[citation needed] About 220 million years ago this area was once a swamp land – part of a great inland sea.

Because of violent physical upheaval in past ages of time, the Earth's surface has been uplifted to the present elevation of around 6500 feet above sea level.

Most of the early settlers to come here were Mormon pioneers who came from Utah to help settle Arizona, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became a central fixture in the community.

Some of the early families to settle here were: Mortensen, Petersen, Brewer, Bryan, Dalton, Lewis, Crandell, Beebee, Burke, Owens, Cheney, Jackson, Webb, Thomas, McClever, Johnson and others.

In the fall of 1880, brothers James and Erastus Willard Mortensen (sons of Niels) secured a government contact to grade a railbed for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad between Joseph City, Arizona and Winslow; and later secured an additional contract to extend the rail bed to Canyon Diablo.

In the latter part of the winter of 1882, brothers James and Willard Mortensen went to Illinois and bought back two Percheron Stallions and three mares with the intention of establishing a breeding farm.

The company regularly led assaults against the local settlers – harassment, driving off livestock, burning down building, and physical violence.

These actions so threatened the settlement that settlers had to regularly carry arms to defend themselves and their families until the hostilities finally came to an end in 1892.

In 1889, Wilford Woodruff, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints called several of the Mortensen and Peterson families to relocate to Mexico and establish a Mormon colony later named Colónia Dublán, about 60 miles south of the US border in Chihuahua State.