In 1849, the Legislative Assembly in Salt Lake City commissioned Parley P. Pratt to lead the Southern Exploring Expedition and scout for new Mormon settlement sites. The expedition camped at a site that would become the town of Parowan and erected a flag pole that still stands today. Members recorded Parowan Gap in their journals, and several believed the Gap was the place the Ute leader, Chief Wakara, had called "God's own house." Two years later, Parowan became the first settlement in Southern Utah. Inscriptions made by early settlers became part of the site's historic record, but because the petroglyphs are now understood to be remarkable and irreplaceable, any writing on the rocks today is vandalism punishable by law.