Blue Creek, Utah

Ghost town in Utah, United States

41°51′44″N 112°27′25″W / 41.86222°N 112.45694°W / 41.86222; -112.45694CountryUnited StatesStateUtahCountyBox ElderFounded1869Abandoned1900sElevation

^[1]

4,701 ft (1,433 m)GNIS feature ID1437505^[1]

Blue Creek is a ghost town in the Blue Creek Valley in northeastern Box Elder County, Utah, United States.^[1]

Description

The community was a railroad settlement that started as a Union Pacific camp during the final stages of construction of the First transcontinental railroad.

Located on the eastern slope of the North Promontory Mountains and Blue Creek Valley, 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Snowville and 20 miles (32 km) west of Tremonton on what is now I-84, Blue Creek existed from the late 1860s^[2] until it was abandoned in the 1900s.^[3]^[4]

The settlement was named for the Blue Creek Spring,^[5] 2.5 miles (4.0 km) to the south. Initially a railroad camp, Blue Creek later became a farming community with a few scattered homes and a post office.^[6]

In his autobiography, 19th century pioneer Alexander Toponce wrote, "In April and May of 1869, Corinne and Blue Creek were pretty lively places. At the latter place was a big construction camp generally known as Dead Fall and spoken of by some as Hell’s Half Acre."^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Blue Creek". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
^ ^a ^b Toponce, Alexander (2004). Reminiscences of Alexander Toponce. Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing. p. 147. ISBN 0-7661-9349-7.
^ Van Cott, John W. (1990). Utah Place Names: A Comprehensive Guide to the Origins of Geographic Names: A Compilation. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-87480-345-7. OCLC 797284427. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
^ National Park Service research article Archived October 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
^ "Blue Creek Spring". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
^ Federal Writers’ Project (1954). Utah. Salt Lake City: US History Publishers. p. 365. ISBN 1-60354-043-1.