1957 AERIAL VIEWS of ARCHES NATIONAL MONUMENT (“Before the Asphalt”) ZX#59

NOTE: When I posted last week’s story about Arches in the 1950s, I had not intended to do a “part 2.” But later I remembered hearing Lloyd talk about the substantial role he and superintendent Bates Wilson played in laying out the new road alignment. And it reminded me of the black and white aerial photos I found in a trash can at the Arches visitor center in 1977. The NPS had just received a new set of color high resolution images of the park, and considered the old ones to be worthless. I fished them out of the can and even checked with my boss, to be sure they no longer wanted them. Like so many other artifacts I have from my days at Arches, from weather reports to wildlife observation cards, even to the old wooden signs, one agency’s trash was my treasure, I’m glad I have kept these historical remembrances all these years…JS

In the Spring of 1957, as ranger Edward Abbey was returning to his beloved trailer outpost at Arches National Monument, he already recognized the uniqueness of this moment. Whether it occurred to him that the stories he was collecting in his head would lead to “Desert Solitaire,” who knows. But by April 1957, the new proposed “improved” paved highway was a ‘done deal.’ It would change the character of this remote, rarely visited national monument forever. The Mission 66 program injected millions and millions of dollars into the “modernization” National Park Service administered lands from coast to coast. It was all part of the post-war boom—after a decade of the Great Depression and four years of global war, Americans had the resources and the burning desire to “hit the road.”

At Arches, a 23 mile strip of asphalt would ultimately abandon most of the old road alignment completely. A new modern visitor center was built at the beginning of the new road. By 1963, even the Devils Garden Campground was complete, or to be precise, the proposed “A Loop” was open for business. A second “B Loop” had been planned and would have added another 30 sites. B Loop would have turned north between sites 9 and 10. In the 1980s, the survey stakes were still there. But it never happened.

Still the changes were dramatic and within a few years, monument visitation jumped from 30,000 a year to 100,000. There were celebrations all around. Outliers like Abbey objected, but as his boss noted years later, “It was inevitable,” Chief Ranger Pierson once said. The post-war boom made it impossible to stop. It was the spirit of that era. Progress. Grow. Improve!

The NPS survey teams to lay out the alignment and Abbey’s famous tale of pulling up their stakes in the pale moonlight after the surveyors had left, are probably true. But even Abbey would note that it was nothing more than a symbolic gesture. An “exercise in futility.” Even his novel, “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” was written with the same motivation…if he could vent and sell some books at the same time, why not? I’m not sure he anticipated the response from some of his more loyal and literal readers.

But back to the road. Before the surveyors could begin, they needed a route to follow. The Monument contacted Continental Engineers, a company on Colfax in Denver, and arranged for a series of high resolution black and white photos to be shot of the monument along the proposed new road alignment.

Phase One of the project was shot on April 27, 1957. The photos covered the proposed alignment as far as The Windows and Balanced Rock. That was as far as the first road building was to go by 1958. But it was not the end. Plans to build a new road to the Devils Garden via the Fiery Furnace were already on the drawing boards. NPS planners and managers expected the entire road to be finished by 1963.

So Continental Engineering came back later that year, on September 28, 1957, and finished the job. Within weeks, The Arches Staff, i.e Superintendent Bates Wilson and Chief Ranger Lloyd Pierson had their maps.

Incredibly in 1957, Bates convinced his bosses that he and Lloyd knew the terrain better than anyone, including NPS engineers from far away cities who had never even seen Arches. Bates was a very persuasive man, in the most down home charming way one can imagine. His personality was downright disarming. The NPS mucky-mucks relented— Bates and Lloyd would lay out the road alignment, and based on their recommendations, that’s where the road would mostly go.

*****

Most likely, sometime in May, Bates and Lloyd went to work. The idea of a new entrance road starting where it is now, had been in the works for almost 20 years. In fact, a CCC crew had started construction on on those switchbacks above the current visitor center as far back as 1940. But then World War II came along, and all work stopped. It wasn’t until the Mission 66 program was passed by Congress that the millions of dollars needed to build a road like this would become available.

Bates and Lloyd were able to use the park jeep for some of the work, but it’s clear from the photographs that much of their work was done on foot. Armed with their photos and an orange crayon, which they probably kept in their standard issue NPS satchels, they began laying out the new road

(NOTE) Those satchels were used by the NPS well into the 1980s, when they were finally discarded. Like so many other abandoned NPS mementos and artifacts. I grabbed a couple for myself.

Overall the aerial photos included about 50 images of the monument and sometimes went far outside the proposed road alignment. In this installment, I’ll stick to the road. (I’m not even sure how many of these photos I can load without blowing out our bandwidth limits…also note that WordPress does NOT allow me to post these images at a resolution I would like—I’m limited to 96 dpi… So this is an experiment but my fingers are crossed that there will be sufficient detail to make it worth a look. In a couple cases I have zoomed in on features of special interest and posted them separately—like Abbey’s trailer and what was then called Turnbow Cabin. It’s interesting to see that even in 1957, there was some kind of walking bridge across Salt Wash. Whether it’s the original swing bridge, I can’t say…

In any case, here is a bird’s eye view of Arches National Monument from April and September 1957…This is just a sampling of the images; I’ve tried to post the pictures that follow the new road alignment…Enjoy the flight.

—Jim Stiles

THE FIRST AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SHOOTS—APRIL 27 & SEPTEMBER 28, 1957

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