Town #7: Green River est. 1876

We arrived late in Green River, but we knew right where we wanted to stay. The Sleepy Hollow Motel was built in the 1950s, but it has been kept in good condition. It is our favorite old motel in Eastern Utah. Green River started out as a ferry station to transport people across the Green River. (Yes, the river does look green.) Green River has been a farming town, a railroad town, a uranium mining town and a missile base town over the years. Now it mainly caters to the tourist industry. If you are heading west along I-70, it is the last stop for food and gas for 105 miles. It is also only an hour away from Arches National Park, and the motels are not nearly as expensive as those in Moab. Green River also produces yummy watermelons that you can buy at farmer's stands.

This is our favorite old building in Green River. It was the Midland Hotel in its heyday. A fellow out of Los Angeles bought it a few years back and is in the process of fixing it up. It looks pretty good. The old transcontential Midland Trail highway passed through Green River a little less than 100 years ago. It may have got its name from that.

Green River also houses the Wesley Powell Museum that celebrates the trip of Wesley Powell down the Green and Colorado Rivers and on thru the Grand Canyon. Did you know that Powell only had one arm? He lost an arm during the Civil War. The museum is great for anyone interested in western river travel history.

The only problem we have with Green River is the absolutely desolate landscape surrounding it. You feel like your traveling in a moonscape.