Lucin, Utah

Episode 574 / 22 February 2025 / 74 min / express

Murder Selfies

"This is Lucin, Utah, LUCIN ... it's a ghost town ... in northwest Utah ... this is in Box Elder County." about 0:03:30

The case: Murder of Dylan Rounds (May 2022). Read the case file.

History, in brief

• The town was founded in the late 1800s, about ten miles north of its present site, purely as a water stop where railroads could replenish their steam locomotives. about 0:04:16
• In 1903 the town was moved to its current site to serve as a stop for the Lucin Cutoff. about 0:04:32
• The population consisted mainly of employees of the Central and Southern Pacific railroads. about 0:04:43
• In 1936 the town was completely abandoned, then resettled by four retired railroad workers and their children, who came back about 1937. about 0:04:50
• People lived there until 1972, after which no one lived there anymore. about 0:05:06
• In 1997 Ivo Zadarski, an aviation engineer and entrepreneur who invented the Ivo propeller, bought the airport and a large amount of land and moved there. about 0:05:18
• Zadarski bought 400 acres for $99,000, including the Lucin Airport. about 0:06:22
• He built a 50-foot steel hangar with no windows and lived in it alone. about 0:06:46
• The post office would not deliver there, but UPS and FedEx would, and he used to get deliveries from the Schwan's food truck until he cancelled it because he was gaining weight. about 0:07:38
• A four-inch pipe running from the Pilot Mountain range to the south-west supplies water to a clump of green trees, ponds and the Lucin Pond. about 0:08:17
• The Sun Tunnels, concrete tubes in the desert created by the artist Nancy Holt, were made in 1976. about 0:10:03

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