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| Evie Mull in Grand Canyon, May, 1952 photo courtesy The Huntington Library |
May Colorado River History Dates
May 1, 1948 – The Esmeralda II, the first inboard motorboat to run all the way down the Colorado River in Grand Canyon and designed to uprun the Grand, is launched in Morro Bay, California, for trial runs. Twelve years later to the day, the first jet boats are launched at Lees Ferry, Arizona, for a downrun and uprun attempt. The jets succeed later that summer.
May 2, 1918 – After his photography work on the 1909 Julius Stone river trip from Green River, Wyoming, to Needles, California, Raymond Cogswell attends Case School of Applied Science and graduates on this date with a degree in Chemical Engineering at the age of 36.
May 3, 1938 – Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Minor Tillotson writes to Norm Nevills that the Secretary of Interior had been notified by Tillotson of a need to implement a permit system for river runners, but the Secretary “was loath to put it into effect because of the practical difficulties in enforcing it.” Tillotson notes that “because of the dangers involved, especially to inexperienced boatman and adventure seekers, we naturally do all in our power to discourage such trips. Although I have some knowledge as to your experience as a boatman, and in handling such parties, I still wish to go on record as very strongly urging against your proposal.”
May 4, 1889 – In an amazing feat of surveying and boating skill, Frank C. Kendrick, T. P. Rigney, and Messers Knox, Cost, and Brock, bring a level line survey from Grand Junction, Colorado, to the Confluence of the Grand and Green Rivers. They immediately begin traveling up the Green River in their oar powered boat, arriving at Green River, Utah, Eleven days later.
May 5, 1957 – Frank “Fisheyes” Masland hosts a weekend gathering of river runners at his Kings Gap estate in Pennsylvania. Attendees include kayaker Alexander “Zee” Grant, his wife Margaret, artist Mary Abbott, NPS Interp Chief John Doerr and his wife Nancy, Powell Biographer William Culp Darrah and his wife Helen, Robert Stanton’s daughter Ann, river runners Evie and John Mull, and Margaret and Otis “Dock” Marston.
May 6, 1942 – Harry Aleson and Doyle Parham uprun the Colorado River in Grand Canyon to 220 Mile in Harry’s outboard motorboat Up Colorado, setting a new uprun record.
May 7, 1956 – Grand Canyon National Park Acting Chief Ranger Peter H. Schuft mails letters to river runners with directions on how to apply for a Grand Canyon boating permit. The application had to be filled out in duplicate and “returned to this office as soon as possible.” On receiving the necessary applications and meeting the Park’s “minimum safety requirements in equipment and experience,” a separate permit “will be forwarded to you.”
May 8, 1957 – The body of Hite Ferry operator Reed Maxfield is recovered from the Colorado River at the Glen Canyon Damsite. It is surmised he slipped off the ferry and drowned. He did not know how to swim.
May 9, 1955 – 750 workers at the Evinrude outboard motor factory in Michigan go back to work after a month-long strike.
May 10, 1909 – Frances Johnson Holmstrom gives birth to Haldane “Buzz” Holmstrom. The newborn’s father is Charles Magnus Holmstrom.
May 11, 1949 – Margaret and Otis “Dock” Marston visit with Bert Loper and discuss boats. When discussing the Nevills boats, Loper acknowledges their “success but that does not mean I must like them.”
May 12, 1942 – Norm Nevills completes a run of the San Juan River. Advertising Agent Neill Wilson is on that river trip and agrees to help promote Nevills river trips for a 50% discount in the fare for a river run through Grand Canyon later that year.
May 13, 1954 – The Vernal Express runs a story on Dinosaur National Monument installing permanent campsites along the Yampa River.
May 14, 1948 – The first documented river trip to run the Dolores River launches at Dolores, Colorado. Trip members include Becky and Preston Walker and Margaret and Otis “Dock” Marston.
May 15, 1939 – Haldane “Buzz” Holmstrom almost drowns in an uprun attempt of the Snake River in Hells Canyon. Earl G. Hamilton pulls the drowning man out of the river.
May 16, 1955 - Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Preston Patraw writes Harvey Butchart that an air mattress is not safe or appropriate float equipment.
May 17, 1959 – The Boston Globe runs an article on a new type of watercraft titled “Jet Age Here in Boating.”
May 18, 1955 – Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Preston Patraw writes A. M. Hopwood of Bisbee, Arizona that under no circumstances will he approve Hopwood’s request to run the Colorado Rive in a wingless seaplane.
May 19, 1942 - Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Harold Bryant writes the Director of the Park Service that it is “becoming more and more evident that the trip down the river is one of the most outstanding and thrilling trips in America.”
May 20, 1948 – The first documented river trip to run the Dolores passes the confluence with the Rio San Miguel then spots what remains of a hanging flume pinned to a sheer sandstone cliff face 100 feet overhead. The flume had been constructed in the 1880s as part of a placer mining operation.
May 21, 1949 - Psychoanalyst Thad Ames predicts that the success of Hudson’s motor cruise through Grand Canyon will bring about Nevills’ death and it was probable that he would use his plane to do so. On September 19, 1949, Nevills and his wife were killed when their light plane crashed into a cliff.
May 22, 1871 – The second river trip led by John Wesley Powell departed Green River, Wyoming.
May 23, 1913 – Ellsworth Kolb leaves Needles, California, in a small boat headed to the Sea of Cortez, intending to complete the fourth recorded voyage from Green River, Wyoming, to the Sea.
May 24, 1869 – Major John Wesley Powell and others boat away from Green River, Wyoming. Many of the crew are bleary-eyed and snarly haired from the bad whiskey consumed the previous few nights to celebrate the men’s farewell from their friends.
May 25, 1889 – A group of river runners led by Frank Mason Brown departs Green River, Utah, intending to survey a railroad line from the Confluence of the Green and Grand rivers to the Sea of Cortez.
May 26, 1959 - Five members of the Underwater Demolition Team #11, Naval Amphibious Base out of Coronado, California, were intercepted at Phantom Ranch and sent hiking up the trail to the Rim as they lacked a permit to run the river.
May 27, 1952 – The first motorized commercial river trip to run the Colorado River in Grand Canyon leaves Lees Ferry. Evie Mull, the only female on the trip, becomes the first woman to run Lava Falls in a motorboat.
May 28, 1970 – Preston Walker, participant in the first documented run of the Dolores River in 1948, dies on the Dolores River of a heart attack.
May 29, 1959 – Bill Cooper launches two 18-foot-long motorboats in Lake Mead in an uprun attempt. They are powered by twin 70 HP Mercury outboards. One boat flips in Lava Falls and Cooper retreats.
May 30, 1941 – Claude Hale Birdseye, leader of the 1923 USGS river trip through Grand Canyon, dies at the age of 63.
May 31, 1948 - Earl “Bub” Williams used a plywood sheet attached to inner tubes to win the Wind River Boat Race and the First Place prize of $1,000. Roughly 8,000 people jamming the two-lane road along the river with 2,000 automobiles watch him do it.
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.