Pioneer History
Utah remembers its pioneers hard — a state holiday, statues in bronze, the handcart companies and the "this is the place" arrival fixed at the center of the story. The grit was real: crossing a continent on foot to reach a valley nobody wanted takes a particular kind of stubbornness. But "pioneer" means "the first," and the word does quiet work — it writes out the Ute and Shoshone who had been here for centuries, and the enslaved Black and Native people who crossed in the same wagon companies. The fuller story is the better one.
US-21
I-51
US-61
SR-91
Scenic Byway 124
US-14/16/201
I-153
I-15 / I-701
UT-241
I-251
US-263
Fort Laramie National Historic Site
Old Bedlam, the officers' quarters of 1849, survived the auction that scattered the rest of the post; an 1875 Army bridge still crosses the river.
Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site
The clearest wagon ruts on the trail, worn by iron tires and cut deeper by travelers who hacked at the ledge to get their wagons over.
Register Cliff State Historic Site
The first camp out of Fort Laramie, where the oldest date on the rock reads 1829 and three emigrants never left.
US-301
US-341
CA-491
US-50 & US-3951
NM-531
US-641
I-761
I-801
I-80 / Donner Pass Road1
UT-831
I-861
OR-861
SR-89 / SR-691
US-899
American West Heritage Center
A living history farm spanning 160 acres of Cache Valley
Ephraim Co-op
The 1871 cooperative store that outlived the economy it was built to replace
Gunnison
Sanpete's southern hub, home to Utah's oldest operating theater
Kanab
Little Hollywood — where hundreds of Western movies were filmed
Manti
Sanpete's first settlement, crowned by an 1888 oolite temple
Manti Temple
A striking pioneer-era temple crowning a hilltop above the Sanpete Valley
Mount Pleasant
A National Register Main Street and Utah's oldest boarding school
Panguitch
A well-preserved pioneer town and gateway to Bryce Canyon
Spring City
An entire pioneer town preserved on the National Register
US-89 / US-911
I-904
Bozeman Trail at Bozeman Pass
The pass at the end of a gold-rush shortcut through other nations' hunting ground, the one road a Native war closed.
Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site
A Bozeman Trail fort whose wood trains were attacked for two years, and the wagon-box corral where its woodcutters held out behind new breech-loaders in 1867.
Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site
A Métis trader's 1862 house, a cattle king's headquarters, and a grandson who threw nothing away.
Missouri Headwaters State Park
Where the expedition named three rivers, and where the trappers who came back after it learned whose country it was.
I-941
US-951
OR-99E1
Calabasas Rd., off US-101 at Parkway Calabasas1
E. M St. at Banning Park, off I-1101
SR-1551
NV-1591
US-1891
US-1912
Cunningham Cabin
An 1888 dog-trot homestead cabin where a posse shot two men in 1893, and the valley decided not to talk about it.
Mormon Row Historic District
A Latter-day Saint farm village on Antelope Flats, its ditches still running and the Moulton barns still standing against the Tetons.
CO-1941
OR-2051
NV-2061
OR-2191
WY-2202
Independence Rock State Historic Site
A granite whaleback named before the wagons came, by trappers in 1824 or Sublette in 1830, and polished by wind until it took names easily.
Sun Ranch and Devil's Gate
Tom Sun's 1872 cattle ranch at Devil's Gate, sold in 1996 to the church for whom the cove nearby is sacred, and the fight over who should hold that cove.