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Grand Canyon Pioneers Society - The Bulletin |
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| Vol 6, No 2 | February 2002 |
GCPS Outings for 2002
| February 16: |
Tour of the State Capitol in Phoenix, in honor of the Arizona
statehood. Tour limited to 30.
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| March 16: |
100th Anniversary of the Grand Canyon Post Office by Bob Becthel.
Bob is a professor at the University of Arizona and teaches Environmental
Psychology. He is also chairman of the board of the Postal History
Foundation, a non-profit organization that specializes in postal history and
educating children. Bob is also the author of the Catalogue of Arizona
Statehood Postmarks.
Bob will bring along the four panel exhibit on the postal history of the Grand Canyon and will talk about most of the panels. The post offices at or near the Canyon were Tolfree, Tourist, Grand Canyon, Kaibab and Kaibab Forest which became North Rim, and Supai. He will give a brief history of each with some anecdotes about the characters like John Hance. He will also mention the stamps that have been issued at the Canyon, beginning with the National Parks stamp in 1934. Lunch will be at the Bright Angel Lodge restaurant at 11:45 AM. Program at the Historic Community Building at 2:00 PM, and a visit to view to the historic Post Office (cabin #6188). | ||||||||
| March 29-31: | 2002 Easter Hike and Service at the South Bass and Ruby Drainage. | ||||||||
| April 27: | Glen Canyon by Katie Lee at Jerome State Historic Park (formerly the Douglas Mansion). | ||||||||
| May 18: | "Route 66 Across Arizona. A Comprehensive Two-Way Guide for Touring Route 66" by Richard and Sherry Mangum at Northern Arizona University Cline Library at Flagstaff. | ||||||||
| June 22: | Annual Picnic at Shoshone Point, Grand Canyon. | ||||||||
| July 20: | Museum of Northern Arizona Special Collections Tour at Flagstaff. | ||||||||
| August 17: | "The Grand Canyon Orphan Mine" by Maurice Castagne at Grand Canyon Maricopa Observation Point. | ||||||||
| September 21: | Grand Canyon Aviation History by Ron Warren at Grand Canyon Airport. | ||||||||
| October 19: | Grand Canyon and Lake Powell slide show by Gary Ladd and GCPS Board meeting. | ||||||||
| November 16: | Grand Canyon Private Boaters Association and the Colorado River Management Plan by Tom Hazel, former President of the GCPBA. | ||||||||
| December: | No Meeting |
Betty Settles Remembered
by Becky (Settles) Ingram
I am sure that many of the Grand Canyon Pioneers will remember Betty Settles, wife of Jack Settles, both of whom worked for Babbitt Brothers Trading Co. in the Williams, Grand Canyon, and Page stores from 1952 until 1971. Betty managed the Ready-To-Wear (clothing) Department, while Jack was the store manager of all departments. She would completely outfit tourists, who would take the mule rides into the Grand Canyon, with Levis, western shirts, western belts, bandanas, boots, and cowboy hats which was just a part of making their Grand Canyon experience memorable. She always put forth her best effort in making her department a success throughout the Babbitt system, not only by creatively displaying souvenir items for the tourists, but also displaying her wonderful trait of welcome to each customer she came in contact with.
Betty went to be with our Lord on October 24, 2001. She was diagnosed with Non-Hodkins Lymphoma in the Spring of 2000 and was treated successfully with chemotherapy. She was cancer-free, but developed a drug reaction to a chemical in her treatments, which completely shut down her lungs.
She will be remember as a role model to all of her family and friends; a loving wife of 57 years, a gentle and very caring mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother; a dear sister, and to all of those who knew her, "a best friend". Betty was 78 eight years young. She is survived by her husband, Jack; two children, Becky Ingram and Phil Settles; five grandchildren, and three great grandchildren; a sister, Shirley DeWitt and a brother, Richard DeWitt. Betty will be dearly missed by all.
BOOK REVIEW
Hell Or High Water by Eilean Adams
Utah State University Press, 2001
Most people interested in writing about the life of a grandfather would climb into the attic and sift through the old man's trunk hoping to find revealing stuff that Grandma never talked about. Not Eilean Adams! Her relentless research into the long life of her mother's controversial father took her into countless archives, counsels and canyons and kept her busy for 30 years.
The result is Hell Or High Way (Utah State University Press) a fascinating, exceptionally well-written "biography" of the most mysterious man ever to haunt the history of the Colorado River and its Grand Canyon.
Was Eilean's grandfather, James White, the first man to navigate the unknown rapids-strewn Colorado River through Grand Canyon? If so, he did it in 1867, two years before the much-publicized "first voyage" down that hazardous route by Major John Wesley Powell.
The question of who really was first has dominated discussions of the Great Gorge for more than 140 years. Finding the answer was no easy task. Mrs. Adams began her long and intense research without any familial bias that might favor a grandfather she never knew. His only written legacy was an almost illegible, inarticulate letter that he penned to his brother after White had been found, starving and delirious, clinging to a dilapidated log raft at Callville, Nevada.
Fortunately, there was - later - the transcript of an interview with White by a man who seriously probed White's claim, came to believe it and became his champion.
Those were the scant "facts" that Mrs. Adams had to begin with. "Not enough," she said, so she sought every living member of the legion, who after White and Powell, became the "authorities" of the river and the canyon. Each, she discovered, was an "expert" on the lure and the lore of the inner gorge and its foaming rapids.
Most were also passionate and stubborn in their belief that James White was a liar, faker and possibly even a murdered who could not possibly have fled from mining claims in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, discovered an ingress into what Powell would later call Glen Canyon of the Colorado River, throw together a make-shift, rope-together raft of logs, and steer it through awesome Grand Canyon. (Young river-runner Barry Goldwater was an exception; he believed White's story.)
Mrs. Adams listened carefully to the many "keepers of the canyon" and to anyone else with an opinion of her "grand-daddy." She read everything - over the years there had been much written by just about every river-runner except James White - and she probed archives to study the history of the river and its advocates.
Perhaps the most controversial thing about the James White saga has been the mystery surrounding the route by which the pursued prospector escaped "murderous savages" in the San Juans and gained shores of the Colorado River where he could embark on it to begin his castaway adventure.
Not content to accept dissidents' claims that White "couldn't have made it that way" over several proposed land routes (suggested by White's ravings when he was rescued from his crumbling raft, and later by his detractors), Mrs. Adams investigated all those routes as well as several others proposed by men intent on proving that White entered Grand Canyon near its end rather than at its beginning.
She solved that mystery by presenting a mile-by-mile explanation of why her choice of the route must have been that taken by her hurrying grandfather. Her conclusion has him descending Moki Canyon, gaining the Colorado at Moki's mouth and embarking there to float down half of Glen Canyon, past what was to become Lees Ferry (five years later), then plunging through the entire inner gorge of Grand Canyon to emerge at Callville.
In this reviewer's opinion, Mrs. Adams has settled once, and for all, the question of who was first to navigate the Great Gorge: it was James White.
Even Powell's biographer (Donald Worster) acknowledges the veracity of such a conclusion. "If (White's journey) seems improbable, all other explanations are more probable still," he writes in his remarkable book A River Running West (Oxford University Press, 2001).
All who are fascinated by the Great Gorge will find Hell Or High Water a story of amazing revelations presented by a dedicated grand-daughter who sought only the truth. And found it!
- Stan Jones, Page, Arizona
THIS and THAT
Nominating an individual for the Grand Canyon Pioneers Society - Pioneer Award is as easy as 1 - 2 - 3:
(1) Identify an individual who has made a significant contribution to the understanding of the Grand Canyon.
(2) Write a short paragraph why the individual nominated should be considered by the committee for receiving the Pioneer Award.
(3) Send the nomination to Tom Carmony by March 1st.
Thanks to Mike Anderson and the committees for the Grand Canyon History Symposium - January 24 - 27, 2002, at the South Rim. What an opportunity to learn about the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Want to learn more about the Grand Canyon (and have a great meal with Pioneers)? Please review the outings for 2002 that have been organized by Carolyn Castleman.
Have you noticed the sub-title "A Historical Association"? At the October 2001 Board Meeting the members discussed what opportunities were available to encourage individuals to learn about and then join the Pioneers Society. The Board wanted to make it "perfectly clear" that membership was open to all Grand Canyon enthusiasts. Yes, the Pioneers Society is A Historical Association.
Easter Hike and Sunrise Service
March 29 - 31, 2002
The Easter Hike and Sunrise service will be held March 29-31, 2002. The group will hike down the South Bass trail Friday - Good Friday - and set up camp in the Bass and Ruby use areas.
Saturday individuals / groups will day hike on the Grand Scenic Divide, Bass Canyon, or one of the Terraces on the Supai. Saturday night we will gather around the "candle" (campfire) and tell about experiences in the Canyon and stories about the Canyon. The Easter Sunrise Service will be at the Bass Overlook. This service and experience is one that may leave a lasting impression on you.
Space is limited. Please contact Lee Albertson at 480-838-2710 or Albertson1213@msn.com, or Jim Ohlman at 928-697-8612 or ohlman@citlink.net to make your reservation.
Dr. Robert Clark Euler
August 8, 1924 - January 13, 2002
Dr. Robert Clark Euler of Prescott was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was a decorated Captain in the United States Marine Corps during WWII on Iwo Jima and in the Korean War.
Dr. Euler's career encompassed research, teaching, and consulting. He was the chairman of the Anthropology Departments at Northern Arizona University and the University of Utah. He founded the Center for Man and Environment at Prescott College and later became President of Prescott College. He also taught at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Arizona State University, and For Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. He was Curator of Anthropology at the Museum of Northern Arizona. Early in his career, he lived nearly two years with a Navajo family near the Little Colorado River to study their economic life and later studied the effects of large-scale coal mining on the Navajo families of Black Mesa in Arizona. He also conducted research with the Hopi, Havasupai, Hualapai, and Southern Paiute, advising the tribes with various land-claim cases.
Dr. Euler authored more than 150 publications. He presented his research papers to the Society for American Archaeology, the Society for Applied Anthropology, the American Anthropological Association, the International Congress of Americanists, and the International Conference on Climate History at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.
Senator Barry Goldwater appointed Dr. Euler to be Research Anthropologist for Grand Canyon National Park from 1974 through 1984. He was a scholar of Southwest and great Basin tribes, as well as Canyon archaeology and history. Among other topics, he researched the controversial 1867 passage of James White through the Grand Canyon. He enjoyed photography, camping, and numerous Colorado River boat trips.
At the time of his death, Dr. Euler was the Tribal Anthropologist for the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe. Memorial contributions may be made to the Prescott Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society, P.O. Box 1098, Prescott, AZ 86302.
1st Grand Canyon History Symposium
A tremendous round of applause goes out to all the organizers, sponsors, speakers and participants in this ground-breaking 4-day event. The interest in this event was so great that, unfortunately, many people were unable to register because of the limited space. Those who were fortunate - hikers, historians, river runners, rim walkers, armchair enthusiasts and adventure-seekers - were brought together by their mutual love for the Grand Canyon.
Individual presentations included a moving tribute to AZRA for the pioneering of raft trips for disabled youth and adults, Jim Ohlman's award-winning Grand Canyon National Park Tramway of 1919, the history of the Shrine of the Ages, Lee Albertson's great research on the Kolb Airfield of 1926, John Azar's wonderful talk on the Mystery Cabins of the Buckskin Mountain, the talk by CCC worker Roy Lemons, Michael Anderson filling in for Louis Purvis's talk on "The Ace in the Hole", and Frank Barrios presented his research on the Dunn-Howland Murders (which had been highlighted earlier in The Ol' Pioneer). This is just one day's line-up!! There was also a luncheon speaker, and a banquet with Jim Babbitt as the keynote speaker.
There was only one frustration to this phenomenal event - there were too many interesting talks occurring simultaneously, and it was difficult to make decisions on which to attend.
The Grand Canyon Pioneer Society was well represented and proud to be a part in the first of hopefully many more such gatherings.
Carolyn Castleman, Steve Verkamp, Susan Verkamp and Lee Albertson enjoying lunch with fellow GC Pioneers between sessions at the 1st Grand Canyon History Symposium Click thumbnail for larger image |
[article submitted by Nancy Green]
Outings Contacts Information
Outings Coordinator is
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Carol Castleman 18909 North 87th Drive Peoria, AZ 85382 623-825-9971 |
e-mail AZlady3@aol.com
The Bulletin welcomes comments, stories, or Reflections and Remembrances.
Please send them to
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Diane Cassidy 2112 Demerse Avenue Prescott, AZ 86301 |
or e-mail them to GCPioneers@yahoo.com
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