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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings
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COVE FORT
Utah
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Location: Millard County, town of Cove
Fort.
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Built in 1867 by order of Brigham Young with church
funds, Cove Fort provided a refuge for settlers during the Ute Black
Hawk War and was a way station for travelers between Salt Lake City and
Mormon settlements in the Virgin River Valley and in southern Nevada and
California. The site was a favorite camping place of Young, who made
frequent trips to southwestern Utah. The builder of the fort, Ira N.
Hinckley, maintained it as a residence until 1877. One of its 12
original rooms housed a telegraph station on the Mormon line.
Fortunately Indians never attacked or besieged the fort, for its water
supply was poor. An earlier fort, known as Willden's Fort, consisting of
three rooms and a dugout, had been built on the site in 1861.
Although privately owned, Cove Fort is open to the
public. Constructed of blocks of basalt laid with lime mortar, it
consists of two one-story rows of six rooms each that face each other
across a courtyard and form the north and south walls of a 100-foot
square fortification. Each room has a door and window to the court and
door connecting with adjacent rooms, but the exterior walls have no
openings. The south range is original, and the north range was restored
in 1917. The courtyard is walled at each end with the same type of
masonry, and in each wall is a large gate of heavy planks. Just above
the tops of the gates and running the full length of each end wall is a
wooden catwalk to enable defenders to use the upper portion of the wall
for protection while shooting through firing ports. The exterior walls
of the rooms also served as parapets.
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Cove Fort, Utah. (National
Park Service) |
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FORT DESERET
Utah
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Location: Millard County, on Utah 257, about 1
mile south of Deseret.
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Fort Deseret was one of many built by the Mormons to
protect settlers and serve as way stations for travelers. Although the
Indians never attacked the post, local residents found it a welcome
refuge when hostilities threatened. Constructed in 1866 of mud and
straw, it had two corner bastions and was approximately 550 feet square.
Most of the 10-foot walls have fallen down. The corners, two bastions,
and most of the east wall still stand in an undeveloped State park.
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GUNNISON MASSACRE SITE
Utah
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Location: Millard County, on an unimproved road,
about 9 miles southwest of Deseret.
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Gen. Patrick E. Connor,
commander in Utah and the Great Plains during the Civil War years.
(photo Matthew B. Brady, National Archives) |
At this site a band of Ute Indians massacred Capt.
John W. Gunnison's Pacific Railroad Survey party, one of several
sponsored by the War Department's Corps of Topographical Engineers.
Unaware that the Walker War had broken out between the Ute Indians of
central Utah and the Mormons, Gunnison and seven men set out on October
21, 1853, from their camp at Cedar Springs, just west of Fillmore, Utah,
to explore the Sevier Lake country, in the area of Indian hostilities.
Four days later a band of Utes massacred the party. Searchers found the
bodies and buried them at the site. The massacre halted surveying
activities in Utah until the following year, when Ute hostilities ended.
Lt. Edward G. Beckwith resumed the survey and completed it to the
Pacific. A monument marks the massacre site, relatively undisturbed.
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http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/soldier-brave/sitec17.htm
Last Updated: 19-Aug-2005
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