by Angus M. Woodbury Copyrighted by Angus M. Woodbury 1950 A far-away view from Yovimpa Point in Bryce Canyon National Park. Courtesy Union Pacific Railroad...

Much of the material used in this study was gathered while the writer was engaged by the National Park Service in Zion Canyon, and he himself participated in many of the events described in the latter pages. The foundation for understanding the historical background, however, was laid during his early life in St. George and the surrounding region. Expressions and opinions have been interpreted largely through that experience. The writer was acquainted with many of the early Dixie settlers, and n

Zion Canyon had already been carved half-a-mile deep in the brilliant Navajo sandstone and most of its geological history had passed long before the eyes of man beheld its glory. One of the world’s rare beauty spots, lying within Zion National Park in southwestern Utah, it serves as a striking example of the thousands of flaming gorges or red box canyons eroded through millions of years on the edges of the plateaus along the Colorado River in southern Utah and northern Arizona. Prehistoric man c

The Parrusits, notwithstanding their primitive agriculture, moved about a great deal within their territory, as the exigencies of the season, the food supply, sanitary conditions, or their relations with other Indians demanded. They occasionally went into the high mountains in summer to hunt or fish but returned at intervals to the valleys to tend the crops. In the fall they went nut gathering among the pinyon pines of the foothills. The winters were usually spent in the valleys. Their wickiups

Zion Canyon was known to the Indians from time immemorial, but its discovery by white men, so far as is known, dates only from the middle of the 19th century. However, the series of explorations in this region which finally led to its discovery cover the period of three quarters of a century beginning in 1776. In that year a party of Spaniards passed through the region and crossed the Virgin River within twenty miles of Zion Canyon without knowing of its proximity. This was the remarkable expedi

While trade between California and New Mexico was beating the path of the Old Spanish Trail into a road across southwestern Utah, events elsewhere were leading to the elimination of Spanish influence and the rise of Anglo-Saxon power. The Mexican War ended Spanish domination, but it was the Mormon migrations which were to fill the region with settlements. In 1847, the Mormons began to move west from the Missouri River to the Great Salt Lake Valley. The precedent of Texas breaking away from Mexic

It was this trip to the Virgin River settlements that convinced Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders of the wisdom of pushing the settlement of Utah’s southland. The outbreak of the Civil War may have clinched the argument. When it became apparent that the cotton supply from the southern states would be cut off, the decision to advance the Dixie settlements with a view toward cotton culture was strengthened. By this time moreover, there was sufficient evidence from settlers and the experimenta

Zion, since its discovery, had been regarded as a blind canyon. Even the Indian name, I-oo-goon (canyon like an arrow quiver), reflects this idea. Lee, Smith, Steele and their companions, who left Parowan on June 12, 1852, and explored the head-waters of the Sevier and Virgin, were balked by the Vermillion cliffs nearby, if not in Zion, in contemplating the possibilities of a road from the mountains to the lower valleys. The early settlers of Rockville, needing timber from the mountains, had exp

Just as the settlement of Iron County had provided a stepping stone to the exploration and settlement of the Virgin River Valley, so in turn, the latter served in like stead in opening up Kane County and the Kaibab National Forest of northern Arizona. In the fall of 1858, after Albert Sydney Johnston’s army had entered Utah, Brigham Young, still doubtful about the future, instructed missionaries under Jacob Hamblin’s leadership to cross the Colorado River to the southeast and visit the Moquis or

The period following early settlement was marked by Indian troubles with both Paiutes and Navajos. These are sometimes called the Navajo raids, and in part were an outgrowth of the “Black Hawk War” which broke out in Sevier Valley, central Utah, in 1865. The whites had brought with them their livestock, which they grazed upon the public domain, turning the cattle and horses loose and herding the sheep. These animals multiplied rapidly and quickly depleted the edible fruits and seeds upon which t

Re-settlement of Long Valley and Kanab does not seem to have been attempted until 1870, although Kanab and Paria were occupied by missionaries under Jacob Hamblin in 1867 as frontier outposts. At Paria a strong guard house and corral was built and some land was cultivated, beginnings out of which the settlement grew with the accession of several families in 1872 and 1873. Kanab was similarly restored. The necessity of a fort there was impressed upon the whites by the continued Navajo raids. Five

“In an instant, there flashed before us a scene never to be forgotten. In coming time it will, I believe, take rank with a very small number of spectacles each of which will, in its own way, be regarded as the most exquisite of its kind which the world discloses. The scene before us was the Temples and Towers of the Virgin.” Thus prophetically wrote Captain Clarence E. Dutton of the U. S. Geological Survey in a report published in the year 1880. Dutton was following up the geological work begun

North of the Colorado River and south of the Utah line lies that variegated country known as the Arizona Strip. To the west lie the Parashont and Trumbull Mountains. To the east, the Kaibab Plateau, locally known as the Buckskin Mountains, rears its summit to 10,000 feet in a long level line that stretches southward to the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Information concerning this region began to seep in from outposts during the early 60’s. There is little doubt that Whitmo

At the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, a few individuals here and there in the state were beginning to grasp the potentialities of southern Utah as a scenic mecca. Throughout the United States, agitation for better roads gained ground as the automobile assumed a larger place in our national consciousness. The first transcontinental auto trip was made about 1900 and much difficulty was experienced in finding passable routes. The old pioneer wagon roads, disused since the compl

Twenty-one years after Bryce Canyon became a national park, a “coming of Age” party was celebrated at Bryce Canyon on September 15, 1949. The Utah Parks Company acted as host. The Park Service cooperated by inviting to the celebration all those that could be found who were present at the dedication in 1928. The guests began arriving at Bryce Canyon the day before the celebration. A group that met in the dining room that evening included M. R. Tillotson, Regional Director of the Park Service; P.