Porterville was settled by members of the Porter family after Sanford Porter Jr., serving as a scout in the winter of 1857-58, rode into a rocky, difficult canyon he named Hardscrabble and found a stream and abundant timber suited for a sawmill. In 1859 the family hauled machinery and supplies over the Wasatch Mountains by pack mule and built the first sawmill in Morgan County. In 1860 Sanford Sr. and Nancy Warriner Porter built a cabin five miles east of the mill and spent the first winter there, and during the following two years their sons Chauncy, John, Sanford Jr., and Lyman built log homes and moved their families into the valley. For several years after the settlers arrived, Chief Washakie and his band of Shoshone Indians returned each fall to hunt, fish, dry meat, and pick berries. In 1863 English converts began to arrive, and in 1864 a branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized. When the railroad was built through Morgan County, the Porter Mill furnished ties for the track from Echo to Devil’s Gate.