A bit of pre-history and history along US-89 in Utah.
What does the gunslinger Butch Cassidy and the Fremont Indians have in common? Nothing actually. I just visited a couple of places dedicated to both along US-89 on the same day.
Butch Cassidy. Taken in 1901.
Butch Cassidy (real name Robert Leroy Parker) was a famous Old West outlaw in the end of the 19th century. He was born in Beaver, Utah in 1866. His family moved to a ranch in the absolute middle of nowhere Utah when he was 14, living here for 4 years. (Now located on US-89, south of Circleville.)
The family homestead.
A lot of kids would have had to fit in this house.
I accidentally found Butch Cassidy’s Childhood Home on complete accident. I was driving north on US-89 and saw a sign. So yes, I had to stop.
Now onto Fremont Indian State Park and Museum. The Fremont Indians (a modern-day name, we don’t know what they called themselves) inhabited areas of Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from about 1 CE to 1301 CE. They lived about the same time as the Ancestral Puebloans of the Colorado Plateau. (Much on them in a bunch of posts.)
They were probably not one group, but many with a common language and similar customs. They were hunter gatherers, with some farming. They moved around with the seasons and left traces, such as villages, hunting camps and pictographs.
An example of a pit house in the park museum.
The largest Fremont village ever found is in Utah. While constructing Interstate 70, a large hilltop village was found. The ruins were excavated, and a state park was founded to protect what remained, including a bunch of petroglyphs (carved) and pictographs (painted). The photos of both are highly edited to make them clearer.
Model of what the village on the hill would have looked like.
What is left of the hill after I-70 was constructed.
The state park has a bunch of easy trails that take you to awesome ancient art. They even have great handouts you can borrow that explains everything.
It may be right next to a freeway, but it is a really pretty area.
A petroglyph panel with big horn sheep. Maybe a hunting scene.
Another panel with big horn sheep. Animals played an important part in the lives of the Fremont.
A ceremony perhaps? Petroglyphs are hard to decipher. Only the Fremont would truly know what they meant.
This panel features deer, big horn sheep and dogs.
A fantastic view of the landscape.
The Canyon of Life Trail, even with the guide, was a complete scavenger hunt. I found petroglyphs not on the guide and couldn’t find others. It was actually kind of fun.
This one was pretty easy to find. It’s called the Beginning of Life Panel and is thought to explain the conceiving of life from the sun. Or something like that. On the Summer Solstice, the sun sends a dagger of light across the panel.
My next stop was the Cave of a Hundred Hands, which features painted handprints. The trail follows a river under the freeway to the cave.
Red and yellow handprints with some other pictographs dot the cave. Unfortunately, also some graffiti.
I’m not sure if there are actually a hundred hands, but this cave is pretty cool.
My second to last stop was the Arch of Art (which is not an arch). Thankfully the rain held off for me to explore this area. It’s a large rock face with a ton of petroglyphs and pictographs. Some were really easy to find, others not so much. A zoom lens was very necessary.
Much of the cliff face looked like this. “Coy” was a local lad that lived here back in the 1930s or 40s. He left his name all over the place.
The Fremont left many human figures like this all over the area. They represented different clans.
This panel has what archaeologists call “blankets”. They don’t know what they represent, just that they look like Navajo blankets.
The Hopi people believe this represents an initiation right. The Hopi are decedents of the Fremont peoples.
Lots of prime locations for panels of art.
Two panels are on this one. One has figures, the other was probably a hunting scene with deer and big horn sheep.
The park also has a fantastic museum telling the story of the Fremont people and is full of artifacts from the excavated village.
Fremont Indian State Park and Museum is a great place to explore the ancient history of Utah. It’s easy to get to along I-70 and US-89. Spend a few hours searching for petroglyphs, hiking and exploring a culture. Butch Cassidy’s Childhood Home is quite a bit further south, however.
Check out my next update where I visit Capitol Reef National Park!
