The Wolfe Ranch Historical Site

By Utah Outdoor Activities

The Wolfe Ranch is located in Arches National Park, at the beginning of  the hiking trail to Delicate Arch. The Ranch was settled in the late 1800's by John Wesley Wolfe and his son. John moved west from Ohio looking for a drier climate, due to a nagging leg injury he received in the Civil War. John choose a tract of 100 acres of land along Salt Wash for its water and grassland - enough for a few cattle. 

The Wolfes built a one-room cabin, a corral and a small dam across Salt Wash. For more than a decade they lived alone on the remote ranch. In 1906 John's daughter Flora Stanley, her husband, and their children moved to the ranch. Shocked at the primitive conditions, Flora convinced her father to build a new cabin with a wood floor - the cabin that is still standing today. The reunited family weathered for a few more years in Utah and in 1910 returned to Ohio. John Wolfe died on October 22, 1913, in Etna, Ohio, at the age of eighty-four. 

When visiting the Wolfe Ranch please help preserve this site by not touching the walls, entering the building, or leaving marks or graffiti on the walls. Because of the importance in local history, this site has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.