Iosepa was twenty miles south of the Great Salt Lake in the center of Skull Valley. In 1889, with the encouragement of the Mormon Church, a group of converts from Hawaii attempted to establish a colony at this location. At one time over 225 Mormon church members lived in the colony. Hansens disease (leprosy) struck the settlement in 1893. When the church built a temple in Hawaii in 1916, many of the Hawaiians returned to their homeland. By 1917 Iosepa was a ghost town centered around a cemetery. The property was later sold to the Deseret livestock Company. "Iosepa" is Hawaian for "Joseph."