THE EVOLUTION OF WAYNE COUNTY AND ITS TOWNS
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Fruita. (Utah State Historical Society) Park Service finally acquired the last private acreage in Fruita, the town legally ceased to exist. Ironically, the removal of many of the old buildings in Fruita led to a reappraisal of the town's cultural resources. Specialists in historic preservation came to examine its remains and interpret its significance. Fruita is now a recognized rural historic district listed in the National Register of Historic Places.86 Notom. Formerly called Pleasant Creek, N o t o m was settled in 1886 by jack-of-all-trades Jorgen Christian Smith. A linguist of German ancestry, he was a blacksmith as well as the man area settlers turned to for medical help. He must have liked pioneering, for he was an early settler in both Sanpete and Sevier counties before coming to the remote Pleasant Creek area of lower Wayne County east of the Waterpocket Fold. Although the settlement grew large enough to have its own post office and a branch of the LDS church, it ultimately lost its inhabitants and ceased to exist as a town. 87 If N o t o m lacked staying power as a town, it e n d u r e d as an important livestock center in the county. Around 1900 Charles and Dena Smith Mulford bought Jorgen Smith's quarter section and later
