Ute V. Perkins came to Moapa Valley in 1881 when he was only 10 years old.

When he was 14 years old, he began riding the Pony Mail from St. Thomas to Rioville, a settlement down on the Colorado River now under Lake Mead.

Later he took on a longer mail route which would take him on across the Colorado River. He would ride 45 miles to the southwest stopping at Eldorado Canyon and then on another 60 miles to Mineral Park, Arizona. Then he would return all the way to St. Thomas; a four day round trip.

After running the mail, Ute worked for Brigham Whitmore and Daniel Bonelli hauling freight, produce and salt from St. Thomas to the Arizona mining camps.

Ute V. Perkins and his wife, Lovina Ellen Whitney Perkins. Photo courtesy of Beezy Tobiasson/OLSHACS.

Ute married Lovina Ellen Whitney of St. Thomas in 1897 in the LDS St. George temple. The couple built a modest two-room brick home in Overton which was said to be the first of its kind in the valley.

In the summer of 1900, the Perkins family moved to St. Thomas where Ute and his brother-in-law, Luke Whitney, began operating a large farm they had leased. The property required a lot of work in bringing it to productivity. The two men put in hay and grain and tended a large orchard of almond trees on the property. By 1903, though, they found that they could not make an adequate living on the farm and Ute left the St. Thomas farm.

The family moved to Stringtown (an area now along Cooper Street in Overton). Ute, observing a strong market for lumber, saw the opportunity for building a saw-mill on Sheep Mountain. With his father-in-law George Burton Whitney, he obtained an old steam engine to run the mill and put together a lumber operation on the mountain. The operation provided lumber to the NEvada mining towns of Delamar and Pioche.

But the business took Ute away from his family for long periods of time. So in 1904, he acquired 120 acres of unimproved land about a mile south of Overton. The family moved to the property and lived in a boarded up tent. They began clearing, plowing and sowing the fields. In a few years, Ute was producing large yields of cantaloupe and sending them to markets throughout the region, some as far away as Chicago.

Eventually, Ute built a permanent home on the property for his family. They planted cottonwood tree-cuttings that grew into large shade trees. They added a living room, bedrooms and a porch and eventually they family had a comfortable home in a shady oasis. The home became a frequent stopping place for weary travelers between Overton and St. Thomas.

In 1908-1909, Ute served as the watermaster for the valley. As such he was responsible to see that irrigation water was utilized properly and that all shareholders received their alotted shares.

Ute was elected to the Overton School Board in 1908 and served served a term until 1912.

In 1912, the LDS Moapa Stake was organized and Ute V. was called to serve on the Stake HIgh Council. He served in that position for 26 years, until 1938.

In 1918, the Perkins family bouth a home at 560 Bonelli Ave. in Overton an moved permanently to this location.

Always a prospector, Ute pioneered the silica sand business in the winter of 1925-26. He began shipping red sand from Kaolin Wash, just west of his ranch below Overton.

In 1933, Ute was elected again to the Overton School Board where he served another four year term. When the Nevada State Park Commission was organized in 1935, UTe was appointed as a member of that four-man board. This board was charged with the oversight of the Valley of Fire State Park and other parks in the state.

Historical details come from a history entitled “The Ute V. Perkins Family – In, Out and North of St. Thomas” written by Hafen Perkins which was published in the book “Muddy Valley Reflections: 145 Years of Settlement Volume 3” by Beezy Tobiasson and Georgia Hall.