I took a ride down to Thistle today just to stretch my legs and enjoy a little wind therapy.
When I was in high school I was fascinated by the story of the town after it made national headlines in 1983 following a landslide that cut off the Spanish Fork River, Union Pacific Railway and US Highway 6 through Spanish Fork Canyon.
Since then Thistle has become a ghost town where even the ghosts have moved away.
In Utah County, the town was established in 1883 and was inhabited until April 13, 1983, when a landslide, one of the costliest in U.S. history,. The landslide created a natural dam across the Spanish Fork River, which led to the formation of Thistle Lake, flooding the town and leading to its evacuation and abandonment. The remnants of the town are visible from U.S. Route 89, and the site of the disaster was once something of a tourist attraction over the years.
In the 40 years since the slide (and an additional slide in 1998) the lake has been drained due to the natural dam being considered too unstable to remain as is and too costly to renovate to a permanent feature. But in all of the resulting excitement the town is virtually forgotten. Not much but a foundation remains of the town hall building or of the many dwellings around the town.
The slide not just cut off the river, but the rail line and the road that were both vital links from Salt Lake City to Southeastern Utah and Colorado.
US 6 and the rail line were rerouted up over the mountain to the north of the slide. Tunnels were cut for the rail line and the roadway was cut thru solid rock to link back up on the other side.
You can still see the old road and rail line from the overlook along US6 but if you didn’t know what happened there you could not be faulted for not understanding the significance of the site.
On the east side of the slide had been a roadside pull off that had information, history and photographs of the area of the town prior to the slide and of course much info on the event in 1983. Now the signage and information are gone, replaced by graffiti. It is being reclaimed by nature.
It is sad that while this was once a site that enticed many people to stop and learn about an event that illustrated the power of nature and man’s resilience, now one would get the sense that there is not much to see here, move along!
