During the hey-day of the Order, around 1880, it numbered nearly six hundred adherents and there were some twenty-eight specialized departments of work which included most of the various activities that go to make up a simple community. The Order made great progress and acquired property rapidly. Farming lands were expanded to include areas scattered through Long Valley and at Kanab.
The growing power of the Order created jealousies, but disintegration came from internal dissension. The idea of giving everyone an equal reward regardless of ability or accomplishment tended in many cases to lessen effort and brought charges of laziness and carelessness.
Gradually, more and more individual property was assigned to each home; farmers were given a share of their own produce and livestock and sawmills and freighting were operated under lease or contract. Matters were hastening toward dissolution when, in 1885, polygamy troubles began. Fear that the Federal government might confiscate the goods of the Order forced the final dissolution of most of the property, and farming lands, livestock, ranches, tannery and sawmill, were all sold to members. The woolen mill alone was kept and intermittently operated until 1900. In that year the United Order of Orderville was officially dissolved, twenty-five years after its incorporation.
Zion Canyon
“In an instant, there flashed before us a scene never to be forgotten. In coming time it will, I believe, take rank with a very small number of spectacles each of which will, in its own way, be regarded as the most exquisite of its kind which the world discloses. The scene before us was the Temples and Towers of the Virgin.” Thus prophetically wrote Captain Clarence E. Dutton of the U. S. Geological Survey in a report published in the year 1880.
Dutton was following up the geological work begun by Major J. W. Powell ten or twelve years earlier when the latter started out to explore the Colorado River and made his two memorable trips in boats down the river through the Grand Canyon. The geological problems encountered were so extraordinary that Dutton was detailed to further investigation and encountered problems that have engaged the attention of scientists to this day, particularly the eminent geologist, Dr. Herbert E. Gregory.
Following the line of Vermillion Cliffs from Kanab westward, Dutton came to the pass between Eagle Crags and Smithsonian Butte when suddenly, startlingly, there lay before him to the northward the valley of the Virgin River in all its grandeur.
Few have seen Zion as Clarence Dutton saw it. From a high pass, in late afternoon, with the sun on his left, he looked into that vast panorama of the Vermillion Cliffs of Zion and Parunuweap and those flanking the Great West Canyon as well—a twenty-mile stretch in one sweeping view. The setting sun cast shadows that made the turrets and towers stand out in bold relief, while the light reflected from one wall upon another intensified the tints and shades of the reds until they stood out in striking contrast with the vivid green of the vegetation and the higher cliffs. No wonder the cold scientist broke down and described in emotional terms this superb panorama.
Forerunners of Dutton had visited Zion, but none had penned such eloquent praise. Major J. W. Powell and two companions, Stephen V. Jones, one of his topographers, and Joseph W. Young, a Mormon, left Long Valley on September 10, 1872[90] and started down through the Parunuweap on foot. They came out next day before noon and spent another day visiting Zion Canyon. Of this trip, Powell says of the Parunuweap:
At noon, we are in a canyon 2500 feet deep and we come to a fall where the walls are broken down, and the huge rocks beset the channel, on which we obtain a foothold to reach a level two hundred feet below. Here the canyon is again wider and we find a floodplain on which we can walk.