Green River, UT

Green River is an Emery County city built along the river that gives it its name, in a stretch of southeastern Utah where cottonwoods and irrigated fields stand out against red rock and open desert. The Old Spanish Trail crossed the Green River near the present city between 1829 and the 1850s, and later railroad construction helped establish the modern settlement across from the older town of Blake. The waterway remains the reason this place exists in the middle of such a wide, dry basin.

Green River's local calendar turns toward harvest and water. Melon Days celebrates the city's long fruit-growing tradition, made possible by sandy soil, hot days, cool nights, and irrigation. The river also points travelers toward Canyonlands country and the canyons, mesas, and public lands of southeast Utah. An older military chapter survives in the Green River Launch Complex, where Athena missiles were tested during the Cold War. Green River is a small city with several big horizons: a trade route, a farming valley, a river crossing, and a desert road to some of Utah's most dramatic country.