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Bryce Canyon
National Park History
Bryce Canyon is a small national park in southwestern Utah. Named
after the Mormon Pioneer Ebenezer Bryce, Bryce Canyon became a national
park in 1924. Bryce is famous for its worldly unique geology, consisting
of a series of horseshoe-shaped amphitheaters carved from the eastern
edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau in southern Utah. The erosional force of
frost-wedging and the dissolving power of rainwater have shaped the
colorful limestone rock of the Claron Formation into bizarre shapes
including slot canyons, windows, fins, and spires called "hoodoos."
Tinted with colors too numerous and subtle to name, these whimsically
arranged rocks create a wondrous landscape of mazes, offering some of
the most exciting and memorable walks and hikes imaginable.
Ponderosa pines, high elevation meadows, and fir-spruce forests border
the rim of the plateau and abound with wildlife. This area boasts some
of the world's best air quality, offering panoramic views of three
states and approaching 200 miles of visibility. This, coupled with the
lack of nearby large light sources, creates unparalleled opportunities
for stargazing.
Pioneer History
In 1776, a Spanish entrada under the direction of Franciscan
Friars, Silvestra Velez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Dominguez,
passed to the south near what is now the Utah and Arizona border. They
probably saw the pink cliffs in the distance. Jedediah Smith passed by
the Sevier and Virgin rivers, while on his way to Spanish California, in
1826. In 1830, frontiersman George Yount passed through the present
sites of Circleville, Panguitch and Cedar City. Captain John C. Fremont
passed the present sites of Cedar City, Parowan and Circleville, in
1844. Mormon scouts, looking for favorable farming and grazing lands,
visited the Sevier River near Panguitch in 1852. In 1866 a group of men,
under the direction of Captain James Andrus, traversed the upper Paria
Valley.
A group of families established the town of Clifton near
the junction of the Paria River and Henrieville Creek, in 1874. Ebenezer
Bryce and his family arrived in Clifton in 1875, but soon moved upstream
to Henderson Valley (New Clifton). Ebenezer helped to complete a seven
mile irrigation ditch from Paria Creek. Bryce built a road into the pink
cliffs to make timber more accessible. People started to call the
amphitheater where the road terminated, “Bryce’s Canyon.” Ebenezer Bryce
and his family moved to Arizona in 1880, but the Bryce’s Canyon name
stuck. Clifton was abandoned in 1877. Families founded Cannonville, a
mile upstream and Henrieville, five miles east of Cannonville. In 1890
and 1891, a ditch was dug to divert water from the East Fork of the
Sevier River, over the east rim of the Paunsaugunt Plateau and 1500 feet
down in the valley. The town of Tropic was laid out in 1891.
Those Who Came Before
One of the first questions people ask when visiting the rugged wilds of
southern Utah is, "Who would live here?" The answer is, "Many different
cultures over thousands of years." A recent archaeological survey of
Bryce Canyon National Park and the Paunsaugunt Plateau shows that people
have been marveling at Bryce's hoodoos for at least 10,000 years. It is
suspected that throughout history, just as today, most people were just
passing through. Bryce Canyon winters are so harsh that even modern
year-round habitation is difficult. Yet Paleoindians hunted huge mammals
here at the end of the Ice Age. Pueblo peoples hunted game in the
forests and meadows of the plateau. Paiutes frequented the plateau to
harvest pine nuts and conduct broad scale rabbit hunts called rabbit
drives. Mormon pioneers diverted water from the plateau top into the
valley below by digging a 10-mile (16 km) long irrigation ditch through
the forests and rocky cliffs of what would later become the park. Their
efforts made the dry valleys below the cliffs of Bryce suitable for
agriculture, and gave them reason to name the town of Tropic, Utah.
Later in 1924, designation as a national park put Bryce Canyon on the
map. But it was the Union Pacific Railroad and the Civilian Conservation
Corps that made Bryce accessible to modern day travelers. Such
improvements quickly made Bryce Canyon first a national attraction, and
later an international "must see." Today 1.5 million people come each
year to see this little park with enormous appeal.
American Indian History
Paiute Indians occupied the area around what is now
Bryce Canyon starting around 1200 A.D. The Paunsaugunt Plateau was used
for seasonal hunting and gathering activities, but there is no evidence
of permanent settlements. The legend of Bryce Canyon was explained to a
park naturalist in 1936 by Indian Dick, a Paiute elder who then lived on
the Kaibab Reservation:
"Before
there were any Indians, the Legend People, To-when-an-ung-wa, lived in
that place. There were many of them. They were of many kinds – birds,
animals, lizards and such things, but they looked like people. They were
not people. They had power to make themselves look that way. For some
reason the Legend People in that place were bad; they did something that
was not good, perhaps a fight, perhaps some stole something….the tale is
not clear at this point. Because they were bad, Coyote turned them all
into rocks. You can see them in that place now all turned into rocks;
some standing in rows, some sitting down, some holding onto others. You
can see their faces, with paint on them just as they were before they
became rocks. The name of that place is Angka-ku-wass-a-wits (red
painted faces). This is the story the people tell."
Fremont and Anasazi people occupied the portion of the Colorado Plateau
near Bryce Canyon from around 200 A.D. until 1200. The Fremont were more
to the north and west, with the Anasazi more to the south and east.
There is recently discovered evidence of the mixing of these two
cultures on the Kaiparowits Plateau. Native Americans first occupied the
Colorado Plateau 12,000 years ago, but no evidence of their activities
has yet been found on the Paunsaugunt Plateau. |
