Chief Sagwitch and his wife Beawoachee in 1880. (Click to enlarge)

Chief Little Soldier. (Click to enlarge)

Northwestern Shoshone – Early Sojourners of Ogden Valley 
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Prior to the permanent settlement of Ogden Valley, this was the summer home to the Northwestern Shoshone, the Newe people, as they were known among themselves. Anga-we-ya-dye (where the red berries grow) was the Shoshone name describing this mountain valley hideaway. “Red berries” likely indicates the rich supply of life-sustaining berries found here—elderberry, currents, service berry, hawthorn, and the ever-abundant chokecherry.

The Shoshone resided in portable, conically shaped shelters known as kahni-a (tipi) erected with interlocking pine poles wrapped in a buffalo skin covering. Tipis were carefully designed to set up and take down quickly. An entire Shoshone village could be packed up and ready to move on within an hour.

According to the digital archive “Utah American Indian,” “The Shoshone people were very mobile and skilled at hunting and gathering, and with each change of the season they migrated to obtain the food and other resources they depended on to survive. In the early autumn, the Northwestern Shoshones moved into the region near what is now Salmon, Idaho, to fish. After fishing was over, they moved into  western Wyoming to hunt buffalo, elk, deer, moose, and antelope. They sun-dried the meat for winter and used the hides as clothing and shelter. In the spring and summer, the Northwestern Shoshones traveled around southern Idaho and throughout Utah. During these months, they spent their time gathering seeds, roots, and berries and socializing. In late summer, they dug roots and hunted small game. Around late October, the band moved into western Utah and parts of Nevada for the annual gathering of pinyon nuts (or pine nuts), a nutrient-rich food that formed an important part of the Shoshone diet. The wintering home of the Northwestern Shoshones was in an area around what is now Preston, Idaho. Based on these migration patterns, experts have claimed that the Northwestern Shoshones were among the most ecologically efficient and well-adapted Indians of the American West.”

In the first half of the 19th Century, this valley fell within the territory of the Northwestern Shoshone, which stretched from Davis County to Northern Idaho and Wyoming to Nevada, led by Chief Sagwitch and Chief Little Soldier. Trappers and explorers, including Peter Skene Ogden, Osborne Russell, and Captain Howard Stansbury, interacted with Shoshone in and around Ogden Valley during this time period. During the settlement years (1850-1900) of Eden, Huntsville and Liberty, frequent encounters between settlers and Shoshone occurred resulting in both trade and friendships.

The Shoshone subsisted on critical resources this location provided—water, fish, and small and larger game, along with various berries, roots, and seeds. When immigrants began arriving in the mid 1800’s, competition for these resources soon created conflict. Infectious disease, appropriation of land and water by settlers, the transcontinental railroad, and consequent warfare each played a part in the decimation of the Shoshone population. On January 29, 1863, hundreds of Northwestern Shoshone lost their lives at the infamous Bear River Massacre near Preston, Idaho, some 60 miles north of this Valley location.

Today, Northwestern Shoshone no longer frequent Ogden Valley in large numbers as they once did. In spite of their assimilation into modern American society, local Northwestern Shoshone continue to preserve and maintain their identity and rich culture.

​Note: Dave Martin of Eden and Darren Parry, former Chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, contributed to this history. A similar version can be found on Eden’s new historical monument located in the southwest corner of Eden Park.