Placed by the Aaronic Priesthood Quorums of the Big Horn Stake and the Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association, this stone cairn stands about seven feet in height. Built of mortared cut granite stones, it takes the form of an obelisk, with a pyramidal top. On the side facing Highway 310 is a bronze plaque honouring the Mormon Colonists of the Big Horn Basin.
Essentially the entirety of the Big Horn Basin was settled by the Mormons, including the towns of Lovell, Cowley and Byron, beginning with their arrival to the area in 1900. Read the complete story of the
Mormon Colonization of Wyoming's Bighorn Basin.
No 58:
ERECTED SEPT. 29, 1935
IN HONOR OF
THE MORMON COLONISTS
OF THE BIG HORN BASIN
WHO, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF ABRAHAM O. WOODRUFF, FIRST CAMPED NEAR THIS SITE IN MAY, 1900. THESE PIONEERS, UNDER MANY DIFFICULTIES, ESTABLISHED TOWNS, NOTABLY BYRON, COWLEY AND LOVELL, ORGANIZED THE BIG HORN STAKE OF ZION, CONSTRUCTED THE SIDON CANAL, BUILT RAILROADS AND PIONEERED EDUCATION THROUGH FOUNDING THE BIG HORN ACADEMY
THE AARONIC PRIESTHOOD QUORUMS
OF THE BIG HORN STAKE AND
UTAH PIONEER TRAILS AND LANDMARKS ASSOCIATION
SIDON CANAL
Following Mormon settlement of the Salt Lake Valley beginning in 1847, church leaders envisioned colonization of the entire inter-mountain region. In following decades, Mormons emigrated from Utah into Idaho, Arizona and Wyoming. Seeking to improve their economic status and following Mormon pioneering tradition, several hundred people in 1900 emigrated from Utah and Idaho to Wyoming's Big Horn Basin where they built a canal and a community.
Under the Carey Act of 1894 states were encouraged to sell arable public land cheaply following reclamation. But private reclamation projects required capital, and some were aborted as investors lost faith. Unlike other privately-financed projects, the Sidon Canal was built without a large amount of capital. Emigrants were organized into the Big Horn Colonization Company, an irrigation cooperative which offered company shares in return for labor.
Upon arriving in the Basin workers plunged into canal construction, excavating with horse-drawn plows and slip scrapers. Near this point work was blocked by a sandstone boulder known as "Prayer Rock." According to legend, prayer and divine intervention caused the rock to split, allowing construction to continue and strengthening the emigrant faith in the canal project. The 37-mile long canal was completed in less than two years.
It still transports water from a headgate on the Shoshone River near the Big Horn-Park County line to a land segregation of approximately 20,000 acres. Its successful completion serves as an outstanding example of the cooperative effort and spirit of determination exhibited by Mormon pioneers in the American West.
From the University of Wyoming