D&RGW Soldier Summit
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This page was last updated on August 22, 2025.
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Overview
There is no doubt that there were graves on today's Soldier Summit. Well-marked and seen as a curiosity by all who may come upon them. But the question is whose graves are they, and when did the people buried there die? When and who has most assuredly been sanitized and popularized to make a good story.
The increase of travelers along this route in the late 1870s over today's Soldier Summit, bound as settlers of the upper Castle Valley, begs the question that possibly a group of these travelers got caught in either a late-season, or an early-season winter storm, for which the pass is still well-known today. The deceased would have been buried, then the graves discovered by others and assumed to be "old" from the days of yore, 15 years before. The stories could have easily been romanticized to be deserting soldiers, or soldiers on their way to join the Southern cause, instead of travelers who had simply miscalculated the weather. The geographic names came later and would have followed the verbal histories, and the "Soldier" name was applied to the creek and the pass.
The "official" version, as shown on a plaque placed on the summit in 1990.
Soldier Summit
On Sept. 11, 1776, Two Franciscan priests Father Escalante, and Father Dominguez entered what is now the state of Utah, and several weeks later camped in a mountain pass. It is believed that the Fathers gave the pass its first name, calling it Grassy Pass.
The name was changed to Soldier Pass when Johnston's army at Camp Floyd was ordered east in 1861.
About 40 officers and enlisted men from the southern states were given permission to leave the U.S. Army and go south to join the Confederate Army. They arrived at Grassy Pass in a blizzard. Six or seven men and a fourteen year old boy were frozen to death and were buried by a spring near the summit of the pass. The Rio Grande Railroad Company in 1880 named the pass Soldier Summit in its first time table.
~Castle Valley Center-Handicapped School. Nov. 1, 1990
The town of Soldier Summit is a town at the far southern end of Wasatch County. Population had been 270 persons in 1920, and was 319 in 1930. Between those two dates, and with the railroad terminal as essentially the only employer, the population reached its peak of 2500. The railroad terminal (yard and locomotive shop) was completed in late 1919. The terminal was active until January 1930 when it was moved to east to Helper due to the high cost of maintaining a terminal at the summit's high elevation.
"The summit takes its name from a group of soldiers who were caught in an unexpected snowstorm on the summit in July 1861. These soldiers were Southerners, previously under Union General Philip St. George Cooke at Camp Floyd, on their way to join the Confederate Army. Some of them died in the storm and were buried on the summit." (Wikipedia)
(Read the Wikipedia article about Soldier Summit)
In 1985, a formal U. S. military grave marker, carved in marble in the style of those in all national cemeteries, was installed at the site. The marker reads, "In This Area Are Buried Seven Unknown U. S. Soldiers Who Perished, 1861."
What's In A Name
Is it Soldier's Summit? or Soldiers Summit? or Soldier Summit? Almost all sources after 1892 use "Soldier Summit," although the newspapers as far back as the mid 1880s at times used all three names interchangeably. But mostly they used "Soldier Summit." Only occasionally, they would use "Soldiers' Summit."
In the early D&RGW years of 1881-1882, the pass was called "Soldier Pass," but that was changed with the first timetable in 1883.
D&RGW completed their railroad line over Soldier Summit in August 1882, but construction on the west side of the summit began as early as May 1881, with the route being surveyed in March 1881. The new line along the upper Price River between Scofield and Pleasant Valley Junction (later changed to Colton) was completed in November 1882, with coal traffic heading west over the summit to Salt Lake City starting at that time.
(D&RGW and D&RG connected their lines on March 30, 1883, a few miles west of Green River, allowing through trains between Salt Lake City and Denver.)
The November 1883 D&RGW timetable used "Soldier's Summit." (Reproduced in Colorado Rail Annual No. 20)
The April 1884 D&RGW timetable used "Soldier's Summit."
The June 1890 Rio Grande Western timetable used "Soldiers Summit."
The August 1892 Rio Grande Western timetable used "Soldier Summit." And all subsequent timetables after 1892 used "Soldier Summit."
Changed from "Soldier Summit" to "Summit" between April 1983 (Timetable #5) and October 1983 (Timetable #6).
Departing Camp Floyd
(The focus of these notes is to establish the date and the route that the troops departed Camp Floyd in 1860 and Fort Crittenden 1861, with the result that some of them suffered their deaths on the mountain pass that later became Soldier Summit.)
Several sources in popular history, especially after 1970, tell of Soldier Summit being named for a group of soldiers from Camp Floyd who were caught unaware in a winter storm, with several being frozen to death.
Actual newspaper reports of the period tell of groups of departing soldiers who traveled east from Camp Floyd in May 1860, and the remainder departed east in July 1861. Research was completed to find if one of these two groups of soldiers may have spent the freezing night on the pass that later became Soldier Summit.
Newspapers of the period revealed that none of these departing groups of soldiers traveled by way of what today is known as Soldier Summit, the pass between Spanish Fork canyon and Price River canyon. Of the two large "columns" of departing soldiers, one company in May 1860 intended to travel by way of the pass, but the difficulties of building a road forced them to divert by way of Salt Creek canyon, then by San Pete Valley to Salina and the Old Spanish Trail through Salina Canyon, then across lower Castle Valley, and southeast to the Green River crossing, then east to the Colorado-Utah line. Traveling the Old Spanish Trail to the east would put them in western Colorado, then across southwestern Colorado, then to Fort Garland in south central Colorado, where they were encamped for the duration of the war.
The other (and last) departing company in July 1861 traveled by way of Provo River canyon to "Round Prairie" [today's Heber City], then crossing over between the Provo River drainage to the Weber River drainage at Kamas, then north down the Weber to Echo canyon, then east into Wyoming and Fort Bridger. Then, following the well established immigrant trail to St. Joseph, Missouri, then by train through Quincy, Illinois, to Chicago. Then by train to Washington DC.
This route through Provo Canyon was described by Hamilton Gardner of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in his review of the book, "The Utah Expedition, 1857-1858." By LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, (Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 27, Number 1, April 1959)
One feature might well have been added to it, the "Timpanogos Road." This led from Fort Bridger to the headwaters of the Provo River, down that stream through the canyon, across Provo Bench to Lehi, over the Jordan River bridge, constructed in 1853, and so to Camp Floyd. All personnel and supplies to the camp were sent over this route, and Colonel Cooke used it in 1861 when he departed for the Civil War with the small remaining garrison. The chief purpose of the road was to keep teamsters and soldiers out of Great Salt Lake City.
So the story of a group of soldiers freezing to death on "Soldier Summit" is apparently another group of soldiers, not those that departed Camp Floyd/Fort Crittenden.
The party of soldiers that froze to death on today's Soldier Summit may have been recently discharged from the Army upon the fort closing, and were traveling east, as reports suggest that several groups of men, usually less then ten in number, were discharged from duty during the period of closure, that continued from May 1960 through July 1861. There were reports in the 1859-1860 period of men whose enlistment was coming to an end, but being employed as teamsters and laborers for the Army Quartermaster at Camp Floyd. With the Civil War starting in April 1861, and the fort being closed in July 1861, these men may have been traveling east by way of today's Soldier Summit, but not at a time of year when freezing would have been a possibility. Some of them, after the start of the war, may have been traveling to join the Confederate forces.
With the end of the Civil War in 1865, there were reports of soldiers discharged from the California Volunteers, who arrived in Utah in late 1862, traveling east to seek employment on the railroad. There was a story in the November 26, 1864 issue of the Daily Union Vedette newspaper, that a party of 27 men discharged from the Volunteers were waiting at Fort Douglas for the weather to clear so they could travel eastward. There were reports throughout late 1864 and early 1865 of discharged Volunteers traveling east and encountering freezing weather and deep snow, but none specific to Utah.
When It Began
The first reference to the pass was in the original articles of incorporation of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway, organized on July 21, 1881:
From the city of Provo in Utah County to a point on the eastern boundary line of Utah, passing into or through the counties of Utah, Wasatch and Uintah, with the following branches: 1) a branch from a point at or near the mouth of White River in Uintah County, to a point on the eastern boundary line of Utah where the same is crossed by the valley of Green River, passing into or through Uintah County: 2) a branch from a point at or near Soldiers Pass in Wasatch County to a point on the Sevier Valley Railway line at or near the mouth of Huntington Creek in Emery County: 3) a branch from a point at or near the mouth of White River in Uintah County to a point at or near Kimball's Station in Summit County, passing into or through the counties of Summit, Wasatch and Uintah: 4) a branch from the mouth of White River in Uintah County to the mouth of Grand River in Paiute County, passing into or through Uintah, Paiute and San Juan Counties, the length of said last named line and four branches being - a distance of about 620 miles.
In their chapter "Into The Mountains Of Utah," in the book "Dreams, Visions and Visionaries," Colorado Rail Annual No. 20 published in 1993, the authors Jack Thode and Jim Ozment quote Frank Hodgman, D&RGW locating engineer and chief of the survey party, as he described the summit in his narrative of building the original route of D&RGW in July and August 1881. Hodgman described the summit as a "gentle divide," making no mention of soldiers' graves as he made his trip westward from Castle Gate. His story starts after crossing Kyune Creek and crossing over Kyune Hill, today known as the Colton Spur. Hodgman continues:
A couple miles farther on we pass a saloon that some enterprising rum-seller has put up to supply the passing traveler with the 'staff of life.' There are no residences anywhere near here, but he catches the custom of the passing travelers. A little farther on we leave the valley of the Price [White River], and passing over a gentle divide 8,000 feet above the sea we begin to descend upon the western slope. Soon we strike a little rill which, growing as it goes, occupies the bottom of a narrow valley which grows deeper, and the mountains on each side higher, as we follow it down. Four miles from the summit we find a clear and sparkling spring of ice cold water, and there we pitch our tent for the rest of the summer. Evening is coming on, and before we go to rest we hear for the first time in half a year the shrill whistle of the locomotive as the cars roll up to the station three miles below us.
(The authors added that the station Hodgman described was Clear Creek, later Tucker, Utah, the point where the Utah & Pleasant Valley built in 1878-79 south from Springville, turned up Starvation Creek to work its way over the crest of the Wasatch range to the coal seam near Scofield, employing an unusual switchback arrangement to surmount the summit. The road was purchased by the D&RGW Railway at foreclosure in June 1882, and the switchback line was abandoned by December that year.)
The authors also wrote about the choice of building over Soldier Summit.
The most obvious was to build from the hamlet of Price west up the Price River drainage to Fish Creek, then up Fish Creek into Pleasant Valley to join the U&PV line. That could be followed over the Wasatch summit down the switchbacks into Starvation Creek and then on to Springville.
A more practical alternative was to build up the Price River to the junction of Fish Creek and the White River, then up the White River drainage across Soldier Pass and down to Clear Creek Station on the U &PV in the Soldier Creek drainage. A four per cent grade would be required on the west side of Soldier Pass, but no switchbacks would be needed. In addition, the Wasatch Range at Soldier Pass could be crossed at an elevation some 500 feet lower than the U&PV's crossing some miles to the south.
Also, the through line via Soldier Pass would be much shorter than trying to use the full length of the Utah & Pleasant Valley. Intelligently, the Soldier Pass route was adopted, and construction was inaugurated. Six-thousand feet of track from Clear Creek station toward the summit of Soldier Pass was laid in 1881 before winter weather brought such activity to a halt. Track construction resumed in 1882 building eastward on over Soldier Summit and down the White River/Price River alignment into the Utah desert. This is the alignment upon which Engineer Frank Hodgman had done location work in July and August of 1881.
The first reference in online newspapers is in the Salt Lake Herald of July 8, 1883, "Soldier Summit is the pass of the Wasatch Mountains and the highest point on the road [Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway] in Utah. From this the water runs eastward into the Green River, and west into Utah Lake, and finally into Great Salt Lake." (Salt Lake Herald, July 8, 1883)
In the August 14, 1884 description by Judge Hunter of the D&RGW receivership, the route given was "from a point in the easterly line of Utah Territory...and running thence westerly and northwesterly by way of Grassy Trail, Soldier Pass and Spanish Fork canyon to Provo and thence to Salt Lake City." (Salt Lake Herald, August 15, 1884, "yesterday")
(From the mid 1890s on, there was a later "Soldier Pass" that crossed the Lakeview Mountains into Cedar Valley, directly west of Utah Lake.)
Versions Of The Story
(The focus of this list to to determine the source of the original story.)
1872 -- An early reference to the pass was in the September 9, 1872 of the Utah Mining Journal. The brief item was describing the journey of a detachment of soldiers, north from Gunnison, Utah, at the south end of the Sanpete Valley, bound for Utah Valley, to quiet some Indian troubles in the region.
Mount Pleasant, Sept. 6, 1872. -- Captain Gordon with thirty men left the settlements yesterday at Gunnison, with orders to scout the country through Castle Valley to the head of Soldiers' Fork and thence to Springville. He will be out about twelve days.
1897 -- Fredrick Heath, Sr. wrote in the July 22, 1897 issue of the Salt Lake Herald, relating his reminiscences of Camp Floyd, among many other subjects over the previous 50 years.
At 9:30 a. m. on July 12, 1861, Johnson’s army, with a guide, broke camp and forever turned away from Camp Floyd, taking the route by way of Spanish Fork canyon, Soldier Summit, down into the valley of Price river, thence through southern Colorado and Texas, until it reached its destination, the Confederate lines, where Colonel Albert Sydney Johnson had gone and perhaps was waiting for them. It is said that by the time they reached the Confederate lines there were less than 1,000 men all told.
(The above narrative is a product of Heath's faulty memory. Based on diary evidence, the July 1861 departing group traveled east by way of Provo Canyon to Heber, then farther north to Echo Canyon where they turned east across Wyoming.)
1911 -- An early reference comes from 1911: "In the morning we saw the Castle Gate and the Soldier Summit, where Col. Albert Sidney Johnson's army camped and buried 300 dead during the Mormon War of 1857." (Wellsboro [Pennsylvania] Agitator, January 18, 1911)
(This item from 1911 is entirely fabricated, since there were no battles fought or shots fired during the so-called Mormon War. This fabrication in a "friendly" newspaper seems to be among numerous grand stories making heroes of fallen Confederate generals, of which Johnston was one. Johnston was killed early in the Civil War on the Confederate side at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862, having left Utah in late February 1860, and resigning his U. S. Army commission in May 1861 to join the Southern cause. He is certainly deserving of accolades for his entire military career, but not a fabricated one.)
1920 -- The January 20, 1920 issue of the Salt Lake Tribune wrote:
It is perched way up on top of the Wasatch range of mountains in Wasatch county and has an altitude of 7500 feet above sea level. The story goes that a couple of General Albert Sidney Johnson's soldiers were killed and then buried near the summit of this range, hence the name, Soldier Summit.
1941 -- The June 22, 1941 Provo Sunday Herald wrote:
Soldier Summit (Population 69) Said to have been named for a few soldiers of Albert Sidney Johnston's army, buried nearby. The settlement, once a thriving railroad town, is divided by the Utah-Wasatch county line and is located at the summit of the watershed between the Great Basin and the Colorado river. Settled 1883.
1941 -- The 1941 book, "Utah, A Guide To The State," Compiled by Workers of the Writers' Program, of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Utah, included this statement on page 408.
Soldier Summit received its name from the fact that several soldiers are buried here; who the soldiers were, however, is a matter of spirited local disagreement.
1963 -- How Beautiful Upon The Mountains, A Centennial History Of Wasatch County, By W. M. James Mortimer, Published By Wasatch County Chapter Daughters Of Utah Pioneers, 1963
Soldiers Summit -- Tragedy, a railroad boom and now near oblivion are the brief steps of history in Soldiers Summit, one of the few communities in Wasatch County that lies outside Provo Valley. The ghost town of today had its beginning about 1862 in the midst of tragedy. Soldiers from Johnston's Army that had been stationed at Camp Floyd were recalled to aid in the Civil War. Desiring to return to the East as quickly as possible many of the soldiers started up Spanish Fork Canyon along the pass between the Colorado Basin and the Great Basin. Caught in a blizzard common to the high mountain country, they died from exposure. The bodies were buried near the pass at a spot which became known as "Soldiers Summit" in their honor.
1968 -- The September 7, 1968 issue of the Deseret News published a lengthy article about Soldier Summit, with its 14 current residents.
Things are looking so well that Mr. Anderson [assistant town marshal] is talking of using town funds to build a chain link fence around the area's unexploited tourist attraction — the approximately 15-foot-square plot in which the soldiers are buried. The spot now is marked with remnants of a wooden fence, six grass-covered mounds and some rocks serving as headstones.
Tradition says that a number of soldiers left for the South when Camp Floyd was abandoned at the outbreak of the Civil War. They intended to join the Confederate Army. Six of them got no farther than the 7,463-foot-high summit where minus 30 degree temperatures have been known to occur. Their companions buried them on the south slope beside a willow-lined trickle of spring water.
1971 -- Stephen Carr wrote in his 1971 book, "Ghost Towns of Utah," page 71.
The somewhat peculiar name is a bit shrouded in legend. Some say the departing soldiers from abandoned Camp Floyd (Fort Crittenden), under Gen. Philip St. George Cooke, were caught unprepared in a chilling blizzard in July 1861 on the summit. A couple of the soldiers died during the snowstorm and were buried on the summit. Another story agrees that the troops moved up the creek now called East Fork of Soldier Creek, were not caught in a storm , but merely passed over the broad summit on their way east. The graves, apparently, are still there, however, and even in these times sudden freezing storms come up occasionally during summer which makes the first account very likely.
1985 -- Chuck Zehnder, the editor of the Sun Advocate newspaper, wrote in the newspaper on June 7, 1985.
The town was named for the burial site of three soldiers across the tracks from where the old depot sat. The graves still exist, but the story accounting for their existence varies. Some say the three were part of the troop of Gen. Phillip St. George Cooke, who were caught in a blizzard there in July of 1861 as they were abandoning Camp Floyd. Another story states the three were members of Gen. Johnston’s Army, sent to Utah to harass the Mormons who were still openly practicing polygamy. Whatever the story, many local residents can show interested visitors the graves site today.
1985 -- In an interview with Verne Jeffers, the Springville Herald newspaper, June 26, 1985, had this version.
No one knows for sure which if any of these stories is true or the identity of the bodies buried there. It is said that at one time the graves had a headboard and there was a fence around the graves made of wood. All that was left of these was a few rotten boards and a faint outline of four graves with a small stone at one end. No one has cared for the graves in many years.
Mr. Verne Jeffers, a dedicated history buff of Springville, was instrumental in getting a state historical marker placed at Soldier Summit where the graves of six unknown men are buried. Mr. Jeffers has done much research on that area and has compiled several scrapbooks with pictures and history. He came up with the following information about the graves:
"The original name for the summit was Grassy Pass. When Johnson’s army at Camp Floyd was ordered east in 1861, about forty officers and enlisted men camped there. They had been given permission to leave the U S. Army and go south to join the Confederate Army. Two days after leaving Camp Floyd, they arrived at Grassy Pass in a blizzard and tried to make camp.
"Six or seven men and a fourteen year old boy froze to death and were buried by a spring near the summit of the Pass. What happened to the rest of the party is not known. The name Grassy Pass was now forgotten and the summit became known as Soldier Pass."
Another story is that when Johnson’s Army was on its way to Utah in 1857, they made winter quarters at Camp Scott near Fort Bridger. A scouting party was sent out over the Uinta Mountains and down the Green River to the old Spanish trail to try and find a route into Utah and the Salt Lake valley so that Echo Canyon could be bypassed. This party never returned to Camp Scott and may be buried in the graves.
(Verne Jeffers, 1901-1997, began collecting histories of Utah towns when he moved to Springville in 1947, along with collecting thousands of historical photographs of Utah towns and railroads. He became a source for historical notes for the local Springville Herald newspaper in the late 1970s. He became well known in 1983 after furnishing historical notes and photos to several local newspapers during the Thistle slide. His stories of the history of Soldier Summit was taken up by the local chapter Sons of Utah Pioneers, which in June 1985, protected the site of the graves with a railing and placed the first monument at the location.
(The realities of the geography of traveling south from Fort Bridger, over the Unita Mountains to either the Unita Basin, or still farther south to the Castle Valley, would seem to make this version unlikely. Reaching, then following the Green River would have put the Army much farther south than their stated mission would have allowed.)
The Springville Herald of the same date also carried this less believable version.
Another account of what might have happened was given by Alfred L. Pace of Payson. He was born in 1884 on the old Pace Ranch up Spanish Fork Canyon. His father told him the following story:
In 1863, Brigham Young wanted to find a better route to Southeastern Utah and sent six men from the Nauvoo Legion in Salt Lake south to Spanish Fork to find a route up the canyon that would be suitable to construct a wagon road through the mountains to southeastern Utah.
Because of unfriendly Indians living around the hot springs a short distance up the canyon, only a heavily armed troop could travel this part of the canyon; so the legion of men were sent up the old Indian trail through Payson Canyon and down Bennie Creek. From there they came into Spanish Fork Canyon where they met John A. L. Pace who agreed to guide them up the canyon to Grassy Pass. They departed with an Indian guide going around the Red Narrows to the mouth of Sheep Creek where they made camp after dark.
Two hours later, a small dog of Pace's began to growl and the horses became restless. They thought hostile Indians were near, and decided to break camp and slip away up the canyon. It started to snow, covering their tracks and they arrived at the head of the canyon at daybreak and with six inches of snow on the ground. They arrived at Grassy Pass the following day. Mr. Pace left the party, and arrived back at his camp near the mouth of Thistle Creek in two days. Some time later six men were found frozen to death at the spring in Grassy Pass.
1987 -- Craig Witham wrote in his "Utah Story" column in the September 24, 1987 issue of the Times-Independent newspaper of Moab.
The name Soldier Summit has always been shrouded in mystery. I asked several people and read several accounts--each one had a different story. In one story, two defectors of Johnston’s (Utah War) Army left Camp Floyd to join the confederacy during the Civil War and froze to death on the summit. In another, they simply passed over the summit, and in another, ten soldiers were killed in the 'willows' by Indians, and buried with their boots on, right there where they died.
Recently someone erected a marble headstone on the remote grave site that reads, "Here lie 7 unidentified U.S. Soldiers who perished, 1861." I didn't get a chance to talk to whoever put up the headstone, but maybe they know the real story. With a gas station, small motel, and one or two houses the only living remains, Soldier Summit isn't even a skeleton of its past.
1990 -- The Sun Advocate newspaper of Price, Utah, November 13, 1990, had the following version.
Soldier Summit has a unique history. On Sept. 11, 1776, two Franciscan Priests, Father Escalante and Father Domingquez, entered what is now Utah and later camped in a mountain pass in the Manti Mountains. It is believed the two priests gave the pass its first name, calling it Grassy Pass.
The name remained until the railroad reached the south fork of Soldier Creek in 1877. Army records dated 1860 show the fifth regiment of infantry and three companies of the tenth infantry passed up Spanish Fork Canyon, crossing the pass to the head of White River. They traveled down White River to the Green River on their way to New Mexico.
At the Green River, a strong party was detached to return with the wagons through Spanish Fork Canyon to Camp Floyd.
When Johnston's army was ordered from Camp Floyd to help with the fighting during the Civil War, the soldiers passed through Grassy Pass in a blinding blizzard and made camp in the cold weather.
Six or seven men and a 14-year-old boy were frozen to death and were buried by a spring near the summit pass.
The name of Grassy Pass is now forgotten, and the name Soldier Summit remains.
1990 -- The Provo Daily Herald newspaper, January 2, 1990, had this version.
The story of Soldier (or Soldier's) Summit, as told by Verne Jeffers.
Soldier Summit was named after six soldiers were killed in a battle with Indians. Soldier Summit was originally called Grassy Pass. But in in February of 1861 an advance party of about 30 soldiers traveling from their garrison in Cedar Valley to Texas and New Mexico, fought a battle with Indians at Grassy Pass.
Six soldiers were killed and buried. About 11 Indians were piled on top of the ground. Vern Jeffers said 1,100 soldiers camped at Grassy Pass, and one must have dropped the insignia of the 71st Infantry of the Pennsylvania National Guard that a California woman found there. She wouldn't give it to Jeffers, but she let him photograph it. It's one of the many photos in his album.
1990 -- Utah Place Names, A Comprehensive Guide, To the Origins of Geographic Names, By John W. Van Cott, 1990
Soldier Summit (Utah, Wasatch) is at the summit midway between Thistle and Helper. It is a fact that several soldiers are buried at the summit, but the exact details of how they got there vary. One of the more reliable versions is that shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, when Camp Floyd (near Fairfield) was disbanded, the soldiers were reassigned to other posts. Several soldiers either became ill and died at the summit or were caught there in a blizzard. The small community of Soldier Summit developed in 1862. In recent years, as transportation has improved, the community has diminished in size and importance. (Notes: 89, 292, 377, 516, 546.)
- 89. Carr, Stephen L. The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns. Salt Lake City: , Western Epics, 1972.
- 292. Jones, J. Albert. A Story of the Settling of Huntington, Utah. n.l. J. A. Jones, n.d.
- 377. Mortimer, William James. How Beautiful Upon the Mountains: A Centennial History of Wasatch County. Salt Lake City: Wasatch County Chapter of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1963.
- 516. Thompson, George A. Some Dreams Die, Utah’s Ghost Towns and Lost Treasures. Salt Lake City: Dream Garden Press, 1982.
- 546. Utah, A Guide to the State. Work Projects Administration. Comp, by Utah State Institute of Fine Arts, Salt Lake County Commission. New York: Hastings House, 1941.
1996 -- Jeffery Page, in his series about traveling across America by way of Interstate 80 in the Hackensack [New Jersey] Record, wrote in the newspaper's November 27, 1996 issue.
In 1861, when the town was still called Grassy Pass, an army detachment camped in the area received orders allowing soldiers from the South to return home and join the Confederate forces if they chose.
Forty officers and enlisted men took their leave. They traveled through a blizzard and decided to hunker down and wait out the weather. Six or seven of the soldiers — no one is certain how many — and a 14-year old boy traveling with them froze to death.
Townspeople buried them on a hillside, and to this day, their graves are kept up. The local people did one more thing to honor their memories. They changed the name of the town.
(In the 1860s, there was not a town at the top of the pass, and until 1879 there were no settlers along the lower parts of the Price River, the route that would have been traveled to reach the Confederate states. The only reference to a "Grassy Pass" is in newspaper stories of the 1980s relating the history of Soldier Summit.)
1996 - A History Of Wasatch County, by Jessie L. Embry, 1996, Utah State Historical Society and Wasatch County Commission:
There are several stories about how Soldier Summit got its name. One is that six U.S. army defectors from Johnston's Army stationed in Cedar Valley during the Utah War froze to death trying to make their way across the summit in 1861. Another version suggests that when Johnston's Army was called to the east at the outbreak of the Civil War, some of the soldiers headed east up Spanish Fork Canyon and there six became ill and died. Yet a third version indicates that the canyon was routinely used by the army to move soldiers and equipment over the summit. (see John W. Van Cott, Utah Place Names: A Comprehensive Guide to the Origin of Geographic Names, 1990, p347)
Early Price Settlers
Research has found that the route up the Spanish Fork River and Soldier Creek to the summit, then down the White River to the Price River and Castle Valley, was not well traveled until the late 1870s. In those years, 1876-1877, the first recorded travelers were trappers and hunters from the west side of the Wasatch range who crossed over and arrived in the northwest end of Castle Valley, traveling from Salem at the south end of Utah Valley. They would have used the existing coal wagon road, completed in late 1875 and early 1876, to the point that "Soldier" creek met other creeks to form the Spanish Fork River, about 24 miles east of the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon
The route from Utah Valley to the coal mines at Winter Quarters in Pleasant Valley was first established as a wagon road to haul coal to Utah and Salt Lake valleys. The wagon road was completed in late 1875 and early 1876, and very soon became well-traveled as coal wagons made their journeys to supply coal to the residents of the valleys. The coal was hauled in sacks on mules from the mine, across the ridge to the confluence of Starvation and Soldier creeks, which formed the Spanish Fork River at a location first called Clear Creek, then Tucker. The coal was then hauled by wagon down to the valley.
The route east from Clear Creek (Tucker) and over the pass, followed Soldier Creek seven miles to the summit, then the White River another seven miles eastward, over Kyune Hill, then another four miles to Emma Park. At the east side of Emma Park the road met Willow Creek, then turned southeast for seven miles to Castle Gate, and the north end of Castle Valley. The route was used by cattlemen and sheepmen, who used the lower elevations farther to the east for winter grazing. The same route was used by early settlers of the Price area in the late 1870s.
Upper Castle Valley Settlers
In January 1879, the first settlers, Fredrick and Charles Grames came to the area that today is Price and Helper. Fredrick Grames' wife followed in June 1879. The Robert Powell family arrived in March 1879. With the arrival of the D&RGW railroad in late 1882, the town of Price was surveyed, and the post office established in August 1883.
Lower Castle Valley Settlers
There were settlers in lower Castle Valley as early as the mid 1870s when cattlemen and sheepmen from Sanpete Valley directly to the west would winter their livestock at the mouths of Cedar Creek (Mohrland), Cottonwood Creek (Castle Dale) and Huntington Creek, by crossing the range by Fairview Canyon on the west and Huntington Canyon on the east. At first they stayed in dugout cabins, then in log cabins. By 1876 some of the stockmen began growing hay on irrigated land as feed for their livestock. Brigham Young called for a group of Sanpete residents to colonize the Castle Valley, and in late 1877 the first families began moving into the region. During this period, the area of the Castle Valley, between the Green River on the east, the Wasatch mountains on the west, the Book Cliffs on the north and the San Rafael Swell on the south, was reported as the being largest unsettled region in all of the United States. Then, in 1880 and 1881, the railroad came.
February 16, 1884
In a call for a good road by way of Huntington Canyon, a resident of Huntington in Emery County reported that, "The distance by this route to the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon is about eighty miles, while the other roads we already have to the same point it is about as follows: By way of Soldier Canyon (which will always be a dread to the traveler) through Emma Park and down Spanish Fork, is about one-hundred and twenty-five miles." Other roads were also reported, by way of Cottonwood Canyon, passable only in the short summer season, by crossing five summits, at 100 miles; and by way of Salina Canyon then through Sevier and Sanpete valleys, at 185 miles. The route through Huntington Canyon entered Sanpete Valley at Fairview, then north to Thistle and Spanish Fork Canyon. (Deseret News, February 16, 1884)
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