Abstract

The first known party of white men who entered the area that became Utah included a Franciscan Friar, Silvestre Velez de Escalante. This expedition passed through the Milford Valley in the fall of 1776 and it was when they were camped at San Brigida, near or on the present site of Milford, that the important decision to turn back to Sante Fe was made.

Near the hot springs which are 15 or 20 miles farther south, Escalante recorded that the territory of the bearded Indians they had first encountered at the Sevier River extended to that point. It is not known for a certainty just what relationship these Indians had with those found in the same area nearly three-fourths of a century later, but the Indians found in the Milford Valley particularly, in the 1850's, were clans of the Paiute Tribe. The Toy-ebe-its had their headquarters near Milford and they claimed the area to the north nearly to the shores of Sevier Lake. The Pah-moki-abs whose headquarters were at Minersville, claimed the rest of the valley from Milford south.

Degree

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; History

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