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".

Email James McGillis

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

Union Pacific Railroad Burro Crane BC-47 at Seven Mile Canyon - 2014

Union Pacific Railroad Burro Crane BC-47 at Seven Mile Canyon

In May 2013, I drove from Downtown Moab, via U.S. Highway 191 North. My destination was the turnoff to Utah State Route 313, which is the gateway to Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park. Although the distance was only eleven miles, the turnoff at Route 313 seemed like another world. Far from the shops and restaurants that make Moab so inviting to tourists, my destination was hot, dry and desolate. “Seven miles from nowhere”, I said to myself.

Almost as soon as I turned on to Route 313, I spied an interesting contraption parked on a nearby railroad siding. With my pickup truck, I had easy access to the location of this unusual mechanical beast. Nearby, a weathered railroad sign identified the place as “Seven Mile”. Union Pacific Burro Crane BC-47 became “The Burro at Seven Mile”. In six-inch letters on the rear of its turret, the words, “BURRO CRANE” stood out on its cast iron ballast. In the dry desert air, that cast iron emblem could last for millennia.

On first glance, the turret of the Burro Crane looked like an antiaircraft gun from a mid-twentieth century warship. Upon further inspection, the function of the Burro Crane as “maintenance of way” equipment became obvious. With its flatcar as a tender, the Burro Crane was a mobile track repair vehicle. The burro’s compact, rounded turret allowed it to swivel without its ballast overhanging an adjacent rail line.

Nearby, old and worn-out railroad ties lay in a pile. In addition, at trackside was a collection of bent and worn steel rails. Rather than utilizing welded steel rails, the old the Potash Branch line features 1960s railroad technology. In keeping with railroad construction throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wooden ties were set into gravel. Using large wrenches, nuts and bolts secured one track to another. For stability, spikes held the rails to the ties. Replacing earlier manual labor, the Burro Crane and its tender helped to automate the track repair process.

Accompanied by a small crew, the operator could use the Burro Crane’s diesel engine to propel both burro and flatcar to a prospective repair site. If rails required moving, the repair gang would first remove the bolts between the affected rails. After removing the spikes on the affected rails, the burro would use a cable-strung electromagnet to lift each rail from the roadbed. If the repair required new railroad ties, the Burro Crane could lift out any damaged or derelict ones. A bucket could scoop up new gravel from the flat car or reconfigure existing ballast at the scene. Once the ties were in place, the gang could bolt the rails back together and then drive spikes into the new ties.

By today's standard for automated track-laying along mainline roadbeds, the Burro Crane and gang system seem archaic. Still if repairs are only occasional and are not extensive in nature the Burro Crane’s throwback design and relatively diminutive size can be more economical than the use of heavier equipment. With weather and monkey-wrench protection for its powertrain, this vintage piece of equipment could go on operating indefinitely in the dry climate of the high desert. In wetter climates, most similar units have disintegrated into piles of rusty scrap metal.

The geographic setting at Seven Mile is epic. The crane's block and tackle dangled only six feet from the ground. The angle of the lattice-boom appeared ready for business. In the background are the Klondike Bluffs of Arches National Park. From another angle, the view beneath the long boom is of the La Sal Range, far past Moab. Other than the power poles and their high-voltage lines that cross near Seven Mile, the Burro Crane was the most prominent human-made object in sight. In fact, it appears on Google Maps (2014 version) much as it did the day of my visit.

With a Union Pacific emblem on the side of its cab and its faded yellow paintjob, the Burro Crane appeared to be authentic Union Pacific rolling stock. Soon I determined that Burro Crane BC-47 more likely started life with the old Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (DRGW), which is a precursor to the contemporary Union Pacific.

The giveaway is the flatcar tender, which appears to be even older than the venerable Burro Crane. The flatcar still bears DRGW markings. Spray-paint on the side of the flatcar indicates that the last date of inspection or repair was 4-‘84, almost thirty years prior. In the Old West, a prospector and his burro were mates for life. Since the arrival of this burro, more than half century ago, the old flatcar and the new burro mated and then stayed coupled for life.

As I began my research into Burro Crane BC-47, I found that it might be the last Model 40 Burro Crane operated by the Union Pacific Railroad. My Google searches yielded only two pictures of Union Pacific Model 40 Burro Cranes and both were of BC-47. In the past decade, BC-47 has apparently stayed close to home. Those two photos of the crane and tender were taken in nearby Green River, Utah and Grand Junction, Colorado. With its age and size, it is unlikely that BC-47 would stray beyond the Western Slope of the Colorado Plateau.

If indeed the Burro at Seven Mile were the last of its breed operated by the Union Pacific Railroad, it would be interesting to see it in action. I propose that rail buffs in Moab and fans of the Union Pacific Railroad request a public demonstration of Burro Crane BC-47. Since it already sits on a siding, that demonstration could include lifting old rails and ties on to transport vehicles for disposal at an appropriate location. If anyone out there can help to arrange such an event, please contact me at my email address below. I shall be happy to attend.

This is Chapter 1 of a two-part article on railroad Burro Cranes. To read Chapter 2, please click HERE.

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 05:15 PM | | Comments (0) | Link 

Canyonlands Field - Moab, Utah "UPS Air, Moab Style" - 2010

 

Canyonlands Field - Moab, Utah

"UPS Air, Moab Style"

On my way from Green River to Moab, Utah, I turned at Crescent Junction and then drove south on U.S. Hwy. 191. For the first ten miles, there was little to see except open sky and sparse desert vegetation. Four miles short of Canyonlands Field, better known as the Moab Airport, I spotted a landmark tower about one quarter mile from the highway.

 

As steel communications towers go, this one is not unique, but it does have character. The only similar towers I have seen were near Oildale, California in the 1950s. With latticework construction reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower, the Moab Tower is tall and sturdy. Between its struts and a catwalk near the top, it almost screams, “I am an old oil derrick”. As it turns out, the tower was once part of the AT&T microwave tower network.

 

Although the attached antennas and parabolic dishes bespeak of wireless communications, the tower’s oil patch looks left me wondering who specified such a robust structure and when. Internet searches yield nothing to indicate who owns the tower or its specific use. Since terrain in that area is relatively flat, it appears to be a transfer point for communications between Moab and Crescent Junction to the north.

 

After pondering the tower for a few moments, I traveled on to Canyonlands Field. There, I met with Mr. Chris Bracken a pilot and mechanic at Redtail Aviation. Chris’s easygoing nature belies the fact that he is adept at both flying and repairing complex aircraft. The day I was there, Chris was working on a tail-replacement for an old Cessna aircraft. With his thoroughness, Chris had noticed that a factory replacement part sent from Cessna, did not match the bent one he was replacing. His call to Cessna in Kansas got them scrambling on a potential recall of other similar faulty parts.

 

As Chris and I discussed the installation of a new webcam for Redtail Aviation, he was keeping a sharp eye out for the expected arrival of a United Parcel Service (UPS) truck. As soon as the brown van arrived, Chris swung into action. Although we did install a new webcam at Redtail Aviation a few days later, Chris’s duties as the Redtail Aviation designated “UPS Air” pilot took precedence.

 

On that October day, the package count was small, fitting easily in the Cessna 182 that Chris then flew to Carbon County Regional Airport, in Price, Utah. If the package count had been higher, a larger Cessna was available to make the daily flight. That day, Chris signed for the packages, jumped into his waiting Cessna and took off for Redtail Aviation’s headquarters in Price. There, in the late afternoon, Redtail flights converge. As soon as crews can transfer incoming packages to a larger plane, it departs for Salt Lake City. From there, a UPS cargo jet takes packages from all over Utah to the UPS hub in Louisville, Kentucky. After sorting and reloading, packages make their way to destination airports all over the country. As early as one business day after departing Moab, Utah, a UPS Air package might arrive for delivery in New York City.

 

 

 

In honor of Redtail Aviation and their role in facilitating commerce throughout Utah, I created the video that accompanies this article. In the video, I took liberty with Chris’s role. Rather than flying away in a Cessna 182, my video has Chris departing with his packages in a Grumman Gulfstream jet. We call that, “UPS Air, Moab style”.

Email James McGillis

 

 

By James McGillis at 04:58 PM | | Comments (1) | Link

Green River to Floy, Utah, via Old Hwy. U.S. 6 & 50 in 2010

 

 

Green River to Floy, Utah, via Old Hwy. U.S. 6 & 50 

In 1965, when I first visited the City of Green River, Utah, completion of nearby Interstate I-70 was still five years away. At that time, the Utah Launch Complex of the White Sands Missile Base lay just south of town. With Cold War missile testing ongoing there, the population of Green River was rocketing towards its all-time high of 2000 in 1970.

 

To watch the Green River Video, click on the arrow button, above.

 

For much of its history, the Green River itself served as the county line between Emery County to the west and Grand County to the east. When the missile launch facility closed in the 1970s, the combined population on both sides of the river soon fell by half and had not recovered by the year 2000. In 2003, the State of Utah redrew the county line, thus placing all of “greater” Green River and its 1000 residents in Emery County. In the early days and even now, the name “Elgin” describes the portion of the city lying east of the river. The 2000 census listed over one hundred residents in Elgin. Today, several websites indicate that Elgin is a ghost town. Perhaps the residents of Elgin can comment here and let us know if they are still around.

 

Continuing my search of the Green River and Crescent Junction area, I found several anomalies in the Google Maps database. According to Google, a westbound drive on I-70 from Crescent Junction to Green River covers a distance of 20.4 miles. If you reverse your course, Google Maps directs you east to Thompson, and then back again to Crescent Junction. That journey east, with a double back to the west covers 31.1 miles. I reported the problem to Google. Perhaps it will be fixed before any readers attempt the trip.

 

To make things more confusing, Google misidentifies a stretch of unmaintained “Old Hwy. US 6 & 50” as “Business I-70 & Business US 191". The misidentification continues from Green River to I-70 (Exit 173), near a long abandoned rail stop named Floy (pop. 0), or Floy Station (pop. 0). Interestingly, MapQuest gets the “Old US 50” designation correct, but misidentifies the nearby railroad line at the old “Denver & Rio Grande Western”. Google Maps does not identify the name of the railroad at all.

 

After driving the old highway eastbound from Green River, I can assure you that it is not a business route. With only a few dirt crossroads and only a single tree standing along that route, it is one of the loneliest and least traveled paved roads in the state. During my transit, encountered not one other vehicle traveling in either direction. At Green River, signs warned that the old highway is not maintained, which is true. Although navigable in a standard passenger car, be prepared to drive slowly over the many rough spots and minor washouts.

 

Looking back on my brief adventure on Old US Highway 6 & 50, I realized what a treasure it is. If you like to get away from it all, yet be only a few miles distance from an interstate highway, this is the route for you. To the north, the Union Pacific Desert Main Line runs largely unseen from the road. Likewise, I-70 to the south is visible only as you approach Floy. Traveling the old highway in either direction takes less than an hour. There, you can recreate a cross-country adventure from the era before the advent of interstate highway travel. Please remember, if you run out of gas or get a flat tire, Floy is abandoned and it could be a long walk back to Green River.

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 10:50 AM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

 

Two New MoabLive.com Webcams - 2010

In October 2010, we completed a 3500 mile RV trip, including major stops in Port Orford, Oregon, and Moab, Utah. With almost 800 photographs to review, we will write here soon about our recent adventures in the Great American West.

While in Oregon, we completed work on a new live webcam at the Port of Port Orford. Here is the press release:

For Immediate Release - Moab Live and Port Orford Property Management & Vacation Rentals proudly announce their newest live webcam. Shooting east, from the commercial fishing dock in Port Orford, Oregon, the live webcam features beach activity and wave action along the rugged Oregon coast. As their general manager says, “If you are looking for a great Vacation Rental, Beach House, Cabin or Lodge in Port Orford, Elk River, Garrison Lake or Sixes, we have it! Port Orford Property Management & Vacation Rentals can serve all of your rental needs!”

 

 
Image refreshes every 3 seconds 

To view our live webcam from Port Orford, Oregon, click the webcam image above, or click HERE.

After our webcam success in Port Orford, we traveled east across Oregon, Idaho and on to Moab, Utah. There, we collaborated with Redtail Aviation to install another new webcam at their Canyonlands Field fixed base operation. Here is the press release:

For Immediate Release - Moab Live and Redtail Aviation are proud to announce their newest webcam, live from Canyonlands Field (the Moab airport) - 18 miles north of town on US Highway 191. The new webcam is great for viewing Great Lakes Airlines flight arrivals and other aircraft activities at the field. As an aid to both commercial and private pilots, the new Redtail Aviation webcam shows a north-facing weather view. Accessible from the air on any smart phone, Redtail pilots are already using the new webcam to check field conditions prior to arrival.

Since their founding in 1978, Redtail Aviation has specialized in scenic flight tours and charter flights throughout Southeastern Utah. For Your Safety - Redtail Aviation is an FAA Approved Carrier. All pilots are FAA certified and specially trained for Canyonlands flights. In respect for safety and visitor enjoyment, all flights maintain a minimum altitude of 2000 feet above sensitive areas and park lands.

 

 
Image refreshes every 7 seconds 

To view our live webcam from Redtail Aviation, Canyonlands field, Moab, Utah click the webcam image above, or click HERE.

We are making plans for another live webcam at the airport in nearby Green River, Utah. Check back soon to hear more about our trip and yet another exciting new webcam project.

By James McGillis at 05:24 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Envisioning A New Moab Mountain Landform - 2009

 

Envisioning A New Moab Mountain Landform

In May 2009, we departed Los Angeles, California, and then traveled Interstate Highways I-15 and I-70 to our destination in Moab, Utah.  After two days and 700 miles (1125 k) of mountain and desert driving, we neared our goal.

 

As the late afternoon sunlight slanted across a desolate stretch of desert, we spotted a forest of billboards and an oasis of trees to the north of I-70.  With its unexpected splash of greenery, the City of Green River, Utah lay hidden amidst that foliage. The former railroad and mining town became famous in the 1930’s with an anti-peddler law that some say was a thinly disguised anti-vagrancy law.  Henceforth, many Western town blatantly the "get out of town before sundown" law henceforth known as The Green River Ordinance.  Well into the 1960s, official roadsigns at the entrance of many Utah towns boasted, "Green River Ordinance Enforced Here".  It was like saying that the town had "no parking", even if one did not have an automobile. Today, Green River is home to nearly one thousand people, almost twenty percent of whom call themselves Hispanic or Latino.  With "prior rights" determining senioity in western water rights, Green River's acequis (water ditches) dated back to the 1830s, when it was a shallow-water crossing along the Old Spanish Trail.  Today, Green River appears to be the most well watered town in the deserts of the West.

 

Twenty-one miles east of Green River, we reached Crescent Junction, which was our turn-off to Moab, via US Highway 191 South.  Although designated by census takers as “a populated place”, we found no population figures for this dusty crossroads.  The place supported little more than a combination gas station and convenience store.  Over the years, we have passed through Crescent Junction many times.  Although the main building has stood throughout, sometimes we find a business operating there and sometimes we do not.  On this visit, the “Stop & Go” appeared to be open for business.  Its sagging banners and many hand-painted signs gave out a halfhearted plea for recognition and recompense.  Its painted plywood cut-out characters evoke an ersatz tourist attraction.

 

As with many other highway routes in the West, a narrow strip of flat terrain determined the location of Crescent Junction.  During the 1830s, Spanish Americans pioneered the Old Spanish Trail through here.  In the 1850’s, Captain John W. Gunnison surveyed a rail line through here and to the west.  In 1883, Gunnison’s dream became a reality when the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway laid tracks through here.  During the twentieth century, US Highways 6 & 191 intersected and shared routes through Crescent Junction, followed in the 1960s by Interstate Highway I-70.  Natural gas pipelines and fiber optic communications cables now share that route, as well.  Despite the crowding of transportation and utilities through the junction, it retains the look of a sparcely populated place.

 

In contemporary American culture, we consider any place in the West with two hundred or more years of European-stock settlement to be old, if not ancient.  With its raw, dry landscape, current day travelers may have difficulty believing that this area was once inhabited by what we can legitimately call "the Ancients".  As proof of Ancient habitation, abundant Indian rockart at the nearby Book Cliffs dates from between 2000 BCE and the 1800s CE.  That span of continuous culture was almost twenty times longer than the continuum of White men in the West.

 

Before commencing the forty-mile drive south to Moab, we paused to reflect on the stark beauty of the surrounding desert.  As the setting sun illuminated the Book Cliffs to the north, we wondered what artifacts of our contemporary culture might endure at Crescent Junction several thousand years hence.  Extending our consciousness to a group of future desert trekkers, we heard them conjecture that we, who would be their “Ancients” were the creators of a then extant sandstone-clad pyramid, jutting skyward from behind the Stop & Go at Crescent Junction. 

 

Recently, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project managers and engineers began relocating 135 acres of uranium tailings from Moab, Utah to Crescent Junction.  If they and the public have a sense of history and a sense of humor, desert travelers of the future may well see that pyramid in the desert. 

 

After decades of delay, five trainloads of nuclear-contaminated soil now move each week across the desert.  The train travels back and forth, from the fragile depository by the Colorado River at Moab to a fully-lined hardpan disposal site at Crescent Junction. 

 

If lack of imagination and traditional landfill techniques prevail, the new uranium pile will look much like the old one, which is so nondescript that it barely shows in photographs taken a mile or two away.  With its flat top and natural red-dirt camoflage, the pile is out of sight and too often out of mind.  If anyone has a mountain that they would like to hide, they should come to Moab and see if they can even locate the uranium pile.  However, if the DOE staff uses its collective imagination, they could construct a Crescent Junction Pyramid to rival the Great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt.  With a raw material stockpile covering one hundred thirty-five acres, buried up to 200 ft (61 m) deep, they should have an easy time.  If they construct a new pyramid at least 455 ft (135 m) high, Moab, Utah, or perhaps Crescent Junction could claim bragging rights over the tallest organic, nuclear-powered pyramid in the world.

 

Why create a pyramid in the desert?  The single word, “tourism” should be enough to get residents of Grand County, Utah interested.  Imagine that place, twenty or thirty years in the future, let alone two thousand years hence.  If the DOE can mitigate radiation danger at the new site, “See the New Seventh Wonder of the World”, could become a long-term motto for the site. 

 

In order to transport materials from the existing uranium pile, the Union Pacific Railroad recently rebuilt the roadbed and upgraded the rails on the Cane Creek Subdivision between Moab and Crescent Junction.  By limiting future pyramid-access to sanctioned rail visits, Moab could create a railway excursion business, similar in scope to the long running one in Durango, Colorado.  Tourists could leave their automobiles in Moab, visit the pyramid at midday and return to Moab in time for dinner.  Although more tourists would visit Moab, highway miles driven would decline.  Since the new uranium pile is a necessity, it behooves planners to make it every bit as attractive to tourists as the natural wonders so abundant in the surrounding Canyonlands area. 

 

Currently, there are few pyramids of any consequence in the U.S.  The only stone-faced pyramid we are aware of is the Ames Brothers Pyramid, near the town of Buford, which is a bit west of Cheyenne, Wyoming.  Standing at the highest point on the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the pyramid is of modest height.  Located less than a mile from current Interstate I-80, the pyramid's location on a grassy knoll allows it to stand out against the Wyoming sky.  Forgotten by all except locals, curious passers-bye and those who study railroad history, we note that the brothers’ teamwork in the public and private sectors made the words “Union Pacific Railroad” part of American history.  Imagine the goodwill that the current incarnation of the Union Pacific Railroad would garner if it were to cooperate once again in the building of an All American Pyramid.

 

The City of Moab, Utah’s Grand County, the Union Pacific, the State of Utah and the United States DOE together have the opportunity to transform a nuclear pariah into a beautiful and sacred place.  By studying and using as models, other remote, spiritual sites, DOE planners could borrow the best aspects of each and create a monument to peace and nuclear safety that would endure beyond our time. 

 

Hotel and casino planners created the pyramidal Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Why should we not create a real pyramid in Southeastern Utah?  By combining the windswept, solitary feeling of the Ames Brothers Pyramid with the remote magnificence of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, contemporary planners could create a monument of lasting value.  When completed, the Moab/Crescent Junction Pyramid should stand-alone, with nothing more than a railroad siding, an interpretive center and a footpath near its base. 

 

Imagine a post-nuclear age when schoolchildren from all over the world might visit the pyramid.  Docents familiar with the history of “Moab Mountain” could tell the story. 

 

The story would begin with man’s lust for power, in the form of nuclear weapons.  After World War II, nuclear frenzy was so strong that men and machines moved mountains of uranium ore to Moab Utah.  There, they extracted the Earth’s most dangerous and unstable elements.  During the course of its operation, the not-ironically named Atlas Uranium Mill utilized over 420,000 tons of sulfuric acid and unknown amounts of caustic soda to leach radioactive isotopes out of the raw ore.  When the mill shut down in the 1980s, all of the chemicals, buildings and equipment utilized during its thirty-year operating life were buried at the site.  Although extraction wells later dotted the site, a natural stream running beneath the pile continued to conduct unknown quantities of radioactive material, chemicals and heavy metals into the adjacent Colorado River. 

 

Over the following twenty-five years, group consciousness slowly shifted from fear of the “Other” to fear of our own powers of self-destruction.  As consciousness continued to evolve, fear of immanent nuclear disasters became stronger than the ephemeral security possession of the nuclear weapons offered us in the first place.  Beginning in the late 1980s, a coalition of government agencies, private citizens, environmental groups and the press identified and publicized the scope of the nuclear dangers at Moab.

 

In 2005, we learned more about ancient, paleofloods on the Upper Colorado River near Moab, Utah.  A DOE study determined that “the geometry and position of ancient Colorado River gravels buried under the surface of Moab Valley show(ed) that the river has shifted back and forth across the mill and tailings site in the recent geologic past”.

 

Our future docents' parable would include both historical and ancient information.  If a flood the size of at least one that hit the Moab Valley since 2000 BCE were to occur in the near future, much if not all of the uranium pile could wash downstream towards Lake Powell.  As we know, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles all rely on Colorado River water for a significant percentage of their water supplies.  If a megaflood were to hit Moab prior to the removal and relocation of the uranium pile, release of its carcinogens and mutagens could render much of Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California uninhabitable.

 

As the docents said to their future visitors, the megaflood held off until early spring 2015.  By then, DOE engineers had protected the pile with a riprap rock casing, similar in construction to the Castaic Dam in Southern California.  At the time of its construction, Castaic Dam's conservative design was considered to be a "overkill" solution to contain Castaic Reservoir.  After the 1928 collapse of the nearby St. Francis Dam, engineers and the public alike demanded that the Castaic Dam be built to the highest seismic standards.  Tested soon after completion by the nearby 1971 Sylmar Earthquake, Castaic Dam stood undamaged.  Not ironically, the cross-section of Castaic Dam is similar to the profile of the Great Pyramid at Gisa, Egypt.  Both are expected to last for a long time into the future. 

 

In 2018, the Colorado River tested the uranium pile’s temporary encasement, but it held fast against the flood.  By 2035, when the original pile was gone, workers who had started their careers moving the uranium pile used their final working years to remove the old Moab containment dam.  As their final contribution, they reused all of its boulders as cladding for the new Crescent Junction Pyramid.  If that stone encasement could withstand the force of a megaflood along the Colorado River, they felt confident that its reuse at pyramid could shelter that new mountain for millennia to come.

 

As the docents of the future ended their tale of fear and hope, students reflected on how we humans had used and abused Mother Earth.  Old Moab Mountain was a monument to ignorance, greed and fear.  New "Moab Mountain" stood as proof that the wisdom of the Ancients revealed itself to mankind in the early twenty-first century and that we listened.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 05:23 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Rediscovering the Old Spanish Trail - Now it's a Freeway - 2009

 

Rediscovering the Old Spanish Trail - Now it's a Freeway

Traveling north on Interstate I-15, from Mesquite, Nevada, one must pass through the stark, but beautiful Virgin River Gorge.  Although a highway traveler would find it hard to believe, the river at the bottom of that steep, narrow canyon is navigable some years by kayak during April and May.  Because of the remoteness and difficulty of that transit, whitewater websites include stern warnings to enthusiasts contemplating such an attempt.  As the early Mormon pioneers discovered downstream at Mesquite Flat, the large watershed that feeds the Virgin River can also create huge flash floods.

 

Although driving through the gorge feels quite seamless and sinuous, when it opened in 1973, this section of I-15 was among the most technically difficult to engineer and most expensive ever built.  Because many motorists expect to navigate our interstate highways at well above the speed limit, I-15 through the Virgin River Gorge hosts many spectacular speed-related crashes.  As we traveled up-canyon in April 2009, I-15 crossed the river gorge on seven separate bridges before we lost count.  To us, it shall always be a “Seven Bridges Road”.

 

Forty miles north of Mesquite, beyond the head of the gorge, lays the City of St. George, Utah.  St. George’s mesas and buttes contrast with the dunes and alluvial fans surrounding Mesquite.

 

In 1861, St. George, Utah began as a Mormon outpost.  Elders of the Mormon Church feared that the Civil War might curtail their cotton trade with the Southern States.  Because of that perceived issue, the Mormon Cotton Mission traveled south past the earlier Iron Mission at Cedar City, Utah which had suffered greatly from lack of permanent shelter during their first winter there.  Known for their pluck, the pioneer founders of St. George named the area "Utah's Dixie”, a name still popular today.  Although those early settlers managed to grow some cotton, it never became a commercially viable crop.

 

St. George is the county seat of Washington County, Utah, and is the principal city of Southeastern Utah.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, St. George had a population of 67,000 in 2006, up from 49,000 in 2000.  From 1990 to 2000, St. George beat Las Vegas, Nevada as the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the U.S.  This trend continued until the mortgage crisis and financial meltdown of 2008 put at least a temporary end to growth.

 

Most observers of Mesquite, Nevada would say that the city has overbuilt its housing supply in recent years.  Unlike the near shutdown of development at Mesquite, St. George, UT continues adding to its excess housing stock.  At both the south and the north ends of town, the dominant feature is “for rent”, “for sale”, “for lease” or “auction soon” signs.  If there were enough jobs to go with this new housing, all would be well.  According to a resident that we met at the RV Park in Mesquite, St. George has experienced recession and job losses similar to the rest of the country.

 

As we drove from one end of the city to the other, we were amazed to see that building of new planned community infrastructure continues.  It seemed that the outskirts did not know that the core of the city was struggling.  In town, empty condominiums lined the freeway.  At one off ramp, several huge apartment buildings stood surrounded by weeds, silent, empty and unfinished. 

 

When I stopped to take pictures north of town, we parked at one end of a large highway overpass.  Standing at the west end of that bridge was a new community.  To the east, construction workers were grading parkways into gentle arcs across barren land.  If one takes a long economic view, this new infrastructure could make sense.  When growth returns, St George will be ready.  In the near term, other than keeping construction workers employed, these roads-to-nowhere were an economic mystery.

 

After allowing our disbelief to fade, we continued north to the junction of I-15 and I-70.  At their western ends, both I-70 and I-40, farther south, end at I-15.  In contrast, I-90, I-80 and I-10 each stretch from “coast to coast”.  Facing widely spaced services and desert terrain, continued travel on the interstate highway system forces both I-70 and I-40 travelers south along what once was the Old Spanish Trail, towards Los Angeles, California. 

 

Prehistoric animals such as the Mastodon utilized that route at various times during the Pleistocene.  Members of the early Clovis Culture found the route and used it for transit in both directions.  Scholars tell us that some languages found in the contemporary Indian cultures of the Four Corners region have their roots in the Ancient Maya Culture, far to the south.  In the past two hundred years, American trappers and mountain men found the trail and used it.  In the 1830s, the Old Spanish Trail became a formal, if multi-route commercial road.  Later, the railroad and highways adopted a similar route.

 

During the past two hundred years, a look at the seemingly endless desert was enough to turn prudent travelers south toward Los Angeles.  If early travelers tempted their fate in a trek west, a Great Basin of desert valleys, alternating with craggy mountain ranges greeted them along the way.  Not until they could wend their way up and over the high mountain passes of California's Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, could travelers expect help from settlers in the foothills on the west side.  Two famous parties tried to take separate shortcuts west to California.  Each lost members of their party, creating a warning for those who followed. 

 

The Donner Party Route

 

Not listening to the Wisdom of the Ancients and traveling south, along the Old Spanish Trail, they split the geographical difference between the northern and southern routes.  Not finding their hoped-for low pass across the Sierra Nevada, they “holed up” for the winter in the high desert.  The following spring, when a rescue party arrived from Los Angeles, they finally departed their cold, dry winter home.  Although stories about its naming abound, one legend has it, a woman from the party of Lost 49ers turned to look back at their place of peril and said, “Goodbye, Death Valley”.  Regardless of who first named it, Death Valley is what we still call it today.  Ironically, the survivors traveled overland to Los Angeles; the same city that they had earlier avoided as a waste of their precious time.

 

Today, you can travel by land across that section of the Great Basin, but it will be on secondary highways such as US Highways 6 or 50.  In the 1950’s, when engineers began planning the interstate highway system, they heeded both history and the spiritual message of the Ancients.  By the 1970’s, when the interstate highway system was completed, it left untouched a wide swath that stretched from Salt Lake City, Utah to Fresno, California.  For reasons that would be apparent to the historical 49ers or Donners, US-50 bills itself as “The Lonliest Highway in America”. 

 

After pondering that remnant of what was once called the Great American Desert, we headed east on I-70.  For the next hundred and fifty miles, we enjoyed varied terrain, starting with mountain passes and ending with the barren flats past Green River, Utah.  It is a beautiful drive, with unique land forms at many points along the way.  If you travel that route, plan to stop often and take pictures.  With so many unique geological features, some appear for only a few minutes at highway speeds.  If you travel straight through, you will miss unique features of the land too numerous to recall. 

 

 Our destination that day was Crescent Junction, Utah. 

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 07:00 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link