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GIFFORD HOMESTEAD
 The
Gifford farm lies in the heart of the Fruita valley, a desert
oasis described by Wallace Stegner as "...a sudden, intensely
green little valley among the cliffs of the Waterpocket Fold,
opulent with cherries, peaches, and apples in season, inhabited
by a few families who were about equally good Mormons and good
frontiersmen and good farmers."* The 200 acre Fruita Rural Historical
District has been nominated for listing on the National Register
of Historic Places.
The Capitol Reef Natural History Association, in cooperation
with the National Park Service, has renovated and refurnished
the Gifford farmhouse as a cultural demonstration site to interpret
the early Mormon settlement of the Fruita valley. The house
depicts the typical spartan nature of rural Utah farm homes
of the early 1900's. In addition to the farmhouse, the Gifford
homestead includes a barn, smokehouse, garden, pasture, and
rock walls.
Residents and Improvements
The original home was built in 1908 by polygamist Calvin Pendleton.
He and his family occupied it for eight years. The original house
had a combined front room/kitchen and two small bedrooms. An outside
ladder accessed two upstairs bedrooms. Pendleton also constructed
the barn and smokehouse, as well as the rock walls near the house
and on the mesa slopes above it.
The second residents of the home were the Jorgen Jorgenson
family who resided here from 1916 to 1928. Jorgenson sold the
homestead to his son-in- law, Dewey Gifford, in 1928.
The Gifford family occupied the home for 41 years (1928 to
1969). Gifford added a kitchen in 1946 and the bathroom, utility
room, and carport in 1954.
Life On the Farm
The Giffords raised dairy cows, hogs, and sheep, as well as chickens
and ducks. They also ran cattle in the South Desert. They used
the smokehouse to preserve meat for their own use and for sale.
Dewey Gifford also worked for the State Road Department and later
for the National Park Service, to supplement his farm income.
The family ate whatever they raised. The garden produced a
variety of vegetables including potatoes, beans, peas, squash,
lettuce, radishes, corn, and watermelons. The family also had
orchards and grew sorghum. They preserved fruit and vegetables
for later use by bottling or drying. Bottled foods were stored
in the cellar below the front of the house. Dry goods, such
as potatoes, were kept in the root cellar on the back side of
the house.
Water was carried to the house from the Fremont River and
was used untreated. A two-hole outhouse served the family until
an indoor bathroom and plumbing was installed in later years.
The house received electricity in 1948.
The Giffords frequently got together with other Fruita residents,
especially the Chesnut and Mulford families, for suppers, singing,
games, cards, baseball, reading, and quilting. The families
were good friends and helpers to each other - an important relationship
in a small isolated community like Fruita.
The Giffords were the last residents of Fruita. Dewey Gifford
sold his home and land to the National Park Service in 1969
and moved away. With the Gifford's departure, the story of Fruita
as a farming community came to a close. Today, the pioneer spirit
of Fruita can be experienced by exploring the Fruita rural cultural
landscape and by visiting the Gifford Homestead.
Location and Sales Outlet
The former kitchen has been converted into a Natural History Association
sales outlet. Items for sale include reproduction utensils and
household tools used by Mormon pioneers in their daily tasks.
These handmade items are made by local artisans and craftsmen
and include such things as butter churns, flour sifters, rag dolls,
quilts, woven rugs, soap, crockery, candles and toys. A wide selection
of books, historic postcards, jams, jellies and dried fruit are
also available.
The Gifford Homestead is located 1 mile south of the visitor
center on the Scenic Drive. Parking is available at the picnic
area. Follow the signs and trail from the picnic area approximately
1/8 mile to the house.
*Wallace and Page Stegner, American Places,
photographs by Eliot Porter, John Macrea, III, editor (New York:
E.P. Dutton, 1981), 122.
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