Lucin (also known as Umbria Junction) is a small

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

community in

Box Elder County Box Elder County is a county at the northwestern corner of Utah, United States. At the 2020 United States census, the population was 57,666, up from the 2010 figure of 49,975. Its county seat and largest city is Brigham City. The county was n ...

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, located along the western side of the

Great Salt Lake The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world. It lies in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah and has a substantial impact upon the local climate, partic ...

, northwest of

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 ...

. Abandoned in 1936 by its original occupants, the community was resettled by four retired railroad workers and their families from 1937 until 1972, and again by four owner-residents in the 1990s.

History

Lucin was founded in the late 19th century, about north of its current location, to provide a water stop for railroads to replenish their

steam locomotives A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

. The town was moved in 1903 to serve as a stop for the

Lucin Cutoff The Lucin Cutoff is a railroad line in Utah, United States that runs from Ogden to its namesake in Lucin. The most prominent feature of the cutoff was a railroad trestle crossing the Great Salt Lake, which was in use from 1904 until the l ...

. Historically, the town's population consisted mainly of employees of the Central and

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

s. In 1936 the town was abandoned, and then resettled by a group of four retired railroad workers and their children from 1937–1972. For a while, no one lived in Lucin, until 1997 when Ivo Zdarsky, an aviation entrepreneur and manufacturer of the

Ivoprop Ivoprop Corporation, founded in 1984 by Ivo Zdarsky, is an American manufacturer of composite propellers for homebuilt and ultralight aircraft, as well as airboats. The company's headquarters are in Long Beach, California.Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafte ...

, a plane propeller, bought it and moved there. The area is managed for migrating

songbirds A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passerine, Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes co ...

and other

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introdu ...

by the

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) is part of the Utah Department of Natural Resources for the state of Utah in the United States. The mission of the Division of Wildlife Resources is to serve the people of Utah as trustee and guard ...

. The town was named for a local

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

, the

bivalve Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class (biology), class of aquatic animal, aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed b ...

''Lucina subanta''.

Lucin today

As of 2016, except for the intermittent (more permanent since 2008) presence of Zdarsky, one of the four property owners and avid solitary explorer, and his IVOPROP Corp research and development activities, Lucin 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 ...

. , the most prominent town features were a recent airplane hangar doubling as a residence and a workshop, an adjacent unpaved landing strip, along with several smaller, separate utility buildings (water, fuel, telecommunications, power). The Lucin area is a popular stop for rockhounds looking for an apple-green,

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

-like phosphate mineral

variscite Variscite is a hydrated aluminium phosphate mineral (). It is a relatively rare phosphate mineral. It is sometimes confused with turquoise; however, variscite is usually greener in color. The green color results from the presence of small amounts ...

, also known as utahlite and lucinite. Nearby is a large artwork called the ''Sun Tunnels'', which was created by artist

Nancy Holt Nancy Holt (April 5, 1938 – February 8, 2014) was an American artist most known for her public sculpture, installation art, concrete poetry, and land art. Throughout her career, Holt also produced works in other media, including film and photog ...

in 1976.

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, Lucin 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 Lucin, Utah
/ref>

References

External links

"A Solstice Observance in the Utah Desert"
at the ''Sun Tunnels'', NPR. {{Authority control Ghost towns in Box Elder County, Utah Populated places established in 1903 1903 establishments in Utah Ghost towns in Utah

History

Lucin today

Climate

See also

References

External links