Kiz is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

located in arid Clark Valley, in the sparsely populated eastern part of Carbon 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. This agricultural settlement existed between approximately 1906 and 1940. The nearest currently inhabited town is East Carbon.

History

The area was first settled in the 1890s by two successive ranchers—the first, by the name of Clark, giving his name to the valley. Each of them in turn soon abandoned his ranch, most likely due to

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

conditions. In 1906 the first of the more permanent settlers arrived, Orson Dimick and John Higginson, later to be joined by Nephi Perkins and Dimick's parents, Ephraim and Kiziah. Most of the

homesteaders The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of t ...

came in the period 1910–1916, including a successful

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

sheepherder named Gratien Etchebarne who filed the first legal claim to the land in 1916. By then there were some two dozen families living in what became Kiz. The settlers were aware of the valley's forbidding desert climate. They set about the difficult task of

dry farming Dry or dryness most often refers to: * Lack of rainfall, which may refer to **Arid regions **Drought * Dry or dry area, relating to legal prohibition of selling, serving, or imbibing alcoholic beverages * Dry humor, deadpan * Dryness (medical) ...

. Trying to save all the available water, residents dug numerous wells, and although there was no stream nearby, they built a large

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

for

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

. In 1921 the

American Legion The American Legion, commonly known as the Legion, is an Voluntary association, organization of United States, U.S. war veterans headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. It comprises U.S. state, state, Territories of the United States, U.S. terr ...

promoted Clark Valley as a home for

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

veterans to establish themselves, making claims of available irrigation water that never actually arrived. It is not known how many people this advertisement brought, but by 1924 there were enough children to establish a school, in a building provided by Etchebarne. The population reached its peak in 1925, and a post office was established in 1926 in George Mead's

general store A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...

. He suggested the name ''Kiz'' in honor of the first woman settler in the valley, his sister Kiziah "Aunt Kiz" Dimick. Kiz did experience successful harvests some years, but water was always in short supply. In 1930 there was another severe drought, and most of the residents moved away. The school burned down in 1932, and the students started attending school in Sunnyside. By 1940 Kiz was a ghost town. The town's cemetery and a few empty foundations are still visible.

References

External links

Kiz
at GhostTowns.com

{{Carbon County, Utah Ghost towns in Carbon County, Utah Populated places established in 1906 Ghost towns in Utah 1906 establishments in Utah