From 1946 until about 1956 I carried out fieldwork intermittently on the geology and artesian water supply of the Grand Junction area, Colorado, the results of which have been published.[1] The area mapped geologically contains about 332 square miles in the west-central part of Mesa County and includes all of Colorado National Monument. During the fieldwork several successive custodians or superintendents and several park naturalists urged that upon completion of my professional paper I prepare a brief account of the geology of the Monument in terms understandable by laymen, and which could be sold at the Visitor Center. This I was happy to do and there resulted “The geologic story of Colorado National Monument,”[2] published by the Colorado and Black Canyon Natural History Association in cooperation with the National Park Service. This report contained colored sketches by John R. Stacy and a colored cover, but the photographs and many of the drawings were reproduced in black and white.
Later, after I had prepared popular style reports containing mostly color photographs on Canyonlands[3] and Arches[4] National Parks, officials of Colorado National Monument and I discussed the possibility of preparing a revised and enlarged edition of my 1965 report containing mainly color photographs, inasmuch as the supply of the black and white edition was nearing exhaustion, and later became out of print. At the meeting in the Monument on June 8, 1976, attended by Robert (Bob) E. Benton, Superintendent, A. J. (Jerry) Banta, Supervising Park Ranger, Margaret Short, Park Naturalist and Secretary of the Natural History Association, and me, it was agreed that: (1) A revised and enlarged edition containing mostly color photographs should be prepared for publication as a bulletin of the U.S. Geological Survey, and (2) that the Colorado and Black Canyon Natural History Association gave its permission for use of any or all of the copyrighted material in the first edition. The present report resulted.
The cover is a duotone of a 9- × 12-cm infrared photograph of Independence Monument taken by me. (See also [fig. 6].) Most of the color photographs were taken by me on 4- × 5-inch or 9- × 12-cm tripod mounted cameras using lenses of several focal lengths, but I took some with 35-mm cameras. Some of the color photographs and all the black and white ones were taken by those credited in the captions, to whom grateful acknowledgment is made. The points from which most of the photographs were taken are shown in [figure 26].
West side of Otto’s Monument
History of the Monument
The story of how Colorado National Monument came into being is as colorful as the canyons and cliffs themselves. The fantastic canyon country had a magical attraction for John Otto[5] ([fig. 1]) who, in 1906, camped near the northeastern mouth of Monument Canyon and began building trails into the canyons and onto the mesas—the high tablelands that separate the deep canyons. He did this back-breaking work simply because he wanted to and so that others could share the beauty of this wild country.
In 1907 Otto got the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce to petition Secretary of the Interior James A. Garfield to set aside the area as a National Monument. Otto’s dream came true on May 24, 1911, when President William Howard Taft signed the proclamation creating the Monument. On June 14, Otto climbed to the top of Independence Monument ([fig. 6]) where he placed the Stars and Stripes to celebrate Flag Day. For several years thereafter Otto placed the flag atop Independence Monument on July 4th to celebrate Independence Day.
Until about 1921 the only routes into the Monument proper were John Otto’s trails, but in that year the ranchers of Glade Park joined with Otto in building the steep, twisting Serpents Trail from No Thoroughfare Canyon to the mesa above—a much shorter route to Grand Junction. It had 54 switchbacks and climbed about 1,500 feet in 2½ miles. The Serpents Trail was included in the Monument in 1933 and was used until 1950 when an easier route was built up the west side of No Thoroughfare Canyon and through a tunnel to the top of the mesa (figs. [3], [56]). The Serpents Trail has been preserved as an interesting foot trail ([fig. 55]), which can be hiked downhill in an hour or so. A parking area near the foot of the trail allows one member of a group to drive ahead to await the others.