Grouse Creek

Grouse Creek is a small ranching community located in the northwest corner of Box Elder County, Utah.  It borders Nevada on the west and Idaho on the north.  Grouse Creek is 170 miles northwest of Brigham City, the county seat of Box Elder County.  One hundred-fifty of this distance is on Highway 30, and twenty miles are on gravel road.  Another access road out of Grouse Creek to the Tremonton and Brigham City area is 120 miles with 60 miles of gravel road over the Grouse Creek Mountains.  This road can be traversed in the late spring, summer and early fall.  Burley Idaho is approximately 75 miles to the north over mostly gravel road.
Grouse Creek is a peaceful little community where approximately 125 people live.  There is a small cooperative store, an elementary school which includes kindergarten to the 10th grade, a U.S. Post Office, a Box Elder County road shed, a Bureau of Land Management Office, and a new LDS church.  The Box Elder School District provides bus service to the students who are a distance from the community school.  The older students, 11th and 12 grades, must leave the community to attend their last two years of high school.
The people of the community are ambitious, progressive and above average ranchers.  Most of the heads of families make their living raising cattle and producing feed which is fed to the cattle during the winter months.  This is a fairly good ranching area where a good grade of beef cattle is raised.  The Grouse Creek and Goose Creek Mountains have native graasses for spring, summer and fall grazing.  Most of the livestock is fed roughage for four to five months during the winter and early spring.
The runoff from the surrounding mountains has only enough water for spring and early summer irrigation.  A few of the ranchers have dug wells for supplementary irrigation water.  There is a good supply of stock water from the springs and small streams throughout the spring, summer and fall grazing season.  The annual precipitation averages from 9 to 12 inches per year.  Frost free days are from 90 to 120 days.
Alfalfa and grass hay are the main agricultural crops grown in this area.  Wheat and barley are grown on a small scale.  Livestock markets are 75 to 170 miles.  Most of the livestock are trucked to markets in Southern Idaho.  Many calves and yearlings are bought at the different ranches on a price per pound basis, then shipped and weighed at the market scales.  Trucking such long distances is an added cost to the ranchers.
If an individual likes ranching and isolation, this is a good area to make your home.  The land values are somewhat depressed because of the isolated location, climate, limited business and medical facilities.  Hospitals, shopping centers, implement dealers, and other services are all 1 to 3 hours travel from Grouse Creek.  The small store does have some necessities such as work clothes, some groceries, fuel and motor oil and a limited amount of hardware. Raft River Electric Company at Malta, Idaho, provides electric power to the community.  Culinary water is provided by Grouse Creek Water Company, and telephone service is provided by Brothers Telephone Lines.