Tuesday marks the official first day of spring and the Vernal Downtown Alliance is hosting its 1st annual Vernal Equinox Celebration. The Vernal Equinox is the day each year in which the sun shines directly over the equator, marking equal hours of day and night and the slow increase of more daylight moving forward. Another way to put it according to the Weather Channel is that instead of any tilt away from or toward the sun, the earth’s axis of rotation is perpendicular to the line connecting the center of the earth and the sun. The Uintah County Regional History Center shared that Vernal was originally known as Ashley Center but was renamed because Thomas H. Mitchell, the town’s first Postmaster, felt the name would cause confusion with mail delivery because there was a town named Ashley just a few miles north. Mitchell chose the name of Vernal, which was the first town registered with that name in the United States, to reflect a new beginning. Many downtown businesses are offering specials or activities as part of the Vernal Equinox Celebration.
