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History of the Grand Canyon area

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   The known history of the Grand Canyon area stretches back 10,500 years
   when the first evidence for human presence in the area started. Native
   Americans have been living at Grand Canyon and in the area now covered
   by Grand Canyon National Park for at least the last 4,000 of those
   years. Anasazi, first as the Basketmaker culture and later as the more
   familiar Puebleoans, developed from the Desert Culture as they became
   less nomadic and more dependent on agriculture. A similar culture, the
   Cohonina, also lived in the canyon area. Drought in the late 13th
   century was the likely cause for both cultures to move on. Other
   cultures followed, including the Paiutes, Cerbat, and the Navajo, only
   to be later forced onto reservations by the United States Government.

   Under direction by conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado to find
   the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardenas led
   a party of Spanish soldiers with Hopi guides to the Grand Canyon in
   September of 1540. Not finding what they were looking for, they left.
   Over 200 years passed before two Spanish priests became the second
   party of non-Native Americans to see the canyon. In 1869, U.S. Army
   Major John Wesley Powell led the Powell Expeditions through the canyon
   on the Colorado River. This and later study by geologists uncovered the
   geology of the Grand Canyon area and helped to advance that science. In
   the late 19th century there was interest in the region because of its
   promise of mineral resources—mainly copper and asbestos. The first
   pioneer settlements along the rim came in the 1880s.

   Early residents soon discovered that tourism was destined to be more
   profitable than mining, and by the turn of the century Grand Canyon was
   a well-known tourist destination. Most visitors made the grueling trip
   from nearby towns to the South Rim by stagecoach. In 1901 the Grand
   Canyon Railway was opened from Williams, Arizona, to the South Rim, and
   the development of formal tourist facilities, especially at Grand
   Canyon Village, increased dramatically. The Fred Harvey Company
   developed many facilities at the Grand Canyon, including the luxury El
   Tovar Hotel on the South Rim in 1905 and Phantom Ranch in the Inner
   Gorge in 1922. Although first afforded Federal protection in 1893 as a
   forest reserve and later as a U.S. National Monument, Grand Canyon did
   not achieve U.S. National Park status until 1919, three years after the
   creation of the National Park Service. Today, Grand Canyon National
   Park receives about five million visitors each year, a far cry from the
   annual visitation of 44,173 in 1919.
   "Foot of Toroweap Looking East" by William H. Holmes (1882). Artwork
   such as this was used to popularize the Grand Canyon area.
   Enlarge
   "Foot of Toroweap Looking East" by William H. Holmes (1882). Artwork
   such as this was used to popularize the Grand Canyon area.

Native American inhabitation

   Spilt-twig figurine from the Grand Canyon (NPS photo)
   Enlarge
   Spilt-twig figurine from the Grand Canyon (NPS photo)

   Current archaeological evidence suggests that humans have inhabited the
   Grand Canyon area as far back as 4,000 years and at least were passers
   through for 6,500 years before that. Radiocarbon dating of artifacts
   found in limestone caves in the inner canyon indicate ages of 3,000 to
   4,000 years. In the 1930s artifacts consisting of split-twig animal
   figurines were found in the Redwall Limestone cliffs of the Inner Gorge
   that were dated in this range. These animal figurines are a few inches
   (7 to 8 cm) in height and made primarily from twigs of willow or
   cottonwood. This find along with other evidence suggests these inner
   canyon dwellers were part of Desert Culture; a group of seminomadic
   hunter-gatherer Native Americans.

   The Basketmaker Anasazi (also called the Histatsinom, "people who lived
   long ago") evolved from the Desert Culture sometime around 500 BCE.
   This group inhabited the rim and inner canyon and survived by hunting
   and gathering along with some limited agriculture. Noted for their
   basketmaking skills (hence their name), they lived in small communal
   bands inside caves and circular mud structures called pithouses.
   Further refinement of agriculture and technology led to a more
   sedentary and stable lifestyle for the Anasazi starting around 500 CE.
   Contemporary with the flourishing of Anasazi culture, another group,
   called the Cohonina lived west of the current site of Grand Canyon
   Village.

   Anasazi in the Grand Canyon area started to use stone in addition to
   mud and poles to erect above-ground houses sometime around 800 CE. Thus
   the Pueblo period of Anasazi culture was initiated. In summer, the
   Puebleoans migrated from the hot inner canyon to the cooler high
   plateaus and reversed the journey for winter. Large graineries and
   multi-room pueblos survive from this period. There are around 2,000
   known Anasazi archaeological sites in park boundaries. The most
   accessible site is Tusayan Pueblo, which was constructed sometime
   around 1185 and housed 30 or so people.
   Anasazi food storage building ruins at Tusayan Pueblo.
   Enlarge
   Anasazi food storage building ruins at Tusayan Pueblo.

   Large numbers of dated archaeological sites indicate that the Anasazi
   and the Cohonina flourished until about 1200 CE. Something happened a
   hundred years after that, however, that forced both of these cultures
   to move away. Several lines of evidence led to a theory that climate
   change caused a severe drought in the region from 1276 to 1299, forcing
   these agriculture-dependent cultures to move on. Many Anasazi relocated
   to the Rio Grande and the Little Colorado River drainages, where their
   descendants, the Hopi and the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico, now live. The
   Hopi people believe they emerged from the canyon and that their spirits
   rest here.

   For approximately one hundred years the canyon area was uninhabited by
   humans. Paiutes from the east and Cerbat from the west were the first
   humans to reestablish settlements in and around the Grand Canyon. The
   Pauite settled the plateaus north of the Colorado River and the Cerbat
   built their communities south of the river, on the Coconino Plateau.
   Sometime in the 15th century the Navajo, or the Dine, arrived in the
   area.

   All three cultures were stable until the United States Army moved them
   to Indian reservations in 1882 as part of the removal efforts that
   ended the Indian Wars. The Havasupai and Hualapai are descended from
   the Cerbat and still live in the immediate area. Havasu Village, in the
   western part of the current park, is likely one of the oldest
   continuously-occupied settlements in the contiguous United States.
   Adjacent to the eastern part of the park is the Navajo Nation, the
   largest reservation in the United States.

Historic exploration

The Spanish

   The first Europeans reached the Grand Canyon in September 1540. It was
   a group of about 13 Spanish soldiers led by García López de Cárdenas,
   dispatched from the army of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado on its quest
   to find the fabulous Seven Cities of Cibola (Castañeda [1596] 1990).
   The group was led by Hopi guides and, assuming they took the most
   likely route, must have reached the Canyon at the South Rim, probably
   between today's Desert View and Moran Point.

   The report indicates that they greatly misjudged the proportions of the
   gorge. On the one hand, they estimated that the Canyon was about three
   to four leagues wide (13-16 km, 8-10 mi), which is quite accurate. At
   the same time, however, they believed that the river, which they could
   see from above, was only 2 metres (6 ft) wide (in reality it is about a
   hundred times wider). Being in dire need of water, and wanting to cross
   the giant obstacle, the soldiers started searching for a way down to
   the Canyon floor that would be passable for them along with their
   horses. After three full days, they still hadn't been successful, and
   it is speculated that the Hopi, who probably knew a way down to the
   Canyon floor, were reluctant to lead them there.

   As a last resort, Cárdenas finally commanded the three lightest and
   most agile men of his group to climb down by themselves (their names
   are given as Pablo de Melgosa, Juan Galeras, and an unknown, third
   soldier). After several hours, the men returned, reporting that they
   had only made one third of the distance down to the river, and that
   "what seemed easy from above was not so". Furthermore, they claimed
   that some of the boulders which they had seen from the rim, and
   estimated to be about as tall as a man, were in fact bigger than the
   Great Tower of Seville (which then was the tallest building in the
   world, measuring 82 metres, or 270 feet). Cárdenas finally had to give
   up and returned to the main army. His report of an insurmountable
   barrier squelched all interest in the area for the next two hundred
   years.

   Only in 1776 did two Spanish Priests, Fathers Atanasio Dominguez and
   Silvestre Velez de Escalante travel along the North Rim again, together
   with a group of Spanish soldiers, exploring southern Utah in search of
   a route from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Monterey, California.

The Americans

   James Ohio Pattie and a group of American trappers and mountain men
   were probably the next Europeans to reach the Canyon in 1826. There is
   little in terms of documentation to support this, however.

   The signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 ceded the Grand
   Canyon region to the United States. Jules Marcou of the Pacific
   Railroad Survey made the first geologic observations of the canyon and
   surrounding area in 1856.

   Jacob Hamblin (a Mormon missionary) was sent by Brigham Young in the
   1850s to locate easy river crossing sites in the canyon. Building good
   relations with local Native Americans and white settlers, he discovered
   Lee's Ferry in 1858 and Pierce Ferry (later operated by, and named for,
   Harrison Pierce)—the only two sites suitable for ferry operation.
   George Johnson lead an expedition by stern wheeler steam boat that
   reached Black Canyon in 1857.
   The 54 foot (16 m) paddle wheeler Explorer in the Lt. Joseph Ives
   expedition up the Colorado River. Period engraving.
   Enlarge
   The 54 foot (16 m) paddle wheeler Explorer in the Lt. Joseph Ives
   expedition up the Colorado River. Period engraving.

   A U.S. War Department expedition led by Lt. Joseph Ives was launched in
   1857 to investigate the area's potential for natural resources, to find
   railroad routes to the west coast, and assess the feasibility of an
   up-river navigation route from the Gulf of California. The group
   traveled in a stern wheeler steamboat named Explorer. After two months
   and 350 miles (560 km) of difficult navigation, his party reached Black
   Canyon some two months after George Johnson. In the process, the
   Explorer struck a rock and was abandoned. The group later traveled
   eastwards along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

   A man of his time, Ives discounted his own impressions on the beauty of
   the canyon and declared it and the surrounding area as "altogether
   valueless", remarking that his expedition would be "the last party of
   whites to visit this profitless locality". Attached to Ives' expedition
   was geologist John Strong Newberry who had a very different impression
   of the canyon. After returning, Newberry convinced fellow geologist
   John Wesley Powell that a boat run through the Grand Canyon to complete
   the survey would be worth the risk. Powell was a major in the United
   States Army and was a veteran of the American Civil War, a conflict
   that cost him his right forearm in the Battle of Shiloh.
   John Wesley Powell in 1869
   Enlarge
   John Wesley Powell in 1869

   More than a decade after the Ives Expedition and with help from the
   Smithsonian Institution, Powell led the first of the Powell Expeditions
   to explore the region and document its scientific offerings. On May 24,
   1869, the group of nine men set out from Green River Station in Wyoming
   down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. This first
   expedition was poorly-funded and consequently no photographer or
   graphic artist was included. While in the Canyon of Lodore one of the
   group's four boats capsized, spilling most of their food and much of
   their scientific equipment into the river. This shortened the
   expedition to one hundred days. Tired of being constantly cold, wet and
   hungry and not knowing they had already passed the worst rapids, three
   of Powell's men climbed out of the canyon in what is now called
   Separation Canyon. Once out of the canyon, all three were killed by
   Shivwits band Paiutes who thought they were miners that recently
   molested a female Shivwit. All those who stayed with Powell survived
   and that group successfully ran most of the canyon.
   'Noon Day Rest in Marble Canyon' from the second Powell Expedition,
   circa 1872
   Enlarge
   'Noon Day Rest in Marble Canyon' from the second Powell Expedition,
   circa 1872

   Two years later a much better-funded Powell-led party returned with
   redesigned boats and a chain of several supply stations along their
   route. This time, photographer E.O. Beaman and 17-year-old artist
   Frederick Dellenbaugh were included. Beaman left the group in January
   1872 over a dispute with Powell and his replacement, James Fennemore,
   quit August that same year due to poor health, leaving boatman Jack
   Hillers as the official photographer (nearly one ton of photographic
   equipment was needed on site to process each shot). Famed painter
   Thomas Moran joined the expedition in the summer of 1873, after the
   river voyage and thus only viewed the canyon from the rim. His 1873
   painting "Chasm of the Colorado" was bought by the United States
   Congress in 1874 and hung in the lobby of the Senate.

   The Powell expeditions systematically cataloged rock formations,
   plants, animals, and archaeological sites. Photographs and
   illustrations from the Powell expeditions greatly popularized the
   canyonland region of the southwest United States, especially the Grand
   Canyon (knowing this Powell added increasing resources to that aspect
   of his expeditions). Powell later used these photographs and
   illustrations in his lecture tours, making him a national figure.
   Rights to reproduce 650 of the expeditions' 1,400 stereographs were
   sold to help fund future Powell projects. In 1881 he became the second
   director of the U.S. Geological Survey.

   Geologist Clarence Dutton ( photo) followed up on Powell's work in
   1880–1881 with the first in-depth geological survey of the newly-formed
   U.S. Geological Survey. Painters Thomas Moran and William Henry Holmes
   accompanied Dutton, who was busy drafting detailed descriptions of the
   area's geology. The report that resulted from the team's effort was
   titled A Tertiary History of The Grand Canyon District, with Atlas and
   was published in 1882. This and later study by geologists uncovered the
   geology of the Grand Canyon area and helped to advance that science.
   Both the Powell and Dutton expeditions helped to increase interest in
   the canyon and surrounding region.

   Prospectors in the 1870s and 1880s staked mining claims in the canyon.
   They hoped that previously-discovered deposits of asbestos, copper,
   lead, and zinc would be profitable to mine. Access to and from this
   remote region and problems getting ore out of the canyon and its rock
   made the whole exercise not worth the effort. Most moved on, and some
   stayed to seek profit in the tourist trade. Their activities did
   improve pre-existing Indian trials, such as Bright Angel Trail.

Tourism

Transportation

   A group photo of passengers who rode on the first run of the Grand
   Canyon Railway.
   Enlarge
   A group photo of passengers who rode on the first run of the Grand
   Canyon Railway.

   A rail line to the largest city in the area, Flagstaff, was completed
   in 1882 by the Santa Fe Railroad. Stage coaches started to bring
   tourists from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon the next year—an
   eleven-hour journey. Tourism greatly increased in 1901 when a spur of
   the Santa Fe Railroad to Grand Canyon Village was completed. The first
   scheduled train with paying passengers of the Grand Canyon Railway
   arrived from Williams, Arizona, on September 17 that year. The 64 mile
   (103 km) long trip cost $3.95, and naturalist John Muir later commended
   the railroad for its limited environmental impact.

   Competition with the automobile (see below) forced the Santa Fe
   Railroad to cease operation of the Grand Canyon Railway in 1968 (only
   three passengers were on the last run). The railway was restored and
   reintroduced service in 1989, and has since carried hundreds of
   passengers a day.

   The first automobile was driven to the Grand Canyon in 1902. Oliver
   Lippincott from Los Angeles, California, drove his Toledo Automobile
   Company-built car to the South Rim from Flagstaff. Lippincott, a guide
   and two writers set out on the afternoon of January 4 that year
   anticipating a seven-hour journey. Two days later, the hungry and
   dehydrated party arrived at their destination; the countryside was just
   too rough for the 10 horsepower (7 kW) auto. A three day drive from
   Utah in 1907 was required to reach the North Rim for the first time.

   Trains, however, remained the preferred way to travel to the canyon
   until they were surpassed by the auto in the 1930s. By the early 1990s
   more than a million automobiles per year visited the park. Air
   pollution from those vehicles and wind-blown pollution from Flagstaff
   and even the Las Vegas area has reduced visibility in the Grand Canyon
   and vicinity.

   West Rim Drive was completed in 1912. In the late 1920s the first rim
   to rim access was established by the North Kaibab suspension bridge
   over the Colorado River. Paved roads did not reach the less popular and
   more remote North Rim until 1926, and that area, being higher in
   elevation, is closed due to winter weather from November to April.
   Construction of a road along part of the South Rim was completed in
   1935.

Accommodations

   John D. Lee (Utah State Historical Society)
   Enlarge
   John D. Lee (Utah State Historical Society)

   John D. Lee was the first person who catered to travelers to the
   canyon. In 1872 he established a ferry service at the confluence of the
   Colorado and Paria rivers. Lee was in hiding, having been accused of
   leading the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857. He was tried and
   executed for this crime in 1877. During his trial he played host to
   members of the Powell Expedition who were waiting for their
   photographer, Major James Fennemore, to arrive (Fennemore took the last
   photo of Lee sitting on his own coffin). Emma, one of Lee's nineteen
   wives, continued the ferry business after her husband's death. In 1876
   a man named Harrison Pearce established another ferry service at the
   western end of the canyon.

   The two-room Farlee Hotel opened in 1884 near Diamond Creek and was in
   operation until 1889. That year Louis Boucher opened a larger hotel at
   Dripping Springs. John Hance opened his ranch near Grandview to
   tourists in 1886 only to sell it nine years later in order to start a
   long career as a Grand Canyon guide (in 1896 he also became local
   postmaster).
   William Wallace Bass
   William Wallace Bass

   William Wallace Bass opened a tent house campground in 1890. Bass Camp
   had a small central building with common facilities such as a kitchen,
   dining room, and sitting room inside. Rates were $2.50 a day, and the
   complex was 20 miles (30 km) west of the Grand Canyon Railway's Bass
   Station (Ash Fort). Bass also built the stage coach road that he used
   to carry his patrons from the train station to his hotel. A second Bass
   Camp was built along the Shinumo Creek drainage.

   The Grand Canyon Hotel Company was incorporated in 1892 and charged
   with building services along the stage route to the canyon. In 1896 the
   same man who bought Hance's Grandview ranch opened Bright Angel Hotel
   in Grand Canyon Village. Cameron Hotel opened in 1903, and its owner
   started to charge a toll to use Bright Angel Trail.
   The El Tovar Hotel in the 1900s
   Enlarge
   The El Tovar Hotel in the 1900s

   Things changed in 1905 when the luxury El Tovar Hotel opened within
   steps of the Grand Canyon Railway's terminus. El Tovar was named for
   Don Pedro de Tovar who tradition says is the Spaniard who learned about
   the canyon from Hopis and told Coronado (see above). Charles Whittlesey
   designed the arts and crafts-styled rustic hotel complex, which was
   built with logs from Oregon and local stone at a cost of $250,000 for
   the hotel and another $50,000 for the stables (a huge sum in 1905). An
   IMAX theatre just outside the park shows a reenactment of the Powell
   Expedition.

   The Kolb Brothers, Emery and Ellsworth, built a photographic studio on
   the South Rim at the trailhead of Bright Angel Trail in 1904. Hikers
   and mule caravans intent on descending down the canyon would stop at
   the Kolb Studio to have their photos taken. The Kolb Brothers processed
   the prints before their customers returned to the rim. Using the
   newly-invented Pathé Bray camera in 1911–12, they became the first to
   make a motion picture of a river trip through the canyon that itself
   was only the eighth such successful journey. From 1915 to 1975 the film
   they produced was shown twice a day to tourists with Emery Kolb at
   first narrating in person and later through tape (a feud with Fred
   Harvey prevented pre-1915 showings).

Protection efforts

   By the late 19th century, the conservation movement was increasing
   national interest in preserving natural wonders like the Grand Canyon.
   U.S. National Parks in Yellowstone and around Yosemite Valley were
   established by the early 1890s. U.S. Senator Benjamin Harrison
   introduced a bill in 1887 to establish a national park at the Grand
   Canyon. The bill died in committee, but on February 20, 1893, Harrison
   (then President of the United States) declared the Grand Canyon to be a
   National Forest Preserve. Mining and logging were allowed, but the
   designation did offer some protection.
   U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and Territorial Governor Alexander
   Brodie at the Grand Canyon in 1903.
   Enlarge
   U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and Territorial Governor Alexander
   Brodie at the Grand Canyon in 1903.

   U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Grand Canyon in 1903. An
   avid outdoorsman and staunch conservationist, he established the Grand
   Canyon Game Preserve on November 28, 1906. Livestock grazing was
   reduced, but predators such as mountain lions, eagles, and wolves, were
   eradicated. Roosevelt added adjacent national forest lands and
   redesignated the preserve a U.S. National Monument on January 11, 1908.
   Opponents such as land and mining claim holders blocked efforts to
   reclassify the monument as a U.S. National Park for 11 years. Grand
   Canyon National Park was finally established as the 17th U.S. National
   Park by an Act of Congress signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson
   on February 26, 1919. The National Park Service declared the Fred
   Harvey Company to the official park concessionaire in 1920 and bought
   William Wallace Bass out of business.

   An almost 310 square mile (800 km²) area adjacent to the park was
   designated as a second Grand Canyon National Monument on December 22,
   1932. Marble Canyon National Monument was established on January 20,
   1969, and covered about 41 square miles (105 km²). An act signed by
   President Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975, doubled the size of Grand
   Canyon National Park by merging these adjacent national monuments and
   other federal land into it. That same act gave Havasu Canyon back to
   the Havasupai. From that point forward, the park stretched along a 278
   mile (447 km) segment of the Colorado River from the southern border of
   Glen Canyon National Recreation Area to the eastern boundary of Lake
   Mead National Recreation Area. Grand Canyon National Park was
   designated a World Heritage Site on October 24, 1979.

   In 1935, Hoover Dam started to impound Lake Mead south of the canyon.
   Conservationists lost a battle to save upstream Glen Canyon from
   becoming a reservoir. The Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1966 to
   control flooding, provide water and hydroelectric power. Seasonal
   variations of spring high flow and flooding and low flow in summer have
   been replaced by a much more regulated system. The much more controlled
   Colorado has a dramatically reduced sediment load, which starves
   beaches and sand bars. In addition, clearer water allows significant
   algae growth to occur on the riverbed, giving the river a green colour.

   With the advent of commercial flight, the Grand Canyon has been a
   popular site for aircraft overflights. However, a series of accidents
   resulted in the Overflights Act of 1987 by Congress, which banned
   flights below-the-rim and created flight-free zones. The tourism
   flights over the canyon have also created a noise issue, and the number
   of flights over the park has been restricted. ALSO WANK
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