Daughters of Utah Pioneers Historical Markers
by International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers
Hundreds of markers preserving the people, places and events of the pioneer era. Across Utah, historical markers tell the stories of settlements, forts, buildings, pioneers and events that shaped communities across the state.
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Deseret Relief Society Hall
Built in 1906 through the determination and fundraising of Deseret's Relief Society women, this small hall became far more than a meeting place. It hosted dances, plays, church services, school classes, Boy Scout meetings, community activities, and even health care—and today survives as the oldest remaining historic Latter-day Saint church building in Deseret.
Utah Lake -- Western Sea of Galilee
Utah Lake's enormous native fishery sustained Indigenous peoples for generations and became a critical food source for Utah Valley's first pioneer settlers. During the devastating crop failures of 1855–1856, fishermen such as Peter Madsen harvested and shared large quantities of fish from the lake, helping feed both settlers and Native people during one of the valley's most difficult periods.
The White Meeting House
For more than 70 years, Springville's White Meeting House was one of the community's most important landmarks. Built of adobe only a few years after Springville's settlement, it began as a school and evolved into a large Latter-day Saint meetinghouse where generations gathered for worship, education, public meetings, and community events.
Atkinville
Atkinville was a small pioneer settlement established by William and Rachel Thompson Atkin and their family along the Virgin River south of St. George. The one-family village grew around their 160-acre farm, with limestone homes, fields, livestock facilities, and a popular pond before a devastating 1906 flood brought the settlement to an end.
Salem School Bell/Salem Tree Stump
Salem's historic school bell and preserved tree stump stand at a site closely tied to the community's pioneer beginnings. The bell recalls generations of local schoolchildren, while the surrounding historical markers preserve the story of Pond Town, the fortified settlement that developed into present-day Salem.
Clear Lake Settlement
Clear Lake was a tiny, isolated pioneer settlement established beside the wetlands and springs of southern Millard County in the 1860s. Families attempted to build farms and a permanent community in this remote desert landscape, but difficult agricultural conditions, isolation, and changing circumstances eventually caused the settlement to disappear.
First School in Jensen
Jensen's first school opened in 1881 inside a simple three-room log house, only four years after pioneers settled the community then known as Riverdale. Its first teacher, Lydia Maria Chatwin, was remarkably just 13 years old and began by teaching five children from two local families.
Mapleton Ward Relief Society Hall
Built in 1888, the Mapleton Ward Relief Society Hall gave local women a dedicated place to organize charitable work, quilt, raise funds, store wheat, and care for families in need. More than a century later, the tiny brick hall was dismantled piece by piece and reconstructed in Mapleton's historic Old Towne Square, preserving an important monument to the women who helped build the community.
Settlement of Annabella
Annabella began in 1871 when four pioneer families established homes near Omni Point at the base of Cove Mountain. Named for early settlers Anna Roberts and Isabella Dalton, the community grew through the difficult work of building irrigation canals, clearing farmland, constructing homes, and creating schools and gathering places in Utah's Sevier Valley.
Old Flour Mill
Beginning in 1867, Fountain Green's Old Flour Mill transformed locally grown wheat into flour and helped establish Sanpete County as an important grain-producing region. Powered first by spring water and later by electricity, the mill survived two major fires, connected with a nearby railroad, and operated for decades before closing in the 1930s.
The Octagon House
One of early Provo's most unusual buildings once stood on this corner: Henry Larkin Southworth's enormous two-story, eight-sided adobe house and store. During its long life, the Octagon served as a home, mercantile store, stagecoach stop, post office, hotel, Masonic meeting place, boarding house, bakery, and even a cigar factory before being demolished in 1926.
Layton's First Post Office
Before Layton had its own post office, residents traveled to Kaysville for their mail or arranged to pick it up at a local store. That changed on June 11, 1886, when merchant William A. Hyde became Layton's first official postmaster and opened the community's first U.S. post office inside his Main Street store.
Early Education in Layton
Layton's first schools were humble log and frame buildings where children walked or rode horses to class, carried lunch in buckets, drank water from a communal ladle, and sometimes saw their teachers paid in food instead of money. Beginning with the Adams School in 1857, these neighborhood schools eventually gave way to Layton Elementary in 1902, creating a centralized system of education for the growing community.
Spanish Fork Heritage Cemetery
On a quiet bluff above the Spanish Fork River bottoms lies one of the community's oldest surviving pioneer burial grounds. Used from 1851 until 1866 and later nearly forgotten, the cemetery preserves the graves of some of Spanish Fork's earliest settlers and the story of a community that faced death, hunger, disease, crop failure, and uncertainty together.
Pioneer Women
This monument honors the women who crossed plains and mountains to build homes and communities in the Price River Valley, preserving the often-overlooked story of women's work in pioneer settlement. First dedicated in 1931, the monument lost its original statue and plaques before local historians reconstructed its story and restored it with a new bronze pioneer woman in 2011.
Original Goshen Pioneer Cemetery
Hidden about 300 yards north of this roadside monument is Goshen's original pioneer burial ground, a remnant of the community's earliest and repeatedly relocated settlements. At least eighteen identified pioneers remain buried there, while others were moved to a newer cemetery with no surviving record of exactly whose remains were relocated.
Cottonwood Settlement
Cottonwood grew from the farms established east of Salt Lake City into a close-knit community shaped by mountain streams, irrigation, schools, churches, and the wagon trains hauling granite for the Salt Lake Temple. The settlement's story survives in modern Holladay, where DUP Marker #562 recalls how residents transformed a wooded, flood-prone landscape into farms and neighborhoods.
Jensen (Mau-be) Ferry
Beginning in 1881, Danish immigrant Lars Jensen operated a ferry across the Green River, providing an essential crossing for travelers, wagons, livestock, and supplies. His ferry became so closely associated with the area that the community of Jensen was eventually named in his honor.
Pleasant Green Cemetery
Established in 1883, Pleasant Green Cemetery is a historic pioneer burial ground in the Oquirrh foothills above Magna. Recognized as the first cemetery west of the Jordan River, it became the final resting place of many early settlers and community leaders who helped establish Pleasant Green, Magna, Hunter, Ragtown, Coonville, and other communities of the western Salt Lake Valley.
Wight's Fort Cemetery
Wight's Fort Cemetery began in the early 1850s on a small knoll beside what would soon become Wight's Fort. Its earliest known graves—an unidentified Native American infant and the infant son of pioneer settlers Lyman and Harriet Bateman Wight—began a burial ground that became the final resting place of many of West Jordan's earliest settlers.
Historic Manila Church
Construction of the Manila Church began in the 1890s, and generations of northern Pleasant Grove residents worshipped and gathered here for more than a century. Repeatedly enlarged as the community grew, the historic chapel was eventually retired from church use but escaped demolition and was restored as part of Stone Gate, preserving one of the area's most recognizable pioneer-era buildings.
Bergertown Settlement
Bergertown grew from the farm of Swiss immigrant Christian Berger into a working-class immigrant neighborhood beside Murray's railroads and smelters. Scandinavian immigrants and other laborers lived in modest homes here, worked in the industries that transformed Murray, and built a distinctive religious and cultural community whose 1907 meetinghouse still survives.
Fremont School Bell
Fremont's 300-pound school bell once called generations of children to class and alerted the community to holidays and special occasions. After the old school closed, the bell disappeared from Fremont for decades before being rediscovered at a private home in California, restored, and returned to the community.
Ole Peder Sorenson Pioneer Cabin
Built in 1859 as part of the original Mendon Fort, this pioneer log cabin was home to Danish immigrant Ole Peder “Peter” Sorensen and his family. Hand-hewn logs, pioneer construction techniques, and more than a century of family use make it a remarkable survivor from Cache Valley’s earliest settlement.
Beaver Territorial Courthouse
Completed in 1882, the Beaver Territorial Courthouse served as an important center of government and justice in southern Utah during the territorial period. Built of red brick over a foundation of local volcanic stone, the landmark survived fire, earthquake, and even plans for demolition before being preserved as a museum.
Utah Civil War Casualty
Lieutenant Henry Wells Jackson crossed the West with the Mormon Battalion, searched for gold in California, helped establish pioneer settlements, carried the overland mail, survived Confederate imprisonment, and ultimately became a Union cavalry officer. Shot during fighting in Virginia in May 1864, he died from his wound nineteen days later and is commemorated as Utah's only Civil War battle fatality.
Pine Canyon Charcoal Kiln
This towering beehive-shaped kiln is a rare survivor of Pine Canyon's pioneer industries. Archibald C. Shields and his brother Robert established a brickmaking business here around 1865, producing bricks and charcoal that helped supply homes, mines, and smelters throughout Tooele Valley during the region's early mining boom.
Kay's Ward Meetinghouse
For nearly 90 years, Kay's Ward Meetinghouse stood at the center of religious, educational, and social life in Kaysville. Begun in 1855, delayed by the Utah War, and dedicated by Apostle John Taylor in 1863, the building later became a popular Music Hall and Opera House that even hosted performers traveling the national vaudeville circuit.
Historic Fort Sanford
Fort Sanford was a short-lived military outpost built in 1866 during the Black Hawk War to protect the pioneer settlements of Panguitch and Circleville and guard important travel routes through the upper Sevier Valley. Major Silas Sanford Smith and his troops constructed the large cedar-picket stockade near the junction of Bear Creek and the Sevier River, but changing military conditions made the fort unnecessary only months after it was completed.
Fort Palmyra Pioneer Settlement
Fort Palmyra was a large adobe pioneer fort built in 1852 in the settlement of Palmyra west of present-day Spanish Fork. During the Walker War it sheltered hundreds of settlers behind ten-foot walls, but within only a few years the fort was dismantled and many of its adobe bricks were carried east to help residents rebuild in the community that became Spanish Fork.
Clarkston Tithing Granary
Built around 1905, the Clarkston Tithing Granary is one of Utah's surviving examples of the once-common system of paying tithes with agricultural products instead of cash. Saved after the rest of Clarkston's tithing lot disappeared, the granary was moved and restored in 2018 and today serves as a museum preserving the heritage of this Cache Valley community.
The Old Settlers "Swallows Nest"
This small sandstone cabin known as “Swallows Nest” was the writing retreat of Albert R. Lyman, one of Blanding’s earliest settlers and an important historian of southeastern Utah. Here, Lyman escaped the distractions of daily life to record stories, memories, and history from Utah’s San Juan frontier.
Early Orem Canals
Beginning in 1862, settlers dug canals by hand to bring water from the Provo River to the dry land known as Provo Bench. Their work transformed the rocky, sagebrush-covered landscape into productive orchards and helped make the future city of Orem possible.
Sources & Attribution
Historical markers researched and placed by the International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers (ISDUP).
Side Quest Utah presents this historical information to make it easier to explore. The research and markers are the work of the credited source organizations.