🠈 Santa Clara, Utah 🠊
Santa Clara, Utah
The town of Santa Clara was the first LDS settlement in Washington County. The town was named after the Santa Clara river which flows southward from the Pine Valley Mountains. The river is held back by the Gunlock Reservoir. The river was named by Spanish Explorers.
Notes from both the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition of 1776 and of early Mormon explorers indicate that the land along the Santa Clara River was actively farmed by the natives who called the River "Tonaquint."
Santa Clara City
Mormon pioneers, including Jacob Hamblin, built Fort Santa Clara to claim the area in 1854. This first settlement was washed away with the flood of 1862.
Brigham Young's cotton mission of 1861 established Saint George and the county seat and primary population center of the County.
Santa Clara itself remained a rural community until latter half of the 20th century. The 1970 population was just 271. The town appears to have become a suburb of Saint George with an estimated population in 2016 of over 7,000.
References:
- Wikipedia - Santa Clara (Drawn 12/23/2017)