The Jeremy Ranch Stone Cabin, in Summit County, is significant at the local level under Criterion A in the area of Agriculture for its association with the sheep-raising industry in northern Utah. The Jeremy Ranch was a large Salt Lake City-based, family-owned sheep enterprise that operated in and around East Canyon from around 1890 to 1963. Built around 1890 using locally-collected or quarried stone, the cabin served for many years as a shelter for ranch hands tending the sheep herds. It is the only surviving building associated with the Jeremy Ranch, whose mountain headquarters two miles to the south has been demolished. The cabin also represents the historic sheep industry in Utah, which underwent a transition from small-scale, pioneer-era communal sheep raising by Mormon settlers to much larger family-owned operations that ran substantial herds in the Wasatch Range east of Salt Lake City and the lower deserts to the west. Herding of the sheep through the Salt Lake City area twice a year impacted the lives of city residents and was noted in the press. In addition, their large numbers ultimately led to controversy over the negative impact the animals had in the city and upon its water supply due to erosion in the mountain watershed. The Jeremy Ranch Stone Cabin is also eligible under Criterion D in the area of Agriculture for its potential to yield information about the operation of a sheep camp during the decades when it was in use. Initial archaeological investigation has encountered a historic artifact scatter along with buried anomalies around the building. These appear likely to reveal more about who was living there and when and how the building was in use. The resource’s period of significance extends from circa 1890, when the Stone Cabin appears to have been built, to 1963, when the Jeremy Ranch was sold and its sheep herding operations came to a halt.
