Utah Farmers and the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush

Miriam B. Murphy History Blazer, February 1996 Although the first years of white settlement in Utah brought many hardships, including food shortages, by the late 1850s local farmers were producing a surplus of food. Unfortunately, historian LeRoy R. Hafen noted, the nearest settled areas—California, Oregon, and New Mexico—lay hundreds of miles away over deserts and mountains, making profitable trade unlikely. …