Search for land and properties near Thistle, Utah using our custom MLS search. Our Thistle Real Estate Guide features current listings using a 6-mile radius search centered on one of Utah's most dramatic and historically significant ghost town sites.
Thistle is a ghost town in Utah County, about 65 miles southeast of Salt Lake City along the Spanish Fork River canyon. Established in 1883, the town flourished as a railroad service community on the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, its fortunes rising and falling with the railroad era until diesel locomotives eliminated the need for the steam servicing operations that kept the town alive. Then in April 1983 — exactly one hundred years after its founding — Thistle suffered one of the most catastrophic natural disasters in Utah history. A massive landslide dammed the Spanish Fork River, backing up nearly 65,000 acre-feet of water that flooded and destroyed most of the town. Declared the costliest landslide in United States history and the first presidentially declared disaster area in Utah, the event forced the permanent rerouting of U.S. Routes 6 and 89 and the Union Pacific Railroad to higher ground. Today the haunting remnants of Thistle — including a red schoolhouse, a church on a hill, and a partially sunken house — are visible from a rest area along U.S. Route 6 and from the California Zephyr Amtrak passenger train. The surrounding canyon land offers dramatic scenery and open terrain for hunters, hikers, and buyers seeking remote Utah acreage.
Thistle, UT Area Real Estate Listings
The listings below show active properties near Thistle using a 6-mile radius Latitude/Longitude search, sorted with the newest listings first and refreshed every morning at 9:00 AM. Click the Save Search button to receive daily new listing alerts for this area — you can unsubscribe at any time. Use the filters below to refine by price, property type, or acreage, or visit another city guide from our sitemap.
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