Page Ranch House

Page Ranch was homesteaded by Mormon pioneer Robert Ritchie in 1858, who passed it to his grandson Dan Page in 1890.  Dan and his wife Sophia commissioned the building of the ranch house in 1898 and it was completed in December of 1900.  

The brick for the home was manufactured on-site by the builders using clay located on the property. They hand-packed the clay into molds to shape it into bricks, let them dry, then fired them in a kiln they built at the site. The house was designed by the Pages in a double cross-wing style that was uncommon in Utah at the time.

Although quite isolated, the ranch was in proximity to several iron mines. In addition to ranching, Dan was part owner of the Homestake Mine at Iron Mountain and the ranch house served as the headquarters until the Pages divorced in 1905. After the divorce, Sophia and her seven children continued to operate the ranch for another 25 years.

To help make ends meet, they also took in boarders who worked at the mines and travelers passing through to the extent that they numbered the upstairs bedrooms.  Like many others,  they were impacted by the Great Depression and in 1931 the property was taken over by creditors who allowed Sophia, by then an invalid, to remain at the ranch until her death in 1934.

Since then, the ranch has passed through many owners and only occupied sporadically. Now abandoned, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a Utah Historic Site in 1985.