The federal government was about to shut down. But on Friday evening, a Utah state employee had a delivery to make: three checks, totaling $46,034 and payable to the government in Washington that would soon close indefinitely.

Utah officials viewed the checks as lifelines, the only way they knew to keep some of their state’s most popular and lucrative national parks running at close to normal at the height of the holiday season.

“We don’t like having to do it, and the federal government should be doing it,” Gov. Gary R. Herbert of Utah said in an interview on Monday. “We’re frustrated — we’re probably beyond frustrated, maybe even angry — but we’re prepared.”

From Albany to Phoenix, state governments are choosing not to wait on a breakthrough in Washington to end the year’s third federal shutdown. Instead, they have begun tapping their own treasuries to keep a patchwork of federal properties open and maintained during the spending standoff. The strategies could collectively cost states, as well as private companies and groups that sometimes step in, more than $590,000 a week, and likely far more.