The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon (77 page)

“much blowing off of gas”
: Sumner, “Lost Journal of John Colton Summer.” Cited by Worster,
River Running West
, 161.

“a stick of beef jerky adorned with whiskers”
: This marvelous image belongs to Dolnick,
Down the Great Unknown
, 2.

sheltering mud-spattered miners
: Dasmann,
Destruction of California
, 176.

now boasted ostentatious Victorian mansions
: Ibid., 178.

descended in part from the herd
: It is important to acknowledge that the provenance of the Comanches’ original horse herd is unclear, and that some historians dispute the notion that these animals were descendants of Coronado’s fifteen hundred horses and mules. See Gwynne,
Empire of the Summer Moon
, 29.

to retreat more than a hundred miles to the east
: Ibid., 3–4.

another Franciscan priest had poked along
: Worster,
River Running West
, 128.

After chugging nearly three hundred miles
: Ibid., 129–31. Also see Ives,
Report upon the Colorado River.

“Ours has been the first”
: Ives,
Report upon the Colorado River
, 70. Cited by Worster,
River Running West
, 130–31.

the last truly uncharted territory
: Billington,
History of Large Federal Dams
, 136–37. Also see Stegner,
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian.

emblazoned in the middle
: Worster,
River Running West
, 127–28.

river pilot named Samuel Clemens
: The speculation that Powell may have passed Twain is noted on page 16 of Stegner’s classic
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
and on page 77 of Worster,
River Running West.

entered his wrist and plowed toward the elbow
: Worster,
River Running West
, 93.

sawed off two inches below the elbow
: Ibid., 94.

supplies of salt, gunpowder, lead
: Zwinger,
Run, River, Run
, 81. Also see DeVoto,
Across the Wide Missouri
, 103.

the only major mountain range in the United States
: The Uintas, a subrange of the Rockies, are located roughly 100 miles east of Salt Lake City and run approximately 160 miles from east to west.

flaming-red quartzite and shale
: Zwinger,
Run, River, Run
, 137.

the actual details of most of that journey
: In the fall of 1867, an itinerant prospector named James White claimed to have pulled off the first descent of the Colorado through the Grand Canyon by flinging himself into the river to escape marauding Indians and floating downstream on a makeshift log raft while subsisting on raw lizards, his leather knife scabbard, and the rancid hindquarters of a dog. Although White may have descended a portion of the canyon, the possibility that he made his way down the entire stretch of river from what is now Lee’s Ferry to the Grand Wash Cliffs is disputed by most (although not all) experts. See Worster,
River Running West
, 133–34.

The grade is unequaled by any major waterway
: Martin,
Story That Stands Like a Dam
, 32.

The Nile, in contrast, falls
: Ibid., 32.

spectacular bursts of change
: Reisner,
Cadillac Desert
, 122.

In the space of a week
: Ibid., 121.

the river annually removes nearly sixty
: Martin,
Story That Stands Like a Dam
, 32.

the compulsive intensity with which it cuts away
: Hiltzik,
Colossus
, 3.

an average of nearly half a million tons
: Martin,
Story That Stands Like a Dam
, 32.

seventeen times more silt-laden than
: Ibid.

dust could be seen blowing off the water’s surface
: Hiltzik,
Colossus
, 36.

psychotic in its surges
: Reisner,
Cadillac Desert
, 122.

seventeen major canyons
: 1. Flaming Gorge; 2. Kingfisher; 3. Horseshoe; 4. Hidden; 5. Swallow; 6. Red; 7. Lodore; 8. Whirlpool; 9. Split Mountain; 10. Desolation; 11. Gray; 12. Labyrinth; 13. Stillwater; 14. Cataract; 15. Glen; 16. Marble; 17. Grand Canyon. See Zwinger,
Run, River, Run
; Martin,
Story That Stands Like a Dam.

3: Into the Great Unknown

“Wherever we look there is but a wilderness of rocks”
: Powell,
Diary
, July 19, 1869, 79.

a remarkably ragged bunch
: For details on Powell’s crew, see Dolnick,
Down the Great Unknown
, 9–19. Also see Stegner,
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
; and Worster,
River Running West.

earning his keep as a trapper
: Powell,
Diary
, 42.

the acknowledged leader of the group
: Worster,
River Running West
, 158.

a hazel-eyed sergeant
: Stegner,
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
, 46.

wounded at Fredericksburg
: Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 12.

who knew anything about boats
: Ghiglieri, “George Young Bradley,” 137–44.

his established trade as a printer and editor
: Powell,
Diary
, 31.

a quiet and pensive young man
: Ibid.

who had fought at Gettysburg
: Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 23–26.

the cheerful eighteen-year-old
: Powell,
Diary
, 31.

almost twice as high as Niagara
: Niagara Falls is 167 feet high.

knew the first thing about white water
: Powell’s trips on the wide, placid rivers of the Midwest and Bradley’s experiences in the New England cod fishery bore no comparison to the violent and wrenching hydraulics of the Colorado.

a sleek design that had originated
: Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 51.

gangs of thieves who plundered
: Dolnick,
Down the Great Unknown
, 26.

all but impossible to pivot
: Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 52.

the trio of “freight boats”
: General details and analysis of Powell’s boats come from Stegner,
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
, 46–47; Worster,
River Running West
, 157; Dolnick,
Down the Great Unknown
, 26–29; Lavender,
River Runners of the Grand Canyon
, 13; Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 51–66.

running up against sandbars
: Powell,
Diary
, 32.

late on the afternoon of June 17
: O. G. Howland, cited by Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 126.

at 4:45 p.m. on the afternoon of
: Sumner, cited by Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 173.

“I had a pair of buckskin breeches”
: Stanton,
Colorado River Controversies
, 26.

“If I had a dog that would lie where”
: Bradley, cited by Ghiglieri, “George Young Bradley,” 137.

“
dumb luck
, not good judgment”
: Bradley, cited by Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 121.

they arrived at a turquoise-colored stream
: Ibid., 198. Also see Dolnick,
Down the Great Unknown
, 234.

“We are three quarters of a mile”
: Powell,
Diary
, 107.

“The boats are entirely unmanageable”
: Ibid., 116.

On August 15, Hawkins broke
: Bradley, cited by Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 209.

“If it keeps on this way”
: Ibid., 218.

“Starvation stared us in the face”
: Sumner, cited in Stanton,
Colorado River Controversies
, 193. Also cited by Dolnick,
Down the Great Unknown
, 254.

“a race for a dinner”
: Powell,
Diary
, 128.

as a “perfect hell of foam”
: Sumner, cited by Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 226.

“The last thing we saw of them”
: Sumner, cited in Stanton,
Colorado River Controversies
, 205. Also cited by Dolnick,
Down the Great Unknown
, 254.

“now become a race for life”
: Journals of George Bradley, cited by Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 229.

his obituary in the
Washington Post
:
Washington Post
, September 25, 1902. Cited by Dolnick,
Down the Great Unknown
, 292.

Part II America’s Pyramids

“I have climbed the Great Wall of China”
: Author interview with Dr. Henry Falvey.

4: The Kingdom of Water

“The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain”
: Mailer,
Presidential Papers
, preface.

twice the size of Rhode Island
: Solomon,
Water
, 332.

a prolific confederation of wild creatures
: For an evocative description of the delta and its denizens, see Leopold,
Sand County Almanac
, 150–58.

Hall and Sumner became the first men
: Sumner, cited by Ghiglieri,
First Through the Grand Canyon
, 292.

“burned to a cinder”
: Ibid., 232.

“I find myself penniless”
: Ibid.

headless brown serpent
:
Colorado River: A Natural Menace
, 138. Also see Reisner,
Cadillac Desert
, 122.

repeated at regular intervals
: Studies of the ancient shoreline suggest that between 1824 and 1904, the sink had filled no fewer than eight times. Hiltzik,
Colossus
, 10.

This treeless inferno
: Ibid, 9.

the Palm of the Hand of God
: Nadeau,
Water Seekers
, 142.

which amounted to roughly 2.4 inches
: Reisner,
Cadillac Desert
, 122.

he could crush an apple in one palm
: David O. Woodbury,
The Colorado Conquest
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1941), 45. Cited by Hiltzik,
Colossus
, 20–21.

Rockwood made his way to the Southwest
: Hiltzik,
Colossus
, 21.

population had jumped from exactly zero whites
: Nadeau,
Water Seekers
, 143.

“Water Is King,” the
Imperial Press
proclaimed
: Ibid., 144.

most of the river hurtled toward the Sink
: Waters,
Colorado
, 293.

took several weeks to assemble and cost $60,000
: Ibid., 294.

one of the railroad’s most competent construction engineers
: Hiltzik,
Colossus
, 44.

virtually the entire Colorado was now diverting north
: Ibid., 43.

sediment-saturated water as thick and dark
: Waters,
Colorado
, 295.

the drop of the waterfall grew to eighty feet
: Hiltzik,
Colossus
, 45.

widening the channel to half a mile
: Nadeau,
Water Seekers
, 152.

a brick hotel, the railroad station
: Ibid., 153.

geysers of water shooting forty feet into the air
: Hiltzik,
Colossus
, 47.

“Damn the expense,” came the reply
: According to Nadeau, this comment was uttered by Epes Randolph, president of the California Development Company, which was taken over by the Southern Pacific Railroad when Charles Rockwood ran out of funds. Randolph was the lieutenant of Edward H. Harriman, president of the Southern Pacific, who held final decision-making power in the campaign to control the flooding. See Nadeau,
Water Seekers
, 149.

the only men willing to work
: Ibid., 156.

a makeshift dam began to rise above the brown surface
: Ibid., 160–62.

Six work trains were now lumbering
: Ibid., 162–64.

was now the largest lake in California
: Hiltzik,
Colossus
, 49–50.

Congress had created the Reclamation Service
: There were actually two forces behind the creation of the Reclamation Service. In addition to the vision of irrigating land for farming, the other impetus was the Johnstown flood (covered in chapter 16). That disaster contributed directly to the notion that the private sector had no business building dams, and that in future major flood-control and irrigation structures needed to be constructed under the aegis of the federal government. See Reisner, “Age of Dams and Its Legacy,” 16. Reisner credits Wallace Stegner with this theory, although other historians, most notably David McCullough, echo it as well.

who was appointed Reclamation’s chief engineer in 1903
: US Bureau of Reclamation profile. See
http://www.usbr.gov/history/CommissBios/davis.html
(accessed 5/25/2012).

a diminutive plant in the tiny town of Appleton
: Billington,
History of Large Federal Dams
, 458.

scaled up at Niagara Falls
: Solomon,
Water
, 286.

dividing up the water rights among the seven states
: In 1922, in a compact negotiated by Herbert Hoover, the river was divided into upper and lower basins with the dividing line at Lee’s Ferry. Half of the water was claimed by the “upper basin” mountain states—Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico—where most of the rain and snow fell; half was claimed by the “lower basin” desert states—California, Arizona, and Nevada—where most of the farms and cities would be.