Paria Townsite by drone in 4K

The Paria Townsite (rhymes with Maria) in southern Utah is a ghost town along the Paria River that was settled in 1865 by Mormon settlers and grew to a population of about 47 famiiles in the 1880's but after several years of massive flash floods all but 8 of the families had left. One notable resident was the infamous John D. Lee of Mountain Meadows massacre fame and while at Paria he, along with several members of the John Wesley Powell expedition help to build a dam and irrigation ditches. The harsh conditions in the desert along with the frequent bad flash floods ultimately saw the last resident leave in 1929.

In the 1940's the movie industry came to Paria to film a number of the Western movies that were popular at the time but eventually the Western movie fad died off and the last Western movie made there was "The Outlaw Josie Wales" which was filmed in 1976.

The old sets from the movies remained in increasingly degraded condition until another flash flood in 1998 wiped out most of the remaining structures. Volunteers and some BLM employees help to rebuild some of the structures between 1999 and 2001, but a suspicious fire in 2006 destroyed all that remained. There is nothing left of the movie sets that once existed though there are still a few remains of the original townsite on the north side of the Paria river.

The area today is a popular location for photographers and videographers not just because of the areas history but also because of the great beauty of the areas landscape.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paria,_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountai...