The history of Fountain Green
Fountain Green, Utah, grew from ground once called Uintah Springs, where four wagon drivers were killed in October 1853. Settlers founded the town in 1859, built it into a sheep-ranching community in Sanpete Valley, and still mark that industry each July with Lamb Day.
Fountain Green, Utah, began as Uintah Springs, ground where four wagon drivers were killed in October 1853, an act answered the next day by the massacre of seven uninvolved Goshutes at Nephi. Settlers founded the town in 1859, built it into a sheep-ranching community, and still mark that industry each July with Lamb Day.
Four wagon drivers killed, then a village of Goshutes
About three quarters of a mile from here stands a monument to the Fountain Green massacre. The men, driving ox-wagons loaded with wheat, had camped against orders from their leader, Isaac Morley. William Reed, James Nelson, William Luke, and Thomas Clark were killed, scalped, and disemboweled.
The next day brought a darker reply. A group of seven Goshutes, uninvolved and seeking peace, were invited into a fort at Nephi and murdered. A woman and two children from the group were enslaved. Their remains lay hidden in a mass grave until 2006, when searchers finally found them.
A Daughters of Utah Pioneers marker in Fountain Green's City Park tells one more piece of this story. Oral tradition holds that Isaac Morley, still angry at the four dead men for disobeying his orders, refused to let them be buried in the town cemetery. Their graves have never been found, despite later efforts to locate them.
Uintah Springs becomes Fountain Green
Settlers moved onto this ground in 1859 and called it Uintah Springs, for the springs and green pastures nearby. A post office opened the following year under the name Fountain Green, and the name stuck.
Sheep ranching shapes a small Sanpete town
Fountain Green grew slowly into a ranching town built on sheep. Each July the town still holds Lamb Day, with mutton busting, a parade down State Street, and a pit full of roasting lamb, a nod to the industry that built the place. By 2020, the town held just under 1,200 people, most of them living on quiet rural lots much like the open ground you're standing on now.
A young herdsman's death still marked north of town
North of town, a historical marker remembers Lewis Lund, an eighteen-year-old herdsman killed nearby. Weather and vandalism wore down the original stone, and the town later replaced it to keep his name standing.
Black Hawk War violence reaches Fountain Green's door
The violence of 1853 was not the last. During the Black Hawk War, Ute, Paiute, and other tribal fighters raided settlements across Sanpete County, Fountain Green among them. Settlers built a rock fort in town in 1866 after the fighting reached their doorstep, and at least one person here died in the conflict.
Open pasture and scattered houses surround you, with the town's small grid of streets a three-quarter-mile walk to the east.
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