Curlew Valley

This valley takes its name from a bird and keeps a creek that disappears. The long-billed curlew nests in the grass here, and the settlers named the valley for it. Through the middle runs Deep Creek, fed by a spring near Holbrook that has never failed even in drought — but the creek does not reach any sea. Ten miles west of here it simply sinks into the ground and is gone, at a place the pioneers called the Curlew Sinks. Trappers and Mormon Battalion men passed through before the first families settled here in 1869.

What the plaque says

Curlew Valley, named after the curlew snipe that nests here, extends from Snowville, Utah, to the Idaho towns of Stone and Holbrook. The first recorded White men were Peter Skene Ogden's large party of trappers, who camped on Deep Creek December 27, 1828. Some of the discharged members of the Mormon Battalion, on their way from California to Salt Lake City on September 18, 1848, camped on Deep Creek and also in a cave one mile east called Hollow rock. The beginning of Deep Creek is a large spring at Holbrook which runs through the center of the valley and has never varied even in dry years. About one mile southwest is Rocky Ford, where the pioneers were able to cross on solid rock. In 1869 William Robbins, Thomas Showell, and William M. Harris settled at the Curlew Sinks, ten miles west of here, where Deep Creek sinks into the ground. The old pioneer trail and the stage line went through their ranch. The first townsite in Curlew Valley was Snowville, named in honor of President Lorenzo Snow, and laid out August 14, 1876. No. 435 1987 Curlew Valley Camp

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Golden Spike National Historical Park — 25 mi
  Where East met West — the spot that connected America by rail

More markers nearby

• Competition, 1869 — 25 mi
• Promontory Monument (4) Markers — 25 mi
• The Big Fill & The Big Trestle — 25 mi
• Stephan Mather Marker — 25 mi