Authors

Kira Clingen is a Master of Landscape Architecture Student at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.

Photo Essay: How Fruit Orchards Blossomed in a High Desert National Park

By Kira Clingen

May 31, 2019

A grove of gridded fruit trees behind Utah State Highway 24 seen from the Rim Overlook trail in Capitol Reef National Park. When Fruita was first settled in 1880, State Route 24 was a gravel road that connected to a dusty dirt road leading to Fruita. The advent of the automobile era in the 1920s created a new market for tourism in the isolated reaches of Utah, and the National Park Service funded six miles of highway in 1962. State Route 24 (visible in the top left of the image) became the Scenic Drive within the park, while Utah State Highway 24 became the primary thoroughfare to Fruita.