Thistle Ghost Town

The only evidence that remains of a once bustling railroad town is this single homestead, half submerged in an algae covered pond in the Spanish Fork Valley of Utah. Known as Thistle Ghost Town, it was settled by pioneers in 1848 as part of the Mormon migration from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Utah Territory, but was wiped off the map in 1983 in the largest and most expensive landslide in the history of the United States.

Even though the first family to arrive in the valley was in 1848, Thistle wasn’t officially established until 1878. The Pace family were one of the first to arrive and would ultimately play a significant role in the town’s history. The first homestead and ranch were established by William Frank Pace, who bought out the previous squatter, A. C. Dean. Over time, the Pace family purchased a noteworthy portion of land and operated it as a ranch known as U-Pace-O Ranch, located in what was called “Little Paradise Valley”.

The railroad played an important role in the town’s growth with the completion of a branch line south through Sanpete Valley in 1890. It was also an important stop en route to the coal mines in Carbon and Emery counties. The townspeople constructed a five-stall roundhouse, engine turntable, depot, machine shop, water tower, railroad yard, coal chute, and employed a telegrapher that coordinated rail schedules.

They serviced trains for the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (often shortened to D&RG, D&RGW, or Rio Grande), including providing coal and water resupply facilities, dining services for passing trains, and supplying helper engines for trains traveling up the mountains. The Utah Railway Company began to construct its own line in 1912, a second set of tracks up Spanish Fork Canyon to Helper, and it was contractually agreed upon to maintain the tracks for joint use by both companies.

Non-railroad structures included homes, barns, granaries, corrals, general stores, a post office, barber shop, saloon, pool hall, bakeries and restaurants. The largest building was a two-story schoolhouse, built in 1911. At its peak, around 1917, Thistle had about 600 residents.

In the 1950’s, the Denver & Rio Grande Western began to phase out steam locomotives in favor of diesel locomotives, which required less maintenance. The transition from steam to diesel locomotives caused the town to fade in importance, shrinking its population. In 1972, the passenger depot was torn down followed by the closing of the post office in 1974.

By the fall of 1982, only a few families remained in Thistle when they experienced record-breaking precipitation coupled with a deep winter snowpack. The Spring of 1983  brought warm temperatures and rapid snowmelt, causing the saturated hillside to give way. Once triggered, it moved at a speed of 3.5 feet per hour, reached 1000 feet in width, nearly 200 feet in thickness, and over one mile in length, damming the Spanish Fork River and creating a lake three miles long and over 200 ft deep.

Concerned the dam could fail, the state of Utah decided to build a tunnel to re-route the flow of the Spanish Fork River. Engineers estimated that should the dam fail, residents would only  have 30 – 45 minutes notice before the rushing water reached the city. Residents were told to be prepared to evacuate. The U.S. Corp of Engineers, the Utah National Guard, and construction workers from many companies joined UDOT workers in response to the Thistle slide. Efforts to control the slide turned to reconstruction of rail and roadways, and to the construction of a drainage tunnel which would control drainage of Thistle Lake.

The floodwaters overwhelmed groves of trees, fishponds, fields, flooded two state highways, roads, and severed railroad service between Denver and Salt Lake City, resulting in Utah’s first Presidential disaster declaration By Ronald Reagan. At the time, it was called the most costly landslide in the United States by The United States Geological Survey, causing an estimated $200 million in damages (over $600 million today). The two rail companies, the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad and the Utah Railway Company, fought for decades in court over legal responsibilities and insurance claims due to the landslide that destroyed the exact junction and joint tracks.

A significant number of buildings were destroyed, with some structures only partially visible above the water. Today, the only thing left is this home and a crumbling foundation of the once beautiful schoolhouse. The town was never reoccupied, and the area remains submerged to this day.