The story
Cisco began as a water and cattle-shipping stop on the Rio Grande main line and got a second wind from 1920s oil and uranium traffic. Diesel engines removed the need for water stops, and I-70's alignment finished the job — by the 1970s Cisco was a scatter of collapsing shacks that filmmakers loved (Vanishing Point shot here; Thelma & Louise passed through).
Since 2015 an artist has been buying and stabilizing the ruins as 'Home of the Brave,' running an artist residency and a no-clerk honor store among the debris — a ghost town with a population of roughly two and a genuinely strange, thriving second life. It is private property; look from the roads.
What remains today
Weathered shacks, the old store, rail-era relics, and contemporary art installations threaded through the ruins.
Questions from the field
- Can you walk around Cisco, Utah?
- Only the public road. The buildings are privately owned by the resident artist-caretakers, marked accordingly, and part of an active residency project.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Cisco — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Cisco's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 1437522
- — Grand County railroad-era records
- — Home of the Brave / Cisco artist residency (current owner)