Porterville Settlement

Porterville was a family's doing, and for a while it was shared ground. Scouting in the winter of 1857, Sanford Porter Jr. found a canyon so rough he named it Hardscrabble — but it had water and timber, and in 1859 the Porters hauled a sawmill over the Wasatch by pack mule and built the first in Morgan County. Sanford Sr. and his sons raised their cabins here. For years afterward, each fall, Chief Washakie's band of Shoshone came back as they always had, to hunt, fish, dry meat, and gather berries in the valley the Porters now farmed.

What the plaque says

Porterville was settled by the members of the Porter Family. Sanford Porter Jr., while on duty as a scout in the winter of 1857-58, rode into a canyon so rocky and difficult to travel that he named it Hardscrabble. Here he found a stream of water and abundant timber, ideal for a sawmill. In 1859 the family hauled machinery and supplies over the Wasatch Mountains by pack mule and built the first sawmill in Morgan County. In 1860 Sanford Sr. and Nancy Warriner Porter built a cabin five miles east of the mill and spent the first winter here. During the following two years, four sons, Chauncy, John, Sanford Jr., and Lyman built log homes and moved their families into the valley. For several years after the settlers came, Chief Washakie and his band of Shoshone Indians returned each fall to hunt, fish and dry meat, and pick berries. In 1863 English converts began to arrive. In 1864 a branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized. When the railroad was built through Morgan County, the Porter Mill furnished ties to lay the track from Echo to Devil’s Gate.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lagoon Amusement Park — 11 mi
  A beloved family amusement park operating since 1886
• Emigration Canyon — 16 mi
  The final stretch of trail the Mormon pioneers took into the valley
• Red Butte Garden — 17 mi
  A 100-acre botanical garden with panoramic valley views
• Natural History Museum of Utah — 17 mi
  A world-class museum built into the foothills above Salt Lake City

More markers nearby

• Korean War Veterans Memorial — 3.8 mi
• World War I Monument — 3.8 mi
• Early Morgan County Settlers — 3.8 mi
• East Canyon Campsites — 9.1 mi