Vernal, unlike most Utah towns, was not settled by Mormons. Brigham Young
sent a scouting party to Uintah Basin in 1861 and received word back the area
was good for nothing but nomad purposes, hunting grounds for Indians and
"to hold the world together." That same year, President Abraham
Lincoln set the area aside as the Uintah Indian Reservation, with Captain
Pardon Dodds appointed Indian agent
