The Santa Fe Railway and the Harvey Company arrived at Grand Canyon in 1901 and at once coveted the Bright Angel Trail at first controlled by Ralph H. Cameron and later by Coconino County. The legal maneuverings and underhanded deals through the next twenty-three years cost the Railway thousands of dollars in court fees all of which came to naught. In 1924 the tide turned. The courts ruled Cameron’s mining claims on which the trail was located were all illegal, and at the same time his franchise with the county to operate and collect tolls expired.

The Santa Fe and Fred Harvey acted at once. A visit with Arizona's Congressman Carl Hayden, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, set the stage for action. They wined and dined the proper officials and presented their proposal. The Congressman used the usual excuse "Money", but agreed to see what could be done.

Hayden’s colleagues were all doubtful of getting a bill through the present Congress to purchase such a mundane thing as a footpath into the Grand Canyon. Finally Representative Lewis Crampton from Michigan, Chairman of the Subcommittee for Appropriations pushed a bill through the committee. The two Congressmen paid a call on the Board of Supervisors in Flagstaff to see if the county would be interested in selling the trail. They felt with the financial status of Coconino County at the time they might be able to dangle $100,000 in cash before the Board and easily strike a deal.

Harvey felt the purchase would be a cinch and began to dream of plans for a nice hotel at Indian Gardens -one to match the elegance of El Tovar. A place where artists and the like could stay, meditate, write, or paint.

The county supervisors, without a dissenting vote agreed to sell the strip of land in Grand Canyon for the $100,000, but added one provision-the government would spend the entire amount on a good paved road to the south rim starting from the National Old Trails Highway at the village of Maine a few miles east of Williams.

The congressmen objected, as such a highway would run more than the cash amount agreed upon. Besides, with the railroad there would not be a great need for any such extravagance. Hayden said, "We fought for years to obtain that railroad to the Grand Canyon and it should suffice. The county has already provided a road to serve whatever automobile traffic there will be." Years before the county and the Forest Service had built a cinder and dirt road that wound through the trees, past a ranch, to the South Rim of the canyon. The supervisors pointed out that auto traffic had more than doubled in the past year with people from all over the world driving to the canyon and to settle the argument the Board suggested a trip to the South Rim by auto.

July is normally the rainy season in Northern Arizona and this year proved no different. Already that week Flagstaff had received four inches of rain and there was no reason to believe there would not be more. Regardless, the Board of Supervisors arranged the trip. Hayden and the three board members left Flagstaff early in the morning and traveled west for about fifteen miles on the National Old Trails Highway toward Maine. The two-lane concrete road ran through the pine forest then turned off on a cinder road through Maine, past the local general store and filling station, across the road from which was a group of three or four houses. A half mile of this and the car bumped along over a graded dirt section with an occasional rock protruding in the center. The rains had not helped the condition, puddles of water covered the surface and the car slipped and slid, then turned sideways. Finally the driver managed to get things under control enough to again head in the right direction.

"Is this the road to the Canyon?" Hayden asked.

"Oh yes sir. It is the only road suitable for automobiles."

"The only road?"

The car managed to make it through the next stretch with the help of a team of horses that the Board had the forethought to have strategically placed nearby. By late afternoon the party reached the South Rim. The trip convinced Hayden the county most assuredly needed a better road. He returned to Flagstaff that evening by train.

From there on Hayden and Crampton carried the ball through the House committee and got money added to the appropriations for the Department of Interior. The government would supply the money the county requested for the trail and arrange for additional monies in the years to come to complete a hard surfaced highway to replace the current dirt road. Then the problem began.

The House sent the new bill to the Senate where Senator Ralph Cameron raised his objections. Immediately the Senator from Utah accused Ralph of using selfish interests in the matter as the basis for his objection. Cameron denied the charge stating, "My feelings are that the people in Arizona are being robbed."

The Flagstaff paper took up the story at once, the editor siding with the county. To sell the trail would be the way to go. "We have collected less that three thousand dollars in tolls over the past few years on that path in the canyon. How can a person with good business sense turn down a proposition of this kind when we will get a road the government claims will cost over $500,000, one that will be maintained free forever? It will take years for the county to pay for a road from the tolls collected."

The Williams News took the opposite stand. "Why should the county give the money back to Uncle Sam for a road that is going to pass through an area that is eighty-five percent owned by the Federal Government in the first place? Let the government pay for the road and give the county the money to apply where they need it most."

In Washington, Senator Ashurst agreed with Cameron, stating it appeared to him the county would be getting the short end of the stick on this proposition. When the Senate Finance Committee voted on the bill enough opposition had grown to kill the measure. The funds for the purchase of the trail ceased to exist and in so doing they inadvertently cut all the money for the Grand Canyon National Park from the appropriation. The bill would again have to pass the House. Ford Harvey's dream bubble burst and he began to ponder his next move. For a while he would wait to see. The National Park could not operate without money; Congress would have to act at once.

Again Hayden and Crampton went to work. This time the plan stipulated that $100,000 be allotted to the Department of the Interior to buy Bright Angel Trail, or for the construction of a new trail to the bottom of Grand Canyon. The money would be available until the department used it one way or the other. On the same bill they added $645,000 to build a road into Glacier National Park in Montana. This added fuel to the argument between the Williams and Flagstaff newspapers.

The Flagstaff paper stated that if the county failed to sell the Bright Angel Trail to the government the Harvey Company would build a new trail that the Government would pay for. If that happened the county’s tolls from the Bright Angel would virtually be cut off. Furthermore, because of the lack of a good road to the Canyon, Flagstaff and Williams would lose tourist traffic.

"That is tommyrot," the Williams editor shot back. "The government will build the highway regardless of whether or not we sell them the trail. If they can furnish money to build a highway to Glacier National Park they can build one to Grand Canyon."

In Washington, Hayden argued with Cameron that his opposition was a personal vendetta-"it is what the county wants, what Harvey wants and the railroad wants and. . . ." Cameron’s answer was Òthe main thing is it is what Harvey and the Santa Fe want." The argument went on and on.

The money bill passed the Senate committee with an amendment that the Department of the Interior would build a road to Grand Canyon with money appropriated by the government providing the citizens of Coconino County in Arizona agreed to sell the trail. The people would make the final decision. The issue immediately became the hottest battle in the whole political campaign.

"It does not seem possible that any reasonable person with a real heartfelt interest in the welfare of the county could refuse to accept this generous offer," read the front page article of the Flagstaff paper announcing the passage of the bill. "The four or five thousand dollars we receive from the tolls every year will not begin to keep up the trail and if there is an accident, the county would be responsible. One accident could wipe out those receipts for years."

"It is strange," wrote the editor of the Williams News, "how some newspapers in this progressive age still continue to peddle the sort of bunk that the public might have swallowed fifty years ago, but in this day, serves only to prove the antiquity of the editor's political education and his utter incapacity to adjust his thinking to the clearer thinking of an advanced age." The News explained that the idea of the county being liable to pay out millions of dollars for a settlement in the event an accident occurred on the trail-"when some cavalcade of descending tourists suddenly decide to catapult themselves over some precipitous rim of the trail in an effort to rearrange the landscape below." This, the paper declared, is nonsense for the county cannot be sued except by its own consent and that would be highly unlikely.

As election day grew closer the situation became more tense. Fliers promoting the sale appeared on the streets in Flagstaff and Williams. "Vote yes on Proposition 200," read the sheets tacked to lamp poles and posted in some store windows. Election day told the tale. To the surprise of the Board of Supervisors, the measure failed to pass by almost a two to one vote. In a small segment on the front page of the paper the Sun announced, "There appears to be much more opposition to the sale than appeared on the surface."

It was clear the people didn’t want to sell the trail under the conditions offered by Washington. The Harvey company had men poised ready to start their new trail at once. This would, according to the Sun, "Clip the wings of the Bright Angel."

When it all settled down the County sold the trail, the government built the road at their own expense, and everybody was happy.

Used by permission of the Grand Canyon Pioneers Society.

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