Utah State Route 31

State Route 31
Huntington Canyon Scenic Byway
Route information
Defined by Utah Code §72-4-109
Maintained by UDOT
Length: 47.746 mi[1] (76.840 km)
Existed: 1915 as a state highway; 1927 as SR-31 – present
Major junctions
West end: US-89 at Fairview
  SR-264 near Fairview
East end: SR-10 in Huntington
Highway system

State highways in Utah
Interstate • US • State (Parks) • Scenic

← SR-30 SR-32 →

State Route 31 (SR-31) is a state highway in Sanpete and Emery Counties in the U.S. state of Utah. It runs for 47.746 miles (76.840 km) from US-89 at Fairview to SR-10 in Huntington. The highway has been designated as part of the The Energy Loop, a National Scenic Byway.

Contents

Route description

SR-31 begins at an intersection with US-89 at Fairview and runs east northeast for approximately 10 miles (16 km), then turns southeast for the remainder of the route, terminating at an intersection with SR-10 at Huntington.[1]

Just off State Route 31, about 15 miles (24 km) west north-west of Huntington, is Crandall Canyon, location of the Crandall Canyon coal mine. On Monday, August 6, 2007, at 2:48 A.M., the mine collapsed, trapping and killing six workers inside. A second collapse on August 16, 2007, killed a Mine Safety and Health Administration investigator and two more miners, bringing the total to nine.[2]

History

The road from SR-32 (by 1926 US-89) in Fairview east to the Sanpete-Emery County line, near the present north end of Electric Lake, was added to the state highway system in 1915. It was extended southeast to SR-10 in Huntington in 1918,[3] and in 1927 the state legislature numbered the Fairview-Huntington highway as SR-31.[4] A major realignment was made in 1976, when Electric Lake was created and a new route was built to the west. The old route in Sanpete County became a county road, and is now part of SR-264, but the majority of the road in Emery County was beneath the lake and thus abandoned.[3]

Major intersections

County Location Mile Destinations Notes
Sanpete
 Fairview 0.000[1] US-89 (State Street) – Mount Pleasant, Provo Western terminus
  8.576 SR-264 (Eccles Canyon Scenic Byway) – Scofield
Emery
 Huntington 47.746 SR-10 (Main Street) – Castle Dale, Price Eastern terminus
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi

References

  1. ^ a b c UDOT Highway Reference, SR-31
  2. ^ "Report on the August 6, 2007 Disaster at Crandall Canyon Mine". United States Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. http://kennedy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CCM%20Report%20Final%20FOR%20POSTING%20020608.pdf. 
  3. ^ a b Utah Department of Transportation, Highway Resolutions: Route 31PDF (2.01 MB), updated October 2007, accessed May 2008
  4. ^ "Designation of State Roads", Chapter 21, Session Laws of Utah, 1927: "31. From Fairview southeasterly to Huntington."