by Alex Gugel , all rights reserved
Bryce CanyonEarly Human History |
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Bryce Canyon
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Bryce Canyon National Park
Humans at Bryce – A Brief History
A raven’s call filters down from the deep blue sky of southern Utah’s high plateau
country. The air is fresh and cool, but the sun warms your skin. The trail beneath
your boots winds through a maze of rock walls, columns, and spires in colors hard
to believe: red, orange, yellow, violet, and white. Gnarled pine trees, some thousands
of years old, grow from secret places among the rocks. You may be following in the
footsteps of a hunter who walked this trail thousands of years ago…
Prehistory
Located on the eastern edge of the
Paunsaugunt Plateau, Bryce Canyon National
Park rises from about 6,600 feet above sea
level to more than 9,100 feet at Rainbow
Point. The plateau’s climate features short,
mild summers and long, cold winters. The
growing season is brief and water is scarce,
making it difficult to live on top of the plateau.
The earliest inhabitants in the area were
Paleoindians, who used the area primarily for
hunting grounds. Evidence of these people
has been found near the park in the form of
dart and spear points reliably dated to the end
of the last Ice Age (between 9,000 and 12,000
years ago). While it is known from these
finds that hunters were in the area, to date
no archaeological evidence has been found
to indicate that there were any permanent
settlements on the plateau.
Following the end of the Ice Age - and the
extinction of the “megafauna” such as the
mammoths - we enter the period known to
archaeologists as the Archaic Period. This
period ranges from 9,000 to 1,500 years
before present, and numerous sites have
yielded evidence of habitation both in Bryce
The Southern Paiute
About 1,000 years
ago the Fremont and
Puebloan Cultures
seem to disappear
and evidence of new
human habitation
appears with the
arrival of Numicspeaking peoples
from the southwest
- the Southern Paiute.
They were nomadic
hunter-gatherers who also practiced limited
agriculture, primarily maize (corn), and
occupied the general area for over 800 years.
Within the park and on the plateau there are
numerous archaeological sites associated
with the Southern Paiute, however these sites
Canyon National Park and the surrounding
area. Within the park this evidence is
generally limited to dart and spear points,
however, cave and rockshelter sites, as well
as ruins of storage facilities of this age, are
known in the region.
The Formative Period began approximately
2,000 years ago and ended at around 1000
C.E. with the arrival of the Paiute in the area.
This period saw the rise of two different
cultures: the Fremont and Pueblo Cultures
(aka Ancestral Puebloan or Anasazi). The
aspects of their lifestyles separating them
from their ancestors are the development of
agriculture and evidence of a more sedentary
lifestyle. While no Fremont Culture sites are
known within park boundaries, there are sites
just outside the park near the East Fork of
the Sevier River in the Dixie National Forest
which contain projectile points, Fremont
pottery, and possible small structures.The
Virgin Anasazi were neighbors to the south
of the Fremont people, and within the park
there are a few sites which contain ceramics.
Other Virgin Anasazi sites have been found
on the Skutumpah Terrace south of the park.
are limited to what were probably seasonal
hunting camps as opposed to long term
settlements. Arrow and spear points, pottery
shards, stripped bark on pines, and fire pits
are the types of evidence found here.
Many place names within the park and the
surrounding region can be attributed to the
Southern Paiute: Paunsaugunt means “home
of the beavers”; Paria means “muddy water”
or “elk water”; Yovimpa is a derivative of a
word meaning “pine tree ridge”; Panguitch
means “water” or “fish”; Podunk Creek was
named after a Paiute, Po Dunk, who was lost
in the area; and Skutumpah is a combination
of two words which mean, respectively,
“creek where the squirrels live” and “creek
where the rabbitbrush grows”.
Exploration & Settlement
The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition of
1776 was the earliest presence of EuroAmericans in southwestern Utah, though
their route took them some 50 miles (80
kilometers) south of Bryce Canyon. The
purpose of this journey, which ultimately
failed, was to find a route to connect Santa Fe
with the missions of California. Later, a trail
established by Mexican traders in the 1820’s
passed within 44 miles (70 kilometers) of the
park. This same trail would later be used by
frontiersmen and explorers such as Jedediah
Smith (late 1820’s) and Captain John C.
Fremont (1840’s). The first Mormon scouts
entered the area along this trail during the late
1840’s, their travels taking them near the site
of present day Panguitch, from where they
almost certainly had views of the western
escarpment, known as the Sunset Cliffs, of
the Paunsaugunt Plateau.
Settlement of the region began in the 1850’s
but was initially restricted to the area west
of the plateau along the Sevier River valley.
Among these was the town of Panguitch,
established in 1864. Many of the new
communities were abandoned with the onset
of hostilities during the Black Hawk War
The Pioneers
The Word Gets Out
John C. Fremont (left) and Jedediah Smith, early
explorers of Utah and the west.
beginning in 1865, a conflict brought about
due to strained relations between the settlers
and the area’s Native Americans (including
Navajo, Ute, and Southern Paiute nations).
Most of these communities were resettled
following the conclusion of fighting in 1868
and exploration of the eastern side of the
Paunsaugunt Plateau took place early in the
decade of the ‘70’s. Lt. George C. Wheeler
led a team which explored the plateau in
1872 and two members of this expedition,
Edwin Howell and Grover Karl Gilbert,
provided the first written descriptions of the
magnificent pinnacles and spires found on
the plateau’s eastern escarpment.
Settlement to the east of the plateau did not
begin until the mid 1870’s and among those
first pioneers were Ebenezer and Mary Bryce
with their 10 children. The family only lived
in the area from 1875 until 1880 but, among
his contributions to the community, Ebenezer
built a road up to the base of the Pink Cliffs
for hauling timber and firewood. The other
settlers soon began to call the valley at the end
of the road “Bryce’s Canyon” and, with a little
modification, the name they gave to the large
amphitheater on the plateau’s edge is still with
us today.
end of the Mossy Cave Trail. If not for the
efforts of these pioneers, the fall would only
run following a summer storm and not be the
attraction it is today.
Life was not easy in the valley to the east of
the Paunsaugunt Plateau and, while the land
was more arable than that in the Sevier River
Valley to the west, the availability of water was
a problem. To solve this, the pioneers living in
Tropic dug a ditch - 15 miles long! - from the
East Fork of the Sevier River atop the plateau
to the townsite. Now, more than a century
later, the “Tropic Ditch” still brings life-giving
water to the valley below. While most of
the original ditch is carried underground in
pipes and culverts today, park visitors are still
drawn to the waterfall in Water Canyon at the
Mormon pioneers Ebenezer and Mary Bryce.
“You can perhaps imagine my
surprise at the indescribable
beauty that greeted us, and it
was sundown before I could be
dragged from the canyon view.
You may be sure that I went back
the next morning to see the canyon once more, and to plan in my
mind how this attraction could be
made accessible to the public.”
– J.W. Humphrey, 1915
For some 40 years after the time Mormon
pioneers arrived in the area, Bryce’s Canyon
remained little more than a curiosity to them.
In the summer of 1915 J.W. Humphrey, a
U.S. Forest Supervisor, was transferred to
E X P E R I E N C E Y O U R A M E R I C A™
The Tropic Ditch, dug in 1891, is the source for
the waterfall at Water Canyon.
Panguitch and, not long after his arrival, an
employee suggested he visit the eastern edge
of the plateau. Soon after his visit Humphrey
arranged for still photographs and movies
to be made of the canyon. These were then
sent to Washington D.C., as well as to officials
of the Union Pacific Railroad. In 1916 he
secured funding to improve the road to the
rim and, by 1919, tourists were making their
way from Salt Lake City. That same year
Reuben “Ruby” Syrett and his wife Minnie
erected tents and were supplying meals to
guests not far from Sunset Point. By the early
1920s, the first steps toward the creation of a
new National Park were underway. And the
rest, as they say, is history . . .