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1862
Settled in 1862 by people flooded out of nearby Northrop
Springdale began as a Mormon farming community in 1862. The settlers were evacuees from the flooding of nearby Northrop. A year later Isaac Behunin settled the floor of Zion Canyon, farming corn, tobacco and fruit trees. His family wintered in Springdale.
A name
Behunin is credited with naming Zion, a place of peace
Behunin is credited with naming Zion, a reference to the place of peace mentioned in the Bible. In 1872 John Wesley Powell visited the canyon and named it Mukuntuweap, under the impression that this was the Paiute name. The photographer John K. Hillers waded the canyon for four days and nearly froze to take his pictures.
A new name
In 1919 Mukuntuweap became Zion, a name the locals knew
In 1909 President William Howard Taft protected the canyon as Mukuntuweap National Monument. The acting director of the new National Park Service proposed the name Zion, used by the local Mormon community, since Mukuntuweap was locally unpopular. Congress made it Zion National Park on November 19, 1919.
“Many believed that Spanish and Indian names would deter visitors who, if they could not pronounce the name of a place, might not bother to visit it.”
Hal Rothman, historian, on the change of name
The road
The road in came in 1917, and the highway east in 1930
Travel here was rare before the park, because of the remote location and the lack of real roads. The road into Zion Canyon was built in 1917. Work began in 1927 on a highway to give reliable access between Springdale and the east side of the park. It opened in 1930, with a 1.1-mile tunnel and six large windows cut through the cliff.
1992
The 1992 earthquake destroyed three houses and covered a road
The 1992 St. George earthquake destroyed three houses and utilities, and caused about a million dollars in damage. In the Balanced Rock Hills area, a landslide covered part of Utah State Route 9 and took several hours to clear. It was about 1,600 feet long and 3,600 feet wide, with boulders up to 20 feet across.
Day 2, evening
It comes after Checkerboard Mesa.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Zion National Park and the Wikipedia article Springdale, Utah, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.