ORRIN PORTER ROCKWELL
FIND OUT MORE ON THE “DESTROYING ANGEL” AT PORTER’S PLACE IN LEHI.
Zion’s first “brewpub” The first establishment brewing and selling beer in the Utah territory was owned in part by Orrin Porter Rockwell, the notoriously violent bodyguard to both Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Known as the “Destroying Angel,” Rockwell claimed to have killed 150 men. In 1858, Rockwell and several partners opened the Hot Springs Brewery Hotel in Bluffdale. The brewery-hotel was located on the Jordan Narrows Road leading to the Salt Lake and Utah valleys, not far from the current Utah State Prison. It had a supply of water from springs in the area and a supply of non-Mormon stagecoach-traveling customers, 36 Devour Utah • July 2017
Pony Express riders and Army soldiers at the nearby Camp Floyd. An early newspaper ad for the brewery hotel states: “We will endeavor to furnish the superior Malt Liquors of the above establishment in quantities to suit purchasers. XXX, ALE, PORTER and our unrivaled BEER, furnished to customers either at the Brewery, or at our Beer Saloon in Camp Floyd.” The operation eventually went bankrupt and was sold at auction to a business partnership who continued operating it until sometime in the late 1860s. Ever the rugged frontiersman, Rockwell died in a Salt Lake City horse stable on June 9, 1878, reportedly “trying to sober up from a drunken episode.”