Canyon Country Zephyr – Page 4 – All the News That Causes Fits… Since 1989

UNSUNG VIDEOGRAPHERS of CANYON COUNTRY: 1949 —Ray & Virginia Garner (ZX#43)

by stiles • January 1, 2023 • 17 Comments

But my photo collections are still images. Trying to locate movie film, especially going back to the 1940s and 1950s has been almost impossible. Sometimes the best I could hope for were John Ford Westerns and one of George Stevens’ last films, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” All the exterior scenes were shot in Glen Canyon, as the dam was being built.

But recently, and sheerly by accident, I found the film in its entirety on the internet. It had been donated to the National Archives and though the film quality still pales by today’s standards, it is the history in these films and images that I love, more than the film quality itself. Ray and Virginia Garner started making films in the late 1930s. Ray’s first known project was a film about ascending the Grand Teton with a group of Boy Scouts in 1936. Sadly the film has been lost. But it was the beginning of an independent filmmaker career and soon, a wonderful collaboration with his new wife Virginia. Though the title of the film I’m offering here gives credit to Ray, Virginia, or “Jinny” as she was known to everyone, was not only his equal in the filming, production and presentation of what were often silent films, she was certainly more photogenic and appears often in them. That’s’ what gives these 16mm movies such a personal feel. As I understand the story, they toured the country with their movies and at various gatherings, they would narrate the film in person as it was being shown.

Chasing Charlie Steen & the Dream of Uranium Riche$ in 1955 — by Brett Hulen (ZX#42)

by stiles • December 25, 2022 • 4 Comments

We moved to Moab in 1955 chasing the uranium dream with a brand new 1955 Dodge Power Wagon pulling a 24′ Boles Aero travel trailer, and a 1951 Willys CJ3 with a little military jeep trailer. We initially prospected in the Circle Cliffs area where my Mother discovered a small deposit of carnotite. She was using a Geiger Counter or scintillator and watched the needle practically bend in two when it pegged out!

We moved in off the desert in the fall of 1955 when my brother Jeff and I were forced to begin school. We initially lived in the old P&W trailer park adjacent to the Apache Motel. My father Bradley also worked as a real estate broker in town and owned the old one horse Maverik gas station. As I recall he later sold it to Karl and Patsy Tangren.

My brother was working at Arches National Monument, for Bates Wilson, and was dating his daughter Cindy. As I grew up I worked at many of the surrounding ranches in Castle Valley (for the McCormicks and Shumways), Fisher Valley (D.L. Taylor had just gotten out of the Army) and lastly on the Dugout Ranch for the Redds until such a time I began to realize that the rear-end of a shapely young girl was enormously more attractive than the same afore mentioned part of a cow.

“I Remember Christmas”–An Ancient Stiles Family Album (ZX#41)

by stiles • December 22, 2022 • 33 Comments

This is really just a personal reminiscence, and probably of little interest to most Zephyr readers. But it occurred to me recently that this is the first Christmas, where I am the only surviving member of my immediate family. My father died in 2009. My brother passed away two years ago, in December 2020, and my mother died in February at the age of 94. I’m the last Stiles standing. And of course my grandparents all left us decades ago.

While families have always managed to find something to argue about when pushed into confined places, it was certainly different for me a kid. .

When I think back on my childhood and those first ten years, it occurred to me that it was our grandparents — they were the real glue that kept the family connected. I grew up with all four of my grandparents, alive and relatively healthy, and all of them within five miles of our home. So we saw Grandma and Grandpa Montfort and Grandma and Grandpa Stiles on a regular basis. We had Sunday dinner with one or the other almost every week.

Holidays were always like family food festivals. In fact, for a decade, I would guess that Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and the 4th of July were all holidays in which attendance was mandatory. And none of us minded. We loved it.

#2: BEFORE INSTAGRAM KILLED the POSTCARD– Classics of Salt Lake City & Vicinity (ZX#40)

by stiles • December 18, 2022 • 6 Comments

Back in August I posted Volume 1 of “How Instagram Killed the Postcard;” it featured images from the Moab area. What I did’nt expect was the response. Postcards from across the country poured in to my little PO Box on the High Plain. I love my Zephyr readers. While I can’t name everyone who sent me postcards, I need to pay special tribute to Evan Kramer of Port Orford, Oregon who sent several, including one of those multiple hand colored packets of cards titled, “Greetings from Minneapolis, Minn.” Thanks Evan! And I might have guessed—-several spectacular and especially weird hand colored cards from Greg Gnesios. One of Plymouth Rock…the other a very memorable card of older gentlemen playing shuffleboard in St. Petersburg, Florida.

This time I focus on Utah’s state capitol, Salt lake City and its many scenic wonders. And the vicinity. Some of these cards are more than 100 years old. When there were messages on the back, I’ve included the flip-side as well. I tried to enhance the print as well as possible…So here are the wonders of…SALT LAKE CITY

“I LONGED for the WESTERN LIFE.”–HERB RINGER’S Great Adventure — Jim Stiles (ZX#39)

by stiles • December 11, 2022 • 16 Comments

NOTE: I’m posting this in the afternoon of December 11. My old friend Herb Ringer died 24 years ago today. I have shared his pictures and stories for the entire life of this publication. And I’ve written a few about my dear friend. This story combines parts of past stories and introduces some new ones as well. And more pictures, of course. He is still missed after a quarter of a century, especially by me—JS

EXCERPT:
“Herb,” I’ll ask, “Here’s a picture of you on horseback and in the next picture there’s a girl on her hands and knees under her horse. What’s that all about?”

His worn out eyes sparkle. “Yes!” he smiles, “That’s Skippy. That was in the High Sierras in about 1942. She loved her horse and the horse would do anything for her. She bet me she could sit right under it and I didn’t believe her. So she climbed down and crawled right under the horse’s front legs. So, I took a picture. And that night I bought her a steak dinner.”

I could hear Herb moving things about in his closet and a few moments later he emerged from the bed room, a manila-covered album held tenderly in his hands. He returned to his chair, a bit winded from the short trip, and then he placed the large book in my lap. It was the size and shape of a photo album but was covered with brown wrapping paper and held together with yellowed Scotch tape. I opened the binding to the first page….

PASTOR DON FALKE BEATS THE DEVIL: My Favorite Moab Preacher —Jim Stiles (ZX#38)

by stiles • December 4, 2022 • 11 Comments

For the next five years, we Broiler People were unofficial members of Pastor Don’s “Other Congregation.” Don “held services” at the Broiler on a regular basis. “You Boys are a challenge to me…It keeps my life interesting. My initiation with Pastor Don coincided with my founding of The Zephyr and Don even contributed a few stories for the Zephyr readership, including my favorite, “Pastor Don Forgives President Clinton.”

With Don and his remarkable wife Judy, it’s the kind of friendship that can endure years without any contact, and then, when the long absence ends, it’s as if we were never apart. Anyone reading this knows exactly what I mean.

ONLY STUPID PEOPLE WINTER CAMP: A Confession — by Jim Stiles (ZX#37)

by stiles • November 27, 2022 • 20 Comments

My buddy Tynes and I set out for Jackson, Wyoming on the 27th of December in an MGB convertible. We were 19. We battled snow and wind across the Great Plains and into Wyoming on I-80. When we exited at Rock Springs, conditions got worse. The road was snow packed for 180 miles. Near Bondurant, we struggled to put chains on the car but our hands froze after just a few moments outside the car. The MG itself provided very little respite–outside it was -37 F; INSIDE our little sports car, my thermometer read -5 F. Downright toasty if you measured things relatively. There was a small store there and though the lights were off, we knocked anyway, hoping to get a cup of coffee. A woman finally came to the door and opened it a crack. “We’re closed! Can’t you see that? Why are you out in this weather?”

“We’re trying to get to Jackson,” I replied through the blowing snow.

She looked at us like we were insane. “Do you know how cold it is? It’s 37 degrees BELOW ZERO!!!”

Hank Schmidt’s Last 1942 Arches Nat’l Monument Monthly Report & Mac McKinney’s First…ZX#36

by stiles • November 21, 2022 • 5 Comments

Henry G. Schmidt, aka “Hank,” had been faithfully writing his Arches National Monument “monthly reports” to the Southwest Monuments division of the National Park Service since his arrival in 1939. But after three years in one of the hottest and driest units in the country, Hank was ready for a move. He must have dreamed of cooler weather and tall pines because he applied for and was accepted To Kings Canyon National Monument and it’s my guess, as he penned this last report in late June, 1942, he was already packing. He notes below that “the local weather station has reported temperatures of 104, 105, and 106 degrees on several days, and with the high winds prevailing, this heat mixed with clouds of hot sand at times, has made it pretty rough.

He spent much of his time fighting sand dunes that tended to cross and close the monument’s entrance road. Sometimes he couldn’t keep up and tourists managed to get themselves stuck. Visitation itself had plummeted; the country was now in a world war, or “due to present world conditions,” as Hank put it; few Americans had time to take a vacation. Among the 286 who made their way into the monument, was Lewis T. “Mac” McKinney. He was obviously there to se what he was getting himself into. In a couple months Mac would take over from Hank as the new Arches custodian.

Encounters with the Sublime: Quentin Roosevelt’s Western Adventures —By Harvey Leake (ZX#35)

by stiles • November 13, 2022 • 7 Comments

“The man should have youth and strength who seeks adventure in the wide, waste spaces of the earth […]. The grandest scenery of the world is his to look at if he chooses; and he can witness the strange ways of tribes who have survived into an alien age from an immemorial past […]. The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.”

—Theodore Roosevelt, 1916

On July 13, 1913, fifteen-year-old Quentin Roosevelt peered into the depths of the Grand Canyon for his first time. He and his compatriots had just arrived by train at the South Rim, and they lost no time making their way to the edge to gaze into the awesome chasm. Leading the group was Quentin’s father, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who called the view “the most wonderful scenery in the world.” Also on the team were Quentin’s older brother, Archie, his second cousin, Nicholas Roosevelt, and a skilled outdoorsman named Jesse Cummins from Mesa, Arizona, who would serve as the head cook, packer, and horse wrangler for the long excursion they were starting.

INTO THE MAZE w/ Kent Frost & Ken Sleight (1965-1975) ZX#34… by Edna Fridley

by stiles • November 6, 2022 • 13 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. And the great Kent Frost.

In this installment of Edna Fridley’s photographs, we’re off to the Maze. Even today, the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park is one of the most remote, difficult to reach areas imaginable in the National Park system.

These photos are a compilation of several trips taken over the years going back to the mid-60s, just after the park’s creation…JS

E.C. LaRue & the Colorado “River of Menace & Destruction” (ZX#33) By Gene Stevenson

by stiles • October 30, 2022 • 5 Comments

“The river of menace and destruction”… In the early 20th century, that’s the way farmers in the Imperial Valley of California viewed the Colorado River after it breached its banks and flooded into the Salton Sink in 1905-07. This wasn’t the first time the mighty river had jumped its banks, but the agriculture industry was determined this HAD to be the last. And it was – maybe. I’m not going to rehash how the Colorado River Compact of 1922 came to be passed by a bunch of politicians who gathered together in some isolated resort lodge near Santa Fe, New Mexico. But one key player is seldom mentioned when the history of the grossly inaccurate Compact is discussed. Or the devastating effect it poses on the future of the Colorado River Basin. His name was Eugene Clyde LaRue.

Even though erroneous assumptions were made and compiled in various tables, E.C. LaRue knew the Colorado River better than almost anyone, and was the most experienced engineer, even if his goals for the river were as wrongheaded as everyone else. He had personally surveyed just about every tributary and segments of main stems of the entire Colorado River Drainage Basin. Why did his compatriots give him a place at the table? Who was this guy anyway?

HERB RINGER’S AMERICA: Coast-to-Coast (Back East 1909-1924) ZX#32

by stiles • October 23, 2022 • 5 Comments

These images come mostly from Joseph Ringer’s albums. Joseph was a classical musician and performed with some of the greatest orchestras and maestros on the planet. Joseph’ journal recorded page after page of information about his life and of his wife and son. He listed all those great maestros and symphony orchestras in his journal. Joseph was also an artist; and Herb inherited his gift. Included below is a photo of Herb holding one of his early works of art. He couldn’t have been more than eight or nine.

So technically, in this edition of “Herb Ringer, Coast-to-Coast,” it’s really his amazing father who should get the photo credits. These images begin before Herb was born, going back to 1909. Herb was born in Brooklyn in 1913, but because his father performed with different orchestras, the Ringers moved about. They spent part of the next few years in Cincinnati, Ohio,. Take a trip through Time with the Ringer Family…JS

THE ONE & ONLY JOHN DEPUY: On Art, Ed Abbey, Alcohol & Anarchy—from 2006 …. (ZX#31) —w/ Jim Stiles

by stiles • October 16, 2022 • 10 Comments

John De Puy is a one of the great artists of the American Southwest. He was also Edward Abbey’s best friend for thirty years, until Abbey’s death in 1989. Ed once described John like this:

“Madman and seer–– Painter of the Apocalyptic Volcano. Campañero, I am with you forever in the glorious fraternity of the damned.”

Years before this 2006 interview with De Puy, I asked him about his life and his origins. He said simply, “I came from a wolf…it was an immaculate conception.” At 94, he is as cantankerous as ever. He and his wife, Isabel Ferreira De Puy, and their daughter Noelle, still live off the grid, in an octagon-shaped cabin, miles from anywhere. Isabel is a brilliant artist in her own right and her work has been featured in The Zephyr as well as John’s.

For now, here is the wild and woolly interview I conducted with John at their desert outpost, in July 2006. Sixteen years ago…how is that possible? …..JS

GLEN CANYON & HITE OVERLOOK—The View for the Past 51 Years w/Jim Stiles (ZX#30)

by stiles • October 9, 2022 • 14 Comments

But in the late 1960s, plans were made to pave the entire Hanksville to Blanding Road. In addition they would have to find an alternative for the ferry. The waters of Lake Powell reached Hite by 1964. The ferry was gone. To replace this simple operation would not be easy. At pool level the lake would be too wide for a single bridge. And so UDOT devised a plan to connect the two sides of the river by constructing three new bridges. It was their only option. Coming from the east, the first formidable barrier was White Canyon. It was a narrow crossing but very, very deep. Once that obstacle was overcome, the new road descended toward the Colorado. At the point where Narrow Canyon meets the Glen, the largest of the three bridges crossed the Colorado River. Finally there was the Dirty Devil River to get over. Thus bridge number three.

When I first discovered the old Utah Hwy 95 in 1971, I was coming from the east and Blanding. The road stayed paved for just a few miles before it turned to dirt. I reached the top of the Comb Ridge Dugway, descended 2000 feet to the wash and then climbed out of the wooded verdant valley and onto Cedar Mesa

It was like another world, I saw no one…. and then everything changed.

My Short & Creepy Career as a Cross-Country Hitchhiker Pt.1 –by Jim Stiles (ZX#29)

by stiles • October 2, 2022 • 14 Comments

Maybe twenty vehicles blew past me during my long wait. The Dixie Highway was remarkably quiet back then. (I-95 now parallels it a few miles or so to the west). Finally, I saw an old car, maybe a mid-50s black Chrysler, start to slow down as it approached me. When it came to a stop, I saw that this old rattle-trap was full of middle-aged, poorly attired men, who looked as if they may have last smiled on V-E Day. I leaned toward the driver from the passenger side window, to ask how far he was going. The man looked at me and I almost turned and ran into the swamps. He was short and stocky, maybe in his 50s, and he looked like a retired prize fighter with a really dismal losing record. Life had been hard for this man. In addition, his face was covered with deeply carved knife scars. His cheeks and forehead, even his nose, looked like a highway map. There were more intersecting, overlapping cuts than there was remaining skin.

But I was hot and tired and oddly, when I glanced at the other men in the car— there was one guy in the front passenger seat and two more in the backseat — they looked as scared as I was when I first laid eyes on the driver. And none of them had the same malevolent look that Scarface had, so I decided, what the hell, if they’re okay with him, I’m probably being unfair. Maybe he was in the war. We should all try not to be so judgmental, based on someone’s personal appearance…right?

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”.

“POKING THROUGH THE RUINS” — w/ Jim Stiles: THE PROSPECTOR LODGE in MOAB (ZX#23 )

by stiles • August 28, 2022 • 11 Comments

I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard, almost twenty years ago, that there were plans to tear down the historic Prospector Lodge and replace it with a hideous chain motel.

By all accounts, the Prospector was built in the mid-1950s fast on the heels of Charlie Steen’s uranium discovery and the unprecedented boom that followed. The little hamlet of Moab swelled to ten times its size, from just a few years earlier, and the construction of the Prospector was in response to that demand.

My knowledge of the Prospector’s history was pretty thin, so I turned to a facebook page dedicated to Moab’s history and asked for help. As always the response was immediate and full of details that I would never have known without their help.

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