Hanksville is a small town in Wayne County

Wayne County, Utah

Wayne County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. It was formed from Piute County in 1892. The county gets its name from a man who served as delegate to the constitutional convention, in honor of his son who was dragged to death by a horse. As of 2000 the population was 2,509, and by...

, Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, at the junction of State Routes 24

Utah State Route 24

State Route 24 is a state highway in south central Utah which runs south from Salina through Sevier County then east through Wayne County and north east through Emery County...

 and 95. The town is just south of the confluence of the Fremont River

Fremont River (Utah)

The Fremont River in Utah flows from the Johnson Valley Reservoir, which is located on the Wasatch Plateau near Fish Lake, southwest through Capitol Reef National Park to the Muddy Creek near Hanksville where the two rivers combine to form the Dirty Devil River, a tributary of the Colorado River...

 and Muddy Creek

Muddy Creek (Utah)

Muddy Creek is a stream which drains portions of Emery and Wayne Counties in central Utah, in the western United States. It begins on the eastern slopes of the Wasatch Plateau at elevations above 10,500 feet . It turns southward near the town of Emery, then southeastward where it crosses under...

, which together form the Dirty Devil River

Dirty Devil River

The Dirty Devil River is a long tributary of the Colorado River, located in the U.S. state of Utah. It flows through southern Utah from the confluence of Fremont River and Muddy Creek to the Colorado River.-Course:...

, which then flows southeast to the Colorado River

Colorado River

The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...

. Its population was estimated at 203 in 2006.

The town was settled in 1882, and known for a time for the name given to the surrounding area, Graves Valley. It took the name of Hanksville in 1885, after Ebenezer Hanks

Ebenezer Hanks

Ebenezer Hanks was born on 11 February 1815 in Argyle, Washington County, New York to Joseph Hanks and Almira Kennedy. Ebenezer grew up in the nearby small towns of Greenwich and Salem, northeast of Albany, New York. Joseph had fought in the War of 1812 and was a prosperous farmer and tavern...

, who was the leader of the group of pioneers who established the small Mormon settlement. It was not incorporated until January 6, 1999.

The REA

Rural Utilities Service

is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture , one of the federal executive departments of the United States government charged with providing public utilities to rural areas in the United States via public-private partnerships...

 brought electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 to the community in 1960. Today agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

, and tourism

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

 are the main drivers to the local economy

Economic system

An economic system is the combination of the various agencies, entities that provide the economic structure that defines the social community. These agencies are joined by lines of trade and exchange along which goods, money etc. are continuously flowing. An example of such a system for a closed...

. Tourism is particularly important with people coming for recreation at Lake Powell

Lake Powell

Lake Powell is a huge reservoir on the Colorado River, straddling the border between Utah and Arizona . It is the second largest man-made reservoir in the United States behind Lake Mead, storing of water when full...

, Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef National Park is a United States National Park, in south-central Utah. It is 100 miles long but fairly narrow. The park, established in 1971, preserves 378 mi² and is open all year, although May through September are the most popular months.Called "Wayne Wonderland" in the 1920s...

, the Henry Mountains

Henry Mountains

The Henry Mountains are located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Utah and run in a generally north-south direction, extending over a distance of about 30 miles . They were named by John Wesley Powell in honour of Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. The...

, the San Rafael Swell

San Rafael Swell

The San Rafael Swell is a large geologic feature located in south-central Utah, USA about 30 miles west of Green River, Utah. The San Rafael Swell, approximately by , consists of a giant dome-shaped anticline of sandstone, shale, and limestone that was pushed up during the Paleocene Laramide...

, Goblin Valley State Park

Goblin Valley State Park

Goblin Valley State Park is a state park of Utah, USA.Its eminent feature is its thousands of hoodoos and hoodoo rocks, which are formations of mushroom-shaped rock pinnacles, some as high as several meters...

, and the solitude of the surrounding deserts and slot canyons.

Hanksville was a supply post for Butch Cassidy

Butch Cassidy

Robert LeRoy Parker , better known as Butch Cassidy, was a notorious American train robber, bank robber, and leader of the Wild Bunch Gang in the American Old West...

 and the Wild Bunch

Wild Bunch

The Wild Bunch, also known as the Doolin–Dalton Gang or the Oklahombres, was a gang of outlaws based in the Indian Territory that terrorized Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma Territory during the 1890s—robbing banks and stores, holding up trains, and killing lawmen. They were...

, who would hide out at Robbers Roost

Robbers Roost

The Robbers Roost was an outlaw hideout in southeastern Utah used mostly by Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch gang in the closing years of the Old West....

 in the desert southeast of town.

During the uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

 mining frenzy following World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Hanksville became a supply center for the prospectors and miners scouring the deserts of the Colorado Plateau

Colorado Plateau

The Colorado Plateau, also called the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. The province covers an area of 337,000 km2 within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico,...

. Many abandoned mines can be found in the deserts surrounding the town.

The Hanksville-Burpee Quarry

Hanksville-Burpee Quarry

Hanksville-Burpee Quarry is the name given a paleontological excavation site approximately wide by long near Hanksville, Utah where scientists have found a large mix of remains of sauropods, trees, freshwater clams, and other species dating between 145 million years ago to 150 million years ago...

 is located nearby and the Mars Desert Research Station

Mars Desert Research Station

The Mars Desert Research Station is the second of four planned simulated Mars surface exploration habitats owned and operated by the Mars Society.-Background:...

 is located seven miles northwest of town.

Statistics

• Location: 38.3730379 -110.7140391 (38°22'22"N 110°42'50"W)
• Elevation: 4,291 feet (1,308 m)
• Airport: KHVE (ICAO ID)