Category: Ghost Towns

Ghost towns in the Western United States are abandoned settlements, often remnants of 19th-century mining, ranching, or railroad booms. Once thriving with prospectors, merchants, and families, these towns, like Bodie, California, or Virginia City, Montana, were deserted when resources depleted or economic shifts occurred, particularly after the 1860s gold and silver rushes. Characterized by dilapidated buildings, saloons, and mine shafts, they dot deserts and mountains, preserved by arid climates. Today, they attract tourists and historians, offering haunting glimpses into the West’s frontier past, shaped by ambition and transience.

Sego – Grand County Ghost Town

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Sego, Utah, is a ghost town in Grand County, nestled in the narrow, winding Sego Canyon within the Book Cliffs, about 5 miles (8 km) north of Thompson Springs. It was an important eastern Utah coal mining community from roughly 1910 to 1955. Much of the historic area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 13, 2017, as the Ballard-Sego Coal Mine Historic District.

Chesterfield Coal Company in Sego, circa 1926. Photo USGS
Chesterfield Coal Company in Sego, circa 1926. Photo USGS

Prehistoric and Indigenous History

Human presence in Sego Canyon stretches back thousands of years. The canyon walls feature significant rock art from multiple cultures. Barrier Canyon-style pictographs (Archaic period, roughly 7000–1000 BCE or associated with around 2000 BCE) include distinctive life-size, mummy-like anthropomorphic figures. Fremont culture rock art (ca. AD 600–1250) appears alongside later Ute petroglyphs and pictographs (from around AD 1300 onward). These panels, located a few miles north of Thompson Springs along Sego Canyon Road, document continuous or intermittent Indigenous use of the area long before Euro-American settlement.

Discovery and Early Mining (Late 19th–Early 20th Century)

Euro-American activity began with ranching and livestock in the Thompson Springs area. Harry (or Henry) G. Ballard, an English immigrant and one of the founders of Thompson Springs, discovered an exposed vein of high-quality anthracite coal while exploring the Book Cliffs canyons around 1908 (some accounts place the initial find earlier, in the 1890s). He quietly acquired the land, opened a small wagon-mine operation, and sold coal locally to residents who hauled it by wagon from as far as Monticello. The modest coal camp that developed was named Ballard.

In 1910–1911, Ballard sold the property to Salt Lake City businessman B.F. Bauer (associated with Salt Lake Hardware). Bauer organized the American Fuel Company (sometimes referenced in connection with related entities) with ambitious plans, selling substantial stock. The company expanded operations dramatically, installing a modern coal tipple and what was claimed as the first coal washer west of the Mississippi River.

Development as a Company Town and Railroad

The Ballard & Thompson Railroad was incorporated on July 15, 1911, to build a roughly 5.25-mile spur from the Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) main line at Thompson Springs up the canyon to the mine. The line crossed the stream 13 times, featured a maximum grade of about 4%, and used a mix of lighter and 65-pound rail. Construction finished in late 1912; coal shipments began that October, primarily supplying the D&RGW. The railroad later became a D&RGW subsidiary (1913) and was maintained under various agreements. At peak production (roughly 1920–1947), the mine yielded around 800 tons of coal per day, with the railroad making as many as eight or nine round trips per month in winter.

The town was renamed Neslen (or Neslin/Nelson in some accounts) after general manager Richard “Dick” Neslen during railroad construction. A post office opened, and company infrastructure grew: a large company store (stone-built by Italian masons in some descriptions), boarding house, mining buildings, and housing. Miners were allowed an unusual degree of freedom to build their own cabins and dugouts wherever they chose, resulting in scattered shacks throughout the canyon. Separate residential areas developed for different ethnic groups, reflecting the diverse workforce—Americans of English and Scandinavian descent alongside Italian, Greek, African American, and Japanese miners.

In 1916–1918, amid financial struggles, Bauer reorganized the company (Neslen was replaced). It became the Chesterfield Coal Company, and the town was renamed Sego in 1918 after the sego lily (Calochortus nuttallii), Utah’s state flower, which grew abundantly in the canyon (one account links the name also to a brand of condensed milk stocked at the company store).

Challenges, Peak Years, and Daily Life

Chronic problems plagued Sego from the start. The water table dropped, springs and creeks diminished, and the coal washer sometimes could not operate. Paradoxically, flash floods frequently damaged the railroad trestles and bridges, keeping the train off the tracks for significant periods. Pay was irregular; miners were often paid in company scrip redeemable only at the high-priced company store (shopping in cheaper Thompson risked job loss). A strike occurred in April 1915 after five months without pay. Wages were later cut. Regular pay arrived only after miners joined the United Mine Workers in 1933.

Despite these issues, Sego was one of Grand County’s larger communities. U.S. Census figures show 198 residents in 1920, 223 in 1930, 123 in 1940, and 70 in 1950. Contemporary accounts sometimes claimed a peak population near 500 (including surrounding canyons) and around 125 miners at height; by May 1928 it was described as Utah’s busiest coal camp, with reports of high daily output. The town had a school, doctor, deputy sheriff at times, and a colorful social mix that included bootlegging during Prohibition. Families maintained gardens, orchards, vineyards, and traditions from their homelands.

Electric power was eventually extended from distant sources in the 1920s at significant cost. The coal was considered serviceable but inferior to some Carbon County coals; a large share went to the D&RGW for locomotives.

Decline and Abandonment

Post-World War II, production costs exceeded income. The Chesterfield mine closed on November 1, 1947. The remaining miners (down to about 27) pooled resources, secured bank backing, and bought the assets at a sheriff’s auction in Moab for around $30,000. They formed the employee-owned Utah Grand Coal Company (Walter Ronzio as general manager) and operated successfully at first.

Fires destroyed the tipple in 1949 and caused further damage in 1950. The railroad abandoned the branch around 1950 due to insufficient traffic and deterioration; operators switched to trucking coal to a loading ramp in Thompson. The final blow was the D&RGW’s conversion from coal-fired steam locomotives to diesel, which eliminated the primary market. In 1955, Utah Grand sold its holdings for $25,000 to a Texas company interested in oil and gas potential on the roughly 700 acres rather than the coal. Buildings were relocated to Thompson Springs, Moab, and even Fruita, Colorado (including the schoolhouse). Flash floods in the 1950s further damaged remaining structures. Sego was abandoned.

Present Day

Today, Sego is a classic ghost town accessible via the old railroad grade (high-clearance or 4WD vehicle recommended; flash-flood risk is high). Surviving features include the substantial stone walls of the company store, foundations, dugouts, scattered cabin remnants, mine openings, and a few railroad trestles (many unsafe). An underground coal-seam fire has burned for decades, with smoke sometimes visible from shafts. The boarding house collapsed between late 2009 and early 2010. A cemetery lies nearby. Vandalism (notably in 1973 by treasure hunters who set fires) and natural forces have reduced what remained after abandonment.

Visitors should respect private property and fragile historic and cultural resources, including the rock art panels lower in the canyon. The site offers a tangible record of early-20th-century coal mining, multi-ethnic labor history, company-town life, and the boom-and-bust cycles of the rural West, set against a landscape of deep Indigenous history.

Harrisburg – Washington County Ghost Town

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Washington County, Utah, Ghost Towns
Washington County, Utah, Ghost Towns

Harrisburg is a ghost town in Washington County, Utah (roughly 12–16 miles northeast of St. George, along what is now the I-15 corridor near Leeds and Quail Creek Reservoir). It was a short-lived Mormon pioneer agricultural settlement that flourished briefly in the 1860s before declining due to environmental hardships, water scarcity, and the rise of nearby communities.

Founding and Early Settlement (1859–1862)

In 1859, Moses Harris—a Mormon pioneer who had earlier helped establish a colony near San Bernardino, California—settled with his family near the confluence of Quail Creek (and associated Cottonwood Creek flows) and the Virgin River. This was part of broader Latter-day Saint efforts under Brigham Young to create self-sufficient agricultural colonies in southern Utah’s “Dixie” region. Other families soon joined, and the small community was initially known as Harrisville (or sometimes Cottonwood).

An accidental fire and irrigation difficulties disrupted the original site. In 1862, severe flooding by the Virgin River forced residents to relocate farther upstream along Quail Creek to higher ground. The new settlement was renamed Harrisburg in honor of Moses Harris. Apostles Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow helped organize it as a formal church branch. Early arrivals in the early 1860s included families headed by James Lewis, Hosea Stout, William Leany, Dr. Priddy Meeks, John Brimhall, Orson B. Adams, Elijah K. Fuller, Samuel Hamilton, William Robb, and others.

Growth and Daily Life in the 1860s

By 1864 the population stood at 128 people (about 16 families). It peaked around 200 residents (roughly 25 families and some 30 homes) by 1868. Buildings were largely constructed of local sandstone because rock was abundant; stone fences marked property lines. The schoolhouse was more rudimentary, built of cedar posts set in the ground with a roof of cedar logs, bark, and soil.

Residents dug irrigation ditches, including an ambitious roughly five-mile canal along what became known as Leeds Creek, to water fields. They grew corn, cotton, sorghum (for molasses), alfalfa, fruits, vegetables, orchards, and vineyards (including for wine production as a cash crop). The rocky soil and limited arable land constrained expansion. Harrisburg also served as a stop for freighters traveling between Salt Lake City and St. George. A post office operated from 1863 to around 1900.

Notable structures included homes built by stonemason Willard G. McMullin (from Maine, arrived 1862). The Orson B. Adams House (constructed 1864), a two-room stone dwelling, housed Adams, his wife, sons, and granddaughters. Prospector John Kemple stayed there en route to Nevada; he is credited with early silver discoveries that led to the nearby Silver Reef boom. The Adams property later passed through several owners and was farmed into the mid-20th century before BLM acquisition and restoration around 2001.

Ties to Silver Reef and Economic Role

Silver was discovered in the sandstone reefs nearby (White Reef, later Silver Reef) in the mid-to-late 1860s. The Harrisburg (originally Union) Mining District was organized in the early 1870s, with the Harrisburg schoolhouse as a reference point for its boundaries. Between about 1875 and 1888, Silver Reef’s mining population created a cash market for Harrisburg’s agricultural produce.

Decline and Abandonment

Hardships mounted quickly. Recurring floods damaged fields and infrastructure. In 1869 a grasshopper plague devastated crops, and Navajo raiding parties added insecurity. Drought and, critically, water shortages worsened as upstream diversions for the new settlement of Leeds (organized 1867 as Bennington/Road Valley, later renamed Leeds after a town in England) reduced flow in Leeds Creek. Rocky soil and limited farmland further hindered viability. Many residents petitioned church leaders (including Erastus Snow) and relocated to Leeds or the booming mining town of Silver Reef, taking water rights with them.

By 1876 Harrisburg was already declining significantly. In 1892 only six families remained; by 1895 the town was essentially abandoned (some sources note a couple of holdouts into the early 20th century, with the last activity fading by the 1920s). Many houses were dismantled for building materials. The school and meetinghouse closed.

Later History and Present Day

For decades the site stood in ruins. In 1958 it served as a movie set for They Came to Cordura (starring Gary Cooper); remnants of a constructed Mexican village set were visible for a time. Interstate 15 was later built through the old townsite. A mobile home/RV community known as Harrisburg Estates developed, and the area falls within the boundaries of Hurricane, Utah. Quail Creek Reservoir (and associated recreation) lies nearby.

Visible remnants include sandstone house ruins and foundations (some on both sides of I-15), stone walls, the restored Orson Adams House (managed in connection with BLM/Red Cliffs National Conservation Area lands), and the historic pioneer cemetery (with markers for early settlers and many infants/children, reflecting the hardships of frontier life). Interpretive signs and historical markers (from groups such as the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and Sons of Utah Pioneers) recount the story of Harrisburg, Leeds, and Silver Reef as interconnected communities shaped by water availability.

Harrisburg exemplifies the challenges of Mormon colonization in arid southern Utah: ambitious irrigation efforts, reliance on agriculture to support mining booms, and ultimate vulnerability to floods, pests, conflict, and water competition. Primary contemporary accounts and local histories (including Marietta M. Mariger’s 1951 Saga of Three Towns: Harrisburg–Leeds–Silver Reef) provide further personal and community details. The site remains accessible for historical visitation, with ruins protected in places by fencing.

Silver Reef – Washington County Ghost Town

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Silver Reef, Utah in the 1880s
Silver Reef, Utah in the 1880s

Silver Reef is a historic mining ghost town in Washington County, southern Utah, located about 15–20 miles northeast of St. George and roughly 1 mile west of the town of Leeds. It is one of the few places in the world where economically significant silver was mined from sandstone (specifically the Springdale Sandstone Member of the Kayenta Formation). The site is geologically unusual and culturally distinctive as a largely non-Mormon (“Gentile”) boomtown set amid predominantly Latter-day Saint agricultural settlements.

Geological Setting and Discovery

The silver deposits occur in tilted sandstone “reefs” (rocky ridges formed by the Virgin Anticline). The main productive reefs were the Buckeye (richest, yielding about 70% of production), White, Butte, and East. Silver is primarily present as nearly invisible horn silver (silver chloride/chlorargyrite), sometimes associated with colorful copper minerals (azurite, malachite) and later uranium. The metals were likely leached from underlying volcanic ash beds in the Chinle Formation by groundwater, transported upward, and precipitated in the porous sandstone where organic matter and chemistry changes caused deposition.

High-grade silver ore (float) was first discovered in 1866 by prospector John Kemple near Harrisburg while he wintered in the area. Samples reportedly assayed extremely high (one account cites over $17,000 per ton), but the idea of silver in unaltered sandstone was widely dismissed as impossible. Kemple and others organized early mining districts (Union Mining District around 1871; Harrisburg Mining District in 1874), yet development lagged for nearly a decade due to skepticism.

Founding and the Boom (1875–1883)

Interest revived in 1875. Salt Lake City bankers (the Walker brothers) sent prospector William Tecumseh Barbee, who staked about 21 claims and promoted the district. Investors from San Francisco also entered, establishing the Leeds Mine (one of the first major operations). Barbee platted a townsite called Bonanza City with relatively high lot prices. Many miners and merchants preferred cheaper ground to the north on rocky terrain, initially calling their camp “Rockpile” or “Rock Pile.” A merchant from Pioche, Nevada, popularized the name Silver Reef, which stuck. Both names appear on contemporary maps.

The “Pioche Stampede” of late 1875–1876 brought a major influx as Pioche’s mines faced difficulties; roughly one-third of Pioche’s population reportedly relocated. Experienced miners (including Cornish and Irish), merchants, and others arrived, rapidly building a town. By the late 1870s Silver Reef had a mile-long Main Street with numerous businesses: nine grocery stores, six saloons, five restaurants, a newspaper (Silver Reef Echo, later Silver Reef Miner), bank, Wells Fargo Express Office (built 1877–1879 and still standing), hotels (including the Harrison House), brewery, billiard hall, dance halls, jail, and more. A Chinatown developed southwest of the main area, populated largely by Chinese laborers who had worked on the transcontinental railroad. A Catholic church (St. John’s, the first Catholic congregation in southern Utah, founded 1879) served the community and housed a hospital in a rear wing; the town never had an LDS meetinghouse.

Population estimates for the peak years (roughly 1878–1882) range from about 1,500 to 2,000 (U.S. Census 1880 recorded 1,046; a local count around 1884 suggested ~1,500). The district supported multiple stamp mills (including Leeds, Christy, Barbee & Walker, Stormont—the largest—and others). Annual production often exceeded $1 million in ore value during the height. Silver Reef was briefly one of the largest towns in Washington County and provided a vital cash market for nearby Mormon agricultural communities that had struggled with crop failures and isolation. Relations between the mining population and local Latter-day Saints were generally symbiotic economically, though culturally distinct.

Notable events included major fires in May 1879 that destroyed roughly half the downtown buildings (quickly rebuilt) and another that damaged Chinatown; a celebrated Catholic High Mass celebrated by Father Lawrence Scanlan in the St. George Mormon Tabernacle (with local Mormon help); labor tensions; and classic frontier incidents such as shootings and a lynching.

Decline and Abandonment

Decline began around 1881. Key factors included a drop in world silver prices (from roughly $1.20/oz in the late 1870s toward $1.11 by 1883), flooding of deeper mine workings that outpaced pumping capacity, depletion of the richest ores, rising costs, and a miners’ strike after wage cuts (from $4 to $3.50 per day). Many workers left (some for Tombstone, Arizona). Major company operations largely ceased by 1888 (Christy Mill closed that year; Stormont earlier). Lessee operations continued sporadically into the early 1900s (some sources cite 1909 or final closure around 1891).

Total historic production is estimated at over 7 million ounces of silver (more than 219 tons), plus lesser amounts of other metals—valued at roughly $25 million at the time or hundreds of millions in modern dollars depending on silver price. By 1890 the population had fallen to 177; by 1900 few remained beyond lessees. Many buildings were dismantled and materials reused in Leeds and elsewhere (the school building became Leeds Town Hall). A 1908 fire and treasure-hunting (rumors of caches of coins) accelerated the loss of structures.

Later Mining and Modern Era

Revival attempts occurred periodically: around 1898, 1909, 1916 (Silver Reef Consolidated Mining Company under Alex Colbath; later acquired by American Smelting and Refining with little activity due to the Depression), and mid-20th century. From the late 1940s–1950s/early 1960s, Western Gold & Uranium and successors reworked tailings and mined for uranium (and residual silver, copper, gold), constructing a flotation mill and other facilities; production was modest. A later leach-pad attempt in the late 1970s left visible remains.

Today Silver Reef is a partial ghost town intermixed with a modern residential neighborhood (Silver Reef Estates, developed from the 1980s onward). The restored Wells Fargo Express Building (National Register of Historic Places, 1971) houses the Silver Reef Museum, with exhibits on history, mining, and geology, plus walking trails. Other remnants include the rebuilt Cosmopolitan Restaurant, Rice Building/jail, foundations, mine dumps, two cemeteries (Catholic and Protestant), and sealed mine openings (hundreds reclaimed in the 1990s–2000 by the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining while preserving historic appearance and bat habitat). The site illustrates both classic Western boom-and-bust patterns and the unique geology and cultural contrast of southern Utah.

Sources include the Silver Reef Museum historical materials and timeline, Utah Geological Survey, Utah History Encyclopedia, Wikipedia (compiled from primary and secondary sources), Bureau of Land Management, and contemporary accounts. For deeper reading, visit the museum or consult works such as Silver, Sinners and Saints and geological reports by Biek and Rohrer.

Duncan’s Retreat – Washington County Ghost town

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Duncan’s Retreat was a short-lived Mormon pioneer settlement and is now a ghost town in eastern Washington County, southwestern Utah. It lay roughly 3–4 miles east of Virgin (and about 3.5 miles west of Grafton), on the north side of the Virgin River where Mukuntuweap Creek (a small tributary) enters the river, just southwest of Zion National Park. The site is along present-day Utah State Route 9 (between roughly mile markers 24 and 25). It was occupied from about 1861 to the mid-1890s.

One of the many pear trees at abandoned village of Duncan, Utah. Mormon settlement 1862-1905 PhotoL George A. Grant
One of the many pear trees at abandoned village of Duncan, Utah. Mormon settlement 1862-1905 PhotoL
George A. Grant

Founding and the Cotton Mission (1861)

In 1861, Chapman Duncan (1812–1900), Alma Minnerly (sometimes spelled Minerly), and a few others settled the area as part of Brigham Young’s “Utah’s Dixie” cotton-growing initiative. Young had called settlers to southern Utah to produce cotton and other warm-climate crops after the Civil War disrupted southern U.S. supplies. The location on Mukuntuweap Creek offered potentially fertile bottomland along the Virgin River for irrigation farming.

Chapman Duncan was an experienced Latter-day Saint pioneer. Born in Bath, New Hampshire, he joined the Church in 1833, participated in early Church events in Nauvoo, served missions (including to China in the early 1850s), and traveled to Utah in 1848. He had earlier helped colonize Iron County. He did not remain long at the new settlement.

The Great Flood of 1862 and Naming

That first winter brought the Great Flood of 1862, a prolonged and destructive high-water event on the Virgin River that also devastated nearby settlements such as Grafton (then called Wheeler). Most of the good farmland and much of the fledgling colony were washed away. Chapman Duncan and most of the original settlers left early in 1862 seeking more stable locations. The families who stayed named the place Duncan’s Retreat.

A local legend offers an alternative (or complementary) explanation for the name: Duncan had been tasked with surveying an irrigation canal from the Virgin River (accounts differ on whether this was near Virgin or Rockville). After considerable labor and expense, the canal proved useless because it had been graded uphill. Embarrassed, Duncan “retreated” to (or from) the site that later bore his name.

Resettlement and Growth

The original claims were sold to newcomers including William Theobald, Joseph Wright, William Wright, Clayborne Elder, Jonathan B. Pratt, Robert W. Reeve, and Thomas Burgess. Additional settlers arrived, and by the end of 1862 the population stood at about 70. Residents planted crops and orchards; in years without major flooding they produced good harvests of cotton, corn, wheat, and sorghum.

Community institutions followed quickly:

  • A post office opened in 1863.
  • A schoolhouse was built in 1864.
  • An LDS meetinghouse was also constructed.
  • An LDS branch was organized around September 1862 (initially under Toquerville Ward, later linked to the Virgin Ward). Presiding elders included William Theobald (1864–1866), William Martindale (from 1868), and Joseph Wright (until his death in 1873).

U.S. Census figures show modest stability for a time: 71 residents in 1870, peaking at 79 people in 11 families in 1880, then declining to 47 in 1890.

Hardships: Floods, War, and Isolation

Life was precarious. The Virgin River was notoriously unpredictable; it repeatedly flooded, changed course, destroyed dams and ditches, and washed away cultivated land. Farmers constantly rebuilt irrigation works only to see them ruined again.

During the Black Hawk War (1865–1872), fear of Indian attacks led the townspeople to evacuate to Virgin in 1866. Farmers returned daily to work their fields. Permanent residency resumed in 1868.

Despite these challenges, the settlement persisted for decades because the soil was productive in good years and the community was tightly knit around LDS religious and social life.

Decline and Abandonment

The 1880s proved particularly harsh. Repeated flooding made sustained farming increasingly impossible. By 1891 the village was all but deserted; the last known birth occurred in 1895. Residents gradually moved to more secure nearby towns such as Virgin.

What Remains Today

By 1930 little was left—scattered foundations, dead fruit trees (including pear trees photographed in 1929), traces of an irrigation ditch, and occasional rock walls. The most visible remnant is a small cemetery on the north side of SR-9. Known interments include:

  • Nancy Williams Ferguson Ott (1822–1863), whose marked grave is the best-known feature; a UDOT marker was placed after highway work in the 1940s uncovered remains.
  • Rebecca Martindale (d. 1865) and William Martindale (d. 1873).
  • Charles Theobald (infant, 1870).
  • Mary Theobald Baker (1864–1933) and a few others or unidentified graves.

Unlike the better-preserved and more famous ghost town of Grafton a few miles upstream, Duncan’s Retreat has almost no standing structures. It survives mainly in local historical memory, pioneer journals, and the lonely roadside grave of Nancy Ott as a quiet testament to the difficulties of early settlement along the Virgin River.

Duncan’s Retreat exemplifies the broader pattern of Mormon colonization in southern Utah: ambitious agricultural outposts driven by religious calling, repeatedly tested by the harsh desert environment and an untamed river, and ultimately abandoned when the costs of survival became too high.

Grafton Utah

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Grafton, Utah, is a well-preserved ghost town just south of Zion National Park in Washington County, along the Virgin River. It is widely regarded as one of the most photographed ghost towns in the American West and has served as a filming location for several classic Western movies. Its history reflects the challenges and determination of Mormon pioneers during Utah’s “Cotton Mission” (or “Utah’s Dixie”) era.

Village of Grafton, Utah, across the Virgin River. Once center of farming area. Showing washed out banks along river where farms once stood. Photo: NPS; George Alexander Grant
George A. Grant on horseback with camera equipment at Old Faithful, Yellowstone NP, in 1933
NPS photo

Background: Mormon Settlement and the Cotton Mission

In 1847, Brigham Young and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church, or Mormons) arrived in the Salt Lake Valley after fleeing religious persecution. Young sought to establish a self-sufficient society in what he envisioned as the state of Deseret. After the Mexican-American War, the area became the Utah Territory in 1850. Between 1847 and 1900, Mormons founded roughly 500 villages across the West to claim territory and resources.

Southern Utah’s warmer climate was seen as suitable for cotton production, reducing dependence on the United States. An experimental crop succeeded at Santa Clara in 1854. Young called this region “Utah’s Dixie.” The outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861 made cotton even more critical. Settlements sprang up along the upper Virgin River where flat land and water for irrigation were available: Virgin (1857), Grafton (1859), Adventure (1860), Duncan’s Retreat and Northup (1861), and Shunesburg, Rockville, and Springdale (1862).

Founding and Early Years (1859–1862)

In late 1859 (often dated December), Nathan C. Tenney led five families from nearby Virgin—the Barneys, Davies, McFates, Platts, and Shirts—to a site about one mile downstream from the present townsite. They initially called the settlement Wheeler. The pioneers cooperated to plant crops (especially cotton), dig irrigation ditches, and build homes. The effort emphasized community and faith rather than profit.

The first year showed overzealous cotton planting at the expense of food crops such as corn and cane, leading to shortages. Settlers later shifted emphasis to food production, orchards, and gardens because survival demanded it in the arid environment beside the unpredictable Virgin River.

The Great Flood of 1862 and Relocation

In January 1862 (the night of January 8 is often cited), after prolonged heavy rains, a massive flood of the Virgin River—part of the broader Great Flood of 1862—destroyed most of the original town (and nearby settlements like Duncan’s Retreat, Adventure, and Northup). Houses, furniture, clothing, and other property floated downstream; some items, including barrels of molasses, were recovered. A child born during the chaos was reportedly named Marvelous Flood Tenney.

Undeterred, the settlers relocated about one mile upstream to higher ground (the current site) and rebuilt, naming the new town New Grafton (later simply Grafton) after Grafton, Massachusetts, the hometown of some settlers. The post office was sometimes still called Wheeler due to other Graftons elsewhere.

Growth and Daily Life (1862–1866)

By 1864, a church census recorded 28 families and about 168 people in Grafton. Each family typically farmed a narrow strip of roughly one acre along the river. They dug irrigation canals, planted cotton (later scaled back), orchards (some of which still exist), and gardens. Log houses, a post office, a church, and a combination school/community hall appeared.

Life remained difficult. The silty Virgin River frequently washed out dams (sometimes multiple times a year) and clogged ditches, which required constant dredging—“like household washing; it’s a weekly chore,” one settler remarked. Grafton was relatively isolated as the only community on the south bank of the river. Despite hardships, residents maintained social life with Friday-night dances, music, swimming, horseback riding, picnics, and religious services.

Grafton briefly served as the county seat of Kane County (January 1866 to January 1867); boundary changes later placed it in Washington County.

Hardships of 1866: Disease, Accident, and Conflict

1866 was catastrophic. The Grafton Cemetery records numerous deaths that year in a community of ~168 people:

  • Multiple children and adults from diphtheria (e.g., York and Field family members).
  • Two teenage girls (Loretta A. Russell, 14, and Elizabeth H. Woodbury, 13) killed when a homemade swing broke.
  • Scarlet fever cases.
  • Other illnesses and accidents.

Conflict with Native peoples intensified during the Black Hawk War (primarily 1865–1872, involving Utes and others, with local involvement of Southern Paiutes and Navajos). The upper Virgin River valley had long been inhabited by Southern Paiutes; competition for scarce land and resources created tension. Navajo groups faced pressure from settlements on both sides of the Colorado River.

On April 2, 1866, Robert M. Berry (24), his wife Isabella (or Mary Isabella) Hales Berry (about 19–20, reportedly pregnant), and Robert’s brother Joseph S. Berry (22) were killed by raiders (accounts vary between Navajo and Paiute) near Short Creek (present-day Colorado City area) while traveling. Robert was described by attackers as a “heap brave fighter.” Their bodies were brought to Grafton for burial (it was then considered the county seat); the graves remain prominent, enclosed by a wooden fence.

Brigham Young ordered southern Utah villages to consolidate into settlements of at least 150 people for safety. Grafton was evacuated; residents moved to Rockville. Farmers returned daily (often armed and in groups) to tend fields and livestock. Grafton effectively became a ghost town for the first time (1866–1868). By 1868, as the immediate threat subsided, residents returned.

Later Years and Decline (1868–1945)

Resettlement occurred, though population never fully recovered to earlier peaks. The 1870 U.S. census counted only a handful of families. Flooding continued to damage fields and infrastructure. In 1886, residents built the distinctive two-story adobe schoolhouse/church/community hall still standing today: adobe bricks from local clay, foundation of lava rock, and lumber hauled ~75 miles from Mount Trumbull on the Arizona Strip. It hosted school, worship, plays, music, and dances; people from surrounding areas attended Friday-night socials.

Utah achieved statehood in 1896. The decisive blow came with the completion of the Hurricane Canal in 1906, which delivered Virgin River water to the broad, fertile Hurricane bench ~20 miles downstream. Many Grafton families (some even relocating entire houses) moved to Hurricane for better farmland and fewer flood problems. School enrollment dropped; the last classes were held around 1918–1919 with only nine students, after which children attended school in Rockville. The local LDS branch was discontinued in 1921.

Population continued to dwindle (census figures show decline after 1910). The last permanent residents, Frank Russell and his wife Ellen (or Mary Ballard Russell in some accounts), left in 1944 or 1945. Modern amenities such as electricity, indoor plumbing, and culinary water were never installed.

Film History and Modern Preservation

In the mid-20th century, the largely abandoned but intact town attracted filmmakers. Notable productions include:

  • In Old Arizona (1929) — the first outdoor talkie, with Warner Baxter winning an Academy Award for Best Actor as the Cisco Kid.
  • The Arizona Kid (1930).
  • Ramrod (1947).
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) — the famous bicycle scene with Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Katharine Ross was filmed here.

Other films and productions have also used the site. In 1946, movie producer Harry Sherman reportedly purchased the town from a descendant of an early settler.

In 1997, the Grafton Heritage Partnership Project was formed to protect, preserve, and restore the townsite in cooperation with former residents, the Utah State Historical Society, the Bureau of Land Management, and others. Restored or stabilized structures include the 1886 schoolhouse/church, the Alonzo Haventon Russell Home (used in Butch Cassidy), the Louisa Foster (or Marie Russell) Home, the John Wood Home, and the Berry fence in the cemetery. About 150 acres of farmland were acquired to maintain an agricultural appearance. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It remains under surveillance, and annual reunions of former residents and descendants continue (typically the last Saturday in September).

The Cemetery

Located a short distance from the townsite, the Grafton Cemetery (active roughly 1862–1924) holds an estimated 74–84 graves, many unmarked. It includes pioneers, children lost to disease and accidents, victims of the 1866 violence, and some Southern Paiute individuals who lived and worked alongside settlers. The Berry family plot is the most prominent.

Legacy

Grafton’s story encapsulates the perseverance required for pioneer settlement in a harsh desert river environment: floods, silt-clogged ditches, limited arable land, disease, conflict over resources, and eventual economic shifts that favored larger, better-watered communities. Today the quiet townsite, with its adobe and wooden buildings framed by the dramatic cliffs of Zion, stands as a tangible reminder of that era. It is accessible via a short dirt road from Rockville (across the historic bridge over the Virgin River) and is open to respectful visitors. For the most current information on visits and preservation, the Grafton Heritage Partnership Project is the primary resource.