The Historical Occurrence and Demise of Bison in Northern Utah
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Buffalo on a cliff wall in southern Utah. From Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, Breaking the
Wilderness, 1905.
The Historical Occurrence and Demise
of Bison in Northern Utah
BY KAREN D. LUPO
W H E N PEOPLE ENVISION BISON (OR BUFFALO), most will picture large
herds meandering across the vast plains of North America. While
northern Utah probably will not come to mind, archaeological and
historical evidence indicates that these massive mammals once widely
roamed across much of the region, at times in great numbers.
Archaeological evidence shows that bison were h u n t e d by native
peoples in Utah at least 10,000 years ago and possibly earlier. 1
Archaeological sites with bison bone and dating to Fremont times
(A.D. 400-1300) are clustered in the northern part of Utah, especially
in the Willard Bay area on the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake.
However, petroglyphs of bison found as far south as Kane County
attest to the former range of these animals.2 Late nineteenth and early
Dr. Lupo is a research associate in the Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
1
Donald K. Grayson, Danger Cave, Last Supper Cave and Hanging Rock Shelter: The Faunas,
Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History (New York: American Museum of
Natural History, 1988). See also Melvin C. Aikens, Fremont-Promontory-Plains Relationships, Including a Report
of Excavations at the Injun Creek and Bear River Number 1 Sites, Northern Utah, University of Utah
Anthropological Papers, No. 82 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1966).
2
Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, Breaking the Wilderness (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1905), p. 37, provides
an illustration of the petroglyph but not its exact location. The same petroglyph may have been reported
by C. C. Presnall, "Evidence of Bison in Southwestern Utah," Journal of Mammalogy 19 (1938): 111-12.Bison in Northern Utah 169
twentieth century explorers and naturalists observed bison skeletons
in Echo Canyon, Utah Valley, Gunnison on the Sevier River, Parowan
Canyon in Iron County, on the shores of the Great Salt Lake and Utah
Lake, in remote locations above the timber line (11,800 ft.) in the
Uinta Mountains, and in valleys of the Wasatch Mountains. 3 The num-
ber and distribution of these finds led early naturalists to conclude
that bison were widespread and common historically, at least until just
before the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in 1847.4 However, these
skeletal remains were undated and may have been much older than
their date of discovery implies. The most compelling evidence is
found in historical journals or other records of sightings of live ani-
mals. Early travelers and explorers were interested in and often made
mention of game animals in their journals because they supplemented
their meager and sometimes exhausted food provisions. For Utah this
evidence is limited and shrouded in a veil of mystery involving leg-
ends, oral traditions, and fact.
Probably the earliest historical reference relevant to bison in the
Utah area is related by Baron La Hontan in 1689.5 While staying with a
group of Indians near the headwaters of a tributary to the Mississippi
3
James H. Simpson, Report of Explorations Across the Great Basin of the Territory of Utah...in 1859
(Washington D.C: GPO, 1876), p. 460. Simpson refutes a January 18, 1859, report by Governor Denver,
commissioner of Indian Affairs, to Rep. Alexander H. Stephens, that bison were not found west of the
Rocky Mountains: "The governor is here evidently wrong, for I have seen a number of skulls of buffalo in
Echo Canon, and in the upper part of the Timpanogos Valley (Utah Valley), all showing that at not a very
remote period the buffalo roamed west of the Rocky Mountains." For other reports of buffalo skeletal
remains see Presnall, "Evidence of Bison in Southwestern Utah," pp. 111-12; and Joseph Asaph Allen,
History of the American Bison, 9th Annual Report of United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the
Territory under F. V. Hayden for the Year 1875 (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1877), pp. 512-15. Allen reported:
"Along the railroad leading from Ogden City to Salt Lake City I examined, in September of 1871, num-
bers of skulls in a nearly perfect state of preservation, which had been exposed in throwing up the road-
bed across the marshes a few miles north of Salt Lake City. I also saw a few on the terraces north and west
of Ogden City, but generally in a disintegrated condition. "Julian Steward, Ancient. Caves of the Great Salt
Lake, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, (Washington D.C: GPO, 1937), Bulletin
116, described caves used by ancient cultures on Promontory Point containing many bison bones. Claude
Teancum Barnes, "Utah Mammals," Bulletin of the University of Utah, New Series, 17 (June 1927): 174,
reported that a Professor Marcus E.Jones picked up a buffalo skull on the shores of the Great Salt Lake
near Saltair in 1898. Ruth Dowell Svihla, "Mammals of Uinta Mountain Region, "Journal ofMammology 12
(1931): 256-65, discovered bison bones in the Uinta Mountains. Parley P. Pratt, "To President Orson Pratt
and the Saints in Great Britain," Millennial StarTl (September 5, 1848): 21-24, observed buffalo bones in
the valleys of the Wasatch Front.
4
Elliott Coues and H. C. Yarrow, "Report upon Collections of Mammals Made in Portions of
Nevada, Utah, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona during the Years 1871, 1872, 1873, and
1874," in George M. Wheeler's Report upon United States Geographical Surveys West of the One-Hundredth
Meridian... (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1875), 5:68. They reported that bison were formerly quite common
in Utah and were remembered by many older Indians. Interestingly, they were unable to acquire any live
specimens from Utah. See also Ernest Thompson Seton, Lives of Game Animals, 4 vols. (Garden City:
Doubleday, 1925-28), 2:647. Seton estimated that bison ranged throughout northern Nevada and most of
Utah in 1500. By 1832 that range had contracted to northern Utah, including the area surrounding the
Great Salt Lake. It is not clear how these estimates were derived since few historical accounts pertinent to
this time period exist.
5
Baron La Hontan, New Voyages to North America Reprinted from the English Edition of 1703 with
Facsimiles of Original Title-Pages, Maps and Illustrations, 2 vols., ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Chicago: A. C.
McClury, 1905), 2: chap. 16.170 Utah Historical Quarterly
River, La Hontan met four slaves. These slaves claimed to be members
of the Mozeemlek nation from a distant land with a large salt lake.
They allegedly supplied the cities and towns surrounding the salt lake
"with great numbers of little calves" that were used for food and cloth-
ing. The validity of this report has been questioned by scholars, and
some regard it as purely fictional, but there are striking parallels
between elements of this story and the geography and cultural history
of the Great Salt Lake area. 6 For example, the Mozeemlek slaves had
thick bushy beards similar to those worn by some Utes as later
described by Escalante. 7 Some of the western Ute bands were known
to be purveyors of buffalo meat and robes and ranged as far south as
Taos, New Mexico, by 1680 and probably much earlier.8 Finally, there
are marked similarities between the inland salt lake surrounded by
cities or towns in La H o n t a n ' s story and the Great Salt Lake sur-
rounded by archaeological villages.9 The earliest eyewitness accounts
of bison in northeastern Utah were recorded during the Dominguez-
Escalante expedition. 10 Journal entries from early September 1776
r e p o r t buffalo tracks along the White River near the present
Utah/Colorado border. Later, at least two buffalo were killed by expe-
dition members near the Green River in Utah. They also encountered
mounted Comanches in pursuit of 'Yutas" who had been hunting buf-
falo in their territory. By September 25, 1776, the expedition had
arrived in Utah Valley and reported that bison were available not far to
the north and northwest of Utah Lake.11 This entry was undoubtedly
based on information provided by the Utah Lake Utes
(Timpanogotzis) who stated that fear of the Comanches kept them
from hunting in those areas. Although the Utah Lake Utes knew of
bison, there is no mention in the Dominguez-Escalante journals that
they possessed buffalo skins or dried meat. In fact, the Utah Valley
Utes are referred to as "fish-eaters" and provided dried fish to the
Spanish expedition for provisions.
6
Dale L. Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (1947; reprint ed., Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1973); chaps. 2 and 3 describe fact and fiction associated with the discovery of the Great Salt Lake.
See also John R. Dewey, "Evidence of Acculturation among the Indians of Northern Utah and Southeast
Idaho: A Historical Approach," Utah Archaeological Newsletter42 (1966): 3-10, 12-19. See also J. Cecil Alter,
"Some Useful Early Utah Indian References," Utah Historical Quarterly 1 (1928): 26.
7
William Richard Harris, The Catholic Church in Utah (Salt Lake City: Intermountain Catholic Press,
1909), p. 151.
8
LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, The Old Spanish Trail: Santa Fe to California (Glendale, Calif:
A. H.Clark & Co., 1954).
9
Dewey "Evidence of Acculturation," pp. 3-10, 12-19.
10
Harris, The Catholic Church in Utah, pp. 161-67.
11
Ibid.Bison in Northern Utah 171
Subsequent reports by trailblazers and fur trappers dating from
the early nineteenth century unmistakably place bison in areas adja-
cent to Utah, including the Green and Bear rivers in southwestern
Wyoming and along the Bear, Snake, and Portneuf rivers in southern
Idaho. 12 O n e of the earliest is an 1811 observation made by the
Astorians of Shoshoni bands from southeastern Idaho hunting bison
along the headwaters of the Green River in Wyoming. 13 Later, the
Ashley-Smith expedition r e p o r t e d that bison were a b u n d a n t in
Wyoming along the Green River in April and the Bear River in May
1825.14 Captain Bonneville's expedition h u n t e d bison on both the
Portneuf and Green rivers in 1833-34. 15 According to O s b o u r n e
Russell, bison were abundant along the Portneuf River in southern
Idaho in 1836; but by 1840 only scattered skeletons remained, and the
buffalo trails appeared abandoned and were overgrown with grass.16
Despite numerous reports of bison in parts of southern Idaho
and southwestern Wyoming, their presence and distribution in Utah is
far less clear. If the claim of Louis Vasquez, a partner of James Bridger,
is believed accurate, herds of bison were seen in the Great Salt Lake
Valley in the fall of 1822.17 In an October 29, 1858, newspaper inter-
view, Vasquez reported that he and a party of trappers were camped
in the Cache Valley in 1822 when a severe snowstorm forced them to
descend the Bear River and move into the Great Salt Lake Valley
where they saw bison herds. Details of this report are believed to be at
least partly inaccurate because Vasquez was probably not in Utah until
1825-26.18
A more reliable sighting of bison in n o r t h e a s t e r n Utah is
reported in the journals of Peter Skene Ogden. In 1824-25 Ogden
and William Kittison led an expedition sponsored by the Hudson's
Bay Company into the Snake River country (southeastern Idaho and
northeastern Utah). Journal entries dating between May 1 and May
13, 1825, report that buffalo were encountered along the Deep Creek
River near m o d e r n Preston, Idaho, south to the Cache Valley of
12
Frank Gilbert Roe, The North American Buffalo (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1951), pp.
263-72.
13
Washington Irving, Astoria (Chicago: Belford, Clark and Co., 1885), pp. 385-87.
14
The Ashley-Smith Explorations and the Discovery of a Central Route to the Pacific, 1822-1829, with the
OriginalJournals, ed. Harrison Clifford Dale (Cleveland: A. H. Clark Co., 1918), p. 155.
15
Washington Irving, Adventures of Captain Bonneville (New York: P. F. Collier & Sons, 1900), pp.
206-7, 272, 273, 275.
16
Osbourne Russell, fournal of a Trapper, 1834-1843, ed. Aubrey Haines (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1965), p. 123.
17
Morgan, The Great Salt Lake, p. 70.
18
Ibid.172 Utah Historical Quarterly
Utah.19 But bison were not mentioned in areas farther south such as
Ogden Valley or along the Weber River. In 1828-29 Ogden led
another expedition through northern Utah, traveling northeast along
the southern base of the Grouse and Raft mountains and east to the
Malad River. On December 26, 1828, Ogden was camped north of the
Great Salt Lake and could see the lake surrounded by fog in the dis-
tance.20 He wrote:
The country we travelled over this day is covered with cedar trees, and
from the quantity of buffalo dung and tracks in the spring of the year
must be most abundant, at present no signs of any. . . . As we were on the
eve of encamping we were rather surprised to see our guide coming in
advance with a cheerful countenance and informed us he had seen an
indian who reported to him that buffalo were not far off, at the same
time not numerous. 21
A few days later when the group was camped near the Hansel
Mountains, Ogden m e n t i o n e d that attempts by hunters from his
group to find bison were unsuccessful. He believed it was because buf-
falo were only abundant in this area during the spring.22 By late March
of 1829 Ogden's group was trapping along the Bear River. In refer-
ence to the territory north of the Great Salt Lake, Ogden noted: "So
far as I have seen of the north side is truly a barren country, buffalo
have travelled thus far, but not in numbers nor do I believe they visit
here annually of course not to be depended on by travelers who may
desire to follow their tracks."23
Of all the early explorers in Utah, Jedediah Smith had the most
familiarity with the Great Salt Lake area. Surprisingly, he made little
mention of buffalo in his journals but did note the overall lack of
game in this area. Between 1826 and 1827 Smith led an expedition
to California that traversed much of Utah from north to south. At the
journey's onset on August 7, 1826, he was camped along the Portneuf
River in southern Idaho hunting buffalo and provisioning his party
for the journey south into Utah. He noted: "I was well aware that to
the south as far as my acquaintance extended there was but little
game and experience had learned me in many a severe lesson the
necessity of providing a supply of provision for traveling in gameless
19
David E. Miller, "Peter Skene Ogden's Journal of His Expedition to Utah, 1825," Utah Historical
Quarterly20 (1952): 168-75.
20
Peter Skene Ogden, Peter Skene Ogden's Snake Country Journals 1827-1828 & 1828-1829, ed.
Glyndwr Williams (London: Hudson's Bay Record Society, 1971).
21
Ibid., p. 118.
22
Ibid., p. 119.
23
Ibid., pp. 138-39.Bison in Northern Utah 173
country." 24 No mention was made of encounters with live buffalo as
the party traveled south along the shores of the Great Salt Lake and
into Utah Valley. The only mention of bison made by Smith was in
late August, east of Utah Lake: 'Very old buffalo skulls and from their
appearance I suppose that it is many years since the buffalo left this
country. They are not found beyond this place." 25 A penciled nota-
tion, referring to the limit of the buffalo in the area of the Uinta
Basin, was made on the party's map. 26 But Smith did not travel into
the Uinta Basin during the 1826-27 expedition, so it is unclear why
this notation was made or on what information it was based.
The following year only three members of the original expedition
made the r e t u r n trip from California to Utah. In late J u n e 1827
Jedediah Smith, Robert Evans, and Silas Gobel crossed the Great Salt
Desert en route to a rendezvous in the Bear Lake Valley. During this
treacherous crossing the group happened upon an Indian family near
Skull Valley. They possessed remnants of buffalo robes and indicated
that many buffalo could be found a few days' travel to the northeast. 27
When Smith and his party finally reached the Salt Lake Valley, the only
game mentioned were deer and a grizzly bear. Reporting on the jour-
ney in a July 17, 1827, letter to Gen. William Clark, Smith commented
on the lack of game in the Great Salt Lake Desert and reported that
bison did not range south of Utah Lake.28
In August and September of 1830 Warren Angus Ferris was trap-
ping in northeastern Utah and mentioned buffalo near, but not in,
the Cache Valley, a l t h o u g h the exact location of this sighting is
unclear.29 Later, he made no mention of bison on a visit to Utah Lake
in September and O c t o b e r of 1834. 30 But in November 1834, as
Ferris was traveling east of Utah Lake, he r e p o r t e d seeing Ute
Indians returning from bison hunting (presumably in southwestern
24
George R. Brooks, The Southwestern Expedition of Jedediah Smith, His Personal Account of theJourney to
California, 1826-1827 (Glendale, Calif: A. H. Clark Co., 1977), p. 40.
25
Ibid., p. 47.
26
Ibid.
27
Maurice S. Sullivan, Jedediah Smith, Trader & Trailbreaker (New York: Press of the Pioneers, 1936),
p. 109.
28
Charles Kelly, 'Jedediah Smith on the Salt Desert Trail," Utah Historical Quarterly 3 (1930): 25-27.
29
Warren Angus Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, ed. J. Cecil Alter (Salt Lake City: Rocky
Mountain Book Shop, 1940). Ferris reported killing large numbers of buffalo along the Bear River in
Wyoming and possibly in southern Idaho. In April 1830, after a particularly severe snowstorm, he
described pursuing and catching young buffalo calves somewhere just north of the Cache Valley, prob-
ably in southern Idaho.
30
Ibid., pp. 214-15.174 Utah Historical Quarterly
Wyoming or possibly the Uinta Basin) with loads of dried meat on
horseback. 31
At about the same time, in July 1833, Capt. B. L. E. Bonneville,
camped in southern Idaho, dispatched a group of men to explore the
Great Salt Lake under the command ofJoseph Walker. In preparation
for this undertaking, Washington Irving noted:
The country lying to the southwest of the mountains, and ranging down
to California, was as yet almost unknown; being out of the buffalo range,
it was untraversed by the trapper, who preferred those parts of the wilder-
ness where the roaming herds of that species of animal gave him com-
paratively an abundant and luxurious life. Still it was said that the deer,
the elk, and the bighorn were to be found there, so that with a little dili-
gence and economy there was no danger of lacking food. As a precau-
tion, however, the party halted on the Bear River and hunted for a few
days, until they had laid in a supply of dried buffalo meat and venison.32
The Walker expedition made its way south along the Raft River
in n o r t h e r n Utah to the extreme n o r t h e r n shore of the Great Salt
Lake and from there j o u r n e y e d west towards the Raft River
Mountains. Zenas Leonard, a free trapper who was part of
Bonneville's expedition, accompanied Walker on the 1833-34 trip
which eventually led to California. He reported that they killed their
last buffalo somewhere on the northwest side of the Great Salt Lake
in August 1833.33
There are few firsthand accounts of buffalo killed in Utah after
this date. In 1877 Joseph A. Allen cited Henry Gannet, astronomer
with Ferdinand V. Hayden's survey, who reported that the Mormon
Danite Bill Hickman claimed to have killed the last buffalo in Salt
Lake Valley about 1838.34 But there is no evidence that Hickman was in
the Great Salt Lake Valley at that time. 35 Furthermore, there is very
little evidence that bison persisted in regions west of the Green River
in Utah at that time. Journals from the Bartleson-Bidwell overland
expedition to California in 1841 report that bison were not found west
of the Green River.36 In August 1841 as they descended the Bear River
and made their way to the shores of the Great Salt Lake the only game
they mentioned are antelope, fish, and waterfowl.
31
Ibid., p. 216.
32
Irving, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, p. 275.
33
Zenas Leonard, Narrative of the Adventures of Zenas Leonard (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co.,
1934), p. 106.
34
Allen, History of the American Bison, p. 515.
35
Frank Gilbert Roe, The North American Buffalo, p. 278.
36
The Bidwell-Bartleson Party: 1841 California Emigrant Adventure: Documents and Memoirs of the
Overland Pioneers, ed. Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. (Santa Cruz, Calif: Western Tanager Press, 1991).Bison in Northern Utah 175
John C Fremont made no mention of actually encountering buf-
falo on his journeys through Utah between 1843 and 1845. However,
he did note that bison herds were abundant in the Bear River Valley
and along parts of the Green River from 1824 until approximately
1835 when they began to rapidly disappear. 37 Fremont reported that
in the spring of 1824: "the buffalo were spread in immense numbers
over the Green River and Bear River Valleys, and through all the coun-
try lying between the Colorado, or Green River of the Gulf of
California, and Lewis's Fork of the Columbia River; the meridian of
Fort Hall then forming the western limit of their range." 38 Based on
firsthand information and the accounts of other trappers, Fremont
believed that bison did not occupy areas west of the Rocky Mountains
until relatively late and had migrated to the area to escape predation
from hunters east of the mountains:
In travelling through the country west of the Rocky Mountains, observa-
tions readily led me to the impression that the buffalo had for the first
time crossed that range to the waters of the Pacific only a few years prior
to the period we are considering; and in this opinion I am sustained by
Mr. Fitzpatrick, and the older trappers in that country. In the region west
of the Rocky Mountains we never meet with any ancient vestiges
which,throughout all the country lying upon their eastern waters, are
found in the great highways, continuous for hundreds of miles, always sev-
eral inches deep and sometimes several feet in depth, which the buffalo
have made in crossing from one river to another, or traversing the moun-
tain ranges. The Snake Indians, more particularly those low down upon
Lewis's Fork have always been grateful to the American trappers for the
great kindness (as they frequently expressed it) which they did to them in
driving the buffalo so low down the Columbia River.39
In 1846 James Clyman and Lansford W. Hastings made a journey
from California eastward through Utah. Clyman's journal entries from
late May to June of 1846 while traveling from the Hastings Cutoff east
across the Great Salt Lake Desert and eventually through Echo
Canyon make no mention of bison. If fact, Clyman noted only the
general lack of game in the region. 40
On their journey to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Mormon pio-
neers found bison herds so dense on the trail east of the Rocky
37
John C. Fremont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842 and to
Oregon and Northern California in the Years 1843-1844 (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1845).
38
Ibid., p. 144.
39
Ibid.
40
James Clyman, James Clyman Frontiersman: The Adventures of a Trapper and Covered-Wagon Emigrant
as Told in His Own Reminiscences and Diaries, ed. Charles Camp (Portland: Champoeg Press, 1960).176 Utah Historical Quarterly
Mountains heading west that they had to send advance parties to clear
off the road before the teams could pass. 41 But by the time the
Mormons arrived, buffalo were no longer present in the valleys along
the Wasatch Front. According to Frank G. Roe, "There are no buffalo
among the 1229 wild species slain by the Mormon hunting companies
for the extermination of wild beasts in the winter of 1848-1849. "42
However, a few scattered buffalo were encountered by Mormon pio-
neers in Utah until 1850.43 These were probably solitary animals and
possibly remnants of the larger herds that once ranged in southern
Idaho and Wyoming. William Hornaday reported that a few bison
were killed in the Salt Lake Valley by Mormon pioneers prior to 1840.44
But this date is too early for Mormon settlers there. On an 1889 visit to
a Salt Lake City museum, he was shown a buffalo bull skull that was
supposedly killed somewhere near Salt Lake City. But Hornaday him-
self doubted the veracity of this report and thought the skull must
have been obtained elsewhere.45
The only other reports pertaining to the historic occurrence of
bison in Utah are second-hand accounts based on Indian informants
and trappers. Although this information is not doubted, the actual
location of these bison sightings is often vague and unclear. The most
frequently cited account comes from Osbourne Russell.46 He reported
that in 1841 Wanship, the Ute chief who at that time lived at the south-
ern end of the Salt Lake Valley, r e m e m b e r e d a time when buffalo
passed from the mainland to Antelope Island without swimming. In
another account, H. W. Henshawe, the ornithologist on Lieutenant
Wheeler's survey, related the following:
The only information I have regarding its (the buffaloes) presence in
Utah was derived from Mr. Madsen, a Danish fisherman, living on the
borders of Utah Lake: and, I may add, I am perfectly convinced of the
trustworthiness of his statement. In using the seine in the waters of the
lake, he has on several occasions brought up from the bottom the skulls
of buffaloes in a very good state of preservation. Their presence in the
lake may perhaps be accounted for on the supposition that, in crossing
on the ice, a herd may at some time have broken through, and thus per-
ished. From him I also learned that he had talked with Indians of mid-
41
Roe, The North American Buffalo, p. 183.
42
Ibid., p. 278.
43 p e r r j S ; Life in the Rocky Mountains, p. 69.
44
William Hornaday, "The Extermination of the American Bison" in the Annual Report to the Board
of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, part II, 1887 (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1889), p. 383.
45
Ibid.
46
Russell, Journal of a Trapper, 1834-1843, p. 122.Bison in Northern Utah 177
die age whose fathers had told them that in their time the buffaloes were
numerous, and that they had hunted them near the lake.47
Presumably the fathers of the informants mentioned here would have
hunted bison in Utah Valley before 1835. Finally, J. Cecil Alter men-
tions that the Ute Chief Walker had recollected that when he was a
boy deer were abundant and "buffalo more plentiful than Mormon
cattle."48
If the historical occurrence of bison in Utah is unclear, the ulti-
mate demise of these large beasts is surrounded by even more mystery.
In fact, the extinction of bison in Utah is the subject of an interesting
but widespread oral tradition. According to several sources, the last
bison in Utah died in a severe winter storm before the Mormons
arrived. One of the earliest accounts of the snowstorm is given by Sir
Richard Burton who reported that the last bison in Utah Valley died
in the winter of 1845.49 A short time later, Allen wrote a comprehen-
sive history of the American bison for the United States Geological
and Geographical Survey and reported:
I was also informed that there was a tradition among the Indians of this
region that the buffaloes were almost entirely exterminated by deep snow
many years since. Mr. E. D. Mecham of north Ogden, a reliable and intel-
ligent hunter and trapper of nearly forty years' experience in the Rocky
Mountains, and at one time a partner of the celebrated James Bridger,
informed me that few had been seen west of the great Wah satch range
of mountains for the last thirty years, but that he had seen their weath-
ered skulls as far west as the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In 1836, according
to Mr. Mecham, there were many buffaloes in Salt Lake Valley, which
were nearly all destroyed by deep snow about 1837, when, according to
reports of mountaineers and Indians, the snow fell to the depth of ten
feet on a level. The few buffaloes that escaped starvation during this
severe winter are said to have soon after disappeared. 50
This same story with some elaboration was also r e c o u n t e d by
Mecham's partner, the famous James Bridger:
Many strange stories the old trapper, James Bridger, used to tell; for
instance in the winter of 1830 it began to snow in the valley of the Great
Salt Lake, and the snow fell for seventy days until the whole country was
white-coated to the thickness of seventy feet. Vast herds of buffalo were
caught by the snow, caught and pinched to death, and the carcasses pre-
served; and finally when spring came, all Bridger had to do was tumble
47
Allen, History of the American Bison, p. 515; Coues and Yarrow, "Report u p o n Collections of
Mammals," 5:68, also cite Madsen as a source of information regarding buffalo in Utah.
48
Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, p. 69.
49
Sir Richard Burton, City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California (New York: Harper
& Bros., 1862), pp. 50-51.
50
Allen, History of the American Bison, p. 515.178 Utah Historical Quarterly
them into Salt Lake, and have pickled buffalo enough to fed him and the
whole nation, down to the time of extermination. And this is why there
have been no buffaloes in that region since.51
A very similar account was r e p o r t e d by Shelley in his history of
American Fork, Utah. This story was attributed to Washburn Chipman
who h e a r d it from frontiersman Jim Baker in the spring of 1849.
According to Shelley:
Baker related that 15 or 20 years before the country contained many buf-
falo. O n e winter an immense snow storm came, piling the snow many
feet deep in the valleys, completely covering the buffalo. The frontiers-
man claimed he did not see the sun for thirty-five days. He said in the
Salt Lake Valley while going over the deep snow on snow shoes that he
came across breathing holes in the snow, below each of which was a live
buffalo. The animals all eventually perished. 52
Claude Barnes, a zoologist, attributed this story to the Ute Indians
who reported that in 1820 the buffalo in northern Utah were killed
by a snowstorm in which four feet of snow fell.53 Cecil Alter reported
that the deadly winter storm occurred in April 1831 and was described
in the journal of Warren Angus Ferris.54 According to Ferris's journal,
snow fell in the Cache Valley to a depth of about three feet and
remained on the ground for some time. He described the icy crusts
on the surface of the snow that cut into the limbs of his horses like
knife blades. Still later, Stephen D. Durrant reported that large num-
bers of bison died in a severe snowstorm in the Salt Lake Valley in
1836.55
Interestingly, this same oral tradition existed among the Snake
Shoshoni bands that inhabited territories adjacent to northeastern
Utah. In 1859 Capt. J. H. Simpson reported that buffalo had been the
primary prey of the Shoshoni bands that inhabited southern Idaho. 56
According to Indian tradition and accounts of early trappers, the buf-
falo disappeared after a severe winter storm that occurred around
1824. But there is ample evidence from other historical accounts that
bison persisted in portions of southern Idaho until around 1840 and
that only after this date did large parties of mounted Snake Shoshoni
51
Roe, The North American Buffalo, p. 181.
52
George Shelley, Early History of American Fork (American Fork City, 1945), p. 12. Shelley also states
that Washburn Chipman saw a buffalo carcass near Niels Nelson's spring southwest of American Fork.
53
Barnes, "Utah Mammals," p. 174.
54
Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, p. 69.
55
Stephen David Durrant, Mammals of Utah: Taxonomy and Distribution, University of Kansas
Museum of Natural History Publications (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1952), p. 466.
66
Simpson, Report of Explorations across the Great Basin, p. 466.Bison in Northern Utah 179
i. W..,'
Bison. USHS collections.
and Bannock go to Wyoming to h u n t them in the fall.57 By 1859 at
least some of these Shoshoni bands were hunting buffalo in the sum-
mer and fall near the Sweetwater and Wind rivers in Wyoming.58
Frank Roe noted that these snowstorm stories bore a striking and
suspicious resemblance to a h u n t e r s ' tradition concerning the
Laramie Plains in Wyoming:
According to hunters' traditions the Laramie Plains were visited in the
winter of 1844-1845 by a most extraordinary snowstorm. Contrary to all
precedent, there was no wind, and the snow covered the surface evenly to
a depth of nearly four feet. Immediately after the storm a bright sun soft-
ened the surface, which at night froze into a crust so firm that it was
weeks before any heavy animal could make headway over it. The Laramie
Plains, being entirely s u r r o u n d e d by mountains, had always been a
favorite wintering-place for the buffaloes. Thousands were caught in the
storm and perished miserably from starvation. Since that time not a
single buffalo has ever visited the Laramie Plains.59
57
Roe, The North American Buffalo, pp. 261-72. See also Julian Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal
Sociopolitical Groups, Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 120 (Washington,
D.C: GPO, 1938), pp. 202-4.
58
Simpson, Report of Explorations across the Great Basin, p. 466.
59
Roe, The North American Buffalo, p. 182.180 Utah Historical Quarterly
As with southern Idaho accounts, this story is contradicted by histori-
cal reports of bison on the Laramie Plains after this date.60
Given the prevalence of this story among different Indian bands
and trappers in parts of Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah, it seems likely
that the snowstorm story could be part of a widespread and possibly
very old oral tradition. It is possible that some bison died in a snow-
storm at some time in the past, but it is not clear exactly when or
where this happened. In southern Idaho and Wyoming the account
was contradicted by direct observations of living bison at later dates.
In the Cache, Salt Lake, and Utah valleys of Utah it is not clear when
the snowstorm occurred, since so many different dates are given.
Unlike southern Idaho and Wyoming, in Utah there were few obser-
vations of bison before 1830 and even fewer after that date.
An alternate scenario for the demise of bison in Utah and the
I n t e r m o u n t a i n Area and one that fits the historical facts better is
offered by Julian Steward.61 Citing Fremont, Steward suggests that the
small numbers of bison that inhabited northeastern Utah were extinct
by 1832 as a result of the acquisition of horses and firearms by native
populations and the arrival of trappers. He argues that bison popula-
tions were probably never very dense in northern Utah and were eas-
ily hunted to extermination with the arrival of these new technologies.
This scenario is probably more accurate because it depicts the disap-
pearance of bison in n o r t h e r n Utah as part of a larger extinction
event that is well documented.
60
Ibid., pp. 182-84,262-71.
61
Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups, pp. 200.You can also read
