Grafton Ghost Town, Utah: History, Cemetery and Ghost Stories

Grafton sits on the south bank of the Virgin River a few miles below Zion National Park, inside the town limits of Rockville. All that is left of a Latter-day Saint farming village is a two-story adobe schoolhouse from 1886, a handful of pioneer homes, a barn, old orchards and a cemetery, framed by red cliffs and cottonwoods. It is often called the most photographed ghost town in the West, and Hollywood has used it for Westerns since 1929, most famously Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

It is also one of Utah’s most poignant places. Floods, drought, disease and the Black Hawk War made life on the river hard, and the cemetery is crowded with the graves of children and of settlers killed in 1866. Visitors and local writers tell of babies crying and a woman walking among the graves. This guide covers the real history, the ghost stories (and the lack of records behind them) and how to visit the town respectfully.

History of Grafton

In December 1859 a small group of families from the settlement of Virgin, led by Nathan Tenney, founded a village called Wheeler on the Virgin River as part of Brigham Young’s plan to grow cotton in Utah’s warm southern valleys. Two years later the river rose for weeks in the Great Flood of 1862, and on January 8 it largely destroyed Wheeler. The settlers moved about a mile upstream and started again as New Grafton.

By 1864 about 28 families lived there, each farming an acre or so. They dug irrigation canals and planted orchards, some of which still stand. For a short time in 1866 and 1867 Grafton was even the county seat of Kane County; boundary changes later put it in Washington County. Cotton gave way to food crops, and the river kept flooding fields and washing out ditches.

The year 1866 was the hardest. During the Black Hawk War, fear of attack led church leaders to order small settlements to consolidate, and Grafton’s families moved to Rockville. That same year the cemetery took in victims of diphtheria and scarlet fever, an accident and three people killed in a raid; a prominent headstone marks two Berry brothers and the wife of one, ‘killed by Indians’ in April 1866. They came from Berryville, now Glendale, but were buried at Grafton because it was the county seat. Families returned to farm from 1868.

Grafton never grew large. Its population peaked at 106 in 1910. The adobe schoolhouse, built on a lava rock foundation in 1886, doubled as the meetinghouse and community hall, and its last classes, with nine pupils, were held in 1918 and 1919. Many families left for Hurricane when its new canal brought reliable water, and floods drove out others. The church branch was discontinued in 1921, and the last residents left in 1944.

Two years later film producer Harry Sherman bought the town from William Russell, then 80, as a movie location. Grafton had already appeared in In Old Arizona in 1929, described as the first talking picture filmed outdoors, and later in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969. In June 1997 local residents formed the Grafton Heritage Partnership Project, which has raised more than a million dollars, bought about 150 acres of farmland to keep the setting, and restored the schoolhouse, the Russell homes, the John Wood home and the Berry fence in the cemetery. The townsite is on the National Register of Historic Places and is watched around the clock.

The ghost stories of Grafton

The cemetery

Grafton’s cemetery lies a short way from the townsite. It was used from about 1862 until the 1920s and holds somewhere between 74 and 84 graves, many unmarked, many of them children. John and Charlotte Ballard alone buried five children here between 1865 and 1877, none older than nine. Several Native Americans are also buried in the cemetery.

Local writers say this is where Grafton’s ghosts gather. Utah Stories describes legends of infants crying and of a woman seen walking through the graves, and St George News mentions paranormal events among the unmarked graves. These are stories passed on by visitors and writers; we found no named witnesses or historical reports of hauntings behind them.

The town

Around the buildings themselves, the stories are about sounds: children crying near an old tree swing and indistinct whispers in the basements of the old homes, according to St George News. With the river, the wind in the cottonwoods and the empty houses, it is easy to see why. Grafton’s own caretakers present it as history, not as a haunted attraction, and the town has no ghost tours.

Why the stories endure

Many visitors say the real weight of Grafton is in the cemetery’s dates: rows of young children, and the Berry stone from 1866. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, standing among those graves with the town silent behind you is one of the most affecting experiences in southern Utah.

Where to look

• The cemetery: look for the fenced Berry memorial, the largest stone, at its center, and the graves of the Ballard children.
• The schoolhouse and meetinghouse: the 1886 adobe building with its white bell cupola, the largest in town.
• The Alonzo Russell home: the two-story house with the long front veranda seen in so many photographs.
• The Louisa Russell and John Wood homes: across the road and under the old cottonwoods; the John Wood home dates from 1877.
• The orchards and fields: farmed to keep the town looking as it did; walk the edges, not across them.

Visiting Grafton

From Utah Highway 9 in Rockville, turn south on Bridge Road (Bridge Lane), a residential street, and cross the Virgin River on the narrow 1924 iron bridge. Where the road bends, keep on the smaller graded road that runs roughly parallel to the river. The town is about 3.5 miles from the highway, and the last two miles are dirt. Most cars manage in dry weather, but the road can become impassable during or after heavy rain. The road ends at a small parking area near the river.

Grafton is about seven miles from Springdale and the entrance to Zion National Park, so it fits easily into a Zion trip. There is no visitor center, no water and no services, and some areas are fenced off because people still live and farm nearby. The scenic Smithsonian Butte Road branches off the route and climbs nine miles south to Highway 59.

The Grafton Heritage Partnership looks after the town on donations. It sells a book-length history, Grafton, Ghost Town on the Rio Virgin, and takes donations through its website. Descendants of the settlers still hold reunions here, so treat the cemetery as the family burial ground it is.

• Visiting Preserved ghost town and cemetery open to visitors; some areas are fenced off

Tips for your visit

• Go early in the morning or late in the afternoon for the light on the cliffs, and to avoid summer heat.
• Check the forecast: after rain the dirt road and the riverbanks can turn to slick mud.
• Bring water and fill up in Springdale or Hurricane; there are no services at Grafton.
• Stay on paths, do not enter fenced areas or private land, and leave everything exactly as you find it.
• Visit by day; the site is under surveillance and there is nothing to gain from trespassing at night.

More haunted places nearby

• Mulberry Inn, St. George: An 1873 pioneer house with an attic hiding place, 40 minutes away
• Old Main, Southern Utah University: Cedar City’s campus legend of Virginia, an hour north
• Moore's Old Pine Inn: An 1882 frontier inn with ghosts on the porch
• Haunted hotels in Utah: Places to stay with a ghost story
• Haunted places in Utah

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• Wikipedia: Grafton, Utah
• Grafton Heritage Partnership Project
• American Southwest: Grafton ghost town
• Atlas Obscura: Grafton ghost town
• Utah Stories: Grafton, a silver screen ghost town (2020)
• Pahrump Valley Times: Grafton reminds visitors of pioneer life (2015)
• St George News: How the past lingers in these Utah ghost towns