Next Trip Stop At These Utah Gravesites That Tell Stories Of Grief, Tragedy, And Frontier Justice

While driving through Utah, stopping and seeing a dinosaur statue or a gas station carved into the rock can be as memorable as the rest of the trip. Here are some tragic stories marked by lonely grave sites that might be worth a stop on your next drive.

The Tragic Story of Sarah and Clinton in Scipio

This is in the small town of Scipio that is about midway between St. George and Salt Lake on I-15. If you drive to the town cemetery you will see a white fence surrounding a grave site that is in the brush outside the grassy maintained cemetery.

This marks the grave of Clinton Dewitt Wickes who died at the young age of 25.  He was married to Sarah Gertrude Robins on Feb 1, 1895. She died just 10 days later of Tularemia, a disease carried by ticks. She was 19.

Clinton died a day later by suicide having become overwhelmed by grief. There is no explanation for why his grave sits so far away from the cemetery, though it feels somehow appropriate.

Why Best Friends Loretta and Elizabeth Share a Grave on the Way to Zion

The ghost town of Grafton outside Rockville on the way to Zion National Park has a small cemetery that lists several tragedies. One is the story of Loretta A. Russell age 14 and her best friend Elizabeth H. Woodbury age 13.

They were on a swing that hung from a rafter at a mill. The rafter came down and the swing collapsed resulting in the death of both girls. They were buried together in a single grave at the cemetery.

The Death of Michael Carbis in Silver Reef Results in a Lynching

In 1880 to mining town of Silver Reef off I-15 woke up to a murder. Thomas Forrest killed his supervisor Michael Carbis with a knife. He was looking for revenge after getting fired.

To protect Forrest, the sheriff transferred him to St. George. It didn't save him. Locals in Silver Reef rode south, broke him from jail, and hung him from a large tree on Cottam's farm that was where Angelica's now sits on the Boulevard.

Read More: See Security Footage Catches Ghost at St. George Business

You can see Carbis grave in the Silver Reef Cemetery. Forrest is buried there as well in an unmarked grave.