Who was Saint George? Where's the "Sardine" in Sardine Canyon? "Timpanogos" means what? Why the unusual titles Gorilla Ridge, Baptist Draw, Tarantula Mesa as names for places in Utah's backcountry?
Where are Impossible Peak, Christmas City, Paradise and Egypt located?
Utah has a bounty of strange names for places, and Garfield County seems to have more than its share of unique names, among the state's 29 counties. Perhaps a combination of Indian, cowboy and Mormon influences created so many bizarre titles.
Some names represent exactly what they convey. Others are deceiving in their origin.
Take this 25-question pop quiz to see how well you know names of places in the Beehive State.
Fill in the blank:
1. St. George is named after whom? ___________
2. Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake is named for the presence of antelope there. The isle also had two other titles in pioneer times. Name one. _____________
3. Hyrum, Cache County, had a planned adjacent sister city that never materialized. What was it? _________
4. The Utah cities of Paradise and Eden are less than 20 miles apart but in different counties. They are so named for their natural beauty. What two counties are they located in? __________ and _____________
5. Sardine Canyon in Cache County was named for what? _______________
True or false:
6. Failure Canyon in Summit County got its name because it dead ends and isn't really a canyon at all.
7. Impossible Peak is a 10,000-foot mountain in the Uinta Mountains.
8. The Great Stone Face in Millard County is named for Joseph Smith, first LDS Church president.
9. Kaiparowits Plateau/Peak is an Indian name meaning wild horse mesa.
10. Hurricane in Washington County was named for a storm.
11. Locomotive Springs, northwest of the Great Salt Lake in Box Elder County, was named for the nearby Golden Spike railroad monument.
12. Mount Timpanogos in Utah County is an Indian word meaning "princess lying down."
13. Tarantula Mesa in Garfield County is titled after its spiderlike shape.
14. Mount Brigham in Piute County in the Tushar Mountains was named for Brigham Young.
15. Yosemite Gulch is in Salt Lake County.
Multiple choice:
16. Baptist Draw in Emery County at the south end of San Rafael Swell is so named because:
A. Early church members were baptized near there.
B. Some Baptist Church members settled nearby.
C. An early settler "baptized" his dog by tossing it into a waterpocket there.
D. Early settler Clarence Baptist.
17. Blizzard Lake in the High Uintas southwest of Mirror Lake is named for:
A. Frequent blizzards in the area.
B. An early survey party caught in a blizzard near there.
C. Early explorer Samuel Blizzard.
D. The frigid temperature of the lake.
18. Which one of the following is not a Utah town named for a Book of Mormon term:
A. Bountiful
B. Deseret
C. Goshen
D. Nephi
19. Now-defunct Christmas City was in which county?
A. Weber
B. Washington
C. Summit
D. Utah
20. Gorilla Ridge in Beaver County got its name from:
A. A primate who got loose in the area.
B. An unshaven miner who used to lurk in the shadows.
C. The face of a gorilla represented in a nearby rock.
D. Sightings of Bigfoot in the area.
21. The town of Warren in Weber County was named for:
A. Thomas Warren
B. Sam Warren
C. Lewis Warren Shurtliff
D. Unknown
22. Utah's "Egypt," an area of sand dunes and unusual Egyptian-like obelisks and pillars, is located in which county?
A. Garfield
B. Kanab
C. Washington
D. Grand
23. Tickaboo in Garfield County is an Indian word that means:
A. Fear of water
B. Friendly
C. Wilderness
D. Forbidden area
24. The original name of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park was:
A. Fragile Arch
B. Wolfe Arch
C. Schoolmarm's Bloomers
D. Dry Arch
25. Castle Dale in Emery County didn't always have that name. Its original title was:
A. Castle Vale
B. Castle Valley
C. Dale
D. Castle Gate
ANSWERS:
1. St. George was named for George Albert Smith, counselor to Brigham Young. He selected most of the pioneers of 1861 who settled Utah's Dixie and tried to grow cotton there.
2. Antelope Island was also called Church Island (because church members took outings there in the 1800s) and also Buffalo Island (because of all the bison found there).
3. Joseph was planned as a nearby sister town. Both cities would have honored brothers Hyrum and Joseph Smith.
4. Paradise is in southern Cache County, and Eden is in northeast Weber County,
5. Sardine Canyon is not located where U.S. 89/91 traverse between Brigham City and Logan (Box Elder Canyon is on the south and Wellsville Canyon is on the north). It was named for the unusual lunch of sardines that the Wellsville pioneers ate en route to Cache Valley. (The true Sardine Canyon starts at "Sardine Summit" along U.S. 89/91 and goes northeast.)
6. False. Failure Canyon was named for Beaver Creek Charlie, a Ute Indian who went broke prospecting in the area.
7. False. Impossible Peak is a 7,520-foot summit in Garfield County, northeast of Boulder, behind the Circle Cliffs.
8. True. Located southwest of Delta, the volcanic rock has a familiar profile.
9. False. Though this area might have been Zane Grey's Wild Horse Mesa, the origin of its Indian name is unclear. It could mean "Big Mountain's Little Brother," "Home of Our People" or even "One-Arm," a reference to Maj. John Wesley Powell, who visited the area.
10. True. In 1863 Mormon pioneer Erastus Snow was caught in a storm on a hill area, and a whirlwind tore the top off his buggy. He called it "Hurricane Hill," and the name was fixed to the hill, town and even the geological fault line in the area.
11. False. They were named for the locomotive sound that the moving water used to make until the springs were enlarged by settlers and the noise stopped.
12. False. Although the shape of a sleeping maiden can be seen in the mountain formation, Timpanogos is a Piute word that refers to rock and running water.
13. False. It received its name from the high number of tarantulas in the area.
14. False. It was named after Robert "Brigham" Yount, a prospector in the Marysvale area during the 1880s.
15. True. It is in the Oquirrh Mountains, drains into Butterfield Canyon and was named for California's Yosemite.
16. C. An early settler who "baptized" his dog.
17. B. A survey party trapped in a blizzard.
18. C. Goshen.
19. D. Utah County. Christmas City was up Provo Canyon. It had a store and service station that were wiped out when the canyon road was widened decades ago.
20. B. An unshaven miner (though the "D" answer may also hold some truth, since there is some evidence that bigfoot sightings in the area may have contributed to the name, too).
21. C. Warren was named for Lewis Warren Shurtliff, an area LDS stake president in pioneer times. (His first name was used to name Lewis Peak, highest point between Ogden Canyon and the North Ogden Divide. His last name was never used in place names.
22. A. Garfield County, located near the Escalante River. "Little Egypt," a similar feature, is also nearby.
23. B. Friendly.
24. C. Schoolmarm's Bloomers, as named by local cowboys.
25. A. Castle Vale was the town's first name, but the U.S. Post Office favored Castle Dale, and the latter name stuck.
Did you know?
Utah has a Noah's Ark formation, located northeast of Panguitch.
Joseph and Mount Joseph, Sevier County, were named for Joseph A. Young, first LDS stake president in the area.
Utah's "Tabernacle Hill" is west of Meadow in Millard County.
"Assembly Hall Peak" is found in Emery County, west of the Green River.
Utah has "Sunday" and "Monday" canyons, in Kane County, as part of the Fifth Mile Mountain, but lacks the other five days of the week.
"Cleopatra's Chair" is in Wayne County, while "Paul Bunyan's Potty" is located in San Juan County.
It isn't clear where the name for Bellyache Canyon, Piute Canyon, came from, but you can take a pretty good guess.
Ghost Rock, Emery County, near I-70 between Secret Mesa and Head of Sinbad, was so named because fog often covered its base, leaving the head protruding through seemingly thin air.
Chinatown, on private land in Morgan County, has rock formations that resemble Chinese pagodas, but overall, it appears more like a mini Cedar Breaks National Monument.
Granger, a portion of West Valley City, was originally called English Fort. The Granger name came because the land was so productive in growing grain.
Lousy Jim Creek in Beaver County in the Tushar Mountains was named for a shepherd in the area who had a bad case of lice infestation.
Bountiful city has its own "Hill Cumorah" located east of Bountiful Boulevard between 3800-4300 South. The hill was named in the 1950s by former land owner Wilford C. Wood, who thought it resembled the historic Mormon Hill Cumorah south of Palmyra, N.Y.
E-mail: lynn@desnews.com
SOURCES: Utah Place Names, by John W. Van Cott, Deseret Morning News Archives