Washington County, Utah: History
The earliest settlement was Fort Harmony in 1852. Santa Clara was established in 1854 as a mission to the natives who lived on the Santa Clara River. Hamblin and Pinto were settled along the Los Angeles - Salt Lake Road in 1856, as was Gunlock in 1857.
Next came the settlements established as colonies to grow cotton before the beginning of the American Civil War (1861-1865). They were located along the Virgin River, in the warmer climate below the central Great Basin, which was for decades called "Utah's Dixie". The first settlement was Virgin, and Washington in 1857. Heberville, Pintura and Toquerville followed in 1858, Grafton, Harrisburg and Pine Valley in 1859, Adventure in 1860, Duncans Retreat, Northrop, Shonesburg and St. George in 1861.
Fort Harmony, Adventure, and Northrup were abandoned, and Santa Clara, St. George, Washington, Harrisburg, Heberville, Grafton, and Duncans Retreat were nearly destroyed by the Great Flood of 1862 that followed 44 days of rainfall in January and February 1862. New Harmony, Springdale and Rockville were founded in 1862 by settlers flooded out of Fort Harmony, Adventure, Northrup and other places in the vicinity. Harrisburg was relocated.
Shoal Creek later called Hebron, was a ranching community established in 1862 west of the county. Leeds was settled in 1867, and Silver Reef was a mining town begun in 1875 and abandoned by 1891 due to the collapse in silver prices.
The old federal Utah Territory's territorial legislature created Washington County on March 3, 1852, in the southern border area of the Territory, adjacent to the then old federal New Mexico Territory of 1850-1912. It was not fully organized at that time, and so it was attached to Iron County, which was adjacent to the north for temporary administrative and judicial purposes in its county seat town and courthouse of Parowan, for its first four years. This continued until February 23, 1856, when the organization was completed, Saint George was listed as the newly designated county seat and site of a courthouse, and the attachment to Iron County was terminated. The county boundaries were altered a dozen times after that; but its boundaries have retained their present configuration since March 10, 1892, four years before statehood was achieved in 1896.