Our last stop was the Freemont Indian State Park. We decided to stop here to learn more about Indians that may have lived in the area. The Fremont Indians were all gone by the time JD and the Great Brain were in Utah, but it was very interesting to learn about them. They lived in this valley about 700 years ago.

The State Park was made when the I-70 freeway was put in. The freeway follows the same trading route that the Fremont used hundreds of years ago, and many of the California settlers used this route too. But to build I-70 they had to take out the village that the Fremonts built. It was one of the best preserved settlements of the Utah Indians. It seems too bad.

Pictures (Click to enlarge)

The Fremont lived in pit houses. It was a small one-room house that was half underground. There wasn't a lot of wood to make walls, so they piled up branches and covered it with mud. The pit house helped keep them cool in the summer, and the fire inside would keep them warm in the winter.

What is a Metate?

A metate is a stone used for grinding corn into flour. At first, we couldn't figure out how it was used, but later we saw a display that explained it all. The smaller stone is called a mano and held in the hands and ground back and forth over the larger stone, called a metate.

These petroglyphs are about 1,000 years old! They are made by scraping a rock against the side of the mountain. This scrapes away the red layer on the outside of the sandstone, so the natural white color shows. The outside red layer is actually rust from the iron in the rocks.

There are still dishes to do, no matter how late it is!

We cooked a can of stew and had a nice, warm dinner.

• Fremont Indian State Park - Official site
• Fremont Indian State Park - DesertUSA
  A more descriptive and pictoral site.

• Newspaper Rock S.P. - A single rock face with hundreds of petroglyphs.Part of our Anasazi Trail trip.