Saturday, July 1, 2023

The 'Fruit Heights Dinosaur' appears on the mountainside

 

Look at the dinosaur-like shape, south of the Francis Peak Radar domes, Picture taken from Layton's Main Street at 1000 North.                                                         Photo by LeAnn Arave.

  A new animal-like shape in the snow appeared on the Wasatch Mountains, above Layton on June 30, 2023.

 Located south of the famous “snow horse,” this snow shape is south of and just below the Francis Peak radar domes and resembles a dinosaur with a long tail in this view. In other views, it looks more like a horse and some on social media say it looks like a dog, dragon, or even a kangaroo.

 Perhaps the shape could be titled the Fruit Heights Dinosaur, since that's the closest town to it?

  The author has never seen this shape appear in at least the last 32 years, so it may relate to all the extra snow the Wasatch Front received in the winter of 2022-2023. If so, the shape may not reappear for decades. It may also mean that subtle changes in the Wasatch Mountains occur more often than commonly believed.

  On July 1, 2023, the actual snow horse shape hit a  rare milestone, with half of it still being visible. In pioneer legends, that meant water would flow from all the Wasatch Mountains creeks all summer long, if any part of the snow horse was still visible on July 1.

 
                                                 Another view of the new animal shape.


Friday, August 6, 2021

Newspapers.com equals the only real time travel


Newspapers, like the Deseret News, have a wealth of information in their archives.


 HAVE you ever dreamed of traveling through time?

 OLD newspapers are the only known way to do this.

Newspapers.com offers an almost endless archive of old newspapers from across the country -- and even some foreign entries.

Just search by name or keyword and it is amazing what can be found about parents, relatives and others.

Until the late 1970s, EVERY speeding ticket and fender bender were usually printed in local newspapers. Also, coverage of weddings used to be very detailed with the names of the entire wedding party. 

Some former classmates or friends, who one has lost track of, might be able to be located through old newspapers. At the least, it is almost always possible to find out what they did before the year 2000 or so. (Not everyone is on Facebook.)

You don't have to rely on library shelves for historical information these days, just the Web.

If a person is in their 50s or more, they will especially be excited about what can be found about relatives and friends. Even some of their own accomplishments, that they didn't know were even in a newspaper back in the day, might be discovered.

But be warned! These searches can create some family mysteries that may not be fully solved, because key people involved might have passed on. So, don't wait too long to do newspapers searches.

The author personally found that an uncle had survived a head-on collision with a gasoline tanker; that his great-grandfather constructed the first bridge in Morgan, Utah -- and much more. 

Newspapers.com also offers a free, seven day trial.


                            One of the original Deseret News presses, from the 19th Century.,

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

When Davis County's Bluff Road was gated

 


BLUFF Road is a prominent north-south corridor road in west Davis County today.

The highway traverses through Syracuse on the south and proceeds into West Point and Clinton.

However, in 1926-1927, during the decade when automobiles began to become popular, the road was gated shut.

According to the Weekly Reflex newspaper of Bountiful on March 11, 1926, Thomas Sessions from Syracuse appeared before the Davis County Commission to complain that despite being "a public road -- the old Bluff road -- was closed by a gate having been built across the road."

The Commission referred to the matter to the Davis County Attorney, with instructions to have the road opened to the public.

The next time this issue came up in any newspaper, it was some 19 months later, in the Dec. 22, 1927 Weekly Reflex. This article stated that Lawrence Corbridge constructed the gate across Bluff Road.

O.W. Willey of Syracuse objected to the road being closed, it blocking access to some of his property. The County Commissioners ordered the road to be county property and that the gate can be opened at any time.

The Bluff Road was one of the key pioneer trails in Davis County in the 19th Century.



                 The monument to Bluff Road's pioneer legacy.





Thursday, February 11, 2021

The mystery of Utah’s ‘Mountain of Christ’: Monte Cristo




                         Monte Cristo Peak, center, 9,148 feet above sea level.


MANY decades before a viable seasonal highway (U-39) traversed its heights, the Monte Cristo Mountains, about 40 miles northwest of Ogden, generated mystery and fascination.
Hundreds of miners had passed below, to the northwest when the La Plata mines were in their 1890s heyday, but even the height of Monte Cristo was unknown in the early 20th Century.
“A grand trip to ‘Old Monte,’ Near but unknown solitude and grandeur in the Monte Christo (sic) Mountains” was an August 26, 1908 headline in the Logan Republican newspaper.
“It is distinctly a region of scenery and scenery on a scale of grandeur obtainable in very few places,” the story stated, dubbing it Utah’s “Garden of the Gods.”
“You may drive all day and meet no one, see no signs of habitation, unless it be a lone sheep herder’s tent,” the story stated, saying sheep men call the area “Old Monte” and that its greatest charm is solitude and being cut off from the world of humanity.
The Ogden Standard-Examiner of Aug. 11, 1910 also reported on the mystery of Monte Cristo. It stated that a party of Ogdenites were going to travel there to ascertain the height of the tallest peak there, Monte Cristo. Rumors had for several decades since the La Plata mining boon below, believed the summit to be between 11,000 and 13,000 feet above sea level.


                           The Monte Cristo Mountains as seen from Snowbasin.


The Monte Cristo mountains are where four Utah counties – Weber, Rich, Cache and Morgan all intersect and where the nearest towns are Huntsville or Woodruff, both about 22 bird-flying miles in any straight direction.
The Salt Lake Tribune of Aug. 18, 1910 reported on the group’s findings: “The height of the mountain which many in the party had been led to believe was inaccessible and one of the highest in the state, was found to be 8,950 feet above sea level.”
(Modern measurements have upped that elevation to 9,148 feet above sea level.)


                                   Monte Cristo and Utah Highway 39 in late May.

-Who gave the mountains and tallest peak their religious name, Monte Cristo, is also a mystery for the ages. According to the book, “Utah Place Names,” by John W. Van Cott, there are three different claims for the name’s origin:
1. Miners returning from California though the range resembled the Monte Cristo Mountains of California; 2. The name could have been given by early French-Canadian trappers; and 3. One of the early road builders in the area carried a copy of the book, “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which he read to his co-workers at night around the campfire.
However, since the 1908 Logan Republican story spotlighted to remoteness of the area – and no road was mentioned, but the name Monte was there – that leaves only credence for the first two origins.
(Note: “Monte Cristo” also means “Mountain of Christ” in Spanish.)

MORE HISTORY ITEMS:

-The Salt Lake Herald of July 11, 1909 outlined the report of one of the first known automobile trip to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This Woolley Automobiling Party went from Salt Lake City to Kanab/Fredonia and required 39 hours and 20 minutes of driving the 430 total miles before looking down at Bright Angel Creek from the Rim.
-The Ogden Bay Waterfowl Management Area was the first federally funded waterfowl management area in the United States, according to the Davis County Clipper of Nov. 26, 1976.
This area is located west of Hooper and is located on the delta of the Weber River, near where it dumps into the Great Salt Lake. Development there began in 1937 and includes 16,700 acres. The Hoard Slough portion to the south was developed 21 years later in 1958.








'Moki' Dugway: The most unforgettable/scariest road in Utah, but a view to die for?



The heart of the Moki Dugway switchbacks.
                                                                                                   Photo by Ray Boren in 2018.

WHAT the upper Angels Landing Trail in Zion National Park is to hiking (scariest and most unforgettable), the "Moki" (sometimes also spelled "Moqui" or "Mokee") Dugway is the equivalent to highway driving in Utah.
Often known in San Juan County, Utah as "White knuckle hill," this three-mile-long graded dirt road with an 11 percent grade is unique in the State Highway system, it being a segment of Highway 261, from Mexican Hat to Highway 95 (south of Bear's Ears) or  a shortcut to Hite Crossing on Lake Powell.
This road climbs 1,200 feet up a sandstone cliff face and has no guard rails. The road is also so camouflaged into the cliffs, that you have to almost be on the switchbacks to see them.
The road drops 750 feet in just 440 yards.
"Going up or down is an experience not soon forgotten," is how the San Juan Record newspaper described driving the Moki Dugway on July 24, 1985. The Dugway has become one of the area's spectacular attractions -- and the nearby Muley Point Overlook doubles the eye candy.

Approaching the cliff the Moki Dugway climbs up is almost invisible until you're driving on it!
Photo by Ray Boren in 2018.


Supposedly, the future Moki Dugway slope is where Ute Chief Posey, though wounded, somehow came down the steep mountain and eluded law officers in the 1920s, intent on capturing the Chief for the final Ute uprising.
According to the San Juan Record of July 13, 2005, the Dugway's original name was "Isabelle Hill," though no one seems to know why, or when it switched to "Moki." Why some variations of the name spell it "Moqui" or "Mokee" is also unknown, but the shortest spelling is the norm now by common usage.

                            Even the sign at the top of the Dugway spells it as "Moki" these days.
                                                                                                                           Photo by Ray Boren.

The switchbacks begin at an elevation of 5,325 feet above sea level and top out at 6,525 feet.
The San Juan Record of July 1, 1998 proclaimed the road, "gives new thrills to the driving experiences of the southwest" ... and "provides access to an overlook on top that provides panoramic views of the area."
How did this Dugway come to be?
The Texas Zinc Corporation began to build the Dugway and a total  of 33 miles of road in 1955 from Utah Highway 95 south across Cedar Mesa to Mexican Hat, according to the San Juan Record of Jan. 7, 1965. Plagued by strikes, the road was finally complete in mid-1957 and it provided direct access from the high elevation mines down to a uranium mill at Mexican Hat.
The Dugway portion of the road alone cost $1 million (more than $9 million in 2020 dollar value).
The road was deeded over to the State of Utah in 1957 and officially opened as a state highway on Aug. 10, 1957. Yet, the other portions of U-261 were not paved until 1961-62.




     The Moki Dugway, a gravel segment, is that gap in the red color along Highway 316.



(Texas Zinc Corp. was bought by Atlas Corporation in 1963 and the uranium mill at Mexican Hat closed in 1965.)
San Juan County asked the UDOT to pave the road several times over the decades, including in 1971, according to the San Juan Record on Jan. 21, 1971. However, that never happened and the road remains gravel today.


(To bypass the Moki Dugway means drivers have to go along U-191 from Mexican Hat toward Blanding and then turn left onto U-95 toward Hite. The difference in distance is 30 extra miles without the Dugway, or about 37 minutes extra in travel time.)

The movie, "Chill Factor," (1999) filmed on the Moki Dugway.
Drivers going northwest out of Mexican Hat on U-261 see a high cliff in the distance and wonder where the road goes until the switchbacks come into view. It is likely motor home operators, big rig drivers and those afraid of heights who are unaware of the Dugway, surely question their sanity when they encounter the switchbacks going up or down.
Monument Valley High School  held the "Moki Dugway Hill Climb," a three-mile footrace on Dec. 14, 1991. Newspapers only contain that one single reference to the race being held.

One Google review of the Moki Dugway describes it as an "incredibly scary gravel road like going down the side of the Grand Canyon." Another recommends that only those unafraid of heights drive it, while some others thought it was over-rated.


Looking down a portion of the Moki Dugway to U-261 below is like looking out of an airplane.
                                                                                                             Photo by Ray Boren.

-"Skyway prospects delight San Juan" was a Dec. 29, 1968 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune. Reporter Carl E. Hayden stated that there was a plan to build a "sky railway" from the top of the Moki Dugway at Muley Point to Mexican Hat.
People would be shuttled from Mexican Hat and up the Dugway -- about 16 miles -- in buses and then be able to pay to ride a gravity powered cable car about 12 miles straight down as the bird flies to Mexican Hat.
This "would give tourists the breathtaking joy of ascending the Moki Dugway," according to the Tribune.
Of course, the skyway was never built and in today's era, with controversy over increased commercial access to the nearby Bear's Ears area, sacred to Native Americans, the development would probably never happen.

                      Near Bear's Ears, with Navajo Mountain looming in the background.
                                                                       -Photo by Ravell Call.

AT LEAST 5 ACCIDENTS ON THE MOKI DUGWAY:

Yes, people have died on the Moki Dugway. 
1. According to the San Juan Record of May 17, 1989, the first death happened about 1965. A man driving down the Dugway stopped and got out of his truck to urinate at the first turn from the stop. Lonnie Wilson, a passenger in the truck said he heard the driver say, "Oh My God!" from the rear of the vehicle and he was gone. His lifeless body was found on the next ridge below.

2. The newspaper said that scene was nearly repeated in 1989 when Howard Kinlicheeny, age 26, was in a pickup with friends and also stopped to relieve himself. He slipped off the road and fell 40 feet down. He suffered a severed spinal cord and a fracture on his femur.

3. The San Juan Record of May 11, 1994 carried the headline, "Mother dies in one-car accident." Jane Madison Navaho, 21, of Tonalea, Arizona, died when the car she was a passenger in went off the road near the top of the Dugway. She was thrown out of the vehicle after it plunged 60 feet and then rolled over her. Her husband, Dickie Navaho, was injured and had to extricated from the vehicle. The driver, Mary Stephens of Pasadena, Calif., was able to crawl out of the car. She was the only one wearing a seat belt. The Utah Highway Patrol said Stephens was driving too fast and lost control coming down the Dugway's first curve.

4. The San Juan Record of July 22, 1987, in a column by Doris Valle, recounted the tale of a driver who walked away from a fiery crash on the Dugway. Richard Nielson was starting to drive down the cliff's switchbacks in a uranium ore truck, probably in the early 1960s. The truck's brakes failed and then the steering, causing it to go over the first cliff coming down the Dugway. Flames erupted under the hood and Nielson's foot was caught by some crumpled metal inside the cab. The flames suddenly died down and started again, twice, with a few minutes in between. He finally got his foot unstuck and though shaken up, climbed back up the hill to the top of the Dugway. 
He "came up behind two other truckers who stood aghast, looking down at the smoldering wreckage below. They were ready to climb down to find Richard's body when he tapped one on the shoulder, 'What're waiting for?" he asked. "Let's get on down the road!"'

5. According to the San Juan Record of April 13, 2005, a family was almost to the bottom of the switchbacks that year when above them boulders the size of houses came loose and fell on the ledges above. They escaped injury, but a parked road grader higher up the Dugway was damaged by rock fall.


               Hikers to Angels Landing today hang on to chains, anchored to pipes.                                                                                                Photo by Roger Arave.
MORE HISTORY: The Washington County News of Dec. 24, 1925 stated that the first official trail from the end of the road in upper Zion Canyon to the Narrows had been constructed that year. There were 2 different trails, one for hoses and another for pedestrians, leading from the Temple of Sinawava to the Narrows to the Virgin River.
Also, the newspaper stated that the same year, 500 feet of pipe railing had been added "to render the climb to Angels' Landing safe for the timid person." That was something secure to hang on to during the climb up and down the steep path.

                                       Angels Landing with chains.
                                                                                                       Photo by Roger Arave.






Snow Basin used to host a sports car hill climb; Plus, Mount Ogden's original name and more ...



SNOW Basin has been site of more than ski races over the decades. For three years, from 1961-1963, there was a "Snow Basin Hill Climb" that raced sports cars on the Snow Basin paved road.
The course included 12 hills in its slightly less than two-mile-long event. It was also billed at the first such car race in Utah for some 20 years.
"100 sports cars to compete in Basin" was a May 29, 1962 headline in the Ogden Standard-Examiner. The Ogden Motor Sports Racing Association was the original sponsor of the race.
The first race in 1961 had to be postponed from May 28, to June 9-10, because of inclement weather.
Even though the race's third and final event, in 1963, attracted 1,300 spectators, it was never held again. A car did flip over in that final event, but no one was injured.


                        Looking down at Snow Basin from the Wasatch Mountain saddle.

After the Snow Basin Race was gone, the annual Moab Hill Climb each spring gained great popularity. (It was later renamed the Easter Jeep Safari.)
-Jump forward to July 1, 1967 and a different Snow Basin Hill Climb was held -- this one for bicycles. However, this race began at the mouth of Ogden Canyon, went east up the Canyon and accessed the original Snow Basin Road to the resort. This race also only lasted a few years.
-MORE HISTORY: The Civilian Conservation Corps ("CCC") helped build the road in Wheeler Canyon in the late 1930s and early 1940s. However, World War II halted their work before the road was completed. According to the Standard-Examiner of Oct. 27, 1955, the Utah National Guard finally completed the road. Several narrow sections of the canyon had to be dynamited to create a two-lane wide road. Today, the road is also titled "Art Nord Drive," in honor of A.J. Nord who was assistant regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service in the area and who pushed to complete the canyon road.


                              An old post card of the original dam in Ogden Canyon.

-BEFORE Pineview Reservoir was built (1934-1937), there was a much smaller reservoir located just west of the current Dam and at the head of Wheeler Canyon. "Big storage reservoir" was an Oct. 31, 1905 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune. This Utah Light & Railway Company and Ogden City water storage project provided electrical power, as well as summer water. Sometimes called "Power Dam," it was built from 1909-1910, was an average of 23 feet deep and held 21 million gallons of water. Its construction meant the road through Ogden Canyon had to be rerouted. This dam was drained and replaced by Pineview, located to the east.


                                     Mount Ogden from the southwest side.

-Ogden Peak was the original title for Mount Ogden Peak, according to the first U.S. Geological Survey through Weber County's eastern side in 1873. Next, according the Standard-Examiner of July 19, 1956, the peak was briefly dubbed "Henderson's Peak," to honor one of the men who conducted that first survey. A third temporary name, "Observatory Peak," was the moniker for the mountain during the time of the Malan's Basin Resort, at the end of the 19th Century. By the early 20th Century, Mount Ogden became the accepted name now listed on all maps.

 
                      Mount Ogden as viewed from the eastern, Snow Basin side.






When the Great Salt Lake was proposed as a National Park; Plus, more history

                      A view of the Great Salt Lake from Buffalo Point on Antelope Island.                                                                                                       -Photo by Roger Arave

THE Great Salt Lake is one of Utah's most well-known assets. However, few seem to be aware that in 1960 the briny body of water was proposed as a national park.
Of course, that status was never awarded, but Utah Senator Frank Moss did seek it, according to the Weekly Reflex newspaper of March 24, 1960.
Moss explained in the newspaper article that he never wanted the entire lake to be a national park, just a portion of the lake's shore.
He realized even in 1960, that industrial uses were impairing the lake and that developments also threatened it. While he didn't want to restrict any of the economic value of the lake, he was open to studying fresh water bay possibilities and more.

-MORE HISTORY: "Six stranded on Antelope Island get back safely," was an Oct. 27, 1932 headline in the Weekly Reflex newspaper. The men, Nephi Ross, Earl Stoddard, Paul and Francis Fowers -- all from Hooper, plus Frank and Charles Stoddard from West Point.
The men took a motor boat from the West Point Gun Club in hopes of rescuing a boat that was beached off the edge of Antelope Island a week earlier. That task was too difficult and their food supply ran out. They spent a night on the Isle and lit a fire to show relatives they were OK.
A Utah Pacific Airways plane was chartered and flew over Antelope Island in search of the. The pilot never found them, just a herd of about 25 buffalo.
The men finally freed the boat, but a storm preventing them from leaving the island until later in the day.


                                                                  Pineview Dam.                           Photo by Whitney Arave


-FACTS about a proposed Pineview Reservoir: 
Cost: $3 million.
Shoreline: 17.5 miles
Maximum depth: 56 feet in front of the dam.
Highways to Huntsville and Eden rerouted on the sides.
Source: Ogden Standard Examiner of Sept. 28, 1934.

-THERE was an obscure development while constructing Pineview Reservoir: For more than 40 years, the Utah Power and Light Company operated a small reservoir below Wheeler Canyon and found west of the new Pineview Dam. This old reservoir had to be drained and discarded and the old highway rerouted through it.
In addition trucks with water tanks hauled fish away as the reservoir was drained.
The Standard-Examiner of Oct. 7, 1934 chronicled some of this prep work and that a Civilian Conservation Corps camp was being erected near Huntsville.

-WHEN the Utah State Prison in Sugarhouse was slated for replacement, it eventually ended up in Draper, near Point of the Mountain. Another explored possibility was Antelope Island. However, another proposal is much more obscure -- west of Bountiful, near the Great Salt Lake.
According to the Weekly Reflex newspaper of Jan. 24, 1929, Salt Lake County was pushing for the prison to be moved northwest of the Cudahy Packing Plant (near today's Cudahy Lane).
A key problem with that proposal was that the Utah State Constitution required that the prison be located in Salt Lake County. So, Davis County would have to give the land to Salt Lake County for that to have ever happened. This proposal never took place and since Davis County is by far the smallest county of the 29 in Utah, it turned out well.