North of Price, Utah, Nine Mile Canyon slashes through the West Tavaputs Plateau and erodes its way east to the Green River, Utah. In 1847, settlements began in Utah along the Wasatch Front. The rangeland was soon taken, and stockmen pushed up Spanish Fork Canyon to discover great grazing for their stock�and an amazing place where ancient people had lived, leaving homes and their stories on brown slate walls with inscriptions and paint. These stockmen were the first homesteaders in Nine Mile Canyon. Three families of early settlers were the Houskeepers, Algers, and Rich families, coming between 1885 and 1893.