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The Local

Town Leeds, Washington County

A boomtown, a New Deal camp and a stone wall network, in 864 people

Leeds, where the silver came out of sandstone.

About 864 people at 3,500 feet on the old highway, seventeen minutes from St. George, with a mile long boomtown main street a mile west, four New Deal stone buildings that are the last of their kind in the state, and pioneer walls across the valley that nobody has ever mapped. I have worked Southern Utah for more than 20 years, and this is the honest version.

By Scott Buehler, Southern Utah local Updated August 2026

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Eight hundred people with more history per acre than anywhere near them.

Leeds is about 864 people at roughly 3,500 feet on the old US-91 alignment, with two Interstate 15 exits of its own and St. George seventeen minutes down the road. It was settled in 1867 by families who had given up on Harrisburg after floods went through it, and it has been a small town on a main road ever since, first the highway and then the freeway that bypassed it.

What it has that no other town this size in the county has is density of record. A silver boomtown a mile west with a museum in its 1877 Wells Fargo building. The only Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Utah with its buildings still standing. Miles of pioneer dry stone wall that nobody has ever properly mapped, which volunteers are now trying to fix. A road up the south face of Pine Valley Mountain that a New Deal work crew cut in the 1930s.

The practical town is rural and specific. Culinary water comes through a shareholder owned association rather than a city utility, most parcels are on septic, and the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve on the town boundary brings enforceable rules with the view. None of that is a problem. All of it is a set of questions a metro buyer would not know to ask.

Leeds at a glance

1867

settled by families leaving flooded Harrisburg

1875

Silver Reef staked, a mile west

1933

the CCC camp opened on Mulberry Lane

~864

residents at the 2020 census

The thing nobody tells you


The Smithsonian called it an interesting fake.

In 1866 a prospector named John Kemple found flakes of silver embedded in sandstone in the reefs west of here. Silver does not occur in sandstone, or at least it was not supposed to, and when he sent a sample away the Smithsonian Institution dismissed it as an interesting fake. Most of a decade went by before later survey work established that he had been right the whole time.

What followed was one of the strangest mining districts in the American West: the only major field in the country where silver was pulled out of sandstone rather than out of hard rock. William T. Barbee staked claims in 1875 and founded Bonanza City, a tent camp to the north renamed itself Silver Reef because the name sold better, and by 1879 about two thousand people lived along a mile of main street.

It lasted thirteen years. Most of the mines had closed by 1884 and by 1901 the businesses were gone or dismantled. The Silver Reef page takes the whole thing, including the parts of the community that get left out of the usual telling.

A geological impossibility, rejected by the national museum, that produced roughly ten million dollars in silver.

Two survivals


A New Deal camp and an unmapped stone wall network.

Four stone buildings stand at 90 West Mulberry Lane, put up by Civilian Conservation Corps Company 585 in the autumn of 1933 and used until 1942. The Washington County Historical Society records them as the only CCC camp buildings still standing in Utah, and the National Register nomination calls the site perhaps the best remaining example of a CCC camp in the state. The crews housed there built the road to Oak Grove, the campground at the top of it, and a swimming pool for the town. The CCC camp page has all four buildings and what they were for.

The other survival is harder to see and much less secure. The settlers who arrived in 1867 built dry stone walls across this valley, and a great many of them are still standing on private ground with no legal protection at all. In 2026 the Silver Reef Foundation, the Washington County Historical Society, a retired federal cartographer and a group of Utah Tech students started mapping them before development takes them. The rock walls page covers the project and how to join it.

Those two things together are why Leeds reads differently from other small towns on this freeway. Most places this size have one story. This one has a boomtown, a New Deal camp and a stone wall network, in eight hundred and sixty four people.

Out the door


Red rock one way, ten thousand feet the other.

Leeds sits between two completely different landscapes and has an access road to each. South and west is the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve and the Bureau of Land Management recreation area on the town's doorstep, with the Red Reef trails, a year round campground and genuine Jurassic dinosaur trackways along the Silver Reef Trail. The reserve exists for the Mojave desert tortoise and its rules are enforced: six foot leads, designated trails in the lower zones, and rangers who do write citations.

North and west, Forest Road 032 climbs about eight and a half miles from the Leeds exit up beside Leeds Creek into old growth ponderosa at about 6,800 feet, on the southern boundary of the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness. That is the CCC road, and Oak Grove Trail 31030 leaves the campground at the top of it to climb the south face of the range toward the Summit Trail near Signal Peak. The Oak Grove page covers the drive, the campground and the current closures.

Between them, five to fifteen minutes south, Quail Creek and Sand Hollow put two reservoirs inside a short run. Those belong to the towns that own them on this site, and Leeds names them as drive times rather than describing them.

Measure your rig before you head for Red Cliffs. The two Interstate 15 underpasses on the recreation area access road max out at 11 feet 9 inches. That is under the height of a great many motorhomes and fifth wheels, and it surprises somebody about once a week. There is no alternative route from this side, so check the sticker on your own vehicle rather than assuming, and note that the reserve's leash and designated trail rules apply from the moment you are through.

The Leeds companion


Seven pages, and three of them are things nobody else has.

Everything The Local has written about Leeds: the ranked list, the sandstone silver boomtown a mile west that the Smithsonian said could not exist, the only Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Utah with its buildings still standing, the pioneer dry stone walls a volunteer project is racing to map, the New Deal road up the south face of Pine Valley Mountain, and what it actually takes to buy on a corridor where water is a share and the sewer is a tank.

Quick answers


Leeds, answered.

A town of about 864 people at roughly 3,500 feet on the old US-91 alignment, with two Interstate 15 exits of its own, settled in 1867 by families who left Harrisburg after floods went through it. There is no school, no grocery store and no restaurant row, and St. George is seventeen minutes south with Hurricane fifteen east. What it has instead is history at unusual density and a protected red rock reserve on the town boundary.

Because it came out of sandstone, which is close to a geological impossibility and was treated as one at the time. When John Kemple found flakes of silver in the sandstone reefs west of Leeds in 1866, the Smithsonian Institution dismissed his sample as an interesting fake, and most of a decade passed before later survey work established that he had been right. It became the only major field in the country where silver was mined from sandstone.

It is the only one of its kind left in the state, which is a strong argument. Four stone administrative buildings from Civilian Conservation Corps Company 585 stand at 90 West Mulberry Lane on about two and a third acres, built in coursed rubble masonry from local red orange sandstone in 1933 and used until 1942. The Washington County Historical Society records them as the only CCC camp buildings still standing in Utah, and the site is on the National Register.

Because three completely different economies passed through the same square mile. Agricultural settlers arrived in 1867 and left dry stone field walls. A silver boom ran a mile west from 1875 and left a museum, a jail and a set of foundations. A federal work programme put a camp here in 1933 and left four stone buildings. Very few places this size hold record from three eras, and each of the three is covered on its own page.

From the Leeds Domestic Water Users Association, a shareholder owned nonprofit supplied by springs and wells, rather than from a municipal utility. Because it is share based, the water arrangement on a specific property is a genuine transaction detail rather than a formality, and the connection and any shares should be confirmed with the seller and the association as part of a purchase. Most parcels are on septic rather than sewer.

No. There is no municipal sewer system in Leeds and septic systems permitted through the Southwest Utah Public Health Department are the norm, with minimum lot sizes applying to new systems. That makes septic condition a standard inspection item on a resale and septic feasibility the question that decides whether a bare parcel is buildable. Confirm the current position with the town rather than assuming it has changed.

Eleven feet nine inches. The two Interstate 15 underpasses on the access road to the Red Cliffs Recreation Area cap at that height, which is under a great many motorhomes and fifth wheels, and there is no alternative route from this side. It catches somebody about once a week. Check the sticker on your own vehicle rather than estimating, and remember the reserve's six foot leash and designated trail rules apply once you are through.

A steep, narrow forest road that climbs about eight and a half miles from the Leeds exit beside Leeds Creek to a campground at roughly 6,800 feet on the southern boundary of the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness. It was built by Civilian Conservation Corps crews from the camp in town during the 1930s. Oak Grove Trail 31030 leaves the top of it and climbs the south face of the range toward the Summit Trail near Signal Peak.

St. George is about 16 miles and 17 minutes south on Interstate 15, and Zion National Park is about 30 miles and 35 to 40 minutes east. Hurricane is about 15 minutes and Cedar City about half an hour north. That position on the corridor is the whole practical case for the town: two freeway exits of its own, a metro one run south, a national park one run east, and neither of them out the front door.

Scott Buehler, Moving Utah

Thinking about Leeds? The questions here are share, tank and wash.

Which shares come with the parcel and whether the connection exists, what the septic record or the percolation test says, and where the flood zone line falls near the wash. Add the land tenure question at Harrisburg and you have the whole homework list. It is a short list and it is much cheaper before an offer.