Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Helper, UT

Helper is a city in Carbon County, Utah, about 110 miles southeast of Salt Lake City and 7 miles northwest of Price, along the Price River.

The 2020 census counted 2,112 residents in 894 households in Helper, and the median age was 39.9 years.

Helper was settled around 1881, incorporated in 1907, and became a city on October 9, 1915, and its founder was Teancum Pratt.

The city was named for the 'helper' engines the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad stationed there to push westbound trains up the steep 2.4 percent, 15-mile climb through Price Canyon to Soldier Summit.

With the arrival of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad in 1881-82, Helper grew as a population center, and in 1892 it became the division point between the railroad's eastern terminal in Grand Junction, Colorado, and its western terminal in Ogden, Utah.

By 1900 Helper had 385 residents representing sixteen different nationality groups, and its ethnic diversity, with Italian, Austrian, Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Greek, Japanese, and Chinese immigrants drawn by coal mining and railroading, became its chief characteristic.

On April 21, 1897, Butch Cassidy and Elzy Lay robbed the Pleasant Valley Coal Company in nearby Castle Gate after staying in Helper the day before.

Helper became known as the area 'hub' and a city of refuge where strikers, union organizers, and national guardsmen could gather during tense labor times.

Helper is home to the Western Mining and Railroad Museum and sits at the western end of the Book Cliffs, the longest continuous escarpment in the world.

Helper was named the top western town for 2006 by True West Magazine, and the Carbon power plant in Helper, operating since 1954, closed on April 15, 2015.