Existing comment:
Ranching
Areas without enough water for profitable farming, like Pipe Spring and other small springs on the Arizona Strip, were used by Mormon settlers primarily for ranching. Pipe Spring quickly became a major Mormon ranching enterprise on the Arizona frontier.
"This is the best stock range in this Southern Country...west from here 30 miles or more is a sea of grass, and running north east from here thirty miles the same."
-- Edwin G. Woolley, Adjutant, Utah Territorial Militia, Pipe Spring - February, 1869
Church Ranching Systems
The Church created a system of tithing ranches. Each tithing ranch managed the livestock donated, or tithed, by Church members. This stock was used to support Church enterprises. Pipe Spring served as the ranch for the Southern Utah Tithing Office, which collected livestock from Fillmore, Utah in the north, to the Colorado River in the south. Dairy operations at Pipe Spring produced milk, butter and cheese for Church workers building the first Utah Mormon temple in St. George, completed in 1877.
The Church also created a system of corporate ranches. These were for-profit corporations, which bought and sold everything from livestock to agricultural goods. The Winsor Castle Stock Growing Company was the corporate arm of the Pipe Spring enterprise. |