

followed, saw mills would be constructed 

in nearly every canyon along the valley 

front. 

Demand for timber continued to 

increase and the need for timber 

management was soon recognized by early 

Mormon leaders. In the 1850's, Brigham 

Young, Parley P. Pratt and George A. 

Smith were given control over important 

canyons and associated resources by 

territorial legislative grants. This form of 

timber regulation worked well during the 

initial stages of colonization when the 

emphasis was on subsistence and property 

rights were not well established. But, by 

the time communities were established, 

stewardship gave way to free enterprise as 

many settlers took advantage of timber 

resources for a profit, despite efforts to 

control resource utilization by Mormon 

leaders. By the 1880's, timber resources 

along the Wasatch Front had been reduced 

to the point that timber was being brought 

in from the Sierra Nevadas and Chicago 

(Peterson and Speth 1980). 

Grazing 

Cattle provided early settlers with 

transportation, meat, milk and clothing. 

Cattle were grazed in the mountains of the 

Uinta from the time of initial settlement 

onward. Sheep were also important to the 

settlers as a source of clothing and meat. 

The sheep were summered on present day 

Forest lands and wintered in the valleys. 

By 1860, the population of Utah had risen 

to 40,273. The number of cattle was also 

on the upswing, 34,094 head. 

With the surge in numbers of 

livestock on rangelands, it soon became 

necessary to enact laws that managed 

grazing for the benefit of both the livestock 

owner and the range. Before 1870, there 

was very little conflict over range. Settlers 

were more inclined to buy out a competitor 

or share grazing lands with him. Early 

legislation in Utah favored a controlled 

disposition of the public domain, and 

between 1855 and 1857, more than 30 

pieces of legislation were passed granting 

herd grounds on the public domain to 

private citizens and the Mormon Church. 
12 

Some of this legislation authorized county 

courts to regulate local grazing lands 

(Peterson 1964). 

In 1874, the Animals-at-Large Act 

repealed earlier acts authorizing county 

courts to designate herd grounds and 

prevent nonresidents from grazing in 

certain areas. With the passing of local 

control, disputes over grazing areas grew 

more acute. Officials in Utah soon realized 

that livestock owners needed some kind of 

secure title through ownership or lease to 

avoid grazing disputes and maintain a 

productive range. Contributing to conflict 

over range was the idea that cattle and 

horses could not be grazed on lands that 

sheep had grazed on. In 1888, legislation 

was passed that sought to establish legal 

title to range areas on the basis of prior 

use, but this failed in its intent. 

By 1886, legislation was passed to 

deal with the increased problem of livestock 

theft. Stricter guidelines were introduced 

in the areas of branding and sale and the 

theft of livestock was made a felony, 

punishable by 10 years imprisonment and a 

$5,000 fine. The success of these laws is 

not clear, but in 1890, many of the 

requirements introduced by the legislation 

were dropped. With the great demand 

placed upon the mountains' natural 

resources through grazing, a new problem 

faced the settlers - floods. Church leaders 

became concerned with overgrazing and the 

resultant flooding. Orson Hyde spoke from 

the pulpit at a Church Conference on 

October 7, 1865, saying: 

I find the longer we live in 

these valleys that the range is 

becoming more and more destitute 

of grass; the grass is not only eaten 

up by the great amount of stock that 

 feed upon it, but they tramp it out by 

the very roots; and where grass 

once grew luxuriantly there is now 

nothing but desert weed, and hardly 

a spear of grass is to be 

seen...Being cut short of our range 

in the way we have been, and 

accumulating stock as we are, we 

have nothing to feed them with in 

the winter and they perish. There is 

no profit in this, neither it pleasing 

in the sight of God our Heavenly 

Father that we should continue a 

course of life like unto this (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1972

Mining 

During the 1849 California gold 

rush, Brigham Young and other Church 

leaders took a definite stand against 

Mormons carrying on the occupation of 

gold and silver mining. They realized this 

stand against mining would be considered 

as a "great oppression in Utah,” but they 

held firm to their beliefs. The Church 

leaders felt that: (1) Agriculture and home 

industry were more important to survival 

than prospecting for precious metals; (2) 

without capital, mining technology or cheap 

means of transportation, such as the 

railroad, mining would not prove 

profitable; (3) the influx of miners and 

other outsiders would bring into the 

Territory an element that would tend to be 

antagonistic to the Church. However, there 

were some Mormon leaders who pursued 

mining with the intent of enriching the 

churches coffers (Holmes 1990). 

Regardless, because of the combination of 

Brigham Young’s anti-mining sentiment 

and the lack of railroads available to 

transport ore, the mountains of the Wasatch 

were spared the effects of extensive mining 
13 

until the 1870's. 

Recreation 

The forests offered the early settlers 

recreational opportunities as well. Outdoor 

recreation was recommended by Brigham 

Young as far back as 1855, when he stated 

in a talk: 

I am going to explore in the 

mountains, and I invite you too. 

Take your wives, but not your 

babies, unless you take a cradle to 

keep them quiet. The out-door air is 

what the people need for health, it is 

good for them to camp out (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1972). 

Joseph Rawlins gives us a glimpse 

of what camping was like in 1884 from the 

record he kept in his diary. His family, 

with those of Dr. Heber J. Richards, 

Adelbert Roundy and guests from the Dr. 

John R. Park family went into the Uinta 

Mountains to camp in the wilderness during 

the summer. He writes: 

...This (camp) was then far in the 

wilderness, and trout in the streams, 

prairie chickens along the creeks 

and deer in the woods or hiding in 

the brush in the canyons, were 

plentiful. Bear and mountain lion 

might occasionally be seen...No 

setting, accordingly, could have 

been more perfect for a summer 

vacation, or more picturesque. 

Mountains clothed with untouched 

groves of fir, pine and quaking 

aspen, rose up majestically above 

us. The open spaces were brilliant 

with many wild flowers, the pure air 

was filled with perfumes and the 

scent of pines. It seemed to me that 

the stars shone brighter there than 

any other place in the world. Then 

again the occasional fierce winds 

would sway the trees mightily, 

lightning would play fiercely and 

grandly about the peaks and the 

hills would reverberate and echo 

with thunder. But we would be snug 

in our tents, and if caught outdoors, 

there was always wide branched 

trees under which we could take 

shelter (U.S. Department of 

Agriculture 1972). 

A unique dance hall was established 

by the Mormon settlers in American Fork 

Canyon and provided a novel place to 

gather out of the hot valley sun. Dance 

Hall Cave was established by Alva A. 

Green Sr. in the early 1880's. A platform 

was constructed for the dance floor and an 

orchestra sat on one of the cave’s ledges. 

The cave was not used as a dance hall for 

very long due to the difficulty in accessing 

it and poor lighting, but it is still known 

today as Dance Hall Cave (Stauffer 

1971:20). 

COMPETITION FOR RESOURCES 

BETWEEN THE 

MORMONS, UTES AND GOSUITES 

The valleys that were the focus of 

Mormon settlement, as well as the 

mountainous areas that would later become 

part of the Uinta National Forest, had 

provided the Utes with game to hunt and 

clean water to fish in for centuries before 

the settlers came to Utah. The loss of these 

areas to Mormon settlement was disastrous 

and led to a period of conflict between the 

settlers and the Native Americans in and 
14 

around what are now Forest lands. In some 

cases, the mountains of the Uinta provided 

the Utes with a refuge from Mormon 

expansion and occasional hostility. 

In March of 1849, competition for 

the resources of the valleys and mountains 

on the Wasatch Front led to bloodshed 

above what is now Pleasant Grove. A band 

of Utes led by Little Chief had stolen 

horses and killed cattle owned by the 

settlers in Salt Lake Valley. Brigham 

Young dispatched a company of the Salt 

Lake Militia to pursue the band and on 

March 5, the Utes were surrounded in a 

small canyon. The call for surrender was 

refused and the militia opened fire, killing 

four braves and taking the women and 

children prisoner. The canyon later 

became known as Battle Creek Canyon 

(Christy 1978). 

On March 18, 1849, Brigham 

Young and other Mormon leaders sent 150 

people to settle Utah Valley. In November 

of the same year, 224 people were sent to 

San Pitch (Sanpete) Valley to settle the area 

south of Utah Valley. Tension grew with 

the expanding settlement as the Ute people 

found themselves in direct competition with 

the settlers for the lands that they had long 

claimed as their own. Raids were 

organized by the Utes in Utah Valley to 

steal cattle and horses. In January 1850, a 

Ute man was shot by three settlers, 

apparently for the theft of a shirt. The 

result was an increase in threats toward the 

Utah Valley settlers and theft of livestock. 

Convinced of the need for action, Brigham 

Young ordered a selective extermination 

program to be carried out against the 

hostile Utes in Utah Valley (Christy 1978). 

On February 8, 1850, a force made 

up of militiamen from Salt Lake and Utah 

Valleys supported by a canon laid siege to a 

band of Utes near the Provo River. After 

two days of fighting which left eight Utes 

and one militia man dead, the wounded and 

sick Utes retreated into Rock Canyon with 

the main body of the Ute band retreating 

toward the Spanish Fork River. Three 

weeks of skirmishes between the militia and 

the Utes followed in Utah Valley, Rock 

Canyon and Peteetneet Creek leaving seven 

more Utes dead. The conflict finally came 

to a close with a truce in late February 

(Christy 1978). 

The Walker War 

The tension again mounted in 1853 

as a result of continued food, clothing and 

shelter shortages among the Utes, and an 

effort mounted by Mormon officials to put 

an end to the trade in slaves between the 

Utes and Mexicans. Violence broke out on 

July 17 of that year while several Utes were 

trading with James Ivie and his wife in 

Springville. A scuffle erupted and Mr. Ivie 

killed a Ute man. After hearing the news, 

Chief Wahcarrah, or Chief Walker as he 

would come to be known, and the already 

enraged Utes held a council of war. Chief 

Walker moved his camp from Hobble 

Creek to Walker Flat in Payson Canyon 

and prepared to avenge the man’s death. 

On July 18, two Utes rode into the fort at 

Peteetneet (Payson), shot one of the posted 

guards, Alexander Keele, and rode back 

into Payson Canyon. In the days that 

followed, the saw mill operated by Pardon 

Webb in Payson Canyon and the 

settlements of Pleasant Creek (Mt. 

Pleasant) and Nephi were all fired on by 

Chief Walker’s men. Ute raids and 

Mormon militia excursions in Utah, Juab, 

San Juan, Sanpete, Millard, Summit and 

Iron Counties continued during the summer 

of 1853 and into 1854 leaving at least 27 
15 

Utes and 10 settlers dead. In May of 1854, 

Brigham Young, after continued efforts to 

end the hostilities, visited the village of 

Chief Walker and peace was negotiated 

(Christy 1979). 

The Black Hawk War 

In 1854, in response to the Walker 

War, Brigham Young established Indian 

farms in several locations in an attempt to 

pacify the Utes for lost land and resource 

depletion. Brigham Young’s policy stated 

that it was “cheaper to feed the Indians than 

to fight them.” One of these farms was 

located in Spanish Fork and was meant to 

encourage a settled lifestyle for the Utes 

and provide a stable food source. These 

farms were operated and maintained by 

Mormon settlers for the benefit of the Ute 

people. Within a few years, however, the 

settlers lost interest in maintaining them 

and the farms fell into a state of disrepair. 

With the outbreak of the Civil War, the 

Federal Government was not able to 

provide the Utes with the assistance they 

needed either. The farms were abandoned 

and the Utes moved to traditional hunting 

areas in the mountains (Metcalf 1989). 

Unfortunately, Mormon hunting and 

grazing had taken its toll on game 

populations in the mountains as well as the 

valleys, and what followed was a period of 

hunger and starvation. To survive the Utes 

were forced to beg for food or steal it. 

During the winter of 1864-65, a band of 

Utes wintering at Gunnison experienced a 

smallpox epidemic and many died. The 

Mormons were blamed for the deaths and, 

in the spring of 1865, a council between the 

Mormons and the Utes was arranged in 

Manti. A scuffle between a Mormon 

interpreter, John Lowry, and a young Ute 

named Yenewood erupted and the Utes left 

the meeting enraged. The Ute band, led by 

Black Hawk, rode away and killed some 

workers in an isolated canyon. As a result 

of the building unrest and anger among the 

Utes, this relatively small incident resulted 

in a series of conflicts that would become 

known as the Black Hawk War (Metcalf 

1989). 

On May 16, Christian Larsen was 

killed by Black Hawk’s men while herding 

cattle on the east bench above Spanish 

Fork. Ten days later, the Given family was 

attacked in Thistle Valley and all six 

members of the family were killed. In 

response, the settlers gathered militia 

members from Salt Lake, under the 

command of Heber Kimball, and Utah 

Valley, under the command of A.G. 

Conover, to join others from south-central 

Utah. Black Hawk’s men continued the 

raids, killing seven in Ephraim and four in 

Circleville. In Salina, so many cattle were 

driven off by Black Hawks men that the 

settlers were forced to abandon the 

settlement (Dixon 1983). 

In June of 1865, the Superintendent 

of Indian Affairs attempted to curb the 

unrest present within the Ute tribe by 

negotiating the Spanish Fork Treaty. It 

promised the Utes 1.1 million dollars to be 

paid over sixty years in exchange for land 

claims in Utah and Sanpete Valleys and the 

relocation of the Utes to the Uintah Valley 

Reservation. The Utes refused the offer 

until Brigham Young spoke to them. They 

reconsidered and most agreed to the treaty. 

One notable exception was Chief San Pitch, 

present at the incident in Manti and leader 

of the band to which Black Hawk belonged 

(Metcalf 1989). 

In the months following the 

negotiation of the Spanish Fork Treaty, the 

various Ute bands relocated to the Uintah 
16 

Valley but the government failed to deliver 

the promised benefits. Conditions on the 

Uintah Reservation became so dire that 

some Utes died during the winter. The 

poor conditions greatly increased Black 

Hawks stature among the Utes, and in June 

of 1866, many departed the Reservation to 

join Black Hawk’s warriors (Metcalf 1989). 

 Black Hawk’s raids continued. In 

Millard County Henry Wright was 

wounded and James Ivie was killed, the 

same man involved in the scuffle that set 

off the Walker War in 1853. In June of 

1866, a raid was mounted on the settlement 

of Scipio. Two settlers were shot and a 

large herd of cattle was driven away. 

Militia units followed the band to Gravely 

Ford, on the Sevier River. The Utes 

ambushed the militia and the Battle of 

Gravely Ford ensued. During this 

engagement, Black Hawk was wounded by 

a militia sniper named James Snow. The 

militia was reinforced and the Utes were 

forced to retreat (Dixon 1983). 

The Ute raids and engagements with 

the militia continued until the summer of 

1867 when Black Hawk suddenly appeared 

on the Uintah Reservation and sued for 

peace. Ill with tuberculosis and suffering 

from the wound he had received at Gravely 

Ford, Black Hawk no longer wanted 

trouble with the settlers and returned to 

Spring Lake, near Payson, to live out the 

rest of his days. On August 19, 1868, in 

Strawberry Valley, another treaty was 

agreed upon between the settlers and Chief 

Sow-ah-point who had led many of the later 

raids (Wild 1982). In 1870, Black Hawk 

toured many of the settlements between 

Payson and Cedar City, speaking to 

Mormon congregations and asking for 

forgiveness. Black Hawk explained to the 

settlers that the raids were necessitated by 

the starvation of his people (Metcalf 1989). 

All told, the Black Hawk War 

resulted in the activation of about 2,500 

militiamen, the loss of approximately 5,000 

head of cattle, the deaths of as many as 

ninety settlers and militiamen, and untold 

numbers of Utes dead or wounded (Metcalf 

1989). 

Expanding Settlement and the Gosuites 

In the vicinity of the Vernon 

Management Area, Mormon settlement had 

been steadily encroaching on traditional 

Gosuite lands and the native people were 

being forced to change their way of life. 

They did not easily adapt to farming 

practices introduced by the settlers and in 

the early 1860's many were destitute. In a 

letter sent to the Commissioner of Indian 

Affairs in December of 1862, Amos Reed 

complained that much of the tillable portion 

of the dry country had been occupied by 

settlers and game populations had been 

driven off or destroyed. Reed wrote that 

“it is really a matter of necessity with these 

Indians that they starve or steal - unless 

they receive assistance.” The Gosuites 

were forced to raid the livestock and 

supplies of the settlers. They also attacked 

Overland Mail Stations, killing three people 

during the winter of 1862 to 1863 (Allen 

and Warner 1971). 

In 1863, the Federal government 

concluded a series of treaties and the 

Gosuites agreed to end hostilities, adopt a 

life of herding and agriculture, allow travel 

along several routes through their land, 

allow the installation of military posts and 

mail stations, and mines. They also agreed 

that mills and ranches could be established 

by European settlers. The treaties also 

allowed for unrestricted timber harvesting. 

By 1870, most of the Gosuite bands had 
settled down in an effort to make the 

agricultural lifestyle a success. At the same

time, settlers continued to encroach onto 

land farmed by the Gosuites and pressure 

was being brought by the government to 

move them out of the area completely. 

Indeed, by 1873, a commissioned report by 

John W. Powell and George W. Ingalls 

established the Gosuites as a class of 

wandering beggars and recommended that 

collecting them onto the Uintah Reservation 

or Ft. Hall was the best way to serve them

(Allen and Warner 1971). 

The Gosuites refused to move and 

continued to farm and graze despite 

continued competition with growing 

populations of outside settlers. The issue 

was dropped until 1912 when President 

William H. Taft set aside eighty acres in 

Skull Valley for the exclusive use of the 

Gosuites. In 1919, President Woodrow 

Wilson enlarged the reservation by 17,920 

acres. 

17 

FEDERAL TROOPS COME TO UTAH 

Johnston’s Army 

In the spring of 1857 W.W.

Drummond, Justice of the Utah Territory 

resigned citing the Mormon’s lack of 

respect for Federal law and the lack of 

separation of church and state as the 

reason. He recommended the presence of 

Federal troops in Utah and the installation 

of non-Mormon officials to correct these 

problems. President Buchanan and the 

Secretary of War, John Floyd, sent 2,500 

troops to Utah in July of 1857. This body 

of troops became known to people in Utah 

as Johnston’s Army. 

The march from Leavenworth, 

Kansas, to Utah took longer than expected, 

partially due to the guerilla tactics used by 

Mormon scouts to slow the force down, 

and Johnston’s army was forced to winter 

near Ft. Bridger. During the spring of 

1858, envoys from Johnston’s Army 

worked out a compromise and that summer 

the force was able to march into Salt Lake 

City without incident. Johnston’s Army 

continued south into Cedar Valley and 

established a military post named after the 

Secretary of War, Camp Floyd. Johnston’s 

Army remained stationed at Camp Floyd 

for three years with as many as three 

thousand soldiers stationed there at one 

time. Camp Floyd was closed in July of 

1861 with the outbreak of the Civil War. 

During their stay in Utah, the army

engineers explored, mapped and 

constructed roads throughout the area. One 

of these routes was constructed in 1859 to 

allow the army access to Wyoming without 

having to pass through Salt Lake City. The 

road was constructed along an existing 
18 

Mormon trail in Provo Canyon and 

continued on through Kamas Valley. This 

road became important to the settlement of 

Heber Valley by Mormon farmers one year 

later. 

Fort Douglas 

In October of 1862, Col. Patrick E. 

Connor established Camp Douglas above 

Salt Lake City to provide protection for the 

Overland Mail Route between Carson 

Valley, Nevada, and Fort Laramie, 

Wyoming. With him were seven companies 

from the Second and Third California 

Volunteers. Camp Douglas was located on 

the east bench above Salt Lake City for 

several reasons. The previously established 

Camp Floyd was in ruins and unsuitable for 

troops, the Wasatch Front provided plenty 

of timber and could produce hay, and the 

bench afforded Col. Connor a position in 

Members of the Ninth Cavalry at the Strawberry Valley Camp of Instruction, 1888. Charles W. Carter 

Collection, Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

the valley from which he could keep an eye 

on the Mormons, whom he greatly 

distrusted. Connor believed the Mormons 

constituted a community of fanatics who 

sought to establish an order that superseded 

that of the Federal Government. Fort 

Douglas, as it was known after 1876, soon 

became a strategic point from which to 

mount campaigns against Native American 

groups considered hostile (Arrington and 

Alexander 1965). 

Prospecting by the Military 

On September 17, 1863, silver 

bearing ore was discovered in Bingham

Canyon. Under Col. Connor’s direction a 

claim was filed, and the West Mountain 

Quartz Mining District was established, the 

first mining claim in the Utah Territory 

(Arrington and Alexander 1965). Conner 

saw the development of mining as an 
19 

opportunity to solve the “Mormon 

problem” by attracting non-Mormons to the 

mines... 

acting in concert with the now 

oppressed but dissatisfied saints, 

will peacefully revolutionize the 

odious system of church domination 

which has so long bound down a 

deluded and ignorant community 

and threatened the peace and 

welfare of the people and country 

(Connor 1864). 

Connor instructed his officers to 

lead patrols into various areas to prospect 

for precious minerals across Utah, 

including areas on the Uinta. In 1864, 

soldiers were sent to prospect in the Uintah 

Basin and it is during this time that troops 

from Fort Douglas may have first passed 

through Strawberry Valley. 

The Overland Mail Route 

In 1865, an effort was made to build 

an overland mail route to Denver. The 

route climbed the left fork of Hobble Creek 

Canyon, across Soldier Bench, past the 

base of Strawberry Peak and along the 

ridge until it dropped into Strawberry 

Valley. A battalion of Col. Connor’s 

soldiers were to provide protection for the 

workers constructing the route and provide 

a reasonable amount of assistance. A mail 

station was erected in the left fork just 

above Bartholomew Canyon, but the route 

into Denver was never completed (Isbell 

1972). Regardless, the route became an 

important access into Strawberry Valley 

and the Uinta Basin for stockmen and 

homesteaders alike. 

The Strawberry Valley 

Camp of Instruction 

In 1885, the order was given to 

establish “Camps of Instruction” for the 

purpose of giving the soldiers some realistic 

training in the field. In August of 1888, a 

Camp of Instruction at Strawberry Valley 

was organized. About 650 men were to 

participate: Companies of the Sixteenth 

Infantry, the Twenty First Infantry and the 

Fifth Artillery from Fort Douglas, 

Companies of the Fourteenth Infantry and 

the Twenty First Infantry from Fort Bridger 

and Companies of the Ninth Cavalry and 

the Sixteenth Infantry from Fort Duchesne. 

The Ninth Cavalry was one of two AfricanAmerican regiments in the Western Army 

during the later 1800's. The “Buffalo 

Soldiers,” as they were known, were noted 

for their professionalism and bravery. 

These maneuvers allowed men from the 

scattered regiments, who would be 

expected to go to battle together, to first 

train together. Troops from Fort Douglas 

used the valley for training sporadically 

between 1887 and 1905. They also 

monitored settlers moving into the Uintah 

Basin from temporary garrisons set up in the 

valley between 1903 and 1905. 

THE RAILROAD 

AND EARLY MINING 

In the 1860's, mining was a costly 

venture in Utah. The costs of transport 

made mining barely feasible. In 1869, with 

the completion of the Transcontinental 

Railroad and the North-South Railroad 

Lines, the cost-effective transport of ore 

became a reality. Col. Connor’s 

prospecting patrols had aided in the 

discovery of precious metals along the 

Wasatch Range, and the mining industry in 
20 

the mountains of the Uinta exploded. 

Mines appeared on almost every mountain 

along the Wasatch Range, including, but not 

limited to, Santaquin Canyon, Mt. 

Nebo, Spanish Fork Canyon, Provo 

Canyon, Rock Canyon and, most notably, 

American Fork Canyon. 

The American Fork Mining District 

Early mining in the American Fork 

Mining District had a great effect on land 

management in American Fork Canyon 

today. Early mining claims resulted in the 

checkerboard of public and private property 

in the canyon, a pattern of ownership that 

complicates right-of-ways and ecological 

land management aspects. 

Among the first mines established in 

American Fork Canyon was the Pittsburgh 

Mine just south of Alta. It was discovered 

by soldiers from Fort Douglas and 

officially located by them in 1870. A 

flurry of activity followed and the 

American Fork Mining District was formed 

in July of 1870. Soon there after, Jacob 

and William Miller found rich ore deposits 

on what would become known as Miller 

A sketch of the American Fork, which operated in American Fork Canyon between 1872 and 1874. The Salt 

Lake Daily Herald: June 1 and august 4, 6 and 21, 1872. 

Hill. The following year, they sold their 

claim to the Aspinwall Steamship Company 

of New York City. Aspinwall had the 

capital to develop the mines and soon they 

became the leading producer in the canyon 

and a catalyst for the development of 

transportation systems there (Stauffer 

1971). 

The American Fork Railroad 

Company was established in April of 1872 

by the Aspinwall Steamship Company in 

order to haul ore from the Miller Hill 

mines to American Fork City. The railroad 

was to end at the Sultana Smelter at Forest 

City at the mouth of Mary Ellen Gulch 

which was near the head of American Fork 

Canyon. 

A grade was completed all the way 

up to Forest City but a proposed trestle to 

climb the “Z” Dugway near Major Evans 

Gulch would have been too steep. The 

decision was made to terminate the railroad 

at a large flat near Deer Creek, the site of 

present day Tibble Fork Reservoir. The 

little town that sprang up there to service 

the railroad was known as Deer Creek 

City. Deer Creek produced charcoal in ten 
large kilns to provide fuel for the train and 

a lime kiln processed lime for the Sultana 

Smelter at Forest City. There was also a 

large boarding house and a mining district 

recorder’s office. A small cemetery was 

established on a small flat to the north of

Deer Creek City (Stauffer 1971). The 

grade constructed to the Sultana Smelter 

was used by wagons to haul the ore to Deer 

Creek, and it continues to be used today to 

access the head of American Fork Canyon. 

Two locomotives operated on this 

line, an 0-4-4 named the “American Fork”, 

which operated until 1873, and an 0-6-0 

which operated from 1874 to 1878. These 

locomotives hauled not only ore, but 

lumber for use in and around American 

Fork City. Records indicate that horses or 

mules were sometimes used to pull the flat 

cars up the canyon and “...going down was 

no problem at all, it being possible to get 

from Deer Creek to American Fork on a 

flatcar by judicious use of the brakes” 

(Pitchard 1987)! In “Histories of 

American Fork Canyon,” Alan Stauffer 

mentions an injury occurring while coasting 

a flatcar down canyon: “John Chadwick 

was one of the first brakemen. On 

November 24, 1873, he fell off his 

speeding car and was injured, causing him 

to miss five days of work. Pay was $3 per 

day (Stauffer 1971).” No mention is made 

about what happened to the unmanned car.

In 1876, the ore bodies on Miller 

Hill began to give out and mining activity 

in the American Fork Mining District 

began to decline. The Sultana Smelter was 

dismantled and Forest City was never again 

as large or as important. Several of the 

larger mines were leased to smaller 

operators and a few local operators 

continued their own mining operations. 

21 

Due to the decline in mining 

activity, the cost of operating the railroad 

became prohibitive. To help cover the 

operating costs, the train was made 

available for sight seeing trips into the 

canyon. By 1878, revenue could not cover 

operating costs and the railroad was 

discontinued. The associated hardware, 

including the track was sold. By June of 

1878, all that remained of the railroad was 

an abandoned grade. As a result, the 

Locomotive at Hanging Rock in American Fork 

Canyon, 1870’s. Utah State Historical Society.. 

remaining mines in the canyon experienced 

a transportation crisis until the formation of

the American Fork Wagon Road Company, 

which established a toll road over the 

former railroad grade (Crosland and 

Thompson 1994). 

Though mining continued in the 

canyon, the years between 1872-76 saw the 

most productive period in the American 
22 

Fork Mining District, in which over 

$2,000,000 worth of gold, silver and lead 

was recovered. Less than half this amount 

was recovered in any other decade of 

mining in the district. Mining activity did 

surge again after the turn of the century 

when George Tyng relocated the rich ore 

bodies in Miller Hill that had brought the 

mining district to life in the first place. 

There was also a resurgence during World 

War I, when many world metal sources were 

cut off from U.S. markets. Even 

creative attempts by miners at the Yankee 

in Mary Ellen Gulch in the 1930's to 

reduce ore transport costs were not enough 

to keep canyon mining alive. Towers from

their four and a half mile long tramway still 

stand in the canyons, a testament to grim

determination. Mining in American Fork 

Canyon came to a close, for the most part, 

The Sultana Smelter which was located at the head of Mary Ellen Gulch as it appeared in 1872. Privately 

published drawing; Aspinwall Mining Co., New York. 

by 1950 (Crosland and Thompson 1994). 

The Railroad in Spanish Fork Canyon 

The railroad in Spanish Fork 

Canyon was constructed in the 1870's to 

more easily extract coal from deposits 

discovered near Pleasant Valley (present 

day Scofield). As early as 1872, Milan 

Packard of Springville projected and began 

work on the Utah and Pleasant Valley 

Railroad. The line began in Springville at 

the Utah Central Railroad yards. By 

midsummer of 1872, the track had been 

placed to the mouth of Spanish Fork 

Canyon and by the fall, rails were laid to a 

construction camp name Thistle. In 1875, 

a road and sawmill were completed into 

Mill Fork to provide ties for the railroad. 

Timber was taken off of Uinta lands and 

used not only in Spanish Fork Canyon, but 
The American Fork Canyon Railroad. Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day 

Saints. 

on railroads all over Utah. The railroad, 

when complete, extended to Tucker, turned 

south up Starvation Canyon and eventually 

entered Pleasant Valley. In 1880, the 

company was sold to The Rio Grande 

Western Railroad. They dismantled the 

railroad between Tucker and Pleasant 

Valley and relaid it toward the summit in 

Spanish Fork Canyon. The summit known 

at that time as Soldier Pass was renamed by 

the railroad as Soldier Summit. In 1881, 

the line connected with the Denver and Rio 

Grande Railroad and became the major line 

between Denver and Ogden. Miners in American Fork Canyon in the 1870’s. 

Utah State Historical Society. 

23 
24 
CHAPTER 2: 

CREATION OF THE UINTA 

NATIONAL FOREST 

AND THE PREWAR YEARS 

A NATIONAL FOREST IS BORN 

The vivid history of conservation in 

America is told through the National 

Forests. In the 1870's and 1880's, 

stockmen assumed as their domain the 

valleys; the lumbermen, the forests; and the 

iron, copper, coal, and petroleum giants, 

the mineral fields. In those days, as in our 

own, wealth was a common goal and 

exploitation of the West was the result. 

However, from this period were born the 

John Muirs, Gifford Pinchots, Grover 

Clevelands, and Theodore Roosevelts, who 

strove to protect the natural resources 

before they were completely expropriated 

or depleted. 

 25 

During the eighteenth century, the 

vast forests seemed limitless. Trees were 

useful but in the way of farms, homes and 

cities. The more felled or burned the 

better; there would always be more. This 

sentiment characterizes the American 

philosophy from Colonial days to well past 

the Civil War. 

A few individuals sought to 

preserve the forests and argued for a 

change in the American philosophy of 

resource exploitation to one of 

conservation. Among them were Ralph 

Waldo Emerson, Dr. Wolcott Biggs, 

chemist-physicist and president of the 

American Academy for the Advancement of 

Science, Dr. Charles S. Sargent, director of 

the Harvard Botanical Garden and editor of 

Garden and Forest Magazine, and Carl 

Schurz, German-born Secretary of Interior. 

Gifford Pinchot, Father of American Forestry 

In 1871, the nation was shocked by 

the worst forest fire in its history. Fifteen 

hundred people lost their lives and nearly 

1,300,000 acres were burned at Peshtigo, 

Wisconsin. Disturbed by the wave of fire 

and destruction, leaders of the conservation 

movement urged Congress and the states to 

recognize the need for cultivation of timber 

and preservation of forests. To pursue this 

program, the American Forestry 

Association was organized in 1875. 

In 1876, leaders of the conservation 

movement were able to get a bill passed 

which called for a study of and a report on 

the best means for forest preservation and 

renewal. The task of preparing the report 

was given to the Department of Agriculture 

and represented the origin of forestry 

within the Department. The bill also 

provided for the appointment of a special 

agent to conduct the investigation. By 

1881, a Division of Forestry was 

established within the Department of

Agriculture (Steen 1991). 

By 1890, forest devastation was 

underway almost everywhere. Timber
 26 

operators, despite their "cut and get out" 

philosophy, were not entirely to blame. 

The entire Nation was intent on 

advancement and exploitation. Although 

forest fires destroyed as much timber as 

was cut, they were regarded as beneficial in 

clearing the land. Congress had 

contributed to the problem by passing laws 

which only opened the forests to 

uncontrolled use. Such Acts as the Free 

Timber Act and the Timber and Stone Act 

amounted to what was legalized plunder of 

the forests. In 1891, Congress acted on the 

recommendations of the American Forestry 

Association and others to enable the 

President to create protected forests and 

passed the Forest Reserve Act. These 

Reserves were to be held in trust by the 

Department of Interior. Their primary 

purpose was to protect timber and water 

supplies. By the end of 1892, President 

Benjamin Harrison had created fifteen 

reserves totaling over thirteen million 

acres. 

Now that the Government was in the 

business of running forests, the question 

arose as to what to do with them. They 

could not stay locked up forever. Some 

suggested they be administered by the 

Army; others envisioned forestry in relation 

to nature’s work such as landscaping and 

botany. In 1896, a commission of scientific 

men was appointed, by the Secretary of the 

Interior, to study the questions. One of the 

appointees was 30-year-old ecologist 

Gifford Pinchot. He was a graduate of 

Yale in 1889 who did additional study in 

Europe. It was here he acquired his 

lifelong belief that forestry cannot succeed 

without the support of people who are the 

forest's neighbors. He was impressed with 

a French law requiring owners to reseed 

their denuded slopes. 

Upon his return to America, he 

became the first professional American 

forester. It was appropriate that he was 

placed on the commission to study forest 

problems. Pinchot stretched his long legs 

over hundreds of miles of America's great 

forests. He came out of the woods to 

deliver lectures and write reports and then 

went back to the forest to gather more 

information. He and his colleagues toured 

many of the existing reserves and spoke 

with local officials about their management. 

 They also received requests from many of 

these same people to protect watersheds and 

forests that were essential to the success of 

local communities. 

Returning east, the Commission 

voted to recommend the creation of new 

Forest Reserves and two new National 

Parks. President Cleveland accepted the 

commission's recommendation and on 

February 22, 1897, created 21,279,840 

acres of Forest Reserves. The Uintah 

Forest Reserve was one of these, and like 

the others, was to be managed by the 

Bureau of Forestry under the Department 

of the Interior. 

A host of Western Congressmen 

rose up in arms and demanded the return of 

the Reserves to the public domain. Joseph 

Rawlins, a U.S. Senator from Utah, called 

the Presidential Proclamation: 

...as gross an outrage almost as 

was committed by William the 

Conqueror, who, for the purpose of 

making a hunting reserve, drove out 

and destroyed the means of 

livelihood of hundreds of thousands 

of people (U.S. Department of 

Agriculture 1972). 

As a result, the Forest Reserves 
created by President Cleveland were 

suspended for one year in every location 

but California, returned to the Public 

Domain, and put up for claim. The door 

was left open for purposes then proper and 

lawful, such as homesteading, prospecting 

and mining. This helped reduce Western 

hostility toward the Reserves. 

In June of 1897, Congress passed an 

Act for the practical administration of 

Forest Reserves. The stated purpose was 

for “securing favorable conditions of water 

flow, and to furnish a continuous supply of 

timber for the use and necessities of 

citizens of the United States.” 

Gifford Pinchot went on to become

the first Chief of the Division of Forestry 

under the Department of Agriculture. 

There was a total of ten employees; he was 

the eleventh. The Forest Reserves at this 

time were still under the Department of 

Interior, so the Division of Forestry was 

limited to offering technical advice on 

forestry and conducting limited timber 

studies within the Forest Reserves. 

Pinchot argued that forests should 

be managed by professional foresters and 

finally, on February 1, 1905, the Forest 

Reserves were officially transferred to the 

Department of Agriculture. In addition, the 

Bureau of Forestry was renamed the U.S. 

Forest Service. Secretary of Agriculture 

James Wilson wrote a letter to Pinchot 

appointing him the first Chief in which he 

outlined the policy and goals of the Forest 

Service. An excerpt from Secretary 

Wilson's letter to Pinchot follows: 

In the administration of the 

Forest Reserves it must be clearly 

borne in mind that all land is to be 

devoted to its most productive use 

for the permanent good of the whole 

people and not for the temporary 

benefit of individuals and 

companies...(but) for the greatest 

good for the greatest number in the 

long run (Letter quoted in Pinchot, 

Breaking New Ground, pp. 261-62). 

John Ise, Associate Professor of 

Economics at the University of Kansas, in 

his book, United States Forest Policy, 

records the following battle between 

Congress and conservationists. 

In the study of the forest 

policy, nothing stands out more 

prominently than the unwise position 

Congress usually took. Of the 

important timber land laws passed 

in the half-century during which our 

forests were disappearing or passing 

President Theodore Roosevelt and Chief Forester 

Gifford Pinchot on the river boat “Mississippi: in 

1907. USDA Forest Service 

 27 
into the hands of private 

individuals, only two - the Forest 

Reserve Act of 1891, and the Act of 

1897 - stand out clearly as examples 

of intelligent legislation and the first 

of these was secured because 

Congress did not get a chance to 

squash it, while the Act of 1897 was 

drawn by a "theoretical" scientist, 

and pushed through Congress on an 

appropriation bill. During the 

seventies, eighties, and nineties, 

timber-steal measures of almost any 

kind could get a favorable hearing 

in Congress, while conservation 

measures were promptly eliminated 

from the calendar...For the fact that 

the United States finally got some 

national forests, with a scientific 

system of administration, credit is 

due, not to the wisdom of our 

national legislature, but entirely to 

administrative officials - Schurz, 

Cleveland, Sparks, Walcott, 

Fernow, Bowers, Pinchot, 

Roosevelt, and others; and these 

men had to fight Congress at almost 

every step (Ise 1920). 

 28 

In 1906, the Uintah Forest Reserve 

was renamed the Uinta Forest Reserve and 

on March 4, 1907, an Act of Congress 

provided that the Forest Reserves would be 

known from then on as National Forests. 

TIMBER 

By the time the Uinta National 

Forest was established, nearly all of the 

accessible timber was gone. Settlers in 

Utah and Heber Valleys had harvested 

timber for fuel, construction and mining for 

50 years. As a result, the timber industry

Loggers falling spruce on the Johnson Sale in 

Wolf Creek, 1927. USDA Forest Service 

was never the driving aspect of 

management on the Uinta. 

 Ranger W. Jones Bowen gives 

some insight into timber lands and forest 

fires during the year 1911: 

Very few fires occurred and 

very little attention was given to fire 

prevention and suppression in the 

early days of the Forest Service. 

There was very little timber business 

on this district. Most of the small 

patches that grew in the canyons on 

the Utah Valley drainage had been 

cut over and logged several years 

prior to the creation of the Uinta 

Forest. At the time the forest was 

created, there was very little 

commercial timber left on any of the 
lands in the Utah Valley drainage 

(U.S. Department of Agriculture 

1972). 

Nevertheless, timber surveys were 

conducted and some harvesting did occur. 

W.A. Pack's report of June 12, 1912, gives 

us some additional information on timber 

resources at the time: 

...There are thirty-six timber sales 

of all classes in active operation on 

the forest at the present time. The 

greater portion of the timber is used 

locally in the settlements adjacent to 

the Forest. In the past years prior 

to 1910 the mines of Park City used 

considerable timber from the Uinta 

Forest but outside markets have 

been able to furnish timber at lower 

rates...The mature timber should be 

sold and removed as soon as 

possible as it is in constant danger 

of fire, and especially is this true in 

certain parts of the Forest on the 

heads of streams where campers 

make the fire danger more 

intense...During the past year there 

have been no fires of importance on 

this Forest and the losses will not 

exceed $316.00. 

 29 

During this fiscal year we 

have planted 137,400 young trees 

on 138 acres and seeded by the seed 

spot method 200 acres of 

ground...An examination just made 

shows from 29% to 55% of the 

plants alive; however, considerable 

of the seed which was sown last fall 

is germinating and some few trees 

show through the soil. Chipmunks 

and other rodents have done 

considerable damage by destroying 

Loading logs on the Blazzard sale in Soapstone 

Basin, 1938. USDA Forest Service. 

the seed although the ground was 

properly poisoned before seeding...I 

have in mind a seeding area in an 

old lodgepole pine burn which is a 

most favorable site for lodgepole 

pine. Judging from the past 

experience on this forest I am very 

doubtful of making a success of 

planting. I have thought that in 

some instances the most favorable 

species had been chosen for this 

work but last fall a very favorable 

site was planted to 2-1 Douglas-fir 

and from present indications I am 

doubtful if there will be over 20 

percent of the trees that will live. 

The place selected for this 

experiment was an old burn which 

had been cut over and also burned 

over. The timber taken from this 

area was an exceptionally good 

stand of Douglas-fir (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1972). 

With the creation of the Forest 

Service came confusion about responsibility 

for management of timber resources on the 

new Forest lands. As in other management 

areas, there was some resistance to Forest 
 30 

Service authority in many cases. In some 

cases, the confusion existed between 

agencies. In 1905, William M. Anderson, 

a “Forest Guard” working on the Uinta, 

was involved in a timber dispute with the 

Department of Indian Affairs. The 

following is his narrative: 

On August 5, 1905, I was 

detailed to help Mr. F. E. Joy and 

Forest Guard, Morgan Park, to 

establish the inside boundary line of 

the area that in 1905 was taken 

from the Ute and White River 

Indians, and added to the old 

Uintah Forest. My title was Forest 

Guard also. We started marking 

boundary line between the forest 

area and the Indian lands on August 

16, 1905, and on August 18th, we 

found that the Indian department 

had contracted with some private 

timber men to cut yellow pine timber 

on the forest lands. The man, F. M. 

Joy, a competent surveyor, was sort 

of in charge of our party; however, 

he had little or no experience along 

any other line...I made a trip to the 

logging camp that was established 

on the Uintah River, about 3 miles 

inside the forest boundary. I found 

the foreman of the camp and tried 

as best I could to explain that he 

was cutting timber without 

permission from the Forest Service, 

an act that constituted trespass, and 

that I must insist that he stop at 

once. He said that he wanted to do 

only the right thing and that he 

would make a trip down to the 

Indian agency and find out what the 

agent said. 

About 2:30 that afternoon, 

 while I was at camp, shoeing a 

horse, two soldiers from Ft. 

Duchesne rode up and informed me 

that the Indian agent had instructed 

that I be arrested and taken in to the 

agency. I hardly knew what to do. 

Joy and Park were out on survey. I 

argued with the two officers that we 

were right and tried to show them 

our authority, and further, I 

promised that if they would wait 

until the next day, we would come to 

the agency and see the agent. This 

they refused, saying they had come 

for me and were going to take me 

in. They were both armed and at 

the time I wasn't. I stepped into the 

tent for my hat and gloves, and 

incidentally, I buckled on the long 

forty-one Colt that was usually 

hanging on my hip, and during the 

time I made up my mind that I 

wasn't going with them this time, or 

until we were all there at least. I 

came out of the tent and said, "Did 

the agent send just two of you to 

take us?" Receiving an affirmative 

answer, with some punctuations that 

didn't set well, I then remarked, 

"Well, if you two think you can cut 

the mustard, either start at it or get 

going." I didn't go down that night. 

When Joy and Park came to camp, I 

told them about the incident, and I 

also told them that I expected a 

squad would be up to get us in the 

morning. After deliberating on the 

matter during the night, Joy 

decided that he would go to the 

agent early the next morning. He 

met the squad of eight soldiers 

midway to the agency and went on 

back with them. It took about sixty 
 days to get the matter straightened 

up, but finally the timber cutting 

was stopped by order from 

Washington. In the meantime, I 

insisted on marking the trees for 

cutting and scaling the logs cut, 

intending that they should be paid 

for, but I don't think they ever were 

(U.S. Department of Agriculture 

1972). 

The Uinta National Forest had 

moderate commercial and local markets for 

timber resources. Much of the timber 

harvested on the Uinta through World War 

I went to the Union Pacific and its 

subsidiaries for railroad ties. By 1920, the 

local market for timber came primarily 

from local mines (Holmes 1990). 

 31 

GRAZING AND WATERSHED 

The Uinta National Forest was 

created in an environment of free-for-all 

and “common use” grazing. Livestock 

owners raced each other to the desirable 

grazing areas, cattlemen competed with 

sheep men, local operators competed with 

outsiders, and small operations competed 

with large operations. An 1897 Act 

authorized the government to regulate 

grazing on Forest Reserves and insist upon 

permit applications prior to use. Range 

conditions were poor enough that in 1898, 

the Secretary of the Interior prohibited 

grazing in Forest Reserves, except those of 

Washington and Oregon. Stockmen 

responded by admitting that studies had to 

be conducted on range conditions, but they 

did not want to face a moratorium on 

grazing. The compromise reached allowed 

the use of “accustomed ranges” and Gifford 

Pinchot was told to study the problem. 

Pinchot set to work authorizing studies, 

attending livestock meetings, and drafting 

new management rules. Albert F. Potter, 

an Arizona rancher, was hired specifically 

to address range problems in the 

Southwest. Potter was able to get stockmen 

to favor reasonable regulation of range 

lands (Steen 1991). At the same time, 

grazing fees were levied to defray the costs 

of management.

Future Sheep herder, a six-week old pup 

and A.B. Smith near Heber, 1914. USDA 

Forest Service 

Some stockmen reacted with surprise when 

a stranger called a “Forest Ranger” came 

on the scene and told the them they had to 

pay a fee to graze on the same land where 

their fathers and grandfathers had free 

grazing for 50 years. They were even 

more surprised when these Forest Rangers 

refused to let them put their animals on the 

ranges until May 1. The date was later 

changed to May 16, then to June 1. The 

numbers of livestock allowed to graze were 

also cut. The last straw came when 

trespass notices were given. Some of those 
early Rangers were lucky to be alive (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1972). 

Dan Pack, an early Forest Ranger, 

was transferred from Vernal to Mt. Nebo, 

then part of the Payson Forest Reserve, in 

March of 1903. After establishing an 

office in Payson, he went to Nephi where 

he had difficulty with the sheep men. Pack 

describes the events as follows: 

While I was there (in Nephi) 

I informed the sheep men that no 

sheep would be allowed on the Nebo 

during 1903. The sheep men 

showed a very defiant 

attitude...About May 5th, seven 

bands of sheep were driven onto 

Nebo and started lambing. I wired 

the Washington Office that sheep 

were grazing on the Nebo. I 

immediately received a wire back 

which read as follows: "Hire 

sufficient men to drive sheep off the 

forest and keep them off, but avoid 

conflict." I gave the wire careful 

consideration and decided if I 

should try to drive the sheep off the 

forest the results might be of a 

serious nature, so I decided to go to 

Salt Lake and place the facts before 

U.S. District Attorney Lipman and 

insisted that he take immediate steps 

to secure a permanent injunction 

against trespassing sheep owners. 

They were ordered to appear in 

court and show cause, if any, why a 

permanent injunction shouldn't be 

granted, after the sheep men 

presented their side of the case the 

Judge granted a permanent 

injunction against all seven of the 

trespassing sheep owners and 

allowed them four days to vacate the 

Forest Rangers Pack and Fisher, 1910. 

USDA Forest Service.

Nebo. They complied with his 

instructions even though they 

suffered heavy losses in doing so. 

After court had adjourned, 

the sheep owners' attorney came 

over to me and said "Pack, we were 

surprised in the way you brought 

this action, we were prepared to 

fight a damage case, but since you 

asked for an injunction there is 

nothing we can do about it" (Pack 

1946-7). 

Even though Pack's action seemed 

unjustified to the sheep men, reports from

others on the forest's condition indicated 

the need for action. Daniel Gull, a sheep 

man at the turn of the century, paints a 

gloomy picture of grazing conditions on the 

forest: 

During those years, all of 

this country was overstocked with 

sheep and the range was badly 

 32 
 33 

abused. All grass and seeds would 

be consumed and the brush and 

choke cherry bushes would be 

browsed as high as sheep could 

reach, by the 24th of July. The flats 

would become dust beds, sometimes 

6" deep. After that we would take 

the sheep back into lower country 

and hold them on oakbrush points 

and sagebrush, trailing around from 

place to place wherever we could 

get a few days feed. 

In spring there would be a 

scant growth of grass and weeds, 

the palatable brush species, except 

oak, were heavily grazed, thinned 

and killed out. 

Snowberry and elderberry 

had almost disappeared from the 

range just prior to the time the 

country went into the forest (Forest 

Reserve). 

There was very little 

underbrush and low vegetation to 

stop run-off, from Wallsburg Ridge 

around to Soldier Summit. There 

was lots of soil washed away and 

deep washes were started. 

Better forage species such as 

bluebells and wild oats or brome 

grass were very scarce and 

disappearing on the range west and 

south of the Strawberry Ridge (Gull 

1935). 

Range conditions were so bad in one 

area of the Wasatch Range that Albert F. 

Potter, commissioned by Pinchot to 

document range conditions in Utah in 1902, 

summed up the grazing situation by 

humorously saying, "Saw a band of sheep 

on the head of Potter Canyon which were 

quite thin in flesh and seemed to be living 

on fresh air and mountain scenery (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1972).” 

At times, Forest Service policy was 

not very equitable and resistance was 

sometimes justified. A statement is 

recorded in the Forest Service's Regional 

Office in Ogden, Utah, concerning a 

dispute between Michael Barclay and the 

Forest Service: 

In the spring of 1905 

Barclay, as usual, placed his sheep 

out on the range surrounding his 

ranch and a stranger visited him 

and asked him if he had a grazing 

permit. Barclay had never heard of 

"grazing permits" and said so. The 

visitor told him he was a forest 

ranger; that the Uinta National 

Forest had been created and it was 

necessary to have a permit from the 

Forest Service to use the range. 

Since he had none he would have to 

move his sheep off the forest area. 

Barclay told the ranger he had no 

other place to go and would not 

leave the range. The forest 

boundary split Barclay's ranch in 

half - he learned when the boundary 

line was posted. 

A few days later another 

forest officer rode up to his ranch 

on a pinto pony and introduced 

himself as R. E. Benedict. Barclay 

explained his predicament to 

Benedict who told him he was a 

Class A applicant, was entitled to a 

permit and gave him application 

forms and instructions to complete 

them and present them to Forest 

Supervisor (W.I.) Pack at Provo. 

Pack disapproved the 

applications and rejected Barclay's 
 34 

appeal for reconsideration. Barclay 

then took his case to Reed Smoot, 

now United States senator. They 

started to forest Supervisor Pack's 

office to discuss the case and met 

Pack on the street. Smoot asked 

Pack if he had received Barclay's 

application and rejected it. Pack 

admitted that was correct. Smoot 

then told Pack to approve the 

application and in his presence told 

Barclay to see him (Smoot) again if 

he did not obtain a grazing permit 

(U.S. Department of Agriculture 

1972). 

Despite early attempts to regulate 

grazing on the Uinta, overgrazing 

continued on watershed areas that, at that 

time, were not within the Forest boundary. 

In 1909, a petition was signed by the 

Springville City Mayor, the President of 

the Board of Trade in Mapleton and 

numerous other people from both 

Springville and Mapleton. This petition 

requested that certain lands in Hobble 

Creek Canyon be added to the Uinta 

National Forest for watershed protection. 

Severe overgrazing up to that time had 

created a number of water quality and 

flooding problems. The petition was sent 

to the Regional Forester in Ogden and later 

to the Utah Congressional Delegation in 

Washington. By Executive Proclamation 

(#1091) on October 7, 1910, most of the 

Hobble Creek drainage was added to the 

Uinta National Forest (Isbell 1972). 

During World War I, increased 

stocking of grazing lands was seen as 

patriotic and livestock numbers increased. 

After the war, the poor state of the ranges 

Region-wide drew more attention to the 

problem and the Forest Service re-instituted 

studies to look at proper stocking levels. In 

1919, studies on the Uinta National Forest 

led to adjustments in not only numbers of 

livestock, but a shift to a shorter grazing 

season as well. The date livestock were 

allowed to enter the allotments was pushed 

back from mid-April to mid-May. 

Unfortunately, these studies and changes in 

management did not completely solve 

overgrazing problems. In some cases, data 

used in management was not entirely 

accurate and in others, local economic 

conditions biased the studies. 

Prior to 1936, most of the 

watershed areas east of Utah Valley were 

in private hands. Uncontrolled livestock 

grazing seriously depleted the vegetation, 

leaving the soils susceptible to erosion 

during high intensity rain storms. Public 

attention was focused on these deteriorated 

watershed areas in the 1920's and 1930's 

when repeated floods and attendant 

sedimentation began to affect the croplands 

and urban improvements in the vicinity of 

Provo and Springville. Mud-rock flows 

and summer flash floods occurred in Rock, 

Slate and Little Rock Canyons. Springs 

furnishing water for two fish hatcheries in 

Springville were frequently filled with 

debris, and muddy water was killing the 

young fish. 

In 1934, Executive Order #6801A 

was issued which added 17,741 acres on 

the benches above Provo to the Uinta 

National Forest. However, continuing 

watershed deterioration coupled with the 

increasing frequency and magnitude of 

floods in 1923, 1930, and 1936 prompted 

representatives of Provo and Springville 

cities and Utah County to seek an extension 

of the National Forest boundary and public 

acquisition of watershed lands. They also 

sought an expansion of the rehabilitation 
 35 

work begun in the Kolob Basin, above 

Springville, in 1933 by the CCC. In 1935, 

Congress authorized the Secretary of 

Agriculture to acquire by purchase any 

lands within the boundaries of the Uinta 

and Wasatch National Forests that were 

needed in order to “minimize soil erosion 

and flood damage and to pay for said lands 

from the entire receipts from the sale of 

natural resources or occupancy of public 

lands within the Uinta and Wasatch 

National Forests, which receipts are hereby 

authorized to be appropriated for that 

purpose until said lands have been acquired 

(Holmes 1990).” Watershed areas were 

acquired and rehabilitation efforts were 

launched with the help of the Civilian 

Conservation Corps. 

Elk from Jackson Hole country arrive in Nephi to be transplanted on Mt. Nebo, 1914. 

USDA Forest Service. 

WILDLIFE AND FISHERIES 

Wildlife and habitat management 

everywhere in Utah was an early concern. 

A few of the first attempts to manage 

wildlife in the state occurred with the 

Mormon settlers. Hosea Stout, a member 

of the Utah Territorial Legislature in 1856, 

records in his diary on January 15 that the 

first bill to protect beaver was presented to 

bring back populations decimated by over 

30 years of trapping. It prohibited the 

trapping of these animals between April and 

September. The bill was later defeated. 

At the time of Statehood in 1896, 

the first legislature of Utah met and a 

Committee of Fish and Game was set up. 

The Committee decided that it was of the 

utmost importance that the fish and game of 

the state be given all the protection possible 

though just laws. They stated: "The laws 

now in force (territorial laws) are fairly 
 36 

good, but are constantly violated. The 

citizens must be made to realize the 

importance of the fish and game (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1980)." 

Big Game 

At the turn of the century, big game 

populations throughout the area were 

virtually nonexistent on range lands due to 

overgrazing and hunting. By 1897, 

wildlife and their habitat were serious 

concerns for the Forest Service, and the 

State formed the Utah State Fish and Game 

Association to aid in the restoration of 

wildlife. Unfortunately, conditions 

remained relatively stagnant during these 

first years. At this time and for many years 

after, deer were scarce on the Uinta 

National Forest. Law enforcement was very 

lax. In addition, it was held that the 

Indians had treaty rights on the former 

Reservation lands to hunt and fish in and 

out of season as long as “the streams ran 

and the sun set.” Additionally, predators 

took a heavy toll. 

The Forest Service showed serious 

concern for wildlife and habitat with the 

establishment of new policies on the 

National Forests. In 1919, a manual for the 

Fish and Game Management of the 

Intermountain Region pointedly proclaimed 

that “formerly fish and game development 

and protection was only a very minor duty, 

depending on time available and noninterference with other activities. The 

present policy places it in equal standing 

with our other main activities.” By 1920, 

with predator control, more intensive law 

enforcement and the enactment of the buck 

law, big game populations began to build. 

The Indian Service also changed its attitude 

and implored Indians to refrain from 

hunting out of season. 

Shortly after the turn of the century, 

Pinchot decided that Forest Rangers would 

be permitted to serve as state game wardens 

in cooperation with State authorities. The 

emphasis continued to be placed on 

predator control to support the livestock 

industry. Forest officials worked with 

State governments and livestock 

associations to control the populations of 

wolves, bears, mountain lions, coyotes and 

bobcats. The first predator-kill record for 

the state of Utah reported eight bears, one 

mountain lion, zero wolves, 331 coyotes, 

37 wildcats, and one lynx for a total of 378 

predators eliminated during the year 1909. 

Although no records of kills on the Uinta 

National Forest were kept, there was 

frequent mention of predator hunting or 

poisoning. Supervisor Pack reported that 

the Forest Service poisoned the range 

against predators, mainly coyotes, during 

the late fall and early winter with bait and 

poison supplied by sheepmen. A large 

number of predators were killed in this 

way, and stockmen were pleased with the 

reduction in stock losses. An additional 

effect of predator control was the increase 

in big game populations. 

Early in the new century, the 

disappearance of the native elk sparked the 

concern of local citizens. The absence of 

game laws and conservation officers 

contributed to this decline in the species, 

and the elk eventually vanished. 

Consequently, the concerned citizens 

decided to transplant elk into the 175,000 

acres of national forest land in the 

mountainous Nebo range. 

In February of 1914, 50 head of elk arrived 

in Nephi from the Jackson Hole country in 

Yellowstone National Park. This day 

proved exciting for the entire town as men 

and women stopped work and children 
 37 

missed school to see the elk unloaded. The 

enthusiastic contributors to the project, 

including stockmen, farmers, and 

sportsmen, gladly accepted the expense of 

railroad transportation, trapping, loading, 

and feeding. 

Due to inclement weather conditions 

during the season, the elk were sheltered 

behind a high fence at a ranch and fed 

alfalfa hay. Ranchers did not release the 

elk from this shelter until the snow melted 

to reveal the lush greenery on the 

mountain. Indeed, all of the citizens 

appreciated these massive, gentle creatures. 

Upon their release, however, the elk 

returned to the shelter of the ranches 

seeking food when winter returned. 

Although the farmers initially accepted this 

vagrant behavior, the increasing population 

of the elk continued to demand more 

resources. These farmers compelled the 

State Game Department to pay for their 

damages. Furthermore, the stockmen 

began to resent the competition between 

their livestock and the big game. To 

alleviate the elk problem, state wardens 

killed 84 bothersome, mature bulls and 

served elk meat at public gatherings. 

Yet, conflicts festered between the 

farmers and sportsmen. The farmers 

estimated high numbers of elk and insisted 

that these elk were destroying their crops. 

Meanwhile, sportsmen viewed the does and 

cow elk as sacred animals and refused to 

kill them, so the cows continued to calve as 

usual. 

This contention forced the state to 

intervene and set a limit on the elk 

population. Fortunately, the advent of the 

airplane allowed the counting of the 

animals to be much more accurate. In 

addition, the Utah Board of Big Game

Control issued hunting permits under a 

limited licensing system that would ensure 

the management of the elk population. 

Elk hunting camp in Gardner Canyon, 1931. USDA 

Forest Service. 

The Forest Service’s multiple use 

policy led to disputes between wildlife 

proponents and livestock owners over 

habitat areas. By the 1930's, livestock 

owners were pressing the Forest Service 

and the Utah Department of Fish and Game

to control exploding populations of deer 

and elk to prevent excess competition for 

range (Alexander 1987). Ranger Merrill 

Nelson records, “During the late thirties 

and forties, the deer populations started to 

increase rapidly. This increase was first 

noted during the winter months on the low 

range from Little Rock Canyon to the 

‘Forks’ of Hobble Creek, and across the 

‘Front’ from Hobble Creek to the mouth of 

Spanish Fork Canyon. The deer were 

congregating in large numbers on the low 

winter range and were killing the browse 

plants by overgrazing (U.S. Department of 

Agriculture 1972).” The Forest Service 

responded to this overwhelming growth in 

the deer population by authorizing the first 

antlerless deer hunt in 1934. (Stephanie 

Hall, January 1997) 
Fish 

Most reports concur that there was 

an abundance of fish in the area. The 

Pioneers grew flax and wove it into line for 

fishing. In a sporting diary, Mrs. Will H. 

Jones recorded: 

June 10, 1878 pull out for Provo 

River by way of Camas. Cross the 

river and up Bench Creek to the 

forks of the Provo River where we 

find plenty of fine, large trout. 

Caught over two hundred and none 

weighing less than two pounds. 

Used bullheads for bait which we 

bought from boys at Camas (Jones 

1877-98).

The late 19th century saw a period 

of fish planting known as the Johnny 

Appleseed era. When fish culturists 

realized how easily trout eggs could be 

obtained and hatched, there followed a 

period of indiscriminate planting with little 

or no regard for the environmental 

consequences. Would-be stockers had only 

to write their Congressman or the Fish 

Commissioner and free fish would be 

delivered. This practice continued, in some

areas, until the 1970's. In many areas of 

the West, including areas on the Uinta, fish 

were indiscriminately stocked, making it 

difficult to find pure native populations of 

trout (Behnke 1992:55-59). 

 38 

During this era, many of the rivers and 

streams on the Uinta were stocked 

including but not limited to Hard to Beat 

Creek, Diamond Fork, Hobble Creek, 

American Fork and areas around Mt. 

Nebo. The result is the hybridized trout 

population we have today; Yellowstone 

Cutthroat, Brook Trout, Brown Trout and 

Rainbow Trout instead of the native 

Bonneville Cutthroat. 

RECREATION 

Recreation has been one of the 

primary uses of the Uinta, beginning in 

about 1850 and continuing to today. When 

the Uinta was established, areas on the 

Forest were already popular with picnickers 

and campers. But recreation was not an 

important aspect of Forest management for 

the first few years. The Forest Service 

dedicated its energies to solving what it felt 

were the great problems, which were 

timber, water, grazing and mining. Lesser 

issues, like recreation use, were left to take 

care of themselves. With the establishment 

of the Antiquities Act of 1906, Forest 

Service officials were required to look at 

areas that could be set aside as National 

Parks and begin forming policies on 

recreation. In 1917, one year after the 

creation of the Park Service, the Forest 

Service launched a campaign to study 

Forest Service recreation 

facilities and determine which policies 

Cross-country skiing at the original South Fork 

ranger Station in the early 1900’s USDA Forest 

Service. 
should govern the development and 

recreation facilities and uses. Forest 

Service officials admitted that it was 

difficult to place an economical value on 

recreation but it somehow had to be 

recognized as a valuable resource (Steen 

1991:113-22). 

By 1930, the Forest Service as a 

whole provided recreation to four times as 

many people as the Park Service. 

Recreation was finally being seen as an 

increasingly important part of the multiple 

use philosophy. Because of the increasing 

recreational use, planning became critical. 

By 1935, an active campaign was being 

 39 

mounted at the Regional level to develop 

recreational plans and facilities (Alexander 

1987). The result on the Uinta was the 

construction, by the Civilian Conservation 

Corps, of many of the developed 

campgrounds, access roads and trail systems 

that we maintain today. 

Timpanogos Cave 

During the fall of 1887, Martin 

Hansen first discovered what is known as 

Hansen's Cave, while cutting timber. In 

1921, James W. Gough and Frank Johnson, 

two youths about 14 years of age, 

discovered the Timpanogos Cave. The 

same fall George Heber and his nephew, 

Wayne E. Hansen, discovered Middle 

Cave, a scant six weeks after Timpanogos 

Cave was located. Verl J. Manwill, who 

rediscovered the covered opening of 

Timpanogos Cave, briefly records its 

history and how the Forest Service became 

involved: 

In the summer of 1921, we 

went on the annual Timpanogos 

Mountain Climb, then in camp that 

evening we planned our next trip. 

I remembered reading an 

article in the American Fork Citizen 

that was entitled "Rumors of 

Mysterious Cave in American Fork 

Canyon." We assumed that 

someone knew where it was, so we 

decided to go up to the canyon on 

August 14, 1921, and go through it. 

We went to see Martin Hansen 

(discoverer of Hansen's Cave) and 

he said he had heard rumors, but 

knew nothing about its whereabouts, but if we were going to look 

for it, to look for it in the general 

area and level as Hansen Cave... 

Truckload of children at Mutual Dell Organizational 

Camp, 1937. Courtesy of Jerry Springer 

We then proceeded up the 

canyon and went through Hansen's 

Cave. We had carbide miner's 

lamps, candles and also a couple of 

cameras and a flash gun for taking 

pictures. At this time we were very 

disappointed, as the onyx and 

beauty of the cave had been 

practically all stripped off. We 

didn't take any pictures, but 

proceeded to the entrance where we 

decided to separate and do 
 40 

 exploring. I went alone and went to 

the west, then climbed up over the 

ledges to the top and stopped to rest 

at a point about the same level as 

Hansen's Cave, but about 3/4 mile 

east and as my eyes scanned the 

mountainside, I noticed next to the 

ledge an artificial appearance like 

masonry with vegetation partially 

growing over it about thirty feet 

west of where I sat. I walked over 

to it and kicked at it and one of the 

rocks came loose, rolling down an 

incline inside of the mountain. I 

opened it up and the hole was about 

two feet in diameter. I immediately 

called the rest of the group and we 

proceeded to explore it. At the foot 

of the first incline, about 30 feet 

down, was a room of rather 

spacious dimensions and on the 

floor was part of an old dynamite 

box (all soggy and moldy). This 

indicated that someone had been in 

before and then sealed up the 

entrance and had either lost the 

location or was keeping it secret. 

We then proceeded to 

explore it. It was a thrilling 

experience as there were no trails or 

tracks to follow. In places we had 

to lay on our stomachs and squeeze 

through. Other places we had to 

make ourselves into human bridges 

or ladders to help the ladies along. 

About half-way through, half of the 

party became frightened and turned 

back. However, three of the men 

and two ladies proceeded all the 

way and we took pictures of what is 

now called "Father Time's Jewel 

Box." 

We then went back out and 

joined the rest of the party and 

closed up the entrance, much as the 

way we found it and went back down 

to the canyon bottom where we were 

camped and that night by the light 

of campfire, discussed our find and 

talked about ways and means to 

preserve its beauty for posterity 

instead of allowing it to be 

vandalized as Hansen's Cave had 

been. We decided to start by 

organizing an outdoor club 

dedicated to the objective of 

preserving the cave, which we did. 

We called it the Payson 

Alpine Club, and I was elected 

president and my sister Elva 

Manwill, secretary. We decided to 

return in about two weeks and 

measure, map and photograph the 

cave then turn our information over 

to the proper authorities for their 

assistance. 

We returned the following 

week (ed. two weeks) with a party of 

twenty-two, but so much time was 

spent showing it to the other group 

that we did no measuring, but did 

take a few pictures. 

When we left the cave, we 

were met near the mouth by Deputy 

Supervisor Mann and Ranger West 

of the Forest Service who demanded 

to know what we were doing there. 

When we explained they did not 

believe us. They seemed to think 

that we were the persons who were 

keeping the whereabouts of the cave 

a secret and were attempting to 

commercialize on it. So they, at 

that time, nailed up a sign on a 

nearby tree declaring the location a 

public service site, and then told us 
 to vacate at once and they would 

investigate our story (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1972). 

Timpanogos Cave rapidly became a 

popular recreational attraction in American 

Fork Canyon. Initially there was not a trail 

to the entrance and visitors pulled 

themselves up the steep slope using fallen 

trees. Timpanogos Cave was set aside as a 

National Monument by Presidential 

Proclamation on October 14, 1922, under 

the jurisdiction of the Forest Service to be 

protected for its “unusual scientific interest 

and importance.” In 1933, executive order 

No. 6166 placed all National Monuments 

under the jurisdiction of the Department of 

the Interior and the transfer of Timpanogos 

Cave National Monument to the Park 

Service took place on July 1, 1934. 

FIRE 

At the turn of the century, the 

causes of wildfires were varied, from

lightning strikes to railroad steam engines 

and red-hot brake shoes. Methods of 

combating these fires were few. In the first 

two decades of the twentieth century, the 

Forest Service supported state and private 

protection programs. It was believed that 

since all of the society benefited from

forests, everyone must help with fire 

suppression. Even Forest Service 

permittees were obligated to fight fires 

without compensation whenever their 

permit area was threatened. In some 

cases, fire protection was listed as a major 

justification for issuing permits. 

Nineteen-ten was an extremely dry 

year and wildfires resulted in a tremendous 

loss of resources, property, and human life 

Region wide. The Forest Service began to 

work more diligently to establish fire 

protection plans for each forest. Fire 

fighting technology was improving at this 

time as well. Caches of fire tools with 

instruction for use were established on the 

districts and transportation and 

communication systems were improved. 

The 1920's saw the introduction of a 

central dispatching system and specialized 

forms of fire tools. These include the Koch 

Tool (a handle that could be mounted on 

either a grubbing hoe or a shovel), the 

pulaski (a combination axe head and 

grubbing hoe), and the gas operated water 

pump. The 1920's also saw the 

introduction of standard techniques for fire 

control and a Regional fire control manual. 

Some forests in the Region began holding 

Make-shift lookout tower used during periods of 

extreme fire danger on the Uinta, 1929. USDA 

Forest Service. 

 41 
 42 

fire training for employees during this 

period. In the 1930's, fire policy 

emphasized the need to gain control of fires 

as quickly as possible. This emphasis was 

maintained until very recently (Alexander 

1987:66-67). 

CHANGES 

IN THE FOREST BOUNDARY 

The original Uinta Forest Reserve 

boundary included 842,000 acres located 

along the north slope of the High Uintas 

between Heber Mountain and the Green 

River. A map of the original area is 

included in Appendix B of this document. 

In July of 1905, with the opening of the 

Uintah Valley Indian Reservation, the 

Forest’s size more than doubled with the 

addition of 1,010,000 acres previously 

owned by the Utes. With the addition of 

another 429,848 acres from public domain 

in January of 1906, the Uinta Forest 

Reserve reached its greatest size with 

2,281,848 acres (see Appendix B for a map 

of the area). 

On January 16, 1907, Willard I. 

Pack, who was now the Forest Supervisor 

of the Uinta Forest Reserve, received a 

proposal from James Adams, Acting 

Regional Forester: 

...to divide many of the forest 

reserves into new administrative 

units. The object is to give each 

officer in charge the administration 

of those lands only which, from 

their location, topography and 

business interests, can be most 

effectively and cheaply managed 

from headquarters (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1972). 

The proposal was to locate a 

headquarters at Provo and one at Vernal. 

Ten days following the above letter, 

Supervisor Pack sent a letter to 

Washington, stating: 

I will give you my reasons 

frankly why I am not in favor of a 

division of the Uinta Forest Reserve, 

while at the same time I do not wish 

to appear critical. 

It is my opinion that there 

would not be enough business to 

justify the expense of establishing 

and maintaining an office at 

Vernal... 

Vernal is extremely poorly 

located for the transaction of 

business with local interests as well 

as with the Washington office... 

I believe, that the more 

business that can be concentrated 

under one head in an office which is 

favorably located, that business can 

be handled more effectively as well 

as with greater uniformity and less 

chance for discrimination. 

So far as I can see, the only 

benefit to be derived from dividing 

the reserve, would be that of 

bringing the supervisor in closer 

touch with the field work. I have my 

work so arranged now, that with my 

present force, I will be able to 

devote enough time to field work to 

become thoroughly familiar with 

conditions in the field (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1972). 

Sixteen months later two letters 

arrived on May 15 and 16 at Provo, Utah, 

calling for the division of the Uinta 

National Forest and the establishment of the 
Ashley National Forest. William M. 

Anderson was designated Forest Supervisor 

for the Ashley, and W.A. Pack continued 

on the Uinta until 1914. This transfer left 

the Uinta with 952,086 fewer acres, nearly 

half of the Forest’s acreage before the 

transfer. The Uinta now managed a total of 

1,298,524 acres. 

The Uinta National Forest gained a 

significant amount of acreage as a result of 

the transfer of the lands from the Nebo 

National Forest in 1915 when Forest 

Supervisor W.A. Pack was informed in a 

letter: 

 43 

It has been decided to 

subdivide the Nebo National Forest 

and do away with the headquarters 

in Nephi, Utah. This action takes 

effect at the termination of October 

26, and that portion which has been 

transferred to you comprises the 

northern division of the 

Forest...(U.S. Department of 

Agriculture 1972) 

The Uinta obtained 112,040 acres 

on and around Mt. Nebo in the transfer. 

CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS 

ON THE 

UINTA NATIONAL FOREST

 The availability of large numbers of

young men’s labor was the way in which 

many of this era’s advances in resource 

management were realized. The Civilian 

Conservation Corps (CCC) was established 

by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a 

“New Deal” program meant to provide 

employment and job training for unmarried 

young men between the ages of seventeen 

and twenty-five. They were paid $30 per

CCC crew constructing a check dam in Hobble 

Creek Canyon. Courtesy of Utah State Historical 

month, $25 of which was sent home to help 

support their families. The CCC was in 

operation from 1933 until the outbreak of 

the Second World War, and was one of the 

most successful government programs 

meant to relieve unemployment during the 

Great Depression. 

CCC men lived in large 200-man 

camps managed by the U.S. Army. The 

men’s daily work was supervised by 

resource managers from the state or federal 

lands on which they labored. Each camp 

had six month enrollment periods, and 

many operated for only one or two periods 

or only contained men intermittently. By 

1942, 116 camps would be built, dedicated 

and operated by the CCC in Utah. The 

first of these (Camp F-5) was dedicated on 

June 28, 1933, in American Fork Canyon 

at the present site of Granite Flat 

Campground. The ceremony was typical of 

all the camp dedications to follow and 

included a flag raising ceremony, athletic 

events, speeches, music and a dance. It 

was attended by over 500 people from

nearby towns. Throughout the program’s 

operation, other local towns also received 

the camps well and built relationships with
 44 

their men through exchanges of musical and 

dramatic shows, athletic teams and social 

dances. 

Eventually there would be seven 

camps located on or near the Uinta National 

Forest. Three camps were in operation 

only during the summer and fall of 1933, 

including the American Fork Canyon 

Camp, Diamond Fork (F-8, located near 

the East Portal of the Strawberry Tunnel) 

and Hobble Creek Canyon (SE-206, located 

in the left-hand portion of the canyon at 

Pole Haven). The latter was a State camp 

directed by Mark Anderson, who would 

later become a leader in the responsible 

management of watersheds and the mayor 

of Provo. This camp tested various ways 

to reduce erosion on heavily over-grazed 

slopes on private land in Kolob Basin above 

Springville. They did contour terracing, 

re-seeding and built check dams and other 

features designed to hold back water and 

soil. These techniques were later used up 

and down the Wasatch Front by the CCC to 

reduce the threat of devastating floods on 

adjacent farmland and towns (Baldridge 

1971). 

The Mt. Nebo Camp (F-9, situated 

near what is now Ponderosa Campground 

in Salt Creek east of Nephi) was also built 

during the summer of 1933. Its 

accomplishments that summer included 

building the Red Creek Road, which 

connected Payson and Salt Creek Canyon, 

as well as completing picnic tables and 

fireplaces, stock trails and erosion control 

features. The camp site was used again the 

next summer by a unique group made up 

exclusively of World War I veterans. From 

the summers of 1935 through 1939 the 

barracks and other buildings at the site 

would be used as a “spike” camp, or 

temporary work camp for about 30 men 

from other large CCC camps. During that 

time they changed the face of Salt and 

Nephi Canyons by completing additional 

roads, two new campgrounds, two 

amphitheaters, several bridges, dams, trails 

and countless camping and picnicking 

facilities. They also planted thousands of 

trees and helped clean up after devastating 

summer floods ripped through both 

canyons. 

A new Hobble Creek Camp (F-3, 

located in what is now Cherry Creek Picnic 

Area) was established in the spring of 

1934. It operated during the next two 

summers as well, and during the two 

intervening winters any men still enrolled 

in that camp moved to a new camp (PE-220 

the first winter and thereafter F-40) called 

Rock Canyon and set up at the Provo 

Fairgrounds (now the East Bay business 

area). The Hobble Creek camp was mostly 

made up of tents on wooden platforms, 

making it easier to dismantle the camp 

during the winter. The Provo Camp was 

more substantial, with all wooden 

buildings, and it eventually became the 

permanent home for CCC men working on 

Forest projects around the southern part of 

Utah Valley between the winter of 1937 

and summer of 1941 (Baldridge 1971). 

During their eight years of 

operation, men from these two camps 

created a fine record of work which 

included building eight campgrounds in 

Hobble Creek and Payson Canyons, four 

Forest Service ranger stations, dams at the 

mouths of Little Rock, Rock and Slate 

Canyons, upgrading or building roads in 

Hobble Creek (to Springville Crossing), 

Rock Creek and the Nebo Loop Road, 

several bridges, stock trails to and through 

Spanish Fork Canyon and other duties such 

as fire fighting.
 45 

The other long-lived CCC camp 

which worked on the Uinta National Forest 

was F-43, located in the northwestern part 

of Pleasant Grove. This camp was 

occupied in September of 1935 and 

operated as a Forest Service camp until the 

summer of 1938. In 1939 it became a 

Bureau of Reclamation camp for men 

working on projects relating to the 

construction of Deer Creek Dam (Baldridge 

1971). Men from the Pleasant Grove camp 

often spent their summers 

working on the Wasatch National Forest at 

Soapstone, where they built roads, 

campgrounds, and ranger stations. Others 

would work at spike camps up American 

Fork Canyon where they built Granite Flat 

and other campgrounds, the Mutual Dell 

and Aspen Grove amphitheaters, Grove 

Creek and Heisett’s Hollow diversion 

dams, constructed roads, trails, guard 

stations, and planted thousands of trees. 

Additional duties included summer fire 

fighting and rescuing stranded miners 

during the harsh winter of 1936. During 

that same winter the men endured icy cold 

to build dry-laid rock walls along the 

South Fork Ranger Station, constructed by the CCC in 1934-5, as it 

appeared in 1937. USDA Forest Service 

unstable bank of the American Fork River. 

Many of the campgrounds, roads, 

trails, and bridges that the CCC built on the 

Uinta remain today. Although a number of 

these have been updated to meet more 

modern needs, their impact during their 

own time cannot be underestimated (Olsen 

1994). Before the CCC began, few roads 

on the Forest were easily traveled by car 

and large areas of the Forest were 

inaccessible by either road or well-marked 

trail. There were no campgrounds with 

services such as water or sanitation. The 

effects of heavy over-grazing around the 

turn of the century were only beginning to 

heal and bare slopes and summer flooding 

were common features. The CCC began to 

change all this. The relatively inexpensive 

but quality labor offered by CCC men 

allowed Forest Service managers to finally 

begin to provide both the level of resource 

protection they desired and the recreational 

experiences their public deserved. 

(Charmaine Thompson, January 1997) 
 46 
47 

CHAPTER 3: 

THE UINTA 

NATIONAL FOREST 

POSTWAR TO PRESENT 

World War II marked a shift in 

Forest Service management and policy. 

Phenomenal demands on forest resources 

during the war and after required a 

different approach to resource management. 

 Additionally, the last men to begin their 

Forest Service careers under Gifford 

Pinchot were retiring. “The war was the 

last hurrah for many forestry pioneers and 

brought a change of direction for American 

forestry” (Steen 1991:246). 

To better manage Forest Lands 

during the latter half of the twentieth 

century, land managers conducted broad 

research studies to find more efficient and 

up to date ways of managing the resource. 

Within the Department of Agriculture, the 

Interbureau Committee on Post-War 

Programs acted as a forum to exchange 

ideas and conduct inter-agency planning. 

Issues relating to timber, range, wildlife, 

water and recreation were discussed. 

Congress became involved in directing 

change as well. 

Mining, timber, recreation and 

other demands were increasing with 

populations in the west and Forest officials 

had to achieve a balance between these 

uses. In 1960, the Multiple Use Sustained 

Yield Act was passed which provided the 

Forest Service with a specific 

Congressional directive establishing 

priorities for resource use. The Act stated 

that “the National Forests are established 

and shall be administered for outdoor 

recreation, range, timber, watershed, and 

wildlife and fish purposes.” Multiple use 

was defined as “the utilization of resources 

in combination to meet needs” and 

stipulated that economic return was not, in 

all cases, to be the limiting factor. 

Multiple use, which had long been 

practiced by the Forest Service, was now 

Federal law (Steen 1991). 

In addition, the Federal Government 

passed other pieces of legislation that had a 

great effect on the way Forest Service 

management decisions were made. In 

1969, Congress passed the National 

Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) to 

ensure that the impacts of any activity on 

the natural environment were carefully 

looked at before proceeding. The president 

was required to set up a Council on 

Environmental Quality and Federal 

Agencies were required to make advance 

reports, including Environmental Impact 

Statements, for major planned actions. 

This requirement proved to have an 

unprecedented effect on the planning and 

implementation of public land management 

decisions. 

Congress passed the National 

Resources Planning Act, in 1974, requiring 

a nationwide assessment of public forest 

and range lands every ten years and the 

development of a Forest Service 

management program every five years. In 

1976, the National Forest Management Act 

became law. The Act emphasized land 

management planning, timber management 

actions and public participation in Forest 

Service decision making. It required the 

development of land management plans for 

each National Forest which detailed 

alternatives and proposals for management, 

based on multiple use, for each resource. 

In 1984, the Uinta National Forest Land 

and Resource Management Plan, commonly 

referred to as the Forest Plan, was created 
48 

in compliance with Federal land 

management laws. The Forest Plan 

reduced logging to a sustained yield level, 

left watershed management at a “locally 

preferred level,” and recommended nearly 

70,000 acres for designation as wilderness 

including Mount Nebo and the Mount 

Timpanogos Scenic Areas (Holmes 1990). 

The Uinta Forest Plan was the first 

completed in Region 4 and was one of the 

first Forest Service plans completed 

nationwide. 

TIMBER 

In the 1940's, the Interbureau 

Committee on Post-War Programs decided 

that the most urgent need confronting land 

managers at the time was to stop the 

destructive logging practices adopted to 

satisfy war time demands. In 1944, in 

response to staggering demands on timber 

for aircraft frames, ship decking, crates, 

and dozens of other military uses, Congress 

passed several pieces of legislation that 

would change the direction of timber 

management. The Sustained-Yield 

Management Act allowed the Forest 

Service and lumber companies to enter into 

long-term agreements promising a constant 

supply of timber to feed the company’s mill 

at or above appraised value, without 

competitive bids. This guaranteed supply 

was authorized only when community 

stability required federal timber not 

available through conventional sales. 

Supporters of the Sustained-Yield Act felt 

the cost of supporting whole communities 

in the event of a mill shut down outweighed 

the costs of lost revenue from 

noncompetitive timber sales. 

Additionally, an amendment to 

federal income tax law was passed which 

authorized lumbermen to report income 

from timber sales as capital gains instead of 

income. Since capital gains taxes were a 

fraction of those levied on income, private 

foresters could realize a substantial profit. 

The law stated that capital gains could not 

be reported on an operator cutting his own 

timber. The law then encouraged stable 

ownership of private forest lands, a practice 

essential to the effective management of 

private timber resources (Steen 1991). 

In 1949, a bill was introduced by 

the ex-Secretary of Agriculture Senator 

Clinton P. Anderson. The bill was titled 

“A Bill to Provide for Establishment of 

Forest Practices for the Conservation and 

Proper Use of Privately Owned Forest 

Lands and for Other Purposes.” This was 

to be the first significant step toward 

Federal regulation of the nation’s timber. 

The battle that ensued was fought within 

Congress and between the American Forest 

Products Industries, State and private 

foresters, lumber men and the Forest 

Service. In 1952, the debate was settled by 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In an 

atmosphere of patriotism and intense 

distrust of communist governments over 

seas, President Eisenhower stated he did 

not want “federal domination of the people 

through federal domination of their natural 

resources.” Many felt resource 

conservation had to be achieved without 

succumbing to “dictatorship or national 

socialism (Steen 1991).” 

Immediately after World War II, the 

Intermountain Region adopted a policy of 

“over cutting” in an attempt to convert 

local and national economies from war time 

to peace time production. In some cases, 

timber was cut beyond the sustained yield. 

Insects and disease served to accelerate this 

cutting program. During this time period, 
49 

about six million board feet were cut 

annually on the Uinta, with most of the 

wood used in the construction of new 

homes. By 1949, timber harvesting was 

dropped down to 3,849,000 board feet 

(Holmes 1990). 

Up until the late 1980's, timber 

harvesting was based on even-aged 

management. Timber stands that matured 

would be harvested leaving behind only 

young trees. While this practice was not as 

drastic as clear cutting, it did have a 

significant effect on the area cut. By the 

1990's, the emphasis shifted to UnevenAged management. Timber is now 

harvested with established guidelines on 

how many trees can be harvested within 

specified size ranges. Areas cut retain 

much of their previous integrity. The 

National Environmental Protection Act has 

had a significant influence on timber 

harvesting on the Uinta. Effects on 

Threatened or Endangered wildlife species, 

watersheds and recreational values are all 

considered before timber is harvested. 

Timber management has undergone 

another significant change as well. The 

Forest Plan has taken the emphasis off of 

commodity production and placed it on the 

management of Forest vegetation. This 

management approach focuses on 

stewardship and ecosystems. Years of fire 

suppression created problems with insect 

infestation, disease, and an increased 

danger of destructive fires due to large 

numbers of dead trees and undergrowth. 

Managing forest health through insect and 

disease control is accomplished in a way to 

accomplish range, wildlife and recreation 

goals. In this way, concerns like watershed 

and habitat protection become part of the 

timber management process. In addition, 

trees that are less viable as a timber source,

like Douglas-fir and white fir, are now 

managed along with the traditional timber 

producing species. More emphasis is being 

placed on lodgepole pine as well. The 

lodgepole communities on the Uinta 

National Forest represent the extreme 

southeastern boundary of North America’s 

lodgepole range. Aspen is actively managed 

as an important part of the ecosystem 

through regeneration and the prevention of 

encroachment by other species. Timber 

production is now a by-product of 

managing forest health, not the primary 

goal of timber management. 

Currently, there are two significant 

projects on the Uinta in which forest 

vegetation is a significant component and 

illustrate how timber and vegetation 

management are now integrated. The 

Trapper Hollow Project on the Heber 

Ranger District was developed to address 

several different needs. Lack of natural 

small fires has resulted in an unusually 

large infestation of bark beetles within 

many Douglas and white fir stands and an 

increase in the potential in this area for 

large, devastating fires. Aspen stands, 

which provide important habitat and 

watershed maintenance are experiencing 

encroachment by subalpine fir. 

Recreational use of the area is expected to 

increase as a result of the reconstruction of 

Highway 35 (the Wolf Creek Highway) and 

the increased accessibility. The Trapper 

Hollow Project is a coordinated attempt to 

effectively answer all of these challenges 

through sound ecosystems management. 

Timber, wildlife and recreation managers 

along with others are working together to 

come up with a viable plan for long-term 

management that focuses on vegetation 

management. 

The White River Area Analysis 
looks at all resource components of the 

overall landscape within the White River 

drainage on the Spanish Fork Ranger 

District including watershed, wildlife, 

timber, range, recreation and the local 

economy, and considers the area’s 

biological component, natural disturbance 

regimes and the human component to be 

interrelated. This area analysis recognized 

that all these systems are dependent on a 

healthy and balanced cover of different 

kinds of vegetation and will encourage 

decisions that manage not only timber and 

other plants within an ecosystems 

framework, but management in other areas 

as well. 

50 

The future of the timber program on 

the forest will focus on continued 

stewardship and management of forest 

vegetation as part of an overall ecosystem. 

Efforts are currently under way to use 

controlled burning as a management tool in 

insect and disease control/prevention, aspen 

stand management and general regeneration 

of understory plants in several areas on the 

Forest. 

Youth Forest of 1964 

In June 1964, a forest plantation 

known as the Hobble Creek Youth Forest 

was established. It was located in Chase 

Creek beyond Hall's Fork in the Upper 

Hobble Creek section of the Spanish Fork 

Ranger District. The new forest replaced 

an old growth timber stand which had been 

over-cut, overgrazed and then burned over. 

Initially an area in Chase Canyon 

was planted with 5,000 seedlings. Later, 

20,000 more Douglas-fir and lodgepole 

pine trees were planted by the youth in a 

project sponsored jointly by the Utah 

Federation of Women's Clubs and the 

Forest Service. It is now known as the 

Jeri Winger, Virginia Benson, Women’s Special 

Activities Coordinator for the Regional Office, and 

Forest Supervisor Clarence Thornock pose in front of 

the Youth Forest sign in 1964. USDA Forest Service. 

Ruby Christensen Memorial Youth Forest 

to honor a nationally recognized 

conservationist from Springville, Utah. 

At the renaming and rededication 

ceremony in 1969 under the direction of the 

Utah Federation of Women's Clubs, 

Regional Forester Floyd Iverson stated: 

Today we are making a 

sentimental journey into the past. 

But in a larger sense, it is a journey 

into the future - and it proceeds 

from a historic spot. This is the 

place that in times past has provided 

materials vital to the well-being and 

survival of the pioneers who 

struggled to settle the valleys below 

and to prepare the way for all of us 

to live the good life that is possible 

here today. 

History is again in the 

making. Through the cooperative 

efforts of the descendants of these 

same pioneers, these mountains are 

being reforested that they may 

continue to render high standards of 
service to people (U.S. Department 

of Agriculture 1972).

Henry DeBruin, Division of Information 

and Education of the Forest Service, 

Washington, D.C., read a letter from 

Edward P. Cliff, Chief of the U.S. Forest 

Service. Mr. Cliff wrote, in part: 

I can think of no tribute 

more appropriate to the memory of 

Ruby Christensen than the 

dedication of this living memorial in 

her honor. Being a "youth forest" 

makes it doubly fitting, for it was 

during her first term as president of 

the Utah Federation that the first 

youth forest planting took place on 

the Fishlake National Forest. Ruby 

received many honors during her 

lifetime, but I feel certain that she 

would rate this as one of the finest 

(U.S. Department of Agriculture 

1972).

GRAZING AND WATERSHED 

In the late 1940's and early 1950's, 

land managers became increasingly alarmed 

about the continued deterioration of the 

rangeland due to overgrazing by cattle and 

sheep. The time had come to take 

necessary steps to reduce the number of 

cattle and sheep in order that the range 

could be rehabilitated and managed for long 

term health. As it was in the 1890's, the 

Forest officials were not very popular. 

Many disagreements between Forest 

officers and livestock owners developed, 

meetings were held and letter after letter 

written. Forest officers were not alone in 

this concern for the rangeland. 

In a 1947 lecture titled "Is Utah 

Sahara Bound?", Dr. Walter P. Cottam,

Professor of Botany at the University of

Utah, expressed his deep concern as 

follows: 

In every plant community 

myriads of biological forms present 

influence of action and interaction 

which bind the whole into a social 

organism extremely delicate in its 

balance. The removal of one 

biological species or the ascendancy 

of another through such outside 

influences as grazing is bound to 

upset this fine balance in nature and 

to set in motion successional 

changes which may and often do 

alter completely the original 

vegetational aspect... 

The most important fact, 

however, is that the total plant cover 

decreases under heavy grazing use, 

thereby exposing the soil to the 

forces of erosion...Under severe 

grazing, less palatable herbs and 

The Butterfield sheep camp on the west slope of Mt. 

Timpanogos, 1958. USDA Forest Service 

51 
52 

shrubs tend to replace the more 

palatable forage... 

Utah will attain a stabilized 

prosperity only when and if the 

public consciously adopts, maintains 

and enforces a program of resource 

use... 

The land resources of water, 

soils, and vegetation and animal life 

are but vital aspects of an intricate 

whole. When vegetation is 

destroyed, soil erodes, floods occur, 

animals perish, and the power of the 

land to support plant life 

progressively diminishes...(Cottam

1947). 

The late 1940's saw a significant 

drop in the numbers of livestock grazed and 

a reduction in available range for 

reseeding, coupled with agreements with 

permittees to rest some allotments. But 

Loading seed for Santaquin Canyon project, 1952. Forest Supervisor James Jacobs, James Stover 

from Boise, Leon Howard from Nephi, and Clair Hartnett, a pilot from Boise. This seeding method 

allowed managers to utilize 28,000 lbs of seed in thirty four and a half hours of flight time. USDA 

Forest Service. 

these steps alone did not solve the problems

with the range. The next step was to 

eliminate common use; the practice of 

Over-grazed range on the Berg sheep allotment, 

October 1945. USDA Forest Service. 
53 

grazing cattle and sheep in the same areas. 

Through the 1950's, range managers 

manipulated permits and bargained with 

permittee’s to the point that common use 

was eliminated by 1958. This process was 

Repairing flood damage to the road in American Fork Canyon, 1953. Flooding and erosion 

had significant impacts on fish habitat as well as recreational facilities. USDA Forest 

Service. 

not easy and great sacrifices, both 

professional and personal, were made by 

Forest Service employees and livestock 

owners alike. Management modifications 

like this were critical for the recovery of

plant communities on range allotments. 

Even with these improvements, 

problems with water production and floods 

continued on Utah Valley watersheds. 

Because of population, industrial and 

agricultural growth in the valley, 

watersheds became increasingly important 

(Isbell 1972). In 1957, the Uinta National 

Forest entered into an agreement with 

Provo and Springville Cities and Utah 

County to reactivate the rehabilitation work 

that had been started by the CCC in 1933 

on the watershed areas east of Utah Valley. 

The Provo Peak Watershed Rehabilitation 

Project, as this agreement was known, 

included all watershed areas between the 

Provo River and the Spring Creek and 

Contour trenching near the head of the Dry Fork 

of Rock Canyon, September 1957. USDA Forest 

Service. 
Jennings Hollow tributaries of Hobble 

Creek Canyon. The cities and the county 

agreed to reconstruct and maintain the 

debris basins at the mouths of Rock 

Canyon, Slate Canyon and Little Rock 

Canyon. The Forest Service was to 

accomplish rehab work upstream and sheep 

grazing was terminated under an open-end 

non-use agreement. In the five years that 

followed, the Forest Service completed 

nearly 900 acres of contour trenching, over 

400 acres of grass seeding, 12.5 miles of 

gully plugs, 10 acres of furrowing, 10 acres 

of head cut control, 10.5 miles of road 

construction, and 5 miles of trail erosion 

control at a total cost of $81,978 (Uinta 

National Forest 1966). Completion of this 

project resulted in an increased site 

productivity for wildlife and a more 

productive watershed for the growing 

population in the valley. 

54 

In 1959, a similar project, the 

American Fork-Dry Canyon Watershed 

Protection and Flood Prevention Project 

was undertaken. Many of the watershed 

areas east of Alpine, Pleasant Grove and 

Lindon were contour trenched and reseeded 

with a variety of grasses. This project 

greatly improved habitat and watershed in 

the north end of Utah Valley (Uinta 

National Forest 1965). 

Between 1957 and 1967, numbers of 

permitted cattle and sheep were drastically 

reduced Forest wide. In conjunction with 

these projects, some allotments were closed 

altogether. The results of the combined 

efforts of Forest officials, City and County 

governments, and private individuals and 

organizations was summed up in 1970 by 

Dr. Walter Cottam in an interview with the 

Salt Lake Tribune:

The head of Dry Canyon shortly after the completion 

of contour trenching, November 1959. USDA Forest 

Service. 

I just can't believe how these 

ranges have improved. The aspens 

are reproducing again, the grasses 

are lush and full and up to a horse's 

belly. Go to Mt. Nebo or the Fish 

Lake area, for instance, where they 

had been stripped of cover, they are 

now lush with growth again. I've 

known these mountains for many 

decades. But they are not the same 

mountains now. The Forest Service 

has done a magnificent job. And I 

think the same recovery job could be 

done with other aspects of our 

environmental problem, given the 

same incentive, public support and 

governmental persistence (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1972). 

Today the range program continues 

to adjust management on a case by case 

basis to meet the continued growing 

demands of more diverse users. In 1993 
55 

the Uinta National Forest completed the 

Rangeland Ecosystem Forest Plan 

Amendment EIS which established specific 

criteria for allotment management. While 

site specific resource problems continue to 

be of a concern, the rangelands of the Uinta 

National Forest are likely in the best 

condition, ecologically, that they have been 

in during the last century. In the future, 

the range program will continue with range 

stewardship guided by the Forest Service’s 

ecosystems management philosophy and 

approach. 

WILDLIFE AND FISHERIES 

By 1945, wildlife habitat was seeing 

significant improvement through better 

livestock and range management and an 

increased understanding through research 

of the relationships between wildlife and 

the rest of the ecosystem. In fact, one 

primary objective, at the time, was to 

determine use patterns of both wildlife and 

livestock and their compatibility. Wildlife 

biologists were especially concerned with 

the conditions of big-game wintering 

ranges. The Uinta, along with nearly every 

other Forest in the Intermountain Region, 

engaged in wildlife-livestock forage studies 

in cooperation with Forest and Range 

Experiment Stations, nearby universities, 

the State Department of Fish and Game and 

the Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Predator control, on the other hand, 

begun at the turn of the century to benefit 

the livestock industry, was not benefiting 

game populations. In 1920, game 

populations began increasing significantly, 

in part due to the absence of predators like 

coyotes, mountain lions and bears. In the 

1930's and 40's, game populations had 

grown beyond the land’s carrying capacity.

In addition, World War II compounded 

these problems by causing a decline in 

hunting, a result of the rationing of rubber, 

gasoline and ammunition. Ranger Merril 

Nielson recorded his attempts to get an 

“either sex” permit passed to help relieve 

the overpopulation problem. 

During the late thirties and 

forties, the deer populations started 

to increase rapidly. This increase 

was first noted during the winter 

months on the low range from Little 

Rock Canyon to the "Forks" of 

Hobble Creek, and across the 

"Front" from Hobble Creek to the 

mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon. 

The deer were congregating in large 

numbers on the low winter range 

and were killing the browse plants 

by overgrazing. 

At this time, the State Fish 

and Game Department officials, as 

well as the sportsmen, were very 

much opposed to killing does. 

Between 1940 and 1948 we did get 

some recommendations approved for 

taking some does, but sportsmen 

would not shoot them. As a result, 

the deer populations increased 

faster than ever. Then in the winter 

of 1948-49, there was an unusually 

heavy snowfall, the weather was 

extremely cold for many days at a 

time, and large numbers of deer 

were congregated on the low range 

above the cultivated fields. As the 

snow became deeper, many of the 

deer moved down into orchards 

where they ate the tender buds of the 

fruit trees. Christmas trees were 

hauled on the range for the deer; 

and even though the twigs and 
needles were dry, the deer ate most 

of the trees. The State Fish and 

Game Department hauled hay and 

pellets to several feed grounds on 

the winter range. In January the 

deer started to die. By the middle of 

March, over 2,500 deer had died 

between Little Rock Canyon and the 

mouth of Spanish Fork 

Canyon...Fifteen hundred were 

hauled to an animal by-product 

plant. These were only the deer that 

had died near the roads. The men 

from the supervisor's office and my 

assistant and I spent one day 

counting dead deer on the steep 

slopes north of Springville. We 

counted 500. Assistant Grant 

Williams and I spent several days 

riding and hiking in the area south 

of Hobble Creek, and we counted 

more than 500 dead deer on this 

area. The winter loss was a severe 

blow to the Hobble Creek deer 

herd...Big sagebrush was being 

completely killed out because of 

overgrazing by deer. 

About this time, the "either 

sex" law went into effect...The State 

Fish and Game Department was 

now behind the Forest Service 100 

percent in making recommendations 

for special hunts and extended 

seasons to reduce the deer 

populations...(U.S. Department of 

Agriculture 1972). 

A major wildlife habitat 

improvement project was approved for the 

Tank Hollow area during the fall of 1961. 

Due to heavy grazing, nearly all herbaceous 

plants had been eliminated. The result was 

heavy mortality among browse animals like

deer. The objectives of the project were to 

improve wildlife habitat and provide access 

to the area for hunting. In November and 

December of 1962, the project was 

implemented and consisted of juniper 

control, contour trenching, deep furrowing, 

grass seeding (broadcast), brush gully 

checks, browse seeding (by hand) and road 

construction. As with many of these 

projects, part of this work was 

accomplished by volunteers. The Spanish 

Fork Livestock Association agreed to a 

voluntary adjustment in grazing and 

livestock were eliminated from all areas in 

Tank Hollow except for a 600 acre 

reseeded pasture. In November of 1971, 

additional work was performed in Tank 

Hollow when 600 acres were chained and 

aerial seeded by helicopter. This area was 

used to test a relatively new method of 

chaining that district personnel helped 

develop with some army surplus equipment 

(Isbell 1972:69-70). 

In the fall of 1965, the Forest 

Service and State Division of Fish and 

Game began work on the Diamond Fork 

56 
57 

Fisheries Project. This project focused on a 

portion of the stream with especially low 

trout numbers, and sought to improve them 

through the construction of pools and 

stream bank stabilization. This, together 

with the elimination of grazing in the area, 

increased trout numbers and habitat quality 

significantly (Isbell 1972). 

The greatest advances in wildlife 

management in the last thirty years came as 

a result of the National Environmental 

Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969 which had 

profound implications on wildlife habitat 

management. Adverse impacts on wildlife 

by a proposed project were now clearly 

defined and mitigated. In 1973, the 

Endangered Species Act gave new 

protection to wildlife and plant species that 

were thought to warrant special protection. 

The Forest and Rangeland Renewable 

Resources Planning Act, also known as 

Resources Planning Act (RPA), became an 

important guide for habitat management in 

1974. This Act ensured that adequate 

provisions and funding to meet immediate 

and future Forest research needs, including 

wildlife. To meet the direction defined in 

the RPA process, a Region wide “Wildlife 

Action Plan” was established to develop a 

Regional wildlife program (U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 1980). 

An example of this broad scale 

planning occurred in the mid-1980's. 

Wildlife planners believed wildlife habitat 

could be improved through the selective 

harvesting of aspen, oak, and maple in 

specified areas. These improvements were 

recommended in cooperation with the Utah 

Department of Wildlife Resources and 

coordinated among other resource programs 

on the Forest. This allowed habitat 

improvements and enhanced production of 

other resources. 

Mt. Nebo Bighorn

In 1972, the Forest Service 

proposed the reintroduction of bighorn 

sheep onto the Wasatch Front. Bighorn 

sheep, which are native to the area, 

disappeared by the 1930's due to overhunting and diseases spread by domestic 

sheep. An Environmental Analysis on the 

project, completed in January of 1973, 

indicated the need to fill the ecological 

niche left vacant for so many years by the 

sheep. Potential areas for the 

reintroduction ranged from Mill Creek 

Canyon, on the Wasatch-Cache National 

Forest, to the south slopes of Mount Nebo 

on the Uinta. In August of 1976, the Uinta 

entered into a cooperative agreement with 

the Division of Wildlife Resources to 

reintroduce bighorn sheep obtained from 

Montana. In September, the Division 

indicated that they would rather see the 

Bighorns reintroduced on Nebo due to the 

heavy population centers adjacent to the 

other areas. In 1977, approximately 25 

sheep were reintroduced. State-of-the-art 

bighorn transplants now routinely include 

several releases to ensure a properly 

functioning core population. Unfortunately 

that was not well understood in the mid 

seventies. The failure to augment the core 

population with subsequent transplants, 

competition with deer and predation 

prevented the population from establishing 

itself. By the early 1990's the original 

bighorns had died of old age and the 

population died out. 

Mountain Goats 

Rocky Mountain goats were first 

released in Utah in 1967 in the Twin Peaks 

area, north of Little Cottonwood Canyon, in 

the Wasatch Mountains by the Utah 

Division of Wildlife Resources. Six goats,
58 

two yearling males and four adult females, 

from the northern Cascades of Washington 

State, were released. Mountain goats from

this transplant dispersed south and 

populated the Lone Peak area and Box 

Elder Peak. In The herd had become large 

enough in 1986 that goats were captured 

and transplanted to the Tushars Mountains 

and Mount Holly on the Fishlake National 

Forest. In 1988, eight Lone Peak/Twin 

Peaks goats were transplanted to the Bald 

Mountain and Lakes region in the Uinta 

Mountains on the Wasatch-Cache and in 

1992, thirteen more were taken to the 

Whiterocks Drainage on the Ashley 

National Forest. By 1995, the population 

of the Lone Peak/Twin Peaks goats was 

estimated at 200 animals, the largest in 

Utah. 

A herd was established on Mount 

Timpanogos in 1981 with the transplant of 

ten goats from Olympic National Park in 

Washington. The goats were released at 

the Timpooneke Trailhead at the northern 

end of Mount Timpanogos. In 1986, a 

single goat from this herd was captured to 

augment the herd being established on the 

Fishlake National Forest. In 1990, five 

more goats were sent to augment the herd 

on Cascade and Provo Peaks. The 

Timpanogos herd was estimated at 100+ 

animals in 1995, the second largest in Utah. 

 A herd was established in 1988 on 

Cascade and Provo Peaks with the 

transplant of seven goats from the Olympic 

National Park in Washington. The herd 

was augmented in 1990 with five more 

goats from the Mount Timpanogos herd, 

and in 1995 the estimated population of this 

herd was 40 animals. 

Mountain goat on Mt. Timpanogos. USDA Forest 

Service. Currently, the Utah Division of 

Wildlife Resources is proposing to fit 

mountain goats in the Lone Peak and 

Timpanogos Wilderness Areas with radio 

telemetry collars to study the impacts the 

goats may have on soil and vegetation. 

Little is known about the ecology and 

impacts of mountain goats in these areas 

since they are not native. A study is 

needed to address general concerns about 

the impacts mountain goats may have on 

other aspects of the ecosystem. 

1990 Rotenone Treatment 

of 

Strawberry Reservoir 

Strawberry Reservoir has undergone 

many changes. Fish introductions, land 

management practices, and water level 

increases have all affected fish populations 

at different times. Fish introductions 

probably had the greatest influence. In the 

1940's, the word was out: “Native trout 

really go for live bait!” Chubs, perch, 

carp, and suckers probably found their way 

into the reservoir via minnow buckets. 

These nongame fish multiplied, and over 

the next 20 years, the trout population 

decreased. Nongame fish were chemically
removed in 1961 and their elimination 

greatly improved trout fishing. However, 

in the early 1970's, nongame fish 

reappeared and trout fishing began a slow 

decline. In 1990, the fish population in 

Strawberry Reservoir was 95% chubs and 

suckers. 

In order to return Strawberry 

Reservoir to one of Utah’s premier trout 

fisheries, the Forest Service and Utah 

Division of Wildlife Resources determined 

that the following goals needed to be met. 

These included eliminating chubs and 

suckers from the reservoir, introducing fish 

to maintain a quality trout fishery and 

restoring tributary habitat so that trout 

could reproduce naturally. 

59 

To eliminate chubs and suckers, the 

reservoir needed to be chemically treated. 

In August 1990, the reservoir and 

tributaries were treated with 900,000 

pounds of rotenone, a powdered chemical 

which was mixed with water. At the 

application rates used, rotenone removed 

the fish and many invertebrates. The 

treatment had a low toxicity level for birds 

and mammals, and livestock were able to 

safely drink the water. 

The treatment project was very 

successful and on October 20, the reservoir 

was restocked with 1,500,000 Bear Lake 

cutthroat, kokanee salmon, and rainbow 

trout. These fish have thrived in the 

reservoir and its tributaries. Many of the 

invertebrates have also begun to reappear in 

the drainage. Strawberry has once again 

become one of Utah’s premier trout 

fisheries.

RECREATION AND WILDERNESS 

At the end of World War II, the 

Forest’s potential to provide recreation 

became its primary value in many minds. 

During that time, the population along the 

Wasatch Front began to grow at a much 

faster rate and the close proximity of so 

much beautiful land became important as an 

escape from urban life. The Forest itself 

Recreation remains one of the Uinta National 

Forests primary uses. USDA Forest Service 

began investing more planning, thought and 

money into developing trails, campgrounds 

and permitting the construction of more 

organizational camps. The Forest 

recognized that its greatest value to it 

publics could be in providing experiences 

in addition to commodities. 

World War II made its mark on 

recreation management. The Civilian 

Conservation Corps was disbanded in June 

of 1942, greatly reducing the construction 

and maintenance of recreational facilities. 
60 

Additionally, gasoline, rubber and 

ammunition rationing curtailed recreational 

visits during the war. At the completion of 

the war, however, recreational use began to 

steadily increase. Principle recreational 

activities at the time were picnicking, 

camping, fishing and hunting. 

Unfortunately, this increase added to the 

general deterioration of CCC built 

picnicking and camping facilities for which 

maintenance funds had not been set aside at 

the time of their construction.. 

In 1947, 170,000 visits by 

recreators were recorded on the Uinta. By 

1957, that number had risen to over one 

million visits. Recreational uses were still 

very similar to those in the 1940's, with the 

addition of winter sports, hiking, horseback 

riding and organization camping. Summer 

cabins were being completed at Tibble Fork 

Reservoir and the Silver Lake Reservoir 

area at the same time under a permit system 

that allowed construction of private cabins 

on National Forest lands. 

In the early 1960's, the Uinta 

prepared a recreation management plan that 

inventoried all developed and potential 

recreational sites. This information was 

then synthesized into short and long range 

plans to anticipate needs through the year 

2000. In 1965, the Land and Water 

Conservation Act allowed the Forest 

Service to collect recreation funds through 

user fees in certain areas, a tax on pleasure 

boat fuel, and receipts from the sale of 

certain Federal properties. The user fee 

system was applied to over half of all 

campsites and most family units on the 

Forest. 

The 1960's also witnessed the 

Region 4 program of examining “near 

natural” areas on Forest lands. The 

Timpanogos Scenic Area was established in 

1961 to recognize its spectacular alpine 

beauty. In 1967, Cascade Springs was 

developed as a scenic recreational area. 

The Whiskey Springs Rest Area was 

developed at the same time. 

By the mid-1980's, close proximity 

to large population centers made recreation 

one of the Uinta’s prime attractions. 

Increasing use along with damage caused 

by the flooding in 1983-84 required the 

repair and, in some cases, replacement of 

developed facilities. But, the demand for 

group sites continued to exceed supply. 

New facilities were constructed when 

budgets permitted. Facilities at Currant 

Creek Reservoir and Black Hawk 

Campground were two of these projects. In 

1989, the lands around Strawberry 

Reservoir were transferred to the Forest 

Service, greatly expanding opportunities for 

developed facilities. 

The continued demand for group 

sites has resulted in the use of dispersed 

areas like Salamander Flat on the Pleasant 

Grove Ranger District. Groups supply 

their own toilets and garbage removal in 

compliance with the pack-it-in, pack-it-out 

program. In many cases, the lack of 

cooperation from groups and individuals to 

remove garbage has created an additional 

expense for the Uinta. Seasonal employees 

often spend the summer months collecting 

truck loads of trash left by fun seeking 

forest users. 

The current trend is toward smaller 

government in the United States. The 

Forest Service, however, is expected to 

provide the same recreational services. 

Supply analysis indicated that the Forest is 

capable of producing over three million 

recreation visitor days (RVD’s) and that 

capacity will be reached around the year 

2020. As the Forest recreational 
61 

opportunities increase in popularity among 

growing populations in Utah, it becomes 

more difficult to maintain existing 

recreational facilities. As a result, the trend 

in the Forest Service has been to use 

private concessionaires’ to manage some

facilities. Permits are granted for 

concessionaires to manage and collect 

revenues from facilities that are in place. 

Revenues collected can then go back into 

the maintenance of facilities, where fees 

collected by the Forest Service have to go 

to the Federal Treasury. 

With increased demand for 

recreation use and declining Federal 

funding, users are becoming more willing 

to pay for recreational use on public lands. 

In 1995, Fee Demo legislation was passed 

in Congress that allowed the Forest Service 

to establish pilot Fee Demo projects in 

some recreational areas and capture 

revenues from dispersed recreational 

activities. As a result, the Uinta began 

charging a $2.00 fee for use at various 

recreational sites around the Forest 

including Payson Lakes, Aspen Grove, 

Tibble Fork and Strawberry Reservoir. 

Plans are currently in place to charge a fee 

for the use of American Fork Canyon. Fee 

collection booths will be placed at the 

mouth of American Fork Canyon and at 

Mount Timpanogos Campground above 

Aspen Grove in the spring of 1997. 

Another opportunity to make 

recreation dollars available to improve 

facilities management is embodied in Public 

and Private Ventures (PPV’s). Under this 

program, the Forest Service will be allowed 

to set up long-term leases with private 

interests to manage recreational facilities. 

To be successful, a facility must have use 

enough to generate revenue and ideally 

would have the potential for expansion. 

Lodgepole Campground on the Heber 

Ranger District was set up as a pilot test for 

the PPV program.

Recreation use continues to grow and diversity as 

the Uinta National Forest enters its 100th year of 

resource management. USDA Forest Service. 

The future of recreation on the 

Uinta will also be influenced by the 2002 

Winter Olympics. As a result, there is 

national emphasis on both northern Utah 

and the event’s impact on recreation. The 

Uinta National Forest will receive funds 

over the next several years to develop trails 

and facilities to deal with a projected 

increase in recreational use immediately 

before and continuing after the 2002 Winter 

Olympics. 
The Timp Hike

 One notable recreational feature on 

the Uinta was the annual hike to the summit 

of Mount Timpanogos, at 11,750 feet in 

elevation. This activity was inherited from

the Wasatch National Forest when the lands 

between Provo Canyon and Lone Peak 

were transferred to the Uinta in 1954 (see 

appendix B). “The hike received national 

recognition for being the only one of its 

kind on any national forest in the country” 

(Holmes 1990:165). 

62 

The annual hike was begun in 1912 

by Eugene Roberts, Athletic Director at 

Brigham Young University. He advocated 

a philosophy of well being that integrated 

physical activity, fellowship, spirituality 

and involvement with nature. All these 

came together in the Timp Hike which 

generally included a pre-hike ceremony the 

evening before with song and dramatic 

readings that celebrated nature. One of 

these tales was “The Legend of Mount 

Timpanogos,” a story created by Roberts to 

give the event added meaning. Many of the 

natural features along the trail were 

incorporated into the tale (Romaine 1984: 

159). 

Fifty-six people participated in the 

Timp Hike in 1913; by 1930, six thousand 

people attended the pre-hike program and 

752 climbed to the summit the next day. 

The hike was popular with BYU students 

and Utah Valley community members alike, 

and was sponsored by BYU, the Provo 

Chamber of Commerce, the Lions, 

Kiwanis, Rotary and other community 

groups, as well as the Forest Service. This 

popularity began to take its toll on the 

mountain in the 1950's, when hiker 

numbers averaged well over a thousand. In 

1958, a new record was set when 2,200 

people made it to the summit (Kelsey 

1989). The stone, concrete and metal 

Emerald Lake Shelter was completed in 

1960 to provide restrooms and emergency 

shelter to these masses of people.

The hike continued to grow, and in 

1968, over 2,700 climbers reached the 

A Party of hikers on Mt. Timpanogos, 1915 or 16. 

 Photo courtesy of Jerry Springer. 

summit. The following year nearly as 

many made the summit, with close to 8,000 

people on the mountain at once. Over 

3,500 people reached the summit in 1970, a 

year that forced the hike organizers to end 

the annual event for the sake of the fragile 

alpine ecology of Mt. Timpanogos. 

During its history, the Timp Hike 

was bigger than any other community hike 

in the world. It attracted considerable 

national and international attention on Utah 

as summarized by a 1926 Provo Herald

article: 

Provo City first broke into 

 my consciousness through publicity 

associated with your very interesting 
63 

mountain climb known as the 

“Timpanogos Hike.” A few years 

ago a large photograph showing 

what appeared to be three thousand 

people climbing a glacier in single 

file came out in several of our 

leading Massachusetts papers. 

Below the picture was a 

paragraph of explanation where-in 

it was stated that every summer at 

Mt. Timpanogos, Provo, Utah, 

thousands of people do homage to a 

majestic mountain peak by climbing 

to its summit and staging a 

community festival in its honor... 

This is why your little city, 

obscure except for its university, 

jumped into notice when pictures of 

its mountains and its community 

hike got into our papers. 

Newspaper men are voracious 

feature hunters, and they were quick 

to recognize the news value of 

Timpanogos Hike. Such a strange 

ritual of natural worship was an 

easy sale. A whole community 

moving to the top of a high 

mountain is a new form of western 

adventure bound to excite universal 

interest (Cash 1959: 54-55). 

During its time, over 55,000 people 

climbed to the top of Timp. Although two 

people died, one accidentally and one of a 

heart attack, all in all the event is 

remembered warmly by those who 

participated. It was one way Utah Valley 

residents experienced the beauty of their 

most visible landmark firsthand. 

(Charmaine Thompson, January 1997) 

Diamond Fork 

The area where Diamond and 

Palmyra Campgrounds are located was 

homesteaded by two men named Franklin 

Pace and Cal Angus. The homesteaders 

owned land up to the bridge above 

Diamond Campground. This area later fell 

into the hands of the Becksteads, Dell and 

Mose, who farmed it. They raised hay, 

grain and some potatoes. A Gardner family 

purchased the ranch from the Becksteads 

and used it until the Palmyra Stake of the 

Mormon Church and the Spanish Fork 

Livestock Association decided they would 

buy the land. This they did on January 4, 

1939. The area was made into a recreation 

site and was later sold to the Forest Service 

at a little more than one-half its original 

cost. The value of the land for farming had 

been surpassed by its value for recreation. 

Many church picnics and parties 

were held in the Palmyra area. Baseball 

games were played on the ball diamond east 

of the picnic area, and teams from Salem, 

Lakeshore, Palmyra, and Spanish Fork held 

championship games there. As early as 

1940, 2,550 campers and 17,500 picnickers 

were estimated to have used the area. 

The Diamond Campground was 

built by the Forest Service in the early 

1960's. Some of the roads, trails and table 

areas were surfaced when originally built. 

The roads were again refinished during the 

summer of 1971. 

At one time, a bridge connected 

Palmyra with the area which is now the 

lower part of Diamond Campground on 

what was the old highway right-of-way. A 

nearby spring supplies Diamond with 

drinking water while water for Palmyra 

must be piped from a spring some distance 

away. 
Wilderness

The Forest Service pioneered the 

wilderness preservation system in 1924 

when it set aside the Nation’s first 

“Wilderness,” the Gila primitive area. 

This was expanded greatly, in 1964, when 

President Johnson signed into law the 

Wilderness Act which provided for an 

initial Wilderness Preservation System of 

54 areas occupying 9.1 million acres 

nationwide (Zinser 1995). 

64 

In 1978, Congress passed the 

Endangered American Wilderness Act 

which was designed to protect areas with 

outstanding natural characteristics from

growing populations, industrial and 

economic growth, and uses inconsistent 

with the enhancement of their wilderness 

character. Areas designated as Wilderness 

under this Act were then managed under the 

auspices of the Wilderness Preservation 

Mt. Nebo Wilderness Area. USDA Forest Service. 

System. On February 24, 1978, the Lone 

Peak Wilderness Area was created under 

this legislation and was the first Wilderness 

area to be established in Utah. One 

outstanding aspect of this designation is that 

the Act allows for motorized access and 

road maintenance by local municipalities 

for the minimum maintenance activities 

necessary to guarantee the continued 

viability of watershed facilities that 

currently exist or may be necessary in the 

future within the Wilderness Boundary. 

The Lone Peak area provides water for 

domestic, industrial, and agricultural 

purposes from six watersheds. The Lone 

Peak Wilderness Area is characterized by 

spectacular alpine settings and towering 

granite cliffs. Vegetation includes Gambel 

oak, maple, Douglas fir, subalpine fir, 

limber pine and choke cherry. Wildflowers 

are common in the high canyon meadows 

during the late spring and early summer. 

Wildlife in the area includes mountain 

goats, elk, moose, mountain lion and black 

bear. Management of the Lone Peak 

Wilderness is directed toward maintaining a 

wilderness identity and a critical watershed. 

Lake Hardy with Boxelder Peak and Mt. Timpanogos 

in the background. USDA Forest Service. 

In 1984, Congress passed the Utah
Wilderness Act to designate certain 

National Forest system lands in the State of

Utah for inclusion in the National 

Wilderness Preservation System. The 

Timpanogos Wilderness Area and the 

Mount Nebo Wilderness Area were created 

under this legislation. 

Mount Timpanogos rises to 11,750 

feet, the second highest mountain in the 

Wasatch Range. The region contains 

massive peaks and buttresses and numerous 

waterfalls exit hanging valleys, or cirques, 

created by ancient glaciers. Today, a 

remnant of the glaciers is tucked between 

Timp’s highest peaks above Emerald Lake. 

Vegetation ranges from hardy alpine plants 

to wildflowers, spruce and fir. Wildlife 

species include cougar, elk and mountain 

goat. This wilderness is being managed to 

maintain wilderness character and serves to 

protect valuable watershed for Utah Valley. 

65 

Mount Nebo is the highest mountain 

in the Wasatch Range, with the Mona 

Summit being the highest point on the 

knife-like Nebo ridge at 11,877 feet. The 

slopes of Mt. Nebo are home to large herds 

of deer and elk as well as other animals. 

The boundaries of the Mount Nebo 

Wilderness area were drawn to provide 

access to the Privateer Mine and allow for 

the construction of a reservoir in Sullivan 

Canyon. Mount Nebo is a primary 

watershed for Juab and Utah counties. 

Management is directed toward maintaining 

water quality, extending dispersed 

recreation opportunities and protecting 

other resource values such as wildlife and 

fisheries. 

THE CHANGING ROLE OF FIRE 

AND URBAN INTERFACE 

Recently, Federal emphasis in fire 

has shifted from a purely suppression-based 

organization to one of fire management. 

The emphasis has been taken off of 

immediate fire control (control in the first 

24 hours) to an appropriate suppression 

response which takes into account 

economics, damage as net value change 

before and after, wildlife benefits after the 

fire, and threat to life and property. Fire 

management today recognizes the benefits 

of fire in managing forest health. These 

benefits are then weighed against the cost 

of suppression and damage. Emphasis is 

also being placed on ecosystem health and 

methods to improve it across the forest. 

Home developments near the Forest Boundary 

present new challenges for fire managers on the 

Uinta. USDA Forest Service. 
66 

The primary method is currently prescribed 

burning to control insects and disease in an 

effort to improve habitat and insure a 

properly functioning ecosystem. 

As a result of this new philosophy, the fire 

organization is rapidly becoming integrated 

into general forest management. This shift 

in fire management philosophy is reflected 

in public education, which now focuses on 

expressing the positive effects of fire as 

well as the negative effects. 

Education also reflects another 

concern in fire, Urban Interface. The 

expanding population along the Wasatch 

Front means subdivisions are sprouting up 

very close to Forest boundaries. Fires 

started in the subdivisions often cross into 

Forest lands. As a result, the frequency of 

human caused fires on the Forest is 

increasing. In 1996, roughly 75% of the 

fires on the Uinta were human caused. In 

addition, 100 years of fire suppression have 

made many areas adjacent to and within the 

Forest lands extremely prone to destructive 

fires. Many of the new homes being built 

on the benches are in these areas. 

The Uinta National Forest has a 

good working relationship with local 

agencies, including Utah County, local 

cities and the State of Utah. In some cases, 

the positive relationship between Forest 

Service Law Enforcement Officials and 

local law enforcement agencies have 

resulted in successful arson convictions. 

The Forest Service is currently 

coordinating with State and local agencies 

to provide for comprehensive fire 

management through education, 

suppression, and fuels management. 

EXPANDING RESPONSIBILITIES 

AND RECENT 

MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES 

Law Enforcement 

The first Forest Rangers were 

charged not only with the administration of 

public resources, but for the protection of 

them as well. On August 8, 1898, William 

R. Kreutzer, a young ranch hand from 

Colorado, became the first Forest Ranger. 

He and those who followed in his footsteps 

were faced with the daunting task of 

enforcing new and unfamiliar Federal rules 

and regulations. To accomplish this goal, 

early Forest Rangers had to rely on vague 

authorities of the Service’s enabling 

legislation, deputizations from local 

agencies and the citizens arrest. Law 

enforcement challenges were compounded 

as early Rangers often had to enforce laws 

against trespassers and various agency 

administrators alike. 

 Forest Rangers were often the 

target of local hostilities. The imposition 

of land use fees and regulations were seen 

as an affront to the God-given right of free 

and unrestricted land use. “Many of these 

conflicts blew-up into what are now 

retrospectively referred to as the great 

Western Range Wars (Berkowitz 

1995:73).” 

In 1905, when the Forest Reserves 

were transferred to the Department of 

Agriculture, some significant changes 

occurred in the Service’s staffing. Gifford 

Pinchot saw to the dismissal of corrupt and 

incompetent administrators and built a 

reliable force of Forest Supervisors and 

Rangers. Actions by Pinchot and Congress 

clarified the Law Enforcement authority of 

Rangers. In fact, Forest Rangers were 

often called to support local law 
67 

enforcement agencies and were frequently 

the only form of law enforcement in remote 

logging camps and boomtowns. 

Soon the Forest Service began to 

hire full time criminal investigators who 

tracked down poachers, arsonists, 

moonshiners, and other criminals. 

Throughout the years, however, the Forest 

Service law enforcement program remained 

loosely organized and defused until 

recently. A national law enforcement 

conference for the Forest Service was held 

in 1969 and a task force was created to 

prepare a plan to improve the program. It 

was recommended to establish a separate 

law enforcement organization with a 

distinct line of authority directly from 

Washington. This proposal was not 

received well by some and, consequently, 

was not adopted. 

By the early 1970's, law 

enforcement personnel were required to 

attend the basic police school at the Federal 

Law Enforcement Training Center in 

Georgia. Many of these graduates found 

themselves permanently occupied with the 

eradication of marijuana crops and drug 

labs on Forest lands. In 1986, Congress 

passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which 

authorized Forest Service Law Enforcement 

Officers to conduct investigations and 

initiate related actions outside of the Forest 

boundary for offenses committed within the 

boundary. 

During this time, efforts to protect 

Forest resources continued, sometimes in 

conflict with the activities of other forest 

managers. In 1993, the Washington Office 

of the Forest Service issued an order that 

the law enforcement program would no 

longer answer to Regional or Forest level 

managers, but would instead follow a direct 

line of authority from the Director for Law 

Enforcement and Investigations in 

Washington. The 1969 proposal is now 

Forest Service policy (Berkowitz 1995). 

Preserving a positive internal relationship 

with Regional and Forest level managers 

while performing law enforcement duties 

has introduced new challenges for Forest 

Service Law Enforcement Officers. 

Today the Law Enforcement 

organization is in a pioneering phase of 

professionalizing the organization and 

becoming more efficient and progressive. 

On the Uinta, the law enforcement program 

continues to deal with the issues that face 

an urban interface forest, which include an 

increase in crime and resource destruction, 

particularly in the areas of off-road vehicle 

use, vandalism, littering and sanitation. 

The law enforcement program on 

the Uinta maintains an excellent 

relationship with County and local law 

enforcement agencies. This is important as 

local law enforcement agencies play an 

increasing role in law enforcement on the 

Uinta and other recreational lands. A recent 

Federal grant to fund County officers for a 

Canyon Patrol Team in Utah County has 

increased the effectiveness of law 

enforcement on the Forest. 

Cultural Resource Management 

The American people and their 

agents, the U.S. Congress, have long 

recognized the value of archaeological and 

historic sites on federal land. These sites 

belong collectively to the American people 

because of their ability to help us all to see, 

understand, appreciate and learn from the 

experiences of past peoples. Unfortunately, 

the course of settlement and development 

destroyed a large part of our past. This 

realization of loss was initially recognized 

by Congress in 1906 with the Antiquities 
Act, the first of a series of laws meant to 

protect the sites that do remain. 

Since then, other laws (particularly 

the National Historic Preservation Act of

1966, amended 1976 and 1980) have made 

Federal land managers particular stewards 

of the past. These laws require that 

decisions concerning all actions on federal 

land take into account the effect of those 

actions on archaeological and historic sites 

over 50 years old, and that they make longterm plans for protecting and maintaining 

all sites under their care. Their basic intent 

is this: to insure sites on federal land are 

protected, researched, interpreted and the 

information and experiences they offer is 

available to the American people. 

68 

The Uinta National Forest contains 

a wide diversity of archaeological sites. 

The oldest known sites are Native 

American camp sites dating to about 8,000 

years ago. The most recent include 

Civilian Conservation Corps features and 

other sites such as homesteads and 

silver/lead mines. The most common sites 

found on the Forest are historic (postEuropean settlement) and contain the 

potential to increase our understanding of 

mining life, early homesteading, charcoalmaking, logging and water diversion and 

control. Although many of the Native 

Americans who lived in Northern Utah 

spent the majority of their time in places 

such as Utah and Juab Valleys, the 

mountains provided important supplemental 

food, clothing, tools and medicine, and was 

the setting of many religious and folk 

stories. The sites on the Forest that were 

used by Native Peoples are very important 

for understanding the full dimension of 

these people’s lives. 

The Forest’s Heritage Resource 

Management program is the way through 

which we are caring for this unique mix of 

archaeological and historic sites and 

bringing the experiences of past peoples 

back to life. The program has several 

different focuses. The most basic is 

locating and documenting (mapping, 

photographing and describing) heritage 

sites as a part of general project planning. 

Whenever a Forest Service project involves 

disturbing the ground, an inspection is 

made of the area for archaeological sites. 

If any are found, they are recorded and the 

effect that the project might have on them is 

determined. In most cases, the project is 

redesigned to avoid the site. If that is not 

possible, the site is excavated or researched 

in such a way as to save any information 

the site might offer. An example of this is 

the excavation of a Native American camp 

which happened to be in the new Wolf 

Creek Highway alignment (Reed 1994). 

This project provided one of our first 

glimpses into Native American use of the 

area between the Uinta and Wasatch 

Mountains. 

Forest Service employees Jake Schoppe, Kari Hatch 

and Shaun Nelson excavating a military site dating to 

1903 in Strawberry Valley. USDA Forest Service. 

This kind of archaeological work 

was begun in 1974 and continues today. 
Prior to 1990, all project-related 

archaeological work was done by 

professionals borrowed from the Regional 

Office in Ogden or from the WasatchCache National Forest. A significant 

change happened in 1989, when the Uinta 

Management Team committed both to 

hiring an archaeologist and to using the 

Forest’s heritage for a greater benefit. As a 

result, the Heritage Program has expanded 

to include other focuses. 

69 

One of these is using sites on the 

Forest to do research on how past people 

used the Forest’s resources. For example, 

during the summer of 1989, researchers 

from Brigham Young University conducted 

excavations in Bone Cave in American 

Fork Canyon in partnership with volunteers 

from the Utah Valley Chapter of the Utah 

Statewide Archaeological Society (USAS). 

This commitment to research surfaced 

again in American Fork Canyon in 1993 

when closure of 107 mine openings for 

safety reasons meant both documenting all 

those mines and creating a historical 

analysis of the hard job of maintaining mine 

operations in the canyon (Crosland and 

Members of the Army of the West, Second Cavalry, 

provide visitors with a first hand look at life in the 

military during 1888. USDA Forest Service. 

Thompson 1994). 

Another program focus has been on 

involving as many people as possible in 

Forest heritage programs and in providing 

them with meaningful ways to appreciate 

and contribute to preservation of the past. 

This effort has included adult education 

courses, primary school presentations, field 

projects for college classes and lectures to 

local community groups. However, the 

primary means for public involvement has 

been the Forest Service’s national 

“Passport in Time” (PIT) program. One of 

the first national pilot projects in this 

program was held on the Uinta National 

Forest in 1990 at the “1888 Strawberry 

Valley Military Site” PIT project which 

continued for another seven summers and 

included a large public open house. 

Members of the Trails West Artifact 

Society, the Army of the West, Second 

Cavalry and USAS were valuable partners 

on that project. 

Passport in Time volunteers at the 1888 Strawberry 

Valley Military Site. USDA Forest Service. 

Other PIT projects on the Forest 

have included “Rediscovering the CCC in 

Utah Valley” in 1993 which was a 

partnership with the Utah State Historical 

Society and members of the Pleasant Grove 
70 

Historical Commission. This project 

documented CCC features in and around 

Utah Valley, produced a brochure on the 

CCC and conducted oral interviews with 

CCC enrollees. The “Living High in 

Forest City” project mapped and test 

excavated the old mining town of Forest 

City in American Fork Canyon. Additional 

volunteer projects on the Forest have 

included documenting all of the Native 

American rock art and locating and 

mapping archaeological sites on the Vernon 

Management Unit. 

A growing program focus is 

integrating information about past human 

activities on the Forest into current project 

planning. Several past actions, including 

logging, grazing, mining and fire 

suppression, have had a significant 

influence on the current condition of the 

Forest. Understanding the specific 

relationships between these actions and the 

resulting patterns in vegetation and 

watershed function is helping return these 

communities to a more stable condition. 

The program is also responding to 

the Native American Graves Protection and 

Repatriation Act of 1990 by helping to 

identify and rebury the remains of Native 

Americans who were buried on lands that 

later became the Uinta National Forest. 

The most famous of these individuals is the 

Ute Chief Black Hawk, buried by his 

family in the mountains at the south end of 

Utah Valley in 1870. His skeleton was dug 

up in 1911 and thereafter donated to a local 

museum. The descendants of Black 

Hawk’s brother, Mountain, were able to 

claim the great man’s remains and, with the 

help of the citizens from Spring Lake, 

rebury him in the same area where he lived 

out his youth. 

Like other resource programs on the 

Uinta National Forest, the Heritage 

program has grown to be more responsive 

to and partnered with Forest users who are 

likewise interested in the heritage of 

peoples along the Wasatch Front. It is a 

partnership that brings satisfaction to the 

people of the present and honor to those in 

the past. (Charmaine Thompson, January 

1997) 

Human Resource Programs 

The Uinta National Forest has long 

been recognized for its outstanding Human 

Resource Programs. For the past 10 years, 

the programs have been recognized 

nationally for their accomplishments. So 

what contributes to this success? 

Youth Conservation Corps

The Youth Conservation Corps 

(YCC) was established by Congress to 

provide employment opportunities for 15- 

18 year old youth on their National Forests. 

The program objectives include 

accomplishing needed conservation work 

on public lands, providing gainful 

employment for youth of all social, 

economic, ethnic, and racial backgrounds, 

and developing an understanding and 

appreciation of the Nation’s natural 

environment and heritage. 

Approximately 30 youth work on 

the Uinta National Forest each summer. 

These crews enjoy an 8-week course that 

includes project work and an environmental 

education experience. These individuals 

receive exposure to all program areas 

including range, recreation and wildlife. 

Each year this program contributes 

approximately $300,000 in work 

accomplished to the Forest.
71 

Volunteers

The “Volunteers in National Forest 

Act” was passed in 1972 to provide an 

opportunity for the public to work with the 

Forest Service. Under this authorization, 

the Uinta National Forest has hosted 

between 8,000 and 14,000 volunteers 

annually. These dedicated people come 

from all across the country as well as 

locally to contribute their time, expertise, 

and materials. 

Projects have included construction 

of a day-use area valued at $350,000 for an 

actual cost of only $13,000, several 

hundred miles of trail improved, 

reintroduction of wildlife species, 

archaeological digs, environmental 

education programs and rehabilitation of 

disturbed watershed areas. 

These projects that contribute 

$500,000 or more annually have been 

consistently recognized nationally as the 

best programs in the nation during the past 

10 years. Without the volunteer program, 

these projects would not be completed. 

Senior Community Service Employment 

Program

This program administered by the 

Department of Labor, gives the Forest 

Service authority to employ seniors in the 

community who are 55 years or older. 

This program for low income individuals 

provides an opportunity for supplemental 

income as well as much needed skills for 

the Forest Service. 

Approximately 50 individuals work 

1300 hours per year operating and 

maintaining recreation facilities, staffing 

information centers and Forest Service 

offices, maintaining vehicles, and building 

and maintaining signs. These skilled 

workers are often paired with youth 

workers and volunteers to share their 

experience and knowledge. Thanks to the 

dedication of SCSEP workers, many 

facilities are operational that would 

otherwise have to be closed. (Loyal Clark, 

January 1997) 

CENTRAL UTAH PROJECT 

Utah is considered a desert state and 

is dependant on the limited water resources 

and healthy watersheds provided by the 

high country within the State. The 

National Forests in Utah are the 

intercepting barriers that catch the lifegiving water from summer thunder storms 

and winter snow storms. 

Conceived in the 1950's, the 

mission of the Central Utah Project (CUP) 

is to develop central Utah’s water resources 

through the timely implementation of the 

CUP Completion Act in an economically 

responsive manner that emphasizes public 

involvement, environmental values and 

conservation of resources. 

The Central Utah Water 

Conservancy District has been given the 

charge to plan and implement the mission 

of the CUP. The Forest Service is 

considered both a client and a consultant to 

help complete the necessary steps involved 

with the Central Utah Project Completion 

Act. 

The Bonneville Unit of the Central 

Utah Project is designed to bring water 

from the High Uintas to the Wasatch Front 

through a series of tunnels, pipelines and 

dams. Water will then be supplied to 

municipal and agricultural demands. The 

Bonneville Unit includes three major areas 

that affect National Forest System lands. 

The Uintah Basin Replacement 

Project (UBRP) is designed to build a series 
72 

of larger, lower elevation reservoirs to 

store additional irrigation water and tribal 

water. This will also provide opportunity 

to channel additional water to the Wasatch 

Front. With the new reservoirs there will 

no longer be the need for the high mountain 

lakes that now store the critical water. The 

project will require stabilization of the high 

mountain lakes in the High Uinta’s 

Wilderness and adjacent areas of the Ashley 

National Forest. 

The Wasatch County Water 

Efficiency/Daniels Replacement Project

(WCWE/DRP) is designed to provide 

additional water for irrigation in Heber 

Valley and better quality water to the 

Wasatch Front. The new Jordanelle Dam 

will provide a more efficient way of 

providing irrigation water to the Heber 

Valley. Jordanelle will also contribute 

culinary water to the Heber Valley and the 

Wasatch Front. 

Specific to the Uinta National 

Forest, a series of canals and pipelines 

carrying water from Jordanelle Reservoir 

will replace the water now transferred from 

the Strawberry River into Daniels Canyon. 

Strawberry River will soon return to its 

natural condition prior to when water was 

diverted near its headwaters. With its 

natural flow of water, fisheries and 

wetlands along the entire length of the river 

will be enhanced. Provo River will also be 

enhanced both in the Heber Valley and 

through Provo Canyon. 

The Spanish Fork-Nephi Project is 

designed to provide water to south Utah 

County and eastern Juab County for 

irrigation through a series of dams and 

pipelines. The Diamond Fork pipeline, 

Monks Hollow Dam, Highline Canal, and 

various secondary water systems for 

communities such as Spanish Fork, 

Mapleton, and Springville are all part of the 

Spanish Fork-Nephi system. This system 

will provide better fisheries for Diamond 

Fork and Spanish Fork Rivers through 

mitigation and enhancements of those 

stream channels. 

The entire Bonneville Unit of the 

Central Utah Project is designed to provide 

more and better quality water to the 

Wasatch Front. Through the building of 

various reservoirs, aqueducts and pipelines, 

and the transfer of water rights from old 

systems to the new facilities will increase 

the amount of high quality water for 

municipal, industrial and agricultural uses. 

Through implementation of the CUP 

completion act, there will be substantial 

impacts to the National Forests. These 

impacts must be mitigated to conserve the 

beauty and biological resources present in 

these areas. The Utah Reclamation, 

Mitigation, and Conservation Commission 

(URMCC) was established by the President 

of the United States. A board of directors 

was appointed and a staff hired to oversee 

the mitigation of impacts created by the 

Central Utah Project. The URMCC, 

through its planning process, is working 

with the National Forests in Utah to fund 

and enhance fish, wildlife and recreational 

projects associated with areas impacted by 

CUP. The Uinta National Forest is 

currently working with the URMCC in 

Strawberry Valley and Diamond Fork 

Canyon. (Bevan Killpack, January 1997) 
73 

STRAWBERRY VALLEY 

MANAGEMENT AREA 

One of the most recent and 

significant land acquisitions to occur on the 

Uinta National Forest involved the 

Strawberry Valley Management Area. The 

acquisition represents the Uinta National 

Forest’s commitment to a philosophy of 

stewardship based on multiple use and 

ecosystem management. The lands in 

Strawberry Valley were transferred to the 

Forest Service against a unique backdrop of 

historical land ownership and management 

controversy. The following is a summary 

of the report entitled Strawberry: History of 

the “Pure Valley,” written by John 

Frandsen of the Heber Ranger District, 

Uinta National Forest in 1994. 

In 1864, Strawberry Valley became 

part of the Uintah Valley Indian 

Reservation by order of President Abraham 

Lincoln which consolidated other 

reservations established in 1856 for the 

Utes and Gosuites. Federal Treaties were 

signed reserving these lands for the sole 

occupation and use by the tribes in 

exchange for their ancestral lands. The 

Indian Agency was established in the Uinta 

Basin and most of the Ute groups located 

around it to take advantage of rations 

distributed there. Strawberry Valley, 

nearly 50 miles from the Agency 

Headquarters, was less frequented by the 

Utes and thus vulnerable to trespass. By 

1880, settlers in Heber Valley were 

trespassing onto the western edge of the 

Uintah Reservation and illegally grazing 

cattle in Strawberry Valley. In addition, 

military encampments were located in the 

valley, partially to show the Utes the 

military capabilities at hand should they 

cause problems for the settlers in the area. 

In 1892, the Indian Office decided 

Strawberry Valley should be leased to the 

Heber Valley ranchers or others since the 

Utes didn’t actively graze the area and it 

would be too much trouble for the Indian 

Office to keep the trespassers out. The 

valley was eventually leased by the Utes, 

through the Indian Office, to Charles F. 

Homer of New York City. This had little 

effect on the trespassing situation however. 

At the same time, Heber Valley 

ranchers were diverting water from the 

Strawberry Valley into Daniel’s Creek and 

Heber Valley. The canal was constructed 

between 1879 and 1882. In 1883, the 

Strawberry Canal Company was 

incorporated and the Hobble Creek ditch 

and Willow Creek canal were constructed, 

though the Willow Creek canal was not 

completed. In 1893, farmers and laborers 

from Heber Valley organized the Willow 

Creek Canal Company and completed the 

Willow Creek canal. By 1904, nearly 1000 

acres were being irrigated wholly or in part 

by illegally diverted water. 

Attempts had been made, however, 

to legitimize the diversion of water. In 

1894, Joseph L. Rawlins attempted to 

secure a special act of Congress to make 

the diversion of water from the reservation 

legal. The bill stalled in committee, but 

Congress authorized a commission to 

negotiate with the Utes to relinquish 

ownership of all lands not allotted to the 

Utes under individual ownership. The 

Dawes Severalty Act gave each head of a 

Ute family an allotment of 80 acres and 40 

acres to each individual. The remainder 

would be opened to non-Indian use. The 

commission never had time to meet with 

the Utes on the matter and the situation in 

Strawberry Valley remained unchanged. In 

1898, another commission was appointed 
74 

for the purpose of allotting lands in 

severalty but a majority of Ute consent 

would be necessary for the terms of the act 

to be carried through. Ute consent was not 

obtained and a stalemate ensued. 

In 1896, Utah was granted statehood 

and Joseph Rawlins became Senator for 

Utah and continued in his efforts to obtain a 

right of way through Reservation lands for 

the canal companies. He finally succeeded 

in 1899 with an amendment attached to an 

Indian appropriation which gave the canal 

companies a right of way through 

Strawberry Valley with the condition that 

the Utes would be left with water they 

required for agricultural and domestic uses. 

Later, the U.S. Geological Survey was sent 

to investigate the situation and see if the 

Utes were getting water sufficient to 

cultivate crops. Cyrus C. Babb directed the 

investigation between 1899 and 1901 and 

reported on the illegally diverted water. 

His supervisor, F.H. Newell commented in 

the report that, though the water was 

illegally diverted, it did not cause any 

significant hardship for the Utes and was 

not serious enough to be considered a 

problem that warranted much attention. 

In 1901 Theodore Roosevelt, a 

strong supporter of western irrigation and 

agricultural development, became 

President. Representative Francis 

Newlands of Nevada began to draft 

legislation that would solve most of the 

problems that previous water legislation 

had created. The result was the Newlands 

Bill which proposed to take money from the 

sale of public lands in the sixteen arid states 

and place it into a Reclamation Fund to be 

used by the Secretary of Interior to pay for 

new water projects. The bill was reworked 

into the National Reclamation Act and 

Fredrick Haynes Newell was named the 

first Director of the new Reclamation 

Service. 

In 1902, a group of local officials in 

Utah County drafted a plan to divert even 

more water from Strawberry Valley into 

Utah Valley. The plan included the 

construction of a reservoir in Strawberry 

Valley and the construction of a four-mile 

tunnel to transfer the water to Utah Valley. 

The Strawberry Valley Project, as it came 

to be known, was pressed at the Utah 

Irrigation Congress, where Fredrick Newell 

suggested that Utah would have a better 

chance of getting Reclamation funding if 

the Irrigation Congress would decide on 

one reservoir plan and lobby for it. Newell 

suggested to the Arid Land Reclamation 

Commission, created by the Utah State 

Legislature, that they form an association 

of water users, who stood to benefit 

through the Strawberry project, that the 

government could interact with. By June of 

1905, this new association would be 

incorporated as the Strawberry Water Users 

Association. 

At about the same time, Senator 

Rawlins was introducing additional 

legislation in a continued effort to open up 

the reservation. Utah Representative 

George Sutherland argued that as no treaty 

with the Utes had ever been ratified, the 

reservation could be taken without 

negotiation or consent since the Utes were 

not the rightful owners. Congress once 

again authorized the Secretary of Interior to 

allot the land in the Severalty Act of 1902. 

President Roosevelt refused to sign the act 

because of its preference toward certain 

mining interests and its failure to give the 

Utes grazing land in connection with their 

allotments. 

The stalemate continued until 1903 

with the Supreme Court decision Lone 
75 

Wolf vs. Hitchcock. This ruling stated that 

Congress had complete authority over 

Indian relations and therefore had power to 

pass laws which exceeded treaty 

stipulations. Immediately, Congress 

appropriated funds to carry out the 1902 

severalty act and stated that if Ute consent 

could not be obtained, the Secretary of 

Interior could proceed to allot lands and 

open the reservation without it. This act 

addressed President Roosevelt’s concerns 

by providing 250,000 acres of grazing land 

located just south of Strawberry River. In 

1904, acting Indian agent C.H. Hall 

requested the Indian Service to persuade 

Congress to change the location of the 

250,000 acre grazing lands to the Deep 

Creek area because of the Reclamation 

Service’s plans to divert water into the 

Provo district. The date for opening the 

reservation was postponed until March 10, 

1905. 

Meanwhile George L. Swendsen, 

the Reclamation Service district engineer 

sent letters to the Reclamation Service, the 

Forest Service and the Indian Service 

requesting that they support setting aside 

Strawberry Valley as a reservoir site. The 

Forest Service was also interested in 

obtaining a portion of the Uintah 

Reservation. Chief grazing officer Albert 

F. Potter was sent by Gifford Pinchot to 

find land suitable for additional Forest 

Reserves and Potter had sited the 

Strawberry Valley as a possibility (See 

Appendix B for land acquired by the Forest 

Service when the Uintah Reservation was 

opened). 

The opening date was postponed 

again, this time until September 1, 1905 

and an act was passed in Congress allowing 

President Roosevelt to set land apart as an 

addition to the Uintah Forest Reserve and 

to set aside any lands necessary to protect 

the water supply “for the Indians or for 

general agricultural development.” The act 

also relocated the 250,000 acre grazing 

lands to the Deep Creek area as per Hall’s 

request. 

In July of 1904, President Roosevelt 

issued a proclamation which set the opening 

of the Uintah Valley Reservation on August 

28, 1905. On August 3, 1905, the 

president withdrew 200,633 acres from 

disposal for agricultural purposes and for a 

“reservoir site necessary to conserve the 

water supply for the Indians, or for general 

agricultural development.” On August 14, 

1905, the President specifically reserved 

land for the Strawberry Valley Project. 

Other lands were opened for settlement 

under the terms of the Homestead Act. 

Potential settlers would file applications 

which were drawn at random for 160 acre 

parcels of Ute reservation land. In Provo, 

37,702 people registered for a chance at the 

land. Strawberry remained unaffected by 

settlement as most of the valley lands were 

reserved through Roosevelt’s earlier 

proclamations. 

When the Reclamation Act of 1902 

passed, the demand for water projects far 

exceeded the capabilities of the Reclamation 

Service and the Reclamation Fund. Each 

western state would be entitled to a single 

project and the Strawberry Valley Project 

was chosen in the State of Utah, the first of 

many Federal water projects. This project 

was unique when compared to the projects 

funded by the Reclamation Service in other 

states because the lands that benefited from 

the Strawberry Valley Project were 

privately owned, where as other 

Reclamation projects provided water to 

“public domain” lands, opened 

subsequently to homesteading. Regardless,
76 

the Strawberry Project was chosen for 

Reclamation Support for several reasons. 

First, the formation of the Strawberry Water 

Users Association had given the 

Reclamation Service a cohesive group to 

work with. Second, the opening of the 

Uintah Reservation coincided with project 

approval. This freed up large amounts of 

unappropriated water and also made 

possible securing the reservoir site. Third, 

the project was smaller and simpler, 

making completion and repayment to the 

Reclamation Service more likely. 

A contract with the Strawberry 

Water Users was entered into, signed by 

the Secretary of Interior on March 6, 1906 

and preparatory construction began.

Preparatory construction of Strawberry Reservoir, 1906. USDA Forest Service. 

Heber Valley ranchers who had 

grazed on the withdrawn lands before the 

Strawberry Project now requested to 

continue using the lands for grazing. The 

Reclamation Service had no precedent or 

statute to validate the legality of leasing the 

withdrawn land to the cattlemen. The 

decision was finally made by Assistant 

Attorney General Frank L. Campbell to 

allow the Secretary of Interior to lease the 

withdrawn lands at his discretion. On 

March 10, 1906, the Secretary decided to 

lease withdrawn lands to the highest bidder. 

 By July, a contract was entered into with 

James Clyde, James Murdock, Davis Smith 

and Davis Murdock of Heber City for 

$10,408 per annum. 
Construction of the dam at Strawberry Reservoir, 1907. USDA Forest Service. 

The final cost of the project was 

estimated at $1.25 million, but by 1910, it 

was evident that real costs would exceed 

that figure. To complicate matters, the 

Indian Agent for the Utes began asking for 

lease money received from Strawberry 

Valley grazing. Though the land had been 

withdrawn from entry, the title still 

remained with the Utes. The Strawberry 

Water Users disputed the claim arguing that 

grazing fees should be used to repay project 

costs which, by then, almost tripled the 

original estimates. They asked Senator 

Sutherland to push a measure through 

Congress which would allow the 

Reclamation Service to purchase the 

grazing land as part of the reclamation 

project’s construction costs. Sutherland 

introduced the bill in 1910 and it failed. 

Two months later, he managed to attach an 

amendment to the Fiscal Year 1911 Indian 

Appropriations Act which read: 

All right, title, and interest of the 

Indians in the said lands are hereby 

extinguished, and title, 

 management, and control thereof 

shall pass to the owners of the lands 

irrigated from said project whenever 

the management and operation of 

the irrigation works shall so pass 

under the terms of the reclamation 

act (Act 4-4-1910, 36 Stat. 269). 

While Sutherland’s amendment 

provided for the water users to assume

“title,” management and control of the 

Project Lands, the Reclamation Act 

77 
78 

specifically indicated that title to 

reclamation works would remain with the 

Government unless Congress otherwise 

directed. Regardless, in the summer of 

1912, the water users were informed, by 

Senator Smoot and State Senator Henry 

Gardener, that the title to 60,000 acres in 

Strawberry Valley was theirs. This 

arrangement allowed the water users to 

collect grazing revenues from project lands 

to cover project costs. The understanding 

of the water users was that the project 

would mean eventual title to the project 

works and the thousands of acres of 

withdrawn lands which surrounded them. 

Many others disagreed. 

Under the high bid lease structure 

that was established, ranchers from Heber 

Valley were forced to pay the water users 

rents much higher than those on 

neighboring forest lands. Few rangelands 

were left un-stocked so Heber Valley 

ranchers had little choice. Because of the 

high rental fees, ranchers had to stock their 

allotments with as many sheep and cattle as 

they could to pay rental fees and still make 

a profit. This resulted in deteriorating 

range conditions early on. 

In October of 1912, with 

construction on the reservoir and tunnel 

nearly complete, Newell sent a letter to the 

water users requesting a plan for 

repayment. Disputes arose among the 

water users over who would pay. The 

Secretary of Interior responded to the 

dispute by establishing a deadline for the 

settlement of the dispute and a feasible plan 

for repayment. The deadline, May of 

1913, came and went and the Reclamation 

Service delayed taking any action. 

By the summer of 1917, the 

reservoir was full and the Reclamation 

Service drew up a tentative contract to turn 

the care, maintenance and operation of the 

project over to the water users as specified 

in the Reclamation Act. 

In April of 1922, George A. Fisher 

testified, on behalf of the Heber ranchers, 

before the House Committee on Public 

Lands in favor of Bill H.R. 10861 which 

proposed to pass all the project lands 

covered by the 1910 Act to the Uinta 

National Forest. Additionally, the bill 

would provide that 10 percent of receipts 

from the National Forest should be paid 

into the Reclamation Fund to reimburse the 

money paid to the Utes under the 1910 Act. 

This bill would repeal the 1910 Act to the 

extent that it was inconsistent with H.R. 

10861. Fisher testified that Wasatch 

County ranchers had paid the water users 

$82,000 over the amount reimbursed to the 

Utes according to the 1910 payment 

contract. Because the lands had been paid 

for using this money, the land was free to 

be transferred to the Forest Service. This, 

in effect, would bring grazing fees down to 

what the ranchers could afford. Fisher 

further argued that Forest and project lands 

were divided entirely by section lines, 

having no real meaning in practical 

administration. He felt, as did others, that 

the watershed should be managed as a 

single unit by a single agency. The Forest 

Service was a perfect candidate for 

management as watershed protection was 

one of the agencies primary purposes. 

George Fisher argued that protection of the 

watershed could only be accomplished 

through proper management of grazing. 

This represented a goal that could not be 

achieved on any lands where the objective 

was to benefit from them financially. 

The water users protested, claiming 

they had vested rights to the lands in 

Strawberry Valley. Senator Will H. King, 
79 

who was asked by the water users to 

champion their claim, replied by stating 

that there were no legal rights granted to 

the water users. In a letter to sent to Lee 

R. Taylor, King stated: 

The water users have not paid for 

the lands in the sense that they have 

bought them. The expense of 

extinguishing the Indian title was 

charged to their project, which 

replaced the title in the government 

free from all Indian claims for use 

of the project, to the extent required 

as a watershed, but for no other 

purpose.

H.R. 10861 was favorably reported overall 

by the House committee. However, a 

dissent report was filed by a minority. The 

bill was never considered beyond the 

committee stage. 

In December of 1924, Congress 

passed the Fact Finders Act which changed 

the conditions under which management 

and operation were to pass to the water 

users. It stated that the water users would 

assume care, operation, and maintenance of 

the project works and facilities whenever 

two-thirds part of the Association members 

agreed to a repayment contract. Under this 

contract, the water users soon met the 

criteria for the transfer of management. 

But, the Fact Finders Act also provided that 

“title, management, and control” of the 

watershed lands were not to pass to the 

Association under the 1910 Act until at 

least 51% of project costs had been repaid 

to the Federal Government. These 

provisions were in seeming contradiction 

with one another. Regardless, the 

Government and water users entered into 

agreement to transfer care, operation and 

management to the water users. 

In November of 1928, the 

contradiction was clarified by an 

amendment which explained that although 

51% of the project costs had not yet been 

repaid, “care, operation, and maintenance” 

(management and control, but not title) of 

the watershed lands would be transferred to 

the Association. 

Starting in 1926, the High Line 

Canal Company, or “Strawberry Grazing 

Company,” which was organized by Heber 

Valley ranchers, leased allotments on the 

Project Lands. In 1929 bids for new leases 

were open and applications to graze more 

than 100,000 sheep were placed by both 

Heber Valley stockmen and Association 

members. The carrying capacity was 

established at 25,000 sheep so the 

Association decided to provide allotments 

only to its members. Revenues from 

grazing on Project Lands were then 

credited toward the construction costs as 

per the 1924 Act. The Act stated that no 

profits could be distributed to members 

until the project costs had been fully paid. 

However, it was in the opinion of the 

Solicitor that the express prohibition of 

profit before repayment did not imply an 

authorization for profit distribution after 

payment. They did not feel profit 

distribution was what Congress had 

intended. 

As a result of the 1928 amendment, 

the management of 60,000 acres was turned 

over to the water users. During the 

depression of the 1930's, revenues dropped 

off and the Association began to discuss 

options to lower Association costs with the 

Bureau of Reclamation. The Reclamation 

Projects Act of 1939 extended the 

repayment period for Reclamation Projects 

nationwide and a year later the water users 
80 

were able to sign a new contract. This 

contract not only extended the repayment 

period, but redesignated the Project Lands 

as “grazing lands” instead of the former 

“watershed lands.” The 1940 contract also 

stated that title to the Project Lands and 

Reclamation works would remain with the 

U.S. Government even though management 

authority rested with the water users. In 

1946, an Act was passed which stated that 

revenues generated by the project could not 

be distributed to individual water users 

before or after retirement of the project 

debt. 

In the 1960's, the Central Utah 

Project was authorized. This meant the 

enlargement of Strawberry Reservoir and 

the subsequent loss of revenue generating 

grazing lands. The Strawberry Water 

Users Association responded, in November 

of 1973, by filing suite against the 

Government for compensation for losses of 

future grazing revenues. The final 

installment of the $3,499,734.22 

construction loan for the Strawberry Valley 

Project was paid in November of 1974. 

The same year, the Association filed suite 

against the Government to settle several 

important legal questions: 

1) Where did title to the grazing 

lands actually rest? 

2) Could it distribute profits to its 

members now that the construction loan had 

been repaid? 

3) Did the Association have a right 

to be reimbursed for grazing land lost 

under the expanded Strawberry Reservoir 

in the Central Utah Project? 

Based on the 1928 supplemental 

contract and the 1940 Amendatory 

Contract, the court decided the Association 

did not have an ownership interest in the 

Project Lands but did have a contractual 

right to do certain things with those lands. 

The Bureau also had rights and 

responsibilities to see that the land was 

managed as intended and if the lands were 

transferred to the Forest Service, that 

agency would be required to honor the 

contract with the water users. 

Meanwhile, recreational use of 

Strawberry Project lands had been steadily 

growing. Formal recreation management 

in the area probably began in 1926 when 

the Association assumed control. At about 

the same time, the State was planting the 

reservoir with trout, but recreational fishing 

continued to be limited by fish losses. The 

fish were suffocated as a result of the 

decomposition of excessive organic matter 

in the reservoir and high temperatures 

which resulted from stagnation. Up until 

the 1960's, ranchers applied herbicides to 

willows along stream corridors to increase 

access to the water by livestock. This 

together with continued overgrazing on the 

watershed caused an increase in sediment 

run off and a decrease in the reproductive 

capabilities of fisheries. Sediments were 

carried into the reservoir, filtering ultraviolate light and upsetting the vegetation 

balances in the reservoir. Private fishing 

camps, leased from the water users, caused 

their own problems. Sanitation practices 

were substandard and raw sewage was 

often dumped into the reservoir, again 

upsetting the vegetation balance and 

increasing the decomposition of organic 

matter. Chubs and suckers out competed 

native species and in 1961, the entire 

reservoir had to be cleared of fish. Native 

species were restocked, but overgrazing 

and an increase in recreational continued. 

Recreation and grazing were two uses on a 
81 

collision course in Strawberry Valley. 

In 1975, the State Division of 

Health ordered all recreational facilities 

surrounding the reservoir closed for illegal 

sanitation. At the same time, Wasatch 

County began to criticize the water users for 

their fee collection system. In 1976, 

the Bureau of Reclamation prepared a 

recreation master plan for the enlarged 

reservoir. Discussion began as to who 

should manage the project lands and for 

what purpose. Discussion continued 

between Federal and State agencies and 

officials, environmental and wildlife 

groups, and the public. The decision was 

finally made to manage the lands for 

watershed protection, recreation, wildlife 

and fish values. It was decided that the 

Forest Service would assume management 

of the project lands. On October 16, 1988, 

Congress transferred management authority 

for the Project Lands from the Strawberry 

Water Users Association to the U.S. Forest 

Service, Uinta National Forest (See 

Appendix B for land transferred). This bill: 

1) Gave management authority to 

the Forest Service for Project Lands by 

modifying the Forest Boundary. 

2) Compensated the Strawberry 

Water Users Association for their grazing 

rights on the Project Lands. 

3) Provided $3 million for 

rehabilitation of the Project Lands to be 

spent over a 5-year period beginning in 

1990. 

The Project Lands were also given a 

new title: Strawberry Valley Management 

Area. The entire Strawberry Valley 

watershed could now be managed as an 

ecosystem for the benefit of a diverse group 

of users. A massive effort was initiated by 

the Uinta National Forest to stabilize 

riparian habitats, rehabilitate fish habitats, 

seed the upland areas adjacent to riparian 

areas, control noxious weeds, consolidate 

the system of roads in the area, dismantle 

obsolete fences and monitor the restoration 

of the valley. Concurrent with these efforts 

was the treatment and restocking of the 

reservoir with native fish species. Today, 

Strawberry Valley is a destination spot for 

thousands of recreationists and one of 

Utah’s premier fishing areas. Other uses 

include timber harvesting and grazing 

under controlled conditions. 

CHILDREN’S FOREST 

The concept for a Children’s Forest 

was born in California out of a need for 

public participation in ecosystem 

management. The San Bernardino National 

Forest developed a program where children 

are involved in the management of public 

lands. The Children’s Forest is the term 

coined to define a management area 

managed to provide the people of all ages 

with educational opportunities in 

ecosystems management. The Uinta 

National Forest is working on designing a 

similar program for children in Utah. The 

program seeks to improve access for people 

of all ages and abilities in addition to 

offering an equally recreational and 

educational experience for visitors. 

Diamond Fork Canyon has been 

selected as the pilot location for the project. 

Diamond Fork was selected because of its 

proximity to major population bases and the 

area has a wide range of resources 

(recreation, range, fisheries, wildlife). 

Partnerships with communities, 

corporations, individuals, and educators 

will implement and sustain the goals of the 
82 

Children’s Forest. 

Eventually Diamond Fork will be an 

area where children and other community 

members can come together to learn and 

play. Children will become actively 

involved in ecosystem management 

providing a vehicle for their education and 

empowerment. The area will become a 

place of lifelong learning and play with 

opportunities for participation in the 

stewardship of the land. Design of the 

environment will reflect children’s needs 

and will integrate art, science, and 

education in a uniquely accessible 

environment. 

In the future the Diamond Fork pilot 

project will be spread to other locations 

throughout Utah. Children’s deserts, 

wetlands and other ecosystems can be 

developed to provide education for children 

about the environment and ecosystems 

management. 

The Children’s Forest will be a 

working forest offering high quality 

environmental education and outdoor 

recreation opportunities that promote 

individual dignity, independence and social 

integration through public/private 

partnerships, responsible ecosystem 

management and universal design concepts. 

 (Rebecca Hirschi, January 1997) 

NATIONAL AND STATE 

CHRISTMAS TREES 

FROM THE UINTA 

1968 National Christmas Tree 

In 1968, a 74-foot Engelmann 

spruce was sent to the White House to be 

the 1968 National Christmas Tree. The 

tree was cut under the direction of the Utah 

State Forester's office on November 12, 

1968, from an area about a mile east of 

Daniel’s Canyon summit in Wasatch 

County on the Strawberry Ranger District 

at an elevation of 7,900 feet. Ranger 

Phillip D. Glass stated the tree measured 20 

feet tall and had a stump of 23.7 inches in 

diameter. Representative Laurence J. 

Burton stated: 

We feel it a real honor for Utah to 

provide the most beautiful tree in 

the world for the Nation's Christmas 

Tree... This tree was nothing more 

than a sapling when the first 

Mormon pioneers began settling in 

Heber Valley in the 1850's...

The tree arrived in Washington, 

D.C., on November 26 and was turned 

over to the National Park Service for 

decoration. "It was a great moment for the 

State of Utah," said State Forester Paul 

Sjoblom at the lighting ceremony on 

December 16. "Many people and 

organizations donated time, personnel, 

equipment and money for the project,"

Sjoblom added. President Lyndon B. 

Johnson pushed the button lighting the 

2,000 blue and 2,000 green lights. 

Decorations also included 200 large, golden 

snowflakes (U.S. Department of 

Agriculture 1972). 

1996 State Christmas Tree 

In 1996, the Heber Ranger District 

provided the Christmas Tree which held 

center stage in Utah’s State Capitol. The 

30-foot blue spruce, Utah’s State tree, was 

a gift marking the conclusion of the Utah 

State Centennial and beginning of the Uinta 

National Forest Centennial. 

On Friday, November 22, a 

ceremony was held in the Heber City park. 
The program recognized partners who were 

involved in the selection, cutting and 

transportation of the tree. Also included 

were remarks by Heber City Mayor Scott 

Wright, Wasatch County Commissioner 

LaRen Provost, Heber District Ranger 

Robert Riddle, Forest Supervisor Peter 

Karp, and carols sung by local children’s 

choirs. 

Robert Woodhead, Deputy Director 

of Administrative Services, Utah State 

Office, presented Supervisor Karp with a 

beautiful plaque. It stated: “In appreciation 

for participation in the 1996 Utah State 

Capitol Tree Ceremony and to honor the 

‘kick off’ of the Uinta National Forest 

Centennial, 1897-1997.” 

83 

The tree was delivered by D.P. 

Curtis Trucking of Richfield, Utah, to State 

Capitol Facilities Coordinator, Joe Ligori, 

at the State Capitol on the morning of 

Tuesday, November 26. A crane lifted the 

tree up the grand staircase, through the 

south set of doors, and into the Rotunda on 

the second floor. It was raised by a series 

of winches and secured with ropes. 

Approximately 6,000 lights and 1,000 

decorations were placed on the tree by 

maintenance and grounds staff. The 

ornaments adorning the tree were made by 

school students from throughout the State 

of Utah. 

The “lights on” ceremony took 

place Tuesday, December 10. The 

program included carols sung by the 

American Fork High School Choir and 

remarks by First Lady Jacalyn S. Leavitt. 

Following the program, a call was received 

from Lieutenant Governor, Olene Walker, 

in Washington D.C. Mrs. Leavitt then 

flipped the switch to light the tree. This 

occurred simultaneously with the lighting 

of “Utah’s Centennial Tree to D.C.,” a 70- 

foot Engelmann spruce provided to our 

Nation’s Capitol from the six National 

Forests in Utah honoring the Statehood 

Centennial. Washington’s tree was lit by 

Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who 

thanked Utah for the beautiful tree and 

wished everyone a very Merry Christmas. 

(Lola Murray, January 1997) 

Utah State Christmas Tree at the State Capitol, 

December 1996. USDA Forest Service. 
84 
LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE 

ON THE 

UINTA NATIONAL FOREST

The unique mix of Land, People and 

Events has made the Uinta National Forest 

what it is today and will continue to carry it 

into the future. From the very first humans 

to enter Utah to the hikers and picnickers of 

tomorrow, the Uinta National Forest will 

continue to provide important resources and 

opportunities for the American people. 

Clean air and water on the Uinta will 

continue to play an increasingly important 

role for people in the valleys. Recreational 

areas on the Uinta are now providing 

residents from the Salt Lake and Ogden 

Valley’s with an alternative to more 

crowded recreational areas in northern 

Utah. They continue to be the backyard for 

Utah, Juab and Heber Valley residents. 

85 

The challenges inherent in resource 

management have evolved with use patterns 

and philosophies over the last 100 years. 

Land and resource managers on the Uinta 

will continue, with the help of partners, to 

keep pace with these changes. Gifford 

Pinchot said, “Forestry cannot succeed 

without support of people who are the 

Forest neighbors.” 

Many of the challenges of the next 

100 years promise to be very different from

those we have seen since 1897. But one 

thing still holds true. As the Uinta 

National Forest Supervisor, Peter W. Karp, 

said, “Wise and careful use by us all will 

ensure that these lands will be available and 

provide the joy we experience today and 

well into the next millennium. Each of us 

has a responsibility to care for the lands 

and resources of the Uinta National 

Forest.” 
APPENDICES 

Appendix A:

Bibliography 

Alexander, Thomas G. 

1987 The Rise of Multiple Use Management in the Intermountain West: A History of 

Region 4 of the Forest Service. Brigham Young University and MESA Corporation, 

Salt Lake City, Utah. 

Allen, James B. and Warner, Ted J. 

1971 The Gosuite Indians in Pioneer Utah. Utah Historical Quarterly 39(2):162-77. 

Arrington, Leonard J. and Alexander, T.G. 

1965 The U.S. Army Overlooks Salt Lake Valley: Fort Douglas, 1862-1965. Utah 

Historical Quarterly 326-50. 

Baldridge, Kenneth W. 

1971 Nine Years of Achievement: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Utah. A 

dissertation presented to the Department of History, Brigham Young University. 

Benhnke, R.J. 

1992 Native Trout of Western North America. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, 

Maryland. 

Berkowitz, Paul D. 

1995 U.S. Rangers-The Law of the Land: The History of Law Enforcement in the Federal 

Land Management Agencies. Paul Berkowitz, d.b.a., Herndon, Virginia. 

Calloway, Donald G., Janetski, Joel C., and Stewart, O.C. 

1986 Ute, In Great Basin, ed. Warren L. D’Azevedo, pp. 336-67. Handbook of North 

American Indians, vol. 11. William G. Sturevant, general editor. Smithsonian 

Institution, Washington, D.C. 

Christy, Howard A. 

1978 Open Hand and Mailed Fist: Mormon-Indian Relations in Utah, 1847-52. Utah 

Historical Quarterly 46(3):217-35. 

Christy, Howard A. 

1979 The Walker War: Defense and Conciliation as Strategy. Utah Historical 

Quarterly 47(4):395-420. 

Connor Patrick E. 

Letter from Connor to Drum, October 26, 1864. 

Cottam, Walter P. 

1947 Is Utah Sahara Bound? Extension Division, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. 

Crosland, Richard and Thompson, Charmaine 

1994 Heritage Resource Inventory of American Fork Area Mine Closures, Utah County, 

Utah. Uinta National Forest, Provo, Utah. (Utah State History Report # U-93-FS523(fp)) 

Dale, H.C (editor) 

1941 The Ashley-Smith Explorations and the Discovery of a Central Route to the Pacific: 

1822-1829. The Arthur H. Clark Company, Glendale, California. 
DeMoisey, Charles 

1963 Some Early History of the Uinta National Forest. File 1658-Historical Data-Early 

Administration, Uinta National Forest. 

Dixon, Madoline C. 

1983 These Were the Utes. Press Publishing Limited, Provo, Utah. 

Egan, F. 

1977 Fremont: Explorer for a Restless Nation. Doubleday and Company, Inc., New 

York. 

Fagan, Brian M. 

1991 Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. Thames and Hudson 

Ltd, London. 

Fowler, Don D. and Fowler, Catherine S. 

1971 Anthropology of the Numa: John Wesley Powell’s Manuscripts on the Numic 

Peoples of Western North America, 1868-1880. Smithsonian Contributions to 

Anthropology No. 14. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 

Fowler, Don D. and Fowler, Catherine S. 

1971 Notes on the History of the Southern Paiutes an Western Shoshonis. Utah 

Historical Quarterly 39(2):95-113. 

Fransen, John 

1994 Strawberry: History of the “Pure Valley”. Heber Ranger District, Uinta National 

Forest. 

Gull, D. 

1935 Statement of Early Forest Range Conditions. Typescript, File Range Management, 

Uinta National Forest. 

Holmes, Edward W. 

1990 The Uinta National Forest: An Environmental History. A thesis presented to the 

Department of History, Brigham Young University, Provo. 

Huntington, Oliver Boardman 

1942 Diary of Oliver Boardman Huntington. Brigham Young University, Provo. 

Isbell, Victor K. 

1972 Historical Development of the Spanish Fork Ranger District: 1776-1972. Uinta 

National Forest, Intermountain Region, U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Ise, John 

1920 The United States Forest Policy. Yale University Press, New Haven. 

Jacobs, J.L. 

1955 Forest History 1954. Memo for the record dated February 11, 1955. 

Janetski, Joel C. 

1990 Utah Lake: Its Role in the Prehistory of Utah Valley. Utah Historical Quarterly 

58(1):5-31. 

Janetski, Joel C. 

1991 The Ute of Utah Lake. University of Utah Anthropological Papers No.116. 

University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. 

Jones, Will N. 

1877-98 Sporting Diary of Mrs. Will N. Jones, 1877 to 1898. Unpublished diary. In 

possession of Lorraine Higgins, Pleasant Grove, Utah. 
Kelly, R.L., and Todd, L.C. 

1988 Coming into the Country: Early Paleoindian Hunting and Mobility. American 

Antiquity 53(2):231-44. 

Kelsey, Michael R. 

1989 Climbing and Exploring Utah’s Mt. Timpanogos. Kelsey Publishing, Provo, 

Utah. 

Madsen, David B. 

1979 The Fremont and the Sevier: Defining Prehistoric Agriculturalists North of the 

Anasazi. American Antiquity 44(4):711-21. 

Metcalf, Warren 

1989 A Precarious Balance: The Northern Utes and the Black Hawk War. Utah 

Historical Quarterly 57(1):24-35. 

Morgan, Dale L. 

1964 Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West. University of Nebraska Press, 

Lincoln/London. 

Olsen, Beth R. 

1994 Utah’s CCCs: The Conservators’ Medium for Young Men, Nature, Economy, 

and Freedom. Utah Historical Quarterly 52(3):261-274. 

Pack, Dan S. 

1946-47 Untitled Memoirs. Typescript, File Range Management, Uinta National 

Forest. 

Peterson, Charles S. and Speth, Linda E. 

1980 History of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Report submitted to the 

Wasatch-Cache National Forest September 25, 1980. 

Peterson, L.S. 

1964 The Development of Utah Livestock Law: 1848-1896. Utah Historical 

Quarterly 32(3):198-216. 

Pitchard, George E. 

1987 A Utah Railroad Scrapbook: being something of a personal notebook of Utah 

railroads in the nineteenth century, mostly narrow gauge, and a few in the twentieth. 

Salt Lake City, Utah. 

Rawlins, Joseph L. 

1956 The Unchosen Few: The Autobiography of Joseph L. Rawlins. ( n.p.: Alma 

Rawlins Jensen 1956), 36-37. 

Reed, Alan D. 

1994 Archaeological Excavation of the Wolf Springs Site (42WA125), Wasatch County, 

Utah. Alpine Archaeological Consultants, Inc. Montrose, Colorado. (Utah State 

History Report # U93-A1-315f(e)). 

Romaine, Jonathan N. 

1984 Eugene Lusk Roberts - An Architect of Physical Education in the American West: 

1910-1950. Unpublished Dissertation, Department of Physical Education, Brigham 

Young University. 

Russell, Osbourn 

1984 Journal of a Trapper. Aubrey L. Haines, ed. University of Nebraska Press, 

Lincoln/London. 
Smith, Anne M.Cooke 

1974 Ethnography of the Northern Ute. Papers in Anthropology No.17. University 

of New Mexico, Albuquerque. 

Steen, Harold K. 

1991 The U.S. Forest Service: A History. University of Washington Press, Seattle. 

Steward, Julian H. 

1938 Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau 

of American Ethnology, Bulletin 120. Reprint by University of Utah Press, Salt Lake 

City. 

Stauffer, Alan C. 

1971 Histories of American Fork Canyon. Unpublished collection of papers, U.S. 

Forest Service, Pleasant Grove, Utah. 

Tykal, J.B. 

1989 Etienne Provost: Man of the Mountains. Eagle’s View Publishing Company, 

Liberty, UT. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service 

1972 Utah’s First Forest’s First 75 Years. Uinta National Forest, Provo, Utah. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service 

1980 History of Wildlife Management in the Intermountain Region. U.S.D.A. Forest 

Service, Ogden, Utah. 

Uinta National Forest 

1965 Pleasant Grove Ranger District: Mahogany Mountain Sheep Allotment Range 

Management Plan. 

Uinta National Forest 

1966 Typescript, File 1658-6-Watershed and Multiple Use Mgt, Forest Historical Data 

files. Uinta National Forest, Provo, Utah. 

Warner, Ted J. (editor) 

1976 The Dominguez-Escalante Journal. trans. Fray Angelico Chavez. Brigham 

Young University Press, Provo, Utah. 

Wild, Jenny A. 

1982 Alpine Yesterdays: A History of Alpine, Utah County, Utah. Blaine Hudson 

Printing, Salt Lake City. 

Zinser, Charles I. 

1995 Outdoor Recreation: United States National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands. 

John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York. 
Appendix B:

Uinta National Forest Boundary Maps - Major Boundary Changes Over Time 

GIS Analyst: Debra Tatman 






U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1997 – 573-068 / 28030 REGION NO. 8

Appendix C:

List of Uinta National Forest Offices and Phone Numbers 

Uinta National Forest Supervisor’s Office 

88 West 100 North 

Provo, UT 84601 

801-377-5780 

Heber Ranger District 

2460 South Highway 40 

P.O. Box 190 

Heber City, UT 84032 

801-654-0470 

Pleasant Grove Ranger District 

390 North 100 East 

Pleasant Grove, UT 84062 

801-785-3563 

Spanish Fork Ranger District 

44 West 400 North 

Spanish Fork, UT 84660 

801-798-3571 

Nephi Office, Spanish Fork Ranger District 

740 South Main 

Nephi, UT 84648 

801-623-2735 

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in its 

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