Empires and Homesteads: Making a Living in Range Creek

Empires and Homesteads: Making a Living in Range Creek

By STEVEN L. GERBER AND JAMES M. ATON

In 2004, four years after rancher Waldo Wilcox sold his Range Creek ranch to the state of Utah, this rugged, isolated place made international news. Stories of untouched archaeological treasures in a hitherto unknown, east-central Utah canyon drew reporters from many major U.S. daily newspapers, from magazines like Smithsonian and National Geographic, and even from European periodicals. Acclaimed as the “most pristine archaeological area in the lower forty-eight states,” Range Creek captured the imagination of people inside and outside the state. 1 In addition, Wilcox became a folk hero for having preserved the cultural resources of Range Creek, particularly its Fremont Indian ruins. Wilcox’s ethos countered the stereotype of the ignorant rancher looting prehistoric sites willy-nilly.

Waldo Wilcox sold Range Creek to the State of Utah in 2000.

PHOTO COURTESY OF RENNE BARTON

While Wilcox’s and his family’s tenure in Range Creek was always mentioned in the articles about the place, the impression created was that the family had homesteaded this side canyon to Desolation and Gray Canyons. In fact, the Anglo history in Range Creek (originally called Ranch Creek) prior to the Wilcox family is rich in drama, detail, and conflict. It is a story that includes a suicide, a death threat, and some unusually complicated lawsuits over land titles. It adds an important thread to the saga of non- Mormon settlements and ranching in Utah. It is also a story that includes one of Utah’s few true cattle barons, Preston Nutter, and a young Ohioan, Joseph E. Wing, who could be called Range Creek’s poet. In fact, the intersection between these two changed the course of land ownership in the canyon.

Range Creek straddles the county boundary of Carbon and Emery Counties.

MIKE HEAGIN, AUTOMATED GEOGRAPHIC REFERENCE CENTER (AGRC)

The canyon’s Anglo history begins on October 17, 1885, when five men pooled their resources and formed the Range Valley Cattle Company with the stated intention of ranching and livestock production. The group listed assets of seven hundred head of cattle, seven horses, four mules, and assorted personal property. 2 Three members of the group held homestead claims, and two others held desert land entries; these holdings were used in exchange for capital stock in the company. 3 The Range Valley Cattle Company claimed rights to “all the property and preemption rights of the incorporators and the lands known as the Brown Cliffs and Range Valley Ranches ...and the water appropriations known as North Springs,Willow Springs, Indian Springs,Twin Springs, and South Springs, and all waterways and improvements on said ranches and property, the lands being bounded East by Green River, South by Price River, North by Nine Mile Creek, and West by the West base of Book Cliffs.” 4

Ruins of the Daroli House in Range Creek.

PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVE GERBER

It was an unlikely location for a large cattle operation. Other large western ranches relied on unfettered access to the vast grasslands of the public domain, close proximity to major trails and railways, and a convenient means of meeting their supply needs. While Range Creek boasted some first-rate rangeland, its inaccessibility and large sections of unproductive land severely limited its potential. If the five incorporators of the Range Valley Cattle Company sought a cattle empire, they were carving it from some of the toughest geography in the United States.

Range Creek is a canyon that runs roughly north and south, somewhat parallel to the Green River. It divides the West Tavaputs Plateau between the Green on the East, and the perpendicular impenetrability of the Book Cliffs on the west. Narrow at its mouth, the canyon can easily be controlled by one or two men and a few hundred yards of barbed wire.The lower end of the ranch rests at 5,200 feet above sea level, affording a mild winter climate ideally suited as a cold weather harbor for a sizable herd of cattle. The plateaus above the ranch provide vast open meadows of fine grass and numerous small springs. At nearly ten thousand feet, a cool summer grazing range could support several thousand cattle.

Despite these attributes, Range Creek was a formidable place. Towering cliffs on all sides, extremely limited access, ferocious flash floods, and devastating wild fires made this valley an economic gamble. So, why didn’t the Range Valley Cattle Company incorporators risk their fortunes elsewhere? The short answer: free grazing land was almost gone.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LLOYD M. GERBER

In 1884, The Breeder’s Gazette of Chicago described the American range as being completely full except west of the main ridge of the Rockies. 5 In Utah, following the settlement of the Great Salt Lake Valley by Mormons, the Saints followed the admonition of Brigham Young and aggressively expanded the kingdom of Deseret, occupying virtually all accessible rangeland in the territory. 6 The Range Valley Cattle Company’s claim to such a vast piece of the Utah real estate was unusual, and one of only a few ever to attempt such a massive undertaking in the soon-to-be state. 7

This area formed a ranch over forty miles long and fifteen miles wide, encompassing roughly 380,000 acres. However, the five incorporators only filed for legal rights to eight hundred acres. 8 The canyon they chose nestles in one of the most remote, rugged, and geographically foreboding areas in Utah. The only access was by horse and pack mule from the small railroad town of Woodside. The trail was narrow, steep, and dangerous. Large equipment had to be dismantled at Woodside, packed on mules, and carried over precipitous trails to the ranch where it was re-assembled. Storms sometimes blocked the exit from Range Creek, stranding ranchers in the canyon for weeks.

The origins of the Range Valley Cattle Company can be traced to Augustus Ferron, a Deputy U.S. Surveyor. He began surveying large areas of Carbon and Emery Counties in 1873, in preparation for the opening of the public lands to settlement. Eleven years later in 1884, Ferron, who some called “Castle Valley’s First Chamber of Commerce,” took his survey crew into a canyon whose small stream he named “Ranch Creek.” 9 This trip likely inspired him to believe that this little valley would make an ideal cattle ranch. When he returned the next year, he and four other men formed the Range Valley Cattle Company. 10 All were non-Mormon, all were well-educated, and all were prominent in business or professional life.

The group hired Clarence Allen as their first ranch manager. Allen came to Utah in 1881 from Pennsylvania to teach at the Salt Lake Academy; he hoped the dry climate would help his tuberculosis. 11 Within a short time he was assaying mines for Galena Mining Company. He eventually rose to become general manager of the U.S. Smelting, Refining and Mining Company. 12 Through his mining industry contacts, Allen met Ferron and soon he threw in as a stockholder in the Ranch Valley Company.

Although not one of the original incorporators, Allen had a significant stake in the success of the venture. His wife, Corinne Tuckerman Allen, filed the first land entry along the creek and began the group’s efforts to control the canyon. 13 A strong-willed woman, she was a prominent women’s rights advocate, frequently at odds with Mormon women leaders over the issue of polygamy. 14 Allen himself later jumped into politics, and was elected the first U.S. Congressman from Utah after statehood was achieved in 1896. It is unlikely that Corinne ever saw Range Valley, but her land entry contributed to the group’s legal claim and increased the couple’s financial stake in the ranch. The other partners continued to improve Corinne’s land entry and use it as part of the ranch.

Ferron’s second partner was Benjamin Van Dusen, a distant relative of Clarence Allen. 15 Van Dusen arrived in Salt Lake City in the early 1880s and worked for Allen and the Galena Mining Company. He was the driving force behind the Range Valley partnership. Soon his brother Charles added to the group’s land holdings by filing a desert land entry along Range Creek. 16

Range Valley Cattle Company ranch hands c. 1899.

WING FAMILY COLLECTION

Salt Lake City physician James Dart, who may have known Allen and Van Dusen before they moved west, was the third member of the Range Valley cattle operation. “Doc Dart” operated a successful Salt Lake City medical practice prior to entering the cattle business. His brothers, Edwin and Reuben, filed two of the seven land entries the group claimed in Range Creek. 17 The last two incorporators were George Tracy and John Scott. Scott kept books for the Winnamuck Mining and Smelting Company and later formed a successful assaying business with James Anderson. 18 Scott probably met Allen and Van Dusen through the mining business. Scott appears to have had little to do with the actual ranch operation.Tracy, on the other hand, filed one of the land entries along the creek.

The year following the establishment of the Range Valley Cattle Company, Joe Wing, a twenty-four-year-old nephew of Ben Van Dusen, traveled west from Ohio to work for his uncle.Wing suffered from dyspepsia and hoped the climate would cure him. A snapshot of life at Range Creek in its first twenty-five years derives mostly from Wing’s letters to his family and articles written years later. His writings show both the challenges and pleasures of ranching in an isolated canyon in eastern Utah.

An 1888 studio portrait of Joseph Wing.

WING FAMILY COLLECTION

When Joe Wing rode into Range Creek in 1886, no one could have been more enthusiastic about the cowboying life that lay in front of him. The young Ohioan’s letters back home to his family exude rapture at his new-found life. From the beauty of his surroundings to the quality of the air to the taste of Dutch-oven venison, Wing found all of it wonderful, exciting, and almost too much to drink in.The tone of his letters suggests that he had found paradise.

The main purpose for the ranch, of course, was cattle. During Wing’s first years there between1886 and 1889, the operation typically ran about two thousand head. In the summer Wing and fellow cowboys like Gus Henroid would drive their herd up Sheep Canyon on “the Mesa” above Range Creek, or what is today called Range Valley Mountain, or the South Pasture. Describing the pastures to his mother,Wing wrote,“I told you how beautiful the Mesa was—it is more beautiful for the grass is up like a meadow and there are millions of flowers, beautiful and sweet-scented.The air is cool and delightful.” 19 The young cowboy not only loved the sublime beauty of the West Tavaputs, he took pride in the fact that his bosses controlled “the whole country.” 20

After summering the cattle on the mountain, in October the men typically moved the cattle down gradually into upper Range Creek. Snow would eventually force them even lower into the main areas of the canyon between Cherry Meadows and Turtle Creek. Two men could watch the entire herd. Mostly they rode up and down the canyon to prevent cattle from bunching in side canyons. The hardest time was in late spring when the snow had melted high up but before the bunch grass had greened. 21 Wing later wrote: “Some of the happiest memories of my life cluster around my winter work on the old Range Valley ranch.” 22

Clarence Allen, first ranch manager at Range Creek.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

In his writings, Wing referred to the ranch as “Lodore.” Perhaps, he named it after the 1820 Robert Southey poem, “The Cataract of Lodore.” When John Wesley Powell explored the Green River in 1869 he named the canyon in present-day Dinosaur National Park “Gates of Lodore.”Wing likely knew about Powell’s use of the name. For the first year, Lodore was managed by “the Professor,” or Clarence Allen. At first Wing resented the tubercular Allen’s passivity and physical limitations. But later he praised Allen’s cooking, his genial nature, and the fact that he solicited Wing’s advice. When Allen left Range Creek in the fall of 1886, Wing felt “blue,” and had “forgotten past difficulties.” 23

When Allen departed, Wing took over managing the ranch as well as overseeing the farming tasks near the ranch headquarters. His cousin Charley Wing, who arrived in July 1886, ran the cattle operation while Joe oversaw the farm near the ranch headquarters. 24 Besides building a cabin, a corral, a blacksmith shop, and a chicken coop, Joe Wing and his ranch hands were heavily involved in alfalfa farming. 25 At first the men tried clearing the native greasewood and sagebrush with hoes—backbreaking work—but ranch hand Joe Curtis showed them how to hitch a big roller to a team of horses and break the brush.The large piles of it were then burned. 26

In the Intermountain West, alfalfa or lucerne, requires irrigation, and perennial water from Range Creek provided the source. Wing and his men constructed a series of ditches to irrigate it. The first year the crop only reached six inches high, and Wing was “disgusted” with the small harvest. But an old-timer convinced him to give the newly planted alfalfa another year, and in time the field flourished. During Wing’s tenure, the Range Valley operation had ninety acres of crop. Besides winter feed for their cattle, the men fed the hay to the pigs. 27 Wing’s initiation into alfalfa farming at Range Creek led him to become an international expert on it and its foremost public champion.

In addition to pigs and chickens, the ranch boasted a garden of potatoes, corn, watermelons, string beans, lettuce, pumpkins, and squashes. 28 After Wing took over from Allen as manager, he directed the men to plant fruit trees—apple, plum, pear, peach, and mulberry. 29 He also wanted “a great many” grape vines; as Gus Henroid later testified in a court case: “They were strung practically along the west side. I used to get tired planting them and asked him what the devil he wanted to plant that kind of stuff out there for, and he said he was going to make his home there and wanted fruit.” 30 Clearly, Wing had a vision of building his own western version of arcadia at Range Creek. But the Mechanicsburg native did not reside there long enough to see his trees bear fruit. In his absence they all withered.

Yet when Wing lived there the men not only enjoyed the produce from their garden, their Shorthorn cows gave them all the milk and cream they desired. Wing loved how Allen ground their corn meal and baked “Johnny cakes” in a Dutch oven as well as making grits. He often wrote about the great breakfasts of bacon, eggs, fresh bread, and coffee he ate outside in the canyon air. His appetite and his desires were satisfied by Allen’s cooking. Later a Joseph Shepard worked at the ranch, and his wife did the cooking. 31

When the men were not working the cattle and the ranch, they explored the nearby Fremont Indian ruins. Like most people then and some now, they took artifacts from the ancient Indian granaries. Wing commented how Allen had “his trunk half full of dusty prehistoric corn cobs which I exhumed from a stone built granary.” 32 Wing also expressed a fascination with the “Indian hieroglyphics,” or rock art. Like nearly everyone today, he tried to decipher the figures’ meaning. On one long expedition that he and his cousin took from the West Tavaputs down into Rock Creek, Wing was astounded by the size, quality, and quantity of granaries and rock art they found. And at one point as they were reconnoitering Three Fords Canyon, Wing was sure that a lined-shaped petroglyph he found was a trail sign showing which way to traverse a talus slope. 33

Photograph of Ute family taken 1874 in the Uintah Basin.

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH LIBRARY

Besides prehistoric Indian rock art and ruins, Joe Wing and his men also encounteredpresent-day Native Americans, the Utes. The Utes have occupied eastern Utah for hundreds, perhaps even a thousand years. By the 1880s they had been removed from their vast homelands and were then crowded onto the Uintah and Uncompahgre Indian reservations in the Uinta Basin north of Range Creek and the East Tavaputs Plateau. Nonetheless, some Utes sometimes ventured to the West Tavaputs to hunt. Wing not only noticed signs of their camps—tepee pole impressions and fire rings— he occasionally encountered them. One such meeting happened his first summer on the mountain in 1886 when he chanced upon a Ute woman and her children huddled in a tepee; Wing reported that they watched him and his men “in stolid silence.” 34 He concluded that her husband was out hunting, probably deer or bighorn sheep. Eventually, Utes like these trying to maintain their traditional hunting and gathering life ways were forced off their lands. Ranchers like Wing and the Range Valley Cattle Company were partially responsible for keeping the Indians confined to reservations.

Joe Wing journeyed to Range Creek for adventure, a new life, and a cure for his dyspepsia. He found all three and more. As he later wrote about himself, he “loved every hill and every mesa and every canyon… loved the horses that he rode and the great herd of cattle in his charge, and his comrades, rough as bears and loving as brothers.” 35 Wing eventually assumed control of the ranch and became president of the company. He left in 1889, however, because family duties called in Ohio, but he continued to direct the ranch operations from his Ohio home. He returned to Range Creek occasionally during the next decade. He proved up on his land entry and was granted title to the 160 acres he claimed near the mouth of Turtle Canyon.

Cows grazing on South Pasture, West Tavaputs Plateau.

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH LIBRARY

By early 1900, the demands of operating a large ranch fifteen hundred miles from Ohio led him to partner with three Utah cattlemen, Alfred and Murray Kessler and a man named Tilton. 36 Wing was the only Range Valley principal involved in the new venture. He contributed three hundred head of cattle to the Kesslers’ and Tilton’s herds, along with rights to the land claims along Range Creek. Of the seven original desert land or homestead entries filed upon by the Range Valley Cattle Company principals, only that of Joe Wing gained title when he “provided up” in July 1886 on his filing of land at the confluence of Range and Turtle Wash. Following his death, Wing’s land entry would spawn controversy and lawsuits leaving a black mark on his otherwise stellar name.

Wing’s partnership with Tilton and the Kesslers lasted less than two years. Apparently the three men managed the ranch in Wing’s absence, and in 1902 the group sold their holdings to Preston Nutter. However, the only property with legal title sold to Nutter was Wing’s desert land entry.

After Wing sold to Nutter, he returned to Range Creek in his imagination in his various writings; the tone of them was elegiac. Range Creek became his “Paradise Lost” and his years there his great initiation story, his bildungsroman. He often used phrases like “new world” and “when the world was young” to characterize his time there. Besides the loss of his own youth, though, Wing lamented another kind of “fall”: the loss of native bunch grasses from overgrazing.

Preston Nutter bought Wing’s Desert Land entry.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

In his first years in Range Creek, Wing noted that there was “no fear of hunger among cattle and horses, because all the range was near and covered over with fine sweet bunch grass… Little did we foresee that the time would come … when all of this desert country would be denuded of its grass.” 37 He said that too many cattle crowded the range, then sheep and horses came along and gnawed the bunch grass too close. Weeds and inferior grasses replaced the natives, and the pastures never recovered. 38 By the 1910s,Wing joined a growing chorus calling for the conservation and regulation of the public ranges. These efforts ultimately led to the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 and later in 1946 to the creation of the Bureau of Land Management.

Thus, the range that Joe Wing and the Range Valley Cattle Company bequeathed to Preston Nutter in 1902—in Range Creek and on the mountain—was “a diminished thing.” If Nutter noticed, he wrote nothing about it in his diaries or letters. The cattle baron himself spent very little time in Range Creek. Usually he was headed through the canyon, driving cattle from Nine Mile Canyon or the mountain to the rail head at Woodside. 39

Nutter, however, left the management of the Range Creek ranch to his ranch manager, L. H. “Bud” Milton. Milton kept Nutter informed with periodic written reports, detailing the progress of various projects at the Range Creek ranch, such as a dam they were maintaining on the creek to irrigate the alfalfa that Wing and his men had planted, although in smaller acreage. Milton and his hands Elmer Randall, Bill Seamount, and Jasper Nutter (the boss’s nephew), however, did not keep a garden, pigs, chickens, or milk cows for consumption on the ranch; they had virtually all their food packed in—flour, sugar, oatmeal, rice, syrup, dried apricots, dried apples, bacon, potatoes, and cans of tomatoes and peas. 40

Trail from Woodside to Range Creek.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LLOYD M. GERBER

Milton’s reports to Nutter mention nothing about the condition or quality of the Range Creek grass. He probably had nothing to compare it to. He did note that wolves were “working our cattle purty [sic] bad there. Seen one steer standing up will die with his flank torn out.” 41 The situation would soon change. Within less than a decade, all wolves on the East and West Tavaputs Plateau were killed by ranchers with the support of state and federal governments.

One “improvement” in Range Creek while Nutter owned it was stocking the creek with trout on at least two different occasions. Around 1905 Bill Seamount and Charles McPherson packed in trout (probably rainbow) to the creek, which Seamount claimed made for “pretty good fishing.” 42 In 1911 the state government oversaw a program to stock Utah lakes and streams with trout. Range Creek received thirty thousand trout in October of that year. 43

The trout planted during Nutter’s ownership of Range Creek arrived like everything else—on horse or burro. The trail from the canyon to “civilization” at Woodside was the main thoroughfare for the Range Creek operation as well as for other ranches located along the Green River in Desolation and Gray Canyons. All farm and ranch equipment, food supplies, tools, and construction materials left Woodside, meandered down the Price River to Trail Canyon by way of Joe’s Spring. It then climbed over a mesa and dropped down Turtle Canyon and its intermittent stream to its confluence with Range Creek. Joe Wing explained how they once strapped wood flooring onto the burros (130 pounds on each) and how difficult it was on those pack animals.The animals’ backs bled, and Wing “felt sick at the sight,” telling his mother not to believe any who said those animals feel no pain. 44

Joseph Wing c. 1898.

WING FAMILY COLLECTION

Although in 1889 Woodside had a population of only twenty residents and a hotel, it operated as a train stop. It served both Range Creek cowboys coming in from the wilds and travelers training between Denver and Salt Lake City. 45 When Wing had lived in the ranch all of a few months, he felt sufficiently seasoned to sucker some greenhorns alighting from the train. He convinced the easterners that the salt blocks strapped to his burros were actually silver ore. The city-slickers nodded in acknowledgement, and then one of them pointed out to another how one could plainly see the silver in the foothills of the Book Cliffs. 46 Hoodwinking aside, Wing generally earned a reputation as a man of integrity.

Utah produced a few noted cattle barons, but Preston Nutter was certainly one of the most colorful. Ingenious and aggressive in building his cattle empire, at the turn of the twentieth century Nutter was the dominant rancher in Range Creek, Nine Mile Canyon, and the surrounding West Tavaputs Plateau. Unlike other ranchers, he used the courts to overpower his opponents and secure control over land and scarce water resources. His wealth, tenacity, and intimidating nature helped him build a land and cattle empire that extended to the Arizona Strip as well as the West Tavaputs Plateau.

The historic record of Nutter’s business dealings is extensive, thanks to his organization and careful record keeping. More difficult to document, but present as a subtext in many of Nutter’s business dealings, was his ability and willingness to use questionable tactics to combat threats to his empire. Nutter utilized all the resources of the law to squelch the slightest trespass. Many also accused him of resorting to less noble tactics when necessary.

Along with his ranch manager Milton, Nutter operated the Range Creek ranch successfully for several years, building cabins, barns, corrals, and other structures to enhance his operation. The canyon was not yet open to homestead settlement or purchase, however, so his legal hold on the land was tenuous, and secured primarily by possession rather than formal title. Still, Nutter likely felt secure with his acquisition of Range Creek property.

Although Range Creek provided excellent grazing ground when used in conjunction with the summer pastures on the plateau, small ranchers without access to those areas would soon find themselves out of grass. Nutter raised hay in Range Creek for winter feed; smaller ranchers had no such stored hay. Nutter understood that the only threat to his cattle empire would come from someone willing to challenge him for the entire canyon.When Range Valley was formally surveyed in 1912, opening the canyon to homesteading under the 1909 Enlarged Homestead Act, an opportunity arose for just such a challenge. Before any land could be settled under homesteading laws, the State of Utah had to survey the land as a prerequisite for entrants to obtain legal title.

Around this time a drifter named John Niles entered Preston Nutter’s life as a cowboy on the cattleman’s Range Creek ranch. Niles was a man of few means, and frequently asked Nutter for advances. From time-to-time, he left the ranch to pursue other opportunities. None of them seemed to work out, so he would then write Nutter asking for his job back. 47 This pattern continued until 1915 when Niles suddenly filed a claim on 160 acres of Nutter’s improved land. He told Nutter: “you have thirty days to remove your improvements!” 48 Nutter countered his demand by having the Woodside magistrate order Niles off the land. The drifter promptly abandoned his plan to homestead on Range Creek and joined the navy. A year later, he was dishonorably discharged and once again drifted back to Woodside and Range Creek.

Cowboys employed by the Nutter Ranch.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

On February 23, 1917, the first official survey plat was filed for Range Creek, and the area was formally opened to settlement under the Enlarged Homestead Act. That same day, Thomas Crick, John Niles, and Nutter employee George Long all filed separate homestead claims for the same land along Range Creek. Simultaneously, the State of Utah filed for title to the land under its lieu selection rights. 49 This land was available to homestead because most of the original Range Valley partners never proved up on their land entries. Meanwhile, the state had agreed to file for the land under its lieu selection rights and then sell it to Nutter upon gaining title to the land. But Nutter had heard rumors of a conspiracy by Niles and Crick to take the land. To ensure he gained title, he enlisted Long to file a simultaneous claim in case the state agreement failed (the state frequently sold lieu selection lands to citizens). Clearly Long’s filing was the result of an agreement he had with Nutter. Both later denied this in court, but sufficient evidence exists to show that Nutter intended to use his ranch hand as his agent to obtain the land. One corner of the Niles and Crick filings overlapped, but they were not identical. The two were friends and did not intend to compete with one another. 50 The Niles-Crick relationship notwithstanding, these filings began an eight-year legal battle between the titan and the drifter. This would ultimately trigger the decline of the Nutter empire.

Long’s claim was dispensed with first, along with the state filing, as conflicting with Niles. Niles claimed settlement in 1911 and had fulfilled part of the law by making improvements when he built a house in 1915. When pressed to explain his absence from the property for such an extended period, Niles countered that he was just respecting the magistrate’s order to vacate; he thought he had lost his rights. His attorney argued that otherwise Niles would have fulfilled the legal obligation to remain on the land. Nutter countered that Niles was working for him during the time he claimed settlement, and that all improvements were made at Nutter’s direction and expense. Nutter’s evidence supports this claim, but the court, somehow, found against him. 51

Nutter appealed the court’s finding, and the case was then decided in his favor. Subsequent appeals found alternately for Niles, then Nutter, then Niles. The land in question was part of the original Range Valley Cattle Company holdings. A desert land entry had been filed by Charles Van Dusen, Benjamin’s brother, earlier. However, Van Dusen’s claim was found to be unsatisfactory due to a filing error. Furthermore, the cattle company under Wing had already sold its holdings to Nutter.Van Dusen apparently had not bothered to correct the filing, and his claim was cancelled. Van Dusen died shortly thereafter.

Nutter sent his attorney to Pennsylvania to locate Van Dusen heirs. His legal team convinced the family to appeal to the Interior Department to reopen Van Dusen’s case and award title to them. They, in turn, would sell the land to the cattle baron. Nutter swore in court that no deal had been made between the two parties, but there is little doubt that such an agreement existed. In a final ruling, the Secretary of the Interior found against Nutter and awarded title to John Niles. Ironically, within six months of gaining title in 1923, Niles sold the land back to Nutter for six thousand dollars. Nutter also paid Niles an additional five hundred dollars as compensation for lost income and damage done while Niles vacated the land during the legal dispute. 52

Niles’s claim was not the only attack on Nutter’s holdings. On February 23, 1917, the same day Niles, Crick, Long, and the State of Utah filed on land Nutter claimed, another entry was made on his holdings two miles south. This land had served as the old headquarters for the Range Valley Cattle Company and Joe Wing’s home while he ran the ranch. John Darioli, an Italian immigrant of extremely limited means, also filed an entry for the 160 acres that had served as the old headquarters for the Range Valley Cattle Company. The cattle company had previously constructed a substantial house, corrals, hay stacks, barns, fruit trees, two cellars, and a shop, all enclosed by a well-made pole fence. Darioli’s claim included it all. 53

The Darioli land claim was very similar to Niles’s claim. In another apparent secret deal, a Nutter employee named Arthur Johnson also filed on the land at the same time as Darioli. 54 An agreement similar to that of Niles and Nutter had been previously struck between the cattleman and the State of Utah, but when the state failed to file for the lieu selection on time, the state became ineligible for title to the land. Like the Niles claim, the Darioli case continued through a long series of hearings, court cases, and appeals before its eventual conclusion in 1924. Also, like the Niles case, the courts found both for and against each of the parties. 55 It should be noted here that shortly after the U. S. Land Office found in favor of Darioli, the house and shop built by Joe Wing and the Range Valley Cattle Company mysteriously burned to the ground while Darioli was living on the property. 56 No official cause was ever determined but some claim to have seen mule tracks leading away from the burned out buildings. One person in the area known to ride a mule was Preston Nutter. It would be unfair to conclude that Nutter burned the house and shop, although it was known that Darioli feared that Nutter or his agents would harm him and refused to live in the main house. Instead, he constructed a crude stone cabin on a hillside several hundred yards away from the main house. Even then, it is said that he dared not sleep in the cabin, and preferred to sleep in the open under a ledge where he could not be seen. 57

Just when Nutter thought he had exhausted all avenues to defeat Darioli, his attorney suggested an ingenious, although improbable strategy. Just like Nutter had dispatched his attorney to Pennsylvania in an attempt to draw Van Dusen into the Niles case, he sent another attorney to Ohio to locate the descendents of the now-deceased Joe Wing. 58 Wing had filed a desert land entry for 160 acres of land two miles below the Darioli claim at a place called Turtle Wash. He stated in his final proof that he built a cabin, irrigated, and made other improvements on his land claim. Nutter determined he could make a case that Wing had erred in his description, and had actually meant to describe the land now claimed by Darioli.

Nutter’s attorney convinced Wing’s heirs to ask the land office to change the Wing entry to match the land then in dispute.This was no small task. It would require re-configuring all earlier claims made by the Range Valley group to conform to this new Wing filing. In addition,Wing had filed on four, forty-acre parcels: two contiguous northern ones and two contiguous southern ones separated by about forty acres. These configurations were designed to span the canyon and would require a completely different arrangement of the land parcels. 59

Nutter’s case would not only have to argue that Wing significantly erred in his filing, but that all the original land filings made by the Range Valley group were also in error. Nutter’s case, however, was weak, and Wing’s filing appeared to be solid. Recall that Gus Ferron, one of the founding partners in the Range Valley enterprise, was a Deputy U.S. Surveyor who signed as witness for all the land claims made by the Range Valley Company, including Wing’s land claim. Two other land surveyors also witnessed Wing’s and the cattle company’s land filings. It was a foolhardy undertaking, but it was Nutter’s last hope. It prolonged the eventual resolution of the case for another five years.

Nutter’s effort to realign the Range Valley land entries, and thereby gain title to the land claimed by Darioli, proved futile in the end. None of the Range Valley principals were available to testify. Whatever improvements Wing had made on his Turtle Wash claim had long disappeared by 1920 when his heirs were called upon to help Nutter by claiming their grandfather made an error. To support his case, Nutter had to show that Wing made no improvements at Turtle Wash, and that all the improvements described in his proof pertained to the land in dispute. He convinced the courts about the lack of improvements at Turtle Wash, but he failed to prove that Wing had intended to claim the land in question. The only conclusion the courts could reach was that Joe Wing had filed a fraudulent land claim; therefore his Turtle Wash claim was cancelled. Darioli was granted title to the disputed parcel. 60

Joe Wing was unquestionably an honorable man. He proved his integrity and honor throughout his life.The key point of the dispute in The Heirs of Joseph E.Wing v. John Darioli hearings was whether Wing had constructed a small cabin on the Turtle Wash claim. No physical evidence of a cabin remained at the time of the hearing, but a few old timers had testified they had seen one.A land surveyor also had described the cabin, and noted it on a map. One feature mentioned by all who remembered seeing the cabin was its unusually small door. Attorneys for Nutter successfully argued that even if there had been a cabin at Turtle Wash, it was just an old trapper’s shed. They succeeded in discrediting witnesses claiming to have seen the cabin.

Recently, a descendent of Joe Wing gave the authors a photograph of a cabin with an unusually small door, and next to the cabin stands a saddled horse.The note on the back of the photo describes the cabin and the horse as Wing’s. 61 Had the photo been produced during the hearings, the outcome of the dispute may have been different and the blemish to Joe Wing’s reputation would likely have been spared.

Neither Niles nor Darioli, however, had much in the way of reputation. Moreover, they had limited means. So how was it possible for them to retain lawyers to plead their cases, which extended for many years in courts in Washington, DC and in Utah? The answer appears to lie with a banker and civic leader named Joseph Barboglio. Nutter claimed that there was a conspiracy by Niles, Darioli, and Barboglio to deprive him of his land. 62 While historical evidence indicates no direct association between Barboglio and Niles, land records do reveal that the Italian immigrant and Darioli were partners when they obtained the land from Nutter. They also partnered in another land entry made by Darioli. Following the death of Preston Nutter in the 1936 (he was thrown from a horse in Range Creek), Barboglio filed on another 160 acres of land adjacent to the original Darioli filing. 63

Joseph Barboglio, Helper mayor and bank president.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Joe Barboglio was a well-known figure in Carbon and Emery counties. He was founder and president of the Helper State Bank as well as mayor of Helper. The Italian was also active in societies and groups that offered aid and assistance to fellow Italian immigrants inCarbon County. 64 It is not surprising, then, that he would help his countryman Darioli.

Evidence suggests that in this case Barboglio had a much more personal goal; he intended to usurp control of Range Creek from Preston Nutter. No record of contact between Nutter and Barboglio survives, and the banker’s efforts eventually failed. Barboglio and Darioli could not pay the necessary property taxes during the early years of the Depression, and as a result they lost control of their land holdings. Later, though, they recovered their property and in 1942 sold both parcels to Henning Olsen and his son Lloyd. Controversy over ownership of Range Creek did not end there, however. The two Olsen pieces were isolated from each other by Preston Nutter Corporation holdings, now run by Nutter’s descendants. From all appearances, the Olsens struggled for the entire five years they owned the land. Their effort to make it in Range Creek ended in 1947 when Lloyd shot himself to death in the stone house Darioli built. 65

Following Lloyd’s death, Bert and Clarence Pilling bought the two Darioli parcels. (Clarence would later gain notoriety as the discoverer of the famous Pilling figurines.) 66 Not wanting to live in the house where Lloyd killed himself, the Pilling family built a log home nearby. 67 They, too, struggled for several years to make a living in Range Creek, but limited rangeland doomed their ranching venture. Pilling sold his ground to Irvin Gerber and sons.

Gerber owned a large ranch on top of the nearby West Tavaputs Plateau and a smaller one along the Green River at Rock Creek.The Range Creek land provided important winter range as well as an easier route to his summer range on the mountain. Difficulties with the Nutter Corporation limited Gerber’s plans, however. 68

Shortly after Gerber purchased the 320 acres in Range Creek, the Nutter Corporation constructed a road from the bottom of Little Horse Canyon, fifteen miles down the length of Range Creek to Turtle Wash. The road proved contentious; this conflict eventually drove Gerber from area. Prior to the road construction, the Gerbers and others had traveled the length of the canyon on horseback. Following the completion of the new road, the Nutter Corporation placed locked gates across both ends of the canyon. Gerber contended that the locked gates were unlawful, so he continued to use the road.

As the conflict between Gerber and the Nutter Corporation escalated, the Nutter Corporation sold the Range Creek ranch in 1950 to Ray “Budge”Wilcox and his sons, Don and Waldo. The Wilcoxes inherited the ill feelings that had developed between Gerber and the Nutter company. Like so many Range Creek disputes in the past, the issue of land ownership landed in court with Wilcox and Nutter as plaintiffs and Gerber and Floyd Hawkins as defendants. 69 Hawkins had filed a homestead about five miles south of the Wilcox ranch many years earlier. He relied on access to the canyon to reach grazing land he was leasing in Bear Canyon several miles north of the Wilcoxes.

Evidence presented in the lawsuit indicated that Joe Wing had constructed a wagon road in the canyon in the 1890s; he had used that road to transport supplies a few miles up Range Creek. But Wing had never gone higher than Cherry Meadows, about eight miles above Turtle Canyon. Both sides in the lawsuit agreed that there was an access right through the canyon by horseback and mule, but the court found against Gerber and Hawkins with regard to wheeled vehicles. They were allowed to use the old wagon road as far north as Cherry Meadows, but were prohibited from using the new road, except on horseback. This decision presented a significant setback for Gerber, who lost much of the advantage he expected from his ownership of the two Range Creek properties. In 1953, he sold his properties to Therald N. Jensen, along with all his holdings on the plateau and along the Green River. Jensen later sold the Range Creek portion of his ranch to Kaiser Steel Company.The steel giant’s primary interest was the water right that accompanied the land; it used the water for its mining operations in Sunnyside.

Following Ray Wilcox’s death in 1981, his sons Don and Waldo operated the ranch for several years before dividing the property. Don controlled the land on the plateau, and Waldo assumed sole ownership of the Range Creek Ranch. For over five decades the Wilcox family restricted access to their land in Range Creek. Due to the judgment in the Gerber case, the only two pieces of land not controlled by Wilcox (the original Darioli pieces) were isolated with no vehicle access from the north. Kaiser, meanwhile, sold its property to the Penta Creek Corporation, but the access restrictions remained. As a result of this restriction, and a fervent effort by the Wilcox family to keep trespassers from entering the ranch, few people knew much about Range Creek except what old timers said. In December 2000,Waldo Wilcox sold his ranch to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

For many years, archaeologists surmised that Range Creek possessed some unusual Fremont cultural sites. The Claflin-Emerson expedition in 1931 had recorded several sites, but private ownership and limited access precluded any further study. Upon assumption of control in 2000, the BLM hired University of Utah archaeologists and historians to survey the canyon’s cultural resources. In just a few short weeks in the summer of 2001, it became very apparent that Range Creek contained one of the most important archaeological treasures yet discovered in North America. The BLM, meanwhile, was caretaking the land until it could be taken over by the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources. But the unusual archaeological resources in Range Creek led the state in 2009 to transfer title of the land to the University of Utah. The university’s archaeological investigation continues and is expected to unfold for decades to come. 70 The remote location, along with decades of protection afforded by determined landowners such as the Wilcoxes, helped preserve a huge cache of information about the history of ancient societies.

The big story about Range Creek is undoubtedly its relatively pristine Fremont Indian sites. But the story of one and a quarter century of Anglo occupation also contributes an important chapter to Utah’s livestock history, especially that of the non-Mormon ranchers. And it shows the fervor with which various individuals and cattle outfits like Preston Nutter, John Niles, Joe Barboglio, Ray Wilcox, Irvin Gerber, and the Range Valley Cattle Company fought long in the courts to control this last-chance grazing spot. The rhapsodic prose of Joe Wing illustrates why men wanted to live in this isolated region of eastern Utah and says much about this extraordinarily beautiful but harsh landscape.

NOTES

Steven L. Gerber is a local historian who for years has researched Anglo settlement on the Tavaputs Plateau. James M. Aton is Professor of English at Southern Utah University and the author of The River Knows Everything: Desolation Canyon and the Green published by Utah State University Press in 2009 and John Wesley Powell: His Life and Legacy published by the University of Utah Press in 2010.

1 Duncan Metcalfe, interview by James M. Aton, July 14, 2003, Range Creek, Utah.

2 Articles of Incorporation, Range Valley Cattle Company, 1885, Incorporation Case Files, 1869-1961. Salt Lake County Clerk [456], Series 3866, Utah State Archives.

3 Articles of Incorporation.

4 Articles of Incorporation.

5 The Breeders’s Gazette (Chicago, Illinois), October 23, 1884: 608.

6 John R. Evans, et al., “Beef Cattle in the Utah Economy,” Studies in Business and Economics 22.2. (December 1962): 11.

7 Other large Utah cattle operations included the Webster City Cattle Company, founded in the 1880s and probably the largest operation on the East Tavaputs Plateau. For information on other operations and for an overview of Utah’s cattle industry see Utah Historical Quarterly, 32 (Summer 1964). Also James H. Beckstead, Cowboying:A Tough Job in a Hard Land (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991).

8 All original entries were filed under the Desert Land Act since the area was not yet open to homesteads;it had not been surveyed by 1886.

9 Edward A. Geary, A History of Emery County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and Emery County Commission, 1996), x; William J. Tidwell testimony, The Heirs of Joseph E. Wing v. John Darioli, October 24-28, 1922, Records at Division H, U.S. Department of the Interior, RG-49, National Archives,Washington, DC.

10 Tidwell testimony. Ferron left no notes confirming that this 1884 trip inspired the idea to form a ranch in Range Creek, but attorneys in Wing v. Darioli agreed it was a reasonable assumption based on the testimony of a witness who observed the Ferron survey crew in Woodside, Utah, that year.

11 Miriam B. Murphy, “Clarence Allen Was Utah’s First Congressman,” Utah History To Go (1995) http://historytogo.utah.gov (accessed September 1, 2010).

12 Ben Hite,“How I Began Life,” Deseret News, December 24, 1921.

13 Decision of Register and Receiver, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing vs. John Darioli, September 13, 1926. Entry #2021A, Patented Serial Case Files, 1907-1975; Record Group 49, Bureau of Land Management. Serial Land Patent #950962 (Salt Lake City 019896) issued to John Darioli by the General Land Office.

14 Joan Smyth Iversen,“Corinne Allen and Post-Manifesto Antipolygamy,” Journal of Mormon History 26 (Fall 2000): 110-39. See also Corinne Marie Tuckerman Allen Papers, 1896-1927, MS A-5, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, MA.

15 In some records Van Dusen is spelled Van Duesen.

16 Although the Desert Land Act allowed settlers to claim up to 320 acres, the claims filed by the Range Valley partners consisted of seven claims of 160 acres each.The law required claims to conform to a specified layout to prevent claimants from claiming long stretches of waterways. Additionally, claimants were required to conduct water onto their claims. Since the canyon around Range Creek is so narrow, this limited the ability of the claimants to file larger claims.

17 Decision of Register and Receiver, September 13, 1926. Entry #2021A, Patented Serial Case Files, 1907-1975; Record Group 49, Bureau of Land Management. Serial Land Patent #950962 (Salt Lake City 019896) issued to John Darioli by the General Land Office. “Salt Lake Doctors Invited East,” Salt Lake Telegram April 14, 1909.

18 Grand Lodge of Utah, “Most Worshipful Brother John Shaw Scott,” http://www.utahgrandlodge.org/pgm/pgm-john-shaw-scott.html (assessed September 2, 2010).

19 Joseph Wing correspondence, July 18, 1886, MS 289, box 13 folder 26, Preston Nutter Collection, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

20 Wing correspondence, June 9, 1886, Nutter Collection.

21 Joseph E. Wing, “Midwinter Work on a Cattle Ranch,” The Breeder’s Gazette (February 8, 1911): 347- 48.

22 Ibid., 348.

23 Wing Correspondence, June 20, 1886, June 27, 1886, November 8, 1886, November 11, 1886, Nutter Collection.

24 Joseph E. Wing,“The Story of Lonesome Creek—I,” The Breeder’s Gazette (March 19, 1914): 653.

25 J. R. Goldsbrough testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing.

26 Joseph B. Curtis testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing.

27 Joseph E.Wing, Alfalfa Farming in America (Chicago: Sanders Publishing Company, 1916), 5, 8-9.

28 Wing correspondence, June, November 8, 1886, Nutter Collection; Wing, Alfalfa Farming, 9-10; Shadrach Lunt testimony, J. R. Goldsbrough testimony, Murray Kessler testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing.

29 George W. Batchelor testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing.

30 Gus Henroid testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing.

31 Wing correspondence, June 13, June 20, November 8, 1886, Nutter Collection;Wing, Alfalfa Farming, 10;Wing,“Green Pastures in the Desert,” The Breeder’s Gazette (July 11, 1900): 32; Shadrach Lunt testimony, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing.

32 Wing correspondence, October 17, 1886, Nutter Collection. Prohibition on digging in and collecting from cultural sites did not become law until the 1906 Antiquities Act. But it really took the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act to put teeth into cultural resource protection.

33 Joseph E.Wing, “The Story of Lonesome Creek—II,” The Breeder’s Gazette (March 26, 1919): 709.

34 Wing correspondence, July 18,August 17, 1886, Nutter Collection.

35 Wing, Alfalfa Farming, 16-17.

36 Murray Kessler Testimony, The Heirs of Joseph E.Wing, v. John Darioli.

37 Wing,“Story at Lonesome Creek—I,” 652.

38 Wing,“Memories of Stock Raising,” The Breeder’s Gazette (July 16, 1914): 100.

39 Preston Nutter,“Diary,”August 25, 1918, box 1, book 1, Nutter Collection.

40 L. H,“Bud” Milton to Preston Nutter,April 26, 1906, box 24 folder 2; Milton to Nutter, February 9, 1907, folder 3; Milton to Nutter, November 28, 1909, folder 5, Nutter Collection.

41 Milton to Nutter, November 8, 1908, box 24 folder 5, Nutter Collection.

42 Bill and Mrs. Seamount interview by Otis R. “Dock” Marston, January 1, 1966, Salt Lake City, box 205, folder 23, Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

43 “Elk for Carbon County,” Carbon County News, October 20, 1911. In 1942 the state restocked Range Creek with trout, possibly German brown trout. They dominate the creek now and reach lengths of one to two feet. According to former ranch owner Waldo Wilcox, they make for good fishing. Waldo Wilcox, interviews by James M. Aton, November 3, 13, 15, 2009, Green River, Utah.

44 Wing correspondence, August 12, 1886, Nutter Collection.

45 Utah Gazetteer, 1899, p. 20.

46 Wing correspondence, July 8, 1886, Nutter Collection.

47 Preston Nutter, Katherine Nutter and H. Byron Mock, John D. Niles vs. Preston Nutter, box 41, Nutter Collection, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

48 John D. Niles vs. Preston Nutter, Nutter Collection.

49 When Utah gained statehood in 1896, the federal government granted the state four sections in every township to be used to help fund schools. If the designated section was already claimed by a settler, or otherwise unavailable, the state was granted lieu rights to another section elsewhere in the state.

50 John D. Niles vs. Preston Nutter.

51 Ibid.

52 ‘Preston Nutter Corporation Records, 1876-1981,” Nutter Collection, box 41, folder 13. Niles agreed to relinquish any rights to is Desert Land Entry.

53 Decision of Register and Receiver, Heirs of Joseph E.Wing vs. John Darioli, September 13, 1926. Entry #2021A, Patented Serial Case Files, 1907-1975; Record Group 49, Bureau of Land Management. Serial Land Patent #950962 (Salt Lake City 019896) issued to John Darioli by the General Land Office.

54 Letter from Patrick H. Loughran to The Secretary of the Interior, May 14, 1916 re: J.Thomas Crick, George W. Long vs. John D. Niles, Patented Serial Case Files, 1907-1975; Record Group 49, Bureau of Land Management. Serial Land Patent #019895 issued to John D. Niles by the General Land Office. All court documents from 1917 to 1923 in authors’ possession.

55 Murray Kessler Testimony, The Heirs of Joseph E.Wing.

56 Don Wilcox, interview by Steven L. Gerber, September 17, 2004, Green River, Utah.

57 Waldo Wilcox, interview by Steven L. Gerber, July 19, 1998, Green River, Utah.

58 Nutter vs. Niles, Nutter Collection, box 41, folder 9.The attorney for Niles compared the tactics used in the Darioli case to those in the Niles case, point by point, in an effort to prove Nutter was pursuing his claim fraudulently. These tactics included the use of surrogate claimants, purported to be in Nutter’s employ, to make fraudulent claims which would then be sold back to Nutter upon issuance of title.

59 Application to adjust desert land entry allowed. Reversed. Department of the Interior, Heirs of Joseph E. Wing vs. John Darioli, January 25, 1924. Entry #2021A, Patented Serial Case Files, 1907-1975; Record Group 49, Bureau of Land Management. Serial Land Patent #950962 (Salt Lake City 019896) issued to John Darioli by the General Land Office.

60 Ibid.

61 John C.Wing to Steven L. Gerber, January 3, 2003.

62 “Contest 020121,” Crick and Long v. Niles.

63 Carbon County, Utah Abstracts of Title, Carbon County Courthouse, Price, Utah.

64 Helen B. Leavitt,“The Lives and Times of Joseph and Jennie Barboglio,”Western Mining & Railroad Museum, Helper, Utah.

65 “Young Rancher Found Dead by Friend on Farm,” Sun Advocate, January 13, 1944.

66 In 1950 Clarence Pilling found eleven, expertly sculpted clay figures under an overhang in Range Creek. Archaeologists date them to about AD 1000-1100 and associate them with the Fremont culture. They reside in the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah.

67 Bud Pilling, interview by Steven L. Gerber, September 17, 2004.

68 Paul Foy, “Utah to Turn Over Fabled Range Creek Canyon to U. of U. Archaeologists,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 25, 2009.