Park Valley is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in north-central
Box Elder County,
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
, United States.
Description
The community lies in the northwestern part of the state, northwest of the state capital at
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
, and west of the
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
at
Brigham City.
Utah State Route 30 runs through the center of the valley, generally from east to west. The valley is a roughly oval shape of about in length east to west and about north to south, covering a major portion of the western end of the county.
Park Valley anchors the northern end of the
Great Basin
The Great Basin () is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...
. The
Raft River Mountains
The Raft River Mountains are a mountain range in northern Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The mountains are located in the Raft River Division of the Minidoka Ranger District of the Sawtooth National Forest. The highest point is Bull Mou ...
to the north mark the boundary between the Great Basin and the
Snake River Plain
The Snake River cutting through the plain leaves many canyons and Canyon#List of gorges, gorges, such as this one near Twin Falls, Idaho
The Snake River Plain is a geology, geologic feature located primarily within the U.S. state of Idaho. ...
. What is called the community of Park Valley includes name locations that used to be nearly separate communities, such as
Rosette
Rosette is the French diminutive of ''rose''. It may refer to:
Flower shaped designs
* Rosette (award), a mark awarded by an organisation
* Rosette (design), a small flower design
*hence, various flower-shaped or rotational symmetric forms:
** R ...
, Dove Creek, Muddy, Rosebud, and
Kelton, as well as ones that have been almost forgotten by time, such as Ten-Mile, Clear Creek, Rosen Valley,
Terrace
Terrace may refer to:
Landforms and construction
* Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river
* Terrace, a street suffix
* Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk a ...
,
Golden,
Matlin, and other lesser camps along the old railroad grade. Since all of these areas belong to a homogeneous community, they are all known collectively as Park Valley. The valley center, or Park Valley proper, is the community center, which contains the church house, store, hotel, the park, and the schoolhouse.
History
In 1826, explorer
Jedediah Smith
Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831) was an American clerk, transcontinental pioneer, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartography, cartographer, mountain man and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the Western Unit ...
passed through the area. In 1841, the
Bartleson-Bidwell Party brought the first
wagon
A wagon (or waggon) is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by Working animal#Draft animals, draft animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people.
Wagons are i ...
s through the valley.
While the
Transcontinental Railroad
A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous rail transport, railroad trackage that crosses a continent, continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks may be via the Ra ...
coming to Utah did not pass directly through the valley, its proximity played an important part in the settlement and development of the area. Settlement was apparently a result of surveys conducted for several miles on either side of the railroad right-of-way. Even before the rails were joined at
Promontory
A promontory is a raised mass of land that projects into a lowland or a body of water (in which case it is a peninsula). Most promontories either are formed from a hard ridge of rock that has resisted the erosive forces that have removed the s ...
on May 10, 1869, the effect of the railroad on Park Valley had begun. The first permanent settler was
William P. (Cotton) Thomas, who migrated from Brigham City in 1869, and developed a cattle ranch near Dove Creek. The heavy growth of trees along the creek and the view of the valley inspired the name.
The town experienced a minor boom in 1890 when gold was discovered.
Climate
According to the
Köppen Climate Classification
The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...
system, Park Valley has a
semi-arid climate
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...
, abbreviated "BSk" on climate maps.
Climate Summary for Park Valley, Utah
/ref>
See also
References
External links
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Box Elder County, Utah
Unincorporated communities in Utah
Populated places established in 1869
1869 establishments in Utah Territory