page_title: Utah State Route 9
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Utah State Route 9 / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Utah State Route 9, Between Zion National Park and Mount Carmel Junction, Utah
context_page_description: State Route 9 is a 57.075-mile-long state highway in southern Utah, serving Zion National Park. It starts at the western terminus at exit 16 on Interstate 15, passing through Zion National Park, and ending at the eastern junction with U.S. Route 89. The entire length of the highway has been designated the Zion Park Scenic Byway. There is a fee to travel through Zion National Park, but the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway is open to private vehicles year-round. A separate fee is required for vehicles 7'10" wide and/or 11'4" tall or larger. This fee pays for a park employee to stop traffic from the other side of the Zion - Mt. Carmel Tunnel to allow the larger vehicles to pass through.
  There is a smaller tunnel in Zion National Park that does not require an escort. Commercial vehicles are prohibited from using SR-9 and are directed to use SR-20 instead.
  The entire route, including the connection through Zion National Park, has been listed as part of the National Highway System.
context_section_description: The road from Hurricane north through La Verkin to US-91 at Anderson Junction was added to the state highway system in 1912, and a branch was added from La Verkin Junction east to Zion National Park in 1916 and beyond to Mt. Carmel Junction in 1923. 
  In the 1920s, the State Road Commission assigned State Route 15 to the road from Anderson Junction to the park, while State Route 16 included the branch to Hurricane (and continued southeast to Arizona via present SR-59). In 1927, the state legislature extended SR-15 through the park to Mt. Carmel Junction, and added a new State Route 17, which formed a cutoff from US-91 at Harrisburg Junction east to Hurricane. 
  SR-17 also included SR-16 from Hurricane north to La Verkin Junction and southeast to Big Plain Junction, where the realigned SR-16 turned north to SR-15 at Rockville. The portion of SR-17 from Hurricane to Big Plain Junction was split off as SR-59 in 1931, leaving SR-15 and SR-17 as a loop off US-91 through Hurricane and La Verkin, with SR-15 continuing east through Zion National Park.
  Construction began through and east of the national park in 1927, on the portion that had been added to the state highway system in 1923 and to SR-15 in 1927. The Nevada Construction Company completed the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel in 1930, after three years of construction and a cost of $1,896,000. SR-15 and SR-17 were swapped in 1969, giving SR-15 the route from Harrisburg Junction and SR-17 its present route. In the 1977 renumbering, SR-15 was renumbered SR-9 due to the existence of Interstate 15.
  The 1992 St. George earthquake destroyed three houses as well as above- and below-ground utilities, causing about $1 million in damage. In the Balanced Rock Hills area of Springdale, a landslide covered part of SR-9, taking several hours to complete movement. The slide was about 1,600 feet (490 m) long and 3,600 feet (1,100 m) wide, contained boulders up to 20 feet (6.1 m) in diameter, with a total volume of 18,000,000 cubic yards (14,000,000 m³) and total area of 4,400,400 square feet (408,810 m²).
caption: SR-9 between Zion National Park and Mount Carmel
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