Lehi resident and history buff Carl Mellor got a steel marker Tuesday.
But he wants a hillside.Mellor said he's thrilled that Utah County officials have commemorated the place near Thanksgiving Point where Indians and pioneers, statesmen and stagecoaches once crossed the Jordan River by ferry.
But he's anxiously awaiting the day that someone carries the effort a little further and preserves the hillside just across the water where the original trail can still be seen.
"There's only one or two places where the original trail still shows," said Mellor, who wrote the text for the Indian Ford/Rocky Ford Ferry marker unveiled Tuesday afternoon. "It's been 128 years and it's still there, undisturbed.
"Brigham Young stood here waiting to cross. Every major political figure of that era crossed on this ferry. Every piece of mail traveled over the river here. I just can't emphasize enough the great significance of this place," he said. "It's the thing that bound our nation together."
Mellor says someone - and he hopes it will be Utah County - ought to buy the 10 acres of hillside and set it aside for future generations to see.
In the meantime, he was among those celebrating Tuesday because the Utah County Sesquicentennial Committee chose to spend $700 and a good amount of time marking the crossing.
Sid Sandberg, former county commissioner and chairman of the sesquicentennial committee, said as people come to crossings in their lives, they can remember the Indian Ford that provided a ferry over turbulent waters.
"By acknowledging those who've gone before, we acknowledge our own trail ahead," Sandberg said.
Commissioner Jerry Grover said posting the marker is the final project in a series of efforts made to note the state sesquicentennial.
"It was actually done in December. The plaque even says 1997," Grover said. "But we waited until we wouldn't freeze you to bring you out for this event."
Mellor said travelers would come to the edge of the Jordan River and call on the family hired by the U.S. government to operate the ferry.
In good weather with low water, wagons and horses could easily cross, but when the waters rose, especially in the spring, it became impossible without a ferry.
The ferry was probably a flat-bottom boat with sides and pontoons, Mellor said. A strong rope was tethered to both sides of the river to guide the ferry across.
Men pushed poles into the bottom of the river to power the ferry.
The ferry operated day and night and, in periods of high traffic, ferried as many as 500 people from one side to the other. It was used by the Overland Stage Coach and the Pony Express.
The Jordan is the largest stream the stagecoaches had to cross for 500 miles to the west. After the ferry shut down, travelers had to go another three miles to a toll bridge, Mellor said.
Evidence gathered by Brigham Young University professor Joel Janetski shows that American Indian tribes used the same spot as a place to ford the river and set fish traps there as well.
The Indian Ford Ferry is on the parkway trail that follows the west side of Thanksgiving Point's golf course. That trail, open to bikers, hikers and horse riders, is paved and finished from the Utah Lake shore to just below Camp Williams, said county engineer Clyde Naylor.
"We're proud of these trails, too," said Commissioner Gary Herbert. "And places like this that give us a place to stop and ponder those things in life that are important."