Excerpt from Arizoniana by Marshall Trimble, the state’s official historian.

The first Mormon colonists from Utah arrived in Arizona in early 1854. The Navajos were on the warpath at the time and the Saints were driven out a year later. Between 1858 and the early 1870s Jacob Hamblin, the Mormon’s greatest trailblazer, made several reconnaissance missions, locating river crossings, water holes and suitable trails. By this time the Navajos were at peace thus making attempts at coloniza­tion safer. However, the greatest enemy facing the newcom­ers was the harsh, arid land and the fickle moods of the Little Colorado River.

Mormon settlements at Kanab (Utah), Pipe Springs and Lee’s Ferry were designated as bases from which to launch new colonies in Arizona.

The primary mission of the Church during these years was expansion. Under the dynamic leadership of Brigham Young, the Mormons were determined to establish a far-flung empire from their Utah base west to California and south to the Salt River Valley and eventually to Mexico.

A reconnaissance expedition was sent to the Little Colo­rado River Valley in 1873 to make a feasibility study for colonization. The scouts reported it unsuitable. A Norwegian missionary, Andrew Amundsen, pretty well summed up the bleak land. His spelling left a little to be desired but the meaning was clear: “From the first we struck the little Colorado … it is the seam thing all the way, no plase fit for a humg being to dwell upon.” Amundsen concluded his report rather succinctly calling it, ‘The moste desert lukking plase that I ever saw, Amen.”

Brigham Young and Company by C.R. Savage, 1870 on Colorado River. Young is seated near the middle, wearing a tall beaver hat. Source: Wikipedia

Despite this foreboding declaration, an expedition of some 100 colonists left Utah in early 1873 headed for the Little Colorado determined to make a go of it.

They arrived on the Little Colorado in late May after a miserable, wind-blown journey down Moenkopi Wash. By this time the river was drying up. One journal entry referred to the Little Colorado, disparagingly, as “a loathsome little stream. . .as disgusting a stream as there is on the conti­nent.”

Iron-willed and purposeful at the outset, the dispirited colonists soon packed their gear and returned to Utah.

Undaunted, Brigham Young was determined to establish colonies in the valley of the Little Colorado River. Three years later he tried again, this time with success.

A major figure in the Mormon colonization along the Little Colorado River was a fiery redheaded frontiersman named Lot Smith. Smith and other church leaders like William C. Allen, George Lake and Jesse D. Ballinger led parties of colonists to the lower Little Colorado River Valley to the sites of today’s Joseph City, and Sunset Crossing (Winslow) and Holbrook. Town sites were marked, irrigation ditches were dug, dams erected and crops were planted. The Mormons had, at last, taken permanent root in Arizona.

The four colonizing parties, each numbering about 50, established camps and named them for their respective captains. Soon after the names were changed. Lake’s Camp became Obed; Smith’s Camp was changed to Sunset, for the river crossing nearby; Ballinger’s Camp became Brigham City and Allen’s Camp, St. Joseph. (Since St. Joseph, Mis­souri was also on the Santa Fe line, in 1923, St. Joseph was changed to Joseph City.)

As a precaution against Indian attacks, all four commu­nities constructed forts of cottonwood logs and sandstone. These were self-containing units including communal mess halls and housing. The average size was about 200 feet square with walls reaching a height of seven to nine feet. Elevated guard houses stood at the corners. Each had shops, cellars, storehouses and wells in case of prolonged siege.

Sunset and Brigham City were short-lived communities located on opposite sides of the Little Colorado near the site of present day Winslow. In 1878, the two hard-luck commu­nities were ravaged by floods which destroyed the year’s crops. Obed suffered the same fate. Within a year, malaria and flooding caused the colonists to pull up stakes. However, the sturdily built sandstone fort survived and was used as a stock corral by the Hashknife Outfit until it was torn down in 1895.

St. Joseph was only one of the four communities to survive. Despite numerous crop failures and dams destroyed by the rampaging Little Colorado, the gritty colonists won their battle against the elements. Today it holds the honor of being the oldest Mormon settlement in the Little Colorado River Valley.

Excerpt from Arizoniana by Marshall Trimble, the state’s official historian.