Sam Gates and other settlers of Fort Bingham/2nd street area said to respect Indians’ seasonal camping on the meadows “that gradually became pastures with fences”

As copied from “Roads in Fort Bingham Estates,” a post on the Ogden history blog site History of 2nd Street, Ogden, Utah: Stories of Bingham’s Fort, Lynne, Five Points.

It is the spirit of the pioneers and Indians that prompted the developers to name the subdivision and the roads after pioneer home builders and Indian camps.  The subdivision of Fort Bingham began in 2004 about 140 years after the original Bingham’s Fort and about 100 years after the Italian immigration.  This large influx of 300 new homes starting in 2004 could be considered the third major era of settlement in Bingham’s Fort.

In the 1850s the area of today’s Fort Bingham Estates contained a very large pond, many natural springs and cottonwood trees, making it a natural camping ground for Indians.  For the same reasons it was an appealing area to the early settlers.  In addition to the available water and grasses for pasture, the soil was rich, so the farms here had prime areas for both cultivated land and meadow land.

The first land claim for the Fort Bingham area was made by Sam Gates in 1853 for 40 aces.  From 1850 to about 1855 land claims were free to the settlers, but in 1857 Sam Gates’ 40 acres were valued at $300.

As the settlers built homes and farms, the transient Indians camped on both sides of 2nd Street in the meadows that gradually became pastures with fences.  Most of Indians left in the fall and returned in the spring setting up camps again in the meadows.  This ritual of leaving and returning to the meadows was respected by Sam Gates and the other settlers for over fifty years until the turn of the century.

A collection of documents, excerpts, and photographs relevant to the so-called Weber Ute people of Northern Utah. Not a complete history — research aid only.