Photographer: Rosanna Hamilton Copyright: Copyright © 2008 Rosanna Hamilton Date: 2007/07/19 Location: Arches National Park, Utah

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John Wesley Wolfe settled here in the late 1800s with his oldest son Fred. A nagging leg injury from the Civil War prompted John to move west from Ohio, looking for a drier climate. He chose this tract of more than 100 acres 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 you see today.

The reunited family weathered a few more years in Utah and in 1910 returned to Ohio. John Wolfe died on October 22, 1913, in Etan, Ohio, at the age of eighty-four.