The following is the last in a three-part series about indigenous people in the Park City area for the Park City Museum.

White explorers began to arrive in northern Utah and the Summit County area in the late 1700s. By the 1850s, the area saw a surge in population from gold rush migrants as well as permanent settlers, many following Brigham Young to Utah. The increased population created pressure on dwindling food and resources. This led to increasing conflict between indigenous peoples and the new settlers. 

One early settlement just outside of Park City became a contentious site. In 1860, the first settlers were sent by Brigham Young from Salt Lake City to colonize the Kamas Valley and the Peoa area, Fort Creek, was built in 1861.

Initially, there was little need for protection from the Utes. Peaceful visits by the local natives quickly gave way to hostility, however. In August 1863, more than 400 Utes began raiding Fort Creek, stealing supplies and cattle. In response, the residents of Fort Creek relocated to a fortified camp farther down Woodenshoe Lane. Built in 1866 as the nearby Mormon-led Black Hawk War raged, the Sage Bottom Fort provided settlers and their livestock protection from invaders. Following the end of the war, settlers eventually returned to the prior Fort Creek location in Peoa in 1869.

Conflict between white settlers and Northern Shoshone people continued to escalate in the 1860s. On Jan. 29, 1863, in Preston, Idaho (just north of the Utah/Idaho border), the U.S. Army killed an estimated 400 Shoshone people, “decimating the Northwestern Band in one of the deadliest massacres of Native people in U.S. history.” Following this slaughter, known as the Bear River Massacre, “Mormon settlers ‘dispossessed’ the Shoshone of their land throughout the Intermountain West. … The Northwestern Shoshone weren’t federally recognized until 1987, and still lacks reservation land to this day.”  

In small ways, Utah is finally recognizing and embracing its indigenous American history. 

In 2021, North Summit High School in Coalville renamed their football field the Wakashie Field after Chief Wakashie, a legendary Shoshone chief. At the dedication ceremony, George Abeyta, a great-great-grandson of Chief Washakie, spoke to the crowd about the importance of honoring ancestors and traditions.

“Throughout the walks of life, respect is something that is not always given, but is almost always earned,” he said. “You have earned my respect for your desire as a school to follow the proper protocols and to honor the indigenous people of the North Summit Valley.”

As recently as last fall, Kamas hosted an exhibit titled “Washakie: Through the Lens of Time.” Park City, too, could more directly engage with its indigenous history by hosting that exhibit, or another, thereby drawing attention and education to this topic.

Miners discovered silver in the Park City area in 1868, just as the Black Hawk War came to an end. The town was formed the next year, and Park City was officially incorporated in 1884. It flourished as a mining town for decades before transforming into a resort town.

While miners were drawn to Park City for the treasure that lay below the ground, over the previous centuries, indigenous Americans were drawn to the abundant plant and animal life above the ground. From the Archaic peoples living in caves to the Fremont Culture in campsites and, eventually, the Numic tribes that still have living descendants today, the land that we now call Park City has provided at least seasonal food, shelter, and a spiritual connection to indigenous Americans since the Middle Ages, long before there was a United States of America.

While America’s troubling histories with indigenous Americans, including its violent past in Utah, can be uncomfortable to talk about, our indigenous and mining histories coexist and share a part of the remarkable story that is Park City. By continuing to research indigenous histories, and by partnering with the Native Americans still living in the area, we can forge a more complete and shared local history.

The Park City Museum is hosting a lecture titled “The Land is Alive: Indigenous Views on Nature,” given by the former chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, Darren Parry, on Wednesday from 5-6 p.m. at their Education and Collections Center located at 2079 Sidewinder Drive.

Ella Ehrich, a history-loving senior at Park City High School, is a Park City Museum researcher.

The post Way We Were: Who came before us, and who is still here, part 3 appeared first on Park Record.

The following is the second in a three-part series about indigenous people in the Park City area for the Park City Museum.

While there has been substantial evidence of Paleoindians, Archaic peoples, and Freemont culture in the region, recent evidence suggests that the Shoshone people, sometimes referred to as Numic, arrived in northern Utah, including Summit County, 500-700 years ago. In addition, there were three other major groups: the Goshutes (primarily south and west of the Great Salt Lake), the Utes (from the Uinta Basin west as far as Utah Lake), and the Northern Shoshoni (in northeastern Utah, including Summit County).

According to anthropologist Julian Steward, the “Shoshonean people lived in winter quarters in groups of as many as 15 families; they then divided into groups in the spring to hunt and forage for food. A common dwelling was a conical lodge thatched with a variety of materials, including rushes and grass. Those of the Northern Shoshoni who had access to buffalo made tipis, using the hides to cover the tipi poles. … Caves and rock shelters also served as winter dwellings.”

The Shoshone are recognized for their love of and connection to the Earth and nature. The Shoshone signal the beginning of their new year with the spring season. With the melting of snow and ice, spring brings an abundance of new life, including the new growth of plants and the births of animals. Spring was also the time when the Shoshone people began to travel and look for fresh food.

There is ample evidence of at least seasonal indigenous presence in greater Park City area. Park City appeared to be on the border of the Ute and Shoshone lands, and there is history of both tribes occupying and/or utilizing the area at different times. It appears that the Utes were predominantly west and south (in the Great Basin area), whereas the Shoshone had a more eastern and northern presence in Utah. 

There is a large and growing body of evidence of pre-settlement indigenous activity in Summit County. Petroglyphs discovered in northern Summit County, for example, reveal early native presence even at high altitude camps.

Proof of local indigenous presence is woven into our daily life in Utah. In our everyday conversation we use terms rich in indigenous history. The words “Utah” and its variation “Uintahs” are indigenous American terms referring to the collective tribes and clans in the Ute Nation, and some know that Wasatch, a word of Ute origin, means “a mountain pass.”  Timpanogos, the original name for the Provo River, comes from the Shoshone word “timp-pa-no-quint,” which translates as “water running over rocks.” Just down the road from Park City is the town of Wanship, named after Chief Wanship, a Shoshone chief whose name means “good man.”

In the Snyderville Basin, a local botanist recounts uncovering multiple arrowheads while observing plants. Snyderville has reports of indigenous interactions with white settlers dating back to at least 1850. With numerous oral and written accounts of indigenous Americans in this area, the arrowheads help verify their presence.

Before the arrival of large numbers of white settlers in the late 1800s, it is clear from indigenous oral histories that local tribes would at least seasonally travel to the mountainous Park City area for its ample food and natural resources. From a 1928 Utah Historical Quarterly titled, “Personal Recollections of Wash-A-Kie, Chief of the Shoshones,” the author writes: “There was at that time a great abundance of game and fish in these mountains, and so was an attractive place for the summer location of these Indians.”

Today’s Park City would come into existence long after most of its local Indigenous history — after white settlers had excluded them from the area through intimidation, violence or mistrust. There are extensive documented encounters in nearby towns with settlements around the “pre-Park City” area, however.

In a previous Way We Were, we discussed how “early citizens of Peoa and Wanship reported interacting with large parties of Shoshone, sometimes as many as 300 and 400. In the case of these large groups, settlers shared food and developed close friendships. White settlers living permanently along the Ute’s seasonal paths also reported positive relationships with the Ute camped along the outskirts of their towns.”

Check back next week for the conclusion of this series on indigenous peoples in the Park City area.

The Park City Museum is hosting a lecture titled, “The Land is Alive: Indigenous Views on Nature,” given by Darren Parry, former chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, on Wednesday, May 7, from 5-6 p.m. at their Education and Collections Center at 2079 Sidewinder Drive.

Ella Ehrich, a history-loving senior at Park City High School, is a Park City Museum researcher.

The post Way We Were: Who came before us, part 2 appeared first on Park Record.

The following is the first in a three-part series about indigenous people in the Park City area for the Park City Museum.

A few years ago, I found myself staring at a plaque at our charming local history museum. Other than a brief mention in a nearby narrated history video, however, this small sign is the museum’s only reference to indigenous people in the local area. I decided to dive deeper to better understand Park City’s history before there was a Park City. What I discovered surprised me: Our mountain town is rich in connection with Native Americans.

Paleo Indians

After the last ice age ended 16,000 years ago, the Bering Land Bridge created a pathway for people to enter North America from Asia. Up to 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, evidence shows that North America was occupied by Paleo Indians.

These earliest Americans were nomadic hunter-gatherers whose typical prey included sloths, bison and mammoths. It is likely that Paleo Indians camped along the shores of lakes and streams.

Interestingly, the Utah climate during this period was cooler and wetter (and the Great Salt Lake was not salty yet). It is unclear if the mountains of Summit County were an attractive or accessible seasonal hunting spot for Paleo Indians. The existing physical evidence of Paleo Indians suggests they did live in caves along the Great Salt Lake Desert.

Archaic Period

The period between 8,500 and 2,500 years ago contains ample evidence of indigenous Americans in northern Utah, including Summit County. The Archaic peoples were hunter-gatherers who lived on the available plants and animals in Utah. With warmer and drier temperatures during this period, it is likely that the Wasatch Mountains became more accessible.

While only a small number of caves and sites have been excavated, evidence in the Hogup Cave in northwestern Utah, for example, shows that they hunted several large animals still present today in the Wasatch Mountains, including the pronghorn antelope, mule deer, bison and bighorn sheep.

Some sites, like Swallow Shelter at an elevation of nearly 6,000 feet in the Goose Creek Mountains of western Box Elder County, show a community more dependent on mountain sheep and marmots, along with prickly-pear pads and the seeds of wild grasses. While there is little physical record available to depict how the Archaic people lived, they appear to be some of the earliest known inhabitants of northern Utah.

Approximately 2,500 years ago (about the time that ancient Greece formed its democracy), something happened that caused the population of Archaic peoples to plummet in the area. Interestingly, that time period (roughly starting in 500 B.C.) corresponds to a global drop in temperature and precipitation. This drought affected much of western North America and was one of several to impact the region over the next thousand years.

Perhaps the Archaic peoples migrated to different geographies in search of more reliable food and more hospitable weather. Their shift from hunting and gathering to a reliance on maize coincidentally occurred at about this time, suggesting a possible intentional change to more predictable sources of food.

Fremont Culture

Then, about 1,500 years ago (around 500 A.D.), a new people appeared in Utah. Known as the Fremont, they appeared to have a more complex and specialized society, producing pottery and structures made of stone or adobe. Evidence suggests that the Fremont people had a substantial footprint in northern Utah, including around the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake. 

While this evidence shows permanent or semi-permanent villages, they “also used temporary campsites while hunting or gathering food in the mountainous areas like Summit County,” according to anthropologist Steven R. Simms. To be clear, that suggests that at around the time of the fall of the western Roman Empire (~500 A.D.), the Fremont were seasonally present in the greater Park City area.

Around 750 years ago (1200 A.D.) and much like the archaic peoples, the Fremont people vanished from the current historical record of Utah. While climate change may also have played a role, some researchers have suggested that the arrival of the Shoshonean people in northern Utah caused or contributed to the decline.

Next week will continue the conversation on native peoples in the Park City area.

The Park City Museum is hosting a lecture titled “The Land is Alive: Indigenous Views on Nature,” given by the former chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, Darren Parry, on Wednesday, May 7, from 5-6 p.m. at their Education and Collections Center located at 2079 Sidewinder Drive.

Ella Ehrich, a history-loving senior at Park City High School, is a Park City Museum researcher.

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