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Show CHAPTERS CONCLUSION Boulder, Utah, was settled in 1889 along the southern flank of the Aquarius Plateau overlooking the Waterpockct Fold in the south-central part of the state. The isolated ranching hamlet formed a patchwork of green fields studded with Navajo sandstone outcroppings. In 1969, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an executive order adding 264,000 acres to Southern Utah's national monuments, the five-member town board held an emergency meeting to consider an official response. The 125 residents were livid that the expanded Capitol Reef National Monument would encompass areas they relied on for winter grazing. The board concluded that Johnson's move would kill any possibility for ranchers to survive in Boulder. They unanimously passed a resolution recommending the town's name be changed before its imminent demise. The Salt lake Tribune and De.serer News both published excerpts of the resolution: "Therefore be it resolved that in commemoration of the President's parting 'gift to the American people,' the name of the inevitable ghost town and the community of ghost ranches be named Johnson's Folly."543 Boulder did not become a ghost town, and the state's attorney general told the board it S<IJ Deserer News, "Angry Town of Boulder Hears Knell, Swaps Name," January 24, 1969, Bl. See also Sa// Lake Tribune, ··utah Town Labels Capitol Reef Monument Addition Its 'Death Ccnificate, ... January 24, 1969,Cl2. |
