Garfield County: Named for a President Who Served Seven Months

In eighteen eighty-two, the territorial legislature created Garfield County from territory that had previously been part of Iron County, and designated Panguitch as the county seat. The county was named for James A. Garfield, who had been elected as the twentieth president of the United States in eighteen eighty and was assassinated in eighteen eighty-one after serving less than seven months in office. A county named for a president who was shot in a Washington railroad station and died eleven weeks later reflects the speed at which the West was being organized in the early eighteen eighties: places needed names, the news provided names, and Garfield's name was very much in the news.

Garfield County is one of the largest and most sparsely populated counties in the contiguous United States. Its terrain encompasses portions of several major plateaus, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the western edge of Capitol Reef National Park, and a long stretch of the upper Escalante River drainage. The county's economy has historically revolved around cattle and sheep ranching, supplemented by agriculture in the river valleys. Tourism has grown significantly since the nineteen twenties, when Bryce Canyon began drawing visitors through the county seat.

Panguitch has always been the largest community in Garfield County, a status that says more about the emptiness of the surrounding landscape than about Panguitch's own scale. The nearest substantial cities are Cedar City to the west and Richfield to the north, separated from Panguitch by long stretches of high-plateau desert that have never been densely settled and show no signs of becoming so.