Grand Canyon Rim to Rim History: The 1950s and 1960s

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By Davy Crockett. Read, listen, or watch

This part will cover additional stories found through deeper research, adding to the history shared in found in the new book, Grand Canyon Rim to Rim History.

Rim To Rim in the 1950s

In 1950, two 15-year-old boys from Los Angeles discovered that hiking rim-to-rim was a lot harder than they thought. While resting down at Phantom Ranch, they ran up an $8 unpaid bill and then decided that there was no way that they were going to hike back up.

“So, the two youths ‘borrowed’ a pair of mules at the ranch and rode to the top, tethering the mules at the head of Bright Angel Trail. The boys next headed south, stopping en-route to Williams, Arizona, at a service station where they pilfered $20 from the station’s cash drawer.” Their trip ended there after some officers arrested them.

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Phantom Ranch Guests Arrive by Helicopter

On October 29, 1950, Mae (Keeler) Malone (1911-1986), of Bisbee, Arizona, Phantom Ranch caretaker with her husband Willis David Malone Jr. (1895-1972), received a telephone call from Mrs. Jerry Evans of Cody, Wyoming in the afternoon requesting dinner and overnight accommodations for three people calling from the gauging station on the Colorado River, near Black Bridge.

“There was nothing unusual in this, as late hikers often showed up at Phantom Ranch about dinner time. But when Mrs. Evans walked up to the ranch attractively attired in a fresh green silk dress complete with matching handbag, and of all things, high-heeled pumps, Mrs. Malone did a double take. ‘We’re the folks that landed on the sandbar in the helicopter a little while ago.’” The pilot, Edwin Jones Montgomery (1912-1990), who established the first commercial helicopter operation in the country, in Tucson, Arizona, walked in and explained that his helicopter’s motor had conked out over the canyon, but he had glided to a sandbar, and they walked a half mile to Black Bridge. “They established a record as the first Phantom Ranch guests to arrive by helicopter.” The next day, the three rode out of the canyon on mules.

A few days later, Montgomery and two of his employees made repairs. “When they attempted to fly out, they flew only about a mile and one half downstream before the motor stopped and the plane dropped into the water. A team of mules pulled the craft out of the water.” There it sat near the bottom of the Bright Angel Trail. The machine had to be dismantled and packed out of the canyon by mule.

Maintenance Needed

Neglect was noticed in 1950 because the federal government had cut back on Grand Canyon funding for eight years, starting with World War II. Appropriations to the Park were only 50 cents per park visitor. Rotting benches were seen and trails were in poor shape. Rangers were only paid $1.50 per hour and could not work overtime. The old CCC barracks on the South Rim was being used as housing for employees.

Some new projects were started, a water storage system was built at Cottonwood Campground to help deal with occasional water outages. A crew of eight worked there for three months. The water tank can still be seen.

In 1951, about 8,000 people rode the mule train to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and about 1,000 stayed overnight at Phantom Ranch. Hundreds of additional people descended on foot.

The 1952 winter snowfall was so severe that in January, the Kaibab Trail was closed for the winter. Two employees of Utah Parks Co. rode a snow cat to the North Rim to repair the telephone line. “But they found the wires broken by so many fallen trees and in such a tangled condition that the repair work was abandoned.”

Black Bridge finally received a new coat of paint. The last time it was painted was in 1934 by the CCC. It took two men six days to paint the 440-foot-long bridge, hanging 100 feet above the river.

Notable Deaths

On June 13, 1951, Havasupai Chief “Big Jim,” died at the age of about 95. He had been born in the 1850s, at Indian Garden. Big Jim had been a guide for years in the area and adapted as his homeland became a tourist destination.

On June 17, 1951, the first Canyon guide died while on the job. Lee William Smith (1899-1951) age 52, of Aurora, Missouri and another guide, Lee Wood Roberts (1900-1995), age 51, a cowboy from New Mexico, had gone about 100 yards down Bright Angel Trail to assist a third guide who was having trouble lining up some unmounted mules he was taking down to bring a hiking party back from the bottom of the canyon. After lining up the mules, Smith and Roberts started back up the trail.

They both mounted the mule Roberts had ridden down. The doubly loaded mule lost its footing, rolled down to the next switchback with the men, about 50 feet. The last drop was 18 feet straight down. The two men were taken to the hospital where Smith died from a fractured skull. Roberts recovered, and so did the mule. More than 100 tourists lined up near the top witnessed the tragedy. Smith’s wife and daughter also worked at the Grand Canyon. He was buried in the Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery.

In 1957, famed cowhand, guide, and handyman, “Shorty” Yarberry (1877-1957), died at age 81. He had been employed by the Fred Harvey company since October 1921. He built the rock wall around Phantom Ranch and also planted many of the cottonwood trees there. “At least once a year, he let both his white hair and beard grow, looking for all the world like Santa Claus in a cowboy outfit.” He died in the Grand Canyon Hospital and was buried at the Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery.

Operation Drag Out

In 1953, a group of six men and a ten-year-old boy from California split up into two groups, one starting from the North Rim and one from the South Rim. They each spent two days doing a rim-to-rim, meeting together and camping at Phantom Ranch. They called their trip “Operation Drag Out” and their local newspaper printed a big newspaper article about their “daring trip.” They claimed the trail was so narrow, that if they would have met a mule train that it would have caused a big problem.

The 1953 Invasion of Boy Scouts

During July 1953, about 24,000 boy scouts came to the Canyon as they traveled to and from a National Scout Jamboree at Santa Ana, California, on 53 specially scheduled trains with a total of 113 pullman cars. The Grand Canyon community spent months planning how to handle this massive invasion of boys. As a precaution against trail accidents, it was announced that the Bright Angel Trail would be closed to mule traffic and reserved for hikers only. Rangers would be on duty 24 hours per day.

“All kinds of Boy Scouts came in like a tidal wave at Grand Canyon Village this week. Many of the boys took hiking trips down the Bright Angel Trail.” Most of the troops were on a tight schedule and only went down partway and back up. Special snack booths were set up, netting a nice $700 profit.

Boy Scouts Hike Rim to Rim

Boy Scouts started to hike rim to rim, twenty years earlier, in 1930s. In 1930, some members of a “Boy Scout Naturalist Expedition,” including Eagle Scout, Alger Judson Fast (1912-2000) of Santa Cruz, California, were examining wildflowers on the North Rim. They decided to return to the South Rim by hiking for three days instead of driving. Rain dumped on them as they descended, turning them into “drowned rats.” They took shelter in a cave near Ribbon Falls and caught fish for dinner in Bright Angel Creek. Going on, they camped at Phantom Ranch and then Indian Garden.

On August 26, 1934, a group of boy scouts from Ogden, Utah accomplished a rim-to-rim hike, south to north. They called themselves the “Kit Carson Men,” and each summer went on long hikes in amazing places. In 1934, they chose to go to the Grand Canyon and carefully planned the expedition for months. Scouts ages 15 and up were allowed to apply and more than 100 did. Twenty-five boys and three adults made the trip.

In 1848, five Senior Girl Scouts, including Shirley Jean Stewart (1935-1999) and Antoinette White (1934-2022) made a “punishing two-day jaunt” south to north in 1948, taking down bedrolls, first aid kits, and two lunches each, camping out above The Box. The next day, they finished their “torturous ascent.” They were chaperoned by two adults.

In 1949, thirteen boy scouts led by three adults from Mesquite, Nevada, made the south-north trek, spending the night at Phantom Ranch, reaching the North Rim where they met a truck to pick them up.

Twenty-seven Explorer Scouts, led by Professor S. W. Warren, of Cornell University, came west from Ithaca, New York, in 1956, to make a north-south crossing. They said, “Six or seven times, we had to take off our shoes and wade across Bright Angel Creek.” It took them seven hours to reach Phantom Ranch, where they quickly got into the swimming pool. They camped without tents or sleeping bags, only carrying down food, a canteen, and ponchos. They hit the trail again at 1 a.m., crossing Black Bridge in the dark, and hiking on the River Trail to Bright Angel Trail. “It was a steep trail on the south side and about every 20 minutes we would stop and ‘hit the sack’ for ten minutes”. They were awarded with breakfast at Indian Garden, reached the South Rim, and their bus driver at 10 a.m.

In 1957, nine boy scouts, led by Bill Long and Paul Sanchez, from Tucson, Arizona, accomplished a five-day double-crossing backpacking trip to earn their 50-miler awards.

Also, that year, twenty-six Explorer Scouts from Logan, Utah, led by Dr. Sterling A. Taylor (1918-1967), a soil physicist of Utah State University, made a two-day north-to-south crossing. They had to wade across Bright Angel Creek seven times while at flood stage.

Howard Clark, age 13, an Eagle Scout from Buckeye, Arizona, hiked north to south across the Canyon during the heat of late July in 1963 with his brother and father. The temperature at the bottom was 114 degrees, but they were able to finish in 13 hours.

The Boy Scouts in Arizona started to offer rim-to-rim patches to those who completed the hike. A rim-to-rim-to-rim patch appeared in 1963. Publicity for the patches was being published in national scouting magazines. That year, a fifty-mile hike craze burned across the country, attracting more hikers to the Canyon. Arizona State College in Flagstaff started to organize large rim-to-river and back hikes. The Prescott Rotary Club also created a patch for those scouts that completed a rim-to-rim-to-rim hike.

Hiker Warnings

Warnings were offered by the wise: “It is more rugged than anything you have ever pictured. Despite its famed beauty, the canyon is a natural killer and hardly a year goes by that it doesn’t claim at least one life in some way.” In 1955 it was stated, “A person can ‘pack a sack’ and descend the twisting Kaibab Trail on foot without a guide or fee. However, the penalty for running out of energy within the canyon can be high. It is possible to telephone from any of several stations along the trail and have a mule sent to carry a person out, but the charge is high. ‘Travel light’ is a wise motto.”

Phantom Ranch in the 1950s

A 1954 description of Phantom Ranch read, “You’ll arrive at Phantom Ranch, the unique and comfortably attractive ‘deep down’ resort at the bottom of the Canyon in time for a dip in the spring-fed swimming pool, or a hot shower if the pool is too icy for you. The ranch is famous for its all-you-can-eat, family-style meals.” A popular attraction was to feed the tame deer by hand. A two-day adventure to the ranch and back by mule, including food and lodging, was $32.75.

In 1955, a third of the 2,444 Phantom Ranch guests descended into the canyon on foot. Manford “Slim” Patrick and his wife, Dotty, managed Phantom Ranch. “They doctored many hikers for blisters and injuries as severe as sprained ankles. Most of the hikers requiring aid didn’t know what they were getting into.”

The trash from Phantom Ranch for years was dumped directly in the Colorado River. Slim would load up a cart pulled by a mule and dump it right in the water. Thankfully, later they began to haul it up to the Rim. Another important job he performed was to keep the generator going with the fuel that was hauled down.

Swimming in the Colorado River near Phantom Ranch was common when the river level was low. But the extreme danger was illustrated on June 20, 1955, when Harold William Nelson (1924-1955) age 30, a civil service worker from San Diego, California, was swept down the river, while swimming without a life jacket with two others, when the river was high. His body was found about two weeks later, about 35 miles downriver by a boating party, who buried him and marked the spot.

Allyn Cureton’s First Rim to Rim Hike

Allyn Carl Cureton (1937-2019) was from Williams, Arizona and was the grandson of “Prof” Thomas Cureton (see episode 136). When he was 17 years old, in 1954, he accomplished his first rim-to-rim hike with his father, Carl Lester Cureton (1913-1998). They backpacked with 20-pound packs, covering only about 12 miles per day. On the way back, on the Tonto Trail, camped at Burro Spring, they were startled by a low-flying helicopter. “Their campfire attracted the helicopter which was looking for a lost hiker from Los Angeles. The helicopter landed and upon discovering the mistake, took off again, while the hikers who were not lost, breathed a sigh of relief, for the sight of the helicopter approaching brought fears of emergency news from home.” They continued on the Tonto Trail all the way to Hermit’s Rest, making a long double crossing of more than 60 miles. The lost hiker was found stuck on a cliff and rescued. By 1962, Cureton had made 48 trips into the canyon, including a long 90-mile hike lengthwise.

North Rim in the Winter

When the North Rim closed each year during mid-October, it was not evacuated for the winter of all workers. In 1955-56, Louis “Dutch” Clarence Hillis (1895-1973), age 59, and Violet Edith (Hemphill) Hillis (1896-1984), age 58, maintained the North Rim alone from October to May, living up in a cabin. “To borrow a cup of sugar, Mrs. Hillis had a choice between snowshoeing 44 miles northward to Jacob Lake, Arizona, or taking a long step down the mile deep chasm to Phantom Ranch.”

The couple would read books in the evening by a gas lantern and keep warm by a wood-burning stove. During the day, they would shovel deep snow from rooftops, including the 50-foot water tower. They would snowshoe from cabin to cabin and feed the squirrels. Periodically, they would receive supplies from a strange, but effective, snow vehicle on skis from Jacob Lake. Mail was delivered to Phantom Ranch, requiring the tough hike down and back to retrieve. The thing that they missed the most was the absence of newspapers, but they could listen to one radio station. In May, 180 employees would return to host the 45,000 tourists that would arrive during the season.

Runner Spotted on Bright Angel Trail

During the early fall of 1957, Margaret, from Window Rock, Arizona, took a mule trip with her husband and another couple down to Phantom Ranch. They were the only visitors at the ranch and were taken care of by two wonderful caretaker couples.

On their return ten-hour trip on mules, including rests, they spotted a very unusual sight for that time. “We saw a rather portly man coming bounding down the sharp turns and we asked him why the hurry. He replied that he had to make a quick date with the river. We commented to ourselves that the poor, foolish man would probably die from a heart attack at the rate he was going. But we saw him coming back while we stopped for about an hour at Indian Garden to eat lunch and rest. We learned that only three days before, he had boarded a plane at his native Switzerland to fly to America for a vacation. Running up and down these steep slopes was just like play to one who had spent a lifetime climbing the Alps.”

Grand Canyon Hoax

During May 1959, one of the greatest hoaxes in the Canyon’s history took place, hoodwinking park authorities. On May 13, 1959, a deserted canoe was fished out of the Colorado River near Phantom Ranch. Included was a log document attached to the canoe by a string that indicated that Earl L. Francis (1931-1966), age 27, an artist from San Manuel, California, had left Lees Ferry a week earlier on an unauthorized solo canoe trip, and his last log entry was May 11, 1959. A search by air began up and down the river for Francis.

The next day, Francis was seen floating down the river above Phantom Ranch, in a life jacket, with his dog, “Cadillac” under his arm. Men on the shore yelled out. Francis, in total control, angled toward the shoreline and he was pulled out by a ranch hand. He was brought to Phantom Ranch for a nice dinner and was described as being in “good shape,” despite not eating for three days and spending hours and hours in the cold water. Francis told a tale that he swam about 30 miles downriver with his dog for three days and stopped for the nights. He was allowed to stay at Phantom Ranch, brought up by mule and then put up at a hotel for several days until he recovered. He then went back down and hauled his 17-foot, 70-pound canoe up the trail and out of the Canyon.

His story was covered by newspapers all over the country. There were several problems with it that apparently no one ever figured out. 1. The details of his tale to the press changed in each interview. 2. He never gave details about how he got by the many rapids. 3. His canoe arrived at Phantom Ranch only a half day before he did, even though he stopped for three nights. 4. It would have been impossible for his dog to remain with him for all those river miles without being tethered. 5. There were many places before Phantom Ranch where he could have exited and hiked out of the canyon. No one seemed to question these inconsistencies. It is speculated that he brought his lightweight canoe down the South Kaibab Trail during the early morning on May 13th, set it afloat later that day, and then waited until the next day to make his entrance, floating in the river.

A few years later, Francis built an unauthorized hermit house on public land in the Catalina Mountain foothills, above Oracle, Arizona, at a mining claim. After 18 months of wrangling, the government told him he must go. He said that he would never leave the hills, that he was a pioneer prospector in modern times. On August 15, 1966, he sat on a keg of dynamite a few yards from his home and lit the fuse. Death was immediate.

Astronauts Hike into the Canyon

On March 5, 1964, eighteen famous astronauts, who were part of the Gemini and Apollo programs, hiked down the South Kaibab Trail to Phantom Ranch, stayed overnight, and then came back up using the Bright Angel Trail. The trip was part of a geological training program. A NASA official said, “The trip will prepare the astronauts to be competent geologic observers, to know what they’re looking at and how to properly observe geologic features on the lunar surface they may encounter.”

Alan Shepard (1923-1998), the first American in space, and Scott Carpenter (1925-2013), the second American to orbit the Earth, were the most well-known, leading a group of new astronauts who had not yet been into space. Neil Armstrong (1930-2012), the first man who would set foot on the moon was among the group. He had previously been down into the Canyon. Joe “Jay” Calvin Goza (1925-1996) chief mule wrangler joked, “I hope they aren’t afraid of high places.”

The Phantom Ranch manager, Ben Clark, reported that the astronauts arrived in the evening and “looked real good, with nobody crippled up from hiking. But they were very hungry believe me.” They ate a hefty amount of roast beef, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, cake, and coffee, and then retired early. “They were pretty serious young men and very nice, and they seemed to enjoy the Canyon very much. Both Shepard and Carpenter were particularly enthusiastic about the Canyon.” The pool water temperature was down to 39 degrees, and “none of the astronauts felt like taking a dip.”

In the morning, the men left Phantom Ranch at 7:45 a.m., hiked up to Indian Garden, ate lunch, and then rode mules to the top. Eight refused to take the ride and instead made the hike up the rest of the way. Shepard reached the top first at 2:05 p.m., beating the mules by an hour. The following day, the group met with boy scouts and held a press conference. Shepard said, “I’m just a little old farm boy from New Hampshire, but to me, the Grand Canyon was very impressive indeed.”

Dr. Everett Dale Jackson (1925-1978) of the U.S Geological Survey, emphasized the main reason for the hike. “We’re interested of course in training them to be good geological samplers, so they’ll know what to look for and bring back from the surface of the moon.” Eleven more astronauts also took the trip into the Canyon the following week.

Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim Series

141: Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim History – Part 11: More for 1950-1964