Utah Centennial County History Series - Sevier County 1997

EXPLORATION AND EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE SEVIER RIVER VALLEY TO 1875 I n 1776 the Spanish Catholic fathers Francisco Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante recorded the first known glimpse of the Sevier River Valley by non-Native Americans. Their view was fleeting and was not well publicized. Scouting the terrain and settling what is now Sevier County was not within the scope of the padres' assignment. Nevertheless, they passed near a portion of the Sevier River Valley as part of their assigned mission to locate a route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Pacific Coast of California for the religious, military, and commercial purposes of Spain. While they never traveled far enough east to enter the Sevier Valley, one of their campsites was but ten or fifteen miles west of the present site of the Sevier Bridge Reservoir.

The priests were unable to complete their mission due to bad weather and other factors and returned from Utah to New Mexico.

Spanish government authorities did not send other explorers or Catholic priests to Utah; however, the report of D o m i n g u e z and Escalante and the map Don Bernardo Miera y Pacheco made of the expedition's travels helped entice other explorers and traders to the 57