🠈 Uintah County 🠊
In the 1860s, Brigham Young sent a group of pioneers to explore and settle region bordering the Green River in Northeastern Utah. The explorers came back and reported "[the area] was one vast contiguity of waste and measurably valueless."
Being of magnanimous spirit, Brigham Young saw the area as fit for the Native Americans who were being systematically displaced from the richer lands of the state. Abraham Lincoln was president at the time and Lincoln administration formerly established the Uintah Ouray Reservation which covers the southern reaches of Uintah County, Most of Duchesne County, the Northern reaches of Grand County were set aside as Indian land.
The actual settlement of Uintah County followed the homestead model that was common throughout the Western US. An agent for the Uintah Reservation named Captain Pardon Dodds created a settlement called Ashley which later moved a few miles and became the county seat Vernal.
In 1886, the US Army created a fort called Fort Duchesne which. The fort was deactivated in 1912 but the town lives on as the headquarters for the Ute Indian Tribe.
In 1918, the northern portion of the county was spit off to create Daggett County.
The 2010 Census recorded the population of the county as 32,588. The 2015 population estimate is 37,928.