The story starts out with Ute children at play and ends up with the White River Agency burning. The Meeker Massacre Pageant “Twilight of the Ute Empire,” a major part of the Range Call weekend in Meeker, is all about what happened in between. Indian agent Nathan C. Meeker started out on a friendly path with the Utes, but that relationship deteriorated when Meeker imposed conditions on the Native Americans they could not live with.
The conflict culminated on Sept. 9, 1879, when the Utes attacked the agency, burned the buildings and killed Meeker and nine of his men.