Cache County tourism growing
Cache Valley is attracting tourists through its heritage, arts and outdoors.
And with that tourism comes a significant sum of money – $56.5 million to be exact.
This is was Julie Hollist, director of the Cache Valley Visitor’s Bureau, explained to a group of Utah State University students Monday morning.
The tourists who come to Cache Valley, she said, are mainly from Utah, California and Texas, but that the numbers of European visitors are increasing. She encouraged everyone to tour Cache Valley, especially those that live there.
“We have the world’s greatest of a lot of things,” Hollist said. “People need to start thinking about what Cache Valley has to offer.”
Hollist, who graduated from USU in liberal arts and journalism with a minor in French, said that in French, the word “cache” means “to hide one’s treasures.”
She said the tourists who come to Cache Valley find many hidden treasures, ranging from art festivals to world-known food products. But the people of Cache Valley find their own treasure when a booming tourist season brings significantly padded taxes.
“Where would Cache County budget be, where would Logan City budget be, without that $56 million?” Hollist asked.
At the same time, tourists are building Cache Valley’s economy while having an experiences they can’t get anywhere else, Hollist said.
It is rare to find a place where visitors can go snowmobiling on more than 300 miles of groomed trails, see a prestigious musical group perform and dine at the second-oldest restaurant in Utah all in one day, but Hollist said people can do all three with the mountain terrain up Logan Canyon, the Ellen Eccles Theatre and the Bluebird Restaurant in Cache Valley.
Cache Valley was originally inhabited by the hunter-and-gatherer Shoshone Indians, followed by mountain men and fur traders and then eventually settled by the Mormon pioneers, Hollist said. Many of the tourists visit the American West Heritage Center, where they are educated and are given hands-on opportunities, Hollist said, and can participate in projects such as cooking on a wood-burning stove, harvesting grain, throwing axes, weaving on a loom, milking cows and petting baby animals.
“It seems funny,” Hollist said. “Who would go on a vacation to do work? But people are looking for that kind of out-of-ordinary experience.”
Hollist said because many of the tourists are not from agricultural places, they don’t know what it is like to live in one.
“They don’t know you don’t get chocolate milk from brown cows,” she said. Those are the kinds of things the tourists are learning, as well as learning about the heritage of the American West, Hollist said.
One thing that Cache Valley has to offer that even Salt Lake City cannot, Hollist said, is what she termed a “Heritage Food Tour.”
“There are tiny food factories hiding out all over Cache Valley,” she said.
This recommended list of foods takes visitors to Berries of Paradise, Hollist said, where the Weeks, a local family, has been producing savory jams and jellies for 25 years. It also takes visitors to restaurants like the Cracker Barrel in Paradise where they can order prime ribs and homemade rolls.
“Heaven,” Hollist said about a prime rib meal she had at the Cracker Barrel. “Where else can you do that? Nowhere.”
The tour covers various cheese and ice cream producers from Cache Valley such as Gossner Foods, which has been a family-owned business for more than 40 years. It is here, Hollist said, that she recommends people to go and see the actual cheese production.
“It’s important to me to be able to show the tourists something being done or created,” Hollist said.
The food tour also includes a stop for the famous Aggie ice cream, which was commercially sold for the first time in ’20s and is now shipped all over the world, she said. Dairy products are not the only foods internationally recognized, but also Cox’s Honey, and coffee from Café Ibis, Hollist said, are top heritage food products.
The arts have always been a priority in Cache Valley, Hollist said, and in the 1800s Logan was known as the “Athens of the West.”
Peter Maughan, who was the first to settle in Wellsville, was known to greet wagon loads of settlers as they entered the valley by asking them if they sang, Hollist said. If they did, he sent them to Wellsville, if they didn’t, he sent them somewhere else and this was the beginning, Hollist said.
Tourists can see Cache Valley’s love of the arts by attending one of the operas at the Ellen Eccles Theatre as part of the Utah Festival Opera that is held each year during the summer months. The opera company has been rated in the top 10 in the nation by Money Magazine, Hollist said.
If the arts do not draw the tourists in, Hollist said there are other activities like Sauerkraut Days in Providence, Black and White Days, Trout and Berry Days and the Cache Valley Cruise-In, where vintage cars drive from all over the nation and gather in Cache Valley over the Fourth of July weekend every summer.
There is opportunity to hike, bike, climb and kayak all over Cache Valley, Hollist said, from all the recreation possibilities at Bear Lake to some of the most extreme rock climbing in the nation on the China Wall up Logan Canyon.
Hollist said that word of mouth is the best way to spread information about Cache Valley but that “there isn’t enough thought or recognition of the wonderful assets we have here.”