ST. GEORGE — A historic half-track military vehicle stolen from the Dixie National Forest in an area managed by the Fishlake National Forest was last seen in Kane County. Law enforcement investigators continue to request public assistance locating it and the white truck and trailer reportedly used to haul it out of the forest.
According to a press release issued by the Forest Service, police are searching for a white Dodge Ram 2500 Heavy-Duty pickup truck with gold trim. It has two black screen grates over the grill on the front and after-market tires with custom rims. The Ram was pulling a PJ-brand gooseneck trailer.
The photo included in this article was taken by a concerned citizen who spotted the half-track while they were on the road and unable to get the license plate, the media release states.
Thanks to the help of dozens of other citizen responses, law enforcement tracked the vehicle from its original location on Boulder Mountain through Escalante and Henrieville. From there, it was spotted near Glendale, on Highway 89. The last known sighting was near Coral Pink Sand Dunes. It is believed the vehicle has ties to Colorado City.
The missing historic machine is a White Motor Co., USA Half-track military vehicle illegally removed from the Boulder Mountain Row Lakes area between Friday, June 21, and Saturday, June 22. Once a military transport vehicle, the forest has since learned that it was last used in the late 1950s to haul logs to a log mill in Wayne County.
Over 70 years ago, Utah State Rep. Carl Albrecht’s father, Torval, used the vehicle to haul freshly cut logs to the Torval Albrecht Sawmill in Bicknell. He and his crew worked the half-track to harvest Beetle-kill spruce and ponderosa pine from the Boulder and Thousand Lake Mountains.
“The last year he logged was on top of Boulder Mountain,” Albrecht said in the news release. “He had the largest mill in Wayne County. There were four mills in Bicknell and nine in the whole county. The crew lived on a school bus, and I was in the fourth or fifth grade.”
In addition to helping keep copious numbers of Wayne County residents employed, Torval Albrecht created many of the first roads on Boulder Mountain, several of which are still used in the forest today. He used them to haul logs and people to and from the mill. The processed wood then went to Salt Lake City for building construction, Emery and Carbon County mines for “prop” poles, and the Richfield area for roofs and flooring.
The missing vehicle is part of a historic archaeological site determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
Anyone with additional information is encouraged to contact Forest Service Intermountain Region Investigative Analyst Robert Smith at 775-420-1479 (cell) or email him at [email protected].