"At a priesthood meeting at Mt. Pleasant in September 1877, encouragement was given to settle Castle Valley. Christian G. Larsen was chosen leader. Soon after, seventy-five men from the various wards in Sanpete Stake were called, but only a few responded. Subsequently Orange Seely was called to superintend the founding of these settlements. In the fall of 1878 the Church authorities made a second call and several more responded. Vivid memories of the Black Hawk War and the not too favorable reports on the region made volunteers reluctant to chance moving again. Even the Indians avoided this country. They said the water gave their women 'big necks' and that the winds blew unmercifully. Their name for the valley was 'Blow Valley'."

The first attempt at forming a colony on Huntington Creek was in November 1877, when a group of settlers from Fairview answered the call. This company travelled through Spanish Fork and Soldier canyons and what two years later would be Price, Utah. Included were Elias and Jehu Cox, Benjamin and Heber Jones, Fredrick Fenn, William H. Avery, Anthony Humbel, Elam Cheney, Charles H. Holingshead and Elam McBride. Four women, Sarah Jane Jones, Eliza J. Avery, Rilda McBride and Olive Humbel, were also in the company. They built dugouts on the north side of the creek and stayed in the valley that winter.

In the spring the Avery ditch was dug to convey water to the Avery homestead and others. Crops were planted and watered once or twice, but the prospects of realizing a good harvest were so poor that by July the settlers had all left Huntington Creek to return to their former homes.