Columnists

Notes On The History Of The Kolob Canyons…Jackson’s Sketch

Issue 42.10

Part 5

Visiting the Kolob was not a regular practice in the early Mormon settlement period but occasionally a curious few would venture into it.  This was especially true after a road was established between Cedar City and St. George.  One such visit was made by the twenty-four year old William Henry Jackson, who was seeking adventure in the west.  Jackson, not yet the famous photographer of the American west, had arrived in Salt Lake City in December 1866.  A companion, Billy Crowl, and Jackson decided to continue on to California and after arranging passage with the Ed Webb cattle drive, they headed for Los Angeles on 21 December.  Jackson kept a detailed diary of their trip.  The party passed through Cedar City on 6 January 1867.  The next day they were near present-day Kanarraville.  Jackson described the scene:

Went ahead of the train some ways.  In the canon that Ash Creek flows were some magnificent Red Buttes, apparently two or three hundred feet high.  Made two sketches of it from the road.  Bill & I took a run up into the canon & made a sketch there.  Very romantic spot.  Got some ways behind & did not catch up until the train camped at Kelsey’s ranch under the Black Ridge. [Hafen, Diaries of William H. Jackson, 111]

As far as is known, Jackson’s sketches of the Kolob on 7 January were the first ever made of the Kolob.  Fortunately for us these historic sketches have been preserved.

Other visits have also been recorded.  In 1871, two New Harmony boys, Orin Kelsey and D.S. Clements carved their names in the cliffs near the head of the middle fork of Taylor Creek.  Kelsey, who was nineteen years old in 1871, lived in New Harmony for his entire life. [ICR 17 May 1924]  What became of Clements is unknown.  Another glimpse of the Kolob in this time period comes from the pen of Mrs. Thomas L. Kane.  The Kane’s in the company of Brigham Young, who was on a visit to southern Utah in the summer of 1872, were given a tourist’s view of the wonders of the Zion National Park area.  Mrs. Kane recorded her reaction in her trip journal:

Before sunset we caught sight of a great mountain ablaze with color, which we called Mt. Sinai.  It stood apart on our left, half withdrawn behind two gray masses which we christened the Twin Friars: a natural rock portal revealing the entrance to a gloomy canon at their feet. …  For the gorge we were passing was Kannarra Canon, the true name of the great mountain was the peak of Kannarra, and the desolate ruins at hand were the abandoned village of Kannarra {Fort Harmony}, from which the wind {and floods} had driven the settlers.  [Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes, 130-131]

A few days later the Kane’s were treated to a closer look at the wonders of Zion Canyon and Mrs. Kane wrote: “But I could never again experience the bewildered admiration I felt that day.  No one had prepared me {nor could they} for such a scene.” [Ibid, 150]  In our next episode we examine the first scientific exploration of the Kolob. 

1 comment to Notes On The History Of The Kolob Canyons…Jackson’s Sketch

  • It is hard to place Mrs. Kane’s mountains named with the names now used. Kanarraville Canyon is a few miles south of Prestwich Peak, a high point on Kanarra Mountain but Fort Harmony is 6-7 miles south of opening to Kanarra Mountain.

    The two Friars and gloomy canyon may have referred to Spring Creek just south of Kanarraville but hardly gloomy. Was then the Mt Sinai of color the mountain just north of the finger canyons of Kolob, Horse Ranch Mountain. That makes sense since Fort Harmony ruins would have been just to west of Horse Ranch Mountain. Wish they had a camera then or skeetched or described the ruins of the adobe fort.

    Years of artifact collectors and scavengers and maybe even the cleaning of the site by the Pioneer Trails Association that put up the corner and gate markers in 1939 removed all traces that the earth had not already covered.

    Some New Harmony journals tell of bricks from the fort being used for chimneys in New Harmony town homes and the log school house that was outside the fort was taken down and moved into town and served as school and later relief society and tithing building. John D. Lee’s great Hall was a major social and church meeting place.

    In those days, all roads led to John D. Lee and New Harmony’s pioneer main street (now named 100 south by the telephone company who demands such grid-like niceties)or lower street ran east to west and was on a line parral to the road from Fort Harmony to the Indian fields.