Old Fort

Spanish Fork grew from two seeds. Settlers took up the river bottoms in an upper settlement in 1850, and a second colony rose at Palmyra in 1851 — two small clusters a mile or two apart. As the Walker War made the valley tense in 1854, on ground that was Timpanogos Ute country, the two settlements drew together into a single adobe fort built between them: walls twenty feet high and two feet thick, homes inside with rifle ports, a well at the center, and one gate sixteen feet high. From that fort the two settlements became one town.

What the plaque says

Spanish Fork had its beginning in two sites, the upper settlement in 1850-51, located in the southeast river bottoms, the other at Palmyra, 1851. Fearful of Indian trouble, settlers built an adobe fort between the two places in 1854, located two blocks south of this site, with walls two feet thick and twenty feet high. Homes were built inside the fort with portholes in each compartment. A well in the center provided water. The only entrance was a gate four feet thick and sixteen feet high.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Thistle Landslide — 11 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 — 16 mi
  A dramatic double waterfall cascading 607 feet into Provo Canyon
• Nebo Loop Summit — 18 mi
  The byway's 9,300-foot high point, with Utah Valley spread out below

More markers nearby

• Old Academy — 0.4 mi
• First Settlement of Icelanders of US — 0.8 mi
• Leland Historical Monument — 1.6 mi
• Pioneer Cemetery — 2.1 mi