1/22/2024 0 Comments Photocopy shop in santa clara utah![]() ![]() His report also included a warning from Young to move to higher ground. ![]() The scribe wrote that at the time, Santa Clara was home to 34 men, 30 houses and 250 acres under cultivation. The party’s scribe wrote glowingly of Santa Clara, particularly of its agricultural production. These settlers began to notice early on that melons and grapes grew well in the area, but others such as potatoes and peas, did not, Larson wrote.īrigham Young - president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the time - along with a party of church officials visited the settlements along the Virgin River “undoubtedly to make a final decision about the feasibility of reinforcing the struggling colonists below the rim of the basin,” Larson explained. The year of 1857 proved a tough one as a drought ensued, but the next season was less dry and the crop was significant. One of the problems with water is that the settlers in Pine Valley, upstream, had first dibs it. We had an abundance of water during the remainder of the season and the greatest production of the earth that I ever saw.” The next night but one, the rain came and filled the stream with water. While on my knees, the water fell in large drops around me. ![]() “The next morning I prayed … that the heavens might give rain that we could have water, irrigate the portions of the earth that were cultivated and have an abundant harvest. Larson quoted Hamblin’s journal after the exchange: But when the water failed, they called upon Hamblin to make good on his promise. Larson mentioned one occasion when Hamblin told the natives there would be sufficient water if they would plant corn. Larson wrote of times when during the hot summers, the water in the Santa Clara River would practically dry up. Lack of water was a real challenge for the early settlers of Santa Clara and Washington County in general. George Newsĭuring the winter of 1856-57, settlers built a fort at Santa Clara for their protection with Cedar City stonemasons making the journey to help. 15, 2017 | Photo by Reuben Wadsworth, St. ![]() A historical marker stands today where Fort Santa Clara, destroyed by the 1862 flood, once stood, Santa Clara, Utah, Dec. “This demonstration of the adaptability of cotton to the soil and climate of Santa Clara started church authorities to thinking in terms of establishing a cotton mission on the Virgin River,” Larson wrote. An Indian agent from Virginia declared that the cloth was as good as any he had ever seen. They “cultivated it with care,” Larson wrote, and the first crop harvested in the fall of 1855 yielded enough cotton lint to produce thirty yards of cloth. The next spring, these early settlers planted the first cotton in what became known as “Utah’s Dixie” from a quart of seeds obtained from a settler in Parowan who hailed from the South. They brought livestock with them and cleared land for planting gardens and wheat. Their initial habitations were cabins fashioned of cottonwood logs, which the local Native Americans helped them build, Andrew Karl Larson wrote in his book “I Was Called to Dixie.” In February the next year, they built a dam for irrigation, again assisted by the local Paiutes. In December 1854, early pioneer leader Jacob Hamblin brought a small party from Fort Harmony to establish an American Indian mission along the Santa Clara River. Both the early settlers and today’s residents have overcome these obstacles, and others, and become stronger as a community because of them. That, in a nutshell, is a summary of the history of Santa Clara. ![]()
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