Our regular readers know that we began a new project at the Zephyr last year–called “Zephyr America.” We’ve been slowly wading through the massive Zephyr archives of historic photos and digitizing them to share with our readers. To keep up with the project on a daily basis, please check out our Facebook page at Facebook.com/ZephyrAmerica.
Our archives contain thousands of photos, including those of Charles Kreischer. A chance meeting at Arches National Park brought Charles into a friendship with the Zephyr. In 1976, Jim Stiles (future Z publisher) was a ranger at Arches and met Charlie and his wife one evening at the campground. During their conversation, Charlie mentioned that they had floated down Glen Canyon in the late 50s. Jim asked if he’d taken any photographs, and Charlie replied that he had a whole box full. A couple weeks later, a package came for Jim at park headquarters. It was from Charlie, and contained a number of Kodachrome slides of the rarely traveled roads of Utah, particularly his trips down Glen Canyon and all around the Canyon Country. We don’t have as many Kreischer pictures in the archive as we do from Herb Ringer or Edna Fridley, or Jim himself, but the images we’ve scanned so far are an incredible view into the golden age of Western travel. In this series, Kreischer drove Utah’s iconic Highway 95 from Blanding to the ferry crossing at Hite, then on to Hanksville. He took this trip in 1959, long before the road was paved and before the now infamous Glen Canyon Dam would dramatically alter the landscape of Hite Crossing and the Colorado River…
For more photos, please check out
ZEPHYR AMERICA: A LENS ON THE PAST
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Don’t forget the Zephyr ads! All links are hot!
I think you should send some of these photos of a 1950’s station wagon on beat up old roads to an expedition magazine, you don’t always need a quarter of a million dollar rig, you mainly need gumption.
Familiar territory for us. We took one family of great grandkids to see Goblin Valley. Took us all day to round ’em up and take them home. They were entranced. Donna Andress
“Overlanding”, circa 1959….thankfully absent is the $500,000 ‘van’ full of trusties from the bay area!