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History
Occupation of the San Rafael region dates back thousands of years to include people of the Desert Archaic Culture who were followed by those of the Fremont culture who inhabited present-day Emery County through the sixth through thirteenth centuries AD; evidence of their civilizations is extant in numerous pictograph and petroglyph panels, such as those in Temple Mountain Wash, Muddy Creek, Ferron Box, Black Dragon Canyon, and Buckhorn Wash - all sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Ute Indians also occupied sites in Castle Valley,
The first non-indigenous people to view Castle Valley were undoubtedly Spanish Traders and Explorers. The first of record was Silvestre Vélez de Escalante; in 1776 he crossed northern Utah through the Uintah Basin. Spanish traders and explorers soon found a more southerly route, and their path became known as the Old Spanish Trail. It began at Santa Fe, to Durango, Colorado, crossed the Colorado River (then known as Grand River) near present-day Moab, then to the Green River-crossing where Green River is now located, thence westerly to Cedar Mountain. It went on the South side of Cedar Mountain, across Buckhorn Flat, passed the Red Seeps to Huntington Creek, crossing about a mile below where the present bridge crosses; thence to Cottonwood Creek. It crossed the Ferron Creek where Molen now stands. It passed through the Rochester Flats about one mile (1.6 km) east of present-day Moore and crossed the Muddy Creek about two miles due east of the present town of Emery.
It then went over Salina (Salt Creek) Canyon. It then turned south and went through Parowan, Mountain Meadows, Las Vegas, Barstow California and to the coast. This Trail had to traverse Castle Valley, to skirt the steep-walled canyons of the San Juan, Colorado, Green, Dirty Devil, and San Rafael Rivers.
Slavery was the principal trade which developed between Santa Fe and the Utah region. The trading of Indian women and children to the Spanish, although illegal, was the purpose of the Spanish coming into the area which was to become Utah. The other use of the trail was to herd livestock, mostly horses, from California to Santa Fe. Since the slave trade was illegal, the traders kept neither records of their activities nor the extent of their travels and explorations. Travelers along the Old Spanish Trail gave Castle Valley its names, as the travelers marveled at the imposing rock formations.
The first Americans to come to Castle Valley were fur trappers, including the "lost trappers", James Workman and William Spencer, who had been separated from their trapping party by Comanche Indians and had wandered all the way to the Moab crossing of the Colorado River hoping that they would find Santa Fe. Here they met a Spanish caravan of forty or fifty people going to California. They joined the caravan and traveled through Castle Valley in 1809 and went on to California. In 1830, William Wilfskill came to Castle Valley along the Spanish Trail. He and his party were fur trappers but found little in the area to keep them here.
Following the trappers in the late 1840s and early 1850s, government explorers came to the valley seeking usable overland routes across the continent. Kit Carson was the first of these famous men. He was looking for a direct route for the mail to be carried overland from St. Louis to California. Carson carried through Castle Valley to the nation the news of gold being found in the Sierra Nevada in 1848.
In 1853 John W. Gunnison, an Army Topographical Engineer came through Castle Valley, plotting a railroad route. He was commissioned for this assignment by US Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. He left detailed descriptions of his travels, and carefully laid out his route through Castle Valley. Gunnison's route first met the Spanish Trail at the Green River crossing. He followed this trail for a short distance west of the Green River, but when the Spanish Trail entered a rugged rocky region (Sinbad Reef) he charted a route around this feature.
The third government explorer was John C. Fremont, in the winter of 1853-54. His trip was heavily impacted by the cold weather. They suffered from lack of food and from the inhospitable landscape. There was no relief from their difficulties until they left Castle Valley and made their way to the small Mormon settlement of Parowan.
In 1875 livestock growers from Sanpete County brought cattle and sheep into Castle Valley to graze, and several recognized the settlement potential of the region. With a shortage of sufficient land and water in Sanpete County and a strong desire by LDS Church leaders to acquire unoccupied land in the region before non-Mormons did, young families began moving into Castle Valley in the fall of 1877 to homestead in the future sites of Huntington, Ferron, Castle Dale, and Orangeville.
In late August 1877, Brigham Young, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), issued an order to the Sanpete LDS Stake president seeking ". . . at least fifty families [to] locate in Castle Valley this fall." The order led to the last Mormon colony settled under the direction of Brigham Young. One week later on August 29, Young, the Great Colonizer, died. During his 30 years as leader of the LDS Church, Young had overseen and directed the establishment of almost 400 towns and villages. The settlement of Emery County was his last.
Soon after issuance of Young’s order, several bands of settlers moved out from the Sanpete region headed for Castle Valley (Emery County). They settled along Huntington Creek, Cottonwood Creek, and Ferron Creek. The following spring (1878) several more families arrived. In the spring of 1878, Elias Cox and Charles Hollingshead set up a sawmill in Huntington Canyon to support the colony. On Ferron Creek, settlers plowed lands and began construction of a ditch for irrigation. Most of the early settlers in Castle Valley claimed easily watered bottom lands along the creeks and rivers, and by 1879, most of the best lands had been taken up.
Emery County was created by the Utah Territorial Legislature on February 12, 1880. The description included the future Carbon County area. It was named for George W. Emery, the Utah Territory governor whose term was ending as the act was being debated.
Emery County population passed 4,600 by 1900, with 450+ farms and 25,000 acres under cultivation. Irrigation systems were being expanded to bring new lands into production, bringing with them problems which would plague the region for several decades. Water rights conflicts frequently arose, and water theft, known as "midnight irrigation," became common. Most disputes were settled by decree, but a few were contested by violence.
The underlying soils in Emery County consist of ancient seabeds which contain high levels of salts. Poor drainage and over-irrigation causes the salts to collect on the surface, rendering large areas of land unsuitable for agriculture. The problem first appeared in the 1890s, and in 1903, a Department of Agriculture report stated that over 30% of the developed farmland in Emery County had been abandoned due to degradation.
With expanded irrigation development came expanded settlement as several new towns were established. In addition, the coal industry, which had consisted of small mines to cover local demand, had significantly expanded, with several large-scale operations starting in the county. The US entry into The Great War created a minor boom in Emery County as agricultural prices rose and manpower shortages caused wages at the mines to rise. Following the war, prices dropped significantly, leading to hard times throughout much of the 1920s. Things improved somewhat during the later years of the decade, but an even more significant collapse came with the onset of the Great Depression in the early 1930s. In addition, severe drought in 1931 and 1934 intensified the economic hardship in the county.
Riding the crest of national economic growth during the 1970s Emery County's population grew significantly as a result of the construction of large coal-fired power plants in Castle Dale and Huntington by Utah Power & Light Company (PacifiCorp) and the expansion of coal mines to fuel them.
On August 6, 2007, at 2:48 A.M., UtahAmerican Energy's Crandall Canyon Mine, 15 miles west north-west of Huntington, collapsed; trapping 6 workers inside. The workers were approximately 3.4 mi from the mine entrance and 1,500 ft underground. The collapse registered recorded seismic waves in magnitude 3.9 to 4.0, by seismograph stations of the University of Utah. Emery County, the state's No. 2 coal-producing county, was also the site of a fire that killed 27 people in the Wilberg Mine in December 1984.
In popular culture, the scenes for planet Vulcan in the 2009 film, Star Trek were filmed near Green River. Scenes where Tim Allen battles a giant rock monster called "Gorignak" in the 1999 film Galaxy Quest were filmed at Goblin Valley State Park. The music video for the 2008 single, "Human", by The Killers, was filmed in Goblin Valley.
Adjacent Counties
Cities, Towns & Communities
- Castle Dale (County Seat)
- Clawson
- Cleveland
- Connellsville
- Desert Lake
- Elmo
- Emery
- Ferron
- Green River
- Hiawatha (part)
- Huntington
- Lawrence
- Mohrland
- Molen
- Moore
- Orangeville
- Victor
- Woodside
Links
National Register of Historic Places
A History of Emery County by Edward A. Geary
Castle Dale Obituaries (2001-present)