Southern Utah locals creating map to document historic pioneer rock walls in Leeds

LEEDS, Washington County — Historic rock walls dot the landscape in the small town of Leeds in southern Utah, and visitors will soon be able to know where each wall is.

In a project spearheaded by the Silver Reef Foundation in conjunction with the Washington County Historical Society, locals have been working together to create an interactive map that shows exactly where the rock walls are.

"It's an extension of what I believe may very well be the per-capita municipality in Utah with the most history," said Mayor Wayne Peterson.

Leeds, just north of St. George, was settled in 1867 by pioneers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when the nearby town of Harrisburg failed to provide enough water to sustain crops. The neighboring town of Silver Reef brought in miners from around the world to gather silver ore. Farmers in Leeds produced food for miners in exchange for much-needed cash that the Silver Reef miners brought in.

Over 150 years later, only the city of Leeds remains, with Silver Reef and Harrisburg both considered ghost towns. Much of what was left behind in the area tells of a rich and often unknown history, and Peterson said he hopes locating the rock walls will help piece that history together.

"I think we'll find where old property lines used to lie, and we can do some research to find out if these were boundaries for some of the original landowners here in Leeds," he said. "They may have been used for containing livestock. I would hope as we map it all out, it becomes a bit more evident as to what their purposes might have been."

To help map it out, Washington County local and retired cartographer, Ron Carberry, stepped in.

"I worked for the federal government for over 40 years as a map maker," Carberry said. "With future developments going up around Leeds, they wanted me to make a historical record of the rock walls before they disappear. I reached out to Utah Tech University to see if they had any students who would be interested in helping me."

Biology major Sami Kydd answered the call, along with several students and locals. Kydd grew up in southern Utah and said that there are several reasons she wanted to volunteer her time.

"This past semester, I took a class in geography using computer-based mapping ... and I was looking for a research project to get involved with before I graduate," she said. "My family helped settle Santa Clara, so in the opposite direction from Leeds, but I still feel pretty tied to this area because my family came at the very beginning."

For the past several weeks, the team has been collecting satellite imagery of many of the rock walls, but said that finding all of them will take a collective "boots on the ground" effort.

"We've gotten everything we can find from aerial imagery and put them on one map," Carberry said. "We're now going to be searching the areas we cannot see (with that imagery). We need to put boots on the ground and walk through the town and knock on people's doors to get permission to take photos and measurements of their walls. We'll also get GPS coordinates and use that data to map them."

The group will hold a "Rock Walls Search Day" on May 16 for people to help locate and photograph rock walls throughout the town.

Mayor Peterson said that he hopes an event like this will help preserve history at a time and place where things are changing rapidly.

"The rock walls are, for the most part, if not completely, on private property, so they're not in any way protected," Peterson said. "This is a good way to record what was here. ... I've been told that there may be other rock walls throughout Washington County, but that there are not a lot of these to be found elsewhere. Leeds seems to have a significant concentration of them still in place. ... It's important to try to retain what's available because it's been proven over the decades that history can be wiped out in just a few runs of a bulldozer."

Kydd said that while she knows preserving the walls forever is unlikely, she hopes documenting them will yield positive results, adding that she hopes the event brings people together in a positive way.

"Even if we're not able to save the walls, we're at least able to save a part of them and hopefully collect more information about where they came from and what they meant to the people who built them," she said. "The event on the 16th will be a good way for the community to get together over something that's in common to everyone, because I think there's so much in our culture right now that really divides people. I think it would be beautiful if a community is able to come together over something simple and maybe a little bit quirky."

The search day will be on May 16 at 8 a.m. at Leeds Town Hall. Those interested in volunteering are asked to fill out a registration form or email Ron Carberry at Leedswalls@gmail.com.

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