Cedar City, UT

Cedar City began as an ironworks settlement on November 11, 1851, when 35 men arrived from Parowan. The first community was called Fort Cedar for local trees believed to be cedars but actually junipers; the present site, nearer the blast furnace and outside Coal Creek’s floodplain, was occupied in 1855. The ironworks closed in 1858, though regional iron mining continued into the 1980s. A railroad connection in 1923 carried mine products and made Cedar City a departure point for visitors to southern Utah’s national parks. The Iron County city had 35,235 residents in 2020. Southern Utah University traces its origin to a teacher-training school authorized in 1897; residents hauled timber from nearby mountains during winter, and its first building, now Old Main, was dedicated in 1898.