Grafton, Utah, was founded as one of several settlements along the Virgin River established by volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints under Brigham Young's plan for Mormon self-sufficiency through cotton growing. In 1859, five families from Virgin settled one mile downstream of the present townsite, planting crops, digging irrigation ditches, and building homes, but a flood destroyed the settlement in January 1862, and the pioneers rebuilt that year on the present site. Cotton production soon gave way to food crops, and by 1864 Grafton had 168 residents, with homes clustered in the village center, fields along the river, and cattle on the mesa tops. In 1866, after settlers were killed near Colorado City by Navajo raiders, the residents moved to Rockville for protection, then returned daily to work their fields, and by 1868 Grafton was resettled. Repeated floods and years of bare subsistence on limited acreage led many families to move to Hurricane after the Hurricane Canal was completed in 1906, and as the town lacked enough children for a school as well as culinary water and electricity, it gradually declined into a ghost town; the last resident left in 1945. Former residents later began yearly reunions in memory of the town's strong community spirit, music, song fests, and Friday-night dances. The Grafton Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places and includes the 1886 Schoolhouse/Church, built of handmade adobe on a lava rock foundation and used as a school, church, meeting house, and community center until the last class met in 1919; the Alonzo H. Russell Home, built around 1862; the Louisa Marie Russell Home, built between 1873 and 1879; the John and Ellen Wood Home and its restored split-rail fence, log barn, and raised one-room granary, built in 1877; and the Grafton Cemetery, used from 1862 to 1924.