ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, showing location in Utah, boundaries, streams, highways and roads, trails, landforms, principal named features, and the city of Moab. The reader is referred to [figure 7] and to road maps issued by the State or by oil companies for the locations of other nearby towns and features. Visitors also may obtain pamphlets, from the entrance station or from the National Park Service office in Moab, which contain up-to-date maps of the park and the latest available information on roads, trails, campsites, and picnic sites. (Fig. 1)
[High-resolution Map]

Although Arches had officially become a park in November 1971, it was not formally dedicated until May 15, 1972. The ceremony began by having the Federal, State, and local dignitaries and other guests totaling 140 persons board the Canyon King, a 93-foot replica of a Mississippi River sternwheeler (Lansford, 1972; [Lohman, 1974, fig. 69]), for its maiden voyage down the Colorado River. After about half an hour, the heavily laden boat became stuck on a sandbar, and after a 90-minute wait the passengers were rescued by jet boats. This delayed a luncheon at the Visitor Center put on by the Moab Lions Club. Following the luncheon, Park Superintendent Bates Wilson made a brief welcoming address, then introduced J. Leonard Volz, Director of the Midwest Region of the National Park Service, who served as master of ceremonies. Speakers included Utah Governor Calvin L. Rampton, Senator Frank E. Moss, a representative of Senator Wallace F. Bennett, Representatives Sherman P. Lloyd of Utah and Wayne Aspinall of Colorado, and Mitchell Melich, Solicitor General of the Department of Interior, representing Secretary Rogers C. B. Morton. After the speeches, a commemorative plaque, donated by the Canyonlands Natural History Association, was unveiled by Senator Moss and Mr. Melich.

Most of the color photographs were taken by me on 4- × 5-inch film in a tripod-mounted press camera, using lenses of several focal lengths, but a few were taken on 35-mm film, using lenses of various focal lengths. I am grateful to several friends for the color photographs credited to them in the figure captions. The black and white photographs were kindly loaned from the Moab and Arches files of the National Park Service. The points from which most of the photographs were taken are shown in [figure 13].

Early History

Prehistoric People

The Canyon lands in and south of Arches were inhabited by cliff dwellers centuries before the first visits of the Spaniards and fur trappers. Projectile points and other artifacts found in the nearby La Sal and Abajo Mountains indicate occupation by aborigines during the period from about 3000-2000 B.C. to about A.D. 1 (Hunt, Alice, 1956). The Fremont people occupied the area around A.D. 850 or 900, and the Pueblo or Anasazi people from about A.D. 1075 to their departure in the late 12th century (Jennings, 1970). Most of the evidence for these early occupations has been found in and south of Canyonlands National Park ([Lohman, 1974]), but some traces of these and possibly earlier cultures have been found also within Arches National Park.

Ross A. Maxwell (National Park Service, written commun., 1941) investigated two caves in the Entrada Sandstone in the upper reaches of Salt Wash that contain Anasazi ruins. He mentioned that perhaps a dozen or more other caves should be checked for evidence of former occupation and, also, that he found several ancient campsites littered with flint chips and broken tools.

One cave Maxwell explored some 5 miles north of Wolfe Ranch and north of the park is about 300 feet long and 100 to 150 feet deep. It contains the remains of one or more ruins of a structure he thought may have covered much of the floor. The remaining parts of walls now are only two to four tiers of stones in height, although originally they may have been more than one story high. Maxwell explored a second cave on the east side of Salt Wash, about 2 miles north of Wolfe Ranch, which contains 16 storage cists of adobe.