[citation needed] This habitation may have continued for about 20,000 years when the extinction of larger game animals forced a change.

Archeological evidence indicates that the Fremont people appeared next on the stage (from about 1-1300 CE), the first inhabitants of the area to domesticate crops and create relatively large communal settlements.

In this county, the best-known Fremont site to date is "Witch's Knoll" three miles (4.8 km) SE of Ephraim.

The most recent groups of indigenous Americans in the Sanpete region are the Ute, Paiute, Goshute, and Shoshoni, who appeared in Utah about 1300 and "perhaps they displaced, replaced, or assimilated the part-time Fremont hunter-gatherers.

The first few years were spent establishing a base in the Great Salt Lake Valley, then groups were sent, usually by the directive of the church leaders, to settle the more outlying areas.

In 1849 two Ute chiefs traveled from what is now Sanpete County about 125 miles (201 km) north to the Salt Lake Valley to request a Mormon settlement be established.

The chiefs, Walkara and Sowiette, asked Mormon leader Brigham Young to settle a group of his people in the valley of Sanpitch.

It was deemed favorable to settlement, and Brigham Young called Isaac Morley and George Washington Bradley to organize about fifty families to move south and settle "San Pete.

"[5] The group of 224 arrived on November 19, led by Isaac Morley, Charles Shumway, Seth Taft, and George Washington Bradley.

[9] The Sanpete County Courthouse, completed in 1935 by the Works Project Administration, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Agriculture, livestock, small businesses, government employment, and Snow College form the economic backbone of the county.

Numerous turkey barns and sheds dot the landscape, primarily around Moroni and the other northern Sanpete towns.

Alfalfa fields and other animal feed crops make up the bulk of the agricultural activity and economy of the county.