Clarion is a ghost town in Sanpete County, Utah, United States, southwest of Gunnison. Clarion was the site of an early-twentieth century experiment in Jewish rural living. The Clarion site totaled , and was five miles from north to south along the Sevier River and wide. The area today is in the Centerfield, Utah postal district. Origins The Jewish question was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century European society pertaining to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews in society. The debate was similar to other so-called "national questions" and dealt with the civil, legal, national and political status of Jews as a minority within society. Jews in Europe were historically prohibited from purchasing real estate and excluded from many professional guilds. Consequently, many came to live in impoverished urban ghettos and villages. European Jewish reformers and Zionist nationalists argued that Jews needed to become "a normal nation" and advocated for Jewish land ownership and agriculture cultivation in a back-to-the-land movement. Jews would find a purer life engaged in manual labor and a great attraction to North America, South America, and Palestine with the legal possibility of land ownership. In January 1910 in Philadelphia, Benjamin Brown established the Jewish Agricultural and Colonial Association and listed its primary office in Philadelphia's West Parkside neighborhood, with 250 members, branches in New York and Baltimore, and for the purpose of, "Settling on farms and mutual aid". Brown served as president and Isaac Herbst was secretary. Brown and Herbst, as representatives of the organization, traveled in 1911 to investigate potential sites in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. The New Mexico option proved to be impractically expensive. As the disappointed Brown and Herbst were preparing to leave New Mexico, they received a telegram inviting them to stop in Utah. The state was engaged in a campaign to attract settlers, and planning the construction of the Piute Canal in Sanpete County, Utah. The canal would irrigate vast tracts of desert and Brown and Herbst were encouraged by the opportunity. The Association was also attracted by the financially secure and politically established Salt Lake City Jewish community. Socially prominent Salt Lake City Jews Simon Bamberger, Samuel Newhouse, and attorney Daniel Alexander pledged support to the initiative with advocacy among area business and political leaders. A Utah State Board of Land Commissioners representative escorted Brown and Herbst to inspect available land. Brown and Herbst were impressed