THE AUTOMOBILE IS HERE TO STAY

"THE AUTOMOBILE IS HERE TO STAY”. Thrilling. AUTO PIONEERS LOCAL AUTOISTS.

Five Brothers Pilot Car to Unknown Country Drive to Mines in Southern Utah in Franklin.

Machine Hoisted Over Grade on Strong Cable Penetrating to regions no other automobile had ever been able to negotiate and climbing probably the world's record for a grade, the five Zahn brothers. Oscar C., Otto J., Oswald F., Dr. L. Paul and Hector N., who have just returned from an inspection of their mines on the south branch of the San Juan River, Utah. have set a pace for motor rough riding. With the Franklin car, men and equipment weighing 4600 pounds, the route traveled covered 2089 miles, and it was accomplished on the same tires with which the car was equipped when it left Los Angeles September 6, not a puncture marring the trip.

Four miles from the mines the party was confronted with a grade which seemed impassable. This winding and rugged grade is in a steep, rugged canyon inhabited by Noki Indians. The steepest portion is 300 feet long and it was necessary for the Zahn brothers to rig a crude capstan and man it. The gradometer failed to register the grade, but with a level it was ascertained to be 65 per cent.

The return trip down this grade was replete with thrills. Going up meant simply persistence and muscle. A cable was attached to the car. Hector Zahn, who piloted the car on the entire route and owns it. intrenched himself at the wheel. Four of the brothers manned a limb of a tree attached to the cable, and with the gear set in low and the brakes set, the Franklin commenced to glide.

Despite the drag, reverse and the brakes, the car reached a speed of fifteen miles an hour, bumping, jug-gling the rocks, flashing around cor-ners. The brothers, all sturdy men, were taxed to the utmost to overcome the tumultuous speed. Once one of them slipped, throwing the weight of the car on the other three. They pinned their faith on the cable, Hec-tor's nerve and their own will. When the grade was conquered, they grave-d.ly shook hands and promptly forgot its perils. For other perils lay in wait.

There was Marsh Pass, which they accomplished, although they knew that the government on several oc-casions had failed to send a car through it. The going was frightful. The Franklin bucked sand and skidded off broken and jagged stones. But it won.

In their odyssey in the desert, the Navajo Indians have encountered many an astonishing event. The white man himself was one of the greatest phenomena, and with him was the burro an animal which consented to car-ry a human about on its back. There was the weapon which gave off the frightful roar and smoke; something died each time it did so. There were other forms of witchcraft never before performed under the blazing skies. Small wonder then that the white man, de-spite his slavish tactics, was looked upon as a kind of Bahana, or God. But finally, there came the most magnificent spectacle of all the huge contraption which roared like the gun but carried men like the burro. It seemed to be half animal, half something else. It burst into the desert in 1915. The writer's father and uncles were in it-wearing linen dusters, caps and goggles and looking every bit as formidable as the trip itself. They were the first to pilot an automobile from Los Angeles to Kayenta, Arizona, and in doing so, cruised over two hundred miles of sterile wastes previously invaded only by occasional horses and wagons. The Los Angeles Times wrote wondrously of the incident, calling them "daring adventurers" and pioneers. And when the trip was finally over, and the weary ex-plorers returned alive, one correspondent was moved to write, "an extraordinary feat. It was the Indian's first glimpse of an automobile, and unless other hardy pioneers make the trip, it may be the last." What people said privately about daredevils who would try to conquer the desert in a gasoline propelled vehicle was less constructive.

But the car itself represented the peak in motordom of the day. Shipped by rail to Los Angeles and priced at only $1,800 including running lights, it even had a top. It had four cylinders, too. Best of all, it was reputed to do 28 miles per hour, and you didn't have to pour water into the hood every few miles. That was why they called it the "Franklin Camel." It did, of course, need a little gas now and then. And on that trip you could only get a little gas now and then. My uncles strapped on an extra drum, then wired to Flag-staff (mail was haphazard then) to have some placed here and there at strategic spots they hoped to reach. There were other precau-tions. They took dynamite for blasting rocks from their path. They took a winch and cable in case manpower might have to augment the faltering horsepower. They took hard tack and jerked beef, and picks and shovels. They had been there before by wagon to work over a claim which they thought (at the time of purchase) to be a gold mine. They knew a different desert than the one seen today through plate glass windows and air-conditioned compartments.They decided to start in the fall. The desert would be less potent at that season; undecided whether to employ merciless heat or icy blasts to discourage pretenders. On a crisp October morning with tires inflated to the minimum of 65 pounds, and sagging from its load of five men and two months' provisions the Camel crept out of Los Angeles city limits. "The city limits in those days didn't extend to the middle of nowhere," the brothers state. Nevertheless, it took half a day to reach them. Once on the open highway to Needles, things moved by faster. Speeds of twenty miles per hour were achieved in some stretches, and in four days they reached Flagstaff where they increased that budding city's automotive population to two. (The other car was a Stanley Steamer.) Now came the real difficulties, Flat tires and mechanical failure had been commonplace, and when a gasoline propelled vehicle could cover as much ground in a day as a horse and wagon, science patted itself upon the back. Indeed, a one lane road smooth enough and level enough to permit automotive travel provoked profound gratitude from anyone. Concrete and asphalt were rumored luxuries of some vague future. But the furtive ruts between Tuba City and the Red Lake Tradingpost were a challenge to time itself. The Camel crawled in low gear, stopping every few minutes while its occupants filled in gulches or blasted protruding rocks. Soon, the last vestiges of wagon tracks vanished into nothingness; the pilots referred to compass and instinct. A sand storm had them lost for four hours. When they finally got underway again, a smooth, unbroken expanse of silt lay ahead as far as the eye could reach. One man took turns driving while the other four pushed.From Red Lake Trading Post to Kayenta Trading Post is an epic in manual labor, improvised repairs, discouragements and the intoxicating flush of triumph over obstacles. It is to be suspected that fame was the spur; that Deep in the Indian country, the dashing Franklin suffered motor trouble and the intrepid travelers had to resort to a lift. Parts were wired for from Los Angeles. resulting in a long delay.

The thrill of being the first automotive expedition over those sunburned wastes made up for a lot. The reaction of the Indians alone was worth the trip, the diary records. Certainly, the Indian in that year must have been every bit as excited as their ancestors who first saw the white Capt. Cortez astride a burro.

"One Indian perched atop a mountain and shouted until we thought his lungs would burst," the diary recalls. "Some Indians sat stoically by the road and refused to look up until we had gone past, as though to ignore the phenomenon." Yet, they had come from all over to witness the spectacle. Word was passed on ahead in grapevine fashion ("not a hard thing to do, considering the few miles we made per day," my uncle says) and the entire valley turned out. Whenever the Cam-el stopped, however, the Indians simply van-ished. "Several times," my uncle says, "we stopped to buy meat or water. The only way we could contact an Indian was to abandon the car and walk in any direction a few miles. They were friendly when we were on foot."

The Franklin Camel posed proudly beside such landmarks as "Arch Rock," "Elephant's Feet" and "Kit Carson's Monument." It felt its way along wagon ruts, riverbeds and sheep paths. There were times when the brothers found it easier to cut cross-country through the brush, making their own trails, and avoid-ing the steep climbs negotiable only by horse and wagon. There were times when they found themselves up "dead ends" canyons through which they could not exit. Steps were retraced. A goodly amount of footwork help-ed plot courses. Finally came the day of re-ward the day when the flat, squalid mud buildings of John Wetherill's Kayenta Trad-ing Post lay below them. They had done it. They had blazed a trail across 250 miles of sterile waste never before dared by anybody in a horseless carriage. The fact that they, themselves would soon have four horses pull-ing their "carriage" could not have been fore-seen. Kayenta was in a celebrative mood. The Wetherills, the few other "whites" and doz ens of Indians, both Hopi and Navajo, turned out. Crowds gathered around the Franklin Camel. Evidently, the natives here were more schooled in civilization's mechanical of-ferings. One old chief promptly dubbed it "the horse with smoke coming out of its rear." They even consented to climb in. Two Navajos didn't leap out when the engine burst into motion. They rode around. Soon all were clamoring for rides and the weary Camel plodded back and forth completely swamped with laughing, shouting, screaming natives. "The most curious thing," my uncle recalls, "was that the Indians were most of all impressed with something we cherish to-day the rubber tires!" They stood about, poking and feeling them, profoundly puzzled by the strange material.

Camel plodded back and forth completely swamped with laughing, shouting, screaming natives. "The most curious thing," my uncle recalls, "was that the Indians were most of all impressed with something we cherish to-day the rubber tires!" They stood about, poking and feeling them, profoundly puzzled by the strange material. For several days the pioneers rested, enjoy-ing the good food and beds of civilization's last stronghold. Minor repairs were made for the next fifty miles were to be the hardest. They would blaze a trail to the "Campo An-geleno" mine whose machinery had been hauled in by Mormon ox cart twenty years previous. No wagon road existed, for not even Indians ventured into those arid, sterile wastes which had been vainly offered to skeptical Navajos years before.

They started one morning. By nightfall, the Camel had logged 12 miles. "We camped in Copper Canyon, having disregarded all former landmarks and traveled mostly up river bottoms," the diary states. On the fol lowing day they reached the summit of Noki Grade, but a level gauge showed it to have an incline of 40 to 50 per cent. Fearing the consequences of dubious two wheeled brakes, they pitched camp for the night and set about to construct a winch. Two men hiked on into the abandoned mining camp and brought back some old cable. With this, they eased the Camel over the last dangerous obstacle, then hit out across another flat waste, using four miles of river bed for highway. The last leg of the adventure had been accom-plished. On the 26th of October, 1915, the Franklin Camel came to a stop on the edge of San Juan river in Utah-twenty miles from the Colorado, and at the base of Navajo moun-tain, then the most remote spot in the United States. For all practical purposes, their adventure-some saga had ended, but the trip home had its highlights. Getting out of Campo Angeleno was not so easy as getting in. They did get the Camel up steep Noki Grade by using winches. But the transmission gave way, ren-dering low and second gear useless. My father was nominated to go to Tuba City to telegraph for parts. He hiked to Kayenta, borrowed a horse. "I hadn't ridden in nine years," he re-calls, "but by wearing four suits of under-wear, made the fifty-one miles in just thir-teen hours." A week later the parts had come by train. He rode back to Kayenta and there met an overwhelming surprise. The Franklin Camel was proudly parked under the smoke trees.

"We got tired of waiting," one of the broth-ers explained. "We hiked into Kayenta and Wetherill got us a four horse team. We really made the Camel fly." Albeit, it traveled so fast that they got it into high gear and threat-ened to pass up the horses. One man unhook-ed the tongue and they were off. "We left the team in a cloud of dust and raced cross coun-try. Ten miles per hour!" And then, the in-evitable happened. There were no trails and they finally got bottled up in the dead end of a canyon. Inasmuch as low and second gear wouldn't work, they had to stay there. They stayed four hours, then the horse team hove into sight a mile away. One of the brothers quickly scaled a small knoll and got out his mirror. By repeated signalling, he caught the eye of the Hopi driver who came over. They shamefacedly told him what had happened. The horses again performed their humiliating task but this time nobody suggested unhook-ing them. Two days later the Camel hove hum-bly into Kayenta; and two weeks later it was back in Los Angeles "forty-four days and 2,089 miles older." And its dusty, weary oc-cupants looked a good deal older than that. The TIMES "Automotive Editor" and sev-eral reporters were eager but skeptical at first. They waited until the photographs had been developed, then went overboard. "There was nothing to it," my uncle stated brazenly, and added with grave impact, "the automobile is here to stay."

The Zahn brothers, making the first automobile trip to Kayenta and parts north, recorded their journey on a rock. The "horseless carriage" proved its worth. Man had triumphed over the desert.

VALLEY OF THE MONUMENTS

Nothing could prepare you for this Valley of the Monuments; not even the road, which like a gypsy dancing in the sunlight, picks its vagrant, careless way from U. S. 89 to the north past Tuba City, Tonalea, the Elephant's Feet, Cow Springs, Calam-ity Flats, through Marsh Pass into Kayenta and then on north past brooding El Capitan into the valley itself. A hundred miles of color, a hundred miles of shifting, fantastic landscape, a hundred miles of loneliness and distance, a hundred miles of shimmering, shivering horizons—and not a hint of what is to come. Yet the road, like an enchanted pathway, does the best it can. As it unfolds, the traveler cannot help exclaiming: “What next! What next!” And all of a sudden there is the valley. Monument Valley extends from a few miles north of Kayenta to the San Juan River and east to Tsegi Mesa. On the west is Hoskinini Mesa and Oljeto Mesa and the Train Rock. Part of the valley is in Arizona, part in Utah.

Monument Valley is sun and sand and red rock against the blue sky. It is geology and erosion and seismology and, above all, time without end, a million years of yesterdays, a million years of history since creation began, secrets of unhurried ages in solid stone. Centuries of storm and centuries of drought have penned footnotes of their passing. Prehistoric civilizations have scratched their marks here as a reminder of man's puny existence, and the marks themselves fade before the devilish claw-ing of the wind. Here you learn, as in a giant textbook, of the relentlessness of the weather, of how sharp and tireless and inexorable are the tools of the elements. Time is so patient, so thorough.

Monument Valley is people. Not many, just a few Navajo families with their flocks of sheep, somehow managing to survive in the harsh land. The Navajos belong here. These simple, stoic people, with the grace and dignity of the innocent, the guileless and the unaffected, are as much a part of the valley as the monuments. They do not intrude but blend into the landscape. They are so few and their valley so big they are lost in its bigness and isolation. When you come upon them during your wanderings they surprise by their very presence and charm by their unobtrusiveness. Long ago they first came to the valley, to escape the soldiers under Kit Carson. Here they found shelter. The silent monuments have watched over them and comforted them. The bleached bones of their fathers have become part of the sand dunes. Voices that should be stilled murmur to the wind at night. The valley is more than a home, it is a shrine to them, Harry Goulding, the trader, and his wife, Mike, also belong. They have their trading post and lodge under Tsay-Kizzy Mesa on a shelf overlooking the valley. Here, happy and contented, they have lived for many years, and being themselves of grace and charm, kind and hospitable, have earned the right to live here. Harry first came to Monument Valley driving a flock of sheep, one of the few white men to see the place, the first to settle permanently. It was a lonely place to bring a young wife, a lonely place for young people to live. They have been patient in times of drought and in times of storm, doing what they could to succor their Navajo neighbors in times of want, just as good neighbors should. They have welcomed the stranger and have added pleasure to the travels of many people into their country.

Monument Valley is light, shadow, color. Towering stone spires reach high into the bright sunlight and twirl the sunbeams about. Rock walls, rendered smooth and slick by the angry slaps of uncounted storms, blush under the warm caress of a gentle sun. The monuments record the sun's passage, shifting colors in the symphony of light. They throw crazy patterns of themselves with their shadows on the valley floor and when the sun grows tired and bored with the day's work and is about to retire for the night, the shadows of the monuments are eerie, ghostly things, forty miles of haunting forms stretching, it seems from one world to the next.

The place is a confusion of valleys within a valley. There are amphitheatres and stone bridges and caves in the walls where time and the weather conveniently formed a protecting cover for a few prehistoric huts, and where little forgotten people blinked away the passing days, wondering and awed, as we wonder and are awed by the forces of Nature, now so kind, now so cruel, whose handiwork is displayed about us.

The floor of the valley is a carpet, soaking up the color that overflows from the sky on to the monuments. The sand is now red, now gold, its richness broken only by the green of the sparse vegetation, a twisted brown and green juniper, bent by age and the wind but tough as an old boot, fitting into the scene so admirably. The casting for this mighty drama of stone, sand, and sky has been expertly done.