Grafton Ghost Town

South of Zion National Park in Washington County, Utah, Grafton is the most photographed ghost town in the West, the site was featured as a location in several films including Irving Cummings In Old Arizona (1928), the first Western to be filmed outdoors and William Goldman’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).

The first settlement of the town was constructed in 1859 as part of a cotton growing project, with a new settlement established renamed Wheeler developing, this didn’t last long as it was destroyed by the flooding of the Virgin River in 1862.

The town was rebuilt a mile up river and renamed New Grafton, this town grew and by 1864, 28 families were living there.

Flooding remained a major problem with large amounts of silt from the Virgin River, residents had to often dredge out clogged irrigation ditches. In 1866 there were Indian attacks and the town finally evacuated to Rockville. The end of the town occurred in 1921 and the last residents left Grafton in 1944.

In 1946 the film producer Harry Sharman purchased the town as a film location site and in 1997 a preservation partnership was formed, with buildings restored to represent the period in which they were built.

For my visit to the town, I had to hire a guide with a large wheeled 4 x4 vehicle, the weather provided difficult shooting situations, this was important for me to understand the shifting weather patterns and its relationship to the town space. It was the only time ever (to date) where my right hand side was in rain and the left hand side in bright sunshine, a fine indication of not only changing weather situations, but those different patterns that appeared within the same time span. The site itself is extremely remote, gaining access as a film location is problematic, however I was only given a small window in which to visit as a very famous film director was due onsite, rumoured to be Quentin Tarantino