Beaver (Utah)

Built in 1867 at the request of Brigham Young, the fort largely acted as a way station for people traveling the Mormon Corridor in the late 19th century. It is listed on mileage signs because it is the western terminus of Interstate 70, which travels over 2,100 miles to Maryland from Cove Fort. The site for Cove Fort was selected by Brigham Young because of its location about halfway between Fillmore, then the capital of the Utah Territory, and the nearest city, Beaver. It provided a way station for people traveling the Mormon Road. A town would have been constructed at the Cove Fort site, but the water supply was inadequate to support a sizable population. Another key factor in the selection of the site was the prior existence of a wooden-palisade fort, Willden Fort, which provided shelter and safety for the work crews who constructed Cove Fort. The fort is a square, 100 ft (30 m) on each side. The walls are constructed of black volcanic rock and dark limestone, both quarried from the nearby mountains. The walls are 18 ft high and 4 ft thick at the base, tapering to 2 ft thick at the top. The fort has two sets of large wooden doors at the east and west ends, originally filled with sand to stop arrows and bullets, and contains 12 interior rooms. As a daily stop for two stagecoach lines, as well as many other travelers, Cove Fort was heavily used for many years, often housing and feeding up to 75 people at a time. In addition to providing a place to rest, a blacksmith/farrier resided at the fort, who shod horses and oxen, and also repaired wagon wheels. With its telegraph office and as a Pony Express stop, it also acted as a regional communications hub.

This is the modest birthplace of Philo Taylor Farnsworth, who was an American inventor and television pioneer. He made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television. He is perhaps best known for his 1927 invention of the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the "image dissector", as well as the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. He also invented a small nuclear fusion device, the Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor, in his later life. While the cabin and the wagon next to it that are near surface street in Beaver seem to not be significant, the person who was born here is very significant.

This is a fairly long but narrow reservoir that is close to a narrow valley in the mountains west of Beaver (not to be confused with the much larger Tushar Mountains to the east, though). The dam is at the southwestern end of the lake, and there is a campground and park facilities area a short distance northeast of the dam. Minersville Reservoir is also one of the few reservoirs in the Great Basin, and the river that flows in and out of the Minersville Reservoir does not drain to any ocean or sea.

This is one of Utah's most scenic highway routes and it goes up the western side of the Tushar Mountains. (While the road goes down the eastern side as well, it is best not to drive along the eastern part of the road, which is unpaved.) Once you leave Beaver and you're driving east along the road, you will quite swiftly go into the mountain range. Around this point, you enter a canyon and the flora changes from scattered shrubs to more forested country. You continue to go through the canyon, which at times is like a great rocky gorge, before coming out of the canyon and reaching flatter, open terrain with pine trees on the ridges on each side. Higher mountains will be in front, but the road will avoid these and come to a mountain pass where there is a ski resort. Soon after the ski resort, the road becomes unpaved, so you will most likely want to turn back here.