The reasons people have come to Castle Country and continue to stay in the area vary a great deal. For some who have stayed there were job opportunities that brought them. For others it was family, or the allure of a more quiet setting than what city life offers.
Susan Jackson grew up in California and worked in Washington D.C. before she moved to Castle Country due to a transfer by her employer the U.S. Forest Service 25 years ago. She was assigned to work with the Manti-La Sal National Forest which is in the western part of Castle Country.
“My intention was to only stay for only two years and then move to a more desirable place,” she states. “We really considered moving away, but by that time we realized what a nice place this is to live. There are many nice people here.”
When asked what she likes best about the area she said that “There is reasonable living here. We can afford to live in this area very easily and have a nice place to reside in.”
She also said that another favorite thing of hers in living in Castle Country is that there are four seasons and yet “the weather is generally very nice” with lots of sunshine and beautiful days no matter what the time of year.
Another of her favorite things is that despite the fact the area has a four year university, it is not overly large and because of that it is not only easy to get to know people, but that do you know a lot of them when you go places within Castle Country.
“It’s nice knowing people rather than being one out of 10,000 people that no one knows,” she says. “People are friendly and laid back. They are not all cut out of the same cookie cutter mold as they are in some places.”
While residing in a rural area in some places in the west would mean traveling a long way to a big city, that is not true of Castle Country.
“If you want to go to the city you can go over the hill (about 60 miles),” she said. “And if you want to live in a rural Utah this is a unique place. It is different from the rest of these kinds of areas. There is lots of diversity here in terms of people, race and religion.”
As they say in the Castle Country area, “Many come for a year, but stay for a lifetime.”