A rudimentary livestock and agricultural economy blossomed. Most of what was not home grown or locally made came from the stores of either Moab (via the railroad running through Thompson) or from the towns of Cortez, Mancos, and Durango, Colorado. Wagon freighting to distant markets provided an extra income for locals, but created a shortage of manpower for the women and children remaining at home. In 1903 the Utah State Agricultural College in Logan established an experimental station in Verdure, and for thirteen years the station tested various types of dry-farming techniques and products suitable to the climate.

This information, along with the passage in 1909 of the Enlarged Homestead Act that provided 320 acres of non-irrigable land for a small price, encouraged an explosion of new farms carved out of the sagebrush lands north and east of Monticello. The establishment of small communities comprised of homesteaders--Boulder (1910), Lockerby (1912), *Ucola (1913), Summit Point (1915), Cedar Point (1916), Horsehead (1916), Ginger Hill (1917), Urado (1918), and Torb (1919)--supported the economic growth of the larger town like the spokes of a wheel linked to a hub. Even after the economic boom of World War I and during the Great Depression of the 1930s, farming remained a major local occupation.