Spanish Fork's early settlers established their burial ground on a bluff overlooking the river as they endured the uncommon hardships of building a community in a barren land on a foundation of faith. Arriving first in 1850, they lived in wagon boxes, tents, and dugouts along the river bank and relied on one another for survival as they plowed, sowed crops, herded cattle, irrigated, and built roads and bridges. They faced hunger, hostile natives, disease, grasshoppers, and crop failure, and when death occurred, they mourned together. In 1855, under the direction of George A. Smith, first counselor to LDS Church President Brigham Young, Stake President James Chauncey Snow chartered and surveyed Spanish Fork City by combining the upper and lower settlements. The settlers' lives, deeds, devotion, strength, and courage became a lasting legacy in the early history of Spanish Fork.