History of Pleasant Grove In July of 1850, nearly 171 years ago three men set off from the Salt Lake Valley bound for an unsettled area in Utah Valley. At Brigham Young’s request, William H. Adams, John Mercer and Philo T. Farnsworth traveled 28 miles and staked out an area near a “pleasant” grove of trees, which signaled that the land was rich with water and good soil. They established farms in what is now the southwest corner of Pleasant Grove City. Two months later, seven families followed these three men to fortify the new settlement. On Sept. 13, 1850, George S. Clark and Susannah Dalley Clark, Richard and Ann Elizabeth Sheffer Clark, John Greenleaf Holman and Nancy Clark Holman, Lewis Harvey and Lucinda Clark Harvey, Johnathan Harvey and Sarah Herbert Harvey, Charles Price and his wife, Harriet Marler and her children, and teamsters John Wilson and Ezekiel Holman arrived in Pleasant Grove. At first, the community was known as “Battle Creek.” This name was chosen because the town was situated near the battleground of the first skirmish between the
Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society
Native Americans and pioneers in Utah. The battle took place in 1849 between Mormon settlers and a small band of Ute Indians. A monument with a plaque describing this battle is located in Kiwanis Park at the mouth of Battle Creek Canyon. During the Walker Indian War in the 1850’s citizens built a fort with walls about three-feet thick and six-feet tall that surrounded 16 city blocks. They then built their homes, school
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and church inside the fort. Today, memorial cornerstones mark the corners of the historic fort. On Jan. 19, 1855, the territorial legislature approved Pleasant Grove to become incorporated. The town’s residents desired a more “uplifting” name for their city, so they drew upon the original description of the settlement. The settlers began calling their town Pleasant Grove after that “pleasant” grove of cottonwood trees located between Battle Creek and Grove Creek (near the current-day intersection of Locust Avenue and 200 South). The first municipal election was held in May of 1855, and Henson Walker was elected the first mayor. By then, the town had grown to 623 people. By 1908, Pleasant Grove had become a major producer of Marshal strawberries; approximately 250 acres in the area were being used to grow strawberries. The berries were then shipped to neighboring markets. In 1921, the Wasatch Club (the predecessor of today’s Pleasant Grove-Lindon Chamber of Commerce) organized a festival to bring attention to Pleasant Grove’s strawberry market. The first ever Strawberry Day attracted 10,000 to 15,000 people to the city for a public program, free strawberries and cream, and a small-scale rodeo with local stock and cowboys (townspeople circled their cars to form an arena). Strawberry Days is one of the longest-running community celebrations in Utah. For more stories of Pleasant Grove’s past, visit the Pleasant Grove Historic Preservation Commission’s Facebook page at facebook.com/PGHistoric.
