Dominguez Escalante Expedition 1776-1976 - Wasatch County Utah
N 40° 14.266 W 111° 11.060
12T E 484320 N 4454163
The Dominguez Escalante Expedition marker is located near US Highway 40 east of Heber City Utah.
Waymark Code: WMBN80
Location: Utah, United States
Date Posted: 06/05/2011
Views: 14
The monument Dominguez Escalante Expedition 1776-1976 marker, is at the Strawberry Marina turnoff on US Highway 40 in Wasatch County Utah. The monument that has the plaque there reads:
GOOD TROUT BREED IN ABUNDANCE
In 1776 the first non-Indians to see this valley called it "Valle de la Purisima,... a very pleasant valley with good pasturages, many springs, and beautiful groves of not very tall or thick white poplars." In charge of the expedition were Spanish priestst Fray Francisco Atanacio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante. They and they handful of men were being guided farther to the west by two Laguna (Ute) Indians that lived near the shore of Utah Lake.
While in the valley covered by Strawberry Reservoir, they recorded in the expedition diary: " We went down to a medium-sized river in which good trout breed in abundance, two of which Joaquin the Laguna killed with arrows and caught - and each one must have weighed more than two pounds."
The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition proceeded on up Strawberry Ridge and down through a winding trail to Utah Valley, where they met friendly Indians, thus achieving one of their goals - that of finding a suitable site for a possible mission. Their other objective, that of finding a good northern route from Santa Fe to Montery, California, was frustrated by the onset of winter, which forced them to turn back. Their return trip across southern Utah and Arizona proved to be long, arduous, and dangerous.
Placed by the Bureau of Reclamation in observance of the American Bicentennial - 1976
You can learn more about this in the Utah history website:
(
visit link)