Explorers John C. Fremont and Kit Carson observed several antelope on the island during their 1845 journey, giving Antelope Island its name and beginning its recorded history. Herdsman Fielding Garr built an adobe ranch house that is the oldest continually inhabited Anglo-built home in the state and the oldest still standing on its original foundation. The Mormon Church's tithing herd was kept on the island until 1871, and funds from this herd were used for immigration assistance to Utah through the Perpetual Immigration Fund. The island's only known grave belongs to Alice Frary, who with her husband George homesteaded there in the 1870s. The island's 600 free-roaming bison began with a herd of twelve bought by William Glasmann and brought by boat to the island by John Dooley and George Frary on February 15, 1893. In the 1930s, Antelope Island was the largest private sheep shearing operation west of the Mississippi River. The north 2,000 acres were acquired by the state in 1969 for a state park, and in 1981 the rest of the island came into state ownership, preserving the pristine condition of the largest island in the Great Salt Lake.