Tuscoro: Sanpete Monuments

Originally Posted July 2017

Photos Courtesy of My Sweet Amy

If there is anything I have learned in the many years past, is don't believe everything you're told. and yet after all these years, I find I fell for it again...

I recall asking a few individuals back in the days about a certain mountain range regarding evidences of Spanish occupation, I was always told the same old cliché The Spanish were never in those mountains as there is no mineral... well, that's what they said about the Silver Reef area.

last year in the late fall after the first snow falls, a friend was going through some old pictures he had taken in 1999. He came across a picture of a monument he had found but at the time I did not understand the implication... After he shared it with me I was shocked yet not surprised in that it was located in the heart of this place where I was always told the Spanish never were...

Since then another friend shared with me another set of old photos sent to him by another, this within a week of the first photo and it is in the same area where the Spanish never were...

I patiently waited, not... all winter long watching from my front door as the snow declined, after several failed attempts due to very large snow drifts, we finally made it, Thank You Dave Holman (Now diseased, RIP My Friend) for your persistence and patents. We still have the first monument I was shown to find, but I think we are getting closer to that day...

It would seem, not only were the Spanish in these mountains and one has to ask why? and as it would seem according to the science of Lichenometry, (Crustose Lichen) their likely occupation of this area was near 350 to 400 years ago, and this may be a conservative estimate, or is it? Why does the academic world still insist that Escalante of 1776 who was merely following a very old trail, was the first Spaniard to enter into the mountains of Utah. However in this area the Lichenometry can be deceptive. As it would seam if the area is known and prone to have been inundated with rain storms, the Crustose Lichen growth is accelerated to a point where in the dating estimates are no longer reliable... unless you have something to gauged by... stories abound in the area regarding these monuments as to who built them bringing in questionable authenticity. Do I believe these were built by Spanish? Well... yes but the Lichen for me can no longer be the reason... other factors had to be established as a foundation for that. Some have viewed this larger monument as a long distant marker of which it most certainly is not.

One individual told me that scouts or boys had built these monuments as some project, however unknowing to this individuals, if this were true, he would have the explain certain characteristics which the boys or scouts would not have know nor were they capable....

Following is the pictures of my Protege's and I, and of these monuments, made by Spaniards who were not here... comparing the lichen growth, taking into considerations the likelihood of rainfall at this mountain location and two of my lichen test sites, I would still place the age of these rocks since having been moved at at least 250 years. Keep in mind at one such test site at a local cemetery where in the sprinklers are on every other day, a headstone with the date 1898 has crustose lichen spores this size shown below and larger, Regardless, scouts nor boys could not have known this nor were they capable of faking the lichen growth. (Rule of thumb under normal growth in the high country desert climates, a single spore the size of a dime equals about 100 years.) Another test site in the valley below at a well known building built 102 years ago has a single spore on the concrete rail of the entry the size of a dime.

Also built into this larger monument is something the scouts or boys would not have known, a perfect clear and obvious pointer incorporated with the site window. One monument has been added to in recent years, perhaps scouts or boys?

There is a few more little tricks which tells me who did NOT build these...