Grand Canyon History where nothing gets left behind including the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...
Indiginous Peoples In Grand Canyon
A Pictorial Reminder That Indigenous Peoples have been in Grand Canyon for many millenia.
Batchit Arizona: The Rise and Fall: This post is about a western Grand Canyon guano mine, tramway, and mining camp.
Two Reviews of False Architect: The Mary Colter Hoax by Fred Shaw
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| Airing up the Hatch rubber bridge pontoon at Marble Canyon, April 24, 1954 |
April Colorado River History Dates
April 1, 1952 – Thomas Delbert “Del” Reed died of a heart attack in Bluff, Utah, and he is buried there. Del rowed a boat on the Clover Expedition of 1938, and again for Norm Nevills in 1940. He and Norm became the sixth and seventh to make a second traverse of Grand Canyon and the first to make two traverses together. Rowing for Norm again in 1941, Del and Norm became the first to make three traverses of the Marble and Grand canyons and were also the first people to make three trips through the Grand Canyon together.
April 2, 1917 - In a letter to Bob Stanton, Julius Stone writes “It is not only unbelievable, but physically impossible that White should have made the trip from above the head of the Colorado to Old Callville on a raft in fourteen days when it took us over a month with the best possible equipment plus a very considerable experience. It beats all how difficult it is to kill a lie after it has been repeated a sufficient number of times.”
April 3, 1949 – The second annual Wind River Boat Race near Thermopolis, Wyoming, is announced in the Billings Gazette. There is a $1,000 First Place cash prize.
April 4, 1956 – Otis “Dock” Marston and Jimmy Jordan spoke by phone to sort out the complexities of arranging 8 outboard motors for Dock’s 1956 Grand Canyon cruise.
April 5, 1955 – Bill Beer and John Daggett wade into the Colorado River at Lees Ferry. Surfers from California, the two plan on floating the river through Grand Canyon sitting on straps suspended between waterproof gear bags.
April 6, 1950 – Three University of Arizona students launch a 12-foot-long decked metal dory named Deacon’s Dilemma at the Paria beach sans permit. The boat is built and piloted by Dave Jensen. Seven days later they arrive at Boat Beach below the Kaibab Suspension Bridge in great shape. Grand Canyon Superintendent Harold Bryant is not impressed.
April 7, 1960 – Harry Aleson visited with Dock Marston in Berkeley, California. The two men went over what Harry remembered about the loss of Bert Loper in 1949. Harry tells Dock that just before Bert and Wayne Nichol capsized, Nichol shouted “Row! For God’s sake, Row!”
April 8, 1947 – Disney director and producer Erwin Verity invited Dock Marston to bring his river films to the Los Angeles studios for a showing, starting a long friendship between Walt Disney and Marston.
April 9, 1908 – Norm Nevills is born in Oakland, California, to Mae Davies and William Eugene Nevills.
April 10, 1948 – Ed Hudson writes to Dock Marston that 50 gallons of gasoline is headed to the mouth of Diamond Creek and another 50 gallons to the mouth of Havasu Canyon. The fuel is for an uprun attempt of the Colorado River in Hudson’s boat Esmeralda II.
April 11, 1956 -- President Eisenhower took a brief time-out during a round of golf at Augusta to sign the $760 million Colorado River Storage Act. Dams in Dinosaur National Monument were no longer in the bill.
April 12, 1928 – Bessie Haley Married Glen Hyde in Twin Falls, Idaho.
April 13, 1953 -- A Canadian and a German wrote Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Harold Bryant asking for a river permit, intending to take Klepper folding kayaks through Grand Canyon. Even though the two had impressive river skills, Superintendent Bryant denied their request. Dock Marston thought Bryant’s denial pointless, certain “there was no one who knew how to run the Canyon well enough to justify a government recommendation.”
April 14, 1948 – In response to a memo from National Park Service Regional Director Minor Tillotson, Big Bend Superintendent Ross Maxwell wrote to National Park Service Associate Director Demaray that he “attempted to scare everyone off that I could from taking a boat on any kind of a trip within Big Bend National Park.”
April 15, 1915 – Emery Kolb gives his first lecture while showing film footage of river running at the Kolb Studio on the Rim of Grand Canyon. Protected by contract with the NPS, no one else could show a similar film at the South Rim till after Kolb died in 1976.
April 16, 1958 -- Gaylord Staveley didn’t help his reputation when he applied for an exclusive franchise to operate boat tours through Grand Canyon with both oars and power. The Park Service did not go along with the request, nor did the river community when they heard about it.
April 17, 1959 – Walt Disney film producer Jim Algar writes Dock Marston he has decided to have two Whitehall replicas built from scratch for the filming of the movie Ten Who Dared.
April 18, 1906 – A massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake devastates and burns San Francisco, killing an estimated 3,000 people. In Berkeley, 12-year-old Otis Marston views the terrifying spectacle of the famous city across the Bay enveloped by sheets of flame and billowing clouds of evil-hued smoke.
April 19, 1955 – Grand Canyon Superintendent Patraw had a face-to-face meeting with the swimmers Beer and Daggett. He notes he “advised them to discontinue the trip.” Beer and Daggett “insisted they were going to continue.” In his consideration to let the two men return to the river, Patraw noted that Daggett just happened to be a first cousin of Daggett Harvey, president of the Fred Harvey Company that managed the El Tovar and Bright Angel hotels at the South Rim.
April 20, 1890 -- Leaving Denver by train on this date, Bob Stanton returns to his river party still camped at Needles, California. They reach tidewater at the Sea of Cortez, Saturday, April 26, 1890.
April 21, 1950 – Grand Canyon Superintendent Harold Bryant writes Regional Director Tillotson that he intends to “continue issuing informal permits to those who cooperate, and thus let it be known that a permit is required.”
April 22, 1954 – Dock Marston was not averse to boating with women. In fact, he found the historic writings of women river runners stood “up on average better than the men. And there is nothing wrong with the women having opinions. The men of the River would be wise to listen.”
April 23, 1955 – Reed Jensen and 4 others in two 10-man oar powered rafts valiantly fight the spring winds in Grand Canyon. They find unusual tracks in the sand above rapids made by two-tailed beavers. At Phantom Ranch, they learn Beer and Daggett are a few days ahead of them.
April 24, 1954 – An oar-powered bridge pontoon is rigged at Lee’s Ferry for a Grand Canyon cruise, a first. The craft is affectionally named Millipede.
April 25, 1958 -- Gaylord Staveley’s letter to the editor, printed in the San Juan Record, suggests the lake behind Glen Canyon Dam be named Lake Nevills.
April 26, 1954 -- Leslie Jones writes Grand Canyon National Park that he plans to resume his river trip using the decked canoe he left at Phantom the year before. Without stopping at Park Headquarters and without a permit, Jones hikes in at Phantom a few days later and heads downriver alone in his canoe.
April 27, 1955 – The Jensen trip pulls into the mouth of Havasu Canyon. After a few minutes stop, they head on down river, never seeing Beer and Daggett. This marks a first for Grand Canyon; one trip passing another without encountering them.
April 28, 1955 – The first documented use of a paddle boat in Grand Canyon occurred when 5 college students packed a 7-man paddle raft down the Tanner Trail and headed downriver. Two days later they arrived at Phantom Ranch and hiked their raft out.
Ps... Yes, this post is a challenge to see if I can find a Colorado River Basin fact for every day of January... Done! If you like this sort of stuff you might enjoy reading Dock Marston: Grand Canyon’s Colorado River Running Historian Volume 1 available at Vishnu Temple Press. The four-part Kindle version of the same book is available here.