HARPER
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HARPER |
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NAME: Harper COUNTY: Carbon ROADS: 2WD GRID: 1 CLIMATE: Very cold winter, hot summer BEST TIME TO VISIT: Spring and fall |
COMMENTS:
Harper has no residents. The land is posted
but most can be seen from the road. It is situated in a canyon among a beautiful
grove of huge cottonwoods. Harper is located on Nine Mile Canyon Backcountry
Byway (BLM) about 30 miles north of Hwy 6/191 on Soldier Creek Road near
Wellington. This 78 mile long scenic byway includes other ruins, old buildings,
petroglyphs, canyons, unusual iron telegraph poles, and historic wagon grease
signatures on the cliffs. The gravel road is kept clear in the winter. It
is subject to flash floods from thunderstorms. The BLM web site at www.ut.blm.gov/utah/price
is a good source of information. REMAINS: A few cabins, corrals, foundations |
| This history is from a brochure titled The Pioneer Saga Of The Nine Mile Road which is available from the Duchesne County Area Chamber of Commerce, 48 South 200 East, Roosevelt, UT 84066. “Nine Mile’s town of Harper spread out from here down the canyon for about a mile. Mail deliveries and voting took place in the old log buildings you see here. Tom Taylor homesteaded this ground before the Army built the road through to Fort Duchesne and the Uintah Basin in 1886. Purchased by Ed Lee, the old homestead became known as “Lee Station,” a stage stop. It was a rest haven for the hard-worked horses that spent the better part of their lives at a fast gait along the stageline road. A large and beautiful barn housed the recuperating horses and a “real” sink. Starting sometime before 1895, residents of Nine Mile Canyon struggled to keep a school district going. The first school house, built of logs by residents, sat in the mouth of Argyle Canyon, just down the road ½ mile. Moved to Wellington in the 1930’s, it later burned. The steel poles in the Canyon, installed by the Army ca 1886, are Civil War surplus shipped from the East. They first carried the telegraph line. This telegraph line became the telephone line into the Basin in 1907 and remained until 1917. The poles have since served a local line only.” Submitted by: Ross V. Walker |
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