Settling Cache Valley

In 1859, Mormon settlers were sent by Brigham Young to survey a large river valley in the mountains to the north of Salt Lake City. To get there, they had to travel 25 miles from Brigham City through a treacherous canyon.

But the area was not entirely uninhabited at this time. The Northwestern Band of Shoshone people had long used Cache Valley and southern Idaho as hunting and fishing grounds. Mountain men and fur trapper encampments were common in the early 1800's until limited resources drove many of them away in the 1840s. A few white settlers had already established a ranch and fort in 1856 in the southern end of the valley in what is now the town of Wellsville. 

As logs were hauled down from the canyon to build houses, many emigrating families soon arrived to make Cache Valley their home. This new settlement was named Logan, after the fur trapper Ephraim Logan. Other smaller settlements in the valley included Hyrum, Providence, Mendon, and Smithfield.  Between the 1860s and 1880s the population steadily grew, especially after the completion of the Northern Utah Railroad connecting Cache Valley to Brigham City.