| OCR Text |
Show UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION Clipping Service (801) 328-8678 SALT LAKE TRIBUNE , LIn Alder LuWayne Wood, who was born in Grafton, is hugged by his granddaughter Carnie Jugant at the old Gfufton church and · schoolhouse. Jugant's T-shirt bears a photo of her granddad at age 25. Wood is part of an effort to preSerVe the old town. Group's Efforts Keep Old West Alive Partnership raises $1.35 million to restore abandoned Grafton for future generations BY THOMAS BURR SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE to the group celebrated raising more than $1.35 million to ptirchase surrounding land and restore crumbling buildings in the town. GRAFTON - A step inside the ghost "ThIs is part of histoIj'," said partner· town of Grafton is almost like a flashback ship president Jane Whalen, "part of to the frontier of the Old West. Down a long, winding dirt road in I Utah's legacy." As part of the celebration, Robert southern Utah. into a valley secluded from Crawford, an associate producer of the hustle and bustle of the outside world, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," lies Grafton - without electricity, runshowed a documentaIj' on the filming. He ning water. phones and road signs. said it was important to save the town for Picturesque mountains serve as a future generations because it offers a backdrop to the once-thriving communi· glimpse into the past. ty, whose only residents now are a few "Grafton symbolizes the settlement of grazing cows. The setting is world famous, America," Crawford said. "It offers a immortalized by thp movie "Butch cheerful, fleeting moment into the past. Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" fIlmed It's not a magnet for millions [of peopleI, here in 1968. In an attempt to preserve that scene, a I but a place for those who want to go off the group of 17 organizations and private beaten path." "Butch Cassidy," one of the American landowners called the Grafton Heritage Partnership combined in 1997 to save the J Film Institute's top 100 movies ever made, has brought visitors from around the town so that it offers a historical snapshot world to Grafton. of earlier times. On Saturday, in the nearby town of Crawford said he remembered a time, Rockville, more than 1SO people with ties years after the movie's release, when he ran into German and French visitors in . Grafton who wanted to see where the movie was fIlmed. LuWayne Wood, who was born in the toWn 89 years ago, gathered with his descendants in the town· Saturday afternoon, posing for a few pictures at the steps of Ii reddish-brown church, which has been restored by the partnership. place ties you back to your roots," Wood said. "It brings back lots of memories." In 1998, the church, which had also served as a schoolhouse, was crumbling. The corners of the building were almost gone and the wooden supports rotting, causing the structure to sag and almost collapse. Two years and $100,000 later, the church is now solid, saved by the Grafton Heritage Partnership. Last week, the group spent $1.1 million to purchase 216 acres encircling Grafton. . The partnership is probably as historic ,This I See GHOST TOWN, Pag,e B·2 ) |
