Many people believe that St. George was named after a Union Army Officer by the name of Phillip St. George Cooke who is said to have donated a good share of equipment and wagons to the Mormon settlement of "Dixie". It was called Dixie because it was a center for growing cotton which was processed at the nearby Washington Cotton Mill, and that cotton reminded many of the settlers who originally lived in the south of Dixie.
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St. George is located within the northern end of the Mojave Desert at 2,860 feet above sea level and the average annual temperature is approximately 61°. With Hot summers and extremely mild winters, St. George is also known as a winter haven for what the 45,000 locals like to call "Snow Birds" (tourists who come to St. George to warm up away from the snow). St. George is also home to the four year Dixie State College.
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St. George, the county seat of Washington County, is the largest of all the towns founded during the LDS Church's Cotton Mission of 1861. Located in the southwest section of Utah at an elevation of 2,880 feet above sea level, St. George has an average annual temperature of 59.9° F with summer temperatures well into the 100s and the average maximum winter temperature around 55° F. The average annual rainfall is 8.30 inches, and the normal growing season is 196 days. All these factors made the area a suitable location for the early settlement.Bryce Canyon Lodging