Following 19th-Century Ute Trails
From Pueblo, Colorado, to Price, Utah.
By: Candy Moulton 08/01/2007
The route these troops took is roughly parallel to highway 13 from the Wyoming-Colorado border through Craig to Meeker. The troops crossed the Morapos Trail and took a route over Yellowjacket Pass, now accessible by following county roads between Craig and Meeker.
The soldiers and the Utes met in a field of battle September 29, 1879, south of Milk Creek Canyon. Thornburgh was killed and the soldiers soon found themselves surrounded by the tribesmen.
The military command could only defend itself, so that night, with many already dead and others wounded, four men mounted the strongest horses remaining and snuck through the guard line to seek help. Joe Rankin headed north into Wyoming, changing horses four times before reaching Rawlins and wiring Gen. George Crook in Omaha who ordered Gen. Wesley Merritt at Fort D.A. Russell near Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, to relieve Thornburgh’s men.
John Gordon, another of the relief riders, contacted a courier from the Meeker Agency, who had been sent by Meeker to find Capt. Francis Dodge and the Ninth Cavalry. That party of Buffalo Soldiers had ridden north from New Mexico and was southeast of the agency, awaiting instructions about whether to move onto the reservation.
Made aware of the situation, by daybreak on October 2, Dodge neared the area where Thornburgh’s troops had been under siege since September 29. The relief soldiers forced their way into the soldier encampment but found they could not advance. Soon Dodge and his Buffalo Soldiers were as pinned down as Thornburgh’s troops had been. By noon of the second day after Dodge arrived, most of his cavalry horses were dead. Fortunately for the double group of besieged soldiers, Merritt had organized his relief column and began a forced march south from Rawlins toward Milk Creek.
Merritt reached the Milk Creek battleground before dawn on October 5. Upon his arrival, the Indians withdrew from their positions. Once the Utes retreated, the soldiers pushed on toward the agency, where they discovered the bodies of Meeker and several others. Arivella and Josephine Meeker and Sophronia Price and her two children had been taken captive. The women and children were held for 23 days before being released.
In response to the uprising, on June 8, 1880, the United States Senate ratified an agreement forcing relocation of the Northern Utes to a new reservation in Utah.
Following the Ute removal, White River Agency was abandoned. The military post metamorphosed into a town christened Meeker, incorporated in 1885. You can learn more about the agency and the area’s early settlement at the White River Museum.
Ute Reservations
Today the Utes are concentrated on two reservations: Ute Mountain Ute Reservation in southern Colorado and New Mexico, and the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeastern Utah.
From Craig, follow highway 40 to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Fort Duchesne, Utah. Then head south on highway 191 to Price.
Utes lived in Utah for centuries and evidence of their occupation is visible in pictographs through Nine Mile Canyon (which is actually 40 miles long) north of Price. The College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum in Price not only provides information on how to visit that site but also offers displays of early Fremont people, the ancestors of the Utes.
Although most were forced from their traditional lands, the Utes retain their culture, which they share with visitors during annual powwows and other events, such as the Bear Dance celebration held each spring as a rite recognizing renewal.
Candy Moulton, a frequent contributor to True West, is the author of Roadside History of Colorado.
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