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
D. S. Spencer, Union Pacific Railroad Passenger Agent, informed the
writer that the trip had been sponsored by the railroads and that
Governor Spry and Road Commissioner Lunt had been induced to go along
for consultation on road development. Governor Spry promised all
possible support if the railroads would undertake tourist traffic
development. Spencer further explained that the Union Pacific had
profited from the experience of Edward H. Harriman, the noted railroad
capitalist, who had built a spur to West Yellowstone, thereby greatly
increasing his long-haul traffic to San Francisco. Carl R. Gray,
Harriman’s successor as president of the Union Pacific, recognized
similar possibilities in tourist traffic to Zion and Grand Canyon.
Sometime that fall, Douglas White designated the route from Los Angeles
to Salt Lake via Las Vegas, St. George and Cedar City, now generally
traversed by Highway 91, as the Arrowhead Route. The next year, Charles
H. Bigelow of Los Angeles, was instrumental in organizing the Arrowhead
Trail Association with J. H. Manderfield of Salt Lake City as president,
and Joseph S. Snow of St. George, vice-president. It functioned for many
years to promote road development.
Frederick Vining Fisher, a Methodist minister of Ogden, Utah, came to
Salt Lake City in 1915 to lecture and show slides of California to
advertise the Panama Pacific International Exposition. He had ministered
in Ogden for some years prior to 1912, but his attention had never been
called to Zion Canyon. One day at lunch at the University of Utah, a
student said to him, “Mr. Fisher, your pictures last night were fine,
but you have not seen the best.” Surprised, Fisher then wormed the story
of Zion Canyon out of the lad. He was at once eager to visit the canyon,
and in September, 1916, while traveling to St. George with Apostle
Anthony W. Ivins, of the Latter-day Saints Church, to attend a local
conference, visited the scenic area, took pictures and made slides which
he thereafter used in lectures throughout the country.
Afterwards, Fisher induced Warren Cox, hotel proprietor of St. George,
to take him to the Grand Canyon at the lower end of Toroweap Valley, Mt.
Trumbull, where he took interesting pictures. Then, as Fisher recalls,
Cox dared him “to cross the untrod wilderness one hundred miles” to
Kaibab and North Rim. After they had explored the Kaibab with its
endless herds, they camped with Jim Owens, U. S. Government hunter, for
three days, vacationing and taking pictures. From North Rim, they went
to Cedar City where they met Ivins, who in the meantime had obtained a
team from his Enterprise ranch and who took Fisher up Cedar Canyon to
Cedar Breaks where more pictures were taken. Upon returning to Cedar
City, Cox accompanied Fisher to Rockville where he left him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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