The Paiutes, hunter-gatherers with limited agriculture, are believed to have moved into Utah about A.D. 1100-1200 and called this area Timpoweap, or “Rock Canyon,” a deep gorge where the Virgin River emerges from the Hurricane Fault. Their first probable contacts with Europeans came with the Escalante-Dominguez party in 1776 and Jedediah Smith in 1826 and 1827, before increasing European passage and Mormon settlement in the 1850s and later contributed to dwindling native numbers through displacement and disease. The confluence of Ash Creek, La Verkin Creek, and the Virgin River, about one mile below the hot sulphur springs along the fault line, was a place of major historical importance: Dominguez and Escalante observed Paiute irrigation farming there in 1776, the first historical reference to American irrigation, and later expeditions including Parley P. Pratt’s southern expedition of 1849-80 and the John Steele-J.C.L. Smith exploration of 1852 used the fordable river junction as a landmark. Although the Virgin River had cut so deeply into the volcanic walls of Timpoweap Canyon that water could not be taken directly to the tablelands above, the fertile soil and good forage allowed pioneers from Toquerville and Virgin town to use the benchland for grazing while hoping to irrigate the flats. Hurricane was first settled in 1906 and took its name after a whirlwind blew the top off a buggy carrying Erastus Snow, who named the place “Hurricane Hill”; locally, Hurricane is pronounced “Her-ah-kun.” In eastern Washington County, the community was established as part of Brigham Young’s Cotton Mission, developed agricultural production including a large LDS Church peach and apricot orchard, and became known for peaches, pecans, and pistachio nuts. By 2020, Hurricane Valley’s population was estimated at over 25,000 residents.