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.

July Grand Canyon River History Dates

 

Deer Creek Falls, July 31, 1927, courtesy The Huntington Library

July Grand Canyon River History Dates

July 1, 1951 – While on a Desolation-Gray river trip, Moulty Fulmer finds a small toy duck cut out of a piece of wood. He writes on it “Degree of River Travel and Study, July 1, 1951, By Order of the River Vice President.” In all solemnity and amidst the group’s uproarious laughter, Moulty gives his friend Otis “Dock” Marston the duck degree. Dock adds it to the river files and it’s in The Huntington Library today.

July 2, 1869 – Major John Wesley Powell and the rest of the crew were at the confluence of the Bear River (today’s Yampa) and the Green River.

July 3, 1960 - Late in the day, the four Turbocraft Jet 35’s were back in the water at Hemenway Harbor to start the uprun of Grand Canyon. Jon Hamilton and Dock Marston led the way from the harbor and out across the reservoir, disappearing into the cobalt blue immensity of water and barren mountains beyond. Ninety minutes and 35 miles later, the boats arrived at Temple Bar.

July 4, 1960 - In the evening light, Jon Hamilton, Guy Mannering, and Bill Belknap climbed into Wee Red and headed into the tailwaves of Lava Falls. They played around there for a while, Jon standing and looking at the rapid as the boat was knocked about in the pulsing waves. The rapid looked huge from below. The men said nothing, then Jon suddenly turned to Guy and Bill, his face aglow in the day’s last light, and said “What a magnificent piece of water.”

July 5, 1960 - Hamilton’s first foray into the rapid with Kiwi resulted in his being thoroughly repulsed. He returned to the beach below to pump out a load of water and offload fuel cans and cases of food. The crew had no choice but to portage gear, food, and fuel around the rapid. They rigged a canvas cover over the Turbocraft with an opening just big enough for the pilot to sit at the controls. Hamilton climbed into Kiwi again and after four more attempts, topped the rapid about 11:30 a.m.

July 6, 1954 – Grand Canyon Superintendent Patraw sent a letter to Georgie White citing provision “1.59 Boats. (a) No privately owned boat, canoe, raft or other floating craft shall be placed or operated upon the waters of any park or monument without a permit from the Superintendent, who shall have authority to revoke the permit and require the immediate removal of such craft upon the failure of the permittee to comply with the terms and conditions of the permit.” The Superintendent noted it “would be advisable, on your future river trips, to submit application well in advance of your arrival on park waters, so that there will be sufficient opportunity to consider your application and to issue the necessary permit, and to avoid a technical violation of the regulation quoted above.”

July 7, 1955 – The body of Dave Jensen washes up on shore at the foot of Hermit Rapid. Jensen may have been trying to swim to Phantom Ranch from the foot of the Tanner Trail to recover his impounded dory, the Deacon’s Dilemma. (See April 6, 1950 entry)

July 8, 1949 - Bert Loper complained of pain in his chest at lunch, yet he still refused to let Wayne Nichol assist with rowing. With Nichol riding on the deck, Loper’s Grand Canyon floated well ahead of their group. Nichol suddenly shouted to Bert a serious rapid roared just ahead. Bert kicked into gear for all he was worth and tried to pull the boat across the river from right to left just above 24.5 Mile Rapid. With the river flowing about 51,000cfs, he was unable to make it, squared up to enter the rapid, then slumped in his seat. Nichol would later explain the boat began to “yaw across the current on the third trough.” A river runner himself, Nichol knew this was wrong. Alarmed, he “looked over his shoulder and shouted ‘Bert, look to your oars.’” But Loper just sat motionless.

July 9, 1954 - The first motorized bridge pontoon to run Grand Canyon clears the Grand Wash Cliffs. Chuck Bolte and Earl Eaton left Aspen in a paddle boat 6 weeks earlier and transitioned to the pontoon at Glenwood Springs.

July 10, 1951 - As he stood on the beach at President Harding Rapid, Don Harris smelled a terrible odor and soon found the body of David Quigley. The Harris Brennan group dug the partially embedded body out of the sand and buried the young man above the highwater line. The group placed a marker of driftwood with an inscription reading “Discovered by Harris-Brennan river party, body presumed to be that of Boy Scout drowned in Glen Canyon about July 1, 1951.”

July 11, 1952 – On June 22, 1952, Bill and Fern Davis headed downstream from Green River, Utah, in their tiny rubber raft. They enjoyed side hikes in Labyrinth and Stillwater canyons. The couple’s 10-foot-long raft flipped in Cataract Canyon’s Big Drop III, but they recovered and arrived at Lees Ferry on July 11, setting a twenty-day speed record at that time. They also set a record for the traverse in the shortest boat.

July 12, 1952 – 58-year-old Dock Marston and the eight-year-old child Buzzy Belknap swim Paria Rapid using an air mattress for flotation on a flow near 29,000 cfs. From that moment forward they were friends for life.

July 13, 1949 – Dock Marston writes the following to Don Harris: “Dear Don, The news tells me that you have left Bert in The Canyon. That is where he wanted to be. If the paper be correct, you are to search for his body. I hope you do not find it. This to you – I consider your acceptance of the trip with Bert to be one of the bravest things that ever happened on the River. You could not help but know the prospect of tragedy but you went along to carry out an old man’s wish. His wish is now complete. You may have regrets but you should have none. You could have done no better. Had you not gone along, Bert would have gone anyway. We have been conditioned in our world to take death hard. If there be a hereafter, Bert is now in heaven and gotten there by the route he prayed for. Cheerio, Dock

July 14, 1949 – While Camped at President Harding Rapid, Jim Rigg discovers ten gallons of gasoline cached by Dock Marston and Ed Hudson four weeks earlier. Rigg and Norm pour five gallons onto a large driftwood pile adjacent to camp and place the second five gallon can of fuel in the middle of the pile. With a single match the heap goes up with a loud whump! The fire burns so bright and for so long that some of the crew shift downriver to sleep avoiding the glare.

July 15, 1923 – Frank Dodge sat in the lobby of a Flagstaff hotel when a nattily dressed man in rompers, wool knee stockings, and two-tone oxfords, with a cane walked in. He had printed circulars telling of his accomplishments. He was a misfit in the job as a boatman, but a very pleasant one. He hardly proved the skilled oarsman that his own writings would suggest. Who would write differently? Dodge liked Freeman from that meeting to this day.

July 16, 1947 - The Nevills group camps on river left above Lava Canyon Rapid. That afternoon, they inspect the remains of Seth Tanner’s mining works, nosing out a fifty-pound case of dynamite from 1924 and blasting caps, but no fuse. Norm carries a few handfuls of dynamite sticks to a sandbar by the river, gathers driftwood, puts the caps in the dynamite, and lights the whole pile on fire. The explosion “rocked the canyon when it went off” with the “Harvey cash register in view” at Desert View. Norm thought it worked so spectacularly that he repeats his fireworks by blasting all the remaining dynamite.

July 17, 1952 – NPS Director Conrad Wirth attempts to give a speech to the Vernal City Council and Chamber of Commerce. He is shouted down for saying river running is quite safe and a great way to see the Monument. The locals pointe out the river trip is “much too expensive for the common man.” They had a point about the pricing as local guides charge $55 for one person to make a day trip, almost $600 in today’s dollars.

July 18, 1889 - The men of the ill-fated Frank Brown river trip abandon the river and hike up Paradise (South) Canyon. At lunch, a storm brings water, mud, and rocks cascading into the canyon, and the men take shelter behind a leaning rock. Near the top they find a deer trail and reach the rim at 2:00 p.m., where they see much broken pottery.

July 19, 1934 – Seven men in four boats launch from Lee’s Ferry. The river flow is so extremely low, the trip is “dusty,” even though they have the rare experience of starting on a clear, green, but unfit to drink, river. Two days later, the river water becomes cloudy. The USGS reports only 1,530 cubic feet on the 19th. The following day the flow drops to 1,450 cubic feet per second.

July 20, 1938 - When the Clover Expedition reaches Phantom Ranch, Clover and Nevills hike to the South Rim. The next day, July 20, they participate in a radio broadcast with Superintendent Tillotson. Tillotson maintains command of the microphone, discouraging anyone contemplating a river trip. He ends by noting, “Mr. Nevills and his party certainly chose a most unusual and hazardous means of reaching the park and just as certainly I would not advise anyone to follow their example.”

July 21, 1950 – At 9:20 a.m. at 122.75 Mile, on the left at the head of Forster Rapid, Hudson’s Esmeralda II is sighted by the Wright-Rigg river trip. The Es rests six to ten feet above the river level and seventy feet back from the shore. On landing, the party scrambles over her seeking souvenirs, with the boatmen appropriating everything of value like hungry hogs at feeding time.

July 22, 1938 - At Horn Creek Rapid on 17,300 second feet, the watchers thought boatman Loren Bell was lost “and he sure as hell wasn’t idle.” The net result is a bent oarlock and Norm Nevills admittes he meant to have it welded. Bell demands the “two-bit rapid be called Corn Creek.” In Granite Falls, Nevills is off key through fumbling his oars in the waves he measured at twenty feet, while the holes along the right hand cliff measured five feet in diameter in his eyes. A spinning oar pins the unhappy boatman in his cockpit and cuts the skin from his knuckles, for the only recorded boating disharmony in their Grand Canyon suite.

July 23, 1955 – Frank Wright’s cataract boat Doris is pins in the fangs at 232 Mile Rapid. The boat is freed from the trap but needs repairs below. On the upside, Katie Lee plays her guitar and sings to the river runners at night as they sit around the campfire.

July 24, 1958 - Gaylord Staveley didn’t help his reputation in the summer of 1958 when he applies for an exclusive franchise to operate boat tours through Grand Canyon with both oars and power. The Park Service does not go along with the request, nor does the river community when they hear about it. Harry Aleson writes Dock that Staveley’s “effort at exclusive Dude carrying thru [sic] the Grand smacks of modern day youth, – mine, all mine – none on the platter for you. This could not happen. None of the old river boatmen would stand still for it. My father’s son would be the very last of the boatmen to consider such exclusiveness.”

July 25, 1952 - Jim Rigg and twenty-two-year-old Sue Seely climb into Jim’s Chris-Craft kit boat for a seamless run of Lava Falls Rapid. Sue is the second female to run the rapid in a motorized watercraft. Evie Mull was the first, having run the same rapid in the same boat with the same pilot two months earlier.

July 26, 1943 – 92-year-old Julius Stone dies in Santa Monica, California. Living a rags to riches life, Stone ran the Grand Canyon with three others in 1909. Dock Marston identified Stone as the 25^th person to boat from Lees Ferry through the Grand Canyon.

July 27, 1951 – Chicago river runner Bill Davis writes an account of how he organized getting the Esmeralda II back into the Colorado River at Forster Rapid in 1950. Davis includes the account in a letter to Colorado River historian Dock Marston.

July 28, 1941 - Alexander “Zee” Grant and his foldboat Escalante are at the Phantom Ranch boat beach. Zee” is most likely America’s best foldboat pilot at the time. Originally planning to tackle Grand Canyon solo, he joins up with Norm Nevills, a budding commercial river trip operator. Grant and Nevills initially agree to conduct two different river trips in Grand Canyon but travel together “for mutual convenience.” The two trips quickly became one mutually supportive group.

July 29, 1957 – Dock Marston receives a metal name plate from one of the 1909 Stone boats sent to him by Ray Cogswell. Marston writes Cogswell “Believe me I am as tickled as a child with a new toy with the receiving of the boat name plate. I am adding it to the River Archives.” That name plate is still in the Marston Collection at The Huntington Library.

July 30, 1954 – River runner Katie Lee writes to Dock Marston about canyon names. She notes “what’ ever our present day clan has named it, the Indians had another long before ours anyway.”

July 31, 1927 – The Clyde Eddy river trip stops at Deer Creek Falls. A ten-foot-high barrier of river sand blocks most of the mouth of the creek between the Falls and Colorado River.

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