Capitol Reef National Park
Utah
Fruita

The Gifford farmhouse was renovated and refurbished by the Capitol Reef Natural History Association and the National Park Service.  The purpose of the site is to shed light on the early Mormon settlement in the Fruita Valley. The house portrays the typical simple makeup of rural Utah farm homes of the early 1900's. Besides the farmhouse, the Gifford Homestead includes a garden, smokehouse, barn, pasture, orchards, and rustic rock walls.

The original home was built in 1908 by a polygamist named Calvin Pendleton. He lived here with his family for eight years. The house had a shared front room/kitchen and two small bedrooms. A rope ladder accessed two upstairs bedrooms from the outside. The Pendletons also constructed the barn, smokehouse, and the rock walls near the house.

The second residents of the home were the Jorgen Jorgenson family who lived here from 1916 - 1928.  Jorgen sold it to his son-in-law, Dewey Gifford, in 1928.

The Gifford family resided in the home for 41 years (1928 to 1969). Gifford added a kitchen in 1946 and the bathroom, utility room, and carport in 1954.

The Giffords raised dairy cows, hogs, sheep, chickens, and ducks. They used the smokehouse to preserve meat that they used for themselves and sold. Interestingly, Dewey Gifford also worked for the Utah Road Department and then the National Park Service, to supplement his farm income.

They ate the potatoes, beans, peas, squash, lettuce, radishes, corn, and watermelons that they raised in their garden. The family also maintained orchards and grew a grassy grain called sorghum. They preserved fruit and vegetables for later use by bottling or drying.

Until an indoor bathroom and plumbing was installed an outhouse served the family, and water was carried to the house from the Fremont River. The house received electricity in 1948.

The Giffords were the last residents of Fruita. Dewey Gifford sold his home and land to the National Park Service in 1969.

The Blacksmith Shop in Fruita