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An Unforgettable Trip To Grand Canyon |
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Front Street was dusty as usual on this bright May day when the six-in-hand team of horses pulled up in front of the New Bank Hotel and the driver jumped down from the brand new Grand Canyon Stage Wagon and helped his passengers climb in. A few early risers stood alongside watching, and wishing they could afford the $20 it took to make the seventy mile trip to the Grand Canyon. No one ever said it would be a luxury trip. The board seats got pretty hard before the end of the eleven or twelve hour journey.
There wasn't a road most of the way. A few miles north of Flagstaff the main road disappeared into a rocky, unworn stretch of pine trees and tall grass that had been beat down by the few ranchers who lived in the area. The driver had a difficult time dodging prairie dog holes and rocks, and the tourists riding behind him bounced and joggled, swung and swayed as the coach rumbled along.
This was May 26, 1893, the first commercial trip made by the Grand Canyon Stage Line, and the real beginning of tourism to Grand Canyon. As time passed the visitors to the Canyon grew larger and other entrepreneurs got into the act. Then the railroad reached the Canyon and the stage lines became a thing of the past . Still later the automobile replaced the train.
Why should one bear the hardship of riding in a wagon eleven or twelve hours? You can ask Dr. George and Sharon Yard that question, and the answer you will get is . . . "for the fun of it." In 1993 exactly a hundred years after the first trip the Yards and a group of friends hitched up their wagons and took off to commemorate the first stage run. It was a fun trip. The road was somewhat better than it had been in 1893 because most of it now had been converted into forest roads and kept in a fair condition.
Somewhere Dr. Yard thought he read that this first run also took the mail to the canyon. So they arranged with the post office to carry the mail. Gary Packard, the Flagstaff postmaster swore in the three wagon masters as temporary mail carriers and a post office was set up at Kendrick Park to sell commemorative stamps and take the mail north. And off they went. The only hitch to the story was the first Grand Canyon Stage line did not carry the mail.
The Yards and friends took three days rather than ten hours to make the trip. They stopped at the old stage stops, Little Springs, Cedar Ranch, and Moqui Station. The last and final destination in the olden days was Hance's Hotel just south of Grandview Point. The 1993 trip never got that far. Park authorities refused to let them into the park for various reasons. The three wagoneers carried the mail sacks in on foot.
Used by permission of the Grand Canyon Pioneers Society.
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