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Title: A History of Southern Utah and its National Parks (Revised)
Author: Woodbury, Angus Munn
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "A History of Southern Utah and its National Parks (Revised)" ***
[Illustration: The Great White Throne
_Courtesy U. S. National Park Service_]
A HISTORY OF SOUTHERN UTAH
and
ITS NATIONAL PARKS
by
Angus M. Woodbury
Copyrighted by Angus M. Woodbury
1950
[Illustration: A far-away view from Yovimpa Point in Bryce Canyon
National Park. _Courtesy Union Pacific Railroad_]
CONTENTS
The Indian Heritage 111-118
Habits and Customs 118-122
Early Explorations 123-130
Early Mormon Settlement 130-138
Pushing south into Dixie 138-150
Settlement of Zion Canyon 150-164
Kane County and Arizona 164-166
Indian Troubles 167-178
Expansion in Kane County 179-184
Zion Canyon 185-189
The Kaibab and North Rim 189-194
Modern Development of Zion, Bryce and North Rim 194-209
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Much of the material used in this study was gathered while the writer
was engaged by the National Park Service in Zion Canyon, and he himself
participated in many of the events described in the latter pages. The
foundation for understanding the historical background, however, was
laid during his early life in St. George and the surrounding region.
Expressions and opinions have been interpreted largely through that
experience.
The writer was acquainted with many of the early Dixie settlers, and
notes of interviews with some of these have furnished details otherwise
unobtainable. Personal letters also have filled in many gaps.
Additional source material has been obtained from the Office of the
Adjutant General of Utah, the Salt Lake Public Library, the libraries of
the University of Utah and Dixie Junior College, newspaper files,
published books, unpublished manuscripts, original journals or extracts,
records of the National Park Service, the United States Land Office and
in the L.D.S. Church Historian’s Office, Salt Lake City, the “Journal
History,” (a collection of extracts from journals and newspapers
arranged chronologically) proved to be a fruitful source of information.
This was supplemented by access to additional reports, publications and
records of the St. George L.D.S. Temple, compiled by James G. Bleak.
The writer is grateful to many for their encouragement, advice,
information, pictures, reading and criticism of the manuscript. He is
particularly indebted to Dr. H. E. Gregory, Horace M. Albright, Randall
L. Jones, D. D. Rust, H. L. Reid, J. W. Thornton, Zaidee Walker Miles,
J. Cecil Alter and Miss Marguerite L. Sinclair, Secretary of the Utah
State Historical Society. Further assistance came from William W.
Seegmiller, Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, Frederick Vining Fisher, Dr. J. K.
W. Bracken, Lawrence S. Mariger, Charles B. Petty, William R. Palmer and
Mrs. Margery Browne Cottam (granddaughter of Levi Stewart), as well as
the following persons who furnished source material through interviews
and written notes:
Hyrum Leany, Frank Foster, Joseph S. Snow, Leo A. Snow, St. George;
Chauncey G. Parry, Gronway Parry, Randall L. Jones, Richard A. Thorley,
Frank Petty, Cedar City; David Hirschi, John Petty, Mary Jane Stout,
Hurricane; James Jepson, Thomas Maloney, Virgin; James H. Jennings, Mr.
and Mrs. John Dennett, Arley Dalton, Rockville; Oliver D. Gifford, Edwin
M. Greene, John Winder, Walter Ruesch, Harold Russell, Springdale;
Marion Heap, Zion; Ezra Stevens, Mt. Carmel; William Wallace Adair,
Orderville; Nate Adams, Walter Hamblin, Lavina Johnson Farnsworth,
Thomas Greenhalgh, Brigham A. Riggs, Kanab; Mr. and Mrs. Peter Munk,
Manti; the late Anthony W. Ivins, Edwin G. Woolley, Jr., D. S. Spencer,
Howard C. Means, Lewis T. Cannon, Scott P. Stewart, H. S. Kerry, Salt
Lake City; Old George (Kaibabit Indian), Moccasin, Arizona; Tony
Tillohash, Frank Mustache, Tommy Mayo (Shivwits Indians), Santa Clara.
—_Angus M. Woodbury._
Utah State Historical Society
State Capitol, Salt Lake City, Utah
Vol. XII July-October, 1944 Nos. 3-4
Revised and reprinted, 1950
A HISTORY OF SOUTHERN UTAH
and
ITS NATIONAL PARKS
_By Angus M. Woodbury_[1]
[1]Angus M. Woodbury was born of pioneer parents in St. George, Utah,
July 11, 1886. His early education was obtained in the schools of
his native town and Salt Lake City, and he was graduated from
Brigham Young Academy, Provo, in 1906. Two years later he joined the
U. S. National Forest Service, and in the varied employments of this
work, gradually developed the dominant interest of his life, the
natural history of the West. For a brief season, 1920-21, he tried
stock-breeding on his father’s farm at St. George, but soon returned
to his major interest, pursued further studies at Dixie College, and
was active in the naturalist service of Zion National Park from 1925
to 1933. In 1928 he received his Master’s degree from the University
of Utah, and in 1931 his doctorate from the University of
California. He has been a member of the faculty of the University of
Utah since 1927, and has done much to develop and strengthen its
biological and zoological departments while keeping in close touch
with field work in Southern Utah. He has published numerous
monographs and studies dealing with the biota, fauna and flora of
the West, and has achieved national recognition for the scientific
accuracy of his reportings. His interest in the history of Southern
Utah has always been keen, and in 1931 he published in the _Utah
Historical Quarterly_ (Vol. IV, pp. 35-46) a study entitled “The
Route of Jedediah S. Smith in 1826 from the Great Salt Lake.” This
present work is a summary of data, most of which was accumulated for
use in his work as naturalist in Zion Canyon, but which has been
checked and elaborated since. In January, 1909, Dr. Woodbury married
Grace Atkin, descendant of Charles L. Walker, pioneer St. George wit
and poet. Together they make their home in Salt Lake City, and are
the parents of six children.
The Indian Heritage
Zion Canyon had already been carved half-a-mile deep in the brilliant
Navajo sandstone and most of its geological history had passed long
before the eyes of man beheld its glory. One of the world’s rare beauty
spots, lying within Zion National Park in southwestern Utah, it serves
as a striking example of the thousands of flaming gorges or red box
canyons eroded through millions of years on the edges of the plateaus
along the Colorado River in southern Utah and northern Arizona.
Prehistoric man came and left his ruins, relics and pictographs strewn
along the floor of the canyon, hidden under sheltering arches and
boulders, buried in mounds or etched on the faces of the cliffs. Myths,
legends and traditions played their part in linking the ancient
inhabitants with the modern Indians.
In spite of the fact that primitive cliff dwellers used to live in Zion
Canyon, the Indians of more recent date appear to have avoided it as a
camping ground. There seems to have been something mysterious and
foreboding in the gloomy depths of twilight and darkness that appalled
these semi-savages. So far as can be determined from both Indians and
early white settlers, the natives especially avoided the canyon after
sundown. O. D. Gifford, a pioneer of Springdale, says they never camped
above its mouth. They would go up the canyon in the daylight but
invariably would come back before dark.
E. C. Behunin, who lived in Zion Canyon from 1862 to 1872, says he never
saw an Indian come above Springdale, and although his father tried to
induce Indians to work for him, they could never be persuaded to venture
into the upper part of the canyon. John Dennett, who farmed in Zion for
many years after 1875, says the Indians never raised crops in Zion,
except the little they did for the white settlers; and that they were
very superstitious about the canyon. Other early settlers add the same
testimony.
Tony Tillohash, an educated Shivwits Indian, says an Indian would not
dare go alone into Zion Canyon. The solitary traveler might be killed
without warning. Kai-ne-sava was not the main spirit in the supernatural
hierarchy of the Paiute, an honor reserved for the Wolf-god, variously
rendered as Shin-na′-wav or Sin-na′-wava. Rather, Kai-ne-sava was a
mysterious being of changeable moods. There was no assurance of his
friendship and he had to be propitiated. He might whistle or yell at any
moment while remaining invisible. Again, he might reveal himself in the
distance in human form and then disappear when approached. His movement
might stir up a whirlwind of dust and then trail away into nothing.
Sometimes he built fires (lightning) on the West Temple or other places
inaccessible to human beings. The smoke from fires on the West Temple
could be seen for many miles in every direction. Kai-ne-sava then was
sending a message.
He pushed the rocks that fall down in Zion. His mood might be
capricious. If so, the Indians must keep out of the way. Then it was no
use to hunt, for Kai-ne-sava would frighten the deer before the Indian
could get close enough to shoot. Sometimes he would tantalize by taking
the form of a big buck deer with spreading antlers, and would hide and
jump out in front of the Indians with such great bounds that they could
not pierce him with their arrows no matter what their skill. On such
days it was better to go home.
Nevertheless, in a friendly mood Kai-ne-sava might be extremely helpful.
He could soothe the deer so they were not frightened and lure them where
they were easily found. Then the Indians could shoot their arrows with
assurance of killing. Such good fortune the Indians did not forget. A
bounteous kill they were willing to share with Kai-ne-sava. To show
their appreciation, little pieces of meat were laid out here and there
for him. When they returned, the meat was always gone, hence Kai-ne-sava
must have taken it.
Although Kai-ne-sava was fond of playing pranks, he was often kind and
pleasant. This is in marked contrast with another supernatural being who
was always at cross purposes and who caused the Indians no end of
trouble. This was Wai-no-pits, who lurked in gloomy shadows and was
always intent on evil. It was sometimes hard to distinguish between the
pranks of Kai-ne-sava and the evil doings of Wai-no-pits. There seems to
have been some confusion in the minds of the Indians. The one was to be
propitiated, the other avoided.
Wai-no-pits might visit a camp and bring sickness to it. He might cause
an accident or waylay the Indians with all sorts of dire calamities.
Wherever his presence was suspected it was best to run away.
The Wolf-god (Shin-na′-wav), on the other hand, was the friendly one.
There was no fear of him, but he was more distant and less distinctly
defined. There were legends connecting him with the past history of the
Paiute Indians and his influence was more or less mysterious. While his
friendly acts were to be appreciated it was not always possible to
distinguish his manifestations from those of Kai-ne-sava.
These supernatural beings, apparently, were not familiar spirits. Never
were they directly encountered. Their manifestations were veiled and it
was only by signs and implications that they could be interpreted.
Anything not clearly comprehended was likely to be interpreted by the
Indian as a manifestation of the preternatural. Zion Canyon was full of
mystery; it was a place where anything might happen, especially in the
shadows and darkness. The fear of Wai-no-pits or of Kai-ne-sava in his
austere moods more than offset the assurance of Shin-na-wav or of
Kai-ne-sava propitiated. Small wonder the superstitious Indian tried to
avoid Zion Canyon, especially when night had fallen in its awesome
depths.
The Paiute, himself extremely primitive, contributed not a little to our
culture in the way of an early knowledge of geography and routes of
travel, place names and a heritage of traditions. Most of the pioneers
explored these new regions and traveled new routes largely or partly
with the aid of Indian guides or advice. Without such assistance, the
explorers many times wandered from the proper route, lost valuable time,
and encountered dangers and hardships that could have been avoided.
Escalante tells us in 1776 that with proper Indian guidance he could
have covered in three days the Arizona Strip which in his wanderings
required ten. Geographical knowledge thus acquired wove itself into our
culture through personal contact, writings and maps that have since been
passed on from generation to generation.
Many Indian geographical names, anglicized or unchanged, have been
perpetuated in our nomenclature; for example, Toquerville, named for
Indian chief Toquer, Kaibab (big flat mountain or mountain lying down),
Kanarra (also named for an Indian chief), Shunesburg (an abandoned
village named for an old Indian who lived there), Parunuweap (canyon
with a swift stream of water), Kanab (meaning willow; there were many of
them growing there when the town was first settled), and Paria or Pahrea
(meaning a settlement and plateau). The name Mukuntuweap, pronounced
Mu-koon-tu-weap, without accent, is undoubtedly of Indian origin, but
there has been much dispute as to its derivation and application.
Originally applied by Major Powell to both Zion Canyon and the river
flowing through it, the name is now restricted to the latter. Some of
the early white settlers suggest that it means “the place of the gods”
or simply “God’s land.” This interpretation, however, seems to have no
real foundation. Both Indians and whites appear to be in complete
agreement that tu-weap means ground, earth, or place. It is the rest of
the word which is in doubt. William W. Seegmiller, who is familiar with
the Indian language, is of the opinion that it is named for a chief of
the Virgin River Indians named Mukun, and therefore simply means the
land of Mukun.
Old George of the Kaibab Indians pronounced it Mukoontau′-weap, with
accent on tau, and said it meant straight canyon. William R. Palmer,
also an authority on Paiute lore, concludes that there are two
possibilities: one, that it is derived from the Indian word yucca or
oose, muk-unk, the whole word muk-unk-o-weap, thus meaning Oose Creek
(or since the oose was sometimes used for soap simply Soap Creek); and
the other derived from Muk-unt-o-weap, meaning straight canyon. Major
Powell (September 12, 1872) says, “The Indians call the canyon through
which it [the river] runs, Mu-koon-tu-weap, or Straight Canyon.”[2]
Several of the better informed Indians on the Shivwits Reservation near
Santa Clara did not recognize the word Mukuntuweap. Tommy Mayo
pronounced it Huh-cut-u-weap, and said it meant red dirt, red country,
or place of red soil. Frank Mustache pronounced it Un-ga-tu-weap and
gave its meaning as red dirt. Tony Tillohash gave a different version,
pronouncing it huh-kon-tu-weap, meaning a big canyon.
The confusion is further increased by suggestions of other names. Frank
Mustache says the Indians called Zion Canyon, Un[k]ga-timpe pai-ave,
(unka or unga, meaning red, timpe rock, and pai-ave signifying a canyon
between mountains, the whole meaning a big, red rock canyon). Several
Indians referred to the Canyon as I-u-goon. Nearly all of them agreed
that Pahroos was the proper name for the Virgin River, meaning a swift
stream of rippling or turbulent water, bounding or foaming over the
rocks as it does in Zion Canyon.
The discrepancies are partly explained by the common Indian custom of
naming places from some striking local characteristic. Different
communities impressed by various facets of a canyon like Zion may have
given different names to the same thing. Some, remarking the resemblance
of the canyon to an arrow quiver, called it I-u-goon. Those who gathered
yucca root for soap may have referred to it as Muk-unk-o-weap. Those who
recognized Mukun as a great leader may have used the name Mukuntuweap.
Those who looked down from Cedar Mountain into the straight, deep canyon
of Zion, probably said Mukuntoweap. Others thinking of the high, red
walls could scarcely refrain from using the Indian term, unka or unga,
meaning red. Hence we have several variations of Unkatuweap, or even
Unga-timpe pai-ave.
The Indians encountered by the early white explorers were Parrusits
living in scattered bands along the upper Virgin River and forming one
of the dozen or more clans belonging to the Paiute tribe. This tribe
occupied the land lying west of the mountains and south of the high
plateaus of southern Utah from Pahvant Valley (Millard County) southward
to the Colorado River in Arizona and reaching westward into Nevada as
far as the mouth of the Virgin River. The Paiute tribe was one of five
belonging to the Ute Nation, occupying a vast territory extending to the
north and east.
The chief of the Utes, whose headquarters were in central Utah,
dominated the whole nation and was at liberty to come and go without
restraint throughout his domain and to levy such tribute as he desired.
The suffragan chiefs could do the same within their tribal limits.
Natural resources belonged to the community and no individual could
claim property other than personal effects, such as horses, arms,
wickiups and food supplies.
Each tribe had definite boundaries and members of one could not encroach
upon the lands of another without permission, else resentment might lead
to war. Each clan or community within a tribe also had a definite area
claimed as its own, the limits of which were settled by agreement or
war, and were clearly understood. Anyone entering foreign territory to
hunt or fish without permission was regarded as an illegal trespasser
and it was proper to make war upon him and even to kill him. Frequently
the whites got into difficulties by not observing these Indian laws and
customs.
When Indians of one group entered the territory of another, it was
obligatory for them to go through a fixed ritual to obtain permission to
do so. Once this ritual had been fulfilled the visitors were under
tribal protection and any loss or injury must be made good by the tribe.
Without such promise and protection, anything might happen. In
recompense some sort of gift was usually expected.
If, during times of peace, a tribesman injured or killed another,
satisfaction had to be rendered to the family, friends or tribe of the
victim. It was usually required on the principle of an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth, but occasionally other bargains were made. A
slain man’s relatives ordinarily demanded the culprit or a relative,
even though they sometimes had to be satisfied with a weakling, a
cripple, or an aged person of little value to the tribe.
The early settlers of Rockville discovered the weightiness of this
Indian law. One day in February, 1869, Tom Flanigan and Sam Green were
carrying express from Rockville to Pipe Springs, where they were met at
dusk by two Indians. Flanigan, thinking in his excitement that something
was amiss, shot one of them. The Indian was badly wounded and died a few
days later in spite of all the care given him after he was taken back to
Rockville. The Indians demanded that Flanigan surrender to be tortured
and killed in satisfaction. This was of course refused. A crowd of
Indians gathered and the situation was tense. The affair, however, was
finally compromised by delivering to the Indians an ox.
The Paiutes formed a sparse population spread out over a large
territory. Depending mostly upon natural foods and but little upon
cultivated crops, they were limited in numbers by the scanty resources
of this semi-arid or desert region. Their weakness made them a prey to
stronger marauding neighbors such as the Navajos. They were so poor they
could seldom pay the tax levied by the chief of the Ute nation and
usually gave children as slaves in lieu of other tribute. Failing this,
they were in danger of having their women and children stolen.
The Paiute tribe had a number of subdivisions or clans loosely held
together by the tribal government. There is a difference of opinion
about the identity of the tribal chief. William R. Palmer states that
the chief was the leader of the strong Com-o-its clan living in the
region of Cedar City.[3] There is evidence, however, that the Virgin
River Indians (the Parrusits) were dominated by a chief of the band
living on the Santa Clara sometimes referred to as the Tonaquintits.
Nearly all the historical data of the early settlement of the Virgin
River indicate that the Paiutes recognized this leadership and not that
of the Com-o-its. Neighboring clans included the Shivwits (Shebits) of
the Parashont, the Uinkarets of the Trumbull and the Kaibabits of the
Kaibab region, all occupying the “Arizona Strip” north of the Colorado
River.
The first historical references to these Indians were given by the
Spanish Franciscan, Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante, in October, 1776.
On the Pilar River (now Ash Creek), below Toquerville, near its junction
with the Virgin River twenty-five miles below Zion Canyon, he tells us
that his party found a well-made platform with a large supply of ears of
corn and corn husks which had been stored upon it. Nearby on a small
flat on the river bank were three small cornfields with very well made
irrigation ditches. The stalks of the maize which they had raised that
year were still intact. His journal records:
From here down the stream and on the mesa and on both sides for a long
distance, according to what we learned, these Indians apply themselves
to the cultivation of maize and calabashes. In their own language they
are called Parrusis.
The next day, October 15, after meeting some of these Indians, he wrote:
... they made us understand that they were called Parrusis ... and
that they were the ones who planted crops on the banks of the Pilar
River and lived down stream a long distance.
Still later, on October 19, when he met the Uinkarets Indians north of
Mt. Trumbull, Escalante remarked:
They told us that they were called Yubincariri; that they did not
plant maize; that their foods were those seeds, tuna,[4] pine nuts,
which are scarce judging from the few they gave us; and such hares,
rabbits and wild sheep as they could get by hunting. They added that
on this side of the river [Colorado] only the Parrusis planted maize
and calabashes.[5]
Habits and Customs
The Parrusits, notwithstanding their primitive agriculture, moved about
a great deal within their territory, as the exigencies of the season,
the food supply, sanitary conditions, or their relations with other
Indians demanded. They occasionally went into the high mountains in
summer to hunt or fish but returned at intervals to the valleys to tend
the crops. In the fall they went nut gathering among the pinyon pines of
the foothills. The winters were usually spent in the valleys.
Their wickiups were made upon a framework of poles lashed together at
the top in such way as to leave an opening for smoke to escape. The
poles, tied with sinew in the conventional tepee shape, were plied with
brush or woven willows and then covered with long strips of juniper bark
or with skins of rabbits. At one side an opening was left for an
entry-way. The fire was built in the center, leaving space around the
sides for eating and sleeping.
Camps were usually located on a mesa, hill or flat, so that water had to
be carried some distance from stream or spring. For this purpose, they
wove jugs with narrow necks from the limbs of the squawbush and
waterproofed them with pitch from the pinyon pine. Sinews were tied to
the necks of the jugs for shoulder or head straps. Basketry was
competent, but there is no evidence of pottery among them.
Paiute equipment for life was simple. Clothing consisted of a
breechclout for the men, and for women a brief skirt hanging from the
waist. These were sometimes supplemented by robes hung from the
shoulders for warmth, buckskin moccasins for the feet, and ornaments of
various kinds, particularly beads and feathers. They had no regular head
dress, but often painted themselves with a special red earth which gave
them a weird appearance. Breechclouts, skirts and robes were usually
made from rabbit skins. In order to have the fur both inside and out,
they would take a strip of fur and roll it in a spiral around a sinew or
yucca fiber. Many such strips sewed together with sinew thread made a
skin cloth from which clothing could be fashioned.
Hunting equipment consisted principally of the bow and arrow,
supplemented by stone skinning knives. Their arrows were shafted with
feathers and tipped with hard wood or stone points, small ones for birds
and small game and larger ones for war or big game, all held in place by
sinews. The shaft of the arrow was made from a straight limb or from
reed cane. Sinew was made by shredding the tendons of deer or other
large game. If arrows were to be poisoned, a concoction was made by
inducing a rattlesnake to bite into a piece of liver, letting it stand a
few days and then mixing it with crushed black widow spiders. Arrow tips
dipped in this were considered deadly.
The Paiutes used the rock grinder or metate and mano for grinding such
foods as corn, mesquite beans, and the coarse grass seed from which they
made bread. The meal was mixed with water to make a batter and was
cooked on a hot rock in the fire. The rock was first rubbed with clay to
keep the meal from sticking. According to one method, the batter was
made thin and poured over the rock in a flat cake. The heat from the
rock soon set the batter and the rock was then stood upright close to
the fire so the cake would bake on both sides. In the other method, the
batter was made thicker and put out on the rock in the form of a conical
loaf and coals were heaped around it.
Though the Indians raised corn, squash and beans, they lived principally
upon fish, birds, wild game, wild fruits, roots and seeds. The principal
game was rabbit and deer but occasionally antelope and mountain sheep
supplemented their meager fare, and any sort of smaller game was used
when obtainable. Hyrum Leany, who settled in Harrisburg in 1862, relates
how the Indians used to go hunting lizards and chipmunks (ta-bats
pa-shugi). The boys would tuck the heads under their belts and sometimes
would come home with a beltful. The chuckwalla lizards were regarded as
delicacies and the Indians had learned the art of removing them from the
crevices in which they puff themselves up until their sides are pressed
tightly against the rock, thus making it difficult to dislodge them. By
puncturing the distended lungs with a sharp hooked stick, they were
easily extracted.
To cook a small animal, such as rabbit or chipmunk, the Paiutes laid it
in the fire without any preliminary preparation other than the removal
of the skin, and the hot coals were raked over it. All parts of the body
were eaten and nothing edible was missed. Surplus meat was usually
dried.
Among the plants, grass seed was a staple article of diet. It could be
gathered in those days almost anywhere, though the grass has largely
disappeared since the advent of the white man’s horses, cattle and
sheep. The fruit of the cactus (tuna or prickly pear) furnished a food
mainstay in midsummer. In places where the yant (_Agave_) was found, the
young flower stalks were roasted barbecue fashion. This was a delicacy
designated as pe-ya-ga-mint, “a sweet food.”
Sugar was obtained in small quantities from the water willows and from
the reed cane (_Phragmites_) by cutting it when plant lice had been
working on it. As it dried, crystals of sugar appeared. This was
gathered by shaking off the crystals and using them as a delicacy.
Among the native fruits gathered in season were the wild grapes and the
sour squawberries of the stream banks in the valleys, the little red
ookie berries of the semi-alkaline flats, the weump berries (_Berberis
fremonti_) of the foothills, the sarvis berries (_Amelanchier_) of the
lower mountain slopes and the choke cherries (_Prunus_), strawberries,
and raspberries (_Rubus_) of the mountains. Pine nuts obtained from the
cones of the pinyon pines were a staple fall crop gathered in large
quantities and kept for later use.
It is certain that the Parrusits Indians raised crops by irrigation
before the whites appeared among them. Escalante, in 1776, remarked only
about corn and squash, but it is believed that they also raised beans
and probably melons. Their farms were located on small flats where water
could be easily diverted from spring or stream. Farming implements were
mainly sticks of various kinds, usually of ash, about three feet long
and three or four inches wide toward one end, with the edges sharpened
and running to a point. Ditches were hard to make and maintain due to
periodic floods. Cultivated areas were usually very small, five acres
being the maximum.
An old Kaibabits Indian named George graphically described the farming
operations thus: “Kaibab Injuns no raise’m crops. ’nudder Injuns
raise’m. No shovel, no hoe. Use’m stick; dig’m ditch; make water come.
Dig little hole over here, over there, all around; plant’um corn.”
The squaws performed most of the labor in tending the crops. The bucks
were the warriors and hunters. Harvesting the corn, carrying water,
gathering grass seed, grinding corn meal, making bread, making clothing,
all were squaw’s work. There may, however, have been a more equal
division of work than appears to us now, since the food supply and
safety of the home depended much upon the prowess of the hunter and the
vigilance of the warrior.
The simple personal equipment and belongings gathered up by an
individual during his lifetime were usually buried with him for his
spirit journey. Nothing of material value was passed on from generation
to generation; each had to depend upon his own efforts. Weaklings,
cripples, and the aged had a hard time. If they became burdensome, they
were usually abandoned and sometimes burned. St. George cattlemen at
Mount Trumbull frustrated an attempted burning as late as the nineties.
The Uinkarets had just left camp when the cowboys accidentally stumbled
upon it. One wickiup was left standing. The doorway had been fastened,
wood and trash had been piled around it and set on fire as the Indians
left. Inside, an old blind Indian named Waterman was nearly suffocated
when the cowboys released him. The Indians having abandoned him refused
to care for him further and he became a burden on the whites.
At the time of the white settlement of the Virgin River Valley in the
50’s and 60’s, there were perhaps a thousand Parrusits in various bands
along the stream with their principal camping places near Rockville,
Virgin City, Toquerville, Washington Fields and Santa Clara. These all
appear to have recognized the leadership of Chief Tut-se-gavits, head of
the Tonaquint band living on the Santa Clara Creek, and to have been
held together under regular tribal control.
G. H. Heap, one of the Argonauts, described the Paiutes in 1853 in the
following uncomplimentary paragraphs:
The Pah-Utah Indians are the greatest horse thieves on the continent.
Rarely attempting the bold coup-de-main of the Utahs, they dog
travelers during their march and follow on their trail like jackals,
cutting off any stragglers whom they can surprise and overpower, and
pick up such animals as stray from the band or lag behind from
fatigue. At night lurking around the camp, and concealing themselves
behind rocks and bushes, they communicate with each other by imitating
the sounds of birds and animals. They never ride, but use as food the
horses and mules that they steal, and, if within arrowshot of one of
these animals, a poisoned shaft secures him as their prize. Their arms
are bows and arrows tipped with obsidian, and lances sometimes pointed
with iron, which they obtain from the wrecks of wagons found along the
road. They also use a pronged stick to drag lizards from their holes.
Yearly expeditions are fitted out in New Mexico to trade with the
Pah-Utahs for their children and recourse is often had to foul means
to force their parents to part with them. So common is it to make a
raid for this purpose, that it is considered as no more objectionable
than to go on a buffalo or a mustang hunt. One of our men, Jose
Galliego [_sic_], who was an old hand at this species of man-hunting,
related to us with evident gusto, numerous anecdotes on this subject;
and as we approached the village he rode up to Mr. Beale and eagerly
proposed to him that we should “charge on it like h—l, kill the mans,
and maybe catch some of the little boys and gals.”[6]
The coming of the Mormon pioneers gradually upset the Paiute government.
The whites frequently settled on Indian camp sites and occupied Indian
farming lands. Their domestic livestock ate the grass that formerly
supplied the Indians with seed, and crowded out deer and other game upon
which they largely subsisted. This interference with their movements and
the reduction in the food supply tended eventually to bring the Indians
into partial dependence upon the whites.
Within a few years, farm crops and livestock brought to the whites more
food and clothing than the Indians had ever dreamed of. No wonder they
became beggars in the towns and thieves of cattle and horses on the
range. As long as the whites were in the minority, they used to feed the
Indians. In the words of John Dennett, an old settler of Rockville, this
“gave them an idea of some other kind of food beside grass seed and wild
game.”
As the whites increased and became strong enough to defy the Indians,
the attitude changed from one of fear to that of domination. Although
they continued more or less to feed the begging Indians, they soon put a
stop to thievery on the range, punishing it in many cases by death. This
transition was marked by bitter feeling and even by war between the
races. In time, it became increasingly difficult for the Indians to
maintain themselves.
Not only was their food supply reduced, but the whites also spread
strange maladies among the Indians. Measles and smallpox are known to
have been fatal in many cases. When Silver Reef, a mining town of 1500
people, was flourishing in the 70’s and 80’s it is known that venereal
diseases were spread among the Indians. Fatalities from disease and the
diminution of food supplies were undoubtedly heavy factors in the
drastic reduction of the Indian population. Of the estimated thousand
Parrusits living along the Virgin River in the 50’s and 60’s, there was
only one survivor (until his death in June, 1945), an old fellow called
Peter Harrison, who lived among the Shivwits Indians on the Santa Clara
reservation.
Among the neighbors of the Parrusits there remained in 1933 only about
seventy-five Kaibabits on a reservation at Moccasin, Arizona, some fifty
Shivwits on a reservation on the Santa Clara Creek, fifty miles to the
west; and about fifty Com-o-its in the vicinity of Cedar City. The
Uinkarets and several smaller groups are today entirely extinct.
Asked to account for this tragedy, the old Kaibabits Indian George
explained it this way: “When white man come, lotsa Injuns here; alla
same white man now. Injuns heap yai-quay [meaning lots of them die];
maybe so six, maybe so five, maybe so two in night. Purty soon all gone.
White man, he come: raise’m pompoose. Purty soon lotsa white man.”
Early Explorations
Zion Canyon was known to the Indians from time immemorial, but its
discovery by white men, so far as is known, dates only from the middle
of the 19th century. However, the series of explorations in this region
which finally led to its discovery cover the period of three quarters of
a century beginning in 1776.
In that year a party of Spaniards passed through the region and crossed
the Virgin River within twenty miles of Zion Canyon without knowing of
its proximity. This was the remarkable expedition led by Fathers
Dominguez and Escalante through portions of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah
and Arizona. The object of the expedition was two-fold. The Spanish
government desired a direct route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the
Presidio of Monterey, California, and the priests themselves had dreams
of founding new Indian missions in the unexplored territory beyond the
Colorado River. The governor of New Mexico furnished provisions, Father
Dominguez provided the horses and mules and Father Silvestre Velez de
Escalante was the diarist of the party.[7]
The expedition set out July 29, 1776 from Santa Fe, passing through
explored territory as far as the Gunnison river in southwestern
Colorado, whence it struck out into the unknown. The priests were
fortunate in finding a couple of young Ute Indians from Utah Lake, who
acted as guides and who led them safely across the Colorado (Grand) and
Green Rivers up the Duchesne to its headwaters and across the Wasatch
Range to their home on Utah Lake.
Obtaining fresh guides, the party proceeded about two hundred miles into
the deserts of southwestern Utah to Black Rock Springs near Milford,
heading for the Pacific coast. They had been longer than expected on
their journeyings. Fall was rapidly advancing. A snowfall on October 5
dashed their hopes of being able to cross the great Sierras still
blocking their path to Monterey. Provisions were getting low and they
were a long way from either Monterey or Santa Fe. Casting of lots
determined that they should go back home.
Instead of retracing their circuitous route, they determined to take a
short cut. They turned southeast, coming out of the desert that now
bears Escalante’s name, a few miles west of Cedar City. The high
mountains to the east forced them southward nearly a hundred miles along
the foot of the rough and rugged escarpment known as the Hurricane
Fault. This deflected them far from their intended course.
It was on this detour that they discovered the Virgin River and came
closest to Zion Canyon. The party left the vicinity of Cedar City,
crossed over the rim of the Great Basin at Kanarra and descended Ash
Creek, tributary of the Virgin. A short distance below Toquerville they
passed the three Indian cornfields with well made irrigation ditches, to
which reference has already been made, and reached the Virgin River at
the point where Ash Creek and La Verkin Creek joined it. Escalante
called Ash Creek the Rio del Pilar. The main stream of the Virgin River
above this point he named the Sulphur River because of the hot sulphur
springs that flow into the stream about a mile distant from the point
where the great Hurricane Fault crosses the river.
The party climbed out of the canyon alongside a volcanic ash cone or
crater standing north of the present town of Hurricane. While some of
the members of the party probably lingered to investigate the hot
sulphur springs, others went ahead across the Hurricane bench and
striking some Indian tracks, followed them out of the proper route and
found themselves in the midst of an area of red sand dunes several miles
in extent, sometimes called the Red Desert. This may be seen from the
road approaching Zion from either St. George or Cedar City.
The sand dunes made traveling very difficult and by the time the party
had plowed its way through and stood on top of a high bluff overlooking
the corrugated valley below, both the horses and men were so tired they
could scarcely make their way down the bluff to water at the site of old
Fort Pearce. Here they found a desert shrub, the creosote bush
(_Hediondilla_) and tamarisk trees (supposed to have been introduced
from the old world).
Here their provisions became exhausted, and from then on they had to
subsist largely upon horse flesh and such food as they could procure
from the Indians. The next morning, as they started on their journey,
they met a group of the Parrusits Indians who were living in scattered
bands along the Upper Virgin River, forming one of the dozen or more
clans belonging to the Paiute tribe, and who warned them that they were
headed toward the Grand Canyon at a place where it could not be forded.
After much persuasion they agreed to show the explorers a route by which
they could climb the Hurricane Fault and proceed eastward toward a ford
of the Colorado.
The Indians led them four or five miles up a narrow canyon along a
footpath that became so steep and ledgy that the horses and mules could
not follow. Perceiving this, the Indians fled and the party was forced
to retrace the rocky trail to the foot and press southward again,
crossing the present line into Arizona. They became suspicious that the
Indians were purposely misdirecting them.
That night they made a dry camp, and having neither food nor water, both
men and animals suffered intensely. Early next day they found water but
after traveling about twenty-five miles some of the men were so weak and
hungry they had to stop to rest. After ransacking their camp outfit,
they found odds and ends enough to satisfy their worst needs.
At this point they found a way to climb the bold face of the Hurricane
Fault. Hungry and thirsty, they headed for rough country to the
southeast where they found water after about eighteen miles. They also
found Indians from whom they procured some food. Again being warned by
the Indians of the great impassable Grand Canyon ahead they swung off
sharply to the northeast.
Continuing the journey, guided only by the vague directions given by the
Indians, the party spent several days during late October and early
November in crossing the Arizona Strip and southern Utah before they
found a ford of the Colorado, a few miles upstream on the Utah side of
the state line, since known as the “Crossing of the Fathers.” The
hardships of the party in traversing Northeastern Arizona and
northwestern New Mexico to get back to Santa Fe, however, are not a part
of this story.
The journey lasted from July 29, 1776 to January 2, 1777. It covered a
circuitous route through four states and the priests had been
pathbreakers in new and unexplored territory. One objective, the route
to the Pacific coast, had not been attained, but the other, that of
locating sites for missions, had been abundantly fulfilled. Many
possibilities were marked along the route, but apparently none gave the
Fathers more satisfaction than the prospects among the Parrusits Indians
on the Pilar River (now Ash Creek and Virgin River) who were already
farmers.
On finding the cornfield and irrigation ditches of the Parrusits,
Escalante remarked:
By this we were greatly rejoiced, now because of the hope it gave of
being able to take advantage of certain supplies in the future;
especially because it was an indication of the application of these
people to the cultivation of the soil; and because we found this much
done toward reducing them to civilized life and to the faith when the
Most High may so dispose, for it is well known how much it costs to
bring other Indians to this point, and how difficult it is to convert
them to this labor which is so necessary to enable them to live for
the most part in civilized life and in towns.[8]
The Spanish Fathers never fulfilled their dreams of missions beyond the
Colorado, but they explored an uncharted area, into which other
Spaniards followed. The records, however, are meager and information
incomplete about these later expeditions. Two other Spaniards, Mestes in
1805 and Arze and Garcia in 1812-13, seem to have penetrated as far as
Utah Lake and perhaps southward, but so far as is known, their trips had
little significance.[9]
Still later, other Spaniards developed the route from Santa Fe to the
Pacific coast which the Fathers had failed to do. Known as the Old
Spanish Trail, this passed northwestward from Santa Fe through
southwestern Colorado and central Utah and then southwestward to Los
Angeles. It crossed Escalante’s trail near Cedar City. But before this
route was developed, other explorers had opened the way.
After Dominguez and Escalante, the next pathbreaker of importance to
enter the region was Jedediah Strong Smith, a trapper and trader bent on
expanding his fur business. He was probably the first to finish the task
started by Escalante, that of finding a route to the coast, which he
traversed in 1826 and again in 1827. Smith’s epochal explorations, like
Escalante’s a half-century earlier, were circuitous in nature and his
first trip covered an area now embraced by four states, Utah, Arizona,
Nevada and California. The eastern side of his loop overlapped the
western side of Escalante’s and probably their trails coincided for
short distances where they crossed.
Smith belonged to the firm of Smith, Jackson and Sublette, which had
purchased General Ashley’s fur interests and was trapping through the
region southward from Montana through Idaho and Wyoming to northern
Utah. The summer camp or rendezvous of the firm was at Bear Lake near
the Utah-Idaho line and most of the trapping grounds were to the north
and east. Knowing nothing about the region lying south and west of the
Great Salt Lake, Smith fitted out a party of about sixteen men to
explore and trap the unknown region.
He left the shores of the Great Salt Lake, August 22, 1826, and
proceeded south and west to Los Angeles, arriving there late in
November. His exact course through Utah was long a matter of
controversy[10] but with the discovery, by Maurice Sullivan, of an
additional letter[11] written by Smith, the controversy was settled. It
now seems certain that he followed the route proposed by the author to
Maurice Sullivan (ibid.) from Utah Lake Southward to Sevier River in the
vicinity of Fayette, followed it up to the mouth of Marysvale Canyon,
and mistaking Clear Creek for the head of the river (evidently not
recognizing the stream coming through Marysvile Canyon), passed over the
divide at the head of Clear Creek and down by Cove Fort, south along the
west foot of the mountains to Beaver River (which he called Lost River),
on past the present site of Cedar City to the rim of the Great Basin,
thence to Ash Creek along the route Escalante had taken to the Virgin
River, down the Virgin to the Colorado River and across the Mojave
Desert to the Coast.
[Illustration: Sulphur Springs on stream called Sulphur River by
Escalante (1776). Adams River by Jed Smith (1826), and Rio Virgin by
the Spaniards (1840’s) emerging from canyon near Hurricane.
_Photo by U. S. National Park Service._]
[Illustration: Flood plain of the Virgin River at Grafton.
_Photo by U. S. National Park Service._]
[Illustration: Carvings by prehistoric Indians in Zion Canyon.
_Photo by U. S. National Park Service._]
[Illustration: Carvings by white men on a cliff two miles south of
St. George (below). Message below plant reads: Jacob Peart Jr. I was
sent here to raise cotten March 1858.
_Photo by U. S. National Park Service._]
Smith called the Virgin the Adams River in compliment to President John
Quincy Adams, although it was in territory then claimed by Mexico. At
the mouth of Santa Clara Creek, he fell in with a group of Paiute
Indians (his printed word is Pa Ulches, probably a misprint for Pa
Utches), who wore rabbit skin robes and raised a little corn and
pumpkins. He called the Santa Clara, Corn Creek.
On his first trip of 1826, he followed the Virgin River down through the
narrows below the mouth of the Santa Clara, a hazardous undertaking
since most of the channel is barely wide enough to accommodate the
stream. This would have involved much wading of the stream over shifting
quicksand, through deep holes and around giant rocks and boulders. On
his second trip, a year later, he avoided these narrows by going up Corn
Creek (Santa Clara) about twenty five miles, crossing over a pass to the
drainage into Beaver Dam Wash which he followed down to the Virgin,
rejoining his old route about ten miles below the narrows.[11]
These pioneering trips of Smith’s not only opened two new routes to the
Pacific, westward and southwestward, but his reports of his travels and
stories of adventure undoubtedly incited others to follow. One of these
was George C. Yount, who was in the mountains with Smith for several
months. Smith’s stories inflamed in him a desire to visit California. In
the fall of 1830, Yount joined a party organized by William Wolfskill at
Santa Fe for the purpose of reaching the coast. Coming up through the
corner of Colorado and eastern Utah, they reached the Sevier River,
probably through Salina Canyon, arrived at the Virgin River and followed
it down to the Colorado. The story of this trip was told by Yount in his
old age and the details of the route are not precise, but it appears
that his party must have attempted to follow Smith’s trail.[12] It is
probable that these explorations had a great deal to do with the
development of the Old Spanish Trail, then in its formative stages.[13]
Subsequently, the Old Spanish Trail became a regular overland route,
following the Sevier River nearly to Panguitch, then over the Bear
Valley pass to Paragonah, across the desert to the Mountain Meadows,
down the Santa Clara past Gunlock, over the divide to Beaver Dam Wash,
paralleling the Virgin River, across desert hills to the Muddy River and
thence across toward Los Angeles via Las Vegas.
By 1844, when Captain John C. Fremont of the U. S. Army came over the
route from the coast to Paragonah, this was a well defined trail, over
which annual caravans traveled back and forth from Santa Fe to the
coast.[14] Untold numbers of Spaniards may have traveled the route that
Escalante had tried vainly to find, leaving their impress along the way
in the Spanish names given to many of the important places, several of
which have persisted to this day. The names, Rio Virgen (River of
Virgins), Santa Clara Creek and La Verkin Creek, all probably originated
with the Spaniards, between the time of Jedediah S. Smith and John C.
Fremont.[15]
Fremont followed the route from the coast past Las Vegas and encamped on
the Muddy River after a fifty to sixty mile jaunt across the parched
desert, sixteen hours of uninterrupted traveling without water. The
Indians were numerous and insulting, evidently intent upon raiding the
camp and stealing anything they could. Horses fatigued and left behind
the night before were found butchered the next morning. The party
remained in camp all day on May 5, 1844, to let their animals recuperate
from the hard trip of the day before. They remained constantly armed and
on watch. Fremont called the natives Digger Indians. They fed largely
upon lizards and other small animals of the desert. Many of them carried
long sticks, hooked at the end for extracting lizards from the rocks.
As Fremont traveled up the Virgin River, the Indians followed stealthily
in the rear and quickly cut off any animals that were left behind. While
encamped near the present site of Littlefield, Arizona, one of the men,
Tabeau, was killed by the Indians when he went back alone a short
distance to look for a lost mule. The party that went in search of him
found where he had been dragged by the Indians to the edge of the river
and thrown in. His horse, saddle, clothing, arms, and the mule had all
been taken by the Indians.
The two thousand-foot mountain gorge above Littlefield forced Fremont to
leave the Virgin and turn off to the north where he regained the Old
Spanish Trail which he had lost in the sands of the desert. Surmounting
a pass, he reached the Santa Clara and followed it up to the Mountain
Meadows where, he states:
We found an extensive mountain meadow, rich in bunch grass, and fresh
with numerous springs of clear water, all refreshing and delightful to
look upon. It was, in fact, that las Vegas de Santa Clara, which had
been so long represented to us as the terminating point of the desert,
and where the annual caravan from California to New Mexico halted and
recruited for some weeks. It was a very suitable place to recover from
the fatigue and exhaustion of a month’s suffering in the hot and
sterile desert. The meadow was about a mile wide and some ten miles
long, bordered by grassy hills and mountains.... In passing before the
great caravan, we had the advantage of finding more grass, but the
disadvantage of finding also the marauding savages, who had gathered
down upon the trail, waiting the approach of their prey.... At this
place we had complete relief from the heat and privations of the
desert and some relaxation from the severity of camp duty.[16]
After a day of rest (May 13) at the Meadows, Fremont pushed to the
northeast across the south end of the Great Basin until he reached the
Little Salt Lake near Paragonah. Here he left the Old Spanish Trail and
cut off to the north along the edge of the desert at the western foot of
the mountains. On May 20 he met a band of Ute Indians under the
leadership of the well known chief, Walker (Wah-kerr), journeying
southward to levy the annual toll upon the California caravan. Fremont
says, “They were all mounted, armed with rifles, and use their rifles
well.... They were robbers of a higher order than those of the desert.
They conducted their depredations with form and under the color of trade
and toll for passing through their country. Instead of attacking and
killing, they affect to purchase, taking the horses they like and giving
something nominal in return.”
Early Mormon Settlement
While trade between California and New Mexico was beating the path of
the Old Spanish Trail into a road across southwestern Utah, events
elsewhere were leading to the elimination of Spanish influence and the
rise of Anglo-Saxon power. The Mexican War ended Spanish domination, but
it was the Mormon migrations which were to fill the region with
settlements.
In 1847, the Mormons began to move west from the Missouri River to the
Great Salt Lake Valley. The precedent of Texas breaking away from Mexico
was before them as they traveled across the plains to enter Mexican
territory, where they would be free from those who had persecuted them,
and where they would be practically isolated from Mexican authority by
the barrier of the Grand Canyon. What dreams of empire held their
thoughts as they trekked across the plains can only be conjectured.[17]
Outposts, forts, and settlements were scattered throughout the vast area
they hoped to dominate. Western Colorado, southwestern Wyoming, southern
Idaho, Utah, Nevada, northern Arizona and southern California were all
included in their colonization plans. Strategic points throughout this
whole vast empire were to be occupied and controlled. The intervening
territory would be filled in later with the great number of converts to
the faith pouring in from Europe. The transfer of this entire territory
to the United States by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo exercised a
restraining influence upon their ambitions and brought them once more
under the hand of the Federal government.
During the first few years of settlement, there was little change in
governmental organization and the people were for the most part guided
and controlled by their religious leaders. In March, 1849, they set up a
provisional government for their proposed State of Deseret.[18] In 1851,
however, Congress carved this western empire into territories, paying no
attention to the proposed State and designating its heart as the
Territory of Utah (named for the dominant Indian nation of the region,
the Utes or Utahs). The Mormon dreams were thus dimmed, but they did not
finally die until 1858, when Albert Sydney Johnston’s army marched to
Utah and completely ended all hopes of an independent political unit.
Thereafter, the Mormon attitude gradually changed from one of open
opposition to one of conditioned loyalty and the long struggle for
statehood began.[19]
It was during the period of expansion and occupation that southwestern
Utah was generally explored with a view toward settlement. Late in the
fall of 1847, a small party under the leadership of Captain Jefferson
Hunt pushed to the Pacific coast to secure provisions and livestock,
carrying instructions to the Mormon Battalion members mustered out in
California to remain there that winter and not to attempt to come to
Salt Lake until Spring.[20] The party followed approximately the route
of U. S. Highway 91 from Great Salt Lake to Little Salt Lake, Iron
County, where it picked up the Old Spanish Trail and followed it to the
coast. Hunt’s men were the first Mormons to travel the route later known
as the Mormon Trail. Where they obtained information to guide them is a
question, but it is known that the Mormons were acquainted with
Fremont’s report of his trip along that route in 1844. There was an
important deviation from Fremont’s path, however; they went through
Scipio Valley and the pass to the east of the Canyon range of mountains,
whereas Fremont had gone on the west side. Further details of this trip
are lacking.[21]
The party wintered in California, where negotiations were entered into
between Hunt and United States Army officers for raising another
battalion of Mormons to garrison posts in California. When Hunt returned
to Salt Lake in the spring of 1848, he carried the details with him, but
no report of his trip is extant.
On September 17, 1848, while Brigham Young was visiting at Fort Provo, a
group of leaders gathered at Hunt’s house in the evening to “converse
about the southern country and the prospects of settling it.... Many
questions were asked in regard to routes, traveling, locations,
incidents, etc., and the prospects before the Saints caused quite a good
feeling.”[22]
During the late summer and fall of 1849, hundreds of emigrants on their
way to seek gold in California poured into the Salt Lake Valley too late
to make the trip westward across the Sierra Nevada Mountains before snow
blocked the way. There was little food and the Mormons were not eager to
have these people winter with them. The difficulty was solved by the
offer of Captain Hunt to pilot them across the southern route.
Altogether there were about 125 wagons and 1,000 head of cattle. The
Argonauts were a nondescript lot, everyone intent upon his own personal
problems and not actuated by a common ideal as were the Mormons. They
caused Hunt a great deal of trouble and even threatened his life over
certain details of the trip. Dissensions arose which split the party
several times. At last, near the rim of the Great Basin not far from the
Mountain Meadows, most of them left him for a supposed cutoff via
Walker’s Pass in the Sierras. Hunt, in peace, safely piloted the
remaining six or seven wagons to the coast. The party taking the cutoff
ended in disaster in Death Valley.[23] Captain Hunt stayed in California
more than a year and returned to Utah early in 1851.
In December, 1849, the General Assembly of the provisional State of
Deseret commissioned a company already organized under the leadership of
Parley P. Pratt, to explore the south and ascertain its possibilities
for sustaining settlements.[24] The expedition of nearly fifty men had
left on November 25. They pushed south during the cold weather via the
new settlement of Manti. Following the Sevier River to Circleville
Canyon, they turned up a defile to the southwest and followed it about
twelve miles north of the Spanish Trail over the mountains into the
Little Salt Lake Valley, December 21. Two days later they camped on Red
Creek (now Paragonah) where they paused to recuperate among the
excellent meadows, willows and bunch grass abounding there at that time.
Here it was decided to divide the party, some to guard the recuperating
cattle, while twenty of the men with horses and mules were to push the
exploration southward. Those who remained moved their camp to Birch
Creek (now Parowan) and while waiting explored the surrounding region.
Some went up Parowan Canyon where they discovered accessible timber,
plaster of paris (gypsum), water lime (limestone) and iron ore.
Between Jan. 2 and 6, 1850, a company of ten men explored west of Little
Salt Lake, where they found many Indian pictographs on the rocks. A few
miles west of the present site of Cedar City they came upon a “range of
hills filled with iron ore of the richest quality—probably 75 per cent.”
Four Indians visited them and when told that the explorers were Mormons,
they said ... “Captain Walker had told them about us, that we were his
friends. They said they were our friends and would not kill our cattle
or horses. Walker told them the Mormons raised Shaunt Tickup [lots of
food] and they wanted us to come and raise it among them. They said they
loved the Mormons. They are very poor and have no horses or skins. They
live upon rabbits which are plenty in their valley (now Cedar Valley)
and clothe themselves with their skins.”[25] This party of ten rejoined
the camp on January 6.
An exploring party of twenty went south on December 26, reached the rim
of the Great Basin at the present site of Kanarra two days later, and
then descended Ash Creek, as had Escalante in 1776 and Jedediah Smith in
1826 and 1827. They crossed the black volcanic ridge, probably camping
in the vicinity of Pintura. On December 31, 1849, Pratt summarized his
impressions:
From the Basin Rim 13 miles of rapid descent brought us to milder
climate and first cultivation [Indian]. A mile or so farther brought
us to the banks of the Virgin.
The great Wasatch range along which we had traveled our whole journey
here terminates in several abrupt promontories [Kolob, La Verkin and
Zion]. The country southward for 80 miles showing so signs of water or
fertility; ... a wide expanse of chaotic matter presented itself, huge
hills, sandy deserts, cheerless, grassless plains, perpendicular
rocks, loose barren clay, dissolving beds of sandstone ... lying in
inconceivable confusion—....
January 1, 1850, they continued down the fertile valleys of the Virgin
River as far the Santa Clara Creek. Pratt says:
The bottoms now expanded about one mile in width and several miles in
length, loose sandy soil, very pleasant for farming, extremely fertile
and easily watered and sometimes subject to overflow. No timber in the
country except large cottonwoods along the stream, sufficient for
temporary building and fuel....
The country below [to the southwest, where the river cuts through a
range of mountains] being of the most unpromising character ... and
our animals almost unable to travel, ... it was thought imprudent to
venture farther. We therefore turned to the north up the Santa
Clara.... The Indians were ... well armed with bows and poison arrows
and nearly equalling us in numbers. We fed them, sung for them.... The
chief made us a speech, bidding us welcome to his country.... He
strongly urged our people to settle with them and raise “tickup”
[food]. They returned again next morning, piloted us all day. We saw
no appearance of women or children among them. They cultivate small
patches only, raise good crops by irrigation. We gave them peas for
seed, presents of dried meat....
Following up the Santa Clara, they reached the new wagon road made by
Captain Jefferson Hunt and followed it over the divide into the Great
Basin, via the Mountain Meadows. Continuing on the Old Spanish Trail
eastward, they also discovered the iron ore in the range of hills that
the smaller party of ten had found a day or two previously.
Back at the base camp after they arrived, preparations were made for a
big celebration on January 8, 1850. Pratt further reported that a
liberty pole was erected, and a flag marked with “one star and a great
basin was hoisted together with a free soil banner.” A dinner was
prepared and “all sat down to a most substantial public dinner, being
the first celebration of the Peopling of Little Salt Lake Valley, which
we hope will be celebrated annually around that Spot, ’till a hundred
thousand merry hearts can join in the festival.”
The trip home was a hard one. They followed the west base of the
mountains, crossing Beaver Creek (Smith’s Lost River), where they camped
on the night of January 12. It continued to snow so hard that by the
time they reached Rock Creek (now Fillmore), they decided (January 20)
to winter there. Several, however, pushed on home, arriving about the
end of the month.
The information thus brought to Mormon headquarters was encouraging and
the early settlement of southern Utah was decided upon. The report of
finding large quantities of iron ore west of the present site of Cedar
City aroused considerable interest. During the summer of 1850 plans were
laid for colonizing the newly created Iron County, the seat to be
located at Center Creek, later called Parowan. After harvest in 1850,
colonists were called by the Mormon leaders to settle that region. The
“call”[26] in this case was published in the _Deseret News_ of November
16, 1850, and was a request for those listed to meet at Fort Provo as
soon as possible to organize the expedition.
The group formed in mid-December under the leadership of George A. Smith
and traveled south for nearly a month during the cold of late December
and early January over a wretched road, in many places covered with
snow. The leaders arrived at Center Creek on January 13, 1851, and
immediately set out to explore the surrounding country. The next day one
party explored Parowan Canyon, another party went up Summit Creek
Canyon, a third re-explored the Little Salt Lake, a fourth went up Red
Creek, while George A. Smith and more than twenty others went on
southwestward to the region around Cedar Valley and Iron Springs.
On the way they met Captain Jefferson Hunt returning from California,
and invited him to remain with them while his party went on to Center
Creek. Around the camp fire on the night of January 15, they discussed
the organization of a local government, appointed a committee to
nominate the officers needed and decided to hold an election on January
17. Convinced that Center Creek was the proper place to establish their
settlement, they held the election there as scheduled, and a pioneer
celebration was staged.
John D. Lee describes this event as follows:
At 10 oclock [a.m.], Thomas S. Smith, one of the judges of election
cried three times in an audible voice, declaring that the polls were
open and ready to receive votes.... At 3 o’clock [p.m.], at the sound
of the trumpet, the people assembled around the public dinner, each
man and his lady (that is those who had any) in their respective
places as follows: The judge was placed at the head, then the
gentlemen were seated on his left according to their rank and the
ladies on his right facing their partners. Previous to sitting down,
President George A. Smith, delivered an oration suitable to the
circumstances of the citizens of Iron County in celebrating the day on
which law and order was first established in that part of Utah. All
the citizens of Iron County then sat down upon the ground around the
public dinner spread upon buffalo robes; these were placed next to the
ground with clean and white table cloths on top upon which were spread
a variety of the refreshments of life.... At 6 o’clock the polls were
closed.[27]
Jefferson Hunt was elected representative. On January 18, after four
days “residence” in Iron County, he went on with his party toward Great
Salt Lake with his credentials in his pocket.
The settlers immediately set to work building a combined town and fort,
making roads to the mountains for timber, clearing land for cultivation,
digging irrigation ditches, setting up workshops and mills. On April
10-12, 1851, Parley P. Pratt, on his way to the Pacific Coast, passed
through the settlement and found it in a flourishing condition.
By May, coal had been discovered in Cedar Canyon and its value in
blacksmithing demonstrated. In the fall, after crops were harvested, a
group of settlers moved from Parowan to the present site of Cedar City.
The discovery of good coal deposits within a few miles of the iron ore
aroused much interest among the Mormon leaders. The prospects for the
development of an iron industry invited steps looking toward this. The
word was dispatched to their representatives in Europe. Apostles Erastus
Snow and Franklin D. Richards, then on missions in England, who
organized the Deseret Iron Company in Liverpool in the spring of 1852,
for the development of the Utah deposits.[28] Steel and iron workers as
well as coal miners among the English converts were encouraged to
migrate to Utah to help in the iron industry. Snow and Richards returned
to Salt Lake City in August, and in November, Snow went south to arrange
matters on the spot. By the spring of 1852, two foundries were in
operation.
E. H. Beale and G. H. Heap, California bound, passed through the
settlements, August 2-4, 1853. Heap gives a vivid picture of that early
life.[29] His party came by the Sevier River over the Old Spanish Trail
to Paragonah, Parowan and Cedar City on its way to the coast. Paragonah
had thirty adobe houses arranged in the form of a quadrangle to form a
fort. Outside the fort was an area of fifty acres enclosed by a single
fence and cultivated in common by the inhabitants, a practice soon
discontinued when the lands were divided into individual farms. The
Indian War under Chief Walker, which had broken out in July 1853,
farther north, had spread southward. Walker and his band had been
harassing outlying settlements and stealing cattle and horses. Brigham
Young sent one hundred and fifty men into action against him, declared
martial law and ordered the people to concentrate in large communities.
This order came to Paragonah while Heap was there. He says the
inhabitants quickly began to move. Houses were demolished, windows,
doors and furniture loaded into wagons, and they were soon on the road
to Parowan.
Parowan was similarly organized but was much larger, having a hundred
houses and a four hundred-acre field outside the fort. In describing
Cedar City, Heap states that it was a place of even greater importance
than Parowan, having extensive fields outside the fort abundantly
irrigated. He writes:
The inhabitants are principally foreigners, and mostly Englishmen from
the coal districts of Great Britain. At the time of our visit, the
place was crowded with the people of the surrounding country seeking
refuge from the Indians, and its square was blocked up with wagons,
furniture, tents, farming implements, etc., in the midst of which were
men, women and children, together with every description of cattle,
creating a scene of confusion difficult to describe.... Mounted men,
well armed, patrolled the country, and expresses came in from
different quarters, bringing accounts of attacks by Indians on small
parties and unprotected farms and houses. In face of these reports,
Walker sent a message to Colonel G. A. Smith, military commander at
Parowan, telling him that the “Mormons were d—— fools for abandoning
houses and towns, for he did not intend to molest them there, as it
was his intention to confine his depredation to their cattle, and that
he advised them to return and mind their crops, for if they neglected
them, they would starve and be obliged to leave the country, which was
not what he desired, for then there would be no cattle for him to
take.”[30]
The Indian war subsided in the spring of 1854 and the people were again
free to attend to farming and mining, although, as a matter of fact,
they maintained the military organization for many years thereafter, as
long as the Indian menace persisted.
Despite their precaution in maintaining a military organization, the
Mormons actually preferred a policy of peaceful penetration and directed
positive efforts toward that end. They sent missionaries among the
Indians, established missions among them, cultivated friendship with
those around the settlements and bestowed gifts and goods upon them. It
was easier to penetrate by feeding and friendship than by fighting;
moreover, this policy was in line with the teaching of the Book of
Mormon that the Indians (there called Lamanites) would be converted and
absorbed and would become “a white and delightsome people.” This Mormon
policy of keeping peace with the Indians smoothed the course of
settlement and improved opportunities for expansion.
At first the iron industry showed considerable promise, but technical
difficulties and the enormous cost of transportation without railroad
facilities prevented its expansion. Jules Remy, a French observer who
passed through the settlements in 1855, states that the mines, both iron
and coal, were being worked and the foundries were turning out about a
ton of pig iron per day. This was obtained from ore yielding 25 to 75
per cent iron.[31] With the development of railroads across northern
Utah, bringing in iron from elsewhere, the industry in the south
languished. It had served, however, to accelerate the settlement of this
region, and with its passing the pioneers turned to other occupations,
especially to agriculture and stockraising, the foundation of the
frontier communities.
Pushing South into Dixie
In the fall of 1851, a party pushed southward from Salt Lake City under
the leadership of John D. Lee with the intention of settling on the
Virgin or Santa Clara rivers. In this, they were to be disappointed, for
actual settlement had to wait upon a preliminary period devoted to
missions. Thereafter, during the period of settlement, the Mormons were
to maintain contact with the Indians on their southern frontier through
the agency of missionaries who were to shoulder the lion’s share of the
burden of advance exploration, keep in touch with Indian movements and
attitudes, designate routes of travel, report areas suitable for
agriculture and grazing and act as emissaries to the Indians in times of
trouble. This shift in policy is partly explained in a letter from John
D. Lee published in the Deseret News, Saturday, April 3, 1852:
Mr. Editor:
On the 4th of Nov. I safely reached the city of Parowan, without the
loss of an animal or the break of a wagon in the whole company. We
then cheerfully went to work with all our might to arrange our affairs
and situate our families in this city, that according to counsel we
might leave them comfortable, while we would go and select a site and
build a fort for our defense. The brethren that joined our company in
Iron County sold out their improvements in full faith of helping to
form another settlement south of the waters of the Santa Clara and Rio
Virgin.
The severity of the weather and failure of the mill caused a detention
of three weeks. The most of our wagons were loaded and ready for a
start, when I received a letter from Pres. B. Young, advising us to
tarry ’till another season, and thereby strengthen the settlements
already planted. The policy was doubtless good, however revolting the
disappointment may have been to my feelings; and past experience
admonished me that to hearken was better than to sacrifice.
The Kanyons were now blockaded with snow and ice, which rendered the
pass to the timber and poles difficult, if accessible at all for
wagons. Under these considerations, I felt justified to spend a few
days in exploring the country, believing that the time thus occupied,
would be more conducive to the spread of the cause of Zion in the
mountains, than to sit by the fireside, reading, or otherwise passing
off the time of an inclement season.
Chafing under this restraint, Lee determined to explore the country
regardless of Brigham Young’s advice, and on January 27, 1852, led a
party of twelve men,[32] with four wagons, thirteen horses and fifteen
days’ provisions, leaving Parowan for the Virgin River region. He
followed the route of the Southern Exploring Expedition down Ash Creek
but being burdened with wagons had to be more careful in selecting the
details of the route. Near the present site of Pintura he left the
wagons. Lee further reports in his letter of that date that:
... on foot and horseback [we] traveled down Ash Creek over sand hills
the distance of twelve miles which brought us near its junction with
the Levearskin River [LaVerkin].... Being unable to cross this stream,
we ascended one of these mounds, from which we discovered a stream
running a SW direction which we supposed to be the Rio Virgin; and
from the shape of the country, we concluded that we could take our
wagons to it: Feb. 2d, day, though in temperature more like May.
To the Grapevine springs 5 miles; these springs boil up at the foot of
a large sand mound and moisten about one acre of land, which is
completely interlocked with vines.... To the Rio Virgin River 5 miles,
mostly over yellow land; this stream is about 2 rods wide and 3 feet
deep, narrow bottom, shut in on both sides with low mountains....
[About 3 miles above Berry Springs.]
To the Otter creek 3 miles; stream 13 feet wide, 1 deep; abundance of
otter and beaver along these streams; as we descended this stream [the
Virgin], the bottom continued to widen out, and the amount of timber
increases affording land and other facilities sufficient in many
places, to warrant small settlements.... At the distance of 15 miles
from camp we found ourselves in one of the most pleasant, lovely
valleys that the mountains afford [Washington and Washington Fields].
It is about 5 miles in diameter. The soil is of a lively alluvial
nature; and of a dark chocolate color, and easily irrigated; banks of
the stream low. The climate is of a mild temperature; the sun here
rises without being hid behind the mountains so that its morning and
evening smiles are fully appreciated by the favored vegetation of this
valley.
Feb. 3d, the grapevines and cottonwood are almost leaved out; the dock
and other early herbs are in bloom.... This valley lies rolling to the
south with occasional springs of pure water breaking out at the
distance of from 1½ to 1 mile from the river, converting that portion
of the valley into a rich meadow and vineyard....
Two miles over a small range of mountains brought us in full view of
the Santa Clara country and valley. This valley is about the same
magnitude as the one already described: ... beautiful springs,
grapevines and meadows not excepted.
The Santa Clara river is 1 rod wide and 20 inches deep, pure, clear
water, rich bottoms, though narrow, and heavily timbered for the
distance of 30 miles. On this stream we saw about 100 acres of land
that had been cultivated by the Paiute Indians principally in corn and
squashes.... This tribe is numerous and have quite an idea of
husbandry. Through the day, we saw three of the natives who appeared
frightened and fled at our approach. I called to them in their tongue
and told them that we were their friends and would not hurt them; we
gave them some bread, and told them to pilot us to their peup-capitan
[big chief]; but fearing that six men might slay the nation, they took
us some two miles above their settlement where we met in council with
thirteen of their braves, who after an understanding of our business,
received us friendly and expressed a desire to have us settle among
them and be tue-gee-tickaboo, that is, very friendly....
From the Virgin the six men went up the Santa Clara to the California
road and followed it down to the Virgin below the Beaver Dam Mountains.
Lee and two others tried to make their way up the river to the mouth of
the Santa Clara looking for a short-cut, but were disappointed to find
the river flowing through a box canyon which Lee estimated at 4,000 feet
in depth (in reality about half that). The trip was a difficult one; it
rained incessantly for two days and they were often obliged to wade the
river waist deep and were three days without food. They returned to
Parowan on February 18. Writing to Brigham Young, March 17, 1852, Lee
says:
I am making ready to accompany you on your exploration when you come
along. I have been gathering all the information that I could from the
Spaniards and Walker [Indian Chief], and have taken a map from
them.... Sometimes I think I am more anxious about the formation of
new settlements south. But when I was there in the forepart of the
month of February and saw the trees putting forth their green foliage
and the herbs almost in bloom, the rich soil and abundant streams of
pure water, ... where we can raise cotton, flax, hemp, grapes, figs,
sweet potatoes, fruits of almost every kind ... I scarcely could
content myself to stay ... ’till another fall.[33]
In early June, 1852, the old Indian chief, Quinnarrah (Kanarra),
requested the Parowan leaders to go over to Panguitch Lake to visit the
Indians who had gathered there to the number of a hundred. J. C. L.
Smith, John Steele, John D. Lee and three others made the trip, going
eighteen miles up Parowan Canyon to the top of the mountain and
descending nine miles on the other side. They met the Indians, explored
the region around the lake, and garnered much information about the
country farther east on the headwaters of the Sevier River, into which
the lake drained. This information excited their curiosity and upon
returning home from their three-day trip, they immediately organized
another party to cover the region to the east beyond the mountains.[34]
This party set out on June 12, 1852 and included the following: J. C. L.
Smith, John Steele, John D. Lee, John L. Smith, John Dart, Solomon
Chamberlain, Priddy Meeks and F. T. Whitney. They went through
Paragonah, up Little Creek Canyon (now Bear Valley route) and down into
Panguitch Valley which they considered suitable for a settlement of
fifty to one hundred families who could engage in lumbering, as there
was excellent timber in the mountains nearby.
Two days’ travel up the Sevier River brought them to a place on Mammoth
Creek with abundant timber, grass and water, suitable for a small
settlement. From here they bent their course southeast to Fox Creek (now
Asa Creek), passed through Pleasant Valley (Duck Creek), over a ridge
into Strawberry Creek. According to the report of this trip written by
J. C. L. Smith and John Steele, they proceeded
... thence on to the mountains which lie low and level, so that a team
and wagon might be driven any place unto the highest mountains which
are entirely covered with pine timber. [The mountains between Midway
and Duck Creek east of Cedar Mountain].
We traveled three days among this timber which is of the best quality
and clear of underbrush; we then crossed again the divide and came
into Skull Cap Valley and creek [now Swains Creek], which is about 10
feet wide and one deep; thence up that 8 or 10 miles, and crossed
another ridge to the south, and came to the headwaters of the Levier
Skin [_sic_] [now Long Valley Canyon]; thence down the Levier Sking
[_sic_] about 50 miles. [To upper end of Parunuweap Canyon].
There can be a good wagon road got from the Sevier country to this
point. There are plenty of hops, and timber and handsome places for
settlements in the narrow but fertile bottom of the stream
[undoubtedly Long Valley].
We have now to leave the stream on account of the driftwood and
narrowness of the passage down through, and take to the mountains [to
the south over Harris Mt. Pass]; here the chance for a wagon road
ended and after considerable difficulty and winding around, we arrived
upon the Virgin bottoms [now Canebeds] within one day’s ride of the
Colorado. Here a number of Indians came to us, who told us that Walker
had told them of us, and they seemed very much pleased although
somewhat afraid at first. Brother J. D. Lee gave them a talk, which
pleased them very much, to think that we were not come to kill them.
These Indians are very smart, quick and active, almost naked, with
bright intellects. We then proceeded along, followed by our friends,
who would not leave us; showed us all the curiosities they could think
of, amongst the rest, a weed that will quench the thirst
[Bottlestopper, _Eriogonum inflatum_].
This is a fine country covered with verdure, although there are no
streams at this point, but it has the appearance of raining a good
deal. We then got some Indian guides, who brought us to the jerks of
the Virgin, Levier Skin [La Verkin] and Ash Creek [probably via
Hurricane] where we found a number of Indians raising grain. Their
corn was waist high; squashes, beans, potatoes, etc., looked well.
They had in cultivation four or five acres; their wheat had got ripe
and was out. I looked around to see their tools, but could not see the
first tool, only their hands to dig the ditches, make dams, or
anything else. The Piute chief made us a speech showing us their
destitute situation, without clothes or food. Brother Lee told them we
would learn them to work and raise breadstuff, make clothing, etc., at
which they were well pleased, and wanted us to come soon and make a
settlement among them. This point is some 30 miles above where Brother
Lee intends to settle. We then crossed over Ash Creek, took our old
trail, and soon arrived at Parowan being gone 12 days—having traveled
336 miles.
Sometime during the fall of 1852, John D. Lee and several others located
on Ash Creek, about twenty-five miles south of Cedar City, at a place
they called Harmony (near U.S. Highway 91, a few miles north of Ash
Creek bridge). John D. Lee wrote to Brigham Young, March 6, 1853,
describing the progress as satisfactory:
I have built six houses for my family besides helping on every other
building in the fort.... In the month of January, in company with
Peter Schurtz, I rode over to the Rio Virgen country (or Warm Valley
as the Indians call it); we found the climate mild and pleasant....
Brother Brigham, If it is not asking too much, please drop me a few
lines relative to your feelings of forming settlements south, and the
probable time of settling the Warm Valley that I may be ready to meet
your expectations.... Please make known thy will and with pleasure I
will try to obey it.[35]
At the October, 1853 conference in Salt Lake City, a group of fifty
families and missionaries under the leadership of Rufus C. Allen (who
had been trained in missionary work under Parley P. Pratt in South
America) were “called” to strengthen the southern Utah Mission and labor
among the Indians. The settlers left immediately but the missionaries
delayed until the next spring.
In the meantime, the additional settlers had strengthened Harmony and an
Indian school had been established. When the missionaries arrived, May
16, 1854, they found ten Indians in the school.[36] Brigham Young
visited Harmony on May 19 and while there inquired if a wagon road could
be built to the Virgin River. He was given a discouraging reply.
A few days later, a number of the missionaries under Allen, pushed on to
the south among the Virgin River Indians.[37] On June 5, they descended
Ash Creek and encountered a group of Indians near the present site of
Toquerville. They made friends with the Indian Chief Toquer (meaning
black, probably from the lava rocks) and bargained with him to send a
runner to the neighboring Indians to arrange for a meeting with them.
They moved on next day and met the other Indians at the present site of
the old Washington Fields on the south side of the river.
These Indians were in a surly mood and had hidden their squaws and
papooses; hence the Mormons were doubtful of their reception. However,
one of them hunted up a hidden papoose and gave him a small pocket
mirror which the child showed to the squaws. The trinket so pleased them
that they all came out of hiding and quickly made friends with the
whites.
The missionaries proceeded thence to the Santa Clara River by way of a
trail north of the present site of St. George. Here they made friends
with the Indians and laid the foundation for the establishment of a
mission. The remainder returned to headquarters at Harmony, but Jacob
Hamblin and William Henefer remained for some time on the Santa Clara
working with the Indians and visiting others farther upstream. They did
not reach Harmony until July.
On June 21, 1854, a party of six under the leadership of David Lewis
went west from Harmony to Mountain Meadows, down the Santa Clara and
thence back over the mountains. On the trip, they preached to the
Indians and baptized one hundred and nineteen into the Mormon Church,
advising them thereafter not to steal or fight, but to learn Mormon ways
of living. Two Indians were sent as messengers to the Muddy River
Indians in Nevada, “To tell them we would come among them if they wanted
us.”[38]
The settlers at Harmony found a better location a few miles farther
upstream on Ash Creek and during the summer of 1854 moved thither,
calling it New Harmony. They built a fort there that fall. The
missionaries in the Virgin and Santa Clara valleys found their
remoteness inconvenient; accordingly a settlement was made on the Santa
Clara where they could live among the Indians, and on December 1, Jacob
Hamblin, Thales Haskell, Ira Hatch, Samuel Knight and A. P. Hardy
established the nucleus of a permanent colony. Two weeks later Rufus
Allen and Hyrum Burgess left Harmony for Tonaquint on the Santa Clara
near its junction with the Virgin River where they built three log
cabins. The missionaries helped the Indians construct substantial dams
and ditches for diverting irrigation water. The first dam across the
Santa Clara Creek, built in 1855, was a feat which aroused much
enthusiasm among the Indians, five hundred of whom gathered to watch its
completion. When the dam (100 feet long and 14 feet high) was finished
and the water began to rise and run out, half on one side for the
Indians and half on the other for the whites, a great shout of
exultation went up from the dusky spectators.
The hard labor and poor nourishment which Jacob Hamblin had endured
brought on a spell of sickness. To procure medicines and proper food for
him, Gus Hardy went to Parowan. While there, Mrs. Nancy Anderson, a
southerner, asked him about the mission of the Santa Clara and learned
of the long, warm growing season. Believing that the climate might be
suitable for cotton, she gave him a quart of cotton seed which she had
brought with her from her old home. The missionaries planted the seed on
the Santa Clara and raised a crop during the summer of 1855. This cotton
was carded, spun, and woven into cloth by the women at the mission. Some
of this cloth was sent to Salt Lake City and aroused no little interest
there. Samples of the cloth even found their way into England and were
said to compare favorably with cotton grown elsewhere. This was the
beginning of cotton culture there, which finally led to the fuller
settlement of the “Utah Dixie” along the Virgin River, much as the iron
industry had led to the development of Iron County. Moreover, like the
iron industry, it answered a temporary need by supplying clothing when
it was impracticable to import cotton.[39]
A sad mishap occurred at the mission late in 1855, when a young Indian
living at the home of Thales Haskell, while examining a gun,
accidentally shot the missionary’s young wife, Maria Woodbury Haskell.
The death, naturally, cast a pall of gloom over the mission.[40]
The missionaries continued their work with the Indians and gained some
ascendency over them. This served a useful purpose during the next few
years in deterring or preventing Indian thievery and attacks on
travelers on the Mormon trail along the upper part of the Santa Clara.
Jules Remy, about to leave the Santa Clara on his way to the Pacific
coast (November 10, 1855) says: “There was a log hut there made by the
Mormon missionaries, who occasionally come to this place to teach the
natives farming.” Here a band of Indians crowded around Remy’s camp,
causing some alarm. Thinking to impress the Indians, Remy’s party
indulged in a little target practice and revealed some expert
markmanship. The Indians, not to be outdone, gathered in a line to shoot
at a target about a hundred yards distant. At a signal from the chief,
the arrows were released in unison and flew to the mark. Remy noticed
that even the youngsters were able to hit small birds flying close at
hand. The Indians were not intent on injury, but merely on theft, and
hoped by their numbers to distract the attention of the whites while
they pilfered the camp. The Frenchman, however, proved a match for
them.[41]
Another cotton crop matured in 1856. During that year there were further
accessions to the missionary colony and a rock fort was built. Though
the Indians as a whole were friendly enough, there was always danger
lurking and the fort was at least a symbol of safety.
In the spring of 1857, twenty-eight families (160 persons), mostly
converts from the South and experienced cotton farmers, were called to
go to the Virgin River to undertake cotton culture on a larger scale.
They were enthused with the prospect of a warm climate where cotton
could be grown and fondly referred to the Virgin Valley as “Utah’s
Dixie.” They arrived May 5, 1857, at the present site of Washington and
immediately set to work diverting water for irrigation, clearing land,
plowing and planting. Hopes of good crops were doomed, however, for the
cotton was almost a complete failure. Some became discouraged with the
location and scattered, a few families locating at Tonaquint on the
Santa Clara just above its junction with the Virgin.[42]
This failure did not kill the idea of raising cotton in Dixie, but
further experiments were necessary before the industry could properly
expand. In January, 1857, a small company had been fitted out in Salt
Lake City under Joseph Home to establish an experimental cotton farm on
the Virgin River. They arrived in early February and located on the
Virgin just below its junction with the Santa Clara. Dams and ditches
were constructed and land cleared and planted by May 6. The crop was
harvested and hauled back to Salt Lake City. The total cost of raising
this first crop, including all expenses of the trip to and from Salt
Lake City, was $3.40 per pound. A similar experiment the next season
reduced the price per pound to $1.90.[43]
In the meantime, other settlers had been looking enviously toward the
warm semi-tropical lands of the Virgin Valley. As early as 1854, Brigham
Young had inquired about the possibilities of building a road into the
valley from Cedar City, but the cost of construction over “the
black-ridge” barrier seemed prohibitive. In 1858, with the advice and
consent of Isaac C. Haight, bishop of Cedar City, six families moved
down Ash Creek and settled Toquerville. These included Joshua T. Willis,
John Willis, Samuel Pollock, William Riggs, Josiah Reeves and Willis
Young, all of whom had been attracted by the stories of cotton-raising.
The movement had already received considerable impetus and the Mormon
leaders desired more information about the possibilities of settlement.
Nephi Johnson, a young missionary among the Virgin River Indians, and
who had been Indian interpreter for many emigrant parties passing over
the Mormon Trail, was called by Brigham Young to explore the Virgin
River farther upstream and hunt for suitable places for settlement.
In the fall of 1858 he rode from Cedar City to Toquerville, where he
fraternized with the Indians and persuaded them to guide him up the
river. They led him over the Hurricane Fault which had hitherto blocked
progress of the missionaries upstream. He explored the upper Virgin
River and thus was probably the first white man to enter both Parunuweap
and Zion Canyons. He says in his autobiography that in September, 1858,
he went into the upper Virgin River valley as far as the site of
Shunesburg and reported that a settlement could be made where Virgin was
later built.[44]
He does not mention Zion Canyon, but his daughter, Lovina A. J.
Farnsworth[45] relates that her father often told her of visiting it.
According to her account, he followed the Virgin River with his Indian
guide and reached Oak Creek, above the present site of Springdale, where
the Indian stopped and refused to go any farther. Wai-no-pits, he said,
might be found up there in the shadows of the narrow canyon. But the
Indian agreed to wait there if Johnson insisted on going on, provided he
returned before the sun (tab) went down. It is not known how far Johnson
went up the canyon, but later, recalling his experience, he used to say
that there were places where the “sun never shone” because the walls
were so high and the canyon so narrow. He was gone much longer than he
expected, and when he returned, the sun was setting and the Indian had
his arm over the horse ready to mount and depart.
Back at Cedar City, Johnson was sent to found a settlement at Virgin. He
gathered a small group together and set out in early December. On the
6th, they began building a road over the Hurricane Fault below
Toquerville and drove their wagons into Virgin on the 20th, over a route
since known as the “Johnson Twist.”
In the fall of 1860, Philip Klingensmith led five other families from
Iron County over the Johnson Twist, and passing up the Virgin River
selected a spot two or three miles above Grafton where water could be
diverted for irrigation, and founded a settlement called Adventure
(between Grafton and Rockville).
In 1861, Brigham Young paid his first visit to the Dixie settlements.
Leaving Salt Lake City on May 15, he reached Cedar City about the 22nd
and followed the Mormon Trail westward to Pinto and the Mountain
Meadows, then southward down the Santa Clara Creek. He left the trail
where it struck over the hills toward the Beaver Dam Wash, and followed
the stream down to the Santa Clara mission, then comprising thirty-four
men, thirty houses and two hundred and fifty acres under cultivation.
Several orchards and vineyards were already producing apples, peaches,
apricots, plums, nectarines, pears, quinces, almonds, figs, English
walnuts, gooseberries, currants, and grapes of both Isabella and
California Mission varieties. The cotton crop and casaba melons were
flourishing.
[Illustration: The three Johnson Brothers. Seth (left), Sixtus and
Nephi, prominent in Southern Utah history.
_Courtesy of the Johnson Family._]
[Illustration: William Heap’s cabin in Zion Canyon in 1870, on the
west side of the river at the mouth of Emerald Pool Side-canyon.
Marion Heap on his father’s lap, his mother standing by the cabin.
_Photo by courtesy of Marion Heap._]
[Illustration: Silver Reef, famous Southern Utah mining camp, during
its hey-dey in the ’70’s. _Photo by courtesy of Mark Pendleton._]
[Illustration: Washington Cotton Mill (1866 to 1899), a reminder of
the Cotton Mission. _Courtesy Mark Pendleton._]
The next day he drove to Tonaquint at the junction of the Santa Clara
and the Virgin. This was the strategic point at which Jedediah Smith’s
two trips had forked in 1826 and 1827; where Parley P. Pratt’s exploring
party had turned homeward on January 1, 1850; and where John D. Lee’s
party on February 3, 1852, had halted in the exploration of the Virgin
River. After Brigham Young left Tonaquint, a settlement of twelve
families, he stopped his carriage near the center of the valley in which
St. George was later located. As members of his party crowded around
him, he seemed to envision the future. On his left, running north and
south, was a black ridge. Three miles to the east was a parallel black
ridge. Fronting him two miles to the north was a red sandstone bluff
running east and west, down the face of which were streaks of vivid
green vegetation marking springs or streams. The Virgin River behind him
made the fourth side of the square. According to Bleak, Young
prophesied: “There will yet be built between those volcanic ridges a
city with spires, towers and steeples; with homes containing many
inhabitants.”[46]
The party then proceeded up the Virgin River via Washington, Toquerville
and Virgin as far as Grafton. From here it retraced its steps to
Toquerville and then started homeward via Harmony, Cedar City and
Parowan, arriving in Salt Lake City on June 8, 1861.
The Cotton Wave
It was this trip to the Virgin River settlements that convinced Brigham
Young and other Mormon leaders of the wisdom of pushing the settlement
of Utah’s southland. The outbreak of the Civil War may have clinched the
argument. When it became apparent that the cotton supply from the
southern states would be cut off, the decision to advance the Dixie
settlements with a view toward cotton culture was strengthened.
By this time moreover, there was sufficient evidence from settlers and
the experimental farm to prove the practicality of cotton as a staple
crop. During the summer of 1861, plans were laid for more extensive
colonization. Heretofore, the settlements had been outposts of Iron
County. Now the region was to come into its own as a separate colony
with the central settlement to be located in the valley above Tonaquint,
and to be named St. George.
At the general church conference in Salt Lake City on October 6, about
three hundred families were “called” to the Dixie Mission to accelerate
the cotton industry. Many of these people were abruptly informed of what
awaited them when they heard their names read out, but most of them
responded with good will. The families were carefully selected in such a
way as to insure balanced communities: farmers, businessmen, educators,
carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, entertainers; all in the proportions
needed.[47]
The colonists got under way in November with Apostles George A. Smith,
Erastus Snow and Orson Pratt, as leaders. Towards the end of the month
the vanguard stood at the forks of the road west of Toquerville at the
parting of the ways up and down the river. The leaders had already
traveled upstream looking over possible locations, going through the
settlements of Virgin, Grafton, Adventure and up both forks of the
Virgin River into Zion and Parunuweap canyons, investigating the
agricultural lands along the way.[48] How far they went up Zion Canyon
is unknown. Erastus Snow later reported that ten miles above Grafton the
mountains closed in, leaving but a narrow gorge, through which the east
fork of the Virgin forced its way, allowing no room for the passage of
man or beast. His factual report indicated no wonder at the marvels he
must have beheld. The sense of awe awakened today by such inspiring
spectacles of nature’s handiwork appears to have been largely lacking in
the hard-working pioneers who spent all their energy in wringing a
meager existence from the wilderness.
At the forks of the road, the paths divided. A few went upstream with
Orson Pratt, but the majority went down, arriving in early December at
the site of St. George. Other settlements quickly sprang up along the
length of the Virgin Valley wherever water could be diverted for
irrigation. Thus the “cotton-wave” ushered many pioneers into the Virgin
River valleys and insured the growth of the area.
Settlement of Zion Canyon
The cotton migrations were the prelude to the settlement of Parunuweap
and Zion canyons. Because of a disagreement with Erastus Snow, Orson
Pratt did not go to St. George, but led his group over the Johnson Twist
up the Virgin River to the last outpost at Adventure (the lower end of
the present Rockville fields), arriving in late November or early
December, 1861. Here he paused long enough to gather information and
make plans for settlement.
Coming up the river, Pratt undoubtedly conferred with Nephi Johnson and
other settlers at Virgin, Old Grafton and Adventure. Members of the
expedition, of course, went scouting for themselves, but the advice of
Johnson probably led some of them to decide upon Shunesburg, where on
his visit in 1858 he had reported a settlement could be made.
Adventure was a small place with limited prospects for expansion but
just above it was a much larger tract of land requiring more extensive
irrigation. A townsite was selected on the bench high above the river,
and at a meeting held at Old Grafton on December 13, it was decided to
name the new townsite Rockville because of the many boulders along the
foot of the hill where it was located.
Of those who went up the river above Adventure, three families stopped
at the forks of the Virgin at a place afterward called Northrop, while
six continued up the Parunuweap four or five miles to the farm of an old
Indian named Shunes. They purchased the land for a trifling
consideration, but the price proved to be only the first installment,
for the old Indian continued to live in the vicinity for many years,
working and begging for food from the whites to add to his native supply
of seeds, lizards and wild game.
The settlers were hardly located when a stormy period began. They were
digging irrigation ditches and cutting timber for log houses, but were
still living in their covered wagons when bad weather set in. Rain
started on Christmas day, 1861, and continued for forty days. The Virgin
became a raging torrent and, at least twice, great floods washed out the
dams, filled the ditches, undermined banks, overflowed the plains and
despoiled valuable farm lands. On January 8, the flood inundated the
village of Grafton, the water rising suddenly during the night. As the
waters swirled around the wagon box home of Nathan Tenney, several men
picked it up with his expectant wife in it and carried it to higher
ground north of the river, where a son was born. He was named,
appropriately enough, Marvelous Flood Tenney.
After the floods subsided Old Grafton was abandoned and a new site was
selected on the south bank on a higher bench a little farther upstream.
The area was surveyed and laid off in town lots and fields. A new ditch
costing $5,000 was dug within the next year. The new townsite of
Rockville was similarly laid off into lots and fields during the summer
of 1862, and an irrigation ditch was completed in time for use during
1863. In the meantime the settlers at Adventure continued to cultivate
the land irrigated by their first ditch. At the forks of the river at
Northrop, a ditch was built by James Lemon and others to irrigate a
stretch of land below the junction of the two forks of the streams. At
Shunesburg, the town and fields were surveyed and ditches constructed to
divert the water from both Shunes Creek and the east fork of the Virgin.
The known settlers in Adventure included the following: Orson Pratt, Dr.
S. A. Kenner, John C. Hall, Henry Stocks, William Ashton, and Elijah
Newman. Those at Northrop included James Lemon, Isaac Behunin, and
probably Joseph Black. The following went to Shunesburg, all of them
having come together from San Pete Valley: Oliver DeMille, Hyrum
Stevens, Alma Millett, George Petty, Hardin Whitlock and Charlie
Klapper.
Whether anyone was located at Springdale at that time is debatable. E.
C. Behunin says that his father, Isaac, stayed at Northrop until after
the flood and then moved to Springdale where others had already located.
Nevertheless, it is the impression of several early pioneers of the
region that Albert Petty was the first settler of Springdale in the fall
or winter of 1862-3. It is related that he took his wife to the spot he
had selected beside some large springs and asked her to name it. She
called it Springdale. It is probable, however, that the lower Springdale
irrigation ditch was taken out early in 1862. It is also probable that
Joseph Black came with the main group in 1861 despite his journal date
of 1862, written in his old age.[49] His parents came in 1861 and it is
almost certain that he was with them. He is credited by three different
sources with being the first to explore Zion Canyon after the settlers
arrived, although he says nothing about it.[50]
When Albert Petty came to Shunesburg, he brought with him the rock
grinding stones for a grist mill. Not finding a suitable mill site at
Shunesburg, he and his son, George, moved to the newly surveyed town of
Springdale where they set up the mill that served as a public utility in
grinding the coarse flour for the settlers of the upper Virgin.
The fall of 1862 saw another influx of settlers. Another general “call”
for 250 men to go south was issued Sunday, October 19, and many others
volunteered to go to Dixie. Charles L. Walker describes the incident in
his journal:
Sunday, October 19, 1862.... Went up to the Bowery.... At the close of
the meeting, 250 men were called to go to the cotton country. My name
was on the list and was read off the stand.
At night I went to a meeting in the Tabernacle of those who had been
called. Here I learned a principle that I shan’t forget in a while. It
showed me that obedience is a great principle in Heaven and on earth.
Well, here I have worked for the last seven years, through heat and
cold, hunger and adverse circumstances, and at last have a home and a
lot with fruit trees just beginning to bear and look pretty. Well, I
must leave it and go and do the will of my Father in Heaven ... and I
pray God to give me strength to accomplish that which is required of
me.
Monday, October 20, to Wednesday, October 22. Not very well. Working
around the home and fixing to dispose of my property.[51]
The spirit of “moving south” had been encouraged by the previous year’s
migration and many had become interested, some because of friends or
relatives who had preceded them, others because of crop losses or
because they were seeking better places to locate. John Langston, who
came to Rockville at this time, says in his journal that he had tired of
having his crops eaten up by crickets at Alpine, Utah County, so tried
farming at Draper. His crops in 1862 were destroyed by flooding of the
Jordan River, so he volunteered and was “called” on the mission to
settle Dixie.[52]
These recruits enlarged the settlements even to overcrowding. Rockville
suddenly expanded by the abandonment of Adventure and the influx of new
settlers to a town of nearly thirty families.[53] Shunesburg increased
to fifteen or sixteen and the others in proportion.[54] The townsite and
fields of early Springdale were surveyed during the fall and winter of
1862-63, and a town of some twenty families was established, with Albert
Petty as presiding elder.[55]
With crowded conditions and scanty food supplies, many became
discouraged and some left Dixie. Most, however, proved faithful to the
“call” and remained to make the settlements permanent.
The settlements were still in a precarious state, the pioneers moving
from place to place attempting to find suitable locations, some leaving
and others coming, when, in 1864, a church census enumerated 765 persons
(129 families), distributed along the upper Virgin River as follows:
Families People
Virgin City 56 336
Duncan’s Retreat 8 50
Grafton 28 168
Rockville 18 95
Northrop 3 17
Shunesburg 7 45
Springdale 9 54
129 765
This indicates a considerable decline in population from the previous
year. The settlers had come to Dixie filled with high hopes of raising
cotton, had planted that crop to excess in 1862 and 1863 and had failed
to raise enough foodstuffs. They were on famine rations during the
winter of 1863-64 and were not relieved until summer. Moreover, the
difficulties of hauling cotton to the northern settlements and
exchanging it for foodstuffs had driven many of the settlers away; some
returned to their former homes, while others sought opportunities
elsewhere.
Enough cotton was now being grown to create a vexatious problem of
marketing. Bleak records that in the spring of 1864, 11,000 pounds were
hauled to California and estimated that 16,000 pounds were still in
storage. Some was even hauled to the Missouri River where it brought a
fair price because of the war shortage. David Bullock and other men from
Cedar City, traveling east for poor emigrants, started out loaded with
Dixie cotton. It soon became necessary to set up machinery for ginning
the cotton and weaving it into cloth. Gins were soon in operation in
several places and hand looms and spinning wheels were found in many
homes.[56]
In 1865, Brigham Young personally made plans for the construction of a
cotton mill at Washington. The building was finished by December, 1866.
Later it was sold to a cooperative concern, the Rio Virgin Manufacturing
Company, and more up-to-date machinery was installed, making it the most
complete factory in Utah for the processing of cotton and wool. It
continued to operate until the close of the century.[57]
Parunuweap Canyon was fully settled almost from the start, but
Shunesburg gradually declined until today there are but one or two small
farms left. This is due primarily to the ravages of floods which washed
away the good agricultural land. On the other hand, tillable land in
Zion Canyon was not brought under cultivation for a dozen years or more.
Flat lands suitable for agriculture in Zion were found in two areas
along the canyon floor, separated by a mile or more of rocky,
steep-sided canyon difficult to travel. The lower area, in which
Springdale was located, was a narrow valley less than a mile wide and
four or five miles long separated from the Parunuweap fork of the river
by a reef of Shinarump Conglomerate, more resistant to erosion than the
overlying Chinle shales in which the valley had been cut. The upper area
was an old lake bed filled by sediments. It extended from the old
blockade in the river below the Court of the Patriarchs that had
anciently produced the lake, nearly five miles upstream to the Temple of
Sinawava. It was much narrower than the lower unit and the tillable land
was scattered in narrow fields along the banks.
Joseph Black seems to have been the first to investigate the upper area,
probably in the late fall of 1861 or 1862. The difficulties of reaching
the upper part of Zion were too great, however, and he finally located
in the lower valley. His descriptions of the canyon were such that the
cynical referred to it sometimes as “Joseph’s Glory.” Nevertheless his
stories were listened to and some scoffers remained to pray. E. C.
Behunin says:
It was Joseph Black who interested my father in Zion Canyon. Black had
made a trip into the canyon before we came here and in talking to my
father, he had praised it so highly that my father became interested
and moved up into the canyon upon Black’s advice and suggestion.
Isaac Behunin had come to Dixie in the fall of 1861 and settled at
Northrop until the flood in January, 1862, after which he moved to
Springdale and built a home. In addition to farming in Springdale he
visited Zion in the summer of 1863 and started some operations there,
building a one-room log cabin not far from where Zion Lodge now
stands.[58]
The cabin was a crude shelter used only during the summer, for the
Behunins wintered in Springdale. It was built of cottonwood logs and the
cracks were chinked with mud. The roof had a ridgepole to which ash and
maple sticks were lashed on either side and covered with corn-fodder and
dirt. The single room had a door and a window with glass panes. At one
side was a fireplace, but the cooking was usually done on a stepstove
outside.
The Behunins were real mountaineers, inured to the hardships of their
life. To make a wash basin, they cut down a cottonwood tree in the
dooryard and scooped out a bowl-like depression in the top of the stump.
A hole was bored in the bottom, downward and outward. This was stopped
on the outside by a wooden plug. To wash, they dipped fresh water into
the bowl.
The family included, in addition to the parents, five sons and one
daughter. All except the daughter were confirmed smokers. Indian tobacco
grew well in Zion Canyon in those days and at first they could gather
their supplies from the wild plants. Indeed, their more censorious
neighbors ventured the opinion that the wild tobacco was the inducement
that led the Behunins into Zion Canyon. Later they introduced domestic
varieties.
The cabin seems to have been completed late in the season after the corn
had been harvested. There was no road into Zion Canyon at that time, but
a heavy team had hauled in a plow and other necessities. An irrigation
ditch was dug and the flats cleared of vines and rosebushes. By the next
season several acres were under cultivation, and fruit trees, cane and
garden stuff had been planted.
The Behunins also owned fifteen or twenty head of cattle all broken to
work, including milk cows. They raised pigs on the surplus corn and did
their own butchering and curing. James H. Jennings (born in 1853) tells
of watching them slaughter thirteen hogs one day. They filled a shallow
pool with water and heated it by dropping into it hot rocks from a
nearby bonfire. When the water was near boiling, they dipped the hogs in
the pool to scald them and loosen the hair. The meat was cut up and
salted to make old-style home-cured hams, shoulders and bacon.
[Illustration: The Watchman, overlooking Springdale in Zion Canyon.
_Photo by O. J. Grimes._]
[Illustration: The Angel Landing in Zion Canyon.
_Photo by U. S. National Park Service._]
Mrs. Eunice Munk of Manti, who as a girl of 12 or 14 spent more than a
year in Springdale, recalled that in the summer of 1864 the Behunins
told her that in Zion Canyon the chickens went to roost soon after
sundown, but that the twilight was so long that they would get tired of
waiting for darkness and come out again.
Within a few years, other settlers found their way into the canyon.
William Heap took up a farm across the river from the Behunins at the
mouth of Emerald Pool Canyon and built a log cabin on the west bank of
the river north of the Emerald Pool stream. He planted an orchard and
raised annual crops such as cane, corn, and garden stuff. John Rolf
built his cabins above the Behunins. A polygamist, he needed separate
dwellings for his families; one he located near the Behunins; the other
on the site of the present grotto camp.
Protection was afforded by buck or rip-gut fences from cliff to river at
each end of the farms. These were made of short poles set in the ground
and pointed in various directions so as to effectively prevent large
animals from breaking through.
Hand plows pulled by horses or oxen were used for turning the soil.
Harrows were fashioned of hewn timbers fastened together in a triangle.
Sharpened pegs of oak were fixed in holes bored in the framework and
turned downward so that they scratched the ground when pulled by a team.
The first shovels were short-handled, but later they had what they
called “lazy man’s shovels,” because the handles were longer and a man
did not have to bend his back so much when working. The rakes were
handmade of wood with sharp pegs for teeth. Scythe and cradle were
seldom used since little hay or grain was raised.
It was about this time that the canyon received its name. The three
settlers, hardy mountaineers though they were, nevertheless were of a
devout and religious turn of mind. It seems to have been old father
Behunin who proposed the name of Zion, to which the others agreed. Isaac
Behunin had been with the Mormons ever since they left New York. He had
helped build the Temple at Kirtland, Ohio, and had at one time acted as
body-guard to the founder of the Church, Joseph Smith. He had been
through all the “drivings of the Saints” in Missouri and Illinois and
nourished the typically bitter resentment towards the “enemies” who had
been responsible for such “atrocities.” Here in Zion he felt that at
last he had reached a place of safety where he could rest assured of no
more harryings and persecutions. No wonder he proposed the name Zion,
which implies a resting place. He went even further, maintaining that
should the Saints again be harassed by their enemies, this would become
their place of refuge.
On one of Brigham Young’s visits to Springdale, probably in 1870, he was
told of Zion. He inquired how it came to be so named. The explanation,
it seems, was not satisfactory to the Mormon leader after a toilsome
journey into the canyon and he questioned its propriety, saying that “it
was not Zion.” Some of his more literal-minded followers thereafter
called it “Not Zion.”
The first settlers made their way into the canyon on horseback, using
the river bed, crossing and recrossing the stream. It soon became
necessary, however, to provide other means of transportation. A wagon
road was no problem through the flats in both the upper and lower
valleys, but the precipitous canyon between was baffling. It is
related[59] that Hyrum Morris, Shunesburg settler, and a companion were
the first to enter the upper valley by means other than horseback. They
hitched a yoke of oxen to the hind wheels of a wagon and lashed a plow
and supplies on it. When they entered the canyon, near the present site
of the bridge, they climbed the west bank over the sand bench, down into
Birch Creek and thence into the upper Zion Valley. This did not prove to
be a practicable route, and no one seems to have followed it. Today one
can hardly traverse the route on foot.
The remains of an old cart road which followed the east bank, high up
opposite the sand bench, coming out into the upper valley about half a
mile above the present Union Pacific garage, may still be traced. This
route was used for some years, but was far from satisfactory. Other
settlers from the towns below began to cultivate tracts in the upper
valley and the timber resources of the canyon made a better road
imperative. During the winter of 1864-65, a wagon road[60] was built up
the river bed, crossing the stream many times. This is the road which,
with minor improvements, served as the main highway into Zion until the
National Park Service built the road that first made it fully accessible
to the public. This road in turn served until 1930, when the present
well-graded highway was constructed midway between the river and the
older road that it replaced.
It was while constructing this first wagon road on January 9, 1865, that
George Ayers was killed. A short dugway was being graded on the slope
above the river. With no blasting powder, the men were excavating a
large boulder, and George Ayers and Orson Taylor had stopped to rest in
the shade of the huge stone, rolling cigarettes. Suddenly it began to
move. A shout of warning came from Samuel Wittwer and Heber Ayers.
Taylor was able to scramble out of the way but Ayers was squarely in its
path and it fell directly upon him, crushing and killing him
instantly—the first victim of Zion Canyon.
Indian troubles, treated in a later chapter, broke out in the spring of
1866. Martial law was declared and instructions were issued from the
military headquarters for the settlers to concentrate in towns of at
least 150 families. It was at first decided to gather all the settlers
of the Upper Virgin River at Rockville and Toquerville, and later, at
Virgin. James Jepson[61] recalls that his father had just moved his
cabin from Virgin to Rockville when the revised decision reached him and
he moved back to Virgin again. This was the fifth time the cabin had
been moved and his father dryly remarked that it was so used to the
process now that all he had to do was throw the logs into the yard and
they would fit themselves together.
This concentration order meant the abandonment of all smaller places:
Duncan, Grafton, Northrop, Shunesburg, Springdale and Zion. Those who
could not buy or rent a house simply dumped their belongings in the
shade and set up housekeeping under the trees. Some moved their log
houses with them, others made dugouts and still others built new log
houses.
Although the outlying towns had been abandoned, the crops had been
planted and had to be tended. Workers went in armed groups of ten,
twenty, or thirty to the fields, usually remaining during the week in
the more distant places and returning to Rockville on Sunday. In Zion,
headquarters were at the Behunin cabin, where eight or ten men usually
camped while working the crops. In Springdale, they usually stayed at
Albert Petty’s home or nearby. Petty himself refused to abandon his
ranch and stayed there throughout the Indian scare.
This concentration continued through 1867, but with the close of the
“Black Hawk War” and the subsidence of troubles with the Paiutes, there
was a general reoccupation of the villages except Long Valley and Kanab,
abandoned during the Indian troubles. This occasioned some shifts in the
population; some returned to their former homes and lands, some stayed
where they were, and a few moved elsewhere. Springdale was reoccupied by
Albert Petty and several other families, but it did not regain its
former size until about 1874. Shunesburg and Grafton also seem to have
lost slightly in population in the reshuffling. To Zion, however, the
same settlers, Behunin, Heaps and Rolfs, returned and took up their
usual tasks of raising crops and tending livestock.
The following years were prosperous and the settlements were greatly
strengthened. Markets were established in northern Utah, at mining camps
in southern Nevada, and even in California. Commerce was restricted
because of transportation difficulties but it was an important factor in
helping to balance needs by exchange of livestock products and cotton
for goods the settlers could not produce.
The national financial panic of 1873 gradually worked its paralyzing
effects into Utah and spread to the southern Utah colonies. The
repercussions were not marked on the Virgin River, but Brigham Young was
gravely concerned about the more general conditions in Utah when he came
to St. George to spend his second winter there (November, 1873).
During the spring of 1874 he initiated near St. George a communistic
movement known as the United Order. An experiment of similar nature had
been tried by the Mormons in Missouri more than thirty years earlier. It
was an attempt to combine cooperatively the efforts of the Saints, so
that all might share the benefits in accordance with their needs. The
scheme had been inaugurated in a few communities with encouraging
success and it was now proposed to launch it on a large scale.[62] In
February, St. George, Price City, and Washington were all organized on
this basis. Price City, near St. George, is reported as the first
working farm community in which the combined farms were managed as a
unit and the farmers lived as one large family. Some of the men were
assigned to irrigation, some to raising hay, corn, cane, garden stuff,
or other crops according to the estimated needs of the community. Fuel
was supplied seasonably by hauling wood from the scrub forests of the
hills. The women were assigned as cooks, dish washers, baby tenders,
clothes makers, and nurses. In Price and a few other places the settlers
ate together, but in most of the communities each family had its own
home.
On March 5, Brigham Young visited Virgin and Rockville and organized the
United Order. During March and April, nearly all the settlements in
Dixie fell in line and a confederation of all the settlements, known as
the St. George Stake United Order, was set up to correlate the
activities of the individual settlements.
During late April and early May, Brigham Young moved northward to Salt
Lake City, initiating the novel movement in many of the towns along the
way, including Cedar, Parowan, Beaver, Fillmore and Nephi. Upon reaching
Salt Lake City, a general agency to correlate the stake activities,
known as the “United Order for all the World,” was established.
The movement enjoyed only a brief period of prosperity. The utopian
ideal encountered difficulties when it came to the division of benefits.
Wages were assigned to each person and the benefits drawn were charged
against each family. It was soon alleged that some were drawing more
than their wages entitled them to, whereas others were not getting all
that they felt they should.
In a few favored communities having access to large natural resources,
such as abundant pasturage for livestock, either dairy or range, the
produce was more than sufficient to pay the wages assigned and to build
up a surplus capital. In most, however, where agriculture was the chief
dependence and products of the farms were insufficient to pay wages,
stinting was inevitable. Under such conditions, there was general
dissatisfaction with the cooperative scheme and more progressive
individuals sought to withdraw.
Many settlements abandoned the experiment at the end of the first
season. Such was the case at Rockville, but Shunesburg and Springdale
held on for another year, through 1875. A new ditch on higher ground was
dug at Springdale at this time and the town was moved to its present
location, half a mile north of its old site. This offered opportunity
for expansion. The Gifford family from Shunesburg and several families
from Rockville came to join the United Order in 1875.
It seems to have been the United Order movement which depopulated Zion
Canyon. In 1872, Isaac Behunin, getting old, sold out to William Heap
for two hundred bushels of corn, and moved to Mt. Carmel, then beginning
to be resettled, where he later died. With the establishment of the
United Order in Rockville in 1874, Heap and Rolf joined, turning over
their property in Zion to the corporation. With the collapse of the
Order in the fall, they withdrew their share of the proceeds and moved
to Bear Lake and later to Star Valley, Wyoming.
These families were the last to live regularly in Zion Canyon. Farming,
however, was still carried on by settlers living in the village below.
Such names as Dennett, Gifford, Petty, Russell, Terry, Dalton, Crawford,
Stout and Flanigan, recur as farmers in Zion in the following years.
Oliver D. Gifford, long-time bishop of Springdale, related that about
1880 he was farming the land south of the river and west of the Great
White Throne at the site of the grotto camp when the Great Red Arch fell
out, the rock pulverizing and covering up a spring and large pine trees.
The Cable
Zion, since its discovery, had been regarded as a blind canyon. Even the
Indian name, I-oo-goon (canyon like an arrow quiver), reflects this
idea. Lee, Smith, Steele and their companions, who left Parowan on June
12, 1852, and explored the head-waters of the Sevier and Virgin, were
balked by the Vermillion cliffs nearby, if not in Zion, in contemplating
the possibilities of a road from the mountains to the lower valleys.
The early settlers of Rockville, needing timber from the mountains, had
explored the probabilities of a road through the canyon without success.
James H. Jennings recalls hearing Elijah Newman, an early settler of
Rockville, tell that a team could be driven from the head of Parowan
Canyon over Cedar Mountain to the rim of Zion Canyon and that he
believed that some day a way would be found through the cliffs so that
timber could be hauled down from the mountain.
Brigham Young himself had encouraged the idea on one of his trips to the
upper Virgin, probably in 1863. It is related that when the settlers
were bewailing the lack of timber for flooring their cabins, he stated
in public meeting that the day would come when hundreds of thousands of
feet of lumber would be brought down the canyon. The wise ones shook
their heads and remarked that their leader had missed it this time.
During the early seventies the mail from St. George to Kanab was routed
via Shunesburg. It was lifted over the 1,500 foot cliff at the head of
Shunesburg canyon on wires[63] arranged in such a way that the man at
the top bringing the mail from Kanab could exchange with the man below,
carrying it down the river. This short-cut saved a day’s travel over the
road via Pipe Springs and the Arizona Strip.
It was not until the new century had dawned, however, that young David
Flanigan, who was but a small boy in the days of the Shunesburg
wire-pulley apparatus, conceived the idea of lowering lumber over the
cliffs by means of cables. As a lad of 15, in the spring of 1888, he and
three other boys hunting on the East Rim of Zion had seen a large grove
of yellow pine sawtimber and had stood at the top of the cliff later
known as Cable Mountain, where the precipice appeared to reach almost to
the floor of the canyon. The problem of lumber remained as acute then as
it was in the days of his parents.
Ten years later, needing lumber for himself, he was forced to go to the
Trumbull or Kaibab mountains, a trip requiring a full week. The
advantage of obtaining lumber nearer home on the rim of Zion thus
impressed itself upon him. He advocated the idea of lowering it on a
cable but found no supporters. Convinced of the practical wisdom of the
idea, he undertook the work alone in 1900. He bought 50,000 feet of wire
and stretched it around pulleys and drums at top and bottom making a
circular series, half of which had three wires, and half five. The
five-ply half was to run around the drum where the weight would be
greatest.
After two or three years of experimenting with pulleys and wire tension,
he finally perfected his device. To cut the timber, he bought an old
saw-mill in the summer or fall of 1904. Thus Flanigan’s ingenuity made
it possible for vast quantities of lumber to go down Zion Canyon. By
Christmas, 1906, two hundred thousand feet of sawed lumber had actually
been lowered on his cable.
It was during the summer of 1906 that the writer first visited Zion
Canyon. From Orderville he faced a trip by horse to his home in St.
George. Rather than retrace his steps by way of Kanab and Pipe Springs,
he inquired about the short-cut via Zion and was directed cross-country
to the head of the old East Rim trail, which John Winder had recently
made barely passable. Belated, he reached the top of the trail at
sundown, and familiar as he was with mountaineering, started
unhesitatingly on the 3,000 foot descent. Darkness found him well along
the trail which grew increasingly hard to follow. About half way down,
he met Winder and some cowboys coming up. They described the trail and
said they had just lost a pack horse which had rolled over the cliffs
below and they had been delayed in retrieving the pack.
A full moon was just coming up over the cliffs at his back, throwing
light into the dark recesses along the way. With its help the steep,
dangerous places on the trail were negotiated without difficulty. The
dead pack horse was found beside the trail and the bottom of the canyon
was reached about 11 p.m., when the full moon was shining into the
depths of the canyon and towers and temples were illumined with snowy
brightness. Camping there, he slept out the night in his saddle blankets
under the enchanting witchery of the starry heavens between the
brilliant walls that seemed to reach the sky.
In 1906 Flanigan sold out to Alfred P. Stout[64] and O. D. Gifford. They
replaced his wire cable with a heavier twisted rope cable, which served
for many years and over which millions of feet of lumber were lowered
into the canyon and hauled to the settlements farther downstream. Stout
established a shingle mill in Zion Canyon about a quarter of a mile
below the cable and near the foot of the northeast corner of the Great
White Throne. At first, large cottonwood logs were cut for shingles, but
as these proved of inferior quality, yellow pine logs were supplied via
cable. The shingle mill was washed away by floods two years later.
A sad accident occurred at the top of the cable on July 28, 1908. A
party of young people vacationing on the east rim went over to see the
cable operate from the top. Three of them were standing in the box at
the edge, directly under the cable, looking into the depths of the
canyon, when a bolt of lightning struck the cable, killing Thornton
Hepworth, Jr., and stunning Clarinda Langston and Lionel Stout. Miss
Langston fell limp on the edge of the box where she was in imminent
danger of plummeting down the cliff. Miss Elza Stout, uninjured nearby,
rescued her from the precarious position, but before assistance could be
rendered him, a second bolt struck the wire and killed Lionel Stout.
Miss Langston recovered, but the bodies of the two boys were lowered
into the canyon over the cable.
It was more than a year later when people started to “ride the cable.”
About the middle of September, 1910, soon after Zion had been proclaimed
a national monument, some members of Scott P. Stewart’s surveying party
visited the top of the cable. They were told that a dog had been sent up
from below and that he was nearly crazy when he reached the top. Quinby
Stewart, a fearless youth, told them that if they would bring some
watermelons up to the foot, he would go down on the cable and help eat
them. True to his word, when the melons arrived he climbed on a load of
lumber ready to be lowered, and holding to the cable, rode safely to the
bottom. It was a swift flight of two minutes, and to a young man of his
disposition a rousing thrill. Others followed suit, and after eating the
melons, rode back to the top in the empty cage.
Riding the cable proved an attraction for those gifted with strong
nerves. At a later date, Frank Petty came to operate the sawmill at the
top of the cliff. He was a large man, weighing nearly 300 pounds, too
heavy to travel comfortably up and down the trails, and the road around
the Arizona strip to his home in Rockville being too long for
convenience, he took to riding the cable. On one occasion, as he started
down, the lumber on which he was riding struck the top of the cliff and
loosened the chain holding one end of the load. His son, Frank,
operating the brakes at the top, seeing the mishap, applied the brakes
just in time to prevent his father from falling down the face of the
1,800 foot declivity. With a few inches of the lumber still clinging to
the edge and his father paralyzed with fear and afraid to move for fear
of jarring it loose, Frank climbed underneath and re-fastened the chain.
With a sigh of relief, he then lowered his father in safety to the
bottom.
Kane County and Arizona
Just as the settlement of Iron County had provided a stepping stone to
the exploration and settlement of the Virgin River Valley, so in turn,
the latter served in like stead in opening up Kane County and the Kaibab
National Forest of northern Arizona.
In the fall of 1858, after Albert Sydney Johnston’s army had entered
Utah, Brigham Young, still doubtful about the future, instructed
missionaries under Jacob Hamblin’s leadership to cross the Colorado
River to the southeast and visit the Moquis or Town Indians with the
object of exploring the possibilities of retreating with his people to
this region should the difficulties with the army become unbearable.[65]
Accordingly, Jacob Hamblin, one of the leading figures in Utah’s
southern frontier, left the Santa Clara on October 28, 1858, with a
party of twelve, including an Indian guide, a Spanish interpreter, and a
Welsh interpreter, the last because of wildly erroneous reports that the
Moquis spoke a variant of that tongue. The Indian led them through the
Arizona strip via Pipe Springs and Kaibab to the old Ute ford where
Escalante had crossed eighty-two years earlier. The visit to the Moquis
was brief, some of the men returning in November, the others later in
the winter. This expedition revealed the general topography between the
Virgin and Colorado.
[Illustration: Zion Lodge in 1925; Angel Landing in the distance.]
[Illustration: Riding the cable in Zion Canyon in 1912.
_Courtesy D. D. Rust._]
[Illustration: Railroader J. H. Manderfield, Warden Arthur Pratt and
Engineer W. D. Beers, about 1916 on a business trip to see about
road development, stop to take a cooling drink from Pipe Spring.
Gunlock Bill Hamblin shot the bottom out of the bowl of a tobacco
pipe. Once the center of a sea of grass and a strategic fort against
the Indian menace; now an historical monument.
_Photo by courtesy of D. D. Rust._]
[Illustration: A Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce scouting party of
1915 stopped at Kanab. Rust piloted them from Hurricane to Kanab in
one long day. _Photo by courtesy of D. D. Rust._]
A second missionary expedition to the Moquis was undertaken in the fall
of 1859, leaving the Santa Clara headquarters on October 20 and reaching
the Moquis on November 6. Hamblin appointed Marion J. Shelton and Thales
Haskell to remain there for the winter and returned home with the rest
of the party.[66] Friendship with the Moquis was cultivated by the
missionaries, but this seems to have led to difficulties with the
Navajo.[67]
When Jacob Hamblin led a third expedition across the Colorado River to
reach the Moquis in the fall of 1860, he was met by a band of unfriendly
Navajos who would not let the missionaries proceed and debated whether
to kill them or let them go home. With the Mormons were several Indians,
including two squaws. The Navajos offered to let the party go in peace
if they would leave the squaws. This Hamblin refused to do, and an
agreement was finally reached whereby the missionaries were allowed to
return home in exchange for goods and ammunition.[68]
They camped that night on a table-rock mesa where there was only a
narrow passageway which was carefully guarded. Next morning, November 2,
1860, while some were exchanging goods with the Navajos, others took the
horses down to water. As they were returning, the saddle horse of George
A. Smith, Jr., started off on a side trail and he went after it alone.
He found two Indians leading his horse away. The horse was readily
turned over and Smith started back to camp. One of the Indians rode up
alongside Smith and asked to see his revolver. Suspecting nothing, Smith
handed it over. The Indian, after examining it, passed it back to the
other Indian a few paces behind, who shot Smith three times. As he fell
from his horse, the Indians dismounted and shot three arrows into his
back.
The Indians then blockaded the trail to the Moquis towns, forcing the
Mormons to retreat, who placed the dying man on a mule and started
homeward with the Navajos in hot pursuit. Traveling thus, it was nearly
dark before Smith died. His body had to be abandoned as the Navajos
seemed unwilling to give up the chase until they had taken his scalp.
The balance of the party returned home safely.
Reporting the loss of George A. Smith, Jr., was a sorrowful duty for
Hamblin. The young man’s father was deeply shocked, but like a good
Saint, consoled himself with the thought that the Lord wished his son
taken that way. Brigham Young sent instructions for a company of twenty
men to retrieve the remains. Despite the hardships of mid-winter, they
gathered up the few bones that were left of Smith’s body and returned
with them for interment.
Several other trips to the Moquis by different routes resulted in
detailed knowledge of northern Arizona and southern Utah. Crossings of
the Colorado were explored thoroughly and ferries were established at
the south of the Virgin, at the mouth of the Grand Wash (1862) and at
the foot of Grand Wash Cliffs about five miles upstream (Pearce’s Ferry,
1863). These supplemented the old Ute ford in Glen Canyon. Further
exploration did not reveal a more direct route until 1869, when the
crossing later known as Lee’s Ferry was discovered. These routes were so
well explored that no better ones have been discovered since.
Stockmen began to graze their herds of cattle and sheep on the plains of
the Arizona strip. Some time prior to 1863, W. B. Maxwell established a
ranch at Short Creek; not long after, James M. Whitmore located ranches
at Pipe Springs and Moccasin, and Ezra Strong of Rockville settled on
Kanab Creek. In the spring of 1864, several ranches were established in
the mountains and two settlements were started, one at the present site
of Kanab, where a small fort was built, and another housing eight
families at Berryville (later Glendale) in the north end of Long Valley.
In the fall, Priddy Meeks located in the south end of the valley. He was
joined the next spring (1865) by several settlers[69] from the Virgin
River, who brought livestock for the range and nursery stock for
orchards. The new settlement was called Winsor (later Mt. Carmel).
In the autumn, with indications of an impending rift between whites and
Indians, the Winsor settlers moved to Berryville and helped build a
stockade for protection during the winter. In the spring they returned
and planted crops, but during the summer settlement was again
interrupted by Indian difficulties and had to be abandoned.
Indian Troubles
The period following early settlement was marked by Indian troubles with
both Paiutes and Navajos. These are sometimes called the Navajo raids,
and in part were an outgrowth of the “Black Hawk War” which broke out in
Sevier Valley, central Utah, in 1865. The whites had brought with them
their livestock, which they grazed upon the public domain, turning the
cattle and horses loose and herding the sheep. These animals multiplied
rapidly and quickly depleted the edible fruits and seeds upon which the
Indians subsisted. Indian resentment not unnaturally was inflamed, and
with starvation staring them in the face, there was little left for them
to do but beg or steal.
The Indians had claimed the lands, the vegetation and the wild game, and
although they had given the first white men permission to come, yet so
many others had followed, like the proverbial camel’s nose, that they
were destroying the means of subsistence of the Indians. Not only were
seeds and fruits being eaten by the livestock, but game also was getting
scarce and hard to find, due largely to encroachment of cattle and sheep
which were taking the place of deer upon the range. The white man hunted
the Indians’ deer so why should not the Indian hunt the white man’s
cattle? There was some compensation to the Indians, however; they could
glean in the grain fields of the settlers and gather waste grain as
easily as they could seeds, and pine nut crops were uninjured by the
whites.
Gradually, friendly feelings of the Indians for the settlers began to
deteriorate. Begging in the settlements and the depredations on the
range increased. The Paiutes in some instances aided and abetted the
raiding Navajos, but the majority sided with the whites. The Navajos
were wont to cross the Colorado, scatter into small bands, make swift
raids on the Mormon settlements, gather up horses, cattle and sheep, and
flee back across the river before they could be overtaken.
From the beginning a military force had been held in readiness against
any emergency. As the southern Utah settlements expanded, improvements
in this organization became advisable. In May, 1864, the Iron Military
District was recast to include Beaver, Iron, Washington and Kane
counties and William H. Dame of Parowan was named adjutant. Nearly all
the eligible men were enrolled and companies of fifty were organized in
towns wherever that many were available. Companies consisted of five
platoons of ten men each, the first platoon of each company often being
cavalry, the balance infantry. Three companies made a battalion and
about seven battalions made a brigade. The men were occasionally called
together for inspection and drill and sometimes these included battalion
or brigade reviews. Training was emphasized during the Indian troubles
between 1865 and 1869. On February 17, 1866, Erastus Snow, the Mormon
leader at St. George, was elected Brigadier General and brigade
headquarters were transferred from Parowan to St. George.
The Black Hawk War broke out in 1865 and was not settled until 1868.
Nearly 3,000 men were enlisted and the cost was over a million dollars
and at least seventy lives. This Ute unrest was contagious, and the
Paiutes in turn were stirred into sporadic resistance.
Hostilities in the south began late in 1865, when, on December 18, a
number of Paiutes raided Kanab and made away with some horses. During
that winter Dr. James M. Whitmore and his son-in-law, Robert McIntyre,
were herding sheep in the vicinity of Pipe Springs. Soon after the first
of the new year, a band of Navajos and Paiutes stole a herd of
Whitmore’s sheep. The next day the two men went in pursuit and failed to
return. This was reported to St. George and a cavalry detachment was
organized under Captain David H. Cannon. As his force appeared
inadequate, he sent an appeal from Pipe Springs for additional support.
D. D. McArthur came from St. George to take charge and brought with him
forty-seven men under James Andrus with wagons and supplies for an
extended trip designed to drive the Navajos across the Colorado River.
When they arrived at Pipe Springs, the snow was two feet deep and no
trace of the sheep or men could be found. On January 18, they came upon
the tracks of two Paiute Indians following a large steer, tracked them
until sundown, and captured the Indians in the act of killing the beef.
After questioning and torture, hanging by the heels and twisting of
thumbs, one of the Indians admitted that he had dreamed that Navajos had
been there and then revealed the whereabouts of a camp of Indians about
ten miles out. A detachment was sent and found that it had been moved
another five miles. The militia overtook the camp about sunrise on
January 20, killing two Indians and capturing five.
Third degree methods elicited information about the killing of Whitmore
and McIntyre. The captives led another detachment to the scene of the
killings, where the posse crisscrossed the area on horseback, uncovering
the arm of one of the victims in the deep snow. Both bodies had bullet
wounds and were riddled with arrows. They had been killed on January 10.
A wagon was sent after the bodies. While the men were recovering the
remains the other detachment with the five Indian prisoners arrived.
These had in their possession much of the clothing and personal effects
of the murdered men. The evidence of guilt seemed conclusive, so the
Indians were turned loose and shot as they attempted to run. The Navajos
who probably assisted in the killing escaped. The sheep could not be
found and it was assumed the Navajos had taken them across the Colorado
River. As pursuit was impossible because of the deep snow the party
returned home. Charles L. Walker of St. George records in his diary:
They were brought home in a wagon load of snow, frozen stiff and in a
good state of preservation. I, with others, washed them and pulled out
the arrow points from their bodies and dressed them in their burial
robes. Also went to the funeral, which was attended by a large
concourse of people.[70]
On February 19, 1866, two days after Erastus Snow was elected Brigadier
General, Peter Shurtz, who had built a station at Paria and had kept
about twenty Indians around him all winter, reported that he had lost
his cattle and wished to move into the settlements. He also reported
Navajos camped on Paria River about eight miles below his ranch where
the Ute trail reached the stream.
Further information indicated that the Navajos were concentrated east of
the Colorado at Cottonwood, intending to raid Kane County in force and
that Captain James Andrus with thirty men had gone to Paria to get Peter
Shurtz and his family and to reconnoiter. No report of this expedition
is available, but a letter written by L. W. Roundy from Kanab on March
9, 1866, tells that Andrus had left Paria fourteen days earlier headed
for an Indian camp twelve miles south.[71] At Kanab, three Indians had
attempted to kill Oren Clark in the bottoms near the fort and had
started to drive off the livestock. Four men from the fort rushed in
pursuit and after dark recovered about thirty head of cattle, but the
Indians escaped with about an equal number.
The Indian menace was so serious by this time that Erastus Snow ordered
all stock in the region south of St. George and the Virgin River as far
east as Kanab removed to the north and west of the lines of settlements
so that it would be easier to ward off Navajo attacks. This was a
difficult task because the grazing was poor around the settlements and
the mountains to the northwest were already filled with livestock.
The threat from the Utes in upper Sevier Valley also became acute.
Menacing behavior of the Indians in this area and in the Kanab region
led to an order from Utah headquarters to General Erastus Snow (March
15) to send a company of men from Beaver and Iron counties over to the
Sevier River to build and man an outpost between Circleville and
Panguitch. A company of 76 men led by Captain Silas S. Smith served here
from March 21 to November 30, 1866. They established Fort Sanford about
ten miles north of Panguitch and assisted settlers at Circleville to
move to safety. At Panguitch, they helped the settlers transform the
town into a fort.
In the meantime, gathering the livestock from the exposed range was
proceeding slowly. A party sent out from Rockville in April to round up
the stock in the vicinity of Maxwell’s Ranch, found the bodies of two
men, a woman, and an Indian, killed a few days before. When the bodies
were brought in to Grafton, it was ascertained that they were young
Robert Berry, his wife, Isabel, and his brother, Joe, who were coming
home to Berryville in Long Valley via the Dixie settlements and the
Arizona Strip (a roundabout way, but the only wagon route at the time).
They had left the Maxwell Ranch on Short Creek on April 2, 1866 when
some Indians (presumably Paiutes), ambushed them.
According to verbal reports, as related by Mrs. John Dennett of
Rockville (then a girl living in Long Valley and who pieced her story
from Indian and white sources), the Berrys fought for their lives. The
Indians shot one of the horses, rendering the wagon useless. In the
fighting, one Indian was shot. Joe Berry loosened the other horse and
tried to escape but was killed in so doing. The Indians closed in and
captured Robert and his wife. They tied Robert to a wheel where he was
forced to watch them torture Isabel, who was an expectant mother. They
shot arrows into her and laughed at her as she tried to pull them out.
Then they shot him full of arrows. Mrs. Dennett said her father always
felt that the Berrys had been killed in revenge for some Indians slain
by Long Valley men who had found them roasting a beef. At that time
three were slain: an Indian, a squaw and a papoose.
When the Berry tragedy was reported in St. George, orders were issued
forbidding travel unless in groups large enough to provide adequate
safeguards. This led to the declaration of martial law, May 2, 1866, and
to the issuance of instructions to concentrate the settlers in fortified
places of at least 150 men. Patrols were ordered out in various
directions, especially across the trails used by the Navajos in raiding
the Mormon country and in contacting the rampaging Utes of Sevier
County.
When Silas S. Smith, stationed on the Sevier, heard of the Berry
massacre, he found that the Paiute chief at Panguitch had known about it
for five days without reporting it to him. Smith at once ordered pickets
to bring in all passing Indians for questioning. Friendly Indians
responded willingly enough, but when two strange Indians refused, a
skirmish resulted in which one was killed and the other wounded.
Smith decided to disarm the local Indians and surrounded one of their
camps near Panguitch one morning before daylight and took their arms.
Two visiting Indians were missing from the camp so he kept a guard
awaiting their arrival. When they came, they showed fight. One of them
was killed, whereupon the other surrendered. The next day Smith
surrounded another camp soon after sunrise, but the natives had already
fled. However, in the ensuing melee two more Indians were killed. The
arms taken from them included several guns, many new arrows, and a peck
of new arrow heads. Some escaped to Panguitch Lake and spread the alarm
among the Indians there.
General Snow had a number of chiefs from Panguitch, Parowan, and Red
Creek brought to Parowan for conference. He tried to pacify them with
arguments and presents but insisted that they must not have arms or
ammunition and must have passes in order to travel through the Mormon
settlements. This aroused some resentment, but on April 25, 1866, they
agreed to leave their weapons at Parowan as a token of friendship. Some
of the Indians reported gunfire around Upper Kanab where Col. W. B.
Maxwell was on lookout for Navajos.
With the declaration of martial law and the order to concentrate
settlers in large towns, the outlying ranchers and people from the
smaller villages began to move into Toquerville, Virgin and Rockville.
In June, General Snow decided to abandon Long Valley. Mrs. John Dennett,
who made the trek as a girl, recalled the line of wagons leaving Long
Valley with armed guards in front and rear. While crossing the sand
hills between there and Kanab, a small boy was run over and killed. A
halt was made while the child was buried in the sand, but the exigencies
of the situation forbade longer delay and the weeping mother was hastily
torn from the fresh grave.
The settlers’ train passed Kanab to the left and pushed on toward Pipe
Springs. Near the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon (June 27) they ran into an
ambush of Indians who, for some unexplained reason, failed to attack. J.
M. Higbee reports[72] that they called to the Indians to come in and
talk or be shot. They came in and talked. According to Mrs. Dennett,
there were seven or nine Indians taken into Pipe Springs for a council
of war. The wagons were driven into a large circle, as was customary in
times of danger, the Indians inside the circle in the center of the
group of whites. Higbee says the Indians were told that if any more were
found along the route of the caravan they would be shot. Mrs. Dennett
adds that some of the Indians had guns and clothes belonging to the
Berry boys, which greatly enraged a brother of the dead men, who pleaded
to be allowed to revenge his kin. After this, no more Indians were seen
on the trip.
In the late summer of 1866, Captain James Andrus[73] was ordered to
investigate Indian routes crossing the Colorado River in the rough
country between the Kaibab and the mouth of the Green River. A group of
men was mustered into service from the Virgin River settlements at
Gould’s Ranch, twenty-six miles east of St. George, August 16, and moved
on to Pipe Springs two days later, where final preparations were made.
On the 21st, forty-six mounted men, each equipped with a rifle and two
pistols, and with a pack horse bearing forty days’ rations for each
pair, started northeast toward the rough country. They went via
abandoned Kanab and Scutumpah to the Paria River six miles above Paria
settlement where they met another contingent of their party. Two days
later, Joseph Fish with eighteen men arrived from Iron county. They
located the Ute trail which passed down the Paria to the Colorado.
Elijah Averett, sent back with some of the surplus animals, was killed
by Indians in the hills west of Paria.
On August 29, the main party went northeast through the hills south of
the Aquarius Plateau into a valley where they found wild potatoes
growing (hence named Potato Valley, now Escalante Valley). They climbed
the Plateau and looked off into the wild country stretching to the mouth
of the Green River. Convinced that there was no use in going farther,
they retraced their march on September 2, traveled to the northwest
corner of the plateau, descended to the Sevier River Valley and reached
Circleville. They had been pathbreakers from Paria to this point. From
here they returned via Parowan and Cedar City.
The settlements were now prepared for attack. An Indian raid was made on
John D. Lee’s ranch near Beaver on October 23, 1866, and in November,
General Snow learned that the Navajos were concentrating east of the
Colorado for new raids on Kane County. Soon a friendly Paiute reported
that the Navajos were nearing Pipe Springs.
The crops planted in Long Valley had been left in the care of friendly
Paiutes when the settlers left. In the fall, the Berry boys and others
went back to harvest the best crop that had yet been grown there. It
took several trips to haul the produce to the Dixie settlements. During
their last trip, Snow received a report of an attack of sixteen Navajos
on three white men at Maxwell’s Ranch, in which Enoch Dodge was wounded.
Snow sent men to Long Valley and instructed A. P. Winsor to throw an
intercepting force between the settlements and the fords of the
Colorado, to recover lost stock and find out whether the raiders were
Navajos or Paiutes. He was promised that other men would be held in
readiness if needed.
While this force was on the road, the Long Valley party started home
with a wagon train. On October 31, when the teams were spread out
doubling up Elephant hall, about nine miles south of Mt. Carmel, Indians
attacked near the summit and shot Hyrum Stevens. The pioneers abandoned
the train and left everything in the hands of the Indians. Stevens was
taken with the others on horseback (with a man behind to hold him in
place) around the head of Zion Canyon on a three-day trip over the Old
Indian Trail and down over Kolob to Virgin. He survived the ordeal and
returned to his home at Rockville, where he lived to a ripe old age.
When a rescue party under Captain Sixtus E. Johnson arrived a week
later, November 5, they found the wagons unattended, tongues broken and
contents scattered. The Indians had taken five yoke of oxen, eleven
horses and everything they could carry, including harness, flour and
wheat. Four Paiutes, however, had pursued the Navajos and recaptured the
cattle and harness.
Finding the teamsters gone, Johnson gathered up the livestock that had
scattered back along the way to Long Valley. Then a second rescue party
under Major Russell from Rockville arrived with the Paiutes who had
retrieved the harness and cattle. They took the caravan into Virgin,
arriving November 11.
On November 26, Major John Steele reported signal fires on the mountain
south of Virgin City and General Snow issued an order to establish posts
at the mouth of (Black) Rock Canyon sixteen miles southeast of St.
George and near Gould’s Ranch, eight miles south of Virgin City.[74] The
men at these posts were to serve as guards as well as herders of
livestock and were to build stone quarters; the “house to be covered
with stone flagging or earth in a manner that it cannot be fired from
the outside, with but one door and that heavy and strongly barred, so
that one or two men, well armed, may defend themselves against any
number of Indians.”
Despite these precautions, the Navajos scattered in small bands, easily
passed through the military posts, and hid in the mountains north of St.
George. On the evening of December 28, word reached Harrisburg from
local Paiutes that some Navajos had killed and dried three beeves
between Grapevine Springs and Toquerville. Captain J. D. L. Pearce, with
fifteen men from Washington, at once took up their trail along
Harrisburg Creek toward Pine Valley Mountain but failed to overtake
them.
In the meantime, on December 28, near Pine Valley, Cyrus Hancock saw
three Indians skulking on the range and called to them. The Indians
proved hostile and tried to capture him. One seized his horse’s bit and
another tried to shoot him with an arrow. He slid off his horse and ran
toward Pine Valley, the Indians in pursuit. One of them shot him in the
arm with an arrow. He stumbled and fell as they yelled in triumph, but
he regained his footing and outran them into the valley. These Indians
were thought to have been hiding around the town for two or three days,
quietly gathering stock. As soon as discovered, they left with about
thirty horses and passed down the Black Ridge between St. George and
Middleton on the night of December 28, gathering more horses at both
places and hastening southwest via Fort Pearce Wash.
Col. D. D. McArthur immediately ordered out all available cavalry in
pursuit of the thieves, who had an entire day’s start. An expedition of
thirty men headed by Lt. Copelan followed the Indian trail from the
Washington Fields past Fort Pearce, through Black Rock Canyon and out
toward Pipe Springs where it met another detachment returning from an
Indian encounter.
Captains J. D. L. Pearce and James Andrus were at Harrisburg on the
evening of December 29, when an express carrying instructions to Colonel
Winsor at Rockville arrived. Upon reading the instructions they started
for Rockville and arrived at dawn. Thirty men gathered and pushed on to
Maxwell’s ranch where they arrived that evening. After resting an hour,
they hastened on to Cedar Ridge and five miles southeast of Pipe
Springs. Sixtus E. Johnson spotted the smoke of Indian fires curling up
in the distance, about half a mile from the place where Whitmore and
McIntyre had been killed. The men slipped into a wash and kept out of
sight until within gunshot of the Indians, when they made a dash to get
between them and their horses. Firing opened and the Indians took to the
rocks. The skirmish lasted nearly an hour and covered a rough area half
a mile wide and three miles long. The thirteen Navajos in the band
refused to yield even when cornered, and several died fighting. During
the fray an arrow aimed at Captain Andrus struck his horse in the
forehead, saving the rider. One mortally wounded Indian continued to
shoot until he fainted. Another, wounded in both legs, fired until his
arrows were spent and then kept twanging his bow as if shooting as long
as the fray lasted.
When all was quiet the whites gathered together and found that none was
injured. Two Indians who had escaped came out on a hill some distance
away where they felt safe and slapped their seats in derision and yelled
“Squaw! Squaw!” in defiance. A man named Warren, from Pine Valley, who
had an extra long range breechloading gun took a chance shot and brought
one of them down. The other fled.
Of the thirteen Indians, four were killed, seven wounded and two
escaped, only one on horseback. Three horses were lost, but the balance
and the thirteen cattle were recovered and brought back. Copelan’s party
returned on January 1, 1867 but Pearce and Andrus tarried two or three
days longer. General Snow was in Salt Lake City at the time and his
responsibility fell largely upon Captain J. D. L. Pearce and Adjutant
Henry Eyring, his assistant.
The concentration in the larger towns and the military control of the
movements of people in the region tended to reduce the danger to the
settlers. Tension with the local Paiute Indians was gradually eased,
although the Navajo raids continued for several years. Jacob Hamblin,
Utah’s “Leatherstocking,” played an important role in quieting the
Paiutes. In the fall of 1867, he was instructed to keep in touch with
the Indians and do his best to pacify them. He went to Kanab, where he
helped them plant corn and vegetables and had peace parleys with them,
urging the Paiutes to cooperate in preventing Navajo raids by watching
the fords of the Colorado and the trails leading to the settlements.
In November, 1868, a band of about thirty Navajos crossed the river on
foot on a marauding expedition. They divided into squads of two or three
and worked at night in different quarters so rapidly as to baffle the
pickets. They got away with some stock, although twenty-seven horses
were recovered from them on the 25th at Black Canyon, by Andrus and his
command.
Notice of their presence came on November 22 from Henry Jennings to
Erastus Snow at St. George. The next day local Indians reported tracks
around St. George, and General Snow ordered the livestock along the
Virgin gathered together and herded under armed guard. He placed pickets
along the river for fifteen miles and sent Col. J. D. L. Pearce with a
company of cavalry to guard the rough country passes from Black Rock
Canyon (25 miles southeast of St. George) to Pipe Springs. Two days
later, word came from Washington that the Navajos had made off with a
band of horses via Black Rock Canyon. On the night of the 26th, a party
of these Indians with about twenty horses eluded the guards not far from
Pipe Springs and made their way eastward. A detachment under Captain
Willis Copelan started in pursuit. He chased the Navajos and was about
to overtake them, but before he attacked, some friendly Paiutes
encountered the Navajos, gave battle and killed two. They recovered the
horses and willingly turned them over to Copelan on his arrival. The
Paiutes were rewarded with suitable presents.
By December 1, 1868 Pearce concluded that the Navajos had decamped, and
started home, moving from Pipe Springs to Cedar Ridge. On that same day,
however, Erastus Snow received word from J. W. Young on the Muddy River
in Nevada, sixty miles below St. George, that the Navajos had run off
with eighteen horses and mules. Snow sent word to Pearce to be on his
guard. A posse of whites and Paiutes set out in pursuit from Mesquite.
The Indians overtook the Navajos and recovered eleven of the horses.
The messenger carrying this news reached Col. Pearce at Cedar Ridge at 4
a.m., December 2, and at daybreak scouts were sent out. Captain Freeman
found their trail and started after them with several men, being joined
by Captain Copelan. They sighted the Navajos’ dust, but could not
overtake them and the chase had to be abandoned.
A raid in February 1869 caused such concern that another expedition
(February 25 to March 12) of thirty-six men, under the leadership of
Captain Willis Copelan was sent out to deal with it.[75] As usual, the
Navajos struck swiftly and fled before the expedition arrived. At Pipe
Springs, Copelan watched the passes, hunted the surrounding region for
the raiders and found they had gone east. On March 1, with twenty men he
started in pursuit of the raiders. About eight miles out he struck a
trail where the Indians had been driving about fifty head of cattle.
During the next five days he followed the trail around the north end of
Buckskin Mountain (Kaibab) across Paria and Warm Springs Creek to the
old Ute ford on the Colorado River. Finding the quarry had escaped, he
returned home, arriving at St. George March 12.
During the fall, fresh raids by the Navajos created yet another scare. A
band raided settlements north of St. George and drove off stock. This
time Colonel James Andrus was detailed to lead a foray against the
marauders. He started up the Virgin River gathering fourteen recruits.
Then he went to Pipe Springs where he received word that another band of
Navajos had raided near Pinto. He hastened toward Pinto to intercept
them, passing via Kanab and Scutumpah. Near Paria, he found a trail
where some Navajos had escaped with an estimated eighty head of
livestock. Here Andrus learned that the Paiutes had attacked and wounded
a Navajo in a running fight, and that other raiders were on the way back
from Pinto.
Andrus and his men waited until November 10 and finding no signs of the
Indians, started home. The detachment had not gone far when they
encountered a fresh Navajo trail made by an estimated twelve horses and
two men. They caught up with the Indians early the next day just as they
were passing into a narrow gorge of the Paria canyon. There were
actually eight Indians with twelve horses, traveling leisurely. Under
the detachment’s fire, two Navajos fell; the rest disappeared into the
narrows. A few minutes later they re-appeared on the canyon cliffs on
both sides of Andrus’ force. Bullets from the Indian rifles soon
convinced Andrus that discretion was the better part of valor and he
retired.
The Navajos were adroit raiders. In rounding up stock they would often
camouflage themselves with bush foliage, crawling past the unsuspecting
guards to stampede the herd. Or they would skin a young steer, leaving
hoofs and horns in place and throw the hide over a brace of Indians, who
would steal to the corral under cover of darkness, let down the bars,
and quietly drive the stock away.
These raids were costly. Not only did the settlers live in constant
fear, but a heavy toll of livestock, estimated in 1869 at 1200 horses
and cattle, was taken. Men had to be continually on the alert and
peaceful pursuits were interrupted to furnish posses to chase the
Indians. When Major J. W. Powell of the U. S. Geological Survey was
exploring the Kanab region in 1870, he expressed grave concern about the
losses the Mormon settlers were suffering because of the raids.[76] In
October, Jacob Hamblin decided to accompany Major Powell on a peace
mission to the Navajos when the latter was leaving to return to
Washington, DC.[77] They reached Fort Defiance in eastern Arizona at a
time when 6,000 Navajos were gathered there for their annual allotments
from the Federal government.
All the Navajo chiefs but one were present and met in council to
consider Hamblin’s proposal. Powell introduced Hamblin by saying that he
represented the Mormons from the other side of the Colorado River who
were helping to pay the taxes from which the annual allotments to the
Navajos were made. Hamblin, in turn, pointed to the disastrous
consequences of the war and the advantages of peace. Through war the
Navajos had lost twenty or thirty men; with peace they could herd their
livestock in distant places where forage was good without fear of
molestation. He proposed, in place of war, a peaceful settlement of
difficulties and trade with the Mormons.
After several days of consultation, peace was agreed upon. The council
appointed one of the chiefs, Hastele, who lived near the Colorado River,
as negotiator who ended by saying, “We hope we may be able to eat at one
table, be warmed by one fire, smoke one pipe and sleep under one
blanket.” Thus was peace promised, though it was soon again to be put in
jeopardy. Hamblin reached Kanab with the good news about December 11,
1870.[78]
Within a few weeks, a group of eighty Navajos arrived at Kanab on a
trading expedition. They came on foot and brought all the Navajo
blankets they could carry. They scattered among the settlements and
traded their blankets for horses and returned well satisfied with the
experiment.
Peaceful trading continued until the winter of 1873-74, when a party of
four young Navajos was caught in a snowstorm near a ranch in Grass
Valley, Sevier County. They made themselves at home at the ranch and
even killed a small animal for food. The owner of the ranch, said to be
a non-Mormon, learned of their presence and gathered some of his friends
to go with him to investigate. At the ranch, they shot and killed three
of the Indians and wounded the fourth, who escaped and after painful
hardships made his way home.[79]
His story inflamed Navajo vengefulness and disquieting reports reached
the Mormons of threatened reprisals. Brigham Young asked Hamblin to
visit the Navajos again and satisfy them that the Mormons were not
involved in the outrage. Bishop Levi Stewart of Kanab, however, tried to
dissuade Hamblin and even sent a messenger to induce him to return after
he had started, urging that the risk was too great.
Firm in his purpose, Hamblin went his way and met the Navajos east of
Moencopi, about January 29, 1874. Hastele, the representative appointed
by the Navajos, was not there, but other influential Indians considered
Hamblin’s statement. The war council was held in a Navajo hogan, to
which there was but one entrance opposite Hamblin and his two
companions, while two dozen Navajos occupied the space between.
Hamblin’s explanation of the killings was at first rejected on the
ground that it was he who had invited the Navajos to come into the
Mormon country to trade, with the result that three of their good young
men now lay on the ground “for the wolves to eat.” The interpreter told
Hamblin his companions could go home, but he must die. The moment was
tense. His companions refused to leave him. Without arousing suspicion,
Hamblin passed several revolvers to his friends, saying as he did so,
“These are in my way.” The men behind unobtrusively readied them in case
of emergency. Hamblin reminded the Indians of his many friendly acts, of
his willingness to come into their midst to settle the matter, and told
them it was not right to kill him for the acts of strangers for whom he
was not responsible. The wounded Indian was brought in. A stirring
appeal for revenge was made by a young warrior, who demanded that
Hamblin be the victim.
The Indians, however, after the excitement subsided, offered to settle
for three hundred and fifty horses and cattle. Hamblin deliberately
refused. One of them remarked that he would agree after he had been
stretched over the hot coals of the fire. The interpreter asked if he
were not afraid. “No,” he said, “my heart has never known fear. What is
there to scare me?” “The Navajos,” was their answer, to which he replied
that he “was not afraid of his friends.” Mollified, the Indians finally
agreed to leave the matter to be settled by Hastele after an
investigation.
Late that spring, Hastele and his party visited Kanab and were piloted
to Sevier Valley where their findings convinced them that the Mormons
were innocent. Thus ended the last threat to peaceful relations with the
Navajos. Thereafter, both groups traded on good terms largely due to the
outstanding bravery and cool judgment of Jacob Hamblin.
Expansion in Kane County
Re-settlement of Long Valley and Kanab does not seem to have been
attempted until 1870, although Kanab and Paria were occupied by
missionaries under Jacob Hamblin in 1867 as frontier outposts. At Paria
a strong guard house and corral was built and some land was cultivated,
beginnings out of which the settlement grew with the accession of
several families in 1872 and 1873.
Kanab was similarly restored. The necessity of a fort there was
impressed upon the whites by the continued Navajo raids. Five stone
masons were sent from St. George in 1869 to construct the fort. They
reached Kanab on August 28 and worked until early in September, when
John R. Young told them they had finished their mission and could go
home.
This building expedition brought new settlers to Kanab, for John Mangum
(or Mangram), his brother, James, James Wilkins, and George Ross, moved
there soon after. Nate Adams, who visited Kanab in September, 1870, and
who moved there March 14, 1871, says the first three were in hiding and
that John D. Lee, also in hiding, took up Scutumpah Ranch and explored
Lee’s Ferry in 1869. Several missionaries were sent to aid Hamblin about
the same time. They were fencing and cultivating land when Brigham Young
made his first visit to the Kanab country about the 1st of April, 1870.
George Albert Smith wrote of this visit:
At Kanab we met Brothers Jacob Hamblin and Jehiel MacConnel
[McConnell], and several other missionaries, who were engaged in
teaching the Indians how to cultivate the soil and to obtain a living
by peaceful pursuits. We were much pleased with the country.... As
soon as measures shall be taken to prevent the annual raids of the
Navajos, this land of Canaan will be re-occupied by the Saints and
become a valuable acquisition to our southern settlements.[80]
A pioneer Salt Lake photographer, C. R. Savage, took many pictures along
the way, including one of Brigham Young and his party on the Colorado at
the mouth of the Virgin, and several of Zion Canyon.
Upon his return to Salt Lake City on April 16, 1870, Brigham Young sent
a group of fifty-two people led by Levi Stewart, to re-settle the Kanab
country. They went down through the Dixie settlements and reached Pipe
Springs on June 1. They remained there and at Moccasin Springs several
days while exploring the region.[81] On the 14th they moved over to
Kanab Creek and joined Jacob Hamblin at the old fort, now too small to
house so many.
Brigham Young manifested much interest in the success of the colony. He
promised Stewart that he would visit him in the fall and asked him to
find a more direct route to Kanab from the north that would obviate the
long roundabout approach through the Dixie settlements and the Arizona
strip. Stewart sent out two expeditions, the second of which found a
road from the head of the Sevier River through Upper Kanab and Johnson
Wash.
Brigham Young started for Kanab on August 26, 1870. Accompanying him
from Parowan was the intrepid explorer and topographer of the U. S.
Geological Survey, Major J. W. Powell, who had already made one trip
through the Grand Canyon and was returning to make plans for further
geological studies and his second trip through the canyon.[82] In
attempting to follow Stewart’s directions, the party lost its way and
wandered into the Paria River valley and thus went many miles out of its
direct route. According to Nate Adams,[83] “old Humpy Indian” guided the
company safely into Kanab on the evening of September 9, 1870. While
there, a townsite and fields were surveyed east of the fort beyond the
path of the canyon winds. Brigham Young returned to Salt Lake City via
St. George and the Dixie settlements.
Three months later, on December 14, 1870, six lives were lost in a fire
at the fort. These included Bishop Stewart’s wife, Margery, and three of
his sons.[84] Brigham Young made a special trip to Kanab from St.
George, where he was wintering, to comfort the bereaved families. Soon
after, the settlers began to build their homes on the townsite. Within a
few years, the fort was deserted but it was maintained for some time for
use in case of emergency. Dellenbaugh, a member of Major J. W. Powell’s
party, thus describes his visit to Kanab in the early 70’s:
[Illustration: F. S. Dellenbaugh in Zion Canyon (1930) with the flag
of the Emma Dean boat that made “a canyon voyage” about 60 years
earlier. _Photo U. S. Nat. Park Service._]
[Illustration: Viewing Bryce Canyon from the rim.
_Courtesy Union Pacific Railroad._]
... Nigger, [a white mule] went along very well and I was in Kanab by
three o’clock. The village which had been started only a year or two,
was laid out in the characteristic Mormon style, with wide streets and
regular lots fenced by wattling willows between stakes. Irrigating
ditches ran down each side of every street and from them the water,
derived from a creek that came down a canyon back of the town, could
be led into any of the lots, each of which was about one quarter of an
acre; that is, there were four lots to a block. Fruit trees and vines
had been planted and were already beginning to promise near results,
while corn, potatoes, etc., gave fine crops. The original place of
settlement was a square formed by one-story log houses on three sides
and a stockade on the fourth. This was called the fort and was a place
of refuge though the danger from Navajo attack seemed to be over and
that from any assault by the Paiutes certainly was past. One corner of
the fort was made by the walls of the schoolhouse, which was at the
same time meeting-house and ball-room. Altogether there were about 100
families in the village. The houses that had been built outside the
fort were quite substantially constructed, some of adobe or sun-dried
brick. The entire settlement had a thrifty air, as is the case with
the Mormons. Not a grog-shop, or gambling saloon, or dance-hall was to
be seen; quite in contrast with the usual disgraceful accompaniments
of the ordinary frontier towns. A perfectly orderly government
existed, headed by a bishop appointed by the church authorities in
Salt Lake City, the then incumbent of this office being an excellent
man, Bishop Stewart.[85]
After the Navajo peace settlement many of the places abandoned in 1866
were reoccupied and within a few years further expansion filled most of
the remaining areas suitable for settlements or ranches. In Long Valley,
Berryville (now Glendale), and Winsor (Mt. Carmel) were revived in 1871.
Johnson was settled in the spring of the same year by five brothers,
Joel, Benjamin, Joseph, George and William Johnson, on the site of
Scutumpah, formerly John D. Lee’s ranch. In 1872, Graham, on the
headwaters of Kanab Creek (upper Kanab), was reoccupied and the settlers
engaged in dairying and lumbering.
The upper reaches of the Paria, however, attracted settlers from the
north. Panguitch was re-founded in March, 1871 under George W. Sevy and
counted seventy-five families the next year. Joel H. Johnson and George
D. Wilson established a sawmill in 1871 near the present location of
Hillsdale, and were soon joined by twenty families, including those of
Nephi and Seth Johnson. Other cattlemen located farther up the Sevier,
where Meltiar Hatch founded the village bearing his name. Nephi Johnson,
discoverer of Zion Canyon, was made bishop of Hillsdale in 1874.
Attention was then focused on the upper Paria. The first settlers, David
O. Littlefield and Orley D. Bliss, located near the present site of
Cannonville on Christmas Eve, 1874. Early the next day eight other
families arrived, who built log houses at a place called Clifton and
began farming along the Paria and on Henrieville Creek. Ebenezer Bryce,
from Pine Valley, selected a place farther upstream, a mile or two east
of the present site of Tropic near the mouth of Bryce Canyon. Bryce used
the famous canyon for a cattle range, and thus immortalized his name.
Clifton was not well located and in 1877 some settlers moved to a new
townsite called Cannonville, in honor of George Q. Cannon, high Mormon
official who had taken a special interest in their affairs. Other
settlers moved over to Henrieville Creek to be near their farms, and
thus the town of Henrieville (named for James Henrie, president of
Panguitch Stake) was born.
In 1879 Daniel Goulding settled near Bryce’s ranch. Seeking water for
irrigation, he and Bryce devised a scheme to divert water from Pine
Creek in the Great Basin by means of a canal over the divide. This they
finished, but upkeep was expensive, their crops were poor, and Goulding
lost about five hundred fruit trees from drouth. Bryce became
discouraged and left for Arizona in 1880 and Goulding moved to
Henrieville in 1883. Bryce, unimpressed by the beauty of the canyon,
considered it “awful hard to find a cow that was lost” in the intricate
maze of its pinnacles.
Seth Johnson and several others located in 1886 on Yellow Creek (Kane
County) about three miles southwest of Cannonville and named the
settlement Georgetown, in honor of the same man for whom Cannonville was
named.
In 1890 the two Ahlstrom brothers built homes on the present site of
Tropic and with several others began a second and more ambitious attempt
to divert water from the East Fork of Sevier River over the divide into
Paria Creek. This time the project succeeded. Tropic townsite was
surveyed in 1891 and settlers began to flock there and prepare homes and
lands in anticipation of the coming of the water. A fitting celebration
was staged on May 23, 1892, when the water was turned into the canal.
By this time, most of the suitable valleys and canyons had been
occupied. Erosion, however, caused trouble at Kanab. From 1883 to 1890,
floods presumably resulting from overgrazing tore out dams and ditches
and gutted the canyons and valleys with deep washes. Water arose in the
bottom of the washes and that in Kanab Wash (below Kanab) was diverted
about 1886 onto a new townsite just beyond the state line in Arizona,
called Fredonia, which later served as a refuge for a number of
polygamous wives during the Federal offensive against the practice.[86]
While southern Utah was thus growing, a new movement was developed. In
1879, the Mormon Church leaders called for eighty men from the Southern
Mission to establish an outpost for the purpose of “cultivating and
maintaining friendly relations with Indians whose homes were near the
point where the state of Colorado and the Territories of Utah, New
Mexico and Arizona come together.” Twenty-five men, including Kumen
Jones, went out to investigate routes and locations. They traveled via
Lee’s Ferry, Tuba City and Monument Valley to the San Juan River as far
as Four-Corners, spent about three months exploring the region, and then
returned home via a northern route, past the sites of Monticello and
Moab.[87]
While they were away, another party set out from Escalante seeking a
short-cut to the San Juan country. A route much more direct than that
mapped by the first party was reported, apparently on imperfect
observation. It was, however, accepted, and by October the party was on
its way. It passed through Escalante and reached Forty-mile Spring where
it was held up by excessively rough country, while snows in the
mountains blocked retreat.
Three scouts were sent ahead to investigate some of the wildest and most
rugged scenic areas of America. The three returned in disappointment;
one held the route feasible, another positively rejected it, while the
third thought it might be possible to get through with special help.
Envoys were sent to Salt Lake City to appeal for assistance, which was
given in the form of a legislative appropriation for blasting a way
through.
It took fifty days to get eighty-two wagons through Hole-in-the-Rock and
down to the Colorado River and ninety days to reach Bluff on the San
Juan River where the first settlement was made. Three babies were born
on the way and the hardships endured form a Western epic.[88]
The story of Orderville has been left for the last. The United Order[89]
was organized at Mt. Carmel, March 20, 1874, by John R. Young, at which
time one hundred and nine members were listed. One summer of the United
Order was enough for most members. Bishop Bryant Jolley, with his
numerous family and relatives, formed the core of the dissenters. To
avoid contention, those who wished to continue with the Order sold their
holdings and moved in a body two miles above Mt. Carmel where title to
all land was vested in the group and where they set up the town
Orderville, under the leadership of Howard O. Spencer. The new town was
surveyed February 20, 1875.
The first building was a hotel where all ate together in the large
dining hall, from July, 1875 to May, 1880. As time passed, living
quarters were provided for each family and work was divided into more
specialized fields.
During the hey-day of the Order, around 1880, it numbered nearly six
hundred adherents and there were some twenty-eight specialized
departments of work which included most of the various activities that
go to make up a simple community. The Order made great progress and
acquired property rapidly. Farming lands were expanded to include areas
scattered through Long Valley and at Kanab.
The growing power of the Order created jealousies, but disintegration
came from internal dissension. The idea of giving everyone an equal
reward regardless of ability or accomplishment tended in many cases to
lessen effort and brought charges of laziness and carelessness.
Gradually, more and more individual property was assigned to each home;
farmers were given a share of their own produce and livestock and
sawmills and freighting were operated under lease or contract. Matters
were hastening toward dissolution when, in 1885, polygamy troubles
began. Fear that the Federal government might confiscate the goods of
the Order forced the final dissolution of most of the property, and
farming lands, livestock, ranches, tannery and sawmill, were all sold to
members. The woolen mill alone was kept and intermittently operated
until 1900. In that year the United Order of Orderville was officially
dissolved, twenty-five years after its incorporation.
Zion Canyon
“In an instant, there flashed before us a scene never to be forgotten.
In coming time it will, I believe, take rank with a very small number of
spectacles each of which will, in its own way, be regarded as the most
exquisite of its kind which the world discloses. The scene before us was
the Temples and Towers of the Virgin.” Thus prophetically wrote Captain
Clarence E. Dutton of the U. S. Geological Survey in a report published
in the year 1880.
Dutton was following up the geological work begun by Major J. W. Powell
ten or twelve years earlier when the latter started out to explore the
Colorado River and made his two memorable trips in boats down the river
through the Grand Canyon. The geological problems encountered were so
extraordinary that Dutton was detailed to further investigation and
encountered problems that have engaged the attention of scientists to
this day, particularly the eminent geologist, Dr. Herbert E. Gregory.
Following the line of Vermillion Cliffs from Kanab westward, Dutton came
to the pass between Eagle Crags and Smithsonian Butte when suddenly,
startlingly, there lay before him to the northward the valley of the
Virgin River in all its grandeur.
Few have seen Zion as Clarence Dutton saw it. From a high pass, in late
afternoon, with the sun on his left, he looked into that vast panorama
of the Vermillion Cliffs of Zion and Parunuweap and those flanking the
Great West Canyon as well—a twenty-mile stretch in one sweeping view.
The setting sun cast shadows that made the turrets and towers stand out
in bold relief, while the light reflected from one wall upon another
intensified the tints and shades of the reds until they stood out in
striking contrast with the vivid green of the vegetation and the higher
cliffs. No wonder the cold scientist broke down and described in
emotional terms this superb panorama.
Forerunners of Dutton had visited Zion, but none had penned such
eloquent praise. Major J. W. Powell and two companions, Stephen V.
Jones, one of his topographers, and Joseph W. Young, a Mormon, left Long
Valley on September 10, 1872[90] and started down through the Parunuweap
on foot. They came out next day before noon and spent another day
visiting Zion Canyon. Of this trip, Powell says of the Parunuweap:
At noon, we are in a canyon 2500 feet deep and we come to a fall where
the walls are broken down, and the huge rocks beset the channel, on
which we obtain a foothold to reach a level two hundred feet below.
Here the canyon is again wider and we find a floodplain on which we
can walk.
Next day of the Mukuntuweap Canyon, he writes:
Entering this, we have to wade up the stream; often the water fills
the entire channel, and although we travel many miles, we find no
floodplain, talus, or broken piles of rock at the foot of the cliff.
The walls have smooth, plain faces, and are everywhere very regular
and vertical for a thousand feet or more, where they seem to break in
shelving slopes to higher altitudes; and everywhere as we go along, we
find springs bursting out at the foot of the walls.[91]
Jack Hillers, a photographer from Powell’s party, spent some time during
the summer of 1873 taking pictures in Zion Canyon. These are on file in
the U. S. Geological Survey Office and have been often used in
publications. For a long time, however, this material and Zion Canyon
were largely forgotten. The local course of development continued
placidly for many years. Only occasionally a hardy traveler, hearing of
the beauties of the region, had courage enough to brave the rocky, dusty
roads to enjoy the scenic splendors. One was Frederick S. Dellenbaugh,
who had accompanied Powell on his second trip down the Grand Canyon. In
the summer of 1903 he found his way into Springdale, where he made his
headquarters with Bishop O. D. Gifford, visited Zion Canyon, made some
oil paintings to be exhibited at the World’s Fair in St. Louis the next
year, and wrote an article, “A New Valley of Wonders,” which appeared in
_Scribners’ Magazine_ for January, 1904. In this article, describing his
first view of the West Temple, he wrote:
One hardly knows just how to think of it. Never before has such a
naked mountain of rock entered our minds. Without a shred of disguise
its transcendent form rises pre-eminent. There is almost nothing to
compare to it. Niagara has the beauty of energy; the Grand Canyon of
immensity; the Yellowstone of singularity; the Yosemite of altitude;
the ocean of power; this Great Temple of eternity—“The Titan fronted
blowy steeps, that cradled Time.”
Grafton has a situation that must some day make it famous, yet one
dreads to think of this land being overrun by the ennuied tourist. But
with an altitude of only 3,000 feet, a superb, dry climate, mild
winters, magnificent environment, and a supply of delicious fruits it
cannot long remain unvisited if a railway ever is built within easy
reach.
The Zion pictures at the fair created a great deal of interest. A young
Mormon missionary, David Hirschi, who had been reared at Rockville and
knew every foot of the Zion country, visited St. Louis on his way home
from Europe and found them to be a center of attraction in the Utah
section. He was surprised and delighted, but was put on his mettle when
he heard skeptics remark that there couldn’t be such a place. He
informed them that there certainly was, that he knew its every hill and
cliff, and to prove it, he pointed to his buckskin shoelace and showed
the hill in the picture where he had killed the deer from which they had
been made. A great crowd gathered to listen and an interesting
discussion followed. Undoubtedly the pictures and magazine article were
important factors in arousing a widespread interest in Zion Canyon. The
time was approaching when its superlative beauty would be recognized by
the national government.
The national conservation program inaugurated by President Theodore
Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot produced a bill (June 8, 1906) empowering
the president to set aside certain lands particularly valuable for
scenic, scientific or historic purposes, as national monuments. Many
were created during the next few years and among them was the
Mukuntuweap National Monument.
During the summer of 1908, Leo A. Snow of St. George, a United States
Deputy Surveyor, was detailed to survey in southern Utah, Township 40
South, Range 10 West from Salt Lake City. The party, of which the
present writer was a member, in executing the survey covered the upper
part of the Zion gorge. Triangulation was used in measuring the gorge
from the east to west. When the report and map were submitted that part
of the canyon was described as unsurveyable. In his report, Snow stated
that from a certain place (now Observation Point):
A view can be had of this canyon surpassed only by a similar view of
the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. At intervals along the west side of
the canyon streams of various sizes rush over the edge of the chasm
forming water falls from 800 to 2000 feet high. The stream in the
bottom of the canyon appears as a silver ribbon winding its way among
the undergrowth and occasionally disappearing from view. In my opinion
this canyon should be set apart by the government as a national park.
The report was dispatched to Washington, June 25, 1909. A little more
than a month later, July 31, the Acting Secretary of the Interior
recommended to the President the creation of the Mukuntuweap National
Monument. President Taft signed the proclamation on the same day. This
act was primarily a withdrawal from entry—a method of holding land for
national purposes and preventing it from passing into private ownership.
There was no active administration of the area at first. The farmers
still cultivated the land, the stockmen continued to graze their cattle
in the canyon and the sawmill owners to lower lumber over the cable. The
canyon was still inaccessible to automobiles and the roadway for wagons
or buggies was such that few people cared to drive over it for pleasure.
Wesley King, of the Salt Lake Commercial Club, was an early exception.
Poor roads could not thwart his desire to see the scenic beauties of
which he had heard from E. D. Woolley, a prominent leader of Kane
County. He and his wife traveled by train to Marysvale where they
obtained a team and buggy and started south. A report of this trip
appeared in _The Salt Lake Tribune_, November 12, 1911. King wrote:
We crossed the divide ... and began our descent into and upon one of
the most scenic portions of America.... I do not believe there is
anything on the globe like the canyon of the Rio Virgin, or to compare
with the Vermillion cliffs....
Our admiration for this people was aroused.... They can only market
such products as can be driven across the mountains, while freighting
of goods southward presents obstacles that would baffle the stoutest
hearts. Here and over in the Dixie Land to the westward, the people
live a simple, healthy life, unspoiled by the world and its vagaries.
Children of the soil ... of one faith and with a singleness of
purpose....
We lost our way and our tempers getting over the Sahara bordering
Kanab. A lone sheep herder saved us on the second morning out and we
floundered into Kanab over twenty-four hours late, just as Uncle “D”
Woolley was starting a posse of Indian Scouts after us.
The Kings took Dave Rust for guide and went over to Zion Canyon. On the
brink above Rockville, they “hesitated for awhile in an effort to
comprehend the grandeur of the ‘Great Temple’ and its score of lesser
temples and towers, brilliant in the glow of the setting sun.” King’s
story continued:
We found the Parunuweap Canyon impassable, so we spent the day in the
dark recesses of the Mukuntuweap, speechless with wonderment, except
for an occasional “awe” or an “absolutely wonderful.” This panorama
had a deeper, a more wonderful effect upon us than anything our eyes
had ever beheld....
Garfield, Wayne and Kane counties are sparsely settled, and until
permanent roads are constructed into them, they will remain so.
Washington and Iron counties have great natural resources and
wonderful possibilities which will blossom into realities only when
the transportation problem has been solved. Each county can do little
by itself in road building. It is a state problem and must be worked
out by our state officials.
Times, however, were rapidly changing. The automobile was displacing the
horse and the demand for good roads for auto traffic was being met by
ever larger road appropriations by the state and the nation. However,
the opening of the scenic areas of southern Utah and northern Arizona to
the touring public is largely a story of highways.
The Kaibab and North Rim
North of the Colorado River and south of the Utah line lies that
variegated country known as the Arizona Strip. To the west lie the
Parashont and Trumbull Mountains. To the east, the Kaibab Plateau,
locally known as the Buckskin Mountains, rears its summit to 10,000 feet
in a long level line that stretches southward to the north rim of the
Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Information concerning this region
began to seep in from outposts during the early 60’s. There is little
doubt that Whitmore and McIntyre at Pipe Springs, L. W. Roundy at Kanab,
and Peter Shurtz near Paria, all knew something about its general
characteristics, for it could be observed from all three places.
The expedition led by James Andrus in the spring of 1866 to rescue Peter
Shurtz must have explored the region south of Paria. Roundy said the
expedition started south from Paria to investigate an Indian smoke and
was gone fourteen days (February 23 to March 9), but no further record
is available, except that Nate Adams, who moved to Kanab in 1871, stated
the expedition went over the Kaibab.
Jacob Hamblin doubtless became well acquainted with the Kaibab after he
went to Kanab in 1867 to live among the Indians. John D. Lee took up a
ranch at Scutumpah (on the Andrus route of 1866) in 1869, explored the
lower Paria, and located the site for a ferry at its mouth (later Lee’s
Ferry). Lee and Hamblin must have explored a good deal of the region
together for they built a six room adobe house with sod roof at Jacob’s
Lake in north Kaibab soon after. When they divided their property a
little later, Lee took the ferry and Hamblin the pool and Kane Springs
in Houserock Valley.
In 1870, Brigham Young sent a portable steam sawmill to Kanab and Levi
Stewart installed it near Scutumpah and the next year moved it to Big
Springs on the Kaibab. Many years later, it was moved farther south to
Castle or Rigg Springs.
In 1872, Major Powell’s party centered its work around the Kaibab. Part
of the time, this party camped near the Levi Stewart ranch and
sawmill.[92] At that time Eight-Mile Spring, Jacob’s Well, Oak Spring,
Pine Spring and Stewart’s ranch were all being used as grazing
headquarters. During that summer, Powell and a friend of his from
Illinois, Professor Harvey C. DeMotte, explored the roof of the Kaibab
and bestowed the name DeMotte Park upon the main valley (sometimes
called V T Park). In 1873, Thomas Moran, the well-known Western artist
who had been commissioned by the Federal government to paint the Grand
Canyon, made a trip by mule team from Salt Lake City to the Kaibab,
where Major Powell suggested the vantage from which he produced the
canvas of the Grand Canyon now hanging in the National Capitol.
The use of the Kaibab for grazing gradually increased. In 1877 the
United Order of Orderville acquired most of the holdings on the northern
Kaibab and controlled the range for about ten years, after which time
lands and stock passed into private ownership.
During the late 80’s, John W. Young (son of the Mormon leader),
representing the Mormon Church in England, conceived a grandiose scheme
for interesting English aristocracy in the Kaibab as a private
recreation area. He acquired the major holdings there and stocked it
with cattle and horses. Dan Seegmiller of Kanab was placed in charge of
operations. Young’s scheme fell through, but he was not discouraged. He
enlarged his plan for making the Kaibab a great hunting ground and
center of tourist travel with hotels and lodges for the English
nobility. Some interest was shown, and several British sportsmen decided
to investigate.
“Buffalo Bill” Cody was in England at the time with his wild west show,
and was anxious to dispose of his animals there and recruit his stock in
the United States. Young induced him to replenish in the Kaibab and to
act as guide for the English representatives. Junius Wells went as
Young’s agent. The trip was made in the summer of 1891. Dan Seegmiller
took wagons to Flagstaff, Arizona, on the railroad, to meet Buffalo Bill
and the Englishmen. He had with him Bill Crosby, Nate and Orza Adams and
Brig Young (son of John W. Young). They returned via Lee’s Ferry to
Houserock Valley and the Kaibab.
[Illustration: “Buffalo Bill” and cowboys at Kaibab, left to right.
Ed Lamb, Nate Adams, George Adams, Orza Adams, Wm. F. Cody (Buffalo
Bill), Walter Hamblin, Eb Brown. They helped him replenish his
depleted stock. _Courtesy Walter Hamblin._]
[Illustration: Buffalo Bill, the Englishmen and local American
christening McKinnon Point on North Rim in the fall of 1882. Their
names on a paper tucked away in a tin can were found (about 1928) by
a Park Ranger. _Courtesy Walter Hamblin._]
The party included Junius Wells, Buffalo Bill and his crack rifle-shot,
John Baker and the Englishmen, Major McKinnon, Lord Ingram and Lord
Milmey. They were entertained by the local cattlemen, including Anthony
W. Ivins, E. D. Woolley, Ed Lamb, Jr., Walter Hamblin, Alex Cram,
Ebenezer Brown and Al Huntington. The British agents, however, decided
the Kaibab was too far away and too hard to reach. The party went out
through Kanab where the presence of English lords and Buffalo Bill
proved almost too much for the inhabitants.
The failure of the deal left John W. Young in difficulties. To clear the
situation, the Kaibab Land and Cattle Company was organized and money
borrowed from New York bankers. A little later, Cannon, Grant and
Company of Salt Lake City took over the mortgage and Anthony W. Ivins
became field manager. By skillful husbandry, Ivins redeemed the mortgage
and tax sale. In 1896 he moved to Mexico and the Kaibab holdings and
property were sold to Murdock and Fotheringham of Beaver, who soon sold
out to the B. F. Saunders cattle outfit. He in turn, later sold to the
Grand Canyon Cattle Company (E. J. Marshall Co.), still in control at
the time the Kaibab National Forest was established (1908). It had been
set aside as a national forest reserve in 1893.
Dan Seegmiller’s close association with the Kaibab and North Rim
impressed him with its outstanding importance as a national
vacation-land, a view shared by many. He continued, as long as he lived,
to advertise its merits. About 1896, three years before his death, he
drove a white top buggy from Kanab to Milford, picked up a New York
party and escorted it over the Kaibab to the North Rim and back. After
his partner’s death, E. D. Woolley began taking parties into the Kaibab
and North Rim. He was the most prominent man of the Kanab region and
logically the one to take the lead in its development from the north
side of the Colorado River.
Despite his zealous interest, difficulties of transportation, poor
roads, distance from the railroad, slow method of travel, all conspired
to prevent significant development. Woolley finally conceived the idea
of making a trail from the South Rim (rail terminal) across the Grand
Canyon via Bright Angel Creek. For this purpose, he organized the Grand
Canyon Transportation Company. The members included himself, T. C. Hoyt,
Thomas Chamberlain, Jim Emett, E. S. Clark, and later (1906) D. D. Rust.
A permit was obtained from Arizona to construct a toll trail across the
canyon. Governmental regulations forebade tolls, however, and they had
to limit their revenue to charges for transportation and guide services.
E. D. Woolley and Jim Emett began the trail in 1901. It proved an
expensive undertaking and in 1908 Jesse Knight invested $5,000 to help
it along. A cable car was installed for crossing the river. The car was
suspended from the cable track by pulleys and pulled back and forth by a
propeller cable wound on drums. This route proved to be an important
inlet to the North Rim and Kaibab. The total traffic, however, was
relatively small and remained so until better transportation facilities
became available.
One of the chief events of those days was an expedition engineered by E.
D. Woolley in September, 1905, in which a party consisting of Senator
Reed Smoot, T. C. Hoyt, E. D. Woolley, E. G. Woolley (nephew), Graham
McDonald, James Clove, Lewis T. Cannon and Congressman Joseph Howell
traveled leisurely by team from Salt Lake City through the state,
holding political rallies as they went. At Kanab (September 26), schools
were dismissed and a gala holiday declared. The expedition moved on to
the Kaibab and North Rim where the distinguished visitors enjoyed the
scenery and hunted deer on Greenland Peninsula. The trip provided
conspicuous advertising for the Grand Canyon.
On November 28, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Grand
Canyon National Game Preserve and thereafter deer were protected and
predatory animals hunted. Government hunters of the U. S. Biological
survey were employed for that purpose from 1906 to 1923. During that
period, more than eight hundred cougars, thirty wolves, nearly five
thousand coyotes and more than five hundred bobcats were removed.
One of the interesting characters among these hunters was “Uncle” Jim
Owen, who with his hounds took about six hundred cougars from the Kaibab
and one hundred and thirty from regions to the north and west. He had
previously been a member of the Jesse James gang and when intoxicated
was a man to be avoided. At El Tovar, one night, he took a dislike to
the clerk, tried to shoot him, and filled the room so full of holes it
cost the party $100 to settle the damages.
D. D. Rust was a school teacher at Fredonia during the winter of 1905-6.
During the following summer, he joined the Grand Canyon Transportation
Company and was employed for many years thereafter as a guide for
tourist parties. Zane Grey, the famous Western novelist, came in April,
1907, and Rust took him over to the North Rim to hunt mountain lions
(cougars). Zane was then a tenderfoot who slept with a six-shooter under
his pillow, a practice he abandoned as he became hardened. He returned
later in the season to hunt with Col. C. J. Jones (Buffalo Jones), Grant
Wallace, a journalist, and Jim Emett, local cattleman. On this hunt,
Wallace captured alive the big king lion of Bright Angel Canyon.
Incidentally, Zane Grey built his novel _The Heritage of the Desert_
around Emett’s trial at Flagstaff in April, 1907. Emett, whose
headquarters were at Lee’s Ferry, had been accused of rustling by the B.
F. Saunders’ outfit.
On January 11, 1908, the President issued a proclamation creating the
Grand Canyon National Monument and separating it from the Kaibab
National Forest. During the summer of 1908, Rust took Nathan Galloway, a
trapper from the Uintah Basin, from whom he had learned the Canadian
method of shooting rapids, into the Markagunt Plateau to hunt grizzly
bears.
Buffalo Jones came back again in early August, 1909, with a party of
Bostonians to hunt cougars with Jim Owen. After five days, Buffalo Jones
bagged a live lion to take home with him. On that day, the hounds struck
another cougar trail and led the party backward six or seven miles until
the trail got cold. Then it was discovered that “Old Pot,” the reliable
hound, was missing. They retraced their trail and found him with a
“treed” cougar about a half mile in the opposite direction from where
they had started. Buffalo Jones went up the tree with a rope and a
stick. The lion saw Jones coming and started down the tree toward him.
Jones backed down slowly and stopped. The cougar stopped, too, glared at
the man and backed up on his limb. Jones crept slowly up again until he
could reach the cougar with his stick and poked a noose over the lion’s
head. When the rope was pulled, the beast jumped the wrong way and
crashed through the limbs chewing at the rope. On the ground the dogs
pounced on him and Jones roped the hind legs while others manned the
rope around the neck. They stretched him out, tied him alive on the back
of a burro, and carried him across the Grand Canyon to the railroad.
Motion pictures of this hunt were taken by Jones.
It was in June, 1909, that the first automobiles were driven through the
Kaibab to the North Rim. This was a stunt engineered by Edwin Gordon
Woolley, Jr., of Salt Lake City. With his wife and brother-in-law, D. A.
Affleck, he took two autos, a Locomobile and Thomas Flyer, and arrived
at Kanab on the fifth day. Here they were joined by E. D. Woolley and
Graham McDonald from Kane County. It took three days more to reach the
North Rim at Bright Angel. At the time this was a real feat. Gasoline
had been distributed in advance by team, ten gallons every thirty miles.
They carried with them tools and equipment for car repairs and road
making, as well as canvas for use in sand and extra water for overheated
engines. They had to remove high road centers, fill up washes, level off
sideling dugways and cut timber falls out of the wagon roads. Indians
came to Kaibab from miles around to see their first “devil wagons,”
which they were loath to believe could run. At the end of the trip, it
was found that nine new tires valued at $80 each had been worn out.
These were exhibited by the US. Rubber Company to demonstrate the
wonderful performance of their product.
The advent of automobiles on the Kaibab and North Rim opened up new
vistas of development. Woolley began to envision the time when the
construction of good roads would permit easy access to visitors and when
the scenic features of the Grand Canyon and the deer herds of the Kaibab
would attract attention and induce many to come. His vision was to be
realized before many years had passed.
Modern Development of Zion, Bryce and North Rim
At the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, a few
individuals here and there in the state were beginning to grasp the
potentialities of southern Utah as a scenic mecca. Throughout the United
States, agitation for better roads gained ground as the automobile
assumed a larger place in our national consciousness. The first
transcontinental auto trip was made about 1900 and much difficulty was
experienced in finding passable routes. The old pioneer wagon roads,
disused since the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869,
had fallen into disrepair and were obliterated or washed by erosion in
many of the desert and mountainous areas so that they were often
forgotten and nearly impassable.
After the first trip, however, other autoists quickly followed and there
was a loud demand for logs and guide materials during the next decade—a
demand which leading Utah newspapers attempted to supply. The first
quarter of the century may be characterized as transitional from wagon
and train to automobile. Roads had to be redesigned on the basis of
alignment instead of grade control and reconstructed into highways,
destined to become not only supplemental feeders of railroads but also
competitors.
This movement led to the establishment in 1909 of the Utah State Road
Commission, empowered to develop state roads and with the avowed
intention to build a two million dollar highway through the entire state
from Logan to St. George. It took several years for this program to
reach southern Utah and by that time road building was beginning to be
affected by modern methods of highway construction.
Occasional trips into the scenic southland continued, some primarily for
enjoyment, others for publicity or promotional purposes, all of which
served to focus public attention more and more on the area. Public
pressure was brought to bear not only on the road commission, but also
on the governor and eventually on the Federal government.
Governor William Spry of Utah (1908-1916) made at least three trips into
the region (1912, 1913, 1916). During September, 1912, he visited the
Dixie Fruit Festival at St. George, then went to Kanab and northward
through the State prospecting the route now followed by highway 89.
[Illustration: A view of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River.
_Courtesy Union Pacific Railroad._]
[Illustration: How earlier generations explored the Kaibab:
horseback, buggies, and automobiles.]
[Illustration: Self-service on the Kaibab.]
[Illustration: Visitors at “Uncle Jim” Owen’s cabin.]
[Illustration: Camping party on the march. _Courtesy D. D. Rust._]
[Illustration: Theodore Roosevelt (center, holding rope), Jim Owen
(next right), and party on Kaibab (1913) that captured ...]
[Illustration: ... a live cougar ...]
[Illustration: ... that was taken across the Colorado River in “the
cage”. _Courtesy D. D. Rust._]
[Illustration: Waterfall after rain in Temple of Sinewava.]
[Illustration: A guided party along the Narrows Trail (author at
right).]
[Illustration: Naturalists in Zion Canyon (1928), left to right,
Harold Russell, J. W. Thornton and A. M. Woodbury.]
During the following winter, a group of convicts from the Utah State
Penitentiary was put to work building roads in Washington County between
Cedar City and Toquerville. They improved the bad roads of the time, but
the route was poorly chosen and was replaced several years later by a
well-planned highway. The convicts continued to be employed in
Washington County for several winters.
During the summer of 1913, E. D. Woolley and others urged the State Road
Commission to take over the task of building an auto road southward from
Salina to the state line on the route to North Rim. That fall, the U. S.
Forest Service started construction of a permanent boulevard (?) from
Jacob’s Lake to North Rim with a total allotment of $2750! The result
was a road which when compared with highways of today, illustrates the
revolutionary changes in standards of road making.
In July and August, 1913, ex-President Theodore Roosevelt took a party
into the Kaibab from South Rim and spent three weeks hunting lions. They
captured three and took one alive across the canyon. Roosevelt reported
the trip in an article in the _Outlook_.[93]
During that same summer, J. Cecil Alter, director of the U. S. Weather
Bureau at Salt Lake City and editor of this Quarterly, made a leisurely
trip southward with his wife and two companions in a white top spring
wagon, via Marysvale, Panguitch, Kanab and Jacob’s Lake to the Kaibab,
North Rim and over the Cable Crossing to El Tovar. Returning, he
traveled via Ryan, Pipe Springs and Rockville to Zion, then out via
Toquerville, Parowan, Circleville and Marysvale. He reported the
interesting aspects of his trip in _The Salt Lake Tribune_ on August 31,
1913, and January 4, 1914. The enthusiasm of the _Tribune_ was aroused
and the paper sponsored a “pathfinder” tour under the leadership of W.
D. Rishel to log the road to Grand Canyon. It left Salt Lake City on
September 6, visited the canyon and paused a day at Kanab on the return
trip.
On the occasion of Governor Spry’s first visit to Zion in October, 1913,
the people along the Virgin River declared a holiday and accompanied his
party almost en masse into Zion, where a picnic was enjoyed at the foot
of the cable. To thrill the governor, a man was lifted to the top of the
cliffs on the cable and brought back a few minutes later. The party rode
horseback into the Narrows and was much impressed by the experience.
Governor Spry was thoroughly convinced of the importance of national
recognition and thereafter earnestly pressed for its realization.
From Rockville, the party took spring buggies for Kanab with extra teams
to negotiate the hills. The idea behind the trip seems to have been to
investigate the possibilities of tourist travel from some point on the
Salt Lake Route Railroad to Zion and Grand Canyon. Douglas White,
writing in _The Arrowhead_ for July 1917, said that as a result of this
visit, Governor Spry “decided that the highway division of his
administration should accomplish the construction of a highway to the
border of the National Monument.”
By 1914, the local people of Dixie no less than the governor, were
awakening to the scenic potentialities of their homeland. It had taken
five years to sell the idea of Zion Canyon as a national mecca to the
people living near it. The Grand Canyon Highway Association was
organized with David Hirschi as president, and a five-county
(Washington, Kane, Iron, and Beaver in Utah and Coconino in Arizona)
road convention was called for July in Hurricane. Up to this time no
auto had yet been driven from Toquerville to Zion Canyon.
The first problem was to make the roads passable by removing high
centers, reducing grades and filling washes. A campaign was launched
locally to secure subscriptions for road improvement. Hurricane pledged
$2,000, La Verkin $500, Toquerville $1,500 and Cedar City $1,200. During
the winter the road from Toquerville to Hurricane and the dugway up the
Hurricane Fault to the east toward Kanab were improved.
In 1916, political pressure had reached Washington. Senator Reed Smoot
responded and planned to ask for federal assistance in road making. This
dovetailed with a national movement which culminated that year in the
first federal aid road act. Smoot called upon the Department of the
Interior for information concerning the Mukuntuweap National Monument.
Horace M. Albright, a youthful assistant to Secretary Franklin K. Lane,
furnished the data. Senator Smoot inserted in a deficiency appropriation
an item reading as follows:
For a proportionate share of the amount required to construct an
inter-state wagon road or highway through the Mukuntuweap National
Monument, Utah, approximately fifteen miles for the fiscal year 1917,
$15,000. [Approved September 8, 1916. 39 Stat. 801-818].
The U. S. National Park Service was authorized by Congressional Act of
August 25, 1916, but it was not actually established until May, 1917.
Ever since the passage of the National Monument Act of June 8, 1906,
national monuments had been accumulating without adequate supervision.
The need for an agency to handle national parks and national monuments
was becoming urgent. The bill, as passed, created the National Park
Service “To promote and regulate the use of the Federal Areas known as
National Parks, Monuments and Reservations by such means and measures as
conform to the fundamental purposes of said parks, monuments and
reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural
and historic objects and the wild life therein, and to provide for the
enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave
them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Albright had joined Secretary Lane’s staff in 1913 and had been assigned
to deal with the parks and monuments. When the National Park Service was
established, Stephen T. Mather of California was appointed director,
April 19, 1917 and Albright was named his assistant. Because of illness,
Mather did not assume his duties until March, 1918. and Albright served
as acting director.
In the meantime, _The Salt Lake Tribune_ had sent another auto
pathfinding tour led by W. D. Rishel to the Grand Canyon, starting
August 6, 1916. It reached Kanab in two days and spent three more going
to North Rim and back to Kanab. From here, it headed for Hurricane and
Zion. At Pipe Springs, the cavalcade met a railroad party in a large
White bus going to North Rim (August 13). This party included
representatives of the Union Pacific and the Oregon Short Line
railroads, together with those of other travel agencies. The expedition
shortly preceded the consolidation of the two railway systems
represented, and the agents were scouting the possibilities for railroad
traffic in the region. They had left the railroad at Lund by bus and
traveled via Hurricane to Pipe Springs where they met Rishel’s jaded
eight-car cavalcade.
The next day they drove through the Kaibab to Bright Angel Point on the
North Rim; spent the following day sight-seeing and then drove back to
Kanab, Hurricane and Rockville (August 16), where they held a meeting in
the evening. The youngsters of Rockville saw their first auto bus and
many of them had a ride. As on Governor Spry’s first visit to Rockville
(October 12, 1913), the local people took a holiday and many accompanied
the party next day into Zion Canyon. After visiting in the canyon until
noon, the party drove to St. George where they enjoyed a feast of Dixie
fruit. The next day they held a meeting in Cedar City and then returned
to the railroad at Lund.
D. S. Spencer, Union Pacific Railroad Passenger Agent, informed the
writer that the trip had been sponsored by the railroads and that
Governor Spry and Road Commissioner Lunt had been induced to go along
for consultation on road development. Governor Spry promised all
possible support if the railroads would undertake tourist traffic
development. Spencer further explained that the Union Pacific had
profited from the experience of Edward H. Harriman, the noted railroad
capitalist, who had built a spur to West Yellowstone, thereby greatly
increasing his long-haul traffic to San Francisco. Carl R. Gray,
Harriman’s successor as president of the Union Pacific, recognized
similar possibilities in tourist traffic to Zion and Grand Canyon.
Sometime that fall, Douglas White designated the route from Los Angeles
to Salt Lake via Las Vegas, St. George and Cedar City, now generally
traversed by Highway 91, as the Arrowhead Route. The next year, Charles
H. Bigelow of Los Angeles, was instrumental in organizing the Arrowhead
Trail Association with J. H. Manderfield of Salt Lake City as president,
and Joseph S. Snow of St. George, vice-president. It functioned for many
years to promote road development.
Frederick Vining Fisher, a Methodist minister of Ogden, Utah, came to
Salt Lake City in 1915 to lecture and show slides of California to
advertise the Panama Pacific International Exposition. He had ministered
in Ogden for some years prior to 1912, but his attention had never been
called to Zion Canyon. One day at lunch at the University of Utah, a
student said to him, “Mr. Fisher, your pictures last night were fine,
but you have not seen the best.” Surprised, Fisher then wormed the story
of Zion Canyon out of the lad. He was at once eager to visit the canyon,
and in September, 1916, while traveling to St. George with Apostle
Anthony W. Ivins, of the Latter-day Saints Church, to attend a local
conference, visited the scenic area, took pictures and made slides which
he thereafter used in lectures throughout the country.
Afterwards, Fisher induced Warren Cox, hotel proprietor of St. George,
to take him to the Grand Canyon at the lower end of Toroweap Valley, Mt.
Trumbull, where he took interesting pictures. Then, as Fisher recalls,
Cox dared him “to cross the untrod wilderness one hundred miles” to
Kaibab and North Rim. After they had explored the Kaibab with its
endless herds, they camped with Jim Owens, U. S. Government hunter, for
three days, vacationing and taking pictures. From North Rim, they went
to Cedar City where they met Ivins, who in the meantime had obtained a
team from his Enterprise ranch and who took Fisher up Cedar Canyon to
Cedar Breaks where more pictures were taken. Upon returning to Cedar
City, Cox accompanied Fisher to Rockville where he left him.
Bishop David Hirschi’s son, Claud, took Fisher and a friend, Bingham, up
Zion Canyon where Fisher got the greatest thrill of his life. They
decided to name the scenic points as they went along. Three peaks that
Hirschi thought looked like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they called the
_Three Patriarchs_. The boys of the party stopped at the big loop in the
river and looked at the pillars of rock on the inside point. When Fisher
asked why they were delaying the boys replied they were waiting for an
organist to play the _Great Organ_. They coined several other names not
now in use, but after reaching the Narrows and starting back, Hirschi
espied a great white precipice gleaming in the afternoon sun, framed by
the pass between Angels Landing and the Great Organ. He said. “Oh,
Doctor, look quick, what is that?” Overwhelmed, Fisher replied, “Never
have I seen such a sight before. It is by all odds America’s
masterpiece. Boys, I have looked for this mountain all my life but I
never expected to find it in this world. This mountain is the Great
White Throne.”[94]
The money appropriated September 8, 1916, for a wagon road in Zion had
to be spent before July 1, 1917. An engineer, W. O. Tufts, was
dispatched from Washington, D.C. to look into the matter. After
preliminary exploration, a survey was made, plans outlined, material
procured and workmen engaged. By November 1, construction on the road
was begun, starting at the boundary and working up the canyon. About the
same time, convicts were building a road from La Verkin to Springdale.
By the summer of 1917, a passable road led into Zion Canyon.
Douglas White, zealous promoter of Utah’s scenic riches, urged Albright
to come west and visit Zion Canyon with him in the summer of 1917. In
September, he met him in Los Angeles and they went to Lund, Utah, by
train and over to Cedar City by auto, where they met Road Commissioner
Henry W. Lunt and Mr. R. A. Thorley, a Cedar City stockman. The next
morning Albright, White and Thorley, in a touring car driven by Chauncey
Parry, started south over the “perfectly terrible roads” and reached the
Wylie Camp in Zion in the afternoon. At Rockville, they met David
Hirschi, bishop of the village. The next day, in the words of Albright:
We went as far up Mukuntuweap Canyon as possible. We watched the cable
operate from the rim of Zion to the floor. We hiked through to the
Narrows and back again. That night we saw a full moon light up the
canyon and the next morning I was up early enough to see the sunlight
creep down from the top of the domes and spires to the valley floor. I
was overwhelmed by the loveliness of the valley and the beauty of the
canyon walls and was sure that the area was of national park caliber.
Albright faced two troublesome local problems: elimination of grazing in
the canyon and keeping narrow-tired wagons off the new road. He
conferred with Bishop Hirschi, who suggested a conference with the local
people concerned. At the conference, Albright recorded:
... cooperation of the local people was cheerfully extended, and the
orders were issued soon after and were generally obeyed, with the
result that the grazing was stopped and the shrubs and wild flowers in
the canyon began to come back. I shall always remember with keenest
delight my early association with those good Mormon people, who,
without knowing what a national park was, cooperated so fully in
executing orders that brought them real hardship.[95]
After the contractors finished the Zion road, equipment and other
government property was left in care of Walter Ruesch of Springdale,
whose home had been used as headquarters by Tufts. Albright interviewed
Ruesch and retained him in charge. This led to Ruesch’s appointment as
first custodian of the Monument and later as first acting superintendent
of the Park. Albright enjoyed recounting his first introduction to
Ruesch by Bishop Hirschi, who told him “what a fine character Mr. Ruesch
was and how hard he worked, but cautioned me that he had one terrible
habit. Over and over again he emphasized the habit. Finally, almost
terror-stricken, I asked him what the bad habit was, and he said, ‘He
swears.’”
When Horace Albright and Douglas White left Zion, they called upon the
new Governor (Simon Bamberger), whom they asked to continue the convict
labor on the road from Cedar City to Zion. The story goes that the
Governor had driven over this road and found it pretty rough. Besides,
the dugway up the Hurricane Fault had cost much more than he had
expected. The proposals of White and Albright aroused his wrath. Jumping
to his feet, the Governor pounded his desk and shouted, “I build no more
roads to rocks!” As a matter of fact, road improvement was interrupted
for the time being; World War I was on and interest lagged, not to be
revived until 1920, when it was nearly time for a new governor to take
over the state administration.
From Salt Lake City Albright wired Director Mather, who was still in
California and had not yet assumed office, urging him to visit southern
Utah, and giving him a glowing account of what he had seen. Mather did
not reply at once but later wrote that he thought Albright must have
fallen into the hands of some chamber of commerce directors or had been
given some very potent drink, for he had never heard of such a country
and found it difficult to believe it existed.
During the next winter in Washington, D.C., Albright toyed with the idea
of changing the name of the monument from Mukuntuweap to Zion and was
urged to do so by Douglas White. Secretary Lane approved and the Utah
congressional delegation concurred. Albright prepared a proclamation
changing the name and enlarging the monument to one hundred and twenty
square miles, which President Wilson signed March 18, 1918.
Other Utah scenic areas, including Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon and Wayne
Wonderland, all profited by the publicity accorded Zion and the Grand
Canyon. S. A. Halterman of Parowan, Utah, took the first automobile to
Cedar Breaks via the wagon road in Parowan Canyon. In 1920, he piloted
Senator Smoot and others over the same route to see the Breaks. By 1921,
he was planning regular weekly trips for tourists during the summer.
Iron County spent about $12,000 that year to improve the road.
On August 25, 1918, Oliver J. Grimes of Salt Lake City, published an
article in _The Salt Lake Tribune_, describing “Utah’s New Wonderland,
Bryce’s Canyon,” which stimulated additional interest in southern Utah’s
scenic wonderland. During that summer, LeRoy Jeffers, an eastern writer,
visited Bryce Canyon and published an article entitled, “The Temple of
the Gods in Utah” in the _Scientific American_ of October 5, 1918. He
approached Bryce from North Rim of Grand Canyon, from which he says, “we
made a rapid run through the yellow pine and aspen forest of the Kaibab
Plateau—crossed the burning sands of the Kanab which nestles verdantly
among the vermillion cliffs of southern Utah. We had come eighty to
eighty-five miles before sundown and were ready for a similar trip to
Panguitch on the following day.” He gave directions for reaching Bryce
via Marysvale and Panguitch; described the wonders of the scenery and
published four pictures.
When Albright read the article, he recalled that he had heard of Bryce
Canyon when he was at Zion and made inquiries about the feasibility of
establishing it as a national monument. He was temporarily blocked
because it was a part of a national forest. However, it was placed on
the agenda for later consideration. Albright later made up his mind that
Bryce Canyon belonged in the National Park System, but Director Mather
did not at first agree and toyed with the idea of a system of state
parks to supplement the national system. Bryce, he considered, would
make a keystone around which other state parks could be clustered.
However, when the Utah governor and state legislature rejected his view
and insisted that Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks and Wayne Wonderland were
of national park caliber, he yielded and when later he saw these
marvels, was delighted that he had done so.
Cedar City was preparing to cope with the growing traffic. It was
apparent that the town was the strategic point for those wishing to
visit southern Utah via the railroad and auxiliary bus lines. Randall L.
Jones returned to his native Cedar City in 1912 as an architect, and
drew plans for a modern hotel, later called El Escalante. The local
chamber of commerce backed him and work was started in 1918. It was,
however, a major undertaking for a small community and was not completed
for several years. His wide travel experience and his realization of the
necessity of good highways as well as good hotels in the development of
scenic attractions, made him the logical choice at a later date as
liaison officer for the Union Pacific Railroad.
Mather and Albright were both in the West during the summer of 1919, but
neither had opportunity to visit southern Utah. However, Albright had
conferred with Senator Smoot several times on the question of creating
Zion Canyon a national park. Mather finally yielded to their persuasion
even though he had not yet seen it. Albright went ahead with plans,
drafted legislation, prepared reports and presented arguments to the
congressional committees. Boundary lines of the park were based upon
information furnished by Richard A. Thorley of Cedar City and Leo A.
Snow of St. George.
Smoot had previously introduced a bill in the Senate (S. B. 8282) to
change the name of Mukuntuweap National Monument to Little Zion National
Park, but no action was taken. On May 20, 1919, he introduced another
bill (S. B. 425, Vol. 58:9640) to establish the Zion National Park in
the State of Utah. It passed the Senate a month later and was sent to
the House Committee on Public Lands the next day. It was reported in the
House, August 26, after which amendments delayed its passage until
October 6. The bill was finally signed in the House, November 15, and in
the Senate, November 19, 1919, and sent to the President, who signed it
that same day.
Mather was in Denver at the time of its passage, attending a conference
of national park superintendents, at which Walter Ruesch was also
present as custodian of Zion National Monument. When word reached him,
Mather immediately decided to make his long delayed visit to Zion. His
enthusiasm was immediate and thereafter he gave personal attention to
its affairs.
The dedication took place, September 15, 1920, in the presence of a
large assembly. St. George and Cedar City bands furnished music.
Speakers included Director Mather, Senator Reed Smoot, ex-Governor
William Spry, C. Clarence Neslen, mayor of Salt Lake City, and Heber J.
Grant, president of the Mormon Church, representing Governor Simon
Bamberger. Mather reviewed the history of the Park, Mayor Neslen
foretold its future, and other speakers promised support for its
development.
Travel into Zion was slowly increasing. The number of people entering in
1920 nearly doubled that of the previous year (from 1914 to 3692). By
1930 it had increased to more than 55,000 and for a decade thereafter
registered proportionate gains. Governor Bamberger in 1920 sent Randall
Jones to Denver as Utah’s delegate to the Park-to-Park Highway
conference, where plans were laid to coordinate the local movements for
good roads into a park-to park system.
Among the interesting parties that came in 1921 was a tour sponsored by
the _Brooklyn Eagle_, which took in the scenic loop to Bryce Canyon as a
side trip. Mather came again, bringing with him Emerson Hough, eminent
novelist, and Edmund Heller, naturalist. During that year a road
passable for autos was built from Cedar City up Cedar Canyon to the
Breaks, but it was excessively steep and dangerous.
In response to pressure from Utah to undertake development of the scenic
south, in 1921 Carl R. Gray, president of the Union Pacific Railroad
Company, determined to investigate personally the agricultural
possibilities of contributing areas. His party left Lund and examined
the farming areas around Cedar, Parowan and Fillmore and interviewed
farmers and livestock men. Mr. Gray was favorably impressed with the
stability of the communities and the quality of the people. As a result,
a railroad spur was built to Fillmore a year later.
The following summer Gray and his party made the rounds of the scenic
areas. The Union Pacific was preparing to take over the Salt Lake Route
and was further investigating the resources of the area. According to
Randall Jones, Gray offered to buy the El Escalante Hotel in Cedar City
and the next year a spur of the railroad was run from Lund to Cedar
City, justified on the basis of anticipated traffic from livestock,
agriculture, iron ore and tourist travel.
With a rail-head at Cedar City, June 27, 1923, the Union Pacific
organized a subsidiary Utah Parks Company, took over the El Escalante
Hotel, set up a large bus station at Cedar City, purchased the Wylie
tourist camp interests in Zion Canyon and the Parry transportation route
from Cedar City to Zion. In 1917 under National Park permit to the
National Park Transportation and Camping Company, W. W. Wylie, who
formerly operated in Yellowstone Park, had set up a tent camp in Zion
Canyon and North Rim in cooperation with two of the Parry Brothers,
Gronway and Chauncey, who had undertaken to provide transportation for
visitors. The Parry Brothers closed in 1918 at the time of World War I,
resumed business in 1920 and worked out a ten-day round trip for
visitors from Cedar City via Zion, Kaibab, North Rim, Bryce and
Panguitch back to Cedar City. This round trip with variations was
maintained until 1923, when the Utah Parks Company acquired part, and in
1927, all of the Parry and Wylie interests.
Southern Utah scenic attractions were spotlighted with the visit of
President Warren G. Harding to Zion Canyon, June 27, 1923, en route
across country toward Alaska, a journey from which the President was not
to return alive. The report of his trip was spread throughout the
nation. Everything had been planned in advance. A group of seventy-five
local Paiute Indians in gaudy attire was conspicuously at hand. The
party was transferred from the station to twenty-four automobiles and
started south over the newly smoothed earth and gravel roads leading to
Zion Canyon. The caravan, including the cars of many local leaders,
stretched out at least five miles and the dust much farther.
A stop was made at Anderson’s Ranch where the best of the Dixie peaches
and other fruits were sampled. At Toquerville hundreds had congregated
to honor the first President of the United States to visit their section
of the country. Harding spoke from a flag-draped platform and then the
procession went on, passed through Rockville, where the streets were
lined with onlookers, to Springdale where it was welcomed by a fife and
drum corps led by John Dennett and O. D. Gifford playing many of the
tunes they had once used to welcome Brigham Young on his journeys.
At the entrance to the Park, they were welcomed by mounted rangers and
by an orchestra and chorus from Dixie College at St. George. At the
Wylie Camp, they were cheered by five hundred local people and tourists
and serenaded by the college musicians during lunch. After the meal, the
caravan proceeded to the end of the road at the Grotto campground, and
twenty-four men, including the President, went horseback two miles
farther to the foot of the cable. The caravan then retraced its route to
Cedar City, where in the evening, both President and Mrs. Harding gave
short talks to the assembled multitude before bidding farewell and
boarding their train. The trip had been unmarred by trouble of any kind
and seemed to have been immensely enjoyed.
Before leaving Washington, President Harding had signed a proclamation
making Bryce Canyon a national monument, but had left it under the
direction of the U. S. Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture.
The transfer to the Department of Interior was to come later. The Forest
Service went ahead with plans for its development.
By 1923, passable auto roads reached Zion, Kaibab, North Rim, Bryce
Canyon, and Cedar Breaks, but some of the routes were circuitous and it
required a great deal of extra travel to make the loop. Thus the road
from La Verkin to Zion had to be retraced in order to go from Hurricane
to Pipe Springs, while to reach Cedar Breaks a special side trip was
necessary from either Parowan or Cedar City, and to get back to Cedar
City from Bryce required a routing through Panguitch and Paragonah.
Popular demand was growing for shorter and more direct routes as well as
for better roads.
During Governor Bamberger’s administration, (1917-1921), a bond issue of
$6,000,000 was earmarked to build a concrete highway south to St.
George, but funds were exhausted before Provo was reached. Under
Governor Charles R. Mabey (1921-1925), gravel roads were stressed in
place of the more expensive concrete, and a gasoline tax to replace
state and county road taxes was enacted into law, but the road to St.
George had never been completed. A solution was proposed in 1924 at a
meeting attended by G. G. Armstrong, Lafayette Hanchett, A. W. Ivins.
George A. Smith, W. J. Halloran and Randall Jones, altruistic Utah
citizens. The scheme proposed that each of the southern counties be
given a quota of $5,000 and Salt Lake City, $10,000, to be raised
through the chambers of commerce. This money was used by the State Road
Commission to match federal funds for building the road over the black
ridge between Ash Creek and Pintura in Washington County.
Federal aid for roads had been available since 1916, but complications
between state and federal rights and prerogatives delayed cooperation.
By 1923, the Federal Bureau of Public Roads and the State Road
Commission were both studying the problem of linking the scenic points
of southern Utah and northern Arizona. B. J. Finch of the Bureau of
Public Roads and Howard C. Means, Utah State Road Engineer, investigated
the possibilities of a short-cut from Zion eastward toward Mt. Carmel or
Kanab. In early June, 1923, they arrived at Orderville and rode
horseback with two local guides along the east rim of Zion seeking a
possible outlet. From study of topographic sheets, they had already
conceived a possible route up Parunuweap Canyon. Failing here, they
drove around to Zion Canyon via Kanab, Pipe Springs and Hurricane.
Walter Ruesch, acting Superintendent of Zion, suggested that they confer
with John Winder, the man best acquainted with the “lay of the land” who
already had ideas on the subject.
In 1880, when only ten years old, Winder had climbed the old Indian
trail out of Zion where he later (1896) built the first East Rim Trail.
He remembered that “old man Newman” of Rockville had always contended
that timber could be brought down from Cedar Mountain if a road could be
bored through the cliffs of Zion. Winder had explored every outlet and
was convinced that there was only one possibility: a road up Pine Creek
to the cliff and a tunnel opening in the Great Arch and coming out into
the canyon above the cliff.
Means and Finch found Winder running logs down the cable. He immediately
suggested the Pine Creek route and tunnel. The next day, the three men
studied Pine Creek and the possible route up to the Arch. Winder then
took them horseback to his ranch on the East Rim, via East Rim Trail.
They walked down Pine Creek afoot to the top of the cliff. Encountering
difficulties of grade and outlet at the top, they studied alternative
possibilities and finally evolved the route now followed by the present
road and tunnel.
_The Salt Lake Tribune_ (June 25 and 26, 1923) published a sensational
report of their investigations, but there was much skepticism in and out
of official circles. In the end, however, the Pine Creek route was
finally selected because it traversed the National Park, where federal
funds would be available without being matched by the state.
Congressman Louis C. Crampton of Michigan, chairman of the House
Committee for the National Park Service, took a personal interest in the
route and tunnel and sponsored the appropriations that made it possible.
During the planning and construction of this superb highway, which was
to become an attraction second only to the canyon itself, Crampton made
several trips to the park to watch its progress.
Since it was realized that the Pine Creek route would be years in
building, several short-cuts were provided. A road connecting Cedar
Breaks with Highway 89 on the summit between Hatch and Glendale was
opened in 1923 so that parties making the loop could return to Cedar
City via Cedar Breaks instead of Panguitch and Paragonah. In 1924,
another cutoff was made from Rockville to the plains leading to Pipe
Springs, thus eliminating the long trip down river to Hurricane and
back. This road was firmly financed by a contribution of $5,000 from
Stephen T. Mather.
In the Park itself, a road was surveyed from the cable up-canyon and was
finished to the Temple of Sinawava in the spring of 1925. From that
point on to the Narrows where the walls close in to leave room only for
the river, a foot path, one mile in length, was constructed.
Simultaneously three other trails were constructed: one to the West Rim,
one to the top of Lady Mountain (Mount Zion) and one along the east
bench under the cliffs from Wylie Grove in both directions. The next
year, a trail to the top of Angel Landing was constructed and two
suspension bridges across the river were installed and the trails opened
to Emerald Pool.
[Illustration: A camp fire circle at Bryce Canyon.
_Courtesy Union Pacific Railroad._]
[Illustration: A view of Hurricane (1929).
_Courtesy U. S. National Park Service._]
[Illustration: Members of International Geological Congress on tour
of Parks at Bryce Canyon, August 21, 1933. A. M. Woodbury, guide
(seated, 5th from left): K. E. Weight, Naturalist at Bryce
(Standing, 3rd from left): Dee Chamberlin and Chauncey Parry,
drivers (standing right).]
When the Utah Parks Company took over the Wylie camp in Zion, it was
planned to construct a large hotel, but Director Mather firmly refused
permission. He finally agreed to the lodge and cabin system, now serving
the Park tourists. El Escalante Hotel in Cedar City was ready by the
season of 1924. New accommodations were under construction in Bryce
Canyon and Cedar Breaks. Reports from elated visitors, improvement of
roads and accommodations and consistent advertising all resulted in
vastly increased travel. The tourist traffic jumped from 8400 in 1924 to
16,817 in 1925. About half that number visited North Rim and presumably
Bryce and Cedar Breaks. The tide was in full flow. For the season of
1925 new tourist busses with demountable tops for viewing the
spectacular canyon walls were purchased. Busses, however, served only a
small part of the traveling public, for America was on wheels and the
roads were now such that auto traffic could roll in easily. The Grotto
Campground was enlarged, equipped, and supplied with water. The survey
of the Pine Creek road and tunnel was completed and Wayne Wonderland was
dedicated.
Richard Evans was borrowed from the U.S. Geological Survey and served as
acting superintendent during the tourist season for two years, while
Walter Ruesch remained in charge during the balance of the year. Two
permanent park rangers assisted Ruesch, Donald J. Jolley, appointed
August 1, 1920, and Harold Russell, who had worked summers from 1920 to
1923 and who received permanent appointment in October of the latter
year. All three were closely associated with developments and
improvements in the canyon. In 1927, E. T. Scoyen was appointed
permanent superintendent.
The Nature Guide Service in Yosemite and Yellowstone had proved so
successful that it was decided to extend such services to other parks.
It was initiated in Zion by the writer, June 19, 1925, and continued to
mid-September. There was no precedent to follow, but the work gradually
grew through succeeding summers into the Naturalist Service. During the
next five summers, museum collections of natural history specimens,
pioneer relics, and library books gradually accumulated and a museum was
established in 1928. Information concerning the history, flora, fauna
and geology of the canyon was collated. Lectures at the camp ground, at
the Lodge, and the guided trips along the Narrows trail were developed
and pictures and lantern slides were shown. In 1929, a mimeographed
publication, the _Zion-Bryce Nature Notes_, was undertaken and a Natural
History Association was organized to handle publications.
In 1926, daily bus service was established from Cedar City around the
loop to Zion, North Rim and Bryce. The East and West Rim trails were
reconstructed with better grades and locations. The West Rim Trail was
dedicated at a ceremony held at the time of the visit of Crown Prince
Gustavus and Princess Louise of Sweden, on July 11. A new road was
constructed between Rockville and the Park boundary and the proposed
Parunuweap road was surveyed.
In 1927, the Utah Parks Company took over the Wylie Camps at North Rim
and the bus service from the Parry Brothers, and a lodge and cabins were
constructed on the brink of North Rim at Bright Angel Point, so arranged
that the Great View into Grand Canyon could be seen from the windows.
This was completed in 1928.
In the meantime, Bryce Canyon was being developed by the Utah Parks
Company under the direction of the Forest Service, in the expectation
that eventually it would be transferred to the Park Service. The lodge
and cabins were built some distance from the rim so that the beauties of
the canyon could be preserved to best advantage. When Mather yielded to
pressure to allow Bryce Canyon to become a national park if all private
holdings were eliminated, Congress passed a bill, June 7, 1924,
providing for the establishment of a Utah National Park upon the
fulfillment of Mather’s conditions. The principal difficulty was that
the State of Utah owned a section of land at a strategic point on the
rim of the canyon. It took four years to fulfill the conditions, and
before they were arranged Congress passed a revised bill. February 25,
1928, nearly doubling the size of the area and changing its name to
Bryce Canyon.
When it became certain that the conditions would be fulfilled, the Union
Pacific arranged for a large excursion (September 14-17, 1928). The
party included: Carl R. Gray, president of the railroad; Stephen T.
Mather, Director of the U. S. National Park Service, and Horace M.
Albright, his assistant; Henry H. Blood, Chairman of the Utah State Road
Commission (later Governor of Utah, 1933-1941); Congressmen Don B.
Colton from Utah, and Philip D. Swing of California; Mayor John F.
Bowman of Salt Lake City; Charles F. Burke, U. S. Commissioner of Indian
Affairs; Thomas H. McDonald, Chief of the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads;
Heber J. Grant, President of the Mormon Church, and his counselor,
Anthony W. Ivins; representatives of the press, chambers of commerce and
other organizations, and a host of lesser officials and advisers,
including the writer.
After spending the first night in Zion, the party journeyed via Pipe
Springs to the Kaibab and North Rim, where on September 15, 1928, the
new Kaibab Trail and the Grand Canyon Lodge were dedicated. The next day
the visitors reached Bryce Canyon where similar services were held in
the evening. Congressman Don B. Colton formally presented deeds of the
private land to Director Mather, who declared that the conditions having
been fulfilled, Bryce Canyon had become a National Park.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM ONE OF THE GALLERIES OF THE FAMOUS ZION-MT.
CARMEL TUNNEL.
From _UTAH—A guide To The State_. Utah WPA Writers Project.]
Thus the great scenic areas of southern Utah had finally been
established as national parks and monuments, adequate roads and travel
accommodations had been provided, and efforts had been made to give the
casual tourist a deeper appreciation of the natural treasures at his
disposal. Within the next few years many of the immediate projects for
facilitating travel through the Park area were completed. The bridge
across the Marble Gorge of Grand Canyon, a few miles below Lee’s Ferry,
was dedicated June 15, 1929.
The next year saw the official opening of the Zion-Mt. Carmel highway,
one of the most spectacular engineering feats in the history of
road-building. From the canyon floor the road turns to the east up Pine
Creek Canyon and spirals upward on a four-mile roadway to a tunnel
paralleling the face of the vertical cliffs for 5,613 feet. Five
galleries cut from the tunnel to the canyon wall offer the motorist
vantage points for viewing the awe-inspiring scenery. Construction
within the National Park cost $2,000,000; from the Park to Mt. Carmel a
state and federal project, also cut in great part from solid rock, cost
in excess of $500,000. Still later the road up the floor of Zion from
the checking station on the main highway was reconstructed and made a
modern oil-surfaced highway. Thereafter, until America’s entry into
World War II, each summer brought greater throngs of visitors into the
wonderland.
At long last the nation had awakened to the greatness of the gift nature
had bestowed upon it, and in future years unnumbered generations will
come to marvel at the wonders of the country which is southern Utah and
at the austere majesty of the Great White Throne—generations free from
the dread and superstition that made primitive races fear its unimagined
heights no less than its long shadows and dazzling brilliance in the
sun.
Symbol of Nature’s handiwork, this central and most magnificent of
Zion’s features still echoes the distant footfall of Spanish padre and
American Frontiersmen passing unwittingly by its dooryard; it is mindful
of the day when the first Mormon pioneer lifted uncomprehending eyes to
the solitude of its summit, and of that other day when religious fervor
called it Zion, the dwelling place of peace. Men have come, cutting
their trails, building their roads, roofing their shelters, dreaming
their dreams. The human tide around its base has ebbed and flowed,
according to human wont, but it remains serene, aloof, alone. It will be
so a thousand years from now.
EPILOGUE
Twenty-one years after Bryce Canyon became a national park, a “coming of
Age” party was celebrated at Bryce Canyon on September 15, 1949. The
Utah Parks Company acted as host. The Park Service cooperated by
inviting to the celebration all those that could be found who were
present at the dedication in 1928.
The guests began arriving at Bryce Canyon the day before the
celebration. A group that met in the dining room that evening included
M. R. Tillotson, Regional Director of the Park Service; P. P. Patraw,
Assistant Director and former Superintendent of Zion and Bryce Canyon
National Parks; Dr. Harold C. Bryant, Superintendent of Grand Canyon
National Park; Dr. Angus M. Woodbury, Professor of Zoology, University
of Utah, formerly Park Naturalist of Zion and Bryce; their wives and Mr.
Victor Petrosso, formerly manager of El Tovar Lodge at Grand Canyon.
Others arrived next day including B. J. Finch, formerly District
Engineer of the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads; W. P. Rogers, Manager of
the Utah Parks Company; Joel L. Priest, Jr. and E. C. Schmidt of the
Union Pacific; Mr. and Mrs. David Rust of Provo, Utah; Mr. and Mrs. M.
V. Walker, Naturalist of Zion and Bryce National Parks; Jack Christensen
of Cedar City; D. C. Dix of the Salt Lake Tribune; and other officials
of the Park Service and Utah Parks Company, making a total of 41. Many
other invited guests expressed regret at not being able to attend. Those
that were present at both the 1928 and 1949 celebrations included the
Tillotsons, Finch, Woodbury, Christensen, Schmidt and the Rusts.
Festivities started at noon with a luncheon in the Lodge dining room,
after which, about 40 guests were taken on a tour in an ultra modern
luxurious Utah Parks bus by Park Naturalist M. V. Walker along the Bryce
Rim as far as Rainbow Point and Yovimpa View where everyone enjoyed the
friendly greetings of old acquaintances, the superb natural sculptures
and the marvelous vistas from the high points where the Aquarius
Plateau, the Henry Mountains, the Kaiparowits Plateau, Navajo Mountain
and the Kaibab were all to be seen in the unsurpassed landscape.
At 7 p.m., the group converged on the superintendent’s residence where
Mr. and Mrs. Smith held open house and dispensed hospitality lavishly.
At 8:15 p.m., the group moved to the lodge dining room where a sumptuous
banquet given by the Utah Parks Company was followed by a program at
which Superintendent Smith presided and interestingly introduced the
speakers. Ranger in charge, John G. Lewis gave the address of welcome.
Reminiscences of the early days in the Utah National Parks were related
by Dr. Woodbury, who also referred to the outstanding work which Mr. B.
J. Finch, formerly of the Bureau of Public Roads, did in pioneering the
Zion-Mt Carmel Highway and Tunnel.
[Illustration: Lean-to Natural Bridge overlooking Springdale in Zion
Canyon. _Courtesy U. S. National Park Service._]
Mr. Tillotson gave the main speech of the evening, in which he called
attention to the great growth in travel into Bryce from 21,977 in 1929
to 189,493 in 1949, and pointed to the fine work of the Utah Parks
Company in making this possible. He also reported that Dr. Thomas H.
McDonald, Commissioner of the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads, who had been
present in 1928 but could not come in 1949, wrote that “Bryce Canyon,
since I first saw it, has been to me one of the most delightful places
in the West. I have long felt that a vacation road from Southwest
Colorado crossing the Colorado River and coming into Bryce Canyon
through Escalante, if properly developed and controlled, offers the best
opportunity in the west ...” and thus kindled a fire under the hopes of
all Bryce enthusiasts for it would open up the heart of the great scenic
area of southeastern Utah, of which, Zion, Bryce and Wayne Wonderland
are on the outskirts.
Mr. W. P. Rogers responded with a witty talk about old times, spoke of
the fine cooperation of the Park Service and proposed a further reunion
in another five years.
The next day, the writer retraced old trails in Zion Canyon and visited
the museum and park headquarters where Naturalist Walker explained the
developments taking place. Especially prominent was the great increase
in the literature available to the public provided by the Natural
History Association that had been organized by the writer in 1929. This
included pictures, colored slides and publications, among which the
works of Dr. H. E. Gregory on the geology of the region were
outstanding.
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
FOOTNOTES
[2]J. W. Powell, _Exploration of the Colorado River of the West_
(Washington, D.C., 1875), p. 111. Erroneously reported as September
12, 1870.
[3]William R. Palmer, “Pahute Indian Government and Laws,” _Utah
Historical Quarterly_, Vol. II, No. 2, pp. 35-52.
[4]The tuna mentioned probably refers to cactus; and the maize and
calabashes to corn and squash. The name, Parrusis, equivalent to
Parrusits, undoubtedly referred to the Virgin River Indians. It
simply means people living on the Par-roos River. Fifty years later,
in 1826, Jedediah Strong Smith, found Indians on the Santa Clara
Creek raising corn and pumpkins. Maurice Sullivan, _The Travels of
Jedediah Smith_ (Santa Ana, California, 1934), pp. 27-28.
[5]Cf. H. S. Auerbach, ed., “Father Escalante’s Journal,” in _Utah
Historical Quarterly_, Vol. XI, pp. 85, 91.
[6]G. H. Heap, _Central Route to the Pacific, Journal of the Expedition
of E. H. Beale and G. H. Heap in 1853_ (Washington, D.C., 1854), p.
99.
[7]Escalante, “Diario,” in _Documents para la historia de Mexico_
(Mexico City), ser. 2, Vol. 1, p. 37.
Cf. also: H. S. Auerbach, “Father Escalante’s Journal, 1776-77” in
_Utah Historical Quarterly_, Vol. XI, pp. 1-142; H. L. Bolton,
“Escalante in Dixie and the Arizona Strip,” _New Mexico Review_
(Santa Fe, 1928), Vol. III, No. 1; H. E. Gregory, “Spanish Entradas
in Kaiparowits Region,” _U. S. Geological Survey Prof. Paper_
(Washington, D.C., 1931), p. 164; W. R. Harris, _The Catholic Church
in Utah_ (Salt Lake City, 1909); Philip Harry, “Brief of Escalante’s
Journal” in _Simpson’s Explorations, 1859_, Appendix R. (Washington,
D.C., 1860), p. 490.
[8]Cf. Auerbach, _loc. cit._, pp. 85-86.
[9]_Ibid._, p. 5.
[10]
H. H. Bancroft, _History of Utah_ (San Francisco, 1884-86), pp. 22,
23.
H. M. Chittenden, _The American Fur Trade of the Far West_ (New
York, 1935), 2 Vols.
Robert Glass Cleland, _From Wilderness to Empire_ (New York, 1944).
H. C. Dale, _The Ashley-Smith Explorations_ (Los Angeles, 1918).
T. E. Farish, _History of Arizona_, (Phoenix, Arizona, 1916).
Albert Gallatin, _Synopsis of Indian Tribes_ (Worcester, Mass.,
1836) map, p. 265.
P. T. Hanna, “California’s Debt to Jedediah Strong Smith,” in
_Touring Topics_ (Los Angeles, California, September
1926).
C. H. Merriam, “Earliest Crossings of the Deserts of Utah and Nevada
to Southern California; Route of Jedediah S. Smith,”
_California Historical Society Quarterly_, 1923, Vol. 2,
pp. 228-237.
J. G. Neihardt, _The Splendid Wayfaring_ (New York, 1920).
Maurice Sullivan, _The Travels of Jedediah Smith_ (Santa Ana,
California, 1934).
A. M. Woodbury, “The Route of Jedediah S. Smith in 1826 from the
Great Salt Lake to the Colorado River,” _Utah Historical
Quarterly_, 1931, 4:35-46.
[11]From letter of Jedediah Strong Smith, Maurice Sullivan, _The Travels
of Jedediah Smith_, pp. 15, 27-28.
[12]C. L. Camp, ed., “The Chronicles of George C. Yount,” _California
Historical Society Quarterly_, 1923.
[13]Cf. Herbert S. Auerbach, “Old Trails, Old Forts, Old Trappers and
Traders,” _Utah Historical Quarterly_, Vol. IX, 1941, pp. 13-63.
[14]Cf. J. C. Fremont, _Narrative of the Exploring Expedition to the
Rocky Mountains_ (New York, 1846).
[15]What is now the Virgin River was called Sulphur Creek by Escalante
in 1776. Jedediah S. Smith named it Adams River, to which he adhered
in letters written on both trips of 1826 and 1827. This upsets the
idea that he named it for Thomas Virgin, a member of his party.
George C. Yount, as recorded in 1923 by Charles L. Camp, (_loc.
cit._, p. 10), told of entering the Virgin River valley on a trip in
1830, but this is no assurance that it was so named at that early
date. It bore the name of Rio Virgin in 1844 when Fremont passed
over the Spanish Trail and doubtless the name was given between 1827
and 1844. In Fremont’s time, the Muddy River was called “Rio de Los
Angeles,” and the Mountain Meadows “las Vegas de Santa Clara” (the
Meadows of St. Clara).
[16]Fremont, _op. cit._, p. 168.
[17]Cf. Franklin D. Daines, “Separatism in Utah, 1847-1870,” in _Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1917_
(Washington, D.C., 1920).
[18]Dale L. Morgan, “The State of Deseret,” _Utah Historical Quarterly_,
Vol. VIII, pp. 67-239.
[19]Cf. Leland H. Creer, _Utah and the Nation_ (Seattle, Washington,
1929); Robert J. Dwyer, _The Gentile Comes to Utah_ (Washington,
D.C., 1941). Andrew L. Neff, _History of Utah_ (Salt Lake City,
1940).
[20]“L.D.S. Journal History,” November 13, 1847 (in files of L.D.S.
Church Historian’s Office, Salt Lake City, Utah).
[21]There are many references in Mormon records to Fremont’s report.
Orson Hyde’s letter of April 26, 1845, to Church officials in Nauvoo
mentions obtaining a copy of Fremont’s report and having Stephen A.
Douglas frank it to Joseph Smith in Nauvoo. The _Nauvoo Neighbor_,
September 24, 1845, devoted four and one-half columns of the front
page to discussions of and quotations from this report. The Journal
of William Clayton, secretary to Brigham Young, frequently refers to
Fremont’s report and map. In Volume 11 and 12 of the _Millenial
Star_, Orson Pratt makes a number of references to Fremont’s report.
[22]“Journal History,” September 17, 1849.
[23]“L.D.S. Journal History,” September 20 and October 2, 1849; Cf. W.
A. Chaffant, _Death Valley_ (Stanford University Press, 1939), pp.
17-22; R. G. Cleland, _From Wilderness to Empire_ (New York, 1944),
pp. 249-255; William Lewis Manly, _Death Valley in ’49_ (New York,
1924), pp. 201-203.
[24]Report of the Southern Exploring Expedition submitted to the
Legislative Council of Deseret by Parley P. Pratt, February 9, 1850
(original in L.D.S. Church Historian’s Office).
[25]_Loc. cit._
[26]“Call”—The Mormons were a peculiarly close-knit harmonious group
working cooperatively together. In order to make for efficiency in
the social group, each one was expected to do voluntarily and with
unquestioning obedience the part assigned by the leaders. Thus
individuals were usually “called” to go on missions, to fill an
office, to go as a colonist, to work on the temple or any other
unusual problem. The “call,” at least in the early days, was
practically a command.
[27]“Journal History,” January 17, 1851.
[28]Neff, _History of Utah_, pp. 302-310.
[29]Heap, _Central Route to the Pacific_, p. 95.
[30]_Ibid._, p. 99.
[31]Jules Remy and Julius Brenchley, _A Journal of Salt Lake City: Being
a Sketch of the History, Religion and Customs of the Mormons_
(London, 1861), 2 Vols.; Vol. II, p. 363.
[32]The party included J. D. Lee, Chapman Duncan, John Steele, C. Y.
Webb, L. and William Barton, J. and Miles Anderson, B. Jones, Zadock
Judd, R. H. Gillespie, J. H. Dunton.
[33]“L.D.S. Journal History.”
[34]_Deseret News_, August 7, 1852. See also “Journal of Priddy Meeks,”
_Utah Historical Quarterly_, Vol. X, 1942, p. 187.
[35]“Journal History.”
[36]The missionaries included the following: Rufus C. Allen, Pres.;
Clark Ames, S. F. Atwood, T. D. Brown, clerk, Hyrum Burgess, Prime
T. Coleman, Jacob Hamblin, Elnathan Eldridge, Augustus P. Hardy,
Thales H. Haskell, William Henefer, Ira Hatch, Benjamin Knell,
Samuel Knight, David Lewis, John Lott, John R. Murdock, Robert
Richie, Isaac Riddle, Richard Robinson, Lorenzo W. Roundy, and Amos
G. Thornton.
[37]The original missionaries to the Virgin and Santa Clara Valleys in
1854, as reported in “Journal History,” were: Jacob Hamblin, Samuel
Knight, Ira Hatch, Richard Robinson, Amos G. Thornton, Prime T.
Coleman, Benjamin Knell, Thales Haskell, Robert Dixon, Isaac Riddle,
Robert Ritchie, David Tullis. Probably several others should be
added to this list: Rufus Allen, A. P. Hardy, Nephi Johnson, William
Henefer, Ira Hatch and perhaps others.
[38]“Journal History,” letter of Richard Robinson, July 13, 1854.
[39]Neff, _op. cit._, pp. 290-292.
[40]Cf. Juanita Brooks, ed., “Diary of Thales Haskell,” _Utah Historical
Quarterly_, Vol. XII, No. 1 and 2, pp. 70-98.
[41]Remy and Brenchley, _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 388.
[42]Neff, _op. cit._, p. 291.
[43]_Ibid._, p. 292.
[44]Original MS in possession of Lovina A. J. Farnsworth, Kanab, Utah.
[45]Interview at Kanab, Utah, August 11, 1931.
[46]James G. Bleak, “Annals of the Southern Utah Mission” (Ms. in files
of Utah State Historical Society).
[47]“Journal History,” October 7, 1861.
[48]The scouting party included Apostles George Albert Smith and Erastus
Snow, Dr. James M. Whitmore, Horace S. Eldridge, Robert J. Golding
and Isaac Stewart.
[49]Joseph Black, “Journal,” in possession of his son, Peter Black,
Delta, Utah.
[50]Interview with E. C. Behunin by J. W. Thornton at Zion Canyon.
Interview with Ezra Stevens, at Mt. Carmel, Utah, August 14, 1933.
Interview with Peter Munk, at Manti, Utah, September 1, 1933.
[51]Charles L. Walker, “Journal” (copy in the files of the Utah State
Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah).
[52]John Langston, “History of John Langston” (Ms. in files of Utah
State Historical Society).
[53]The settlers of Rockville included the following; beginning at west
end on south side of street, Elijah Newman, a wheelwright from
Parowan who had operated sawmills in Parowan Canyon and was well
acquainted with Cedar Mountain; Mr. Frauschum, a jeweler from Provo;
Mr. Scoggins, an Englishman; John C. Hall, a self-educated man from
Salt Lake City; George Staples, farmer from Lehi; Albert and Edward
Huber from France; Thomas Hall, a tinker from Salt Lake City; Joe
and Jim McFate, farmers; Jacob E. and James P. Terry; and Mr.
Coombs. On the north side of street beginning at west end, Samuel A.
Kenner, doctor and journalist; Henry Jennings from Provo; William H.
Carpenter, broom-maker; Hyrum and Ezra Strong, farmers; Henry Stocks
from England, ironmonger by trade, who made the first molasses mill
rollers in southern Utah and brought the mill to Rockville; William
Ashton (“picked on” by the boys); William Crawford from Draper; John
Langston from Draper; Daniel Q. Dennett, fifer in Mormon Battalion;
Tom Flanigan, who sold out to William L. Draper a month later; and
Asa York, carpenter; on land to the north; James Green stayed one
summer. (Interview with James Jennings at Rockville, Utah, August
14, 1933).
[54]In the fall of 1862 the following came to Shunesburg: the mother of
young Hyrum Stevens and his three brothers, Amos, Ezra and Charles;
two uncles, Henry and Barney Stevens, each with two families; Albert
Petty with two families, and John J. Allred. Charlie Klapper soon
left and Albert and George Petty and Hardin Whitlock moved over to
Springdale during the winter of 1862-63. In the fall of 1863 came
James Thaxton and Samuel K. Gifford, a chairmaker.
[55]The first settlers of Springdale included: Isaac Behunin and sons,
Albert Petty, George Petty, William Black and three sons, William,
George and Joseph; Robert Brown, Newman Brown, Hardin (Howard?)
Whitlock, Hyrum Morris, C. G. Averet, Mr. Powell, Mr. Davis, Mr.
Norton and Joseph Millett.
[56]James G. Black, _loc. cit._
[57]Neff, _op. cit._, p. 908.
[58]There is a difference of opinion as to the location of the cabin. O.
D. Gifford placed it about ⅙ mile above the lodge, on a flat since
washed away by the river. E. C. Behunin, after an absence of 57
years, placed it near the forks of the road that lead to the lodge
and swimming pool. He was evidently mistaken, for his description of
the location of his father’s farm seems to indicate that Gifford’s
location is correct. He was certain that the old river meander just
north of the lodge (now artificially filled in) was not there in the
early days, but the physical evidences before straightening the
river and building the permanent road definitely indicate that it
was. Heap’s farm, which he says was separated from his father’s by
the river, was above this meander. James H. Jennings, who owned the
place afterward, says that Behunin was mistaken. (Interview with
James Jennings at Rockville, Utah, August 15, 1933).
[59]Interview with O. D. Gifford at Springdale, Utah, September 6, 1925.
[60]Interview with O. D. Gifford at Springdale, Utah, September 6, 1925.
[61]Interview at Hurricane, Utah, August 26, 1933.
[62]For a detailed account of this experiment, cf. Edward J. Allen, _The
Second United Order Among the Mormons_ (New York, 1936).
[63]Interview with B. A. Riggs, near Kanab, Utah, August 11, 1931.
[64]Interview with Mrs. Mary Jane Stout at Hurricane, Utah, August 25,
1933.
[65]Creer, _Utah and the Nation_, 151.
[66]Juanita Brooks, “The Journal of Thales Haskell,” _Utah Historical
Quarterly_, Vol. XII, pp. 69-98.
[67]_Loc. cit._, p. 81, 95, 96.
[68]Juanita Brooks, ed., “Indian Relations on the Mormon Frontier,”
_Utah Historical Quarterly_, Vol. XII, January-April, 1944, p. 42.
[69]These included William J. Jolley, Henry B. M. Jolley, Silas Hoyt and
Henry Gardner.
[70]Charles L. Walker, “Journal” (Copy in the files of the Utah State
Historical Society).
[71]In files of the Adjutant General’s Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[72]Letter of J. M. Higbee to W. H. Dame, July 10, 1866. Adjutant
General’s Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[73]Report of expedition by Franklin B. Woolley for James Andrus,
September 18, 1866, at St. George, to Brigadier General Erastus
Snow, Adjutant General’s Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[74]Order No. 16, November 29, 1866, by General Erastus Snow, Adjutant
General’s Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[75]Copy of the journal of a scouting expedition against marauding
Navajo Indians, February 25 to March 12, 1869 by Edwin G. Woolley,
Adjutant, filed in Adjutant General’s Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[76]Cf. J. W. Powell, ed., _The Colorado River_ (Washington, D.C.,
1875), pp. 128-132.
[77]James Little. ed., _Autobiography of Jacob Hamblin_ (Salt Lake City,
1909), p. 106. (Hamblin erroneously dates the peace trip 1871.)
[78]Little, _op. cit._, p. 110.
[79]_Ibid._, p. 119.
[80]“Journal History,” Letter dated April 5, 1870.
[81]These included, in addition to Levi Stewart, Moses M. Farnsworth,
Allan Frost, Edward A. Noble, John Rider, John Morgan, William
Thompson, Edward Cooke, Caleb D. Brinton, Mr. Burt, and families.
[82]Letter from A. Milton Musser, September 10, 1870, published in
_Deseret News_, and collated in “L.D.S. Journal History.”
[83]Interview at Kanab, Utah, October 21, 1933.
[84]“The Life of Levi Stewart,” biographical sketch by his
granddaughter, Margery Browne Cottam (copy in files of A. M.
Woodbury).
[85]F. S. Dellenbaugh, _A Canyon Voyage_ (New York, 1908), pp. 166-167.
[86]Fredonia—Suggested by Erastus Snow, allegedly from “free” and “dona”
(Spanish for lady or woman), thus, “free woman.” Actually, the name
is simply a variant of “freedom,” invented shortly after 1800 by a
certain Dr. Charles Mitchell, according to George R. Stewart, _Names
on the Land_ (New York, 1945), p. 173.
[87]Kumen Jones, “First settlement of San Juan County, Utah,” _Utah
Historical Quarterly_, Vol. II, No. 1 (January, 1929).
[88]“Journal of Josephine Catherine Chatterly Wood,” _Utah Historical
Quarterly_, Vol. X, pp. 128-136.
[89]Mark A. Pendleton, “The Orderville United Order of Zion” and Emma
Carroll Seegmiller, “Personal Memories of the United Order of
Orderville,” _Utah Historical Quarterly_, Vol. VII, 1939.
[90]Powell, _op. cit._, p. 110.
[91]_Ibid._, p. 111.
[92]Herbert E. Gregory, ed., “Diary of A. H. Thompson,” _Utah Historical
Quarterly_, Vol. IX, 1939, pp. 89, 92.
[93]“Cougar Hunting on the Rim of the Grand Canyon,” _The Outlook_
(London, England, October 4, 1913), pp. 259-266.
[94]Letter of Frederick Vining Fisher to the writer, September 22, 1933.
[95]Memorandum of Horace M. Albright, August 4, 1933, in files of A. M.
Woodbury.
INDEX
A
Adams,
Nate, 179, 180, 189, 190
Orza, 190
River, 127, 128
Adventure, Utah settlement, 148, 150, 151, 153
Affleck, D. A., 193
_Agave_, (yant), food, 119
Agriculture, 138, 148
Indian, 117, 118
Ahlstrom, brothers, 182
Albright, Horace M., 196-197, 199, 201, 208
Allen, Rufus C., 144, 145
Allred, John J., 153
Alpine, Utah, 153
Alter, J. Cecil, 195
_Amelanchier_, (sarvis berries), 120
Ames, Clark, 144
Anderson,
J., 139
Miles, 139
Mrs. Nancy, 145
Anderson’s Ranch, 204
Andrus, James, aids against Indians, 168, 169, 171, 174-176
rescue expedition, 189
Animals, predatory, hunted, 192
Argonauts, 132
Armstrong, G. G., 205
Arrows, 118, 119, 121
Arizona, Northern,
colonized, 166
explored, 164-166
Strip, 189
Army, Johnston’s, marches to Utah, 131, 164
Arrowhead Route, 198
Trail Association, 198
Asa Creek, 142
Ash Creek, 117, 124, 127, 133, 139
Ashley, General (Wm. H.), 126
Ashton, Willam, 151, 153
Atkin, Grace, 111
Atwood, S. F., 144
Auerbach, H. S., 123, 128
Automobile roads to Southern Utah Parks, 204, 205
Averet, C. G., 153
Averett. Elijah, 172
Ayers, George, 158
Heber, 158
B
Baker, John, 191
Bamberger, Governor Simon, 200, 203, 205
Bancroft, H. H., 127
Barton,
L., 139
William, 139
Battalion, Mormon, 153
Beale, E. H., 121, 136
Bear Valley, 128
route, 142
Bears, grizzly, 193
Beaver, 140
County protected by militia, 167
Creek, 134
Dam Wash, 127, 128
River, 127
Behunin,
E. C., 112, 152, 155, 159
Isaac, 151, 155-157, 161
_Berberis, fremonti_, (weump berries), 120
Berry,
Isabel, 170
Joe, 170
Robert, 170
Berryville, Utah, 166, 181
Bigelow, Charles H., 198
Big Springs, 190
Birch Creek, 133
Black, George, 153
“Black Hawk War,” 159, 167
Black,
Joseph, 151, 152, 153
explores Zion, 155
Peter, 152
Rock Canyon, 175
Rock Springs, 123
William, 153
William, Jr., 153
Bleak, James G., 149
Bliss, Orley D., 182
Blood, Henry H., 208
Bolton, H. L., 123
Bows and arrows, 118, 119, 121
Bowman, John F., 208
Bread meal, 119
Brenchley, Julius, 138
Bright Angel Point, Grand Canyon, 197, 208
Brinton, Caleb D., 180
Brooks, Juanita, 146, 165
Brown,
Newman, 153
Robert, 153
T. D.. 144
Bryce Canyon, 201, 202
bus service to, 207
dedicated, 208
lodge and cabins built, 207, 208
made National Monument, 204
modern development of, 194-209
named, 182
publicized, 194
Bryce, Ebenezer, 182
Buckskin Mountains, 189
Bullock, David, 154
Burgess, Hyrum, 144, 145
Burial customs, Indian, 120
Burke, Charles F., 208
C
Cabin, log in Zion Canyon, 155, 156
Cable car across Colorado River, 192
Cable, in Zion Canyon, 161-164
mail, 162
Mountain, 163
Cactus, food, 117, 119
“Call,” the, 135
Camp, Charles L., 128
Canebeds, 142
Cannon,
David H., 168
George Q., 182
Grant and Company, 191
Lewis T., 192
Cannonville, Utah, 182
Canyons (see names of)
Carpenter, William H., 153
Castle Springs, 190
Cattle ranches, 166
Cattle, stolen, 167-179
Cedar Breaks, 201, 203, 207
Cedar Canyon, 136
Cedar City, Utah, 127, 136, 160
described, 137
prepares for tourists, 202
railroad built to, 203
Toquerville road, 195
Cedar Valley, 135
Celebration, 134
pioneer, 135
Census of Southern Utah communities, 154
Center Creek, 134
Chaffant. W. A., 132
Chamberlain,
Solomon, 142
Thomas, 191
Chinle shales, 155
Chittenden, H. M., 127
Circleville Canyon, 132
Clark,
E. S., 191
Oren, 169
Clayton, William, 131
Clear Creek, 127
Cleland, Robert Glass, 127, 132
Clifton, Utah, 182
Cloth, cotton made, 145-147
Clove, James, 192
Coal industry, 136
Cody, “Buffalo Bill,” 190, 191
Cooke, Edward, 180
Coleman, Prime T., 144
Colorado River, 127
crossed by cable car, 192
crossings established, 166
Colton, Don B., 208
Communication in Zion Canyon, 161
Com-o-it Indian tribe, 116, 117
Conservation program instituted, 187
Convicts build road, 195
Copelan, Willis, 174-176
Corn, 143
Corn Creek, 127
Cottam, Margery Brown, 180
Cotton,
grown, 145-150
mill, 154
wave, 149-150
Cougars killed, 192
“Court of the Patriarchs,” Zion Canyon, 155
Cove Fort, 127
Cox, Warren, 198
Coyotes killed, 192
Cram, Alex, 191
Campton, Louis C., 206
Crawford,
family, 161
William, 153
Crickets eat crops, 153
Crosby, Bill, 190
Crops, 148
Indian, 120
“Crossing of the Fathers,” 125
D
Daines, Franklin D., 130
Dale, H. H., 127
Dalton family, 161
Dame, William H., 167
Dams, 145
Dart, John, 142
Death Valley, disaster in, 132
Dellenbaugh, Frederick S., 180, 186
DeMille, Oliver, 151
DeMotte, Harvey C., 190
Park, 190
Dennet, Daniel Q., 153
Dennett,
family, 161
John, 110, 112, 122, 204
Mrs. John, 170, 171
Deseret, Iron Company, 136
State of proposed, 131
Disease brought to Indians, 122
Ditches, 145, 151
Dixie, 137-150, 152
Fruit Festival, 194
Dixon, Robert, 144
Dodge, Enoch, 172
Dominguez, Father, 123
Douglas, Stephen A., 131
Draper, Utah, 153
Draper, William L., 153
Duck Creek, 142
Duncan,
Chapman, 139
Retreat, Utah, census 1864, 154
Utah, abandoned, 159
Dunton, J. H., 139
Dutton, Capt. Clarence E., 185
E
Eight-Mile Spring, 190
Eldridge,
Elnathan, 144
Horace S., 150
Election, pioneer, 135
El Escalante Hotel, 202, 207
Emerald Pool Canyon, (Zion), 157, 206
Emett, Jim, 191, 192
Emigrants, gold, 132
English aristocracy urged to use Kaibab for sport, 190, 191
Epilogue, 210
_Erigonum inflatum_, 143
Erosion at Kanab, 182
Escalante,
Desert, 124
expedition, 123-126
Fray Silvestre Velez de, excerpt from journal of, 114, 117,
118, 120, 123-126, 128
Valley, 172
Evans, Richard, 207
Everett,
Edward, 133
Expedition,
against Indians, 174-176
to Zion Canyon, early, 123
Explorations of Southern Utah,
early, 123-130
Mormon, 130-149
Eyring, Henry, 174
F
Fair, World’s at St. Louis, Zion pictures at, 186, 187
Famine in “Dixie,” 154
Farish, T. E., 127
Farm implements, pioneer, 157
Farming, community, 160
Farms,
Indian, 117-120, 140, 141, 143
of Zion Canyon, 155
Farnsworth,
Lovina, 147
Moses M., 180
Ferries established on Virgin River, 166
Fifer of Mormon Battalion, 153
Fillmore,
railroad to, 203
Utah, 134
Financial, panic, effect on Utah, 159
Finch, B. J., 205, 206
Fire at Kanab fort, 180
Fish, Joseph, 172
Fisher, Frederick Vining, 198
Flag raised, Mormon, 134
Flanigan,
David, 163
family, 161
Tom, 116, 153
Floods, 151, 153, 182
Forest, Kaibab National, 189-194
Fort, 145
at Kanab, 180, 181
Pearce, 124
Sanford, 169
Forts, built in Kane County, 179
Fox Creek, 142
Frauschum, Mr., 153
Fredonia, Arizona, 182, 183
Freeman, Capt., 175
Fremont, Capt. John C.,
explorations of, 128-130
report of, 131
Frost, Allen, 180
Fruit orchards, 148
G
Gallatin, Albert, 127
Galliego, Jose, 121
Galloway, Nathan, 193
Game,
conservation of, 192
Indian, 119
Garcia, Arze, Expedition, 126
Gardner, Henry, 166
Georgetown, Utah, 182
Gifford,
family, 161
Oliver D., 112, 156, 161, 186, 204
Samuel K., 153
Gillespie, R. H., 139
Glen Canyon Ford, 166
Glendale, Utah, 166, 181
Golding, Robert J., 150
Gould, Samuel, 133
Goulding, Daniel, 182
Gould’s Ranch, 172
Grafton, Utah, 151, 154, 159
Graham, Utah, 181
Grapes, wild, 120
Grapevine Springs, 140
Grand Canyon,
Cattle Company, 191
Highway Association, 196
Transportation Company, 191
Grand Canyon of the Colorado, 124, 125
artist assigned by U. S. Government, to paint, 190
auto pathfinding trip to, 193, 195, 197
bridge in, 209
bus service to, 207
Jacob’s Lake Highway, 195
Lodge dedicated, 208
modern development of, 194-209
National Game Preserve, 192
Monument established, 193
North Rim, early history of, 189-194
publicized, 194
surveyed, 185
trail built across, 191, 192
visited by J. C. Alter, 195
West Rim Trail, 207
Grand Wash Cliffs, 166
Grant, Heber J., 202, 208
Gray, Carl R., 198, 203, 208
Grazing,
in the Kaibab, 190
in Zion Canyon stopped, 200
Great Organ, Zion Canyon, 199
Great Red Arch, Zion Canyon, 161
Great White Throne, Zion Canyon, 161, 163, 199, 209
Green,
Sam, 116
James, 153
Greenland Peninsula, 192
Gregory. Dr. Herbert E., 123, 185, 190
Grey, Zane, 192
Grimes, Oliver J., 201
Grist mill, 152
Grotto campground, Zion Canyon, 204, 207
Guards against Indians, 173
Guide, tourist, 192
Gunnison River, 123
Gustavus, Crown Prince, 208
Gypsum, 133
H
Haight, Isaac C., 133, 147
Hall,
John C., 151, 153
Thomas, 153
Halloran, W. J., 205
Halterman, S. A., 201
Hamblin, Jacob, 144, 145, 164-165
aids against Indians, 175
holds peace conference with Navajos, 177-179
in Kaibab region, 189
missionary among, Indians, 179
Hamblin, Walter, 191
Hanchett, Lafayette, 205
Hancock, Cyrus, 173, 174
Hanna, P. T., 127
Harding, President Warren G., visits Southern Utah Parks, 204
Hardy, Augustus P., 144, 145
Harmony, Utah, 143
Harriman, Edward H., 198
Harris,
Mountain Pass, 142
W. R., 123
Harrison, Peter (Indian), 122
Harrows, 157
Harry, Philip, 123
Haskell,
Maria Woodbury, 146
Thales H., 144, 146, 165
Hastele, (Indian), 177
Hatch,
Ira, 144, 145
Meltair, 182
Utah, 182
Heap,
G. H., 121, 136
William, 157
Heap’s farm, 156
_Hediondilla_, (creosote bush), 124
Heller, Edmund, 203
Henefer, William, 144
Henrie, James, 182
Henrieville,
Creek, 182
Utah, 182
Hepworth, Thornton, Jr., 163
Hewlett, Sylvester, 133
Higbee, J. M., 171
Highway 89 prospected, 194
Highway 91, 196, 198
Logan to St. George, 194
Highways built to Southern Utah Parks, 194-209
Hillers, Jack, 186
Hillsdale, Utah, 181
Hirschi,
Claud, 198
David, 186-187, 196
Hogs slaughtered, 156
Hole-in-the-Rock, 183
Horne, Joseph, 147
Horses stolen, 121, 167-179
Hotel El Escalante, 202, 207
Hough, Emerson, 203
Houserock Valley, 191
Houses, adobe, 136, 189, 190
Howell, Joseph, 192
Hoyt,
Silas, 166
T. C., 191, 192
Huber,
Albert, 153
Edward, 153
Hunt, Capt. Jefferson, expedition, 131, 132, 135, 136
Hunting, 192, 193, 195
Indian, 118, 119
in the Kaibab, 190-193
Huntington, Al, 191
Hurricane,
Fault, 124
Utah, road convention at, 196
Hyde, Orson, 131
I
Implements, Indian farming, 120
Indian,
baskets, 118
burial customs, 120
camps, 118
chief, 121
contribution to present culture, 113
cooking, 119
depredations, 129, 159, 165-179
force concentration of pioneers, 159
food, 117-120
grinder, 119
law, 116
moccasins, 118
myths, 112, 113
ornaments, 118
pictographs, 133
raids, 166-179
robes, 118
school, 144
squaws—work of, 120
sugar, 119, 120
superstitions re: Zion Canyon, 112-113, 148
trading expedition, 177
treatment of the infirm, 120, 121
tribes, extinct, 122
water jugs, 118
weapons, 118, 119, 121
Indians,
baptized, 145
disarmed, 171
Ingram, Lord, 191
Iron Company, Deseret, 136
Iron,
County, colonized, 134
protected by militia, 167
industry, 135, 139
Military District, 167
Springs, 135
ore, 133, 134
Irrigation, 182
Indian, 120
I-u-goon, derivation of word, 115
Ivins, Anthony W., 191, 198, 205, 208
J
Jacob’s Lake, 189
Well, 190
Jeffers, LeRoy, 201
Jepson, James, 159
Jennings,
Henry, 175
James H., 153, 156, 161
Johnson,
Benjamin, 181
George, 181
Joel H., 181
Joseph, 181
Nephi, 144, 147, 150, 151, 182
Seth, 181, 182
Sixtus E., 173
“Twist,” 148
Utah, 181
William, 181
Johnston’s Army, 131, 164
Jolley,
Bryant, 184
Donald J., 207
Henry B. M., 166
William J., 166
Jones,
Col. C. J., (Buffalo Jones) (Buffalo Bill) 139, 192, 193
Kumen, 183
Randall L., 202, 203, 205
Stephen V., 185
Jordan River, 153
Judd, Zadock, 139
K
Kaibab,
Indian derivation of name, 114
Land and Cattle Company, 191
National Forest, 164, 189-194
buggy driven to, 191
established, 191
stocked with cattle and horses, 190
used by English aristocracy, 190, 191
Plateau, 189
tribe, (Indian), 117
Kaibabit Indians, survivors of, 122
Kai-ne-sava, Indian spirit, 112, 113
Kanab,
Creek, 166
fort, 180, 181
Indian derivation of name, 114
Trail, dedicated, 208
Utah, 166, 180, 181
erosion at, 182
raided by Indians, 168, 169
region explored, 177
resettled, 179, 180
Wash, 182
Kanarra,
Indian chief, 141
source of name, 114
Utah, 133
Kane County,
expanded, 179-182
explored and settled, 164-166
protected by militia, 167
Kane Springs, 189
Kenner, Dr. S. A., 151, 153
King, Wesley, 188
Klapper, Charlie, 151, 153
Klingensmith, Philip, 148
Knell, Benjamin, 144
Knight,
Jesse, 192
Samuel, 144, 145
Knives, skinning, 118
Kolob Promontory, 133
L
Lady Mountain, Zion Canyon, 206
Lakes, (see names)
Lamb, Ed., Jr., 191
Lances, Indian, 121
Lane, Franklin K., 196
Langston,
Clarinda, 163
John, 153
LaVerkin Creek, 124, 128
promontory, 133
Leany, Hyrum, 119
Lee,
John D., 135, 148, 179
in Kaibab region, 189
leads exploration of Virgin River, 139-141
leads southern settlement, 137-144
ranch, 181
raided, 172
settles at Ash Creek, 143
Lee’s Ferry, Arizona, 166
Lemon, James, 151
Levearskin (LaVerkin) River, 139
Lewis, David, 145
Liberty pole, 134
Limestone, 133
Lion, mountain, captured, 192, 195
Little, James, 177
Littlefield, David O., 182
Little Salt Lake, 135
Livestock,
in Kaibab Forest, 190, 191
stolen by Indians, 166-179
Logan-St. George highway, 194
Long Valley, 142, 166
abandoned, 171, 172
Canyon, 142
Utah, 179, 181
Louise, Princess, 208
Lost River, 127
Lott, John, 144
Lumber transported, 161-164
Lumbering, 142
Lunt, Henry W., 197-199
M
Mail cable, 162
Maize, 117, 118
Mammoth Creek, 142
Manderfield, J. H., 198
Mangum, John (Mangram), 179
Manly, William Lewis, 132
Manti, Utah, 132
Marble Gorge Bridge of the Grand Canyon of Arizona, 209
Marysvale Canyon, 127
Marshall, E. J., Co., 191
Massacre, 170
Mather, Stephen T., 197, 202, 206, 208
Maxwell, W. B., 166, 171
Maxwell’s ranch raided, 172
Mabey, Charles R., 205
Mayo, Tommy (Indian), 114
McArthur, D. D., 174
McConnell, Jehiel, 179
McDonald,
Graham, 192, 193
Thomas, 208
McFate,
Jim, 153
Joe, 153
McKinnon, Major, 191
McIntyre, Robert, 168-169, 189
Means, Howard C., 205, 206
Measles among the Indians, 122
Meeks, Priddy, 142, 166
Merriam, C. H., 127
Mestes Expedition, 126
Mexican War, 130
Mill,
cotton, 154
flour, 152
molasses, 153
saw, 181
steam, 190
shingle, 163
Military posts established in Southern Utah, 173
Militia, in Southern Utah, organized against Indians, 137, 167-176
Millard County, 115
Millett,
Alma, 151
Joseph, 153
Milmey, Lord, 191
Minerals, iron, 133
Mission sites located by Escalante, 125, 126
Missionaries, Mormon, 144-149
Missionary expedition, between the Virgin and Colorado Rivers,
164-166
Mitchell, Dr. Charles, 182
Moccasin, Arizona, 166
Springs, 180
Moencopi, 178
Molasses mill, 153
Monument, National,
Act, 187
Zion Canyon made, 164
Monuments, National, 187, 191, 193
Moqui Indians, mission to, 164-166
Mojave Desert, 127
Moran, Thomas, 190
Morgan,
Dale L., 131
John, 180
Mormon,
Battalion, 131, 153
missionaries among Indians, 144-149, 179
policy re: Indians, 137
settlement, early, 130-151
Trail, 131
Mormons,
colonize Southern Utah, 135
effect of upon Paiute government, 122
explore Southern Utah, 130-149
Morris, Hyrum, 153, 158
Mountain Meadows, 128
visited by Fremont, 129
Mountains, (see names of)
Mt. Carmel,
Highway, 209
Utah, 166, 181
Mount Zion, 206
Muddy River, 128
Mukuntuweap, (see Zion Canyon)
Munk,
Mrs. Eunice, 157
Peter, 152
Murdock,
and Fotheringham, Beaver, Utah, 191
John R., 144
Museum at Zion Canyon, 207
Musser, Milton A., 180
Mustache, Frank, (Indian), 114, 115
N
Names, place, in Zion, 199
National Monument Law, 187
National Monuments, 191, 193
Zion Canyon made, 187
National Park Transportation and Camping Company, 203
Naturalist Service, 207
Navajo Indian,
depredations, 167-179
hold peace conference, 177
raids, 166-179
Navajo Indians unfriendly to missionaries, 165
Neff, Andrew L., 131
Neihardt, J. G., 127
Neslen, C. Clarence, 202
New Harmony, Utah, 145
Newman, Elijah, 151, 153, 161
Noble, Edward A., 180
North Rim of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado,
early history of, 189-194
Highway in, 195
Northrop, Utah, 151, 154, 159
O
Oak Creek, 148
Oak Spring, 190
Observation Point, Zion Canyon, 187
Occupations, pioneer, 138
Old Grafton, Utah, abandoned, 151
Old Spanish Trail, established, 126, 128
Ookie berries, 120
Orderville, Utah, 183
Otter Creek, 140
Otters, 140
Owen, Jim “Uncle,” 192, 198
P
Pah-Utah Indians (Paiute), 121
Pahvant Valley, 115
Paiute Indians,
cultivation, 140, 141
depredations, 167-179
legends, 113
Mormon effect upon, 122
territory occupied by, 113, 114
mode of life, 115, 116
Palmer, William R., 114, 116, 117
Panguitch Lake, 141
Utah, 128
fortified, 170
re-settled, 181
Valley, 142
Paragonah, Utah, 128, 132, 136
Parashont Mountains, 189
Parks, Southern Utah, history of, 184-209
Park-to-Park Highway conference, 203
Paria, (Pahrea)
Indian derivation of name, 114
River, Lee’s Ferry at, 189
Utah, 114, 179
Parowan,
Canyon, 135, 141
Utah, 134, 137, 171
Par-roos River, Indians of, 117
Parrusis Indians, 117, 118
Parrusit Indians,
habits and customs, 115-122
survivor of, 122
Parunuweap Canyon, 147
Indian derivation of name, 114
settlement, 155
Parry,
Chauncey, 199, 203
Gronway, 203
Pathfinder tour to Grand Canyon, 195, 197
Peace council, Navajo, 177
Pearce, J. D. L., 173-175
Pearce’s Ferry, 166
Pendleton, Mark A., 184
Peopling of Little Salt Lake Valley, celebration, 134
Petty,
Albert, 152, 153, 159
Frank, 164
Frank, Jr., 164
George, 151
Photographer, pioneer, 179
of Zion, (Major J. W. Powell’s Exploration Party), 186
_Phragmites_ (Indian sugar), 119, 120
Pilar River, 117
Pinchot, Gifford, 187
Pine Creek route road, 206
Pine nuts, 120
Pine Spring, 190
Pioneer,
farm instruments, 157
occupations, 138
wagon raided by Indians, 172, 173
Pipe Springs, Arizona, 166, 180
council of war at, 171
Place names,
Indian, 114, 115
in Zion Canyon, 199
Spanish, 128
Pleasant Valley, 142
Plows, hand, 157
Pollock, Samuel, 147
Polygamy, 183
Potato Valley, (Escalante), 172
Powell, Maj. J. W., 114, 177, 180, 185, 186, 190
Pratt,
Orson, 131, 150, 151
Parley P., 132, 136, 144, 148
exploration of Southern Utah, 133-134
Prunus, (choke cherries), 120
Q
Quinnarrah, Indian chief, 141
R
Railroads,
built in Southern Utah, 203
developed in Northern Utah, 138
Railroad officials visit National Parks, 197
Red Creek, 132, 135
Red Desert, 124
Reeves, Josiah, 147
Remy, Jules, 138, 146
Richards, Franklin D., 136
Richie, Robert, 144
Riddle, Isaac, 144
Rider, John, 180
Rigg Springs, 190
Riggs,
B. A., 162
William, 147
“Rio de Los Angeles,” 128
Rio del Pilar (Ash Creek), 124
Rio Virgin Manufacturing Company, 154
Rishel, W. D., 195, 197
Rivers, (see names)
Road,
Commission, Utah State established, 194
Commissioner, Utah State, 199
concrete, 205
convention, 196
through Zion Canyon, 158, 162
wagon, 134, 194
Roads,
to Southern Utah Parks, 204, 205
constructed, 194-209
Federal aid for, 204, 205
Robinson, Richard, 144-145
Rock Creek, 134
Rockville, Utah, 116, 151, 153, 154, 171
Rolf, John, 157, 159, 161
Roosevelt, President Theodore enacts National Monument Act, 187
in Grand Canyon, 195
Ross, George, 179
Roundy, Lorenzo W., 144, 169, 189
_Rubus_, (raspberries), 120
Ruesch, Walter, 200, 202, 205, 207
Russell,
family, 161
Harold, 207
Major, 173
Rust, David D., 188, 191, 192, 193
S
Salina Canyon, 128
_Salt Lake Tribune_ sponsors auto pathfinding tour to Southern
Parks, 195, 197
San Juan,
County explored, 183
River settlements, 183
Santa Clara Creek, 127, 133
dam, 145
Santa Clara,
Indian Reservation, 122
Mission, 148
River, 128, 140
route used by Jedediah S. Smith, 127
Valley, 140
Saunders, B. F., 191
Savage, C. R., (pioneer photographer), 179
Sawmill, 164, 181, 190
Scoyen, E. T., 207
Scutumpah, Utah, 181
Seegmiller,
Carol, 184
Dan, 190, 191
Emma, 184
William W., 114
Sevier River, 127, 128, 132, 141
country raided, 169
Sevy, George W., 181
Sheep stolen, 167
Shelton, Marion J., 165
Shin-na-wav (Indian Spirit), 112, 113
Shingle mill, 163
Shivwits Indians, 112, 117
survivors of, 122
“Shunes” (Indian), 151
Shunesburg, Utah, 150, 151, 153-155, 159
derivation of name, 114
Shurtz, Peter, 143, 169, 189
Silver Reef, Utah, 122
Skins, used for clothing, 118
Skull Cap Valley, 142
Slavery, Indian, 121
Smith,
George A., 135, 150, 205
visits Kanab, 179
George Albert, Jr., 165
J. C. L., 141
Jedediah Strong, 117, 128, 148
expedition, 126, 127
John L., 142
Joseph, 131, 157
Silas S., 169, 170
Thomas S., 135
Smoot, Reed, 192, 196, 202
Snow,
Erastus, 136, 150, 167
General of Militia, 173, 175
Joseph S., 198
Leo A., 187, 202
Soap Creek, 114
Southern Utah,
and Arizona Parks linked by road, 204, 205
colonized by Mormons, 135
early explorations of, 123-130
early Mormon settlement in, 130-151
Indians, 111-123
martial law declared in, 170
Parks, history of, 184-209
Parley P. Pratt’s exploration of, 133-134
roads constructed in, 194, 209
settlements, abandoned, 159
Spanish Fathers’ explorations, 123-126
Spanish place names, 128
Spanish Trail, Old, established, 126, 128
Spencer, D. S., 197
Spencer, Howard O., 184
Springdale, Utah, 151, 153, 154, 159, 161
Springs, hot sulphur, 124
Spry, Governor William, 194, 197, 198, 202
Squashes, 117, 143
Staples, George, 153
State of Deseret proposed, 131
Steele, John, 139, 141, 173
Stevens,
Amos, 153
Barney, 153
Charles, 153
Ezra, 152, 153
Henry, 153
Hyrum, 151, 153, 172
Stewart,
George R., 182
Isaac, 150
Levi, 178-180
ranch and sawmill, 190
Margery, 180
Quinby, 164
Scott P., surveying party, 164
St. George, Utah, settled, 149
Dixie Fruit Festival at, 194
—Logan Highway, 194
Stockraising, 138
Stocks, Henry, 151, 153
Stout,
Alfred P., 163
Eliza, 163
family, 161
Lionel, 163
Mrs. Mary Jane, 163
Strawberry Creek, 142
Strong,
Ezra, 153, 166
Hyrum, 153
Sullivan, Maurice, 117, 127
Sulphur Creek, 128
River, 124
Summit Creek Canyon, 135
Surveying,
expedition to Zion Canyon, 187
party in Zion Canyon, 164
Swains Creek, 142
Swing, Phillip D., 208
T
Tamarisk trees, 124
Taylor, Orson, 158
“Temple of Sinawava”, Zion Canyon, 155, 206
“Temples and Towers of the Virgin”, Zion Canyon, 185
Tenney, Nathan, 151
Terry,
family, (John R.) 161
Jacob E., 153
James P., 153
Thaxton, James, 153
Thompson, William, 180
Thorley, Richard A., 199, 202
Thornton,
Amos G., 144
J. W., 152
_Three Patriarchs_, Zion Canyon, 199
Tillohash, Tony, (Indian) 112, 115
Tobacco, wild, 156
Tonaquint, Utah, 145, 147, 148
Tonaquintit Indians, 117
Toquer, Chief, 144
Toquerville,
source of name, 114
Utah, settled, 147
settlers, move to, 171
—Cedar City road, 195
Tourist busses, 207
guide, 192
travel in Parks, 207
Trail built across Grand Canyon of the Colorado, 191, 192
Mormon, 131
Old Spanish, established, 126, 128
Trails in Zion Canyon, 206
Trappers, 126, 128
Transportation to Zion Canyon, mode of, 158
Travel in Parks, 207
Tropic, Utah, 182
Trumbull Mountains, 189
Tufts, W. O., 199
Tullis, David, 144
Tunnel in Zion Road, 206
Tut-se-gavits, Indian chief, 121
U
Uinkarets Indians, 117, 122
Union Pacific Railroad, 197, 198
excursion to Bryce Canyon, 208
expands in Southern Utah, 203
United Order,
for all the world, 158
Beaver, Utah, 160
Cedar City, Utah, 160
Fillmore, Utah, 160
Mt. Carmel, Utah, 183
Nephi, Utah, 160
Orderville, Utah, 183
Parowan, Utah, 160
Price City, Utah, 160
Rockville, Utah, 160
St. George Stake, 160
Springdale, Utah, 161
Virgin, Utah, 160
Washington, Utah, 160
Ungatuweep, (derivation of word) 114, 115
U.S. Biological Survey, hunters for, 192
Forest Service builds road, 195
Geological Survey of Grand Canyon of the Colorado and Zion,
184, 185
National Park Service established, 184, 185
“Utah Dixie” developed, 145, 147-150
Utah Lake, 123, 127
Utah,
Parks company, 203, 206, 208
National Park, 208
Southern, explored by Mormons, 130-149
State Penitentiary, 195
State Road Commission established, 194
Ute ford, Glen Canyon, 166
Indians, 130
depredations, 167-169
organization of Ute Nations, 115
V
“V. T. Park,” 190
Vermillion cliffs, Zion Canyon, 161
Virgin City, Utah, 154, 171
Virgin River,
Indian name for, 114
Spanish name for, 128
discovered by Escalante, 124, 127
explored, 133, 139-141, 147
ferries established on, 166
guards placed on, 175
Indians, 117
route taken by Fremont, 128, 129
traveled by Jedediah S. Smith, 127
used for irrigation, 151
Virgin,
Thomas, 128
Utah, 147
W
Wadsworth, William, 133
Wagon roads in disrepair, 194
Wagon trains raided by Indians, 172, 173
Wai-no-pits, Indian spirit, 113
Walker, Charles L., 111, 152
diary of, 168-169
Chief, 130
War, 136, 137
Wallace, Grant, 192
War,
Black Hawk, 159, 166, 167
Indian, 136, 137, 159, 166, 167
Mexican, 130
Warm Valley, 143
Wasatch Mountains crossed by Escalante, 123
Wash basin, pioneer, 156
Washington,
County, protected by Militia, 167
roads built in, 195
Fields, 140
Utah, 154
Wayne Wonderland, 201, 207
Weather, 133, 139
Webb, C. Y., 139
Wells, Junius, 190
West Rim Trail, 207
West Temple, Zion Canyon, 186
Weump berries, 120
White, Douglas, 196, 198, 199
Whitlock, Hardin, 151, 153
Whitmore, Dr. James M., 150, 166, 168, 169, 189
Whitney, F. T., 142
Wickiups, 118
Wilkins, James, 179
Willis, Joshua T., 147
Wilson,
George D., 181
Pres. Woodrow, 201
Winder, John, 163, 205, 206
Winsor, A. P., 172
Utah, 166, 181
Wittwer, Samuel, 158
Wolf-god, (Indian spirit), 112, 113
Wolfskill, William, 128
Wolves killed, 192
Woodbury, Dr. Angus M., sketch, 111, 127
Woolley,
E. D., 188, 191-193
Edwin G., 176, 192, 193
Franklin B., 171
Wylie,
Camp, 199, 204
Grove, Zion Canyon, 206
W. W., 203
Y
York, Asa, 153
Young, Brigham, 131, 147, 148, 157, 158, 160, 179-181, 191
John R., 184
John W., 175, 190
Willis, 147
Yount, George C., 128
Yubincariri Indians, 117
Z
“_Zion—Bryce Nature Notes_”, 207
Zion Canyon (see Mukuntuweap)
abandoned, 159
agricultural development of, 155
cable, 161-164
dedicated, 202
early history of, 185-209
first passable road to, 199
first settler in, 155, 156
first white man to enter, 147, 158
first white man to explore, 152
geological formation of, 155
grazing stopped in, 200
highway constructed in, 205-209
horse and buggy trip through, 188
Indian name for, 114, 115, 161
Indian superstitions re: 112-113
last families to live in, 161
lodge and cabins built in, 155, 156, 206, 207
mail service, 161, 162
modern development of, 194-209
—Mt. Carmel Highway, 209
museum, 207
named, 158
name changed, 201, 202
National Monument, 187
Naturalist Service, 207
paintings exhibited at World’s Fair, 186, 187
promontory, 133
publicized, 194
roads in, 158, 162, 188, 189, 196, 199, 200, 205, 207
scenic points named, 199
settlements of, 150-161
superintendents and rangers appointed, 207
surveyed, 164, 187
trails built in, 206
travel increases, 203
visited by Brigham Young, 157, 158
visited by Governor Spry, 195, 196
visited by railroad officials, 197
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
[Illustration: Enjoying Emerald Pool under the cliffs in Zion
Canyon. _Courtesy Union Pacific Railroad._]
Transcriber’s Notes
—Silently corrected a few typos.
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
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