Leland Historical Monument

It is a small thing, but a strange one: a Mormon farming ward in the Utah Valley bottomlands, named for a California railroad baron. When the settlers southwest of Spanish Fork organized their own ward in 1900, they chose to call it Leland — after Leland Stanford, the Central Pacific magnate whose fortune had just built a university in his dead son's name. The name stuck to the fields. Fed by ditches laid out in the 1860s, Leland became some of the most productive irrigated ground in the county: beets, alfalfa, corn, canning peas. Farmland is what it remains.

What the plaque says

Leland This area of Utah County was brought under cultivation and irrigation in the mid-1850's. A survey in 1860's known as the "new survey" designated where permanent roads and irrigation ditches would be. Leland has always been a highly productive irrigated agriculture area. Major crops have been barley, wheat, corn, sugar beets and alfalfa. Canning crops were peas, lima beans, and sweet corn. Beef and dairy cattle are the major livestock. LDS church records stated it was originally the south branch of Spanish Fork 2nd Ward and later the Riverside Branch, 2nd Ward. On April 29, 1900, LDS Apostle Reed Smoot officially organized a new ward. Those present selected the name "Leland", named after Leland Stanford, founder of Leland Stanford University. Membership of the new Leland Ward was 224. Andrew Jensen, church historian, in 1900 recorded, Leland Ward consists of Latter-day Saints residing in a farming district lying southwest of Spanish Fork. The center of the ward or the place where Leland school house stands, is a certain point on the county road about 1/2 mile south of the Spanish Fork River or 2 1/2 miles, by nearest road from the center of Spanish Fork. The ward extends from the school house about 2 miles east, 2 miles south, 1 mile west and 1 1/2 miles north; in other words, the ward extends from north to south about 4 miles, from east to west about the same distance, making the area of the ward something like 4 miles square. Nearly all of the inhabitants within the limits of the ward are Latter-day Saints and meetings and Sunday school sessions are held in the district school house. This monument was erected and dedicated as a special sesquicentennial project in the year 1997 to honor the stalwart Leland pioneer settlers, and recognize them for their endurance, hard work and perseverance in the settling of Leland.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Thistle Landslide — 12 mi
  The ruins of a town destroyed by a massive landslide in 1983
• Payson Lakes — 13 mi
  Three alpine lakes in the pines, twelve miles up Payson Canyon
• Bridal Veil Falls — 17 mi
  A dramatic double waterfall cascading 607 feet into Provo Canyon
• Nebo Loop Summit — 17 mi
  The byway's 9,300-foot high point, with Utah Valley spread out below

More markers nearby

• Spanish Fork Indian Farm Reservation — 0.7 mi
• Old Fort — 1.6 mi
• Old Academy — 1.7 mi
• First Settlement of Icelanders of US — 2.2 mi