Coalville

The settlement began as Chalk Creek. In 1856 Brigham Young awarded hundreds of acres of farmland to trailblazer and bodyguard Return Jackson Redden, who first visited the valley around 1846. Redden's ranch was the first recorded settlement. In 1854 the territorial government offered a $1000 reward for coal within 40 miles of Salt Lake City. Four years later Redden and Thomas Rhodes found a coal vein, and coal mining began in earnest. Hundreds of tons went to Salt Lake City, and a narrow gauge railroad was built. The town was renamed Coalville.

William Henderson Smith, a Mormon freighter, is credited with officially founding it. He noticed that wheat spilled from passing wagons grew to maturity untended. He signed Coalville into official township in 1859, and it incorporated in 1867. Early life was hard, with food running short in winter and settlers traveling to Salt Lake City for supplies. They built a fort on the advice of Brigham Young during a period of hostility with local tribes. By 1880, the railroad had been extended into Park City, where it also served the silver mines.

Unlike most Mormon settlements, Coalville's streets are not aligned to true north. Main Street runs slightly north-northwest. The Thomas L. Allen House and the Summit Stake Tabernacle are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The railroad story has a few more steps. In 1871 the Summit County Railroad Company was organized and built a five-mile (8 km) narrow gauge line to carry coal from the Coalville mines to the Union Pacific line at Echo. In 1880 the Utah Eastern Railroad built a narrow gauge line from Coalville to Park City, hauling coal to fuel the pumps that removed underground water from the silver mines there. At the same time the Union Pacific built a broad gauge spur, the Echo-Park City Railway, alongside it.

The narrow gauge lines were eventually abandoned, and Union Pacific gave up its own line in 1989. The old corridor became the Historic Union Pacific Rail Trail State Park, which opened to the public in 1992 as the first non-motorized recreational trail in Utah. It runs 28 miles (45 km) between Park City and Echo Reservoir, following Interstate 80 across Silver Creek Canyon and then the Weber River through Wanship and Coalville. It is open to biking, hiking, horseback riding, jogging and Nordic skiing, and the Mountain Trails Foundation manages it.

Coalville was not the first seat of Summit County. Wanship held that role from the formation of the county government in 1866 until Coalville took over in 1872. Wanship was founded in 1859 by Stephen Nixon and Henry Roper, and it was a commodity hub through which coal from Coalville, silver from Park City and lumber from Kamas passed. Today it is a small unincorporated community, 8 miles (13 km) from Coalville, with 423 people at the 2020 census.

The Summit County Courthouse on Main Street was built in 1903 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Its construction settled a running dispute about where the county seat should be. Park City's newspaper was disappointed, but came around to agree that the building would serve the county well. F.C. Woods & Co. of Ogden designed it in the Romanesque Revival style, and contractors E. J. Beggs and J. H. Salmon built it.

The Weber River is about 125 miles (201 km) long. It begins in the northwest of the Uinta Mountains, passes Oakley, fills Rockport Reservoir, then turns north and picks up Silver Creek at Wanship and Chalk Creek at Coalville. Coalville sits at the upper end of Echo Reservoir. Below the reservoir the river passes Henefer and later empties into the Great Salt Lake. Fish in the river include brook, brown, Bonneville cutthroat and stocked rainbow trout, and mountain whitefish.

Echo Dam stands about six miles (10 km) north of Coalville and creates Echo Reservoir. The Bureau of Reclamation built the earthen dam in 1931. It is 158 feet (48 m) high and stores water from the Weber River for farm irrigation. The reservoir holds 74,000 acre-feet and offers fishing, boating, camping and hiking. Upstream, Wanship Dam made Rockport Reservoir between 1954 and 1957, drowning most of the former town of Rockport. Rockport State Park, a 550-acre (2.2 km2) park, uses it for fishing, waterskiing, swimming and boating.

Interstate 80 follows tributaries of the Weber River toward Echo Reservoir and Echo Dam, then enters Echo Canyon, where Interstate 80 meets the eastern end of Interstate 84. The canyon follows the old route of the Mormon Trail and the first transcontinental railroad. A rest area has signs pointing out features that troubled pioneers and railroad workers, including Pulpit Rock, which was partly demolished when I-80 was built.

Echo, a census-designated place founded in 1854, began as a stopover on the Mormon Trail and served as a coaling and watering station for Union Pacific trains entering Echo Canyon. It had 60 people at the 2020 census. Henefer was founded in 1859, named for James and William Hennefer, and had 838 people in 2020. Wanship, Echo and Henefer are all in the North Summit School District, like Coalville.

Residents work in farming, ranching, construction, public education and county government, and many commute to the Wasatch Front. Ranchers raise beef and dairy cows, sheep and mink, and farmers grow alfalfa and wheat. The town has a small grocery store, a few restaurants, two motels and several small gas and convenience stores. A health clinic and a dental office serve Coalville and other settlements in northern Summit County. Empty commercial buildings, especially along Main Street, are a continuing problem.

Coalville is in the North Summit School District, which has a high school, a middle school and an elementary school. The high school's mascot is the Brave, with purple and gold colors, chosen for the Western Shoshone tribes who once lived in the area.

These are county figures, not Coalville's own. The Utah Territory legislature created Summit County on January 13, 1854, and its boundary has been unchanged since January 7, 1918. It covers 1,882 square miles (4,870 km2) and had 42,357 people at the 2020 census, with Park City as its largest city. It is named Summit because it includes 39 of the highest mountain peaks in Utah. Its mean elevation is 8,388 feet (2,557 m), the second highest of any county outside Colorado. Three school districts serve it, North Summit among them.