During the third decade, 1868-1877, a total of ninety-three new settlements were established in Utah; important communities included Manila, in the northeastern corner of the state (1869); Kanab in southern Utah (1870); Randolph in the mountains east of Bear Lake (1870); Sandy (1870); Escalante (1875); and Price (1877). Continued expansion occurred in the Cache and Bear Lake valleys, the central and upper Sevier River area, and on the east fork of the Virgin River. An Indian farming mission was established at what is now Ibapah in western Tooele County. The Muddy River settlements of the 1860s, which were thought to have been in Utah, were found to be in Nevada. When Nevada demanded back taxes, many of the settlers moved to Long Valley in southern Utah, where they established Orderville in 1875.

An important colonization effort was the movement in 1877 of some of the residents of Sanpete County across the eastern mountains into Castle Valley in Emery County, along the Price River in Carbon County, the Fremont River in Wayne County, and Escalante Creek in Garfield County. Other important new colonies were founded in such unlikely spots as the San Juan County in southeastern Utah, Rabbit Valley (Wayne County) in central Utah, and remote areas in the mountains of northern Utah. Some of these were founded in the same spirit, and with the same type of organization and institutions, as those founded in the 1850s and 1860s: the colonies moved as a group, with church approval; the village form of settlement prevailed; canals were built by cooperative labor and village lots were parceled out in community drawings. Some of the colonies were given tithing and other assistance from the LDS Church.