Part 9

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.

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.