Teasdale, UT

Teasdale is a Wayne County census-designated place at about 7,000 feet, south of State Route 24 between the Dixie and Fishlake national forests and within sight of Capitol Reef's red country. It sits at the meeting of Bullberry Creek and the Fremont River, with local roads leading toward Loa, the county seat. There are only 140 residents in the 2020 count, but the community has a post office, fire station, a park, and the kind of small lodging and food stops that make sense in a highway-and-national-park landscape.

Teasdale began as an LDS settlement in 1870 and was first called Bullberry Creek, after the nearby waterway. The town later took the name of George Teasdale, an LDS apostle. The Dixie National Forest's offices are in town, which gives Teasdale a day-to-day connection to the public lands on its doorstep. The local feel is a mix of irrigated creek-bottom history and high-country access: farms and water at the center, forest roads and Capitol Reef just beyond.