Arches
National Park contains the world's largest concentration of natural stone
arches. This National Park is a red, arid desert, punctuated with oddly eroded
sandstone forms such as fins, pinnacles, spires, balanced rocks, and arches. The
73,000-acre region has over 2,000 of these "miracles of nature."
Gooseneck of the San Juan
Four miles off Utah Highway 261 near Mexican Hat,
you can look into a 1,000-foot-deep
chasm carved through the
Pennsylvania Hermosa Formation by the silt-laden San Juan River. The river meanders back and forth, flowing for
more than five miles while progressing only one linear mile toward the
Colorado River and Lake Powell. The access road is paved. The Park
encompasses 10 acres. Facilities include primitive camping and vault rest
rooms.
Rainbow Bridge Monument
Rainbow Natural Bridge in Souhern Utah is 309 feet from the bottom of the canyon
and from pier to pier, the span is
278 feet. It can only be reached by a 50 mile round trip boat ride or a
permitted 12 mile hike. It was probably viewed by the
Wetherills some time in
1909 before an official trip, guided by
John Wetherill. On
August 14, 1909, an expedition consisting of the rival but combined parties of
University of Utah archaeologists Byron Cummings and U. S. government surveyor
William Boone Douglass was guided by John Wetherill. The photo album presented
here was taken during a guided tour by John Wetherill's great grandson
Harvry Leake.
Cave 7
On November 29, 1893 Richard Wetherill his two brothers, Al, John,
photographer Charles Lang, Harry French, and Jim Ethridge left from the
Alamo Ranch in Mancos, Colorado through McElmo Canyon To Bluff City, Utah.
While in Bluff the party took on additional supplies and two more additions
to the expedition, Bob Allen and Wert Jenks Billings. 35 year old Richard
Wetherill led the Hyde Exploration Expedition searching for ancient ruins
and artifacts. The grou
p
headed into Cottonwood Wash and the Milk Ranch on the North Fork of Whiskers
Draw. Richard suspected a group of people older and different from the Cliff
Dwellers may be present and deeper excavations may be necessary to find
them. The area he chose was the Milk Ranch. The area is described by Albert
R. Lyman in 1917 from a county history manuscript beginning in 1883 with his
son Platte D. Lyman and two other men building a house and corral in the
Cave 7 valley. The brackets are by Winston Hurst:
[p.35] About the middle of March [1883], Benjamin Perkins, Samuel Wood
and Platte D. Lyman went with a team and wagon and some saddle horses to
the Little Valleys to build a house and corral. . . . It seems the
improvements these three men began, were later included in what became
the Milk Ranch.”
[p.50] In [1886] Willard Butt ran a dairy at what since has been known
as the Milk Ranch. . . .”
[p.52]On the 9th of May, 1886, “Bob Allan took the news [of the killing
of Amasa Barton at the Rincon Trading Post] to the Milk Ranch, where his
father [John Allan] was running a dairy. At the ranch he found his
father, his two
sisters, Aggie and Lizzie, also Miss Magnolia Walton, Miss Stella Hyde
and her brother Frank Hyde. It was decided the young folks should go to
Bluff without delay, they started on horseback, and covered those thirty
odd miles in record time, leaving the senior Allan to guard the ranch.”
It is obvious that the Cave 7 area has a long history of use by locals. It
seems to have been an excellent Cave 7location for ranching and building
homes. The area must have had water available year around and excellent
protection from the elements as well as grazing for cattle. Winston Hurst
found a reference by the military to Cave 7 in an official report of an 1886
military reconnaissance expedition out of Ft. Douglas. They made an
encampment at the present location of Monticello and recon’d out all over
the county. Among other things, the report references the Milk Ranch on both
its map and in the written text, and reports that two families were in
residence there in summer 1886. Winston suggests they were the Willard Butt
and John Allan families.
Here’s a quote by Winston Hurst's Great Uncle Albert R. Lyman’s diary, May
3-4, 1898 (Marriott Library Special Collections, Brigham Young Univ.Book 3
p. 63):
"3rd
A.m. packed up. I mended some shoes & fixed some cartridges for my
revolver.... Pa [this is Platte D. Lyman, my Gr. GrFa.—WH] & I started
for the Elk. 5 head of horses & packs & the two we rode. Started about
twelve Oc. I went ahead & led a pack. Trimmed the bullets down as I
rode. We camped below the correl in the Butler.... 4th We just got
packed up & it began raining. When we were wet through it quit raining
and began snowing. We finally got so near froze that we had to stop &
build a fire but the packs were so heavy we only stopped long enough for
an agravation. I was wet & nearly froze. I walked about 4 miles to get
warm. In the first valley I went down to look at some horses but saw
some wigwams & knew they were Indians. Camped at the cave in the milk
ranch correl. I am wearing an old slouch hat, ducking coat, big
overalls, old boots, spurrs & a revolver. I have got a bible along & it
with my gloves are soaked [from rain and snow]. We are camping in a cave
out of which had been dug 125 human skeletons."
The ranch was a cheese and milk production facility that grazed cattle in
this portion of the valley. The cattle had free range of the canyon
including Cave 7. It is obvious cattle used Cave 7 as a refuge because of
the many cow chips that were scattered around. Platte D. Lyman is the Great
Grandfather of Winston Hurst who helped refind Cave 7 in 1990.
Cave 7 was previously excavated by people from Bluff City, Utah so there
were few Cliff Dweller artifacts remaining. When Richard Wetherill arrived
and began excavations, he noticed the various strata of soil had colors that
were unusual and so decided to dig beneath previous Cliff Dweller
excavations finding the first skeleton. He coined the term Basketmakers for
this new group of people. He wrote his benefactor Talbot Hyde:
"Our success has surpassed all expectations….In the cave we are now
working we have taken 28 skeletons and two more in sight and curious to
tell, and a thing that will surprise the archaeologists of the country
is the fact of our finding them at a depth of five and six feet in a
cave in which there are cliff dwellings and we find the bodies under the
ruins, three feet below any cliff dweller sign. They are a different
race from anything I have ever seen. They had feather cloth and baskets,
no pottery–six of the bodies had stone spear heads in them."
The geology of the the Whiskers Draw area is vastly different than the time
of Richard Wetherill and the Milk Ranch. Today it would be impossible to
drive a wagon into the draw and would actually be difficult for a horse and
rider to manage. The advantage the Milk Ranch had in the valley was the
ability to fence the lower canyon of North Whiskers Draw with a relatively
short fence to impound cows over a large area. The valley was actually a
flat plain with very little vegetation. Today Cottonwoods line the area with
very tall grass mixed with Rubber Rabbit Bushes on the edges. The valley has
eroded to bedrock allowing the establishment of Cottonwoods. The area in
front of Cave 7 has eroded at least 10 feet to bedrock.
