Foundation This area was explored in 1862 by a group of men led by John and Charles Pulsipher, who were herding livestock owned by
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They drove the cattle from the
St. George area as far north as
Mountain Meadows, then explored much of the land lying south of the
Escalante Desert. They were favorably impressed with the Shoal Creek area and decided it would be a good place to settle with their families. Encouraged by the local
Paiutes, the pioneers brought their families and organized a
ranching community called
Shoal Creek. The Pulsiphers' father, prominent LDS leader
Zera Pulsipher, moved here in the fall of 1862 and became the local presiding church officer. A small
fort was built here in 1866, when the outbreak of the
Black Hawk War caused widespread fear of
Indian attacks. The larger community of
Clover Valley, located in the
Clover Valley of present-day
Nevada, was evacuated and its residents moved to the Shoal Creek fort. Gardens and
fodder grew well, and the settlement began to thrive. It became an important source of supplies for the
silver mining camps of eastern Nevada, particularly
Pioche, and later for nearby
Silver Reef, Utah. In 1867 a schoolhouse was built. In 1868, LDS
Apostle Erastus Snow came to form a congregation. The population was 75. Snow directed the
surveying of a formal townsite, which John Pulsipher named for the biblical
Hebron. Shoal Creek had been a scattered, loosely organized settlement, but Hebron became a fast-growing town. Soon it had a hotel, several stores,
freight offices, and in 1872 a
telegraph office.
Decline {{US Census population |align=left In common with other early settlements of
Utah's Dixie, Hebron's greatest obstacles had to do with water. Originally planned as a ranching community, it lacked sufficient water for the
irrigation of substantial farms. A wooden
flume was built to bring water from a nearby spring to water Hebron's farms, but it collapsed due to excessively wet weather in 1885. One of the former Clover Valley farmers named Orson Huntsman proposed to build a large
reservoir on Shoal Creek, but the plan was controversial and received little support from his neighbors. In 1891, Huntsman had a townsite surveyed below the proposed reservoir site, then filed a
desert land entry on the land, which he called
Enterprise. After some three years of seeking investors, he organized a formal company to construct the reservoir in 1893. Hebron's leaders responded by building a new, longer
aqueduct with additional dams, ditches, and roads. They tried to keep water and residents from flowing from Hebron to Enterprise, but families began to move where the farming prospects were better.
Destruction On November 17, 1902, Hebron was severely damaged by an earthquake centered at
Pine Valley, with an estimated
magnitude of 6 and an
intensity of VIII. Most of the rock homes in Hebron were irreparably ruined, and the exodus to Enterprise accelerated. The rest of Hebron's residents moved, selling their
water rights to the Enterprise Reservoir Company. In 1904, what was left of the town of Hebron sold all remaining water rights. The departing residents tore down the damaged buildings for the materials, leaving only rubble and a small cemetery. ==References==