Vernal, Uintah County's largest city, is located in eastern Utah near the Colorado State Line, and 175 miles east of Salt Lake City. It is bordered on the north by the Uinta Mountains, one of the few mountains ranges in the world which lie in an east-west rather than the usual north to south direction. The Book Cliff Mountains lie to the south, and Blue Mountain to the east, while Vernal itself lies in Ashley Valley, named in honor of William H. Ashley, an early fur trader who entered this area in 1825 by floating down the Green River in a bull boat made of animal hides.

Vernal, unlike the majority of Utah towns, was not settled initially by Mormon pioneers. Brigham Young sent a scouting party to Uinta Basin in 1861 and received word back the area was good for nothing but nomad purposes, hunting grounds for Indians and "to hold the world together." That same year, President Abraham Lincoln set the area aside as the Uintah Indian Reservation. Captain Pardon Dodds was appointed Indian agent for this reservation.

When Dodds retired, he moved Ashley Valley to raise livestock, along with agency workers, Morris Evans and John Blankenship. They arrived on 14 February 1873 and settled on Ashley Creek. Dodds built the first cabin in the valley, located about four miles northwest of present day Vernal. Many single men--trappers, prospectors, home seekers, and drifters--arrived in Ashley Valley, and some stayed. However, there wasn't a woman in the area until 1876.

The area where Vernal is now located was called the Bench, and it was described as a large barren cactus flat. The David Johnston family moved onto the Bench on 6 June 1878. It was reported that when they stopped their wagon, David took his shovel from the wagon and cleared off the cactus so the children could stand without getting cactus needles in their feet. He put the wagon on logs to keep it off the ground as there were many lizards, horned toads, scorpions, mice, and snakes in the area. Alva Hatch came to the valley looking for a place to locate in May 1978. He returned later with his family and his father, Jeremiah Hatch, along with Jeremiah's two wives. The fall of 1879 brought many settlers to the valley.

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