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Show Widtsoe 'Ghost Town9 To Come Alive During Annual Reunion BRYCE - One of Garfield County's most popular ghost towns, Widtsoe, may be almost gone, but certainly it is far from forgotten. Each year since 1937 when the post office closed for the final time, a group of intrepid former for-mer townspeople journey back for an annual homecoming which, since 1962, has been held at Pine Lake. Officially the town came into being in 1901 when Jedidiah Grant Adair filed on 120 acres in his own name and 120 acres each for his two wives Florence and Julia Ann. In 1902 the Adairs raised three acres of grain and harvested it. When it became known that grain could be grown in that locality other settlers began arriving in the valley. Farming and stock raising were the principal industries of the people. The precise location of Widtsoe is 25 miles south of Antimony, 35 miles east of Panguitch, 28 miles west of Escalante, and 15 miles north of Bryce Canyon. Abundant timber growth, access to water and fine growing conditions condi-tions brought many additional people peo-ple to Widtsoe which at one time counted its residents at 1,100. The town boasted two hotels, several restaurants, sawmills, cheese factories, facto-ries, storage facilities and all the other amenities of a town. Widtsoe was named after LDS apostle John A. Widtsoe. At the time the town was named for him, he had not been called to an apostleship. He was president of International Dry-Farming and had helped the people of the valley with their agricultural problems. Some of the families that came into Widtsoe have left descendants whose family names still endure. They are the Adair family, the Lit-tlefields, Lit-tlefields, Thompsons, ByBees, Hendersons, Twitchells, Aliens, Gleaves, Riddles, Nielsons, and Mangums to name a few. The lots in the Widstoe township town-ship were 26 rods square or 329 feet. The streets were meant for business also. They were 5 rods wide or 82 12 feet wide. Although Widtsoe grew in the early 1900's it was discovered that a climatic effect existed which cause the weather to work in cycles. It was determined that the cycle would soon swing adversely and the township could become a wasteland. The townspeople held a meeting under the auspices of the state at which lime the citizens elected to vacate the town. People had begun to leave the valley because of the climatic changes and, at the time of the last exodus, the census showed the town as having no more than 220 people. The Federal Resettlement Administration Ad-ministration bought the landowners' landown-ers' holdings for a total of $81,300. They paid 75 cents an acre for the land, and a good sized home sold for SI 5. In 1937 after the town had been abandoned the post office was closed, the Slate Road Commission removed the town's name from the highway and Widtsoe passed out of the piclure. According to this year's reunion chairman C. DeLynn Heaps of San Gabriel, Calif., more than 300 people are expected to attend the three-day fete. They will feast on old fashioned weiner roasts, marshmallows, singing, horseshoes, horse-shoes, swapping tall talcs and catching up on who moved where and when. - |