La Sal, Utah - San Juan County, Utah

San Juan County, Utah

La S. 1, situated on a vast sloping- plai i diverp,"np: from the south base of the mountains of the same name, is the third largest irrigated section « f the county. Theie are probably about three thousand acres of land here \ atered from the creek which is brought around the mountains for some <ight mles before being diverted to the various laterals which distribute iL to the dfferent ranches.

The La Sal district is not confined to the irrigated section alone, but being of about the same aRitude as Monticcllo, settlers hav flocked in 1here within the past few yeers, until dry farms dot the landscape for x.iiles in all directio. s outside of the irrigated district. The town proper is situated o.i the line of what will in time be one of the main interstate high- -\ ays for sight seeing tourists. The continuation of the Rainbow rraii, the j.rt-atest scenic tcuiist route of Cocrado, is n. w be'ng built by the federal j'overnment through that part of the La Sal National Ftrcst, and whei tills is completed the autoing traveler will use it to reach the great T,-onderla;:d of southeastern Utah, or as a pasrage from the mountains of Colorac'o to the great Salt Lake and ether wonders of the great inteimontl..in ba^in.

Lockerby, the largest of the two farthest east community settlements of the dry farm sections of the county, has a population of 250 souls scattered within its voting precincts. It has grown within the past four years from two or three isolated homesteads to its present dimensions, yet it may be said that its growth has hardly begun. Settled by farmers from the eastern and southern states, its people have shown a virility which may well be the envy of older communities. Last year the people of the community determined to show to the wcrld what they were producing, and to do so gave a community fair. The products from this fair were taken to the state fair at Salt Lake City, and while being in competition with the irrigated products of other sections of the state the exhibit created such favorable comment that a special silver cup was made and given to the county for the best dsiplay of dry farm products. There is a good grade school situated in th center of the district, and the county board of educrition has Just let the contract for the building of a new school house which will accomodate the increasing number of pupils.

Ginger Hill is another community center joining Lockerby on the west, which has giown coincidnet with that of the former; in fact the two are so closely allied and work so well together that they might be reckoned as one if it were not for the fact that the Ginger Hill neighborhood has its own school house which is its community center. This little community as well as that of Boulder and in f?ct the entire eastern dry farm section should share equally in the credit for the splendid Lockerby fair and the advertising it gave the county.

Boulder

Boulder is a district within itself having a populatoin of 100, whose farms occupy the high plateau between jPehrson and Boulder canyon. It has its own school house which is a community center, and here the people have joined in getting together at stated intervals for amusement and general closer communion. They have an organization of their own, have adopted' a system of raising money for civic improvements and have a fund of over SlOO in their treasury. They also get out en mass whenever occasion arisesand work on any improvement for the betterment of the whole which mayarise and their spirit is I'apidly permeating other communities much to the betterment of the whole county.

Monticello, Utah

homesteads until now there is not an unclaimed section of public land in the two towships which surround it. A postoffice has been applied for and the people are now taking- steps to build a house for a cmmunity center at which to gather for community recreation and general wellfare. This may well be termed the soldier settlement of the county, ex-service men h.aving flocked in there since their return to private life until they are well in the preponderance.

Cedar Point

Cedar Point, claiming equal credit with Lockei'by in benig the settlement farthest east in the county has a population appi'oximating 150. It lies on the south side of Coalbed canyon, a deep gorge which runs southwesterly into the state from the Colorado line cutting off that fertile plain from a direct route into the county until such time as dynamite and human toil are able to blast a roadway down its sides and across to its neighboring communities. The community is situated as are the other dry farm sections, on the high plains whose fertile soil runs clear to the canyon's brink, but they are precluded for a great deal of the community work which the others find so profitable to join in doing through the distance they have to travel to get around the canyon. They have a nice little school which serves all the purposes of the gi-owing children at present and are so closely joined in their homes that they have also a regularly organized Sunday school and Sabath meetings for the older folks.

Being more than a hundred miles in length and breadth, it goes without saying that no article of this size may describe the scenery of San Juan. Most of the country is unlike other parts of the state, in fact unlike anything else in the west. La Sal, one of its four mountains has the highest peak in Utah, and the desert wilderness of the county, though not as barren and unsusceptible of reclamation is perhaps as wild in its remote comers as any part of the intermountain region.

Coming in from the north the visitor is attracted by the lofty peaks of La Sal mountain on his left, and a cedar-sagebrush country sloping off westward on his right to the ragged breaks of Colorado River. Southward he finds unique designs carved in the massive rocks which stand out like sphinxes, pyramids and pillars in the wide prairie. This carving was done by winds that blew and ocean waves which beat against their shores in centuries of the remote past. The towering image of "Big Indian," the inexpressible suggestons of nature's architecture in "Church Rock," and other unnamed domes and caves fill the mind with awe and bewilderment. "Looking-Glass Rock," with a great mysterious hole through its immense body savors of the enchanted places we read about in Fairy Land.

Centrally situated in the county is the sierra-shaped Blue Mountain, and joining it on the south-west, the flat-topped Elk Mountain, both of them beautiful with tall timber and crystal springs. They have groves of maple and quakingasp, and an abundance of wild shrubbery, grass, and flowers.

Canyons heading in these mountains fall rapidly and cut deep in the solid stone strata before emptying into San Juan or Colorado River, whose waters murmur off to the south-west through dizzy chasms about which men sometimes venture to write, but which they seldom really see. In this broken south-west corner the winding gulfs of the two rivers unite in one mighty gorge, with the sharp rugged spurs of Navajo Mountain looking down upon them from the south-east.

To the north-east of this lonely junction are regions wild and silent, cavernous gulches with jungles of black willow and Cottonwood in the solitudes of their winding depths, and bare rock sloping upward from their dizzy brows to mesas of shadscalie brush, or areas of sandhills. The gateway to this wilderness is Clay Hill,' a pass high up in a cliff-bound region where the east end of a picturesque valley opens out through a great shattered "wall, forming a wonderful gap which ten armed men could protect against an army.

Farther north, and shaded by the buttes of Mossback Mesa, with Elk Mcuntain just beyord it, is the world-famous White Canyon, whose three huge natural bridges have attracted travelers from all parts of America. Pictures herewith suggest a faint idea of what these wonders are, but description amounts to little, and visitors declare in contemplating the biidges, even after having read and heard much about them, that they had :fal en far short of the reality in their imagination.

Sf^uth of Elk Mountain is a region thirty miles in c-i'tent, covered for the jnDst part with a dense growth of cedar and pine. Fires driven on by the -v;ind have cleared wide areas in this forest, and here the grass and brush :gr: w rank for the soil is fertile. From the heart of this country, zigzagging 'Off to the east, south and west, are ravines which develop rapidly into box 'Canyons deep and w?de. The most famous of these is Grand Gulch, which :in ::-ome of its tremendous crooks has cut through from its channel above to ;un elbow in its channel below, forming ponderous dry islands of solid rock; imrss'.ve lofty pillars surrounded by great circular echoing chambers. To the top of certain (f these islands no human being has yet been known to ascend, but others of them have afforded wonderful retreats of safety fcr the cncient inhabitants.

What is known as "Goose Neck," in the San Juan river, is destined ten Tnllion years hence to be an isalnd similar to, though much larger than those in Grand Gulch. A man may stand on the narrow backbone dividing the river on his i-ight from the same river on his left. On one side it flows forward, on the other side it comes back having made a circle of many miles. A tunnel through this narrow neck would condense the fall of all those miles into a few hundred feet, and through such a tunnel the river would lUsh with tremendous force. It is estimated that such a tunnel could be converted into power for lighting all San Juan county.

Comb wash is an enormous fault in the strata, reaching in almost a direct line from the Elk Mountain to a point sixty miles away in the Navajo' reservation. This prodigious ridge of rock slopes upward from the east side, but breaks abruptly off on the west, forming a high precipitous barrier with but two places where it may be crossed in all its fifty miles between the San Juan river and the Elk Mountain. Freaks of this kind may be seen on a small scale in certain other states, but for grandeur and extent it is doubtful whether Comb wash has a rival anywhei'e. Some terrible distui'bance in primeval times has hoisted it from the even strata to the sky-scraping position it has held durng long ages.

Scuth-West of the junction of Comb Wash and San Juan river is the famous Monumental Valley, whose wonderful buttes, and pillars and monuments, keeping their stately vigil in the desert haze suggest that a hand of art and intelligence is responsible for their majestic shape. Viewed from a a hundred miles away, still lofty and imposing in the haloe of desert distance, they look like men in a field having met to counsel in great dignity.

The southern part of the county abounds in traces of a people, or peoples, long since disappeared. Where .they went, or how, or why, a nation numbering tens of thousands, leaving their castles, their homes, their gardens farms, reservoirs and roads to crumble and become overgrown with vegetation, is a burning question in the minds of all who consider their ruins. The most aged Utes and Navajoes know nothing about them.

They lived both en the prai'ies and in the cliffs, and their great community houses cover from one to three acres in what is now a tree or brush-grown solitude. Some of their cliff houses are still in a perfect state of preservation, hav'ng' been built where they are sheltered from all moisture. Here their mummified bodies, their clothing and utensils of war and agriculture have been found in great quantities, and are on exhbition in various cities of the United States.

These people cultivated corn and squash in their gardens and are known to have had domestic turkeys, and are supposed to have had goats. Their homes, their reservoirs and roadways are still traceable in what has become a dry and quiet wilderness. Bushels of their gorgeously ornamented pottery broken to bits may be collected where no dwelling is visible, having perhaps been built of wood and crumbled long since to dust. On many a rock and on high cliff faces their pictures and hyeroglyphics are still in evidence^ cryptic records of a people long since gone to a fate unknown.

South of Sar Juan river is the reservation of the Navajo. He is a superior type of Indian, skillful and industrious. His trade and his service are a distinct asset to the country, and what he may yet become with proper education, is a matter of interest to all who see him in his native haunts where he weaves his popular Navajo blanket, or moulds his famous silver jewelry. He has farms, houses, herds of sheep jvnd horses, and Is on the verge of an awakening which will cause men to wonder.

Three or four bands of Utes still live north of the river in the county having prefered, and still preferring San Juan to all the attractions of any reservation yet set apart for them. They hunt and trade when the.\ can, and work when it beccmes impossible- to live without it. They move about from place to place hunting feed for their cayuses and their small flocks of goats.

From the rich prairie slopes of Blue Mountain, where towns and farms are springing up like magic, there is a magnificent view of the country south and east in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. Ship Rock stands out in the distant haze of New Mexico like an old. time sailing vessel on the ocean horizon. To the west of it is the only place in the United States where four states corner together. Distant mountains in the three states form a pleasing limit to the splendid view, and on to the north, the pancrama continuing into San Juan county, is the grand old La Sal.

Aside from the intrinsic value of these scenes, they have a historic charm giving them still greater lure. As the life story of a man always makes him an object of keener interest, so does a knowledge of what has happened in certain of these remote corners endow them with new meaning. Of course it is but a guess as to what took place when they wero hewn down in whose skull the stone ax is still embedded to the withe handle, and among whose bones the flint arrow head still suggests the nature of their last struggles. The marks and barricades in passes of the cliffs, the handholds yet visible leading upward over the dizzy sandstone wall, the old battlements on the brow of the precipice, and those nnmerous round stones once used to hurl -with deadly fury at a pursuer on the path below, all suggest a rousing cursing, howling fight to the death between the old inhabitants.

Not so much in the realm of imagination is the story of Utes and Navajoes. Their old battle fields, their ambuscades, their slain, their prisioners, the torture and insult they meeted out to their captives, are related with relish by the older Indians.

But the story of the white man is our own stoiy, and we consider his struggle and view his rude grave here and there among the rugged rocks with an interest bcri ( nly of kinship. During the ten years following the coming of the white man in the latter "seventies," between twenty-five and thirty died at the hands of Indians, and to know half the story, which is too long for this short account, is to be filled with a desire to see the place where it happened.

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