Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Panguitch, UT

Panguitch is a city in and the county seat of Garfield County in south-central Utah.

The 2020 census counted 1,725 residents in Panguitch, up from 1,520 in 2010, living in 578 households.

The city's name comes from a Southern Paiute word meaning "big fish," likely for the trout-filled lakes nearby.

Panguitch was first settled in March 1864, when Jens Nielsen, a Danish convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, led 54 families east from Parowan and Beaver to the Sevier River valley.

Early frost killed the settlers' first crops, and seven men made the famous "quilt walk" across deep snow to fetch grain from Parowan, laying quilts on the snow to keep from sinking.

The settlement was abandoned in May 1865 during the Black Hawk War and resettled in 1871, when residents built a fort and a gristmill and made rose-colored bricks from local clay that still stand in the town.

Panguitch was incorporated on June 10, 1899, and its social hall, built in 1900 and rebuilt after a 1920 fire, still stands as the Panguitch Playhouse.

The Panguitch Indian School operated from 1904 to 1909, housing Utah Paiute and Kaibab Paiute children under federal oversight.

The entire town was designated the Panguitch Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

Panguitch sits at 6,624 feet above sea level in the Sevier River valley, with U.S. Route 89 running through town and State Route 143 leading 17 miles southwest to Panguitch Lake in Dixie National Forest.