Grafton News Fall 2023

Mulberry Tree at John And Ellen Wood’s Home in Grafton The mulberry trees have a long history in Utah, returning to the days of Brigham Young and his vision of a self-reliant community. He brought silkworm eggs and mulberry seeds from France and encouraged the settlers to grow them for silk production. In Grafton, people…

Grafton News 2021

  Removing Russian Olive Trees Why are Russian olive trees bad? The slivery Russian olive tree is a nasty, thorny, hard-wood tree that easily takes over riparian (river bank) corridors and consumes a lot of water. The problem is the cottonwoods and willows are being choked out by Russian olive trees, negatively impacting riparian habitat…

Grafton News 2019

 Movies Shot in Grafton  This year is the 50th anniversary of the filming of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The beauty of the landscape drew western movie makers to southern Utah 1927-1979. In 1929, In Old Arizona (the first talkie filmed outdoors) filmed a scene in Grafton. It stared Warner Baxter, who won the…

Grafton News 2018

Grafton’s Wildlife Reserve The Grafton Heritage Partnership Project is unique because it brings historic and landscape preservation together. We are protecting historic structures as well as landscapes that include the pastures for agriculture and Virgin River floodplain habitat for the benefit of wildlife. The Grafton property was purchased in 2000 and the Grand Canyon Trust’s…

Grafton News 2017

History Remembered In 1861, Sarah and William Hasting and their three children settled in Grafton. They lived in a wagon box, cooked over a campfire and lived on caneseedbread, pigweed and sego lily roots. William bought a dugout from the Romney family (Hastings Dugout). It is now just a depression in ground behind the cabin…

Grafton News 2016

Ghosts Since Grafton has the label of being a “ghost town” we get a lot people asking about ghosts. ViloDeMille told her Grafton ghost story to musician Phillip Bimstein. He and his band Red Rock Rondo composed a song about it Back and Forthfrom one world to the other. Katherine Bailey sent us a copy…

Grafton News 2015

Russell Home Thanks to funds provided by the Utah Division of State History’s matching grant program and the Town of Rockville, funds were used to complete work on the Russell Home. Repair work included new wood roof shingles on the south side of the home and lathe and plaster replacement on walls and ceilings in…

Grafton News 2014

Here are some activities we accomplished this past year. Over the years there has been damage to Russell Home from the back rain gutter overflowing onto the back adobe wall. In looking at the gutter it was very small so we had a new gutter put on that is twice the size. It should handle rain coming off the roof more efficiently.