Curlew Valley, named after the curlew snipe that nests there, extends from Snowville, Utah, to the Idaho towns of Stone and Holbrook. The first recorded White men in the valley were Peter Skene Ogden's large party of trappers, who camped on Deep Creek on December 27, 1828. On September 18, 1848, some discharged members of the Mormon Battalion, traveling from California to Salt Lake City, camped on Deep Creek and also in a cave one mile east called Hollow rock. Deep Creek begins at a large spring at Holbrook, runs through the center of the valley, and has never varied even in dry years. About one mile southwest is Rocky Ford, where pioneers were able to cross on solid rock. In 1869 William Robbins, Thomas Showell, and William M. Harris settled at the Curlew Sinks, ten miles west of here, where Deep Creek sinks into the ground, and the old pioneer trail and stage line passed through their ranch. The first townsite in Curlew Valley was Snowville, named in honor of President Lorenzo Snow and laid out on August 14, 1876.