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.
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