Echo, Summit County

Disclaimer: I'm leaving town for another ghost town trip, but I wanted to get this down before I left. I'll clean up the formatting later. Sorry if it gives you a headache.

Echo has a family history connection for many people in Utah. This town is part of the trails going to the west. Echo City was first the Weber Stage Station, with James Bromley settling the city in 1854. Just out of Echo Canyon, this city was part of the trail for people going west. From here you went north to Oregon, or south to Salt Lake City and California beyond. 

 Echo Church, built under towering conglomerate cliffs, had brick walls, a belfry steeple and a wooden entry. It was a public school from 1880 until 1913, then a Mormon chapel for the next fifty years. It is now a meeting hall and museum, alongside the Echo cemetery

Check out this fantastic old gas station!

The view to the southeast of the old church.

 The train brought life to this town. There was a saloon (I read of 7 skeletons found when the saloon was excavated, but cannot find anything discovered regarding the cause of death, or where the remains were laid to rest), brothels, homes of adobe, school house, church, and railroad maintenance structures. There are many historical markers and stops up Echo Canyon, and a museum just a few miles up the road in Henefer. 

There are a lot of these old street signs on the corners of the remaining buildings.

 
 

So sad that this is gone.

Where Pulpit Rock once was

Yay for historical markers!

 This old post office is still a post office!

This was the schoolhouse from 1914-1928. The teacher in the original schoolhouse donated almost all her wages to help pay for the construction of a new school. I looked in the windows. I think it's a church now.

 

Marker next to the old station monument. It's fantastic history. I wonder if any of the old signs survived.

 Brigham Young Junior bought the land of Echo City for $200! He was sure it was going to become a metropolis. Everyone going west traveled thru this valley. It wasn't to be. As the wagon, horse, and railroad were superseded by better modes of travel, Echo died. This town is easier to find if you're looking for Echo Junction on I-80. The town became a ghost of the freeway.

Bibliography:

http://www.co.summit.ut.us/197/Echo-Canyon

https://www.summitcounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/69/Echo-Canyon-Guide-PDF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo,_Utah

Iosepa, Tooele County

On the road to Iosepa, Utah in Tooele County. On the way out there, we had to pull over and get this pic. Power-lines with no power lines is definitely ghosty. :) 

This little piece of Skull Valley is where you can find the cemetery of Iosepa. (Yo-see-pah) It means "Joseph" in Hawaiian.  

 Polynesian converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to Salt Lake City in the late 1800's. The church scouted a place for them to settle (I think it was purchased by the Iosepa Agricultural and Stock Company) and the first 46 settlers moved into Iosepa in 1889. H.H. Cluff was made stake president, and responsible for the management of the town... so I guess that means he was the mayor? Utah Enquirer reports 100 residents in November 1889.

It was a hard place to live, but Deseret Weekly and Deseret Evening News in  December 1894 reported the town was doing well, tho some people returned to the Sandwich Islands. The town had an 11 acre public square. They built canals, raised crops, worked at the saw mill, had a school, houses, and a meetinghouse.

In 1914 the town had reached a peak population of 150. The Deseret Evening News makes it sound quite green! In 1909 there was talk of building a post office and having a school district in Skull Valley.

They built canals, raised crops, and won a prize as the "most progressive city in Utah" in 1911.

Each lot of the town had a fire hydrant. There used to be fire hydrants in the sagebrush, but I think this historical marker protects the only one left. 

The town died six years later when the La'ie Hawaii temple was being built. Most residents returned to Hawaii to help with the temple construction. The property was sold to Deseret Livestock Company, and eventually the structures were buried and the land plowed. I'm not quite sure when the town became a complete ghost, because I found a postmaster announced for Iosepa in 1919 and a teacher in 1923. However, the cemetery remains, and from the look of things, it is not a forgotten place.

Bibliography:

https://historytogo.utah.gov/places/iosepa.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iosepa,_Utah

http://utahstories.com/2011/08/iosepa-mystery-utahs-hawaiian-pioneer-town/

https://www.ksl.com/?sid=27432550

https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=2244696&q=Iosepa&year_start=1908&year_end=1919&facet_type=%22article%22

https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=2292185&q=Iosepa&year_start=1908&year_end=1919&facet_type=%22article%22

https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=2354653&q=Iosepa&year_start=1908&year_end=1919&facet_type=%22article%22