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Fort Pierce, Utah
Washington County, Utah is a very rugged, rough land and the early pioneers had to carve out roads by hand and
couldn't just cut through hills as the
builders of the highways of today do. Most roads followed the contours of the land, going around the hills and through the
natural cuts and valleys
even though it often wasn't the most direct route. In the pioneer days one of the main
roads in the county was the Warner Valley Gap Road. Its
route went through Fort Pearce, up the Hurricane Fault via a steep dugway, and then on to Pipe Spring,
Moccasin Springs, Kanab, and Long
Valley. One hundred years before the pioneers used this route Father Escalante, Father Dominguez and their party camped at
the site of the
future Fort Pierce spending the night and making use of the water there.
Fort Pierce was built along this thoroughfare about twelve miles southeast of St. George near the Arizona
border near the base of the Hurricane
cliffs. The fort was used for just four years but portions of its rock walls can still be seen today. John
D.L. Piercewas the captain of a cavalry
troop that were charged to protect the new settlements and livestock from Indian raids
during the Blackhawk War. He built the fort at the site of a
spring and wash (both of which now bear his name.) At one point in 1865 it was reported that 20 to
30 men were guarding there. For many years
after this the abandoned Fort Pierce was a watering place for travelers and their stock.
Historian Karl Larsen described the fort saying: "The fort was constructed as a rectangle, its length being
well over thirty feet on the inside. One
small window faces west, the door to the structure apparently being on the east side. There are two rooms, the one on the
north being
considerably the larger, while the remains of a crude fireplace are still to be seen in the south
wall. Since there was no roof on the structure, about
the most charitable thing one might say of the fort is that it served well as a wind-break. At the northwest
and southeast corners flankers were
built which communicated with the interior of the fort. Each flanker has four portholes at levels convenient for
defense, one facing each direction,
so that the approaches to the fort from any angle could be covered by the defenders. Additional portholes were placed in
the main rectangle. The
flankers are rectangular in shape with inside dimensions of about four by seven feet."
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