Dynamite Sunset Crater

BOOM! Major Hollywood movie moguls were going to blast Sunset Crater into splattered cinder oblivion in 1928.  That's when Flagstaff newcomer Harold S. Colton rode to the rescue and saved Sunset Crater. Colton's heroic efforts preserved one of US 89's most visually memorable roadside icons.

Purple prose writer Zane Grey was all the rage in the silent movie heyday.  Eventually over 100 films would be made based on Grey's lurid fictional accounts of "life on the range" back in the day.  The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and Paramount Pictures had the rights to turn Grey's novels into silent films.  By 1928, two years after US 89's official birth, they had already enjoyed immense box office success with such pot-boilers as "The Call Of The Canyon" (1925); "The Light of Western Stars" (1925); "Code Of The West" (1925);  "Desert Drums" (1927) and others.  Filming another movie based on Grey's book "Avalanche" was a lock.  By then Hollywood film crews knew the local ropes.  Move into Flagstaff, set up shop, grease the skids, shoot and go back to The Golden Coast.

So, the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation figured it would be a no-brainer to blow up Sunset Crater to create a spectacular avalanche that would be the visual centerpiece of their film-to-be.  Except for the fly-in-the-ointment...Harold S. Colton.

Harold S. Colton and his wife, Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton,
founders of the Museum of Northern Arizona,
sit in the living room of their home in Sedona. Circa 1950.
(Courtesy of Museum of Northern Arizona)

Colton became a scion and, yes, even a Living Legend in his own time for the incredible Northern Arizona legacies he created in partnership with his amazing and awesome wife, the unbelievably talented Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton.  The Coltons were very well politically connected.  They had a lot of Friends in high places.  They knew how to play the game.  The snuffed the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation's plans to blow up Sunset Crater.  It was a remarkable show-of-force for the new kids in town and helped establish the Power Couple's place and position forever in Flagstaff and throughout Northern Arizona.

We found a great account of this defining US 89 episode in an undated KNAU Public radio report produced by Rose Hauk:

"...it was an explosion of another kind that led to Sunset's protection as a national monument. The designation was due largely to the quick actions of Harold Colton, cofounder of the Museum of Northern Arizona.

"In 1929 he got wind of a plan to dynamite a portion of Sunset Crater as part of a movie called Avalanche, which was based on a story by Zane Grey," said Robert Breunig, the current director of the museum, as he crunched over the cinders that blanket the ground around Sunset Crater.

"Raised together in the wild country of the Tonto basin, Jake and Verde grew up closer than brothers. But when they both fell in love with the same fickle woman, their friendship turned to raging hate. The only force that could mend that shattered trust was the raging fury of nature itself. "

"Of course Colton was just absolutely horrified at the thought that this beautiful pristine cinder cone would be blasted apart for a movie they convinced President Herbert Hoover to declare Sunset Crater a national monument... So in May of 1930, May 26, 1930 to be exact, Sunset Crater was permanently protected."

But the movie company didn't go away. Thwarted at Sunset Crater, they moved on to Cameron, Arizona. There they tried dynamiting for the film "Avalanche"

But Brenuig says the consequences were disastrous. "The guy in charge of doing the dynamiting was used to hard-rock mining and not soft earth up in Cameron, and so he over prepared for the blast and set off the charge and apparently boulders just flew everywhere, raining down on all the movie people that were there waiting to see this avalanche, and in fact one of the people was killed and some people were seriously injured."

And so there you have it.  As you drive north from Flagstaff on US 89, you can look to your right (east) after you crest the gentle pass lying above and south of The Painted Desert.  There you can see Sunset Crater resting peacefully in all its glory, unmolested by Hollywood's destructive minions.

Sources:

http://knau.org/post/americas-best-idea-sunset-crater-nearly-destroyed-hollwyood

https://www.zgws.org/zgmovies.php

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018662/

http://azdailysun.com/harold-s-colton-and-mary-russell-ferrell-colton/image_d2a3ff3d-53e4-590d-b2cf-edf3e4e855ac.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famous_Players-Lasky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Crater

National Geographic - "Tucson Comment" - US 89

The April 1964 issue of "National Geographic" (NG) used 48 pages to chronicle one Family's trip from Guaymas, Mexico, to Mt. Robson, British Columbia.  The effusive account includes 53 photos and a handful of strip maps to illustrate a classic mid-60's NG piece.

Author Ralph Gray was Chief of the National Geographic School Service at the time and he writes a combination of droll commentary mixed with occasional trite humor and Chamber of Commerce stereotypes.  The NG article is a valuable glimpse of US 89 at its pre-interstate zenith.  What could be more "Happy Days" that two parents, three kids and a dog traveling in "Roadrunner," a Dodge motorhome with a push-button transmission?

Here's a quote from the article sure to elicit a reaction from our Dear Tucson Friends:

"Spanish-founded Tucson counts a population of 233,000. Like Phoenix, it grows so fast that these two were the only major cities in the United States whose populations quadrupled between the 1950 and the 1960 census. Northerners seeking year round sun keep migrating to southern Arizona, and although Tucson clings to is Castilian heritage in street names and certain buildings, it fights a losing battle, eventually it may become an Indianapolis with cactus."

Hunt's Tomb

George W.P. Hunt was a Big Man physically and politically but he started out small in stature and penniless. Hunt arrived in Globe, Arizona, in 1881 with little more than the clothes on his back to call his own.  He lived in a cave and and worked odd jobs around the rowdy mining town before becoming a delivery boy. Pretty soon, Hunt owned the company he worked for and rocketed to the top of Gila County's social heap. In a wink of history's eye, Hunt quickly became the most powerful politician in all of Arizona. No one has or probably ever will equal or exceed Hunt's illustrious life and career.

So it was only fitting that Hunt would be forever entombed in his very own pyramid atop a visibly prominent knoll in Far East Phoenix over looking The Salt River's Mill Avenue Bridge and Tempe beyond. The bright, shining white tiled pyramid could be seen for miles in both direction on old US 89. Westbound travelers from the East Valley knew they were in Phoenix when they passed by Hunt's Tomb.  Eastbound drivers could easily gauge their distance to the city limits by eyeing that glistening white marker.

Hunt's Tomb began to fade from view as vegetation grew in the adjacent Phoenix Zoo.  Today there are only a few short stretches where the Tomb is visible from either Van Buren Street or Mill Avenue.
Luckily, keen-eyed drivers who know where and when to look can still see the iconic structure perched proudly atop a 30-million-year-old butte.

http://arizonaoddities.com/2012/10/the-story-of-george-wiley-p-hunt-arizonas-first-governor/
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._P._Hunt

 

Hunt's Tomb can easily be visited in Papago Park. 

The striking skyline of Phoenix is visible from the Tomb.

(Photos of Hunt's Tomb by John Parsons 22FEB18.)

Another brick in the wall

The stately original Piute County Courthouse in Junction, Utah, is one of many such early governmental architectural achievements adorning the US 89 roadside. However, the Piute County Courthouse is perhaps more noteworthy than most other such edficies because of the "home made" aspects of its 1902-03 construction.

First, consider than a man named Christensen quarried all of the foundation rock from a hill north of nearby Kingston. This was no small feat since the foundation was nine feet wide and five feet deep!

Meanwhile, three men and two boys made every single one of the 200,000 bricks that went into the building. They set up a brickmaking operation near the Courthouse construction site. The structure's walls were three bricks thick, the inside being unfired adobe while the interior and outside walls were made with the locally fired, hand made bricks. It took ten days to fully fire and harden a single batch of bricks. The bricks were produced in a long "home made" kiln fired by hand using locally cut wood. Cost of the finished 1903 building was slightly more than $8,000. Ninety four years later, today's modern Piute County Courthouse was finished at a cost of $2.1-million. County officials sold the old courthouse to help pay for the new one. The old Courthouse lives on as Piute County's primary visual historical icon while now serving as a venue for private parties, reunions and so forth.

The biggest celebration that ever took place on the Courthouse grounds was the joyous party held to flip the switch and turn on electricity in June 1930.  

Who ya gonna call? Boulder Busters!

If there’s something strange sitting in your road
Who you gonna call? (Boulder Busters)
15 feet tall
In the northbound lane
Who you gonna call? (Boulder Busters)

I ain’t afraid of no rocks

Believe it or not, you're looking at the roadway of old US 89 (now US  89A) between Navajo Bridge at Marble Canyon and Jacob Lake on the Kaibab Plateau.  The enormous boulders were swept across the highway by a flash flood August 9, 2015.  ADOT actually called in the "Boulder Busters" to help reopen the road.  See: http://www.azdot.gov/media/blog/posts/2016/08/04/boulders-on-a-highway-for-us-89a-repairs-adot-called-boulder-busters

Dedication of Stone Ave. subway - Tucson

(Editor's Note: Highway US 89's route through Tucson went through this Stove Ave. underpass.  Recently, we prepared a little presentation of how the sometimes-water-filled underpass came to be called "Lake Elmira".  Until we read Roy Drachman's book "From Cowtown to Desert Metropolis," we didn't realize just how big the deal was when the underpass was opened in January 1936.  It was huge!  Roy tells the story better than we ever could.  This is from Page 58 of the book.  So far, we've been unable to find any photos of the dedication or the early 1930's days of the underpass.)

"One of our biggest promotions was the North Stone Avenue Gold Rush. This was a celebration of the completion of the Stone Avenue subway under the Southern Pacific tracks. Stone had been closed to traffic for nearly a year. and the merchants along it were hurting. They readily agreed to put up their share of the $1,000 that was to be given away at the Fox on the night the subway was opened.

The month leading up to that night was a time of much advertising by the Fox and the merchants, who were distributing raffle tickets for the drawing.  To claim their prizes, the winners had to hold a ticket to the Fox, as usual.  The promotion created a lot of excitement.  We knew the theater would be packed, so we rigged up a public address system covering not only the street in front of the Fox but also the several blocks on North Stone between Congress and the subway.  This made it possible for those along Stone to hear what was going on on the stage of the Fox.

On stage we had an all-star cast of dignitaries.  I had gotten our Arizona congresswoman Mrs. Isabelle Greenway, to participate in the drawings. She was being visited at the Arizona Inn, which she owned, by former vice president Charles Dawes, whom she brought along to appear on our stage.  That presence, plus that of the Tucson mayor and a few other important citizens, gave the event a very respectable status.

After the smaller prizes were drawn for and awarded to the winners, the big prize of $500 cash was drawn for.  When the ticket number was announced, the winner was about two blocks north of Congress Street.  Because the street was closed to traffic, he came running down the middle of the Stone with his wife in one hand and a daughter in the other.  I didn't see that because I was acting as emcee on the stage.

The event caused the Fox to have the biggest box office receipts in history.  I recall that Harold Steinfeld, who owned Steinfeld's Deppartment Store, told me the next morning that the crowd in downtown the previous evening was the largest he had ever seen."

Severe words in Sevier

Spoiler Alert: "Unmitigated bureaucratic idiot," "completely assinine document" and "you fairy tale idiot" are the most severe words in this 1974 editorial about ongoing analysis of how and where to site the future I-70 right-of-way in Sevier Valley, Utah.

We happened by accident to stumble on a 262-page Environmental Impact Statement that was required in the pre-construction process for I-70.  It's filled with some real gems clearly indicating the displeasure of at least some of the local residents.  As the document wryly noted:

"Reaction at the local level to future modal alternatives was somewhat unenthusiastic as exemplified in the accompanying newspaper editorial."  (Narrative continues below graphic.)

For their part, some of the EIS team members weren't very complimentary to the local scene. Comments below graphics annotated with snide titles.

Somehow I-70 was built in spite of years of acrimonious name calling and enough snide remarks to script a sitcom.  Luckily and seemingly against all odds, old US 89 remained unscathed and sits upon the verdant landscape as it did long before the interstate system was a gleam in Dwight Eisenhower's eyes.

Believe it or not, the entire 262 page document is available in the public domain  through the:

Utah Government Digital Library

Here is the direct link to the 262 page document:

http://digitallibrary.utah.gov/awweb/guest.jsp?smd=1&cl=all_lib&lb_document_id=86659