Images of Hi Ute Ranch
Plaintive Kildere - Aspen Hope
A kildere spoke to me this morning,
'mid my mournful reverie
of thoughts of past, sweet times
when aspens blew their wistful tune.
Last night I saw the place -
my paradise of youth
where pines and aspens bent
on chill'd breeze.
'Mid fits and ravages
of mankind's swelling hunger
this place now fills with
unseemly scapes and structures.
The kildere's cries call back
my dispair o'er lost grace
and majesty of that once
peaceful wilderness valley.
Aspens whispering out my window
so long ago - of peace, still blow -
but who hears them? Perhaps,
one of Hi-Ute still can dream.
- Joseph Buchanan, 1997
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kildere
(from http://deseretnews.com/photos/a24bird.jpg)
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I lived on the Hi Ute Ranch in 1958 and 1959 when I was about 8 years old. I loved the place. In one of my recent visits to the area, I dispaired at the massive and ugly development that is going on there and I wrote this verse. The pictures above were taken recently, and in them I was able to find some shots that excluded the development. The whole area, including the Snyderville Basin has been highly developed.
The picture to the left is one of the only ones I have from that time, showing the row of pine trees leading up to the house we first lived in. I also wrote a letter to a friend describing the place (though I did not mail it).
The area where we lived was also called Gorgoza. Our phone number there was 595R2. A history of the start of Gorgoza can be found as part of The Utah Collections Multimedia Encyclopedia. The excerpt about Gorgoza follows:
GORGOZA* (Summit County) is two and one-half miles east of Parleys Summit. The area was originally settled in 1889 and named for Rodriquez Velasquez de la Gorgozada, a Spaniard who invested almost a million dollars in a narrow-gauge railroad. This railroad was supposed to be built as an extension from Park City* to Salt Lake City*. A representative for Brigham Young traveled to France to solicit the help of the Spaniard, who was promised that a city would be built and named in his honor. The project did not fulfill its planned destiny.
S11,T15S,R3E,SLM; 6,350' (1,935m).
Bibliography:
Writers' Program. Origins of Utah Place Names. 3d ed. Comp. and written by Utah Writers Project, Work Projects Administration. Sponsored and published by Utah State Department of Public Instruction. Salt Lake City, 1940.
Utah, A Guide to the State. Work Projects Administration. Comp. by Utah State Institute of Fine Arts, Salt Lake County Commission. New York: Hastings House, 1941
This Page Last updated: 27 April 2023