People mostly visit Utah’s Mighty 5 — Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Zion national parks — to experience their otherworldly landscapes. Wandering amid the towering hoodoos and soaring arches, you’re transported to a world shaped not by news cycles and social media but by wind and water. Every year, millions of people take this deep geological dive, arriving back at the parking lot cleansed. 

It may seem silly, then, that this is a story about pie. But sometimes, after all that marveling, what you’re left with is a powerful hunger. And it’s with this dessert that Capitol Reef, the runt of the Mighty 5 with just under 1.4 million visitors in 2025, outdoes its more heavily trafficked siblings.

Nestled in the heart of Capitol Reef is a farmhouse that has been churning out fruit pies since long before many national parks even existed. At Gifford Homestead, visitors today can sample pint-size pies flavored with heirloom apples, apricots, cherries, peaches, plums and berries, made in much the same way they have been for decades.

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Where Capitol Reef’s traditions began

This desert bounty owes its existence to the Fremont River, a tributary of the Colorado River that has long brought water and nutrient-rich silt to the valley. As far back as 300 C.E. — and likely even earlier — the ancestors of modern-day Hopi, Zuni, Paiute, Ute and Navajo communities lived and grew crops in the area. Their fruit trees are among the most hardy in the world, and scientists today study them to learn about plant resilience in a warming world. 

In addition to the homestead, Dewey Gifford built and operated a small motel (to the right of the large wooden barn) for visitors to Capitol Reef National Monument in Utah. 

A photo of ’Tine Oyler and his daughters Cora, Clara and Carrie, who lived in Fruita, Utah, for several years.

By 1880, however, Mormon pioneers had arrived and established the community of Fruita, named in recognition of the thousands of fruit trees they too planted in the valley’s rich soil. For many years, only a small population inhabited the settlement, their families entwined over the years by hardship and marriage. The 1908 homestead housed a few of the families until a man named Dewey Gifford purchased the land in 1928. The Gifford family occupied the home for 41 years, leaving shortly before Capitol Reef became a national park in 1971.

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