Murphy Trail and Bridge

Built in 1917. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

From the record

“The Murphy Trail and Bridge in San Juan County, Utah, United States, were used to move livestock from winter range along the Green River to highland summer range from about 1917 to about 1964. The trail and bridge are located in what is now Canyonlands National Park and the trail is now used as a hiking path.”
Wikipedia article Murphy Trail and Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 23 National Register listings published here for San Juan County · listed in 1988 · category: District · built in 1917.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Murphy Point vicinty, Moab, 84532
When was it listed? October 1988
Category. district
Also known as. Canyonlands National Park MRA
Census division. Monticello
When was it built? 1917
National Register reference number. 88001236 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

14 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 14 fires within 5 miles of Murphy Trail and Bridge between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1 acre in total. 14 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	14

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2003	Natural	under an acre	Canyonlands National Park	MESA TOP
4 September 1992	Natural	under an acre	Canyonlands National Park	WILHITE
3 September 1994	Natural	under an acre	Canyonlands National Park	BLOCKTOP
29 July 2014	Natural	under an acre	Canyonlands National Park	GRANDVIEW POINT
24 July 2000	Natural	under an acre	Canyonlands National Park	GRANDVIEW
19 July 1997	Natural	under an acre	Canyonlands National Park	MESA
19 July 1997	Natural	under an acre	Canyonlands National Park	HALF DOME
15 July 2013	Natural	under an acre	Canyonlands National Park	WHITE RIM OVERLOOK

Every fire recorded in San Juan County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 16 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 16 workings within 5 miles of Murphy Trail and Bridge: 8 prospects, 4 past producers, 3 unknowns, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Uranium, Copper, Uranium, Vanadium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Rainbow Group	Vanadium	Occurrence	Surface
Sailor Group	Uranium, Vanadium	Past Producer	Carnotite, Uraninite
Rainbow Group	Copper, Uranium	Unknown	Underground
Rainy Day Group	Copper, Uranium	Prospect	Underground
Unknown	Copper, Uranium	Prospect	Underground
Unknown	Copper, Uranium	Prospect	Underground
Hot Rim & Soda Roll	Uranium	Prospect	Underground
Rainy Day Group	Uranium	Past Producer	Uraninite
Sailor	Uranium	Unknown	Underground
Unknown	Uranium	Past Producer	Uraninite

Every working recorded in San Juan County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

1 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Neck and Cabin Springs Grazing Area	7.7 miles	2009

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 88001236 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
San Juan County	All 23 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.