Month: September 2022

BEFORE INSTAGRAM KILLED THE POSTCARD #1: Classics of Moab & Vicinity—Jim Stiles (ZX#28)

by stiles • September 25, 2022 • 24 Comments

When was the last time someone sent you a post card? A ‘picture post card?’ I honestly can’t recall seeing one of those once iconic symbols of American travelers in years. Maybe even decades.

According to some company called Global Edge, we Americans at one time bought and mailed more than 20 million postcards each year. But those days are fading fast—even five years ago the numbers had declined by almost 75% to just 5 million.

But there was a Golden Age of Postcards, when they not only offered the best way to share a vacation memory and keep friends and family informed as to their travels, they were also, in many cases, true works of art. I’ve been collecting old postcards for decades and it’s time I shared a few with The Zephyr readers…

GOD BROKE THE MOLD WHEN HE MADE KARL TANGREN…by Jim Stiles (ZX#27)

by stiles • September 18, 2022 • 14 Comments

I’m here today, NOT to complain about the lack of uniqueness in this bland culture of ours. but to celebrate it when we find it. In this case, as the title suggests, we can gratefully report of a place where “God broke the mold,” in Moab, Utah.

God created Karl Tangren, scratched His chin and either said, “This kid is too amazing to ever duplicate,” or concluded, “I don’t think the world could handle TWO Karl Tangrens at the same time.” My guess is —it’s a bit of both. One thing’s for sure…

There’s only one Karl Tangren.

We don’t get to choose where we enter this world, but Karl Tangren was born in the right place at the right time. You could say his timing was perfect. He landed on Planet Earth via Moab, Utah on September 22, 1931. He lived with his family in a little house on the west side of Main Street, between 100 and 200 North. It’s about where the Love Muffin Coffee shop operates today. In 1931, the streets weren’t paved and cottonwoods shaded most of Main Street. From their front porch, the Tangrens could see the red cliffs on the east side of town, and beyond them, the La Sal Mountains.

‘NAVAJOLAND’–The Way It Was (1963-1968) w/Edna Fridley (ZX#26)

by stiles • September 11, 2022 • 9 Comments

The Zephyr has been posting the remarkable photographs of Edna Fridley for many years. As some of you might recall, Edna’s daughter Marti gave Edna’s entire collection of color slides and journals to The Zephyr in the late 1990s. Her images cover the entire Colorado Plateau, including trips down Glen Canyon before it was flooded by Lake Powell. She became a close friend of legendary river runners, Harry Aleson and Ken Sleight.

But Edna wandered everywhere and she was especially fond of visiting the Navajo Nation. Year after year she took journeys from her home in Brigham City, Utah to iconic landmarks like Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly. She loved to attend the Navajo Rodeo at Coal Canyon and often attended the Inter Tribal Celebrations that are still held every summer in Gallup, New Mexico. I have many images of those experiences as well, but will save those photos for another time.

Here are some of Edna’s best Kodachrome transparencies of Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly. Enjoy a ride back in time with Edna Fridley…

UPDATE: The July 4, 1961 Dead Horse Pt. Murders—Is THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES Withholding Evidence in an UNSOLVED MURDER? — by Jim Stiles (ZX#25)

by stiles • September 6, 2022 • 16 Comments

Incredibly every report, every document related to that crime was gone. In a response to an Open Records Act request with the Grand County Sheriff, that office advised me that all records had been destroyed or possibly sent to the FBI. I filed a FOIA with the Bureau. The FBI also advised me that the records had been destroyed, or possibly transferred to the National Archives. They suggested I send a FOIA to them. And so 14 months ago, I sent a FOIA to the NARA (National Archives and Records Administration)…

Finally, on August 11, 2022, I received a notification from Jason Mincey, an “archives specialist” at NARA…They had located 383 pages of documents related to Dennise Sullivan and Abel Aragon (some going back to his WWII service).

But I was advised that the documents require “review” and “, we estimate it will take 39 months to complete processing .”

THIRTY-NINE MONTHS!

“THE HOME OF TRUTH” —– By Lloyd Pierson (For Marie Ogden’s Followers in the 1930s, the Vortex of the Universe was at Photograph Gap) ZX#24

by stiles • September 4, 2022 • 8 Comments

Visitors to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park may wonder what the three groups of rag-tag buildings are along the entrance road shortly after leaving the Moab to Monticello Highway. The rapidly deteriorating buildings give little indication of the dreams and high holy aspirations of their former inhabitants. It was on this desolate sagebrush plain that a religious colony (some called it a cult) was founded. Its not so modest name? “The Home of Truth.”

Well, Truth theoretically has to exist somewhere and this forlorn spot in the great Colorado Plateau is probably as good a place as any for the elusive deity to reside.

The colony was founded by Mrs. Marie Ogden in 1933, a well educated widow from New Jersey, after she received a spiritual revelation. Mrs. Ogden’s husband, an insurance executive, had died in 1929 at an early age, back in New Jersey. In her grief she turned to serious religious study and, guided by an inner light, began to seek “the truth” and an understanding of life and death. As she delved further into religion she began to preach and to convince others of the correctness of her beliefs. Her religious activities took her over most of the east preaching and lecturing and at least as far west as Boise, Idaho, where she reportedly had the revelation to establish a religious colony devoted to “the truth”.