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Show Hey: "Beside the Salt Lak v there are several smaller the largest of which is thp V5en which would be the enrt Eutah. searchs to find a mP7 of delightful home. AbouUoT', 804 length and 30 in width wcs in (Continued Coljrhree this'p e Western Vistas Enchant The Wanderers dressed skins. "An old mountaineer by the name of Barney Ward and a man by the name of Joseph Mathews and I made up the company to go 150 miles into the midst of the wildest Indians to trade and without with-out tent or coach to take with us save some buffalo skins and a blanket or two. "Five or six miles from there (Provo River) south, we came to a small creek which had no name until we stayed there over night and I lost a pair of iron hobbles used for fastening the fore-feet of the horses together. "We called it Hobble Oeek and it afterwards went by that name." Mr. Huntington further gives a beautiful pen-picture of Utah Val- is more abundant and can support a large town or two smaller ones, there being much good soil, easily irrigated. This river, before emptying empty-ing into the lake is divided into two branches. On its banks, in addition to the populars, there are tall alder trees. We named it the San Nichols River." Of this long journey nothing remains re-mains in Utah save the story. With apologies to a great soldier we could say . . . They came They saw They vanished. In the summer of 1826, Jedediah S. Smith, trapper pf the firm of Smith, Jackson and Sublette made a trip from their rendezvous on the Great Salt Lake into the south- $ EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article is the second sec-ond in a series of three written by Aaron Mendenhall, in observance of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Springville. WESTERN VISTAS ENCHANT THE WANDERERS The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in western history abounds in romance and adventure. America was the pawn in a great saga of exploration, conquest and piracy waged by European powers on land and on the seas. The fetters that had bound the midaevial mind to petty schemes, political intrigue and narrow horizons hori-zons had been suddenly burst by the discovery of a new world. Knights and adventurers in ssin-ing ssin-ing armor and in dazzling regalia set out to seek new frontiers. ' Spain, by right of discovery, had laid claim to most of the new world and by right of conquest held the southern and western coast of North America. Only, one of these exploratory expeditions reached the present confines of the State of Utah. It was a long journey undertaken by the Reverend Father Fray Francisco Fran-cisco Atanasio Dominguez and Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante along a route from the Presidio at Santa Fe, New Mexico to Monterey Mon-terey in northern California. This imposing cavalcade, accompanied ac-companied by other city and military mili-tary officials, started from Santa Fe July 27, 1776. The route taken by this party was in 'a northwesternly direction through northern New Mexico west. In passing through Utah Valley he says, "Passing the little Utah Lake, I found no more signs of buffalo, there are a few mountain mount-ain sheep and an abundance of black-tailed hares." Few, if any of the other explorers ex-plorers or traders, have left any accounts of the region adjacent to Springville until the year 1849 when Oliver Boardman Huntington left a graphic account of the trading trad-ing expedition he undertook almost two years before the advent of the Springvill,e settlement. "On the first of February, 1849, I started on a trading expedition to the Sevier River Valley, 150 miles south of Salt Lake City. First I went wholly out of curiosity. I wanted to make all the discoveries and adventures possible. Dimick (my brother) fitted me out with a horse to ride,' a gun, powder, lead, caps, tobacco, awls, flint to trade to the Indians for horses, furs and thence through western Colorado thence down Ashley Creek to Soldier Summit thence down the canyon to the present site of Spanish Fork city. They made camp about one mile north of the city. The journal kept by Father Escalante is a great human interest inter-est document. The flora and the fauna of the country they traversed tra-versed are described in detail. Their pilgrimage up and down un-forbidding un-forbidding cactus-covered desert wastes, along the stream beds in rocky canyons and through almost al-most impenetrable forests is faithfully faith-fully recorded. They ate small fruits and berries along the way and some edible cacti. They traded flour to friendly Yuta Indians for dark dried apples and dried venison. veni-son. Arriving in' the valley of the Eutah's, they circled the bench-lands bench-lands to the north and west and leave their accurate description of the Hobble Creek area. , "The second river, going north three lagues from the first one Western Vistas Enchant (continued from column 6) Eutah Lake in the center stretching stretch-ing about 40 miles north and south 20 miles east and west, lying in an irregular tringular form, well filled with excellent fish as also are all its large tributaries. "From almost any point the whole valley and lake is in full view, surrounded with very high, bold mountains more so than any other valley so described. "The most of the western side of the valley is sandy and covered with Juniper trees." Several others who had come to Utah with the original pioneers of 1847 were acquainted with Utah Valley, but some material of their observations is lacking. The actual task of locating a town site for the settlement of Springville fell to the -lot of Wm. Miller and James Mendenhall, who reported to Brigham Young their findings in glowing terms. Thus the dream was ready for fulfillment. |