Sevier County, Utah

Sevier County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Richfield
Year Organized: 1865
Square Miles: 1,910

Court House:

P.O. Box 517
County Courthouse
Richfield, UT 84701-0517

Etymology - Origin of County Name

after the Sevier River, from the Spanish Rio Severo

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Sevier County is located in the High Plateau country of central Utah. Most of the towns lie near the Sevier River in a fertile valley bordered on the west by the Pahvant Range and on the east by the Wasatch and Fish Lake plateaus. National forests cover almost half of the land. The area is seismically active, and a number of earthquakes have centered in the southern part of the county on the Sevier Fault.

Many prehistoric Indian sites have been found. Sudden Shelter, an Archaic site on Ivie Creek, contains one of the longest cultural time records in Utah east of the Wasatch 7080 to 80 B.P. (before the present). Fremont Culture sites continue to be found, especially during construction projects. Fremont State Park preserves artifacts from a recently uncovered prehistoric village. Travelers on the Old Spanish Trail and mountain man Jedediah S. Smith were among those who crossed the county before white settlement. The Southern Exploring Company under Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt visited the area during the winter of 1849-50, and George W. Bean explored the Sevier Valley in 1863. Early in 1864 ten men settled in the Richfield area. Several other towns were founded in the next few years. However, violent confrontations with the Ute Indians during the Black Hawk War (1865-68) forced abandonment of all the Sevier settlements in April 1867. Attempts to resettle did not succeed until 1870.The area grew rapidly. Richfield, with 8 families and 12 men in 1871, had 753 people by 1874 and was on its way to becoming a major regional commercial center and, eventually, the provider of hospital, airport, and other services for a large area. Many of the county's early settlers were Scandinavians who brought distinctive building styles and cultural practices with them. The Deseret Telegraph extended its line from Gunnison to Monroe in 1872, providing a vital communications link to the territory's larger cities. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad reached Salina in 1891 and Richfield in 1896, improving the marketing of Sevier agricultural products. The building of Interstate 70 in the 1980s linked the county to the national freeway system. Sheep and cattle remain important to the local economy as do dairy products, field crops, and, in recent years, turkey raising. Trade and manufacturing -- including food processing clothing and building products -- have contributed to the county's growth as well. Sevier is the state's leading producer of gypsum, a mineral used in building products such as plaster and plasterboard produced in Sigurd. The county has coal mines and natural gas reserves in the northeast and major geothermal resources that could be tapped for energy production.

*Sources Beehive History 14: Utah Counties. 1988. Utah State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, UT 84101-1182.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,918 square miles (4,968 km²), of which, 1,910 square miles (4,948 km²) of it is land and 8 square miles (21 km²) of it (0.42%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Sanpete County, Utah - (north)
Emery County, Utah - (east)
Piute County, Utah - (south 1)
Wayne County, Utah - (south 2)
Millard County, Utah - (west 1)
Beaver County, Utah - (west 2)

Cities and Towns:

- Annabella	town	Incorporated Area
- Aurora	city	Incorporated Area
- Elsinore	town	Incorporated Area
- Glenwood	town	Incorporated Area
- Joseph	town	Incorporated Area
- Koosharem	town	Incorporated Area
- Monroe	city	Incorporated Area
- Redmond	town	Incorporated Area
- Richfield (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Salina	city	Incorporated Area
- Sigurd	town	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."