PIPE SPRING NATIONAL MONUMENT

Pipe Spring National Monument A PIONEER HERITAGE

BY WILLIS PETERSON PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR The pioneer fort at Pipe Spring National Monument on the Arizona-Utah border stands today as it did in the West's early, turbulent years, virtually unchanged by time.

Though its historical anecdotes read like script of a western thriller, it is perhaps, least frequented of all Southwest parks. Shunted from main highways, Pipe Spring basks serenely, snuggling tightly against protective buttresses of the Vermilion Cliffs.

From Navajo Bridge northward, these majestic Cliffs are constant companions of travelers on U.S. 89 leading toward Pipe Spring. Through House Rock Valley, and into the Arizona Strip, where the Monument lies, the road is continually twisted by each whim of their gigantic fachdes.

Swinging over the Kaibab Upwarp, the motorist views awesome escarpments as they reach to the north, then sweep west and south in a huge horseshoe. Everchanging hues, forming a stage backdrop, with no two moments alike lure the traveler on. Again, in the majesty of their shadows, the visitor finally emerges in the Arizona Strip territory.

As the Strip country unfolds, one cruises along trying to visualize how those hardy pioneer men and women settled this wild terrain. The chasm of the indomitable Colorado bars entrance to the south and east. Broken mountains loom up to the west. The Vermilion Cliffs form an almost impregnable chain of precipices extending north and south.

These barriers have permitted little change since the Strip was a frontier. No large irrigation projects have inundated the earth's contours. The usual maze of highways are lacking, much to the relief of many travelers. City skylines haven't crept up to disturb peaceful horizons, while the Cliffs, lofty and jagged, splashed with magentas and amethysts, still look as foreboding to motorists as they did to the pioneers.

This, then, is the isolated and rugged country comprising the Strip, still picturesque, still primitive-the prismatic setting of Pipe Spring.

The Monument's highway junction bids visitors welcome at the little Mormon community of Fredonia, Arizona. A well-marked gravel road leads west to the historic site. Skirting the Vermilion Cliffs, it follows substantially the same route as the covered wagon trail from St. George, Utah, via Pipe Spring to Northern Arizona points.

Because of its geographical position, lying on a direct route between the Colorado's Ute and Paria (Lee's Ferry) Fords and the Virgin Valley, Pipe Spring also became well known to prehistoric peoples in their east and west migrations.

Attesting to this fact, many early pit houses and later dated pueblo-like ruins have been found nearby. Calling it the Yellow Rock Water, latter day Paiutes frequented the Spring during their travels while trading with Navajo and Moqui (now called Hopi) Indians living across the Colorado River.

Aside from its ideal location, this freshet of pure water was the only spring of any size in the whole Strip. It was as important a spot to the Indians as it was later to become to the pioneers.

In 1776 a Spanish priest from Santa Fe, Father Escalante, forded at the Ute Crossing and trekked through the Strip. He is without doubt the first white man to enter this region. Though there is no direct mention of Yellow Rock Water in Escalante's journal, he does describe making a dry camp at Mt. Trumbull, 60 miles southwest of Pipe Spring. It is hardly conceivable that he did not stop at the Spring during the following days, especially since Indian guides escorted him.

The year 1858 is the next important year in Pipe Spring history. This marked white man's second prolonged penetration into the Arizona Strip wilderness, and the christening of the Spring on October 30th of that year.

At the direction of President Hent Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, eleven men were chosen to scout and make friendly overtures to the Paiute and Navajo Indians as well as the Hopis. Aside from fostering good will, the group was also charged to ascertain if this region would be suitable for colonization.

Jacob Hamblin, known as the missionary to the Lamanites (Indians) because of his fair dealings and their trust in him, was appointed leader. The others included Jacob's brothers, Frederick and William; Samuel Knight, Benjamin Knell, Ira Hatch, Andrew Gibbons, Dudley Leavitt, Thomas Leavitt, Ammon Tenny (interpreter), James Durias Davis, and Naraguts, their Paiute guide.

Pursuing their peaceful mission, the Hamblin party rode southeast from Salt Lake City, over the dry, ambercolored grassland. To their left, lower shelves and talus breaks of the Vermilion Cliffs rose into sheer escarpments. Never ending abutments seemed to frown ominously upon the hardy band. Cautiously they picked their way between great blocks of red sandstone tumbled along the base of the Cliffs.

Suddenly, one of the riders rose in his saddle. Standing in his stirrups, he pointed to a densely foliaged spot in the distance. It appeared as though an emerald had been set in a field of roughly hewn rubies.

"Water," he shouted, and twisted in his saddle toward the other men. As he gestured, weather lines in William Hamblin's bronzed face crinkled into a grin. His brother, Jacob, and the rest of the men, squinted at the scorched horizon. Heat waves danced back, mocking their effort to place the faraway dot of verdure.

The speck of green turned out to be a virtual oasis, complete with a gushing spring. Pouring from a hillside between fractured sedimentary strata, its waters produced several acres of lush vegetation. Such a find was rare, indeed, in this arid land, and consequently, the tired horsemen made camp at the restful site.

With horses hobbled, the party stretched out, each member pillowing his head on a saddle. Conversation turned to guns, and marksmanship, as might be expected when one's very life depended upon firearms.

Finally, Dudley Leavitt, winking at the others, jumped up and declared to William Hamblin, that if he were as good a marksman as he claimed, Leavitt would wager a gold piece that William could not hit a silk bandanna at fifty paces.

Hamblin wryly accepted the challenge. Few men were more accurate shots. In fact, he had earned the nickname "Gun Lock Bill" from his knowledge of gun mechanisms and his superb marksmanship. It was a moniker of considerable influence and weight in the frontier country.

Standing at the prescribed distance, he fired at the flopping piece of cloth. To his chagrin and to the bantering laughter of his companions, the sharpshooter apparently missed the handkerchief.

Actually, the bullet's force had flicked aside the slick square of silk without leaving the tell-tale hole. It was a sly trick, one which was pulled occasionally to enliven a lonely evening on the trail.

Blowing smoke out of his gun barrel, and turning his back on the offending kerchief, Gun Lock dryly informed the grinning circle of faces he would shoot the bottom out of "jokester" Leavitt's meerschaum pipe at the same distance. It was a considerably smaller and more difficult target, a most difficult shot at half the distance.

It must be said here that this was no ordinary pipe. The typical meerschaum pipe was about 18 inches long with an ornately carved bowl of hardened and enameled clay-like substance of silicate of magnesium. Since Leavitt did not smoke, he had acquired this pipe merely as a souvenir during his days as a member of the Mormon Battalion.

Resolutely setting the pipe on a flat layer of sandstone above the Spring, and taking aim in an apparently careless fashion, Gun Lock deftly drilled the bottom out of the pipe's bowl with one expertly fired shot.

Such was the unique christening of Pipe Spring, a name which the clear, cold waters have carried throughout these many ensuing years. Despite blazing skies and occasional droughts, the sparkling Spring has not slackened its steady flow of more than 100,000 gallons per day. It is a phenomenon for which early settlers in the semi-desert Strip country were extremely thankful.

Five years after the Spring's melodramatic naming, in 1863, Dr. James Whitmore and brother-in-law, Robert McIntyre, formed a livestock company, using the Spring as headquarters. This became the first permanent settlement at Pipe Spring.

Their home was a rude hillside dugout timbered with juniper logs. Built adjacent to the Spring, their holdings were surrounded by several hundred feet of primitive stake and rider fencing, commonly called "rip gut" by early cowboys. All went well until 1866 when fate tipped her hand and tragedy struck with the outbreak of the Black Hawk Indian War.

On the night of January 8, the cattlemen and McIntyre's eleven-year-old son, James Jr., were awakened by strange noises and their stock's restlessness. Morning

revealed empty pastures and silent corrals. Suspecting Indians, they cautioned young McIntyre to stay in the dugout, and set out in search of the vanished cattle and sheep.

At dusk the lone youngster prudently barricaded the door. During the night the wooden latch rattled alarm-ingly; then footfalls receded. The boy sprang to the back of the sheet iron stove and fearfully hid there till dawn. When his father and uncle did not return by morn-ing, James knew the worst had happened and left on foot through the snow for St. George, Utah, 96 miles to the northwest. Fortunately, ten miles out from the shelter he encountered a group of Mormon elders bound for Kanab.

All turned back toward St. George to spread the alarm. On the way, the horsemen stopped at Maj. Max-well's ranch in Short Creek, Utah, to get additional help. Learning of these events, Maj. Maxwell immediately penned this letter to Col. McArthur, St. George, Utah, requesting armed volunteers to form a punitive expedi-tion against the Paiutes and Navajos.

"Jan. 11, 1866 Col. D. D. McArthur St. George, Utah.

The Indians have made a break on the Whitmore and McIntyre ranch and have driven off all his sheep. Robert McIntyre and James Whitmore went out Monday morning and have not been seen since, and we think they are killed. We want help to drive the Indians across the Colorado and help to find Robert McIntyre and James Whitemore. The men will need fifteen to twenty days rations. There ought to be about fifty men.

William Maxwell Maj. Utah Militia Short Creek, Utah."

When the riders dismounted at the town meeting hall in St. George with this terse message, faces fell and the colorful, gay cotillion which was in full swing changed quickly into a grim body of determined men and women.

Returning possemen discovered a band of Paiutes wearing clothing which had belonged to the two missing men. Assuming they had murdered the ranchers, since they would not answer questions, these Indians were shot on the spot. Such was the law of the harsh, untamed land. Such swift frontier retaliation was common, but unfortunately, not always just. Later, it was believed Navajos had committed the crime. Fearing reprisal, they had shrewdly traded the white men's apparel to these innocent Paiutes.

The militiamen found McIntyre and Whitmore four miles southeast of the Spring, killed by arrows. Thirteen days later their bodies were hauled back to St. George in a buckboard packed with snow. A contemporary obMoreover claims that "both men looked like porcupines, so many arrows were stuck into them."

More raids followed in the Pipe Spring vicinity during these Indian hostilities. In April of the same year, John and Robert Berry and the latter's wife were killed a few miles northwest of the Spring.

With Indian tension still paramount in the settlers' minds three years later, Erastus Snow, acting for President Brigham Young, instructed Anson P. Winsor to buy the Pipe Spring property for construction of a fort. McIntyre's widow received $1000 for the 140 acres. Crude surveys were made by using a lariat.

Joseph W. Young of St. George was named architect, and supervised construction, which began in the fall of 1870. Tamar Young, wife of Richard Young, also helped to plan the building.

All materials were gathered locally. Slabs of red sandstone were quarried from the adjacent bluffs, while lime was burned in a pit nearby for mortar. Wooden beams came from Mt. Trumbull and were hauled by oxen.

When completed, the Fort consisted of two, twostoried stone structures, facing each other across an enclosed courtyard. Heavy double gates, reinforced with old iron wagon tires, swung outward from each end of the court.

Vividly recalling prior Indian attacks, builders generously endowed the walls with gun ports. Each was built into the ramparts so that all outside points could be covered. A platform or firing rail skirted one end of the enclosure. Upper stories of the two buildings were devoted to sewing and weaving rooms, as well as general living quarters.

To insure an ever-present supply of fresh water, the whole structure was built around the Spring. In turn, the running water was diverted from the courtyard into a stone and mortar trough, which led through the southwest corner room. An exceedingly well conceived plan, since an Indian attack could last for several days.

Because it was such a formidable looking edifice, no actual raids ever occurred at Pipe Spring after completion of the Fort. However, the heavy reinforced gates swung open many times to let apprehensive settlers within its protective walls after reported Indian insurrections.

As hostilities lessened, the Fort became known as Winsor's Castle. For a while it served as headquarters for the church's tithing ranch. Five to fifteen men were garrisoned there continually from 1870-1876, to be on hand in case of Indian activity, and to serve as workers in maintaining the livestock and dairy herd. Later, Winsor's wife began the manufacture of cheese in the spring room because of the cool atmosphere maintained by the constant 68 degree temperature of the flowing water. With the installation of a Ralph's Oneida cheese vat, Pipe Spring became the center of a thriving cheese industry.

During this period Pipe Spring played an important, though indirect role in the building of the Mormon Temple at St. George.

Barrels of butter and tons of cheese were produced at Winsor's Castle and sent to the southern Utah town to help maintain the many workers. These artisans donated months and even years of their time and skill for erection of the magnificent Great White Temple.

Besides dairy products, hundreds of beefs were contributed to this project from the tithing herd known as the Canaan Co-op Stock Company kept at Pipe Spring from 1871 to 1876.

To say that the Canaan Co-op Stock Company prospered is an understatement. The Strip consisted of more than 5,000 square miles of unfenced, superb grassland. Add a spring producing more than 100,000 gallons of water per day, and it is no wonder that on June 30, 1875 the Canaan Co-op Stock Company could declare a 25% dividend.

The following year the Co-op Stock Company was sold into private hands. Other interests bought and sold the Pipe Spring land several times, with Leonard Heaton and Sons, being the last owners. Obtaining the property in 1908, they held it until 1923.

In 1871, Winsor Castle at Pipe Spring became the first telegraph station in Arizona, and its first operator was a young lady by the name of Luella Steward. Her father was noted for colonizing Kanab, Utah. One of her sons is currently a supreme court justice of Arizona, Levi Udall.

The single strand of humming wire connected all communities of Utah with this early outpost. Known as the Deseret Telegraph Company, it was an important measure in bringing the scattered settlers together. It was also a step in closing the frontier.

From 1871 to 1872, the famed explorer of the Colorado River, Maj. John Wesley Powell, maintained headquarters at Winsor Castle. During his stay, Powell's party mapped this portion of the River and adjacent region. Years later, CCC boys working near Pipe Spring unearthed a geographical marker with Powell's signature on the survey description. This document is on display at the Fort.

Circumstances leading to Pipe Spring being designated a National Monument were just as colorful as its past.

According to Leonard Heaton, Monument Superintendent, in the early '20's a touring party including Stephen Mather, first National Park Director, and Carl Gray, President of the Union Pacific Railroad, were making a trip from Cedar City, Utah, to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Arizona.

When near Winsor's Castle, their car became stuck in sand. Unable to free their vehicle before dark, they spent the night at the Heaton ranch, just a few miles from the Fort. The next morning they stopped to browse at the Castle. It was in such a remarkable state of preservation, and the men found their stay so enjoyable studying its old records, they endeavored to have the Fort made into a national shrine before time and passers-by would destroy the pioneer edifice.

At Mather's and Gray's suggestion, the United States government bought the Pipe Spring property for $5,000 from Heaton and Sons; however, the money was contributed in the form of donations by persons and companies interested in preserving Winsor Castle as an historical site. Consequently, the transaction did not cost the government a cent, but only involved getting a clear title to the land.

A proclamation by President Harding declared Pipe Spring a National Monument on May 31, 1923. Leonard Heaton, at whose parent's ranch the Mather party had stayed, was named custodian, a position which he has held since that time.

Through his untiring efforts, many pioneer artifacts which were employed at the Fort by various families have been brought back. A shingle maker, and a bellows blower of an old forge are a couple of the more unique items. Many of the metal and iron fixtures used in building of the Častle were forged from this contrivance.

Other relics still reposing within its protective bulwarks, include a baby crib, wool carding machine, harpischord, spinning wheels, and other hand-made furniture. Dozens of old documents and pictures are kept in showcases.

Original churns, utilized in the pioneers' creamery operations and sections of the cheese vat lie idle with other hand-fashioned utensils in the spring room. Spring water flows just as regularly through the cooling trough as it did during the settlers' occupation.

One of the most prized possessions which Heaton keeps carefully tucked away in a display case is the ancient brass telegraph key. A relentless line of old juniper poles still stretch from the Fort, clutching onto weather-beaten glass insulators and their connecting corroded wire. Parts of a hand lathe remain in the courtyard mounted between porch beams. All railing and doweling used in the Fort's construction was turned on this manually operated tool. Across the enclosure from the lathe, the firing rail still hangs firmly against the wall. Shafts of light stream through gun ports, reminding one of grimmer days.

Leaving the Fort, the pathway leads between two spring-fed ponds where amiable white ducks, quacking garrulously, clumsily escort visitors. Silver cottonwoods line the footpath to the roadway. Incessantly rustling their metallic-looking leaves, they form a shimmering canopy high above.

Besides its rich pioneer background, Pipe Spring also offers visitors immaculately clean camping areas, a pond of sparkling spring water for swimming, and for the nature lover, wildlife and numerous birds for observation. Fruits and berries, planted by early settlers, and still bearing, are there to tantalize the most delicate palate. In fact, our family canned 11 quarts of blackberries and several pints of jam during a week's stay. Few parks offer such inducements.

A backward glance through the cottonwoods at the pioneer edifice, with its red sandstone walls reflected serenely in the placid waters, is a picturesque reminder of a people with vision and courage. Feeling and absorbing its spirit, visitors find Pipe Spring stands as a colorful and reverent monument to stubborn persistence and many sacrifices which our pioneers took in their stride to settle a frontier.