Month: January 2023

HERB RINGER @ ZION & BRYCE( 1946-1965): The Complete Collection* (ZX#47)

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Herb Ringer and his mother and father started traveling extensively after the end of WWII. Until then, most of Herb’s wanderings were in the vicinity of Reno, Nevada or the far eastern side of California. he especially loved exploring the abandoned mines and ghost towns of Nevada. But in 1946, the Ringers headed for the Grand Canyon and other parks of the Colorado Plateau. They were stunned by the Grand Canyon and Herb’s father, Joseph, recorded his thoughts in the journal that Herb gave him for Christmas 1944. Joseph would maintain that journal until his death in 1963. Many of those journal entries are included in this story.

The Ringer Family’s first big trip to Utah came in 1946. They were still driving their 1941 Lincoln Zephyr, though you will only see one photograph of it, farther down in the Bryce Canyon section. So many Zephyr readers love Herb’s cars as much as the scenery so I have included excerpts from Joseph Ringer’s journals about both. You’ll find the history of their car purchases to be remarkably detailed. And that makes sense since most Americans then (and now) are more worried about their vehicles running than geology.

This album and the excerpts are from numerous trips that began in 1946. But most of them are from trips in the Ford Woody and the turquoise Ford truck with the camper, between 1950 and 1956. I include a couple additional photos from 1962, and one from1965, when Herb was now traveling alone with his mother. Joseph died of cancer in 1963, a year before Medicare legislation was passed. Herb later told me that he spent the family’s entire life savings, $37,000 trying to save his father…JS

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SPELUNKING the CAVE that was BURIED ALIVE: 1964…and now— Jim Stiles (ZX# 46)

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We emerged from the cornfield into a huge pasture dead ahead and a magnificent forest to our right. Just a few hundred yards in front of us, I could see several small clusters of trees, like little forested islands. In fact, I can still remember there were four of them, in a row, each one perhaps a hundred yards from the next. “You see that fourth cluster? That’s it.” Hotard said.

From a distance, it looked like nothing. I was crestfallen. I was hoping for more. “That’s it?” I asked skeptically. “Just wait,” Hotard grinned. We came to the edge of the copse of trees and sure enough, Steve was spot on. We’d come across a sink hole; it was about 100 feet wide and maybe 40 feet deep. At the very bottom of this steep but easily descended slope (we were 12), we saw a horizontal limestone ledge. It was perhaps 15 or 20 feet wide and at the opening, no more than four feet high. At the time I was barely four feet high, so I didn’t even have to bend over. Dutton was the gangly member of our spelunking team, but all he needed to do was duck a bit.

It was very much a living cave. Water was flowing through it, coming from a source north (or to the left of us). But the opening in that direction was too narrow for any of us, even me, to enter. None of us had expected the water, but we didn’t care. We turned on our flashlights, sloshed through the water in our tennis shoes, and ventured into the darkness

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TO GLUE, BLAST, PAVE & MOB DELICATE ARCH: A HISTORY —Jim Stiles (ZX#45)

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Delicate Arch…the name sounds familiar. In its online literature the National Park Service at Arches National Park calls Delicate Arch “the best known arch in the world.” In years past, the State of Utah considered the arch “so iconic” that it stamped the arch’s image on all state license plates. Visitation to Delicate Arch has recently become such an event that it is virtually impossible to experience the arch alone, or even with a small group of fellow tourists…

…As far back as the late 19th Century, ranchers and cowboys and maybe a few sheepherders had come across the arch. None of them were impressed; tourism was still an industry that had only occurred to a few. Even the uniqueness of this sandstone span failed to attract many visitors.

John Wesley Wolfe moved West from Ohio for health reasons. His doctor thought the desert air might extend his life. He and his son Fred found their way to Southeast Utah, to the Salt Wash area below the arch and established a ranch there in 1898. He built a primitive cabin and eked out a living. When his daughter Flora Stanley and her husband Ed visited him in 1907, she was appalled at the living conditions and made him build a new cabin. At some point he mentioned the arch to his daughter who made the two mile trek and is credited with the first known photo of what was then called “The School Marm’s Bloomers.” According to early Park Service reports, the arch sported a variety of nicknames, from “Pants Crotch,” to “Mary’s Bloomers, to the less colorful “Salt Wash Arch.” It most likely depended on which name the various ranchers preferred.

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JACKSON HOLE’S LAST HONEST COWBOY SUMMER: 1970 … Jim Stiles (ZX#44 )

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This was 1970, when there was a huge culture divide in America, not seen since…until now. But it was “Hippie Summer” in Jackson that year and the clash between the newcomers and the locals got pretty intense. Even Walt’s five boys called me “Hippie Jim,” though without any hint of malice. The boys stopped by regularly to see their dad and I often got to kid around with them too. But we all liked each other, regardless of hair length. That wasn’t always the case. There were numerous skirmishes between the “hard hats & the hippies,” and sometimes it got a tad ugly.

I worked the noon to 10 PM shift at Harold’s and Most of the locals waited until evening to gas up. During the day, the tourists were regular customers who also complained bitterly about the price of gas— 44.9 cents a gallon and believe it or not, that was one of the highest gas prices in the country. Still I always preferred the evening business when the ranchers and other working men stopped by.
One local was a particular favorite. His name was Tom Fortune. He was about 6 feet tall and might have weighed 130 pounds after a hard rain. His waist could not have been more than 28 inches. Tom had an agreement with Harold that he could use the bays after hours and he was a frequent visitor. Like so many ranchers, he got by on a wing and a prayer and baling wire. He had more patches than rubber on much of his farm equipment and still owned a lot of tires with split rims, which are a real pain to change. But Tom was not one to give up on a wheel or a piece of machinery if he could jury-rig it and keep it alive for a bit longer.

Tom was a man who never complained and never bragged. In fact, he just didn’t like to waste time on unnecessary conversation. One evening he came in with another flat and as he climbed out of his old truck, he was clearly injured and in pain. Tom Fortune might have only been in his late 30s but he was moving like a man twice that. I was concerned…

“Are you okay, Tom? I asked.

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

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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.

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