Cedar City

History

The presence of prehistoric people in the Cedar City area is revealed by rock art found in Parowan Gap to the north and Fremont sites dated to A.D. 1000 and 1300. Ancestors of the present-day Southern Paiute people met the Domínguez–Escalante expedition in this area in 1776. Fifty years later, in 1826, mountain man and fur trader Jedediah Smith traveled through the area, exploring a route from Utah to California. Cedar City was originally settled in late 1851 by Mormon pioneers originating from Parowan, Utah, who were sent to build an iron works. The site, known as "Fort Cedar" or "Cedar City," was equidistant from vast iron deposits west and coal resources east up Cedar Canyon, but was named after the abundant local trees (which are not cedars but junipers). Two companies of men led by Henry Lunt reached the fort site in a blizzard on November 11, 1851, making that date the official founding. In 1855, a new site, closer to the iron works and out of the flood plain of Coal Creek, was established at the suggestion of Brigham Young. A furnace operated from September 1852 for three years, producing about 25 tons of pig iron, using iron ore deposits located in the Iron Mountain District. Cedar City was incorporated on February 18, 1868. The ironworks closed in 1858, though mining continued in the area until the 1980s. The completion of a railroad connection to Cedar City in 1923 established the area as a tourism gateway to nearby Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, and Cedar Breaks National Monument. Cedar City continues to be a center of tourism, commercial development, education, and the arts in southwestern Utah. The city has shared in the rapid growth of much of southwestern Utah since the late 1980s. On December 10,…

Geography

Cedar City is located in the southeast Great Basin and is approximately north of the northeastern edge of the Mojave Desert. Its elevation of gives it a somewhat cooler climate compared to the nearby St. George region, though it retains cultural ties to the city. For example, the two share a daily newspaper. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land. In some of the older neighborhoods in the city, an irrigation system is utilized by many residents for their lawns and gardens, as "water is diverted from a natural stream (Coal Creek) into a series of canals and ditches for residential flood irrigation." The city is located on the western edge of the Markagunt Plateau, in a high desert valley, Cedar Valley, with no ocean drainage. The climate is the typical semi-arid climate (BSk) of the Mountain West, though snowfall can be quite heavy, reaching a historical maximum of in January 1949.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,178
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,558
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  1,400
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  1,359
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  1,279
• American Coot

  Fulica americana Gmelin, 1789 · Aves
  817
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  791
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  769

Most recent

• M 2.63 — 2026-09-15
  16 km NE of Milford, Utah
• M 3.13 — 2026-09-12
  16 km NE of Milford, Utah
• M 2.52 — 2026-09-03
  17 km NE of Milford, Utah
• M 2.56 — 2026-08-13
  16 km NE of Milford, Utah
• M 2.78 — 2026-08-05
  9 km N of New Harmony, Utah
• M 2.62 — 2026-07-23
  18 km NNW of Panguitch, Utah