Existing comment:
River of Time
The Flow of History:
People have depended on the water and rich natural resources of the Santa Clara River for thousands of years. Nearly 200 prehistoric and historic period archaeological sites in the Land Hill area preserve important information about the lifeways of the distinctive groups that participated in the flow of history here.
Hunters and Gatherers:
Between about 8,000 BC and 300 BC, aboriginal people hunted game and fathered plants for food, fiber, and medicine. They moved with the seasons, traveling over a wide area to collect ripening seeds. They built temporary brush structures for shelter and crafted baskets for plant collection, cooking, and storage.
A throwing device called an "atlati" helped make them successful hunters by increasing the distance their stone-tipped spears could travel.
Early Farming:
By 1,500 years ago, small-scale farmers were raising corns, beans, and squash here, diverting water from the river to irrigate their fields, and living in permanent farmsteads, or "pueblos." For nearly 500 years, the river sustained their crops in the arid climate of southern Utah.
Droughts in the 9th and 10th century, followed by catastrophic floods, made irrigation farming difficult and may have forced the Ancestral Puebloan farmers to leave the area.
The ancestral Southern Paiute were also here during this time, but never settled as permanent farmers. Because they relied more on game and wild plants than on domesticated crops, the Southern Paiute coped better with climate change. Their descendants continue to live along the river today.
Euro-American Explorers:
In the 1770s, Dominquez and Escalante, two Spanish friars from New Mexico, led a small exploration party into southern Utah to search for an overland route to California.
Their written account of this trek was used by American fur trappers in the 1820s as they explored the Santa Clara River and other local streams, looking for profitable beaver trapping areas. The trappers gave up their quest, but others soon followed the trails they blazed.
Traders and Travelers:
After 1800, an overland trail developed between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and San Bernardino, California. It became a well established pack trail used by New Mexican traders and herders and came to be known as the Old Spanish Trail. The main branch of the trail followed the Santa Clara River.
After 1847, early Utah settlers and "49ers" heading to the gold fields of California drove their wagons along the Old Santa Fe Trail. It later became Highway 91, one of the first automobile roads in Utah. Today the route is designated as a National Historic Trail.
Permanent Settlers:
In the 1860s, settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) were the first Euro-Americans to establish permanent settlements along the Santa Clara River.
Like the Native peoples before them, the Mormons were farmers, but their use of draft animals made it possible for them to farm on a larger scale. The newcomers were just as dependent on the river as their predecessors, using its waters to irrigate their crops of corn, wheat, fruit trees, and sugar cane. |