Thompson Springs, also officially known for a time as just Thompson, is a small

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...

in central Grand County,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, United States. The population was 39 at the 2010 census. The town is just north of the east–west highway route shared by

Interstate 70 Interstate 70 (I-70) is a major east–west Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from Interstate 15, I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to a park and ride lot just east of Interstate 695 (Maryland), I-695 in ...

U.S. Route 6 U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...

and

U.S. Route 50 U.S. Route 50 or U.S. Highway 50 (US 50) is a major east–west route of the U.S. Highway system, stretching from Interstate 80 (I-80) in West Sacramento, California, to Maryland Route 528 (MD 528) in Ocean City, Maryland, on the Atlanti ...

, between Crescent Junction and

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

Moab Moab ''Mōáb''; Assyrian: 𒈬𒀪𒁀𒀀𒀀 ''Mu'abâ'', 𒈠𒀪𒁀𒀀𒀀 ''Ma'bâ'', 𒈠𒀪𒀊 ''Ma'ab''; Egyptian: 𓈗𓇋𓃀𓅱𓈉 ''Mū'ībū'', name=, group= () is the name of an ancient Levantine kingdom whose territo ...

, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

, is to the south. Thompson Springs is located in high desert country at an elevation of , with the

Book Cliffs The Book Cliffs are a series of desert mountains and cliffs in western Colorado and eastern Utah in the western United States. They are so named because the cliffs of Cretaceous sandstone that cap many of the south-facing buttes appear similar ...

just to the north. The town's ZIP code is 84540. The mystery "The Silver Spur Cafe" by Chinle Miller is partially set in Thompson Springs.

History

Evidence of human habitation or use of the Thompson Springs area can be dated back to the Archaic Period, when beautiful

pictograph A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and in computer usage an icon, is a graphic symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and gr ...

s were left in

Thompson Canyon The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches, the South Thompson River and the North Thompson River. The river ...

. Subsequent

Anasazi The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, a ...

, Fremont, and

Ute Ute or UTE may refer to: * Ute (band), an Australian jazz group * Ute (given name) * ''Ute'' (sponge), a sponge genus * Ute (vehicle), an Australian and New Zealand term for certain utility vehicles * Ute, Iowa, a city in Monona County along ...

tribes have also left their mark upon the area. The site of this rock art in Thompson Canyon has been designated as the

Thompson Wash Rock Art District The Thompson Wash Rock Art District, known by the Bureau of Land Management as the Sego Canyon Rock Art Interpretive Site, is a rock art site in Grand County, Utah, north of the town of Thompson Springs. It contains art from three different cu ...

Thompson Springs was named for E.W. Thompson, who lived near the springs and operated a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

to the north near the Book Cliffs. The town began life in the late nineteenth century as a station stop on the

Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad , often shortened to ''Rio Grande'', D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow-gauge line running south from De ...

(D&RGW), which had been completed through the area in 1883. A post office at the site was established in 1890, under the name "Thompson's". (The official designation by the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

is still "Thompson".) The town was a community center for the small number of farmers and ranchers living in the inhospitable region, and it was also a prominent shipping point for

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

that were run in the Book Cliffs area. Stockmen from both San Juan and Grand counties used Thompson. Thompson gained importance in the early twentieth century due to the development of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

mines in Sego Canyon, north of town. Commercial mining in Sego Canyon began in 1911, and that year the Ballard and Thompson Railroad was constructed to connect the mines with the railhead at Thompson. The railroad branch line and mines continued operating until about 1950. For many years the city was served by various D&RGW passenger trains, including the '' Scenic Limited'', the ''

Exposition Flyer The ''Exposition Flyer ''was a passenger train jointly operated by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q), Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW), and Western Pacific (WP) railroads between Chicago and Oakland, California, for a decade between 19 ...

'', the ''

Prospector Prospector may refer to: Space exploration * Prospector (spacecraft), a planned lunar probe, canceled in 1962 * '' Lunar Prospector'', a NASA spacecraft Trains * Prospector (train), a passenger train operated by the Denver & Rio Grande Western ...

'', the ''

California Zephyr The ''California Zephyr'' is a passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area (at Emeryville), via Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Reno. At , it is Amtrak's longest daily route, and second-longest overal ...

'' (where it was a flag stop, though the timetable for 1969 shows it as a regular stop), and the ''

Rio Grande Zephyr The ''Rio Grande Zephyr'' was a passenger train operated by Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW or Rio Grande) between Denver, Colorado and Ogden, Utah from 1970 until 1983. In operation after the creation of publicly-funded Amtrak, th ...

''. Although

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

(the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) took over nearly all passenger rail service in the United States in 1971, the D&RGW continued service through the area until 1983. Subsequently, for the next fourteen years, the city was served by various Amtrak trains, including the ''California Zephyr'', the ''

Desert Wind The ''Desert Wind'' was an Amtrak long-distance passenger train that ran from 1979 to 1997. It operated from Chicago to Los Angeles as a section of the ''California Zephyr'', serving Los Angeles via Salt Lake City; Ogden, Utah; and Las Vegas. ...

'', and the ''

Pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...

''. Construction of I-70 two miles south of Thompson Springs drew traffic away from the city as the former Old Cisco Highway (US 6 and US-50) (now named Frontage Road) was no longer used. The later movement of the passenger train stop about to the west in

Green River Green River may refer to: Rivers Canada * Green River (British Columbia), a tributary of the Lillooet River *Green River, a tributary of the Saint John River, also known by its French name of Rivière Verte *Green River (Ontario), a tributary of ...

( Green River station) in 1997 led to further economic hardship for Thompson Springs. The original name for this settlement was "Thompson Springs", a name that was reinstated in 1985. Much of the town is uninhabited today, although there are still some operating businesses in the immediate vicinity of I-70. The Moab

Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action The Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project was created by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to monitor the cleanup of uranium mill tailings. In 1978 the US Congress passed the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act ...

(UMTRA) Project is a

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...

removal and relocation project that promises to bring jobs to the area as tailings from the Atlas Mineral Company's tailings ponds outside of Moab will be moved to Crescent Junction, about west of Thompson Springs.

Demographics

As of the census of 2010, there were 39 people living in the CDP. There were 43 housing units. The

racial makeup A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...

of the town was 94.9% White, and 5.1% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0% of the population.

Transportation

While the community is situated just north of

(I‑70/US‑6/US‑50), the community is connected to that transportation corridor by State Route 94, which runs south from the center of town to an interchange with I‑70/US‑6/US‑50. Prior to the construction of I‑70, US‑6/US‑50 ran through the center of town.

Thompson Wash Rock Art District

The

(which is also referred to as the Sego Canyon Rock Art Interpretive Site by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

) is an archeological site located in

(about north of Thompson Springs) that was named after

Thompson Wash Thompson may refer to: People * Thompson (surname) * Thompson M. Scoon (1888–1953), New York politician Places Australia *Thompson Beach, South Australia, a locality Bulgaria * Thompson, Bulgaria, a village in Sofia Province Canada * ...

and is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. The district includes several well-preserved groups

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s (images etched into the rock surface) and

pictographs A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and in computer usage an icon, is a graphic symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and gr ...

(images painted onto the rock surface) left by early Native Americans in three different styles (each with their own panel): Fremont,

and Barrier Canyon. As such it provides fairly rare opportunity to compare all three the styles in one location, particularly a site that is easily accessible. Some of the images may date back more than 4000 years. The

Fremont culture The Fremont culture or Fremont people is a pre-Columbian archaeological culture which received its name from the Fremont River in the U.S. state of Utah, where the culture's sites were discovered by local indigenous peoples like the Navajo and Ute ...

thrived from A.D. 600 to 1250 and was contemporary with the

culture of the

Four Corners The Four Corners is a region of the Southwestern United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. The Four Corners area ...

area. The Archaic period dated from 7000 B.C., while the Barrier Canyon period from around 400 A.D., and the

Ute tribe Ute () are the Indigenous people of the Ute tribe and culture among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. They had lived in sovereignty in the regions of present-day Utah and Colorado in the Southwestern United States for many centuries unt ...

dating from A.D. 1300.

Notes

References

External links

{{authority control Archaic period in North America Census-designated places in Utah Census-designated places in Grand County, Utah Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Populated places established in 1893 1893 establishments in Utah Territory