Utah State Route 31


State Route 31 is a state highway in Sanpete and Emery Counties in the U.S. state of Utah. It runs for from US-89 at Fairview to SR-10 in Huntington. The highway has been designated as part of The Energy Loop, a National Scenic Byway.

Route description

SR-31 begins at an intersection with US-89 at Fairview and runs east northeast for approximately, then turns southeast for the remainder of the route, terminating at an intersection with SR-10 at Huntington.
Just off State Route 31, about 15 miles west north-west of Huntington, is Crandall Canyon, location of the Crandall Canyon coal mine. On Monday, August 6, 2007, at 2:48 A.M., the mine collapsed, trapping and killing six workers inside. A second collapse on August 16, 2007, killed a Mine Safety and Health Administration investigator and two more miners, bringing the total to nine.

History

The road from SR-32 in Fairview east to the Sanpete-Emery County line, near the present north end of Electric Lake, was added to the state highway system in 1915. It was extended southeast to SR-10 in Huntington in 1918, and in 1927 the state legislature numbered the Fairview-Huntington highway as SR-31. A major realignment was made in 1976, when Electric Lake was created and a new route was built to the west. The old route in Sanpete County became a county road, and is now part of SR-264, but the majority of the road in Emery County was beneath the lake and thus abandoned.

Major intersections