Simpson's Hollow

The burnings cost the freighters more than they cost the army. All three trains belonged to Russell, Majors and Waddell, who valued the loss here alone at more than $85,000 and were never repaid for their Utah War losses; one historian has called the firm bankrupt from the winter of 1857-58. Its partners launched the Pony Express in 1860 partly to win the mail contract that might save them, and lost that gamble too. The stone's date runs a day late: the two trains burned in the early hours of October 4, Simpson's the next day.

What the plaque says

Simpson's Hollow Here on Oct. 6, 1857, U.S. Army supply wagons led by a Capt. Simpson were burned by Major Lot Smith and 43 Utah Militia men. They were under orders from Brigham Young, Utah Territorial Governor, to delay the army's advance on Utah. This delay of the army helped affect a peaceful settlement of difficulties. The day earlier a similar burning of 52 army supply wagons took place near here at Smith's Bluff.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Boar's Tusk and the Killpecker Dunes — 21 mi
  The throat of a vanished volcano made of rock from the mantle, standing over a fifty-five-mile river of dunes that crosses the Continental Divide.

More markers nearby

• Simpson's Hollow (Utah War panel) — steps away
• The Big Sandy River — 9.4 mi
• To the Brave Men Who Rode the Pony Express (Big Sandy Station) — 9.6 mi
• Landscapes of Power — 26 mi