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.In the 1990s, Grand Canyon planners put together a bold plan to get visitors out of their cars. The concept was designed to have visitors leave their cars outside of the Park boundary and ride a light rail train into the Park. The train would end at the Canyon View Information Plaza, called CVIP for short.
After CVIP and its train station were built, the plan fell apart. Chief planner Brad Traver wrote a manuscript about how the planning process failed. . In the end, the Park Service built a large parking lot around CVIP.
Brad Traver retired from the Park Service after more that 30 years of service. He held a number of positions at Grand Canyon National Park, from park engineer to project supervisor. He also led the development of the 1995 general management plan for Grand Canyon.
Brad Traver's manuscript is here. This document courtesy the Grand Canyon Museum Collection.
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| Field Hearing at Grand Canyon April, 2010. Photo courtesy Tom Martin |
Park Planning
Preserving a place like the Grand Canyon requires a lot of planning by staff of the National Park Service. When that planning runs afoul of commercial interests, special interest legislation changes the landscape at Grand Canyon. From promoting more overflights in the skies overhead to blocking Wilderness Designation and increasing private river tours in the Canyon's bottom, it's all here at Grand Canyon National Park. One retired National Park Service Superintendent called it "Vision Impaired."
Canyon View Information Plaza Vision Impaired Manuscript by Brad Traver
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| The Stanton River Trip below Scanlon's Ferry on March 18, 1890 courtesy The Huntington Library |
March Colorado River History Dates
March 1, 1949 – Powell biographer William Darrah writes to Otis Marston about the importance of using historical military records, claiming Powell’s bravery had been thoroughly documented by an Adjunct General. Marston replied such records could be overblown by skilled politicians playing to the grandstand.
March 2, 1890 – The Stanton Expedition departs Granite Park and boats to 224 Mile. On arrival, Stanton thinks it is Diamond Creek.
March 3, 1845 – Birthday of Cass Hite, the son of ’49er parents.
March 4, 1908 – When the 225-foot-deep exploratory oil well “Crossing No. 1” blows oil 75 feet in the air, the event causes enough excitement to create the town site of Mexican Hat, Utah.
March 5, 1958 – Bus Hatch’s deflated pontoon Brontosaurus sits draped across the Boat Beach at Phantom Ranch, left there in late July of the previous year by a quite drunk and irate Hatch. In the high water of 1958 the boat will be swept away downriver with a little help from Ranger Dan Davis.
March 6, 1909 – David Rust paddles Emery Kolb three miles up the Colorado River from Phantom Ranch in a 14-foot King Canvas canoe. Kolb then begins using a similar craft to explore both upstream and downstream from Phantom Ranch.
March 7, 1944 – The Boulder City News runs an article on Harry Aleson’s latest uprun attempt in his boat Up Lake.
March 8, 1890 – The Stanton Expedition continues their resupply at Diamond Creek. It rains hard all day.
March 9, 1899 – Harry Leroy Aleson is born at Waterville, Iowa, to Carl Adolph and Andra Tysland Aleson. Harry is the youngest of their five children.
March 10, 1953 – After Grand Canyon Superintendent Harold Bryant initiated a new river running permit requiring prior Grand Canyon river experience to get a permit, Dock Marston writes Bryant on this date. Marston notes that he looks forward to visiting Superintendent Bryant later that month “about the matter of river permits. I feel more strongly than I can write.”
March 11, 1914 – Doris Margaret Drown, the future wife of Norm Nevills, is born in Portland, Oregon. Botanist Lois Jotter is also born on this same day.
March 12, 1945 – Ernie Untermann, second in command at Dinosaur National Monument, writes to the Superintendent at Rocky Mountain National Park that “even the novice has such a healthy respect for the Yampa and Green that no party I ever heard of launched a boat without the assistance of veteran river men to lead the expedition, nor without the best equipment obtainable.” Untermann ignored the reality that most of the documented Lodore and Yampa river trips up to that date lacked both veteran river men and the best equipment obtainable.
March 13, 1890 – While running Separation Rapid, Robert Stanton falls out of his boat near the foot of the rapid. He is pulled out of the river below unharmed but cold.
March 14, 1920 – The Tombstone Epitaph runs an article titled “Grand Canyon to be Greatest Impounding Reservoir In World.” The exact phrase comes from a speech Secretary of Interior Frank Lane gave three days earlier when he stated he planned to make “the Grand Canyon the greatest impounding reservoir the world has ever known.”
March 15, 1957 – Dock Marston writes to his good friend Bill Belknap about “the crowds going through the Canyon this summer. Bus Hatch has two trips for May but is lacking deposits. Don Harris has cancelled his run for June. There is a new man from Oregon who wants me to go along. Georgie has four trips planned but I now hear she has cut one. Pat is running but has not set his date. Frank Wright is set to some extent for two trips.” Dock continues planning his own river trip, and there are a few he doesn’t yet know about.
March 16, 1950 – Dock Marston writes Ian Campbell and John Maxson about the benefits of the rubber rafts flooding through Glen Canyon. “All observers agree that the raft was slower acting than the wood boats but it was adequate to the task. It has the advantage of ease in portaging and can be run over a rock sticking as much as six inches out of water with no inconvenience to the occupants.”
March 17, 1890 – The Stanton Expedition exits the Grand Canyon at 9:15 a.m. after an hours run. Camp for the night is at Scanlon’s Ferry.
March 18, 1949 – Dock Marston and his wife Margaret visit with Don Harris and his wife in Salt Lake City. Dock interviews Harris about river running and Harris tells Dock “One of the first essentials of a good boatman is that he must like it.”
March 19, 1949 – In order to learn more about the operations of a sweep scow, Dock Marston joins Don Smith and others on a Main Salmon river trip in Smith’s scow City of Salmon.
March 20, 1957 – Mary “Becky” Beckwith writes to Dock Marston that she, Weldon Held, and Superintendent Harold Bryant all think Dock will never complete his book on the first 100 river runners to boat all the way through Grand Canyon. Becky proves to be right as Dock’s book, From Powell To Power, is published after his death.
March 21, 1907 – Egbert Andrew “Ed” Hudson is born in Oakland, California. Hudson begins formulating the use of motorboats in Grand Canyon soon after meeting Harry Aleson in 1942.
March 22, 1954 – After 34 years of dedicated work for the National Park Service, 13 of which he served as Superintendent at Grand Canyon, Harold Bryant retires.
March 23, 1924 – U.S. District Judge Fred Jacobs orders construction work at the Diamond Creek Dam to stop. Jacobs agrees with the U.S. Attorney that the Federal Power Commission is within its rights to deny a final permit allowing work on the dam.
March 24, 1936 – Norm Nevills departs Mexican Hat leading his first commercial group down the San Juan River. When passenger Jake Erwin first sees the boat they would be traveling in, he asks Nevills “What’s that bag of boards? Is that what we’re going down the river in?”
March 25, 1895 – Glen Ernest Sturdevant is born in Laceyville, Pennsylvania.
March 26, 1956 – Word hit the Press that Leslie Jones discovered a skeleton while searching for firewood at the foot of Whirlpool Rapid in Westwater Canyon, today’s Skull Rapid.
March 27, 1954 – About the Echo Park Dam being built in the heart of Dinosaur National Monument, Dock Marston writes his good friend Frank “Fisheyes” Masland “I am suspicious that this dam in Echo Park is another one of Strauss’ promotions that is being put over. The conclusion I have been able to draw is that the beauty of that area would justify the spending of considerable more money elsewhere rather than flood this section.”
March 28, 1941 – Doris and Norm Nevills celebrate the birth of their second child, a girl they name Sandra.
March 29, 1942 – Harry Aleson attempts an uprun in a Bureau of Reclamation motorboat. He capsizes the boat at 234 Mile Rapid. Aleson stands up on top of the capsized boat and takes off all his wet clothing to stay somewhat warm as he floats four miles back to the drilling barge at the Bridge Canyon damsite. As he approaches the mid-river drilling barge, Aleson shouts to the surprised men “I’m taking in washing. Got any to be done?”
March 30, 1960 – Dock Marston begins arrangements for the 1960 Jetboat downrun and uprun. He calls Cliff Dwellers Lodge and places an order for “a couple of thousand gallons of gas.” He also requests “no announcements of my plans so please keep it under your hat.” That same day he sends a letter to Grand Canyon National Park asking for the latest permit paperwork.
March 31, 1948 – National Park Service Associate Director Arthur Demaray writes the following to Region Three Director Minor Tillotson about Grand Canyon river permits: “There is attached for your consideration, a proposed application form to be submitted to all would-be permittees. I think you will agree that the tenor of this application form will tend to discourage all but those who in no event would be deterred from trying the venture.”
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.
At the Lees Ferry launch ramp, where you to step ashore on river left (across the river from the put-in ramp), you are on Navajo Nation tribal land. The National Park Service at Grand Canyon National Park owns and is responsible to manage the river surface. Step out of the water onto dry shore and you have changed jurisdictional boundaries.
This is the case all the way to the Little Colorado River confluence with the main stem of the Colorado River. Downstream of that point, Grand Canyon National Park is is responsible to manage the river surface and the land on river left.
This is the case all the way to River Mile 165.1 Left (just downriver from Tuckup Canyon). Downstream of that point, you are on Hualapai Nation tribal land. The National Park Service at Grand Canyon National Park owns and is responsible to manage the river surface. Step out of the water onto dry shore and you have changed jurisdictional boundaries.
This is the case all the way to River Mile 273.9 Left. Downstream of that point, Grand Canyon National Park is is responsible to manage the river surface and the land on river left all the way to River Mile 277.5 where you exit Grand Canyon National Park and enter Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
2021.07.28 National Park Jurisdiction Along the Hualapai Reservation
2018.12.24 History and Policy for the Left Bank
For additional information, see Jeff Ingram's Blog GCFutures Celebrating The Grand Canyon which goes through the Park's boundaries in complete detail.
Grand Canyon Photo Rematches
The Grand Canyon allows a lot of opportunities for photo rematching. Most of my rematches are along the Colorado River in the Park.
This is a great opportunity to see changes over time but comes with many challenges. One is rematching the original photo by date and time-of-day. That is very hard without special approval from Grand Canyon National Park to launch a river trip specifically for photo rematching to align with a historic river trip. Most of the rematches here are way off is this regards.
Here are some of my rematches by River Mile.
A Photo Rematch of the 1889 Stanton Dinner at Lees Ferry
A Photo Rematch of the 1958 Marston cruise at 24.5 Mile
Here's a YouTube video with 14 photo rematches conducted in December 2024 and January 2025 on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.