CHAPTER 1
THE NATURAL SETTING
X he northwestern corner of Utah, the area which comprises Box Elder County, is a vast land of stark contrasts. Its terrain ranges from alkali flat to desert to scrub oak-covered foothills to aspensloped and pine-crowned mountains to barren subalpine crags. The county is named for the large number of Box Elder trees growing in Box Elder Canyon at the time of settlement. Box Elder County is the fourth largest county in Utah at 5,594 square miles—only San Juan, Tooele, and Millard counties are larger. The county covers about 5,600 square miles, depending on the level of the Great Salt Lake. Approximately 48 percent of the county is privately owned which is double that of private land ownership statewide. The largest federal land agency in the county is the Bureau of Land Management which controls 2,041 square miles, followed by the United States Forest Service, the Department of Defense, the Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, and Indian tribes. Box Elder County is rich in history, geology, flora, fauna, technology, and has a heritage of h u m a n habitation, dating from prehis-
