The Adams House was built by Frederick Joseph Adams around 1895.
Adams was born in Parowan, Utah in 1870, and came to Bluff as a child with his parents in 1882. Adams married Agnes Allan in 1892, who also came to Bluff with her parents.
Fred and Agnes were married in c. 1892 and had three children over the next six years.
Adams did well in his business ventures. He owned capital stock in the San Juan Pool, a cattle cooperative, and in the San Juan Co-op. Adams also did placer mining west of Bluff, where he died unexpectedly of typhoid fever in November 1898.
The house was originally built as a trading post, but with Adams’ death, Agnes was left a widow with a family to support. She was unable to handle the work of the trading post, so she remodeled the house to make it a boarding house. A top story was added to the house to accommodate the roomers and boarders. As in many other houses in Bluff at this time, Nick Lovace was the rock layer.
The big, old house had eleven rooms. The first floor plan of the Adams house consists of five rooms. The front door opens into a large living room on the south side of the house. Behind it is a simple staircase to the second story and a small room, which was the pantry. Three rooms are on the north side of the house. The room at the front of the house probably served as a bedroom. Behind it is a room that may have been a dining room, and the third room the kitchen. The upper story had six bedrooms to serve as boarding rooms. The Adams family used coal and wood to heat the house. The family also had an artesian well for water.
Until 1989 there was a large, vertical crack in the exterior northeast corner of the house. In 1989, the owners of the house repaired the crack by dismantling the corner and rebuilding it, block by block, reusing the original sandstone blocks.
This house stands as a reminder that people do withstand even the most difficult times.