MINING TOWN TERRACES
For many years there was an open field in the north part of Pioneer Village between the buildings and Farmington Creek. It seems to have been left in a natural state aside from the Pioneer Village Railroad and Lagoon Miniature Railroad that ran through there until the late 1980s. When Rattlesnake Rapids was being planned, one concept showed the loading and unloading area in this space.
The first six of nine terraces here were completed in 2000. The names for each one were inspired by old mining areas and ghost towns in Utah:
COAL CITY is a ghost town in Carbon County founded in 1885 and abandoned by 1940.
COPPERFIELD was a mining town in Bingham Canyon which was later consumed by the Bingham Copper Mine.
GOLD SPRINGS is a ghost town north of St. George near the Nevada border.
IRONTOWN – another ghost town north of St. George.
MINERS BASIN was founded in 1898 in Grand County and became a ghost town in 1908.
SILVER REEF is in Washington County and only existed from 1875 from 1891.
Three more terraces were added to Mining Town in 2001:
CASTLE ROCK could either be named after a rock formation in Grand County or the Castle Rock Mine in Esmerelda County, Nevada.
PARK VALLEY is a mining district in northwest Box Elder County, Utah.
ROCKPORT was a town in Summit County, Utah from 1860 until residents were forced to abandon the area in 1953 in order to build the Wanship Dam. Many of the buildings were saved by Horace Sorenson for his Pioneer Village collection, which was relocated to Lagoon in the mid-’70s. What’s left of Rockport now sits at the bottom of Rockport Reservoir.
PINE TERRACE
When the old Maple Terrace was demolished after the 2005 season, it was replaced by a new structure and the new, smaller Pine Terrace in 2006. Together, the two terraces become the Nightwalk haunted walk-through for Frightmares.
HONEY LOCUST TERRACE
In 2015, the last of the four Reunion Terraces from 1965 were torn down and replaced with one large terrace named after the nearby Honey Locust trees.
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