The town was founded by
Mormons (
LDS), led by Thomas Smith in 1865. With a population of about 500 at its peak, St. Thomas became an established town of farms and businesses, and was at one point the county seat of
Pah-Ute County. The frontier settlement is noted as the endpoint of explorer
John Wesley Powell's first Colorado River expedition, the
Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869. LDS Church members abandoned St. Thomas in February 1871, as a land survey shifted the state line of Nevada one degree longitude to the east, placing all of the LDS settlements known as the Muddy Mission in Nevada instead of Arizona or Utah. The state of Nevada then attempted to collect taxes for previous years payable only in gold from the residents. They chose to leave without paying in 1871. The LDS Church members moved to Utah, where many of them founded new towns in Long Valley (present day
Glendale,
Orderville, and
Mount Carmel). When the LDS Church members left in 1871, others claimed their abandoned properties. One of the few to remain was Daniel Bonelli of St. Thomas, who farmed, mined and owned
Bonelli's Ferry on the
Colorado River at
Junction City later Rioville. After being deserted by most of its first settlers, new LDS settlers came to the St. Thomas and other places in the area in the 1880s. The construction of
Hoover Dam and the resulting rise in the waters of the
Colorado River forced the abandonment of the town, with the last resident, Hugh Lord, leaving June 11, 1938. The ruins of St. Thomas, which became visible after the water level in Lake Mead lowered, are protected by the
National Park Service as a historic site. The cemetery was relocated to
Overton, Nevada, where there is a St. Thomas interpretive center with a staff archaeologist doing on-going research into the history and settlement of the Muddy River. ==In popular culture==