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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Rich County, Utah.
Official Website
History
The county was created in 1864 and was named for an early LDS apostle, Charles C. Rich.
The county was believed to have first been visited by European-descended explorers in 1811, when trapper Joseph Miller discovered the Bear River. In 1827, the first annual rendezvous of trappers occurred on the south shore of Bear Lake, a tradition which is still marked today. The site is also preserved as part of Bear Lake State Park.
The Oregon Trail, a heavily traveled route to the Northwest Territories, passed through the upper part of the future county. Apparently, many emigrants traveling to the NW Territories also traveled around the south end of Bear Lake instead of hewing to the more heavily traveled route through present-day Idaho, although this addition to the Oregon Trail is usually not shown on maps of the route.
The Utah Territory had been initially settled by Mormon pioneers beginning in 1847, but no Mormons moved into the Rich County area until after 1862. The US Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1862, opening this area to settlement. Mormon leader Brigham Young, fearing this would lead to an influx of non-Mormons, called members of his flock to move to the area and begin its settlement.
The first settlement within the county's present boundary was Round Valley in 1863; located southwest of Laketown (settled 1864), it is now a ghost town. Randolph was settled in 1870. Originally created as Richland County on January 16, 1864, the name was shortened to Rich on January 29, 1868, by the 17th Utah Territorial Legislature. The boundary as originally defined extended beyond Utah into southwestern Wyoming and southeast Idaho. However, on July 25, 1868, the Wyoming Territory was created by the federal government, and all of the Rich County area east of the 111-degree line of longitude became part of the new territory and thus was lost to Rich. The 1870 census for Rich County, Utah Territory enumerates a total of 1,672 residents in the eight Idaho communities of Bennington, Bloomington, Fish Haven, Liberty, Montpelier, Ovid, Paris and St. Charles. Utah Territory adjusted the county's boundary on February 16, 1872, by moving a small portion previous Summit County into Rich. The final adjustment to county boundaries was made on January 5, 1875, when Idaho Territory took the eight aforementioned communities and others in the Bear Lake Valley to form Bear Lake County.
Adjacent Counties
- Bear Lake County, Idaho
- Lincoln County, Wyoming
- Uinta County, Wyoming
- Cache County
- Weber County
- Franklin County, Idaho
- Morgan County
- Summit County
Towns & Communities
- Argyle
- Garden
- Garden City
- Laketown (formerly, Last Chance)
- Pickelville
- Randolph (County Seat)
- Woodruff
Links
