The Kolb Diaries: Chapter 7
1921-1924
The River Again
The engineer of the westbound Santa Fe train blew the whistle two short blasts, the train jerked and began to roll from the station in Williams. Passengers settled back for a long trip across northern Arizona and California through Ash Fork, Seligman, Kingman, and then Needles. From here the darkness of the Mohave Desert enveloped the entire assembly of cars and locomotive. Only the bright beam of the headlamp penetrated the gloom as it pointed down the straight, shining ribbons of parallel rails that stretched for over 200 miles of nothingness toward the West Coast. A few coyotes howled in the distance as the steam engine chugged across the desert while the passengers heard only the click of the wheels passing over the joints of rail sections. This monotonous hypnotic rhythm and gentle swaying of the coaches lulled even seasoned travelers to sleep.
This was 4 September 1921, or rather, now 5 September, well past midnight and the train carried Emery toward Green River, Utah, where he would join Ellsworth for a second trip on the Colorado River. This time they would go with the Southern California Edison Company and the United States Geological Survey's expedition to establish a line through Cataract Canyon to locate a dam site that would harness the treacherous river water as it flowed violently between the high walls of a narrow crack in the rocky Utah landscape. A dam would furnish electric power and water for irrigation; the river would no longer be a challenge to men like himself, Julius Stone, Russell, Galloway, Dellenbaugh, Powell, Stanton and even the one-eyed Charles Smith who had only recently fought his last battle with the rapids and disappeared.
Henry Rauch,[1] another passenger on the train destined for the same trip, was not as content as Emery. Rauch, a socialite, complained of the lack of companionship on board, found the trip boring and the people lounging in the club car as dull as the journey itself. Unable to sleep, he wandered through the cars hoping to find someone or something to relieve the monotony. At last he located a man from Indiana who helped him while away the hours as the train crept onward.
As dawn broke, the vast expanse of desert had a grey tinge, mesquite trees took on distinct form in the shadows and the pale early morning sky outlined the mountains. The changes in the landscape outside his window fascinated Emery. The grey soon turned to rose and the mountains appeared as huge blobs of rocky masses set down upon flat sandy wastes by some giant of eons past. As the sun climbed higher the desert changed its character and revealed its true identity--a vast expanse of desolation where only a few hardy plants could survive, and equally few animals managed to adapt to the hostile environment. The train pulled into the Barstow station at 9:25 A.M. the first leg of the trip over. From here they would continue on to Salt Lake City and then in late afternoon east to Green River to disembark at midnight, 6 September.[2]
The town on the bank of the Green River from which it took its name had grown since Emery visited it in 1911 and like all sparsely populated western towns in the early twenties, appeared a dark and deserted place at midnight. The few electric lights suspended in the middle of the streets cast a dim yellow glow on the quiet intersections. Rowdy noise from an all-night cafe close by broke the silence as the engine pulled to a stop. A hissing of steam from the valves and a distinctive but indescribable smell of the locomotive permeated the air as Ellsworth and James M. Schenk, a representative of Southern California Edison Company, waited on the platform for passengers to disembark. After disgorging its human cargo the train moved slowly out of sight, and the quiet of night again settled over the town. A distant lonesome sound of the whistle and the click of a telegraph faded into the background as Emery, Ellsworth, and the other men walked toward the hotel down the street.
Ten years had elapsed since Emery visited Green River. The downtown remained much the same. A new hotel with clean rooms and excellent food, a much-needed addition replaced the old establishment. Here Emery and Schenk spent the remainder of the night. Emery, weary from the long trip, fell into a deep sleep at once, aware the days ahead would be filled with strenuous work. It would not be a new experience to sleep on the bank of the river at the head of a roaring rapid and he looked forward to the journey.
Emery had applied for the job of head boatman with the Edison Company, but his brother, even though he knew Emery's intentions, had signed the agreement for himself. When confronted with this Ellsworth offered to place all wages received for the expedition into a joint account for making new river trip pictures, provided Emery accompanied the party. Further, all expenses above the amount of wages would be shared equally. Emery agreed, possibly for the sake of the new motion pictures needed to supplement the 1911 footage.
To run the dangerous Cataract Canyon with a group of engineers had its advantages over going alone. It gave the Kolbs an opportunity to gain firsthand information about the heights of canyon walls and the fall of the river. This had been guesswork in the past, and exaggerated by all who had gone through, including Powell, Stone, and themselves.[3] During breakfast in the new hotel dining room Emery learned that the leader of the expedition, William R. Chenoweth and his party had not arrived, but plenty of work had to be done during the next few days, leaving no time for lounging or late sleeping.[4]
The river at the edge of town remained the same. Willow and cottonwood trees hugged the edge of the water and grasses worked their way into the shallows along the bank the same as in the past. The old railroad bridge where they beached their boats in the fall of 1911 remained unchanged. Here again on 8 September 1921 Emery pulled the Edith up beside the new boats the Edison Company supplied for this trip. He and Ellsworth checked every vessel, attached needed lifelines and put extra oar locks in place. With this done they pushed the boats into the river to test for leakage. Ten years of sitting caused the lumber in the Edith to shrink and she took on water. Emery removed the slats from the bottom and filled the seams with tar then left it to sit overnight in the water to allow wooden planks to swell and by morning she was as good as new.
Although Emery felt the ill effects of some melon he ate the day before he stood on the shore with his camera at10:30 in the morning when E. C. La Rue[5] with Harry Tasker[6] and a boatman pushed off to begin the trip, one man at the oars and the others on the deck that covered the cargo of equipment and supplies. Emery made a movie of their departure while a few citizens of Green River came down to see them off. Some Paiute Indians camped near the launching site added a western flavor to the scene.[7] Later he made another movie of a staged landing. The heat of the day did not improve Emery's ailing stomach but at 2:30 the same afternoon he and Henry Rauch pushed the Edith into the water. Both men, freelance photographers, traveled separately from the others: traveling in this fashion they could climb out of the canyon to make photographs and not hold up the balance of the party and delay the survey.
Away from the irrigated areas surrounding the town, the country became a mass of eroded, torn and disrupted rocks, bare, colorful and beautiful in its ruggedness. The first day took them down Green River almost to Labyrinth Canyon where they camped above a ranch belonging to Wolverson, whom Emery and Ellsworth had met in 1911. Emery, still feeling the effects of the watermelon, spent a miserable night. By the third night they stopped at Double Bow Knot but the mosquitoes were so thick they moved farther downstream to camp.
Emery felt better on the morning of the thirteenth and they traveled around to the south side of Bow Knot before they prepared breakfast and from there made a quick climb to the top to locate Emery and Ellsworth's names placed there on 22 October 1911 and Rauch chiseled his name on the rock below the others. From where they stood the bleak landscape stretched before them with the Henry Mountains blue in the distance.
Emery recorded in his journal "Stillwater Canyon is sublime and I make many movies." Ducks on the river tempted them to stop and shoot but instead they forged ahead. An Indian ruin high on the canyon wall offered a good subject to photograph, while the towering needles of rock carved by winds, sand and rain stood majestically over the insignificant men below. Emery and Rauch climbed out of the canyon and looked over the Land of Standing Rocks a wonderful panorama with jutting peaks and pinnacles in every direction, more numerous across the canyon than where they stood. The climb down to the river with the heavy load of cameras and tripods exhausted both men, but they had no time to dally and after a quick lunch they again headed downriver.
The survey began at the head of Cataract Canyon where the Green joins its companion stream, formerly called the Grand, but now changed at the solicitation of the State of Colorado to the Upper Colorado River. Changing the name did not lessen the force of the whirlpools, and the engineers with all their instruments had no effect on the rapids that had lost none of their power over the past ten years, nor had time removed any of the rocks. The Kolbs soon found that running the river in Cataract Canyon provided the same thrill it had in the fall of 1911.
The engineers established a point 3,900 feet above sea level at the junction of the two rivers, and kept a line at that level throughout the canyon to determine the storage basin area if the government built a dam further downstream. The expedition included four boats: the Edith carrying Emery and Rauch; the Static used by John Clogston, the cook; the Edison and the L. A. carrying the balance of the men and equipment. The three new boats were the same construction as the Edith but larger allowing more space to carry the additional men and equipment, built of wood with enclosed storage spaces at bow and stern and an open cockpit. Ellsworth as head boatman traveled in the L.A. and led the group.
The Kolb brothers appreciated the talents of Clogston the cook and the meals he prepared, a luxury they did not have in 1911. Possibly Clogston's most precious possession was an iron cookstove complete with oven and stovepipes large enough to prepare food for the ten men yet the entire assembly folded to fit under the oarsman's seat.
They could see little of the Land of Standing Rocks from the bottom of Cataract Canyon with its drab colored walls that sloped back from the river. Though the canyon became deeper with each mile downriver, its character changed little. One could walk along the rock-strewn shoreline and climb out of the canyon in a number of places, but to what? Miles of desolation, a landscape consisting of solid rock rounded by the elements, cracked and broken, a land not habitable by either man or beast. Trees and bushes grew in an occasional crevice where by some quirk of nature they secured a tenacious toehold on life.
The Edison trip through the canyon progressed without serious mishap. The boatmen had the usual broken oars and near upsets; whirlpools and rocks always posed a problem. They ran the easy rapids as they came to them; the bad ones they studied carefully and ran without difficulty. Below rapid 13 they discovered a record left by the Best expedition in 1892 chiseled on a rock:
Col Grand & Canyon
M B Imp. Co.
July 22, 1891
G.M.Right
Sept 16. 1892
Camp #7
Hell to pay Jacobs
Sunk & down
The inscription included a drawing of a boat marked "#1 wrecked."[8]
The forty-fifth rapid near the juncture of Dark Canyon posed a serious problem confronting the party with the roughest water of the entire trip. The rapid had two sections and a long stretch with a right-angle bend to the left at the end. Here the river ran into a collection of large rocks where the water dashed against them and threw itself back with such force the roar could be heard a mile upstream.
The forty-fifth rapid near the juncture of Dark Canyon proved the roughest water of the entire trip. It lay on two sections, a long stretch of rough water with a right-angle bend toward the left at the foot of the first section where the water ran into a collection of large rocks and rolled back with such force the roar could be heard a mile upstream. Ellsworth ordered a portage of part of the supplies and equipment to the base of the rapid and then ran an empty boat through the first section. He sucessfully madee the run by entering the rapid on the right side pulling hard to the left to keep out of the big waves. Next morning he and Emery ran the remainder of the boats through in the same manner.
Large waves pounded near the right shore of the second section where huge boulders, some exposed and others barely covered by the water, loomed ominously at the bend. The water twisted and turned violently between them with dangerous muddy water on either side. The boatmen studied it careeefully and decided to avoid the bend by using the oars and pulling from it. With the L.A. still loaded Ellsworth set out on what proved to be a disastrous run. His boat ran pell-mell between two large rocks then turned partly onto one side. The stern shot up and the bow went beneath the surface. There she hung and water filled the cockpit. Ellsworth climbed up on the deck and checked under the hatch cover and determined that everything was dry and safe including all the maps of the surveys made along the river during the summer, valued at over $10,000. To lose them would mean the entire summer's work gone.
The party on shore threw him a line that he tied to the painter. For two hours the nine men pulled and tugged unsuccessfully in an attempt to free the L.A. Late in the afternoon Ellsworth fastened his life jacket securely, climbed out onto the boulders as far as he could and pulled himself to shore across the rope. He returned to the head of the rapid and brought the second boat down and it also went against a rock, but this time the water forced it away so that it came out below without further trouble. With the cooking supplies in camp below he ran the Static empty. The current threw her against the left wall and flipped her over, trapping Ellsworth underneath and his attempts to right the boat proved unsuccessful. In a matter of seconds the water carried him and the Static downstream toward another section of rough water. He freed himself from the boat and swam for shore while the boat headed into an eddy where the men on shore saved her. Emery recorded in his journal: ". . . La Rue and the others on shore make no effort to get to Ed with the boats, tho La Rue & Page pose as oarsmen. And though the water is quite safe."[9]
The L.A. remained locked between the two boulders in the middle of the river. Chenoweth, relieved that his maps and charts were secure, seemed unconcerned, but the rest of the party slept uneasily that night. Meanwhile Ellsworth and Emery plotted a strategy for freeing the boat. By the next morning Emery had developed a plan that he put into operation. He located a cottonwood log about five inches in diameter from driftwood on shore and sawed off a section, ran a bolt through the center to make a wheel, then drilled short boards and passed the bolt through them, one on each side of the log section. Another block of wood fastened between the free ends of the boards that dangled from the center made a pulley.
As the bow of the boat was sixty feet out from shore, they raised cross timbers to lift the rope level with it. Emery placed the pulley on the rope so it could be pulled from the boat to shore and back, then using the rope he crossed to the L.A. with Ellsworth following in the same manner. They tacked canvas around the open cockpit to keep the water from continuously washing in, and bailed . They opened the stern hatch and removed the map case and using the rude pulley moved it safely to shore. A cheer went up --the Kolbs had saved the maps!
When they emptied the rest of the boat in the same manner it floated. Emery held it secure while Ellsworth cut the rope to shore, jumped in and with a slight push broke it free. She plunged downward and bounced off a big rock, turned and dropped into a whirlpool below, ready to continue the trip through the canyon. Only the Edith remained at the head of the rapid and they lined her down safely. Since this rapid had been run easily in 1911 both Emery and Ellsworth figured they could do it again, but the character of the river and the rapid had changed over the past ten years. [10]
The survey party easily ran the five-mile stretch of Narrow Canyon that followed Cataract where no rapids obstructed the river and the walls rose straight from the water's edge, and on 2 October connected with Chenoweth's survey at the Dirty Devil River. The Kolbs had completed their part in the expedition.
Chenoweth had surveyed thirty miles of Glen Canyon to the mouth of the Dirty Devil River before leaving for the Cataract Canyon work. This left the section of the river between the Dirty Devil and the San Juan yet to do. According to the original agreement with the Edison Company he retained four men and one boat to continue the work while the others proceeded on to Lee's Ferry.
Nine or ten miles below the mouth of the San Juan they located the canyon leading to Rainbow Bridge and marked the entrance. Many had visited the bridge by making the arduous trip overland but as far as Emery knew no one had approached it from the river.[11] Thirty days after leaving Green River they rowed into Lee's Ferry, pulled the two remaining Edison boats up on shore across from the old mining settlement, turned them over and left them sitting in the sun. Emery stored the Edith by the house on John D. Lee's old ranch on the opposite side of the river. Mr. Gardine and representatives of Southern California Edison Company met the party and drove them to Flagstaff.
During the summer of 1922 the government surveyed the Colorado River between Lee's Ferry and the Dirty Devil River. Using motor boats they traveled upstream in Glen Canyon and connected with the work Chenoweth completed the year before. This left only Marble and Grand Canyon unsurveyed.[12]
In 1922 Ellsworth, with his interest in flying, contracted with R. N. Thomas, a dare devil stunt pilot from Kansas, to attempt a flight into Grand Canyon, and paid one- hundred dollars to join him and make moving pictures. During the last of July the two men studied the possibility of landing in the Canyon, a fete that to that time aerial engineers had declared impossible because of the updrafts. The experts on aerodynamics several years before had released balloons at the bottom of the chasm to check the air currents, but the experiment failed as the rocks of the canyon walls tore them to shreds before they rose above half the depth. From this, the engineers concluded that no aircraft could possibly fly into the heart of the gorge; it would be treacherous enough to fly over it and they claimed the undisputed domination of the skies would remain the domain of the ravens and eagles.[13]
Thomas and Kolb proved this claim false on the morning of 8 August 1922. Ellsworth arrived at the Williams landing strip early that morning with the motion picture camera, and set about pointing the lens in all angles while Thomas warmed up the motor. The plane idled so long while Ellsworth took photographs that the spark plugs filled with oil and delayed the take-off until Thomas changed them. The plane left Williams at 9:10 A.M. and forty minutes later they flew over the rim of Grand Canyon.[14]
People from the hotels waved and cheered as the plane lowered into the canyon. The wind changed 60 degrees while Thomas circled the landing place, a site that appeared too small from the air. When he had studied the strip on the plateau it looked long enough and the end far enough away from the edge for a landing, but viewed from the air it caused questions in his mind. Would the plane stop before going into the chasm? Thomas advised Ellsworth to loosen his seat belt and be ready to jump if the need arose, Taking him by surprise, as he had been busy grinding away at the camera, paying little attention to the situation. Thomas said his prayers, throttled the engine, circled over the 1,500-foot chasm, then set the plane down on the sixty foot wide and five hundred foot long strip that park rangers had cleared of sage brush. It rolled to within ten feet of the edge before stopping. The wind created a problem for take off so Thomas chocked the wheels and he and Ellsworth headed up Bright Angel Trail on foot. Before they reached the top a storm blew the plane half-way around, broke the tail skid and damaged the wing. A piece of baling wire and an old auto spring repaired the damage the following morning and Thomas took off at 10:12, circling while he gained altitude and gradually working the plane up over the rim. The impossible had been accomplished! Ellsworth had moving pictures of it even though the camera jammed just before the landing. The superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park sent a telegram dated 8 August 1922 to Washington, D.C. advising of the feat.
Ten days later Fred Harvey Company entertained Thomas at the hotel and hired him to repeat the flight with a Fox News photographer. The Fox News Company showed the film throughout the United States and led millions of people to believe this trip to be the first. In October the Santa Fe Railroad published a lengthy article in their magazine with photographs and an interview of the pilot, [15] and the film became part of the Santa Fe's advertisements used around the country to promote the Southwest and the railroad.[16] Ellsworth's involvement was soon forgotten.
A letter to Ellsworth from Thomas dated 2 September 1922 read:
The film came today and I had it run. It is much better than the Fox films as to plainness and light. It came out much better than I expected. A little more of the rim would have been better, but as it is there is enough for your lectures. . . .
The relationship between Emery and Ellsworth began to deteriorate farther toward the end of l922 with a number of factors responsible. The problem had been lying under the surface since their disagreement in Toledo, Ohio, in 1914, and had surfaced at different times but never actually causing a split. The exact reason for the separation is unknown and left to conjecture because during the last year of his life Emery considered the letters from Ellsworth too personal and destroyed them. The letters Ellsworth received from Emery were stored after Ellsworth's death in a box directly below the darkroom where chemicals and water seeped through the floor rotting them beyond recovery. Further, Emery never discussed the matter with any of his employees thereby leaving no oral or written record.
The differing personalities of two brothers was one cause of the break up. Ellsworth possessed an easy- going, happy-go-lucky manner that made him popular, especially among women. He was the diplomat of the two and never became embroiled in any of the feuds between Emery, Ford Harvey or the Park Service. He seemed happy if he had enough money in his pocket to buy a meal. A letter Ellsworth wrote to Blanche in January 1914 is a vivid example of his attitude: ". . . As soon as I am alone I am as carefree as ever and happy whether I am making money or not as long as my health is good. That is all that matters. . . ."
Ellsworth's wandering spirit suggests another reason for the deterioration of the partnership. From the early days when he left home in Pittsburgh he was a vagabond, drifting from one place and job to another. Perhaps he again thought of that voyage to China that he contemplated when the advertisement for the Santa Fe Railroad distracted him in 1901. As long as an adventure faced him he remained in the best of spirits. The various explorations of unknown parts of the Canyon, the river trips of 1911 and 1921, the wild trek across the reservation to Rainbow Bridge, his harrowing experiences in navigating Black Canyon, all seemed to satisfy his longings. To work day by day at the studio or to travel the country delivering lectures, which he detested, set him to brooding about distant places. No doubt Emery made his feelings known about this wanderlust spirit as he could not sit quietly and watch his brother idle away his time.
Emery on the other hand, was aggressive, concerned about his financial security, and quick to fight for what he deemed his rights and never gave up until proven wrong. He was a shrewd business-man, always looking for an angle that would benefit him and the business. His autocratic attitude caused many residents of the village to dislike him intensely. The contrasting traits between the brothers were good, acting as a check on each other, but these differences led to the fracture of the partnership.
Emery mentions that Ellsworth suffered from a nervous breakdown due to the pressures of business.[17] A letter received from his brother dated 1 May 1922 that rambled through twenty-two pages, admonishing Emery and Blanche for their way of living, and ended by stating he had no hate for his brother and hoped the two of them would change their ways indicated Ellsworth had a mental problem at the time. Ernest mentioned that Ellsworth "was sick," and there was a change in his attitude too, ". . . he wasn't the boy he was before. . . ."[18]
John P. Duffy as a child of six lived across the street from the Kolb family home in Pittsburgh and helped Ellsworth construct a wall around the property.[19] Duffy remembers:
. . . When he spent a summer building a wall in the front and tapering the back of the lot in the rear of his parents' house, I was very much aboard. I couldn't wait each day to get home from school on the chance of getting a ride in the "Model T" open-seat dump truck, with its hand-wound windlass, for dumping the bed out.
Mother felt that he had spent too much time alone, when I told her of how he could hold long conversations with long-gone people. He would stop digging to show me a sea shell (which proved to him that the Pennsylvania mountains had been below the sea in the past). While I was still marvelling over the thing in my hand, he would open a full conversation with some men he had known at some time. "Bill, I tell you that you just haven't seen the best gold that this area can produce! Let's keep on working down the left-hand side for a while."
When I didn't find Ellsworth working there, I would jump up to look through the window of the garage door, to make sure the truck was still there.
When Ellsworth was in our living room, he never drifted off into long laughing conversations with non-existent people. But when he was working on the lot, I could break into the fun briefly to say that I was going home; and then until I got well out of range, I could hear him resuming his laughter.
These spells seemed to have passed by 1928 as no indication of any mental problem appears during the Hyde search or on the Cheyava Falls expedition.
In December 1922 they drew up an agreement where they exchanged checks for various claims against one another that settled or cancelled all their business deals. Emery received the use of the studio for himself abolishing the two-year absences and lease arrangements and deemed all equipment and furnishings (except that personally owned) to be joint property along with the royalties from the book and the river trip negatives and films. They divided the lecture territory between them; that west of the Mississippi River went to Ellsworth, and the East would belong to Emery. Until the lawyer drew up a final decision no jointly owned property could be rented, leased or sold. The agreement was signed by both and notarized on 14 December 1922. It was 1924 before they reached a final settlement.
A letter from Lewis R. Freeman dated 12 January 1923, makes the first mention of United States Geological Survey trip through Grand Canyon. It stated that Colonel Claude H. Birdseye considered the Kolbs for the position of boatmen for the up-coming expedition. Freeman, an author, lecturer, explorer and wild game hunter had assisted the USGS in the Glen Canyon survey in 1922 and in the work that carried the survey through Black and Boulder canyon just beyond the western extremity of Grand Canyon. The government employed him in both these endeavors as a boatman. His main interest was to write articles. Though the rough waters of Grand Canyon required more expertise than Freeman had, Birdseye contemplated having Freeman accompany the expedition through the Marble and Grand Canyon, again as boatman. At the time of the letter Freeman was compiling a book pertaining to the Colorado River and its canyons and had requested the use of several Kolb photographs.[20] The letter apparently in response to one Emery had written for information regarding to the reclamation project involving the Colorado River ended with:
Did you have any talk with Col. Birdseye of the Geological Survey about their plans for surveying the Canyon next summer? I believe it is largely up to getting an appropriation in May. I told him he ought to see you before he made any definite plans on the boating end; in fact have some recollection of giving him a note to you.
A telegram from Birdseye dated 6 February 1923 inquired if Emery would be interested in serving as boatman on the expedition to begin 1 August at Lee's Ferry, and asked what salary he would require. Two days later Emery wired his reply to Washington D.C.:
SUGGEST I RECEIVE ONE THOUSAND FOR TRIP SALARY BEGIN EMBARKATION LEE'S FERRY WITH EXCLUSIVE FILM PRIVILEGES PHOTOGRAPHY NOT RETARD SURVEY MOVEMENT CONFIDENT MY ABILITY CAN REDUCE TIME AND MEN MENTIONED IT NECESSARY SUGGEST LATER STARTING DATE FINISHING END OCTOBER.
Birdseye would not agree to Emery's request for exclusive film rights, saying that a moving picture outfit would interfere with the work and require an extra boat. He wanted to make the trip a success from an engineering point of view and felt he must disregard all other considerations. He wrote, "One of the prime requirements on a trip such as the one we are planning is that everyone will be in perfect harmony and all working toward a common end."[21] If anyone took motion pictures they would be controlled exclusively by the Geological Survey. Birdseye further stated that unless Emery was willing to consider the success of the Survey over his personal and private interests he would secure another boatman for the trip.[22]
In another telegram dated 14 February Birdseye offered five hundred dollars a month plus expenses to Emery as head boatman. The same communication states:
. . . PROBABLE PARTY OF TEN AND FOUR BOATS WITH FREEMAN, LINT, AND BLAKE AS ADDITIONAL BOATMEN STARTING ABOUT AUGUST FIRST DEPENDING UPON WATER STAGES-STOP- I WILL BE CHIEF OF PARTY WITH BLANCHARD, R.W. BUCHARD AS TOPOGRAPHER DODGE AS RODMAN LA RUE AS HYDRAULIC ENGINEER, GEOLOGIST AND COOK NOT YET SELECTED.
The Southern California Edison Company gave Birdseye permission to use the three boats from their Cataract Canyon trip left pulled up on the sand at Lee's Ferry. Mr. Cockroft of the Southern California Edison Company wrote:
There are no air tanks in two of the Cataract boats. One boat has both air tanks O.K. This is one of the two boats that are alike. All boats need caulking and can stand painting, and for a trip from here down the river a pair of new oars per boat should be ordered. There are oars here for replacement. The Kolb Brothers boat 'Edith' is at the ranch and I think the tanks are in it.[23]
Examination of the boats indicated some repair would be necessary before embarking from Lee's Ferry as they had been sitting in the open since the completion of the Cataract trip. In an undated letter Emery advised Birdseye about purchasing new oars as: "Those oars were materially weakened by too many nails driven in the leather band." Continuing he suggested they bring supplies to the river at Tanner Trail, Bright Angel Trail, Bass Trail and "probably some man packed from Supai and of course down from Diamond Creek. I trust that you will still maintain your policy of having no cots and to regulate the size and weight of each man's dunnage."[24]
Birdseye and Emery met in Los Angeles on 15 May and discussed the boats. Birdseye's cousin had examined them at Lee's Ferry and from the information received he believed that with a few minor repairs it would be possible to use them. The government had purchased the fourth boat required for the trip from Fellows and Stewart, a boat building firm in San Pedro, California. As Birdseye admitted he knew nothing of boats or river running he prevailed upon Emery to visit the plant and supervise the work. During his stay in California Emery went to the factory at his own expense for this purpose. As head boatman of the expedition, Emery would be in complete command of the trip, his word would be law in any manner concerning the river or the boats and the expedition's success would rest entirely on his shoulders.
In their conversation Birdesye discussed E. C. La Rue. After the l92l trip Emery knew him to be a potential trouble maker. Birdseye apparently was cognizant of this fact also, and emphatically expressed to Emery that if La Ruehe made any trouble that would disrupt the harmony of the expedition he would send him out of the canyon at the first trail. He made no mention as to what possible trouble he anticipated, but Emery felt it had to do with the probability of his taking motion pictures.[25] In another meeting between the two the discussion led to Freeman. [26] Birdseye stated he "hardly knew what salary to offer Freeman, with his standing in life and probable wealth." He seemed reticent about placing him on the same footing with the other boatmen and had decided to give him $100 a month more. Emery thought that if the information should get out, this type of differentiation would cause ill feelings with the other men. Freeman also weighed more than 250 pounds that would perhaps be a handicap in pulling his share of the work. Birdseye agreed to this probability and related later to Emery that he paid Freeman only fifty dollars a month more.[27]
They again broached the subject of taking pictures. Now in a face-to-face situation Emery could express his feelings. He explained to Birdseye in detail the struggle he and Ellsworth had experienced in the past in their attempt to make a living at Grand Canyon with the opposition from the Harvey Company and the National Park Service. The conversation became long and involved on the subject, with Birdseye at first remaining adamant on his stand. Emery knew La Rue would be taking a motion picture camera as Freemen had advised him of this in a letter. Freeman had also informed him that La Rue had stated he would resign from the expedition if Birdseye included Emery in the party and allowed him to take pictures or receive any remuneration for same. Emery refrained from mentioning this during the conversation, but felt sure La Rue's statement elicited Birdseye's refusal.[28]
Later, Birdseye informed Emery the Geological Survey people felt motion pictures of the trip would be useful. He asked if in the event he gave Kolb Brothers the exclusive rights would Emery object to having Fox News, who produced newsreels, make pictures at a few accessible places along the river. Emery related how Fox and Harvey had usurped the rights of Ellsworth and Thomas's first flight into the Canyon the year before. With this Birdseye stated "That settles it," and said he would not permit the pictures to be taken by the company. [29] Then he confronted Emery with another problem. The Department of Interior expected to have a moving picture man at the Canyon during the trip and Birdseye asked how he could prevent him from taking pictures if he granted Kolb Brother's exclusive rights. To this Emery replied "If the exclusive picture privilege was part of my remuneration there would be no rapid running while the cameramen remained in the vicinity."
The motion picture subject came up again in a letter from Emery to Birdseye dated 3 June 1923:
I feel it would be self extermination for me to take part in a trip where others obtain motion pictures as it is in such pictures, more than anything else, we make our living; and I am confident that you or your Department of the Government would not knowingly want to injure us.
Concerning the publicity of the work of the U.S.G.S. on the river, which you mentioned, I believe that a tour over the country such as I made in 1913 and 14, after our initial trip, would have a much more lasting impression than any other medium. I have been contemplating such a tour this coming winter, and I certainly would go through with it if I obtained pictures of the next trip.
A few hundred feet of film could easily be made without the need of an extra man, and with four boats there should be ample space for a camera. A little film of the coming trip together with the Cataract film should make an interesting entertainment. . . .
If you felt disposed to let me take a camera, you could rest assured that it would only be used when not interfering with the progress of the trip, or at your sanction, and after trying it out, if the arrangement seemed burdensome, the camera could be left at one of the spots where access from the top is possible for my getting to later. . . .
If it seemed advantageous to you to have some film in a weekly news reel, why could it not be from what Ellsworth or I make? There is no big money in it, but we then would have some control of the film. . . .
Birdseye replied on 11 June 1923 granting Emery permission to take pictures on the trip, stating the Geological Survey would be pleased to have him take a small motion picture camera and they would, if he desired, purchase the film for its operation with the stipulation that the Government would receive a positive copy of all pictures, and when Emery exhibited these films all titles should make reference to the Geological Survey. He gave Ellsworth permission to make photographs from various points along the river as well. At the same time he granted Fox News' request to make pictures from one or more trail crossings along the route.
Birdseye added a P.S. to the letter:
. . . I do not think we should run any rapids for the prime purpose of making motion pictures, and should not endanger the men or boats any more than is absolutely necessary in order to get the boats through or around the rapids.
Birdseye promised to give Kolb Brothers full credit in titles on the motion pictures and on all the still photographs taken and used by the USGS, and Emery would be furnished copies of all pictures taken throughout the trip including those made by the Fox film people. Further, the Survey people would use none of the pictures for financial gain, nor would any member connected with the expedition have access to the work for lecture tours where admission would be charged or where it would infringe on the tours Emery would give in the future. The photographs were strictly for educational and engineering purposes. This sounded good on paper. The stipulations placed on the use of the photographs seemed fair enough and taking the letter to be official, Emery wired Birdseye, "You may consider me as one of your party."
Birdseye left Washington on 7 July and arrived in Flagstaff on the night of 10 July. The balance of the party would assemble at Flagstaff on 16 July and travel from there to Lee's Ferry where the trip to make an accurate survey of the Grand Canyon would begin.
[C]hapter 7
1 Henry Rauch, a freelance photographer.
[2] Emery Kolb's journal entry 4 and 5 September 1921.
[3] Powell estimated the height of the rapids fairly accurately but in his report exaggerated them.
[4] William. R. Chenoweth was chief of the 1921 expedition. Chenoweth had in 1920 made a successful trip and survey of the Snake River in Idaho.
[5] E. C. La Rue, a hydraulic engineer for the USGS assigned for the trip, and author of the government publication, The Colorado River and its Utilization.
[6] Harry Tasker, a rodman. Other members of the expedition were John Clogston, cook; Ellsworth Kolb, head boatman; Frank Stoudt; Leigh Lint, boatman; and Sidney Page, geologist.
[7] Emery's report to Southern California Edison Company.
[8] Emery's journal entry 18 September 1921.
[9] Emery Kolb's journal entry for 27 September 1921.
[10] Ibid and Emery Kolb's Down the Colorado River with the USGS pg 16.
[11] According to Emery's journal entry of 5 October 1921 the party passed Bridge Canyon. However in Down the Colorado River With the USGS pg. 20 the party reached the bridge fifty-five minutes after leaving the river.
[12] L.R. Freeman, Boating in the Bowels of the Earth, Sunset Magazine May 1923.
[13] Santa Fe Magazine Vol XVI Number 11, October 1922.
[14] Williams News, 8 August 1922.
[15] Santa Fe Magazine Vol XVI Number 11, October 1922
[16] Michael Dean Pace, Emery Kolb: Grand Canyon Photographer and Explorer.
[17]Emery Kolb to Judge E. S. Clark March 19,1932
[18] Oral History tape of interview with Ernest Kolb by Julie Russell, National Park Service, Grand Canyon National Park.
[19] Letter from Clare D. Karr 4 June 1989 which quoted her brother John Duffy.
[20] L.R. Freeman, The Colorado River- Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Dodd and Mead and Company 1923.
[21] Letter from Birdseye 7 March 1923.
[22] Telegram from Birdseye 10 February 1923.
[23] Letter from Birdseye 17 April 1923.
[24] The letter probably written on 19 February 1923.
[25] Emery Kolb's letter to a Congressional Investigating Committee 18 June 1925.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.