🠈 Carbon County 🠊
Carbon county covers 1,485 square miles. The landscape includes a variety of terrain from the steep slopes of the Wasatch Plateau (administered by the Manti-La Sal National Forest) to the intriguing rock formations of the Colorado Plateau and the Anasazi art in Nine Mile Canyon.
The 2010 census reported the county housed 21,403 people in 7,978 households. The primary towns are Price (the county seat), Helper, Wellington and East Carbon.
Carbon County was originally part of Emery County. The area was first settled by Mormon immigrants who Brigham Young sent to the area to homestead land before an expected onslaught of other immigrants.
In the 1880s, the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad built a line from Green River through Price Canyon. The railroad hoped to develop the rich coal deposits on the East slope of the Wasatch Plateau to fuel its growth.
With the arrival of the railroad, Northern Emery County focused on mining and transportation. The railroads and mine brought in blue collar workers with a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds including many members of the Greek Orthodox church.
The demographic changes in Northern Emery County prompted the legislature to create a new county in 1894 which they named "Carbon County" after the coal deposits.
References:
- Utah.gov iLoveHistory (Drawn 2/6/2017)
- Wikipedia - Carbon County (Drawn 2/6/2017)