Grafton was first settled in 1861, and the Great Flood of 1862 washed
the town site away. The town was then resettled on higher ground in1862. Although Grafton is a ghost town, its once-thriving community spirit lives on. Its soul lives as one beholds green pastures, and imagines settlers working in the fields and crafting these buildings within this lands' striking beauty. Grafton returns us to a time when life was tenuous but strengthened by residents who relied on religious faith and each other to survive. Such communities, then and now, instill a sense of belonging to place. This connection between people and landscape lives today through many of Grafton's descendants. May you revel in the history of Grafton and join us in preserving its future.
When settlers arrived at Grafton, the valley was like a meadow with tall grass and feed for livestock. The river bed was so narrow it could be jumped at any place with a vaulting pole. While Grafton remains the physical evidence of a time gone by, its essence lives on. The buildings and irrigated pastures take us back to a time when the certainty of life was fragile but overcome by obedience to a religion and a strong testament of faith. We can all learn from this place and recognize the power of community where a sense of place and shared culture has the ability to shape its people in concert with the land-past and present.
Why did the settlers abandon Grafton? Water too much when they didn't need it, too little when they did. In 1906 a newly built canal delivered Virgin River water to the wide, flat Hurricane bench 20 miles downstream. Many Grafton families packed everything even some of their homes and reassembled them in Hurricane. The loss of farm fields from repeated flooding, and lack of modern utilities contributed to their leaving Grafton. Grafton's remaining buildings stand as a place holder, a physical memory of a time and lifeway few living today recall. Towns like this are rare, and becoming rarer. Most pioneer villages either lost their historic heart as they grew into modern towns or were washed away in flash floods. Grafton is intriguing to the traveler. Is it the area's beauty and thoughts of past times? Is it the peaceful, quiet, breathtakingly beautiful surroundings capable of hosting a bustling community of people that lived so close to each other that community life took on a fellowship of camaraderie, mutual love, and support? Is it where survival, and colonizing success, meant people had to depend on each other? At times, the traveler may think, yes, this is the way it ought to be.
The buildings and features of Grafton have exceptional value in illustrating
and interpreting the heritage of this community and are tangible reminders
of people, events and ideas that have shaped its history. A list of historic
features is as follows:
 |  |
| Before | After |
A former resident of Grafton
-Lu Wayne Wood- pictured above was born in Grafton 1911 shares a few words:
"The Grafton school/church building was built in 1886 by the dedicated
people in this small town to meet their need for a school and church building
and to use for social events. It shows what cooperation and togetherness
can accomplish through donated labor and material. I think it is symbolic
in a larger sense of the faith, determination and perseverance of those
who came and built. Integrity was basic to all of their works and actions."
Perhaps the most photographed ghost town historic structure in the Western U.S., is this rustic adobe building that stands in front of the massive tan and red walls of Zion National Park. The subject of countless movies, paintings and photographs, the building's hand-made beauty adds a note of human gracefulness to the outstanding natural beauty that surrounds it.
The schoolhouse's 2-story walls stand on a solid foundation of lava rocks quarried from the nearby hillside; its colored adobe bricks were hand-made from a pit of clay on the west end of town. The settlers cut trees for this structure from Mount Trumbull, nearly 75 miles away, and bought them across the Arizona Strip and down the steep canyon cliffs of the wood road near the cemetery.
The town's people used this building as a school, community meeting
place, church
as well as a place for dances and plays. People would come from
all the settlements on the Upper Virgin River to attend the community dances,
which were held on weekends. As was customary with dances in the early west,
they continued early into the morning, sometimes until dawn. Then people
would hitch up their wagons, buggies or horses and head back to their homes
for Saturday chores and Sunday preparations. The last classes were taught
in this building during the 1918-19 school year at which time the enrollment
had dwindled to nine students. The following year students were transferred
to the school at Rockville.
According to Lyman D. and Karen Platt's book Grafton, Ghost Town on the
Rio Virgin, Mary Beth Woods recalled: "The cowboys liked to come to
dances too. They worked out there at Canaan at a big cattle ranch. The Bar
Z Company was from Deseret, Milford and all over up north. They were out
there at Canaan and Cane Beds so they come into Grafton for the dances and
social life. Oh, they loved Grafton. They could always sing and dance. Oh,
it was really a pleasure to have those guys come."
