Historic meadow saved

Coalition buys Perkins Flat, where pioneers camped in 1847

A historic meadow in Emigration Canyon is being preserved as open space, thanks to the yearlong efforts of a coalition of several groups.

Perkins Flat, a 190-acre meadow believed to be where a scouting party of pioneers camped in 1847 en route to Salt Lake Valley, was purchased for $1.4 million by a group called Utah Open Lands. Funds came from Salt Lake County, the LeRay McAllister Critical Lands Funds, Envirocare Environmental Foundation, the Willard L. Eccles Foundation, the R. Harold Burton Foundation and some anonymous donors.

"It won't be official until Oct. 31," said Pearl Wright, director of the Envirocare Environmental Foundation. The land is being set aside both for its historic nature and to protect the watershed in Emigration Canyon.

According to a press release from the Open Lands group, the site is about three miles up Emigration Canyon. Proposals for its development "ranged from an eight-lot subdivision and commercial site to a 36-unit condominium and commercial project," says the release.

"The conservation easement will safeguard the land from development and forever protect the scenic beauty, wildlife habitat and historic value of the land."

Besides the scouting party, led by Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow, that camped on the site in 1847, the group adds, the Donner-Reed party also is believed to have camped there. This is the group whose trek to California ended stuck in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the winter of 1846, leading to starvation and many deaths.

"Utah Open Land is proud to protect a critical part of Utah's history and one of the last pieces of Emigration Canyon's rapidly disappearing open space," said Wendy Fisher, executive director of Open Land, quoted in the release.

The group says the property is tremendously valuable to the Jordan River watershed.

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com

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