Although it is classified as a minor collector,[2] it was once an important connection between the Union Pacific Railroad at Lund and the national parks of southern Utah and northern Arizona.

It travels north through farmland before turning northwesterly through wide open terrain with only a few small access roads intersecting the highway before it comes to its end in the ghost town of Lund.

A new Cedar City Branch from Lund shortened the off-railroad distance, allowing the Utah Parks Company, a Union Pacific subsidiary that operated the tour buses and park lodging, to begin at Cedar City.

[9] Passenger trains on the branch usually operated only during the summer, however, while railroad-operated bus service on the Lund-Cedar City state highway ran year round.

[14] SR-127 was removed from the state highway system in 1953[15] and SR-19 in 1969,[3] automobiles having largely supplanted railroads as the preferred method of vacation travel.