Hinckley, UT

Hinckley is a Millard County town in the middle of the Sevier Desert, where irrigation makes the difference between bare desert and farm country. The Sevier River passes nearby, and canals carry water from dams and reservoirs toward town. Erastus F. Pack was among the first settlers, and Hinckley grew around the usual small-town pieces: a post office, shops, a school, a creamery, and the water works that made crops possible.

The town's work history still shows in the old industries. The Deseret Roller Mill, built east of Hinckley in 1897, could produce 50 barrels of flour a day, while a beet industry took hold around 1918 with a beet dump and railroad spur leading to processing plants. Those details make Hinckley easier to picture than the generic phrase farming community: water comes through canals, grain once went through a mill, and sugar beets moved by rail. Today the mountains stay distant on the horizon, while farms and roads sit inside a desert landscape shaped by the Sevier River.