Grover 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 southwestern Wayne 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. Originally known as Carcass Creek, Grover is a small

ranching A ranch (from /Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often applied to li ...

community off the county's main recreational corridor.

Geography

Grover lies some southeast of Torrey, on State Route 12. It sits just outside

Dixie National Forest Dixie National Forest is a United States National Forest in Utah with headquarters in Cedar City. It occupies almost two million acres (8,000 km2) and stretches for about across southern Utah. The largest national forest in Utah, it ...

, at the northeastern flank of Boulder Mountain. To the east is

Capitol Reef National Park Capitol Reef National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in south-central Utah. The park is approximately long on its northsouth axis and just wide on average. The park was established in ...

. The community is small and scattered, but roughly bounded by two small streams, tributaries of the

Fremont River The Fremont River is a long river in southeastern Utah, United States that flows from the Johnson Valley Reservoir, which is located on the Wasatch Plateau near Fish Lake, Utah, Fish Lake, southeast through Capitol Reef National Park to the Muddy ...

. Fish Creek is on the west, Carcass Creek on the east. Carcass Creek was so named due to its steep banks, which proved hazardous to livestock. The former State Route 117 runs west and north from Grover to Teasdale, another small unincorporated community whose

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

serves Grover.

History

The first settlers on Carcass Creek were experienced Wayne County ranchers who arrived in 1880. In 1881, more cattlemen settled along Fish Creek. A small number of residents scattered through the area over the next few years. These early settlers referred to their settlement as Carcass Creek. In 1887, the

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

residents were organized into a congregation called the Carcass Creek

Branch A branch, also called a ramus in botany, is a stem that grows off from another stem, or when structures like veins in leaves are divided into smaller veins. History and etymology In Old English, there are numerous words for branch, includ ...

, although meetings were held only irregularly due to the distances among homes. In the early 1890s the growing town was granted a post office, and the name was changed to ''Grover'' in honor of U.S. President

Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms and the first Hist ...

. The Grover Irrigation Company organized in 1893 to build and manage structures for drawing and distributing water from Fish Creek Lake. The first school classes were held in the winter of 1892–1893, and the first log school/church/community building was built about 1900. In 1935, a new school building was built in Grover. A

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

ed log

one-room school One-room schoolhouses, or One-room schools, have been commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, and Spa ...

, the Grover School was built with funds and labor provided mainly by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

. Unlike other area schools, it had a fence and lawn. Due to Grover's small size, the school board quickly decided the school was an unnecessary expense; within three years the older children were sent to school in Bicknell, and in 1941 the Grover School was closed. The building has remained largely intact, and in 1986 it was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

Demographics

Even for sparsely populated Wayne County, Grover has always been a small community with few inhabitants. Through all the years that it was enumerated as a census precinct in the

United States Census The United States census (plural censuses or census) is a census that is legally mandated by the Constitution of the United States. It takes place every ten years. The first census after the American Revolution was taken in 1790 United States ce ...

, from 1900 to 1950, the population never reached 100. The annual

Fourth of July Independence Day, known colloquially as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States which commemorates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing th ...

celebration in Grover has become a reunion of current and former residents; in 1973 the number of attendees was "more than 200".

Economy

Like much of Wayne County, Grover's economy traditionally depended on ranching, but has been supplemented in recent decades by the tourist trade from Capitol Reef National Park and other regional recreation. The scenic location has become an attractive place for

vacation home A holiday cottage, holiday home, vacation home, or vacation property is accommodation used for holiday vacations, corporate travel, and temporary housing often for less than 30 days. Such properties are typically small homes, such as cottage ...

s. The Hale Family Theatre, one of several theater companies run by the family of Ruth Hale, produces plays through the summer months in a rustic barn theater at the family's Grover ranch.

Education

Since the closure of the Grover School in 1941, Grover has had no schools of its own. Children attend school in Bicknell and

Loa , also called loa, are spirits in the African diaspora religions, African diasporic religion of Haitian Vodou and Dominican Vudú. They have also been incorporated into some revivalist forms of Louisiana Voodoo. Many of the lwa derive their iden ...

References

External links

Wayne County Communities
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Utah Unincorporated communities in Wayne County, Utah