The mid-1920s saw the establishment of a small Ute farming community in the Allen Canyon area. Attempts to teach agricultural techniques by local whites, met with nothing but frustration on both sides. Formal education suffered also. The Utes requested a school be built in Allen Canyon but their bid for local education was unsuccessful. The majority of their children attended school at Towaoc, tribal headquarters of the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation just outside of Cortez, Colorado. Many of them were so unhappy, that in 1930, a private home in Blanding, later named the Ute Dormitory served as a first attempt to integrate Ute children into a white school. For eleven years, the dormitory functioned, but was eventually closed because of the expense, the start of World War II, and limited success. Other local attempts to integrate Utes into the educational system met with some resistance, but the seeds for future accomplishments were already planted and would bear fruit later.

Many Utes realized that their isolation in Allen Canyon was counter-productive, while others living on the outskirts of Blanding, wanted to have better lands for farming. Starting in the mid-1950s, families began to move onto White Mesa and form a community eleven miles south of Blanding. Frame homes arose out of the sagebrush, electricity arrived in 1964, and bus service delivered Ute children to the schools in town.