The Grouse Creek Cultural Survey is a joint project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the Folk Arts Program of the Utah Arts Council, National Park Service, the Utah State Historic Preservation Office, Utah State University, and the Western Folklife Center. The survey was conducted in the Grouse Creek region of Utah primarily in July 1985. The project was a pioneering attempt at interdisciplinary research by historic preservationists and preservation-minded folklorists for the joint purpose of cultural preservation and was intended to be a prototype for other cultural surveys. As Grouse Creek fieldworker Carol Edison states: The Grouse Creek Cultural Survey was an attempt to field-test a methodology dubbed the "Integrated Cultural Survey" aimed at identifying, evaluating and eventually protecting both tangible and intangible cultural resources. . . . [T]he Grouse Creek project provided a concrete experience with the sometimes nebulous concept of 'cultural conservation.'"

Tom Carter, a folklorist working for the Utah State Historical Society Preservation Office, spearheaded the project, and together with Carl Fleischhauer, from the American Folklife Center, co-authored The Grouse Creek Cultural Survey: Integrating Folklife and Historic Preservation Field Work, which was the final product of the Grouse Creek Cultural Survey project. Working along with Carter and Fleischhauer were other professionals representing other organizations and fields of interest: Carol Edison, Director of the Folk Arts Program of the Utah Arts Council, and Hal Cannon, Director of the Western Folklife Center, conducted taped interviews and shot photographic images. Debbie Randall and Roger Roper, employed by the Utah State Historical Society Preservation Office, contributed additional photographic images. This six-person team was responsible for the fieldwork. It should be noted that a decade earlier, Verna Richardson, a resident of Grouse Creek, had conducted a number of taped oral interviews that were housed at the Utah State Historical Society Library. These interviews in part gave impetus to the idea of choosing Grouse Creek for a cultural survey. The original interviews are still housed at the State Historical Society, but copies of the interview transcripts are included with the original fieldwork materials gathered during the Grouse Creek Cultural Survey.

Most of the fieldwork was conducted from 2 July to early August 1985. The fieldworkers set up households in two locations and stayed in Grouse Creek at various times during that period. Thomas Carter, the project coordinator, acted as a full time fieldworker and was present for three weeks; Hal Cannon was present for three weeks; Carol Edison was present the first and third weeks; Carl Fleischhauer was present the first week; Debbie Randall was present for three weeks; and Roger Roper was present the second and third weeks. During October 8-10, 1988, Tom Carter and Carl Fleischhauer again visited the area and presented the published results of the survey to the people of Grouse Creek.

Along with the publication of The Grouse Creek Cultural Survey, other products resulted from this project. Debbie Randall produced a final report on architecture; fieldworkers Tom Carter, Hal Cannon, and Carol Edison delivered papers on their findings in Grouse Creek at the 1986 American Folklore Society meetings in Baltimore, Maryland.

Carl Fleischhauer helped with the introduction and initial description of the collection on its arrival at the Fife Folklore Archives in October 1988 during his one-and-a-half-day visit to the Archives. The inventory to the Paradise Valley, Nevada, Folklife Project Collection, written by Carol Stern, proved invaluable as an aid for creating this inventory [register].