Jim Matson

Kane County, Utah

Welcome to Kane County, Utah. Nestled in the red rock of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Kane County is the home of Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Zion National Park, thousands of slot canyons and other natural wonders, and the gateway to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. As a political subdivision of the State of Utah, Kane County shares in being one of the best managed areas in the nation. The high desert landscape of Kane County belongs to the Colorado Plateau geographical province. In Kane County you can find towering sandstone cliffs, deep canyons, plateaus, mountains, and lots of sand. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, most of the county's residents got their living by farming and ranching. But a new industry came to town in 1922 when Fox Film Corporation filmed Deadwood Coach with Tom Mix in Utah. The Parry brothers of Kanab led a crusade to attract more films. They developed lodging, food, and other services for film crews, and by the 1930s Kanab was called Little Hollywood because so many movies were made there. In the 1920s and 1930s Kanab also become a tourist center for visitors to Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Grand Canyon National Parks. During the construction of Glen Canyon Dam near Page, Arizona, which began in 1956, Kanab's population doubled and the economy boomed. Although the population dropped after crews finished the dam, Lake Powell, one of Utah's major recreational sites, brought in new service industries connected with boating and fishing, especially the Bullfrog Basin Marina in the extreme northeast corner of the county. Enormous coal reserves in the Kaiparowits Plateau and Alton fields are Kane County's most important natural resource and may, when environmental issues are resolved, dictate a new economic future based on mining.