First Impressions
In 1872, Thomas Kane traveled with his wife, Elizabeth, and two of their children from Philadelphia to Salt Lake City. There they joined Brigham Young and some of his family members on a 12-day journey to St. George, Utah, where they would spend the winter together. Elizabeth wrote about the trip, including her experience spending the night of December 18, 1872, at Cove Fort. This exhibit pairs Elizabeth’s written impressions with views of the fort as it appears today.
The renovated fort opened as a historic site in 1994.
Thomas L. Kane, circa 1870. 
Elizabeth W. Kane in Salt Lake City, December 1872. 
Travel from Salt Lake City to St. George, Utah, took the Kanes 12 days in 1872. 
Notes in Elizabeth Kane’s diary were the basis for her letters home.
“The sun was sinking when we reached Cove Creek Fort, and drove in under its archway. . . . [Tom] soon called me outside to look at the landscape, and see how lonely a place we were in. All round it were oddly-peaked, ragged looking mountains glowing in purple and gold, looking no more substantial than the cloud-mountains of sunset with which they mingled.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
The Kanes arrived at Cove Fort at sunset on December 18, 1872.
A Working Ranch
As Elizabeth’s carriage approached the fort’s gates, she noted the structures outside of the fort that supported the property’s function as a ranch. Cove Creek’s water supply was not enough for an entire town, but it provided enough water for a large household of people, plus livestock, gardens, and hayfields.
The keystone over the main gate reads, “Cove Creek Ranch Fort, Erected 1867.”
Fences protected fields and gardens from livestock and wild animals. “Round the fort were fields with unusually strong and high fences.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
The high fence and circular shape of the corral helped prevent stampedes.
Cove Fort’s large horse barn stood north of the fort. “Outside [the fort] on the north was a very large barn with a well-filled yard, surrounded by a stockade.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
The barn could stable up to 27 horses at once.
The bunkhouse outside the fort provided living space for ranch hands working at the fort. 
Cowhands stored their belongings in bunkhouses outside the fort. 
This device helped fit working oxen with shoes. “Our teams were being led in, to the discomposure of some cows who had a proprietary air as they moved sulkily aside to let the intruders enter. The smoke of their warm breath made a cloud in the frosty air.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872
A blacksmith shop behind the fort was indispensable to the ranch. 
The Cove Fort blacksmith shaped shoes for horses, mules, and oxen. 
Large bellows in the blacksmith shop help the forge’s fires reach high temperatures.
“Cove Creek is led into the fort in summer—though its supply cannot be depended upon, as it frequently dries up.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
An icehouse could store ice throughout the summer. 
Water for the fort and ranch came from Cove Creek.
A Warm Reception
Guest rooms line the north side of the fort Elizabeth Kane remembered the courtyard “filled with our vehicles” when the party’s six carriages and as many baggage wagons pulled in. Hosting Brigham Young that winter evening meant finding room for over 30 people. Though the quarters might seem cramped by today’s standards, Elizabeth praises her hostess in her writing for her good taste in providing a warm, clean place for guests.
Scriptures on display in guest rooms. “Our room was nicely furnished, and looked very cozy as we drew our chairs around the centre-table, which had a number of well-chosen books upon it.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 “Six doors opened to the north and as many to the south, giving admission to large and lofty rooms. I was not sorry to see a magnificent pitch-pine fire blazing on the hearth in mine, for . . . the night was very cold.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
Guest rooms included furniture for sitting, sleeping, and washing up after traveling.
A rifle on display at Cove Fort. “We were called to supper on the other side of the fort, feeling our way over the icy ground, guided by a stream of light from the open door of a guard-room, where stacks of arms were piled, and a group of stout fellows sat before a blazing fire.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
Steps up to the battlements now stand in place of the fort’s guardroom.
“We supped in the telegraph office, where the ticking of the instrument insisted on being heard as we all knelt down for prayers.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
The telegraph office is next to the fort’s dining hall. 
Telegraph operators relayed messages from as far away as New York City.
“Our dinner-supper was excellent.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
Twelve loaves of bread were baked each day in the fort’s kitchen. 
Clean napkins and tableware made a good impression on guests at Cove Fort. “The shining cleanliness of the table-linen and glass was worthy of a Quakeress, when she has ‘given her mind to it.’”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872
Evening Conversation and Morning Good-Byes
“Darkness had fallen by the time supper was over; but the great gates were left open later than usual, as one of our baggage wagons had not yet come up.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
Original main gates of Cove Fort.
“I went to sit for half an hour with the ladies of our party.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 
Lucy Bigelow Young traveled each year with her husband, Brigham, to St. George. 
Guests might have sat together around a table like this in one of the fort’s guest rooms.
“I saw but one woman in the fort, and she had a group of children hanging to her skirts.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 One of the children that Elizabeth Kane saw hanging to the skirts of Adelaide Hinckley was Bryant S. Hinckley, the father of Gordon B. Hinckley. Bryant was five years old in 1872. Other Hinckley children who were likely seen that evening included Frank, age six; Edwin, age four; Arza, age four; and Nellie, age two.
Adelaide Noble Hinckley, circa 1890.
Commemorative quilt in the Hinckley family room. “We did not rise next day till the fires were blazing. The chimneys of Cove Creek Fort, I can attest, draw superbly.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872 “When we set out the sun was fully up, though it seemed to give no warmth. . . . The horses’ hoofs rang merrily on the iron-bound ground. Looking back on the fort, I watched the U.S. flag waving us farewell, until it was no larger than a carnation flower.”
—Elizabeth Kane, 1872
Epilogue
Inside Cove Fort, October 12, 1939.
Heber J. Grant walking through the gates at Cove Fort. In 1939, Elizabeth’s grandson Elisha Kent Kane brought his family to Utah, where President Heber J. Grant and others had made arrangements to retrace the Kane family’s 1872 journey with Brigham Young. The group stopped at Cove Fort on October 12, 1939.
Heber J. Grant points to the old gate sill in Cove Fort. 
Heber J. Grant inspects a wagon at Cove Fort.
Further Reading
Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona, ed. Everett L. Cooley, Brigham D. Madsen, S. Lyman Taylor, and Margery W. Ward (Salt Lake City, University of Utah Tanner Trust Fund, 1974 [Philadelphia: 1874]), 71–80.
Matthew J. Grow and Ronald W. Walker, eds. The Prophet and the Reformer: The Letters of Brigham Young and Thomas L. Kane (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. [Call Number: M270.3 P965 2015]).
