Marathon Pundit: Four Corners Furtherance: Fruita

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Four Corners Furtherance: Fruita

In describing a patch of green along Taylor Creek in Zion National Park, I used a quote from Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, "Life in Greenland is all about finding the good patches of useful resources." Fruita, a small settlement within what is now Capitol Reef National Park, is also such a patch. Mormon pioneers came to the junction of the Fremont River and Sulphur Creek around 1880 and founded the town of Junction, later renamed Fruita because of the orchards planted there. The Fremont supplied irrigable water, and Fruita was fortunately situated just right so it avoided most of the devastation of flash floods, unlike nearby Blue Valley and Aldrich, which didn't last long.

But neither did Fruita. Although no more than ten families ever lived there at one time, it hung on. But it was isolated. According to the National Park Service, in 1901 it took the Church of Latter-day Saints bishop more than an hour and a half to travel the ten miles from the town of Torrey--in ideal weather conditions. Fruita residents utilized barter with nearby communities, and because of that they were spared the worst of the Great Depression. During the Depression Capitol Reef was declared a National Monument, and after World War II, around the time Fruita got its first tractor, sightseers on the newly built state Route 24 discovered the "Eden of Wayne County," and slowly the NPS began purchasing homes. By 1969 they were all gone, two years later Capitol Reef was a national park.

On the top left is Fruita Schoolhouse, it operated from 1896 until 1941. It's listed on U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Click on any image to make it larger.

The people are gone but the orchards survive. They're maintained by the NPS as "historic landscape." Visitors to the park can eat what they pick--apricots were ripe when we were there in late July--for a nominal donation fruit can be self-bagged and taken along for a later snack.

Next: Two chimney rocks

Related posts:

Keweenaw National Historical Park, Quincy, Part One
Keweenaw National Historical Park, Calumet

Earlier posts:

Capitol Reef National Park
The controversial Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
A final look at Bryce
Different scenes of Bryce Canyon