Territories and Communities of Ute Mountain Ute (Nuche)

01 - White Mesa

Ute Mountain Ute Reservation just several miles south of Blanding, Utah, this small piece of land sits atop a mesa which is halfway between the Blue Mountain area (Abajo Mountains) and the Bluff, Utah area near the San Juan River.

02 — Blanding, Utah

This settler town was an effort to populate the space between the Blue Mountains (Abajos) setting themselves up next to the water source off the mountain while the White Mesa Reservation was several miles south of the the town. Blanding was the next Mormon settler town after Bluff, Utah since the Mormon families had such a rough time living in the harsh canyon land, unwelcomed by local Navajos and others, since they tried to set up near the San Juan River as well. This town was the site where the Posey incident occurred more than a century ago, as it still struggles to deal with the Indigenous community of West Water, finally getting electricity connections after decades of neglect and exclusion. Including Indigenous participation in Blanding is slowly increasing but there is a lot of work to be done especially acknowledging the events prior to and during 1923.

03 — Bluff, Utah

Bluff City, later simply called Bluff, is halfway between Mexican Hat and Blanding. The town was settled in 1880 by the Mormon Church's San Juan Mission expedition and called Bluff City because of the bluffs along the San Juan River. It was the first Anglo-Saxon settlement in San Juan County.

04 — Piute Mountain (Navajo Mountain)

Navajo Mountain in southeastern Utah is a dome-shaped chunk of igneous rock that intruded into the sedimentary layers and lifted up the overlying layer. Navajo Mountain is one of several of these rock formations, called laccoliths by geologists, in southeastern Utah's portion of the Plateau. A sacred place for Navajos, it is also a home for Paiutes and Utes who used to move more freely back and forth to locations that they consider home.

05 — Ute Mountain (Towoac)

The Ute Mountain Ute (or Núchíú) reservation lies in the Four Corners region of the Colorado Plateau covering portions of southeast Utah, southwest Colorado, and northwest New Mexico. This is where the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is headquartered and tribal government offices reside.