Explore the Issues: Native Americans Wildlife and Sportsmen Oil and Gas Exploration Protecting the Past

Interview with Butch Jensen & Jeanie Wilcox Jensen Owners, Tavaputs Plateau Ranch Ken Verdoia: What are some of your earliest recollections growing on the Range Creek area? Butch Jensen: My earliest recollections is we, we were trailing cattle. My dad used to bring cattle down Range Creek, through the Wilcox ranch, through the canyon and come over into Desolation Canyon, so my earliest recollections are, you know, coming down there and of course it would be in the spring and you'd come up and over Horse Canyon and you start down the canyon, pretty desolate looking. And then when you finally start hitting the green fields, and then you finally pull into the ranch down there and it was just, of course you're a little kid, you remember everything, but it was just like coming into a Garden of Eden. I mean, you just came in there and the fields are green and you pulled into the yard and saw Budge and Pearl's home and Don and Jeanette's and, and Waldo and Julie. I mean, you pulled in there and the, the flowers, they just had flowers growing and they had a garden growing and the orchard was, of course it wouldn't be producing in the spring. But you know, had the huge orchard there and, and the lawns were all green and the ditch went right between the two homes there. And you know, we came in there and you're tired from trailing cattle and you're a little kid anyway, but, you know, we'd be playing in the ditch right in between the homes there and so it just was, it really was a special place to come into. Just really pretty. Ken Verdoia: Jeanie, it must have been a special place to grow up in. Jeanie Jensen: It sure was. Ken Verdoia: Tell me about it. What are some of your fondest memories? Jeanie Jensen: You know in my earlier years, it was just we had so much fun. There was always something fun to do, running up on the hillsides and, and up and down the canyon. It was a beautiful, beautiful place. Everybody lived down there; my grandparents Budge and Pearl, my parents Don and Jeanette, and my Uncle and Aunt Waldo and Julie. And we had the cousins and then my older brother, and we all lived there on the home ranch and you know, my grandpa and dad and uncle they done the cow work and, and my mom and grandma done the, had the most beautiful yard, flowers. It was just so fun in my early years. Ken Verdoia: It must have been hard work though for your dad and your uncle and your grandpa to make a ranch work. Jeanie Jensen: We really worked hard. Ken Verdoia: Tell me what kind of work they had to do. Jeanie Jensen: They had to put up the hay, do all of the irrigating in the summer, put up the hay and everything was, uh, you know, in the, in the fifties and sixties it was a lot of manual labor. They worked awfully hard made a beautiful showpiece. Butch Jensen: And course, they were living down at that ranch basically year round. But, and yet they were running cattle on this high country. So that's just twice as much work. I mean, you had to be down there and so every cutting of hay, you know, you had to be down there and put the cutting of hay and then you were up here in between times, fixing fence, scattering the cattle, somebody had to stay down there and irrigate the fields for the next crop of hay. It really was a lot of work. We have pictures of Jeanie's granddad, Budge, and it'd be in some of the early years of the 50's when they were there, and he's planting corn. We have the pictures and he's planting corn with a team of white horses. With a little thing, you know, I mean didn't have a tractor but probably had that planter there and it was just as easy to plant with a team. So, you know, they worked hard down there. Ken Verdoia: Jeanie, help a city kid understand when we talk about isolation. Just how isolated were you in those early years? Jeanie Jensen: Very isolated. Until the kids started school, we lived there year round and so during the winter months, when the roads were snowed shut, once a week a pilot from Green River would fly the mail in to my parents, Don and Jeanette, and grandparents, Budge and Pearl and my aunt and uncle and so it was the only communication beside the short wave radio system that my mom would talk on to get out. It was just a little radio that they could get the news and I guess music and so it was, it was wonderful. Ken Verdoia: Both of you and probably from your earliest memories have been living around this place that has artifacts and reminders people lived here a long, long time. Jeanie, you were telling us that it's almost part of your playground, to grow up with an awareness of that. Tell me how maybe your mom would pick you up and make those days memorable. Jeanie Jensen: Yeah, we would have so much fun. My mom and my grandma, they'd pack a little lunch for us and we'd head up the canyon or down the canyon and, and uh, we called it "Mokian" and it was just the fun getaway to get to go run up around the hillsides and look for arrowheads and uh, it was just, it was, we had so much fun. Ken Verdoia: But they also told you to be responsible when you did it, right? Jeanie Jensen: Oh, they did. They instilled that in us very young age not to get a rock and scrape on any of the rock art or you know, you didn't do anything destructive, you just appreciated it and it was just part of the canyon. It was, it was just beautiful. Ken Verdoia: Butch, you and I were chatting about just how many hands are now involved in the management of Range Creek. Very few people understand land issues and all that can go into it as well as you. It seems to me to be a pretty tall order to keep all those different interests happy at the same time it comes to managing a piece of land like that. Butch Jensen: Yeah, it just looks like it's going to be very tough. It is a significant find and yet the public's almost demanding you, wanting to get in there to see it. And because of the remoteness of the canyon and everything, how you're ever going to get, turn people loose in there? The roads are impassable a lot of times of the year, like this year. I mean, we didn't even get the roads open until about the first of June. People want to be in there the first of March. So yeah, I just don't know how you're going to manage it. I mean, if you just open the gates and turn them loose in there it's just going to turn into something similar to Nine Mile that's just been loved to death, and yet people want to get to see it. So it really is a problem how they're going to manage it. Ken Verdoia: Explain to me again, in a simple fashion, how this whole relationship on the mineral rights came to be, and where we stand today. Butch Jensen: The Wilcox's purchased the Range Creek Ranch from the Nutter family in 1951 and upon that purchase the Nutter Corporation retained half of the mineral rights and the Wilcox family got the other half of the mineral rights. Then when Don and Waldo split their summer ranch, they just left the mineral rights together, cause you never know, you know, it could've hit something up here on the mountain, you could hit in the canyon so they just stayed together on the mineral rights. So then when Waldo sold the canyon, he retained his mineral rights and of course we ended up with Don and Jeanette's mineral rights. So that's how it shakes out, is the Nutter, the old Nutter Ranch, Hunt Oil has half the mineral rights, Waldo has a quarter of mineral rights and we own the quarter of the mineral rights. They, they were never purchased with the purchase of the ranch. Ken Verdoia: Jeanie, I want to ask you a special question. If you look into your heart of hearts and say "Boy I hope all these different agencies and all these different interests can do the right thing." How would you, as a child of Range Creek, how would you define the "right thing"? Jeanie Jensen: Oh boy. You know, it just needs to stay the way it is now if at all possible, and it probably can't. But just the pristine beauty of it, you know, without a lot of commotion going on and, and, I don't know. It will be hard to see it change. Butch Jensen: You know, it's going to be hard to see it change. With that many people going there you just can't help but have impact. Up to the time that ranch sold, you could drive that canyon, you never saw a beer can on the side of the road. You know, you never see a gum wrapper. I mean, it was absolutely untouched. I mean, just the family driving up and down the canyon and you know, that would be about as heartbreaking as Indian stuff walking away. To drive down that canyon and see it thrashed, looted. And that's one of the beauty things of Range Creek, is it's just none of that stuff… Ken Verdoia: Butch, let me ask you a question on wildlife. People talk about Range Creek's potential for wildlife. It doesn't seem to be the same piece of ground it was back in the 50's and 60's, for wildlife and game hunting. Can you help us understand what might have happened over time? Butch Jensen: Well, the deer have declined here in the state, statewide. So it's been kind of a decline, you know, whether it's predators, over hunting throughout the state, I don't know. Predators is damn sure a problem. And then when the elk came in, it seems like the deer even left even quicker when the elk came in. Whether there's a little competition there or what I don't know. In the Canyon, the best hunting in the canyon was always right on the farms. With those green lush fields, that's what drew the game in. When they hunted in the canyon, that's where they were really hunting, was on the fields. The canyon and the side canyons really was very little game in there. Those lush fields is what really drew them in. And of course now, with nothing growing on the farms, there really isn't much game left in the canyon right now. Ken Verdoia: They say they want to make that a wildlife management area. Do you see that, returning to those glory days? Butch Jensen: I mean, anything, anything can happen but from the past what I've seen, that's what really drew the game in there was those lush fields, you know, just looks to me as an outsider looking in, short of restoring those fields or something to draw them in there, I think it would be pretty tough. Ken Verdoia: Jeanie, if a million people watch this, it's virtually certain that 99.9% of them never will put their feet on Range Creek, and that's probably a good thing. But if they should know one thing, one thing that is most special, what would that be? Jeanie Jensen: Oh, it was a beautiful place to grow up. I was very lucky. Butch Jensen: It's a beautiful canyon. Jeanie Jensen: Yep. From one end to the other and I'm very lucky to be able to be up here on the plateau looking down into the canyon. We were blessed.