Historic Helper

Quick Facts: Helper art galleries, brewpub, museum and antique stores
Location: Southeastern Utah 120 mi. from Salt Lake City on Highway 6

How many towns can boast that nearly every building on Main Street is on the National Historic Register? Helper, Utah can. Now a home for the arts, the town was once the hub of Utah's transportation and mining industries.

Stores and banks built in the 1900s are now artists' galleries, restaurants and brewpubs. An antiques mall, a saddle-maker and the Helper Mining and Railroad Museum remind visitors of the town that once was. An ideal place to visit, Helper's Main Street is complete with an old-time bed-and-breakfast.

The town was named after the "helper" train that provided the extra power that trains needed to get over the mountains to Salt Lake City.

Similar to many Utah towns, Helper was settled in 1881 by Teancum Pratt, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ten years later, the town aspired to become the division point for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Immigrants poured into Carbon County.

One resident Helen Papanikolas recalled, "For years on a mountain slope south of Helper, the giant numbers 57 were painted in white. The numbers advertised the fifty-seven varieties of Heinz pickles, but residents said they referred to the varieties of immigrants."