The
earliest Euro-American name comes from the Spanish, who called it Sierra
de la Sal, or "Mountain of the Salt." Frays Silvestre Velez de Escalante
and Francisco Atanasio Dominguez passed by the mountain in 1776, mentioning
in their diary that it was "so called for there being salt beds next
to it from which . . . the Yutas hereabouts provide themselves." Highway
1919 follows the general path of the old Spanish Trail as it makes its
way through Spanish Valley where caravans of traders used to camp on
Mill and Pack creeks before venturing across the Colorado River.
The
first Anglo-American settlers of the area were Mormons, who formed the
Elk Mountain Mission (1855) at present-day Moab because of the availability
of water and timber there. Their settlement had lasted less than a year
when neighboring Utes destroyed their fort and drove them back to the
Wasatch Front. Other settlers followed in the late 1870s. Many of them
were Mormons, but unlike the previous group, they were not officially
called but rather drifted east from Sevier and Sanpete counties in search
of resources. There was also a substantial population of non-Mormons
who came from the mining and livestock industries of Colorado.