Lund is an unincorporated location, formerly a town or village, located in the Escalante Valley of northwestern Iron 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, approximately northwest of

Cedar City Cedar City is the largest city in Iron County, Utah, United States. Located south of Salt Lake City, it is north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15 in Utah, Interstate 15. Southern Utah University is located in Cedar City. It is the home of the Ut ...

. The town, established in the early twentieth century, was a station stop on the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad (later

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

), and was a community center for early twentieth century homesteaders. There is a railroad siding at Lund, and a single habitable house; and no businesses or services.

History

Settlement activity in the Lund area began with the completion of the railway line through the Escalante Valley in the winter of 1898–99, but Lund's population remained extremely small until 1911, when the valley was opened to homestead settlement. The Lund townsite was platted in 1913, beginning a decade of relative activity at the location. The town was named for Robert C. Lund, who was a Utah State legislator, local mine owner, and a director of the

. A

population decline Population decline, also known as depopulation, is a reduction in a human population size. Throughout history, Earth's total world population, human population has estimates of historical world population, continued to grow but projections sugg ...

began in the 1920s, however, due to the failure of most of the homestead-era farms. Lund's most dramatic event was in February 1922, when a freak flood struck the desert valley and partially inundated the town. Lund gained importance as a railroad junction in 1923, when the Union Pacific constructed a branch line from Lund to Cedar City. The branch was constructed in part to encourage travel to southern Utah's National Parks, and carried passenger trains during the summer months until 1960. At other times, passengers bound for Cedar City would board a railway-operated connecting bus at Lund, which followed State Route 19 (Lund Highway). As part of this construction program, the railroad erected what was the historic town's most prominent building, a stately depot designed by noted architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood. The last passenger trains stopped in Lund in 1969, and the depot building was razed the following year, marking the end of the town's railway prominence. A post office operated at Lund from 1901 to 1967. Its closure reflected years of gradual population decline in the area, and only a handful of people live in the Lund vicinity today.

References

* Seegmiller, Janet Burton. ''A History of Iron County: Community Above Self''. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1998. .

External links

Lund and Beryl
at GhostTowns.com {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Utah Unincorporated communities in Iron County, Utah Populated places established in 1898

History

See also

References

External links