Fort Utah: The First Settler Foothold in Utah Valley
Near Provo, Utah
In March eighteen forty-nine, a party of about thirty Mormon families arrived at the mouth of the Provo River and built a fort of cottonwood logs. They called it Fort Utah, and it was the first permanent European-American settlement in Utah Valley. The fort stood near the territory of the Timpanogos band of the Ute people, and relations were tense from the start.
Within a year, conflict over land and resources escalated into what settlers called the Utah Indian War of eighteen fifty, ending with the violent displacement of the Timpanogos from the valley. The fort itself was short-lived as a fortification. Settlers spread out onto farmsteads once the threat of conflict passed, and the surrounding town was reorganized as Provo City in eighteen fifty-one.
Today a marker near the Provo River commemorates the site.
