In the early winter of 1854, Jacob Hamblin, Samuel Knight, Thales Haskell, A.P. Hardy, and Ira Hatch came to the Santa Clara Valley, built a log cabin and a rock dam to divert water from Santa Clara Creek, and in the spring of 1855, with help from other missionaries sent to the Southern Indian Mission, expanded the cabins into a fort; before 1861, other settlers, including missionaries' families, also located in Santa Clara. In April 1861, a company of Mormon converts from Switzerland under mission president Jabez Woodward left their native land for Zion in Western America, traveled by way of Liverpool, New York, and Florence, Nebraska, crossed the plains with essential food, clothing, and cooking utensils, reached Salt Lake City in September, and at the October 1861 conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were among 309 missionaries called to southern Utah. The Swiss Company, consisting of 87 Swiss people living in various parts of northern Utah, was sent to Santa Clara to raise grapes and cotton, where an Indian mission had already been established and about 20 families were living at the fort or nearby when the settlers arrived on November 28, 1861. They endured wind, rain, heat, floods, and disease, lived in dugouts until homes were built, planted orchards, gardens, and fields, and helped bring a prosperous village to life, with many descendants of those original Swiss pioneers still living in Santa Clara. Santa Clara's first meetinghouse, completed in 1863 on the northwest corner of the lot, was a one-room 40' x 28' building used for church, civic, school, and recreational activities, with a curtain that could divide it into two meeting areas; later another room was added as a stage, with a jail built underneath. Santa Clara children learned reading, writing, and arithmetic there, and families worshipped there on Sundays until 1902. The red-bricked Santa Clara Chapel, built in 1897 on the southwest corner of the square and dedicated on April 27, 1902, served for Sunday church meetings and weekday school classes, was heated by a wood-burning stove and cooled by electric fans in the windows, and its red sandstone steps became a gathering place for children, group pictures, and visiting before the building was torn down to make way for a new chapel.