137 years ago in January 1887
You are invited to come and celebrate
Saturday, January 20, 9:00 a.m.
At the site of the first home on the hill on Riverside Rd.
Stories, flag ceremony, music, refreshments
The home site has been preserved by several Eagle Scout projects with stairs to the hill, a sign, flag pole and the foundation has been preserved with a rock fence.
Edward Bunker Jr, Lemuel S. and Dudley Leavitt with 23 others came to Virgin Valley and on Sunday, January 7, Edward Bunker, Jr., holding a handful of wheat in one hand and a handful of soil in the other, dedicated the valley to be a home and refuge for settlement and for the growing of crops to sustain their families who would come later. In the next few weeks they cleared 75 A. of land and built a 2 1/2 mile ditch to bring water to the cleared land to grow sugar cane, wheat, cotton, corn and vegetables.
This narrow valley, 6 miles long and 3 miles wide, looked like a land of desolation to some. Sounds of the coyote and the Indians echoed off the mountains. The summer heat would make" lizard scurry from one little bush to another and flip over and blow on their toes." The sand was infertile, the Mesquite brush covered the land, there were mosquitoes and the temperamental river to try to tame. But there is a panorama with the mesa to the west with glorious sunsets, the Virgin Peak to the south rising 8,740' and Hancock Peak, 8,012' to the east.
