The road through Nine Mile Canyon was constructed in 1886 by the Buffalo Soldiers of the U.S. 9th Cavalry to connect Fort Duchesne to the railroad in Carbon County. Most stagecoaches, mail, and freight passed through Nine Mile into the Uintah Basin, leading to the development of the canyon and the small town of Harper, presently known as Preston Nutter Ranch. Harper’s population peaked by 1910. The arrival of the Uinta railroad rerouted traffic away from the canyon, and Harper became a ghost town by the early 1920s.