The Geologic Story of Arches National Park 2

The Geologic Story of Arches National Park 2

During and for sometime after World War II and the Korean War, lack of

maintenance funds and personnel had prevented improvement of the

facilities in many of our national parks and monuments, particularly in

undeveloped ones like Arches. The day was saved through the wisdom and

foresight of former Park Service Director Conrad L. Wirth, who saw the

need and desirability of putting the whole “want” list into one

attractive, marketable package. In the words of Everhart (1972, p. 36):

 

Selection of a name is of course recognized as the most important

decision in any large-scale enterprise, and here Wirth struck pure

gold. In 1966 the Park Service would be celebrating its fiftieth

anniversary. What a God-given target to shoot for! Why not produce a

ten-year program, which would begin in 1956, aimed to bring every park

up to standard by 1966—and call it Mission 66?

 

The ensuing well-documented and cost-estimated plan for Mission 66 was

enthusiastically backed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and approved

and well supported by Congress to the tune of more than $1 billion

during the 10-year period. For Arches, this included a new entrance,

Park Headquarters, Visitor Center, a museum boasting a bust of founder

Dr. Williams, and modern housing for park personnel, all 5 miles

northwest of Moab. By 1958 (Pierson, 1960) a fine new paved road between

Park Headquarters and Balanced Rock (frontispiece) was completed. These

badly needed improvements were followed by the completion of the paved

road all the way to Devils Garden, the building of the modern

campground, picnic facilities, and amphitheater in the Devils Garden,

and the construction of turnouts and marked trails.

 

[Illustration: Petroglyph figure]

 

 

 

 

Graduation to a Park

 

 

Arches graduated to a full-fledged national park when President Richard

M. Nixon signed a Congressional Bill on November 16, 1971. The change in

status was accompanied by boundary changes that reduced the area to

about 114 square miles. The loss of most of Dry Mesa, just east of the

present boundary (fig. 1), was offset in part by gains of new land

northwest of Devils Garden. The present (1974) boundaries, roads,

trails, and named features of the park are shown in figure 1.

 

The park was virtually completed at graduation time, and so far this

change in status has shown up mainly in new entrance signs, a new 1972

brochure and map, and a very informative “Guide to an Auto Tour of

Arches National Park,” keyed to numbered signs at parking spaces. About

all that remain to be added are new wayside exhibits, some boundary

fences, and spur roads and trails.

 

[Illustration: ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, showing location in Utah,

boundaries, streams, highways and roads, trails, landforms,

principal named features, and the city of Moab. The reader is

referred to figure 7 and to road maps issued by the State or by oil

companies for the locations of other nearby towns and features.

Visitors also may obtain pamphlets, from the entrance station or

from the National Park Service office in Moab, which contain

up-to-date maps of the park and the latest available information on

roads, trails, campsites, and picnic sites. (Fig. 1)]

 

Although Arches had officially become a park in November 1971, it was

not formally dedicated until May 15, 1972. The ceremony began by having

the Federal, State, and local dignitaries and other guests totaling 140

persons board the _Canyon King_, a 93-foot replica of a Mississippi

River sternwheeler (Lansford, 1972; Lohman, 1974, fig. 69), for its

maiden voyage down the Colorado River. After about half an hour, the

heavily laden boat became stuck on a sandbar, and after a 90-minute wait

the passengers were rescued by jet boats. This delayed a luncheon at the

Visitor Center put on by the Moab Lions Club. Following the luncheon,

Park Superintendent Bates Wilson made a brief welcoming address, then

introduced J. Leonard Volz, Director of the Midwest Region of the

National Park Service, who served as master of ceremonies. Speakers

included Utah Governor Calvin L. Rampton, Senator Frank E. Moss, a

representative of Senator Wallace F. Bennett, Representatives Sherman P.

Lloyd of Utah and Wayne Aspinall of Colorado, and Mitchell Melich,

Solicitor General of the Department of Interior, representing Secretary

Rogers C. B. Morton. After the speeches, a commemorative plaque, donated

by the Canyonlands Natural History Association, was unveiled by Senator

Moss and Mr. Melich.

 

Most of the color photographs were taken by me on 4- × 5-inch film in a

tripod-mounted press camera, using lenses of several focal lengths, but

a few were taken on 35-mm film, using lenses of various focal lengths. I

am grateful to several friends for the color photographs credited to

them in the figure captions. The black and white photographs were kindly

loaned from the Moab and Arches files of the National Park Service. The

points from which most of the photographs were taken are shown in figure

13.

 

[Illustration: Petroglyph figure]

 

 

 

 

Early History

 

 

Prehistoric People

 

The Canyon lands in and south of Arches were inhabited by cliff dwellers

centuries before the first visits of the Spaniards and fur trappers.

Projectile points and other artifacts found in the nearby La Sal and

Abajo Mountains indicate occupation by aborigines during the period from

about 3000-2000 B.C. to about A.D. 1 (Hunt, Alice, 1956). The Fremont

people occupied the area around A.D. 850 or 900, and the Pueblo or

Anasazi people from about A.D. 1075 to their departure in the late 12th

century (Jennings, 1970). Most of the evidence for these early

occupations has been found in and south of Canyonlands National Park

(Lohman, 1974), but some traces of these and possibly earlier cultures

have been found also within Arches National Park.

 

Ross A. Maxwell (National Park Service, written commun., 1941)

investigated two caves in the Entrada Sandstone in the upper reaches of

Salt Wash that contain Anasazi ruins. He mentioned that perhaps a dozen

or more other caves should be checked for evidence of former occupation

and, also, that he found several ancient campsites littered with flint

chips and broken tools.

 

One cave Maxwell explored some 5 miles north of Wolfe Ranch and north of

the park is about 300 feet long and 100 to 150 feet deep. It contains

the remains of one or more ruins of a structure he thought may have

covered much of the floor. The remaining parts of walls now are only two

to four tiers of stones in height, although originally they may have

been more than one story high. Maxwell explored a second cave on the

east side of Salt Wash, about 2 miles north of Wolfe Ranch, which

contains 16 storage cists of adobe.

 

The faces of many older sandstone cliffs or ledges are darkened by

desert varnish—a natural pigment of iron and manganese oxides. The

prehistoric inhabitants of the Plateau learned that effective and

enduring designs, called petroglyphs, could be created simply by

chiseling or pecking through the thin dark layer to reveal the buff or

tan sandstone beneath. Most petroglyphs were created by the Anasazi, but

those showing men mounted on horses were done by Ute tribesmen after the

Spaniards brought in horses in the 1500’s. The Fremont people and some

earlier people painted figures on rock faces, called pictographs, and

some of these had pecked outlines.

 

The so-called “Moab panel” was described by Beckwith (1934, p. 177) as a

petroglyph, but, as pointed out by Schaafsma (1971, p. 72, 73), it

comprises figures having pecked outlines and painted bodies, which

actually are combinations of petroglyphs and pictographs. This

beautifully preserved group of paintings is shown in the upper

photograph of figure 2. Mrs. Schaafsma goes on to say, concerning the

“Moab panel”:

 

The long tapered body, the antenna like headdresses, and the staring

eyes are characteristic features of Barrier Canyon style figures

elsewhere * * *. Of special interest here are the large shields held

by certain figures. A visit to this site indicated that the shields,

although apparently of some antiquity, have been superimposed over

some of the Barrier Canyon figures. Whether or not this was done by

the Barrier Canyon style artists themselves or later comers to the

site is impossible to tell.

 

Although definite proof seems lacking, she suggested (written commun.,

Nov. 3, 1973) that the “‘Barrier Canyon style’[3] * * * is earlier than

the work in the same region clearly attributable to the Fremont.” Note

the three bullet holes in and near the right-hand shield. A ledge above

the panel that contained petroglyphs during her earlier visit had fallen

to the base of the cliff by the time my wife and I inspected the panel

in September 1973.

 

[Illustration: ROCK ART IN ARCHES NATIONAL PARK. A (above), “Moab

panel,” on cliff of Wingate Sandstone above U.S. Highway 163 between

Courthouse Wash and Colorado River, believed to be the work of

“Barrier Canyon” style people. B (below), Petroglyphs on ledge of

sandstone in Morrison Formation on east side of Salt Wash just north

of Wolfe Ranch, believed to have been cut by Ute tribesmen. (Fig.

2)]

 

[Illustration: Fig. 2 B]

 

Mrs. Schaafsma believes the petroglyphs in the lower photograph of

figure 2 to be the work of Ute tribesmen, not only because of the

horses, but also because of the stiff-legged appearance of the mountain

sheep. Note the bullet hole above the panel.

 

 

Late Arrivals

 

Later arrivals in and near Arches National Park included first Spanish

explorers, then trappers, cattlemen, cattle rustlers and horse thieves,

followed in the present century by oil drillers, uranium hunters,

jeepsters, and tourists. Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and other

members of The Wild Bunch are known to have frequented parts of what is

now Canyonlands National Park (Baker, Pearl, 1971), but it is not

certain whether or not any of them traversed what is now Arches National

Park.

 

The first settler in what is now Arches National Park was a Civil War

veteran named John Wesley Wolfe, who was discharged from the Union Army

about 3 weeks before the Battle of Bull Run because he suffered from

varicose veins. In 1888 his doctor told him he had to leave Ohio for a

dryer climate or he would not live 6 months, so he took his son Fred

west and settled on a tract of 150 acres along the west bank of Salt

Wash, where his “Wolfe cabin” still stands (figs. 1, 3). From family

letters and newspaper clippings compiled by Mrs. Maxine Newell and other

members of the National Park Service (Maxine Newell, written commun.,1971), we learn what life in the area was like: