Frontier Homestead State Park in Cedar City

Frontier Homestead State Park was created nearly 50 years ago by the residents of Cedar City. They decided that they were rapidly losing their history and wanted to do something about it. So they teamed with the state of Utah to create Iron Mission State Park, later changed to Frontier Homestead. We wish more communities had the foresight to do this.

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Junior Ranger Program

We loved this park. There were so many hands-on activities, and the Junior Ranger program is awesome. It costs $1 for the Junior Ranger program (prices can/will change), which we gladly paid, and all ages can participate, so our two year old was able to complete it. Kids need to complete as much as they can, and there is a lot inside the booklet to do including word searches, a scavenger hunt in the museum, and a lot of activities outside. It took us a long time, but we felt like it really helped us experience Frontier Homestead.

Museum

This state park really has two sections: the museum and outside the museum. The museum is filled with old wagons and cars. There are also displays about Cedar City and the printing press.

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The printing press area!
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There are lots of carriages and old cars inside.
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We liked the sleighs!

Hands-on Activities

Once you finish inside the museum, you can head outside. At each building or area outside, there is an activity. Here’s where the Junior Ranger stuff comes in handy. Keep track of the activities you do in your Junior Ranger booklet, but you don’t need to be doing the Junior Ranger program in order to complete the activities. Some of our favorites were:

Washing Clothes

Outside of any old Pioneer cabin, you could wash clothes just like a pioneer. You’ll do everything from scrubbing to hanging clothes on the line to dry. Our boys loved this!

We had to wash A LOT of clothes. Our boys loved this!
We had to wash A LOT of clothes. Our boys loved this!
Writing Postcards

There is an old farmhouse on the property as well. We went inside to visit and you could write postcards to send to someone about your trip to Frontier Homestead State Park.

Here's the home where you write postcards. You can walk through the entire house.
Here’s the home where you write postcards. You can walk through the entire house.
Packing for the trip west

We loaded a real covered wagon with boxes of supplies. Unfortunately, we got it so full that all five of us had to squeeze on to the front seat to make the trek west (there is a small version inside)!

This was our favorite part of the state park!
This was our favorite part of the state park!
Roping

You can attempt to lasso wooden cows. Even though our boys could not get the lasso to work, they loved this activity!

It's hard to lasso those cows!
It’s hard to lasso those cows!
Panning for Gold

Despite our two year old drenching himself, this was a fun station for the boys as they tried to find small gold rocks.

The boys loved this activity, too!
The boys loved this activity, too!

There were also other activities such as creating your own brand, building with Lincoln logs, and pushing the stone to grind rocks. There are also other historic buildings to visit such as a sheep barn, a mill, a fort, and other small cabins.

There is a lot to see and do at this state park.
There is a lot to see and do at this state park.

We spent a LOT longer at Frontier Homestead State Park than we had expected. We were thoroughly impressed with how well they have set up this park for children to enjoy. Our boys were very involved the whole time in everything and everywhere we went. And right out front is an old train car and an old mining tractor that you can climb in and explore–another huge hit with the boys! This is a very fun Utah State Park and all ages and families will enjoy visiting.

The old mining tractor is right out front and you can climb up and go inside.
The old mining tractor is right out front and you can climb up and go inside.
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We had a lot of fun pretending to head West!

Junior Archeology Day

We also happened to go on Junior Archeology Day which they host once a year. There were a few extra activities to participate in besides the regular ones like rope making, petroglyph coasters, and the chance to shoot a bow and arrow or slinging a spear with a prehistoric atl-atl. It was a lot of fun, plus there were cookies! We would love to go back for Junior Archeology Day again.

We made rope as one of the extra activities going on for Junior Archeology day.
We made rope as one of the extra activities going on for Junior Archeology day.

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This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Amber S Anderson

    We took the kids, this past weekend. Price is now $4/person for ages 8+. They also don’t have hardly any activities anymore, which made me sad. We got pictures though of them dressed up by the sleighs. You could also make an ornament to hang on a Christmas tree. They have quite a few photo oops to do. They have checkers set up in one of the houses. Thomas loved sitting in the wagon, but we couldn’t load anything into it. They also loved becoming a Junior Ranger.

  2. ad65shorty

    Oh, my gosh! This sounds so fun! We just added this to our list of activities the next time we go down that way!