In the far north of Utah there’s a hole in the Wasatch Mountains. The lofty range splits to form the Bear River Range to the east and the Wellsville Mountains to the west. In between lies Cache Valley.
The valley is some 50 miles long, stretching from Utah into southeastern Idaho, and is about 20 miles wide.
Unlike much of the West, Cache Valley is a verdant, well-watered place.
The Little Bear River, Blacksmith Fork River, Logan River, Cub River, and numerous creeks flow out of the mountains to join the Bear River, which runs into the valley from the north, then cuts a gap to leave to the west, soon to dilute the brine of the Great Salt Lake.
The names, of course, are recent. The Shoshone, who have occupied the place for thousands of years, have names of their own for the place, as did the mountain men who came later.
Willow Valley Gets Another Name
The streams were rich with beaver and attracted trappers including Jim Bridger, James Weber, Peter Skene Ogden, and James Beckwourth. They called the place Willow Valley, but their furs cached for safekeeping gave it the name it carries today.
William Henry Ashley’s and Jedediah Smith’s 1826 Rendezvous — officially the second, but the first with alcohol on the menu, so the first debauch the gatherings are known for — brought mountain men and Indians to Cache Valley to celebrate and trade for a month or two. But the fur trade died out within a couple of decades and the valley was left to itself and the Shoshone.
All that changed after the Mormons colonized the region, beginning in 1847. By 1855 they had so many cattle to feed that pasture was growing scarce in Salt Lake Valley, and the abundant green grass of Cache Valley looked tempting.
Brigham Young sent 10 men to build a ranch in the valley, and populate it with 2,000 head of his own and the church’s cattle, and a thousand head belonging to others. The first hands entered the valley in July and set to work building corrals and cabins and cutting hay from the meadows.
Founding Elkhorn Ranch
The first of the cattle arrived in August and kept coming into the fall. An impressive set of elk antlers was nailed to the crossbar over the gate of the main corral and the cowboys named the place the Elkhorn Ranch.
All was well until winter arrived. That year, cold weather came in November and it showed up with a vengeance. The winter of 1855 - 1856 was a bad one all over northern Utah, and given its elevation — starting at about 4,500 feet, with a mean elevation of 8,388 feet — Cache Valley winters are bad in a good year.
It did not take long for the cowhands to realize their cattle would starve to death before spring as there was not enough hay for them all, and the snow was already so deep the cured forage beneath couldn’t be reached.
With snow four feet deep on the valley floor and falling hard and fast, the hands rounded up the strongest of the cows and set out to drive them out of the valley, to what they assumed would be better conditions on the other side of the mountains.
Hundreds Of Cattle Died
The snow in the canyons was piled ten feet deep, and the drovers pushed the herd night and day to break trail as more snow fell. Hundreds of cattle died and fell by the wayside.
Come spring, there were only 425 head still living, of more than 2,000 driven out of the valley. And those had been the strongest of the herd. The weaker animals were left at the Elkhorn Ranch.
The cowboys left behind to care for them cut willows for feed as they watched the herd die off. Their prospects didn’t look any better, with food supplies used up. The cattle still surviving were so poor they weren’t worth eating.
It turns out the bad weather that caused the trouble had a hand in fending off starvation — the snow pushed sage hens out of the hills and into the valley. Two of the cowboys had small-bore rifles and were good shots, and one morning alone they gathered 280 sage hens for the pot.
The other savior was found in a locked trunk — a bushel of wheat and half a bushel of seed peas meant for spring planting. The peas went into the chicken soup and the wheat, ground with a coffee grinder, became wheat cakes.
It was April before the thaw came. Despite the setbacks, other settlers arrived later that year and established Maughan’s Fort, and settlers are still coming. Today, Cache Valley is home to some 160,000 people.
R.B. Miller can be reached at WriterRodMiller@gmail.com
