Lund is an unincorporated village located in the Escalante Valley of northwestern Iron County,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, United States, approximately northwest of

Cedar City Cedar City is the largest city in Iron County, Utah, United States. It is located south of Salt Lake City, and north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15. It is the home of Southern Utah University, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Utah Summer Gam ...

. The town, established in the early twentieth century, was a station stop on the

Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company in California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States, that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities (Salt Lake City, Utah and Los Angeles, California), via Las Ve ...

(later

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

), and was a community center for early twentieth century homesteaders. The area's population was never large, however, and most early settlers were unsuccessful due to the region's harsh and arid climate.

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 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 Gilbert Stanley Underwood (1890–1960) was an American architect best known for his National Park lodges. Born in 1890, Underwood received his B.A. from Yale in 1920 and a M.A. from Harvard in 1923. After opening an office in Los Angeles that ...

. 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.

Notes

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

Notes

References

External links