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Mystery Photo 62 Revealed: Josie Morris's Home

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By Kurt Repanshek - July 28th, 2022

Josie Morris's cabin on Cub Creek in Dinosaur National Monument/Kurt Repanshek

For more than 50 years Josephine "Josie" Bassett Morris made this log cabin on Cub Creek home. Now part of Dinosaur National Monument, the cabin is the legacy of a woman who, during her 90 years, knew Butch Cassidy and lived a rough, rugged, and independent life.

Josie, who was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1874 and soon moved with her family to Browns Park, an area at the confluence of Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. It's said that while growing up here she came to know Butch Cassidy, Black Jack Ketchum, and other outlaws who bought beef and horses from her father.

In 1913 Josie set off to the Cub Creek area of present-day Jensen, Utah, to homestead. She built this cabin there and made it home until the 1960s. She broke a hip at her cabin in December 1963 and died from complications the following May, according to the National Park Service. She's been described as a bootlegger, and twice was tried, and acquitted, for cattle rustling.

Josie Morris Cabin, Dinosaur National Monument/Kurt Repanshek

Rear of Josie Morris cabin, Dinosaur National Monument/Kurt Repanshek

Though her cabin still stands, it's seen better days. Windows are broken out, doors missing. Still, you can easily get a sense of the hard life she lived. Walk a short distance to where she penned her livestock, wonder where she went to chop the wood to heat the cabin through the bitterly cold winters of the early 20th century, and guess how many times a day she walked to the creek for water. It's been said that she was the last living link to the Wild Bunch, the gang of outlaws led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Today you can easily drive up Cub Creek to visit her cabin and try to imagine life before we relied so heavily on electronics.

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