A Photo Rematch at 24.5 Mile...

The photo we are rematching is of Mary Abbott as she stands next to Dock Marston's boats at the foot of 24.5 Mile Rapid in Marble Canyon on the Colorado River on June 10, 1958. The river flow is about 95,000 cubic feet per second. The photo is courtesy The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, and is from Dock Marston Volume 1. pg 449. My rematch is not too far off. The foreground rock on the left is a perfect match. A lot of the sand that was there in 1958 is gone and the person in my photo is lower than where Mary Abbott was standing. But there you have it...

The Bob Stanton River Trip's Christmas Dinner, December 25, 1889 Photo Rematched

The Bob Stanton trip's Christmas Dinner, December 25, 1889, before the Stanton team headed downstream. and The Ryan Rauzon trip's rematch, 135 years later, December 27, 2024, just before heading downstream. Stanton's party consisted of from left to right, Robert B. Stanton (Chief Engineer), Franklin A. Nims (Photographer), W. H. Edwards (Boatman), Reginald Travers (Boatman), H. G Ballard (Boatman), Langdon Gibson (Boatman), Elmer Kane (Boatman), L. G. Brown (Boatman), Arthur B. Twining (Boatman), James S. Hogue (Cook), Harry McDonald (1st Boatman), John Hislop (Assistant Engineer). Rauzon's party consisted of from left to right, Peter Brown, Keaton Vanderploeg, Emily Milliken, Griffin Hale, Joe Dana, McKennaugh Marie Kelley, Artec Durham, Tom Martin, Ryan Rauzon, Hazel Clark, Courtney Hale, Jeff LeMay, Charlotte Marshall, Todd Bovo, Cali Spitson and Lucia Bovo. Colorized photo courtesy of Redstone Old Photo Restoration And Repair Services.

January Colorado River History Dates…

Photo of the Robert Brewster Stanton river trip repairing one of their boats, 1890, courtesy The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA

  January Colorado River History Dates… 

January 1, 1953 – A Bureau of Reclamation press release champions legislation for 10 dams in the Colorado River’s Upper Basin. Reclamation notes “the flow of the river fluctuates sharply from year to year and this storage capacity would enable the upper basin States to store the surplus over a period of wet years and use it in those periods of drought which periodically create a crisis in the mountain States.” 

January 2, 1951 – Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Harold Bryant writes to river runner Ed Hudson that the park “received the Stone boat from the Museum of Columbus, Ohio, an addition to a display on the evolution of Boating on the Colorado.” 

January 3, 1912 – Ellsworth and Emery Kolb, along with Bert Lauzon, set off an explosive charge in the Colorado River above 205 Mile Rapid in Grand Canyon. Immediately after the blast, they grab a stunned 14-pound fish. 

January 4, 1925 – Otis Marston marries Margaret Lowell Garthwaite. The couple travels the Southwest for their honeymoon, including a 4 day stay at the El Tovar Hotel. 

January 5, 1866 – Langdon DeWolf Gibson is born. 24 years later he serves as an oarsman on the Stanton Expedition, “a task at which he became quite skilled.” 

January 6, 1960 – Bob Rigg writes Indiana Gear Works President John Buehler that Rigg could lead an expedition UP the Grand Canyon using Buehler Turbocraft jetboats. Buehler choses Marston for the job instead. 

January 7, 1947 – Norm Nevills writes to Dock Marston that he is spending “much of my time flying. Am crowding the 100 hour mark now, and have a whale of a time. Doris and I flew for an hour thirty five minutes this afternoon. Landed in a horse pasture way up at a remote mountain-canyon ranch - - and just generally raised hob!" 

January 8, 1897 – George Flavell arrives at Yuma, Arizona, admitting he is a “poorer but wiser man” after his run through Grand Canyon with Ramon Montez in a boat Flavell built. 

January 9, 1929 – Rollin Hyde returns to St. George, Utah, after fruitlessly searching western Grand Canyon for his son and daughter in law, Glen and Bessie Hyde. 

January 10, 1890 – The Robert Stanton Expedition is between 24.5 Mile and South Canyon. 

January 11, 1854 – Nathaniel T. Galloway is born at Lehi, Utah, the son of Charles W. and Ann Cutler Galloway. 

January 12, 1912 – Ellsworth Kolb, his brother Emery, and Bert Lauzon make camp just inside the western gateway to Grand Canyon. The diary entry reads “We live once more.” 

January 13, 1956 – In a letter to Dock Marston, Frank “Fisheyes” Masland writes he was having “difficulty in believing the Glenn (sic) Canyon Dam will be built. The rock in that area, according to the best geological advice I can get, is extremely porous.” It still is. 

January 14, 1890 – In an effort to recover needed screws and nails, the Robert Stanton Expedition burns one of the 1889 boats Stanton left at South Canyon the year before. 

January 15, 1907 – Annie Goodman, daughter of Frank Goodman of the 1869 Powell Expedition, marrys E. G. Evans. 

January 16, 1890 – Robert Stanton photographs a large boulder making a rapid in the middle of the Colorado River. He calls the feature Boulder Rapid. The 1923 USGS river trip renames it “President Harding Rapid.” 

January 17, 1890 – When collecting firewood for the Stanton Expedition breakfast fire next to Boulder Rapid, cook Jim Hogue discovers the bleached skeleton of Peter Hansbrough. 

January 18, 1912 – The Kolb Expedition reaches Needles, California. 

January 19, 1951 – Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman asks National Park Service Director Newton Drury to resign his post for his stance on keeping Dinosaur National Monument free of Echo Park Dam. 

January 20, 1890 – The Robert Stanton Expedition reaches the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers. 

January 21, 1954 – Dock Marston writes Harry Aleson about making “direct contact with Leigh Lint last night and he is coming here to our home tomorrow night.” Lint was on the 1923 USGS Grand Canyon cruise. 

January 22, 1936 – Utah’s Governor Henry Blood writes Utah Congressional Representative Abe Murdock to keep the National Park Service away from Glen Canyon unless dam set asides are included in any Antiquities Act proclamation. 

January 23, 1859 – Captain Alonzo Johnson pilots his steamboat General Jesup down the Colorado River, passing 1st Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives on his steamboat Explorer heading up the Colorado River. 

January 24, 1897 – Nathaniel Galloway and Bill Richmond camp at the top of a large rapid in the Grand Canyon. The side canyon forming the rapid is today known as Galloway Canyon. 

January 25, 1886 – Herbert “Bert” Reginald Lauzon is born at Ouray, Colorado. 

January 26, 1890 – After being seriously injured in a fall just below Sheer Wall Rapid 25 days earlier, Frank Nims arrives at Winslow, Arizona, and is able to see a Doctor, the first since his fall. 

January 27, 1950 – Jeweler Fred Herz writes to Dock Marston how well the Herz 19-foot Chris Craft Racing Runabout handles large wind-driven waves on Lake Tahoe. Marston would drive a similar boat (that Herz paid for) through the Grand Canyon later in the year. 

January 28, 1890 – The Denver Times reports a scare headline that one fourth of the Stanton Expedition has perished. January 29, 1897 – Galloway and Richards row to shore for lunch at today’s Granite Park in the Grand Canyon. 

January 30, 1951 – Dock Marston’s daughter Loel marries Russ Millar. Dock walks her down the aisle after being dissuaded from delivering her in a boat. 

January 31, 1919 – The Coconino Sun reports that Grand Canyon will become a National Park after the Park’s enabling legislation passes the House of Representatives. 

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.

January 3, 2025, will be the 50th Anniversary of Public Law 93-620.

 

Photo Jeff Ingram at Kanab Point, Grand Canyon National Park, 2006, courtesy Tom Martin

Known as the Grand Canyon Enlargement Act, it was signed by President Gerald Ford back in 1975. This act expanded the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park by approximately 500,000 acres, nearly doubling its size. PL 93-620 added 193 additional miles of the Colorado River to Grand Canyon National Park jurisdiction. It added Marble Canyon National Monument to the Park, the first 53 river miles of the Canyon from Lees Ferry to Nankoweap Creek.

 

Below Tapeats Creek, PL 93-620 added Grand Canyon National monument to the Park, extending the Park 143 river miles from Tapeats Creek to the termination of the Grand Canyon at the Grand Wash Fault, the western edge of the Colorado Plateau.

 

PL 93-620 also enlarged the Havasupai Tribe reservation by 195,000 acres of its ancestral lands, while securing their traditional rights to 100,000 more such acres in the adjacent National Park. Every January 3 since 1976, the Tribe holds a celebration on this day.

 

Very few people are still alive and active today that helped draft that legislation. One of them is Jeff Ingram. Author of the book Hijacking A River (Vishnu Temple Press) and now in his 80’s, Jeff still works on his Blog, Celebrating The Grand Canyon (http://gcfutures.blogspot.com/).

Photo Jeff Ingram at Kanab Point, Grand Canyon National Park, 2006, courtesy Tom Martin

Bad Run at Badger Rapid, 1983

 

Photo courtesy Bill Schoening, Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection

Last May, Gary Ldd and I talked about his 1983 high water Grand Canyon river trip in Part 9 of the oral history series that Gary and I are doing. Gary recounted that on the very first day after their launch at Lees Ferry, Larry Testerman impaled his dory GREAT THUMB on the right-side rocks in Badger Rapid. Before he abandoned ship, Larry wedged his oars upright in the boat so they would be seen by river trips arriving at the rapid. As if that wasn’t enough, Larry broke his leg when he abandoned the Thumb and tried to swim to shore.

 

While we were visiting, Gary showed me 7 bankers’ boxes of color slides and medium format images belonging to Gary's long time friend Bill Schoening. Bill had been on that 1983 river trip and given these 7 boxes of his river running photos to Gary. I asked Gary if I could find homes for Bill’s photos and he said Yes!

 

This last Thursday I had another wonderful oral history visit with Gary in Page, AZ. We talked for almost two hours. Gary recounted the amazing story of how he met David and Rebecca Kiel in 1983 as they passed by Page on their hike from the Continental Divide to the Sea of Cortez along the Colorado River.

While in Page, I delivered Bill’s Glen Canyon pictures to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area’s Museum Collection. Weeks earlier I'd delivered his Grand Canyon photos to the Museum Collection at Grand Canyon National Park.

 

Thank you Gary! This is SO Fun!!

 

You can hear Gary’s oral histories here: https://grandcanyonazus.com/index.html

Click on the Oral Histories tab and then scroll down and click on the L page.

 

When a Board Goes Rogue...

 

A very kind friend just gifted me an original 1957 Dock Marston Christmas Card with competing narratives about the death of St. John of Nepomuk, Patron Saint of those who face danger by water.

 

I am reminded of a Board meeting of the Grand Canyon Historical Society held in October, 2023. One Board member demanded the others discipline another historian using outright lies and half truths while the historian in question waited in an adjacent room to defend himself against those very falsehoods.  

 

The group never allowed him to defend himself against their claims and passed a disciplinary action against him. They also decided to not inform him of their actions until after an event they admitted he would play a key role in. Adjourning the meeting, they left the building while he still waited to defend himself.

 

Marston knew full well that if there are two sides to every story, both sides need to be heard before any judgement is made. The facts, all the facts, make for the strongest history we can generate. Relying on one person's accusations while disregarding another's side of events makes for very poor history and management decisions.

Batchit, Arizona: The Rise and Fall

 

Had a chance a few weeks ago to look at two of the cables draping into the Colorado River at 266.8 Left, Grand Canyon National Park. These cables are from the 1957-1958 operations to sling bat guano out of the Bat Cave on river right up to the road head on the rim river left by aerial tramway. At the time, bat guano was a prized fertilizer.

 

Roger Smith's book Batchit, Arizona: The Rise and Fall, by Batchit Books, is a good recounting of the mining endeavors. Smith covers the first attempt to install the main 9,850 foot-long stationary support cable. On the final tightening, a winch failed and the cable fell into the Canyon. This 1.5" diam cable was replaced by a successfully installed second cable and production began in July, 1957. 

 

The moving haul cable was a roughly 20,200 foot-long loop. A splice in this cable began to fail in the fall of 1957. It was intentionally dropped into the canyon and replaced with a splice-less cable.

In the fall of 1958, the miners discovered the nitrogen concentration in the guano buried at depth was too low to be used for fertilizer and the mine was idled.

 

A chance use of the tramway in a movie allowed the owners to discover the loop cable had failed. An investigation showed this cable was cut by a jet fighter in the fall of 1958. The fighter limped back to base while the haul cable fell into the Canyon. After a settlement with the Air Force, The main stationary support cable was released to fall into the Canyon. 

 

The two cables in the photos are the main stationary support cables.

There's a film on YouTube showing the tramway in operation here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtyKwpp4T_E

 

If you are building or have a library of rare and unusual Grand Canyon books, you should have this one in your library.