2017 ~ Bluff, Utah (2017)

Bluff, Utah (2017)

Whitehorse High School

Under the direction of John Taylor, Silas S. Smith and Danish settler Jens Nielson led about 230 Mormons on expedition to start a farming community in southeastern Utah. After forging about 200 miles (320 kilometers) of their own trail over difficult terrain, the settlers arrived on the site of Bluff in April 1880.^[5] (The trail followed went over and down the "Hole In the Rock", which now opens into one of the tributaries of Lake Powell.) The town was named for the bluffs near the town site.^[6] The town’s population had declined to seventy by 1930^{[citation needed]} but rebounded during a uranium prospecting boom in the 1950s.^[5] With the uranium decline in the 1970s Bluff again declined and now remains a small town with about 300 residents.

sThe Four Corners is a region of the United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. The Four Corners area is named after the quadripoint where the boundaries of the four states meet, where the Four Corners Monument is located. It is the only location in the United States where four states meet. Most of the Four Corners region belongs to semi-autonomous Native American nations, the largest of which is the Navajo Nation, followed by Hopi, Ute, and Zuni tribal reserves and nations. The Four Corners region is part of a larger region known as the Colorado Plateau and is mostly rural, rugged, and arid. In addition to the monument, commonly visited areas within Four Corners include Monument Valley, Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Canyon, and Canyon de Chelly National Monument. The most populous city in the Four Corners region is Farmington, New Mexico, followed by Durango, Colorado.