The map above shows our current "best guess" as to the route Buckey and the posse escorted the robbers to the nearest railhead at Milford, Utah. The red arrow indicates the most likely area of their capture.
Following their capture, they were taken back through Cannonville and then on a well-traveled wagon road to the tip of the Paria River drainage onto the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Today's Utah Highway 12 is laid down almost precisely on the 1880's wagon road down through Red Canyon and on to what's now US 89. The route between Cannonville and Panguitch today is almost identical to what it would have been in 1889.
After getting fitted with leg irons in Panguitch, the posse and their captives took a long and circuitous route from Panguitch to Milton. They rode ten miles north and then turned west on what is today's Utah Highway 20. Upon reaching Bear Valley, they would have turned left in a southerly direction and followed a natural route to a point just north of Paragonah.
A few miles south of Paragonah, they would again head almost due west to reach a natural route through a low mountain range. The route is known today as the Parowan Gap and it likely has served as a human travel route for thousands of years. After exiting the Gap, the lawmen and their captives would have simply turned to the right and followed a wagon road to Milford about 32 miles north.
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| Parowan Gap has 100's of petroglyphs. See: https://visitcedarcity.com/parowan-gap-secrets/ |
The most likely scenario for each day's travel after the capture would have been:
Day 1: Capture and Camp near site of capture
Day 2: Return to Cannonville
Day 3: To Panguitch
Day 4: To Paragonah
Day 5: To Milford
The entourage arrived in Salt Lake City on April 10. We will dig deeper to attempt to box in the date of the capture. Interpolating between the date of capture and the arrival in Salt Lake will help us better understand the probably travel itinerary.
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