Ferron, Utah, fixed east of the Wasatch Plateau and west of the San Rafael Swell, in Emery County, was the last major area Brigham Young had called people to settle before he passed away in August 1877. The letter came to Saints in Sanpete County to go east over the Wasatch Mountains and settle in Castle Valley.
The need for expansion into Castle Valley came from Utah’s population rise in the late 19th century. Every inch of habitable land needed to be used to ease the rapidly increasing population. Brigham Young called settlers in Sanpete County to move to Castle Valley. This area was explored as early as 1776 when Domingues and Escalante traveled into Utah; they passed through modern day Castle Dale, ten miles north of Ferron on the Old Spanish Trail. Today I-70 follows parts of the Old Spanish Trail that cuts through the San Rafael Swell.
As Edward Geary has written, “Few places on earth could have looked less promising for settlement than Castle Valley in 1877.” Three years after Brigham Young’s letter to the residents of Sanpete Valley, Ferron’s population had grown to 90 in 1880. On coming to the Castle Valley, Mary Ann Rowbury Brown said, “We endured willingly many hardships and cheerfully made sacrifices in order to carry on what we sincerely believed to be God’s works in subduing a desert and advancing civilization.”
The state and federal governments created incentives to help cultivate land across the nation and encourage westward expansion. In 1862, the Homestead Act gave settlers 160 acres for a small registration fee if they developed the land and improved it. In 1878, the amended Timber Culture Act also gave a way to get more land if one would plant 10 acres of trees on their given acreage. The Timber Culture Act was the way one Ferron settler, John Lemon, obtained his land. Homesteading and farming was the norm in the beginnings of Ferron. Lowry Nelson, an early resident of Ferron, said, “Precipitation was so scant that plant life was limited, except along the creek bottoms.”
In the late 1870’s mining began to boom in Emery County and Carbon County. This boom created jobs for people in the area, not just in the coal mines, but created a market that was not there before for farming, creating a demand for produce. Coal mining also boosted the erection of the Hunter and Huntington Power Plants in the 1970s and 1980s.
Aside from farming, livestock was a fruitful business. The unique geography of Castle Valley made raising livestock a minimal expense. In the summers one could free range cattle, horses, or sheep up in the mountains and in the winter bring them down from the mountain and leave them on the desert range. Fruit farming in Ferron also began early. The growing season was tough in Emery County for fruit trees, but Ferron’s southern exposure, and deep, well-drained soil made it the best place to grow fruit in Castle Valley.” The tradition of raising livestock and planting peach orchards has continued today and is a big part of the culture in the area today. Each summer Ferron holds The Southeastern Utah Junior Livestock Show and has an annual Peach Days celebration held at the beginning of September during prime peach season.
