Naturally, a place like the Grand Cañon has attracted many great
artists and other distinguished visitors. Moving-picture companies have
staged thrilling photo-plays in these picturesque surroundings.
Photographers by the score have trained their finest batteries of
lenses on rim, trail, and river, some of them getting remarkable
results in natural colors.
Unmoved by this galaxy of talent, however, the Grand Cañon refuses
wholly to give up its secrets. Always there will be something new for
the seeker and interpreter of to-morrow.
The Grand Cañon is a forest reserve and a national monument. A bill has
been introduced in Congress to make it a national park. Meanwhile, the
United States Forest Service and the railway company are doing all they
can to increase the facilities for visitors. A forest ranger is located
near by. His force looks out for fires, and polices the Tusayan Forest
district. Covering such a large area with only a few men, a system has
been worked out for locating fires quickly. Fifteen minutes saved,
often means victory snatched from defeat. Water is not available, for
this is a waterless region except during the short rainy season, so
recourse must be had to other devices, such as back-firing and
smothering with dirt.
Official government names for prominent objects in the region have been
substituted for most of the old-time local names. For example, your
attention is invited to Yavapai Point, so called after a tribe of
Indians, instead of O'Neill's Point. These American Indian words are
musical and belong to the country, and the names of Spanish explorers
and Aztec rulers also seem suited to the place. Thus the great cañon
has been saved the fate of bearing the hackneyed or prosaic names that
have been given to many places of wonderful natural beauty throughout
our country. Think of a "Lover's Leap" down an abyss of several
thousand feet! That atrocity, happily, has been spared us in this
favored region.
This great furrow on the brow of Arizona never can be made common by
the hand of man. It is too big for ordinary desecration. Always it will
be the ideal Place of Silence. Let us continue to hope that the incline
railway will not be established here, suitable though it may be
elsewhere, nor the merry-go-round. The useful automobile is barred on
the highway along the edge of the chasm, though it is permitted in
other sections.
It has been my good fortune to meet at the cañon many noted artists,
writers, lecturers, "movie" celebrities, singers, and preachers. The
impression made upon each one of them by this titanic chasm is almost
always the same. At first, outward indifference--on guard not to be
overwhelmed, for they have seen much, the wide world over. Then a
restrained enthusiasm, but with emotions well in check. After longer
acquaintance, more enthusiasm and less restraint. At the end, full
surrender to the magic spell.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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