A History of Southern Utah and Its National Parks (Revised)Woodbury, Angus M. (Angus Munn)
History
A History of Southern Utah and Its National Parks (Revised)
Woodbury, Angus M. (Angus Munn)
National parks and reserves -- Utah -- History; Utah -- History
During the hey-day of the Order, around 1880, it numbered nearly six
hundred adherents and there were some twenty-eight specialized
departments of work which included most of the various activities that
go to make up a simple community. The Order made great progress and
acquired property rapidly. Farming lands were expanded to include areas
scattered through Long Valley and at Kanab.
The growing power of the Order created jealousies, but disintegration
came from internal dissension. The idea of giving everyone an equal
reward regardless of ability or accomplishment tended in many cases to
lessen effort and brought charges of laziness and carelessness.
Gradually, more and more individual property was assigned to each home;
farmers were given a share of their own produce and livestock and
sawmills and freighting were operated under lease or contract. Matters
were hastening toward dissolution when, in 1885, polygamy troubles
began. Fear that the Federal government might confiscate the goods of
the Order forced the final dissolution of most of the property, and
farming lands, livestock, ranches, tannery and sawmill, were all sold to
members. The woolen mill alone was kept and intermittently operated
until 1900. In that year the United Order of Orderville was officially
dissolved, twenty-five years after its incorporation.
Zion Canyon
“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 by Major J. W. Powell
ten or twelve years earlier when the latter started out to explore the
Colorado River and made his two memorable trips in boats down the river
through the Grand Canyon. The geological problems encountered were so
extraordinary that Dutton was detailed to further investigation and
encountered problems that have engaged the attention of scientists to
this day, particularly the eminent geologist, Dr. Herbert E. Gregory.
Following the line of Vermillion Cliffs from Kanab westward, Dutton came
to the pass between Eagle Crags and Smithsonian Butte when suddenly,
startlingly, there lay before him to the northward the valley of the
Virgin River in all its grandeur.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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