The Majestic La Sal Range Overshadows the Desolation of "Poverty Flat" - 2012

 

The Majestic La Sal Range Overshadows the Desolation of "Poverty Flat"

On April 15, 2012, I spent my day to revisiting special locations in and around the Spanish Valley, near Moab, Utah. By midday, I had completed an ecological survey of Behind the Rocks, ten miles south of Moab. After lunch, I depart the Moab Rim Campark, heading south on U.S. Highway 191. Although I did not know exactly where I might find it, I was looking for an unobstructed view of the La Sal Range.

Near the eastern end of the Spanish Valley, I turned left on to a rough gravel road that leads to Pack Creek. With jagged gravel the size of golf balls, the road was not favorable to travel with my fully inflated road tires. Limping along at a slow pace, I finally found an unobstructed view of the La Sal Range. There, in mid afternoon, the sun shone down on the mountains and reflected off fresh snow that fell the previous night.

After pausing to photograph the mountains, I turned my attention to the power lines that hung overhead. From earlier discussions with Moab residents, I knew that these high voltage lines originated at a coal fired power plant near Price, Utah to the north. From where I stood, I could see what looked like a series of energy beings carrying the electrical cables up the valley from Moab. After passing overhead, the lines continued their climb up the Spanish Valley and then over the mountains of San Juan County. Where they ended, I had no idea.

Here I shall explain the difference between the Moab Valley and the Spanish Valley. Other than there being a name change near the San Juan County line, there is no geographical difference between the two valleys. Anywhere near Moab, residents call the drainage the Moab Valley. To the east, in its upper reaches, most people call it the Spanish Valley. The most beleaguered area of the valley, around Ken’s Lake also carries the historical name, “Poverty Flat”.

Having experienced the most prolonged overgrazing of any area near Moab, Poverty Flat is apt moniker for that area. Today, it supports only sparse seasonal grasses and a particularly thorny species of cactus. With a large swath of the valley teeming with cactus spikes, no one would dare to graze cattle there now.

Even for a hiker the Poverty Flat landscape is like an ankle-high low forest of knife blades. Consequently, the area just west of the Ken’s Lake Dam is now a no man’s land, bereft of greenery and populated only by the hardiest desert dwelling species. In the 1890’s, grass in the Moab and Spanish Valleys grew so high that it hid from view horseback riders who approached town on the Old Spanish Trail. Current visitors to the Spanish Valley realize that the area near Ken's Lake is an inhospitable place, but most have no idea that just over one hundred years ago, this was a Garden of Eden, not the current rock and cactus garden.

Since it once held the Old Spanish Trail, I believe that early visitors, ranchers and miners referred to the entire valley as the Spanish Valley. Later, as Moab became a more prominent feature, residents and outsiders alike began calling the lower, western reaches the Moab Valley. Today,  the Google Map of the Spanish Valley as the portion of the greater valley inside the border of San, Juan County. Given the importance of Moab and the remoteness of the eastern part of the valley, Google’s dual designation of the Moab Valley and the Spanish Valley seems like a good one to me.

After viewing the extreme environmental destruction in the Spanish Valley, I headed for the human made creation called Ken’s Lake. You may read about that visit in my next article.

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By James McGillis at 05:08 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

A Springtime Visit Behind the Rocks Offers Some Surprises - 2012

 

A Springtime Visit Behind the Rocks Offers Some Surprises

On April 15, 2012, I drove from Moab, Utah to Behind the Rocks. There, for one long weekend each year, that area is the hub of activity for the 24-Hours of Moab off-road bicycle race. It had been six months since my October 2011 visit to the event. Half way between the two races was a good time to assess the environmental impact of annual off-road bike racing Behind the Rocks.

Behind the Rocks is a sandy-soiled mesa ten miles south and two miles off-road from Moab, Utah. In spring, summer and fall, since the 1890’s, cattle had grazed Behind the Rocks. Before its first ecological breakdown, the fragile mesa endured decades of overgrazing. Only its 5500-foot elevation has kept the area from cactus infestation, as happened in the upper section of the nearby Spanish Valley. Under the trampling hooves of range cattle, indigenous cryptobiotic soil deteriorated and blew away. Whatever natural vegetation may have existed prior to a century of grazing, the mesa now supports a combination of weedy and grassy areas.

Kane Creek provides the main runoff channel for the entire mesa. Although the spring flow can be intermittent or nonexistent, summer thunderstorms sweep huge amounts of soil down Kane Creek. Increased movement of soil amplifies streambed erosion. Where small watercourses once meandered, sandy arroyos with straight-sided banks now stand. Some areas have lost all their soil, leaving expanses of bare rock.

For the past seventeen years, hundreds of off-road bicycle racers and fans have camped, played and ridden Behind the Rocks each October. Each year, self-appointed guardians of the local environment lament supposed damage done by the 24-Hours of Moab Race. Some hike cross-country in order to photograph a few bicycle tracks that stray from the designated course. The real issue is not only about damage by errant bike racers. It is also about the monitors tramping across a fragile landscape in order to “get their shot”.

Driving across the deserted landscape that day, I could not locate the bicycle race venue. Without its tents and bicycles to identify it, I drove on by. Soon, I came across an open area eroded by off-road vehicles. Along the fringes of the area, I could see how vegetation had once held the soil. Within the eroded area, there were only traces of native vegetation. Although I saw no off-road vehicles Behind the Rocks that day, evidence of vehicular traffic was everywhere. One nearby sand dune had hundreds of tracks leading to its summit.

Getting out of my truck, I surveyed the 24-Hours of Moab Race venue and the La Sal Range beyond. Admittedly, there was little vegetation where the main tent had stood. Only after leaving my vehicle did I realize the damage that I was causing. Looking down, I saw that the wide tires on my truck had crushed whatever soil-crust had formed since October 2011. Otherwise, the race venue looked quite similar to much of the surrounding landscape.

During my earlier discussion with 24-HOM race promoter Laird Knight, he had told me about their environmental amelioration techniques. Each year, after all trash, facilities and vehicles depart; Knut & Sons roll their enormous water trucks around the empty venue. A generous sprinkling of water turns fields of dust into fields of mud. As the sun dries the mud, it forms a crust almost as strong as natural cryptobiotic soil. Unless churned by wheels, hooves or feet in the off-season, Laird said, “Racers and visitors to the next 24-Hours of Moab Race can expect to see the area look much as it has for the past eighteen years”.

Rather than seeking to end the one family event that helps to regenerate the environment Behind the Rocks each year, environmentalists should concentrate on overuse by off-road vehicles. The Bureau of Land Management should place an immediate ban on driving in watercourses and sensitive dune areas. If not, the remaining soil on the mesa will continue its slow-motion disintegration down Kane Springs Canyon and into the overburdened Colorado River.

Behind the Rocks combines both fragility and stability in one location. With respectful usage, the mesa will regenerate or at least maintain itself. If scoured down to bedrock, Behind the Rocks will lose its appeal as a place for human recreation. With care and cooperation by all interested parties, Behind the Rocks will remain a remarkable place to bike, hike or even to trail-ride in a Jeep.

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Kokopelli is Energized by the Moab Xstream Race - 2012

 

While Visiting the Moab Pile, Kokopelli is Energized by the Moab Xstream Race

On April 14, 2012, I headed toward Moab, Utah on U.S. Highway 191 South. By the time I picked up Kokopelli at Canyonlands Field, it was mid afternoon. As we approached the Moab Pile, I turned right on to the Potash Road and then a quick left into a dirt parking area. From there, we could look down on the Moab UMTRA toxic cleanup site.

Since my last visit to the UMTRA site, federal stimulus funding had run out. Now the Moab Rail removal process was running only part time. In addition, flooding in 2011 had wiped out the bicycle path along the Colorado River. As I viewed the toxic and radioactive waste site, there was no human activity at all. Seeing that lack of activity was disheartening, but expected under current economic conditions.

Turning my attention to the Potash Road, I spotted a variety of bicyclists heading downhill towards Highway 191. With numbers affixed to their chests, they appeared to be near the end of an extreme athletic adventure. Two men with the number 227 across their chests were waiting there for a team member who had faltered on the racecourse. Talking with them, I learned that all of the bicyclists were part of the Moab 2012 Adventure Xstream Race.

After watching a lone rider’s slow descent of the Potash Road, I noticed a couple who had stopped nearby. From the 227 team, I had learned that an individual, a team or a couple could enter this race. All in one day, the race includes paddling a kayak down the Colorado River, a cross-country run, a rope-assisted climb up a rock face and then a repel down another steep slope. After all that, participants ride their bicycles many miles back to the finishing line near Moab.

Stopping for only a brief rest, the couple looked in good shape to complete the race. As I spoke with them, Kokopelli got restless while sitting in the truck. Soon he started glowing more different colors than the old Atlas Uranium Mill, below. Not wanting to risk his blowing a flux capacitor, I invited Kokopelli out to meet the race participants. With his unique personality, Kokopelli and the female racer bonded immediately.

In order to document the scene, I asked the man to hold my old Moab sign while the woman gave Kokopelli a squeeze. Just as I snapped the picture, a flood of new energy light came down from the sky above the Moab Rim. Such plasma flows are common in and around Moab, but this was the first time I had seen new energy light anywhere near the Moab Pile. Unless you count the phosphorescent purple dust devil I had seen the year before, I believe this was the first such documented event.

After getting his picture taken with the race participants, Kokopelli calmed down and dropped to a lower energy state. It had been a light snow season in and around Moab the previous winter. Even so, an early spring storm had just dropped a fresh white frosting on the nearby La Sal Range. As plush Kokopelli and I headed toward our campsite at the Moab Rim Campark, he snapped the picture of the La Sal Mountains that you see here.

The following day, Kokopelli and I planned to visit Behind the Rocks, looking for evidence of environmental degradation at that site. I will save that story for my next article.

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Imagine There's No Heaven, but There is Life on Mars - 2012

 

Imagine There's No Heaven, but There is Life on Mars

In December 2007, I wrote about a transit of Mars that brought the red planet close to Earth. Also in that article, I discussed the “Face on Mars” (FOM), first photographed by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter in 1976.

Since its discovery on low-resolution images from the Viking 1 orbiter, scientists have argued that the FOM is a natural phenomenon. The FOM, they said, was an eroded mesa viewed in oblique sunlight. In 2001 and again in 2003 new orbiters focused high-resolution cameras on that supposed eroded mesa. Again, scientists concluded that the FOM was a figment of hopeful human imagination. Imagine that.

On August 6, 2012, I watched the Olympic women’s gymnastics apparatus finals on NBC. At 10:30 PM PDT, I switched over to watch NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover stick its landing on the surface of Mars. Flipping channels back to gymnastics, I watched as an American woman missed her landing. Although I cannot say which act was more difficult, the Mars landing is more portentous, as it may lead to discovery of life on Mars.

On one hand, NASA and other scientists had steadfastly denied any life-connection to the FOM. On the other hand, the same scientists were optimistic that instruments on the Curiosity rover would discover precursors to life on Mars. It reminded me of the 2012 supposed discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN in Switzerland. At that announcement, three hundred mostly agnostic or atheist scientists wept over the supposed discovery of “the God particle”. Suffice to say that scientists are an unreliable source of information on where life came from or even what it is.

Hoping to see a review of the best current and historical English pop music, I tuned in to the London Olympics Closing Ceremony. Although the presentation was a bit erratic, it was full of energy and everyone was having fun. Only later did I discover that a preview of some idiotic NBC sitcom had preempted a live performance by the Who and others. I wonder which brilliant NBC executive made that decision.

For me, the highlight of the London Olympics Closing Ceremony was a live performance by John Lennon. Dead since December 8, 1980, I was shocked to see him singing again, live and in person. As his song played, actors on the Olympic stage began pushing large white blocks all about. Shaped like puzzle pieces, I could not imagine what the blocks might symbolize.

Then, an aerial shot revealed what I had suspected all along. The actors in Olympic Stadium had replicated the famous Face on Mars. That face, of course, was of John Lennon. Presaging his death by almost four years, John Lennon had concocted to place his face on Mars. As John Lennon so aptly sang, “Imagine there’s no heaven, it's easy if you try, no people below us, above us only sky”. Now, almost twenty-two years after his death we see that he has been up there all along. And remember, all you need is love.

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By James McGillis at 11:00 AM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link

 

A Published Biography for Twentieth Century Master, Costantino Proietto (1910-1979)

In July 2012, I received an email from Ms. Erin-Marie Wallace, M.A., Director of the Fine Arts Department, America’s Auction Network. While researching an original Costantino Proietto oil painting that was coming up for a televised auction in August 2012, Erin had come across my articles on the artist. At the time, she was pleased to find my original research, but could find little else about C.Proietto on the internet.
 
As a member of the subscription website AskArt.com, Erin Wallace is able to submit biographical information on any “listed artist”. Until now, most art-related websites list the artist as “Constantino Proietto”. I offered to write a short biography on “Costantino Proietto”, which is the proper spelling of the artist’s name. In order to confirm my facts, I spoke with Nunzio LoCastro, a cousin of the artist. From 1951 until the artist’s death in 1979, Nunzio LoCastro knew “Tino” well.
 
If you go to AskArt.com today, you will find the following biography of Costantino Proietto, as submitted by Erin-Marie Wallace M.A. and written by James McGillis, “an independent researcher for Costantino Proietto”.
 
Costantino Proietto (1910 - 1979) – Twentieth Century Italian Impressionist Painter. Born in Catania, Sicily and apprenticed to Prof. Fernand Cappuccio of the Academy of Art, Florence, Italy from 1924 until 1942. During Cappuccio’s restoration of the Basilica of Saint Mary, in Randazzo, Sicily, apprentice Proietto received on-the-job training from the master. In the central vault of the ancient basilica, Proietto’s palette knives restored frescoes and other artwork dating back to the thirteenth century.
 
During World War II, Proietto took the unusual step of emigrating from Italy to Switzerland, to France and finally to Stuttgart, Germany. While in Paris, the artist painted fabric patterns for a commercial fabric house. In 1942, the artist began his independent career in Stuttgart, Germany, where he settled for life. Among local residents and military patrons in Stuttgart, Proietto found a ready market for his self-described “spaddle work”.
 
Proietto’s photo album included prints of romantic locations throughout prewar Italy and Switzerland. When the War curtailed travel, the artist referred to his photo album for new subjects to paint. Other than one early watercolor, perhaps of his common law wife, Gisela, there are no brushstrokes in any known C. Proietto painting. Having earlier mastered the palette knife, the artist’s impasto techniques brought depth and drama to his many landscapes.
 
By the 1950’s the word “Kunstmaler”, which is German for “production painter”, appeared on the artist’s business card. Throughout his career, Proietto painted daily at his atelier, which was only a short walk from his apartment. While painting, Proietto wore slacks and a starched white shirt.
 
Typically, the artist might complete a small painting in a single day. A larger work might take a second day to finish. Such was the speed at which Proietto often worked. Known for his landscapes, the artist featured timeless architecture in every composition. By scraping away or omitting paint on the face of a canvas, Proietto added backlighting to many of his scenes. Although an accomplished portrait artist, Proietto landscapes rarely include more than a tiny human form.
 
From the early 1940’s, until well into 1970’s, the artist continued to paint six or seven days each week. In the early years, he took off for only enough time to market his works. After the War, he broke from his work twice each year. Loading his automobile with unframed works, he would then tour Germany, selling paintings as he traveled. By the early 1960’s, various Allied military bases in West Germany conducted art exhibitions. At those exhibitions, many U.S. and Canadian service members bought Proietto paintings to take back home.
 
Never painting directly from a tube of paint, the artist personally mixed every color that touched his canvases. At times, the chain-smoking artist would flick cigarette ashes into his mix of paint. In the tradition of his cathedral restoration, ashes pre-aged and accentuated the darker colors in his early paintings. In the 1950’s, with the advent of brighter, more durable paint formulas, the artist’s paintings brightened up, as well.
 
In 1957, Proietto visited the U.S., spending time with American cousins on either coast. By then, he had gallery representation and exhibitions in “New York, Los Angeles and Hollywood”.
 
In his later years, Costantino Proietto purchased vacation property at Sanremo, on the Italian Coast. With the strap of his 35-mm Leica camera always around his neck, “Tino” Proietto continued to search for new scenes to paint. Some later C.Proietto paintings depict the Italian Coast at Sanremo. Others, both early and late, depict the Capuchin Convent along the Amalfi Coast.
 
While in his early forties, the artist once told his American cousin, Nunzio LoCastro, “If I died tomorrow, I would regret nothing in my life. I have lived, loved and enjoyed every minute of every day”. True to his word, Costantino Proietto enjoyed each day of his life to the fullest. The artist painted until a year or two prior his death. At age sixty-nine, Costantino Proietto succumbed to an illness caused by toxic lead from his early paints.
 
Proietto’s career spanned at least thirty-five years. With a conservative estimate of one hundred-fifty new paintings each year, that would bring his career total to over five thousand signed originals. With that amazing productivity, the epitaph of Costantino Proietto might read, “Never a bad day; always a great new painting”.
 
On August 6, 2012, I was simultaneously online and on the telephone with America’s Auction Network. Shortly after midnight, EDT, the Costantino Proietto original oil painting came up for auction. After five minutes of furious bidding against another telephone bidder, I placed the successful bid. Until I receive the alpine landscape painting, I have only the photo provided by America’s Auction Network to publish here.
 
With two similar paintings having surfaced over the past year, we know that my new painting includes rural buildings and the Dolomite Mountains in Northeastern Italy. Of the similar C.Proietto paintings, the Karns family owns one and Nunzio LoCastro owns the other. Each painting features different buildings in the foreground, but the rural pathway and the Dolomite Mountains are their unifying elements. When I receive my new C.Proietto alpine painting, I will publish its image and other details here.

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By James McGillis at 04:28 PM | Fine Art | Comments (1) | Link

Crescent Junction Wireless Relocates Fourteen Miles Closer to Moab - 2012

 

Crescent Junction Wireless Relocates Fourteen Miles Closer to Moab

Several times each year, I drive the thirty-one miles south on U.S. Highway 191 from Crescent Junction to Moab, Utah. Other than the industrial-sized natural gas drilling rig hiding off to the left, the first half of the drive features an unremarkable desert environment. About four miles north of Canyonlands Field there is finally something interesting to look at. To the southwest, atop a bluff is a lattice-steel communications tower. With its heavy structure, the tower looks more like an old-energy oilrig than a communications tower. By its shape and size, the tower appears designed to support heavy loads and to withstand high winds.

During my April 2012 transit to Moab, I decided to investigate what purpose this unusual tower might serve. Since the tower access road intersects with Highway 191 on a straight stretch of four-lane road, I planned early for my exit. Speeding and tailgating are common along this stretch of highway, so I slowed and waited patiently for traffic to clear. As I approached the intersection, I braked hard. In a cloud of desert dust, my truck and travel trailer soon came to rest in a run-off area just beyond the intersection.

Although I had hoped to take the access road up to the top of the bluff, not far from the highway I encountered a locked gate. Not wanting to trespass into a secure location, I took the time to read the only available informational sign. From that mandated steel sign, I soon had enough information to research what I call the Moab Tower.

Owned by American Tower (NYSE: AMT), the site name for the structure is “Crescent Junction”. The real Crescent Junction is almost fourteen miles north of the site. With over 47,000 owned or managed tower sites around the world, the Crescent Junction tower is one AMT’s wireless network colocation towers. With its one hundred eighty-five foot height, I could imagine the tower having a clear line of sight to another AMT tower at Green River, Utah. Looking southeast toward Moab, I could not determine if another energy tower above Moab might facilitate communications there. As it turns out, the tower was once part of the AT&T microwave tower network.

After my ten-minute visit to the “Moab Tower”, I decided to get back on the road. As I returned to my rig, I noticed that the stop sign at the highway intersection had torn loose from its mounts. There it hung head down, with a view of the Klondike Bluffs in the background. After waiting for traffic to clear, another cloud of dust followed me as I swung back on the highway to Moab.

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Brendel, Utah - Still Moving Around on the Map - 2012

 

Brendel, Utah - Still Moving Around on the Map

In April 2012, I visited Crescent Junction (pop. 0), and Brendel, Utah (pop. 0). Although the derivation of the name Crescent Junction requires some research, today it designates the intersection of Interstate I-70 (Dinosaur Diamond Highway) and U.S. Highway 191. Although there is no obvious crescent at Crescent Junction, it is the main I-70 exit to Moab, Utah, which lies thirty-one miles to the south.

Since my previous visit in 2010, not much has changed in Crescent Junction. The big transformation in “town” since then is a fresh paint job on Papa Joe’s Stop & Go gas station and convenience store. I have never met Papa Joe, but his name appears on the only business at Crescent Junction. Unless someone is living in the back of the gas station, the permanent population of Crescent Junction remains zero. In my 2010 photo of the place, regular gas was a nostalgic $2.95 per gallon. According to another source, in 1946, a service station opened at that site. Based on the architecture of the Stop & Go, it appears that little has changed there except for signage and the price of fuel.

By convention, most people assume that Crescent Junction and Brendel are one-in-the-same. Many sources, including some official government documents use Crescent Junction and Brendel interchangeably. In December 2010, I first wrote about this case of conflated identity.

Running east and west, and parallel to I-70 at that location is the current Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) Central Corridor between Grand Junction, Colorado and Ogden, Utah. Once owned by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway (D&RGWR), many current maps still identify that now defunct railroad as owning the tracks. Without its long association with the railroad, the nearby place called Brendel would have disappeared into history.

In 2010, I challenged the editors at Wikipedia to do their due diligence and identify Brendel and Crescent Junction as two different places. The Wikipedia 2012 entry for Crescent Junction uses the phrase “or Brendel” to identify the place. In Wikipedia, there is no separate entry for Brendel, itself. Wikipedia now indicates that Brendel appears on most railroad maps and that Crescent Junction appears on most highway maps. However, a Wikipedia reader might assume that both places are indeed the same.

Geographically, Brendel can be difficult to pin down. Wikipedia says that “Brendel is the name of the rail siding and junction at the same location” as Crescent Junction. Different mapping authorities place Brendel in slightly different places, none of which physically overlaps with Crescent Junction. Bing.com places Brendel where the UPRR Potash Branch line crosses the Old Cisco Highway (Frontage Road). Google Maps places "Brendel, Thompson, Grand, UT" on what they call “Railroad Road”, about two hundred feet north of the UPRR Central Corridor. In my DeLorme Utah Atlas, that same road is designated Floy Canyon Road. MapQuest.com erroneously calls the road "Foy Canyon" and Google Maps designates only the first hundred yards of Floy Canyon Road as “Railroad Road”, which seems dubious, at best.

In the early days, the railroads gave names only to landmarks or facilities that had something to do with railroad operations. In the D&RGWR route maps dating from 1899 to 1904, only “Little Grand” and “Solitude” stood between Thompson Springs and Green River. A 1930 route map deleted Little Grand and Solitude, replacing them with “Crescent” and “Floy”. From other sources, we know that the former construction camp of Little Grand later became Floy (Floy Station). Solitude, as it has in so many places, disappeared completely from later maps.

Prior to 1930, U.S. Highway 50 followed a more southerly, crescent shaped route between Green River and Thompson Springs. Around 1930, realignment of U.S. 50 relocated the Moab turn-off farther north, at the current Crescent Junction. With the disappearance of Valley City, the longer route through there was no longer necessary. Although that crescent shaped route disappeared, the new intersection received the name, Crescent Junction. According to a 1990 book of Utah place names, "the name comes from the crescent-shaped configuration of the Book Cliffs near the junction".

Also in 1930, D&RGWR mapmakers put “Crescent” on an updated railroad route map. The main function of railroad route maps was to help passengers identify whistle stops and stations. With the advent of Crescent Junction, it was logical for the railroad to use “Crescent” for its whistle stop near there. The 1930 D&RGWR route map is the latest one published on the internet. After that, I do not know what happened to the railroad’s “Crescent” designation. The town of Crescent, Utah (near Salt Lake City), had appeared in a 1908 national directory of railroad stations. To avoid confusion between identical place names, it is likely that the D&RGWR later dropped the “Crescent” in Grand County, Utah. Perhaps it was then that the railroad designated the place as Brendel.

A 1940 U.S. Department of the Interior book lists “Brendel (Crescent), D. & R. G. W. R. R.” at an elevation of 4908 feet. A 1964 Interstate Commerce Commission Report indicates that the Texas-Zinc Minerals Corporation planned to ship copper ore concentrates in bulk from Mexican Hat to “Brendel, Utah, the railhead at or near Crescent Junction, Utah”. Apparently, Texas-Zinc prevailed, since a railroad spur still stands near the consensus location for Brendel, Utah.

From the scant documentary evidence above, we see that Crescent Junction was not an official place name until about 1930. By 1940, we see Brendel having its own place name, but with reference made to “Crescent”. By 1964, we see the clear distinction between Brendel, as the railhead and Crescent Junction as the highway intersection. With its “at or near” designation for Brendel, even the Interstate Commerce Commission equivocated.

Who was Brendel? In all of my research about this, I found no historical reference to any such person in twentieth century Utah. The person or circumstances that inspired “Brendel” as the place name for this lonely railroad spur remain unknown. Unless someone can bring the mysterious “Brendel” into the light, that place shall remain an historical footnote to Crescent Junction. If any reader knows who Brendel was, please comment below or send an email. I would be happy to set the record straight, giving Brendel a firmer place in Utah history.

On November 2, 2012, a local resident of Crescent Junction helped me set the record straight.

Hi Jim:
If you get to Crescent in April, my story is that Brendel is NOT north and east of Crescent Junction, but north and a bit WEST.  If you walk the railroad track and look at the tiny silver buildings from the track side you will find one named Brendel where the rail crosses a large wash.  I will verify this next chance I get. Crescent is in our blood.
Later, Keven Lange. 

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