Now that we’ve moved to our own server, watch for updates to follow shortly.

This past month has seen our weather go from much warmer and drier than normal, to cold, snowy and windy for the past three weeks. We even had a White Christmas.

Back later with more news.

To the south of the Beryl, Beryl Junction area is zip code 84725. Enterprise is the largest city in the entire Escalante Desert Valley and resides within this zip code. This zip code is within Washington County, one of at least three counties in the valley.

The Escalante Desert Valley ends just south of Entprise, as you climb into the Bull Valley Mountain range, most of which is part of the Dixie National Forest.

The demographics for zip code 84725 are as follows.

Zip code population in 2000 - 1472… estimated in 2007 at 1779.

There are approximately 50.3% males and 49.7% females.

The land area of this zip code is 239.8 sqare miles with approximately .9 square miles of water. Most of that is contained in the Upper Enterprise Reservoir. The population density is about 7 people per square mile, still lower than the average golf course, and considered very low.

The estimated cost of living is 86.4 with the US average at 100.

The population is predominately Caucasion with the majority of “first ancestries” reported as English.

There are three reported sex offenders living within this zip code as reported on City-Data.com.

Even though the majority of the people live in Enterprise, the entire zip code is considered 100% rural.

The median age is 25.1 years as compared with the Utah average of 27.1 years. Household size is also slightly higher at 3.5 compared to 3.1 people per household for Utah.

The estimated median household income in 2007 was $42,419 below the estimated state average of $55,109.

Estimated real estate property taxes paid in 2007 was $551 compared with $956 for the rest of Utah.

The Escalante Desert Valley News provides local news gathered from around our remote valley. We are looking for reporting assistance from the commuities of Lund, Modena, Beryl, Newcastle, and Enterprise.

Why this online news source?

At this time, there is NO news coverage of local happenings for this valley. Neither The Spectrum (St George) or the Cedar City Review (Cedar City) covers any local news in the Escalante Desert Valley. So, we’ll create our own news source. For several years, there had been a small local “newspaper” written in Enterprise, but that was discontinued earlier this year.

The Escalante Desert Valley is isolated by mountain ranges and many miles, at least 40, from both St. George (south), and Cedar City (40). The valley lies within the western parts of both Iron and Washington Counties. The only incorporated town is Enterprise, located in Washington County.

Plans call for articles to be published at least weekly. There are news feeds on the right sidebar, which are constantly updated. Coverage will include subjects that matter in our valley, ag news, the weather, local family happenings (as appropriate), governmental issues, local sports, obituaries and opinion/letters to the editor. Eventually, advertising will be offered to help defray the costs.