The Ugly Behind The Grand Canyon Historical Society

 The Ugly Behind The Grand Canyon Historical Society

The Ugly has existed around the Grand Canyon as long as we, as a species, have been here. While historians can’t pinpoint the exact moment or location of the first human encounter with this vast abyss—estimated to be around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago—it's clear that conflict over its control and meaning has been a constant. Evidence of fortified structures suggests that early humans fought among themselves long before Europeans arrived to do that. Starting in the 1540s, indigenous peoples began their own struggles against European invaders. These conflicts continued as Europeans fought both the indigenous populations and each other in their pursuit of independence from European powers.

By the early 1900s, timber and mining barons clashed with the emerging National Park Service, attempting to prevent the establishment of Grand Canyon National Park. After the Park was officially established in 1919, the Park Service forcibly removed Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands within the park boundaries. Later, private companies like the Fred Harvey Company, as well as influential figures like William Randolph Hearst, tangled with the Park Service over the management of the Grand Canyon. In the 1950s, Norm Montgomery initiated helicopter tours from the Parl's gateway community of Tusayan, igniting an ongoing battle over National Park airspace and the preservation of a resource known as Natural Quiet. In another ongoing chapter, river concessions within the park thwarted the Park Service’s attempts to grant Wilderness designation to the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon river runners have been engaged in their own contentious debates since the late 1800s. Robert Stanton famously disagreed with John Wesley Powell, and Julius Stone later took issue with Stanton. Fred Dellenbaugh clashed with both Stanton and Stone, championing historical inaccuracies. Otis “Dock” Marston, a renowned figure in river history, spent over three decades documenting the Grand Canyon’s waterways before his death in 1979. Marston, like others before him, had his fair share of opposition from those reluctant to allow scrutiny of their actions on the river. Similarly, when I began my own research into the commercialization of the river, I found myself facing battles not unlike Marston's.

This is my account of one such conflict. It’s my opinion, with supporting documentation, that a group aligned with the commercial river industry took control of the Board of the Grand Canyon Historical Society. In 2023 this board ousted me from the organization. The Board then altered the society's bylaws twice—each time to protect their interests and shield themselves from the rest of the outraged membership. It's ugly, unfortunate, and totally unnecessary.

On October 16, 2023, the board voted me a member in poor standing until 2029 and agreed not to tell me until after the November 1-4, 2023 History Symposium. 

Until that vote, I had been a member in good standing for a decade, served on the Board as the Society Secretary for 6 years, and was repeatedly recognized for excellent service to the Society.

The hurtful October 16 decision occurred following a 50-minute PowerPoint presented by the Society's Vice President using, in my opinion, lies, innuendo, defamation, and character assassination. Just before his presentation, I was told to excuse myself from the meeting and instructed to wait in a nearby room, denying me the simple and required courtesy of defending myself. Over the last seven years the Vice President conducted similar tactics in board candidate nominating committees in which I was never allowed to counter his false claims. The board's disciplinary action continued a recent trend of ignoring Society Bylaws and Policies that included following Robert's Rules of Order. You can see the Vice-Presidents presentation here.

The October 16 vote occurred outside of parliamentary procedure and was overturned by the Society President at the next Board Meeting. I was then invited to an executive session meeting January 26, 2024  that again denied me an opportunity to defend myself against the October 16 accusations. The January 26 meeting included a disciplinary recommendation based on transparent actions I took to alert the membership about the October 16 meeting. The recommendation suggested members don’t have insight into the accusations against me and ignores past board members appalled by the vice president’s attacks over the years. I am grateful to the board members who recognize the real problem is with the then Vice-President and, in my opinion, based on personal vendettas and differing views of Colorado River wilderness management. On January 19, 2024, I terminated my membership with the Society.

In my opinion, the present operations of the Grand Canyon Historical Society sets a very shocking attempt to censor Grand Canyon History. Here is supporting documentation that refutes the Vice President's flimsy claims.

Until the Board acknowledges the Society is a Member based non-profit, posts all the past meeting minutes (as was done in 2021 and earlier years), follows Robert's Rules of Order, and allows the membership to approve bylaw changes, I certainly don't recommend anyone consider membership in this Society.

River History Tidbits

September Colorado River History Dates

Photo courtesy USGS Denver, CO

 

September Colorado River History Dates

September 1, 1903 – Three men, Elias “Hum” Woolley, John King, and Art Sanger, make a 5-day wagon ride with their 18-foot-long craft from the rail station in Flagstaff, AZ, to Lees Ferry. Their launch on this date begins the first documented river trip through the Grand Canyon to start at Lees Ferry.

September 2, 1923 – A pack train of fourteen mules with a month’s provisions arrives at the foot of the Bass Trail at noon. The USGS surveyors load all the new provisions, taxing their boats’ carrying capacity. Their camp for the night is at the mouth of Shinumo Creek.

September 3, 1938 - Carrying the Explorers Club Flag, a copy of Dellenbaugh’s Canyon Voyage, and the story of Holmstrom’s 1937 river trip, Phillip Lundstrom, Amos Burg, and Buzz Holmstrom launch at Green River, WY, in a drizzling rain at noon headed for Lake Mead by the water route.

September 4, 1954 – Otis “Dock” Marston writes the Huntington Library’s assistant librarian “Too bad. Cancel that vacation when my records come to you. I’ll never be able to get all the staples and Scotch tape out. I’ve gotten a million staples and ten miles of tape but there doesn’t appear to be any reduction.” A year later, he wrote he was knee deep in staples and needed to raise the roof. Both the assistant and head librarian, realizing the invaluable nature of Dock’s collection of river running history, spent invaluable time with him going over basic library science.

September 5, 1953 – The Idaho Statesman runs an article about Blaine Stubblefield of Weiser, ID, and his wooden frame structure to hold an outboard motor out the back of a 30-foot-long surplus bridge pontoon. He uses the craft to conduct commercial river trips through the Snake River’s Hells Canyon that summer.

September 6, 1942 – Preston Walker writes that boating the Colorado River is no longer in the “exploration class.” The “more you travel on the river the more you discover how really fine life is and how small and unimportant are most of the things that you and I believe are absolutely necessary to happiness and comfort.”

September 7, 1867 - A raft drifts into Callville, Arizona Territory, about one mile below the mouth of Boulder Canyon. The few logs tied together with some line and strips of clothing carry a semi-naked and terribly sunburned man. He is suffering from excessive exposure and inadequate food. His name is James White.

September 8, 1922 – A USGS group of 15 men departs from Hall’s Crossing headed to Lees Ferry to survey Glen Canyon for potential dam sites.

September 9, 1872 - Just as they were to arise from breakfast at the mouth of Kanab Creek, Major Powell, seated comfortably in his armchair, announced, “Well boys, our voyage is done.”

September 10, 1952 – Dock Marston writes Pat Reilly that the “use of the River to solve neurotic problems seems well worthy of study. Powell leads the list.”

September 11, 1924 - A pair of 18-foot open skiffs and a 16-foot “Old Town” canoe supplied by the Edison Company were trucked the eighty-four miles from Kingman, Arizona, to the abandoned Pearce’s Ferry. Along for the ride was 1,200 pounds of gear.

September 12, 1889 – Robert Stanton was at Waukegan, Illinois, and ordered new boats after deciding to continue the railroad survey. Stanton sent Harry McDonald to Chicago to oversee the building of new boats with airtight compartments and according to designs sketched by Stanton. It was resolved to use life preservers and Stanton estimated it would take three months to complete the survey to the Gulf.

September 13, 1776 - Silvestre Vélez de Escalante used a Ute crossing near today’s Jensen, CO, to cross the Green River.

September 14, 1950 – After Bus Hatch donated his time and the use of his boats to lead a 15 person river voyage through Dinosaur National Monument made up of the Vernal Chamber of Commerce, the Vernal paper trumpeted “Dams Will Enhance Monument Say Echo Park River Runners.” Thankfully, as 1950 ended, larger pro dam-free monument forces were hard at work.

September 15, 1938 – Three kayakers in Folboats paddled into Flaming Gorge on the Green River heading to Lees Ferry. They were from France and one of the paddlers, Genevieve de Colmont, is the first documented woman to pilot a watercraft over this distance.

September 16, 1871 - Lieutenant George Wheeler starts up-river from Camp Mohave (near today’s Laughlin, NV) headed upriver to Diamond Creek. The party includes Captain Asquit and thirteen members of the Mohave tribe. Six of them reached Diamond Creek, Panabona, Seliquirowa, Obehua, Havanata, Sowickopelia, and Mitziera, along with a reduced party of scientists and soldiers in 4 boats.

September 17, 1923 - Gauging at Bright Angel Creek showed 9,380 cubic feet per second on September 17, 1923; 42,800 on the 18th; 98,500 on the 19th; 87,800 on the 20th and then, 47,800; 26,100; 17,700; 14,200; and 13,000 on September 25th. The total rise of the river was measured at twenty-one feet. This flood came from the Little Colorado River.

September 18, 1954 – Flagstaff based math professor Harvey Butchart floats on an air mattress from Tanner Rapid to Hance Rapid in the Grand Canyon.

September 19, 1949 – Seconds after take-off at Mexican Hat, UT, the motor in the Nevills plane Cherry II stalls out. Flying low to the ground and out of power, Norm Nevills pulls the craft into a U-turn to glide back to the dirt runway. The plane comes around but is too low to clear a 20-foot escarpment. Norm, age 41, and his wife Doris, 35, died instantly. The motor ran rough on an out and back flight from Mexican Hat to Mount Carmel the previous day.

September 20, 1907 – Charles Russell, Edward Monett, and Albert Loper launch three boats at Green River, UT, on a low-water stage of 3,690 cubic feet per second. Each man has a cork lifejacket and the boats hold ten watermelons borrowed from an upriver ranch before daylight. Russell and Monett will arrive at Needles, CA, in one boat 141 days later.

September 21, 1889 – Robert Stanton writes in the Engineering News “And just here comes the sad thought that had not Mr. Brown been too confident and had he provided himself and party with proper life preservers he and his two comrades would be living today.”

September 22, 1909 – The Julius Stone river party reaches exceedingly turbulent Disaster Falls. Stone judges artist Thomas Moran’s inexcusably inaccurate and fantastic whimsy, opposite page 27 of Powell’s Colorado River of The West, resembles the actual scene at this fall “…about as much as a bull pup resembled a sunset.”

September 23, 1948 – At Dinosaur National Monument, Superintendent Lombard knew the NPS position on boating. River trips should be done only with an experienced riverman on the trip, i.e. someone paid to accompany a group of river runners, and that this implied the need for some sort of river running permit. He hits upon the idea to post warning signage at the Yampa, Lodore, and Echo Park put-in locations. Just what the signs should say spurred much internal Park Service discussion. In a letter to his bosses at Rocky Mountain National Park, Lombard admits that signage is contentious, but he still presses on.

September 24, 1948 – Through correspondence with Chet Bundy, Dock Marston becomes aware of a rough road leading to within a quarter-mile of the river, 1,000 feet below. A mile-long stock trail built at a gentle grade connects this road to the river just upstream of Whitmore Wash. Dock immediately sees the location’s potential to easily get gas and grub to the river.

September 25, 1924 - Eugene Clyde LaRue with five others in two skiffs and a canoe start from Grapevine Wash on low water. They arrive at Callville on September 29. A 3½-horsepower motor enhanced the trip’s speed. Thirty rapids were tallied. Twice the canoe went through upside down. All dunnage was portaged and the craft were lined at Hualpai Rapid. Their trip provides an aid in avoiding the legendary conception in the James White study.

September 26, 1949 – After returning from a visit to Mexican Hat, UT, Barry Goldwater writes Dock Marston “…the neglect of the plane was the cause of the accident. I told Norm the first time he mentioned his flying to me that he better give it up because he would get killed; and his own instructor remarked once to me that it was a shame for this man to keep it up.”

September 27, 1923 - The tattered USGS crew worked their level line along the river to Granite Park where they remained one day to complete the survey of the several side canyons that came in there. When they arrived at Diamond Creek just before supper and four days behind schedule. The resupply team was waiting with food and a radio. The crew listened to the tragic radio report of their lost party in the canyon and a later story of their safe arrival.

September 28, 1958 – The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the diversion tunnels at the Glen Canyon damsite should be completed within the next 6 month. 18,000 feet of tunnel has already been excavated, including a 10,000-foot-long powerhouse access tunnel.

September 29, 1948 – In a letter to Powell biographer William Darrah, Dock Marston writes he has “recently been working over the Scribner articles of 1875. Certainly the difficulties of Separation Rapid did not justify the elaborate study that Powell says he gave them. Separation was not worse than Lava Falls and Powell slights the latter. Lava Falls has been run by only five of the twenty parties that have completed river traverses.”

September 30, 1947 - Park Service Director Newton Drury writes a memorandum to Region Three Director Tillotson noting “As you are well aware, lives have been endangered – and lost – and the Federal Government has been put to great expense for rescues or attempts at rescue from time to time because of fool-hardy attempts to navigate the Grand Canyon by persons unqualified for the venture. I believe we owe it to ourselves and the venturesome to assert such control over these attempts as we can legally without impeding undertakings such as those conducted by Norman Nevills.”

Ps... Yes, this post is a challenge to see if I can find a Colorado River Basin fact for every day of June... Done! If you like this sort of stuff you will enjoy reading the 4 e-book series Dock Marston: The Colorado River Historian Volume 1 on Amazon Kindle or the hardback book at Vishnu Temple Press.

August Colorado River History Dates

Photo of Frank Moltzen in Marble Canyon, 1956, courtesy Grand Canyon Museum Collection.

 

August Colorado River History Dates

August 1, 1916 – Julius Stone, Ellsworth Kolb, Nathan B. Stern, and John W. Shields climb out of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. Their canvas boat and a canoe were torn to ribbons after 3½ days and twelve to fifteen miles of travel.

August 2, 1957 – Hard rock miner Robert Billingsly reaches the bat guano mine and takes a ride out on the aerial tramway. This was his 13^th day on an inner tube floating 45,000 cfs through Grand Canyon. His run included Lava Falls and was a first for that type of craft. He went up the tram with a large amount of valuables from the TWA wreckage he’d gathered up near the Little Colorado Confluence. 

August 3, 1942 – Otis “Dock” Marston, Norm Nevills, 13-year-old Bruce Wilson, and 6 others arrive at Hemenway Harbor on Lake Mead. On arrival they complete the 17^th recorded river trip through the Grand Canyon.

August 4, 1951 – Dinosaur National Monument Superintendent Jess Lombard writes Dock Marston that he’d run Whirlpool Canyon and understands “some what (sic) of the enthusiasm you regular river runners have.” Dock replies “I heard you were going to make the trip and did what I could to prevent it. Now you are infected with the Rapids Rabies and there is no known cure.”

August 5, 1963 – A group of river runners using 7-foot-long plastic Sport-yaks launch at Lee’s Ferry. They clear Grand Wash Cliffs on August 31. The flow is limited due to construction of Glen Canyon Dam and varies from 1,432 to 2,670 cubic feet per second. Progress demands numerous linings, portages, and the upper half of the canyon requires constant work with the oars as river current is not easily perceived.

August 6, 1933 – Having paddled a foldboat from Grand Lake to Grand Junction, Harold Leich is building a punt at the Gibson Lumber Yard with the intention of rowing it to Lees Ferry. his punt will become pinned between rocks in Cataract Canyon and he will swim to the abandoned hamlet of Hite. Next he will hike fifty miles overland to “civilization” at Hanksville, Utah.

August 7, 1934 – The Dusty Half-Dozen arrives at Boulder City after rowing through Grand Canyon. They travel on very low water, arriving at the take-out with three boats and seven oars. The oar consumption at fourteen probably is a record. Losing one boat along the way is not.

August 8, 1927 – The Clyde Eddy river trip arrives at Needles, California. Their diet is like that of the first Powell party and, also like Powell, the leader is not concerned.

August 9, 1955 – Dock Marston writes to Dinosaur Superintendent Jess Lombard that “The record does not confirm that knowledge of the streams is a necessity for proper and safe traversing of the rock strewn rapids.”

August 10, 1869 – The Powell expedition camped at the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers.

August 11, 1962 – Having run the Grand Canyon with Charles Russell in the winter of 1907-1908, Edwin Monett dies in San Pedro, California.

August 12, 1956 – Neal Newby sends Grand Canyon National Park a postcard stating he and a friend, Frank Moltzen, would be leaving Lees Ferry in “two or three days” by boat. Newby had heard the Park wanted to know when people were “coming down the Colorado River” and he planned to take a few weeks to make the trip.

August 13, 1940 – Both Barry Goldwater and Millie Baker note in their journals that the metal boat Ross Wheeler has Leslie Clement’s lifejacket in it.

August 14, 1940 - Conquistador Aisle’s extensive rock pounding of the Nevills boats inspired trip participant John Southworth to propose the crew should form a fraternity called Tappa Pyla Rox. The river inched along at around 2,400 cfs.

August 15, 1955 – After swimming the Colorado River through Grand Canyon in April, Bill Beer writes Dock Marston “It’s funny, I had expected the furor and ramifications of our jaunt to die down in at most a month after we finished. But here it is almost four months later, and I can’t see the end in sight as yet. It’s distinctly a pleasure to meet someone like yourself who is able to attach a proper perspective to what was at best a little foolish, but a lot of fun.”

August 16, 1957 – After his 1957 Grand Canyon river trip where the flow peaked at 124,000 cfs, Dock Marston wrote Bill Belknap “Funny thing about this high water. The oar boats didn’t seem to like it. Reilly quit. The Wright party objected to the speed. I now have to start living right since I find the 1921 flow was 200,000.”

August 17, 1872 – The second Powell expedition departs Lees Ferry and by noon arrives just above where today’s Navajo Bridge is. This dinner stop allows Fred Dellenbaugh the opportunity to climb up to the rim and back.

August 18, 1889 - The New York Daily Tribune, in an article titled “In the Deadly Gorge,” noted “The boat to go down the Colorado Cañon must be sturdily built on a pattern, which experience has proved the strongest and should have three air-tight compartments; the men should wear life preservers at all places of danger; and all tools, clothing, and rations should be carried in air-tight ocean mail sacks, so that they will float.”

August 19, 1957 – On about 19,000 cfs, Neal Newby and Frank Moltzen run House Rock in one man life rafts like today’s packrafts. Newby wrote “I never thought we’d get through without turning over. Right down the middle. Frank said the waves were 12 feet high. He said at one point my boat was almost vertical as I climbed out of a trough and up the next wave.”

August 20, 1940 – To avoid complete boredom during their layover at Diamond creek, the Nevills river trip developed a glorious blaze and burned the remnants of a driller’s camp to the ground. Nevills proposed remaining longer to exploit the news possibilities of a lost party, but the deficient larder vetoed the proposition.

August 21, 1957 – Grand Canyon National Park Ranger Dan Davis writes Dock “If [Bus] Hatch tells you what a bunch of bastards we are, call Mr. Beatty, and if Hatch starts stirring up anything, write me and I’ll give you a more detailed story. Hatch is very antagonistic to the Service, here anyway, and always has been and has never cooperated in the matter of permits and has made but a feeble attempt to obey the park regulations.”

August 22, 1957 – As Newby and Moltzen paddled their tiny rafts through Marble Canyon, Newby wrote “The cliffs soared overhead. Our camp site was among some large boulders – some half the size of a house. I suppose they had fallen from the cliffs thousands of years ago. After I got in my sleeping bag I couldn’t sleep. I thought Frank was asleep. Suddenly he said, “Neal, are you awake?”. I said I was. Frank said, “Neal, what do you suppose happens down here when there’s an earthquake?”

August 23, 1923 - Two more potential dam locations were surveyed in the morning. Shortly after noon, the USGS river trip shot under the gauger’s cable and the frail suspension bridge to land at Bright Angel Creek at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The river gauger, Mr. Dudley, reported the river was running 25,000 second feet and had been 34,000 second feet a few days previously.

August 24, 1950 – Newspapers throughout the west ran worried stories when airplanes flying overhead reported that solo Glen Canyon boater and artist Florence Kibler’s raft stayed for days at one spot. River runners who knew Glen Canyon were not surprised in the least on hearing the artist’s boat remained at Aztec Canyon where the sandstone colors “were beyond belief.”

August 25, 1951 – Dick and Isabelle Griffith along with John Schlump camp at the mouth of Shinumo Creek. The trio is on a raft run from Green River, WY, to Lake Mead. At Green River, Utah, they wrote to Grand Canyon Superintendent Bryant of their plans and the Park Service mailed Art Greene a river permit for delivery to the river runners when they arrived at Lees Ferry.

August 26, 1540 - Hernando de Alarcon begins an effort to meet the main Coronado expedition, launching two small boats from Alarcon’s ship to head up the Rio Colorado current for fifteen and a half days, mostly by cordelling. They make it up the Colorado fifty-five leagues, close to the mouth of the Gila River.

August 27, 1889 - As the whistle blew for the noon hour, George F. Flavell and Ramon Montez push off from the riverbank at Green River, Wyoming. Their plan is to reach Needles, California, by the following March.

August 28, 1869 – Oramel and Seneca Howland, along with Bill Dunn, leave the Powell expedition at today’s Separation Rapid in Grand Canyon. Dock Marston admitted he would get upset where his river research uncovered damn lies “designed to hurt someone. That applies to the Powell and Dellenbaugh denunciation of the three who left at Separation.”

August 29, 1957 – Dock Marston writes to a fellow river runner “I am doing a great deal of work on the various accidents with the idea of discovering the causes. One difficulty is that operators on the River consider it smart to hide them.”

August 30, 1979 – After falling down a flight of stairs, 85-year-old Dock Marston runs his last rapid in a San Francisco hospital.

August 31, 1951 – Dick Griffith rows the first rubber raft, named Queen, through Lava Falls Raid in Grand Canyon.

Ps... Yes, this post is a challenge to see if I can find a Colorado River Basin fact for every day of June... Done! If you like this sort of stuff you will enjoy reading the 4 e-book series Dock Marston: The Colorado River Historian Volume 1 on Amazon Kindle or the hardback book at Vishnu Temple Press.