partner organization

Resource rural

Februrary 6, 2026

By Sara Millhouse

Ask people about Helper, Utah, and they’ll rave about their town: its blue-collar railroad and mining heritage, its low-key but funky arts scene, its natural beauty along the Price River. Along Main Street, old gas stations and former brothels still stand, but now their walls carry murals about community legacy, and the buildings themselves have become art galleries, a living example of how small towns across the region can honor their past while building something new.

“Helper is an authentic melting pot within Utah,” said eight-year mayor Lenise Peterman. “It was built by 27 different ethnicities who came here to make better lives for themselves through the railroading and mining industries.”

When the mining economy collapsed, however, Helper had to navigate a tricky turnaround and find new sources of community pride and economic opportunity. “I resent when outsiders try to tell us how to fix ourselves,” Peterman said. “It doesn’t play well simply because they’re not living the reality that we live. To bring about change, it really has to come from within a community.”

Economic diversification has become a pillar of Peterman’s mayoral philosophy, along with maintaining and promoting the town’s historic integrity, Main Street and natural resources.

But how does a community turn such assets into opportunities? Peterman is an organizer who is always concerned with the structure of “how.” She knew she needed to find funding to achieve her goals for Helper.

“I stumbled on the fact that I could write grants,” she said. “We can proactively decide, what do we want to do? What do we want to be? And how do we get there?”

Key to her vision of a vibrant Helper is an ambitious restoration of the Price River that flows through town. Partnering with Trout Unlimited, RiverRestoration.org and others, Peterman led a multi-phase, multi-million-dollar effort that removed concrete debris, invasive plants and six obsolete dams from the Price River corridor.

“We coupled together state funding of $500,000 with federal funding of $1.5 million to complete that project,” Peterman said. “The funding that we receive has allowed us to revitalize our community to create additional economic streams coming into the city. That would not have happened without the federal and state funding that we’ve been able to secure.”

To remove the 60-foot-wide, 12-foot-high Gigliotti Dam, Helper secured a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. More funding came from the Utah Division of Outdoor Recreation and the Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative.

Building on these successful restoration efforts, the Bureau of Reclamation last year announced $4.8 million for continuing restoration along the Price River. The new award will rejuvenate high-elevation wetlands and perennial streams, improve water quality, increase base flows and stabilize eroding banks.

Peterman measures the success of her work when she walks along the banks for her beloved Price River. With the outdated diversion dams gone, people can now float safely through town, and fish can swim upstream to spawn the next generation. The river flowing through Helper has become richer ecologically—a freeflowing river for paddleboarding, tubing, trout fishing and rural renewal.