CHAPTER 3
EXPLORATION
1776-1856 U
ntil the settlement of Beaver in 1856, the area had been a land to pass t h r o u g h in route to some place else. Franciscan fathers Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante provided the first written accounts of Beaver County during their epic journey in 1776. Fifty years later American fur trapper Jedediah Smith crossed Beaver County. During the 1830s and 1840s caravans traveled between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and California crossing t h r o u g h Beaver County on their 1,100-mile journey. The first M o r m o n s to enter the county were also California-bound under the leadership of Jefferson H u n t in late 1847. Two years later Parley P. Pratt lead an exploring expedition to southern Utah t h r o u g h the Beaver area. Finally, M o r m o n Iron Mission settlers leapfrogged over the Pahvant and Beaver valleys to found Parowan in January 1851 and Cedar City in November 1851, approximately thirty and fifty miles south of the future site of Beaver and 250 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Dominguez and Escalante
Expedition
The 1776 Dominguez-Escalante Expedition came at the end of 36
