🠈 Grand County 🠊
Grand County Utah is named after the Colorado River which carved impressive canyons through the sandstone of Southern Utah exposing deep layers of finely silted stone to the elements creating the incredible scenery of Southern Utah.
...and...I just realized the above sentence makes no sense...
I said Grand County was named after the Colorado River. If the county was named after the Colorado, wouldn't it be "Colorado County"?
Well, it turns out that cartographers had political disagreements over names. Early cartographers called the upper portion of the Colorado River "The Grand River." The Colorado River proper started at the confluence of the Grand River and the Green River (West of Moab).
Things were confusing. The State of Colorado was named after a river that wasn't in the state. The portion of the river that flowed through Colorado was called the Grand while the portion of the river that flowed through the Grand Canyon was called the Colorado.
In 1921, the Governor of Colorado finally convinced cartographers to change the name of the Grand River to the Colorado. Places like Grand Junction and Grand County kept their historic name.
Anyway, the name Grand County fits the region. Grand County is home to Canyonlands, Arches National Park, Castle Valley, The La Sal Mountains and The Slick Rock Trail. The county is noted the world over for its grand scenery.
The 2010 census counted a population of just 9,225. Of course, as with all resort communities, the number of people who are actually in the county exceeds the population count.
The largest town, and county seat, of Grand County is Moab.