Muskrat Springs-Hooper

Hooper began at a spring, and took its first name from it. Muskrat Springs was the one dependable source of fresh water on this stretch of the Weber River bottoms, and it drew settlers from 1853, when William H. Hooper — later the town's namesake — built a herd house here. Salt was sold from a dugout, a molasses mill and a steam gristmill followed, and twenty-two families arrived in 1869. Their great labor was a canal dug by hand from the Weber, two years in the digging. The farmland it watered is still worked today.

What the plaque says

Hooper was first called Muskrat Springs because of this spring, the main fresh water supply in the area. Wm. H. Hooper built a herd house, 1853. Jessie W. Fox surveyed the range in 1858. James Hale and wife came, 1863, lived in a dugout and sold salt. Twenty-two families followed in 1869. A canal was dug by hand from Weber River, taking two years to complete. Charles Parker erected molasses mill. Henry W. Naiseite built steam gristmill, 1873. Henrietta Belnap, first school teacher.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ogden Union Station — 8.3 mi
  A grand 1924 train depot turned museum complex
• Hill Aerospace Museum — 9.0 mi
  Over 90 military aircraft displayed indoors and on the tarmac
• Snowbasin — 14 mi
  One of the country's oldest ski areas and a 2002 Olympic downhill venue — world-class terrain that somehow still skis uncrowded.
• Antelope Island State Park — 15 mi
  A rugged island in the Great Salt Lake with free-roaming bison

More markers nearby

• General Thomas L. Kane Civil War Memorial — 2.0 mi
• Clinton — 3.4 mi
• First Post Office in Roy — 3.7 mi
• Syracuse First Social Center — 6.1 mi