Although the Anglo-American settlement of
Escalante began in the spring of 1875 by a group of men from
Panguitch desiring to find a location with a milder climate,
signs of inhabitation of the area reached back much farther
with evidence of the Fremont and Anasazi cultures in the
area.
In 1866, during the Black Hawk War, Captain James
Andrus's cavalry pursued Indians through the area, naming it
Potato Valley. A.H. Thompson, who was the chief map maker of
John Wesley Powell's crew, traveled through the plateau
regions on different trips naming the points and mapping the
trail. On an excursion in 1875, Thompson's party met four
Mormons from Panguitch planning to establish a settlement in
the area. Thompson advised the pioneers to name it for Father
Silvestre Velez de Escalante, who passed near the Escalante
River on his expedition from Santa Fe to California in
1776.
Drawn by the mild climate and abundance of
grazing land, the settlers raised cattle and sheep. Dairying,
timber harvesting, and mining were also important to the
economy of the settlement. Escalante remained an outpost on
the Mormon frontier for many years and was the last community
through which the famous Hole-in-the Rock expedition passed
in 1879 on its epic six-month journey to the San Juan River
in southeastern Utah.
Blessed with beautiful topography, fertile lands,
and a relatively long growing season, Escalante has been
called the "Land of the Sleeping Rainbow." The early pioneer
settlers built more than fifty homes of native brick which
stand as a legacy today. The town was laid out on the "Zion
Plan," with four homes to the block and ten-acre farms
surrounding it. Wide streets and neatly landscaped yards with
corrals and barns are still characteristic of the town. Home
industries, including gardening, home canning, livestock
raising, quilting and making of handicrafts continue as a
rich part of the community life.
Many current residents, as in the case in most
Utah communities, trace their roots to a few hardy pioneers.
Those frequently associated with Escalante are the families
of Willard, Henry, and Thomas Heaps; Hosiah Barker; Earnest
Griffin; Jared Porter; Don Carols Shirts; Napoleon and
Lorenzo Roundy; Perry Liston; William Henry Deuel; Joseph
Spencer; William Alvey; James McInelly; Morgan Richards;
William Cottam; and Andrew P. Schow, who served as Mormon
bishop and leader of the community for thirty-five
years.
During the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps
(CCC) camps set up under federal New Deal legislation brought
new life to the community and improved roads to Posey Lake
and Boulder. However, increased government management of
public lands brought new and sometimes onerous restrictions
to some whose livelihood was based on the land. World War II
saw a migration to the industrialized cities, as local growth
was limited to what the natural resources could
sustain.
Hardy pioneers, closely knit by family and
neighborhood relationships, build a strong, conservative
community. Isolated from major highways and large cities, the
people battled the elements to build irrigation systems,
electrical and telephone services (which eventually became
locally owned), service stations, a bank, an airport, and
other facilities which have made Escalante an important oasis
for the thousands of tourists who visit the area each year.
Visitors come to hike the Escalante River, follow the
historic Hole-in-the-Rock Trail, view ancient Indians
structures and rock art, traverse the magnificent Burr Trail
to Lake Powell, and drive the 120-mile-long "Scenic
By-Way"-Highway 12-connecting Bryce Canyon National Park<
and Capitol Reef National Park, along which Escalante is
located in the middle.
The community is still dependent on a
multiple-use-of-resources system with tourism, livestock, and
timber the mainstays of the local economy. The community
remains predominately Mormon; students attend the local
elementary school, the junior high school, and the high
school. Escalante reached its largest population in 1940 with
1,161 residents, but it has dropped to its lowest number, 638
inhabitants, by 1970. Since 1970 the population has gradually
increased to 818 in 1990.