Hyde Well

Lincoln County

AKA: Hyde's Sheep Camp

Research sources were extremely limited on this site... The Hyde's were large-scale sheepherders in this part of Lincoln County. There are tiny pieces of information about them operating in this area in the 1890's and early 1900's. It appears that their main base of activity was south of here in Camp Valley. This site at Hyde Well appears to have been a rural sheep camp that was part of the larger operation. The Pioche Weekly Record published a story on January 26, 1899: "Wm. Bell an old resident of Pioche came in Saturday morning from the northeast part of this county from the Wells, found only about an inch of snow, until reaching the four- mile house. Location is 75 miles from Pioche, 17 herds of Utah sheep are in that vicinity. Hyde's sheep are doing well. Mr. Hyde has introduced 250 Shropshire Bucks from Salt Lake, the finest bred sheep in the country. The coyotes are very bad, killing five head of sheep in one night. Mr. Bell brought in the skins of two mountain lions that he killed; one very large, nine feet from tip to tail. Mr. Bell gave a very interesting account of life on the sheep range..." The article goes on to speak about how they planted an acre of potatoes and harvested 1,800 pounds. It was so successful that they planted other vegetable crops as well. Wm. Bell stated that they were eating really well at this camp. That is all that I was able to find on this very remote and long abandoned sheep camp.

Last Trip/ Road Conditions: April of 2010. We camped at Eagle Valley Reservoir. We decided to go to Atlanta through the Spring Valley, completely by dirt road. We found this place by accident. I don't recall any of the roads being bad. This is way out in the middle of nowhere. You really need to go prepared. It's 42 miles via dirt road just to Ursine/ Eagle Valley.

Sources: Pioche Weekly Record (Newspaper); Lincoln County Record (Newspaper).