US-89 Heritage Highway
Forty-some miles down the floor of Sanpete Valley, US-89 threads the best-preserved string of pioneer Mormon towns in Utah — the "Little Denmark" heart of the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area, from Fairview's Ice Age mammoth past Manti's 1888 temple to Gunnison's century-old Casino Star Theatre.
For roughly forty miles down the floor of Sanpete Valley, U.S. Highway 89 runs through the best-preserved run of pioneer Mormon towns in Utah. The northern half is the heart of the federally designated Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area — the stretch known as Little Denmark, for the Danish and Scandinavian converts who settled it in the 1850s and built it out of local cream-colored oolite limestone. It is an easy two-lane drive past pastures and grain fields, hemmed by the Wasatch Plateau on the east, and it rewards an unhurried half-day far more than a quick pass-through.
The route begins at Fairview, the valley's north gate, where a free town museum keeps a near-complete Ice Age mammoth. Six miles south is Mount Pleasant, with its National Register Main Street and Wasatch Academy, the oldest boarding school in the state. A short detour east leads to Spring City — one of only two towns in the country whose entire footprint is a national historic district. Back on the highway, Ephraim is the Scandinavian hub and home of Snow College, and just beyond it stands Manti, the valley's first settlement, beneath the twin spires of its 1888 oolite temple.
South of Manti the valley opens out. Sterling is the turnoff for Palisade State Park, with its reservoir and desert-canyon golf course; a side road runs east to Mayfield at the mouth of Twelve Mile Canyon and the climb to Skyline Drive; and the route ends at Gunnison, the valley's working southern hub, where the 1912 Casino Star Theatre is the oldest operating movie house in the state.
Together the towns trace the arc of central Utah's settlement, spreading outward from the 1849 founding of Manti across what is now Central Utah. Drive it in autumn, when the plateau behind the towns turns gold, or in late spring, when Ephraim's Scandinavian Festival and Spring City's Heritage Day bring the old streets back to life.
The Drive, Stop by Stop
7 stops along the route, in driving order from Fairview to Gunnison.
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That's the drive. Take your time, pull over often, and let US-89 Heritage Highway do what it does best.
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