213 search results for "herb ringer"

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JANUARY 1931: THE STRENUOUS LIFE — by Harvey Leake (ZX#71)

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On January 6, 1931, as darkness fell over northern Arizona, veteran explorer John Wetherill and his young companion, Henry Martin “Pat” Flattum, huddled by their campfire in the depths of Glen Canyon of the Colorado River. They had taken refuge from the biting wind in an alcove eroded into the base of a high sandstone cliff. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire, their soft conversation, and the “sh-sh-shush” of the drifting ice floes as they rubbed against the shore ice.

…Wetherill, who was sixty-four years old, seemed unperturbed by their difficulties. “Signs of many beaver on the river but no other animals until tonight, when we camped in a cave, where the Ringtail cat seems to have made its home. The canyon walls are getting lower,” he wrote.

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THE GREAT AMERICAN VACATION—‘OUT WEST’: June 1966 — Another Ancient Stiles Family Album (ZX#70)

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By midafternoon of the next day, we were almost to Tucumcari, New Mexico, about 1200 miles from Louisville. The country was wide open now and we could see for miles. My brother and I were puzzled by large black spots on the rolling high desert and wondered if there had been a fire. Then my brother noticed that those black spots were moving. We were looking at the shadows of cumulus clouds rolling over the land. We had never seen anything like it in our lives….

…..But my father drove right past Desert View. Before I had time to whine, he explained his theory. “Every tourist always stops at the very first pullout. Did you see how crowded it is? Instead we’re going to the next turnoff. It was just half a mile or so further and he was absolutely right. Nobody was there. My brother and I had been bickering in the backseat, when my dad said, “Look out the window.” Suddenly our bickering stopped. My poison ivy quit itching. My father seemed wiser than I’d thought just five minutes earlier. It was the Grand Canyon. Words failed all of us.

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SHOULD ARCHES’ ‘WOLFE RANCH’ BE RE-RENAMED ‘TURNBOW CABIN?’ —Jim Stiles (ZX#69)

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Once, while driving cattle up Salt Wash, Toots and Marv came to a place where the horse would have to jump. “Dad didn’t want me on the horse when it jumped, so he scooped me off and sat me on a ledge. All of a sudden he grabbed me back. Well, there was a big rattlesnake right there between my feet…it had 14 rattles on it.”

In the evenings, Marv demonstrated the art of making flour sack biscuits. “He never used a pan. He’d roll up the sleeves of his long-handled underwear which he wore year-round. He’d scrub his hands and he’d get this sack and roll the top down and make a hole in the flour and smooth it out just like a bowl. Then he’d put in some baking powder, some salt and some shortening and mix it all around. Then he’d start adding water, a little drop at a time, and just keep working it with his hand. When he got enough he’d pinch it off and when he was through, you couldn’t find one lump left in that flour sack.”

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SEARCHING for KLATU & MY UFO VACATION —Jim Stiles (ZX#68)

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Suddenly, one of the assistant scoutmasters, Mr Schneider yelled, “What the hell…heck is that?” (He didn’t want to corrupt his boys). We all looked skyward as he pointed to three bright lights moving silently across the sky. It was like nothing any of us had ever seen before. Imagine a pencil dangling from a string, in total darkness, but with three lights attached to it, at both ends and the middle. It almost appeared to be wobbling across the sky. We were all speechless. It crossed our field of view diagonally, then paused, pivoted on its front light, and changed direction. As it disappeared over the tree line, the three lights seemed to waver, like a snake crossing open ground. It’s been more than half a century since that night. But I was hooked.

When we finally got home, my parents asked about the hike, but all I could talk about was the UFO.

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MOAB’S OTHER WILD RIDE — CHARLIE STEEN’S 1950s URANIUM BOOM — by Maxine Newell (ZX# 67)

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Uranium fever became a national affliction when Steen announced his strike. Go-for-broke prospectors poured into the little town of Moab by the thousands, lured by the $100 million bait. The town was besieged by a boom which was to surpass the gold rushes of the previous century.

Hopeful investors, loan sharks, and promoters followed the prospectors in. New businesses set up wherever they could find room, on the Main Street drag, in private garages or in tents. One realty firm operated from a tiny log cabin which was the revered historical home of an early-day pioneer. Moab’s new slogan, “Uranium Capitol of the World,” was splashed on store fronts, stationery and souvenirs. The town sported a Uranium Building and a Uranium Days Celebration. The term “uraniumaires” was coined to identify the new mining magnates. Someone finally got around to dubbing Charles A Steen the “Uranium King of the World,” and the title stuck.

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ROAMING GLEN CANYON & THE FOUR CORNERS w/ RUBEN & BETH NIELSEN (ZX#66)

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While the Nielsens regarded Glen Canyon as the true heart of the Colorado Plateau, they also knew their “own little piece of Heaven,” was surrounded by some of the most stunning, almost surreal landscape that surrounded them for hundreds of miles. And at the time, canyon country of Southeast Utah was one of he most remote, seldom visited parts of the continental United States. It was truly the proverbial “blank spot on the map.”

Decades later, as Industrial Strength Tourism became the area’s driving industry and as environmentalists and the powerful recreation lobby pushed hard to eliminate other economic options, Tourism and the “Amenities Economy” became king. What oil and gas exploitation and uranium mining and overgrazing couldn’t accomplish, Industrial Tourism, in almost every small economically struggling community in the West beat them all —The Rural West is rapidly is experiencing the Disneyfication of half the country

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IN DEFENSE OF “TRASHY TRAILERS” …by Jim Stiles (ZX#65)

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One could make the argument that without the invention and development of the travel trailer, Moab’s Uranium Boom of the 1950s would have been even more chaotic than it was. Until Charlie Steen’s life altering discovery of uranium at Big Indian, 30 miles south of town, Moab was a sleepy little village most noted for its orchards. And it’s a good guess that many of those original settlers were appalled by the mass migration to Moab. Others welcomed the excitement and the prospects of a more vibrant economy. Moab has never been a town to agree on much of anything. The debate still rages.
In any case, would-be miners and prospectors flocked to Southeast Utah, only to find a community that was not in any way prepared to handle the Boom.

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JOHN RIFFEY: THE LAST ‘LONE RANGER’ by Edie Eilender (ZX#64)

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Riffee came to Tuweap in 1942. Came out to spend one night to see if he would like it and ended up staying almost 40 years. “Don’t think that I could have found a better place for me to work and spend a life, “ he once said. “When I retire I’m going to live right down the road; a place good enough to work at is good enough to die at.”

In 1942 Tuweap was part of the Grand Canyon National Monument and Riffee’s main job was working with the ranchers who had grazing permits in the Monument. Over the years the job changed as ranching declined and recreation increased. Later, the Monument became part of the park. Riffee was there for it all.

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DOWN the ESCALANTE RIVER w/Ken Sleight —By Edna Fridley (ZX#63)

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FROM KEN SLEIGHT,
“Edna soon came to Escalante and met many of the town folk. Coming and going from trips, we spent a lot of time at cousin Mohr Christensen’s Moqui Motel. My clients met there and at the other rustic-looking motels in Escalante when coming on trips.

“Edna loved Escalante Canyon and became intimately familiar with its features. We frequented Coyote Gulch more than any other canyon. It contains Jacob Hamblin and Coyote natural bridges and Jug Handle Arch. At its mouth and across the river, Stevens Arch looms high on the skyline. Negotiating this country often came hard. Going down Coyote Gulch on one trip, a giant part of the wall broke away and crashed into the creek bottom below, forming a natural dam. My old intrepid friend Vaughn Short, who helped me a lot through those years, aided me in fashioning a detour around the slide and I got our horses and mules around the long pool of water. Edna followed that trail on numerous occasions, as it led to Indian wall writings.”

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THE HEARTACHES & HARDSHIPS THAT THE GRAVESTONES TELL —Jim Stiles (ZX# 61 )

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Nowadays few Americans would even give it a thought —- why is there a tiny cluster of trees in the middle of a featureless plain? We see them all the time. At certain times of the day, we might see an odd white glint of something undefinable. A misplaced rock? An abandoned car? But who cares? We race onward to the next McDonald’s or Ramada Inn. We follow our itinerary.

But out there on that tall grass prairie, or tucked in some little side canyon, or atop a wooded knoll, or in the midst of endless rows of corn, or wheat, or milo, or soybeans, or cotton— is our history. And the departed men and women that we owe so much to,.

Many of them are not even graced with a marker. There’s a good chance you’re driving over their long forgotten remains as you race along the highway.. Nothing remains.

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