page_title: Antelope Island
section_title: Fielding Garr Ranch
hierarchical_section_title: Antelope Island / History / Fielding Garr Ranch
caption_attribution_description: Antelope Island State Park, Utah
context_page_description: Antelope Island, with an area of 42 square miles, is the largest of ten islands located within the Great Salt Lake, Utah, United States. The island lies in the southeastern portion of the lake, near Salt Lake City and Davis County, and becomes a peninsula when the lake is at extremely low levels. It is protected as Antelope Island State Park.
  The first known non-natives to visit the island were John C. Frémont and Kit Carson during exploration of the Great Salt Lake in 1845, who "rode on horseback over salt from the thickness of a wafer to twelve inches" and "were informed by the Indians that there was an abundance of fresh water on it and plenty of antelope". It is said they shot a pronghorn antelope on the island and in gratitude for the meat they named it Antelope Island.
  Antelope Island has natural scenic beauty and holds populations of pronghorn, bighorn sheep, American bison, porcupine, badger, coyote, bobcat, mule deer, and millions of waterfowl. The bison were introduced to the island in 1893, and Antelope Island bison herd has proven to be a valuable genetic pool for bison breeding and conservation purposes.
context_section_description: The first Anglo-Americans to reach the island were John C. Fremont and Kit Carson. They explored Antelope Island in 1845 and named the island for the herds of grazing pronghorn. Captain Howard Stansbury used the island as a base. He mapped the lake and attempted to locate where the waters of the lake drained in an attempt to find a waterway to the Pacific Ocean. The first permanent settler on the island was Fielding Garr. Garr was sent to the island by LDS Church to establish a ranch for the "church tithing herds." The Fielding Garr Ranch was owned and operated by the church until the 1870s for the purpose of providing funds for the Perpetual Emigration Fund. This fund financed the immigration of Mormon converts from Europe to Utah. The ranch house, built in 1848, still stands and is the oldest Mormon-built home that is still on its original foundation, in Utah.
  The building of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 opened the rest of the island to settlement by homesteaders. The first federal surveys of the island revealed that only the area surrounding the Fielding Garr Ranch had been improved. This discovery gave the Federal Government the authority to open the island to settlement under the Homestead Act. Settlement on the island was unsuccessful and by 1900 most of the settlers had not improved their claims and, except for the ranch, the island was free of human habitation.
  John Dooly Sr. purchased the island for one million dollars and established the Island Improvement Company. Dooly is responsible for the introduction of the bison, and the foundation of the Antelope Island bison herd. He brought twelve bison to the island. Four bulls, four cows, and four calves were transported by boat on February 15, 1893. At the time there were fewer than 1,000 head of bison in all of North America. Historians speculate that Dooly introduced the herd to the island for commercial purposes with the idea of establishing a rare opportunity for hunters to take the nearly extinct American bison. The twelve bison became the foundation of the Antelope Island bison herd that numbers between 500-700 animals, making it one of the largest and oldest publicly owned American bison herds in the United States.
  John Dooly Jr. assumed responsibility for the day-to-day operation of the ranch in about 1902. He focusing on raising sheep. The Fielding Garr Ranch became one of the most industrialized and largest sheep ranching operations in the western United States. A failing wool market in the 1950s caused a shift in focus on the ranch. Sheep were dropped in favor of cattle. The cattle ranch worked as one of the largest cattle operations in Utah until 1984 when the ranch was sold to the state to go with 2,000 acres (810 ha) of the island that had been purchased by the state in 1969. The last herds of cattle were removed from the island in 1984 after an extremely snowy winter that caused the death by starvation of about 350 heifers and calves. The meltwater from the heavy snows flooded the causeway, limiting access to the island. Ranchers resorted to hiring barges and making multiple trips from shore to island to salvage their stock.
caption: A view of the ranch
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