The story of the siege and massacre of approximately 120 California bound immigrants by Mormon settlers and Paiute Indians at Mountain Meadows (Washington County, 38 miles northwest of St. George) on September 11, 1857 is perhaps the second most well-known story in all of Utah’s history behind only the epic story of the 1847 Mormon Pioneers. 

The massacred were hastily and incompletely buried after this horrendous event. Two years later in 1859 U.S. Army troops led by Major James H. Carleton, gathered the exposed remains and interred them in two mass graves. The finding of these graves in 2014 by Bassett, is the focus of this Speak Your Piece interview. 

Guest Bio: Everett Bassett is a principal archeologist for Transcon Environmental, Inc., an environmental planning firm, with expertise in the pursuit of developing infrastructure for energy, communications, and mining. Previously Bassett worked as contact archeologist for a firm doing extensive work for the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining. He has degrees in biology, history and anthropology. As a young man Bassett worked as a logger and served in the United States Merchant Marines.