Joseph Black seems to have been the first to investigate the upper area, probably in the late fall of 1861 or 1862. The difficulties of reaching the upper part of Zion were too great, however, and he finally located in the lower valley. His descriptions of the canyon were such that the cynical referred to it sometimes as “Joseph’s Glory.” Nevertheless his stories were listened to and some scoffers remained to pray. E. C. Behunin says: It was Joseph Black who interested my father in Zion Canyon. Black had made a trip into the canyon before we came here and in talking to my father, he had praised it so highly that my father became interested and moved up into the canyon upon Black’s advice and suggestion. Isaac Behunin had come to Dixie in the fall of 1861 and settled at Northrop until the flood in January, 1862, after which he moved to Springdale and built a home. In addition to farming in Springdale he visited Zion in the summer of 1863 and started some operations there, building a one-room log cabin not far from where Zion Lodge now stands.[58] The cabin was a crude shelter used only during the summer, for the Behunins wintered in Springdale. It was built of cottonwood logs and the cracks were chinked with mud. The roof had a ridgepole to which ash and maple sticks were lashed on either side and covered with corn-fodder and dirt. The single room had a door and a window with glass panes. At one side was a fireplace, but the cooking was usually done on a stepstove outside. The Behunins were real mountaineers, inured to the hardships of their life. To make a wash basin, they cut down a cottonwood tree in the dooryard and scooped out a bowl-like depression in the top of the stump. A hole was bored in the bottom, downward and outward. This was stopped on the outside by a wooden plug. To wash, they dipped fresh water into the bowl. The family included, in addition to the parents, five sons and one daughter. All except the daughter were confirmed smokers. Indian tobacco grew well in Zion Canyon in those days and at first they could gather their supplies from the wild plants. Indeed, their more censorious neighbors ventured the opinion that the wild tobacco was the inducement that led the Behunins into Zion Canyon. Later they introduced domestic varieties. The cabin seems to have been completed late in the season after the corn had been harvested. There was no road into Zion Canyon at that time, but a heavy team had hauled in a plow and other necessities. An irrigation ditch was dug and the flats cleared of vines and rosebushes. By the next season several acres were under cultivation, and fruit trees, cane and garden stuff had been planted.