Pinhook Draw Massacre

The stone here says the men were massacred by Indians. The truth is harder. By 1881 cattle and miners had stripped the Ute of nearly all their land, and the Weeminuche and their Paiute allies — starving in country they had hunted for centuries — struck back at the herds. A posse of cowboys chased a Ute band into these mountains, and in Pinhook Draw the Ute ambushed them from the high ground. Ten white men died; the Ute carried their own dead away uncounted. A young fighter named Posey was among them. Only the cowboys got a monument.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• UT-128 Colorado River Road — 6.6 mi
  A winding road through red rock canyons along the Colorado River
• Castle Valley — 7.4 mi
  A stunning valley dominated by the iconic Castleton Tower
• Fisher Towers — 11 mi
  Towering dark red pinnacles rising 900 feet from the desert floor
• Onion Creek — 11 mi
  A scenic backroad that fords the same creek more than two dozen times beneath the spires of Fisher Towers

More markers nearby

• Elk Mountain Mission — 13 mi
• Early LDS Church — 13 mi
• Moab Veterans Memorial — 13 mi
• The Spanish Trail — 14 mi