Part 10

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.

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.