Paragonah, on ground that was a city first

A small incorporated farming town of about 536 people at roughly 5,900 feet in the Parowan Valley, built on the wide pioneer grid along Red Creek with irrigated fields north and south of it. Parowan, where the county offices are, is four miles southwest and close enough that the two towns share schools, clinics and errands. Cedar City is about twenty six miles and twenty seven minutes south and Brian Head about half an hour up the canyon.

The remains of a Fremont culture village occupied between roughly A.D. 700 and 1300, and one of the largest known in Utah. Historical records describe more than four hundred mounds covering close to a square mile in the late 1800s. Twelve acres containing twenty eight mounds now survive as a permanent preserve owned and managed by The Archaeological Conservancy. It is a protected archaeological site rather than a visitor attraction.

The name is Southern Paiute, often translated as red water or many springs. It was not the town's first name: settlers from Parowan founded it on Red Creek in the early 1850s and called it Red Creek after the water they had come for. The change to Paragonah came later, and the town incorporated under that name in 1916.

About eight miles east of Paragonah and a long way up, on Red Creek Road, a gravel road that runs east from Center Street in town up Red Creek Canyon. It is a lake of about sixty acres stocked with cutthroat and tiger trout. The road is graded gravel to the water and rougher past it, and it is closed in winter.

The Civic Committee runs three fundraisers, the July 4th lunch, the pie auction and an October bake sale, and pays for two more events, the Easter Egg Hunt and a Veterans Day dinner. The town's calendar also lists a yard sale every other year and Wreaths Across America in December. The one worth planning a trip around is the pie auction held around 24 July for Pioneer Day, which is a Utah state holiday. The calendar page takes each of them in turn. Confirm any date with Paragonah Town, because no listings site tracks events at this scale.

Parowan is about four miles and eight minutes southwest, and it is where most of the services and all of the schools are. Cedar City is about twenty six miles and twenty seven minutes south on Interstate 15, with Southern Utah University, the regional hospital and the airport. Brian Head is about half an hour up the canyon from Parowan. Exit 82 is the town's own, and Exit 78 is at north Parowan.

Yes. At about 5,900 feet in the Parowan Valley it is a genuine four season climate with often around fifty inches of snow a year, and winters that are properly cold rather than merely cool. The valley sits right below the high country so it runs colder at night than Cedar City just down the interstate, though it usually gets less snow. Summers are warm and dry with cool nights, and spring runs Red Creek high on snowmelt.

Yes, there is a documented imbalance and a state plan for it. The State Engineer adopted a groundwater management plan for the whole Parowan Valley on 15 October 2024, and it curtails water rights by priority date, junior rights first, over the decades ahead. It applies to Paragonah, Parowan and Summit alike. Our Summit page carries the schedule in detail.

It is a managed archaeological preserve rather than a park, and it should be treated accordingly. The Archaeological Conservancy owns and manages the twelve acre site and funds have gone to fencing, a long term management plan and educational programming. The right approach is to contact the managing organization about access rather than to go looking, and under no circumstances to dig, collect or walk on the mounds.