Caleb Palfreyman

Professor Mulderink

Service Learning Project

25 April 2002

Reliving the Old Spanish Trail

I had been to the Mountain Meadows Massacre site two times previous to the Spring Semester of 2002 before I first was introduced to the idea of the service learning project. When I visited the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the site sparked my curiosity. I wanted to learn more. The site gave an account of the detailed events that occurred during the massacre, but it did not give substantial information of what transpired before the tragic event. As a consequence of the lack of information, I found myself evermore curious to discover the background behind the massacre, more particularly the events that led up to it, and the motives behind the participants of this horrendous act. Hence, when I discovered that an opportunity to do my service learning project rested in leading a tour out to the Mountain Meadows Massacre site, I immediately felt interested, and I desired at once to participate in this event. The meeting of the Old Spanish Trail Association in the summer of 2002 will be an event I could learn more about the site of the Mountain Meadow Massacre.

The title of my project is "A Tour Along the Old Spanish Trail to Mountain Meadows." I have corresponded with Steven Heath, and he has worked with me in preparation of the tour to be held June 8-9. The tour is for members of the Old Spanish Trail Association, which was started in 1994. The Association was established to preserve and identify the trail through the six states that it traverses, namely Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and California (Old). In speaking with Professor Heath, I immediately felt overwhelmed when I realized that knowledgeable, scholarly individuals would be along on this tour with me. I immediately realized that my main purpose in the tour would be to have a general knowledge of where the various sites were located along the route and gain a basic understanding of what occurred at these sites. My prime responsibility was to guide these people to the sites. What knowledge I can gain about the history of the Spanish trail would be beneficial, but overall I needed to know where the sites were located and their basic history.

My preparation for the oncoming tour has included an outing in February with Professor Heath where we sauntered out to the various sites that will be in the tour. Professor Heath informed me of the historical context and information at each site. The purpose of this excursion was to allow me to become familiar with the various sites and to further give me a background and a point, which I could start to study in preparation of the summer tour. In addition to the guided outing, Professor Heath lent me some books, pamphlets and handouts to help me inform myself in preparation of the approaching tour. Professor Heath and I spent half of a day journeying along the Spanish Trail from Cedar City to Mountain Meadows. I have spent numerous hours reading the historical information that Professor Heath gave me. Since February, I have been out to the sites two or three times to become more familiar with the area. In addition, I have practiced my presentation at these sites with my friend who accompanied me on these later trips. What follows is a general outline of the sites where I am scheduled to guide Association members. I have given a general outline of the information I have researched through reading and through talking with Professor Heath.

When I accompanied Professor Heath in February, we traveled westward on Highway 56 west of Cedar City. I began listening to his various stories and knowledge that this man knew about the history of Southern Utah. It was a fascinating experience to hear this self educated historian reveal to me the various events and occurrences that happened at different points along Highway 56. In addition to being informative, it was a fun trip.

The first site we came to was near Mile #57. This is the marker for the Fathers Dominguez and Escalante expedition. Professor Heath informed me that this site was erected for the United States bicentennial celebration of 1976. Coincidentally, the Dominguez-Escalante expedition began on the twenty-ninth of July 1976, twenty five days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, making it a fitting historical event for south-west states to participate in honoring during the bicentennial (Moody, 146).

The significance of the marker on Mile # 57 is this marker commemorates the event that took place twenty miles north of this site. I later read more about the significance of this event in a booklet by Cerqoune that Professor Heath provided. Dominguez and Escalante were on an expedition for the Spanish Empire, attempting to find a route from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Monterey, California. After months of travel the party found themselves heading south from Utah County. Interestingly, the Dominguez and Escalante expedition in 1776 were the first Europeans to see the Utah Valley with its accompanying freshwater lake. Today, there stands a white cross at the base of Spanish Fork Canyon, where the Dominguez-Escalante party came into the valley. This cross also was erected during the bicentennial commemoration. The explorers described this valley as lush green with many small rivers running from the East into the lake. The expedition leaders spoke to the Ute Indians that lived within the valley and promised they would return the following summer. The leaders also felt that the valley was a type of Eden, and that it would support a great population of many cities. They saw the prospect of a Spanish mission being posted in this valley.

As the two leaders journeyed south from the valley, winter was approaching. Dominguez, the official leader of the group, became evermore worried about the present state of the expedition, and he turned to Escalante, his fellow priest and most faithful follower on the expedition. He was concerned about the approaching winter and feared that if the party continued to journey to Monterey, they would die of the winter cold among the Sierra-Nevadas. He further felt that if they did not return to Santa Fe that they would not be able to keep the promise with the Utes on Utah Lake by not returning that summer. He further felt that the discovery of the valley was more than enough spoil for the expedition. Father Escalante agreed with Dominguez, but the argued that the rest of the party would not want to return. He proved right, and the rest of the party showed little excitement for heading back to Santa Fe. Finally, and agreement was reached, and the party decided on casting lots. They said prayers and rituals and left their fate "in the hands of God." After much meditation and prayer, Dominguez drew the lot which directed the party to head back to Santa Fe. (10-14)

The next site that Professor Heath and I came to was near mile #55, where we took a seldom traveled county road out to the Iron Springs site. The site was covered with sage brush, but Professor Heath told me that when the Spanish Trail was in existence, the site would have been a lush green spring meadow. I noticed a couple of pump stations that stood across the sage-covered flat that stretched for a few miles between two juniper covered hills. Professor Heath further explained the course of the Spanish trail followed the pass of this flat rather than the route of Highway 56. Until 1940's, when the highway was built, the general mode of travel west of Cedar City would have been along this passage rather than the Highway 56 route. We didn’t follow this route, but we went back on Highway 56, where around Mile # 43, Professor Heath showed me where the general route of travel intersected the highway again.

After this point, we came to mile # 42—the site of the blowout pit. This site has nothing to do with the Spanish Trail, but Professor Heath suggested that it might be a point of interest for the historical-minded tour that I would be guiding this summer. The pit was an impressive site when standing on the brim of it. Water filled the bottom of the pit, which lay several hundred feet below us. The site is significant because, according to Professor Heath, during the course of its history some 104,000,000 tons of iron ore were taken from country’s iron mines and sent up to Geneva Steel, near Provo Utah. Professor Heath informed me that Geneva was put in place as a steel manufacturer that would reside in the center of the United States. During World War II, the United States government thought that this was important to have an inland plant.

After the pit, we went along Highway 56 again. As we entered Newcastle, we crossed the Spanish Trail again. At this site there is a historical monument. It is historical for two reasons. One of the reasons is that it marks one of the points along the Old Spanish Trail. The second reason is it is one of the few remaining markers that were put in place in 1950 to mark the 100^th anniversary of the end of the Spanish Trail. The marker was put in by William R. Palmer, a resident of Parowan and an amateur historian. This is significance to the Service Learning Project because it shows the benefits of efforts made by historians that ventured to do historical projects before us.

When we reached New Castle, we turned south along a road that followed the bench along the foot of the juniper-covered mountain to our left. Professor Heath informed me that the Old Spanish Trail would have gone just a little to the West of the bench where we were traveling. He explained to me that they would have traveled more west of the mountain because the travelers of the Spanish Trail would have wanted to keep their livestock from getting caught among the Junipers that meet the plain at the base of the mountain. He further explained that riding too close to the tree-covered hills would have taken longer, for the horses would have had to travel up and down the gullies that came down from the mountains.

A few miles south of New Castle we reached the Jeffery R. Hunt Monument. Professor Heath told me the fascinating event of this story here. Jeffery R. Hunt, led a group of gold seekers and Mormon missionaries to California. Part of the group, after hearing of a shortcut to California from Orrin Porter Rockwell, desired to find this shortcut and head west of where we were now viewing this monument. The problem was that Rockwell was referring to a shortcut from New Castle to Beaver, and the members of the expedition thought that he meant there was a passage from this point to California. At this monument, all but seven wagons left Hunt and went to seek for the shortcut west across Nevada. After the group reached the far western mountains, it became clear to some of them, after looking at the vast Nevada desert that lay before them, that they were heading for trouble. Others of the group persisted, becoming the Death Valley Forty-Niner’s.

After the Hunt monument, Professor Heath neared Holt Canyon. At this point, the Spanish trail left where the bench road stretched and passed up into a small, narrow, windy canyon. A small stream flowed down the base of this canyon, and it was the only place that Professor Heath showed me where the ruts from the wagons of the Spanish trail could still be seen. Unfortunately, the canyon is navigated by rough dirt road and hardly approachable without a four-wheel drive. In the midst of the canyon lay an old Mormon cemetery, where on some of the graves can be seen the odd Deseret alphabet, which Brigham Young attempted the early colony use for a few years. This is another example, like the blowout pit, of the numerous historical sites along this route besides the Spanish Trail sites.

From Holt Canyon, we went to the Mountain Meadows Massacre site. Professor Heath explained to me the historical significance of this site. Besides the horrible tragedy that occurred, the Mountain Meadows was a crucial point along the Spanish Trail. Professor Heath explained to me that the trail was based around water. In the history of the American West, water is everything. The reason the Death Valley Forty-Niner’s failed to find a route across the Nevada desert was because of water. The Mountain Meadows area was important on the trail because it was the last place where parties and expeditions could find water and ample grazing grounds for the horses. Likewise, travelers on the Old Spanish Trail from the South would stop here for several weeks to rest from the grueling desert they had just traversed. This is one reason why the later tragedy occurred. The party was resting here before they entered the deadly arid desert that lay to the South. Parties would stay weeks at time resting themselves and their livestock. This gave ample time for the Cedar City massacre proponents to gather support and numbers to bring about the tragic attack at Mountain Meadows.

Like a lot of historical sites, the Old Spanish Trail is a place of tragic events. Not only was this the site of the Mountains Meadow Massacre, but the trail was used for a traffic of slave trade in the earlier years of the Spanish Empire. When the Spanish were colonizing present day New Mexico and western Arizona, they would trade with the Ute tribes, which stretched from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. This tribe wanted horses and guns, and they would capture the Paiute Native American tribes that stretched West of the Wasatch Mountains, out into the Nevada desert. This was one of the most primitive tribes in the Americas, and they made easy prey for the military superior Utes. The Utes would capture the little children, bringing a high price for the coveted horses and guns (Moody 143-145). The sadness of this circumstance is portrayed on the old monument at Newcastle, placed by William R. Palmer.

The tragic circumstances as well as the interesting circumstances deserve the attention of the avid American West Historian. These events are crucial to preserve. The bulk of my service will come this summer when I guide the tour, but I have tried to amplify my service by learning as much as I can about these fascinating and also tragic events along this route. Members of The Old Spanish Trail Association work to preserve the heritage of the American West. Different tours like liven history by transporting the learner to site of the event. I personally believe that the more people can learn about historical events at the actual site they occurred the more history becomes alive and vital to the learners. I think whenever possible, history should be taught on the site of the historical event. That is way I was interested in this project. Unfortunately, the opportunities to learn history where it occurred are rare, but when they come along, it is important to take advantage of them.

Sources

Moody, Ralph. Old West Trails. New York: Ballantine, 1963.

Cerquone, Joseph. In Behalf of the Light: The Dominguez and Escalante Expedition of 1776. Denver: Paragon, 1976.

The Old Spanish Trail Association Website. 21 May 2002. Old Spanish Trail Association. 25 May 2002 < http//:www.slv.org/history/osta/index.html >

Smart, Donna T. "Over the Rim to Red Rock Country: The Parley P. Pratt Company of 1849." Utah Historical Quarterly 62 (1994): 171-190.