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Bluff Fort Visitor Center

Current Co-op

Free Admission!
Donations are greatly appreciated. The development of the site and its ongoing operation are made possible by your donations.

Open Daily
Mon-Sat 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Visitor Center / Gift Shop
Learn of the epic Hole-in-the-Rock journey.
Experience what life was like in an 1880's fort.
Gold panning and covered picnic area
Ice cream & homemade snacks
Restrooms

Winter Hours, November 1 - February 28
Mon - Sat 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Closed for Christmas, December 18, 2025 through January 2, 2026

Sundays
Visitor Center and concessions closed
Grounds and restrooms open

Within the Visitors' Center are audio-visual displays, a fully-loaded covered wagon, photos of early residents, and a gift shop. Upstairs you will find quilts, works by local artists, and a dance floor. Bluff Fort is comprised of family-sponsored cabins representative of those built before 1895. The oldest anglo-built structure in San Juan County still stands within Bluff Fort! Step inside a genuine Navajo hogan and Ute tepee. Visit the blacksmith shop, and climb aboard a covered wagon, or pull an authentic pioneer handcart.
Take a picture. Have a picnic.
Cabin with wagon

Visitors Welcome After Hours:
During off hours, buildings are closed, but visitors are welcome to stroll through the site, take a photo with a covered wagon or peek through the windows of the pioneer cabins. A memorial wall honors those who made the 1879-80 journey.

Our staff is ready to show you around and answer your questions.


Covered wagons

From the Past

Dec 9 1893 Harpers"Is it possible in any fertile spot in Utah, no matter how remote from civilization, not to find a prosperous band of Mormons? It might have been so before '79, but now we find many interesting settlements. One, a carefully laid out village, built on the bottom-lands of the San Juan River and the cliffs, is fitly called Bluff City.
I cannot imagine a finer example of Mormon enterprise than these two hundred people, with their wealth of cattle and horses, leaving good homes, and facing the dangers and hardships of an unknown country."
-- Remington W. Lane,
Harpers Weekly, December, 9, 1893.

Meet under Bluff Swing TreeCottonwood "Swing Tree," a favorite Bluff meeting place.