Census-designated place in Arizona, United States
Cane Beds
is an
unincorporated community
and
census-designated place
(CDP) in
Mohave County
,
Arizona
, United States. It lies 4 miles (6 km) south of the border with
Utah
in the
Arizona Strip
, and is supported by services in Utah as well as some in
Nevada
.
The population was 466 at the
2020 census
.
[3]
The community is historically
Mormon
, and presently also includes several families from breakaway Mormon groups. It has a small tourism industry because of nearby scenic hiking trails.
Etymology
[
edit
]
The name of the town refers to
cane
that grows natively in the area. In
Will C. Barnes
' book of Arizona place names, Barnes quoted a letter received from a resident, Annie W. Wilkinson, in his explanation of the name of Cane Beds: "When settlers first came here they found beds of wild cane growing in the district. Some can still be found, hence the name."
[4]
The name has historically been recorded as "Cain Patch".
[5]
Cane Patch Creek/Cane Beds Spring has the same etymology.
[4]
[5]
[6]
The
Southern Paiute
name,
Pa?aŋq`?ton
?
n?nto`
, translates to "cane valley".
[5]
: 789
Edward Sapir
identified a Paiute location romanized as "Paganktonic" as likely being Cane Beds.
[7]
History
[
edit
]
Until the 20th century, the land was occupied by
Southern Paiute people
; it is seen within Paiute territory on maps from 1934, which had receded north and was completely absent in Arizona by 1986.
[5]
There are Paiute,
Archaic
, and
Anasazi
sites in the area.
[8]
As the
Arizona Strip
was largely ignored by the government, the Cane Beds land was first explored by settlers during early pioneering expeditions of
Mormons
in northern Arizona, by
John D. Lee
, J. C. L. (John Calvin Lazelle) Smith, and Jesse Pierce Steele in June 1852. In 1858, a similar expedition also landed the pioneers in Cane Beds.
[9]
Lee's party may have known Cane Beds as "Virgin Bottoms", being a
valley
near the
Virgin River
.
[10]
The town was established in 1868
[10]
and was fully settled by Mormons by 1876, shortly before the first Mormon temple in Utah was finished. It lay along the trail from
Lees Ferry
to the new temple, traversed by Mormon settlers.
[9]
The post office was established on June 15, 1917, with Cora H. Cox as postmistress.
[4]
Cox was born Cora Haight, and had married into the Cox Mormon family. She had moved to Cane Beds with her young family on March 11, 1917.
[11]
A group of the
Church of the Firstborn
(a form of Mormonism), led by Ross LeBaron Jr., is based in Cane Beds. When the nearby
Short Creek Community
of
fundamentalist Mormons
broke up following the imprisonment of leader
Warren Jeffs
, several families moved to Cane Beds; others had been exiled there by Jeffs for not following his doctrine.
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
Benjamin Bistline
, Short Creek historian, moved to Cane Beds in his later years after renouncing fundamentalism.
[16]
Polygamy
persisted in the area in the 20th century due to its isolation, despite the practice being discontinued by the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
.
[17]
By 2009, most residents of Cane Beds were non-polygamous, though some still had connections with Colorado City.
[18]
[14]
[19]
[15]
Geography
[
edit
]
Cane Beds is located in northeastern Mohave County at
36°56′03″N
112°54′42″W
/
36.93417°N 112.91167°W
/
36.93417; -112.91167
(36.934154, ?112.911788). According to the
United States Geological Survey
, the CDP has a total area of 8.28 square miles (21.4 km
2
), all land.
[2]
It is in the Arizona Strip,
[20]
4 miles (6 km) south of the Arizona?Utah border,
[21]
7 miles (11 km) southeast of
Colorado City
,
[22]
just south and west of the
Vermilion Cliffs
[8]
[10]
and
Kaibab Indian Reservation
,
[5]
and about an hour and a half northwest of the
Grand Canyon
.
[23]
It is close to the
St. George, Utah metropolitan area
[24]
and borders
Cottonwood Point Wilderness
.
[8]
The Vermilion Cliffs at Cane Beds rise more than over 1,000 feet (300 m) above the community,
[10]
to elevations of 6,210 and 6,443 feet (1,893 and 1,964 m) above sea level.
[25]
Land in Cane Beds includes that which is suitable for agriculture. Native fauna includes
pronghorns
and
mule deer
.
[6]
There are a variety of rock types in the
strata
at Cane Beds, including the
Moenkopi Formation
,
Chinle Formation
, and
Shinarump Conglomerate
. The town was studied in the
Wheeler Survey
.
[10]
Demographics
[
edit
]
As of the 2010 census, there were 448 people living in the CDP: 231 male and 217 female. 171 were 19 years old or younger, 78 were ages 20?34, 65 were between the ages of 35 and 49, 66 were between 50 and 64, and the remaining 68 were aged 65 and above. The median age was 29.2 years.
[27]
The racial makeup of the CDP was 94.4%
White
, 2.2%
Native American
, 0.7%
Black
or
African American
, 0.2% from
Asian
, and 1.3% from two or more races. 2% of the population were
Hispanic
or
Latino
of any race.
[27]
There were 142 households in the CDP, 106 family households (74.6%) and 36 non-family households (25.4%), with an average household size of 3.15. Of the family households, there were 84 married couples living together, 13 single fathers, and 9 single mothers. Of the non-family households, 31 were a single person living alone, 16 male and 15 female.
[27]
The CDP contained 168 housing units, of which 142 were occupied and 26 were vacant.
[27]
Tourism
[
edit
]
It is a popular hiking spot, with nearby scenic border trails.
[28]
[29]
In 2016, a nurse who was hiking alone in Cane Beds fell 100 feet (30 m) and was not rescued for over a day, having landed in a canyon. Mountain and air rescue teams found her after the owners of her hotel noticed her absence and called the county sheriff,
[20]
and she recovered in three months.
[30]
She was initially treated at a regional medical center in Utah, before being transferred to the
Mayo Clinic
, where she worked.
[31]
In 2014, a teenager from St. George fell 100
feet into a canyon on a hike with family, and died.
[32]
The Cane Beds Corral is a
glamping
and log cabin rental service in the town.
[23]
[33]
Education
[
edit
]
It is divided between
Fredonia-Moccasin Unified School District
, in nearby
Coconino County
, and
Colorado City Unified School District
, principally serving the former Short Creek Community.
[34]
For four years in the 2000s, the Colorado City Unified School District was placed under state intervention because of the high rates of polygamy practiced in Colorado City and
Hildale, Utah
, the other towns in the district.
[18]
Cane Beds students originally began to be educated in the Short Creek school district as there were only five students from the town, and districts needed eight students to justify a school, so the districts had been merged.
[35]
: 90
Infrastructure
[
edit
]
Transport
[
edit
]
The nearest airport is
Colorado City Municipal Airport
;
[36]
the nearest airport in regular service is
St. George Regional Airport
in
St. George, Utah
, approximately an hour away.
[37]
The nearest international airport is
Harry Reid International Airport
in
Las Vegas
.
[36]
A two-mile stretch of Yellowstone Road in the Cane Beds area was renamed for
LaVoy Finicum
in 2017; while residents supported the motion, believing local man Finicum died defending his beliefs, the Mohave County Planning and Zoning Department only passed it 3?2, with the two opposing votes citing Finicum's lawlessness.
[38]
Those who voted in favor said the move would celebrate the long history of Finicum's family in the area, not his armed activism.
[39]
Reportedly, Finicum had previously requested that the stretch of road be named for him. It goes from
Arizona State Route 389
(SR 389) to Cane Beds.
[14]
In 1950, there were efforts in the area to promote improvement of roads and infrastructure, and on March 14 that year a
town hall-style meeting
was held and an organization formed to better the community of Cane Beds and others nearby.
[40]
Cane Beds Road is a stretch of
county road
91 (former
U.S. Route 91
), and has a confluence with
Interstate 15
(I-15) for about a mile.
I-15
connects the town to Utah and Nevada.
[41]
A railroad used to follow
U.S. Route 89
/
89A
where it passes by the town.
[42]
SR 389 also passes close to Cane Beds.
[43]
Services
[
edit
]
Cane Beds is supported by the
Mohave County
Sheriff's Office, as well as the
Kane County
Sheriff's Office in southern Utah.
[24]
Major hospitals serving Cane Beds residents are in
Salt Lake City
and Las Vegas.
[44]
Local medical facilities are at the Creek Valley Health Clinic in Colorado City
[45]
and Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George.
[46]
The Cox Family Cemetery, also known as the Cane Beds Cemetery, is in the town.
[47]
The town receives most of its local television from translators of Utah stations serving Hildale, with the exception of one Mohave County-owned translator of
KSAZ-TV
, the
Fox
station in
Phoenix
.
[48]
[49]
Notable residents
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
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. United States Census Bureau
. Retrieved
May 19,
2022
.
- ^
a
b
"Feature Detail Report for: Cane Beds Census Designated Place"
.
Geographic Names Information System
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United States Geological Survey
,
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- ^
a
b
"Cane Beds CDP, Arizona: 2020 DEC Redistricting Data (PL 94-171)"
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2022
.
- ^
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b
c
Barnes, Will C. (1988).
Arizona Place Names
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ISBN
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e
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- ^
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- ^
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a
b
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.
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.
- ^
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b
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.
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- ^
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.
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a
b
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.
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.
- ^
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.
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.
- ^
a
b
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.
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- ^
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- ^
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.
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.
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a
b
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.
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.
- ^
a
b
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.
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. Retrieved
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2022
.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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a
b
c
d
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.
- ^
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.
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.
- ^
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.
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- ^
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.
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{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
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.
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.
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.
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.
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