Conference Program

8:00 – 4:00 PM

OSTA Governing Board Meeting @ Fish Lake Lodge, Fish Lake, HWY 25.

10:00 - 5:00PM

Tour 1: Forest archeologist Bob Leonard will lead a tour from Red Creek (also adjacent Interstate 70) up the adjacent mountain slope to the most dramatic remnants of the Fish Lake Cut-off, in the form of deep ruts caused by horse and mule hooves (from which the dust stirred was subsequently blown away by the wind).

Will depart from the Sevier Valley Center at 10:00am. Enter the building from the west parking lot and meet in the lobby. Please bring your own lunch and water and sturdy shoes for hiking.

10:00 - 5:00PM

Tour 2: The tour led by Col. Al Matheson will cover portions of the Old Spanish Trail north of Green River, Utah through Emery County toward the trail entrance into the mountains and the Fish Lake Cut-off (near Interstate 70).

Tour Options are: Meet the leader at 8:00 am at Sevier Valley Center, Richfield or join the group at 10:00 am in Green River, Utah at the John Wesley Powell Museum.

4:00 – 7:00PM

Opening Reception at the Fish Lake Lodge, Conference registrants only.

Friday, June 15 and Saturday June 16, 2012

Greeting and opening remarks by the OSTA board members and federal agency sponsors.

Plenary session talk by Dr. Joseph Sanchez, perhaps revising some details on the Dominguez-Escalante initial blazing of the first segment of the Old Spanish Trail.

Break-out sessions on a great variety of treatments of Spanish Trail portions mainly in Utah, their history, geography and still visible features.

Discussion of the Fish Lake Cut-off, by its rediscoverer, Fishlake National Forest archeologist, Bob Leonard and assistant, Lydia Jakovac.

Biographical papers on such other trail explorers as Antonio Armijo, Jedediah Smith William Wolfskill, William Workman, and sketches of the work of Army Corps of Topographical Engineer surveys in the decade after the commerce trail closed in 1848, by John W. Gunnison, Edward F. Beale, John C. Fremont and John N. Macomb.

Sharing of experiences by modern travelers exploring and tracing the trail including reports of detailed studies of such segments as those in Emery County (approaching the Fish Lake Cut-off)

Program on cultural resource management and protection including important segments (and frequently threatened by gas and power line construction) in Holt Canyon and Mountain Meadows farther southwest.

Discussion of the trail slave trade, primarily capturing Paiute women and children to sell in New Mexico, will be discussed by Sondra Jones, a longtime scholar on that subject.

Dr. Lyman Platt will probe into possible Jesuit missionary stations in what was later Utah in the early 1700s.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Note: You must sign up for tours when you register for the conference

10:00 – 1:00PM

Tour 3: Fishlake NF, archeologist Bob Leonard and historian Wade Allinson will lead two tours from Red Creek (adjacent I70) up the adjacent mountain slope to the most dramatic remnants of the Fish Lake Cut-off, in the form of deep ruts caused by horse and mule hooves.

9:00 - 1:00PM

Tour 4: Steven Heath will lead a tour from Central, Sevier County (near Richfield) along the East Fork of the Sevier River, up the main branch of the Sevier to Circleville, Piute County, then through the mountains into the Parowan-Paragonah area (on I-15).