Thistle, Utah County

Thistle, named for the Canadian Thistle that you see all over that little valley, is different from any other ghost town. The town didn't die because a mine went dry. If it wasn't destroyed by water, there would still be ranchers living there and I would not have visited it.

Canadian Thistle with a flooded house, buried in water, mud and duck weed.

Years ago, my in laws went to Washington D.C.. When visiting the Vietnam Memorial, they realized there was no one they knew whose name would appear on the wall. They decided to see if there were any Shaws from Utah. There are a lot of Shaws, but none from Utah. Rather than a Shaw, they came to the name Blaine Joseph Shepherd SP5. (follow the link to see his picture!) He was from Thistle, Utah.

 The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition were led through a Native American trade route and recorded in their journals the first Europeans to cross through what would be later called Thistle. Utes living in Spanish Fork Canyon clashed with the newcomers that followed until they were relocated in the 1870s. The population of Thistle was less than 80 people.
Thistle was settled in 1848 by the Pace family coming with the Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois. Five generations later, the Pace family are still cattle ranchers in the town. After the Pace family, settlers came to homestead the fertile ground. Then the railroads arrived.
The first railroad was built by the Utah and Pleasant Valley Railway in 1878, bought by the Denver and Rio Grande Western in a foreclosure sale in 1882. This completed the link from Salt Lake City to Denver (which subsequently ended the traffic going to Promontory, Utah).
Facilities were built in Thistle to service the trains. The town also provided a meal service for the trains as on-board dining cars weren't around yet. More residents employed by the railroad moved in to Thistle.
Traffic going through Thistle was heavy when Thistle became a bridge line for transcontinental rail traffic. At its peak Thistle had a population of 417 (1920 Census). There was a five-stall roundhouse, depot, machine shop and structures to restock the passing trains. There was also a post office, general stores, barber shop, saloon, pool hall, bakeries and restaurants. The largest building was the two-story schoolhouse, built in 1911.

Flowers from my sister in law for Blaine Joseph Shepherd at the door of the old schoolhouse

Inside the steel window on the right side of the school (above photo)

In 1947 Blaine J. Shepherd was born. While he was in preschool the Denver & Rio Grande Western began to use diesel locomotives, which required less maintenance. Thistle was beginning to fade. I don't know what growing up in a dying town was like. One thing I do know, he loved to fly. He grew a mustache, which made him look older than he was. I don't know where he became a pilot, but when he was drafted for Vietnam, he was the crew chief on a 66-531 C (charlie) model UH-1 Gunship. It's a helicopter. He and a friend, Dale Weber, designed and built the dual door gun system for their helicopters. The only 2 aircraft that had them.
Then September 29, 1968, Blaine Shepherd's helicopter was shot down. The pilot, co-pilot and gunner died with him. Dale's crew looked for them for two days before their bodies were found and brought back to the United States. Blaine was buried in Springville and Dale named his aircraft Shepherd, painting the name on the pilot's doors. Shepherd did not live to see his little town evacuated.
The town shrank significantly after his death. The depot was torn down in 1972, the post office torn town in 1974. In 1983 only a few families remained, the ranchers.
The fall and winter of 1982-1983 had record-breaking rain and snow. As spring came, the mountains were so saturated they became unstable.
The D&RGW railroad had a special meeting in Denver to discuss the unstable land. April 13th and Utah Highway Patrol officer struck a new buckle in the highway that threw him against the roof of his car. Later that day, maintenance crews were struggling to keep US-6 open. (My father-in-law drove this highway to get to his work every weekend and worked during the week. This closure kept him from going to work.) The last train to go through Thistle was the westbound Rio Grande Zephyr. Then the railroad and the highway were closed. Trains were rerouted through WYOMING! Three days later the tracks were buried. A voluntary evacuation order was issued for the town of Thistle. Four days later, it was mandatory. A landslide covered the train tracks and blocked the river. Residents had less than two hours to pack their belongings and get out before water reached their house.

The landslide in the middle. You can see the waterline on the mountain!

Thistle's oldest resident, who Blaine must have known, celebrated her 90th birthday at the evacuation center. Two days later the mountain was moving about 2 feet per hour.  Utah Geological Survey says at its fastest it was 3.5 feet per hour!! The end of the day the highway was buried in 50 feet of soil and the waterline was at the rooftops of the houses. Governor Scott Matheson was informed of the situation, he requested federal aid and President Reagan issued the first presidential disaster area declaration for the state of Utah. The new lake was 3 miles long and 200 feet deep. The railroad, motivated by almost 1 billion dollars lost a day (in today's  money), rebuilt the track, completing it 3 months later and the highway was completed by November the next year. (My father-in-law, like many others, quit his job as the detour added 100 miles to the commute.)

The landslide 30 years later.

Landslide on the left. Top road is the old railroad. Now a dirt road in use. It connects to the old US-6. New railroad track on the bottom

All the signs telling Thistle's story are gone. The one on the right is all that's left, and it's so faded from the sun you can't read the captions

Bibliography:

"Census of Population and Housing". U.S. Census Bureau.

Milligan, Mark (May 2005). "Thistle Landslide Revisited, Utah County, Utah". Survey Notes (Utah Geological Survey) 37 (2).

Carr, Stephen L.; Edwards, Robert W. (1989). Utah Ghost Rails. Salt Lake City, Utah: Western Epics. ISBN 0-914740-34-2.

Sumsion, Oneita Burnside (1983). Thistle – Focus on Disaster. Springville, Utah: Art City Publishing Company. ISBN 0-936860-14-6.

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