Adapted from  “History,” Bluffdale, accessed April 9, 2020. Bluffdale was initially homesteaded by Jens and Rise Madsen in 1862, as they settled on the east side of the Jordan River. A few other settlers built homesteads nearby, but the area did not start to attract settlers in significant numbers until canals were established. Seven canals were established, and by 1883, …

Adapted from Martha Sonntag Bradley, A History of Kane County. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1999; “Laid-back Big Water mixes gay mayor, polygamists,” Salt Lake Tribune, Accessed April 9, 2020 While every town’s history is unique, Big Water is especially unusual compared to Utah’s other towns. Big water began as Glen Canyon City. It was built in the …

Adapted from Frederick M. Huchel, A History of Box Elder County. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1999; “Bear River City,” accessed April 9, 2020 Bear River city, named for the nearby Bear River, is located in Eastern Box Elder County. It was settled in 1866 by Anne Anderson and some other Scandinavian immigrants. The settlers relocated from an …

Adapted from “About Ballard,” accessed April 9, 2020; Dorris Karren Burton,  A History of Uintah County: Scratching the Surface. Salt Lake City: Utah Historical Society, 1996 Ballard’s history as a settlement began in 1905, when the Uintah Ute settlement in the Uintah basin was opened for white settlement. Ballard (originally Wilson-Ballard) was established as one of the predominantly Latter-day Saint …

Adapted from M. Guy Bishop, A History of Sevier County. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1997; “Aurora City History,” accessed April 9, 2020; “History of Aurora, Utah,” accessed April 9, 2020. Aurora is located on the north end of the Sevier Valley, near a bend in the Sevier River.  The area was explored in the 1870s by three …

Adapted from: “Area Background and Town History,” accessed April 9, 2020; “History of Apple Valley, Utah,” accessed April 9, 2020. Apple Valley is a good reminder that not all of Utah’s towns are products of pioneer settlement. Apple Valley, the newest town in Washington County, was incorporated in 2004. Development of the area only began in 1986, when Ted Gubler …

Adapted from Linda King Newell, and Vivian Lindford Talbot. A History of Garfield County. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1998. “Antimony, Utah.” Antimony, in Garfield county, is only a few miles away from the Paiute county line, so Antimony’s history is tied closely to both Utah and Garfield county. Like other Utah towns, Antimony went through several different …

Adapted from Bishop M. Guy,  A History of Sevier County. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1997 Annabella was founded in 1871 by two families, the Daltons and the Powells. The settlement was initially a small village known as Omni Point, due to its proximity to Richfield, which at the time was known as Omni. Early life in the …

Adapted from F. Ross Peterson, A History of Cache Valley. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1997;  “Spotlight: Amalga, Utah,” Joel E. Ricks, “The Settlement of Cache Valley” (1956). Joel Ricks Collection. Paper 1. Amalga, in the northern part of Utah’s stretch of Cache Valley, was settled later than much of Cache Valley. It is in the stretch of …

Adapted from Martha Sonntag Bradley,  A History of Kane County. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 199 and “Alton,” VisitSouthernUtah.com What’s in a name? Alton had several names, and many more proposed, before it became Alton. Alton began as an offshoot of the settlement of Upper Kanab. The location of present-day Alton was first settled by Lorenzo Roundy and …