Everything about The Arizona Strip totally explained
The
Arizona Strip is the part of the
U.S. state of
Arizona lying north of the
Colorado River. The difficulty of crossing the
Grand Canyon causes this region to have more natural connections with southern
Utah and
Nevada than with the rest of Arizona.
General characteristics
The Strip is very typical of the
American West in its red-rock canyon country, and the
aridity of the climate, which leads to the predominance of
sagebrush vegetation. However, the first
European settlers were witness to great stretches of
grassland in such areas as House Rock Valley which are returning under better
ranching practices. The land is also dotted with
juniper trees, moving into
pinon and juniper forests, and eventually
ponderosa pines,
spruce,
firs, and
aspen in the higher elevations such as the
Kaibab Plateau.
It has been divided between
Coconino County in the east (west of
Kanab Creek) and
Mohave County in the west. The only significant settlements are
Fredonia on Kanab Creek and
Colorado City (the Strip's largest community) on the Utah border to the northwest (see also
Hildale, Utah). In the extreme west on the
Virgin River is the small settlement of
Littlefield just off
Interstate 15. However, the Strip provides the only route accessing the North Rim of the
Grand Canyon, and numerous service communities catering to tourists exist along the Strip's main routes heading south from
Jacob Lake.
Since the area was first settled by Mormon Pioneers led by the indomitable
Jacob Hamblin in the mid-19th century, the Arizona Strip has been one of the last strongholds of the nineteenth-century practice of
polygamy, though this practice was disavowed by
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) in 1890. Over the last century the region has been the subject of controversy because of the control groups such as the United Effort Plan, a polygamist Mormon offshoot, exert within the region; nonetheless, such groups remain merely a visible minority.
The Arizona Strip was long a cattleman's paradise with large stretches of grassy meadow in the valleys and the high
Kaibab Plateau as summer forage. At the turn of the last century, the Grand Canyon Cattle Company, otherwise known as the Bar Z Brand, ran upwards of 100,000 cattle throughout the strip. Land and water use often led to friction between competing brands, and there are accounts of limited range wars between different outfits and between sheepmen and cattlemen.
The strip had been a battleground between Native American and white settlers during the 19th century, with
Navajo parties crossing over the Colorado River and raiding Mormon settlements. Peace was largely maintained through the diplomatic efforts of
Jacob Hamblin. It also served as the primary route from Utah into Arizona, as the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River serve as almost impenetrable barriers to the south.
The Strip has a total surface area of 20,404.2 km² (7,878.11 sq mi). Of this, 20,348.12 km² (7,856.45 sq mi) is land, and only 56.08 km² (21.653 sq mi, or 0.275%) is water. Its land area is larger than that of the state of
Massachusetts, and comprises 6.9 percent of Arizona's land area. About 64.4 percent of its area is in Mohave County and 35.6 percent in Coconino County. Its total population was 8,095 inhabitants at the 2000 census, with 6,221 residing in Mohave County and 1,874 in Coconino County.
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Access
The Arizona Strip is very sparsely populated and connected to the rest of Arizona by only two highway links, at
Navajo Bridge and the
Glen Canyon Dam bridge, both at the eastern end of the area and crossing the Colorado River. It does have multiple road links to Utah to the north; as a result, the region has stronger historic, economic and cultural ties to Utah than to Arizona.
Four primary roads enter the core of the strip: from
Mesquite, Nevada;
St. George, Utah;
Colorado City, Arizona; and
Fredonia, Arizona. All four are dirt/gravel and shouldn't be driven by low-clearance vehicles. Motorists should check with the
BLM locally before heading into the strip on these roads, and be prepared – even rangers may not know current conditions, such as snow/ice cover and washouts.
Protected lands
Most of the land in the Arizona Strip is managed by the
United States Bureau of Land Management or the
United States Forest Service. The area holds several
U.S. Wilderness Areas and
U.S. National Monuments and the
Kaibab Indian Reservation. The southern part of the Arizona Strip includes the north rim of
Grand Canyon National Park and the northern section of the
Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
National Monuments
National Parks
Grand Canyon
National Recreation Areas
Glen Canyon
Lake Mead
Wilderness Areas
Beaver Dam Mountains
Grand Wash Cliffs
Kanab Creek
Mount Trumbull
Mount Logan
Paiute
Paria Canyon-Vermilion CliffsFurther Information
Get more info on 'Arizona Strip'.
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