Why is This Place Named Musket Shot Springs?
For six months back in 1776, two Franciscan monks named Fray Francisco Altnasio Dominguez and Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante
led a party of ten men through this part of western Colorado and eastern Utah. What they were looking for was a new route to the Spanish
missions in California. As they approached the Utah border, they killed a lone bison and prepared the meat while resting for a day.
From the Diary of Father Escalante
September 13, 1776
"We continued for a quarter of a league in the same direction along a well-beaten path near which, toward the south, two copious springs
of the finest water rise, a musket shot apart from each other, which we named Las Fuentes de Santa Clara (meaning this is really
great water).
