Giles is a ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 located along the Fremont River

Fremont River (Utah)

The Fremont River in Utah flows from the Johnson Valley Reservoir, which is located on the Wasatch Plateau near Fish Lake, southwest through Capitol Reef National Park to the Muddy Creek near Hanksville where the two rivers combine to form the Dirty Devil River, a tributary of the Colorado River...

 in the Blue Valley

Blue Valley (Utah)

Blue Valley is part of the Fremont River drainage extending form just east of the Caineville Reef to Hanksville, Utah. This stretch of the Fremont River is located approximately 15 miles east of Capitol Reef National Park. It is called Blue Valley because of the blue color of the Mancos Shale that...

 of Wayne County

Wayne County, Utah

Wayne County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. It was formed from Piute County in 1892. The county gets its name from a man who served as delegate to the constitutional convention, in honor of his son who was dragged to death by a horse. As of 2000 the population was 2,509, and by...

, Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The town was inhabited about 1883–1919.

History

In the early 1880s, several settlements in Wayne County were started by Mormon

Mormon

The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...

 farmers under the leadership of Hyrum Burgess. By 1883 some Burgess family members had moved to the Blue Valley area, constructing a dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

 and irrigation

Irrigation

Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...

 canal by 1884.

The land along the Fremont River was fertile, and the growing season

Growing season

In botany, horticulture, and agriculture the growing season is the period of each year when native plants and ornamental plants grow; and when crops can be grown....

 longer than in western Wayne County. The valley's farming potential soon brought other settlers. The settlement was known as Blue Valley for its blue-gray soil, colored by Bentonite

Bentonite

Bentonite is an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate, essentially impure clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite. There are different types of bentonite, each named after the respective dominant element, such as potassium , sodium , calcium , and aluminum . Experts debate a number of nomenclatorial...

 clay and Mancos Shale

Mancos Shale

The Mancos Shale or Mancos Group is an Upper Cretaceous geologic formation of the Western United States dominated by mudrock that accumulated in offshore and marine environments of the Cretaceous North American Inland Sea. The Mancos was deposited during the Cenomanian through Campanian ages,...

. The town was built on both banks of the river, but most people lived on the south side. A footbridge

Footbridge

A footbridge or pedestrian bridge is a bridge designed for pedestrians and in some cases cyclists, animal traffic and horse riders, rather than vehicular traffic. Footbridges complement the landscape and can be used decoratively to visually link two distinct areas or to signal a transaction...

 connected the two halves. A school building was erected in 1888, but a proper townsite

Townsite

A townsite is a legal subdivision of land for the development of a town or community. In the historical development of the United States, Canada, and other former British colonial nations, the filing of a townsite plat or plan was often the first legal act in the establishment of a new town or...

 was not laid out until June 1895. At that time residents renamed their settlement Giles, in honor of the late Bishop Henry Giles, who had been one of Blue Valley's most prominent residents. The crops in Giles grew well, and by 1900 the population had increased to 200. A new meetinghouse went up in 1901, said to be the largest in the county. There was a sawmill

Sawmill

A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....

 in the nearby Henry Mountains

Henry Mountains

The Henry Mountains are located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Utah and run in a generally north-south direction, extending over a distance of about 30 miles . They were named by John Wesley Powell in honour of Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. The...

, and the town included a grocery store, blacksmith

Blacksmith

A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...

 shop, and boarding house

Boarding house

A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...

.

The early 1900s brought frequent devastating flood

Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...

s of the Fremont River. The flooding in 1909–1910 was so severe that local church authorities gave up on trying to maintain a permanent dam. Unable to irrigate their crops, the residents began to leave. By 1919 Giles was a ghost town.

Two rock buildings still stand at the site, and numerous foundations and old corrals show where the town once was.

External links

• Giles at Ghost Towns of Utah