Ben Mead remembers the days when there was a farmstead on just about every ranch along the 46-mile road that makes up Nine Mile Canyon. He made friends with all the kids in the canyon before his family moved to the town of Wellington so their nine children could go to full-time school. 

That was not how Mead, now 87 and the owner of Nine Mile Ranch, had planned to spend his time. 

“Just about as soon as school let out, or sometimes a little before that, I would pack up my horse and head up the canyon,” he says. At 14, Mead rode a dirt road more than 40 miles from his home in Wellington to the Nutter Ranch, where he would stay all summer with a family, hauling hay and branding cattle. “I enjoyed every bit of it,” he says. “I got acquainted with the canyon. We’d go find Indian rock art and we’d see it from horseback.” 

Nine Mile Canyon is famous worldwide for its Fremont and Ute rock art panels, some of which are pecked ‘petroglyphs,’ while others are painted ‘pictographs.’ The canyon, home to the Fremont people and a seasonal pass-through for the Utes, preserves prehistoric pit houses, rock shelters and granaries. It’s the most concentrated rock art spot in North America.

The “world’s longest art gallery” also recalls western expansion history. John Wesley Powell camped at the mouth of the canyon in 1871 and seems to have named it. Fifteen years later, a stagecoach road connecting Wellington in Carbon County and Myton in Duchesne County, was constructed by the renowned Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th Cavalry Regiment. Mead knew a descendent of one of these soldiers who grew up at the Nutter Ranch and went on to have a career as a Sheriff’s deputy in Carbon County. 

Natural gas extraction has been the canyon’s main industry since 2002. Most rock art panels are on gas company land and are open to the public. 

After he retired from the Plateau Mine, Mead ranched in the canyon on leased land, eventually buying Nine Mile Ranch when it came up for sale. He and his wife, Myrna, moved back up the canyon but kept their house in town. Mead had to go back to work for a while to make payments, but he has always felt that purchasing the ranch has been worth it. The Mead family runs cattle, grows alfalfa, and hosts campers at their on-site campground, restored pioneer cabins, and bed and breakfast inn. 

While many farms and ranches add public-facing businesses like RV parks as a way to offset income, the Meads started their RV park because Myrna thought it would be fun. After all, people driving the canyon were already asking to park on ranch property overnight. 

Myrna enjoyed her time in town as much as her time at the ranch, and the RV park might have been a bit of a social outlet for her. While Ben Mead was hooked on the isolated art of cowboying. “It didn’t take us long to realize that it was fun to meet people,” he says. Myrna passed away in 2023. 

When the traffic coming from gas company trucks kicked up excessive dust that threatened to damage the rock art, the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition formed and launched a campaign to pave the road and prevent gas wells from being drilled near the panels. The Coalition’s Fall Gathering is now Nine Mile Ranch RV Park’s biggest event of the year. This summer’s gathering includes tours of the canyon, live music, Dutch oven cooking and booth vendors. The inaugural Rock and Coal Music Festival, was held June 11-13.  

Local lore abounds in the canyon. Locals remember the Whitmore Ranch as the place where Butch Cassidy could leave tired horses and pick up fresh ones on his way to Robber’s Roost — with Mr. Whitmore’s blessing.

Mead’s ranch started out as the Al Thompson property, whose cabin still stands as one of the rentals. When Neldon Powell, a descendant, died, he was buried in a cemetery in Price, but that didn’t sit right with his boys. After a night of drinking and discussion, they drove to Price, dug up their father, brought him home to Nine Mile and buried him on the hill behind the cabin. 

Mead remembers one of the Powell boys telling him they didn’t know that grave robbing was a crime, and they almost went to prison for it. An understanding judge said that if the boys could create a proper cemetery, they could leave their father where he lay, and so to this day Neldon Powell is interred on a fenced hill above the main lodge. 

Carla moved home eleven years ago, trying to give her aging parents a break from the increasing work. “But Dad didn’t want a break,” she says. 

Mead adds, “This ranch has been my break.” 

At the campground, the Meads host archaeology and geology groups; airstream and motorcycle owners’ clubs. Carla offers rock panel tours when she has time, but also supplies a map and a self-guided audio tour to guests.

Like many Utah outposts, the owners report visitors from around the world, all wanting to see the famed canyon and get out of the sweltering city. At 6800 feet, it’s 10 degrees cooler at Nine Mile Ranch and always feels a million miles away.

Feature Image of Nine Mile Canyon and additional photos by Jack Sagen.