Who Was Logan? The Name Behind Logan, Utah, Is Disputed

Logan, Utah, took its name from the Logan River, and that’s where the agreement ends: the old books and the modern accounts don’t agree on who Logan was. Utah’s state historians say a fur trapper. In 1905, a federal geographer said a chief.

Named after the river

The part nobody argues about comes from Edward Tullidge’s 1889 history of northern Utah. After listing the first families who camped on the site and the survey of the town into blocks, he ends with one plain sentence: “The city was named after the Logan River.”

The river was there before the town, and it’s the reason the town is where it is. H. H. Bancroft’s 1889 History of Utah says Peter Maughan located Logan in the spring of 1859, “the spot being selected on account of its rich soil and pasture, and the ample water power afforded by the Logan River.” The church historian Andrew Jenson dates the first settlement to June 1859. Bancroft adds that the site was surveyed in 1860 and the city incorporated in 1866.

So the real question is who the river was named for, and on that one you get two answers.

Answer one: Ephraim Logan, a trapper

If you ask Utah’s state history office, you’ll get a fur trapper. Utah’s Division of State History, on its Utah History to Go site, says the settlers named the community for Ephraim Logan, an early trapper in the area. The Herald Journal in Logan gives the same account as one of two versions: the river, in that telling, honors Ephraim Logan, a fur trapper in northern Utah.

Answer two: a chief named Logan

Henry Gannett’s federal book on place names gives a different answer. In its 1902 edition, the entry only covered a creek in Nebraska, “named for Logan Fontanelle, a friendly Omaha chief.” By the 1905 edition, the entry had grown: “creek in Nebraska, village in Hocking County, Ohio, and city in Cache County, Utah, named for Logan Fontanelle, a friendly Indian chief.” Gannett doesn’t explain the link to Cache Valley, and he doesn’t mention the river at all.

The Herald Journal’s second version also credits a chief. It cites an early settler, John Fish Wright, who recalled the name being tied to a famous Indian chief who had been friendly to settlers back East.

Which one holds up?

None of the sources checked for this article has a record from 1859 that settles it. The one thing the 1889 history is sure of is the river. Gannett’s 1905 entry is the oldest printed source here that names a person, but it lumps the Utah city in with a Nebraska creek and an Ohio village and gives no evidence. The trapper is the answer you’ll hear most often today, and Utah’s state history office gives it. But no source from before 1929 checked for this article mentions Ephraim Logan at all, so the popular answer isn’t the proven one. On the evidence here, neither side wins outright.

So if someone in Cache Valley asks you who Logan was, the safe answer is the river. After that, it depends on whose book you trust.

Sources & further reading

• Edward W. Tullidge, Tullidge’s Histories, vol. 2 (1889), pp. 495-496. The first settlers of Logan, Jesse W. Fox’s survey, and “The city was named after the Logan River.”
• H. H. Bancroft, History of Utah, 1540-1886 (1889), pp. 596-597. Peter Maughan’s choice of the site in 1859 for its soil, pasture and water power, the survey of 1860 and incorporation five years after 1861.
• Andrew Jenson, Church Chronology (2nd ed., 1914), p. 62. “Logan, Cache Co., was first settled,” June 1859.
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1902), p. 163, and 2nd ed. (1905), p. 189. The Logan Fontanelle entry, first for a Nebraska creek alone, then extended to Logan, Utah.
• Utah Division of State History, “Logan,” Utah History to Go. The town named for the trapper Ephraim Logan.
• The Herald Journal, “Cache Index: What’s in a name? Origins of local towns.” Both versions, Ephraim Logan and a chief, and John Fish Wright’s recollection of a friendly chief.