Spanish Fork began at two sites: the upper settlement in 1850-51 in the southeast river bottoms, and Palmyra in 1851. Fearing Indian trouble, settlers built an adobe fort between the two places in 1854, two blocks south of this site, with walls two feet thick and twenty feet high. Homes were built inside the fort with portholes in each compartment, a well in the center provided water, and the only entrance was a gate four feet thick and sixteen feet high.