Huntington

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Huntington Utah
Huntington population in 2009 census was 2,080 and is the largest city in Emery County, located in central Utah
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In 1880 a mile-square townsite was surveyed on the Prickly Pear Flat, west of the Huntington Creek.
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Huntington Canyon Mts	Huntington Creek		Bear Creek		Huntington Lake State Park

The town of Huntington is named for three brothers, William, Oliver and Dimick Huntington, who led exploring parties into the region during the 1850s.

The first settlers of European extraction in the area were four stockmen, Leander Lemmon, James McHadden, Bill Gentry and Alfred Starr, they brought their cattle herds to graze along the banks of Huntington Creek in 1875. They crossed over the Fairview - Huntington Canyon Pass, the summit's highest Point is 9880ft. In the fall of 1877, a small group of LDS settlers came from Fairview, Utah, established a dugout colony on the banks of Huntington Creek and began digging irrigation canals. The colony grew from 126 people in 1880 to 1,293 residents in 1910, many the early settlers came from Sanpete Valley.
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Summit U31 looking down at Fairview		Log Dugout Home		Wood Plank Huntington Home

Most of the townsite was without water until the completion of the Huntington Canal in 1882. Settlers drew town lot numbers and built homes in town as they improved on their homesteads. The first homes, some of which were still occupied until recent years, were typically of sawed log or plank construction or of adobe sheathed with lumber. In 1896 inaugurated a twenty-year building boom that saw the completion of many brick homes, schools and commercial buildings. Huntington's early economic base was agriculture and stock raising. Alfalfa seed was an important cash crop at the turn of the century. Honey produced by local apiarist Christian Ottesen won 1st. prize at the 1903 World's Fair, in St. Louis.
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Huntington has drawn its main income from coal mining. Small "wagon mines" in Huntington Canyon provided limited employment. The coal companies these days have huge semi trucks on the highways, like the coal truck shown below. Utah coal is different than the coal my folks used in the 1940s in the Midwest. Utah coal is large shiny chunks. My hands don't get dirty when I handle it. A visitor thought it was landscaping rocks.
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The coal companies and the coal fired power plants in the area, help pay for the first-class health clinic, staffed with five or more medical personnel, X-ray & lab techs, plus some specialists come in from other parts of Utah too, also, there is a large modern hospital in Price, Utah, with more medical personnel, medi-evac and other services.

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