William Horne Dame — Vision of the Layout of Parowan

In 1851, as the first company of settlers arrived in the Little Salt Lake Valley to establish Parowan, William Horne Dame was appointed as the surveyor. According to his biography by Mable McBride Tate and local DUP records, Dame experienced a vision in which the entire plan of the city was revealed to him before he began his work. He saw the streets, the public squares, and the layout of the fort in detail. He proceeded to survey the town exactly as he had seen it in this manifestation, ensuring the settlement was organized efficiently from its inception. This vision is often cited in Southern Utah history as evidence of divine guidance in the establishment of the 'Mother Town' of the Iron Mission.

Recording note: No verbatim text of the vision survives in a public archival source. The account was recorded by Mable McBride Tate in a biography of Dame prepared for the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, drawing on family and community tradition in Parowan; Dame's own papers are preserved in the BYU Special Collections.