St. Thomas Cove Road Closed For Repairs

The National Park Service closed the road leading to the St. Thomas town ruins last week for repair. Heavy rains in the region over the weekend of February 7-8 washed out a portion of the road.

According to National Park Service (NPS) officials, the road in its current condition is passable only by 4-wheel drive vehicles. “We have closed (the road) so that we don’t have regular passenger vehicles getting stranded,” said Lake Mead Recreation Area Public Information Officer Andrew Munoz.

Repair to the road is ongoing. The washed-out portions of the road will require some fill material and reblading. The repair work is expected to be completed in the next week, NPS engineers said.

St. Thomas was a pioneer community at the southern end of the Moapa Valley near the convergence of the Muddy and Virgin Rivers. This small agricultural community was once the largest town in the chain of Moapa Valley villages. Originally founded in 1865, St. Thomas was submerged by the waters of Lake Mead during the 1930s shortly after Hoover Dam was completed. Its nearly 300 residents at the time were required to relocate. Current low water conditions in Lake Mead allow visitors to hike down to the old town site and view the ruins that still exist there.