The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page. -Saint Augustine

We are so fortunate to work in tourism, and to live in a state with abundant opportunities for residents and visitors alike. This blog is a new feature of our newsletter. In this and future posts, we’ll be looking to highlight the outreach of Utah Office of Tourism teams and the gems we learn about in the communities we serve.

A current endeavor of the Utah Office of Tourism’s Community and Partner Relations team is to hit the road this spring and summer, meeting with partners around the state. The goal is to collaborate, answer questions, share resources, and learn firsthand about the challenges and opportunities in each area.

Our first such visits took place in March, in Piute and Sevier Counties.

Dana Erickson of Piute County had a full day of events and meetings planned for us on March 7th, beginning with a visit to the boyhood home of outlaw Butch Cassidy just south of Circleville. The home (essentially a one-room cabin) was little more than a pile of timber a decade ago, and through many local efforts has been restored and now stands ready to receive visitors with signage, parking, restrooms, and -best of all- the opportunity to open the door to the home. Inside one can not only see not only where Butch Cassidy spent his formative years, but also catch a glimpse of what life was like for early Mormon settlers in wild and rugged regions. Butch (whose real name was Robert Leroy Parker) was the oldest of his mother’s 13 children. By all accounts, Butch adored his mother, and some say he changed his name one he began his life of crime so as not to shame her.  This marvelous tourism asset is now one of Utah’s two newly created state monuments. 

With only about 1500 residents, Piute County is Utah’s second smallest by way of population, but it has some great surprises for the adventurous. In the town of Marysvale, Moore’s Old Pine Inn has been welcoming guests since 1882! The interior resembles the set of an old western movie, with seven guest rooms. There are also individual cabins available for rent behind the Inn. A block away is another gem, in the form of pizza. Tomatoes Pizza Pie is simply some of the best to be found anywhere. If you’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone. 

Piute County gets buzzing in the summertime, when visitors come for the Piute ATV trail. There are over 1500 miles of trails, many of them extending into neighboring counties. Among the highlights of the trail, which is nationally known as one of the best in the nation, are the high altitudes (up to 12,000 feet!) of the Tushar Mountains which remain cool all summer. The Papa Bear Run held on Father’s Day weekend is one of the first big group rides, and July is typically the high season for the ATV riders, with many of the RV sites and campgrounds of Piute County filling up.

The UOT’s Community and Partner Relations team was able to present to, and speak with members of Piute County leadership, and the Marysvale Chamber of Commerce, both while touring the area, and at the Piute County Offices. This is what the team hopes for in each area they visit; open conversation including the sharing of ideas and resources.

The following day the team also met with many representatives of Richfield City and Sevier County, with the help of Tourism Director Amy Myers and her part-time events assistant Cora Coates. The amount of work these two ladies accomplish is incredible! With tourism in Sevier County come the chores of organizing the annual country fair, annual ATV jamborees, competitive biking events, and a myriad of high school athletic championship tournaments held throughout the school year. And, while they’ve been championing all of these events and more, Sevier County has been hard at work developing a number of impressive tourism assets which are now ready to welcome visitors. 

Richfield now has a bicycle pump track just off Interstate 70 next to their small, seasonal visitor’s center where they also give out loaner frisbees (Did you know the inventor of the Frisbee was from Sevier County?!). Biking is big in Sevier County with miles of trails. Recently completed trail systems connect most of the towns of Sevier County, and an expansion underway on the north end of the county will tie all towns to the trail. Other, more rigorous mountain biking trails wind through redrock country, with scenery and technical riding like one might expect to find near Moab. Access points to these trails are found in several locations including downtown Richfield.

Richfield also connects to the aforementioned Paiute ATV Trail, and they have their own jamboree in September. When registration for the 2024 event opened on April 1st, over 200 people registered within the first hour!

For the non-riders, there are so many other things to do, with the Fall Festival being one of the highlights. It’s part farmer’s market, part music festival. This spring there will be a first-ever Lantern Festival on April 12th. Amy Myers says Heidi Stringham of Snow College has been instrumental in spearheading these events.

Sevier County also has guided rafting on the Sevier River, or you can float it solo in a tube. The County also has fishing, hiking, a growing paragliding destination, as well as camping areas run by the Forest Service at Fish Lake, and at Fremont Indian State Park where the visitor’s center will get a 3 million dollar overhaul in 2025.

Sevier County has recently rebranded itself as Utah’s Trail Country, and they certainly live up to the claim. As Camille Johnson, community and Partner Relations Director for UOT says, “It’s all that, and a Frisbee.”

The team is headed to Emery and San Juan counties next, with many more areas to follow this summer.

Read more Partner Highlights on the road here.