Grand Canyon History where nothing gets left behind including the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...
General River History
Here's where you will find interesting vignettes on Colorado River boating history. Enjoy!
Walter Kirschbaum paddles Vulcan Rapid June 1960. Photo courtesy Dr. Yuji Oishi.
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.
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| 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.