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Show Park Record Thursday, June 15, 1989 Page A3 ' -1 W V ' 1 J':, .: .r"w,,T, V rnme lime All you can eat Prime Rib Buffet $9.95 miu?xn .Z -ZTP-'n. Potato Jtno Sena Taylor Frank and Nadine Gillmor have posted signs (below) in an effort to protect their land from encroachment. Gillmors nurture life and land by SENA TAYLOR Record staff writer . Frank and Nadine Gillmor are in favor of locking up land. Maybe not in the sense that a Sierra Clubber or an Earth First! activist might be (in terms of ' designating wilderness), but in the sense of keeping development to itself and letting open lands remain open. The Gillmors are residents of Weber Canyon, about five miles east of Oakley. They live on a little piece of paradise, narrated by the Weber River and illustrated by the forest and fauna. It's a place where a passing elk or moose would think of napping, and where hummingbirds, humm-ingbirds, blue jays and orioles are as tame as most parakeets. The Gillmors call it home. But as owners of about 10,000 acres of land in four of Utah's counties, they can literally walk for days without reaching the borders of some of ; their properties. - They are ranchers by trade, although they're retired now and no longer have to entertain worries about feeding cattle in the snow or keeping predators away from sheep. That doesn't mean their lives are worry-free, however. As owners of so much land, they have a constant battle to keep development from encroaching, to keep property lines from "inadvertantly" being moved, and to keep the "public" from littering lit-tering and abusing it. That in itself is a full-time job. The Gillmor's labors can most recently be seen by area residents who spend their spare time in the hills between Park City, Snyder-ville Snyder-ville and Silver Summit. The land is criss-crossed by trails used by joggers, mountain-bikers and equestrians, on terrain varying from rocky hillsides and thick groves of scrub oak, to a grassy meadow called Round Valley. The land used to be open, but a straight and strong barbed wire fence now defines some of the borders of that private property, and signs erected by Frank and Nadine warn travelers that they are trespassing. . The land has been privately owned own-ed by the Gillmor family since the turn of the century, and for years, much of it has been open to public travel. But due to a combination of abuses to the land, from Utter to the theft of large quantities of quarry rock, the owners decided to make it impassable by vehicles since they can't watch it 24 hours a day. "We have ground all over, and we either have to patrol it or fence it," said Nadine. Frank added, "We don't care about people jogging or walking or riding their horses there-it's the destruction we mind. Why do they have to destroy it?" he asked. , Frank is angry that quarry rock has been stolen, and he's angry that scars made by heavy machinery, visible from Kimball ' Junction, are left on the hill. Other evidence of trespassers includes in-cludes gun shells left by target practicers who have little concern for others in the area, and dogs who chase the sheep that graze there for a month each summer. One time, Frank said the sheriff even had to uproot some marijuana that was being grown in a secluded place there. "The marijuana growers! hauled haul-ed in the water to grow that stuff!" said Frank. "You can have your land confiscated if marijuana is found growing on it!" Amidst these modern turmoils, the 71-year-old man can't help but recall Summit County in its early days, when cultivating a livestock business seemed to cause fewer headaches. If K: : S- NO TRESPASS I MS do not remove hocks (1 VIOLATORS RILL DE n r fill 1 Ml Yi tV jt.-. "Back when part of Park City was a red-light district, we didn't have any trouble over there with the livestock," said Frank, who would prefer "to have a rattlesnake in my back pocket than a developer." "Now Park City is a completely different story," he said with frustration, "and we've got ground going into the 20th century that was started in the 18th century. The public is taking over, but we still have to pay the taxes on it." The Gillmors cited frequent occurrences oc-currences when portions of their land were used without permission, not just by individual recrea-tionalists, recrea-tionalists, but by groups organizing bike races and other events. "If they would show some respect whatsoever, and ask if a bike trail would impose on us.. .but no, they never say a word to us, they just go and do it," said Frank. "I think it's really a sad situation when they put their ride any place thay want to go." Frank said he has "felt ignored ever since Park City started to grow." Nadine agreed. "You get tired after a while, and you start getting a little bit hard from it." The Gillmor's goals are to "preserve nature, and preserve what has taken three lifetimes to put together." Frank said, "I have been free all of my life, and God knows this is the best country in the world. I've lived outside always, and I've never seen the inside in-side of an office except an attorney's at-torney's office and I hate that. I don't think you can appreciate anything unless you have lived outside." out-side." Frank said he "hates to see the subdivisions" springing up across the county, especially in areas ill-equipped ill-equipped to handle residents. He used Weber Canyon as an example, citing land for sale that has no road access, no water, sewer or electricity. elec-tricity. "Any more development in this canyon absolutely needs a sewer and water system, or what you will have in the Weber River will be a sewer ditch. It's almost that now." Nadine added that title searches ought to be conducted prior to development to prove ownership, and lot-size requirements should be adhered to. She hates to see crowded crowd-ed development, and said, "You have got to have open space. People Peo-ple can't live side by side. They have to have trees and sound barriers bar-riers for healthy living." The Gillmors appreciate open space so much that they continue to buy land, adding to that which has been in the family since the Gillmor Brothers Livestock Company Com-pany was formed in the late 1800s. "I'm still buying property because I feel that raw ground is the only good investment," said Frank. "It stays right there. It doesn't depreciate, it only appreciates. ap-preciates. But you have got to hold it for a long time before you make anything with it." Making money with his land is really not a concern to Frank, however. He and two other family members hold all of family's original land, and he's added to his holdings. At present, he has land in several counties, in places such as Emigration Canyon, Farmington Bay, and the west desert between the International Center and the Great Salt Lake. He also owns land in Nevada. "I remember when I bought raw ground in Salt Lake County for $7.50 an acre. Now it's $50,000 an acre," he said in amazement. And in Park City, Frank can remember the days of depression when "you could have bought the entire Main Street for $10,000 if you had the " money, and now it goes for that per foot. People don't realize what it took to put this land together and hold on to it. It started from scratch and you didn't have a dime for it." Near Park City, Gillmor land transects areas of Prospector, Solamere, Highway 40 and the afore-mentioned Old Ranch Road area. The Gillmors perhaps feel most protective of the land in and around Park City, because it is in such jeopardy for development. The Rails-to-Trails proposal has drawn the ire of the Gillmors, because they feel public users will impact their adjoining lands more than the trains did. Frank said Rails-to-Trails proponents pro-ponents "figure they can push this 50-foot right-of-way without considering con-sidering that it bisects our ground. There are no fences in the plan, and you can't move livestock or keep dogs controlled without fences. And you can't control people. peo-ple. Do you mean to tell me that trail administrators are going to keep people on the right-of-way from Park City all the way to Echo Junction without fences?" he asked. ask-ed. That is just one of the Gillmor's pet peeves regarding development, and they figure that buying more land will help stave off encroachment. encroach-ment. "When you buy land, you stop development," said Frank. "Some say I'm from the old school of thought, but I've seen Park City when it was a mining town and all there was were the big dairies in Snyderville...that whole thing was a big meadow, and to me, that is the way I liked to see it. "Those condo roofs overlapping makes me sick," he continued. "The planning and zoning in Park City could be done a lot different and a lot better. Instead of crowding houses on half-acre lots, they should be on five or six acres." Nadine looks at Frank and sees that he has lived during the days of "the oxen and horses, to outer-space outer-space travel." She noted that as a young boy Frank used to spend the summer walking with his family's flocks of sheep as they grazed their way from the Salt Lake Valley to the foothills of the Uintas. "I've never done anything else but ranch," said Frank, thinking back to his childhood. Those were the times when the lessons he learned revolved around safely utilizing the natural environment; environ-ment; herding animals up Parley's Canyon to summer ranges along sun-filled pastures absent from today's to-day's roar of traffic on 1-80. However old, Frank believes the lessons he learned are still applicable ap-plicable today. "Learn to work and don't destroy the land," he said. "You can't mk w wnt"1 " IP Fridays and Saturdays 5 to 10:30 p.m. '"wurindjK- --"ran. Weekend nights at the Yarrow are the time to get a low prime rate on a meal that rates high with the whole family. Load up on all you can eat, including succulent Prime Rib, our tempting seafood special of the week, a tasteful variety of vegetable and potato dishes, and unique salads. All for just $9.95 Try our other Great Specials LUNCH BREAK ll a.m. to A p.m., Monday through Saturday. An exciting lunch special is in store at the Yarrow, always at one great price... $3.75 . SUNSET DINNER 4 to 6 p.m. daily. 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