Paria Cemetery

Paria is a Southern Paiute word for muddy water — the name of the river, and of the people pushed off this ground when Mormon farmers settled here in 1865. The irony is total: the same river the settlers named their town for turned on them, flooding every year from 1883 to 1888, washing away fields and houses. By 1892 eight families remained; by 1929 the last prospector left and Pahreah was empty. The townsite has dissolved into the Chinle badlands; the cemetery holds — twenty-odd graves, inscriptions weathered past reading, up the Paria River Valley Road off US-89.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Grosvenor Arch — 16 mi
  A massive double arch named for the National Geographic Society president
• Kodachrome Basin State Park — 18 mi
  A valley of 67 stone chimneys rising from the desert floor
• Henrieville — 22 mi
  A blink-and-you-will-miss-it ranching hamlet
• Cannonville — 23 mi
  Gateway to Kodachrome Basin and the Grand Staircase

More markers nearby

• Minerals in the Mesas — 22 mi
• Johnson Canyon Cemetery — 25 mi