Attractive gray-tinted plate Fort Utah on the Timpanogas, Valley of the Great Salt Lake showing the fort's log cabins in a snowy winter scene, with mountains in the background, ducks in the creek, and a man leading a pair of oxen. From Stansbury's 1853 Exploration and Survey of the Great Salt Lake of Utah. Howard Stansbury, a Captain and topographical engineer, was assigned in to survey the region of the Great Salt Lake in search of a possible transcontinental railway route and of a better route between Fort Bridger (Wyoming) and Salt Lake City (Utah).