The Soward Ranch is located 14 miles southwest of Creede, Colorado, in what is historically known as Antelope Park. This 1300-acre ranch is certainly the gem of this Upper Rio Grande valley!
Daniel and Ellen Soward homesteaded the main portion of the ranch in 1886, over 134 years ago, before the city of Creede was formed. The ranch was originally a cattle ranch, selling beef and hay to the bustling boomtown of Creede. Seeing the potential of raising trout in the early part of the century, Dan started building lakes on the property to eventually raise and sell fish that would be shipped by train to restaurants in Colorado Springs and Denver.
In the early 1930s, Dan and Ellen’s daughter, Emma, saw the potential for recreational fishing and started building rental cabins. Margaret and her husband Howard continued that tradition, building additional cabins in the 50s and 60s and even remodeling a few of the original homesteaded cabins.
That tradition is carried on today by Margaret and Howard’s youngest son, Steve (who has built custom log homes in the Creede area for 20 years) along with his wife Kate and their three grown children Sarah, Mack, and Kelly. The whole family lives on and runs the operation today.
Soward Ranch Honored as a Centennial Year Farm
In 1986 a collaborative effort among then Governor Lamm, the Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado), and the Colorado Department of Agriculture created the Colorado Centennial Farms program to recognize the important role agriculture has played in our state's history and economic development
