[Jackson Redding, Letter, Deseret News, December 1, 1853]

 

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            To the editor of the News.

            Sir,-- Believing for some years that a good road to California could be made in a westerly direction from Great Salt Lake City, cutting short about 250 miles of the old route, I was determined to explore the country 60 miles south of Hastings's cut off.  On the 31st of October I left Grantsville, 40 miles west of Great Salt Lake City, taking with me four Ute Indians, travelling in a southwest  direction about 30 miles to the summit of Cedar Mountain, where I found water and grass and about four miles further, on the west side of the mountain I found water but no grass. I then bore a little south of southwest, and after travelling a descent of about seven miles even ground, I found a spring and some grass, near some sand ridges at the edge of the desert. I then travelled west southwest eight miles, and found a spring and plenty of grass on the desert.  Still continuing in the same direction about nine miles I came to a granite rock in the midst of the desert, standing as a sentinel over the vast plain which surrounds it. It is about two miles one way and one-and-a-half miles another, towering about 150 feet.  In this rock I found a kanyon, which I travelled up about a mile, where I found a large spring and some grass.  Here I found some Indians camped, who informed me that the Pah-Utahs were preparing to attack the settlements in Tooele and Cedar Vallies. I thought it best to return and inform the inhabitants.

            The Indians also informed me that 18 miles further west, there was a large stream having cotton woods on the banks and containing fish of a good size.  They said that the stream flowed west and that it was six days travel down it to the emigrant road, near the sink of Carson River.

            As far as I have travelled, I have found it a first rate good wagon road (with the exception of about 150 yards on the Cedar Mountain where it was a little sidling, but not half as bad as I have travelled over on the Goose Creek route).  The desert on this route is not like the one on Hastings, as it is mostly hard gravelly ground.

            I also wish to say that I found a valley about nine miles south-west of Grantsville, and at the south end of Lone Rock Valley, about the size of Tooele. It has the greatest amount of pine and cedar timber that I have seen in these mountains.

            It is my intention to start on the 29th inst. and make a thorough search, and explore the route to the Mormon Station in Carson Valley, which I confidently believe is not over 450 miles.—Respectfully, your obedient servant,

JACKSON REDDING.

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