First School

Among the first things a frontier town built, after shelter and a mill, was a school — and this marker remembers Nephi's first one. In the early Latter-day Saint settlements, schooling often began almost immediately, held in a one-room building or a settler's home, because an educated rising generation was part of the plan from the start. The 1954 marker honors that beginning. It's easy to forget how quickly these isolated farm towns set up the institutions of a settled society; the schoolhouse usually came faster than you'd expect.

What the plaque says

Daughters of Utah Pioneers No. 196 Erected 1954 Early Schools The first settlers arrived here in 1851. A one room building was erected and used for church and school in 1852. Candice Smith and George Spencer and wife were teachers. In 1855 a school house was erected inside the fort and early teachers were: Martha Hayward, Thomas Ord, Andrew Love, Mary Ellen Love, John Chapman, Amy Bigler, and Martha Schofield. Later school was held in the Social Hall and in 1894 Central School was completed. The bell on this marker was installed and used as a curfew and to call the children to school. Juab County

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Nephi — 0.4 mi
  A quiet ranching town at the foot of Mount Nebo
• Devil's Kitchen — 8.0 mi
  A pocket of red-rock hoodoos high in the green Wasatch — a "little Bryce Canyon"
• Mount Nebo — 8.3 mi
  At 11,928 feet, the highest and southernmost peak in the Wasatch Range
• Nebo Loop Summit — 11 mi
  The byway's 9,300-foot high point, with Utah Valley spread out below

More markers nearby

• Salt Creek Fort Wall — steps away
• World War II Memorial Rose Garden — 0.4 mi
• Juab County Veterans Memorial — 0.4 mi
• Juab Co. Jail — 0.6 mi