"Lost Trail Ranch was established in 1877 as a way station and resupply spot along Stony Pass Road from the San Luis Valley to the mining camps of the San Juan Mountains. Located at an elevation of 9,800 feet along the Rio Grande, the way station served travelers until the early 1880s, when traffic declined after the first railroad reached Silverton. The area became a popular summer cattle pasture site before being developed in the early 1920s as a dude ranch. Since then the property has offered guest lodging and outdoor recreation while continuing to be used for summer livestock grazing.

First built in 1872, Stony Pass Road connected Del Norte to Silverton. It started as a pack trail and was gradually improved into a wagon road. It was the main route from the Front Range to the San Juan Mountains until 1882, when the Denver & Rio Grande Railway reached Silverton."

The Getz family—Wetherill descendants—owned and operated the ranch into the early twenty-first century. They built several new rental cabins close to the Forest Service road, and in 2011 they got the historic section of the property—including the barn and two older cabins—listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today the barn at Lost Trail Ranch is the oldest log barn in Hinsdale County. The Getzes still live at the ranch, but in the mid-2010s they sold the rental cabin business to a new owner.

Read more about history of the Lost Trail, Lost Trail Station, Stony Pass and the Lost Trail Ranch at Colorado Encyclopedia