Dirty Devil River from: Place Names

DIRTY DEVIL RIVER (Garfield County, Wayne County) originates at the junction of the Fremont and Muddy rivers that join northeast of Hanksville* to form the Dirty Devil. This river then drains southeast into the River. During one of Powell's expeditions, the party drew near the mouth of the then unnamed river and someone shouted, "How is she, Jack?" and Jack replied, "Oh, she's a dirty devil!" This is the origin of the name. When the river was first named by the Powell group, they made no distinction as to how far upriver the name would apply or which branch the name continued on. This problem was finally solved by the courts. Powell later changed the name to to honor John Charles Fremont, cartographer and pathfinder, but the name Dirty Devil continued its popularity, so the name Fremont now applies only to the principal upper fork. Powell's party subsequently named Bright Angel Creek further down the in National Park to counteract the naming of the Dirty Devil. Inasmuch as they had honored the devil they felt obligated to honor the good spirits as well. >S2,T28S,R11E,SLM to S21,T33S,R14E,SLM. Bibliography: Dellenbaugh, Frederick S. A Canyon Voyage. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908. The Romance of the Colorado River. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Explorations of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872. Under the Direction of the Smithsonian Institute. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1875. Stegner, Wallace. Beyond the Hundredth Meridian. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954. Writers' Program. Origins of Utah Place Names. 3d ed. Comp. and written by Utah Writers Project, Work Projects Administration. Sponsored and published by Utah State Department of Public Instruction. Salt Lake City, 1940.

EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS... 1. An asterisk (*) following a place name indicates past or present inhabitation. 2. When a series of letters and numbers are present towards the end of an entry after the ">" symbol, the first group indicates section/township/range as closely as can be pinpointed (i.e., S12,T3S,R4W,SLM, or USM). A section equals approximately one square mile, reflecting U.S. Geological Survey topographic map sections. Because Utah is not completely mapped, some entries are incomplete. In this case, whatever information is available will be provided. The second group, when present, is altitude in feet followed by meters in parentheses [i.e., 6,000' (1,829m)]. Altitude is not included with canyons or deserts with varying altitudes.

______SOURCE... Utah Place Names. Salt Lake City, Utah : University of Utah. University of Utah Press, 1990.

AUTHOR... Van Cott, John W.

USE RESTRICTIONS... The contents of this article may be repurposed for non-commercial, non-profit, educational use.

______Distributed by the Utah Education Network eMedia service: http://www.uen.org/emedia Original digital conversion by UCME: Utah Collections Multimedia Encyclopedia project: http://www.uen.org/ucme File ID = t_002196 A softbound copy of the original book may be purchased online from the University of Utah Press at: http://www.uofupress.com

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