The site was first settled in December 1859 as part of a southern Utah cotton-growing project ordered by Brigham Young. A group from Virgina led by Nathan Tenney established a new settlement they called Wheeler. Wheeler didn't last long; it was largely destroyed on the night of January 8, 1862 by a weeks-long flood of the Virgin River, part of the Great Flood of 1862. The rebuilt town, about a mile upriver, was named New Grafton, after Grafton, Massachusetts. The last residents left Grafton in 1944.