2016 HISTORY SYMPOSIUM
Friday, November 4
2016 History Symposium Tours
(Note: Each tour had limited space and attendees were limited to be on one tour for this event. This limit was decided since at the 2012 History Symposium a few people went on a lot of tours and many could not sign up for any.)
Tour Cline Library Special Collections and Archives
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
The Cline Library Special Collections and Archives staff presented a tour of the department and collections related to the Grand Canyon. Special Collections and Archives (http://library.nau.edu/speccoll/) collects the human and natural history of the Colorado Plateau with an emphasis on the southwest corner of the Plateau. These collections are particularly strong in documenting the history of Grand Canyon. SCA staff will share selections from a variety of collections documenting the history of Grand Canyon including the following collections: Emery Kolb, William Wallace and Ada Bass, Harvey Butchart, Tad Nichols, Bill Belknap, Martin Litton, Georgie White Clark, George Billingsley, and Glen & Bessie Hyde to name a few.
This tour was held at Cline Library, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ and was the only activity away from the South Rim, Grand Canyon.
Historic Boat Tour, Museum Collection (Two Tour Times)
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
12:00 PM - 1:00 AM
Museum Curator Kim Besom and Grand Canyon River historians, Brad Dimock and GCHS Board Member Tom Martin presented two tours of the park’s collection of 19 historic boats. Participants learned about the history of early river running through the Grand Canyon and got close up views of some of the boats that made history-making trips.
This tour was held at the Museum Collection on Albright Ave. Ample parking. No shuttle Bus Access. (Indoor)
Google Map
Historic Kolb Studio Residence Tour (Two Tour Times)
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
GCHS Board Member Phil Payne conducted an intimate tour of Kolb Studio, home of the famous Kolb brother’s photography studio and residence. During this tour participants went “behind the scenes” to experience the living spaces of the Kolb family used and the darkroom where they worked their magic.
This tour met near the front entrance of Kolb Studio, limited parking, walk or use Blue Route Shuttle Bus. (Indoor)
Google Map
Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection Tour (Two Tour Times)
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Museum Specialist Colleen Hyde presented a walk into the past. The Grand Canyon Museum Collection houses more that 1.5 million objects, including ancient split twig figurines, prehistoric pottery, Civilian Conservation Corps artifacts, NPS memorabilia, historic photographs, and paintings by the likes of Gunnar Widforss. Colleen has spent the last 27 years working in the museum collection facility, directly caring for, and preserving, the heritage of the park.
This tour met at Museum Collection on Albright Ave. Ample parking. No shuttle Bus Access. (Indoor)
Google Map
Desert View Watchtower Tour
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Jan Balsom, Deputy Chief of Science and Resource Management, shared her knowledge about the construction of the Desert View Watchtower, including its architect, Mary Colter and her vision, and of Hopi artist Fred Kabotie who painted the famous murals in the tower. Jan has spent her career at the Grand Canyon and is an expert in the history of the building.
This tour met in front of DV Café. Ample parking. No shuttle Bus Access. (Outside & Indoor)
-Google Map
Special Reception
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
This was a chance for all of our Grand Canyon historians to get together to share adventures, see old friends and meet new ones as we prepared to enjoy a fun filled weekend in honor of the National Park Service Centennial at the grandest place on earth. Beer, wine and light appetizers were served and this was a great event.
This was held at the Santa Fe Room, Maswik Lodge
Early 2016 History Symposium Check-In
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
While attending the Special Reception at Maswik Lodge, many people avoided the morning lines with this early check in and picked up their registration materials, name tag, etc.
Special Evening Presentation
WPA National Park Posters
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Presented by Doug Leen
Between 1935 and 1943 the WPA's Federal Art Project printed over two million posters in 35,000 different designs to stir the public's imagination for education, theater, health, safety, and travel. Due to their fragile nature only two thousand posters have survived to this day; less than one tenth of one percent!
Doug Leen presented the story of the WPA National Park serigraphic posters including the Grand Canyon. Doug showed how these stunning historical national park posters have been painstakingly restored, one screen at a time, and what Americans of the depression era and early World War II saw to learn about our National Parks.
This presentation was at the Shrine of Ages Auditorium - Doors opened at 6:50
(Note: This event was open to Symposium attendees and the general public)
SATURDAY, NOV. 5
2016 History Symposium Morning Check In
7:00 AM - 8:00 AM
Registered attendees only were admitted into the Auditorium to check in and pick up their registration materials, name tag, etc. Check in was in the Shrine of Ages, Multipurpose Room. All Presentations were in the Shrine of Ages auditorium and required a name tag to enter.
.
Note: Late arrivals could check in after 8:00 AM but volunteer Door Greeters would only allow entry into the Auditorium between presentations and during breaks. This was a sold out event and seating in the Shrine was full.
Daylong Display Historic River Boats Replicas
All day 7:00 AM to 5:30 PM (Outside by the Shrine of Ages)
This outdoor display was a unique opportunity to see six wooden oar powered boats that have been replicated to be run down the Colorado River, along with one historic boat that is being preserved in a private collection. The builders and the people who run these amazing craft were on hand to answer questions about the boats. The boats included a 1938 cataract style boat that pioneered bringing commercial passengers through the GC. In this display was a 1952 boat that introduced the Oregon dory design. There were two mid 1950s boats that improved the cataract style with a double end and had a famous Walt Disney artist that brought color to the Colorado River hard boats. One of these 1962 boats was nicknamed the “Sub” and this boat and another displayed boat helped save the Grand Canyon from two dams. Another boat was a 1972 dory style that became the workhorse of the commercial hard boat river trips. Attendees were able to take a selfie while sitting in the “Susie seat” of one of the boats and image what it was like when the original boat ran the river at 126,000 cubic feet per second, a level ten times higher than today’s typical water level.
Let the Symposium Begin!
Welcome by Grand Canyon Historical Society
8:00 AM
President Wayne Ranney
Welcome to Grand Canyon National Park
8:15 AM
Superintendent Christine Lehnertz
16 Grand Canyon History Presentations
Recovering Lost Stories: The Havasupai Photograph Project
8:30 AM - 8:55 AM
Presenters: Steve and Lois Hirst
An unexpected discovery of hundreds of long-lost large-format photographs of the Havasupai people from archives and stacks, sometimes interleaved among the pages of reports, had not seen the light of day since their storage decades in the past. Images date back to 1891 and include work by artists such as E.S. Curtis and Joseph Dixon. This presentation followed detective work to restore identity to these people after more than a century, drawing upon the memories of Havasupai elders and facial comparisons. Pulled back from the sands of time, these images evoke a cherished way of life and affirm family ties.
A Study of the Historic Occurrence of African Americans in the Grand Canyon Region
8:55 AM - 9:20 AM
Presenter: Margaret Hangan
African Americans have played a role in the historic development of Northern Arizona, but there has been little information about their lives in this region. This paper looked at the mechanisms that brought African Americans to the Grand Canyon area, the social and political milieu they faced, and the possible social relationship between the African Americans employed in the canyon and the community of Williams, Az.
Through the Camera’s Lens: Historic Images Help Unravel the Stories of Forgotten Pack Trips to the Grand Canyon and Beyond
9:20 AM - 9:45 AM
Presenter: Harvey Leake
In their first published personnel roster, the National Park Service reported just thirty-two staff members nationwide. Included were thirteen Custodians of National Monuments. In the rugged country to the east of the Grand Canyon, the speaker’s great-grandfather, John Wetherill, was listed as Custodian of Navajo National Monument. He was also the de facto custodian of Rainbow Bridge National Monument. The speaker displayed a sampling of images from Wetherill’s photographic collection that, in conjunction with other evidence, is now used to identify and locate historic campsites and abandoned trails for which no known maps exist.
Morning Break
9:45 AM - 10:00 AM
Attendees had a chance to the historic replica wooden boats display (Outside) or visit displays for the GC Historic Society, Grand Canyon Association and the NAU Cline Library, Special Collections (Inside) Shrine of Ages multipurpose room.
Julius Farlee, John Hance, W. W. Bass and the Birth of Grand Canyon Tourism
10:00 AM - 10:25 AM
Presenter: Shane Murphy
John Hance said Grand Canyon had three liars—he was one and Bill Bass was the other two. He forgot to mention Julius Farlee. Farlee told writer Mary Fisher there were no rattlesnakes at Grand Canyon. She quickly spotted one. “Christopher Columbus! If that ain’t a rattler! It is the first varmint of that kind ever seen in this cañon!” Farlee ran the Canyon’s first tourist operations. His newspaper ads were three years ahead of, and larger than, Hance’s, while Bass followed them both with word of mouth techniques. Today, few people have heard of Julius Farlee. Murphy presented on how it happened!
Eroding Footholds: Grand Canyon Pioneers vs Federal Control
10:25 AM -10:50 AM
Presenter: Dick Brown
When Congress passed the Creative Act granting the President the power to establish forest reserves, Benjamin Harrison immediately withdrew millions of acres of forest land from the public domain. With Grand Canyon strategically wedged between two forested rims, prospectors rushed to stake more mining claims. They organized the Grand Canyon Mining District the day that Harrison created Grand Canyon Forest Reserve. There followed a series of presidential proclamations, each tightening governmental control of Grand Canyon. Just weeks after the National Park Service was created, Berry’s Grandview Hotel closed its doors. The path was finally clear for Grand Canyon National Park.
Henry G. Peabody’s Grand Canyon Slideshow: The Geographic Revival of an Eminent National Park Service Photographer
10:50 AM -11:15 AM
Presenter: Nicholas Bauch
The National Park Service identified Henry G. Peabody as an “Eminent National Park Service Photographer,” a recognition given to individuals who have created a large body of work documenting one or more National Parks. From Peabody’s lengthy career, one of his lasting contributions is a 43-photograph narrated slideshow of the Grand Canyon crafted between 1899 and 1930. Peabody sold his lantern slideshow around the North American continent, giving thousands of viewers their first ideas about the Grand Canyon and the American West. Peabody, however, has remained outside the limelight of the art historical canon.
The George W. Parkins Inscription: Now We Know Who He Was
11:15 AM - 11:40 AM
Presenter: Jonathan Upchurch
GEO. W. PARKINS WASHINGTON DC 1903. While there are several inscription names in the Grand Canyon, the Parkins Inscription may be the most mysterious. Who was George Parkins and why was he at Bass Rapids in 1903? These questions have tugged at park visitors for decades. We now know most of the answers and more about George W. Parkins. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to go on to solve this mystery – just the three basic clues of a name, a place, and a date. But from those three clues, and a great deal of detective work, his story emerged.
Lunch Break
11:40 AM - 1:00 PM
Lunch on your own.
Attendees were able to vitis displays for the GC Historic Society, purchase books from the Grand Canyon Association, and vitit the NAU Cline Library, Special Collections table at the Shrine of Ages multipurpose room. The historic replica wooden boats display was outside. These features were staffed from 12:40 PM - 1:00 PM.
The Grand Canyon Rose: Grand Canyon National Park’s First Botanist, Rose Collom
1:00 PM - 1:25 PM
Presenter: Richard Quartaroli
Though there were earlier botanists who collected at Grand Canyon, Rose Collom made her first visit to Grand Canyon National Park in 1938 and collected specimens on both rims. Rose’s part-time employment as the Park’s first paid botanist, which lasted through 1953, was made even more special as this self-taught botanist achieved national notoriety. Her Grand Canyon specimens amounted to over 800, with the last catalogued in February 1954, a new park record. Rose’s work put Grand Canyon near the top of the national parks in plant diversity. Rose was inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame in 2013.
The Phenomena of Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter: Creating an Architectural Sense of Place on Grand Canyon
1:25 PM - 1:50 PM
Presenter: Barbara Ann Matusik
Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, artist, teacher, architect and interior designer, created structures on the Grand Canyon South Rim for the Santa Fe Railway and their concessionaire, the Fred Harvey Company. Colter used design elements gained from her extensive study of indigenous Southwestern cultures and the ancient ruins of the Four Corners area. The presenters research answered several questions that defined the phenomena of M.E.J. Colter, such as how her architecture defines a sense of place at Grand Canyon National Park. Colter’s 1914 visionary designs reflect the National Park Service “Rustic” architecture during the 1920s to late 1930s.
My Experience as a Seasonal Park Ranger at Havasu Campground in Grand Canyon National Park, 1970
1:50 PM - 2:15 PM
Presenter: George H. Billingsley
In 1970, the National Park boundary with the Havasupai Indian Reservation was at the top of Havasu Falls within Cataract Canyon. In 1975, the Havasu Campground and a large portion of lower Cataract/Havasu Canyon, and part of the Coconino Plateau became part of the Havasupai Indian Reservation. Before that time, there was no phone in the campground, but there was a public pay phone in Supai that Billingsley could use to call out in emergency situations, when it was working. Mail service reached Supai by pony express once or twice a week when someone rode a horse up to Hualapai Hilltop to collect the mail.
A Century of National Park Service Management of Colorado River Running
2:15 PM - 2:40 PM
Presenter: Tom Martin
The Colorado River through Grand Canyon had been traversed by eight river trips when the National Park Service took control of part of the Grand Canyon and Colorado River in 1919. In 1929, two Park employees tragically lost their lives in a river running accident. For the next twenty-five years, the Service restricted further river exploration by its employees, while, non-agency river travel expanded to include river tourism and new developments in watercraft. This paper reviews how the deaths of these two employees resulted in a series of management steps leading directly to today’s river management and user-group conflicts between 1916 and 1956.
Afternoon Break
2:40 PM - 2:55 PM
Attendees could visit the historic replica wooden boat display (Outside) or visit the GC Historic Society, Grand Canyon Association and the NAU Cline Library, Special Collections.
Martin Litton and the Grand Canyon
2:55 PM - 3:20 PM
Presenter: Brad Dimock
Martin Litton was an active environmental warrior for more than eighty years—he was writing letters to the editor in high school and died still fighting at nearly 98 years old. Litton was a self-styled environmental warrior long before such a thing existed. Having been a major player in the successful battle against dams in Dinosaur National Monument, he was poised and primed to play a seminal role in the fight against two dams in Grand Canyon in the 1960s. The full scope of this struggle cannot be conveyed in a short talk, but formed the heart of the tale.
Mission Accomplished? An exploration of the successes, failures, and controversies of MISSION 66
3:20 PM - 3:45 PM
Presenter: Mike Gallant
2016 marked the 50th anniversary of MISSION 66, an initiative that used nearly one billion dollars over ten years to fund massive improvements service-wide to prepare the NPS for its 50th birthday in 1966. While the bulk of MISSION 66 funding went to infrastructural improvements, it is often remembered for the International Style buildings left behind. Considered an eyesore by many, these buildings serve as a physical reminder of an aspirational time in the Park Service’s history – a time when unimagined challenges were met head on without losing sight of the organization’s founding principles and ideals.
The Railroading of Visitors: Management Missteps and Cautionary Lessons from Transportation Planning in the Last Millennium
3:45 PM - 4:10 PM
Presenter: Dennis Foster
A quarter century ago, the Park Service began a planning process whose scope was as broad and as deep as the Grand Canyon. With the release of the General Management Plan (GMP) in the spring of 1995 this audacious proposal set in motion a series of events with regard to visitor parking and transportation that would take fifteen years to resolve. Among the lessons learned included keeping focused on the real visitor experience, avoiding choices that made it more costly to visit the park and resisting the urge to extend management control to areas beyond the expertise of the NPS.
The Park Service Cemetery at Grand Canyon
4:10 PM - 4:45 PM
Presenter: Kern Nuttall
Most national parks do not have cemeteries, but the NPS found it necessary to establish one at the Grand Canyon. While John Hance is commonly believed to be the first person buried in the Pioneer Cemetery, he was probably preceded by railway workers like Lorenzo Ramirez, who died at the beginning of the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. Among the earliest Park Service people in the cemetery is 45-year-old blacksmith Louis Richard, interred in 1923. For decades the Canyon has exerted a particularly strong attraction as a burial location, although why remains a matter for speculation. Why here?
The Shrine of the Ages: Community and Complexity
4:45 PM - 5:10 PM
Presenter: Susie Verkamp
Thousands of park residents and visitors enter the Shrine of the Ages building every year for everything from fund raisers to funerals, music festivals to symposiums. Most know little about the complexities of how it came to be. Susie Verkamp recounted a local’s eye view of the building’s 23 year-long saga from vision to completion, focusing on the role played by her father Jack Verkamp and other dedicated members of the Canyon village community. Their quixotic vision of an interfaith chapel on the rim was driven first and foremost by the need of locals for a place to worship.
Dinner Break
5:10 PM - 6:50 PM
Dinner was on your own
Special Evening Presentation
Grand Canyon's Fifty Finest Features
Presented by Gary Ladd
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Grand Canyon's size and rugged terrain are both extremely inviting and imposing. Years of canyon experiences are needed to gain an understanding of the canyon's wild array of its finest traits. Gary Ladd has spent 50 years floating the river, walking its rims, following its trails and exploring its backcountry. Attendees saw what he's decided about Grand Canyon's most irresistible charms.
Shrine of Ages Auditorium - Doors opened at 6:50
(Note: This event was open to Symposium attendees and the general public)
Sunday, November 6
A Time of Profound Change - Tour
9:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Lyle Balenquah and Jason Nez gave presentations on Hopi and Navajo perspectives on the advent of federal land management policies that created the public lands and what those changes meant to native peoples of the past and present.
Attendees met at the Tribal Medallion to the right of the Grand Canyon Visitor Center building on the trail toward Mather Point. Ample Parking, ½ mile walk or use: Blue Route Shuttle Bus stop: Grand Canyon Visitor Center. (Outside Tour)
Google Map
A Change of the Guard: the Kaibab National Forest and the New Park - Tour
9:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Forest Service archaeologists Margaret Hangan and Neil Weintraub instructed attendees on how the USFS protected the Grand Canyon before it became a National Park and about the transitions that occurred following the establishment of the Park Service in 1916 and of Grand Canyon National Park in 1919.
Attendees met at the Old Grandview Fire Tower Tusayan RD. ½-mile walk. (Outside Tour)
Roads are unpaved and are suitable for passenger cars.
Google Map
A Century of Geological Discovery in our Park (Two Tours)
9:00 am - 10:30 am
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Brian Gootee presented on a walk through the geological history of the Grand Canyon along the trail of time. Attendees were able to see and touch rocks of the ages and learn about the geological history of the park.
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Attendees met in front of the Yavapai Geology Museum. 2-mile walk. (Outside Tour)
Ample parking, or take the Orange Route Shuttle Bus
Google Map
Grand Canyon Historic District Walking Tour
10:00 am - 11:00 am
Grand Canyon National Park historian Michael F. Anderson conduted a walking tour of part of the historic Grand Canyon Village. Attendees learned about the development of the Village, its iconic infrastructure, and of the people who helped create the Village as we know it today. Michael is the author of several books on Grand Canyon history, including “Polishing the Jewel” and “Living on the Edge”.
Meet at the Grand Canyon Railway Depot. ½-mile walk (Outside Tour)
No Parking. Walk or use Blue Route Shuttle Bus stop Train Depot
Google Map
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2016 History Symposium Tours
(Note: Each tour had limited space and attendees were limited to be on one tour for this event. This limit was decided since at the 2012 History Symposium a few people went on a lot of tours and many could not sign up for any.)
Tour Cline Library Special Collections and Archives
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
The Cline Library Special Collections and Archives staff presented a tour of the department and collections related to the Grand Canyon. Special Collections and Archives (http://library.nau.edu/speccoll/) collects the human and natural history of the Colorado Plateau with an emphasis on the southwest corner of the Plateau. These collections are particularly strong in documenting the history of Grand Canyon. SCA staff will share selections from a variety of collections documenting the history of Grand Canyon including the following collections: Emery Kolb, William Wallace and Ada Bass, Harvey Butchart, Tad Nichols, Bill Belknap, Martin Litton, Georgie White Clark, George Billingsley, and Glen & Bessie Hyde to name a few.
This tour was held at Cline Library, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ and was the only activity away from the South Rim, Grand Canyon.
Historic Boat Tour, Museum Collection (Two Tour Times)
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
12:00 PM - 1:00 AM
Museum Curator Kim Besom and Grand Canyon River historians, Brad Dimock and GCHS Board Member Tom Martin presented two tours of the park’s collection of 19 historic boats. Participants learned about the history of early river running through the Grand Canyon and got close up views of some of the boats that made history-making trips.
This tour was held at the Museum Collection on Albright Ave. Ample parking. No shuttle Bus Access. (Indoor)
Google Map
Historic Kolb Studio Residence Tour (Two Tour Times)
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
GCHS Board Member Phil Payne conducted an intimate tour of Kolb Studio, home of the famous Kolb brother’s photography studio and residence. During this tour participants went “behind the scenes” to experience the living spaces of the Kolb family used and the darkroom where they worked their magic.
This tour met near the front entrance of Kolb Studio, limited parking, walk or use Blue Route Shuttle Bus. (Indoor)
Google Map
Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection Tour (Two Tour Times)
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Museum Specialist Colleen Hyde presented a walk into the past. The Grand Canyon Museum Collection houses more that 1.5 million objects, including ancient split twig figurines, prehistoric pottery, Civilian Conservation Corps artifacts, NPS memorabilia, historic photographs, and paintings by the likes of Gunnar Widforss. Colleen has spent the last 27 years working in the museum collection facility, directly caring for, and preserving, the heritage of the park.
This tour met at Museum Collection on Albright Ave. Ample parking. No shuttle Bus Access. (Indoor)
Google Map
Desert View Watchtower Tour
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Jan Balsom, Deputy Chief of Science and Resource Management, shared her knowledge about the construction of the Desert View Watchtower, including its architect, Mary Colter and her vision, and of Hopi artist Fred Kabotie who painted the famous murals in the tower. Jan has spent her career at the Grand Canyon and is an expert in the history of the building.
This tour met in front of DV Café. Ample parking. No shuttle Bus Access. (Outside & Indoor)
-Google Map
Special Reception
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
This was a chance for all of our Grand Canyon historians to get together to share adventures, see old friends and meet new ones as we prepared to enjoy a fun filled weekend in honor of the National Park Service Centennial at the grandest place on earth. Beer, wine and light appetizers were served and this was a great event.
This was held at the Santa Fe Room, Maswik Lodge
Early 2016 History Symposium Check-In
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
While attending the Special Reception at Maswik Lodge, many people avoided the morning lines with this early check in and picked up their registration materials, name tag, etc.
Special Evening Presentation
WPA National Park Posters
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Presented by Doug Leen
Between 1935 and 1943 the WPA's Federal Art Project printed over two million posters in 35,000 different designs to stir the public's imagination for education, theater, health, safety, and travel. Due to their fragile nature only two thousand posters have survived to this day; less than one tenth of one percent!
Doug Leen presented the story of the WPA National Park serigraphic posters including the Grand Canyon. Doug showed how these stunning historical national park posters have been painstakingly restored, one screen at a time, and what Americans of the depression era and early World War II saw to learn about our National Parks.
This presentation was at the Shrine of Ages Auditorium - Doors opened at 6:50
(Note: This event was open to Symposium attendees and the general public)
SATURDAY, NOV. 5
2016 History Symposium Morning Check In
7:00 AM - 8:00 AM
Registered attendees only were admitted into the Auditorium to check in and pick up their registration materials, name tag, etc. Check in was in the Shrine of Ages, Multipurpose Room. All Presentations were in the Shrine of Ages auditorium and required a name tag to enter.
.
Note: Late arrivals could check in after 8:00 AM but volunteer Door Greeters would only allow entry into the Auditorium between presentations and during breaks. This was a sold out event and seating in the Shrine was full.
Daylong Display Historic River Boats Replicas
All day 7:00 AM to 5:30 PM (Outside by the Shrine of Ages)
This outdoor display was a unique opportunity to see six wooden oar powered boats that have been replicated to be run down the Colorado River, along with one historic boat that is being preserved in a private collection. The builders and the people who run these amazing craft were on hand to answer questions about the boats. The boats included a 1938 cataract style boat that pioneered bringing commercial passengers through the GC. In this display was a 1952 boat that introduced the Oregon dory design. There were two mid 1950s boats that improved the cataract style with a double end and had a famous Walt Disney artist that brought color to the Colorado River hard boats. One of these 1962 boats was nicknamed the “Sub” and this boat and another displayed boat helped save the Grand Canyon from two dams. Another boat was a 1972 dory style that became the workhorse of the commercial hard boat river trips. Attendees were able to take a selfie while sitting in the “Susie seat” of one of the boats and image what it was like when the original boat ran the river at 126,000 cubic feet per second, a level ten times higher than today’s typical water level.
Let the Symposium Begin!
Welcome by Grand Canyon Historical Society
8:00 AM
President Wayne Ranney
Welcome to Grand Canyon National Park
8:15 AM
Superintendent Christine Lehnertz
16 Grand Canyon History Presentations
Recovering Lost Stories: The Havasupai Photograph Project
8:30 AM - 8:55 AM
Presenters: Steve and Lois Hirst
An unexpected discovery of hundreds of long-lost large-format photographs of the Havasupai people from archives and stacks, sometimes interleaved among the pages of reports, had not seen the light of day since their storage decades in the past. Images date back to 1891 and include work by artists such as E.S. Curtis and Joseph Dixon. This presentation followed detective work to restore identity to these people after more than a century, drawing upon the memories of Havasupai elders and facial comparisons. Pulled back from the sands of time, these images evoke a cherished way of life and affirm family ties.
A Study of the Historic Occurrence of African Americans in the Grand Canyon Region
8:55 AM - 9:20 AM
Presenter: Margaret Hangan
African Americans have played a role in the historic development of Northern Arizona, but there has been little information about their lives in this region. This paper looked at the mechanisms that brought African Americans to the Grand Canyon area, the social and political milieu they faced, and the possible social relationship between the African Americans employed in the canyon and the community of Williams, Az.
Through the Camera’s Lens: Historic Images Help Unravel the Stories of Forgotten Pack Trips to the Grand Canyon and Beyond
9:20 AM - 9:45 AM
Presenter: Harvey Leake
In their first published personnel roster, the National Park Service reported just thirty-two staff members nationwide. Included were thirteen Custodians of National Monuments. In the rugged country to the east of the Grand Canyon, the speaker’s great-grandfather, John Wetherill, was listed as Custodian of Navajo National Monument. He was also the de facto custodian of Rainbow Bridge National Monument. The speaker displayed a sampling of images from Wetherill’s photographic collection that, in conjunction with other evidence, is now used to identify and locate historic campsites and abandoned trails for which no known maps exist.
Morning Break
9:45 AM - 10:00 AM
Attendees had a chance to the historic replica wooden boats display (Outside) or visit displays for the GC Historic Society, Grand Canyon Association and the NAU Cline Library, Special Collections (Inside) Shrine of Ages multipurpose room.
Julius Farlee, John Hance, W. W. Bass and the Birth of Grand Canyon Tourism
10:00 AM - 10:25 AM
Presenter: Shane Murphy
John Hance said Grand Canyon had three liars—he was one and Bill Bass was the other two. He forgot to mention Julius Farlee. Farlee told writer Mary Fisher there were no rattlesnakes at Grand Canyon. She quickly spotted one. “Christopher Columbus! If that ain’t a rattler! It is the first varmint of that kind ever seen in this cañon!” Farlee ran the Canyon’s first tourist operations. His newspaper ads were three years ahead of, and larger than, Hance’s, while Bass followed them both with word of mouth techniques. Today, few people have heard of Julius Farlee. Murphy presented on how it happened!
Eroding Footholds: Grand Canyon Pioneers vs Federal Control
10:25 AM -10:50 AM
Presenter: Dick Brown
When Congress passed the Creative Act granting the President the power to establish forest reserves, Benjamin Harrison immediately withdrew millions of acres of forest land from the public domain. With Grand Canyon strategically wedged between two forested rims, prospectors rushed to stake more mining claims. They organized the Grand Canyon Mining District the day that Harrison created Grand Canyon Forest Reserve. There followed a series of presidential proclamations, each tightening governmental control of Grand Canyon. Just weeks after the National Park Service was created, Berry’s Grandview Hotel closed its doors. The path was finally clear for Grand Canyon National Park.
Henry G. Peabody’s Grand Canyon Slideshow: The Geographic Revival of an Eminent National Park Service Photographer
10:50 AM -11:15 AM
Presenter: Nicholas Bauch
The National Park Service identified Henry G. Peabody as an “Eminent National Park Service Photographer,” a recognition given to individuals who have created a large body of work documenting one or more National Parks. From Peabody’s lengthy career, one of his lasting contributions is a 43-photograph narrated slideshow of the Grand Canyon crafted between 1899 and 1930. Peabody sold his lantern slideshow around the North American continent, giving thousands of viewers their first ideas about the Grand Canyon and the American West. Peabody, however, has remained outside the limelight of the art historical canon.
The George W. Parkins Inscription: Now We Know Who He Was
11:15 AM - 11:40 AM
Presenter: Jonathan Upchurch
GEO. W. PARKINS WASHINGTON DC 1903. While there are several inscription names in the Grand Canyon, the Parkins Inscription may be the most mysterious. Who was George Parkins and why was he at Bass Rapids in 1903? These questions have tugged at park visitors for decades. We now know most of the answers and more about George W. Parkins. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to go on to solve this mystery – just the three basic clues of a name, a place, and a date. But from those three clues, and a great deal of detective work, his story emerged.
Lunch Break
11:40 AM - 1:00 PM
Lunch on your own.
Attendees were able to vitis displays for the GC Historic Society, purchase books from the Grand Canyon Association, and vitit the NAU Cline Library, Special Collections table at the Shrine of Ages multipurpose room. The historic replica wooden boats display was outside. These features were staffed from 12:40 PM - 1:00 PM.
The Grand Canyon Rose: Grand Canyon National Park’s First Botanist, Rose Collom
1:00 PM - 1:25 PM
Presenter: Richard Quartaroli
Though there were earlier botanists who collected at Grand Canyon, Rose Collom made her first visit to Grand Canyon National Park in 1938 and collected specimens on both rims. Rose’s part-time employment as the Park’s first paid botanist, which lasted through 1953, was made even more special as this self-taught botanist achieved national notoriety. Her Grand Canyon specimens amounted to over 800, with the last catalogued in February 1954, a new park record. Rose’s work put Grand Canyon near the top of the national parks in plant diversity. Rose was inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame in 2013.
The Phenomena of Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter: Creating an Architectural Sense of Place on Grand Canyon
1:25 PM - 1:50 PM
Presenter: Barbara Ann Matusik
Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, artist, teacher, architect and interior designer, created structures on the Grand Canyon South Rim for the Santa Fe Railway and their concessionaire, the Fred Harvey Company. Colter used design elements gained from her extensive study of indigenous Southwestern cultures and the ancient ruins of the Four Corners area. The presenters research answered several questions that defined the phenomena of M.E.J. Colter, such as how her architecture defines a sense of place at Grand Canyon National Park. Colter’s 1914 visionary designs reflect the National Park Service “Rustic” architecture during the 1920s to late 1930s.
My Experience as a Seasonal Park Ranger at Havasu Campground in Grand Canyon National Park, 1970
1:50 PM - 2:15 PM
Presenter: George H. Billingsley
In 1970, the National Park boundary with the Havasupai Indian Reservation was at the top of Havasu Falls within Cataract Canyon. In 1975, the Havasu Campground and a large portion of lower Cataract/Havasu Canyon, and part of the Coconino Plateau became part of the Havasupai Indian Reservation. Before that time, there was no phone in the campground, but there was a public pay phone in Supai that Billingsley could use to call out in emergency situations, when it was working. Mail service reached Supai by pony express once or twice a week when someone rode a horse up to Hualapai Hilltop to collect the mail.
A Century of National Park Service Management of Colorado River Running
2:15 PM - 2:40 PM
Presenter: Tom Martin
The Colorado River through Grand Canyon had been traversed by eight river trips when the National Park Service took control of part of the Grand Canyon and Colorado River in 1919. In 1929, two Park employees tragically lost their lives in a river running accident. For the next twenty-five years, the Service restricted further river exploration by its employees, while, non-agency river travel expanded to include river tourism and new developments in watercraft. This paper reviews how the deaths of these two employees resulted in a series of management steps leading directly to today’s river management and user-group conflicts between 1916 and 1956.
Afternoon Break
2:40 PM - 2:55 PM
Attendees could visit the historic replica wooden boat display (Outside) or visit the GC Historic Society, Grand Canyon Association and the NAU Cline Library, Special Collections.
Martin Litton and the Grand Canyon
2:55 PM - 3:20 PM
Presenter: Brad Dimock
Martin Litton was an active environmental warrior for more than eighty years—he was writing letters to the editor in high school and died still fighting at nearly 98 years old. Litton was a self-styled environmental warrior long before such a thing existed. Having been a major player in the successful battle against dams in Dinosaur National Monument, he was poised and primed to play a seminal role in the fight against two dams in Grand Canyon in the 1960s. The full scope of this struggle cannot be conveyed in a short talk, but formed the heart of the tale.
Mission Accomplished? An exploration of the successes, failures, and controversies of MISSION 66
3:20 PM - 3:45 PM
Presenter: Mike Gallant
2016 marked the 50th anniversary of MISSION 66, an initiative that used nearly one billion dollars over ten years to fund massive improvements service-wide to prepare the NPS for its 50th birthday in 1966. While the bulk of MISSION 66 funding went to infrastructural improvements, it is often remembered for the International Style buildings left behind. Considered an eyesore by many, these buildings serve as a physical reminder of an aspirational time in the Park Service’s history – a time when unimagined challenges were met head on without losing sight of the organization’s founding principles and ideals.
The Railroading of Visitors: Management Missteps and Cautionary Lessons from Transportation Planning in the Last Millennium
3:45 PM - 4:10 PM
Presenter: Dennis Foster
A quarter century ago, the Park Service began a planning process whose scope was as broad and as deep as the Grand Canyon. With the release of the General Management Plan (GMP) in the spring of 1995 this audacious proposal set in motion a series of events with regard to visitor parking and transportation that would take fifteen years to resolve. Among the lessons learned included keeping focused on the real visitor experience, avoiding choices that made it more costly to visit the park and resisting the urge to extend management control to areas beyond the expertise of the NPS.
The Park Service Cemetery at Grand Canyon
4:10 PM - 4:45 PM
Presenter: Kern Nuttall
Most national parks do not have cemeteries, but the NPS found it necessary to establish one at the Grand Canyon. While John Hance is commonly believed to be the first person buried in the Pioneer Cemetery, he was probably preceded by railway workers like Lorenzo Ramirez, who died at the beginning of the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. Among the earliest Park Service people in the cemetery is 45-year-old blacksmith Louis Richard, interred in 1923. For decades the Canyon has exerted a particularly strong attraction as a burial location, although why remains a matter for speculation. Why here?
The Shrine of the Ages: Community and Complexity
4:45 PM - 5:10 PM
Presenter: Susie Verkamp
Thousands of park residents and visitors enter the Shrine of the Ages building every year for everything from fund raisers to funerals, music festivals to symposiums. Most know little about the complexities of how it came to be. Susie Verkamp recounted a local’s eye view of the building’s 23 year-long saga from vision to completion, focusing on the role played by her father Jack Verkamp and other dedicated members of the Canyon village community. Their quixotic vision of an interfaith chapel on the rim was driven first and foremost by the need of locals for a place to worship.
Dinner Break
5:10 PM - 6:50 PM
Dinner was on your own
Special Evening Presentation
Grand Canyon's Fifty Finest Features
Presented by Gary Ladd
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Grand Canyon's size and rugged terrain are both extremely inviting and imposing. Years of canyon experiences are needed to gain an understanding of the canyon's wild array of its finest traits. Gary Ladd has spent 50 years floating the river, walking its rims, following its trails and exploring its backcountry. Attendees saw what he's decided about Grand Canyon's most irresistible charms.
Shrine of Ages Auditorium - Doors opened at 6:50
(Note: This event was open to Symposium attendees and the general public)
Sunday, November 6
A Time of Profound Change - Tour
9:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Lyle Balenquah and Jason Nez gave presentations on Hopi and Navajo perspectives on the advent of federal land management policies that created the public lands and what those changes meant to native peoples of the past and present.
Attendees met at the Tribal Medallion to the right of the Grand Canyon Visitor Center building on the trail toward Mather Point. Ample Parking, ½ mile walk or use: Blue Route Shuttle Bus stop: Grand Canyon Visitor Center. (Outside Tour)
Google Map
A Change of the Guard: the Kaibab National Forest and the New Park - Tour
9:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Forest Service archaeologists Margaret Hangan and Neil Weintraub instructed attendees on how the USFS protected the Grand Canyon before it became a National Park and about the transitions that occurred following the establishment of the Park Service in 1916 and of Grand Canyon National Park in 1919.
Attendees met at the Old Grandview Fire Tower Tusayan RD. ½-mile walk. (Outside Tour)
Roads are unpaved and are suitable for passenger cars.
Google Map
A Century of Geological Discovery in our Park (Two Tours)
9:00 am - 10:30 am
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Brian Gootee presented on a walk through the geological history of the Grand Canyon along the trail of time. Attendees were able to see and touch rocks of the ages and learn about the geological history of the park.
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Attendees met in front of the Yavapai Geology Museum. 2-mile walk. (Outside Tour)
Ample parking, or take the Orange Route Shuttle Bus
Google Map
Grand Canyon Historic District Walking Tour
10:00 am - 11:00 am
Grand Canyon National Park historian Michael F. Anderson conduted a walking tour of part of the historic Grand Canyon Village. Attendees learned about the development of the Village, its iconic infrastructure, and of the people who helped create the Village as we know it today. Michael is the author of several books on Grand Canyon history, including “Polishing the Jewel” and “Living on the Edge”.
Meet at the Grand Canyon Railway Depot. ½-mile walk (Outside Tour)
No Parking. Walk or use Blue Route Shuttle Bus stop Train Depot
Google Map
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