The first wagons went through the Hole-in-the-Rock in southeastern Utah 125 years ago, on Jan. 26, 1880, as pioneers forged a trail to colonize the valley of the San Juan River.
The Hole-in-the-Rock was the improbable route of passage from the top of a high plateau down to the Colorado River in the bottom of the gorge it had dug.
The "San Juan Mission" was made up of about 250 people from the areas of Cedar City, Parowan and Paragonah in southwestern Utah. They began what they expected to be a six-week journey to what is now the southeast corner of Utah in the fall of 1879.
Following the most direct route, the trail from Escalante in Garfield County to the new colony known as Bluff in San Juan County, crossed extremely rugged terrain.
In his book Hole in the Rock, David E. Miller stated, "No pioneer company ever built a wagon road through wilder, rougher, more inhospitable country."
Silas S. Smith was called by President John Taylor to lead the expedition with Platte DeAlton Lyman as his assistant.
The route taken was chosen because it was shorter than the northern alternative and safer than the southern route through Navajo Indian lands.
The biggest challenge along the 200-mile road was the drop of more than 1,000 feet from the top of the plateau to the bottom of the canyon carved by the Colorado River.
Scouts had determined that the pioneers could make the descent because a hole, or crevice, opened a route down to the river. However, the hole was too narrow for a wagon to pass through.
With Brother Smith traveling back north for blasting powder and funds, Brother Lyman was in charge of the group when the hole was surveyed on Nov. 28, 1879. In his journal, he recorded, "(There was) a cleft in the solid rock wall of the Grand Kanyon of the Colorado which runs about a mile below us. (The) walls of the Kanyon rise 2,000 feet from the water and are in many places perpendicular."
Work began on widening the hole and making a trail to the river bottom sufficient for wagons. According to Miller, crews working to widen it were lowered over the cliff on ropes or used a scouting trail two miles upstream. They used blasting powder brought from Salt Lake City and water frozen in drill holes to break the sandstone.
Brother Lyman's journal entries described the days leading up to the harrowing but successful journey down the hole in the rock to the Colorado River.
His Dec. 16, 1879, entry states: "With a square and level, I determined the grade of the road down the Hole to be for the first (third) of the distance to be 8 ft. to the rod, and for the second — 5 1/2 feet to the rod and the last part much better than either of the others."
He wrote of cold weather and snow, and of lack of feed for horses. The delivery of powder secured by Brother Smith helped speed the work of building the trail.
The Jan. 26, 1880, entry states: "Today we worked all the wagons in this camp down the Hole and ferried 26 of them across the river. The boat is worked by 1 pair of oars and does very well."
An article in the Jan. 26, 1980, Church News, reporting on the centennial of the Hole-in-the-Rock descent, referred to the journal entry: "The brief notation seems almost anti-climactic to the feat accomplished. Perhaps Brother Lyman did not have either the time or the strength to write more after what must have been a full day for the whole camp."
The article also noted that after arriving in Bluff, Brother Lyman returned to civilization for flour and other supplies, following the same route including taking his wagon back up through Hole-in-the-Rock.
"San Juan Mission" pioneer Milton Dailey, in his journal, describes what it was like going down Hole-in-the-Rock: "The first 40 feet down, the wagon . . . stood so straight in the air it was no desirable place to ride. . . . (The) channel was so narrow the barrels had to be removed from the sides of the wagon to (let it) pass through."
Brother Dailey described "rough locking" the hind wheels with chains so they would dig into the ground and then having several men using ropes to hold back the wagons from behind as they went down.
After the wagons were ferried across the Colorado River, they had to be pulled out of the gorge and then continued to struggle over a landscape including sand, slick rock, hills, cliffs and washes before arriving at Bluff in April.
The pioneers' journey of trials, hard work and perserverance demonstrated their faith in the call they received from the prophet, President John Taylor, to establish a colony in southeastern Utah.
E-mail to: ghill@desnews.com
