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About Holden
Holden is a small Utah town which sits at the base of the Pahvant Mountain Range, at the eastern edge of the Pahvant Valley and the Sevier Basin. The mountains to the east reach as high as 10,000 feet and are covered in green forests and grass. Holden is surrounded by grassland and irrigated farmland. To the west the land gets drier until you reach the Sevier Desert, where sagebrush, saltbush and sand dunes can be found. The ground is sloping at Holden, and the elevation varies from 5,040 to 5,160 feet in elevation. A hill marking the beginning of the foothills of the mountains borders Holden along the eastern edge.
U.S. Highway 91 used to pass through Holden, on Main Street, but today it has been replaced by Interstate 15, which passes by just to the east. Main Street has been designated as Utah Highway 64, running from the north end of town to the freeway interchange at the south end, a rather short state highway. U.S. Highway 50 intersects the north end of Main Street, coming from the west deserts to Holden, and then turning north to take the old alignment of Highway 91 for a few miles to the next freeway interchange to the north. Highway 50 used to share an alignment with U.S. Highway 6 quite a bit further north, and was changed to pass this way relatively recently. Following Highway 50 westward brings you to Delta.
Holden is a Mormon pioneer settlement, and has a grid of numbered streets laid out in the orderly style of the Mormon pioneers. The town today is still predominantly of the Latter-day Saint faith, and has changed little in population over time, standing at 400 as of the year 2000. It has escaped the huge growth many Utah cities have experienced in recent years. It is named after Elijah E. Holden, who was sent with a group of ten families in 1855 to found the settlement, and who died when caught in a snowstorm in 1858.
For More Information:
See Wikipedia’s Holden, Utah article.