Grafton, ghost town in Washington County, Utah, United States
Grafton is an abandoned settlement in Washington County, Utah, made up today of two surviving stone and wood buildings standing side by side. One served as a schoolhouse and the other as a church, and both sit in an open landscape near the Virgin River.
The settlement was founded in 1859 by Mormon pioneers who came to farm the land along the Virgin River. Over the following decades, repeated flooding made the site increasingly hard to live in, and residents eventually left for higher ground upstream.
The name Grafton was brought by English-speaking settlers and reflects their origins back home. The two surviving buildings show how tightly education and faith were woven into everyday life in this kind of small pioneer community.
Getting there requires driving on gravel roads, so a sturdy vehicle is a good idea before heading out. There are no services on site, so bring water and wear shoes suitable for walking on uneven ground.
The 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used Grafton as a filming location, making it one of the few ghost towns to appear in a major Hollywood production. Despite being close to Zion National Park, the site sees far fewer visitors than the park itself.
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