Skull Valley Tooele County
West central Tooele County, between two desert ranges
Skull Valley, Iosepa and the west desert.
Skull Valley is a forty mile trough in west central Tooele County, running north to the Great Salt Lake between the Stansbury Mountains and the Cedar Mountains. Most drivers blur past it on I-80 and miss Iosepa, the Hawaiian pioneer town whose descendants still return every Memorial Day weekend to tend the graves, the old Lincoln Highway that crossed the desert here, and two springs that pull migrating birds into the middle of nowhere.
The short answer
Skull Valley is a place to understand more than a place to check off. Come for Iosepa, the quiet townsite and cemetery where Hawaiian pioneers settled in 1889 and where their descendants gather every Memorial Day weekend. Add Horseshoe Springs and Timpie Springs for the birds, trace the old Lincoln Highway across the desert, and read the working salt shore where the valley meets the Great Salt Lake. It is empty country with no services, so treat it as a half day loop out of Tooele, and give the ranch land and the Goshute reservation a wide berth.
What to know before you go
- There are no services in the valley. The nearest fuel, food, and lodging are in Tooele and Grantsville, about half an hour away.
- Skull Valley Road is paved and passable in any car; the short side roads to the springs are graded gravel.
- Iosepa is a working cemetery and a sacred place to the Pacific Islander community. Visit quietly and stay off the neighboring ranch land.
- The Skull Valley Goshute reservation is a private community, not an attraction. Stay on the public roads.
- Spring and fall are the kindest seasons. Summer is hot and open, and winter can ice the passes.
Getting oriented
The easy way to picture Skull Valley is a long north to south trough with the Stansbury Mountains walling it on the east and the lower Cedar Mountains on the west. The Great Salt Lake and the salt works sit at the north end, off I-80. Skull Valley Road runs down the middle past Horseshoe Springs and Iosepa, and SR-199 climbs in over Johnson Pass from the Tooele side. Far to the south the paved road ends at Dugway Proving Ground. Everything worth stopping for is in the northern two thirds.
Skull Valley is empty country. Once you leave the interstate there are no gas stations, no stores, and no reliable cell signal, so top off your tank and carry water before you head in. Much of the land on either side of the road is private ranch or tribal land; the springs, the cemetery, and the roads are open to the public, but the pastures and the reservation are not. Watch the weather in every season, and do not count on help being close.
The marquee
Iosepa, a Hawaiian town in the desert.
In 1889 a group of Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints settled in Skull Valley and named their town Iosepa, the Hawaiian form of Joseph, after Joseph F. Smith, who had served as a young missionary in Hawaii and later led the church. About fifty settlers arrived that August, and they began the cemetery the same autumn.
For nearly thirty years they farmed and ranched this dry valley, laid out streets, ran a store, and kept a brass band, making a small piece of Hawaii in the desert. The colony wound down after 1917, when many families returned to the islands around the building of a temple in Laie. What remains is a quiet townsite, a cemetery, a stone monument, and a pavilion that the descendants raised so the community would always have a place to gather.
Come with respect. This is a burial ground and a homecoming place, not a curiosity. Read the monument, walk the graves gently, and leave the ranch land on either side to the people who work it. Iosepa also shows up on lists of the county's ghost towns, but it is better understood as a living memory than a ruin, which is why it has this page rather than a line on the ghost towns survey.
The details
The Memorial Day gathering
Every Memorial Day weekend the Iosepa Historical Association hosts a gathering at the site. Descendants and other Pacific Islanders come to tend the graves and hold a luau with traditional food, music, and hula, and the crowd can run into the hundreds. It is the one weekend the quiet valley fills with the sound of the islands. The dates and program for any given year are set by the association, so confirm the current schedule before you plan a trip around it.
Before you go
- Treat the cemetery as the sacred ground it is; the community still buries and remembers its people here.
- Stay on the public grounds and off the working ranches that surround the townsite.
- There are no services, so bring water, and remember the Memorial Day weekend is the one busy time.
The first road west
The Lincoln Highway and Orr's Ranch.
The Lincoln Highway, the first road built for cars clear across the country, came through Skull Valley in 1913. Out here it was hardly a highway at all, just a graded track across the desert, but it carried the earliest cross country motorists toward the dreaded crossing of the Great Salt Lake Desert to the west.
Orr's Ranch, near where Skull Valley Road meets SR-199, was the last friendly stop before that crossing. Motorists bought gasoline, a meal, and a bed there before they took on the salt. It is a working ranch to this day, so treat it as private land rather than a roadside attraction.
In 1920 the route was improved with a gravel road climbing east over Johnson Pass, paid for in part by a donation from Carl G. Fisher, the man who dreamed up the Lincoln Highway and built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That grade is roughly today's SR-199, and it is still the paved way in and out of the valley's south end. If you want to keep driving the old desert route, the Pony Express Trail picks up the emptiest country just to the south.
Driving the old route
Water in the desert
Horseshoe Springs and Timpie Springs.
Two springs break the desert floor in Skull Valley and pull in birds you would never expect out here. Both are quiet day use spots for birding, with a boardwalk or a loop and not much else.
Horseshoe Springs
Horseshoe Springs, where two big springs join in a horseshoe shape, is a wildlife management area with a short boardwalk and an interpretive kiosk. It is a day use spot for birding and quiet, with no restrooms and no camping. The riparian brush around the water draws songbirds and waterfowl that have no business in the surrounding desert.
The springs have drawn travelers for a very long time. The trapper Jedediah Smith stopped here in 1827, and the Hastings Cutoff wagon route, the Donner and Reed party among them, watered here in 1846 before the salt desert crossing.
Timpie Springs
Timpie Springs, at the north end of the valley just off I-80, is a spring fed marsh and another wildlife management area, with a loop of roughly three miles for walkers and birders. It is one of the wetlands strung along the south edge of the Great Salt Lake, and it sits right beside the salt works, so the view pairs marsh birds with a working industrial shore.
The roads out here are remote and the marsh is exposed, so come prepared for wind and sun, and check current access before you rely on the full loop.
The working edge of the lake
The salt shore at the north end.
Where Skull Valley opens onto the Great Salt Lake, the shore is a working industrial edge rather than a beach. Cargill Salt runs solar evaporation ponds near Timpie, and the white mountain of harvested salt beside I-80 is theirs. A magnesium plant on the lake's Skull Valley shore at Rowley has been idled in recent years.
It is less a place to visit than a thing to understand about this corner of the lake. The desert here has been worked for its minerals for generations, the salt and brine drawn straight from the water, and that industry is part of what you are looking at from the Timpie exit. For the wider west shore of the Great Salt Lake, the causeway, and the moving shoreline, the Stansbury Island page carries the full story.
Whose land this is
The Goshute homeland and the desert's south end.
Skull Valley is home to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, whose reservation sits in the valley. It is present day tribal land and a living community, not a stop on a tour, and travelers should stay on the public roads and off the reservation.
Far to the south, the valley runs up against Dugway Proving Ground, a large United States Army installation and one of the biggest employers in this part of the county. It is closed to the public, and the paved road simply ends at its gate. For most visitors the valley is the stretch between the salt shore and the middle, where the springs and Iosepa are, and that is plenty for a day.
The valley at a glance
The public stops, side by side.
Everything worth stopping for in one table. Drive times are from Tooele in ordinary conditions and are estimates, not published figures. All of these are free and open to the public.
| The stop | Where | From Tooele | Season | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iosepa | Mid valley, Skull Valley Road | 45 minutes | Year round, gathering Memorial Day weekend | Free |
| Horseshoe Springs | East side, Skull Valley Road | 35 minutes | Year round, best in migration | Free |
| Timpie Springs | North end, off I-80 Exit 77 | 25 minutes | Year round | Free |
| The Lincoln Highway drive | SR-199 over Johnson Pass | Starts at SR-36 | Year round, ice in winter | Free |
| The salt shore | North end at the lake | 25 minutes | Year round | Free, view only |
Living near Skull Valley
The towns and the country around it.
The county seat
Tooele
The town where a Skull Valley day starts and ends, with the fuel, food, and the road down into the valley.
Open the city guideThe west side town
Grantsville
The other gateway to the west desert, closer to the salt shore and the road out toward the lake.
Open the city guideThe road beyond
The Pony Express Trail
The original 1860 mail route on the original dirt, just south of the valley, past a rebuilt relay station.
Read the guideThe other lost towns
Ghost Towns and Mining Camps
The silver and gold camps of the Oquirrhs and the far desert, and which ones you can actually walk.
Read the guideThe west shore
Stansbury Island
The Great Salt Lake island you can drive to, the moving shoreline, and the working salt shore up close.
Read the guideThe white plain
Bonneville Salt Flats
The hard white lakebed out past Wendover where land speed records have been chased for a century.
Read the guideQuick answers
Skull Valley, answered.
Skull Valley is a long, narrow valley in west central Tooele County, running about forty miles north to south between the Stansbury Mountains on the east and the Cedar Mountains on the west. It opens onto the Great Salt Lake at its north end, southwest of the lake, and Skull Valley Road runs down the middle of it. It is roughly an hour west of Salt Lake City.
Iosepa was a town of Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander pioneers who settled in Skull Valley in 1889. They were converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and they named the town Iosepa, the Hawaiian form of Joseph, after church leader Joseph F. Smith. The colony farmed the valley for nearly thirty years and wound down after 1917. A cemetery, a monument, and a pavilion remain.
Yes. The Iosepa townsite and cemetery sit on the west side of Skull Valley Road and are open to the public at no charge. It is a burial ground and a place of homecoming for the Pacific Islander community, so visit quietly, stay on the public grounds, and leave the ranch land on either side alone. There are no services, so bring your own water.
The Iosepa Historical Association holds a gathering at the site every Memorial Day weekend, with grave tending and a luau of traditional food, music, and hula that can draw hundreds of people. The dates and program are set each year by the association, so confirm the current schedule before you plan a trip around it.
Yes. The Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental auto road, crossed Skull Valley on a graded dirt track starting in 1913, on the way to the crossing of the Great Salt Lake Desert. Orr's Ranch was a gas and lodging stop for early motorists, and in 1920 the route was improved over Johnson Pass with a donation from Lincoln Highway founder Carl G. Fisher. That grade is roughly today's SR-199.
Horseshoe Springs is a wildlife management area where two large springs meet in a horseshoe shape. It has a short boardwalk and an interpretive kiosk, and it is a day use spot for birding and quiet, with no restrooms and no camping. The springs were a water stop on the old Hastings Cutoff wagon route in 1846, and the trapper Jedediah Smith passed through in 1827.
Part of it is. The Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians holds a reservation in the valley, and it is present day tribal land and a living community rather than a visitor attraction. Travelers should stay on the public roads and springs and not drive onto the reservation. The rest of the valley is a mix of public land and private ranches.
Take I-80 west toward Wendover. For the north end, the salt shore, and Timpie Springs, use the Timpie exit at milepost 77. For Iosepa, Horseshoe Springs, and the middle of the valley, continue to Tooele on SR-36 and follow Skull Valley Road south. The drive from Salt Lake City runs about an hour to the north end.
No. There are no gas stations, stores, or reliable cell signal in the valley, and the nearest fuel, food, and lodging are in Tooele and Grantsville, about half an hour away. Skull Valley Road is paved, but you should top off your tank and carry water before you head in, and watch the weather in every season.
A quiet valley, and a county worth knowing.
Skull Valley is a place to understand more than a place to move to, but the towns that anchor it, Tooele and Grantsville, are real relocation questions with real tradeoffs: the two roads to Salt Lake, the wind off the lake, and what a given street actually costs. Tell me what you are weighing and I will introduce you to a Tooele County partner agent who knows this ground, and stay on the file for the research and the financing side.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.