There can be no doubt that the first agricultural settlement in northern
Arizona was by a Mormon party, led by Henry W. Miller, which made
location at Beaver Dams, on the north bank of the Virgin River on the
earlier Mormon road to California. On a tract of land lying six miles
below the point where the river emerges from a box canyon, land was
cleared in the fall of 1864, crops were put in "and then the enterprise
was dedicated to the Lord," according to a report by the leader at Salt
Lake. An item in the Deseret News tells that Miller was "called" in the
fall of 1863 to go to the Virgin.
Early in 1865, another report told, "affairs in the settlement are
progressing very satisfactorily. A large number of fruit trees and
grapevines have been set out. Corn, wheat and other vegetation are
growing thriftily and the settlers are very industriously prosecuting
their several useful vocations, with good prospects of success."
There was notation of some trouble because beavers were numerous and
persisted in damming irrigation ditches. In 1867 a river flood destroyed
much of the results of the colonists' labors and there was abandonment of
the location. Between 1875 and 1878 settlers began to come again and a
thriving community now is in existence at that point, known as
Littlefield. It is to benefit in large degree by plans approved by the
Arizona Water Commissioner, for damming of the canyon for storage of
water to irrigate land of the Virgin Valley toward the southwest.
Littlefield is the extreme northwestern settlement of the present Arizona
five miles south of the Utah line and three miles east of the Nevada
line.
In the same fall conference of 1864 that sent Anson Call on his
pioneering expedition, there was designation of a large number (183,
according to Christopher Layton) of missionaries, to proceed, with their
families, to the Muddy and lower Virgin, thereon to establish colonies
that might serve as stations in the great movement toward the Pacific.
Undoubtedly, full information was at hand concerning the country and its
possibilities, for the colonists began to arrive January 8, 1865, before
there could have been formulation of Call's report. Thos. S. Smith was in
charge of the migration, and after him was named St. Thomas, one of the
settlements. May 28, Andrew S. Gibbons settled at St. Thomas, sent as
Indian interpreter. Joseph Warren Foote led in a new settlement at St.
Joseph.