Wasatch County, Utah

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

County Seat: Heber City
Year Organized: 1862
Square Miles: 1,181

Court House:

25 N Main Street
County Courthouse
Heber City, UT 84032-1827

Etymology - Origin of County Name

from the Wasatch Mountains

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Heber Valley, one of several back valleys in the Wasatch Mountains, is often called Utah's Switzerland because of the rugged beauty of Mount Timpanogos located to the west, its climate, and a large population of Swiss that settled in Midway. Its highest peaks top 10,000 feet, and over half the land is 7,500 feet above sea level. The climate, classified as undifferentiated highlands, offers cool summers and very cold winters. The average annual precipitation is about 16 inches.

The county is divided into two watersheds--the Colorado and the Great Basin drainage systems. Because of its annual precipitation and its location between the Uinta and Wasatch mountains, Heber Valley is well endowed with water. Flowing from the East are Daniels, Lake Fork, and Center creeks. From the north and northeast is the Provo River. From the west Snake Creek drains a central portion of the Wasatch Mountains. Two additional sources of water are man-made; the Ontario Drain Tunnel west of Keetley drains many of the Park City mines, and the Weber/Provo diversion canal diverts water from the Weber across the Kamas prairie in Summit to the Provo River in Wasatch County.

Prior to the 1850s Heber Valley was an important summer hunting ground for the Timpanogos Utes living around Utah Lake. The first white men to visit the county were members of the Dominguez-Escalante expedition in 1776. They skirted Heber Valley, traveling down Diamond Fork to Spanish Fork Canyon and then into Utah Valley. Fifty years later fur trappers entered the county.

In 1824 and 1825 Etienne Provost from Taos, New Mexico, trapped beaver in the Uinta and Wasatch mountains. About that time William H. Ashley and members of his fur company from St. Louis also hunted and trapped for beaver in the county.

The first settlers came into Wasatch County from Utah Valley in the spring of 1859 and located a short distance north of present Heber City. That same year Midway and Charleston were also settled. In 1862 the territorial legislature created Wasatch County which then included all of the Uinta Basin. Wasatch in Ute means "mountain pass" or "low pass over high range". Heber City, named for Mormon Apostle Heber C. Kimball, was selected as the county seat. The last boundary change occurred in 1914 when Duchesne County was created out of the eastern half of Wasatch County. The county produces hay, dairy products, sheep, and cattle.

During the early 1900s, after the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad completed a line into the county from Provo, Heber City became an important shipping terminal for wool and sheep. In 1922 the Union Pacific Railroad constructed a spur from Park City to the mines west of Keetley and began shipping lead, zinc, and silver ore. Today neither railroad line is in full operation, and other economic activities are more important to the county than transportation and mining.

Strawberry Reservoir (completed in the 1910s), Deer Creek Reservoir (completed in the 1940s), and Jordanelle Reservoir (under construction in the 1980s), together with sparkling streams and beautiful mountain scenery, have made Wasatch a popular recreation area. The county provides excellent economic activities are more important to the county than transportation and mining.

*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 1,209 square miles (3,132 km²), of which, 1,177 square miles (3,049 km²) of it is land and 32 square miles (82 km²) of it (2.63%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Salt Lake County, Utah - (northwest)
Summit County, Utah - (north)
Utah County, Utah - (west)
Duchesne County, Utah - (east)

Cities and Towns:

- Charleston	town	Incorporated Area
- Heber	city	Incorporated Area
- Heber City (County Seat)
- Midway	city	Incorporated Area
- Wallsburg	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."