Salt Creek Canyon Massacre

Four unarmed Danish immigrants died here, and the honest history is a hard one. On June 4, 1858, Jens Jorgensen, his pregnant wife Hedevig, Jens Terkelsen, and Christian Kjerulf were ambushed in this canyon on their way to join fellow Scandinavians in Sanpete; a fifth traveler, walking ahead, escaped to Ephraim. Their killers, likely Sanpitch Ute, left no clear reason. The deaths were real and wrong — but so was the theft of Ute land that drove a decade of violence, in which unarmed people on both sides, settler and Native alike, were killed for the acts of others.

What the plaque says

This monument replaces one previously erected (that crumbled through weather conditions) by Langley A. Bailey, Sr., Jacob Bowers and Henry Knowles in memory of the following pioneers: Jens Jergensen and wife, Jens Terkelsen and Christian E. Kjerulf who were massacred by Indians, June 4, 1858, near this spot while traveling unarmed on their way to Sanpete Valley.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Devil's Kitchen — 6.5 mi
  A pocket of red-rock hoodoos high in the green Wasatch — a "little Bryce Canyon"
• Nephi — 6.9 mi
  A quiet ranching town at the foot of Mount Nebo
• Mount Nebo — 8.7 mi
  At 11,928 feet, the highest and southernmost peak in the Wasatch Range
• Nebo Loop Summit — 10 mi
  The byway's 9,300-foot high point, with Utah Valley spread out below

More markers nearby

• Uinta Springs Settlement — 6.3 mi
• Fountain Green — 6.5 mi
• Lewis Lund — 6.5 mi
• Juab County Veterans Memorial — 6.8 mi