During that same summer, J. Cecil Alter, director of the U. S. Weather Bureau at Salt Lake City and editor of this Quarterly, made a leisurely trip southward with his wife and two companions in a white top spring wagon, via Marysvale, Panguitch, Kanab and Jacob’s Lake to the Kaibab, North Rim and over the Cable Crossing to El Tovar. Returning, he traveled via Ryan, Pipe Springs and Rockville to Zion, then out via Toquerville, Parowan, Circleville and Marysvale. He reported the interesting aspects of his trip in The Salt Lake Tribune on August 31, 1913, and January 4, 1914. The enthusiasm of the Tribune was aroused and the paper sponsored a “pathfinder” tour under the leadership of W. D. Rishel to log the road to Grand Canyon. It left Salt Lake City on September 6, visited the canyon and paused a day at Kanab on the return trip.
On the occasion of Governor Spry’s first visit to Zion in October, 1913, the people along the Virgin River declared a holiday and accompanied his party almost en masse into Zion, where a picnic was enjoyed at the foot of the cable. To thrill the governor, a man was lifted to the top of the cliffs on the cable and brought back a few minutes later. The party rode horseback into the Narrows and was much impressed by the experience. Governor Spry was thoroughly convinced of the importance of national recognition and thereafter earnestly pressed for its realization.
From Rockville, the party took spring buggies for Kanab with extra teams to negotiate the hills. The idea behind the trip seems to have been to investigate the possibilities of tourist travel from some point on the Salt Lake Route Railroad to Zion and Grand Canyon. Douglas White, writing in The Arrowhead for July 1917, said that as a result of this visit, Governor Spry “decided that the highway division of his administration should accomplish the construction of a highway to the border of the National Monument.”
By 1914, the local people of Dixie no less than the governor, were awakening to the scenic potentialities of their homeland. It had taken five years to sell the idea of Zion Canyon as a national mecca to the people living near it. The Grand Canyon Highway Association was organized with David Hirschi as president, and a five-county (Washington, Kane, Iron, and Beaver in Utah and Coconino in Arizona) road convention was called for July in Hurricane. Up to this time no auto had yet been driven from Toquerville to Zion Canyon.
The first problem was to make the roads passable by removing high centers, reducing grades and filling washes. A campaign was launched locally to secure subscriptions for road improvement. Hurricane pledged $2,000, La Verkin $500, Toquerville $1,500 and Cedar City $1,200. During the winter the road from Toquerville to Hurricane and the dugway up the Hurricane Fault to the east toward Kanab were improved.
In 1916, political pressure had reached Washington. Senator Reed Smoot responded and planned to ask for federal assistance in road making. This dovetailed with a national movement which culminated that year in the first federal aid road act. Smoot called upon the Department of the Interior for information concerning the Mukuntuweap National Monument. Horace M. Albright, a youthful assistant to Secretary Franklin K. Lane, furnished the data. Senator Smoot inserted in a deficiency appropriation an item reading as follows:
For a proportionate share of the amount required to construct an inter-state wagon road or highway through the Mukuntuweap National Monument, Utah, approximately fifteen miles for the fiscal year 1917, $15,000. [Approved September 8, 1916. 39 Stat. 801-818].
The U. S. National Park Service was authorized by Congressional Act of August 25, 1916, but it was not actually established until May, 1917. Ever since the passage of the National Monument Act of June 8, 1906, national monuments had been accumulating without adequate supervision. The need for an agency to handle national parks and national monuments was becoming urgent. The bill, as passed, created the National Park Service “To promote and regulate the use of the Federal Areas known as National Parks, Monuments and Reservations by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purposes of said parks, monuments and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Albright had joined Secretary Lane’s staff in 1913 and had been assigned to deal with the parks and monuments. When the National Park Service was established, Stephen T. Mather of California was appointed director, April 19, 1917 and Albright was named his assistant. Because of illness, Mather did not assume his duties until March, 1918. and Albright served as acting director.
In the meantime, The Salt Lake Tribune had sent another auto pathfinding tour led by W. D. Rishel to the Grand Canyon, starting August 6, 1916. It reached Kanab in two days and spent three more going to North Rim and back to Kanab. From here, it headed for Hurricane and Zion. At Pipe Springs, the cavalcade met a railroad party in a large White bus going to North Rim (August 13). This party included representatives of the Union Pacific and the Oregon Short Line railroads, together with those of other travel agencies. The expedition shortly preceded the consolidation of the two railway systems represented, and the agents were scouting the possibilities for railroad traffic in the region. They had left the railroad at Lund by bus and traveled via Hurricane to Pipe Springs where they met Rishel’s jaded eight-car cavalcade.