Native American
The Moapa Valley was originally settled by the Anasazi people around 350 B.C. Around 500 A.D., farming supplanted hunting as the major food source for the people known as "Basketmakers". It was also around this time that the art of pottery was introduced. By 600 A.D. the people, now known as "Puebloans", began building their dwellings above ground, using wood and brush plastered with adobe. Farming was a well-established practice with corn, beans, squash, and cotton being the primary crops. The Puebloans also hunted mule deer, desert bighorn sheep, rabbits, and rodents using bows and arrows.
Around 1000 A.D. Southern Paiutes moved into the Moapa Valley area. The Paiutes were hunter-gatherers who did not utilize agriculture as a primary source of subsistence. They lived in temporary brush dwellings, spoke the Southern Paiute language, and practiced a style of pottery that was less sophisticated than the methods used by the Anasazi. The Paiutes and Anasazi people coexisted with little effort in the valley.
Sometime around 1150 A.D., the Anasazi abandoned Moapa Valley, possibly due to a drought which gripped the Desert Southwest during that time. When the first European settlers arrived, the Paiutes were relocated to a reservation north of Moapa Town, where they continue to live today.
[edit]Settlers
The first Euroamerican settlers in the Moapa Valley were Mormon pioneers in the latter 1880s. The area has remained heavily populated by Mormons to the present time. Many streets bear the names of prominent Mormon families, including Barlow, Hinckley, Leavitt, Lyman, Perkins [1], Whitmore, Wells, and Andersen. The LDS Logandale Stake has thirteen wards.
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