The Mormon settlers who arrived here in 1888 found the cool climate more suitable to raising sheep and cattle than crops. Monticello lies at an elevation of 7,050 ft, just east of the Abajo Mountains. The small town is the seat of San Juan County (Utah's largest at 5 million acres). The town was named for Thomas Jefferson's home in Virginia, but the name is pronounced "mon-ti-SELL-o" instead of "mon-ti-CHELL-o" as in the East. The community derives its livelihood principally from sheep and cattle.

Topographers with the Hayden Survey found no white settlers here in 1874, and it is probably that a cattleman named Patrick O'Donnell, who built a cabin here in 1879 was Monticello's first resident. Monticello was officially founded in 1887, when the Mormon Church "called" five families to settle the site.

In 1892 Monticello was caught up in the San Juan River "gold rush." Prospectors disappointed with their luck, came north to the Abajo Mountains. Most of them found nothing. The following year two prospectors found placer gold in Johnson Creek, and soon gold ore was found at the head of the stream. News of the discoveries precipitated as rush. Three hundred claims were staked, but the deposit was soon exhausted and the "boom" collapsed.