County Road S-2: Box Canyon

Dry Fall, Box Canyon

Running just east of County Road S-2, Box Canyon (one of two in the state park) connects Blair Valley on the north with Mason Valley on the south.

It probably served as an Indian footpath until the Mormon Battalion arrived in 1847. This unit of the U.S.Army, led by Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke, had to bring wagons with equipment through the canyon. The soldiers had only hand tools to do the job, which they finished in a day. Besides widening the passageway between rock walls, the soldiers blazed a bypass trail around an imposing dry waterfall.

This portion of the Mormon Trail became a route for emigrants to California during the gold rush and also for the Butterfield Overland Stage in the 1850s. Major use ended when a trail and the