The Uintah County (Utah) Oral Histories document a variety of topics concerning life in the region from settlement to the 1970s.

Positioned in the northeast border of Utah, Uintah County's first European faces to enter the region were the members of the Dominguez-Escalante expedition in 1776. Explorers, trappers and fur traders entered the area by 1824, and the following year William Ashley held the first American fur-trading rendezvous just north of the present Utah-Wyoming border. Many entities were named for William Ashley, including Ashley Town and Ashley Ward, both of which are discussed in the oral history interviews.

After the Mormons arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the Uinta Basin was one of the last areas in Utah for the Mormons to colonize. Brigham Young did not consider settling the area until Pony Express officials in Denver proposed a route through Uintah County. Because the route through Uintah County was difficult to pass through, Pony Express officials decided that a route through Wyoming would be best. However, Brigham Young feared that "The Gentiles will take possession of that valley if we do not and I do not want them to have it" (Burton 6). Young therefore sent thirty missionaries to the basin, but when he received news that the area was uninhabitable, Young cancelled any church-sanctioned settlement.

Indian agent Henry Martin requested the Federal Government to set aside the Uinta Basin as an Indian reservation, and on 3 October 1861 President Abraham Lincoln established the Uintah Indian Reservation. Captain Pardon Dodds served as its first Indian agent in 1868. Dodds established Whiterocks as the permanent location for the agency in 1869, built up his own personal cattle herd, and when his term was over, settled near the reservation in what would become known as Ashley Valley.

Other men trickled in to settle the region, and soon the settlement of Ashley took shape, located four miles from present-day Vernal. In 1878, three families moved onto what was called the Bench and planted their crops. The area was called by three different names-Jerico, Hatch Town, and Ashley Center-until it was incorporated as Vernal in 1886.

Part of the collection includes some discussion of the role of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Uintah County. New Deal agencies such as the CCC, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the Civil Works Administration (CWA) employed many men from the eastern states and locals in Uintah County. The young men who were hired lived in tents and barracks at the Vernal fairgrounds, working for one dollar a day plus food and shelter. CCC workers in Uintah County built twelve reservoirs, miles of roads, corrals, and fences, and constructed a sewage system. Some of the young men from outside of Utah married local girls and stayed after the camps closed in 1941.

Another topic in the collection concerns the Echo Park Dam controversy in the late 1970s. The Central Utah Project (CUP) was a Bureau of Reclamation project designed to meet the water needs of residents by developing Utah's share of the Colorado River. The CUP proposed three dams, none of which were ever built. Echo Park Dam would have created a reservoir that extended up the Green River 64 miles to Red Canyon, and 44 miles up the Yampa River to Lily Park. The problem with the proposed dam site was it was located inside Dinosaur National Monument. Sierra Club and other opponents successfully stopped the project.