Shem, Shivwits Band chieftain

The Shivwits are Southern Paiute — Nuwuvi — who farmed corn and squash along the Santa Clara and the Virgin for centuries, watering the desert by hand. In 1891 a St. George cattleman named Anthony Ivins, tired of hungry Shivwits taking his stock, had himself made an Indian agent and pushed the band onto a reservation west of town — land granted with no water rights, which ended their farming. Shem was their chief through that hard passage. His name still holds: on the settlement his people made, and on the dam the CCC built for them in 1934.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm — 3.4 mi
  Real dinosaur footprints preserved in ancient sandstone
• Snow Canyon State Park — 7.6 mi
  Red and white sandstone cliffs with ancient lava flows
• Hurricane Canal Trail — 17 mi
  The hand-dug canal that built Hurricane, now a walking trail blasted into the Virgin River gorge
• Kolob Canyons — 32 mi
  The quiet, uncrowded back door to Zion National Park

More markers nearby

• The Dixie Pioneers — 0.7 mi
• The Stone Quarries — 0.7 mi
• Pioneer Museum — 0.7 mi
• St. George Temple — 0.8 mi