State unveils prehistory treasure trove

Utah officials are taking the wraps off a stunning "state secret": describing extensively for the first time one of the region's historic and archaeological treasures — the state-owned Wilcox ranch in Range Creek.

Earlier this year Utah quietly took possession of the property, located behind the Book Cliffs near the Carbon-Emery county border approximately 130 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. Work from an archaeological survey there has been publicly discussed, but now officials are spelling out the discoveries being made.

"It's just a great concentration of archaeological sites," said Kevin Jones, Utah's state archaeologist. It has "very, very dense evidence of habitation, big villages, fabulous rock art, granaries and things like that."

Indeed, the only way to describe the historic ranch and the prehistoric finds being made there and nearby, according to Duncan Metcalfe, curator of archaeology at the Utah Museum of Natural History, "is to say it is of national significance."

An estimated 2,000 to 5,000 archaeological sites, most in excellent condition, are located on the newly acquired property; more are being discovered up and down the canyon. About 1,350 acres are part of the immediate Wilcox ranch, a verdant farmstead straddling remote Range Creek, a tributary of the Green River, while another 3,000 acres are on a nearby plateau.

The property was initially purchased by the Trust for Public Land, a conservation group, from longtime rancher Waldo Wilcox for about $2.5 million. With key funding appropriated by Congress, spearheaded by former Rep. Jim Hansen, and the rest coming from the Utah Quality Growth Commission and Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, the ranch was subsequently acquired by the state.

According to state experts, the Range Creek property is not only an incredible archaeological resource, it is also a wildlife haven, with wild turkey, eagles, hawks, bears, cougars, elk, deer, bighorn sheep and other important species. The creek itself could be developed as a blue-ribbon trout fishery.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources manages the land, and it is protected by a conservation easement controlled by the state Department of Agriculture and the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands.

'No place like it left'

What makes Range Creek almost unique in the West is that most of the archaeological sites obtained by the state are pristine because the Wilcox family vigilantly protected the land from pothunters and vandals since acquiring it more than 50 years ago. Though public roads provide access to the canyon in places, passage through much of it has been off-limits to the general public because the property is gated and privately owned.