The Colonel Who Never Came: How Torrey Got Its Name
Near Torrey, Utah
The town of Torrey is named for a man with no known ties to the place. Jay L. Torrey was a rancher from Pittsfield, Illinois, who moved to Wyoming and got himself elected to the Wyoming state legislature.
He was ambitious, and when the Spanish-American War broke out in eighteen ninety-eight he saw an opportunity. Torrey pushed legislation through Congress calling for volunteer cavalry regiments made up of cowboys and frontiersmen, men who could ride and shoot. The idea was popular.
Congress authorized three such regiments, and Torrey was commissioned colonel of the Second Regiment, known formally as the Rocky Mountain Riders and informally as Torrey's Rough Riders. They never fired a shot. In June of eighteen ninety-eight, a railroad accident in Mississippi, near Tupelo, killed and injured some of Torrey's men on their way toward Florida.
The delay hurt, and the Spanish-American War ended before Torrey's men ever reached Cuba. The colonel was left with a famous name and a failed campaign. When a small Utah farming community applied for a post office in the late eighteen nineties, someone chose to honor that name.
The reasons have been lost, but the name has not. The colonel's moment of brief, unlucky fame lives on in this red rock valley.
