Sheep Industry News July 2025

The Ranchers of Iron County M ike Clark gets emotional when he talks about trailing sheep off Cedar Mountain to the valley just west of Cedar City, Utah. He’s hold of them, every family acquired one or more to produce the wool that was needed to spin the family clothing. They were valued as high as thirty dollars a head.”

a fourth-generation rancher who likes walking in the footsteps of his ancestors and has vowed to preserve that path for his son and grandson. The problem is Main Street in Cedar City has changed a lot in Clark’s 62 years. Traffic where the street – which runs the length of the city – intersects I-15 on the city’s south side constantly backs up as motorists look to access Walmart to the west of the in terstate and several hotels to the east. The modern-day diverging diamond intersection that runs underneath the interstate is constantly jammed with cars, but the fall brings a new demand as a handful of sheep flocks head off the mountain toward winter ranges in the val ley to the west. While they can be hauled by truck to the moun tain each spring, fall snowstorms mean trailing the old-fashioned way is still the most reliable option for bringing sheep off the mountain. But a growing, non-agrarian population doesn’t always tolerate the inconvenience of thousands of sheep storming the busy intersection. “They’re trying to kick me out, but I’m not leaving,” said Clark. “Pretty soon we’ll be standing here wonder ing how we’re going to get from Point A to Point B.” The irony of the situation is that sheep called Iron County, Utah, home long before anyone in the state even knew what a car was. Cedar City’s biggest annual attraction is the Cedar Livestock Festival, which is dedicated to the sheep. Thousands of people line Main Street for a parade that culminates with a local flock. They cheer the animals’ arrival, and a day later curse their existence as they trail through the town’s busiest intersection. Half the roads in town carry a “Designat ed Livestock Trail” label, but that does little to stem the ongoing debate between city residents and the ranch ing families that built the area from nothing in the past century. “Sheep were first brought to the Cedar City area in November 1862 by the Willden family, who later moved to Beaver,” according to Utah Historical Quar terly . “They had ten head. As fast as others could get

Francis Webster – whose descendants still run sheep in the area – was an early leader in the town and regu larly shipped sheep and wool to markets in Chicago. He is immortalized with a statue on Main Street in a prime spot for watching the annual parade. But the substantial history of sheep in the area does little to resolve the modern-day conflicts. This is the story of three ranchers who are looking to preserve a bit of that history – as well as their liveli hoods – in Iron County. THE CLARKS Clark runs 6,000 ewes with his sister, Nancy, in a tra ditional Western range operation. He employs Peruvian and Navajo herders, as well as his son and others in the community.

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