The city of Morgan was settled in 1855, and the county was created
in 1862. During the Utah War (1857-58), settlers in Milton supplied feed
for the horses of Mormon troops stationed in canyon passes watching for
Johnston's Army. Lot Smith of Stoddard blocked Echo Canyon, buried U.S.
Army supply trains, and stampeded government horses and cattle. Despite
such incidents, the "war" was settled peacefully.
Located in a high valley of the Wasatch Mountains, Morgan County is divided
by the Weber River. The many streams that feed into the Weber made the
valley attractive to fur trappers in the 1820s and to prehistoric Plains
Indians and historic Shoshone and Ute Indians. In 1825, near present Mountain
Green, trappers of the British Hudson's Bay Company under Peter Skene
Ogden and competing American trappers came dangerously close to fighting,
but Ogden kept the situation from becoming a major international incident.
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| Porterville is located in the southwest portion of
Morgan county. It was settled by the members of the Porter family.
Sanford Porter Jr. was acting as a scout of the area in the winter
of 1857-58. He rode into a canyon that was so rocky and difficult
to travel that he named it Hardscrabbler. He found a stream full of
water and lots of timber which made the area ideal for a sawmill.
In 1859, the family hauled machinery and supplies over the Wasatch
Mountains by pack mule and built the first sawmill in Morgan County. |
In Morgan City, this old train station marks when
the transcontinental train was created and went through the entire
Morgan County. The beginnings of the railroad in Morgan County is
dated back to 1864. Construction of the railroad took many of the
Morgan residents through difficult times when crops were poor. Many
were hired to work on the railroad. The station in Morgan County was
closed in 1982 and is currently owned by Morgan City Corporation,
but located on railroad property. The building has been used for offices
and a visitor center. |
Devil's Slide is located about eight miles east
of Morgan on Interstate 84. It is believed that millions of years
ago the area was covered by a shallow sea. Layers of rock formed
on the sea floor and the Sevier Mountain Belt Range, which stretched
to Nevada, began to form. This range would have towered above the
present-day Wasatch Mountains. During an upthrust of the Sevier
Mountains, the shallow sea bed layers were buried beneath several
miles of earth and flipped on their sides creating this unique geological
formation. |
More information for Morgan County can be found at the following sites:
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