Utah State Historical Society State Capitol, Salt Lake City Volume IX
January, April, 1941
Numbers 1-2
T H E SITE O F FORT ROBIDOUX By A. Reed MorriW The Uinta Basin, sometimes called "Utah's Inland Empire," is located in the lower northeastern corner of Utah and directly south of the Uinta Mountains. This physiographic basin is practically endrded by an elevated rim of mountains, and lies mainly between 40째 and 41째 north latitude and between 108째 and 110째 30' west longitude. This portion of the State was occupied after permanent settlements had been effected in the Salt Lake, Utah and Cache Valleys, and after other portions of the State had become more accessible and more convenient to transportation and communication. Men did not carve a road, build a home, or make a telephone line into this vast region of "bad lands" and verdant valleys until well into the last of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. If is paradoxical that this Inland Empire, which was nearly the last section of Utah to become dotted with settlements, was among the first parts of the State to be intersected by early travd routes, traversed by fur trapper, trader, missionary and explorer,2 and that here was built what is believed to be the first year-round abode of white men in Utah and this western region generally. The Robidoux Post, often called Fort Uinta, or Wintey, by the trappers and Indians, was located in the vicinity of the present White Rocks Indian school and settlement, the exact site of the Fort being the subject of the present paper. Certain early visitors to Fort Robidoux left in their writings vague pictures of the historic establishment; and many of the early maps of the west show the location of Fort Robidoux with reference to the streams and other trails of the day; but the exact site, or what is believed to be the markings or remains of the old Fort, were only in recent years discovered and subjected to the cross-examination of all existing witnesses and records. Even Superintendent of Schools, Kamas, Utah. This paper is sponsored by Dr. William I. Snow, Department of History and Political Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, and member of the Board of Control and Editorial Board, Utah State Historical Society. 'See "Old Trails, Old Forts. Old Trappers and Traders," by Herbert S. Auerbach. elsewhere in this Quarterly.
