The confluence of Ash and LaVerkin Creeks with the Virgin River was an important place in the region’s history, crossed over time by Indian bands, Spanish explorers, trappers, and settlers. In 1849, after being sent south by Brigham Young to find places with water, soil, timber, grazing, and climate suitable for settlement, the Southern Exploring Company was organized under Parley P. Pratt as a party of 50 men with wagons and provisions to explore to the rim of the Great Basin, into the Virgin River country, no farther than Las Vegas Springs, and return by spring. The party left Salt Lake on November 23, 1849, and over a journey of 716 miles faced deep snow, extreme cold, and rugged terrain, even pulling oxen up with ropes through the Tushar Mountains so they could pull the wagons. After camping at Heaps Spring on Christmas Eve, the company divided, with 30 men and the wagons remaining while 20 men rode south with Parley. On the night of December 30, 1849, they came down Ash Creek and camped on the broad floodplain at the confluence. After learning from Chief Toquer’s Indians that the river soon entered a narrow, precipitous gorge, they crossed near the confluence, climbed the bluff to the site of present-day Hurricane, turned west, and passed through the future St. George region on New Year’s Day 1850 before following the Santa Clara upstream past present-day Gunlock to Mountain Meadows and rejoining the rest of the party in Parowan on January 7. The return was even more dangerous, with marshes west of Beaver, heavy snows, frigid wind, exhausted men left behind near present-day Fillmore, and dwindling food; nearly snow blind, Pratt and Chauncey West traveled alone the last 50 miles to Provo, arriving on January 28, and although a rescue party set out within hours, the last of the expedition did not reach Salt Lake until March 28. Pratt reported to the legislature at least twenty six desirable settlement locations from Payson to Santa Clara, though he considered the Virgin River country dreary and called it a country in ruins. Many members of the company were later called to settle the Iron and Cotton Missions.