'Holding the World Together'
ESTABLISHING SETTLEMENTS
T.
hree distinct yet sometimes overlapping groups have shaped the settlement history of Uintah County: Ute Indians; M o r m o n s — members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS); and non-Mormons, or "gentiles" as they were labeled by Mormons. Soon after the Mormons arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847, settlements were established to the n o r t h and south. The Mormons initially based their perception of the Uinta Basin on early explorations and penetrations by Spaniards and fur trappers. 1 Most of these early travelers, including Dominguez and Escalante, Rufus Sage, and lohn C. Fremont, wrote about the area's good settlement potential; yet little attention was given to settlement of the Uinta Basin until 1861, when a proposed overland stagecoach route from Denver to Salt Lake City t h r o u g h present-day Uintah C o u n t y prompted LDS church officials to call thirty missionaries on 25 April 1861 to settle "Uintah Valley." These missionaries met on 27 August in the church historian's office. Three were excused and eleven new names were added. Church president Brigham Young said, "If I had called for volunteers on Sunday I could have obtained 200 names, but 82
