Bryce Canyon it's a natural wonder home to\h the world's highest concentration of hudo it\h\h
hosts a prairie dog Festival every year which is\h apparently a festival about prairie dogs and not\h\h
as I'd hoped a festival for prairie dogs over\h 2 million people visit Bryce Canyon every year\h\h
and they all have to pass through the town outside\h its one entrance Bryce Canyon City but if you ever\h\h
pass through Bryce Canyon City you might notice\h that people you meet seem to be calling it rubies\h\h
in and then actually just about every building\h in town says rubies in on it too so what's going\h\h
on here Well turns out Bryce Kenyon city is\h Ruby's Inn and vice versa because once upon a\h\h
time in 2007 this Best Western Resort managed to\h incorporate and become an official town but how\h\h
and why and what do they have at the Cowboy\h Buffet today we're answering 2third of those\h\h
questions The Story begins in the early 1900s\h when Ruben Ruby seret and his wife Clara minet\h\h
set up a homestead on a bit of desolate land not\h far from Bryce Canyon licensable images of Ruby\h\h
seret are hard to come by by so instead here's\h a ruby in a cowboy hat when the settes got there\h\h
Bryce Canyon wasn't the tourist attraction it is\h today it wasn't even a national park but as soon\h\h
as they saw it the settes were blown away and\h wanted everyone to come visit after a few years\h\h
of setting up camps for visitors Ruby said there'\h be money in this year tourism and gave up the meal\h\h
he'd been running to open tourists rest a cabin\h and tent housee site in 1920 3 years later he\h\h
sold tourists dress to the Union Pacific Railroad\h and the strett retreated to their Ranch around\h\h
the same time engineers were planning out a road\h to get to Bryce Canyon and Ruby donated some of\h\h
the land his Ranch was on to the project so now\h Ruby's got a major train station nearby and the\h\h
one road going to a very cool place runs right\h through his land kind of a good place to build\h\h
an in wouldn't you say so that's exactly what he\h did he built rubies in and the family has owned\h\h
operated and expanded it ever since they even\h rebuilt it after it burned down in 1984 today\h\h
it's got 694 rooms three restaurants an RV park\h a campground a general store some souvenir shops\h\h
a rodeo and a storefront that just says jail and\h appears to have fresh cookies oh yeah and it's a\h\h
town the shat started toying with the idea of\h incorporating rubies in as a town as early as\h\h
the 1970s and got really serious about it sometime\h around 2004 but their County Garfield County had\h\h
the power to reject their requests and they did\h repeatedly probably in favor of eating lasagna\h\h
and legislating against Mondays or because Ruby\h in raked in so much tourist money that their tax\h\h
contributions cover 10% of the Garfield County\h budget their sales taxes alone generated $300,000\h\h
a year that if the hotel were to incorporate\h would go to the town the hotel itself instead of\h\h
the county so it's no wonder the lasagna lovers\h were against it the gist is this when Ruby in's\h\h
tourist dollars went to the county a bunch of\h people who actually lived in rural Utah would\h\h
benefit if those dollars just went back to the\h Inn the tourist attraction would improve for its\h\h
visitors the settes and the small number of people\h who actually live right outside the entrance to\h\h
Bryce Canyon and the rest of the county would\h just watch the counterargument from the third\h\h
generation threats running the in in 2007 was\h that they were already self-funding things that\h\h
you might consider Municipal services like water\h sewage and plowing snow so school blusters could\h\h
get around and that's the kind of stuff their tax\h revenue should have been covering but whether you\h\h
agree with the county or the company the issue was\h settled because the county had the power to reject\h\h
Ruby's in's request for incorporation until 2007\h that's the year the Utah State Legislature passed\h\h
the controversial HB 466 titled incorporation\h of a town amendments which couldn't sound more\h\h
boring if it tried but was exactly what the\h settes needed to force their incorporation\h\h
past the county the point of the law was to make\h it easier for unincorporated towns that were being\h\h
neglected by their County to incorporate and start\h setting up services for themselves and it passed\h\h
without a single vote against it here's basically\h what it said if your wouldbe town has between 100\h\h
and 1,000 full-time residents and at least half\h of them support incorporation the county has to\h\h
let you incorporate of course when they read this\h law the people in the Garfield County Office were\h\h
like hey whoa this is going to screw us over big\h time and the state legislator was like oh my like\h\h
oh no okay yeah we'll look into it but by the\h time they did it was too late Ruby in claimed to\h\h
have 138 residents and had already petitioned to\h incorporate so the county had to approve how did\h\h
they pull together 70 yes votes that quickly well\h of those 138 73 were members of the Strat family\h\h
and the rest were employees of the hotel all\h they had to do was prove that there were in fact\h\h
138 people living there because if just 39 of the\h folks in the headcount were fake dead or seasonal\h\h
employees the county could reject incorporation\h that that's why a committee from the state with\h\h
reps from both the county and the company watching\h their every move looked through voter roles school\h\h
records and more to confirm that every single\h one of those 138 people did in fact live there\h\h
fulltime they proved there were sufficient\h residents to force approval and suddenly Ruby's\h\h
in became Bryce Kenyon City Rob seret Ruby's\h grandson and the 's owner in 2007 became the\h\h
mayor a conference room at the hotel became City\h Hall and five s family members became the Town\h\h
Council positions they were granted until the\h first election to years later Bryce Kenyon city\h\h
became Utah's 244th city/town and the first to\h be incorporated under HB 466 the state recognized\h\h
this as to put it lightly not the intention of\h the bill they passed and quickly amended the\h\h
law to say an incorporation petition that wanted\h Auto approval needed five different sponsors who\h\h
collectively owned less than 40% of the land and\h also that once you became a town the government\h\h
had to actually be elected the edit was so Swift\h that in fact Bryce Kennon city is the only town\h\h
to have been Incorporated under the original bill\h but they got grandfathered in when it was amended\h\h
so they kept their Town status and still collect\h their own sales taxes on jail cookies Ruby would\h\h
be proud so if you're looking to ride a horse or\h celebrate prairie dogs or whatever head to Bryce\h\h
Canyon but if you're looking to enjoy thousands\h of hours of amazing content from some of your\h\h
favorite creators at home or on the go head to\h this video sponsor nebula nebula is a streaming\h\h
service I started with a few other creators a\h couple years ago and now it's the single best way\h\h
to watch not to mention support tons of amazing\h creators creators come to nebula to make their\h\h
best stuff stuff they couldn't afford otherwise\h or that the YouTube algorithm wouldn't help find\h\h
a big enough audience for and you can watch it all\h for less than a 7eventh of what you're about to\h\h
pay for Netflix so that's Joseph from real life\h lore's modern conflicts Lindsay Ellis's hourong\h\h
Jurassic Park breakdown all this stuff I've been\h up to and so much more the best part is when you\h\h
use a Creator's discount you get 40% off an annual\h plan and a share of your money goes directly to\h\h
that Creator so you get all those Originals\h plus early releases and bonus content for\h\h
stuff that ends up on YouTube and it's all free\h and you can download it to watch in Bryce Canyon\h\h
where sometimes you have limited sales service and\h you're directly supporting your favorite creators\h\h
all for less than three bucks a month it doesn't\h get much better than that so if you're ready to\h\h
give nebula a try click the link below to get 40%\h off an annual plan and I'll see you over there