Zion Ghost Towns

NameBelieve it or not, there are a few ghost towns in the vicinity of Zion National Park. If you ever wanted to walk down a dirt road through a town in the Old West, you can do it here. In fact, you can walk in the footsteps of Robert Redford because he was in the ghost town of Grafton to film 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Paul Newman and 1979's The Electric Horseman with Jane Fonda. Visiting these towns will add a flair of novelty and history to your visit in the Springdale area.

These towns were originally settled by Mormon pioneers who heeded the call of the Prophet Brigham Young to establish a "Cotton Mission" in the area. While the Virgin River was a blessing in helping these settlements exist, it also cursed them greatly. For instance, the present location of Grafton is not its original location. During January of 1862 the river literally washed the town away after 40 consecutive days of rain, but thedetermined settlers stayed. However, they moved the town a mile north in hopes of avoiding the river'sfury. Later, cotton and silk spinning industries fueled Grafton for most Nameof its life, but it was abandoned after the 1920s. Today it is one of the most photogenic ghost towns in the country, consisting of a small church, a couple of houses, and a quaint cemetery that still stand.

Grafton is about 6 miles west of Springdale on Highway 9

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