Once upon a time, a husband and wife bought an out-of-the-way 4,200-acre ranch deep in the Book Cliffs region of Utah. As three generations of family lived on and worked the land, they also kept an amazing secret. The ranch snaked for 12 miles along Range Creek, where rock walls towered over the creek bottoms and passed through foothills, meadows and alpine forests. Hidden on the valley floor, on sunny benches and in overhangs overlooking the creek were virtually undisturbed settlements belonging to a Native American people known as the Fremont.

Fremont is a catch-all term that describes the scattering of hunter-gatherer people who lived in the area from around 300 – 1,300 A.D. Until Range Creek Ranch, very little was known about these people, since very few undisturbed sites had ever been found.

Then in 2001, Waldo Wilcox, who was entering his 70s, quietly sold the property for $2.5 million dollars to the non-profit Trust for Public Land and it helped him arrange to deed the land to the state of Utah. The first archeologists on the scene were stunned. What they found would revolutionize our understanding of an elusive culture. The land harbors pit houses with caved in roofs, arrowheads, beads, stone tools, pottery, thousands of rock art images, as well as the human bones poking out of the earth. Granaries still hold thousands of bare corn cobs and items lay as they had fallen hundreds of years ago.

Okay, so the site is more or less undisturbed, but why is Range Creek Ranch so important? Between 1,200 and 1,300 A.D., Native American cultures all across the southwestern United States suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. No one knows why. Experts have speculated that drought, sickness, religious upheaval or hostile tribes might have caused this mass disappearance, but so far, no answers have come to light. Scientists are hoping that Range Creek might fill in some of the pieces of the puzzle.

So far, archeologists have discovered large settlements on the valley floor as well as almost impossible-to-reach pit houses perched on ridges 1,000 feet above the valley floor. Hidden granaries high up on the valley walls and hidden retreats suggest the Fremont were afraid of something. For 1,100 years, the Fremont farmed the valley and suddenly stopped. If scientists can figure out why, they might unlock the mystery of what happened to all the cultures in the southwest.

To the average visitor, Range Creek is not as spectacular like Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly, Gila Cliff Dwellings or others Pueblo era dwellings. It is actually fairly boring — a few tumbled piles of stone or granaries and houses you can only spot with binoculars, but to archeologists is a veritable treasure house of knowledge. However, the scenery is spectacular and if you love archeology for its own sake as well as for the sense of history you will capture there, then you’ll want to add Range Creek to your list of places to visit.

You can tour and hike the ranch by yourself, although you need extensive permits from Game & Fish and they’ll do everything but cavity search you. However, we recommend the Tavaputs Ranch if you really want to explore the area. Tavaputs is owned by members of the Wilcox family and because they grew up there, they know Range Creek and the Tavaputs Plateau area intimately. A day-tour is around $125 including a picnic lunch, plus you’ll get a real feel for the family who protected the land for so long.

Tavaputs Ranch
Butch and Jeanie Jensen
P.O. Box 1736
Price, Utah 84501
Phone: 435-637-1236
Lodge: 435-636-5008