Juab Valley

Let's head back west of the Wasatch for this post and focus on the far southern end of the main Wasatch Front corridor and a bit beyond. For this post, I'll discuss the history of the routes passing through the Juab Valley region, from Gunnison and Mills Junction up through Levan, Nephi, and Mona and on to Santaquin.

(By the way, you may have heard that "Levan" is named because it is "navel" spelled backwards, since it's in about the middle of Utah. While interesting, this is probably a folk etymology - a number of more plausible origin theories are out there.)

SR 78, which is old US 91, heading west (south) from Levan with the West Hills in the background. The farms and ranches seen here are pretty typical for this area.

The north-south highways through this area date back to the earliest days of the state highway system. The road from Millard County up by Yuba Dam and through Levan, Nephi, Mona, and Santaquin became a state highway in 1910. However, a 1916 State Road Commission report stated that the road from Levan north to Utah County was added to the state highway system in December 1915 - this may have been related to an improvement or maybe a realignment project. The same report states that in February 1916, the road from Levan south to the Sanpete County line became a state highway, connecting with a road running north from Gunnison through Fayette that had been added to the state system a year before. Federal aid to state roads began in 1917, and over the next two years a federal-aid project improved the road from Levan southwest to Millard County.

In 1919, the state legislature trimmed down the size of the state highway system to a short list of defined corridors plus any federal-aid projects. The Millard County-Levan-Nephi-Santaquin road, by now also part of the Arrowhead Trail, was defined in section A of the 1919 law. The Gunnison-Levan road, however, was not included in any of the corridors, and was dropped from the state system accordingly.

At some point in the early 1920s, the State Road Commission assigned numbers to the most important "trunk line" state highways, and the Arrowhead Trail state route became SR 1. The following map was made in 1923, after the trunk lines had first been numbered:

USRC, 1923.

In 1925, the legislature added the Gunnison-Levan road back to the state highway system, in a spur route added to section D of the state law (this section primarily designated the road from Arizona to Nephi via Richfield, Gunnison, and Manti). However, as it was not a major trunk line, it did not receive a number.

The U.S. Highway system was proposed in 1925 and approved in 1926; it designated essentially all of SR 1 in Utah as US 91. The next year, the state legislature overhauled the state highway system - they got rid of  numbered all of its previously unnumbered state highways: the Gunnison-Levan road became SR 28 at this time.

The original US 91 and SR 1 before it probably followed Old Yuba Dam Road by Yuba Dam (that's also labeled "Old U.S. 90" on maps, which is obviously wrong and was supposed to be 91). It may have followed the road labeled on Google as "First 91 Rd" for a segment south of the dam, though if it did it had been realigned by 1940. 91 went north from the dam and then turned northeast on Yuba Dam Road (labeled "Old State Rte 78" sometimes, which is also wrong) and on by the rail siding of Juab, turning east and entering Levan on 100 North. From there, it curved north and exited the town on 100 East, then continued on north and passed through Nephi and Mona along Main Street and The Mona Road. It then crossed into Utah County and entered Santaquin on 200 West, turning east on Main Street and then continuing northeast on Orchard Road towards Spanish Fork. Original SR 28 began on Main Street in Gunnison, passed through Fayette on Main Street, and entered Levan on none other than Main Street (!) and ended at 100 North at its junction with US 91.

Those original routes, as they appeared on the 1929 state map:

USRC, 1929.

So by this time, as had been the case back in 1925, US 91 was paved down to Nephi, and 91 and 28 south of Nephi were a mixture of gravel and improved dirt. US 91 was fully paved south from Nephi through Scipio by 1932. 28 was completely paved by 1937, far earlier than most state roads, which was a statement to its importance - it is perhaps the most important state road that never got a US highway designation. 

Looking at that 1929 map above, it does look as though it would have made for quite a long trek if you wanted to go from, say, Scipio to Fayette using state roads. Perhaps this is why, in 1935, the state legislature defined SR 160:

Route 160. From route 1 near Juab easterly to junction with route 28.

"Near Juab" would suggest an east-west alignment along something like Powell Lane, which is two miles south of Levan. But let's look at a map. The first map I'm aware of this route appearing on is the official state map from 1940. A screenshot from that is shown below:

USRC, 1940.

So right away, that rules out anything near Powell Lane, and "Juab" wasn't really a good descriptor of the western terminus of the route. This was far closer to the Sevier Bridge Reservoir (the official name for Yuba Lake). But exactly where? Let's look at the 1940 census enumeration district maps:

US Census, 1940.

That pretty clearly puts most of 160 along Old Botham Road, which even today is more or less the last through road between the I-15 corridor and SR 28. But per this map, not all of Old Botham was 160. Even though Old Botham Road was intact as a full connection by then, it appears 160 did not follow it east of the junction with Yuba East Shore Road. Rather, it went southeast, south, and southeast again, ending at SR 28 just north of the Sanpete County line.

That southeastward road appears to not exist in any form today. The lack of any sort of scar on satellite imagery where this supposed alignment of 160 ran is interesting - usually even with abandoned roads there is some evidence they once existed, unless it got flooded by a reservoir (which is not the case here). As a result, I do wonder whether 160 simply followed Old Botham all the way across to 28 and the census map is wrong. 

At any rate, several years later, US 91 was moved to a new alignment between the junction with the road west to Mills (unsurprisingly known as Mills Junction) and just north of Scipio. The bridge carrying it over the Sevier River was built in 1950, suggesting it was complete around then. (That bridge still stands, by the way, and is used by the I-15 frontage road.) The new 91 alignment was about two miles west of the old one, and bypassed Yuba Lake entirely where the old one had gone over the dam itself.

The new 91 alignment does raise the question of what happened to the west end of SR 160. Was it extended to connect with the new 91 alignment? Let's take a peek at a USGS map from the time:

USGS (Scipio North), 1952.

Answer to that question appears to be no. 160 was never a route the state particularly cared much for - even by the 1950s, it was still an unimproved dirt road - and the realignment of 91 was probably the final nail in the coffin. The legislature deleted the route in 1953.

At around the same time as all this, US 91 was moved to a new alignment bypassing Santaquin. This was probably built around 1950, at more or less the same time as the Yuba bypass. It appeared on the 1951 USGS map of the area:

USGS (Santaquin), 1951.

The old alignment along Main Street and Orchard Road remained on the state highway system as a part of US 6 (and SR 26 was extended east slightly to the new junction with US 91). But what about old 91 south of the town? It wasn't shown as anything on that map, nor on any other map I've come across...but 1959 state law included a SR 26A:

Route 26-A. From Santaquin on route 26 southerly to route 1.

That almost certainly was the old 91 alignment on 200 West and The Mona Road. Because it was a suffixed route, not much is known of its history, and there's a chance it may not have even been signed. I would guess it was probably created by the legislature in 1953, based on the huge amount of changes to the state highway system that happened that year.

Meanwhile, two small realignments were made on SR 28 in Sanpete County about a decade later. The first was in 1966 immediately east of Yuba Lake...

USDH, 1966.

...and the second slightly further south in 1972, which moved 28 to an eastern bypass of Fayette:

USDH, 1972.

That shift made Fayette one of a small handful of incorporated places in Utah without a state highway, as the new alignment fully bypassed Fayette's town limits. This is still the case today.

However, the bigger changes to the local highways during this time happened with the coming of the interstates. In 1962, a lot of state routes were changed around so that SRs 1 through 5 would be used as legislative designations for the interstates proposed to run through Utah. At the time, that changed nothing in the Juab County vicinity, since SR 1 was the designation for both US 91 and its replacement I-15, and the interstate would not be built in this area for some time.

Based on bridge data, I-15 was completed from the Utah-Juab County line north through Santaquin around 1967, and this segment was built either directly over or immediately adjacent to US 91. Since no interchange was built on I-15 where 26A had junctioned 91 south of Santaquin, that was probably the end of SR 26A. The west-side frontage road to I-15 (old 91) from 26A to a point about 2.5 miles south of the Juab County line was probably turned over to county jurisdiction at this time.

The next year, a whole bunch of changes were made in and south of Nephi with the proposed construction of I-15. In January 1968, the State Road Commission approved a resolution to move SR 1 onto the proposed route of I-15 between Juab (the bend in US 91 at the railroad directly west of Levan) and a proposed interchange with existing US 91 just north of Nephi. The planned interstate included interchanges at those endpoints and also at Experiment Station Road north of Levan and Elevator Road south of Nephi.

The plan was that US 91 between Experiment Station Rd and Elevator Rd would be removed from the state highway system. A new SR 41 was created for Main Street through Nephi, presumably also connecting west on Elevator Road to the I-15 south Nephi interchange. The remainder of old 91 between Levan and Experiment Station would become a northward extension of SR 28, while the east-west portion from Juab to Levan was designated as a new SR 163. That was all illustrated on this 1968 planning map:

USDH, 1968.

Obviously, these weren't to take effect until I-15 was built, which wouldn't be for some time... and none of this would have been signed, as these surface routes were all still US 91. Take a close look at that map, though, and you might notice that this wasn't where I-15 was built. We'll get to that in a minute.

In 1969, SR 28 was extended south as an unsigned designation for US 89 from Gunnison south to Salina. This was because the previous designation for that part of 89, SR 11, had to be truncated to the south to avoid an overlap on I-70 (SR 4). The southern terminus was defined as the I-70 interchange south of Salina...but functionally it was in central Salina until 1976, when that interchange on I-70 opened. Also, US 89 and underlying SR 28 originally ran through the center of Redmond. Those routes were moved to the current bypass in 1970, but unlike the Fayette bypass further north, the old route through Redmond remained on the state system as SR 256. Again, other than the Redmond bypass, none of these changes would have been signed.

Also in 1969, the State Road Commission officially moved the remainder of SR 1 between Nephi and Utah County to the proposed I-15 bypass. The legislative underlay for the segment of US 91 between those two points became a northward extension of SR 41, which had just been created to serve essentially as a Nephi business loop. At this point, all remaining segments of surface US 91 in Juab County were probably also signed as Temporary I-15. 

In 1971, the commission approved a resolution to transfer all of US 91/unsigned SR 41 through Mona and north all the way to the Utah County line to Mona city and Juab County. In exchange, SR 54 was created to connect Mona to an interchange that would be built on I-15. The map attached to one of those agreements was shown below:

USDH, 1975.

This segment of interstate and associated SR 54 connector opened in 1974 or 1975. The new interstate extended south to a point roughly halfway between Mona and Nephi, where a connector road was built to link the new interstate and old 91:

USGS (Mona), 1983.

It's closed to traffic now, but that connector road is still visible today.

In 1977, Utah executed a large renumbering that affected all state routes that shared a number with an interstate or US Highway, as well as those routes that served as an unsigned state route underlay for an interstate or US Highway. That affected two routes in this area. The unsigned SR 28 overlap with US 89 was eliminated, leaving the south end of 28 at Gunnison (where it has remained since). And SR 163 was renumbered to SR 78, due to the existence of US 163 in southeastern Utah. 

USGS (Nephi), 1981.

The 1981 map above shows the new SR 78 designation, extending from Temporary I-15 near Sharp east to Levan. (Yeah, I know there's an I-15 shield there, but that was still the original two lane US 91.) I-15 still was not open through southern Juab County, and because of this, the planned transfer of old US 91 to local jurisdiction between SR 28 and SR 41 had not happened yet. So for the time being, 28 and 41 simply ended at each other at some point just south of Nephi.

That I-15 segment would not open for several more years. The section of old 91 between Scipio and Mona became known as the "Nephi Death Strip" or "Levan Death Strip", as it was the last two-lane section that I-15 had not replaced from at least the Arizona line through the Wasatch Front. By 1983, it was finally under construction, as seen in the state map from that year:

UDOT, 1983.

Notice there were some pretty substantial differences between the proposal from the 1968 map and the road that was built. Most notably, it was built significantly farther west between Mills and Nephi, and it ended up bypassing Nephi to the east rather than the west. The segment would be completed by 1986, and was the second to last section of I-15 to open in Utah (the last one was from Tremonton to the Idaho border). Fun fact: this was late enough that it was after UDOT assigned exit numbers to all of its interstates. Unlike many eastern states which use or initially used sequential exit numbering, Utah used mileage-based numbering from the start. That meant they had to guess how long this Nephi segment would be in order to number all I-15 exits to the north, including through the heavily populated Wasatch Front metropolitan areas. Not an easy task when you don't even know the route of your highway yet. As it turned out, UDOT's guess was too high by about 3 miles, and so once the full interstate was mileposted accordingly, all of the exit numbers north of Nephi were between 2 and 4 higher than their corresponding milepost. They were all renumbered in 2005, mostly with patches that were stuck over the old numbers. Most of those signs have since been replaced, but a few do still stand. So if you see an exit number patch in Salt Lake today, that is why it's there, and it means the sign is older than 2005.

But back to Nephi's routes in the 80s. The western alignment between Mills and Nephi meant that old 91 would remain a distinct road between Mills and the eastward bend towards Levan, instead of being swallowed up by the interstate. The existing definition for SR 78 only included the east-west segment directly west of Levan, assuming it would end at the bend near Sharp. As a result, the 1986 Utah Transportation Commission signed a resolution extending SR 78 southwest along old 91 to the Mills Junction interchange, which was approved by the legislature the following year.

The other substantial change was that in the original plan, when I-15 was set to bypass Nephi to the west, there would be two interchanges between Nephi and Levan, with short connector roads to old US 91 a short distance east. There would also be an interchange north of Nephi where 15 would cross old 91. Instead, with the I-15 alignment east of Nephi, there wound up being only one interchange between Levan and Nephi, where 15 directly crossed old 91, and a new connector road had to be built from old 91 to the north Nephi interchange on I-15. Here is how that ended up looking after it opened in 1986:

USGS (Nephi), 2001.

SR 41 was shifted over to the new connector just north of Nephi and ended right at I-15; the segment of 41 on Mona Road between that connector and the previously existing I-15 connector near Mona was given to Juab County at that time. As the map shows, since there ended up being only one south Nephi interchange, none of old 91 was ever decommissioned south of Nephi. So what ended up happening was 28 and 41 came to end at each other at the south Nephi interchange (exit 222). Both were old 91, with 41 on the Nephi business loop and 28 on the longer corridor towards Levan. And speaking of business loop, the Business Loop I-15 designation was also applied to SR 41 as soon as the interstate opened.

Of course, two routes ending at each other is silly in a case like this where they're clearly the same road. Which is why in 2006, SR 28 was extended to the north Nephi interchange, absorbing all of SR 41.

Route Photos

SR 28

SR 28 begins with a four-line mileage sign. The bottom line is Salt Lake City, consistent with 28's role as a more important interregional corridor.

Reassurance shield with the San Pitch Mountains at right. They rise from the southernmost segment of the Wasatch fault zone, potentially overdue for a large earthquake. 

After crossing into Juab County, we'll enter Levan, where we will junction SR 78.

Turn left for access to I-15 south; stay right for I-15 north.

SR 78 begins to the left. Note the I-15 control cities. The junction is laid out this way because originally, the cross street was US 91.

Reassurance shield after we turn onto old US 91

Mileage sign leaving Levan, again with longer distance control cities.

I-15 is 10 miles away. Levan suffered from being bypassed by the interstate a lot more than other US 91 towns. 

10 miles later, after crossing the drainage divide between the Sevier Lake and Great Salt Lake basins, we'll reach Nephi. Stay straight for the hospital and city center, turn right for I-15 north to Salt Lake.

A pair of interstate shields with state name.

A lot of the newer generation of signage on this road uses Las Vegas as the southbound control rather than Cedar City, which I think is unfortunate. Perhaps they could use St George as a compromise now that it has a metropolitan area of almost 200,000.

SR 28 reassurance after the I-15 interchange, as we follow the historic route of US 91 through Nephi. This is also Business Loop I-15, but that's not signed from here.

In central Nephi, we will junction SR 132.

I-15 can be accessed either by staying straight on 28 or turning right on 132. Turns out it's about the same time.

SR 132 goes to Delta and Ephraim. In the 1930s, US 189 began to the right.

No reassurance or anything else of note before we leave Nephi. As we leave the town, we can turn around and see a rare instance of BL-15 co-signed with SR 28. Many interstate business loops in Utah tend to only be signed from the freeway. 

28 has another interchange with I-15 north of Nephi. The northbound control city there is "Provo / Salt Lake" which I think is the only control usage of Provo on northbound I-15.

SR 28 ends at the frontage road past the interstate, at the base of 11928-foot Mount Nebo.

SR 78

SR 78 begins in Levan on Center Street, which is old US 91.

We'll reach I-15, which replaced 91, in 9 miles.

Now well outside of Levan, we'll turn to the southwest to parallel the Union Pacific Railroad at Elevator Road. Originally, 78 was supposed to end at I-15 right about here, but the interstate ended up being built further west.

SR 78 rides along the embankment dam that holds back Chicken Creek Reservoir to the left. Now, "reservoir" is a generous word considering that there is rarely ever any water in it.

From there, we'll follow Chicken Creek around the bend to Mills Junction, where we'll reach I-15.

The typical long-distance control cities are used here.

Stay straight for I-15 south, turn right for I-15 north.

Turn left for I-15 south.

If you missed the last three signs, this one is for you. 

There are no services on the west side of I-15 - but interestingly enough, 78 doesn't quite end here. It keeps going for a bit longer.

The real end of SR 78, just short of the railroad tracks.

SR 132: the US Highway that Wasn't

For this post we'll continue the southward progression from the last few posts into Juab and Sanpete Counties. Both counties have a handful of state highways, but there's really only one significant east-west route connecting them - SR 132 (28 is more N/S). This post will discuss the history of that corridor.

To most travelers today, Nephi is just another decent sized town on I-15 heading south from the Wasatch Front. But historically, it was more important as a road junction. Originally, it was where one would turn off to get to Manti, Richfield, and pretty much everywhere else in the Sanpete and Sevier Valleys. The road east from Nephi is still a good route to parts of the central Sanpete Valley today, but it has lost some of the significance it once had - it has been partially replaced now by routes such as US 89, SR 28, and US 50. Those either didn't exist back then or were in pretty rough shape.

At any rate, the road heading east and south from Nephi was added to the state system in 1910, part of the first batch of state highways to be created. This was part of a longer corridor that continued south through the Sanpete and Sevier Valleys, all the way down to Kanab. When the Utah legislature first codified highways in 1919, this corridor was defined in section D of the state highway law. And in the early 1920s, when the State Road Commission assigned numbers to the most important state highways, the entire Arizona-Kanab-Richfield-Manti-Nephi corridor became SR 11. Unfortunately, we only have the southwestern Utah portion of this 1923 map, but this shows that the route numbering had occurred by then:

USRC, 1923.

The US Highway system was approved in November 1926. One of the designations created was US 89, which came up into Utah from Arizona and largely followed SR 11...but not completely. US 89 departed SR 11 at a place known as Pigeon Hollow Junction (this is today equivalent to the 89/132 intersection) and ran northeast along SR 32 through Mount Pleasant and Fairview to US 50 (now US 6) at Thistle, then northwest to US 91 at Spanish Fork.

It seems Utah was a bit annoyed by this decision about US 89; they wanted it to follow the route of SR 11, terminating at US 91 in Nephi. And this was probably a valid opinion - in 1928, most of US 89 from Pigeon Hollow to Spanish Fork had was unimproved or improved earth. In contrast, SR 11 was improved to a gravel surface up to Nephi, and US 91 north to Spanish Fork was fully paved. So from a road quality perspective, 11 was still the superior route.

USRC, 1928.

It was probably for that reason that in 1928, Utah nearly asked AASHO (the organization responsible for the U.S. Highway system) to move US 89 to SR 11 to Nephi, with the existing US 89 to Thistle being renumbered US 89E. But somewhere along the line, that idea was dropped, and they instead requested adding the Nephi-Pigeon Hollow road as a new US number. Utah stated in its application that they'd be okay with numbering it either US 189 or US 291, on suggestion from the Bureau of Public Roads. AASHO approved this request in August 1928 as US 189, and it was posted and added to maps soon after:

Rand McNally, 1931.

It appears the earliest alignments of SR 11 and US 189 may have gotten from Moroni to Chester using what is now Race Track Road and a now-abandoned alignment along the Canal Ditch. In addition, the original highway heading south from Fountain Green probably used 400 South and 100 East, before the State Street curve immediately past 400 South was built. However, there are no detail maps I'm aware of to confirm either hypothesis, as in both cases the modern alignments existed by 1940 as shown on that year's census maps. Although the Fountain Green old alignment consistently shows up on USGS maps as late as the 1980s, historic aerial imagery does confirm the State Street curve existed in 1947, so that USGS alignment can be dismissed as erroneous. Other old alignments existed at Pigeon Hollow Junction and north of Fountain Green; these are better documented because they were abandoned later and are discussed further below.

Now, we'll turn our attention to the roads west of Nephi. In 1933, the state legislature designated SR 132 and SR 148:

(132) From Nephi westerly to connect with route 26 near Jericho.

(148) From Leamington westerly to junction with route 126[sic].

SR 132 would have begun in Nephi at US 91 (now SR 28), at the very same intersection where US 189 also ended. It initially went west as the modern SR 132 does, but instead of heading southwest to Leamington and Lynndyl, it went northwest along a road now known as Federal Aid Route 1812 to Jericho Junction, where it ended at SR 26 (now US 6). SR 148 was located just a bit south of there, running from SR 26 at Lynndyl eastward to Leamington. Although 148 was not explicitly labeled, both new routes can be seen on the Utah State Road Commission's map from 1933:

USRC/Gousha, 1933.

That did not last long though. Two years later, SR 148 was extended northeast through Leamington Canyon to a junction with SR 132:

USRC/Gousha, 1935.

In the late 1930s, after a long dispute between Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming that will be detailed in a future post, US 89 was extended northward beyond Spanish Fork and a new US 189 was created further north. The original US 189 from Nephi to Pigeon Hollow was decommissioned, but there is no known documentation of exactly when or how it went away - or even why the new 189 further north wasn't renumbered to 289. The old US 189 appears on the 1939 Rand McNally Nevada-Utah map (but that map also shows the modern US 189 at the same time). The 1940 map, on the other hand, showed it as SR 189:

Rand McNally (Nevada-Utah), 1940.

That is weird to me because it was never legislated as such; the road remained SR 11 under state law. In fact, SR 189 had just been designated a few years prior as the state roads serving Snow College, which is rather close by in Ephraim. It seems a little difficult to believe SR 189 was ever a signed route, but this map shows the same thing happening with ex-US 530 in northern Utah between Kimball Junction and Wanship. A decorative map from the time also shows the road as SR 189. If this was in fact signed as SR 189, it would be one of very few instances in Utah where a state route number was signed on a highway it was not legislated on.

At any rate, the original US 189 was probably a good US designation to eliminate. Any additional importance it had as a major through route in the past was probably gone by this time, since both US 89 and SR 28 had been fully paved by then. At this point it was just another road across the mountains connecting US 91 and US 89. As for SR 189, if it was ever a signed route number, it seems to have been a temporary thing - all mentions of anything-189 were gone by 1950, when it was shown as simply SR 11:

Shell/Gousha (Utah), 1950.

That map also shows a change made to the two highways west of Nephi a few years before. In 1945, the routes of SR 132 and 148 were switched such that it was 132 that continued down to Leamington, while 148 became the branch to Jericho.

It should be noted that the earliest alignments of these highways did not necessarily match what exists today. The earliest alignment of SR 148 junctioned SR 132 about two miles west of the modern SR 132/FA 1812 intersection, and SR 132 also had a few alignments that differ from the modern FA 1812:

Original SR 132 is shown in blue, SR 148 in red. (Background map: ESRI)

Based on this information and some old maps, the 1945 switch of 132 and 148 probably came about after the straighter alignment to the southeast had been constructed. This resulted in a continuous paved road from Lynndyl to Nephi, while the Jericho branch was still just graded. That and the fact that Lynndyl-Nephi was probably a more traveled corridor than Jericho-Nephi were likely the reasons for the switch.

As that map also shows, the road to Jericho also got a couple realignments in this area - one for a straighter route through the mountains, and another for a better 3-way intersection with SR 132. These realignments happened sometime in the early 1960s, and historic aerial imagery shows them complete by 1965. The old alignments still appear as "Old Jericho Road" on many maps.

Realignments weren't confined to west of Nephi, either: they happened on SR 11/US 189 as well. Notably, the original Pigeon Hollow Junction had a rather different configuration:

US Census, 1940.

That was how US 189 ended for its entire ~10-year existence. The setup was almost certainly a holdover from when SR 11 was the main through route in this area. Original US 89 went northeast from here along what is now known as Pigeon Hollow Road, directly entering Spring City from the south, and it also went south from here to Ephraim along today's Pioneer Cemetery Road. But in 1959, a new alignment for US 89 was built between Ephraim and Mount Pleasant along the east side of the railroad tracks, including a bypass of Spring City. This necessitated a realignment of Pigeon Hollow Junction. It can be seen on this 1966 map, and the roadways have not changed since then:

USGS (Chester), 1966.

1969 brought about the last set of major changes for these routes. Statewide, that year was notable as the year when nearly 100 minor state routes were decommissioned. One of those was SR 148 - so just a few years after it was straightened out near the 132 junction, it was removed from the state system. Even so, it is still maintained by Juab County as Federal-Aid Route 1812, and it is notable as one of the very few paved non-state roads in the area.

Also that year, due to interstate system construction, SR 11 as a legislative designation was truncated significantly to avoid an overlap on the I-70 corridor. After 1969, SR 11 was only as a legislative designation for US 89 and 89A from the Arizona line to Sevier. The remainder of what had been 11 was split up into multiple state routes. Since the vast majority of 11 was simply legislative underlay for US 89, signage on the ground was largely not affected...except for the independent section from Pigeon Hollow to Nephi. Since SR 132 ended at the same intersection as SR 11 in Nephi, it made sense to extend 132 east to Pigeon Hollow Junction, and that is exactly what happened.

UDOT, 2017.

That wasn't quite the end, though - we still have one more realignment to discuss. In 1971 a new, more direct alignment was built between Fountain Green and the Juab/Sanpete county line, slightly west of the existing road.

UDOT, 1971.

Nothing else has changed since. Of interest, the eastward extension of SR 132 over old SR 11 has actually made it the third longest 3-digit state highway in Utah. The vast majority of significant medium to long-distance corridors were given 2-digit state numbers early on in the history of Utah's state highway system, leaving 3-digit numbers for the shorter connectors that were added later.

Route Photos

SR 132

Photos west of SR 28 were taken May 2020, the ones from SR 28 to 116 were taken March 2020, and those east of SR 116 are from August 2019.

Initial reassurance as we head east from US 6 at Lynndyl.

4 miles to Leamington, 33 to Nephi.

We'll cross the Sevier River, but more interesting is the railroad crossing just to the left.

Entering Leamington.

Leamington is home to this abandoned Phillips 66 gas station.

On the eastern outskirts of town, we'll come to a junction with SR 125.

Stay straight for 132 to Nephi, turn right for 125 to Oak City.

SR 125 begins to the right. The two signs should be switched, but whatever

SR 132 reassurance after the 125 junction.

26 miles to Nephi.

132 has Pioneer Charcoal Burning Pits. I guess some people are interested in this sort of thing, but I am not one of them.

Luckily, if you are not interested in the charcoal pits, it's still a cool drive.

We'll crest a small hill and enter Juab County.

Juab County is in a different UDOT maintenance region, so we'll get a reassurance shield here.

Another hill, this time with a "Hill Blocks View" sign. Blind hills are common enough in rolling terrain that these signs are relatively rare, but the cement plant generates enough truck traffic to warrant some extra caution.

There's even a CementBridge™ over the highway!

A meta-warning sign...

...followed by the actual warning sign for the upcoming railroad crossing.

We'll cross the Sevier River one final time before we climb out of its basin and enter Great Salt Lake drainage.

Reassurance shield as we climb through the foothills of the Gilson Mountains.

Turn left for the former SR 148 towards Eureka and Little Sahara. Stay straight for current 132 to Nephi.

13 more miles to Nephi.

Old 148 is a big enough junction that we get a new reassurance shield.

We'll descend from Furner Pass into Dog Valley, with the 11928-foot Mount Nebo rising in the background. Interestingly, although Furner Pass is the high point on 132 west of Nephi, it is not the drainage divide as Dog Valley still drains to the Sevier. 

After a slightly lower pass in the West Hills, we descend into Great Salt Lake drainage (via Currant Creek, Utah Lake, and the Jordan River). 

In Nephi, we'll come to a junction with SR 28.

Stay straight for 132 to Moroni. Turn left on 28 for Provo and a local hospital, right for 28 to Levan.

SR 28 is old US 91, and US 189 began straight ahead in the 1930s.

14 miles to Fountain Green, 41 to Snow College.

SR 132 for some reason gets a state scenic byway shield here, even though it is not one

Anywhere on the US 91 corridor has to be close to I-15, and sure enough we'll hit it on the east side of town.

Turn right for I-15 south to Cedar City, St George, and Las Vegas; stay straight to make a left for 15 north to Provo and Salt Lake City.

Reassurance after crossing I-15.

As we head up Salt Creek Canyon, we'll pass a turnoff for the Nebo Loop National Scenic Byway.

We'll cross into Sanpete County, cross back into Sevier River drainage (via the San Pitch River) and enter the Sanpete Valley.

The upcoming town is apparently a Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area.

That town is soon identified as Fountain Green.

Turn right on 400 South in Fountain Green for Maple Canyon and Wales. That was SR 117 before 1969, but it is now a county road.

Moroni is 7 miles away, Mt Pleasant 14. The latter is not on 132 but is likely a common destination for people on this road.

Reassurance after leaving Fountain Green.

Another Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area...

...which should surprise nobody, considering the city is named Moroni.

A right turn here would take you on old SR 116 towards Freedom and Maple Canyon. Like SR 117 further north, this connection was removed from the state system in 1969.

Instead of turning right, we'll veer left from 325 West onto Main Street, where we get this reassurance shield. 

Apparently Moroni is worthy of a four-lane Main Street.

After passing through downtown, we'll come to a junction with modern 116. 116 may or may not have been concurrent with 11 through Moroni.

Turn right here to stay on SR 132 towards Ephraim, Manti, and Snow College. SR 116 continues the road eastward from here to Mount Pleasant.

SR 132 reassurance after making the turn.

From here it's 12 miles to Ephraim, 18 miles to Manti, and 69 to Richfield. Richfield is probably not a destination for a lot of people on this road now, but it is likely here for historical reasons since this was formerly part of SR 11, which did make it that far.

A few more miles and we'll enter Chester.

Chester isn't really anything more than a couple houses and trees around the junction with SR 117.

Stay straight for 132 to Ephraim (via US 89). Turn right for SR 117 to Wales, left for 117 to Spring City - which apparently is a historic district.

Since 132 is the bigger road here, traffic on it does not have to stop.

SR 132 reassurance after the junction.

In a few more miles we reach Pigeon Hollow Junction.

Turn right for US 89 to Manti. Ephraim and Snow College are that way too, but those aren't signed for some reason.

After a 63-mile journey, SR 132 will end here at US 89.