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William Wallace Bass (1849 - 1933)by Dick Brown |
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William Wallace Bass was born in Shelbyville, Indiana on October 2, 1849. Like hundreds of others with the hope of getting rich, his father headed west to join the California Gold Rush where he died of yellow fever. Hearing the news the family moved from Shelbyville to New Jersey were Bill attended school through the sixth grade.
He learned the carpenter trade and studied telegraphy, and by the time he reached 17 got a job as a conductor on the Erie Railroad. Bill Bass was never very strong or robust and possessed an extremely nervous disposition. As he grew older his health deteriorated, and while working as a dispatcher on New York's elevated railroad his doctors found a heart aneurysm and diagnosed him as beyond relief and suggested he might extend his life a few months by moving to the arid Southwest.
Thus, the slightly built 27-year old man, standing five feet six inches and sporting his trademark moustache headed West and spent the early l880s in southwestern New Mexico, southern Arizona, and even ventured for a short time across the border in Chihuahua, Mexico. Finally he wandered north in July l883 to Williams, Arizona, a frontier town which boasted thirty saloons along the tracks of the A&P Railroad, and unsuccessfuly sought employment in the railroad yards.
For two months he worked at odd jobs around Williams, including house construction, fiddling for dances, and serving as deputy sheriff. Then with marked improvement to his health and enough money saved for a grubstake he moved seven miles north of town where he lived in a cave and went into cattle ranching on the Scott Ranch.
He first encountered the Grand Canyon when Havasupai Indians guided him to the rim in the autumn of 1883, and by the spring of 1884, he erected a small cabin and began homesteading near Havasupai Point while exploring and prospecting in the Canyon. After a Supai chief showed him a reliable water supply below the rim and with the help of two Supai Indians he improved an Indian track which he named the Mystic Spring Trail. During the cold winter months he studied books on geology in nature's college below the rim.
His rustic camp soon served served as a haven for photographers, artists, writers and geologists, while another camp under an overhang at Mystic Spring became a base for visitors exploring the Esplanade. About this time he began using the title of Captain and like Captain Hance, he and three hired hands continued improving the old Indian path to the river affording tourists the total rim-to-river experience. Here he established a river camp, built a rock cabin, and a crude wooden boat from lumber packed in on burros for crossing the Coloraado river at a placid location below some rapids. He called this Bass Ferry.
On the north side of the river at Shinumo Creek he cultivated a garden and an orchard and continued working on a trail leading to the North Rim. During this time he located several asbestos and copper claims on both sides of the river and over the years hauled enough ore from his mine in Copper Canyon to fill two railroad cars.
The route from Williams to his camp on the canyon rim was no more than an unmarked wagon rut meandering through the high grass and not the most comfortable ride for prospective visitors. So Bass constructed a road and in 1891 began operating the first stage line between points by buying Nelson Miles' old four-horse coach and running two trips weekly. To accommodate his visitors he upgraded his rimside cabin as a permanent home and tourist camp. During its 36-year history several thousand visitors registered there including such names as George Wharton James, writer Zane Grey, artist Thomas Moran, naturalist John Muir, industrialist Henry Ford and Army Lieutenant Joseph Ives. As part of his tourist enterprise he guided parties west to Cataract Canyon and east to Grandview and Desert View. He also guided the first geological survey at the Canyon.
He built 35 miles of stage road from Ash Fork, a way station on the railroad with general store and corral and opened a second stage line in 1892. This same year he guided a party of two men and three women from Prescott. They stayed at Bass Camp on the rim, ventured down the trail to Mystic Spring and another day visited the waterfalls near Supai Village. A young music teacher named Ada Lenore Diefendorf was in the party, and with common interests in nature and music a romance soon blossomed. They were married in Williams, Arizona in 1894. She was a devoted frontier wife, hostess and business partner and often guided guests to the river. After the arrival of the railroad at the Canyon he discontinued both stage lines and met train passengers desiring to visit his accomdations at Bass Station about five miles southwest of El Tovar Hotel and carried them by buggy or coach 20 miles to Havasupi point at the head of his trail to Mystic Springs.
In the late 1890s he and Ada moved to New York where their first two children, Edith and Hazel were born, followed later by Mabel and William. During their time in the East, Bill used lantern slides to illustrate lectures on the Grand Canyon. Within a few years the family returned to Bass Camp where Bill authored a book, Adventures in the Canyons of the Colorado, and published several booklets, one intended to dissuade visitors from patronizing Fred Harvey Company, called A Few Plain Truths Plainly Stated for Grand Canyon Visitors. Another advertised Bass Camp, and several contained his canyon poems.
A great friend of the Havasupai Indians, he went to Washington several times to lobby for Congressional action on their behalf, and was able to obtain a school and teacher, post office, medicine and farming assistance. For four years he carried the mail pouch to Supai Village.
In 1906 he completed construction of a cableway across the Colorado River at the foot of Bass Trail. He ferried tourists, animals, hunting parties, and asbestos from his mines across in a rickety wooden cage suspended on four steel cables. He became intensely interested in the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park and in preserving the miners' interests within the park.
In 1911 he was instrumental in establishing the first school at the Canyon. He erected a 12-room Bass Hotel at the Village but was ordered to remove it when the South Rim concession was awarded to the Fred Harvey Company. In 1912 Bill bought a seven-passenger Studebaker automobile for $1,500 and with this newfangled mode of transportation, plus some additional buckboards and carriages, grossed $21,000 in 1915, the biggest year on record for Bass Camp.
Son Billy helped drive ore-laden burro pack trains to the rim, and daughter Edith helped guide tourists on the trails. In September 1923 the family hosted their last paying guest at their time-honored resort and moved to Wickenburg, Arizona. There Bill spent his days gardening, writing, prospecting and operating a small campsite for tourists.
In February 1926 the Santa Fe Improvement Company purchased all the Bass properties at the Canyon for $25,000 and transferred them to the government in accordance with the move to rid the park of pockets of privately held land. Mrs. Bass refused to sign the papers until she received $10,000 in her own name.
On March 7, 1933 at age 84 Bill Bass died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Funeral services were held at the Wickenburg Presbyterian Church and his body cremated in Phoenix. At his request, his ashes were scattered by plane over Holy Grail Temple which stands in prominence and reverence over the section of the Canyon he loved and had explored. In honor of the grizzled trail builder, settler, miner and promoter who spent 40 years of his life at the Canyon his name has been branded on several Canyon features, including Bass Trail, Bass Canyon, Bass Rapid, and Bass Limestone. The name "Bass" can never be erased from the pages of Canyon history.
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Used by permission of the Grand Canyon Pioneers Society.
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