Captain John W. Gunnison, an army officer and explorer born in 1812, led a mapping expedition in 1853 to find a route for the Southern Pacific Railroad, mapped the Grand River in Colorado, and then moved west, camping west of the “G” hill on October 19; after traveling to Manti to mail a letter to his wife Martha and rejoining his company farther west, he and seven of his men were killed in an ambush by Pahvant Indians southwest of Delta early on October 26. In 1859, about 22 families traveled from Manti with wagons and ox-teams to settle on the south bank of the Sanpitch River at Chalk Hill Point, and a few months later another group from Utah County settled south of Rocky Point at Kearns Camp; for safety the two groups joined, but flooding after the heavy snows of the winter of 1861-1862 collapsed many dugouts and adobe dwellings, giving the area the name “Hog Wallow.” When Brigham Young visited in 1862, he urged the residents to move to higher ground, build a permanent community between the two original settlements, and name it Gunnison in honor of Captain John Gunnison. Chief Black Hawk, son of Chief Sanpitch, led the Utes against Mormon settlers during the Black Hawk War, which began in Manti on April 9, 1865, after numerous cattle raids and became the longest and bloodiest war in Utah history; about 150 skirmishes over the next seven years caused the deaths of 75 Mormon settlers and hundreds of Indians, a fort was built on Center Street in Gunnison, and in 1866 the Mormon Militia relocated people of Sevier Valley to Fort Gunnison for protection. Although Black Hawk made peace in 1867, other bands continued raiding until 1872 when the U.S. Army intervened; wounded by gunshot in 1866, Black Hawk died on September 23, 1870, after visiting white settlements from Cedar City to Payson to plead for peace. Gunnison Valley Bank opened on October 23, 1909, has remained locally owned and operated, and by 2017 was managed by the fourth generation of the Andersen family; as one of the last community banks, it supported local enterprise, accepted collateral ranging from dairy cows to water share, helped develop the turkey industry through a matching dollar-for-dollar loan program in the 1920s and 1930s, reopened quickly after the national bank holiday of 1933, earned praise for its condition after severe financial hardship, and recovered from its only robbery on January 23, 1929, when the thieves were soon captured by the Gunnison Posse.