in St. George St. George was founded as part of the cotton mission in 1861 under the direction of Latter Day Saint
apostle Erastus Snow. At the outbreak of the
American Civil War,
Brigham Young accelerated the colonization effort: Fearing that the war would take away the cotton supply, he began plans for raising enough in this southwestern country to supply the needs of his people. Enough favorable reports had come to him from this warm region below the rim of the Great Basin, that he was convinced cotton could be raised successfully here. At the general church conference in Salt Lake City on October 6th, 1861, about 300 families were "called" to the Dixie mission to promote the cotton industry. Most of the people knew nothing of this expedition until their names were read from the pulpit; but in nearly every case, they responded with good will, and made ready to leave within the month's time allotted to them. The families were selected so as to ensure the communities the right number of farmers, masons, blacksmiths, businessmen, educators, carpenters, as needed. The settlement was named after
George A. Smith, an LDS Church apostle. In April 1877, the LDS Church completed the
St. George Utah Temple. It was the church's third
temple and is the oldest still in active use. The
1992 St. George earthquake destroyed three houses, as well as above- and below-ground utilities, causing about in damage. St. George was the location of the 1997
United States Academic Decathlon national finals. In January 2005, a 100-year flood occurred throughout the region, due to prolonged heavy rainfall overflowing both the
Virgin River and
Santa Clara River. One person was killed and 28 homes were destroyed by the Santa Clara River.
Nuclear contamination In the early 1950s, St. George received the brunt of the
fallout of above-ground
nuclear testing at the Yucca Flats/
Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas. Winds routinely carried the fallout of these tests directly through St. George and southern Utah. Marked increases in the frequency of cancer in the population, including leukemia, lymphoma, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, bone cancer, brain tumors, and gastrointestinal tract cancers, were reported from the mid-1950s until the early 1980s. In 1980,
People magazine reported that from about 220 cast and crew who filmed in a 1956 movie,
The Conqueror, on location near St. George, 91 had come down with cancer, and 50 had died from it. Of these, 46 had died of cancer by 1980. Among the cancer deaths were
John Wayne,
Pedro Armendáriz, and
Susan Hayward, the film's stars. This places the cancer mortality rate for the 220 primary cast and crew quite near the expected average. A 1962
United States Atomic Energy Commission report found children living in St. George at the time of the fallout may have received doses to their thyroids of
radioiodine as high as 120 to 440 rads (1.2 to 4.4 Gy). ==Geography==