This lonely fire hydrant serves as a land marker for the town site of Iosepa, Utah, located on the desert floor between Cedar Mountain and the Stansbury Range in Skull Valley. Iosepa was named after Joseph F. Smith, 6th president of the L.D.S. Church. About 50 Hawaiians left Salt Lake City via Garfield by train, then by 20 wagons to Grantsville, spent the night arriving in Iosepa August 28, 1889.
The public square consisted of 169 acres, with four center streets 132 ft. wide. On four sides of the town park a row of trees were planted in the center of each street. All the other streets were 66 ft. wide and the blocks were divided into 4 lots each containing ¾ acres. All the streets had Hawaiian names. The original purchase consisted of 1,920 acres, of which 200 were under cultivation, the next two years accumulated to 5,273 acres. The water came from five streams, collected in an open ditch, put into a concrete conduit that furnished culinary water to each home. A fire hydrant and irrigation ditch went with each lot. The cemetery, about ½ acre is located a mile northeast of the settlement. Iosepa won the State prize in 1911 for the best kept town and the most progressive city in the State of Utah. Only the Hoopiiana family and J. Palikapeg Nawahine remained in Utah, the rest returned home to Hawaii to settle and help built the Laie Temple (1917-1919). Iosepa returned to dust, leaving a heritage of the faithful Polynesian Pioneers and closed the chapter in the great western American History.
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