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RICHFIELD — Forest rangers have solved the puzzling mystery behind a historic military vehicle that was illegally taken from a national forest in south-central Utah earlier this summer.
U.S. Forest Service officials announced Tuesday that they have recovered the historic half-track military vehicle that had been a feature of the Boulder Mountain Row Lakes area of Dixie National Forest for at least seven decades after it was reported missing in late June.
Edwin Outlaw, a special agent for the Forest Service, said an individual who had taken the vehicle and their attorney contacted the Forest Service to discuss a deal to return it to the national forest after learning that the agency was looking for the vehicle.
The person's name was not released, and it wasn't clear if they were facing any criminal charges.
"The individual claimed he thought that it was considered abandoned property, intending to restore it," Outlaw said, adding that tips from the public were "a big influence on the outcome."
The half-track, manufactured by the White Motor Company, was built sometime between 1939 and 1943. It was designed at the time the U.S. entered World War II. After the war, the vehicle was brought to Dixie National Forest to help haul logs north to be milled near Bicknell, Wayne County.
The Insider, a local newspaper in the region, outlined how the vehicle ended up on the land. Locals explained that it suffered mechanical failure 70 years ago and was stashed in the forest around 1954.
U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Naomi Gordon told KSL.com in June that the vehicle had become a part of the cultural history of the forest, serving as an element to its plans to get parts of the area entered in the National Register of Historic Places. It had also remained there long enough to become Forest Service property and an archaeological piece of the land.
However, those plans were put on hold after a Forest Service officer noticed the vehicle was missing while patrolling the area on June 22. The discovery surprised everyone in the Fishlake National Forest office, which oversees the section of Dixie National Forest.
"We were all kind of stunned because how do you move one of those things? ... It's monster huge," Gordon said at the time. "We cannot figure out how somebody moved it."
It still isn't clear how it was moved off the land, but its disappearance generated all sorts of tips from residents in southern Utah and northern Arizona. That included a tip from a "concerned citizen" who noticed a pickup truck appeared to be hauling the missing military half-track.
Outlaw joked the tip line was so active that his office even received tips about the vehicle as the U.S. Forest Service returned it to a spot near the Fishlake National Forest headquarters. Agency officials said Tuesday it remains in their possession "under lock and key" until it returns to the spot where it was left some 70 years ago.
Work will also resume on efforts to get the area listed as a historic place.
"This vehicle has a unique history on the (Dixie) National Forest," said Dan Child, a public services staff officer. "We plan to return it to where it was located before being removed and take steps to secure it there."
