Not far from Lyman is the county seat of Loa. Loa was named after Mauna Loa, a volcano in Hawaii, by Franklin Young. Franklin Young served a mission in Hawaii and was impressed by the volcano there.
The town sign is on top of a hill northwest of the town. Here is what looks like from the sign.
A short distance from Bicknell is the town of Lyman. It is one more small Utah farming community. It was named after LDS apostle Francis Marion Lyman. As you can see, I look really excited to be here on the edge of town.
Sometimes, these little towns fool you. Just as you think you have found the only town sign, you find another bigger one. We almost missed this one, but John made a quick turn and stop. It is hard to skip a bigger sign. We had to dodge sprinklers to get this picture.
The town of Bicknell lies just west of Torrey. It was originally called Thurber after an early settler. In 1916, Thomas Bicknell, a wealthy educator and historian from Providence, Rhode Island, offered a library of 1,000 books to any town that would name itself after him. The townspeople of Thurber took him up on his offer and changed their town's name to Bicknell. The people of Bicknell, however, only received 500 books because another Utah town also took up Thomas Bicknell's offer. The town of Grayson changed its name to Blanding, Bicknell's wife's maiden name, and they received the other half of the library. That must have seemed an easy way to start a library.
Torrey is the only town so far that I haven't been able to find an establishment date for. All the sources that I have been using just say that it happened sometime in the 1880s. That is all I got from the Torrey website too. It is named after a Colonel Torrey, who served with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders during the Spanish American War. Torrey is one more small farming community that has expanded to include tourist accommodations. It sits about 10 miles west of Capital Reef National Park.
Capital Reef National Park is one of the lesser known national parks in Utah, but it has some really nice hikes. This is a picture of Hickman's Bridge.
The next few towns are from another quick Thursday night trip to see parts of Utah. This time we left our children behind and took John's parents. Here John is on the outskirt of the town of Redmond on the northern border of Sevier County. There were a bunch of water birds in the pond behind the fence when we pulled up. I think John scared them all off. He is SO SCARY!
Redmond was named after three red hills nearby. This is a picture of an old service station in town. John's grandmother owned and operated this station with her first husband in the late 1930s and early 1940s until his death from an infection after some dental work. Dentists were even scarier back then.
Salina was our last stop on our trip down to Cedar City and Zion National Park. It is one more small farming community. Salina was named for the salt deposits that the original settlers found near the town site.
We stopped at this cafe for dinner. Mom's Cafe is one of the oldest cafes in Utah. It has been in business since the 1920s. The food was very good. We gladly indulged in some of their slices of pie. The only thing we could really complain about is the ugly facade from the 1950s or 60s that no doubt covers some much nicer brickwork.
Marysvale is on the northern end of the Sevier Valley. This little town has connections with the mining industry. In the late 1800s there were gold mines up the canyon to the west of Marysvale. Marysvale sneaks up on you when you are driving because it is just on the other side of a ridge. One minute it isn't there and the next it is.
