Quail Creek State Park is a state park

State park

State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the federated state level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, or recreational...

 of 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...

, USA, featuring a 600 acres (242.8 ha) reservoir. The park is located 9 miles (14.5 km) west of Hurricane

Hurricane, Utah

Hurricane is a city in Washington County, Utah. Its population was 13,748 at the 2010 U.S. Census. Along with several other areas of southwestern Utah, the Hurricane area has seen a large population growth since the 1970s, and it has blended in with neighboring city of St...

 and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of Harrisburg

Harrisburg, Utah

Harrisburg is a ghost town in Washington County, Utah, United States. Established as Harrisville in 1859, the town was flooded by the Virgin River in 1862, causing the residents to move farther up the river. Soon after, the town's name was changed to Harrisburg...

. Quail Creek State Park offers camping, boating, swimming, and fishing.

The maximum depth of Quail Creek can reach 120 feet (36.6 m), so it is cold enough to sustain the stocked rainbow trout

Rainbow trout

The rainbow trout is a species of salmonid native to tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead is a sea run rainbow trout usually returning to freshwater to spawn after 2 to 3 years at sea. In other words, rainbow trout and steelhead trout are the same species....

, bullhead catfish

Bullhead catfish

Ameiurus is a genus of catfishes in the family Ictaluridae. It contains the three common types of bullhead catfish found in waters of the United States, the black bullhead , the brown bullhead , and the yellow bullhead , as well as other species, such as the white catfish Ameiurus is a genus of...

, and crappie

Crappie

Crappie is a genus of freshwater fish in the sunfish family of order Perciformes. The type species is P. annularis, the white crappie...

. Largemouth bass

Largemouth bass

The largemouth bass is a species of black bass in the sunfish family native to North America . It is also known as widemouth bass, bigmouth, black bass, bucketmouth, Potter's fish, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, green trout, linesides, Oswego bass, southern largemouth...

, which are also stocked, and bluegill

Bluegill

The Bluegill is a species of freshwater fish sometimes referred to as bream, brim, or copper nose. It is a member of the sunfish family Centrarchidae of the order Perciformes.-Range and distribution:...

 thrive in the warmer, upper layers of the reservoir.

History

Quail Creek reservoir was completed in 1985 to provide irrigation and culinary water to the St. George area. Most of the water in the reservoir does not come from Quail Creek, but is diverted from the Virgin River

Virgin River

The Virgin River is a tributary of the Colorado River in the U.S. states of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. The river is about long. It was designated Utah's first wild and scenic river in 2009, during the centennial celebration of Zion National Park.-Course:...

 and transported through a buried pipeline.

Two dams form the reservoir. The main dam is an earthfill embankment dam

Embankment dam

An embankment dam is a massive artificial water barrier. It is typically created by the emplacement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil, sand, clay and/or rock. It has a semi-permanent waterproof natural covering for its surface, and a dense, waterproof...

. The south dam is a roller-compacted concrete

Roller-compacted concrete

Roller-compacted concrete or rolled concrete is a special blend of concrete that has essentially the same ingredients as conventional concrete but in different ratios, and increasingly with partial substitution of fly ash for Portland cement. RCC is a mix of cement/fly ash, water, sand, aggregate...

dam, constructed to replace the original earthfill dam that failed in the early hours of New Year's Day 1989.

External links

• Quail Creek State Park