Some of the colored rocks, located northeast of Kanab, near Cottonwood Canyon.
Photo by Ravell Call
SOUTHERN Utah is world famous for its brightly colored rocks. However, there was a time
when Hollywood disliked the Kanab area's landscape.
The hues of
Kanab area rock were simply too bright for the Technicolor filming process
Hollywood was using at that time.
“Thousands
of tourists visit Utah every year to gaze with wonder and delight at the
brilliantly colored rocks dotting the landscape,” the story stated. “But these
same rocks are a source of annoyance and expense to Twentieth Century-Fox now
on location here for the filming of Zane Grey’s ‘Western Union.’”
What did
Hollywood do?
“A crew of
men had to be hired to ‘redecorate’ the rocks along Paris Creek, which
cameramen said are too bright for technicolor filming,” the story reported.
The extra
cost of the painting before filming was not reported, but was believed to be
only a small part of the $100,000 (more than $1.8 million in today’s dollar
value) that the film studio was expected to spend in the Kanab area for the
movie.
And, that
wasn’t the only problem Hollywood encountered in the area.
“While
scouting for the Paria (Creek) location, Director (Fritz) Lang and his
technicolor staff were marooned when a sudden rain filled the arroyos between
Paria and Kanab, blocking their return. They spent the night waiting for the
waters to recede while a rescue party tried in vain to reach them,” the Tribune
story stated.
(This may
have been the first public notice that Utah’s slot canyons can be dangerous
during storms.)
The studio
had 470 employees in town for the movie, as well as using about 300 Kanab
residents for extras, cowpunchers and wranglers, etc.
Robert
Young, Randolph Scott and Dean Jagger were among the stars in the “Western
Union” movie. The Gap and Johnson Canyon were among the other filming
locations.
-A similar scenario
happened about 10 years later in 1950, when a headline in the Aug. 12 Ogden Standard-Examiner
was, “Mountain ‘Flash Flood’ Maroons Hollywood Unit.”
A Hollywood
crew of 64 members were stranded after a torrent seven feet deep filled
Buckskin Creek, about 40 miles east of Kanab. A heavy rain and hail produced
the flood and the crew was delayed about eight hours, until after midnight.
The crew,
which included actors Robert Ryan and Walter Brennan, plus actress Claire
Trevor, were hungry, but there were no injuries. The RKO movie “Best of the Bad
Men” was being filmed.
-MORE HISTORY: The Kolob Canyon Road is a
scenic drive at the far western edge of Zion National Park. The first mention
of a possible paved highway into this area was back in 1955.
The Parowan
Times newspaper of May 26, 1955 carried the headline, “Highway into Zion
Monument ‘possible.’”
The story
stated that Zion Park Superintendent Paul R. Franke had visited the Kolob
Terrace area and said a road would open up an area even more beautiful than
Zion Canyon itself.
In pre-I-15
days, the prospective road was mentioned as leaving U-91 and entering the
“finger” canyons of the Kolob Terrace through Taylor/Dry Creek. The road was
built in the early to mid-1960s and opened on Sept. 30, 1967.
-There was a
“ghost ship” on the Great Salt Lake in the late summer of 1887. The Salt Lake
Herald of Sept. 4 that year published the headline, “A strange affair.
Mysterious appearance of a Fisher Boat near Lake Park.”
A
12-foot-long rowboat was found unmanned, between “Church Island” (today’s
Antelope Island) and Lake Park (forerunner to Lagoon on the shores of the GSL,
west of Farmington). The boat was found drifting south, several miles from
shore, full of provisions for an extended trip.
With some
difficulty it was towed to shore at Farmington and included clothes, utensils
and fishing supplies, but no food.
Where the
ship came from was never determined and whether its owner met with an accident,
or the boat just slipped out of reach was never publicly recorded.
Goblin Valley.
-Goblin
Valley is a well-known Utah State Park, established in 1964. However, the area
was known by earlier titles. “Mushroom Valley” was its first name, given to it
by its discoverer, Arthur Chaffin in 1949. (He had first spotted it in the
1920s, but didn’t return for decades.) According to the Richfield Reaper
newspaper of Oct. 1, 1953, the area was also known by a different name – “Little
Gnomeland.”
The article
also referred to the formations as goblins, but expressed concern over how easily
the shapes could be vandalized, with nearby U-24 being completed, though there
was not yet a direct road to the valley itself.
(-Originally published in the Deseret News on July 14, 2020.)
(-Originally published in the Deseret News on July 14, 2020.)
