Breeding Horses for Sale near Vernal, UT

About Vernal, UT

Vernal, unlike most Utah towns, was not settled by Mormon pioneers. Brigham Young sent a scouting party to the area Uintah Basin in 1861 and received word back the area was good for nothing but nomad purposes, hunting grounds for Indians, and "to hold the world together." That same year, President Abraham Lincoln set the area aside as the Uintah Indian Reservation, with Captain Pardon Dodds appointed Indian agent. Dodds later built the first cabin erected by a white man in the Uintah Basin around 1868. Settlers began to filter in after that, and built cabins in various spots on or near Ashley Creek. In 1879 many came close to perishing during the infamous "Hard Winter" of that same year.