Cisco, Utah

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Buildings in Cisco, Utah

Oil Wells Cisco, Utah

Cisco oil field

Cisco Yellow House with 1932 Rig

Cisco is a ghost town in Utah near the junction of State Route 128 and Interstate 70. At one time the town served as a saloon and water refilling station for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. The town's demise came with the demise of the steam locomotive. The town site contains many relics of a typical old west railroad town. Unfortunately for history and railroad buffs, the ghost town's easy access and faint visibility from the freeway have lured vandals; the relics are heavily damaged. The only modern structure is a pump station for a natural gas pipeline.

Oil and natural gas were discovered near Cisco in 1924. In 2005, new oil and gas wells were drilled in the nearby Cisco Oil Field by a Salt Lake City based company. Newly drilled wells can be seen next to the railroad track and around the freeway.

During the summer months, white river rafters use Cisco as a landing site and visit the Cisco Store.

[edit] Ownership

The largest landowner in the town of Cisco is Pacific Energy & Mining Company of Reno, Nevada. Cisco has one producing oil well, the Gibraltar No. 1 located off main street.

[edit] Trivia

Johnny Cash wrote the song "Cisco Clifton's Fillin Station" about H. Ballard Harris, a man living in Cisco.
Amtrak's California Zephyr passenger train passes through "downtown" Cisco. Sometimes the conductor will make an announcement and give a brief history of the town.
Cisco is occasionally mentioned in the news as a location of a fire, railroad or freeway accidents due to the lack of any other town in the area.
The ghost town has also been mentioned in a number of controversies involving radioactive waste. This is because the White Mesa Uranium Mill uses the rail siding as a truck-train transfer point.
Unlike most ghost towns, Cisco survived long enough into the 20th century to be assigned a Zip Code, 84515. This causes many websites and companies that use US Zip Codes for searching purposes to have entries for Cisco. For example many on-line dating services, job searches and even traffic reporting sites will have entries for Cisco.
Cisco was a filming location for the movies Vanishing Point (1971) and Thelma and Louise (1991).