In the early spring of 1885, six men from Hooper, Utah—John, Edward, and William Priest, Smith Johnson, and Edwin and Abiah Wadsworth Jr.—came to this area to homestead, each building a log house on his claim before returning to Utah for his family. Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake, learned of the small settlement, and in 1886 Apostle John W. Taylor was sent to organize the group into a branch of the Bannock Stake, headquartered in Rexburg, Idaho. The ward was named in his honor, William Priest became the first bishop, and the first church meetings were held in Abiah Wadsworth Jr.'s home. By 1886, a log structure for public use had been erected on land donated by John Priest, and the first teacher was John Henry Evans, the church recorder. In the mid 1890s, a second multi-purpose building, a two-room white frame structure measuring 39 by 60 feet, was built, but it burned in the winter of 1904, destroying all church and school records. A two-room brick building was completed in 1905, and church services, school, and dances were held there until a church was constructed in 1915. To irrigate the arid, sagebrush-covered land, the pioneers dug a 10-mile canal from Eagle Rock to the north, and in 1890 they raised hay and grain as their first crops. The Taylor Cemetery was established in April 1887 when Abiah Wadsworth Jr. and William Arave bought 5 acres for $65 to bury Ellen, the infant daughter of Sarah and Abiah Wadsworth Jr.