Two forts stood on this site in 1854-55. Settlers called the first Little Fort. On February 7, 1854, Mormon pioneers sent twenty-five men from other central Utah settlements to begin work on the small fort, which covered about one-and-one-half acres and had a single gate on the west side. Using stone quarried from nearby canyons, they built walls 7 feet high and 2 feet thick, and inside they built adobe and rock homes and a meeting house and school. Completed on March 1, 1854, it housed the thirty-nine original settlers, most of whom came from Manti. Some had lived in Ephraim earlier but moved to Manti for safety from Native Americans whose traditional hunting grounds they had settled. An account by these early Mormon settlers says that Native Americans moved wickiups close to the small fort and were often in the fort and homes. The settlers gave food and clothing to Native Americans, and some worked for the Mormon settlers. So many settlers arrived in Fort Ephraim in 1854 that the same year Little Fort was completed, construction began on a larger fort that would enclose the smaller one. Most of the new arrivals were Mormon converts from Denmark who immigrated to Salt Lake City and were then sent by Brigham Young to "Little Denmark," as Ephraim became known. Finished in 1855, Big Fort enclosed Little Fort and the block north. It included the entire block east of Main Street and north to First North, forming a rectangle. Its walls were 4 feet thick and 14 feet high on the north side and 7 feet high on the rest of the perimeter, and it had both east and west gates. Along with houses around the perimeter inside the fort, there was a tannery, sawmill, tithing house, bowery, and post office. Officially named Fort Ephraim, it covered seven and one half acres and cost $12,000. Although the only extant map shows a square fort, the street names mark the correct location.