A powerful and inspiring landscape, Grand Canyon overwhelms our senses through its immense size. Unique combinations of geologic color and erosional forms decorate a canyon that is 277 river miles (446km) long, up to 18 miles (29km) wide, and a mile (1.6km) deep.
Grand Canyon is unmatched throughout the world for the vistas it offers to visitors on the rim. It is not the deepest canyon in the world. Both the Barranca del Cobre in northern Mexico and Hell’s Canyon in Idaho are deeper. But Grand Canyon is known for its overwhelming size and its intricate and colorful landscape. Geologically it is significant because of the thick sequence of ancient rocks that are beautifully preserved and exposed in the walls of the canyon. These rock layers record much of the early geologic history of the North American continent. Grand Canyon is also one of the most spectacular examples of erosion in the world.
Grand Canyon was largely unknown until after the Civil War. In 1869, Major John Wesley Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran with a thirst for science and adventure, made a pioneering journey through the canyon on the Colorado River. He accomplished this with nine men in four small wooden boats. Though only six men completed the journey. His party was, as far as we know, the first ever to make such a trip.
In the late 19th Century there was interest in the region because of its promise of mineral resources, mainly copper and asbestos. The first pioneer settlements along the rim came in the 1880s. Early residents soon discovered that tourism was destined to be more profitable than mining, and by the turn of the century Grand Canyon was a well known tourist destination. Many of the early tourist accommodations were not much different than the mining camps from which they developed. Most visitors made the grueling trip from nearby towns to the South Rim by stagecoach.
In 1901 the railroad was extended from Williams, Arizona to the South Rim, and the development of formal tourist facilities increased dramatically. By 1905 the El Tovar Hotel stood where it does today, a world class hotel on the canyon’s edge. The Fred Harvey Company, known throughout the west for hospitality and fine food, continued to develop facilities at Grand Canyon, including Phantom Ranch, built in the Inner Canyon in 1922.
Although first afforded Federal protection in 1893 as a Forest Reserve and later as a National Monument, Grand Canyon did not achieve national park status until 1919, three years after the creation of the National Park Service. Today Grand Canyon National Park receives about five million visitors each year, a far cry from the annual visitation of 44,173 in 1919.
The Colorado River rushes at the bottom of the canyons, about 1,850 feet above sea level. The sides of the canyons are made of rocks, cliffs, ridges, hills and valleys of every form. Many of the ridges have weather carved lines which make them resemble Chinese temples. Thick forests of blue spruce, fir, oaks as well as Ponderosa pines cover the canyon rim. Deep in the canyon’s recesses, the foliage grows sparse and shorter. Pinon pines and juniper growing along the cliffs give way to dry desert scrub on the canyon floor.
The north rim of the Grand Canyon rises about 1,200 feet higher that the south rim. The highest points on the rim are about 9,000 feet above sea level. Most of the 1,904 square miles of the park are maintained as wilderness.
There are three distinct sections of the park; the South Rim, the North Rim and the Inner Canyon. Each section has a different climate as well as different vegetation and different experiences.
The North Rim is the coldest and the wettest. It receives up to 26 inches of precipitation a year. The South Rim only receives around 16 inches of precipitation a year. The Inner Canyon is the closest to a desert as the lower you descend, the hotter and drier it becomes. The floor of the canyon, approximately a mile below the North Rim, is about 35°F hotter than the temperatures above.
The colorful canyon rocks were formed millions of years ago. Their colors change with the changing light of the sun. Many layers of rock have been bared by the constant cutting force of the rushing river. The first layer of rock through which the Colorado River now cuts is black in color and is called Archean. The second layer, called Algonkian, has a brilliant red color. The next layer is a lavender-brown color and is known as Tapeats sandstone. The forth layer, the Devonian layer, consists of small deposits of lavender stone. Above this, the thick Redwall curves along the canyon. Above the Redwall lies 800 feet of red sandstone called the Supai formation. The Hermit shale, another layer of red rock covers this.
On top of the Hermit shale rests the sand colored Coconino sandstone, a pale bank that lies 350 feet below the rim of the canyon. The top layer of the canyon consists of cream and gray colored Kaibab limestone. This limestone forms a rim known as the Kaibab Plateau on the north side of the canyon, and as the Coconino Plateau on the south.
Scientists still haven’t agreed on the how’s and why’s of the creation of the Grand Canyon, but there is always one constant, the Colorado River. It always was and always will be the catalyst for change in the canyon. Professional archaeologists believe that for a period of time, reaching back 3,000 to 4,000 years, the Desert Archaic people lived within the Grand Canyon. The strongest evidence of their having passed here are small willow-twig effigies called “split-twig figurines”. Fashioned from a single twig, the Desert Archaics made representations of animals.
Pictographs were applied to rock with a crude sort of paint made of minerals mixed with plant juice or animal oils. Many images are still plainly visible, but time, weathering, and erosion will eventually obliterate them. Pictographs from many cultures are widely found in this region.
The Desert Archaic seemed to vanish from the scene about 1,000 BC, possibly slowly blending their culture in with the next group of Indians to occupy the Grand Canyons, the Anasazi.
The Anasazi, who had been occupying lands east of the Grand Canyon for 600 years or so began drifting into the Grand Canyon region by 500 AD. By 800 AD, the Anasazi were entering a phase known as the Pueblo. Ruins of adobe houses in the Grand Canyon shows that Pueblo Indians lived in this area, probably as early as the 1200’s. Spaniards from Francisco Vasquez de Coronado’s expedition in 1540 were the first white men to discover the canyon. Fathers Escalante and Dominguez mapped the region and wrote of it. Others, mostly trappers and Indians ventured across it in the early 1800’s. Settlement along the Utah border didn’t occur until the mid-1800’s. A group of Mormon missionaries led by Jacob Hamblin, hoped to find arable land for settlement. By 1860, and a third mission to the Hopi lands, Hamblin and his trailblazers knew the lay of the land. Hamblin discovered crossings of the Colorado River at the lowest end of the canyon, now know as Bonelli Landing and Pearce Ferry. In 1864, Hamblin and his men, using a raft made the first successful crossing of the Colorado River upstream at the confluence of the Paria River. Hamblin had now located crossings for the upper and lower ends of the Grand Canyon. Despite this the canyon was still virtually unexplored.
On 24 May 1869, Major John Wesley Powell (1834 – 1902), a Civil War veteran, and ten other men, set forth to explore the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Powell came back in 1870 to explore the North Rim Plateau and made a second expedition through Grand Canyon in 1872. By the 1880’s, a number of live stock companies were developing in the Grand Canyon area of Arizona. By the 1890’s it was estimated that there were over 100,000 head of cattle and more than 250,000 head of sheep grazing the land. Kaibab National Forest was established in 1883, taking most of the Kaibab Plateau and by the time the Grand Canyon National Preserve was established in 1906, most of the ranchers were out of business. Why? The land was now desolate with sagebrush where lush grassland had been. It had been grazed out.
James T. Owens was appointed warden of the Grand Canyon National Preserve. He built a cabin and set up a mountain lion hunting business. Some 12 years and 600 mountain lions later, Uncle Jimmy, as he was know, began buffalo ranching on the plateau. Preferring the lower reaches of House Rock Valley, the buffalo moved down from the Plateau. In 1926, the buffalo were sold to the State of Arizona.
The first tourist facility was constructed in 1917 on the North Rim by W.W. Wylie. It provided minimum accommodations and was located near Bright Angle Point. At the same time, tourists camps were being developed at Bryce Canyon and Zion. Stephen T. Mather, the National Park Service’s first director, encouraged the development to encourage people to visit these areas. In 1919, Congress made the Grand Canyon Preserve a National Park and established it’s use for the enjoyment of future generations as a recreational resource, as well as recognizing the region’s scientific value.
