Charlie Spencer and His Wonderful Steamboat

Operate on! The crew was disbanded and Spencer again went to Chicago. Again he obtained money. He returned to the canyon country, reassembled his crew, and set up the plant. Finally, the operation began.

The plant started in June, 1909, and ran for about a week. Then a Chicago mining engineer, hired by the investors to protect their interests, suspended operations because he was convinced that there was no commercial value to be obtained.

Such a final pronouncement by an expert would have deterred an ordinary man from trying the same thing again but not Charlie Spencer! Thoroughly convinced that the “expert” was prejudiced and that he had been given too little time and money, Spencer set out to find new backers. Once more his promotional talents prevailed and he returned to the banks of the San Juan armed with money to try again. The new investors, however, like the former ones, sent along an expert mining engineer, this time a man named W. H. Bradley.

The reassembled crew reached Camp Ibex in December of the bitter winter of 1909-1910, and put the plant in operation. Bradley made exhaustive tests on the material being put through the amalgamators, and was able to prove to Spencer that the operations were not profitable. The amount of gold recovered was simply too minute. For the third time the crew was disbanded and each of its members made his separate way home.

While working at Camp Ibex, Bradley and Spencer, either separately or together, became interested in a soft shale deposit that has since been named the Chinle formation. Large samples were taken with them when they left, and these samples were sent to Denver and Chicago for assay. It was found that the Chinle not only contained more gold than the red sandstone, it was readily converted into mud and slime merely by sprinkling with water no crushing was necessary. This, of course, was ripe fodder for Spencer's vivid imagination. He quickly promoted more money, rounded up a small group of engineers, surveyors, and wranglers, and departed by horseback for the San Juan River.

It was apparent now that, in order to mine the Chinle, water would have to be pumped from the river in large volume. This meant big pumps and a steady power supply to run them. Unhappily, near the San Juan River the only possible sources of power were (1) oil from an undeveloped field, (2) gasoline from the distant railroad, or (3) wood from a high, almost inaccessible mesa. None of these was satisfactory. A solution, however, was not long in arriving. Two placer miners, Mr. Tipton and Mr. Clark, happened to come by the camp one day when the question of a power source was under consideration. Tipton disclosed that he was familiar with the lower part of Glen Canyon on the Colorado River. He said that similar formations (including the Chinle) were exposed there and that, above all, there were large veins of coal near the river that could be mined and burned to produce power. The Spencer party considered and decided that it wouldn't hurt at least to take a look. With an Indian guide they set out on a hazardous crossing of the remote north country of the Navajo Reservation, finally arriving at Lee's Ferry, Arizona, on May 9, 1910.

At Lee's Ferry, they were treading on already well-trodden ground. Lee's Ferry is probably the most historic single point on the entire Colorado River. From the time it was first visited by white men in 1776, it served as the major crossing of the river along many hundreds of miles. Later, it served as a base camp and refitting point for the scientists and early explorers of the Colorado River. With the arrival of C. H. Spencer, it became also a mining site.

The geology of Lee's Ferry was an important consideration for Spencer. At that point the Colorado River leaves one canyon (Glen Canyon), and enters a distinctly different one (Marble Canyon). The rock strata that appears on the San Juan River, and which is buried hundreds of feet below the general course of Glen Canyon, rises here to the surface in a violent contortion of the earth's crust.

The immediate question, however, was the location of the reported coal beds. Spencer was able to find coal but it was high in a distant canyon. Furthermore, the coal seam was only 20 inches wide, which was hardly ideal for a big operation. Undaunted by this failure to locate the large seam, Spencer decided to use driftwood from the river as fuel for his pump motors until such time as the large bed of coal could be found. A crew was then hired and machinery hauled in from Flagstaff, 145 miles to the south. Obviously, this was not a well-thought-out operation. Everything depended on chance, on the unknown availability of ore and fuel, and on the slim possibility that a mechanical contrivance could be made that would produce more wealth than it cost. The whole venture was a gamble with odds heavily stacked against success. Spencer apparently never realized the odds against him.

Of all the difficulties, the greatest was the lack of chemical and mechanical means to extract the gold from the virtually soluble Chinle shale. The amalgamation process was tried but it was uneconomical. Although specialists were brought in, the plain fact was that no one knew anything about the Chinle. Adding no small part to these difficulties was the tremendous isolation of Lee's Ferry, which made even the simplest experiment highly complex.

As chemist after chemist was hired, failed, and was discharged, Spencer turned to yet another experimental device to obtain gold. This was the Lovett pipe dredge, which worked on the principle that driving air under high pressure down a casing would work the pipe into the ground. The fine minerals would then be blown up to the surface for recovery. It was found that the pipe dredge worked perfectly in loose sand, where there was no gold. In the more coarse gravel, where gold did exist, the dredge could make no headway at all. Another experiment had failed.

Spencer had convinced himself that these repeated failures were due solely to the small scale of his operations. He also convinced his ever-faithful investors that the answer to all his problems was more money. Thus, armed with reloaded moneybags, Spencer set out to find the large vein of coal that would supply the power needs and simplify the problem of getting gold from the Chinle.

After spending many days in the saddle, and after investigating countless winding, deep, side canyons, Spencer and his men came at last to a vein of coal about five feet thick. It was located in one of the branch canyons off Warm Creek, a good forty miles by pack burro from Lee's Ferry. The main difficulty was that a burro can pack only about 150 pounds, and it would take a team of thirteen burros just to bring in a ton. At the rate Spencer envisioned using the coal, this would not be very efficient.

But there was another way of getting the coal to Lee's Ferry-by boat! As Warm Creek was a tributary to the Colorado, and as Lee's Ferry was on a bank of the Colorado downstream, it just might be feasible.

Warm Creek is normally dry, being a typical intermittent stream of the desert plateau country. It heads in a narrow canyon, then flows for miles through rather open but rough, sandy country. Finally, about six miles from the mouth, it plunges into the rock, forming an awesome, meandering canyon 600 feet deep, which eventually breaks into Glen Canyon. If a boat were to be used on the Colorado to haul coal, the coal would first have to be taken by wagon from the mine, twenty-four miles away, down through this narrow gorge to the river. Was a wagon road down Warm Creek practical? Modern-day observers would probably think not but, to the wagon men of 1911, this boulder-strewn bed looked almost ideal.

Arrangements were made for the San Francisco firm of Robinson-Schultz Co. to design and build a boat that could ply the muddy, sediment-laden Colorado River. It was to be ninety-two feet long and twenty-five feet abeam. A 12-foot stern paddle wheel was to be powered by a steam boiler ten feet long. The various parts were manufactured in San Francisco and shipped by rail to Salt Lake City, then over a spur to the rail terminus at Marysvale, Utah. From Marysvale they were moved 220 miles further south by ox-drawn wagons. Finally, at the mouth of Warm Creek, the steamboat was assembled.

About six miles up Warm Creek a small spring was found that could provide water for both men and stock. Also, the canyon widened at this point, making access fairly easy. This spot, known to the miners as "the Cottonwoods" (for the trees along the creek), was therefore chosen as the site whereupon to build the corral and bankhouses for the teamsters who would bring the coal down from the mine. Fifty years earlier, in the 1860's, the Cottonwoods had been a campsite for Mormons who guarded the Colorado River crossings against hostile Indians.

When Spencer's men built the five cabins they obviously considered them to be quite permanent, for they were made carefully, from substantial materials. Sandstone was quarried into reasonably square blocks and hauled to the site for the walls. Heavy stone lintels were chipped into the proper shape and placed over the doors and windows. Somewhat paradoxically, the roofs did not receive similar care, for none were made. As a substitute, canvas was stretched over the walls to keep out the weather.

Two weeks before the steamboat was scheduled to be completed, wagons, pulled by teams of oxen, began to carry coal down the long stream bed and narrow canyon to the mouth of Warm Creek, where the coal was stockpiled. Spencer also began looking through his organization for crewmen to run the boat. From the miners, wranglers and others, a crew was selected, although few of them knew anything about running a steamboat. Only Pete Hanna, the skipper, who had worked on Mississippi River boats, knew what he was supposed to do. As a final touch in preparation for the voyage, the steamboat was named the Charles H. Spencer and the name suitably painted on the bow.

At last the day of the launching arrived. A few tons of coal were loaded into the hull and on the deck, the crew came on board, and the 100-horsepower marine boiler was fired. With a loud blare of the horn and a shout from the men, the Charles H. Spencer was cast off to begin its first cruise through twenty-eight miles of deep, winding canyon to Lee's Ferry. Churning up the turbid water with its stern paddle wheel, puffing black smoke between the high walls of Glen Canyon, it moved swiftly downstream for a few hundred yards. Then, sbruptly, it ran hard aground on a sandbar. Hours later the boat was still aground, with the crew wading in kneedeep water, shoveling sand from underneath the craft. By nightfall a current had been directed under the vessel and it was again afloat. It was then moved out of the current behind a jutting segment of river bank for the night. Against the advice of Bill Wilson, the lookout, Pete Hanna, the skipper, threw the heavy anchor overboard where it promptly sank, unrecoverably, in the deep sand of the river bottom. Most of the crew slept on deck, for there was room for only four men in the two small cabins.

The next morning, after an improvised breakfast, the crewmen refired the steam boiler and slowly eased the Charles H. Spencer back into the river current. In order to slow the vessel it was run backward down the river. The power was on at all times, the whirling stern paddle wheel serving to slow the onrush of the boat downstream. A heavy log chain was trailed from the bow to serve as a brake, but this chain soon wedged between some rocks and broke off.

The next morning, after an improvised breakfast, the crewmen refired the steam boiler and slowly eased the Charles H. Spencer back into the river current. In order to slow the vessel it was run backward down the river. The power was on at all times, the whirling stern paddle wheel serving to slow the onrush of the boat downstream. A heavy log chain was trailed from the bow to serve as a brake, but this chain soon wedged between some rocks and broke off.

The engineer, Staats, had the most important job, for he controlled the throttle. At many of the abrupt bends in Glen Canyon, the river rolls up against the cliffs and rebounds downstream. It was Staats' job to put on the steam when the boat approached one of these cliffs so as to slowly work around the corner without smashing the boat to pieces.

About the middle of the afternoon, the boat neared its destination, Lee's Ferry. One of the workmen on the bank caught a glimpse of the craft backing around the last curve in the river and the entire working force assembled jubilantly on the edge of the river to greet their comrades. Because the boat had not arrived on schedule the day before, there were many who thought that the boat had been wrecked and all aboard drowned.

Plans were then made for the return trip upriver to Warm Creek. No one knew how much coal the steam boiler would consume on the return trip, but there was no use taking chances. Only a small pile of coal was unloaded at Lee's Ferry; the bulk of the load remained in the hull and on the deck. This bit of caution proved to be wise indeed.

On the morning of the second day after arriving at Lee's Ferry, the Charles H. Spencer began the trip upriver, the only journey in that direction that it would ever make. Coal consumption proved to be markedly high, so much so in fact that the economy of using the boat became seriously open to question. Some coal was still on board when the vessel reached Warm Creek but the amount was surprisingly small. One small consolation was that no sandbars were encountered going upstream.

The next day, with its coal coffers reloaded, the large steamboat began its last backward voyage down the river. It arrived at Lee's Ferry the same day, where it was tied up on the beach, its boiler never again to be fired. The crewnen were either released or shifted to other jobs. The Charles H. Spencer began its slow rotting disintegration. Spencer may have planned to use the boat sometime in the future, but any such plans were cut short by the imminent collapse of his entire gold mining operation.

Months and years of neglect settled on the Charles H. Spencer as it slowly sank into the brown water and mud. Today only a rusty boiler and a few rotted boards of the hull serve as reminders of this once-proud vessel, the largest craft ever put on the Colorado River.

As to the experimental gold mining, the elaborate structure Spencer had built up for this purpose had consumed its funds, and no more were to be had. The fine gold simply could not be extracted from the Chinle in profitable quantities, no matter what the chemists tried. The loose organization of miners, bull-whackers, boatmen, chemists and engineers fell apart, with the majority receiving nothing but a promise for their pay.

The great dream of Spencer's-the dream that had grown and developed as the facets of his enterprise unfolded-was dead. The ghost of this dream rose oc casionally in later years as Spencer paid brief visits to the land around Glen Canyon. Never again, however, was he able to muster the capital necessary to begin anew. Today Spencer lives with his daughter in Riverside, California. He is 91 years old but his mind is still active and alert especially concerning his great adventure in San Juan and Glen canyons, Quite obviously he has never lost faith in his schemes to mine a fortune in gold from the Chinle shale. He feels, perhaps, that fate was a bit unkind to him in the early years of the century. Certainly many men, with much less imagination, courage, and energy have become wealthy. But Spencer was not destined to find wealth.

A young engineer who worked with Spencer in 1909 and 1910, Arthur C. Waller, had this to say about Spencer: "I had no quarrel with him and admired his courage and determination to carry through with whatever he undertook. He could never be depended upon to furnish himself or whoever was with him with sufficient food. He could endure long rides on almost no food and if he had coffee and chewing tobacco it seemed to be enough. He was well liked by his men and the Navajos who knew bim and he would never ask a man to do what he would not do himself."

Today a great dam, Glen Canyon Dam, is being built in the gorge through which the steamboat churned in 1911. By 1963, water will begin to back behind the dam, forming Lake Powell. Glen Canyon will soon serve mankind, as an agency of water conservation, as it had failed to serve Spencer and his dreams of wealth. Some of the remains of Spencer's enterprise will be covered with water but others, such as the surviving bit of steamboat and the mining equipment at Lee's Ferry, will still testify to the efforts expended there.

If, in retrospect, Spencer's efforts seem visionary and impractical, let us consider that he was a true pioneer, willing to face an isolated and desolate land still virtually unexplored in the early 1900's.

NAVAJO CIRCLE

Never quite close the circle that is drawn about a friend - so say the Navajos. Then through one crack, should any imp of evil hide inside, he may slip out. "Never quite close a circle," say the Navajos.

SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA

Illuminated by the setting sun, The craggy cliffs are washed with fluid gold; And one can dream that in each fastness lies Some of the wealth that Coronado sought.

VOICES

So many hear the roar of seas Or song of open roads; I often think I hear them both But either of them goads Me on, for I hear muted songs Where life flows full and free; The wistful winds, the birds, the brooks Are voices calling me.

EVENING IN THE DESERT

O, Lord, how wide the sky, How deep the bowl above - How every grain of sand below Reflects Thy wondrous love.

DESERT DERVISH

Fascinated, I stop and stare, As the band of dervishes begin their prayer. Stirred by some unseen spiritual breeze The supplicants rise from their knees. Slowly, at first, they start to prance Then faster, and faster, in holy dance Wildly twirling unable to stop Until exhausted, they suddenly drop. Some call them whirlwinds and wish them away, But God and I know they will always pray.

WINGED WEATHER

The green earth nestled yesterday Beneath a sky of pigeon gray, But now wind whistles, histles, shrill and high, Through a flamboyant bluejay sky.

EXCUSE

No cowboy walks; how obsolete To be "caught dead" upon his feet! Or if he were, he'd say, "Of course, You know I'm looking for my horse."

HEAVEN'S HIGHWAY

The moon Is a lantern God hangs high in the sky To direct night traffic where stars Go by.

SAVINGS ACCOUNT

The desert tucks her pockets full Of seeds that fall her way, Then banks her wealth in countless vaults Against a rainy day.

GRAND CANYON! HERE WE COME! ... I honestly don't know how to start this to you, but something wonderful is going to happen to myself, husband and young son, this September, and we owe it all to your magazine. In 1957 my son and I were in our dentist's waiting room, awaiting our turn. To while away the time we sorted through the books and magazines and found, to our delight, your issue of May, 1957, of the Grand Canyon. Our dentist most kindly gave it to us and I guess it has been our most read book for five years. To us this was the beginning of a dream, how we would love to see these really wonderful sights ourselves ... so we began to save, and save hard, going without many things, holidays, etc., and now this dream is going to come true. After five years we are coming to your wonderful country, we are coming to see these truly wonderful sights in both California and Arizona. We are having one month holiday of a lifetime. Some people tell us it is not worth the money, but we are not disheartened, we know it will be worth every penny we have saved. So on September 20th we leave London Airport by the midday plane to Los Angeles, and we land at six o'clock in the evening, your time, the same date. Thank you again ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. Grand Canyon, here we come!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE:

Two very nice photographs in the May issue on Mohave County (Grasslands, page 12 and Mineral Park, page 38) were credited to me, but were taken by other photographers. If you can determine who made these views, I'm sure they would appreciate reReceiving credit for them.

The excellent photograph at the Ford Proving Ground on page 34 was made by Ford photographer Thomas Rutter especially for this issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYs through the cooperation of manager Benn Keller.

Larry Toschik's map of the country requires only the substitution of U.S. 93 for U.S. 66 on the main highway connecting Kingman with Hoover Dam. I hope that many of your readers will make good use of this fine map in their travels through this big country that we have in the northwestern part of the state.

Skilled set designers have just finished rebuilding much of Oatman for scenes to appear in their forthcoming MGM Cinerama epic How The West Was Won. So, the visitor to Oatman may find it looking more like the 1915 panoramic view than the more

modern picture on the same page by my

good friend Paul V. Long, Jr.

LIBRARY IN FLORIDA:

... I work in the public library in Homestead and we have copies of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS on file back to 1947. They are not complete but I think possibly we have all the issues for the past few years. These are donated to the library by a patron when she is finished with them. You possibly would like to know they are used a lot here in the library by art students looking for color pictures and students looking for reference material on Arizona. Also, one art class sponsored by the Dade County Technical High School and presented at the Spice Park in Homestead is using material from ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. One of the most successful pictures done To beginning students is a copy of three beautiful roses one, I believe, full blown and the other two, buds. This material from ARIZONA HIGHWAYS is brought to class by the students and not presented as materials by the school. I don't know how many subscriptions in this area have resulted from a copy of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS magazine being in the library but I personally know of two. Many people like your magazine so much they ask if other states, usually the one they are from, also publish a magazine of this type.

OPPOSITE PAGE "WEAVING COMPETITION" BY JOSEF MUENCH.

One of the crowd pleasers at the annual Navajo Fair at Window Rock is the Queen's contest. Modern and Traditional Queens are selected. Here a Traditional contestant shows her skill at weaving on a handmade loom.

In a colorful Navajo dress, she is following a craft for which her tribe has become world famous for the original designs, the fine colors and the intricate workmanship of Navajo weaving.

BACK COVER "NAVAJO YEBECHAI DANCERS" BY JOSEF MUENCH.

The Navajo Yebechai (yaybee-chy) Dance, a winter chant, performed after the first frost, is one of the most important ceremonials of the Navajo tribe colorful and very impressive. The men wear the fine turquoise necklaces and sing as they go through the steps of the ceremony. This dance is one of the featured dances staged each year during the night ceremonies at the Navajo Fair. 4x5 Linhof camera; daylight Ektachrome; f.9 at 1/100th second; 6" Tessar lens; September; blue flash was used.