From From Humble Beginnings
to Amazing Vitality
by Douglas D. Alder
photos from the
LYNNE CLARK COLLECTION

The Hurricane Canal flume

St. George is listed in numerous newspapers, magazines and guidebooks as one of the most desirable places to live in the United States and one of the fastest growing. These articles cite the recreation lifestyle, the great desert scenery, the nearby national parks and monuments, the 100 restaurants and food outlets and the 4000 hotel beds. They also tout and the air service, the many golf opportunities, the scores of parks and trails, the concerts, the art museums, the theaters, the swimming pools and especially the many upscale housing developments. It is heady. People flock to this growing center and its nearby neighbors.

The Tabernacle - donor USHL

A century ago the story was quite different. The founding period of Utah’s Dixie could be considered the years from 1852 to 1877. A score of villages were founded by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Santa Clara to Springdale, with St. George becoming the center in 1861 when 309 families arrived under the leadership of Erastus Snow. The initial attempts at agriculture were discouraging. LDS leader Brigham Young realized that taming water on the desert was a new challenge and decided to subsidize the colony for a decade and a half to get its roots started. The result was an amazing series of construction projects — the St. George Hall, the St. George Tabernacle, the St. George Temple, the Cotton Factory in Washington City, the Courthouse, the Opera House — turning the small town into a regional center that directed the activities of some 40 villages in Washington County, southern Nevada and along the Little Colorado River in Arizona.

That period was also one of building scores of canals and small dams and attempting many times to dam the Virgin River — initially without success. It ushered in a long period of selfsustaining agriculture to raise cotton, but after the Civil War ended, farmers shifted to raising alfalfa.

The St. George LDS Temple - donor Will Brooks

Ranching soon supplemented farming, both small cooperative herds and large ones on the Arizona Strip. The victory of finally completing a dam that would hold the Virgin River in 1888 opened the Washington Fields area to farming. Later the Hurricane Canal and the Enterprise Reservoir provided water to two other large areas of acreage. Farming became the staple of the county. Gardening and orchards also were vital, allowing families to engage in peddling and delivering their pickings to Silver Reef and Pioche miners for rare cash.

The courthouse under construction - donor Dolores Riggs

The farming life was bleak. People got by, lived in modest adobe homes and raised large families but amassed little capital. Trucking became important and farm produce was sold throughout the state and in Las Vegas, some even in California. The great majority of people were farmers. Their children went to village schools, initially three grades for three months a year but later these were extended to the eighth grade and more months. This preoccupation with farming on small, irrigated farms, often only five acres because of limited water, dominated the county until the mid-20th century.

The Washington Spillway - donor Larue Prisbey

The creation of Zion National Park and the building of Highway 91 opened a new venue for Utah’s Dixie. The addition of the Zion Park tunnel allowed Union Pacific Corp. to bring busloads of tourists into the park and take them on to Grand Canyon over the bridge at Rockville. William Wylie built a tourist camp at Springdale and tourism spread, becoming an alternative to agriculture. Soon motels and restaurants lined St. George Boulevard.

The Paiute Wikiups - donor Nellie Gubler

Dicks Cafe, the Big Hand, the Sugar Loaf and the Liberty Hotel fed travelers who discovered St. George as a way station. Enterprising locals planned a way to keep them in town longer and convinced the city to build the Dixie Red Hills Golf Course in 1965. Several other courses were built. Then the entrepreneurs conceived of a convention center and soon the idea of vacation homes was proposed. That attracted outside capital, a new element, creating Bloomington, Bloomington Hills and Green Valley. Condominiums were conceived of and St. George was on its way to a very advanced stage, not just tourism but construction and a wild new idea: retirement destination and second homes.

The Washington Cottonmill - donor Glenn Snow

Another savvy group of locals could see that tourism was a volatile dimension of the economy, one with low salaries. They saw that other Utah communities were developing an economic base that generated much greater employment and wealth. This was industry. In 1961 they facilitated the first of what would become five industrial parks. It was a modest beginning but a most significant one. It brought in a national firm, the Hawthorne Company, which manufactured tents and sleeping bags and shipped them all over the East. This was the first of many others that located in the park

The Woodward building - donor Karl Larson

near Middleton. In 1980 St. George City sponsored the Millcreek Industrial Park. That was followed in 1992 by the Gateway Industrial Park in Hurricane with its biggest tenant, the WalMart distribution center. Recently the Fort Pierce Industrial Park and the Tonaquint Industrial Park have been added. These are beginning an important new base for the Dixie economy. They are not yet as strong as cities in northern Utah, but hopes are that a new airport will soon be built with yet another industrial park nearby.

The Stormont Mill at Silver Reef - donor J.M. Forsha

The most visable dimension of present-day Dixie could be called destination housing. The place that was once an isolated set of villages with little connection to the outside has now become a significant spot on the national map. One result is that Dixie is clearly a destination — a place for conventions, for athletic meets such as the St. George Marathon, for vacations, for winter homes and for permanent, comfortable living in wonderful climate and scenery.

The Airport, 1948 - donor City of St. George

Developers have responded by creating handsome housing communities: the Sunbrook developments, Green Valley, Bloomington, Bloomington Hills, Entrada, Kayenta, Coral Canyon, Sky Mountain, Green Springs, Southgate, Legacy, Sun River, The Ledges, Dammeron Valley, Ivins, Winchester Hills and Diamond Valley. In addition, there are scores of developments in the county’s towns as well as condomiums from the modest level to the most sophisticated. Shopping malls, both large and small, exist throughout the area and shopping opportunities are as available

The Opera House - donor Orpha Morris

as any urban center, including numerous national chains. New schools have been built throughout the population centers, as well as parks. Numerous churches of some 40 denominations also dot the landscape.

All of this growth and development has its problems, too. Growth brings traffic and requires extensive creation of infrastructure. There are serious planning challenges, particularly dealing with water and considerations about how much growth can be accommodated. The delicate landscape that draws people to see the great natural beauties has to be preserved and protected from pollution and overdevelopment. So the present generation, now

The Academy building under construction - donor Marv Pymm

freed from the laborious farming life, faces new challenges. The fantastic cohort of people who now live here have great talents that hopefully will tackle the new problems and come up with solutions as creative as those of the founders of Utah’s Dixie.

SGM   

SOUTHERN UTAH TIMELINE
1300 Anasazi depart the region, probably because of a 25-year drought. 1500s Paiute tribes begin to settle in the area 1852-1877 Founding period of the LDS villages in Utah’s Dixie — some 20 of them. Building of the St. George Tabernacle, St. George Temple, Cotton Factory, Courthouse, Opera House, Cottonwood Spring developed at Pine Valley Mountain. 1874-84 Mining in Silver Reef. 1888 Washington Fields Dam completed after 17 other attempts failed. 1901 Woodward School opened in St. George, providing a modern education facility. 1905 Hurricane Canal completed (LaVerkin canal preceded it). 1907 Mukuntuweap National Monument created. 1911 St. George Stake Academy opened, became Dixie College. 1911 Enterprise Reservoir completed.	1917 Zion National Park developed out of the monument. 1930 Highway 91 opened, first oiled road, connecting St. George to the nation. 1930 Completion of the Zion Park tunnel, enabling Union Pacific to bring buses. 1930-40 St. George airport developed, expanded in 1975. 1940s-50s Advent of air conditioning. 1950s-60s Movie making in Dixie — John Wayne and many stars make Dixie famous. 1961 First industrial park developed, near Middleton. 1963 New Dixie College campus opened. 1965 Dixie Red Hills Golf course opened, first of a dozen courses. 1970 Gunlock Reservoir completed. 1972 Interstate 15 completed near St. George and through the Virgin River Gorge. 1972 SkyWest Airlines founded. 1980 Millcreek Industrial Park opened.	1983 Albertson’s commercial center mall opened on Bluff Street. 1985 Quail Creek Reservoir completed, later Sand Hollow added (2003). 1986 Dixie Center opened at Dixie College, later moved to present location. 1990 Red Cliffs Mall opened on Red Cliffs Drive. 1990 Fiberoptic link reached St. George from Salt Lake City. 1992 Gateway Industrial Park opened, including Wal-Mart Distribution center. 1996 Factory Stores Mall opened, followed by Promenade at Red Cliffs across the street. 1996 Pioneer Center for the Arts built as celebration for the statehood centennial. 1999 Dixie College becomes Dixie State College of Utah with fouryear programs. 2000 Fort Pierce Industrial Park opened. 2004 New Dixie Regional Medical Center campus opened on River Road. 2003-6 Box stores constructed along River Road and Red Cliffs Drive.