Porterville, Morgan County

Porterville sits at the south end of Morgan County, tucked at the junction of Hardscrabble Canyon and East Canyon. It was settled in eighteen fifty-nine by Sanford and Nancy Warriner Porter, who came up from Centerville. The hillsides here had abundant timber, so the Porters built a sawmill, the first one in all of Morgan County, and the little settlement took their family name.

Through the eighteen sixties the place filled out. English converts to the Latter-day Saint church began arriving in the early eighteen sixties, and a church branch was organized soon after, and by eighteen sixty-seven the town had built a schoolhouse. For several years after the settlers came, Western Shoshone led by Chief Washakie still passed through to hunt and to gather berries, sharing the same canyons. Porterville never grew large, but it remains one of the oldest footholds in this corner of Utah.