Truxton was founded in 1951 on the strength of a dam that was never built. That year Clyde McCune and Donald Dilts heard that the federal government would dam the Colorado River at Bridge Canyon, in the lower Grand Canyon north of Peach Springs, and put up a service station and garage near the head of Crozier Canyon to catch the traffic, adding a cafe soon after. The settlement took its name from the Truxton railroad siding. The Bridge Canyon Dam, also called Hualapai Dam, was to stand about 740 feet high, 235 miles below Lees Ferry, backing a reservoir more than ninety miles upstream, thirteen miles of it along the edge of Grand Canyon National Park. The Bureau of Reclamation pursued it from the early 1950s, and by the 1960s paired it with a second dam at Marble Canyon.
The dams met fierce opposition. In June 1966 the Sierra Club ran full-page newspaper advertisements against them, and the Internal Revenue Service moved against the club's tax-deductible status the next day. A later advertisement asked whether the Sistine Chapel should also be flooded so tourists could get nearer the ceiling, and the dispute drew wide attention to the campaign. The project stalled in 1968, and neither dam was built.
Truxton prospered anyway on Route 66 traffic until Interstate 40 bypassed the old road through Truxton in 1978. The census counted 104 people in 2020.
Getting there
35.4869, -113.5608
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