The Ol’ Pioneer The Triannual Magazine of the Historical Society

Volume 20 : Number 1 www.GrandCanyonHistory.org Spring 2009

In This Issue

Letters 3 Tropic of Canyon 3 October Outing 9 GC Book Club 10 President’s Letter The Ol’ Pioneer The Biannual Magazine of the As a young child growing up in Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon was the place Grand Canyon Historical Society that I got dragged to each time visitors or relatives came from out of town. Volume 20 : Number 1 Although I enjoyed hiking and being outside even then, I took the canyon itself Spring 2009 for granted. It had been there from my earliest memories and I just assumed that everybody around the country had one—or something similar—nearby. u It would require a move to Phoenix and over a decade spent living in a large The Historical Society was established metropolitan area far away from parks, pine trees and trails to fully appreciate in July 1984 as a non-profit corporation what I had in the canyon. to develop and promote appreciation, My own rediscovery of the Grand Canyon began several years ago with a short under-standing and education of the backpacking trip to . It refreshed my memories of childhood earlier history of the inhabitants and trips and reintroduced me to the natural, geologic and historic complexities of important events of the Grand Canyon. the area that had often been lost on me as a child. Since then, I have tried to make The Ol’ Pioneer is published bi- it to the bottom at least once per year as well as explore new trails. Likewise, annually by the GRAND CANYON attending the Grand Canyon History Symposium re-ignited my interest in the HISTORICAL SOCIETY in conjunction canyon’s history and the numerous important historical sites that are so often with The Bulletin, an informational overlooked amongst the surrounding scenic grandeur. paper. Both publications are a benefit of membership. Membership in the Society It was a little more than a year ago, that I first joined the Grand Canyon is open to any person interested in the Historical Society as a basic member. Since then, I have got to know the various historical, educational, and charitable members of the board, past and present, and gained an appreciation of their purposes of the Society. Membership is passion for the canyon and their extensive knowledge of it. The annual picnic on an annual basis using the standard was a great place to meet people, hear stories and catch up on park news. calendar; and dues of $20 are payable on the 1st of January each year, and Several excellent presentations and trips to the historic Red Butte airfield and mailed to the GCHS Treasurer, PO Box Powell Museum gave me new insights into the canyon’s history and the people 345 Flagstaff, AZ 86002. The Ol’ Pioneer that have helped shape it. Each visit to the canyon left me wanting to return; magazine is copyrighted by the Grand each presentation or lively discussion left me wanting to learn more. Canyon Historical Society, Inc. All rights As we start a new year with all of its challenges and opportunities, I encourage reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form each of you to consider your own rediscovery or continued exploration of the without permission of the publisher. Grand Canyon and its history. We have a number of great outings planned (and more in the works) as well as the annual picnic and board meeting and Editor: Mary Williams I strongly encourage all members to attend as many as possible. If you have Submit photos and stories to the The Ol’ Pioneer ideas for outings, presentations or projects, please let myself or another board editor of at: mary@ marywilliamsdesign.com or 4880 N member know. If you have some canyon topic that you have been researching Weatherford Road, Flagstaff, AZ 86001. – large or small – consider writing a short article for the journal or newsletter. (928) 779-3377. Please submit written We welcome and encourage everyone’s participation. So flip through your old articles and photos electronically on CD canyon photos, browse a book on canyon history, study the maps and the trail or via email if possible. You may mail guides… remember what it is like to be at the canyon. Then pull on your hiking photos or slides for scanning if needed. boots, grab your camera or notebook and join us! Submissions to The Bulletin should be sent to Karen Greig, [email protected] Erik Berg, GCHS President GCHS Officers Erik Berg, President I don’t know how I got myself so confused, but in doing so I mis- John Azar, Vice President numbered the previous issue of the Ol’ Poneer as Volume 20: Number Keith Green, Treasurer Amy Horn, Secretary 2, when it was actually Volume 19: Number 2. So, to those of you who Kirsten Heins, Pioneer Award were paying attention, this issue is 20:1, and we now will be doing Al Richmond, Awards Chair three issues a year (see below) so the next one will be 20:2 (again) and John Azar, Outings Coordinator

then 20:3. Sorry about that. —Mary Williams, editor Board of Directors P.S. Send stuff! Lee Albertson Amy Horn John Azar Henry Karpinski Erik Berg Adair Peterson Cover: Henry Miller photo illustration Jackie Brown Paul Schnur Keith Green Gaylord Staveley The Ol’ Pioneer submission deadlines are February 1, 2009 for Volume 20:1. Kristin Heins Amanda Zeman June 1, 2009 for Volume 20:2 and October 1, 2009 for Volume 20:3.

2 : Grand Canyon Historical Society www.GrandCanyonHistory.org Letters…

Dear Mary, My family goes way back as my houses on what was then Avenue A. mother was raised between the Later on after many years in the Post he recent article in The Bulletin Grand Canyon and Williams, plus Office he started with he Park Service for October was of great interest Anita, she went to school in the first as a ranger. to me, especially the article on school building at the Canyon, which Our lives there at the Canyon were theT Red Butte Airfield. In 1941 I had was located near where the Maswick interesting to say the least. As young just graduated from high school and Lodge is now. Her father, William H. children we had to make our own returned from Wasatch Academy in “Pap” Lockridge surveyed the area entertainment as we did not have Utah, to my home at Grand Canyon, which the railroad track from Williams televisions, electronic equipment, and was looking for a job. I was told to Grand Canyon was located. He or such to entertain us. Instead we they were looking for someone to work also worked for Mr. Cameron, who played softball, games like Kick the at the air field, in the office, and since owned the Cameron Hotel. Can, Annie Annie Over, Run Sheep I had just finished taking a business My mother had many stories to Run, and of course Hide and Seek. course, I was hired. I was only there a tell us about her early years there, As young teens we spent time at the short while as I got a better and more including tales of Capt. , picture shows and dancing at the permanent position at Babbitt’s at the she went to school with the Bass girls, Bright Angel Lodge where dances Grand Canyon—and since I did not and knew all of the William Bass were had for the tourists as well as have a car and finding a ride to the family. My only regret is that I did not locals. This we enjoyed immensely airport was difficult, I opted to work write down these stories and so over and when WWII came along, my in town. I don’t remember a lot about the years the memories have faded. sis and I plus our girlfriend Jeanne the air field as I spent my time in the Our father, Sherman B. Moore, Cummings (whose dad was a Fred office. came to Anita Ranger Station in 1919 Harvey guide) all joined the U.S. My two sisters were born at the and that was where he met our mom. Navy Waves where we stayed until Grand Canyon and I was born in They were married in 1921 and at that 1945 when we all three married and Williams as was my mother, Grace time were at the Grand Canyon. Dad went our separate ways. Lockridge Moore. My sis and I grew first worked as a trail guide for Fred During our high school years, due up at the Canyon and spent many Harvey, later became a chauffeur and to lack of a high school at Grand happy hours there. I would not trade garage man. From there he went to Canyon (for most of us) we went to those years for anything, as they were work in the Post Office where Art Wasatch Academy, a boarding school the best. Metzger was postmaster. The old in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. Since Grand Canyon was a village of Post Office was in the downstairs This is just a small segment of our about 250 people in the winter time— floor of the Cameron Hotel, and we lives at Grand Canyon. and of course grew to about 500 in the lived in the upstairs. WE remained summer with all the summer help and there, until they built the new Post —Ethel Moore Cole tourists—our winters were quiet. Office in 1935 and were moved to two

Grand Canyon Association Lecture Series Calendar

Wednesday March 11, 2009 Thursday March 19, 2009 Thursday April 16, 2009 Flagstaff Glendale Glendale Revealing the Secrets of Grand Ancient Discoveries in Revealing the Secrets of Grand Canyon’s Historic River Boats Petrified Forest Canyon’s Historic River Boats Jan Balsom and Brynn Bender Jeff Kida Jan Balsom and Brynn Bender ------Sunday March 15, 2009 Wednesday April 1, 2009 Prescott Flagstaff Continued on page 11 John Wesley Powell: The Man, Climate Lessons from Grand Can- the Myth, the Mystery yon: Can 1.8 Billion Years of History Richard Quartaroli Help Us Predict the Next Century? Carl Bowman www.GrandCanyonHistory.org Grand Canyon Historical Society : 3 Tropic of Canyon by Don Lago literature, while Europe was the land West. At age twenty-one, in 1913, he of intellectual sophistication. In New had taken a trip across the Southwest rand Canyon river guides York City cafes businessmen talked and been fascinated by it. The more often witness the power of about the stock market and advertis- time he spent in Paris, with its nar- the Grand Canyon to change ing gimmicks, while in Paris cafes bo- row lanes, crowds, noise, and arti- Glives. When people are cut off from hemians talked about the latest ideas, ficial fashions in clothing and food, their usual social realities and im- books, and art movements. the more he remembered the open mersed in the power of nature, they The magnetism of Paris cafes was horizons of the American West; the sometimes perceive themselves in especially powerful in the 1920s. In more he remembered its people, the new ways and decide that they can- America everyone was enthralled by Indians who lived with a simplicity not return to their old lives. Such mo- the stock market, mass consumerism, and authenticity that was so differ- ments of truth also happen on Grand corporation culture, and small-town ent from Parisians. It was ironic that Canyon hikes and even on visits to boosterism. The Progressive move- Parisians frequently asked him about the rim, but these experiences tend to ment had fizzled out into a conserva- the American West: Did you ever be more private, less likely to be wit- tive political era; American moral val- meet any Indians? Are desert sun- nessed and remembered by others. ues remained Victorian; and with the sets beautiful? Have you been to the Yet there was one such transforma- Scopes trail it had become a criminal Grand Canyon? To the latter question tive experience that was remembered act to talk about ideas. Most annoying he was chagrined to have to answer in books, for it happened to a promi- of all, America’s triumph in the Great No; he had been through , nent American writer. War had left it with a smug sense but he hadn’t been to the Grand Can- For a generation of American writ- of its superiority. Disgusted, many yon. And now he had left this land ers, leaving America became a rite of young Americans fled to Europe and behind, left it only to discover that passage. Leaving America was a dif- became the Lost Generation. When the sophisticated Parisians found it ferent experience for writers than it Lost Generation writers realized that all quite fascinating. was for American artists. For artists it to find their voice they needed to go In his imagination Henry Miller was a practical career necessity. The back to the society they had rejected, started planning a journey across best artists and art schools and the they faced many dilemmas, and they America. This was strictly a fantasy latest trends were in Europe. But for came up with different solutions. Er- trip, since Miller was a starving artist. writers it was a deeply problematic nest Hemingway, like Gershwin in In his journal he occasionally wrote act. Being an American writer was music, wrote about being an Ameri- down places to explore. “I remember supposed to mean that you wrote can in Paris. William Faulkner, like distinctly” he wrote later, “the thrill I about the American experience. By Thomas Hart Benton in art, returned had when putting down such words going to Europe, writers cut them- to the region of his birth and found as Mobile, Suwanee River, Navajos, selves off from both their personal a regional expression of universal hu- Painted Desert…”1 and national experience. If Ameri- man longings. Many writers, like Sin- In 1940, after a decade as an expatri- can writers imagined that they could clair Lewis, decided that it was their ate, Miller finally returned to America, write about Europe, they quickly re- mission to be adversaries of Ameri- but in his mind he was not returning, alized that they lacked the authentic- can society. he was coming to settle accounts and ity to do so. At best, they might write For Henry Miller, returning to to say goodbye for good. “I felt the about being an American in Paris. America and reconnecting with it was need to effect a reconciliation with my For artists, painting a face, a flower, especially problematic. Miller’s novel native land,” he said introducing the or a mountain in Europe was not Tropic of Cancer, published in Paris book he wrote about his journey. “It fundamentally different from paint- in 1934, had been banned from be- was an urgent need because, unlike ing the same subjects in America. But ing published in America. Miller had most prodigal sons, I was returning for writers there usually came a mo- taken this as the banning of himself. not with the intention of remaining in ment of truth in which they realized Miller had no intention of returning the bosom of the family but of wan- that to be writers at all they needed to to America. Still, his feelings about dering forth again, perhaps never to go home and write about the Ameri- America continued gnawing at him. return. I wanted to have a last look at can experience. This was a difficult There were some things about it that my country and leave it with a good realization, since most writers had he missed powerfully. This wasn’t his taste in my mouth. I didn’t want to gone to Europe as an act of reject- family, with whom he had fallen out run away from it, as I had originally. I ing American society. America was a long ago. It was the land itself, espe- wanted to embrace it, to feel that the land of philistines who didn’t value cially the landscapes of the American old wounds were really healed, and

4 : Grand Canyon Historical Society www.GrandCanyonHistory.org set out for the unknown with a bless- inclination, a philosophy that nature Arizona soil. Just light enough to ing on my lips.”2 was a powerful transcendent spirit catch the last glimpse of a fading Henry Miller would end up stay- that manifested itself through hu- mesa. I am walking through the ing in America, living and writing in mans. Miller was born in Manhattan main street of a little town whose a rustic house perched atop a wilder- at the moment that Walt Whitman name is lost. What am I doing ness cliff, in another universe from was dying there, and it was Whit- here on this street, in this town? Paris. One thing that helped change man that most inspired Miller’s phi- Why, I am in love with Arizona, his mind was the Grand Canyon: “For losophy, free-flowing style, exuber- an Arizona of the mind which I over thirty years I had been aching to ance, and embrace of sensuality. In search for in vain with my two see this huge hole in the earth.”3 his youth Miller read the American good eyes. In the train there was Henry Miller’s fame as a novel- transcendentalists—Emerson and still with me an Arizona which ist came from his sensuality. He did Thoreau—and adopted their vision I had brought from New York— get some respect for his stylistic in- of nature as god. Surrounded by the even after we had crossed the novations, especially for picking up squalor of Gilded Age New York City, state line. Was there not a bridge elements of surrealism and Dadaism Miller decided that the American In- over a canyon which had startled and working them into fiction. But it dians, surrounded by nature, lived a me out of my reverie? A bridge was the candid sexuality of his char- far purer life than white Americans. such as I had never seen before, a acters that made Miller unique—and In Europe Miller was fascinated by natural bridge created by a cata- notorious. Miller became the focus thinkers like Nietzsche, Freud, and clysmic eruption thousands of of the most famous censorship battle Henri Bergson, who portrayed hu- years ago? And over this bridge in American history, which ended in mans as puppets on the hand of a I had seen a man crossing, a man 1964 when the U. S. Supreme Court powerful and creative nature. who looked like an Indian, and he ruled that the 30-year ban on his At age twenty-one Miller made a was riding a horse and there was books was even naughtier than the run for it, leaving New York for the a long saddlebag hanging beside four-letter words in his books. Henry American West. This turned out to the stirrup. A natural millenary Miller became a cause célèbre among be a traumatic experience for Miller, bridge which in the dying sun American writers, artists, civil liber- for in his fertile imagination he had with air so clear looked like the tarians, and everyone who had ever turned the West into a transcenden- youngest, newest bridge imag- been frustrated by American phi- talist symbol that the real West could inable. And over that bridge so listinism. Famous writers rallied to never live up to. Miller’s trip was strong, so durable, there passed, Miller’s defense and wrote elaborate also inspired—he later told a French praise be to God, just a man and justifications as to why his books biographer—by growing up during a horse, nothing more. This then weren’t smut but art, the greatest the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, was Arizona, and Arizona was art. Miller, they proclaimed, was the who had celebrated the West as a not a figment of the imagination American James Joyce, using stream- realm of adventure and vigor, an im- but the imagination itself dressed of-consciousness to tell the deepest age irresistible to any American teen- as a horse and rider. And this was secrets of human life. Miller was the age boy. Miller would be not just a even more than the imagination American Proust. He was the greatest cowboy hero, but a spiritual cowboy. itself because there was no aura literary innovator since Shakespeare. Instead, Miller ended up working in of ambiguity but only sharp and All that sex was actually spiritual, very mundane jobs on a California dead isolate the thing itself which the Dionysian force in all nature, a ranch and a lemon grove, “working was the dream and the dreamer celebration of life. Then, after the like a slave...wretched, forlorn, miser- himself seated on horseback. Supreme Court ruling, literary folks able…”4 The discrepancy between the And as the train stops I put my wondered if they might have gotten real West and the West of his longings foot down and my foot has put a a bit carried away. It might be nice if first hit him when he stepped off the deep hole in the dream: I am in Miller’s novels had a bit more struc- train in Arizona. Miller recalled this the Arizona town which is listed ture, even a plot. He did seem to ram- shock in the autobiographical Tropic in the timetable and it is only ble. Perhaps exploring the self wasn’t of Capricorn, the companion to Tropic the geographical Arizona which the same thing as narcissistic self- of Cancer. It is worth quoting this ex- anybody can visit who has the indulgence. Miller’s preoccupation perience at length, since the conflict money. I am walking along the with sex did seem pretty adolescent between reality and imagination main street with a valise and I sometimes. When feminist literary would be the key to Miller’s experi- see hamburger sandwiches and criticism got going and got going on ence of the Grand Canyon three de- real estate offices. I feel so terri- Miller, it turned out that he had been cades later: bly deceived that I begin to weep. a male chauvinist pig and a dirty old It is dark now and I stand at the man after all. I remember now that it was al- end of a street, where the desert Yet Miller did have a Dionysian ready night when I first set foot on begins, and I weep like a fool.5 www.GrandCanyonHistory.org Grand Canyon Historical Society : 5 Three decades later when Miller Patchen and hit the road. women and children, poisoned our planned his real trip across America, Miller envisioned his trip as a Whit- souls, broke every treaty which you he seemed eager to give the South- manesque adventure. For a notebook made with us and left us to die…’”9 west another, more mature test. “I he obtained from a publisher the un- After a scorched-earth campaign want desperately to get to Arizona,” bound proof pages of Leaves of Grass in which Miller criticizes everything he wrote to his Paris publisher.6 This and wrote on the backsides. Yet Mill- about America except for a few ob- time he planned to get to the Grand er must have realized before he start- scure artists and religious eccentrics, Canyon. He even planned a chapter ed that he could not emulate Whit- he arrives in the Southwest, and here about the Grand Canyon, titled “The man’s celebration of America. Miller his mood changes: Grand Canyon and the Culebra Cut.” had already decided that his book’s It’s not too hard to guess the theme of title would be The Air-Conditioned Somehow, ever since I hit this chapter. The Culebra Cut was the Nightmare, meaning that America’s Tucumcari I have become com- man-made canyon across the Pana- technological comfort only housed a pletely disoriented. On the license manian continental divide, cut for the poverty of values and human spirit. plates in New Mexico it reads: Panama Canal. The Culebra Cut was Right from the start Miller began at- “The Land of Enchantment.” And originally a French project, but it was tacking America. Sometimes these that it is, by God! There’s a huge crippled by disease, bankruptcy, and complaints were perceptive: “Topo- rectangle which embraces parts a serious underestimation of the dif- graphically the country is magnifi- of four states—Utah, Colorado, ficulty of carving canyons. When the cent—and terrifying. Why terrifying? New Mexico, and Arizona—and Americans took over building the ca- Because nowhere else in the world is which is nothing but enchant- nal, the Culebra Cut so plagued them the divorce between man and nature ment, sorcery, illusionismus, with landslides that some experts so complete.”8 Yet Miller’s scathing phantasmagoria. Perhaps the predicted that the canal was hopeless. attacks were often embarrassingly secret of the American continent When the Cut was completed, it was overwrought even by the standards is contained in this wild, forbid- hailed as the greatest engineering tri- of 1930s left-wing literary culture. ding and partially unexplored umph in human history. Given Mill- Considering that he was writing territory. It is the land of the In- er’s skepticism about technological when Hitler was conquering Europe, dian par excellence. Everything progress, we can guess that he was which prompted the devoted pacifist is hypnagogic, chthonian and planning to use the Grand Canyon to Albert Einstein to urge pacifists to super-celestial. Here nature has ridicule the pride of humans in their join the army and which prompted gone gaga and dada. Man is just puny little canyons. Yet the Culebra the communist Woody Guthrie to an irruption, like a wart or a pim- Cut wouldn’t show up in Miller’s write patriotic ballads, Miller’s alien- ple. Man is not wanted here. Red writing about the Grand Canyon; it ation from America seems even more men, yes, but then they are so far seems that his real experience of the obsessive. Indeed, Miller finished his removed from what we think of canyon swept aside his polemical manuscript after Pearl Harbor, and as man that they seem like anoth- schemes. his publisher backed out, for no one er species. Embedded in the rocks When Miller got to New York City was in the mood for virulent Ameri- are their glyphs and hieroglyphs. he talked a publisher into grubstaking ca-bashing. Not to speak of the footprints of his trip in exchange for a book about In The Air-Conditioned Nightmare it dinosaurs and other lumbering America, though the publisher im- soon becomes clear that Miller’s 1940- antediluvian beasts. When you posed one rule: no sex. Miller bought 41 journey is guided by the same Ro- come to the Grand Canyon it’s as a car and set forth to explore America mantic philosophy and longing as his though Nature were breaking out by road. In 1940 it was still a daring 1913 journey. Between Pittsburgh and into supplication.10 idea to travel across the whole coun- Youngstown, “an Inferno which ex- try by car. Rt. 66 was barely a decade ceeds anything that Dante imagined, Driving toward Cameron and the old, and most roads, especially out the idea suddenly came to me that I canyon, Miller had an experience west, were still dirt. There were few ought to have an American Indian similar to his 1913 train window vi- highway services like motels and gas by my side, that he ought to share sion of the dreamlike Indian horse- stations. On the Road and Travels with this voyage with me, communicate man: “For about forty miles I don’t Charley were two decades in the fu- to me silently or otherwise his emo- think I passed a human habitation… ture; indeed, Miller’s road trip helped tions and reflections…Imagine the Three cars passed me and then there to create them and many other liter- two of us standing in contemplation was a stretch of silence and empti- ary road trips. Miller’s plan was even before the hideous grandeur of one of ness, a steady, sinister ebbing of all more adventuresome because: “I had those steel mills…I can almost hear human life, of plant and vegetable never owned a car, didn’t know how him thinking—’So it was for this that life, of light itself. Suddenly, out of to drive one even.”7 He took a few you deprived us of our birthright… nowhere, it seemed, three horse- driving lessons from poet Kenneth burned our homes, massacred our men...just materialized, as it were…

6 : Grand Canyon Historical Society www.GrandCanyonHistory.org then spurred their horses on into the Miller not only trembles but weeps or Siamese temples. Some of the phantasmal emptiness of dusk, disap- with joy, tears that finally wipe away rocks which jut up alone and iso- pearing in the space of a few seconds. and cancel out the tears of disillu- late are named after ancient tem- What was amazing to me was that sionment he shed as a young man. ples. It is a tremendous drama of they seemed to have a sense of direc- The Lost Generation had been disil- geology. I’ll send you a little book tion; they galloped off as if they were lusioned so many times that finally on it soon—it’s fascinating. Now going somewhere when obviously they refused to believe in anything; it’s pouring (we’ve had unusual 11 there was nowhere to go to.” The they had made a god out of disillu- weather in this country where similarity of this experience with his sionment; but now, after all the pho- it’s so dry) and the canyon is Tropic of Capricorn experience might niness Miller had found in his trip steaming—like a huge cauldron. make us wonder if Miller was plagia- across America, here was something At night, when you can see noth- rizing himself or posing for literary real, overwhelmingly real, actually ing, it is awesome. You feel this effect, but in fact his Grand Canyon surreal, so surreal that it wildly sur- big hole—a mile deep. I haven’t visit is also recorded in his letters to passed all the surrealistic art and been down it yet—afraid to walk his French lady friend Anaïs Nin, writing he had admired: it because I might not get up— and in these letters his experiences, it’s like climbing up five Empire including the surrealistic horsemen, It’s mad, completely mad, and State Buildings…I’d like to live are often described even more viv- at the same time so grandiose, so down at the bottom for a week idly and emotionally than in The Air- sublime, so illusory, that when you or so. Only Indians could live in Conditioned Nightmare. This similarity come upon it for the first time you such a place.”16 between Miller’s 1913 and 1941 ex- break down and weep with joy. I periences should have made Miller did, at least. For over thirty years Miller stretched his stay at the can- nervous, for his youthful journey I had been aching to see this huge yon to ten days. On day seven he re- had ended in tearful disillusionment. hole in the earth. Like Phaestos, ported to Nin: “I didn’t get down in If Miller now feared putting his foot Mycenae, Epidauros, it is one of the Canyon—just walked and drove through his Romantic dream again, the few spots on earth which not around the rim, viewing it from all he was about to face the ultimate only come up to all expectation angles in all sorts of atmospheric test, the ultimate Southwestern land- but surpass it. My friend Bush- conditions. It changes perpetually, scape. The Grand Canyon had been man, who had been a guide here like a chameleon.”17 Miller also re- hyped by everyone from artists to for a number of years, had told ported that “I gave up all medicines travel writers to the Santa Fe Railway. me some fantastic stories about about 3 days ago—and, oddly enuf, Could the reality possibly match the the Grand Canyon. I can believe I feel better…Must be psychological dream? From Cameron, where Miller anything that any one might tell too…” He closed with: “The sky now camped in the back seat of his car, he me about it, whether it has to do is perfect here—especially toward wrote to Nin: “Tomorrow the grandi- with geological eras and forma- sunset. That electric blue I first no- ose will reach its apotheosis at Grand tions, freaks of nature in animal ticed in Greece. And the stars at night Canyon. The river gorge here is about or plant life, or Indian legends. If like pinpricks on a cloth of unseizable 300 ft. deep and looks impressive in some one were to tell me that the velvet. The canyon itself is covered its moonlike desolation. But at Grand peaks and mesas and amphithe- with green, a faded Byzantine green, 12 Canyon it is one mile deep!!” Miller atres which are so fittingly called of suede. Striking. I don’t go into it in was also seeking spiritual depths at Tower of Set, Cheop’s Pyramid, a letter because I want to write about the Grand Canyon. From Albuquer- Shiva Temple, , Isis it at length. I’m grateful to have seen que he had written to Nin that he Temple, etc. were the creation of it. One of the wonders of the uni- was now heading for “...the Canyon, fugitive Egyptians, Chinese or verse.”18 which I love—next to Tibet the great- Tibetans, I would lend a credu- In The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 13 est spot on earth.” lous ear. The Grand Canyon is an Miller dwelled on several canyon Henry Miller’s first experience of enigma and no matter how much experiences. The sight of a discarded the Grand Canyon was intense, in- we learn we shall never know the newspaper served as a symbol of the cluding intense relief, for the canyon ultimate truth about it…15 smallness of human lives compared did indeed live up to his dream. On with geological time: May 1, 1941, he wrote to Anaïs Nin Two days after his arrival at the from the Bright Angel Lodge: “First canyon Miller wrote to Nin: …as I was taking my custom- glimpses of canyon suburb—no de- ary promenade along the rim of ception, no letdown. In fact I trembled “Well, it’s one of the places on the Canyon, the sight of a funny looking into it and got to laughing. I earth I dearly wanted to see. It’s sheet (Prince Valiant was what 14 took a room for a week.” no letdown. The rocks are cut as caught my eye) lying on the edge In The Air-Conditioned Nightmare to resemble the facades of Hindu of the abyss awakened curious www.GrandCanyonHistory.org Grand Canyon Historical Society : 7 reflections. What can possibly see one of the greatest reproduc- ond letter he wrote to Nin from the appear more futile, sterile and tions of Nature by the hand of Grand Canyon as he coaxed himself insignificant in the presence of man. “When you get a little more toward a different life than the one he such a vast and mysterious spec- sense,” I said, “maybe it won’t had lived in Paris: “Of course I realize tacle as the Grand Canyon than seem so wonderful to you…” I the change that is coming. I ask noth- the Sunday comic sheet? There it was fuming to think that a young ing better than to sit down and live lay, carelessly tossed aside by an boy should have nothing better simply…I know how to go without indifferent reader, the least wind to do than try to waylay tourists and not feel disoriented. I don’t even ready to lift it aloft and blow it for his father at that hour of the miss the movies.”24 to extinction. Behind this gaudy- morning. Pretending to be fixing Only nine days after Miller left the colored sheet, requiring for its the telescope, polishing it, and Grand Canyon, even as he was set- creation the energies of countless so on, and then pulling off that tling into Hollywood, it seems he was men, the varied resources of Na- nonsense about “man imitating feeling a new direction, at least sub- ture, the feeble desires of over- God’s handiwork”—on a piece of consciously. He wrote to Nin about fed children, lay the whole story canvas, no less, when there before his plans: “Guess it will be San Fran- of the culmination of our Western one’s eyes was God himself in all cisco next, though I’m not sure. May civilization.19 his glory, manifesting his gran- stop off in between at Big Sur about deur without the aid or interven- which Robinson Jeffers wrote—the As Miller walked among the tour- tion of man. All to sell you a fossil wildest part of the Pacific Coast.”25 It ists, he “caught the weirdest frag- or a string of beads or some pho- would be Big Sur where Miller would ments of conversation, startling be- tographic film. Reminded me of spend sixteen years in a no-electricity cause so unrelated to the nature of the the bazaars of Lourdes.21 cabin perched atop cliffs above the place.”20 Miller couldn’t resist making ocean, cliffs a bit like Grand Canyon fun of tourists who were more inter- Miller devoted a chapter to “The cliffs. He would live a life closer to ested in their Western-style fashions, Desert Rat,” a dusty old prospector that of the Mohave Desert prospector their ice cream, or their social preten- with whom Miller talked for several than to that of Paris cafes, theaters, sions than in the Grand Canyon. hours over lunch at the Bright Angel and art galleries. On his way up the In front of Verkamp’s store Miller Lodge. “He went on about the virtue Pacific Coast Miller had checked out ran into young Jack Verkamp pol- of living alone in the desert, of living Carmel, but he told Nin: “Didn’t like ishing the rim telescope. When Jack with the stars and rocks, studying the the looks of the place—so arty.”26 In mentioned that his dad’s store sold earth, listening to one’s own voice, Paris Henry Miller had reveled in the film, Miller was almost triggered wondering about Creation…”22 The arty, but now he was turning his back into another tirade against American hermit talked about how the land on art in favor of nature—he was even commercial values. But Miller seems spoke to him more profoundly than proud of himself for refusing to take a to have recognized the absurdity of any book could, about the wisdom few steps into Verkamp’s and see art venting against a young boy who of the earth and of the Indians, about of the Grand Canyon when he could lived on the edge of the canyon and the craziness of cities and civilization. embrace the real thing. obviously loved the canyon, so for To Nin, Miller called this “The best In her diary Anaïs Nin observed once in the book Miller lightened up talk I’ve had with anyone since leav- Miller’s struggle for direction. In and wrote a double-edged tirade that ing New York. All I told you of my December of 1940 Miller returned was also a parody of his own self- intuitions about the Indians…he con- from the American South to New righteousness: firmed. He knows them—lived with York City, where Nin was living. She them. Is a solitary prospector in the wrote: “Henry returns from his wan- But to him everything was desert near Barstow, Cal. And a mys- derings. He tells me about America… phenomenal and interesting, in- tic and philosopher...And at the end He has been looking for something to cluding the hotel on the opposite he apologized for “not being edu- love. Nature, yes, that was extraor- side of the canyon—because you cated.” I learned more from him than dinary. He tells me about a stalactite could see it clearly through the from all the professors.”23 cave, the wonder of it…Henry is not telescope. “Have you seen the There was a reason why Henry impressed with size, power. He looks large painting of the Canyon in Miller became so absorbed in a con- for a deeper America.”27 He would my father’s shop?” he asked, as versation about nature vs. cities, earth soon set out for the West. I was about to leave him. “It’s a vs. books, simplicity vs. stylish ca- In the end, it’s not possible to prove phenomenal piece of work.” I fes. This was the very argument that how much influence the Grand Can- told him bluntly I had no inten- Miller was waging within himself as yon had upon Henry Miller’s change tion of looking at it…He looked he tried to figure out where to go and of direction. He never stated this in aggrieved, wounded, utterly what to do with the rest of his life. This print. Miller’s biographers and schol- amazed that I should not care to internal argument surfaced in the sec- ars often skim over the whole Night-

8 : Grand Canyon Historical Society www.GrandCanyonHistory.org mare road trip around America, and trying to listen to his own heart, and barely mention the Grand Canyon; who had sat for hours in the Bright October Outing they are interested mainly in Miller’s Angel Restaurant listening to a desert novels; and they come from an aca- hermit talk about listening to nature. demic literary culture where the only In 1975 a Rolling Stone reporter Grand Canyon Historical Society reality is human culture and where it went to interview Miller and found: Outing on October 4, 2008 at Page, is hard to imagine nature having any- “On one wall is a hand-inscribed Arizona. thing important to say to anyone. But poster listing the names of scores of all the indications are that Miller’s places Miller has visited around the by Nancy R. Green, GCHS Secretary encounter with the Grand Canyon world—with marginal comments.” fit powerfully into his mid-life crisis It included: “Grand Canyon (still the ur original plan was to tour and helped to resolve it. As a youth best).”29 Antelope Canyon in the Miller had felt a powerful pull to the morning and the John Wesley American Southwest, but then he had (Endnotes) OPowell Memorial Museum in the 1, 2 Ibid, p. 10. lost faith in his own impulses, then 3 Ibid, p. 14. afternoon. The morning dawned, or lost faith in America entirely. Miller’s 4 Miller, Tropic of Capricorn (New York: rather – there was no dawn, due to the homecoming road trip around Ameri- Grove Press, 1961), p. 151. Used by permis- heavy, hanging grey clouds. As it got sion of Grove/Atlantic Press. ca did little to heal his alienation from 5 Ibid, p. 152. closer to our meeting time, the rain a phony society, but he did discover 6 From proposal for American travel book, changed from an occasional sprinkle that America did hold something quoted in Jay Martin, Always Merry and to a steady rain. Upon consulting Bright: The Life of Henry Miller (Santa Bar- powerfully real, powerfully surreal, bara: Capra Press, 1978), p. 372. the NOA weather radio, the first something beside which human so- 7 The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, p. 240. statements concerned the probability ciety didn’t really matter, something 8 Ibid, p. 19-20. of flash floods, and warnings not to 9 Ibid, p.28-9. that allowed him to return home, to 10 Ibid, p. 239. enter slot canyons. Hmmmm. Sadly, begin a new life atop a remote cliff. 11 Ibid, p. 238. but safely we cancelled the canyon Miller did give us one strong hint 12 Henry Miller, Letters to Anais Nin, edited tour. We were fortunate enough to and introduced by Gunther Stuhlmann about the influence of the Grand Can- (New York: George Putnam’s Sons, 1965), p. be able to reschedule our tour at the yon upon him. After he settled in Big 257. Reprinted with permission of Barbara museum for the morning. Sur he sought out and became close Stuhlmann and the Anais Nin Trust. The tour was conducted by Mark 13 Ibid, p, 255. friends with two people who were 14 Ibid, p. 258. Law, Director of Programming for closely associated with the Grand 15 The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, p. 240. the museum. He’s better known to Canyon and the Southwest, Law- 16 Letters to Anais Nin, p. 258. some of us as a former river ranger 17 Ibid, p. 260. rence Clark Powell and Edwin Corle. 18 Ibid, p. 261. at Grand Canyon, now retired. His Lawrence Clark Powell was a South- 19 The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, p. 227. personal interests, as well as his western historian, and the librarian 20 Ibid, p. 219. work at the museum, made him a 21 Ibid, p. 221-2. at UCLA. Back in 1932 Powell and 22 Ibid, p. 223. knowledgeable lecturer. He informed Miller had taught English at the same 23 Letters to Anais Nin, p. 260. us that this museum was originally boy’s school in Dijon, France. Now 24 Ibid, p. 259. built in memory of the Page Work 25 Ibid, p. 265. both found a spiritual home in the 26 Ibid, p. 266. Camps during the building of the American West. “If an astrologer had 27 Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume Glen Canyon Dam. told Henry Miller,” wrote Powell in Three, 1939-1944 (New York: Harcourt, John Wesley Powell was born on Brace & World, 1969), p. 55. Copyright 1960, “thirty years ago in Paris that renewed 1997 by Rupert Pole and Gunther March 24, 1834 in Mount Morris, the crowning years of his life would Stuhlmann. Reprinted with permission New York. His father, a Methodist be spent on an isolated stretch of the of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing clergyman, named him after the Company. Central California coast, he would 28 Lawrence Clark Powell, in Conversations founder of the Methodist church. have changed astrologers.”28 Powell with Henry Miller, edited by Frank Ker- The family moved frequently – to became Miller’s lifeline to the literary snowski and Alice Hughes, (Jackson, Ms.: Ohio in 1838, Wisconsin in 1846, and University Press of Mississippi, 1994), p. 11. world, sending him a constant stream 29 Jonathan Cott, in ibid, p. 182. Illinois in 1851. Education was always of books from the UCLA library. Ed- important to young Powell, and win Corle was a novelist, who would he was fascinated with science. He write the introduction to one of Mill- spent time touring around collecting er’s novels. Corle also wrote the mid- specimens, particularly mollusks, century’s most popular book about shells and minerals. He rowed on the Grand Canyon, Listen, Bright An- the Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois gel. This title should have caught the Rivers, collecting specimens along imagination of a man who had spent the way. After a year of college, he ten days at the Bright Angel Lodge began teaching in Jefferson County, www.GrandCanyonHistory.org Grand Canyon Historical Society : 9 Wisconsin in a one room schoolhouse America.” His famous book would accident. The group exited the canyon in 1852 for fourteen dollars a month. not be published until 1875. That at Kanab Wash. He met his first cousin, Emma Dean, in actually was a composite of both of It should also be noted that Emma 1855. Apparently romances between his trips down the river. In 1870 he gave birth to a baby girl on September first cousins were common then, and went back to the region to pre-supply 8, 1871 – Mary Dean. their romance bloomed. his planned expedition for 1871. Jacob It is interesting to note that other 1861 was a happy and momentous Hamblin and Powell got a wagon load participants in the two Grand year for John. He married his of lumber from Kanab and proceeded Canyon voyages also kept journals sweetheart, Emma, and enlisted to the vicinity of today’s Lee’s Ferry. which often had discrepancies from in the Illinois Infantry. 1862 was Powell recognized that this area was Powell’s account. momentous for a more tragic reason. the only place for hundreds of miles Powell was one of the earliest people Powell raised his right hand to signal where the Colorado could be forded. to really understand the unique Fire! during the Battle of Shiloh on He used the lumber to build a raft to configuration and interrelationship April 6. He was struck in the wrist cross the river so they could continue of the land of the Southwest. He by a bullet. The decision was made on to the Hopi Mesas. truly saw how critical a part water to amputate his right arm. Incredibly, He also wanted to check on what would play in the settlement and he continued to serve in the Union could have happened to the three development of the deserts of the Army. Out of consideration for his men who left the ’69 trip at Separation Southwest. In 1878 he wrote a report wounds, his wife was allowed to Rapid. The conjecture on that episode to the Secretary of the Interior on the accompany him in the field to attend goes on until today. Separation isn’t arid regions of the United States and to his medical needs. It still proved to now and never was a killer, scary suggested a new plan for settling the be too much for him, so he requested rapid. So why did the men really Western territories. to be relieved of his duties. However leave? The speculation is that the In 1879 he took a leading role in – he waited until near the end of the CFS of the river during that trip was helping to create the United States Civil War to do so. He took part in 60,000 -70,000. There is a controversy Geological Survey. He also was the Battle of Vicksburg, which took that although contracts were signed appointed Director of the Bureau of place from April 15-July 4. He did for completion of the voyage, there Ethnology. In 1881 he accepted the have to leave during part of that really wasn’t any money to be had Directorship of the U.S.G.S. time for further surgery. During his for the men. Powell accepted the In 1888 Powell was one of the convalescence he was notified he had explanation from translator Jacob 33 men who founded the National been promoted to major. Even though Hamblin that the three explorers were Geographic Society. That same year he achieved higher rank after that, he killed by Indians who had mistaken he began irrigation surveys in the always preferred to be addressed as the men for some miners who had West which were the forerunners to Major Powell. It wasn’t until January raped a woman. But, years the Bureau of Reclamation. of 1865 that he formally requested later, in the Toquerville City Hall In 1894 Powell resigned from resignation from the Army due to his basement, letters were uncovered the U.S.G.S. and began a gradual disability. stating that the three men showed up withdrawal from public life. John Powell then accepted a professor- there. What happened to them after Wesley Powell died on September 23, ship at Illinois Wesleyan University that remains a mystery. There also 1902 at his summer home in Haven, teaching geology. In 1867 the Pow- was a watch which belonged to one Maine at the age of 68. ells took off on a scientific expedition of the three men. It kept showing up His voyages and explorations remain with sixteen students to Colorado. in strange places – in the hand of a an astounding feat of perseverance Emma became the first woman to Mormon farmer and also in the hand and scientific discovery. What a man summit Pikes Peak. John looked at of an Indian. Hmmm. of influence and inspiration he was, the maps of the Great Southwest and In 1871 the second Powell expedition with reverberations all the way to saw the huge blank spot indicating took place. John learned from his today. a totally unexplored region around mistakes from the first voyage. This and through the Grand Canyon. The group was much more qualified for seeds were planted for a future jour- the rigors and science needed for ney down the . a canyon exploration. It was also a In 1869 Powell’s first river trip took better supplied trip, with equipment place. He published this first account and food being distributed evenly under the title “New Tracks in North between the boats in the event of an

10 : Grand Canyon Historical Society www.GrandCanyonHistory.org Grand Canyon Book Club Calendar continued from page 3 Sunday April 19, 2009 Prescott by Betty Upchurch Dave guided for George Fraser, a Beyond Guard Towers and Barbed rich Easterner, who wanted an ad- Wire: Austrian Prisoners of War at he Grand Canyon Book Club venture in the Southwest. Fraser and Navajo Ordinance Depot. met on Tuesday, November 18, Rust, though from very different cir- John Westerlund to discuss the book Dave Rust: cumstances, became great friends, ------TA Life in the Canyons by Frederick took several trips together, and wrote Wednesday April 29, 2009 H. Swanson. Dave Rust is known in countless letters. They would stand Flagstaff Grand Canyon history for his work together on the same promontories California Condors in Arizona! building the trail from the North where the geologist Clarence Dut- Kathy Sullivan Rim, along Bright Angel Creek, to ton had been and read from Dutton’s ------the Colorado River. He also built the Tertiary History which Dave carried Wednesday May 6, 2009 cable car across the Colorado to cre- in his saddlebag. Fraser’s enthusi- Glendale ate a route from the South Rim to asm and friendship sent many more Science on the Edge: Preserving the North Rim. Rust Camp provided clients to Rust over the years. Rust Grand Canyon National Park’s accommodations for tourists near guided very small groups all over the Natural and Cultural Resources. what is now Phantom Ranch. Rust . Swanson was able Martha Hahn completed all of this work for his to discover some of Dave’s terse jour------ambitious,flamboyant father-in-law, nals and piece them together with the Sunday May 17, 2009 Dee Woolley, of Kanab, Utah. Woolley accounts written by the tourists that Prescott wanted to see the North Rim become Dave guided. Together these writings Canyon Experiences: Sublime to Silly as popular a tourist attraction as the bring to life Dave Rust and the land Gary Ladd South Rim, and Dave Rust was will- he loved. ------ing to risk his health for his father-in- The Book Club members appreci- Wednesday May 20, 2009 law’s dream. However, Swanson de- ated Fred Swanson’s meticulous re- Flagstaff votes only about five of the nineteen search. He took the brief character of The Resurrection of Glen Canyon chapters of the book covering these Dave Rust in Grand Canyon history Annette McGivney and James Kay few years of the life of Dave Rust. and filled out the details to make a ------The author’s extensive research has story of an interesting, educated man Thursday May 21, 2009 brought the rest of the complex life of of great common sense, humor, and Glendale Dave Rust to our attention. skill. Tracing the Ancient Landscapes of As Rust grew up he was not just the Colorado Plareau a cowboy and part time miner, he Wayne Ranney wanted to learn. He and his family ------sacrificed so he could go to college Thursday June 18, 2009 at Brigham Young and even one year Glendale at Stanford. Dave became a school The 1956 Grand Canyon Air teacher and then a school superinten- Disaster: The Legends, Legacies dent in several small southern Utah and Mysteries of TWA Flight 2 towns. During his summers he and United Flight 718. worked for his father-in-law. Dan Driskill However, the bottom of the ______Grand Canyon was not For detailed information visit: much of a draw for www.grandcanyon.org Dave where he felt the hemmed-in op- pression of the inner gorge. He loved the wide-open views from promontories. These views led to Dave’s long career as a guide on the Colorado Plateau. www.GrandCanyonHistory.org Grand Canyon Historical Society : 11 Spread the Word — Join the Grand Canyon Historical Society!

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