Thistle Utah Landslide Disaster

A Mysterious House in the Water

A couple of years ago, I was driving from Ogden to the small town of Spring City, Utah. After passing through Spanish Fork Canyon and turning onto US-89, I rounded a curve and saw the strangest sight. It was the site of the Thistle Utah Landslide.

A decaying house stood half-submerged in water, veiled by tall grass. It wasn’t an easy area to stop in. I was on a tight schedule, so I couldn’t pull over to explore. On a return trip, I finally had time to stop and take a closer look. That’s when I realized the house was one of the few remaining traces of Thistle, Utah. This was a town that once thrived but is now almost entirely erased from the map.

Thistle: A Once-Thriving Railroad Town

Thistle’s first settlers arrived in the late 1840s. It wasn’t until the railroad expanded into the area in 1890 that the town truly began to grow. By 1917, over 1,600 people lived in Thistle, working in its engine house, coaling stations, and railroad shops. Businesses flourished, including three general stores, a saloon, a bakery, a barber shop, and a pool hall. By 1920, it had 417 residents and a thriving town center, complete with a large depot and roundhouse. There were general stores, a saloon, a post office, and a schoolhouse. Life in Thistle was more than just railroad work. Residents gathered for Sunday school plays, lively dances, and even concerts hosted by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

By the late 19th century, Thistle had become a key railroad junction along the Rio Grande Western Railroad’s Thistle Branch. The town’s importance grew with the addition of a roundhouse and turntable for trains, a two-story hotel, and bustling businesses. The fertile Thistle Valley stretched for seventeen miles, supporting oat and alfalfa crops, cattle ranching, and horse breeding. Many farmers also worked seasonally for the railroad, making Thistle a thriving, multi-industry town.

However, tensions arose between the Sanpete County government and the railroad over land disputes. The railroad initially agreed to pay for right-of-way land but later refused to formalize the agreement. This led to legal battles. While Thistle persisted through the early 20th century, its reliance on the railroad meant that as train travel declined, so did the town.

Decline and Abandonment

As rail travel declined, so did Thistle. By the early 1970s, the train depot was relocated and converted into a home. Many shops and the post office were torn down. By 1983, only 50 families remained. By the 1950s, Thistle was already struggling to survive. The transition from steam locomotives to diesel engines made the town’s railroad role less essential. Once a bustling stop where helper engines assisted trains up Spanish Fork Canyon, Thistle now found itself increasingly obsolete.

In 1956, only about 150 residents remained. Many feared that Denver & Rio Grande Railroad would eventually relocate workers to Provo, sealing the town’s fate. Frank Leek, a lifelong resident, recalled Thistle’s boom years. The town had machinists, boiler makers, general stores, a dance hall, and a large school. By the mid-20th century, however, businesses had closed. Even the school had been sold, forcing children to ride a bus to Spanish Fork.

Adding to Thistle’s troubles was its long history of flooding. In 1952, a major flood devastated the town, washing away railroad tracks, a bridge, and several homes. Water from Thistle Creek and the Spanish Fork River flooded houses, leaving residents wading through several feet of standing water. The damage totaled over $100,000—a significant sum at the time. While repairs were made, the event foreshadowed the disaster to come.

Despite the declining population and recurring floods, some residents remained hopeful. Leek, an avid fisherman, said he stayed in Thistle because he could sit in his backyard and catch rainbow and German brown trout right from a cool stream.

But nature had other plans.

Thistle’s History of Flooding and Disaster

Thistle’s location in a narrow valley surrounded by steep mountains made it vulnerable to natural disasters. This was long before the catastrophic 1983 landslide. One of the most devastating events occurred on May 31, 1939. A sudden 20-minute cloudburst unleashed a torrent of mud, rocks, and floodwaters onto the town.

Water rushed down from ravines in Spanish Fork Canyon, sweeping through homes, farms, and railroad tracks. The damage totaled $50,000 (nearly $1 million today), with farmers suffering severe losses. Max Dephew lost his entire wheat and hay fields, while A.L. Pace’s 80-acre farm was destroyed. Hail piled 3.5 inches deep, worsening the devastation.

The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad struggled to keep up with the destruction. Tracks were washed out, forcing emergency repairs. Rockslides closed U.S. Highway 89 for hours. The impact was so severe that it took weeks for the area to recover—only for more storms to threaten the region in the following years.

These early disasters foreshadowed Thistle’s fate in 1983. The same conditions that caused the flooding and landslides in 1939 ultimately led to the massive landslide that buried the town decades later.

The 1983 Landslide Disaster

By April 1983, the Thistle Utah landslide was already in motion, though its full impact wasn’t immediately clear. The disaster unfolded slowly at first, with subtle warning signs that quickly escalated into a full-scale catastrophe.

On Friday, April 15, 1983, at around 1 a.m., Utah Highway Patrol dispatchers noticed a shift in the mountain above U.S. Highway 6 in Spanish Fork Canyon. The ground was moving at a rate of nearly five inches per hour. By Friday evening, the entire roadbed had been pushed up 15 feet from its original position. Railroad tracks crumbled under the pressure, forcing the cancellation of the final scheduled run of the Rio Grande Zephyr. This was the last private long-distance passenger train in the U.S.

State and highway officials raced against time to prevent further damage. 150 workers were deployed to try and keep the Spanish Fork River from backing up into Thistle. It was a losing battle. The landslide was reactivating an old slide area, and geologists determined that saturated clay beneath the surface was acting as a lubricant, accelerating the movement. Millions of tons of material were shifting toward the valley floor. Despite desperate efforts, workers couldn’t move dirt fast enough to prevent the destruction.

Evelyn Nelson, 73, was among the last to leave. She had lived in Thistle her entire life. She never imagined millions of tons of earth would come crashing down the mountainside.

“We were told not to worry,” said Jim Moore, who lost $100,000 worth of property. Residents were promised that blasting would release the water—but it never happened.

Families fled with only what they could carry, many leaving behind generations of memories. One resident, Bruce Dunn, had just bought a home nine months earlier for $125,000—only to abandon it forever.

The Flood That Buried a Town

By Sunday, April 17, the Thistle Utah landslide had completely reshaped the valley. The Spanish Fork River, dammed by the landslide, had created a 3-mile-long lake. This lake submerged Thistle under 50 feet of water. Only the rooftops of 22 homes could be seen from above.

The town’s 50 residents—many retirees who had lived there for decades—lost everything. They were placed in emergency shelters in Birdseye. Meanwhile, emergency workers raced to prevent the mud dam from collapsing and flooding the town of Spanish Fork downstream.

As the water continued to rise, so did the cost. The disaster had caused more than $1 million in damage to railroads and highways. Central Telephone Co. alone lost $200,000.

The town that had once thrived as a railroad stop and farming community was now nothing more than a ghost beneath the water.

What Remains of Thistle Today

Today, Thistle is nothing more than a memory, a few old photographs, and the ruins hidden beneath the water. Once a bustling railroad stop where trains chugged up Spanish Fork Canyon and families built their lives, it’s now a ghost town in the most literal sense—silent, submerged, and all but forgotten.

The house in the water is the last visible remnant—a decaying relic of a town that nature decided had overstayed its welcome. The school is nothing but rubble, and the lake that swallowed Thistle is still there, calm and indifferent, as if it was always meant to be. Most people driving through have no idea they’re passing over what was once a thriving community. A small historical marker stands near the highway, offering a brief explanation. If you take the old highway route, you’ll find what’s left—crumbling foundations, rusted metal, and the eerie silhouette of that half-drowned house.

Highway 89 was rerouted, the railroad moved on, and the Thistle Utah landslide became one of the most devastating natural disasters in Utah history. But if you stand there long enough, with the wind cutting through the valley, you can almost hear it. It is the faint echoes of a town that fought to survive, only to be wiped off the map.