My name is Ella, and I’m a history-loving Senior at PCHS. The following is the first article in a three-part series on Indigenous Americans in the Park City area for the Park City Museum.
A few years ago, I found myself staring at the pictured plaque at our charming local history museum. Other than a brief mention in a nearby narrated history video, however, this small sign is the museum’s only reference to Indigenous Americans in the local area. I decided to dive deeper, to better understand Park City’s history before there was a Park City. What I discovered surprised me: our mountain town is rich in connection with Native Americans.
Credit: Park City Historical Society & Museum
Paleoindians
After the last ice age ended approximately 16,000 years ago, the Bering Land Bridge created a pathway for people to enter North America from Asia. Up to approximately 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, evidence shows that North America was occupied by “Paleoindians.”
These earliest Americans were nomadic hunter-gatherers, with typical prey including sloths, bison, and mammoths. It is likely that Paleoindians camped along the shores of lakes and streams.
Interestingly, the Utah climate during this period was cooler and wetter (and the Great Salt Lake was not salty yet). It is unclear if the mountains of Summit County were an attractive or accessible seasonal hunting spot for Paleoindians. The existing physical evidence of Paleoindians suggests they did live in caves along the Great Salt Lake Desert.
Archaic Period
The period between 8,500 and 2,500 years ago contains ample evidence of Indigenous Americans in northern Utah, including Summit County. The Archaic peoples were hunter-gatherers that lived on the available plants and animals in Utah. With warmer and dryer temperatures during this period, it is likely that the Wasatch Mountains became more accessible.
While only a small number of caves and sites have been excavated, evidence in the Hogup Cave in northwestern Utah, for example, shows that they hunted several large animals still present today in the Wasatch Mountains, including the pronghorn antelope, mule deer, bison, and bighorn sheep.
Some sites, like Swallow Shelter at an elevation of nearly 6,000 ft in the Goose Creek Mountains of western Box Elder County, show a community more dependent on mountain sheep and marmots, along with prickly-pear pads and the seeds of wild grasses. While there is little physical record available to depict how the Archaic People lived, they appear to be some of the earliest known inhabitants of northern Utah.
Approximately 2,500 years ago (about the time that Ancient Greece formed its democracy), something happened causing the population of Archaic peoples to plummet in the area. Interestingly, that time period (roughly starting in 500 BC) corresponds to a global drop in both temperature and precipitation. This drought affected much of western North America and was one of several to impact that region over the next thousand years.
Perhaps the Archaic peoples migrated to different geographies in search of more reliable food and more hospitable weather. Their shift from hunting and gathering to a reliance on Maize coincidentally occurred at about this time, suggesting a possible intentional change to more predictable sources of food.
The Fremont Culture
Then, about 1,500 years ago (around 500 AD) a new people appeared in Utah. Known as the Fremont, they appeared to have a more complex and specialized society, producing pottery and structures made of stone or adobe. Evidence suggests that the Fremont people had a substantial footprint in northern Utah, including around the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake.
While this evidence shows permanent or semi-permanent villages, they “also used temporary campsites while hunting or gathering food in the mountainous areas like Summit County,” according to anthropologist Steven R. Simms. To be clear, that suggests that at around the time of the fall of the western Roman Empire (~500AD), the Fremont were seasonally present in the greater Park City area.
Around 750 years ago (1200 AD) and much like the Archaic Peoples, the Fremont people vanished from the current historical record of Utah. While climate change may also have played a role, some researchers have suggested that the arrival of the Shoshonean people in northern Utah caused or contributed to the decline.
Next week will continue the conversation on Native peoples in the Park City area.
The Park City Museum is hosting a lecture titled “The Land is Alive: Indigenous Views on Nature,” given by former Chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation Darren Parry on Wednesday, May 7, from 5-6 p.m. at their Education and Collections Center located at 2079 Sidewinder Drive.