Moab Memories - Dead Horse Point 2006

In the late summer of 2006, I moved my travel trailer from Kanab, Utah to Moab, Utah for a three month stay. At the time, Moab remained “undiscovered” by the hordes of motorized enthusiasts that now tear its out-lands asunder for the sheer pleasure of throwing dust, dirt, and plant life into the air. At that time, most visitors were hikers or bicyclists, with a lesser number of Jeep enthusiasts.

“Side by sides” and “quads” were yet to become the off-road vehicles of choice. Person-power prevailed over horsepower. At that time, no one had heard of an electric bicycle. Yes, there was running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity, but looking back eighteen years ago, Moab felt like it belonged at the turn of the twentieth century, not in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

At that time, wireless telephone and data services relied on the 2-G network, with occasional hints of 3-G speed, but only then during the early morning or late at night. Since I was running my executive recruiting business from my travel trailer, I was sensitive to data usage. Each afternoon, as the outdoor enthusiasts returned to Moab and the number of emergency-calls for assistance skyrocketed, my computer wireless data would go from slow to zero connectivity.

After much diagnosis with my mobile phone and data provider, I discovered the truth. The entire City of Moab was running from a single wireless transmission tower, situated above the Sand Flats Recreation Area. Even in that era, before the release of the Apple iPhone in 2007, the use of mobile telephone and data networks was exploding, with the various providers falling far behind.

Additionally, I learned that police and fire agencies took first priority, with mobile telephony in second place and my business lifeblood, mobile data a distant third in priority rankings. With my business connectivity curtailed as each afternoon wore on, I learned to start earlier and to go out and explore the land in the late afternoons.

Following are excerpts of what I wrote about our late afternoon wanderings around the redrocks areas just outside of Moab:

September 26, 2006 - Greetings from Moab Utah… The land of 4-Wheeling and off-road biking. We have been here for about three weeks and there is so much to see and do that we could spend months exploring and not see the same thing twice.

The first weekend, we set off for Dead Horse Point State Park. Legend has it that cowboys in the 19th Century herded wild mustangs there and then culled the herd, taking only the best. The less capable horses remained to die, corralled on a point overlooking the Colorado River, below. In today’s world, one dead horse might be acceptable, but for men to purposely leave herds of horses to die in the blazing hot desert was indeed cruel and unusual punishment.

After taking the turn from U.S. Highway 191, and on to Utah Highway 313, we were still on the way to the park. Looking for anything of interest, the first vista point held a Civil War battle scene. There, standing tall and proud in the desert were two sandstone buttes, resembling the first “ironclads,” the Monitor and the Merrimack (later known as the CSS Virginia). During the opening days of the U.S. Civil War, those two unique ships had fought to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads. The two buttes before us aptly conjured that epic battle, one hundred and forty-four years prior.

From Dead Horse Point itself, we could see no remnants of a corral, fencing or of dead horses. Utah has a way of cleaning up its history and prefers to present itself in the most positive historical context, regardless of the carnage that often occurred in its early days. The most egregious conduct occurred before Utah statehood in 1896. Instead of dead horses, we viewed the potash settling ponds far below and adjacent to the Colorado River. In my previous trip to Moab, in 1965, the potash ponds had not yet come to fruition, since in situ mining of potash in the area was then still to come.

The Colorado River itself hid from view in a nondescript trench at the bottom of the Anticline, which encompassed the vast area within our view. In the far distance was the La Sal Range, which remained dry and snow-less in early fall. In less than two weeks, the seasons would change, bringing autumn to canyon country and winter to those mountains.

Turning my camera to the south, you can see the Colorado River in the foreground. It flows to the right of the picture and circles around in what is known as an entrenched meander, or goose-neck. As the river cuts down into the rock, the land itself is uplifting, locking the river into its ever-deepening banks. From there, the river passes to the left in the middle ground of the picture and then again south into Canyonlands National Park. There, at what is known as The Confluence, the Colorado River joins the Green River, which has its origins in Wyoming.

Another shot, to the east, shows the vastness of the river canyon and an interesting pyramid, fooling our eyes, and making us think it was human made. Each layer of strata in this vast area was once an ocean bottom or a an alluvial plain. How, one wonders, could so much material erode from a once great plain and travel down the Colorado River to points south? Did it happen in a million years, or five hundred million years? I like the concept that it happened all in one thunderstorm of proportions unimaginable by today’s standards. As it traveled downstream, such a flood could well indeed cut the entire Grand Canyon in a single episode.

While we were there, a great bird soared by, and I was able to catch it at full telephoto. I then zoomed in on the picture and cropped it to bring it in even closer. Was it a California Condor, far from its release point in the Sespe Condor Sanctuary or was it an Andean Condor on a hunting trip to the Northern Hemisphere? Either way, it was the largest bird I have ever seen on the wing. El Condor pasa.

This is Part One of a two-part article. To read Part Two, click HERE.

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Bob Robertson's Boyhood Memories of Thompson Springs, Utah - 2019

 

Bob Robertson's Boyhood Memories of Thompson Springs, Utah

Some say, “History repeats itself”. In Thompson Springs, Utah, it simply vanishes.

Exiting Interstate I-70 at “Thompson”, as the locals call it, is like entering a time warp. Approaching the town on a desolate two-lane road, it feels like you are entering Thompson in the 1890's. In those days “Old Man Thompson” still ran the lumber mill. These days, there are no more trees to fell. There are no more “Thompson's” listed in the phone book. No more steam trains linger at the railroad depot, taking on passengers, coal or water. The nearest passenger station is now miles away, at Green River.

In the past ten years, I have written nine blog articles that mention Thompson or Thompson Springs. I physically revisit the place every year or two. For some reason, Thompson, as a place resonates with me. In 2018, I heard from Mr. Bob Robertson, who was once a resident of Thompson. Since then, Bob has shared with me many details about the history of “Thompson”, as many call the place. Therefore, the rest of this article is in the words of Bob Robertson and his mother, Dorothy (known as Tods).

“Your blog prompted many memories and thoughts about the area I’d like to share, so bear with me as an old man reflects (while he is still able)!

Thompson Springs began its life in 1883 as a station stop on the D&RGW Railroad. A post office was established in 1890, under the name “Thompson’s," named after E.W. Thompson, who lived near the springs and operated a saw mill, to the north, near the Book Cliffs. The town became a community center for the small number of farmers and ranchers who lived in the inhospitable region, and it was a prominent shipping point for cattle that ran in the Book Cliffs area.

The town gained importance with the development of coal mines in Sego Canyon, a few miles north of town. Entrepreneurs built a railroad there in 1911 to connect the mines with the Denver & Rio Grande Western railroad at Thompson. The spur line operated until about 1950.

One added aspect of interest is the actual community of Sego, where the mines were functioning through the 1940s. I remember as a kid in school in Moab, there was a carload of kids driven from Sego to Moab daily to go to school. Education was Grand County's responsibility, until the mines closed around 1948 or 1949. The internet tells of how the community included specific ethnic groups, housed in separate locations in the canyon, which was typical of the times. There was a Japanese section, different European sections, etc. There is very little indication of old home sites now, but there is a cemetery.

It was much like Bingham Canyon Mine in northern Utah, where my wife was born in 1940. Her dad and his brother worked in the mine there during the Second World War, but the uncle was an accountant and her dad drove heavy machinery. Therefore, they had to live in different locations within the canyon.

Construction of Interstate I-70, two miles south of Thompson, drew traffic away from the town, since the former Old Cisco Highway (US-6 & US-50) was no longer maintained. In 1997, the passenger train station closed and moved to Green River, twenty-five miles to the west. The loss of railroad passenger service led to further economic hardship for Thompson Springs.

My Dad (Maury Robertson) ran a gas station in Thompson Springs, beginning in 1935. He lived in a tent with Mom and sister Maurine until they moved the abandoned small one-room Valley City schoolhouse to Thompson, which became their bedroom on their house next to the service station.

I was born in 1937. Later, my Mom made the following comments for my own son about my arrival: “Dear Dan, Your Dad was born when we lived in Thompson. We hadn’t planned to have more children, for Maury was afraid there would be problems of health because of Maurine (Bob’s sister). In addition, we were very poor and living conditions were bad in Thompson. During pregnancy, I got big & miserable with hay fever & also the gnats landed & mixed with my hay fever drink. At that time, Maury had the hired man drive me to Moab two weeks early. The nights in Moab were so hot I about melted – the nights on the desert in Thompson were cool.

When Bob was born, my Dad (Cap Maxwell) drove out to Thompson to tell Maury & he was so tickled with a boy that he told the truth. Maury thought it was a girl all the way to Moab, for he did not think Dad would tell the truth. Cap was a great tease. We argued about what to name the boy. I wanted Vincent Clark & Maury wanted Jim after his father. We already had one Jim in the family. Maurine came to the hospital & said let us name him Bobby & so that was it.

He had a rough upbringing with the hired men that we had at the station in Thompson. Collin Loveridge used to throw him in the air so high I’d nearly flip & Albert Brown, who was a big “roughy” used to get him up in the morning & feed him & let me sleep in. When Bob would not eat his toast for me Albert said, “Oh, I put sugar & Jelly on it, he likes it.”

My Uncle Curt (Dad's brother and business partner in Moab tacked that old schoolhouse onto a storefront that old Doc Williams bought. It became living quarters for my folks, moving Mom & Dad and sister Maurine out of the tent. That was where I got my start. The two-pump service station has the name labeled on the front "Robertson Service," It’s kind of hard to make out in the picture. The brand was Utoco (Utah Oil Co.). Dad also drove the gas truck servicing the towns in the area, Cisco, Moab, Monticello, Blanding, and Bluff).”

Since I-70 became the main east/west route across Utah, lost are locations and memories of road trips from Moab to Grand Junction, Colorado or Price, Utah. Crescent Junction became the first stop after the interstate opened. Then as kids, going west, there was the thrill of the cold-water geyser at Woodside. Traveling east, after Thompson came Cisco, Harley Dome, and then Fruita.

Valley City was home to enough people at some point to warrant a small schoolhouse (that became our home in Thompson Springs, as mentioned earlier). This is where we would drive from Moab in the winter to ice skate on the Valley City reservoir. It was not much of a spot for skating, but to us kids, it was great.

Sis (Maurine Robertson), who was born with a congenital heart defect, died in 1953, during my sophomore year in high school. She had lived twenty-three good years and had brought much joy and happiness to all who knew her. Two years earlier, she had been crowned Rodeo Queen and received much deserved recognition for the beautiful person she was.”

In 1955, Bob Robertson went on to graduate from Grand County High School in Moab. In 1961, after earning a BS Electrical Engineering at the University Of Utah, he joined the “U.S. Space Program” before it even had a name. After active military time at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, Bob launched a distinguished career in electronics and engineering.

While working for such premier corporations as Intel, Fairchild, AC Spark Plug, Astrodata, Standard Microsystems, Mini-circuits and Motorola, Bob and his family lived in Singapore, Indonesia and Russia. After a later stint teaching at Great Basin College, in Elko, Nevada, Bob moved to Boise, Idaho, where he retired working for Micron Technology. He and his wife (grandparents of twenty-two) now live comfortably in northern Idaho.

Although he has not visited Thompson recently, Bob Robertson's recollections of bygone locations and events in the old ranching and railroad town are as sharp as ever. Thank you, Bob Robertson for sharing your personal history with us all.

This is Part 2 of the Thompson Springs Story. To read Part 1, “Thompson Springs, Utah - From Boom Town to Ghost Town”, please click “Here”. To read Part 3, "Sego Canyon - Land of the Ancients", please click "Here".

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By James McGillis at 03:23 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

In Moab, Pioneer Settler and Cowboy, "Negro Bill" Rides Again - 2017

 

In Moab, Pioneer Settler and Cowboy, "Negro Bill" Rides Again

In the Old Testament, the land of Moab, also called “The Far Country”, lay east of the Dead Sea, in what we now call Kerak, Jordan. During the 1855 LDS General Conference in Salt Lake City, forty Mormon men “were called” to establish the Elk Mountain Mission on the banks of the Grand (later, Colorado) River. As memorialized on countless souvenir t-shirts, the “Far Country” would become Moab, Utah in 1902.

One goal of the mission was to minister to the indigenous Ute Indians. After the “missionaries” built a stone fort and planted crops, conflict soon arose between the apostles and the Indians. Having built their stone mission in what is now the Matheson Wetlands Preserve, river flooding, a plague of mosquitoes and rotting potatoes characterized the growing season of 1855.

Depending on which version of history you prefer, either the Indians repeatedly raided the mission’s meager food supply or the Mormon men spurned the offering of Ute women as potential brides. Either way, a gunfight ensued, resulting in the death of three missionaries and the wounding of others. With their hay and corn stocks burned to the ground, the Elk Mountain Mission decamped. The survivors retreated north, seeking shelter at other Mormon settlements.

For the next twenty-two years, only trappers, traders and the Spirit of Kokopelli visited Moab. No one dared settle there until two pioneers, a Canadian fur trapper named “Frenchie” and a cowboy named Bill Granstaff divided the spoils and resettled the area. Since it was a full generation after the missionary debacle, the two men managed to live in relative harmony with the Ute Indians. Frenchie took the ruins of the Elk Mountain Mission as his home. Bill Granstaff ran cattle and lived in a box canyon three miles north, along the Grand River.

Although Frenchie was of Canadian origin, Moab-locals variously identified Bill Granstaff as Black, African American or with the more popular and catchy "N-word" epithet. Years later, the good people of Moab ran Bill out of town, ostensibly for selling liquor to the Ute Indians. As usual, there was an alternate version of Moab history. In the alternate version, the white folks in town trumped up false charges in order to steal Bill’s cattle. Either way, for the next eighty-five years, locals called Bill Granstaff and his canyon home “N-word Bill” and “N-word Bill Canyon”.

By the 1960s, in deference to the civil rights movement, the canyon where Bill had lived was renamed “Negro Bill Canyon”. Somewhere along the line, writers and historians added the letter “d” to Negro Bill’s name and he became Bill Grandstaff. Later still, around 2010, some high-minded Moab folks decided that Bill’s name was actually “William Grandstaff”. The new, politically correct name made no mention of his racial heritage.

In the 1960s, Moab began preparing for hoards of tourists to come. As part of that plan, the State of Utah paved Highway 128 from Moab to Cisco. This newly paved highway provided easy access to the Colorado River (formerly the Grand River). Other than some tight turns overlooking the river, the automobile trip from Moab to Cisco, Utah and on to Interstate I-70 became easy. Until the late 1970s, travelers on Highway 128 barely noticed the unsigned and poorly identified “Negro Bill Canyon”. In 1979, an incident involving the “Sagebrush Rebellion” changed all of that.

In this case, the “rebels” included a loose coalition of off-roaders, states’ rights advocates and other radical fringe elements. Among the luminaries who expressed sympathy or support for the rebels were then-Colorado Governor Richard Lamm, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch and presidential candidate Ronald Reagan. The collective ire of these loosely affiliated groups and individuals focused on then-President Jimmy Carter. In his attempts to protect precious natural resources, the rebels accused President Carter of usurping state and local power.

In order to open more land to off-roading and prove their point about states’ rights, a small group of rebels used a bulldozer to cut a new dirt road up Negro Bill Canyon. The hiking trail, which bears his name, leads to both Morning Glory Bridge and the Negro Bill Wilderness Study Area. Although now largely rehabilitated, the remnants of that 1979 road are visible to hikers in the midsection of Negro Bill Canyon.

After the rebels defiled the canyon with their bulldozer, no one knew quite what to do. Over the years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) gated the trail, paved a small parking lot, installed pit toilets and erected signage identifying the place as the “Negro Bill Trailhead”. By then, participants in the Sagebrush Rebellion had moved their activities to other parts of Utah and the West. Still, with the recent advent of smaller quad-type off-road vehicles, more land has fallen prey to motorized destruction than the Sagebrush Rebels ever imagined possible.

Around 2010, some high-minded residents and politicians in Moab and Grand County, Utah decided to sanitize several historical places and names in the area. The first to go, they decided, was the offensive name, “Negro Bill”. It was demeaning and inappropriate in the twenty-first century, they said. Three times during the next five years, the Grand County Council voted narrowly to keep the name. When they could not eliminate all references to Negro Bill, the political elite of Moab settled for defiling and destroying old Lions Park, three miles downstream.

Old Lion’s Club Park stood on the spot where the 1855 Elk Mountain Mission first camped on the Moab-side of the Grand River. Stately cottonwood trees that may have shaded the missionaries at their first campground disappeared on March 31, 2015. Along with any vegetation in the park, all of the classic stone and wooden signage around the intersection of Highways 191 and 128 disappeared, as well. In place of the historical wooden signage was a hodgepodge of sanitary looking metal signs.

Like a plague of rats, the sanitizing of Moab history was on the march, heading upstream toward Negro Bill Canyon. This culminated on September 27, 2016, when the all-knowing BLM Moab Field Office “pulled a fast one”. In the grand tradition of destroying old Lions Park, the BLM made a stealthy move. Overnight, and without warning, the BLM changed out the historical “Negro Bill Trailhead” signage and all the road signs referencing the site. If the motto of the United States is, “In God We Trust”, the motto of the Moab BLM Field Office might be, “The BLM Knows Best”. Two nights later, the new “William Grandstaff Trailhead” signs disappeared. As of this writing, no one knows who or what spirited the new signs away.

Without a vote or any public comment, the Moab Field Office had dealt with the issue directly. In their infinite wisdom, they had relegated Negro Bill and his former canyon home to the dustbin of history. Thank you, Moab Field Office for saving us from our own history. Thank you, “Monkey Wrench Gang” for removing and safely storing the new trailhead signs for the edification of future generations. Because of your actions, Moab Field Office and you, the politically correct members of the Grand County Council, we are now closer to the treeless, sanitized history that you crave.

Then, on August 4, 2017, like a thunderbolt from Mt. Olympus, the Utah Committee on Geographic Names voted 8-2 in favor of retaining the name, “Negro Bill Canyon” as its official geographical "place name". Since the BLM controls the trailhead and parking area, they can keep their newly sanitized signage in place, unless the “Monkey Wrench Gang” or some ancient spirit steals them again.

The three-mile stretch of Colorado Riverway from Moab to Negro Bill Canyon is of both historical and spiritual significance. In that area, the Spirit of the Ancients is still active, as seen by the image of ET (The Extraterrestrial) recently carved by nature in the sandstone cliffs. In addition, Plush Kokopelli and Coney the Traffic Cone have been active in the area. As seen in the accompanying photographs, everywhere Plush Kokopelli and Coney go, the names on roadside signs spontaneously change. “William Grandstaff Trailhead” reverts to “Negro Bill Trailhead”. Various arches fall, spiritual paths begin and end. According to the signs, a new “Moab Jim Canyon” also appears, just half a mile south of Negro Bill Canyon.

Author’s Note - Although the mischievous Plush Kokopelli and his shy partner, Coney the Traffic Cone were photographed near the scene of the William Grandstaff Trailhead sign-disappearance in September 2016, there is no evidence that either character played a role in that theft. In fact, Plush Kokopelli and Coney were there to install a new Kokopelli Federal Credit Union automated teller machine (ATM) at the trailhead parking lot. All fees collected by that new Moab Bank ATM will be used to install new "Negro Bill Trailhead" signs, should the need arise.

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By James McGillis at 03:13 PM | | Comments (0) | Link Tweet

The Once-Great Colorado River Rises on the Colorado Plateau - 2015

 

A Once-Great River Rises on the Colorado Plateau

The Upper Colorado River Basin -

By the time the Colorado River passes Moab, Utah, it already carries a heavy load of minerals, trash and sewage. By mid-summer, water levels drop, exposing driftwood, sewage and trash along the shore. Only the next spring flood will loosen these stinking mixtures of organic material and plastic from the shoreline. In 2014, when I saw methane bubbles rising from one such stinking mass, it opened my eyes wide to the damage already done to this once great river.

A Place Called Potash, Utah -

After skirting the Matheson Wetlands along one bank and the Moab Pile on the other, the Colorado River descends through the Portal and on to a place called Potash, Utah. To make potash sound more interesting, the owners of the Cane Creek Potash Plant named themselves "Intrepid" Potash-Moab, LLC. Using dubious and undocumented Colorado River water rights, Intrepid Potash-Moab infuses millions of gallons of river water annually into the Cane Creek Anticline.

After injection, the anticline collapses ever so slightly. This subsidence burps out untold acre-feet of a brine solution, which is rich in potash salts. After drying and processing, Intrepid-Moab ships the resulting product out via rail and interstate highway. Later, agents and retailers resell the packaged product to farmers and home gardeners. The success of the corporate farming, as we know it today depends on finished potash and other synthetic fertilizers for its success.

Intrepid-Moab uses solar power to dry its potash brine in shallow, lined ponds. These ponds cover many colorful acres of bench land overlooking the Colorado River. From the Potash Road, four-wheelers access the Shafer Trail by traversing through the Cane Creek Plant. If terrestrial scenes of chemical degradation and poor stewardship of the land are not enough for you, I suggest an air tour of the area. On a Redtail Aviation flight out of Moab’s Canyonlands Field several years ago, our pilot banked the plane sufficiently for me to capture some revealing photos of the Cane Creek Plant.

Gushing from injection well sites that are high up on the bench land, the upwelling brine cascades unchecked until it reaches the settling ponds below. Any miscalculation of volume could result in overflow of the settling ponds. From the air, you can see a white crust that has dried upon the walls of small canyons leading down to the Colorado River. This tells me that Intrepid Potash-Moab has experienced both overflow and leakage at the settling ponds. Dwarfing any inputs upstream in Utah and Colorado, Intrepid Potash-Moab could be the largest contributor of organic solids anywhere in the Upper Colorado River Basin. After potash spills into the river, it goes back into solution, adding to the salinity of the water and turning the river into an organic time bomb.

Mudflats and Methane Volcanoes -

After its confluence with the Green River, the first full stop for the Colorado River is at the upper reaches of Lake Powell in Southeastern Utah. Soon after the lake reached its full potential size in the early 1980s, its water level began to fluctuate and then decline. During the past fourteen years of persistent drought, Lake Powell lost nearly half of its peak volume. Today, optimists might say that Lake Powell is “half full”. Almost unanimously, climate scientists agree that the reservoir is “half empty” and will continue to decline.

With many miles of former lakebed exposed to sunlight at the upper end of Lake Powell, the environment on those mudflats has deteriorated significantly. As water laden with heavy metals and organic material arrives at the upper end of the lake, it mixes with silt and sand. The result is a phenomenon known as methane volcanoes. Methane gas can be a byproduct of flatulence in cattle, coal mining or the baking of organic mud. Most people are familiar with carbon dioxide as our most ubiquitous “greenhouse gas”. Fewer people might know that methane is fifteen times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide puts the effervescent fizz in our soft drinks. Methane smells bad, is flammable and if contained, may explode.

The Navajo Reservation is Coal Country -

First, the stinking, organic mudflats at the upper end of Lake Powell create and release untold amounts of methane gas. Usually, warm air and light gases like methane rise from the surface and dissipate in the upper atmosphere. Often methane from Lake Powell remains in the lower atmosphere, trapped near the ground by an atmospheric inversion layer. If an atmospheric inversion is present, warm air aloft traps hot and volatile gasses below, thus creating a bubble of noxious air at or near ground level.

Not ironically, a huge methane gas bubble now floats above the Four Corners region. Is this unprecedented bubble of volatile gas the result of Navajo Nation coal mining, cattle flatulence or the stinking mudflats and methane volcanoes at the upper reaches of Lake Powell? Personally, I am betting on a combination of coal mining and fertilized mudflats. Thank you for your fertile potash input, Intrepid Potash-Moab, LLC.

Glen Canyon Damned -

After flowing over and sifting through the mudflats, the Colorado River enters many miles of forced confinement between sandstone canyon walls. There it drops its remaining sediment to the bottom of what once was a desert garden of legendary beauty. Known as Glen Canyon, living humans who saw it in its untrammeled glory are now few and elderly. Only through old black and white photographs and essays by such writers as John Wesley Powell and Edward Abbey do we know about a place once visited only by dory boat or river raft.

Once the water in Lake Powell reaches the penstocks and electrical turbines at Glen Canyon Dam, it is cold, dark and nearly devoid of oxygen. The portion of lake water that rests below the deepest intake on the dam, we call the “dead pool”. The lake water in the dead pool is as near to dead as fresh water can be. Once released downstream, dam water is clear, cold and capable of supporting no life higher than green fronded algae. Such algae grow wherever the water flow is slow enough to support life. If Colorado means, “colored red” or “Red River”, immediately below Glen Canyon Dam, that name does not apply. Running clear, cold and fringed with green algae, its name should revert to “Green River”.

This is Part 1 of a three-part article. To read Part 2, please click HERE.

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By James McGillis at 02:56 PM | Colorado River | Comments (0) | Link

The Destruction of Lion's Park in Moab, Utah - 2015

 

Moab's "Empty Garden"

- I found an empty garden among the flagstones there
- Who lived here
- He must have been a gardener that cared a lot
- Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop
- And now it all looks strange
- It's funny how one insect can damage so much grain

(A song by Elton John)

In March 2012, Grand County, Utah received funding from the National Park Service "Connect Trails to Parks" program for projects to enhance the Moab Lions Park Transit and Trail Hub. Over the previous four years, individuals from Grand County, Moab City, NPS, BLM, the Lions Club, Trail Mix, and the Moab Trails Alliance had collaborated to develop Lions Park as a trail and transportation hub. The various groups worked with a consultant hired using the NPS grant monies. The ground breaking for the Transit Hub was in September 2012. As planned, the hub would include interpretive and trail signs, all to be installed during 2014.

Starting with new energy applied by the Moab Lions Club in the 1970s and 1980s, public, private and nonprofit agencies and individuals poured countless hours into planning “Lions Park: Gateway to Moab”. By April 2015, the new Lions Transit Hub was in operation just across State Route 128 from the old Lions Club Park. Decades of planning and construction around the old park were almost complete. Careful redevelopment of the quaint but aging Moab Lions Park was all that remained undone.

Unfortunately, a successful outcome for Lions Park was not to be. Before lunchtime on March 31, 2015, an ill informed demolition crew erased one hundred sixty years of history at the birthplace of Moab, Utah. Working from faulty plans, uninformed contractors used mechanized equipment to bulldoze every visible remnant of what once was Lions Park.

Gone from the site were the stately Fremont Cottonwood trees whose ancestors once shaded the 1855 Elk Mountain Mission, and later shaded twentieth century picnickers. Gone were the familiar parking lot, walkways, picnic areas and water fountains. Gone was any trace of Moab Lions Club work performed over most of the late twentieth century. Gone from the southern terminus of State Route 128 were the classic wooden highway signs that once pointed the way to Arches National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park.

“Even after all that effort, it just went amok,” Community Development Director Dave Olsen said. According to Olsen's estimates, some of the eight trees were 80 to 100 years old, and perhaps even older. It is possible that several of those eight trees shaded the 1855 Elk Mountain Mission during their first days in Moab.

The Utah Division of Facilities Construction and Management, The Archiplex Group and Advance Solutions Group accepted responsibility for the mistake and plan to make up for it, Utah Department of Administrative Services Public Information Officer Marilee Richins said. “Everybody is joining together,” she said. “We just want to make it right. It's just an unfortunate situation.”

Acting Moab City Engineer Eric Johanson said, “We don't want to be blamed unjustifiably.”

Both Olsen and Johanson said that the demolition plans were missing a “tree-protection layer”. “We were shocked, because for years, we've been meeting with the architects and engineers”, Johanson said. “Everyone is very aggrieved,” he added. “It saddens everyone.”

“Ultimately, we thought that given the complexity, it should have at least elicited a phone call to the architect or the city before they started cutting everything down,” Johanson said. “It is a park, after all.”

“The damage was done before we could stop it,” said Olsen, who also serves as the city's arborist.

Almost immediately, Olsen switched gears and denigrated the recently removed trees. “Although stately Fremont cottonwoods are native to Utah and much of the West,” Olsen said, “they aren't the best choice for the site. To me, Fremonts are rickety". Their loose limbs also pose potential hazards in recreational park settings, he said; especially if they are situated above benches, picnic tables, playground areas and other “targets.”

Did arborist Olsen ever consider providing drip irrigation, pest control or tree pruning at Lions Park? The United States Congress established Zion as a National Park in Utah on November 19, 1919. Many Fremont Cottonwoods standing throughout Zion Canyon predate the 1925 establishment of Zion National Park Lodge. In Abraham Lincoln's parlance, that would have been "four score and ten years ago".

After inspecting the collection of dehydrating cottonwood stumps, Olsen continued his assault on the concept of replanting native trees at Lions Park. Almost immediately, Olsen  found signs of decay, including hollowed-out trunks. “They have a substantial amount of rot,” he said. “Termites and carpenter ants have been doing their job to decompose them over time.”

Drought and neglect had taken their toll as well, yet the majestic Fremont Cottonwoods shook off decay, hosting carpenter ants and termites in a symbiotic relationship that lasted more than four score and seven years.

Turning the whole episode into a lesson in public safety, Olsen told the press that it would have been just a matter of time before he made a recommendation to remove the trees. Then, resorting to bureaucratic “double speak”, Olsen said that he would not have given permission to remove the trees now, within three months of the park's grand reopening.

Despite the danger that the old Fremont Cottonwood trees might pose to the public, Olsen would allow park visitors to picnic beneath them for an indefinite time into the future. As Moab's arborist, it was Olsen's duty to inspect and determine any future risk that the existing trees might represent. Only in post mortem did he fulfill that task.

Continuing with his anti-native tree theme, Olsen said that he would like to replant the new Lions Park with a combination of Bur oaks and Austrian pines. At the park, which by then looked like an extension of the nearby Moab Pile, Olsen said, “We wanted to make sure that it looked like a park, and not a barren desert".

“When we have our grand opening, we're probably going to roast in the sun like bacon,” Olsen remarked.

Once upon a time, people thought that Tamarisk (salt cedar) trees would make a nice frontage to the Colorado River in Moab. For the past twenty-five years, 

volunteers and government organizations have struggled to eliminate that ubiquitous and invasive tree species. Before any Lions Park taskforce approves replanting with non-native species, I hope that the powers that be in Moab will pause long enough to complete their due diligence.

I pose the question, "What is the potential for Bur Oaks and Austrian Pines to become invasive species downstream, along the Colorado River? In the future, will Bur Oaks propagate and dominate the tree hierarchy in the soon to be re-exposed Glen Canyon?

Replanting Lions Park with Fremont Cottonwood trees and then nurturing them in perpetuity is the right thing to do. By replanting with Fremont Cottonwood trees, future generations will have the benefit of watching Lions Park once again become what it once was. In the year 2102, four score and seven years hence, Lions Park may well be back to where it was before its 2015 destruction. I am sorry to say that unless I live to be 154 years old, I will not be present there in person to celebrate. I will, however, be there in spirit.

In 2008, when the new Riverway Bridge opened nearby, I visited Lions Park and photographed a few historical features around the site. Most interesting to me was a masonry and wooden sign that faced out toward the intersection of U.S. Highway 191 and State Route 128. Lovingly hewn from Navajo Sandstone, its masonry structure was built to last for eons. Against its dark brown background, the word “MOAB” stood out proudly in white block letters. Below, the fading text told the story of Moab, from prehistory right up to the 1980s. This original Moab sign's first internet appearance was on MoabJim.com, as a photographic print for sale. Later, I included the Moab sign in one of my blog articles.

Each year, from 2008 to 2015, I revisited the site and photographed what I dubbed the “MOAB Sign”. As with most signs that face south in the desert, the white lettering weathered and flaked off a bit more each year. Behind the sign, trucks, trailers, paving equipment and cranes that serviced bridge, road and facilities construction came and went. Since 2008, there had been nonstop construction within a quarter mile of the MOAB Sign. By 2011, the historical text on the MOAB Sign was flaking away. So too was the physical history of the old Lions Club Park. In late 2014, the flaking word “MOAB” still clung to the upper face of the sign.

While on a photographic mission to Lions Park in August 2013, I discovered that something was missing from the area. As it turned out, all of the historical highway signs that once stood at the corner of State Route 128 and U.S. Highway 191 North were gone. Searching around the construction area, I found some grim remains.

With complete disregard for Moab history, all of the old highway directional signs had been ripped out of the ground and dropped like so much scrap metal and plywood. As a preview of what might someday happen, that scrap pile was partially hidden behind the original “MOAB Sign”. Perhaps the myriad consulting companies involved at Lions Park should have provided a "Sign Protection Layer" on their plans.

In April 2015, I visited the Lions Park and Transit Hub. Construction equipment and supplies still covered the historical birthplace of Moab. The equipment blocked my view of the old park, which was at a lower elevation, near the riverbank. Not until I read later news reports did I realize that Lions Club Park was already gone.

To have bulldozed and scraped away every concrete block and tree from the old park was not enough. As their last act of publically sanctioned vandalism, the destroyers of old Lions Club Park surreptitiously toppled and removed the original “MOAB Sign”.

As the old monument crumbled to the ground, Moab closed one hundred sixty years of current-era history at the "Jumping off Place". To future visitors of the Moab Transit Hub, interpretive signs and faded photos will be their only link to a shady oasis that once flourished in Moab, by the bank of the Colorado River.

As of this writing, Google Street View still shows a 2012 view of the intersection at State Route 128 and U.S. Highway 191 North. If you look closely at the linked image, you will see the original MOAB Sign. In the future, a Google camera-car will autonomously drive through that intersection, uploading digital images as it goes.

Someday, Google will replace their old images with the new ones. On that date uncertain, the original MOAB Sign and historical Lions Club Park will exit three dimensional time-space reality (3DTSR), henceforth living only in memory.

This is Part 2 of a two-part article. To read Part 1, click HERE.

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By James McGillis at 03:36 PM | | Comments (0) | Link