St. Thomas, Nevada: A History Uncovered

Establishing an Outpost of Zion

21 The January 18, 1865, edition of the Deseret News contained a report by Anson Call on a trip through the area on his way to El Dorado Canyon. He wrote: Every facility seems to abound here to warrant the establishment of a large selfsustaining settlement. . . . Dec. 1st. This morning we crossed the river and passed up on the upper side of the Muddy. We were well pleased with the extent of land and with the quality. . . . The muddy is about the size of Big Cottonwood clear, and water of a good quality. . . . Most of the land is suitable for cultivation. . . . Convenient to the place, opportunity most suitable for settlement, is to be found large quantities of sand-stone. . . . [T]he road traveled today is naturally good, our guide talked with many of the Indians met by us today. They are anxious for us to settle the country, and are willing for our cattle to eat their grass, if we will employ them that they may have clothes to wear and food to eat when their grass seed is all used. As if high-quality land, plenty of water, available building material, and friendly Native residents were not enough, Call mentioned the rock-salt quarry, with “thousands of tons” available for nothing more than the effort of extracting it. Punctuating his glowing report, Call wrote that on their return trip, they “more thoroughly examined the facilities for forming a settlement on the Muddy; our examinations proved highly satisfactory, exhibiting greater facilities than we at first anticipated.” He neglected, however, to mention the man-, animal-, and equipment-punishing trip involved in 2 Establishing an Outpost of Zion 22 s t. t h o m a s, n e va d a getting there or the agonizingly brutal summer weather, let alone that the nearest timber for building would involve a drive that would be long even with a modern pickup. Establishing a Mormon community involved much more than just finding a promising spot of land. Site selection, who would settle, and often when they would travel to the site were all determined by leaders in Salt Lake City. As previously discussed, Brigham Young decided to create a settlement on the Muddy River. The ecclesiastical domination continued with the establishment , surveying, and peopling of St. Thomas, all of which conformed to eighteen years of Mormon settlement patterns in Deseret. The missionaries often experienced great hardship reaching the Muddy River, and most notably the harsh desert conditions the summers brought once they were there. These missionaries encountered great difficulties in reaching the Muddy and creating a viable community once they arrived. This was in part due to the scarcity of trees and other preferred building materials that encouraged creativity in the construction of their dwellings. St. Thomas residents were involved in many things that parallel larger American settlement patterns of the West: the telegraph, farming, irrigation , mining, simple entertainments, and more. Because the area they settled in was already inhabited, there were many cultural misunderstandings with their Native American neighbors, violence and reprisals on both sides, treaties, and the white utilization of Paiute labor. This chapter also discusses St. Thomas as the terminus for John Wesley Powell’s initial exploration of the Grand Canyon. It is vital to understand that the single most important organization in St. Thomas and the rest of the settlements in the Muddy Mission was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It could hardly be otherwise, since most of the residents would never have moved there, much less remained, but for their spiritual leaders directing them to go. Residents held meetings regularly, and the church building was the nicest building in town. They usually closely followed the wishes of the church and its leaders, which they believed to be the wishes of God. Though the Saints were experiencing difficulties with the state of Nevada, the Southern Paiutes, and the environment itself, the fate of the town would be decided by church leaders. Because their leaders asked them to be there, they were determined to make it work. The town of St. Thomas was born on January 8, 1865, when Thomas S. Smith, eleven other men, and three women arrived at the Muddy. Geography Establishing an Outpost of Zion 23 determined the town’s location. The eroded, waterless desert between the Muddy and St. George did not lend itself to wagon travel, so most travelers...