The next day they drove through the Kaibab to Bright Angel Point on the North Rim; spent the following day sight-seeing and then drove back to Kanab, Hurricane and Rockville (August 16), where they held a meeting in the evening. The youngsters of Rockville saw their first auto bus and many of them had a ride. As on Governor Spry’s first visit to Rockville (October 12, 1913), the local people took a holiday and many accompanied the party next day into Zion Canyon. After visiting in the canyon until noon, the party drove to St. George where they enjoyed a feast of Dixie fruit. The next day they held a meeting in Cedar City and then returned to the railroad at Lund.
D. S. Spencer, Union Pacific Railroad Passenger Agent, informed the writer that the trip had been sponsored by the railroads and that Governor Spry and Road Commissioner Lunt had been induced to go along for consultation on road development. Governor Spry promised all possible support if the railroads would undertake tourist traffic development. Spencer further explained that the Union Pacific had profited from the experience of Edward H. Harriman, the noted railroad capitalist, who had built a spur to West Yellowstone, thereby greatly increasing his long-haul traffic to San Francisco. Carl R. Gray, Harriman’s successor as president of the Union Pacific, recognized similar possibilities in tourist traffic to Zion and Grand Canyon.
Sometime that fall, Douglas White designated the route from Los Angeles to Salt Lake via Las Vegas, St. George and Cedar City, now generally traversed by Highway 91, as the Arrowhead Route. The next year, Charles H. Bigelow of Los Angeles, was instrumental in organizing the Arrowhead Trail Association with J. H. Manderfield of Salt Lake City as president, and Joseph S. Snow of St. George, vice-president. It functioned for many years to promote road development.
Frederick Vining Fisher, a Methodist minister of Ogden, Utah, came to Salt Lake City in 1915 to lecture and show slides of California to advertise the Panama Pacific International Exposition. He had ministered in Ogden for some years prior to 1912, but his attention had never been called to Zion Canyon. One day at lunch at the University of Utah, a student said to him, “Mr. Fisher, your pictures last night were fine, but you have not seen the best.” Surprised, Fisher then wormed the story of Zion Canyon out of the lad. He was at once eager to visit the canyon, and in September, 1916, while traveling to St. George with Apostle Anthony W. Ivins, of the Latter-day Saints Church, to attend a local conference, visited the scenic area, took pictures and made slides which he thereafter used in lectures throughout the country.
Afterwards, Fisher induced Warren Cox, hotel proprietor of St. George, to take him to the Grand Canyon at the lower end of Toroweap Valley, Mt. Trumbull, where he took interesting pictures. Then, as Fisher recalls, Cox dared him “to cross the untrod wilderness one hundred miles” to Kaibab and North Rim. After they had explored the Kaibab with its endless herds, they camped with Jim Owens, U. S. Government hunter, for three days, vacationing and taking pictures. From North Rim, they went to Cedar City where they met Ivins, who in the meantime had obtained a team from his Enterprise ranch and who took Fisher up Cedar Canyon to Cedar Breaks where more pictures were taken. Upon returning to Cedar City, Cox accompanied Fisher to Rockville where he left him.
Bishop David Hirschi’s son, Claud, took Fisher and a friend, Bingham, up Zion Canyon where Fisher got the greatest thrill of his life. They decided to name the scenic points as they went along. Three peaks that Hirschi thought looked like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they called the Three Patriarchs. The boys of the party stopped at the big loop in the river and looked at the pillars of rock on the inside point. When Fisher asked why they were delaying the boys replied they were waiting for an organist to play the Great Organ. They coined several other names not now in use, but after reaching the Narrows and starting back, Hirschi espied a great white precipice gleaming in the afternoon sun, framed by the pass between Angels Landing and the Great Organ. He said. “Oh, Doctor, look quick, what is that?” Overwhelmed, Fisher replied, “Never have I seen such a sight before. It is by all odds America’s masterpiece. Boys, I have looked for this mountain all my life but I never expected to find it in this world. This mountain is the Great White Throne.”[94]
The money appropriated September 8, 1916, for a wagon road in Zion had to be spent before July 1, 1917. An engineer, W. O. Tufts, was dispatched from Washington, D.C. to look into the matter. After preliminary exploration, a survey was made, plans outlined, material procured and workmen engaged. By November 1, construction on the road was begun, starting at the boundary and working up the canyon. About the same time, convicts were building a road from La Verkin to Springdale. By the summer of 1917, a passable road led into Zion Canyon.
Douglas White, zealous promoter of Utah’s scenic riches, urged Albright to come west and visit Zion Canyon with him in the summer of 1917. In September, he met him in Los Angeles and they went to Lund, Utah, by train and over to Cedar City by auto, where they met Road Commissioner Henry W. Lunt and Mr. R. A. Thorley, a Cedar City stockman. The next morning Albright, White and Thorley, in a touring car driven by Chauncey Parry, started south over the “perfectly terrible roads” and reached the Wylie Camp in Zion in the afternoon. At Rockville, they met David Hirschi, bishop of the village. The next day, in the words of Albright:
We went as far up Mukuntuweap Canyon as possible. We watched the cable operate from the rim of Zion to the floor. We hiked through to the Narrows and back again. That night we saw a full moon light up the canyon and the next morning I was up early enough to see the sunlight creep down from the top of the domes and spires to the valley floor. I was overwhelmed by the loveliness of the valley and the beauty of the canyon walls and was sure that the area was of national park caliber.
Albright faced two troublesome local problems: elimination of grazing in the canyon and keeping narrow-tired wagons off the new road. He conferred with Bishop Hirschi, who suggested a conference with the local people concerned. At the conference, Albright recorded: