In May 1857, an exploring party under the direction of W. W. Phelps visited this area seeking locations for future settlements, chose it as suitable, and Phelps offered a prayer dedicating it for the benefit of Israel, declaring that whoever lived there must live by faith and works in spirit and in truth. When settlers arrived in 1860, they lived close together for mutual protection and first built log homes next to each other in a rectangular fort that straddled the creek, giving them fresh water within the fort, after which the stream became known as Fort Creek. The fort stood at the present junction of Woodenshoe Lane and State Road 32. The area that became Peoa was then laid out as a town site with each settler receiving a strip of land about 12 rods wide, or about 12 acres, extending approximately east and west from the road toward the West Hills, with two building lots at the top of each farm beside the road. Because the entire town site was not used, a strip on the south end was divided into meadow claims of about 6 acres each, running perpendicular to the original claims south from what is now Marchant Lane, and after one claim was taken for each family, the land to the west and south was called The Undivided and was used in common by the whole community for grazing.