When did the Pioneers come to Spanish Fork?

When did it become a city?

About 75 years after Father Escalante and Father Dominguez came to Spanish Fork, the first settlers came to the area. They brought about 200 head of cattle to graze on the lush grass.

The settlers came in the fall and winter of 1850. In the warm weather, the settlers lived in tents or wagon boxes. They could not build cabins because the Spanish Fork area had few trees.

When it became cold, each family dug a large hole, or dugout, in the banks of the Spanish Fork River. These dugouts were like cellars with doors and no windows. The settlers used the dugouts over the next 10 to 15 years.

Most of the immigrants originally came from Denmark, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Norway, Iceland and the eastern United States.

Spanish Fork became a gathering place for immigrants from Iceland. More Icelandic settlers came to Spanish Fork than any other place in the United States.

In August of 1852, the first log cabin house was built. The timber was hauled from the canyon. In 1852-53, the first adobe building was erected. It served as a school, meetinghouse, and a recreation hall.

Oxen, horses, and mules were the first form of transportation in Spanish Fork. The area grew and transportation developed. Buggies were used to meet passengers that came to Spanish Fork from Salt Lake City on the Utah Southern Railroad.

The settlers had Indian trouble with Chief Walker. Chief Walker was born and lived on the banks of the Spanish Fork River. Chief Walker thought the whites were taking over their land and their hunting grounds.

He ordered a raid on the white settlement. He led his followers against the Utah pioneers. This trouble became know as the “Walker War.”

The settlers began to build forts to protect themselves from the Indians. The settlers gathered at the Palmyra fort in the winter to 1853. In the fall of 1854, a fort called Fort Saint Luke was build in Spanish Fork.

This fort protected the settlers from the Indians. The Walker War lasted for nearly a year.

In 1854, the governor convinced some of the Indians to settle on an Indian farm on 13,000 acres in west Spanish Fork. This farm was used until the U.S. Congress passed an act, which created the Uintah Indian Reservation.

In the spring of 1855, millions of grasshoppers devoured the crops and every green plant. This caused a famine in the wintertime. The settlers shared their food and survived on fish and ‘pig weed.’

Spanish Fork was granted a charter and became an official city in the state of Utah on January 19, 1855.

Spanish Fork began growing in size and in population.