Kamas was first
known as "Rhoades Valley," named for Thomas Rhoades, the owner of the
original territorial land grant. Rhoades first came to the valley in
1859 with about twenty other Mormons including W.O. Anderson, John Turnbow,
John Simpson, Morgan Lewis, Daniel Lewis, Alma Williams, Clinton Williams,
Richard Venable, Richard Pangburn, John Lambert, and their families.
The group clustered together in a fort near a spring on the east side
of the valley for the first several years. The log fort was sixteen
feet high and the fort walls formed the backs of the houses. Before
the group vacated the fort, thirty-two families had lived in it. A log
building in the fort's center was used as a schoolhouse, meetinghouse,
amusement hall, and center of government. Before the land was surveyed
and divided into town lots between 1869 and 1870, squatter's rights
prevailed. The town was incorporated in 1912; one of the town's first
orders of business was the election of James Orlan Pack as mayor. Religion played a key role in Kamas's development. Many early town leaders were
also ecclesiastical leaders of some prominence. Brigham Young appointed
Captain Charles Russell the first presiding elder of Rhoades Valley
and the southern part of the area that would eventually become LDS Summit
Stake. After Russell moved from the area in 1867, Young appointed Ward
E. Pack in his place. Over the next four decades several members of
the Pack family served as bishops of the Kamas LDS Ward.