Utah Centennial County History Series - Piute County 1999

T u c k e d between the Tushar Mountains and the Parker Range in south-central Utah, Piute County is part of a geological transitional zone between the Basin and Range Physiographic Province to the west and the Colorado Plateau Province to the east. Much of the present-day topography of the county is related to Basin and Range development. The Great Basin is a geographic term applied to the region of the interior West that extends west to the White and Inyo Mountains along the Nevada-California border. All the streams in the Great Basin-including the Sevier River-drain inward, having no outlet to any ocean.

Piute County is the second smallest county in the state-both in size and population. Only four incorporated towns, the county seat of Junction (population 132),Circleville (population 4 17), Kingston (population 134), Marysvale (population 364), and three smaller ranching communities-Thompsonville, Angle and Greenwich-dot the county's 754 square miles of land, with a total population in 1990 of 1,277.' Piute's boundaries are shared with the larger, more prosperous counties of Sevier to the north, Wayne to the east, Garfield to